Sorry for the delay in this chapter coming out guys but sometimes life just gets in the way. As always, let me known what you think.

xxx

The previous month had passed by at a snail's pace of nothing but work, work and more work for Patsy, and if she were to admit it to herself, she was thoroughly fed up. Weekends down in A and E were never to be relished, especially when said shifts were night shifts.

Patsy hated nights with a passion.

Cleaning head wounds, strapping up broken fingers and administering fluids - the volume of which seemed to be similar to the volume of the River Thames - to the over-indulgent revellers of London was tedious at best. Couple all of that with the not-so-tiny issue of knowing she wouldn't be sleeping next to her darling Deels tonight; what the doctors, nurses and patients had on their hands tonight was a particularly waspish Nurse Mount.

Although only young in age and five years into her nursing career, she was known throughout the hospital for being a formidable force to be reckoned with. Many a colleague had sloped off with their tail between their legs after a few choice words from Nurse Mount and a facial expression that could only be described as 'don't fuck with me'. She was an excellent nurse and there was no better person you'd want by your side in the midst of a crisis but people were incredibly cautious to avoid finding themselves on her bad side.

It was still only 11pm when Patsy strode quickly and confidently into the waiting room with clipboard in hand for what felt like the three hundredth time that evening. She was in desperate need of a cigarette but grabbing five minutes to have one was looking increasingly unlikely.

"Edward Hamilton-Parkhill" she announced as her eyes scanned to waiting room.

A young man sporting an inch-long gash across his right cheek and splash of claret around the lower half of his face and down the front of his shirt stood up from his seat. What may have been a pristine white shirt at the start of his evening was now ruined.

He looked vaguely familiar but Patsy couldn't quite place him.

"This way please," Patsy ordered, opening the door wide for her latest patient. "Pop yourself in here and I'll be back in a tick." She said, pulling the curtain back around the bed and ushering him inside.

She returned a minute later with a trolley full of bandages and such and tight smile, finding Edward lying horizontal on the bed, looking as though he didn't have a care in the world.

"What's happened here then?" she asked as she turned his face towards her to assess the damage.

"Girlfriend took a swing at me, said I'd been chatting up another girl in the bar," he stated dryly, as though the circumstances of his injury should have been blatantly obvious, "daft old tart."

The smell of alcohol wafting from him was overpowering but Patsy made no comment about that. As a woman who could hold her own when it came to drinking, she found herself amused that the gentlemen of London could not, in fact, hold a candle to the amount of hard liquor she could put away, and thus, often found themselves in situations such as these.

"I see," she replied, already starting to clean around the wound, "Well the good news is you don't require any stitches so you can be back on your way shortly."

Edward shifted, taking a good look the nurse in front of him for the first time. He too thought she looked familiar; certainly in the face but the hair colour didn't match what his memory was trying to recall.

"Do I know know?" he asked, trying to focus his eyes properly.

"I don't know, do you?" Patsy was still in no mood and this guy was already coming across as right royal tit.

A look of realisation dawned on Edward's face. "Yes, I think-," he paused to study Patsy's features as closely as his booze-addled grey matter would allow him, "Patience Mount! You went to Charterhouse. I thought I recognised you. The red looks nice by the way."

Boarding school. Of course."You're quite right, but please keep still for a second." Patsy nodded, continuing to clean the last of the dried blood from his chin and jaw and silently praying she wouldn't be coerced into a chit-chat of reminiscing about 'the good old days'. After all, she held very few fond memories from her time spent there.

Patsy sensed an uneasy shift in her patients demeanour but she carried on regardless.

Just hurry up and get him out.

The glazed look in his eyes and relaxed features had given way to a sharpened gaze and an almost menacing grin.

"So, since we've been reunited in such a timely fashion and it looks as though I'm back on the market," he momentarily trailed off, shuffling towards the edge of the bed but remained lying on his side, "how about you let me take you out for dinner next week?"

The question was asked so confidently that Patsy had the idea that Mr Hamilton-Parkhill would have expected her to gracefully fall at his feet and accept his offer in a flurry of thanks and gratitude.

Men.

Patsy continued to put the finishing touches to dressing his injury as she answered with an easy smile. "Sorry Edward, no can do, I'm spoken for I'm afraid."

It wasn't entirely true but it certainly wasn't a flat-out lie either. Her and Delia hadn't made anything official just yet but seeing as neither of them appeared to be interested in anyone but the other, they may as well just call it what it ought to be. They'd been virtually inseparable for quite some time.

Ah, details, details.

She caught his line of sight as he glanced down at her left hand.

"There's no ring on your finger so what's the harm?" Edward leered, leaning closer and taking a firm grip of Patsy's forearm.

Patsy shifted her chair backwards and wrenched her arm from his grip, surreptitiously rubbing at it where his fingers had dug painfully into her skin.

"I said no!" Her tone was intended to brook no argument but Edward was relentless.

Patsy was used to drunk young men (and some not so young. Or drunk) trying it on a bit when she was patching them up. Most would usually either sigh in resignation, laugh it off and leave it that when they were gracefully shot down, or they'd try to turn up the charm a little in the hope that a cheeky grin or well-rehearsed line would work miracles, but very few had ever physically had the nerve to go hands on. Unfortunately for the normally unflappable Nurse Mount, this was turning into one of those occasions and she felt uncharacteristically unsettled and on edge.

Edward wasn't going to go quietly. Patsy finished patching him up and stood up to make her way out of the cubicle when Edward sat up and surged forwards off the bed, pawing roughly at her waist. "Come on Patience, I promise you, you'll have the best night of your life. Especially when Little Edward makes and appearance." he sneered, pulling Patsy closer to him and looking down at their now joined bodies.

It took every ounce of strength and composure that Patsy possessed to not take a swing and reopen the wound she'd just dressed.

"Take your hands off me right now!"

She stepped back, swiping his hands away from her body and started to walk backwards and away from this disgusting excuse of a man, still continuing to make it abundantly clear that his advances were not welcome.

Images of the boys at school that would grope and grab at the girls behind the tennis courts and bike shed flooded her memory. She'd been on the receiving end of their advances on many an occasion as a teenager, and although she made it clear in no uncertain terms that their intentions were not welcomed, it was never a deterrent and teenage boys were well known for being persistent. She recalled back to a particularly nasty memory of one of them pushing his hand up her skirt as they stood chatting amicably behind the bike shed having a smoke one afternoon. A well placed knee to the testicles stopped him in his tracks.

"Don't you ever lay your hands on a woman when she tells you no. Now get out of this room before I phone security and have you forcibly removed! We're done." She spat.

Patsy threw the curtain aside and all but jogged past the nurses station, feeling at her pockets for her cigarettes and phone. Nurse Turner who was sat behind the desk organising paperwork recognised the fury etched onto Patsy's features but knew better than to question it at that moment. She knew that if she was to be made privy to what had gotten her so het up, she'd be informed after Patsy had had a cigarette and five minutes to calm herself down.

Patsy stood leaning against the perimeter wall of the hospital, taking deep, lung-burning drags of the remainder of her cigarette and trying to steady her breathing and heart rate. Had she just been assaulted? She wasn't quite sure where the law would have stood on that particular altercation but believed she may have had a good case.

She pulled up Delia's number as she lit a second cigarette from her first and hoped that her girlfriend? hadn't fallen asleep already.

Delia answered on the fourth ring and Patsy could tell she was smiling into her phone.

"Hello Pats."

"Delia," Patsy breathed, struggling to keep her emotions in check.

"Everything alright?" Delia sounded concerned. Patsy never called when she was at work. Even when - on the very rare occasion - she managed to take a break, she would only ever text.

Patsy was pacing. She couldn't keep still as her mind replayed the last fifteen minutes on a loop in her head.

"Yes. No. I, I don't know," she stammered, not wanting to alarm Delia but knowing she'd want to know what was the matter, "he wouldn't take the hint. I.. he was persistent, just couldn't-"

"Patsy-" Delia tried to cut her off for a second to figure out what was going on but the redhead carried on.

"Leave it be. I told him no and then he grabbed-"

She was rambling at a hundred miles a minute as her mouth tried to keep up with her brain.

"Patsy!! Pats, stop, I don't know what you're saying, slow down," Delia was worried, she'd never seen or heard Patsy so panicked, "Who grabbed you?"

She stopped pacing and tried formulate her thoughts so that her words would at least come out in some sort of accurate order instead of how they were currently spewing out.

"Sorry. I'm sorry," she apologised, suddenly registering the worry in Delia's voice. The very last thing she wanted to do was scare her, "It was a chap I went to school with. He came in with a cut cheek and tried it on a bit. Maybe I overreacted, I don't know."

"You said he grabbed you!" Delia's voice was tense, her accent thickening with emotion as she tried to piece together what she was hearing.

"Yes, my arm. And.. And my waist. But it's alright, I'm fine." Patsy released a shuddering breath of relief, finally realising that she was in fact unharmed.

As Patsy was beginning to regain her composure, at the other end of the line Delia was becoming more and more incensed. "You've got to be kidding me! Did he hurt you? Are you sure you're alright?" she asked.

"Yes I'm fine, and no, he just scared me a little that's all," Patsy answered as calmly as she could. She could sense the tension roiling inside Delia and now it looked as though it was her turn to calm her down. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to panic you Deels."

"Promise me you're okay?"

"I promise." Patsy answered, nervously chewing her thumbnail.

Delia was still furious that someone had dared to even lay a finger on her redhead. She sat back down and ran her hand through her hair roughly.

"Okay. Okay, as long as you're not hurt," Delia breathed, finally believing that Patsy was no longer in any danger, "But I'll tell you now Pats, if he goes anywhere near you again I'll cut the cunt's fingers off!"

Patsy let out a hearty laugh, "Such foul language Busby, I didn't know you had it in you. And to think I let you kiss me with that mouth."

It was true. The brunette was nowhere near the level of prolific swearer that Patsy was.

"I'm being serious Pats, if anyone dares touch you I'll have them." Delia wasn't joking. What Patsy didn't know was that she'd protect her with her own life if ever came down to it.

Patsy smiled her first real smile of the night. It was endearing to hear that the tiny welshwoman would not only have her back, but was also so fiercely protective of her.

"Oh you are gallant. I didn't know that about you either," Patsy teased. The tension within her had lifted and although she would have loved to stay on the phone to the woman she was falling in love with, she knew she had to be heading back inside to the chaos that was waiting. "Anyway, I'd better be off. Sorry again for worrying you."

Delia sighed at the other end, also not wanting this little exchange to be over. "Alright, go on then, be on your way and stay safe." she started to sign off, "Forgot to mention though, we're going out tomorrow night with Trix. No arguments, you need to blow off some steam."

"I can think of better ways-"

"Don't start." Delia tried to scold but her giggle gave her away, "Goodnight cariad, I'll see you in the morning."

"Goodnight beautiful."