Riples and Waves

Loneliness

The thing about the acts one takes in anger, is that they almost always cause a staggering amount of self-consciousness once said anger is gone. At the time, forcing Tommy Shelby's gun out of his holster and demanding his trust by force, seemed like the best and only way to make her point. The next day however, it felt like an unnecessary display of pride.

Now, every time Tommy addressed her, it was all she could do to force her body temperature to something below the warm degrees of shame. It wasn't that he looked at her differently, per se. It was that now, she knew how the smell of sodium bicarb was strong enough to overpower the nicotine in his breath. You know, the kind of information that should absolutely not flood her mind in relation to anyone in the past. But it did. Nobody showed that in the movies.

At least it had worked, she comforted herself. Of course, Tommy Shelby would not be told what to do, so no parties were thrown. Apparently, the millions of rooms in his mansion were not made for such things; he never did explain what all that space was actually for though. In any case, the head of the Peaky Blinders had spent the 2 weeks subsequent to their... theatrical interaction, knee deep in tea meetings and club luncheons with the politicians around. By Friday, the man looked exhausted.

Not that Tommy Shelby ever looked anything but exhausted. The defiant way he held himself reminded her of the Greek Myth of Atlas.

"You are welcome to join me at the races Mr. Blake. I'm sure Lizzie would love to meet your family." Tommy said while escorted the middle aged men out the door of his office.

"I'm sure I will, Mr. Shelby. See you Sunday." Mr. Blake shook Tommy's hand as he said his goodbyes and left.

"Would you like me to schedule a terrible illness to take place on Sunday sir?" Anna said in her best impression of a subservient secretary.

"Fuck you." He replied, but the slightest movement of the left side of his mouth betrayed amusement. She smirked back.

"Papa!" a childish voice pierced the room and stopped Tommy from going back into his office. The change in him was immediate.

Before she blinked twice, Tommy was kneeling with arms stretched wide beside him. Charles, running in the unsteady way children often do, reached the embrace of his father who immediately got up and twirled the little boy in the air.

Behind his first born came Lizzie Stark holding Tommy's daughter in her arms, a proud smile on her face. Anna had no evidence that their relationship was unilateral from her studies. Paper clippings can never properly describe a relationship, and even if she knew that they would not end up together - or at least they didn't before she came to mess up the timeline- it really was hard to not root for the couple a little bit when she saw the tender way Tommy kissed his children in the forehead and his... lover? on the cheek. It made her wish for something similar someday. A limited slice of happiness was happiness still.

"Papa, can we ride the horsies today? Pleaseeee?" George's voice was the last thing he heard as Tommy led them out of the building. Not even a goodbye thrown her way.

Slowly, Anna began the tedious job of getting the office ready to close before the weekend. It wasn't a lengthy process by any means, she could have it done in 10 minutes, maybe even less, but she had been going through the familiar routine slower and slower every day for a while now. Loneliness was a funny thing. It's not like she got a lot of social interaction out of Tommy Shelby everyday, the man's definition of a conversation was barely considered a tweet by her estimation. It was, however, something.

Inevitably, the work was done and she left the office with the suggestion of sunlight still hovering somewhere beyond the smog covered Birmingham. Being from another time could make things in the past seem unreal in so many ways. The tired looks on the faces of child workers, the torn dresses of overworked prostitutes and the ever present smoke were very real to her eyes, but somehow always ended up being interpreted in her brain as some ethereal artistic photograph. She could almost see everything in black and white.