Shout-outs: reeseishere, Kathinka (for chapter 8 and 9), Caramelapple27, MartyMC49, Guest, KatariJisbon, Nelapl, devilscherry, breath-of-spring, OTHGirl24, Azucar, AngryLittlePrincess, Jane Doe51 and isellen

Rated: T

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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Chapter 10

It happened on the first very cold day in November. It looked like it was going to snow, so Teresa had brought Jack inside because she couldn't stand the thought of the poor dog outside in the freezing barn all night long.

Patrick came in from his day in town and set the groceries down on the table. "Dogs aren't supposed to be inside," he said instead of greeting her.

"It's frigid outside!" Teresa protested.

But Patrick was having none of it. Her usually sweet and kind husband swept past her and yanked Jack to his paws. When he came back inside, he pulled an envelope out of his pocket and shoved it into her hands without even looking at her.

"I'll be outside doing chores and then I have to do a shift at the beet factory," he told her as he slammed the door behind him.

Teresa frowned and looked down at the envelope in her hand. Instead of her weekly letter from Kim, this one was written in slanted handwriting that she didn't recognize, except for a postmark from an Army base in London.

She sat down and with shaking hands; she slowly tore open the envelope. She had waited so long to hear from him, she didn't know what to expect anymore. Certainly not a declaration of undying love. . . but she read ahead anyway, her throat constricting with every single word. She pushed it away and got to her feet; finishing a dinner that only one person would eat.

Teresa didn't sleep that night; she sat on the middle step of the staircase, waiting for Patrick to get home from the beet factory.

When he finally crept in around five the next morning, he had Jack by his side. He didn't see her sitting there, waiting for him until she stood, the staircase creaking as she did. She clutched the railing with one hand and rested her hand on her expanding belly with the other.

"Patrick. . ."

"I'm sorry for getting upset with you last night," Patrick said as he mounted the stairs to go and get changed. "It was uncalled for."

"Were you upset about the letter?" Teresa asked, pushing her hair away from her face and looking at him seriously.

Patrick didn't look at her; he shuffled his feet and tried to continue up to his bedroom. "Really, that letter is none of my business," he answered.

Teresa laughed. "He said it wasn't his."

"I'm sorry?"

"The baby," Teresa clarified, her breath caught in her throat and she had to steady herself because she felt like she was going to fall forward. "He said that I am a terribly nice girl and he hopes I have a wonderful life but there was no way the baby was his."

Patrick turned to look at her and then he came closer. Teresa thought he was going to say he was sorry, to tell her everything was going to be okay. Instead, he brushed her hair away from her face, cupped her cheeks in his working hands and sighed; resting his forehead against her's for a fraction of a second.

He sighed again and then he kissed her. It wasn't a long or a passionate kiss. In fact it barely felt like it had even happened. His mouth was on her mouth and then it wasn't. When he pulled away, he looked at her with a wounded expression.

"Isn't there anything you like about me, Reese?" He asked.

Teresa's eyes welled with tears and this time, she was the one who couldn't even look at him. "Patrick. . ."

But he was gone before she could reply, taking the stairs two at a time. She heard the door close behind him and that's when her knees gave way. She settled on the stairs again and rested her head on her knees.

Was there anything she liked about him? She hadn't given it much thought up until he had posed the question for her.

Was there anything she liked about him?

She honestly didn't know.

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Grace came around noon to bring clothes for her next trimester. Teresa knew just by looking at her that her sister-in-law knew what had happened between them.

"I didn't mean to hurt him," Teresa said, wrapping her arms around her to try and ward off the chill that had taken up residence in her bones.

"When Patrick loves somebody, he loves them with all his heart," Grace replied.

Love?

It seemed like such a foreign concept to Teresa but she had known all along that it was headed in that direction.

"I'm sorry Grace. . ."

Grace shook her head and held a skirt up to Teresa. "He's been heartbroken before. I don't think he'll be able to handle another loss if you go."

"I'm not going anywhere! I don't have anywhere to go!" Teresa protested.

"Has he told you anything about his past?" Grace asked.

"Not much. I know about Harry and George and your parents. I know how he had to stay behind while everybody else he knew got to enlist and go away," Teresa answered.

"He was engaged before you two ever met. She went to Europe to be with her brother. She never came back; she met somebody else and married him. It was one thing after another and I was sure that I'd come over and find him dead. But then we got the letter that you needed help and he had purpose again." Grace wiped away a stray tear and stood up, taking Teresa's hand and squeezing it. "You brought him back to life."

Teresa felt physically ill; she realized she was crying too. "But Patrick never said anything."

"Maybe he didn't want to burden you with his troubles. Maybe you hadn't let him in enough to hear what he had to say," Grace said.

It was all true.

"It's too late," Teresa said, shaking her head.

"Never! It's never too late!" Grace answered.

"He probably hates me now."

"He's doesn't hate you, he's just hurting right now. He'll come around."

"Did he even tell you what I did?"

"It isn't any of my business," Grace answered.

"I wrote the father of my child!" Teresa blurted out. "More than I should have. I think Patrick got the wrong idea. That we were keeping up a secret correspondence. But last night was the first time I had heard from him since the last night we were together."

"Oh."

"I know I should have only written him the one time when I told him that I was having a baby," Teresa said hastily. "I was a blind fool. To think he really loved me, to think he wanted to be a part of our child's life. For all I know, he could be tempting another woman into his bed and not in Europe like he said."

"Don't be too unfair," Grace said.

Teresa shook her head. "I have committed so many sins since my mother died. But this is my worst one, to not be grateful for what I've been given. To throw it all away for the sake of another man who won't ever be half the person your brother is."

Grace covered Teresa's hand with her own. "Teresa, listen to me, you have to stop living in regret. It won't get you anywhere in life."

"It's easy for you to say, it isn't so easy for me to do."

"Have you even tried though?"

Teresa didn't answer her, she couldn't. Regret had become her security blanket; it had kept her safe from letting other people in. It had allowed her to hang onto Walter Mashburn as long as she had.

"I have to go," Grace said. "Wait and see, everything will work out in the end, it usually does."

Teresa saw her to the door and offered her a hug, which Grace willingly took, they held each other for a long time and she felt like a little child, clinging to her mother for comfort. It had been a while since she had been able to do that.

"Let go," Grace whispered as she released her and gave her arm a reassuring squeeze.

Teresa started to try.

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Patrick came home late, looking worn out and a little sad. Teresa served him dinner and felt even more like a stranger to him than when they had first started to live together. She sat down next to him while he ate and tried to start to talk but the words got caught in her throat and she had to pause a couple of times, her face warming as she tried to form a sentence.

Finally she took a deep breath and released it, shaking slightly as she finally was able to talk to him.

"Do you think you'll ever be able to forgive me?" She asked.

He looked at her. "There's nothing to forgive," he answered.

Teresa plunged on, unencouraged or oblivious to his response. "I was a foolish little girl when it came to Walter Mashburn. He made me promises that I thought he intended to keep. He was the first man who ever paid attention to me, he made me feel special. I wish I could go back and do it all over again."

"Don't say that. Don't ever say that."

Teresa looked startled. "Why not?"

"It's selfish of me," Patrick told her. "But if you hadn't gone to that dance hall and if you hadn't met him then we would have never been brought together."

"I wrote him the first time to tell him that he was going to be a father," Teresa said. "I kept on writing him because I hoped that one day I would finally hear back from him. Yesterday was the first time I had heard from him since the last night we spent together. I was never having an affair."

"Thank you for telling me," Patrick said.

"I think we would have still met," Teresa informed him. "Aristophanes said that humans originally had four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces. They "were said to have great strength and they were going to conquer the gods. Zeus developed a creative solution by splitting humans in half as punishment for humanity's pride and doubling the number of humans who would give tribute to the gods. These split humans were in utter misery to the point where they would not eat and would perish so Apollo had sewn them up and reconstituted their bodies with the navel being the only remnant harkening back to their original form. Each human would forever long for his or her other half; the other half of his or her soul. It is said that when the two find each other, there is an unspoken understanding of one another, that they feel unified and would lie with each other in unity and would know no greater joy than that."

She swallowed hard, wondering why she had even said that.

Patrick was smiling warmly at her. "Are you saying we're soul mates, Mrs. Jane?"

"No!" Teresa answered quickly. "But maybe I've realized that I've been less miserable since I got here. I just wasn't making the best of the situation like I should have been from the start."

Patrick took her hand and laced their fingers together. "I haven't been the least bit miserable since you've gotten here. Maybe we were looking for each other the whole time and the other people in our lives were the catalysts to get us to this point."

"How are you so sure we're meant to be here?"

"Because we are here."

"Let's start again," Teresa said. "Like we just met and we have a crush on each other. You can come to my house every day and we'll drink Coke and talk for a long time, like we can't get enough of each other. "

"Maybe I can't get enough of you," Patrick answered.

Teresa blushed.

"It isn't a line," he told her.

"I know," Teresa replied.

TBC. . .

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Author's Note:

So, maybe it wasn't as bad as I said it was going to be. I miscalculated the awfulness but I still hope you enjoyed this chapter, things are going to take a turn for the better now, I promise. Mashburn will not return (at least not in the way you expect) and things will start to go smashingly for Patrick & Teresa. I hope you will stick around for the rest of the story. And that you will tell me what you thought of this chapter.

Until Next Time!

Love,

Holly, 5/29/2015_

P.S

If I were to ever have my own fiction published, how many of you would be on board to actually read it or buy it? I'm asking because I have started to write a novel and am planning on making a full transition to fiction sometime in the foreseeable future.