Chapter Text
As bad ideas go, Bernie thinks, this one was a cracker. She sits at the window of her small but functional flat in Kiev and drinks appallingly cheap liquor – horilka, she has learned; she always learns the most important words first – straight from the bottle, and revels in the fact that no one can tell her not to smoke inside; that no one here would care even if she did. She stares out the window, grimy from pollution and seemingly endless days of rain, and doesn’t cry.
Two weeks, four days, ten and a half hours have passed since she walked away from Serena; two weeks, four days, ten and a half hours since she first thought about rushing inside from the carpark, back into their office and into her arms, and begging Serena to forget it ever happened and take her back. But she didn’t do that, did she, because she’s Bernie bloody Wolfe, and that would have been too much to ask of her pride.
She opens the window a crack and stubs out her fag and leaves it, still vaguely smouldering, on the rough brick windowsill, watches as the spark fizzles down into nothing. The perverse thing is, she doesn’t even regret the leaving part, not really. She doesn’t regret forcing Serena into the position of having to be sure, of having to come to terms with this radical change in her outlook on her own sexuality without having Bernie there to … distract her all the time. Bernie swallows, kicks at the wall in front of her as desire curls low in her belly – if she were back there now, she thinks, they’d be off-shift, perhaps at Albie’s; or perhaps Jason would be conveniently absent and they’d have bypassed Albie’s altogether in favour of—
“No good’s going to come of that, Wolfe,” she mutters, “come on.”
She looks down at her phone and sees that it’s only 8pm; maybe she’ll call her liaison and find out if they need any help down in ICU. She’s heard on the grapevine that they’ve been a bit short-staffed, and it’s not as though she’s got anything better to do.
*
She starts doing it a lot, after that: working one-and-a-half or double shifts and then coming home late and bone tired, collapsing into bed to escape her own thoughts. It works a charm, too, at least until her phone starts beeping, every incoming message raising her heartrate to near-impossible in the stupid, naïve hope that it’s Serena, as though it’s her duty.
The phone has been almost mysteriously silent, the last two weeks, but then it’s like the dam breaks and they all start coming: emails from Raf to ask after her and the job; texts from Dom to update her on his latest relationship dramas (which have the doubly positive effect of always making her laugh, and which she immediately appreciates as his effort to find out how she’s doing without forcing her to talk about her feelings). She gets a couple of texts from Cam, just a few words each time, but they always serve to brighten her mood, and once, she even gets a message from Charlotte: Hope all’s well in Kyiv, Mum, it reads. Thinking of you.
She’s flying high on that one for days.
From Serena, there’s nothing, but she expects nothing less. Bernie’s the one who did the runner, after all.
She’s halfway through week three when the dreams start, and they catch her off-guard because they’re just so … uncharacteristic. After so many years of bunking down wherever and whenever she could get some rest, any bed with a mattress in a room of her own is pure luxury. Bernie isn’t one to lie awake all night, tossing and turning; she lies down and then she sleeps and then she wakes up and that’s that, and she doesn’t usually remember much in between. But this morning, of all mornings, the dingy sunlight washes through the gap between her curtains and she cracks an eye open and groans, because—
—oh, God. She wriggles around in her suddenly-too-hot sleep shorts and soft old t-shirt, trying to find a comfortable position, some relief, but the movement doesn’t help her at all. Or maybe it does, she thinks, rolling her eyes at herself, depending on one’s point of view. She lies there, completely still, and reaches into her memory for a more concrete grip on what’s caused this, but beyond a fleeting image of Serena’s flirtatious smile, the echoed impression of small, strong hands on her body and skin hot against skin, she can’t quite—
Bernie’s body is tingling with the sensation, with the want, and she knows herself: she knows that if she doesn’t take care of this now it’s going to be plaguing her and distracting her all day. Her fingers are met with warm, slick readiness and she bites down a moan at the contact, despite the fact that no one is there to hear her. She brings herself off in under thirty seconds – a personal record – and, for the sake of expediency, doesn’t even pretend not to think of Serena.
The problem is this: that that one orgasm, ripping and desperate and heated and satisfying though it was, just isn’t enough. It serves to take the edge off, helps her to wrangle her concentration in her meetings and later in theatre, but whenever she has a spare moment to think of anything but what’s in front of her (in the lift, in line for coffee, going out for a fag), she thinks of Serena. Always, always Serena. She sees the sharp dark clarity of Serena’s eyes above her surgical mask as they watch one another in theatre; sees and can almost feel her warm, steady hands. She thinks of Serena’s playful answering smirk when Bernie teases her – flirts with her – in their shared office; she thinks of Serena’s outstretched hand that morning, the day she’d accepted the secondment – “Oh, I’m sorry … Serena Campbell, have we met?” – and how she’d taken it, how she’d thought the charge between them when they touched might well be enough to stop her own heart. How they’d kissed, not long after, Serena’s eyes hot on her own and her lips even hotter, closing the gap—
“Snap out of it, Major,” Bernie tells herself. A wary-looking orderly gives her a glance – he has overheard her say it – but she’s fairly certain he doesn’t speak much English. But what would it matter, really, even if he did? He doesn’t know the context, doesn’t know the increasingly-heated, distinctly work-unrelated thoughts that are racing their way through Bernie’s mind. There’s something freeing about living somewhere where communication is limited to certain high-powered people; where no one in the immediate vicinity knows of your sordid history with women or the state of your no-longer marriage.
She bargains with herself, promises that if she focuses on the job at hand right now, she’ll allow herself to make up for it later. To get it out of her system, she thinks.
It’s a great plan, apart from the fact that it doesn’t actually work. The dreams continue, usually fading before she can get a real hold on the images, but the result is always the same: she wakes up wet and desperate, overcome by a physical need she hasn’t felt since her earliest days with Alex, and even then; even then, she was in a war zone, they were working, and she was better able to compartmentalise the need. But Serena – Serena is 1500 miles away, two hours earlier in the day, and Bernie feels the burn of her kiss and her smile and her gaze as though she’s standing right before her, or just off in the next room, as though she’s just moments away from walking up to Bernie, backing her against the locked door and kissing her senseless.
After a week of this torment, the memories of her every interaction with Serena playing on and on in an absurd, inconvenient, lust-inducing loop in her mind, she finally gives in and texts Dom. She figures he’s safest; ironically, given how rarely they work together these days, he’s still the one who knows more about her private life than anyone excepting Serena, and she can’t exactly text Serena, now, can she? There will have been rumours about the two of them since her departure, she’s sure, but it seems she’s going to have to rely on Dom’s discretion yet again if she wants any peace.
She hasn’t yet answered his last text anyway, so it’s perfect; she sends him a quip about Isaac, just to get his attention, and then taps out, So tell me, Dr Copeland, what’s your advice to a patient who can’t stop thinking?
She tucks the phone back into her pocket, not expecting an immediate reply, but Dom must be either bored or on a break, because her trousers buzz just a few moments later. Officially, call psych. Unofficially, drink your weight in Ukrainian vodka.
She texts back, Thorough regimen of treatment already attempted, results unsuccessful.
He sends her a smiley face, then: So what’s eating the Wolfe?
Bernie snorts; there are so many terrible jokes she could make to that – she’s certain he’s fishing, too – so she just types back, Dreams.
The good or bad kind?
She hesitates a few minutes before replying, The distracting kind.
There follows a long pause from him – they are both at work, after all – but she sees his reply two hours later when she steps into the frigid air for a caffeine and nicotine hit. Her cigarette is dangling between her lips, still unlit, when she snorts out laughter at the words on the screen. Professional opinion: sounds like some long-distance phone sex is in order. But obviously I have NO IDEA what you’re talking about & you definitely didn’t get this from me.
A heartfelt, expletive-riddled declaration of gratitude later, she tucks the phone away, but she’s smirking.
*
She can’t stop thinking about it. She can’t stop thinking about it, but she couldn’t do it, could she? She isn’t like that, isn’t that vocal or explicit, and anyway, how could she do it to Serena? Serena’s so … well, honestly, if she really thinks about it, she can imagine that Serena might be up for it. Serena might be exactly brave and flirtatious enough to try, but even if she is, they’ve both still got a few bridges to cross before they get to a place like that. Bernie files it away for later, though, a delicious possibility that coils its way into her veins (Serena, hot and panting, her shirt ripped open, her head tilted back, one hand on her phone and the other—) and makes her literally shake her head to force the images out, to allow her any hope of functioning as a human, let alone a doctor. She files it away for later and thinks about what she can do instead, and it isn’t long before realises what it is.
She could email, of course, but there’s something about it that strikes her as too clumsy, too impersonal; it’s something she always associates with business alone. Besides, as much as she relishes the thought of Serena blushing and squirming behind her desk at work, she prefers the idea of her reading the words to herself, late at night, where there’s no risk of anyone else’s eyes seeing what is meant for Serena alone.
She’s been trying to find ways to kill time, anyway, so the next day, after her shift, Bernie pops into an odd sort of multi-purpose convenience store on the hunt for decent writing paper. She eventually finds some wedged in a narrow aisle between what looks like cat toys on one side and an impressive array of can openers on the other; she buys two sets of sheets with envelopes for the equivalent of about 20p, counts out the bronze coins – after a month, she’s finally learning to tell them apart – and hands them over, with fingers numb from cold through her thin, inadequate English gloves. It is with a small, perhaps unwarranted sense of victory that she returns to her flat, locates a pen that actually works, and sets about writing.
Dearest Serena, she starts, and then stops. Is it too personal? Not personal enough? She cycles through the alternatives – dear, my dear, my beloved – and swallows the lump that forms in her throat at each. Considering the odds of her either finishing or sending this letter are slim to none, she reasons, she’ll just power on through. She isn’t a poet and Serena ought to know it, by now, so dearest it is.
I miss you every moment. You will likely never read this – I suspect one or other of us will throw it away before your eyes ever reach it – but I want to tell you I’m sorry, anyhow. I’m sorry for leaving you to lead AAU on your own with no prep time. I’m sorry for running away before we really had a chance to talk things through. She pauses, wondering if that’s true, but supposes it is. Talking with Serena is never the chore it so often has been with Marcus. I’m sorry I ran away and I’m sorry I hurt you when I did it. I’m miserable without you, if it’s any consolation. She smiles, self-deprecating; knowing Serena and her penchant for vengeance, it may well be. She reaches over and takes a gulp of builders’ tea, now cold, and grips the pen tighter.
I think about you all the time, Serena. I think about you every moment I’m not in theatre or working on the unit, and I think about you every moment I’m home in my flat alone, wishing you were here. I’ve brought this on myself, I know, and I don’t expect you to pity me. I don’t want pity. I just want you.
I want you to be here, right now, with me. I want to see you standing before me, alive in the flesh instead of just in my mind. I want to hold you, Serena – God, I want to kiss you so desperately the lack of it is burning me up inside. I miss your eyes. I miss your smile. I miss your laugh. I miss your hand on my arm – I never noticed how precious those small touches are until I put 1500 miles between me and them, between us. God, I’m an idiot, Serena. I’m an idiot and a coward, but I still think it’s important for you to have time to make up your mind without me around.
I wonder, every day, what you’re thinking and how you’re feeling. I wonder if you’ve come to your senses and realised I’m no great catch. I wonder if I’ve sabotaged my only chance and hope I haven’t. Because I still want you, Serena. I still care about you. I dream about you, your lips, your hands, your eyes. I l-- and she stops. Freezes.
It’s true – she knows it’s true, has thought it a dozen times and felt it a hundred, but the terror that overwhelms her when she thinks about getting it out is too much, it’s just too much to take. She thinks hard for a moment, her knuckles white, and then continues. I live every minute counting down the days until I can see you again. I’m sorry.
Yours, Bernie.
Disgusted with her cowardice, not for the first time, Bernie storms outside to light up.