ELEVEN
"How is Cora? I heard she's on a course in Edinburgh?"
"She's good, and thankfully she'll be home soon. I never like being apart from her for too long. It reminds me too much of when she was away at war and I didn't know if she was coming home."
Her return to London was met with celebration and change, with Evelyn joining the ranks of the Nonnatus midwives and Hayley becoming an official, fully fledged officer patrolling Poplar, having bought the house next to Cora, it seemed the family had found comfortable rhythm.
"I know you're moving back into Nonnatus so that you can be with Delia, but you know you always have a place here don't you Pats, you and Delia, always." Patsy nodded quickly, wrapping her arms around the doctor.
"I know, and maybe we'll take you up on it, when we want a night away from the Nuns." Cora chuckled,
"Well that room will always be yours, and I'm half tempted to buy the house on the other side for the pair of you, we'll take over the street, a street full of Lesbians doesn't sound all that bad." They laughed and Cora, laughed deeply when she saw Alex wrap her arms around Patsy refusing to let her go.
It was nice, the family they'd found, the family they'd created.
When Patsy realised that Jeanette had Typhoid Cora was her first call, and then the ambulance.
"Nurse Mount?" Patsy didn't even respond before burying herself into Cora's chest.
"Typhoid Cora, like my mother and sister." Cora nodded her arms wrapped around Patsy,
"It's alright darling, I've got you."
Patrick and Patsy took the front of the Typhoid case and Cora was simply a refuge, a refuge from her own memories.
And Delia was actually the one to approach Cora, one evening, "It's just you two seem to understand each other so well."
Cora smiled nodding as she slid a cup of tea across the counter for the Welsh woman. "It helps that we've seen similar things, when I served in the Army I was taken into a POW camp myself, eight months I was there, it's easy to understand someone when you know what to understand. And it's hard to talk about even to those you love, I still struggle to talk about it with Trixie, it's when I hold the Vet meetings. But you are her strength, her heart, her soul, I'm simply a crutch for her to stay standing."
Delia nodded cooing as Alex walked into the Kitchen with Lena handing Cora her granddaughter, "Can you get their milk ready while I change Nat?"
Cora nodded, the ever doting Grandfather, "Did you ever think you'd have all this, the house, the family?"
Cora shook her head with a chuckle, "Truthfully no, there was a point where I didn't make it home and then after coming home I didn't think I'd ever be okay again. But now I have this huge extended family, a wife, a daughter, two granddaughters. And they are my world, they are the reason that I keep going, that's what you are for Patsy."
Delia nodded, smiling as Cora asked her to hold Lena while she got their bottle's ready, "Have you and Pats thought about kids?"
The woman sighed, "The furthest I've thought is dogs, kids seem like an impossibility, especially with our relationship being, well y'know."
Cora nodded in understanding, "I do, but don't give up hope, I mean I never would have thought that babies would ever live in this house and look at where we are."
Trixie lay in bed later that evening smiling as she watched Cora change, "Barbra and Tom are seeing each other."
Cora curiously curled a brow curiously, "Really? Well I suppose in hindsight they do seem perfect for one another."
Trixie nodded with a satisfied hum, "Barbra was worried about how I might react, she and everyone else seemed to think I had a thing for him at one point."
Cora scoffed settling in bed with Trixie, "My wife in love with a Vicar, the scandal."
Trixie rolled her eyes playfully, slapping Cora's shoulder, "Oh hush you, you know you're the only person I'll ever love."
Cora nodded, "I know, and that makes me the luckiest woman alive."
"Oh charmer." Cora nodded,
"I'm glad you say that because I've got something to tell you." Her tone coaxed a frown from the nurse,
"What is it?" Cora reached into her bedside table pulling out some documents handing them to Trixie,
"My fathers been diagnosed with cancer, prostate cancer, so he's started transferring his assets to his kids and by kids I mean just me because for whatever reason I'm his favourite, I think that might be your fault actually, but we now have £7.4 million in the bank. And I've bought the two houses next to ours on the left, for Patsy and Delilah and Evelyn and Daisy once they are refurbished and made habitable, which I'm also paying for."
Trixie was stunned, "You're a Millionaire?"
Cora nodded, "And the CEO of three companies, yes." Trixie nodded again, her mouth agape.
"You're rich." Cora shook her head,
"We're rich, Trixie you're my wife, which means whatever is mine, is yours, for as long as we both shall live."
The next few weeks weren't pleasant as Doctor Turner brought up the issue of babies being born with disfigurement, missing limbs or without essential organs at all.
She needed to find a pattern to the madness, make some sense out of tragedies that made no sense at all.
Bringing her work home wasn't something that Cora liked doing, but sometimes it was necessary.
"Bringing work home with you Doctor King." Cora hummed as Trixie wrapped her arms around her shoulders,
"Unfortunately, but I need to figure out what is going on with these births and why the babies are coming out the war that they are, there has to be something that correlates." Trixie smiled, kissing Cora's cheek.
"Well then, pass me some of the papers, if we do this, we do it together."