CHAPTER SEVEN.

               FELICITY WASN'T ANGRY: NOT as far as she could tell.

All the woman felt was a forever-growing sense of numbness that was beginning to take over each and every part of her body. She was not angry with her father, she was not angry with Thomas Shelby, and she was surprised to say that she was not even angry with herself.

What she was, though, was disappointed.

Disappointment was, as Felicity Woods found, a hard emotion to shake herself free of and it was one that she wished would just go away as quickly as possible so that she could return to her normal, naive state of being that she preferred much more. She was tired of hoping for the best and wishing, pleading with the universe that everything would turn out alright. She was tired of trying, tired of failing, tired of continually getting her dreams shattered or her hopes tossed away as though they were worth nothing.

The girl woke up on the Saturday morning with one thought on her mind: to get as far away from the Garrison for the day as she possibly could.

Or rather: to hide somewhere that Thomas Shelby would have no chance of finding her, because she was not in the mood for his hostility that would no doubt appear as he childishly placed the blame on her instead of on himself. . .

. . . perhaps Felicity was being too harsh on him, but after the events of Cheltenham Races, she was not in the mood to be any nicer.

So Felicity reluctantly shrugged her arms into a coat and trudged down Watery Lane, snaking through the streets until she came to the door of the Church. The girl curled her fingers around the handle, hoped that no one would be accompanying her, and slipped inside.

Felicity Woods' logic was that Thomas Shelby hardly seemed to be of the religious sort. . . and besides, she noticed how although most men who went to war were most likely religious, many came back with the shared sense that when it came to the early autumn of 1914. She had never seen Thomas Shelby step foot inside the nearby Catholic Church of Small Heath and so that was why she slipped through the thick oaken doors with confidence in the fact that at least she would not have to deal with him for the time being.

The girl remembered the fact that she was supposed to make the sign of a cross when she stepped into the church and so she did so quickly. Felicity walked swiftly through the church in silence, her footsteps echoing off the floor's stone slabs as she did so. As she came towards the front, she slid into the second pew along.

Felicity hardly remembered how to pray and so she wasn't sure what else she could do, so she just allowed her thoughts to run throughout her being. All she wanted to do was sleep, in all fairness, but she knew that if she had stayed at home she would have been even more bored than she was now and so Felicity would have just ended up going to the Garrison. . . to which she was at risk of running into either one of the Shelby brothers.

And so Felicity closed her eyes and hoped - rather than prayed - for the day to pass by quickly.

However, when the door creaked open, Felicity Woods' eyes flew open.

"I didn't expect to see the Woods girl here," a woman's voice mused.

The blonde didn't look up from her clasped-together hands and instead waited for Polly Gray to take a seat before she moved her gaze even a millimetre towards the woman.

Felicity had never spoken to the matriarch of the Shelby family before yet she had seen her and she was very much aware that it was her who had run the family business all while the boys had been away in France during the war. Felicity didn't want to say she was afraid of a woman she had never met but in all honesty, the blonde was even more wary of Thomas' aunt than of the man himself, if that was even possible.

"I didn't expect to find myself here, to be honest," Felicity admitted, although afterwards, she wasn't sure why she had opened her lips at all.

The woman slipped into the pew that sat just in front of Felicity, and she began to murmur her prayers with her eyes shut tight and her hands clasped together in the same way that Felicity's were. . . although the Shelby matriarch had patently come to pray rather than to just escape from slight possibility of a conversation with Thomas.

For just over seven minutes, Felicity sat in silence as the woman prayed and she was quietly hoping that Polly Gray would simply leave the moment she was done - although she knew deep down that she would have no such luck. Moreover, Felicity Woods found herself actually wanting to talk to the woman.

Felicity found herself craving company.

She found herself longing for the company of another woman: a thing she hadn't had since her mother had ran off to London with nothing but a suitcase half full of clothes, leaving behind nothing other than a kiss on Felicity's forehead and a bundle of letters for John Woods. . . which he had later either banished to the depths of a box and thrown into the cut, or he had burnt them so that they resembled nothing more than ashes and forgotten, inked memories.

Polly eventually unclasped her hands and smoothed down her dress with a quick brush of her palms, before rising from the pew and walking in silence towards the front, where candles sat in their short holders.

"So," the woman murmured and for a moment, Felicity assumed she wasn't directing her words at her.

"You're the girl that has caught Thomas' attention," Polly Gray hummed.

It was then that Felicity startled. "Caught it?" She exclaimed with a splutter, "That's not me, Ms Gray, I'm sorry."

The woman frowned. "Call me Polly," she said sharply instead of replying.

"O... okay."

The pair drifted into silence as Polly lit three candles. The flames glowed amber, then a sharp shade of white, until finally settling back to the lightest shade of orange, to which Felicity found her gaze was momentarily captured by.

"Can I ask who you're lighting them for?" Felicity began tentatively.

Polly glanced up at her. "For the boys who never came home," she answered without hesitation, and there was a whisper of sadness at the very end of her words, which was of no surprise to Felicity.

Everyone had lost something in France - whether it be the physical presence of their sons, fathers, or friends. . . or whether it had been the boys who's spirit didn't return with them on the train into Small Heath. Wars broke spirits and those who found a new one. . . well, it just that: new. Felicity wasn't stupid when it came to the war.

"I wish on anything and everything, that that wretched war had never happened," Felicity said quietly, to which she knew was a hopeless thing to say, as such plaintive words could not prevent all of the suffering that had already happened.

Polly only nodded, though.

"You're a pacifist, Felicity?" This was the woman's simple question as she set down the splint on the small plate beside the altar.

Felicity nodded firmly. "If that means I am against anyone losing a loved one for such a horrible cause ever again, then yes."

"And in any other way, do you consider yourself one?"

Felicity refrained from pulling her lips into a frown at these questions. "Well, I'm certainly not going to say I am a keen supporter of violence," she eventually clarified, although her answer was hesitant and unsure.

Polly let her features present a short, sad smile. "If only everything was that simple, Miss Woods."

At this, the girl did scrunch her face up with confusion. "What do you mean?"

The candles caught Felicity's eye again: burning brightly in the short form of amber and gold, glowing and illuminating a small circle around themselves. Short-lived, but representing so much hope, so many wishes, and too many prayers to count. Eventually they would burn out, their embers being their only reminder, and even they would disperse soon enough. Waiting to be lit once again and filled with the hopes and wishes and prayers of another.

"You could ask any one of the boys who returned home from France and they would say that they had fought for their country," Polly murmured, "that was why they had joined up so eagerly, was it not?"

Felicity got the sense that her only reply should be a silent nod, and so that was what she did.

"Yet would they come home saying it was worth it? Would they come home saying that everything was worth it - from seeing their friends breathe their last breath, to later hearing the gunshots with every bang, even after they had gotten off that train back home - because they had fought for the King?"

The blonde shook her head at this.

Polly turned to Felicity. "You could ask any one of them if they would do it again, and you could probably guess what each of their answers would be," she said with her tone grave and yet filled with equal amounts of sadness. "Yet you still see the fights, you still see the blood on the streets."

"They're against war just as much as you are, Felicity Woods," Polly Gray continued, "but they go about their beliefs in different ways."

Felicity was speechless for a minute or two as the words that had just filled the room entered her being and the meaning settled.

"What does that have anything to do with me?" Felicity eventually asked, "What does Thomas have anything to do with me?"

Polly glanced at the girl. "I don't know what he wants," she returned with a sigh, "but you've seen that everything my nephew does is planned. . . or rather, there's a reason behind it. Thomas wants something, Felicity, and from previous experiences, he doesn't stop until he gets it."

The woman escaped the church soon after that, leaving the words to settle in Felicity's head along with all of the confusion that came with them. All the while wishing she had never gotten intertwined with the entire business in the first place.

Wishes are feeble, however, and even Felicity could see that.

AUTHOR'S NOTE
I    SPEED-WROTE    THIS     CHAPTER
BEFORE  A  CLASS  SO  IM   SORRY  IF
THE ENDING  IS  RUSHED !!!   anyway
i've gotta go and try and make zoom
work ugh ,, hopefully another update
is coming tomorrow though <3 i love
you all huge amounts fyi