Chapter Text
It had been a grueling shift on AAU: patients from a five car pile-up coming in just after 9am, followed by a patient bleeding out during what should have been an easy surgery, and to top it off there was a mountain of paperwork waiting for Serena on her desk. Today just really wasn’t her day.
Still, she counted the small mercies. The coffee (latte, double shot, extra hot) she’d found perched in their office when she arrived; ‘Sorry, had to run - B x’ scribbled onto a piece of paper placed underneath the red cup. A brightly coloured drawing of the ward family pinned to the nurses’ station, as attended to by all of the Fletchlings (though evidently more so by the youngest, as proven by Raf’s pink hair and the fact that the usual blue scrubs had been redesigned to feature dinosaurs).
Serena sat at her desk, lit warmly by the lamp next to her. Time seemed to move at an almost glacial pace at the end of shifts, with five minutes stretching on for what felt like half an hour. And the red phone could still ring at any moment. What she wouldn't do for Bernie to be here too. It’s been sodding 6.45pm for the last ten minutes, Serena thought. Files and reports cluttered both of their desks, coffee cups overflowing from the bin – a perfect metaphor for what kept her tiny corner of the NHS running: admin and caffeine.
As 7pm approached, Serena’s phone pinged into life, hailing a new message. Where is this bloody phone? Serena shifted her papers out of the way, eventually finding her mobile wedged somewhere between AAU’s efficiency statistics and a patient file. Bernie had finished her shift some time earlier, having been lumbered with the morning shift but had texted throughout the day with promises of a better evening for them both.
‘Fancy meeting me at Albie’s when you finish? B x’
Serena considers, albeit briefly, sneaking out early and heading down to the bar before she sees Hanssen outside following Morven around the ward. Henrik Hanssen: the tall Swedish shadow of Holby City Hospital, ‘the powers that be’, her looming and assuming boss. Could I make it, she wonders, before he turns towards the office door.
“Ah, nearly sorted for tomorrow I see.” he says, approaching the doorway.
“Yes, yep… Uhm, nearly there Mr. Hanssen,” she shuffles the pages round, “just some beds to free up then I’m off to decidedly less clinical pastures and a decent bottle of wine. Goodness knows I’ve deserved it after today.”
“Very well. Have a nice evening, Ms. Campbell.”
Definitely wouldn’t make it now. She fired off a quick reply to Bernie, damning whatever stars had aligned particularly not in her favour today.
‘Day was definitely more than shit. Be there in 20 mins x’. Her phone buzzed almost instantly.
‘I’ll have a bottle of Shiraz uncorked and waiting for you then? B x’
‘Berenice Wolfe. Have I ever told you just how much I love you?’
‘Marry me, Serena.’
It had started about a year after Bernie had returned from Kyiv - a private joke of brazenly announcing impromptu proposals around the hospital. Of course, it was common knowledge that Serena had a flair for the dramatic as well as an unrivalled wit, but… well, if the hospital rumour mill was going to run on regardless, they might as well grab the opportunity with both hands.
** to be continued (and I promise the next chapter will be longer) **