Chapter Content Warning: canon-typical content, reference to bullying, reference to pregnancy/ pregnancy options, brief instance of/ references to physical punishment.

I Will Not Start Fights

1919

Clara walked home standing between Finn and Isiah, not the point of the triangle but with their strides matching hers. Their plan had been successful even though Clara had ended up having to sacrifice herself a bit for the cause.

The sacrifice was evidenced by a small bruise on her cheek and the 6 pages of lines in her hand needing a signature from home. In her neatest penmanship, Clara had printed, 'I will not start fights,' one-hundred and fifty times. It was Miss Masters' way of ensuring that the wayward children were punished twice, once by her and once by whoever handled such matters at home.

Despite the new pain in her cheek and having to write the lines, Clara smiled as she walked home with the boys, delighting in the feeling of both Finn and Isiah being kind-hearted and attentive and impressed with her sacrifice. She happily listened to the boys recount their daring work to retrieve the pilfered funds, which Finn now held safe in the bottom of his shoe.

The original plan hadn't involved any fighting on Clara's part. Finn had been adamant about keeping his sister out of that mess. She had just been meant to do a bit of errant tattling to give her brother and the Watery Lane boys time to corner the Cheapside boys on the far end of the playground and take back what was rightfully theirs.

Clara wasn't the type of child to often get in trouble at school. She wasn't much of a fighter or overly chatty in the classroom. Seeing as she enjoyed learning, she was an eager student and often kept her nose in a book or whatever assignment she had been given. She generally stayed out of Finn's school feuds, but Wallace Bartow, the oldest of the Cheapie boys still in grade school, seemed keen on making that difficult from before she even knew about any plans, stolen money, or fixed races.

Wally hadn't been causing Clara much trouble since the beginning of the school year, which had been due to a combined effort of the young Small Heath boys who considered themselves Peaky Blinders in training. Finn was their uncontested leader and he had the distinct belief that while he was allowed to push Clara around, not a single soul outside of the family was allowed that same privilege. So even when he had spent the last few months distancing himself from his twin sister and teasing her in front of his friends, Finn made a fuss when anyone else tried to do it. But Finn and the other Peaky Boys hadn't been at school that morning.

Clara had been on the receiving end of whispered taunts from the Bartow brothers and their ragtag bunch of Cheapside boys all through the morning classes. She quickly learned that it had really all been on account of the race Finn had lost the week before. Clara hadn't heard a word about it before then, just some silly schoolyard match that had passed while she had been resting at home. Rumor had it the Cheapies had fixed the race and Finn lost the Peaky boys some money.

After a morning of relentless teasing, Clara released a deep, recuperative breath at the sight of her twin waiting outside after the lunchtime bell. She had every intention of making him walk her straight home for a meal whether he wanted to go or not. She didn't care if he had plans with his friends. She was hungry. Clara hadn't had anything to eat since the popcorn at the pictures the day before and while she typically asserted her need for independence, she didn't want to be alone on the short trek back to Watery Lane.

"There you are! Where the hell have you been?" he asked. Jumping from the top of the stairs to stand in front of her, Finn immediately tugged the arm of Clara's jacket, walking them both towards the gates.

"You're the one who left without me! Where have you been?"

"Tommy told me to go on without you. I had Blinder business to attend to. But you're needed for a job."

Finn was nearly dragging her towards the street and Clara dug in her heels, feeling the bottoms of her boots slide through a layer of soft mud.

"Finn! Stop it!"

She shoved him hard with her free arm to no avail. Clara didn't remember when her twin had become so strong, didn't remember when he had gained the ability to overtake her with a casual hand on her upper arm. She realized now that to meet Finn's eye, she had to tilt her head up just a bit. It couldn't have been more than an inch of height difference, but Clara imagined that they had always been about the same size before now.

"C'mon, Isiah and the boys are waiting," he said.

Clara glanced beyond Finn and saw Isiah leaning against a wall, two other Small Heath boys standing beside him. Isiah stepped forward, draping an arm over Clara's shoulder and encouraging Finn to drop his grasp. She idly wondered what Isiah was doing around the schoolyard. He was usually out doing odd jobs to drum up some money during the day.

"Finn, what'd you bring a little girl for?"

Clara glared at the speaking boy, but he didn't even look at her. He lived three blocks over and was a newer recruit to their circle.

Isiah squared up his shoulders. "This girl is a Shelby. Show some respect, Jimmy."

The boy looked to Finn, who nodded his approval. "And she may be a Shelby but I don't want my sister doing any of the fighting," Finn said. "She's here as a…as an advisor."

"What are you on about?" Clara asked, freeing herself from Isiah's touch.

"I'm talking about getting back at those Cheapside boys. They fixed that race and I intend to get our money back today."

"You can't win a fight against Wally Bartow, and he's been on about it the whole morning. We should just let it be."

Wally Bartow was a big kid. He wasn't any older than Isiah, but Wally was taller and he had an impressive weight to him for a thirteen-year-old.

"Isiah will fight him," Finn answered.

"He's too big," Clara answered, her mind on the fight with the copper, on the fact that those boys weren't quite big enough to be initiating fights with anyone. "And it doesn't matter, anyway."

"It does matter," Finn argued. "We're in charge of Birmingham, not those Cheapie boys. And the only way to maintain control is to show them who is in charge. I'll not have them walking around saying otherwise."

Finn was sounding like the angry version of Tommy, the determined, detached variety that Clara barely knew and rarely saw. The money Finn had lost, whether the race was fixed or not, had accounted to next to nothing by Clara's calculation. It was now simply a matter of family pride, a matter of upholding the reputation of the Peaky Blinders and the Shelby family. Finn had taken that on his shoulders whether it belonged there or not.

Wally had been teasing Clara throughout the morning lessons, but Clara realized that he had likely been doing the same to Finn in the preceding days. And she knew how it could wear on a person, especially without someone there by your side working as a buffer.

Finn unfolded a paper on which was something that just scarcely resembled a map and a plan for the boys to follow. "We've made a plan. Just think of how happy Tom will be that we teach those boys a lesson…maybe it'll even get you out of trouble."

"I'm not in any trouble," Clara answered quickly.

Finn raised an eyebrow. "Well, Tommy seemed awfully mad at you and Ada, said the most dangerous threat to this family would be if the two of you Shelby girls aligned against your brothers."

Finn's response set something off in Clara and she ripped the paper from his hands, smoothing it out against the brick wall. Clara didn't like the allegation that because she agreed with her sister, she didn't care for the interests of the family. Seeking a pencil from her things, Clara marked up the boys' plans, bringing Finn's sketch to actually resemble the schoolyard, with the addition of a charted battle plan which Clara outlined as the boys talked it out.

"You'll have to do it directly after school. Before everyone comes out. And you do it right here," she said when the boys' discussion ended. Clara drew a large 'X' on the far edge of what was supposed to represent the schoolyard, the part that was out of sight of the front door, where the teachers always waited while sending the kids off home for the day. "If you do it any further, someone will see you."

Clara was writing the instructions out, giving each of the boys a job, matching them up with what she knew to be their strengths. She had observed the peaky boys play fighting for most of their shared childhoods. Whether or not they accepted her as part of their group, Clara knew them and their respective abilities well enough.

It was something of a mystery, why little Clara Shelby possessed the skill of strategic planning, but she had always been good with it. It may have been all the years of observing everything around her or the writing of stories but she was good at outlines and outcomes.

"Sam has the money," Finn offered, leaning over his sister's shoulder to admire her work.

"And we'll need someone to get Wally Bartow caught up while you get the money back," Clara said.

"How'll we do that?" Finn asked.

"I could tell the teacher he's been teasing," Clara answered with a shrug.

After bursting through the front door, Clara discarded the papers on the table, climbing onto the counter in her muddy boots and reaching into the top cabinet for the biscuits she had hidden there a day earlier. She hadn't cared that Finn and Isiah were watching. They were due to celebrate the day's success together and celebration meant sharing sweets.

"How scared was Albie? I bet he nearly wet himself," Clara was saying as she dug the biscuits out.

"Huh, Finny?" she asked when she was met with silence from the boys.

Before she could pull herself from the depths of the cabinet, Clara felt an arm yanking her from the cupboard and off the counter, barely landing on her feet before Aunt Pol swatted her a few times.

"Ow!" she shouted as she twisted away from the woman, a blush creeping into her cheeks as she saw Isiah and Finn watching wide-eyed from across the room.

"Where have you been, Clara Shelby?"

"I had school," she answered.

"You had school? It looks like you were writing lines when you were meant to be coming straight home." Polly picked up the papers, waving them in Clara's face.

Clara didn't answer, seeing as there was no denying it, no explaining her way out of it. The papers clearly spelled out her wrongdoing.

"Well, I didn't have a choice," Clara finally offered.

And though Clara could have stopped herself from getting in trouble by not instigating a fight with Wally Bartow, that would have created problems for Finn and the boys. Instead of her coming home with a few lines and a little bruising, Finn could have ended up badly hurt or in more trouble for orchestrating a planned fight. The tattling hadn't worked, so Clara had needed to keep Wally busy somehow.

"I don't want to hear that nonsense."

Polly picked up Clara's school things, pulling her along by the arm to the front stoop, where she forced her niece down on the top step.

"You can write a few more pages about not being late while you wait for your brother to come back and sort you out."

Clara didn't relish the prospect of waiting on the stoop, writing more lines. She certainly didn't relish the prospect of being 'sorted out' as Polly had put it.

It had been a few hours of waiting before Tommy finally appeared near the end of what had felt to both of them like a very long day. It had been long enough of a day that Tommy wasn't up to seeing Lizzie or meeting the boys for a drink at the pub. The only things on his mind were the bottle of booze in the top drawer of his desk and the pipe in the drawer of his bedside table. Rather than getting any rest, Tommy had ended up spending the entire day settling matters, both family and business-related. He hoped he might be able to get some sleep tonight.

Tommy had been watching his sister from the moment he turned down Watery Lane. When he first spotted her, she was busy scribbling on some papers held in her lap, her back against the door to their family home, her dirty bare feet resting on the steps. Tommy then recalled that not all of the family matters had been settled.

Clara hadn't spotted her brother until his shoe prodded into her field of view. It was now shiny and polished despite the muddy ground covering the whole of Small Health. He looked like an entirely different man than the one who had dropped her at the school earlier in the day.

While Tommy had a plan in place to deal with Ada, he still hadn't been sure what to do about the youngest. He barely glanced at his sister as he passed over the threshold, but she was up on her feet and following in his wake before he could close the front door behind him.

Clara had decided on the best course of action less than an hour after Polly left her waiting on the stoop. And it certainly didn't start with telling Tommy of her transgressions or reminding him that she had not been home when she was supposed to be.

"Tommy, can we please go see Sherlock before supper?" she asked, putting herself in her brother's path, stopping him from making his way towards the shop.

Charlie Strong's yard was typically a place of solace for Tommy, a place where for a few moments, Clara often saw a bit of the brother she remembered from before the war, the one who laughed and smiled more. It was something about being with the horses, something about the nostalgic bouquet of straw, feed, and manure that brought about a sense of clarity and calm which Clara figured would be advantageous to her getting out of this situation unscathed.

"Sherlock?" Tommy raised an eyebrow as he went about his business, hanging his jacket and cap as his sister continued to prattle on.

"Yeah, I named the horse…You said—"

"That horse is gone," Tommy interrupted.

"What do you mean he's gone?"

Tommy didn't miss that Clara's arms had found their way to cross over her chest and though the lack of shoes padded the sound made by the small stomp of her foot, he had noted that too.

He really needed a damn drink.

"Take a seat, Clara. I'll find you when I'm ready."

Tommy shifted his stony gaze to her. He had expected her to move, but Clara lingered in front of him, her feet firmly planted. Tommy tilted his head and looked down at her. He had hoped after time away to think it all through, she would finally be repentant. She had disobeyed him by not coming home after school, another offense to add to her expanding list of rebellion. That, at the very slightest in his opinion, meant he was owed a bit of deference, but Clara didn't seem keen on offering it.

"But—" she began.

"The damn horse is dead. And you lied to me and disobeyed me so I wouldn't be taking you to see a horse even if I didn't already shoot it straight between the eyes."

It took Clara a moment to recover from his words, but not wanting to think about her brother killing a horse, she focused on defending herself. "I didn't—"

Tommy grasped her arm and moved her out of his path, wanting that bottle in his bottom drawer even more than before the longer he stayed in the eleven-year-old's presence. "You were meant to come straight home today and you didn't. And you've kept something from me for a long while now and that's the same as lying."

Clara stepped in front of him again. "No, it's not the same. I didn't lie to you. I didn't do a damn—"

Tommy grasped her by the chin, satisfied with the effect it had in shutting her mouth. She was on the tips of her toes, her head tilted up just far enough that it almost hurt. Clara resisted the urge to pull at his hand with her fingers.

Feeling his point was made, Tommy loosened his grip enough that she could stand flat on her feet. That's when he noticed the mark on her face. "Where were you this afternoon?"

"At school," Clara said quickly.

"You're trying me, Clara, and you're not in any position to be doing so."

"But that's where I was!" she argued.

Tommy's eyes were above Clara's head, focusing on something behind her, and he released her from his grasp as he took a deep breath. "Go on upstairs. I'll be up soon."

Clara didn't move right away, opening her mouth to protest.

He couldn't be sure, but Tommy thought she looked like she was about to open her mouth and whine, 'But Tommy,' so he stopped her before she had a chance to say anything.

"Clara, I'll not have you talking back to me."

"I wasn't going to."

Tommy hummed, shaking his head.

"Well, are you going to tell your brother why you were at school while he was here waiting around for you instead of attending to business?"

She hadn't noticed her aunt come into the room, but Polly was standing behind the table, a few sheets of paper in her right hand. Clara stalked across the room without a word and ripped them from Polly's grasp before thrusting them towards her brother.

"It was a misunderstanding," she said.

Tommy glanced at the papers. "Who were you fighting with?"

"Wally Bartow," Clara grumbled.

Tommy rolled his eyes, already knowing exactly what that had been about. There wasn't much that happened in Birmingham that he didn't know about. Even the news of inconsequential schoolyard trysts between the lads who wouldn't become gang members for a few more years made its way to his ears. He just hadn't known that his sister had been a part of it.

Tommy leaned over the table, signing the top sheet of paper before turning to Clara.

"He gave you that?" he asked, gesturing towards her cheek.

Clara nodded and Tommy caught her chin again, taking the opportunity to look over the mark. It was red and fresh, just a small mark now, but Clara flinched when he ran his thumb across it.

"I gave him one too," she mumbled.

Tommy nodded. "You and your brother keep yourself out of Blinder business. And I don't want to be signing any more papers from school. Now go on upstairs."

Polly sighed, garnering both Clara and Tommy's attention. "That's all you've got to say to her, Thomas? Your sister is out there fighting boys three times her size while she's supposed to be learning and you're just sending her up to her room?"

Taking deep breaths wasn't doing the trick anymore. Tommy's dry throat was aching for the whiskey, for the solace of a closed office door, and for freedom from the relentlessly maddening women in his family tree. He wished that if Polly wanted to dole out some discipline, she would just go ahead and do it herself.

"What would you have me do, Pol?" he asked.

"Your mother—"

"Isn't here and you don't have any sa—"

Clara shouted in protest as Tommy's hand smacked the back of her head before grabbing for her arm. She twisted out of her brother's grasp, half-surprised when he let her.

"That's what she needs, apparently the only thing the whole lot of you Shelby kids respond to, a little physical threat."

Clara mumbled something that was grasping towards rudeness. Only Tommy heard it and he half-heartedly reached for her again. "That's enough out of you. I hear you talk like that again and you'll get more than a swat. Polly is the closest thing you've got to a mother and you'll treat her as such."

Clara backed further away from him, just out of his reach as she nodded once.

"Now apologize and mind how you speak to your aunt."

Clara didn't hesitate to give the apology and both Polly and Tommy waited a moment after in silence. They were both watching the blush slowly subside from Clara's cheeks, the girl's focus kept on her bare feet.

"I think your sister should come with us tomorrow, Thomas," Polly said.

Tommy hesitated for only a moment before nodding his assent. Maybe if Ada had seen how they took care of babies out of wedlock when she was Clara's age, they wouldn't be in this predicament now. And it would get both sisters and his aunt out of his hair for a few days, help him focus on the business side of things. The time away would smooth over whatever was going on between Clara and Polly. Maybe Polly could even rein in both girls over the span of a few days outside of Birmingham.

"Go pack yourself a bag. You can stay up there and get yourself to bed early."

"But—"

"It's not a discussion. I want you up to bed."

Clara was cautious enough of her brother's calm gaze that she did as she was told, but not so cautious that she held back from stomping her way up the entire flight of stairs. It took less than five minutes to pack her bag and then she laid down in her bed, staring at the ceiling while the light outside turned the sky a shade of gold.

She was feeling especially hungry for dinner and not a bit tired, but she supposed her brother was punishing her not only for fighting at school, but for being late, and for aligning herself with Ada rather than willingly following his orders. And for being rude to Aunt Polly.

There were far worse punishments and Clara knew she should be thankful for the small reprimand she got. Still, Clara wasn't convinced that she was deserving of being punished for supporting Ada in her time of need at all, not when all she was trying to do was take care of her family. When it came down to it, the same line of reasoning had gotten her into starting a fight with Wally Bartow. She had just been trying to help Finn and the boys.

All things considered, Clara supposed she had gotten off easy. As she continued resting on the bed, Clara held a bit of what she didn't quite know to be resentment toward Tommy for the way he had talked to her at the pictures. She wasn't able to put words to the feeling, but there was some sort of anger towards him and towards Aunt Polly, coupled with an instinct to protect Ada and that little bit of life growing inside her.

And Clara couldn't stop thinking about how Tommy kept calling her a liar. So what if she had known about Freddie and kept it from Tommy? He didn't need to know everything about everyone all the time. And in all the months Clara had known about Ada and Freddie, Tommy hadn't asked, so she couldn't have even lied.

Clara could hear the sounds of dinner below, the sounds of her brothers cursing and laughing, Aunt Polly chastising them. She knew Ada was right across the hall, probably just as lonely as she was, but Clara didn't dare go over there now.

For one thing, she didn't know what might happen if she left her room after being told to stay put, and on some level, Clara knew she didn't have it in her to comfort her sister right now. She had developed a certain grief of her own. It was a sense of loss that brought frustrated tears to her eyes as she laid in the darkness of her bedroom. She felt different than she had just a few weeks before. Those with a certain level of self-awareness who had already passed the age of eleven may have noted the feeling as an emotional growing pain, but Clara hadn't had that depth of experience yet so she just felt upset and overwhelmed.

But her reaction to it was brief and after she was through with the crying, Clara picked up her book and started reading, noticing a distinct pain in her right hand as she held the book open. She switched the book to her left to give her aching writing hand a rest.

It was late and well past Clara's usual bedtime when she heard a set of slow footsteps come up the stairs and pause outside her bedroom door. When Tommy pushed the door open, he found his sister exactly as she had been for the past several hours, reading by the light of the lamp on her bedside table. She did not scramble to put out the light or to lie down in her bed. Clara hadn't even visibly noted his presence, her eyes continuing to scan over the words on the page.

Tommy stepped into the room, spotting an empty teacup and plate with nothing more than a few leftover crumbs on the wooden chair by her bed. He picked up both dishes, now having a better understanding of Finn's offer to clean up after supper. He supposed Ada had a set of dishes in her room as well.

Clara didn't make eye contact with her brother when he told her to get to sleep, though she promptly marked her place in the book and put out the light, turning over to face the wall before he even closed the door.