Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Lucille
The room was too silent for her to be able to sleep. Lucille was used to noise. She was used to the snores from her father and chirping of the birds outside her window. Even Ada's breathing as she slept seemed much quieter that what she had remembered from the farm.
Lucille slept on the floor in John's old room, with her daughter in the bed. Ada had moved back into the house since she had become pregnant. Tommy was only a room away. But Lucille still felt alone.
As she stared up at the ceiling, she listened to the rising and falling of her own breathing, hoping it would somehow lull her into a sleep. But, if she listened hard enough, the sound of the swaying flowers in the field would come to her ears. The days with Tommy in France were more like a dream than reality now. It seemed like so long ago, especially since everything had changed.
After the war had ended, things never went back to how they used to be, like everyone said. The song of the birds by her window seemed forced and melancholy and the sun seemed to dull as it peeked across the cobalt sky.
As she was about to drift off, Lucille was startled by quiet groans and sighs from the next room. The sound was recognisable. She could remember the nights that Tommy had spent trying to sleep, only to be plagued with torturous images and deafening sounds of the battlefield.
Lucille found herself slowly rising to her feet and leaving her room as quietly as possible, so Adds wouldn't wake. She knew he would never seek out help; he was too stubborn for that. Lucille didn't want to be the one to run to him first- she wanted him to come to her. But in this case, he needed her, and she couldn't deny him that, no matter how hard she had tried to distance.
As she entered his room, she saw him straight away, enshrouded by the murky light of a lamp to his bedside. He had pulled himself up, sitting on the edge of his bed with his head held firmly in his hands. His knuckles were pale as he clenched his face, as if he would fall apart if he didn't hold tight enough.
Lucille didn't know whether he had heard her come in or not, as he stayed still as she closed the door again. But as she sat beside him, placing an arm around his shaking shoulders, he melted into her side, placing his ear against her chest.
It was as if something inside of him had switched. Everything that he had held in was let out in muffled sobs. All the frustrations of his fear of getting too close to a woman had dissolved into tears. His fear of loosing her had lost to his desire to be next to her. But the fear was still there. He couldn't help but think of what she would think of him, the real him, when she finally got to know him.
"Oh, Tommy." Lucille whispered as she held his head in her arms, soothing her fingers over his wet cheeks.
It broke her, to see him so weak when he had only ever shown her his strength. She could smell the drink on his clothes and on his breath, but he had sobered up easily, though with the way he drank, it was probable that he was never drunk in the first place.
"What happened?" She asked quietly as his cries soon slowed, his breath still heavy.
"I shot the horse. The damned Lees cursed him." He said, shaking his head as if trying to shake the thought of it. "I got so used to men dying in France, but never the horses. They died badly."
She let him find his voice as she slowly rocked them back and forth, calming him as he let everything out. "I hear the shovels and the gunshots. I still hear everything as loud as when I told you during the war."
A tear had slipped down Lucille's cheek as she heard him speak. She had promised herself to be strong, for his sake, but the tears kept rolling.
"I want to be selfish. I want to ask you to stay here, with me. But I'm afraid you'll get hurt." He wouldn't look at her, and Lucille had to turn his cheek so their eyes would meet.
"Why would we get hurt? I know you would never do anything to hurt us." She said, feeling the wetness of his tears under her thumb. "You wouldn't."
"I wouldn't." He agreed with a shake of his head. "I'm a bad man, Lucille. You don't deserve a man like me. You deserve someone who doesn't have people coming after him from every angle."
She stared down at him confused. But she couldn't see a bad man no matter how hard she looked. Lucille so a man who was broken from war. A man who would do anything for his family. A man who she loved with all of her heart.
Their heads were rested together and he was calmed.
"I want you Lucille. I want to protect you."
"We got through a bullet in your shoulder and a German soldier below where we slept." Lucille muttered. "We can get through this if you help me, Tommy."
Lucille wasn't talking about the horse. She had recognised the look on his face, the feeling of built up anger finally knocking down in huge waves. It was exactly how she had felt when she had confronted him. Lucille looked down to him. He was already looking up at her. For the first time in his life, Tommy felt vulnerable.
"Lucille." His voice was somehow both strong and quiet.
"Yes?" Her breath was stuck in her throat as she looked into his glossy gaze.
"I love you." He said, gaze never faltering as she broke into a wide smile.
Lucille had only ever been the one to say it, and even then it had slipped from her lips without her being willing. But to hear him speak the words so effortlessly, as if he didn't need to think about it, as if he had rehearsed the words often enough for it to become a memory of the lips, made her feel as light as a lavender stalk in the breeze. She felt warm. Relived. Happy. She felt everything at once.
Lucille leaned in, placing a sweet kiss to his forehead, before drifting to talk into his ear. "And you know I love you, Tommy Shelby."
"I'll make things right, but things will be wrong for a while." His hand was on her cheek. "Is that okay?"
"Everything's okay as long as our child is safe, and I'm in your arms." Lucille said.
He brought her in for a kiss, their lips falling into one another, moving exactly how they knew to, and how they remembered.
