...

"Just tell me."

He stared at her, his blue eyes piercing her's, and he nodded once. At her words he seemed to have made a decision, clearing his throat and sitting up straighter. Eliza wished she could have been more prepared for what he said next.

"I'm not one for small talk, so I'm going to make this quick. Not a moment goes back in my entire, fucking day that I don't think about you. And I hate it, but I'm never going to be able to stop it, so I might as well give in."

"I wonder why you're not good at small talk." She teased lightly, though Eliza's smile dropped when Tommy rose abruptly.

He stood up so quickly that his chair almost toppled over behind him, moving around the table in a few strides to stand beside her, staring down with a look in his eyes that she'd never seen before. His thumb ran across her bottom lip, fingers gently touching her jaw before applying enough pressure so that she had to rise up, standing before him. She was breathless.

His fingers moved from her jaw, running up the side of her cheek until his hand was gripping her face. He pulled her close, gaze focused on her mouth. Eliza's eyes fluttered shut as Tommy pressed his lips against her's. He was gentle and soft, but commanding enough that she never considered pulling away. The kiss was loving though it tasted strongly of rum, as if love and lust had collided mid-dance, joining together in fury. One of her hands rested comfortably against his chest, whilst the other rose to brush hesitantly against his jaw and she found herself sinking into his embrace like these were her last moments on earth.

Tommy pulled away, but hardly enough to separate them, their noses almost brushing. He didn't smile, but the blue of his eyes seemed brighter than ever before, sparkling with something beautiful. He moved a bit of her hair that had come loose, smoothing it away from her forehead, before moving his hand down to again run a calloused thumb over her lips.

"I love you." He whispered hoarsely.

She didn't know what to do. There was only silence.

Eliza's eyes then began to widened slightly in alarm, and she stepped back from his touch, sinking down into her chair. She pressed her cool fingers against her flushed cheeks, looking up at where he remained stoic in front of her, their eyes locking.

"I think I'm too drunk for this as well, Tommy," she managed to utter in response. "You're drunk. I'm drunk. We should- you don't know what you're doing, I-"

"-No," he cut in, crouching down in front of her and pressing a hand into her knee, "don't."

Her mouth opened and closed, completely stuck on what to do. Eliza was hardly even in the present, her mind still focused on the kiss.

Fuck, she thought, he's actually kissed me.

Then why did she feel so terrible, why was she filled with dread? Isn't this what she wanted?

"I agreed to spy on you for the Inspector." She blurted out suddenly, in a failed attempt to find something appropriate to say. "He has a warrant for your arrest, and the only way you and I wouldn't hang is if I agreed to spy on you for him- to get him information and find out where the guns are."

"Ok." Tommy replied simply, eyebrows furrowed, "Liza this isn't-"

"You need to let me tell him," she was speaking over Tommy, trying not to let the conversation drift back to what they should be talking about, "these guns do no one any good and the best thing you can do is hand them back!"

"What are you talking about? Can this not wait?"

"Well, I think it's important." Her voice was growing more heated, more desperate, and the nature of their conversation was beginning to sway into dangerous territory. "The Inspector can't-"

"Can you just fucking address what happened?" Tommy spoke seriously, forceful enough to end her diversion. "Please?" -he added as a more gentle afterthought.

Eliza let out a shaky laugh and shook her head, both amused and utterly lost. How could she even begin to express what she was feeling?

"Tommy I- I love you too, you know that-"

"Then lets just put all this shit behind us and start new," he begged eagerly, his hand moving further up her leg, the grip tightening, "we can move past everything- move on- actually try to be something. I want us to be something Liza."

That made her racing thoughts pause, and she took a moment to assess his words. She had been prepared for an honest and well-overdue conversation, even if it had to be painful- but to ignore everything that had happened wasn't something she was ready to do. It felt too much like a convenient escape, and one likely to leave them back where they started.

"Are you serious?" She questioned with unease, "you think that's a good idea, to just put everything behind us? How could it ever be that simple?"

"Why can't it be? Let us just forget it all."

"Fuck Tommy!" She exclaimed all of a sudden, pushing his hand from her leg and standing up.

Eliza turned away from him, walking aimlessly across the room and running a hand down her face. Behind her Tommy rose, at once tense and on edge. She whipped around without warning, facing him with exasperation written all over her face.

"You want to control everything, don't you?" She cried, arms falling lifelessly to her side. "You want me to forget so that its easier for you, so that you don't have to face what you've done. I'm sure it would be easy, Tommy, living naivety always is- but eventually it just explodes in your fucking face and that will not be me- I will not be controlled by you! And don't be stupid enough to think we can just put this all behind us either!"

"What the fuck are you talking about, what has this got to do with anything? A minute ago I confessed my fucking feelings to you and now you're telling me I want to control you?" He moved forward, trying to close the distance between them, "I thought this is what you wanted?"

He wasn't shouting, but in many ways that was just worse. There was fury in his tone- she was frustrating him- but there was also hurt. Eliza understood that, she was hurt too, but it didn't change her answer.

"I thought I did. I thought I wanted this- you," she stepped forward and gestured between them, her voice falling quiet and pained. "But then I came back to someone I thought I could trust, and they used me like I was nothing. Do you not understand what that felt like, Tommy? How humiliating it was, how nauseating to be handed over to Kimber like a plaything you could toss about!" Eliza was turning red from anger as her temper flared. "You never even bothered to apologise either. And not only that, but to then be dragged from Watery Lane like some kind of animal and shut away for half a month, from everyone but a man bent on destroying you through any means- or any person- possible, that was just… horrible." She muttered, the only word she could manage to find to attempt to describe how awful the ordeal was. "He threatened me, insulted me- he's even fabricated an entire case that could mean my death- just to fulfil his vendetta against you. That's all it was, everything I went through- just a way to get back at you. It was because of you, Tommy. So yes, maybe things have changed, and maybe, god, maybe I don't want anything to do with you anymore."

She paused, taking a deep breath as an attempt to calm down. Whilst she was relieved to be getting things off her chest and out into the open, it didn't feel easy. And it made her head feel likely to explode. Eliza was certain the mixture of alcohol and it being the early hours of the morning weren't helping, but she also knew it was because everything about this conversation was confusing. The lines were so blurred she had no idea who was even in the right anymore- at this point it was likely to be neither of them.

"Things are so different now, you can't deny it," she said softly, "I don't you anymore. You aren't who you used to be. I feel as if- as if you're lost from me and I have no idea how to find you again. The war, four years of never hearing back from you-"

"Of course I'm not who I fucking used to be." Tommy spat, "you expect me to be the same person I was as a boy, after everything that happened in France?"

"No, Tommy, of course not, but-"

"You can be so selfish sometimes." He uttered, eyebrows lowering as something dawned on him, "how could you even think that?"

He had turned cold, she could tell. Walls built back up around him as quickly as they could be torn down, and she knew it was her fault. It was too late to turn back now though.

"It is not my fault you love someone who doesn't exist anymore. That boy is gone. And I thought I told you about those stupid, fucking letters. I'm sick of them. They are not my fault either and maybe you should have taken a fucking hint and stopped writing to me."

Her face slackened as she looked at him and Eliza began to feel fearful of the man that stood in front of her. His voice was as icy and unfeeling as his eyes, and she knew the things she'd said had irreversibly altered things. But his words had as well.

"What hint do you mean? You just told me you loved me, Tommy, or do you take that back now you can see I'm not one of your obedient whores?" Eliza snapped.

"Oh, you just have to be so good, don't you?" he said with a sneer, "you know, I bet your father would be so proud of the woman you've become."

"Don't you bring his fucking name into this." She warned him, blood running cold.

"No, but this is what it's all about though, isn't it?" He pushed, moving closer to her, "It's what it's always been about- you told me once yourself. That you have to be good, have to make sure you'll always be someone he loves, because you're so afraid of if he ever saw you as anything other than right, or anything other than your mother-"

"-Tommy-"

"Bur it's the truth. Or is it only me that's supposed to be facing that today. It's the whole reason for this act you put on, why you have to be in the right all the time, why you make yourself seem so innocent in all of this, trying to pretend you're just like her, just like him-"

"-Tommy stop-"

"-Do ever realise you're not, though? You don't ever think about why we got along so well- it's because you are exactly the same as me. Maybe I do want everyone to listen to me, it would do them some good if they did, but don't act as if you don't expect them to follow your every order too. You need everyone to be on your side- Finn under your control, my family in your corner- and what about me? Agreeing to fucking spy on me, telling me to hand back my guns, to change my ways. If you disapprove of this life so much, why did you ever bother coming back?

Eliza laughed bitterly at that. She stepped away from him, moving back across the room to put more space between them again. In the brief moment of silence she could hear a sound coming from her neighbour's apartment. There was no doubt they could hear the two of them shouting, and she wondered how long it would take before their words were passed around Small Heath for all to hear. She didn't really care at this point.

"No I understand what you're trying to do, excusing the way you act. 'You're just like me, you're just as bad as me.' Except I'm not- no one could ever be like you, Tommy. And you know I wondered how long it would take before my only escape from the mess that you put me in, was used against me." She fired back at him, using fury to hide her wounds. "I had no choice but to agree to that. And despite what you say, you do need to tell me where those guns are, and there are plenty of people in my corner who will agree- Tommy I've given you a way to get out of all this!"

"Out of what? This is my life, it's who I am- that's never going to change! And it's who you are as well, Eliza,' in his anger he didn't bother with any other address but Eliza, and it felt strangely like the last nail in a coffin, "you are a fucking member of this company. You love to pretend you're not, but you are- you've always been. You profit off those we hurt, you live in a house that we pay for, people fear you the same way they fear any of us! You have always been here, always, so stop acting like you're better than us, stop expecting me to change, because it's disgusting."

"Disgusting, you think I'm disgusting?" She marched over to him, pushing his chest, "you know what's disgusting? The fact that everyone around you is sick of you Tommy, sick of what you're doing to us, sick of your expectation that we should all be willing to ruin our lives and bloody our hands at your every command. You are disgusting. And I regret the day I ever came back to this."

Once again, a thick silence settled between them. They were stood close, but the whole world could between them with the tension that was mounting. Eliza's eyes shone with tears, but there was no risk of them spilling over. Her lip was curled in horror and she felt secure in the knowledge that in this moment, there was nothing but hate felt for each other. Tommy's face was blank, his eyes vacant and lips pressed tightly together. There was almost nothing there.

"You were right," he said finally, "we can't put any of this behind us."

"I'm so glad we can agree on something." She replied coldly.

Tommy picked up his hat from the table, turning on his heel and stalking across the room. He yanked her door open and slammed it shut behind him, leaving nothing but silence and not once looking back. Eliza collapsed then into a chair, her hands shaking and the tears finally spilling down her face. She had to cover her mouth so that her sobs wouldn't be heard as he still made his way down the stairs. Only once she heard the street door open and close did she allow her body to shake, for the cries to consume her and the silence of the room. She felt nothing but a burning, terrible pain in her chest.

This is what a breaking heart feels like, she knew.

i didn't keep you waiting for too long! this chapter is literally the whole reason i've written this story so i hope its done it some justice. Who knew how hard it is to try and make ocs interesting, or to try and keep characters true to what they should be like. It will probably be quite a while until i update again, i won't lie, so i hope you have enjoyed these couple of updates

e x

(22/02/2021)