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emotionalcadaver · 1 year

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Part 4: Barren

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x OC

Summary: Lucy receives some news.

Word Count: 1,865

Notes: Some light angst for y’all. Takes place before the events of season 1. Warnings for depictions of pregnancy scares, infertility, and references to menstruation, past sexual assault, sexual content, drug use, and abortion.

Masterlists: Main • Series

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It was a Thursday when she realized that her blood was over two weeks late.

Not that she’d ever been particularly regular to begin with. Perhaps that was why it had been so easy for her to lose track. That and the constant list of tasks that she kept in her head, spinning like a record player. From one thing onto the next. Her days were full from dawn to well past dark most of the time. Taking notes for Tommy at meetings, gathering intel on the latest mark he’d given her, helping out around the betting shop or at Charlie’s yard.

She wouldn’t have even thought much of it, had it not been for the uncharacteristic, extreme fatigue that hung heavy over her for the past week, or the consistent, throbbing headache and dizziness in her skull.

Sitting there at her desk, staring off into space, she bit her lip. Oh, no. No. No.

She and Tommy had never even really talked about children. But she knew from watching him interact with them that he loved them. It was almost a certainty that he wanted them. The idea had, on occasion, danced across her mind, carrying with it a sharp stab of anxiety.

Lucy liked children. Didn’t even mind the idea of raising one or two. But the idea of carrying one inside her, pushing it out when it was the size of a watermelon, was not something she’d ever considered to be a particular personal goal. The entire process really all seemed quite horrifying to her.

Prior to Tommy, she’d never thought she would even feel safe enough to be with a man after what happened with Matthew. Maybe that was why the thought of someday having children had always seemed so abstract and out of reach to her.

Fingers pressed to her lips, she fought hard to keep her breathing steady. To stave off the panic attack spreading through her chest. It was probably nothing. It was very possible she was just late due to stress.

Or it could be the product of her spending every night for the past month with Tommy’s cock buried inside her.

Lucy groaned, letting her head fall to settle on her hands on her desk. Oh, she was so fucking fucked.

∗ ∗ ∗

She watched Polly like a hawk throughout the entire meeting, looking for any signs that the Shelby matriarch sensed something in her. Tommy had once told her that Polly was a more accurate pregnancy test than going to the doctor. That she’d sensed it each time, without fail, when his mother had been pregnant with his younger siblings. Sometimes even before she’d started to suspect it herself.

Nothing. Not even an eye twitch. It wasn’t rare for Polly to ignore her unless she had no other choice. Lucy supposed that she should be relieved. But instead the lack of a concrete answer just left her feeling jittery.

“You alright?” Tommy asked as they walked side by side down the street after the meeting had concluded.

“Hm? Yeah. Why?”

“You’ve been quiet,” he frowned, eyes examining her face carefully. “And you look…paler than usual. Are you sick?”

“No. No. I don’t…think so. I’ve just been getting these headaches the past couple of days,” she rubbed at a temple. It wasn’t exactly a lie. “Actually I was thinking of going to the doctor and getting a prescription for some pain killers. If it hasn’t let up by tomorrow.”

“I can go to the nine o’clock meeting by myself. You can go then and meet me after.”

“You’re sure?”

He shrugged.

“Okay,” she could feel his eyes still boring into the side of her head. He probably knew that she wasn’t telling him something. He was too perceptive not to. But he didn’t push it. Lucy wasn’t sure if she was grateful or not for that.

She should have told him the truth. But she wasn’t sure how he would react. She didn’t think he would be angry, or kick her out, or run away or anything like that, but…

There just wasn’t any point in getting him all mentally tied up in this either until she knew for sure, anyway. Tommy had enough to think about already; he didn’t need to be worrying about a baby that may or may not even exist.

∗ ∗ ∗

Her legs swung back and forth in the air as she sat against the edge of the examination table. The doctor’s lips had pursed as she rattled off her symptoms before he set about examining her, frown only deepening before he swept out of the room with a mumble, leaving her to sit anxiously by herself. When he came back, he handed her a little prescription slip.

“You have an iron deficiency. I’ve written you a prescription for some tablets.”

“Oh,” she looked down at the little slip. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“So, I’m not…”

The doctor’s brow furrowed. “Of course not,” his assuredness in his answer caught her off guard. At the sight of her frown, he sat down very slowly in the chair beside her. “You don’t know.”

“Know what?”

And then he rambled off some very complicated medical jargon, only half of which made sense to her. But the more he talked, the more the meaning, the outcome of everything he was telling her, started to make sense.

“I can’t have children.”

He looked at her with wide, sympathetic eyes. “No, you can’t. I’m sorry…I thought you already knew.”

“No,” she whispered, sitting there with her eyes staring at the wall, hands braced against the edge of the table she was still sitting on. “There’s really no chance? At all?”

The solemn look on his face was enough of an answer, even before he shook his head.

You’re empty inside. Polly had said to her shortly after she first joined up with them. Turns out she’d been right in more ways than one.

Taking in a slow, deep breath, Lucy nodded, reaching to grab her coat, riffling through the pockets until she pulled out a stack of notes, holding them out to the doctor.

“You won’t tell anyone about this.”

“Of course,” he said, taking the notes and tucking them away.

“If Mr. Shelby asks, I just came in for a headache and you gave me the prescription for the tablets, that’s all.”

The doctor hesitated.

“You won’t be lying.”

“If Mr. Shelby asks, and then finds out I omitted information…”

“I’ll make sure you aren’t punished. You have my word.”

The doctor nodded, slowly. “Okay.”

Turning the prescription paper over in her hand, she held it up. “This will help with the headaches, yes?”

“They should.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded, moving to the door. Hand gripping the doorknob, he turned. “There are other options, you know.”

“That’ll be all, thank you,” she didn’t look at him as she jumped off the table. The door creaked as it opened, then closed.

∗ ∗ ∗

“What did the doctor say?” Tommy asked, closing the door to his office as soon as they were both inside.

“I have an iron deficiency. He wrote me a prescription for some tablets,” she held up the paper for him to see.

“That’s what was causing the headaches?”

“I guess,” she shrugged. Tommy’s hand reached out to catch at her wrist, thumb stroking the back of her hand.

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

Eyes snapping up at him, she felt her face soften at the sight of concerned blue eyes. He really had been worried about her. Sweet man, much as he might try to hide it. When she reached up, to brush his dark fringe from his forehead, his eyes fluttered, and he smiled softly at her.

She almost blurted out the truth right there, but bit her tongue. Perhaps later, when they weren’t in the middle of work.

And she still needed some time to herself, to process all of it.

The shock was starting to wear off, and, to replace it, had come a tremble of relief. And with the relief, confusion. Because she was pretty sure that wasn’t how she was supposed to feel. There should be grief, or sorrow, at what she’d lost. But instead she was over the moon. Never would she have to go through the months of pain and discomfort she remembered witnessing her mother experience each time she bore one of Lucy’s brothers. She would not have to give up her job, because she was unable to physically fight or move nimbly throughout the streets of Small Heath thanks to a swollen stomach. There would be no locking her away in a house, to cook and clean and sew and change diapers, waiting anxiously each day for her man to come home to her.

And she supposed, that if she ever did want a child of her own, she could go down to the orphanage. She was beginning to realize that had been the path she’d always seen herself on anyway.

But there was one spark of fear. Because she did not know how Tommy would react to the news of her barrenness. And the idea of him leaving her over it was nearly enough to make her throat close up in grief.

∗ ∗ ∗

She didn’t actually tell him anything until about a week later, when her blood had finally come and she was laying sprawled out in bed with his chest against her back, whining at the cramping in her stomach and wondering how in the hell she could ever have possibly missed this. In her head, she’d rehearsed what she was going to say over and over, but in the end it didn’t come out nearly as gracefully as she’d hoped.

“I thought I was pregnant.”

Poor Tommy nearly dropped the opium pipe he was busy cleaning with a cloth, going rigid against her, lips parting.

“That’s the real reason I went to the doctor’s.”

He very slowly reached around her to set the pipe down on the bedside table, then pressed on her shoulder until she rolled over to face him.

“I figured something else was going on,” he murmured quietly, touching her cheek. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Lucy shrugged, fingers playing with the buttons on his shirt. “I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to…I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure.”

Tommy stroked her lips with his thumb. “We would have been okay,” he said softly. “I would have helped you. You know that, right?”

“Really? What if I’d wanted to get rid of it?” she was only half teasing. Based on the seriousness in his eyes, she suspected that he knew that.

“That would be up to you,” he kissed her softly. “Either way, I’d hold your hand in the delivery room or in the clinic. I want you to know that.”

Lucy nodded, lashes fluttering, and he kissed her again.

“Next time, you tell me, okay?”

She pressed her face into the crook of his neck, so he would not see the way that her smile broke slightly.

“Okay.”

She did not tell him that there never would be a next time.

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#tommy shelby x oc #tommy shelby #peaky blinders #lucy winters #lucy winters x tommy shelby #my ocs #fanfiction #barren #my fanfiction

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