A/N: OK. So this is back to real time Holby. I'm trying to do this steadily and explore everyone rather than just rush right through it all. Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed so far :)

Sarah x

Edward watched the two women carefully. Serena wasn't fine. She was dazed and forgetful, confused with words though she was clearly depending on him keeping his mouth shut. "Let me have a look," he whispered to Serena as Jac went away to check on the three remaining patients. She turned and looked at him with that harsh, icy glare of hers but he couldn't watch her in this state and not see what was going on.

To his surprise she took a step towards him. "We have to get these patients out of here, Edward," she murmured.

"The emergency services will be here soon. Don't worry," he tried to reassure her, though he himself was absolutely bricking it.

"That's what you said last time," she grumbled hopelessly; that was a low blow. She waded away and left Edward with the pang of guilt of knowing that he was very probably responsible for some of the horrors they faced. He watched her tend to the nine-year-old girl in bed four; the child was not capable of walking, and was probably safer here. He was wary to move her and he knew Serena was too.

There were many blanks of that night. The blood red sky had deepened as quickly as the river had done, and he to this day could not figure out what he had hit his head so hard on. So hard that Serena had told him it had knocked him out cold. He suspected he had stayed awake on sheer adrenaline until he had brought his wife and the two girls to relative safety.

The bruises Serena had left on his chest had remained for a fortnight after. There was still a small scar under his hair on the top-back of his head where he assumed he had been knocked out. He forced through the water to Jac, who was seeing to the woman in bed one. "Everything OK?" he asked them gently.

Both women nodded, and Jac added, "When are we getting out of here?"

Edward sighed and rubbed the back of his head. "I really don't know, Jac." He squeezed her shoulder lightly; she looked around at his hand and glared at him, making him instantly retract it. Like Serena, Jac didn't need to speak to make someone feel two inches tall. He knew when he was being a nuisance, but whether he paid attention to that or not was another matter entirely. And sometimes he ignored what he should have heeded.

With Mary-Claire and Jonny gone, only he, Serena and Jac remained. Edward was beginning to get uptight again. He felt panic spread like suffocating ivy over his chest, tightening around him as he stared at the flood he stood in. He had battered this back all night, trying to remain solid for those who may potentially need him. He brought his hand to chest chest and massaged lightly, trying to exercise absolute control over his breathing.

"Edward?" Jac asked quietly. "Are you alright?"

He had forgotten that Jac specialised in CT; obviously, anyone clutching at their chest would ring alarm bells with her. He dropped his hand, though he wished he hadn't. For whatever reason, he took some comfort from his hand on his chest, like he was protecting what lay beneath.

Jac looked suspicious, and if he didn't know her better he would have said she was genuinely concerned for him. But she was Jac Naylor and by all accounts the only two people she cared for were herself and the child growing inside her. And even then she was astoundingly calm. It was almost frightening; he could feel his own panic, and he saw the fear in Serena's eyes, but Jac was perfectly collected now.

She was a strange woman. She must have been worried for Jonny – there would have been something wrong with her if she wasn't – but she wasn't letting it show. She was in perfect control, on the outside, at least; as much as Edward tried, he never seemed to be able to obtain such shallow tranquillity. Hence why his chest felt like it might collapse in on itself.

He glanced around; there were so many dangers here. Water made everything a potential hazard. Fall the wrong way and it was possible to drown.

"Serena!" Jac called. Edward's ex-wife made her way over. "Don't you think we should switch the breaker off?" she asked, nodding towards the fuse box above bed four. "You know, just in case?"

Serena was hesitant. Edward knew why – to touch anything electrical when the area was in this state was a bad idea. That was why all patients were taken off their monitors. But to switch it off would be more than helpful; it eliminated the current and therefore the risk of electrocution. But to get up there and touch a wet breaker was a stupid thing to do. Thankfully all the plug sockets were above the water level, as they were in most hospitals, but the danger remained.

"Nobody touches the plug sockets or the breaker," Serena finally decided. She was in charge here and she was making sure Edward and Jac knew it; he could feel the authority radiating from her body with little restraint as she, as usual, tried to stop the whole world doing anything dangerous, stupid or just downright thoughtless. "Water, people and electricity aren't a good combination."

Edward tried to work out what was going on in Serena's head. It wasn't often she went this way, and it always unnerved him. She said he was too uptight in these situations but, in her own way, she was just as bad. She took everything, everyone's lives, into her own hands, and it took its toll.

He looked into her eyes and saw fear buried beneath panic buried beneath pain. And that frightened him. He hadn't seen that look in her eyes since that night in Macon, the Georgia rain destroying them and everything they held dear. Since they had somehow managed to flag down a rescue boat. Since they had found destruction and death in a supermarket car park. Since they had watched death take over before their eyes and been unable to stop it.

The memory of a cold, wet, lifeless body in his arms haunted him to this day; he had tried his best with what little there had been to help him. He really had. And Serena obviously still blamed him. Her bitter words rang in his head again. Even now she still blamed him.

To realise that made him doubt his own courage, and to see how weak he really was frightened him almost as much as that look in his ex-wife's eyes. She was as terrified now as he was. Her fear rattled him; she was not usually afraid of anything, but by he saw through her fierce pretence.

When his chest began to hurt, he disappeared around the corner as quickly as the flood would allow him, so Jac and Serena would not have to witness what really happened when he could not control his fear, his anxiety and his panic. His hands on his chest, he forced some control over his breathing. He could hear the splash of someone approaching; he looked around to see Jac Naylor.

Her hand fell onto his upper back as she uncharacteristically tried to calm him. "Just breathe," she ordered him quietly. He nodded. It didn't take him long. He had been accustomed to this sort of thing, and if he caught it when he could still breathe he was usually fine. "Does Serena know you have anxiety problems?"

"Yeah, I should think so. She bloody well put up with it for long enough," he joked.

"You hide it well," Jac praised him gently. He knew she was referring to his laid back attitude and the jokes he hid behind for his own protection. To those who didn't know him, he had hid this Edward Campbell very well.

He heard the doors being forced open; both he and Jac peered around the wall to see Michael Spence forcing his way loudly through. "Right!" he shouted. "Hanssen's on his way. He says nobody is to move. Wait. Where's Maconie?! And Mary-Claire?!" he yelled, possibly unnecessarily loudly.

"They'll be out of here by now," Serena replied as Edward guided Jac back to the rest of their friends.

"Well, they're not. And the emergency services haven't found a way here yet, because I was able to walk out and back in again. Hanssen will be about five minutes now," he assured them, though Serena didn't look pleased. Edward knew she had wanted to keep this place as empty as possible, and yet Michael had wandered in to offer his services and Hanssen was about to do the same.

"What do you mean Jonny's not out?" Jac demanded.

"I mean he's nowhere to be seen. I had to take the long way around and he wasn't there, either," Michael allowed.

"Why did you take the long way?" Serena shot at him, and dread started to fill Edward. "Why did you go around by Radiology rather than straight through from the canteen?"

"It just didn't look very stable," Michael said. "The walls are all cracked and there are holes in the ceiling."

Edward felt Jac tense next to him and he instinctively put an arm around her; she didn't shrug him off, which he took as a bad sign. He knew she was thinking the same as him. Jonny, being with a sick patient and an injured nurse, would have taken the quickest route possible. And if the ceiling was unstable, it might have collapsed. The crash would have been dampened by the deep water, so they may not have heard it if it was closer to the canteen than it was to AAU.

Edward, only to distract himself, went to check the pulses and the breathing of their remaining patients. What if Jonny and Mary-Claire and Kara had been trapped? Had Jonny managed to get hold of anyone? Hanssen? Mo?

When he reached the child, Ailsa, she said to him, "Are we going to be OK?"

He sighed and leaned towards her slightly. "The man who runs this hospital," he began, referring to Hanssen, "is on his way. Help of every kind is on its way. We're here for you and anything you need," he explained, placing a hand gently on the girl's forehead. "We're going to get you out of here and into another hospital as soon as help can get through the flood outside, OK? You're going to be fine."

Ailsa nodded while he took her pulse and determined she was coping. He smiled gently at her and looked up. Serena stood before him; she was drained white, leaning on the other side of Ailsa's bed with her head bent.

"Serena?" he asked her. She didn't look up so he went around the bed and helped her stand straight. "Serena, are you OK?" he asked her. She didn't speak but she did shake her head. The admission that she wasn't alright was enough to worry him, and he saw that reflected in Jac and Michael's faces.

He guided her to the nurses' station and easily lifted her onto the desk, climbing up next to her. He put his arm around her waist in case she was too weak to hold her own weight. "I feel sick," she confessed. "I feel really sick."

"Michael, get me bucket or something!" he called to the American, knowing he could move through the water far faster than the pregnant redhead could. He no sooner handed Serena a kidney dish when she threw up, coughing up the contents of her stomach.

"I must've hit my head harder than I thought," she admitted as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Looks like it's the other way around this time," she muttered.

"I've not broken any bones," Edward reminded her. He squeezed her into his side in an effort to comfort her when he knew she felt rotten.

"Do that again and I will break every bone in your body," she offered. She looked up, still white as a sheet as her eyes sparkled in a slightly dazed fashion. With a smirk he pulled her even tighter, even daring to press a gentle kiss into her damp hair. "Oh, yes. I forgot. In one ear and out the other," she quipped, though she did so with a slight smile.

He looked to Jac to see she was so worried she was nearly in tears; he looked pointedly at Michael, who instantly went to try and convince Jac that her baby's father was going to be fine, though they were all only lying to themselves – not one person in this room knew where Jonny, Mary-Claire and Kara had disappeared to.

Hope this is OK!
Please feel free to drop me a review and tell me what you think of it!
Sarah x