***

word count, 4634
PROLOGUE, PART TWO
after the war

"there is a swelling storm,
and I'm caught up in the middle of it all
and it takes control,
of the person that I thought I was
the boy I used to know"
- DEAN LEWIS, waves

***

AMELIA'S PATIENCE WANED thin after the first month of her father's departure, restless in her mindless nature towards the word, the forbidden word that the adults banished from the very walls of their house, the word Finn and Amelia spoke of in hushed voices concealed by the sheets of her narrow bed.

The two children were similar in every way with only their age separating them by a few trivial months. Similar in their interests towards the world around them, the games they would play- and now, in their shared confusion towards the word prohibited from the house.

With endless raindrops punching ruthlessly against the fogged-up window and a guttering candle beside them contending against grim darkness consuming Small Heath in its misery, the two children hid themselves under the fine sheets.

Because their confusion was not shared by everyone, because the others knew what the word meant. Everyone knew the grief that would follow, the countless emotions that would infest their lives upon the return of a letter or the person.

The pinch of pain that would shrivel their face, the lump caught in their throat, restricting the simple art of speech, the refusal to accept that the bane was real. The promises made by men who swore to return would certainly be broken, in one way or another.

The merciless pain of it all that would be silenced in their fragile throats, words muted by trauma, tangled in their feeble tongues. Unspoken truths, forlorn words from people devastated by the unspoken word, would be taken to the grave- buried deep within them in both life and death.

Everybody knew what it meant to them. Everybody knew the change that the word threatened, and the years of absence of the shattered men soon to be haunted by devastations of the past.

The entire world knew, Birmingham included. Everyone but the children, the greatest tragedy of the war torn world.

It was as if everyone knew of a secret but failed to tell it to the two children, heads resting on a shared pillow, noses brushing in response to their close proximity. The need to be close to another was a ritual engrained deep into their skin, as well as the need to be quiet in the already soundless house.

"He didn't tell you where they were goin'?" Finn's eyes narrowed in suspicion, sharing the same emotions and impatience towards where half his family had disappeared to.

Amelia shook her head, whispering back. "Nope, he wouldn't tell me. He..." She pressed a hand firmly against her face as if it would force the words to come to her.

Her face lit up in remembrance. "He didn't lie, exactly, he just... answered it all weird. Like, he knew where he was goin' but didn't want to tell. Said it was a little like caravanning with the Lee's."

Finn scratched his nose. "It just doesn't make sense. If they're just on holiday then why is everybody so sad?"

"And why wouldn't my dad tell me where he was goin'?" Amelia added, pursing her lips in confusion. "Why did he look afraid?"

"Tommy? Afraid?" Finn giggled, as if she had told him a funny joke about Arthur's moustache. But it wasn't a joke, and the girl made it clear when she sent him a daggered glare as she pushed him roughly to stop his quiet fit of laughter.

"He was!"

He messily shoved her back. "Was not!"

"Was too!" Amelia's features tinged with seriousness. "He was scared, Finn. I saw it before he could cover it up, the same fear I saw in his eyes when he knew my mum was..." She couldn't quite finish what she would say, her heart sending her a rough shove. "He was scared that he'd never see us' again."

Finn frowned and scratched his head, causing the surface of their private escape to ruffle and move, granting more vivid streaks of light to creep through.

"Sorry, bhen. It's just- Tommy's never scared, must be serious then." sister

Amelia hummed. "Not a holiday."

"They probably went to get away from you." Finn quipped with a devilish grin, shoulder twisting in an attempt to distance himself a little further from her.

"The entirety of Small Heath got on a train to get away from me?" Amelia questioned with an eyebrow raised, unimpressed.

"You know, for a little peace and quiet. Tommy could barely get through business without you blarting at 'im, pretty sure you still follow him to the loo."

"Uh, I don't I follow my da' to the loo, I'm not three."

"But you whine, alot. I wish they had taken me with 'em, now I'm stuck with you and get all of the bawling."

Amelia looked hurt for a moment, until a smile began to surface on his face. She then did what any rational six year old would do in retaliation and stuck her tongue out at him, crossing her arms across her chest.

"You've hurt my feelings." Amelia puckered her lips to form a scowl, "You're not funny, Finnley."

"That's not even my name, Amelia...stasia."

The two stare at each other for a moment, stone faced before smiles threaten to corrupt their features. Fierce laughter erupts from their throats as they began pushing at one another to escalate the other's pitch.

"You two have never been good at hide and seek."

Another voice spoke above the chaos, their laughter having masked the sound of feet padding against the tarnished floorboards. Polly Gray stood in the doorway of the room, hands placed on her hips at the sound of the two, hiding in the shroud of Amelia's bedroom.

The two gasped quietly before throwing the sheet off of themselves, revealing the woman's amused features sharpened with an eyebrow raised in question.

"We weren't playing hide and seek, Pol." Finn quickly defended, a sheepish smile on his face as he glanced towards Amelia, eyes begging for her to save him.

"Yeah, it's not like we could compete with you lot anyway," Amelia crossed her arms over her chest stubbornly, "you've always been the best at hiding."

Polly sighed, leaning against the doorframe. She should have predicted it, because of course it would be Amelia prying this early on, of course it would Tommy and Greta's child who would be so difficult.

She ignored the comment, eyeing the two of them up suspiciously. "I thought I told the two of you to go to sleep, but what do you do? Have a mother's meeting like some old women."

Finn giggled, putting on his best imitation of an old women, one that sounded as if he had inhaled a litre of helium. "We're so old, Lee."

"Why the Polly imitation? She isn't that old, Finn." Amelia teased, causing Finn to gasp and hastily push her face, sending her body into the mattress with a sharp thud.

The Aunt sent the two of them a knowing smile, wrapping her dressing gown tighter around her body despite the torrid climate of the evening in August. It was then that Amelia finally really saw her Great Aunt in the pale light, as if seeing her for the first time after it happened.

She looked tired, so tired, as if she hadn't been sleeping when closing the door to her bedroom. But more than that, she noticed the misery glistening in her eyes, too tired to hide it this late, to mask the sorrow with passive contentment.

"You look tired." Amelia commented softly, carefully, already knowing she was treading on fine egg shells for even mentioning her Aunts appearance. It was confirmed when Polly's smile dimmed, her forehead furrowing at the assertion, at the unwelcome attention from a six year old who was too clever for her own good.

Still, she was quick to hide it with a smirk, the instinctual way Shelby's hid their pain.

"Chasing the two of you around has caused it." Polly scolded, folding her arms over her chest as the two children hung their heads slightly, muttering quiet apologies under their breath.

Polly pursed her lips to prevent her tender smile from showing as she ventured into the room, "What have you two been up to, then? Since you clearly haven't been doing as you've been told."

"We're on strike." Amelia mustered a prideful smile up towards Finn's straightened back, too tired to sit up as her weighted head rested on the mattress.

Finn nodded in agreement, twisting his body to mimic his partner's smile. "Like the Communists."

"Oh Christ, when did the two of you get involved with politics?"

"We haven't." Amelia tugged at the stray tatters of hair that had broken free from her braids, anything to distract herself from the burn of Polly's gaze. "Freddie told me you strike for the things you believe are right and deserved, and we deserve to the know the truth."

Polly muttered some profanities under her breath with her eyes fixed on the ceiling, as if that meant the words could reach the bad influence that caused this late-night trouble. The ground would have had more chance at reaching the culprit, more so a trodden field in France.

Her eyes returned to the other end of the room. "You don't want to know what's going on, loves."

Finn's face crumpled in confusion. "We do, Pol. Honest."

"We need the truth," Amelia repeats, and her eyes glisten with something darker than the room around her. "And if you don't tell us, we'll find somebody else who will."

The woman seems stunned for a moment, her eyes sparked with fire at the foul tone. Amelia never spoke in that manner, it just wasn't her. It shouldn't be her. "I don't give into threats, Amelia. Don't start-"

"It's not a threat, I'm not stupid enough to threaten you." The girl counters quickly, a lighter look returning to her face. "It's killing us, the not knowing. And I'm not gonna stop until I find out."

Polly half-smiled at the determination on the girl's face, scrunched up in thought as her voice trailed in and out of confidence. "You sound just like your father, he's stubborn as a mule as well."

"You know I'm not bluffing then, he never bluffs, he makes promises. He means what he says."

Polly knows what she has to do, but it doesn't make it any easier. She had made countless speeches in her head, and on some quiet evenings had written them down, hoping to find the courage to speak them out loud.

But she couldn't, because the thought of hurting them was a heavy burden, the ache in her heart as she would watch their little faces break down into bitterness, the same thing she saw in every face now. The simple thought of watching their smiles fading as the words escaped made her stomach churn, knowing that they would never have a smile as wide as the last was something she couldn't confront.

She knew it was selfish for her to have kept it so long, until the children were forced to confront her themselves to know something as important as this. Not that it mattered now, the result would be the same heart-wrenching expression and flow of tears, the moment surfacing when she would tell a couple of unknowing children that their family will never be the way it was before.

"Sometimes, the people who love us most lie to protect us. It's something everyone does, and it doesn't make it right or fair... but we do it anyway for a couple more days where the world stays together." Polly sighed, chewing hard on her lip as the two sets of eyes bored into her stature. She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, the deadly silence forcing any coherent string of words out of her mind.

Finn's small voice filled the silence, his voice slow, the silence chipping away at his mind as it allowed him to think. "So, they lied to us?"

"Wouldn't be the first time." Amelia breathed.

Polly pursed her lips at the harsh words, she couldn't lie anymore. She couldn't add another brick to the wall she had forged in a desperate attempt to protect them from the cruel world around them. "You want to do this now?"

The two children nodded, and so Pol reluctantly sat on the side of the bed, silent beckoning the children to join her with the simple tilt of her head. They obeyed quickly, crawling across the bed, each taking half of the woman's side and an arm each that drew them closer.

"They made me promise not to tell either of you before they went. It was as soon as they got the letters, Tommy came and said that you mustn't know, and when I asked why, he said you would worry yourselves sick and get scared and you shouldn't feel that way. But you deserve to know the truth, because where they've gone, the things they'll see..."

Polly stopped to bring the two children impossibly closer, sending them a wobbly smile as her gaze flickered from either child. "Its best if you hear it from me, and I'll tell you now that the promises they said were of kind intentions even if the words weren't true. He said them out of kindness to you, chavi. And perhaps blind hope that if he spoke them like a prayer that they'd come true."

The little girl shook her head, eyes wide and fearful of what was coming. "But they don't work, Aunt Pol. We tried before when Mama got sick, but she just got worse." Amelia's lip quivers and she has to squeeze her hands together to stop them shaking. It never gets easier talking about her.

She takes in a deep breath, hoping that the rooms will not corner her once more. "And if that's God's will, and if he wanted her to suffer the way she did and hurt us along the way, then I don't like God or his ways."

"Lia... she was sick, and there was nothing anyone could have done. God doesn't perform miracles in Small Heath of all places."

"But Dad lies." She set her lips in a firm line, no question in her voice because she knows, she's known from the second the train left the platform. "And he lied again, like he did before with Mama. How she would get better, how we would all be okay. But she never got better and nothing ever became okay."

Finn gaped, eyes glistening as he listened to the words, and Polly's own eyes began to well with some tears- because this wasn't the truth she planned.

Her voice was heavy with guilt. "Lia-"

"I forgave him for the lies then, because... he wanted it to be true so badly. He was hurting, but he lied again. He always lies, and it hurts me too." She begins to cry now, hot tears blistering her cheeks and she can't stop them. "Why- why does it always h-hurt."

The woman shushes her sobs gently, running her hand up and down the children's arms. They don't speak for a while. Not until Amelia's cries are non-existent, her sadness overpowered by the heavy silence they can't escape.

"You have to forgive him, both of you. He loves you, he would never hurt you intentionally. You mustn't hate him, not now. You mustn't resent him for what he's done, we have to pray for their return, or God forbid—"

Polly doesn't have the strength to finish the sentence, but she manages to tell the two of them about where the men have gone and how the promise of return wasn't a promise at all. She fails to mention the brutalities and scars that would surely blemish the men's skin and souls, but that wasn't something two six year olds should ever really know, let alone understand.

But they know something darker now, the meaning of the word and why it was unspoken.

They know what the war meant for them.

***

AMELIA WASN'T SURE whether she could forgive him so easily.

He promised, after all, a day after the passing, that he would never lie again to spare her. But he did, once again, lie. It was as if he couldn't help it, an addictive liar that couldn't help but relapse. A disease had spread inside of him, forcing the words out of him.

She wasn't sure what to think, and she knew it would take a long time to forgive him, even with a heart so warm even after the loss she had suffered.

But she had time, because the war wasn't over yet. Not even close.

***

AMELIA STILL WAITED for the war to end. She waited every day, staring longingly at the clock as it stressed every minute. In spite of learning the truth of what the word meant, she still had faith that her father would never break a promise, even if it was built on the foundations of a lie.

The first Christmas was quite a quiet affair, something the family wasn't used to. The Lees abandoned the war, and perhaps jealousy prevented Polly and Ada finding the heart to welcome a few more bodies into the house. It was a good day, though, and everyone found a reason to smile despite their absence lingering, their places empty as the remaining Shelby's refused to take their places at the table.

The year ended the same way it always did, at the stroke of midnight to welcome the new year of nineteen fifteen. But while the year changed, the situation didn't, and pretending the worst wasn't happening was quite a tricky affair. It was a hard year in terms of family affairs, too, as it was the year she was deserted by the last remnants of her mother.

Her mother's side sent a letter in the month of March.

It was a short letter that Polly read aloud, but it didn't soften the blow, every word another pin pressed into her heart. She could still hear every hesitant word as she bawled into her pillow; how they refused to see her with her ties to the infamous Peaky Blinders, grudgeful towards the family's dark ventures, the danger stitched to them as close as shadows.

The rest of the words didn't matter after that, what was the use in letters and cards without the warm hand that wrote them. The fine paper shivering in her hand would never compare to the rumble of laughter in their chests after reading a poor Italian translation or the comfort of Aunt Kitty's light voice as she spoke of fantastical stories, building the vision of Wonderland or a restful seashore to ease her tenderly into sleep.

She was inconsolable for a short while, the once timid seashore that lulled her into dreams became vicious, an untamed beast- the swathe of sand dwindled until she could see the corners of where the pitiful vision ended, the waves that once rose and fell from the docile pattern of breaths became fickle to its usual peaceful desires, clashing against the scatter of rocks lining the shore. During this time, she found another way to ground herself, to calm the wicked storm- a lighthouse to lure her to sturdy land.

Finn had shifted his bed next to hers on instinct, quick to notice the forlorn expression tighten around the corners of her mouth and a remote glaze well in her eyes. The boy chose to always close in case the waves became unpredictable, scornful towards the briny water that threatened to take her away- refusing to lose anyone else.

He was always the last one to crash his head against the pillow, and would be the one to light a meek candle to ward away the monsters, assuming that they were as afraid of the new dawn bleeding across the horizon as they two of them were.

It wasn't long after March that Polly came to the conclusion that school wasn't the place for Amelia and Finn, the banal reason shifting the blame on the other children speaking too much of the war- the earnest being of the other children speaking of the arrival of the dreaded letter and the devastation that followed.

Polly couldn't bring herself to hear the stories. And when she broke the news, the two feebly questioned why and quickly accepted it. It didn't matter too much, the other children were always craven and fearful around them anyway.

Instead, Polly taught them herself using books as her guide and her native wit to keep the two in check. Amelia prided herself in her work, drowning herself in her studies to distract herself. The same could not be said for Finn, who struggled to read a sentence, preferring to play with wooden guns or pester Amelia into reading the stories to him instead.

By the third year, she grew tired of the waiting and slowly became accepting towards the reality of the situation. There was no telegram forced through the letterbox, there was no solemn man standing at their door, speaking the truth in a gentle tone as if it would somehow hold the world splintering in their hands together for a little longer.

But still, Amelia began to mourn at the ripe age of nine, familiarized with the sadness that lingered on the streets. With a tight heart, she tried her best to remove the hope of him keeping the promise, the odds of the war stacked against them. After all- her father was just a name in the sea of soldiers, a face in the endless chain of congruent soldiers.

At nine, Amelia had lost the tangible memory of both her parents. No figures came to her in dreams, no memories were prominent in her mind. Their faces drowned against the haze of the present, the past became harder to cling onto, real memories became blurred with imitations taking the form of those she once knew clear as day, was now lour and flecked with peril.

She could no longer remember the tender hold of her father. She could no longer remember specific details to his features, the lucid warm blue eyes that were a constant for her dwindled with each candles departing sigh.

She had only just become accustomed to her mother's waning features slipping from her mind, and now, she began to mourn the silhouette of her father, sharing the same guileless markings and melancholy glisten in their eyes.

Sometimes, when the sun barrelled from the sky before she had the chance to grasp that another day was over, her imagination would run wild, painting portraits without the expense of paint or the weight of a brush in her hand. A man with neutral blue eyes would always take lead, standing in the middle of the muddied ground, and she would be forced to watch bullets rip and scathe the air, marring his skin as they scraped against his body. On less fortunate days, the bullets would puncture his body, light peering through, and a horrific scream would thunder the air...

She would try to recoil from those thoughts.

The darker corners of her mind often prevailed in this time, and she had never felt more alone. And with the solitary thoughts came the tide of grief, forcing her to recount the people who were now gone, for one reason or the other.

But the third year did grant the Shelby's one flicker of happiness, when a scrawny stray tabby sat on Polly Gray's doorstep.

The two children had been the first to find it trembling against the cold and briskly brought it inside, showing it to the woman. It didn't take long for the two to practically beg on their hands and knees to keep it, and while she was averse to the idea- concerned as to where it had been and the infestation of worms it would most likely have, she soon came around as Amelia gave her that pitiful look that would make the coldest hearts melt. She was soon to add that they would be the ones to look after it, and the children gladly accepted, needing something to while away the hours.

Ada told the two it was a boy, and the three of them spent the afternoon thinking of names. It didn't take them long to agree on the name Felix, and then the war-torn world continued turning, just a little brighter with the new addition to the household.

By the age of ten, Amelia had learnt many things, and had become acquainted to darker emotions that were present in her blood. She had begun to loathe things, a deep hatred for certain words and people and the things that they would do. She loathed the people who tried to hurt her family, she loathed the way that nobody spoke about the family across the sea, that no one would even mention their name as if they were already dead, corpses buried under ground, making a trip to hell even quicker.

More than anything, Amelia Jurossi loathed war. The war that tore families apart and made children orphans and mothers childless. A war that was never kind or forgiving, the fighting without meaning and the agonizing wait for anything to come through to finally end the misery of waiting, and the longing for nothing to come at all and prolong the minor suffering for a little while longer.

And while the great war ended in one way, in another, it never truly ended, not even when the train returned them home. Not even when Polly Gray held Amelia Jurossi's hand four years later, eyes not as bright as they used to be, anxiously chewing on their lips until they tasted blood- eager to see the men they missed.

The men never returned home, though, not the same men who were sent away. They were boys then, boys that had not seen the horrors of war, the desperate slashing for survival- childhood games re-enacted, pretend guns and imaginary wounds mutated into the hiss of bullets, the smell of smoke laced with blood from bloody gashes.

A part of them had been lost in the festering mud of France, along with the carcasses of those rotting in foreign soil, not the death they had wished for, not the calm embrace of death under their sheets with wrinkles tarnishing their skin.

The war never ended for the Shelby's, and perhaps it never would, and it certainly never ended when they returned home- not even when Tommy Shelby held his daughter's hand for the first time in years, cradling her frail body in his arms. He ignored the way she felt to him, like one of the many bodies of a man he had condemned to death, he simply held her and told himself it was enough, that it would be okay.

Similar thoughts ran through the girl's mind, the familiar person cradling her was that of a man she loved as a child, a man who would always care for her. But the lie felt petulant, and she knew it as soon as she saw him, a distant look clouding his eyes, that the man who returned to her was not the same person she knew before.

That was the last time she believed the lies that were told to her.

That was the first real lesson she learnt about the cruel world that had been shielded from her, the lies and deceit of adults hollow to her now.

That was the day she learnt the world was not an alright place, when the father who promised to return never did.

***

AUTHOR'S NOTE: okay so this chapter took way longer than i expected and wanted it to. to be completely honest, it's been the bane of my bloody existence and i don't think i've ever hated a chapter more, but hey, it's here now!

next up is season one where amelia and tommy are slowly rekindling their cute father-daughter bond, but it's kinda hard when you haven't been around for four years and she's started hating things... oh and there's her cat (which is my best idea yet, not to blow my own trumpet). God I LOVE cats.

thank you all so much for the support on this book already, its very heartwarming and makes me even more excited to continue writing. season one and two are already planned out, so the next chapter should come shortly, but no promises on regular updates because, as you can see, i can't keep my promises (sorry).

remember to vote and comment :)

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