A/N: This is set after this week's episode "Keeping Mum," after Serena starts drinking.
Sarah x
Bottle in hand, she stands on the roof where a man lost the life he has always known. It's midnight as she looks across the hospital grounds, wondering who she has become. She no longer sees a life, a past or a future. She only sees the present, and the present just hurts. The wine turns the sharp knife twisting through her heart into a rusted blade embedded there, searing pain through her only when she allows her heart to feel anything at all.
The place is pitch black, the street lights invading the calm of the darkness, reminding her she still exists. She finds herself falling apart under the strain of how she survives. Her mother clearly isn't quite right, but she can't bring herself to acknowledge that the one thing she's ever known may change forever. Eleanor has given up on her. She doesn't hear from her daughter, not even when she needs her mother. Instead she contacts her granny, probably because Adrienne is a far better mother than she can ever hope to be. Ric, her closest friend, isn't here for her the one time she really does need him. Edward is painful even to think about, and his presence in her life brings only stress. Guy is running her into the ground. Can't he see she's struggling? Can't he see beyond his grand vision to the people who are trying to make it happen for him? Can't he see that she can't do it anymore? Or does he see it and just not care at all?
She stumbles slightly, her second bottle of wine in her hand and nothing solid in her stomach. How can she live when she can barely survive?
She turns away, her back to the spot in which she had felt the strongest, most sickening shot of fear she has ever experienced as a little boy and his father had hurtled off the building. On the landing she stands, wondering what there is left. Stress and fear is all she knows. Fear of losing her mother, her daughter, her job, her career, herself, everything she loves.
She takes out her phone, looking through her contacts until she finds Ric Griffin's number. If he were here, they would be thoroughly drunk and ranting to each other about Guy Self, and she would be confiding in him how lonely she is.
Lonely.
She has nobody to confide in. She can't speak to her mother. It always ends in disagreement, and she doesn't want to concern her with it. She can't speak to her daughter. Her girl has her own life now, and she doesn't need her mother's madness invading it. She can't speak to Edward because, well, what's the point of even trying that? She can't speak to Ric because he isn't here, and he has a daughter of his own to look after. She has no-one.
Instead of heading downstairs to her office, she walks slowly and carefully up the next flight, one foot in front of the other, bottle still in her hand, until she opens a door and steps into open air. She stumbles onto the roof of the main building. She's never been here before; it's unfamiliar to her, so she carefully starts walking until she sees the lights and the cars of the city before her.
She stands at near the ledge and looks down. It's the only way left for her to go. She can only fall further, because she's discovered that something lies beneath rock bottom. It's emptiness. Dark emptiness where she can do nothing and she can only feel the last thing she's known – fear and hurt.
But what lies beneath the void is solid ground. The catch there is that to reach the solid ground she must leap. She must fast forward through the void and onto the ground, and the speed and the impact will kill her.
Would that be so bad? Would death be such a terrible outcome? It would take away the pain. It would take away the fear of losing everything she loves if she can leave it behind through choice. Her mind is hazy as she steps forward, feeling her toes hit the ledge as she makes a last ditch attempt in her drunkenness to find something to fight for.
The void has taken the fight out of her. It's stripped her of that ferocity and that determination she has always known. It's stripped her of her smile and her love. It's removed her ability to see light in darkness and hear the important through the white noise.
She sets the bottle down on the concrete and leans over it, seeing the ground next to the main entrance, directly below. The void has taken her wish to live and twisted it until the life she lived became nothing more than just an existence where she doesn't know when she will sleep, eat or smile next. She doesn't want to do it. She doesn't want to live like this, drunk and in pain, her survival crumbling in her hands. She can't get past how much today has hurt. She can't get past the tragedy and the stress. She can't get away from her mother or that boy and that man and how their lives have been ruined.
Tears fall down her face as she feels the stone against her knees, willing her to climb, to end that pain she feels. To take that rusted knife out of her heart. The blade moves, sending agony through her, and the prospect of death twists the knife deeper into her heart. She wants to jump. For the first time, she actually wants her existence to end. She doesn't want to hurtle through each day anymore, with nothing and nobody left to love at the end of it.
As she moves slightly, one foot off the ground, her knee on the ledge, a shrill ring splits the air. She closes her eyes and wonders who is calling. If it's Guy Self then she won't know what to say to him. She has nothing to say to him. Unwilling but aware, she puts her hand into her pocket and takes out the device that just won't shut up, and is somewhat startled by the caller ID.
She swallows back her tears as the knife twists again, knowing she has to answer it. Her thumb commands the phone to allow her caller access. "Hello," she says, trying not to let the cracks show in her voice.
She hears their reply of, "Hi," and her knee comes off the ledge, both feet returning to the roof. "How are you?" She hears the sincerity in his voice and she cannot stop the tears streaming down her face.
"Ric," she whispers.
"Serena?" his voice comes through the speaker. It breaks down her walls. She falls against the cold, hard stone, her back to it as she sits on the ground, a familiar face joining her in the void, wanting nothing from her. "Serena, are you OK?"
She thinks about her answer. She can easily tell him she's fine, but she's not. Telling him she's fine might destroy her. "No," she replies, her voice breaking under the strain of her efforts to keep her sobs contained in her chest. "No, I'm not OK, Ric. It's not OK."
Hope this is OK!
Please feel free to review and tell me what you think!
Sarah x