FOR THE ONE WHO STAYED ─ A peaky blinders fanfiction
━ IN WHICH, Elizabeth Shelby has to come to terms with the fact that sharing a name does not necessarily mean family.
━ AND IN WHICH, a father and daughter must learn how to find each other again...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
1918, December
The floorboards creaked under her graceful barefoot like an old wailing woman, and still, it didn't scare her.
Effy was tiptoeing across the corridor to her father's room with a gun in hand. She awoke when she heard strange noises from the other side of the house. When she realized it was coming from Tommy's room, she decided to see it for herself and was now gripping her little pistol tightly in front of her, the one she just got from Thomas. At first, it sounded like someone was crying, but she didn't know whether it was real or just the floorboards talking. When she got closer, the painful moaning stopped. She held her breath when quietly grabbing the handle. She was gripping the gun so tightly, her knuckles turned white and a drop of sweat escaped from under her palm.
'Now, or never'
Effy pushed the door open, stepping forward to see the the origin of the noise, she heard a pinched sound and a slight breeze next to her left ear, making her ears explode and screech like wailing babes. She went to hold her head, not to shield, but to shake away that agonizing ringing noise. Her breathing got all messed up, sometimes they were too fast and shallow, other times slow and heavy. She kept her gun still in place, her hold on it shaking. She crouched on the ground now, sticking her eyes strictly to the floor, and the floor only.
When a hand touched her back, she wanted to yell, but her voice disappeared the moment she set eyes on her father. He was crouching in front of her, lips strangely wide apart and horror in his eyes. His hand was placed on her gun-gripping hand on the side of her face holding her ear, and it wasn't clear if he did it to comfort her or to get the pistol out of her palm.
She was seeing clearer now, and blinking fast she searched the room. There lay Tommy's gun next to him, the one that let the bullet escape.
"Eff," He breathed, "You okay?" Tommy frantically searched for a bullet wound he hoped to God wouldn't find. "I almost fucking shot ya"
"Fuck" She lifted her palm off her ear, and she looked at it as if she were searching for something tangible, something bloody. But there wasn't.
"What were you thinkin', eh?" He was more confused than mad, something she was utterly thankful for. "Creepin' up on me in the middle of the night with a bloody gun?"
"I-I heard crying and noises and stuff and I thought it could be a thief or something..." She blabbered still shivering, and when she realized the severity of her words, she trailed off at the end of the sentence, looking up at his motionless face. "You were crying" She stated, nodding her head at her own words. He didn't answer. There they sat, still on the floor so close to each other, the fourteen-year-old's hand traveled to his face.
