AN: Firstly, anyone else having trouble uploading chapters etc? It's been a right bugger to get this uploaded.
Secondly, a little bit from our favourite Swede's POV just to try and explain his motivations.
Loving all your reviews and feedback on this, apologies that the updates haven't been as regular as I'd like, spare time has been in short supply recently.
Hope you enjoy...
… ...
Hanssen heads down the still wet paved path with care, he doesn't particularly fancy slipping on the flagstones and making a fool out of himself in front of Serena. He smirks as he adjusts the front of his coat, she has been 'Serena' in his mind for several weeks but out loud, he continues to use her professional title, much to the woman's frustration.
His reluctance to leave her house tonight isn't a surprise to him – he's been aware of an attraction to his sometimes volatile sidekick for some time now but he'd still found it harder than he'd anticipated to draw away from Serena tonight before they ended up rushed things and ruining their careful progress.
For all of Serena's apparent annoyance at his carefully measured steps (it's been more years than he cares to count since his last romantic relationship), Hanssen gets the impression that underneath her flirtatious exterior lies a rather brittle woman, far more vulnerable than she may realise or accept. He hasn't been made aware of the details of Serena's divorce but from what he knows of her temper, it won't necessarily have been an amicable end to an obviously serious relationship.
Stepping neatly to his left as a car door opens just ahead of him and a girl with long brown hair gets out, Hanssen avoids the collision as she laughingly calls goodnight to the car's other occupants. As he walks past, he can see that the girl is staring at him, almost as if she recognises him from somewhere but can't quite figure out where.
He ignores her and carries on walking until he reaches his car, the black Volvo parked further down the street than he would have liked, sighing quietly as he decides that she probably recognises his face from his ill-considered outburst on the TV last year. Although it's becoming rarer, he does still have the odd person approach him in the supermarket about it and to Hanssen's perpetual surprise, they have all been positive. However, the cynic in him is always quick to suggest that their support is more because he criticised the government rather than because they understood what he had been trying to say.
Lips pursed slightly, Hanssen starts the car and smoothly pulls out into the road, away from Serena's house and towards the ring road for the reasonably short journey back to his own dark, silent house. He'd nearly asked Serena about her plans for the weekend when he had stood on the doorstep but his courage had failed him before he'd asked and instead he had nodded politely, not quite sure of the appropriate protocol in such a situation.
It's probably pretty obvious to all but the most unobservant of his colleagues by now but Henrik Hanssen is a man who loves to impose an order on his world and Serena's perpetual, stubborn refusal to fall neatly into any category had unsettled him. Changing into a higher gear he considers that if Serena's positive reaction to his advances is any indication, it means he hasn't attracted the attention of his father's legacy of unhappiness and destruction just yet and he feels ridiculously pleased with himself; it's one thing to feel like an awkward adolescent as a teenager but at fifty two it's the far side of pathetic but Hanssen finds that even the mocking voice doesn't have its usual intensity tonight.
As Hanssen negotiates the dual carriageway, he casts his mind back to the start of the year which seems a lot longer ago than a mere five months. His trip to Sweden had shaken him and had, amongst other things, made one thing painfully clear to him.
He'd been lonely.
Hanssen hadn't spoken to Sahira Shah since she left Holby in such a dramatic fashion just over a year ago – Sahira had been his only real friend for years and he found himself missing the company of someone he could just talk to. Serena's quite obvious reluctance to having anything to do with him other than the barest of bare minimum contact presented a challenge to Hanssen and he had certainly not set out initially with the intention of pursuing a romantic relationship with the woman but now it is all he can think of away from work.
He'd seen the same drive and passion in Serena Campbell that he'd seen in Maja; both women had challenged him, driven him half mad and occupied his thoughts more than he'd ever care to admit. Since those awkward and tense meetings in January, his relationship with Serena has vastly improved, indeed, Hanssen's lips twitch as he recalls tonight's events but sobers as it occurs to him that this is exactly how his relationship with Maja started out.
'And look at how well that ended'.
His hesitance with Serena stems from not wanting to repeat the same mistakes with her that he had made with Maja – the slow pace may drive him mad but he is determined not to ruin everything again. Serena doesn't know what Hanssen did 27 years ago and he had no intention of ever telling her but he knows what he did and that's enough – Hanssen has been his own Judge, Jury and Executioner for as long as he can remember and after more than a quarter of a century, he's finally ready to cast off the spectre of his relationship with Maja hanging over him like the sword of Damocles.
…
Serena exhales loudly as the door to the conference room closes and the last member of the Board exits, leaving just her and Hanssen still sat in their places at the main table.
"Thank Christ – I wasn't sure if they were ever going to leave." Serena judges that her vocal sentiment is shared by Hanssen by the way his lips twitch involuntarily.
"Indeed, even without Mr. Cunningham's loquacious input..." Hanssen allows the sentence to hang in the air; she can feel his gaze on her as she gathers her belongings together, discarding the empty coffee cups and wonders if the Swede had heard quite what she had said to the Chairman just before the CEO's arrival.
Serena makes no move to volunteer the information and breathes a silent sigh of relief when Hanssen makes no further mention of Cunningham and once he has collected his folders they leave the conference room together and head along the corridor in a companionable silence.
Serena had arrived for the quarterly meeting with Terrance Cunningham – Chairman of the Hospital Trust – he'd sought her out on the ward to her annoyance and she'd had to abandon twenty minutes of valuable paperwork time to listen to the man waffle as he insisted on buying them both coffees and having 'a catch up'. To her private disappointment, the lift was empty and in the short journey from Pulses café on the ground floor to the conference room on the fifth, Cunningham had managed to insert both feet into his mouth and she had let him know as much in no uncertain terms.
"May I have a word, Ms. Campbell?" They've reached Hanssen's office and he stops, one hand reaching blindly for the door handle, his attention apparently consumed by the piece of paper he's reading, outwardly oblivious to his surroundings and Serena smiles. The very same actions would have annoyed her before but she's come to accept that it's just the way Henrik Hanssen is.
"Any word?" She asks glibly and he looks up, shooting her a withering look as he holds the door open in lieu of a verbal response.
Hanssen uncharacteristically dumps the folders on his desk but doesn't sit, choosing instead to stand by the window, staring out over the hospital grounds. Serena watches him for a moment, her eyes shamelessly tracing the familiar outline of his suited figure before joining him, wondering what on his mind.
It's silent for nearly half a minute before Hanssen speaks. "I heard what you said to Mr. Cunningham."
"Ah." Serena can feel his gaze on her using the window's reflection, she had wondered. "And did you hear what our delightful Chairman said to me?"
"No..." He responds, drawing the word out, waiting for Serena to fill in the silence. Hanssen's arrival had prevented Cunningham from saying anything to her and as soon as the meeting had begun to draw to a close, the Chairman had left, stalking out without a word to either consultant.
As the lift doors closed, the Chairman finally drew breath and stopped prattling on about himself to Serena's relief although it's short lived as he turns his gaze on her, leering a little when he thinks she isn't looking and Serena can feel her skin crawl as she fights the urge to wallop him.
"How are you finding the new role," she can hear the unspoken words about his involvement, "is it working out for you?"
"It's fine." She shrugs, playing it all down. "Business as usual." She can see Cunningham nod out of the corner of her eye but it's clear the Chairman isn't quite done with the small talk yet.
"Good, good and how is Mr. Hanssen?"
"Why don't you ask him yourself? You'll see him in a minute." She deliberately misunderstands what Cunningham asks and she has a feeling that she knows where this line of enquiry is going. He shoots Serena a sharp looks which she ignores completely.
"I ask because I have a meeting with the SHA coming up and if we can get a couple of staff to say they still don't trust his decision-making..." He trails off and Serena turns her head to look at him, raising an eyebrow. "...it was only because he pulled that stunt with HR before; going on sabbatical before we could dismiss him that you're not sat in that office right now."
That stung.
Yes, Serena acknowledges, the top job could have been hers but right now, she's glad she didn't get it; she's glad that Jac Naylor managed to find Hanssen and get him to come back. If anyone was to ask her about any of it, Serena would deny it to her dying day but if she hadn't been dragged to their Friday night meetings, if she hadn't been forced to interact with Hanssen, she would never have found out about the man under the masks.
Unfortunately, Cunningham appears to have taken her silence and the pinched look on her face as agreement and he's still talking as they exit the lift.
"I reckon we could probably get Jac Naylor back on board and if we worked on-"
"Stop." To her surprise, he does. "As strange as it might seem to you, Mr. Hanssen's decisions have always been in the best interests of the hospital, unlike some people." Cunningham flinches like he's been slapped. "He has my full support and the backing of all of the staff."
"Oh come off it, Serena."
"Ms. Campbell."
"What?"
"Don't call me Serena, Mr. Cunningham. My name is, Ms. Campbell." She pauses with a hand on the conference room door, voice low so Cunningham has to strain to hear her. "This hospital needs someone like Mr. Hanssen more than it needs someone like you." She stalks into the room without another word, leaving a furious Chairman behind her.
"Yes, well, it wasn't anything clever or important." Serena dismisses her actions, not wanting any acknowledgement from Hanssen – that wasn't why she did it. "I've grudgingly become rather fond of you-"
"Really, Ms. Campbell?" Serena throws Hanssen a look to silence him and she continues as if she hadn't been interrupted, ignoring the small smile tugging at his lips.
"-and even if I hadn't, I had no inclination to listen to our esteemed chairman continuing to mutter." Catching sight of his expression, Serena adopts a long-suffering expression and rolls her eyes. "Don't flatter yourself, Mr. Hanssen, it was completely for the sake of the hospital. Nothing to do with me at all."
"Oh, of course not." His tone of voice indicates that he has picked up on the sarcasm and he sits back in his seat, facing her. Meeting his amused gaze, Serena closes the distance between them, from where she'd been stood at the window to by his desk and throwing all caution to the wind, kisses him in the middle of his office. Pulling back after a few moments, Serena catches sight of Hanssen's expression.
"Please don't look quite so horrified." Hanssen blushes as Serena raises a teasing eyebrow. "It's not good for a girl's ego."
"It was somewhat unexpected." He confesses sheepishly before frowning and turning serious. "And hardly an appropriate action for the workplace."
"Oh I don't know," she pauses dramatically. "I'd have said that inappropriate is more along the lines of leaving the ward mid-shift for a quick knee trembler..." Serena drawls crudely, enjoying the way Hanssen looks visibly uncomfortable.
"Ms. Campbell..."
As much as she wants to tease him, Serena finds sex in store cupboards something she doesn't want to dwell on, a clichéd, tasteless exercise that her ex-husband, Edward, seemed to specialise in, the familiar flare and ache of his betrayals (the ones she found out about at least – she's too world weary to believe that she knew about every affair Edward had) still present albeit a little less painful after all these years.
"Whereas a kiss..." Serena wipes the smudge of her lip gloss off Hanssen's face with her thumb, her fingers finding their way just under his jaw, allowing her to direct his face towards hers. "... is just a kiss."
She coaxes a second kiss from Hanssen – aware what it must be costing him to do so. Her joy is short-lived however as the phone on his desk rings with typically appalling timing and he almost jerks back looking like a rabbit caught in car headlights for a second before he recovers.
"You're a bad influence, Ms. Campbell." Hanssen mutters deliberately loud enough for her to hear.
"Oh I hope so."
Serena's instant response causes a myriad of emotions to flit across Hanssen's face before he manages to look disapproving but she takes the hint and leaves the office smirking to herself as he answers the phone, not wanting to push her luck.
…
"Oh and if you can sign this, then I'll take it down to HR for you."
Serena passes a form over to Hanssen as they make their way along the corridor towards his office not long after lunchtime on Friday and he absent-mindedly opens the door, leaving it open for Serena to follow him into the office which was once hers, closing the door to behind them.
"What am I signing?"
"You'd know if you stopped trying to look down my shirt and read it." She quips, not expecting Hanssen to blush furiously and turn away as he places his black leather organiser on his desk. Serena smirks to herself, filing the information away for later, it had been a lucky guess and she watches as he plucks a pen from somewhere inside his suit jacket, signing his name with a flourish before handing it back to her. Serena blows lightly over the fresh signature, not wanting the black ink to smudge.
"Anything else, Ms. Campbell?" Hanssen asks once the spots of colour have faded from his cheeks.
Serena pauses, she is mindful of the way the conversation this time last week went rapidly south but since then they've reached a new level of understanding. One she is rather intent of repeating this evening on her sofa, and despite her teasing comment just now, Hanssen seems more relaxed and less harried and she gives voice to her thoughts.
"I was thinking... if you come over to mine when you're finished up here, it saves me waiting around for you and gives me enough time to get some dinner on the go." Hanssen contemplates the suggestion for a moment and then nods, offering a small smile in response and Serena squeezes the hand which has found its way onto Hanssen's forearm without her noticing.
She spots his eyes flickering past her and she immediately drops her hand as she turns in time to see Elliot Hope stood carefully opening the door as the Professor tries not to upset the latest bakery product and drink balanced on top of a folder in his arms. With a smirk, Serena had departed, politely greeting her colleague as she slipped out into the corridor.
Serena had put Hanssen to work as soon as he arrived at her house later that evening, first uncorking and pouring a couple of glasses of the bottle of Shiraz he had nervously brandished at her on the doorstep rather more like a weapon than a gift. Tactfully deciding not to mention the way his usually confident persona had apparently abandoned him – Hanssen was clearly trying his best – Serena pointed him in the direction of plates, amused when he obeyed straight away, wryly wondering why he couldn't just do as he was told at work
The conversation was initially as free-flowing as previous week but as the meal progressed, Hanssen's contributions began to dry up. Although Serena can't see what Hanssen is thinking about, she can hazard a good guess but she continues to talk until they're done, coaxing answers from him. The two off-duty consultants trace the same path as the previous week into the living room from the kitchen, each with a half-full glass of wine in a hand.
Serena takes a sip as she muses that so far, this Friday evening has gone very similarly to last week, if one ignores the slightly tense stand-off at the start once Hanssen had finally located her. Abruptly Serena smiles into her wine glass before leaning forward to place it on the coffee table next to some of Eleanor's discarded magazines – she'd caught Hanssen out in a lie.
A quick chat with Malick in theatre yesterday had made her aware of a different version of events from the previous Friday rather than the one Hanssen had told her as he tried not to drip all over her hallway floor after arriving at her house. She had spent several hours attempting to work out how to bring it up before admitting defeat; Hanssen is too unpredictable for anything planned to work – she would just have to wing it.
"Oh, that reminds me..." Serena drawls casually, turning back to look at the Swede, the most relaxed she's ever seen him. "The evening is much better without wasting 45 minutes walking around the hospital being a one-man search party, don't you think?"
Hanssen meets her gaze evenly, a touch of humour in his expression, no hint of any deception. "Indeed."
"I do know, Henrik." He looks confused and Serena sighs to herself, they are going to be here all evening if she doesn't get a move on. "I know you weren't walking around the hospital for 45 minutes last week looking for me as you claimed."
"I-" Serena holds a hand up, cutting him off.
"In fact, I know what time you actually left and it doesn't take 40 minutes to drive here, not even at that time of night." Hanssen blinks and Serena can almost see the cogs turning as he realises he's been caught out.
"I, err..."
"Yes?" Serena moves a little closer and Hanssen visibly swallows as he takes in her proximity. "Something to confess, perhaps?"
Hanssen elects for silence and Serena's smile turns predatory.
"It doesn't take even take 30 minutes to get here but let's give you the benefit of the doubt," Serena wordlessly plucks Hanssen's glass from his grasp as he did to her last week and settles it on the side. "Even if traffic was slow and you took a wrong turning or two, that still leaves a good ten minutes unaccounted for."
"It might have taken me a couple of minutes to get out of the car." Hanssen eventually capitulates.
"Bad back?" She asks in a concerned tone which wouldn't fool a toddler and Hanssen looks sheepishly down at his hands.
"No, I..."
"You weren't scared, were you?"
Hanssen looks up sharply at her teasing but Serena doesn't give him an opportunity to refute her suggestion, her lips claiming his. He responds after a stunned half-second, snaking a hand through her hair as they shift to find a more comfortable position on the sofa.
Serena dimly notes that Hanssen's hands don't stray from her upper arms or hips as he kisses her, quite unlike Edward who always had wandering hands. Every so often, Hanssen's grip would tighten, almost painfully but Serena barely noticed, too busy and fairly sure that in the last few minutes, the supposedly cold and aloof Mr. Hanssen had just melted several rather important parts of her brain.
She is aware of Hanssen's mouth trailing hot kisses along her collarbone towards her shirt line when a crash, the sound of glass breaking startles them both and they spring apart. Serena almost wrenches her back trying to sit up and turn around at the same time, ready to tell Eleanor that it really wasn't what it looked like, automatically pulling her shirt tighter as she does so.
It takes her a couple of seconds to realise that the living room doorway is empty and with a slight frown, Serena turns back to see Hanssen staring at the culprit – the wine glass she'd taken off him is now broken, unknowingly knocked to the floor by one of them. A few moments later she catches Hanssen's eye, trying not to flush under his gaze but silently acknowledging that the moment has gone, Serena moves to help Hanssen tidy up.
Although disappointed, Serena isn't particularly surprised when Hanssen makes his excuses and leaves not long after, however, he does surprise her with a lingering, polite kiss on the cheek as he leaves, thanking her for dinner and muttering something about Monday before he disappears into the dark gloom of Friday night.
Serena curses loudly, eyes closed, allowing her head to drop forward with a thunk against the now-closed front door.
… …
AN2: Nearly. So nearly.
I reckon next week will be a good one :-D
Would love to know what you thought :)