One-Shot Prompt: When Tommy and Lucia decide on a mutual separation, she comes to Margate to find a quick respite with Alfie Solomons. During a short time together, they find comfort in one another and settle the bad blood between them. (Lucia/Alfie. SFW.)

AN: These one-shots don't follow any specific order after the season 4 plotline. ALSO:

***I seriously don't condone cheating and only felt comfortable fulfilling this prompt for a reader after deciding Lucia and Tommy agreed to separate***

Lucia Shelby showed up on his doorstep without even a call. Alfie was caught off guard when his maid said her name, and he quickly instructed Lucia to be escorted up to his crowded sitting room. The walls were lined with antique dark oak bureaus filled behind the glass panels with relics of his past life.

Dusty statues, candelabras, dull clocks that kept time, worn books, vases, busts of ancient figures of antiquity galore! Alfie blended so well with it all, it took a moment for Lucia to find him sitting on a dark velvet couch with its mismatched pillows.

"Fuck's happened to your face?" She grimaced at the sight of him.

Alfie looked up at her from where he sat, surrounded by his most precious belongings. "How soon did you know I was not dead?"

"I didn't know you were supposed to be dead."

"Oh." He looked disappointed. "Well there goes my element of surprise."

"Might have, but you never had one in the first place." Drowning into the nearest seat, an old armchair with a fringed blanket thrown over it, Lucia looked around at the crowded room with a skeptical eye. "You look terrible, Alfie."

"Hmmph." He decided to ignore that stinging observation. "How are your children? How is my dog?"

"My children adore your dog. Cyril is happy and well-loved. Perhaps a bit harassed by their love, but he doesn't seem to mind."

His fingers dragged down the length of the scar down the left side of his cheek, scratching at the underside of his jaw. Lucia grimaced again at the movement before quickly looking away towards the balcony. She stood and leisurely moved around, all the while being watched by Alfie from the couch. A rifle stood propped against the wall next to the balcony doors.

"What's this for?" She swung it up from its resting place and turned to him.

"Seagulls."

Lucia smirked. "Seagulls? You're retired and spend your hours shooting seagulls?"

"When you say it like that it doesn't sound very creative."

"It's not."

"Why did you come here? I already gave you all the paperwork for the Camden Town distillery. Nothing left in London belongs to me."

"Just wanted to visit."

"Are we friends now?" Alfie asked as almost a challenge.

Lucia checked the rifle crown and then the chamber to see if there was a round inside. Much to her pleasure, there was. She cocked the gun alive and held the wide butt against her side so it was pointed at him.

"We're not friends."

Alfie Solomons pulled at his beard, the scruffy mustache that sat over his lips wiggling as he moved his mouth looking for words. Nonplussed, he shrugged. "What a shame. I was looking forward to a new chapter in our lives."

"I haven't forgotten you betraying us during that boxing match with Bonnie Gold."

His mouth parted but Lucia quickly said what he had planned to.

"I know it was just business, Alfie. But I don't trust again as easily as Tommy. And I don't believe in forgiveness."

With a long-suffering groan, he stood. "Is this an assassination attempt then? Don't miss, 'cause I don't forget."

Lucia stood with the rifle raised, standing on locked knees as he closed the space between them. He took his time, hands locked behind his back leisurely, looking more like an old man than a man her age. His footsteps stopped where the rifle began. The palms of his hands rose to either side of his shoulders and reached out. Alfie caught the barrel of the rifle between his thumb and forefinger. Slowly, eyes still locked to Lucia's, he brought the nozzle to the center of his chest. His arms dropped to his sides, shoulders squared, almost daring her to pull the trigger.

"I should do it," she whispered.

"Then do it," he whispered back just as quietly, tempting and goading her on.

Lucia looked away first. She couldn't bear the scar cutting across half of his gnarled face or the pale eye that he fixed on her. He looked like a creature living in purgatory, stumbling between life and death, turned away by Hades himself. It sickened her in the way too much mulled wine did on a warm summer night.

They stood there, facing one another, for several minutes before Solomons gently lifted the rifle so it pointed to the ceiling. Like a ghost he drifted closer. His fingers were warm and calloused when it found her chin.

"Who shot you?" she asked.

"It was your husband."

"I would have done a better job."

Alfie shook his head. His thumb brushed the underside of her jaw. She was full of shit. "Hmmph."

Lucia shifted uncomfortably around his touch. Red had grown across her cheeks and the heat went up to her ears. She wanted to run. She could have run. But didn't.

She reached out to touch him but recoiled. He was like a wild animal and Lucia wasn't brave enough to tame him. When Alfie unburdened the rifle from her grip, her fingers made contact with his hot skin and tranced down the length of his scar. It felt rigid and broken under her fingertips..

"What's Tommy done to you?" she murmured more to herself than to him. What a waste of a beautiful face.

"If you must know, he did it for you."

She frowned. "Tommy does a lot of things for himself in the name of others."

"He did it for me too. It was an act of mercy."

The fingers brushing against his skin abruptly parted. Eyes narrowed, head tilted to expose the supple skin along her neck, Lucia asked,

"What do you mean?"

Alfie grunted, half scoffing and half clearing his throat so his voice wouldn't break. "I'm dying. Cancer."

"Fuck, Alfie."

"Hmmph. I won't ask you to, dove, don't worry."

The joke was waved away and Lucia looked with more concern in her eyes. It seemed the woman who didn't believe in forgiveness had forgiven the man that never forgets.

"Are you in pain?"

"Will you put a man out of his misery if I say yes?"

She shook her head, a deep line creasing between her eyes. "We're square."

Alfie grunted disapprovingly. "Don't make it too easy for me."

"Alfie, please —"

"Understand, woman," he firmly said with a finger speared into her face, "I'm not going to comfort you."

She rolled her eyes in frustration, wrapping her hand around the finger he'd thrust into her face, and grabbed a handful of his shirtfront. She didn't know what possessed her to do it. Maybe it was pity or regret or the incurable sadness of Tommy wanting a separation, but Lucia yanked him down to press her lips to his.

Her lips were softer than he imagined. There was no urgency, Alfie noticed. She parted his mouth with her own slowly, pressing closer and closer against his burning chest. It went on for so long that it felt as though she was passing along a part of her soul to patch up the spaces where his had long since deteriorated. Like forbidden fruit, Lucia seemed to place herself into his hands and offered up all the goodness she had in surplus.

With uncertainty Alfie wrapped his arms around her, holding her against him to stoke the fire he felt growing higher and higher in between his ribs. She was a tonic. She was lighter fluid. She was every goddamn ligament holding his bones together. It was a comforting feeling. But comforting feelings were treacherous.

Breathless, he pulled away.

Lucia bashfully smiled to herself at his confused expression. Alfie was determined to remember the hairpin curve of her lips as she did so. She swallowed the taste of him and he noticed how it sat in a small lump at her throat before disappearing past her collarbone.

"I knew you were full of shite," she sheepishly said. Kissing him wasn't how Lucia expected. She expected him to treat it as though he treated all his business - firm, brash, and dominant. Instead, Alfie had been gentle, sweet, and almost reserved.

"'M not as strong as I used to be. Breath goes right through me."

The cancer dawned on her again and left a shadow over her features. "Right," her voice dipped low with sadness. "And you've decided to live out the rest of your life in Margate shooting seagulls."

"And seducing married women."

Lucia held up her bare left hand, drawing attention to the finger that used to wear her husband's wedding ring. "Tommy and I have separated."

"From you?" Alfie shook his head incredulously. "Nah, must be mental."

Gratefully Lucia snorted a laugh through her nose. "It seems he has trouble seeing me as a wife rather than as a business partner."

"That explains the —" he waved his hand in the space separating their lips. "Kiss."

"That, I did for myself. Always wondered about it. The beard didn't bother me as much as I thought." Lucia ran her fingers along the edge of the couch, feeling the fabric thrum, to distract herself from his pointed gaze. "I suppose I came for a change of scenery. And you're the only man I know who's good for it."

"Were you looking to kill me first and go on your way, or stay for a bit and then kill me?"

"Thought I'd try and shoot you, just to see where you wanted to go from there."

He hmmph-ed again and pinched his beard with a grumpy expression though secretly delighted to hear her say as much. Pushing past towards the balcony, Alfie turned back to say,

"I have a very strict schedule. Need lots of rest. Mornings are for reading. Some afternoons I take walks down the beach. On rare days after lunch, I get women sticking rifles in my face. On Wednesdays, I shoot gulls. Join me."

"You could have shot it, you git."

Lucia raised her eyes off the sight and looked at him severely. "For the last time, I'm not going to shoot 'em, Alf."

"Give me the rifle." He pulled it from her hands roughly in exchange for the binoculars. "Keep a good eye out. If you can," he added with a dramatic scoff.

"Christ, you're a bossy prick." She held the binoculars to her eyes and searched the skies for any poor birds that might fall prey to Alfie's trigger finger. "I should shoot you instead and see how you like it."

"Don't threaten me with a good time, woman."

"With a face like yours, you're lucky I even try."

"Hmmph."

Lucia was determined to say another cruel thing but the moment the binoculars cleared her face Alfie had pressed her back against the stone wall of the balcony and pinned her arms above her head.

"You talk," he growled, pinching her bottom lip between his teeth until she gave a small moan from the pain, "too much."

Lucia turned her head away to free her lip but Alfie pressed even closer. His hot breath fanned over her ear, fingers tightening around her wrists, pressing so hard against her chest that the buttons of her blouse might have popped off from the pressure against her breasts. Whatever cutting remark she had thought of had long disappeared and she stood against a wall and a hard place with the stunning realization that she didn't wish to move at all.

She turned her head back to Alfie and laughed. "You can dish it out but can't take it, can you, big man? I'd expect as much from a baker."

Alfie knew what she was doing. She said it with so much affection and laughter in her voice that it wasn't as hurtful as she intended it to be. He found that almost endearing. He found that it almost made him smile back at her.

"Fuck off," was his guttural response. He released the grip he held on her wrists and stepped back.

She had no problem grinning back at him. It came easy on her lips. It looked better on a face like hers. Yet she looked at his monstrous and mangled visage, and she smiled. It amazed him. In silence, Alfie looked her all over. His body shifted closer in temptation and Lucia, standing doe eyed and appearing harmless as ever for a woman who had killed her mother and brother, allowed it.

"I'm not going to give you what you want."

"That's fine. I enjoy watching you fight a losing battle with yourself."

"Is that what you think I'm doing?"

"Oh yes," she nearly sang.

Alfie admired the way her skin glowed in the light of the setting sun. He shifted on uncertain legs. He was indeed fighting a losing battle but refused to show it. He had, after all, made good money arguing the truths others guessed of him.

"Ahh," he growled again as an unnamed feeling took root in his gaping ribs and resumed his spot on the balcony with the rifle extended between his arms. Lucia soon took up the binoculars to search the skies.

"There. At nine." She pointed over his shoulder at the gray gull that dipped and swerved through the air.

From the well polished sight, Alfie followed the bird with a finger poised at the trigger. The barrel of the rifle trailed the bird slightly ahead of its path and, when the time came to squeeze the bullet free, Alfie didn't.

"You could have shot it." The binoculars were still pressed to the ridges of her brow to follow the bird.

The rifle had long been lowered and Alfie waited for her to catch on. He shifted irritably in impatience.

"It's at 3 o'clock now." Lucia extended her free arm to point in the correct direction and nearly poked his good eye out. "Alfie. I know you have one eye, but are you completely blind in that one too?"

"For fucks sake, look at me, you cow!"

Lucia frowned and took off the binoculars. "Alright, alright. No need to get so cross. Christ."

The rifle was propped against the balcony. The binoculars were placed next to it. Alfie stared down at Lucia and he could have sworn there was some sort of everlasting heaven in her even gaze.

He pulled and pinched at his beard nervously. "Tommy left you, eh?"

"He figured a break would do us good."

"And you decided to leave your children and come here?"

Lucia was frozen in place. She waited a moment longer, offering another opportunity to clarify himself, before rushing to play the offensive. But an explanation never came and she began to feel shame for abandoning Charlie and Sabine. "It might do Tommy some good to spend time with them."

His mustache twitched but otherwise his mouth remained silent.

"You were right, you know." Lucia mentioned softly as she looked out into the bruised sunset. "When you said I wouldn't be a good mother. Just not warm, you said."

Slowly, so slow that neither of them knew it was happening, Alfie sat his palm flush with the heat of her throat. He wondered if he should close his fingers around the tiny neck of hers. Instead, his knuckles dragged over her collarbone and he pulled her close enough to count each freckle on her nose with his one good eye. "You're plenty warm, love."

She bit the inside of her lips and grimaced against his touch. There were already small droplets of tears forming in her eyes that Lucia refused to let through. "Ah fuck it," she said between grit teeth.

Alfie rubbed out the loose tear against her skin, hoping to bring her close again. His soul was feeling mighty empty again and kissing her pieced it together once before. It was a theory he'd happily test out again, but Lucia left him standing on the balcony as she briskly returned inside to gather her coat and purse.

"Where are you going?"

"Birmingham."

"Stay here a while."

"Why?" she turned and looked him down with suspicion.

"Because, unlike our Tommy, I want you to." His body nearly filled the entire doorway, blocking out what light remained of the setting sun. "Stay, and let me be kind to you. You can go back to Birmingham before Sabbath."

Alfie pried the purse from her fingers. He helped her out of her coat. He looked at her with as much kindness as he promised to give. It was almost a comfort to Lucia. But she had long since learned that comfort was an open door for cruelty to take root.

Alfie woke early the next morning to watch the sunrise. It had become such a daily practice to wake up to an empty house, he could hardly believe his eye when he reached his balcony to find Lucia curled fast asleep in the basket chair he usually sat in. Quietly, he brought another chair closer to resume his sunrise and draped a couch throw over her bare legs. Sitting protectively beside her, Alfie quite enjoyed the quiet company. Just knowing she was there was enough to make his brittle bones hurt less.

A soft breath vibrated off her throat when she awoke. Alfie thought it was a lovely little sound and nearly said so out loud. His mind wandered to fictional mornings when he could hear that sound and the rustle of her body under the sheets beside him.

Alfie Solomons held nostalgia for an unanswered fantasy.

"Jesus," she said in a raspy voice thick with sleep. "It's well into the day."

Alfie grunted in response. He didn't trust his voice to hide the sentiments he burrowed deep to conceal.

She turned to him with eyes squinted away from the sun. "How long have you been here?"

"Hmmph. Sunrise."

Lucia wiped the sleep from her face, stretching under the small throw he had draped over her. "I think I'd quite like to grow old here."

Alfie thought of how he'd quite like to grow old here too.

"You look different at home," she was smiling at him now. "Less angry. Almost normal. Makes me wonder what you were like as a boy."

Alfie threaded his fingers together across his chest and extended his legs out, relaxed. "I never was a boy. Always looked like this." He gestured to his face.

Lucia stared at him a moment. Then two. And then she threw her head back to laugh. It traveled from her belly and bubbles up through her chest before she sang it out. Alfie quirked his brow up in surprise but soon felt pleased with himself. She was beautiful when she laughed. What a right bastard Tommy was for never seeing it.

She mimicked his relaxed body and extended her bare legs out from under the blanket into the rays of the afternoon sun.

"My mother always said I was a stroppy little natural disaster between my brothers. Nearly smothered Angel with a pillow once. Broke Luca's front teeth. I broke windows and ran faster than all of them. Nothing ever happened to me though. Never broke a bone or cried when she'd beat me. I think it made my mother angry seeing her boys suffer. She must have been determined to get any reaction from me.

"It must have been a life's pursuit for her. She was so hard pressed to take away every part of my soul until I was left with nothing. How do you rebuild an empty soul?" Lucia looked at him, confident that he'd give her the answer but all Alfie could do was look back. "When you've lost so much of yourself so easily, it's only understandable to cling on to the first kind thing that comes your way."

"Tommy?"

"No," she shook her head sadly. "His mother. She loved me so much. And before she made me watch her end her own life, she told me to take care of Tommy. It's been a curse more often than a blessing, but how could I not when she's looking down at me?"

"Death isn't a place. It's just darkness. She can't see you."

Lucia's wrists hung over the edge of the chair and Alfie had half a mind to reach out to take it in his own.

"It's just darkness," she parroted in a small voice. If Mary Shelby couldn't see her, then her parents and brothers couldn't see her either. "Just darkness."

She reached out and tucked her smaller hand into his. Alfie stroked her tired knuckles with the calloused tips of his fingers. They were a sight to behold. A monstrous man and an empty woman, sitting hand in hand looking into an unknown ocean.

"Are you scared, Alfie? Of facing that darkness?"

He shook his head. "Nothing to be scared of. Dust is dust, and silence is silence."

Lucia squeezed his hand. "I stopped feeling scared of it a long time ago - after my father and Angel died. My father and Luca were the only ones who loved me. They didn't do it in the best way, but I know they did. But now they're gone. What happened to your family?"

Alfie didn't move. He wasn't planning on recounting how his mother had been hunted down through the snow like an animal by the Russians and their dogs. Or how his father had died from the grief of her death. Or how his older brother had severed his arm in a factory and died on the dirty ground from blood loss. But for her, Alfie tried. He honest-to-goodness tried. Because of all the people he had met, she was the one that understood being an orphan in this terrible world. Even though she may have orphaned herself by her own hand.

"They died. All of 'em."

Her hand remained still in his and Alfie was abundantly grateful for it. She didn't offer a sympathetic squeeze or paltry words. Lucia remained still and Alfie did the same.

"Dust is dust," she said.

"And silence is silence," he finished.