A/N: I'm not entirely sure about this chapter - it's the one that Serena finally breaks down and spills her guts because she can't keep it in anymore. But it might not make sense; I'm living on cherryade. Says it all. Thanks again to everyone who has read and reviewed!

Sarah x

Jac watched through the glass as Serena started to open up, unable to hear what was being said; she couldn't help but feel it must have been long, long overdue. It was obvious that she had been crying. Her eyes were red and her make up was smudged, though it looked like someone had cleaned the worst up for her. "Has she said anything?" the familiar voice of Jonny Maconie asked.

"Yes. But I can't hear her."

"She must be carrying some size of burden to become like this at the flip of a switch," he sighed. "Apart from Edward, I always assumed that she didn't have too much on her mind."

"What lurks beneath the surface is never what the rest of the world thinks," Jac replied quietly. "You can't know what someone else has gone through just by working with them. No matter how well everybody thinks they know her, nobody really does. Even Edward didn't have a clue what was going on."

"But he was her husband," Jonny said, and Jac heard the confusion in his voice.

"Exactly. That's how well she's hidden it. Whatever it is." She could just see the walls around Serena come crumbling down as she spoke words Jac could not hear. She cautiously opened the door and walked in. Serena immediately closed her mouth and did not speak again. Jac sat down next to her, and Serena glared at her while Mrs. Munro gave Jac a weak, knowing smile.

"Don't stop talking, Serena," Mrs. Munro urged her. The look on Serena's face reminded Jac of a child whose world had collapsed around her, leaving her tiny and insignificant in the rubble that had become her life. And maybe that was what Serena was. "The worst thing you can do is stop talking when you've only just started."

Mrs. Munro, Jac remembered, had to be in a great deal of pain, but she seemed to brush it aside, allowing a wince and a pained expression only when she moved, and she only moved when Serena was not looking. "But-" Serena began to argue.

"But nothing," the elderly woman cut her off firmly. Jac was surprised slightly by the authority in her voice and the effect it had on Serena. "Miss Naylor doesn't seem inclined to judge you for it, does she?"

Jac let out a slight laugh. "I'm not in any position to judge you for anything, Serena," she assured the GS consultant. "Look at the mess I've got myself in."

"You haven't heard what happened yet," Serena muttered. Her tone was dark and hollow, her eyes full of the emotion her voice and words were drained of. In a rare moment of tenderness, Jac reached out and placed her hand gently on Serena's shoulder. She looked around at Jac to stare her in the face. "Why are you being nice?"

"Because you need a friend, and, as the only woman in this place with the nerve to speak my mind to you whether you like it or not, I'll be damned if I'm letting any man anywhere near you in this state," Jac said. She herself was surprised by how protective she was of Serena. The woman didn't exactly personify vulnerability and Jac knew that an attempt to sympathise with her and comfort her was almost always going to be risking getting her head bitten off. But she didn't really mind.

"You mean Edward?" Serena raised an eyebrow at her.

"And Ric. And every other man in the building who might chance it when you're vulnerable." She studied the expression on Serena's face and realised that she was too blinded by pain to see that there were ways she could end up in a bigger mess than she started in here, and in Edward and Ric's arms were not safe places for her right now. Jac did not believe in falling into a man's arms to ease the pain – look how it had turned out for her.

"So, my dear," Mrs. Munro interrupted them, "you will speak what you feel." It wasn't a debate or a request, and Jac was unnerved by the lack of a fight Serena was putting up here. "You will stop holding back and you will trust that nobody here is going to make your life miserable over anything in your past."

"We can all see you're hurt, Serena," Jac explained gently. "If Jonny Maconie can see it, anyone can. And I want to know. Not because I want something over you, or because I want to put you through the hell of reliving whatever is causing you so much suffering, but because I want to understand how you've gone from the unflappable Serena Campbell to this in one day." Serena looked taken aback by Jac's honesty, but it was something she needed. After all, she was the one who had said the girls had to stick together. Well, this was Jac sticking with the girls. "So tell me everything, Serena."

Serena glanced at Mrs. Munro, who was rapidly losing her strength and energy. Serena didn't seem to see it, but Jac could tell the woman was dying.

"When I was about six, I remember my dad's behaviour became...volatile," Serena began. Her voice was hoarse and broken, and Jac's heart of stone cracked a little at hearing such a strong woman in pieces. "He used to kick off at nothing. He knocked my mum about a few times. It was only when he tried to kill himself that Mum realised he wasn't malicious; he was ill. So we moved to Craigo when I was seven so he could stay in the psychiatric unit nearby," she explained.

"Sunnyside," Jac realised – Zosia had been right, though nobody in Serena's family had worked there. They had been a patient. Serena nodded.

"I visited him all the time but I spent more time wandering about the empty corridors than actually being with him," Serena continued. "That kept going for nearly four years. Not long before my eleventh birthday, I was standing at the door of the living room when the psychiatrist was speaking to my mum. He said Dad's behaviour was becoming worse and worse. They thought he wasn't doing as they instructed him, though I didn't know what that meant. I was told he was ill, but they let me think it was something you could see just by looking at him."

Jac swallowed back the lump in her throat. "He was getting sicker," Jac supplied. "What was wrong with him?"

"Manic depression. Bipolar. Whatever you want to call it. He was thirty-seven when he died," Serena said. Mrs. Munro was silent though her frail hand held Serena's tightly, giving her the courage to go into detail about it all. "Anyway. When I was eleven, there was this massive autumn storm that blew in off the North Sea. I'd gone to bed late because my leg was playing up and I was sitting by the fire. At about eleven my dad opened the window and climbed in. I didn't know any better so I went with him."

Serena's voice failed her and Jac tightened her grip on her shoulder as a comfort, looking to Mrs. Munro for help. She didn't know what to do here; she wasn't Wonder Woman, and she was quickly discovering that Serena wasn't either, and she didn't know what she was meant to do. "Come on, Serena," Mrs. Munro said gently. "This is the first time you've told this story. You didn't even speak to the police or your mother, and God knows I tried to get the whole thing out of you. It's time to let it all out. It might just set you free."

Jac felt Serena shake under her touch, her courage and nerve obviously wavering. Tears started to build up in her dark eyes and Jac felt the need to comfort her. "It's alright," she assured the older woman. She got up and found some paper towels for her, handing them to her with a sad smile as she sat back down. "Just keep going. Like Mrs. Munro says, the worst thing you can do is stop once you've started."

Serena nodded. "I didn't know better so I went with him. We walked for ages," she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. "He ended up having to carry me. My leg wasn't working right at that point. It's still a bit squiffy, really," she admitted, and Jac had to smile at the description of the state of her body. "He took me to the train tracks and put me down on the embankment and took my hand. He led me down and told me he loved me," she recalled, and Jac heard her voice crack as she realised what had happened. "We got to the side of the tracks and he kissed my cheek and told me he loved me again. He took me onto the tracks, right in the middle, and he dropped my hand. He just stood there."

Jac felt the pang of Serena's pain when the woman started to break down in tears as she spoke. "He just stood there and I realised he went there to kill himself. That was why they had kept him in that hospital. I could hear the train coming in the distance and I couldn't stay there and die with him, so I walked off the track," she said, her words becoming broken by sobs as Jac felt tears sting her own eyes. "And he just smiled at me and then the train came and he was just gone."

Mrs. Munro's fingers were locked with Serena's, and Jac was trying to hold in the emotion Serena's childhood story had stirred her. She had never imagined that Serena Campbell, as a child, had not only had to live with the fact her father was mentally ill, but with the fact she had had to watch him die in the most brutal, messy way. She wiped away her tears and put a hand on Serena's back in an effort to calm her a little.

Just as Serena's breathing started to calm down a little, Ric and Edward walked in. "Serena, Jac, would you excuse yourselves for a moment, please?" Ric requested politely, though his gaze fell, shocked and extremely worried, onto Serena's tear stained face. "Mr. Campbell and I need to speak alone with Mrs. Munro about her procedure."

Glad for the excuse to get Serena into some privacy, Jac replied, "Of course." She patted Serena's back and added, "Come on. I know where Maconie hides his chocolate chip cookies." To her surprise, Serena didn't put up a fight. She went willingly; maybe she was thinking the same as Jac, and wanted some sanctuary away from those she tried to be strong for.

It didn't escape Jac's notice that Edward had rubbed the small of Serena's back as she passed; she could not help the protective glare she shot at Serena's ex-husband.

Jac led Serena quietly to her office so as not to attract attention from the ward, only to find Elliot at his desk with a large cream cake. "Um, Elliot, could you go and eat that somewhere else?" Jac asked. "Please," she added, knowing he would take the urgency of her request from that one word.

"Oh, um, of course," he replied, picking up his coffee and getting out from behind his desk. "Is everything alright, Ms. Campbell? You look like you've been crying."

"I'm fine," Serena immediately lied; Jac internally groaned at her apparent knee-jerk reaction to being asked how she was. Elliot didn't look very convinced. "I'm fine, Elliot," she insisted hoarsely. He nodded but did something Jac had not expected: he pulled Serena into a one-armed hug and kissed her cheek before he left. The care he showed only set Serena off again and soon her cheeks glistened with tears Jac could tell she had no control over.

Jac said to her, "Why didn't you just tell someone? Anyone? Me, even?"

Incapable of speech, finally shattered on the ground with no strength left to give, Serena only shook her head and burst into uncontrollable sobs, her face in her hands. Hadn't she cried enough today? It was obvious that she'd cried before she returned to Darwin, in both her face and her voice. Was her pain so excruciating and intense, built up over so many years of keeping her life's horrors inside, that she could do nothing else right now?

Jac yet again swallowed her own tears back, the ones brought on by hormones and the emotion raised in her at seeing Serena breaking apart, and stepped towards her. She let Serena fall into her embrace, feeling her sob into her neck. "Shh. It's OK," she promised. "It's OK."

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