Chapter 97

Tommy's softness with Finn carried through the next few days. He even felt his heart sore as he watched his brother shoot Rosie a grateful look when it was her who talked him out of forcing Finn to come to the yard with them to do their caretaking session of Lily's horse rather than be allowed to stay behind.

"Listen to me though," Rosie said, crouching in front of Finn, "You got - we all got - a fright, on Thursday, right? So you got to learn exactly why you're supposed to stay where you're told and go only where you're told, eh? So if you're staying back here you stick with Isaiah, don't go wandering off alone and stay on the lane, got it?"

Finn nodded.

"Alright, good boy," Rosie said, straightening up and lifting Finn's cap, running her fingers through his hair to flatten it a little before replacing it and watching him hurry off out the door, shouting over his shoulder that he'd see them later.

Tommy knew he had been selfish when he brought Rosie and Lily to Watery Lane. He knew he had done it without consideration of Ada or Finn and the fact Rosie wasn't a stranger to them. And the truth was, because he was more focussed on Ada, he had watched Rosie and Ada's relationship more closely. Sure, he had missed the finer points of it and there were times he was baffled by how they'd gotten from a to b - but he'd noticed them find a truce with one another, then edge towards understanding and, eventually, even friendship. And for the past God knew how long, Rosie's tune had been about him sorting things with Ada - and truthfully, he wasn't sure if her interests were more vested in him or his sister, because most of the time she seemed to be on Ada's side, even if she did also seem to understand his.

But her relationship with Finn… He supposed the thing was, Finn had hero worshipped Rosie and her friends at school, and bringing her home had made her human. And, he supposed, as well as making her human, he had exposed Finn for the first time to seeing her with Lily, to seeing her in that role of a non-parent parent, much the same as he was for his brother, not just as the human version of the girl from school that he so admired.

Finn and Lily had found their places with one another and with Tommy, accepting him in that role to both of them. But Rosie hadn't jumped into that role for the youngest Shelby. He got the feeling she hadn't wanted to, hadn't felt it was her place - perhaps even, had felt that it would be disrespectful to Polly if she did so, he knew Rosie and his Aunt were fond of one another, and that Rosie respected Polly and valued her opinion.

The grenade had changed something though. Thursday night, which they'd spent inside, the four of them huddling together, the state of the shop next door, which they hadn't fixed until after the kids were in bed, hanging over them, grim and morbid, had pushed Rosie into that caretaking role. She had done what mothers did when fathers failed, she had pasted on a smile and bustled about and made dinner and pretended better than any of them that she wasn't thinking about the upturned desks and chairs behind the green doors. She had been the pillar of strength they had needed that night, whilst he had sat silently, smoked back to back cigarettes and clung to Finn like a limpet.

Over the course of that night, as she took care of them all, she had stepped into that role of a mother for Finn. He supposed it had always been going to happen eventually - especially since Polly had been devoting more and more time to John's kids since Rosie had come to number six and his aunt had judged her worthy of being left to look after the house. But he had thought it would be a few months away yet, potentially compounded by the fact she was no longer going to school with them, before she and Finn settled into it.

He wished, for the millionth time, that this realisation of what he had wanted with her - this normal family, had come from something less terrifying than the war the Lee's had declared on him.

In the aftermath of the shop being done over, he had almost forgotten about why they'd been away from it in the first place to allow it to happen as it had done - because of John and his meeting and his proposing to Lizzie Stark. For fuck's sake. He was coming this close to having a normal fucking family, even if the event that had triggered it had been fucking horrendous and, like fate had been enjoying itself at his expense, it had been timed to happen right when John had decided to propose to the whore Rosie had gone to to ask for advice. You couldn't fucking make it up.

He wondered, as he thought on John's family expanding to include a woman who could function as a proper mother, how Polly would feel. For all Rosie scolded them all about how they took advantage of Polly, he knew his aunt probably felt some semblance of the role she should have had in life when she took care of the kids. Her own kids being taken from her wasn't something she ever talked about, but he knew she carried the wound.

It hit him then, as he thought about family and kids…

The Lee's, all of them, cousins, nephews, even the bastards.

That was what Scud had said.

Amongst the Gypsy, kin was considered above all. They had all been raised that way. Wasn't that why his father had been welcomed back every damn time, because he was kin - even if he treated his own kin like shit? It was reflective on you how you treated your family, not how you were treated by them.

He could bring this business to the Lees with a close, making sure it didn't ever affect Finn or Lily ever again, and solve John's problems in one fell swoop. The only thing left would be managing to get rid of Lizzie Stark. He'd figure that out though - Lizzie was a business woman, he was sure they could come to some arrangement.

"Can we take Katie?" Lily asked, coming into the front room wearing the trousers Polly had made for her to go riding in and slipping her hand into his.

"No my little love," he said, shaking his head, "I've got work to do this afternoon so we're out to give your horse a little walk around and a clean and then we'll need to get back - there's no time for playing."

"Can she come next week?"

"I'll think about it," he told her, not remotely relishing the idea of his niece being on hand to help cause mischief, "Come on - let's get going."

He thought Lily's glumness was perhaps originally down to the earlier events in the week - her first spanking from her sister had to be a big thing for the kid, then she'd been taken to the washhouse and made to scrub out the mess she'd made of her dress and, after that, she'd come home to - well, he didn't really reckon she actually understood what she'd come home to, but she had known something had happened.

But when he was holding her on his hip so she could reach the horse's neck to brush it, she paused the movement and said, "Tommy?"

"Mhmm?"

"Why can't I be in Katie's class?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, not following her out of the blue question at all.

"When we go back to school next week. Why can't I be in Katie's class?"

"Cause Katie went earlier than you."

Cause Katie had gone too early.

"But we're the same age."

"But she's been going for longer so she's further ahead than you are for the tests and stuff my little love," he tried to soothe, though he could see from the little line between her brows that Lily had obviously been thinking long and hard about it and was not prepared to be soothed.

"I don't want to go back to school Tommy," Lily told him.

He glanced over to where Rosie was standing chatting to Charlie, wondering if this conversation had already been had between the two Jacksons or whether the child was trying to enlist him into helping her avoid going.

"Well you have to," he settled for telling her.

"I wouldn't mind as much if I was in the same class as Katie."

"Well you're not, I'm afraid and there's not much we can do about it little one," he told her with a note of finality in his voice, then, trying to cheer her up, "You'll have a new teacher this year won't you, eh?"

Not the same teacher as the year before who had smacked her because of his bloody bonfire - not that Rosie had ever let him go down and deal with the bloody woman as he'd have liked to.

"I suppose so," she sighed with a shrug and went back to brushing the horse.

Given there was nothing he could do about it, he decided to let it drop, finishing off the grooming of the horse and shutting up the stable for the day, letting Lily head over to her waiting sister.

"Uncle Charlie," he called, and jerked his head to tell the man he wanted a word with him.

He felt Rosie's eyes on him as Charlie came to him, leaving her and Lily behind.

He hadn't told Rosie anything about why they'd been out of the house when the Lee's had come. He wasn't deliberately keeping it from her - he knew Polly or John or Arthur could mention it at any time, though he hoped nothing more would be said for a while. John had said he wouldn't do it without Tommy's blessing and, with the way the meeting had met its abrupt end, Tommy had yet to give it - but it would come up again soon enough, he was sure. John had proposed already and Lizzie had agreed. But if he could make happen what he hoped he could make happen…

"You heard about Thursday I take it?" he asked his uncle, raising an eyebrow.

"Course I heard, everyone heard," Charlie replied.

Tommy took his time lighting a cigarette.

"You told me, didn't you?" he reminded Charlie, "When they cursed the horse. Their first move. You told me - better enemies to have than black blood Gypsies, that's what you said, wasn't it?"

Charlie nodded, his eyes narrowed.

Tommy took his time inhaling and exhaling before, using his cigarette to point at his Uncle, "But it was you they gave the bullet to to pass on to me. They beat Scud for being in the shop - wrong place, wrong time I'm sure, but they know him from when he was a kid. How come they left you unscathed, used you for their message to be delivered through?"

"Fuck you suggesting Tommy?" his uncle growled.

"You're something to them Charlie, so what is it?"

"I had fuck all to do with your shop being done over Tom - if you think for one fucking minute I'd endanger you and the baby and Finn and Rosie - fuck's sake Tom, I've always looked out for you like you were my own flesh and blood - I've considered you my own, you know that."

Tommy shook his head, "I'm not doubting you. But they're some sort of kin to you - so tell me what it is. I need this war to end, for the baby's sake and for Finn's."

"First fucking sensible thing I've heard you say in a while in terms of your bloody scheming and plotting."

Tommy allowed the corners of his mouth to flicker up in amusement.

The truth of it was, he was disappointed in what Kimber had turned out to be. Billy Kimber was there for the taking, he'd said that already. He'd decided he was done with Kimber. And if an alliance with the Lees could help him overthrow Kimber and be used to create a peace between them - all the better.

But he needed them to trust him. If he going to admit to them that his plans were to betray someone they thought he was in partnership with then he needed to give them some kind of assurance that he wasn't going to do the same thing to them.

"It's a weak link," Charlie told him, "Marriage - my cousin to one of the Lee cousins. He wasn't even a Lee by name, he was a Ryan. His mother was a Lee. They're both dead now - my cousin and her husband. No kids."

A weak link indeed. But one the Lee's had valued enough to use to get to him. And it explained their calling his mother a diddicoy, if they knew something of her side of his family though their cousin.

After all, amongst the Gypsies, kin was everything.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"You stay here, the lot of you - guns handy - no one leaves the women alone til I'm back, alright?" Tommy growled at Rosie, Polly, Arthur and John when he got back to Watery Lane.

"And when will that be?" Polly demanded, raising an eyebrow.

"Tonight."

"I thought you were working this afternoon?" Rosie asked, raising her own eyebrow and exchanging a look with Pol.

"I said I'd go to The Garrison tonight."

"This is work - and Grace and Harry will have to manage without you Arthur, alright?" Tommy grunted.

"And where is this work of yours taking place?"

"Kenilworth."

"Kenilworth! What the fuck's in Kenilworth?" Polly shouted, throwing her hands up in ire.

"The Hare and The Hounds pub."

"So you can go to the pub and I can't?"

"It's work, Arthur."

"Technically Arthur going to The Garrison is work Tommy, you made it so yourself," Rosie pointed out, smirking.

"You bloody behave," he growled, suppressing his own desire to smirk back at her, the look on her face, like she was oh so pleased with herself, was adorable, "The Garrison doesn't have a Gypsy playing the fiddle for shillings."

"Could arrange it for The Garrison, dunno that anyone'd give any of us shillings mind you," John grinned slyly at Rosie, whose smirk widened in delight.

There were times he was almost bloody jealous of John and Rosie's easy relationship.

"It's not the fucking music I'm going for - I'm taking the car - stay here - keep an eye on the kids," he told them, then turned on his heel and left.

"The irony of him thinking Ada's the dramatic one," he heard Rosie remark, and John's answering laughter bounce off the walls as he slammed the door.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Tommy thought he might have made it to Kenilworth in time to enjoy a drink before his business - but the fiddling had already started when he arrived.

It stopped just as soon as he went through the door though, making the heads of the gadze patrons turn to him and shoot questioning looks to one another.

He crossed to the bar, holding up his fingers for 2 beers and tossing some coins down before turning to lean against it, watching Johnny Dogs scooping up the coins that had been tossed into his hat before he'd stopped.

"I know what you're here about Tom," Johnny said, coming over to him.

Tommy rather doubted that, but he let the man ramble on.

"And I swear - I didn't know nothing about them doing over your shop til it was done. I told you already, they know I'm yours and they don't tell me nothing."

"That's alright Johnny," Tom said, turning to pick up the drinks and offering one out to his old friend, toasting him and drinking from his own, "I didn't come about that at all. I came cause I need a favour."

"A favour - anything you need Tom, if it's in my power I'll get ya it, you know me," Johnny said eagerly.

"I know," Tommy nodded and took a sip of his beer, "My daughter could have been in the day they came to the house. And Finn nearly go killed with their grenade."

"Holy fucking Jesus," Johnny breathed,

Tommy nodded again and took another sip, keeping Johnny on tenderhooks before he went on, "I need to talk to the man in charge. The one who makes the decisions. This needs to be ended and I have a proposition for him. Is it still old Jerricho Lee?"

"He died in winter Tom."

"Who replaced him, his son?"

"No," Johnny shook his head, "His daughter. Queen Mary Lee."

Tommy hid his surprise behind another sip of beer before saying, as blandly as he could, "Alright Johnny. Well, I'm going to need you to get me an audience with the Queen then."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

He refused to say much to any of them about what he was doing - he didn't know if it was going to work after all.

The most any of them got from him was Rosie, who was told he was trying to make sure Finn was never endangered like he had been ever again.

"How can we make this better, Tommy?" she asked, her hand taking his as they sat side by side on the sofa that night.

"I'm fine, I'm dealing with it,."

"Don't lie to me, you haven't shaken it off Tommy, I can tell - let me help you," she said, "Tell me what you need."

He thought on it and cleared his throat, "I could use a good night's sleep."

She looked up at him, questioning, asking him to elaborate.

"...Can I sleep in with you and the baby? Just for the night."

"Oh Tommy," she murmured, pressing her hand to his face and stretching her neck to kiss him, "Of course you can. Though maybe there would be something we could do in your bed that would relax you first?"

"You think so?" he murmured against her lips as she swung her leg over to straddle his lap.

"Mhmm."

"Not sure we need a bed," he told her, his teeth catching and pulling on her lip once he was done speaking before he began placing kissed along her jawline.

She ground herself against him and groaned, moving her neck to offer him better access.

"Keen little thing, eh?" he grunted.

"I missed you today," she told him.

"I was only away a few hours in the end."

"I don't like it when I don't know what it is you're up to Thomas," she told him - as much sharpness as he reckoned she could muster being put into her voice as he trailed his fingers lightly across her clothed cunt, "It make me feel distant from you. I like when I feel close to you."

"Like this, eh?" he asked, pushing his hand up against her and kissing her deeply.

She groaned right into his mouth.

"What have I told you, eh?" he asked, pulling away from her mouth and trailing the tip of his nose across her face, dropping kisses every word or so, massaging between her spread legs the entire time, "You're a fine, smart woman but you're a damn silly girl at times, eh? You never have anything to worry about."

"Just the Lee's," she muttered, as sarcastically as she could.

"I'm dealing with it. It's what I was away today for and I'll get it sorted, I promise you, alright?" he grunted, leaving off his massaging to grip her hips as he spoke, needing her to take his words seriously.

"Alright," she nodded.

He trailed his hands round, getting to her buttons and undoing them slowly, kissing her with each one that he opened, then slipping his hand in to rub at her through her underwear.

"You're soaked my love, absolutely soaked," he commented.

She nodded, "I missed you, I told you that."

"I should go away more often, make you miss me more."

She shook her head, "I'm always wet for you, you know that."

"That's true," he nodded, kissing her and rubbing at her slit through the material, "My good little girl is always wet for me."

She threaded her fingers up behind his ears and moaned and nodded rather frantically.

"You like being my good girl, don't you?"

"Yes Tommy."

He picked her up, kicked the table aside with his foot and laid her gently on the floor in front of the fire, peeling her trousers off completely and discarding them, then fiddling with his own fastenings, slipping off his braces and opening his trousers as he knelt in between her legs.

She watched him but didn't question him, letting him take his time as he lay on top of her, finding the position as best he could. It was as exciting as it might have been when he was a boy, to lie on top of her, both of them half clothed and half unclothed, their mouths meeting as he took a grip of her naked thigh and lifted it, her calf obediently hooking over him without needing to be told.

She groaned as he began to thrust against her, her arms wrapping around him too as he braced himself on his own.

He came quickly, but he didn't reckon she had - so once he had gotten his breath back he went to move, intending to attend to her but she protested.

"What?" he asked, kissing just below her ear, nuzzling against her.

"Stay here - just a little while. I like this. I like feeling you on top of me Tommy."

He tested pressing more of his weight against her and she smiled contentedly, wrapping her legs more tightly around his waist.

"I'll make you a deal," he smiled slyly.

"What?" she asked, raising an eyebrow and smirking, catching his tone.

"I'll stay here, if I get to feel you touch yourself under me."

"Tommy," she protested, blushing as if he hadn't watched her touch herself on his command before.

But that seemed to be the thing with her - if he ordered her directly, she would do it for her seeming desire to be obedient. Something about offering her her own choice made her think - or, to his mind, overthink.

"I'm getting up," he threatened, not idly either, pushing up on his arms.

"Tommy, no!" she argued, clinging to him, trying to pull him back down.

"You've got your choices sweetheart, touch yourself and keep me here or I'm off," he told her with no mercy.

"Alright - alright!" she agreed, though he could see a blush on her cheeks that he didn't think was to do with the heat of him on top of her.

She could be so matter of fact about things when she talked about them and then when it came to them, some inner part of herself reared up and tossed her academic thoughts aside. The confident woman who'd spoken to him in such a blase way about whores - who'd probably addressed Lizzie Stark in those same blase tones when she went looking for advice - when it came to touching herself in front of him, by choice, she was blushing - as if he hadn't made her touch herself before, as if he hadn't touched her plenty of times himself.

And that was how she'd be if his plan didn't work out and Lizzie became part of the family.

He settled some of his weight back down, keeping enough of it on his own arms that, as she moved her right one from where it had rested on his back, she had space to easily snake it down to her cunt.

"Good girl," he encouraged, drawing a smile from her.

He could feel her rubbing her clit with small up and down motions, hardly moving her hand at all, but her body moved more, pushing up so he could feel her knuckles against him through the material of his shorts as she ground up against her own hand and his body.

"Just like that my love," he told her, nodding as she peeled open her eyes to look at him.

"Tommy," she muttered, her eyes closing again, her hips thrusting up.

"Hmm?"

"I'm close."

"Good girl, cum hard for me darling, I want to see your face as you cum."

She moaned and whimpered, bucking against him and biting her lip before, slightly desperately, "Tommy - Tommy - please…"

"Please what sweetheart? You can cum, you have my permission, I want you to," he told her, unsure what she wanted.

"Tommy - will you touch me, down - down there?" she asked, her eyes opening to beg with him.

God but she was pretty when she sounded needy like this.

He slid his hand down to join hers, sliding it over the silk of her underwear, over where hers rested and finding her slit.

"You mean here sweetheart?"

She let out a whine and ground against him, nodding.

"Like this my love?" he asked pushing his thumb flat against her slit and beginning to move it up and down, the material moving easily against her given how wet she had made it already.

"Yes - oh god - yes! Tommy!" she squealed, her hips moving as much as they could, pushing against him, her own hand moving frantically - and then her head was going back, her chest was pushing up against him and she was cuming. He could feel the moisture seep out from her against the pad of his finger.

"Good girl, that's my good girl," he crooned, slowing his rubbing, but not stopping it the way she had stopped her own hand.

He kept going until her body was back fully on the floor and her eyes had opened to meet his gaze, a shy smile on her lips when she did.

He left off his rubbing so he could brace himself with one hand and cup her head with the other whilst he kissed her and told her, "Good girl, I'm proud of you sweetheart."

"Was that good for you Tommy?" she asked.

He nodded and kissed her lips, her nose, both of her cheeks and her forehead before vocally confirming, "Yes it was - so I'd better get cleaned up before we go to bed, eh?"

He went to sleep that night with an arm around Rosie and woke the next morning with her leg thrown over his waist and her head on his shoulder on one side, with Lily curled in at the other.

"How did you sleep?" the redhead asked, opening one eye and looking at him.

He nodded in response and she smiled, closed her eye and snuggled against him, seeming quite as settled as he felt in that moment.

As always thank you for reading along, for reviewing and messaging me - I know I say it all the time but I really do mean it and appreciate it, it makes my day to get those emails through and it's what motivates me to keep going with this beast of a story!