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From:

bleak_midwinter

"That you still have a glimmer of doubt about it doing anything says enough," he says, lips twisting wryly. He stopped long ago.

From:

leavetreadmarks

"Does it?" she asks, half earnest, half arch. "All the same, it's my breath to waste as I see fit. I won't assign it credit - certainly not more than cover fire and a level head - but nonetheless, here the three of you are, home safe, which is more than others can say."

From:

bleak_midwinter

In his opinion, it does. It doesn't say that she didn't see enough, or suffered enough: it says that she has a different kind of personality than he does. Less cynical, perhaps, though he does see enough of that in her.

"If not your prayers, then your care and strength during the attack helped us come home. I'm glad you were there for us, and the rest of them."

From:

leavetreadmarks

This is something Letty has had plenty of time and cause to think about; she still hasn't managed to come up with a good answer, not in the way she likes to be certain of herself. She fingers at her split lip a moment, carefully, and then nods.

"I'm glad that I could be - and that we should get the chance to speak again," she offers back, letting the subject of prayers drop by the wayside.

From:

bleak_midwinter

He smiles at her, brittle and soft, and then turns his back to her to make them both tea. There's a tremor in his hand sometimes, and he shakes it out before he can continue- it's nothing he pays any mind to.

When he turns back around he has two cups of tea, and he gestures for her to sit down at the table.

"You came a long way," he starts, looking at her inquisitively.

From:

leavetreadmarks

She stands while he does so, looks around the room curiously this time, her hands firmly hooked around her arms. When she has looked as well as she can, she watches him.

She doesn't notice the tremor, but then, she's not watching his hands. He invites her to sit and she does, shrugging her coat off, folding it across her lap before complying.

"And have a long ways yet to go," she agrees, breathing in the warmth of the tea a moment before sipping at it. "I assure you, it was only minimal design brought me to your doorstep, so to speak. While considering my options, I realized I remembered the name of Birmingham from a conversation with a soldier that spoke a language not many do; turns out my luck held, and you are still here."

From:

bleak_midwinter

"I will always be here," he says, eyes flicking from her hands on the teacup to her dark, dark eyes. "My mother didn't give us the need to wander like she gave us that language."

From:

leavetreadmarks

For a moment she just nods, pressing her lips together thoughtfully.

"Territorial," she comments, neither approving nor disapproving, merely stating a fact, considering what she'll say next. "I can't say as I've ever felt particularly one way or the other on that matter. I stayed when they stayed, followed when they went. I've been trying to do just that for some time now, only the world is a lot larger now that it's safer."

From:

bleak_midwinter

He won't dispute that. She must know, from the way people spoke about him on her journey here, that this is his territory.

"So are you trying to see where the world ends, or are you looking for danger?" Because he knows men who do the latter, who couldn't settle after the gunfire ceased.

From:

leavetreadmarks

The answer seemed obvious to her but then - she reminds herself - she knows who she is. She's changed since she volunteered, of course, but not that much, not in that way.

So the corner of her mouth twists again in her dry, small smile, and she raises an eyebrow. "Which do you think?"

From:

bleak_midwinter

"A woman who volunteered for what you did, and who turns up asking a wounded soldier for her gun back after a year..."

He trails off and he mirrors that smile. "Well. Who am I to think that I could predict a woman like that?"

From:

leavetreadmarks

"Who indeed," she echoes, amused, but her eyes drop to her hands on the teacup - to where she puts it down, and picks idly at the ragged edge of one of her thumbnails as the smile fades.

"I'd thought that if you were still here, if you still had it, if it was still in good repair and still had ammunition - if you were still willing to return it, that I might yet sell it, or trade it." The stark tone of voice speaks to exactly how aware she is of how many ifs are in that train of thought, of how flimsy a chance she knew it was when she set out to take it. "There is, I suppose, a kind of fortune in the overall lack of strategy involved in ferrying the wounded from battlefield to hospital."

From:

bleak_midwinter

He lets that settle between them, lets that thought hang right where it is until he smooths it over with a sigh, with a sip of tea.

"But now that all those ifs turned out to be true... will you sell it? Where will that money take you?"

From:

leavetreadmarks

"Have they now," she comments, but doesn't pursue it, doesn't pick up her usual prickly demeanor just yet. Instead she looks up, just her eyes first, then straightening her back as she tucks loose hair back behind her ear, raises her chin.

"A quarter of the way to where home used to be, if I'm shrewd. I'd have to decide what to do then, work with wherever I found myself," she admits, not happily. "That's if I wasn't accused of stealing it outright, of course. I'm not stupid enough to dismiss that as a possibility. If I'm honest, Thomas Shelby, there aren't any good choices and haven't been since before the ifs showed their worth."

From:

bleak_midwinter

"Then let me offer you an alternative," he says, leaning forward a little, his tea abandoned for now. "You could sell the gun and move away- or you could keep it and earn your way home."

From:

leavetreadmarks

"Could I?" Her voice is very, very even, and her gaze very, very steady and very, very dark. It had already occurred to her, the shape of it, but not the details yet; she'd been working on that when it comes from him instead, which is an entirely different prospect. "And what does that alternative entail?"

From:

bleak_midwinter

"What company doesn't have use of a woman of your caliber, with your training? I'd be a fool not to offer you work, Letty."

He spreads his hands on the table, the wood heavy and scarred between his fingers. "Can you read? Do calculations?"

From:

leavetreadmarks

"I believe the operative word there is woman," she points out coolly, but the rest she can agree with readily enough, and after all: she knows how few people people can answer those questions in the affirmative.

"I can. You are also aware of my other skills: riding and evaluating horseflesh, shooting, and keeping my mouth firmly shut."

From:

bleak_midwinter

He leans back again, satisfied. Honestly, she would be a big help, as he's quite grown to like her in the past half hour. If she decides to stay he'd be very pleased-- but she's not the kind of woman who'll be coerced into anything.

"There's no more space in the house for you, but we can find you lodgings. You can think about it, if you need to."

From:

leavetreadmarks

Indeed she isn't, and it has caused her not inconsiderable problems in her life before now. "I can find my own lodgings," she says immediately, unwilling to deal entirely on even earned charity. She's already accepting more than she's comfortable with, although she's also capable of recognizing that she can't eat or ride pride, or pull it over her head in the rain.

She doesn't have to think about it. She already had been, though she's not ready to play that card yet.

"What would be the duties, the pay? What of the rest of your family? Is it not their business as well?"

From:

bleak_midwinter

He waves off the first part- fine, she can find her own lodgings, it's no skin off his back. Besides, he'll more than likely own the man or woman running the place, and if anything ever happens he'll know of it.

"I'll call a family meeting, after we're done here. Talk it over." Though there's a certainty about him, a certain flippant quality, that implies they'll accept whatever Tommy decides. "We need someone to do the books. My brother's poor with numbers, and I need someone fast and efficient. I'd say six pounds a month would be good, to start with."

From:

leavetreadmarks

It's the tone that catches her, not by surprise - she isn't in the least - but it's interesting nonetheless. The kind of interesting that she can understand, or that can warn of more serious, better hidden problems.

But mostly, nodding in acceptance of the rest of the terms, of the explanation, she settles her arms on the edge of the table and turns her teacup a little more with her fingers, idly.

"Tell me about them? Your family."

From:

bleak_midwinter

Despite himself, warmth always seeps into his voice when he talks about his family. He twitches a smile and raises his cup to his mouth, takes a sip before he speaks.

"I have two brothers who were in the war, and one who was too young to go. A sister, who thinks she's a nurse but barely knows how to apply a bandage, and our aunt Polly, without whom we'd all be homeless. And John has his four children he takes care of as a widower."

From:

leavetreadmarks

"The brothers that were in the war: they were in a separate unit, from you and your friends?"

The rest of it tells more of an interesting tale: an aunt but no mother or father or uncle, a brother who is a single father of four, and an assortment in between, to say nothing of Tommy himself.