A/N: So this is odd, even for me, but I hope you like it!
Sarah x
Serena sighed as she switched the ignition of her car on. She knew she had forgotten something this morning – her car was now complaining that the fuel tank was empty. "Brilliant," she muttered to herself. She contemplated phoning Edward for a lift to the filling station but she refused to let him think she was an idiot. Ric would surely mock her to eternity. In fact, any man she knew would probably give her absolute hell.
With this in mind she picked up the phone and called the one woman who was as determined and logical as she was – Jac Naylor. She got out the car as the phone started ringing. "Hello?" Jac asked.
"Jac, sorry to sound like an idiot, but would you happen to have any spare fuel?" Serena asked, aware that she sounded apologetic. She heard Jac laugh to herself.
"Luckily for you, Mr. Protective has made me keep a jerry can in my boot," Jac replied. "I can see you from the door. I'll take it over, OK?" she offered.
"Thanks," Serena smiled to herself, relief washing over her as she realised she would never have to tell anyone but Jac. She hung up and leaned against the car, trying to remember everything that needed done tonight. She had to help Eleanor pack for university, sort out her daughter's first month's rent with Edward...well, actually, there was a whole host of things to do with her irritation of an ex-husband.
Jac approached her with a black jerry can. "Oh, you are a lifesaver!" Serena smiled appreciatively. "I'll replace it in the morning," she promised. "Wouldn't want Jonny finding out you're travelling without back up fuel, now, would we?"
"Ugh. I swear I am this close to killing him," Jac grumbled, indicating with her thumb and forefinger just how little patience she had left for the father of her child. Serena laughed as she poured in the fuel, recalling how overprotective fathers-to-be were the greatest possible source of annoyance for a pregnant woman. "Is it not bad enough that I'm going to be like a beached whale?" she continued. "If he's that bothered, he should carry the kid for nine months!"
Serena burst out laughing at the image of a pregnant Jonny Maconie. "Now that I would pay to see," she giggled, shaking her head to herself at Jac's frustrations. She tipped the last of the petrol into the tank and said, "I'll just keep this and fill it up in the morning."
"OK," Jac shrugged. "No problem."
Serena smiled and got into the car, chucking the jerry can onto the back seat. She tried to start the engine but it struggled before it gave up. She tried again, thinking maybe the fuel needed to get into the injectors. And then she remembered she had left the ignition on all this time, with the side lamps on so she could see. "Oh, for God's sake," she moaned. She let her head fall against the steering wheel with a soft thud; the door opened and she sensed Jac standing beside her. "Don't laugh," she warned. "I've killed the battery."
"I'd noticed," Jac answered her. "It's not properly dead though. If it was, nothing would happen when you turn the key."
"Very reassuring."
"Well, I hope you've got jump leads, because I don't." Serena groaned hopelessly. "You've not got jump leads, have you?"
"No," Serena snapped, irritated by her own lack of preparation. No spare fuel, no jump leads, no air compressor...all she knew was in the boot was a spare wheel and a trolley jack. And even then she had no idea where the locking wheel nut key was. She lifted her head and saw an amused smile on Jac's face; she did not berate the redhead because, in all honesty, if the roles were reversed she would have been highly amused herself.
"Oi, Maconie!" she heard Jac shout. Serena looked out the window to find Jonny, Michael and Edward walking together, presumably towards Albie's where they would probably spend their Friday night becoming increasingly inebriated. To her mild disgust, all three responded to Jac's call. Jonny would be helpful. Michael would be annoying but still quite helpful. Edward wasn't getting the chance to be helpful.
"What's up?" the Scot asked.
"She needs a jump start," Jac explained, forcing back the smile Serena had seen earlier.
"Left the lights on, Rena?" Michael grinned.
"Shut it, Michael," she grouched at him. "Look, are any of you going to help or not?!" she demanded, her patience wearing thin.
Edward raised his hands. "I've got jump leads in my car. I'll bring it round."
"Thank you," she said grudgingly; she didn't like that he was the one to help but she needed her car started and he was the one offering. He nodded and left her with Michael, Jac and Jonny. "Stop laughing inwardly," she growled at them. Jonny and Michael glanced at each other, and she saw Jonny's lip trembling. In the end, they burst into fits of laughter. "Oh, grow up."
"We're never gonna let you forget this," Jonny informed her through his giggles. "The great Serena Campbell left her lights on and killed her car."
"I haven't killed it," she denied. "It just needs...resuscitated."
Even Jac laughed at that, and Serena was resigned to the fact that the immature side to the three of them found her predicament hilarious.
When Edward returned, it was with a smirk Serena desperately wanted to wipe off his face. "Shut up," she muttered, taking the end of the positive lead from him while Michael took it upon himself to pop the bonnet.
"Didn't say anything!" Edward protested.
"You didn't have you," Serena bit back at him, too uptight to even care that three of her colleagues were seeing her and Edward bicker like children. She put the bonnet on its latch and connected the jump lead to the positive terminal, taking the negative lead from Edward when he gave it to her. She connected it to the negative cable. "Right," she said to Edward.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Michael stopped them. "You trying to blow us all up?!" he demanded, yanking the black lead from the battery. "Jeez, Serena. For such an intelligent woman, you really are clueless!"
"What?!" she retorted. "Red to positive, black to negative."
"Aye, if you want the battery to explode," Jonny told her. Michael connected the black lead to a bolt in the engine block. "Christ. I thought you of all people would know how to do this sort of thing. You're one of the most intelligent people I know!"
"Are we actually ready this time?" Edward asked from his car.
"Yeah," Michael replied. Serena stepped back and stood next to Jac, who looked strangely sympathetic towards her; perhaps she had seen how much of a moron Serena was feeling as the men came to her rescue. She was never going to live this down. Edward started his engine. A few minutes passed and Michael ordered her, "Try and start your car now."
She got in and turned the key and, to her relief, it started first time. It was only when smoke appeared in light of the side lamps and all four of her friends yelled at her to cut the engine that she realised there was something more than just a flat battery wrong here. She had to stall it with the brake and the clutch to get it to cut out, even after she switched the engine off. "What's happened?!" she demanded.
"I don't know!" Edward shouted in frustration. This was why she had always hated it when the car had broken down when they were married; Edward had a tendency to get himself worked up over this type of thing.
"Oh, grow up and stop throwing a tantrum!" she snapped at him.
"Hold on," Jac said slowly. She glanced at Jonny. "I gave her the diesel from the back of my car."
"But this is petrol," Jonny protested. "It's got HT leads!" he gestured to the engine and the cables that ran into the engine block, under the plastic cover. "Well done, Ms. Campbell. You've gone and put diesel in a petrol engine."
Feeling herself losing her composure she instinctively hit her head off Edward's arm and rested it there with her eyes closed. "Didn't you learn when I did it at Harvard?" her ex-husband asked of her.
"Shut your trap," she moaned.
"It's OK," Michael said. "If we siphon it off and put gas in it, it should be alright. I'll go and get an IV line and a container," he sighed.
"We'll go and get petrol," Jac volunteered. "Sorry," she added to Serena. "I thought it was a diesel."
"It's fine. I should have made it clear I needed petrol," she replied. She watched Jac and Jonny walk away to Jonny's car. "Well," she grumbled. "This is just perfect. I forget to fill the car up, I flatten the battery and I put diesel in it."
"Hey, don't beat yourself up," Edward ordered her. "Happens to everyone. Just not all at the same time," he grinned. She whacked him around the back of the head, feeling much better for taking her annoyance out on him. "What was that for?!" he asked loudly.
"Making fun of me," she retorted childishly.
He laughed. "And you're telling us to grow up?" Edward challenged her. "Don't get upset about it. Just one of those days." She nodded silently and inwardly kicked herself for being so stupid. She knew the difference in smell between petrol and diesel – she should have taken a sniff just to be sure. And she normally always turned the ignition off properly.
"Isn't it indeed," she agreed quietly.
"Do you want a cuddle?" he offered bravely.
Her head whipped around at the question, barely able to believe he was offering after all these years, and after how unfairly she had treated him in his time here. But despite those reservations, she replied, "Only if you don't tell anyone." He gave a low chuckle and put his arms around her, hugging her tightly into his chest. She had almost forgotten how much of a comfort his embrace could be. "I'm exhausted," she admitted.
"I know. Your eyes are all sparkly," he informed her. "They only get like that when you're ill or tired."
"Good to know," she grumbled sarcastically into his chest. Now that she had admitted to it, tiredness clouded her mind and, for just a moment, she allowed it. "I miss you," she muttered under her breath, sure he hadn't heard when she received no reply. She stood there in his arms for what felt like forever, trying not to fall asleep with his chest as a pillow.
"You need to take the weekend off. I mean completely forget you even have a job," he clarified. She cursed him for knowing her so well that he knew she went home but rarely switched off.
"You two finished playing grab-assy?" she heard an American drawl behind her. She jumped back from Edward, embarrassed that she had been caught in her ex-husband's arms. She silently warned Michael too keep what he had seen to himself, and she knew he had got the message when he said nothing more about it. He was struggling to get the pipe in through the darkness. "Pass me a torch, Rena?" he asked her.
"Haven't got one," she mumbled.
"What?" he asked distractedly.
"Haven't bloody got one!" she yelled at him in annoyance.
"OK, OK," Edward calmed her. "I know you're wound up, Serena, but there's no need to shriek at him."
She nodded. "Sorry, Michael. I was out of line."
"Don't worry. Just about got it anyway." He pushed the line into the fuel tank and sucked on the end, spitting the diesel onto the ground and letting it flow from the thin pipe into the bin he had found.
"Go and disconnect the leads from your car. Negative off first," Edward ordered her with a gentle touch of her back. She obeyed him and took the leads away, her tired mind ready to give up as she put them together ready to wind up.
"Bloody hell!" she shouted at the top of her voice – sparks had just flown from the metal as the clamps at touched, one hitting her hand as it fell. She followed her first instinct and took the apart, one in each hand. She turned to find Michael and Edward looking shocked, worried and slightly amused.
"You really are tired, aren't you?" Edward sighed, taking the leads from her when he took the other end away from his own car. She only nodded at him, too exhausted and on edge to argue with him.
Jonny's car pulled up in the empty space next to her, and both he and Jac jumped out with a green jerry can in each of their possession. "Perfect timing," Michael grinned. "This is almost it all out." Serena huffed slightly at the sight of Michael Spence getting her car up and running. "Don't worry, Serena. We all do it at least once."
"Exactly," Jonny agreed. "Just be thankful it wasn't the other way around. You can just about get off with diesel in a petrol engine. Petrol in a diesel engine never goes down very well."
"What happens?" Jac asked, allowed Jonny's arm to sneak around her waist.
"Shattered injectors, blown piston rings...costs a fortune to fix."
"Well, I'm glad it wasn't that way around," Serena sighed as she watched Michael pouring petrol into her car. "Safe to say I'll never be doing this again, anyway." She felt Edward's hands on her shoulders, squeezing and pressing lightly. She was too grateful for the release he was giving her muscles to stop him.
Michael nodded to Jonny, who then started her car. It started and, although it was still a bit smoky, it ran OK. "It'll be a bit smoky and maybe a bit weak for a couple days until the system's flushed, but it's starting fine so you've not damaged it," Jonny told her.
She nodded. "Thank you. You've saved my bacon, the lot of you," she smiled tiredly. "And I don't think you're ever going to let me forget it."
"Would we do that to you?" Jac demanded.
"Yes."
The four looked at each other and shrugged in the admittance that she was never going to hear the end of this. She got in the car with a sigh.
"Sure you remember the way home now?" Jonny teased. She glared at him and he fell silent while Jac smiled. Dying to get home she drove carefully away, leaving Edward, Jac, Jonny and Michael to laugh behind her, seeing them when she glanced in the mirror.
To her surprise, it brought a soft, content smile to her face and she felt a little less pessimistic about it all. "Glad to have been such great entertainment," she smiled to herself.
Hope this is OK!
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think!
Sarah x