𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐗𝐗.
nobody's child
❝ YOU BRING HER HOME, THOMAS! ❞

UNITED KINGDOM
1924 — 1925

No mummy's arms to hold me
Or soothe me when I cry,
'Cause sometimes I feel so lonesome,
I wish that I could die

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♜ ━━━━━ ADELINE WAS ON THE ROAD FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR.

Alone. Abandoned. Forgotten. There was no word. No letters. No sign of family, not even Johnny Dogs who had assisted her father in abandoning her in the first place. F—cking traitor. The girl was changed hands like currency, from the Boswell's to the Lee's. She stayed with Esme's kin and played the orphan she was.

Tommy had been right; it was like an adventure.

All the mothers and aunties treated her as one of their own. They didn't treat her like an intruder or an outsider, and they didn't classify her as a 'mumper' like other non—travelling gypsies would be. She was a traveller, a real gypsy chavi as Tommy once said. The girl was scolded and loved and coddled with such absolute adoration. She was introduced as one of them, along with the same phrase over and over:

"O Adeline le Thomasski shey." The Adeline who is the daughter of Thomas.

Thomas who? It didn't matter. No one asked. No one cared.

Daia Zilpha Lee was a wise woman, an important figure amongst the caravan of Lee's. She was full of metaphors and sayings that always meant something, Del just didn't always understand what exactly. And it was Zilpha Lee who said, 'Te den, xa, te maren, de—nash.'

When you are given, eat, when you are beaten, run away.

The Lee's did nothing but give to her, and none of them ever raised a hand to her. None of them would dare beat her. And even if they had, Del had nowhere to run away to. The only people she had in this world didn't want her.

So, Adeline became one with them 'til she nearly could pretend that she forgot all about her life before, about ever being a Shelby and second best and unwanted. She pretended that she forgot her father sent her away and no one had come to get her and it was likely because they didn't want her anymore.

Del was an expert liar and pretender, so much so that she had convinced everyone round her.

And maybe one day, if she became really good, she could even convince herself.

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When his skull was crushed in and he laid bleeding and dying on the bathroom floor with some priest standing over him, Tommy's first thought was how f—ckin' painful it was, and his second was this:

He was so glad his Adeline wasn't here to see him like this.

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That day in Wales, while she was being abandoned, Della had hidden her last link to him — a small locket of Saint Jude — under her shirt, and occasionally she would pull it out and hold it. She'd stolen it off him. Ripped it from his neck by accident when she was trying to stop him from leavin'. Staring at the locket's figure and trailing the smooth chain, Del had no idea what it meant, what it was even the patron saint of. It didn't really matter what the saint was for.

It was what it reminded her of that was more important.

Somehow it seems fitting, doesn't it?

Sometimes she would whisper the word 'Tommy' and see her da's face seventy times in a single day. She would miss him and frequently cry in the tiny vardo as quietly as possible, but she was still glad for daylight. Because with daylight, it was impossible to dream of her family. Because with daylight, there were chores and games and songs and life. At night, but, there were no distractions. When sleep was hard to find and singing lullabies failed her, she'd inevitably turn to thoughts of home and cry herself to sleep.

And that was only a small misery compared to the terror of her dreams. In her sleep, Del would see Tommy turning and walking away from her again and again. He never looked back. During those times, in the horrific lull of sleep, Della had never felt so completely alone.

Some days, she ached so badly for Polly, for Ada's telephone calls, for Finn's teasing and Charlie's yard, the uncle's company, Lizzie's biscuits and Michael's quick wit, and even Charles whose cries woke her at night, but mostly she ached for Tommy. And she hated herself for it.

On days like that, the daia told the other children to steer clear and let her grieve. They knew she was coming. They knew what had been done. The abandonment of a parent was the same as the death of one, Zilpha Lee said. After all, Del's brutal separation from Tommy had been so sudden and so permanent that it might as well have been death.

After all, feri ando payi sitsholpe te nauyas.

It was in the water that one learned to swim.

And it was in the suffering that the girl learned to survive.

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Three months later, Tommy poured away the morphine. His hair had grown back. He had started to recognise himself in the mirror again. He hadn't regained his appetite and he smoked enough cigarettes to cost him an arm and two legs too, but at least the hallucinations had stopped. At least he stopped seeing Del standing at the end of his bed at night, bleeding from the chest, tears down her cheeks.

But the questions didn't stop.

They never stopped.

Over and over, the family asked Tommy when it was finally time to bring his daughter home.

Johnny Dogs asked right after he'd been given a job to do, fidgeting and frowning, "Since that blow to the head's healed, will we bring Della—girl back now, Tom?"

In his yard, Uncle Charlie had been as diplomatic about it as he could be, "Curly and... and the horses... we miss your girl round the yard, you know, Tommy. Thinking it's time?"

John had mentioned it as casually as possible, which wasn't very casual at all, "We miss the little rascal, Tommy. You bringing her back soon or what?"

Sitting before his desk in Arrow House, Polly tried outright demands when diplomacy didn't work, "You bring her home, Thomas! Do you understand me? You bring her home now."

Ada. Finn. Michael. Arthur. Lizzie. Esme. Even little Charlie had started to mumble her name over and over.

And over and over, Tommy never stopped answering: "Not yet."

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As they travelled, Della's brain lost everything she'd learned in her new posh school, and she grew fluent in Rokka and Shelta, both. She slept in the colourful vardos, warm and quiet and surrounded by hordes of other children. The girl never minded the close quarters and felt happiest when her shoulders pressed with those round her.

While the road gave them thick woods and endless open fields, the encampments were safe for the children to grow and thrive, safe from the trials and dangers of city life. Everything a child could ever want could be found amongst the camp, from bakers to teachers to philosophers to magicians. The kids made games of jumping off the platforms and hiding in each other's vardos.

The fresh air brought Del back to life after being hidden away in a stuffy mansion for so long. Her feet forgot what it was like to wear shoes and she bathed in the icy cold rivers. She danced round the fires and rolled down hills 'til she was grass—stained and flushed pink. No one forced her into straightjacket dresses and no one cared if she forgot to wear stockings.

Flowers were braided into her hair on Saturdays and she wore hand—me—downs from the older girls in the caravan. On very special occasions, they delicately painted her face and hands with henna, and she was beautifully stained by orange clay for months. Her curly hair grew long and her skin grew freckled, turning golden like her mother's before her.

A girl named Naomie and the rest of the Lee girls became like sisters. They played from sun up to sun down, hands covered in dirt and wild berry stains and calluses from climbing trees. They made mischief round camp and sang songs to pass the time on the road and they told dirty jokes so funny, Naomie even threw up once.

The world was Adeline's.

Not because she was a Shelby, but because she was an abandoned wild girl on an adventure.

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Just like the flowers,
I'm growing wild
I got no mummy's kisses
I got no daddy's smile

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

On a riverbank where they bathed and swam, Della and Naomie climbed trees in which they found the biggest pears they'd ever before seen. Unaccustomed to such luxury, they knew it was likely they'd be sick. They ate anyway. They feasted on the sweet fruits 'til juice dribbled down their chins and they turned as green as the pears themselves.

"Naomie Lee!" Her mother scolded her that night. "Why're you vomiting so much, chavi?"

"Maybe it was the goulash," Naomi suggested weakly.

"That's right," Della echoed, still looking a little green, "Must be, Daia. I feel a bit sick meself."

As soon as Zilpha's back was turned, the girls grinned at each other. The pears, they whispered between them. The pears, and Del was reminded of the pears she used to get from Uncle Charlie's yard. Sweet as candy. Sweet as home. The girl vomited one more time, for an entirely different reason.

Della lost her taste for pears after that.

It didn't matter. She had plenty else to eat. On the daily, Del was stuffed to her roots with the best food like she'd never had a chance at eating at the big house; preste and yogurt sauce for breakfast, xaimoko for lunch, goulash for dinner, and pedogo on holidays.

Good Friday had passed and so had Easter. There was no word from her father, but surely he'd come and fetch her soon. The summer fairs came and went 'til they reached the change of the season. The trees lost their leaves and the skies were washed out. No one came back for her. No one seemed to remember. Her birthday arrived and she turned twelve with no one who was related by blood. Christmas passed tiredly as did New Years, and not even bloody firecrackers could make her forget how alone she was.

The caravan travelled through England, further and further from Birmingham and Warwickshire and everybody she ever knew. At each junction, Del would get her hopes up — despite her best efforts, despite her promises that she wouldn't care anymore. And at each junction, she couldn't help but ask:

"Will me da be picking me up here?"

There was a variety of answers, but they always had the same result:

"Next stop, Della—girl."

"He says soon, Della—girl."

"Perhaps next month, Della—girl."

Her da never came.

Del's life moved on, with or without Tommy in it.

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When Charlie was taken by the priest, stolen right from his hands, Tommy knew two things. The first was that he would get his son back, no matter the cost, no matter the consequences. The second was that he was right to send his daughter away, no matter the cost, no matter the consequences.

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Now, Della was back where her family began.

With horses and caravans.

Vagabonds and thieves.

She rode horses barebacked, and when she called to them from across a field, they would come. She did tricks for the gadje's sake and for her own fun, standing on the horses' backs and hanging from their necks, and she won a few races when luck allowed. Johnny Dogs would've been proud and won a fortune. Finn would've been green with envy.

Neither of them were here but.

No one was ever here.

Del did her chores and acquired trades of hawking and tinkering. She learned basket weaving and wood carving. During the changes of season, they harvested fruits and vegetables for any gadje who wanted work and would pay for it. She entertained the Lee's nearly every night with her voice, singing more freely than she'd ever done. The girls joined hands and spun in circles round the bonfire, feeling the flames lick and toss sparks at them. They danced and sang all together, playing all sorts of instruments.

At fairs, Del told fortunes and made a small fortune all on her own. She didn't have any more dreams of the future. She read palms and the sky and tea leaves, and she cast charms and spells because there wasn't anyone left she could hurt anymore.

They were gone.

Just not here anymore.

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All alone, Tommy stood in the empty doorway of his own home, shadows under his eyes, blood still on his nose. He watched the paddy wagon full of his whole family pull round the drive and disappear further and further into the distance. Their list of crimes went on and on; murder, sedition, conspiracy to cause explosion. The police had come knocking and he had let them take his family.

Their enemies controlled the police, the judges, the juries, the jails... But once again, Tommy had made a deal. He had a plan. He always had a plan. The Shelby's wouldn't end up at the end of a noose. It was all taken care of.

His family's screams of fear and hatred still rang in his ears, and he knew none of them would forgive him for this. Not his brothers. Not his aunt or cousin. Not his daughter. This was why he sent her away, after all.

So he could protect her from others. So he could protect her from himself.

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"There's someone t' see ya, Della."

Adeline, just Adeline, looked up from where she was lying on her belly in the grass.

The girl had changed in the past year. She hadn't noticed it, 'cause for her it had happened so gradually, but anyone who hadn't seen her in months on end would see it straight away. She had grown dark and freckled in the past year with long ringlets of black hair swinging untamed 'cross her back. Her skin was the colour of fresh baked bread, a deep gold that she'd inherited from a mother she didn't recall. Baby fat had thinned from her cheeks and she was nearly a head taller, the sunshine and fresh air seemed to have capitulated her into a growth spurt.

Confused, Del cocked her curly head and asked, "Who's here t' see me?"

Rodi Lee stood before her with an indifferent expression. She was Esme's youngest sister, girlish and naive, and about as thick as a f—ckin' brick. So Del wasn't altogether shocked when the older girl just shrugged, but she did manage to stop her in her tracks when she added:

"Someone from home, I reckon."

Rodi left without another thought, as if she hadn't just knocked the entire earth off its axis, as if she hadn't just verbally punched all the air from Del's lungs.

The twelve year old couldn't feel her hands or feet when she stumbled up to her feet. She was numb as she stared at the encampment with wide unseeing eyes. Someone from home. Someone from home. She was ashamed of how she ran, how she darted round the vardos and across the camp as fast as she possibly could. As she always did. As she always used to. For him.

Someone was waiting for her; she could see a horse, she could see a man. It was him. He'd finally come for her. He'd finally seen what a daughter could do. Maybe he'd seen that she didn't need much. Just a ride on a horse sometimes. Maybe to hold his hand once in a while. And for him to bring her home. Maybe, if she was lucky, he'd even somehow missed her.

Della skidded to a stop.

It wasn't her father. It wasn't anyone from her family, not really.

"Sashin, Della—girl!"

That b—stard. That f—cking b—stard. Couldn't even come himself, could he?

Johnny Dogs spread his arms and wore a grin as he waltzed over to her without a f—ckin' care in the world. Della just stared at him for a long terrible moment. Then, her hands turned to fists. The girl strode close and promptly kicked him square in the shin as hard as she could. The man pitched over with a colourful string of curses that even had her impressed.

"Mother Mary and Joseph!" He spat and hopped round, "F—ck ya do that for, girl?!"

She was a feral little woman, growling up at him, "Why'd do ya think, you f—ckin' traitor?!"

Adeline wasn't angry at Johnny Dogs, not really, and he seemed to understand that.

The man sighed when his own anger fell away and he shrugged rather sadly, "I am sorry, Della—girl, 'bout that whole ugly business. Weren't my idea, you know. Tried to talk him out of it, even tried to turn round the vardo, I did."

"And?"

"And he'd not hear of it."

Del scrubbed at her cheeks, humiliated by her hope, by her anger, by her tears.

She was suddenly full up with things she wanted to ask Johnny Dogs. About how her da was. If he was okay after the loss of Grace, now it'd been a whole year. She even wanted to know if Charles was all right, how big he was growing. She wanted to know how Polly was and her uncles too, and why the f—ck none of them had come for her, even when her father hadn't. What was their excuse? Their explanation? Did Tommy not tell them where he'd sent her? Did they really not care? Did they even notice?

She couldn't ask any of that, but, could she?

Instead, Del forced herself to ask, "What're ya doing here now so? Just nearby for the fair, are you?"

"Nah, Della—girl. Tommy's sent me to fetch ya."

The world slowed to a stand—still.

"He's ready for you to come home."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody wants me,
I'm nobody's child

━━━━━━ annie speaks ━━━━━━

and thus concludes series 3.

i know these last two chapters were pretty depressing and some of you guys might be really ticked at tommy which is totally fair, but i also hope you were able to see his perspective too through this chapter. i really wanted to show that even though he wants her with him, he felt he had to send her away to make sure she didn't get killed too. it might've been good if he had explained all that though...

and some of y'all people who might like more angst and turmoil might be disappointed del wasn't there to get kidnapped with charlie so we could see tommy's reaction to that and everything, BUT don't worry. we have plenty of pain and fatherly distress next season when the changretta's vendetta comes into play.

also, did i make a brief little season six reference? yes, yes i did. it was a very blink and you'll miss it moment, but it felt fun to add it. did anyone catch what it was?

now, we jump a year ahead to season 4. let's see where tommy and del's relationship has taken them since...