War Paint

Serena Campbell was not normally one for loitering at doors; she was for to direct a person for that. And yet, here she was, loitering at a door, unable to make her hands open the door or her feet cross the threshold.

The problem was that she knew the reality on the other side of the door that frightened her. It was a harsh reminder that the world wasn't fair, and that reminder had caused her to do exactly what she had been accused of earlier – she was indeed overprotective of Jason, and Morven, and Fletch, and Raf, and AAU, and, of course, Arthur.

The light was dim and the ward was quiet, for it was night, and time for patients to be sleeping. She herself had clocked off over an hour ago, and she didn't quite know what she was doing in the building this late.

"I thought I might find you up here."

Serena startled at the sound of a familiar voice breaking the quiet of the ward. However, she didn't turn. Instead, she gazed through the blinds of the window, at a battle being lost and a life being taken. It wasn't like she'd not seen it before; she'd seen many people die too young. However, she had not cared about a person this much who was dying before he had lived. Her mother was different – she had died well into her seventies, having lived a full life and, as it had transpired, had two children. Arthur was barely getting started and already his time was limited.

A hand fell onto her shoulder; it was a conscious movement not to shrug it off out of habit. After all, who was she trying to please by being stoic about this, when she was not in the company of those who needed her solidity? They were not watching her – at the moment, they had one another to confide in. That was what she hoped, anyway.

Her instinct was still to pretend she felt nothing, but pretending she was alright when she wasn't didn't work anymore.

How ironic life was, she mused, that the young man who looked after himself was going to die before she did, and she was twenty years older and had definitely not treated her internal organs with much care. Not ironic as much as unfair, she corrected herself. But then she knew life wasn't fair already. It had taught her that much about itself.

Only now did she realise that she hadn't replied. But, as it turned out, she didn't need to. This silence was not uncomfortable; it was a quiet camaraderie, left assumed and unquestioned. Finally, she felt the war paint washing off her face. There was no more camouflage for her now. Not until she walked back into her home and started to care for Jason again. Which, she realised, she ought to be getting on with soon.

There was something in her that told her to stay where she was for the time being, because there was something to be gained from remaining here just now. "Are you OK?"

That was a question Serena honestly didn't know the answer to. She knew she would be OK, at some point down the line, but she wasn't sure if she was OK in this moment. Her future state could be counted upon because it was necessary for her to, in the end, be alright. In the here and now, though, she found this scenario painful. More painful than she had been expecting it to be. Though she had mentored Arthur, helped him with his general anxiety disorder, taught him something of how to stand up for himself, she had never fully appreciated how much she cared about him until now. Until she had to lose him. Between her, Hanssen, Ric and Sacha, they had made a good doctor and a brilliant man of the young, awkward, blunt, nervous, socially clueless boy who first stepped through those doors.

And now he had to go.

She felt sorry for Morven in all of this, of course. She didn't deserve to lose her husband so soon after they had found one another. But even more than for Morven, her heart broke for Dominic and Zosia, who shared a home and so much of their love and life with Arthur. Dom and Arthur were sometimes joined at the hip, despite their rocky start; Zosia, too, was very close to Arthur. The inevitable outcome of this was bound to turn their world upside down.