𝔹𝕠𝕣𝕟 𝕥𝕠 𝕃𝕠𝕤𝕖 | Tommy Shelby

𝕏𝕀𝕀. ʙᴏʀɴ ᴛᴏ ʟᴏsᴇ

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May 5th, 1931

This morning I was going to take a train back to London. I was lying on my bed while Ada finished packing my bags, and the tea, in its cup, cooled on the nightstand.

"Eat something", Ada ordered, folding a dress. "The travel will be almost four hours long".

"I don't want to go back to London", I said. The dejection caused by the laudanum had prived me of the vehemence necessary to argue.

"It's for your good". Ada had been repeating the same to me since last night, when she told me she had bought a train ticket. "The best thing you can do is stay away from my brother, at least for a while".

"A 'while' that will be forever" I curled up on my bed and closed my eyes. I had slept for more than ten hours but nightmares had haunted my sleep. Oswald Mosley was in all of them.

Ada said nothing and just answered with a defeated sigh. She was fed up and it was to be expected. Since I met Thomas last month, I only had been giving her headaches. Even Karl, who is already a teenager, is not that troublesome, and even though Ada has always considered me her little sister, I'm sure she never imagined that adopting a sibling would imply such a burden. Had she known, she would have refused, because Ada is the kind of person who detests problems and tend to get rid of them.

So, at that time, I thought she was getting rid of me.

"Did you call your mother last night?", my friend asked me suddenly.

"No"

"Who will be waiting for you at the station, then?"

"No one", I replied, feigning anger even though I was falling asleep.

I heard Ada drop the suitcase abruptly but I didn't open my eyes. This scene was closer to the fight a mother and her disobedient daughter would have, and to be honest, it seemed pathetic. Those attitudes weren't typical of me, although I have to admit that I was becoming more stubborn lately. Perhaps what bothered me the most was the fact that my friend was right.

"Yesterday a bastard almost raped you in your secretariat and you almost witnessed a murder", Ada said and at the simple memory of Mosley's breathing in my ear, the skin on my arms prickled. "Wasn't all that enough to make you realize that this is not your place?".

"Where is not my place, Ada?" I questioned, forcing myself to open my eyes and sat up a bit in my bed. "Birmingham? Your house? Thomas?" My friend was sighing again. "You've been telling me since last night that I have to go, taking advantage of the state I'm in because you know that I wouldn't give in if I wasn't medicated, as if getting on a train would prevent me from returning later on my own".

"I'm saving your life", my friend snapped. Exhaustion showed on her face. "I'm tired of telling you this: you don't know Thomas. You don't know the Shelbys. You have no idea what they... we have done".

"You know everything about me", I snapped. I wanted to cry. "We have known each other for years. We ate together, drank, laughed and cried. We share clothes and even a bed. All this time you had the opportunity to tell me your story, the story of your family, and you didn't, and you are the offended one?"

I saw Ada swallow hard and lower her eyes. My words had hurt her and God only knows how much I hated hurting Ada. Never, until that moment, had I been so cruel to her. I was sincere, yes, but sincerity is not always an option when it is linked to a truth that the other party already knows and tries to forget.

"If I told you my story, you would have walked away from me as if I were a leper". Her eyes were full of tears but she struggled not to let any of them escape. "Freddie died a couple of months before I met you, you know that, and in life he always wanted us to stay away from the Shelbys. After his death, I was alone in London with a baby, but going back to Birmingham was not an option. I'd put that past behind me, I told myself. I wasn't Ada Shelby anymore, I was Ada Thorne". She started to cry.
"Everyone here knows who I am. Who we are. You know I came back to Birmingham after giving birth to Beth; I did it to feel more secure. Yes, I hate my family's legacy but they're the only ones who can protect me when the goings get tough, and you can imagine how tough the goings are when a fascist leader hangs around my brother's office and somebody blows up Ben's car".