Delia is at Nonnatus House when she collapses. She had been visiting at the end of her workday, having a drink with Trixie, Patsy and Barbara. Patsy had mentioned that she looked a little pale, Delia made a joke about paediatrics, and nobody had thought more of it.

Suddenly everything happens at once; Trixie rushes to telephone Doctor Turner and fetch Sister Julienne, and Barbara grabs the dustpan and brush to sweep up the broken pieces of Delia's tumbler, shards lying worryingly close to Delia's limp body. Bourbon slowly soaks into the carpet.

Patsy is paralysed, watching events unfold as if through a foggy mirror. Sister Julienne bursts into the room with Trixie and Sister Evangelina on her heels, and they move Delia onto Patsy's bed.

"She's breathing; steady pulse." Sister Evangelina reports, her fingers pressed to Delia's wrist. Delia has such small wrists.

"It appears she has a fever," Sister Julienne presses a cold flannel – where did she get that from? - to Delia's forehead, "Nurse Gilbert, please fetch a thermometer."

The room is buzzing with energy; people are rushing in and out, and Patsy takes a step back, watching from the corner. She's been trained for this; this is what being a nurse means.

But it's Delia.

Finally Delia stirs; a twitch in her hand, a flutter of her eyelids. Relief floods the room.

"Delia? Are you all right?" Trixie leans in close.

"What happened?" Delia is groggy, just like when her alarm clock goes off in the morning. This is normal; everything is fine.

"How is she?" Doctor Turner finally arrives, striding across the room. The nurses part like the sea to let him pass.

"She just fainted!"

Doctor Turner performs his tests; eyes, ears, heart rate carefully measured.

"See how the glands in her neck are swollen?" Patsy respects Doctor Turner but doesn't like him talking about Delia like she's not there. "I think she has infectious mononucleosis: glandular fever."

"What a relief," Sister Julienne continues to mop Delia's brow.

"I'm going to prescribe corticosteroids and recommend bed rest for at least two weeks. And be sure to keep your fluids up; you probably fainted because you're dehydrated."

"Am I contagious?" Delia asks.

"It can be transferred through coughs and sneezes, though the infection rate is low," Doctor Turner explains, "and it can be passed through saliva. In America, it's sometimes known as 'the kissing disease'."

Delia catches her eye for a split-second, and Patsy stops herself from blushing with sheer force of will.

"Do you have anybody we should telephone?" Sister Julienne asks.

"I don't want to bother my parents with this," Delia says, her voice scratchy, "they don't have a telephone anyway. I'll be better before a letter reaches them, and it'll just worry my Mam."


Nurse Crane insists on driving Delia back to the Nurse's Home, and Patsy sort of comes along, unprompted. She hasn't touched or spoken to Delia since she fainted, but she doesn't want to let her out of her sight. From the back of the Morris Minor, Patsy catches glimpses of Delia's pale face in the wing mirror.

"Now, are you all right getting upstairs?" Nurse Crane asks as they pull up outside.

"I'll help her up," Patsy says. "Actually, you should drive home without me. I'll help her tonight."

"But you don't even have your bicycle, Nurse Mount."

"I can walk back to Nonnatus tomorrow morning," Patsy insists, "I'm on district rounds tomorrow, and I'm not on until 9."

Nurse Crane nods. "Very well. Get better soon, kid."


They're outside, in full view of the Nurse's Home, the road, and The Dog and Duck across the street, but Patsy can't help but grab Delia and pull her close. Delia is a little taken aback, already unsteady on her feet, and almost falls into Patsy. Patsy relishes it all; the body weight, the raspy breathing, the quickened heartbeat that might mean that Delia is unwell, but mean that she's alive.

"Patsy-"

"I'm so glad you're all right," Patsy says, her voice breaking.

"I'm fine. I will be."

"Let's get you into bed."

"Why, Nurse Mount..." Delia manages a cheeky grin.

"No kissing, remember?"


It was a joke, but as she fusses around the bed, making sure Delia is comfortable - refilling her water, fetching anything she might need - Patsy realises that it's actually very hard to reign in her affection.

She's never considered herself a particularly demonstrative person – there were actual months between she and Delia admitting their feelings for one another and Patsy initiating a kiss – but in the aftermath of her panic, she wants to be as close and as affectionate with Delia as she can be.

She helps Delia change into her pyjamas. She averts her eyes – rationally, it's nothing she hasn't seen before, but she's also never seen Delia undress before. Delia is exhausted and sick, and Patsy fights to keep her focus.

"I can sleep in the chair tonight-" she starts, but Delia is looking at her like she's gone mad. She slips her shoes off and lies on the bed next to Delia, one arm around her on top of the covers.

"It's probably best if we don't face each other," Delia smiles tiredly, "I don't want you getting ill and all this not-kissing to be wasted."

It takes Patsy a while to get off to sleep.


As usual, Patsy wakes before Delia. The clock on the bedside table reports that it is 5.25, so she has plenty of time before she is due back at Nonnatus. She can hear the noise of the docks outside already, and light is filtering in through the curtains. Delia's breathing is still a little raspy, and Patsy gently leans over to see if her neck glands are still visibly swollen.

They are, but Patsy's attention is more immediately drawn to the fact that the top three buttons of Delia's nightdress are undone. Clearly she did a rather poor job of helping Delia change last night, and the amount of bare skin she can see from her vantage point is… substantial.

She places her hand on Delia's forehead to see if her temperature has gone down at all, and Delia leans into the cool touch, revealing more.

Yesterday evening, she was paralysed with fear; completely unable to move at the prospect of watching yet another person she loved die right in front of her. And now she can barely control herself.

"Pull yourself together, Patience."

Delia stirs at her voice, and then starts coughing; big coughs that shake her whole body and make her gasp in pain.

"Are you all right?" Patsy passes her a glass of water from the bedside.

"Fine," Delia wheezes, looking ill and dishevelled and adorable.


"You're awfully good, you know," Barbara says as they retrieve their instruments from the autoclave. "I remember you taking care of me on my first night here."

"I recall she was mostly responsible for your condition." Trixie says with a mischievous grin.

"Firstly, I think the blame lies firmly at your feet, Nurse Franklin, and secondly, I just don't like the idea of Delia being ill by herself. I'm aware she has friends at the Nurse's Home, but..."

"You became a nurse because you care."

"Exactly."


Patsy's district rounds pass in a bit of a blur – several patients' houses take her near the Nurse's Home, and she has to resist popping in to see Delia. She left in the early hours, but knows that Doctor Turner will have come by to check Delia and make sure Matron knows about her condition.

Patsy remembers refusing to leave her sister's side. Assisting at the hut had become routine; children weren't worked as hard as the adults, and it was a way she could feel useful. She helped monitor the condition of several patients – some got better, most didn't – but when it was her sister and then her mother's turn to lie on the filthy, festering cot, Patsy felt helpless.

So, as she parks her bicycle at the front of the Nurse's Home and heads inside to tend to her patient, she finds it refreshing to know exactly why fetching jug after jug of water to keep Delia's fluids up is useful; being able to identify the active ingredients in Doctor Turner's prescribed medicine and know the intended effects; knowing that while Delia's temperature is a little elevated, it is well within safe limits. Aside from anything else, this precious knowledge is worth becoming a nurse for.

"How's my soldier?" Patsy asks, letting herself into Delia's room.

Delia cracks her eyes open and smiles weakly.

Patsy is by her side in a moment; mopping her brow, helping her sit up, telling Delia all about her day. Seeing Delia like this is difficult, she still feels like she's not doing enough, but she knows it will pass.

She is in the middle of telling Delia about how Mrs Merryweather is convinced that her children contracted chicken pox from the actual chickens down by the docks, when there's a knock at the door.

Patsy opens the door to Trixie and Barbara, both clearly just off-shift, holding a bunch of chrysanthemums and a bag of oranges.

"Hello Delia! Are you up to visitors?"

"What do you think?" Patsy asks quietly, and Delia nods.

"Full disclosure – these were actually from Mr Johnson, who I believe hands out fruit to every girl on a bike who passes by, but we thought you'd appreciate the vitamin C," Trixie says, putting the oranges on Delia's nightstand.

Barbara holds the flowers up and smiles brightly, "these are from us though."

As Trixie and Barbara fuss around Delia, Patsy blinks back tears. Delia catches her eye and smiles. She's not in a disease-ridden hut. She knows what's wrong and knows that everything will be all right.

Delia gasps with laughter as Trixie shrieks, peeling an orange and squirting juice in her eye.

Everything is all right.