Hello everyone :)

Thanks for reading, I am very happy that you like what I do.

In this chapter I included something very minimal that I read in "Dr Turner's Casebook" I really recommend the book if you don't have it yet.

IX

The rebel images piled up in his mind, and they refused to form an order so he could analyze them, so he could understand what was happening.

It was a mockery of fate, a sly grin of life, which had shown him some joy, before the terrible blow. It was like that little improvement that the dying have, a flash of happiness that is abruptly extinguished by death.

That's how he felt. Dead.

He just wanted to help people, save their lives, and the day began with a "Bloody hell!" seeing the amount of people who wanted to be helped, or who was just surrounding the van, out of curiosity.

Then he went to meet a doctor little interested in health and more interested in a crossword, but he managed to convince him very quickly and got to work, and there began the hectic but happy day he planned. Even the good weather was helping him, with a warm and sunny day.

Good humor was palpable everywhere, and for the first time in days he had laughter to contain, because seeing Sister Evangelina directing people as a general to the army was certainly funny.

He also saw good humor in her perfect little face, peeking out from behind a large box she carried while making her way through the people. He confirmed once again that she had no problems with him, that she could smile at him like that, look at him directly and feel natural around him without feeling discomfort or apprehension about his terrible attitude on the day of the party. It was as if this triumph that they had achieved together had erased the worst mistake of his life.

So there she was, with the card box, greeting him with her bright smile, her cheeks flushed from the heat and her clear and cheerful eyes. She was happy, he could tell, he could see her enthusiasm and energy swarmed everywhere, ready to go to work. He could also see the curiosity on her face. She was curious, he was noticing it more and more, and that made her adorable and admirable. A curious mind was an intelligent mind, and he had no doubt that she was brilliant.

He could not help answering her with a smile, and saying something about his wildest dreams, which seemed to intimidate her as she lowered her eyes, even more flushed.

Then he spoke to everyone as if he were the president of a nation, explained what would happen inside the van, and even felt proud to say her name to the people. She would be his assistant today, and that joy surely leaked into his tone, but he didn't even stop it. He felt happy and satisfied. Even the lazy doctor in charge of the van seemed to glow with enthusiasm when he saw Sister Bernadette, and he could see again the blush on her cheeks. For just a second he even felt jealous of that doctor, for looking at her and for his kindness and sympathy with her, but he immediately put his silly and selfish mind into the work.

He took Sister Bernadette's box, careful not to touch her hands, trying not to pass the fine and careful line that he himself drew so as not to break the delicate situation in which they seemed to have been for days and days. However, he took advantage of this new height he had, standing on the stairs, to look more closely at her face, at her smile, at her small and slightly red hands to hold the weight, and feel her delicate aroma that floated up to him.

Sister Evangelina's screams broke the entire spell, and the work began.

As people passed by, he took small "breaks" to see where she was. He felt silly, he didn't want to do it but his eyes always seemed to look for her desperate, and she was always there, writing cards, with the smile on her face, happy with her work and with the people around her.

Suddenly her attention was diverted to a girl, who like so many other children, refused to obey her mother. The girl looked fearful, scared of her mother and eager to cry. Who knows what she heard from other children about X-rays, and now the mother forced and scold her in front of the entire neighborhood.

She approached with a smile, spoke to her, and proposed a pact. How that came to her mind? Surely, it would never have occurred to him to do something like that. He would have talked to the mother, reassuring her to convince her daughter or to let enter someone else predisposed to the van. But she went to the girl, leaned down to speak as if she were her friend, and then got up and asked permission. Of course he said yes, he would say yes to everything she asked for, and more if she asked so sweetly.

He saw her sit in front of the machine, raising her chin, calm and confident. Hours later, he would remember that trust, and then the complicit smile with the girl, and how he took the opportunity to make her see how much he admired her, and she, of course, took off the credit. Until that moment everything was like the day: bright, warm, without worries. Only two colleagues working and feeling something else, hidden, but calm.

The adventure ended, Sister Evangelina was exhausted and voiceless, and the nurses gathered the last things to leave quickly, when the doctor called to show the radiographs of the less fortunate people of the day. With a sad dye in his voice, said that unfortunately, "the little nun" was also affected. He said something similar to condolences, or who knows what, because he no longer heard them.

Time passed in a blur of hours and visits to the other patients, until he stepped on Nonnatus. A small courtesy talk with Sister Julienne and then he asked to speak with Sister Bernadette, in private. The older nun distrusted the request, and she was right. Lately, he didn't have the best attitudes with her sister, but he begged that Sister Julienne wasn't aware of that.

He waited, trying to find the words to tell her. In fact, he had tried to look for those words while talking with the other patients, becoming almost cold and apathetic to them, but he couldn't get away from his head that he should say the same to her. Now that she appeared before him with such a smile and freshness in her voice, so cheerful and willing to chat, so open and confident in him, he had to erase all that by telling her the truth.

And yet, like a fool, he couldn't help smiling at her, one last smile for her last smile, before she frowned a little and her voice became a little worried, asking if all was well.

He invited her to sit down and she responded with another smile, although already more restless. He hated to provoke this, he just wanted to give her peace and joy, not make her feel this way.

He felt observed by her curious eyes, this time a curiosity that hurt him, while looking for the card. He just handed it to her, unable to say anything, letting her realize alone what was happening. She took it delicately and looked at it, and he wanted to cry when he heard her broken voice.

She was scared. For the first time, Patrick Turner was seeing Sister Bernadette scared. It was one more thing he knew about her, something he wished he hadn't known, because her trembling hands withdrawing as if the card burned her, and her eyes lowered and the seriousness of her face processing the news, were things he never wanted to see in her, who never wanted her to experience. But there she was, sitting in front of him, alone in a room, with harsh words and terrible certainties between them.

Her scared eyes asked for help and this time, he couldn't help her. He felt terrible, she had done it before, she always seemed to ask for something else with her gaze and he was just a fool who observed her doing nothing, and when he did it was to ruin things.

He knew that look full of fear as she asked how many injuries she had inside her body, or while she replied that she had no symptoms, would pursue him forever.

That night, alone at home, more abandoned than ever, the rebel images piled up in his mind, and they refused to form an order so he could analyze them, so he could understand what was happening.

It was a mockery of fate, a sly grin of life, which had shown him some joy, before the terrible blow. It was like that little improvement that the dying have, a flash of happiness that is abruptly extinguished by death.

That's how he felt. Dead.

Dead because the woman he loved most was sick. Dead because he was so close, so close that he could see the whiteness of her skin, the little freckles that stained her, her increasingly blond eyelashes, he could feel the scent he felt so many times around her, he could observe so many wonderful things, just to tell her she was sick.

He felt dead, because she was suffering and he couldn't get close, hug her, tell her everything would be fine.

He felt dead because she was alone.

And just as he could count the beautiful things about her, he could also count the most terrible, like the trembling of her fingers when she unzipped her habit, her breathing full of nerves, her distant eyes, refusing to look at him, the dry lips, the voice barely audible and full of tears, and the sound of her wounded lungs. He observed so many things, that he forgot to observe his own: his terrible fear of hearing what he already knew, his paralyzed breathing at the sight of her chest, or the force that his fingers made to free themselves from the resistance to touch her.

Again and again, the rebel images piled up in his mind, and they refused to form an order so he could analyze them, so he could understand what was happening.

It was a mockery of fate, a sly grin of life, which had shown him some joy, before the terrible blow. It was like that little improvement that the dying have, a flash of happiness that is abruptly extinguished by death.

That's how he felt. Dead.

Although he wrote in a cafe near the road, although he was watching and smiling at the waitress who coughed around him, although he was concentrating all his hatred on a bacterium, a simple and tiny bacterium that infected so many, that infected his woman, he felt dead.

She was gone and he took her away, first putting her suitcase in the car, then taking her to the hospital, and then to the sanitarium.

He wanted to say something, tried to say something that was comforting, or a word of encouragement, or a joke, or a sincere I love you that he would never let out of his mouth, but he just looked at her and started the car, leaving Poplar behind, maybe forever.

He barely touched her fingers when giving her suitcase, still thinking of something to say beyond information about the triple treatment she already knew.

But she, as angelic as ever, as a better person than him, blessed him with a sad smile, giving him that little relief and a few words, and walked away.

And he stayed, feeling dead, begging her to turn around and look at him.

But she did not.