You wait two months for a chapter and two come at once! Thank you so much for still reading this story (unless you've got lost on your way to Google) - it means so much to me and I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

Patrick came home one evening a week or two later to find her sitting out in their small inner-city garden, her cardigan clutched tight and a pensive look on her face.

"Penny for them?" he tried, siting down gently next to her. Even so, she started.

"I didn't know you were home Patrick!" she cried. Shelagh began to stand but he put his hand gently on her knee. She sat down again and he perched himself next to her, trying to avoid the patches of green. It was a very old bench, possibly form a railway station. It had inexplicably been in the garden when he bought the house, and despite many plans of repainting it had remained in the same peeling condition as when they had arrived. Still, he was glad Shelagh seemed to like it. Maybe that could be he and Timothy's next summer project (last year had been repainting the shed. He still wasn't sure about the red and blue colour-scheme).

"Don't worry, I've bought fish and chips for dinner, so no cooking tonight. Scouts finishes in an hour and his friend Jonny's mum is bringing him home. You can properly relax for once."

Smiling at the prospect of fish and chips, Shelagh moved along the bench to get closer to him. He drew her under his coat as she rested her head on his shoulder. Then - unmistakably - he heard her sigh slightly. It was almost imperceptible but Patrick was so finely attuned to her every motion that he heard it as if she'd screamed, and a flash of panic shot through him. Looking down, he saw one small tear escaping from the corner of her eye, and his mind went into freefall (as it often did when Shelagh was concerned).

"Darling, what's wrong?" he asked, trying to keep his voice calm as he prayed wildly to a God he had only just started to believe in again.

"Oh no," she protested, "I'm just being silly."

"Shelagh, nothing you do or say would ever be silly to me. You can tell me the truth - what is it?"

"It's just, sometimes...sometimes I feel as though this is too perfect. As though I'm going to suddenly open my eyes and be back at the sanatorium, and everything will have been a dream. I'll still be a Nun, and I'll still have tuberculosis and I can't bear the thought of it. That loneliness, the wondering and the waiting - I couldn't bear it. See, I told you it was silly." Even now, she couldn't tell him everything about her weeks at the sanatorium. The days had been alright - briskly moving on with the triple treatment, talking to other patients and visits from the midwives and other Nuns. It had been the nights when she tossed and turned, desperate to read the letters that arrived so innocently on her breakfast tray. Even hiding them in the pages of her Bible didn't help, and she lost count of the number of times she cried herself to sleep. No indeed, the thought of returning to that wilderness was not one she wanted to contemplate.

Patrick seemed to sense her distress and held her even closer, planting a gentle kiss to the top of her head. "Sometimes I wonder the same thing. None of this seems like it can possibly be true. Why you chose me, how you recovered - they are miracles I thank God for everyday. Every time I see you in the kitchen, or out here, or talking to Timothy in the evenings I have to pinch myself."

Shelagh sighed again, but this time with a happier tone. "Will we still feel like this when we're seventy?" she asked. "Always wondering how it happened, and never quite believing it?"

"There are so many things in this world I still don't quite believe. Just look at the sky tonight! In the middle of London, with smog filled nights we get this one glorious clear sky where you can actually see stars. That almost feels like a miracle to me. I've always loved stars."

"Me too," she replied. "When I was a little girl in Scotland, I remember we used to go and stargaze some summer evenings, We'd take tea and blankets and sit and look for hours it felt like. My favourite constellation was Orion, because it looked like one of the bears from my favourite story book if you squinted hard enough. I could sit there and make up a thousand stories about that bear rampaging through the sky. After my mother died we never went stargazing anymore, and since I moved to London I'd almost forgotten there were stars. I think this might be the first time I've clearly seen Orion again for years."

"Where is it?" Patrick asked, squinting at the sky.

"Look just a wee bit left of that Mrs Rodger's chimney, then up."

"Oh, I see it. Not so sure about the bear though."

Shelagh chuckled softly and they sat in companionable silence for a few moments more, before Shelagh started slightly.

"Look Patrick, a shooting star!"

"I know what my wish is." he said, holding her tighter. "Mine too." she replied contentedly. It was a perfect moment for both of them, and Shelagh wanted to take it and wrap it up like a precious diamond, never to be tarnished. It was the strength of this clarity that gave her the courage to suddenly sit up and turn to face him, breathing in deeply and clasping her hands together.

"Patrick - I've got something to tell you."

His fears resurfaced, and he gripped her hands, holding them tight as he gazed into her eyes to try and divine something within their depths. Was it tuberculosis? Maybe she wanted to retake her vows (was that even possible)? Maybe she wanted to go to Scotland. He'd be fine with that, he'd always wanted to visit her childhood home -

"Patrick, I think I might be pregnant."

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