Loving Gwen Baker (Thomas Shelby/Peaky Blinders)

Chapter One

The next four years went by and things had taken their toll on Gwen. Her mother had gone into depression when her husband had died and couldn't even find the strength within herself to get out of bed. Gwen struggled to manage the bakery on her own - but she did it for her parents.

Her uncle and her cousins had lost their lives, during the unexpected second year of the war - in January; one month after everyone's expected arrival home.

Her mother was devastated that she had now lost her brother, and her three nephews. She stopped painting and became bed ridden due to depression, once again. At the end of the third year of the war, her mother had lost her battle with depression and had taken her own life.

Gwen, who always had a smile for anybody she passed by, could no longer continue doing that after she had found her mother's body swinging from the ceiling in the master bedroom. She had lost the spark in her eyes, she had lost her energy, she had lost her carefree attitude...and she had lost herself.

Gwen had to close the bakery towards the start of the fourth year of the war. She was devastated, but she couldn't afford to keep it open. She sobbed for days on end, it had been her father's dream to own his own bakery...and she had failed him.

The strawberry blonde refused to accept any charity that Polly Grey tried to bestow upon her, so the Shelby's aunt had set the girl up working in the Garrison; just so that she had a wage coming in.

The young woman no longer painted in her spare time, it painfully reminded her of her mother. She no longer went out to the meadows to dance barefoot. She no longer braided spring flowers into her hair. Her mother's depression had now buried its claws within her.

Gwen Baker was no longer the carefree, happy-go-lucky girl that everyone once knew.

As the war finally came to an end, Gwen was working at the Garrison when the rest of Small Heath was at the train station, greeting their loved ones with happy tears and open arms; welcoming them home.

Gwen had never been one to be envious of others, but today, knowing that there was no one for her to welcome home...she allowed the green monster to rattle its cage.

The strawberry blonde became anxious in crowded places, which she used to revel in. She was always one to strike up a conversation, but now she hardly spoke to anyone anymore. Anytime she was spoken to, she would no longer try and engage the conversation as she normally would. Gwen no longer wished to be the ear to listen, and she no longer had any exciting stories to tell people. Conversations started strained and ended quick; she was boring, depressed, and cold - a far cry from the lively and warm young woman she used to be.

She served the Shelby boys their drinks, welcoming them all home with a forced smile, before she turned her back on them and scurried off to clean something. She ignored Arthur calling her name, she ignored John's request for her to join them, she didn't return Tommy's gaze.

The strawberry blonde focused on her work. She cleaned the tables, she washed and polished the glasses, she served pints and spirits.

The young woman wasn't used to the catcalling and groping hands of the soldiers as they returned from the war and now frequented the Garrison, and Harry found her sitting in the basement among the barrels crying her eyes out numerous times over the next week or two.

Then all of a sudden. There was no catcalling, there were no skirt lifters, there were no hands slapping against her backside. No man in the Garrison so much as breathed near her.

Whatever it was, she wasn't one to complain.

"Good morning, Gwen."

"Morning, Harry." She forced a smile at the man, as she hung up her coat.