Chapter Text
By the time they eventually saw each other again at work a few days later, Bernie at least had ordered her thoughts and feelings into some semblance of normality. Emotions had been running high: she had overstepped a mark, but they were both adults, and if Serena was really as horrified by the incident as it appeared, they would both call upon their professionalism to overcome any awkwardness. Failing that, as much as it would pain her to leave the Trauma Unit behind, she had taken enough new postings in her career to know when and how to move on.
She had composed a text to Serena the day after Fletch had been stabbed - the day after she had made such a monumental mistake - but she had not sent it. Every now and then she had opened it, changed a word here or there, and closed it again without sending it. Would Serena want to hear from her? Given that she received no word from her, either of anger, of apology, and certainly not of encouragement, she rather thought that silence was Serena’s weapon of choice.
And it was largely silence that reigned as Bernie slid into the closing lift that morning, only to find Serena already waiting, looking as though she wished the lift would plummet to the basement, taking her with it. Bernie, on the other hand, stood with her hands clasped before her, and looking so calm and collected and gorgeous that Serena felt quite at sea. After an awkward exchange that Serena wished she could bite back, Bernie brought them back onto safer ground as they expressed their mutual relief over Fletch’s progress towards recovery.
Serena couldn’t get out of the lift soon enough, but putting space between herself and Bernie did nothing to remove her from her thoughts. Indeed, Henrik had to repeat himself several times as they discussed the new zero-tolerance to violence campaign, and Serena admitted that her mind wasn’t altogether focussed on implementing new procedures. The truth was rather different, though, and she could no more stop thinking about certain other new procedures now than she had been able to at home.
To her credit, Bernie tried to address the awkwardness between them, but Serena blustered through, brushing it off as a mere dalliance, and nothing new for her. Once Bernie had left to schedule the operation she had consulted her about, Serena leaned against the door of her office and tugged at her hair in mortification. Where on earth had Stepney come from?
Had Bernie known what she was doing, Serena wondered? She sat at her desk and regarded Bernie’s empty chair.
“Did you absolutely have to do that thing just now with your fingers?” she asked aloud. “I mean, as if I haven’t been thinking about those fingers and what you might do with them for the last few days… And so bloody noble as well! You apologising to me! Oh, God, and Stepney - what was I thinking? You must think I’m quite mad.”
She paused for a moment.
“I’m talking to a chair. I am quite mad.”
But she found herself doing the same thing with Fletch as she checked his vitals a little later, voicing her thoughts to his prone, unconscious form rather than to Bernie’s chair, only to find herself quizzing him when he came to, to make sure that he hadn’t heard her melodramatic declaration of “Serena Campbell: Lesbian.”
She finally managed to say actual words, about their actual kiss, to Berenice actual Wolfe a while later, with an awkward - hah! Word of the day, she thought - chat in the corridor, and although she managed to insult Bernie any number of times with her stumbled confessions of wishing herself dead, of being terrified, Bernie had made it so easy for her. As they operated together on the pseudo aneurysm of the splenic artery that had been chasing them all day, Serena even managed to pluck up the courage to ask her for a drink later.
She wished afterwards that she had been a little more specific about her intentions, for when Bernie joined her in their office, it appeared that she had already rehearsed the let down. She was looking utterly lovely in a crisp white shirt, her blonde hair loose and shining in the light of the desk lamps Serena had switched on as mood lighting, but as soon as she opened her mouth, the reconciliation Serena had planned dissolved in a wash of disappointment. Bernie pointed out the very real, but, Serena felt, not insurmountable issues that they would need to overcome, and she found herself drinking, very much against her will, to keeping their partnership confined to theatre.
Determined to make things normal again, or as near normal as they could be, Serena plucked up the courage to offer Bernie a lift home at the end of the day. Equally keen to maintain their friendship, Bernie accepted gladly, and they chatted about the safer parts of their day, mostly about Fletch. Bernie gave the occasional direction - left here, third right - and Serena noted with amusement, “Oh, you must be fairly near me, isn’t that funny? All this time, and we’re practically neighbours! What’s the address?”
But just then, Serena’s phone buzzed into life, and glancing down, Bernie said, “Your daughter, I think - are you expecting a call?” Serena wasn’t, but she popped the bluetooth earpiece in, and took the call. Bernie could only hear Serena’s side of the conversation, and she couldn’t work out if it was urgent or not from her reactions. Glancing in the rear view mirror, Serena pulled over to the kerb.
“Calm down, darling. Tell me where you are now - I’ll come and get you right away.”
Without waiting for Serena to finish the call, Bernie unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the car door. She mouthed at Serena, “Just go - I’ll walk home from here,” and without a glance back, she pushed the car door shut and walked briskly towards home.
Elinor’s so-called emergency turned out to be cashflow related, to Serena’s exasperation and relief, and half an hour later she drew up to her drive and put the car safely in the garage.
***
Fletch’s recovery was not without its moments of drama, and Bernie had taken a tremendous risk in his treatment, but it had paid off, and although it would be a while before he was back on the right side of the curtain, he was very much on the mend. With one thing and another, Bernie and Serena seemed to keep missing each other despite their shared office, and the day Françoise Yeates was admitted was the first time they had spent any significant time together since their toast to mere friendship.
Things had been easier between them, perhaps because they hadn’t been in each other's company as much, and Bernie was glad she had cleared the air, however hard it had been to see that particular glimpse of happiness receding into the distance. While she still felt a little doleful about what might have been, her day was brightened no end by Ric Griffin’s poorly concealed attraction to Mrs Yeates, and she and Serena spent the morning teasing him to his face and gossiping about him behind his back.
“Still, it’s nice to see romance blossoming,” Serena said, as carelessly as she could manage, which was not at all. The hesitation in Bernie’s response - another tiny smile - gave her cause to hope, and she didn’t know whether to be frustrated or grateful when Ric barrelled in to talk about Mrs Yeates and her symptoms.
Serena couldn’t stop herself from teasing him, but by the time they met in Albie’s after work, she relented enough to drop a hint or two about her own love life. She had invited Bernie to join them, and although she wasn’t up to it this evening, she promised, Soon, and the look she gave Serena allowed her to hope that she didn’t just mean for a drink. Serena could keep this new thing between them to herself no longer, and she gave Ric more than a hint, admitting that there was someone: someone who worked on AAU, no less.
“Who’s the lucky man?” he asked, leaning in with eyes glinting at the promise of gossip, and she could see his brain ticking over, riffling through every male colleague on the ward.
Cocking her head to one side and not quite meeting his eyes, she said, “Well, it’s not a man…” and before he quite had time to adjust to the notion, she smiled shyly and said, “It’s Bernie.”
They drank to another roll of the dice, to the future; a l’amour.
***
When she got home, she went straight to the mirror in the hallway and regarded her glowing reflection. She had said it out loud. She had said it three times now, in fact: to an empty chair; to an unconscious man, and now to Ric. She wanted Bernie. There was no doubt in her mind any more, and she was as sure as she could be that it was what Bernie wanted, too. She thought that she might never sleep again, so keyed up and excited was she about what their next meeting would bring, but in the event, she slept better that night than she had done in weeks.
***
Over her morning coffee, Serena came to a decision. She knew rationally that she should wait until things were more certain with Bernie, and that she had promised to do everything concerning the flat by proxy, but once her mind was made up, she didn’t want to wait another minute. Like ripping a plaster off, she thought. Of course, Bernie would not want to move in with her at once, and she would be right to hesitate given their shared history of ups and downs, but that was what was so perfect about her particular set up.
Double checking the calendar to be certain she had calculated correctly, she decided that there was no time like the present to act upon her decision. She drained her cup, made sure she looked presentable, and locking the front door behind her, she went round the corner and walked confidently up the path of the granny annexe.
She rapped smartly on the door, and as she heard the latch click and the handle turn, she spoke up before she could change her mind.
“Look, I know this is totally out of the blue, and I’m very sorry, but I wanted to give you as much notice as possible. I’m afraid it might come as rather a shock, but - Bernie!”
The door was open now, and before her eyes like an absolute vision of everything lovely stood Bernie Wolfe herself.
“What are you doing here?” Serena asked stupidly.
Bernie was as stymied as she was. “Well, I - How did you know where I lived?”
“What? You - you live here? In my mother’s granny annexe? Why on earth didn’t you tell me?” In spite of herself, Serena felt a little stab of resentment that Bernie had hidden this from her, but Bernie shook her head vehemently, her hair swishing about her face.
“Granny annexe? I didn’t know - it was all done through the agency! I didn’t want to have dealings with my landlord after this awful woman said she wanted to be my very bestest friend… oh, goodness.” And suddenly seeing the absurdity of the situation, she laughed as only she could, a great irresistible bark that couldn’t help but pull Serena in to laugh with her.
The tension broken, they laughed until they could hardly breathe, and grasping her hand, Bernie brought her inside the flat, and pulled herself together enough to speak.
“Hang on - if you didn’t know I lived here, why are you here?”
Wiping tears of laughter former eyes, Serena confessed, “Well, I was going to give you notice to quit, but…”
Bernie dropped her hand as though it was burning her, and she took a shocked step back into the room, the back of her knees hitting the sofa.
“No - no - not you, I didn’t know it was you! I was going to ask the tenant to move out so I could offer the flat to you!”
Recovering her equilibrium a little, Bernie shook her head in puzzlement. “Why on earth would you do that?”
“Well, I knew you were renting, and I know you’ve been a bit restless lately after… well, lately, and I wanted to be able to offer you a bit of stability, to keep you near me.”
“Keep me… near you?” Bernie sounded a little like a child whose greatest wish had been granted, but who expected it to be snatched away again.
Serena moved as though to take her hand again, but at the last minute, she twisted her own fingers together in a nervous wringing gesture.
“Look, I know I said I was terrified before… but I’ve thought of nothing else since then. And I couldn’t bear it if we didn’t act because you thought I didn’t feel the way you do - if you still do? Because I know you were doing the noble thing, you know how we look at each other sometimes - don’t tell me you don’t feel it too?”
The September sunlight streamed in through the window, turning Bernie’s hair to spun gold, and she looked utterly angelic. She stood very close to Serena now, and her voice when it came was little more than a whisper.
“Serena, I…”
Serena stepped even closer, both entirely sure and completely uncertain as to what she was about to do.
“It’s just that -”
Her body finished the sentence for her, as she closed the distance between them, her arms coming up around Bernie’s shoulders, a hand finding its way into her hair, and her lips - oh, her lips! - meeting Bernie’s in the kiss they had both needed to share for so long.
There was no shock this time; no doubt, no guilt, and long moments later as they drew apart to take each other in, although Serena’s catch of breath was accompanied by a reflexive “sorry,” Bernie shook her head in a joyful, disbelieving laugh.
“Are you kidding?” she said. “I’ve been wanting to do that for weeks.”
***
Henrik Hanssen was pleased to see Ms Campbell and Ms Wolfe arriving into work together the next morning. Evidently they had discovered that they were closer neighbours than they had realised, and had very sensibly arranged to car share. Serena had gone straight to Pulses while Bernie parked the car, and as they met up again in the cafe, Serena waved a paper bag at her co-lead.
“This is medicinal, and I blame you,” she winked.
Henrik overheard something about an Italian restaurant, an extensive wine list, and smiled a tight Hanssen smile as the two women shook hands in some private joke they shared.
“Ms Wolfe,” he called, interrupting their conversation. “I wonder if I might interest you in a rather unique opportunity. An old colleague of mine is looking for someone to head up a new trauma unit in the Ukraine: the first of its kind. It should be operational by the end of the year.” He handed her a glossy brochure, and she leafed though it.
“It looks incredible,” she said, clearly impressed. Glancing up, she saw Serena’s anxious face, carefully schooled into what she obviously hoped was a neutral expression. She looked back at the brochure, and smiled, handing it back to Hanssen.
“But I’m sorry, Henrik,” she said confidently. “Chicken Kiev’s off.”