Jimmy arrived at Birmingham General Hospital just after ten in the morning, carrying fresh flowers—daffodils, bright yellow against the gray morning. He'd forgotten to replace the previous bouquet, realized it with guilty start when he'd passed a flower seller on his way.
The old flowers had been wilting in their vase for a week, another small failing in the accumulating evidence of his inability to maintain even basic human courtesies.
The hospital corridors smelled of disinfectant and illness, that particular combination of cleanliness and decay that defined institutional care. His footsteps echoed off tile floors as he navigated toward the Women's Medical Ward, past nurses hurrying between rooms and families waiting with the particular exhaustion of people keeping vigil.
Mrs. Price looked better than his last visit—color returning to her face, breathing easier without the oxygen tubes. She sat propped against pillows, reading a book with her usual careful attention.
When Jimmy appeared in the doorway, she looked up with expression that mixed warmth and sadness in ways that made his chest tight.
"Cariad," she said softly. "You remembered the flowers this time."
"I'm sorry about the old ones. I should have replaced them sooner." Jimmy moved to her bedside, arranging the daffodils in the vase with movements that felt awkward and insufficient.
"It's alright. You've been managing crises. I understand."
"That's not an excuse—"
"No, it's not." Mrs. Price's gentle correction stopped his automatic rationalization. "But it's the truth. You've been so busy maintaining your perfect systems that basic human considerations slip away.
Like visiting someone you claim to care about with fresh flowers rather than letting old ones die while you solve everyone else's problems."
Jimmy pulled the uncomfortable wooden chair closer to her bed and sat. "I want to do better. Try to be present the way you've asked."
"Then try now. Just sit with me. No strategizing about my treatment. No planning my recovery. Just be here with me for a little while."
Jimmy settled back in the chair, consciously relaxing his posture, focusing on being present. Just sitting. Just being with her.
His mind immediately began its familiar patterns:
Hospital recovering well. Cardiac specialist mentioned possible discharge next week. Need to arrange follow-up appointments. Home care services for first few weeks. Dietary modifications for heart health. Maybe hire someone to check on her daily—
"You're doing it right now," Mrs. Price said quietly.
Jimmy blinked, pulled from his mental planning. "Doing what?"
"Strategizing. I can see it in your eyes—the way they lose focus on me and turn inward to whatever plans you're making."
She reached out, covering his hand with hers. The touch was warm, maternal, and it made something in Jimmy's chest constrict painfully. "You can't do it, can you? Just be here."
"I'm trying—"
"I know you are. But trying isn't the same as succeeding." Mrs. Price's voice held no anger, just profound sadness. "You've lost something, Jimmy. The boy who used to sit in my kitchen and actually talk with me—not at me, not through me, just talk.
Simple conversation without agenda or objective. Where did he go?"
Jimmy had no answer. That person felt like stranger from another life—someone naive and inefficient who'd been optimized away in pursuit of strategic perfection.
"I want to tell you about my Mr. Price," Mrs. Price said, settling back against her pillows. "Your surrogate father, the man whose name you carry in my heart even though you never met him."
Jimmy listened, grateful for reprieve from examining his own failures.
"He worked in the Welsh coal mines. Brutal, dangerous work that killed men young—cave-ins, explosions, the slow death of lungs destroyed by coal dust."
Mrs. Price's voice took on the cadence of memory, speaking of man she'd loved and lost. "He was intelligent, my Owen. Sharp mind, quick with numbers, could have found safer employment. Mine supervisors wanted him to work above ground—planning, logistics, management. Better pay, no danger, using his brains instead of his back."
"But he refused?" Jimmy asked when she paused.
"He refused. Stayed in the mines doing the same dangerous work as every other man, even when he could have escaped it."
Mrs. Price smiled, the expression mixing pride and grief. "Know why? Because that's where his people were. The miners he'd grown up with, the boys he'd played with as a child, the men who'd become his brothers in darkness and danger."
She turned to look directly at Jimmy. "He said: 'If I leave, who helps the boys who can't leave? If I take the safe position, who stands with them when the mine tries to cut wages or ignore safety?
If I use my cleverness to escape, what does that say about valuing my own comfort over their survival?'"
"That's noble," Jimmy said, "but also impractical. One man staying in the mines doesn't change the system."
"Doesn't it?" Mrs. Price's eyes were sharp despite her weakened state. "He used his intelligence while staying in solidarity. Helped organize miners for better conditions. Taught younger men to read so they could understand their rights.
Made sure everyone understood their wages and noticed when numbers didn't add up. He didn't escape and leave them behind—he stayed and made them all stronger."
She paused, catching her breath, then continued with weight behind every word. "He died at fifty, lungs destroyed by coal dust. Could have lived to eighty if he'd taken that surface job.
But he died knowing he'd stood with his community when he could have stood above them. Died knowing he'd helped his people rather than saved himself."
Jimmy began to see where she was leading. "You're saying I've chosen cleverness over community."
"Haven't you?" Mrs. Price's question was gentle but devastating. "You've optimized away every messy human element that made you decent. Ada's trust, Webb's autonomy, my request for simple presence.
You've treated everyone as problems to be solved rather than people to stand with."
"I was protecting them—"
"You were managing them. There's a difference, cariad." She squeezed his hand. "Owen could have used his intelligence to escape the mines. You've used your intelligence to escape genuine connection.
Both are forms of cleverness. But only one serves community rather than just serving self."
The observation landed with uncomfortable accuracy. Jimmy had spent eighteen months proving how clever he was, how strategic, how effective at solving impossible problems.
And in the process, he'd isolated himself completely—managing people rather than standing with them, controlling outcomes rather than trusting others, achieving perfect results while losing every genuine relationship that made those results meaningful.
"Now you're facing problem that requires community to solve," Mrs. Price continued. "The IRA isn't threatening Webb because of strategic miscalculation. They're threatening him because he's symbol of Shelby power.
To protect him, you need people who genuinely care about him—not assets who perform caring because you've managed them into it."
She released his hand, settling back with visible exhaustion. "Can you tell the difference anymore, Jimmy? Between genuine caring and performed caring? Between real trust and strategic cooperation? Between community and controlled variables?"
The silence stretched between them, heavy with truth Jimmy didn't want to acknowledge.
Finally, he spoke. "No. I can't."
The admission felt like surrender. "I've trained myself to see manipulation everywhere. To treat every interaction as strategic opportunity. Genuine human connection has become invisible to me—I don't know how to recognize it anymore, let alone create it."
"That's the first honest thing you've said in months, cariad." Mrs. Price's voice held something that might have been hope beneath the sadness. "Admitting you're lost is first step toward finding your way."
She closed her eyes, exhaustion overtaking her. "Go on, now. Do your work. Think about what I've said. And maybe—maybe—start looking for the community you've been managing instead of joining."
Jimmy left the hospital as spring sunshine broke through Birmingham's perpetual clouds, Mrs. Price's words echoing in his mind with uncomfortable persistence.
You've chosen cleverness over community.
Owen Price had stayed in the mines to stand with his people. Jimmy had optimized himself out of genuine connection to stand above everyone.
Which choice was actually intelligent?
---
Evening found Jimmy at The Garrison, sitting in one of the private snugs with Billy Kitchen. The partitioned space offered privacy while keeping them visible to the main bar—isolated but not hidden, separate but not secretive.
Billy had sent word that afternoon: Need to talk. Tonight, Garrison, seven o'clock. Come alone.
Jimmy had arrived early, ordered whiskey for both of them, and waited with the particular tension of someone entering negotiation without knowing the terms.
Billy appeared at seven precisely, looking weathered but determined. He slid into the seat across from Jimmy, accepted the whiskey with a nod, and studied Jimmy's face with uncomfortable directness.
"You look like shit," Billy observed.
"I haven't slept much."
"Still trying to solve the Webb problem through strategic brilliance?" Billy sipped his whiskey. "How's that working?"
"It's not." Jimmy stubbed out his cigarette, immediately reached for another. "Tommy rejected my perfect plan. Webb chose to stay despite danger. I'm supposed to protect him while respecting his autonomy and working with people I can't control.
And I genuinely don't know how."
"That's progress, at least. Admitting you don't know." Billy leaned back, expression thoughtful. "I told you I'd help protect Webb. That offer still stands. But the conditions remain the same."
"Genuine partnership where I don't control outcomes."
"Exactly. You work with me as equals. You don't know what I'm going to do three moves ahead. I'm not performing scripted cooperation—I'm making my own choices."
Billy's voice was firm. "That's the offer. Take it or leave it, but don't try to manipulate me into modified version where you maintain hidden control."
Everything in Jimmy resisted. His entire approach to problem-solving depended on controlling variables, predicting outcomes, managing decisions before they were made.
Working with Billy on Billy's terms meant surrendering that control completely—genuine uncertainty, real unpredictability, trust without verification.
"How do I coordinate protection if I can't predict what you'll do?"
"You communicate honestly. Share information. Trust that I'll make good decisions with what you tell me."
Billy leaned forward. "This is what trust looks like, Mr. Cartwright. Uncomfortable, messy, inefficient. But it's real. And real is what you need right now."
"Trust requires vulnerability. I've eliminated vulnerability as weakness."
"I know. That's your problem." Billy's assessment was blunt but not cruel. "You've optimized yourself into someone who can't work with genuine humans making genuine choices. Now you need that ability, and you don't have it."
Jimmy wanted to argue. Wanted to defend his methods, justify his approach, prove that strategic thinking was sufficient. But Mrs. Price's words were too fresh, the day's failures too visible.
Can you tell the difference between genuine caring and performed caring?
No. He couldn't. Because he'd spent eighteen months treating everything as performance, every interaction as transaction, every relationship as strategic positioning.
"What do you need from me?" Jimmy asked finally, the words feeling like death—surrendering control, accepting uncertainty, trusting someone he couldn't manage.
"Information about IRA movements as you learn them. Webb's schedule so I can coordinate with Glasgow contacts who might provide warning. Honest assessment of threat levels so I can allocate resources appropriately."
Billy pulled out a paper. "And one more thing—you stop trying to manipulate me. When I make decisions you disagree with, you voice disagreement honestly instead of trying to guide me toward your preferred choice."
"That's not coordination—that's chaos."
"That's partnership," Billy corrected. "Real cooperation between people who respect each other's judgment even when they disagree. Your way—perfect control, managed outcomes—that's not partnership. That's puppetry with extra steps."
Jimmy studied Billy's face, looking for angle or leverage point. Finding none—just genuine offer of help conditional on Jimmy surrendering the very methods that made him valuable.
He thought about Webb's genuine courage. Ada's devastated fury. Mrs. Price's sad question. Tommy's rejection of perfect manipulation.
All pointing toward the same conclusion: his brilliance had become his prison, his intelligence had become his isolation, his strategic thinking had become his catastrophic failure.
"Alright," Jimmy said, the word feeling like step off cliff into darkness. "Partners. No manipulation. Genuine cooperation where I don't control your decisions."
They shook hands. The gesture felt more significant than any contract Jimmy had ever signed—not agreement to work together, but agreement to work together honestly, accepting uncertainty and imperfection.
"When the threat becomes real," Billy said, standing to leave, "I'll help protect Webb. Not because you've positioned me to help. Not because I owe you. But because it's right and because you're finally learning that some things are more important than being clever."
Billy left. Jimmy sat alone in the snug, whiskey untouched, experiencing something terrifying: he'd just agreed to work with someone who'd explicitly refused to be managed.
The surrender felt like death of everything that made him valuable.
But maybe—maybe—it was necessary death. The death of strategic manipulation to make room for something more sustainable.
Jimmy didn't know. Couldn't predict. Couldn't control.
And that uncertainty terrified him more than any threat he'd faced.
---
The explosion echoed through Small Heath just after nine o'clock, loud enough to rattle windows and send flocks of roosting pigeons into panicked flight. Jimmy was walking back from The Garrison, hands in pockets, mind still processing Billy's ultimatum.
The sound came from the direction of City Hall. Not quite close enough to feel the concussion, but close enough to recognize: bomb, not accident.
People emerged from houses and pubs, looking toward the sound. Someone shouted about calling police. Women grabbed children, pulling them inside. Men moved toward the explosion, that particular masculine instinct to run toward danger rather than away.
Jimmy ran.
His mind shifted automatically into crisis assessment: IRA attack, almost certainly. Targeted bombing, probably small device. City Hall area meant government target. Webb—
His heart hammered as he ran through darkening streets, dodging other people, ignoring shouts. If they'd hit Webb directly, if they'd killed him despite Jimmy's inadequate protection, if genuine courage had been destroyed because Jimmy couldn't figure out how to protect it—
He reached Victoria Square to find chaos. Police bells already ringing. Fire brigade arriving. Crowd forming at safe distance. Smoke rising from building near City Hall—not the council chambers themselves, but adjacent structure.
Webb's campaign office. The small building where Dr. Helen Foster still coordinated ongoing constituent services and future political planning.
Jimmy pushed through the crowd, showing Peaky Blinder identification to police who tried to stop him. The building's front was damaged—windows blown out, door twisted off hinges, brick facade cracked and crumbling.
He found Danny Whizzbang in the crowd, the shell-shocked man's face grim.
"It was Webb's campaign office," Danny said without preamble. "Not the Council Chambers. Not Webb's home. They hit his people as warning."
"Was anyone inside?"
"Dr. Foster was working late. She's been rushed to hospital—critical condition, extensive injuries."
Danny's voice was flat, delivering terrible information with mechanical precision. "The message is clear: everyone around Webb is target. They're not just threatening him—they're threatening everyone who works with him."
Jimmy felt something cold settle in his stomach. Foster—the woman he'd hired to manage Webb's campaign, positioned for legitimacy, made visible to validate the operation.
Third-order consequence of his strategic thinking. Innocent casualty of manipulation she'd never consented to.
He'd never considered she'd become target. Never calculated that visibility meant vulnerability. Never thought three moves ahead to recognize that everyone he positioned around Webb would draw IRA attention.
Perfect planning generating imperfect casualties.
---
Birmingham General Hospital's emergency ward was controlled chaos when Jimmy arrived—nurses rushing between treatment rooms, doctors shouting orders, families waiting in anguish.
He found Webb in the waiting area, sitting with his head in his hands, clothing singed and dusty from having been at the scene.
"I was supposed to be there," Webb said without looking up. "Usually stay late on Fridays reviewing constituent letters. Tonight I left early to meet with housing committee members."
"Where's Foster?"
"Surgery. They're trying to—" Webb's voice broke. "The doctors won't say if she'll survive. Just that injuries are extensive and next few hours are critical."
Jimmy sat beside him, both men staring at antiseptic walls and trying to process the sudden violence.
"This is the cost of your perfect systems," Webb said finally, his voice hollow. "Helen believed in what we were doing. She thought she was helping Birmingham families through legitimate political change.
She didn't know she was asset in Shelby political operations. She never consented to being piece in your strategic game."
"I never meant for her to be targeted—"
"But you made her visible, didn't you?" Webb turned to look at Jimmy, devastation and fury mixing in his expression. "You hired her to provide legitimacy. Positioned her prominently in the campaign to validate my candidacy.
Made her face of progressive reform attached to my operation. Every strategic decision that made her useful also made her vulnerable."
The assessment was accurate and devastating. Jimmy had positioned Foster for maximum political impact without considering maximum personal risk.
Had treated her as variable to be deployed without thinking three moves ahead to recognize deployment meant danger.
"How many people have you hurt through your brilliant plans?" Webb asked. "How many casualties of your strategic thinking don't even know they were being used? Ada. Helen. How many others whose names I don't know, whose damage isn't visible yet?"
A doctor emerged before Jimmy could respond. Middle-aged man with surgeon's fatigue and bearer of difficult news written on his face.
"Mr. Webb? Ms. Foster is out of surgery. She's alive, but condition is critical. Next forty-eight hours will determine whether she recovers or—"
He paused delicately. "Would you like to see her? She's unconscious, but you're listed as her emergency contact."
Webb stood immediately. "Yes. Please."
He followed the doctor without looking back at Jimmy, leaving him alone in the waiting area with the terrible recognition of what his strategic brilliance had actually achieved.
Foster wasn't just wounded in abstract sense. She was specific woman with specific dreams—former suffragette who'd believed in political change, experienced organizer who'd wanted to help working families, human being who'd trusted Jimmy's campaign because she thought it was legitimate rather than Shelby manipulation.
And now she was fighting for life in surgery because Jimmy had positioned her visibly enough to make her target.
The cost was finally visible. Not theoretical, not strategic, not something that could be rationalized as necessary sacrifice for greater good.
Human cost. Specific cost. Cost with name and face and dreams destroyed by strategic thinking that never considered consequences beyond immediate objectives.
Jimmy sat alone in the hospital waiting area as midnight approached, surrounded by other people's tragedies, finally understanding what Polly and Mrs. Price and Billy had been trying to tell him.
Intelligence without empathy wasn't just insufficient—it was actively cruel. Strategic thinking without human connection didn't achieve better outcomes—it generated casualties who never consented to involvement.
The blood kept seeping through his ceiling in metaphorical sense—violence beneath every surface, always present, always generating cost.
But he'd learned tonight that manipulation could be just as violent as bullets. That strategic positioning could destroy lives just as effectively as bombs.
That being brilliant didn't excuse treating people like variables in equations they'd never agreed to be part of.
Foster would probably die. And her death would be just another third-order consequence Jimmy had failed to predict despite all his strategic brilliance.
---
The emergency family meeting convened at the betting shop past midnight, everyone gathered in the back room despite the late hour—Tommy, Polly, Arthur, John, Jimmy, Danny.
The atmosphere was grim, recognition settling over everyone that situation had escalated beyond their usual capacity to manage.
Arthur was furious. "This is why we should've just killed them. Hit them first, hit them hard, don't give them time to plan attacks."
"That starts gang war," Jimmy said mechanically, repeating arguments that felt hollow now. "IRA has resources we can't match in sustained conflict."
"So what do we do?" John asked. "They're hitting Webb's people. Foster might die. What's the plan?"
Everyone looked to Jimmy—the chief strategist, the brilliant problem-solver, the man who always had answer.
Jimmy had nothing. Just the terrible recognition that his methods had generated this crisis. That positioning people strategically meant making them targets.
That perfect systems created casualties when they intersected with messy human reality.
"I don't know," he admitted, the words foreign and terrifying.
Silence. No one spoke. Jimmy never said he didn't know—he always had plan, always had angle, always had strategic solution waiting to be deployed.
Tommy broke the silence. "Then we work together. All of us. No perfect plan from one person. Family coordination where everyone contributes."
"Billy Kitchen has Glasgow intelligence," Jimmy said. "He's offered to help. Danny has local IRA contacts. Arthur and John can handle physical security. I can—"
He paused, recognizing his limitations for first time. "I can try to coordinate without controlling. Try to facilitate cooperation without manipulating outcomes."
"That's all we can ask," Tommy said. "Try. Honestly. Without perfection."
The meeting continued another hour, mapping coordination and assigning responsibilities. But the atmosphere had shifted. Jimmy was no longer the brilliant strategist designing perfect plans everyone else executed.
He was just one person among many, trying to solve problem none of them fully understood.
When the meeting ended near two AM, Polly kept Jimmy back.
"You're finally seeing it, aren't you?" she said quietly. "The real cost. Not theoretical consequences in strategic calculations. Actual human beings hurt because of choices you made treating them as variables."
"Foster might die because I positioned her prominently in Webb's campaign."
"Yes." Polly's voice held no satisfaction, just sad recognition. "That's what I meant about perfect systems failing catastrophically. You optimized for political impact without considering human cost.
Made her visible to serve your purposes without asking if she consented to that visibility."
"I can't fix this through intelligence. Can't manipulate my way out of consequences I've generated."
"No," Polly agreed. "You can't. This is damage that stays damaged. Foster's injuries, Ada's devastation, Mrs. Price's disappointment—you don't get to undo those through clever planning.
You just get to live with them and try to be better going forward."
She moved to the door, pausing. "But trying to be better is something. Not redemption. Not forgiveness. Just attempt at recovery. That's all anyone can do after destroying things that can't be rebuilt."
Jimmy walked back to his office alone through Birmingham's night. The blood had started seeping through his ceiling again—Morrison doing late-night work, blade moving through flesh.
He sat at his desk as dawn approached, surrounded by papers documenting failures and impossibilities. Foster fighting for life in hospital. Ada refusing to speak to him. Mrs. Price disappointed in what he'd become.
Webb devastated by cost of Jimmy's strategic thinking. Billy offering help conditional on Jimmy surrendering control.
The perfect systems were failing catastrophically, exactly as Polly had warned.
And Jimmy sat alone with the terrible recognition that he'd spent eighteen months proving intelligence was better than violence—only to discover that intelligence could be just as cruel, just as destructive, just as permanently damaging when wielded without humanity.
The cost was finally visible.
And Jimmy couldn't look away.