A multi-chapter fic, guys! It is happening! Thanks to purple-roses-words-and-love for betaing, as usual ;).
Patrick found Angela in the garden, giggling and running around the small fruit tree that grew in the corner.
"There's my darling girl!" he said, putting his bag down on the wet grass and sweeping her up in his arms, peppering her wind-reddened face with kisses.
She squealed, trying to push his stubbled face away. "Daddy, you tickle!"
"I am a hedgehog, and I'm going to take you with me to live with me in my house," he said, kissing her soft cheeks before hugging her tight to him. Something in the pockets of her little red coat crunched and crackled like wrapping paper as he did so.
"I'd rather stay with Mummy and Timothy and Teddy," Angela decided, blue eyes huge and very serious. She took his face between her hands and kissed the tip of his nose. "Your nose is red," she noted.
"That is because it is cold, Angel girl. Speaking of which: why are you out here, in the garden?" He balanced her on his right arm so he could pick his bag up.
"Mummy made biscuits," Angela told him. She pulled a bit of biscuit from her coat. "Oh, they're all broken now!"
"How many did you take with you?" Patrick asked, nudging the front door open with his hip and sighing as he stepped out of the cold.
"Five."
"Now, Angela, I don't think Mummy likes it much if you take so many biscuits. You'll spoil your appetite."
"They're not for me, Daddy," Angela said, rolling her eyes.
"No?" Patrick put her down on one of the steps of the stairs, put his bag safely out of the way of little children's hands, then knelt in front of her so he could help her get her boots off.
"They're for the fairies," Angela explained, pulling off her cap and mittens.
"The fairies?"
"They live in our garden. Mummy says I must be very polite when I go and visit them. She says I shouldn't eat their food or drink anything, so I brought my own biscuits. She says it is good manners to give them food, so I took five biscuits. Do you think five is enough?" Her face was the picture of seriousness.
"I don't know. Does Mummy say five is enough?" Patrick asked, unbuttoning her coat.
"Yes. She says there were fairies in Scotland, too. Can I go now?"
"Hop along," Patrick decided, digging through Angela's pockets to get the pieces of biscuit out. They were still warm; the chocolate chips left brown smears on his fingers. He wrapped them in his handkerchief and placed them next to his bag, intending to eat them later.
His heart beat slowly in his chest, full of tenderness for his wife and daughter. He hadn't known Shelagh told fairy stories to Angela. She read their little girl stories before bed, but he had been pretty sure that those stories were limited to Winnie the Pooh and The Flopsy Bunnies.
"Patrick?" As if she'd heard him thinking about her Shelagh stepped into the hallway. Her hair was loose, glowing like honey in the orange light of the lamp above them. She wore a cardigan that was slightly too big, the sleeves long enough for her to pull the fabric over her cold hands. Though spring was on its way, the weather was still freezing, the wind cruel like a whip, stinging and lashing.
"Hello, dear," he said, pulling her into his arms, kissing her pliant lips and smelling her shampoo.
"I thought I heard you come in," she sighed, snaking her arms around him and placing her ear over his heart, content to stand enveloped in his warmth.
"How was your day?" he asked, kissing her forehead and taking her hand, pulling her with him into the living room, out of the cold of the hallway.
"Teddy was a bit fussy, I'm afraid. He's asleep now; poor dear must have been feeling terribly out of sorts because of his cold." She sighed, and rubbed her eyes.
"But I helped!" Angela piped up, tearing her gaze away from the piece of paper she had put on the dining room table.
"Yes, you did," Shelagh smiled.
"You baked, Angela told me," Patrick started. He wanted to ask her about the fairies, about Scotland, but before he could the piercing voice of the telephone rang through the house.
"Damn," he muttered under his breath.
"No rest for the wicked, hm darling?" Shelagh sighed, squeezing his hand.
Patrick hurried to the phone before the insistent ringing would wake Teddy. "No rest for the wicked, indeed," he muttered as he picked up the horn.
All thoughts of fairies and offerings and biscuits were pressed to the back of his mind for the next few hours. The birth he had to attend was hectic and stressful, with the mother haemorrhaging and losing so much blood that the bedsheets were more red than white when the ambulance finally arrived.
Tiredness had nestled itself in his bones and mewled pitifully when Patrick finally parked the car in front of his home, the feeling so strong it could only compete with his hunger. He hadn't felt either of them during the labour, but now they clamoured for his attention, leaving a foul taste in his mouth.
Patrick rubbed his eyes and sighed, staring at the raindrops breaking themselves on the windshield. He had to get up, take his bag and umbrella and go inside.
Part of him wanted nothing more than wash his hands, eat the sandwiches Shelagh undoubtedly had prepared for him, then wash the filth from his body before dressing in fresh pyjamas and sliding underneath the sheets. He wanted his wife near him, wanted to snuggle up to her and place his arms around her, hands splayed on her belly, or her breasts. He wanted her comforting scent, the steady fall and rise of her chest as she slept.
Another part wanted to stay here and look at the rain, letting it hypnotise him till he forgot that the dark half-moons of filth under his nails were crusted blood, the scent of it still thick in his nose. He imagined he could taste it, like pennies on his tongue.
Patrick shivered, then rubbed his eyes again. He needed Shelagh.
He took his bag and umbrella, closed the car door, and made for the backdoor. Experience had taught him that he was least likely to wake the children if he went through the garden, their bedrooms all facing the street side. Teddy's cot was in Patrick's and Shelagh's bedroom, but the baby would probably sleep like a rock, only waking when he wanted to be fed, especially now he had been so fussy today.
The grass was wet and slippery. A branch brushed his face, allowing raindrops to slide down his cheeks like tears. He shivered, huddling in his coat.
It was then that Patrick saw the figure move.
It stood at the back of the yard, near the apple tree. Clouds obscured the moon and stars, so Patrick had very little to go on, but he was sure it was human.
Fatigue and hunger were forgotten as another burst of adrenaline sizzled through his veins. He shut his umbrella, army combat training demanding he use it as a weapon.
"What are you doing?" he roared when he was only a few paces away, close enough to smack the person over the head with the umbrella as they whipped around. He clutched the wooden handle with such force that his knuckles turned white, had the umbrella raised, would have struck, if the ensuing shriek had not been so familiar.
"Shelagh?"
She cradled a plate with soggy biscuits against her dark rain coat, eyes huge, though if that was from fright or because she couldn't focus on him properly without glasses he couldn't say.
"Patrick! You scared the daylights out of me," she exclaimed, voice high and cheeks flushing. She looked at the umbrella and frowned. "Were you going to hit me with that?"
"I thought you were a burglar."
"Well, I'm not, so maybe put it down before you poke somebody's eyes out," she noted curtly, hand holding the plate with baked goods trembling.
Patrick lowered it gingerly, heart still thundering in his chest. "What are you doing in the middle of the night in our garden, you silly woman? Do you want to catch your death out here?"
"Of course not! Angela left a plate with biscuits out for the fairies, and I…"
Before she could finish her sentence Timothy burst from the house, cricket bat raised above his head. He slipped on the grass and nearly fell, sliding the last few metres towards his mother. "What's wrong?" he asked, face a contorted mask of determination as he used his bat to right himself. "I heard screaming."
"Your Mum thought she saw someone in the garden," Patrick noted, wiping the rain from his eyes with the back of his hand. He didn't like lying much, but he couldn't very well tell his son that he'd been about to whack his mother over the head with a wet umbrella because he mistook her for a burglar. The adrenaline was leaving his system besides, and he started to feel tired again, drained and scared.
"And you went out to check all by yourself?" Timothy asked, frowning so hard that it almost appeared as if he had one huge eyebrow instead of two.
"I'm a big girl, Timothy," Shelagh said.
"And you decided to face whoever was out there with a plate of biscuits? Have you gone mad, Mum?"
"Well, I…" Shelagh started.
"What were you going to do? Ask them for tea and hope that those inferior biscuits would scare them off?"
"That's enough, Tim," Patrick barked.
Timothy lowered his eyes and mumbled his apologies.
"Let's go inside before we all catch pneumonia," Shelagh decided, taking Patrick's bag from him and stepping towards the back door. "And I think it very brave of you to come to my aid, Timothy dearest," she told their son, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. He rubbed it and rolled his eyes, but Patrick noted the soft smile playing around his mouth, and knew Timothy was secretly mighty pleased with himself.
It took half an hour for Patrick to get ready for bed.
Shelagh slipped in next to him and sighed, curling up against him.
He tucked her under his arm, her head on his chest, and pressed his nose against her damp hair. He wanted to drift asleep with her in his arms, wanted her weight and scent and her love to calm him.
"Angela is asleep again, poor dear. All that shouting gave her quite a fright," Shelagh murmured.
"I understand," Patrick said, stroking her side with his fingers, revelling in her warmth and the soft purr of contentment she emitted as his fingertips caressed the swell of her breast.
"Shelagh?" he asked.
"Hm?"
"What is all this about fairies?"
She propped herself up on her elbows, eyes still huge as she tried to read his face in the darkness. "Fairies?"
"Angela told me there are fairies in our garden. She says you told her about it."
Shelagh looked at him through her lashes and bit her lip, a sure sign that she was nervous. "Oh, Patrick, you'll just think me silly. Besides, you must be exhausted. Wouldn't it be better to have this conversation in the morning?"
He shook his head. It would be better to have her talk to him now, for her lilting voice to draw him away from the memories of blood and screaming.
She looked at his eyes, and he knew she could read his horror there. She took his hand, intertwined her fingers with hers, kissed the pads of his fingers to ground him, to let him know that he was here now, in their bedroom, and not somewhere else, somewhere in the past. "You know my mother died when I was young," she started.
He nodded, kissing her hand as she continued talking.
"I was often alone as a child, Patrick. I would stay in my father's shop if I got home from school, so he could keep an eye on me. He didn't want me to come home to an empty house. There were customers there, of course, and I talked to them a little, but there were no children to play with. There was a garden behind the shop that we used for storing empty crates, though. Wild grass grew there, and brambles, and a tree all twisted and bent like an old woman. I'd sit there and do my homework if I had to concentrate. There was a fairy ring around that tree in autumn. I imagined it was a portal that could transport me to a Seelie court of fairies. I told my father stories about them. I'd given all the fairies names, and could describe everything they did." Shelagh smiled at the memory, eyes moist. "I was an imaginative child, dearest, so when Angela told me she saw little men in the apple tree, I told her they must have been fairies. I thought it was endearing."
"And the plate with biscuits?"
"I used to leave biscuits or crusts of bread out for the fairies when I was little. It is only polite to offer them some baked goods. I told Angela to do the same." Shelagh placed her head back on his chest and sighed. Her breath was hot on his skin, tingling his nerves. "I came to look if they were gone already," she murmured, sleep overtaking her.
Patrick couldn't sleep for a very long time, though.
Exactly how lonely had his Shelagh been as a child? How lonely did a child have to be before making up imaginary creatures to befriend?
He held her very tight that night, kissing her hair and forehead every now and then. She smiled in her sleep, snuggling closer to him and sighing against his throat.
"You'll never have to be alone again," he murmured, causing her to mumble something incomprehensible as his breath ghosted over the pink shell of her ear. "I promise."
He would show her just how much she was loved.