Chapter Content Warning: canon-typical content, reference to police violence, mention of injury, references to pregnancy/ pregnancy options, (difficult) childbirth, allusions to mental health issues, mentions of an absent father, mentions of parental death.

Congratulations

1919

Polly watched Clara idly tap her fingers on the table as she waited. She was making only the slightest bit of noise, but it was still distracting Polly from her reading so she cleared her throat.

"Maybe I'll just go and—"

"You let your sister rest," Polly said, fixing her niece with a look over the top of her newspaper. Polly was still comfortably clothed in her robe and bedclothes from the night before, having stayed over.

Clara was already dressed for the day at her Uncle Charlie's yard though, which meant that she donned some old trousers of her twin's and one of her brother's caps. Polly had braided her hair, a long blonde plait falling over her shoulder. And aside from that long braid, she looked like one of the boys from Watery Lane.

"But resting is all Ada ever does. She's rested enough."

"Your sister had a long night and you should be kind to her. She's not feeling well."

Clara slumped down to rest her chin on folded arms. Polly didn't miss the girl's narrowed eyes, but she let it slide. She quite liked that Clara had a spine. A woman needed one, both in this family and in Birmingham.

"Maybe you could just bring me then?" Clara said, the words barely making their way to Polly's ears before Clara turned away from her.

"Excuse me?" Polly glanced at Clara.

"You're not busy…and it's not much past the church."

When Clara finally met her aunt's eyes, she mumbled a softened request. "Please?"

Polly tossed the paper down in front of her and sat up straighter in the chair.

"The way I see it, you shouldn't be anywhere near those horses after what happened. You should be right back in that bed resting or on your way to school. If you're well enough to go to your uncle's yard, you're well enough to be back to learning."

"But Tommy said—"

"Oh yes, but Tommy said," Polly answered, waving her off with a hand.

Polly was well aware of all her nephew had to say in regards to his youngest sister. For one, he had seen to it that the coppers who hurt their girl and the Jesus boy were taken care of. As of midday following the incident, the coopers had found themselves confined to a pair of hospital beds. Oddly enough, not a soul in the neighborhood had been able to testify as to who had attacked the men.

And then there was the matter of Clara's injuries. She claimed to be feeling well enough but Tommy wanted to keep her home from school for the week. He said the family didn't need to be answering any questions about the bruises covering the girl's face and body. Beyond that, he had ordered around-the-clock supervision. Clara wasn't aware of anything other than a little extra attention while her body healed.

Though Polly didn't agree with Tommy bringing her to the stables, she couldn't argue with her nephew on the other items.

Ada was meant to be walking to the yard with Clara, serving as her unofficial morning escort as Arthur and John were busy elsewhere on Blinder business. Tommy had been at Charlie's since a bit before dawn, but seeing as Clara was still recovering, he had left her sleeping on the couch, a note with his instructions on the end table beside her head.

Her slumber hadn't lasted much past the time Tommy headed out through the front door. Even in what most would consider an infirmed state, Clara was still an early riser. Like Polly and Tommy, she had the curse of waking much too early in a family that bred chronically late risers. Ada, John, Arthur, and Finn all enjoyed a good, late lie-in on most days.

After getting dressed for the day, Clara had come back to the front sitting room to wake the boys. Both Finn and Isiah had spent the better part of the weekend with her, sleeping over on the couches and floor, keeping her company when the others ordered for her to sit and rest. It had been like the days during the war, except her older brothers were in and out of the house all weekend.

Clara had made a small breakfast for the three of them before sending Isiah on his way back home. The way Clara saw it, she and her brother had horse business to attend to and there wasn't much in the world she would allow to get in the way of that. Tommy's note had told her to have Ada bring her 'round to the yard when she woke, but to come no later than nine.

When she finally received Polly's approval, Clara climbed the stairs with a plate of bread and jam and a small cup of tea for her sister. She didn't wait for an answer after tapping on the bedroom door with the toe of her shoe. Ada usually liked to groan loudly or toss something in the direction of the bedroom door when interrupted but Clara didn't hear signs of either action even after she began pushing the door open.

Ada was already up and clothed in an old dress with a thick sweater pulled tightly across her chest. She barely glanced up when Clara came through the door, her face making no change as Clara offered a small smile.

Clara turned from her sister, depositing the tray on a bed that didn't look to be slept in, and she joined her sister by the window, trying to see whatever Ada was seeing down on Watery Lane. As far as Clara could see, the streets were empty and the sky was nothing more than a hazy grey. It was an unremarkable view and an unremarkable morning.

"Do you remember Martha being pregnant the last time? With little Robbie?"

Ada was still looking out the window as she spoke the words.

Clara stayed silent as she thought about it before deciding that she didn't remember very much about that time, not specifically. It had been in the immediate aftermath of the boys leaving for war. The family hadn't even known Martha was pregnant when Arthur, Tommy, and John left for France. She supposed if she thought hard enough, she remembered Martha having a swollen belly under her dress. Clara had been about seven then.

"You and Finn were still little," Ada finally conceded, "but I remember her always wanting these biscuits that John had gotten for her when she was pregnant with Katie. And the bakery that made them had closed, so you and Finn helped me make them here."

Clara thought maybe the reason she didn't clearly remember her sister-in-law being pregnant was that for most of Clara's childhood, John's wife had been in that precise condition. It would be a far stranger thing for Clara to remember Martha when she wasn't with child.

"I don't remember that."

A smile briefly passed Ada's lips.

"Our mother had to have bacon cakes and chocolate one right after the other. She said that's how she knew there were two of you. And that you each had different tastes, personalities of your own, you and Finn, even in the womb."

Ada remembered the birth of the twins like it was yesterday though it had been eleven years earlier. It had been the day that she was no longer the baby of the family and the day that she gained an intrinsic ally in the form of a sister.

1908 - 1909

While the Shelbys waited for their mother to give birth, Arthur had decided it was as good of a time as any to remind each of his siblings of their entrances into the world. He, like Polly, had been around for every birth following his own, which was more than their father could say.

The first four Shelbys had been born on a narrowboat, The January. It seemed to be a trend, Mrs. Shelby finding herself on that boat when she was due to bring a child into the world whether it was 1887, 1890, 1895, or 1897, and whether or not they were living on the boat or in the house on Watery Lane.

Tommy had been born in the wee hours of the morning. The baby had been wrapped in a bundle of blankets in his mother's arms when Arthur crawled out of the cabin asking for his breakfast. That was when they still lived on the boat, back when the Shelbys had been little more than a family of river dwellers.

John had been a lengthy, difficult birth somewhere near lunchtime, shortly after they had moved to the home on Watery Lane. Tommy and Arthur had been told to stay home, but at five and eight, they weren't much for doing as they were told and instead elected to follow along on the edge of the Cut while the boat traveled on, ignoring their uncle's shouts to go on home.

Then there was Ada. She had been a morning birth as well, quick and easy because she was so small and over a month earlier than expected. Arthur had been there only because he had gone to look for his mother, the woman never making her way home the night before.

The latest birth, during a particularly cold bit of winter in 1908, was the first to happen in a house and not on a boat, the first which had held a captive audience including all four Shelby children and their aunt from the very beginning.

Ada had always liked it when Arthur told the stories of the Shelby kids' births, his face healthy with pride as he spoke of the brothers and sisters he was pleased to call his own. She liked imagining the older boys as babies, imagining a three-year-old Arthur coming out of the boat's cabin to discover a new brother. The stories even brought the hint of a smile to Tommy's face.

It wasn't too long into Arthur's storytelling that a cry rang out from the other room and Ada ran to the door to wait for their Aunt Polly to emerge. The baby boy who would come to be called Finn was exceptionally large for a newborn and came near to eleven o'clock that night. Polly stroked his soft cheek for just a moment before passing him off to Arthur. Her work attending to her sister-in-law was far from finished and she explained as much to the kids.

"Well, that explains why Mum was so bloody large this time," John said when Polly announced that another baby was coming.

Ada hadn't been able to stop herself from giggling. Their mother had been fairly large, even by pregnancy standards.

Tommy smacked John in the back of the head just then. "Shut it, John. Ada, maybe you should be in there helping." Tommy nodded towards the room where their mother was groaning loud enough for them all to hear. "You can see for yourself what kissing boys will do for you."

Ada's face grew sour under Tommy's teasing, no longer finding the prospect of her mother swollen with two babies particularly funny.

Arthur continued to hold his baby brother in his arms, doting on the little boy as they waited for a second child to arrive. Ada sat close to Arthur but couldn't have gotten her hands on the baby if she tried. Finn would be lost to the band of brothers and with everything Ada had in her, she wished for a little sister to come next.

Tommy had been hoping to be on his way to the pub for a night of dancing by this time in the evening, but it seemed like his new sibling was determined to keep that from happening. Tommy was relatively ambivalent about the idea of more children entering the family. He was eighteen and though he still lived at home, it no longer felt like the new babies would be siblings in the same way Arthur, John, and Ada were.

His mother had been weak before the pregnancy. She was weak in a way most people would readily describe as sickly, though there wasn't anything particularly wrong with her, not physically, at least. He supposed that's why she had elected to give birth in the house rather than on the narrowboat. She was weary and frail and tired.

Tommy was fairly certain that bearing children wouldn't help that matter. And with their father largely absent, help would be needed. Arthur and Tommy had already picked up some of the slack with rearing Ada and John. They didn't think anything about stepping in. But babies… well, babies were different. Tommy knew they would be a bit more effort.

Despite the absence of a decent male role model to show them the way of things, Arthur and Tommy knew how to care for their own. To Tommy's dismay, he knew that meant he would likely be missing his date. It was something he had been looking forward to, the date, but he felt some unspoken obligation to be around when the babies were born.

"Are they still twins if they're born on different days?" Ada asked, leaning over Arthur's arm to rub her finger against the little boy's cheek. It was already nearing midnight and there was no sign of the second baby.

"Yes, Ada," Tommy answered.

He had taken up post leaning against the mantle of the fireplace, smoking one of his cigarettes, still close to the door, and donning his jacket and cap as if he would be heading out at any moment.

"Do you think the other one might be a girl?" Ada said.

"Aunt Pol seems to think so," Tommy said, finally accepting that his date wasn't happening. He plopped down beside his siblings on the couch. "And it seems she'll be a right thorn in my side just like you."

Ada smiled as Tommy poked her side, her finger jabbing out to poke him back, eliciting a small laugh from him.

Polly had known it was twins for quite some time, had known that she was due both a nephew and a niece, but she had only let her sister-in-law and Tommy know it. Polly believed the mother-to-be had a right to know what sort of trouble she had to look forward to, though she had already had a sense there were two little bits of trouble growing inside of her. Tommy had asked Polly outright what sort of trouble they were expecting. The other kids hadn't been nearly as curious or direct.

Tommy had used the information purely for planning purposes. Brothers could grow up and join the business. Sisters were a bit more work. If the girl was bright, someone would need to pay for her school, and she would need marrying, a bit more protection, a bit more looking after along the way.

A large part of him hoped Polly was wrong. He hoped for two brothers in place of one of each, but Polly Gray wasn't often wrong.

With Arthur Sr. pledging his latest leave to be a permanent one, more responsibility would fall to the eldest brothers. Tommy accepted it as his sole obligation without discussing it with Arthur. Someone needed to pay for the babies, raise them to be good Shelbys. Tommy let Arthur, John, and Ada coddle and coo at the small bundle they passed back and forth, knowing fully well that the hard things would belong to him, their mother, and Polly.

It was past midnight when Tommy grew tired, having been awake since before six in the morning. He had spent the day with his uncle and Curly at the yard, working with the horses. Still, he waited, fighting against his heavy eyelids while his siblings snoozed, Arthur and John slouched in their armchairs while Ada curled up beside the baby, swaddled in blankets on the floor.

"Here's our girl, Thomas."

He looked up at Polly as she came through the door, a slight smile on her face, just a brief one though.

"Quick. Take your sister," she said, slipping the girl into her nephew's arms, making certain he supported her head and neck before releasing her grip.

Tommy couldn't recall the last time he had held a baby, Ada's birth, he supposed. He had been seven then and still just a boy himself. He hadn't gotten the chance yet to hold the other twin, not with Arthur and Ada clamoring over him the way they had.

His new sister, the quiet, serene bundle, was a slight little thing compared to her bulky twin. The features of her soft face and the miniature fingers which were grasping towards him, seemed smaller to Tommy, yet he felt a great weight settle on him as he held her.

He had gotten lost for a moment, taking in the delicate rosy tint on her smooth cheeks, the small tuft of blonde hair. He hadn't properly heard his aunt ordering the others around, lifting the now crying boy into her arms as she handed him to Arthur.

His sister's cry pulled him from his reverie as she joined in on her brother's wailing.

"Set of lungs on her, eh?" Arthur said. "Let's get a look at these two singers. Hold her out, Tom."

Arthur held the boy out in front of them. "C'mon, Tom. Let me see my baby sister."

Tommy obliged, holding the girl out beside her twin, finding that she looked even smaller now in comparison.

"Well, look at that. I suppose they missed each other."

Arthur smiled looking between them as the babies quieted. "We'll have our hands full, won't we, Tom? Another bloody sister. It'll be good for Ada to have a girl to dote on, eh?"

Tommy nodded, not taking his eyes away from the girl in his hands. Holding her now, he couldn't imagine wishing for another brother in her place and he didn't imagine Ada would be the only one doting on her.

John returned within a quarter of an hour, out of breath and red in the face, with the doctor on his heels. The man was allowed in the room, but Polly shooed the boys away.

"Polly!" Tommy snapped, a hand pushing against the wood when she tried to shut the bedroom door, finally aware of what was happening, finally aware of what orders he had missed while he first held the baby in his arms.

Polly frowned, cupping his cheek for just a moment. "Thomas, your mother will be alright. Just tend to your brothers and sisters."

Mrs. Shelby had been alright as she could be after losing that much blood, at least for a time. She hadn't lived to see the twins turn one, but she had had some nearly decent months with them. Even if she had gone what the kids had considered a bit wonky in the end, rambling about the spirits, acting all restless, the twins had been properly loved and the others always told the twins about their mother, making sure they knew who had brought them into the world, who had loved them, in her own way, more than she cared for herself.

1919

Clara listened to Ada talk about their mother and about the day she and Finn had been born as if she had never heard the story before. The story told differently depending on which Shelby was telling it, each person's recollection of the time marred by their age or perception, and Clara liked Ada's version. In Ada's version, Clara felt like a special treasure, a gift highly coveted and wished for by the narrator.

Ada didn't bother to tell her little sister what Polly had told her the night before, that their mother had considered not having the twins at all. She said it after Ada made it known she wouldn't get rid of the baby growing inside of her.

"A sentimental fool just like your mother," Polly had said.

Ada released a whimper at the thought. She couldn't imagine their home without the twins, without her only sister, without her cheeky little brother, Finn.

Clara didn't ever remember seeing Ada like this. Her sister was characteristically dramatic, always putting on a show of some sort, but something in this was more authentic, more painful than Clara was used to.

"Ada?"

Ada didn't speak right away but her eyes, blue and pooling with the beginnings of tears, bore into Clara's. "I'm going to have a baby, Clara."

Clara hugged her sister close and Ada grasped her back for a long time, neither one saying a word as Clara diligently rubbed circles on Ada's back and kissed her sister's head and cheek. When Ada finally backed away, she rubbed her eyes.

"Freddie's the father," she conceded though Clara hadn't asked.

"I know," Clara said, clasping her hand over Ada's.

The boys could make all the jokes they wanted about Ada going around with a wide selection of boys but Clara knew that Freddie Thorne was the only rumor with any real clout. Freddie had always been Ada's boy, her one love.

"Freddie's a good man, Ada. He'll come home."

Ada forced a smile at her younger sister, wishing that Clara's confidence could be contagious. She had said nearly the same words to Polly the night before, but she hadn't had Clara's conviction.

Ada pulled the girl in for a hug once more, cherishing the way her little sister made her feel. Clara's little arms were more welcoming than Polly's had been the night before, somehow more sincere and a fair bit warmer.

"Congratulations," Clara mumbled the word into Ada's shoulder she was being squeezed against, her mouth squished up against Ada's cardigan.

Confusion passed over Ada's features for a moment as she considered the word. The confirmation of her pregnancy, of the true existence of the life she would be bringing into this world had been nothing close to a celebration. Ada took a deep breath to let that sink in. She pulled away from the hug, placing her cool hands on Clara's cheeks.

"Let's get you over to Uncle Charlie's."

"Where are you going to go?"

Ada shrugged. "There's a picture this afternoon."

"I'll come with you."

"I'm supposed to drop you with Tommy."

He'd left Ada a note as well, describing her duty of playing escort.

"I want to be with you."