Chapter 6
Communicating efficiently across an operating table has always been easy for them. Just a look or a pointed finger and they can dance their hands and instruments around each other in perfect sync.
"Can you just -"
"Yep -"
"And then -"
"Mm-hm, got it."
It is natural. Effortless. So much so, Serena's never really thought much about it before today.
But now she wants to tear the surgical mask from Bernie's face. If only so she can see whether Bernie's mouth moves as she hears her words, for there are some she'd swear just appear inside her head. Like she can hear Bernie thinking.
A murmured voice that swims in and out, as feint as a whisper.
Panacea… Hygeia…
It's there and then it's not.
Iaso… Aceso…
A white noise of words she doesn't recognize, and then one she does.
Asclepius. Hear me.
But she can't be certain Bernie isn't muttering beneath her face covering. It is her tendency to mumble, even during stressful surgeries, those dire emergencies that require a technique all the textbooks say should be nearly impossible.
"Work, dammit, work," she'll whisper, willing the final stitch to hold, for the shunt to win out. "Come on, come on…" Encouraging nobody but herself, Serena had thought, but this is different.
Like hearing a mantra in a foreign language, a prayer she doesn't understand. It beats a rhythm in her mind. And as scary and confusing as today has already been, she wants to chase it, to get closer to it rather than run away. Wants to grab the thread and pull and pull to see if it leads back to Bernie, hopes it would lead back to Bernie.
"Alright?" Bernie asks, disrupting her thoughts, quieting the voice.
She blinks twice, breaking the stare she has had locked onto the blonde. Chides herself for losing concentration as she shakes the errant thoughts from her mind.
"Yes, just -" She sighs, exhausted. Her feet throb and her back aches, but mostly her heart hurts. It hurts for her friend on the table, and for their whole Holby family.
"I know," Bernie says, a sympathetic smile crinkling her eyes.
It's a look she's seen often, one that says Bernie understands, that she hears everything, including the words Serena doesn't say.
She trembles. It isn't easy to hold Fletch's heart in her hands, as her own pounds a desperate, panicked rhythm behind her ribcage, but Bernie's voice soothes her as they both take a moment just to breathe.
"It's okay. We can do this, Serena."
And they can, she nods. She knows it; they perform miracles together all the time. Though she doesn't see the harm in muttering a mantra of her own just this once.
"Come on, Superdad. Come on."
Fletch lives.
And although Serena is at a loss to fully understand how they manage it, she doesn't much care. The outcome is the only thing that matters. She does know he wouldn't have made it through the first hour of surgery if it weren't for Bernie, and thanks the fates for bringing such a remarkable woman to her hospital.
With theater vacated and Fletch moved to Intensive Care, she watches Bernie tear off her cap, mask, and gloves with visible relief and quickly follows suit.
They should scrub out, but neither woman has the energy to move, sapped as they are by hours spent fending off the grim reaper. So when Bernie slides down the wall and collapses to the floor, Serena doesn't think twice about joining her.
They sit for a long time, nestled side-by-side in comfortable silence. And though Serena enjoys being pressed up against Bernie's warm body, her arse is numb and her mind is awhirl.
It is a ridiculous notion that she would ever believe the rantings of a such a deranged and dangerous man, but some of the things he said… is it possible?
No. She knows Bernie, not intimately, but well enough. They are friends. She trusts Bernie more than perhaps anyone else in the world, knows if she were the one on the operating table there's only one woman she'd want to save her. But… what happened in the trauma bay, the rumbling… did Bernie cause that?
No. It had to be a passing lorry or something, an earthquake perhaps. They aren't unheard of in the south of England, she reasons, sneaking a sideways glance at her colleague and stifling a sigh that comes of not having any answers and feeling very ridiculous.
She could just ask, she muses, as she fidgets, rolling her necklace between a finger and thumb. Expects Bernie might laugh in her face though, might flash that annoyingly attractive smirk she uses when she's amused specifically at Serena's expense.
But Bernie breaks the silence first, startling her just a little.
"This is all my fault."
"What?!" she snips with a sharp frown.
"He pushed for an assessment and I fobbed him off."
Serena understands why Bernie might feel guilty, but she shakes her head. Both she and Fletch could have done more if they'd really wanted to, instead of watching and waiting to see how things developed.
"You couldn't have known things would turn out like this," she offers kindly. It's not right that Bernie should be blaming herself, but clearly she's already there, and Serena's heart breaks along with Bernie's voice.
"But our friend and colleague is fighting for his life."
With a sharp inhale, she shifts her weight. Twists to look directly at the blonde, and finds Bernie's eyes to be dull and hollow behind burgeoning tears. It's as if all the sadness in the world is weighing her down, and Serena feels that familiar pang in her chest, stronger than ever.
She cares so much for Bernie that there's no point avoiding it anymore. All she wants to do is fix this, to comfort her dearest friend, to wipe away the fear and fragility now visible in Bernie's expression. And so she lets the words flow and holds her breath when she's done.
"He would be the first person to say, that you are the most…fantastic, fearless doctor in this entire hospital."
She only breathes out when Bernie smiles. It's barely there, but it lifts her whole face and Serena feels her own cheeks warm, feels herself beaming back in response as her chest falls in blessed relief.
They'll be okay, she decides, as they hold each other's gaze. And despite today's events, despite any regrets she herself might harbor over Fletch and Mr. Fielding, her pulse picks up knowing she's here now with Bernie. Strong, brave, protective Bernie, the woman she can't imagine life without, the woman now staring at her lips like Serena is an oasis in the desert.
God, just kiss me, she thinks, suddenly hot and wanting, and Bernie lurches forward, capturing her mouth so swiftly Serena's eyebrows lift in surprise.
She doesn't respond immediately, but she doesn't pull away either. Just lets Bernie tease her mouth with soft, gentle lips, revels in the feeling, no, the absolute knowledge that this is right.
When she starts to kiss Bernie back, the woman eagerly cups her face and the touch seems to fill the room with a million suns. It is so strong she can feel the light through her closed lids, a bright and wondrous glow that surrounds her, like a heavenly cocoon. She's never felt so warm, so loved, so safe.
When she lets out a tiny moan, it spurs Bernie on, and the machines around them start to hum and crackle with energy and she breaks away with a gasp. Everything stops as her eyes spring open, but she remembers what happened earlier in the trauma bay. Knows now, as ridiculous as it might have seemed at the time, it has to be Bernie.
Bernie, who is staring at her now with a terrified expression on her face and a storm in her eyes, those once dull irises swirling like molten gold.
She knows these bright eyes, has caught them numerous times before, she realizes, despite convincing herself otherwise. Feels instantly fond of them in an odd way, like they belong to her, and she leans back in as if magnetically pulled towards Bernie's mouth.
"Who are you really?" she whispers, caressing Bernie's face, her eyes chasing the glow as it quickly flees from Bernie's panicked gaze.
"Serena – I – I -"
"It's okay," she replies, perfectly willing to wait for answers, and shows pity on the trembling blonde by stifling any more stammering with eager kisses.
When their tongues finally meet, it's Bernie who moans, and Serena grasps desperately at her arms trying to pull the woman closer. She's contemplating straddling Bernie's long legs in an effort to remove any remaining distance between them when the theater doors burst open.
They break apart so quickly Serena thinks she sprains something, but the lack of circulation from the cold hard floor means she can't feel it beyond the sharp pins and needles that flow down her stiff legs and into her feet.
"Um – ahem – Sorry, we were just -" she mutters, wide-eyed as a surgical team from Keller bustles in around a porter pushing a gurney.
Beating a hasty retreat while trying to look calm and collected, she straightens her scrub top and gestures to the door behind her. "We'll, um, we'll get out of your way," she says, not expecting the scrub room door to be swinging closed at that exact moment and Bernie, in actual fact, already long gone.