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Serena was deep in paperwork when Bernie arrived in the office. Serena took the cup of coffee Bernie offered her with a quick smile and experienced the burst of happiness that happened every time she remembered that Bernie was, now, her girlfriend.
“Thanks,” she murmured, head straight back down.
Bernie pulled her chair round to Serena’s side of the desk. “Um,” she said.
Serena dropped her pen and straightened, caught the slightly wary look in Bernie’s eye. “What’s up?” she said, sliding her hand across the desk to grasp Bernie’s.
“Christmas,” Bernie said, very quickly. “Do we – do we have plans?”
“I’ve got Elinor coming, and of course I’ll have Jason too,” she stroked her thumb over Bernie’s, “Would you like to join us?”
“I – I wouldn’t want to impose,” Bernie shifted on her seat.
“Bernie, I’m asking you to come. I’d like you to come. Would you like to? Jason will have his routines, of course, and Elinor is at a particularly obstreperous stage, but it should be fun anyway.”
A smile spread over Bernie’s face. “I’d love to. Thank you.” She leaned forward in her seat and kissed Serena, a swift peck, but one that nevertheless left Serena tingling. “What would you like for a present?”
“Aside from your company?” Serena raised an eyebrow, “A nice bottle of Shiraz and some help with the washing up.”
Bernie laughed, “I’ll do my best.”
“And what’s your Christmas wish?” Serena bit her lip at her wording as Bernie sighed and hung her head.
“I’d love to see the kids. But,” she straightened and smiled determinedly, “The pleasure of your company is all I need.”
Serena found herself increasingly distracted for the rest of the day, mind caught on Bernie’s single Christmas desire. God, if she could wave a magic wand and fix Bernie’s relationship with her kids, she’d do it in a heartbeat. As it was, she didn’t even know how she could get hold of them. She’d met Cameron, of course, when he was involved in the car accident, but she couldn’t delve into patient records to retrieve his contact details. Not even for Bernie.
Two days later, Serena was on the point of calling St James’ and getting hold of Marcus, when no less a person than Cameron Dunn sidled sheepishly onto the ward.
“Cameron!” Serena collared him at the door, “How did you get in? Bernie isn’t here, she’s off today.”
“Fletch let me in,” Cameron said awkwardly, “And I came to see you.”
“Oh,” Serena stopped for a moment, taken aback, “Well, you’d better come into the office then.”
She sat down in her chair and Cameron folded himself into Bernie’s. They stared at each other for a minute.
“I heard about you and mum,” Cameron said, breaking the silence. “And I – I’m pleased for you.”
“Are you?” Serena raised an eyebrow.
Cameron looked at his hands. “Charlie and I, we didn’t behave very well, when we found out about the divorce, and about mum being a – you know.”
“Lesbian?” Serena asked tartly.
“Yeah. But we, um, wanted to apologise.”
“Well, what’s stopping you?”
He looked at her sheepishly, “We were sort of hoping to surprise her. At Christmas.”
A laugh bubbled up out of Serena before she could help herself. “It seems that we have similar goals then. Bernie is coming to mine for Christmas. Would you and Charlotte like to join us?”
Cameron grinned, “If you’ll have us.”
“You’ll have to pull your weight,” Serena warned, “No sitting back in the living room expecting to be waited on hand and foot.”
“Sounds fair.”
“But Bernie’s only wish for Christmas is to see you both, so let’s make it happen.”
“And you’ll keep it a secret? Until the day?”
“I will,” Serena confirmed, “It’ll make her Christmas, seeing you two.” She grabbed a pad of paper, scribbled her number down and handed it to Cameron. “This is me. Send me a text and I’ll let you know the details.” Cameron took it with a nod and stood to leave. “Oh! One last thing. Does Marcus know you want to spend the day with Bernie?”
Cameron shook his head. “We’re both quite angry with him at the moment.” He twisted his fingers around the piece of paper before stuffing it in his pocket, “He persuaded us to write such awful things about mum. Charlie can’t forgive herself at all. Honestly, I don’t know how mum wants to see us.”
“She loves you, Cameron,” Serena said softly, “She’d forgive you anything, if you come back to her. That’s what a mother’s love is all about.”
“Right.” He stared at her for a moment. “Well, thanks. I’ll text you.”
“Looking forward to it.”
As the ward door closed behind them on Christmas Eve, Bernie caught Serena’s hand. “Finally!” she said.
“Finally,” Serena agreed. She curled her fingers around Bernie’s, squeezed tight. “Let’s get home.”
Bernie stowed her bag in Serena’s room, then joined her in the kitchen for a mammoth peeling-and-chopping session. Serena had the radio on, a bottle of wine open, and a grin on her face. “This beats last year already,” she said as she handed Bernie a peeled potato, “So nice to have help in the kitchen.”
“Ah, now I know why you wanted me.” Bernie laughed and Serena dropped her peeler and caught her round the waist.
“Not just for the help in the kitchen,” she said, pressing up against her the counter and kissing her, “There are other benefits too.”
“Do you want any help?” Jason’s voice sounded in the door and they jumped apart, startled.
“Oh,” Serena said, struggling to think properly, “No, I think we’re okay Jason. Thank you for offering though.” He smiled and left again, to her relief.
“Alright, Campbell?” Bernie looked at her, amused, “You’re all flushed.”
“Shush, you. Come on, lets get this done and get to bed.”
“Aye aye!”
“The joy of having grown up children,” Serena said as she pulled Bernie in for a kiss, “Is that Christmas morning is a lazy affair, rather than getting up at the crack of dawn.”
“Crack of dawn? You were lucky. Three years in a row, at least one of mine was up at two. We ended up all in bed together, and not much sleep was had.”
Serena laughed. “Well, this is definitely more my style.” She sat up and retrieved the bottle of wine and glasses from her bedside table, handed the glasses to Bernie and uncorked the bottle. “Cheers.” She poured the babycham out carefully and stowed the bottle again.
“Cheers,” Bernie said, passing one of the glasses back. “Happy Christmas, Serena.”
“Happy Christmas.” Serena clinked their glasses together and took a luxurious sip. “Oh, that’s good.”
“I can think of something better,” Bernie said, and traced her fingers down Serena’s bare arm.
Serena shivered at her touch. “It’s not fair that you can do that.”
Bernie grinned. “What?”
“You know what. Oh, fine.” Serena took Bernie’s glass from her, put them both down on the table and tugged Bernie closer. “You win.” Bernie’s lips were warm and tasted of wine. Serena gave a happy sigh, and as Bernie lowered them to the pillow, she wound her arms around her neck and gave in to pleasure.
“We’d better get up,” Serena said, reluctantly, some time later. “We’ve got the turkey to get on.”
“Not to mention presents to open,” Bernie said with a grin. “Up and at ‘em, Serena.”
Serena fumbled for her alarm clock and bit back a gasp of horror at the time. “Oh dear, it’s later than I thought.”
“Does it matter?” Bernie called as Serena fled to the bathroom to shower, “We can always eat late.”
Serena had just made it downstairs and put the turkey in the oven when the doorbell rang. She threw the oven gloves onto the side and headed for the door.
“Cameron, come in. And you must be Charlie!” Bernie’s daughter looked very like her, much more so than Cam. She was standing, slightly shyly, behind Cameron. “Come on, both of you.” She ushered them into the hall and showed them where to hang their coats. “Your mum’s in the shower, and this is still a surprise. The living room is through there, I’ll just finish up in the kitchen and join you.”
Serena was surprised to find she was nervous. For nearly a month now she’d been sitting on this secret and now the day was finally here and all she wanted was for Bernie to be happy, to enjoy the result of their planning. She poured out drinks for everybody and carried them through into the living room, where the atmosphere was already relaxed and friendly. Cam and Jason were chatting about Doctor Who, and Elinor and Charlie had discovered they had a number of mutual friends and were deep into gossip.
“Drinks, everybody,” she said, putting the tray down, “Jason, yours is the orange juice.”
The children grabbed a glass each and returned to the sofas. Serena hovered by the door, a little knot of anxiety preventing her from relaxing with them. She heard a creak on the stairs and gulped.
“Serena?” Bernie said as she opened the door, “Have you -” Bernie came to a halt and Serena grabbed her hands and smiled at her.
“Happy Christmas, Bernie.”
Cameron approached and Bernie held on tight to Serena, looking thunderstruck. “Happy Christmas, mum.”
Bernie’s eyes flickered between him and Charlotte, two paces behind. “Kids,” she said faintly. She dropped her hold on Serena, stepped forward hesitantly. After a second, Cam moved to meet her, hugged her tightly.
Serena swallowed a lump in her throat as Bernie wound one arm around Cameron’s neck, reached out to Charlie with the other, embraced both her children for the first time in months.
They all pretended not to notice when Bernie eventually drew back and dashed the tears from her eyes with an impatient hand. “How are you both?” she asked, as they sat down on the sofa together.
Serena squeezed in next to Jason and Bernie sat with a child either side of her, smiling like Serena had never seen her before.
“Whose idea was this then?”
“Cam’s,” Serena said.
“But Serena did most of the planning,” Cameron put in. “Was it a good surprise?”
“The best,” Bernie said. She held Serena’s gaze for a moment and Serena felt warmth flood through her. “Thank you,” she said softly.
There was plenty of time to open all the presents before lunch. Serena laughed to find three bottles of Shiraz, respectively from Bernie, Elinor and Jason. Bernie had also got her a ring to match her pendant.
“I know you can’t wear it at work,” she said as Serena inspected it, “But maybe when we go out?”
“It’s beautiful. Thank you, Bernie.” Without thinking she leant over to Bernie and pressed a swift kiss to her lips. But the sound of disgust she almost expected didn’t materialise, only Elinor looking faintly embarrassed.
“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Bernie said as Serena presented her with a small parcel, “This was enough.”
“It’s very small,” Serena said with a laugh, “But I couldn’t let the situation continue any longer.”
Bernie raised her eyebrows and opened the parcel to discover a scrub cap of her very own, in deep blue to match her scrubs.
“What’s that on the back?” Jason leaned over and pointed out a tiny piece of embroidery, “It says BMAM. What does that mean?”
Bernie hooted a laugh. “Do you want to explain, Serena?”
“It stands for ‘big, macho, army medic',” Serena explained with a smile.
“Oh, that makes sense,” Jason nodded.
Bernie also received a large bottle of whiskey, from Cam and Charlotte, and a box set of early Doctor Who from Jason and Elinor. “You need to catch up,” Jason explained as she inspected it, “Then you’ll know what we’re talking about.”
“I see,” Bernie said gravely, “Well, why don’t we all make a start on it after dinner?”
The dinner table was crowded, and as Serena looked round at the children digging in hungrily and Bernie, smiling and beautiful in the candelight, she thought she’d never had a better Christmas.
She coughed, and when she had all their attention, she raised her glass. “To family, to us all. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” the others echoed.