A/N: This is a ridiculous time to be awake, never mind uploading. Sorry about that. Thanks, as always, to everyone who has read and reviewed!

Sarah x

Edward woke on a sofa he only knew was not his own; if it was the one he knew, his back would have felt like it was broken in a dozen places. He breathed in an immediately recognised the scent of alcohol, coffee and perfume. He was in Serena's house. Adrienne was dead. He got to his feet and followed his first instinct to find Serena. It still surprised him how much he still cared for her, even after all these years apart.

He climbed the stairs quietly and looked into her bedroom. She lay asleep, an empty bottle lying on the floor. He sighed in despair. This was the road he was trying so hard to steer her away from. She was too easily led by a bottle and the dampening effect it had on the memory. If she kept going like he suspected she had been for years, she was going to end up like her parents – an alcoholic like her dad, isolated like her mum and dead like both of them, in the end. She was a doctor. She should have known better than this.

He knelt down and picked the bottle up. It wasn't wine. It was whisky. Had she actually just drank a whole bottle of whisky? He now dreaded the moment she would wake. He considered fleeing. With whisky in her system she became aggressive and furiously angry, even violent on occasion. It was the one type of alcohol that seriously did not agree with her. And she had a whole bottle of it in her.

"What's the point, Serena?" he asked her sleeping form in nothing more than a whisper. She wasn't peaceful; her face was tortured. "Hmm? What do you think all this will help you with?"

He stroked her cheek lightly. Her soft face was pained even in drunken sleep. How he loved her, even this state. Even after she had left him to fall asleep on the sofa and drank herself into oblivion, he couldn't stop himself. He had a feeling, though, that he would inevitably provide her with more pain and destruction. It was an unfortunate talent of his, hurting Serena. It was never intentional, but it always seemed to happen. He knew that, as Adrienne had pointed out on numerous occasions, he could be unbelievably stupid.

She wriggled slightly but didn't wake; Edward pulled the duvet up to her chin and kissed her head.

He went downstairs and picked up his phone from the coffee table, following his immediate instinct to call for her mother's help. It was only when the number rang out that it well and truly struck him that she was actually gone. That Serena was now an orphan. That the one person who knew how to handle the woman who lay passed out drunk upstairs was gone. That he had to learn the art of saving Serena Campbell, because the master was no longer here.

Edward dialled Eleanor's number with a deep sigh; Serena was in no fit state to deal with their daughter, so it fell on him. After two rings she picked up. "Hey, Dad," she said brightly. "How are you?"

"Ellie," he sighed. "Ellie, your granny's died," he forced out.

"What?!" she answered. He heard the cracked shock in her voice, and could just picture her expression of painful disbelief. "But I spoke to her the other day! She was fine!"

"She got ill quite quickly, and it escalated even faster," Edward said, trying to stick to clinical-mode so he didn't get too emotional with his daughter on the other end of the phone. He needed to man up, if not for Serena then for Eleanor. "She died in theatre under anaesthesia. She wouldn't have felt a thing," he assured her

He heard sniffling and accepted with a pang that Eleanor was in tears. "What about Mum? Is she OK?" Edward froze, unable to lie and unable to tell the truth. He couldn't tell what option was kinder. Lying would only postpone the inevitable discovery on Eleanor's part that her mother was not coping, but telling her the truth would only add another burden to the youngster's list. "Dad?"

"She's asleep just now," Edward allowed, effectively dodging the question while she was too shocked and not sharp enough to pull him up for it. "She's hurting, obviously, and she's tired herself out."

Ellie sighed. "Will she phone me when she wakes up?"

"I'll tell her to," he promised. "Do you want to talk things through or..."

"I just need to work it out myself, Dad," she answered. "Are...are you OK?" she asked him gently. "I mean, I know you and Granny were quite close before you and Mum split. She used to tell me how you were the only person ever allowed to help her make Sunday dinner," she laughed fondly. Edward chuckled at the truth in what his daughter was telling him; Serena and Andrew were always barred from the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon while Edward and Adrienne got dinner ready.

"I'm fine," he answered. He wasn't sure if he actually was fine, but he wasn't going to let Eleanor worry about him.

"I have a lecture in a minute, Dad," she said apologetically. "I'm going to have to go. I'll speak to you soon," she added.

"OK," he smiled slightly at the determination she had inherited from her mother. He feared that she had also inherited the reliance on alcohol, having heard horror stories from Serena about drugs, alcohol and bad behaviour. "I'll get your mum to phone you tonight."

"Sure. See you soon, Dad," she said. "Bye."

"Bye," he answered, hanging up the phone. He leaned back and put his feet on the table. He needed to go home, get his own space, but to leave Serena with nobody felt wrong. He couldn't do it; he had done before through selfish stupidity and regretted it ever since. If the empty bottle and the state of her earlier were anything to go by, she wasn't going to get through this without someone to help her, and he was the only one who knew that she needed someone who saw past the cold façade.

She was a woman made from cast iron: strong but brittle, and magnetic to him.

"Feet off the table, Edward," a slurred voice from his right ordered. He looked around to see Serena leaning against the wall looking thoroughly drunk still. "Don't look at me like that," she snapped, though the intent to threaten him off was diluted by the fact that she was still too drunk to make good on whatever she wanted to do to him.

"Like what?"

"Like you're disappointed in me," she snarled at him. He hated that drunken expression she used when turning the anger inwards wasn't working anymore. "You've got no right to disapprove of me. You're as bad as me and then some. We're awful parents. We never were very good with our own parents. We were always making each other miserable when we were married. So don't you dare look at me like that!" she ranted at him. He saw the whisky taking effect on her mind, making her furious and aggressive. She tried to advance on him but tripped, steadying herself by grabbing the edge of the door.

Edward paused for a moment to level his temper before he eventually spoke. "Go back to bed, Serena. You're still drunk."

"I'm not," she denied.

"You are," he said. He stood up and turned her by the shoulders towards the stairs. "Come on. Bed. Sleep it off." She resisted but she didn't have the physical strength to push him off when he was sober and she wasn't. She stumbled halfway up and he had to grab her by the waist. He shook his head in resignation that this was what she was really like.

When they reached her bedroom, he watched her fall onto the bed with a laugh. "What's so funny?" he demanded darkly, rifling through her drawers to find her some pyjamas.

"I'm finally on my own," she laughed in a drunken slur. "My parents are gone, my daughter's away to uni, my ex-husband hates my guts and my colleagues are all terrified of me. Mission accomplished!" she cheered, punching the air triumphantly while she exuded agonised sarcasm.

He shook his head again and turned around. "Stand up," he ordered her. His patience was wearing thin, because he hated to see her broken and trying to patch herself with the one thing almost destined to destroy her. "Stand up," he told her again. He wasn't going to let her attempt to change her own clothes; the state she was in, she was going to fall over if she tried it herself.

She reluctantly obeyed, and he began to pull her shirt from her shoulders. It was only when he saw the mess of dried blood on her arm that he remembered she hadn't cleaned herself up after cutting herself. "Stay here," he quietly told her. He wandered into the bathroom and found a clean flannel, soaking it in antibacterial handwash and water before he returned. He started wiping the blood from her pale arm. "I really don't understand you sometimes," he admitted.

"You're crossing a line," she cautioned him.

"Your body is nothing I haven't seen before," he shrugged. "I just want to know you're safe and sound asleep."

"Why?" she asked, sounding confused. She clearly couldn't remember much about kissing him or admitting she needed him.

He remained silent, wanting to say so much to her but knowing that she wasn't aware enough to see how much he really cared for her. He pulled her top over her head and started to pull her arms into the purple satin pyjama shirt. She was unsteady as he began to pull her trousers down and her pyjamas on, and he had to keep one leg still while the other one was in the air. She wasn't just half-cut. She was actually full-blown drunk. How could he have allowed this to happen when he had predicted as much to himself?

He stood up straight and brushed her hair away from her face. "OK," he said gently. "You need to sleep."

"Sorry," she whispered to him. "I'm so awful to you to."

"Don't worry," he answered her softly. "You've got bigger issues than me to worry about," he reminded her of why she was in this state in the first place. She looked away from him but still allowed him to help her back into bed. He rubbed her arm lightly and turned away.

"Stay." The request made him turn back to his ex-wife. "Stay with me."

"Serena..." he hesitated.

Her eyes were glassy as she confessed to him, "I don't want to be on my own."
Edward let out a sharp, humourless laugh. "You found that idea hilarious a few minutes ago," he pointed out. She was deadly serious; her little personal celebration had been an exercise in reminding herself how little she had left to love. She was not happy to be alone. He saw now that being truly alone frightened her half to death.

"Please."

Against his better judgement, he switched off the light and walked around to the other side of Serena's bed. He climbed in, laying with his back to her. He was there, as she had asked of him, but after what she had done earlier, he was being careful. It wasn't that he didn't want or love her, because he did, but he wanted her to know who she was and what she was doing. Right now she didn't know either of those things.

"You are going to be alright," he told her through the dim light filtering through the curtains.

"How do you know that?" she asked him; he heard the fear and doubt in her soft voice as she pulled the covers up.

"Because you're Serena," he explained. His answer coaxed a laugh – well, a cynical, unladylike snort – from her. "Now go to sleep."

Hope this is OK!
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Sarah x