Roguish Women- Tommy Shelby

No Peace

//This is starting events from season 6 so if you haven't watched it, this contains spoilers

            The ringing in Tommy's ears made him deaf to the sound of his wife approaching. He didn't hear her scream, didn't hear the squelching of the mud behind him. But he felt her as she knelt down in front of him and wrenched the gun from his hand.

The mud was cold against him, but Tommy had gone completely limp.

"God, Thomas." Kate tried to heave him up but he was a dead-weight. "This isn't how I imagined our reunion." She settled on letting his head rest in her lap.

The two of them were covered in mud but neither seemed to be in the mental state to care.

Kate held him close but checked the gun. It was empty. "Did you pull the trigger?" She asked.

Tommy appeared almost catatonic, his blue eyes staring off, his cheek pressed to her thigh.

"Tommy..." She became choked up. "What've you done?"

It took almost twenty minutes before Tommy gained the willpower to even sit up. He hadn't said a word, his eyes glassy and his mannerisms like a lonely ghost drifting along a plane of existence.

Kate stood up; her dress caked in black mud. She held out a hand.

Tommy gazed up at his wife. She was beautiful, radiant in the early morning fog. But Tommy had dragged her into the mud with him. He'd done it for years.

She pulled him to his feet just as he had helped her up in the Moulin Rouge all those years ago. She wrapped an arm around his waist and walked slowly back to the home with him.

~~~~

"Daddy!" The twins galloped down the stairs to greet their father. But Kate intercepted them.

"Daddy needs one minute alone, go find Uncle Arthur, okay?" She said softly.

The phone was ringing in the big room and Tommy slipped away from Kate's arm to go answer it.

Henry looked unnerved by their father's demeanor and appearance. But Jack simply went to the window when he heard someone coming up the driveway. "Mummy, look, it's a big truck."

Kate still didn't know what was going on, so she herded the twins away from the window. "Let's go upstairs, okay?" She thought of the gun she left behind in the field. But hers was still strapped to her leg if she needed to defend her family. The threat wasn't taken care of like Tommy planned.

While the twins returned to their rooms for the first time in months, Kate went to wipe the mud off her hands and arms. She was about to undress to bathe when she heard a guttural cry from downstairs.

She unholstered her gun and ran downstairs. Out in the driveway, she saw three figures covered in cloth. Tommy was knelt beside one of them, a hand covering his mouth as he sobbed.

Feeling numb, Kate approached. She didn't want to look; she didn't want to see who it was. But she had to.

And when she saw Polly's face, she collapsed.

~~~~

Henry and Jack were solemn as they stood next to their mother. They had never been to a funeral before but they knew it was no time to play. The somber nature was palpable out in the forest.