A/N: This is quite a random thing I've written, but it focuses on how easy it is to let yourself remain blind to the obvious, and how hard it is to accept the truth when it's placed in front of you. It focused on Serena and on Edward, taking it from both sides. I hope it makes sense - it is 1am!

Sarah x

"Yeah, I'm just about to head home," Edward smiled at Ric when he asked him if his shift was over. "A much needed curry is awaiting me. Well, once I make it," he added, dreading the thought of having to make his dinner when he got home. Night was falling quickly and freezing over with little warning, making time seem uneven and cold as December approached.

He strode down the corridor without thinking, but his eye was caught by Serena's office door, a few inches open. Just enough for him to spy on her. For just a moment, he saw not Serena, but her father as she drank from a full wine glass.

Edward watched Serena from the ajar door of her office. He didn't like that she drank the copious amounts of alcohol she did; to be drinking in her office every night, unsociably and alone, was not a healthy habit to develop. To see her sitting at half-past five, one her second glass of wine, sifting through paperwork and seemingly forgetting she even had a life worried him. It was not his right to worry about her, and he knew that, but worry he did.

He walked away, resisting the urge to take it from her. It was not his place. He was kicking himself for giving her wine. She didn't need the encouragement.

However, as he collected his coat, he found his conscience would not allow it. He knew the risk. Serena surely must have worked out the risk she was taking at some point in the past seventeen years. She couldn't have been blind to it.

He knocked on the door lightly. "Come in!" she called. She glanced around. "Ah, Edward. And what do you have to infuriate me with tonight?"

He picked up the wine bottle to find a third already gone. "I really wish you wouldn't drink so much," he sighed. He felt her glare before she even shot it, accustomed by now to her reactions, especially when people were concerned for her health, safety and wellbeing.

She stared him down, but he did not falter. He sat down opposite her. "What does it matter to you?" she demanded. "I'm not your problem anymore."
"Your the mother of my child," he reminded her fairly. "You'll always be my concern, whether you like it or not. And right now, I am warning you, Serena, you're walking the line with the booze."

"You drink just as much as I do!" she protested.

"Maybe," he allowed. He leaned forward and put his arms crossed on the desk. "But I very rarely start drinking at five in the afternoon on a weekday." He watched as she cottoned on, looking at the half-filled wine glass with accusing doubt. "And it's already in the family," he added, recalling her dad's 'love' of alcohol.

Her head snapped around. "In the family? Nobody in my family has an alcohol problem," she said, and he realised quite quickly that she had been oblivious. Oh, no. Now he had to act like she knew, to try and expiate himself of whatever crime Serena took this to be against her, because she was sure to interpret this as a personal attack on her.

"Yeah. Killed your dad, remember?" he gently said to her, but he doubted now that she had ever known.

She gave a bitter laugh. "Don't be ridiculous! He died because he took the Ralia corner too fast on the A9."

Edward remembered that night well; he had rushed Adrienne up to Inverness to see him, trying every quarter of an hour to get hold of Serena, who had remained in England while her parents, husband and infant daughter had taken a holiday in the Highlands. "And do you really think Andrew would have been so reckless if he hadn't been drinking?" he challenged her assumption. "He would have known better than to go past Dalwhinnie at night in the winter if he had been sober."

"Dad didn't drink and drive," she growled at him, and he saw instantly that he had hurt and upset her; why was it that, no matter how he said something, it managed to get his back up? Her dark brown eyes were shining, and she was making them unreadable. "He wouldn't have done that. He knew better. That road is bad in the winter. He slipped on black ice."

"Serena..." he warned her gently.

"No," she snapped. "Do not try and tell me my dad was stupid enough to drink drive on the A9, of all places."

Edward rubbed his hands across his face, trying to work out a way to minimise the damage he had just caused. He had always assumed that Serena had observed her father closely, taken note and kept quiet, but it seemed she genuinely had no clue of what had been obvious to both him and Adrienne. The elephant in the room, it appeared, was something Serena had been completely blind to. And, to be fair, it was difficult to see it in someone if their presence never lingered long enough to make any patterns, to join any dots. Though emotionally and spiritually joined at the hip, Serena and Andrew, towards the end of the man's life, had seen each other twice a year at most.

He met her gaze cautiously and was unable to shake the feeling of dread that came with kicking the hornets' nest. "Your dad was always drink driving," Edward informed her. "Well, actually, he was always drinking, never mind the driving."

"You're lying." Her accusation was one he had expected. "Get out."

"Serena-"

"Out!"

He held his hands up in defeat; he knew she would have had a difficult time believing him. She was not one to swallow what she was told without question, and he had lied to before so she was understandably wary of anything he told her. He understood that. And yet he just wanted to shake her until she accepted what he knew was the truth.

He wasn't sure if she was in denial or just had never seen it, but she definitely wasn't accepting that he father had had an alcohol problem. Even if Edward hadn't seen it for himself, Adrienne had once confided in him the havoc, unknown to Serena, Andrew had caused as a younger man. Adrienne had hidden it well, but now Edward wondered if protecting Serena from seeing these things had actually been the right thing to do. Now, as a grown woman, she could not see what was right in front of her all this time.

Left with no option under her harsh stare, he took the bottle – though he knew she would quickly acquire another – and simply walked away from her. There was no convincing her. One things she had always had in common with her father was that once she got something in her head it was the truth, and it didn't matter who tried to disprove it.

He pulled out his mobile and searched the phone book online for Adrienne's home number; he felt it only fair that Serena may well call her up after one too many drinks to give her a grilling for information. He dialled the number quickly as he headed for his car, kicking himself yet again. "Hello?" Adrienne answered.

"Hey, Adrienne. It's Edward," he said, pinging the lock for his car from halfway across the car park. "Listen, I think we may have a problem," he confessed solemnly.

"And what might that be?" Adrienne asked. He heard the smile in her voice as she added, "Has Rena knocked your teeth down your throat yet?"

"No. Still waiting for that," he grinned. "But in all seriousness, I don't suppose that you've explicitly explained Andrew's habits to Serena in the last fifteen years, have you?"

"No," she replied, her tone laced with confusion. "She was content with the way she remembered him so I let it stay that way. Why?" she demanded. He tried to find the words to explain what had happened, but it was more difficult than he had been expecting. "Oh, Edward. Have you put your foot in your mouth again?"

"Little bit," he allowed. He added internally that it might well have been the understatement of the century. "I don't know."

"Start from the top."

"Well, I saw her with a bottle of wine in her office and it reminded me of Andrew, just for a split second," he explained. "I went in and told her to watch it with the alcohol, and I said it was what killed Andrew, and I thought she would have known by now and she didn't and...oh, Christ, Adrienne! What have I done?!"

He heard her heave a tired and yet resigned sigh from the other end of the phone line. "Calm down, Edward," she ordered him firmly. "This was bound to happen, one way or another. Either she was going to make the connection herself or someone would have stuck their foot in it."

Edward groaned and leaned forward, his head against the steering wheel, trying to work out the right thing to do. It felt wrong to leave Serena to doubt everything she knew, but he didn't want to make it any worse than he had already succeeded in doing. "What am I meant to do?"

"Keep an eye on her," Adrienne suggested. "You're probably doing that already. But when she does see the truth, she's going to need someone to help her understand everything she couldn't see," she explained. "That means you're going to have to man up."

"I still can't understand how she could have been blind to it all," Edward said. "Andrew was a blatant alcoholic!"

Adrienne remained silent for a moment before she eventually spoke in an effort to provide the reasonable explanation for Serena's lack of vision when it came to her father. "When she was younger, he hid it well and so did I. After she left home we only saw her at Christmas and New Year and birthdays and such. Occasions where a drink or three is expected. And I don't think she really wanted to see it."

"She still doesn't."

"I know."

"Be warned, Adrienne," he said solemnly. "She's in the mood to get drunk and interrogate you. I can see it in her eyes."

"You always could read her eyes," she said to him. "Don't worry. I've got my wits about me. Just make sure you do too."

"You think I would have survived on her ward if I didn't?" he reminded Adrienne jokingly, trying to look for a distraction from the dread settling in his stomach. "I'll call you if she starts kicking off, OK?"

"Alright. Thank you for the warning, Edward," she said, grateful sincerity obvious and undisguised. If there was one thing about Adrienne he admired, it was the polite grace she managed to treat him with, even though he knew she took a dim view on the more idiotic things he had done to Serena.

"No problem. Bye."

"Bye."

Chucking his phone carelessly onto the passenger seat, Edward considered what would happen when the realisation hit Serena. He could see her well and truly kicking off, but he knew that while he was in her presence, she would direct the anger at him. But he had loved her and lived with her and knew all too well that she could torture herself when she was left alone. Neither idea was very appealing, but the only other one was for her to open up and let him in, which was not going to happen.

Hope this is OK!
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your thoughts!
Sarah x