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...
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May, 1914
The cold of the canal water made her feet go numb, still, her toes danced with the small waves. Effy Shelby was sitting on the rim of the ground by the canal, her gaze strictly fixed on the current and its recede. Her ears shut off any kind of noise other than the water's quiet vox. It was like a mantra, the sound of the musty creek. She liked the yard more than anything; the horses, the boats, the boundless places to hide at and travel somewhere in her imagination. To India, or Africa even. Somewhere she could swim away, away from this hazy hell of a place. Effy adored Small Heath; hell, she swore she would buy a castle here when she's grown, but in truth, she wanted the sunshine to touch her skin and paint it golden.
Effy.
Eff.
"Betts!"
The harsh but not angry call of her father snapped Effy out of her mighty imagination. She turned her head to look at him, the man with the greatest smile. But he was not smiling at that moment, his upper half leaning downwards to her, fingers in a snapping position with a face of confusion.
"What?" She asked, expression the same.
"Why you ain't listenin'?"
"I am"
"Did you hear what I said then?" Tommy Shelby tilted his head in a playful way, allowing his presence to be the young man he was.
Effy instead of an answer pursed her lips defeatedly and shook her head. She went to rub her nose, a motion she did when she wanted to disappear.
"That's what I thought" Scoffed Tommy and a smile finally took over his face. "C'mon then, I've got something to show ya, girl of me"
The little girl raised her eyebrows but didn't question him, now hurrying behind him, her short hair bouncing with each step. Her naked, wet feet dressed up in brown filth, mud, and dust that surrounded them as they walked.
They passed the wooden horses that her great-uncle Charlie carved, and her favorite wheelbarrow in which Finn and Effy pushed each other around. Tommy glanced at her bare feet, shaking his head.
"It's not yet summer, Eff"
"It is for me" She chirped, digging even deeper in the mud. "Once I hear the blackbirds singin' out of joy it's summer for me"
"That a fact?" His lips curled into a smirk, "And what does Polly have to say about that? Walkin' about with your dirty paws round the house, eh?" He ruffled up her already tangled black hair.
"Aunt Pol is the gypsy queen, don't you know that, Dad?" Effy tucked her chin forward, seemingly disappointed in her own father for not knowing such a thing. "She herself says I'll be connected to the earth if no shoe gets in the way"
