Cw: suggestion of an illegal abortion(as an option)
Douglas hadn’t been expecting Thomas Shelby to call and order him to meet him at Diane’s Office.
The man sat on the desk Diane looked too young behind in and held as much authority as he did when he was the feared Sergeant Major of the 179th Company. It was his distinguished service in the tunnels that made the Crown turn a blind eye to his crimes, an open secret most knew.
“I would’ve asked to meet at a more relaxed setting, but I can’t risk getting caught with this.” The gangster turned politician offered him a medical file, one with all the signs of its legitimacy.
“Why?” Douglas asks wondering why this man who cannot stand his namesake would do this kindness.
“Because.” The same answer they always got during the war. This time it meant something different.
Because I’m a father too.
“If anyone asks, I called you here to discuss a job in the transportation department in my company. The file was retrieved from the physician that saw to your son and was misplaced by his nurse.” Shelby rubbed the cigarette on his lower lip before lighting it.
Douglas Bennett hasn’t run like this since Lois was born. He is out of breath and ready to collapse and by divine luck, finds Tom packing in his bedroom.
“Unpack, boy, you aren’t going anywhere!” Douglas tossed the file on the bed for him to see.
“How did you get this?” Tom does not open the file detailing some nonexistant thing that rendered him unfit to serve.
“Doesn’t matter, all that matters is that you won’t be coming back dead to me.” The older man is so relieved that he can’t help but grab his son’s head and kiss the mop of blond hair so like Vera’s. “You aren’t dying, Tom, you’re staying here away from the war.”
“Dad. I’m going, not gonna die there anyways.” They had never agreed on much, and yet this is the last thing he thought they would disagree on.
Tom has always placed himself first, his life, his fun. Tom’s selfishness always won and yet here he was refusing this last ticket to freedom thinking himself fucking immortal.
“That’s what everyone fucking says about it until your best friend dies in your bloody arms! Ships sink, they get attacked and you just can’t bullshit your way out of the prison camp or fucking death, Tom!” it always comes to him trying to shout sense into his bloody fucking head.
Stubborn as he was before the war. Douglas saw the boy who died in France so much he couldn’t live with him half the time.
“Diane’s seen it. I trust her visions, and if she says I’ll live long enough to marry her and give you grandchildren, then I know I’ll be fine wherever they send me.” Tom confessed his reasoning and resumed his packing.
“You’ve never believed in that bullshit and now you’re trusting someone’s who you’ve only known for less than six months?!” his father cannot wrap his head around how his son who doesn’t even believe in God believes a girl who claims to see the future.
“I believe her, and I’m going to marry her when the war fucking ends whether you like it or not.” He stands his ground, because of all the lessons he’s tried to teach him, that is what sticks in his thick head of his.
“Suit yourself then, boy.”
Those are the last words Douglas Bennett will speak to Tom until he returns from the Battle of River Plate.
“You’ll write to me, won’t you?” Diane’s voice is quiet and soft as they say goodbye at the station like all families and lovers are doing.
He has had the ring in his pocket since that morning and yet no moment feels right. Tom has never been one for thinking things through and living in the moment and yet this has him hesitating and doubting himself.
Perhaps it was because things had gone to shit with his old man again after he refused to present the phony certificate claiming he’s got some fucking heart condition, and his blind trust in Diane’s visions of his future.
He’d said goodbye to Lois who was getting on her own train as well and now he was here holding onto Diane who refuses to let go as if he was being sent out to die already instead of basic training.
“Yeah, gonna bore you to death with my letters so much you’ll know you’re worrying for nothing, Di.” He answered cradling her face in his hands and reminding himself it’s just basic training.
The blond is aware he could die in training too, but the vision Di had of them having a life after the war gives him the confidence to think himself immortal. That nothing will hurt him and that he won't come back as a shell of a man like his old man did.
Diane’s never been wrong.
“I love you.” She said holding back tears and the ring feels heavy in his pocket.
But he doesn’t reach for it, Tom knows she’d say yes, but it just doesn’t feel right.
“Steal away to Cornwall, and I’ll find a way to see you off-base, Di,” Tom leaned down to kiss her goodbye and added after, quietly as if it weren’t obvious, “I love you too.”
Lois knows she’s dome for when there is a second month she doesn’t bleed. There is no question about what led to this, and she hates there is no chance it wasn’t Charlie’s.
It would be easier if it had been him, no matter what decision she took he’d support her and do the right thing if need be.
“Did you ever think about what would happen if you and Tom weren’t playing it safe?” Lois rolls onto her side and sees Diane take her brother’s bed as if it always belonged to her.
She’d moved in here with them at dad’s suggestion. Not all the boarders were as nice as Mrs. Johnson, some distrusted her because of her Romani blood made worse by Tom’s presence almost every night in her bed.
So Lois’ dad asked her to stay one night and suddenly a month and a half later, Diane was living with them even if she still paid her rent to Mrs. Johnson.
“We’ve talked about it, well, more like joked. We agreed we’d get married and name the first girl Vera Eve after your mum and mine.” She spoke so sure of it, as if Tom’s ever been serious about anything longer than an hour.
“He’s serious when he wants to, or has some external force pushing him to be. The baby is Harry’s, a girl, by the way.”
The witch looked at her having heard her thoughts, how Tom dealt with this on a daily basis was beyond Lois’ understanding.
“I suppose Vera it is.” The Mancunian girl had really hoped it wouldn’t come to this.
One fucking time.
Single mother to Harry’s bastard baby daughter, just her fucking luck.
“You don’t have to, you know, there’s people you can go to. My mum knows someone in Birmingham who can do that.” Her mismatched eyes tell her she’s not kidding, that she really is suggesting an abortion.
Lois hadn’t considered she may have a way out.
She’d heard of it, as something wrong and dangerous and illegal, heard of women who pay to get rid of unwanted babies and go on living normal lives as if it never happened.
It was a tempting offer, something she wasn’t refusing right away because she isn’t even sure what she’s going to do with a baby.
“Don’t tell my dad or Tom, please. You know how they are.” The blue eyed girl pleaded and the witch nodded in understanding.
The distance between Manchester and Torpoint is enough that Diane only comes down twice a month and in her vardo hitched to horses and as a guest of a nearby farmer lending his land to some romani family Diane only met on her way here.
Tom knew Norman had his back and would cover him as he has always done, especially now that they’d be shipping out to the Falklands. There they’d go on to serve on the HMS Exeter in the warm and sunny part of the world. He’s a fleet arm air gunner, third class, just as she had said before the war became true as well.
If that came true then the rest will too, he reminds himself. He won’t die. He’ll be the same Tom who returns home. He’ll not become like his dad nor hers.
“Dad’s worrying for nothing, no reason for the gerries to be there. Just a bunch of trade ships.” The blond says tracing patterns on Diane’s bare back.
They don’t always fuck, some nights he just holds her pretending its still spring in Manchester. Does that now that his training is ending, and his first posting came.
Tonight he’d taken his time, committed each freckle and sound she made to memory. She’d follow him anywhere, but the Falklands isn’t somewhere she can go with ease.
“Argentina is a great admirer of the Germans, might be the only one who likes them in Latin America.” She knew about things like these because of her parents, figures she’d do her homework about his assignment before he even knows himself.
“Well, now they’ll admire the way I look in my uniform.” He joked hoping to put her at ease.
If she knew how it ends, why was she so worried?
“I’m gonna marry you. After the war, so I know I won’t die before that.” Tom had hoped for a better way to do this, and yet no place was as special to them as this canary yellow vardo.
She smiled and leaned up to kiss him again. “Is that why you’ve been carrying your mum’s ring in your pocket every time I come here?”
“Yeah, been wanting to since I left.” He answered leaning over to grab the coat from the bench next to the bed and finally popping the only question that’s ever made him truly nervous.
Robina Chase and Douglas Bennett from World on Fire are Autistic. Robina is fantastic representation on how Autism and Trauma can create a toxic personality. The scene where she admits she has no idea why people kept touching her after her husband died, and what the social cue meant and how she was supposed to reciprocate 💔.
"This morning you said that if Jan did go to live with Gregor, that I wouldn't visit anymore, that I wouldn't want to visit anymore, but I… I don't just visit for Jan."
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» For @andibecamehellitself, quote from The Understanding
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