Shelagh couldn't sleep. She had lay there for at least an hour and not even flickered a wink. Patrick was called out just after 5pm and it was nearly midnight. Shelagh was wondering, perhaps a little hard, as to where he was. She suddenly heard a noise downstairs. Shelagh knew it was her husband but she was dying to ask where he'd been. He would never normally come home this late without something very serious dragging him out of the house.

After about 10 minutes of listening to quiet shuffling, shelagh decided to go down and get some milk to help her sleep. She walked down the stairs as she normally would. Patrick obviously heard her. She found him sitting at the kitchen table with a small whisky in his hand. He didn't see her.

"You shouldn't drink that if you want to be up early tomorrow." She said leaning against the door post. He looked up to see a sympathetic shelagh with bagged eyes. He smiled slightly. Only slightly.

"It's my day off tomorrow" he simply said. He couldn't take his eyes of her.

"Do you want to talk about it?' she asked turning her head slightly. Now he couldn't talk his eyes of his whisky.

"I suppose so" she sat down. Completely forgetting the real reason she came downstairs in the first place.

"The wick ford baby...we couldn't save her. Mrs Wickford died shortly after giving birth to tuberculosis. Mr Wickford is a complete mess. I could take my mind of the thought that it could have been me in his shoes. Trixie has to take funeral directors round tomorrow morning. I'm just glad she offered I couldn't ever do it." He slid his hand under the table to hold onto Shelagh's. A tear suddenly ran down his face. He held her there tears running down their faces.

"im not going anywhere. I was saved and i promise never to leave you." They left the whisky on the table and went to bed. Shelagh helped him get ready for bed and hadn't slept so well in her whole life. Only to find she was 3 hours late for work the next morning. But that was the last thing on her mind when she had to run for the bathroom.