Over the sound of her own gasping breaths and weak sobs, she can hear a voice calling her name. She runs through the darkness, knowing she will not make it in time to save the life of someone she cares about. She runs as fast as she can, but the darkness seems to push back, slowing her further as she stumbles desperately on, tripping on obstacles unseen, she throws another fearful glance over her shoulder, neither seeing nor knowing what she sought, but afraid nonetheless. The voice calls her again, quiet as though far away, but also humming somehow with proximity to her. The voice is warm and gentle; the voice worries for her. Something strikes her shoulder. She whips around with a gasp, ready to scream.
"Mattie, shh. It's only me," the voice came again, murmured from just above her in the more natural, and less complete, darkness of her bedroom. A warm hand rested lightly on her shoulder, and she could make out the shadowy silhouette of the speaker.
She sighed and fell back onto the mattress from her tensed half-upright position. The friendly figure beside her bed straightened, the warmth of a soothing hand lost. She was sweaty and her legs tangled in the bedclothes. Her face felt tight, as though she had been crying, and she wondered if she had been.
"I didn't mean to scare you," Charlie said, shifting his weight between his legs. "I got up for water, and I heard you through the door. You were talking, sort of wailing and crying... I did knock..." he trailed off, folding his arms close to his lean body; in the dim light she could see the shape of his bare arms and tight-t-shirt-clad body, his curls which were always unruly at night, she had eventually come to know.
Charlie was a reserved sort of man, she reflected, and polite and formal on the surface. As their little circle grew more familiar with him, trusted him a little more than before, his frosty exterior thawed a little, and he granted them the occasional smile, joke or favour. Even though this was his home for his time here in Ballarat, though, one wasn't likely to catch him walking around in his pyjamas or half-dressed with hair-ungroomed without a darn good reason.
He stood there next to her bed uncomfortably, while she lay and tried to calm her thrumming pulse, before clearing his throat quietly. "Well, sorry I woke you up. Just wanted to check that you were okay. If you don't need anything...?" he jerked a thumb at the ajar door and began walking backwards towards it slowly.
Mattie sat up. She felt jittery after this latest nightmare and his company was comforting. She wondered if he had been trained to be a solid and reassuring presence at some point in order to be made a constable, or if it came naturally. She thought of Danny and Bill Hobart, deciding it was probably inherent in his personality. "Wait," she said, and he halted his retreat. She wished she could see his face, more easily guess at what he was feeling, but she did see him move his head to the side slightly, which she imagined was accompanied by his raised eyebrows that silently communicated that he was awaiting further instruction.
She reached over to the bedside table flicking on the lamp. They both blinked in the sudden light, dull and further muted by the lampshade though it was. She squinted at him - then just looked at him - helplessly. She hated feeling helpless; she was strong and smart and didn't take no for an answer. But she was also grieving and shaken, and not too proud to refuse comfort and assistance when it was there for the taking.
He walked closer again. "Do you want to talk about it?" he offered, voice low so as not to wake Jean, who was presumably asleep in the room next to hers, between Mattie's and Charlie's.
She nodded with a weak smile and an embarrassed sniffle. She righted her blankets and slid to the far side of the bed, patting the area next to her in a silent invitation. He perched on the edge, facing her and at a safe distance. Mattie supposed the whole situation was a bit scandalous if taken out of context, and from her observation Charlie seemed to follow rules and social norms alike with a passion, at least until they clashed enough with his moral compass.
The young sergeant nodded encouragingly, much as he would when interviewing a shy witness, perhaps a child. She didn't find the gesture patronising, just saw that patience and desire to help that motivated him. She drew in a shaky breathe, hoping she was sufficiently composed to make it through her explanation.
"I've had these nightmares, lately. I had nightmares when a doctor at the hospital, Hazel, who was a friend of mine died. I, and a few other nurses, found her. We thought she'd hanged herself, but it was murder. That was just before Lucien went to find his daughter, so maybe a month before you came," she recounted. She had come to terms with the loss, and those dreams had rarely visited her in recent months. Nevertheless, she felt the tears welling up in her eyes and she pressed her mouth shut to struggle for control.
Charlie's sympathetic face morphed into one that called to mind her father calming her down when she was upset as a girl. He moved to sit closer beside her, rubbing her back, between her shoulder blades, with a gentle rhythm. She snaked her arms around his narrow waist and buried her face in his warm chest. He seemed surprised, freezing for a moment, before putting his arms around her, hugging her back with a gentle squeeze.
She could hear his steady heartbeat, feel his deep breathing and the movement of muscle and tendon as he shifted. It was so comforting, so warm. He rubbed her back slowly, and she relaxed against his firm but inviting form.
Turning her head to the side so that her voice wouldn't be muffled by fabric, she continued. "I was mostly past that. But when Emma was shot a few weeks ago-" her voice cracked, and he hummed in understanding, nodding and petting her hair gently. Again, it reminded her of her father, from a time before politics and philosophy came between them, his sure demeanour lending her strength.
"Everything's dark. There are always things in my way... Sometimes people trying to pull me back, but I'm running. I'm running as fast as I can because someone is dying and I don't know who but I have to save them and I love them. And something's is behind me. I can't see it but I know it's there," the words spilled from her mouth, rising in pitch until her companion shushed her gently. "Usually I wake up after it goes on like that for a while. Sometime I can hear people saying I'm letting them down, that it's my fault people are dying. But the worst thing is, sometimes I give up; I fall and don't get up because I know I'll never make it in time." The last sentence was quiet, haunted. Weighed by the burden of loss that few so young bore so many times over. Mattie had seen several friends and colleagues pass in recent years, and it was bound to have some effect.
Charlie hugged her tightly to him, keeping up the comforting movement on her back. After a period of silence, she felt him breathe in to speak. "As I'm sure you're well aware, dreams like that are just your mind ruminating on what it's afraid of. Mattie. You are one of the most determined and headstrong people I've ever met, maybe right behind the doc. I really can't see you giving up on anyone," he laughed quietly. "That people die - it wasn't your fault. You just have to find a way to accept their death and move on. Remember them, but don't torture yourself when there was nothing that you could have done," he advised, his tone sombre.
Mattie pulled back to look him in the eye. "You sound like you have some experience in the area," she noted carefully.
Their arms were still loosely at each other's waist, until he pulled back, his face turning formal as he focused on the wall. "Yeah, well. Being a policeman isn't the safest job in the world," he hedged making her frown at him. He stood and took a few steps away, before pausing and facing her again. Though his face was still stoic, his voice was soft. "My dad died when I was still in school. It took years to properly deal with it," he admitted to the little flowers on the wallpaper over her shoulder.
She nodded sombrely, neither of them speaking for a while. She looking at him sympathetically from her cocoon of quilts and sheets, and remained rigid and disciplined like a proper policeman as he mulled over the misfortunes of his past. A shudder coursed through his slender form, shaking him out of his reverie. No wonder, Mattie thought, since it was the middle of winter and they didn't heat the expansive house at night, and he wore his skin-tight t-shirt and pyjama bottoms with bare feet as always. She could see goose bumps on his exposed arms cast in shadow from the low light of her bedside lamp.
He looked back at her with his caring expression, open and trusting and offering a glimpse of what he was like with his brothers back in Melbourne. He tightly crossed his arms for warmth rather than defensiveness. "Can I get anything for you? Or do you reckon you'll be alright now?" he asked.
She ran a hand over her hair as she thought, before mimicking his pose for comfort. She felt okay right now, calmer and safer, with the grief of friends gone too soon more distant. It was as though the little world of her bedroom, speaking in hushed tones with Charlie, she wasn't so fragile, and that tougher version of herself was in another world. Here, she didn't have to fight to be taken seriously, and nobody was looking for a weak link in her armour to exploit.
She shook her head gently, her short curls bouncing unrestrained, and gave a little smile. Charlie ducked his head and returned her smile in a gesture that probably normally accompanied a small tip of his hat. He made to leave and Mattie felt her anxiety begin to creep back from the periphery at the prospect of being alone, in the dark, in absolute quiet until sunrise when the birds would start up.
"I know you probably have work..." she blurted. Charlie raised an eyebrow when she stopped mid-sentence, or maybe because of the urgency in her voice. In the dull light filtering through the lampshade his strikingly pale eyes looked like little pieces of the midnight sky beyond her curtains against porcelain skin.
"I guess I'm afraid to be on my own. I'm just tired of the nightmares, but I know they'll start up as soon as I fall back asleep, as always," she admitted, looking down at her hands. She was asking him to stay with her, though not in so many words. Jean would not be pleased, and Mattie knew what it sounded like. She just hoped that Charlie's drive to help people extended this far, and that he didn't care how it sounded.
He seemed to deliberate. "How about I wait with you until you fall asleep?" he offered with a grin. This was definitely the sort of thing one would do to placate a child, but Charlie's soothing presence was worth bearing the amusement dancing about the edges of his mouth.
He walked back over to the bed, then paused. "I'm going to freeze to death," he said under his breath as he folded himself into a comfortable seated position on the mattress, but they had already been whispering and she heard him perfectly clearly.
"I'm willing to share the quilt. It's the warmest in the house," she confided, with a grin.
After another considering pause, he stood and slid under the covers to lean on the pillows and stretch his long legs out beside her. She uncurled and lay down, resisting the temptation to snuggle up against his side. He took the hand resting in front of her face and held it between his own, rubbing the back slowly with a thumb. Mattie watched, mesmerised by the repetitive motion, his fingers long and deft, and of course ghostly pale to match the rest of him, wrapped around her own, smaller hand.
As they sat in silence, he rested his head against the wall, switching off the lamp and staring at the ceiling, shrouded in thick shadow. Mattie could still see him in the little moonlight sneaking into the room. The inky cloak falling over the familiar surroundings couldn't obscure him, and so she felt beyond its reach too.
Their clasped hands rested on his flat stomach, rising and falling with each breath. She felt the muscles bunch and relax as he shifted a little farther down into the bed. He yawned, the movement of his defined jaw sliding beneath skin fascinating. He fell still aside from his fingers, face upturned and so hidden to her, so she focused back on their hands.
They weren't rough, but just a smidgeon smoother than hers. Typing, writing and running weren't particularly rough work in terms of the hands; he was more likely to hurt his knuckles than get blisters. Her usual routine wasn't onerous in that sense either, but as a nurse she had to wash her hands frequently. She mused on the fact that he was a protector - he used those hands to restrain criminals, threw them up discourage violence, direct traffic and comfort witnesses and victims - and so was she. She stitched wounds, righted bedclothes, comforted and treated and soothed. And now he was protecting her, shielding her in a far more symbolic sense than was his usual mode, but it was unusual for her to need it. She could make it on her own, but having someone to lean on rather than being the support was a relief.
Mattie relaxed. She hadn't slept in the same bed as another person since she was young; she had been in bed with Joe when she thought she was in love with him and he visited from Melbourne, but had sneaked out of the house before she could be seen or missed. The warmth and gentle noises reminding her that she wasn't alone were very welcome changes to her routine.
"Are you asleep yet?" Charlie breathed. She felt him as well heard him say it, as she was sure there was humour in his voice.
She poked him in the stomach, eliciting a flinch and whispered cry of complaint. "No, and asking me isn't going to help, you know," she chastised with a smile. Charlie let go of her hand and crossed his arms with a harrumph. Hers was left on his belly, but she didn't bother moving it. She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind.
After several minutes of peace, her companion started wriggling. He stretched his back this way and that, and she swatted his tummy gently. "What are you doing now?" she mumbled half into her pillow.
"This bedhead is a lot less comfortable than it looks," he said.
"Well, move."
"That's what I'm doing."
"I meant move properly."
"Fine," he groaned. He slid down so that he lay completely on the bed, rotating his shoulders as if testing he would be comfortable there. His head of chestnut curls rested on the other pillow, so she could stare at his handsome face to her heart's content. In the process her hand had slid to the far side of his waist, and it would be strange to move it at this point, so she left it there. She hadn't moved all the way to the far side of the bed, wanting to be closer to where he sat, but she was now probably too close, inadvertently embracing him and narrowly avoiding pressing their bodies together down their length. After feeling a little awkward initially, however, Mattie soon slipped off into dreamless sleep.