Though her room in the west wing was perfectly lovely, sleep was not in the cards for her that night. Anna had always had a pretty healthy relationship with sleep but that night the proverbial pea would be under her mattress no matter what she did.
So, she counted sheep, counted floor tiles, missed the wonderful escape of Netflix, and tried in vain to read the uninteresting books she found on the nightstand. It was all unsuccessful to pitiful degrees, and around dawn, the sun allowed her a good excuse to give up. Anna went down the stairs to a deserted golden mansion, aiming to find comfort in the kitchen, but finding a massacre instead.
Well, a sort of massacre anyway because there, leaning against the kitchen island was Tommy Shelby himself, coffee-stained white sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he tried in vain to wipe a seemingly multipliable pool of the dark liquid off the counter.
The scene was so absurd that Anna couldn't quite take it all in at first. Though he was a 1920's man, Tommy Shelby wasn't useless in the art of cleaning. It's just that he knew that having other people clean after him was a status thing just as much as tailored suits were and he didn't give up that privilege often.
"What are you doing here?" She asked expecting to startle him, but of course, Tommy showed no sign of being surprised.
"This is my house." He answered in a monotone, not even looking up from his cleaning to look at her.
"Oh, I see… Sorry, I thought we were past the non-answers stage of our relationship." Anna said, moving to a fruit bowl, picking up an orange from it, and moving in search of a knife to peel it. The moment of silence lasted between them up to the point where the orange's skin was fully off, and Anna did not look up until the fruit was ready for consumption.
"Arthur is coming" his words hung in the air like a death sentence.
"Did he…" she swallowed, fighting against the urge to choke on the words. "Did he do it?"
"Arthur has issues with either discretion or distraction, but never efficiency," Tommy said, turning his back to her and throwing the rag on the sink.
Anna sighed and forced herself to eat an orange piece. The mundaneness of discussing assassinations that felt like murder while eating fruit inside a light-filled kitchen was deeply offensive and yet undeniably necessary if they wanted to keep doing what they were doing.
"We can discuss the next steps after breakfast in my office," Tommy said and Anna already started shaking her head.
"Oh… well, I was hoping to leave before Lizzie woke up actually." Anna declared and Tommy raised a questioning eyebrow at it. "I really don't wanna impose on my boss's wife any further…" She took a step back, "...especially in her own house."
"Do you wanna fuck me?" Tommy said. His words, sharp as steel knives made her bleed before she felt the sting. When she did feel it though, not one emotion prevailed over the other. Anna found herself confused not because she didn't understand what had just happened but because her feelings and her eyes couldn't agree on an appropriate response.
That question wasn't all that foreign to her. Any girl who spent time on a dating app during her 20s - and Anna certainly had - knew all the variations of that question. In fact, she even had enough experience to appreciate that he was willing to ask instead of assuming, but the characteristic lack of emotion on Tommy's face, as he asked such a question was the confusing part. The comment wasn't lewd or suggestive in any way, he didn't even seem to be particularly curious about the answer like the boys that just want to make fun of a girl for her crush. He was a businessman gathering information. Trying to unlock her like he did everyone else.
Which of course meant that she had no ready-made answer to that question.
"Do you wanna fuck me?" was all she could think of and, in all honesty, she knew the sentence wasn't delivered with all the poise she had wished for because it had no impact on his demeanor whatsoever. But it did lead to a stalemate between them both.
"I'll see you tomorrow Anna," Tommy said after a while and moved past her to the door. As she turned to watch him leave, she could've sworn she saw a smile on his lips.
The day after her first real foray into their mission wasn't actually the date on which Tommy and Anna discussed their next step. Neither was the day after it. Or the day after that. Tommy had something happening with the borders of the Peaky Blinder's territory and was spending a great deal of time out of the office doing one of the great variety of activities that he classified as "business". He would never tell Anna which one he was about to partake in before he told her to clear his day.
On the fourth day, when Anna's anxiety about not knowing their next step was reaching an unbearable degree, she was expecting Tommy to initiate such a discussion, but he once again left his office way too early for lunch.
"Please clear my schedule Anna, I have some business to take care of." He said while walking towards the door, barely a glance in her direction. He was always polite with her in the office, even if he seemed to regard such politeness as a vile mask most of the time.
"All right. What kind of business?" She asked, for the first time in their acquaintance. Tommy stopped in his tracks.
"Excuse me?" He said, still facing the door.
"What sort of business Mr. Shelby?" she added a respectful address for good measure, though, considering his stance on the importance of politeness, it wasn't likely to help much. Anna wasn't intending to fight, but she was getting impatient.
Tommy turned to Anna and looked at her as if no stupider question had ever been uttered in his presence.
"Business that does not concern you," he said in faithful imitation of his usual careless monotone voice, but there was something in it that invited the anxiety within her to turn into rage. Anna stood up.
"I think you forget who I actually am, Tommy" she spat his name, because, honestly, fuck honorifics. "I am not a mere secretary that you can turn away whenever it suits you. If, after what we did on the weekend, you don't feel it's necessary to give me an explanation as to why the fuck you keep running away from a much-needed strategy session, I have severely misjudged your intellect."
The coat he was in the process of removing from its hook went back to hanging on it and he turned his whole body towards her but that was his only movement. Something she kept forgetting about dealing with Tommy Shelby was that attacking him was always a stupid decision because he was the king of unresponsiveness. His blue eyes locked on her and began his signature stare down into awkward silence.
Angry Anna was not great at awkward silences. It made her thoughts spiral into ways of furthering the conversation, of starting to rant about the situation and her feelings about it endlessly and the struggle to stop herself from either ranting or just changing the subject altogether was almost physical. She could control it, usually, but the pulsing anger was making it too hard. And yet, Anna managed it for almost a full minute, a fucking feat if she was being honest, and when she was about to break, he did.
"I don't remember promising you special treatment."
"Your definition of special is truly astounding," Anna answered.
"What makes you think that I would give you privileges that my own family does not have?" Tommy turned fully towards Anna.
"So many reasons! Do you want them in alphabetical order?" Her voice got higher and she hated herself a little for it, but it couldn't be helped. Tommy made no indication of further intention to speak so she continued.
"I could you know, there are many, not the least of which that I am a human person and that should elicit some kind of basic respect from another human, but that is obviously a concept that you are way too sexist to grasp so I will go with the most obvious one," she lowered her voice, "I came all the way from 2021, I have just survived a catastrophic pandemic that wiped out a lot more people in a year than you can actually comprehend. I gave up central heating systems, good antibiotics, and the fucking internet to come here and try to stop a war that will make a pretty big, if impersonal, impact in my lifetime but will actively protect your son from even worse terrors than the ones you witnessed in France. I subjected myself to dangers that you are not even aware exist and I know things that would actually sound like magic to your old-fashioned ears. Do you have any idea how infuriating it is to have to depend on your technology, your gender, and societal norms to do things that I could do sitting on my couch back home? Do you have any idea how fucking lonely it is to live in a world I don't recognize?" she took a breath.
"So, this is my warning. You can get over your little trust issues and your blatant misogyny in the next 24 hours. Or, you can keep pretending like the little empire you're building won't get bombed out of existence in the next decade. Your choice." Anna held his eyes in place. They betrayed nothing, of course, but she didn't expect them to.
Without another word, Tommy Shelby turned around and left his secretary alone in the office one more time.
That night, at 11:45 pm her door was shaking. Light bulbs were expensive in the early 20th century and Anna was used to a pretty early wake-up call so by that time she was deep into the realm of sleep that Tommy Shelby clearly disapproved of.
Heart racing Anna quickly wrapped herself in her blue robe, unlocked the door, and barely had any time to duck out of the way as Tommy Shelby stumbled inside her flat.
"What the actual fuck Tommy? Did you decide to come take me out personally?" she asked in a mockery of a whisper looking at Tommy's back, he had braced himself against her couch and seemed to be fighting for breath. "If you even think about vomiting on my couch, I swear to G-"
"Close the door Anna" his pained voice brought her short.
"Tommy?" Her voice was tentative.
"Please close the fucking door Anna." It sounded like a plea. So she did, and as soon as the click could be heard, Tommy's legs started to buckle.
Anna took 2 fast steps to prevent his fall and stumbled under his weight. She refused to bring them both to the ground though, so she strengthened her stance and started strategizing a way to move him to the couch.
"What happened Tommy?" She asked, and receiving no response moved to a more immediate issue. "You need to help me! We have to move to the couch, Tommy. Now!" To that he did respond, and so they shuffled their way to the front of the couch, where she had no choice but to drop him down into the cushions. He connected heavily with the soft seat letting out a barely concealed scream.
Despite the price of electricity, Anna moved to the light switch and as the yellow light flooded the room she was first confronted with the actual depth of the problem. Anna immediately closed the drapes and hurried to the place inside her closet where she kept her first aid kit. In a few seconds, she was back to his side, panting a little.
"Fuck Tommy," she said as she took off his hat and started to get a glimpse of how deep in the shit they were. The only significant color on his face was the red blood, dry around his nose. Bruises seemed to be on their way around his eyes and cheekbones. That wasn't the issue though. A beating that still left him conscious enough to go up 2 flights of stairs was probably not the biggest issue here.
"What happened Tommy?" He didn't answer. "Where does it hurt?" She asked as her fingers checked the temperature of his clammy skin. It was cold. "Fuck, are you bleeding Tommy?" Her hands started to go down his neck and arms, looking in vain for the source of the problem, but it was only when she started to unbutton the vest of his 3-piece suit that fear completely froze her stomach.
"I think you've found it," Tommy stated with a flat tone and promptly proceeded to pass out.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
What the actual fuck am I supposed to do now? She asked herself, looking dumbly at the red cross in the box by their side.
Breathing let's start with that. Both hers and Tommy's were altered, she couldn't do much about his, but she could do take a few deep breaths to collect herself, so she did. Next, she finished unbuttoning the dark grey vest and white shirt that were now bathed in blood. The blood was not yet dry, so he hadn't been bleeding for very long, which was good, except that it also meant he had taken a beating not too far from her apartment. She could only hope he was not chased.
Next, the blood was oozing and not pouring another great sign, she had no idea what to do with a severed artery issue. Could she even do anything in that case? No matter, because the good news was over. The slash that went through the right side of his pants, right below the brown belt, implied that he had been cut and not shot at. Not having to guess if she could extract the bullet without causing more harm than good was a plus, sure, but a knife meant a possible infection in his future because cleaning their weapons was not high on the list of priorities for the knife enthusiast factions she knew of.
"Fuck," she uttered again, but that was a problem for later, Anna moved to remove his pants, which was too hard to do because he was too damn heavy, so with a knife of her own she enlarged the whole already on his pants to see the damage.
There was not a lot to see with the shitty light from the candles she had on and knowing he might have been attacked close by removed all chances of her turning on the electric light, so she bloodied the white box looking for the headlamp, and attached it to her head. Once she could see, Anna reached for the white cloth inside the box and allowed Tommy to get it quickly bloodied. When the bleeding seemed to slow some, Anna got another cloth and reached for the bottle of absinth she kept inside the first aid box.
After soaking the cloth in alcohol Anna placed one hand over Tommy's mouth and with the other she removed the blood-soaked cloth from his wound and pressed the other cloth on it. Tommy's eyes flicked open and his scream became a grunt, arrested by her fingers.
"Shut up! We don't want the neighbors' attention Tommy!" She hissed at him more out of her own fear than actual anger. It worked, even if Tommy's eyes were not fully focused, the fear of being exposed went deep.
"I'm, gonna go get some whiskey for you, can you keep pressure for me?" She moved his right hand to the wound. His pressure was weaker than hers of course, but it would do for a minute or two. The sound of liquid hitting glass was louder than his heavy breathing and she was thankful.
Tommy's hands were too weak to hold the glass, so Anna cupped the back of his head on her hand and held the cup so that he could drink. He did, cursing a little under his breath when he was done.
"I'm gonna have to stitch this, Tommy" Anna said, looking at the wound that had almost stopped its bleeding at that point. "Do you want something to bite down on?" She asked, already getting up to get a dish towel from the kitchen. Tommy didn't respond, he knew what was coming she guessed.
Anna came back with the towel and waited for him to open his mouth so that she could place it in. He reluctantly did. Trying to project confidence she did not fully process, Anna knelt before him and pulled a very modern, very precious, suture kit from her first aid kit. Thread in the curved needle, gloves on but her hand hovered over the wound, trembling yet paralyzed. The steps were crystal clear in her mind's eye, she could picture each and every movement, but apparently had no way of actually making her hands move. Anna's breathing got heavier.
"The Irish were trying to take the betting shop tonight..." Tommy's breathless voice came to her. She locked eyes with him astonished, ready to ask him why he wasn't biting down and preparing for the pain, but Tommy only nodded down to her trembling hands. "…that's how I got this." His right hand, clammy and cold, rested upon hers and moved it lightly down.
"I…" Anna started.
"They have been circling us for a while now…" Anna pressed the needle to the right spot and Tommy leaned his head back, looking at the ceiling. "…it's why I was so busy this week."
Anna made the first, crooked, uneven, and painful stitch.