Author’s Note: According to the International Kettle Scale, where one kettle means Turnadette Canon Series 1-3, and five means “No, there’s no reason for why I’m flushed, why do you ask?”, I would place this at a four, largely because of what I haven’t written.

I’m not tagging this is any way, and the post itself may disappear.

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Shelagh could feel herself slowly wake. She liked a slow wake-up; alarm clocks were dreadful things. Each morning at Nonnatus, there had been a low, slow chime from an old clock on the hall to wake the nuns for Lauds. She remembered how she could count the low chimes each morning, slowly waking by the fifth and final bong.

The sound of bells was long gone, however, replaced by the low rumble of Patrick’s breath. Not quite a snore-fortunately that happened only when he was exhausted-but more than the quiet sussing she expected.

A smile spread slowly across her face as she listened. By the sound of it, Patrick was still deeply asleep.

Content, she inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the scent of fresh cotton sheets, feather pillows, and her husband. She turned to her side and pressed her body along his length ever so slightly. Left on his own, Patrick would not wake soon, but perhaps she could coax him along.

How far she’d come, she thought. Just over a year ago she’d been so reticent. But Patrick had been patient and gentle with her as she learned to relax and helped her to freely enjoy the love between a husband and wife.

In the early days, Shelagh was shy, happy to give her husband her body, and indeed feel the pleasures he showed her. He touched her in ways that coaxed stirrings from her she had never expected. She had followed, naïve and unaware. She hadn’t known that there were things she could do, ways to give Patrick pleasure as well.

That understanding had come slowly, and, if she was honest with herself, might never have come at all if they hadn’t suffered that lonely estrangement. Those painful days when she worried that she had misunderstood so much, that perhaps her dreams were built upon sand. Truth be told, their unhappy time showed them that while they loved each other, they had to learn to trust in each other fully to let that love grow.

Her smiled changed, and took on a knowing look. A year ago Shelagh would have been afraid to reach out for Patrick as he slept, afraid to initiate the contact her body craved.

For she did crave her husband’s touch. In the short minutes she’d been awake, Shelagh wanted her husband.

Gently, she pressed her nose against his back and nuzzled the area between his shoulder blades. He smelled good, a combination of soap from his bath the night before and something particularly Patrick.

Careful not to wake him yet, she very slowly slid her hands under his shirt, barely skimming the smooth plane of his back. She felt her passion for him bloom and stretched her legs to reach down as far along his as she could reach and pressed her hips against him.

His male body felt so very different from hers. His skin was rough where hers was smooth, his limbs longer and heavier than hers. Even the coarse hairs on his forearms and legs thrilled her. They were different as a wheel and cog, but fit just as perfectly together.

Her one hand pressed to his back, she slid the other around to caress his waist, then his abdomen. She loved how his flesh was soft there, just a bit; an unfortunate visual sign, he complained, of his contentment. But she loved that she was the only one that knew of it, another sign of their intimacy, and she glided her fingertips across its surface.

Patrick stirred in his sleep, and she could feel his body start to respond to her touch before his mind did. Should she feel guilty, touching him without his participation? To be fair to him she would delay her ultimate goal until he was fully aware, but she could speed up the wakening process.

Finding a gap between his legs just below his knees, she used her toes to make a space for her foot and was rewarded by a change in his breathing. Soon he would be fully awake. Her hand pressed into his skin, moving up to his heart.

“Patrick?” She whispered as she pressed a kiss to his back. She could feel his lungs fill with air, and after a gentle press to his chest, slid her hands lower.

“Should I stop?” She murmured, certain of her answer.

Still only half awake, Patrick groaned as his body tightened in response.

“Should I stop?” She whispered again, this time letting her hand slip just beneath the waistband of his pyjama bottoms.

“Shelagh,” he responded, his voice husky.

This was theirs, this giving and taking. No one else would know the secrets of their marriage bed, the joy they shared there.

“I’ll assume that means permission granted,” she teased.

Later, when other senses began to reawaken, Shelagh could hear her husband’s heart pound beneath her ear, its gradual return to normal. She could taste the salt on her lips as she pressed them above that heart as it slowed to its normal rhythm.

Patrick’s hand caressed her shoulder, his thumb making slow circles against her soft skin.

“I certainly like you better than my old alarm clock,” he told her.

“Alarm clock?” Shelagh wondered aloud. “Dreadful things.”