Author: Regency
Title: Born of Fire
Pairing: Bernie Wolfe/Serena Campbell
Warnings: Fire, mortal peril
Summary: AU. Bernie comes home from Kiev a night early, just in time to prevent a tragedy. She hopes…
Author's Notes: Come flail with about Berena on Tumblr, at sententiousandbellicose.
Prompt: For delightfullyambiguous on Tumblr who asked for Berena in a fireman's carry.
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.
Love has no middle term; either it destroys, or it saves.
-Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
After arriving back in Holby in the late afternoon, Bernie meets Jason at the pub near home by happenstance. It's fish and chips night. She'd wanted to pick some up for the three of them, ease her return to Serena's good graces, perhaps, by mollifying Jason. A little underhanded maybe, but she loves Jason, it isn't any hardship to make amends to him as well. Her abandonment of her post on AAU had been an abandonment of their relationship, too.
He perks up when he sees her on line at the pub. He's already got his order in his arms, but he lingers on the queue with her while she waits her turn.
"I didn't expect to see you until tomorrow."
"I was just coming to get us all something. I wanted to see you two before I started back at the hospital in the morning."
He nods. "That is probably a good idea. Auntie Serena has been most distressed in your absence." He leans in slightly. "She has pretended not to be, but I can tell."
"Oh? How could you tell?" Bernie does not want to know, but she feels like she ought to know. How can a doctor diagnose a patient without being aware of their symptoms? Can't be done.
Jason counts off on his fingers. "Her wine consumption has increased by approximately 41% since your departure, with the sharpest increases being noted in the past seven days. She shows signs of distress and agitation when you're brought up in conversation at work and will change the subject if I mention you at home. She cries," he says finally, brows beetled together in what Bernie sees is genuine upset. "I don't like that she cries. She think I don't notice because she doesn't do it in front of me, but my mum used to make the same face when she was sad. I don't like that she's sad and I'm not sure what's to be done about it. I thought when she reunited with Robbie she might return to happier spirits, but he was unable to help, either. Maybe, now that you're back, she won't be as sad. You will try to make her happy again, won't you?"
The thing is, Bernie isn't sure she can. "Um."
Jason doesn't wait for her to give a real answer, barreling forth as though he's taken her compliance as read. "I'm staying with Alan tonight. Auntie Serena wanted some time alone and Alan's just bought a documentary on the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire. It's supposed to include the latest academic discoveries and is by all accounts a very exciting perspective on this time in history."
Bernie brushes her fringe away from her eyes and smiles at his undisguised enthusiasm. "That sounds spectacular, Jason. You'll have to tell me about it some other time."
"I'd like that. Only how will I know when a good time is if you leave again without warning?"
Bernie waffles. "Uh, I, uh. I won't be leaving again, Jason. I'm here to stay."
Jason seems to take her at face value. Bernie very much doubts her reception from Serena will be so lenient. If Robbie the Bobby is back on the scene, there may be nothing to come back to.
"Auntie Serena will be glad to hear that. She says she hasn't missed you at all, but she talks about you all the time."
"Does she? What sort of things does shes say?"
Bernie is saved from finding out by reaching the front of the queue. Jason takes that as his moment to depart and Bernie is left only to order for Serena and herself. She thinks about calling before driving over. She doesn't want to impose where her presence isn't wanted, only she's a little afraid to find it isn't wanted. She hasn't spoken to Serena directly since leaving for Kiev and despite the many heartfelt messages Serena sent her over the time apart, she can't help worrying she's worn out her welcome. She'd just gotten around to reading and listening to them at the airport in Ukraine and it hadn't escape her attention how their frequency had dwindled to nought in the last month or so. Serena had, it seemed, given up on Bernie just when Bernie had elected to take up her fight. There really might be nothing here for me. Be that as it may, Bernie will wait for Serena to say it rather than assume. There's been more than enough assuming for their story.
How happy I might be were I only brave enough. Let me be brave now.
Bernie is rehearsing what to say as she turns onto Serena's street. It's unusually the light out for the hour and the usually placid residential street is teeming with pedestrians. In the distance she can see a hand of flames reaching into the air. The night sky is alive with sparks, fire licking at the clouds like destruction given life and spirit.
Bernie's heart inches up her throat as she accelerates down the street. She knows whose house she'll find engulfed before she pulls to a stop. How many nights has she driven down this street, counting the roofs till her sanctuary, till her friend? She knows.
She parks haphazardly, hopefully out of the way of any arriving emergency vehicles, but she isn't half as worried about them as she is about finding Serena. Jason's safe, she knows, but Serena. Where is Serena?
Fire rages through the rear of Serena's perfectly appointed house. Her front garden remains in flawless order, grass neat-cut, glistening from a fresh watering; rose bushes trimmed and in bloom. Her walk is swept. The bins stand beside the house like soldiers on parade. Everything is fine and nothing is.
Bernie roves through the crowd gathering on the street, seeking out a well-known head of hair or even a silhouette she's spent months aching to see.
She grabs one of the neighbors she recognizes to ask if he's spotted Serena and he says he hasn't, not since she brought in the bins on arriving home from work. That was hours ago.
Something inside the house collapses in a dire-sounding crash. A blizzard of embers flutter in the air.
"Christ." This is really happening. Bernie covers her mouth, tries to regain focus. She's good in a crisis. She has to be good now. For Serena, for Jason. She takes a deep breath and, channeling her former self, raises her voice to a shout, "Has anybody seen the owner? Has anybody seen Serena Campbell?"
She gets negative responses all around. Everybody knows who she's talking about. Serena is not a woman whose presence can be missed.
"Has anybody called 999?"
Several head nods all around. Bernie can work with that. Help is coming. She has to rest against a nearby car to catch her breath. She's on the verge on a panic attack the likes of which she hasn't suffered since she started working on AAU. Help is coming. If she keeps repeating that to herself, the anxiety and fear is just held at bay. She isn't inside. She could be someplace else. She goes for walks sometimes, takes strolls around the neighborhood for air. She has to keep talking to herself to repress to frantic, terrified worst case scenarios speeding through her brain.
She's seen what fire does to the human body and smoke alone to the lungs. She knows how long Serena can go without oxygen before she succumbs. Remembers from their kisses how long Serena can go without breathing. Cannot begin to estimate how long she herself could go without Serena.
She looks up and down the street for flashing lights. Hopes for them. Finds none. Swears.
The crackle of burning support beams fills the air as Serena's home rapidly becomes a memory before their very eyes, and Serena becomes...
There is a minute that will feel like seconds when she looks back when Bernie thinks about what might have been. Kissing Serena. Watching their ward expand and grow and progress, their trauma unit improve. There is a moment where the future as it is stretches out before her, and then it stretches out before Bernie without Serena as part of it. It's insupportable.
Don't let me regret this. She thinks it might be worth it, anyway.
Bernie isn't the type to waste time praying when action is called for. People live and die by chance and skill. But as she tosses her bag onto the lawn and jogs up the front steps to Serena's house, Bernie prays. Please don't let me be too late. Please don't let me lose her.
She wishes she had a key to the front door. If she'd stayed maybe they'd have already exchanged keys. Maybe she'd be staying here some nights and only on her own every other few.
She slams a shoulder into the sturdy front door as a window in the front room blows out in an explosion of glass and smoke and burning heat. Oxygen rushes into the void, fueling what must be a truly godawful inferno by now.
Please, please. She isn't sure who she's begging but she'll beg to any deity up to bat. Let me save her.
She rams her aching body into the splintering front door and ducks under the ensuing backdraft, thankful again for her army training for telling her what to expect on entering a burning structure
It's in this moment that Bernie understand why she stridently avoided every message Serena sent her way: because she knows, she is sure that had she read even one she'd have come straight back months ago. Bernie kept away till Serena could be sure of her own heart and until Bernie could trust her own. Because she would follow Serena anywhere, even where she shouldn't.
Bernie shouts for Serena as soon as she clears the entryway, keeping as low to the ground as she can without resorting to a crawl. Fire is sweeping across the ceiling high, rolling up the walls in orange and black waves she can just see past a wispy layer of grey smoke.
"Serena!" she calls again.
The wallpaper begins to the brown and curls away from the walls in strips and tatters, filling the air like fireworks on Bonfire Night. Bernie breaks out into a sweat. Every place her skin is uncovered begins to burn and blistering isn't far off. This fire has been burning for too long.
"Serena! Can you hear me?" She listens for screaming. Serena can shout like nobody else, Bernie would hear her if she were here to be heard. I never begged for my life. But for hers. Just show me where to look. I'll handle the rest.
She ducks into the living room where a racket of hacking coughs signals the presence of another life. Good. Good. Her litany of hoping for the best when the worst is expected continues in the background.
She finds Serena slumped in front of the sofa on the floor, a dazed look on her face and a throw blanket covering her mouth and nose.
"Serena!" Bernie drops to the floor to crawl toward her, the heat at her back a warning she has to heed.
A china cabinet catches flame to their right, shooting shards of superheated porcelain in every direction. Bernie curls up in place and covers her head and neck. The crackling of kindling burning to a char increases. She unbends as soon as the tinkling shattering stops.
"All right," she asks needlessly. They're in Serena's house as it burns down around them. There's nothing all right about this. Serena doesn't respond.
She's curled up in the fetal position behind her overturned coffee table, a large shard of a porcelain dinner plate protruding from her shoulder.
"All right, it's all right." Bernie consoles herself with the fact that despite the welling of blood the wound isn't fatal. Stabilize the intrusion. Elevate the limb. It's Serena's sluggish reaction that convinces her that shock must be her primary area of concern. She wishes she had her pocket torch to check Serena's pupil response, to check her ears for blood.
She rubs soot from Serena's chin. She's worryingly pale. "Can you walk?"
Serena blinks through the smoke in her eyes. Her reaction time is far too slow. She takes Serena's pulse. Quicker than she'd like but understandable given the circumstances."You're here," says Serena at last just when Bernie has begun to fear a closed head wound.
"Serena, we need to go." Bracing her injured shoulder, Bernie makes to tug Serena from the floor only to be met with resistance from her baffled charge. Serena's collection of wine bottles erupts in the kitchen. Bernie flinches downward instinctively. "Let's go, now!"
"Why are you here?"
There's a question for my therapist. "Could we perhaps assess my motives outside the towering inferno?"
Serena cuts her a look that reminds her just who she's talking to. Addled or not, Serena isn't one to brook excess cheek. Leave it to me to fall for a woman who'd pick a fight in a burning building.
"Can you walk?"
Serena's answer is a spate of wheezing coughs accompanied by jerky nodding that does nothing to convince Bernie of Serena's fitness to get out under her own power.
Bernie has no romantic notions about being able to carry Serena out of here like a bride. Her arms are tired and aching from her rather overzealous entrance, her breaths are short-the smoke is beginning to have its way with her lungs. All she wants is to get Serena out.
"Up you get." She lugs Serena to her feet, shushing her when she hisses over the pain in her arm. The house could give at any moment. The groaning of a structure in distress has become a constant refrain above and around them. Escape has become a matter of now or never. "Lean over. I'll carry you."
That's the only warning Bernie gives before she hoists the other woman over her shoulder. She flails a bit to catch Serena's arm, starting to feel the effects of smoke inhalation in earnest now. Her throat feels raw, her chest tight.
"Hold on. Just hold on."
Bernie keeps as low as she can, but it isn't low enough to keep the hungry blaze from lapping at them. She stumbles into a wall being eaten up in the conflagration and the flames leap to her London Fog coat like so many eager children. She yelps, but no louder than Serena does when the fire comes for the leg of her trousers.
"Calm down. Just...stay with me," Bernie pants. She can't risk putting Serena down to put the fire out. It would mean certain death.
Visibility is nil. Bernie is moving about by virtue of memory alone and that is beginning to seem painfully meager in the face of a changed and crumbling landscape. All she sees is fire, all she smells is smoke, and a sooty mishmash of Serena's shampoo.
Her back complains. Her neck aches. Her arms shake–she hasn't exactly done many fireman's carries since Kandahar, but this is no different from any other rescue in that she has someone important to protect. Someone she cares to see alive. This time, somebody she loves more than a brother in arms.
The stairs go up in flames and cave into the basement below, and the house is jolted by the force of the collapse. The floor begins to tilt and roil beneath Bernie's feet, as the main level wrenches back toward the gaping void in the floor. Bernie doesn't look behind her. The door is head. She cannot look back. Serena's latches on to her shoulders, her breath coming faster and unsteady. Bernie doesn't let herself think about how close they are to death, it won't help.
We're almost there. We're almost out.
Serena's grasp it bites into her skin, keeping her focused.
We're almost there. We're almost out.
Serena ducks her head into Bernie neck.
The things I would do for you. What wouldn't I do for you?
With one great lunge, Bernie stumbles out the front door. A blast of scorching air overbalances her and she almost drops Serena where they stand on the front step. Only the shouting of spectators urges Bernie to lurch farther from the conflagration. Serena isn't safe yet, she has to be safe.
The sting of fresh, cool air slapping her in the face bolsters her flagging energy reserves. Serena shudders on her back, begins to shiver in the cold. Serena is safe.
First responders meet her halfway down the drive to peel Serena from her back. She wants to shove them at Serena and some of them go, but too many of them grab at her, drawing her farther from the simmering husk that used to be Serena and Jason's home to where emergency vehicles have gathered like a battalion of armored tanks at war with death. She lets them guide her to a gurney once it's clear they won't be fobbed off with a flick of the wrist. She sits just before her knees melt from under her. The world goes dim for a moment before she wakes to the sirens and flashing lights of yet more emergency vehicles.
Between hypnic jerks and neuro checks she wonders if it's a coincidence or whether Robbie Medcalfe is to blame for all the fanfare.
The medics ply her with oxygen and burn cream. She's stripped out of her coat so they can assess her for worse injuries. She hisses at all the spots her flesh has fused with melted fabric. A medic apologizes absently, continues to treat her. She doesn't mind the lack of niceties, it's only Serena in the opposing ambulance she cares about. She's being thoroughly examined by a number of medics at once. She's got an oxygen mask on and there's a pocket torch being waved before her eyes. She's responding to questions, though Bernie can tell her responses are a bit slow in coming for their liking.
She rolls onto her side to see Serena better. She's saying something that the medics are ignoring, Bernie thinks, and is getting increasingly irate for being ignored. The worst possible patient. Bernie takes several deep breaths of pure O2 to clear her fuzzy head of still more smoggy mucus that's clogging up her airway.
She has to see to Serena for herself. That's the only way she can possibly rest, and her body is in dire need of a lie-down.
Serena catches sight of her between flurrying medics and throws out a hand to summon Bernie to her side.
Bernie is a tattered ribbon wrapped round Serena's finger. She takes off her mask, shakes off her minder and shock blanket, and she goes.
Serena is in the middle of a muffled argument with a long-suffering medical technician when Bernie manages to shuffle up to her trolley. The younger woman only grunts her disagreement with whatever defiant thing Serena has said and retreats to the cab of the ambulance, leaving Serena and Bernie alone.
Serena turns her head toward Bernie very slowly, like it's stuffy or full or mounted on a creaky hinge.
"You're really here." Her normally smokey voice is huskier than usual thanks to the mask and the smoke inhalation. The brightness of that clever mind is gradually seeping back to her eyes. Bernie emits a sigh of relief.
She takes liberty of stroking Serena's hair just to feel her. "I'm really here."
Serena stares at her. Her chin begins to wobble contrary to her defiant demeanor. "Don't do that again."
Bernie doesn't know if she means the leaving or the playing hero. The first is easy, the second…well.
"Hell of an entrance, though, wasn't it?" She cards her fingers through Serena's fringe, alighting a thumb on her brow to feel it furrow. She'll never be able to describe how relieved she is to feel the life still coursing through this woman. How close she came not to having that. She rest her cheek against Serena's temple. Kisses the grey hairs that peek through her top-notch dye job. She loves every one.
Serena's eyes flutter open as she pulls away. "What happened?"
"No idea. Nobody's said anything yet. Were you cooking?"
Serena shakes her head, dislodging Bernie's place of rest. "I was planning to order in. Was too tired and decided to skip dinner." Or make it liquid, Bernie thinks. She'd seen the wine bottle leaking onto the rug, and spied the empties in the bin.
"Serena," Bernie admonishes and Serena hears what she doesn't dare say.
"Don't. You have no idea what it's been like."
"Okay. Okay." She rubs Serena's shoulders. She has little interest in making war with the warrior queen of grudges. Being near her is consolation enough. She has apologies to make, her first will be leaving well enough alone.
Serena stares up at the stars made invisible by the fire that's roared up to meet them. The firefighters are doing their level best to bring the blaze under control lest it spread to other houses on the street. Serena won't look at it. Bernie can scarcely look away. Someone has to bear witness to it, and Bernie will be the one.
Serena clasps her bandaged hand sight unseen, winces at jarring her bound and packed shoulder. Bernie hisses in sympathy. The fragment is still in place pending a trip to Holby. Concern over muscle and nerve damage. Bernie's gut churns. An injury like this could easily become a death kneel to a preeminent surgeon of Serena's ilk. Knowing that, and she must know that, Serena says nothing, only grabs on to Bernie with all her might.
"It's the boiler," she says, sniffling. "It's been banging on for days. I meant to call the maintenance man, but work…"
Bernie brushes a thumb down her cheek. "I'll tell the investigators. Hang in there."
She beckons a passing someone or other in fire protection gear. They doff their cap at the new info and troop off to put a stop to this disaster at the source. It's out in a matter of minutes now that they know what they're up again. Bernie doesn't need to be told the house is a total loss.
As strong a front as Serena puts up at the news, the tears seeping from the corners of her eyes tell a quiet tale of devastation. Serena will be okay, but not tonight.
"You didn't have to do that for me. It's not your job."
"I know I did a shit job of showing it, Serena, but you're more than a job to me. More than friend."
"Do you usually leave your 'more than friends' without a word for months at a go?"
Bernie picks at her sterile wound dressings. "I...messed up. I came tonight to see if I couldn't make things right between us before I showed up on AAU in the morning. I wanted to explain myself."
"I'm all ears."
"I don't have a good explanation for my behavior. I'm just...avoidant by nature. When I get scared, I run, and you terrified me."
"Right." Serena blinks rapidly, huffs into her mask and sniffles. Bernie catches a tear before it can seep into the ruffled hair at her temple, brushes it away.
"That wasn't good enough, I know. You deserved better. Our friendship means so much to me, you mean so much to me, and I was frightened that what I felt for you might ruin it, and then I'd have nothing."
"You weren't even a very good friend to me while you were away. You have no idea how it was."
"I want to know everything you went through. I...you can tell me anything."
"Not without you running for the hills."
"That was rubbish. I was. I was a coward. But I came back because I didn't want to be coward anymore. I wanted you. I want you." She chews her lip.
"The Wonder Woman performance was rather telling." Serena shoots her a teasing sidelong glance, her severity easing. "Or do you run into burning buildings for all your colleagues?"
"Not since I left the army. Not a lot of call for death-defying heroics in civilian life."
"Better not be. I want you around for a long time, Bernie. Next time you might not get so lucky." As if Serena isn't the one whose life could have been lost for want of a soldier. Bernie kisses forehead, her cheeks, her jawline because she can't reach her lips, and Serena sighs, steaming up her mask. She's pale and besotted and alive. She still loves me.
"Then you'd better make sure your boiler is in good nick for here on. I'm not sure my back can't take any more fireman's carries after tonight."
Serena regards her worriedly. "You shouldn't have done that, you know."
She shrugs but Bernie knows there was never another choice. From the moment she turned onto this street, she was going to go into that house. Nothing and no one could have waylaid her from her chosen course once she knew Serena was in danger. She could no more have left one of her children inside than left Serena; that's how she knows what she feels will last. Her love for those two imperfect scraps of humanity is the realest love she knows, and Serena is the first other human being to compare.
She props herself awkwardly at Serena's side to look her in the eye. "I had to. I haven't prayed that hard since Charlotte came out premature at 30 weeks. I remember being so scared. I never even expected to be much of a mother, but when I saw her and Cameron, nothing else mattered. I could never hate myself enough not to love them." Or you, she doesn't add, hope Serena understands till she can say it. She's used up all her valor for one day. Sleep would be nice, I'll be stronger after.
Serena pulls her hand to her chest where Bernie can feel her heart pumping, powerful as a steam engine. "I hope you hate yourself slightly less now."
Bernie laughs without an ounce of humor, coughs she only knew. Serena clutches the tattered folds of her shirt to keep her upright when her legs start to give again. Bernie blinks to clear the darkness seeping in at the edges of her vision. She strains to recall a time when she has ever felt this wrung out. Afghanistan comes to mind, the hours after rousing in the back of a transport vehicle with only a snapshot memory of watching at Alex laugh and then being catapulted in midair. She still feels like she's falling.
"I spent years waiting to lose her and she came out all right. You'll have to give me a few years to get over this."
"Lucky for you, I've got a few to spare."
We came so close...Bernie puts its out of her mind. She has to or she'll never let Serena out of her sight again. Not that she ever intends to do that anyway.
"Good. That's all I wanted." Bernie loosens her grip on Serena's hand to move away. "I'm going to let you rest." She's beginning to feel lightheaded, distant and disassociated. Her body no longer quite feels like her own. The shock of the night's events are catching up to her, rushing over her and pulling her under. She needs to set herself down somewhere before she passes out. Hold it together, just a little longer. She needs to see Serena to Holby, then get herself home. She can fall apart when she's alone. You can do this. Hold on.
Serena takes off her oxygen mask and presses herself upright, face pinched in pain. "You're on the verge of collapse. Here." She affixes the mask to Bernie's face before she can form a proper rebuttal, bullies her onto the trolley to sit beside her. "Shh, breathe, Bernie. Just breathe."
" 'M fine," she slurs. She isn't, at all. She's exhausted and drained, fairly trembling under the weight of this night. She's running on fumes. For the past three months they're all that have sustained her.
Serena doesn't spare as much as a raised eyebrow for Bernie's feeble refusal. "Very convincing. Stand down, soldier. You're home." She guides Bernie to set her head down on her good shoulder and grabs her wrist to count her pulse. "It's my watch now. You can rest."
Despite the firefighters and the coppers and Serena's gentle, chastising chatter in her ear, Bernie finally does. She hasn't rested this peacefully in forever.