In which a girl attempts to outrun her past only to catch the attention of the ruthless leader of the Peaky Blinders.
or
In which the arrival of the new brown-haired barmaid at the Garrison should have been the canary in the coal mine for the trou...
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Elena
Elena hadn't slept more than an hour last night between waiting up for Tommy and then attempting to help him through his nightmares. There was not much she could do but attempt to wake him when the screaming started. By the time Tommy had finally settled down into proper sleep she had been too upset to get any rest.
Elena softly brushed her hands through Tommy's hair as she stared at his sleeping form next to her. He hadn't had this bad of nightmares in months. She felt helpless at the demons that plagued him.
Her mind wandered as she thought about what was to come. She knew any charges against Arthur would be dropped but none of that mattered if Arthur wasn't able to recover mentally. All the Shelby boys were suffering this week. She had managed to track down Finn yesterday after finishing with Tommy and the poor boy had broken down in her arms. She made a mental note to check on him today as well.
"What time is it?" Tommy's hoarse voice asked shaking her from her thoughts.
"I'll trade you the answer if you tell me how you are feeling" she answered hoping he would give her some indication of what was going on in his head.
"I can just find out for myself," he said as he attempted to roll over to get up. Elena quickly jumped into action by pushing him down and straddling his legs with her thighs to prevent him from standing up. At least the symbolic message was that he wasn't to get up, if he wanted to he easily could shove her off but Elena hoped he hadn't withdrawn that far. She would not let Tommy run away from another serious conversation this morning.
Tommy gave a heavy sigh as he leaned back into the bed clearly giving up on escaping.
"Do you want to talk about the nightmares?" she asked slowly. Asking Tommy to talk about his emotions had to be done carefully. She likened it to dealing with a loaded gun, it best to move in slow and controlled motions but at the end of the day, you never knew what was going to happen.
"Just the same old things, I thought I was past this," he said frustration clear in his voice.
"I think you could have a lifetime of healing and still be haunted by what you had to go through Tommy and that doesn't make you any less weak" The country had sent these boys away, made them endure horrific events, and then sent them home expecting everyone to be fine. It was a country of broken men.
"Thank you for helping me last night," he said finally meeting her eyes.
"I'll always be here to help you," she said as she softly ran her hands through his sweat-filled hair. Tommy let out a sound of contentment as he leaned into her touch.
"Today is the Garrison grand opening, are you excited?" she asked hoping to remind him of some of the positive upcoming events.
"Well I'm not sure Arthur will be there after what I said to him yesterday and I'm not sure Polly will want to be there after what I have to tell her today," he said his eyes darkening. Later this morning, Tommy was planning to tell Polly the truth about her children, that Anna was dead at that Michael may never want to see her.
