Sorry for the delay! Hope you enjoy this; we're getting into the main part of this story with this chapter.
She awakens to people arguing and shouting around her. About her, if her hearing is still excellent.
"Why is she here? Why didn't you take her home?"
"She needs someone to look after her," a low voice tells the Irish woman who is shouting.
"Take her to a hospital then!" The woman sounds exasperated, and angry and hurt. Who is she? Daisy wonders.
"I couldn't take her to a hospital, they've got people lookin' for us. She's staying here, Grace." His voice is final, and Grace - ah, the beautiful blonde - huffs indignantly and disbelievingly.
"If you think I'm gonna let you keep this whor—"
He cuts her off. "You don't let me do anything, Grace, especially not after what you did to me."
That quietens her. "I'm willing to throw my old life away for you, Tommy. Are you willing to do the same for me?"
She's not sure if Grace means it as a rhetorical question, but Tommy doesn't answer regardless and Daisy soon hears a door slam.
She opens her eyes and, as though they know exactly where they want to look, she stares straight at him. He hasn't noticed that she's awake so she gets to see him just be himself for a few moments. He looks troubled; he is running his hand through his hair, smoothing it down, and rubbing his hands up and down his face as though to clear some of the worries he has.
She knows that she is one of them; she hates that.
She clears her throat gently, alerting him to her wakefulness. She feels like a voyeur, and she knows that he would dislike her seeing him as this disadvantage. He is not hers to look at anymore.
He looks at her sharply, as though he knows without asking that she heard the argument he was having with Grace. He pauses a moment, then says, "You feelin' all right?"
She nods, trying to sit up from the sofa she is laid on. The room is the same one she was in the other night with Tommy - she is in his living room, and the place only reminds her of what was said between them. How both of them are different people now, and how she'd wondered and hoped that these two people could one day love each other as they had once done.
As she sits up, she feels her leg twinge with pain and she grimaces. He obviously sees this because he walks over to the sofa where she is laying, nodding nonchalantly at her leg. "It'll take a few weeks until you're back to normal, the doctor says."
She nods again, not sure what she needs to say first. Thank you? What happened? Is there any kind of hope for us? Who is Grace to you?
She goes for the first two; she doesn't want to seem desperate. She is not the young girl who pined after Tommy Shelby any more… She is a woman now, she thinks, a woman who for all intents and purposes is still in love with (and if she's being honest with herself, she thinks forlornly, still pines for) even though he doesn't seem to even want to look at her.
He tells her that she collapsed after the fight in the club and he managed to get her out of there and to his room with a doctor arriving only moments after they did. She wants to ask why he helped her at all, but again, she keeps quiet. She is so out of her depth when it comes to him now. She doesn't know him. She doesn't know how to approach a man so full of character, full of strength, as he is. She is a young girl again, talking back to Ada's older brother for ruining their game of hide and seek, and she doesn't know how this boy will react. Except he is a man now - she is supposed to know men, but this one… he is the exception to every rule of hers.
"Thank you for helping me," she says quietly, not looking at him. She snorts in a bid to make the situation lighter and says, "I bet James all but ran out of the club at the first sign of trouble; he's too rich to be hurt in a bar fight."
He doesn't smile but he does twitch his lips up and exhales in a ghost of a laugh; it's more of an acknowledgement that she spoke but still, it is something. He is giving me something.
"I didn't know you were gonna be there. We didn't go lookin' for trouble," he tells her, as though it matters at all. He could have gone there with the sole intent of causing every shade of trouble imaginable and she'd have still wanted to run to him and hold him as she did then. He looked as out of place as she felt; a rare quality in Tommy Shelby.
She nods, saying, "I know. I should have left, I suppose. But I needed to see if you—"
She trails off, unsure about his reaction to her staying to make sure he was okay. As she has recently discovered, she's not sure if he's still hers to worry about. Finally, remembering their somewhat mature conversation they'd had about their relationship, she notches her chin higher and finishes her sentence strongly. "I needed to see if you were okay. In my mind, you've just risen from the dead and I'm not having you scare me again with anything even close to that."
She's worried he'll react poorly to that but she thinks she hates it more when he doesn't have any reaction at all; why does he keep everything so bottled up all of the time? She needs to know his feelings, what he's thinking. She used to know but now she's not even sure she could guess. She poured her heart out to him the last time they spoke and now she needs to know his stance on it.
"Say something," she whispers in the end. "Anything. I need to know what you're thinking."
He clears his throat, bringing his fingers to his eyes and squeezing the bridge of his nose. It's a trait he didn't have when he was younger but she sees it fits him now - running an expanding empire must take its toll and she's sure she's not helping. If she was his and he was hers she'd try in any way she could to aid him, to relieve some of his stress, to help the scenario if she could.
"I'm a bit out of my depth 'ere, Daisy," he tells her slowly, seemingly far more stressed than she'd originally thought.
"What's happened?" It can't just be her, or Grace's ultimatum… his tense shoulders tell her something else is on his mind.
He sighs and almost smiles, like he's pleased that she can still read him so well. Or bemused. "Sabini's movin' against me; last night pissed him off. We're pissin' on his territory and he doesn't like it."
"He and Alfie have some kind of silent agreement not to overstep on each others boundaries," she says slowly, testing the waters to see if he minds her bringing up her knowledge of London's criminal underground. She doesn't think he likes being reminded of how she became so knowledgable.
He nods. "Well the Peaky Blinders are trying to get in, but it doesn't look like there's room for three big names."
"So you're trying to remove Sabini?"
He nods again, sitting down with his legs splayed and his elbows on his knees. He looks older than his actual age in this moment, she thinks… She wishes she could go sit on his knee and help him forget, just for a moment or two, the stresses of his life. She's always been good at that with him and she's sure time has only improved her skills. She wouldn't mention that part to him but she just wants to hold him again, and have him hold her. She's been held often in her line of work but nobody has ever made her feel the way he did: safe, secure, loved, cherished, respected and wanted all at once.
She knows nobody will ever make her feel that again. He is it for her and she knows then that she will fight for her right to hold him again. She will not let him walk off into the sunset with beautiful Grace; she will fight for him.
She wants to help him, in any way she can. And then she remembers what he originally wanted her for…
"I can help," she says quietly, not sure how he'll react. She doesn't want a repeat of last time and she doesn't want him to think she's doing this as a job for money - she's doing it for him and he needs to know this.
He cocks his head at her questioningly.
She swallows nervously. "You originally wanted someone to… get in on the inside and report information back. I could help, if it will make you worry less. If it'll help you. If it means you don't look like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders." She laughs a little here, but inside she wants to cry - she's offering herself up for something she knows she'll despise and she doesn't want it to be in vain. If it will help him… she knows she would do anything. She wants to be some kind of salvation to him - even if her part is just a small one.
He doesn't explode in a fit of anger and hurt and cruel remarks like last time and she takes this as a good sign. He seems to actually think about it, staring at her the whole time. She just sits and stares back, letting him process.
"You want to do this?" His deep voice is emotionless and monotone, but the click in his jaw says otherwise.
She shakes her head hesitantly. "Not for me… but if it would help you…"
"I wouldn't make you do something you didn't want to do, Daisy," he tells her shaking his head, as though clearing it of thought. He moves over to the window, looking out it pensively.
"I've not wanted to do any of this Tommy. It doesn't mean I won't. Tell me, honestly, as if I wasn't your's once, if I was just a business associate… would this help you?"
She knows the answer before he nods. It's what he wanted that day they met again - someone on the inside.
She smiles shakily at him, trying to muster up the courage both of them know she doesn't feel. "Then I'll do it. I'll help you."
She thinks for moment, her smile dropping, before she clenches her jaw slightly and turns her face away from him. "Please, don't even think about paying me. Don't insult me like that." Her words are quiet; she can't bear to think of her being hired to sleep with Sabini by Tommy of all people. She'll do this because she loves him and for no other reason.
"Dais…"
His voice is closer than it was before, and she knows he's right behind the sofa where she is still sitting. She can almost feel the heat of his body, feel his closeness, the electric feel of him so near her. She can smell him, all masculine and cigarettes and Tommy, and she closes her eyes as the waves of nostalgia hit her. He is all she has ever wanted.
And then he ruins her memories by saying,
"You don't have to sleep with him if you don't want to, Dais."
Well, thanks, she thinks forlornly. Why would she ever want to? Has he not heard what she's been saying? She's not wanted any of this, and she tells him so through clenched teeth.
He sighs, and for a second she feels a ghost of his hand on her hair. He always loved her hair.
"You offered, Dais, I didn't want you to think I was making you sleep with him."
She scoffs. "Noble. I'm not doing this for a job, Tommy. I'm doing this because I've loved you since I was nine." She turns her head sharply, knocking his hand away. His face shows no sign of the affection his body has, however unknowingly, shown. "I will do this because I still love you and even if you want Grace now, I will be whoever and whatever you need me to be for you. Take that how you want but let's not have any mixed signals. Now, can I have some peace and quiet so I can think about how the hell I'm going to manage to persuade Sabini to trust me enough to tell me secrets he wouldn't tell every whore he hires. Secrets pertaining to you. I can't do that with you here making me feel like a cheap, dirty whore. I'm sure you have better things to do than babysit me, so leave, please, just for a while."
He does, silently, but the slam of the door echoes throughout the room. She's not sure if she's made progress or not, but she feels as though she's just laid her heart out for inspection… and he found it wanting. But then she remembers his hand and her belly tightens with emotion: he needs time, she needs time, they need time. And she remembers her promise to fight for him. And she knows then that his hand on her hair told her all she needs to know: he is trying, too.
There was the tiniest glimmer of hope and she clings to it with everything she has.
There is hope, she says to herself over and over again as she lays back down.
There is hope.