There was a particular idea mentioned in a few reviews that I couldn't quite resist, so I had a talk about it with thinkture, and I'm adding a part 2 to explore it. I think it's going to require Sister Julienne being slightly younger than in canon (but this is AU after all). Thank you so much for your reviews for the first part of the story, they really were wonderful and I'd love to know what you think of this new part.

Part 2

It was not the first time she had prayed for her professional judgement to be at fault. Once or twice before, when she had diagnosed a patient with some horrendous affliction or seen moments before everyone else that a dreadful complication was about to arise with a pregnancy or delivery she had asked the Lord, hoped with all her heart, that she was wrong. She rarely was. And, selfishly, she had never hoped or prayed harder than she did now.

The chances of her being wrong were extraordinarily small. Almost as small as the chances of this happening at all. She closed her eyes, clutched her stomach gently as her mind reeled and another wave of nausea overcame her, making her wretch once more into the toilet bowl. Her head spun and she gasped for breath. The nausea faded, and the watering in her eyes turned in earnest to tears. She sobbed quietly, kneeling on the floor for long moments and, when her knees began to hurt, getting up to wash her hands in the basin. She caught sight of herself in the small mirror. She looked very peaky; her skin pale and her eyes protruding slightly more than usual from her recent lack of sleep.

Cupping her hands together under the tap, she splashed some water on her face. There was no point going back to sleep with barely over half an hour before she would have to start getting ready for early morning prayers so she might as well wake up, and she had to remove the appearance of tears from her face. She buried her face in the comforting warmth and softness of the towel.

When the knock on the door came, quiet and tentative, her face was buried in the towel; the sound was muffled and she thought she might have imagined it. She paused for a second. It came again, a little more firmly. Whoever was out there must have been able to see the light under the door; they knew she was in here.

"Who is it?" she called softly, trying to make sure that the anxiety welling up inside her was not betrayed by her voice.

"It's me," came the lilting reply, she did not need to hear the name to know exactly whose voice that was, "Sister Bernadette."

"Are you alright, Sister?" Julienne replied, hoping that her voice sounded normal, "Am I needed?"

"Sister," came a rather strained reply, her young Sister seemed to be in some sort of anguish, and she felt herself frown, "Are you alright?" There was a pause. "Please let me in."

Julienne paused for a moment, feeling as if a lead weight was sinking in her chest. How much did Sister Bernadette know? Surely, she would never ask to be let into the bathroom like this under normal circumstances. She must know. Perhaps she had heard on one of the other mornings when Julienne had had to come dashing along to the bathroom as quickly and as quietly as she could.

"Please," she implored again. Julienne had been too shocked for a moment to even think about letting her come in.

Cautiously, Julienne unlatched the door and swiftly, as delicately as she could, Sister Bernadette slipped inside, closing the door behind her. The two women looked at each other hesitantly. One glance was enough to tell both of them all that they needed to know. They continued to watch each other rather timidly; both thoroughly shocked. Sister Bernadette, it seemed, could not quite believe what every trained instinct was telling her emphatically.

"Sister, why didn't you tell me you weren't well?" she asked, looking hurt at the thought as well as concerned. Nevertheless, she guided Julienne gently down to sit on the edge of the bath.

She was watching her carefully. Julienne bowed her head, breathing deliberately evenly, trying to keep herself calm. Discovery had made her panic, irrationally so as this discovery was far more gentle and less damning than others were bound to be. Sister Bernadette knew. There was no need for either of them to pretend, either that she did not know or that what she knew wasn't true.

She looked up at the younger nun slowly, and with just as careful a gaze as the one being fixed on her.

"I didn't tell you I was ill because I'm not," she replied levelly, "I'm pregnant."

The admission made Sister's Bernadette's eyes widen for a second. Perhaps it was the directness and the honesty with which the confession was conveyed that surprised her because the way she next closed her eyes, collected her thoughts and went calmly on confirmed Julienne's suspicion that she had known.

"Do you know how far gone you are?" she asked with remarkable composure and a very sensible note of tact.

Oh, she knew. She knew to the day.

"About eight weeks," she replied.

Sister Bernadette nodded.

"Would you like me to examine you?" she asked softly. Her eyes would not meet Julienne's though her voice was kind.

"Yes," she replied, "I suppose you'd better. But I'm not wrong," she added firmly, "I am pregnant," her voice shook a little, "I'm sure of it."

"Yes," Sister Bernadette replied softly, looking downwards, "Would it be alright if I examined you during our recreation hour? I will come to your cell. No one need know."

Julienne nodded slowly.

"Yes, I think that would be best. Thank you."

She tried to smile her thanks, but Sister Bernadette still would not meet her eyes.

"Sister?" she said, a pleading note in her voice.

Sister Bernadette looked up sharply- with a what seemed to take incredible composure and courage on her part- and met her eyes. Her look was sympathetic, a little frightened, but more than anything else one of great confusion which contrasted greatly with the certainty she had exuded moments earlier.

"Sister, I don't judge you," she told her plainly, but nevertheless carefully, "For anything that might have happened. And I don't want to presume to ask you-... And if you did want to talk to anyone I should always be there to hear whatever you wanted to tell. But I feel I must ask you if you were-..."

"No," Julienne replied sharply, determined to establish that very firmly because the suggestion could have been further from the truth, "This baby is the product of a wholly..." What to say? Intimate? Loving? "Consensual act," she settled for, then, in a more furtive, anxious tone insisted, "It only happened once."

"It's alright, Sister," Sister Bernadette murmured quietly, resting her hand on Julienne's shoulder, "You don't have to excuse yourself to me."

"I don't pretend to excuse myself," she replied softly, "I there is no excuse for what I did. I only want to explain," she finished weakly, and then, after thinking, "But I don't know how. If I knew how, I would have told you sooner. Everything was so vivid at the time; too vivid to think of properly or to be able to put into words. Now there isn't enough there to be able to phrase, there's just-..."

"A baby," Sister Bernadette finished for her, with the gentle bluntness that only she seemed to be capable of.

In spire of everything that was happening, it managed to make Julienne smile; the unabashed honesty with which her Sister spoke had at the same time a comforting innocence that almost amused her.

"Well, quite," she agreed, resting her hand tenderly on her stomach.

"Sister," she began very timidly, and very slowly, obviously weighing up her words with the utmost care, "I know it is none of my concern, but it does concern me, in the sense that it worries me-..."

"What is it?" Julienne asked swiftly. The young nun's anxiety to be tactful and gentle was impairing her expression.

"Have you told the father?" she asked, seeming to exhale at the same time.

Julienne was quiet. She had not told the father. She had not told anyone, except now Sister Bernadette. It was not entirely true to say that now she felt nothing. Every time she saw the father, there was the most piercing awareness, a poignancy that rose in her, filling her veins, an aching longing that almost overcame her. Memories would resurface of what they had done. Her heart would hammer with guilt and with want and with love, even before she had known she was carrying his child. And since she had known... In his arms it briefly had felt like an earthly home akin to the divinity she had only known hereto in the Lord. She had lain alone, on his bed, holding back her sobs so that he could not hear her from the other side of the door and it felt like her heart had fallen out of her chest and broken on the floor. Every time she thought of their child it was like it healed a little. She had not told the father because she could not trust herself be with him long enough to get the words out.

She shook her head slowly.

"I haven't," she replied.

Sister Bernadette nodded understandingly, but Julienne could see the sparks of curiosity in the girl's eyes. She knew she would never dream of asking, but she would probably be the gentlest, the most forgiving person to tell, if not exactly the easiest.

"It's Dr. Turner, Sister," she confessed quietly, "Dr. Turner is the father of my child."

Sister Bernadette did very well not to look completely taken aback by that.

"Will you tell him?" she asked after a few moments.

"I don't see that I have any choice," she replied, "He deserves to know."

The expression on Sister Bernadette's face gently moved from one of relative equanimity to one of confused grief. She looked about ready to cry. She did not deserve to have this enormous burden thrust upon her.

"There is no need for you to feel aggrieved, Sister," Julienne told her gently, resting a hand upon her arm, "These are circumstances of my own making, and I shall bear the consequences. There is no need for you to be upset. This is the result of my wrong-doing and I must carry the guilt."

Sister Bernadette seemed to swallow hard, stirring herself to say something.

"You taught me that wrong-doing is not a matter of exclusivity," she replied after a moment, quietly but steadily, "It is the human condition. We are all guilty, and we can all be forgiven, with love," she seemed to gulp a little and tears were distinctly welling in her eyes, "I want to stand by you in this, Sister. If you'll let me."

For a moment Julienne did not know what to say.

"I would be an ungrateful fool to turn your help away," she finally managed to reply.

And suddenly, Sister Bernadette had wrapped her arms around her; gently, but firmly, hugging her and comforting her. With Julienne sitting on the edge of the bathtub, they were about the same height and the sides of their heads rested gently together. Julienne did not know what to do but return the gesture. It was unusually expressive for the tentative Sister Bernadette, and all the more keenly effective for it. It was what Julienne desperately needed at this moment; this sisterly embrace, this source of the most valuable support. They were both weeping gently.

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