Chapter Text
March 6th, 1960
11:26am
The following week passed by in a blur.
Every single day, Patsy returned to the hospital without fail. Each time was a little less nerve-wracking than the last; every hour that she could put between them and the accident, the more assured she felt that things would be fine. Or, at the very least, that Delia would survive. Each day she looked a little perkier, a little brighter. And she was becoming more and more herself: she was starting to get restless and impatient with being bedbound, wanting nothing more than to stretch her legs a little. She always begged Patsy to ask to take her on a short walk through the halls, perhaps hoping she’d be a little better at convincing someone to say yes. But the doctor wouldn’t allow it, what with how frequently she still became vague and unresponsive. Every time he checked on her, she’d pester him to let her out of bed – and scowl at his turned back when he inevitably ordered her to stay put.
Her memory seemed no closer to returning. Every day she still spoke to Patsy with vague unfamiliarity; still gazing fondly at her wedding ring as if it were brand new, still slow to lean into or initiate physical contact. But despite this, she tried so hard to keep with it during their conversations, to hang onto every word and not allow herself to space out. When Patsy spoke about what things were like before the accident, she didn’t want to miss a single detail.
Most days she was too tired to speak much, so Patsy often found herself doing most of the talking. She wasn’t often this vocal, even in the privacy of their flat, but now she just couldn’t help herself. Mostly she talked about her day, seeing as how she often had to wait until the end of her shifts to visit. She talked about what kind of things she’d seen on district, what the weather was like outside, the number of gulls she’d counted down at the docks, how many babies she’d delivered. Delia asked questions, when she felt up to it – about how many of the babies were girls and how many were boys, whether it was particularly busy on the streets that day, what she had eaten for breakfast. Little details that Patsy wouldn’t have thought twice about, had she not been asked. But Delia thrilled at her answers, regardless of how ordinary they were.
And that was the pattern: she listened, Patsy talked, and they took pauses as long as necessary when the Welsh girl suddenly lost her attention, until she snapped back to the here and now with a small apology. That was how their days looked, from the moment Patsy was allowed in, until the moment a nurse had to ask her to leave.
She always left the hospital confident she’d brightened Delia’s day, made her time in the hospital just a little more bearable. But by the time she returned to the empty flat – or Nonnatus, when the day had been just too difficult to face alone – she was shaking and tearful and empty again.
The days melted into one another, accumulating into a foggy, forgetful mess with each new one that passed. Sometimes it felt like she was staring at a painting from far away. It was all just some…indistinct muddle of midwifery, hospital visits, and sleepless nights. Try as she might she just couldn’t make out the finer details or decipher any sort of pattern. It was all just shapes and hues, but even they were fuzzy at best. The more she squinted, tried to make sense of it, the less corporeal it looked to her.
At some point or another it’d all been crystal clear but now, visiting Delia had become an ever-growing cigarette burn in the centre of the canvas, eating away at the rest of her life with terrifying haste. The more it ate up, the harder it became to remember everything in a distinct order. Had she eaten an egg for breakfast yesterday or the day before? Surely it’d be easy to remember – at least, she assumed it would be. But she was just spending too much mental energy to keep all the little specifics in order.
It went without saying, but her day off for the week couldn’t come fast enough.
Patsy wasn’t one to count down to a day that she didn’t have to work, but this seemed to be one of those rare exceptions. Come Sunday (now that she had those free, instead of Saturdays), she couldn’t jump out of bed fast enough. She wasn’t about to pass up the chance to make full use of The London’s visiting hours. Even if said hours didn’t begin until eleven.
Sister Julienne asked if she’d join them in their morning prayers, and when the offer was politely declined she went on to insist that Patsy eat breakfast with the rest of them, as per usual. She implored her to sit and eat, despite how antsy she’d become, under the guise that she wouldn’t be seeing her fellow nurses all day and they’d like to have at least one meal with her before she made her trip to the hospital. Begrudgingly, Patsy obliged.
As they ate, her housemates took obvious care to place her directly in the centre of all topics of conversation, to keep her well-distracted. Nobody even mentioned the upcoming hospital visit, or Delia – Patsy was grateful for the brief pause amidst the chaos that’d been this week, and that she’d been made to stay for at least one meal.
That was the trouble with her. If left to her own devices, she probably would’ve gone the entire day without even considering that she needed food. She was good at that: she could care only for herself, or only for others. These two actions were mutually exclusive. The very moment she applied herself to the care and wellbeing of another person, however briefly, thoughts of her own flew out the window.
When she finally left Nonnatus House, she rather suspected this was the exact reason Sister Julienne had asked her to stay a while longer.
Normally, Patsy wouldn’t ride her bike from Nonnatus to The London, and instead relied on a bus to take her there. But, part-way through breakfast, she’d begun entertaining the idea of buying flowers. Something to brighten up the dismal hospital ward. Delia adored flowers – or…she used to, at least.
She probably still did, Patsy reminded herself. So far, nothing about her had really changed, other than the way she acted towards the redhead.
The first couple of visits had been awkward at best: Delia was eager for them to spend time together, that much was obvious. But she seemed at such a loss for what to say. She treated Patsy like a new acquaintance but, gradually, she’d been gaining confidence with her. Talking more when she could, shying away less. By now she didn’t fumble as much. She was growing gradually more comfortable. But every question she had was still preceded by anxiousness and hesitation.
It really was like they were meeting for the first time, all over again.
From the moment Patsy had woken up and looked out her window, the weather had been downright lousy. The sky was a worryingly dark shade of grey. As she rode to the Sunday market after breakfast, she was cursing herself the whole way for not bringing her umbrella. With each minute that passed the clouds looked closer and closer to giving way to a torrential downpour. As she browsed a stall of flowers (fresher than what they sold at the florist, which strayed from her route to The London, anyway), everyone around her seemed to be glancing up at the skies nervously too.
She was rather afraid of being indecisive, and spending far too long here trying to pick something, but almost the moment she brought her bike up to the stand, her eyeline snagged on a particularly bright bunch of yellow daffodils.
Delia had always insisted on keeping at least one vase of flowers in their flat, but Patsy didn’t think they’d ever had daffodils. But for some odd, inexplicable reason, they seemed to bring a whole slew of memories rushing back. Maybe it was the neat bouquet they’d been arranged into, or maybe it was the colour, or maybe it was just that her heart was aching just a little too much right now – whatever it was, she couldn’t not buy them.
The girl manning the stall was fourteen, at the very oldest. She cocked her head at the sight of the bike and, despite Patsy being out of uniform, immediately pinned her as a Nonnatun. Then she launched into a story about how her mum only had a baby a few days ago, and how nice ‘the light-haired nurse’ had been to them. After a moment’s consideration, she seemed to decide that even though Patsy was very obviously not the same nurse, she’d still sell her the flowers at a fraction of the price.
“You see in colour, nurse?” she asked, handing over some string for Patsy to tie them together with.
The redhead was rather caught off-guard by the question. She looked up, eyes a little wide, before giving a weak smile and nodding.
The girl nodded with her solemnly. “I could tell,” she said, “Most people who buy flowers on their own smell ‘em first. And they go through heaps before they can decide. But you just looked at ‘em.”
Patsy wanted to laugh at the observation. “I can’t say I gave flowers much thought before colour,” she admitted, “They weren’t terribly attractive to me in greyscale. I dare say you’ll adore them as much as my Delia does, when you see how they can brighten up a room.”
On a rather heart-warming note, Patsy pushed off on her bike once again, slowly pedalling through the crowd of people. The pretty bouquet of daffodils remained pristine, wrapped up in brown paper and tied steadfast to her handlebars. She was far too nervous about them getting ruined to risk resting them in the black canvas on the back of her bike, however neatly. As luck would have it, they stayed put for the entire bumpy journey to the hospital – and the moment she stepped in through the front doors with them in hand, it began to rain.
By now, Delia anticipated her arrivals, which were almost pinned down to on-the-dot timing. However, this was usually in the late afternoons; entering the head trauma ward at half-eleven in the morning, Patsy found the brunette sitting up in bed with a tray of food pushed to the side. She was lolling her head around, watching nurses and doctors come and go with a bored expression.
Her eyes trailed a particular nurse, who had been checking her vitals, all the way to the door, where they landed on Patsy and immediately widened with surprise. A Cheshire-like grin spread across her face after only a moment of disbelief, and she sat forward eagerly. Patsy could see she was antsy to get out of bed and come over herself, but seeing as how the doctor was only across the hall, within line of sight, she’d likely just be put right back. So she stayed put, albeit not gladly.
“You’re looking much better,” Patsy commented as she approached, pulling the faithful yet still dreadfully uncomfortable plastic chair closer to the bed.
Of course, Delia was visibly improving every day – physically, at least, it was obvious. But Patsy still liked to point it out.
One of Delia’s hands was already reached towards her. Patsy grasped onto it tightly, holding the small arrangement of flowers in the other. Where a year ago, even the slightest amount of intimacy had her recoiling as though she’d touched a live wire, now it just felt like second nature. In the past several months it was almost like a force of habit: to reach out and hold Delia’s hand when her own had nothing else to do, sometimes without realising she’d done so until the other gave it a small squeeze and turned her chin upward to smile at her lovingly.
“And they finally washed the dirt from under your nails,” she commented, lifting up said hand to examine it closely and sheepishly kissing the backs of her fingers.
“Mhm.” Delia nodded, biting down on her lip to try preventing her smile from growing any larger, “They gave me a bed-bath this morning.” Although she looked rather displeased about it – which Patsy found unsurprising, given that she’d never enjoyed giving bed-baths in the first place – she was brightening more and more by the second. Not even the awkwardness of a stranger bathing her (on a cold morning, too, poor thing) could put a damper on her spirits. Despite the…sudden strain put on their relationship, she sincerely looked as though she couldn’t be happier that Patsy was here with her.
And then she saw the daffodils, and Patsy found herself proven wrong as Delia’s expression morphed from simple contentedness to pure joy.
“Oh. Uh. They’re…They’re for you,” Patsy stammered, hurriedly lying the flowers across her lap. The brunette took her hand back to properly inspect the daffodils. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at them inquisitively. Patsy could only watch, finding herself unable to do anything but grin widely at the interaction.
“They’re beautiful…” Delia murmured distantly. She buried her nose in the small arrangement curiously. Her toes curled beneath the bedsheets. “And they smell lovely.”
“Careful,” Patsy warned, “If you start sneezing, they’ll blame me and kick me out for sure. And I only just got here.”
Lifting her eyes from the flowers eventually, Delia turned her attention back to Patsy, positively beaming at her. “I love them. Thank you.”
Feeling her cheeks starting to burn a little, the redhead smiled and gently intertwined their fingers again. “Yellow was your favourite colour. I thought maybe…you’d still at least like it.”
At this, Delia was intrigued. She lifted an eyebrow over the bouquet. “It was?” Patsy nodded, but her spouse didn’t seem entirely convinced at what she was being told. “I thought red was my favourite. Because of your hair.”
“Oh. Well.” Patsy’s face flushed darker. She was always rather flattered to hear that; honestly, Delia liking the colour of her hair was the only reason it’d stayed ginger this long. She’d sort of thought she might go to light brown next. But then the small Welsh girl started to fuss over it and, well…she just couldn’t resist.
“You always said you loved every colour. Sometimes you had a different answer every week. But you did take a particular shine to yellow. There was a very specific shade called ‘canary’ that you insisted on painting our room. And you always said yellow flowers smelled the best.”
“They do smell wonderful…” Delia agreed. She’d seemed to have decided that she believed this story about herself; she gazed at the flowers almost dreamily. When a nurse came by and offered to place them in a vase, she was almost reluctant to part with them for even a moment.
A silence fell between them. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was a vast improvement from the tension that had settled between them these past several days. Patsy noted, rather sardonically, that the tables seemed to have been turned on her. Only a year ago, it’d been her who stared at their intertwined hands, not sure she was entirely comfortable with it or not, while Delia remained caught up in a cloud of doe-eyed adoration.
But Delia, she reminded herself, was soft and affectionate by nature, and nothing about her personality had yet to be changed by her accident thus far. Perhaps, if her memory didn’t return (and it would return, it had to), she’d fall back into love as if nothing had ever happened. They were ‘meant to be’, after all – as much as Patsy still detested that phrase.
“Have you been having anymore seizures?” she asked, and immediately squeezed her eyes shut with a sigh.
‘Okay, Patsy, maybe you shouldn’t ask her that,’ she scolded herself. It was more a question for the doctor, when he came by. Not something to ask openly, and risk ruining what little cheeriness they’d salvaged today.
Delia, thankfully, looked far from offended.
“You sound like a nurse again,” she pointed out, poking her tongue between her teeth teasingly as Patsy rolled her eyes.
“This may come as a shock, Deels, but that’s because I am a nurse,” she teased right back with a smirk.
Delia giggled. It was a beautiful sound, Patsy thought to herself. Her favourite sound in the world, maybe.
But after a moment the brunette sighed, and turned her attention to the blankets covering her, picking at them idly. She gave a tiny shrug. “No, I haven’t,” she murmured, “Not since you last asked.”
Patsy nodded slowly. Her eyes were focused on the hospital bed as well, her fingers absently plucking at the hem of the sheets. Sometimes it was just too difficult to keep a brave face and maintain eye contact all at once. “Do you…” she drew in a shaky breath, the air stinging her already chapped lips, “Do you remember anything…at all?”
Her question was met with a discouraging stretch of silence. She glanced up through the corner of her eye eventually, only to see Delia shaking her head. She looked downtrodden as Patsy felt. Frowning, she cautiously took hold of Delia’s hand again. She’d thought as much, but deep down she was allowing her hopes to get dangerously high; by now she thought she’d have learned to keep a level head and think realistically. Clearly, that wasn’t the case.
The younger woman lifted her head nervously, her mouth twisting into a worried pout at the lack of any kind of response. “Do you think I will?”
Now Patsy found herself really wishing she hadn’t asked. Guilt stirred up in her chest at Delia’s expression. It was easy to put a name to what she was feeling: hesitant fear. She’d seen it in patients heaps of times, and she’d experienced it herself. It was a shaky, hollow feeling that made her chest feel like it was moulded out of foil – each individual rib jagged and weak and ready to give way at any moment. And while she knew there was a damn good chance that things weren’t going to turn out in her favour, she was still not entirely sure if she should be afraid or not.
“I sure hope so.” Was all she could think of. With a weak smile, she pressed Delia’s hand against her lips and peered at her lover over the top of it.
Right now, a brave face was all she could give her.
They were quiet for a long time. Delia turned her head to look at the flowers, which were resting in a mint green vase on the little bedside table. They took up all of her attention, and who was Patsy to try and divert it? She was content to sit in total silence, simply pressing the smaller girl’s hand against her cheek and watching her, feeling nothing short of pure adoration well up in her chest.
Love was a beautiful emotion. For the life of her, Patsy couldn’t quite understand why she’d deprived herself of it for so long.
They stayed like that, almost frozen, for ten minutes at least. She watched Delia, while Delia watched the daffodils, while the daffodils sat in the sat in the sunlight that barely filtered through into the luminescent hospital ward. They didn’t look nearly as lovely as they had outside, even on an overcast day. Maybe, hopefully, Delia would be discharged soon enough that she’d get to take them home, and see them properly.
Patsy doubted it.
“What’s your favourite colour?” Delia asked. She’d been quiet so long that Patsy assumed she was in the midst of another spell. The doctors said it was kind of like sleepwalking: it was better to let her come out of it herself than risk startling her.
The sudden question made her jump a little. Delia still watched the flowers intently, head titled lazily against the starched white pillow, her eyes half-lidded and teary. She gave no other indication that she was present in the here and now. In fact, Patsy wasn’t all too sure that she was, until she turned her head and gave her a patient, expectant look.
“Oh. Sorry. It’s blue.”
“How come?”
Patsy blinked a few times, then lifted her eyebrows curiously, “Come again?”
“Why is it your favourite?” Delia repeated. She looked as though she was still entertaining the idea of the colour even existing, “You said I could never choose. You must really like blue, if you’re so sure of it.”
“Well, I…” Her mouth twisted up, her cheeks going pink.
The answer was easy and simple. It’d been the first colour she’d ever seen. The first one to ever captivate her so intensely she almost forgot her own name. And sure, it was only the specific shade of azure she could find in Delia’s eyes that she favoured above all others. But when she wasn’t around, the shade of a clear sky or antique vase or small flower was similar enough to be a pleasant reminder. It’d certainly been one of the little things that had helped her through this past week alone.
But that was far too sappy for her liking. In the entire time she’d known Delia, despite the number of things they’d told each other in a year alone, Patsy always kept that piece of trivia to herself. She flustered far too easy at all things soft and mushy. Not that that came as a surprise to anyone.
“Blue is everywhere,” she answered, “And it’s always pretty. It’s the only colour I can think of that could never be ugly, no matter how dark or bright it is…”
Well, it wasn’t a lie, was it? It was an extraordinary colour. And she supposed, without the romantic bias, she probably still would’ve chosen it above the others. “That, and I’m always told I look stunning when I wear it,” she added wryly.
Delia snorted and smiled weakly, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. She leaned back against the propped-up pillows and Patsy realised, a little sadly, that she was starting to look awfully tired.
It was then that her knowledge of bedside manner came to an abrupt halt, considering she’d never had family or friends to visit in hospital. Should she leave Delia to sleep? That seemed to be the most reasonable option, although she had to admit, she didn’t really want to leave. She’d much rather sit here and wait for her to wake up again, rather than spend the rest of her day off milling about uselessly and stewing in her own anxiety.
“Tired, love?” she sighed. She placed Delia’s hand back on the bed, patting it gently. Leaving might’ve been for the best. To be stuck in bed with serious head trauma and having to spend time with someone who – as far as Delia was aware – she didn’t know well, must’ve felt exhausting.
With a heavy sigh, she slowly got out of her chair. She leaned over the hospital bed and, as carefully as she could, pressed a quick kiss against Delia’s cheek. Sniffling, she gave her a gentle smile. Delia looked rather confused.
“Oh, please don’t leave,” she whispered, “You only just got here,”
Patsy had learned, rather soon after they’d met, that her Welsh counterpart had a certain knack for looking just the right amount of miserable when it suited her. It could make just about anyone melt, and it certainly made it hard to say no – especially now, when the alternative to doing as she asked was to knowingly leave her in the hospital by herself.
So Patsy conceded, without any sort of fuss. Before she could retake her seat, she felt Delia’s hand weakly tugging at her coat. Gingerly asking her to sit down on the edge of the bed instead. With some hesitance, the redhead obliged, resting arm over Delia’s middle and fretting over her fringe with her other hand.
“Are you sure?” she checked, “You look like you might fall asleep any moment…”
“If I do, will you still stay?” Delia asked hopefully, stifling a yawn against the back of her arm.
Considering Patsy had nothing else to do anyway, there was nothing to really stop her from saying yes. In all her time working as a nurse, she did notice that being a patient was a dreary business. There were only so many books you could read, so many patterns you could make out in the ceiling, before the boredom drove you mad. She didn’t at all blame Delia for wanting someone to spend time with her.
“Luckily for us, I have the whole day off,” she confided in a low voice, like it was a deep secret that nobody else could know about, “And I should like to spend as much of it as I can here, with you.”
Delia grinned – or, came as close to grinning as she could while getting sleepier and sleepier. “Here tomorrow?” she asked vaguely.
“Yes, I’ll be here tomorrow.” Patsy nodded, “As soon as I can, once my shift ends. I rarely ride my bike this way, if I can help it. And taking the bus can be dreadful on a Monday afternoon.”
As she wriggled back down to lie flat on the mattress (dragging the pillow down with Patsy’s help), Delia frowned. Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion as she curled up as best she could. “You don’t work here anymore?”
After a long pause, Patsy shook her head. “Right, sorry,” she said, “No. I left, a few weeks after we met.”
At this, Delia started to look a little worried. “How come? Was it because of…” She pointed to herself.
“Yes. And no. It’s…complicated.” Patsy frowned, absently smoothing her hand over Delia’s hair, “Most places won’t let you work with your soulmate, anyhow. But I think when I told Matron, she assumed things would play out differently to what they did.”
She smirked wryly at the memory. It’d been a rather big decision for her, to transfer from The London and change the routines she’d become so familiar with. But her choice had been made purely out of spite and hot-headedness – with a touch of sleep deprivation. With a year’s worth of hindsight under her belt, she found it all to be quite amusing. It’d certainly never been how she’d ever imagined she’d resign from any job.
“You see, Deels, after we parted ways, I realised I…” she began, but her story tapered to a quick stop as she glanced down at the brunette. She was awake, but barely, and between her mind and her body, the former seemed to have run out of energy first. Delia stared ahead with half-closed eyes, her line of sight missing Patsy’s face entirely and settling on a much more distant object – the wall, perhaps, or the door. Her attention span had fizzled out completely, soon to be replaced by sleep, and Patsy realised quickly enough that she wouldn’t be telling what she thought was a rather amusing tale for another few hours. At least.
Gently as possible, she brushed the stray strands of Delia’s fringe away from her eyes. She leaned down and kissed her on the cheek again, lingering just a second or two longer. The thought crossed her mind that she should sit back in that awful chair before a nurse (or worse, the Matron) scolded her, but a quick glance towards the doors showed no signs of anyone coming in anytime soon. So she opted to stay sitting as close to Delia as she was able.
“I’ll tell you later, darling,” she whispered.