Up in Smoke

2.1

A/N: There is a small warning for this chapter. There are allusions to SA at the very end. 

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2 years later

All of us were gathered around Freddie's casket. Tommy stepped forward. "I promised my friend, Freddie Thorne, that I would say a few words over his grave if he should pass before me. I made this promise before he became my brother-in-law, when we were in France, fighting for the king. And in the end, it wasn't war that took Freddie. Pestilence took him. But Freddie passed on his soul and his spirit to a new generation before he was cruelly taken." The service ended right after that.

I took a little walk with Thomas and Ada.

"We thought now that Freddie's gone, you might come back to Birmingham."

"We really miss you, Ada."

"God, do you know how funny it is that Tommy's got chauffeurs in uniform now?"

"It's just for the occasion."

"Do you know how unfair it is that you have 4 Bugattis when half the country's starving?"

"So now they've made you ashamed of us, eh?" We stopped walking.

"Sometimes when I think about how I used to be, it makes me embarrassed." Tommy and I glanced at each other.

Polly walked up to us with a smile.

"Karl is with his cousins. I caught them trying to pinch flowers off a grave. Ada, are you coming home?"

"I'm going home."

"We make her embarrassed," I mumbled.

I looked at Ada who rolled her eyes.

"That's not what I said."

"There's another reason we want you home. We're planning an expansion. I'm taking premises in London."

"Tommy, it's a funeral. Business can wait."

"Polly, if Ada was weeping, then I'd stop. But she's not. The expansion means it's gonna be dangerous to be a Shelby in London for a while."

"Yeah. Well, I'm not a Shelby anymore. And I'm not a Thorne now either. I'm free. I've got to get Karl home." She walked away.

She left the 3 of us standing there. Polly turned to look at Tommy.

"I told you to let me do it."

"It's alright. I'll have some men watch her house till the danger passes." We watched a man on a motorbike ride up to Arthur.

He quickly whispered something to Arthur. Arthur waved Tommy over as he started walking toward us. Aunt Polly leaned over to me.

"Till danger passes."

"That'll be the bloody day." She nodded as we walked towards the crowd.

Tommy, Aunt Polly, a few of our men, and I went to the Garrison. Someone had blown it up. We walked underneath the chains to get a better look. A copper was already there waiting for us. "It happened at exactly 7:00 a.m. Nobody saw anything. Our patrols were not in the area. Mr. Shelby, you got any idea who might have done it? I'd say it was something to do with the gas."

We both know that's not true. We knew exactly who did it and why. He handed money to the copper. "Just been fitted." Aunt Polly walked inside. "Madam, the structure hasn't been declared safe. Madam," he yelled after her.

She bent over to pick something up off the ground. ​​"This is all over the place." She handed some to Tommy. It was green confetti. What the hell? Tommy nodded to the copper.