Disclaimer: the characters depicted below belong to Heidi Thomas, Neal Street Productions, Jennifer Worth and the BBC. No copyright infringement intended.

The theme music and inspiration to this story is taken from Peter Salem's hauntingly beautiful original score for Call the Midwife, notably 'In the Mirror (Shelagh's theme)'.

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In some strange sense it felt to Shelagh Turner as if the woman looking back at her from the living room mirror was nothing like the one who she had seen in the hallway mirror earlier that day. This woman - this new woman - wore the same features, the same clothes as before, and yet she was fundamentally altered.

For the longest time her life had been marked out and given meaning by the privilege of serving God, of serving the women of the community through Him. She wanted and needed for nothing, save being fed and sheltered and embraced in the sisterhood of Nonnatus House.

And then God had sent her a challenge, one which caused her to doubt every certainty which underpinned her beliefs, her life. If she had merely been diagnosed with TB alone she would have retreated to the sanatorium to pray and to minister to others there as much as her illness would allow. But she had been ailing long before she had fallen ill. She was heartsick, she had come to realise, her emotions see-sawing between joy and despair. She could glimpse all the things she had never before wanted but could also clearly see that they were things she couldn't have.

Could she?

It was impossible to pinpoint exactly when it had begun, but she recalled with clarity the moment she had realised that her thoughts were increasingly consumed with the widowed doctor. She had been stood in front of the mirror in her cell brushing free her hair, the action her only slight concession to vanity. And it had crossed her mind then: would he have given any thought to the colour of her hair? Would he have tried to picture the woman she could see in the mirror? She thought he might; she had caught his gaze lingering on her at the clinic the previous week when she had taken charge of a fractious toddler who refused to leave the cubicle where his mother was being examined. Dr Turner's smile had been one of relief, of gratitude, but also of something more; something she had never encountered before and couldn't define. Except she knew that it had sparked an answering call within her, a smile she couldn't stop, one which lit up her face with radiance and joy at the very thought of it.

Later - much later, when his shattering diagnosis had stolen her from Nonnatus House - she would again look at herself in a mirror and admit an equally shattering truth: she was in love with him. Desperately so. Feelings which she had long fought, had tried to bury and deny, kept swimming to the surface of her consciousness. Their ripples were to spread outwards through her life, casting her adrift from the very existence she had known, but also keeping her afloat until she was ready to set a new course.

Back on solid ground, shrouded in mist and almost lost for words, they had met again for the first time.

"Shelagh-"

"Patrick-"

The certainty of their love for each other cemented, they had made a start.

She emerged into her new life reticently. The woman she saw in his living room mirror then - his fiancée - was no longer able to face the sisters whose company she had so cherished. Nor could she face the sight of herself in her understated grey wedding dress. Everything had been out of kilter because Shelagh Mannion was caught in a limbo between who she had been and who she hoped to be.

And now; now Shelagh Turner was scrutinising herself again in that same mirror. In it she had seen anguish and confusion and loss reflected back at her, and she had also caught glimpses of herself hugging Timothy goodnight or, once or twice, waltzing round the living room in her husband's happy embrace.

Now her gaze travelled down to the reflection of the tiny baby girl gurgling contentedly in her arms, and the unstoppable smile of radiance and joy returned. Behind her she saw Patrick unfold himself from the couch and approach them, his arms slipping round her waist and his chin nestling on her shoulder as he peered down proudly at their daughter.

His eyes flicked up to meet hers in the mirror.

"Do you want to know what I see?" he asked gently.

She didn't need to answer; the light which flared in her eyes spoke for her.

"You," he said simply. "My wife. My lover. My best friend. The mother to our children. My everything."

'Yes,' she thought as she turned her head to meet his tender kiss. That was who the woman in the mirror now was. At last, she was made whole. She was complete.

END

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