#29 Tommy/Ada (preferably with an overprotective Tommy?) Love your page!
“I thought you were dead.”
Tommy had lost all sense of dignity, of self-consciousness. He was sprinting through the streets of Small Heath, throwing elbows for anyone who got in his way. His ears were ringing and he couldn’t hear any anger directed at him, nor did he care. He had to get to the library. He had to get to Ada.
He smelled the fire before he saw it. Birmingham was always sooty and smoke-filled, but this was different, darker. The air was thick and morbid.
The library, up in flames, was like nothing he’d ever seen – almost beautiful in its destruction. It stopped him in his tracks for a moment, the heat slamming against his body like a wave. Fuck.
His eyes darted around, searching for a familiar face. Polly was standing on the street corner, hands clasped, tears streaming down her face as she watched the firemen helplessly hose the inferno. A few people with dark, soot-marked faces stood off to the side, looking shell-shocked.
“Pol,” he called out, jogging over to where she stood. “What’s happened? Where is she?”
Polly shook her head. “She hasn’t come out,” she said. “They said the building’s about to collapse, and they won’t send any men in.”
Tommy turned from Polly, too enraged to offer comfort, and made a bee-line for the first fireman he could find. A young man with red hair and freckles was his target, the one holding the back end of the hose. “What the fuck is going on?” Tommy snarled. “My fucking sister is in there.”
“Sir, the building’s going to collapse at any second, we can’t–”
“Don’t fucking tell me you can’t,” Tommy said, reaching up and placing his fingers firmly at the man’s throat as his eyes widened with terror. “Do you know who I am?”
Tommy let go of the man to see who was calling his name.
She was running toward him, frazzled, but otherwise unscathed. “Tommy! Tommy what are you doing?”
When she reached him she immediately began apologizing to the still-terrified fireman, but Tommy grabbed her and hugged her against him, his heart racing hard enough to make his chest burst. “Ada, what the fuck… Ada, I thought you were dead!”
She pried herself from his embrace. “No, Tommy, I was late today – Karl got sick and I – oh Jesus, there’s Polly too.”
Polly joined them and hugged Ada in a similarly urgent fashion, sobbing something unintelligible while Ada murmured soothingly into her ear. Tommy, apparently unaware of the irony considering all the smoke in the air, lit a cigarette. When Ada and Polly released each other, he had returned to his usual coolness – straightened his hair and tie.
“Ada,” he said. “This is the final straw. You’re working for me now.”
She furrowed her eyebrows and looked up at him angrily. “Thomas Shelby, if you think–”
“I don’t want to hear it. Don’t you realize how close you were to death?”
“It was an accident, Tommy! A freak accident!”
“You should be with family, Ada.”
“Indeed,” she snorted. “So if we burn we all burn together?”
Tommy leveled her with a stare, which she matched with intensity.
“I can’t lose you, Ada,” he said quietly. “I can’t.”
She rushed forward and threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Tom,” she sighed, both annoyed and affectionate. “You’ve not lost me.”
The held each other for a moment, brother and sister, friends and confidantes.
“We’ll talk about the job, all right?” she whispered. “But you’d better be prepared to empty your pocketbook.”
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