CHAPTER FORTY SIX.

               FELICITY HAD NEVER INTENDED to be the one with all of the power within her grasp: it simply was not in her to think in such a way, but hey, that was how she found herself to be one morning. With her breath rattling, her hands shaking and her heart thumping oh—so loudly within her chest, she stared down at the man before her. Her vision was obscured by blurry, fast—falling tears as she stood there, trying not to let every single emotion overthrow her rationality as she took the pistol from the other's grasp. One bullet was all she needed.

They say your life flashes before your eyes as you come close to death: that all of the adrenaline and. . . fear? She supposed it was fear that would then take hold of you and cause you to remember every single memory in a blinking, bright flash of the past. Felicity Shelby hadn't found that in the few times she'd caught a bullet speeding towards her, but now she did. It was ironic, really — she wasn't in any danger, not now, not anymore. Rather, she was supposed to take a life. How was that? How was it that she suddenly felt the flood of memories the minute she was to end another's? It didn't feel right.

But we haven't got onto that part of the story yet.

Two days prior, Thomas Shelby had taken to confiding in the woman — pride taken in his hands with a little bit more than a struggle, he had eventually told her of her father, of his visit, of everything. . . or, as much as Tommy thought was actually relevant.

So, with that secret off from his shoulders, the couple could return to their lives as normally as one could when they were constantly intertwined with the Peaky Blinders.

Yet neither stopped thinking of the man in the hospital, not that they initially admitted such a thing to one another.

"I think it's daft, really," Felicity commented now, as she sat in the corner of a booth in the Garrison, with her husband taking the chair opposite her as he idly read a newspaper and flicked through the news of the city that he reigned. The pub was empty — suspiciously so — with all of the usual drinkers gone from their usual place at the bar, leaving a silence that only Felicity and Tommy were there to fill.

The man glanced up. "What is?"

Felicity shrugged, her pencil turning circles on the page before her as she drew lazily. "All of this," she affirmed, and before Tommy could echo her words in that bemused way that he so often did — a way that bothered her to no degree, not that she would remember her annoyance after half a minute anyway —, she opened her mouth so to cut off any interruptions. "All of these troubles, I mean. And don't look at me like I'm being vague, Tom, you know I hate it."

"I wasn't doing anything of the sort," regarded Tommy, turning back to the newspaper as he suppressed a smile and awaited for what the woman had to say further.

"All I was saying was that it's silly," Felicity continued. "You men and your power struggles. Why, just last week some bloke threatens to blow out another's brains with a bullet and then two hours later you find 'im at the pub, too wasted to even remember the threat he made. You're all idiotic, I'll say."

Tommy raised an eyebrow. "All of us?"

"Yes, all of you," she returned matter—of—factly.

"Hm." Was all Tommy had to say to that.

Felicity let out her own sigh of bemusement. "What, did you think you'd be let off just because we're married?"

"No."

She smiled. "Good."

"I was, however, hoping I'd be let off 'cause we were fucking."

"Tommy!"

Felicity sat up indignantly, flushed beetroot red despite the fact that no one else could have possibly heard his vulgarity nor seen her immediate embarrassment, and went to hit his knee with the back of her notebook. Yet he caught it before she could do so and instead pulled her in so to kiss her pretty peony lips, silencing her for just a moment that felt like forever.

Oh, how she wished it was forever.

Forever.

"I need me fucking closure," Felicity whispered in horror against his mouth, startling both him and her as she sat back, heart thumping.

Tommy didn't say a word.

Felicity stood up, still shaken at the realisation, but set so determinedly on this that it almost scared her. "I need to go."

Without a word, Felicity turned towards the door, pulled her coat on and then faced Tommy once again, where he was watching her from his chair, trying to guess what she would say before she actually said it. He hasn't ever seen his wife so quietly, furiously determined in a long while, with her hazel eyes finally resembling her father's as a storm clouded them and her pretty little jaw set grimly.

"Alone?" He spoke after a moment.

Felicity blinked hard, his monotone word cutting through her quiet, angry haze. "Hm?"

Tommy nodded his head towards both her and the door. "Are you going alone?"

"No." She spoke with no hesitation, no pause to think. . . initially, anyway.

The man remained silent as she stood there, fumbling with her fingers as words formed in her throat and then just as quickly disappeared.

"Can't you. . . could, could you come. . .?"

He was already up and out of the chair before she'd finished posing the question. With the smallest of solemn nods, Tommy held open the door and waited for the blonde to duck under his arm before following her — for once, it was Felicity leading the way to commit dastardly deeds rather than him, and as much as Tommy wished to keep her from that side of things as much as he could (ironic, really, considering both had already been immersed in it so much with no chance to oppose it), the man was coming to realise that whatever Felicity needed to do in order gain closure today, he must let her carry it out.

Although, a significantly large part of him prayed that she might back out in the final moment — too afraid to go ahead with it, or simply not willing to — so that he might do it. Let her heart and soul go untainted and unshadowed by the guilt , even if it meant ruining his own.

So the couple left, Felicity Woods at the head, with her husband close by her side. One couple to quietly walk and rule the streets of Birmingham, holding more power in their interwoven hands than any one of them might have initially thought.

⎯

               "Mr. Shelby, you can't. . ." The nurse objected as Felicity and Tommy breezed through the hospital doors and made their way down the corridor without a single word to the nurse receptionist behind the desk, who was beginning to rise hurriedly as she noticed the pair were not, in fact, stopping at her feeble words.

"We'll only be a minute or so, nurse," Tommy assured her, not stopped his brisk walk as he did so.

"No, you really can't—"

Anxiety had already begun to rule over the blonde who walked besides the gangster, and it only grew in towering waves as the nurse's calls became shaky and even more persistent.

"Maybe we should just leave it, Tom," she began.

The breath caught in Tommy's throat. "What?"

"Maybe we should leave it."

At this, the man stopped dead in his tracks, forcing Felicity to stop as well. Not a sound resonated between them as he fought to figure out what he should say to that, and empty—voiced noises choked in the back of his throat before he finally opened his mouth to speak properly.

"Is that what you want?"

Felicity paused. No, no it wasn't what she wanted. She wanted closure, once and for all, but what she did not want was to cause a nuisance for the nurse all because she was having doubts that led to the couple remaining in the one hospital where anything might happen as a result of Thomas Shelby's rage towards the Woods patriarch.

"No."

"Then what's the issue?"

The woman turned her head back the way they came, back towards the nurse who stood at the desk, the telephone in her hand as she stared at the couple. It was in this moment that Felicity realised just how vulnerable her father was in this place — under the care of these women, not in his area of jurisdiction, quite possibly at the mercy of whoever walked through those doors. And it reminded her just her how vulnerable she was in all the moments he had come for her: from stepping out of the Shelby household initially, to the wedding, to just how at his mercy she was when he fucked with the Shelby business and broke the marriage apart. . . hell, you might even link it back to how little she was as a child, although she didn't wish to think of that now. She was a different person compared to who she was then. . . even to who she was one and a half years ago.

Felicity shook her head, pushed her shoulders back, and faced Tommy once more. "There's no issue. Let's go."

Tommy smiled, although it was grim, and he caught Felicity's hand before she could continue down the corridor. "You!" He called down to the nurse, his voice booming.

Ever so fearful, like a deer caught in a car's headlights, the nurse met his eyes, but didn't drop the phone. Not yet.

"Put that fucking telephone down," Tommy ordered.

At this, she did so, not a murmur of complaint uttered.

"And if you hear anything out of the ordinary, anything at all," he continued. "Stay at that desk. We'll find you if we need anything."

The nurse nodded.

And so the two were free to go on their way.

John Woods barely batted an eyelid when the door opened and Thomas and Felicity Shelby walked in, but what he did do was release a low chuckle as he watched his daughter near him, her arm looped lightly through her husband's as she fixed John with a stare that said one hundred and one things, or none at all.

"And what do I owe the pleasure?" John asked, turning away from the window.

"You don't."

Felicity's father raised an eyebrow. "Now, is that really a way for you to speak to family?"

"We aren't family."

The man tutted. "Ah, well," he returned. "I can't expect the world to fall at my feet when all I've done is shoot fuckin' brass bullets at it, can I?"

Felicity held his glare, trying so desperately to not let a glimpse of emotion show through, although her heart was going a thousand miles a minute and it was taking all of her willpower to not let her mind flash back to the thought of that dreadful. . . no, those dreadful occurrences. Twice it had happened, of course, and so this meant she must battle off two rounds of memories, two rounds of deja vu as the thought of the little, too—shiny bullets sped towards her on both occasions.

"So, what can I do for you?" John Woods asked, glancing at his daughter with an amused expression on his features: his eyebrow still cocked, eyes locked onto her piercingly as he attempted to read whatever it was she was thinking, the left corner of his sickening mouth twisted upwards. It was more than enough to make the girl feel sick to her stomach.

She blinked, hard, and shook herself out of her silence. "Pardon?"

"What can I do for you?" The man repeated, his tone dropping as though he was speaking to someone he perceived to be significantly less intelligent than he.

Tommy had been silent besides his wife for the entirety of this short conversation but at this, he turned to her. With one arm, he steered her a step away from her father's side and angled it so the malicious man might not read the words that were to come from his lips. . . not that Thomas Shelby had ever been one for subtlety whenever an enraged, crimson haze clouded his vision.

"He shouldn't have a tongue in his bloody mouth from speaking to you how he does," he said lowly, his anger thick enough to dent a knife.

Felicity hushed him, although his instinct to protect made her heart burst. "We'll leave soon, I promise."

As his jaw muscles clenched, signalling how his ill temper towards the man before them was growing, she urged him to give her another moment without him doing anything quickly, and it was at this that an outbreak of mocking laughter came from John Woods, who had been watching them like a malignant hawk with eyes as sharp as a saw as the husband and wife had been conversing.

"Letting the slag tell you what to do?" He exclaimed, eyes widening tauntingly. "That wasn't what I was expecting regarding Birmingham's Tommy Shelby and 'is missus, I'll tell you."

The cruel words hurt and with them came a shard of Felicity façade of an icy exterior that shattered and pierced her heart. "You never did like it when a woman had her own mind, did you, Da?"

"Your mother never had her own mind, though," John countered, quick with a biting retaliation. "She only spat out what others told her and then got pissy when the world wasn't as high and mighty as her expectations were."

Hot rage burned through her veins as the words hit her, and the girl who once declared herself a pacifist to Polly Gray found herself wanting nothing more but to see the life ebb from this unrelenting man's eyes, to put a finalised stop to his draconian, vile ways of getting whatever it was that he wanted. "Don't you speak on—"

Tommy stuck his arm out in front of her figure just in them to prevent her from lunging at the other, her eyes smouldering as she fought to strike the man who dared to speak ill of her mother. And in the same quick instance as he held her back, the gangster whipped a pistol out from the pocket of his overcoat and aimed it at the Woods patriarch, challenging him to defy both him and the weapon pointed at his chest.

"I should've fucking done this long ago," he spat brusquely. "I could've, I had the chance."

His arm didn't shake as the gun remained fixed on John Woods — he'd done this enough times for it not to. France. Birmingham. A thousand miles apart, resident of two different Thomas Shelby's, although at this moment, at most moments, his cruel, unwavering ability to kill linked the two men together. Although, now he did it to keep the blonde woman he could call his wife safe. Then, it had been to keep himself safe, to get back from those mud—filled trenches, away from the never—ending landscape of blood and destruction.

"Tommy, don't!"

Tommy snapped his neck towards Felicity. "What?"

"I—" Her breath caught in her throat, blocking off all means of the stuff to get out so that she had to gasp and swallow, hard, until she was able to choke out the words. "Let me."

Tommy stared at her, the meaning sinking in, although he wasn't quite ready to actually let it go ahead.

"Please."

When he didn't move, yet again, Felicity reached over and pried the pistol from his fingertips, taking it in her own. Except, in contrast to her husband, her arm shook, trembling as she fought to keep it trained at John Woods' heart. And, to give him his due, John held her gaze. Perhaps to put her off. Perhaps to simply watch as her daughter tried to will herself into curling her little index finger around the trigger and releasing the brass bullet so that it could spin towards him. Perhaps simply so that their hazel eyes could meet once more: their one similarity.

"You deserve this," Felicity uttered thickly.

"So do the both of you and the family you married into," was his dulled reply. "We all do, the fuckin' horrors we caused. And the Shelby's aren't any better than the Woods', I can promise you."

"I never said they were," she bit back. "Not in your sense, anyway, of blood and guns and destruction. No, you're both the same—" she did not dare look at Tommy as she said such words, fearing he would take them the opposite way to how she meant them. "— but at least they don't break hearts into little pieces without a bloody care in the world! At least they don't let their daughters run off in the night because they're so fucking ashamed and scared of the bangs and shouts that rocket off their walls, or scorn their children and trick them into life—ending, crushing, twisted deals. At least they're not a fucking liar, not like you are."

A huff of bemusement blew out from John's mouth. "Well, aren't you bitter?"

"I've got every fucking right to be," Felicity countered hotly.

"I'll give you that." He tilted his head to the side, regarding both her and the gun that still shook in her hand. "Now, are you all words? Empty threats, cold promises? Or do you actually know how to fire a fuckin' gun, princess?"

A shot sounded out at that as Felicity's raging emotions bubbled over bursting point, and a yelp followed it. . . her own, as she shut her eyes instinctively the minute that her finger had rapidly pulled hard on the trigger.

Laughter erupted from John Woods' lips. "You're no daughter of mine," he said with a chuckle that bordered on one of hysteria. "Shoot in a straight line next time, love. Don't miss again. . . not like your old man did when trying to kill you at that cursed wedding of yours."

All of the memories, all of the thoughts she had been trying so fucking hard to suppress and keep from flooding her came back and she choked on air and fumbled with the gun, passing it to Tommy as hot and heavy tears fell down her cheeks.

"I can't do it," Felicity stumbled on her words. "Please, Tom. Please."

Tommy took it without a word.

He would do anything for her without a word of complaint — he knew that, she knew that, even the man who once again stared down the end of the gun's barrel knew that. He'd kill a thousand and one men with his own hands just to keep her safe, to keep harm from falling in her way, to protect her from the horrors of the world that she had been a part of for far too long a time. And that was why it was he who reached down, took Felicity's hand in his own and held the gun in the other. He who pulled the trigger, he who let that bullet go spiralling out, and he who pulled his wife out of the way by their interwoven hands so not to get splattered by even the tiniest droplet of blood. Felicity would not get stained crimson ever again, not if he had anything to do with it, not if he was there to pull her from harm's way.

And then Thomas Shelby dropped the gun on the side table next to the hospital bed, and the couple made their way out of the room, out of the building.

Together.

AUTHOR'S NOTE!

and that's the end! there is still an epilogue to come so expect that soon, but it's only a little add on. . . this chapter was the end of golden liar in terms of proper chapters and i'm actually super sad about that because it's taken me nearly two years to finish this :')

thank you so so so much for reading and commenting and bullying tommy, i love you all enormous amounts!

love you all!!!