For my MMEPAC girls again. 2 month anniversary! Woop woop!

Primarily for Bee who's had a bad day and Hannah M who kept me going xx

'Doctor Turner? Come in.' Dr Mathhews said nervously. Patrick paled. He'd worked on and off with the man for nearly 10 years now and had never seen him so anxious. This did not bode well. 'Take a seat. I think you'll want to sit down for this.'

'She does doesn't she? Sister Bernadette had tuberculosis? How bad is it?' He frowned. For the past 2 months he had been engaged in a love affair with the Scottish nun and had fallen hopelessly in love with her. He couldn't bear to think of her being ill. He wasn't prepared to lose the love of his life.

'Yes she does but thankfully we caught it before it got too bad. She'll be okay.'

'What is it then? What's wrong?'

'We noticed something else.'

'What do you mean?' Patrick's mind raced as endless medical possibilities raced through his mind.

'There's been a rather unexpected development.'

'I see.' He croaked. This changed everything. 'May I be the one to inform the Sister. Shocking news is always better from a friendly face.'

'Of course. Do you wish me to accompany you?'

'No. Thank you.' He didn't quite know how he was going to break the news to his beloved but he knew he had to do it alone.

'As you wish.'

'Sister Bernadette.' Patrick smiled tersely as he walked into the room. As soon as he shut the room she rushed into his arms.

'Patrick!'

'Oh Shelagh. My darling, beautiful Shelagh.' He sighed heavily, brushing his lips against her forehead.

'Oh no. Is it bad? Patrick please, tell it to me straight-am I going to die?' She asked, eyes dancing with barely restrained panic.

'No my love, you're not going to die. You do have tuberculosis but we've caught it in time.' He smiled reassuringly down at her. He dropped a kiss to her lips. 'You're not leaving this world just yet.'

'Then why do you look so worried?'

'They discovered something else whilst examining you.'

'What is it?' She furrowed her brow confused. She'd barely had any symptoms for the TB let alone anything else.

'Darling you're pregnant.' He said gently, taking her hand in his. Her jaw dropped and she stared at him wide eyed for a moment.

'…I'm sorry I must have misheard you.'

'You're pregnant. You're having a baby. We're going to be parents.' He smiled.

'I'm having a baby?' Her eyes widened further as her hand fell to her stomach.

'Yes.'

'A baby? A real life baby? Your baby?' She dropped into a nearby seat. 'But I have tuberculosis!' She looked up panicked at him. He sat next to her and brought her hand to his mouth.

'It's only in your lungs. So long as you rest completely and take an alternate, though still just as effective, course of medication, then baby should be fine. You'll also need very regular check-ups to make sure it doesn't spread.'

'A baby. Our baby. This changes everything.' She rested her head against his shoulder.

'Indeed.' He sighed manouvering his arm so it now lay over her shoulder. She snuggled into him before a thought occurred to her and she shot up.

'I'm not getting rid of it. Or putting it up for adoption.'

'I don't want you to. Marry me.'

'Was that one sentence or two?'

'Two. Definitely two. I've said many times over the past two months that I would marry you in a heartbeat if I could. If you weren't a nun.'

'You also said you wouldn't make love to me whilst I was a nun and yet here we are.' She grinned as she brought his hand to join hers on the place their child was growing. He beamed back at her.

'What do you say then?' He dropped down on one knee. 'I love you Shelagh Mannion and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don't want to hide it anymore. I want to be a family-you, me, Tim and our baby. Maybe even more after that. I want you to be Tim's Mum, I want to raise our children together. I want to be your husband. Nothing would make me prouder. Please, will you marry me Shelagh?'

'Yes Patrick.' She cried. 'Yes I will marry you.'

'Yes!' He shouted as he laughed rejoicingly. She giggled as he jumped up and span her around before engaging her in a deep kiss.

''I want to be your wife. I want to be a Mum to our, at the least, two children. I do not know what the future holds for me but if this illness kills me I want to die as your wife.'

'You're not going to die. I won't allow it.'

'Yes sir.' She chuckled. 'Though I may not survive Sister Evangelina after I tell Nonnatus I'm leaving the Order to marry you and that it's too late to object and stop us because I'm already pregnant. Did Dr Matthews say how far along I am?'

'5 weeks. We've got a little tadpole sized baby darling.'

'Our tadpole.'

'The best little tadpole in the world.' He kissed her belly. 'Hey little tadpole. I know you can't hear me yet because you don't have any ears yet but I want you to know that I already love you so much, and your big brother Timothy is going to adore you-'

'-tell her Mummy loves her too.' Shelagh grinned, not quite able to believe she was allowed to say those words.'

'And I have from the horse's mouth that Mummy loves you too. And that you're a girl. Though between you and I it's probably best if I don't refer to Mummy as a horse again. Particularly in the coming months when you start making her all moody.'

'What are we going to do for the coming months?' Shelagh sighed as reality caught up to her.

'I think maybe we should leave Poplar, if that's what you want of course.'

'I think I have to. I don't want Tadpole here to be at the centre of a scandal. She, or he, deserves better than that. We all deserve better than what the gossips will bring to us. But it's such a big change.' She sighed collapsing back into the chair.

'We're already pregnant and getting married. You've already said you'll leave the Order. It doesn't get bigger than that.' He pointed out smirking.

'Yes. Alright let's do it. Let's leave Poplar. Let's start afresh somewhere new. Together. Tonight, when I go back to Nonnatus House I'll tell them. Then tomorrow I'll go to the Sanatorium and we'll get married as soon as is humanely possible, before I get too weak. Then, if I survive this, we'll move somewhere new.' She promised.

'When you survive this. I have absolute faith in this treatment and you have faith in God's protection of you. Between us we've got the faith covered. And I'll start enquiring later today about places to live. Do you have a preference? Would you like to go back to Alford? Somewhere else in Scotland?' He offered.

'Not Alford. Too many awkward questions. Other than that I don't mind. So long as I have you, Timmy and Tadpole I don't care.'

'I love you so much Shelagh. I'm very happy about all of this, besides the TB of course.' He amended laughing.

'So am I. This is the start of something wonderful.'

So originally this was going to be discovered through the blood test Sister B took in 2.6 but a friend pointed out that 1. she wasn't having blood taken she was having a heaf test and 2. pregnancy wasn't discovered through blood tests back then but through urine (circa 3.3 etc).

reviews always appreciated xxx