Bathwater Into Wine {Berena}

Bathwater Into Wine

Bernie hadn't seen Serena leave her room for the best part of the last seven months apart from a couple of episodes more recently where the brunette could be found hanging out of her bedroom window to the waist - so imagine her surprise when she slipped into the communal bathroom downstairs to escape the onslaught of Mary Beard for five minutes, only to find Serena Campbell. That is, Serena Campbell in a blood red bath opposite the mirror she'd taken off the wall mount to prop up on the rim and stare into, with thirty or so empty bottles of a cheap Aldi own-brand Cabernet-Sauvignon discarded around the sink.

"You've got to stop being like this."

"Why should I? Don't I deserve to scrutinise myself? Why shouldn't I look for the last fault, the straw that broke the iceberg's... back? Hmmm?" she said, gaze transfixed on her tired eyes and sallow complexion in the mirror.

"Because it's going to bloody kill you one of these days, is why," Bernie muttered avoiding looking at the shell of the woman she loved in the bath.

"What would that really matter, though, Bernie? Give me one good reason, and don't try to fob me off with any old shit about how I have so much to live for because I think the world has taken more than enough from me to wipe that particular fantasy from my consciousness forever, thank you very much."

Bernie let the air carry a pregnant pause as she nudged one bottle on the floor just closer to the edge of the toilet seat producing an almost inconceivable clink, focusing on that rather than Serena's current dragon-like stare.

"I'm coming up spades, but I know you won't take any of it because I know you too well and you know yourself far too well for any of it to make even the slightest difference." Here Serena's eyes almost lit up wit joy at the prospect of a challenge.

"Come on, Wolfe. You can do better than that, you might be wrong."

"Serena, you're doing it again."

"Doing what?" she smirked and went back to her mirror.

"You're nicknaming me to distract from what you're doing," said Bernie.

Serena's voice lowered, " Indulge me, Bern," she offered practically seductively, "it might be the last time you exercise the privilege."

"Serena, don't." Bernie sighed. She navigated the discarded bottles to sit on the edge of the bath and flicked the surface of the wine, disturbing it the tiniest bit. Serena refused to look away from the mirror.

"Look, Serena Wendy Campbell, I'm painfully aware that I'm not your favourite person right now but I'm going to be here for you whether you like it or not. I don't care how many times you try to act like you're the only party at fault here but you couldn't even come close to the guilt that consumes me every second I spend still on this earth, in this house. Just thinking all the time that all of this could have been avoided if I hadn't read her article, if I hadn't stolen you away from her for a second opinion that morning, if I hadn't asked Charlotte and Cameron to spend Christ with us, if I had stayed in Ukraine, if I hadn't fallen in love with you in the first place - hell, if I'd never hit a fucking IED and been brought to Holby prone on a stretcher."

She had thus far refused to raise her voice, though tears were threatening to spill over her eyes.

"But none of that can make any difference now, Serena, because it's happened and Elinor's gone and she has been for seven months and I'm rambling and you're sat here in a bath full of fucking Cab-Sav-"

"It doesn't deserve to be drunk." And suddenly was at the end of her tether and a roar was unleashed.

"But you deserve to live your life, Serena! Of course we can't pretend that life is normal and that nothing ever happened because the likelihood is that life will never feel normal again but Jason needs you and he misses you and I miss my best friend," at this she sank against the cold tiled wall, defeated, and her voice dropped back to a whisper.

"I miss my soulmate, Serena. My One. But I don't know how to help you and you can't begin to imagine how much that tears me apart."

So if, fifteen minutes later, anyone were to stumble upon this close-to-comedic scene, two women sobbing on a bathroom floor, clutching each other close, swaddled in wine-stained - formerly white - towels, perhaps they might begin to understand.