A/N: Well, it is my wonderful friend Cam's birthday and I wanted to write something for him as a celebration of sorts... Cam has this ridiculous obsession with something I like to call 'the florists AU' as well as just generally Pupcake + flowers (sort of, I suppose)... so this came to mind. I stole a couple of ideas from my own story so if you see a sentence you think you've read before... it's probably because you practically have :P
1.
It's been days since she felt Delia's lips brush over the corner of her mouth, but the sudden dizzy fear that filled her hasn't quite dissipated yet, dancing about in her stomach in such a way that it's impossible to ignore. Even whilst she's on her rounds, checking temperatures, changing bandages, it's there, and she's unable to put it out of her mind. She catches a glimpse of Delia across the other side of the room, and their eyes lock, just for a split second, and she has to look away to hide the blush that heats her cheeks.
She's annoyed with herself for indulging in such ridiculous behaviour. At first, she was annoyed with Delia – after all, she was the one who thought it a good idea to ruin a perfectly good friendship with a kiss of all things – but now she's resigned to the fact that she has to partly take the blame. She can't pretend she wasn't already thinking about it, already desperately trying to swallow down feelings. It would be cruel to blame Delia. After all, even if she wasn't brave enough to admit it to herself, it is what she wanted.
She hasn't been on a date before, doesn't really know if this even counts as one. She and Delia have been out for drinks, or coffee, or a slice of cake, or even to the pictures, more times than she can count. What makes this any different? She knows it is, though. She knows, because she spends half an hour getting ready, and tries on three different outfits before settling, and when she goes to leave her room, her hands are shaking. She knows, because when she heads downstairs, she smoothes her hair out three times, but can't stop her heart from thumping in her chest, or the constant butterflies in her stomach.
As Patsy nervously makes her way to Delia's room, she feels entirely unprepared. She thinks maybe she should have brought flowers, but then she's sure that wouldn't have been right either. What's etiquette for this kind of thing? It's not like she can ask anybody. Still, a girl receiving flowers is the instant target of gossip, so she thinks she's done the right thing. Maybe.
Later, when she's perched on Delia's bed, having a night cap before she goes up to her own room, she notices the vase on the window ledge, and her heart sinks.
"Those are pretty," she says, gesturing towards the flowers with her cigarette, "a gentleman admirer, perhaps?"
Delia laughs, and shakes her head, her blue eyes sparkling, her voice soft, "hardly – they're not even real."
The next time Patsy comes over, she brings a bouquet of daisies with her.
2.
When Patsy leaves for Nonnatus, they're still in this awkward place between friends and something else. She knows it's her own fault; she's been avoiding Delia. She thinks it's easier that way. It will cause them both less pain in the long run.
She unpacks her things into the room she's going to share, and it feels almost like relief. She gets a chance to start over here. She brings the memory box out of her suitcase and slides it under her bed, secretly making a promise she knows she won't be able to keep. Don't touch it, don't mention it, don't even think about it. When her new roommate comes back, she flashes her a smile full of bravado and self-confidence, and tries to ignore that slight feeling of homesickness that's already settling in.
She falls into an easy routine with these new people, in this new environment. It's easy to turn down invitations to see old friends because she can pretend she's busy. The work makes her keep more irregular hours. After a while, people stop asking. It's not that she doesn't want to see any of them (though there are a great deal of people she most definitely does not want to see), it's more that she's different now, and she doesn't want to move backwards.
When Trixie comes to her, gushing about some friend she wants Patsy to meet - and oh wouldn't it be darling for them to all go out together, her and Tom, and Patsy and this chap - she doesn't quite have the heart to say no. It's not the kind of thing Cynthia would go for (Trixie seems to have long since given up on trying to find her a man, which is probably for the best), and Patsy is trying so hard to fit in here, to be different from how she was, that she reluctantly agrees.
The 'date' is disastrous. They go to the pictures, to see some sappy romance flick that Patsy would never have chosen in a million years. Stan – who does some kind of job somewhere or other; Patsy really isn't paying any attention – arrives with a bunch of gawdy looking pink and orange flowers, and reeks like he's absolutely bathed himself in aftershave. He insists on holding her arm as they walk, and to boot it all off, he's at least half an inch shorter than her. Patsy can't help but think Trixie must have set the whole thing up as a joke, because there's no way she could honestly believe this man was Patsy's type.
As they settle into their seats in the cinema, the bunch of ugly flowers in Patsy's lap, she barely notices somebody slip into the seat next to hers, long after the room has gone dark and the film has started. Stan keeps looking at her, and she's feeling more and more like she might vomit, especially if he puts his arm around her like he keeps suggesting he might. She tries to focus, instead, on the screen. But that's not much better, and she's soon rolling her eyes and mumbling under her breath, silently deciding that she is never doing anything with Trixie ever again.
"Load of old codswallop, isn't it?" she hears in a familiar, rich voice, low and whispered close to her ear. Patsy turns, her eyebrows raised, and meets a dimpled smirk that she's seen dozens of times before.
Patsy never thought she'd be so relieved to see her.
Fifteen minutes later, she excuses herself, and she and Delia are standing outside, in the alleyway at the back of the cinema, and really all they can do is laugh at the absurdity.
"I can't believe she actually thought..." Patsy wipes her eyes, trying to catch her breath, "that I... I would go out with a guy who..."
"...he smells like a perfume counter!"
"I mean, look at these!" Patsy thrusts the flowers at Delia, who giggles, plucking a single orange flower from the bunch and holding it up to Patsy's head.
"I don't know, I see a resemblance," she teases, dodging away from Patsy.
After a moment, they fall quiet, the laughter dying down, and suddenly Patsy becomes acutely aware of the fact they're standing so close together, in a quiet, dark alley.
"I should go," she says, "Trixie will be positively fuming that I stormed out and left her."
"I've missed you."
Patsy looks at her, really takes in every little part of her for the first time in a long time, and nods, "me too."
3.
She realises, as she stands awkwardly at the florists, watching the woman behind the counter carefully arrange the bunch she's picked out, that she's only bought Delia flowers once before. The realisation sinks heavily into her stomach and she silently tells herself that she will buy her flowers every week, every day even, if it means that all of this will go away.
It's a good thing she isn't the kind of person to break down in a flower shop.
When she arrives at the hospital, clutching the bunch of chrysanthemums, she feels a strange sense of deja vu. She gazes through the glass panel of the door, and when her eyes find Delia – battered, bruised, scratched up – it's guilt that pangs at her chest, because if they had left on time, if she hadn't let her take the bicycle... well, they never would have wound up here.
She doesn't leave the flowers at Delia's bedside. She doesn't think there's any point – they're a reminder of someone who almost doesn't exist anymore, a promise that is never going to be kept. Delia won't know who they're from, or what they mean. So, she takes them with her.
Patsy visits her before she leaves for Wales. It's heartbreaking because it's like talking to a shell of the person she loved, a fragment. She promises she'll write, and Delia gazes at her with blank, questioning eyes, before asking, once again – for the fourth, or fifth time that day – who she is.
She wants to leave flowers with her, but that would feel too much like closure, like an ending. Like she's leaving them at a grave. And she has to believe it isn't over.
When Delia eventually writes back – after three letters go unanswered, and Patsy's all but given up hope of ever hearing from her again – it's with wobbly, child-like handwriting. Much like Patsy's letters, it feels empty, personality-less. It doesn't reflect their relationship, or the love they have for one another in any way, and Patsy knows it's because Delia doesn't remember. She probably doesn't even know who she's writing to. She says she doesn't know why, but she's included a pressed flower from the bunch that lives on her window ledge.
It's a bright orange carnation, and Patsy feels her heart break as she peels it from the page, pressing it carefully into the box of memories beneath her bed.
4.
It's just starting to rain as Patsy starts down the front steps of Nonnatus, and she instantly regrets not taking Phyllis up on her offer of a lift in the car. She pulls her coat around her, and shoves her hands further into her pockets, preparing for a walk mainly consisting of dashing under stoops and through washing lines whilst mothers frantically try to get their clothes in. She's exhausted. Her entire body aches from working too hard; she feels it in every bone. Typical Patsy Mount. She's thrown herself into work because it's easier than facing the real world.
Tomorrow, however, is a day off. And a most welcome one.
As she rounds the corner of the street, something catches her eye on a shop front, and she pauses, considering, before darting inside.
A while later, when Patsy arrives, the bell over the door jingles, but nobody hears it. She grins, tucking her purchase under her coat, and tip-toeing into the room.
The counter is covered in off cuts of stems, a roll of brown paper hanging loosely over the side. The floor needs sweeping. Aside from that, it's perfect. Rows of beautiful, bright colours fill the small space, every kind of flower, in every shade imaginable, in neat little rows. Some were already tied with shiny ribbons, others wrapped in dotty paper, but most were loose, ready to be plucked and arranged.
Patsy thought she would never tire of the sight of them all.
"Hello?"
"Oh, we're about to close!" a voice calls from somewhere out back, and Patsy chuckles, turning towards the door behind the counter, just in time to see a figure emerge.
She's wearing a yellow dress, a geometrically patterned apron tied around her waist, and her dark hair is neatly piled on top of her head. As soon as she sees who she's greeting, a smile breaks out on her face.
"Pats," she says, pulling her gloves off, "I didn't hear you come in."
Revealing the bunch of sunflowers she'd tucked into her coat, Patsy holds them out to Delia, who looks at them and then back up at her, eyebrows furrowed.
"I don't know if you've noticed, sweetheart, but we've a shop full of flowers."
Patsy blushes, dipping to kiss Delia's cheek, "yes, but I saw these, and they made me think of you and I thought you just had to have them."
"Only you," she says, rolling her eyes, but she can't bite back the grin as she takes in the flowers' scent, "hope you didn't pay too much for them, mind. I can't have you contributing to my competition."
She strokes Patsy's face, and for a moment there's a sadness in her eyes that Patsy recognises. It comes from not being able to nurse anymore, to having to live a completely different life. She knows Delia misses it, that as much as she adores the shop, and she's glad to be able to do something again, she still misses it.
"Are you coming up?" Patsy asks, taking her hand and squeezing it. She's become a lot braver, but then she thinks that almost losing somebody will do that to you.
"I'll be up in a second," Delia says, "why don't you stick the kettle on?"
Patsy nods, slipping behind the counter. She stops, pausing to watch Delia fetch the broom, and begin to sweep the shop, humming quietly to herself.
"Delia?"
She turns to look at her, a smile tugging at her lips, and Patsy knows what she wants to say, just can't quite get her mouth around the words. She wonders if she ever will.
"I'll take those up, put them in some water?" she finally says, reaching for the bunch of sunflowers.
Delia smiles, nodding, "I don't know what I'd do without you."
"I'm the same," Patsy whispers, before disappearing upstairs, to the flat they now call home, and heading straight for the little jug that sits on their window ledge.