Chapter 114

Tommy strode across to Lily, getting down on his knees to get his face level with hers in an effort to get a better look - as if he was hoping getting close to it might actually prove it to be nothing at all, to just be her crying over getting a fright.

Wishful bloody thinking.

Rosie was going to fucking kill him. She was actually going to fucking kill him.

"Move your hands, let me see," he told Lily, his voice hitting his own ears like it was echoing through a wall or something, not like it was coming from his mouth.

He took hold of her wrists and took her hands away himself when she didn't seem inclined to do so on her own. She renewed the vigour of her crying, as if she could see her own nose coming into view the same as he could.

In another moment he might have tried to be gentle, or soothing - but not in this one. His heart was hammering as he cocked his head to assess the damage, pulling her wrists into one of his hands and manoeuvring her around so the light hit better, letting him see more, taking her chin in his hand and moving her face a little.

He didn't reckon it was broken. The blood had been coming quickly enough at first - he could gather that from the way it had already blotted onto her top - but it was already slowing down, nothing more than a trickle and he reckoned it would stop of its own accord quickly enough. He ran a finger down her nose, pressing as lightly as he could afford to, trying to feel for any breaks - but, thank god, there was nothing untoward. She was still tender it seemed though - she was flinching at his touch.

Or maybe she wasn't physically tender at all - maybe it was all mental. If she expected it to be sore when he touched it, her body would tell her it was sore, even if it wasn't.

He cleared his throat and she looked at him with wary eyes as he tried to reassure her, "S'not broken, you'll be alright. Just a bleed."

If it was mental, words could do more healing than anything else, he reckoned. As long as she believed them, trusted them, trusted him.

He could remember exactly what Lily's memory of Rosie's confrontation with their mother had been - lots of blood. Lots of blood from Rosie's nose, when Molly had swung a soup pot at her. The words, whispered by the child in the kitchen, echoed around his mind now - a greek chorus for his tragedy.

Lily's hands flew back to her nose, but her eyes stayed on him - and he wasn't quite sure what his face might be doing in that moment, wasn't sure what she was seeing, wasn't sure what her mind would be racing through right then.

He needed to get control of it all, right away. He needed to get Lily remembering that she was here, she was his, that yes, she sure as hell was in trouble for her disobedience - but that the main reason for that was because she'd risked her own safety with it, because he wanted her safe, because he valued her safety.

He ripped his shirt with slightly trembling hands, clenching his fists to try and steady them, to hide the shake. He was good at hiding his tells, hiding them behind busying his hands and mouth with cigarettes. He wasn't sure his voice could be trusted not to betray him, so he jerked his head to try and make her move her hands off again - but they seemed frozen in place.

He could only hope - pray - that the fear that was gripping her was purely a standard child's fear of a good spanking from an irate parent, that Molly Jackson wasn't taking over where he had got to thinking they had expelled her from for good.

He spat into the material and wiped around the bab's neck and chin before being forced to verbalise a firm, "Shift!", accompanying it with another pointed jerk of his head to get her hands moving. He was glad they moved this time, and he bundled the material up at the end of her nose, careful to rest a clean bit against it, so he could assess whether any fresh blood was actually coming out at any kind of notable rate.

Rosie would murder him, that was all there was to it. The child meant more to her than anything else in the world and he had failed to protect her.

He couldn't quite believe his ears when he heard Katie's footsteps behind him - the bloody kid thought she could make a run for it! Here he was, having a near bloody breakdown between his worrying about Lily and what a bloody nose might be making her remember and his worries that Rosie would bloody well kill him when he got them back to Watery Lane, and Katie thought she'd take bloody advantage by trying for a getaway. If he'd been in a different mood he might have half admired her bloody spunk, but he was not in a different bloody mood, he was in his current mood and it was no fucking mood for little kids to be taking advantage of.

"Don't you move a muscle," he snapped at her, giving her one of his finest glares over his shoulder.

She jumped, clearly thinking she'd been treading quietly enough that he wouldn't notice, and he was satisfied with the way the blood drained from her face. Aye, there was gumption in that kid - gumption that he recognised - but she wasn't stupid enough to really believe herself above him. Not yet anyway.

Still, he'd better get the law laid down. He took Lily's hand and brought it to the material, making her hold it herself, then he stood up, folded his arms and surveyed the two of them, letting his face fall into a deep frown.

He supposed before he passed sentence he was as well getting their version of events - though he was fairly sure he had the gist of it without really needing them to answer his furiously controlled, "What in holy hell happened?"

His eyes went from one to the other, but neither of them seemed ready to answer. He watched Katie's eyes slide to Lily's, as if she was going to try and communicate with her even with him standing over them - but Lily wasn't looking back, her eyes were firmly on him, wide and blurry behind her tears. No, Lily wasn't going to be telling him any convoluted version of events - he could see in her face that she was too upset to even think of a cover story for their antics.

"Porridge threw me off," she admitted, still crying as she pushed the words out.

"And why were you on him?" he demanded, then, knowing there would be no sensible answer from either of them, he went on, "How many times are you going to need to be told? You do not disobey me in the yard! What have I told you? He's a young horse who needs to build his strength up! Of course he threw you - he'd had enough!" His mind went to Rosie, imagining what she would say if she were present, and snarled, "I hope you're bloody well pleased with yourself now, your sister isn't likely to let you back here again. I may as well send that horse off to a farm, see if I can't get a few shillings back for my trouble! How do you like that?"

He was waving his hand in the air, his voice increasing in speed and volume, all his tells of anger and worry and frustration and fear appearing as he scolded. He felt he was morphing into Rosie, with his lecturing, his labouring of the point, drawing it out.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, took a sharp inhale then, speaking more calmly - though not gently - he looked down at Lily and told her, "You've had your backside smacked a fair few times in this yard now, but evidently it doesn't get through to you. Well, just you wait my girl, once that nose of yours is under control you'll have plenty going on at the other end to worry you. Why is it none of you kids can just take a telling? Why does it always have to come down to needing to turn you up and redden you good before you'll obey? Well, little miss, if it's a good spanking you need, it's a good spanking you'll get!"

Lily threw her head back and let out a heartbreaking cry, obviously having decided to push for some sympathy. He was too caught up in thinking about what Rosie would have to say if she was present in that moment - what she was going to have to say about it when she found out soon enough - to deliver any.

He pushed the baby's head forward briskly, telling her, "Keep your head up, you tilt it back and the blood will go down your throat and make you sick."

He'd tilted his own head back a few times and tasted blood and he didn't want her gagging on it.

In spite of her tears, she still managed to give him somewhat of a dirty look in response to his terse tone - and for once he was glad to see it. If she could summon the annoyance to give him her little attitude then she couldn't be gripped entirely by fear. He found himself breathing better in response to it - though he managed to keep his face in its stern, scolding set, not to let her see the relief.

He saw her eyes widen and practically watched the cogs of her mind whirl before she blubbered out, "But - but - but it wasn't my fault! He never threw Katie off!"

He worked to keep his face still, not to split into a wide grin upon realising that Lily was definitely with him in that moment, that Molly Jackson wasn't claiming it - the baby's primary concern was to get herself out of trouble, the same as any other kids would be in that moment.

"Get over here," he ordered his niece, pointing at the space next to Lily.

He had already figured Katie had had a go too, when he'd explicitly told them to stay away and let the horse alone, but that confirmed his suspicions and he focussed on it, on the pair of them ignoring what he had told them, focussed on the lack of obedience in the two of them, determined to stray away from his elation that Lily's concern did seem to be her current predicament and not a historical one being triggered.

Katie took an age to cross the small space - though he could see a look of resignation in her eyes as she did so, could see she at least had figured there was no way out of it. As soon as she was within reach he grabbed her by the ear and automatically went to take Lily's ear in his other hand - then figured he was better not running the risk of tilting her head about, so took a grip of the arm that wasn't holding his shirt to her nose instead.

He shook them both as he told them, "The two of you are lucky you haven't been seriously injured!"

The key thing here, he reckoned, was making sure they understood that they had been told to stay off Porridge for their own safety, making them understand he wasn't making rules to spoil their fun for no good reason - that instead, his rules were in place for the best of reasons.

"Right, out of here, give the poor horse some peace," he decreed, spinning around and hauling them with him, pulling them out through the door to where his uncle was waiting with an expectant look.

"It seems these two have difficulty understanding simple instructions," he explained to his uncle's raised eyebrow, "We're going to have a lesson apiece about it so they don't make the same mistake again. This one," he lifted Lily's arm to indicate her and glanced to her nose, "Has already started learning it, I hope. I can't see that it's more than a bump and bleed, but would you take a second look for me, Uncle Charlie?"

He steered Lily forward and let go of her, leaving her with his uncle as he took Katie over to the stable next to the one Porridge was occupying. Best to get them separated and deal with them one at a time, see what each of them needed to get through to them.

He put her in the corner, hissing, "You just wait here until I come back to deal with you, Katie Shelby, and if you take your nose out of that corner for a second, I'll give you the reddening here you've asked for with your antics and then I'll take you back to Watery Lane and give you another one for disobeying me on the countdown to the first one," into her ear as he released his hold on it.

She gave him an indignant, shocked and angry little look, which he returned with a stern one of his own, and she slumped a little and put her nose in the corner. Aye, she had her spunk, but even if she'd dig in to her deepest reserves to stop herself crying out as quickly as the other kids did when she was in trouble, and even if she'd grit her teeth and jut out her chin and do her very best not to seem too compliant, she was the same as every other kid in that once she knew she was in for it, she'd do her best not to make it worse for herself. There was some kind of survival instinct intact.

"What do you make of it then Uncle Charlie?" he asked as he crossed back to his Uncle and Lily, leaving Katie to her corner and her thoughts.

"It's stopped bleeding," his uncle replied.

He was sitting on one of the crates, one arm hugging Lily - who was eyeing him pitifully and twisting one foot over the other, mirroring the way she was twisting her hands - in front of him.

"I had a feel, can't feel that it's broken."

"Neither can I, an' I reckon this little chicken would be a mite more inconsolable than she is right now, and more concerned with her nose than with you."

"Concerned with me are you, eh?" Tommy asked her, raising an eyebrow as he looked down.

"Tommy- don't want - don't want a spanking!" she stuttered out, pressing herself closer to Charlie, as if she thought he would protect her.

Tommy sat down on the free crate and crooked a finger at the child. She was hesitant, but a little push and a, "Ah you'd best just go take your medicine my little one, I'd say you've earned it alright," from his uncle got her moving.

Tommy hid his snort at his uncle's soothing, almost conciliatory tone. He reckoned Charlie was enjoying being the extra adult, the one who could enjoy all the fun times with Lily, whilst knowing he could hand her straight back over when any discipline was needing dished out. He supposed he wouldn't have minded that role of uncle himself, if things had been different with John.

"Tommy, Tommy - please - I promise I'll never ever ever dis-bey you again," Lily said, giving him her best impression of a sorrowful and penitent little girl who had absolutely learned her lesson and really didn't need a spanking.

Thankfully, he'd seen enough of Ada's renditions of the same casting to know just how fine an actress a little girl who did need a spanking could be.

"Lily, almost every time we come to this yard, you disobey me in some way," he told her firmly, taking her hands in his and pulling her between his legs, "That first time I ever smacked you was here, when you went running when I told you to stay put, you remember?"

She nodded.

"And you argue with me nearly every time I say it's the end of your riding - and you've had a few smacked backsides for that, haven't you?"

Her lip petted out and she nodded again, unwillingly.

"So where does that leave me Lily, am I supposed to believe you that if I let you off with this one that it'll be the end of it?"

"Tommy," she whispered, her eyes filling with fresh tears, "Tommy I promise…"

"If I remember right, there were promises made about behaving before we left Watery Lane today - so I don't reckon your promises are counting for much Lily," he told her, giving her a stern look, which tipped her over in a new bout of properly crying, her shoulders shuddering as she did so.

He squeezed her hands, "You listen to me - you might not want a spanking - but you didn't not want one enough that it stopped you from doing something you knew'd be likely to get you one, did you?"

She just looked at him, reproachful.

"Tell you why that is, shall I?" he continued, "It's cause a spanking upsets you when you get it - and you remember it for a little while. Sometimes more than a little while, if I'm lucky. But ultimately, time dulls your memories of how bad it felt at the time and sooner or later you'll be showing me it's time you're due another one to make you mind. But will I tell you what wouldn't dull after a while? A real injury from that horse. You are very, very lucky you got a bit of a bump and a bleed and nothing more. If you'd landed differently you could have had a broken bone."

He decided not to tell her the horse could cave her head in for her, he'd save that for if Rosie decided there would be no more trips to the yard, ever. Might make the loss of the horse easier. He was convinced that was going to happen - he knew from the way she hung back at the yard that Rosie wasn't sure of the animals and he imagined her mistrust of them, coupled with knowing now, in spite of what she'd said earlier, that they couldn't trust Lily and Katie to behave at the yard, would mean riding would be vetoed for a long time.

He sighed, his own heart aching a little at the idea of it, even if he could understand why she'd make the decision he was sure she would.

But this wasn't the time for any self pity, it was on his watch this had happened.

No, he'd best just get on with the task in hand and deal with Rosie's wrath when he faced it later.

"I need you safe, Lily, you understand? You're the most precious thing to me in the world and when I tell you to do or not do something, it's for your own good, your own safety, you understand?" He paused, waiting for her teary nod before continuing, "Good. So you've had plenty of chances in this yard to do as I say and you've thrown a whole load of them back at me - but this is the last straw. This was far too close a miss for me not to give you a spanking to remember, you understand?"

She didn't nod at him this time, just held his eye for a long while in silence. Nodding her understanding would be like nodding to agree that she should be given a spanking, he supposed, and he reckoned he could understand why no kid would ever be able to bring themselves to openly agree to that prospect.

Still, he persisted, "You understand Lily - your decisions are what have brought us here, have put me in this position?"

She still wouldn't give him any agreement, so he clicked his tongue and told her, "Well I've told you and I'm sure you'll be telling me you understand and that you're very sorry quite soon enough," then twisted her round and bent her over his knee.

Her wailing began straight away, as she realised what he was positioning her for, as the reality of her sentence being something she couldn't get out of set in - the sounds no doubt carrying to Katie waiting her own turn in the stables. She was crying and squirming before he'd even lifted his hand and he wasn't actually hugely sure she noticed when he brought it down, her wailing remaining fairly consistent.

He'd told Rosie the idea of a spanking was as much of a concern as the reality of it to the kids - he'd seen for himself when Ada and Finn had been young that a stern look and the lightest of taps to a backside could have them screaming their apologies, their minds doing far more disciplining than he had done himself. But he didn't intend for that to be the case with this one. No, she'd feel it, she'd remember it, he'd make sure of that.

He yanked the trousers Polly had made for the bab to ride in down to her knees, bringing an onslaught of protest that at least reassured him she was aware of what was going on, and continued with renewed vigour, making sure he was bringing the colour up satisfactorily.

He'd been right of course, the apologies spewed from her and when he chided, "You know you earned this, don't you?" He got a howled yes in response, alongside apologies and promises to be good and that she'd never, ever disobey him again.

He knew himself there was no chance she'd keep the latter promise, but if he could get her in the headspace to try for a while, he'd settle for it.

Determined to get her there, and determined that headspace should stay for more than a while where the yard specifically was concerned (that was, if Rosie ever did let them back), he continued his task on her bare skin bringing his hand down on her backside until it was red and hot and she'd stopped all forms of protesting, pleasing or promising and was simply lying across his lap giving deep, gut wrenching sobs.

Aye, she'd mind him now - for a while.

He let her lie whilst she cried out the worst of it, then slid his hand under her belly to lift her to standing. She threw the upper body against him, her weight going to his waiting arms, but her hands went to her rear, rubbing furiously, her feet stamping too, as if it were some kind of rhythm she thought she could punch out into the ground that would make the sting go away.

Well, he hoped it wouldn't. He wasn't as furious with her as he'd been the time he'd found out they'd been at The Cut - but he reckoned that fury that been her endangering herself, then deceiving everyone about it until Rosie had heard about it from Uncle Charlie.

No, he was still angry, but his anger was only with their direct disobedience, with their endangering of themselves that they had just done. And he was fairly sure there wouldn't be a repeat of it in the near future now.

He kept one arm wrapped around her, knowing he was helping her stand more than her own legs were and moved one hand to her hair, scratching at her scalp through it, pressing his lips to her slightly salty forehead.

"That's my girl, you cry it out," he murmured to her, pressing his lips to her again before resting his chin on her head, cuddling her close to him.

His eyes found his uncle's figure, his back turned to them, leaning against one of the storehouses and smoking. He hadn't noticed Charlie moving, he'd been too absorbed in his task. His Uncle had turned each of them up and reddened them during their times as they'd brought it upon themselves - Tommy'd always been particularly glad of it when John caught it from uncle Charlie, given their mother had always been soft on John-boy, quicker to give him more warnings than he or Arthur would have got before she'd come down on them.

But he minded what Charlie had said to him - that it had hurt his heart to hear Tommy crying out when his mother had spanked him in the yard, and he supposed Charlie'd feel the same listening to the bab now. He knew his uncle would think he'd done the right thing - he'd sent Lily over to him with the statement that she should take the medicine she'd earned after all - but whilst dishing out a spanking was difficult at times, it at least gave you a focus, gave you something to do. Sitting by and listening to it, watching it, listening to the upended one wailing and crying and knowing it had to happen, but not being involved - it wasn't a position that was easy to be in, Tommy figured.

Different for Katie - undoubtedly listening to everything from the stable (he'd be surprised if he went in there and found she was actually in the corner he'd left her in.) Kids took pleasure in hearing other kids getting it most of the time - he certainly had in his own time - though he wasn't sure how much pleasure she'd be taking, given she knew what she was listening to would be coming her own way soon enough.

If it had been Lily's idea, he figured his niece might have gotten some vindictive pleasure out of hearing her get it, it she'd felt she'd been the one to drag the two of them into it - but, for all they hadn't discussed whose idea it had been, he didn't really need to ask to know it would have been Katie's.

It didn't excuse Lily going along with it - no, she'd made her own decision, earned her own punishment, knowing she could have skipped the spanking if she'd skipped on going along with Katie. No, if Lily was going to allow herself to be led, she'd earn the consequences of that and hopefully one day it might stop her going along with something she knew better than to go along with.

And so he wasn't going to lecture Katie about it being her idea, or make it worse for her because it had been - Rosie had put a stop to that when he'd started it over that infamous trip to The Cut. And she'd been right to, it was too much to put on his niece's shoulders. Aye, she was shaping up to be the ringleader of the younger kids - though George was still too interested in following Finn and Isaiah about to be caught up with her - but it wasn't logical or developed in them at that point, it was purely instinctual. She'd grow, and when she was grown a little, if things went the way they seemed to be going now, he'd try and make her understand the responsibilities of being the leader, make her understand that the consequences were bigger - just like he was doing with Finn now (and on that note, he'd make up some bunch of jobs for Finn to do the next day, make him give up a weekend to work back some of that money Tommy had coughed up to pay the other kid's fines for them, the money he'd told Finn he'd make him work to pay back.) But for now, Katie and Lily would get more or less the same, whatever it took to take them to the equivalent levels of penitence.

He held Lily until her cries had quietened down a little, then reached to the pools of material at her ankles and helped her dress herself again.

She didn't seem like she was going to give him any space though, her body never inching away from his for more than a second. And usually he loved those moments, even when they were hard won like this one was. When she wasn't near him he missed her, missed the weight of carrying her, missed the smell of her, missed the heat of her body as she walked beside him, missed her hands in his - even if her fingers were wet from having recently been in her mouth before she'd slid them through his.

But it wasn't fair on Katie, to stand in the stable, listen to it start and stop and know she was on her final countdown, having it all dragged out. So Tommy indulged himself for a moment, then gathered the baby to him and stood up, picking her up with him and resting her on his hip, holding his arm around her waist so he didn't put extra pressure on her no doubt tender rear. Her arms automatically went to his neck as he began walking over to where his uncle was standing, now glancing over at them, realising it had stopped.

"I gotta go see to Katie, my little love," he told her, "You stay with Uncle Charlie for me, eh? Let me get this done so we can all move on, eh?"

"D'you have to Tommy?" she asked mournfully.

"The waiting's worse than the getting sometimes, chicken," Uncle Charlie said, having obviously heard their conversation as they approached.

"D'you have to at all though?" she persisted, giving him her biggest, widest eyes.

He passed her to his Uncle, noticing her wince and wriggle a little as Charlie unthinkingly put his arm to the top of her legs, creating a little shelf for her to sit on - forgetting no freshly spanked kid wanted to be sitting at all, not even on an arm.

"Wouldn't be fair if you were the only one to catch it," he told her, "And I've told you, I'll always be as fair as I can with you all - so what one of you gets the other one'll get for doing the same, and you were doing the same, eh?"

She sighed, but nodded - not going to argue with him now, not when her rear end would still be hot and stinging.

He left her in his Uncle's capable hands, knowing Charlie would know what to say to make her feel better, but without excusing what she'd done, and braced himself to face the dark haired little handful waiting for him in the stable.