Author: Regency
Title: Latency
Pairing: Bernie Wolfe/Serena Campbell
Warning: implied canon character death
Summary: AU. Serena never goes on Sabbatical from Holby, but it's still a long road back to where she used to be.
Prompt: Drabble Challenge - Berena - "Why do you only kiss me when I'm sleeping?" [100 x 8]
Author's Notes: Come squee about Berena with me on Tumblr at sententiousandbellicose!
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters, settings, or stories recognizable as being from Holby City. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
Bernie follows her usual routine on arriving home from work. She and Serena have a quiet dinner conferring over the events of their busy day, then spend a couple of hours watching the news and reading side by side in the living room before calling it a night. They don't talk much as they prepare to bed down, communicating mostly through the squeeze of a shoulder or hip as they pass each other in the bathroom or at the armoire where they keep their nightclothes.
Bernie finishes first and gets in bed to wait. She always waits. Sometimes she falls asleep, though only lightly. She never wants to miss this.
Her heartbeat quickens when she feels it, but she doesn't move, keeps her breathing slow. Serena's kiss on her cheek. On the bridge of her nose and the furrow of her brow. Her temple and hairline. The angle of her jaw and then softly on her lips.
The bed shifts as Serena curls up at her side, an arm thrown over her waist and her face tucked into Bernie's neck.
"Why do you only kiss me when I'm sleeping?"
Serena lifts her head to look at Bernie. She isn't startled. She hasn't been startled by Bernie since everything fell apart and Bernie stuck around.
"This way I know you won't run when I kiss you."
"I haven't since…not since before."
Serena rubs their noses together, the gesture intimate but fragile, like it's the only way she knows to convey the affection she displays when she thinks Bernie's asleep.
"I keep waiting for something to change, for the other shoe to drop. It always does."
Serena confessed after a therapy session once that she has trouble trusting her emotional instincts. Sex and friendship are easy, but placing her faith in someone, welcoming them into her heart and life is harder. Now that both heart and life are in shambles, it's harder still. So Bernie works to make it easier. She initiates intimacy to show Serena she wants and loves her, that nothing in that regard has changed. She initiates domesticity to remind Serena that their relationship isn't just sex to distract from stressful days and broken hearts. And on nights when that isn't enough, she waits for Serena to reach out first, to curl around her when the grief keeps her awake. She'll do all that till Serena sees that the worst has been and gone, and they've endured.
"I'm not leaving. I don't care how many bad days you have, or bad nights. You're stuck with me."
Serena closes her eyes. "I don't feel stuck. I feel luckier than I deserve."
"I feel the same."
"Why? What's left for you? What's left of me that you could possibly want?"
"Everything. Serena, I'm not waiting for you to become some other person. I'm not waiting for you to be the same. I get that you will never be the same. I'm going love who you are and whoever you become, regardless. You just have to let me." Bernie has spent months trying to show Serena that, but it's only occurred to her tonight that Serena isn't like her; Serena needs words to make sense of actions, to give them meaning. "I love you."
"Yeah, you're bloody tough for it, too. I don't make it easy."
"Love's not supposed to be easy. We'd go falling into it all the time if it was."
Serena growls, "Don't give me that. It isn't supposed to be this hard."
When she tries to roll out of bed Bernie stops her. She wants to have this out, she wants Serena to talk to her about something other than Elinor for a change.
"So what. Is it less worthwhile for being hard?"
"No!"
"Do you love me less for struggling?"
Serena's eyebrows knit together. "No."
"Do you think less of me for sticking by you?"
Her mouth slants in a frown. "Don't be ridiculous."
"Then, why are you so determined to fight it? If you don't love me anymore, I can take that. But if you're holding back because you think you don't deserve me, then you've got another thing coming." Bernie tugs a reluctant Serena against her. "I'm bloody tough and I love you, and I'll fight as hard as I have to for as long as I have to, to convince you that's going to last. Just love me back. If you still feel it, love me back. Can you do that?"
Serena features pinch in a telltale effort to hold back tears. "Wild dogs couldn't stop me."
Bernie squeezes her around the middle. "What about a wild Wolfe?"
Serena laughs and nods. "Please, just kiss me before I come to my senses and recognize how utterly terrible that was."
Bernie is happy to oblige.