One.
Two.
Three.
Serena counted the heart beats.
One.
Two.
Her own gloved fingers hovered over the tear. Blood, shiny as a ripe plum, pooled from the laceration in the– in the–
One.
Something caught her wrist. Another pair of hands. Yellow. Gloved. Warm like the body on the table.
"Ms Campbell?"
She blinked. The blood kept coming.
"Serena… Do you need me to take over?" The voice came quiet enough for Serena to pretend she hadn't heard, deliberate enough that she knew Bernie would know exactly what she was doing if she did.
Meanwhile, the incision, a gaping hole in her patient's ribcage was deep with blood. Blood. In her ears, on her fingers, throbbing through her chest, everywhere, blood. Like rust and earth and rotting, she tasted it. Thicker than air, it was heavy, a cloud crawling down her throat.
She was suffocating.
"I… ummm…. I'm going to take five… Ms Wolfe, if you could complete, please, it would be most appreciated."
Hands barely free of the weight of metal and latex and red, Serena turned and ran. The on-call room was close but the surgical sinks closer and then her nails were clawing at her own skin under water so hot it burned cold until her entire arm was pink, numb.
From there, she had a heart-beat's grace before she felt the chunks of foul vomit rise up her oesophagus. Knuckles like chalk on the rim of the dark metal trough, she shook as it forced it's way out of her body.
"Fuck," In the mirror, she watched the woman in the mirror form the sound.
She'd always been pale but now, her skin was tissue paper, creased and translucent, clownish next to the garishly vibrant shades of her make-up like a yellowing mannequin painted for the occasion.
Long story short, she looked like a woman who needed a drink.
…
By some divine intervention or another, the rest of her shift went by quickly and, a two-hour long flurry of discharges, meds reviews and a token 'foreign object somewhere it really shouldn't be' patient later, Serena was free to go home.
Upon arrival, the front door had just slammed when she had the customary foghorn of a greeting thrown at her from somewhere on the second floor
"Aunty Serena!"
"Yes," Gripping the strap of her bag, she managed a smile "Hello Jason. How was your day with oh…? What's she called…"
Her nephew appeared at the top of the landing, beaming "It went fine, thanks; she said that she really liked my tie!"
As tempting as it was to make a remark about the 'blooming romance of the century', Serena really wasn't in the mood for another attempt at explaining the logic behind good old fashioned sarcasm "Yes? Well, that sounds… Lovely. Did you go to the butterfly sanctuary again?"
If it were possible, his grin widened "Yes, and she loved it. She said that she'd get married there if ever she wanted to marry someone."
Eyes unblinking and limp smile nowhere to be seen, her whole face slipped. There it was, the feeling she couldn't name. The feeling she'd had watching Eleanor texting boys or trying make-up or throwing college pamphlets in her face.
The feeling of being left behind.
She'd expected it of Eleanor, looked forward to it almost: the peace and the quiet and the freedom.
But Jason was different. Jason who she woke up with a cup of tea every morning before work. Jason who'd never gone more than a month without turning up the ward. Jason who, in a funny way, was always supposed to have been forever.
She swallowed.
Funny how things changed
"Right… Yes, well…" She attempted, in an elaborate race of verbal hurdles – every time she started to get into a run, she found herself tripping over her own tongue, falling back on her arse. In the end, what she managed was "Gosh… She's very… Forward, isn't she?"
It earned her a laugh from Jason, at least "You said that last time as well."
"…Did I?" It was the first Serena had heard of it – but after her day, she didn't have the energy to argue "Well, it's very important that you take things one step at a time in a relationship, that way you each know exactly what the other wants."
"Like you and Bernie?"
For once, the topic of her relationship with a certain consultant was almost welcome.
"Except me and Bernie are friends, Jason."
He nodded and, for a second, one moment of glorious optimism, she thought that he might have actually taken in a word that she'd said.
"That's what they all say, in the films, before they start kissing."
With a gentle but audible sigh, Serena made a mental note to start mentoring his access to her collection of mindless rom-coms before he started planning Holby general's first gay wedding - or his own, for that matter.
…
A Tuesday morning, when all the drunks had gone home, the pensioners hadn't been coaxed out of bed yet and the roads were miraculously accident-free, the beginning of Serena's next shift should've been an easy one – or a slow one, at least.
And perhaps it would've been, if it weren't for the other half of the AAU management jumping at down her throat within seconds of closing the office door.
"Ah, there you are. I was looking for you last night," Bernie diverted her attention from her tablet long enough to take a long hard look at her colleague. Obviously not getting the reaction she'd expected she continued "No one'd seen you for the latter half of your shift – where were you?"
"Treating patients," replied Serena without missing a beat "A novelty around here with all the new paperwork regulations, I know,"
The blonde looked at her like she'd just claimed that Jac Naylor was giving out sweets to the kids on paediatrics.
"Don't try that one with me. I looked for you myself the minute I got out of theatre. Wherever you were, it wasn't the AAU."
"Well I wouldn't have been after you got out of theatre! That was a three-hour operation," Her became high and thin "My shift ended at five, thank you very much!"
Bernie's eyebrows drew together as she studied her like the daily crossword.
"But your shift ended at half nine, you made the rota adjustments yourself. Apparently, and this is your words not mine, there 'wasn't any sense' in working the morning when we already had me and Raf…" She paused for breath "Serena… Is everything al-"
"Peachy," Serena cut her off in a slow, gritty tone that was used to being listened to. Obeyed.
Brave, or perhaps bored of having her head very much attached to it's cervical vertebrae, Bernie didn't think before coming back with her reply.
"Then what happened yesterday? You've been acting odd for weeks and then you go and freeze in the middle of a surgery that we both know you could perform with your eyes closed. I'm not blind, Serena, I know you. I'm worried."
Her eyes were big and expression soft and, had they been in the kind of film that only airs at three in the morning for daft old cat ladies and people in A&E waiting rooms, she might've taken her hand, traced her thumb over her knuckles and brushed the skin with her lips as tenderly as if it'd shatter from anything more.
Then one of them, Serena couldn't remember which, looked away.
The moment passed.
"Then you'll know to stay out of my private life, thank you, Ms Wolfe."
A month ago, that would've been it. Another turn in their cycle from a friendship with the intensity of a love affair back to rivals.
But today, Bernie rose from her chair, clipboard in hand "Your shift ends at six – I'll be waiting in Albie's," She quirked her head to one side, a section of hair slightly lighter than gold cascading down from where it'd been tucked behind her ear "I'm not letting this drop."
Serena wasn't about to give her the last word that easy.
"Care to explain why that requires kidnapping my patient's private observation file?"
"Ward rounds… Via Pulses if you're interested?"
"You must think you're so clever."
The blonde shrugged.
"Well you're still talking to me… Do you want a coffee or not?"
She could almost hear the second that Serena cracked.
"Full fat latte… And a cinnamon swirl if they've got any left?"
"Whatever the lady wants."
She gave out one of those infuriating little winks before slinking out of the doorway, leaving Serena to realise just how closely she had her under her thumb.
And the worst thing was that Bernie bloody knew it.