"The door! The nuns will hear, and it's supposed to be the Great Silence!" Cynthia's voice held a hint of laughter as she quietly closed the door, shutting the sliver out light out from the hallway, casting Sister Bernadette's path back into shadow. She sighed, the breath shuddering out of her as she closed her eyes, trying to control the emotions that shot through her at being shut out of the interactions the nurses had been having.
She knew that she had no right to want to be involved in their world; that she was supposed to be grateful for everything that God had given her, but she couldn't help but feel a sting of resentment towards the young women as she padded down the hallway, her bare feet sticking slightly against the tiles as she turned towards her own room. She had been fighting a losing battle against her own emotions the last while; anguish, jealousy, and desire racing around her mind, creating a whirlwind of confusion and sorrow that she couldn't find it in herself to shake off. She had tried to speak with Sister Julienne about it, desperate to have a confidant in her time of despair, but her attempt had been thwarted, pushed aside for more pressing matters.
And that, she surmised, was where the problem truly lay. She felt as if she was constantly pushed aside. By Sister Julienne, who assumed she would be a constant, steadfast in her abilities and devotion to both God and Nonnatus. By Sister Evangelina, who felt as if she was a competent enough nurse and nun, but that she was still so much a child, despite not even being thirty yet. By the nurses, who saw her as a human being, but forgot that she was a young woman, a few scarce years between them all in age, and who desired to sing, to have a drink once and a while, to talk about celebrities, to go to the cinema, to go to a dance.
She managed to close her own door, dropping her case of toiletries onto the chair in the corner of the room before she crumpled to the bed, head in her hands. She couldn't help but let the tears she had been holding back for days slip down her cheeks, the feeling of exclusion that overwhelmed her at the nurses closing their door on her the final straw, her heart aching profusely in her chest. The only time she had felt alive, felt like her own person for the first time in ages, was when she was leaning against Doctor Turner's car, stealing of a breath of his cigarette, his amused grin at her behaviour setting sparks alight in every atom of her being.
The silence of her bedroom seemed to stifle her, closing in until she felt as if she couldn't breathe. She had always been a relatively independent woman, used to spending long hours alone after her mother died and her father was forced to work long, gruelling hours in order to keep them both fed and under a roof at night. Her socialisation was satisfied by her patients; her personal time spent in prayer or, on a rare occasion, reading one of the novels that had been left lying about by one of the nurses. She was used to the silence, relished in it as it allowed her to pray, but she no longer felt comfortable in her own skin and the resounding night around her.
She remembered how she felt every time she witnessed the other young women in the building leaving for the fair or to go dancing. The happiness surrounding them as they would get ready, doing their hair and makeup before giggling as they left the building, coming back in the late hours of the evening, often slightly tipsy. She also remember the jealously that would spin inside her, desperate to go with them, trying to remember that she too was a young woman; a woman who wanted to know what it was like to do her hair, to put on a pretty dress, and to go out and enjoy herself.
The sound of a knock at her door startled her, jolting her out of the swarm of negative emotions that was encompassing her, forcing her to push them aside as she stumbled to the door, pulling it open to find Sister Evangelina on the other side.
"Forgive me for waking you at this hour, but Sister Julienne called asked for you to go to the Taylor house to assist her," the older woman said, looking her up and down with a concerned expression.
"Thank you Sister. I'll be down as quick as I can."
The words settled the issue as she closed the door, taking a deep breath before going to get dressed, focusing on her work again and pushing away the turbulent emotions in her heart.
XxX
It wasn't until a few weeks later when he noticed something was off with her. She seems subdued, a look of sadness crossing her features when they passed the gaggle of young nurses heading out into the evening to attend a dance. She tracked them with her gaze for a few moments before sighing softly, returning her eyes to the road in front of her, not saying anything to the doctor at her side as he walked her back to the convent.
"Are you all right Sister?" he asked, voice low in the light of the setting sun.
"Yes," she answered quickly, tensing her hand on the handles of her clinical bag. He watched her intently, not buying her reply. He glanced back towards where the nurses were rounding the corner, laughing and dressed to the nines.
"You want to go with them," he said. It wasn't a question, but rather a statement which held startling clarity for him. He had been trying to suppress his growing affection for the tiny woman next to him for months, but to know that she wanted something so simple as to attend a dance when nearly broke his heart. He wished he could grab her hand and take her down the same path as the other young women had just travelled, but he knew propriety would never allow it. He wasn't even sure if she would want to do such a thing with him, someone older than her that already had a child well on the way to becoming a teenager in a few short years. Watching her shoulders fall, however, he found that he didn't care if she returned his feelings or not, he just wanted to make her happy. A sigh shuddered from her lips as she gave into defeat of containing her emotions for that moment.
"Yes," she admitted, so quiet he almost didn't catch the word. "I've never been to a dance." It was in her confession that he was struck but how little she had actually experienced in life outside of the things she witnessed as a bystander. Had she never experienced the excitement of getting ready to go out with her friends? Had she never experienced what it was to hold the hand of someone she felt affection for? The thoughts alone broke him, his first instinct to give her everything she had missed out on. To gather her into his arms and convince her that she was loved and that she mattered. He had sudden clarity that the crux of the issue was exactly that – that she felt as if she did not matter to anyone. That she was to be forever on the sidelines of all aspects of life that she witnessed from the residents of Poplar aside from her Sisters in Christ.
"I'm sorry," he said, unable to stop the pity from creeping into his voice.
"It's all right," she murmured in reply, giving him a sad smile before mounting the stairs to the door and disappearing inside Nonnatus, leaving him alone on the pavement. He sighed, running a hand through his hair while he walked to his car, sitting in the driver's seat without starting the engine while he thought for nearly half an hour until he managed to come up with an idea.
XxX
It took him a few days to arrange everything, commandeering a frightened looking Jane for assistance when he found her alone in the clinical room on a Tuesday afternoon. After he had managed to splutter out what he needed she smiled, telling him to wait while she darted up the stairs, returning with a neatly wrapped parcel only a few moments later. Finding the on-call and rota schedules were easy enough with a quick peek at the book abandoned on the counter from that morning before he took his leave of the building.
Two days later, he stood in the front hallway, a stoic look on his face as he asked Sister Julienne if he could borrow Sister Bernadette for the evening for a difficult case that he believed she could be helpful on. Sister Julienne agreed with only a moment of hesitation before sweeping off to gather the younger nun and shoo them both out the door with a call of 'God be with you.'
"Doctor Turner," Sister Bernadette said once they were ensconced in his car and driving away from the convent. "Who is the patient?" He smirked slightly, tossing her a grin over his shoulder as he turned onto the main road.
"There isn't a patient," he replied calmly.
"Then where are we going?" she queried, seeming to become slightly alarmed at the fact he had lied.
"You'll see. I promise you'll like it. Or, well, I hope you will," Patrick rambled. She gave him a further once over before sitting back in her seat, looking out the window and watching the city give way to the country, the sun slowly setting as the summer breeze fluttered through the car from his open window. It took nearly an hour but she soon found him pulling over down a country drive, leaving them in the middle of a field.
"Doctor?"
"Hear me out before you say anything," he said, cutting her off. She blinked for a moment before giving him a nod, her fingers twining in her lap as she gave him her full attention. "The other night, you seemed so crestfallen at not accompanying the nurses to the dance." She went to open her mouth and protest but he held his hand up, stopping her before she could get a word out. "I know that you can't go to a regular dance like they do, but I thought, perhaps, you and I could have our own out here. That way no one will see but… it might give you a little bit of the same feeling." She waited until he finished, blinking slowly, trying to keep her emotions in check at the thought that the man next to her had thought enough of her happiness to do something like that.
"I… I don't –" she stammered, suddenly feeling like she was out of place. She had no dress to wear, no makeup. But he seemed unfazed, reaching into the backseat and pulling out a paper-wrapped parcel, dropping it into her lap.
"Jane said this should fit you. If you want to wear it that is. I know… I know that this isn't something you would normally do, but I promise I won't say a word to anyone back in Poplar. I just… I hated seeing you so sad." He tripped over the last part of his statement, cringing at how young and insecure he sounded in the silence of the car.
"Thank you," she breathed, unlacing the package and looking down at the fabric, running her fingers along it for a moment.
"I'll just," he started, waving in the general direction of outside before he climbed out of the car, leaving her alone to decide whether or not she would change out of her habit and into a dress for the first time in a decade.
She knew she shouldn't give in to vanity, but she couldn't help herself, crawling into the backseat while he walked away from the car to wriggle into the dress that Jane had sent. With a deep breath she took off her habit, laying the thick linen on the back seat, her veil following a moment later when she came to the conclusion that if she was going to pretend to be a woman at a dance for the night, she wanted to do it completely. Her stockings followed a soon after, the silky material of the dress sliding on over her slip before she ran her fingers through her hair, releasing it from the plait she had put it in that morning before she tucked it up under her cap.
The material of the dress was cut simply, the fabric hugging closer to her body than she was used to anymore, the light blue-green colour soft against her skin. When had she last worn something so exquisite, she wondered. She didn't bother putting her shoes back on, afraid that they would take away from the femininity of the dress as she stepped out of the car, the soles of her feet revelling in the lush grass as she walked towards where the doctor was standing, his figure bathed in the glow from moon above them, the last vestiges of sunlight having finally disappeared. The expression that crossed his face when he caught sight of her nearly stopped her heart. She had never seen such affection written on anyone else's face, especially when directed at her.
"You look beautiful," he said, unable to contain the words, his eyes roving over her from the way her toes pressed into the grass, to the hem of the dress, catching just below her knees, the neckline showing the barest hint of collarbones while her hair, having been hidden for years, curled around her shoulders. She blushed, looking down at the ground. "May I have this dance?" he asked, reaching a hand out to her. It was silly, they had no music playing, and yet she found herself compelled to listen to the request. She took a deep breath before letting her fingers slide over his palm, allowing herself to be tugged towards him, the silence of the night only broken by the soft sounds of crickets and their breathing.
"I don't know how," she confessed, feeling him draw her closer, starting to move to a beat that was only in his head.
"You're doing fine," Patrick smiled, moving one of her hands until it settled on his shoulder, her other still tangled with his, his body swaying slowly. She couldn't help but allow herself to relish in the feeling of his hand against her waist, heat from his palm seeping through the silky fabric of the dress as she desperately tried to keep an eye on her own footing, trying not to stumble.
"Sorry," she apologised, nearly tripping, her focus completely on their feet as he chuckled softly into her hair.
"Stand on my shoes," he told her, grinning at her shocked expression. "You're too worried about stepping on my feet. Just stand on them – you're tiny, I won't even feel it." She hesitated for a moment before doing as instructed, stepping onto the worn leather of his Derbies, waiting for a wince that never came, his arm looping around her back.
"There's no music," she said after a moment, feeling nervous, butterflies beating a tattoo in her stomach as they tried to escape. He rolled his eyes affectionately, moving his feet and subsequently hers as well as he thought of songs he had heard on the wireless before he started singing.
"Every time that you're near, all my cares disappear. Darling, you're all that I'm living for. I want you, I need you, I love you, more and more," he sang the words softly, half murmured into the darkness of the field, the summer breeze cooling the muggy air. She closed her eyes, leaning a tiny bit closer, wishing that he meant the words. That he could feel those things for her. Before she knew what she was doing, she found herself pressed against him, her ear resting over his heart, the rhythmic thudding calming her, timed with the beat of the song he was murmuring into the night.
His voice drifted off after a while, but they continued moving together, their dance guided by the crickets and his heartbeat, the night closing in around them until they felt that there was no one else in the world. Sister Bernadette, sighed, relishing in the scent of the doctor's cologne, the soft, worn, fabric of his shirt, and the feeling of his arms around her. When he slowed their movements, she looked up, finding his face mere inches from hers, his eyes focused on her in a way she had never experienced before.
He wanted to kiss her.
He didn't. Instead, he brushed her hair out of her face, noticing how she looked calm for the first time in ages, the worry lines having dissolved from her face as she let him guide her. He broke their embrace only to lead her to a blanket he had spread on the ground, helping her to sit on the wool before lowering himself next to her as she lay back, looking up at the stars.
"I don't remember the last time I've been able to make out the constellations like this," she whispered into the darkness, unable to stop herself from moving closer to him, resting her head on his chest as she looked up.
"Beautiful," he answered, watching her slowly drift to sleep.
He wasn't talking about the stars.
XxX
She sighed, curling more tightly to him, her body pressed along his side, their legs tangled together. He wondered when they had become so entwined during the night, practically in an intimate embrace. Her one leg was pulled up towards her chest, resting atop his hip and thigh, the skirt of her dress riding up, exposing her pale skin to the weak light of dawn. He had wrapped her shoulders in his jacket when the air had cooled during the night, somehow managing to keep from waking her up as he draped the thick wool across her shoulders and back.
He couldn't help himself, reaching out, dragging the back of his knuckles over the soft skin just below the hemline of her dress, touch feather-light so as to keep from waking her. In response, she made a contented noise, cuddling closer still, her hand flexing against the fabric of his shirt, finger clinging to the material. He couldn't help but be enthralled by her, golden lashes fanned across her cheeks, the sun catching on them and making her blonde hair shimmer as she slowly awoke, blue eyes blinking open. She smiled sleepily, content as she looked up at him.
"Good morning," she whispered, leaning up to place a soft kiss on his lips. The action was chaste but full of affection; and Patrick couldn't help but feel as if in that moment it was something they had been doing every day of their lives, despite how he had never touched the woman in his arms before a few hours ago.
"Morning," he replied, bringing his hand up to push her hair out of her face as he ducked down for another kiss, his thumb tracing over her cheekbone as he cupped her jaw. She melted back against his chest when they parted, her ear over his heart again. They both seemed to lag in the bubble of half-asleep, half-awake for a moment before she sat up, a blush spreading across her cheeks when she realised that they had kissed not once, but twice. She couldn't blame him for the action, as she was responsible for the first contact, but she couldn't control the pounding of her pulse, blood rushing in her ears as reality came crashing down on her.
"We shouldn't have done that," she scrambled, trying to get to her feet, nearly slipping as her bare feet made contact with the dew-covered grass. She felt sick. Not from having kissed him, but from the reality that she couldn't want what she did. Couldn't want him to gather her into his chest and promise her forever. Couldn't want him to press kiss after kiss against her lips until they dissolved into one another, two bodies becoming one. Couldn't want to ask him to run away with her, so they could be somewhere that no one knew that she was trapped in vows she no longer wanted to hold. So that she could hold his hand the way she wanted to, hug him the way she wanted to, let him call her his and mean it.
"I'm sorry," he started, getting up, face stricken. "I thought-"
"Please, don't," her voice broke on the words, her arms wrapping around herself. "What you did… no one has ever done that for me. Nor anything like it. I have never felt more cherished than I did last night, here, with you. But I know that you probably don't want this to… to be anything more –"
It was his turn to cut her off as he grabbed her, pulling her tight to him as he rained kisses down on her lips, cupping her cheek in his hand, needing her to realise how wrong she was. He felt her let out a slight sob against his lips before she threw her arms around his neck, trying to get even closer.
"I want anything you are willing to give me," he replied, resting their foreheads against one another when they finally needed oxygen, his eyes closed. "I will do anything for you." Her heart leapt into her throat as she struggled to form the next few words, knowing that if he did not answer her that she would be picking up the pieces of her heart for the rest of her life.
"Tell me you love me." She said the words so quietly that they nearly disappeared on the breeze that blew through the field, rustling the grass as it moved about their feet, the sun rising enough that they were finally cast in the full light of morning. He pulled back, dropping to one knee in front of her, grabbing her hand as he rested it over his heart.
"I love you."
A/N: Inspired by Carrie Underwood's "Heartbeat"