A/N: Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this - much appreciated!

Sarah x

Serena heard the door open as she started to drift into an uncomfortable sleep. She looked up and found her daughter closing the door behind her, sitting down in the chair next to her ill mother. "Mum?" she whispered. She grabbed Serena's and and squeezed tightly, as if she was going to slip away from her

"I'm alright," Serena promised Eleanor without hesitation.

"You're so pale," Eleanor worried.

"I have lost a significant amount of blood, and my body has suffered quite considerable trauma," she stated, going into doctor mode to explain away her appearance. She realised then that it was time to come clean. Eleanor had spent her life contending with her mother's strange habits - keeping lights on all night, her inability to display any soft weaknesses - and she had the right to know why she grew up with those things. And she had to know why she'd come so close to losing her mum. It was clear in the teenager's face that she was absolutely terrified of losing her mum.

"What happened? How did you get hurt? Mr. Griffin was lovely and everything, but he said you'd be better explaining what happened," Eleanor repeated what Ric her told her.

"I went looking for a missing patient who I knew was a threat to others," Serena began. "I found him in a store cupboard with Nurse Lane, and he attacked me. Chantelle knocked a metal rack on top of him, but he got my neck and arm with a scalpel," she continued. "He's on AAU now, and I think Michael is to do his surgery."

"And how could you be so sure that he was dangerous?" the younger of them demanded.

"Past experience," Serena said, the bitterness still evident in her tone of voice. "I want you to listen to me, Eleanor, and I want you to understand that it has no bearing on how I feel about you," she warned her daughter. "Regardless of everything, I love you with all my heart, and you must remember that."

Eleanor just looked extremely confused by this point, so Serena simply continued with the task of telling the ugly truth of how her beautiful girl came to be. "Eighteen years ago, I was naive, and immature, and I thought nobody would try to harm me. But my best friend's step-brother...he...he...raped me," she finally came out with it. "A few weeks later, I discovered I was pregnant. That I was pregnant with a child as a result of that attack. And the other day he showed up here as a patient, and yesterday he assaulted me and Chantelle."

"And that baby was me?" Eleanor concluded. "Why didn't you just have an abortion? You were alone, and probably traumatised. I think if anybody had a right, you did," Eleanor said, and Serena knew she was carefully levelling her voice appear as calm as possible, but Serena knew her baby girl. And she knew she was furious. Not with her mother, but with the father who attacked her mum twice.

Serena touched her cheek lightly, looking into Eleanor's bright blue eyes. They were the opposite of her own dark ones, yet softer than her father's. "How could I punish my child for what her father is? It wouldn't have been fair. And you're the best thing that happened to me. You were the best possible outcome. You gave me a reason to keep living, to try and live normally despite what happened to me. And the first time I saw you on an ultrasound, I simply fell in love with you," she explained, honestly. She could feel the tears rolling down her cheeks, mirroring her daughter's, and she knew then that Eleanor was more angry than she let on.

"Did you say he was on AAU?" she asked slowly. It twigged in Serena's mind what she was going to do, and she knew she had to try and stop her.

"Ellie," she warned solemnly. "He's not worth it. Don't bother with him."

Eleanor simply stood up, kissed her mother on the cheek and silently left the room. Serena's immediate thoughtless reaction was to pull her drip out and carefully get out of bed, and follow her out. She kept a hand on the wall to keep her steady and waited for a lift. She was a doctor, and she knew trying the stairs in her condition would be far from clever. She wasn't an idiot. She knew the risk she'd just taken by sneaking off of Keller. But she did it for Eleanor, to try and reach her before she reached Fraser.

She got in the lift, only to find Ric, who had clearly just come out of theatre. "What do you think you're doing?!" he demanded, slightly alarmed that she had jumped out of bed with no warning.

"You can lecture me later," she snapped before he even had time to open his mouth to reprimand her for leaving her bed. "Just get me to AAU," she told him, her tone almost pleading. He stared at her in shock for a moment but he did eventually oblige, pressing the button for the ground floor. She stumbled slightly, feeling very dizzy, but Ric caught her. He kept a hold of her waist to steady her, and for once, she would not resist his help. He was keeping her standing, and he was showing that he really did care for her.

He helped guide her to AAU, where all they saw was a ward full of people whose gazes were fixed on one bed. The bed where a man lay shackled to the railings by handcuffs. The bed where a seventeen-year-old girl was screaming at him. "How could you do that to her?!" Eleanor was shouting at him. "I'll tell you something, though. If I see you near her again, God help you," she growled protectively. She went to hit him, but Ric left Serena in Luc's grasp and restrained her, his arms tight around her, pinning her arms to her body as she shouted at Fraser.

"Eleanor," he said to her calmly. "Eleanor, don't do this. He doesn't care. He doesn't care how you feel about him. To him, you're nothing. Your mother is the one who needs you right now. Do you think this is good for her?!"

Something seemed to make sense to Eleanor very suddenly, because she turned around at the mention of her mum. She let Ric take her to Serena, where she clung to her, sobbing. Serena held her as tightly as her body would allow, her cuts aching in objection, her head going fuzzy from the strain. She planted a kiss in her messy brown hair, tears falling from her own eyes and she absorbed Eleanor's sobs.

Ric's eyes met Serena's and through her tears, she managed to tell him in a hoarse voice, "Thank you."

"No problem," he smiled softly. "Now, lets get you back onto Keller, shall we?" he suggested. Eleanor finally let go of her mother, and allowed Ric to put his arm around her waist again, pulling her close to him. For some reason, he did not unnerve her by doing this for her. She trusted him. She had no idea as to why, but she trusted that he would never even attempt to bring her to harm. He was honest, sometimes harshly so, but he wouldn't ever lay a finger on her. There was something soothing in his voice that helped to settle some of her uneasiness as she got back into bed, holding Eleanor's hand.

Ric stood behind a still upset Eleanor, rubbing her shoulders gently as he tried to calm her. "Are you alright, Eleanor?" he asked, very concerned for her. "All things considered?" he added.

"Yeah," she breathed out carefully. "Yeah, I'll be OK," she smiled, doing exactly what her mother did - smiling away others' concerns. Serena glanced at Ric and realised he wanted to speak with her alone.

"Do you know what I could use right now?" she said, looking for an excuse to send Eleanor away so she didn't have to hear this. "I could use some chocolate cake," she grinned. Eleanor just shook her head with a smile, and left to find some gooey chocolatey goodness. Once she was safely out of earshot, Serena rounded on Ric with a hard stare, determined to prove she did not need him. But that was a lie.

"Go on then," she challenged him. "Spit it out."

He sat down where Eleanor had, and he held Serena's hard gaze unflinchingly. "That was not smart," he told her sternly. Her drip had been replaced and she was safely back in bed, so no harm had been done. But she knew he was referring to both of her bouts of life-threatening idiocy. "You do realise you almost died?" he checked.

"I'm not a complete moron, Ric," she smiled at him. "I know exactly what I did, and believe it or not, I was in my right mind when I went after them." He looked at her almost disbelievingly, so she continued trying to explain how she was thinking. "I just ignored my instinct for self-preservation and tried to save Chantelle from the same fate as me. If that had happened to her..." she trailed away, shuddering involuntarily.

"And because of it, you're now scarred on your arm and neck, your daughter now knows the truth you tried to save her from, and that façade of perfection you seem to hold so dear has crumbled," he reminded her. She just stared at him, unable to deny the truth of what he was saying. Everything she'd tried to prevent had happened – she was physically scarred, her daughter was hurt and angry, and she no longer came across as emotionally flawless.

"I know the severity of what has happened," she assured him. "Just because I've accepted it, that does not mean I like it. I learned a long time ago that when something's been done, it's been done. And don't tell me everyone thinks I'm the fragile little woman of the hospital," she added with a degree of hostility that did not match her current state of physical vulnerability.

"No," he laughed. "Quite the opposite. Most people seem to respect you more than they ever have done for putting yourself in harm's way for a friend. Nobody's stupid enough to believe you're weak." He stood up and kissed her forehead very lightly. "Don't worry. You still terrify everyone with that ability to smile and manipulate at the same time. You're still Serena Campbell." He smiled down on her, meeting her dark eyes as he stood over her, in a way that was non-threatening. "You'll always be Serena Campbell."

"And you wouldn't have it any other way," she smiled wickedly. She didn't mind joking with him. He was easy – he'd be polite as possible, regardless of what happened between him and others. Yes, she'd made his life difficult before, but he still supported her, and he still stood by her through this hell. She reached up to stroke his cheek gently. "Thank you, for looking after Eleanor last night, and for stopping her from hitting Fraser. For helping me down to AAU. Thank you," she smiled to him gently.

She reached out and put her arms around him, pulling him into as tight a hug as her arm and neck would allow her to. She knew now that she would not be able to stand alone anymore. Everyone needed a friend. And she'd realised she had that here. Chantelle. Eddi and Luc. Michael. Ric. And she was extremely grateful for it.

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