Wow guys so this had a great response last chapter and it made me so so happy so keep that up (hint hint).

Dedicated to Sarah, the Hannahs, Bee and Nicole for being wonderful human beings and boosting my fanfiction confidence by 1000 percent whilst I was writing this and have pestered me all day to update. Love you all xx

Approaching the park he scanned the grass. There! Over by the pond! He'd recognise her from miles away. Wait...she wasn't alone. Was that...Nurse Franklin with her arms around her? And oh no sister Julienne! If there was one person he didn't want to know how poorly he'd been treating his wife it was her mother. Nevertheless this had to be sorted. Now. He rushed over to her. His heart broke anew at the sight on her pretty face blotchy from tears, make up streaming down her face, shaking in the arms of her mother and dear friend.

'Shelagh. Darling.'

'Patrick please don't make this any harder than it already is.' She sobbed as she jumped up and turned to walk away. He dropped to his knees and grabbed her hand with one hand turning her to face him again and wrapped his other arm around her legs, rooting her to the spot. Silently Sister Julienne and Trixie backed away a little, far enough to give the couple some space yet close enough to dive in if necessary. Nether of them wanted Shelagh to get hurt any more than she already had and were prepared to remove him if the situation warranted such action.
'Darling. Sweetheart. Please listen to me. I'm not having an affair. I would never, could never cheat on you. I love you so much Shelagh. You are everything to me. Everything! I am so unworthy of you. I would never risk what I have with you for anything. Any other woman is nothing compared to you. I haven't so much as glanced at another woman in that way since I fell in love with you. You're so beautiful, so kind, so loving, so wise, so magnificent. You're perfect Shelagh. Inside and out. I don't want anyone but you. You are my life. Please believe me that I am not cheating on you. Please don't leave me. I know I haven't been the best husband but I'll do better I promise. I'll do whatever you want just please come home. Don't leave me. I can't live without you. I need you. I spent so long wanting you when I couldn't have you. Now I have you I would never do anything to ruin that. I don't want anyone else. You are my future. I want all those things that you said with you. Not some hypothetical woman.' He cried, distress pouring from every crevice of his face. Ignoring the audience he leant his forehead against her stomach, soaking her shirt with his tears.

'Then explain why all the evidence points to you cheating on me?' She said unable to meet his eye, instead staring at the fraying corner of his sweater and contemplated whether she could fix that before she left Poplar. If she left Poplar.
'I'm so ashamed.'
'Why? What have you done? Just talk to me Patrick.' She said finally meeting his eyes and gasping at the torment written in them.
'That's why. Shame. I hurt you so badly. I took away our chance to adopt because I was too scared of how you'd react. Every time I look at you I'm reminded of how terribly I destroyed your hopes. You've asked for so little in life, you've spent so log helping others and putting them before yourself yet when you finally allowed yourself to want something beautiful I destroyed it. That's why I can't look at you, why I can't touch you, why I haven't kissed you. You deserve so much better than me Shelagh. I was scared that if I looked at you before I had the chance to fix ...this...this rift, this heartbreak, that I would watch you realise that and leave me. Nothing terrifies me more than the thought of you leaving me but now I've gone and messed it all up and you're doing it anyway. Please don't leave me. Please. I need you. I love you. Timothy needs you. You are his mother, not just his step-mum! He loves you so much. Hypothetical woman could never be the wonderful paradigm of a mother to him that you seem to think she could because she isn't you. We need you.'
'But that doesn't explain everything else Patrick.' Shelagh said through the flood of tears flowing down her face. 'You've still bought jewellery for an unknown woman, you smell like another woman, you had lipstick on your collar and it wasn't mine. You've taken another woman out for dinner. Our bank account has had several inexplicable large withdrawals from it.'
'I was trying to make it up to you.' He admitted brokenly collapsing back onto his heels as he was yet again presented with his crimes.
'You're not making sense.' She sniffled.
'The lipstick and the smell and the jewellery and the dinners are all due to one person. Her name is Estelle McNamara and I'm not cheating on you with her.'
'Then what Patrick? Why would you do all that if you aren't dating her?' She asked as he sighed. Finally it was time he revealed what had weighed on his conscience for what felt like so long. Though far from how he had wanted to tell her, if he ever did, the relief of it was immense. No longer did he have to hide.
'I've been doing some work for her. Her companion left her suddenly and she had no one. She's been paying me to go to dinner with her and take her out. I've acted as a handyman to her as well and a sort of manslave. She began to get overly fond of me and started trying to kiss me-hence the lipstick you found on my collar. I should have left her then, removed myself from the situation but she turned nasty,she threatened to tell you that I was cheating on you with her. And she was paying so well. She's 65 by the way. She began making me buy her presents, the watch and the necklace- that's where the money's been going though she's been paying me more than I spent on her trust me. Two days ago she started introducing me to her friends as her young new boyfriend so I left. Not even the money was worth that. It was too close to betraying you.' He admitted.
'But why? We're perfectly fine for money. Aren't we?' She frowned worriedly.
'I didn't want to say anything. I didn't want to get your hopes up in case it didn't work.'
'I'm not following.'
'Shelagh sit down...please. thank you. I thought, seeing as I had pretty much destroyed our chances of adopting, and you want a baby so much...'
'Please don't tell me you were trying to buy us a child.' She paled at the thought. He'd been in such a strange mood for so long now that she honestly could not predict his behaviour. He had become a new man and it had broken her heart to think she no longer knew him. She hoped, prayed, that this event was the catalyst to getting her Patrick back.
'No! Not that. That would almost be easier though. Remember after our fight post interview.'
'You stormed out of the house because of truly horrible things I said to you.' He nodded
'I went to the surgery. There was a new copy of the Lancet International just arrived. I needed something to take my mind off of everything. There was an article in there about a pioneering new procedure in America. It deals with exactly your condition. It's still in the trial stages but the early results look promising. I thought, since I ruined Plan B that I'd try get Plan A back on the table. But there's no guarantee of final success, hence why I didn't want to get your hopes up.'

'Oh.' She gaped. This was so far from anything she had expected that she found herself near speechless.

'But it costs. A lot. Which is why I started with Estelle. She paid a lot higher than overtime at the surgery ever would. Even with Estelle and our life savings it would have taken over two years to get anywhere close to enough for the treatment. Let alone getting there. But I had to do it. For you. For my incredible wife whose life I've changed too many times. Kissing you in the kitchen, telling you you had TB, writing to you in the Sanatorium, you leaving the Order to be with me, you ostracising your family because you thought they didn't accept us, not noticing Tim had polio and then postponing the wedding, telling you you weren't pregnant, telling you of your condition, not telling you of my breakdown-all I seem to have done is cause you pain since I fell in love with you. I just wanted to make you happy for once. I know I went about it wrong but that was all I've ever wanted for you. I want you to be happy Shelagh. Even if you do leave me I want to have the money so you can have a child with a man who does deserve you.' He finished his explanation with his head on his knees, unable to watch her process the tale. He was shocked seconds later when he felt her hand slip into his. Looking up he saw her eyes gleam with tears..but not the same tears that he had seen earlier. These tears seemed to exude hope. She lifted her other hand to cradle his cheek softly, brushing away the tears he had not known were seeping down his face.

'Oh Patrick you stupid idiot. You make me so very happy when you're not being an eejit. Marrying you was the best thing that ever happened to me. The best decision I ever made. But were you really willing to break my heart every day and night for 2 years? Was I going to have to wait that long for you to kiss me? Or accept my kisses? Was I going to have to 2 years to make love with you? To have my marriage back? Because I won't do it Patrick. Nothing is worth that.' She frowned once more and the crease between her eyes that Patrick had grown to adore reappeared. He beat down the rising urge to kiss it away-he still did not know where his marriage stood. Shelagh was a deeply emotional person and one misstep or misunderstanding could halt his progress.

'I don't know what I was thinking. I just knew I needed to make it up to you.'

'Patrick I don't need a baby. Yes I would love to have one and believe me I would want a baby with no-one but you. But I do need you. I need my husband. I need the man I married. I need you. I need the man I love. Not some overworked, over tired, facsimile of him. And I need our son. That was almost the hardest part of this all. The idea of leaving him when he had done nothing wrong made me sick to my stomach. With you and our Timmy I have more than I ever dared wish for. Even in the most prosperous and vivid of dreams I had in the Sanatorium, no matter how many children we may have had in them, I never dreamed of a fraction of how wonderful the love of my boys could be. Such happiness is inconceivable.'
'You believe me?' He gaped,a slow grinning crawling across his face.
'Yes. I believe you Patrick. Because for the first time in over a month you looked me in the eye. That's all I wanted earlier. I wanted you to look me in the eye and promise me you weren't cheating on me.'
'Do you forgive me?'
'Yes. On two conditions.'
'Anything my love.'
'One-I get to shout at a certain 65 year old woman at some point for making a move on my man.' She grinned.
'Gladly. What's the other?'
'For the love of all that is holy will you please kiss me.'
'With pleasure darling.'

Still 2/3 chapters to go including Shelagh vs Estelle :)

Reviews appreciated x