Peaky Girl (Peaky Blinders ABO Omegaverse Smut Fanfiction)

Fourteen

All three of us walked through the train station toward the boarding platform. Ada walked in the middle, looking for all the world like a young girl who was going to see her lover for the first time since the war. She was dressed in a loose bright pink dress that covered the small bulge of her baby bump, paired with a set of white hose and white shoes that the dirty streets of Small Heath had turned a smokey grey. She wore a tan overcoat, unbuttoned so that she had to hold it with one hand to keep it from flying open as we walked.

Polly was holding onto Ada's arm, clutching onto a black briefcase with her other. She looked like a businesswoman, all dressed up in a fitted grey jacket that hugged her dainty curves. A bit of the white of her blouse poked out from the collar, and a six-set of buttons drew from the short lapels down her chest, flattening her already slim figure. She walked through a tight grey skirt that draped her legs down to her ankles, the grey of her stockings exposed above her shiny black heels. She wore a black hat tipped over one imperious brown eye.

I walked by Ada's other side, holding the brown duster bag that contained her luggage. I felt out of place wearing trousers and a vest next to two primly dressed women, and several passersby looked at me in shock or disgust or distrust, but if my company noticed, they didn't comment on it.

"You okay?" Polly murmured to Ada.

"Yeah, I'm fine," came the jittery reply.

We rounded the corner of the ramp. "This is it, Ada," I said.

Together, we came to a slow stop among the sparse, interweaving lines of travelers filing into their carriages. We had reached the train where it sat on the tracks, doors open as if it was waiting to be boarded, coal smelling like wanderlust in the air.

I set Ada's bag down on the ground. Ada hugged Polly, kissing her rouged cheeks. Then she came to me, holding both of my hands in her cold, slender ones so that the silky pads of her fingers brushed against my calloused palms. She implored me with her eyes, river green conveying one last piece of women's business before she left for her new life. "You'll take care of them, Ru? I know you're the only one who can."

"I'm standing right here." Polly was withdrawing her cigarettes and her lighter, and she pressed one between her lips as she eyed Ada warily.

"Yes, Polly, you do everything you can for us," Ada said, reaching out to clutch her hand as well. "I'm not dumb enough to think this pack would have stuck together without you. But Ru..." Ada looked at me, and her smooth fingers fluttered over mine and tangled our hands. "With you, sometimes I see my brothers again, the boys they were before the war changed them. John is gentle, and Arthur laughs even when he's sober, and Tommy smiles, always with his eyes, and sometimes even with his mouth when he looks at you."

"They come alive again," Polly agreed.

I looked from Polly to Ada, hesitating, not trusting that this was real, that this was my life, that these two women were my pack, and I didn't know when I would see Ada again, and I held her in my arms, burying my face in her apple-scented brown hair.

"I'll do my best, Ada," I promised. "Just say you'll take care of yourself."

"And I'll write every week." Ada smiled as she released me.

I picked up Ada's bag and passed it to her, and the weight transferred from me to her, and I knew that I was accepting her place as her brothers' keepers, and that she was accepting her new life, and the baton passed between us.

Then Ada turned, and Polly and I would have watched her leave, but she stopped, and my heart dropped to my feet. Freddie Thorne was pacing along the train car, peering into carriage windows, smoking a familiar brand of white cigarettes. He turned just in time to see Ada, and he froze, looking for all the world like a man come back from the war and seeing his lover for the first time since he left. He wore a long, loose black coat, the lapels of his black jacket peeking out from beneath the hem. Underneath, he wore a pressed white button-up shirt. His beard was almost full, recently groomed, and he wore a grey hat with black trim. His brown eyes stared at Ada like she was the sun and she blinded him, but he couldn't look away to miss a moment of her beauty.