9 July 1958

"Patrick?"

The sound of his name, spoken in her gentle voice, lit a fire within him the likes of which he had not known for quite some time. It was the first time he'd ever heard her address him in such a way, and he knew in that moment that it would not be the last, that he would come to love to hear the sound of it tripping from her lips. She had read his letters, then, and gleaned his name from them, and felt compelled to ring him on the telephone; all of these things, he felt, were points in his favor. And yet the greatest boon to his mind remained the softness, the warmth of her tone, the breathlessness as his name came out a question, her uncertainty heightened by her lilting brogue. He could almost picture her, small and lovely, her eyes huge and bright behind her glasses, could almost see the expression on her face, one of hope, he prayed, a hope to match his own.

"Sister Bernadette," he breathed in response. Across from him Tim lit up like a Christmas tree and so Patrick closed his eyes, as if by blocking out the view of his office and his son's eager excitement he might hear her the better, might conjure the vision of her to stand before him instead.

"Forgive me," she said, "but I don't answer to that name any more."

Patrick's heart gave a great leap in his chest and he leaned forward against his desk, propping his head in his hands while he focused with every piece of himself upon the telephone he held in his hand, this tenuous connection to the woman he loved. If Bernadette was no longer her name that meant there was another he would need to learn, another woman entirely, the brave, fierce woman he'd glimpsed so briefly, the woman she was when stripped of the trappings of the religious life, and it was that woman he loved, that woman he wanted to meet.

"That's actually why I'm calling," she continued. She sounded nervous, but strong, as if she had decided upon her course, as if having made her choice she had determined that she would stick with it, no matter the complications ahead. And oh, how Patrick wished that were true, wished that she had made her choice, and chosen him. Her letter had told him that she had decided already to leave the Order, and he knew that she had made good on that promise, but had she chosen to come back to him, or to go out into the world in search of herself?

"Are you there?" she asked when he did not respond. Damn fool, Patrick chided himself; usually he was so full of words they came spilling out of him before he realized what he was saying, but in this moment his voice had failed him, hope and desperate longing having left him mute.

"I am," he answered quickly. "I am, I'm here, I just...it's so good to hear your voice."

"And yours," she told him shyly. "I've missed it." If she had missed his voice he dearly hoped there were other parts of him she'd missed as well, but he did not press her for he was perishing with the need to learn why she was calling, to find out for himself whether she would come back to him, whether she would be his wife.

"As I said, I no longer answer to the name Bernadette. As of today, I am no longer a member of the Order of Saint Raymond Nonnatus."

"Oh," he sighed, grateful to know that his suppositions were correct, grateful to her for having carried him one step closer to the truth. Grateful, and yet terrified he remained for they stood perched together on the very precipice, on the verge of falling headfirst together into a grand adventure whose outcome neither of them could predict. If only she had told him her name he would have spoken it now, would have whispered it in her ear, would have told her how he loved her, but that gift she had not given him, not yet, and so he said only oh, no other words coming to him in that moment.

"I thought for a long time that I was in the wrong place," she told him, still in that same breathless tone, as if she could hardly believe her own boldness. Patrick could not blame her for that; the thought that she had left the Order, that she had made her choice and wasBernadette no longer, was a most welcome revelation, but a shocking one just the same. "I wasn't," she continued. "I was just living the wrong life."

Whatever life she wished to live, in that moment he would have given it to her.

"I've received your letter," he told her then, thinking of the words she'd written to him, how she told him that her dreams had grown too big for the sisterhood to contain them any longer, how she had told him that she longed for freedom, and a man to love, and oh, how he wished that he could be that man. "And I wrote to you. Have you read my letters?"

Do you know, my darling, that I will welcome you with open arms? That I am waiting here, to give you a home, to help you make your dreams come true, to help you build the life you want?

"Yes," she whispered. Yes, she had read his letters, had heard his plea for her, his desperate entreaty that she come to him, not just as a friend or a companion but as a lover, and though she'd given but one word in answer in that word there was contained a world of yearning to match the longing within his own heart.

"I don't know if I said too much, or...or not enough." I want you, in every way a man can want a woman; he had written to her of pleasure, of the quiet thoughts desire he carried within his heart, had written to her in a manner that no man should direct toward a nun, and though he was growing more certain by the second that she wanted the same he still feared he might have given offense, or pushed too hard.

"You said what was necessary." Is she blushing? He wondered. Is she shocked, to think she could desire me as I desire her? Or is she pleased? There was so very much he still did not know, but his most pressing question she answered in a moment.

"And I'm coming back to Poplar," she told him firmly. "I am coming home. To you."

To you. Such simple words, and yet they threatened to undo him; the need to hold her overwhelmed him, his hands trembling with want of her. He had to touch her, to see her, to kiss her properly, to tell her he loved her and watch the smile bloom across her face.

"When?" Even an hour seemed too long to wait, now that he had everything he wanted at last within his grasp.

"Tomorrow," she answered gently. "I've spent this last week gathering my possessions and filling out the paperwork with the Order. And I rang Trixie, to arrange lodgings for me. I wanted to have everything ready for when I come home. Things may be a bit uncomfortable at tea this evening, Sister Ursula can hardly look at me now. But I'll catch the bus tomorrow, and-"

"You'll do no such thing," Patrick said firmly, already rising to his feet, trying to shrug into his jacket while he held the phone to his ear with his free hand though he very nearly toppled over in his haste. "Let me collect you, please. You don't have to stay there, if you don't want to. Let me bring you home."

Now safely wrapped in his jacket he began patting his pocket in search of his keys, and across the room Tim was all but bouncing with glee, having heard every word his father had spoken and correctly deduced the outcome of the decision Sister Bernadette - or whatever her bloody name is - had made.

"Patrick, really, you don't have to, I'll be quite all right -"

"Please," he was all but begging her now. "Please, I have to see you."

For a moment she was silent, and he feared he'd overstepped the mark already. They'd done everything all out of order, he knew. He'd proposed to her before he'd ever told her he loved her, before he'd ever courted her properly, before he'd ever even learned her name. Before this moment he had resolved himself to woo her carefully, to give her time to adjust to her newfound freedom, not to push the intimacy and the affection of a lover upon her before she was ready. And yet now he had gone and put his foot right in it, had made demands of her, pressed himself upon her, and perhaps she was not yet ready -

"I want to see you, too," she whispered. "More than anything."

"I'll leave now," he told her, grinning fit to burst. "This very moment. I'll be there in no time, you'll see."

"I'll be waiting."

The time had come for him to end the call, he knew, to put the phone back in its cradle and race out the door, to make his way to Chichester with all due haste so that he could gather his beloved into his arms. And yet he could not quite find the strength to tear himself away from her. He wanted her gentle voice in his ear, always, did not want to put an end to this conversation that had so changed the course of his life. There was so much yet to say, so many questions yet to ask, but she was there, waiting for him.

"I'll see you soon, Patrick," she promised, and then, rather unceremoniously, she hung up the phone. How very like her, he thought, putting down the phone with a rueful smile; she was an imminently practical woman, and unaccustomed to romance or flights of fancy. When faced with any minor dilemma she chose a course, and stuck to it. She did not waste undo time in dithering, or change her mind with the turning of the wind; she saw what needed doing, and she did it. Already she had taken all the necessary steps to arrange for her return to Poplar, had enlisted a friend to help her find a place to stay, gathered her things - and oh, Christ, he had not realized until that moment that when next he saw her she would not be wearing the habit. At last he would be able to see her, all of her, the curve of her hip, the neat tuck of her waist, the slope of her breast, the color of her hair, revealed to him at last, and it seemed to him that such a revelation would be as monumental, as earth shattering, as to see her naked, for he had never before been allowed such unfettered access to the truth of her person.

"Let's go!" Tim crowed happily, taking his father's hand and beginning to drag him towards the door. Of course Tim was right; he was a clever lad, and he had heard enough to deduce where his father would be going. And Patrick knew he had no choice, knew that Tim would have to go with him; he was out of school for the summer holidays, and Patrick did not know yet how long he would be gone. And yet he did not regret his son's presence with him; in accepting Patrick she had also accepted Tim, and they both knew it. Theirs was not to be a union of two alone, but all three of them, building a new family, making a fresh start, together.

Patrick couldn't want for that new life to begin.