IN BAD FAITH | peaky blinders | T.S

25

It began in the centre of her body, swelling behind her ribcage; a sudden throb from deep inside, as though her heart had restarted and juddered back to life like the spluttering engine of an old car. Her senses returned individually, pieces of a jigsaw being slotted together slowly, one by one.

She could see nothing and hear only the dull and infinite ringing of emptiness, but against her stomach she felt the cold stone of a concrete floor, and the breath of a cold wind dancing over her skin as she lay motionless. In her hand, then, she felt the soft pulse of life against her wet palm. Her fingers went rigid, feeling through matted hair and hot blood. The crown of her own skull.

She winced, sucking a breath of smoky air through her front teeth in pain as her fingers probed the tender spot of skin. Slowly, then, with the beating of her heart and the bleeding of her head, Josephine opened her eyes, a splutter erupting from her chest.

Smoke burned at her eyes and scratched at the back of her throat. For a second it felt like home. She thought of her little house, the yellow bedroom, her sisters curled beneath the sheets. She inhaled once, twice, and then rolled over as far as her aching limbs would allow.

Above her, a crumbling ceiling. To her left, a pile of old material, spotted with blots of red and purple. Ink, she thought at first, like a funny drawing. Or blood. Definitely blood, her sister's voice confirmed. She smiled quickly, feeling Martha near to her, floating somewhere in the back of her mind. It was the only thing that had gotten her this far; not just when she had been taken but before, when her mother had died and her father had left. Martha, like a lighthouse at the edge of paradise and Josephine, a ship in the darkness; her sister was fresh bedding on a Sunday morning and fairytales before bed and fingers braiding blue ribbon through hair. It had always been her.

Hot liquid slid past Josephine's ears, down her neck, pooling on the floor beneath her limp head. She felt  her sister again, and then Bessie, and then her mother, like they had their arms outstretched, calling her. She thought of Uncle Ed and Aunt Beth and their house by the ocean. Josephine would've liked a house by the ocean, just like White Strand Cottage, where she could stay with her family forever.

She thought of the ladies at the wash-house, and the postman who always passed their house on Friday mornings with a solemn smile because he had nothing else to deliver to them. She saw faces, both familiar and strange, flashing in front of her eyes, pulling for her attention. As though it was all coming to an end.

She saw the quiet little things in life - sunlight shining over water, ribbon slipping between fingers, nettles against bare ankles, a woman's hands braiding blonde hair. She felt the warmth in her stomach after a cup of hot tea and the tightness of new shoes against toes. She watched his mouth stretch into a smile, felt the pads of his fingertips pressing against her freckles, laughed at his pale legs twisted between white sheets.

Everything she had loved - her sisters, her life, her Louis - and everything she had lost - the hands that had braided her hair, the lips that had kissed her goodnight. It swelled inside of her, moving through her body slowly; swirling between the cracks in her bones, the spaces between her organs. It reached her chest, and now she didn't need to breathe the smoky air of the darkness around her, scary and unfamiliar, because the feeling gave her not life, but peace.

It reached her mouth, which closed softly, and then her eyes, lids fluttering together as gently as the wings of a butterfly might, until finally it reached the point in the back of her skull which throbbed and ached and bled into a puddle around her head like a halo.

She thought she felt hands beneath her. Felt the colour blue. A voice, gruff, making a noise indistinguishable to her ear, but with a desperation in its tone that made her cling on just a second longer, until everything went soft and silent, and it became painless to lay there and love for a little second longer.

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A/N: hey. it's been a while. :)