I haven't finished the next chapter of A New Beginning, so thought I'd give you the first chapter of one of my new stories instead. Thanks CJ4Eva for the idea

"My name is Charlie Buckton and three months ago, I died. Not literally, obviously or I wouldn't be here, talking to you, but for all intents and purposes, Charlie Buckton died. And how I got here is something I'm not proud of. You see, I got involved with a man I never should have given the time of day to and because I did, my life spiralled out of control.

His name was Darryl Braxton, Brax for short and he was sexy, exciting and I was pretty much completely sucked in by his charm and before I realised it, my life was going from one bad thing to another, finally ending on what was, ironically, my last day as a police officer, with two fateful gunshots that had nothing to do with me being a cop but nonetheless, forever changed my life.

I had been happy that day, getting ready to leave not just my career behind, but Summer Bay as I had planned to move to the city for a new life that was well away from all of our troubles. Brax was coming with me, as was my daughter Ruby and his little brother, Casey. We were ditching his other brother Heath because he was nothing but trouble but I'll get to that later. Anyway, Jake Pirovic had other ideas and with those two shots, which I can tell you hurt like fucking hell, Charlie Buckton died and then woke up in some strange place that didn't have the sterile feel or hustle and bustle of a hospital, feeling terrified, hurt and with some guy telling me I was dead. Confused the hell out of me because I was pretty sure I was alive and he looked like no angel, for a start, he had no wings but he did have a very unimpressed look on his face.

The unimpressed face belonged to Detective Sergeant Daniel McWilliams of the Drug Squad or Mac, as he preferred to be called. I actually had a string of other names for him after the way he so unfairly decided to play god with my life and even though part of his motive for doing so was to save it, I hate the way he made such a decision without me, especially as it meant ripping my little girl's heart out by 'killing' me. In some fairness to him, there is no way I would have let him do so had I been conscious, unless of course, he let Ruby come with me, which wasn't really practical, but still, when it's your life, you'd like some say in the matter, instead of having someone else make such a life altering decision for you, like Mac did.

You see, on the day I was shot, he intercepted Dr Sid Walker outside the operating theatre, just after Sid had operated on me to save my life. Apparently I had been an extremely lucky lady, the bullets missing all my vital organs and aside from blood loss and being unconscious, I was in pretty good shape. Mac had other ideas though and he had instructed Sid to tell my loved ones that my injuries were severe and that because my brain had been starved of oxygen, I had no chance of survival and so my daughter had to decide whether to turn off my life support.

I found that unforgivable, not on Sid's part, but on Mac's part. It was bad enough he'd made all these decisions without me, but to put my daughter through not just my death, but also making her responsible for turning the machine off, well, let's just say that Mac was lucky that at the time, I was in no fit state to demonstrate how unbelievably angry I was with him. I did ask him though, what would have happened if Ruby had chosen to leave me on life support, he just said he never doubted her decision but if she proved him wrong, he would have found another way to kill me. It was a little unnerving the way we spoke about my death because if the bullets had been a fraction to the right or higher, I could easily have been dead for real.

As much as I didn't like her being forced into making such a difficult decision, I'm so proud of Ruby for being strong enough to make the one I'd have wanted her to make had it been for real, well, for Ruby, it was real, but you know what I mean and once the decision had been made, it was up to Sid to make it happen. Unfortunately, Brax nearly blew it by bringing a gun into the room where I was supposedly dying and barricading himself in. When Mac told me what went down, I was just so disappointed in Brax's selfishness, in not only endangering my daughter's life and the lives of everyone there by recklessly waving a loaded weapon around, but in keeping my beloved daughter from me in what was going to be her last moments with her dying mother. Anyway, Brax was disarmed after Casey talked him down and I have to say, I was a bit disappointed in my colleagues for not charging him for all the offences he'd committed in that room, but then, I'm hardly one to talk, especially where Brax was concerned."

I sigh unhappily. "He really had played such a huge role in my life in my final year and not in a positive way, but I won't go into that just yet. Back to my death, which had now been sanctioned, so to speak, for the second time in as many days. Jake Pirovic had administered his form of justice with bullets, his reason for doing so is another thing I'll explain later, so please, bear with me, because there's rather a lot to get through and it will take some time. So, while it is believed that Jake's bullets were responsible for my death, my 'death' was really the result of a drug that was administered to me by Sid. The drug, along with some tampering on my life support machine, made it look like my heart had stopped and to everyone in that room, to all my friends praying for my recovery, I was no longer alive, I was kaput, had kicked the bucket, was now living challenged, well, you get the picture - I was dead.

I'm glad I was sedated at the time, as I don't believe I could have coped at all with my death or the devastation and loss my daughter must have felt watching her mother dying and knowing she'd never see me again. Just being away from her is painful, but at least I know she's alive, Ruby doesn't have that because she believes her mother is dead and that she is now alone in this world. She has no other family, well she does, but they are strangers and the only one she is close to, is Morag, my step-mother, who I know will be there for Ruby should my daughter need her, but in essence, Ruby is now alone.

Of course, I had no idea of any of this until I woke up in a room with Mac standing over me."