from @imagebender - thanks! :)
Serena had been waiting there, tan and stunningly beautiful in a bright coral vest and a long flowing skirt; summer sun shining on her cropped, silvering hair and lips curved in a breathtaking smile.
Her bag had barely hit the platform before Serena was in her arms, pressed tightly against her so perfectly it made Bernie’s chest ache, smelling of sunshine and grape tang and perfume so familiar it tasted like home. She felt her eyes burn as she tightened her arms around Serena’s waist, burying her face in the side of her neck as Serena murmured a soft, “Hello, stranger,” in her ear.
Serena had taken her hand and quickly shuffled Bernie into her cherry red convertible, pulling away from the train station with her hand firmly on Bernie’s thigh. She’d taken Bernie’s hand when they reached the quaint ivy-covered farmhouse and led her inside, kept hold of Bernie’s hand as she led her up the stairs, slid Bernie’s hand between her legs as they fell onto the bed.
They’ve hardly left the bed since, aside from scrounging the occasional meal to be eaten while tucked under the duvet, and a few glorious hours spent soaking in Serena’s claw footed tub.
They spend hours and hours relearning each other’s bodies, revisiting the places they loved to explore. Bernie keeps running her fingers through Serena’s hair, tracing them over the new lines around her eyes, finding the changes wrought during their time apart and pressing her mouth to each new detail to welcome it into her life. Serena does the same: presses her lips to the new scar at the base of Bernie’s thumb, gained in a disastrous cooking attempt, runs her hands over the thigh muscles now clearly defined by her renewed running routine, flicks her tongue against the sun-soaked freckles along her collarbones.
When they’re not touching, not tasting, not tracing the details of each other, they talk, long rambling conversations that go far into the late hours of the night.
you’re the one that I’m running to was a unique fic writing experience all around for me. I was actually out of town for a work conference when Bernie’s final episode aired. I watched it in a hotel with a very patient friend and a bottle of shiraz, and she didn’t even make too much fun of me when I sobbed all over the place, lol. Like many others, I came away from that episode on a Berena high and feeling like engagement was now very much a possibility in their relationship. The next day, in between seminars, I was chatting with @sententiousandbellicose about how it would be interesting if Serena was the one who did the proposing, rather than the initially accepted theory of it being Bernie who makes the move. (What can I say, I’m contrary.)
The fic popped out pretty much fully formed from that conversation. I hand wrote it in a notebook during a truly boring seminar on the design process and then typed it up that night in the hotel.
With this scene in particular I wanted to establish that their connection was still there, despite being apart. That they were still very much in love, while acknowledging that things have changed and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Plus, I love any excuse to get them talking naked in bed. ;)
[ask for DVD commentary on my fic]
