NOTE: There's been a bit of a switch up! Some readers have asked for the timing to be changed a little, and, agreeing with most of the points given, I've decided to follow through and change it. So, Harry doesn't come in at the end of season 2, before season 3 of Peaky Blinders, she appears right at the beginning of season 2. As a couple of reviewers pointed out, this gives Harry and Tommy time to get to know one another without Grace, work or the new baby interfering. I hope the rest of you don't mind! But, well, I was thinking it over and yeah, I liked how it would fit together and switched it up XD. We're still in 1922, but we're going to be going through season 2 in this fic. Enough of my rambling, enjoy!

Polly Shelby's P.O.V

"Tomorrow? I'm the company's treasurer. You should speak to me first. It's new market tomorrow, the third busiest day of the year."

Polly cursed as she entered the treasury room of the Shelby's bookie, hot on the tale end of a swaggering Tommy. They had just left the meeting Tommy had called for the family and Polly couldn't be in a nastier mood. Not only was Tommy set on this expansion plan into London, where foul men made even fouler deeds, but Tomorrow? He had to choose Tomorrow of all days?

Oh, he could peddle his excuses like a snake-oil salesman, but Polly knew. She knew her boys and she knew Tommy. Tomorrow would mark a full sixteen years since, well, since the first true loss was felt by the Shelby family. Pretty it up with bows and nice wrapping paper, the rest of the family would buy it, but Polly wouldn't.

"Well, we have eighteen staff."

Tommy retorted as he rounded on one of the safes lining the wall, turning the knob with a flick of his wrist. Polly huffed as she skirted towards her own desk, sitting down. He knew very well what she had left unsaid, hanging in the air between them, and as always, Tommy had decided to glide right over it. No one did tenacious like Tommy.

"Who you trust with 200 quid takings?"

Polly saw Tommy struggling with the safe, sighing as he re-tried to enter the code. Polly smiled to herself. He did get his stubbornness from somewhere, didn't he? If he didn't want to talk about what tomorrow really meant to him, to them, then he could damned well inform her of what he had cooking in that dark brain of his.

"Oh, and I changed the combination."

She snarked as she felt a flare of satisfaction light up her chest. It served the bastard right. He wasn't the only one who could keep secrets if he so wished, and, for once, to be on the receiving end of being kept in the dark might do him some good, even in just a little way. Furthermore, if he didn't want to talk, well, he wasn't going to get any money, was he? With Tommy, it was always deals, bargains and negotiations, even for a tiny scrap of his thoughts. From the corner of her eye, as she took to her own book, scribbling down calculations and sums with ease, she watched Tommy place a hand on top of the tall safe, lean against it heavily as his head lolled.

"So, what is going on Thomas? Who did you meet at the Black Lion?"

First the Garrison being bombed to nothing but black ash and petrified wood. Then Tommy's secret meeting down at the Black Lion with the lord knows who. Now this expansion into London being pushed forward to tomorrow of all days and all the answers, all the pretty little dots and comma's, were floating around inside Tommy's head, never to grace their little mortal minds. Was it arrogance? The time of year? The hurt he must have been feeling? Polly didn't know, but Tommy was not willing to play any of her games.

"Give me the combination Polly."

No. That wouldn't do. Not this time. Instead of answering, Polly dug herself deeper into her book, pen scratching on paper. Tommy pushed off from the safe, stalked over, braced his hands on the edge of her desk and leaned over. Polly almost laughed. He couldn't intimidate her, not in the same way he could Arthur or John, he knew this too and so, he was left with only demands falling on deaf ears.

"Polly, give me the combination."

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. He bounced back from the table, shoving his hands into his slacks, shoulders back and neck bared. Good. He was angry. Polly knew how to deal with an angry Tommy, not a hurt one.

"What happened at the pub is Irish business. We're in a situation where, for everyone's safety, it is best if some things remain undisclosed."

Polly did chuckle this time. When weren't they in a situation? Tommy liked his secrets, he liked it as much as Arthur liked his gin and John liked a good fight, and normally, Polly would let him keep a few, just to make him feel in control, but not now. Not today. Especially not for tomorrow.

"So, why tomorrow?"

Polly looked up at him, looked him right in his bright, cold eyes and she didn't back down. She urged him then, commended him to say it. Give voice to it. To… Do something other than keep it bottled up inside. Maybe if he opened up about his own pain, she could do the same. Go on, say it. Say it. Say it. She thought. Say that it had been sixteen years since little Harrietta was abducted by those scum pretending to be social workers from the local parish. Say that still, to this day, he hadn't been able to find her trail. Say that he still hadn't given up, not like her mother. Say that, yes, this time of year, he became a little reckless, a little blood thirsty, a little unhinged because, well, that was the only way them Shelby's could ever express their emotions. Say it and recognize it.

"Like you said, tomorrow is new market. All the London bosses will be at the races."

Polly threw her pen down on her book, scrubbing at her eyes as she broke contact with Tommy. But, of course, he wouldn't say any of those things. Just like she would never speak of her dreams, her terrible dreams, of her little girl, on the other side of the road, screaming for her, telling her she was gone, dead. If anyone, anyone, was to know what sort of pain and ache Tommy had, it would be Polly. Polly who, like him, had her own children, her little baby boy and precious girl, taken from her straining grasp. Perhaps Tommy was too much like her, she too, couldn't bring herself to say any of this, not in the light of day. At least, in some small measure of comfort for herself, her children had been taken by the actual authority and not strangers playing games. She knew her children had been fostered or adopted, not likely sold or killed or whatever other nefarious means illegal kidnapping entailed.

Oh, she knew, but the pain didn't lessen, just like it hadn't for Tommy all these years. They, those women, had seemed legit, real, god-fearing, good folk. The paperwork they had shown them, damn, Polly had never seen a more pristine forgery. However, when they had taken the babe, when months had passed with no word or document sent, when the original six months of Harrietta being in care ended and it was time, as the women had promised, for Harrietta to come home, they had all began to wonder. When Tommy had gone down to the parish, began asking questions, where no answers were found, no women having been sent to him or Lizzie on the decree of the law to take the child, the hammer had fallen. Was it the Shelby's enemies who had taken her? To send a message? Was it Tommy's fathers debts being collected? No one knew, and the little babe had been swallowed by Birmingham's fog, never to be seen again.

"So, you just roll up and take the city?"

Perhaps Polly didn't want to speak of it either, to think or breathe that possibly, likely, it had been sixteen years since her death tomorrow. Polly shook her head. No. She didn't believe that. Tommy didn't either, not with the continual flow of back end bribes he kept funnelling to the police to keep looking.

"No. We take the opportunity to show our hand. The Italian gangs and the Jewish gangs have been at war in London for the last six months."

Polly frowned…

"It's not our war."

Tommy cocked a brow…

"The Jews have been having the worst of it. They need allies."

Polly began cracking…

"Yeah, but we don't."

Tommy chipped away some more…

"We need a foothold at the southern end of the Grand Union. The Jews control Camden Town."

… And Polly broke.

"Your mother said it will be his cleverness that will kill him."

She rung her hands together in front of her, around and around and around, just like life, just like this conversation, just like hope, down and down, spiralling. Tommy's voice, usually so brisk, frigid, calmly in control, took a softer note.

"No one gets killed Polly. We go down tomorrow, when it's quiet, and we leave our message. If Alfie Solomons and his Camden boys come to us, we'll negotiate the use of a secure bonded warehouse and then our legal activities in London can begin. Now, please, open the fucking safe."

War. That was what Tommy had in his blood. In his heart. In his god-damned dark mind. War. Hadn't they all suffered enough? Hadn't they all paid the devil his due? Life had been going good, great, for the first time in such a long while. Money was a continual flow, no one was hurt or worse, dead, and here Tommy was, readying the horn that would bring hell raining down upon them. And what for? A fucking warehouse? Polly jolted from her desk, marching over to the safe, but stopped shy just a foot from it.

"You know, it was a fine speech you made back in there, about this company believing in equal rights for women. But when it comes down to it, you don't listen to a word we say. Maybe you don't trust us. I don't blame you, not really, but not all women are like those two harlots who masqueraded as social workers and took-"

"Open. The. Fuckin'. Safe."

He couldn't even hear of it. Little Harrietta was left as a dark secret, a hidden thought, a phantom, trapped. It broke Polly's heart. Bending down, Polly opened the safe. Tommy stormed passed her, pulling stacks of notes that he shoved hastily into his pockets. Polly, knowing when not to push, faded back to her desk. But no, not this time. She would speak of her, give Harrietta life in some form or shape, in her voice, in her heart, in her mind, even if Tommy couldn't bring himself to. As Tommy retreated, Polly shouted at his back.

"You know what? You and the boys can get yourselves killed! Let your daughter return to a fuckin' grave stone!"

Tommy slammed the gate to the treasury room behind him, never looking backward, not once. Polly's face crumbled as she slammed her own book shut, running a hand through her tangled hair as she sagged against the desk.

Lizzie Stark's P.O.V

Elizabeth Stark, better known as Lizzie, scrambled between her legs to pull up her knickers just as Tommy began pulling away from her, buttoning up his trousers. Now that the high of sex was wearing down, simmering, reality began to creep back in. They weren't back in 32 watery lane, in a cramped bedroom that smelled of smoke and firewood. They were no longer little fifteen-year olds, playing at being adults, enacting the game of young love. There was no babe swollen in her stomach, rounded and pleasant, or besides them, in a crooked Massenet basket. No. Lizzie was a prostitute, broken, defeated, beaten down by life. Tommy was a fully-grown man with blood on his hands and a special bullet in his gun. They were in Tommy's office, bought by the death and suffering of others, not that cosy room with peeling wallpaper. Tommy couldn't even look her in the eye. And Harr-

The fantasy, the one Lizzie always played in her mind, the memory of another time, another life, began to crack and splinter around her. However, it was too tempting, too pleasant, that little trip down memory lane, the chance at pretending, just for a moment, that nothing had changed, they hadn't changed, felt too alluring to let crumble around her. Not straight away.

"You going to London now?"

Just talk to me. That's all Lizzie wanted. A conversation. A real one. Where there was no stagnation, no hidden underlying understanding of pain. She just wanted him to talk to her like they used to. However, it wasn't meant to be, it never was, as Tommy was already putting his waist coat back on, already edging towards the door, eyes down and away. Lizzie bit back at the bile rising in her throat. Couldn't he look at her anymore?

"No. There's something I have to do first."

He began to put his gun holsters on, buckling them at his chest, and Lizzie felt cut to the bone. After all they had shared, and he was just going to walk away, so easily, like he always did? But not today, not today when it was so close, tomorrow would mark the sixteenth year since Harrietta was taken, and he could at least talk to her. She spotted a typewriter on the desk behind her and walked towards it.

"Huh, I've got a type writer like that. Got it out of a catalogue. I'm doing a correspondence course, I'm learning to do it with my eyes shut. It's a test you have to do."

She's rambling, words just flowing and Tommy's so silent, remote and it breaks her heart because it was in times like this her little fantasy broke completely. Harrietta wasn't sleeping in the other room, they were no longer young teens, too young, and that bond, that love broke the day Harrietta had been taken. She couldn't live her life in the past, no one could, despite how much she wanted to. Still, Tommy was the only physical thing Lizzie had left of Harrietta, the one thing she could look and touch and smell and, in some way, be close to her babe once more and that, well, that was something she could never quite let go of.

"Will you be back before you go?"

He doesn't look at her. He never does after sex. Not anymore. Instead, he takes to inspecting his gun, popping the barrel, counting bullets, clicking it home and spinning the damn thing before shoving it into the holster at his ribcage. Idly, she wonders who those bullets are for this time. A friend? An enemy? The mess that remained of her fuckin' dignity?

"No."

Tommy swung his suit jacket on, pulling out a roll of notes, slapping a few on the table and once again, Lizzie feels as dirty as Small Heaths streets. Was that all she was to him now? Another prostitute? Something faceless to fuck and pay and move on from? What hurt the most, what fucking bled her, was she could still so clearly remember the love and fondness in his eyes back then, so crystal clearly. Still, fucking still, she took the money, thumbing through it.

"I wish you would stop paying me. Just once. You didn't always do it. Can't you even stay in the same bloody room as me for ten minutes? There was a time when we loved each other and had a daugh-"

"Have. We have a daughter Lizzie. I'm not the one who gave up looking years ago."

And he left.

Polly Shelby's P.O.V.

Polly stumbled out of the small front door, tears streaking her face, words clogged in her throat, mind whirling a mile a minute, breath rapid and keen as a building whine pierced through her. The fortune teller had confirmed her worst fears. Her dreams, those horrid, foul dreams, were true. Her daughter was dead. Dead.

"No, no, no, no!"

She could feel herself breaking like a glass vase stomped by hoof. Damn the fortune telling bitch. Damn the parishes who took her precious children. Damn Tommy and his own grief stirring her own, inciting her to come here, to a fortune teller of all things, to question what happened to her own children. If Tommy had no chance of finding his own little girl, what hope did she ever dream of having of reuniting with hers? None now. She was dead. Her little girl was dead and her tears fell like rain on a November night. From somewhere close behind her, the slam of a car door echoed through the chilly night.

"Are you okay miss?"

No. Not like this. No one, not even the boys, would ever see her like this, let alone a stranger. She still had her pride, her dignity. The good lord couldn't take that too. Viciously swiping at her face, trying to remove all trace of pain or torment, Polly tried to hold back the flow of sobs that wanted to burst from her chest. Not here. In private. She could break and sob and yell and heave in private. Casting a quick glance up into the night sky, all she found was thick black clouds. Who would be traipsing around Small Heath's dark alleys and nooks at this hour?

"I'm fine."

Tugging on the lapels of her coat, Polly straightened herself up and painted on a calm face. That was something she could control, how the world viewed her, how she acted. No one would see the agony underneath it all. Never. She couldn't and wouldn't allow them to. Finally feeling half respectable, Polly turned around and eyed up the silhouette before her.

The lamps down the street weren't the best, most having broken a long time ago, and with it being well into the night's hours, it was hard to pick up much of the small figure standing next to a crimson red car, a 1920 Citreon Torpedo, if Polly wasn't mistaken. She wasn't, she never was, and that car was a pricey little number. The young woman, Polly could tell by her voice, soft and raspy, deep for a girl, was quite a beautiful sound, all smoke and rich jewels. She wore a large brimmed cloche hat, hair tucked inside, further shadowing her face and features into smudged obscurity. She was dressed warmly, leather gloves on hands, in a thick white knitted jumper tucked into a high-waisted black skirt that fell to her mid-calf loosely in a flattering asymmetrical A-line, little belt cinching it in at the waist and, on her feet… Yes… Once again, Polly wasn't mistaken, she was wearing men's work boots.

"Not from around here, are you?"

Not with fine clothes like that, a new model car behind her, or the innocence of stepping out of said car to ask a complete stranger if they were okay. No, she was likely a passer-by heading back to her father's manor over in Evesham or some other posh little country place where the real world was barricaded away.

"Just visiting. Look, do you want me to go in there and sort them out?"

Sort them out? This girl? So small and finely boned, like china? Polly, despite having cried just moments ago, broke out in a peel of unfiltered laughter.

"No, you're quite alright, sweetheart."

Polly saw the shadow of her head bob as she nodded, before she strolled back over to her car, pulling the door open. However, she stepped back and away from it, instead of slipping in and driving away, which, here in Birmingham, would have been the smart thing to do.

"Hop in, I'll give you a lift home."

Did this stranger think she needed help? Her? Polly? She was a god damned Shelby and she wouldn't take pity.

"I said I'm fine."

Polly could see the girl crack her neck, as if she, Polly, was the one pushing her limits.

"Look, it's dark, late and I know places like these. Take a wrong corner and you're going to get stabbed. Or worse. Now, if I let you wander off, in the state you're in, that will presumably be your fate. People saw me drive down this road. My car's pretty recognizable. It wouldn't be long before the police found your body and came knocking on my hotel door, demanding answers. I don't fancy sitting for hours down at the station explaining why I drove passed or how it wasn't me who bloody mugged you. So, do us both a favour, and get in the fucking car."

Open. The. Fuckin'. Safe. Polly heard it, clear as a morning song bird, in the back of her mind, Tommy just earlier this morning. It was uncanny, unsettling, slightly hilarious that from this barely five-foot three woman, she would hear Tommy's voice. For the briefest of seconds, Polly thought this might have been a trap. A lure. Some gang or other sending out a harmless looking thing to lead her down a dark alley where she would be met at gun-point for one or another transgression. The girl was obviously more adapted to street life than Polly had first given her credit for. Yet, Polly had her means of protection hidden around her person, she knew the roads of Birmingham like the back of her hand and if the woman took a wrong turn, she would know and, of course, use the gun hidden safely in her clutch bag.

"Well, when you put it that way, who am I to decline?"

The faster Polly got back to base, the faster she could let herself go, knock down the dam barely holding back the storm, and drown her sorrows in a bottle of gin. Strolling over, Polly slid into the passenger side of the car, the woman walking around the front to hop into the driver's seat. Barely before Polly could fully close the door behind her, the woman was off, driving down the street. An impatient little imp, then.

"Where to?"

She asked in that dusky voice of hers, as Polly turned to look at the girl. However, the brim of her hat, the odd side-sweep it was cut from, added to the angle she had it perched on her head, covered all but the very bottom of her jawline as she was faced dead ahead, towards the winding roads before them. Oddly, Polly wanted to reach over and snatch the hat right off her head, to see her face, but held herself back. Her nerves were raw, aching, and she was tired. So very, very tired.

"If you're visiting, you won't know it. I'll give you directions as we go. Take a left here and keep going until we hit the roundabout."

Polly wasn't about to lead the young woman to her home, just in case, the very off chance, that this was a trap set by the Peaky Blinders enemies. Who could say with the Garrison, their bloody pub, blowing up just that morning? Still, she would get the girl to take her to the bookies, where Polly would either try and work the night through or drink until sunrise, or, more than likely, she passed out to sweet oblivion. Reaching into her breast pocket, Polly pulled out a carton of cigarettes, lighting her own before offering the box out to the woman.

"Do you want one?"

She glanced her way quickly, so quickly, that Polly still couldn't catch a glimpse of her face. However, she had a feeling the woman was smiling as she blindly reached over and took one, a match too, striking it against the steering wheel and lighting her cig before sighing in bliss.

"Aye, you wee beautiful cunt. Cheers."

Polly's eyebrows raised sharply before they settle back over her dark, hooded eyes. Perhaps not a lady or heiress then.

"Scotland?"

The woman chuckled, and it was more decadent than the puff of opulent smoke that accompanied it.

"The brogue slips out every now and again. I spent the last two years and most of my childhood up there, in the highlands. It's kind of hard not to pick up the local flavour."

Now that she had said it, there was definitely, hidden deep between the curls of her tongue and clack of teeth, a Celtic twist to her voice.

"Scotland is a long way to come for just a visit, especially when one packs so light."

Polly said as she glanced to the rear-view mirror, eyeing the single medium sized suitcase in the back. Again, the woman chuckled warmly, a bit too loudly, as if she knew a joke no one else did.

"Trust me, it fits more than you can imagine. Where now?"

Polly nodded, though, she didn't quite get the jape.

"Take the first left off the roundabout, carry on until you hit the old laundrette, then take a right. So, have you come alone?"

There's a flare of bright orange light as the woman takes another drag from her cig. For a flash, Polly sees a curl had fallen loose from under her hat, thick, coiling down her neck, darker then the devil's soul.

"No. I have a friend with me, but she's already at the Grand Hotel."

Polly frowned.

"Got split?"

The girl took a final drag before flicking the butt straight out the open window. An avid smoker too, then, if she could finish a smoke off so quickly.

"No. I popped out trying to find a place, but, well, Small Heath is like a bloody maze. Before I knew it, the sun had set and I was over the other side of Birmingham. Then I ran into you on the way back, and, as they say, the rest is history."

Polly hummed. She didn't quite know why she was so keen on knowing the answers this girl was offering, but she was. Perhaps it was because, after so long in a place like Small Heath, even the barest and smallest offers of kindness were an ulterior motive to something murkier. Perhaps Polly simply wanted some time away from her own issues, her own life, and this was a way to find a few minutes of peace from being a fuckin' Shelby. Or, maybe, she was just so bloody tired. It hadn't escaped her notice that, for the third time now, the girl had been ambiguous, cautious, on disclosing why exactly she was here, in Small Heath. She was good, offering other tidbits of information to distract, but Polly had years of experience with Tommy and he was the king of shadow talk and mirror games.

"What brings you all this way?"

The girl began to tap on the steering wheel, in a sequence of two, like a heartbeat.

"Visiting family… If they're still here, that is."

Polly took a drag of her own cigarette before throwing the stub out the window.

"Estranged?"

The tapping stopped, and silence fell severely around them. Then she was tapping again, voice purposefully light and airy and kind… And obviously fake. If Polly had of been anyone else, someone who had not led the life she had, she would have bought it. The girl was a good actress.

"You could say that. I haven't seen them in nearly sixteen years."

Sixteen years? On the back of her eyelids, as she blinked, Polly saw their faces. Michael's golden curls and rosy cheeks, her little girl with her braids and lopsided grin, and little Harrietta, so small, so pale with her bright, bright eyes, and the tears began to collect at her kohled lash line again. Polly sucked them back with the force of all she had. Her son would be seventeen now. Her daughter eighteen but- Later. Later. Later. She could break later. When Polly spoke next, there was no hiding the serrated tone her voice cracked into.

"Then it's good you've come back… To them. They would like that."

Polly knew she would, if, one day, her son and daughter drove up to her. How many times had she dreamt of just that? How many dreams did her Tommy have of seeing Harrietta walking up his pathway? Too many. Yes, they had paid the devil handsomely for the money and security they had now. The price was too high. It was always too high.

"Well, let's hope they recognize me first."

The girls voice was dry, crisp, quick.

"I'm sure they will. Blood knows Blood. When was it the last time you saw them?"

Polly had to believe that. It was in them, their family, the Shelby name, to know one another, to pull together, to, no matter how far or how long they'd been away, they would all come home eventually. It was in their gypsy blood. Of course, the girl might not fall into the same familial recognition hers had, but, perhaps, Polly had been speaking to herself all along. Telling herself what she wanted to hear.

"Oh, give or take a few weeks? I was a couple months old."

Polly spluttered in surprise.

"You're only sixteen? You travelled from Scotland with only a friend? It must be close family?"

There was just something about her, an air, a feeling, that she was an old soul. Ancient and unbending. Maybe Polly was just seeing Tommy's reflection again. She was seeing Tommy everywhere today.

"Yes."

The tone was unyielding. A nail in the coffin. A shot fired. Polly was jolted by the sudden coldness of it, the deep, almost growling gravel. Polly could see her stiff shoulders, the only sign of her discomfort but then she was speaking again and the wicked bite is gone, dancing along the breeze, delicately exposed.

"It's-… I… I'm looking for my father and mother, you see. I was taken away when I was young. I always knew I was adopted, I have me da's last name, but I was never told my biological parents full names. I found my birth certificate a few weeks ago, saw their names finally and… Had to come see for myself."

There it was again, that little drop of common blood. Me da's last name. The young woman hadn't always had money. She coughed then and wiggled a little bit in her seat, clearly uncomfortable with her own openness. Just before Polly could push further, she was diverting the track with well-practiced ease.

"Now, enough of my sob story. What the hell were you doing in the middle of the road crying like a banshee?"

Polly chuckled at the blunt honesty. She would fit in well with her boys, especially Tommy and his sharp tongue. Despite her normally guarded nature, Polly found herself answering back in the same fragile sincerity.

"I went to a séance. It wasn't good news."

The girl scoffed and Polly heard the distinct sound of her leather gloves creaking as they were stretched, tightening around the steering wheel.

"Forget it. Trust me, fortunes, séances, prophecies, they're all a loud of bullshit. Right, where to now?"

Polly pointed over to the side.

"Take this road and then pull up to the second house past the alleyway on the right. Just there."

The girl bobbed her head and turned the car down the short road to the Shelby bookie. While what she said was nice, Polly still couldn't shake those dreams she had of her daughter. She didn't think she ever would. Finally, they pulled up to the gambling shop and the young woman cut the engine dead. Hearing aunt Brandy calling her name, Polly slipped out of the car without anymore preamble, walking around the front of the car towards the bookie's main door.

When she stepped up to the door, Polly's hand stalled on its way to her pocket. She had been planning on saying a quick and polite thank you and goodnight before heading in, but the words lodged themselves between clenched lips. For some unknown reason, something in Polly's gut screamed at her, something hot and visceral and squirming, twisted and churned, an instinct Polly had never over looked before, having saved her and the boys lives many a time, and she instead, offered invitation.

"Do you want to come in? Have a warm up? A cup of tea?"

She heard more then saw the girl shuffle in her seat.

"I don't drink tea."

The instinct was still there, still yelling and contorting, but before Polly could either propose something else or try and figure the feeling out, the girl was jumping out of the car and slamming the door closed.

"But after the day I've had, if you have a free glass of gin or whiskey stashed somewhere, then I'm game."

Polly smiled radiantly, that guttural feeling fluttering away, pulled out a key from her coat pocket and opened the door, speaking to the young woman over her shoulder as she did so.

"A girl after my own heart. For an extra glass of whiskey, do I get a name?"

Shuffling into the darkened gambling den, everyone having gone home at this hour, Polly was only saved from tripping over a chair or table by her impeccable memory. Skimming around the edge of the room, Polly reached up and turned the gas lamps on one by one. From the darkness, she heard footsteps follow her into the building before the scrape of a door closed. When the last lamp was lit, when the room became pleasantly light and bright, Polly turned around and faced her guest, only to find the girl with her back turned, eyeing up the large chalkboard with that afternoons winnings and losses scrawled upon its dusty face.

Polly watched as the girl stretched up and pulled off her hat, a cascade of thick, raven curls flooding down her back, wild and shiny. For a blink of an eye, Polly saw her brother's wife, with hair so similar, the same jet shade her son, Polly's nephew, Tommy, had inherited. Then the young woman is turning around and speaking, and Polly doesn't see Tommy's mother anymore.

"Harrietta Shelby, but Everyone calls me Harry. What is this place?"

Polly caught herself on the desk besides her before her knees could buckle. She doesn't see the boy's mother, no, she sees Tommy. The girl is smiling, dimples and all, looking around with bright, striking green eyes, the same green eyes Polly remembered on Tommy's mother, on Tommy's daughter. On Harrietta. She looked so much like her father, unarguably so, that it almost burnt to gaze at her, though she had her grandmothers' eyes. The Shelby blood was strong in her, thick and potent, that much was clear. Tommy couldn't have doubled himself better if he had spat the child out himself. There were hints of Lizzie too, hidden beneath Tommy's reflection. The thin swan-like neck, the long legs, the delicate piano fingers she was using to grasp the black cloche hat to her chest, but all of it was over-written by Tommy's shadow.

"What did you just say?"

Polly found herself dumbly questioning. The girl-… Harrietta's smile twitched at the very corners, a brow popping up onto her forehead. Jesus H Christ and the blessed mother Mary, Tommy had the same face when he found something amusing.

"What is this place?"

Polly lurched forward, towards Harrietta, away from the desk she was holding herself up on, not in full mental or bodily control. The girls smile dropped immediately, her eyes becoming cold shards of frosted glass, her feet bracing, spreading, balancing, readying. A fighter. There it was again, the Shelby blood.

"Before that? What did you say? What did you say?"

Polly demanded breathlessly as she came to a pottering stop close to Harrietta, so close, soaking in her features. An errant chuckle broke free from Polly when she saw, just like her father, she had one lone freckle above the arch of her right brow, besides the nasty looking, oddly shaped scar splitting down her forehead. It was. It really was her, little Harrietta, in the flesh, breathing and alive. She was here, she'd come back.

Blood knows Blood.

"I'm Harrietta Shelby?"

Polly went to touch her, hug her, hold her, but her hands froze in the air as she saw Harrietta drop her hat to the floor, hands coming to her side, clenching, forming a fist. She didn't know who Polly was.

"Your father is Thomas Shelby, isn't he? Your mother Lizzie Stark?"

Oh, Polly knew that look too. The grim emptiness, the frigid artic winds and cutting bone. Tommy got the same look when someone crossed the line with him too. Another chuckle, mad and elated bubbled free.

"How do you know that?"

Polly couldn't hold back anymore. Before Harrietta could throw a punch, she was swept up in Polly's arms as she pressed the smaller girl to her tightly, laughing, one hand curling into her hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her into the embrace. The girl hardened, muscles tense, locked, from shock or anger, Polly didn't know, but Polly was already rambling.

"My names Polly, I'm your-"

The stiffening eased immediately and she could feel Harrietta take in a deep, relieved breath.

"Aunt Polly. You were in the letter."

The letter! She had the letter. After exhausting every search route and record and finding out that the social workers who had taken Harry had not even been social workers, but crooks and soulless bastards, that letter had been their last hope. Just one hope, that one day, Harrietta would read it and come back, as slim as that chance was. Something heavy lifted from Polly's chest, something she had been carrying for all these years. Guilt. It was her who convinced Tommy and Lizzie to hand over the child, that they couldn't fight the social workers, because, well, she had fought for her own kids and look how well that had turned out? They wouldn't even allow her to know where they had been adopted.

Something wet trickled down her cheek as Polly pulled away, hands going to cradle Harrietta's face as she tried to look at everything, absorb everything, from lash to chin, fingers brushing back rowdy curls.

"You came back… You came back…"

And then Polly is hugging her again, tightly, so tightly, but Harrietta's arms were coming up too, enveloping around her, holding her close, fingers digging into her back and the tears did fall freely as Harrietta whispered into Polly's shoulder.

"I came home."

How are you liking it so far? I just want to quickly touch on some of the choices I made this chapter to help better explain the road I've taken.

Firstly, is Tommy and Lizzie and their relationship (If we can even call it that XD). I really wanted to keep the dynamics of the canon Tommy and Lizzie for this fic, especially in the beginning. However, for this fic to work, they also needed to have been close enough in some form to have a child at some point. So, as Polly said, before the war, Tommy was always laughing. I like to think Harrietta's abduction had quite a dramatic effect on a very young Tommy and Lizzie, as the war did on Tommy later on. In trying to deal with having their child taken, I had Tommy and Lizzie deal with it in very different ways. Lizzie, in her hurt and grief, tried to move on, get passed it, repress it in a way, and yet, because it is her child, never fully capable of letting the past go, and therefore, never being able to move on from Tommy, the last tie she has to her child. I thought that would fit in with how we find Lizzie in season 2. Despite the shit Tommy puts her through, she's always there for him, has his back and the prostitution is just another way of her dealing with an emotional and physical loss.

Tommy, however, couldn't move on, couldn't stop looking and searching. I just don't think it's in his nature to have something taken from him and he to turn a blind eye to it. This, obviously, as we will explore later, had a very nasty effect on both Tommy and Lizzie and their relationship. In other words, through pain and grief of losing a child, they were both pulling opposite ways, snapping the rope and having the tension, harsh, brisk relationship we see in here and in the T.V show. Neither one can really move on from what happened, or the other one completely because Harrietta's ending is incomplete, it's unknown and that unknown both haunts them, but blame and hate and guilt have, well, wrecked them and their relationship.

Secondly, you're going to notice some refurbished lines in this chapter. I did that on purpose. I really wanted to draw some similarities between Tommy and Harry, not just physical, and so, re-used some sentences that Hermione thought about Harry in the last chapter to, (hopefully, if I've done it right), subtly pin that into the fic. For example, no one does tenacious like Tommy/Harry. She could deal with an angry Tommy/Harry, not a hurt one, and so forth.

Lastly, is Polly's reaction to Harry. In the show, there are some signs and hints, even if it is just belief on their part, that their gypsy blood has some magical connotation. We see it with the names on the bullet, the cursed horse, Polly's prophetic dreams of her estranged daughter dying and them turning out to be true. I thought it would be fun to play with that theme in this fic. Of course, I'm not going to make the Shelby's out to be witches or wizards, but there's something deeper there, in the gypsy blood that we're going to explore. Think old hearth magic.

A few quick questions: Whose P.O.V do you wish to see next? Did you like the multiple P.O.V's this chapter? As for Hermione, do you want her to have a pairing in this? If so, who do you want her paired with?

Thank you to everybody who has favourited, followed and reviewed. If you have the time, drop a review, they're the fuel to my mad muses. 😉