Patrick walked into the living room, disappointed when no greeting was given to him as it normally would when he walked into the flat. Perhaps they were busy with one of Tim's board games?

But the sight he found when he walked in was not one he had imagined. On the faded golden sofa sat his son, who was wide-eyed staring at his fiancé. Shelagh's body was tucked up into itself into a corner on the furniture. He couldn't see her eyes, she had closed them tightly. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

He quickened his pace over to the other side of the room and bent down in front of her. She didn't look at him, just kept her eyes turned down. Now he was close up, he could see the tracks of drying tears down her face.

"My love," He choked out, he had never seen her so distraught. "My love, look at me."

She tilted her head minutely higher, but Patrick tipped it up further with his fingers under her chin.

"What is it?" He asked softly.

She wished he could read her mind, so that she didn't need to say the words out loud. The words that had been haunting her day and night for several days. She didn't want it to be this way but she couldn't find a way forward. So many hours she had spent in prayer to help, but she found no clear guidance.

"I...I…" She breathed deeply and sharply

'He must know! I have to tell him!'

She had thought of running away but that thought hurt more than her legs did on a four mile bike ride home in the middle of the night when it rained on the way home from a birth.

"I can't…" Patrick could see she was struggling, emotionally and physically.

"Tim," He turned to his son "Could you go and make some tea please son?"

Timothy understood the underlying tone of light dismissal and went to get up, but Shelagh stopped him with a gentle touch of her hand on her arm.

"No, don't go. Please."

He nodded and made himself comfortable again, trying not to lean on her, however much he wanted to, in case it upset her again.

"I'm happy. I've never been so happy in my life." Shelagh started, and a quick look at Patrick in front of her and Timothy on her left told her that they were too. "You are such wonderful men, you've both shown me what it's like to be loved. Timothy, you are growing into such a fine young man. You're sensible and smart, and every inch your father's son."

A light touch of his chin told her that she could do this, she just needed to be strong to a bit longer.

"Patrick, you always showed me consideration and kindness ,as both Doctor Turner, and my...fiancé" The last word became a small sob

"But," she paused. Now was the moment. "I can't listen to those words anymore. Those...vile, vile words..."

ENDING 1:

"If you heard them...Oh Patrick!" Full sobs were released and her whole body shock.

He pulled her body towards him and he held her tight. He had worried that she'd heard the whisperings around Poplar about them. Although he himself had heard them, he had shook them off because he knew that he had Shelagh, and Timothy. But what about her? Shelagh seemed to crumble before his very eyes, the woman that he fell in love with still there, but her usually radiant appearance turned dimmer and bleak.

All of a sudden she stood. Both Timothy and Patrick stunned by the quick movement, but nothing could prepare them for her next words.

"I love you both, so dearly. Please know that. But I can't see you live by those words, hearing them chanted down the street and around every corner we turn. It's not fair to you, or to me. I need to go. I need to keep you safe, to keep you both safe. Please, please promise me one thing? That you'll be happy. That you'll never stop loving me, just as I. But you'll live your lives to the full and always stand by each other."

Patrick stared at her. What was she saying? She couldn't go!

Timothy couldn't hear anymore so sprinted out the room in tears and into his bedroom. There he could be safe. There he could wish that everything was alright and they could all be happy together.

In an instant Patrick strode to her side and reached for her, only to be shaken off.

Her watery eyes met his equally damp ones.

"Please...promise me?" She whispered.

All he could do was nod, tears falling one by one.

She turned and went out the door.

Several years on Shelagh wandered the streets of Manchester after another long midnight delivery. The couple had bickered with each other the whole time. The husband had not given the midwives any refreshments, or enough towels, or whatever else his wife decided to berate him for.

It was these long hours where she missed Poplar the most. Before announcing their engagement, the community was a wonderful place to be in. Everyone knew each other, and very often get on well. But everything had turned.

She never stopped loving Timothy, or his father. Never stopped praying for them, and thinking about them. Only recently had she received a letter out of the blue from young Timothy, who was turning twenty in the coming weeks. He had sent the letter without his father knowing, and as he went on to explain, the relationship between the two of them had become strained and uneasy. Patrick never seemed to get over her disappearance, he even had to leave work early every now and then when her absence hit him hard.

But Timothy had been there when Patrick's health took a turn for the worst. The lack of sleep and food meant that Patrick collapsed one day due to exhaustion. Once he was in hospital and safe, Timothy knew he had to write to Shelagh. She was the only person who he wanted to tell, and the only person who could truly help them.

Before Shelagh knew it, she was travelling toward London on the train. Despite the upset that the pair caused whilst they lived in Poplar, nothing was going to stop her from seeing him in hospital.

Running through the packed reception, she was eventually led to his ward and told that he was in bed 5.

She pulled the curtain back to reveal a skinny man lying motionless on the high bed. And next to him sat a dark-haired young man, his body hunched over the man's hand. At the sound of the curtain the younger one looked up, briefly and down again. But realisation stuck and he immediately lifted his eyes and rose from his seat.

"You came!" He called lightly. He didn't know what to call her- Mum, Auntie Shelagh, or Shelagh. But none of that mattered. She was here.

She let out a silent sigh of relief. On the journey she considered turning back, that it was a mistake to come. But seeing their faces again made her realize that she was back home, and back where she belonged.

A deeper, croaky voice jolted her thoughts.

"Shelagh?" They asked, her brain scrambling for the recognition of the voice, but as her eyes laid on his, she knew who it belonged to.

"Patrick." She rushed over to his side and carefully took hold of his hand, squeezing gently.

"You're...You're here" He chocked out.

Shelagh handed him a glass of water and allowed him to suck from the straw. Placing the jar back down on the table next to the bed, she turned her attention back to the loose interlinked fingers lying next to Patrick. They still fitted each other perfectly, even after so many years.

"I still love you." He said softly.

She raised her eyes to his. Those eyes that looked so hurt, when they used to be dancing and full of life.

"I do too."

ENDING 2:

"Shh, calm yourself my love. What words? Who?"

A shuddering breath later she said "Everyone. Everyone despising us because of what we have done. It's wrong. It's all so wrong!"

"But," He levelled his head with her own, "We love each other. And we are a family, Shelagh. We're happy, aren't we?" He waited patiently for the slow nod of agreement. "So what does anyone else matter? No matter what anyone else says, I love you Shelagh Mannion. I love you so much it hurts. And now when we could finally tell the world, I was ecstatic! You mean everything to me Shelagh. Everything."

He gently rested his forehead against her own. And with the slightest movement, he briefly pressed his lips against hers. Timothy, sat next to them, and usually he would avert his eyes when they displayed any physical affection for each other, this time he didn't. He need solid proof that they loved each other. That Shelagh wouldn't turn her backs on them.

"Please my love. Don't go." Patrick pleaded.

Shelagh sighed and raised her sky blue eyes to his deep brown pair.

In answer she whispered "No. I love you both."

Several years on, Shelagh sat on the same sofa, with Timothy cuddled up next to her and with her husband in front of her on his knees. But this time, she sat with a growing bundle in her arms, young Angela. The not-so-new addition to their family was now almost five years old but she still enjoyed cuddles in the early evening with her mother.

Her mother.

Never did she think she would say those words. Yet, she never thought that right now she was be sitting with her family. The family that she longed to have for so long, but nearly allowed them to slip from her grasp.

'How could I deny myself of this' She thought to herself.