Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s while Cameron is talking about going back to medschool, standing before her in AAU scrubs and looking every inch the nervous F1 she remembers before it all fell apart, that she starts to get angry.

Not at Cameron, although a call or text wouldn’t have killed him, but Serena should have warned her. Professional courtesy if nothing else. But no, forget her job, she’s his mother, Serena should have told her.

Morven rushes past, grasping for Cam’s arm and already talking a mile a minute about their patient and Bernie waves him after her. “Go on, we’ll catch up later.”

“Welcome back.” He says, like he always did when she’d return from her latest tour and with a quick smile he’s gone.

The anger really sets in then because without him in front of her, she’s forced to remember the disappointment that flashed across his face at her surprise, the resigned shrug of one shoulder that said ‘of course you have no idea what’s going on in my life’ and dammit, Serena should have told her!

A sharp turn on her heel has her heading back to Serena’s- no their office, chin high as she marches across the ward. She can see people looking, catches a porter as his eyes flick from her to the office a few feet away. Let them talk, she doesn’t care. Serena had no right to keep this from her. No right at all.

Her anger twists and bubbles in her chest, acid crawling up her throat because she had never expected Serena to be this petty. Had a good laugh, did she, imagining Berenice Wolfe blindsided by her family again? Thought that’ll teach her.

The door bounces off the wall as she slams it open and she doesn’t take a moment to watch Serena flinch, doesn’t consider the hand that rises to her face, the delicate fingers that brush beneath her down-turned eyes, doesn’t take in the dark computer screen or the lack of paperwork on the desk.

All she sees in the moment that Serena looks up is Cameron’s shrug.

“Bernie-”

“What gave you the right to keep this from me?”

The confusion on Serena’s face, the furrow of her brow does nothing to lessen Bernie’s ire, anger so much easier than guilt, so much guilt that she’s been holding onto for months.

“What-Bernie, I don’t-”

“No. Don’t try that. Nothing happens here that you don’t know about and he’s here, working on your precious ward.”

“He? Wait…is this about Cameron?”

“Of course it’s about Cameron!” Bernie slams her hands down on the desk, Serena jumping at the bang and an empty paper cup tipping over.

Serena’s eyes flick to the still open door and Bernie can feel her lips twisting into a macabre grin. When she meets those eyes again she can see something else rising in them behind the confusion.

“Ms Wolfe, I’ll thank you to lower your voice. How dare you come in here and– what has got into you?”

“Oh I dare.” Three deliberate steps bring Bernie around to Serena’s side and she leans forward, face mere inches from Serena’s, a gruesome parody of every fantasy she had in Kyiv of being this close to her again. “Because you should have told me he would be here.”

It’s harder, with her nose almost pressed to Serena’s skin, to ignore the way she flinches, the quick catches of her breath and the slowness of her swallows like there’s something stuck there in her throat. Harder not to see the familiar soft edges disappear as Serena straightens in her seat. To not reel back when Serena turns, nose brushing against her own and stares at her with eyes empty of anything but her own anger.

Bernie swallows and for the first time since she saw Cameron by the Trauma Bay, she hears the warning bell going off in her head.

Too late it says. Too late now.

“Tell me, Bernie; when exactly should I have told you?” Serena’s breath puffs against her cheek, but Bernie is frozen in place. “When you were ignoring my calls and texts? When you changed your number entirely and only gave Hanssen the right one?” The pit of anger in her stomach twists, curdling inside her as she watches hypnotised by Serena’s eyes. She hasn’t seen this woman before, whoever this is that she woke with her accusations and her running. Still running even when she was halfway across the world and Serena was only trying to meet halfway. Bernie finds herself as fascinated as she is destroyed at what she has let her guilt and anger do, to bring them both to this. Oh god, what did I do, what did I do? To know by the lips still twisting carefully around words that Bernie cannot refute, that Serena is far from finished.

“Perhaps I should have written it into the letters I couldn’t send because you told no one your address. Or perhaps I could have emailed you, on the account that bounced them back to me every Monday morning at 6:05? Would that have worked for you Bernie?”

“Serena I-”

“Or maybe you’re referring to the three hours you’ve been back, during which you’ve done everything you can to avoid spending even a second longer than you have to in my vicinity. Should I have put a poster up on the message board?” Bernie can’t help but lean back now, as Serena’s voice, so low and calm before, rises, the words slipping together quickly. “Had it written in smoke over the hospital just in time for your unannounced return? Or should I not have assumed that while you were ignoring every phone call, every email, every attempt I made to reach out to you in the last two months, that you were at least in contact with your own children and the only heart you were breaking was mine!”

It’s the crack in the last word, shouted louder than Bernie has ever heard Serena’s voice get, that breaks her. Tears filling her eyes as Serena folds in front of her, whatever reserves of anger she had mined depleted and Bernie can’t breathe as the guilt, that insidious guilt that she hasn’t shaken since she walked, no ran from Serena, as that guilt threatens to choke her.

“Fuck.” It’s a soft sob, puffed out between Serena’s hands and Bernie sobs a bitter laugh to go with it.

“Sorry won’t cut it this time, will it?” It’s not really a question and Bernie flinches at the wet laugh that greets it.

Serena’s shoulders heave twice more before she looks up again, hands dragging down her cheeks to clench tightly in her lap. Trembling hands, Bernie notes before she forces her gaze up higher again. She doesn’t get to hide.

“No, I don’t think it will.” Perhaps it’s the tears still glistening, the redness, but despite the words Bernie can see a breaking of the ice in Serena’s eyes. “There are worse places to start though.”

Reaching out for Serena’s hands, she grips them tight enough with her own to stop both their shaking. “I am so sorry, Serena.” Flicking her head, a wry twist to her lips as she considers. “I’m a coward, I – I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Serena laughs, her fingers clenching between Bernie’s, tears slipping out as the corners of her eyes crinkle. “Cracking job, Major.”

Bernie sucks in air, leaning forward so her forehead rests against Serena’s. “I will make this right.”

“I needed you here. Not just…not just for this.”

Shaking her head against Serena’s, skin rubbing skin, not willing to pull back, to lose even this connection now she has it, Bernie feels a few of her own tears escape. She has so much to make up for, not just this morning, not just walking away, ignoring every olive branch that Serena extended one after the other, but for things she realises she doesn’t even know she’s missed. Things that have put the dark circles beneath Serena’s eyes and hollowed out her cheeks.

“I’m sorry.” She says the words again, because they won’t ever be enough.

“Yes.” Serena’s hands squeeze her own. “I know.”

End.