Forbidden Afflictions // Alfie Solomons Peaky Blinders

(8) Fault

I have been working on this damn chapter for 3 weeks trying to get it right. I am so sorry for the wait. She's a dreary one but I hope you enjoy it. I love y'all!

-V

Their bodies wouldn't disconnect when she explained the events that occurred between July and December. They unfolded from their tight embrace but Freya refused to let go of his hand as she sat him down at the bar with a bottle of gin.

She told him about the money Tommy owed them. After all, it was a lot of money waiting for her if she ever went back to him. She knew better than to believe that money to be hers already. She knew he had printed cash on his desk for a reason. He wouldn't put any of it in an account or simply hand it over after everything they went through. She would only get the compensation she deserved when she went back to him—if she went back. She thought Alfie deserved to know that all the Russian bullshit they went through wasn't for nothing.

She told him about the blackouts, about what her lawyer said about her and her reputation. She told him about the bruises she would wake up to and how she was told she had hurt people—a lot of people. She told him how she couldn't remember anything and how time seized to exist. She couldn't count the days, and weeks blended into months. She didn't know what to believe. At some times, she didn't know what was true and what was said to hurt her. She didn't know if the Sabini's were taking revenge or if the Russians wanted to go out with one last bomb set on her and her family. She didn't know if her family got someone killed and some angry local men were plotting their justice on her misery. Freya knew better than anyone that the Blinder name carried more enemies than it did followers. Being a Shelby only made her more of a target.

She told Alfie about how the guards treated her, how long she went without seeing family, how sick she had been, how the doctor spoke to her, how the nurses treated her, how she felt after waking up in a hospital bed with a tube down her throat; damn near everything.

Only when she reached the end of November did she start to choke on the words. She had to remember how it felt to see that baby coffin and how it felt to have been denied a rabbi. She had to feel it all again and she couldn't feel it without crying or re-breaking her own heart. Her throat swelled and her eyes became uncontrollable wells filling with more tears than either of them could count. She had to remember the bruises and the bellyaches and the silence that surrounded the whipping fires around that coffin. She had to remember it all but she wasn't physically able to share all that grief, her voice refused it.

Her lip began to curl without cure and her head was shaking so ferociously that Alfie feared she might give herself a concussion if he didn't stop her. He thanked her for her words, for her hand, her heart—her, and held her in a tight embrace as she sniveled for what they hoped would be the last time that day.

"Sometimes I want to blame the guards... Maybe the doctor... Maybe they would have caught it..." she confessed miserably, pressing her cheek into Alfie's shoulder. He stood in front of her so she didn't have to support any of her own weight alone and something about him towering over her, engulfing her, smothering her in warmth and that deep, sweet yet musky smell of his skin made everything seem bearable. "But I can't blame anyone but myself... I should have known. I should have recognized the signs and advocated harder..."

"Wot would the guards 'ave anything to do with wot 'appened?" Alfie wondered, looping her hair behind her ear as he listened to the sound of her fingers rubbing against the cloth on his back. He could feel her heart beating against his stomach. He could feel how slow yet mighty it pounded even through their layers of clothes and skin. He could feel warmth whenever she exhaled into his shoulder and wondered how much she could feel from his body without him knowing.