Hi! This is smut, but it has a lot of angst involved. I think it is one of the hardest things I wrote. There are smut and hot situations, but there are also descriptions of violent situations that may be upsetting you, so be careful.
It is set in season 3, days after Patrick and Shelagh reconciled after their fight, and before Angela arrived.
Thanks for reading and as always, sorry for my bad English. If you see any errors, let me know!
A sudden movement woke her up. She opened her eyes with a start, and blew out her breath, relieved to know it was just Patrick turning in bed, pulling on the blanket and muttering something unintelligible. She closed her lids, calm, but the same movement startled her again, and then she heard more words that she did not understand, and complaints and slaps.
Shelagh sat up, Patrick was having a nightmare, and that was sure to happen. She leaned against his body, touched his face.
"Patrick, wake up," she whispered, but he did not respond. A slap almost landed on her face so she pulled away from him and turned on the light on her nightstand.
"Patrick, wake up!" she said louder this time, shaking his shoulders.
She felt terrible, this was happening because of her. They had talked a lot after spending days and days without hardly looking at each other. Patrick was slowly opening up to her, and now, three days after their reconciliation and three nights of letting him speak and listening carefully and offering comfort, she knew why he had hidden everything: it was too painful to remember. And in the black shadows of the night all those memories came back disturbing his rest.
She was bringing him this pain, if only she had said that everything was fine, that it was not necessary to share everything between them…
"Patrick," she cupped his face, swallowing her tears. She had to be strong for him, so that he would know that he could trust her without distressing her and that he could count on her when he felt bad.
He opened his eyes, scared.
"Everything is fine, you are here at home, with me," Shelagh whispered, trying to smile at him.
But he took her hands away from him and sat on the bed, resting his feet on the floor. She heard him gasp for breath and she slid across the bed toward him, stroking his hair and hugging his sweaty back. She rested her chin on one of his shoulders, and felt him tremble.
"I'm sorry," she barely said, "it's my fault you have nightmares."
He shook his head, saying nothing. Perhaps he was angry or offended, and she sighed, beginning to despair. She really needed to find a way that Patrick would not get hurt if she asked him to trust to share the toughest things that happened and will happen in the future.
"I'm sorry," she said again, helpless at not finding something more useful to say or do.
Patrick turned his face to her, cupped her chin with two trembling fingers.
"Don't say that, Shelagh. You don't have to ask for forgiveness, I'm the one who should. You see it? For these things I didn't want you to know anything. I didn't want you to go through... this mess," he said, swallowing a lump in his throat, "You don't deserve a husband like me, nor spend nights like this."
Shelagh released her hug and moved to sit next to him. She cupped his face with both hands, although he refused to look at her. She felt her heart breaking when she saw him so defeated, thinking so little of himself.
"I don't want you to say something like that again, Patrick Turner. We both deserve each other. You've had nightmares before, don't think I don't know, but I didn't know where they came from. Now I know how I can help you," she swallowed, suddenly nervous. Did she really know?
He just smiled, and Shelagh knew it was just a reassuring smile for her and nothing more. She felt her despair growing, but Patrick put an arm around her back, pulling her closer to him, and he kissed her temple.
"With you by my side everything is easier," Patrick whispered.
"How...how were those nightmares?" Shelagh asked tentatively. She did not know if telling it would help him or make everything worse.
He shook his head resting on hers.
"It's not important."
She did not want to press, but he took a breath, pulling away from her, resting his elbows on his knees and staring at the wall.
"If I tell you, you will hate me."
"Patrick, you know you can go out and kill the entire population of Poplar and I still wouldn't hate you," she said, smiling slightly, stroking his hair.
Her little joke did not have the expected effect, because he tensed, clenched his jaws, and looked down at the ground.
Then she heard him sniffle, stifling a sob.
"Oh Patrick I'm sorry," she tried to hug him but he pulled away from her.
"No Shelagh, don't do it," he said with a broken voice.
She decided not to answer, there was no point in contradicting him. She just reached out her hand and stroked his hair again, trying to calm, a little, the tension she saw in him.
Patrick was clearly trying not to cry, and she wanted to tell him that it was okay if he did it, but she was afraid that one more word from her mouth could put him in a worse situation.
The seconds passed, slowly.
"I killed people," he said suddenly, his voice clear and very different from his previous whispers. He looked her square in the eye. "I'm a bloody murderer, Shelagh. Now tell me you don't hate me so I can know you're lying to me."
Something twisted inside her body. There was no question, this was her fault. If she had not been desperate for a baby, if she had not brought an unknown woman to evaluate her family and her home, if she had not yelled at him and then forced him to speak…
Now she did not even know if he was hating her or feeling resentment towards her. He suffered, and in the gloom of their cold room, in the confusion of the early morning, she did not know how to help him or how to fix the mess she caused by opening old wounds.
She said the only thing she knew for sure at the time:
"Patrick, you know I love you."
"No Shelagh, don't say that please."
"I love you and I will love you forever and I will tell you even if you don't want to hear it. Nothing you tell me will change that, and I'm so sorry that I hurt you like this. If I had left everything alone, you would feel better."
"No, I would keep pretending that everything was fine. We have done well, we must speak no matter how painful it may be, no matter how much consequences there are. But still…"
He ran his hands over his face, sighed. Then he whispered something that puzzled her:
"You don't understand."
"Then explain to me. Tell me, so I can help you," she tried to get closer, he stared at the ground, shook his head.
"There is no explanation, I killed people, that's all. That makes me a killer."
"Tell me someone who went to war and didn't have to kill, Patrick."
"That's not...!" he yelled, then seemed to remember where they were and lowered his voice, "That's not a justification."
For a long time he said nothing more, and Shelagh guessed that what he might need was a couple of moments alone, so she stood up.
"I'll get you a drink."
She was surprised when he took her hand with some force, drawing her to sit next to him again. She did and looked at him waiting. He did not say anything for countless seconds, until he raised his eyes looking at the wall in front of him.
Shelagh flinched at the tears running down his cheeks.
"I had no choice," he said, lowering his eyes.
Then he said nothing more.
Shelagh tentatively rested a hand on his back, making calming circles that seemed to have no effect. She could hear him again endure the torrent of tears.
So she leaned over to his nightstand, opened the drawer, and took out the cigarette case and the lighter. She lit a cigarette, took a drag, and gently lifted Patrick's face. She put the cigarette between her husband's lips, who, inert and expressionless, held it, until then he slowly made the movements of removing it from his mouth, releasing the smoke, and looking at the burning coal consuming the cigarette while no one smoked it.
Only the ticking of the clock could be heard, while Shelagh watched him, and he watched the cigarette and the ash falling on the floor.
"I understand, Patrick," she said when she saw that he had calmed down a bit, "I know you didn't just because. You were, and are, a doctor, and I'm not naive, sometimes doctors must shorten the pain of people who cannot save. It's tough, but it's compassionate."
He clenched his jaws, nodded.
"Yes, it's true," he murmured. "At first it was easy."
He laughed, a dry, sad laugh. He put the almost extinguished cigarette in the ashtray on his nightstand, and looked directly into her face.
"Easy. That is not the term. I mean...it was simple," he explained, waving his hands as if he were telling her one more medical case, "One injection, too much morphine, and that was it. In their eyes you could see that they appreciated it. I convinced myself that it was what I should do, that it was fair. If they bring you a shattered soldier, there is no point waiting for him to die from his injuries. That is not compassionate, as you said. But, it's easy to say, you can say it. I always said it too. But it is very difficult to do it."
She did not answer. She had detected the sharpness towards her in his words, so she remained still and silent, waiting for whatever Patrick said or did.
But he stopped looking at her, and rested his elbows on his knees again, leaning with his eyes on the ground, one hand covering his face.
When he spoke there was no anger, only shame and pain.
"I don't know how many there were. I never kept count, I didn't want to remember them, I tried to erase them from my mind, to pretend that they never existed or that I saw them. But morphine became scarce, it couldn't be used to kill people, but to help those who had some kind of possibility."
Shelagh trembled, in her mind she tried to continue the story without thinking of anything too cruel. Patrick took a deep breath and continued.
"So they put a gun in my hand."
She squeezed her eyelids. It was what she dared not think.
"You can pretend you don't remember who you gave an injection to, but the faces of those you pointed a gun at will haunt you forever. I...Of course I knew how to shoot. There was a bit of training, learning to shoot to save your life if it was threatened, but in my case there was no such threat because they were defenseless men. And I didn't have to shoot enemies, they were people that even I knew, talked to, shared a meal with. By God, I even had to do it with a boy who lived on my street as a child. Do you know what it is...What it is to see his mother and think that you killed her son?"
A sob escaped and he covered his face with both hands. Shelagh stroked his hair again, but he pulled away from her, and she just stared at him completely helpless.
"I had to point the gun at their foreheads and do it."
Shelagh's breath stuttered.
When she still lived on the farm, they had a horse. It was old and huge, but adorable. Muffin. She always climbed on his back, talked to him, brushed his fur standing on a stool. When her mother died, her father became cold and distant, and just a couple of months later, Muffin tripped and fell, and one of his hands broke. He was in the barn and Shelagh brought him carrots and sang to him, hoping he would get better.
But her father threw her out of there, telling her that nothing could be done for Muffin. He told her to go to their neighbor's house, to stay there until evening, but she did not obey and stayed behind the door, spying. Her blood ran cold when she saw her father, a cold and hard man, stroking the horse's forehead, speaking to him with a tenderness he never used with his daughter.
Then, her father stood up and she trembled with fear when she saw that he quickly pulled a gun from his jacket.
The shot echoed in her ears until days later.
She hated him so much, she yelled and hit him and kicked him, even she blamed him for the death of her mother until her father stopped her outburst with a slap that blew her blonde braids. Then, with tears, the only tears she ever saw in him, he took her by the shoulders and explained that nothing could be done for Muffin because there was no cure, there were no remedies, and the poor horse would only suffer a lot of pain, only to die. A bullet in his forehead was to thank him for how good he was, for the time he was with them. It was an act of love.
She did not understand it, she did not want to, but then, with the passage of time and life, she did.
"Shelagh?"
She blinked at her husband.
"Sorry, I was just...Never mind."
He gave her a sad smile.
"I knew it, you think the worst of me."
"No, no," she reached out to touch his face, "no Patrick. I...just remembered something that I'll tell you later."
She moved closer to him, kissed his wet cheek, wiped away his tears with her fingers.
"Patrick, everything is fine. You did it because you had no choice, you weren't the culprit, you didn't hurt them, you weren't the one who from behind a desk gave the order for them to kill each other."
He denied.
"But I still see them, all those men who would surely be hopeful to see a doctor who finally ended up killing them off."
"You didn't do that, you helped them the best way you could, you helped them die with what little dignity they had left," she swallowed, noticing that nothing she said seemed to penetrate the darkness that her husband had in his mind, "Patrick I understand you, and I forgive you even though there is nothing to forgive, and God forgives you and no one judges you, please don't think that you are a murderer, you didn't do anything wrong."
She tried to hug him but he gently pulled her away with a tight smile, showing that he did not want her touch at all.
She stayed still, obeying.
She thought of lighting another cigarette, and reached for the cigarette case and lighter left on the bed, but Patrick collapsed in tears again, hunched over his knees, covering his face. Shelagh feared this was all mixing with his nightmares.
"You don't understand. You don't understand," he repeated, "You don't understand and you should hate me like I do."
"I'm not and I will not. Patrick, look at me."
But he was very far away, repeating that she did not understand, that he did not deserve her, that nothing she said would change things.
She silenced him by taking his face with both hands and kissing him hard on the mouth.
Patrick stood still for a moment and then responded by devouring her, taking her arms with strong and tense fingers, pressing her against him, laying her on the bed with a push and getting on top of her, biting her neck with hunger.
Shelagh complained, but she let him do it. Somehow, he had to take his frustration out and she knew that this time it would not be about her. There would be no ceremonies, he would not be gentle, he would just lift her nightgown as he was lifting it in this moment, and set aside her panties without bothering to remove them to enter deep and hard inside her, over and over again. She did what she could to keep up with him, to not to feel his teeth hurting her skin or his fingers leaving bruises.
She discovered that she liked this, that his hard body against her was heavy but delicious, that his deep thrusts made her feel more, that his teeth and nails hurt her but with a pleasant pain.
She was getting there, thrilled by this rudeness and by the satisfaction of knowing that she was somehow helping him forget everything, when Patrick collapsed, pulsing inside her and crying into her chest, holding her and asking for forgiveness.
Still raw and trembling, she hugged him and kissed his hair and his tear-filled face, preventing him from moving away, cradling him between her arms and legs.
But Patrick raised his head and she felt a total sadness: he did not feel better. Neither he was happier, nor did he smile satisfied and in love as he always did. He was completely devastated, far away from her even though he was in her arms and still inside her body.
"Patrick," she said in anguish, thinking that perhaps she was losing him forever, and that her husband was now a shell of pain and shame, haunted by the things he must have done in the past, haunted by the ghosts.
He did not answer, just closed his eyes and shook his head.
"Patrick," she repeated with a lump in her throat, trying to draw him to her, stroking his hair in an attempt to calm his shattered mind.
He rolled away from her, his hands covering his face, and sat on the bed.
"I'm sorry, Shelagh, I'm sorry."
She sat up, a little sore, and sat next to him. She removed his hands from his face.
"Look at me, Patrick."
"I'm sorry," he denied, not looking at her, "God I'm terrible."
Shelagh felt concern growing inside her chest. Everything was getting worse at a frantic rate.
"Patrick, did I ask you to stop?" she said, hugging him. He did not respond, but at least he did not reject her touch, and she hugged him more.
"I hurt you," he whispered.
"No, you could never hurt me," she smiled and caressed his cheek.
He continued not looking at her and reached for the glass of water on his nightstand and took a sip.
"I feel like I took advantage of what happened just so I could use you," he uttered in disgust.
"Don't be silly," she took his hand, squeezed it, and carefully chose the words, "Patrick, let me help you. You know that you did nothing wrong, and that I forgive you and I will never leave you. But let me be by your side and help you, don't walk away. I know...this...what we just did, didn't help you at all, because you're still in that nightmare."
He nodded, the glass of water shaking in his hand. She took it from his fingers, placed it on the nightstand, and kissed his hand.
"You are the best doctor I know, and the best man. Never doubt it."
He seemed to react, because he smiled, wrapped her in his arms, and kissed her hair.
"Oh my love, I don't deserve you."
"Shh, what did I tell you? I don't want you to say those things," she stroked his chest, unbuttoned two buttons on his pajama shirt and placed her hand on his warm, naked torso, caressing him. He sighed, closing his eyes.
"We should sleep, or try to," he said with a resigned tone.
Shelagh nodded, helped him lie down, and did the same. She rested her head on his chest, he toyed with her hair and sighed.
"Don't you want me to get you a drink?"
Patrick denied, smiling a little.
"I don't need it. I'll concentrate on thinking about other things. There are so many beautiful things in my life," he said looking at her, "It will help me to have calmer dreams, or at least I will be awake, but calm. Sleep, my love."
Shelagh kissed his chest once more, settling to close her eyes, but an idea crossed her mind, an idea she had many times but always dismissed for reasons that now seemed downright stupid to her: she was shy, she still did not dare to start anything in the bed, what would Patrick think of her?, she did not know if it was sinful or not…
She kissed his chest again, as she unbuttoned another button on his shirt and he definitely noticed the change because his hand stopped halfway to turning off the light.
"Shelagh?"
She cut off his bewilderment by sitting up a bit, kissing him on his lips demandingly. He tried to turn off the light again, but she stopped him, taking his arm.
Patrick looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
"I need light to see you," she whispered, kissing one of his cheeks, following a path to his ear. He complained, wrapped his hands around her shoulders, trying to push her away gently.
"Shelagh you don't have to do anything, and you also have to sleep."
Ignoring him, she kissed his neck slowly, moving down to his torso. She smiled at him before sliding her tongue down one of his nipples. He jumped with a moan.
"Shelagh...," he warned, "I don't know what you're trying to do, but you know you don't owe me anything."
Her bravery deflated a bit and she stopped.
"I…thought of helping you in a better way. I know that you will not be able to sleep, I know that everything will continue to spin in your head, and I really want you to be always happy," inexplicably her eyes filled with tears and she caressed his face that she loved so much, "Really Patrick, I just want you to think and dream beautiful things, and I'm sorry for taking you to this point."
In those three days after they reconciled, they had asked for forgiveness many times, but Shelagh knew that just asking for forgiveness would fix nothing. Guilt kept hovering over them, clouding every glimmer of light. It was necessary to act and show how much they loved and how much they could do together, without being eaten up by the past every time it appeared.
"Oh love," he drew her in for a tender kiss to which she responded enthusiastically, caressing his chest and belly, running her fingertips down the waistband of his pants.
"Leave me Patrick," she whispered in his ear.
He let out a shaky breath, and the sadness in his eyes burned in a blaze of lust. He barely nodded, a small smile blossoming.
Shelagh feared that she had created too many expectations. She had no idea about anything at all, but he had done it to her many times, and she really could not think of anything when he did it, in fact she could not think of anything else in the next days.
If she did it well enough, if she could make him feel the way she felt, then, and maybe, Patrick would be free from nightmares, and he would stop feeling guilty and bad. He would think only of the wonder of his present married to her.
It was a silly and absurd idea, but she did not lose anything by trying. In fact, she could win a lot.
She hid an eager smile by kissing the skin near his navel and testing his pants. He had untidily pulled them up, they were still a bit damp from their previous encounter. She pulled them down quickly, along with his underpants.
Before he said anything or protested, she wrapped her hand around his penis. She did that a few times before and she knew he liked it when she squeezed a little, but this time she also held it in her palm and slid her fingers slowly up and down. She smirked when she heard him moan barely with his eyes closed.
"Shelagh," he asked, "come here darling, I want to love you in a better way..."
He cut off his own words with a surprised groan, opening his eyes, and Shelagh smiled happily at having achieved the first objective: she was licking slowly, as he did with her, placing her lips and opening them delicately, tracing him and helping herself with her hands, also touching his testicles and cupping them.
"You don't have to," she heard him say, but his hands were in her hair, trying to gently stroke it. Shelagh realized that he wanted to tug at her hair and she understood him. Patrick once told her that she would make him bald if she kept tugging his hair every time he placed his mouth between her legs.
She licked the tip of his penis, taking the time to savor it, feeling a strange but not unpleasant taste. He was getting harder and more erect and that excited her, it meant that despite being inexperienced, she was quite good at this.
She looked up, Patrick was leaning on his elbows, looking pleading, and she knew it was time to take him fully into her mouth, as much as she could.
Patrick flopped down on the bed with a sob very different from the ones he had let out that night.
She smiled triumphantly and continued stroking him and taking more of him, sucking, licking and playing with her tongue, trying everything she could think of that might work and discovering with pleasure that absolutely everything worked.
"Shelagh," he gasped, tugging at her hair. It hurt, but she continued. She could see his belly rise and fall with quick breaths and how his hips moved to meet her eager mouth.
"Shelagh, please don't..."
Now, she understood so much. Many times she said "Patrick, please don't" meaning "Patrick please go on, yes, let me dry, go on, go on" and he continued, much to her delight.
She could already taste him dripping into her mouth and she picked up her pace, pursing her lips, in and out. She wanted him to release absolutely all his pain, his frustration, his anger, joy, happiness and his madness, inside her.
But he sat up a little, took her face and stopped her.
Scared, Shelagh thought that perhaps it was all a terrible mistake, that she believed she was wiser than she was and that she had interpreted the body of her husband in a completely wrong way.
But Patrick took her by the hands, laid her gently on her pillow and settled on her, and Shelagh giggled, understanding everything.
"You always want to dominate," she touched the tip of his nose.
He smiled, a true smile for the first time that night, and kissed her deeply and ran his hands over her body, tucking one of them under her panties.
Shelagh had been so lost in providing satisfaction that she forgot herself, but without a doubt her body had responded because now she knew how wet and hot she was, how desperate for the need to feel him entering there. She felt his fingers moving, parting her folds, and she could not help but moan loudly. With trembling hands she lowered her panties and sat up a little to take off her nightgown, which now felt stuck to her sweaty skin.
"Don't be gentle," she asked, taking him by his face, wrapping her legs around his waist, "like today, please."
Patrick nodded although he entered slowly, making her melt in his arms. He stopped, closing his eyes and she pressed against him, making him moan, urging him to move fast.
"Patrick, open your eyes. Look at me, focus on me."
He obeyed, his sweaty hair dripping onto her chest and she moved, brushing her breasts against him. Patrick closed his eyes again, but this time there was only pleasure on his face. Shelagh congratulated herself knowing that she would make it, that she would help her beloved husband that night.
It only took a few deep thrusts to reach that wave of pleasure so intense that he always gave her, and her body dragged him with her. She closed her lids, his name a whispered litany.
"Patrick, look at me" she asked with her last breath and when he did, he broke. His open mouth from which no sound came out until he almost screamed her name was all she needed to know that he was there, in that moment, far from the past, alone with her in the most complete and pleasant happiness. She felt him spill into her, and saw him smile with that smile that he had only for her when pleasure pierced him.
"My God, Shelagh," he growled into her shoulder after collapsing onto her. She smiled happily, and also quite proud.
For a few seconds they said nothing, he was breathing hard, and his lips kissed her neck carefully, covering the marks he had left on her earlier.
Then he raised his head to look at her.
"My God, Shelagh," he repeated, before kissing her languidly on her mouth and she giggled, "That was...amazing."
"Do you feel better?" she asked, knowing her voice was betraying her, showing pride.
He laughed, a lighthearted laugh that shook the bed, he ran a hand over his sweaty forehead, rolling away from her but pulling her to his chest with the same motion.
"That was...I have no words, how did you do it?"
She sat up to look at him, she had never felt more lustful, mischievous, bold, and vain. Strangely, none of that made her feel uncomfortable.
"It's the same thing I asked you the first time, how did you do it?"
He laughed, his eyes shining.
"Wow, we're very good at this then."
Shelagh nodded smiling and reached up to pull the sheets up to cover them both.
She settled on his chest, and sighed. She hoped he was beginning to fall asleep, but suddenly she felt his hand stroking her hair, his lips kissing her forehead.
"Thank you Shelagh my love, and I don't just say it for this, I say it for everything."
She rested her chin on his shoulder, staring at him, caressing his cheek, his beard prickling making her smile more.
"I don't want you to keep thinking so bad about yourself, Patrick. You know that I will always love you, whatever happens, and I only care about you and Tim in my life, I don't need more."
He responded by kissing her forehead.
"I'm sorry to put you through these things, but you're right, I must share it with you. I'll keep doing it, I promise. We are a team, a marriage. No more secrets, and always ready to help each other. Together we will overcome everything."
She smiled, settling into his chest. She heard his breathing slow, and looked up. Patrick was fast asleep, a small smile on his mouth. She kissed his chest and closed her eyes.
"Sweet dreams my love," she whispered.
As she succumbed to sleep and exhaustion, Shelagh knew that in that murky night, they had put another brick in the solidity of their marriage.
Together, nothing could knock them down anymore.