Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It is night time, May, 1942. The fire you can see down below is a city, ablaze after a heavy night’s bombing. It could be any city in Europe, for it is a continent at war. It is not just the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe who have been busy tonight, though. Other services have been mobilised to support the efforts of the airmen, and the skies are alive with radio signals, engines and the cheery chatter of pilots who know they might be dead this time tomorrow. Just another night in war time, then.

***

“Request your position, request your position. Come in Spitfire, repeat, come in Spitfire, I require your position.”

The voice on the radio is clear, a Home Counties type, and the pilot grins in spite of everything. Might as well go out with a charming voice on the end of the line, and make it easier for the poor girl, too. Can’t be much fun, this sort of thing night after night.

“Position nil. Age thirty seven, education excellent, religion, none to speak of, politics - irrelevant now, I should say. What’s your name?”

The operator pauses, and one can imagine her peering at the radio, trying to make sense of this far from routine response from the pilot with the plummy, matey voice.

“What is your position, Spitfire? I can’t understand you.”

“Not to worry, I understand myself well enough for both of us.”

The girl sounds tetchy now. “Are you receiving me, are you receiving me? Report your position, Spitfire!”

There is the noisy silence of static for a long time then, but the pilot finally replies.

“Position pretty abysmal, actually. I can’t give you my exact coordinates, all my instruments have gone. Crew’s gone, too, bailed out on my orders. We’re supposed to be transporting her to - well, never mind where, but we ran into Jerry, worst luck. The crew should be safe enough, looked like farmland. They bailed at 03:35, you got that? Good - send a signal to HQ, get someone to head out and pick them up, there’s a good girl.”

She repeats the message, careful to get the details right. “Do you need a fix for landing? Can you see our signals, Spitfire?”

“I’m not going to land I’m afraid, old thing. My undercarriage is gone - I’m bailing out presently. It’s not Spitfire, by the way, it’s Bernie, Flight Captain Bernie Wolfe. Take a telegram, would you? Telegram my mother - Mrs George Wolfe, twenty two Chester Place, Cheltenham. Tell her I love her - that I’m sorry I haven’t been very good at showing it. Can you write something like that for me?”

There’s a hitch in the operator’s voice. “Message received, I can hear you. Are you wounded? Are you bailing out?”

“I’m bailing out alright, but there’s a catch. My ’chute’s all rags and tatters, wouldn’t carry a fly. Listen, what’s your name?”

“It’s Serena - but what do you mean? Flight Captain Wolfe - Bernie, you can’t bail without a parachute, you won’t make it! Can you see our signals - we can guide you in...”

“Listen Serena, it’s alright, don’t be afraid. The fact is I’ve had it, can’t be helped. I’ll get the kite over the ditch, make sure she goes down without harming civilians, then I’ll bail.”

“But Bernie, you’ll -”

Bernie doesn’t let her say it. “I’d rather jump than fry, and what’s the difference? I shan’t feel a thing. Look, I hope I haven’t frightened you. Serena, tell me something - are you pretty?”

There’s a sob in her laugh. “I do alright, they tell me.”

“I’m glad. The girl who hears my last words should be a peach - and you sound like one. I knew you’d be pretty. Tell me about yourself - where were you born? Are you in love with anyone? I could have loved a girl like you. Where do you live?”

She tells him, this middle aged man with a young man’s voice who has somehow captivated her with his charm and his chivalry even in this dreadful moment.

“Holby Sands? Sounds wonderful! I’ll be a ghost, come and see you, shall I. I’ll have my real wings soon. Listen, I’m over the water now - I’m going to sign off. It’s been grand talking to you. Wish we’d met sooner, I’d have shown you a thing or two. I’m going now, Serena. Be brave, and don’t look if they bring me in. Just remember my voice, and send that wire, would you? Goodbye, Serena - and thanks awfully.”

“Bernie!” Serena cries, her voice ragged, all semblance of control gone. “Oh, Bernie, I -“

But Bernie has no time left to console her.

“Goodbye, Serena, god bless. Over and out.”

Serena repeatedly clicks the control of her radio, adjusts her headset, dares not switch frequencies, and for long minutes she calls into darkness, into the ether, but there is not even static now - just the deepest silence she thinks she will ever hear. She whispers uselessly into the mouthpiece, a tear rolling down her cheek.

“Over and out.”

Chapter Text

First Officer Roxanna MacMillan is watching the clock. On and on it ticks, though time has no meaning here: perhaps that is why there are no numbers on its face. Yet still it ticks.

She watches as new arrivals check in: Wrens in their smart uniforms; Land Girls in their overalls and green jumpers; Queen Alexandra’s nurses in crisp, starched uniforms - and ATA crew like herself, in flying jackets and fleece lined boots. One by one they present themselves at the desk, where they give their name and rank, and in return are issued with a brand new pair of wings, fresh off the never-ceasing production line. She hears every language under the sun, for here, all are the same, and she smiles as an English rose greets a German Mädchen with a friendly smile and a hearty handshake. What a lot of silly nonsense it’s all been, she thinks.

She turns her head from the desk and the slow tick tock of the clock that tells no time, and looks back to the escalator that brings them all here. Surely the skipper should be here by now? As she had bailed out and tugged her parachute cord, Roxanna had seen how badly the Spitfire was damaged: with both engines ablaze and the tail shot to lace, there was not a chance in hell that even Flight Captain Wolfe would have been able to land her - they’d all known that. Regret for her skipper had been replaced by absolute terror for herself, though, as the cord jammed and she fell through the cold night air somewhere over England and - well, here she was.

The Section Officer calls to her again.

“Come along, First Officer MacMillan, you’ve waited long enough. It doesn’t look as though your friend is coming.”

“But it doesn’t make sense,” Roxanna says with a frown. “This is the women’s section? She couldn’t have got away with it, not the way the Spitfire was biffed about. And you told me her name’s on the list - but you must have made a mistake!”

The Section Officer’s impassive face takes on a sterner cast. “We don’t make mistakes here. There hasn’t been a mistake in over a thousand years.”

“Well,” Roxanna says in a matter of fact tone, “I should say you’re about due another one.”

***

When Bernie came to, she was surprised to find heaven awfully wet and cold. Assuming it’s heaven, that is - she supposed it could be the other place. But she’d always been told that the Other Place specialised in high temperatures and thirst, and she was very much having the opposite issues. Everything from her boots to her leather flying helmet was drenched, and she spat out a mouthful of water that was very much surplus to requirements.

Salt. The water was salty, and the mouthful she had just rejected seeped away into fine sand. The sea! Of all unlikely things, she was on a beach, her feet still lapped by the waves that washed her up. She gathered her strength and raised first her head, then her weary body until she stood upright on the strand, staggering a little, but all in one piece, which she was quite sure she wouldn’t be were she still alive.

“I wonder where I report?” she murmured. She looked around, took her bearings, and started trudging up the shore until she hit a break in the dunes. She pulled the sodden leather cap from her head, letting her blonde curls tumble out, and the sun began to dry her out as she walked - she assumed - towards eternity. She stopped in her tracks, though, as she heard a friendly Wuff! from behind the next dune, and when she rounded the corner, there stood a shaggy black mongrel, about as high as her knee.

“Oh, I always hoped there would be dogs,” she said as the scruffy beast nosed into her palm. “Are you here to show me the way? Come on, then girl - lead on!”

The dog ran on happily, turning her head now and then to make sure Bernie was still there: Bernie kept pace comfortably, her stride easy now, warmed as she was by the sun and the climb from the beach. She was puzzled when a Lancaster rumbled overhead - surely they didn’t need planes here, least of all bombers! It was only when the dog stopped to sniff around the foot of a white post that she looked up to see a sign, the writing painted over to baffle any invading force, but she could just make out the shape of two words beneath the whitewash: Holby Sands.

“Hullo! I’ve heard that name somewhere before,” she told the dog, who wiggled her hindquarters, tongue lolling in a mouthful of grinning white teeth. Then she had it.

“Holby Sands - why, that’s where that absolute peach of a wireless operator lives! Then that means that -”

But interrupting that thought came a bicycle bell dinging brightly behind her, and she turned in the road to see a woman in uniform pedalling briskly along the narrow lane.

“Hullo - I say, hullo there! Could you help me? I seem to be lost. I’m looking for Holby Sands - I don’t know if the sign’s been switched - is it this way?”

The cyclist stopped and hopped off her bike. “You’re not a spy, are you?” she asked, only half in jest.

“Well, if I am, I’m a very poor one,” Bernie replied. “I don’t know where I am, or how I got here, just that I need to get to Holby Sands. I’m looking for someone, you see.”

The woman looked at her oddly, a puzzled frown marring her pretty face. “I feel as though I should know you,” she said, “but I’m sure we haven’t met before - I’d have remembered you alright.”

And it all fell into place - for Bernie, at least. “You’re Serena!” she exclaimed, and for a moment the woman looked at her blankly, but then her eyes opened wide, and her jaw dropped as she looked Bernie up and down, taking in her overalls, her flight jacket, the flying helmet dangling limply from her hand.

“You - you’re Bernie!” she said in disbelief, and the bicycle fell from her slack hands, Bernie catching it just in time. “But I thought you were - oh, I thought you were dead, and there’s not a scratch on you - what a cruel joke to play on me!” She tried to pull away, but she was trapped between Bernie and the bicycle.

“If it’s a joke, then it’s on me,” Bernie said. “One minute I was done for - the kite in flames, fog everywhere, the next, I’m waking up on the beach with nothing worse to show for it than wet socks and a headache. I haven’t a clue how I got here, but I’m jolly glad I found you again.”

And then it was Bernie who dropped the bike, for all at once her arms were full of Serena, who was laughing and crying all at once, and hugging her as though she would never let go.

***

“Conductor Sixty Nine, can you explain this discrepancy?”

The voice of the Recording Angel is stern, but Conductor Sixty Nine is unabashed.

“What can I say - it was foggy over the channel last night - she must have got lost. Hardly my fault,” he shrugs, flicking star dust from his shoulder.

The Section Officer clears her throat. “Flight Officer MacMillan,” she announces, and she ushers Roxanna forward.

“He’s right, you know - it was an absolute bally pea souper last night. After my ‘chute failed, I could hardly tell I was falling, it was so thick. The Skipper gave the order to bail out, did her best to drop us near the coast, but I could see she wasn’t going to make it. I hung around when I got here hoping to see her - thought we might go in together - but she seems to have stood me up. The others must have made it alright - I haven’t seen them here either. I’m glad,” she said.

“There, you see? Oh, very well, I’ll go and get her - she’ll be bobbing about in the English Channel. I’ll fish her out and bring her back - just give me half a tick.” He turned to go, but the Recording Angel halted him with a raised hand.

“It is not as simple as that. You have not been with us long, I think?”

“Came here fresh from Sevastopol,” he said with a lazy salute that was as louche as his smoking jacket and cap.

“The Crimean War - a mere crumb of time. You have done well to be appointed Conductor so quickly, but I fear you have been promoted beyond your capabilities. This discrepancy should have been reported immediately. You see, she has met one of the living, and they have formed... a connection.”

“Ah.” The Conductor gulped. “Yes, that complicates things rather, what?”

The Angel sighed. “Well, you must do your best. You will go back to Earth now, find the Flight Captain and ask her to return with you. I am sure she is a reasonable woman, First Officer MacMillan?”

“Oh, yes, utterly down to Earth. Quite literally, as it turns out.”

The Recording Angel turns a stony eye upon her, but Roxanna’s mouth barely twitches.

“Go, then, Conductor Sixty Nine, and don’t come back without Flight Captain Berenice Wolfe.”

Chapter Text

They walked along the dunes together, Bernie pushing the bike, Serena’s hand tucked into the crook of her elbow. Serena had stopped weeping, and her face was as fresh and bright as though the tears had washed away every trace of worry and war.

“I can’t explain it,” Bernie said. “One minute I was saying my fond farewells to the sky and the land and the sea - knew I was going to go out with a bang, so to speak - oh, don’t start again! - and it was quite alright in a funny sort of way, because you’d made my last minutes so wonderful. And then - and then my feet were wet, and I was spitting out sea water, and then there was a dog coming to meet me - and then there you were!”

“Oh, Bernie, don’t tease me like that. It was cruel of you to tell me your parachute was gone when it was working perfectly all along!”

“But that’s the mystery, don’t you see? I wasn’t even wearing the thing when I bailed out - it really was just a lot of confetti. Look - this is just as I was when I came to: you can see where the strap was shot away. I’m still wearing the harness, but the ’chute fell clean away - that’s how close it was.”

Serena let the sheared webbing slip through her fingers and looked up wide eyed at Bernie.

“It doesn’t make sense. I can’t understand how you survived - oh, but thank god you did! I didn’t sleep a wink last night for crying about you - though I thought I was crying over a man! How silly you must think me.”

Bernie put her arm round Serena’s shoulders and gave her something that wasn’t quite a hug, nor quite a shake.

“Not at all! What were you supposed to think, gruff voice like mine coming over the air from a pranged kite? And I don’t think you’re silly, either. It must have been ghastly for you, hearing me talk like that and knowing you couldn't do anything to help. But you did, you know - help, I mean. You were simply splendid.”

They walked on in silence for a while, Bernie’s arm still resting on Serenas’s shoulder. Eventually Serena spoke again, trepidation evident in her voice.

“What happens now? I suppose you’ll have to rejoin your unit, will you?”

Bernie huffed out a breath, her fringe, dried by the sun, lifting and falling back across her eyes.

“I’d better telephone my CO, I suppose. Do you have a machine at your place? I couldn’t impose, could I?”

“Of course you can - but I should like you to see a doctor before you do anything else,” Serena said. “Dr Hanssen will see you, I’m sure. He’s the GP in the village, you know.”

Bernie smiled at her in agreement, and they walked slowly back to Holby Sands together.

***

They dropped in at the surgery on the way to Serena’s cottage, and the receptionist informed her that Dr Hanssen was out on house calls today. He would call in on them at home at around three if that suited? It suited perfectly, thank you. Once Bernie had bathed, Serena passed her an old pair of flannels and a shirt which had belonged to her father, for nothing of hers would fit the pilot’s lanky frame.

“I don’t mind - I’m quite at home in a pair of slacks these days,” Bernie said comfortably. “I shan’t want to go back to dresses once the war’s over. Speaking of which, I’d better call HQ - may I use your telephone?”

Serena busied herself in the kitchen while Bernie stood at the telephone in the hallway. She tried not to listen too closely, but she couldn’t help overhearing Bernie’s side of the conversation. She was very matter of fact about it, this extraordinary woman who had fallen out of the sky and lived, and she gave just the barest bones of the story - she had been transporting the Spitfire to an airbase in the south of England when she had run into a German raiding party on its way home, and had taken direct hits to both engines. Her crew had bailed out, but she had made the best of a bad job to steer the thing out of harm’s way, and the stricken plane must have come down in the sea.

“No, I bailed out before she went down,” she heard Bernie say in an offhand sort of manner. “I found myself washed up on the beach this morning, got picked up by one of the wireless girls - funnily enough, the one I spoke to last night. Gave her a shock meeting me this morning, I can tell you! What? Oh, yes, lovely girl. Looking after me beautifully.”

There was a pause, a few mumbled interjections, then Bernie spoke up again.

“Well, look, I’ve arranged to see the local quack,” she said cheerfully. “Seeing him after lunch as a matter of fact. He sounds like a good chap - Hanssen - no, I thought that too! - Swedish, apparently. His number’s Holby Sands 328, got that? I’ll ask him to give you a call, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of routine. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Another pause as Bernie listened to the other end. “Very good sir, I will do. Yes, of course - as soon as I know. Goodbye, sir - goodbye!”

There was a bright little chime as she replaced the mouthpiece on its hook, and she came back into the kitchen to find Serena putting together a basket of promising looking packets and parcels.

“What’s all this - sending a food parcel to the troops?”

Serena laughed. “In a manner of speaking, I suppose I am. You’re the only troop I have in mind, though - I thought we could have a picnic, make the most of this beautiful sunshine. Come on, I know just the spot. Oh, thank you!”

Bernie had picked up the basket and hefted its weight approvingly. “Well, your Doctor Hanssen won’t be diagnosing me with malnutrition, that’s for sure. There must be enough in here to feed a whole squadron!”

“You need feeding up after the night you’ve had,” Serena said primly. “And look at you - you’re as thin as a rake! I don’t know how you survived a night at sea, you must have been freezing cold. I’m going to make it my job to fatten you up.”

“Well, I shan’t argue with that,” said Bernie with an amiable smile.

They walked through the village arm in arm, Serena pointing out the surgery, and waving at a tall thin man on a bicycle as he wobbled past.

“There’s the man himself,” she said. “That’s Henrik - Doctor Hanssen. He’s gone about by bicycle ever since they brought in petrol rationing. He’s not terribly proficient, but he’s very particular in his ways once he gets an idea into his head. Here we are - over the stile here, then we just follow the path down towards the sea.”

***

They made their way through a pleasant patch of woodland, the sunlight casting dancing shadows through the beech leaves onto soft grass, and at last the path widened out into a clearing that opened onto the beach. It was perfectly idyllic, and Serena shook out the picnic blanket with a flourish.

“You’ll split a bottle of Bass with me, won’t you?” Bernie turned to the picnic basket and pulled out the bottle of beer and a couple of glasses.

But there was no reply, and when she turned to look at her, Serena was as still as a statue, her lips parted as though she were about to speak, her hand raised - but as still as still could be.

“Oh, don’t say I’ve shocked you speechless by suggesting a drink in the daytime! I say, you’re jolly good at that - I’d pick you to be on my team at statues any day!” She laughed, but still there was no movement, no reaction.

“Serena, what are you playing at? Oh, come along, a joke’s a joke, but that’s enough now.”
Bernie was beginning to worry about her friend, and she reached towards her, but a voice from nowhere made her stop in her tracks.

“She can’t hear you, you know. And there’s no point shaking her, for she won’t feel a thing.”

Bernie whipped her head round. She hadn’t heard anyone approaching, even with her famously sharp hearing, but there in the shadow of the trees stood a young man dressed in a dark velvet smoking jacket and cap that was more than a little passé. He smiled at her blandly.

“All my fault, I’m afraid - bit of a mix up, but better late than never, hey? Haha - just my little joke. We’re all late, don’t you see? Or you should be, at any rate. Look, I’ll come clean - I should have picked you up over the water last night, but I missed you in that blasted fog. Worse than anything I ever saw even in my day - and I can’t seem to get used to these airborne missions that are all the rage these days. Never mind - I expect you’re all ready to go now?”

Bernie stared at him.

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure I quite follow,” she said carefully, wondering whether he was quite sober or sane.

He gave a little frown that was almost a pout, and Bernie had to stifle a laugh at his petulant expression.

“But you must see, my dear - it’s time to go now. You should have come along with me last night, and the fact that you didn’t oblige has got me into some rather hot water, you see, so I shall have to ask you to come along now. Don't worry, you won’t be in trouble, we’ll get it all sorted out in no time.”

He gave her what he obviously hoped was a winning smile, and held out his elbow as though expecting her to take it and be led away meekly from Serena and their picnic. But Bernie was having none of it.

“Oh no you don’t. For one thing, you’re not real, and for another, it’s your sticky wicket, not mine. Sounds to me as though you’ve made a bally mess of things - but it’s not really my problem, old chum, is it?”

The young man drew his brows together. “Sticky wicket? Ah - I suppose you mean mistake. Well, strictly speaking, yes - that’s true - but nevertheless, it is your problem - it’s you that’s died, after all.”

She eyed him sceptically. “That’s just it, though, don’t you see? I haven’t died - quite the reverse. I’m quite as alive as I’ve ever been - more so, in fact. And that’s my point. Perhaps last night I’d have trotted along with you quite happily, but everything’s changed now.”

“Changed? I don’t see how anything can have changed in just a few hours. You’ll be a little bit late signing on the dotted line, but your name’s on the list, and you'll still be signing as Berenice Griselda Wolfe, just as you would have done last night.”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong!” She exclaimed, rounding on him. “I’m not the same woman I was yesterday. Yesterday I was ready to die - not that keen on the notion, mind, but ready for it. But today - well, just look! I can’t go now old chap - quite out of the question.” And she threw a hand out in a gesture that to her explained everything, for she directed his gaze to Serena, lips still parted and shining, and he gave a little sigh of understanding.

“But you’re number’s up, I’m afraid. You couldn’t have survived without a parachute, could you? So it stands to reason you must be dead.”

Reluctantly, she turned away from Serena. “Reason, reason,” she echoed testily. “Hmm. Is it reasonable to expect a woman in love to willingly give up life just as she’s finding it?”

“Ah, now - that’s a moot point, Flight Captain - you were supposed to have died before you met her - you’re not meant to be in love, you’re not even meant to be alive.”

“Meant to be? Well, maybe not, but it’s hardly my fault I’m either, is it? If you hadn’t made such a hash of collecting me last night, I’d be strawberry jam or fish food by now, and I wouldn’t have met Serena. But thanks to you, I did. It’s your mistake, not mine. Thanks to you, I’m in love. If you’d come to me last night, I’d have come with you willingly, but everything’s changed now - I’ve changed.”

The young man shrugged as though, alas, the matter was quite out of his hands. “Well, perhaps you have. But the laws of time and being mean that -”

“Laws?” Bernie was onto him in a trice. “There are laws? Not just the old thermodynamic stuff? Tell me about them - what sort of government have you got up there, what kind of judiciary? Because by God, I’ll mount an appeal if you try and take me now!”

He winced, as though realising he had made a tactical error but was determined to bluff it out. “Government is perhaps not the right word, but judiciary - well, yes, I suppose you could call it that.”

He looked at her, the colour in her cheeks, the sparkle in her eye, and then he looked at Serena where she lay almost, but not quite, in repose. She was not his type - not at all, he thought, remembering a young man in the most dashing guards uniform - but he could see that she was a beautiful woman, and he could see, too, the way that Bernie looked at her, with a fierce joy that he was not too long dead to remember. Conductor Sixty Nine might be a slightly accident prone ethereal clerk, but Dominic Copeland had been a romantic soul, and his soul was the part that had lived on. He relented a little.

“An appeal, you say? Well, it’s an idea… It’s never been done before, but we could try, I suppose. After all, I don’t imagine anyone’s ever been in quite your particular fix before. Let me go and report back - but I can’t promise you anything, mind.”

“First time for everything,” Bernie said with supreme confidence. “When will they make a decision?”

“When? Oh, time’s immaterial, my dear. It’s already been made - and they haven’t begun to think about it yet. I told you: we’re in space now, not time. You’ll see me when you see me, and not before.”

And quite without warning, he was gone.

***

“I’d better not - I’m on duty later,” Serena said, startling Bernie back to the moment.

“Better not what?” Bernie asked, brows meeting in confusion.

“I’d better not have a drink, silly!” Serena nodded at the bottle of beer still in Bernie’s hand.

“Oh! I thought you were asleep, though. What did you make of all that just now, then, hey? Think I’ve got a chance?”

Serena blushed inexplicably. “A chance?” she asked, sounding unaccountably flustered. “I’m not sure I quite know what you mean.”

Bernie tutted impatiently. “With the appeal, of course. You think they’ll really hear me out, let me stay? I say,” she said, her tone changing to one of regret, “I’m awfully sorry, that’s not how I meant to tell you at all - I hoped we’d have rather more time to build up to it gradually, but - well, there you have it. It must seem awfully sudden, but I meant it when I told you last night over the wireless that I could fall in love with you. Well, now that I’ve met you properly, I jolly well have.”

Serena stared at her, not so much horror struck as struck dumb. Whatever was she to make of this extraordinary jumble of ideas? She shook her head to clear it of the thing that she couldn’t possibly have heard.

“Start again, Bernie: what appeal?”

Bernie almost stamped her foot with impatience. “Why, the appeal against my death, of course! Didn’t you hear him? He was supposed to have guided me off this mortal coil last night, but the silly duffer couldn't find me in the fog. Now he’s one down on his numbers, and I feel sorry for him, really I do - but why ever should I choose to go, now that I’ve met you?”

She looked at Serena expectantly, as though she had explained everything, but Serena was more at a loss than ever.

“Who was supposed to have guided you where? You’re not making sense! Oh, Bernie, let’s pack all of this away and go and find Dr Hanssen straight away. Look, you must have hit your head last night as you bailed out - there’s blood in your hair.”

She lifted her hand to Bernie’s temple and traced the thin line of dried blood that adorned it.

Bernie leaned into the touch without knowing she was doing it, and her hand covered Serena’s.

“It’s just a scratch - I don’t feel as though I’ve had a biff to the head, but if it will make you feel happier, let’s go and find the fellow. I expect by the time we get back to your cottage it will be almost three o’clock anyway - oh, that’s odd,” she said, looking at her wrist watch. “I could have sworn I was talking to that chap for a good ten minutes or so, but - oh, yes, of course! In space, not time, he said. Well, let’s finish our picnic first, now that we’re here, and we’ll catch up with the good doctor in due course. Come on, let’s not waste this wonderful spread.”

Bernie reached for the bottle of beer she had been about to pour, when suddenly the most intense pain she could remember ever experiencing speared through her temple, and she doubled over, her hand clutched to her head.Through a blizzard of pain, she could dimly hear Serena’s voice.

“Bernie? Bernie, darling, talk to me!”

And then it was as though she was falling out of the Spitfire again, into that dense fog: down, down, down… until the dark sea welcomed her, and the waves closed over her head once more.

Chapter Text

When she came to, the first thing Bernie noticed was the books. Shelves and shelves of them, from floor to ceiling, and stacks of them on every available surface. As they swam into clearer view, she picked out a few titles: Modern Neurology; Concussion and the Brain; Imagination and Delusion.

“Serena?” she murmured, grasping for something familiar in this strange room.

“Oh! She’s awake! It’s alright, Bernie darling, you’re quite safe. You blacked out while we were having our picnic, but luckily Dr Hanssen was passing by on his bicycle and we got you back here. You’re at his house, behind the surgery. You’ll be alright, you’ll see.”

Bernie clutched Serena’s hand, and sank back onto the sofa while the world settled back into place around her.

“Is he here, the doc?” she asked, and at once the tall, almost gaunt figure of Dr Hanssen stepped into her field of vision. His impeccable English betrayed nothing of his Scandinavian origins.

“Henrik Hanssen, at your service, Flight Captain Wolfe. Tell me, what’s the last thing you recall before you lost consciousness?”

She rubbed her temple as she tried to remember.

“Well, let’s see. We were having a picnic - jolly nice one, you should ask Serena to make one up for you - and then that fellow interrupted, told me all about the cock-up he’d made about escorting me on. Oh, that’s right - I got him to agree to go and put in a requisition for an appeal. Then he toddled off, and I - I think I was talking to Serena about it, and then - no, that’s it, I’m afraid. The next thing I knew, here I was among the books. I say, you’ve an awful lot of them, haven’t you?”

He gave her a little smile but said nothing at first, as he held her wrist lightly, counting under his breath. Satisfied, he patted her hand as he released her.

“Hmm, a little fast, but I dare say you’ve given yourself a good dose of adrenalin with all this excitement. Tell me about this fellow of yours, the one who was supposed to collect you last night?”

He spoke so casually of it that he might have been asking who had been going to take her to the dance that evening, but she could see from his expression that Serena had told him a little of what she had relayed to her.

“I dare say you think I’m crackers, don’t you? But I swear it was real, as real as you standing there - oh, sorry - sit down, do.” She swung her legs down, making space for him as she sat up.

“I don’t think you’re crackers, not at all,” he said as took out a large handkerchief and dusted the cushion where her flying boots had been resting. He sat rather primly, his knees together and his hands resting on them as though he were about to play the piano. “Whatever you have seen and heard is very real to you, and that makes it real as far as I am concerned - a perceived experience is a real experience. I do, however, think you’ve had rather an eventful twenty four hours, and that’s bound to have taken its toll. Tell me what you can remember about your visitor, hmm?”

And Bernie took him at his word, describing the young man who had apparently stopped time to speak to her of the eternal in as much detail as she could recall.

“... and that’s how we left it - he’s going to see about an appeal and let me know, so fingers crossed!”

Dr Hanssen looked up from his notebook where he had captured the essentials of her story.

“I see. That all sounds most rational, if you take the matter of the temporal anomaly out of the equation. And did you see anything else out of the ordinary? Hear anything? Any accompanying scents?”

Bernie stared at him.

“Good lord - however did you know? Yes, I could smell his cologne - something quite delicate, awfully familiar…” she squinted as she concentrated, trying to recall what the scent had been. He had it.

“Lily of the valley! It used to grow in drifts along the river bank when I was a child - I wonder if they still do?”

“Lily of the valley - you’re quite sure? Rather a feminine sort of scent for a young man, wouldn’t you say?” His tone was curious rather than sceptical or scornful, and Bernie smiled at him.

“I should say he was rather a feminine sort of chap, if you know what I mean. It didn’t strike me as odd - suited him, I’d say. Does it mean anything, do you think?”

Dr Hanssen’s pen paused on the page of his notebook.

“Well, well, perhaps it does, perhaps it doesn’t. The sense of smell is closely connected with memory, you know. Your memories of the river you mention - are they pleasant ones? Any trauma associated with it?”

She cast her mind back. “Trauma? I wouldn’t say so. I used to swim there as a child, had tremendous fun. Oh! Though there was an occasion where I got into a spot of bother with the duckweed - got myself all tangled up in the stuff. My cousin jumped in and managed to pull me free. Gosh, I’d forgotten all about that. Look here, Doc, I see what you’re driving at - you think perhaps a near drowning experience might have triggered that memory and that particular scent, but I’m telling you it was all quite real.”

The doctor’s tone was placatory but in no sense condescending. “Indeed, indeed - I understand you perfectly, Flight Captain. It may mean nothing at all. But I should like to investigate your case further, with your permission?”

She gave him an easy grin. “Oh, of course - whatever you say, you’re the expert. You think I might have taken a knock to the old noggin, hey? I see you take an interest in neurology,” she said, gesturing at the books that surround them.

“That’s a great understatement,” Serena chipped in. “Henrik’s a general practitioner here, but he’s terribly overqualified for the job. He’s one of the finest neurosurgeons Sweden ever produced - you really did land in the right bit of the Channel!”

“Well, there’s my third bit of luck,” Bernie said. “That chap missing me in the fog, and falling at the feet of a good brain doc - I must have been born under a lucky star,” she said.

Serena frowned. “That’s only two things - what’s the other bit of luck?”

“Why, meeting you, of course,” Bernie said openly and wholeheartedly. “Talking to you on the wireless last night, and then meeting you on the beach this morning - I don’t suppose anyone was ever as lucky as I’ve been in the last twenty four hours!”

Henrik Hanssen was a man of the world for all his academic manner, and a tiny smile touched his lips as he regarded the earnest woman before him, and his blushing young friend Serena, who seemed quite at a loss to know how to respond.

“I think, Flight Captain, it would be best if you were to stay here, if that suits you, and if your young gentleman visits again, I should like you to tell me immediately. Here,” he said, reaching for a little handbell. “The moment he arrives, or even if you simply smell lily of the valley again, ring the bell, and I will come and observe, if I may.”

“Righto,” Bernie said comfortably. “That sounds like a sensible plan. Do you mind if I stay here just now, on the sofa? That headache rather knocked me for six - I feel as though I could sleep for a week.”

Dr Hanssen stood to give her room to lie down again, and Serena tucked a blanket around her shoulders, and dropping a kiss to her forehead, she followed Henrik through to the dispensary where she made herself useful rolling bandages as they talked quietly about possible explanations for what Bernie had experienced.

Bernie was aware of their conversation as a distant murmur of friendly voices, and she drifted into a more peaceful sleep than her earlier loss of consciousness.

***

Bernie didn’t know how long she had been asleep - a long while, or just a few minutes. But she knew what had woken her: the smell of lily of the valley.

Even before her eyes were fully open, she was reaching for the little bell, but when she shook it, it gave no sound.

“Space, not time,” the conductor reminded her. “We are outside time while they are inside - it’s a no go, I’m afraid. How are you feeling?”

Bernie glanced through the open door to see Serena and the doctor frozen mid conversation, Serena’s hands stopped in the act of winding a crepe bandage. She could see that even if she could ring the bell, nobody would hear it.

“Bit groggy, truth be told. How did you get on upstairs - what’s the word on the appeal?”

He leaned negligently against a bookshelf which a more substantial form might have brought down, so overloaded was it, and examined his well manicured nails peevishly.

“Well, good new and bad news. The appeal is to be allowed,” he said, though he sounded anything but glad about it - she was, after all, a cargo that he had failed to deliver, and he was hardly thrilled about further delay.

“That’s the good news,” Bernie said eagerly, “For me, at any rate. What’s the bad news?”

“It’s the presiding judge. They’ve given the job to the worst person imaginable - it doesn’t bode well for you.”

Bernie jumped to her feet, quite wide awake now.

“Well, who is it? Spit it out, man!”

He took up an attitude, all his incorporeal weight on one hip and his head cocked at an angle. Bernie knew the pose well from the clubs she frequented in Soho, and it made her feel far more friendly towards him, even though he was clearly invested in the failure of her appeal.

With a sense of great importance, he said, “The Reverend John Knox.”

Bernie stared at him blankly for a moment, and then her memory supplied the details for her.

“John Knox, Scottish minister, Reformationist and… oh, there’s something else I ought to know, isn’t there? I can’t think what it is.”

“Author,” Conductor Sixty Nine prompted her, and her eyes widened in dismay.

“Author of The first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women. Oh, crikey, that’s awkward,” she said blandly.

“A nasty little pamphlet written against Mary of Guise and her daughter the Queen of Scotland,” the Conductor remarked. “Backfired rather when Elizabeth came to the throne - she never forgave him the insult. Consequently, he can’t abide women - any woman - and particularly not one whom he thinks is usurping a man’s role.”
“A man’s role,” Bernie echoed faintly.

“Such as monarch, or soldier, or -”

“Or pilot,” Bernie said, sitting back down with a thump.

“Well, to be fair, he hates all pilots regardless of their gender - flying, you see. An abomination, apparently.”

Bernie ran a hand through her hair and scratched the back of neck in thought.

“It looks as though the odds are fairly stacked against me, doesn’t it? Well, alright. So I’m going to need a strong defence. Who have I got?”

He shrugged delicately. “Entirely up to you, my dear. You can have anyone you like - as long as they are not still alive. Socrates, William Pitt, Henry the Eighth..”

“I’m not sure Henry the Eighth was a great defender of women,” Bernie said robustly. “No, if I can’t have someone who knows me and Serena, then I at least need someone who understands love, understands what it means to be a woman in a man’s world.”

He shifted his weight again, this time his eyes cast heavenwards as though seeking divine inspiration, which, for all she knew, he was.

“Hmm. What about Sappho, then? Or Elizabeth Garret Anderson?”

He shook his head doubtfully. “I’m not convinced that John Knox would even condescend to argue with a woman, though I understand your thinking. I’d recommend a man -”

“I bet you would,” she muttered under her breath before she could stop herself, but he magnanimously ignored her.

“A man who can construct a rational argument, someone who won’t be swept away by Knox’s brimstone and fire rhetoric. I’ll leave it up to you - but you’d better think of somebody soon. Knox will already be selecting someone for the prosecution.”

***

Serena had lost count of the number of bandages she had rolled, and she was beginning to suspect Henrik of secretly unravelling them again like Penelope, to keep her occupied. When she heard the furious tinkling of the bell, she dropped the one she held and ignored it as it unrolled across the floor, and she dashed through to the library, Henrik close upon her heels.

“Bernie, darling!” she exclaimed, seeing Bernie doubled over, her head in her hands again.

“He was here again?” the doctor asked, taking Bernie’s wrist in his fingers again and noting the racing pulse.

“Yes,” Bernie ground out in a pained groan. “He played a dirty little trick with the bell - wouldn’t let me call for you.”

She lay back on the couch and allowed Henrik to examine her.

“You’ve got that headache again, hmm? Serena, draw the curtains, would you, please? Thank you. Well, what’s the news? Has your appeal been approved?”

Bernie looked up at him with surprise. “I say, you really do believe me, don’t you? Splendid! Well, it’s good news, mostly. I’m to have an appeal, but I have to choose my own defense - Judge John Knox is sitting, of all people.”

“Hmm, that’s not ideal,” Henrik agreed. “Any thoughts on who you’ll choose? Sleep on it, I should - things will seem clearer for a little sleep.”

She looked at him gratefully. “I wish you could represent me,” she said. “Shame it has to be someone who’s up there already.”

“Well, as your chief counsel on Earth, I advise you to rest for now, and to tackle this problem in the morning. Come along, I have had a guest room prepared for you.”

But Bernie shook her head. “I’d like to stay here if I may - I don’t want to miss him if he comes before morning.”

Henrik considered. The couch was a comfortable one, and the study was a nice quiet room. “I will ask Mrs Harrison to bring you a pillow and another blanket,” he agreed.

“Oh, Henrik,” Serena said, “Might I take the guest room, though? I’d like to be here in case - in case -”

He patted her hand. “Of course, my dear. Now come along, let us leave the Flight Captain in peace.”

“I do wish you’d call me Bernie,” she said. “I’m off duty for a while by the looks of things - oh, you’d better give my CO a call, let him know that you’re keeping me for a while.”

“I shall see to it - Bernie,” Dr Hanssen said with a little bow, and he closed the door behind them.

***

Back in the dispensary, Serena leaned urgently towards him across the bench.

“Henrik, you don’t really believe this tale of courts and appeals, do you? It can’t be real!”

“Ah, but my dear, it is real to Bernie, and we must behave as though it is just as real to us.”

“What’s wrong with her, Henrik - can she be helped?”

He looked kindly at her. “I am almost certain I know what is wrong with her, and I believe she can be helped, yes. But I believe also that it is vital to her recovery that she win her appeal. It is our job to see that she has every means at her disposal to do so. I believe that is why she wished to sleep in the study: to sleep amongst books is to dream of their wisdom.”

He looked at the clock on the wall and checked it against his own pocket watch.

“May I prevail upon you to keep vigil here, Serena? I must talk to my friend Mr Levy at the cottage hospital: I think he will agree that we should operate as soon as possible. I shouldn’t be longer than an hour.”

Serena watched silently as Henrik had moved swiftly about his office, selecting various texts and surgical instruments and placing them reverently in his black bag. She knew that he wished to consult with his friend and colleague Sacha who, like himself, took a keen interest in all things neurological. And the fact that he was taking his own instruments pointed to one indisputable fact: he must be expecting to operate on Bernie tonight.

She watched anxiously as he cycled unsteadily away along the high street, and for the first time in years, she prayed.

***

Bernie was arguing. Name after name was put before her, and for every name, she found a reason to reject it. Plato? Too old to remember love. Solomon? Too lofty. Goethe? Difficult just at the moment, you understand…

Conductor Sixty Nine came up with suggestion after suggestion, and before she knew it, Bernie realised that the gentle stroll they were taking was leading along a path towards a set of finely wrought gates with a glint to them that was almost pearlescent. She started like a hare.

“Oh, no you don’t, chum! That’s it - no more tricks. You call me when the court is sitting and not before - I’m off!”

And she was as good as her word. She turned on a sixpence and sprinted back the way they had been walking. The stroll had been slow and gentle, yet it seemed that she was running for miles, fighting through undergrowth, vaulting over walls and rocks to escape the steady draw of that shining place that she had so nearly entered. Her legs and lungs failing her, she struggled on, to where a voice was calling her home.

“Bernie! Bernie my darling, come back to me!”

The shadow that hung over her in the air coalesced into the beautiful face and worried eyes of Serena Campbell. She was mopping Bernie’s brow where she lay struggling on the couch, the blankets tangled about her legs like the duckweed that had once caught her in the river. She clasped weakly at Serena’s hand.

“Serena! Thank god, they nearly got me. Gosh, I do like it when you call me darling,” she said, and she pressed a kiss to Serena’s knuckles.

“Oh, Bernie, you are my darling. I don’t understand it - but I know it as surely as I’ve ever known anything.”

Whatever might have happened next was interrupted by an abrupt knock at the door, and Serena opened it to find an ambulance waiting.

“Here to pick up Dr Hanssen and his patient, miss,” the driver said shortly.

“The doctor isn’t here,” she said. “He’s already gone on ahead, but Flight Captain Wolfe is here - Bernie? Are you ready to go? Henrik wants you to meet his friend Mr Levy at the hospital.”

But Henrik was not with Sacha Levy. As the ambulance drove Bernie and Serena to the modest little hospital, its shuttered headlights failed to pick up the distorted shape of a bicycle at the side of the road, its front wheel still spinning slowly, slowly.

Neither did they see the form that lay next to it, long limbs splayed awkwardly, and sightless eyes gazing into eternity.

Chapter Text

Henrik Hanssen walked in step with his conductor, a black gowned gentleman with a white collar and a modest wig. His conductor carried a bible: Henrik carried his black doctor’s bag - or an ethereal facsimile of it. They had conversed politely as they waited in the queue, though it appeared at first that they had precious little common ground. The conductor was a man of the cloth where Henrik was a man of science: Henrik was as Swedish as a Nobel prize, while the conductor was as English as the book of Common Prayer. Yet they spoke as equals, as brothers, in the great levelling of death.

Their conversation was interrupted by a young man in a velvet smoking jacket, who bowed politely in the doctor’s direction.

“Dr Hanssen, I presume?”

Henrik inclined his head gravely in acknowledgement.

“The same. May I be of service?”

The face of his own stern conductor relaxed into a smile.

“My dear doctor, your years of service are over now: your duty now is to a higher power!”

But the young man before them cleared his throat delicately.

“As a matter of fact, Reverend, there is a little something that I have to ask of Dr Hanssen.”

***

The journey to the hospital was slow, the driver taking great care to keep the vehicle on the rain-slicked road. In the back of the ambulance, Serena watched with rising anxiety as Bernie became more and more agitated. She was still in pain following the Conductor’s most recent visit, and a sheen of sweat had broken across her forehead as a low fever set in.

“Where’s the doc?” she asked Serena again, looking round wildly as though expecting to find him in the ambulance with them. “I thought he was going to be here?”

“He’ll be here, Bernie - he went on to talk to Sacha about your operation,” she said in a calming voice, but she felt anything but calm. She had expected Henrik to return hours ago, and he was usually a painstakingly punctual man. As the ambulance pulled in to the curved driveway of the little hospital, she looked out of the window anxiously, and was relieved to see Dr Levy waiting under the portico. She had known the avuncular surgeon for almost as long as she had known Henrik, and she all but ran to him as the orderlies lifted Bernie down from the ambulance and wheeled the gurney towards the doors.

“Oh, Dr Levy, I’m so glad to see you! Where’s Henrik? Is he scrubbing in already?”

He looked at her, perplexed, and looked past her into the empty ambulance.

“Didn’t he come with you? He telephoned to say he was coming in, and would be back with Flight Captain Wolfe, but I thought he must have changed his plans. What time did he leave?”

But even as Serena opened her mouth to answer, another ambulance drew into the driveway and the driver stepped down from the cab with a sombre expression, and took off his tin helmet as he approached the two figures under the porch.

“Bad news, I’m afraid, doc - the worst. It’s Doctor Hanssen.”

Serena gave a gasp of shock and dismay, and as the crew opened the doors at the rear of the vehicle and lifted the stretcher down, she saw that the sheet had been pulled up over the occupant’s face. Henrik Hanssen’s unmistakable black leather case sat squarely upon his chest, and Serena turned her face to Sacha’s shoulder as they carried him in behind the woman upon whom he had planned to operate.

“Oh, Sacha! I can’t believe it’s true! I told him that he should have kept his car, but he insisted on riding that blasted bicycle everywhere. I warned him it would be the death of him - and now it has!”

As shocked as his young friend, Sacha Levy drew a comforting arm about her shoulders.

“Poor old Henrik,” he said. “I shall say the kaddish with him as soon as I have finished surgery, but for now, we must focus our efforts upon Flight Captain Wolfe. Henrik and I had discussed the surgery, and I am confident that I know how to proceed. Did he explain it to you, Serena?”

She shook her head, a little wide-eyed and fearful.

“Your friend has an arachnoid haematoma - a bleed on the brain. It has affected her sense of reality, though not her sense of logic, hence the well constructed notion of a judicial case in the hereafter. It is important that she win her case, however imaginary it may be: it will improve the chances of successful surgery and aid her recovery. The brain is a fascinating and wonderful organ, and who are we to say that she is imagining this heavenly courtroom rather than glimpsing it through the veil which keeps it hidden from our mortal eyes?”

As Sacha went ahead to prepare for surgery, Serena went to sit with Bernie for the final few minutes before the operation. Bernie’s fever had worsened, but she was still lucid.

“Alright old thing? Where’s Henrik - is he ready?”

“Oh, don’t worry about Dr Hanssen, darling. Sacha’s going to do the op - he’s the best there is,” Serena replied brightly, but her eyes did not quite meet Bernie’s.

“Hullo - something’s happened, hasn’t it? What is it? Henrik’s run into trouble, that it?”

Bernie’s eyes searched Serena’s face, and found the answer there.

“He’s dead, isn’t he? That old jalopy of a bicycle, I suppose. Serena, I’m sorry - I know you liked him very much.” Her hand reached for Serena’s and she grasped it tightly. “If I see him, I’ll tell him you’re looking after me beautifully.” Her eyes fogged a little, and she looked somewhere behind Serena’s shoulder. “Oh, hullo trouble. Is it time?”

Serena whipped her head round, but there was nobody there, and she felt Bernie’s brow. She was burning up, and Serena called for the nurse, anxious that the fever shouldn’t delay surgery. The young woman stood at Bernie’s bedside, fingers on her wrist and her eyes on her watch, and without a word to Serena, she bustled away, returning with Dr Levy and a hospital orderly.

Sacha Levy laid a kindly hand on Serena’s shoulder.

“Don’t you worry, Miss Campbell, we’ll take good care of her. Why don’t you go home and get a little rest? We’ll be here for a good while - perhaps four or five hours.”

Serena shook her head - she was determined that she wouldn’t leave Bernie’s side for a moment longer than was necessary, and that she would be her the moment she woke up. She reluctantly released Bernie’s hand, and smoothing the hair from her brow, she dropped a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“I’ll see you very soon, Bernie,” she called as the orderly released the brake and wheeled Bernie away to theatre. She stifled a sob as the doors swung shut behind them, then turned her head as she caught a strangely familiar scent.

Was that lily of the valley?

***

The court room was packed. All of human history seemed to have gathered for this extraordinary hearing: not for millennia had such a thing been known! Row upon row of souls thronged the infinite space. Roman infantry soldiers rubbed shoulders with English Cavaliers; women of the Iceni with horsemen of the Mongol Horde, and Russian revolutionaries with French aristocrats, all chattering and gossiping like so many maiden aunts.

On the front row sat Roxanna MacMillan (who was getting along famously with the recording angel), looking about eagerly for her senior officer and friend Bernie Wolfe. Not only had Roxanna heard all about the notorious case from her angelic companion, but she had been subpoenaed to appear as a witness should she be called by the defence. Wild rumours had been flying about like hornets as to who would be speaking for Flight Captain Wolfe, and she had heard guesses as wildly diverse as Emmeline Pankhurst and Edward the Confessor; Hypatia and Oscar Wilde. When she finally caught a glimpse of Bernie, she was in earnest conversation with a tall, lean man with a prim manner and a grave but kindly face.

“I knew it the moment I heard you’d bought it, old chum - you’re just the man for the job! Learned as anything, wise as Solomon, but fresh from the living world - and dash it all, you know Serena - that’s got to help our case, hasn’t it?”

The man inclined his head politely and answered her. “I cannot claim to be wise, Flight Captain, but learned, certainly, and fresh from the world, undeniably. And there is almost nothing I would not do to help our friend Serena Campbell - and I am quite certain that by helping you, I should be helping her. Very well, I accept your commission. Now, I should like you to return to the operating theatre, please: you had better be there ready to meet Serena should Mr Levy succeed in his endeavours. I will send our friend here to fetch you if you are needed in court.”

Conductor Sixty Nine took Bernie’s arm and led her away. As calmly and as confidently as if he had been doing it all his life, Henrik Hansen took the oath before the presiding judge, who looked with a keen eye at this puritanical looking Swede with a nod of approval.

“I had rather a doctor of divinity than a doctor of medicine,” said John Knox with a stern look from beneath fearsome brows, “but thy credentials are worthy, sir. Who speaks for the prosecution?”

An elderly gentleman with a trim little beard tucked his cigar into the breast pocket of his tweed suit, adjusted his spectacles and stepped forward boldly. “I do, Herr Doktor Knox,” he said in a voice that spoke of pomp and condescension.

“Ah, doctor,” Knox said with what might have been a smile on a different man’s face. “Welcome indeed: we should not need to waste time on this monstrous case as thou speakest for the Crown. I -”

A loud and unconvincing cough stopped him in his tracks, and the Recording Angel glared at him from her seat beside Roxanna.

“Ah, quite right, just so,” Knox rumbled. “Impartiality is the ruling principle of this court, and when - I mean, if this woman is sentenced to remain here it will have been through impartial debate and the rule of celestial law. Members of the jury, heed ye naught but the facts and your conscience in the discharging of your duty. Gentlemen, I pray you commence.”

***

Sacha Levy pulled the mask from his face and wiped his brow as the nurse untied his surgical gown. He washed his hands in the little basin and bowed his head in prayer for a moment before emerging to the waiting room where Serena had been trying, and failing, to sleep.

“Oh, Dr Levy,” she cried, jumping up. “”How did the operation go? Tell me - is Bernie alright?”

He laid a hand on her shoulder as much to steady himself as to reassure her.

“We are not done yet, Miss Campbell, but I must take a short break to rest. It is going well, but we are not out of the woods. We must hope that your friend keeps fighting.”

She watched him as he lumbered down the hallway to take forty winks in the on call room, then turned back to the door he had come through. Beyond that door lay Bernie, her life in the hands of the doctors here, and - if Bernie was right - of unknown representatives in the hereafter.

***

Dr Sigmund Freud, a relative newcomer to the heavenly court, opened the case for the prosecution.

“Berenice Griselda Wolfe - a good name, a strong name, but, you will note, with aggressive masculine undertones - should have died on the second of May at a quarter past the twenty third hour. Due to an oversight, the defendant did not die. Who is responsible? That is what we are here to ascertain. When summoned some mere twenty hours later, the defendant refused to accompany Conductor - ahem - Sixty Nine, claiming that in those twenty borrowed hours, she had fallen in love, and thus had acquired new responsibilities which kept her bound to remain on earth. Are we to believe this? And that the young woman - woman, you will note - with whom she has become so enamoured, could possibly feel the same? Let us examine the facts. Now, as to the question of these borrowed hours -”

“Objection,” Henrik interjected calmly. “She did not borrow them, they were given to her. She had no idea that she was supposed to have died until the arrival of the Conductor, and can in no sense be accused of having profited from or exploited the hours she did not know were surplus to her allotted span.”

John Knox growled reluctant agreement. “Objection upheld. Continue, Dr Freud.”

The psychiatrist gave a cursory bow and continued.

“It was your own countryman, was it not, Dr Hanssen, who said that the plenitude of human nature is found only in the unity of male and female?”

In a devastatingly pleasant voice, Henrik replied, “It was not, Dr Freud. Søren Kierkegaard was in fact Danish, sir - and furthermore, it was also he who said that sexuality is irrelevant before God not only for men and women, but also for homosexuals and heterosexuals. A most enlightened view for his time - but then of course, we Scandinavians have long been known for our progressive nature.”

Without apparent consciousness of his actions, Dr Freud withdrew the cigar from his pocket and fiddled with it, bringing it now to his lips, now thrusting it back into his pocket.

“Too progressive, I fear. It was in my own native Austria, of course, that theories of relations between members of the same sex were established, and it is clear that -”

“Established by you yourself, I believe? Can you with a clear conscience say that there is no conflict of interests for you in this case?”

Dr Freud looked to the judge, who was conferring in an energetic whisper with a court official, and who reluctantly conceded Henrik’s point.

“Dr Freud, restrict thy speech to the facts of the case, and leavest thou thine own theories aside. Kindly confine thine argument to the matter of the disputed extra hours, and to the matter of -” and here he gave a little grimace of distaste - “whether Flight Captain Wolfe’s claim to have fallen in love may be taken into consideration. Proceed with caution, sir.”

Toying with his cigar in a more agitated manner than ever, Dr Freud resumed his preliminary speech, though he had rather lost the thread of it now.

“Very well, very well. It is my contention that Conductor Sixty Nine - Sixty Nine, mark you - recognised in Flight Captain Wolfe a fellow degenerate: for what else could be said of a woman whose desires had led her to pilot the long, sleek, powerful cylinder of an aeronautical -”

“Dr Freud,” came a warning voice from the chair, and he bit back the rest of his sentence.

“I put it to you, gentlemen of the jury, that the Conductor allowed the extra time to elapse for the very purpose of allowing this unnatural relationship to seed, to grow, to flower, to blossom, to flourish, to send its tender, lush tendrils out around the -“

“Thank you Dr Freud, thou hast made thy point. Provid’st thou any evidence for this theory? And why, pray, mark’st thou the Conductor’s number thus? Doth Nine-and-Sixty bear some significance of which I have not been made aware?”

Making the most unusual gestures with his cigar, Dr Freud considered carefully how to frame his reply, and casting a glance between the unapologetic Conductor and the puzzled judge, gave in to discretion.

“No, Your Honour. Not at all, not at all.”

“Without evidence, we must dismiss the point of the extra hours, and concede that they were bestowed as a matter of chance rather than design. Which leaveth the question of love. Are we to be persuaded that this woman fell in love - with another of her sex, no less - a love that was reciprocated in so brief an interlude? Gentlemen, I remind you that evidence is of the paramount importance. Hearsay and anecdote will not be admitted. Dr Hanssen, the floor is yours.”

Henrik cleared his throat and stepped up to the podium, as the myriad viewers in the gallery leaned forward to hear what he had to say.

“Your honour: members of the jury. You have heard Dr Freud quote Danish philosophers. You have heard him cite Austrian psychiatrists. But Berenice Wolfe and Serena Campbell are not Danish or Austrian: they are British. And while love may be of clinical interest to psychiatrists, and of academic interest to philosophers, love is most truly the subject and specialism of poets. Allow me, therefore, to explain this case in the words of the greatest British poet who ever lived.”

He cleared his throat and recited from memory.

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.

“Gentlemen, on the night in question, Wireless Operator Serena Campbell was manning the airwaves, guiding airmen home from their missions. She spoke with a pilot named Bernie, and assuming Bernie to be a man, she fell in love with him on the strength of his voice and his words. Shakespeare goes on to tell us that love:

is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

“Truly, Flight Captain Wolfe’s barque - her aeroplane - was wandering, and her height cruelly taken, but in that most English of weather, the fog, it was not Conductor Sixty Nine who found her, but Miss Campbell. When she met Bernie and he turned out to be she, her love did not alter. She cared for Berenice, tended to her wounds, sought the finest professional help for her and spent her every waking hour with her to ensure her comfort and health. Even now, while surgeons operate on the Flight Captain, Miss Campbell waits outside the operating theatre. She takes no rest, even while the surgeon sleeps, but keeps vigil by the door, her prayers rising in supplication and her thoughts entirely upon the woman within: the woman whom she loves. To my knowledge, she has not questioned the fact that Berenice is a woman, but has simply met her, and loved her, freely and with an open heart. Tell me, doctor, is that not love indeed?”

“But where is the evidence?!” thundered Dr Freud, his fist clenched around the cigar so tightly that it disintegrated in his hand. He looked at it for a moment, blanching, then scattered the leaves of tobacco to the celestial winds. “How do you intend to prove this so-called love? You have heard the judge: there must be evidence, or there is no case!”

Henrik Hanssen glanced at the Conductor and nodded, gesturing to him to leave in search of the proof required. In an instant, he had returned, holding his handkerchief carefully.

“Your honour,” he said, addressing the bench, “I returned to the hospital, where Flight Captain Wolfe lies under anaesthetic still, and where her surgeon has returned to the task of attempting to save her life. Outside the operating theatre stands Miss Campbell, who has neither slept nor eaten in the long hours since the operation commenced. I touched this kerchief to her cheek for the briefest of moments, and - here, you see?”

He took the silk kerchief daintily between the fingers of both hands and twisted it very slightly. A veritable trickle of salty tears fell from it, hitting the ground with a drip! that could be heard throughout the massive chamber.

The Conductor looked to Dr Hanssen with a smile; to Dr Freud with an arched eyebrow, and to the Judge with a pleading look.

The council for the prosecution tutted. “This is proof merely that she is tired and overwrought, as women are wont to be. It proves nothing of love.” he reached for his cigar, and remembering that he had destroyed it, settled his spectacles more firmly on his nose instead.

There was a triumphant gleam in the eyes of John Knox as he prepared to make his verdict, but Henrik had one more card to play.

“Very well. Your honour, I should like to call my final witness. I call Serena Campbell to the stand.”

Chapter Text

“Your honour, I should like to call my final witness. I call Serena Campbell to the stand.”

There was a gasp of a thousand, thousand, thousand voices in the chamber, but Conductor Sixty Nine shook his head.

“I don’t think that young lady would come even at the request of the Governor himself. Nothing could drag her away from that operating theatre.”

John Knox, thoroughly weary of this case regarding a mere, trifling woman, had had enough.

“If she will not come to us, then we will go to her - anything to put an end to this nonsense! Come: let us proceed.”

With a sense of drifting through time and space but with great and certain purpose, the prosecution and defence, along with Dr Knox, found themselves moving ever closer to the Earth, to England, to Holby, until finally they stood together surrounding Serena Campbell who stood stock still, frozen in a stilled moment.

“Serena, my dear?” Henrik called her out of the stillness, and she turned towards him in shock, a hand pressed to her chest.

“Henrik? Oh, Henrik! I thought you were dead!”

He smiled kindly at her. “Oh, I am, indeed, quite dead - but otherwise quite well, thank you. Now then, Serena. You are called as a witness in the case of the Crown Celestial against Berenice Wolfe, and her future hangs in the balance. Do you trust me?”

By now, Serena had taken in the extraordinary spectacle of the members of the Court arrayed before her: the Judge in his gown, Dr Freud peering at her intently through his round spectacles, Conductor Sixty Nine in his velvet smoking jacket, and smelling of - oh! Lily of the valley! And she understood everything in a moment.

“Yes. I trust you, Henrik. What must I do?”

“It is quite simple. Flight Captain Wolfe should have died when her aeroplane went down. But she lived, and wishes to remain living. However, the books must be balanced, and for her to stay here on Earth, alive, another must take her place. Are you willing to do this for her?”

Without a moment’s hesitation, she replied.

“Yes, oh, yes - of course! Anything. Only let her live.”

And she took a last look at Bernie through the observation window of the theatre, whispered a tearful goodbye, then set her face resolutely and stepped towards the little party gathered about her.

“Come along, then - do what you must do - I gladly take her place.”

John Knox raised a grizzled eyebrow in astonishment, then shook his head in bemusement.

“I should not have thought it possible. Very well: let us depart.”

The hospital, the Earth began to recede, but as the courtroom began to take form again, Dr Freud cried out impatiently.

“But this is the wrong woman! We require evidence not of her love, but of Berenice’s! I call Berenice Griselda Wolfe!”

The courtroom was fully material now, and standing in the dock was Bernie Wolfe, in her flight overalls and jacket, the severed parachute straps hanging from her shoulders and her leather helmet dangling from her hand. As she looked around and caught sight of Serena, a radiant smile broke upon her face, and the onlookers had to turn their eyes from her brightness.

Dr Hanssen spoke, repeating the challenge that he had put to Serena.

“This young woman has offered to take your place, that the eternal balance may be maintained. Do you accept her offer? You shall live out your days until age takes you, but without this woman, who has sworn to take your place. Say the word, and you will wake up in your hospital bed, where you will make a full recovery. Yes?”

Bernie looked at Serena, and saw nothing but love in her eyes.

“Serena, I can’t let you do this. It’s wonderful of you to want to, but if they simply must have one of us, why, then - it’s got to be me, don’t you see? Go home, and remember me for a while, then meet some charming young woman - or man - who can make you happy. It’s quite alright, you know. But you mustn’t take my place, I simply won’t let you.”

“But Bernie, darling - I don’t want to meet someone else, to forget you! I want you to live, to be happy. Oh, let me take your place!”

Bernie shook her head, and there was as much love as pain in her expression. “You’re prepared to die for me: won’t you live for me instead?”

And John Knox finally snapped.

“I have seen enough!” He cried. “No more. I dismiss this case - there is no resolution to be found which does not betray the eternal principles of love - other than that both should remain on Earth, or both remain here in Heaven. You are young, and have much to give, and so I sentence you to return to your lives. Live them well, and in as godly a fashion as ye may,” he ended, slightly puzzled at himself.

“But your honour, the balance!” cried Dr Freud in outrage.

Conductor Sixty Nine, feeling more like Dominic Copeland than he had done for many years, piped up innocently.

“The balance?” he queried. “Why, the balance is just as it should be, I believe.” He suddenly tossed his handkerchief, still wet with Serena’s tears, over to the front row of the courtroom, where it landed with a damp thud on the open pages of the register which lay on the Recording Angel’s lap. The ink smudged and blurred, and all at once, the balance sheet was quite unreadable.

“Oh, really, Conductor! I shall have to re-enter the figures now!”

He looked at her with the ghost of a wink, and handed her a quill.

Without missing a beat, she took the quill and wrote in her exquisite hand name after name, figure after figure: incoming, outgoing, balance. When she finally reached the end of the page, the balance had been inexplicably restored, and she suddenly found herself the recipient of a resounding kiss from First Officer Roxanna MacMillan.

***

Someone was calling her name, but she fought to stay asleep. It was so comfortable here, so warm.

The call came again, and this time, someone was shaking her shoulder gently, but determinedly.

“Miss Campbell? Miss Campbell! Serena?”

She gave a little mumble of complaint as she finally surfaced, to find herself not on the uncomfortable bench in the anteroom outside the operating theatre, but on a hospital bed - in a hospital bed, as a matter of fact - curled up close against the form of a certain airwoman. Bernie wore a clean bandage that ran around the crown of her head, and from beneath it, those glorious curls escaped in riotous tumbles of gold. Serena smiled and curled a finger into a particularly tempting lock, then came to with a start.

“What? Is the operation over? Where are we - how am I here?”

Sacha Levy laughed, but not unkindly.

“The operation is over, my dear, and was a great success. Bernie will wake in her own time, but we are satisfied that she will make a full recovery. My nurses tried to find a bed for you in the visitors’ wing, but you wouldn’t be parted from your friend - but you had better make yourself scarce before Matron does her rounds.”

He helped her to her feet and gave her the cup of tea he had brought her. He hesitated before offering her a sombre invitation.

“I am going to the mortuary in a moment, to say the kaddish for my dear friend Henrik. Would you like to be there? Think it over while you drink this.”

She looked uncertainly back to the bed.

“I do want to, Dr Levy, but - I shouldn't leave Bernie - I can't leave her.”

But a drowsy mumble from the bed interrupted her, as Bernie insisted foggily, “I’m coming with you - got to thank Henrik for what he did for us.”

Bernie opened her eyes, and seeing the tears in Serena’s, reached out her hand to her.

“It’s alright, Serena - he did it - Henrik did it - we won!”

Sacha Levy knew that there was more in Heaven and Earth than he had ever dreamt of, and did not intrude on the moment, but once he was satisfied that Bernie was fit to sit up, he helped her into a wheelchair, and the trio set off slowly down the corridor to say their farewells to a fine doctor, colleague and friend.

***

By the time Matron came round to inspect the ward, Serena was sitting demurely by Bernie’s bedside where she sat propped up with plump white pillows. Serena was feeding her grapes and squeezing her hand from time to time as they spoke quietly. A more innocent picture of friendship could hardly be imagined, and Matron left them to it with an approving nod.

“I don’t suppose they’ll let me fly again after this,” Bernie grumbled, and Serena was only too glad to hear it.

“Not for a long while, anyway, and perhaps by then the war will be over. The ATA will find you a nice safe posting with your feet on the ground where you can still contribute towards the war effort.”

Bernie smiled at her. “I’d rather think of it as the peace effort, wouldn’t you? About time we stopped all this, I’d say.”

Serena beamed back at her, clutching her hand all the more tightly. “I’d say so, yes. Peace sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? I say, Bernie? When this is all over, you will come back to Holby Sands, won’t you? I know you’ll probably have to report for duty somewhere else for now, but - oh, please say you’ll come back to me?”

Bernie took Serena’s hands in both of her own now, and looked her deep in the eyes.

“I will, Serena. Oh, darling, I will. I came back from Heaven for you, didn’t I? And if there’s one thing I’ve learned through all of this, it’s that there’s more to us than our threescore years and ten - our time together doesn’t end when we do.”

“You mean we’ll be together -?”

And bringing a hand to her cheek, Bernie drew Serena towards her, and she whispered into their first kiss:

“For eternity.”