Author's note: A tale that is probably AU/doesn't follow canon by now, and takes place a few weeks after Angela arrives. Originally posted on my blog, moved here.

As always, Angela's cry woke her immediately. Shelagh rolled over to grab her glasses and squint at the clock. Just after 5 a.m., which meant she was probably hungry, and in need of a change.

Patrick's side of the bed was cool and empty; he must still be out at the 2 a.m call that had woken both him and their daughter. The trill of the phone always seemed to set Angela off, as if she knew such calls were usually not good news. Unfortunately, these interruptions were frequent, and Shelagh, Patrick and Timothy had taken to rushing toward the phone at the first ring, so as not to upset the littlest member of the Turner household.

She grabbed her dressing gown off the end of the bed and shrugged it on as she hurried down the hallway to the baby's room. Luckily she reached her before her cries turned into full-blown wails and woke Timothy next door.

"There, there, little one, Mummy here's," she cooed, deftly scooping up her daughter and cradling her against her chest. Angela's cries quieted into grousing as Shelagh made her way downstairs to the kitchen.

She'd set out everything last night, so all that remained was to heat up the bottle. While waiting for the water to boil, she tried to calm her daughter with kisses and murmured lullabies. Angela liked being cuddled – sometimes being held close was all she wanted – and Shelagh probably indulged her a bit much, but she didn't care. She was getting rather good at doing lots of things one-handed, but there were days when she wished she could be like the octopus in Tim's science book and grow an extra set of arms.

Bottle heated, she settled on the sitting room sofa with the baby and began to feed her.

"That's –" she yawned. "That's better, isn't it?" Angela blinked sleepily in reply. It was odd, but sometimes these feedings reminded Shelagh of early morning prayers at the convent. The sense of calm she felt was the same, only now it came as much from the warm weight of her daughter and her gurgles of contentment as it did from prayer.

She heard the familiar sound of the Austin rumbling outside and a few minutes later the soft creak of the front door opening. Patrick was home.

He trudged into the sitting room and looked slightly bewildered when he saw her. "You're up?"

She gave him an exhausted smile. "I'm always up at this hour, Patrick."

"Right. Sorry." He sat down next to her and rubbed a hand across his eyes. "I lost track of the time."

"Mother and baby all right?"

He nodded and smiled. "How about here? Mother and baby all right?"

"Perfect," she said, yawning again. "Tired, but perfect."

He ran a finger through the baby's downy hair. "Do you want me to take her so you can sleep some more?"

She shook her head. "No, I'll be –" she yawned again. "I'll be fine. Go to bed, catch a few hours before church."

Patrick took in his wife's wan complexion and the violet shadows under her eyes, but said nothing more. He knew she valued this time with Angela and wanted to savor every moment of their daughter's babyhood – he did too. But he worried about her and hoped she wasn't wearing herself out. Later, after church and Sunday lunch, he'd take the child and convince Shelagh to lie down for a few hours.

"All right. Love you." He kissed her cheek. "And you," he said, bestowing another kiss on the baby's head before rising and heading for the stairs.

After a few more moments of peace, Angela wriggled and twisted away from the bottle, indicating she was finished. Shelagh shifted the infant to burp her and leaned further back into the sofa. Through the gap in the curtains, she could see the pale light of the approaching dawn, and she felt a strange, dizzying sense of deja vu (although that could have just been fatigue). How many dawns had she watched, delirious with exhaustion, in her old life? How many babies had she held in the wee hours of the morning? She'd lost count, but there must have been hundreds, every one of them precious, of course, to their mothers...but none of them were Angela. She pressed a kiss to the baby's temple and cradled her in her lap again, readjusting the pink knit blanket. None of them were hers.