Chapter Content Warning: canon-typical content, Flander's Blues, alcohol consumption

Concerns

1919

Something told John his sister needed the company, so it was with precious little effort that Clara convinced him to stick around after closing the shop, putting off his evening of drinking at the Garrison even though Martha's sister had come to collect his kids for the first time in ages and he was free to pass the night as he pleased.

Clara did long for more than just Aunt Polly to pass the evening with, but even if she hadn't, John loved the respite that came along with being served a dinner he didn't have to prepare from the comfort of his childhood home. It made him feel young again, just John, Clara, and Aunt Polly together at the kitchen table while Finn was off down to a friend's house, Tommy still working in his office, and Arthur sat home sick with what John kept calling Flanders Blues.

John lingered even after the meal was finished, sipping whiskey as he sat beside his sister, feeling warm with laughter and a full belly, a feeling helped along by the beginnings of a buzz and the fire that Polly had stoked too enthusiastically considering it had been a warm afternoon. The house was quiet, with a sense of post-dinner calm rarely experienced in the Shelby home and John savored it as he let his supper settle, resting an arm behind his head and his feet up on an empty chair. The peace was punctuated only by Polly's occasional scraping of a pot and the quiet bursts of conversation between the two siblings as Clara busied herself with a pile of papers and a pencil.

"What's that you're working on?" John finally asked when he tired of her preference for graphite and a bit of wood pulp over him. He nodded towards the papers and Clara rearranged herself on the bench, settling on her knees so she could lean across the corner of the table within whispering distance. Clara watched Polly busying herself in the kitchen before meeting John's eye.

"A composition for school," she whispered.

"Christ! She sends you home with school work?" John said, leaning towards her as he raised an eyebrow. "Never had homework unless we caused trouble, sent home with lines or something."

"I'm not in trouble. It's just what I don't finish," Clara answered. "…if I've got other things to do."

"Other things like what?"

Clara shrugged, turning back to her writing. "Just other things."

"Trouble, then?"

"No, just other things."

John scoffed. "Yeah, causing trouble. They all think you're some little angel, but you're just as bad as the rest of us." John slung his hat on Clara's head, pulling the brim down over her eyes. "Must be from all those years of running the shop during the war, the trouble wore off on ya, eh peaky girl?"

"What's that?" Polly asked as she stepped up to them, eyeing their heads leaned in close. Her lips pursed in response to their conspiratorial murmurs.

John sat back again, resting his hands behind his head again as Clara pushed the hat back to look up at her aunt.

"Just talking about the numbers, Aunt Pol," John said, nodding towards his sister. "This one kept the books better than Arthur does."

Polly nodded, her hands on her hips as she looked at Clara.

"Well, your brother doesn't want the kids working in the shop, so I guess we'll have to settle with Arthur for now… Unless you'd like to do it?" she asked, looking to John as she finished.

John laughed, tipping back his whiskey. "No thanks, Aunt Pol. I'm all set doing the odds."

"I did those better than you, too. I've got neater penmanship, right Aunt Polly?"

"Don't go pulling me into your nonsense," Polly answered. "Doesn't matter if you're able to foresee the bloody winners. Thomas doesn't want you kids helping with the shop, so you won't be."

"Well, if she could tell fortunes like that, I doubt he'd be so fussy about having her help out, kid or not."

"Finn's a kid and he gets to help."

"Finn doesn't help," Polly answered.

"He does so."

"He'd better not be helping," Polly answered. "John Shelby, I—"

"He's not helping, Aunt Pol. She's just causing trouble," John answered.

"It'll be on you if he is and I find otherwise. Don't think you're too old for a go-around with me."

"Wouldn't dream it, Polly," John said and Polly rolled her eyes as she retreated into the kitchen.

John let his head roll toward his sister, watching as she returned to her writing, a smirk on her face despite Polly's sharp words.

"I keep you company all evening and that's how you treat me?" John asked, jabbing Clara on the side. John grasped her arm as he pulled her off the bench to stand in front of him.

Clara shouted out, giggling as John trapped her between him and the table, hands poised for the attack though Clara held him away, her fingers laced in his as she pushed his arms back.

"Aunt—"

"I said, you keep me out of your nonsense, Clara Shelby," Polly said, cutting her off. "If your brother tickles you to death, it's on your conscience, not mine. I'll miss you dearly, but you'll have earned it."

"Hear that? Aunt Pol says you've earned it."

"But I've gotta do my writing," Clara answered, fighting to maintain her grasp on his hands, his wrists easily slipping through her fingers as he found her sides.

Tommy stepped into the doorway to the shop, quiet and puffing from his cigarette as he watched, smoke floating in the air around them as Clara fell back against the table, successfully holding one of John's hands back while the other attacked her side.

"John, I've gotta do my work!" she squealed, dissolving into giggles midway through her words and struggling to finish the sentence.

"If only you'd been that attentive to it this afternoon," Tommy mused, startling them both.

Clara looked up at Tommy, her fingers still clasped around John's hand though he'd stopped his pursuit.

"Come to my office," Tommy said, leaving little room for a response as he suddenly retreated into the shop.

"Oi, thought you weren't causing trouble?" John said, his look inching towards pointed as he raised an eyebrow.

Clara rested back against the table, crossing her arms over her chest and shrugging as Tommy's footsteps fell away.

"I didn't do anything," she offered.

John lifted the hat from her head, tapping her with it in the process. "Yeah, well, maybe that's his concern. You're not doing what you're supposed to. Better to just go on in and get it over with," he offered.

Clara rocked back and forth a moment, biting her lip. "You're gonna stay here?"

John rolled his eyes. "You'll be fine. Not the first chat you've had with our brother," John answered.

"But you're not leaving yet?" she pressed.

"Not if he wants biscuits, he won't," Polly answered. "Go on and see your brother so we can enjoy our dessert."

Clara stopped at the doorway of Tommy's office, standing on the threshold as she watched him feigning interest in the paper in front of him. Her delay was a hope that he'd change his mind, a wish that Tommy would send her out of the shop and simply leave it, maybe develop a sudden case of memory loss.

"Aunt Polly made dessert," Clara offered, willing herself to stay in her spot as he dropped the paper, looking her up and down as he took a long drag off his cigarette.

Tommy leaned forward to flick the ash into the tray, his eyes lingering on her. "And it'll still be made five minutes from now. Take a seat."

"But T—"

"Sit down."

Clara scurried across the room at his tone, sliding onto the edge of the chair, arms pulled across her chest as she studied the space.

Tommy kept an uncluttered office, but that didn't stop Clara from taking in every accouterment with a hypercritical attentiveness. She avoided his desk though it was the most interesting part of the room, holding a stack of books from the business and his personal library, a copy of the Evening Dispatch, and a family picture from when she was small. Most interesting, but those things were best avoided due to their proximity to her brother and his persistent eyes, so instead Clara studied the painted brick behind his head, paying extra attention to his portrait of the king and the imperfections in the brickwork.

"You didn't finish your work again today," Tommy said.

"I will," she muttered, shifting her gaze to him for a second before moving on to study the floor.

"Should be done already."

By the barmaid's reports, Clara wasn't giving her much trouble. She dragged with the work, resisted help or explanations, and challenged any and all corrections, but Grace maintained that she didn't find Clara's behavior was too distressing.

Clara always had the work finished by the start of the next lesson, always handed it in dutifully before Grace could even ask for it. And Clara wasn't being outright rude, just minimalist in her responses and stubborn as a general rule. Tommy had expected his sister to have thawed a bit towards Grace by now, figured the outings would help, but Clara's reaction to the outings had seemed to be limited to the day of.

As for the work, Tommy knew she was bringing it home, doing only God knows what for the hours he left her with Grace at the Garrison. He had stopped his sister from bringing the detective books with her to the pub, removed that particular distraction knowing it was too strong of a temptation. Reading for fun was too seductive, more enticing than doing the work, more enticing than talking with Grace.

"Why aren't you using your time with Grace to do the work?"

"I am," she answered.

Tommy waited for an elaboration, stubbed out his cigarette, and focused only on his sister as she traced a groove in the arm of the chair.

"I think about it there and do the work at home. I work better here."

Tommy folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair, trying to imagine what could possess his sister to sit and stare at a wall for hours rather than just getting on with things. He'd already talked with her about it, was growing tired of talking to her about it after he'd stopped her from taking the books.

"Since when do you do all this extra thinking?"

"I think all the time," Clara answered. "Sometimes it's—"

"Maybe you should spend a few nights up in your room thinking about why you're not behaving, then."

"I am behaving. I—"

"You're not doing as you're asked."

"Yes, I am. She asked me to do the work and I do it. I just like thinking about it first."

Tommy exhaled, watching her, almost surprised with her persistence in fighting him since he'd already cut her off twice. "Since when does it require three hours of thinking before writing out a bloody answer?"

Clara stood up as she spoke, her voice finally raising. "Since she's asking me to write things that aren't any of her bloody business!"

Tommy raised an eyebrow, opening his mouth to respond, but Clara beat him to it.

"And I like to do the math without all her hovering. I don't need her help."

Tommy let out a soft snort. "Not hurting a bit for modesty, are you?"

Clara ignored his comment, swallowing it down with the menacing lump growing in her throat. "And even if I did, I don't think she's a proper teacher, anyway, Tommy."

"And why's that?"

"Because if she was a proper teacher, she'd just be a teacher, at a school. But she's not a teacher, she's a barmaid and she's not even a good one. Can't even pull a decent pour."

Tommy had noticed the same, that Grace Burgess had no natural inclination at tending bar. He'd established already that she had lied to Harry to get the job. He also knew she was no teacher, her comfort with handling his sister growing over time, but child tending was clearly not something she had any experience with. Yet, his sister's words forced some shift in him anyhow, hardened his tone, any lingering laughter, even the mocking kind, was gone.

"Is there something wrong with being a barmaid? Something wrong with a person making an honest wage?"

"No," Clara mumbled as she looked at him, his change in tone checking her conviction for a moment as she recovered, "but—"

Tommy stubbed out his cigarette and pointed at her. "But nothing, Clara. You don't get to pass judgment on how people—"

"You do," she answered.

Tommy met her eyes. "Sit down."

He waited for her to back into the seat and relit another cigarette despite just finishing one. "I don't judge how people support themselves and neither will you," he answered. "We all do what we have to. You and Finn are fortunate. You've never gone to bed hungry unless you earned it, eh?"

"When you were gone—"

"When I was gone," Tommy began, raising his voice above hers. "When John and Arthur and I were off fighting a war, your aunt and your sister went hungry so the two of you never went without, but I can't imagine you'd remember that."

Clara glanced at the king's portrait again, finding the judgment in his paint-brushed eyes more endurable than Tommy's.

"And I'll remind you that the money that pays for your nice clothes and your suppers and all of those books you covet comes from the profits of an illegal gambling den, not some grand and honorable profession, not yet."

Tommy omitted the protection and the contraband from his explanation, omitted the things she didn't know about. She had no need of knowing of any of that. Tommy waited a beat for a response, satisfied when she stayed quiet.

"Now what kind of questions is she asking?" Tommy asked, his tone a bit softer.

Clara looked at him. "About us. About you and Small Heath and the horses and—"

"And you ever think she might just be trying to get to know you?"

"It's not her business," Clara answered. "And you said it's good I keep things to myself, especially about Ada."

"I did," he answered. "And that's why you get told about things the others don't, because I trust you know well enough what's right to be sharing."

Clara nodded.

"So, there's no need to be getting in a huff about a couple of questions. You answer them as you see fit and you move on. Be nice to a woman who's only trying to be nice to you."

Clara frowned, thinking about it. "You don't answer questions."

"Well, you're not me."

"Polly's set out some biscuits." John appeared in the open doorway, hanging off the doorframe as he leaned through and both Clara and Tommy looked to him.

"And she's put on the kettle."

"So, go eat your biscuits, John," Tommy answered.

"Come on, Tom. Our sister needs some biscuits, too. She's probably still starved after that bland gruel of a stew Polly gave us, eh Clara?" John answered.

Clara nodded, smiling. "I am a bit starved."

Tommy's eyes fell back to her. His sister didn't know starving, didn't know what it was to have nothing aside from stale old bread with a pat of lard for the single meal of the day. She didn't know what it was to have no proper home, living on the January or in a cousin's old vardo while their father vanished to squander away the family funds.

"So are we done here, then?" Clara asked, already halfway out of her chair.

"I don't know. Are we?" Tommy asked.

Clara turned back to him, both hands still on the arm of the chair as her body remained turned towards John and the exit.

"Is this nonsense done? In the future, if you've got concerns, you bring them to me and I'll have them handled? And you'll do your work when you're meant to?"

Clara nodded just once after a measure of eye contact, a ration of unhurried deliberation. At Tommy's countering nod, Clara hopped up from her chair and headed to John's side, stealing the hat from his hands as he was distracted looking at Tommy.

"Clara?" Tommy said, waiting until she turned back to him, the flat cap already settled on her head as she raised both her eyebrows, waiting for him to continue.

"I don't want to keep having these discussions," he said.

Clara nodded and the movement was slow and full of contemplation. Tommy looked to John, the brother's sharing a brief look before Clara started talking again.

"We only keep having 'em because you keep bringing it up."

"What was that?" Tommy said.

She was looking at the floor now, the brim of the hat obscuring her eyes.

"I just said it's you bringing it up and if Grace has a concern, maybe she should bring it to me so we can handle it and you don't have to keep having these discussions you don't…"

Clara finally looked up as John choked on a laugh, Tommy's unblinking eyes fixed on her, no merriment coming from his side of the room. The end of his second cigarette needed clearing, but it remained still in Tommy's hand.

"…wanna be having?" she finished.

"You better go sit yourself down at that table before that mouth gets you into more trouble than you're ready for," Tommy said.

"Go on," John said, nudging her through the door when she didn't move herself. John's eyes lingered until she disappeared into the house. He turned back to Tommy. "Maybe cut her some slack, eh Tom?"

"Our sister gets plenty of slack." Tommy opened the newspaper, leaning back in his chair. "And you've got four of your own running barefoot in the lane every day, so maybe worry about how much slack they're getting and leave Clara to me."

John nodded, scoffing as he chewed on his toothpick, stalling his need for a response. He waited for Tommy to show his face, wanted him to make eye contact despite the fire growing in his cheeks, but Tommy didn't lower his paper, didn't do more than flip to the next page.

"Yeah, Tom, we'll just leave her to you," he answered. "Like with everything else."

"John, go with your sister to bring this to Arthur."

Polly held out a plate despite the fact that he'd just slumped into his seat at the table, annoyed with Tommy, even a little annoyed with how quickly his sister had rebounded from the exchange, already smiling and enjoying her biscuits while he still felt like a little boy castigated at his older brother's hand.

"Let her go alone, Pol."

Polly glared at him, tilting her head for a moment. "I've told her she's not going on her own, John, so get up and get on with it," she answered, clipping him in the back of the head. "And make sure he eats something."

John rolled his eyes but stood anyhow, taking the plate and stepping to the door without another word. Clara quickly joined him, rushing to his side when he went out into the lane without even slipping back into his jacket.

"Why'd Aunt Polly make you come?"

John glanced down at his sister, steadying himself as he took a breath. John had barely noticed how she somehow ended up fitting her hand inside of his, squeezing her palm to his, looking up at him from underneath the flat cap that kept falling down over her eyes.

John knew Polly's sending them both was intentional in a way he was sure Clara had no need of understanding. Fearless and bold in the face of Tommy as she was growing to be, Clara was still a kid and Arthur was sick, sick in a way that could be precarious for an unassuming eleven-year-old. Flanders Blues was what John called it, what he kept getting glared at by Polly for mentioning in front of the kids, but he wasn't going to let a little glaring get the better of him. The kids didn't understand it, not his lot, and not the twins either. It was just a pair of words to them.

Clara understood that Arthur was sad though, knew her brother was staying home and drinking more, laughing less, and having more trouble walking straight, but she had no context for Arthur's moods, no understanding of what war, of what nearly dying in a tunnel waiting for help, could do to a man. John would be glad for it to stay that way, glad to find Arthur normal when they came to his door, but he didn't have much hope of that.

Polly was likely thinking a visit from Clara would shake their brother out of the newest bit of blue which had taken hold, convince him at least to have something other than whiskey for supper. The kids were usually good for that. Finn and Clara had always possessed a sobering quality, something in those cherubic cheeks and bright eyes. John was only there as a precaution.

John sighed as he dropped Clara's hand to readjust the hat. "Does it matter? You don't like my company?"

"No." Clara grabbed his hand again. "It's just that Arthur's just down the way and I'm allowed to go out on the lane by myself."

"Well, he's probably asleep," John finally said, pausing for a moment. "Being he's sick and all, I imagine Aunt Pol thought it'd take both of us to rouse the great lump. You ready to do some heavy lifting?" John lifted his arm, pulling Clara up on the tips of her toes.

"We should've brought Tommy with us," she said, laughing as John twirled her once.

"We don't need Tommy," John answered. "We'll just remind Arthur what he's missing by sitting up in his house sleeping all day, missing out on games of snap with you and bowls of Aunt Pol's famous gruel."

"Aunt Polly's cooking isn't that bad," Clara offered.

"Well, you've only been eating it for eleven years. I've got thirteen years on you."

Clara shrugged. "You think Arthur'll let me stay tonight? Since Finn's at Jamie's?"

"We'll ask him, eh?" John said. "See if he'll have you. And if not, you're welcome at mine. Won't leave you alone with Tommy ready to wring your neck."

"I didn't do anything," she offered.

"No?" he asked, shaking her hand to garner her eye contact. "You were awfully brave speaking to him like that."

John called her brave, but he wasn't quite sure if the proper term wasn't reckless. What she'd said was clever, and Tommy didn't enjoy people being clever with him, most people didn't. John had never been called clever, but he had been told he had a clever mouth. He'd been letting it get the best of him for most of his life, earning himself stripes at school and entry into fistfights and unanticipated smacks from family members for as long as he could remember.

"I was just being honest."

"Well, Tommy's right. You're asking for more trouble than you'd like."

Clara shrugged, pulling her fingers from John's hands. "Well, I think Tommy's wrong."

Clara skipped towards Arthur's unlocked door, pushing through by herself though John was still walking down the lane.

She ran up the stairs despite John's call for her to wait. Clara was intent on making it to Arthur first, intent on asking to stay before John could tell any stories about her acting too brave or not doing her school work.

John swore as he jogged after her, balancing the plate in his hand as he took the stairs of Arthur's home a few steps at a time. He knew better than to enter Arthur's place unannounced, never quite certain if his brother might be entertaining or dealing with the worst parts of himself, but Clara didn't.

She drew back after opening the door to Arthur's bedroom. It was a bit stale, the air far too hot and stagnant within the four walls of the dim room. The bitter smell of sweat and alcohol weighed heavy in the space and Clara set her sleeve over her nose, backing into John as he came to stand behind her.

Clara's eyes adjusted to the darkness, the only light in the room a thin sliver coming through from the street lamp around the tightly drawn curtains. She watched the unmoving body hanging off the mattress edge.

It was Arthur dangled there, with dried sickness covering the side of the bed and floor, desiccated bits crusted on his face and clothes and mixed with the blood, that too crusted over his face and clothes and floor.

"Arthur?" Clara whispered, finding John's hand free hand once more.

John squeezed her hand once before dropping and stepping in front of her. "Alright there, Arthur?" he asked.

Clara watched for a breath, watched for some indication Arthur was alive beneath the vomit and the blood and the pale, blueish skin, but the breath was taking too long to come and she turned to John instead.

"Is he—"

"Clara, maybe some strong tea will help, yeah?" John suggested. He pulled his eyes away from the bed for a moment to look back at her. "Go down and put a kettle on, alright? Do it for Arthur."

Clara's eyes were settled beyond John, again waiting for the breath that wasn't expanding and retreating in Arthur's chest, hoping she'd just missed the movement at the moment she'd taken to meet John's eye.

"Clara?" John ran a finger under her chin, under the special spot they shared, but for once she didn't react and he cupped her chin instead, guiding her to him.

"Go on down for me, love. Might have to search a bit for the tea."

Clara blinked up at John, pulled from her staring and she nodded once as John guided her from the room, his hand on her shoulder until she slipped over the threshold.

"Fucking hell, Arthur," John said, his words muffled through the door as he pulled it shut, leaving Clara alone on the landing.

Clara went about the job of locating Arthur's kettle in the untidy kitchen, going out back briefly to fill it with water and lighting the stove, her mind a mechanical haze as her thoughts remained on the man upstairs. When John appeared at the door, Clara was settled at Arthur's table, a sticky mess coated in dust and crumbs, waiting for the whistle of the kettle.

"C'mon," John said.

"Wh—what about the tea?" she asked.

John reached over and turned off the stove.

"C'mon," he repeated, this time offering a hand. "I need you to fetch Aunt Pol. No need to concern yourself with the tea. She'll sort him."

John's voice betrayed him just a bit, cracking just enough to make his sister nervous, to make her eyes grow wet.

"But, Jo—"

"You run back home and just tell Aunt Pol, alright?" he asked, hardening his tone. "Fast as you can for me. Get Aunt Pol and send her back to me. Can you do that?"

Clara nodded, glancing toward the staircase, a handful of questions on the tip of her tongue before John pushed her out onto the lane.

"Alright, that's a good girl, go on. Fast as you can," he said before shutting the door.