A/N: This is Ric's side of this story, though from Serena's point of view. Perhaps it's a little bit soft in places. Forgive me. Thanks again to everyone who is reading and reviewing! :)

Sarah x

Serena sighed, scarcely able to comprehend everything she was thinking. There was a woman she respected and trusted completely, now dying. There was the train incident that she had always tried to ignore, now brought unwillingly to the forefront of her mind. There was her father's illness, long forgiven but not forgotten.

As Mrs. Munro started to fall asleep, she heard footsteps enter the room but did not look around as she recalled all that had been said to her by her former teacher. Everything she had once known was gone, replaced by harsh reality and new-found emotions she had tried all her life not to feel.

"You have to let her go, Serena," Ric's whisper rang out. "She wants you to let her go."

Serena sighed. "I need coffee. Lots of coffee." She stood up when she was sure Mrs. Munro was too out of it to miss her, feeling Ric's presence behind her. She always knew when he was near her; it was almost like his body held a gravitational field of its own, her being his satellite. "I...do you want a coffee?" she offered hesitantly. With Ric she was less self-assured than with Edward. She had put up with Edward so long that she now knew him like the back of her hand; Ric, however, was vastly unexplored by Serena.

She saw his smile and took it as a 'yes' when he led her out of the room. His hand on her arm was a slight comfort that simultaneously unnerved her. His offer of comfort only reminded her that she needed someone, and not the person she knew was bad for her. She could deny it all she wanted but Edward brought her recklessness to the surface. Her recklessness was not something she ever wanted to see again; it had killed her father. What would it do to her at an age that she now knew what it was?

In the lift with Ric, she realised that she actually didn't have a clue what to do anymore. Her life was one build on the lies she told herself and the years she ignored, the shield she raised to everyone she had ever loved. She had lied so long that telling the truth hurt. Sometimes she didn't even know what the truth was.

But she wanted to at least explain to Ric the extent to which she felt broken. He deserved that mush. She didn't think she could tell him why. She couldn't tell him how she caused another person's death. She knew he, the preserver of life and moral compass of many, would hate her. Even if she explained the complexity of it, she knew he would hate her for not knowing better, and she could have Ric hate her. She was selfish enough to be willing to resort to semantics to keep him in her life.

Whatever her reasoning, she couldn't escape the fact that she was a selfish person, right down to the bone. She let everyone believe she was a good person, but she wasn't; she drained people. One way or another, she always hurt the people she loved. She was the centre of destruction in her own world. Even her daughter, her beautiful daughter, was messed up by the strain between her parents, and the absence of a proper father and the ignorance of a mother who worked too much for anybody's good.

Everything she touched fell to pieces, or else burned in the ring of fire she set around herself as she stood isolated.

Cornered and protected.

Endangered and safe.

Dying and living.

Shattered and whole.

She was a contradiction. And contradictions could only exist as long as one end outweighed the other. If each of her contradictions were of equal measure then she would negate herself, no longer Serena Campbell but someone she would cease to recognise. For now, she knew who she was, even if she didn't like it.

But as she stepped into the cafeteria with Ric, she realised that knowing who she was was not enough. Other people – those she loved and respected – had to see her for who she really was. Ric had to know that she wasn't a saint, though she was sure he had worked out that for himself, and that it would be in his best interests to keep her at arm's length. She had hurt her father. Her mother. Her husband. Her child. She was sure to hurt Ric too. And he had to know that.

Serena sat down in the knowledge that Ric knew what coffee she drank and how she took it. She made no effort to speak. Instead she held her silence and reminded herself that she was not to be trusted, and that to confide in Ric would make him hate her. So she resolved to tell him to keep away from her on a personal level. It was the only way to keep him in her life, to still see him every day without really hurting him.

He was suddenly sitting opposite her, pushing a cup of coffee and a plate with a large slice of rich chocolate cake towards her. She gave the cake a sceptical look and raised her eyebrow at Ric, who just smirked and said, "In my experience, women are easier to deal with once they've had something chocolatey down their throats." His expression turned to one of concern. "And you've probably not eaten all day."

It was only now that he mentioned it that she realised it was after three in the afternoon and she hadn't eaten since six this morning. Her appetite was lost to shock and fear but still she ate, her medical mind reminding her that her body needed it even if her mind did not want it.

"Thanks," she said, her voice hoarse with her abuse of her throat with the crying and shouting she had done today. "You didn't have to."

He shrugged. "Someone has to look out for you."

Serena laughed bitterly to herself. "Jac and Edward have been doing that all day." She looked up from her cake to see his eyes filled with care for her; this was why it was so hard to tell him to leave her alone. She knew he cared. And it drove her to confess today's sins, if not those of her childhood. "I kissed Edward today," she admitted quietly.

"I know," Ric smiled gently. "Jac told me. She was none too pleased with him over it."

"I know," she said. Her eyes locked with Ric's for only a moment, and in that moment what she found in him – care, friendship, concern, protection...an endless list – changed her game plan. She had to only lie to him. She couldn't send him away. She didn't have it left in her torn heart. "She's right. He's not good for me. He's like...he's like a drug. He's like alcohol. When I'm in pain, my first instinct is to use him to alleviate that pain," she explained. "And I know it would end in tears. I was just..." she trailed away, searching for words she could not find. "I didn't want to be in control. He had control, and it was a relief."

"So you stand in front of the runaway train and hope he'll move you out of the way?" he challenged. "That's not wise, Serena."

His words stung, but he could not know how much his metaphor hurt her. How could he when he didn't know that her father had committed suicide by standing in front of a train?

She gasped slightly when the same bloodied figure, her dad, appeared behind Ric with a smile. She had thought he was gone. He had vanished when she had told Jac and Mrs. Munro all that happened the night he died. She looked away from her father, ignoring his loving smile as she paid an unnecessary level of attention to the piece of cake before her.

"Are you alright?" Ric demanded quietly. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I wish," Serena muttered into her coffee cup. To see a ghost would have been easier to accept; to see a dead man of her own mind meant that somewhere there was damage and crossed wires. When she looked up again, her father was still there smiling down on her.

Ric sighed. "What on Earth is going on with you, Serena?" he asked her. "I've never seen you so distracted. You're not even working. I've never seen you give up a day's work for anything."

"It's important," she acknowledged. "It's important I learn today's lessons. Who knows?" she repeated Mary-Claire's sentiments. "I might even be better off for it."

"You've lost me. I don't get it. It's like I know nothing about you."

"Let's face it," Serena snapped caustically. "What do you know about me?" She immediately felt guilty for speaking to him like that.

"I know you're an only child. I know you've moved home and jobs four times in thirteen years. I know you hate Wednesdays because it's the day you're always the most exhausted. I know you're none to fond of storms, even though you make fun of the way we all deal with the practical side," he relayed to her. "I know you can't stand peaches and you love strawberries. I know you've spent most of your life with only one parent, your mother. I know that you wear loose tops because you don't like clingy clothes or the way you see yourself in them. I know you arrive here earlier than anyone else, bar Jac Naylor, and have a coffee every hour until you come down here at about nine to get something high in sugar and carbs. I know you leave here later than anyone else, bar Jac Naylor, and that you check the time every thirty-three minutes after one o'clock even though you don't intend on leaving for hours. I know you wear two pairs of socks in the winter. I know that if you were to get a flat tyre you would rather call the AA than get on the ground and change the wheel. I know you sleep too little and worry too much. I know you get pain in your right hip, particularly in the damp or the cold. I know Edward Campbell is the only man you've ever really fallen in love with. I know-"

"OK, I get it. You know me," she admitted with a sigh, though she was rather touched that he paid so much attention to her.

His smile was slightly smug as he leaned back, and she so wanted to kick him under the table. Despite her misery, his smile was infectious and she felt her lips twitch slightly in amusement at the way he was so sure of his own observations. Of course, all his observations were completely correct, even if he didn't really know the reasons behind some of the things he could see. She hadn't realised he paid such close attention to her. He noticed things about her even her mother and Edward had never picked up on before. Mundane things, like time-checking habits, but he had noticed all the same.

She felt him reach for her hand, squeezing it tightly. "I know you're in pain. I know you've probably cried for half the day. I know you're hiding something. The thing I don't know is what you're hiding," he told her. "And I want to know."

"Why?" she asked, and again her tone was laced with hostility, though this time more subtly and less threateningly.

"Because..." he began. Her attention was taken again by her father, who was smiling sweetly at her. He nodded his head, as if to say he didn't mind if Ric knew the whole truth. "Serena!" Ric shot at her to take back her attention. "I want to know because, contrary to what you probably believe, I care about you."

Serena shook her head. "You would hate me, Ric. I would rather keep you in the dark than have you hate me." With that she got to her feet and headed to the lift, pressing the button. She had no patience, however, and a need to escape, so she abandoned the lift and started climbing stairs methodically and deliberately with no real thought for the man she was running from.

But she should have known that Ric Griffin would not give up so easily. "Serena!" his voice called up the stairs to her. She hadn't even heard him coming after her. On the landing, she stopped walking against her judgement; she turned around to see him walking up the steps, and she froze. "I won't hate you. I can't hate you."

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