Authors Note: Ask and ye shall receive! Taking a bit of a break from my other story as I write a sequel so writing up some Call the Midwife one-shots now that I've finished season 3. There are spoilers for season 3 so please don't read unless you are okay with being spoiled! Takes place around the last episode of season 3. Enjoy, don't forget to review if you want more!
I was good at keeping other families glued together in the worst of medical emergencies.
I helped deliver life to and from the world in terrible situations and always, *always* stayed calm.
I had gotten through the death of my first wife with a young, grieving little boy without a much of a hitch.
I had always prided myself on my ability to fix things, or at least keep them well enough to not need fixing. My hands had helped heal so many people from different diseases and conditions, through hard labors and cancer. My words had helped calm young children from fearing for their parent so badly as they lay still on their death bed. They had given the midwives hope through a terrible delivery, they had given Timothy the confidence to go back to bed by himself, even though moments before he simply *swore* there were monsters in his dark bedroom. But they had the power to break my sweet, gentle wife's heart into a million pieces, and it didn't even seem as though they had the power to sew it back together and make it whole again.
I had briefly contemplated staying out of her way that night - sleeping on the couch, if that was necessary. The house had been so eerily silent, if it hadn't of been for Tim's random questions or silly statements to keep it from being completely quiet that day, it would've been too much to bear. I finally decided to slip into the bed, turning my back from her the moment I had joined her.
*How terrible it seemed, to spend so many months wishing for her company in this bed and to now have it but refuse her.*
"Goodnight, Patrick." I had thought she was asleep before I heard her murmur. I had never heard her voice filled with so much guilt or sadness, not even on the ride to the sanotorium.
*She's completely new to this, a stranger to absoloutly everything I've forced her through, and I've welcomed her into marriage like this.* I thought bitterly. She hadn't ever been on a date, no kisses or hugs or arguments with a person, with a man, outside of her work. She had never been through this yet I treated her just as I expected to be treated - like a veteran of this, someone who knew exactly what was happening, when she had no clue how to get through these things. And *she* is the one who feels guilty.
Suddenly, I felt like the biggest cad that had ever lived.
I flipped over silently and scooted closer until I could manage to wrap an arm around her tiny frame. It wasn't much of a feat, really. She was hardly 5 foot 4, at the tallest, and much lighter than my previous wife. It wasn't hard to completely hide her into my body.
"I'm sorry." I sighed, knowing she was still awake, still listening as always. "I'm sorry for keeping secrets from you, for not wanting to share everything with you. I'm sorry for hurting you and allowing this argument of ours to go this far. I love you, Shelagh, and I would *never* hurt you on purpose. I hope you can forgive me."
She turned in my arms then, facing me with a tear slowly streaming down her cheek. She had been crying, obviously, before I had even started speaking. For a moment, I had felt offended that she didn't feel like she could *come* to me with her sadness, when I realized that me doing that same thing had been what had gotten us into trouble. Had I been too selfish, not wanting to share those things and stay the strong figure I had always been in her life? Was I so caught up in masculunity, the very thing I had hated the most for so long in the Army because the overly masculine were *always* the ones who were cocky, over zealous. The ones who got themselves and others hurt...but it seemed like I had become one of the things I hated most.
"I can't forgive you, Patrick, because there's nothing to forgive." I opened my mouth to interrupt, to stop her right there and tell her all of the things I had done to her, all of the terrible things, but she pressed her lips against mine and I couldn't find the desire to pull away. At that moment, when I finally kissed her after long days of doing absoloutely nothing but arguing and wishing for some kind of cure for it as if it was a medical disorder, I felt whole again.
Little did we know, the last puzzle piece to our family lay silently in the orphanage and would join us the very next day, finally making us a true family.