Devoted (John Shelby)

Part 6

~Two years later~

Cynthia and John were standing with their five children, and all of the Shelby gang, at the funeral of Freddy Thorne.

Their newest born child, a baby boy, started crying as Tommy was saying a few words. Cynthia passed him over to John as he was the only one who seemed to be able to get the child to calm down.

Once the funeral was over, Cynthia watched over her kids playing with Karl, "Karl, sweetie. You don't pick flowers off of graves," Cynthia said, scooping the boy up before he picked the flowers. "And Jack, don't encourage him to do so," Cynthia placed Karl back on the floor, and she felt water hit her face, it had started raining.

Cynthia looked around for John, noting that he had gone from beside her. She spotted him talking to a worried-looking Arthur and Tommy. John saw Cynthia looking, he said something before walking over to his wife. "The Garrison got bombed, I'll go with you and the kids home, we'll get Rose and David to look after them. Then we'll head to the den afterwards."

Cynthia nodded and collected their children up, she thanked Polly for holding her baby, Ben, a.k.a Benny. "John, I've got everyone," she said and he led his family towards one of the cars, all of the children squished themselves in the back while Cynthia sat with Benny on her lap with John in the driver's seat.

Thankfully, Rose and David were more than happy to look after the children, they then hurried off to get to work. Cynthia helped John write stuff down when he told her to as he answers phone calls.

"Finn. Get in here!" John said suddenly, Cynthia looked at John in question, they'd been there for an hour or so and he barely said anything and the first word he says, not relating to the work was "Finn."

"Finn, hold the phone, come here," John passed the phone to his younger brother, "take this."

"Yeah, sure," the youngest Shelby said, taking John's seat and John left the room.

"Is he always like that?" Finn asked Cynthia once the phone call ended.

"Yeah, you get used to it though," Cynthia sighed, "what about you Finn? Got yourself a girlfriend yet?"

"No, nobody likes me like that," Finn said.

"A handsome Shelby boy like you, and nobody likes you? I think you're lying."

"Everyone's too afraid to go near me because I'm a Shelby" Finn frowned, "I haven't done nothin' to make people afraid of me."

"I'm sure you'll find a girl soon," Cynthia said reassuringly.

"Thanks," he said, though he didn't believe Cynthia at all.

~:~:~:~

There was a family meeting and Cynthia sat on the staircase waiting with everyone else for Tommy to arrive. She was bored out of her mind, she couldn't even properly take in what she was reading. Her mind focused on the sounds of the room, mostly Finn's footsteps where he was pacing around.

"Sit down, Finn," Arthur told his brother, the boy complied.

"Where the bloody hell is Tommy?" John questioned.

"He's on his way," Polly told him as she stared out of the window.

"While we're waiting patiently..." Arthur started, standing up from his seat, he picked up a crate which rattled, "whiskey. Leftover from the explosion."