thomas shelby's daughter // IMAGINES

14- Butterfly Fly Away

"So, today's the big day, eh?" Grace chimed as she helped you pack the last of your things. Today was the day you were moving out. The day you found your own feet. The day you became an adult.

You were moving in with Isaiah, your boyfriend of almost five years. Aged twenty-one, the time had come to be yourself. To live your life with the man you loved.

Grace, your step mum, was excited for you. She loved Isaiah as much as you did, and although the thought of you moving out scared her a little bit, she was more than happy for you.

Your dad, on the other hand, wasn't as excited.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't shitting myself," you laughed nervously as you folded the last of your clothes. You had been avoiding this day like it was the plague, any conversation about it had you rippling with anxiety. Not because you were nervous about what was to come as such, but more due to the fact you hadn't lived without your father for twenty-one years (bar the war).

The thought of living without him was enough to set you off crying, but the talk about it was something you'd dreaded.

Telling him was tough, you cried and you cried and you cried. He, of course, knew that you were more than capable of looking after yourself, but being the man he was, and the father he was, he too was dreading it. That was the first time you'd seen him cry for years, he never cried and if he knew he was about too, he'd leave the room and cry on his own.

Watching your father cry was something you never, ever wanted to see again.

He was the strongest and most courageous man you knew. Not just because of what he had been through in the war, but what he'd been through outside of that. Losing his mother, his father walking out on him and his siblings, everything that happened with Grace, losing Freddie, losing Greta before the war, almost losing Charlie and losing John. He had been through the war and back already in France, yet he had to endure it when he came home. He had a level head on his shoulders but you knew what he faced with his trauma from the war and you'd seen it enough times to convince you to never leave him.

Which is why it was so hard.

"Don't worry about your dad, he's okay," Grace smiled lightly before taking out boxes to the car.

Sighing to yourself and sitting down on your bed, you held your head in your hands and cried. You loved Isaiah but your father was the only man in your life who you truly, truly loved.

Wiping away any stray tears, you looked up to see a picture of you and your dad when you were five. He was a dad at fifteen and your mother had never been in the picture, you were his true pride and joy.

It was almost shocking to see the plastered smile on his face. Grinning ear to ear with you sat comfortably in his lap, smiling away at the camera. Your dad never smiled anymore, and you couldn't remember the last time you'd seen him smile like that.

"That's my favourite," you heard your dad speak from the doorway, the man stood in his suit attire looking like he always did, his hair perfectly shaven and his face closely cut, but the bags under his eyes and the tired skin spoke a thousand words.

"I'll leave it here," you smiled back, setting the frame back down to where it was before. "Look, dad," you started, nervousness pricking in your stomach, "if you want me to stay here, I can. Isaiah will understand."

"Do you want to stay here?" He asked in his scarily calm voice.

"Well-"

"There's your answer," he smiled lightly. "Listen, Y/N... I won't deny that I'm fucking scared, but you're not that little girl in the picture anymore. You're twenty-one, you have to find your own way, as much as I don't want you too."