Chapter Content Warning: canon-typical content, reference to pregnancy/ pregnancy options, reference to sexual content, reference to physical punishment.

The Contender

1919

Though Ada and Clara had already finished over half of their shared portion of popcorn, the girls weren't more than ten minutes into their film. After her confession, Ada dolled her little sister up, applying a bit of her makeup and braiding her hair in a special style. The sisters had gone for a light lunch and they were ending their afternoon in a dark, cool theatre.

It was the type of day that Clara Shelby often dreamed of, going out on the town with her sister without the boys. Since deciding to stay with Ada rather than making her way to Uncle Charlie's yard, Clara hadn't given their brothers a second thought.

Clara forced an uncomfortable smile when she saw Tommy standing at the end of the row of chairs, but she hadn't needed to because he wasn't even looking at her. Tommy's cool blue eyes focused only on Ada as he slipped into the open seat beside Clara.

She didn't much like the idea of being settled between the two of them with anger already rolling off both of her siblings in waves, but Clara didn't see an alternative.

Tommy leaned across Clara's seat, looking at Ada though she continued to stare straight ahead at the screen. Tommy's position had pinned Clara back in the seat and she found herself holding in her breath as her body molded into the red velvet.

"Tell me the man's name, Ada."

"Rudolph Valentino," Ada said, her tone flat, almost bored as she over-annunciated each syllable.

Clara smirked. She hadn't even known the name Rudolph Valentino before going to the pictures today, but she still recognized her sister as very clever for coming out with it now. Clara also recognized that being in the mood their brother appeared to be in, he wasn't typically very fond of cleverness.

Tommy turned his eye on Clara and the girl attempted to shrink into Ada's side, quickly running out of space. After fixing Clara with a glare sufficiently long that she wasn't sure she would ever smirk at him again, Tommy stood up rather quickly and left the theatre.

Clara had just gotten through breathing a sigh full of relief when Ada rolled her eyes as the screen went dark and the lights in the theatre came on.

"Ah, here we fucking go," she muttered as Tommy came back, shouting as he made his way down the aisle. "That brother of yours is a real fucking gem, Clara."

"Get out! All of you! Go on! Now!"

Tommy ushered the other patrons out of the theatre before heading back towards the girls, his stride appearing to grow in length and determination to reach them more quickly. He stopped at the end of the aisle, looming over his sisters.

"I said tell me his fucking name, Ada."

Ada stared ahead at the screen, continuing to munch on her popcorn.

Clara longed for the same courage that Ada seemed to possess in defiantly ignoring the boys whenever she pleased. She wished for the same bit of pluck that permitted Ada to stand up to the Shelby boys, the capacity to willfully do as she'd like in the same way Ada always seemed to.

Instead, Clara's blood pumped so diligently that she could hear each distinct beat of her heart very clearly in her ears. Each of Tommy's movements, overflowing with frustration and that undeniable morsel of rage which Clara usually tried to avoid, caused her to flinch and she felt herself withdrawing as far as the plush of the seat would allow.

When Tommy realized he wasn't getting anywhere questioning Ada, he rounded on his youngest sister.

She let out a slight, nervous whine in response to the sudden attention.

"Right, Clara, tell me the fucking man's name."

Tommy inched forward, grabbing Clara's arm and pulling her to her feet when she didn't immediately respond. She gulped hard under Tommy's grasp, momentarily unable to come up with anything that could resemble either the answer Tommy wanted or an errant comeback like Ada would provide.

It had been after Clara first sighted them together that Ada had explained that under no circumstances was Clara to utter the name Freddie Thorne in mixed company. Ada had been sure to clarify that Tommy and Freddie hated each other, for one reason or another, and that if Clara cared for either Ada or Freddie, she wouldn't tell the brothers, or another living soul for that matter, where Ada snuck off to most days.

And because Clara did very much care for Freddie Thorne and for her sister, she kept her mouth tightly shut. Freddie had been around since she was a baby, the closest friend to Tommy before the war. He had been almost like another brother back then. And even now whenever she happened to meet him on the street or when she had earned the chance to visit him with Ada after months of incessant begging, he seemed to be essentially the same Freddie.

Tommy was getting impatient with Clara's silence. "If you don't—"

"Oh, let her be, Thomas!" Ada growled, glaring at Tommy until he released the grip on Clara's arm, letting her fall back into the theatre seat. "It's Freddie fucking Thorne!"

Ada had gone on past that admission and was continuing to shout at Tommy but Clara had tuned it all out, focusing on her shoes, craving the comfort and solitude of her own bedroom.

"And you fucking knew?" Tommy asked, almost calm again as the shout left his voice.

At first, Clara didn't register that he had even been talking to her, but when she glanced up, Tommy was staring in her direction. Clara stared back at him, unsure what answer he could be searching for.

"I'll take that as a fucking yes. You, come on with me."

Clara stayed beside her sister, firmly rooted in her chair.

"That meant now," he roared, glaring at the girl.

"Fuck off, Thomas. She's staying with me." Ada grabbed Clara's hand in her own, squeezing it once.

Tommy looked between his two sisters. The three of them had already made a grand public scene and dragging the little girl out of there and down the streets back home wouldn't have made much difference, but he decided to let them be.

"Is that how it's going to be?" Tommy asked, directing his words at Clara. "You think you're a big, clever girl now, so you're going to lie and scheme against your brother? Side with a contemptible fucking communist who's going to leave our Ada a whore and her baby a bastard? You're a silly child done up in her big sister's rouge," he said, roughly pinching her cheek. "And a simple-minded child at that."

Clara shoved at Tommy now, pushing him hard enough that he stumbled back half a pace. "Be quiet, Tommy! Ada's not a whore and I'd rather have Freddie for a brother than you. He's a better, kinder man than you'll ever be."

Ada hadn't ever heard the two of them talk to one another that way. Tommy was always remarkably gracious towards Clara, always talking about how smart and sweet she was compared to the rest of them, and Clara hadn't often dared to be anything other than respectful towards their brother. Ada couldn't be sure how Tommy would respond to Clara's words or the shove that accompanied them, but she had the forethought to pull the bristling girl to stand behind her before he had the chance to react.

Stuck behind Ada's back, Clara didn't see the seething look pass between her brother and her sister. Ada's glare was full of resentment borne from years of maintaining a secret relationship with Freddie Thorne just to maintain the status quo. It was full of missed dates, and dances and dinners she never had, and of men thinking that she was available when her heart was entirely spoken for. It was full of the handful of hateful comments Tommy had made about Freddie Thorne over the past year to which Ada hadn't ever responded.

Tommy's look was full of betrayal, for Ada and Freddie had been sleeping around without him knowing it. He should have known and he felt like an idiot for not putting it all together before another member of the Shelby family was in the works. And the look was full of enragement for what Ada's relationship and pregnancy had brought out in his Clara. The baby of the family spoke to him like she thought he was the scum of the earth and he laid the blame for that, not on himself, but on Ada and Freddie.

"Just go and fuck off, Thomas," Ada said, surprised when Tommy did just that, leaving the girls alone to slump back into their seats.

It was mere moments before Ada was screaming for the picture to be back on.

Clara placed her hand in her sister's, squeezing once before the beginnings of Ada's sob echoed through the emptiness of the theatre. They hadn't gone home until two additional shows had passed them by.

The next morning, in the warmth of Ada's shared bed, Clara lay awake beside her older sister under three layers of blankets. Despite her many years of sharing beds that were far too small to be accommodating more than one Shelby, Clara hadn't slept well. After barely any genuine rest, she had woken before the sun, unable to fall back into a contented slumber once her eyes spotted the first marks of daylight.

Instead, she laid flat on her back listening to the sounds of the house and watching out the window as the sky shifted from dark blue to pale grey. She tried to keep herself reasonably still as Ada continued to doze, shifting only once to relieve a distinctive pain in her right leg from lying still on it all night. Though Clara hadn't slept at all well herself, she didn't want to wake her sister now.

Ada's sleep had been fitful and fairly restless, moving from junctures of deep snores to moments of frenzied twisting and turning. Throughout the night, Clara had attempted to soothe her sister through the more agitated flashes. She had little success despite employing the tried and true methods the Shelbys had always used with her, soothing fingers detangling the hair, gentle shushing sounds, comforting back rubs, and even the soft humming of a familiar tune. The only thing she hadn't tried was reading to Ada from a book, and that was only because she had been too scared to step into the hall to go get one.

The girls had been up late, chatting like a set of inseparable twins rather than two sisters born more than eleven years apart. A level of comfort had settled between them that had never been there before. They had both relished that closeness, not questioning it in the slightest, though they both knew the closeness they shared had come from the distance they had created between themselves and Tommy.

Clara hadn't ever spent so much time in her sister's bedroom and she committed its contents to memory while she laid awake in her sister's bed. Ada didn't have any books or papers or art supplies like Clara. Makeup covered the surface of her vanity. Random articles of clothing were strewn across the room, hanging off of the various odds and ends. There were a few particular items that Clara knew to be their mother's. Those items were carefully hung in the wardrobe, safe from the chaos. As she looked around the room, Clara somehow knew that she would remember this time, all that was happening with Tommy and Ada and the baby, for the rest of her life.

The sound of the front door slamming startled Clara and she rolled out of her sister's bed, stumbling across the hall to her room. For the first time in a long while, Clara wasn't eager to be back at school. She longed for something that wasn't home or school or Uncle Charlie's yard or the betting shop.

With the copper attack and with the business with Ada, things just didn't feel right by Clara's standards, not in Small Heath, and certainly not within the Shelby family. And although she didn't know much about what there was beyond the few Birmingham haunts she frequented, Clara imagined whatever it was had to be better in some way.

The quiet of the house had her thinking that it wasn't yet too late in the morning. She assumed Finn had simply headed out early, forgetting that she would be coming along back to school today, forgetting that they typically made the short journey through Small Heath together. Clara took her time getting dressed and traipsed down the back steps to find some breakfast.

The kitchen, dining room, and parlor were empty and dark. In the silence of the first floor, Clara noticed that the betting shop door had been left ajar, the distant glow of a lamp passing through to illuminate the dining room floor.

Through a gap in the curtains, Clara could see that the grayness of the day, with its heavy cloud cover and a general sense of dreariness, required the use of light if one was to do anything more than feel their way through a room. The light spilling into the house came from Tommy's office where he was seated at the old desk. Clara leaned against the door frame, the toes of her shoes just barely touching the threshold to the shop as she watched him, his attention focused solely on a pile of open books.

Clara thought that her brother looked like hell, with his damp, matted down hair and dark sunken eyes. Looking at him, she questioned whether Tommy had ever even gone to sleep. She continued to study him for a few moments, taking in all she could of his demeanor while she continued to go unnoticed.

Tommy looked up when he felt his sister's presence, his eyes meeting Clara's straightaway, his features worryingly neutral. Pale lips formed a straight line across his face and his eyes seemed cold and distant as he stared back at her. Clara took that to mean that he was still angry about things.

Tommy tilted the golden clock on his desk towards him as he glanced at the time. Clara heard the scraping of wood on wood, but she had already moved away from the shop doors, swiftly sliding into a seat at the table as his footsteps approached.

Clara's school things were piled neatly on the sideboard where she had placed them the day before and she reached back, pulling the bundle to the table. As Tommy's footsteps drew closer, Clara busied herself with organizing her books, papers, and pencils.

"Let's go. You're late," he said.

Tommy slipped a hand under her arm, pulling Clara to her feet as he stepped through the open doorway. She stumbled for a moment, but once she had control of her balance, Tommy released his grip. He slipped into his coat, pulling his cap from the hook before stepping to the door.

Clara quickly dressed in her coat, not willing to risk fighting him. She walked past her brother, and out through the open door without a word. Looking through the side of her eye as they continued to face forward, Clara could see that Tommy had one of his hands shoved deep in a pocket, the other holding her school things. He was walking quickly enough that Clara had to exert a bit of effort to keep up with his stride. It took work to keep her eyes on the ground before them, counting her steps rather than focusing on the tension-filled silence between them. She noticed that Tommy's black shoes were already caked in a layer of dried mud, a new layer being painted on as they made their way down the lane.

Clara had heard her brother leave home late the night before. It had been raining at the time and there had been quite a commotion out front. Clara and Ada had been avoiding him since returning from the pictures, skipping the family supper, and staying within the confines of Ada's room for the night. They had spent hours whispering in Ada's bed about things that sisters could only really discuss in the absence of brothers.

She had made a single attempt at fetching the two of them some dinner once the smells had wafted up through the floorboards earlier in the evening. The attempt had resulted in Polly chasing her out of the kitchen with every intention of giving both girls a piece of her mind and likely a piece of the wooden spoon already in her hand. Clara had stormed up the stairs, pushing past Finn who was on his way down to supper, and she locked Ada's door while Polly was still en route, halfway between the two floors.

Clara was self-aware enough to know that she didn't know what the absolute right thing to do was in regards to the baby, but she was fairly certain that the decision should be Ada's. She told her Aunt Polly as much through the locked door, the safety of an inch or so of wood, and her earlier success at the theatre allowing the eleven-year-old to speak more boldly than she ever would have to her aunt's face.

Polly had threatened a deluge of unpleasant punishments to be delivered at the hands of her brother, who she claimed would take the door right off the hinge and teach Clara why she shouldn't dare speak to her Aunt Polly that way, but Tommy had never come.

The sisters spent the solitary hours commiserating about how their brother and aunt were handling the situation, and about how their family name and those who shared it controlled their lives. Clara had never had anyone to complain to before and they both savored the feeling of having another's steadfast understanding.

All through their evening alone, a persistent, soothing rain poured against the roof and windows. Neither girl had been particularly concerned with Tommy's late-night departure nor had they paid much attention to his extended absence.

Clara was surprised when she and Tommy suddenly pulled up outside the schoolyard but grateful they had made it without her having to explain herself. Tommy still showed no signs of wanting to start a conversation and although she was surprised by his tentativeness, Clara didn't dare question it. She attempted to pull the books from Tommy's arms and took a step towards the school gate. She was already late and waiting around for Tommy to decide whether or not to give her a piece of his mind would only result in her getting shouted at by the teacher for tardiness.

She was half a step away when Tommy cleared his throat.

Clara paused, turning on a heel to face her brother, dropping her grasp on her school things and letting the bundle fall to his side as he still held them.

Tommy had been expecting some sort of guilt-ridden apology from Clara after giving her the silent treatment the night before. He knew better than to expect anything close to repentance from Ada, but the youngest Shelby had always been overly apologetic when she was in the wrong. She'd often punish herself with worry and guilt long before he got around to disciplining her. And she had been wrong more than once in this instance, so he was expecting her to be full more with regrets and less with strength. Tommy suspected that Clara had harvested some of her newfound nerve from Ada.

"I don't like what happened yesterday."

Clara didn't even open her mouth to answer. She hadn't particularly liked what happened the day before either, but she couldn't imagine that Tommy was interested in hearing that. She settled in for a lecture, leaning against the stone wall separating the schoolyard from the street. The movement provided a few extra measures of distance between them, a necessary safety precaution considering that Clara was having trouble reading her brother.

"This family comes first."

"Ada is family," she said, the first words offered to her brother since the day before in the theatre.

"And I am protecting her."

"But—"

"But nothing, Clara. I know you think you're caring for your sister, but I have it under control and I won't have you fighting me or your aunt."

"The baby is family too. Your niece or nephew and mine."

Tommy just looked at her as he fished out a cigarette with his free hand. He was certain that he didn't have it in him to sort things with Clara now, just like he hadn't had it in him to sort her out the day before at the theatre or last night after she had gotten into it with Pol.

There had been a time when Tommy had been quite certain that he had both of the Shelby girls well under control. He had known their general whereabouts and there was a certain level of understanding with each of the girls for the way of things. Tommy wasn't so sure about how to handle his sisters now. He was fairly used to Ada's outbursts and her dramatics, but Clara wasn't often that way, at least not with him. Tommy had seen a different side of Clara, a different side of both Shelby girls in the preceding twenty-four hours.

There was a small part of him that thought it was about time that Ada and Clara stuck together, but he couldn't deny it was making things more difficult for him. Though he held a certain level of esteem for the parts of Ada that were assertive and passionate and unafraid to call another person out on their bullshit, the idea of those qualities transferring to Clara gave him a pain he associated with the beginnings of a headache.

Tommy knew he would have to get it all under control before Clara started thinking that things would continue this way, but he didn't want to do it here at her school. And he didn't want to do it until he had had a moment to clear his mind, and maybe to have a few hours of rest. It had been a long night.

"You're finished contending with me, Clara. And I want you straight home after school so we can talk," Tommy finally said, his attention shifting as he watched a young blonde woman on the other side of the street. "If I'm not there, you take a seat at the table and wait. You're done fighting me."

Clara remained in her spot, waiting for him to look at her again, but it was fairly clear Tommy was making every effort at ignoring her. At the sound of the teacher's final summons, Clara ripped the bundle from his hand and stalked off towards the school, disappearing into the building without another word or so much as a glance back in his direction.