Chapter 5: Forgiveness
A/N: Well – it has been an unforgivably long time since I have written and for that I am sorry. What made me return is that even to this day I get amazing, sweet, encouraging reviews from you all and that has brought me back. So, I owe it all to you, dear readers. Also – isn't the new season amazing!?
~o0o~
"SOPHIE! SOPHIE!"
She wasn't sure that she had heard her name at first. It sounded so distant and Henry didn't seem to notice, but when she turned, she saw Finn and his friend Isaiah running across the park toward her.
The youngest Shelby boy was panting, hands on his knees, when he finally skidded to a stop before her. "You gotta come Sophie. Polly sent me to get you. There are some coppers in the streets settin' fire to the pubs and smashin' the windows in houses! You gotta hurry!"
Sophie found herself hardly able to take in what Finn was telling her as horrible images of what she would find when she got back to town materialized in her head. Isaiah was shouting for George, Emma, and Mary to stop playing but it was all just a dull noise to her as she clutched baby Henry to her chest. They left the blanket and picnic forgotten as Finn and Isaiah took off ahead and Sophie hurried after them as fast as she could with the children in tow.
The Marquis pub was burning and the smoke sent plumes of soot into the already dirty air. Garrison lane was littered with coppers and broken glass. They had damaged every home except for the ones belonging to Arthur and Tommy. The Garrison stood proudly at the end of its namesake lane, framed by confused, displaced families. As Sophie walked with John's children towards Watery lane, the coppers parted to let them pass, looking down their noses with smirks on their faces. She couldn't help but feel this was all some sort of joke and that the Shelbys were the punchline, no doubt.
She wasn't surprised when she saw Polly standing outside of number 7, unharmed. The betting den and home were the only pieces of property untouched on Watery Lane and it gave Sophie chills.
"Inside, inside…" Polly quickly led the children into the house, including Isaiah and Finn, "You two – stay here. The rest of you, up to your room and don't come down until I tell you to."
Polly turned to Sophie, her eyes flashing in anger. When the woman embraced her, she sighed with the realization that the anger wasn't for her. "I'm glad you are alright."
"I'm glad you all are," Polly touched Sophie's hair as she returned the sentiment, "I don't know where the boys are. They left for the fair early this morning and it's past three. It is only a matter of time before people start showing up on this doorstep, livid. The specials come and raid everything but Shelby property, and all while the Peaky Blinders aren't around. Makes us look responsible – and all because Tommy couldn't…."
Polly was ranting quickly in a sharp, clipped voice, but the words suddenly stopped tumbling out of her mouth. She had said too much to Sophie as it was.
"Tommy couldn't what?"
"Sophie, this doesn't concern you. Why don't you go upstairs with the children and…"
"What the fuck is all of this?" Both women turned as the door swung open and John, Arthur, and Tommy walked into the kitchen. "First the Lees, now the fucking street is on fire?" John looked incredulously at his older brother, but Tommy just stood with his hands in his pockets and a cigarette between his lips.
"Coppers are telling everyone you all left town to give them time to burn up all the other pubs and smash in every damn window in this city. Now why would they be doing this, Thomas?" Polly crossed her arms. Tommy looked at his Aunt, then at Sophie, and his gaze cut right through her and made her pretend to be more interested in the floor than his piercing eyes.
"Brothers, go get Scudboat and Curly and Lovelock and get into the safe. Take some money and buy back people's trust in us. Promise them that nothing like this will ever happen again." Tommy spoke softly and Arthur and John took Isaiah and Finn through the double doors into the den, "Sophie, go find Ada."
Sophie shook when he addressed her, "I have no idea where Ada is."
"I didn't ask you if you knew where Ada was, I asked you to go and find her."
"Tommy, do you think it is safe to have Sophie going 'round by herself right now?" Polly stepped in but he seemed completely unfazed.
"Have Nipper go with her then if you are so concerned, but they aren't touching any of us Pol, that's clear. They are making a statement. Now go." Tommy jerked his head towards the door and a second later Sophie found herself out on the street, the commotion of the afternoon dying down around her, and without a clue as to where to find Ada.
~o0o~
"A bottle of rum." Tommy opened the small shutter between the bar at the Garrison and the Shelby's private room in the pub.
"Light or dark?"
Tommy had been too busy lighting his cigarette to realize that Harry the barkeep wasn't waiting on him. He had never before seen this woman in Small Heath nor greater Birmingham, but her accent told him she was Irish.
"Dark." he answered her after looking her over. She was pretty - beautiful even. Her clothes suggested she came from money, as did the aristocratic slope of her nose and her unblemished pale skin. He smirked. Where in the world did Harry find this one?
She handed him a bottle of dark rum and stood, staring at him. Her eyes were like those of a deer hearing a gunshot – wide and nervous. She clearly did not know how this was supposed to work and after a moment, Tommy realized she was probably waiting for him to pay her.
"Are you a whore?" He saw the offense streak across her face when he asked. He truthfully wanted to know. He'd seek her out and pay her well if she was. God only knew he could use a distraction right now.
"No." the woman answered.
"Then you are in the wrong place." Tommy offered his advice, took the rum, and closed the shutter, turning back around to face the Blinders sitting at the table in the enclave. "Right then. John. Arthur. You made sure our people have been taken care of?"
"Yeah Tommy, we made our rounds. Put some veterans to work to repair the Marquis." Arthur nodded.
"Then I want the rest of you to let everyone you can know to bring their picture of the King to Watery Lane this evening at five. If the coppers want something to do so badly, then I think we should give them a bonfire." Tommy had been thinking of a way to send the specials a message and get himself an audience with this new chief inspector that had roughed up his brother.
John slammed his beer glass down on the table in agreement of the plan and soon the lot of the Blinders was up and out of the pub again to spread the news. Tommy had a dozen things to do, but he found himself lingering in the booth, pouring himself a second glass of rum, and letting his mind wander. He shouldn't have told Sophie to find Ada but he needed to get Polly alone to speak with her. But it hadn't done him much good as his aunt had spent most of their conversation dressing him down once more about the guns and telling him to dump them in the Cut. Tommy saw things differently. The guns were a bartering chip, but he did have to admit that this mysterious new copper was throwing a wrench in his plans.
And Sophie – in a matter of days she was drawing him out and making him want to tell her things. He wanted to tell her about the guns and he hadn't even told his own brothers. He wanted to show her his new horse that he started a fucking war with the Lees over today. He wanted to tell her about his plans for the races and Billy Kimber. He wanted to tell her these things because he used to tell her everything that summer long ago and he hated the way she looked at him – scared and confused.
"They are in love, aren't they?"
Sophie and Tommy sat by the Cut, watching Freddie and Ada take off their shoes and socks and wade into the shallow water on the bank a dozen yards away. They all liked this spot. It was shady and cleaner than most of the river, and as far as they dared venture from home.
"What do you know about love, Sophie?" Tommy sighed as he watched his best friend and little sister. He didn't want Sophie's opinion on this even though he valued it more than a man in his twenties should value the thoughts of an adolescent.
"I know John loves Martha. And I know my Mum loved my Dad even though he didn't love her so much." Sophie mused and Tommy put a light arm around her shoulder.
"It's not your fault your Dad took off when your mum got sick. And no – Freddie and Ada aren't in love. Just friends."
"Have you ever been in love, Tommy?" Sophie asked as she used the stick she was fiddling with to sketch nonsense shapes in the mud. It made him laugh to hear her express herself to plainly. She felt so much smarter than her age and he never minded answering her questions. This wasn't the game of an older girl playing coy. There was no trick.
"Yeah. Once. I don't suggest it, Soph. Really."
"I'll keep that in mind." Sophie shrugged and dropped that subject. "I don't ever want the four of us to not talk."
"Why would we?"
"I just don't want it to happen."
Every day since Sophie has been back in Small Heath, Tommy can't help but remember more and more from their summer spent together. He poured himself another drink when he realized just how much things had changed. Maybe even then she had seen that those perfect, carefree, sun-washed days would end before he could see it himself. Now his sister was a burden to him instead of a joy, Freddie was an enemy instead of a mate, and Sophie confused him even more than she had seven years ago.
~o0o~
"Ada, where have you been? I've been looking everywhere…" Sophie let out a sigh of relief as the Shelby sister stepped out of a flat down a small alleyway by the church. Sophie had been walking around Small Heath for hours, hoping for some sort of lead, and this was more luck than she could have asked for.
"None of your goddamn business." Ada marched right past her former friend but Sophie did see that Ada's eyes were red and her face was swollen. There was no mistaking that she had been crying. Sophie turned on her heel to follow her.
"Tommy sent me to find you." Sophie picked up her pace to meet Ada's stride. "We've been really worried."
Ada stopped short and whipped around, her bluntly cut hair flying around her face, "Why the hell would you be worried about me? We aren't friends."
"We were."
"Been here a week and you are already doing the Peaky Blinders' bidding. I guess you are the Shelby girl Tommy and Polly wanted me to be." The resentment dripped from Ada's words and Sophie was hurt. She was just as confused as to why Tommy sent her around town to look for her and was only trying to help.
"We just wanted to make sure you were safe, with everything that went on this afternoon with the policemen." Sophie's voice was gentle and she took a step closer to Ada.
"Oh, I am well aware what happened this afternoon. It's all Tommy's fuckin' fault he's gone." Ada grumbled and started to walk again with tears flowing freely down her cheeks.
"Who is gone?" Sophie asked but Ada just kept walking, "Ada, stop!"
Sophie could not believe how forceful her voice was, or that it actually made the girl who was once her best friend look her dead in the eye. Moments passed and Ada swayed where she stood, conflicted. Both girls felt like they were drowning from the silence and tension that divided them. As much as Ada hated to admit it, the concerned look on Sophie's face wasn't fake and she realized actively trying to hate her wasn't going to do her much good in this shit situation.
"Freddie is gone. My Freddie. I don't know where and I don't know when he's coming back." There was panic in Ada's voice as she finally opened up to Sophie. "Tommy's pissed off this new copper and he's searching for Communists…and Freddie…"
Freddie Thorne. It hit Sophie so hard she gasped for air. After all this time, after that summer she spent watching them fall in love, they were secretly together. This was the boy she had been sneaking out with and spending all her time with. Sophie wasn't surprised Freddie has become a Communist. It was an idea kept out of her private boarding school, but Freddie's energy and determination could certainly get him in trouble if he believed passionately in this. She knew it was smart of him to run.
"He'll be back, Ada. If he loves you, he'll be back."
"He'll be shot. And if not by the police, then by Tommy. Fuck, Sophie you can't tell anyone. You can't tell him. I know he has you working there but you can't. Promise me." Ada paced with one hand on her head and the other clutching her belly. It made Sophie's own stomach lurch.
"You're pregnant, aren't you?" Sophie whispered, stepping closer and touching the crook of Ada's elbow so that they would start to walk. This wasn't a conversation they should be having in public. Ada's eyes filled with tears again.
"How do you know?"
"You were sick the other morning, and you are holding your stomach without thinking about it. I had a friend at school that did that too much in front of the nuns and after a while she didn't come back," Sophie lead them back to Watery Lane as they spoke and Ada took her hands off of her still flat belly. Pregnancy out of wedlock was nearly demonized in London at Sophie's boarding school, and she guessed, based on Ada's current state, that even in morally ambiguous Birmingham, it would be frowned upon.
"I missed my time over a month ago. I got some iron pills but they aren't working and now Freddie's gone and he doesn't even know." Ada whispered fervently as they neared the house. "Tommy will kill him."
"Tommy isn't going to find out," Sophie promised. She was crossing the first threshold to getting her friend back and she was not going to jeopardize that. "I promise, we will figure it out and he will come back."
A/N: Thanks for reading. Drop me your thoughts and predictions and there will be more soon!