Every time I watch* these gifs I feel like I’m on the verge of something profound, some kind of epiphany, about love, and then my brain just says, “look at the pretty ladies they smile in their eyes”.
Feels like time to take my leave of Tumblr, but I’ll still be writing fic when the mood takes me. Here’s a post with links to the fic I’ve written over the past year or so.
Berena
What Happens Next? - my first ever fic, an imaginatively titled follow-on from The Kill List aka Bernie and Serena’s first time(s). Basically a clumsy first go at a bit of smut.
Candy Floss - a fluffy one-shot where Bernie takes Serena to a theme park. Wrote this before everything Went To Shit after Christmas.
Keeping Watch - 701 words of misery aka Bernie takes Serena home from the hospital after Elinor dies. I have no idea why I wrote it.
A CampWolfe Christmas Tale - my take on Bernie and Serena’s first Christmas together. Includes a very, very sappy final chapter.
Synonyms - a second attempt at smut, and rather better than the first, I think.
Ships in the Night - sickly sweet domestic fluff written for the Holby Fic Contest way back when. Needless to say, it did not feature among the winners.
Sharper Than A Thousand Swords - another ficlet that I wrote for the contest. Basically Bernie being all stoic while Serena grieves. Deservedly ignored by voters.
Black And Grey - tiny ficlet in which Bernie has a tattoo that Serena likes. Have so far resisted the strong temptation to delete it.
Per Angusta Ad Augusta - multichapter AU featuring Serena as the Head of Science at St Winifred’s School for Girls, and Bernie as the newly appointed Pastoral Care Officer. Slow burn.
Here - smutty epilogue to Per Angusta Ad Augusta, featuring Serena Campbell pressed against a leather-topped desk. Because.
Make My Wish Come True - a third instalment from the world of Per Angusta: their first Christmas together. I am completely in love with this version of Bernie and at this point writing for my own benefit.
Time And Again - time-travel AU. I think it’s a bit better than that makes it sound.
The Way Home - written for the reunion prompt during Berena Appreciation Week. At this point we knew that Bernie would be gone before Serena came back to Holby. I have no idea how good or bad this is objectively, but I like it.
Sometimes When We Touch - a few snapshots of touches between our gals. Just little moments that plagued my imagination and needed a home.
A Call And A Response - more smut, hurrah! Wrote this in a cafe, surrounded by old ladies, woohahahaha.
Very Much Confined To Theatre - crack!fic in which Frederik turns up with his gun on the same day as Brave New World takes place.
Kate Stewart
It’s Friday I’m In Love - ages ago I complained to @ana-khouri that I couldn’t write a Kate Stewart fic because I was obsessed with her coming home from work to her wife and a dog, and then Kate Stewart Appreciation Week came along and I thought, why not.
The Coincidence - some people wanted to know how Kate met her wife, and this happened.
Let’s think of dramatic storylines that would have worked for Berena without killing anyone (now we know a child’s death was always going to happen, Catherine exit or no Catherine exit.)
I’ll start.
Serena coming to terms with her identity
Bernie trying to repair her relationship with her children
The finalisation of Bernie’s divorce
Jason being assessed by ATOS or similar and losing all his support
Serena dealing with homophobia for the first time ever
Dealing with Bernie’s hangups around truth and intimacy
The loss of the trauma unit (this is similar to a child dying, lol)
Both of them trying to navigate complicated relationships with the other’s children
Alex coming back to locum leading to jealousy and insecurity
Reblog and add yours.
Elinor is into drugs and ends up needing rehab, Serena takes time to help her
Bernie gets asked to rejoin the military
Elinor is pregnant but it’s a difficult pregnancy so Serena takes time to help
Jason does get injured in some way and Serena takes time to care for him
A homophobic patient accuses them of something they didn’t do
• Serena is accused of negligence after a patient dies and is suspended
• Although she is happy, Serena’s drinking becomes a problem (perhaps connected to the above)
• Elinor has to move home due to her issues and we get some domestic Bernie / Serena time before Serena decides to take Elinor away for a “year out” for them both. Bernie visits them
• Serena protests against NHS cuts and engages in a war of words with a local Tory MP, who contrives to have her suspended
There are already some excellent ideas for how Serena could otherwise have been granted her exit on this thread, so I’m going to concentrate on the question of dramatic storylines*. How about some actual medical drama? Remember how ER would most often make the drama stem from the people who came through the doors, but make it relevant to various regular cast members?
For instance… there’s an RTC and a couple in their early 60s are involved; one of them has minor injuries but the other is quite badly hurt. While their partner is in surgery, the other talks sadly about how they had only found each other later in life, and they don’t want their time together to be cut even shorter. Bernie and Serena look at each other and Bernie does that working-her-jaw-to-hold-it-all-together thing that makes me melt.
We know this stuff works - look at the soldier that was on Darwin while Bernie was working up there, or Cam being injured, or even Serena’s old teacher turning up on AAU (we’ll take out the dead daughter and persecuting Jasmine bit). You can have your helicopter crashes and your rampaging gunmen and your stabbings and even your daughter-bashes-head-on-steering-wheel-and-dies-slow-and-tragic-deaths, but they need to be used more sparingly than the past couple of seasons of Holby.
*Actually I lied, I have something to say on this. Ric disappears for weeks and months all the time without so much as a one-line explanation. It’s fucking bullshit to say that in order for Catherine to take some time out, they needed to have Elinor taking drugs, hating Bernie/being homophobic, and running a car into Jason and then dying, so that Serena would fall apart. Talk about an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach. We could have had close to three months of Berena on screen together, with a side-serving of Elinor doing drugs (say) and Serena eventually taking some time out to help her, as others have suggested above. We could even have had some bonus Useless Edward™
Imagine the absolute scenes™️ in the Holby writers’ room if ever someone suggests ‘creating drama’ without killing a doctor or a doctor’s family member
I do not remember how Tumblr works but I am here and I am v gay screaming am about to watch bloody Holby with @asfarascruithne I have wine and years worth of screaming to do yet this may or may not turn into a live blog sorry
IT’S BEEN FIVE AND A HALF YEARS!! 5!! AND A HALF!!
And you can still count on two hands the amount of times they’ve kissed in comparison to the sheer amount of trauma they (we!!!) have experienced omg
I do not remember how Tumblr works but I am here and I am v gay screaming am about to watch bloody Holby with @asfarascruithne I have wine and years worth of screaming to do yet this may or may not turn into a live blog sorry
In an attempt (yet again!) to keep up with all of my ideas and actually finish something, I will be sharing snippets of fics, WsIP every Saturday, until I manage to finish at least one. bloody. Thing!! I’ll be sharing raw, unedited bits for the most part, and though I mostly have an outline planned for everything I write, I very much welcome comments and discussions about the what/ why/ where/ how/ whatthefuckery of it all, because it’s the bits in between that tie me up in knots. Thank you!
So… Here we go, Snippet Saturday No. 1:
“Well that settles it,” Serena mutters as she finally sits down with her last glass of wine.
“Settles what?” Bernie asks, as the screen wobbles. “That’s not your usual wine, is it?”.
“No, why? And where the hell are you?” Serena responds, almost irritably, as Bernie wobbling around the screen starts to give her nausea.
“I’m on the stairs. It’s the only place the signal is any good. You’re pulling faces every time you drink.”
“I’m pulling faces every time you move, you’re like a minecraft model!” Serena shoots back, nevertheless pulling a face as she drains her glass.
“What on earth is minecraft?” Bernie asks, her fringe bobbing and breaking up the screen.
“I’d tell you to google it, but we’d lose the connection and you’d still be buffering by the time there’s a COVID vaccine,” Serena quips, lost into the ether.
It cements it, in Serena’s mind - once it’s caught up with her thoughts, of course - when she has to finally give up on the video call and phone Bernie in what she’s now labelled “the old fashioned way”.
“There you are!”
Her irritability melts somewhat at the sheer relief and warmth in Bernie’s voice.
“Here I am,” Serena affirms. She puts the phone on speaker on the table as she opens a tidy bottle of wine. “And I assume there you are, still sat on the stairs?”
She suddenly feels bad at Bernie’s confirmation; sees her perched uncomfortably on bare wooden stairs whilst she’s sat in the kitchen, ensconced in her second - first nice - bottle of wine. “Actually, Bernie, don’t worry, this can wait, it’s not-”
She’s cut off by Bernie’s protestations. “Honestly, Serena, at least I’m getting a nice draught. It’s quite refreshing, actually, after being folded in the airing cupboard surrounded by duvets with the headphones on for most of the day.”
Serena blinks.
“Is that where you’ve been the whole time we have team meetings?” she asks, flabbergasted. She can almost see Bernie’s shrug, more clearly than if they were talking in person.
“Outside the flat is very busy. And everywhere inside echoes. The sound techs suggested it for a walk-in wardrobe. I don’t have a walk-in wardrobe, and the spare room, as small as it is, is still too big to soundproof with duvets, so the airing cupboard it was. Honestly, the audio finish is quite professional, you might have noticed - they know their stuff!”
Serena’s glad for the ‘old fashioned’ call; glad that Bernie can’t see her fishing for words; knows that she’d find pity and bristle at it. Doesn’t know what to do with all the sympathy and empathy that she’d normally channel into a hug or at least an arm rub, so she clears her throat, and returns to her original trail of thought.
