5 February 1957

"That's the last of it!" Patrick declared as he dropped the final box on the floor, trying his best to sound cheerful. The effort was wasted; Timothy just stared up at him, baleful and tired, no trace of a smile on his little face. Not that Patrick could blame his son for his lack of enthusiasm; the new flat was terribly cramped, and the jumbled boxes that contained the sum total of their worldly belongings made navigating the small space all but impossible. Still, though, this was to be their home, and Patrick, at least, was determined to make the best of it.

"It'll be all right, Tim, you'll see," he told the boy, reaching out to ruffle his hair. "Once we've unpacked these boxes, it'll feel more like home."

"This isn't home," Timothy protested at once. "I want to go home, dad. I don't want to live here."

And what could Patrick possibly say to that? How could he explain to his nine year old son the many reasons why he'd decided to come here, to abandon his position at the hospital and go into general practice, to move them across the city to this derelict and crumbling quarter of London Tim had never seen before? How could he possibly tell his son that he had sold their family home because he could not bear to sleep in that place without Marianne beside him any longer? Tim missed his mother something terrible, Patrick knew, but his own feelings were rather harder to articulate, and too heavy a burden for him to place on his child.

"You'll be happy here, I promise. You know, I was born in Poplar," he said, trying to make it sound reasonable, though the words were heavy and bitter in his mouth. Born here, raised here, got the hell out of here as soon as I could. It had been the strangest sort of déjà vu, driving down those old familiar streets, past Nonnatus House, past the haberdasher's, past the shop that had once belonged to his father. Voices seemed to call at him from the dim recesses of his memory; oi, Pat, those old ghosts used to say, bring us the paper and tell Bill I want to talk to him about the horses, there's a good lad. Twenty years since he'd last been here, and nothing had changed. The streets were the same, the expressions of the people walking along the pavement were the same; he was certain that if he dared step inside the pub he'd find old Bill and Peter Winkler and Declan McCready sitting at the bar with a faint pall of smoke hanging over their heads, arguing about the horses. Poplar was a place out of time, as steady and predictable as the rising of the sun, but Patrick himself had been changed so completely in his absence that he found himself wondering, not for the first time, if he was a fool for coming back here. It was an insular community; the people here looked after their own, and Patrick had turned his back on them. Could he really expect them to welcome him with open arms?

"I wasn't," Timothy grumbled.

No, Patrick's son had been born in altogether cleaner neighborhood, safe and warm in the little house Patrick and Marianne had moved into after the war. She'd been a refined sort of woman, his Marianne, and Patrick had doted on her, and given her everything he possibly could. A beautiful house, a well-tended garden, his attention and his affection; these gifts he had lavished upon her, and for a time they had been so happy. For a time, until the cancer struck her. It was the headaches, first, debilitating headaches that sent her to bed in the middle of the day, then the nausea and the shakes. She'd been six months in hospital, slowly slipping away from him, growing paler and thinner by the day, and nothing Patrick had learned, nothing his colleagues at the hospital tried could save her. They'd celebrated Christmas together on the ward, Patrick and Marianne and Timothy, and the next day she'd slipped into a coma, and by New Year's she was gone.

And now it was February, and they were here, Patrick and Timothy, in the little flat above the surgery that was to be their new home. He'd hoped a change of scenery would do them both good, but as he watched his son wander through the maze of boxes he could not help but wonder if the choice had been a selfish one. As if he had turned his son's whole life upside down in his haste to run from his own grief, and in so doing opened a wound that might never be healed.

The glum quiet of the flat was broken, then, by the shrill ringing of the telephone. Reflexively Patrick darted towards the counter to answer it, banging his shin on a box as he went and cursing despite himself. He'd never cursed where Marianne could hear him, but she wasn't there to chide him, any more, and the words fell from his lips unhindered.

"Doctor Turner, yes," he said breathlessly as he scooped up the telephone. "Ah, Sister Julienne. What can I do for you?"

He'd met the Sister a fortnight before, when he'd come to Poplar to sign the necessary paperwork for his takeover of the surgery. Doctor Howard, his predecessor, had insisted on taking him on a sort of walking tour of Poplar - not that Patrick needed it, really, he remembered every street and pub with an almost alarming clarity - and Nonnatus House had been the last stop. As a GP childbirth would form a pillar of his practice; not a day passed, Doctor Howard told him, that there wasn't at least one baby born in Poplar. There had only been two nuns in Nonnatus that day, Sister Julienne and an older lady whose name Patrick did not recall, though one or two of the nurses had come flitting in and out while he had discussed the midwifery and the district nursing rota with Sister Julienne. She was a lovely woman, dignified and graceful, soft spoken in a way that indicated power, rather than weakness. Sister Julienne did not raise her voice because she did not need to; when she spoke, everyone listened.

And Patrick was no different. She was calling, she explained, because Nonnatus House was hosting their weekly mother and baby clinic, and they had a case requiring a doctor's attention. Could he come at once?

He agreed before he'd even processed the question, hanging up the phone and immediately reaching for his coat. He spun on his heel, and found himself face to face with Timothy, and the boy's rather disapproving expression.

"Where are you going?" Timothy demanded, and Patrick just stared at him, aghast.

Their life hadn't been like this, before. He'd kept structured hours at the hospital, and only rarely had to rush off for some emergency. And even then if he did have to leave unexpectedly, Marianne had always been home to watch after Timothy. Now, though, he rather thought that was about to change. A GP was at the beck and call of his patients, particularly in a place like Poplar, and there was no one else to keep an eye on his son. He could hardly leave Tim alone in the flat on their very first day, but likewise he was somewhat reticent to bring his son along; a mother and baby clinic was no place for a nine year old boy who'd just lost his own mother. Still, what choice did he have? The housekeeper he'd hired would not come to call until Thursday, and Timothy would not be starting school until the following week.

"Get your coat, Tim," he said. "I'll explain in the car."

The mother and baby clinic was held at the parish hall, and though Patrick had not grown up as a member of the church he still found the place easily enough. It was too cold for the mothers to leave the prams outside, and the older children were all in school, and so there seemed very little life about the place as he and Timothy walked from the car towards the front door. To the left there was a small garden that was likely full of children in the summertime - though at present it seemed almost hauntingly empty - and as they approached Tim heaved a little sigh, and pointed towards it.

"Can I stay out here?" he asked. There was very little about the garden to recommend it, but it was at least away from the street, and the windows of the parish hall looked out onto it. Parents let their children play outside all over Poplar, Patrick knew, and Tim had a good head on his shoulders. As much as he want to keep his son by his side all times, he supposed now was a good a moment as any to begin to allow the boy a bit of freedom.

"All right," he agreed. "You have your watch?"

Timothy held up his hand to show off the watch he'd received as a Christmas gift less than two months before. Strange, to think that such a short time had passed since last he'd heard Marianne's voice, since Timothy had curled up beside his mother in her hospital bed, and she had smiled at him so softly, her hand drifting through his hair. It was, Patrick thought, his last happy memory.

"Good lad. If I'm not back in half an hour, you come inside and find me, yes?"

Timothy nodded, and so Patrick left him to his own devices, and made his way into the parish hall.

He was greeted by a cacophony of voices; the door opened onto a long corridor, and the din seemed to be coming from a room at the end of the hall. There was nothing nefarious about the noise; it was the sound of women talking, their conversations growing louder and louder as they fought to be heard over their neighbors, gregarious and unbothered on a Tuesday morning. He began to make his way towards that noise, but his progress was impeded at once by a most unexpected encounter.

As he walked along he passed a sort of storage closet on his right, and he had no sooner drawn level with its open door than a woman came tumbling out of it, a pile of boxes and coats and children's nativity costumes coming with her. On instinct Patrick reached out to catch her, his hands finding purchase on her narrow waist - but, to his horror, not before his palms brushed against the curve of a very pert set of breasts - holding her tight against him in an effort to steady her. It happened so quickly; her back came to rest flush against his chest, a startled little "oh!" passing her lips as she settled into his grip, the faint of scent of gardenias washing up towards him as his hands curled just a little tighter than was necessary around her. She looked up over her shoulder at him, and he noticed three things in rapid succession. First, he noticed that she was very small, a head shorter than he and delicately built. Second, he noticed that behind her round glasses there lay quite the most stunningly beautiful pair of eyes he'd ever seen, a brilliant, arresting shade of blue which no word could adequately describe. Third, he realized she was a nun, and he snatched his hands away from her and all but leapt back, apologies dripping from his lips in a moment.

"Oh, Sister, do forgive me," he sputtered. She spun on her heel to face him, but there seemed to be no anger in her. The color was high in her cheeks and those blue eyes were round and confused, but she did not chastise him for having put his hands upon her person, and for that he was very grateful.

"I think I ought to be the one apologizing to you," she told him, her voice a sweet, lilting brogue he had not expected to find in such a place as this. "I lost my footing, and if you hadn't been there, well…"

Yes, Patrick supposed if he hadn't been there the poor little nun would have gone arse over tea kettle right there in the corridor, but still, his touch had been most improper. As he looked at her, a little confused and a little flustered himself by their strange encounter, he could not help but notice that she seemed young, terribly young compared to the two other nuns he'd met on his visit to Nonnatus, compared to the tremulous Sisters who used to visit the hospital, too young, he thought, to be hidden beneath wimple and habit. Get a hold of yourself, man.

"What were you doing in there?"

He'd meant to beg her forgiveness one last time and set off for the clinic, but the wrong words had come tumbling out of his mouth. Strange, but just then he found that a part of him wanted to forget the clinic altogether, forget his return to the streets of his youth and the unpleasantness of his morning and the long lonely eternity stretching out before him and linger instead in this moment when everything felt lighter, somehow. Their circumstances were comical, and she had been kind, and for a moment everything else ceased to matter. There was something rather refreshing about it, speaking to someone who did not know him, did not know his grief, did not know his past, someone he likewise knew so little, someone charming and blushing prettily and yet so completely outside the ordinary troubles of the world.

"I need to fetch down a box of linens, but I couldn't quite reach," she confessed, ducking her head in a enchanting display of humility.

"Show me," he suggested gently, and together they returned to the storage closet.

"Up there," she was standing very close to him as she pointed to the highest shelf, and he could not hide his grin as he realized she was too small to reach that box on her own. Had she tried to climb up, dainty feet scrambling for purchase against the lower shelves, before she'd come tumbling into his path? It was a charming thought, that she might do such a thing despite the dignity of her vestments. Without any prompting from her Patrick reached up and plucked the box down easily.

"There," he said. "Where do you want it?"

She had reached for the box but he kept his grip on it; she really was a dainty little thing, and the box was rather heavy. Patrick had spent his youth hauling boxes for his father's shop, and there was something familiar about it, lifting and carrying and doing as he was bid.

"I'll take it," she told him. "We need them for the clinic."

"In that case, you're in luck," Patrick told her, still smiling. Christ, he felt as if he hadn't smiled for a year, and now he couldn't seem to stop. "I'm needed in the clinic as well. Doctor Turner, at your service." He shifted his grip on the box and freed his hand for her to shake, which she did rather quickly, though her surprise was evident in her face. She had not anticipated meeting the new GP in such a fashion, he was sure, but then he had not thought that he would stumble across a nun this way, either.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Doctor Turner," she answered. "I'm Sister Bernadette. If you'll just follow me, I'll take you to Sister Julienne."

She turned and began to march down the corridor, and he fell into step at once, trailing after her like a well-trained dog. And as he walked along it occurred to him that for the first time in weeks he was beginning to feel as if, somehow, everything was going to be all right.