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Lucille River had packed her bags and fled from Small Heath, Birmingham and from the Peaky Blinders lifestyle and hasn't looked back since.
Now, she lives in Australia.
She's still a bar maid; that was one thing that hadn't changed about her.
Polly, Ada and even Harry still kept in touch with her through monthly letters and the occasional phone call but she and Thomas hadn't spoken since that day.
These days she had new friends, a new job, a new life and even a new love interest.
It had taken her almost a year after leaving Thomas and Birmingham to finally be able to trust men again. Well, not men per se but one man in particular.
There were a lot of trust issues in the beginning -understandably- but he had somehow proven to Lucille that he was worthy enough to have her trust so here they were.
John Sheldon and Lucille River.
"You alright, love?" The sound of his sweet voice pulled her away from her dark thoughts as they sat together at an outdoor table at one of their favourite cafe's in town. "Gone in your own world again."
"Just thinking."
"About me, eh?" His cheeky, lad like charm and wit never failed to make her smile.
"Oh, don't be so full of yourself Mister Sheldon."
John Sheldon was also from Birmingham which surprised Lucille when they got to talking when they first met.
Then again, there were a lot of unusual coincidences that she found out about him the longer they dated and the more that he revealed about himself.
John had three brothers and one sister (like Thomas). He was born and raised in Birmingham (like Thomas). He had the brightest blue eyes (like Thomas) and he had also moved away (like Thomas) except he decided that Australia was the best option for him and his kids.
That was one of the first things that scared Lucille away from him in the beginning -other than the trust issues- but she had clearly gotten over it since she loved kids.
John had six children of his own from previous marriages. His first wife passed away whilst he was at war and his second wife passed away from a sudden illness once they had moved to Australia four years prior.
So, John was left with all six kids and a nanny -who struggled to understand his thick accent- to deal with. Luckily he bumped in to Lucille and, since then, everything has simply fallen in to place in his life.
"Where to now, Miss?" He had asked as he slipped his arm around her shoulders and began slowly walking down the sunny streets of town. "The beach?"
"I thought we only went there with the kids?"
"Yeah, well... It's all about us today. It's date day, remember?"
"How could I forget."
They shared a sweet kiss before John lead the way down the street to the beach.
It was very, very rare that Lucille and John got to have a full day or night to themselves. They didn't like doing it often because they didn't want to burden the nanny (Helen) by asking her to babysit the kids longer than she had to.
Helen done a lot for their family when it came to the kids because both John and Lucille worked.
Lucille and John would walk the kids to school together and, from there, John would kiss Lucille goodbye and walk in one direction to work and Lucille would walk in the other direction.
Helen would pick up the kids from school and nanny them until either John or Lucille got home from work.
John would usually finish work around 3-4pm and Lucille usually finished at 5pm when one of the other bar maids would come in for the night shift. Only rarely did either of them work late or through the night.
So, Helen was only really needed for a few hours of the day and when either of the parents done overtime working late or wanted to go out for date days or nights like they were doing today.
"We should do this more often, eh? More nights, too. The kids are getting bigger now and Helen wouldn't mind the extra hours. I mean we do pay her."
"I know exactly what you're thinking, John Sheldon. Wipe that smirk off your face." She didn't even have to look up at him to know that he was smirking down at her. "No more kids until you marry me; that's the deal. Remember?"
"Yeah, yeah." John chuckled and rolled his eyes teasingly at her. "We will have more though. I'll make sure of it."
