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𝙛𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙣.

𝙛𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙣 | 𝘈 𝘛𝘈𝘓𝘌 𝘖𝘍 𝘉𝘈𝘒𝘌𝘙𝘐𝘌𝘚 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘙𝘌𝘜𝘕𝘐𝘖𝘕𝘚

｡･:*:･ﾟ✧ ｡･:*:･ﾟ

IT ALMOST REMINDED HER OF THE WAR, caring for someone so battered for an extended period of time. For four days, she had tended to a shaking, trembling, weakened Tommy. She had dressed his wounds, fed him, and cuddled him to sleep. Tommy in the past four days almost seemed innocent to her, which the thought made her chuckle. He seemed fragile, almost, when he slowly entered and exited the cabin, and Annabel felt the overwhelming urge to protect him with her life. She imagined she now felt like Tommy did, when she got shot by Kimber.

"Camden Town for you, Tommy." Curly announced on the fourth day, and Annabel exited the cabin, followed by Tommy, at agonizing slow pace. She breathed in the filthy London air, and smiled. How great was it to be in London, the city that had birthed her!

"Could you be any slower?" She asked Tommy mockingly.

"Could you be anymore annoying, eh?" He replied.

Annabel smiled sweetly and leaned in to kiss his cheek. Tommy instructed Curly to prepare the boat for their departure, which the man set out to do with a bright smile. Together, Annabel and Tommy descended from the boat into the shipyard, drawing at all eyes. It must have been a sight, to see such a battered, broken man accompanied by a beautiful and confident woman (a woman in a shipyard was enough to make the eyes of the workers widen), and not just any woman, but Annabel Lee Keats, the lost daughter of the Earl of Cardrey herself. Whispers started to spread, but Annabel kept her head high.

The couple stopped at a local bed and breakfast to bathe and dress for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. Annabel hadn't even finished putting on her dress, when Tommy had already attempted to rip it from her. She shooed him away, slapping his wrists, telling him dead men get no sugar.

Then they were on their way, with Annabel's arm linked in Tommy's, half for emotionality, half to make sure he doesn't slip and fall to his death, when she asked him the point of their mission, which he hadn't divulged before, making her mad.

"There's a bakery, near here. A man, Alfie Solomons, runs it. And he," Tommy gestured to himself and then to Annabel, "can help us."

Annabel rolled her eyes. "Hopefully we can get some pastries on the way, eh?" She had started to adapt to Tommy's Brummie again, accent coming back from a long break in Argentina.

They arrived at the bakery, and they were greeted by a tall man, a head taller than Tommy (who Annabel considered tall). He demanded a show of weapons, and Tommy responded by shoving his hat inside of his pocket, making Annabel smirk.

"Put him down, Ollie!" boomed a voice, capturing the attention of the couple and the man searching them. "They're only little!" The man to whom the loud voice belonged approached them, eyeing them suspiciously. "Just you and the famous lost ginger royalty?"

"Nobility, thank you." Annabel corrected him, earning her a small, almost imperceptible shove by Tommy.

"Seems so," Tommy said, as he pretended to look around.

The man, whom Annabel Lee assumed was Alfie Solomons, ushered them in with a wave of his hand. "You're a brave pair, aren't you?" Annabel smiled and nodded, making their host smirk. "You want to take a look at my bakery? We bake all sorts here, mate, yeah. Did you know we bake over ten thousand loaves a week? Can you believe it?" Mr. Solomons asked incredulously, almost making Annabel giggle as she caught into his game. He was clearly running a distillery, by the look of all the barrels and the smell down in the basement of alcohol. "We bake the brown bread, we bake the white bread. We bake all sorts. Would you like to try some?" Alfie pressured. "Bread, eh?"