Chapter Text
This was why she enjoyed baking. A good dessert could make her feel like she'd created joy at the tips of her fingers.
― Marissa Meyer
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“You must be kidding.”
Serena looks down at the glossy brochure on the surface of the desk as if it’s a venomous snake on the verge of striking.
“I’m assure you, Ms Campbell, I’m quite serious.” Henrik peers at her over steepled fingers, eyes sharp and all knowing. “You made clear your concerns about Ms Wolfe and her presence on AAU when she was hired, but I had hoped you would have found a more amicable working relationship by now.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Serena leans back in her chair, a little too casual. “Things are perfectly fine on AAU,” she says blandly, ignoring the incredulous twitch of Henrik’s eyebrow.
“All reports from your team to the contrary.” He pushes onward despite the dangerous thinning of Serena’s lips. “Ms Wolfe is here to support you, not usurp you, but that only works if you allow it.”
She stops herself from rolling her eyes. Barely. “Still, Henrik. Baking?” she asks, leveling another murderous glare at the unassuming brochure with the smiling people surrounding a tiered cake on the cover.
“Baking, like medicine, requires a good eye for details and a well-meaning heart. Also, this is a requirement, not a request.” Her automatic protest stalls at his pointed gaze over top of his glasses. “Cover has already arranged for you both. I trust you’ll pass the information along to Ms Wolfe?” A long pause follows, and Henrik picks up a folder from his desk to peruse the contents.
Clearly dismissed, Serena leaves his office with the brochure in hand, feeling like a schoolgirl who’s been dressed down by the headmaster. She wonders who he’s been talking to. Fletch, most likely, never one to keep quiet when there’s a bit of gossip to be shared. Maybe it’s time for a full accounting of AAU’s supplies, she thinks a little snidely, stabbing her thumb against the lift call button.
‘Amicable working relationship.’ Ridiculous. It’s not like things are that bad between her and Bernie. Yes, they’ve had some spirited disagreements about patient care, but Serena will be damned if she’s going to let some stubborn Major swoop in and take over the ward she’s put so much of herself into running.
The thought sits heavily in her stomach, something uncomfortably close to jealousy coiling there. AAU has always been a bit of a family, made up of castaways and strays, and ever since Bernie breezed in Serena feels like the stern matron to her cool auntie, always the disciplinarian. Every time she sees Bernie leaning against the nurse’s station in her pale blue scrubs chatting and laughing with Fletch and Raf, or overhears Morven gushing about something amazing Ms Wolfe did in surgery, she feels her grip tighten, her already slim patience with Bernie’s rule breaking nature thinning even more.
Bernie’s all ready in their office when Serena arrives, miraculously working on her stack of overdue paperwork. There’s a welcoming smile on her lips, but all Serena can see is the half-eaten apple next to her computer, the crumpled crisp wrappers that are migrating across the dividing line between the chaos of Bernie’s desk and the efficient order of Serena’s own. Bernie follows her gaze and she seems to shrink in on herself a little, muttering an apology as she starts gathering up refuse and shoving it in the bin.
Serena’s drops the brochure on top of Bernie’s keyboard as she walks past, dropping into her chair with a huff.
“Uh, what’s this, then?” The brochure held loosely in her fingers, Bernie’s eyebrows are pulled down in a befuddled frown. The thought that she looks like some sort of adorable golden retriever floats across Serena’s mind, and she ruthlessly dismisses it.
“Henrik Hanssen’s idea of a joke,” Serena mutters, fingers clacking harder than necessary on her keyboard as she enters in her password. “Apparently, it’s what passes for ‘teambuilding’ in the NHS these days. Though I don’t recall any scholarly readings on the transformative power of baked goods.”
Serena leans back in her chair with a sigh, hand moving to play with the pendant at the base of her throat. A part of her rankles at the idea that any of this is necessary, even more so as the stubborn little voice at the back of her mind reminds her that it’s largely her own fault. She wishes it weren’t. Territoriality aside, she’s spent her whole career looking for a relationship with a woman who is her equal, someone who truly understands the struggles of their careers, who could have her back. At the end of the day, she wants a friend.
A part of her hoped that Bernie could be that friend. That they could be partners, a united front against whatever new challenge AAU throws their way.
That doesn’t seem like an option now.
It’s just that she always feels so off kilter with Bernie, fluttery and anxious, constantly worried that she’s not enough, that she doesn’t measure up. It’s that unease that makes her responses sharp, her judgements harsh, and each time she opens her mouth she sees Bernie retreat a little more. And now knowing that others see it, have been talking about her, about them, makes Serena shore up her already fortified defenses, shielding herself from the inevitable judgement and humiliation that has been part and parcel of being a woman in charge.
“We’ve both been rostered off for the next four days in order to attend, as if we have nothing else in the world to do with our time,” Serena says, unable to keep the acid bite from her words.
Bernie glances up through her ridiculous fringe (Really, does she just cut it herself?), gives a bit of a shrug. “Maybe it’ll be fun?”
The simple question feel like a judgment, like this is just another thing that Serena is already failing at. “And here I thought it was more important for us to focus on the work of saving lives. But as long as we’re having fun, I suppose.” Some of the sparkle goes out of Bernie’s eyes, her shoulders slumping, and that uncomfortable feeling twists again in Serena’s gut. Grabbing the nearest folder, she makes to go back out on the ward, pausing with her hand on the door handle when Bernie speaks up again.
“I can drive us both, if you’d like.”
Serena bites back a mirthless chuckle. “Isn’t it enough we have to bake together?” she asks, sweeping out the door before Bernie can reply.
---
The next day dawns clear and bright, entirely contrary to Serena’s increasingly dark mood as she drives to the venue. She’d given herself a pep talk at home, almost convinced herself that getting to know Bernie better will actually be a good thing. Worse comes to worst, at least she’ll have baked goods to bring home for herself and Jason.
Once in the isolation of her car, her mind can’t seem to settle, spins through every frustrating, embarrassing moment in recent memory. The thoughts and feelings amplify until she finds herself having theoretical arguments with Bernie in her head, filling in both of their responses to situations that have never happened, and by the time she pulls into the car park, she’s practically vibrating with impotent frustration.
Bernie has managed to arrive before her, surprising considering her frequent inability to get to her shift on time. She’s lounging outside the door, long legs stretched out in front of her, one hand shoved deep in her pocket as she takes a drag off her cigarette. The smoke wreaths her golden hair when she exhales, the sunlight hitting just right, making her practically glow.
Grabbing her bag, Serena slams the door hard enough that Jason would reprimand her were he here, feels impossibly frumpy in the same clothes she wears to work day in and day out. She walks quickly up to the building, doesn’t even break pace when Bernie opens her mouth to say hello, pushes through the glass doors before she’s can make a sound.
A large poster of Nadiya Hussain holding a tray of gorgeous iced biscuits greets her, Cook Like a Bake Off Winner emblazoned across the bottom. The space is set up much like the familiar tent, each baking station already set up with ingredients and a shiny, brightly colored mixer. Most of the stations are already taken by a small group of other women and one man, many of them chatting and laughing, making introductions. Serena makes her way to a bench in the back, thinks maybe if she’s far enough away from the instructor she can at least keep an eye on her email today.
Bernie breezes in a few moments later, takes the bench to Serena’s left. She doesn’t make another attempt at a greeting, and Serena’s morning cup of coffee swirls uncomfortably inside her.
“Good morning, bakers!” A woman who can’t be much older than Elinor sweeps into the room, a thick braid of hair swirled in vivid blues and purples hanging over her shoulder. “I’m Lucy and I’ll be instructing you for the next four days in how to Cook Like a Bake Off Winner.”
Lucy is unbearably perky, and Serena has to stop herself from rolling her eyes as she extolls the joys of baking, claims that the stress relief benefits can make them happier people. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Bernie bouncing a little on her feet, poking at the meticulously arranged canisters of ingredients like a curious child. By the time they get started, she’s managed to somehow already get flour on herself, soft white smudges on her black denims.
They’re starting the class with biscuits, easing into the methods and tricks they’ll be learning in the class.
Serena tries to focus on her own station. She’s always been of the belief that anything worth doing is worth doing well. The recipes are clear and she follows them methodically, performing each step to the letter. Bernie, as with everything else, seems to disagree, and Serena has to bite her tongue to keep from commenting when she notices Bernie not leveling her flour measure, shaking in spices directly from the jars.
A yelp draws her attention from the chocolate she’s tempering for her millionaire’s shortbread, and she looks over in time to see Bernie’s caramel bubbling over the pan, sizzling on the worktop as Bernie fumbles to turn down the heat.
“It’s nice to see that you don’t just save your mess for our office,” Serena snipes without thinking, feels immediately guilty when Bernie’s head snaps up, something almost wounded in her wide dark eyes. Her face floods with heat, and she turns back to her chocolate, blames it on the warmth of so many people baking in one room.
Lucy seems to be a bit enamoured of the Major, hovering around her station and offering words of encouragement, the two of them standing practically shoulder to shoulder. The young woman reaches across, wrapping her hand around Bernie’s where it rests on the handle of a spoon, showing her the proper stirring motion. The brandy snap Serena is easing off the spoon handle crumbles in her too tight grip, delicate crumbs sticking to her skin.
“Very nice, Serena,” she says as she walks by. “But you should try and relax, have a little fun with your baking. Bakes always taste better when they’re infused with a bit of joy.”
“I am relaxed,” Serena says, forcing a smile that feels more like a grimace. From behind Lucy she hears a strangled snort of laughter, and when she looks over she can see Bernie biting her bottom lip, mirth dancing in her eyes.
“Sorry! Sorry.” Bernie holds her hands up in surrender at Serena’s glare, goes back to the work of smearing her too thick chocolate over her shortbread.
The last recipe of the day is for spiced ginger biscuits, topped with lacy white icing. Serena can tell just by the smell that Bernie has added far more spice than the recipe requires, the air around them redolent with ginger and cloves. She gets her biscuits, a series of ragged, uneven shapes, into the oven first while Serena is still bent over with a ruler and a paring knife, dividing her thinly rolled dough into exact squares.
There’s a bit of downtime as the biscuits bake. Serena pulls out her phone, scrolling through emails while Bernie steps outside for a fag, trying to look busy enough to avoid conversation with Rodney, the lone gentleman in the class. It’s become increasingly clear as the day went on that he seeing the class as a way to find a date, taking any opportunity to sidle up to the women of the class and make slightly leering conversation.
“Damn!”
Serena looks up from the reply she’s typing to Henrik in time to see Bernie pulling her tray from the oven. There’s a slight haze in the air and even from her bench Serena can see the biscuits have caught around the edges, some far worse than others.
Bernie slides the tray onto the bench, eschewing the ergonomic spatula that rests beside her, instead plucking the biscuits straight from the tray with her bare fingers, hissing a bit at the heat. Serena shakes her head as biscuit after biscuit drops onto the cooling rack with a clatter, turning away when her timer chimes.
The biscuits on Serena’s tray are lovely, all the same size and an even golden brown, and she can’t help but feel a certain sense of accomplishment as she carefully slides them off to cool. She’s never been much of a baker, always focused more on medicine and surgery than the domestic arts. Oh she tried, early on in her marriage to Edward, her mother’s admonishments about her duties as a wife ringing in her ears, but those attempts quickly dwindled to nothing under the pressures of ward rotations, nappy changes, and an increasingly distant husband. Once her marriage ended time was even more precious, and baking never came close to cracking the top ten list of things that deserved her energy. She quickly learned to repackage biscuits from M&S into a tin of her own to send along with Elinor for treat day at school, thinks they’re better than anything she could do anyway.
She meticulously pipes royal icing onto her cooled biscuits, trying to replicate the intricate lace pattern printed out as a template. They’re not all as perfect as she’d like, but her skills as a surgeon hold her in good stead, hands nimble and controlled as they grow more comfortable with the unfamiliar movements.
When they’re all finished decorating, they bring their biscuits up to the front, just like the technical challenges they’ve all seen on television. Unlike proper Bake Off, this isn’t anonymous, all of the students crowding around to ooh and ahh over each others work.
And it’s a good thing, because there’s no hiding which biscuits are Bernie’s; haphazard geometrics topped with avant garde swirls and blotches of icing, most of which seem to have been placed to disguise where the darkest bits have been scraped off. She stands at the back of the group, hands deep in her pockets, eyes fixed on her pink oxfords.
“Well done, everyone!” Lucy bestows a wide smile on them all. “You’ve all made incredible progress in just a day. Just look at your beautiful biscuits!” The class murmurs a bit, people turning to congratulate one another. “But, as we know, looks are only part of the challenge. What really matters is how they taste.”
Biscuits from each tray are cut into bite sized pieces, giving everyone the opportunity to taste along with Lucy as she evaluates the outcome, acting as Paul Hollywood’s bubbly stand in.
There’s something to critique for each of them, whether taste, texture, or degree of doneness. Rodney has managed to swap his sugar for salt, making his the only ones that are truly inedible. Lucy declares Serena’s biscuits technically perfect, but a bit bland.
“They’re almost too perfect, like something you’d buy at a store when you wanted to please everyone by not making a fuss. Your icing work is gorgeous, though.” Serena’s happy enough with that, doesn’t see the problem with making something everyone would like.
Bernie’s are last, slid to the far end of the bench as if she was hoping they’d somehow get overlooked. Serena nabs a piece that looks the least burnt out of the lot, hesitates a moment before carefully biting it in half.
Flavor explodes on her tongue, all spice and warmth, and she can feel her eyes go wide. It’s like taking a bite of Christmas, the flavors lingering and the buttery biscuit melts in her mouth. The rest of their classmates seem equally stunned, and Bernie looks between them, cheeks pinking as she nervously tucks her hair behind her ear.
“That bad, then?” she jokes with a crooked grin.
“Bernie,” Lucy says, a breathiness in her voice that sets Serena’s teeth on edge. “These are wonderful! I mean, obviously the bake could use a little work, but your flavors are amazing. And I love your deconstructed icing. Very modern.”
Bernie’s blush deepens as the class joins in praising her, and Serena thinks she sees Lucy wink at Bernie. The delicious biscuit turns to ash on her tongue, sits in her stomach like a stone. Spine straight she turns and walks back to her bench, starts packing up her biscuits, tossing them into the tin a little harder than she intends. She feels out of sorts, nebulous emotions making her chest tight, her movements jerky. You know what this is, whispers the voice in the back of her mind, but she firmly ignores it.
Shoving the tin into her bag, she turns to leave, but is stopped in her tracks by Bernie, holding out a small plastic container.
“I know they aren’t very good and I’ll never get through all these myself. I thought maybe you’d like some extra for Jason?”
Some of Serena’s tension melts away, replaced by unexpected warmth. She hadn’t even realized Bernie knew about Jason, and a thread of shame that she doesn’t really know anything about Bernie’s life outside of the hospital worms through her.
“I don’t know if…” A flicker of disappointment crosses Bernie’s face, her retreat from yet another overture imminent. Serena changes tack, an unexpected desire to not disappoint Bernie filling her with urgency. “That would be lovely, Bernie, thank you. Jason does have quite the sweet tooth.”
Bernie’s smile lightens her whole face, sets Serena’s heart flopping about a bit in her chest. She takes the box from Bernie, careful that their hands don’t touch, though she couldn’t say why.
“I’ll, uh, I’ll see you in the morning?” Serena asks, wishes she didn’t sound so hopeful. Bernie just nods, that lopsided smile still quirking her thin mouth.
“Good night, Serena,” she says, voice softer than Serena’s ever heard it.
When she gets home that evening, Serena sets both of their biscuits out on a tray while the shepherd’s pie heats through, Bernie’s ragged ginger biscuits, gloopy shortbread and brandy snaps that look more like malformed crisps than anything nestled next to Serena’s precise cut shapes and perfectly curled straws.
Jason helps himself to a few before tea, chewing carefully, approaching the task like a scientific experiment.
“I like Ms Wolfe’s better,” he eventually declares, “but yours are much nicer looking, Auntie Serena.”
His judgment stings a bit, the fact that even in her own home Bernie Wolfe is preferred, but she’ll take the compliment for what it is. Snagging one of Bernie’s ginger biscuits, she takes a bite as she goes to take the pie from the oven.