AN: A one-shot, dedicated to Jo for the 100th review of 'Just One Of Those Days'. It's taken a bit of time (okay, freaking ages!) to get this written but hopefully it'll be worth the wait. I've had a devil of a time trying to keep this in character and not veer off into the ridiculous.
The prompt was that with all Hanssen's looming and silently stalking the wards, he must've at some point heard something he wasn't meant to. This is a product of that 'what if', set at some point in 2013.
Usual disclaimers apply.
Disproving the Theory
… …
Reaching for the cup of coffee on the left-hand side of his desk, Henrik Hanssen continues to write with his right hand without missing a beat, his fountain pen moving fluidly over the paper, filling it with a familiar cursive.
Tilting his head slightly, Hanssen takes a mouthful of the liquid before settling the cup back down on the coaster. It's only when he has done so that he pauses, realising that the drink is now stone cold and rather unpleasant; holding the cold coffee in his mouth, Hanssen's gaze moves off the paper in front of him and onto the coffee cup before moving to his watch, carefully removed from his wrist and neatly laid out on his desk.
19:54
It's little wonder the drink is cold, he'd poured it nearly two hours ago and with a small grimace, he forces himself to swallow it; spitting the liquid back into the cup is not an option which occurs to him. Taking a moment to rest his pen carefully on the desk in front of him, Hanssen deftly moves the coaster and cup out of arm's each, in case he absent-mindedly makes the same mistake a second time.
It's not long after 8pm by the time that Hanssen reaches the final page of his paperwork for the evening, a report due to be submitted to the Trust tomorrow. He turns over the penultimate page and scans the final few words, double-checking dates and signs his name in the allotted section before exhaling sharply in frustration.
His signature is the only signature on the page.
His deputy Director of Surgery – Ms. Serena Campbell – has neglected to add her own signature before passing the document on to him, and Hanssen briefly wonders if she is trying to prove some kind of point.
Reaching to the right-hand side of his desk this time, Hanssen picks up his laptop and sets it down in front of him, pressing the power button to awaken it from standby. When the machine whirs into action and the familiar grey NHS background fills the screen, he double-clicks on the email program icon and taps out a brief message for Serena to appear in his office before 1000 tomorrow to sign the report before its submission to the Trust and its Chairman, Terrance Cunningham.
Briefly checking that nothing else has come up in the last hour, Hanssen is about to close down the email program, turn off his laptop and leave the hospital, already mentally cataloguing the contents of his fridge and cupboards, attempting to ascertain whether he will need to head home via the supermarket when his laptop pings and an email response from Serena Campbell appears at the top of his inbox.
Several times over the next few weeks, Hanssen will wonder how events would have unfolded if he hadn't clicked on the email and had instead left it unread until the morning. As it is, unaware of the events he will set in motion, he double-clicks on the message and it loads, opening in a new window.
It's an 'Out of Office' automated reply informing him that Serena is working at St. James' Hospital tomorrow and will therefore be highly unlikely to respond to any emails until Monday. Hanssen pinches the bridge of his nose as his gaze reaches the end of the message – he'd completely forgotten about Serena's absence tomorrow and he resigns himself to having to deal with his difficult second-in-command this evening before glancing at the clock in his office, hoping that despite the late hour, Serena is still on-site and hasn't yet gone home for the evening like the rest of the day shift staff have done.
Henrik Hanssen has never considered himself a lucky man, his mother's premature and unnatural death destroyed any personal belief in such spuriousities and as he exits his office, he calculates that on the balance of probabilities, his search is unlikely to be fruitful.
Hanssen makes his way down to the Keller General Surgery ward on the fourth floor and glides along the ward, moving almost silently and making more than one nurse jump as he passes them, in search of the Executive Director of Surgery. He taps out the security code and lets himself into the consultants' office only to find it empty and in darkness. He heads back across the ward, resigning himself to ringing Ms. Campbell and instructing her to return to the hospital, knowing that the command will go down like a lead balloon.
"Mr. Hanssen!" Hanssen blinks as the high pitched voice registers and he pauses, mid-stride and turns to face the source of the noise.
"Nurse Lane." He greets the young nurse cordially, he's quite fond of her, if more than a little confused occasionally by some of her eccentricities. Hanssen envies her ability to create a rapport with anyone, a skill he has never developed. He nods politely to the silent junior Doctor stood next to her, a protective shadow who responds in kind. "Dr. Digby."
"Are you alright? I heard you were ill?"
"I assure you that I am perfectly well – I have been at a conference." He keeps his expression neutral although it softens slightly in the face of her concern about him. Even though it almost certainly means that he has been relegated to the same category as any number of small, fluffy, helpless animals in Nurse Lane's mind, it isn't often that Hanssen is subject to genuine concern about himself and he will pathetically accept what little he's given. "I dread to think what reasons the grapevine manage to fabricate for my absence, Nurse Lane. However, I assure I am well and am currently looking for Ms. Campbell, have you seen her?"
"Last I heard, she said she was going down to AAU to see Mr. Spence about something before going home. That was about twenty minutes ago." Hanssen inclines his head in thanks and bids both nurse and junior doctor good evening before turning back to the lifts to follow Ms. Campbell's footsteps to AAU.
Stepping into the waiting lift on his own and selecting the correct floor for AAU, Hanssen ponders Serena's motivations for going down to AAU long after her shift has finished on a Thursday evening. He isn't confident about his initial guess about a consultation; Michael Spence is a relatively competent GS Consultant in his own right and probably wouldn't appreciate Serena's almost certain input about his patients and their proposed treatment anyway.
Hanssen knows that Serena's self-reassignment to Keller only occurred about a fortnight before he returned to Holby, after the sudden departure of Ms. Cousins, before that she had still been stationed on AAU as per his order. It had given Serena Campbell and Michael Spence nearly a month and a half of working together in his absence.
Hanssen frowns.
As the lift descends from Keller, Hanssen wonders if Serena has been caught out by Mr. Spence's apparent charm, though with the way things had been between the two consultants recently, he struggles to imagine Ms. Campbell willingly seeking out Michael Spence to spend time with him, let alone engage in some kind of an affair.
He realises he doesn't know much about Ms. Campbell''s personal life, she's quite a private individual in that respect, similar to himself and Hanssen grimaces as he recalls just how much of Mr. Spence's personal life he is unwillingly aware of. As the lift progresses down to the floor on which the acute admissions ward is housed, Hanssen realises that he is gossiping in his own head like an agency nurse on the lives of two of his senior consultants. Hanssen takes a deep breath to suppress his amusement and once more become the professional and stoic Mr. Hanssen as the disembodied voice announces 'doors opening'.
The lift deposits him just behind the nurses' station on AAU. This is Hanssen's first visit to the ward since his return on Tuesday morning and it takes him a moment to determine if anything has changed since the last time he was here.
The initial impression is that all is as it should be on AAU, to his relief. Hanssen catches movement out of the corner of his eye and turns on the spot to his right, to see the grinning figure of Mr. Levy making his way over to him. Hanssen rocks forward onto the balls of his feet for a moment, preparing himself for the onslaught of enthusiasm that the man practically radiates.
"So the rumours are true." Hanssen raises an eyebrow questioningly, wondering if he really wants to know what rumours are true. However, he judges by the man's happy expression that whatever these rumours are, they can't be bad. He ignores the small voice that reminds him that he has never seen Sacha Levy with anything other than a big grin for anyone.
"That you're back in Holby land." Hanssen frowns at the unexpected answer, strangely accepting the rebuke.
"Ah, I do apologise, Mr. Levy. I have been unable to make my way down to the ward before now-"
"Oh that doesn't matter," Hanssen's confusion grows as Sacha waves away his apology.
Hanssen tolerates the man's general excitement and politely responds to enquiries about his health, wondering where rumours of his supposed illness have sprouted from. Acutely aware of the time that has passed since Hanssen initially left his office in search of the seemingly elusive Ms. Campbell, Hanssen takes advantage of Sacha Levy's occasional need to breathe and interjects. "Mr. Levy, I am trying to determine the whereabouts of Ms. Campbell, is she here?"
"Errr, yeah. In with Michael, I think. At least she was a few minutes ago." Sacha points unnecessarily to the office, "Anyway, I've got to run to the lab to get some test results." Hanssen watches Mr. Levy amble off the ward, observing the cheery wave and silently commends the patience and fortitude of Sister Williams.
Hanssen draws up to the office, pausing before he enters as he notices that the blinds have been drawn, he does not wish to enter the office unannounced and risk seeing a scene or interaction he'd rather not, just in case his musing in the lift about a possible relationship prove correct and so he waits, listening for any clues as to the activities of his two consultants.
The door is ajar and he hears voices, to his relief, Hanssen realises that they are just talking and he flicks open the report in his hand, pretending to study its contents as he hovers to one side of the door.
He normally wouldn't stoop to listening to other people's conversations but he justifies it to himself that as Serena Campbell talks to the Trust chairman, Terrance Cunningham on a probably alarmingly regular basis, he would like to know what she is saying to others, in some kind of an attempt to avoid a repeat of the fall out from his criticism of the NHS on the TV. He still cringes when the incident is referred to, several months on and he felt like a young boy again when his father had mentioned it.
He hears Michael Spence laugh at something and his brash accent carries out the door to Hanssen. "Oh come on Serena, how bad can he be? Look, do you want me to have a word with him for you?" Serena laughs gently with what seems like genuine amusement and Hanssen realises he's never heard it before, only a harsher, sarcastic version. He nearly misses her reply as he muses that she should laugh more often, the rich sound suiting her voice.
"He'd crush you into tiny, little pieces, Michael." He can hear her sigh. "As much as I'd love to see that, it's nothing I can't handle, just fed up of the days when I've had enough of his behaviour." Hanssen frowns, his gaze still locked on the folder in his hands, he can't imagine anyone getting the better of Serena to the extent to grind her down.
He doesn't hear Michael's response but it makes Serena laugh and judging by the flurry of rude names which follows, Hanssen figures they're talking about a difficult patient. As wary of Serena Campbell as he is, following his sabbatical, he does still have a duty of care to her as a member of his staff and he wonders if he should offer to speak to the patient on her behalf if they are causing her unnecessary problems.
"And Jac is still not saying anything about what happened in Stockholm either," Serena sounds frustrated and Hanssen looks up sharply from the report in his hands towards the office as he realises that the two consultants are talking about him.
… …
"Did you really think Jac would say anything to anyone?" Michael's question brings Hanssen out of his surprise and he takes a careful half step towards the office door, not wanting to miss any more of this conversation.
"She's hardly one to hold her tongue." He hears Serena explain. "Jac spoke to Cunningham about a lack of confidence in Mr. Hanssen's leadership." Hanssen frowns, he already knew it was Jac, she'd confessed to him as much in his flat. He is surprised that she's kept quiet about anything else she found out but she'd wanted to make amends for her mistake so he can understand her actions.
"Don't give me that look, Serena. She wasn't the only one and her complaint was never official, it takes a least two senior consultants. It wasn't me or Ric and Elliot is too focused on his Hertzig project..." Michael lets the sentence finish itself and Hanssen misses the next part of the conversation, his mind spinning. Now he thinks back, Cunningham had said that there had been multiple complaints rather than a single unhappy consultant.
After Jac had confessed in his flat, he hadn't given the topic any more thought, a schoolboy error and he realises that it must have been Serena. Hanssen feels angry; he'd found no trace of the complaints in the CEO's paperwork which means that Serena must have removed it herself once Hanssen was out of the picture.
At that moment, a patient is wheeled past in a wheelchair on their way to radiology and the Swedish CEO is forced to step away to one side to avoid having his foot run over. By the time Hanssen is able to return to his previous listening spot outside of the office and focus his attention once more on the conversation going on inside, he's missed a reasonable chunk of their chat.
"Well, there was Sahira Shah..." Sahira's name from Michael gets his attention back to the conversation and he wonders what he'd missed and how things had progressed to involve his one-time protégé.
"Who?"
"Ah, maybe you didn't meet her. There was a betting pool going about the two of them." Hanssen rolls his eyes, the betting pool is old news and its existence isn't new either, at least two of their four shared hospitals had something similar going on.
"And?" Hanssen doesn't know where Michael is going with this and he wishes he hadn't been called away just now.
"And then Sahira's husband suddenly turns up to work at the hospital for about a month before they both leave the hospital mysteriously."
"What's that got to do with anything?" Hanssen hears Serena ask, her question following his own thoughts.
"Probably nothing." Hanssen frustratedly thinks that Michael Spence's meaningless speculation and proclivity to gossip is hardly an effective use of anyone's time. "But don't you ever wonder why he's so... stiff?"
"Stiff?"
"Yeah, like he's got a giant stick shoved up–"
"Don't be mean." Hanssen has had enough of the conversation and is about to enter the office when Serena's surprising defence stops him. "I'm sure Mr. Hanssen has his reasons."
"You'd have thought that he'd have relaxed a bit since coming back from Sweden. The man's probably not been laid in like... forever." Michael's American accent fills the office. Hanssen rolls his eyes, it wasn't as if any of this was news to him; he was about to stalk into the office and enjoy the probably guilty silence which would follow when a quiet comment from Serena made him pause.
"There's more to life than sex, Michael." Serena responds sounding equal parts amused and bored and Hanssen can hear her chair squeak as she moves. "Anyway, there might be a small problem."
"What?"
"You say he's only ever looked at this Sahira Shah, practically mooned after her for the year she was here but nothing as much as a sideways glance at anyone else..."
"Yeah, so?"
"Use your brain, Michael. What's left of it anyway." The American consultant makes a noise in response to Serena's insult but she doesn't give him a chance to say anything. "If our Mr. Hanssen has always been so focused on this one woman, he's obviously never looked elsewhere."
"Never?" Michael almost chokes. "You think Hanssen is a virgin?"
"It would explain your giant stick theory." Both consultants laugh and the sound makes Hanssen's jaw clench as he bitterly recalls the American's rants at having to pay an extortionate amount of maintenance for his kids every month.
Hanssen knows that Michael Spence is a moron but he had thought better of Serena, she's a smart woman. Part of him is thankful that Jac hasn't said anything to anyone about Stockholm but even if she had, she never knew about Maja anyhow and given that all the staff know of his personal life is his failed non-relationship with Sahira Shah, it's not exactly implausible that he could still be a virgin. It's no-one else's business but his but that doesn't stop him getting annoyed at their very personal speculation and Hanssen has always hated being mocked.
He has had enough and strides away, their laughter following him, sure that the tips of his ears are burning in embarrassment. He pulls the AAU door open a little more forcefully than he would normally, startling one of the nurses.
Hanssen storms up the flight of stairs, his long legs easily eating up the steps as he seeks to increase the distance between himself and AAU. By the time he reaches the landing of the fifth floor stairwell, his immediate anger and embarrassment have given way to agitation and fatigue although the burning sense of injustice is still very present. His legs protest the vigorous exercise and Hanssen's pace slows to little more than a crawl as he stops to catch his breath. Looking out of the landing window and down to the hospital below, Hanssen happens to spot Serena Campbell casually strolling to her car. Stood with his hands splayed over the railing in front of him, he watches for a minute or so, long after she has driven off into the night.
Hanssen manages to make it back along the corridor without seeing anyone else and once in the sanctuary of his office, he withdraws a key from a pocket inside his suit jacket and locks the wooden door. He retreats across the carpeted room to his desk in long, easy strides and he all but throws himself into his chair in a rare show of petulance that he would never display in front of anyone else, throwing the still unsigned report onto his desk.
As he leans back into his chair, he becomes aware of the metallic taste of blood in his mouth, at some point he'd bitten his tongue. Glaring at the report, seriously insulted by what he'd heard, Hanssen broods.
His son is proof that their speculation was way off the mark but mentioning him would result in mentioning his son's mother and Maja was very much a forbidden subject, even in the privacy of his own mind. Despite that, it hadn't stopped him thinking about her and the child every day since he'd left Sweden; until the start of the year when he'd bumped into her at his Father's house, Hanssen hadn't even known whether Maja had had a girl or a boy.
A boy.
Fredrik.
A man now, he supposes and at the age of 26, his son is the same age as he and Maja had been all those years ago. Hanssen had wanted to confront the two consultants, had come perilously close to doing so, but had made himself leave, not trusting himself to maintain his composure.
Hanssen can still hear Serena's rich, mocking laughter in his mind and the tapping of his fingers becomes sharper, a frustrated staccato beat against the wooden desk as he seeks an answer as to why her reaction bothers him more than Michael Spence's does. The report stares up at him from where he'd left it on his desk and long, pale fingers creep over the desk and adjust its angle, bringing it into line with the edge of the surface.
Suddenly his hand forms a fist and he hits the surface, grimacing briefly at the resultant flare of pain before his expression becomes almost blank, outwardly masking how he feels once more. The action is unlike him but he finds he doesn't particularly care.
Exhaling forcefully, Hanssen considers his next move, if he speaks to Serena now he is likely to do or say something that he will regret without an appropriate interval to calm down after the conversation he has just overheard. However, he does require her signature on the form and he sighs again as he tries to formulate a rational plan.
For all his apparent expressions of indifference, Hanssen is still bothered by people talking about him. Not professionally, that doesn't bother him in the slightest, his professional record and morbidity rates speak for themselves and as Director of Surgery and CEO, he is required to keep people on their toes and if people aren't talking about him, he isn't doing his job effectively.
It's the speculation on his personal life which makes him unhappy, the arrogance of someone to not only presume something about Henrik Hanssen but to voice that assumption to another and then to typically find amusement at what they perceive to be his expense.
Thumping the desk has disturbed his computer and the screen bursts into life and Hanssen glares at it. Tapping at his laptop with more force than is necessary, Hanssen closes the email program which reveals the staff intranet as the next active window. Hanssen's cursor hovers over the 'X' in the top right-hand corner and he pauses, his eyes drawn to a query box and lips pursed, he eventually moves the cursor and selects the box, typing out a familiar name.
Serena Campbell
The little finger of his right hand rests on top of the 'Enter' button for a moment and then, before he can talk himself out of anything, Hanssen presses the key. The screen updates at a faster rate than it would during the day and he scrolls down until he finds the information he was looking for.
17 Marshdale Road
Holby
Wyvern
HY4 1JQ
Hanssen stares at the characters on the screen in front of him, the black letters on the white background staring back at him and he commits his rival's address to memory, realising that she doesn't live particularly far away from him. He blinks twice, the address burned into his retinas and he slams the lid of his laptop shut. He angrily shrugs on his coat and leaves his office, stony-faced as he stands in the lift, deciding that he is going to prove to Ms. Campbell once and for all that he is not to be mocked.
… …
Hanssen sat in his car outside Serena's house for longer than he'd care to admit before he exited the vehicle, legs unfolding then his body following suit and strode across the street, report clasped in one hand and car keys in the other. He comes to a halt outside of No. 17 and briefly appraises the building.
It's a well-kept, semi-detached Georgian house, all-in-all, a rather accurate representation of Hanssen's impression of the woman; nothing overtly personal on display, just outwardly efficient and organised. Hanssen steps past the bush on his left and up the short path towards the dark blue front door.
There are glass panes around the door and a few moments after Hanssen rings the bell, he can see a shadow approach. Forcing his expression into a mask of blankness, Hanssen looks down at the woman stood in front of him, smaller than he is used to without her boots on. It's hard work for him to keep the feelings of hurt and injustice from earlier off his face.
Judging by the woman's expression, it is quite clear to see that Henrik Hanssen definitely wasn't who Serena Campbell expected to see on her doorstep at quarter to ten on a Thursday night. She recovers relatively quickly, her surprise transforming quickly into suspicion.
"May I come in, Ms. Campbell?" Hanssen asks, relieved at how calm his voice sounds. "Or we should have this discussion on your doorstep, in full view of the street?"
The time he'd spent sat in the car outside her house had given Hanssen an opportunity to think about the woman currently stood in front of him. He'd not given any previous thought to Serena Campbell outside of a professional capacity but now that he was looking at her as a woman, rather than a colleague, he is able to admit that she is attractive. Not merely physically but her personality and intellect indicate a person that, had the circumstances of his past been different and had they not been introduced to one another as rival colleagues, he would not have objected getting to know her.
That had been a surprising revelation.
"Mr. Hanssen." Serena greets him almost warily, her tone cool and as predicted, Serena is obviously reluctant to allow her professional and private worlds to mix but she decides that a conversation behind closed doors is the lesser of the two evils on offer and after a moment's hesitation, she steps to one side to grant him entrance.
Hanssen steps into a predominantly wooden hallway, the top half of the walls are painted white, the lower half wooden panelling; there is a flight of stairs immediately to his right in front of him, a beige colour carpet heading off into the second storey of the house. There is a side cupboard to his left with a small pile of unopened post on it and a photo frame sat on top, he doesn't get an opportunity to look at the image the frame contains because his colleague issues a curt instruction to follow her which he wryly obeys.
Hanssen steps further into the hallway, the sound of his shoes on the wooden floor echoing a little. It's only when he is trailing after her, watching Serena walk in front of him does Hanssen work out what it was which was bothering him about her appearance; he realises that his second-in-command is no longer in her usual work attire and he swallows as he takes in her off-duty clothes. The cut is a little more fitted than the usual, baggy shirts she seems to favour when not in scrubs. Normally Hanssen would be determined not to be caught staring at her but it's probably his only chance to watch her without her realising. They step through the doorway into a reasonable sized kitchen and from his current position, Hanssen can see through into a nicely furnished living room.
"So, as it's not a social call, what do you want?" She asks bluntly which is admittedly one of the few things that Hanssen appreciates about the woman stood in front of him.
"I require some signatures from you," Hanssen retorts, trying to sound bored and keep his eyes away from her t-shirt now she's facing him, holding out the report. "And as you are at St. James' tomorrow..." Serena takes the report, glancing at the title and sighing, shoulders slumping slightly.
"I thought I'd signed this," Serena mutters, flipping through the pages, "apparently not." Hanssen watches his colleague as she moves over to a kitchen counter, rummaging in a drawer for a pen, ignoring the pen he offers her from his suit jacket and finding the appropriate pages, signs her name with a flourish.
"Most obliged, Ms. Campbell." The somewhat patronising tone of voice is a habit that he maintains because it usually garners a reaction.
"If there's nothing else." Serena scowls but makes no reference to his comment and thrusts the report into his hands and turns on the balls of her feet, heading back towards the hallway to lead Hanssen out, presumably to get rid of him and get back to whatever it was she was doing before he arrived.
It takes her a couple of moments to realise that Hanssen isn't following her.
"Mr. Hanssen?"
Hanssen remains stood on the spot and watches her, a hundred thoughts flying through his mind; part of him is trying and failing to tell his legs to move, to leave the house and not say anything, no matter how much his pride has been stung; another part of his mind is replaying the mocking conversation he overheard in the AAU office a short while ago.
"You think Hanssen is a virgin."
"There was one other thing, Ms. Campbell." Hanssen is dimly aware of the rational part of his mind throwing its hands up in disgust at his capitulation to his stung pride. "I overheard a discussion between yourself and Mr. Spence this evening." He sounds a lot calmer than he feels, wondering how Serena will respond.
"Hardly a surprise," she tells him with a shrug, "considering that I was called to AAU for a consultation." Hanssen spotted a brief twitch from the woman but there was no other outward response to his statement. "Waste of time – Michael was perfectly capable of dealing with it by himself."
"So the staff on Keller told me," Hanssen readily agrees – a tactic he has found almost always unsettles his opponents. "However, what I overheard was certainly not related to any consultation."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Serena denies calmly. "You're going to have to try to be a little more specific." Hanssen sighs imperceptibly and takes a step closer to the woman, using his larger size to try and intimidate her. Serena is having none of it, holding her ground and looking decidedly unimpressed at the tactic.
"Unfortunately, I quite expect Mr. Spence to be a moron but I will admit that I expected better from you, Ms. Campbell." Hanssen informs her loftily, channelling his Director of Surgery persona. Serena blinks in a manner which would be equivalent to an eye-roll from anyone else and he can almost see her mind turning over the options as she stands just in front of him.
"And just what was this conversation that you overheard?" Hanssen pauses, weighing up his options as he considers how to proceed. Serena raises an eyebrow, still looking bored and Hanssen is simultaneously impressed and unnerved by the woman's poker face.
"It..." Hanssen hesitates momentarily, it wouldn't be noticeable to anyone else and he can't quite put a finger on it but something changes in Serena's expression and he knows that she knows exactly what he is trying to talk about. "It was unnecessary speculation about my personal life."
"What kind of speculation?" There's a glint in her eye as she changes tactics, attempting to embarrass Hanssen and gain the momentum in the conversation.
"You know very well, Ms. Campbell." Hanssen keeps his tone firm, unwilling to be distracted. Serena holds his gaze for a few moments, face impassive until she smirks.
"Well, you've never given us any indication otherwise."
"My private life is not open for discussion." Hanssen's retort to Serena's almost-confession is immediate and Serena barks a laugh in response.
"Of course it is! All staff speculate and gossip about everyone. There is nothing you can do about it." Hanssen blinks, silently conceding the point. He has no desire to return to the draconian style of management that Imelda Cousins employed during his absence at the end of 2012 and so gossip between the staff is an inevitable consequence. However, Hanssen would have expected a more professional approach from his second-in-command.
"I had rather thought that you would be above that?"
"What on earth gave you that impression?" Serena's tone is slightly disbelieving and Hanssen opens his mouth to respond before closing it a couple of seconds later.
"What I want to know," Hanssen ignores her exclamation. "Is what possible purpose your incorrect speculation on my personal life serves?"
"Incorrect?" Serena's amusement is back.
"Yes." Hanssen grits his teeth, both of them are aware that he's rapidly losing any ground he's gained this evening and as Serena crosses the kitchen towards him, Hanssen suddenly feels like a fly caught in a spider's web.
"I say I'm right, you say I'm wrong." Serena stands on her toes and tugs none too gently on his tie until Hanssen's face is inches from hers. "What I'm interested in is what you're going to do about it?"
… …
"What I'm interested in is what you're going to do about it?"
It's pretty fair to say that he doesn't have a lot of experience of being in this situation but Hanssen dimly supposes that he should fall back on his tried-and-trusted aloof persona but stood as he is, in Serena Campbell's kitchen, his face mere inches from hers, the death grip she has on his tie throws that plan out of the window.
He kisses her.
There's no hesitation from Serena in her response, returning his kiss with equal fervour and although Hanssen picks up on it, he isn't entirely sure what it means.
"I've been waiting months for you to do that." Serena tells him, her lips moving against his and he straightens up in surprise to find her smirking at him and for a moment Hanssen feels uncomfortably like prey, rather than the predator.
"What?" He croaks, faintly embarrassed at how ridiculous his voice sounds.
"For you to finally notice that-" Hanssen interrupts, it occurs to him that Serena is entirely too relaxed about the whole situation, clues falling into place and the answer, figuratively hits him square between the eyes and he visibly tenses.
"You aren't even remotely surprised that I know about your conversation with Mr. Spence." Based on the way Serena's smirk is getting wider, he knows he's on the right tracks. "You knew that I was outside the AAU office?" Serena's smug expression is answer enough for him.
"Of course I did; no-one else in that place can cast a seven foot shadow." It's on the tip of his tongue to tell her that he is only six foot four but he gets the impression that that would rather be missing the point.
"And Mr. Spence?" He's almost afraid to ask.
"Was in a convenient place at a convenient time, that's all." Hanssen relaxes fractionally at the thought that the American is unaware of Serena Campbell's machinations. However, he is still unsure of the woman's motivations. "He really had no idea you were there and won't remember the conversation come Monday – he's off to a stag do tomorrow night and we'll be lucky if he remembers his own name after the weekend."
"Why then?" Hanssen feels a bit lost and he allows his confusion to show. "What was that performance in aid of?"
"You don't get it?" Serena frowns and Hanssen shrugs, unsure quite what it is he isn't understanding. She mutters something which sounds suspiciously like 'idiot man'; he still wants to prove Serena and her baseless speculation so wrong until neither of them are in any fit state for work tomorrow but the insecurity which has dogged him for years rears its head.
"What do you want, Ms. Campbell?" He knows he's stalling for time, partly to get his courage up – it's all very well deciding on a course of action on his own, in his office but stood here in her kitchen is something else entirely, not only that but in reality it's been over a quarter of a century since he last did what he's giving serious thought to doing.
"You, you idiot."
Hanssen's brain has only just processed Serena's words by the time that she kisses him. This kiss is less fierce than the first but no less potent. It's highly unlikely that anything like this is going to happen again so, snaking a hand into her hair and returning the kiss, Hanssen decides that he's damn well going to enjoy 'this' while it lasts. In fact, once Serena has come to her senses, she'll probably never want to speak to him again.
He can worry about any repercussions later but given the machinations that Serena has employed to orchestrate this situation, Hanssen finds that it might not be too much of a problem. In fact, faced with the prospect of some long overdue sex, the rational and often cynical voice Mr. Hanssen listens to is curiously absent, leaving Henrik to indulge himself.
Later Hanssen finds himself lying next to Serena as she somewhat uncoordinatedly tugs on the sheet; she'd not made any move to throw him out of her bed which meant that he probably hadn't disgraced himself. Even so, he'd felt an almost overwhelming urge to reassure himself and had gone as far as to joke that it hadn't been so bad for his first time which had provoked a huff of amusement from Serena. Her response about it all being a fluke lacked any intensity and Hanssen found himself relaxing.
Not long after, Serena's breathing evens out and after waiting what feels like hours but is probably only a couple of minutes, Hanssen carefully moves a little closer to Serena, trying not to wake her. He isn't sure how welcome his relatively close proximity will be come morning but at this moment he is able to quite calmly admit that he wants something like this and the idea isn't quite as absurd as he'd have thought it would be.
Even if nothing else comes of this evening, Hanssen finds that it's been closure he wasn't aware he needed and he's finally ready to move on from his previous, lonely life. Whether that is with Serena or not, he'll just have to wait and see.
… …
AN2: How does it work out come morning? Who knows. Should anyone want to run with this, I'd be thrilled to read it. Hope you enjoyed this.