Mabel liked the idea of making the world a better place, or at least her own little corner of it. She knew from a young age that she cared about people, that heeling and patching people up was something that suited her. She didn't mind that it didn't come with an abundance of thanks or that she would never be paid as well as a lawyer or a businessman, it was what she wanted from the life she'd had little power over.

Maybe it was her 'mother's' way of attempting to keep her close, but she expressed great enthusiasm in Mabel's intention to become a nurse. She offered to fund Mabel's way into any medical training she might need.

One night Mabel had come home late from working at one of the hospitals in Solihull. It had been a busy night, cleaning and treating the wounds of dozens of men who'd found themselves caught up in a pub brawl that had spilled out onto the street, and she wanted nothing more than a few hours sleep before she had to return to her work.

But then came her adoptive mother's voice as she spoke to a friend in the kitchen, "Maybe it'll scrub the bad out of her blood, taking care of people and such in the way her kind don't know how to."

Mabel had tried to be good, she'd behaved as a young lady should, she had performed well at school, the doctors at the hospitals where she'd trained and worked had praised her skills and work ethic, but she knew that ultimately there'd remain a part of her that Rosemary considered unclean.

"Maggie," The sound of the Matron's voice pulled her from the stockroom where she had been organising boxes of dressings, bandages and slings. Maggie wasn't her real name, but it was a name she'd grown used to and by the time she'd turned twelve she'd acknowledged that it was yet another attempt to scrub clean what remained of her Shelby roots, "Nurse Ellen's had to rush home to pick up her little ones, would you finish her rounds in room three please?"

"Of course, Matron," She nodded, brushing down the skirt of her blue nurses' uniform before she made her way into the room in which two of the six beds were taken by patients.

"Hello, Nurse," The first young man she came to, spoke, a bandage covering his eye as she approached him with the trolley, "I've not seen you in here before."

"I've been downstairs on the children's ward you see," She smiled earnestly as she slowly removed the bandage wrapped around his head that had been positioned to keep the dressing over his eye in place, "I'm in training so they like to rotate us every few weeks."

"You must be a smart young lady," He replied graciously as she slowly peeled off the dressing that covered his eye.

"So my mother- people tell me," Mabel smiled nervously as she inspected how his eye was healing, it was swollen which was expected, but she saw no sign of infection, which was most crucial.

"How's it looking, Nurse?" He asked as she covered his eye with a fresh dressing and wrapped another lot of bandage around his head.

"I should think Dr Turner will be pleased with how it's healing," Mabel smiled, "No sign of infection."

"Thank you, Nurse," He grinned as she pushed her trolley towards the opposite corner of the room towards the only other patient in the room who seemed in a much worse state, his body was bruised, his arm was in a sling and one of his eyes were so swollen he couldn't open it.

"Good morning, Mr..." Her voice trailed off as she looked down at the card attached to the end of his bed with notes scribbled across it.

"Shelby," He answered before she could utter his name herself, "Thomas Shelby."

She didn't really know how to articulate the unsettling chill that ran through her body at the mention of that name. Her memories of her childhood may have been hazy in some places, but those names, they were etched in her memory like an inscription on a headstone.

"And your name, Nurse?" He mumbled, taking her by surprise.

"No one ever asks my name, Mr Shelby," She muttered nervously, busying herself with the task of folding dressings into smaller squares, her back to him as she did. She wasn't quite sure if she wanted him to recognise her, but she supposed that she looked rather different from her seven year old self, and he was dosed up on the strongest painkillers the hospital could offer a man who'd seen the horrors of war.

"Well, what is it?" He asked, firmer this time.

"Maggie, Maggie Johnson," She answered, doing him the courtesy of turning to face him this time.

"You don't sound like you're from round here, Maggie Johnson," He told her, noticing how her eyes were nearly as blue as his own.

"I live out in the countryside, with my brothers and our mother," She told him, "My mother sent me to a private tutor from the age of eight, supposed it might help me find a job in London one day."

"And before that?" He asked, "Before you were sent to a tutor?"

"I suppose I spoke more like you than I did the King," She smiled tentatively.

"So have you been around here much before, Digbeth, Aston, Small Heath?" He replied, observing the way her eyes flitted towards the ground at the mention of Small Heath.

"I should really change your dressings, Mr Shelby," She insisted.

"You've still not answered my question," He muttered.

"I spent some time in Small Heath as a child," She told him.

"And your mother had it drummed out of you, did she?" He scoffed with a lazy grin, "I once had someone tell me if hell had been a place on earth it would've been Small Heath."

"I wouldn't know much about it, it wasn't home for long," She replied, the latter statement was perhaps a lazy slip of the tongue or maybe she'd meant to tell him that.

"That's a pretty necklace you've got there," He remarked, "I knew a girl whose mother gave her one just like that on her fifth birthday."

Mabel stared down at the delicate necklace that hung around her neck and had done for the last fourteen years, as though it were the only remaining piece of home she had left.

"Was it your mother who's not your mother that gave you that?" He asked, as Mabel froze in her spot.

"I should check on the patients in the next room," She muttered, turning to leave him, but he caught a hold of her wrist in his grasp, his hand ice cold against her gentle warm skin.

"Mabel Gray," Tommy muttered, "Even with my swollen eye I can see that you're an image of your mother."

"I don't know what you mean," Mabel sighed helplessly, pulling her wrist free from his grip.

"Pass me my cigarettes and pull up a chair and I'll tell you just what I mean, eh?" Tommy told her, but his tone was soft, just as she remembered it when she'd slip into his room after a nightmare, before the world went bad.

Mabel hesitated, glancing across the room to see no sight of the Matron. She picked up Tommy's cigarettes and his lighter, handing him a cigarette which he placed between his lips before she lit it for him. She glanced at the wooden chair beside his bed, she wondered whether any family members might have sat there beside him, telling tales of home, she wondered if she'd unknowingly brushed by any of them in passing.

She wordlessly pulled the chair towards the edge of his bed, perching on the edge of it as he took great effort in turning his head to face her, his neck was unmistakably stiff.

"Do you remember Small Heath?" Tommy asked as he took a drag of his cigarette.

"I remember home," Mabel smiled softly, "I remember trips to the circus, bonfires at Charlie's Yard, the Christmas presents that you would steal for us."

"We'd have done anything to put smiles on your faces," Tommy told her, "How are they? Your brother and sister?"

"Michael's as he always was, a tentative cub with a hidden temper," Mabel smiled fondly, "And Anna, I've not seen her since the day they took us."

"They separated you?" Tommy frowned.

"My mother only wanted a boy, they pleaded with her to take Anna and I too," Mabel recalled little of what she remembered of that night, "She settled on taking just Michael and I."

"So you have no idea where your sister is?" Tommy replied.

"If I did, I would find her and bring her home," Mabel assured him, because she might not have spent the last twelve years raised by her own family, but their blood remained as sacred as it always had been.

"You must be close to turning twenty now, and Michael, he can't be far from eighteen?" Tommy asked, shifting his body in his uncomfortable hospital bed.

"That's right," Mabel nodded.

"So, what might it take for you to come home?" Tommy replied.

Mabel had never considered it a possibility to return home, she knew that Michael's memories of it were few, and she wasn't sure what he'd make of trading the idyllic countryside for the smog and smoke of a town like Small Heath.

"Michael's settled, I'm not sure what it'd do to him if I took that from him," Mabel admitted hesitantly, "We live in a village that's a far cry from what I remember of Small Heath."

"Or being with your family might just be the making of you both," Tommy sighed, "He won't be a boy forever, a village like that won't give him the space to grow into a man."

"It would destroy our mother if we left," Mabel reminded him.

"But she's not your mother, is she?" Tommy remarked, "She's not your blood."

"Ready for a visitor, Mr Shelby?" One of the nurses asked from where she stood in the doorway, Mabel looked up to see that she was accompanied by an older man who gripped a walking stick as he walked.

"No," Tommy replied.

"I'm here on the King's orders," The man declared in an Irish accent as he approached Tommy, "I'm afraid I must insist."

Mabel glanced at her cousin, wondering what could have possibly happened between the day she was taken from Small Heathamd that moment to warrant a visit upon the King's orders.

"Ah, you paid extra for daylight," The man said as he neared Tommy's bed, his walking stick tapping against the stone floor, "The racketeering business must be booming."

"I should probably continue my rounds," Mabel muttered in a mere whisper.

"You're alright," Tommy assured her, "We haven't finished our conversation."

"Are you not gonna thank me for saving your life?" The man asked.

Tommy silently gestured to the packet of cigarettes that Mabel had yet to return to his bedside. She took the cue to free one from the box, handing it to him, flicking the lighter for him as he balanced it between his lips.

"Three nights ago the Cooperative Stables on Montague Street, there was a murder," The unknown man told him, "A man named Duggan, the Oxfordshire constabulary found his body in a shallow grave."

Tommy turned to Mabel, "I need to piss, you ought to get the Matron."

Before Tommy could move, the man had pressed the tip of his walking stick down against Tommy's chest, "I know it was you who carried out the murder of Mr Duggan," He freed Tommy from the pressure of his walking stick, taking a seat on the chair beside Mabel's.

"By the way...Grace, she went to New York, a place called Poughkeepsie," Tommy told him, not that Mabel had any idea who it was that he was referring to, "She's married now."

"To a banker, he's rich, I'm sure she's very happy," The man insisted with great reluctance, "You've been under my microscope for some weeks now, I've been observing every move you make, that is why I was on hand to save your life."

"I imagine being shot by a woman hurts the same as being shot by a man, just a bit more shameful," Tommy sighed with little remorse as Mabel smiled to herself, "You know, Mr Campbell, when I got shot, they gave me a medal, no medal for you I bet."

"Mr Shelby, our reunion..." Tommy's guest stood up abruptly, taking Tommy's cigarette and tossing it onto the ground, "Is part of a very big plan that has been in place for some time now."

Tommy smirked to himself before he turned to Mabel as he always had done when the conversation turned down an avenue best kept from delicate ears, "Could you get me a drink, Nurse? Stronger the better."

"I'll see what I can do, Mr Shelby," Mabel nodded with a nervous smile as she tentatively left his side, making her way out of the room, heading for the staff quarters.

"Who is he?" Marie, one of the nurses, stopped her in the corridor as she looked back over her shoulder as Tommy and his visitor remained in their heated conversation.

"He's a patient," Mabel told her as she continued her journey to the staff quarters.

"I can see that, Maggie," Marie persisted as she trailed behind her, "But he seems to know you beyond the confines of these walls."

"I think he's lonely," Mabel lied, "He said that he's not had anyone visit him, he asked me to sit with him for a while."

"That's not what you're paid for," Marie quipped with envy, unaware that the handsome bruised and beaten man was Mabel's cousin, not a man with designs on her.

"I could hardly say no to the man, Marie," Mabel huffed, attempting to quash her own frustration, silently willing Marie to leave her to her own devices.

"Just, do what's expected of you, won't you?" Marie replied before leaving the room with her arms crossed, as though she was in some sort of position of authority over Mabel.

Once Marie was out of sight, Mabel retrieved the bottle of Scotch that the nurses kept for special occasions from the cupboard. She poured a generous measure into a cup before leaving the staff quarters to see that Tommy's guest had since departed.

"He didn't seem like a nice man," Mabel remarked as she took her seat beside Tommy, handing him his Scotch.

"And what if I told you that he's a copper?" Tommy sighed, taking a quick gulp of the drink.

"What does he want with you?" Mabel asked, "And how does the King know who you are?"

"We've gone up in the world since you were little," Tommy told her, "We wouldn't have to steal you a present, they'd give it to us free of charge."

"How's my mum?" Mabel asked the question that surprised her as much as it surprised Tommy.

"She misses you, and Anna and Michael," Tommy assured her, "If you were to come home she'd welcome you all with open arms."

Mabel wasn't entirely sure that the house in which she lived had ever truly been a place she might consider home, but Small Heath, surrounded by her family to whom she was bound by blood, who's love and affection she didn't have to earn, it was a tempting offer.

author's note: first chapter done! hope you enjoyed so far! looking forward to writing mabel and michael's sibling dynamic and seeing how the story unfolds when they reach small heath