Monday mornings are perhaps the single thing that Serena Campbell hates with her entire being. In her entire life, she can't remember a single one that's gone well. Everything bad that has ever happened to her, in her fifty one years of life, has happened on a Monday. That may be a tiny bit of an overstatement, but the vast majority of things seem to go wrong on the first day of the week. Particularly in the early hours, when her system is running on empty. With no coffee and no Shiraz to help her through, Monday's are just a gift that keeps on giving. Every bloody week.
Of course, she hates other things as well. Cheap cooking sherry, pretentious fucks, her cheating ex-husband. Each does, of course, brings about their own form of misery and loathing. Each stirs something within her that doesn't otherwise exist in her usually kind nature. Especially the cheating ex, she reserves a special place inside herself simply to hate him with. But, she finds, nothing quite compares to the hell that is a Monday morning.
She had methods for dealing with the other things she hates. Her skin is thickened against them, her tolerance for them is built thick, trialled and tested. She can just about deal with them, albeit with teeth grinding, internal screaming and muttered swearing (especially where Edward is concerned). Somehow though, despite her experience of them being rather substantial, Monday mornings are just something she has never learned to adapt to.
She thinks, perhaps, it may be the fact that they are always changing. Her methods of dealing with the things she hates just don't quite seem to cut it when it comes to Mondays. Something different tends to go wrong each and every week, so it's just not quite possible to deal with it. Adapting to something is easy when the circumstances stay the same, but that just isn't possible when things change. She just bloody hates Monday mornings. It's something she's come to accept, even if she can't quite say she's at peace with it.
One particular Monday morning, towards the end of November, begins even worse than normal. Jason had decided that coffee was no longer a necessary protocol, and had thrown it all out. Then, already in an awful mood, she'd found that her car had refused to start. Her taxi had taken almost an hour to turn up, meaning that she was already late for work, and then the bloody thing had got stuck in more than a spot of traffic.
Before she'd even arrived at the hospital, she'd herself blue in the face with a well bitten tongue, all in an effort to keep herself from cursing aloud. So, tired and weary, when she'd finally arrived at the hospital (more than two hours after her shift was supposed to have started) all she had wanted was a coffee. Only to find an enormous queue, which she had waited very patiently in, with only the minimal amount of sighing. Yet, when she'd found herself at the till, not only had she forgotten her purse, the coffee machine was broken.
Still, Serena had dealt with the situation with poise, in the most adult way possible. She'd taken a deep breath through her nose, thanked the stuttering barista, and stalked away to wait for the lift. She'd waited amongst muttering members of staff, all of whom seemed to have heard of Crazy Campbell Pudding and Pie. She'd still kept her cool, no matter how hard it had been.
Mercifully, the lift had arrived, and it had been empty. She'd managed a smile, because at least that was in her favour. Without coffee, she simply did not have the energy to tackle the six flights of stairs to the third floor. As the doors had closed, she allowed herself to check her phone, and that was when the morning had really gone to shit.
Because it just happened to be the 21st of November, which meant that Bernie was back today. On the same shift rotation as her, she'd already be in their office. She'd meant to prepare for this, but she hadn't. Not even in the slightest. And now time had caught up with her and she hadn't the foggiest what to do.
She'd be lying to herself if she didn't admit she felt slightly like running. As far as possible, anything to get away from the moment she was about to face. There was always Morocco, or China, or Siberia. Those were all viable options, far away from her problems and the emotions that came with them. The only problem being that Serena wasn't a runner. Not even in the slightest. Heaven knows Bernie was good enough at that for the both of them.
She'd face the music, no matter how hard it was. She'd face this god awful morning in the only way she knew how. As herself. Whether that meant being made a fool of, or being a hard hearted cow only time would tell. She reached the doors of AAU at eight on the dot, two hours late for her shift almost to the second.
Steeling herself, she enters the ward, trying her utmost to act as though nothing is wrong. It seems as though the whole ward goes silent as they realise she's here, holding its breath to see her reaction. She can almost feel the rumour mill getting itself all warmed up, ready to see what 'Crazy Campbell' does next.
She walks past the nurses station, heart hammering in her chest. She can feel Raf and Fletch's eyes follow her, full of concern, all the way to the open door of the office. The whole thing seems somehow slowed down. It's not until her eyes meet Bernie's, so unchanged and yet so full of worry, that the world seems to crash on back to normal. She closes the door of the office, more forcefully than she meant to, and she can only hope that it wasn't heard over the din of the ward.
It's not that she's angry, she just wants to stop any rumours that may spark from now. She can feel Bernie's eyes on her, can picture how worried they are, her lip caught between her teeth. She loathes herself for how badly she wishes it was her teeth instead of Bernie's. Neither of them breaks the silence, and Serena doesn't look at Bernie. The hard hearted approach it would seem then.
If she looks at her, she'll get that prickling feeling in her eyes and that clawing feeling in the back of her throat. The one that means she's about to cry and make a complete and total idiot of herself, yet again. She doesn't want to do that for the woman in front of her, not this time. So she doesn't look at her, doesn't really acknowledge her. She just fills out the backlog of paperwork left from Saturday and diligently ignores the other woman's presence. As much as is humanly able.
Monday mornings really are the most unbearable, ridiculous thing to ever happen to a week. Serena resolves that whoever invented them (the bloody Romans, she finds out , from her Google later) should die a horrible, painful death. Over and over again. She's had to suffer bloody hundreds of the things in her life time. If she has to suffer, so should they.
The silence in the office builds and builds, the temperature seems to drop as it does so. She wishes that Bernie would breach it, say something, anything. But at the same time she doesn't, because she's ignoring that she exists. As far as Serena is concerned, she may as well still be back in the buggering Ukraine. Far away from Holby, not making her Monday morning (already devoid of any form of caffeine) even more difficult to bear.
The other woman's eyes are still on her, despite the frosty atmosphere. Serena knows they haven't left her, not for the whole- she finds her eyes flitting to the clock above the door- twenty two minutes she's actually been on shift. It makes it rather difficult to be an ice queen, when the woman she cares most about is looking at her with such warmth. She's rather surprised that she manages to ignore her, or at least give the appearance of doing so. It makes her rather proud.
She may not be angry any more, but being hurt is another story entirely. And it's not that she's trying to hurt Bernie back, she's not that cruel. She's just trying to... Leave her hanging for a while. After two and a half bloody months of no contact, she can't just expect things to be the same. She was the one who had ran when things got real, she had been the one to doubt. So sue her for giving the other woman a glimpse of what it had been like. Of knowing what you want so desperately, yet being rewarded with radio silence.
The office is so silent, Serena could almost believe the whole hospital was holding its breath. Something shifts, that something is Bernie. She leans forward in her chair, eyes never wavering on Serena. Not that she's looked, but she can picture it in her minds eye. As clearly as she can picture her daughter's face. She knows all of Bernie's mannerisms like the back of her hand.
Bernie breaks the silence by clearing her throat, and Serena will be damned, because she can't seem to help the way her head jerks up. She makes sure to keep her eyes stern, unimpressed, but she's suddenly looking into Bernie's eyes. And she's mad at herself again because all she wants to do is get lost in her eyes. Bernie leans still further forward and if the desks weren't in the way, she'd be crowding Serena's personal space to a more than unprofessional level. It almost seems as though she's about to reach for Serena, but doesn't quite dare.
Serena finds herself in two very different minds. One of them screams at her to reach forward, to make the first move and let Bernie meet her half way. The other half of her, the much more practical half, tells her to stay put, to not open herself up. The last time she had allowed herself to open up, she'd founds herself submerged in feelings she didn't know how to deal with. And the object of said feelings had fled 1500 bloody miles away.
The longer Serena finds herself staring, the more she gets irritated at herself. She's supposed to be cold, detached. As far from the giddy mess she had been two and a half months ago as possible. It's ridiculous, but after less than thirty minutes with Bernie, she almost gives it up. Bernie's mouth keeps opening and shutting, if her ward was less sterile she probably would have caught a fly or two by now.
Finally, she seems to find the magical words she needs to say, because she takes a deep breath and starts. In fact, she makes it as far as "Serena..." Before she trails off. And Serena's heart sinks, because the only grand gesture of apology she gets, after almost three months of absence, is her name. And big, sad eyes that she still very much wants to get lost in.
She's saved before she has to respond by Raf. Dear Lord, she swears she's never been so grateful before in her entire life. She's so grateful that if it weren't for the woman in front of her, she swears she could kiss him. He knocks on the door and pokes his head round, almost sheepishly. She's almost certain he can feel the chill in the air, because he's brisk in his words.
"Serena, you're needed." He's gone before she can respond, which is surprising. She's out of her seat almost before Bernie can blink, and she's out of the door less than a second later. When she returns to the office, a change of clothes and almost three hours later, she finds it empty. There is, however, a still steaming cup of coffee on her desk. And it has a post-it note attached to it, Bernie's scrawling hand writing spread across it.
Unconsciously, she finds herself smiling. It blooms and spreads across her face and she can't quite bring herself to tamp it down. It's such a small gesture but it's something. It's more than her name, wavering and a question. It's more than radio silence. The note reads as 'a peace offering' and Serena is begrudging, because she's decided on being hard hearted. But she accepts it, willingly, because it came from Bernie. And so it was decided with the coffee.
She takes a sip, and is pleasantly surprised to find that it's still piping hot. It's black, no foam, and it's just the way she like it. If asked she would never admit to the way her heart flutters at the thought of Bernie memorising her coffee order. And still remembering it, as though it were important to her, after two and a half months of absence.
As she drinks the coffee she finds the cold front she's tried to put on thawed. Her determination to be cold and distant melts away, and she just doesn't know how to keep it up. There's a knock at the door, tentative in nature, and she wonders who it could possibly be. Morvin, she thinks, because no one else on the ward would be so hesitant.
She tells them to come in, and even she can hear the cheer in her voice. The change shocks her, because it's so startlingly different to how it had been three hours prior. Caffeine, she puts it down to, the effect of Bernie she attempts to ignore. It's not Doctor Digby, as it turns out. It's Bernie, looking down at the ground in a tentative and sheepish fashion. She looks at Serena from under her eyelashes.
The coffee clutched in her hands is an olive branch, a tentative testing of the waters, and Bernie can see that it's been accepted. Serena smiles warmly at her, finding it impossible to resist the warmth she can feel radiating. She hasn't been angry in weeks and she was done being hurt.
Bernie's back and she's here, and she's looking at her with so much warmth she could almost cry. Serena pulls up a chair and pats it, inviting her. Clear acceptance of the olive branch, the start of bridging the gap Ukraine has pushed between them.
Bernie sits, a hesitant and unsure smile on her face. She looks at Serena, really looks at her, and Serena feels warm all over. "Hello." And it feels as though Monday mornings aren't quite so bad after all.