A/N: So, I'm sorry for this. Thank you for all the nice reviews, too :)

Sarah x

"Take that Physics homework with you!" Serena called up the stairs after Eleanor as she packed a bag with spare clothes as a precaution, just in case she fell asleep at the hospital again. She knew Eleanor would take any chance to skin out of the dreaded Physics homework, and she intended to keep one step ahead of her darling daughter, even when she was mentally exhausted.

"I'll do it when I get home!" she called back, and Serena heard her spit as she brushed her teeth. They'd overslept. Well, Eleanor had. Serena had woke at six o'clock but didn't have the heart to wake her daughter on a Saturday morning. She'd let her sleep, still in her arms, until she woke herself at around nine. She'd pretended she'd slept in too. The three hours of silence had been spent thinking about the past and the future, wondering what could become of her, Eleanor and Henrik in all of this.

"No, you'll do it at the hospital!" she shouted after her. "You'll bored out of your skull anyway. You might as well have something worth doing."

"Fine!" she heard a grumble as the bathroom door opened and shut, and the thump of books being thrown sulkily into a bag. Serena suppressed a smile; her girl could be so predictable at times. Eleanor appeared at the foot of the stairs by the time Serena stood up straight. "You know this guy's going to hate me, don't you?" Eleanor said as she lifted the bag for her mother.

"Nonsense," Serena replied. "He doesn't openly hate people, anyway. He keeps it to himself rather than start conflict."

"Hanssen and Serena up a tree-" Eleanor began in a sing-song voice, until Serena halted her with a glare.

They'd been with Hanssen for an hour and a half, just talking, until Eleanor slammed her books down in temper. "I don't see how that idiot teacher expects me to do this when he hasn't even explained it properly!" she announced.

"Eleanor, don't be childish," Serena scolded, glancing at Hanssen, slightly embarrassed by her daughter's outburst.

"Well, it's true! He says one thing and the book says another!" she argued. "It's ridiculous!"

"Do you mind if I take a look?" Hanssen asked, much to Serena's amazement. "Perhaps I could explain it better, if your teacher is incompetent?" Eleanor handed him the book and the question paper, and Serena watched in silence as he quickly scanned both to see what was meant to be done.

"I don't get Newton's third law," Eleanor confessed. "How does that work?"

"When a force is exerted on object A by object B," Henrik began, "object A exerts an equal and opposite force on B."

"I get that," she replied. "I just don't understand how it's used in practical terms."

"How do you think the ground withstands the force of you walking on it?" he asked her, and Serena watched silently as a sick man took on the role of Physics teacher to her teenage daughter. How odd he could be. "When your foot hits it, it effectively pushes against you," he explained. "Raise your hand," he ordered her. She did so and he put his hand against hers. "If my hand is object A, and yours is object B, how do we keep our hands from moving if I push your hand?" He pushed her hand, and Serena could tell she was instinctively pushing against him.

Serena smiled to herself as a look of revelation spread upon the girl's face. "Equal and opposite force!" she exclaimed happily. "Why couldn't my moron of a teacher just show me this?!" She took her hand back, scribbling something down in her exercise book. "So would an example be, I don't know...the road pushing a force against the car tyres and the tyres pushing down on the road with the same force, and that keeps the car on the road?"

"Precisely," Henrik said.

"Right," she said, scribbling that down. Serena looked on in wonder; how could a man so cold and antisocial and yet also be such a brilliant teacher and so patient with someone who made her want to tear her own hair out half the time? He was a marvel to her. She hadn't realised she was openly smiling until she met Henrik's eyes and he gave her a small, oddly comfortable, smile back. "You know these equations of motion questions?" she asked.

"Ellie, Henrik's meant to be resting, not doing your homework for you," Serena intervened, worried she might overstretch him; after all, it had barely been two days since he'd been stabbed and his body still wasn't quite stable.

"It's fine, Serena," he quickly replied. "I enjoy Physics. And there's nothing more satisfying than teaching," he told her. She just shook her head and smiled to herself. He really was something else. Lying in a hospital bed, just had major surgery after major trauma, and there he was teaching Newton's third law to her daughter. "What's the problem?"

"Well, you know all these questions about footballs and stuff dropping from a height?" she asked. He nodded and she continued, "There's no value for acceleration, so I can't work it out."

"There is," he contradicted her. "What's the gravitational field strength of this planet?"

"Nine point eight Newtons per kilogram," she immediately answered.

"If you drop something, it's going to be pulled by that gravitational field, correct?"

"Yes."

"It will accelerate at the value of the force pulling it," he explained to her.

"So it accelerates at nine point eight metres per second squared?" she asked. "This one's a keeper, Mum!" she proclaimed happily, picking up her question paper and starting on the problems she was given to solve.

"I'm sorry," Serena mouthed to Henrik, squirming uncomfortably in her chair at Eleanor's over-excited behaviour. She took his hand, their fingers intertwined, as Eleanor started tapping at her calculator. He just smiled and shook his head, silently telling her not to worry. "Eleanor," she said, "why hasn't your teacher explained these things? They're the basic principles."

"Because he's a total moron, Mum," she said, not taking her eyes off the paper. "Honestly. He doesn't control the boys, and he constantly contradicts himself. There's no point in me even being in that class, really."

"Do you want me to discuss it with the headmaster?"

"No point. He must know that the whole class is going to fail the exam," she shrugged. "I'll teach myself if I have to."

"I'll teach you," Henrik offered. "I'm more than experienced enough to help you pass your exam."

Serena didn't know what to say; he'd basically just offered to tutor her daughter from his hospital bed. Eleanor's reaction said it all. She jumped up with a huge grin and exclaimed, "Thank you!" and pulled Henrik into a hug.

"Eleanor!" Serena told her daughter off for what felt like the hundredth time today. Henrik's hand cautiously reached around girl, rubbing her back gently. Did he actually just return a hug?! "You'd better not be going soft on me," Serena warned in a low mutter. She wasn't happy about this. He was meant to be resting.

"Near death experiences tend to change one's attitude," he reminded her. "I think it's about time I started being a little more approachable, don't you? I am, allegedly, frightening."

Serena just sniggered to herself, knowing she was in no position to comment. After all, half the people in this place were terrified of her, and she knew it. His hand felt stronger in hers than yesterday; she brought their joined hands up to her face, kissing the back of his hand with a smile. "I'm just going to get coffee, alright?" she said. "Do either of you want anything?"

They both shook their heads, so she got to her feet, briefly kissing Henrik and patted Eleanor's arm. She left them to it, smiling in the doorway when she glanced back to see Henrik begin to explain something in the textbook to Eleanor. He just couldn't help himself, could he? Same old Hanssen.

She found she was grinning as she strolled through Keller and down the stairs, more relaxed than she'd been in a long time. She was very lucky here, she realised. He was good with her daughter – better than she ever dreamed he would be – and he was becoming slightly less fearsome. And she loved him. She couldn't believe that she'd spent all this time irritated with him only to find she had fallen for him at the same time. It was the most twisted thing she'd ever experienced.

She went to the coffee stand, counting out money in her hand. Suddenly, she felt a sharp poking sensation on each side of her ribs; it made her jump, leaving her body feeling odd. She turned and immediately cried, "Michael!"

"Rena!" he replied, blatantly mocking her. He received a glare for using her other name so loudly in the hospital, but it didn't wipe that self-assured grin off his face.

"Honestly, what is the need?" she asked. "Don't answer that. I'm sure you'll find some childish excuse."

"Well, I did have a present for you, but I'm not sure you deserve it anymore," he told her petulantly. She made a face at him, not really in the mood for his immaturity. Regardless of his announcement that she was undeserving of his kindness, he pulled an envelope out of his back pocket.

She smiled, slightly confused. "What's this?" she asked, taking it from him.

"On AAU, we decided you were too stressed," he explained as she opened the envelope to find gift vouchers for a spa. "You and your daughter can go and pamper yourselves when you get the time. They're valid until next year sometime, I think," he added.

Serena was openly grinning, as she read the bits of paper. She'd forgotten how thoughtful Michael could be; he was the closest thing to a proper friend she had when she was on AAU, bar Chrissie. He'd understood she never wanted to be there, and that she didn't want to fight him. She pulled him down into a tight cuddle. "Thank you," she said.

"No problem," he replied. She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and pulled it out. Eleanor. "Hello?" she asked.

"Mum," she said, and Serena could hear her voice thick with tears. Oh, no. "I don't know what's happened. Henrik, he went all funny and the machines started going and Ric and Chantelle came in and took him to theatre and-" she rambled until her mother cut her off.

"Calm down, Ellie," she said, pulling herself away from Michael. "Start from the top. What did Ric say?"

"Something about a bleed? Or was it something about acute something or other? I don't know!" Eleanor said. "It all happened so fast!"

"It's OK, darling," she reassured her. "I'm coming."

"Hurry," she said, and Serena hung up the phone.

"What's up?" Michael asked, his tone genuinely concerned.

"Henrik's been taken into theatre," she told him, not giving him time to reply before running to the stairs to be with her daughter. What had gone wrong? He'd seemed fine. He'd been happy. He had helped Eleanor, making Serena move him more than ever. And now he was in theatre?! What the hell had happened? She'd only been gone ten minutes, at the most.

She burst onto Keller, rounding on the first doctor she could find – Malick. "What the hell is going on?" she demanded, her voice deadly.

"There was a bleed they didn't catch," Malick said. "He was a mess, so there was always the risk of a slow bleed," he reminded her. "Ric thinks it might be his liver."

"OK," she said slowly, taking it in that it was no-one's fault; if anything, it was hers for stabbing him in the first place. "How bad?"

"We got him before he lost consciousness," Malick allowed. "Eleanor called for help as soon as he started deteriorating."

"Where is she?"

"Mum!" she heard from the door of Henrik's room. "Is he going to be OK?"

"He'll be fine," Serena said, but she shared a darkly sceptical look with Malick as she pulled the girl into her arms.

Hope this is alright!
Please feel free to leave a review and tell me what you think!
Sarah x