A/N: Sorry this took a little while - busy week. Thanks to every who reads and reviews, as always :)

Sarah x

Two months passed, and Hanssen soon found himself dealing with emotional outbursts on a daily basis, whether they came from Serena or Jac. Serena went from laughing to crying to shouting in a matter of a day; he found it quite unnerving when they woke together in the morning smiling and parted at night arguing.

Today he found himself working on Keller with her after Michael had called in sick and, for now at least, she was stable.

However, when she approached the nurses' station with with files piled in her arms and an annoyed look on her face, Chantelle quickly made herself look busy and left Henrik to deal with her, since he was sitting down facing her and could not make a quick escape. "What's wrong now?" he asked quietly.

"Nothing," she replied, her tone clipped and impatient.

"Oh, yes," he said. "It really does look like you're ecstatically happy."

"Deliriously so," she snapped. She leaned her head on her hand and explained, "Mary-Claire wants me on AAU but she's too scared to ask me so Harry had to do it."

"And you know this how?" Henrik demanded. It sounded rather convoluted.

"Harry told me," she replied. "Am I really that awful?!"

"No. Your hormones are."

"Well, thanks for the vote of confidence," she retorted, throwing down the files with a thud before she stormed away to AAU and left Hanssen to feel a bit stupid. It didn't matter what he said; it was always going to be the wrong thing, even if it was nothing but the truth.

"I think the answer she was looking for was, 'Not at all. You're lovely,'" Chantelle said behind him. She caught him by surprise so he startled slightly. "But it's OK. You weren't to know that."

"You haven't seen her at her worst yet," Hanssen commented, too worn out with Serena's ridiculous mood swings to bother about what he was saying to Chantelle. "One minute she's laughing, the next she's crying and then the next thing I know, she's shouting abuse at me." If he was going to get help anywhere, it would be from Chantelle, and she would give it without him asking. For a naïve, immature young woman, a surprising amount of disguised logic came from her mouth.

She sat on the desk and looked at him. "You know she doesn't really mean what she says," she reminded him. "Being pregnant is supposedly a rollercoaster ride in itself, not to mention all the other stuff she's got to deal with."

He sighed. He was lost. He had no idea how to help her anymore. He had done all he knew how to do now. It wasn't pleasant; he was sleeping in her bed and she wouldn't let him in. "I can't help her," he said to Chantelle, who just smiled an oddly knowing beam.

"You can."

"And how do you propose I do that?" he asked her, momentarily stunned by the pleading note in his voice.

"Ask her what's wrong and she'll tell you," Chantelle shrugged.

"She won't tell me," Hanssen sighed. "What good would that do?" He couldn't see how asking questions Serena hated to answer was going to help matters at all.

"I think she will tell you. She just wants to know you're still there for her," she replied. "She's difficult, I know. She was difficult before all this happened. But if you stick by her, she'll love you even more for taking everything she throws at you."

"She doesn't love me at all," he contradicted her. "The difference between needing someone and wanting them is about a million miles."

"Believe me, Mr. Hanssen," she smiled. "After what you've done for her, she loves you." She placed a hand gently on his shoulder when he could not find a reply. "Look, we'll be fine without you for half an hour. Go down to AAU and tell her you're sorry for offending her," she advised cheerily before she sauntered happily away to bed six.

He thought on it for a moment and decided Chantelle, as usual, was right. He saw why Serena was being volatile. It was a combination of the biological and the psychological. By the time he got down to AAU, whatever crisis they had been caught in had been averted and Serena was speaking quietly in the corner to Mary-Claire, so he sat down at the nurses' station and logged onto the computer, pretending to work as he waited for them to finish their conversation.

She patted Mary-Claire's shoulder and sent her back to work, which led Hanssen to believe they'd sorted out whatever tension was held between them for the past three months. She came to stand next to him. "Who called you down here?" she asked icily.

"Nobody," he admitted. "I came because I wanted to apologise for the way I spoke to you earlier."

"Are you being serious?!" she asked, sounding really quite shocked.

"Is it really so hard to believe?" he challenged with a raised eyebrow. "Apology accepted?" She nodded her head and he asked, "What's wrong?"

"What's right?" she gave a short bark of a laugh.

"No, I mean what's bothering you today? Your mood swings have been particularly bad," he enlightened her. She didn't seem all that much surprised, but she clearly didn't like being told it. She beckoned for him to stand so he stood up to stand opposite her. She took his hand and placed it over her slightly raised abdomen.

"I'm showing," she sighed. "It just means I'm going to get bigger and bigger and in a couple of months you won't come near me with a ten foot barge pole," she complained.

He chuckled. "Is that all?!"

"Oi!" she half-shouted, attracting attention from the surrounding unit. "I'll have you know body image is an important to a woman!"

"I know that," he allowed, "but you're pregnant! Of course you're going to put on extra weight and get bigger. You know all this. It's kind of what happens to pregnant women," he explained with mock patronisation. She smiled, and he realised his hand was still lingering on her body when her fingers brushed his chest. They shouldn't have shown such familiarity on the ward but, to be honest, their attitudes towards one another had changed so drastically he would have been more worried if the others hadn't noticed anything between them.

"I'm just remembering being pregnant with Eleanor," she admitted. "My body inflated exponentially."

"And you think I won't want you just because you've put on baby weight?" he remarked. The look on her face said it all – she didn't want to feel unattractive. "Is that why you've been trying to eat as you normally would do rather than what your body wants?" He couldn't help it. He was smiling at her mad logic as she nodded her head, unimpressed by his reaction. "Serena, I couldn't care less if your appearance changes."

"Really?" she asked sceptically. "Even if, in a couple months time, I'm the size of a whale?"

"Really," he insisted. To his surprise, her face broke into a wide grin of relief.

"What would I do without you, hmm?" she said gently as she placed her hand on his face, her fingers caught ever so slightly in his hair. He felt her lips brush his gently, and he responded hesitantly, aware of the many pairs of eyes watching them.

"Well, it's about time," Gemma Wilde commented to Sacha Levy. "They do realise half the hospital has already worked it out, don't they?"

Henrik just smiled into Serena's kiss and pulled her tightly but carefully closer to his body. He broke away from her to find her smiling a genuinely bright grin. He hugged her closely to him and placed a kiss on her forehead. He would never have thought it six months ago, but being put through all of this with her had made him appreciate her better side. Through light and darkness, wholeness and shatteredness, love and trouble, happiness and pain, she had remained alive and determined to stay that way.

As they stood together, lost in each other's embrace, Henrik noticed the ward had come to a standstill in the shock of the two icy bosses kissing openly in public. "Back to work," he ordered them, barely suppressing his smile. "I'd better return to Keller before Nurse Lane and Dr. Digby do anything too silly."

"Christ, you didn't leave Digby in charge, did you?!" she demanded. "He could have burned down the ward by now!"

"Oh, ye of little faith," he sighed, tightening his grip on her once more before he released her. "One day that boy will be a consultant and running his own ward."

"Hopefully not one I'm working on," she snorted. "Thank Chantelle for me. There's no way you would have come down here without her telling you to," she informed him. He nodded and left with nothing more he could say to her. He had honestly thought there had been something seriously wrong with her, but it turned out she was just upset because she was changing shape. Didn't this tell him something? Like maybe he worried about her too much?

He really did feel like an idiot now; after all that worrying, she was fine. "I've got to stop this," he sighed to himself, sinking into the chair at the Keller nurses' station once more.

"Worrying about her?" Chantelle seemed to read his mind. "It's only natural."

"It's not," he replied, reaching up to start sorting out the files Serena had dumped in temper. "I have no right to constantly worry about her."

"And yet you do," she said as she sat down at the second computer. "What does that tell you? You've gone through too much together for you to go back to the way you used to be with each other. You might not admit it, but she means the world to you now. And she would be lost if she didn't have you," she added thoughtfully.

He thought on that for a moment; maybe Chantelle was right. Maybe Serena did mean so much more to him than he had realised. Why else would he worry so much about her? Why else would he want to always look after her like this?

"You know, if you wanted to save months and months of hassle, you could just tell her you love her," Chantelle continued.

"I don't love her," he denied quickly. How could he possibly love Serena Campbell in that kind of way?

"You do," she contradicted. "I saw it last week when you had that row with her outside. She was standing there calling you names and you didn't argue with her. You looked like you just wanted to give her a cuddle." He could recall that particular occasion well. Serena had, in temper, kicked a chair over as she stomped out of AAU and Sacha had sent Henrik after her. He had found her outside, and she had called him for every name under the sun, but he knew she didn't really mean it.

"And I'm afraid that is love, Mr. Hanssen," Chantelle concluded, pulling his thoughts back to the present. She wandered away back to work, apparently oblivious to the cogs she had started turning in his head.

Hope this is alright!
Please feel free to review and tell me your thoughts!
Sarah x