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Serena plans the day meticulously, as with everything else she does. She allows for the slight deviations that will no doubt occur with their hectic schedules, allows for the possibility that Bernie will go running for the hills and apply for her next tour early. But she hopes so much that that won't happen, that Bernie will be brave enough.
She is familiar with the restaurant she picks, has been many times before, both by herself and with Bernie. She is confident of the activity she has chosen for them to do afterwards. She has double and triple checked everything and anything, and she is absolutely certain that she has got the right date.
Their five-year anniversary.
~
"Serena!" Bernie shouts from up the stairs, "Have you seen my shirt?"
Ah, this is the utter mess of a woman I love, Serena thinks.
“Is it where you left it?” She shouts back up, standing at the bottom of the stairs with her hands poised on her hips.
“Ha ha, very funny, could you give me a hand?” Serena huffs and rolls her eyes. If she doesn’t go and help Bernie, they’ll most likely be late to their reservation, and therefore be late to their after-dinner-activity. She walks up the stairs with heavier footing than usual, alerting Bernie to her feigned annoyance. When she walks into the bedroom Bernie is standing in the middle of a pile of clothes in her bra and trousers, and Serena suddenly isn’t so annoyed anymore. Bernie’s hair is neatly curled into a twist, and her trousers have been ironed (a rare occurrence). Serena chuckles lightly and walks over, leans down and starts to heap the clothes onto the bed.
“Wai… Wait! I haven’t found it yet!” Bernie says, flailing her arms at the clothes.
“No, you haven’t, I have,” Serena says, throwing the last few shirts onto the bed and going to her side of the wardrobe. “I didn’t want it to get creased after I ironed it.”
“Oh,” Bernie breathes when she sees Serena pull the black top from her wardrobe; neatly hanging on one of Serena’s velvet coat hangers.
“Yes, now hurry or we’ll be late,” Serena says, slipping it off the hanger and holding it out to Bernie. She’s starting to get anxious now, it’s a big thing she’s asking for, and she has no idea how Bernie will react. She goes into the bathroom to touch up her lipstick, and comes back out to Bernie jumping around trying to get her boots on. She stands triumphantly once they are on and holds out her hand to Serena, who takes it and leads her downstairs.
Serena has just slung her bag over her shoulder when Bernie’s pager and her phone go off simultaneously. She had made it explicitly clear to her boss to not page either of them unless it was dire, so she knows whatever’s happened is serious.
“Christ,” she hisses, pulling her phone from her bag and reading the name on the screen. She looks at the message along with it and feels her stomach drop, her plan for the night fall through. Bernie comes back into the hallway holding her pager with a crestfallen look on her face.
“Damn,” she breathes, looking at Serena’s equally devastated expression.
“He says it’s a six-car pile-up involving a lorry,” Serena says, and Bernie nods solemnly before shucking her elegant coat and switching it for her trench. “We’d better go.”
They are only slightly on the wrong side of the speed limit on the way to the hospital, Bernie’s car a quicker option only because she had parked Serena in this morning.
“Berenice!” Serena shrieks from the passenger seat when Bernie speeds down the short amount of motorway they have to drive on to get to work. Bernie laughs from next to her, and Serena realises again how much she really loves the sound, how much she really loves the woman who produces the sound. She calls the restaurant and cancels, apologises profusely and explains that they are on-call surgeons, that sometimes things like this happen.
When they get in, they run straight to the locker room, change into scrubs in record time and run back out to face the chaos the ward has no doubt become. Bernie’s perfectly ironed shirt forgotten, crumpled in her locker.
“I’m so sorry Serena,” their boss says as soon as he sees her and Bernie walk in. “I know it’s a special night for you.” Serena waves off his apology with her hand, sweeps her gaze across the ward. She doesn’t want Joel to say anything that could give Bernie a clue as to what she was planning, doesn’t want him to ruin the perfect surprise.
“What do you need us to do?” Bernie asks, always the professional, despite the fact that her evening with Serena has been cancelled.
He gestures for them to follow him and leads them into theatre. The patient is already prepped and nurses are holding out gowns for them to put on. Bernie furrows her brow at him and he moves over to the patient, lifting up his gown and palpating his abdomen.
“Retroperitoneal haemorrhage, suspected triple-A rupture from trauma, bruising and tenderness to the abdomen, hemodynamically unstable, there’s a blush on the contrast CT and evidence of blood in the peritoneum.” Bernie nods and finishes scrubbing her hands, holds out her arms for the nurse to put on the gown. Serena does the same and they both take a side of the table each.
He comes in to check on them half an hour later, and they are both essentially elbow deep in the man’s abdomen. The artery is still bleeding, and even with Serena’s recent vascular qualifications it’s not looking good. There’s so much blood they can barely see, and there are two nurses desperately trying to suction it all up.
“If we can just clamp the artery for a few seconds,” Serena mumbles through the mask, looks up at Bernie and catches her eye. Bernie’s brow is furrowed and her hands are slipping over the man’s bowel.
“Clamps please,” Bernie asks the nurse, holding out her hand expectedly. The nurse passes over a clamp and Bernie grips it as tightly as she can; the blood covering her gloves making everything slippery.
“Here,” Serena says, lifting some bowel and pointing to the bleeding vessel. Bernie leans further over and fumbles a little with the clamp, the blood obstructing the artery she needs to clamp.
“I don’t think I can,” she says, voice defeated and eyes downcast. “Here, you try.” Serena takes the clamp from Bernie and instructs her to hold the mans’ bowel out of the way. Joel is still watching from the observation room and he presses the button to speak.
“He’s been bleeding for over thirty minutes, you better be quick, should I get a consultant in?” he says, and Serena shakes her head and huffs, she is sure her recent vascular training means she and Bernie can do this themselves, it’s tricky, but they’re good registrars.
“I’ve got it!” Serena exclaims, and the blood slowly starts to be sucked up, as if a tap has been turned off. “3-0 vicryl please.” Bernie allows herself to smile down at Serena for a moment, allows herself to think about how amazing a woman she has the good fortune of being with. She loves Serena so much, and she knows Serena loves her too. The persistent beeping of the monitors fades out and Bernie focuses on the woman in front of her. The patient is stable now, thanks to Serena.
She thinks about the possibility that she and Serena will have their own ward one day, once Bernie’s served her contract with the army, thinks that maybe, one day, they’ll be top of the pecking order, together.
“Marry me, McKinnie.” The words come tumbling out of her mouth before she can stop them. She has been considering asking for quite some length of time, has planned to do it tonight, maybe. She considers herself lucky that Serena wasn’t halfway through a suture. The rest of the room apart from the monitors go silent, the anaesthetist turning round to stare at her with an open mouth. Has Berenice Wolfe just proposed to Serena McKinnie? In my theatre?
“No,” Serena breathes, looking up at Bernie with teary eyes. Bernie’s face falls and Serena thinks for a moment that she might bolt out of theatre, decides she better finish her sentence before Bernie does. “Marry me, Wolfe.” Has Serena McKinnie just proposed to Berenice Wolfe? In my theatre? the anaesthetist thinks again.
Before Bernie has a chance to answer the anaesthetist interrupts. “I’ll page Mr Edwards to close up here.”
Joel closes up while they scrub out, both beaming with smiles as bright as the stars on a clear night. Bernie finishes and leans back on the sink, looking over at Serena drying her hands.
“Yes,” she says, and Serena snaps her head up to look at her, eyes bleary and bottom lip wobbling. “Always, yes.”
As horrible as it is, Serena is almost thankful that their evening out was cancelled, thinks that although she had an elaborate proposal planned for after dinner, nothing could have been more them than this.