NINETEEN
"If the artificial silk is too clingy over pantyhose, and the Crimplene shift makes me look like a librarian- thank you Valerie - then I really only have the ice blue Lurex, and that's still at the dry cleaners." Delia shook her head,
"You can't wear ice blue Lurex to a weeknight supper date, you'll look like you're trying too hard." Valerie hummed,
"Or like you're trying to match her new sports car." Trixie scoffed indignantly,
"Cora's new sports car isn't ice blue, it's a sort of pale Wedgwood with cream accents. I shall have to go out in the morning and buy a whole new outfit." Valerie and Delia shared a short laugh before Delia spoke,
"You know that Cora won't care about what you're wearing, you could wear a potato sack and that woman would still think you're the most gorgeous girl in the world." Valerie nodded pointedly,
"Not to mention I don't think she'd notice the difference, I don't think any of the three King siblings other than Evelyn even know the difference between baby blue and pale blue." Delia let out a small giggle,
"Or how to dress in something other than a suit or uniform."
Murphy's Law, everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Cora was just finishing a house call when she saw one of the little Antoine lads running toward the road with a car coming.
She ran without thinking, pushing the little lad out of the way, taking the brunt of the accident. Whatever happened after the car hit her she didn't know, her head was pounding and vision fading to black.
She didn't remember the initial hit, nor going over the roof, she was slightly thankful in that regard, because it meant she didn't feel the pain as it happened.
Her only concern was however the welfare of the lad, because as long as the boy was okay at least she would have a good excuse, when Trixie would undoubtedly have a go at her.
It was Sister Julienne that broke the news to Evelyn and Trixie, although both had different reactions, Evelyn denial, Trixie depression.
The hospital's verdict was in, her left collar bone was shattered, she had a compound fracture to her humerus and radius on the same arm, 6 broken ribs, and her left patella, fibula and femur required surgery.
And she was still unconscious. With a brain injury that currently had an unknown amount of side effects.
When she did become lucid some days later all she could do was mutter the same numbers over and over again, 5...2...8...5...9,
5...2...8...5...9,
5...2...8...5...9.
Nobody could discern what or why she came to repeat seemingly random numbers, they didn't correlate with a date, or something important, and Trixie knew it wasn't the code to the safe. There was no logical reason that the numbers 5,2,8,5,9 should have any effect on the Doctor.
It wasn't until Hayley noticed Cora's fingers tapping between mumbles, tapping in a way that Hayley remembered with a discernible heartbreak.
Morse code.
... - .- -.-- ....... .-- .. - .... ....... -- . ....... -.- .- - --..-- ....... .--. .-.. . .- ... . ....... ... - .- -.-- ....... .-- .. - .... ....... -- . --..-- ....... .. ....... -.-. .- -. - ....... .-.. --- ... . ....... -.-- --- ..- .-.-.- .......
(Stay with me Kat, please stay with me, I can't lose you.)
It's a marvel that even when injured the brain still manages to function, even so what's better than that is the fact that it can bring to light phenomena that a person doesn't even realise they have or remember.
Hayley knew who Katherine was, or course she did, Cora and Kat had known each other since infancy, and when Cora decided to join the Army, Kat naturally went with her.
It was sad to see the three musketeers down to one with Trixie deciding to remain in Poplar and continue her journey to becoming a midwife.
What was even more heartbreaking was only one of the pair coming home. Kat hadn't been mentioned since, at least not to Hayley's knowledge, and no photos of Kat hung anywhere visible in the house.
So why she was living through it in her mind now was completely beyond Hayley.
But still the numbers? Everyone was perplexed until Hayley dug out an old letter from Cora, and those very same numbers sat at the top.
She looked again, the same numbers.
And again, same number, always occurring between things written in 1953 & '54.
The Camp. The Prisoner of War Camp, those numbers, they were her numbers and Hayley dreaded thinking about what Cora could be living in her own mind, though if those numbers are the only thing she can manage.
Sitting at her bedside Trixie stared blankly at her unmoving expression. She longed to see a smirk tugging at those lips, or a mischievous glint in those perfectly green eyes.
She longed for something, anything more than the redundant rise and fall of her chest, something that was greatly less reassuring.
It had been a week, and it was Sister Monica Joan sitting at her bedside, when she did manage to pry open her eyes and face the world of the living.
"Got any cake Sister?"
"Do you want to talk about what you remember from your time unconscious Dr King?" The Doctor shrugged,
"I don't really remember anything, just a lot of black, and it was cold for a while, but other than that there was nothing." That was a cold blatant lie.
But she was not being thrown in the Linchmere, and she knew that honestly detailing her experience as a child being beaten by catholic nuns, then her experience in the army, South Africa, the Korean War, the POW Camp.
All of that summarised would have had her thrown into the Loony bin and she doubt she would come out.
So lying it was, and she was incredibly convincing at that.
"Ready to go home?" Cora smiled at Trixie nodding, God how she loved her wife.
"Always Nurse Franklin."
"So you heroically saved a little boy's life and got hit by a car." Cora let out a chuckle before wincing,
"Alright Pats no need to take the mick, it was all quite heroic as it happened, not so much now because I am confined to a wheelchair, but that is not the point."