The weekend passed on slowly while everyone walked to talk about the events no one wanted to ask questions – no one asked anything at all. Trixie smiled a hollow smile and Delia couldn't help but let her mind wander – while she and Patsy weren't open around the home they shared. They didn't have ear anymore. Patsy was packing her things in the same boxes Delia's arrived in the moments of sadness were hidden but fake laughs and nonalcoholic nightcaps.

Trixie tried not to cry; she knew that how she felt wouldn't change anything, and it didn't matter what she thought. She wasn't going to be able to alter the religion that the nuns cared so deeply for.

Saturday was long. The weather hadn't cheered up and either had Patsy ad Delia. Trixie was out at a birth. So it was Patsy and Delia with a record and vacant stares. They spent hours in silence looking at the room that Patsy had started to pack away. She couldn't imagine a life outside that room; she never thought she was going to. Patsy didn't believe that she would ever have to leave the home of Poplar. The idea terrified her but she kept on a brave face. Thanks to Nurse Crain she at least had another job – it wasn't popular and it wasn't two doors down from Delia but it came with a room, in a nurses home and it paid. She was a midwife but she was losing Delia, Patsy thought she would be happy after what felt like a lifetime without being a midwife but in reality, she couldn't have been more wrong. She felt empty and alone no matter ow hard she tried. Patsy wondered why more words weren't spoken that day but the truth was she didn't share her secret life with anyone so know one really knew the truth – Both her and Delia shared the parts of their lives that were bearable or shareable with strangers. She laughed about things that were eating her up inside because that was the easiest thing to do. And life, after all, was all about finding the easiest path. The path of least pain and least lies. While both Patsy and Delia's life was always going to be full of lies they didn't think that they would be separated over them – parted over the truth. Even in the darkest of days like that Saturday with boxes surrounding here, there was something about Delia that made Patsy feel so young inside, but not in a childish way. She woke the real side of Patsy the best, all the facets of herself that only require love to be whole. Patsy knew that if she has the chance to spend eternity with Delia in peace and freedom she would be able to sink to serenity but she also knew that if the events of the last few weeks were anything to go by an eternity by Delia's side as looking further and further away. She knew that Delia made her heart strong in times of pain. Her smile alone burnishes her soul time and time again in a way that she hadn't felt before the bubbly welsh nurse came into her life. Before she and Delia met she was one, now she was half yet she somehow felt better than she was before.

A knock on the door made both the girls jump, neither of them wanted to move but with a sudden spear of energy Delia opened the door to find sister Mary Cynthia. They hadn't spoke since the incident and while it was never reported the mark on the sisters face was explained to the people to close to her, the mark was truly a crime of love and passion. It wasn't meant to hurt Sister Mary Cynthia for fun; it was Delia's way of making her understand the pain that the lovers faced. Sister knew that.

"Hello Patsy" She spoke, her voice was still as happy as ever. She completely looked past Delia for reasons unknown to everyone even the sister herself.
"Sister," Patsy said, her voice was shaking, but she was trying to stay calm.
"I just wondered if you needed any help with the packing that was all."
"She's just fine thank you very much!" A voice snapped from behind the sister.
"You all right Trixie? Mrs Baxter okay?" Delia asked. Letting Patsy breath a small silent sigh of relief.
"A healthy baby boy," Trixie said smiling, overtaking the sister and placing herself down on her bed.
"Good I'm glad, with all that trouble she had with her first" Patsy said, giving Trixie a lost sad smile.

Sister Mary Cynthia didn't overstay her welcome and left with Delia shutting the door firmly behind her. Patsy never found out the reason why the sister had done what she had done, nor why she wanted to help Patsy pack up her boxes. She didn't want to know

"I don't understand Pats... why are they doing this to you, yet not one soul has told me to pack up my things" Delia asked, well stated.
"I don't know deels," Patsy said. The truth was she was so caught up in her own troubles to give a second thought to what will happen to Delia, which she knew was selfish but she couldn't think of anything right now, thinking about anything but her next card move made her head hurt and her eyes fill with tears. She really didn't want to leave.
"It is not going to be the same without you here Patsy," Trixie said. She wasn't lying. The house was going to be different without the redhead's ways, her methods of cleaning things or her ability to wear slacks for every occasion. Her honesty around patients.
"Do you remember your first clinic?" Trixie asked, getting a cigarette from the side and staring hopelessly at all the boxes filling up her nodded holding in her laugh.

"I haven't heard this," Delia said looking at both her friends as they were holding in their laughter.
"She called a baby fat Delia," Trixie said, the smoke from her cigarette mixed with her laughter made her cough, but there was a real smile on her face, one that she didn't think would appear.
"You did what Pats?" Delia said. She was now sat down next to her girlfriend. Patsy warmth gave Delia comfort, and she really needed it right now.
Neither Patsy or Trixie could get a word out there mouth. Patsy kept her firmly shut to avoid laughing, and Trixie couldn't hold her laughter in "I didn't call the poor baby fat" Patsy finally manages to say "I just said the baby was putting on weight and may have implied that the poor sod was taking after their mother," Patsy said, breathing deeply to control her laughter "Pats, you didn't," Delia remarked giving Patsy a slap on her arm off door opened and Barbara walked in.

"Don't suppose you mind if I join you, do you? Nurse Crain is practising her Spanish and its driving me quite crazy" Barbara said. Trixie gave a quick glance to Patsy and Delia just to check but none of the girls minded. Patsy felt rather guilty for keeping Barbara out of everything but she was dating Tom and trying she was also the daughter of a vicar, so Patsy wasn't counting on her acceptance.
"Did we tell you about the first night Barbara was here?" Trixie asked Delia. Delia was sure they had mentioned it but seeing Patsy happy remember old events put her mind at ease so she would hear the story a million times jus to see her girlfriend smile.
"No, I don't think you have Trixie. Do tell" Delia said leaning on Patsy's shoulder. She was tired, but she wasn't wasting any more time away from Pasty then she had too.
"It wasn't funny," Barbara said, crossing her legs on Trixie's bed. She was on call so was the only one of the nurses in uniform

"That was all Trixie" Patsy laughed "Trixie told me that there was no alcohol involved!" Barbara said "No, I think you will recall I never gave you confirmed answer!" Trixie said. The laughter the girls were making would have been heard throughout the house but they didn't care- the nuns wouldn't disturb them; they were avoiding them all when they could. No one wanted to make small talk with Patsy because no one knew the words to say what they were feeling. The silences were no longer silences but thoughts, the girl's laughter was calming to each other, and just for a moment, they forgot why all the boxes surrounded them. They ignored the inevitable and focused on the present as much as it pained Patsy to do so.

"I remember the first time Delia came over," Barbara said, "They put on a big lunch it was quite a sight. Until they opened the cake tin to find that Sister Monica Joan had already eaten the whole cake" The girls smiled.
"That wasn't the first time I came over," Delia said without thinking. Patsy gave Delia a light glare. She didn't really care if they girls knew she had been over before.
"Of course it wasn't" Trixie said smiling at Patsy "Not like that Trixie" Patsy said. You couldn't have pictured a happier scene if you tried.
"No, we ate chips in the chapel," Patsy said. Her voice was calm; there was no longer shakiness in her voice but happiness. She no longer felt sad about leaving because she was leaving with a lifetime of great memories, with great people. With the closest thing, she had ever really had to a family in a long time.

"Patsy you didn't" Barbara nodded her head while trying to hold in her laughter "We couldn't eat out in the streets – we were in our uniforms," Delia said as if trying to defend their actions from all that time ago. The girls spend the rest of the evenings laughing, soda in hand. None of them mentioned the future but that was their way of pretending it wasn't going to happen, their way of pretending that Tom wasn't going to pick Patsy up in the bus on Monday morning with all her things. It was there was of holding off the inevitable. With the help of Nurse Crain Trixie had looked at bus routes and maps to work out how far away her dear friend was moving too, there was a direct bus which would stop less that 10 minutes away from Patsy's new home. It wasn't a lifetime away, but it still wasn't popular. Trixie knew that they would be able to write to each other and even meet up for coffee when their days off matched but she couldn't help feeling sad that Patsy was going to have to leave and she was just standing by so helplessly. The truth was she didn't know what to do – Patsy and Delia's actions were there own but they were in love and she didn't understand why no one else could see that as clearly as she could. She couldn't remember why she wasn't accepting at first but even when the idea made her feel quite sick she would never have told any of the Sisters – it wasn't her place to say it, it wasn't anyone's place to say anything no matter what they thought.

Trixie didn't know what to think about. The laughter she made was real, but it helped mask the fear she couldn't hide anymore. As the evening ticked on the girls became tired and it wasn't long before Barbara couldn't disguise her tiredness any longer, she was on call but you could tell she wasn't going to make it through the night.

"Babs – why don't you go to bed? I promise to come and wake you if the phone goes" Delia said.
"Are sure Delia?" Barbara asked she sounded almost surprised by Delia's offer.
"Yes, I'm sure," Delia said. She was tired herself but had no plans to be leaving her redheaded girlfriend alone until she left. And if that meant power napping on her shift tomorrow then so be it!
"I'm going to get out of these clothes," Trixie said, she had been sat in her uniform since she got in and without the smell of cigarettes to mask the smell she would have made the whole room smell.
"Good night," Barbara said. Pulling herself off Trixie's bed and making her way to the door "I hope Nurse Crain is finished. I'm not sure I can bare a long night of Spanish" Barbara sighed as she walked out the door.
"I will be back in a tick" Trixie followed Barbara out the door, with her nightwear and makeup set in hand.