Ethel POVTommy never came back before Saturday. That morning was the last time I ever saw Thomas Shelby. I didn't know how to feel about this fact. I laid awake both Thursday and Friday night waiting for him. Why didn't he come? I had a whole plan of cracking open the bottle of Irish whisky. The one we talked about in our first conversation. We would laugh the night away and most likely make love. But he never came.
The year is now 1919, it is April. Winter is now slowly subsiding and spring flowers are beginning to bloom. The war is over and a lot has changed since it started. My sister, Gertrude, ended up falling in love while being stationed in England with a soldier that had been sent home from the war. When she met him he was shell shocked and delirious. Gertrude stuck by his side and helped him through it. They ended up getting married and she was off living in London. Both of my brothers had returned home safely although very different. Robert was not so kind anymore; he was still kind to me and the family but wasn't the happy go lucky lad making friends with strangers anymore. Fred, my younger brother, had changed a lot too. He still laughed and cracked jokes every once in awhile, but had a tough guy mentality. They both drink a lot more than they used to. The biggest change was my mother had passed away while we were all gone. My father said she was very sick. She had cancer. I miss her every day I wake up. What I wasn't expecting was a new woman to already be in the house. My father already had a new wife. This made me look at him incredibly differently. My father was a hard ass, a big Irish man. I knew he was soft, on the inside, for us kids and my mother but he had trouble showing it. Him moving on so quickly made me question his loyalties to my mother throughout their marriage as the woman was good friends of our family and frequented the house often while I was growing up. My father told me they fell in love through their shared grief. I don't know, I don't believe him.
My mother being gone and my brothers being changed, my fathers new wife, my sister being in London: it all made it too much. So I decided to make a change a couple months ago. I kept in touch with Frances after the war ended. She became my best friend during our time in France together and we drank that whole bottle of Irish whisky that Saturday Tommy left. She was living in London, so with both my sister and my best friend being there, I decided to give it a go. This leads to the next big change, I gave up nursing. After the war I couldn't bear to step foot in front of another man and nurse him back to health. I couldn't do it anymore. Frances felt the same. So, we opened a pub together in London with all of our saved up money and some help from my sisters new husband; who supplies the alcohol. We named it The Irish Pig. Business has been going quite well. Me and Frances both work the bar alone so we split the profits three ways between me, her, and my sisters husband; Alfie Solomons. Alfie was quite the character I can see why my sister fell in love with him. He's quite funny and charming but also would do anything to protect her. Alfie is involved in some illegal activities and we know that but we choose to ignore it as my sister is happy, has a nice big apartment, and we have alcohol for our pub.
I think about Thomas Shelby about once a month. He doesn't cross my mind often but I can't help it when I see a man with blue eyes, not quite as bright, walk into the pub.
-Tommy POV-
I never went back to see Ethel. Why I made this decision? I don't quite know. What I felt around Ethel felt good, almost too good. I thought about it, long and hard, both Thursday and Friday. All day and all night I thought about whether to go back to her tiny room. In the end I made the decision not too. I viewed it, at the time, as a waste of time. I would go to her room and sleep with her and that would be beautiful but that would be it. It was pointless. To say that I haven't been thinking about her was a lie though. I thought about her everyday after that. When I was in the mud her eyes would appear in the damp brown. When I would try to sleep she would be there in my mind keeping me awake. At the time I saw visiting her, one last time, as a waste. If I could go back in time, I don't know if I would change my decision. But, I'm back in Birmingham now and things are different. I'm no longer the man I was before the war or even the man I was when Ethel met me. I became a Sergeant and I won many medals. I became dark and depressed. I'm riddled with PTSD from my time in France. I haven't laughed in a very long time and haven't smiled in a very long time. My days are filled with cigarettes and betting men and my nights are filled with opium and shovels against the wall. I'm beginning to make moves to try to further my family in this world. Arthur thinks he's the boss but it's really me.
I view Ethel in our time together almost as an angel. She was there at that time to remind me there was still good in the world to be felt. That remembering got me through many nights but eventually it faded. I became a falling man. Falling endlessly deeper and deeper into the mud. If I would ever stop falling, is the question.

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The Falling Man
FanfikceThomas Shelby and Ethel "Ettie" Switzer cross paths in 1917; in the midst of World War 1. Ethel is an Irish nurse who will help any person no matter their side. Tommy is a British soldier who needs more help on the inside than the outside. Will thei...