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lov3lybarista · 2 months ago

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ᴄʜ. 9 ʙᴇᴛʀᴀʏᴀʟ.

Wattpad:lov3lybarista Pairing: Thomas Shelby x OC Warnings: Angst (sorry again lol), BETRAYALLLLL!!! smut? Maybe? Suggestive themes. Obsession, stalking, jealousy. Word Count: 6.3k+ Masterlist. ↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺ Song: Catherine by PJ Harvey

Friday Evening, Arrow House, Birmingham, United Kingdom

Dalia continued to call Thomas.

Of course she does, because even across time zones and oceans, she never neglects her patients. Her voice still arrives every Friday evening like a ritual, of midnight warmth folded into cooled silk, steady as the surface of the moon. Yet she never admits it aloud, that she stays awake just for him, to make sure his demons don't wrap around his throat and tighten. And Thomas never mentions how he isn't able to sit still until that call comes through.

The clock read 6:02 p.m.

He picked up the phone before the second rang could even pass through the line. "Shelby."

And there it was:

"Mr. Shelby," Her voice. Soft, sweet, teasing.

He pictured her immediately. Somewhere warm, it was late where she was, past midnight. Her hair would be down, or maybe she had gotten irritated by it from the heat and had braided it. Soft cotton, deep colors. She always wore such vibrant colors, blues, reds, deep greens. That smile on her face, a small curl of her full lips.

"You shouldn't be up this late, Dr. Hassan."

She smiled, he could hear it. "Dr. Hassan, is it now? I thought I was your darling."

He sighed and closed his eyes tightly to get the picture of her figure out of his mind because it hurt too much.

"You are my darling," he replied his voice rough.

And then because he couldn't fucking help himself:

"My darling Dalia."

She laughed, softer than the petals of a rose, prettier than a Magnolia flower in May.

"How was the week for you?" she asked, her voice stroked by shyness.

He lit a cigarette to stop himself from sighing again, but he set it down against the ashtray and watched the filter paper burn through instead of smoke it.

He didn't mention it. Not Campbell, not the threats coming his way, not the ache in his chest that hadn't left since she had.

"Worse without you."

He paused, his eyes tracing the lines in the oak of his desk. "You're going to ask about my sleep next."

She hummed in amusement, "Yes, go on."

"I dreamt of the river."

She laughed again, sleepy and soft.

"It's better in person."

"Hm," he hummed, "I'll believe it when I see it."

She didn't answer right away, and in that silence of static and breath, he almost asked her—When are you coming back?

But he didn't. Because he knew that she would come back, that she promised she would. And still, she stayed awake every Friday. Even across the sea, past midnight just to make sure he still hadn't let the ghosts get to him.

Because even continents apart he was still hers to care for. And some things don't change, no matter the time or the war.

Her voice was still warm, but there was a weariness under it tonight. Thomas caught it, he always did.

"I used to stay out on these rooftops for hours when I was a girl."

"Yeah?" He could imagine it. A little version of her, with wild hair and awkward balance, sitting cross-legged on the patterned rugs set on warmed stone, watching the night sky pass, staring out at the lanterns of Baghdad that glittered over the river like diamonds.

"Mm," her smile continued to play on her voice, "the lanterns always looked like they were floating in the dark."

She paused, then in a softer more careful voice:

"But I don't stay out as often anymore."

He sat up straighter, holding the telephone tighter. "Why not?"

She hesitated just enough for him to know something was wrong.

"That fortune..." she began in a delicate whisper, as if afraid the gypsy lady would appear again, "she said that something was following me. And some nights it feels like it finally caught up."

Thomas didn't speak, because he hadn't forgotten. He had remembered every single word. The fortune, the stare, the hush, the way she sat still at the gala. Through the line, he could hear the breeze again, heavy and warm. The kind that watched instead of soothed.

"What does that mean, darling?"

She sighs, "That sometimes I look over my shoulder now when I never used to."

She added then quickly when he didn't answer, laughing almost too quickly—

"I'm just being dramatic, Thomas. Old childhood habits. Clinging to firelight and rooftop stories."

But he knew her. He knew her voice, that this wasn't habit but it was fear wrapped in a silk dress. He ran a hand down his face, staring off at the door of his office.

"Don't stay out there alone, Dalia."

His voice was rough, commanding now. She didn't argue.

"Tommy?"

His heart ached.

"Yes, darling?"

"It's not just following me too, is it?"

In the silence that followed they both heard the truth. Not the wind or the line, but the cold biting truth. It had always been following him too.

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The dream that followed that night had been nothing short of horror. First, it was flashes of memories—things he didn't want to remember. Then it was of her, lost and screaming for him to help her but every time he tried to reach something worse would get to her first. Campbell. That unknown figure haunted them both. They would always reach her first. There was fire, so much fire.

He woke in a cold sweat, gasping her name and his blood burning despite the chill that went through his body. His gun had already been gripped tightly in his hand like he could shoot away all that didn't exist.

It was 3:47 a.m.

Thomas didn't hesitate and he dialed, his chest bare and his hair soaked with sweat. The nightmare still clung to his nerves like the hum of a drug, his hands shaking as he lit 2 matches before he realized he didn't want fire anywhere near him.

The line rang once before she had picked up.

"Tommy?" Her voice came through like a breath of relief, shaken.

"Dalia..." his voice cracked but he didn't care.

She had already begun to fill the gap, speaking fast and low like the words were all flowing without her choice.

"Please Tommy," she began breathlessly, "stay away from fire and any river beds..."

Thomas had gone completely still. "What did you just say?"

He could hear her now, pacing maybe, movement and shuffling, some birds chirping in the morning air that surrounded her.

"There was water..." she spoke, her voice rasping from something, fear maybe, "and so much fire, Tommy I couldn't find you—"

He shifted his jaw side to side, his eyes burning a hole into the ground ahead of him.

"You saw it too, darling?"

She didn't confirm or deny it, she didn't need to ask for clarification, because she had seen it. All of it. The smoke, the vastness, the absence.

"I woke up and lit every single lamp and candle in the house until dawn broke," she whispered.

He shut his eyes tightly like it hurt to speak the words, "You...were standing on the edge of a cliff," he rasped, "in a white dress. There was so much blood. You said I didn't come."

Silence.

Then:

"It's just a dream..."

And for that small moment, her whispered reassurance had been enough. Thomas prayed that when the time did come, he would be able to reach her.

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It was late now. The nightmare loomed in the back of his mind like some distant siren. He had pushed it down enough, shoved it behind watered-down alcohol, and smoked cigarettes and work, always fucking work.

The clock on the wall ticked slow and heavy, each second a deeper dig into the night. Thomas Shelby still hadn't stopped glancing over his shoulder, always listening for the soft tread of footsteps that never came.

She had been gone for over two weeks now, away in a place where the air was warmed by the sun and laughter filled the silence. Gone without him and he stayed behind with his ghosts, with his jagged edges that no longer fit without her hands to smooth them down into place.

That's when the telephone rang. For one foolish moment, he had hoped it was her.

He picked up on the third ring. "Hello?"

There was a hesitated breath, then:

"Tommy."

His hand curled into a fist. The voice was unmistakable. Soft, sweet, wrong. Not hers.

Grace.

He said nothing, just let the silence stretch between them, suffocating before she finally spoke again.

"I just....wanted to hear your voice again."

He could hear the rustle of sheets behind her, the soft steady deep breathing of a man asleep behind her.

He exhaled slowly, "Your husband sleeping well, then?"

His voice was a blade sharpened on too many sleepless nights. On her end, she had made a soft sound mixed between a sigh and a useless apology.

"Tommy—maybe we could meet. To talk, to, to properly speak."

She spoke like it was a secret. Like the apology she didn't have the right to make; Thomas didn't answer right away. Dalia's voice still rang somewhere inside his heart:

"You carry too much already, Thomas."

And he had knelt at her feet like he was seeking forgiveness for an act that he hadn't done yet.

Now continents away he sat in the dark, listening to another woman try to claw back into a life that didn't belong to her anymore.

His mind worked fast. Quicker than the guilt could even catch up. Grace, Campbell. Use her, use her, use her. Use her to push back against his demons, use her to cut the throat of the monster who was watching Dalia like she was prey.

Because if Grace was here reaching out, stupid and bleeding with guilt, he could twist and break it into his own favor, into his own victory. Even if it will poison him from the inside out.

"Alright," his voice was cool, the sound of a man who didn't bleed anymore, "you want to meet, we can meet."

He had ended the call after listening to the hitch of hope in her breath, without telling her when or where. She would know. After he hung up—he sat there for hours, the guilt rising in his throat like bile burning its way up. Because Dalia would know. She would see it written in blood on his chest. The lie. The betrayal.

June 18th, 1923, Primrose Hill, London, United Kingdom.

It would be done at Ada's house. That's where the threat had been first laid, where Campbell had sealed the nail into his coffin when he whispered sleazily that he knew where his sister lived after he had drug Arthur and Micheal to jail.

He sat in the parlor now, a glass of whiskey turning in his hands as he stared at her. Grace was sat on the couch opposite of him, her hands folded in her lap, her face painted soft with something between foolish hope and guilt.

"I shouldn't have come here, Thomas."

"Then why did you ask to meet?" Just a cold, hard calculation.

"I..."

"You can go ahead," he waved a hand as he took out a cigarette from the case, "and tell me how much you love your life in New York. How well he treats you, how happy you are."

Grace blinked, he lit the match.

She opened and closed her mouth but no words came out, enough shame in her face to cloud the sky.

Good, he thought.

He rose to his feet with the deliberate movements of a man who knew what he was about to set off.

"I won't be long," he muttered, leaving her there in tense silence as he crossed the hall to reach the telephone in the next room.

He dialed and waited.

"Campbell speaking."

The smile that spread on Thomas's face was sharp, wolfish almost.

"Inspector Campbell, lovely night isn't it?"

Silence.

"You said you knew of my sister's residence," he leaned against the wall, his eyes narrowing at the Police posted across the street in barely concealed disguise, "so I expect that means you have men watching the house."

More silence.

"So tonight your men have seen me return to the house with a very beautiful woman...she will stay until just before midnight," his voice lowers, "of course I'll draw the curtains, can you guess who the woman is?"

On the other end, the sound of a chair hit the ground from how fast he stood.

"LIAR!"

"Sleep well, Mr. Campbell."

Click.

He returned to the parlor to Grace still waiting. Her hands were fidgeting nervously in her lap, trusting him the same way fools always trusted the wrong in the end.

The fire crackled low as he stopped just before her, his hand reaching to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze. Thomas looked at her, at the blonde hair, at her blue eyes. At the familiarity. But he felt none, and for a moment he had hoped it would be the color brown meeting his after her next blink.

When Thomas pulled her to stand and kissed her like he had kissed a dozen other women, he closed his eyes and pretended to feel the long strands of Dalia's black hair fall against his hand.

Grace moved with desperation masked as bravery, her hands touching at him, hesitating at first like she knew deep down he wasn't really hers anymore but wanted to pretend anyway.

She kissed him back, melted against his touch, her breathing soft and her moan dimmed.

She was searching with her tongue like she could kiss the ghosts off of him if she had tried hard enough. Thomas let her.

She pulled back just enough to stare at his eyes, "Tommy..." she whispered.

"Do you have someone?"

He ignored her, kissing her again to shut her up.

In between spit and tongue, she asked again, "Tommy do you have someone?"

Her hands clutched onto his shoulders like she was hoping he would lie.

And Thomas Shelby paused, only for a heartbeat. His nose brushed against hers, his hands pushing her dress off of her shoulders.

"I have a racehorse," he whispered, his voice smooth and as distant as the fog mist outside. "And it's going to win the Derby."

Grace laughed, breathy and uncertain, pulling off his shirt as she tilted her neck back for him to bite at the flesh. She wanted to believe he was teasing her, that he was still once the man who asked her to help him in the dark.

He kissed her harder this time to shut her up, more desperate, his eyes fluttering closed as he tried to picture a voice of silk and hair so long it reminded him of a horse's mane.

He tried to picture Dalia as he laid her down on the couch, tried to feel her steady hands as Grace guided him to her entrance willingly. And when he slid inside her, he buried his head into the crook of her neck and tried to smell roses instead of daisies.

He fucked her on the couch, slow but somehow rough, his mind too lost in pretending that she was someone else as he let his sick twisted victory play out. Because if he shut his eyes tight enough he could almost hear her accent play out as Grace moaned his name.

Now they dressed in miserable silence. Thomas adjusted his cuff links slowly, his face unreadable as he watched Grace slip the dress back on her shoulders.

She caught him looking, neither had smiled.

Grace was always the one to first speak when she shouldn't.

"That doctor..." she began, voice too soft, too careful, "she's been treating me well."

Thomas said nothing, but his jaw tightened as the memory of her honeyed laugh echoed in his ears.

Grace continued even when she shouldn't, "They think she could help with...you know," a small breathless laugh, "they think I'm the problem. That I'm the reason why I can't hold a child."

The words hung heavy between them. He lit a cigarette to have a reason to look away.

"They say she's the best," she whispered, twisting her wedding ring on her finger, "she's the only doctor who hasn't told me I'm the problem."

And that stung. Because he was here now with Grace while she had been the only person to see different in her. She was the only person to be able to see the worthiness of saving others.

His chest pulled tighter.

"What is she to you, Tommy?"

He wanted to break something. That should have been an easy question, something he could shrug off, but instead, the tightness in his chest became worse.

He stood there, the smoke curling around his hair as he stared at her through half-lidded eyes.

Grace saw it despite everything.

"You don't deserve to know what she is to me."

Grace looked down at her hands as if he had raised a hand to her with just his words. He didn't wait for the silence to be filled by her, just helped her get her coat on as he walked her to the door of the waiting taxi outside.

No whisper of stay, or talk, or love. Just an arrangement of hollowed ghosts.

June 19th, 1923, Somewhere outside Baghdad, Iraq.

The sun rose across the Tigris like it had centuries before. The morning was warm but the wind held a chill that made her pause before she stepped out onto the balcony.

Dalia stood there, her feet bare against the coarse rug that coated the clay flooring of the balcony. Her robe was tied loosely around her waist, falling in a deep red fabric that flowed in the wind. The river stretched out before her like a mirror of the world, palm trees bending lazily with the breath of nature. Behind her, she had a gramophone playing something calm, anything to fill the heavy silence of her state.

She closed her eyes, tilting her head back so the sun could kiss her face, letting the warmth seep into her skin. For the first time in maybe years, she let herself relax. No fear or strange things lurking in the shadows, no men with guns hiding in the corners. Just sunlight and the slow hush of the river.

Nearby on the small wooden table, a tiny sparrow had landed delicately on the rim of her teacup, fluttering its feathers before tweeting once to settle.

She laughed.

Soft, nostalgiac, her eyes softening as she cracked off a piece of biscuit to feed it. It reminded her of that night. Of the night she had told Thomas of the same scene in her childhood to get him to settle into rest for once. The memory had warmed her more than the sun did.

Then the telephone rang. Sharp, crashing and slicing into the morning like a knife. She looked over her shoulder, slow and wearily.

The sparrow had startled, letting out a squeak of irritation as it flew away leaving the crumbles messily over the table as it disappeared into the blue of the sky.

She had picked it up on the third ring.

"Hello?" she said, her voice steady.

And then—

His voice. Slick, tainted with sweetness like spoiled honey.

"Good morning, Dr. Hassan," he spoke, the smirk on his face curling his voice uglier, "I've been meaning to finally get the opportunity to speak with you. Inspector Campbell. I hold high regard to you, Doctor."

Her spine had stiffened, and the warmth of the sun had bled instantly off her skin. "Inspector Campbell," she murmured, managing to hold her calm, "to what do I owe the pleasure?"

He laughed. The leech, the ghost of a man who had ruined so much already. She let him show his hand first.

"You must be wondering why I have gone through the trouble of contacting you, after all, you're quite far from home, I presume."

The sun felt burning now.

He continued, "I'm afraid...there's been a development in your absence."

The pause that followed was deliberate to tighten the noose around her.

"You see, Doctor Hassan, your dear Thomas Shelby had entertained a guest last night."

Dalia stared off into the distance, her stomach churned but her face remained made out of marble.

"A rather beautiful, and familiar guest."

The grin in his voice sharpened to something meaner, hungrier.

"So familiar that in fact, I believe she might be a patient of yours."

She didn't need the name to know.

"See I thought you would have liked to know since loyalty is such a fragile thing these days," he continued on, twisting the knife deeper, "Do you trust a man like that to carry your burdens? Dear girl. You really should have known much better."

Dalia's gaze lowered to the floor. Not from shame or shock or heartbreak, but from fury, from anger. Yet she said nothing as the line buzzed in her ear because she knew men like him only fed off of reactions.

"I look forward to finally meeting you properly one day," Campbell continued ruthlessly, "until then my dear girl, stay safe, will you?"

The line went dead.

And Dalia did nothing. She set the receiver down with the same delicacy she reserved for everything else, smooth, precise, unbothered enough to take a second to breathe in before she began to walk. As if the words Campbell had thrown like loaded dice hadn't been poured into her ear at all, as if the world hadn't just cracked down the middle.

There was no dramatic collapse or screams into the morning air, there was no burst of the serenity around her.

There was only surviving.

And so with that, she stepped out of the room without a single glance back. She moved to the room down the hall—where her old nanny had slept, frail and still stubborn in her spirit.

She woke her gently, washed her face, and began to braid her hair like she had once braided Dalia's when she was just a wide-eyed spirited child. She cooked, she fed her, sat with her by the window and drank tea. She had ironed her clothes for the village wedding that night, had tinted her cheeks with a rouge to make her feel pretty again, and left the house with her nanny in silence.

And she did not call Birmingham.

Not that Friday evening. No. The time she had reserved for him will pass, and Thomas, across continents away, will feel the knife get twisted deeper into his chest.

That night the hour fell quiet.

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Thomas Shelby felt it immediately. He sat at his desk, his eyes stuck on the telephone as the clock ticked the seconds by, this was his sixth cigarette in the last half hour.

The first ten minutes he said she was late.

After that, there might have been a family issue, an emergency, or maybe clingy little cousins who wanted to hear more stories about England. But when the clock had ticked past the hour and his chest grew tighter he began to pace.

The unease made it hard for him to breathe, it settled deep and sharp inside his chest.

He called, lit another cigarette with shaking fingers.

No answer.

He called again, it rang four times with no hope.

He called and called and fucking called until the operator began to tell him the line might be faulty. By that, he was already pacing and shouting at the poor girl to call again, again, again—

Until he sat at his desk with his palms pressed so hard against his eyelids that they began to prickle white in the darkness.

Because Dalia wasn't trying to hurt him. She had given silence to a man used to chaos and artillery and that drove him mad in a way betrayals never could. Thomas knew, he knew why, he understood why.

That the promises made in silence without needed words had been broken by him. That those yearning silent glances and brushing touches had been lit like gunpowder by his own match.

Now she had simply removed herself as if her spirit was there when it happened and seen what he had done in order to cut him out of her soul. And he deserved it, he deserved it.

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The night was now warn, though the darkness slowly began to strip the heat of the day's sun away from the ground. Dalia sat just beyond the lanterns and music.

The village wedding continued to pulse, a steady heartbeat of laughter and joy, dancing and food. Yet she sat beyond the reach of it. Her long dark skirt flowed around her like ink freshly spilled, her hair tugging in the soft breeze. She sat on a worn boulder, her knees tucked to her chest, her arms wrapped loosely around them.

She watched distantly as if she was already a ghost somewhere else.

She rested her chin on her knees, trying to let herself forget it all. The way she had answered the call with the foolish hope it was him only to have her world shattered while the sun rose peacefully like it always will. Like it will remain.

Maybe that's why she kept pushing, because no matter what the sun will continue to rise.

When she opened her eyes again, there he was.

Saif.

He sat down beside her silently, without asking, like he had always belonged there and forever will. In a way he does.

He was older now, broad-shouldered and strong. The kind of strength that came from real work and the sun. His hair had turned a darker brown over the years, longer than it had been last, though he always had worn a shaggy cut below his ears. His chin was sharp enough to be visible under the rough scruff of a dark beard.

And his eyes.

His eyes still burned with that fire, that same mischievous kindness that had once taught her to pick locks and climb forbidden trees that lined the river's edge.

"You look sad, Didi," he spoke finally, his voice a deep rumble warmed by laughter and maturity.

Her smile was a slow, tired thing, "You still don't know how to mind your own business," she teased softly.

He laughed under his breath, deep and low, "Never when it's you."

The silence swelled between them, the music humming in the air. Here in the dark, it was just them, the same as it had always been. He leaned down to lay on his back, his head rested against his hands behind it.

"Remember when we used to sit on the rooftops and watch the weddings from there?"

She tilted her head to look back at him, smiling wider now despite it all.

"Yes," she mused, "we used to think the stars could pull us right off of the roof if we stayed long enough."

Saif grinned, wide and familiar.

"I always wanted them to," he said, his eyes lingering on her face. His gaze softened, "Maybe I still do."

Her smile faded slowly, the words hung between them charged and heavy. It wasn't from hurt or rejection, but from the deep, aching knowledge that whatever had been torn from her when she picked that call had not stopped bleeding yet.

She looked down at Saif, at the boy who had been her friend since the world first broke, at the man who sat beside her like a mercy she didn't deserve. She wished—she wished for one stupid and selfish second that she could see it in him instead. That she could want the good, the easy, the simple. But she didn't, and she laid down next to him with her heart still beating for someone else.

He stilled for a moment, then Saif exhaled slowly, pulling her closer to his side as they stared up at the stars above, and turned his head to press a kiss atop of hers.

Not a lover's one, no, not yet. But a promise.

The drums continued to beat into the night, and Dalia lay there in the warm darkness with an old friend who held together her shattered heart, finally allowing herself to close her eyes and pretend for a small hour that she wasn't cursed at all.

It was light, it was soft. Their voices lowered enough for no one to hear above the drums and singing. But it didn't matter.

Because someone was listening anyway.

Across a couple yards away, tucked behind a wilting old fig tree, he sat.

One of Thomas Shelby's men. A hired shadow, a watcher in a plain thobe and sand-worn sandles. A middle-aged man that nobody in the village knew, that nobody questioned.

He watched.

Watched as Saif held her closer, at the way his other hand had brushed the hair out of her face, his eyes tracing her lips. Watched as Dalia leaned into him with trust and history. The kind of look in her eyes that should have been reserved for someone else.

The man swallowed tightly, rubbing his hands together to dry his palms that slicked with sweat. He knew what he had to do, that he had to report back to Thomas Shelby the woman he called his was here, laughing and whispering as she lay in another man's arms like she belonged to him instead.

The man rubbed a hand down his face roughly, his beard scratching against his palm as he tried to think of the words he would say. It wasn't betrayal, no not yet. Not from her. But it was the possibility—the sight of a woman who deserved happiness leaning towards a life that could give it to her, a man of lightness and morality.

The watcher sighed deeply and forced himself to memorize it. The way her skirt covered Saif's bare ankle, the way his hand rubbed down her arm, the way she threw her head back against his shoulder in laughter.

He turned away and started walking back to where he would make the call, the message already burned in his mind. The man didn't look back, because even a fool knew: there were some things you didn't survive when telling a Shelby.

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Thomas Shelby was in his office when the phone call came. He had stopped trying to call her an hour ago, more likely because the operator began to warn him the line would get shut down if he persisted.

He reached for it on the fourth ring, "Shelby."

The line crackled, then—

"M-Mr. Shelby..." his accent was heavier than usual, laced with nerves, the man practically falling over trying to just get the name out.

Thomas said nothing, just waiting with his pen clenched tightly in his hand.

"I...watched her, sir, as you ordered."

Thomas closed his eyes to brace himself.

"She, uh, she was at the village wedding," another pause, another dry swallow.

Thomas could hear the tremble in his hands through the line. He knew, the man fucking knew.

"She...was not alone, sir."

Thomas's grip tightened on his pen. Still, he didn't speak.

"There, there, uhm, there was a man with her," he breathed in, "they...laid together. Very closely."

Thomas exhaled sharply through his nose, the words hitting him harder one by one. He stared straight ahead at the empty darkness outside his office window, his heart pounding in his ears.

“It..it could be a friend,” the man’s voice cracked, “could be nothing really—“

“You did good.” That was all Thomas said.

He hung up before the man could reply. He sat there silent for a long moment, thoughtless, breathless. The anger was there, it was blinding, red hot, and startling him to the point of unrecognizing his own reflection.

But underneath it all was the guilt, the slow, poisonous guilt. This was her answer, it wasn’t with screaming or empty words and promises. No, it was worse.

With something he had no idea to make of.

Silence. Distance. Detachment. Softly and fatally she had managed to move forward by trusting someone else’s arms, by sharing a smile with someone else.

The chair had scraped loudly through the silence as he stood, his eyes blinking against the low light. Thomas leaned near the window, for a moment he tried to reconnect with something, with the sound of the rain falling outside in soft pitter-patters. Something that felt real, anything that could ground him to not reaching for something that would make this all worse.

He had reached for the phone without thinking. Maybe he should have, maybe he should have gone to bed, maybe he should have used the opium in his drawer for warmth.

It rang. It passed. He rang again. It passed. By the fifth ring, he didn’t care anymore.

Then—

Click.

A voice.

Unfamiliar.

Not hers.

A male.

Low, tired. “Hello?”

Thomas couldn’t breathe.

The man sighs over the line, “She’s alright. You can stop calling now.” A pause, like the man was looking over his shoulder. He spoke again, “You’ll see her soon enough.”

The line went dead yet Thomas made no move to set it down. He sat there with the receiver still pressed tightly to his ear, listening to the static of the dead end like it could give him an answer to all his feelings.

He thought about the man’s voice. Deep, calm. Stable. Sober. Nothing he could offer her, everything she needed.

He rubbed his forehead hard, his mind suddenly spinning. He had no right—

No fucking right to call, to beg, to speak, to ask. Yet still, he had to. He needed to. He needed to more than ever now after hearing the sound of someone else filling the space he thought he owned.

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Across the continents, the room still buzzed with the static of the call.

She had been staring straight ahead, her eyes fogged with distance as she twisted her ring absentmindedly in thought.

The sound of the river drifted in the distance. Saif watched her like he was staring at a shell of what she used to be. His eyes were weary, his hand rubbing the back of his neck as he thought of what to say.

He sighed like a man carrying a weight he wasn’t able to put down.

“You’ll work it out, Didi.”

He didn’t have to mention Thomas or ask for his name.

It wasn’t needed. It hung between them like some abstract vase in a bland room. He shifted closer, his hand squeezing her knee as she finally met his gaze.

“I know you, Dalia,” he whispered, “since you were two feet tall and throwing stones at my head.”

She let a ghost of what could be a smile grace her lips. Not enough to make her feel it, but it was something for him.

“I know you enough,” he began again, sighing heavily, “that I can tell when you want something bad. I know that when you want it bad enough you’ll never let it go. You’ll work it out.”

Dalia let her eyes close, just to let the darkness bring some sort of peace.

She listened.

To the low rumble of his voice. To the insects that chirped outside. To the wind that kissed the surface of the river.

She didn’t deny it, didn’t nod. Didn’t cry. She just sat there, her arms coming up to wrap around her as if she squeezed tight enough she could stop her heart from breaking apart.

Saif hummed for a moment, his eyes tracing her form as she folded into herself.

“Just…don’t forget there’s a life here too. If you ever want it.”

She opened her eyes and looked directly at him. And for a single heart beat she wished she did. She reached out, took his hand, and held it tightly. Except for her, it wasn’t a promise or a future. It was just a thank you.

He squeezed back. They needed to say nothing more.

The house was quieter after he had left. She had sat in the armchair in her nanny’s room for a while after that, too long to remember the time when she stood up.

She padded back silently down the hall to her bedroom when it rang again.

She stopped for a moment, her arms crossing under her chest as she stared at the ringing telephone in the room ahead of her. She was about to let it ring.

About to.

But she didn’t.

She picked up the receiver and didn’t allow him to get a word in.

“Why do you keep calling me when you know what you’ve done?”

The words sliced through the miles that separated them like a tectonic plate.

And then his voice came—broken, hoarse, tired. “Dalia—“

Just her name. That was it. A beg, a plea. A needy, pathetic thing.

She shut her eyes tightly.

“You made your choice, Thomas.” There was a tremor at the edge of her control now.

But her voice didn’t raise nor crack, no. It was steady in its finality.

“Dalia I never meant to—“

“Meaning does not matter when you can’t like a fool who doesn’t care,” she bit back, and Thomas stepped back from the desk like her teeth had actually sunk into his skin.

He could picture her still. Still so far away, away from his reach. Her hair still flowed down her back and her eyes still sparkling. But not with joy, with something worse. Something he never wanted to be reflected in her honeyed gaze.

Thomas had crushed down every thought to try to make it right.

“No need to call again, Mr. Shelby.”

Mr. Shelby. Not Thomas, not Tom. Not even fucking Tommy. That hurt the most, that slap of the professional label of distance she managed to quickly put on between them.

“If you are hurt, I’ll treat you professionally on my return.”

Dalia had not promised anything. She had not promised her friendship or her warmth, had not promised anything but distance and duty.

Thomas listened to the sound of the deadline, still trying to catch her breathing fluttering through even long after she had ended it.

For the first time in his life, Thomas Shelby was desperate.

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

taglist: @moonbeamott @mrsnms @meadowshelby @chaimaarouaine11 @goblinjnr @lorely788 @outlanderuniverse @clementine111002 @jbrownta

authors note: what did you do tommy sighhhhhhhhh. im so disappointed in him. next chapter is about to be soooooo good. ALSO PLEASE LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS IF YOU ALL PREFER LONGER OR SHORTER CHAPTERS!! As always thanks for reading and taglist and dms are open!! :))))

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