Mind unravelled

Outside

It took me some time before I even considered time travel. My first, sensible guess was that he was a decedent named after the famous Thomas Shelby. But then I remembered the nervous Arthur (or so I pictured him in my head based on what I heard). Sheer panic flustered over me, I wanted to get up and run away, but I couldn't. A soundless scream got stuck in my throat. My heart raced in my chest and for a second it felt like I could lose conscious again.

'Miss?' A high voice pitched through the darkness and reached the core of my troubled brain, 'Are you alright?'. The nurse gently shook my arm as she uttered her concern.

A short groan left my throat, my voice sounded hoarse as I said 'more or less', I deliberately paused a second, then I asked 'what day is it today?'

'it's Thursday, my dear, you've been mostly unconscious over the past four days', she answered.

I nearly let out some curses, but I could refrain myself from doing it. This was not the answer I was hoping on. In the perfect script I had thought out in my head, she would've said something like 'oh, it's 19 September 2019' or even '1919', I would've been satisfied with that too. Because then at least I knew what had happened. Luckily, I had a plan B.

'Have I mist anything important over the last four days?' I asked.

'not that I know. Although... no. Did you expect something to happen, was that why mister Shelby came around?' She tried to cover up her curiosity, but it was clear to me that she wanted to know more about the reason why Thomas Shelby visited. It didn't seem to be a good idea to tell her that it was more like an interrogation. 'I have no idea' I told her, 'he wanted to know a lot of things about me. But why, I don't know!'.

'ah, so... not a love interest?' she teased me.

I smiled, 'ha! No, and uhm... well I didn't think he was that kind; you know? He sounded a bit... harsh'. I was cautious about how I phrased my critique. The last thing I wanted was her running towards a Shelby and telling them how I talked about Thomas. But luckily, she didn't take it that way. Although she choose her words carefully too.

'He was gentle, you know? I mean, not gentle as in well-mannered and always on top of the etiquette but...' I could hear that she was smiling as she traveled back in her brain to much happier times. '...but in a way that he just knew what you needed. When the boys got in trouble, he always knew a way out. When someone fell, he was there to pick them up. Even though he's always been a Shelby, hard and stubborn, he carried himself differently then the rest of the family. But then the war happened...' she paused again, her trained fingers pulled at my sheets and straightened them. When she was finally satisfied with the result, she went on, '...after the war, all the men that came back were changed, hardened from what they experienced. But Tommy is a whole different case. He didn't come back from war, instead the war came back to Birmingham, and it has disguised itself as Tommy Shelby'.