#churchill darling

[runnning-outof-time]

K, darling!! I'm sending you this one, because you sent me a gif, too ❤️❤️.

Probably Tommy is struggling with something, too. Feel you, Tom 🤝.

Thanks for sending this my way, Flor!! I truly feel Tommy here…this have been my exact reaction when thinking about writing/wanting to write these past few weeks - it’s gotten a bit better since you’ve sent this, but I still can’t help but struggle slightly from hour to hour. Since you went lighthearted on the gif I sent you, I figured I’d do the same here. I…really don’t know what came of it - like I said, writing has been hour to hour for me. But I hope you’ll maybe get a laugh from it. ☺️. Enjoy! :)

PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

A Much Welcomed Distraction

Tommy Shelby x Reader

Warnings: language, smoking

Summary: (Y/N) tries to get Tommy’s mind off of the work he’s been struggling with. Tommy, for once, accepts the distraction, until he realizes that maybe he will have to finish his work first.

No matter what he did, the words wouldn’t come out right. He’d been trying to figure out how to address the receiver of this letter for at least an hour now. Who would have thought that it’d be hard to write to the fucking Prime Minister of England? Tommy certainly didn’t upon initially thinking of the idea. Now here he was, stuck after a paragraph as he wondered if his word choice would be correct enough to get Winston Churchill to actually want to finish reading it.

He was so invested in his writing - or his attempt to do so - that he didn’t even hear the door opening. It wasn’t until he heard the voice of his wife that he looked up: “Lizzie told me you’d be in here.”

Tommy only nodded, just barely glancing up at her before focusing on the paper again. He didn’t miss the sound of her footsteps approaching the desk though.

“What’re you working on?” she asked him, coming to his side and leaning against the desk to take a look at the paper in front of him.

“A much needed letter,” he answered, exhaling a bit of a sigh as he slouched back against his chair. He could feel her lean in closer, perhaps to take a better look at the letter.

“Dear Mr. Churchill…” she started off, reading in a formal tone. There was a bit of a pause before the sound of her heels turning on the hardwood was heard, “you’re writing to the bloody Prime Minister, Tommy?” she asked, a bit of surprise laced into her words.

“I am, yes,” he answered her with a nod, glancing up at her before continuing, “expect there hasn’t been much writing happening,” he ended his statement with a sigh, bringing his left hand up to run across his face before he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Well I can see why…it isn’t every day you write a letter to a man of that standing,” (Y/N) commented, her words making Tommy exhale a snort; one that she couldn’t help but roll her eyes at, “it’s an extraordinary feat, Tommy…I certainly wouldn’t know what to say,” she defended herself.

“It needs to get written,” he mumbled, reaching out to grab the half spent cigarette from the ashtray so that he could take a deep drag from it, “and it needs to happen before any other order of business comes up,” he concluded, smoke accompanying his words as he uttered them. He finished his stressed statement off with another drag before snuffing the cigarette out in the ashtray. He then sat back again, exhaling another frustrated huff as he did so.

“I see…” (Y/N) trailed off, nodding her head in understanding. She had an inkling of a thought that this was business related. With every move Tommy made, he had to do the background work to make sure that it was well calculated and would turn out the way he wanted it to. Oftentimes he’d frustrate himself in the process of completing that background work. “It isn’t worth beating yourself up over though, I’m sure. Take a break, maybe?” she suggested. It didn’t come as much of a surprise that his reaction to her suggestion was an incredulous one.

“Hmm,” he hummed at her statement, and (Y/N) couldn’t really discern if it was a hum of agreement, or of disapproval.

“Maybe I can take your mind off of it then?” she offered another suggestion, biting on her lip to stop the grin from forming when his eyes snapped up to her face. “You liked the sound of that, didn’t you?” she questioned, letting her grin show as she sat her hand flat on the desk and leaned her weight against it.

“Love, I need to write this letter,” Tommy stayed steadfast on his priorities. Despite the dismay in his tone, he didn’t exactly disagree with her suggestion.

“Doesn’t seem to be much writin’ going on,” (Y/N) quipped back, her words making him quirk an eyebrow in her direction.

They held each others stares until Tommy exhaled another sigh. After running a hand over his face, he dragged his eyes up to her. “What do you have in mind?” he asked, his words coaxing a grin from his wife.

“I’m happy you asked,” she chirped, moving to sit down on his lap. Tommy welcomed her with open arms, his hands falling onto her hips so that she would be secure. “I was just thinking that maybe I’d give you a kiss…” she paused, her hands falling onto his shoulders before she leaned in and pressed her lips to his, “…or two…” she kissed him again. A look of amusement formed on Tommy’s face. “And that maybe those kisses would help some ambition for writing to return,” she concluded, going in for a slightly longer kiss then.

“I thought you were working to distract me from writing, love?” he questioned her intentions when she pulled away.

(Y/N) couldn’t help but giggle at his question. “I wouldn’t exactly say distract…” she paused, lifting her one hand to tap on her chin as a physical show that she was thinking on how to finish her statement, “instead maybe I’m giving you a taste of what’s to come later,” she ended off her statement with a quick, suggestive glance; one that Tommy most certainly didn’t miss.

“A taste?” he asked another question, his eyebrows now raised.

“Yes. Of what’s to come later…after you finish writing your letter,” she added more detail, biting on her lip as she watched to see if he’d catch the stipulation that she’d thrown in there.

“After?” the inflection in his voice showed that he most certainly caught the stipulation.

“Of course,” (Y/N) responded like it was no big deal, “you said it yourself, it needs to get written before any other order of business comes up…” she trailed off then, a smirk full on across her features now.

The way he was clenching his jaw told her that she was grinding all of the right gears inside of him at this moment. It honestly egged her on even more.

“(Y/N)…” he tried, a bit of a warning tone laced into his voice. It didn’t deter (Y/N) from her plan in the slightest though. She leaned in and kissed his lips one last time before managing to free herself from his grasp so that she could stand up.

“I said that I’d get your mind off of it…and I think that I just did. Don’t keep me waiting up, Mr. Shelby,” she sent him an innocent smile as she backed away from his desk. Tommy said nothing as she backed herself all the way over to where the sitting area of his office was. There, she grabbed her coat and put it on. Then she blew him one last kiss before turning and walking to the door without looking back.

Tommy didn’t exhale the sigh he was holding in until the door shut. He then looked back down to the paper sitting on his desk, wracking his brain in hopes that sentences would form. “Dear Mr. Churchill…” he mumbled to himself before he began writing like his hand had been possessed by another being; coming out with words and sentence structures that he couldn’t begin to think of earlier. On second thought…maybe it had been possessed by another being.

Either way, he managed to write the letter in its entirety without taking a break or even looking towards the clock. Considering it a done deal, he left it on the desk for himself to proofread tomorrow. Now he needed to get home to his wife, who had provided a much welcomed distraction and got him back on track.

———

Tagged: @mystcldydrms @the-anxious-youth @cloudofdisney @look-at-the-soul @elenavampire21 @mrsalwayswrite @julkaamazing @evita-shelby @lilyrachelcassidy @notyour-valentine @shelbydelrey @onlydeadcells @peakyswritings @just-a-blackhole @watercolorskyy @strayrockette @peakyduchesss @alexxavicry @captivatedbycillianmurphy @yummycastiel @dark-academia-slut @tommystargirl @stevie75 @lyarr24 @signorellisantichrist @zablife @anotherblinder @midnightmagpiemama @cillmequick @rangerelik @dandelionprints @letal-y-poetica @itscheybaby @gypsy-girl-08 @insanitybyanothername @depxiety @raincoffeeandfandoms @dragons-are-my-favorite @acewritesfics @forgottenpeakywriter @cljordan-imperium @areyenotfondofmelobster @little-diable @thomashelbyswife @iambored24601 @shaddixlife

MASTERLIST

#tommy shelby #tommy shelby x reader #tommy shelby x y/n #tommy shelby blurb #tommy shelby one shot #tommy shelby oneshot #tommy shelby fanfic #tommy shelby fanfiction #peaky blinders #peaky blinders x reader #peaky blinders x y/n #peaky blinders blurb #peaky blinders oneshot #peaky blinders one shot #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic

[hexespheres]

𝟲𝟬 𝙔𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙎𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙒𝙞𝙩𝙘𝙝

(inspired by 40 Years of Psylocke)

→ First appearance: X-Men vol.1 #4 (1964)

→ Writers: Stan Lee (creator), Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Steve Englehart, Bill Mantlo, Jim Starlin, Chris Claremont, Mark Gruenwald, Steven Grant, Ralph Macchio, Roger Stern, Dennis Mallonee, John Byrne, Dann Thomas, Andy Lanning, Dan Abnett, Kurt Busiek, Geoff Johns, Brian Michael Bendis, Allan Heinberg, Rick Remender, James Robinson, Jim Zub, Al Ewing, Kelly Thompson, Steve Orlando & more.

→ Artists: Jack Kirby (creator), Don Heck, George Tuska, John Romita Sr., John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Rick Buckler, Bob Brown, Gil Kane, Jim Starlin, Jim Mooney, Jerry Bingham, Michael Golden, Rick Leonardi, Dan Green, Al Migrom, Richard Howell, John Ridgway, John Byrne, Steve Butler, David Ross, Andy Kubert, John Higgins, Mike Deodato, Ian Churchill, George Pérez, Joe Jusko, Mark Texeira, Alan Davis, Kieron Dwyer, Scott Kollins, David Finch, Olivier Coipel, Jim Cheung, John Cassaday, Jorge Molina, Daniel Acuña, Kevin Wada, Tula Lotay, Sean Izaakse, Pepe Larraz, Paco Medina, Javier Pina, Cian Tormey, Sara Pichelli, Russell Dauterman & more.

→ Costume designers: Jack Kirby, Don Heck, John Buscema, John Byrne, Richard Howell, Al Migrom, Colin McNeil, Mike Deodato, George Pérez, Alan Davis, Kieron Dwyer, Olivier Coipel, Jim Cheung, John Cassaday, Daniel Acuña, Kevin Wada & Russell Dauterman.

→ 𝘼𝙣𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙙𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨: Vita Linder (The Marvel Super Heroes), Katherine Moffat and Jennifer Darling (Iron Man), Susan Roman (X-Men: The Animated Series), Stravoula Logothettis (Avengers: United They Stand), Kelly Sheridan (X-Men: Evolution), Kate Higgins (Wolverine and the X-Men) & Tara Strong (The Super Hero Squad Show)

→ Various games: X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, Marvel Super Hero Squad: The Infinity Gauntlet, Marvel: Avengers Alliance, Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth, Marvel Heroes, Marvel Contest of Champions, Marvel Future Fight, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order & more.

→ Current books: Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver by Steve Orlando & Lorenzo Tammetta, The Avengers (vol. 9) by Jed Mackay & C.F. Villa, Avengers United: Infinity Comic by Derek Landy & Marcio Fiorito, Blood Hunt by Jed Mackay & Pepe Larraz; Scarlet Witch (vol.4) by Steve Orlando & Jacopo Camagni

#wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #marvel #marvel comics #comics #comicedit #wanda django maximoff #wmaximoffcomicedit #marveledit #russell dauterman #kevin wada #xmen #xmen comics

[irenethewoman]

Mrs. Shelby Fic Masterlist

Main Masterlist link

"Our business will expand far beyond England, to Europe, Asia, and beyond. And you, Darling, you will be the most powerful woman in the world. You will be Mrs. Shelby."

Chapter 1- Escape (pt1) (pt2)

Chapter 2- First Shot (link)

Chapter 3 - Thomas (link)

Chapter 4 - First Kiss (link)

Chapter 5 - Closer (link)

Chapter 6 - Confrontation (link)

Chapter 7 - Ada (link)

Chapter 8 - Leverage (link)

Chapter 9 - Gift (link)

Chapter 10 - Comeback (link)

Chapter 11- Conspiracy (link)

Chapter 12 - Troubles (link)

Chapter 13 - Proposal (link)

Chapter 14 - Churchill (link)

Chapter 15 - Cozy (link)

Chapter 16 - Dead End (link)

Chapter 17 - Wedding <3 (link)

Chapter 18 - The Russians (link)

Chapter 19 - The Truth (link)

Chapter 20 - Gangster (link)

Chapter 21 - Christmas (link)

Chapter 22 - Goodbye, Johnboy (link)

Finished.

#fiction #fanfiction #masterlist #thomas shelby x reader #thomas shelby fic #thomas shelby #tommy shelby #peaky blinders #tommy shelby x you #tommy shelby x reader #thomas shelby imagine #thomas shelby fanfic #tommy shelby fanfic #tommy shelby smut #peaky blinders smut #tommy shelby x oc #peaky blinders fanfic #cillian murphy smut #cillian murphy #cillian x reader #cillian x fem!reader #cillian x y/n

[beansprean]

Accidentally made the extraordinarily terrible Empress Theresa required reading for this comic lmao (don't read it tho). Definitely a big meal for our boy.

My Familiar’s Ghost part 27

Masterpost

(ID in alt and under cut)

ID: 1a. Wide shot of the music room, Colin Robinson sitting in the foreground with Nadja standing in front of him. He is wearing a beige party hat and clapping gleefully as Nadja, also wearing a beige party hat and scowling in confusion, reads aloud from a book titled “Empress Teresa”. The cover is a clumsy painting of a woman with long black hair in a military uniform. Nadja reads, “I was the princess of the Surr-llivan clan of F-Framing-ham, Mass… Massen-choots-test? Because besides being cute I was a whiz in school and had a good disposition. All the relatives expected great things of me. Nobody could have dreamed of what I would do a few years later, and nobody would have believed it if they’d been told.” In the background, Laszlo, also wearing a beige party hat, is playing the Hamsterdance on his harpsichord and looking back at Colin with a smile. 1b. Close up of Laszlo at the harpsichord as Nadja shrieks from offscreen, “Laszlo what the shit is this?!” Laszlo calls back, smiling, “Try to make it through the first chapter, my darling! We did promise the boy a re-do party.” Ghost Guillermo phases into the room from an adjacent wall, tugging on his fingers nervously as he smiles at the scene. He is not wearing a beige party hat because he can’t, but the ribbons of wraith energy behind him are smooth and subdued. 1c. Reverse shot over Guillermo’s shoulder as Laszlo turns to him and offers a nod of acknowledgement, as close to a thank you as Laszlo can give. Guillermo nods back with a smile. In the background, Nadja pulls the book close to her face and continues reading, “Churchill, Hitler, and Lincoln will be footnotes in dusty history books a thousand years from now, and nobody remembers Charles Martel who saved Chri-“ She pauses and gags on the name, trying again with a different inflection. “Chhheeerrryyy…” Colin, sitting in an armchair across from her, says “Pace yourself, Nadja.” There is a jumbo tub of Legos in his lap and he is dropping prices purposefully on the floor. Nadja doll is slumped comfortably in the adjacent loveseat, wearing an identical dress to Nadja’s along with a beige party hat and grinning slyly up at her counterpart.

2a. Bust of Guillermo as he watches the scene, hands tucked behind his back and smiling with affection and satisfaction. Offscreen, Nadja snaps, “Colin Robinson, this is the most terrible book I have ever read!” Colin replies happily, “Yes, it is.” 2b. Repeat. Guillermo’s eyes flick over to the side in surprise as he notices something across the room. Offscreen, Colin continues, “Start that paragraph over, I missed it.” Nadja shrieks in frustration. 2c. Waist up shot of Nandor as he enters the room through the open curtain, fingers fiddling together and beige party hat strapped to his head. He looks up in surprise, meeting Guillermo’s gaze. Offscreen, Nadja exclaims “I am skipping the Jebus-man parts!” Colin replies facetiously, “Don’t worry. Theresa never talks about religion.” 2d. Reverse shot of Guillermo again, smiling hesitantly as he lifts his hand in a cautious wave. Offscreen, Nadja asks, “My broad bear, how is this pronounced?” Laszlo responds “‘Prime Minister’, my love. It is synonymous with ‘load of horseshit’.” Nadja crows, “Ooh, that I like!” 2e. Reverse shot of Nandor, perking up with a small smile and curling his fingers up and down in a shy little wave. 2f. Repeat. Nandor frowns at himself and looks away, hand lowering awkwardly. 2g. Reverse shot from behind Nandor’s hip as he walks further into the room. Colin calls from offscreen, “Nandor! Take your shoes off before you come through!” Nandor snaps back, “I will do no such thing, Colin Robinson, I see the evil bricks you have scattered about!” Colin whines, “C’mon, I’m just a little birthday boy! It’s my birthday!” In the background, Guillermo watches Nandor pass with a nervous, longing gaze, hands twisting together anxiously. The scraps of black energy behind him multiply and swirl around, looking more like a cloak than ever before. /end ID

#wwdits #my familiars ghost #nandermo #dadzlo #what we do in the shadows #what we do in the shadows fx #my art #fanart #image described

[humanpurposes]

Just for a Moment, part iv

Tom Bennett has a habit of climbing through her bedroom window whenever he's in trouble // Main Masterlist

Tom Bennett x OFC

Warnings: 18+, mentions of war and death, friends to lovers, angst, fluff, smut, Tom Bennett's daddy issues, death, mourning/grief

Words: 8100

A/n: This acts as a final part and an epilogue. Also available to read on AO3.

In early June, Lois Bennett knocks on the Wheelans’ front door. She has tears in her bright blue eyes and her hands are shaking.

“It’s our Tom,” she says, when Kitty has sat her down at the kitchen table and made her a cup of strong tea. “He’s missing.”

A hole tears itself in her chest.

His ship had been part of the evacuation at Dunkirk– a triumph, so the headlines say. But that’s the way of the world, she thinks, men lay down their lives, others have their lives taken from them by force, and all the while the press and the politicians declare each one a step towards peace.

“You think Churchill and Hitler give a flying fuck about peace?” her father says one night as he nurses a glass of whisky. “They want victory.”

Every night as she lies in bed, she imagines some new possibility. Tom could have run to safety, sought refuge in the town or gone elsewhere. Maybe he’s just biding his time, maybe he’s on his way back to her.

He can’t be dead. He just can’t be.

He promised he would come home to her.

Monday 2nd September, 1940

She doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to the sirens, that blunt, whirring, wailing noise that sparks a primal fear in her chest. Somehow she always wakes up before they go off, like her instincts can alert her of what’s coming just a second before the noise begins.

The baby starts to scream from the space beside her– since Lois has started working as an ambulance driver, she leaves Vera with them most nights. With shaking hands, Kitty takes her into her arms, keeping her close to her chest as she fixes a woolly hat over her head.

“I’m sorry darling, I know,” she says, pulling the hat over Vera’s ears. She keeps meaning to buy some earmuffs for her, but then, it’s not her baby.

It’s pitch black in the house, it has to be. No lights or candles allowed unless you want the Germans to drop a bomb on your house. Kitty keeps one hand on the wall as she finds the stairs, and hurries down to the kitchen. Mam and dad’s footsteps follow behind her.

They have a routine by now. Dad grabs a coleman and a box of matches, mam grabs a photo from the front room and a basket with bread and blackberry jam, and Kitty holds tight to Vera. Then they file out the back door, into the garden, down the ladder into the shelter. Dad shuts the door, lights the lamp, and finally they can all see each other. 

Then comes the waiting. Some nights dad sings The Fields of Athenry and Kitty joins in. Vera seems to love singing, her eyes go wide and she lays completely still against Kitty, hypnotised by the humming in her chest. 

After a few slices of bread to keep them going, dad lies along the bench and closes his eyes and mam takes Vera into her arms. “Get some rest, love,” she tells Kitty.

How can she? Beyond the shelter the world is nothing but uncertainty, sirens sounding, bombs booming, spotlights and distant fires cutting through the darkness. Only the morning will tell what the true damage is, once the sun starts to rise and the smoke and dust have settled. Houses and livelihoods will be left as rubble. More lives lost, people who didn’t sign up, people who couldn’t, people who thought they might at least be safe in their own homes.

She looks at the photograph mam always brings in from the house. It’s of the four of them, Eddie, Art, Stevie and Kitty, lined up in the front room before the eldest two Wheelans left for the continent, over a year ago now. Eddie and Art look handsome in their uniforms and Stevie is uncharacteristically glum. He hated that he didn’t sign up sooner, he said he didn’t want to look like the one being left behind.

They all came home after Dunkirk, a few precious weeks when the world felt normal again.

Only not quite.

Because she still spent every night alone, and Tom Bennett was still gone.

“Where’s Douglas?”

Kitty snaps her attention to mam, as dad starts to stir on the bench.

“Eh?” he grumbles, “he’ll be along now in a minute, I’m sure.”

They wait. 

And keep waiting.

The bombs dropping on Longsight are louder than they’ve ever been before. Closer than they’ve ever been before. Each thunderous crash rocks the ground and the walls of their shelter.

BOOM– the roof trembles.

BOOM– dust and dirt fall from above them.

“We’ll be alright, here,” dad says, beckoning Kitty to sit between the two of them. 

They huddle together. Kitty curls her knees into her chest like a child and leans into her father’s embrace. Mam has Vera on her lap and places a hand on Kitty’s knee.

BOOM– mam whimpers and Vera is crying again. Dad holds her tighter.

BOOM– Kitty reaches for one of Vera’s tiny hands, and she clutches tightly onto her finger.

Then a final, earsplitting BOOM. The bench jolts beneath them. Kitty clings to her family and squeezes her eyes shut, waiting for something awful to happen.

Only it doesn’t. The bombs become fainter.

They slowly pull away from each other, looking each other in the eyes and nodding, to make sure they’re all alright– as much as they can be.

When the all clear sounds, they make their way back into the house.

Glass litters the floor of the front room. The windows are shattered, so is the glass cabinet with mam’s best china, photographs are cracked. Anything that isn’t broken has been blown back by the force of a hit.

Through the tatters of the curtains and a haze of smoke, a fire burns out on the street. 

Dad calls her name as she runs for the front door and yanks it open, but she can’t bring herself to step past the threshold.

The feels the heat against her face, as number 27 has been reduced to a pile of burning rubble.

The AFS arrives in time to stop dad from digging through the remains in search of Douglas himself.

Everything that belongs to the Bennetts is crushed under brick or goes up in flames. 

It’s like losing Tom all over again. The house where he grew up, the kitchen where Josie used to feed the Bennett and Wheelan kids ginger beer and sandwiches, the bedroom that smelled of cigarette smoke, where he told her he loved her, exist only as memories.

She doesn’t go to bed that night– there are only a few hours until daylight anyway. She sweeps up the glass in the front room and the bedrooms while dad boards up the window frames. Hardly any light reaches inside the house, the air is still thick and hazy with lingering smoke, so they keep the back door open. It airs the place out, but lets in the cold too.

When Kitty answers the door in the morning, Lois’ back is facing her. She’s still in her uniform with her hair in a neat bun and a helmet in her hand. 

“Lois?”

She turns towards Kitty with her lips slightly parted in a passive expression. “Dad’s gone,” she mutters. And once she says it the vacancy melts into grief. “He’s gone,” she cries, “everything’s gone!”

Kitty leads her into the house, but there’s nowhere comfortable to sit. The front room is in tatters and the kitchen is a mess with everything they’ve managed to salvage piled onto the table and chairs. 

“Tea?” Kitty asks quietly, but she feels stupid for asking.

Lois leans against the wall and holds her face in her hand as she cries.

Kitty unsurely places a hand on Lois’ shoulder and tries to think of something to say, but all she can think of is “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

First her mam, then Harry, then Tom, now her dad. She must feel like her life is slipping away.

Mam appears from upstairs, dressed for the factory with Vera in her arms.

Kitty frowns as she hands the baby to her. Lois has lost her father and her home in one night, and her mother hardly looks phased.

“There’s still work to be done, Kitty,” she says, grabbing her coat before she leaves through the front door with her head and shoulders straight.

But this is just war. Men die in trenches and on beaches, bombs fall on cities, tragedy unfolds and they Keep Calm and Carry On.

Kitty carries Vera into the kitchen, but she doesn’t like the sound of her mother crying. Her little face goes red and twists before she makes a sound, then she’s crying too, burying her head into Kitty’s chest and clinging to her arms with those small, pudgy hands.

Lois doesn’t look up, like she can’t hear her daughter crying at all.

Sunday 29th September, 1940

Weeks go by. Douglas is interred with his wife, in the churchyard of St Jospeh’s. Kitty spends her days in the shop and her nights in the shelter, rocking Vera through the air raids, humming lullabies and muttering stories about her brave mam and her fearless uncle Tom.

The Wheelans never used to go to church every week, but mam insists now, anything for their family to be kept safe. As they head home, Kitty looks up the hill, to the gravestone she knows is marked Josie Bennett. She pictures Tom and Lois standing by the graveside at the funeral, twelve years ago now. It doesn’t feel that long ago they were all children.

She walks ahead of her parents– dad’s been having trouble with his knees and it slows him down. Her head is hung, she’s staring at her shoes, the same black pair of shoes she wears everywhere.

What’s she got to walk so fast for anyway? Their house doesn’t feel much like a home anymore. They at least have the windows fixed, but she tends to keep her curtains drawn, because where she used to look out to Tom’s bedroom window, there’s just empty space. 

What’s the point in rushing home to a house that isn’t safe? That’s ghostly and quiet? That has a bomb shelter instead of a garden? What’s the point in carrying on when surviving the night is something they have to hope for? When each day brings a possibility that Eddie, Art or Steive could be missing or dead? What’s the point in clinging onto hope if Tom is truly gone? What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point?

Someone knocks frantically on one of the doors ahead, their door she realises. Her vision is blurry through tears, but she can make out the shape of a tall man, with dirty blond hair.

She blinks.

“Tom?”

His body collides into hers. He hugs her so tightly he crushes her chest but she doesn’t care. He could squeeze the life from her and she wouldn’t care, as long as she gets to hold him. Her hands find their way to grasp at his neck and his hair, pulling him closer and crying silently into his neck.

He doesn’t smell like cigarettes, which she finds unusual. He smells like dirt and sweat, and when he pulls away from her she realises he’s dressed in a khaki blazer, slacks that are too big for him and a mismatching grey shirt. 

“What happened–”

He looks frantic, stroking his hands over her hair and down to cup the sides of her face. “Kitty, I’m sorry, I know it’s been a mad few months but where are they, dad and Lois? Are they safe?”

He doesn’t know. How could he? Lois tried to send a letter. Where would it be now? Collecting dust or sitting at the bottom of a pile of unimportant paperwork in a naval office because there was nowhere for it to go. 

Her eyes well with tears all over again. His face is leaner, the lines of his jaw and cheeks more defined, the left side of his face littered with bruises and scars. She traces her fingers over his cheekbone, and down to the coarse, blond stubble along his jaw.

“Kitty,” he says, shortly, taking her hand away from his face. “Kitty, where are they? Tell me they’re okay.”

She glances over her shoulder. Mam and dad are approaching them now. Their faces mirror each other, confused, horrified, sympathetic.

“Come on,” she mutters, taking Tom’s hand and dragging him with her as she walks solemnly up Slade Grove. 

They stayed joined at the hip as they walk, Kitty curling slightly into his arm, their legs brushing with every stride, bumping into each other and pulling themselves back in.

His hand is warm and his grip is firm, but she can’t stop herself from shivering. As much as she wants to gaze up at him, melt into his embrace again, kiss every inch of his face, she can’t help but feel guilty. He doesn’t ask any more questions, or so much as speak a word, but the concern is written all over him, the clenched jaw and the stiff shoulders that don’t sway as he walks. 

She won’t be the one to tell him, she can’t be.

Lois has been living in a boarding house with Connie since the bomb hit. Mam had offered her a place at their house, but Lois wouldn’t take it. Luckily the house isn’t too far away, and when Lois opens the door, she’s utterly stunned.

Kitty waits outside, with her hands behind her back, leaning against the brick wall. Now her hands and her skin feel cold, so she tugs at her coat, keeping it tight around her body to keep out the autumn chill.

For a few moments she wonders if she hasn’t just made the whole thing up; Tom, waiting outside her door, running into her arms and vanishing again. She rubs her fingertips together. She had felt him as she feels her own skin now, she’s sure of it, the scars, the stubble, the hair on the back of his hand. 

Tom Bennett, her Tom Bennett, though not quite the same man he was, before whatever happened at Dunkirk, before the war, when his place in her life was vague but at least it was consistent. She knows things will be different again when he comes out of that house.

She hears raised voices through the door, the unmistakable, raspy bass of Tom’s anger. Lois shouts back. Then it goes quiet again.

Her heart leaps out of her chest when the door swings open. Tom slams it shut and turns his head around, frantically, before his eyes find her.

He opens his arms and falls into her. 

He lets out a few short gasps for breath as he leans his forehead against her shoulder and wraps his arms tightly around her waist. 

She stays like that for as long as he needs, until he pulls back for breath. His face is red, it only makes his eyes seem brighter.

“Sorry,” he mutters with a sniff, “haven’t even said a proper ‘hello’ to you yet.”

Given the circumstances, she thinks that’s forgivable. She runs her hands over the sides of his face, his ears and his overgrown mop of hair. 

“Hello,” she says.

Tom smiles, taking one of her hands in hiss and placing a peck to her knuckles. “Hello.”

They walk slowly back to Slade Grove. Tom is a little more subdued, but not quite settled.

She can only imagine the thoughts racing through his head. He wasn’t here to save his father, he wasn’t at the funeral, there was nothing he could save from his own home. Time has slipped by, the formalities have been carried out and Tom couldn’t have stopped any of it from happening. 

Mam opens the door, takes one look at Tom, and purses her lips.

Kitty rolls her eyes and pulls Tom into the hallway.

The house has been cleared up a little better recently. They’ve gotten rid of everything that was broken, mended the curtains and the tears in the sofas, only the front room feels empty and impersonal without the china cabinet and the photographs they couldn’t save. 

They walk on through to the kitchen, where dad is sitting by the wireless. He stands to take Tom’s hand. “Sorry for your loss, lad,” he says, giving it a short, firm shake.

“Cheers,” Tom mutters, “good to see you again, Mr Wheelan.”

Kitty makes tea and splits her rations of bacon and eggs between her and Tom. 

“We were part of the evacuation effort from Dunkirk,” Tom explains, looking up to Kitty as she sits beside him. “I don’t remember much, but I woke up in a hospital in Paris, bullets and shrapnel in my chest, and the doctors were telling me the Nazis had taken the city.”

“Bloody hell,” dad sighs.

Mam sits stiffly in her chair and sips her tea.

“They were telling me I had to register as a prisoner of war, but there was this American bloke, a doctor, he told me they were trying out an escape route through Gibraltar.”

“We thought you were dead,” Kitty says. “Lois showed us the telegram. We all thought you were dead.”

She can see Tom’s hand flinch as if to reach out to her, but he stops himself and clenches his fist. He turns back to her parents across the table. “I had to die, officially like, they had some spare bodies and put my name to some poor bastard with 80% burns–”

Mam clears her throat.

“Sorry,” Tom says, trying not to smile. “Had to walk to Spain, then hitched a ride with these two blokes to Gibraltar. Onto Plymouth from there, and then…” he trails off. He has a distant look in his eyes that reminds her of Lois.

“Home?” dad says.

Tom shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah, ‘spose so.”

“Will you stay with Lois?” Kitty asks.

Tom gives her a pointed look.

The raised voices, the slammed door. Maybe not.

“You could stay with us,” she says.

Mam tilts her head. “Now wait a moment–”

“Of course,” dad says, “we’ve got three empty beds upstairs, I’m sure we’ll be able to spare one.”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude,” Tom says, slipping his hand under the table and brushing his fingers over Kitty’s knee. She checks her parents aren’t looking at her and tries not to smile.

Dad holds up his hand in the way that means his decision is final. “Not at all, lad. We’ve known you since you were a childer, I think it’s the least we could do for you now.” 

Lois drops Vera off at 5 o’clock, the usual time. She doesn’t ask about Tom, in fact she hardly looks Kitty in the eye as she hands the baby into her arms and places a bag by her feet. She presses a quick kiss to Vera’s head, and then she’s gone.

Tom is in the front room, splayed out on one of the sofas, flicking an unlit cigarette through his fingers– because if he smoked in the house, mam would actually kill him. He sits up when Kitty walks in with the baby on her hip.

She sits beside him and places Vera on her lap.

Tom takes one of her little hands, and his thumb is almost the size of her palm. “Can’t believe she named the kid after my fucking canary,” he grumbles.

“Tom,” Kitty chides.

“Fuck, sorry– fuck.”

Vera lets out a vague gurgling sound and Kitty giggles. “Say it enough, it might be her first word.”

He chuckles, and gently waves Vera’s arm about. “When do babies usually start talking?”

“Give her a chance, she can’t even sit up yet.”

He strokes his finger along the baby’s cheek, and grins when he coaxes a smile out of her. But it’s like he stops himself, pressing his lips together as his eyes darken.

“What happened with you and Lois?” Kitty asks.

Tom heaves a heavy breath and takes his hand away from Vera. “I lashed out.”

“Christ, Tom.”

“She left dad alone,” he says.

If she didn’t have a baby in her lap, she thinks she could throttle him. “It wasn’t her fault,” Kitty snaps. “She couldn’t have saved him. No one could have. 

He turns to face her with a devastated look in his eyes, the kind of look he makes when he knows she’s right. “How did it happen?”

She shifts Vera in her lap. “We didn’t see, we were in the shelter. We heard the bombs getting closer, and when we heard the all clear…” she blinks a few tears from her eyes. She doesn’t mean to cry, and she feels ridiculous, crying over Tom’s father when he’s sitting beside her.

Tom shifts closer to her, and wipes her cheeks with his thumbs.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, “I’m so sorry.”

Tom nods, running his hand over Vera’s head. “He died thinking I was gone. He didn’t know I was alright.” He draws his tongue between his lips. “But he’ll be happy now, with mum and that.”

“I hope so,” she says.

“And I didn’t leave things on a bad note,” he says, keeping his eyes on Vera, “like you told me. I shook his hand before I left.”

“See? When has my advice ever let you down?” she says, trying to sound as lighthearted as possible through the thick feeling in her throat.

Tom keeps his chin tilted down but he looks up to her. He looks more peaceful than he did this morning. His lips are settled in their natural curve, his brow is soft, and there’s a sadness in his eyes that he won’t allow to become more than a glisten.

“Never has,” he says with a smile.

He shuffles closer to her, cautiously cupping the side of her face like he’s forgotten how.

She instantly leans into him, bringing their foreheads together until she can feel his breath echoing over her lips.

It’s been so long since she’s felt him in the way she wants. She’s hardly given herself a moment to even realise that he’s here, that her months of anguish are finally done because he’s safe, he’s alive, and he still didn’t break his promise to her.

“I missed you,” she whispers. If she speaks any louder she worries her voice might falter.

Tom draws his thumb over her cheek and nudges his nose against hers. “Kitty,” he utters. His lips twitch like he can’t quite find the words he wants.

“I know,” she breathes. “I know.”

He angles his head a little before he leans in closer and presses a soft kiss to her lips, and her heart breaks a hundred times over. She feels his sadness in the tentative movements of his mouth, like he’s still scared, like he’s waiting for something bad to happen.

So she pours all her longing and reassurance into him, as far as she can without speaking or pausing for breath. She holds onto his neck and deepens their kiss with firm lips and a deft tongue. 

She wants to feel him, long after they’ve parted. She wants to remember how he feels, the warmth he gives her, the way his little hums make her feel weightless and set her skin alight.

Now, in this moment, the world feels perfect. 

Until Vera makes a whining noise that means she wants attention.

Kitty pulls away with a short gasp, moving Vera to her hip and she stands and tries to bounce her into content.

“She’s probably hungry,” Kitty says, and nods to the bag Lois dropped off earlier. “Her formula’s in there, bring it into the kitchen.”

Tom does as he’s told and pulls the tub out of the bag. He walks into the corridor first, and as Kitty goes to follow he stops, and turns to her.

“You look good with a baby by the way,” he says with a grin.

She scorns herself for the thrill it sends through her stomach. “Don’t, you’ll give my mam a heart attack.”

At 6 o’clock, they put the lights out for the blackout, with only the fading sunset to light the kitchen as Kitty makes a vegetable stew and spuds for dinner. Thankfully they have some beef stock she can throw in as well, which stops dad from complaining that “just veg doesn’t count as a meal.”

Evenings are tense and uncertain now. They all try to make small talk with each other over dinner, but silences are frequent and imposing. 

Once they’ve eaten, Kitty puts Vera to bed and mam and dad head upstairs shortly after, hoping to get as much sleep as they can before the sirens start.

Tom sits in the lounge, on a sofa by the window, keeping the curtains open just an inch, but all there is to see is black.

“It’s cloudy,” he says as Kitty appears in the doorway in her nightie. “Can’t even see the moon.”

She comes to join him, curling up into his lap and placing her head on his shoulder. “That’s good news for us.”

Tom wraps his arms around her and kisses her head.

The sky stays cloudy and quiet all night, no droning of planes, no sirens. 

All she hears is the sound of his breathing and his lips against her skin as he nuzzles into her neck, kissing and nipping at her skin.

“Did you miss me?” she finds herself saying.

Tom pauses and pulls his face away from her with a furrowed brow. “Do you really think I thought of anything else?” he says. “It was all that got me through, the thought of coming home to you.”

In the morning she wakes with a sliver of sunlight creeping over her eyes, still in Tom’s arms, still clinging to him. 

Lois comes to collect Vera before Kitty leaves for her shift at the shop.

“Is Tom with you?” Lois asks as kitty lowers Vera into the pram.

Kitty hesitates. “Yes,” she says, bracing herself for Lois to storm in and start shouting at him. 

He appears in the doorway, with his head down and his hands in his pockets. 

“I’m going to the churchyard,” Lois says to him, “if you’d like to see mum and dad.”

Tom looks to Kitty and she sighs, overemphasising the movement of her chest as she breathes. Don’t leave it on a bad note.

He looks back to Lois and forces a small smile. “Yeah.”

Tom stays with the Wheelans, sleeping in the boys’ bedroom, in the bed closest to the door. Each night, once Vera and her parents are asleep, Kitty steals into his bedroom and tucks herself into the space beside him.

“It feels funny like this, doesn’t it?” she whispers to him, brushing her lips over his cheek as she throws her arms around him and presses herself into his back.

“What, you being the one sneaking around?” he says, falling onto his back so she can drape herself over his bare chest.

“It’s exciting,” she says, kissing a path along his jaw and down his neck. “I don’t see why you got to have all the fun.”

“Made it worth your while, didn’t I?” She can hear him grinning as she reaches the hollow of his throat. She swipes her tongue over his skin and delights when he suppresses a grunt and grasps at her hips. 

She sits herself up, letting her nightgown hitch up to her hips as she starts to rock against him.

Tom slips a hand between her thighs and smiles when he swipes his thumb over her bare cunt. “Right little whore I’ve turned you into, hmm?”

Kitty braces herself against her chest and nods, as Tom presses into her, dragging from her entrance to her pearl.

“So fucking wet,” he whispers. “All for me?”

“All for you,” she breathes as he starts to circle over her most sensitive spot. “Fuck–”

Tom places a finger to her lips as he keeps working over her. “Shh, you have to be quiet, you know that.”

She nods again, dreamily, moving her hips against him, adding and withdrawing pressure to his movements, treading the line between pleasure and longing. Until she falls apart, shuddering, pressing her lips together tightly and snatching back the one wanton whimper that sounds in her throat.

“Good girl,” Tom snarls. His hips are bucking against her and his jaw is tight. “Good fucking girl.”

She wastes no time slipping his cock free from his briefs and sinks herself down onto his length. He’s done for with only a few rolls of her hips, pulling out before he finishes and spilling himself onto her stomach.

He’s so pretty when he comes, with a silent sigh, his jaw hanging open and his nostrils flaring. Every part of his body tenses, his abs, his neck, his shoulders, as he squeezes his eyes shut tight and throws his head back against the pillows. 

Another perfect moment, she thinks, bright and beautiful, and already slipping away.

He registers with the navy again, and in a few weeks he has his next assignment.

Before he leaves, Kitty insists on getting out Eddie’s camera (even though he’d kill her if he knew he went near it), and takes some photos of Vera for Tom to keep while he’s away.

She takes some of him too. They’re hardly high art– he wouldn’t stop laughing at his own snarky comments, but she manages one ‘serious’ one. 

His mouth is halfway to a smirk, his smile lines apparent around his mouth, but his eyes are dark and almost sinister. He hates it but there’s nothing he can do to stop her from keeping it in the envelope of one of his letters, under her pillow for safekeeping with the rest of the pieces she has of him.

He has leave in the new year, and then he’s back in October, just over two years since he first left.

By then Lois is gone. She had come into the shop, with a letter for Tom and Kitty in the pram. She had said she was going to leave her with Robina.

“Over my dead body you are,” Kitty said before she could think it through. Mam and dad were slightly horrified when she came home early from work with baby Vera in a pram and all of her belongings in a bag.

Vera is a right little character now, a stubborn but happy girl. When Tom comes back to Longsight, he stays with the Wheelans again, and he’s utterly devoted to his niece. When Kitty’s at work, he walks into the shop with Vera in his arms to buy her a bar of Cadbury’s ration chocolate. It’s awful and bitter, but it’s the only kind Vera has known and she treats it like gold dust. 

When Mr Gregory gives Kitty a few days off, she and Tom take her for walks to the park. It’s freezing, but she’s happy enough wrapped up in a coat and a woolly hat, squealing with delight when Tom picks her up and places her on his shoulders.

How remarkable are kids, that they can so easily forget about worries and fears, as long as they have something that keeps them happy.

Even with Douglas and Lois gone, she hopes Tom knows that something still remains.

Time slips away too quickly. Suddenly Tom’s in his uniform again, ditty slung over his shoulder. He takes Vera into his arms and hugs her tightly into his chest. “Be good for your aunty Kitty,” he says, “and take care of her until I get back.”

Vera nods frantically.

He says goodbye to dad like an old friend, and even mam has warmed to him a bit now. Kitty sees the way her mother looks between her and Tom, the knowing nod of her head. It’s acceptance, and she’ll take it.

“Shall we?” Tom says, taking Kitty’s hand and leading her through the door.

It’s a short walk to the bus stop, then a twenty minute ride into the city. She keeps a tight hold of Tom’s hand the entire way.

They settle in seats at the back of the bus. It’s the middle of the day, kids are in school and their parents are at work. Only a few other seats are filled.

“Thank you,” Tom says as the bus pulls away from the stop.

“For what?” Kitty says.

“For being there,” he says, “for looking out for dad when he was around, for taking care of Vera, and me.”

She wants to frown, but can’t bring herself to. “Of course,” she says, stroking her thumb over the back of his hand. “Of course.”

Tom’s been assigned to HMS Prince of Wales, docked at Scapa Flow in Scotland. His train leaves within the hour, and the moment they step off the bus onto the busy streets of Manchester, she feels herself walking slower. 

Tom keeps going, letting her fall behind him slightly, but never letting go of her.

No matter how she tries to drag this out, she cannot stop time altogether and they eventually reach the train station.

She could spend an eternity in his arms, cheek to cheek, breathing along with the rise and fall of his chest. 

“I want to do right by you,” Tom says.

“What do you mean?” she mutters. 

They still hold each other close; she doesn’t think she could bear to look at his face.

“Once the war is over, I’ll save up my wages, get us a place of our own. It’ll just be the two of us.”

“And Vera,” she adds.

“Yeah,” he says, stroking his hand up and down her back. “I’ll get a proper job. You should do that clerical training you’ve always talked about.”

No more sneaking around. No more nights cut short when he has to leave her.

He pulls away from her, keeping his hands on her waist. “I know your parents don’t trust me and your brothers think I’m a no-good-thieving-bastard. But I love you, Kitty, and I don’t know what I’d ever do without you.”

“Once the war is over?” she says.

“As soon as.”

“Tom,” she sighs. She doesn’t want to imagine the possibility, or speak it into existence, but it’s still there. “What if you don’t come back?”

Tom smiles with a small hum. “I’ve died once before, didn’t stop me coming back to you, did it?”

Kitty believes him wholeheartedly.

Thursday 11th December, 1941

Vera’s being fussy about her nap again. No matter how much Kitty tries to hush her, rock her, or hum a few lullabies, she just won’t settle.

Eventually she tries just holding Vera close to her chest, letting the side of her little head nestle just over her heart. She stops crying almost immediately.

“How hard could it be to look after a baby?” she asked herself when she refused to let Lois leave her daughter with Robina Chase. Quite hard, as it turns out. 

The peace doesn’t last for long. Mam’s shoes come clattering down the stairs, the doorbell rings and Vera starts wailing again. 

“Oh come here,” mam coos, taking Vera from Kitty’s arms. “You get the door, I’ll see this one gets her nap, eh?”

Kitty takes a quick breath before she opens the door. Hearing Vera cry makes her want to cry too. 

The postman stands below the front step with a telegram in his hands.

“Catherine,” he says with a polite smile, “haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Been… busy,” she says through Vera’s wails.

The postman hands her the telegram and she reads over the address: Lois Bennett, 27 Slade Grove, Longsight, Manchester, only there’s no house for it to be delivered to, and no Lois to take it.

She feels the tears start to prickle in her eyes as she waves him off, and when she shuts the door she can no longer stand. Suddenly she’s on the floor, her back against the door, unable to catch her breath as hot, stinging tears stream down her face and the telegram crumples under her fist.

She thinks maybe Vera keeps crying and mam calls her name, trying to get her to stand but she can’t. She just… can’t. A sinking feeling washes over her and keeps her pinned down, like the waves pummeling against the shore, over and over again. 

If there’s a telegram addressed to Lois, it can only mean one thing.

Tom.

Monday 24th December, 1945

The bus to Longsight stops outside the shop. She lifts Vera under the arms of her little red coat, onto the pavement, and takes a mittened hand in hers as they head inside. Mr Gregory sold it a few months ago and she doesn’t know the name of the new owners.

The woman behind the counter smiles down at Vera. “Aren’t you a gorgeous little madam?” she coos.

Vera rolls her eyes. “I’m not a baby, I’m five,” she says.

Kitty smiles to herself. “Bottle of sherry and a bag of Yorkshire mix, please,” she says. She crouches down beside Vera and spots a shelf of Christmas wrapping. “Go and pick out some ribbon for the bottle,” she whispers.

She pays for their items and Vera comes back with a bright red ribbon.

“Perfect,” Kitty says, and ties it into a bow around the neck.

As they walk towards Slade Grove, Kitty picks out some red sweets for Vera and a pear drop for herself. The rest she saves for later, finding she now prefers the sweets she never used to eat.

It’s nice and warm inside number 28. A Chorus of Christmas carols plays through the wireless from the kitchen, a backdrop to the bustle of the house. Mam is in the kitchen, making her final preparations for tomorrow’s dinner. Art helps her, albeit, his version of helping is pouring out gin and tonics. Dad, Eddie, Stevie and Connie are sat around the table, engrossed in a game of cards. But everyone stops when Vera comes bounding into the room, Kitty close behind her.

They each take their turns to smother her, and it feels good. Stevie practically jumps up and down as he hugs her, Art hands her a drink and Eddie hugs her the tightest. 

She manages a sip of her drink and places it on the table as she goes to greet her dad, still mulling over his hand of cards as he kisses her cheek. Then she goes to her mam, and hands her the bottle of sherry. 

“I chose the bow!” Vera proclaims proudly.

“And a lovely bow it is!” mam beams, placing the bottle amongst their Christmas stash of whisky, gin and dessert wine. “I have something for you, love,” she says.

“Oh?” Kitty asks as mam disappears into the front room. She comes back with a pot of poinsettias in a red pot, thick green leaves with bursts of blood red petals and golden seeds at their hearts.

“I thought we could put them out, tonight,” mam says.

Kitty opens her mouth to thank her, but she can’t. She nods as mam places her hand on her arm.

Even months after the war has ended, meat is still scarce, especially at this time of year, but mam had saved up her rations for a beautiful joint of beef, which she presents in the centre of the table.

It’s a cheerful occasion. The boys are rowdy, dad is quizzing Connie on her latest gig with her new band, mam is fussing over Vera.

Kitty watches them all. It’s hard not to feel like a ghost, an outlier, simply observing. Sometimes she thinks the others are still too scared to talk to her, in case she bursts into tears or shatters completely. She knows she won’t though. It’s Christmas. She’s supposed to be happy, surrounded by family and people she loves.

“We’re going to see her daddy for dinner tomorrow,” Vera says, stabbing at her boiled carrots.

“What’s Christmas dinner with Robina Chase like?” Stevie asks Kitty.

Her face freezes into a terrified smile to the others’ amusement. “No, it’s fine really,” she says. “Your grandma spoils you rotten, doesn’t she missus?”

Vera nods enthusiastically.

She’s such an easy girl to love. She has bright blue eyes, plump, rosy cheeks and dark brown curls, like her mother’s, kept in pigtails. But while her face is deceptively sweet, she has an awful habit for mischief and stubbornness. Kitty doesn’t mind that though. Girls should be stubborn, she thinks.

Stevie and Connie are expecting now. Dad insists it’s going to be a boy because he saw four magpies in the garden last week. They have a modest little house a few streets away and they’ve made it nice and homely. She’s had tea there and helped Stevie set up a crib for the nursery. 

After they’ve eaten, dad insists they all go to midnight mass, as he does every year, despite Kitty’s insistence that it’s much too late for Vera. Still, she puts her in a pretty blue dress and shiny black leather shoes, and makes Stevie promise he’ll be the one to carry her home.

The church is mostly shadows at night, a few candles and lamps doing their best to fight off the darkness and the cold. Vera hates it. She pulls her woolly hat over her ears, swings her legs and on three occasions asks “is he done talking yet?” She likes the hymns though, even if she doesn’t know the words, mouthing some kind of nonsense that has them all in fits of giggles.

And once it’s over, they don’t follow the path down to the street. Kitty leads the way, with the pot of poinsettias in her hands. Stevie follows behind her, carrying a sleepy Vera in his arms, curled into his chest.

She stops before the grave she first stood by seventeen years ago.

Josie Bennett

Douglas Bennett

and in loving memory of Thomas Bennett, 1919-1941

Kitty crouches down to lay the poinsettias down when Vera gives a little squeak in protest. “I want to do it!” she cries.

“Come on then, missus,” Kitty says.

Stevie lowers Vera and she rubs her tired eyes as she staggers to Kitty. She tries to take the pot but with her mittens she can’t get a good grip on it.

“Together?” Kitty asks.

“Yes please,” Vera says.

They place the flowers down together, making sure they don’t obstruct the names.

“There,” Vera says with a little huff. She reaches out and puts her hand on the stone, brushing over the names of her granny and granddad Bennett, and then she traces over the letters of Tom’s name.

Even seeing it written in stone, she doesn’t think it will ever truly sink in. 

A report said Tom had been in the makeshift aid centre on the main deck of the HMS Prince of Wales, when the final bomb hit. He could have run for the lifeboats. He would have had plenty of time. But he didn’t. He died to save his injured crewmates, men who would have never seen their families again.

For all the times he told her he would come back, for the life he promised they would make together, for all the nights she clung onto hope, she wanted to hate him for throwing it away.

She knows now that she can’t hate him. She could never hate him.

Vera falls back into Kitty’s arms. She catches her and places a gentle kiss to her soft cheek. “They would have loved you, you know,” Kitty says. “They would have loved that you’re brave, and funny, and that you drive everybody round the bend.”

Vera giggles and turns around, flinging her arms around her neck. “I love you, aunty Kitty,” she says.

Kitty hugs her tightly into her chest, with that strange sort of urge to just squeeze her and squeeze her and never let her go. “I love you too,” she whispers, so Vera won’t hear the tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

Vera manages to walk down to the gate before Stevie has to carry her, and by the time they get back to the house, she’s fast asleep.

Kitty takes her in her arms and carries her up to the little box room. Connie and Stevie have the other big bedroom, and Eddie and Art are roughing it on the sofas in the lounge.

She places Vera down in the bed, as gently as she can, and takes off her shoes and coat so she won’t have to sleep in them.

It’s almost like a ritual now, but every time she finds herself in her old bedroom, she unlocks the window and brushes her fingers over the scuff mark on the windowsill. 

Vera stirs slightly when she joins her, curling into Kitty when she places an arm around her. The bed is hardly big enough for the two of them, how she and Tom ever managed to fit seems somewhat miraculous. 

Tom Bennett should have been hers to keep. They should have spent all their savings on a little terraced house or a flat in Manchester, squabbling over the things husbands and wives argue about and making up between the bedsheets. In the winters they would have walked home from the pub through the snow, hand in hand, and huddled for warmth at night. In the summers they would have spent their evenings in the park with a punnet of strawberries, taking the train to the coast on the weekends, to Southport or Blackpool. Maybe they would have had kids of their own. She often pictures a little girl with big blue eyes and a bright smile. They might have named her Josie, after Tom’s mother, and Vera would adore her.

There is so little left of him now, the bomb that hit the Bennett’s house ensured that well enough. She would have liked to have kept his lighter, his wristwatch, maybe some of his shirts.

Instead, she finds other ways to remember him. She reads his letters every night tracing over his terrible handwriting, the imprint of the words in the paper and his fingerprint in a smudge of ink. And she has the photo she took of him on Eddie’s camera. She keeps it framed, proudly on display on the mantle in their flat in the city.

She feels him, in the smell of grass, the flick of a lighter, the smoke from a cigarette, whispered secrets between lovers and Vera Bennett’s laugh, the way she squints her eyes and shows her teeth, just like he did. 

Two decades of friendship and it wasn’t enough time. They should have known sooner, she should have knocked on his door more often and he should have spent less time getting into trouble. She should have told him to join the pacifists while it was still an option, she should have convinced him not to go away, she should have held him tighter and never, never have let him go.

In the end though, she doesn’t linger on the times they weren’t together. She remembers them being children together. She remembers the first night he climbed through her window. She remembers his warmth and his infuriating smirk. She remembers the first time they kissed and the nights they spent together, when she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. She remembers every time he told her he loved her, and she remembers every time she said it back.

She falls asleep to Vera’s fluttering breaths, the sound of the lads and Connie in the front room and the hymns playing on the radio.

The world is cruel and cold, but through it all she finds moments like these, when the tightness in her chest is replaced by something light and hopeful.

She clings to that feeling because tomorrow she’ll wake up surrounded by her family, and Vera’s little face will light up when she sees the gifts they’ve been saving for her. Dinner with Robina Chase will be worth it for the moments Harry will get with his little girl, and in the evening she’ll come home and laugh herself silly over glasses of whisky with her brothers. 

For all the grief she remembers how he loved her. She’ll keep clinging to that feeling because Tom Bennett was hers, if only just for a moment.

Disclaimer: I only skimmed through the episodes that Tom wasn’t in and don’t actually know what Lois’ deal was, so I’m taking some creative liberties here.

Tags (comment to be added to either)

General taglist: @randomdragonfires @jamespotterismydaddy @theoneeyedprince @tsujifreya

Series taglist: @hanula18 @azxulaa @whoknows333

#my fics #tom bennett #tom bennett fanfiction #tom bennett fanfic #world on fire #wof #world on fire bbc #world on fire season 2 #world on fire fanfiction #tom bennett x ofc #tom bennett x female reader #tom bennett x y/n #tom bennet x reader #ewan mitchell #tom bennett smut

[youthereader]

Near Zero part 7

PAIRING: cillian murphy as j. robert oppenheimer x fem!reader

SUMMARY: 1.4k words. Brought on as part of the Manhattan Project, your old physics professor sees you in a new light.

RATING: E; barebacking, oral (f receiving), infidelity, age gap (10+ years), secret relationship

A/N: Although based on real life characters, this is J. Robert Oppenheimer as played by Cillian Murphy, a fictional character, and does not intend to be accurate. This is merely for entertainment. This is the second of two parts in Santa Fe. Essentially filler. Also shoutout to @goldcoastsunset for being such a sweetie about this fic, it helped a lot.

masterlist

You wake, short bursts of light over several seconds – your eyelids fluttering in a sunbeam – sensing Robert beside you. He absently puffs at the lit cigarette between his lips as he reads the newspaper.

You draw in a breath and he glances down at you, small smile forming. He’s naked like you, his bare legs crossed at the ankles under the thin sheet that covers you both.

You sit up, eyeing the newspaper.

“Reading about Naples,” he murmurs.

“Anything good?” you reply, snatching up a matchbook from the side table. You turn it over, snapping off a match to light a cigarette you retrieve from your pack.

“Uprisings.”

You nod, thinking of Mussolini. Then Churchill, then Roosevelt. You suddenly wish you were back in Los Alamos working, but shut your eyes against it, attempting to squash it.

“We can talk about it here,” he adds, and you meet his eye again. “To an extent.”

You hesitate, chewing your lip, cigarette smoke rising. You take a puff, exhaling roughly.

“It would help me sleep at night if we knew how close Heisenberg was to building a bomb.”

Robert gives a single knowing nod. The silence that descends between you is not uncommon, and in this case, not unwelcome. You muse, smoking away until he’s finished reading and folds his newspaper. He taps your bare arm with it, a corner of it brushing your nipple.

“You slept quite peacefully just now,” he murmurs.

“I wonder why.” You twist slightly to put your cigarette out, moving back to give him your full attention, shifting to lie on your side.

His eyes dip to your topless upper half once more, and you love that mischievous streak of his. He brings it out of you, too, with so little effort.

“Robert.”

“Yes, darling?” he says.

“May we fuck again?”

He laughs, looking down, and then puts his own cigarette out. He moves closer to you, hand brushing your bare stomach. He feigns a seriousness.

“Yes, I suppose we could…”

You kiss him for once, not wanting to wait a second longer. He smiles into it, your lip between his two, and then he takes over, his hands deep in your hair as he rolls you onto your back. Your legs spread and you sigh, your hands on his sides, rubbing up and down. Your nails sink into his back when he kisses your neck, warmth spreading to your toes.

You glance down at your naked bodies, the way his cock stands to attention already, so eager. It’s the third time you’ve done this today. You experiment with your nails, digging in, and he grunts, retaliating with a nip to your shoulder.

“Please,” you whisper.

He kisses you hard, kisses you until you pull away to breathe, and he shuffles down your chest, his fingers splayed on your stomach. You meant to beg him to fuck you, but he hasn’t done this today yet, moving down to kiss your mound, thumb you open to lick up the cut of you.

You gasp at the first contact of his mouth, heels digging into the mattress. You think you might combust if you look at him for too long, his eyes swinging up to meet yours. Your plea dies on your lips as he buries his face in your cunt, tongue spearing you as he wraps his arms around your thighs, keeping them open.

“Oh…”

Your hand finds the back of his head, attempting to anchor yourself to the Earth, unable to keep the sounds inside anymore. You moan, remembering to shut your mouth, which seems to only encourage Robert’s talented mouth.

The pleasure rolls over you, a cresting wave, and you come, hips lifting off the bed as your back arches. The sound you make is strangled and muffled behind your hand but undeniable.

He pulls back with slow kisses to your inner thighs, mouth glistening when he ascends to meet you in a rough kiss. The filthiness of it emboldens you, makes you push against him to shove him onto his back, your leg over him in a second.

You pant together, your hand on his cock, pumping him as you share another hasty kiss.

“Darling—”

His words are cut off when you take him to the hilt, his eyes rolling back for a beat before he regains control, his hands vices on your thighs as you begin to ride. He stares up at you as you take everything from him, your hands on his chest, feeling his hammering heart beneath your fingers.

You wish you could do this forever. Heartbreakingly, this might be the last time for a while before you can have this time alone. You lean over him, sharing a breath as your mouths don’t quite shut in filthy kiss after filthy kiss.

You’re hurting yourself, loving this with him. The damage you have done is too much.

You sense his end, sweat on your skin, unsure of whose it is. You pull back enough for him to slip out of you and wrap your hand around him, bringing him off, his arms curled around you. You think of the mess, smelling your shared arousal, knowing it will be there for hours.

Yet it’s not enough. It may never be enough. Your throat tightens at the thought, and you attempt to pull away, but his arms lock you in.

“Stay there,” he whispers. “Stay.”

For the first time, your eyes sting with emotion. What stirs inside you can’t be let free, not now. It would ruin this weekend with him. You shake your head, before melting back into a kiss you share.

-

Robert plays with his empty pipe on the tablecloth, nodding every so often as a fellow scientist talks. Your own conversation with Feynman is quite alike. You are both struggling to concentrate.

You cut Feynman off suddenly, glancing up at a waiter that passes by the table.

“Excuse me, may I have another drink?”

The waiter nods at your empty martini glass and then departs, your focus back on Feynman.

He snorts. “They’re weak.”

“Compared to Los Alamos, of course,” you reply with a smirk. “One day someone’s going to go blind in that town from all the homemade gin.”

Feynman gives a shrug, before resuming his long-winded tale. You half listen, watching Robert. He pauses and looks your way, your eyes meeting.

“Yes,” he says absently. “But it’s getting quite late. I should head off soon.”

He only elaborates once your martini arrives, and the waiter is out of earshot. You pick up your drink, taking a steady gulp.

“Have another one, Oppie,” Feynman says.

Robert gives a little shake of his head, eyes on you again. He gives the table a short tap with his pipe.

“I’m off to Chicago in the morning.”

Your whole night has been like this, dreading the end, though it hadn’t been that entertaining. Everyone was sluggish at dinner, despite there being such a fuss about it, leading up to this visit. Santa Fe is wonderful, but your mind is elsewhere.

“May I walk you back to the hotel?” Robert asks, pulling you back from your reverie.

“Yes,” you say, and pick up your drink, draining it.

You’re past caring about whether or not there’s an excuse for Robert walking you back to the hotel. Feynman and the others near your part of the table seem to have moved on as well, by how they settle back into conversations. You rise from your chair, following Robert out.

Being invisible, being less than to some of these men, works out for you.

-

Robert takes your hand when you’re on your floor. He walks you back to your room, only letting you go when you unlock the door, both of you slipping inside. He doesn’t remove his coat, lingering by the door.

There’s a mirror beside you, above the dish you place your hotel key in with a clatter. Your eyes meet Robert’s mirror self and he looks sadder.

He moves to your side, so you face the mirror together. He then takes off his hat, placing it on your head, his arm around your shoulders.

“Look at us,” he says.

You both smile at one another. You know you miss one another already by the way his smile doesn’t quite meet his eyes. He is somewhere else, like you, endlessly thinking.

“Look at us,” you whisper, an echo.

-

It is easy to be busy once you return to Los Alamos. You bristle when Teller argues with someone with abandon and you hunch over your desk with a perpetual cigarette, jittery with too much bad coffee.

You’re lonely, but you’re often too tired to notice it. A couple days after Santa Fe, you tear open a letter marked from your mother, but recognise the writing easily as Robert’s.

You are in my dreams.

Ooh boy. I'm gearing you up for future angst. It obviously gets much worse. But hopefully you still stick with this story! Let me know if you enjoyed it. Reblogs and replies really encourage me. 🥺❤️

Taglist: @indulgence-be-thy-name @forgottenpeakywriter (hmu if you'd like to be added)

#j robert oppenheimer #near zero #cillian murphy #cillian murphy fanfiction #fem reader #cillian murphy x reader #oppenheimer x reader #oppenheimer x y/n

[padfootdaredmetoo]

Hi! How are you doing?

I've never made inquiries before. Could you write about the Thomas' daughter's allergy to tobacco? A strong cough and watery eyes when someone nearby smokes, which began from the first days of her life

I hope it won't bother you. Love your writing💗

Dear Anon,

You could never bother me love! Thank you for saying you love my stuff <3 hopefully, you enjoy this too! Thanks for writing in and for waiting!

Warnings: Mentions of difficult birth, Lizzie being ill, lots of tension, happy ending peaky related themes.

Allergies

He looked down at the little bundle of blankets. A small pudgy ball protruded from the top of it and Thomas wondered how something could look so new and yet so old at the same time. She was a darling little girl who had a shocking resemblance to a red, puffy, Whinston Churchill. Then he remembered what John, Ada, and Finn had looked like when they were born. Just as small and wrinkled. Thinking of where she had just come from it made sense.

Panic shot through him as he thought about Lizzie. He pushed those emotions down and tried to focus on his daughter. Again the fear of knowing she might be the only thing left of his family caused his stomach to lurch. Her eyes opened and she glared up at him. 

“You look squished, but you're still the prettiest girl I have ever seen.” He whispered. She seemed to take comfort in his voice and he realized he should probably pick her up and hold her. Poor thing should be stuck to her mother’s side. He picked her up and enjoyed the way she wiggled against him. 

She had no idea who her father was, only that he was her father and that she was safe there. For a moment Thomas was grateful he had been one of the older boys in the family. Being with children was not difficult for him. 

He walked over the windows and looked out at the dark sky. 

“Your mum is a tough lady, eh? Don't have to worry, she’ll come back.” He said in a low voice, was it to comfort the baby or himself, he wasn't sure. Feeling the heaviness in his heart threaten to take over he reached into his pocket and lit a cigarette with his free hand. 

He took a long drag feeling the smoke pull him together. He blew the smoke over his shoulder away from the baby. 

Looking back outside he heard a little cough. He looked down at her and was engulfed with that mixed feeling of pity and the urge to laugh. 

Her little red face was even redder and her eyes were glassy as she started to cough. Thomas wasn't sure what had caused it for a half second till he brought the cigarette back to his lips to hold her with both hands. 

“Fuck.” He said in a defeated tone. To confirm his suspicion he blew a small puff closer to her only for her to erupt into a coughing fit which she started to fight to breathe. Panic shot through him knowing all too well what that feeling felt like. Before flashes of the war could break into his mind he quickly put the cigarette out and brought her over to the window opening it. He rocked her back and forth and eventually, she settled against his chest. 

No smoke. He thought about how often a cloud of smoke followed him. It was as apart of him as his own shadow. How on earth was he to manage this? Remembering how scary the sound of her breathing was he have to figure it out. 

He’d promised Lizzie and Pol no more liquor but now he’d have to ditch smoking too. A flare of frustration ran through him. The whole situation was a big mess from day one. His thoughts became harsh and only broke when he looked down at the center of all his problems. 

The center of all his problems, and his entire universe. Guilt poured over him like cold water. It had been a long and uncertain birth, and now Lizzie was somewhere broken. 

Broken and unreachable. She was in the hands of the doctors now. He held his little daughter closely and watched her eyes flutter as he said a prayer for his new wife. 

______________________

Polly was irritated. She wasn't asked to attend the birth which was fine, but she wasn't sure how much support Lizzie would have gotten from Thomas and the hospital staff. 

Hospitals were places for death and sickness, not for bringing life into the world. Too many lost souls wandering around. She sighed and gave up waiting. Picking up the phone she dialed the hospital. 

The news she expected came through clearly over the receiver. Close family was now able to come and visit, except they clearly didn't think to call her to tell her everyone was okay. 

Polly threw on her coat and stepped out in the brisk early morning air. Arriving at the room and looking around she could see that everything was certainly not okay. 

Thomas’s hair was striking up from his fingers running through it. He was pacing the messy room with a small bundle attached to his shoulder. Coming into the room she walked up behind him and saw the dark blue eyes of her niece peering over his shoulder. 

Thomas turned and almost walked right into her jumping out of his skin. No one had ever been able to sneak up on him before. She wasn't sure what to say till she realized that Lizzie, nor her things, were in the room. Her heart wrenched but seeing the fright in Tom’s eyes she pulled herself together. 

“Fuck sake scared the life out of me.” He grumbled quietly.

“Sorry, love.” She said kindly, in a tone she hadn't used since he was small. “Do you want me to take her for a moment? Have you eaten?” She started fussing over him and was grateful that he had accepted her help. 

She took her niece and tears prickled in her eyes. 

“Lizzie is going to be alright.” His voice was tight. “She’s going to be in recovery for a few days though. When she wakes up we can take her over.” He looked out the window to avoid Polly’s gaze. 

“Are you alright?” She asked hesitantly not wanting him to snap in front of the baby. 

“She’s too small, she won't take a bottle but she’s hungry, and she’s allergic to smoke.” The last part caused the edges of her mouth to curl. The image of Thomas being up all night without drinking or smoking was not something she thought would ever be a reality. 

“Pol Im serious she gets really ill - her lungs just” His voice caught again and he went back to staring out the window. 

“I’m not laughing.” She said calmly. “I’ll have some people go the house to air the place out.” This seemed to make him relax a little. 

Just then she started to cry out, Thomas automatically reached out for her and then relaxed when Polly waved him off. Poor thing was hungry and Pol was grateful she came out as round as she did. She had enough on her to wait a while for Lizzie’s milk to come in. 

She brought the bottle to her lip and laughed as she stopped crying to glare up at her. 

“You look just like your da.” The baby’s face stayed just as stony when a nurse came through to tell them that Lizzie was up and requesting them. 

She followed Thomas anxious to look over Lizzie and make sure they had done a good job with her. 

Her dark eyes greeted them. Her face was puckered from an argument and Thomas had never been happier to see someone in his life, this Polly was sure of. 

She looked shocked, eyes wide as Thomas bent down to hold her tightly. She gave Polly a look and it took a lot to keep from laughing again. 

“Here she is now.” Pol brought the babe over and moved to the chair in the far corner of the room. She said a prayer thankful that their little family had made it through the night. Her prayer was interrupted by Lizzie's voice.

“What do you mean I can’t smoke?!” Lizzie hissed at Thomas and Pol got worried they would scare the babe. “Bring the doctor in I’m going to cut him myself.” 

“It’s not you, it’s her. She’s allergic. Gets really sick - Her lungs - You can’t - she just-” His voice was wavering again and Pol was relieved that Lizzie registered that he was scared for the little girl. 

“Oh, she was ill?” Now Lizzie’s voice was worried.  

“Yeah, but I caught it quickly.” He reassured her. “Pol is going to get people to clean the house and air it out.” 

“Oh, no. Tom.” Her voice got high and she clutched the little girl tightly. “It must have been a horrible night.” 

“No, no it was nice. She’s excellent company. Just glad you are alright.” He put on a brave face and Pol had hope that this experience would only bring them closer. 

She had cleaners go through the house and brought them food. Surprised that Thomas took the time off work to stay by Lizzie for her recovery. The family struggled at first but adapted to smoking outside. 

It was a curse till she was a teenager, in which Tommy rejoiced knowing it kept her far away from pubs, parties, and nightlife. Not to mention if she had friends over to play or for sleepovers they had to come to their smoke-free house. If a boy wanted to take her out for dinner, they ended up eating alone in the kitchen at the house as restaurants were no better than pubs. 

(Unfortunately, the only boy in all of England that didn’t smoke happened to be the son of Alfie Solomons)

(Hehehehe can’t help but sneak that pairing into everything I write)

Hope you enjoyed it love! <3

#peaky blinders #tommy shelby #peaky blinders imagine #thomas shelby imagine #tommy shelby imagine #thomas shelby #lizzie stark #lizzie shelby #peaky bliners #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders fic #peaky blinders request #Shelby family

[sneakyblinders]

The Shelby's

A/N: another installment of Tommy x Bee aka tommy & his darling wife!au. the Shelbys. hope you all are doing well! <;3 warnings: jealous tommy, sexual references, language, not canon, alluding to smut but no smut. 5.5k words. i take no credit for the gif!

1934

Tommy sat in his office at the betting shop one afternoon, sifting through paperwork. It never seemed to end these days, constant influx of papers from Parliament, things Mr. Churchill wanted his opinion on, speeches to prepare, bills to pay. It never ended. The phone call was a welcome distraction. 

“Mr. Shelby? This is Harold Archer, from London,” the voice on the other end of the line said. Tommy could faintly recognize the man's voice. He was an up and coming politician in London society, someone Tommy did not really wish to associate with, but understood it was a necessary evil he would one day have to confront. 

“Mr. Archer, what can I do for you?” Tommy asked. 

“I wanted to extend my sincerest apologies to you and your wife, Mr. Shelby,” the man began. “We are hosting a dinner and luncheon at our London home. I’m afraid a stack of invitations was missed by our mail carrier and the invitations didn’t get out to a few folks, and unfortunately yours was in that stack,” the man said. Tommy rolled his eyes, fishing a cigarette out of his jacket pocket. “My wife and I would love for you and Mrs. Shelby to attend. It’s next Saturday evening into Sunday afternoon. Accommodations will be provided, of course.” The man droned on. 

“I don’t involve my wife with business, Mr. Archer,” Tommy said, trying to get the both of them out of this predicament. 

“All of the wives have been invited, Mr. Shelby, my wife does enjoy getting to know them all–more of a social than political arrangement if you will. I am sure your wife would enjoy some time away from your children, no?” Tommy could hear the man chuckle. 

“No,” Tommy sighed. “She quite enjoys being a mother,” Tommy could hear Mr. Archer’s breath hitch on the other end of the phone. “But I will discuss it with her and let you know by tomorrow.”

That night, after the children had been kissed goodnight, all monsters scared away from under the bed and in the closets, Tommy breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, a moment with her alone. 

Bee curled up next to him on the balcony off their bedroom, on some of the wicker furniture he’d just bought for out there. The spring evening had been warm, the warmth fading with the setting sun. 

He wrapped an arm around Bee’s shoulders and she laid her legs over his lap. He absentmindedly rubbed her calf with his free hand, both of them sitting and watching the horses roam the back pasture in silence. Some of the groundsmen returned to their cabins for the evening after a grueling day of cleaning the dreaded pool house. The days were getting progressively warmer, and despite the cold snaps that were so prone to happening this time of year, the children were getting rather tired of being in the house all day. They had just constructed toy boats with Simmons and were eager to send them on their maiden voyage. So–Tommy had instructed the groundsmen to prep the pool. 

Tommy cherished moments like this. Not much about his life, his work was quiet. But he always knew he could rely on Bee for moments of solitude and peace. To be comfortable with the silence—not feeling the need to fill the void. 

His moment of peace shattered when he remembered—the dreaded dinner. 

“What’s on your mind?” His wife asks, noticing his jaw clenching suddenly. 

He sighed, shaking his head. “This man from London, Harold Archer,” he rolled his eyes. “Invited us for a dinner and luncheon next Friday into Saturday at his London home. Some big political to-do,” Tommy explained, shifting his attention from her one calf to the other. 

“Both of us?” She asks, ears perking. 

“Yes,” he sighed. 

“Why do you not sound excited about that?”  

“You know I don’t like to involve you in business, Darling,” he tells you. 

“Yes, but, maybe it would do me some good to get to know some of these people. Get to know their wives,” Bee sighs. “I do get lonely, Thomas.” 

He furrows his brow. “You have Sara, and Frances, and the children. And me.” 

Bee rolls her eyes. “Thomas, it’s not the same as having a friend.” 

“I’m not your friend?” He asks playfully. 

“You are my greatest friend, my love, but who can I complain about you to?” She jokes, a cheeky smile on her face. 

He brings a dramatic hand to his chest, gripping his heart. “I am hurt, my love,” he tells her playfully. “I am practically perfect, what in bloody hell would you have to complain about?” 

She leans over and playfully swats at his chest, laughter rumbling deep in his chest as she rests her head on his shoulder. Their whole lives together, he had never understood Bee’s loneliness. He told her nearly every chance he could that she was all he needed in this world. Her heart had nearly broken when she couldn’t return the sentiment. 

Of course, he was all she’d ever need romantically. But socially, she knew she needed friends. Women who understood. But no one really understood. Her or Tommy. Tommy unfortunately had cost Bee most of the friendships she had carried from adolescence into adulthood– and even her family did not understand their deep and unending love for one another, and many friends were either envious or afraid–too afraid to get close. 

“Do you really want to go?” He asked, hands covering hers, thumb rubbing gentle circles into the back of her hand.

“I think it might be nice to go,” she tells him, and he realizes he’s lost the battle when he hears that tone of longing in her voice. She looks up at him, and he melts into her eyes. 

“Alright, my love. I will phone Mr. Archer tomorrow and tell him that we will be there.”

“Oh, let me call his wife, please!” She says, looking at him, excitement filling her eyes.

And when she looks at him with those eyes—he cannot deny her anything. 

The next afternoon Bee phones Mrs. Archer. Her name is Laurel. “Yes, this is Mrs. Shelby,” she says into the phone. 

“Oh, my dear I am so sorry your invitation did not get in the mail! I feel so horrible for that oversight. I do hope you’ll forgive me,” she gushes into the phone. 

“It’s no trouble, I assure you. Thomas and I will be there for your dinner and luncheon, we are looking forward to it,” Bee tells her, beginning to think of what she should wear. 

“Oh, splendid! We will have the rooms ready, don’t worry about a thing,” she says cheerily. 

“Mrs. Archer, don’t trouble yourself, separate rooms won’t be necessary,” Bee tell her. 

“Don’t be silly, dear, it’s no bother. Looking forward to seeing you!” 

And she hung up. 

Simmons drove Bee and Thomas to the Archer’s London mansion. “No later than three, Simmons, not a second later,” Tommy told Simmons in regards to their pick up time the next day.

“Yes, Mr. Shelby, I’ll be here by three.” Simmons promised, throwing Bee a smile when Tommy’s back was turned. She smiled, shaking her head in annoyance at her husband. 

The butler retrieved their bags from the back of the car, the London home bustling with people. Bee’s heart fluttered in her chest, not used to these sorts of events–nervous that somehow she’d embarrass herself, or worse, embarrass Tommy. 

He held his arm out to her and she took it as the two of them were escorted into the house. 

 The Archer’s were waiting in their foyer, greeting guests as they arrived. “Mr. and Mrs. Shelby!” Mr. Archer beamed. He was an older man, about sixty, bald, with a gray mustache that reminded Bee of Arthur’s. Mrs. Archer had beautiful white hair and the most radiant skin Bee had ever seen. Her eyes were bright. “We are so pleased to have you, welcome to our home.” 

“Thank you,” Bee and Tommy say in unison. Tommy clears his throat, slightly embarrassed. 

“Right this way to your rooms,” Mrs. Archer said cheerily. Tommy shot Bee a confused look, but she was so busy taking in the beauty of this London house that she didn’t catch it. The hallways were ornately decorated, gilded frames of children, grandchildren, horses, dogs, prizes, meetings with US Senators, Presidents, prominent British families decorated the halls. Bee couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy at how active Mrs. Archer was with her husband's dealings–all the connections she had. Mrs. Archer led the two of them down a hallway, stopping in front of a dark blue door. “Mrs. Shelby, this is your room,” she said delicately, opening the door. “And Mr. Shelby, your room is right across the hall. I’ll have your things brought around directly.”

Not even five minutes into this trip and Tommy had already had enough. “My wife had told you that two rooms won’t be necessary, and that is still the case. One room will be adequate for the two of us,” he said, stepping into the room Mrs. Archer had deemed Bee’s. 

Bee blushed, throwing the woman an apologetic smile. “Oh,” Mrs. Archer said, surprised. “I am sorry, Mr. Shelby, I–most couples aren’t that way,” she said, laughing awkwardly.  

“Well,” Tommy said from inside the room, eyeing the vaulted ceilings and the huge windows. “We are that way.” 

Bee blushed again, embarrassed. “I am sorry, Mrs. Archer, we are very grateful for your hospitality. We’re just a little tired from the trip,” She tried to come up with an additional excuse to give for her husband's poor manners, but, truth be told, that was her husband most of the time. Bee was practically the only one he was never harsh to, and it was something his family reminded her of often, and with much disdain.

“I understand, dear. I will leave you to rest for the evening. Dinner is at seven,” she told them, just as the valet brought the bags to the room. 

“I’ll take them,” Tommy said, taking their suitcases from the awkward valet. The valet stood there, eyes wide, hands at his side. “That’ll be all.” 

Bee stood by the door as the valet awkwardly left, wringing her hands together. Tommy sat on the edge of the bed and pulled out a cigarette, the tension in his shoulders and jaw visible. “Thomas, are you okay?” She asks, sitting next to him on the bed. 

He sighed, bringing the lit cigarette to his lips, tossing his lighter on the bed. “I hate these sorts of things. Hate being in these big crowds of people. Not being able to speak freely. I never feel like I fit in.” he admitted. 

He had struggled with a lack of acceptance in his life, in general. From his upbringing and his heritage to his unconventional line of work, a common theme in his life was feeling isolated. Alone. A feeling he had grown accustomed to–a feeling he had allowed to make itself home in his soul, only making room for Bee and his children when the time came. 

Bee rubbed gentle circles into his back. He fell backwards on the bed with a dramatic thump. The coils in the mattress squeaked under his weight. Bee giggled, climbing on top of him, pressing kisses to his forehead, nose, cheeks. “I know right where you fit, Thomas,” she tells him cheekily, earning a naughty smirk from him. 

“And where is that, Mrs. Shelby?” he asks, hands grabbing onto her bum and squeezing, making her yelp in surprise. 

“Right here!” she giggles, putting a hand against her heart. 

He let out a thoughtful groan. “I can think of another few places right where I fit, Darling. Shall I show you?” he asked, rolling the two of them so he was on top of her, hips pressing against her. 

“Oh, please do,” she nearly moans as he presses a kiss to her lips. 

That evening at six thirty, some ladies maids and butlers were sent around to the rooms. There was a knock on their door as Tommy zipped the back of Bee’s dress. A maid let out a startled cry, seeing the two of them in the room together. “Mr. and Mrs. Shelby, I am sorry!” she said, averting her eyes from Bee’s exposed back. 

“Oh, it’s no bother,” Bee tells her sweetly as Tommy glides the zipper the rest of the way up, smoothing the fabric over her shoulders gently. The back of the dress dipped down to the middle of her back, revealing the T M S Bee had inked into her shoulder blade a year ago. 

The maid gasped at the artwork that adorned her body as Tommy pressed a kiss to her back. “May we be of assistance?” he asked, voice gravely with desire; not turning around, but rather pressing more kisses to the exposed skin of Bee’s shoulders, the back of her neck. 

“Just here to help Mrs. Shelby dress, that’s all,” the maid said nervously, unable to divert her eyes from the scene unfolding in front of her. 

“I assure you, Mrs. Shelby is in capable hands,” Tommy rasped, subtly dragging his tongue over the top of her shoulder. 

“That will be all, thank you,” Bee manages to croak out as Tommy nibbles at the back of her neck. The maid scurries out of the room, closing the door softly. “Thomas, you’re cruel,” she chastises him as he turns to face the two of them in the vanity mirror. 

He eyes her in the mirror, hands roaming over the front of her dress, cupping, kneading, caressing. “How?” he asked, hands moving to her back, fingers tracing his initials, inked into her skin. 

“Practically seducing me in front of the staff,” Bee blushes, reaching into her jewelry case to retrieve Tommy’s cufflinks. 

His eyes are dark as he eyes her, moving back towards him to fasten the cufflinks on his shirt. “Anyone would enjoy watching that,” he tells her, voice deep with lust. “Listening to those fucking sounds you make,” he shakes his head slowly, biting his lip, watching her trying to focus on the task at hand. “You drive me wild,” he whispers, gazing at her–a mixture of lust and adoration in his eyes. 

“Thomas, please, you’re making me warm,” she stifled a giggle, an embarrassed smile on her face, cheeks flushing red under his gaze. 

“You’re always warm, Darling,” he tells her. 

“What’s gotten into you?” she giggled, finishing his other cufflink. 

He walks over to his suitcase, where he retrieves a dark black box. “A man can’t show his wife how in love with her he still is? Even after all this time?” He hides the box behind his back. “Close your eyes,” he instructs. 

She turns away from him and closes her eyes, giggling. “Thomas, what’d we talk about?” 

He smirks, opening the box. “You said no more diamonds, that you had far too many than you could ever wear,” he recounts. 

“Yes,” Bee agreed. 

“Good thing I listen, hm?” he says, placing the three strand pearl necklace around her neck and fastening it in the back. “Open,” he instructs, and she does, fingers moving to touch the pearls. 

“Thomas,” she gasps. “Thomas Shelby!” she turns around to face him, a smug smile on his face. “It’s too much, Thomas,” she tells him, fingers still running over the smooth surface of the pearls. “Thank you.” 

He wraps his arms around her from behind, chin resting on her shoulder, eyeing the two of them in the mirror. “Anything for you, my angel.” 

And she knew he meant it. 

The strands of pearls complimented the dark peach of her dress beautifully, which set off her hair and skin tone in the most enchanting way. It wasn’t a long necklace, the strands laying elegantly at the top of her collarbones. 

“You look stunning,” he tells her, peeling himself away from her for a moment to pull his tuxedo jacket over his shoulders, and slide his signet ring on his pinky; his wedding band a staple he never removed. 

“You look dashing, Mr. Shelby,” she teases him and he rolls his eyes. “You outshine me, my Darling.”

His sweet words bring to remembrance the first time he’d danced with her, all those years ago, at her grandfather's birthday party. That he had crashed. 

“After all this time, hm?” she smiles, straightening his bowtie. 

“After all this time,” he agrees. 

The dinner bell rings, and they both let out a sigh. 

The Shelby’s make their way down the hall, a housemaid guiding them through the various passages and hallways, to a large, open room. “Welcome to cocktail hour, Mr. and Mrs. Shelby,” the maid smiles sweetly at them, eyes lingering on Tommy. 

“Thank you,” Bee tells her, Tommys hand moving to the small of her back, straightening his posture and widening his shoulders. The maid bats her eyelashes at Tommy, who paid her no mind, eyes canvassing the room. “Are you alright, love?” Bee whispers to her husband, who immediately tensed upon entering the room. 

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Just hate these fucking things,” he said. 

The women seemed to be gathered on one side of the room, the men on the other. “I didn’t know there’d be a cocktail hour,” Bee said, pressing her lips together. 

“Let’s go, Darling,” Tommy said as a waiter walked past with a tray of champagne. Tommy grabbed two glasses, handing his wife one. 

A man approached Tommy–a man about his age, maybe slightly younger. “Mr. Shelby!” he greets enthusiastically. 

“Yes?” Tommy replies, unsure of who this man is, or how he knows of him. 

“I’m Hiram Quincy from Manchester,” he introduced himself, eyes sparkling at Bee. 

“Oh, yes, I recall seeing you at my oath ceremony,” Tommy told him dully. Bee stifled a giggle. She understood why Thomas got into politics, but sweet-talking with other members of the political realm was not his strong suit. He loathed small talk. Would rather be silent for hours than talk about the weather, tell others menial details about his life, his children, and would rather someone throw all his cigarettes into the punch bowl than divulge information about his wife. She was his. 

“Mrs. Shelby!” Laurel Archer spotted her from across the room, and waved her over. Bee gave Tommy an apologetic look before walking over to the crowd of women. 

Hiram turned towards Tommy, hands in his pockets, eyeing Bee as she walked away. “What special occasion is this that Thomas Shelby allows his wife to grace us all with her presence?” 

Tommy watches as the man's eyes devour his wife, eyes moving up and down her frame. “What the fuck did you just say?” Tommy asked, eyes narrowing at the man. 

Hiram pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. “It’s no fucking secret, mate,” he chuckled, the cigarette between his lips. “You keep her locked up in the Shelby fucking Manor for fear of another man getting his sights on her and,” he shook his head, eyeing Bee again. “I can fucking see why,” he lit the cigarette. “She’s a a fucking dream.”

Tommy’s wrath was seconds from spilling over. He angled his body towards Hiram, his back to his wife. “Do you want to fuck my wife, Mr. Quincy?” he asked. The man's eyes widened. Until that moment, Tommy didn’t realize how beady they were. 

Bee had her back turned, Tommy’s initials on her skin visible. “You marked her, hm?” Hiram asked, raising his eyebrows at Tommy. 

Tommy raised his eyebrows, lighting a cigarette of his own. “She got it for our anniversary last year, actually,” 

“How long have you been married to that siren of a woman, Mr. Shelby?” 

Tommy could hear the blood furiously pulsing through his body. “Fourteen years.” 

“Lucky fucking man,” Hiram ground out. Tommy protectively kept an eye on his wife. It appeared she was having a good time, speaking with the other women. 

“The best I can do is offer for you to watch from a chair in the corner while I fuck her,” Tommy lowly told the man. “But I’ll have to take your eyes after we’re finished. No one looks at my wife that way, Mr. Quincy.” 

Hiram shot Tommy a cold look as Tommy walked away. 

Bee was in comfortable conversation with the women around her. Mary, the wife of an MP from Liverpool had asked dozens of questions about their children. She had beamed with excitement when she had told her of the twins. 

“Oh, I’m sure they’re just darlings!” she gushed. 

“They are. To me anyway,” she chuckled. “The nanny may have a different opinion.” 

A young wife, Madeline, whose husband was an MP from Bedford had hung on every word she said. She had complimented nearly everything Bee wore, and gasped when she saw her tattoo. It was something Bee was proud of–something she’d never in a million years would have thought about before Tommy. But he could be so possessive sometimes. She got it to remind him that no matter what happened, no matter where life took them–she would always be his. 

Bee had felt Tommy’s eyes on her all throughout the cocktail hour, protectively keeping watch. She’d caught his eye a few times, and had gently smiled across the room at one another. 

“Will you sit next to me during dinner, Mrs. Shelby?” Madeline asked. 

Bee smiled gently at her. “Of course, that would be lovely.” 

The dinner bell finally rang and Tommy let out a sigh of relief, anxious to be near his wife again. He came alongside her, a hand on the small of her back, already feeling more grounded from just a simple touch. “Madeline,” Bee says sweetly to the young woman standing rather close to them. “This is my husband, Thomas,” Tommy meets the young woman's eyes and is stunned by how incredibly young she is. Maybe nineteen. “Madeline is Mr. Stetfordshire’s wife, from Bedford,'' Bee tells him as he shakes her hand. 

“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Stetfordshire,” Tommy says. 

“Your wife is wonderful, she’s kept me company this evening. I’m not too good at these social things, you see,” she said bashfully as her husband, easily thirty years her senior approached her. 

“Aah!” the man said, “Shelby! I see you’ve met my wife,” the man said, an arm around his wife’s waist. 

“Yes, Hugh,” Tommy said. “This is my wife, Bee,” Tommy introduced the two of them. 

“We have all heard many things about Mrs. Shelby,” the man said, smirking at Tommy, who fought back a flush that crept up his neck. 

“We’ll sit next to them tonight,” Madeline said, flashing her husband a pleading look. 

“Of course, of course,” her husband said, giving her a sympathetic look. 

The first course went smoothly enough, Tommy’s hand on Bee’s thigh whenever he wasn’t actively engaged in eating his dinner. It was something she’d gotten used to, really. Him always touching her, always wanting to be near–to know she was there. To feel that she was there, even though he could see her. 

“Mr. Shelby,” Hiram bellowed from another end of the table they were seated at. “Tell us of your background, what interested you in politics.” 

Tommy took a sip of his whiskey and cleared his throat. “I am Romani,” he started off with, earning several raised eyebrows from around the table. “We grew up very poor, being travelers, and I would like to see the world a little better–different for those after me who are in situations similar to the one I grew up in,” he said truthfully, one of the more transparent things he’d said in front of a group of people. That much was true, Bee knew, and her heart softened at the goodness that lived in this man. This man she loves–this man she would do anything for.  

Hiram chuckled. “A Gypsy, hm? Bee, really, what did you see in him?” 

She narrowed her eyes at him. “He’s a war veteran,” she says, tone firm. “He was a Sergeant Major in the tunnels in France. He was at the Somme and Mons,” she told them, their eyes flashing sympathetic. “He saved me from being raped not long after we first met. He’s a wonderful father. A protective brother and uncle. There’s a lot I see in him. Not that it’s any of your business, but if you’re interested I could easily spend hours telling all of you of what I see in Thomas Shelby.” 

Tommy’s eyes dropped to his hands in his lap, a wave of emotion overtaking him. The pride she had in him. The pride that she had to be his. Unashamedly and unabashedly. Bee literally wore him on her body and would scream it from the rooftops of Buckingham Palace that he was yours if he asked her to. He reached for her hand, smiling softly at her as the table fell silent, Hiram’s face falling. 

Anger poured from Bee–anger at this assumption that her husband wasn’t worthy of love. Wasn’t worthy of her love, of this life he’d built. Tommy’s thumb stroked gently on the back of her hand, drawing her from her angered state. 

The evening ended with a nightcap in the library, which was the most impressive home library either of them had ever seen. Madeline didn’t leave Bee’s side, almost like a lost puppy. At the end of the evening, as Bee made her way back to her room with Tommy, and Madeline with Hugh, she looked at Bee with a heartbroken expression. 

“I would give anything for a man to look at me the way Mr. Shelby looks at you, Bee,” Hugh caught up to her and escorted her to her room. 

“Goodnight, Dear!” Bee calls after her. Madeline threw her a smile over her shoulder as Tommy came up behind Bee, opening the door. 

Tommy opened their room door, letting Bee in before closing it gently behind the two of them, securing the lock in place. 

Bee sinks into the vanity bench, mind and body ready for sleep. “These things are exhausting,” she says, slipping her shoes off. 

“Tell me about it,” he ground out, shrugging his jacket off his shoulders, lying it neatly across the dresser top. “All I heard about all evening is how many men want to fuck my wife,” he said, angrily tugging his bowtie free from his neck. 

Bee turned around to face him. “What?” she asked in shock. 

He scoffed. “Oh don’t act like you don’t know, Darling.”

“I don’t!” she tells him, mouth open in shock. “What on earth do you mean?” 

He unclasps his cufflinks. “This is why I can’t bring you to these things because everyone,” he throws them down on the nightstand with a clang. “Wants to know about you,” he says, toeing off his shoes next. “Wants to talk about you,” he removes his braces from his shoulders. “Wants to know why I keep you locked up in a castle in Birmingham to rot away, while you make me out to be some hero at dinner. Here I am a jailer.” 

Bee eyes him in the mirror. “Thomas,” she says softly. She gets up and walks over to him as he nearly rips his sleeve garters from his arms. “Thomas,” she holds his face in her hands and he sighs. “Look at me,” she tells him sweetly when he doesn’t meet her gaze. “I love you,” his hands grip her wrists. “They don’t know about us,” she tells him. “They don’t need to know everything. They just need to know that I am yours and you are mine.” 

They undressed each other quickly, desperate to touch one another, feel one another, after a long night of longing looks from across an unfamiliar room. She was panting beneath him when he dragged his thumb over her lower lip and rasped, “Don’t you dare be quiet tonight. I want them all to fucking hear you. Hear you say you are fucking mine.” 

She obeyed. 

Bee fell asleep in his arms while he laid awake, observing every inch of her body as she slept. He ran gentle fingertips up and down her body, watching in amusement as goosebumps rippled in his touch's wake. 

During the night she rolled over, the dim candlelight from his nightstand illuminating his initials on her back. He pressed a sleepy kiss to the ink. He rehearsed in his mind all the sweet things she’d whispered, moaned, cried into his ear when he made love to her. How worthy she made him feel. How loved. Treasured. Respected. Adored. Cherished. Feelings he’d never felt before. Never felt free to feel before. 

His father had drunk to forget how he felt, allowing only anger to be the driving emotion in his life–something Tommy and all his brothers wore scars both physically and emotionally from. His mother felt everything deeply–something Tommy was afraid he and Arthur inherited. His father made them feel ashamed for feeling any extreme emotion.

Tommy remembered when he was five, his favorite horse fell lame and had to be shot, something a boy of his age was not prepared to hear, let alone see. He had run to cry in his mothers chest, terrified of the horror his father had inflicted on his favorite animal. His mother tried to soothe him, rubbing his back, rocking him gently in her lap. His father wandered in later, drunk and angry, pulling Tommy from his mothers lap. He screamed in his face, Tommy not remembering most of what he had said, half asleep and still terrified. 

It wasn’t until he found Bee that he could feel safe again. She was his hiding place, his refuge. The one he could always run to. The first time he’d cried in front of her he’d been beyond embarrassed. But she held him and kissed every inch of skin she could get her lips on. He shook, body overwhelmed from exhaustion and pent up emotion, and she held him together in her arms. 

When she woke up the next morning, she smiled at him and he looked at her with all the love and tenderness he could muster. “My lighthouse,” he whispered. “I was lost. Drowning. You saved me with your light,” he pressed kisses to her collarbones. 

“Mr. Shelby, waxing poetic this morning, hm?” she asked as he moved atop her. 

“I think when I’m old, I’ll write poems for you. That way you can read them when I’m dead and you’re missing me,” he said, half jokingly, half serious. 

“Thomas!” she scolded, playfully swatting at his bum. 

“Darling, the chances of us both dying at precisely the same time are terribly slim,” he said.

“But that’s how I want it to happen,” she said, eyes wide. 

“I know, my darling, but that is the risk you run I suppose when you marry a man ten years your senior,” he told her, dropping to his forearms above her, his forehead against hers. 

“Old man,” she giggled playfully, kissing him, her hands in his hair. 

“Old man who knows what the fuck he’s doing, eh?” he smirked into the kiss, grinding his hips against hers. 

“Oh yes,” she moaned as he made love to her again… for the first (and not only) time that day. 

The Shelby’s skipped breakfast entirely, too wrapped up in one another to care that their bellies rumbled with hunger. They decided to prepare themselves for the luncheon and for their departure. 

“Are you ready for your shadow to return?” Tommy asked with a small smile as he tied his tie. 

“What do you mean?” Bee asked, selecting her jewelry. 

“That young woman from dinner last night. She practically followed you everywhere.”

“She needs a friend, Thomas. And so do I,” Bee said, not meeting his eyes. 

“Alright, my love, I’m sorry,” he came up behind her and pressed a kiss to her neck. “I do think her husband was rather old for her,” he said, hands resting on her belly, chin on her shoulder. 

“Yes, it’s unfortunate but I do think they care for one another,” Bee said, reaching for her bottle of perfume. 

Tommy stepped back as she misted herself with her perfume, the one he loved, the one that drove him wild. He admired her. Her grace, her elegance. And in that moment his heart swelled with gratitude that he was able to marry for love. Not forced to out of convenience, not trapped in a loveless one, bound only by the children they’d brought into the world. But for love. 

They managed to emerge from their room a decent amount of time before lunch was scheduled to begin. Madeline caught Bee’s attention almost immediately. “Oh, are you feeling alright? We missed you both at breakfast,” Madeline smiled kindly at both of them. 

“Nonsense,” another wife, Carol? Anne? Bee couldn’t remember, commented. “We all heard them last night. It’s ridiculous! This is a sophisticated party and they fuck like animals. Hmph!” she turned her nose up at Bee. Who smirked. 

“At least my husband fucks me,” Bee smirked before walking towards the appetizer table, rather pleased with herself. 

“Well! Most couples aren’t that way!” The goody-two-shoes wife said, cheeks flushed in embarrassment. 

“Well,” Bee shrugged. “The Shelby’s are.” 

tag list: if tumblr isn't allowing me to tag you, please see this link for reasons why the tags aren't working. (most likely #3)

@peakyltd @cctoma @lyarr24 @shelbyteller @mrsnshelby88 @skydisneylover @babygaga67 @mariarozasworld @kemillyfreitas @cyphah

#tommy shelby #tommy shelby x oc #tommy shelby x ofc #tommy shelby x bee sutton #tommy shelby x bee #thomas shelby x oc #thomas shelby x ofc #thomas shelby #peaky fookin blinders #peakywomen #peaky blinder fanfic #peaky blinder imagine #sneakyblinders #my au <3

[centrally-unplanned]

Remember, this is the famous UK election right after World War II, in which Churchill gets defeated, and he gets up the next morning and looks at the papers, and his wife says to him, “Darling, it’s a blessing in disguise.” He replies, “Well, at the moment it seems very effectively disguised.”

[defensivelee]

quiet night in for an au of your choosing? :)

-🪷

Of course !! Here is the full card if anyone wants to request something else!

This is for Your Tears Divine, featuring Marly and James :] little story under the cut, slightly suggestive material at the end!

Churchill thought there were many things absurd about these murderous robots, but maybe what was the worst was the fact that the planet they had chosen to live on had the ability to rain. Wasn't that sort of a tiny death sentence every time?

He heard the king speaking with his ever-booming voice, and who knew how far he was, but Churchill could hear the words loud and clear.

"Caution: rainfall. Stay inside. Caution: rainfall. Stay inside."

And he supposed that it was a very nice thing, but the kind yet authoritative voice made his skin crawl, and the repetition almost made him sleepy, as he stared outside at the constant, gentle rainfall from the night sky.

"D-Do you like my brother's v-voice, Churchill?"

Churchill blinked and lifted his head. He hadn't realized he was leaning it on the window.

"I used to l-love it too," the Duke of York said. In the darkness, his blue eyes were what illuminated his metal body, and it almost hurt to see. "But then you realize it wants to s-sing to you. That is dangerous."

"Dangerous, Your Highness?" Churchill looked up at the android as he stopped beside him.

"Any king must b-be," James said softly. He lifted a hand, a hand rusted around the fingers especially, and began to run those very fingers through Churchill's hair. Occasionally they would pause and tug at it, maybe on purpose or maybe by accident. But Churchill liked it anyway and lifted his head into the touch.

"You w-waited for me here all d-day?" James asked.

"Yes, Your Highness," Churchill said. "Just as you ordered."

"What a good boy," James purred, the fans in his head whirring briefly. "And there is nothing else you wanted to d-do today? You just waited for me here like a d-darling little pet?"

I....I- maybe? Churchill hesitated. In the morning, there was something he'd been thinking to himself-

"Churchill..." There was a warning in the Duke's voice, and Churchill looked up into his suddenly much brighter eyes, hearing a faint ring echoing in the air. It reached into his head and whispered dizziness, and Churchill winced, shutting his eyes.

...No. Nothing else. This is what I want, I want to serve you, let me be the only human that serves you. He didn't know who was saying that, if it was him in his own mind or something else trapped there. Either way, it felt good to obey, to listen and to know that.

"Of course not, Your Highness," Churchill said, opening his eyes. "Why would I want anything else in the world when I already have the greatest gift of serving and obeying you?"

"Ah." James tilted his head to the side, and the ringing seemed to fade back. "As all androids have th-their purpose coded into them at birth, so do you have a purpose that I have d-decided for you. And you follow it well, boy, better than most r-robots."

Churchill felt his face warm up at the praise. "Thank you, Your Highness." This was the right thing to want, the right android to obey, was it not? It just made him feel so good, the Duke made him feel so good...

"You have no idea how stupid you l-look right now," James laughed, digging his fingers into Churchill's hair and pulling his head up sharply. Churchill gasped slightly, and James laughed again.

"See, I do love that about y-you," James said. "There's this dim look in your eyes I adore. A pretty thing like y-you doesn't think of much anyway, does it?"

"No, Your Highness." Churchill winced as James pulled him forward, his grip on Churchill's hair tightening. "I only think about you."

"All about me, hm?" James used his other hand to stroke Churchill's cheek. "You cannot think that I actually b-believe that."

"It's the truth-"

"The truth?" James snarled suddenly, leaning in so that Churchill could see all the way into his mouth and down his throat. "Humans were n-never this easy to train."

"I am, Your Highness," Churchill whispered. "Believe me." There was something in his mind that wanted to shy away from that reality, but how could he, as he stared right into James' eyes?

"And is that something you take pride in? That you roll over on your back like Charles' dogs whenever I praise you?"

"Yes, always, Your Highness."

"Whenever I t-touch you? Is that what you like?"

"Yes, Your Highness."

James paused, now running his hand under Churchill's chin. "Too easy." He bowed slightly, placing his metal lips onto those of the human, and Churchill shut his eyes to meet the kiss gratefully. There was nothing soft about the Duke's lips, so that it was almost painful to have the long tongue jerk around in his mouth like a live fish. Even more so when that tongue shoved itself down his throat, and Churchill jolted, trying not to choke on the cold metal.

"Open your eyes, look at m-me," James said, the voice now coming from the speakers on his chest and not his mouth. Churchill obeyed, his eyelids fluttering as the tongue shoved itself deeper.

"Ah, there it is," James said. "Tears in y-your eyes. It's a lot, isn't it?"

Churchill nodded. It was the most unnatural thing he'd ever seen, to have someone kiss him and speak to him at the same time, and the realization made him shudder.

"Your throat is s-so warm," James said. "One of my favorite things about you h-humans."

Churchill shut his eyes, instinctively trying to pull away as he gagged on the tongue. But James held him there by his hair, and Churchill groaned involuntarily. There were tears in his eyes, he realized, tears that told him he had to try to breathe now.

Your Highness-

"There we go," James said, at last pulling his lips and tongue away. Churchill gasped shakily, trying to catch his breath, and James stared at him.

"That panting like a dog," he said. "I should have known. Y-You really are n-no better."

Churchill looked up to say something, but James waved a hand in the air. "Shh, no, no, no," he said. "Quiet, now. F-Focus on your breath."

Churchill nodded, bowing his head gratefully.

"Your lovely breath that you must s-save for later," James continued. "Save for me."

Churchill nodded again. He tried to muffle his heavy breaths, but when he looked up and saw James' face, he thought that maybe this android liked to hear them, just as he loved to see him cry.

And this is what I want?

Yes-- this is who you w-want.

#behold the one au where i actually include his stutter all the way thru #screams #anyway this came out way more fun than i expected 👀👀 so i hope you enjoy #james ii (your tears divine) #duke of marlborough (your tears divine) #your tears divine #whump tag #jamesborough tag

[ronmanmob]

In no way meant to be offensive, but do you believe Ron is a prolific reader {and attempted poet} because he lacked a full formal school training? If not, where did his passion for reading come from? Does your version of him have a favourite genre?

Kindly Questions From Lovely Friends

No offence taken, lovely fren.

The easy bit first - Ron's favourite genre is history, especially the period surrounding World War 2 and double especially the works of Winston Churchill. Y'know how some people have comfort characters? Ron has a comfort era. A bad day is always made gentler by hearing Winston on the radio. He knows the man's speeches inside out and backwards, and the familiar rhythms and timbre of his voice through the speakers soothes Ron's occasionally very prickly brain.

As to the roots of his enjoyment -- part of it does come from that lack of an end-to-end schooling experience. He'd have left school - lets say at fifteen or so - with no qualifications and no desire to get any. His preoccupation, his need, was to work so he could earn and feed his family; help keep them housed. That said, Ron would've been able to read, write and would be numerate upon leaving school, despite dropping out early. He'd not be way up there compared to more academic brains, but he could make do. He had what he needed to start with at work, and the people who employed him - invariably local folk round his area at first - all knew him and his situation that well that any shortcomings would've been either ignored or seen to through on the job coaching.

And from there, things just grew.

Eager to earn as best he could, Ron did his best to patch the holes in his education his early leaving left. He didn't have time for catch up classes, so books - library books, money was too tight to buy new - the local paper, scrounged second hand off tube seats where he could, puzzle pages -- these became his materials. Habit and enjoyment (especially of the puzzles) took over and off he went.

By the time, say, darling Beth meets him you'd not guess by the content of his bookshelves that he kicked school into touch so young; that he didn't even graduate with grades. He'll devour most anything put in front of him if he's got the time, up to and including works like Homer's Odyssey, and has tells those best acquainted with him will know that indicate deep concentration on what he's got his hands on - a pencil in hand to make notes in the margins is one, and the other is how he'll murmur along quietly as he reads; either as verbal notes or verbatim passages.

The only implication of how his lack of formal education shaped him can be heard in those moments; found in how certain words are glancingly mispronounced because Ron, for lack of a teacher, taught himself the word phonetically.

#brooklynislandgirl #//fankoo for the question lovely fren

[evita-shelby]

Hi !

Can you do one where tommy has an affair and falls in love with a very suductive and manipulative reader ?

@l1-l4 did one similar "devil is a woman" and its SO GOOD , like ...art siriously you need to read it

Dont feel pressured to write anything , thank you 🙂

Oh i love her fics, especially the one where Grace’s sister has an affair with Tommy.

I was going to make this set in like season 6, but them I'd have to write about Ruby, and he cheats on Lizzy in canon already, so this oneshot takes place in season 3 to make the reader way more evil lol

Venus

Gif by @retromafia

If you asked anyone, especially his insipid Irish wife, you’ll hear how Thomas Shelby never cheats.

That things between the two of you were over when she came back fat with his bastard.

If anyone asked his driver, the maid who washed his clothes and Polly, especially Polly who knew him better than anyone else, you’ll hear about the woman he loves who looks like Venus herself.

You met him as a nude model posing for Churchill, you had fucked him with your eyes as he agreed to kill whoever Churchill asked him to kill.

That led to drinks at his pub, a day at the races, a week shopping and fucking in London and all while you remained the chaste widow of some rich old man who died trying to consummate your week-long marriage. People even thought you were still a virgin waiting for her handsome nouveau riche boyfriend to make a move.

You were no angel, you were a demon straight from hell. And the world was just so blind to the fangs you hide beneath your pretty lipstick.

Even Tommy forgot how wicked you were until you unleashed hell after he fucked up with Grace.

Grace Shelby had one boy lost to her forever and a loveless marriage behind closed doors. You made sure everyone and their dog knew it on both sides of the Atlantic.

He married her out of duty, he hadn’t even touched in the two years he made her wait for the wedding he never wanted.

You see, she had assumed Tommy was the daddy, but when the dates didn’t add up, you tearfully told darling Clive’s bereaved mummy how Grace had claimed the little blonde cherub was the product of an affair with your boyfriend because she had never loved sweet, sweet Clive.

Her late husband’s parents had issued an ultimatum that same day, forget Thomas Shelby or forget Clive Junior. They were powerful, Clive’s mum was born a Vanderbilt and his paternal grandmother an Astor, even here no one would dare fuck with them.

But she chose a man over her own child, something no person rich or poor would ever forgive thanks to those tips you gave the tabloids.

You’d never liked Grace, not when you knew her from finishing school nor when the two of you had your court presentations together. You came to loathe her when you discovered your beloved Thomas had fucked her in the same sofa he had said he loved you.

But you still loved him, and he loved you, so you forgave him after punishing him for two years.

Your idiot lover had gotten the marriage license already when he believed the bun in the oven to be his and because of that General Curran had threatened to throw him and his family into prison if he didn’t marry his stupid niece.

You didn’t forgive him for his sins until you showed up at his wedding wearing white and stole the show.

You didn’t care about driving attention to yourself , you feigned innocence and said you assumed that because the bride wore such a garish shade of purple you were free to wear white.

Can you ever forgive me, Y/N? He had asked so sweetly as you led him to the master bedroom that bitch had no idea you decorated.

If she knew that everything had been done by you for you, she’d run for the hills.

You’d kill to see her destroyed, but revenge takes time, something your viper of a mother had taught you well.

He loved you, he felt alive when he was with you, and you knew he wasn’t lying as the two of you fucked on his marriage bed to prove it.

Grace is only here until I can get rid of her, he said when the two of you removed any trace of your affair and returned to the party downstairs.

“Doesn’t Mrs. Shelby look stunning?” your ‘friend’ asked another lady as Grace entered her gala looking like she wanted to cry.

Tommy had used Section D to get his divorce, a divorce that had hit Grace like a missile this morning.

"Pretty and ornamental like a statue.” You heard her companion titter. No one liked Mrs. Shelby, in fact no one cared about her. "A statue that should've been left in the attic, if you ask me."

Not her family, not her husband, not her so called friends. Society hated her, especially when ‘someone’ discovered a story about sweet and innocent romance she had destroyed like the wicked bitch everyone thinks she is.

The guests were only here because you shared the charity with her just as much as you shared the man who funded it.

They came as a favor to you, you who was so sweet and kind and would never abandon a child you bore for a man who didn't love you.

If Grace knew about it, she’d die.

You made a mental note to send an invitation for your wedding in Paris next month.

February 14, a Valentine’s Day wedding for two star-crossed lovers in the most romantic city in the world.

Tommy was yours, heart, soul and body. She could have his name and money for now, but even that would be taken away from her in a heartbeat.

You'll be generous of course, give her some cash and have her return to Northern Ireland where she'll die in obscurity like she deserved. It's not like you'll ever need your late husband’s country home now that you have Arrow House.

“I heard from the housekeeper that he had every trace of her removed today.” Polly gave you a knowing look. She hated Grace for what she did in 1919. “Apparently this is the last time she is appearing in society as his wife.”

“Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” You quoted like the saintly women you pretend to be.

#thomas shelby x reader #tommy shelby x fem!reader #thomas shelby x fem!reader #reader is evil af

[blackswaneuroparedux]

The historian must enter into the dialectic of the actual and the potential contained in every critical moment of the past. Memory is the real psyche or life force and nothing is genuinely more alive than the historian’s disciplined rejoining of the past; apprehended in the right way, history becomes palpable.

- John Lukacs

A fine modern historian whose writing was influenced by his upbringing in war torn Hungary and as a devout Catholic. Lukacs was an iconoclast who brooded over the future of Western civilisation, wrote a bestselling tribute to Winston Churchill, and produced a substantial and often despairing body of writings on the politics and culture of Europe and the United States.

A proud and old-fashioned man with a cosmopolitan accent, and erudite but personal prose style, Lukacs was a maverick among historians. In a profession where liberals were a clear majority, he was sharply critical of the left and of the cultural revolution of the 1960s. But he was also unhappy with the modern conservative movement, opposing the Iraq war, mocking hydrogen bomb developer Edward Teller as the “Zsa Zsa Gabor of physics” and disliking the “puerile” tradition, apparently started by Ronald Reagan, of presidents returning military salutes from the armed forces.

Lukacs completed more than 30 books, on diverse subjects including his native country and 20th century American history, as well as the meaning of history itself. His books include “Five Days in London,” the memoir “Confessions of an Original Sinner,” and “Historical Consciousness,” in which he contended that the best way to study any subject, whether science or politics, was through its history.

He considered himself a “reactionary,” a mourner for the “civilisation and culture of the past 500 years, European and Western.” He saw decline in the worship of technological progress, the elevation of science to religion, and the rise of materialism. Drawing openly upon Alexis de Tocqueville’s warnings about a “tyranny of the majority,” Lukacs was especially wary of populism and was quoted by other historians as Donald Trump rose to the presidency. Lukacs feared that the public was too easily manipulated into committing terrible crimes.

Hitler and Stalin were Lukacs’ prime villains, Churchill his hero. Lukacs wrote several short works on Churchill’s leadership during World War II, focusing on his defiant “blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech as the Nazis were threatening England in May 1940. Lukacs wrote that the speech was at first not well received and that instead of having a unified country behind him, Churchill had to fight members of his own Cabinet who wanted to make peace with the Nazis.

One Churchill book attained unexpected popularity after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Rudolph Giuliani, then New York City’s mayor, held up a copy of Lukacs’ “Five Days in London,” declared he had been reading it and likened New Yorkers to the citizens of London.

Quietly published in 2000, the book jumped into the top 100 on Amazon.com’s bestseller list. But Lukacs was not entirely grateful. He noted that “Five Days in London” had little to say about how Londoners endured the Nazi assault, and he rejected comparisons between London in 1940 and New York City in 2001.

“The situation was totally different,” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer at the time. “As a matter of fact, it was much worse in England.”

He wrote about how the postwar era signaled the end of an age of civility. Modernity, he argued, had run its course since the printing of the Gutenberg Bible, and a new barbarism would take its place.

Lukacs’ ideas defied easy classification. He was for a time a darling of conservatives, but he rejected the notion that people could be defined as hewing to the political left or right.

The Cold War, he argued, had never been a conflict between communism and democracy; rather, it was a struggle between Russia and the United States. At the same time, he insisted that economic conditions never determined human belief.

Born Jan. 31, 1924, in Budapest, Lukacs Janos Albert had a Catholic father and Jewish mother, making him technically a Jew, although he was a practicing Catholic for much of his life. For the Nazis, who occupied Hungary in 1944, being half Jewish was enough to be sent to a labour camp.

By the end of 1944, he was a deserter from the Hungarian army labor battalion, hiding in a cellar, awaiting liberation by Russian troops. Within months of living under Soviet control, he fled the country on a “dirty, broken-down train” to Austria. In 1946, he arrived by ship in Portland, Maine, his youthful affinity for communism shattered.

Lukacs was a visiting professor at Princeton University, Columbia University and other prominent schools but spent much of his career on the faculty of the lesser-known Chestnut Hill College, a Catholic school (all girls until 2003) in Philadelphia where he taught from 1946 to 1994.

He called himself a “reactionary” because he was a traditionalist and a persuasive advocate of the necessity of historical knowledge to make any sense out of most things, and because he lamented the transformation of science into a false religion and the over-commercialisation of economic progress, and was viewed  as curmudgeonly. He was, in fact, unimpressed with much that was modern but not a pessimist; he never resented disagreement, and was always good-natured in debate. He was an important historian of great integrity and originality, and certainly one of the greatest American historians of modern Europe.

A pessimist by definition, he often expressed personal contentment. He wrote warmly about his enjoyment of romance, friendship, books, teaching and the rural life, the “pleasure of fresh mornings, driving alone on country roads, smoking my matutinal cigar, mentally planning the contents of my coming lecture whose sequence and organization are falling wonderfully into place, crystallizing in sparks of sunlight.”

“Because of the goodness of God,” he concluded in his memoir, “I have had a happy unhappy life, which is preferable to an unhappy happy one.”

He died at age of 95 years old in 2019.

#lukacs #john lukacs #quote #history #academia #second world war #world war philosophy #ideas #university #hungary #britain #churchill #america #cold war #europe

[maivigavil]

¿Necesitamos una pandemia para aprender a escuchar?

Nos hemos convertido en una sociedad en la que prestar atención nos cuesta, somos la generación del TIK-TOK, tienes treinta segundos para entretenerme, si no te paso. Con la cantidad de contenido que nos encontramos no damos segundas oportunidades, si algo no me gusta de inmediato, escucho o veo otra cosa, hay millones para elegir.

En mi opinión, a consecuencia de la pandemia se consiguió paralizar un poco este pensamiento, nos vimos obligados a vivir una temporada en la escaseaban las formas de distracción y como contrapunto contábamos con mucho tiempo libre.  Además, debido al encierro al que nos sometieron tuvimos una gran necesidad de conexión humana, que algunos encontramos en los podcasts a través de los cuales otras personas nos contaban como estaban viviendo esa situación, y conseguían entretenernos o darnos ideas para pasar el tiempo. Los audiolibros también fueron un gran descubrimiento, gente que no tenía ningún hábito de lectura descubrieron una nueva manera de despejar su mente gracias a ellos.

¿Es necesaria la escucha activa en esta sociedad? Bajo mi punto de vista, opino que es fundamental, lo cual no quiere decir que no necesitemos la escucha pasiva, creo que es posible darle un tiempo a cada una. Hay momentos en la que la escucha pasiva es necesaria, podemos ponernos un podcast o música y estar cocinando, haciendo trabajos o limpiando, de esta conseguiremos que nuestra mente desconecte de estas tareas y se relaje con una escucha que nos resulta más agradable . Pero pienso que es totalmente imprescindible en nuestras vidas los momentos dedicados a una escucha activa, darnos un tiempo a nosotros, enfocándonos a escuchar y con todos nuestros sentidos enfocados únicamente a escuchar y entender, sin ningún otro objetivo, esto supone trabajo para nuestra mente muy importante.

Como resumen a esta exposición quiero destacar una frase de Winston Churchill “Se necesita coraje para levantarse y hablar; pero se necesita mucho más para sentarse y escuchar” .  

#escuchaactiva #radio #podcast #audiobook

[starkerforlife6969]

Help me darlings, I want to do an Austen-esque starker story but keep getting stuck. Please let me know suggestions/ideas

Somethings I’ve thought:

- pride and prejudice but it’s Darcy - Georgiana as Tony Peter (step siblings or cousins or full siblings?) Tony likes to spoil his little brother, very protective over wickham (beck?) Peter upset people just want him for money

- pride and prejudice classic - enemies to lovers? Following the story fairly faithfully? Peter as an unruly unconventional omega of lower class

- Emma , knightly and Emma, as Tony and Peter, protectiveness jealousy (Tony knowing Peter is destined for Strange/Churchill) more wholesome vibes? Alpha omega dynamics?

Let me knowwwwww either dm me or comment or send an anon 🥰❤️

#starker

[cosmoglass]

“The unbosoming of an ugly duckling,” will be the title of all this nonsense. - Anne Frank, Friday 14th April 1944 Notes on 'The Diary of a Young Girl'

Saturday 19th February 1944 The giddy ups and downs of Anne Frank -

Tuesday 7th March 1944 Anne Frank’s advice for those in a state of melancholy -

She’s such a little philosopher, breaking down the flaws in her mum’s advice. Bet she annoyed the pants off the others in the Secret Annex simply by thinking critically and trying to discuss things. That’s why they harassed her with criticisms so much.

Thursday 23rd March 1944 Envious old guys tryna sabotage Anne & Peter, Peter blushing and Anne being shamelessly vain -

Monday 27th March 1944 Every resident of the Secret Annex is crowded around the radio listening to Winston Churchill making a speech. '... I am wearing a nightdress, which is much too small, too narrow and too short.' Anne doesn't say how she feels about this situation. She does say that 'Peter's eyes are popping out of his head' but she attributes this to the strain of listening to the radio.

Tuesday 28th March 1944 I like it much better if he explains something to me than when I have to teach him; I would really adore him to be my superior in almost everything.' DO GIRLS WANT YOU TO MANSPLAIN OR NOT?!

He longs to kiss you too, Anne. It's because he's afraid of rejection, embarrassment and shame.

Tuesday 4th April 1944 "Eva's Dream" is my best fairy-tale, and the queer thing about it is that I don't know where it comes from. Eva's Dream features a rose who is full of herself just like the flower in The Little Prince. The Little Prince had already been published but only six months before this diary entry and in America, not Europe, which means Anne couldn’t have read it.

Tuesday 11th April 1944 "Then they will find Anne's diary," added Daddy. "Burn it then," suggested the most terrified member of the party. This, and when the police rattled the cupboard door, were my worst moments. "Not my diary, if my diary goes, I go with it!" But luckily Daddy didn't answer. .......................... If we bear all this suffering and if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an example. Who knows, it might even be our religion from which the world and all peoples learn good, and for that reason and that reason only do we have to suffer now. We can never become just Netherlanders, or just English, or representatives of any country for that matter, we will always remain Jews, but we want to, too. ............................... For the remainder of this epic entry in her diary, Anne takes stock of herself and states some of her dreams for the future after the war is over. An indomitable spirit.

Friday 14th April 1944 "The unbosoming of an ugly duckling," will be the title of all this nonsense.

Sunday morning just before eleven o'clock, 16th April 1944 Poor darling Peter awkwardly fumbling his way towards kissing Anne on the ear. Anne in ecstasy.

Monday 17th April 1944 Dear Kitty, Do you think that Mummy and Daddy would approve of my sitting and kissing a boy on a divan - a boy of seventeen and a half and a girl of just under fifteen? I don't really think they would, but I must rely on myself over this. ............. To exchange our thoughts, that shows confidence, and faith in each other; we would both be sure to profit by it! Yours, Anne.

Wednesday 19th April 1944 It is so soothing and peaceful to feel his arms around me, to know that he is close by and yet to remain silent, it can’t be bad, for this tranquillity is good.

Friday 28th April 1944 First kiss on the lips.

Friday 5th May 1944 Anne shares what she intends to tell Daddy in defence of her right to go upstairs for a snog. Very forthright and long-winded. Poor Daddy. The next day, Pim (Daddy) reads it in a letter that Anne gives him and he's upset for the whole evening. Anne talks about it as if she's being grown up but I think she actually enjoys how much it upsets him, which is very childish. The day after that, Pim tells her how hurt he was by her words and Anne realises how obnoxious she's been and is ashamed of herself.

Wednesday 14th June 1944 Aged just 15, Anne works out the narcissistic defence mechanism that is projection and also understands how being far more self-critical than others has emotional and social consequences for her. She may be over-estimating how much of an inner life Peter has. He's not as brilliant as her and he may just simply not have those profound thoughts and feelings like she has -

Thursday 15th June 1944 It's not imagination on my part when I say that to look up at the sky, the clouds, the moon and the stars makes me calm and patient. It's a better medicine than either valerian or bromine; Mother Nature makes me humble and prepared to face every blow courageously.

Thursday 6th July 1944 I've so often thought how lovely it would be to have someone's complete confidence, but now, now that I'm that far, I realise how difficult it is to think what the other person is thinking and then to find the right answer.

Saturday 15th July 1944 I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquillity will return again. In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.

Friday 21st July 1944 With her second last diary entry, Anne is over-excited from optimism about the trajectory of the war and very jokey. So tragic.

Tuesday 1st August 1944 I can't keep that up: if I'm watched to that extent, I start by getting snappy, then unhappy, and finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and what I could be, if... there weren't any other people living in the world.

EPILOGUE As for the two girls, they had been sent to Bergen-Belsen in Germany two months before their mother's death. There Anne showed the same qualities of courage and endurance which had already made her noteworthy at Auschwitz. In February, 1945, both the sisters caught Typhus. One day Margot, who was lying in the bunk immediately above Anne's, seeking to rise, lost her hold and fell on to the floor. In her weakened state the shock killed her. Her sister's death did to Anne what all her previous sufferings had failed to do: it broke her spirit. A few days later, in early March, she died.

................................................

“I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me. I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear; my courage is reborn. But, and that is the great question, will I ever be able to write anything great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer?” - Anne Frank

Anne, you were wonderful, lovely and amazing, a great writer and a great person, and you always will be.

#anne frank #diary of anne frank #why does my thumb look so inflamed and ugly #melancholy #blushing #anne and peter #peter van daan #peter van pels #dussel #mr. van daan #winston churchill #nightdress #mansplaining #fear of rejection #ugly duckling #first kiss #narcissistc defence mechanisms #projection