A/N: SO. I'm being depressing because I've had a bad week. Sorry. As always, thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed.

Sarah x

Serena sat in her office at around eleven when Edward walked in, closing the door silently. It had been a fortnight since she had kissed him; she hadn't addressed the matter and, to her surprise, he hadn't pushed it. She was trying to discern loving him from needing him, and it wasn't easy. The two were too tangled. "Serena," he said gently. Oh, no. She hated when he got that look in his eyes. "Your mum's been taken ill."

Serena's heart jolted in her chest. The last three occasions Adrienne had been admitted had been horrible for Serena. She had hated to watch her mother struggle. "Why are you telling me?" she asked coldly, despite her inward terror.

"Oh, for God's sake, Serena!" Edward retorted. "Really? You're going to be like that, are you?"

"Like what?"

"She's still your mother," he reminded her. Serena saw his frustration but, truthfully, she was still furious with her mother. Usually her frustrations and annoyance with Adrienne dissipated after a few days, or when she got sick, but not this time. This time she had crossed a line Serena feared they could not retreat back over.

"She's a patient at this hospital and will be treated as any other patient would be," Serena dictated to him, inwardly horrified at how much like Henrik Hanssen she had just sounded. Cold and uncaring. She almost got up and followed her instinct to run and find her mum, but she battered that instinct down almost as soon as it reared its head. "Now, if you will excuse me, I'm needed on Darwin," she lied, but Darwin was a cheerful place these days and she was perhaps hoping that some of that brightness would rub off on her if she visited often enough.

She bumped into Michael Spence, looking both amused and worried. It was an expression that always worried Serena, but today she was determined to keep her distance from all of it. "Mommy's here," he smiled. "She's OK but she needs an operation and a hug."

"Well, the operation is your job and she'll have to find someone to give her a hug if she wants it that badly," Serena snapped. Michael was clearly taken aback her frosty reply, more so that she hadn't even asked what procedure was going to be needed.

"What's going on?" he asked her. "Normally when she's in here, nobody can keep you away from her." Serena didn't answer for fear of blurting the whole mess out to the American. Maybe it wouldn't have been such a bad thing but she could bring herself to tell him anyway. Even if she wanted him to know and was sure of it, she wouldn't have been able to find the words to explain the rift between them.

Despite her icy ruthlessness, Serena did sneak a glance over at her mother when she was leaving the ward. She actually looked ill this time. Pale and weak, she lay sleeping. She could not resist quietly sneaking in and looking through her treatment plan. It was a serious operation.

She brought herself to walk away, trusting that she was in good care whether her daughter sat and held her hand or not. Holding someone's hand did little to actually help anything, especially when it was a façade. When she reached the lifts, Jonny Maconie was standing with a tray of cups from the café. "I see Miss Naylor is still refusing maternity leave," she smirked; Jac was eight months pregnant, stubborn as hell and using the father of her child as a slave.

Jonny just grinned, taking a cup out of the tray. "Here. You look like you need it more than Elliot. He's just been called into theatre anyway."

"Thanks," Serena cautiously replied, taking it from his free hand. "So. Is she in a better mood today?" Yesterday, the pregnant redhead had taken an epic mood swing and gone from laughing to shouting in under a minute; Mo had eventually given up on calming her down and called Serena, who had a talk with Jac and managed to reign her in with the threat of forced maternity leave.

"Aye. Insisting the baby's not getting dressed in pink though. Sounds like purple might be her thing," Jonny grinned widely; it was easily seen that the prospect of fatherhood excited him to no end. Serena didn't doubt that the parents-to-be were doing a marvellous job of driving each other up the wall.

"Does Jac think pink will turn your daughter into a girly-girl or something?"

"Excuse me!" Jonny exclaimed in mock outrage at her insinuation. "My daughter will be a Daddy's girl, definitely, but she's gonna grow up playing football and shinty and she'll be doing hiking and stuff too. No kid of mine is gonna be a girly-girl."

"So there is something you two agree on then," Serena smirked as the lift doors opened and they got out.

"Ms. Campbell," a familiar voice called out. "Can I have a word please?" It was Jac, shouting across the ward for her. Serena sighed and resigned herself to the idea that she was to be dragged into Jac Naylor's office and presumably given a hundred and one reasons why she didn't need more than a fortnight's maternity leave.

"How can I help?" Serena smiled as she walked into the office. Her phone rang loudly; she looked at it to see Edward's caller ID on it and sighed. She cut him off and put her phone on vibrate.

"Why aren't you with your mum?" Jac shot at her. That was Jac all over – no messing about and straight to the point. "Have you fallen out with her?"

"None of your business."

"You know, Serena," Jac began as she sat into her chair with a slight groan. "Parents don't mean to screw us up. Yeah, they do it anyway, and all too often they make a good job of it, but they don't mean to screw us up."

"Who says I'm screwed up?" Serena retorted. She was not comfortable with Jac knowing something was up. That there was something lurking beneath the glare, the laugh and the smart mouth.

"That look on your face." There was a tense silence between them as Serena tried to find a way of wriggling out of it. But it was Jac; there was no wriggling out of anything when it came to her. She was too good at seeing the lies behind the faces and the words. "And Michael said you left your mum on Keller without even seeing her," Jac admitted.

"I should have known," Serena sighed. "Look, Jac. Yes, we've fallen out," she confessed harshly. "No, I'm not speaking to her. And no, I'm definitely not going to see her."

Jac stared at her. "And what if something happens? What if she-"

"Don't!" Serena snapped. "Don't guilt trip me." She spun on her heel to walk away from Jac.

"Wait." The order came as a sharp bark from Jac, and it rooted Serena to the spot. She didn't turn back until she heard the woman stand up. "Do you think I'm going to be able to avoid hurting her for all her life?" Jac asked, touching her bump lightly. "Of course not. Have you ever unintentionally hurt Eleanor's feelings?" Serena didn't answer. "Of course you have. Just because we do things with the best of intentions, Serena, doesn't mean we can avoid hurting people we love."

It froze her to realise that Jac must have had family problems of her own to have this insight. "And what if it's not done with good intent?" She was still trying to work out whether stupidity or malice had driven Adrienne to lie and hide everything that went on. Had she really been trying to protect her, or had she only been protecting Andrew?

Serena felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. Edward. Michael had probably grassed her up.

"Then you hit the road and never look back," Jac smiled sadly. "But I don't think that's what's happened here. My mother abandoned me. Yours is still here. And when your mother is gone, it leaves a hole that will never be filled no matter how much you try."

Serena was speechless. She had never known that Jac had been abandoned by her mother, or the trauma and lasting effects of that. Perhaps it explained Jac's guarded nature and icy exterior. Serena looked at her phone as it started buzzing again. Edward. Again. What did he want now?!

"So, Serena. You go down there and you do whatever it is that you need to do. Just in case." Serena nodded silently and headed for the door, allowing a little smile back at Jac when she added, "Good luck."

"Thank you."

Feeling slightly more optimistic, she headed for the lift. Her phone rang again. "I'm fine, Edward. I just had to go and speak to Jac Naylor. And yes, I've survived," she joked, having told Edward about Jac's little episode yesterday. There was only silence on the other end of the line. "Edward? You still there?"

He cleared his throat, and heard something strange and thick in his voice when he spoke. "Serena, you should get down here, OK?"

"Why? What's happened?"

"Just get to Keller," he ordered her gently. "I'll explain when you're down here." She hung up the phone with a knot of dread forming in her stomach; what had happened? She'd only been away twenty minutes at the very most. What could have happened in that space of time?!

She half-ran onto Keller, halted by Edward. "Edward, what's happened?!" she demanded. She looked around the corner to an empty bay. "Where is she?"

"In theatre," he replied. His hands were on her arms, and his eyes were shocked and glassy. "She had an infected ulcer in her stomach and it's burst into her bloodstream. Michael's taken her in but-"

"She's going to die," Serena blurted out her worst fear.

"No, Serena," Edward tried to calm her. She felt herself disintegrating into fear and worry in the middle of the ward, unable to move into a more private place to address the matters forced upon her. "Don't think that."

"She is! I can feel it. She's going to die."

"Michael's in there working his backside off," Edward informed her gently. "He's a good surgeon."

Serena knew all this. She knew Michael was a talented surgeon and she knew he was doing everything possible to save Adrienne. But it didn't ease her mind. Only an hour ago she had never wanted to speak to Adrienne again, but now the prospect of not being able to take that back terrified her.

She could vaguely feel Edward's familiar grasp guiding her to her office, where she could fall apart in private if she felt the need. She didn't know what she felt. Did she even care? She had said earlier that she didn't. Despite the fear of her death, Serena could not banish the anger with her mother. It was still there, still urging her to rip the woman apart for all she had lied about. Serena was torn. Completely torn.

The door shut but Edward hadn't walked away. "Come here," he sighed gently. She turned to face him with her eyebrow raised but he was seeing through her with unnerving ease; he didn't back down. Instead he took a step towards her. She mirrored his movement and let him hold her tight. She had had enough now. She was emotionally and mentally exhausted. She had barely got her head around one thing and now her mother was fighting for her life under Michael Spence's scalpel.

"This is mad."

"I know."

"Everything's happening at once."

"I know."

"I don't think I can take anything else."

He put her and arms length and fixed her hair lightly with his fingers. She felt him staring into her, and for once she allowed it. She pulled down her guard and immediately regretted it. The confusion and pain she had attempted to stamp down rose like a wave until she was, yet again, close to tears. She had cried more in the past fortnight than she had done in years and years.

"I know."

He kissed her cheek and hugged her close to him. She felt the warmth of his body against hers. It melted the frozen point of view within her. Now that she had forced her walls down to the ground, she could feel his warmth and it melted the icy hatred and intensified the burning dread searing through her.

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