Chapter Text
God only knows (what I’d be without you)
Chapter 1
Serena had been pacing the room for the best part of two hours, in fact ever since Bernie had left. Two hours ago Bernie had squeezed Serena’s hand gently and kissed her knuckles in an attempt to reassure her that she would be fine and that no, she didn’t need Serena to go with her.
“I have to go on my own,” she had said, “I owe him that at the very least.”
She’d pressed a long finger to Serena’s lips when she tried to protest.
“I know you want to be supportive, and you’ve done that by flying back with me. You’ve already helped me so very much,” her breath caught in her throat. “It’s been good to know that you still have my back.”
“Always,” Serena had replied, and she put on a brave smile as the door to their room closed, with Bernie on the other side.
There was no real reason for Serena to stay in the room, she could go for a walk (it wasn’t raining), she could seek out a decent coffee house somewhere near, but she didn’t want to run the risk of seeing someone she knew, however unlikely that might be. More importantly she didn’t want to be distracted from what might be happening only three miles away.
She swallowed past the rather large lump in her throat as her mind ran through a myriad of scenarios of what Bernie may have to face when she arrived at the hospital, given the almost unbelievable sequence of events that had unfolded over the last 24 hours.
It had hit Bernie hard when she had found out from Marcus nearly six months ago, that their son had become some sort of psychopath, accused of causing the deaths of the very people he had sworn to help as a doctor. Marcus had wasted no time after learning that his ex-wife was alive to tell her it was her duty, as a mother, to come back immediately, and had sneered at her protestations that she wasn’t capable of taking on that role right now.
“Come on Bern, you were always the one he ran to when he thought he was in trouble, always the one he looked up to, wanting your approval. That’s why he struggled whenever you left to play the hero with your army buddies, made him think you didn’t stay because he wasn’t good enough.”
Serena had been furious when Bernie told her what he’d said, seen the flare of anxiety and guilt in her eyes, knowing that part of her believed every word. She had managed to persuade her that whatever was happening with Cameron was not her priority right now, because she wasn’t currently capable of taking on her son’s problems as well as dealing with her own trauma. He wasn’t going anywhere and there would still be time to visit him when she was stronger.
For two more months Serena had watched Bernie find a way for her to simply be, when a further call from Marcus had changed everything. He told her that Cameron had been admitted to Holby hospital for a clinical trial to help rectify a heart condition she hadn’t even known about, and this time Bernie wouldn’t put it off any longer, and within half a day they had both flown back to the UK.
The few hours following their arrival in Holby had seemed like something from a farce (only definitely not funny) as message after message had arrived on Bernie’s phone. First telling her Cam was dead, which had devastated her, only to be told an hour later that he wasn’t, but had escaped from under the security guard’s noses. She was shaking and playing with her fidget bracelet as she was telling all of this to Serena when another call came from Hanssen, pleading for her to get to the hospital as soon as she could because he feared for Cameron’s life and others he might still harm.
“How did he become this man I don’t recognise, this..monster? It’s all my fault,” she had muttered. “I was never the mother either of them should have had, never there when they needed me to be. They deserved so much better.”
She had looked at Serena with such anguish that she had pulled Bernie gently down to sit on the edge of the bed next to her for a moment.
“Hey,” she had said softly, though inside she was screaming at the unfairness of it all. After everything that had happened to her, Bernie shouldn’t be facing this as well.
“You weren’t his only parent. Why is it your fault any more than Marcus’s? I seem to remember during your divorce he did his best to prove he was the only proper parent.” Serena held one of Bernie’s hands lightly between her own as she searched for words that might help.
“But honestly? It’s never going to be down to just one thing and there is no one who could have predicted that this would happen.”
Bernie’s jaw clenched and her other hand pulled the bedcover into her fist.
“I could have been more available to them both. At the very least I should have made a bigger effort to talk regularly, to keep in touch.”
Serena shrugged and gently rubbed at the base of Bernie’s spine, this wasn’t the time to raise that old chestnut, and Bernie startled her when she quickly jumped to her feet.
“And if we find him he doesn’t even know…how do I explain that…that I’m not dead.”
Serena let out a long deep breath.
“Just let him know what happened and..and that you needed time, that you’re still recovering. Yes, it will be a shock, but please never forget that what happened to you was not your fault.”
Serena squeezed her hand gently.
“And promise me, if you need me at anytime then let me know, and I’ll be there. In a heartbeat.”
Serena walked over to make herself a mug of tea from the hospitality tray in the room. She didn’t really want it but it helped to be doing something. She couldn’t quite get her head around what had happened to Cam since she had left, even felt a little guilty herself for not realising how much he was struggling. She had known that he had very little faith in himself as a doctor, in spite of his obviously clever brain (when he chose to use it) and she had thought more than once if he could only see that being a good surgeon was enough, more than enough. Surgeons of Bernie’s calibre and mindset were few and far between and that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing in Serena’s opinion. But she was genuinely scared of how Cameron might react to the knowledge that his mother was still alive, provided they found him. After all it had certainly shaken her to the very core.
After Serena resigned from Holby she had decided not to take up Alex’s offer of working in Kenya. It would certainly have been an adventure, and though she and Alex had come to some sort of understanding in the shared pain of losing Bernie, she had felt uneasy about what else Alex had implied in how well they might work together. So she had headed south, not as far as Cornwall but to Dorset, where she had found a small terraced house to rent where she hoped she would have the time and space to consider her future. What she had really wanted to do was to simply give her house in Holby to Jason and Greta, but common sense (and a Harvard business degree) had prevailed. Even if she could afford to do that, the overheads like heating the place, the council tax and the general maintenance of it would be way beyond their combined wages. So, after talking it over with him, she had put it up for sale. Out of the proceeds she was able to put some money aside for Guinevere in a trust fund, as well as gifting a lump sum to Jason giving him the chance of getting onto the property ladder. Most of the contents she either sold or put into storage and she settled into her holiday rental to ponder her choices for the next few years before a proper retirement beckoned. She registered with NHS Doctors Direct so that she could do locum work either in hospitals or GP clinics, and in the spirit of adventure she did something completely different and purchased a very rundown property in Spain. She ultimately intended to rent it out once she had renovated it to the necessary standard, but this had proved trickier than she had thought and was planning to go over there herself to source a team of builders, when that phone-call from the army telling her that Bernie was still alive had turned her life upside down.
She had spent nearly 24 hours trying to make sense of it, had briefly considered that Alex might have set this up to pay her back for being a) Bernie’s ‘one’ and b) refusing to join her in Kenya, but in the cold light of day she knew that was ridiculous.
During that first conversation Serena had been in turn incredulous, scathing and bitter. She had asked for, no demanded, a contact number so she could ring back once she’d had some time to check the caller’s credentials and process it all. The woman she had spoken to, Brigadier Sara Buckingham, had been patient and eminently understanding and had given her not only her own contact details, but also those of the team who were currently treating Bernie at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine in Birmingham. After a sleepless night she returned the call and after grilling the Brigadier for thirty minutes and receiving far too few answers (in her opinion) she finally thought to ask if anyone else had been informed that Bernie was alive, by which she meant, did her family know? The Brigadier had hesitated before answering.
“Not at the moment, no. In spite of her requiring quite urgent medical treatment Major Wolfe was adamant that no one should be told until she had received the surgery she needed. Once she came round from the operation she cross-questioned the doctors involved as to what her recovery rate might be,” Serena could hear the dry humour in the Brigadier’s tone, “and then, and only then she finally agreed that someone could be told. And that person was you Ms Campbell, and you alone. On that point she was quite adamant.”
When she put down the phone she was still in a state of shock because it was true, Bernie was alive. Of course she wouldn’t want to raise anyone’s hope after she had been rescued, only for them to suffer the loss a second time if she died on the operating table. Serena had wept then, thinking of how sorry she had felt for herself when she’d been told of her death, whereas all the time Bernie had been alive, but alone. She remembered writing Bernie an email telling her that she didn’t feel as if she was dead, that she was still out there, somewhere. Which had brought on a fresh flood of tears thinking that she should have done more.
But she quickly pulled herself together, because there was no question in her mind that she would do whatever she could to help Bernie recover. She had gone to Birmingham to meet with the doctors that were treating her, and with Bernie herself, until she had everyone’s agreement that the best course of action now was to let Bernie come home with her. On the day she had driven her back to her small cottage she finally allowed herself to feel hopeful, happy even, for the first time in a very long time.
It had by no means been easy, there had followed a period of time, when Serena had wondered if she had taken on more than she could chew. The woman she had ushered into her home still looked like the Bernie Wolfe she had known, but her months in captivity had taken its toll, and as thorough as Serena’s medical training and ongoing research was, she found herself woefully underprepared as to how to help her through the ongoing mental trauma. Serena understood grief and depression, but had never had to deal with the disassociation that she observed in Bernie. She had talked at length with the psychiatrist who was still treating her, to ascertain how best to support her, yet in the end, what she had learnt when Jason had first come into her life proved to be the most practical . She gradually saw that this version of Bernie couldn’t cope with changes to their routine without plenty of warning, she didn’t like to be touched without a clear indication that it was going to happen and that a hug was only allowed if Bernie initiated it. Sometimes she wondered whether that was all down to her captivity, or whether Bernie didn’t really trust her yet because of the circumstances under which they had parted, and the guilt Serena felt meant that she was too scared to ask.
The thoughts tumbling through her head were interrupted when the phone she was clutching suddenly buzzed into life nearly causing her to drop it. With trembling hands she opened the message from Bernie, to see just 3 little words which she would have been overjoyed to read on any other day and any other time but this.
I love you x
She pressed her hand over her mouth choking back a sob, even as she got to her feet and was searching the room for her shoes and anything else she’d need before heading for the hospital. She knew in her heart that Bernie was about to do something foolish, probably noble and, definitely something dangerous to herself. And by sending those words, which neither of them had dared to say to each other over the last twelve months, it was Bernie’s way of saying thank you, and goodbye.
Again.