A/N: This was meant to be a lot more traumatic but I held back a little. As always, thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed. AND. AND. AND. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BROOKE! :D

Sarah x

Serena sat in silence as Mrs. Munro was wheeled away for her scan; she had known that it was a bad idea to involve herself. But she already was involved, so her mere presence was enough to open a box of horrors.

She remembered suddenly that the likelihood was that she would have to operate on the woman, too, which did nothing to help calm her nerves. The prospect frightened her slightly as she tried to find a way to worm out of it. But with Ric and Sacha backed up on AAU, Malick gone and Michael's list full, she didn't have much choice unless she wanted to risk Harry, Gemma, Zosia or Digby making a right mess of it – and that was a risk she was definitely unwilling to take.

She could make a swap with Ric or Michael but not without explaining herself. There were too many things she could not speak of and too much ground she did not want to cross, and especially not with those two. They read her too well and even if they did not get it out of her, there would surely see a difference in her and go straight to Edward for answers the man did not have. There were things she had felt unable to speak to anyone about, even her own husband.

Wandering eerie wards had never been fun, even more so when she was not quite old enough to understand why nobody seemed ill in a hospital. She remembered the still of the silence and the echo of her footsteps, eventually feeling like the walls were closing in around her when she spent one hour too many in that godforsaken place.

She jumped slightly when there were footsteps at the door. She turned to find Edward standing there, leaning against the doorpost. "Oh, go away," she moaned. "I'm not in the mood to put up with you."

"What's put you in a grump?" he demanded.

"Your face," she snapped; she knew the retort was immature but if it got rid of him then she didn't mind sounding like a petulant child. But, Edward being irritating Edward, he advanced slowly forward to stand next to her. "What are you after?"

"Nothing. I just want to know you're OK."

His words made her turn her head to look at him. "Why wouldn't I be?" she demanded quietly.

"You've been AWOL for two hours. And you had Jac Naylor lie for you," he added.

"Where I go is none of your business and I did not ask Jac to do anything of the sort," she instantly dismissed him. "Just do what you do best and walk away." Her own hostility startled her; her conscious effort to push him out was abnormal. Her mind and her rationality always did it with no effort from her. But he did not walk away, so she stood up and faced him with her full height. "Let me get this straight. When I need you, you run. When I was rid of you, you choose to stay and annoy me."

Edward just shrugged his shoulders.

"Ugh. You always were useless with a hangover," she informed him bitterly. She forced her way past him, wondering why he even gave a damn. It was a time in her life that was forbidden from discussion. A time she had managed to block out for well over thirty years. She made her way to the stairs, stopping on the landing to regain her emotional equilibrium. Her control was slipping and she knew Edward, whether he knew it or not, had the ability to pull it completely from her.

Her grip tightened on the banister until her knuckles were white and she found herself struggling to push it all back. She felt dizzy like she used as a child, wandering down the deserted corridors, or else sitting outside the study or the living room, silently listening in on her mother's conversations only to find she wished she had heeded the warnings about eavesdroppers never hearing anything they liked.

The smallest thing could make all hell break loose, the blanket of control over the situation vanishing at the flip of a switch. She had witnessed volatility in a frightening form, caught up in what she hadn't understood. And it had nearly killed them all. She was now unable to move forward or retrace her steps; she was frozen in time and place, trying to remember why she had ever involved herself at the age of eleven in something that had proved dangerous for her and fatal for another.

A hand fell onto her back and she startled slightly. "You OK?" a familiar voice said to her. He pulled her down to sit on the top step. "You look like you might pass out."

"Yeah, I'm fine, Ric," she sighed. It was a lie, but how was she meant to say what she was thinking? "Just skipped breakfast," she lied.

"No, you didn't," he contradicted, and her head snapped around at his words to see his slight smirk. "I happen to have seen you with an apple turnover at nine this morning. Which means you're lying to me," he added sternly. She flinched slightly as his hand fell onto hers; it was odd. It never usually bothered her. But she remembered a large hand in hers at that moment, and the howl of the coastal wind that rattled through her. "Why are you lying?"

She couldn't answer him, but she answered in her own mind with the image of her opening bedroom window followed by masses of police and paramedics followed by a coffin and a gravestone she had not seen since she was eleven. It hurt to even think of these things. She looked at Ric's face and saw he was truly concerned; what was her face and body language giving away? She had never known her own tells, and she wished she had learned what they were. Only then would she be completely infallible.

She could only tell him the bare minimum – what could not break her. "The patient Jac called me up for is my old teacher," Serena admitted. He looked intrigued and curious, waiting for her to continue. "I went to school in Scotland for a few years when I was a little girl and she was my teacher. And, oh, I don't know..." she trailed away. "I guess she's just brought a lot of old memories."

"Good or bad?" questioned Ric. Serena only shrugged her shoulders as Edward had done, not willing to discern what was good and bad about that stage of her life.

"Why do you care?" she demanded slowly.

"Because I have the misfortune of working with you for the foreseeable future," he grinned. "And I'd like to be able to prepare myself for whatever kind of mood you may be in." She shook her head and allowed him a smile as she slapped his leg for his impudence. "But seriously, Serena. Are you going to be OK?"

"Am I ever not OK?" she demanded quietly. Her gaze met his and she realised suddenly that she had to make a deal. She couldn't do this operation. "I need a favour."

"Go on."
"I need you to do Mrs. Munro's splenectomy."

"Why?" he asked suspiciously.

"Because I don't want to risk messing it up," she admitted. "I don't want her blood on my hands." He looked shocked at the admission that even Serena Campbell had a mountain of self-doubt within her. "Please, Ric. I wouldn't ask if I wasn't..."

"Desperate?" he finished for her. She nodded, confessing her desperation both to Ric and to herself. He seemed to think it through before sighing, "Alright. As long as you promise to answer any issues on AAU in my absence." She immediately nodded again in agreement. That had been too easy. He must have seen her torn conscience past her walls.

"Thank you," she smiled slightly at him. "I owe you."
"Oh, yes," he smirked. "Now, I have to get back to AAU before it falls apart." He stood up and spared her one last glance before he left her to stare up out of the window. The grey clouds started forming relentlessly above, threatening the area with a storm.

Storms were one thing that brought it all back; as a child she remembered sitting in the sodden grass as the rain started to sheet down and the wind screamed at her that she had to go home, as if she could even find her way through that harsh darkness surrounding her.

The train had just gone past, taking a life with it, as she had sat in silent horror. It was then she realised that the people in that hospital were not ill. They were insane. Mortally so. And it was only because of her own sense of self-preservation that she had not died a child there with him. A life was lost on the tracks and it would not have been had she not followed. Had she remained in her bed that night, he may not have died.

If she had screamed like she had so wanted to as a figure climbed in her bedroom window, he may not have died. He may have just been taken back to where he was safe. But she had not. Instead she had been overjoyed to see him, and willing to follow him anywhere if it meant she could be normal for a little while. Her instinct had failed her and him.

She had effectively killed him, despite what those who loved her tried to impress on her.

The woman who had picked her up from the side of the tracks had not been her mother but a woman she recognised as her teacher. Her voice had vaguely told her everything was alright but even at that age Serena had known it was not. She had known a life was gone and an innocence lost, and that she would never be able to forget.

"I shouldn't have gone with him," she said to herself, hearing her cracked voice echo through the staircase. "Stupid, stupid girl," she muttered to herself. She had found over the years that she felt the need to berate herself for her naivety and stupidity.

"Gone with who?" Jac's voice rang out. Serena looked around to find Edward and Jac behind her, both with their arms folded across their chests.

Serena froze. Edward walked around her as her eyes followed him until he stood over her a couple of stirs below. Jac stood at her side, leaving her feeling ambushed and trapped. "Serena?" Edward asked her gently. "Who shouldn't you have gone with? Why are you stupid?"

Serena opened her mouth to speak but her brain failed her. She couldn't string a sentence together. She stood up in front of him, taller than him only because of her raised footing. He would not break her again. He would not make her acknowledge the blood on her hands or the scar on her memory. She turned away from him with a sharp glare at Jac.

"Where do you think you're going?!" the redhead snapped.

"I'm going to wait," she replied simply. "I owe her that much." She felt a hand wrapped tightly around her wrist but yanked it away with all the force she possessed. The last thing she needed was her ex-husband finding out she had unwittingly taken another's life. She had not actively or intentionally done so, but she had allowed it to happen and that was bad enough. She didn't want Jac and Edward to hate her as she knew they would if they ever knew anything of that night.

She stalked away without a backwards glance and busied herself with making Mrs. Munro's bed back up. It was something to do and something to calm her nerves down a little, if only for a while.

It was only when she sat down with nothing left to do that she saw the bloodied man who had mercilessly haunted her teenage years standing in the corner.

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