CHAPTER FORTY ONE.

               FELICITY'D NEVER SEEN SUCH a sight in all of her twenty four years of living. Not once, which surprised her, considering that she had been on the arm of the Shelby's for over a year now and so she would have had to watch a demonstration at some point. Riots were meant to be common, she supposed, but she had never seen one. . . which she blamed utterly on the fact that her childhood had been spent with her not having any insight at all to the family business, leaving her to do nothing but run about the streets with blinkers over her eyes as her childhood innocence had not been matured to let her realise what she was seeing when she caught sight of demonstrations happening around her. Jack had always told her they weren't nothing to worry about and Felicity, like a fool, had believed him, so it had been left at that.

"Lizzie, Felicity — you two stay here," Tommy now instructed the pair, as he moved about the room in a huff, crossing from one side of the room to the other.

The blonde rose, frantic, despite his orders that made it so perfectly clear that he didn't want her involved in this. "What's happening?"

Tommy frowned, debating with himself whether or not he should share it with the girl. Eventually, though, he decided to do so, and so turned to her and to Lizzie. . . although, despite his efforts to distract it, his sights were mainly focused on the blonde.

"The lads at the factory started a riot," he explained hurriedly. "And our boys decided to help them, even with Arthur yelling like a mad man behind them. So me and John have to go down there and stop both them from making it worse, and him from killing a man."

The two girls glanced at one another — the eldest Shelby brother's anger being a force to be reckoned with wasn't a secret. Everyone in the city was perfectly aware of what he was capable of once he got riled up enough, and so they either went out of their way to keep it from bubbling over the top, or went ahead and prodded him until it did so.

"Stay here, guard the shop," Tommy demanded once more, interrupting her thoughts. He left them no time to argue as he took to the streets behind his brothers, grumbling as he did so.

"I truly think I could stop that riot quicker than any of them could," Lizzie declared to the room. . . or rather, to just Felicity, as it was only her that remained.

She bit her lip, amused and eager to see where the Stark girl was about to go with this. "You sound cocky," she commented with a soft laugh. "Why?"

Lizzie shrugged. "It'd be easy, I reckon."

Felicity edged her to continue. "How so?"

"Why, it would be!" She kept reinforcing. "I'd just flash 'em my tits and they'd be too busy ogling to be actually rioting."

The other girl choked as laughter overcame her. "Lizzie!"

"It's true! They'd be far too occupied to actually remember just what they had gotten all angry about, you see. Foolproof plan, I think, and no one gets hurt. . . unless one of them gets handy or something. I guess I'd have to dash once I did so." Lizzie faked remorse, still reviling in her friend's amusement.

"I shouldn't think you'd get out of there without being arrested," Felicity hummed.

"Not me, I won't," Lizzie affirmed confidently. "Mainly because I reckon that I've fucked every pig there is."

Felicity faux—gagged. "It'd make me sick, I tell you. They're awful down there. I don't know how you stand it."

Lizzie shrugged. "Job's a job."

"Yeah, but. . ." She didn't know what to say, in all fairness. It seemed awfully insensitive to her to keep prying.

"It isn't half bad, you know," Lizzie said, reassuring her. "And I've started a typewriting course. . . not that I have a typewriter. The lady next to me said she'd give me her son's old one for a penny and a half, but I think she's forgotten. Or can't part with it. I get that. I'm too afraid to push her for it if it is that, see."

They spoke for a little while longer, with Lizzie saying that she thought she'd be able to get a job as a secretary or something if she kept at the course, and Felicity agreed with her, assuring her that she was most definitely good enough and would beat any fool to the job. And, while betrayal can't really be compared to the service that Lizzie provided, Felicity figured that there was some strange sort of comparison in there: she hadn't been able to leave a deal for reasons involving keeping her fiancé alive, and Lizzie couldn't leave her obligations as it was the one work that gave her enough money to keep herself afloat.

"You're shivering, look at you!" Lizzie commented after a while, switching the conversation to a new one with ease.

Felicity glanced down at her arms, where goosebumps had sprung up. "Not much," she defended. "I'm always cold — I can't complain. Just a chill."

"Grab a coat," Lizzie instructed her kindly, and continued immediately once she saw Felicity begin to feebly protest. "It's far too cold for you to be in this room wearing nothing but a dress — not that the horny gits would be complaining. Just nick one: they can't be back for a good hour or so, and I doubt they'd notice it gone anyway."

"You really think so?" She didn't want to do such a thing without asking, but Lizzie was adamant.

"They won't notice," she assured her once more, crossing towards the door where the items were hooked across, and swinging one off from its hook. "Here, take it. If they've left without it then I can't say they're going to need it when they get back."

Felicity frowned, still dubious over it all, but did indeed take the coat from Lizzie's outstretched arm. It was far too big for her and once she had wriggled into it, the sleeves draped past her fingertips and the bulky material might as well have drowned her.

The other woman laughed. "Suits you!"

"I look like a right old idiot," Felicity disagreed, but she too laughed as she tried to adjust it on her frame. . . before promptly giving up once she realised there was no hope in doing such a thing.

"You look fine," Lizzie countered, and took to shrugging on her own — much more fitted, at that — coat. "Now, I've got to be out for a short while. You think you can hold down the shop on your own?"

There shouldn't have been hostility in that sentence, but Felicity managed to imagine that there was some anyway. Deep down, she reckoned that some people of Shelby Company Limited were still wary of the blonde girl — Lizzie included? She didn't know — and Felicity sighed, figuring that they had every right to be.

Instead of dwelling on it too much, though, she simply nodded. "Yeah," she affirmed. "How hard can it be, if a group of men can do it? I'll manage perfectly."

"Better, I'll say," Lizzie laughed, closing her hand around the door's handle and opening it to show the streets of Small Heath on a Tuesday morning. "I'll come by later, yeah?"

Felicity nodded once more, smiling nicely, and so the brunette left her to tend to the shop and to her own devices.

She returned to her desk, sat down with a thump on the rickety wooden chair and glanced at the books in front of her, unwilling to hold in her exhausted sigh for once. John had dropped a whole new stack before her earlier that morning — although he at least had the decency to look apologetic as he did so — and she had yet to even attempt to tackle them yet. Scrawling numbers upon numbers in graphs and tables and torn pages hardly seemed like a good way to do anything other than force herself to slumber — she had been close to doing so far too many times, but had always managed to catch herself before she actually did fall into the dangerous land of hopes and dreams, where anything was possible, and anything just so happened to have the power and opportunity to present itself to her vulnerable state.

She most definitely had not meant to fall asleep, but that was exactly what happened. With her blonde locks overlapping one another and crashing over the desk, Felicity slept, peaceful and unaware of everything and everyone around her. It was far too typical of her — the one thing that she was trying to avoid, ended up occurring. It was foul. . . not that Felicity, with her now calmer breathing and soft sleepy mumbles, would agree, in all of the depths of her slumber.

An hour passed, and the clock's hands were creeping dangerously close to making that two hours when the door to the betting shop opened once more. Tommy Shelby stood in its doorway for a mere split second as he didn't take in his surroundings, simply moving over towards his office and hurriedly going through his drawers in silence. So quiet, in fact, that it didn't even stir the girl before him, who remained asleep and oblivious to the fact that he had entered.

He, however, caught sight of her not soon after. Curled up in what looked to be an uncomfortable office chair in the corner of the shop, with a heavy coat draped across her and golden curls splayed across its material, it took him a minute to realise that this was Felicity before him, and all of the religion in the world could not have mustered up a proper angel before him. Not that there seemed to b much of a difference, he found himself thinking.

Everything that had had happened had seemed to evaporate itself from his mind as his gaze fell on Felicity Woods. . . no, Shelby, she was a Shelby now, as he had to keep reminding himself. As she had proven time and time again, but he still found it hard to believe.

"Tommy?"

Her soft voice broke him from his thoughts sharply, interrupting him so that he might have to face the girl before him and not remain in the past.

"What are you. . . what are you doing here?" She stumbled out, wriggling so that she was upright in her chair, forgetting for a split second that she had the bulky coat upon her.

Tommy cleared his throat. "John, er, got it under control," he said lowly. "Or rather, he got Arthur under control. Our boys got distracted beforehand."

Felicity laughed. "That easy, eh?"

"Yeah. . ." He rubbed the back of his neck before nodding to her. "Slept well, I'm guessing?"

It was her turn to look sheepish now. "I didn't mean to, promise."

Tommy allowed a ghost smile to show itself. "I'm not angry, if that's what you're thinking," he reassured her. "It was just a sight to see, that's all."

"How so?" She winced at how defensive she was already coming across.

"I came in to you curled up with me coat over you, not knowing anything that was going on outside," he explained, almost fondly.

"Your coat?" Felicity almost yelped. "Jesus, Tommy, I didn't know. I'm sorry."

"Don't be!" He laughed. "The coat's far too big on you, but you looked pretty as anything."

Hostilities had been dispersing for a little while now, but they ran from their grasps now. Felicity had watched him stay, watched him leave, watched him stay a good distance from her so that he might not get hurt again. . . but neither time had she watched him fall. And neither time had he watched her do the same — the pair were utterly oblivious to one another, which was an insult to his intelligence and to her pride, not that it mattered as of now. They'd fallen, slowly this time, but fallen just the same.

"Never thought I'd say anything remotely nice to you ever again, to be fair," he admitted after a long while, his voice dropping to barely a whisper.

"Never thought I'd hear it," she agreed.

Both of their voices contained all of the whispers of sadness and longing that there was to show. . . but also held ridiculous new amounts of hope, hope that had only started to show its face a short while ago. Both desperate to get back to the way things were; both anxious to be free to love one another the way they had; both longing to forget everything.

"I was angry, Lis," Tommy murmured.

She bobbed her head in a nod. "I'd judge you if you weren't."

"Far, far, far too angry to make any rational decisions," he continued.

"I never blamed you," Felicity assured him gently. "I couldn't ever, ever blame you. Not after everything. . . after what I did. You had every right to be angry."

"I didn't want to be that way, though. Not really. Not ever."

Tommy's running off instinct, Polly had told her.

So she took a deep breath, gave herself no time to rationalise with herself, and ran off hers.

After a count of three, Felicity Woods rose, met his gaze with her own, and kissed him. All of their longing flooded through into the other as love took its hold and his hands found their way up, taking her face in them ever so gently as neither stepped away.

AUTHOR'S NOTE!

i was determined to get this out for y'all... i'm writing this in the car right now though so it might not be great? who knows, i'll decide later

i don't want this book to end, if i'm honest! i'm far far far too attached to tommy and felicity to let them go. . .

anyway — thank you all for reading! i love you all huge amounts <3