Chapter 101

She was getting good, Lily. Rising and falling well, keeping a good posture. He didn't even feel the need to lead her anymore.

"You thought of a name for him yet?" Tommy asked as he walked beside them.

He might not need to lead her, but that didn't mean he was leaving her entirely on her own - young horses could turn, and he'd be there to catch it if it did.

Lily nodded, looking quite proud of herself before announcing, "Porridge!"

Tommy bit down on the cigarette he had dangling from the side of his mouth, "Porridge?"

"Yup."

Porridge. She wanted to name the horse after the one fucking thing Rosie had brought into his life that he wished she'd have left behind. He seethed quietly, feeling slightly irrational about how irritated he was - he was convinced Rosie had made porridge that morning simply to spite him and now he was to be haunted by it as well for as long as the bloody horse lived!

Still, he tried to calm himself, he supposed it wasn't Lily's fault.

He couldn't quite muster even an upturning of the edges of his mouth for her, but he managed a nod and a passable, "Alright then."

He reckoned she had caught something in his tone, her blue eyes went wider than usual for just a second as she looked down at him and he forced himself to reach out and give her leg a reassuring little squeeze. She smiled, her eyes relaxing, trusting him implicitly as she always did. If only the older sister would do the same.

"How are we getting on then?" Charlie asked as they re-entered the yard, walking along the side of where The Cut snaked through, where Charlie was loading a boat with crates.

"She's doing real well," Tommy said with a nod, "Aren't you?"

Lily shrugged and smiled - no real idea if she was doing well or not, but willing to believe him.

"Looks l-l-l-like a n-n-natural," Curly stammered from where he stood on the boat, fiddling with his hat in his hands and grinning widely up at the child.

Lily smiled widely back.

"Alright, time to get her in - and off Porridge, give the lad a rest."

"Porridge?" Charlie asked.

"That's what she's named him."

His Uncle snorted, then covered it with a cough and patted the horse's neck, "Well, you'll not be able to race him with a name like that, but I suppose we've no need for our little chicken to be racing, eh?"

"None at all," Tommy confirmed.

"Why?" Lily asked, wrinkling her nose.

"Why what?"

"Why can't I race with him because of his name?"

"Ah never mind chicken, it's just that the horses the fancy folk race come with longer names usually."

And slightly more dignified ones, befitting the beasts.

"Don't want to give him a long name," Lily said, sounding a little unsure.

"He won't be a racing horse anyway," Tommy told her, "Long name or short name."

"D-don't like them racing, not the way they beat them. Bad f-for them," Curly spoke up.

"Not racing," Lily said, staring at Curly, gripping the reigns tightly.

"G-good," he nodded.

She smiled again, sunlight beaming from her face.

"Right, in we get," Tommy said, nodding his head, "Turn him this way."

Lily sighed but tugged the reigns a little and dug her heels in to get Porridge moving.

"Can't I have 5 more minutes Tommy?" she wheedled as they walked across the yard.

"You can have a smacked arse if you fancy it but you're done for the day - I'm not having this conversation every time I say we're done," he told her, reaching up and taking the reigns from her with a raised eyebrow, "What have I told you, eh?"

"That I have to do as I'm told in the yard."

"And?"

"And he's a young horse and he needs to build his strength up," she parroted him obediently, but blankly.

"Having a horse is about taking care of him as much as, if not more than, it is about riding him, you understand?" he asked - telling her again what he'd told her multiple times already.

"I know Tommy," she nodded, "I just like the riding."

"I know," he nodded in return, "But when I say he's had enough, he's had enough. If you don't heed me he'll take it on himself to tell you when he's had enough and let me tell you, you won't like it if he does."

And if she got herself bucked off a horse, Rosie'd never let her near another one as long as she lived, he knew that. Still, he wasn't going to put it that blatantly to the child. He'd prefer she had a healthy fear of the back of his hand, which she knew could be easily tempered with good behaviour, than a fear of the horse.

"Right, down you get," he said once they'd come into the stable and he'd placed the crate for her to drop down onto.

He stood right by her ready to catch her if she slid too much, but he had had the idea of putting the crate there at the start of the ride and letting her try sliding her foot into a stirrup and hauling herself over - and it had gone quite well. She leant forward and, fairly ungracefully, managed to pull her leg over and dismount onto the crate.

"Well done," he told her, patting her head, not willing to point out the clumsy way she'd done it - the more she did it, the more fluid her movements would get, "Now you stay there."

He got the brush off the wall and handed it to her, "I'll get his saddle off, you start brushing him down."

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

They had spent a few hours down at the yard - and had taken the long way home so Tommy could take a look at the park and check that Finn was where he'd told him he would be, which he was, thankfully, though the group of them had been sitting on the ground having what looked to be some sort of high stakes discussion rather than doing any physical kicking around of a ball - and Tommy might have entertained the thought that Rosie would have cooled off and calmed down by the time they returned.

But that would have been naive of him.

She wasn't home when they got in and when she did arrive and he had the audacity to ask where she'd been she shouted at him, "Getting stuff for the bloody dinner, where have you been? Do I ask after every minute of your bloody day Thomas?"

Aware Lily was sitting on his lap at that moment, the two of them having come to rest in the living room, him with the paper and her demanding he read it aloud to her, he hadn't wanted to verbally chastise the older sister, so he had simply shot her a filthy look over the bab's shoulder - ensuring it was one of his worst.

But it didn't seem to make any difference.

Throughout the evening they all got snapped at, Lily got unceremoniously dumped and scrubbed in the tub in the kitchen with Rosie muttering under her breath the entire time and even Finn didn't escape her wrath - the lad got bawled out about traipsing mud across the kitchen floor when he returned looking for his dinner.

The thing was, as far as Tommy could see, the work she'd said she was going to do that day, the beating of the carpets and what not, hadn't actually been done.

It wasn't that he thought it desperately needed done - he trusted her to keep the house in good order as she saw fit and he had no complaints about his surroundings (other than that they were on Watery Lane, Birmingham, and not in the places he'd like for them to be, but there was nothing she could achieve with a carpet beater that would do much about that, that was going to be up to him to sort.) But she was obviously tightly wound and given how uncommunicative she was verbally about her emotions, a physical task often did the bloody woman a world of good at allowing her to work her frustrations out - whether it was with a carpet beater or with a gun.

As it was, given his own contained ways of emoting, he was close to expressing his own frustrations physically too - on her arse.

As far as he was concerned, she was allowed to feel as she did - and if she had to work through her annoyance with him in her own head then so be it. But he wasn't going to stand for the way she was addressing him, and certainly not the way she was addressing him in front of Lily and Finn. He had seen both kids' eyes slide to him throughout dinner when she'd snapped at him every time he had made a stab at conversation, both of them wondering how he would react - and both of them exchanging shocked glances when he hadn't reacted at all.

When Lily walked outside ahead of her when it was time for her nightly ablutions, he took the opportunity to grip Rosie's arm and growl in her ear, "You're going to answer for the way you've been carrying on girl, so don't dally with getting that child in bed."

She froze under him for a second, then jerked her arm away when he released it - and didn't come back downstairs, leaving him furious and using every ounce of self control he had not to go drag her from her bedroom and leather her until she'd eat her dinner standing for at least a fortnight.

It was the next morning before he realised that perhaps the root of her actions was possibly not entirely on him.

"Are you planning to get dressed at any point?" he questioned pointedly and acidically as she seemed to take her time doing the breakfast dishes and Lily sat at the table.

She had come down with the child that morning and he hadn't had an opportunity to speak to her alone since.

"Not really," she replied, her voice feigning a believable nonchalance, but he could see through the pyjama jacket she wore that she had rolled her shoulders, evidently having been waiting for the question and having planned for answer.

"Polly will be here soon."

"I don't see how that affects me."

"You know how it affects you and I'm done playing fucking games - go get ready for this fucking church service we sit through every Sunday."

"You don't even want to go!" she shouted, turning around wish a dish in her hand, slopping water over the floor with the force of her movement, glancing at it and then shouting, "Now look what you've done!"

"What I've done?" he asked, his voice dangerous and quiet, a single eyebrow raising in warning.

"You made me do it," she snapped back, no closer to heeding this warning than she had been any other, her own emotions seemingly blocking her bloody common sense.

"We go to church on Sundays. All of us. You promised me you'd go as long as I went and I've not failed on my end."

"I don't recall promising," she growled.

"You agreed then."

"Well I disagree now."

"Not how it works."

"Says who, Tommy Shelby and his parliament of fucking one?" she shouted, mimicking his aunt.

He stood up and slammed his hand on the table, "Enough!"

There was a silence for a second, both Lily and Rosie's eyes on him, Lily looking on the verge of tears and even Rosie looking a little shaken.

He exhaled loudly then, more quietly, repeated himself, "Enough. I mean it."

Rosie stuck her chin up then, her voice trembling just a little, said, a note of determination under the tremble, "I'm not going Tommy. You asked me to go to keep Pol sweet. Well, Polly isn't going to care, so you needn't worry."

"I think you'll find Polly'll care," he told her, more to fill the silence than anything else, his mind racing to work out what she could possibly mean.

"She won't," Rosie replied, turning back to the dishes.

"What about you, eh?" he asked Lily, his voice more of a threatening growl that he had really meant to turn on her, "You getting ready to go?"

Lily nodded nervously and slid off her seat, her eyes on her sister's back for a second before she ran off up the stairs hurriedly. He'd probably bloody frightened her with his tone, he reckoned, irritated with himself.

Upon hearing the steps, Rosie glanced over her shoulder then looked at him and swallowed, seemingly realising they were alone - something he reckoned she had been trying to avoid.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Don't lie to me. You're already for it as you well know, don't add to it."

"What's the point if I'm already fucking for it?" she growled.

"I have told you-" he began, then dropped off as Finn came in from his own morning trip out the back.

"We'll continue this later - go get ready," he told her.

"I'm not bloody going."

"You are - go get ready, now."

"You going to drag me?"

"If that's what it takes," he growled at her, then sat heavily back down and lit a cigarette, him glaring at Rosie and her glaring right back at him, neither of them moving until a sharp rap came at door, followed by the sound of Polly letting herself in.

Rosie turned back to the dishes, not acknowledging his aunt as she entered the house and came to rest in the kitchen doorway, her mouth a very thin line.

For his part he glared between the two of them and then told Polly, "Apparently she's not going to church and you're not going to care."

Polly snorted, "Not for me to care, is it? It's God she can reckon with."

"Lily's getting dressed," he replied, ignoring her comment, "You'll take her and Finn."

He watched Rosie stiffen as she seemed then to realise the position she had just put herself in - being left alone with him in the house and guaranteed to be left so for a good hour or more.

She put down the dish she had been washing loudly on the side to dry and then crossed the kitchen.

"Where you going?" he questioned.

"To get dressed."

"Changed your mind about church?"

"No, I bloody well have not," she told him, and swept from the room, her chin high, something haughty and imperious in her mood.

Her pride would be the bloody death of her - or of him, he wasn't quite sure which.

Polly snorted, "I suppose you're in full support of her?"

"Full support of her what?"

Polly snorted, "Of the little show she put on yesterday, in your bloody honour."

"What are you talking about Pol?"

"She hasn't told you?" Polly asked, her eyebrows raising.

He raised an eyebrow in return.

His aunt reached into the pouch she kept at her waist and retrieved one of her thin, black cigarettes, lighting it and inhaling deeply before exhaling a stream of smoke, sighing and saying, "Well, I'll admit I'm surprised."

He raised the eyebrow higher, inviting her to explain.

She smirked mirthlessly in that high and mighty way she had, "I'll leave it to her to tell you. I'm sure she's very proud of herself."

Tommy wanted to scream at his aunt, to demand one of them would just tell him plainly what the fuck was going on. But he wasn't for giving any of them the bloody satisfaction either.

He hadn't told Polly about his plans with the marriage yet - though he suspected his aunt would question him soon enough on what his response would be to John's asking for his blessing to marry Lizzie Stark and bring her into the family. He'd tell her soon enough, once things were settled in his own house. Her own marriage had been arranged by his grandparents, he wasn't worried that Pol would react as Rosie had done. In fact, he imagined she'd think his plan rather sensible.

But he imagined she'd think telling John was something to be done sooner rather than later - but if John was given time and space to be able to seem insulted about it being arranged for him, he'd take a stupid stance and stick to it. Better to leave him little to no wriggle room.

"Good morning love," his aunt greeted Lily as the younger Jackson sister appeared back down.

"Morning Aunt Polly," she mumbled, her fingers going to her mouth, coming to a stop by his chair.

"You and Finn are going to go to church whilst me and your sister sort some stuff out my little love, alright?" he told her, reaching a hand to her waist and drawing her closer to him, squeezing her gently, trying to make up for the way he'd sent her scurrying off up the stairs.

She nodded, her face somewhat wary looking.

"It'll be alright, I promise - me and that thorny rose just need to work through some things that are bothering her, eh?"

Polly gave one of her derisive snorts and he turned his head to glare at her.

"Right, well, those of us who care about our immortal souls will head now," she grumbled, "Come on."

She held out a hand to Lily and he had to give her a little push to get her moving, but once she started her fingers came free of her mouth and her undoubtedly wet hand entered his aunt's with no real fussing, which was a small blessing.

"Finn, move," Polly said.

"How come they get to decide not to go?" Finn grumbled, waving his hand in Tommy's direction.

"They?" Polly growled, raising an eyebrow - her annoyance at Rosie not outweighing her principals of using people's names.

"Tommy and Rosie."

"Cause we're adults - get going," Tommy growled.

Finn huffed, getting up and kicking his chair, muttering, "Not fair - I don't want to bloody go."

Polly grabbed his ear and shook him, "You'll be going until I say so - and you'll not be swearing otherwise I'll wash your mouth out with soap, y'hear?"

"S'not fair," his brother repeated, determined.

"Life isn't fair," she retorted, tersely, before glaring at Tommy one last time then releasing her grip on Finn's ear and turning herself and Lily about, grabbing Finn's arm and marching them across the front room and out the door, all the while to a chorus of Finn's, "Geroff me, I'll walk myself Aunt Pol! Aunt Pol! Leave off, eh?" which Polly ignored entirely.

Tommy went to the doors that separated the shop and the house, leant in the doorway with his arms crossed and waited for the redhead to reappear.

Thank you as always for reading along, for messaging and reviewing - I really appreciate those of you who are still here with me this far in!