What can I say...I really love the girls bonding

'Nurses? What can I do for you?' Patrick asked nervously as he opened the door. 'Come in out of the cold!'

'Sister Bernadette ran away. We've searched everywhere but we can't find her and we're very worried. We thought you might have an idea about where she might be seeing as she said you were picking her up tomorrow.' Cynthia explained as they piled into the flat.

'Oh. Um.'

'Doctor please. We just want to make sure she's okay. She's our friend. A very dear friend. We just want to make sure she's okay. Did she tell you about her...condition?'

'If you're referring to her pregnancy then yes. I told her actually.'

'We want her to know that we're not angry. That we'll support her. That we still love her.'

'You do?' Came a quiet, yet familiar voice behind them. They span around shocked to see Sister Bernadette standing in the doorway in an oversized man's shirt and pyjama trousers with her newly exposed long blonde hair tumbling loose over her shoulders.

'Sister Bernadette?'

'You don't hate me?' She asked nervously.

'Of course we don't. We love you. What are you doing here?' Trixie asked.

'Well...' She looked thoughtful for a moment before smiling and walking over to Dr Turner who drew her against him. 'Meet the father of my child, my fiancé, Doctor Patrick Turner.' She smiled up at him. The was a stunned silence. 'Please say something.' She frowned, worried that this was one revelation too far. Though, she mused, she'd expected that to be the revelation she was pregnant, not the identity of its origin.

'You've been having an illicit affair with, are engaged to, Doctor Turner? The local gp? Who we work with day in day out?'

'Yes. I'm sorry, I know this is a surprise.' She wrung her hands together before he took them in hers, stilling her.

'The past 24 hours have been one big surprise.' Jenny smiled shocked.

'You're telling me!' Shelagh giggled, relieved that they hadn't instantly rejected the situation. 'So. Comments? Opinions?'

'Are you happy? With Doctor Turner and your baby? Are you truly happy?' Trixie asked tentatively.

'Very much so.' Shelagh beamed as Patrick dropped a kiss to her crown. 'I've never been happier.'

'Neither have I.' He grinned.

'Then I'm happy for you.' She hugged the soon to be former nun. 'So very happy. Congratulations to you both, on the baby and the engagement.'

'Thank you.' They received similar comments from the rest of the nurses.

'Would you like a drink? I'm afraid we don't have any Horlicks.' Shelagh thrilled internally at the domesticity of the moment and the fact she could finally say we and have it mean what she wanted. They settled on the assembled seats as Patrick brought their tea over.

'Sorry about my attire. I wasn't expecting anyone to come after me.'

'You look lovely. Really quite beautiful. I always wondered what colour hair you'd have.' Jenny smiled.

'How are you for clothing? Do you want to borrow some of mine? I'm sure we're similar sizes.' Trixie offered.

'We're about the same height. You can have any if my clothes.' Cynthia added. Shelagh began to tear up.

'Thank you. You are all being so wonderful. I don't deserve it after everything I've done. But we stopped off at a shop on the way back from the hospital. I'm far from bountiful in the sartorial department but I have enough to get by. After I leave the sanatorium I'll need to buy more. I definitely won't fit into your clothes by then.' She laughed as she glanced at her still flat stomach.

'I can't believe that you, sister Bernadette, are pregnant. It's mind boggling.'

'But wonderful.' Cynthia added.

'I still wake up confused about it to be honest.' Shelagh chuckled. 'But please, that name no longer applies to me. Call me Shelagh.'

'Shelagh. It'll take a while to get used to but I like it.'

'It's a very pretty name.' Jane said quietly.

'Thank you.'

'What are you going to do now then?'

'Tomorrow I enter the sanatorium. Then we get married asap.'

'Then I begin to search for houses and jobs wherever we decide to live and resign my position here.'

'We can't stay here with the gossiping and scandal. The two of us, Tim and Tadpole deserve better than that. And with the sisters I can't stay.'

'I understand. I do hope you don't go too far away though. That's my honorary nephew or niece in there and I intend to spoil them rotten.' Trixie grinned.

'Thank you. We don't quite know where we'll go yet but I doubt it will be too far away.'

'Good.'

'After that I leave the sanatorium and live with my family. Live with the man I love as we raise our children together.'

'It sounds delightful.'

'Doesn't it.' Patrick grinned.

'Could you...Could you not tell the sisters where I am tonight. Or which sanatorium I'll be in. I want to keep in contact with you nurses. You're like family to me and I don't want to lose you now I know you don't hate me. But I can't face the sisters. Not after the way they reacted. I know I did very wrong in their eyes but they hurt me.'

'We understand.'

'No word shall pass our lips that you do not want to.'

'Thank you.'

'How does Timothy feel about this?'

'He's taken it remarkably well. He already knew that we were together...He walked in on us kissing and started panicking about a week or two ago.' Shelagh explained giggling at the memory. 'He's not overly pleased to leave his friends but he's excited to get a younger sibling.'

'And a mum. He's most excited you're going to be his mum. And I can't say I blame him. You're wonderful my love.'

'This is so strange.' Jenny groaned into Trixie's shoulder. The phone rang.

'Excuse me.' Patrick dashed out of the room.

'how...how did this happen?' Jane asked.

'Short story? We both fell in love, we both fought it, Patrick cracked and kissed me, I rejected him but gave in a few days later and went to him. I hadn't looked back since. And now I'm going to have a baby.' She grinned goofily as she lay a hand over her belly.' Even with all the hurt I've caused I don't regret a second.'

'You're going to be a mum!'

'I know. I've never been more excited in my life.' Shelagh radiated joy. Patrick walked back in.

'There's been an accident down at the docks. I'm needed there. I don't know how long I'll be. Sounds like it might be a long time. Tim'll be back from cubs in about an hour.'

'Right so pump him full of coffee, let him loose in the kitchen with the knives and don't let him go to bed before 1am?'

'Spot on. Bye love.' He leant down and kissed her slowly before nodding at the now squealing nurses.

'Bye.' She grinned after his retreating figure.

'You two are very lovely together.' Jane smiled.

'Thank you Jane. Are you okay there Trixie?' The blonde had paled.

'When he bent down to kiss you I got a good sight of his backside. And it was not bad. I'm just trying to reconcile that thought with the fact it's doctor Turner.'

'You should try seeing without the trousers on. Much superior.' Shelagh smiled absently before realising what she'd just said and gasping, hand clasped to her mouth as the nurses choked on their drinks.

'I cannot believe you just said that.' Cynthia gaped 'About Doctor Turner!'

'I know. It is strange isn't it. Even though we love each other deeply it was very odd at the beginning. About 10 minutes after we first kissed he started panicking because he'd just made out with a nun and was a bad person as a result.' Shelagh chuckled at the memory. Patrick was particularly adorable in panic mode with his hair sticking up at all angles thanks to the many times he ran his hands through it.

'Poor man.'

'Aye. I'm really going to miss you all. It's going to be strange not seeing you everyday.' Shelagh frowned.

'We'll come visit you as much as we can without telling the nuns where you are and we'll write all the time and phone you. You'll be sick of us by the time Tadpole is born.'

'I doubt that highly. I see you every day at the moment.'

'But now that you've left the Order we can be proper friends and talk like we haven't before. And we know basically nothing about you so there's going to be a lot of questions.'

'You should probably go back to Nonnatus at some point, we, you, can't cope with only 2 midwives around, but I'm free to questions now. I'm hardly going anywhere.'

'What time did the nurses leave?' Patrick asked slipping into their bed. She rolled over to face him. He leant forwards and kissed her nose making her giggle softly.

'About half an hour after you did. They didn't want to make the others suspicious.'

'I'm sorry the nuns didn't react as well as you'd hoped.' He sighed heavily. As soon as they had explained the situation to Timothy and sent him off to play at Jack's house before cubs Shelagh had gone into panic mode, fretting over any and every possible outcome of the upcoming talk. He had been amused by some of the possibilities-he had no idea where Shelagh thought Sister Evangelina may access a tiger from at such short notice, and he didn't even want to think about the barrel idea. Neither them had noticed, however that all the possibilities involved Sister Evangelina, Sister Monica Joan or the nurses. The idea of Sister Julienne reacting with anything less than a shocked silence followed by a comforting word and unrelenting support had occurred to neither one of them such was the closeness of the former sisters. So when Shelagh had appeared at the door of his flat sobbing about how sister Julienne had rejected her and broken her heart Patrick had been horrified. Early on in their secret relationship Shelagh had explained their closeness and how much the friendship meant to her. Even now the thought of Shelagh's face as he had opened the door sent an unbearable pain to his chest.

'It was expected.' She sighed. 'Mostly.'

'But it still hurt.'

'Yes. And at least there weren't any tigers or poisoned food or shotguns. Can we not talk about it anymore please.'

'Of course. Did Tim go to bed alright?'

'Yes. Oh Patrick he said how happy he was to have a mum to put him to bed again.' She beamed. 'I pointed out that he'd have to go without it again for a few months but... oh this is really real isn't it? It's really happening.'

'If it isn't then it's the greatest dream I've ever had. And I never want to wake up from it.'

'Neither do I.'

'I can't believe I actually get to hold you in my arms for a night. No more sneaking around and rushed visits.'

'Sleeping in your arms, waking in them, will be one of my proudest moments.'

'I don't know what I've done to deserve you.'

'We deserve each other. This love, this family, this joy is a gift from God.'

'Quite right.'

'How was the accident at the dock? You're home earlier than I expected.'

'Nothing to write home about. I'll have to pop around to Nonnatus tomorrow and see if I can't find those leaving forms for you.'

'Oh there's no need for that. Cynthia snuck in and got them for me. It's all signed and returned.' She smiled sadly.

'So you're officially Shelagh Mannion again.'

'Yes. But not for much longer I hope.'

'No.'

'Let's get married tomorrow, on the way to the sanatorium. I don't want to wait any longer to be your wife.' She said earnestly dropping kisses to multiple parts of his face.

'You deserve a better wedding than that.'

'We can invite the nurses and out friends to our house after I'm out of the sanatorium and we can celebrate then. I want to enter there as Mrs Turner.'

'Our house. Mrs Turner. Those might just be some of the most beautiful words in human history. But yes, let's do it. Let's get married tomorrow.' They kissed languidly for several minutes before curling up together, enjoying each others company. She began to cry softly into his shoulder.

'Darling what is it? What's wrong?'

'I'm so happy. But I'm so scared. I have tuberculosis Patrick. I can't stop thinking about it. As much as I love talking about being your wife it's unavoidable. I could die and I'd have wasted months not being your wife. I could die and take our child with me. It could come back and I'd almost certainly die and I'd leave my children without a mother, Timothy for the second time. And you'd be widowed again. I know you and doctor Matthews said I'll be fine and that you caught it early enough but every day we see unexpected medical problems, people suddenly getting worse. I'm so scared Patrick.'

'Oh my love.' He squeezed her to him even tighter, dropping a kiss into her hair. 'You are right that no one can tell what medical dramas will present, that things could escalate. But I can tell you that I will be there every step of the way with you, that I will do everything I can to prevent any harm coming to you. Besides you said it yourself, this joy of ours is a gift from God. He'll watch over you. Between Him, Tim, Tadpole, the staff at the sanatorium, the nurses and myself no preventable harm will ever be allowed to get to you.'

'Thank you. I love you so much.'

'I love you more.'

'I love you most.'

Still have some ideas for this but if there is anything anyone would like to see just drop me a message and I'll see what I can

Also yes-you did just read a Tangled reference.

Reviews appreciated xx