Chapter 4
Sitting at the nurses' station, Serena smiles as Bernie rushes by.
There's a definite glow about the blonde recently. Must be to do with having found her niche, she decides, with the trauma unit finally up and running.
She still receives a shy look every now and then, usually when she's been caught staring, but they've only grown more comfortable with each other over recent months.
It's nice to have reclaimed a social life, too, to have someone to socialize with, and she relishes their time together. Enjoys it any time they share a meal, or a laugh, or even a quick break up on the roof, though she tries not to dwell on the not-so-shy looks they share over a bottle of wine. It's absolutely not what she thinks it is. Doesn't see how it could be.
"Excuse me," a voice interrupts, and she has to drag her eyes away from long legs in navy scrubs.
A nervous young man, obviously a patient, looms over her.
"You work closely with Major Wolfe?" he asks, cautious eyes roaming the ward.
"Sometimes…" she hedges with a frown.
"You haven't seen anything odd, have you? Seen her acting strangely, or – or -"
Her frown deepens. "Sorry?"
"The gold in her eyes, the – the light, do you see it -"
"Come on you," Fletch says as he appears at the man's side. He grabs the IV stand and firmly ushers the patient away. "Back into bed please, Mr. Fielding, before you do yourself some damage."
"Something's going on here and she's hiding it," she hears him shout as Lou helps Fletch put him back into bed.
When Fletch returns, she juts her chin toward the man who now looks to be writing something in a notebook. "What's the story there?"
"Not sure," he says, sounding a bit perplexed. "A&E sent him in with minor cuts and bruises, no head trauma, but I think he might need a psych consult." He plops down in the chair beside her and leans in. "What did he want with you anyway?"
"He was asking some rather odd questions. Seems to have a bit of a Bernie obsession going on."
"What's going on?" Bernie says, startling them both from behind.
Fletch jerks his head toward the occupied bed across the ward, "Your fan club president over there,"
"He seems very concerned about you," Serena says, watching with interest as Bernie busies herself with a stack of files. She seems a little… something Serena can't put her finger on. Wired maybe. Nervous.
As all three look up to regard the patient, they find him staring straight back at Bernie. Only a second passes before he's scribbling wildly in his notebook again.
Bernie sucks in a sharp breath. "Just a conspiracy theorist, I suspect."
Serena frowns hard again, confused. "You've spoken to him?"
"Um, briefly, when he was first brought in -"
"And?"
"He – um – he was asking about my background so I just mentioned the army, tried to put him a bit more at ease."
"Should we be worried?" Serena asks, though if she's honest she's already quite concerned.
"He's delusional, paranoid, agitated," Fletch explains. "Maybe a psych consult would -"
But Bernie cuts him off.
"He's harmless enough." She flashes a smirk at Serena, eyes wide with humor. "Just has a very vivid imagination."
"Well, keep a close eye," Serena warns, still suspicious. What was it he said, something about gold?
"Will do," Bernie says lightly as she walks away.
But Serena isn't convinced by her nonchalance. Something's wrong here, she thinks. Call it intuition.
"Erm… Ms. Campbell?" Fletch calls and she spins around immediately because she knows that tone.
"What is it, Nurse Fletcher?" she asks with a sigh. But the man looks pale, and she follows his finger as he points down at Mr. Fielding's empty bed.
The screwed up blanket is littered with pieces of paper that look to be pages torn from a notebook. "I really think we need psych down here," he grinds out and her eyes go wide at the display.
There are drawings on every page. A crazed mess of tangled lines scrawled in black and red biro. All of them terrifyingly clear in illustrating their subject.
With her heart hammering, Serena bends to pick up several pieces for closer inspection.
She sees Bernie with her eyes scratched out, the word LIAR for a mouth. Bernie with big black wings, tattered and torn and covering her in darkness. Bernie with red pouring out of her, so much red everywhere…
"Good god!" she gasps, tears forming.
"He's been shouting crazy stuff all day, but this -" He lets out a puff of air, rubs a hand across the back of his neck.
"Where is he?" she asks, voice almost breaking as she lets the papers flutter from her grasp.
"Um - I dunno -"
"Find him," she snips, already heading back toward the nurses' station. "I'm calling security."
"What about Bernie?" he calls after her, voice full of concern.
"Let me worry about Ms. Wolfe," she says, though she's not sure what that even means in this moment.
She shouldn't be surprised that Fletch seems to care for Bernie, too, that they're all so familiar, but she is wholly unprepared for the fear upon his face.
As Fletch jogs away, she snatches up the phone. Focuses solely on locating Mr. Fielding, because something tells her Bernie will show up on her own soon enough.