CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
LEANING ACROSS THE BAR, laughter spilled from Felicity's lips as she kept herself busy and entertained with the brunet who just so happened to be one of the two people remaining in the Garrison. Freddie Thorne had taken to spending his days trailing through Small Heath in feeble, frequent attempts to find a job that would take him and his notorious communist reputation. . . yet, not to Felicity's surprise, he would often find himself wound up in the bar, drinking to escape the search and to get away from Ada's pestering. More often than not, it was he who kept Felicity company in the lonelier hours of the day, and although she wished he would just go out and get even the smallest of jobs to keep him and his wife afloat, she was glad for the idle laughter and tales that they would share over the drinks and shiny wooden top of the Garrison's bar.
"I'm just saying!" Freddie tilted his head back to disperse of the final few drops of beer that remained in his glass before he continued with his loud words. "I may be bored out of my God damn mind but that doesn't mean I'm about to walk through those fucking doors again and grovel for my old job back. We're desperate, sure, but not desperate enough to deny everything I ever argued over."
Felicity shot him a glare that was only half serious. "You're pathetic," she declared after a moment. "Freddie Thorne, you are a prime example as to why men can be so bloody useless. . . you know that, right?"
"You are not serious, Tia."
The girl shrugged. "Sure I am!" She said. "You're all the same ― stubborn 'til the end, but you have the audacity to go and blame it on family pride. I say that's bullshit: your family would prefer it if you throw down a loaf of bread on the table rather than have you hold your head up high and refuse a job. Pride my ass."
Freddie huffed. "And to think that I used to see you as the kindest soul of Small Heath," he sighed, and nudged his glass over towards her once again.
Felicity raised an eyebrow at him. "No," she decided immediately. "You've had enough ― that was clear a while ago, actually."
"Fill it up again and I'll go out and get that fuckin' job afterwards, alright?"
She pursed her lips together for a mere moment before sighing. "Yeah, right," Felicity laughed eventually, as she obliged and filled the glass up once more from the small gathering of beer bottles beside her.
"Ta."
Felicity nodded before returning to her thoughts. She still could hardly believe that this was what she had come to, that this was her life now and it wasn't all a bizarre dream that had come to be in the most restless of sleeps. More often than not, she awoke in her beloved's arms and whilst recently he had a more distracted way about him than normal, that hardly mattered. Tommy repeatedly assured her that if anything were to happen, if he were to discuss something with John Woods, then he would alert her before anyone else. That was the deal. . . and even though that didn't stop the anxieties from creeping upon her every so often, it meant he was less worried about her. Not that he wouldn't still privately agonize over her safety if he ever thought her to be in danger ― Tommy Shelby didn't think that that would ever happen. And whilst he kept telling himself that she was alright, little did he know that Felicity Woods was doing the same over him.
The door opened with a heavy crash against the wall and as Felicity was startled from her mind, her eyes fell upon the man that had just emerged through the pub's threshold and her breath immediately hitched in her throat.
"Fred," she hissed. "Can I have a moment?"
The man simply nodded, and so she took his arm hurriedly and pulled him behind the bar and through the door, towards the backroom. Her heart beat wildly ― far too fast to be normal, far too fast for her to not pay attention to it, but she pushed through and avoided agonizing over it. Instead, Felicity turned from the door and towards Freddie.
"What the hell is going on?" He began to question, almost frantically, before she shook her head to shush him.
"You're going to go out gain in a second," Felicity then instructed, her voice low so to not be heard by the newcomer. "Go to a table, the one furthest from the bar. Please, please don't leave, whatever you do."
"Tia? You okay?"
There wasn't a single answer out there that could possibly describe just how she was feeling at that precise moment, so she didn't answer. "Just don't leave, alright?"
She didn't give him a chance for any more questions. . . not that he appeared to want to ask any others. Freddie simply stepped back inside the gallery with what she hoped would be a nonchalant expression upon his face ― yet what she was pleading more for was that he didn't take it upon himself to talk to the other man. After a moment, she pressed down her apron with her palms, tried to ignore how much they were trembling, before following Freddie Thorne.
Stood at the other end of the bar was James Woods. Sandy―haired, grey―eyed, he held in his features the same coldness that was present in his father. He barely acknowledged the girl as she took in her hands a tea towel and walked over towards him, trying to busy her hands by drying the few glasses in front of her.
"James?" The blonde forced out the single word. . . the name that used to fall from her lips often, and now hadn't been expelled into the air for over three years. There hadn't been any point in saying it, in all honesty. Not when you'd left home what felt like aeons ago, and neither you nor your family had made any attempt to keep in contact with each other. She ignored them, and they did the same. It was a routine. Easy. Constant.
"Felicity," he greeted, turning to face her properly, his face unreadable.
"Are you here for a reason? Or did you just think today was a perfect day for you to go where you weren't wanted?"
James pursed his lips together. "I can see you haven't changed."
"On the contrary, I have," Felicity countered. "I've changed far more than you ever would've imagined I would. Now, why are you here?"
It had been James that she used to be closest to out of any of the brothers ― not that they had been hard to beat. James was the oldest of all of the Woods siblings, and in her earlier years, she had turned to him when she chose not to go to Jack. And although she wouldn't dare to suggest that he may have been hurt at her leaving so suddenly ― but perhaps, in the earliest days, he may have understood ―, he had noticeably changed towards her.
"Dad wants to discuss the wedding," he told her. "Because it got pushed back so without a word of warning."
It took everything in Felicity to not let out a gasp as the words hit home and everything that had happened in the past year came flooding back. She had almost forgotten about the deal that Tommy had made with her father, and she had almost forgotten just how she had come to know about it. Did it matter? She loved him, he loved her, so was it really all that bad?
Deep down, she knew the answer was yes. She knew that this marriage was put together as a business agreement, and so that was all John Woods would ever see it to be. It wouldn't be an event where he could feel joyful at his youngest child and only daughter securing her life. It wouldn't be an occasion of shared elation. No, it was simply there to secure his business with Tommy's. And although the latter had promised Felicity that he would sort everything out, that he would ensure the whole thing wouldn't go to John Woods' plans, she had her reasons to doubt. Her father wasn't an idiot ― as much as she despised him, she knew that was a fact she couldn't deny.
Instead of allowing these doubts to express themselves upon her features, she simply nodded. "And that's the only reason you came by?" Felicity asked, sharply intaking breath as she did so. "You couldn't have said that over the telephone. . . or do you need anything else from the sister you haven't seen in four years?"
She sounded bitter. . . and perhaps she was. Because although she had absolutely loathed growing up in the Woods household, and it had been her to run from the door and escape to wherever she could as fast as she could, she had caught herself wishing that once ― just once ― one of them had reached out. Or wondered just how she was doing on her quest to ignore her family and start afresh.
"No, it's not the only reason," James clarified. "The others wondered if I could ask a question, one that's been on our minds for a while, if that'll be alright with you."
Trap. It was a trap, or a trick question, or something. From the very way that James was uttering the syllables, she could tell that it wasn't simply an idle wondering from the brothers. It was something more ― something accusatory, maybe?
She didn't know, and that was what scared her.
"Why'd you ever get with Thomas Shelby in the first place?" James' words immediately startled her, as at first, they didn't appear to be anything that she could ever imagine they would be.
His pause was a moment too long. . . and it just so happened to be a moment that allowed Felicity to assume she was in the clear.
James continued after a beat of two counts. "You knew that even before the war, them Peaky ruddy Blinders had been our rivals," he said, and so entered the accusatory tone that she had first expected.
"What are you getting at?"
The man threw his hands out and Felicity caught a glimpse of the impatience grew upon his features. "Nothing!" He bit back. "Nah, I'm not saying anything at all. Yer just a traitorous little whore, that's it. Nothing else, 'course. My little sister's just a back―stabbing slut."
⎯
"Tia?" Freddie's voice called to her, but it seemed far away. Oh, so far away. . . too far away. "Felicity, you alright?"
Thoughts whirring, head hurting, eyes close to crying, Felicity tried in vain to shake through the barriers set up in her mind by roughly moving her head from side to side. Her blonde curls shook, bounced and obscured her vision momentarily, so she didn't realise the Thorne boy was in front of her before her gaze refocused and took in his concerned features.
"Fred?" Felicity murmured.
He nodded. "Yer alright, aren't you?"
Everything in her screamed no! but it wasn't as though she could say that. So she returned the nod. "I'm just fine," she confirmed, forcing her lips into a weak grin.
"Bullshit," Freddie declared, repeating her earlier accusations of him. "Quit with your stubbornness ― or your pride, or whatever you're calling it, anyway. I don't know shit about you and your mess of a family but I know for a God damn fact that if you get called a back―stabbing slut, it ain't goin' to have the best of reactions."
"I told you, I'm fine!"
John Shelby walked through the door before either of them could continue with their rants towards one another. With a toddler on his hip, his cap askew on his head and a grin that was quickly disappearing from his mouth, he stepped over the threshold and into the room so that he was only a pace away from Freddie Thorne.
"Afternoon, Freddie, Ti," he said, adjusting his grip on the now―squirming infant that had taken to wriggling ferociously in his arms. "Is everything alright?"
Felicity quickly shot the other man a glare, one that told him to not even think about mentioning the earlier events of the hour, before nodding at John with a smile plastered upon her lips. "Just fine," she repeated. "Bored, but fine."
Luckily for her, the Shelby brother appeared to be distracted enough by the young girl in his arms than to pay attention to the blatant lie in her words. "That's good," John affirmed, before turning his head down towards his daughter. "Me an' Joanie were tryin' to find Aunt Pol, see if she can mend something for this little one here."
The infant nodded in agreement before promptly sticking her thumb in between her lips as she attempted to echo her father's words, but this attempt was halted both by the childish slurring of syllables, as well as the fact that her thumb restricted any noise other than gurgles from escaping her tiny mouth.
Felicity laughed. "She told me she was seeing someone today, said she'd be back as soon as she could? I haven't a clue where she was going or what she was doing, though."
John groaned, but nodded with thanks. "We'll find her later, then," he told the young girl softly. "Just. . . try not to rip it any more, okay? Can you do that? Keep him in tact for me?"
Joanie bobbed her head up and down.
The blonde regarded them with warmth radiating through her person as she realised that this was a version of John that was hardly ever on show to the rest of the world, a version that only his children and Esme were ever able to see because, to everyone else, he was John Shelby. The Peaky Blinder, the man whose cap was sewn with razor blades in its rim and whose step was almost always in line with that of his brothers.
It made Felicity wonder about Tommy ― how he'd be, with an infant in his arms, sucking stubbornly on her thumb. Whether or not his manner would be completely unrecognizable. . . as it so often could be described as being when he was with Felicity, versus when he was walking the streets of Small Heath.
"Now, Ti, are you sure you're alright?" John asked once more, breaking through her daydream.
"I'm as right as rain," Felicity nodded. "What's got you so sure that I'm not?"
The Shelby sibling shrugged. "You seem shaken, that's all."
Not shaken, just angry and hurt.
Oh, how she was hurt. But her anger outweighed the hurt, that was for sure, and as she waved goodbye to Joanie and John as they exited the pub, she allowed the old feeling of shock to be replaced with a new one of enragement. . . a feeling she so often tried to avoid, because she knew the dangers that so often ran with a Woods' clansman feeling such a thing.
So she distracted herself once more with Freddie Thorne's complaints about jobs, life and everything in between, but Felicity would have to admit that she wasn't truly listening. Her mind had wandered elsewhere. . . most specifically to the raven―haired man who awaited her.
My one and only, my lifeline. . .
― taylor swift
AUTHOR'S NOTE
i'm so motivated to update and
it's lowkey weird ― but i'm not
complaining at all bc this happens
once a year at best. anyway i hope
you enjoyed and that you have a
great rest of your day! ilysm omg
ALSO only one of john's kids is
named in the whole of the series
so i made up a name el oh el