A/N: An introspective drabble that takes place during Episode 4.1. Others have written similar scenes better, but I thought I'd give it a shot.
Shelagh Turner carefully maneuvered the bike to a stop in front of 124 Bermondsey Lane, dismounted and leaned it against the side of the building near the stoop. It had been nearly two years since she'd ridden a Nonnatus bicycle, but well...one knew the saying.
Other things were like that too, she mused. You thought you'd forgotten old skills and talents, until one day someone came to you for help, and you cared for them without a thought. It all just came back, like riding a bike.
Oh, her head was fuzzy with fatigue. It was nearly midnight, and it had been a long, wretched day. Those poor children, hungry, beaten and living in horrible conditions. She'd had go with Trixie and Sister Monica Joan to take them to cleansing station. She'd had to find some small way to help.
"How will you get home?" Patrick had asked before they parted ways. He was headed to the hospital to help settle in the youngest of the Teemans. Baby Coral needed antibiotics to deal with an infection and possibly skin grafts to help heal the horrible sores on her body. "Will you be all right?" he said "I can come back and -"
She shook her head, cutting him off. "I'll be fine. Nurse Franklin and Sister Monica Joan need an extra pair of hands." She looked over at Marcy and Jacquetta Teeman, waiting in a corner while their brother Gary wandered around, looking over the various tubs and showers. Jacquetta stared back at her with wide eyes too big for her thin face. Shelagh thought of her own baby daughter, Angela, and how her eyes always followed her around the room.
"Go home," she told her husband. "Get Angela from the neighbors and make sure Tim doesn't -"
"Stay up all hours reading comics?" He grinned wryly, and they shared a soft laugh. "All right." He kissed her cheek. "I'll leave a light on."
And he had, just as she always did when he was called out in the middle of the night. The sight of the sitting room lamp glowing as she entered the flat warmed her, but also brought a lump to her throat. How many others came home to darkness and cold?
She checked on Timothy first and found him fast asleep, with a comic book tucked under his elbow. He looked so long under the blankets. It had been a bittersweet shock the day she'd realized he'd grown taller than her. He wouldn't be a boy for very much longer.
"He's never really had the chance to be a little boy before," Trixie had said about Gary. At the cleansing station, he'd splashed in the tub like he'd never had a good, hot bath in his life, and then given it up to his younger sisters at their first request. Shelagh suspected he'd give up his life for them, if asked. All they had was each other. If they went into separate foster homes - no. She would make more calls if necessary to ensure the Teeman children were placed in a good home, together. The bond between brother and sister was important, and too strong to be brushed aside. Watching Timothy with Angela taught her that every day.
Timothy didn't stir as Shelagh tugged the comic out from under his arm and pulled his blankets up further; he was a heavy sleeper, like Patrick. She smoothed the fringe off his forehead, a gesture he'd squirm away from when awake, and crept out of his room.
They'd only recently moved Angela out of their room and down the hall to the small box room Patrick had been using for a study. Apart from the cot and a rocking chair in the corner, it still didn't look very much like a baby's room; it was too dark and the walls were bare. But after several scrubbings she'd managed to clear out the smell of too many Henleys, and with some paint and new rug, it would be quite nice.
Leaning over the cot, she gently laid a hand on her daughter's chest, feeling her breathe. She'd done this often when Angela had first come to them to reassure herself she was alive and she was theirs. Patrick teased her once or twice about it, but he did the same thing.
How close? How close had Angela come to ending up in a home or worse, neglected, like Baby Coral? Shelagh pressed a soft kiss to her daughter's head, breathing in her soft, clean scent, and gave thanks, to God and to Angela's birth mother, wherever she was. It took courage to give up such a precious gift to someone else, and now what could have been a tragedy was instead joy. More joy than she could ever have imagined two years ago.
Shelagh glanced once more around the room to make sure everything was in order. Yes, a fresh coat of paint would do the trick. Something bright and cheerful - yellow, like a sunflower. She stifled a yawn and walked quietly down the hall.
It was a good thing Patrick hadn't met her at the door, she realized, when she flicked on the light in the bath and saw herself in the small mirror. There were water spots on her dress and a smudge of something on her cheek. Her eyes were red and tired behind her glasses, and the wind from her bike ride had whipped her hair out of its neat chignon. She took it down and brushed it, shuddering as she remembered the fleas and nits she'd picked out of Marcy's hair. There had been so many.
Her hands were dry and chapped, her fingernails chipped from scrubbing and delousing the three children. She looked at them now in wonder. Had she grown so soft, sitting behind a desk, being a doctor's wife?
Not that being a wife and mother was easy work. There were days when Angela wouldn't settle, and Timothy wore out her patience with his messes. She'd had to learn how to be a mother to him, while also letting him grow up. She'd had to learn Patrick as well, how to love him even when he tried to close himself off to her, and how to open herself up to his love as well.
It was hard work, but it was never harsh. She had seen harsh tonight, and if she looked worse for the wear because of it, it was because she'd done something to try to smooth that harshness away, if only for a little while.
She washed her face and hands, cleaned her teeth and switched out the light in the bath before padding down the hall to their bedroom. The lamp on her side of the bed was switched on, and Shelagh smiled at the sight it illuminated.
Patrick had fallen asleep sitting up, stretched out in his dressing gown on her side of the bed, his head nodding against his chest and an old copy of The Lancet discarded on his lap.
When they'd first married, and her husband had been called out late, Shelagh had often sat up waiting for him to come home, until he pointed out that there was no reason for both of them to lose sleep just because some babies took all night in coming.
So now, before she went to bed, she'd make sure there was a plate of something in the kitchen, in case he came home hungry, put his pajamas in the chair in the corner, and if it was a cold night, tuck a hot water bottle under the blankets. She was a light sleeper and she'd wake up when he came home. She'd make him tea or Horlicks, check on Angela, and then fall back asleep in a bed that was much warmer now that he was there.
She'd be glad of the warmth tonight, she thought as she quickly disrobed and pulled on her nightdress. She'd just finished doing up the buttons when Patrick suddenly snorted and awoke.
"Oh," he said, a drowsy smile blossoming across his face. "You're home."
"You'll get a sore back sleeping like that."
Patrick's grin turned sheepish and he rubbed his neck. "I was waiting up for you. How are the Teemans?"
She picked up the bottle of hand lotion off her vanity and poured a small amount into her palm. "Clean, now. And better fed than they've ever been in their lives, I'd imagine, thanks to Sister Monica Joan." She tried to laugh, but it came out hollow, clutched around a sob.
"Shelagh -"
She shook her head. "I'm all right, Patrick." She smoothed the lotion between her fingers and thought about Marcy and Jacquetta, how they hadn't even flinched as she and Trixie rubbed ointment into the sores and bruises that mapped their tiny bodies. They'd learned not to cry.
She cleared the tears out of her throat. "How was Coral?"
"They've given her antibiotics to help clear the infections first. They're going to wait a day or two, see if her sores heal on their own before trying skin grafts." He pinched the bridge of his nose, a gesture she recognized as an effort to stave off anger and frustration. She went to soothe him, but was interrupted by Angela's wails down the hall.
Patrick rose. "I'll settle her. You rest. I kept your side warm."
She didn't protest; she sensed he probably needed to cuddle Angela more than she did, after treating Baby Coral. How could someone ignore a child like that? How could their mother just leave them all, dirty and helpless and starved in that flat?
She climbed into bed and tried to read for a while. But her eyes were too tired and the words blurred. In her mind, she still saw their tiny bruised bodies before her. Had she done enough? Was there more she could do?
She took off her glasses and turned over, exhausted and agitated. Anger was no good. Anger didn't change anything.
Only love could do that.
She'd heard Sister Julienne say it many times before, and she knew its truth firsthand. Love had transformed her own life in so many ways.
Even tonight, the little love and care she and Trixie had been able to give the Teeman children had transformed them. They had made them clean and warm, healthier with full stomachs, and smiles on their faces. More love - once they found a permanent home - might do even more.
But there were always others. The patients who could barely scrap together money for food, much less medicines. The poor and the elderly who couldn't make it to a doctor and often slipped through the cracks of paperwork and administration. And always mothers. New ones, who came in nervous and full of questions about childbirth they were too scared to ask. Mothers already caring for several young children who could barely make time for appointments. Mothers who had lost babies before they'd even had a chance to hold them, like Mrs. Wimbush. She'd only been seven months pregnant when she came into the surgery with contractions. She clutched Shelagh's hand so hard during her examination her fingers went numb.
"I can't have her now," she insisted, her voice wavy with tears. "It's too early. I - I have to keep her safe."
Shelagh adjusted the blanket to cover the woman's abdomen. "Doctor will do everything he can." She met Mrs. Wimbush's fear-filled eyes and squeezed her hand. "Wewill do everything we can to make sure you and baby are well."
Why had she'd said we? She'd hadn't delivered a baby or cared for a patient in nearly two years. Most of what she did at the surgery and clinics was paperwork and scheduling appointments, along with the occasional lecture about proper feeding and care for baby. She'd retired from nursing and midwifery.
But sometimes, like tonight, she missed it. She could still recite the steps for preparing a mother for birth in her sleep. She'd known how to help Victor McKenty when he started fitting in the street. And caring for the Teeman children tonight had come to her so easily. It had felt good, to smooth the hurt and harshness away; to help those who really needed it.
She wanted more - to do more. Could she ask for that? Would Patrick understand? They'd struggled so much over the past year, and they'd only just reached a comfortable happiness. Timothy was well, Angela was a thriving five-month old and she felt closer than ever to Patrick.
Would she upend all that by asking for this? She didn't want to lose what they had built, but she didn't know if she could continue to stand by, let her nursing skills atrophy, and leave the help to others. No, she knew she couldn't.
She heard the bedroom door creak open and Patrick's footsteps padding back in. She turned, and he smiled at. He'd brought her a cup of tea.
"There's no need for that," she said, sitting up.
He set the tea cup on the bedside table. "You do it for me. Every time I get called out at night."
And there it was. He cared for her, just as she cared for him. Yes, she could tell him how she felt. They'd always find a way.