a/n: this is the second chapter I'm posting today because I want to get this finished before the Christmas special makes it all redundant, and I don't think I'll manage to do that if I don't double post today.

Before lunch the following day, just as she's just got off the bus from the hospital, Mrs Busby hears a shout from across the road. It's Patsy, on her bike. Carefully, Patsy steers her way over, and hops off the bike, apparently intending to walk with her the short distance to Nonnatus.

'How was she?' Patsy wants to know.

'Much the same,' Mrs Busby says. 'Getting restless. When I got there she was trying to convince the nurse to let her get up and out of bed, to go for a walk around the hospital.'

Patsy laughs. 'Which nurse?'

'The fair haired one. With the – what do you call it - Cockney accent.'

'Ah, Irene,' Patsy nods. 'They used to work together. She knows what Delia's like – she won't stand any nonsense from her - any attempts at escaping or the like.'

'Well she said, the nurse, that if the doctors agree with it, I might be able to take her out tomorrow morning, in a wheelchair. Just as far as the grounds. For a change of scene, you know. To stop her climbing the walls quite so much.'

'Oh,' Patsy says, and is thoughtful for a moment. 'I could show you a nice place to take her. The grounds of the hospital are a bit bleak for the most part, but there's a nice spot where we used to have lunch sometimes, when I worked there. I'll show you this evening.'

They've reached Nonnatus by this point, and Mrs Busby waits while Patsy parks her bike. Patsy's been on the district rounds, Mrs Busby remembers. That's what Nurse Crane had called them, yesterday, as they'd been chatting. She'd said they were viewed by the younger nurses as the short straw, boringly routine compared to the excitement of midwifery - one insulin injection after another – but, Nurse Crane had let slip, Patsy had asked to be given this duty for the foreseeable future, for as long as Delia was in hospital at least, because the hours were so much more regular than being on the midwifery rota.

That's why Patsy had been late to breakfast that morning, Nurse Crane had explained – Sister Julienne had agreed to her request on condition of regularly reviewing it. 'She's not normally late for things,' Nurse Crane had said, as if to dispel any doubts Mrs Busby may have had about Patsy's professionalism.

'The review – what happened?' Mrs Busby had asked then, suddenly anxious for the answer. 'Is she going to remain on the district rounds?'

'I believe so,' Nurse Crane had said.

Her answer had made Mrs Busby thoughtful, even as it came as a relief: she hadn't realized the delicate negotiations that lay behind Patsy's presence at the hospital each evening. She was, she discovered, grateful that this concession has been made. The last week or so would have been a lot harder if Patsy hadn't been there with her. And, Mrs Busby has to admit, though Delia's made a lot of progress, she's not sure that she would have come so far, so quickly, had Patsy not been there.

Now, as Patsy removes her bag from the rack on the back of her bike, she has a sudden flash of panic. 'You are careful on that thing, aren't you?' she can't help herself from saying. If what happened to Delia were to happen to her too...

'Listen, I have the afternoon off,' Patsy says, instead of answering. 'I was wondering – would you like to come somewhere with me? There's somewhere I'd like to show you. One of Delia's favourite places.'

After lunch, they take a short bus ride.

'Victoria Park' Mrs Busby reads on a sign as she follows Patsy through a narrow gate in a wall. It's the first green space that she's seen in London, and somehow stepping into it makes her whole being relax. As they progress further into the park, she takes deep breaths. There's still an edge of smog in the air, but as they walk it feels like the atmosphere is getting cleaner and cleaner.

'Delia gets that look too,' Patsy says, watching her.

'What look?' Mrs Busby turns to her.

'The one you have. Like being here feels like freedom.'

Mrs Busby smiles at the turn of phrase. 'It's just so fresh and green compared to - ' she gestures towards what's beyond the park wall. 'London's just so dark, so enclosed, after a lifetime in Wales. Do you come here a lot, you and Delia?'

'Sometimes, on days off.'

They crunch their way through fallen leaves as Patsy leads the way along winding paths. Eventually they reach a small lake. There's a wooden hut to one side, with a jetty to which boats are tied. It looks closed.

They continue to a bench, overlooking the water. They sit.

'Delia lost a shoe in there,' Patsy says, pointing towards the lake. 'The summer before last.'

'How did she…?' Mrs Busby is incredulous.

Patsy shrugs. 'I don't know, I was rowing, she was dangling her feet in the water, and suddenly, no shoe. She had to walk home barefoot.'

Mrs Busby reflects. 'Better that than with one shoe on and one shoe off, I suppose.'

Patsy laughs. 'That's what Delia said.'

'Her father once took her fishing in a lake a bit like this,' Mrs Busby says, after a moment. 'We were on holiday somewhere, North Wales, I think, where David has cousins. She must have been seven or eight. So excited to get a bite on her line, she was, she fell in. David had to go in after her. The pair of them came home drenched.'

Patsy smiles. 'She told me that. That she'd been trying to catch something for your tea, and she'd been so sad when her father made her come home soon to get dry.'

Mrs Busby smiles fondly.

A duck wanders past.

'Oh,' Mrs Busby says. 'We should have brought some bread. Delia used to love feeding the ducks when she was small.'

Patsy is quiet for a moment, then opens her bag and pulls out a couple of slices of stale bread. 'I came prepared.'

They get up from the bench and walk closer to the water's edge. Within moments they're swarmed by a small flock of ducks and a couple of geese.

'It's been such a long time since I did this,' Mrs Busby says, breaking up the bread into neat pieces and throwing it amongst the hungry birds.

'We came three weeks ago,' Patsy says. There's a rueful, wistful look on her face.

With all the bread gone, they start to wander through the park again.

'Last year we tried to fly a kite here,' Patsy says, waving her arm towards a wide, almost treeless stretch of green. 'All Delia's idea, of course. And of course, we managed to get it stuck in the only tree within two hundred yards.' Patsy points.

'She was an absolute horror for climbing trees as a child,' Mrs Busby says, then registers the look on Patsy's face. 'She still is, isn't she?'

Patsy nods. 'Before I knew what was happening she'd thrown her coat at me and was half way up it. She got the kite down no trouble, but the dress she was wearing has never been the same since.'

They continue on, passing a small play area with a slide and a couple of swings.

'When she was five,' Mrs Busby says, 'she declared herself king of the playground in the village. She climbed to the top of the slide and wouldn't get down. And she wouldn't let any of the other children go up or down the slide either. In the end, her father had to climb up and get her. She was in a screaming fury about that, and threatened to expel him from her kingdom. She sulked for a week about it.'

'She must have been – challenging, sometimes, as a child,' Patsy observes.

'Sometimes,' Mrs Busby says. 'But – so rewarding. I wouldn't change her.'

'No,' Patsy agrees.

Trading stories backwards and forwards, the pair of them speak, this afternoon, more openly, more freely than they've ever done: more openly, more freely, perhaps, than they'll ever do again.

Some of the childhood stories that Mrs Busby tells, like the fishing story, Patsy already seems to know in some form; others, like the story about the slide, are clearly new to her. But Patsy is a delighted audience to both kinds of story.

She tells Patsy her stories of Delia's childhood, because these memories are too precious to keep inside, too precious to risk. If something were to happen to her and if Delia never recovers, then they'd be gone; then Delia, the child she was, the woman she grew into, would be gone too. That is something Mrs Busby cannot bear.

She tells Patsy because she needs these memories to live on. She needs them to be with someone who loves Delia, someone who'll cherish them, because even if the Delia of before the accident is gone for ever, this is a way of keeping some of her alive.

She thinks Patsy might be thinking something similar, as the woman who is normally so cagey gives her insight after insight into Delia's London life. It's a life Mrs Busby has dreaded hearing about, dreaded thinking about for so long, but now she wonders why that is. From the stories Patsy tells, it sounds like, above all, the pair of them have just been having a lot of fun.

She recognizes a few of the stories of Delia's London life that Patsy tells, albeit having heard (read, rather, in Delia's letters) rather more tame versions: the story of the kite seems familiar, though not the bit about climbing the tree. More of the stories are new to her, though: stories like the shoe in the pond, or the time when, after getting back late from a trip to the cinema to find the nurses home already under curfew and its front door locked, Patsy and Delia had to shin up a drainpipe. ('Delia's idea?' 'Of course.')

It's getting dark by the time they've wandered round the park and got back to the boating lake.

'Perhaps it's time we should be making a move,' Mrs Busby says, reluctantly. It feels like something special has happened in the park, something that might not persist once they step outside of it, once they pass through the gates back into the streets of the city.

'Goodness, yes,' Patsy says, looking at her watch. 'We should head back to Nonnatus. It's not long until teatime. Or - ' she stops, looking at Mrs Busby as if she's considering something.

'Or?' Mrs Busby asks.

Patsy smiles, to herself as much as anything. 'There's a place we used to go. A lot. The food's well – it's not up to Mrs B's standards' (after a couple of days at Nonnatus House Mrs Busby understands this particular discrimination) 'but it's perfectly fine. It's near the hospital, so we won't be late for visiting. And Delia likes it there. I'd like you to see it.'

'Lead the way,' Mrs Busby says.