devil's backbone 🗝 tommy shelby

chapter 5

The next week and a bit had gone by quickly for Sybil, yet agonisingly slow at the same time. She had (for the most part) healed, and she'd started working again. The kids were happy to have their favourite teacher back, and the school she worked at was more than happy to find that they weren't under the watchful eye of the Peaky Blinders anymore. She'd gone back to her normal routine, and couldn't be more glad about it.

However, she also knew that things weren't the same. Wherever she turned, there was something to remind her of the Shelby boy's little stay.

The chair he sat in as he kept watch over her when she slept. The rag he'd wrapped the ice in. The cup and saucer that he'd used for her tea. The frame he'd leant on when he found her in the bathroom, crying. Almost everything that she could see had it's own little Shelby mark on it now, especially the little note he'd left her as a goodbye.

Sybil and Thomas didn't exactly bond or reconcile their differences during his momentary stay at her place, but there was definitely something there that wasn't there before. A thankfulness. A newfound sense of respect for the both of them. Possibly something that neither of the two could put their fingers on, but it was something.

But Sybil quickly came to terms with the fact that it was a one time thing, and that she'd most likely never even come close to having something like that with Thomas Shelby ever again, and continued with her routine as she always did.

As for Thomas, his experiences since that night hadn't been so simple.

After he'd left Sybil Day's house that early morning, he went straight to the warehouse where John and Arthur had put the man who'd attacked the school teacher. He went there, beat the man, and then killed him. He killed that man for laying a hand on an innocent woman, a woman he had always secretly cared for, and he didn't regret a single moment of it. He'd do it a hundred times over, if need be. Because Thomas Shelby didn't think men like that deserved to live on the same planet as people like Sybil Day, and he'd kill any man that tried to hurt her again.

After that, he'd gone back to his routine, as well. Bookmaking, trading, thinking, substance abuse, fighting, and scheming. Except now he had a new step to his routine: check up on Sybil Day.

He would send a few of his men out every day to scope out her home, or her work, or see to it that she'd made it home safely. He couldn't help it. He knew he'd have no peace of mind if he didn't know she was doing alright, and this gave him that.

But after that a week or so of seeing the same familiar faces everywhere she went, Sybil put the peaces together. She was an intelligent woman, and if she was being honest, she was cutting a lot of it toward the beginning some slack. Blaming it on her newfound paranoia and alertness to everyone and everything around her. On the fact that she was looking out for her attacker everywhere she went. On the fact that her mind was probably just trying to fabricate some excuse to go see Thomas Shelby again. But she knew better. She knew that Thomas Shelby was sending people out to follow her around the town, because he didn't think she could take care of herself.

So, come Saturday morning, she marched herself right over to the man's workplace, through the boys with their peaked caps and protests, and went straight to the man himself.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" She asked, throwing the door open, a flustered looking John Shelby hot on her heels.

"'M sorry, Tom, she's like a fucking—"

"It's alright, John." Tommy cut off, silencing his brother while exhaling smoke from his cigarette. "Leave Ms. Day and I alone for a moment."