VULNERABLE | thomas shelby

✞ O N E ✞

CHAPTER ONE ; NIGHT TERRORS

BETH HAD KNOWN THAT, when the Shelby brothers had returned from war they wouldn't be the same but she hadn't expected it to be such a drastic change. Nothing would prepare anyone for the changes in each man. John was still his goofy and flirty self and Arthur was still a kind cuddly bear but Tommy was cold and on edge at all times and he would flinch at the smallest touches or noises. Far from the sweet and loving boy he had been growing up, one that always craved some sort of physical touch to his blonde childhood sweetheart.

Before war nearly every night Beth would sneak into Polly's house and rush up to Tommy's bedroom and crawl into bed beside him and both Beth and Tommy would stay up talking and laughing nearly all night until they'd fall asleep tangled in each others arms. It was a nightly routine, something that had started as children. Yet when Tommy had returned from war, he locked his bedroom door every night out of fear he would harm Beth in one of his night terrors. She'd taken in slight to offence too, he was practically rejecting her. But Beth was too embarrassed to ask and Tommy was too stubborn to say anything, so an awkward tension hung in the air, like a dark cloud.

All thoughts had left her head as she stumbled into her home along side John arms linked and laughter spilling from their mouths at the trouble they had caused, a bubble of happiness surrounding both of them. It had slightly taken away from the fact that John hadn't slept for weeks just like Tommy and supposedly Arthur. They always had an undeniable connection, John and Beth. Best friends ever since they had met. Something Tommy hadn't liked very much but was forced to get used to seeing as Beth always loved the bones of not just John but all of his siblings.

"Oi you lot!" Arthur cheered happily, grinning as he stared at his brother and Beth. Beth could only smile at Arthur, waving her hand to say hello as she scanned the room. Her smile began to falter when she seen Tommy, head in his hands as he rubbed his eyes from stress. She'd left John and Arthur who began to talk among themselves and slowly made her way towards Tommy who was yet to acknowledge their presence. Delicately she reached her hand across, gently resting it on his shoulder and despite his flinch, Tommy sat still. He inhaled a slow breath before standing up with a huff and leaving Beth to be stood watching in embarrassment.

She'd wished for nothing more than to reach over and hug him and hold him tight like she'd done when they first met again at the train station. Beth was dealing with her own demons and while they weren't as drastic as coming out of the war, they still plagued her mind. Her mother had died two months before the boys left for war, bronchitis slowly eating at her body and it was only a week after they'd left that she'd found her father dead by the docks. The hardest loss of them all being her older brother, Calvin. Beth wanted to ask about him, wanted to know how he died, when even but it would only be selfish to ask as the boys all valued him as a brother all the same.

She'd known it was selfish to expect them to be the same but it still plagued her mind, same way it plagued Polly and Ada's. The boys they'd once gotten to know and loved were empty shells of themselves. They looked the same but yet they'd never be the same. But every lonely night she'd fallen asleep before the men came back from war, she'd pray to Polly's that he would bring home the Shelby boys safely. Although he did, they were never the same.

Beth often found herself finding comfort in Arthur when things had gone wrong but John was definitely her best friend. Their personalities compliment each other and John was fun and didn't care half the time and sometimes when your dealing with such a serious business you need one person in your life who just didn't care. John often thought about marrying the girl after Martha had died before war but Arthur scolded him at the idea and warned him if Tommy were to find out he'd skin him alive, family or not. It was true too, despite not being together, everyone in Small Heath knew that Bethany Clover and Tommy Shelby belonged to each other.