I'm sorry if this is slightly angsty, my two story threads collide with a slight fizzle, I was going to say a bang but it's not really that dramatic. Also I did some medical research but you should know that I am fully aware that most of this, in medical terms, is terribly inaccurate. Also a chance to say thank you for everyone who has commented/ followed/ favourited etc. much love, I can't believe anyone thinks this is half decent.

I don't own Holby city or the characters.

Serena saw nothing of Bernie for the rest of the day. She caught glimpses of her from across the ward but their paths never crossed and she went home at 6 still not having spoken to the woman since their encounter earlier in the office.

The following morning had been much the same. Bernie was out on the ward or in theatre and Serena was holed up in the office completing her seemingly never ending pile of patient reports from Friday. It was approaching her lunch time and she only had four left. Taking another long swing of her coffee and wishing it was something stronger she took the first one from the pile.

John Mackintosh. Coach driver. Surprisingly lucky, considering his profession. He had two broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. They had taken him into surgery and managed to repair the damage. Done. Signed.
Sarah Brown. Passenger on a coach. 64 years old. Mild brain damage caused by the impact and nothing but cuts and bruises otherwise. Transferred to neuro. Done. Signed.

Georgie O'Neil. 8 years old. Mum was driving a car that got caught up in the crash. A coach swerved and knocked them off the road, the right side, with Georgie in it, was smashed against a barrier. She had serious internal bleeding, two broken ribs, and a fractured pelvis. Her mum had died on the scene and the other passenger, her sister, had been transferred up to Keller with minor injuries. Georgie died in the theatre. They had fought but the internal damage was too great for them to deal with. She was only eight years old and Serena couldn't bear it.

Raf and Bernie had just taken another patient in to theatre, Mr Knowles in bed 7 had finally been discharged and Millie Rawlinson in bed 2 had just thrown up all over Fletch, again. He couldn't hold the fort by himself any longer. The blinds in the office were closed which means only one thing. Serena is still doing her paper work, great. A deep breath and a rather nervous walk later, Fletch knocked on the door.

This office really needed a doorbell. Serena never seemed to here the knocking these days. Fletch knocked again but after no answer for the third time, he walked in. "Ms Campbell I think…" the nurse began but he stopped dead when he saw her. The tears in her eyes made them look almost not real. Like her irises were little fish in fish bowls. Her whole body from the waist up was jolting with each sob as she tried desperately to keep the water in her eyes.

"Serena?"
"Oh… um" The woman tried to fight the tears, trying to take her mind off the reports.
"I'm really sorry but Millie Rawlinson is complaining that she needs to see a doctor, and she just threw up on me again" stated Fletch, indicating to his yellow-tinged scrubs by way of proof.
"Yes, yes of course. I'll be right out"
Fletch exited the office, giving Serena time to compose herself before following him. She did so and in a few minutes Serena had all but forgotten about Georgie as it turned out Millie Rawlinson was rather difficult to diagnose. They were awaiting test results and there was nothing more Serena could do on the ward so she returned to her last two files.

The surgery had been successful, Bernie left the theatre meerly half an hour after starting the operation. She returned to the ward and was immediately called over my Fletch."Have you seen Serena?"
"Well no, I've only just got out of theatre, I…"
"You might want to go speak to her, she looked a bit upset earlier and I thought you might be able to help"
Fletch knew that Bernie was most likely person for Serena to open up to. Since she had been transferred down to AAU, the two had become very close.
"Y-yes sure" stuttered the blonde, her mind racing and she approached the office. Is it me? Is she okay? It's my fault. It was the stupid song, I knew it was a bad idea. She will have seen the way you looked at her, she knows now. The relationship you had is 's no way that she'll feel the same. Bernie had a habit of over thinking things.

Her fingers lingered on the door handle of their shared office before she entered.

Serena sat with a pen in her hand, staring blankly at the patient report in front of her. A cup of coffee lay on her desk, full but no longer steaming.
Unsure how to proceed, Bernie closed the door and moved in to the office, hoping to alert the brunette of her presence. Serena had heard her enter, but couldnt function well enough to move her eyes from the report in front of her. She was unsure how long she had been sat there but she had still not read a single word of the report bar the name. Gordon Chalmers.

Gordon was 64, he had died within minutes of getting into theatre. A passenger on one of the coaches who had been returning from the toilet when the collision happened. His wife and daughter had been sat at the back of the coach so had been discharged from the ED with only cuts and bruises, only to be called back to be told of Gordon's death.

"Serena?" she heard Bernie whisper. It failed to break her from her trance as her eyes slowly started to glaze over.
"Serena?" the blonde repeated, crowching by the desk and placing a hand over Serena's, gently rubbing her thumb across her fingers to soothe her.
"I'm sorry" uttered Serena.
"It's stupid but I..." She faltered, forcing back tears. Bernie stayed silent, knowing any word from her wouldn't help the situation. Her even thinking about opening up to Bernie was a massive thing and she dared not push it.
"RTAs. I know it's stupid but…" Another pause.
"My first job, first case, a lorry swerved into a barrier on the M1. Of course I was only an F1 but I started my rotation on an acute admissions ward so I ended up involved"
She paused and started to fiddle with the necklace laying on her chest.
"There was a pile up of almost 20 cars. We lost almost half of our patients." She took another shaky breath knowing how silly she must sound to the trauma surgeon.
"I cried. I cried for days afterwards. I'd always assumed that it was something you get used to. That it would stop affecting me as I got older."
She looked Bernie in the eyes then.
"Most of the time I'm fine but sometimes it creeps up on you, you know?"
Then she lost it. Tears broke through her invisible barriers and cascaded down her cheeks. Bernie leapt up to catch her in a hug, letting her cry on her shoulder for a few minutes. Serena clung onto Bernie and tried to find comfort in the familiar sent of her.

"I cried" Serena gulped back her sobs, glancing up at the blonde as she talked.
"When I came back from Afghanistan."
"W-what?"
"In the field, it's like you're in a little bubble and all you focus on is saving the patient in front of you at that moment, and if you don't, there's already more waiting for you."
Bernie pulled away to look Serena in the eye. "Then you get back to reality and it all catches up with you at once. And I cried for them, for all the people we lost because I couldn't cry when I was out there, I couldn't feel. I just had to focus."
Serena gave her a tentative smile.
"It's not stupid. No person can ever get used to death. They shouldn't."

"Thank you" Bernie could feel Serena's breath and she whispered in her ear.
"Thank you"