Summary: Delia's preparations for midwifery provokes a strong reaction from Patsy
Disclaimer: Call The Midwife belongs to the BBC and others - I am simply borrowing their beautiful characters.
Author's note: Thank you so much for the lovely feedback so far. This second part has swung from relatively light-hearted to a bit more angst. Let me know what you think.
Despite desperately wanting to repair the damage she had done, Patsy took Trixie's advice and went to her own room first to change out of her uniform and order her thoughts. Her anger was no longer with Delia, but firmly pointing towards herself. The Titian-haired midwife knew that she had a propensity to bursts of emotion and knew it was a side-effect of the relentless suppression of emotions that she maintained, learned through a life time of practice. The trouble was, every now and again the lid burst off and she would over-react completely. She sat down heavily on her bed as she replayed the scene in her head. Delia had been right, as usual. Patsy shook her head ruefully as she wondered how her glorious girlfriend had so easily managed to read her. It was one of the first things that she had been attracted to. The brunette had not been fooled in the slightest by Patsy's brusque coolness, and had persevered as Patsy tried to remain aloof as they worked together. Without realising it Patsy had fallen hard for the nurse and had spent a lot of time in a torturous limbo of both dreading and wishing that Delia felt the same. It had been Delia, typically who had braved the first real move, despite the incredible risk she was taking.
Patsy sighed. Delia had always been the courageous one, confronting her fears, determined to do what she believed was right. Patsy had been witness to that same attitude many times on the Ward when an overly officious or insensitive doctor dealt with a patient poorly. Despite the typically lewd comments that would fly around to all the nurses in general on the ward, any patients who were there longer than a few days became extremely protective of their nurse Busby - she was their advocate, so they would defend her, much to Matron's annoyance.
So it would be typical for Delia to do anything to protect Patsy from pain or heartache. For her to learn and ride a bike again so that Patsy wouldn't be petrified every time she left for rounds was a perfectly Delia thing to do. Patsy shook her head, annoyed at herself again. Delia had confronted her fear on her own to save Patsy's anxiety. And she had blown up at her irrationally. The dreadful thing was that a small part of Patsy's brain couldn't help but wonder if Delia had been paying attention when she was knocked down by the van. She knew it was unfair to think that way, and Sergeant Noakes had told her that the delivery van had no business being there, but it did not erase that gnawing idea that if somehow Delia had just looked where she was going, the accident would not have happened. Patsy reflected how strange it was that this small dark thought could manage to override her usual feeling of extreme guilt about the accident as, after all, it had been her bike that Delia had been riding.
Patsy felt her thoughts slow down and wondered how long she had been sat there, lost in them. There was more order in her head now, and she hurriedly stepped into some trousers and buttoned up a shirt. She took a deep breath and sighed, wondering what sort of reception Delia would give her. The red-head trod quietly down the hall and opened Delia's door without knocking, closing it quietly and leaning against it as she saw the younger woman lying on the bed, back towards her. She could tell from the tone of her body that Delia was not asleep, but she made no effort to turn around, and Patsy knew that she was in trouble.
Patsy crept round the bed and sat on the floor, hugged her knees and leaned against the bed, looking away from Delia. "I'm sorry," she began, her voice sounding hoarse with unshed tears. "I overreacted."
"I don't know what to do any more," Delia whispered, causing Patsy to frown in alarm. "I can't comfort you in public, you can barely tolerate me touching you without flinching like I've got a disease and you can't or won't trust me."
"Delia, that's not true," Patsy disputed. She took a breath, determined not to allow defensive anger to rise. "Actually, some of that is true," she admitted. "But you knew that when we first got together, and you know how stupidly repressed I am. It's not something I can change overnight."
"We've been together four years Pats," Delia reminded her. "I know I'll never be able to go shouting I love you from the rooftops, but I don't want to feel like I'm just a, I don't know, a dirty little secret that you only ever deal with on your terms."
Patsy closed her eyes, feeling hot tears of hurt and shame spill down her cheeks. "I am sorry, Deels," she repeated sincerely. "I'm such a fool. I've hurt you so much all over my own stupid insecurities." She puffed out a breath, composing her thoughts. "When I saw you on that bike, all I could think about was seeing you in that hospital bed so vulnerable and confused. All the pain of not being able to see you, thinking I'd lost you forever. It all hit me at once. I don't ever want to lose you again Deels."
"You're not the only one who suffered Patsy. I was in Wales, in a village I didn't recognise and with people I didn't know, trying to remember or at least trying to work out who I was."
Patsy was about to interrupt and give her perspective when she realised that Delia had barely spoken about her convalescence in Pembroke. Patsy had always assumed it had been straight back to family life with Delia supported by those she loved. She had almost irrationally resented the fact that she at least had been surrounded by her loved ones. But she hadn't considered that Delia might feel equally lost and confused, away from what had been a particularly formative part of her life.
Patsy got up from the floor and moved round the bed again, this time getting on and cuddling up behind Delia, wrapping an arm over her waist and interlocking her fingers with Delia's in a well-practised move. "Tell me," she prompted softly.
So Delia did, haltingly. She spoke of having daily reminders as to who the members of her family were and seeing the hurt and frustration on their faces each time they did so. She spoke about feeling isolated and trapped, unable to leave the house by herself for fear of not remembering how to get back, and of seeing constant images of a life she had no recollection of. All she knew was that her memory loss was hurting her family; she could see it plainly on her mam's face and she didn't know how to make it better.
Then, as the memories started to return, she lived in a solitary torment of trying to fathom out how they all fitted together. The memories did not return in an orderly chronological order and much of her recall at first was about nursing, which meant she had no-one to verify if the images were memories or imaginations.
Patsy could sense that she was skirting round some particular issues and wondered if again, subconsciously Delia was trying to protect her from the pain endured during that time, so she probed very gently, hoping to flag to Delia that she was prepared to hear everything. "When did you start to remember me?"
There was a long pause as Delia considered her answer. "That was particularly confusing for me," she admitted at last. "I kept getting images, or thoughts about this beautiful woman. But sometimes she was blonde, and sometimes she was auburn. It took a while before I realised it was the same person."
Patsy squeezed her hand gently, silently urging her to continue. "I didn't know why but I just knew that I couldn't talk to anyone about this mystery woman. I'd overheard my mam and dad talking one night. I didn't really catch much but I went cold when I heard my mam say something about it all being 'unnatural' and bringing shame on the village again. I knew she was talking about me, and I knew it had something to do with the woman in my thoughts and I was devastated that whatever it was I was involved with, it was something that I couldn't share." Delia's voice was raw with emotion and Patsy felt tears forming again but was determined to allow her to continue.
Delia composed herself before continuing. "Looking back now it's easy to dismiss it as me basically realising that I was queer. But due to the accident I had the joy of suffering that particular torment twice." She couldn't keep a bitter note from creeping into her voice.
Patsy was equally enthralled by the story and horrified that she had accepted Delia's previous sketchy version of events without question. She had also picked up that there was another incident back in Delia's past that would need further investigation. She cursed herself as she realised that she had just assumed Delia wouldn't want to talk about personal issues in the same way she didn't. But while her driver for tacitness was self-preservation, Delia stayed quiet to protect her from pain.
"I'm sorry," Patsy whispered, gently squeezing her hand again. "I was so wrapped up in my own misery in all this, I didn't think to consider how appalling this has been for you too."
Delia squeezed the older woman's hand back in response before taking a deep breath. "Pats, I need you to be honest with me." There was another pause as the brunette considered her words. "What do you want from this? From us? Are was always going to live on stolen moments? Is what we have worth the risk of being found out?"
Patsy couldn't blame Delia for asking her this. In fact, she knew it had been a long time coming. It had taken Delia weeks to get Patsy to go to Gateways where they could dance and hold hands without fear of reprisal, but Patsy had begun to realise the joy of being able to express her love.
"I won't lose you Delia. I'll fight for you. You make me a better person and I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have you in my life," she declared determinedly. "I love you." She felt Delia start to shift and relaxed her grip enough so that the smaller woman could roll round and face her.
"Then you have to learn to trust me, Pats. You need to treat me like an equal, not just someone you can interact with on your terms."
Patsy could feel tears streaming down her face even as she nodded at the words she was hearing. "I know," she acknowledged. "I will try, and I will get it wrong again and again, but I do trust you Deels." She halted for a second. "I was jealous that it was Barbara teaching you to ride and not me," she admitted.
Delia opened her mouth to explain but was stopped as Patsy gently rested her fingers over them. "Barbara told me quite clearly why you'd gone to her. Thank you." Patsy gave Delia a lop-sided half smile. "Do you think that you could put up with my neurotic over-protectiveness and come out cycling with me on our next day off?"
Delia barked a short stab of laughter. "Of course, you fool." She winced as she recalled throwing the bike to the ground. "Although I may not be allowed use of a bike after the way I treated it."
"Don't worry, I'm sure Fred will be able to make it good as new," Patsy reassured her. She reached up and played with Delia's hair lovingly. "What I haven't said yet is that I am so proud of you for confronting your fears."
"Don't be," Delia demurred quickly. "I was terrified. It took me ages just to get on the thing."
"I am proud of you and I will always be proud of you, Delia," Patsy riposted. "You have always been so much braver than me."
"I'll remind you of that when I'm sobbing after my first day out in the community."
Patsy smiled and felt her heart lighten slightly. The damage was not repaired, not yet, but they were making progress. "Promise me one thing, Deels," she asked tentatively.
Delia frowned slightly, looking into Patsy's clear blue eyes. "What?"
"Promise to come to me and let me help with the things that scare you. Don't protect me from your pain. We need to be in this together, and it will help me get better at behaving normally around you if we share the difficult things."
Delia felt her throat constrict, feeling for the first time in a long while that they had truly made progress, and that they were perhaps moving past sleepwalking through their relationship. "I promise," she whispered, smiling shyly.
Patsy closed the gap and kissed Delia slowly and languidly. There would be time for more fevered embraces later, but for now, deep kisses of hope and security were what they both needed.
xxxxx
And I was going to leave it there but am toying with writing about Delia's first shift in the community so there may be more to come
