Chapter Text
She helps Delia carry her suitcases through to the bedroom down the hall, trying to conceal her excitement. Of course, she’d have loved to share a room, but just having Delia in the same building as her is enough. Having her in the same country is an improvement. The last few weeks, she’s been so excited she’s struggled to sleep at night, and trying to organise the move without coming across as over eager has been effort enough. She feels giddy. It’s ridiculous, she knows, but she can’t help but feel like this is a second chance at the life they could have lived if the accident hadn’t happened. Whilst worries nag at the back of her mind - they’re going to have to be so careful, so discreet; they won’t have a moment’s privacy - she tries to focus on the excitement.
“It was awfully nice of Phyllis to offer me her room,” Delia says, as they push open the wooden door and she surveys her new home, “though of course, I’d be happy anywhere as long as it’s near you.”
Patsy smiles, her cheeks warm, “we thought Barbara probably the most appropriate roommate. Sister Evangelina is thrilled to have Nurse Crane bedding with her…”
She laughs, causing Delia to join in doing the same. Of course, Sister Evangelina had had a few things to say about having to share with someone who she was constantly locking horns with, but with nowhere else to put their new occupant, she had had to swallow her pride a little.
“I’ll only be two doors down,” she adds, quickly, as she sets Delia’s things down on her new bed. She hadn’t many possessions, only two small suitcases, and Patsy couldn’t help but wonder if her mother hadn’t thrown away some of her old things. She certainly didn’t remember Delia travelling so light.
“It’s not quite our flat, is it?” Delia interjects, her voice wistful and sad.
Pausing, Patsy turns to her and wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. She breathes in the familiar scent of Delia’s shampoo, enjoys the way she slots into the space beside her perfectly, her chin landing directly on top of her head. She wants to kiss her, but it’s too risky.
“It’s more than I dared to dream,” Patsy whispers, letting her go, and turning back to the bed to unpack.
-
It’s incredible how easily Delia fits into life in Nonnatus.
Actually, it isn’t. Patsy didn’t doubt for a second that she would. There’s something about Delia, the warmth and passion and joy in her, that makes her perfectly likeable to everybody. She moves around the old building in much the same way she did the nurse’s station; laughing and chatting and bringing smiles to everyone she encounters, helping with chores without being prompted, and assisting Sister Monica Joan with her handicrafts with the patience even Sister Winifred lacks occasionally. Sister Julienne is very fond of her - she seemed to be before Delia had even moved in. That’s perhaps just part of Delia’s natural charm.
Still, Patsy has to remind herself not to get too comfortable with their arrangements. When Delia stands on her tiptoes to kiss her cheek on the way out the door, she can’t help but feel everyone’s eyes on her, even if they’re not. She tries not to sit too close at the dinner table, not to sit huddled with their heads too close together in the sitting room. It’s achingly difficult, being so close to the life they imagined, but still so far away, but Patsy knows it’s better than the alternative. For a long while, she thought she would live the rest of her life without Delia, and she managed to keep it together then, whilst her heart was being ripped to shreds, so she could keep it together now. She had to.
One night she arrives back from a long labour to a house bustling with activity, and even as she pushes the heavy door open she’s greeted by her favourite sound of all: Delia’s laugh. How ever exhausted and weary the birth had made her, she can’t help but brighten up at the rich sound echoing through the old walls, as she searches for the source of it.
It doesn’t take her long to locate Delia. She’s perched between Barbara and Sister Winifred in the sitting room, huddled over the table like schoolgirls, their heads closer than Patsy ever dares to stand.
“Oh! Pats!” Delia exclaims, almost causing her to bump heads with Barbara in her hurry. She wipes flour-covered hands on an old apron and grins, “you’re just in time!”
Patsy’s lips quirk into a smile of their own accord, no doubt her eyes getting that dreamy look in them that Delia is always making fun of. She shakes it off though, instead nearing the table to get a better look at what’s going on.
“Just in time for what exactly?” she asks, raising an eyebrow, “you three certainly seem to have made a mess.”
“They’re biscuits,” Sister Winifred says, matter of factly, elbowing Barbara who is trying very hard not to giggle beside her.
“Well, they’re supposed to be,” Winifred frowns.
“Only,” Barbara says, between splutters of laughter, “Sister Winifred leant on them and—”
She turns to reveal a large biscuit-mix covered section of her habit.
“I’m sure they’ll taste lovely,” Delia, ever the optimist, chimes in, but even she can’t swallow her laughter.
They spend the next 30 minutes re-rolling the dough and cutting out the shapes again, Barbara spending more time eating the raw mixture than really helping, Delia telling stories of baking with her Mam, most of which end in more laughter. Patsy doesn’t have much baking expertise to offer, and even if she did she’s sure she wouldn’t be able to concentrate. She loses herself in Delia’s tales of home, in the rich sound of her animated voice. By the time their efforts are finally in the oven, it’s practically tea time. They go upstairs to wash up, Patsy still in her uniform and desperate to change out of it, but she holds back a while so she can go up with Delia.
“Did you have fun today?” she asks, almost shyly.
Delia’s lips quirk into her signature smile, and her eyes light up, “yes.”
She holds Patsy’s hand, their fingers gripping for no more than a few seconds before they’re forced to let go at the sound of Sister Evangelina’s raised voice in the hallway (“don’t you girls have anything better to do than make a mess of the kitchen! I hope you’ll be clearing this up!”), and they force back giggles as they run up the stairs to join the others.
-
Patsy forces herself awake in the middle of the night, her brow dripping with sweat, and her hands shaking. She has to gulp back tears as she struggles to pull herself up. For a moment she’s so disorientated she can’t work out where she is, can’t stop her hands trembling with panic as she searches the dark for answers. She feels the soft sheets under her feet, roots her fingers in the thick knit of her blanket, and softens.
In the bed beside hers, Trixie is fast asleep, her breathing soft and rhythmic. It acts as a metronome in the darkness, and Patsy attempts to match it to her own breathing, to calm her racing pulse.
She flicks the lamp on beside her bed and rubs her eyes. She has no idea what time it is, but outside is still pitch black, so its early. She struggles to think clearly, trying to remember her work schedule, what time she has to be awake.
Barbara is on call. She’d left just as they were going to bed, looking dog-tired. Perhaps she was still out?
Her head and her heart take a moment to battle out what she should do, before she makes a decision. She turns out the lamp. Trying her hardest not to wake Trixie, she slides out of bed, pulling her silk robe on over her sky blue pyjamas, and making her way slowly towards the door. It creaks as she pulls it open, a slither of light falling across Trixie’s sleeping body. Patsy glances over her shoulder. She doesn’t stir.
By the time she makes it to the room Barbara and Delia share, she’s already considering turning around and going back to bed. This is a bad idea. Every part of her tells her its a bad idea, but she needs it. She swallows back a lump in her dry throat, and pushes the door ever so slightly open.
The relief that washes over her as she sees Barbara’s empty bed allows her to let out the breath she’s holding. She closes the door and pads towards the second bed. She doesn’t yet know how she's going to explain this if Barbara returns before she leaves, but she decides she doesn’t care.
“Deels?” she whispers into the darkness.
Delia’s a light sleeper and stirs a moment later, with only a very gentle shake. As soon as she sees Patsy, she wakes, a look of concern flashing across her features immediately. She sits up, and pulls back the sheets, ushering Patsy into the bed.
“Are you alright sweetheart, what is it?” she hums, her fingers moving through Patsy’s hair, as she settles against her chest.
“I just… bad dreams,” she says, blinking back fresh tears, “god this is unbearable. You being here but not…”
“I know, I know,” Delia whispers, smoothing out her hair, pressing a kiss to the back of her head. She envelopes her in her arms, cradling her close and ghosting her lips to her cheeks once, twice, three times.
“I dreamt that I lost them again and then I lost you and I—“
“It’s alright, I’m here,” Delia’s voice is soft and calming. It feels like deja vu. Patsy relaxes in her arms, and Delia shifts them down the bed so they’re lying together, no space between them.
They drift off to sleep, both too tired to think of what will happen in the morning.
-
If Barbara noticed their nighttime intruder, she doesn’t let on in the morning. She was fast asleep when Patsy tip-toed out of the room in the early hours. Trixie, however, dives straight in with the questions as she lathers a slice of toast in marmalade.
“I’m just saying, it’s frightfully worrying to wake up and find your roommate gone entirely,” she says, staring down at her toast. Patsy wonders how she even makes eating breakfast look glamorous.
“I wasn’t gone entirely, I just woke up early,” Patsy responds, “and besides, how were you to know I wasn’t out on a call?”
They continue to bicker over the table, Patsy entirely aware of Delia’s eyes watching her over the top of her tea, the mug no doubt covering a smirk. Barbara’s too tired to offer much to the conversation beyond stifled yawns, watching them like a game of tennis.
When Nurse Crane appears at the table to pour herself a mug of coffee, Patsy can’t help but feel uneasy under her gaze, held under a smile that seems to say ‘I know everything’, though she couldn’t possibly.
-
There’s something about knocking on Sister Julienne’s office door that sends her straight back to boarding school, and instantly makes her feel as though she’s done something wrong. Straightening out her freshly-pressed uniform, Patsy shifts uneasily from foot to foot, raising her hand gingerly to the wood and pausing before knocking.
Sister Julienne sits behind her desk with a warm, inviting smile as she gestures for Patsy to take a seat. She’s the opposite to the nuns teenage Patience was terrified of, but it’s not always easy to remember that, not until you’re in her presence. Even so, as Patsy sits down, her hands sweat as she wrings them awkwardly in her lap.
“What can I do for you today, Nurse Mount? I trust we find you in good health?”
Patsy wets her lips, a subconscious habit, and wonders if the tiredness in her eyes is as obvious as she fears it might be.
“Yes, thank you,” she says, with a small smile, “I know this is a little last minute, but I wondered if you wouldn’t mind letting me take a day off tomorrow?”
Sister Julienne seems surprised, her eyes widening just a little. The smile stays steady on her face as she folds her hands in front of her.
“May I ask why?”
Never having been somebody to beat about the bush, Patsy finds herself uncharacteristically hesitating. She doesn’t like to speak about her childhood or her family, not since Trixie blurted all her private secrets out in her absence, but she doesn’t think it will do her any good to lie to a nun, especially not after the last time, which still plays heavily on her mind. She doesn’t believe in any God, hasn’t for a long time, but she can’t help but consider the possibility that Delia’s accident had been some kind of sign.
“It’s the anniversary of my mother’s death,” she says, her voice holding surprisingly steady.
Sister Julienne’s face softens in sympathy, and she reaches a hand across the desk to touch Patsy’s, “of course you may take the day. There will be plenty of us to cover. I do hope you know you are always welcome here if I can be of any assistance to ease your troubles?”
“Thank you,” Patsy tells her, without adding that Sister Julienne taking Delia in was assistance enough.
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