Over time things between the women had obviously changed but it wasn't a sudden thing. It was almost like they had slid into a very close friendship unintentionally but as a natural progression. As they weren't a very big team they spent a lot of their time together. The whole team had all their quarters together, ate together, bunked down in the same part of the camp. Bernie found herself naturally spending more and more time with Alex. They spent virtually every shift working together so they naturally found debriefing and relaxing with each other at the end of the day easier too. Alex was funny, intelligent, fiercely competitive yet loyal and caring. They had just got closer and closer without really realising. Bernie now considered Alex one of, if not her only best friend, sharing more in depth things with each other, fears, weaknesses, stories from their pasts or their lives at home. Things she never shared with anyone before, not even Marcus. She felt as though she could tell Alex anything and she knew Alex felt the same of her.

"I need to talk to you," Alex said in a fairly serious tone one afternoon as she entered the medical centre and approached Bernie.

"Is everything okay?" Bernie asked with concern at Alex's tone of voice.

Alex didn't reply, which worried Bernie even more.

"I'm in the office, but don't wish to be disturbed for a while," Bernie said to her colleagues, getting up from the desk in the ward she was sat at to follow Alex.

"Are you okay?" Bernie asked with genuine concern once she had closed the office door. Her and Alex had become best friends since they had been at the camp and her current behaviour wasn't like the Alex Bernie knew, so she was really worried.

"I don't know," Alex said honestly. She sat down on one of the plastic chairs in the office, playing with her fingers trying to avoid the inevitable conversation. The only plus side of all this was she really trusted Bernie, as a friend and as a colleague. So as she was having to have this conversation, she was glad it was with her.

She looked terrified Bernie noticed. And as she went to touch Alex's hands she flinched away, clearly scared.

"Hey, hey, it's me. You're safe now. No one can hurt you," she reassured in a calm tone. Bernie then realised there were tears streaming down Alex's face.

"Hey, I'm here. You're safe, I promise. You're safe, it's okay, everything will be okay," Bernie continued to reassure her placing her hands over her friends. Suddenly her friend leap up and wrapped herself round her in a tight grip. She was now sobbing into Bernie's shoulder and physically shaking out of fear as they stood in the middle of the office. Bernie held onto her friend tightly, gently rubbing her back and whispering reassurance in her ear in an attempt to calm her down.

"Are you hurt, unwell? Has something happened?" Bernie quizzed her.

Alex nodded. Bernie's heart felt like it had just skipped a beat. What an earth could have happened to her friend for her to be this scared

"Alex you're beginning to scare me. What's going on?" Bernie could feel her heart beating harder in her chest in fear. "Please talk to me."

"I'm scared Bernie, scared of what they'll do next," Alex said as a tears still running down her cheek. Bernie pulled up another chair in the office and sat directly in front of Alex, putting her hands over the top of her friends in reassurance.

"Tell me, tell me everything and we'll sort it out. No one has the right to make my amazing, strong, best friend feel scared," Bernie said.

"So you know when I came back for a 2nd tour, there were some new soldiers, fresh recruits, who had never been out here before. I don't think they had ever met a female soldier either if I'm honest," Alex began. "Well they started off just being immature lads, the odd comment here and there which was a little lurid or inappropriate. I just ignored them. Assumed they'd man up and forget about it. But they haven't. In fact the comments have got worse and more inappropriate, and this afternoon they tried to pin me down to a bed. I'm scared they were going to rape me Bernie"

Bernie sat there in complete horror. Had her friend and colleague just been sexually harassed and more than that, sexually assaulted by fellow serving soldiers? She was angry that someone felt it appropriate to treat fellow human beings like that, let alone her friend and colleague. And someone of a higher rank! How dare they!? Bernie was seething.

"Will you let me look at you?" Bernie said gently to Alex hiding her anger well, "I want to make sure you're physically okay."

Alex wouldn't let go of Bernie, but she did let her examine her.

"I have to ask Alex, they didn't…..nothing more happened did it?" Bernie was bracing herself for the answer. Though she was praying for it to be no, she knew there was the possibility and she had to deal with that if it arose.

Thankfully Alex shook her head. Bernie sat on the treatment bed beside Alex, Alex still gripping her hand. This was going to be a hard conversation. But she needed to be there for her friend, and needed to know as her boss.

"What happened Alex?"

There was a silent pause for quite sometime after Bernie asked the question. Alex wasn't avoiding answering, she was just building up the courage to tell her.

"I'm a strong, independent, soldier, I can defend myself, how did I let this happen?" Alex said sadly after a while. Clearly beating herself up for not protecting herself better. It broke Bernie's heart to see her friend like this.

"Look at me," Bernie ordered. "Alex, look at me! Captain Dawson!" That's when Alex finally looked up at her friend. "None of this is your fault. You are the strongest, most fearless and courageous person I know. If there was anything you could have done to protect yourself I know you would have. The people at fault are the people who did that to you." Alex smiled at her friends kind words.

"I need to know what they did?" Bernie asked, not really want to know what they'd done or wanting to make Alex relive it. But if anything was going to be done she had to know.

"2 soldiers, Privates I think, they'd decided as I wasn't playing up to their sexual comments that they would show me 'what it's like to be with a real man' I think were there words."

Bernie shuddered at the thought of it. How dare they.

"And I know you wouldn't but you can't think of anything you might have done to 'set them off' or 'encouraged' them?" Bernie had to ask.

"I'm gay Bernie," Alex said in the quietest of voices, "I wouldn't do anything to provoke them". And suddenly the words the soldiers had spoken made sense. Maybe they had worked out her sexuality, making Bernie even more angry. They hadn't just sexually assaulted her best friend but it was potentially motivated by homophobia.

If Bernie was surprised or shocked at Alex's revelation, she didn't show it. But actually Bernie wasn't really. Granted it was the first serving person she had met who was gay since the rules changed but to Bernie it changed nothing. Alex was still just Alex, amazing friend and brilliant anaesthetist. And she certainly didn't deserve to be treated like this whoever or whatever she was.

Bernie pulled Alex into a full, tight hug and for the first time she felt her friend relax. Alex felt the arms of her friend round her and she finally felt safe felt safe, protected. She was worried that Bernie would be horrified or angry about her sexuality as homosexuality wasn't allowed in serving soldiers when Bernie joined, but she just brushed it off like someone saying they wore glasses. And for that Alex was eternally grateful.

"Well they are going to feel the full force of Major Wolfe, that is for sure. I hope they realise what they have done because there is no way anyone especially a serving soldier gets away with doing this to anyone but especially not my best friend!" Bernie said with a clear element of anger in her voice.

"Are you really going to go all Army major on them?" Alex clarified.

"Dam right I am," Bernie agreed.

Alex chuckled and pulled her friend in for another reassuring hug. "Thank you," she said gratefully.

"Well what are friends for?" Bernie asked rhetorically and smiled.