Family Matters 《Thomas Shelby》 Peaky Blinders

XII

She slept for what seemed like an eternity – but it was not a peaceful one at all. A fever had caused her to hallucinate within her dreaming – her leg was infected. She seen people running and screaming. People she had come to know were dead laying in the streets. Chaos ran wild as she stood there – in the middle of a battle field – as bombs went off and people were shot.

Her eyes snapped open and the yell that she had just given had awoken her from her nightmare. Sweat poured down her face as she rubbed her eyes. She hadn't felt the need to actually cry in years – not since her mistake back then. Running her hands over her face she sighed and looked about the room that's when her breath held and she noticed the man sitting over in the corner smoking – Tommy.

He had been watching her thrash about in her bed as she shouted out various things that was happening in her dream. He looked at her and knew about what she had been dreaming but the question was – how did she come to these dreams?

“The war – “ Tommy said, taking a drag and exhaling it through his noise. He was looking straight at her and he at him. “Those are dreams about the war aren't they?”

She looked away as she didn't want to admit anything to Tommy. Nobody had known about it but her and her father – and a few people who had helped them. But nobody other than that had known and the last thing she wanted was for Tommy to know too. But he did know, he just wanted to hear it come from her lips.

“You were in the war.” He continued. “But the question is how did you manage to sneak your way in – since women weren't allowed to be soldiers.”

She took a deep breath knowing that Tommy wasn't going to let the subject go. When Thomas Shelby wanted to know something he was hell bent on finding out until he finally got his answer. Her throat felt dry from the screaming she had done – those dreams hadn't haunted her in the longest of times.

“The war – America needed...” she scoffed, how was she to explain herself? Tommy sat there and waited. As he waited he thought back to how good she was at hand to hand fighting and then how she was able to handle herself when it came to firearms. Tommy hadn't figured that the answer had been this he had believed that she had learned them all from her father – being as how that's what she had told him.

“You lied to me.” he said. Her head whipped up and her mouth agape. Her eyes narrowed quickly as the anger swooped in as he called her a lair.

“I have done no such thing!”

“You told me you learned from your father – “

“I did! I did learn everything I had known from my father – and then some during the war – I never once lied to you!”

“Keeping the whole truth from me is the same as lying, Nichole.” She looked away because what more could she possibly say to him that he'd listen to?

She heard him sigh deeply as he stood up from his chair and footsteps approached the bed and then she found him next to her on the bed. He ran a hand over his face. So much shit had happened within the last couple of days and now this here – fucking hell. He wanted to know why she had done what she did to Grace, but now he also wanted to know about the war and her part that she played in it.

“What happened?” His voice held no malice as he whispered. He just wanted to know the whole truth and that was it. He wanted to find a reason as to why she had attacked Grace, he wanted to find a reasoning behind this dream. There was so much he wanted to know from the woman that sat beside him.

“I was drafted. Father – father was suppose to go but he couldn't leave his business in the hands of me – his daughter, a woman. So, he instead spoke with a friend who had the idea of dressing me as a man and shipping me off in his stead – a Shelby from the family fighting in his stead – the son he never had.” She felt her eyes glaze over as the memories she had tried so hard to forget came flooding back.