#untilwemeetaginfanfic

[saintsir4n]

HOLD ON

where tommy cannot believe he has a daughter after returning from the war.

WARNINGS: mentions of the war, ptsd

——

1919

TOMMY stared down at the little girl who lay asleep in bed.

His little girl.

His blue gaze was unwavering in the depth of night. He hadn’t slept. He didn’t sleep. Even when the moonlight poured into his small room and smothered his daughter. Since returning from the war he studied her. Little Inara Shelby. The child whom he could not hold when she was born, or care for in her early years.

She was four years old.

Bloody four and only now he was around her, raising her as he promised Eden before the war. The war they all thought would not last. Just until Christmas, we’ll be back then. But they weren't and he could not forgive himself for the years that passed.

“Tom?” Eden’s voice crept into the room with the opening door. Tommy let out a hum of acknowledgement. The Shelby woman smiled fondly after shutting the door behind her. She wore her house coat as she took in the lovely sight. Father and daughter. “I used to do this. I still do,” she whispered. “She twitches in her sleep y’know? Like you do.”

Like I did, he wanted to say, as did she.

When he slept, he dreamt and there were never the nicest of dreams. He woke up yelling, shouting for the vivid visions to stop. It scared Eden.

And so he tried not to sleep, he poured his energy into anything else.

His daughter was one of those things.

“I never got to hold her,” he uttered as the silence passed.

Eden shuffled closer, “What?”

“When… as a baby. Was she heavy?” He didn’t look up to his wife when he asked. Instead, his mind tossed around various weights whilst he studied his daughter.

She was not a small child, but she wasn’t big either.

A fond smile tugged at Eden’s lips, before she spoke, “The heaviest, almost broke my arms off.”

“Ada was a heavy baby,” Tommy recalled, inhaling when he felt her nimble hand settle on his shoulder.

“Guess that made you strong,” she gently rubbed at his exposed skin.

“No. I didn’t know what strong was until I fought.”

“There are different types of strong love. You had to endure a type that no one should.” She trod carefully with her words. “Now you’re back.” Not all of you. “Now you get to hold your daughter.”

Tommy swallowed harshly, “I won’t stop.”

“I know.”

“No, Edie.” Tommy finally turned his head, adjusting his gaze to meet his wife’s worrisome one. Her soft grasp left his shoulder and reached to link with his callous hands. “I’ll make sure we make it out of here. Be the bright light through this fuckin’ bleakness eh?”

“I know Tommy. Shining through the fog of this murky city right?” Eden thoughtfully recalled the kind words her best friend once wrote. She carried them always. “With your razor blades and all.”

Still speaking quietly he replied with purpose, “If they protect who I love, then that’s all that matters.”

That’s all that will ever matter.

——