A/N: I don't know how this turned out, really - I'm tired and trying not to murder my brother, so my mind was a bit full writing it. Thank you, as always, to everyone who has read and reviewed :)

Sarah x

Hanssen was practically running up the stairs, after deciding he had to check on Serena, even if it was only to quiet his own conscience. She'd looked like she had seen a ghost. He walked onto Keller Ward, keeping an air of calm around him and asked Ric, "Have you seen Ms. Campbell?"

"You could try her office," Ric shrugged, obviously none the wiser about the way she had reacted to this morning's crash. "I haven't seen her though."

"Thank you," he said, striding off to her office where, of course, she was nowhere to be found. He should have known she wouldn't go the one place he would think to search. She didn't want to be found, but he wanted to find her, just to make sure she was alright. He didn't know why; he'd never really given a damn about her before.

Trust her to hide from him. She would, of course, deny it when he eventually got hold of her. He had a choice – go to the meeting he was due to attend in five minutes, or continue his search. She was clearly more vulnerable than she was telling him. She wouldn't have run off if she wasn't. And he knew what had happened, and the parallels she was seeing. He couldn't just leave her. Not when he knew why. Not when he had had seen the look of horror on her face. His morality wouldn't allow it.

Abandoning any plan he had to attend the meeting, he thought about where she might have gone. The locker room was too obvious, and she would have known that someone she knew was going to come across her. For whatever else the woman was, she wasn't stupid. He would have looked in the pub, but he didn't think she was idiotic enough to drink on duty. At least, he hoped she wasn't.

She wasn't likely going to be on Darwin; she would have known the man would have been taken up to the CT unit. She wasn't going to go to AAU and subject herself to Michael Spence, either; Hanssen knew that, while she'd developed a friendship with the American, he still annoyed her half to death.

So that left the roof, storage rooms and the toilets, the latter being where he had a hunch she would retreat to. He hesitantly entered the third floor bathrooms, relieved to find there was nobody visible to him. "Ms. Campbell?" he called gently.

"Henrik, what the bloody hell are you doing in the women's bathrooms?" he heard Serena's distinctive drawl snap from the locked end cubicle. "Unless there's something you're not telling me," she added, and he could hear her playful voice was slightly broken.

"Hilariously funny," he retorted. "Now, would you like to come out?"

"Not really, no," she admitted.

"I don't bite," he reminded her. "Are you OK?" he asked her, hoping to get her to come out and talk to him.

"I'm fine!"

"If you were fine, Ms. Campbell, you would not be hiding in the toilets like a frightened schoolgirl," he asserted to her. He went to stand at the door of the cubicle. He was determined to get her out of there, despite how stubborn he knew her to be.

"I'm sorry," she unexpectedly said. "I should have done my job and helped you out."

"Nobody would expect you to stay under the circumstances," he told her. "I was going to tell you to go. I told Chrissie Levy to divert you but you had already seen it," he explained, knowing full well she wouldn't like it but also wanting her to know that he actually cared about her.

"You did what?" she demanded, fumbling with the lock on the door. Hanssen smirked; he knew that would get her out – her temper always won out. "What gives you the right to-" she started to shout, but stopped when she, in her temper, walked straight into his chest. He caught her before she could fall back, his hands tight on her soft arms. "What gives you the right to try and protect me?" she asked when she was sure she wasn't going to fall.

"The fact that nobody else will do it," he said. The look of shock upon her face brought a smile to his face. He had forgotten that his hands were still wrapped around her arms, and her eyes were locked with his. She was suddenly warm in his grasp, his strong fingers tight around her arms; she didn't protest, which surprised him, but then she was full of surprises recently. "I have the right to protect anyone I feel needs it," he told her. "And, right now, I feel you need someone."

"Who knew Henrik Hanssen is like a marshmallow under that hard shell?" she teased. He knew she was deflecting, and he had to admit she was as good at it as he was. Too many years of practising, for both of them.

"I am not like a marshmallow," he retorted, making her smile at his denial; she was bringing out the side of him he rarely let anyone see. The part of him that actually cared about how certain people felt, and Serena just happened to be one of those certain people. "Why don't you just talk about it, Ms. Campbell?" he asked her, trying to get her to open up about what she had felt at the scene of that crash this morning.

"Because it's nobody's business but mine," she replied. "I shouldn't have even told you last night. I never told my ex-husband, and I have never told Eleanor. My mother hasn't spoken of it to me because I refused to say a word."

He found himself rubbing his thumb against her arm soothingly as she became more and more uptight. "Perhaps the time has come. You have already told me what happened, I know," he said when she opened her mouth to protest, "but you didn't tell me how you feel about it."

"Not just now," she groaned. "Just drop it, hmm?" she suggested. She reached for his arms, and her touch was warm as she pushed against his grip, trying to force him away. "I'll be fine once I get working," she reassured him.

He didn't trust that she was being truthful. She still had that hurt, ghostly look in her eyes she'd had when she saw the state of the driver of the car. He didn't want to let her go when he could see she was far from fine. "Henrik," she whispered. "Please, just let it go."

"No," he answered defiantly. It wasn't often he felt so strongly about someone, but he wasn't willing to let her deal with a shock like that on her own. To be reminded of such a traumatic event was never easy, but when there were so many similarities...he could have sworn, for a moment in that car, he had seen a nine-year-old, terrified little girl watched her dad die all over again.

"Why?"

"I have no clue," he confessed. "I want you to open up because I can tell you need to talk. Why I even care, though, remains a mystery."

"Don't make me deck you," she warned, and he saw that dangerous flash that crossed her eyes when her playfulness came to the surface. As he thought it, though, he realised she probably would deck him if she was irritated enough. Her hand touched his chest lightly, her palm flat, and he could feel himself become nervous. "Your heart," she smirked. "Do I need to rush you up to Darwin, Mr. Hanssen?"

She looked thoroughly pleased that she'd distracted him from her problems, and all she had needed to do was put a hand against his heart. He had always known she was mischievous. Charming. Flirtatious. Beautiful. Wicked. Funny. Ambitious. Devious. Manipulative. A bad idea.

Her hand slid up to his collar bone, her fingers over his shoulder. His grip on her loosened, and she ducked under his arm with a wicked grin before he could stop her. "I believe I have outsmarted you," she smirked, looking rather smug. At least she was smiling. She was tougher than he had credited her for, but he still was unsure as to whether her approach was healthy. It sounded to him that she'd been running from the accident for a long time.

He had expected her to bolt as soon as she was free of him, but she stood still. "Dinner," she said. "Eleanor texted me to say her father is taking her out to the cinema tonight, and she's staying over with him again. So we'd have peace and quiet to...talk, since you're so adamant that I need to. And I found my keys," she added.

"Where were they?"

"Ric found them in his office," she admitted. "They must have fallen out of my pocket."

"You really are something else, Ms. Campbell," he told her, referring to her tendency to forget where she put her belongings, and also to the stroke she had just pulled.

"Why, thank you, Mr. Hanssen," she grinned.

"I didn't say it was a compliment," he reminded her, in a tone more teasing than he had intended.

"I know it is though," she said, confidence radiating from her body. This was the side to Serena he preferred to see. He found her humour intriguing, and was equally fascinated by how she managed to be confident without resorting to cockiness like so many others did. "So, dinner?" she reminded him.

"What time?"

"About seven," she suggested. "My house."

"Alright," he reluctantly agreed, wondering what her motives were. She smiled and turned her back to leave, and Hanssen followed close behind her, managing to get out of the women's toilets unnoticed.

Once they were out, she turned to him, barely a few inches between them. "Thank you for finding me," she said. "I might have stayed there forever if it wasn't for you," she confessed. She touched his hand very lightly, and it sent a strange energy into his fingers.

"You're welcome," he replied. She gave him one last smile and walked away to talk to Malick. Hanssen could see the registrar, too, was worried for Serena. He must have heard her tell him that she couldn't stay with them.

Trusting Malick to look after her if she couldn't handle herself, he went up to his office devising an excuse for missing his meeting. He decided he was going to, if asked, just say he was in a meeting with Serena about the crash; he was sure she would back him up, and it wasn't strictly a lie. It was the truth, taken out of context.

That just left him to worry about what he'd got himself into tonight. Whatever her true motives, there was no doubt that it would be interesting to spend more time with her. She was not someone he would have placed himself in a friendship with, but, out of the work situation, she was charming, intelligent, good company.

He put his head in his hands and sighed to himself, "What have I done?"

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