A/N: This is a bit of an odd chapter, but I do think Mary-Claire has a kind heart, despite her lack of common sense at times. Thanks again to everyone who has been reading and reviewing!

Sarah x

Serena was again frozen; she had just spilled the secret of a lifetime to a man she knew in her heart would not keep it. Not only did he have a big mouth and very few functioning brain cells, but she knew he would tell others if he, however misguided his intentions would be, thought he was helping.

Realising what she had done, she stepped back from him, unconsciously putting her hand over her mouth. Maybe if she did that it would keep the words inside, where they had to remain. There were more people entangled in this than just her. She couldn't be selfish. She had to think of them all, not just the relief she had a chance of finding.

She walked – ran – away. "Serena!" she heard Edward shout after her. "Serena!"

Never in over thirty years had she felt that pain in her right hip return like this. As she ran down the stairs, she felt that grinding pain rush through her leg, right down to her foot. "Argh!" she moaned, succumbing to the pain as she stumbled on the landing. Her hand on her hip, she scrambled down the last flight of stairs into the heaving AAU corridor. If she knew Edward at all, he was either speaking to those on Darwin or looking for her himself. In a split second decision, she darted into the women's bathroom, only to find Mary-Claire Carter standing there, washing her hands.

The young nurse looked around and back again with a slight smile. Her head then turned slowly. "Ms. Campbell," she said quietly, hastily drying her hands. "Ms. Campbell, you're crying."

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious," Serena snapped impatiently. She angrily wiped her tears away with one hand, the other still clutching at her leg, but they only fell again.

"What's up?" Mary-Claire asked. "Is Edward being a nasty piece of work to you? Making life difficult?" Serena shook free of the young woman's hands on her arms and got herself into the nearest cubicle, slamming and locking the door behind her. "Serena!" Mary-Claire shouted at her. "Come on. You're scaring me now! Serena Campbell doesn't do this sort of thing."

The realisation that the rest of the world, bar a few people, believed she was strong and fierce, resilient and confident. It broke her to feel like she could not live up to who she pretended she was.

She heard her sobs echo through the room, unable to hold them back despite Mary-Claire's presence. There was no control left. She fell to the floor and crouched with her back against the weak wall, almost revelling in the pain it was causing her. Not all pain was bad, she remembered.

"Oh, God. You really are upset, aren't you?"

Serena's attempt to say she was fine and tell the nurse to beat it ended up nothing more than a broken sob. She heard Mary-Claire move in the next cubicle. Her head popped up over the stall.

"Come out," she said. "Come out or I'll jump over there." Serena looked up; Mary-Claire was not her favourite person in the world, and she was sure the pretty redhead was none too fond of her either, but she seemed genuinely worried. She appeared to be serious about invading the cubicle; she wouldn't put that past Mary-Claire.

"I'm fine, Nurse Carter," Serena managed to croak. How this had happened was a blur. She just remembered telling Edward that her father had taken her in the dead of the night, and then realising what she had done. After that, all she could remember was that she couldn't repress thirty-five years of emotion any longer. Not when it was surrounding her, closing in around her like a pack of wolves, ready to ravage her at the slightest false move.

Mary-Claire rolled her eyes. "Yeah, 'cause you really look it. Don't say I didn't warn you." She hopped the stall with great athleticism Serena had never dreamt of possessing, managing to balance with one foot on each side of the toilet before she jumped down to solid ground. Serena raised an eyebrow at her for her swift movement. "My party trick," Mary-Claire smiled. A soft laugh escaped Serena despite her sadness; what she wouldn't have given to see Mary-Claire attempt that drunk. "You know, Serena, you can tell me. I won't tell anyone."

"You put out a memo to inform the entire staff that the new anaesthetist is my ex-husband," Serena reminded her; the sound that escaped her was a cross between a cynical laugh and a broken cry.

"Yeah, but now you're in floods of tears," Mary-Claire reasoned. Serena looked up at her. "I wouldn't do that to you. Believe it or not, Ms. Campbell, but I do know right from wrong. Now budge over."

Reluctantly, Serena shifted over a little so Mary-Claire could sit down. "I'll be OK," Serena lied. "I'm always OK."

"And what if this is the one time you're not?" the younger woman demanded. "Nobody's invincible, are they?" Serena allowed Mary-Claire to search her eyes. To sit in a toilet cubicle with Mary-Claire Carter was not her first choice of activity – nor her first choice of company – but the nurse had genuinely surprised Serena in her unquestionable care and attempt at comradeship. Friendship, even. "Come on. I don't like seeing people cry."

"Sorry," Serena murmured, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. Mary-Claire handed her a tissue and gave her a sad sort of smile, genuine but tainted with shock and upset. "What do you do when you can't worm your way out of your problems anymore?" Serena asked. She kept it vague because, though she desperately needed so kind of direction, she couldn't summon the courage to go into detail about the things she had been forced to live with for most of her life.

"Turn around and face them," replied Mary-Claire. "You can run all you want, but you can't hide forever." Serena laughed hopelessly. She would never stop running. In all her years, that much she had learned. "You have the courage to face anything. It might hurt like hell but you'll survive. It might be hard but everything is OK in the end. If it isn't OK then it isn't the end yet. Who knows? You might even end up better off for it."

To hear such maturity from Mary-Claire Carter startled Serena a little, as did the recognition that there was more to her than she allowed the world to see. It was rapidly becoming clear to Serena that Mary-Claire was more grown up and measured than everyone seemed to think. To know that a woman so much younger than she was knew life better than she did frightened her, because she was meant to be the one who knew everything. She was meant to know all the answers and do everything to perfection. And she had done, for so many years. But now the chaos was overriding the need for perfection, and the need to admit she was weak was beginning to batter down the need to remain within the delusion that all these years she had lived were out of strength.

She felt Mary-Claire's arm around her shoulders. It was with bitter reluctance that she eventually disclosed the bottom line, taking Mary-Claire at her word. "There was something happened when I was a child," Serena quietly revealed, trying to stem the flow of tears. "I was eleven years old and I had to watch...someone I loved," she forced out, unable to admit her own father was the insanity behind the incident, and he had been the one who paid the fatal price. "Get hit by a train. I've never had to face up to it until now, and I don't think I can."

"Oh, Serena," the young redhead sighed. The gentle use of her first name was oddly comforting to Serena. "I'm so sorry." Her head rested on Serena's shoulder. "What's making you face it after all that time?"

"The woman who found me that night, my primary school teacher, is on Darwin."

"Ah."

"Exactly. And Edward freaked me out," Serena admitted. "I punched him in the face."

"You're not serious?" Mary-Claire demanded. Serena saw she was holding back a smile. Serena only nodded her head – Mary-Claire's cue to start giggling. "Oh, that is brilliant!" she laughed. "Did you leave a mark?"

"Yeah. Cut his lip and cheek, and left a bruise."

"Brilliant!" Mary-Claire laughed. Serena allowed a smile at the funny side of her smacking her ex-husband until she remembered the fear that had driven her to do it. She could feel the younger woman giggling into her shoulder. "You know, you've always terrified me," admitted Mary-Claire. "Your determination and high standards and your ability to make people feel two inches tall without even opening your mouth, it all makes you terrifying."

"Oh, thanks," she retorted sarcastically.

"Serena, if you can control me, Gemma, Harry, Edward and Ric, and every patient, relative and staff member on AAU, with one look, you can do anything," she smiled. "So whatever and whoever you need to face up to, you can do it." The nurse was soon standing over her, holding out a hand to help Serena to her feet. She took it and groaned at the pain in her leg as she raised herself upright; she stood opposite Mary-Claire, who took out another tissue, dabbing at Serena's running make up. "So you go up to Darwin, do what you need to do, and if Jac Naylor starts on you, tell her to shut her trap or swallow your boot."

That made Serena laugh without even thinking. Not that she would ever do that to Jac, of course.

"Come on," Mary-Claire ushered her out onto the AAU corridor. "And before you say anything, I won't breathe a word to anyone. Now up to Darwin with you."

Serena nodded and turned away, walking towards the lifts. When she pressed the button, she felt the need to thank the nurse for her efforts. She spotted her sauntering back to AAU. "Mary-Claire!" she yelled over the babble of the ward, making her throat hurt even more after crying. The Irishwoman turned on her heel at the mention of her name. "Thank you!" she called.

"You're welcome!" she shouted back with a sweet and somewhat reassuring smile.

Serena got in the lift and pressed the '6' button with some real trepidation; she wasn't going to get back onto Darwin for very long before either Jac, Jonny, Mo, Elliot or Zosia ambushed her. She assumed Jac would find her first, but that Zosia had a habit of turning up out of thin air when least expected. All she could do was hide and put that part off for as long as humanly possible.

Mrs. Munro, however, she had to deal with. Not once had they even discussed the events of that night, or the implications that plagued Serena as a teenager and even now.

But as the lift opened to reveal Darwin before her, she searched for her father. He wasn't there. Nowhere to be found. Where had he gone? Though his presence unsettled her, it also reminded her that she would never be alone. As ill and desperate and unhinged as she knew he must have been, she knew her dad had loved her. He wouldn't have wanted to spend his last hours with her, or have gone out of his way to spend that time with her, if he hadn't. That was the knowledge years of bitterness and resentment had led her to, a long time ago.

She stepped onto the ward, and noticed Jonny's eyes fixated on her, as if wondering how to deal with her now that he had seen the extent to which she felt so vulnerable. He did not, however, approach her as she entered Mrs. Munro's room. The old woman's light blue eyes followed Serena until she sat down. "Is that ex-husband of yours alright?" she asked.

"Yeah. He looks worse than it actually is," Serena replied.

"I think it's time you talked to someone, Serena," she said gently. "Have you been carrying all this, on your own, for all this time?"

"It's silly, I know," Serena sighed, running her hands through her hair. "But I thought that I could live with it better if I didn't speak about it."

"It doesn't work like that, my dear," Mrs. Munro said.

"I know," she moaned. "I know. But it's so hard to even say it. To acknowledge that he was far worse than they ever told me, to acknowledge he was mentally ill at all, is something I've never been able to do. I've pretty much tried to forget that whole period of my life."
"Well," Mrs. Munro smiled slightly. "It's time to remember. You have friends here. Do you really think they would abandon you if they knew the truth?"

"It happened at the time."

"Children are cruel," Mrs. Munro sighed. "They don't usually mean to be, but they are scornful of what they cannot understand."

Serena met her eyes and, yet again, found herself swallowing back her fear, her pain, her pride and her tears.

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