ICYMI: As so many of you messaged me to say you'd like to see Chapter 53 from John and Katie's POV I uploaded that as a separate story so you can access it on my profile if you wish and haven't seen it already. Completely non essential reading, but it does maybe offer a little into John's state of mind behind his happy go lucky facade, and it ends with Lily and Katie going off to play in Aunt Polly's, without Lily going in to tell anyone where she's going. Which will come up in this story quite soon.

It's just a one shot really but I enjoyed dipping into Katie's voice for a while so I am happy to write more one shots if there's anything anyone wants to read?

Chapter 55

Patience was one of the few virtues Thomas Shelby claimed to have. Not that his patience was usually rooted in waiting for virtuously laid plans to pay off in virtuous outcomes, by any stretch of the imagination. But loving Rosie Jackson and wanting to be held high in her esteem, as he had been before he'd fucked it up, was actually one of his more virtuous objectives and ironically, though he told himself they were on the road to recovery and that he just had to accept it would take the time it did, it was achieving that particular objective that tested his patience.

A large part of the problem was that he had no concept of the amount of time he was supposed to be patient for – it was much easier to wait for a payoff that had at least a rough indication of when it would be coming. Rosie's reacceptance of him was at her own discretion and he had no idea what that would entail.

It was this dilemma that resulted in the great Tommy almighty skulking in his office like a teenager, scribbling away at a sheet of paper, working out how many hours a day they spent together. On a weekday, he noted, it was an average of an hour before he finished work split across their morning and afternoon interactions if he didn't do the school run, increasing to two hours if he did, plus two or three hours in the evening depending on when she went to bed or when he had to go out. Weekends were roughly the same on Saturdays if she was working but expanding to potentially whole days on Sundays if they were ever to be left uninterrupted (admittedly unlikely.) Various additions brought him to weekly hours spent together and monthly hours spent together, all of which he fully realised made him seem like a mad man, but which led to the seemingly logical, to his mind, conclusion that if he were to take her away and spend approximately twelve hours a day with her over various numbers of days he could speed up their reconciliation process by condensing pockets of time which would have taken a month to pass in their usual routine into two weeks at some quaint seaside resort. It was just whether or not she would deign to accompany him.

As it was, when he noticed her bloody knuckles after school halfway through the week, the opportunity to ask came more quickly than he had anticipated.

"You've been fighting," he said quietly with a raised eyebrow, scanning her face for signs of anything – there were none – and lifting her hand up to his face so he could inspect it.

Blood and what looked like teeth marks but no real damage. Whoever she'd been fighting had obviously come off worse.

She shrugged and pulled her hand away, stuffing it in her coat pocket.

"I'll get it out of Finn if you don't tell me what happened," he murmured to her as they stood waiting for his younger brother to appear.

"Later," she replied under her breath, then stooped down to speak to Lily, effectively avoiding speaking to him any on it any further.

Finn didn't say anything about it when he arrived, and Tommy came to the conclusion that this hadn't been a centre of the yard encounter like her last school showdown – so he walked home without probing it further, Lily walking in between the two of them with a hand in each of theirs.

He was sitting in the front room that evening, smoking and thinking, when she appeared in the doorway. He kept his face impassive as she crossed to sit on the sofa, albeit at the opposite end to him, pulling her legs up as she usually did, though keeping them close to her and not sliding her feet over and tucking them under his leg for warmth. Still, it was progress, of sorts, she hadn't come back down after putting Lily to bed for a while.

"You alright?" he asked, trying to keep his voice casual.

She nodded and laid her head against the sofa, not breaking eye contact with him. He didn't know whether to act like this was as normal as it had been for so long, or whether to address that this was their first time on this sofa together whilst the rest of the house slept for some time. To mention how he'd missed it. To say how expansive and empty the little room seemed at night without her.

The silence weighed between them for a while and then, tentatively, he reached out and took her bare feet, one at a time, rubbing them between his hands and placing them in their familiar slot under him. She didn't say anything, but she didn't stop him either.

He stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray and sat back, regarding her, aware that every slight movement felt somehow clownishly loud and huge in the small room with only them in it.

She seemed to want to say something, but it was like she didn't know quite how to say it.

He supposed maybe she felt this was as heavy a moment as he was finding it. Perhaps, in the way that he didn't quite know whether to acknowledge things or not, she was also struggling.

"Did you put some cream on your knuckles?" he asked, figuring the day's events were more neutral territory than any discussions of the past few weeks, and remembering that she had promised to talk to him about it later.

This was later. Maybe that was why she'd come back down. He half wished he hadn't asked her, in case she spit out what had happened and went straight back upstairs. He wanted her to stay. He wanted the time with her.

She nodded, then bit her lip and looked at her feet under his leg before saying softly, "I'm not going back. I'll do the exam, it's the Thursday of the week after next, but I'm not going back."

"What happened?" he asked, his eyebrows knitting together a little.

"It's not important Tom."

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine."

He reached over and tilted her chin up as gently as he could.

"Look me in the eye and tell me that."

She gave a small huff through her nose, then raised her eyes and gave him a small, slightly lopsided smile and said, "I'm alright Tommy, honestly."

He nodded and stroked his thumb over her cheek before smirking slightly and asking, "And the other guy?"

"He'll live," she said, giving a small, slightly shy smile.

"You going to tell me what it was about?"

She shook her head then pushed her face slightly into his hand, making his heart beat wildly as she replied, "Nothing for you to worry about."

Usually he'd have pushed her. But now he just wanted more of what that small smile and that slight nuzzling into him had promised.

"Alright my love," he told her, stroking her face and savouring the words, savouring being able to say them, "As long as you're alright."

He hadn't called her anything other than her name since Saturday. And he wouldn't push it. But she was his love and he couldn't wait to be back in the place where he could call her that, proclaim that that was what she was to him, as often and as casually as he liked.

"I'm fine," she nodded.

He dropped his hand and sat back slightly, "Though you are giving me the problem that I have to explain to Finn and Lily why they need to go to school still when you've just decided you're not going any longer."

She snorted, "Just tell them I've finished because I'm old enough and they're not."

He nodded, "I could do that," he broke off, paused, and took a deep breath before continuing, "Or you and I could go somewhere for a week or so then it'll be nearly the exam anyway."

She looked slightly surprised, then said, "Take me where?"

She hadn't said no.

"Wherever you like – the seaside?"

She shook her head, "Don't fancy beaches, too much lying around and it's never warm enough."

He wasn't sure if it was a polite excuse to go nowhere, or if it was the truth. Though, thinking on it, it seemed the truth – she wasn't a seaside person.

He mulled it over for a moment, then said, "Well we could go to London."

She considered, then gave a small nod, "I'd like that."

"We could go to the theatre."

She snorted, "What would I wear to a theatre?"

"There are shops in London – and you never got that dress you were meant to get for me to take you for a birthday dinner. So I'll buy you a dress and take you to dinner and the theatre, how's that?"

"I wouldn't even know what to buy."

"They have shop assistants in London."

"Definitely not," she shook her head, screwing up her face.

With the realisations of the past weekend in him, he figured now her distaste was the idea of herself rather than the idea of the theatre or the dinner. He was sure, actually, if he chose well, that she would like the theatre. And he knew fine well that she liked food.

"Well what do you want to do in London?" he asked, thinking that perhaps he shouldn't push her given he was surprised she'd agreed in the first place.

"Could we go to the National Gallery?"

"If you like," he said, slightly surprised, "Any particular reason?"

"Well, I think Lily might get something out of it. She likes drawing, and I think she's quite good for her age," Rosie said thoughtfully, "Plus it got shut down before the war because the suffragettes went in and destroyed a few things during their push for the vote, so I just would quite like to stand there and know that I'm standing where it really happened, y'know?"

He blinked at her before raising his eyebrows and shaking his head with a smile, "Of course you do. Though I'm not following what destroying art had to do with getting the vote."

"Millitant tactics," she replied with a shrug, then became animated, her hands flying about as she expanded, "Though actually the first one that was destroyed was a picture of Venus and Mary Richardson, who destroyed it, wrote that she destroyed it because Venus was supposed to be beautiful and it was supposed to be a statement about the way the press and government were destroying Emmeline Pankhurst and how what she was doing for women was beautiful. She wrote that if there was an outcry about how she'd destroyed a picture it would show how hypocritical it was that people would be more annoyed about the destruction of art than they would be about the destruction to a real woman's life that was happening."

"Alright then, as long as you promise not to destroy any art I'll take you to the bloody gallery," he said, unable to stop himself smiling widely at her passion for her subject.

She was beautiful, especially when she talked about things she cared about and her eyes glowed in a way no cosmetics would ever be able to recreate the effect of. A face like hers, a body like hers, it could have been the basis for Venus itself as far as he was concerned.

"I make no promises, I don't have the bloody vote yet," she replied, rolling her eyes, but smiling still.

Encouraged by her smile, he laid his hand on the bare ankle that her pyjama leg exposed and squeezed it gently, enjoying the feeling even of her boniest parts under his touch, "And I'm realising you think Lily is coming with us then, eh?"

"She is coming with us, I used to have to leave her alone when I was at work so I know she can cope, but I'm not leaving her overnight."

"She could stay with Polly?" he suggested.

"Polly," Rosie straightened slightly and flared, "Is too busy right now trying to keep an eye on Ada. Lily comes with us or we don't go, Thomas. And what about Finn?"

"Alright, alright, calm down, Lily comes with us," he said, his voice staying calm and soothing even as his heart hammered that he might be about to lose the agreement they were coming to, "Finn can stay at John's, him and George can kip in together."

She nodded and relaxed down by the inch or so she'd come up. He didn't bother suggesting that Lily could stay with John too, sleep in with Katie.

"When shall we go?" he asked.

"I'm working Saturday," she replied.

"We'll go Sunday then, I'll go down and get the train tickets tomorrow," he said, "We could go on Sunday and come back on Friday, how's that? Take Lily out of school for the week?"

She nodded, "A week shouldn't cause any problems. That's kind of a standard illness absence."

He didn't say anything for a minute, turning it over in his mind how she must feel to be so constantly aware that Lily could be taken from her at any time, if the wrong people found out about their mother. But he wasn't going to ask her if he could adopt Lily, as much as he thought it would be the simplest thing. Things were getting better between them, but they were still fragile. Besides, it was May now. School ran until the end of June. There wasn't too much longer to get through before it would be the summer holidays and the threat of any teachers reporting anything to the parish authorities would be gone for two blissful months.

Maybe during the school summer holidays they could go abroad. See if Finn wanted to come. If Lily did like the galleries in London, they could go to Paris – take her to that big museum there, he couldn't remember the name of it. He'd never been particularly interested in art himself. But if he could get Rosie to accept her own beauty – he could take her shopping in Paris, get her some lipstick and perfume and a dress she could wear to the opera house. He wanted the best of everything for her. She deserved it. And if there was anyone that could help him reclaim what France meant to him, it had to be her.

"You know there's a museum in Birmingham," he said thoughtfully, "An art gallery type of thing. Maybe you could take Lily there."

"I took her before," Rosie said, "But I think she was a bit too young for it. I should take her back though. Are there any children's museums in London?"

"I'll find out. There's Hamley's, the big toy shop. And there's the zoo."

"She'd like the zoo."

"I think she'd probably quite like the toy shop too," he snorted, "We were always supposed to go to the zoo though weren't we? So we could see, what was it now - let me think - a bear, a baboon and a bat, I believe?"

It elicited the first proper, well, not quite a laugh but a slight giggle that he'd gotten from her since before they had argued.

"Not that we need to go all the way to London to see those things when you do them all so well Thomas."

"Is that right?"

"Uhuh."

"You're lucky you've got that beautiful little face or you wouldn't get away with so much of your cheek, Miss Jackson."

"Is that right, Mr Shelby?" she quipped, smirking.

There was a pause where they smiled at one another and, for that moment, it felt like none of the shit had ever blown up between them like it had – like Ada hadn't gotten mixed up with Freddie, like he hadn't handled her pregnancy as badly as he had done and like he hadn't asked Grace to the races without telling Rosie about his plans first, without asking her if it was alright.

But she seemed to feel like that too and, as soon as the moment passed, the reality that it had all gone wrong fell back into place. He felt as though he almost watched her retreat, like the light in her eyes dimmed visibly as he looked into them. He had done that. And he hated himself for it.

She knew he was trying with Ada, and it seemed that was enough.

"Taking Grace to the races is just business Rosie," he said softly, realising he hadn't told her yet that day.

She nodded but didn't answer verbally.

He knew she knew, but he had kept up the practise of telling her, reassuring her every day.

"I'd best get to bed," she said, her eyes not meeting his again.

He nodded, "Alright."

He didn't want her to go to bed. But he wanted her to know he respected her, so he didn't try and change her mind. She stood up and walked around the other side of the sofa, not passing by him.

"Goodnight Thomas."

"Goodnight Rosalie."

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

"Waldorf Hotel," Tommy grunted at the carriage driver when they arrived at Euston, holding the door open for Rosie to step in, his hand in her back so she wouldn't fall as she tried to climb up and balance her sleeping sister in her arms.

Lily's excitement had tired her out over the course of the train ride and he let Rosie get settled in the car before he pushed their two cases in and got in himself, slamming the door without thinking then looking apologetically to the no longer sleeping child. He had woken her.

She looked blearily up at him, then to her sister before asking, "Is this London?"

"Well this is a taxicab Lily," he said, reaching for a cigarette, "But outside the window is London. We're on the way to our hotel, go back to sleep if you like."

She didn't like though, she shifted round in her sister's lap and gazed out the window, at the grey buildings that looked, if they were all being honest, much the same as Birmingham at this point. But once they got into the centre, it would be different. Museums, theatres, clubs, hotels, shops. All the likes of which kids from Birmingham couldn't begin to imagine.

He wanted it. But there were things to do first. Billy Kimber was first. After that he could set his sights on London. On the Sabinis and the Solomens, who currently ran it. When that happened, and he was sure it would happen, he'd have to be on his guard when he came to London. But that was for the future, here and now, on this trip, he could relax and enjoy watching Lily rapturously staring from the window, taking in her first views of their capital city.

Rosie, as was her way, said very little and when they disembarked outside the Waldorf hotel he realised she might be feeling slightly overwhelmed again as she looked up at it, her hand reaching to firmly take Lily's, who was twisting and turning in all directions now that they were out of the confines of the carriage, pointing and asking what everything around them was.

He ushered them inside and checked in with the front desk, handing them their room key.

"You hungry?" he asked.

"A little," Rosie replied, whilst Lily proclaimed, loudly, "Yes I'm very hungry!"

"Alright, why don't we all put our bags in and freshen up then we can go for a walk and find somewhere for dinner," he suggested, trying not to laugh at the child's eager face.

Of course she was hungry, she'd eaten her sandwiches within five minutes of getting on the train even though they'd left just after breakfast.

"How do we get to the outhouse?" Rosie asked, lowering her voice as if anyone going by would hear her and be shocked at the mention of the place.

"You have a bathroom in your room," he replied.

"What?"

"There's a bathroom in – well, not in – adjoining your room."

"Indoors?"

"Yes."

"An indoor toilet?"

"Uhuh."

"What about the water?"

"Plumbed in."

"Jesus fucking Christ!"

"Language love, you're in a fucking fancy hotel," he replied with a grin, kissing her forehead.

She was adorable.

"Fuck off," was her quick reply, as she shook her head in disbelief at the idea of an indoor toilet.

"Come on, let's go before you get us fucking chucked out for obscenities," he said, picking up the first case and prodding her in the lower back to get her moving towards the lifts – another foreign concept which Lily was hugely impressed by and Rosie deeply mistrusting of.

After he had dropped them off with their shared suitcase, he went to his room to use his own indoor toilet. He wondered, as he sat on the bed and amused himself flicking the overhead electric lights on and off from the switch at the wall, how she would feel about it when he got them a house with its own indoor plumbing. He had thought plenty about how they would have an actual garden for their kids to play in, not the concrete shared backyards of Watery Lane. And he had thought about getting her a huge kitchen with every gadget she could dream of in it to make whatever she fancied from the array of cookbooks he'd get her. And he had definitely thought about the benefits of having a private home office with a lockable door and no staff milling around outside it to bend her over his desk in. But he really hadn't considered that indoor plumbing would seem such a massive concept to her – they had it in the schools after all, just not in the homes of Small Heath.

He put his things away then went back to the indoor bathroom to splash some water on his face and brush his teeth. He'd shaved before they left that morning and he reckoned, with two weeks of her silently punishing him with small portions of food and a lack of cake, that his jawline was looking slightly sharper than it had done for a while. Wiping his face with a towel, he went back into the room and pulled his hat onto his head, looking into the full length mirror at his reflection, realising that he was appraising his appearance for her benefit. Outwardly he didn't show it, but inwardly he felt slightly giddy, like he was taking a girl out for the first time, rather than taking a girl he lived with out to dinner with her younger sister in tow. But the whole week lay ahead of them and it felt full of promise. A whole week she had agreed to.

Lily opened their door when he knocked and began immediately to garble to him about the magic switch that turned the lights on and off, but how they only could be off or on not like at home how the gas lamps could be turned up or down. She grabbed his hand and dragged him across the room, pushing open the bathroom door to show him the taps, which Rosie was standing staring at.

"How did you get in?" she asked, breaking out of some silent inner reverie about the taps to look at him.

"Well I knocked the door and Lily opened it."

"Lily you shouldn't open doors if you don't know who's on the other side of them," she admonished gently, her eyes falling down to the bab.

"Well it was only going to be Tommy, wasn't it?" Lily replied impatiently.

"You don't know that."

Lily frowned and looked up to him for support, but he squeezed her hand gently and said, "Your sister's right, you didn't know it was definitely me."

She huffed for a second, then her excitement got the better of her and she continued, pointing at the bath, "Tommy there's hot water!"

"She's right," Rosie said, looking at him in slight confusion, "One tap runs cold and one runs hot. You don't need to heat it, you just – it just – you turn the tap and it comes out hot!"

Well, to be fair to her, the school plumbing had never done that.

"I know," he said, nodding gently and hiding his amusement.

"Do you pay for how much of it you use?"

"The water?"

"Uhuh."

"No, it's just there for you to use – I paid enough for the bloody rooms."

"Was coming here expensive?" she asked, biting her lip.

"Well I wanted us to stay somewhere nice," he replied, realising then that she probably wouldn't have agreed to any of the week if she'd known how much it cost, "But no, it wasn't too expensive. But the hot water is unlimited."

She narrowed her eyes like she didn't believe him, then moved her gaze over to the bath before saying, "I might just spend the whole week in the bath, waiting for it to get cold and then topping it up with fresh hot water like I think I'm the bloody queen."

He grinned down at Lily, "Well I think me and my best girl here might be able to fill our time even if you just stay in the bath for all of it, but we'd probably prefer if you came out with us, eh Lily?"

She nodded up at him and Rosie crouched down to her sister, kissing her on the head and asking in an amused way, "You sure? You'd miss me if I didn't come out with you? You promise me?"

Lily giggled and nodded in response.

"Hmm, alright then, I suppose I'll do something other than bathe whilst we're here, just for you Lily," Rosie said, standing up and stroking her sister's hair, "Though I do reckon once I put you to bed I'll pass the time in the bath reading a book until it's my bedtime – a bath every single night. What do you reckon people back home would make of that?"

"Didn't realise you liked a bath so much," he said.

She shrugged.

"You could have a bath every single night at home if you like you know," he told her, "It's just that Polly got into the routine of forcing Finn and Ada to bathe on Saturday nights so they'd be clean for church. We don't restrict it to only Saturdays."

"I know, but it's such a pain at home – fetching the water and heating it all and then emptying it after. This," she gestured at the hotel's white bath with its gold feet and taps, "Is like all the joy of the bath without any of the work. Though it probably breeds laziness so it's maybe just as well we don't have it at home."

He snorted and shook his head, "I'll get you an indoor, plumbed in bath with hot running water one day my love, I promise."

"I'd never be out of it."

"Well I promise I'll get you one, but I promise I'll make getting out of it worth your while too."

She blushed at his words and he enjoyed the pink on her cheeks clashing against the red of her hair.

"I thought we were going for food," Lily announced, looking between the two of them and, thankfully, missing the implications he had made.

ANs on this chapter:

True story re the suffragettes closing down the National Gallery pre WWI. Mary Richardson specifically wrote of her actions: "I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history. Justice is an element of beauty as much as colour and outline on canvas. Mrs Pankhurst seeks to procure justice for womanhood, and for this she is being slowly murdered by a Government of Iscariot politicians. If there is an outcry against my deed, let every one remember that such an outcry is an hypocrisy so long as they allow the destruction of Mrs Pankhurst and other beautiful living women, and that until the public cease to countenance human destruction the stones cast against me for the destruction of this picture are each an evidence against them of artistic as well as moral and political humbug and hypocrisy."

Coincidental fact - Mary Richardson ended up in the British Union of Fascists under Oswald Mosley, the formation of which plays a part in the most recent season of PB.

I got a question in one of my reviews about a potential sequel to this - this story will span all six episodes of season 1 of PB, and currently we're in a space of time in between the end of episode 2 and the start of episode 3 so we have a fair while to go with this one as it is so any sequels are a long way off! As it is I don't know about sequels so much, but I do have related things planned, with the same characters but so far they're little mini stories in themselves rather than sequels - things that are maybe four or five chapters long or whatever so more than one shots but not anything like the length this beast is turning out to be. Again I'm happy to take prompts on things people want to read so let me know if there's something in particular you want to read about!

As always thank you so much for reading and reviewing and messaging me!