Roguish Women- Tommy Shelby

I Can See You With the Morphine

            There was whistling in the air. Tommy couldn't quite decipher where its source was or even what it was. It sounded a bit like a human but there was no change in pitch or hint of a tune.

Suddenly, he felt his body lurch forward and he stumbled to the ground. His palms were pressed to the metal of a train station. The whistling was suddenly all he could hear. He could now tell it was a train whistle.

Someone grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up. A nameless face in a military uniform. "On your feet, soldier, we won!" He exclaimed.

Tommy blinked a few times and the swarm of people flooded his senses. Men in uniform greeting long awaiting family members. Fathers seeing their little children for the first time in years, wives embracing their husbands, siblings reuniting, mothers and fathers holding their heroic son who survived long enough to tell the tale.

"Tom."

He turned and saw someone standing among the crowd. She was in a blue dress. It was Greta no but...it wasn't. She wasn't there. She was dead before the war even started. It was Grace? That was impossible too.

"You must hate America for coming so late."

Kate had said that to him. A long time ago. Back when they had met in Paris.

When she stepped closer, he could see that it was, indeed, her. Tommy opened his mouth but found he couldn't speak.

"You don't have to say anything."

But there was so much he needed to say to her. He continued to try to force the words out. His head was throbbing with pain. His mouth was dry. Every muscle in his body felt weak.

"I left my heart with you, Tommy, have you been keeping care of it?"

Why was she asking him questions if she knew he could respond.

"Did you give everyone my love? Even Alfie? I know you two pretend not to get along." She laughed softly.

He felt the urge to get closer to her. Maybe if he got closer, he could speak again. But his legs wouldn't budge.

"I won't ever love anyone the way I've loved you."

More and more soldiers crowded around him, jostling him. The mob got so big that the image of Kate was hidden away.

He tried to yell for her. She couldn't leave him, not again.

Suddenly, he was shoved backward and he fell into a narrow but deep trench.

"Tom!"

The walls of the trench began to cave in. Heavy piles of dirt collapsed onto him, burying him alive, suffocating him.

"What do you do when the devil catches up to you, Tommy?"

His lungs were straining for air as he used his hands to claw his way out of his grave.

"Do you fight?"

"Do you admit defeat?"

Everything went dark. Was that it? Was he dead? Maybe everything had been a dream. This whole time he was still buried in a tunnel in France. Kate was nothing more than an illusion he had conjured up in his final moments.

"Tom?" Her voice whispered to him. It was such a lulling tone, something so soft. "Tommy?"

He went completely still, encased in something heavy. It wasn't dirt, it was something softer. Something smooth but still dense and weighed on him.