Ada Shelby sat in the international terminal at the Heathrow airport, jonesing for a cigarette and grappling with the feeling that everything was about to change.

She tapped her foot impatiently, watching the boards for any change to the flight she was waiting for, but still finding the green words: "On Time." She glanced at her cell phone. On time my arse, she thought. The flight was supposed to have landed twenty minutes ago. But the moment she stepped outside for a fag, the boys would surely show up and so she stayed seated, her legs pressed to the hard, plasticky chair.

Thoughts jangled around her head like misplaced keys, noisy and useless. She had been waiting for this day for what seemed like ages, and now that it was here, she wasn't quite sure what to do. She was nervous. She had changed in the time the boys had been gone - it was likely that they had, too. As much as she wanted to see them, she feared them, and more so, feared what they had been through. How did one ask about that kind of thing? Was she supposed to? Would they prefer if she didn't? She wished Polly had come with her to help ease some of the inevitable awkwardness, but Polly had claimed work, an undoubtedly poor excuse for the fact that she hated public displays of emotion, and oh, they would abound today.

Ada looked to her left and right at the expectant people waiting alongside her - parents, wives, daughters and sons. She met the eyes of a blonde woman not much older than she wearing a pretty sundress and an enormous diamond on her left hand, and Ada smiled kindly. The woman's smile didn't reach her panicked eyes, and though Ada wanted to comfort her somehow, she was in no place to placate anyone. She was afraid, too. Anyway, the plane would be landing any moment now.

As was usual with her older brothers, she heard them before she saw them. Arthur had never had any sense of volume, and in the likelihood that his hearing had been damaged, he had probably only gotten louder.

"Ada!" he shouted, drawing stares from the people around her. He was standing on the second level, leaning over a glass balcony and waving with a grin that seemed much too big for his face in the absence of his usual mustache. Time suddenly seemed to speed up as a barrage of men in uniform streamed through the terminal like fish released from a barrel, filling the room with green and tan. She could no longer see Arthur - she was too short to find him in the crowd of similarly dressed men.

It was John who reached her first, nearly knocking her to the ground with the force of his embrace. "Aren't you a sight for sore fucking eyes," he declared. In spite of the way she'd promised herself she wouldn't cry, Ada's eyes began to fill with tears.

"You're skinny, John," she said, burying her face in his shoulder to hide her emotion. "They don't fucking feed you in the army?"

"Move over, John-Boy," Arthur said. Rather than waiting for John to move, he wrapped his long arms around both of them.

"Miss us much, Ada?" he asked, the teasing lilt to his voice making Ada's heart swell painfully.

"Not at all," she said in a half-laugh, half-sob. She pulled back so she could look at the two of them - both clean-shaven with close-cropped hair, both taller than she remembered. Then she looked behind them. Tommy was hanging back, politely waiting his turn with his hands thrust through the straps of his backpack almost self-consciously. When he locked eyes with Ada he smiled, but it wasn't the careless Tommy grin that Ada had known before. His lips were closed, pressed tightly together as though the expression hurt him, and his eyes were disengaged, belonging to someone else entirely.

Before she could worry too much about it she threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. "I'm glad you're home," she whispered.

You weren't supposed to have favorite brothers, but Ada and Tommy had always had a special relationship. John was too close in age to Ada to want anything to do with her growing up, and Arthur was too old to take notice of her, but Tommy had always looked after her, played with her, guided her. Though she'd never admit it, she had missed him most, for she had felt his absence the most. Without her confidante Tommy by her side, she had felt as though she were missing a limb through the past years. Now that he was back she had expected to feel complete, but instead she felt awkward and too heavy. She didn't know how to begin to bridge the gap.

"Let's go home," she said, clearing her throat as she pulled away from Tommy to take in the view of all three of her older brothers, here, home at last. "Polly will be so happy to see you."

"She might be at first," John laughed, pressing his knuckles into Ada's shoulder. "But I bet the place was cleaner without us."

"And quieter," she grinned. Too quiet, she thought.

Her car was on the third floor of the garage, and it seemed to take ages to get there as the elbowed through masses of travelers, returning and departing. Finally, she spotted her battered tan sedan in the parking spot where she'd left it. It hadn't felt small on the drive over, but now, seeing the three of them in flesh and blood, she wondered how they were all possibly going to fit inside.

"Give us the keys, then, Ada," Arthur said, extending his hand.

She scoffed, offended. "Fuck off, Arthur," she replied. "I'm not letting you drive my car."

"Shotgun!" John yelped, running to the side of the car and rattling the still-locked door handle.

Ada, with a firm grip on her keys, pressed the button on the fob to unlock it. Arthur was still standing in front of her, hand outstretched.

"Let's go, Ada," he said, rolling his eyes.

"You don't trust me to get us home?" Ada put her hands on her hips furiously. "I got here just fine, thank you very much. When was the last time you even drove a car?"

Arthur's mouth twitched, whether with anger or amusement, Ada wasn't sure. "I drove plenty over there, thanks," he snapped. "I'm not letting my little sister make the drive-"

"Little sister -" she repeated, her voice beginning to rise in volume. The lightness that had been buzzing inside her had been replaced with hot anger. She knew this would happen. She had known that the second she got home all the independence she'd been used to in their absence would disappear. They still saw her as a teenager, as a kid.

"Arthur," Tommy said quietly, putting a hand on Arthur's shoulder. "Let Ada drive."

Ada huffed toward the driver's seat, slamming the door behind her and stabbing the key into the ignition. Oblivious to her anger, John began scanning through the radio. Ada took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself. They only just got home. She didn't want to start things off this way.

"Everybody ready?" she asked, trying her best to sound chipper.

"We're ready." Tommy spoke for all of them, for John was still fiddling with the radio and Arthur was scowling in the backseat. Ada did her best to not roll her eyes and put the car in reverse.

"What the fuck is all this racket?" John asked, flipping through stations. "Leave the country for a bit and they do away with all the good music?"

"Dunno, John," Ada replied, trying to carefully navigate her way out of the airport terminal. Once they were safely on the motorway, she felt her shoulders relax slightly, and the tension that Arthur had raised within her had mostly dissipated. John had settled on a classic rock station, they were listening to a song by The Who, and everything was beginning to feel normal again.

"So," Ada said. "What are you lot planning to do in the next few days?"

"Sleep," John said, leaning his head back. "Not sweat."

"Get drunk at the Garrison," Arthur contributed from the back seat.

Tommy said nothing. He was staring out the window, and Ada wasn't sure if he'd heard her.

"What about you, Tom?" she asked, peering at him in the rearview mirror.

"What?" He snapped his head forward.

"Do you have any plans the next few days?"

"Readjust, I suppose," he said. "Have you seen much of Freddie?"

Ada focused her eyes on the road. "Thorne?"

"Do you know another Freddie?" Tommy asked, a laugh bubbling under his voice.

"Yeah, there's Freddie Jones from the… oh, never mind. Yes, I've seen him around," Ada said.

"Lucky bastard," John said. "He's been home for months now."

"He was shot!" Ada protested, shooting a dagger-like glare in John's direction. "I don't consider that lucky."

"He's alive, isn't he?" Arthur grumbled. "Sounds pretty lucky to me."

Ada looked up and Tommy's blue eyes were piercing hers through the rearview mirror. She looked ahead again.

"You know Lisette Lee?" she asked, eager to change the subject. "She got knocked up."

"It was only a matter of time," John replied with a chuckle. "Wild, that one."

"Then she ran off with some Irish bloke. Her family's furious, Johnny especially."

"Don't know what else he expected," John continued. "All those Lee girls are trash."

"They're not trash, John. That's not what I was saying," Ada protested, wishing yet again that she'd just kept her mouth shut. "Anyway, you all are friends with the Lee boys, so what does that make you?"

"It makes us a little better than trash," Arthur laughed from the backseat. "It never hurts to have friends in low places."

"Anyway, the boys aren't so bad," John said. "The girls are out of control."

"Oh, for Christ's sake," Ada sighed.

"What have you been up to, Ada?" Tommy asked. She hadn't realized he'd been listening.

"Nothing more than what I've told you over the phone," she replied. "Working with Pol, taking night classes at further education."

She didn't have time or money for much else. The money she made working with Polly went to pay for her classes. She sometimes took weekend trips with Lizzie to the beach or to London, if she could spare the time, and every now and then after work she'd meet up at the Garrison with Freddie. He was lonely, and feeling useless with all of his friends still overseas. He was a good listener, and he always wanted to know what she was learning about in her classes. They could talk for hours over a pint, and Ada felt it was almost like having her brothers back, except better, because unlike her brothers Freddie respected her independence and considered her an equal. And, he wasn't her brother - he was Freddie.

"How are your classes?" Tommy asked. He sounded politely interested, if perfunctory. He sounded like a father.

"They're fine," Ada replied, bristling slightly. "I've never been much for maths, but I do pretty well in my accounting classes."

"Probably the smartest one there," Arthur boasted, and Ada blushed in spite of herself.

"Come off it," she muttered.

The sun had been nearing the horizon when they'd begun the drive, and now it was gone. In the darkness, one by one, the boys drifted off to sleep: John first, Tommy last. Ada smiled to herself as she drove. This was how she liked them best - quiet, but present. The drive seemed to go faster sans conversation.

She rolled quietly down Watery Lane, which was mostly empty. John awoke with a start when she put the car in park, then turned around, slapping at Arthur and Tommy's knees. "Oi," he said. "We're home!"

They grumbled awake, disoriented and confused. Then Tommy looked up at the lights of the flat and Polly's silhouetted figure walking past the window, and smiled. "We're home," he said.