Forbidden Afflictions // Alfie Solomons Peaky Blinders

(9) Rivers

It should be a given at this point but trigger warning. Thank y'all for all the support on both these stories. I hope to live up to the hype of the second one. I love y'all. Thank you. <3

-V

Alfie drove them back to the cottage in Bushey and informed Edna of their change of heart. She then moved to tell the cook and the two other cleaners Alfie had working the house so they could be prepared.

Freya stalked back up to their bed chambers and felt something in her stomach burn with appreciation to have been able to call it 'theirs'. The room in Camden had always been Alfie's, even when she stayed for several days and even when she went there after her release back in December. The place in Small Heath had always been hers, even when Alfie would leave a shirt or bring a bottle of kosher wine to leave in the kitchen. They always had separate places and yet somehow, the one they were leaving was the only one that they could have called 'theirs'.

"You sure this isn't a bad thing, right?" Alfie asked as he pulled suitcases from under the bed and out of the closet. "I figured the land and the quiet would be better than the bustle of the city but... Going back wouldn't be an ill reminder?"

"I'm sure," she promised, moving slowly to pack her things away from the dresser and bedside table. "This place feels more like we're borrowing it from your aunt than anything else... I wanna go somewhere familiar... Somewhere that reminds me of who we used to be..."

Alfie softened.

His place brought her peace somehow. It didn't matter that Russians were calling him in the middle of Hannuhka to threaten him or that she had been pacing those halls thinking of how it felt to lose a child she wasn't even aware she had. Those walls brought her home. After everything, it still felt like home.

"Well," Alfie scoffed, "my auntie ain't comin' back any time soon."

"I know," Freya tittered. "I just think... if we're to move forward... It's gotta be done in our own space. If you want me to move in, that is," she reassured.

"Obviously," he said with a roll of his eye. "הבית שלי הוא הבית שלך."

"Does that mean, 'Obviously I wouldn't want you living with me all the damn time? I'm tired of your arse'?" she joked, causing Alfie to cough out a few sarcastic laughs.

"My home is your home," he translated, taking the opposite approach as Freya and throwing everything he had in his dresser drawers directly into the suitcase on the bed she was sat at as she neatly folded her laundry.

When he walked into the closet, Freya took it upon herself to dump everything he had just put into his suitcase out onto the bed to be folded. Rather than pack the things belonging to her, she was letting Alfie hunt for it all whilst she put it all away.

They cracked such small smiles as they worked together until everything was ready for the morning.

Freya felt the walls around her crash down as she opened up to Alfie. She felt lighter and more free. At the same time, she was terribly open, exposed, and vulnerable. It was something she had to accept. To be in love—to love and to be loved—she would have to sacrifice her safety and comfort.

It was going to take time for her to warm up to his embrace again. She knew what she wanted but she didn't know if she had it in her to get any of it. Trying meant accepting what had happened and she didn't want to accept it. 

How was she supposed to accept that she had lost a pregnancy she never knew she had because of something her brother forced her into? How was she supposed to accept any of it, let alone acknowledge what it all really was—what it all meant?