"I won't say 'I told you so,'" Polly says as she sets a cup of tea on the bedside table, "but I did tell you."
"Go on, then," Tommy sighs, and reaches over to pick up the cup. "Have out with it and leave me in peace."
Polly shrugs, more in intent than actual action. "Not much to say, other than that you're a fool." He'd gone striding out into the pouring rain last night for God only knows what reason, and come back in the small hours of the morning soaked to the skin, his thick wool coat heavy and dripping with frigid water. It's still not dry, even after a half a day in front of the fire, and neither is Thomas. "What was so important that it had you haring off like that, anyway?"
Thomas takes a large swallow of the tea. She knows for a fact it's nearly hot enough to scald, but he seems to welcome it. "Bourbon?"
he asks, eyes closed against the burn.
"It's medicinal, isn't it? It'll cut through that cough." She straightens the mess of rucked-up blankets over his legs, then sits on the edge of the bed. "And don't think you've distracted me. What was last night, Thomas?"
"A tip," he says shortly. "I got a message. Something needed to be taken care of. I took care of it."
She snorts. Tight-lipped as ever, even with a fever. "You're going to have to stop treating me like a fool, boy" she tells him, "especially if you're going to pull stunts like this."
He rolls his eyes. "For fuck's sake, Pol, it's a cold." A bad one, if that's really all it is, but he'd sooner be damned than let word get out that Thomas Shelby was sent slinking off the streets by a fucking cold.
"Call it what you want," Polly says, "but if it's enough to put you in bed, it's enough to prove my point."
"I'll be on my feet tomorrow," he tells her, letting his head tip back against the wall, the steaming cup still cradled in his hands. "Just need to rest a bit, that's all." He's shivering, even with the tea and the extra blankets she'd brought up earlier, and dark smudges are collecting under his eyes. Still, it's unusual for him to admit even that much.
"You been eating, Thomas?" she asks quietly. He's not one to fall ill easily, but he'll run himself into the ground with lack of food and sleep, replacing both with that pipe he thinks she doesn't know about. "I don't remember the last time I saw you put food in your mouth."
"I've been busy," he says flatly.
"You've been making yourself busy," Polly corrects him. "There's no reason you can't sit down and have a meal once in awhile, other than that you don't want to."
He takes another sip of the tea instead of answering her; she takes that as answer enough.
She stands, and straightens the blankets again. "Get some sleep," she says brusquely. "I'll wake you when it's time for supper, and that fever had better be down."
"Yes, Aunt Polly," he says, eyes closed. "Whatever you say, Aunt Polly."
—•—
The fever's not gone when she wakes him that evening, but his voice is. The cough's about the same, though, so she isn't worried. He just needs to take it easy for a day or two, and he'll be fine.
Of course, that's too much to ask of Thomas Fucking Shelby, and so it's back to work in the morning and then the morning after that he doesn't get up at all.
She knocks on his door a little before noon with more tea and a bowl of cure-all chicken soup.
"Don't say it," he croaks when she comes in. "Don't fucking say it."
He's sweaty and just a bit flushed and his eyes are too bright, but he's not so sick that she needs to take pity on him. "I told you," she says pointedly. "But Thomas Shelby listens to nothing and no one, isn't that right?" She sets the tray down on the night table and roots around the rest of its clutter for the thermometer she'd left there last night. "Open."
It's almost comical how well the thermometer completes the image of the petulant patient, even if he is glaring daggers at her.
"Thirty-eight and a half," she declares after the mercury has stopped creeping up. "And you're staying put until it's all the way down, you hear?" She wipes off the thermometer on her skirt and puts it back. "Don't need you going off and catching something worse."
"I can't just stay in bed," he says, like she's told him to become a monk instead, and then sneezes.
"You can and you will," Polly says shortly, and that's that.
—•—
She expects more of a fight, but Thomas keeps to his bed with nary a word of protest. It's clearly a capitulation to his own poor health, rather than to her iron will, so it's rather more unsettling than it is satisfying. Still, rest is rest, and it'll do the boy good.
He coughs, sneezes, and shivers his way through two more days, and on the afternoon of the third he comes downstairs in a thick wool sweater instead of his usual waistcoat. It's as close as he'll get to admitting a truce, but it's clear he doesn't plan on heading out for the rest of the day.
"How's the fever?" she asks as she slides him a plate of beef stew.
"Gone, I think." His voice is back, albeit still rough in places, and he looks closer to his usual self.
"Good. Eat up."
He doesn't exactly eat with enthusiasm, but he cleans his plate with the grim determination of a man who's learned not to expect his next meal. "Where are the others?" he asks once he's finished.
"Out," Polly tells him. "You can join them tomorrow, and not a moment before."
He almost smiles. It's almost real, too. "No, that's all right. I've been thinking, and I have some ideas I'd like to hear your thoughts on."
It's not an apology, and it's not thanks, but it's as close as he's likely to come to either.
And today, for her, that's enough.
Just a short one this time, but thank you for reading! Please feel free to share any thoughts/feedback you may have.