"Yes, Jason, I know that things are a bit dire back at Holby, but I need to be here right now. Bernie needs me. Besides, Henrik told me that the new YAU doctor is quite good…"
"She's not you, Auntie Serena. And besides, she works with different patients than you do. Zav is spending all his time with Donna. And it seems like there's no place for me here, without you. I miss listening to you sing to Guinevere, even if you can't sing all that well. Do you have any idea when you're returning home?"
She drew in a deep breath, trying to be as quiet about it as possible, so that Jason wouldn't hear her frustration with the whole situation. A soft hand on her shoulder caused her to look up, and she smiled a little when she saw Bernie there, a glass of water in her hand. "It will probably be another month, at the least. There are still so many things that Bernie needs help with, and I don't want to leave her in a lurch. I'm sorry, Jason, truly I am. But my place right now is by her side."
Bernie tilted her head to one side, giving her a concerned look, and she shook her head as she waited for Jason to respond. "All right, I suppose. One month, and then I will want to see you back at home. You're missing far too many of Guinevere's milestones."
He always did know how to hit her sore spots, even though he didn't mean to, and Serena had to blink back tears as she thought about all that she was missing with her great niece. "I understand, darling. Give Guinevere and Greta my love, and try to spend some time with Cameron. I know that he might be missing his mother as well."
"I shall, Auntie Serena. Give Major Bernie my love, as well."
Serena smiled as she nodded. "I will. And I'll try to talk to you more frequently, all right?"
"All right. Good bye."
They hung up, and Serena buried her face in her hands as she let out a long breath as she tried to not allow frustration to overtake her. She loved her nephew, very much, but there were times when his Asperger's overwhelmed and mystified her, and this was one of them. She had known, deep in her heart, that this change in his routine would upset him, but the desire to be with Bernie and help her had overwhelmed the need to stay by his side.
"How is Jason doing?" Bernie asked gently when Serena had finally looked up, reaching out for her glass of water and taking a small sip. "That bad?"
"Everyone has to make sacrifices for the ones they love, yes?" Bernie nodded. "Then why do I feel so off kilter for telling him that I needed to be here now, rather than in Holby City?"
"Because you love us both, so your heart is split between wanting to be here and there. Eventually, something will shift or give, and you'll make the hard choice once more, and one of us will lose you. And one of us will have to grow accustomed to having a very large hole in our hearts where you should be."
From the sound of Bernie's voice, it seemed like she had already decided that Serena would choose to go back to Holby. Giving the woman a sad smile, she took another sip of water, trying to gather her words and tell Bernie what was weighing so heavily on her. "I didn't realise that my presence made that much of an impression on anyone."
Bernie snorted. "I call bull on that one, Campbell. You know exactly the sort of impression you leave on people. And the people who fall in love with you, in whatever capacity, are the ones left with the ghosts of your being after you've left. So, I guess, there's sacrifice on all our parts."
Serena nodded and sighed as she turned towards her computer screen, trying to keep from crying. If they were home, at Holby, she could have gotten up and hugged Bernie as tightly as she wanted to in that moment. But being here in Nairobi, where the reality of who they were could cause such trouble for them, she felt constrained. Just as the tears trembling on her lashes threatened to roll down her face, though, she was struck by a wad of paper.
Looking up at Bernie, she saw that the woman was giving her a soppy smile, and she pursed her lips together as she nodded a little. "One month, and then you're heading back to England. We'll have to make these last four weeks together count."
"I never said that I'd be going back. These weeks here have taught me that your presence will leave a large hole in my heart when it's gone. But there's no way I can ask you to leave, not after I've been hand's on here, seeing what you do here. So, I guess we're back to where we were in December."
Bernie licked her lips, about to respond, when the door to their office opened. "I'm sorry, doctors, but there's a major incident that's being brought in, and we're going to need both of you."
"That's our cue," Bernie said as she popped to her feet, hurrying after the nurse who had came in. Serena was a little slower to respond, as she felt so bereft in that moment. Shaking her head, she quickly found her focus, and stepped into the fray, losing herself in the frenetic energy of trying to save as many lives possible in a trauma centre that wasn't nearly as sophisticated as what she was accustomed to in Holby.
Hours later, she was stepping out of theatre and washing up, feeling thoroughly exhausted. "Go home, Doctor Campbell, you look dead on your feet. The clinic can survive without you for the last hour of your shift."
She looked over at the lead doctor, giving him a little smile. "Thank you, Jakob."
"I'm just trying to stay on your good side, so that you'll think about staying. We need good doctors like you here."
A small chuckle slipped from her lips as she patted his upper arm. "The bribes would have to be quite a bit larger to entice me to do something that my heart isn't set on. Though I will be here for one more month, at least, so that should give you enough time to think of an appropriately large enticement," she teased, though she could feel that the smile on her lips wasn't quite as warm as she wished it to be.
"We will have to see about that," he joked back, and she nodded, looking over his shoulder to see Bernie disappear into the office. A part of her wanted to go and check in with her, but Serena knew that that would be pressing their luck, so she scurried outside and made her way to the bus stop to wait. Since they had driven in together, there wasn't any other option available to Serena, and she resigned herself to the joys of public transportation.
"Serena! Hold up!"
She turned to watch Bernie jog over to her side. There was something so stirring about watching her run, though the more carnal side of her knew that she was close to ogling her in plain sight. Shaking her head, Serena plastered on what she hoped was a serene smile as Bernie came to a stop next to her. "Don't you still have a few hours to put in?"
"Jakob let me go when he heard that I was your chauffer. Seems that part of his campaign to woo you here permanently is making certain that you don't face an unnecessary inconveniences."
"Well, if he tries any more gestures like this, you might not be able to get rid of me," she retorted as they made their way to Bernie's car. Again, that welcome bark of a laugh filled the air between them, and Serena wondered how she could ever possibly give this up. But she wouldn't jeopardise Bernie's position or her life by being selfish and trying to become a part of Bernie's life once more. It wasn't until they were driving that she turned to look at Bernie, feeling a little safer to speak freely when it was just the two of them. "I want to stay. I love the work. I love what we're doing. I love you. And that is the problem."
"Why would loving me be the problem?"
"Because if we stay here, and I be my usual self, I'll slip up and touch you a little to long, let my gaze linger inappropriately, and then you would suffer as a result. I would rather walk through the halls of Holby General like a zombie, biting people's heads off, and generally acting like I don't believe in love, if it meant that you were safe from my little lapses in judgment."
Bernie slipped one hand off the wheel and reached over to cover Serena's knee with it. "How have we gotten to this point? Where we acknowledge that we love each other, but now we're trying to be all noble and self-sacrificing and giving up our one shot at happiness. One month, and we go home to Holby, together. It will be difficult, and we are going to have so many things to work on, but we have something between us that we haven't been able to move on from, so I think that it's time to stop sacrificing our happiness for what we think we should do. And if we were not out in public, I would leave over and kiss you."
Serena found herself in tears once more, but they were happy ones this time, and she only hoped that this would lead to the joy that they both deserved after everything they had gone through in three short years.