Alfie came awake in stages. It was quiet, it was too early. He was sleep-heavy and warm, and he didn't want to get up, but he needed the loo. He groaned and stretched, figuring he could put it off a few more minutes.

That's when he felt the rustle of movement beside him and he was soon smothered in a warm, pliant, female blanket.

"Mmm…" Mabel hummed. "I don't hear anything, so it can't be time to get up yet." She yawned, then burrowed deeper next to him. "What are you doing up?"

Alfie cracked an eyelid and shifted to see her sleepy face. Her brown curls stuck to her cheek, she had pillow lines on her forehead, she was flushed and… and beautiful. He focused on the almost translucent freckles across the bridge of her nose that you couldn't see anytime except this close-up. He wanted to tuck them in his pocket for a rainy day. Alfie felt the urge, no, the need to lean forward and kiss those faint marks, then her pillow lines and cheekbones and lips and neck and collarbones…

"Mmph," Alfie said, rolling away. "Loo."

He sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from her, and tried to pull himself together. A part of him hated this weakness, this need that she excavated in him. She had said last night that she'd changed. Well, she wasn't the only one.

Alfie felt her fingers on his back, at his waistband, familiar and exciting at the same time, and he forced himself to pull away. She didn't say anything as he left the room, but he could feel her eyes on him as he walked away.

He took his time, facing himself in the mirror and staring down the villain he always saw there. He had long ago come to terms with the evil he brought into the world. He perpetrated corruption and maliciousness, and at the end of the day he sought forgiveness, but he kept doing it. He did it because he had no other path in this world, and he walked the row he was given. In his way, when it was possible, he worked to remove the wickedness he couldn't control and reign in the wrong he could, but it was also self-serving.

He wasn't good. He would never consider himself a good man, not the way Mabel was good. She came to him, pure and wholesome, and he had sullied her, and he didn't deserve her. And yet… when he looked at her, curled next to him, soft and accepting, he wanted nothing more than to take, and take, and take. He wanted to spread her over himself like a balm or an ointment, something to make himself better, and yet the more often he did it, the more he wanted. She opened an unfathomably deep chasm in himself he hadn't known existed previously.

The Alfie in the mirror splashed water on his face and towelled it off, a blank slate that could be concealing a violent and volatile criminal, or, apparently, a whining, needy child.

When he entered the kitchen, Mabel rose from the table, fully dressed and perfectly coiffed, and Alfie felt a sense of loss like he'd missed an opportunity. She pressed a cup of tea in his hands and a kiss to his bearded cheek. When she sat again, he pulled out a chair and sat at the end of the table, watching her add sugar to her own cuppa. She didn't appear upset, or needy, just her normal cheerful self, and Alfie wanted. He didn't just want her in his bed, he wanted her in his house, at his table, in his life.

He cleared his throat.

Mabel looked up, her hands pausing in their work as she waited for him to speak.

"Ah…" he fumbled, "I didn't expect you'd be up."

Mabel gave a half shrug, returning to her task. "Turns out Peaches needed the loo too," she grinned.

She waited until he had tea in his mouth before she said, "We need to finish talking about yesterday."

He put his tea down and wiped his moustache with his napkin, waiting.

"You can't do that to me anymore, Alfie. You don't get to decide when I leave. I'm a big girl, I get to decide that."

Her voice was lighthearted, simple. She, very obviously, didn't want to fight, and he didn't either, but his face was sombre when he said, "It's not a safe life, Mabe."

"I know that Alfie, you think I don't know that?" Her hand covered his on the table top. "I'm choosing you. And I hope you're choosing me too. We work better together, when we talk and tell each other what's going on. If I'd involved you when I hired Wilma, you'd have made sure she checked out. If you'd have asked me about being pregnant, I could have cleared it up, no stomach churning involved. Well," she amended, "minimal stomach churning."

She tried on a small smile, but it died when Alfie couldn't return it. He sighed, turning his hand over and grasping hers. "I have to do what's best for you. If you were to get pregnant, I can't have you fight me on this. It'd be my responsibility to keep the baby safe, you have to let me."

Mabel quieted, thinking. "Can't we decide together what's safe?"

"No."

Alfie's tone brooked no argument and he watched her wince but he couldn't back down, not on this.

It was Mabel's turn to sigh. Alfie waited again. His gut was clenched, but he was determined to keep her from knowing his anxiety right now. He wasn't a bloody adolescent who couldn't separate feelings from reality, and he certainly wasn't going to let Mabel do it either. She needed to decide, right now, if this was a deal breaker for her, and she needed to do it based on what she thought about it, not him.

"So… if I get pregnant, I'm getting shipped off to somewhere else, and I don't get a say in it. That sounds an awful lot like being punished for carrying your child."

Alfie refused to be baited, just sat, his fingers curled around hers, and waited. Mabel sucked on her lip, her eyes staring at their entwined hands.

"And if I refuse?"

He blinked. "Refuse what, exactly?"

Mabel looked at him, her eyes steady and determined. "Look, I don't like this. I don't like the, "You'll do what I tell you, when I tell you, and I don't care what you want." That's not what I signed up for. I understand you wanting to keep me… us… safe, but to what end?"

"To the end where you don't get killed, obviously." Alfie's patience was starting to wear down.

His wasn't the only one, apparently, as Mabel's voice rose, her fingers gripping his. "Fine, but at what cost? So your son can grow up without a father? Or your daughter can live a life in hiding?" Mabel shook his hand, looking like she really wanted to shake him instead. "Do you really expect me to never see you again? That's a pretty big consequence for something I can't entirely control."

Alfie thought for a moment, letting them both calm down. He removed his hand from hers and took a long drink. Finally, he set the cup down, wiped his lips and threw the napkin on the table.

"If I admit that you might have a point," Alfie said, "can you at least admit that I might have a point as well?"

Mabel beamed at him, joy radiating from her face, and he decided conceding to Mabel in the future might not always be a bad thing. Not if she looked at him like that.

"Mmph," he grunted as she grabbed his hand again, stilling her. "I'm going to tell you a story, so you understand."

She sobered, and nodded. "Okay," she said, but she kept his hand in hers.

Alfie told Mabel about Tommy Shelby, Grace Shelby, and their baby boy. He explained that after Grace died, their son had been kidnapped. Tommy turned the entire Russian mafia inside out so he could get his boy back, and even though it had cost Alfie dearly, he eventually told Tommy he didn't have anything to do with it. He didn't want him to think that of him, not with the devastation that had been etched into Tommy's face.

"I don't think I could do it, Mabe," Alfie said. "I think if that had been my son, I'd have lost my fucking mind. I can't…"

Alfie couldn't articulate it, but thank God, Mabel understood. He could see it in her face.

"Okay," she said, her voice thick. "Okay. I understand. But, Alfie," she said, forcing him to meet her eyes, "sending me… us away isn't really a fool-proof solution either. So many things could go wrong, and you wouldn't be there to protect us."

Alfie's lips thinned, but Mabel rushed in again.

"I'm not saying I won't go!" she said, and Alfie felt his gut unclench. "I'm just saying that I won't stay away forever. And IF the scenario we are talking about actually comes to pass, you and I will think of something. Okay?"

Her face was hesitant and, he realised, fearful.

"Don't push me away," she whispered.

He sat up straight and used their joined hands to pull her to standing. He tugged her towards him until he could pull her down for a kiss, pretending he didn't notice the slightly desperate edge the kiss shared or the wetness on Mabel's cheeks. He did, however, pull her into his lap and kiss her some more.

Alfie was reading the paper in his favourite chair next to a roaring fire and feeling, for the first time in he couldn't remember how long, content. It was almost odd in its normality. He closed his eyes, to soak in the simplicity, quiet, and peace.

"Fuck," Mabel muttered.

He glanced over to the couch, where she sat tugging stitches out of her knitting and muttering under her breath. Her fingers were getting more and more frustrated and before she could throw the whole mess in the bin, Alfie decided he'd better intervene.

"Billy Hill is a problem," Alfie said, still staring at his paper.

Mabel was quiet for a tick, then, "Oh?"

"Mmph."

"How's that, then?"

Alfie shrugged a shoulder. "He's the kind of guy that kidnaps children and poisons girlfriends. I need to take him out."

He could practically hear Mabel thinking. "Oh. So, what's the problem, again?"

Alfie ruffled the paper he was hiding behind. "Can't exactly have it come back to me now, can I?"

He waited to hear what she thought but nothing came over the top of the paper. Alfie folded down the edge of the page to glance at her and found her staring back at him.

"What are you doing?" she accused him.

"Uh," he said, folding up the paper, "talking?"

Mabel blinked and then looked embarrassed. "Oh." She busied her hands again, plucking at stitches and Alfie watched her, curious.

"What are you doing?"

Mabel gave a half-laugh, half-sigh and bundled the knitting off her lap. "I don't know." She gave him a weak smile. "Proving that I really can't knit, even if I don't have my mother hovering over me."

Alfie grunted, then moved to pick up his paper again, but Mabel stopped him.

"So, tell me about Billy Hill? He needs to be gone, but you can't be seen doing it? Why not? You've taken out enemies before."

It was Alfie's turn to half-sigh. "Not exactly an enemy anymore. I made a splashy show of joining up with him, so I could get closer and find out what he was up to. Now, I can't remove him without blacklisting myself."

"Are you sure that would happen?"

Alfie thought of his first impressions of the Peaky Blinders and Tommy double-crossing Billy Kimber. That reputation had followed him for a long time.

"Oh yeah," he said, "quite sure."

Mabel thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Why don't you just go to his boss."

Alfie looked at her. "His boss?"

"Yes, dear, everyone has a boss."

Alfie frowned. "I don't have a boss," he muttered.

Mabel gave him a knowing look and he frowned harder. She rose from the sofa, stretched, and said, "Come to bed."

Mabel raised an eyebrow in a challenge and he tried his damnedest to scowl at her, but he just couldn't do it. He closed his eyes, shaking his head with a smile on his lips.

"Yes, ma'am."

Billy Hill didn't have a boss, per se, but you didn't get where he was at his age without help. Alfie found Billy's mentor easily enough and invited himself to an impromptu meeting. Gangsters hated it when you did that.

Alfie sat across from the older gentleman, looking for all the world like he was in his own office, granting a meeting with this man out of the goodness of his heart. The man didn't appear to appreciate it.

"I tell you what, I'm gonna be honest with you," Alfie said, leaning forward. "Because you remind me of my father, God rest his soul, and he would want me to be honest with you." Alfie twirled his cane on the floor. "Truth is," he whispered conspiratorially, and as he leant further toward him, with a lightning bolt of clarity, Alfie realised that the man in front of him didn't remind him of his father. He reminded him of himself. Alfie looked down at himself, his "business" clothes that he wore when he meant business, and the contrasting sharp suit in front of him. They were different men, it was true. Very different. But, in their comparative positions, very much equal. What would Alfie want to hear in his position? "Truth is... " and the words Alfie had mentally prepared on his way over died on his tongue. The cajoling, the veiled threats, the sarcastic hints at violence, surely all anticipated by the suit in front of him, but in the end, he'd probably already made up his mind, and it didn't have anything to do with what Alfie would say next. It was about self-preservation and the safeguarding of what he'd spent a lifetime building. He would do what it took to protect it, and of all the men who could be sitting across from him, Alfie understood that.

Alfie shifted in his seat, and he could feel Abe next to him tense. "Truth is, mate, I could run your man into the ground, I really could. And I have sat in your chair and done the calculations you're doing, and we both know that it would be detrimental to my business, and I might have to cash in a few favours, but I could do it if I really wanted. And you've got to make a choice, right? Fucking war, or fucking peace. So I'm gonna talk plain. I don't want your shipping business, mate."

The man in front of him didn't shift or blink, just stared at Alfie and waited.

"What I want, is I want to run my business, and I want you to run your business, and we each go about our merry fucking way, right? What I want is…"

And Alfie sighed and ran a hand down his face, suddenly feeling every day of his age. He sat back in his chair and looked at the man in front of him.

"Look, mate. I've got people, right? People I'm responsible for, people I protect, with my dirty little bit 'o' crime and my dirty little corner of the world. And you do too. We protect our own, am I right? Because the good Lord above knows that no one else is doing it for us. And Billy fucking Hill doesn't get that. He's a fucking lunatic, mate. He's dangerous, untrustworthy, and uncooperative. He talks about kidnapping children and killing people's wives for fuck's sake!"

Alfie could hear the passion in his tone, and for good or ill, he let it ride. He didn't know the man in front of him, he didn't care to. He didn't know if this was falling on deaf ears, but if he didn't try, then the only option was to take him out and lose the men along the way. He didn't want that.

He leant forward again, elbows on his knees. "I said I'd talk plain, and here it is. I'll make you a deal. Either you get rid of him and send a replacement, or I'll get rid of him and you'll still have to send a replacement, except you could lose your shipping business in the meantime. Because I want what I want, and if I can't go through you, I will go right the fuck over you."

The man in front of him was still gazing calmly at Alfie, and now that he'd said his piece, he folded his hands across his blotter on his desk, straightened a piece of paper, and licked his lips.

"Well, Mr Solomons. You are not at all like I'd been lead to believe you would be."

Alfie wasn't sure what to say to that, and so he said nothing.

The gentleman reached under his desktop and withdrew the pistol Alfie had assumed was there, setting it casually on the desk. Abe next to him opened his jacket to give him better access to the pistol he carried in the holster, and let the man see him do it.

He nodded. "Mr Solomons," he said, "you claim 'you want what you want'. Before you came in here today, I'd assumed that was to take over the business you've been trying to break into without success. Now, however, I'm less sure. Can you explain to me exactly what it is you do want?"

Alfie wanted to live in a world where he wouldn't have to send Mabel up the river if he accidentally impregnated her, but he obviously couldn't say that here. He scratched his beard. "'M trying to expand my business, obviously. I was willing to go through the proper channels, pay your man his due, let both of us make money. However, Hill had no interest in that, preferred to play games and try to pit gangs against one another. You are only going to make enemies in this town if you can't work with people at the very least when it benefits you."

He seemed to be considering, his eyes tightening at the corners as he studied Alfie. "And you do know that I can't just be sending you someone else every time you don't get your way. We aren't children, after all."

Alfie nodded once, his eyes trained on the impassive face in front of him. "We most definitely are not,' he agreed. "However, if Billy Hill was in my employ, I would want to know what he was doing. If you knew and you approve, well, then this was a friendly visit to inform you that I will destroy myself to take you down. I won't have my people live in a city where they are being made unsafe because of my associations. The Jews in London have enough to deal with."

"And outside of it, if I understand correctly."

Alfie's face darkened and he nodded again, once. He had heard rumours… well, that was neither here nor there. He had to deal with what was in front of him, now. All else could wait.

"Very well, Mr Solomons. Consider your request granted. Please keep in mind that today's interactions are no indication of a future working relationship, and I look forward to the income you have promised to provide."

Alfie gritted his teeth, swallowing every snarky comment that came to his lips before standing. Well, almost every comment. "You know I don't normally make "requests" as you put it. I make demands. And they get obeyed. I'm sure you know the feeling."

The man stood also, facing Alfie. He stared back, saying nothing. But he held out his hand, and Alfie, after a second's hesitation, took it.

"Sholom, Mr Solomons."

Alfie's eyes narrowed, but he nodded. "Mmph. Sholom."