Chapter Text
« Will you wait for me ? …Yes?
- No.”
And Bernie disengaged herself from Serena’s arms, gripped the handle of her suitcase and fled out of the hospital. She walked across the carpark and waited until she was at the other end to call a cab. She gave the driver the name of the hotel where she had booked a room and gulped several times, trying to keep the tears from falling. She didn’t quite succeed, and of course she didn’t have any tissues. When the driver turned around and proffered a pack, she gave him a wobbly smile before burying her face in one. She hated to be seen crying – tears were a luxury Major Berenice Wolfe couldn’t afford. Especially when she contemplated the magnitude of the task that laid before her. The new unit needed two trauma leads – and she had promised she would bring a second one with her. She had told the hospital board there was no need to search elsewhere – Serena Campbell would be a perfect fit. And now, not only was Serena breaking her heart, but she was making her go back on her word…
By the time the cab deposited her at the hotel, she had managed to check her tears and her voice, just a little deeper than usual, held almost no trace of her crying bout. Mortified by her breakdown, she left the driver a generous tip and strode into the hotel lobby. Once in the soulless room she had hoped never to see, exhaustion suddenly came crashing and she sat down heavily on the bed. She shrugged off her coat and finally let her sorrow take over completely, as she buried her head in the not too clean eiderdown and sobbed as if her heart would break.
When she sat up, the sun had gone down and dusk cast a gloomy glow in the room. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and noted wryly that each of her fifty-two years were showing on her ravaged face. Why would Serena want to go with her to god-forsaken Nairobi? Oh sure, Serena had asked her to wait …but it didn’t mean anything – she had lost her long ago. She had already waited five months …five months with little contact, precious few emails. She refused to be jealous of Jason…it was the natural order of things…but Serena had let her hope too much. What if she had had a change of heart? Someone had probably put her up to it – that scheming Fleur, probably – or maybe Donna…And Serena, not wanting to appear like the bad guy, had run after her. But it wasn’t fair – it wasn’t fair! She couldn’t put her life on hold anymore. Each time they said goodbye, her heart tore a little more, and soon she would have no heart left – only tatters. It would be easy for Serena – she would just get on with her life at Holby, watch Guinevere grow…and she would only have her job in Nairobi. Her life would be all work.
“No.” Serena had never thought a single syllable could hurt so much. Why did she listen to Fleur and Donna? She should have known Bernie wouldn’t want her back. During those five months, Bernie had been the one who had kept the relationship going. And Serena knew how hard it was for her lover to be demonstrative, even by email or by texts. All those messages she had given monosyllabic answers to, because she was afraid to tell Bernie the truth. Afraid to tell her that she would never be able to leave. That she needed her family more than she needed her partner. Even to her own ears that sounded cruel and callous, but she didn’t know how to make things better. When Bernie had produced the co-lead contract, it had felt like a prison sentence. She wanted Bernie, but she wanted Bernie in Holby with her.
“No.” She couldn’t believe it – the word had been worse than a slap. If Bernie had hit her, it would have felt better, because she would have been able to get angry. The deep sorrow she’d seen in her partner’s eyes prevented anger – it only tortured her a little more. Because she had no right to ask Bernie to wait for her, and yet she would only half-live without her. She thought about all the times she’d pushed her lover away – how she had slept with Robbie when Bernie had been in Ukraine…how she had behaved toward her after Eleanor’s death…how she had decided to go and travel to Asia instead of staying longer in Nairobi…how she had refused to go back to Kenya during the last five months, letting Bernie believe she would. She had even announced herself once … she had gone as far as buying the tickets …and then Greta hadn’t felt well, and she had been so afraid for the baby that she had cancelled her trip. Bernie had been very forgiving – by email anyway – but she knew it had been another stabbing wound in their relationship.
“No” …well, of course she would say no. What woman in her right mind would have said yes? After an exhausting ten hours-trip, Bernie had been greeted by a grumpy Serena…not even grumpy – on edge – who’d accused her of misdiagnosing Greta, of ambushing her with the contract, of bullying her into going with her to Kenya …And all she had done was to run after her and to plead pathetically for a second chance….in six months or a year. When Bernie had rejected her in the hallway, she had swallowed her feelings and gone back to the ward. She had operated with Xavier Duval on Greta, and she hadn’t said a word more than absolutely necessary during the whole procedure. And now she was holed up in her office, desperately wanting a drink, but unwilling to get out and to see her colleagues. Why did she have to promise Bernie that she would never keep alcohol in her office again? She had, however, stocked a substantial number of chocolate bars and packs of biscuits, and cut her stock almost in half in one go.
When someone knocked at the door, what she really wanted to say was “F**ck off”, but she managed an irritated “What??”. Ric didn’t wait for her to invite him inside and came to sit down at the other desk – the one Serena still thought of as “Bernie’s desk”.
“Ric …I guess if I asked you to go away …
- I wouldn’t listen. You can’t get rid of me like that. Donna told me what happened.
- She should learn to keep her mouth shut, then…”
Ric gave her a stern look: “So …what are you going to do now?
- What do you want me to do? She doesn’t want me! What could be clearer than “no”?
- Serena …remember when you first told me about Bernie?
- Yes …I was very drunk that night …” Serena couldn’t help blushing as she had when she had first admitted that she was attracted to someone who was a work colleague…her age…and not a man.
“You were – but remember what you told me afterwards? About my own love life?”
Serena shook her head.
“You told me that if a person wasn’t worth winning over …if it was easy from the word go …if there were no obstacles …then it wasn’t the right one…
- Oh yes … Golly! I must have been even more drunk than I thought…
- You were drunk too when you told me Bernie was the greatest trauma surgeon in the world, and that her lips tasted like chocolate and honeycomb…”
Another day, Serena would have punched Ric in the shoulder, but she was too sad to react: “So? Your point is?
- Go after her, Serena! Not just down the hall – find her, and get her back!
- How do I do that exactly? She’s switched her phone off, and I don’t know where she’s staying. There must be at least fifty hotels here in Holby!
- Only 22.” At Serena’s raised eyebrows, Ric grinned sheepishly: “I might have gone on a similar quest not so long ago.” He typed a few words on her computer and the list appeared on screen: “Get phoning!”