Tommy didn't feel good when he woke up that morning. It was as if his body knew it'd have to play damage control. His stomach twisted and surged. Tommy ignored it. The feeling was familiar to him - a constant state of impending doom just felt right sitting with the bile in his gallbladder.

He got dressed, adjusted his tie, pulled on his sleeve garter, heaved on his giant coat, and stepped out onto the street wearing a cigarette on his lip.

Across the laneway, Sorcha and Arthur stood in front of their door, huddled close together. Tommy observed a deep line between her eyes as she looked up at his older brother. There was worry, concern, and affection there. Tommy admired it for himself. He'd gotten into the bad habit of wondering if she'd do for him what she did for Arthur.

Tommy Shelby, still standing over the cobblestone in his tailored suit and leather shoes, nearly laughed at himself. A shadow of a smile curled over the cigarette. There was no time to be a bare-faced and sloppy romantic. But it wasn't romance he was feeling, Tommy knew that. It was lust and desire and possession.

Before Sorcha kissed Arthur goodbye, she narrowed her eyes across the street where Tommy stood waiting. She murmured something to Arthur and pressed a kiss to his cheek. While Arthur stalked off down the streets toward the boxing ring, Sorcha slipped her hands into her pockets, and crossed the cobblestones towards Tommy. He couldn't tell how long he was holding his breath, watching her loom closer, but extinguished a large curl of smoke from the corner of his mouth when she came to a halt in front of him. She looked tired. If he hadn't known himself better, Tommy would have reached out and swiped a gloved finger over the bags under her eyes.

"Do you need me?" she asked flatly.

"Yes," Tommy replied faster than his brain could properly process what she was asking. She wanted to know if he had another task for her since he had been waiting for her to part ways with Arthur. That wasn't how Tommy heard the question.

Sorcha stood waiting for his instructions. Her attention sprung between his rigid shoulders and still face. He was pinning her in place with his blue eyes.

"Arthur will want to talk to you later. About London."

Tommy chewed on the smoke in his mouth and nodded. He offered her the rest of his cigarette but she declined.

"You alright, Tom?" she asked after a long silence. "You look sick."

"I am sick," he finally said with a wave of his rejected cigarette. "Sick of all this."

Sorcha, quite perplexed by his studden shift from a blank face to irritability, shoved her hands deeper into her pockets. Something peculiar had sat in the pools of Tommy's irises. She'd noticed it long ago when he came to London to bring her back. They had spoken about it briefly. Tommy was feeling again — after Grace.

"Surely it's nothin' whiskey can't fix."

The object of those feelings, much to Sorcha's discomfort, was her. He held some misplaced affection for her, and Sorcha tried her best to set the records straight. Tommy wasn't good for her. Tommy was too stoic, too put together all the time. For anyone else it would have been irresistible, but Sorcha understood the importance of vulnerability.

Arthur understood it too. That's why she loved him so much.

Well, if Sorcha knew that Arthur Shelby would kill a young boy in the boxing ring by accident in a few hours, she might have questioned his resilience and understanding of himself. But Sorcha didn't know a boy would die.

She and Tommy walked to the betting shop in silence. Their legs moved briskly, heels hitting the ground at the same cadence.

No, she thought, Tommy Shelby is no good for me.

She remembered the first time he spoke about the philosophy of stoicism in France. Tommy didn't know it by its name, but the philosophy had appeared to him in the trenches. He told her how emotions were destructive. He wanted to have more self-control, more fortitude, more moderation in what he felt, whether it was anger, sadness, or love. He wanted to become a machine that felt nothing - one in the same with those raining bombs down on them - and could be more efficient because of it. In the trenches, Sorcha listened. She didn't know anything about Zeno of Citium or Epictetus or Seneca the Younger or Marcus Aurelius. Tommy didn't know either.

In the trenches, Sorcha listened and told Tommy Shelby that it sounded like an interesting philosophy. Theoretically, maximizing positive emotions, reducing negative emotions, and honing in the virtues of one's character seemed like a noble practice.

Sorcha never expected Tommy to come out like this. He felt colder. Whether it was from the war or from praticing his philiosophy too zealously, she didn't know.

Wordlessly they parted at the door to the betting shop. Sorcha joined Scudboat at the table, checking the racing odds already written up on the blackboard. Tommy moved to his office and shut the door. A bottle of whiskey was the first thing he pulled from his desk.

Tommy Shelby didn't know how he felt about the VAD nurse. He sat at his desk for hours, absent-mindedly tapping the end of a pen down on the paperwork in front of him, and raised his gaze out the panelled windows out into the betting shop. She was standing beside the table marking sums into the book while Scudboat counted rolls of cash and coins.

It was one thing during the war, he thought, to depend on the doctors and nurses for medicine, but Sorcha wasn't a nurse and he wasn't a soldier.

He was attracted to her for the wrong reasons so he drank his feelings away. Sorcha wouldn't approve of his attractions. She'd probably recoil at the very thought of it. Besides, Tommy knew she would just be a convenient passtime while he forgot about Grace. He drank again, still staring out into the betting shop, watching Sorcha's fingers scribble numbers down and smirk at something Scudboat had said.

With a sharp movement, the chair groaned as he stood and Tommy knocked at the window to get her attention. He gestured her into his office then propped himself back behind his desk. Another drink was poured and guzzled down in the short time it took Sorcha to step into the office.

Flush with whiskey, exhaling deeply, Tommy made a gesture to an open seat across the desk. "Sit with me, nurse."

Sorcha eyed the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the desk and cautiously sat down. She refused a drink but eyed him with concern. "You sure you're alright?"

"No," he shook his head and poured himself another drink. Tommy stared; his fingers rapped on the desktop. "I'm sending you into the lion's den so you ought to know what's going to happen."

"Arthur was going to talk to you about it when he comes back from the ring."

The whiskey was tossed back and a cigarette was lit. He rubbed the corner of his brow in preparation for the conversation. "Arthur will do as I say. I have many things in motion, many things you don't need to know." He waved his arm as he spoke, sending ashes tumbling down across the desk and floorboards. "You," he directed the red eye of the cigarette in her direction, "need to go to London to spy on Solomons for me. Make sure he doesn't talk to Sabini, keep an eye on him. All he will know is that you're insurance to make sure he keeps up his end of the ? Based on the way he treated you last time, you'll have access to the distillery floor and his office."

Sorcha sat still. Her eyes narrowed on Tommy, searching and suspicious. She stood and slapped her palm against his forehead to feel for a fever. It felt fine. No fever. She sat back down. "Hmmph. I think you should hear Arthur out before sending me —"

He cut in with a voice rough like thorns. "What happened to you trusting me? You burned down the Garrison without question. You'll be safe, Sorcha," he impatiently assured. "Just go back to doing as you're told."

Studying the hard countenance that masked his face, Sorcha formed her words carefully along her tongue. "Don't take the trust we've placed in you for granted, Tom. Alfie has settled his debt to me. Whatever insurance you invested in me is gone."

"That's not true. Solomons called you essential, didn't he? Didn't he?"

She nodded silently.

"You're sacred ground." He tapped the end of his cigarette into the ashtray and Sorcha was briefly transfixed by the soft ashes falling into a graying heap. Tommy leaned forward over the desk. "Solomons will make sure you stay out of danger if it arises. And if you do get hurt, Arthur will — I will burn down all of London myself."

"You overestimate Alfie's sentimentality."

Tommy shook his head to Sorcha's displeasure. She frowned.

"So you won't even consider what Arthur has to say?"

"No."

A painful silence filled the space between them. Tommy's mouth opened. He briefly considered talking about Grace to smother whatever lustful feelings he felt towards Sorcha but thought better of it. If he had managed to push words out of his mouth, it would surely roll off his tongue awkwardly. When he peeled his eyes from the corner of his desk, Sorcha was still frowning.

"Your philosophy has worked too well," she scoffed to herself. "I hardly recognize the man you've become."

"And which philosophy would that be?"

"You once told me you wanted the chance to find the best parts of yourself. It seems you've found your strengths but lost your virtue. If you lose that, what's the point of all of this?"

Tommy looked around him. He looked at the stacks of money between Scudboat's fingers, the rich clothing draped over his own body, the mahogany desk he sat behind. He soaked it all in. "Money and power."

Sorcha stared back at him with disgust, only barely showing it across her features. It was a new side of Thomas Shelby she hadn't seen before. He morphed and contorted before her very eyes. A man that was once good.

He poured himself another cup of poison but didn't offer her one this time. "Just do as you're told, nurse. We aren't the men you used to know anymore."

"Arthur is." Sorcha shook her head vehemently in disagreement. "He's good. There's goodness in his heart."

Tommy didn't answer. He knew Arthur for what he really was. The crying, the anger, the insecurities. When she didn't get another dismissive word, Sorcha decided to leave. As she stood up to turn her back to Tommy, the door of the betting shop flew open, sending a rush of wind on Finn and Isiah's heels. They burst into the office with heaving breaths.

"Arthur's gone and killed a boy in the ring!"

AN: I'm loling because Tommy wants to be the main character sooo bad! A big shout out to Zed Minsky for the continued support and kind words.

Hope ya'll enjoy this chapter!