Bernie rested her head on her seat, heaving a weary sigh. She had splurged on a first –class ticket, and obviously, she had travelled in much worse conditions, but the Eurostar was not the Orient-Express… She suddenly felt like all the strain of the previous months was bearing on her shoulders. Compared to army life, it should have been a breeze, but her time at Holby had been such an emotional roller coaster ride that she felt drained, and she was still reeling from the last blow, the closure of her unit. Parting from her colleagues, she reflected, had been the worst. She should have been used to it – her whole life had been made of partings. Why was this one so hard ?

Her father had been in the army too, like her grand-father – not medics, but "real" soldiers. Indeed, her father had thought she was opting for a soft choice when she decided to become a doctor. He had died a few years before she got sent to Afghanistan, and she would always regret he'd never known his daughter had seen the reality of war. He would probably have been very derisive about her accident though – would have told her she ought to have known there would be IEDs about – like when she was a kid, and she'd got bullied at school. Two girls had pushed her about, and she had tripped and broken her wrist. Her father had been on ops, and when he'd got home a few days later, his only comment had been: "Well, you should have stood up for yourself. You brought this on yourself." The fact that she had been a slight and shy little girl, and her bullies big hefty older girls had not figured in his equation at all… She sighed again. So many trains, boats, planes, always leaving people behind, never making real friends, never bothering to, really, because every army brat knew not to get too attached. This was before the internet, and kids in those days were not really into letter-writing.

They had moved from army base to army base, Canada, Gibraltar, Scotland, Germany … Her mother was quite gregarious, and made friends easily with other army wives, but Berenice found it difficult to make contact with the other children. She could usually be found her nose in a book, or talking with her mother's friends. Especially after THE day. Bernie shook her head slightly, as if trying not to remember – this was not the time, not after everything that had happened at Holby …But the memory, imprinted in her brain, did not want to be forgotten, and cropped up at the most unwelcome moments. She was back in their kitchen in Rheindahlen, ten years old again, wearing an apron and helping her mother to make a cake. They were laughing together as her mother was showing her how to peel and core an apple – she'd never been able to eat an apple since …One minute her mother was standing, laughing, teasing her with the apple peel, and the next, she was on the floor, clutching her arm, murmuring nonsensical words, then unconscious. Berenice had stood uncomprehendingly for what had felt like ages, but would really have been a minute or two, before running out of the flat and knocking on their neighbour's door. The lady next door had called the medical team, but it was too late – a lightning heart attack, they'd said. No warning signs, no possible resuscitation.

When her father got back from maneuvers, the day after, he found his daughter plunged into a mutism that lasted for several months. She had retreated into a shell which no one had ever been able to break completely. Not even her husband Marcus. Especially not her husband, in fact. She still had days of utter darkness when she felt unable to do anything other than stay curled up in the dark, and Marcus had never been able to understand. Those dark dog days never happened when she was at work or on the field – this was one of the reason why she drove herself so hard – keeping busy kept her from darkness. On those days, Charlotte and Cameron had learnt not to bother her, but Marcus had always tried to get her to "snap out of it" – wrong …Wrong choice, wrong path, wrong life. She'd always felt responsible for her mother's death, and her father had not really disabused her. In fact, she had always thought he blamed her – as if her ten-years-old self should have done more, done better. When her kids had been younger, each time she was sent out, she would pray to be safe – she did not believe in God, not really, but there must be someone, somewhere, who pulled the strings. She did not really care about herself – death was only an occupational hazard after all – but she did not want Charlotte and Cameron to hear of their mother's death. And yet she went, and she endangered her life, day after day, in order to save others.

THAT day would not let go – this was the trouble with train travelling – you were a prisoner in your seat, not in control, just left to yourself with too much time on your hands. Her Ipod, Kindle, and the magazines she had bought from the station were not enough to block the flow of memories. There had been no one to comfort little Berenice then. Her mother's friends had been kind enough, but they had had their own kids to look after, and as she had shied away from human contact, nobody had dared cuddle her. Her father, when he'd come, had patted her awkwardly on the shoulder at the funeral, but there had been no one to break the shell she had erected around her. From this time had come her brisk manner, and her fear of human contact. This might be why she was such a great surgeon – she could detach herself from the person, and see only a broken body to be mended. But it did not make for easy relationships. Anyways, it was better to remain aloof, to be seen as "bossy Major Wolfe" than to reveal her extremely sensitive and fragile nature. Her made-up persona had served her well over the years, and only Alex had begun to crack her disguise.

(to be continued)