A/N: This is based on something that happened to me yesterday, so I kinda had to get it out of my system. It probably sucks but oh well.

Sarah x

Serena sighs as she puts her coat on to go home. She's forgotten what's wrong and given up on what's right, every day becoming a ritual in self-discipline and deceit. It doesn't mean anything. She wakes up in the morning to sleep at night, the hospital buzzing around her in between. Same shit, different day, as her dad would have said.

She realises too late she needn't have put her coat on; it's a lot warmer than it had been a week ago, and the light nights have started to come around once more. But it's too late now to take it off – she's already walking across Keller when she realises her mistake. She sees the low sun shining through the window and wonders why she's even going home so early. There's nothing there.

She gets in the lift and presses the button for the ground floor. Ever since Christmas – maybe before that – she's been running on fumes, every ounce of energy drained from her by one person or another as some try to tear her down and some try to pick her up. The problem with that is, much like petrol vapour, when she eventually crashes the fumes will cause an almighty explosion. She knows this. She's beyond caring about this.

Serena steps out of the lift to find Ric Griffin at the coffee stand, stirring sugar into a cup. She tries to rush unseen past him but fails. "Serena!" he calls after her. Unwillingly she turns to see him walking towards her with a smile. "This is early for you."

"Your powers of observation are unearthly." It comes out harsh, but she just wants him to leave her alone. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going home." He stares her down, and she knows he sees she's not the same anymore. She turns but he catches her hand. He's seen her dark side. She knows it.

But he doesn't let her go. Instead he forces her to turn and face him; she's speechless. What is she meant to say to him? He sees through her lies but the truth sounds awful, even in her head. "Serena, are you alright? You seem...troubled," he decides upon a word to describe her manner. She looks at the floor and tries to find the courage to tell him the truth or the guile to lie and get away with it. She finds neither.

It's with a dead weight in her heart that she smiles at him and nods her head gently. The problem is that she can see his scepticism and his concern, and it's endearing. She doesn't want to be endeared by him. She wants the simplicity of loneliness, even if, at times, she can't stand the life she leads. And, aside from anything else, she's always felt a pull towards Ric. She doesn't want to hurt herself loving him; she's been there with Edward and she doesn't want to go there with Ric. She values him too much.

She stands still, unable to speak anymore for fear of giving her game away. After all, he can't know that loneliness and her rock bottom self-esteem are eating away at her. He can't know that every time Guy Self undermines her, makes snide remarks, treats her like his lackey, disregards her logic and opinions, it hurts. He can't know that Edward's issues hang over her head, the weight making her tired legs protest with every step forward she takes, as she desperately tries to sort her ex-husband's mind out for the sake of their daughter. And he can't possibly know just how much she misses her Eleanor, and how much she hates rattling about in an empty house every night. She will never tell him but Edward had hit the nail on the head – having no-one to love makes her miserable.

Softly she pulls her hand from his and turns away, but she hears his footsteps behind her and knows then that he is seriously worried. If he was not worrying about her he would leave her to it. The doors open at her shadow and she steps out into the evening sun, feeling the remnants of the spring day washing over her face, spreading a slight heat over her skin but not over her being; that remains cold and almost numb.

She steps forward, and once she's in the middle of the road, she hears the wailing on an ambulance siren. She sees it speeding towards her but she doesn't move. Maybe it's a moment of madness, but what difference will it make to the planet? She is dispensable, easily replaced by anyone with a medical degree. Nobody cares what happens to her. Some may even be glad to be rid of her.

So what is the point of moving? If this is her fate, to be almost ironically hit by a racing ambulance, what is the point of stopping it? How easy would it be just to stand here and let it hit her?

She feels nothing as the van swings around the corner. She doesn't move. She's frozen.

But time has been deceiving her.

A body knocks her to the ground, her head hitting their shoulder with a soft thud. "What on Earth were you thinking?" comes Ric's protective growl, right in her ear. She is dazed. She can't even believe she's just done that. Who in their right mind stands in front of a moving vehicle and doesn't try to get out of the way? "Serena!" he says to her, shaking her once to make her usual alertness return to her.

"I..." she says, but she can't string the thoughts together. She feels Ric's kiss into her hair as he helps her to her feet. "I didn't see it coming," she finally lies once she is vertical. It's a lie that doesn't uphold itself. Even if she hadn't seen it, the sirens are unmistakable. She stands in his arms, and she hasn't realised it until now, but

Ric lets out a bitter, incredulous laugh. "Yes, that's why you stood there and stared at it until it nearly hit you!" He takes her by the arms, gripping tightly like she will fade away in front of him. "Are you suicidal?" he demands of her, his tone direct but not harsh.

Serena laughs. "No! Don't be ridiculous." She can see his doubt plastered across his face as he takes her by the arm and leads her back inside; she's unnerved by his obvious panic, and he acts like she is the most important thing on the planet right now. She's not, of course, and she knows that. She knows she means nothing. In a thousand years, all this will mean nothing. It will just be lost in her history, never to be spoken of again.

But as Ric practically throws her into the lift it becomes clear he has no intentions of letting this fade into her history. It may mean nothing but she doesn't want to talk about it. It's silly. It's silly and it's insignificant, and it means nothing. She means nothing.

His hand is on her back, almost pushing her through Keller and into her office, shutting the door behind them. "What the hell were you playing at?" Serena only shrugs her shoulders; what can she say? "You say you're not suicidal but why else would you effectively try to kill yourself?!"

"I am not suicidal," she argues firmly. "I would never actively take my own life." She looks up and sees that emotion in his eyes that terrifies her. It's a cross between fear and confusion, and it's not something she's used to seeing in him. But for the first time, someone is trying to break through to her. "But," she begins slowly as he steps towards her, "if my death was staring me in the face, if I was going to die, I wouldn't try and stop it. If I was standing there and a moving vehicle came towards me, I wouldn't move."

"Yes, we've ascertained that!" he shouts at her. "You stepped out in front of a speeding ambulance, Serena! You could have died! I could have lost you and, you know, I don't think you'd even care!"

"Don't shout at me!" she orders him, her nerves and temper fraying slightly.

Standing there in front of him, she sees a dim light, but it's not bright enough to change how she feels. "Why, Serena? Why would you feel like that?"

"Because there's nothing left," she explains to him. "Ellie, Edward, Mum, Dad...they're all so distant. My dad's dead, my mum and I barely speak, Edward's a walking emotional disaster zone and I've had to let Eleanor go. There isn't anything I know or love left to me anymore."

She is cautious as he reaches out and traces her cheek with his fingertips. "And you've not figured it out yet?" he gently asks her. She looks up at him and she can see she's shaken him. "You've got me. Am I or am I not your friend?" She searches him but sees nothing she knows. She can see, though, that he cares for her. "I am your friend. You can come to me when you need me."

"I have this dark side, Ric," Serena confesses. Her voice remains quiet and hoarse, but she feels something freeing in admitting her troubled mind. "I've got a dark side nobody gets to see. All these little things – the way Guy treats me, the way Eleanor and Mum think I'm infallible, the way Edward constantly leans on me – it's too much. I can't take much more!"

Ric sighs and pulls her tightly into a cuddle, and she presses her face into his neck. She allows herself the comfort of a human's touch, letting him comfort her. She should never have let him see that vulnerability. He now knows who she is; he now sees her weakness for trying in vain. She forgets who she really is sometimes. Serena McKinnie has always been unbreakable, and yet here Serena Campbell stands in Ric Griffin's arms. "Never do that to me again," he whispers into her ear.

He pulls away from her, though his arms are still around her body, and she looks into his eyes. She sees his care and what can only be described as his love shining at her, and it almost frightens her. If it wasn't Ric, if it was someone whose stability and integrity she could doubt, it would scare her. Of that much she is sure. The emotion is burning bright like a bright blue flame between them, her heart hurting in the knowledge she can probably have him if she can let him in and let him try.

"Everybody's got a dark side," he reassures her.

"Yes, but can you love my dark side? There lies the issue. Everyone who sees even the slightest glimpse of that dark side, the place I go when I cease to be who I am to the outside world, runs a mile. Can you love me?"

He leans in at the same time as she does, like they've read each other's minds. When their lips meet it is soft and a little uncertain, but his confidence sees to grow while she tries to pick hers off the ground where the likes of Guy Self and Edward Campbell have left it. "I can love you if you're here, but how can you know that if you're dead?"

That is more than a fair point; she has to hand it to him that his arguments are worthwhile, and that he may have just done her some good. She feels the weight still sitting over her, and it isn't any lighter. Instead the force resisting it feels greater, because she's not resisting it alone. She has the weight of her own world pushing her into the ground, but there is now a force beneath, pushing the weight so she doesn't have to try and fight it now.

Serena Campbell isn't suicidal, but if a car were to come speeding towards her, she would not move out of its way. That is all she has learned today.

Hope this is OK!
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think!
Sarah x