A/N: Hello, my friends. Well, this is just a bit of silliness, but I could help myself. I hope you like it :)

Sarah x

Serena sat down next to Jac with the biggest glass of wine she'd had in a long time. Two more weeks. Two more weeks and everything would go back to normal. Edward would change hospitals again and leave her alone. He was lucky to be alive. There had been a few instances she had daydreamed about the most brutal ways to murder him just for some peace and quiet.

Boiling him from the inside out and leaving no forensic evidence was currently the most appealing option.

She handed Jac her glass of Diet Coke and sighed, "I wonder if you can re-divorce your ex-husband just for the satisfaction of it."

"And that helps matters how, exactly?" retorted Jac, a red eyebrow raised at her as Jonny chucked her a bag of crisps and a Mars Bar, sitting in a tub chair next to the sofa while Serena and Jac claimed the comfy leather couch.

"It would make me feel better," she explained. "And it might just save his life, because right now the only thing that sounds as much fun as putting Edward Campbell through another divorce is to kill him slowly and painfully," she joked, though Jac looked rather startled by her sudden brutality.

Just then, a number of her colleagues wandered in, Jonny shouting them over to the corner of the pub they had abducted.

Mo, Chantelle, Harry, Michael and..."Henrik?" Serena spluttered incredulously, almost choking on her wine. She had only managed to get him to a bar once and she had had to disguise it as some stupid work meeting with the juniors.

"Nurse Lane hijacked me on my way to my car," he muttered darkly. Jac and Serena glanced at each other as he sat in the tub chair to Serena's left; both women started to giggle at the look Hanssen directed at Chantelle.

"Laugh all you want," he said. "Edward's on his way over."

That silenced Serena abruptly. She considered legging it right now but knew it would be just her luck to run into him at the door. Not to mention that she'd look like the insecure little lady who wasn't quite over the ex-husband, a role she would not play in front of the colleagues who were meant to respect her. She wasn't going to tolerate it. Well, she promised herself that now, she knew he would do what he always did and charm everyone around him until she had no choice but to let him tell his stories.

She pinched the bridge of her nose as she spotted Edward walk in and pull up a chair between Chantelle and Harry, an arm casually slung around each of their shoulders. She should have known he would get on with the youngsters; he still acted like one himself. "Grow up," she muttered under her breath.

"Sorry, Serena," Edward smiled. "Didn't quite catch that."

All eyes fell on Serena. "Nothing," she dismissed. "Still drinking vodka and coke?" she asked sweetly as an excuse not to admit what she had really said, adding in her head that she'd rather have him wear it than drink it. She got up and went to the bar, ordering a vodka and coke, resisting the overwhelming temptation to throw it at Edward when she handed the glass to him.

"Thanks, love."

"Don't push your luck," she snapped.

"Can't push something you don't have," he pointed out with a shrug of his shoulders.

She sat down and glared at him, feeling the uncertain tension of her colleagues, not to mention Henrik and Michael's cynical amusement. Michael was grinning openly, and she had to forgive him for it because he was strangely adorable when he was happy, but the smirk Hanssen was wearing was enough to make a saint lose their temper.

"It's not a lack of luck you suffer from," she retorted. "It's a lack of brain cells." Her comment reduced Jonny, Jac and Mo into fits of laughter, and everyone bar herself, Henrik and Edward followed suit, though even Edward was smiling. "I'm going to kill you for hiring him," she grumbled to Hanssen.

"I didn't know he's your ex-husband, did I?!" he defended himself.

"It's called 'research,'" she replied, taking a drink from her glass. "The name might have set off some alarm bells, surely?"

"It's a common name."

"Common name, my arse," she snorted.

"It is!"

She was unaware that the rest of them had continued conversing without her until everyone's attention turned to Jac and Jonny, and Serena was thankful Edward had laid off her for now. "So when's the baby due?" Michael asked interestedly. While everyone now knew Jac was pregnant, they had not heard much about it from the woman herself.

"January," Jac answered, and Serena sensed her discomfort. "By which time I'll be the size of a house," she added grouchily.

"Comes with the territory," Serena replied, trying to cheer the younger woman up. "I put on loads of weight carrying Eleanor. Though that might have had something to do with the Nutella."

"And the pizza," Edward reminded her.

"And the chocolate."

"And the curries."

"And the cheese on toast."

"And the chocolate cake you sent me to Tesco for at one in the morning," Edward recalled the time she had nagged him, six months pregnant, until he got out of bed and got her some cake. This was the first instance since he'd shown up that they had reminisced with no animosity. "You would have had a dozen children if it wasn't for-"

"Shut it," she snapped before he could tell everyone the reason she only had one daughter when she had wanted more kids. Her sudden aggressiveness made Chantelle jump, so she gave the young nurse a look of apology before returning her iciest glare to Edward. Just when they were getting on, he always had to go and ruin it with that big mouth of his!

"If it wasn't for what?" Michael asked; he was the only one who wasn't really scared of Serena and therefore had the backbone to ask what everyone wanted to know.

"Oh, well done," she sneered at Edward. "Go on then. You might as well. Can't leave them wondering."

Edward sighed when he realised that Serena still hated talking about her invisible condition and its few consequences. "Serena has spina bifida occulta," he explained. "Carrying children puts too much strain on her back for it to be safe."

"Oh!" Michael exclaimed. "She's hidden it well. Wouldn't have known if you hadn't told me."

"She's got the latex allergy to go with it," Edward added.

"Hello!" Serena waved both her arms in frustration. "I am still here!"

Serena leaned her elbow against the arm of the sofa, groaning inwardly as she rested her head in her hand. "You never said anything," Hanssen whispered.

"Why would I? You're hardly my biggest fan," she reasoned with him. "This is going to be a nightmare. I'll have no secrets left by the time he's finished." She glanced up to see Hanssen smiling quietly to himself. "Don't make me wipe that smirk off your face." She drained her glass, knowing it probably wasn't wise to drink so much so quickly, but she really didn't care at that moment.

She felt Jac's hand on her arm and turned slowly to see her looking genuinely concerned. "Are you alright with this or do you want me to break his face for you?" she asked quietly. A smile spread across Serena's face at the offer but, as tempting as it was, she knew Edward better than to think a bloodied nose would shut him up. There was more than one way to skin a cat, and to skin this one she had to play him at his own game.

"It's fine." She glanced at Jac's empty glass bottle and added, "Want another? I'm going to need a whole bottle at this rate." She placed a hand on Henrik's shoulder as she got to her feet and asked him, "What are you wanting to drink?"

"Whatever you're having," he replied. Well, that was easier than she had expected, at least. She wandered over to the bar, wondering how she was going to make it through tonight without spilling all of Edward's secrets. She reminded herself that some of them concerned her and were unpleasant to relive, but his earliest demonstrations of stupidity at Harvard and early on in their marriage could be entertaining at only his expense.

She moaned to herself and came back with three drinks in between her hands. Hanssen took his quickly so she didn't drop them and she sat down and handed Jac her Diet Coke – apparently she preferred to drink it out of the bottle rather than pour it in a glass.

"...so we're in this garage, and she's arguing with this poor apprentice," Edward recounted to his colleagues. He had Michael, Harry, Mo and Jonny in stitches of laughter, Chantelle looking like she wanted to laugh but she didn't want to hurt Serena's feelings and Jac and Henrik looking amused but trying not to let one. "She tells him she's not paying three hundred quid to replace a steering rack that's not broken, jumps under the ramp and shows him the loose wishbone and worn ball joint. She hands him a ratchet and tells him, 'Get on with it then.' Poor lad didn't know what hit him."

Even Jac sniggered at that one. Serena had to hand it to him - he did a good impersonation of her.

"Never take her in a garage," Edward advised them with a wisdom she wanted to forcibly beat out of him. "She'll have them all out of a job and the place ticking over like clockwork."

"Have you finished embarrassing me yet?" Serena drawled at him, trying to sound bored rather than irritated.

"Oh, but this is fun, Ms. Campbell!" Harry protested. "I didn't know half of these things about you."

"Yeah, it's about time someone unravelled Ms. Campbell for us," Jonny boldly added. Serena made a mental note never to let Edward near her colleagues while they were drinking; it was a bad combination. She sank into her seat, decidedly wound up, and plotted to get her own back.

"It's only a bit of fun," Edward assured her. "Anyway, you've got nothing to be worried about. It's not like you've cheated or got too far out of line, is it?"

"Unlike some," she muttered darkly, wondering whether it would be crossing a line to let everyone know just how they had separated. She wanted to own her side of the street, but she didn't want to sound as bitter about it as she actually was.

She knew that she was being made to sound like a right horror story, but she had to admit that she had already painted a similar picture herself.

Chantelle, suddenly, spoke. "Ms. Campbell's not that bad," she defended Serena, who smiled thankfully at her.

"Oh, no," Edward agreed. Serena looked around to find Hanssen quietly enjoying himself. He was as irritating as Edward but in a polar opposite way; she wanted to knock their heads together. "No, Serena is the most beautiful, funny, intelligent woman I've ever met."

The compliment stunned Serena and she felt everyone's eyes boring into her, expecting a response of some sort. "And there's a reason your nickname is 'Satan,'" she retorted. "You're the spawn of the Devil."

"Now now," she heard Hanssen warn her. "Play nice."

Edward brushed it off and continued to tell the story of how she had proven a garage full of qualified and almost-qualified mechanics wrong.

Jac said to her, "You sure you don't want me to break his face for you?"

The wine must have been going to her head, because she answered the redhead quietly, "There's more than one way to skin a cat. Watch and learn, my friend."

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