the root
A/N: thank you @runnning-outof-time for notifying me about this lovely celebratory prompt party you have been hosting! congratulations on 3k followers, it's such a wonderful milestone, and so well deserved!
a part of my tommy x bee au!
takes place in between chapters 3 and 4 of this line of work!
985 words
warnings: language. prompt is in bold!
Tommy returned home early one late summer evening in 1924. He remembers it was early September. The house was unusually quiet, Frances coming to greet him at the door. “Mr. Shelby,” she said, smiling at him, helping him remove his suit jacket.
“Where’s Bee?” he asked, brow furrowed.
Frances sighed, the smile falling from her face. “She’s in the garden, Sir.”
Tommy sighed. “Doesn’t she know we have a fucking gardner for a reason, Frances?” he asked, adjusting the sleeves on his shirt, tugging at the collar, already too fucking hot, too fucking keyed up.
“She quite enjoys it, Sir,” Frances said. “She says it reminds her of her family.”
“It’s all your fucking fault, Frances,” Tommy said, wagging a finger at her. Frances blushed. In her first few months at the Shelby Manor, she had helped Bee start her flower garden. At Bee’s persistent begging, of course.
“I cannot deny the lady of the house any more than I can the man of the house,” Frances smiles at him, a conspiratory smile–a smile that reminded Tommy that the women around here tended to stick together.
“Where are the children?” Tommy asks, removing his cufflinks, the Manor stuffy and hot.
“Out in the garden, with Mrs. Shelby,” Frances says.
“The baby is out there?” Tommy asks.
“Yes, Sir. In a basket with her toys. She was having quite a bit of fun last I checked.”
Tommy sighed, handing his cufflinks to Frances, rolling his sleeves up and marching his way through the Manor and to the big glass French doors that led out to their patio and back pastures. He walked through the lush green grasses, past the horse pastures where they were grazing. Past the stables, the barns, into the green fields blossoming with wildflowers. Last spring, Bee had haphazardly thrown wildflower seeds all throughout the field, delighted when they all bloomed, dotting the green grasses with purple, pink, yellow, orange, white, blue flowers.
He heard his baby girl cooing, Peter’s little giggle. He smiled, heart lightening at the prospect of seeing his children.
“Daddy!” Peter said upon seeing his father, running as fast as his little legs could carry him.
“My boy!” Tommy said, scooping up Peter in a big hug.
“Daddy, the baby has been putting her toes in her mouth!” Peter giggled.
“Oh, well, she’s about that age. You used to do that quite a bit when you were small like her,” Tommy said, tickling Peter’s belly.
“I did?” Peter asked in between fits of giggles.
“Where’s your mother?” Tommy asked.
Peter’s expression changed as he pointed to his mother, a somber look on his face. “Don’t fight, Daddy. Please,” Peter said, blue eyes wide.
“Alright,” Tommy agreed, pressing a kiss to his son's temple as he walked towards Bee.
She was hunched over her flower garden in an old cotton dress, an old towel folded beneath her knees. Her back ached and sweat gathered on her brow. She was sniffling. Out of the corner of his eye, Tommy saw Simmons. “Peter,” Tommy said, gently setting his son down. “Will you go with Simmons on a walk? Maybe pick Mummy some flowers for me? Eh?” Tommy said. Peter nodded, running over to the older man, who held out his hand to Peter. Simmons nodded knowingly at Tommy.
“Hello, Darling,” Tommy said, approaching his wife as one would an angry bear.
“Go away,” she said, sniffling, wiping her brow with the back of her arm.
Tommy sighed. “What sort of a greeting is that, hm?” he asked.
“Only the sort of one you’re owed, Thomas,” she ground out.
“Why do you sit out here and do this, eh? Do we pay that gardener for nothing?” he asked, crouching down next to her.
“I suppose you fucking do,” she snarled, not meeting his gaze.
“Darling, please, Peter doesn’t want to hear us fighting,” Tommy said softly, reaching out to touch her arm.
She wretched away from him. “Good thing he’s not around then, hm?” she said, reaching for a particularly stubborn root she had been working to rid the soil of for a while.
Tommy sighed. “Darling, please,” he started again before she let out an exasperated scream. Tommy heard the horses huff in the distance, startled by her outburst.
“Why the hell can’t you just leave me alone!” she shouted, her fists at her sides.
“Because I love you and I want to be with you!” he shouted.
“Well you should have thought about that before you fucking put your cock in that duchess, eh?” she shouted back, eyes ablaze with hatred.
“How many fucking times do I have to say I’m sorry? What is it going to take for you to move past this?” he asked. He knelt down next to her, reaching for the root she had been tugging at.
“I don’t know, Thomas!” she said. “I don’t know if I can!” she was crying, tears hot against her skin. “All I think about when I look at you is her! Her under you, on top of you, around you. Her, her, her!” she shouted. “Why am I not enough? Why wasn’t I enough?”
Tommy’s heart shattered while the prickly spines of the root dug into his hand. With one rough yank the soil gave up the root, spraying dirt across their laps. “Darling, you are. I am inadequate. I am unworthy of you, I always have been and I always will be. I will forever be indebted to you for the atrocity I committed against you, against us, against our family. Please, forgive me for everything I did.”
With tears in her eyes, Bee stood up, towering over him. “I don’t know if I can, Thomas.”
She walked over to the basket that baby Katherine was lying in, now fast asleep, and carried her home, leaving Tommy alone in the dirt.
His wife's love for him may be permanently shattered, but at least the pesky root was gone.
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