"Do you know what 'gypsy' means?" He's back to stroking her hair, just slightly, absently. He feels a soft surge of pride when she speaks, because he knows how hard it is to speak when you're that scared, that panicked.
When she closes her eyes this time, it's to focus on Tommy's voice, his hand in her hair, and she lets out a shaky, relieved breath when she isn't immediately bombarded with images of a man she could have wanted for a father dying.
This time she shakes her head, forehead rubbing against his shoulder while she does it. She doesn't know what that word means, it's like nothing she'd ever heard on Jakku or from any of the holodisks she had scavenged.
"Hmm. It's a long, long history, but what it means where I'm from is that you wander. Gypsies have caravans and horses and they move when they have to, when the world has decided it no longer wants them there. They don't abide by the rules of the government, their faith is different than that of the people around them."
Tommy doesn't identify with that group quite well enough to say we, because he doesn't wander; but he sounds fond when he speaks.
When she curls into him just a little more it's so her body is better supported by his, so she's resting against him properly instead of leaning in and holding herself apart from him. Her head moves, too, so she can speak without her voice coming out muffled into his shoulder.
There's a chance of it, of her being lulled to a state of such relaxation she falls asleep, but it's a slim one. He stands a better chance than anyone else on the barge, anyone else she knows at all, but it's not in her nature to fall asleep with someone else in the room.
But it also isn't her nature to let someone hold her at all, so maybe that isn't saying much. Hands like coal shovels gets a hum of interest out of her that could almost be amused, but mostly her only response is to nod again to tell him to keep talking.
"He married my grandmother, who wasn't gypsy like they knew 'em, and they
moved to Birmingham. It's the city, the big city, dark and deep and full of
smoke. Grandma never settled there, but grandfather did well for himself."
He shifts a little, so his chin isn't poking her anymore and instead he
rests his cheek on the top of her head.
It's very soft, the question she asks, but she can't help asking it. She wants to know, wants to know everything there is to know about Tommy Shelby, and that is a much better option than thinking about people she cares about being murdered.
And she likes his head resting on hers, but she only realizes that in the back of her mind. When she's more alert she'll remember this, every single bit of it will stand out differently, but for now it's so natural she doesn't even think to question it.
"Because she had the blood in her, too. She missed the open air, she missed
her people, the music. And people aren't kind to gypsies like they are to
their own people."
That makes her frown, makes her hug Tommy a little tighter just for a moment because she doesn't like the idea of people disliking him just because of his blood.
Which is silly because if anyone needs a hug to soothe the way people have treated him in the past less it's absolutely Tommy, but she isn't really acting on logic now. Everything has boiled down to pure instinct and somewhere along the way, her instincts started to include protecting him.
"It's the reason I had to forge a birth certificate when war came," he explains, softly. He isn't bitter about it all: he's glad for the experiences now, it hardened him in a very necessary way.
"Because gypsies don't belong in society. Never entirely, as far as they're concerned."
"I just thought you were too young," she says just as softly, like if she speaks too much louder the safe space that's built around them will come crumbling down. And then, a little lower and more firm, "The people in your world sound very stupid sometimes."
Why put an entire group of people on the outskirts, consider them lesser, when they absolutely aren't? In a more logical sense, why wouldn't they let every single person who wanted to fight to protect what was theirs do exactly that?
It makes her shiver and she's pressed so close there's no way he won't feel it, but she doesn't duck away from it. She clings to that, to the sound of his voice and his laugh, and lets it ground her.
Death isn't permanent here. She still has her chance, probably more than one, to keep Han safe.
"You managed to escape alright," she mumbles, and it's a high compliment from her, sounds incredibly affectionate even if it is a little slurred by exhaustion.
"Im glad you think so," he jokes, softly, and lets a soft silence longer between them. He can feel her relaxing, and there was little tension left in her voice just now.
"Think you'd like to close your eyes for a bit, perhaps?"
She nods because she does, because she'd like nothing more than to sleep for days, but she also knows this isn't the place for that. She doesn't want to move, either, and she's sure she'll have nightmares of Han falling, so-
He did say that, but she wouldn't have ever considered he meant to sleep. She's never slept around another person before, never with them in the same room, and she's not even sure if she can, but... it's Tommy. So much that she never thought she could do she can now, because of him, and it's a much different thing to think about when he's telling her she can sleep in his room while his fingers play along her ear, slip through her hair.
Can she risk it, going to sleep here when she knows she'll have nightmares? He's seen her weak already, can she take him seeing her even lower? Does it matter when she's helped him through his own low points?
Can she risk what might change if she says no?
In the end it boils down to a question of what she wants, though, and that's much easier to answer if she doesn't think about the why of it. She wants to stay. She doesn't want to be alone and that feeling is so unknown she hardly knows what to do with it.
"Okay," she says softly, and she turns her head so she's got her face pressed a little more directly against his neck while she closes her eyes again.
He's going to lose sleep herself: he expects nightmares from her right now, and he still expects them from himself and doesn't want to run the risk of waking up scared when she can't handle that.
Without even really noticing, he leans down and drops a kiss onto her head before he straightens up, smiling at her crookedly.
"Alright, then. Think you can make it up the stairs, or d'you want the sofa?"
The kiss against her hair is so quick she doesn't have much time to process it herself, but when she thinks back to Enclosure she'll remember she did the same thing just as impulsively. Right now it just makes her smile the tiniest bit, but when he straightens she isn't quite ready.
Her body sways after him when she loses that support and she looks up at him, eyes red from crying but dry now, lips parted a little in her surprise at his sudden movement.
But then he talks and the corners of her mouth turn downward just a little.
He snorts softly as he pushes some hair out of her red-rimmed eyes, but he takes the hint: he steps away just a little, enough to show her that he has faith she can stand on her own two feet.
"Alright, then. So come on. There's a bed made for you already."
It's Polly's bed, and it's not true about it being made for her, of course: it's been made for the entirety of his stay here, but he's never used it. He's kept that door closed, because it's strange, and a little painful to go into when he misses his aunt so badly sometimes-- but she needs a place to stay, and she should have a bed, and it can't be his because that's...
Somehow it feels inappropriate, in a way it hadn't when Furiosa had stayed, in a way it hadn't when Lark had slept at his place. It feels important to him right now that she has her own place, clean and nice and safe.
So he jerks his head and pushes open the green doors to the shop- where there's a large pick-up truck parked right in the middle of a clutter of desks and chairs, a chalkboard all the way in the back. But he leads her upstairs, and opens the door to a room that's just as lavishly decorated as the living room. The walls have dark red patterned wallpaper, the curtains are heavy velvet, the bed is big and comfortable and has enough pillows for the whole house.
When she's less shell shocked, less exhausted, she'll want to look around a little more if he'll let her. The areas he leads her through are too interesting to ignore, there's too much history there, too much of Tommy, and she wants to know everything there is to know. Everything he'll tell her.
But that's for another time, and as they go up the stairs something has her reaching for him, her hand curling around his hand because if he can kiss her hair, she can hold his hand for one second while they climb the stairs. She doesn't let go at the top, though, and by the time they reach the room her feet are dragging and she's let her head rest against his shoulder.
When they arrive, though, her head lifts again so she can look up at him, suddenly unsure. This is too nice for her, she absolutely does not belong in a place like this.
His heart does something funny when she takes his hand, and he tries to remember what Furiosa told him: have fun, enjoy this. It's hard to do that when he knows how heartbroken she is right now, but she's close, and she trusts him, and it means more to him than even he himself can properly express.
He wraps an arm around her shoulders and squeezes her once before replying, guiding her through the door and to the bed first.
"No one else is using it. It's not my room, and it's only taking up space otherwise. Eh? C'mon, I wouldn't offer if I minded."
She nods after a moment, unable to ignore the logic of that. If he didn't want her there he'd have let her leave when she thought he was telling her to, he wouldn't have brought her up here. He wouldn't be leading her in, insisting, and she reaches out a hand to run along the bedspread once she's close enough.
It's nicer than anything she's ever seen before, soft when she presses down, and it looks like it's going to be more than warm enough to chase the chill away that seems to be settling in on her again. If she's going to be sleeping she'll need to be comfortable, so she lifts a hand up to the back of her head to start pulling the ties from her hair.
"D'you want me to go?" He asks it, honestly, because he feels like he should but he knows that he wouldn't have wanted her to leave so shortly after a panic attack. It's a battle between wanting to give her privacy and needing to know if she's alright, and he might as well give her the choice.
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This time she shakes her head, forehead rubbing against his shoulder while she does it. She doesn't know what that word means, it's like nothing she'd ever heard on Jakku or from any of the holodisks she had scavenged.
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Tommy doesn't identify with that group quite well enough to say we, because he doesn't wander; but he sounds fond when he speaks.
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"And your grandfather was the king?"
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"He was. Of one group of them-- not big, just a few families. But he was a big, powerful man. Hands like coal shovels."
He almost hopes to suss her to sleep like this- she sounds so calm right now, distracted enough that it might work.
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But it also isn't her nature to let someone hold her at all, so maybe that isn't saying much. Hands like coal shovels gets a hum of interest out of her that could almost be amused, but mostly her only response is to nod again to tell him to keep talking.
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"He married my grandmother, who wasn't gypsy like they knew 'em, and they moved to Birmingham. It's the city, the big city, dark and deep and full of smoke. Grandma never settled there, but grandfather did well for himself."
He shifts a little, so his chin isn't poking her anymore and instead he rests his cheek on the top of her head.
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It's very soft, the question she asks, but she can't help asking it. She wants to know, wants to know everything there is to know about Tommy Shelby, and that is a much better option than thinking about people she cares about being murdered.
And she likes his head resting on hers, but she only realizes that in the back of her mind. When she's more alert she'll remember this, every single bit of it will stand out differently, but for now it's so natural she doesn't even think to question it.
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"Because she had the blood in her, too. She missed the open air, she missed her people, the music. And people aren't kind to gypsies like they are to their own people."
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Which is silly because if anyone needs a hug to soothe the way people have treated him in the past less it's absolutely Tommy, but she isn't really acting on logic now. Everything has boiled down to pure instinct and somewhere along the way, her instincts started to include protecting him.
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"It's the reason I had to forge a birth certificate when war came," he explains, softly. He isn't bitter about it all: he's glad for the experiences now, it hardened him in a very necessary way.
"Because gypsies don't belong in society. Never entirely, as far as they're concerned."
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Why put an entire group of people on the outskirts, consider them lesser, when they absolutely aren't? In a more logical sense, why wouldn't they let every single person who wanted to fight to protect what was theirs do exactly that?
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He chuckles softly, and traces the rim of an ear. It's a little playful and a lot tender, caring, and quite intimate if he stopped to think about it.
"You're right about that, Rey. Most of them are stupid most of the time."
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Death isn't permanent here. She still has her chance, probably more than one, to keep Han safe.
"You managed to escape alright," she mumbles, and it's a high compliment from her, sounds incredibly affectionate even if it is a little slurred by exhaustion.
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"Im glad you think so," he jokes, softly, and lets a soft silence longer between them. He can feel her relaxing, and there was little tension left in her voice just now.
"Think you'd like to close your eyes for a bit, perhaps?"
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"I just need another minute, and then I'll go."
She doesn't sound like she wants to.
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"I told you. You can stay here as long as you need."
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Can she risk it, going to sleep here when she knows she'll have nightmares? He's seen her weak already, can she take him seeing her even lower? Does it matter when she's helped him through his own low points?
Can she risk what might change if she says no?
In the end it boils down to a question of what she wants, though, and that's much easier to answer if she doesn't think about the why of it. She wants to stay. She doesn't want to be alone and that feeling is so unknown she hardly knows what to do with it.
"Okay," she says softly, and she turns her head so she's got her face pressed a little more directly against his neck while she closes her eyes again.
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Without even really noticing, he leans down and drops a kiss onto her head before he straightens up, smiling at her crookedly.
"Alright, then. Think you can make it up the stairs, or d'you want the sofa?"
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Her body sways after him when she loses that support and she looks up at him, eyes red from crying but dry now, lips parted a little in her surprise at his sudden movement.
But then he talks and the corners of her mouth turn downward just a little.
"My legs aren't broken."
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"Alright, then. So come on. There's a bed made for you already."
It's Polly's bed, and it's not true about it being made for her, of course: it's been made for the entirety of his stay here, but he's never used it. He's kept that door closed, because it's strange, and a little painful to go into when he misses his aunt so badly sometimes-- but she needs a place to stay, and she should have a bed, and it can't be his because that's...
Somehow it feels inappropriate, in a way it hadn't when Furiosa had stayed, in a way it hadn't when Lark had slept at his place. It feels important to him right now that she has her own place, clean and nice and safe.
So he jerks his head and pushes open the green doors to the shop- where there's a large pick-up truck parked right in the middle of a clutter of desks and chairs, a chalkboard all the way in the back. But he leads her upstairs, and opens the door to a room that's just as lavishly decorated as the living room. The walls have dark red patterned wallpaper, the curtains are heavy velvet, the bed is big and comfortable and has enough pillows for the whole house.
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But that's for another time, and as they go up the stairs something has her reaching for him, her hand curling around his hand because if he can kiss her hair, she can hold his hand for one second while they climb the stairs. She doesn't let go at the top, though, and by the time they reach the room her feet are dragging and she's let her head rest against his shoulder.
When they arrive, though, her head lifts again so she can look up at him, suddenly unsure. This is too nice for her, she absolutely does not belong in a place like this.
"This looks so nice, Tommy, are you sure-"
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He wraps an arm around her shoulders and squeezes her once before replying, guiding her through the door and to the bed first.
"No one else is using it. It's not my room, and it's only taking up space otherwise. Eh? C'mon, I wouldn't offer if I minded."
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It's nicer than anything she's ever seen before, soft when she presses down, and it looks like it's going to be more than warm enough to chase the chill away that seems to be settling in on her again. If she's going to be sleeping she'll need to be comfortable, so she lifts a hand up to the back of her head to start pulling the ties from her hair.
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