WRITTEN FOR ME ( thomas shelby )

018 ━ A Callback to France ..

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" A Callback to France "

          "JACKIE," GENE PUFFED, STRUGGLING to be faster than his sister once she stormed out of the room in which they deserted both Lester and Balthasar, despite the latter having been the one to bring the dreadful news in the dead of night. "Jackie, please be smart about this and—"

"Smart about this?!" She shouted back outraged, hands shaking while she shrugged on her coat. How long did it take? She couldn't help that thought's loudness over the havoc wrecked of her mind by the news. One day. They've been back in Birmingham for only a couple of hours as an engaged couple and she already got news that proved her unreasonable fear the world was out to get her before she could have her happiness. "They left my husband in a blood puddle on the street, Gene!"

"And what are you going to do about it?" He shouted right back, knowing being the more reasonable one would do nothing but take his right to have a say in this sort of conversation. "You don't know who got the jump on him and the police are already taking him to the hospital so the place will surely be under surveillance—"

"Well, I'm a fucking nurse," she cut him off again and turned away. "I'd pity whoever in that hospital tries to tell me tonight that I am not."

And after all, bribing a couple people in that hospital was one of the more tamer things Jackie Alloways has done to reach Tommy. It's been what felt like a lifetime since last she wore a nurse uniform. This time around, her dress was at least a size too big for her, smelling heavily of the naphthalene-filled home the woman she paid probably had. Off the information she paid to receive, she ran towards the emergency room in which they had carried Thomas Shelby. There were two young nurses on the whole floor and one of them was washing the blood off of his face.

Oh, dear Lord! Jackie's mind cleared of any other thoughts, but that. All that blood — what have they done to him?

Within a single blink she was besides the nurse, taking the cloth from her hand, "Move. I'll handle this patient from here."

"But...," there was sign of protest from the younger girl.

"I said move along, damn it!" There was something murderous in Jackie's gaze at the time that had startled the young nurse away almost stumbling through her own rushed steps; yet another one of the many things Jackie would thoughtlessly do to be left alone with Tommy, at whom she now looked. A knot formed in her throat and she could not swallow it down from how bitter it turned with the memories of war resurfacing past it with an undesirable freshness right in the front of her mind.

Images blended before her eyes: was she back in France cleaning Tommy of blood unknowing of how much she will grow to love him or was she still in Birmingham, trying her best not to cry while she assessed and cared for each of his many wounds.

It got harder to ignore the nuance of rage burning in her chest too, once she started realizing the state he was into could have never been the doing of just one lucky bastard. He must have been beaten up ruthlessly by at least three, if not even more men, given how many broken bones he managed to gain out of the altercation. A mere passing assessment of his hands told Jackie that he had little fighting chance against whover jumped him too.

Tommy's consciousness faded in and out on the waves of groaned aches and little agonies, amidst which it was fair of him to think Jackie's presence was only a merciful dream, not a reality. That was a belief he had embraced fully, at least until he opened his eyes properly to morning daylight bathing the saloon bed in which he found himself regaining senses of himself. Every inch of his body burned with pain and his memory screamed at him the backlash of what he had done with his brothers at the Eden Club, Sabini's club.