CHAPTER 26

IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER

❝ If you love something set it free.

If it returns, burrows into your ribs, devours your heart 

and becomes your new heart, 

it was meant to be. ❞

Winson Green Prison

Rose paced back and forth outside the gritty-grey prison, her red-sharp nails digging into her coat sleeves as the cold breath of winter wrapped around her neck as if she had a rope on it herself. Her chest was ripe with guilt: from everything that happened since the Saurets entered her life, from all the death and destruction it had caused, from the fact Thomas' family was facing the end of the rope earlier than they should because of her.

In front of her, Thomas was terrifically calm. He was calm even when his shaggy-looking brothers and cousin came tumbling from the prison's gates. She stood back to give them space, allowing mild relief to flood her veins and warm her against the biting wind. At least they'd manage to save them in time. She could not bear the thought of Thomas losing a family member the way she had. Even if she didn't know them, she would do anything to never hear him whisper 'in the bleak midwinter' again.

She saw Michael first, not missing the way his jaw was set, the flickers of anger in his eyes that if lit the right way could lead to a fire in Thomas' future.

Then the oldest one, Arthur, clung to Thomas' collar like a stray dog to the first person that gives them attention, fat tears welling in his bloodshot eyes. Beside him, Johnny shouted at an impassive Thomas, enraged spit flying out of his mouth in a torrent of curses, his neck strained with popping veins.

They were a home broken apart from the inside out; a family portrait that no longer had a frame to hold it together, to keep it standing. Rose's heart ached; she could do nothing but stare at it from afar.

At last they noticed Rose. She snuggled her burgundy scarf against her neck and stepped forward. The sky in Birmingham was tinted a permanent old grey; a blur of misty fog and smoke whisps that prickled Rose's eyes, but she did not let herself show how much this city bothered her when she stopped in front of them.

"And who is this pretty flower, aye?" Arthur asked, eyeing her up and down as a smirking Johnny whistled beside him. Their anger towards Tommy seemed to subside, morph into something else. "Such a sight for my sore eyes."

"Seems like you've changed, eh, Tommy?" Johnny said, hands shoved deep into his pockets. "You never brought your whores to family business before."

Rose chuckled. It was sharp and shrill and burnt more than ice on skin.

"You're right, I'm a Rose." She fished a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, flicking the case open and offering it to the Shelbys. Two eager hands darted for it, and once Thomas' brothers had shoved the cigarettes into their greedy mouths she moved the pack to Michael, holding his gelid, blank stare. Finally, slowly, he took one cigarette out, leaving it loose on his fingers. Rose flicked the case close. "And if I'm a whore, it's only because I tend to fuck with people's lives."

Arthur let out a hearty laugh. It came out rough and hoarse, as if he hadn't laughed in a long time, as if his voice had barely been used at all.

"I like this one, eh, Tommy? Keep her around, will ya?"

"That's what I intend to do, yes," Thomas said, curt and poignant, like always. Like the way he had cracked Rose's ribs to get to her wounded heart. "And if you call her whore once more I'll throw you back inside those gates with no thoughts of ever getting you out."

Biting hard on her lip to hide a smile, Rose watched as Arthur and Johnny shared a panicked, almost comical look. Michael just narrowed his eyes, tilting his head as if to look at Rose in a different light. Rose wondered if Thomas was aware – that he might have a wolf lurking around that hid his true skin by behaving as a docile sheep.

A step away from her, Johnny kept staring at her mouth, licking his own lips as if that would give him a taste.

"I wouldn't try if I were you." Rose's voice had a seducing, dangerous lilt to it, like a siren crooning men away, luring them into their sweet demise. "With me, a kiss is always two letters away from kill."

With a jerk of his head, Arthur choked on his cigarette. Johnny coughed, smoke billowing from his blown nostrils. Michael simply chuckled, dry and condescending.

"A fookin' French Kisser?" Arthur's eyes widened, the white making him look even paler. His hair was a messy nest, disheveled and dirty, his moustache ungroomed. "Tommy, what have you gotten yourself into?"

Thomas brushed his nose, the way he always did to hide a smile. He was looking at Rose when he said, "I ask myself the same thing."

"There's a man inside who's also a Kisser," Johnny said, gesturing towards the prison. He was now looking at everywhere but Rose, his fingers shaking slightly. It made Rose feel good knowing the Kissers were spoken of and feared even in prisons; after all, they'd put many of the men there themselves. "Good lad, good lad. Had a weird accent, alright, but some funny stories about France."

Rose's heart stung. Did Nicolas look as dead and done as they did? She promised him she would get him out but she still hadn't found a way to do it. She knew how Thomas had gotten the Shelbys out, but that was his family. He wouldn't do the same for Nicolas, and she didn't dare ask. He'd already helped her enough, and she didn't want to make her debt to him any bigger. Plus, Nicolas wouldn't like being indebted to him either.

"And a common dislike towards Thomas, which we happened to share," Michael spoke for the first time. His voice chilled Rose's bones, set her on alert; she'd have to be careful with this one. There was an edge to him that set him apart from the others, who barked but never bit. Not like Michael, who seemed to be all bite and no bark. "Arthur, Johnny, why won't you go ahead? I have something to say to Thomas."

"Alright, alright, just don't kill him, yeah? Leave that to yar mother!" Arthur chirped, smacking him hard on the back. Then he stumbled towards Rose, but Thomas caught him before he could get too close, keeping him firmly in place. "Hope to see you again, eh? Pretty flower."

Rose smiled, gently; Thomas shoved him away, harshly. Johnny trotted behind him, but not before snatching the cigarette pack from Rose's hand and throwing her a wink.

Only when they were out of sight did Michael speak again, face solemn.

"A few weeks ago, a Scottish man paid me a visit." This came as no surprise to them; Rose had suspected Tavish would try to turn Thomas' own family against him. Luckily, he'd failed. She hoped Thomas would remember that in the future. "He wanted me to join him. To spill all your secrets and betray you."

"But you didn't betray me."

"I didn't. Not even when he said you had something that could take us all out of jail, that the only reason you hadn't used it yet was because it was better for you if we stayed here. He called us your fookin' dogs. Dogs on your leash, at your fookin' mercy."

"Where are you going with this, Michael?"

"I'm assuming you only used those documents now to save us from the rope. If you expect me to be grateful, I won't be. For all you care, we could've rotten in jail for the rest of our lives. I won't forget."

His words were definite, heavy – like a judge's hammer, like the scythe of a hangman, cutting something permanent between them. When he walked away, shadows of a different kind of evil clawed at his shoulders.

For a moment, Rose and Thomas stared at each other, and there was something fragile between them, as if they could both sense the imminent danger but not exactly where it came from.

"So... should we go now?" She asked at last, clutching her red purse close to her chest. It was the one Thomas had given her in what felt like lifetimes ago. She didn't know exactly when she started using it, just that like with so many other things, Thomas Shelby had managed to sneak into her life uninvited, outstaying his welcome and with no intentions of leaving anytime soon. And it scared her that she didn't want that either, that she kept craving danger when all she needed was peace.

"No, there's one more person we're waiting for." Thomas's fingers twitched, as if craving an invisible cigarette, as if he too needed to shield himself from danger. Whose danger?, she thought. Me? Yourself? Which was a crazy idea, to think Thomas fucking Shelby needed protecting, that he could feel just as vulnerable as her just by looking into her eyes.

Then the prison gates opened and Nicolas strolled out, heavy bags under his eyes but shoulders squared, his pose regal, a glint of fire in his familiar eyes.

"What..." Rose gasped, lungs clenching in time with her stomach as the realization hit her. For a second she couldn't move, rooted to the ground by overwhelming relief and fear, and then she was running towards him, letting herself fall into his arms, always opened for her. He hugged her like he'd never held anything as precious in his arms before, like a slightly less tight grip on her could make her go away. In that moment she realized she was just as much an anchor for him as he was for her, that they kept each other in place.

And then she looked at Thomas over Nicolas' shoulder and realized he was the opposite, that Thomas took her gravity away. She felt the ground slip from under her when his fingers clasped the peak of his cap – this is what the great Thomas Shelby was afraid of, that by freeing Nicolas he'd lose Rose.

He had no idea he had just gained her so much more.

"Nic, I don't..." She gulped, lowered her voice, took his face in her hands, searched every inch of his face for injuries. Apart from a cut in his eyebrow and a bruise along his jaw he seemed fine. But Nicolas always seemed fine, especially when he was not. "I'm sorry I couldn't take you out."

His gaze sharpened, and he covered her hands with his, warm as the French sun. They both knew what this meant. Thomas never did anything out of pure kindness, not even for Rose – he'd done this to have Nicolas' life in his hands, so he could use him as he wished.

And like the good soldier he was, Nicolas played the part, though the dangerous edge never left his gaze as he stepped away from Rose and stretched a hand out to Thomas.

"I owe you my life."

Thomas took his hand, and in that brief, tense shake Rose couldn't discern who held the power.

"You don't. I respect a man who will do anything for what he believes. And anyone that does what you did for Rose has my respect." His stare shifted to Rose, cerulean and pristine, the only part of him that was somehow still innocent. "Besides, you're more useful to Rose by her side than inside that prison. We might not see eye to eye, but I feel more assured knowing you're with her, protecting her when I can't."

Rose gritted her teeth. "I don't need—"

"Protecting, I know." Thomas pursed his lips; his stare was a reversed ocean, placid at the surface, in turmoil deep within. "We all do, Rose. Even me."

You save me. I save you. It had always been like that with them, and it would always be.

"You got what you wanted, in the end." The corner of Nicolas' lips curled up, in that smile that was as sharp and lethal as a blade between the ribs. "Your family out of prison, an OBE."

Rose snapped her head to Thomas, desperately trying to ignore how her heart ached when she found him already staring at her.

"You're really moving into politics?"

Thomas put his cap back on. It carved shadows into his face, as pretty and deceptive as the night without stars. "It's the only way up."

Nicolas snickered, but Rose knew him well. There was a hint of admiration hidden behind, something he'd never admit to. "They'll never respect you."

"I don't need them to respect me." The blue in his eyes darkening, Thomas flicked his lighter open, the lonesome flame casting a play of shadow and light over his chiseled features, his long coat flapping in the mild wind behind him. "It's better if they fear me."

He risked one last glance at Rose, as if asking her to challenge her, or to follow her. She stayed still, because no matter what she had achieved, women had no voice in politics, and she was French and could never possibly mingle in British affairs like that. This was something he had to do alone.

So he walked away, a lonely, jagged silhouette against the fog, straight out of a painting. He left both Rose and Nicolas staring at him until he disappeared around the corner. Thomas never looked back, though he always left the possibility that he might. Or maybe that was just Rose and her foolish hope towards a man that was both blessing and curse.

When he was gone she sighed, looking back at Nicolas. He too was already staring at her, but her heart didn't ache this time. "How harsh was it inside?"

"Not the worst thing I've gone through. I met the Shelbys, all a crazy bunch. I think Thomas might actually be the sanest of all."

Rose fought back a smile. "Hard to imagine. Nicolas—"

"Don't say it, Rose." His voice was firm but his eyes pleading. "Don't apologize, don't take this as your fault. Don't undermine what I did. I chose to do this for you, and you know I would do it again. Don't take that away from me, it's the only thing I still have of you."

"Nicolas..." Her voice was a breath of despair, an invisible cloud in the fog. Maybe if she spoke low enough he wouldn't hear the heartbreak in her voice. Maybe she'd spare both their hearts, or maybe she'd just break them further. She grabbed his arm but didn't dare reach for his hand.

"It's okay, Rose." His hand reached for a loose curl in her forehead, braver than she was. He tucked it behind her ear, gentle as he did with the lilies when they were children. "I've always loved you, but I've loved you in the shadows. And you need someone... someone who loves you openly, in the sun, for they don't care about the possible burn. And Thomas doesn't care. He loves you like he has nothing to hide. And I love you like I have too much."

Rose drew in a breath, as if he'd punched her, or taken her heart out, an ugly void left in its wake.

"Does he?" She tilted her head, hating the vulnerability in her own words. "Will he ever love me more than he loves power?"

"You don't get it, do you?" Nicolas shook his head, his wavy long hair falling to his eyes, another moonless night. "He will never have to choose between you and power, Rose, because you are power. If you could sit at the Parliament like all those other men... even the King would fear you."

Rose let the arm that was holding her purse fall to the side. Her grip was loose on the golden chain. "You have too much faith in me."

"And you have too little." Fond, like only he knew how to be, Nicolas caressed her cheek. His thumb was calloused, warm. Somehow this felt like goodbye. "It's time for me to let you go, Rose."

Rose swallowed. She had the world at the tip of her fingers and yet her chest was empty, hollowed from inside out.

"Will you stay in the gang?" Will you stay by my side, even if not with me? Is that too much of me to ask? Is it too selfish?

"Of course." He nodded, and all at once relief washed over her, lungs working again. "Once a French Kisser, always a French Kisser. But I will no longer contend for your heart. The harsh, bitter truth is that Thomas Shelby has too much of it already."

***

Later that day, Rose met Thomas at the canal. With her black pumps echoing on the cobblestone, she fastened the trench coat around her; she did not want to be here, in this place full of ghosts. Once, when Rose and Kaya had passed by this very place, Kaya had stopped dead in her tracks, gazing at the riverbank and the bridge with an emotion Rose hadn't been able to identify then. She knew what it was now; yearning laced with grief. With tears knotting in her throat she'd whispered, "this is where Thomas used to bring Greta to. Where they first kissed. This is where my heart broke for the first time."

No, Rose really did not want to be here.

"This is Greta's place," she said as a greeting, stopping right under the stone archway within a safe distance from Thomas. He was leaning against the wall, half-consumed cigarette dangling from his fingertips and plaintive eyes focused on the restive water. "Not mine. I should not be here."

Which was to say, tell me to leave. Make me go away before this thing between us grows any more dangerous.

Thomas did no such thing. He just whipped his head to her and said, voice raspy and low, "and yet you came."

Rose sighed and leaned against the wall opposite from him, arms crossed over her chest as if to protect herself from the cold. Or to stop her heart from wanting to break out from her chest and into his.

"Sometimes I feel like you're trying to replace all the ghosts in your head with me. And it makes me wonder if you'll do the same to me when I'm gone."

As quick and inevitable as lightning, Thomas threw the cigarette away and strode towards her. Rose pressed her back against the wall as if to be swallowed by it. The stone hurt her ribs; it was nothing against his stare, what he made her feel. Her heart was pounding so loud in her chest it ached. Thomas stopped too close to her, his breath smokey and minty and too hard to resist.

"Except you won't be a ghost, will ya? More like a windstorm. You'll take everything with you, and I'll be as empty as when you found me." He grasped her jaw then, his touch enough to make her spine coil, shivers spreading to all her nerve endings. "This is not your place? You have all the places, Rose."

She sucked in a rushed breath. She could see herself so clearly in his eyes, so real and alive, so far from a spectre. She wanted to believe what they had was like that too, that it wouldn't go away at the first gust.

"Why did you do it?" She asked at last, teeth digging into her bottom lip. She tried not to pay attention to how Thomas' ocean-like stare lingered there, how his fingers moved from the curve of her jaw to her mouth. "Free Nicolas, that is, and saying you prefer him at my side. I know that will kill you."

She saw in his diamond-rough eyes what he didn't say. It already is.

"Do I hate the thought of it? Yes." Thomas nodded, and now his thumb was tracing the heart-shape of her lips. If she opened her mouth he could slip it in, and she would let him. "But because of those fookin' Saurets... I almost lost you, Rose. So I've learned to put your safety above my jealousy."

Rose closed her eyes, her pulse thrumming against her temples like raging water over an eroded cliff. She knew now what it was that made her so uncomfortable in Birmingham, so out of her depth. There was something in the restlessness of this city that she found hidden deep inside her; a sort of gritty danger she was irremediably drawn to.

Deep down she knew what it was: the hard-hitting realization she would have loved Thomas in his impeccable tailored suits as much as she would seeing him fight in the mud. That she was always meant to love the worst parts of him as well as the good.

He pressed his thumb against the corner of her mouth, stroking the delicate skin there. His touch was a candle burning in the night; it was wildfire on a rainless forest, devouring everything in its path. It was the sun that warmed her back on spring days, and the fireplace she turned to in the bleak midwinter.

She never wanted him to stop touching her.

"When will I get my minute back, Rose?"

Her eyes snapped open. She clasped his wrist, pushed his hand away. In the stormy dusk his eyes were dark blue, pupils dilated, infinite wells of desire. Rose could not see the end of it, which made her afraid to take the leap.

"Not now." She shook her head, and she didn't know who she was denying, who she was hurting more with this. "Not here. I won't be one of your ghosts, Thomas. But I'm also not cruel enough to take everything from you, so I will leave before I can."

She rounded him then, took two steps away from him before his voice, gelid yet desperate, halted her step.

"What do you mean? You're leaving?"

She swallowed hard, fists clenched to stop herself from trembling as she turned back to him. It struck her like an apparition, like lightning splitting the skies: Thomas looked devastated, shoulders slumped, all his walls crumbled, his realest self on display. Broken by her and the possibility of a future without her.

"Renée, Christopher and Andrea are going back to France soon. I might..." She stopped. Could she say it? Could she say it to his face like that, when he already looked this destroyed, as if he was losing the one thing tethering him to life? "I might go with them."

He stayed silent, which was worse than anything he could've said. It made her want to justify herself, even if she had no reason to.

"What do I have here, Thomas? The absinthe distillery is gone. La Vie En Rose was burnt to the ground. Two of my dearest friends died, and the gang is falling apart, torn by all the fighting and loss. Nothing of what I've built seems like it will remain standing. It all feels useless and doomed, and I might as well go back home and help France in some other way."

Thomas kept looking at her. Rose understood now, the blank expression on his face: pure disbelief, the raw betrayal of it. He never thought she'd do this to him, except she wasn't doing anything to him; she was doing this for her.

But Thomas Shelby was a selfish man.

"What do you have here?" He snatched the cap from his head, ran a restless hand through his dark trimmed hair. How she wanted to do the same. "Charlie? Me? A fookin' empire? Does none of that matter to you?"

Rose's nostrils flared, the fire in her gaze ablaze enough to dim the color of his eyes. "Do not make this about you. And don't you dare bring Charlie into this."

With one decisive step he crushed the distance between them, so close she struggled to breathe. The clouds above them were a mass of dark grey, threatening with a storm. The air reeked of petrichor and petrol.

"You're right, it's not about me. But don't you see what you've built is a fuckin' miracle? You have eyes everywhere, and people that follow your orders not because they fear you but because they trust you. They fuckin' respect you, Rose, do you know how hard that is? How much I want that for me, eh?" He paced back and forth in front of her. It was unfathomable to her, that she might have something Thomas didn't and craved, because in her mind he already had everything. Even her. "Don't throw that away."

"So you want me to stay because you want an ally." Which was fair, in all honesty. After everything he'd done for her, the amount of times he'd saved her, it was only fair. He deserved that much.

"I want you to stay because I know you love London. You love what you've built there, and you can't let the Saurets or anyone else take that away from ya." He stopped pacing, ran a finger along the razor hidden in his cap. Rose fought the urge to take his hand, to hold it so it'd never bleed again, so no blood would ever taint his skin. It was an impossible dream. "You're like me, Rose. I know your mind is already reeling with what more you could achieve here, it's just that for some fuckin' reason you're afraid of that now."

There is so much I'm afraid of. With a heavy sigh, she darted a hand to his face, but let it drop before her fingers could touch him. But nothing frightens me quite as much as my heart when it's with you. Nothing is quite as scary as the storm that forms inside my chest every time we're together. If this is a storm, can you really blame me for wanting to run away into some place that will give me shelter?

But she no longer knew what was a shelter and what was a storm. Maybe they were one and the same thing; maybe they were both Thomas, and it was cruel that he was not letting her run away from that. She had always been so good at running away from the things she wanted the most.

The harsh, bitter truth was that she had never wanted anything or anyone as much as she wanted Thomas Shelby.

And Thomas must have seen it in her, the shift on her face, because he asked, in a muted whisper, "Will you come back?"

"I don't know." She bit her lip; his gaze went back there again, and she forced herself not to look down at his mouth, not to commit that sin. "Why don't you flip a coin to find out?"

She knew he'd hear the rest: like you did when you wanted to know if I'd come back after I left you and that hospital in France.

"No." His arm was insistent on hers. She had no clue how she would ever be brave enough to slip through his grip and go. "No coins this time. Tell me."

"I can't. I cannot say yes and keep you hoping, just as I cannot say no and tear you down."

She shook herself free from his hold then, because if she didn't do it now, she never would. She was almost out of the canal when he shouted after her.

"Stay until next year, at least. I'm having a party at New Year's... stay until then, that's all I ask. Then you can decide if you want to go, and I won't say a word. But I'd like you to be the first thing I see in the new year. Y'know, for good luck."

Despite everything, Rose had to fight back a smile. She did not turn around, however; Thomas would see right through her if she did.

"Alright. But under one condition: do not interfere until then. Do not try and find ways to make me stay, I need to figure this out on my own. So I will see you at the party, or I will not see you at all."

She didn't wait for his answer, and when she left, the first droplets started falling, faint drizzle at first and then suddenly a heavy downpour, at last a storm. Thomas Shelby stood in the middle of it all, because it was Rose. Yet again she was taking everything from him, chilling him down to the bone, and yet again he was letting her, clinging to the mere possibility that after that the sun would break through and he'd be warm.

For now, he let himself get soaked, raindrops dripping down his cheeks as he stood broken and alone in the bleakest midwinter.

***

One month later

He misses her. He drinks and he smokes and he misses her. He sees her, and then he doesn't. He dreams of her and then she vanishes. She's everywhere except in his mind. She's nowhere but in his mind. He sees her in every rose, in every dash of red. She doesn't come back. She never comes back. He sees her but he can't touch her. He wants her but he'll never have her. He misses her and he lost her. So he drinks and smokes to lose himself too. He doesn't have a heart unless he's with her. And she took it with him. And he's never getting it back. So he drinks and he smokes because since his heart's already lost, better that his mind is too.

And he doesn't go after her. It's the first thing Thomas wants that he doesn't go after. So he lets her go in hopes all his feelings and all his thoughts will go with her. But they stay. At the end of the day, they're the only thing that stays, the only thing he truly has. The only thing that remains of her. That and the pain, the aching hollow burrowed deep in his chest. So he drinks and he smokes in hope the parts of him that are hers will become too weak and disappear, even if at the warped corners of his mind he knows they will only get stronger. In reality, he doesn't know if he drinks and smokes to forget her or to remember her. 

But at least the absinthe between his lips tastes a little like her.

author's note.

hi... remember me? :) if you're still reading this story and waited this long for a chapter, I love you. thank you for being so patient and sticking around for so long, it truly means a lot. I promise I'm back now and will definitely finish this story, I have the rest of the chapters written already and I'm planning an epilogue and maybe some extra scenes as well ;)

honestly, I have no excuses for the long wait other than complete lack of motivation. I was hoping season 6 would give me some inspiration back but if anything it had the opposite effect :') I'd love to know your thoughts on that season and Tommy's ending tho!

I hope this chapter and the next ones will be worth the wait, and hopefully I did the Shelbys justice here! I'm sorry it took them so long to appear, but you'll get to see a bit more of them in the next chapters! until then, please let me know your thoughts on this chapter, feedback is always much appreciated <3

this chapter is dedicated to the dearly missed Helen McCrory and Gaspard Ulliel. may they rest in peace ♡