Back now from hols, and brimming with ideas ;) Hope you enjoy - please review, they really do mean the world!

Mr and Mrs Turner sat fully clothed, coats and all, on their bed. In less than an hour Timothy would be up and in need of packing off to school, and shortly after that they were both due on call, although how either of them would be able to concentrate after the exciting news Shelagh had just given was anybody's guess. Patrick turned to face his wife, who was staring straight ahead, lips pursed with silent gratification. "Happy?" he smiled, and she nodded in reply, slowly turning her head to meet his gaze. Her eyes were watery with exhaustion, but were nevertheless charged with excitement. But a certain amount of disbelief also sparked in their depths, marked by the soft slanting crease on her brow.

"I thought," she began, hesitantly, "I thought when I'd told you it would all seem real. But it doesn't. This feels even more distant and fanciful than when you proposed to me, Patrick, and that's unsettled me a bit." Patrick squeezed her hand, waiting for her to go on. "It still feels like a dream, and I'll wake up and find I'm still in that cell at Nonnatus, tracing the scar on my palm and wondering if you truly held feelings for me. I still can't believe that you love me, it's all too..."

Patrick, tired of hearing this speech for the umpteenth time, silenced her by kissing her hard on the mouth. His hand immediately roamed to join hers on her abdomen, the other snaking round to caress her neck, rough, careworn hands scorching pale skin and downy wisps of hair, moving upwards to tug strands from the trademark chignon. In his fervour he knocked her glasses, at which point Shelagh squeaked against his mouth and wriggled free, raising a protective hand. Patrick caught her wrist and playfully knocked her glasses skew-whiff again. "Now will you believe that I love you, Shelagh Turner, and that it is perfectly believable that we are going to have a child?"

Shelagh grinned in spite of herself. "Mmm, you might have to persuade me a little bit more..."

Their resumed ministrations were interrupted all too soon by the tinny clamour of the alarm clock. Patrick groaned against Shelagh's lips. "Once more unto the breech..." he sighed, giving Shelagh's non-existent bump a final pat before getting off the bed, grinning guiltily at how sensual his devout wife looked with uniform crumpled, hair tousled and lips pink and kiss-swollen.

"Are you going to tell Nonnatus?"

"I think perhaps we should see the Tuberculosis doctors first, you know, modus operandi."

"But that might be weeks before we can get an appointment, you know what the system's like." He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head, the look he did when giving Timothy an order. "I'll book an appointment for you today, while you tell your friends the good news." Shelagh was too tired to resist.

"Alright," she smiled at him gratefully. "I'm quite nervous about it to be honest."

"Rather you than me," he laughed. "But there's someone we ought to tell first."

"Of course," she replied, knowing exactly who he meant, and joining her husband in thinking that this interview was going to be even more nerve-racking.

As Timothy sat quietly absorbed in his toast, Shelagh elbowed her husband and raised her eyebrows. Patrick gave a little nod, coughed, then sat his wife down opposite his son, standing just behind her with his hands on her shoulders. Shelagh clasped her hands nervously in front of her, and elbowed Patrick again. This time Timothy noticed the movement and looked up from his breakfast.

"Erm, Timothy," began Patrick, clearing his throat again and pouting slightly with anxiety. If Shelagh hadn't had her back to him she would have giggled at his expression. "There's something we need to tell you. Shelagh's, well, Shelagh and I..." he floundered. "Erm, you're going to-"

"Be a big brother?" Timothy finished for him. "Yes, I'd sort of figured it out." A shy smile crossed his features as he took in his father's astounded expression then caught the eye of a furiously blushing Shelagh. He was right then, evidently.

"How on earth could you have possibly known?" stammered Patrick, after a stunned silence. "I've only just found out this morning."

Timothy sighed as if it couldn't be more obvious. "Well mum's been stroking her belly like the women at clinic do all the time, but only when she thinks no one's looking." Shelagh looked resolutely at the table. Timothy continued, unperturbed. "She's started cooing for hours over Gary's baby sister at school pick up time, and when I painted a picture for her at Cubs last week she went all slushy and cried into my hair."

Shelagh bit her lip, and wondered with a mild panic if she'd really been that obvious, and whether this meant that her secret was not so safe as she'd liked for the time being. Patrick stared in wonder at his son, who was currently smirking impishly back at him, eyebrows raised in a familiar youthful defiance.

"And she was sick in the toilet two days ago when you were on house calls. Dad, don't look like that, I know a lot about baby stuff having a midwife and a doctor as parents."

Patrick shook his head and smiled in bewilderment at his flushed wife. "Well that'll come in useful when baby comes along and a nappy needs changing," he laughed, ruffling a now squirming Timothy's hair.

"I'm sure you'll be a wonderful big brother Timothy," smiled Shelagh, reaching to squeeze her husband's hand, relief at her step-son's positive reaction coursing through her veins, making her feel quite light-headed.

"Yes, I've no doubt you will," Patrick affirmed, and Timothy beamed at them.

"I've always wanted to be a big brother."

"Really? You never said."

Timothy shrugged his shoulders. "Well I wasn't really in a position too was I, before Shelagh came."

"No, I suppose not."

Timothy got up and made for the door, turning just before he disappeared to find his school satchel. "Can I tell anyone yet?"

Patrick smiled fondly at his son. "Very thoughtful of you to ask," he said, "but I think perhaps give it a few days for us to get things sorted first." Timothy nodded. "We don't want Sister Evangelina catching wind of it from some gossiping mothers at clinic do we?" added Patrick, under his breath.

Shelagh gave him her best stern look, which was pretty inadequate seeing as she was so elated she could hardly contain herself. "Oh, she'll be thrilled," she sighed. "They all will, oh Patrick, I'm so excited I can hardly recognise myself."

Indeed, Patrick didn't think he'd ever seen his usually so serene and quiet wife quite this animated before. It was infectious; he took both her hands in his, kissed them, kissed her, and set off on the school run with an air so jaunty and distracted that the gossip that the Doctor's wife was probably expecting had reached every corner of Poplar by lunchtime.

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