Heyyy! I'm sorry for being so irregular but I've just started a new job and moved countries so my life has been super hectic for the last month or so. I am getting there slowly but surely. It's just been hard to find the time to do them justice. As always, your comments and all that make my day and make it all so much more fun xx M
Finn Shelby was a quiet man. He had been an even quieter boy and for someone who had grown up with older brothers and a sister who always had to have the last word, it wasn't unusual for him to stay quiet. But Ailbhe noticed his silence when they arrived home that night. She took a bath and by the time she returned to their bedroom, Finn was in their bed with his eyes closed. He wasn't sleeping, she knew that as certain as she knew he loved her. But he was exhausted, and she stayed quiet as she undressed and slipped under the covers with him, his hands seeking her out quickly and pulling her nearer.
He felt her fidgeting and shifting when she finally did fall into a fitful sleep. But as much as she turned and stretched, she never moved out of his reach.
She was asleep and yet the crease in her brow never left. Her breaths were stilted and he could feel the tension in her body beneath his palms.
Her fingers and arms would tense spontaneously and stretch until she felt him still there and she would relax again.
Michael's words rolled around in his head. Michael's plan and his tempting offer.
It had always been Michael's intention to have Ailbhe and Finn assume power with him. They were young and clever, they were strong and still held enough of the old Shelby reputation to be fearsome and yet look young and fresh enough to not be associated with the cuttings and the beatings of the old days.
Finn knew that Ailbhe was his family now. Perhaps more so than Tommy or Arthur or any of them. That's what they had vowed when they got married. And he had to put her first.
He knew that Ailbhe would keep giving everything to Tommy until it broke her. Finn would never understand Tommy and Ailbhe or what they meant to each other, but he could see how dangerous it was becoming. And he would intervene if it meant saving his wife from dying at the end of a rope be it by her own hand or someone elses.
And it meant that Finn had a large decision to make. One that asked him to choose between a life that was everything he'd ever wanted, that his wife had fought against and would leave most of his family by the wayside. Or a life that was cursed and doomed at every turn with a family who was breaking apart no matter how hard his wife and he tried to keep it together.
*
"We're closed"
Ailbhe heard the barkeep's growling shout as soon as she pushed open the door. She ignored him, waiting for his head to peep around the corner which it did and she watched the colour drain from his face.
"I'm so sorry, Mrs Shelby. I didn't realise it was you"
She waved his apology off, she didn't care. She just wanted a drink.
Greg, the barkeep quickly took notice of her mood and her intentions for the evening. He abandoned his sweeping and excused himself quickly, leaving her to her thoughts and a bottle of whiskey on the counter.
She didn't want a drink. She just wanted to be numb and even as she savoured the slip of the whiskey into the glass and admired its colour. The smell sent her stomach roiling and she couldn't bring herself to further the glass to her lips.
Finn was cagey and quiet. He was hiding something and after not telling her who telephoned the night before, she couldn't help but doubt him. Every part of her wanted to trust him and trust herself to love him and listen to him. But a voice in her head that Polly used to call a gift and her mother used to call a curse, nagged at her like an itch she couldn't scratch.
The entire day before Ailbhe had cursed Finn and his orders, the way he thought he could control her or tell her what to do. As if he had forgotten who he had married.
But Ailbhe woke the next day unable to avoid the fact that perhaps it was she who had forgotten who she had married.
A gangster. Crown prince of Birmingham. A man who was above the rules because for the men who make the rules there are no rules. A man who didn't have to ask for permission or forgiveness. A man who had two sides and often even she couldn't tell what side she would be dealing with until he was in front of her.
Her mind had spun all day in the offices until she found herself ditching her driver and heading to the Garrison.
As always, Ailbhe's problems didn't come one by one. They came in numbers.
Ada had telephoned that morning with the excellent news that she and Liam were expecting a baby. It was good news. And Ailbhe despised her for it. Another baby. Another happy and bouncing baby born to her family who hadn't even tried. And Ailbhe sat empty and yearning.
Niall was hiding with Eva in their own perfect little bubble of bliss. And Tommy was getting madder with every passing day, becoming master of the universe and meddling in things they never should have tried to stop.
All she wanted was quiet and all she really needed was Polly.
In her contemplation, she was interrupted. The lock in the door behind her clicked again, signalling the arrival of someone with keys. And although she expected a brother, she hoped for anyone else.
What she didn't want nor need was company, especially in the form of Duke Shelby.
"We're closed" She snapped over her shoulder, barely even looking at him.
She didn't have to look to know who it was. Call it a gift, call it good hearing she didn't care.
"I thought the rules don't apply to the Shelby family in this town."
His accent grated on her in a way she wasn't familiar with. It wasn't theirs and maybe that was her problem. It pricked her ears and made her listen harder, as though she had to really listen to him.
"I thought you didn't want to be a Shelby."
She hadn't planned on responding but the words were out of her lips, dripping in venom before she had even realised.
The chair beside her grated along the floor and she prayed he wouldn't sit beside her. Her prayers were answered, he didn't. But God must have felt like messing with her because Duke went behind the bar and stood directly in front of her.
"I think I've realised that being a Shelby is about as good as life gets around here."
His shrug. His impassive expression. All of it irritated her.
"You have no idea what it's like to be a Shelby."
She wanted it to be a slicing remark that made him think about how much of their lives he had missed, how much of their lives that they had lived through together and how for years now this family had lived for each other.
She wanted him to think about how Finn and Ailbhe had kept each other alive during the War, how Liam and Tommy had been together down in those tunnels, how Arthur had been there when Niall found out Seán had been killed in action. How every time their lives seemed unbearable, there was someone there to bear it with them.
But it sounded more bitter and sad than she could've imagined.
"Ah... the princess life isn't all its cracked up to be?" He taunted, cocking an eyebrow at her and filling his own glass.
She still hadn't touched hers, but he eyed it, tilting his own off hers until it clinked in the silence.
"I came here to drink alone." She remarked, ignoring the raised glass in her hand as he downed his glass in one swig.
Duke sucked air in through his teeth and made a pleased sound. He was clearly used to much cheaper whiskey than Ailbhe had pulled out for herself.
"As a matter of fact, so did I" He tilted his head at her, filling his glass again and clinking it off hers.
She just stared at him. He looked so like Tommy sometimes it was unnerving.
"I don't drink with people I don't know." She shrugged, finding it all too easy to slip into the role she had played with him before.
It was like slipping into an old coat that fits perfectly. The tilt of her head and the softness of her eyes. It was too easy. She hated how easy it was. It was like she was betraying herself. She hated even more how much she preferred the role to her real life at that moment.
Playing the unhappily married seductress was easier than being the real Ailbhe Shelby. She didn't even know who that was as she sat there. It used to be the girl who loved her husband and her family more than anything. Now, it might not be the same.
"The world is filled with problems that you nor I can fix" Duke remarked, shrugging his shoulders and leaning forward on the bar on his elbows "This isn't one of them."
"How about I say something about you, one of the many things I've heard about you and if it's true, you drink." he offered, knowing that if he took a deep inhale in he could smell her perfume.
"And if it's not true?" She raised an eyebrow at him, not wanting to share anything with him especially not something that he didn't deserve to know.
"Then you tell me... and I drink" he replied, nodding towards the glass in her hand.
She didn't agree nor disagree to play his game. And he took it as a yes.
"Ladies first" he remarked, making sure they had a full glass in front of them.
He wasn't unattractive, Ailbhe knew this and although he was neither friend nor foe, there was something so utterly 'Tommy' about him that made Ailbhe feel slightly calmer in his presence than a stranger would.
"You don't give a fuck about my family."
Duke was braced for anything but it clearly hit harder than he had predicted. He should have known she wouldn't go easy on him.
"Lie." He replied, never taking his eyes off her.
Ailbhe had no choice but to drink, sipping from her glass and knowing that he watched her lips and the line of her throat as she swallowed. He watched her so closely it felt like he was studying her and although it had set her on edge when she first met him, she was starting to get used to it.
She gestured towards him with a wave of her hand knowing that he had heard a lot about her and he wanted to confirm or deny the rumours.
He shifted forward on his elbows when she sat back in her chair, making sure there wasn't much distance between them, much less than Finn would allow. But she had to play her part.
"You once cursed a man in Greet for calling you a Peaky bitch."
Ailbhe felt the curve of a smile on her lips before she knew it. She rolled her bottom lip through her teeth before shaking her head slightly.
"Lie." She admitted, although she liked having that little rumour in there.
Duke narrowed his eyes, he had been sure she was more of a witch than a woman before he had heard the rumours but regardless of the rumours, he knew better than to think she was harmless.
"I only pinned his hand to the table with a dart." She admitted, remembering the man well.
It had been on a night out with Jade, before Bonnie and Finn, before they were who were. Of course, the story of Ailbhe putting a dart through a fully grown man's hand got back to her brothers and although they were severely told off for sneaking out and going to a pub alone at just sixteen, Ailbhe had also been called a "chip off the old block" and become the source of laughter for the weeks that followed.
Ailbhe wasn't sure if she liked or didn't like the way Duke grinned, a laugh almost slipping through his lips.
"And he called me a Peaky whore. Not a bitch."
She clarified, looking down into her glass and taking a sip even if she didn't need to according to the rules.
"Devils in the details" Duke muttered, into his own glass before setting it down and settling his intense stare on her again.
"You can't read or write..."
Ailbhe stated, she wasn't sure if he had been telling the truth but she was curious.
Duke's eyes flitted down for a moment. He picked up his glass, raised it towards her as if in cheers, and sipped it down. Correct.
It went back and forth.
"You were arrested for treason when you were sixteen."
She drank.
"You didn't know who your father was until Esme Shelby Lee found you."
Duke scowled. But he drank.
"You had another brother... before John."
Ailbhe braced at the mention of her brother who she missed and yet was glad was not there to see the chaos that was their lives now. Seán would have hated all of it. He was too good and too kind for this life.
She drank quickly, not wanting to dwell on it.
"You never wanted to find your father..."
Duke shifted in his seat.
"Lie." He retorted sharply, a smile on his face when he nodded towards her glass and she drank.0
"You've never taken a man's eyes."
Ailbhe's eyes narrowed. But she drank.
She had never needed to. Tommy wouldn't let her have a cap with blades when she was young and stupid enough to want one and when she really needed one, Finn had always been there for her.
It was Ailbhe's turn but as she opened her mouth to speak, Duke spoke again instead.
"You want out."
Her eyes met his. Out. It seemed so broad a term for what she really wanted. She wanted to go back in time, to have Polly and John, to see Tommy smiling and listen to Arthur laughing. She wanted their old lives back. She didn't think getting out would ever get them back.
"You want to feel free, properly free not this farce of a liberty that the toffs promise you can have with money."
Free.
It was what Ailbhe's father had fought for.
What her brothers had fought for in France. What her brother had died for and what her family had yearned for ever since.
It was what Ailbhe had gone to prison for, what Finn had promised her and what Tommy had sworn they would get every time they defeated another villain in their stories.
And yet since she had gotten back from New York and found Ruby unwell, Ailbhe had never felt so trapped, so choked and claustrophobic even in Small Heath.
She was silent, just listening and watching him. Contemplating and wondering what proper freedom he was talking about.
Duke didn't even give her a chance to admit whether he was right or wrong.
"Your husband loves you more than you love him."
Ailbhe froze. Nobody had ever said this before, she was quite sure nobody had ever thought it either. Least of all herself. But maybe they had. And that was a thought that scraped her mind layer by layer.
Finn loved her. She loved Finn. It had never occurred to her that one of them might love the other more.
"Your husband loves you more than you love him but he's going to suffocate you trying to save you."
He kept talking. He kept on speaking and with every word, Ailbhe felt the control she had over the situation slipping from her fingers. The role she was playing was sliding out of her grasp quicker than she could grab onto it and she felt her façade fading.
If Ailbhe had been someone who appreciated irony she would have laughed at this moment where finally someone stood across from her and believed they could read her like a book just as she had done countless times to others.
"Because you don't want him at all."
She had to bite her lip to stop herself from smiling. Duke's error was an easy one to commit and in this case quite fatal.
He had failed to remember that Ailbhe had been playing this game for a lot longer than he ever had. That he saw only what she wanted him to see and heard only what she wanted him to hear.
Which was why she didn't smile or admit defeat, she simply drank.
"So, you admit it?" He goaded her, that smirk that was Tommy Shelby on his face.
"I admit nothing, not without a gun to my head." She replied, a sure smirk on her own lips that rivalled his.
Duke was smiling, a satisfied and enlightened grin that made Ailbhe see that the control was not slipping any further.
She leant forward on her elbows, knowing that her hair would fall over her shoulder and the neckline of her dress would slide down to a level past decent. And Duke's eyes followed it, down her neck and chest. She saw the bob of his throat and how he tried to hide that he was looking down her dress and trying to get a glimpse beyond the black lace she wore.
"I've heard a lot about you since I got here."
Duke remarked, his eyes pulling away from her and pretending to find his glass interesting.
"All good things?" She sighed, knowing that there was a spark in her eyes that matched his.
Duke smirked, shaking his head at her before draining his glass and putting it back down on the counter with a bang.
"Not all good, no." he stared her, leaning in on his elbows closer to her until she could smell the whiskey off him.
"Good." She smiled, putting her glass between his face and hers before he got any ideas.
She let the whiskey slip back her throat before she pushed away from the bar and the boy who looked so like Tommy Shelby before the war it was making her want to trust him more than she should have. And that meant she had to leave, quicker than she had arrived and with her head in no less of a whirlwind.