Liliana Mae Rosa Shelby // A Thomas Shelby Fanfiction // UNDER EDITING

19- A LIE BECAUSE I LOVE YOU

After a night spent with Lizzie Stark, much to her excitement, Tommy returned home the next morning to a seething Polly sat at the table, newspaper in hand. The clock hadn't even made it to seven o'clock yet, and of course his aunt was up waiting for him. 

"Don't fucking ask," he told her, slumping down on the chair opposite, fetching a cigarette from his pocket. 

"I don't need too. I already know when you've been. You fucking coward."

"She kicked me out, Pol!"

"Because you're a fucking liar," she seethed, setting down her newspaper rather harshly. "She's your wife, you tell her the truth. You've been though hell with her, what's changed?"

Why his marriage concerned his aunt so much he wasn't sure, but after a restless night and one too many whores, he knew he didn't have the fucking energy to deal with the wrath of Polly Gray, Maybe he was a coward after all. "I'm trying to keep her safe, believe it or not."

"From what?"

"This new copper," Tommy replied, inhaling his nicotine. 

"Bullshit," Polly snapped. "What happened with that woman, about Lily?"

Fuck. He knew he should have dealt with it on his own and not mentioned a fucking thing. "Lily's alive," Tommy breathed, and Polly choked on a sob. "But I haven't seen her Pol, she wasn't there. She said things, things I have to fucking deal with on me own, for the sake of my wife, and my sleeping daughter upstairs." 

"You haven't told Bella?"

"No," he shook his head, and he could feel thos dark eyes burn the side of his face. "I can't, Polly. You have to just take my fucking word for it. Not yet, not right now. I can't." 

"She's her fucking mother!" 

"She's unwell, Pol," Tommy admitted, his words travelling faster than his common fucking sense. "Those voices, they ... they're coming back." 

Polly knew what that meant. Her whole life she was raised on withcraft and Gypsy's beliefs. The darkness some called it, a curse others named it. No one really knew what it was. Sadness was what Polly put it down too. Bella wasn't a Gypsy and didn't carry any curses, but there was every possibility that Tommy had passed his curse onto her. Heck, they'd been together sixteen years, best friends for twenty, she'd been around long enough for a spell to have been put on her by those bastard Lee boys. 

It was her words that scared Tommy and Polly the most. The things Bella would say made no fucking sense and wouldn't make sense to a special locked away in an asylum, that's how little sense she fucking made. It made Polly uneasy that no one understood her. No one understood this pain that seemed to fill Bella's veins and consume her so quickly, vigourously. Not even opium could calm the girl down, it would only make her more delirious. 

As the two Shelby's sat in complete silence, the clock reading six forty-five in the morning, smoking a cigarette, they both thought about the things Bella had done when this curse consumed her. Fuck, Tommy had lost count on how many times he had wrestled a gun out of her grip, or the sharpest blade from the kitchen drawer. The amount of times Polly had blamed one of the boys for killing with her best kitchen knife, only to find young Bella by the river slicing her skin until there was no more to mark. The sleepless nights as Bella shook in Tommy's embrace, violently shaking beneath his grip to the point it knocked the air out of her longs. The hospital stays, the times where Moss had to be called out because her hiding spots became harder to find. God, she had Tommy up at all hours before the war, but then he went away, and Polly has to deal with the wrath of his absence.

There was one time which haunted Polly in her deepest slumber. A year in to the war, give or take, and Bella still hadn't adjusted well. The first week weeks they all cried, they all missed the boys more than they thought possible and they cried over the lack of warmth that filled every room they entered. But, the women started to take over their boy's legacy, and the tears only appeared at night. Not for Bella, she hadn't gone back to work in a year, and Olivia was too young to notice her mother's illness. Polly had taken Ada and Finn away for the weekend for a family trip, Bella refusing to go. She would stay with her daughter and had put on a facade for a least a week to prove to Polly she was okay to be left alone. 

Polly had believed her. But, the second she heard the door close, the knife was too her skin, and the blood seeped through the sheets of the bed her husband once warmed. Polly had only been gone three days, but when she returned she was hit with a smell of fles and blood, and a sight that would shatter an angel's halo. Olivia had been left for three days, unattended too, on her own, starving. To this day, Polly still prompted that it was a miracle the four year old had survived the warm nights without food, water, any form of attention whatsoever. Bella was in her bed, frames once hung on the wall now smashed on the floor, shards of glass in the bed, on the floor, even in Isabella's hair. The mattress was soaked through with blood, and Polly was faced with the young girl, veins open for the world to see. Ada had screamed at the sight, and Polly had ushered her away and to take Finn as far from the house as she could. Charlie Strong and Curly were soon over helping clear the sight that resembled a murder scene, and Bella was bed bound in the hospital for two weeks. 

Polly remembered feeding Olivia for the first time in three days when she returned, and the poor girl needed more food than Polly could provide. She slept for hours, and hours, and clutched onto Polly as if her life depended on it. Apology after apology spilled from Isabella's lips once she woke from her comatosed state in hospital, bandages all up her arms, around her stomach and her thighs. She begged to see her baby, begged and pleaded, and Polly feared that if this news came out, the Parish would take Olivia. Thankfully, that never happened, and the secret stayed between those who were there. Finn was too young to remember, but the memory was etched into Ada's mind, and tattooed along Polly's heart. Tommy was never informed of the incident, and as Polly choked on a breath remembering it, she vowed it would stay that way. 

Everyone had their secrets. 

"You have a plan?" Polly asked, glancing at the clock which now ready seven thirty. 

"No," Tommy shook his head. "I don't have a fucking clue what to do." 

"This will kill her, Thomas. It will quite literally kill her."

Tommy knew there was some truth in what Polly said. Isabella's darkness was consuming her as the days went on, and he knew that if she caught wind of what was going on, Isabella would go to the point of no return. He didn't want to have to plan a funeral for his wife, that option was not on the cards. 

"Daddy?" 

Snapping his head up, Tommy saw Olivia stood halfway down the stairs, her long hair knotted from her nights sleep and her eys puffy. Tommy would resume his chat with Polly later, and as he got out of his chair, Polly knew not to say anything further. 

Walking up the stairs, Tommy welcomed his daughter into his arms and carried her back up the stairs into her room. "What about mama?" Liv asked groggily, pointing to his room where his wife would undoubtedly be sleeping soundly. 

"Lets leave mama to sleep, yeah?" He said as he climbed into his daughter's bed with her curled into his side. 

"Where were you last night, dad?" 

Taking a deep breath, Tommy prepared to lie once more to his daughter. "I had work, baby." 

"Oh," was all she replied, and Tommy ran his fingers through his daughter's long hair, soothing the both of them. "Will you tell me a story?" 

Pressing a kiss to his daughter's head, Tommy pulled the duvet further up his body, making sure his daughter was warm enough. Tommy started his story with once upon a time, and proceeded to tell his baby a story about two young children who fell madly in love in a small village that God forgot. Olivia knew her father was talking about himself and Bella, but she snuggled into Tommy anyway and let his cherished memories take over his imagination, until they both succumbed to darkness before the sun reached the clouds. 

He never finished his fairytale.