'Is there something I need to know?'
They sat in Serena's office, mugs of tea getting cold. Serena fiddled with her necklace, not meeting the opposing eyes.
'You've met her before.'
'Yes. Around Christmas.'
'Which one?' Bernie hoped it hadn't been the last one.
'The year before last.'
Bernie tried to work it out. That part of the year she had been in Kiev, running away from Holby and Serena. She hadn't been proud of it.
'I met her at a trendy wine bar. We got on well. We kissed.'
'Did she kiss you or…?'
'I kissed her. I didn't think there would be anything more than that.'
Bernie knew about the people that Serena had filled her time with while she had been in Kiev. Robbie the ex-boyfriend who was supposed to have scratched an itch for a night but didn't. Caroline, the blonde in the pub who Serena had kissed with abandon. A brief flirtation with an Australian travel writer, Bill. But not Leah. She'd never mentioned her.
'But then she told me that I was free to go home with her. And I couldn't.'
'Why not?' Bernie didn't really want to know the answer but had to ask anyway. Serena looked at with an expression she couldn't make out.
'Because I was still thinking of you.'
Bernie's breath caught in her throat and her heart beat in double time.
'But I froze you out. We weren't speaking. You were free to be with whoever you wanted.'
'You were my first kiss.'
They knew what that meant, huddled together on the floor all that time ago, Bernie leaning forward to capture her, Serena's first experience of another woman's lips on hers.
'And when she propositioned me, I thought, I don't want to do this. Not right now. I'm not ready yet. And not with her. It was all wrong. I wanted you sitting next to me, you to say that to me. So I got up and left. I never told her about you.'
Bernie finally understood why Serena had been so jumpy all these past weeks. Leah must have thought that Serena had been cheating when she'd met her that night. Only she was wrong. Bernie and Serena had officially been together coming up to 9 months now. That Christmas they'd spent apart since knowing each other had been lonely and miserable. When Bernie had got back, she'd instigated a bi-frost between them to protect herself, to warn Serena that she didn't deserve her love. But Serena had shattered that with a well-aimed kiss in her office that left her head over heels once again. Ever since then, they'd wrapped themselves in a blissful cocoon. Nobody at work knew about their relationship and it suited them just fine. But now it looked like they might just be made public.
Donna was soothing Leah's incoming bruise and telling her what a fool she'd been. Donna had a feeling she'd known what Serena and Bernie were doing in the office but hadn't said a thing. The way they smiled at each other in Pulses was a giveaway. She figured that they'd come out in their own time. Leah was tearfully exclaiming her innocence but Donna was having none of it. She'd noticed the odd interaction between Leah and Serena.
'If you mess with Serena, you mess with Bernie. She'll kick your head in if you get in the way.'
Leah was about to know of it first hand.