𝐏𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐲 𝐁𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 | 𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒

Home For Christmas | Arthur Shelby

'Home For Christmas | Arthur Shelby'

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A THICK MIST settles over Small Heath, veiling objects a few metres from you, it's white fog blending with the snow. The discolouring and patchy gravestones sticking out of the mist like rocks in a stormy sea, like daggers. Y/n has always thought gravestones shouldn't look so gloomy, they are the reminder of a soul, a soul that had passed. However even though a stone may be placed, there may never be a person to remind, no one to grieve the body that lays peacefully beneath the Earth's crust.

It's a rare sight for there to be snow in Birmingham, as rare as it is for someone to not have known the name Shelby and what came with it. And if it were any other year many families were probably all anticipating for their children to burst into their rooms, begging and pleading for them to hurry down stairs and to look at their gifts. But the Shelby's are ones that many think wouldn't do such a thing. They think that no one as cold as Tommy Shelby, as harsh as Polly Gray and aggressive as Arthur Shelby would be able to carry out such a joyful and happy environment for the others. Yet they do. Every. Single. Year.

It's something Y/n is honoured to witness every year, something she has missed since the war broke out. She had manage to train up as a nurse, do her bit just like the boys had to, being a nurse meant she got home sooner, having been back in Small Heath for a few weeks now. She's been longing to see the boys, longing to see if they had turned out like she had seen all the others, longing to make sure they were ok. In fact she would have greeted the three at the station had it not been for the fact she felt as though she would of been imposing, ruining the moment the boys would clap eyes on their sister, aunt and little brother. Of course if Polly knew this she would tell the girl to not be so stupid, that she's family no matter what blood runs through her veins. Whether it be the blood of a disappearing, no-good father or a mother who only exists in small memories. To the Shelby's, Y/n Maybridge is family.

So instead she sits here, a thick mist settling over the cemetery, it's white fog blending with the snow. The discolouring and patchy gravestones sticking out of the mist like rocks in a stormy sea, like daggers.

She can't deny the feeling of the guilt that she should be at the station, waiting for the boys to come back, arms open wide. She can't deny that it feels wrong to be spending such a precious time in a cemetery.

Without another thought to it, she scampers off the bench, her heels scuffing the lightly snow covered ground as she starts to fast walk to the station. The rosiness of her cheeks can be seen even when a few strands of her dark hair drizzle onto her face, her red knee length coat swaying while she speed walks. Jingling can be heard from her wrist, the bracelet that Tommy had so kindly brought her about 7 Christmas's ago.

Y/n's birthday is in the October which is pretty lucky really as it's her favourite time of year, sure she loves Winter but to her it doesn't compare to Autumn. Not when the leaves are so crisp and a small whisper of wind can always be sure to blow through the houses of Watery Lane. Any other year it would have stayed that way all through Christmas but this time, no.

It's like God knows how much everybody needs this celebration and is doing his utmost to make sure it's the best one yet. To make sure that when the boys arrive back, her boys, they are going to forget the war ever existed. It's a naive thing to think but to Y/n it's not impossible, she's going to do what she can to stop their minds from travelling back to France and that means being there at the station.

The question is......

Did their minds even come back with them?

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