Note: Thank you for the encouragement for this fic, and even just for reading! I could have finished this chapter a while back but the past couple of weeks and this last weekend has been pretty rubbish, so I distracted myself with other fandom fics, and starting to type for a different Holby 'ship.
Waking slowly Serena smiled as she wrapped herself tighter in the soft duvet and felt the warm presence of another body behind her, until she remembered that she did not have a partner to share a bed with and that these were not her bed sheets. The memories came crashing back into her head and glancing over her shoulder she did find a sleeping, naked, Ric Griffin. Eventually she had fallen asleep the previous night as she knew there was not a chance she would have been capable of driving. She couldn't stay and witness the respect which had taken such a long time to build, simply float away into the abyss where all positive feelings towards her ended.
She moved so very quietly and with minimal disruption to Ric's sleep, she moved out of the bed and gathered her clothing which had scattered everywhere in the room, spending more time searching for her shirt which had found its way to the top of the landing. She paused at the bedroom door and took a deep breath as she tried to convince herself that she was doing the right thing for them both. As difficult as it was to walk away from the one person who had made her feel a true sense of contentment in a very long time, she believed he would resent her if she allowed this to continue.
Ric guessed what she had done as soon as he felt the empty space next to him. Quickly checking that she was indeed nowhere in the house and that her car was gone he sat down on the edge of the mattress and put his head in his hands. He wished he had stopped before they had even started the previous night yet he currently wanted nothing more than to tell her that a one-off thing was not as reprehensible as she probably considered they were. If she had stayed they could have discussed it and reached a point of acceptance, now it simply felt as though they had ruined all they had built.
Serena unlocked the front door to her house and hung up her coat on the hooks on the opposite wall. Even after the blissful sleep she had just came out of, all she wanted to do was go upstairs to bed and close her eyes. She heard movement from one of the rooms on this level and smiled wearily when Eleanor entered the hallway with the bottle of water she had got up for. Heading back for the staircase she turned herself to move past her mother, doing everything in her power to blatantly ignore Serena.
"Ellie? Are you okay?" She could hear that her voice was shaking as she asked.
"Oh, so you can call me a disgrace for a one-night stand but it's okay for you to turn up in the same clothes as when you left yesterday?! Please don't lie and say you were working the whole time because I called to see if you were there."
"I should have let you know I wouldn't be home but-"
"But you got distracted by some wine I'm betting and a random guy which meant that I was hastily forgotten. Thanks mum." She glared at the older woman before running up the remaining stairs to her room, slamming the door closed behind her. Serena could not figure out if all of this was because of not calling the previous night or because of her hormones but it hurt to hear the anger.
She hated herself. Ellie was correct: she was a complete hypocrite - as least her daughter could say she was drunk at the time whereas Serena knew what she was doing when she and Ric moved in to his bedroom. She slowly climbed the stairs and grabbed a towel from the cupboard on the landing, trying to fool herself by saying a shower would erase everything.
Turning the radio on in the bathroom she found a station playing some songs she recognised and put the shower on. Glancing down her pale skin she found a set of faint purple-ish marks on her hip exactly where Ric had gripped on to her during their first bout of copulation.
She sank down on to the cold floor and let the painful tears escape. The logical part of her brain noticed that at least since the radio was playing and the shower was on, so her daughter would not hear her at breaking point. What had she done to deserve all this? Ellie had got herself into a situation which affected everyone, her job was becoming less involved and - for the cherry on top - she had now had sex with her colleague and best friend. Leaning her head back until it touched the wall she covered her face with her hands and tried to pull herself together, only to be reminded of Ric's fingers delicately touching her cheeks when he had brushed his lips against hers.
On her exit from the bathroom she noticed Eleanor's bedroom door was open again so she looked in and saw she must have decided to go out somewhere as there was very little chance of her being downstairs. To motivate herself to carry out her quite basic post-shower skincare regime it took more effort than she was willing to give. She finally dried her hair and used a touch of moisturiser before throwing on a plain t-shirt and jeans. If she dressed lazily then that could be her little bit of pathetic for the day, which would hopefully prevent her from drinking too early or straight from the bottle of red wine.
When she went in to the living room she sat down and leaned forward, picking a report she had written for Guy up from the wooden coffee table. Grabbing a pen from the arm of the other chair in the room she began to furiously circle spelling mistakes and errors which she hadn't noticed prior to printing. The editing took control of her and the more mistakes she thought existed began to destroy any belief that she was worthy of a hospital managment position. It was due first thing the next day and it would be more productive to rewrite the entire thing. A knock to the front door paused her downward spiralling until she discovered who it was.
"Edward, there is no point in you being here! Eleanor is out."
"That's not a problem, I wanted to see how you are. I thought you would want somebody to talk to about Ellie." By this point in the conversation she had accidentally moved to the side, silently granting him access to her sanctuary.
"Of course, and you are exactly the person I would want to speak with." She replied sarcastically as he walked around the place to the kitchen as though it was his own. Just as he always had with anything that she once thought of as hers.
"Serena, we were getting on so well in the hospital." He commented with his best charming smile. In all the years they had known one another he understood how to win her over and it worked over and over again.
He minimized the distance between them, trapping her with her back against the kitchen wall. Looking into those eyes they both sensed he had her right back under his spell, and they could guess what would occur next when his hands ran down the sides of her torso until the settled on the top of her hips. As his lips pressed against hers she suddenly remembered the bruising on her body and pulled away. Edward had been a little taken surprised at the lack of immediate response from her mouth and hands, but the shock at her being the one to break the contact was even greater.
She knew she had messed up by sleeping with Ric but he had shown her a way to be happy without treating her badly like Edward constantly did. There, she had admitted it to herself: Ric made her happy; having sex with Ric made her happy; knowing that he had enjoyed being with her made her happy.
"Get out. Leave, right now, Edward!"
He tried to persuade her otherwise by lightly kissing along her collarbone. His hands travelled down to the button and zip on her jeans and she almost allowed herself to fall for it. She would never forgive herself if she slept with Edward; she accepted what she and Ric did because he was exactly the type of man she had hoped to be with one day. Even though they had acted on frustration for that entire evening, deep down it had only consisted of was him caring about her. Unlike her ex-husband who she assumed was only doing this to distract himself from the idea of drinking.
Pushing as harshly as she could against the chest she once spent hours lying on, Serena moved to the opposite side of the room. She quickly fastened her trousers once again she shook her head without hesitation or lingering looks, making it clear that she was not his any more.
"Leave."
It was not that she wanted to go running back to Ric - she knew she would never do that - she just could not allow Edward to be any bigger a part of the disaster that was her current life. Ellie had to be her main concern now, she had to put the last sixteen hours to the back of her mind to support her daughter.
