A/N: Full disclosure, this is not what I usually write. It was began for Bug's drabble challenge for 'red' but grew a life of it's own. Warnings for attempted sexual assault (nothing especially graphic) and canon typical violence.

In Mattie's defense, her father started it. Or maybe it was her but realistically, by creating her, it was her father who started it. And even if it was her who started it, it didn't matter. It had led her to run from the house and get lost in the streets of Melbourne. The dark, spooky streets of Melbourne. The sort which had the uncanny nature of a gothic castle to the young lady who had never stepped much out of her comfortable neighbourhood. The one in the higher society of ye olde town.

Her shoes pinched her squished feet. The little kitten heels doing their best to keep up with her walking down the darkened road. They hurt. Feet were not made to be squished into this shape, it's not natural. She had no idea how she was going to get home from here, on account of having no money. Her purse was, for the most, just for lipgloss and show. She stomped on, trying to keep her weight evenly distributed between her feet.

"Hey, pretty lady!"

Mattie turned slightly to see a teenager about her age having a smoke while leaning on a burnt out light post. She didn't pay any attention and kept on moving. She figured that if she kept walking back the way she came then she would end up back where she started. except that she had no idea if she was actually going back where she came from; or if she was moving around in circles.

"Hey!" The guy called after her, and she heard his feet following after her. She tried to speed up, but the shoes crippled her. Preventing her from going too fast and making headway in the very slow game of chasey they were playing.

"Don't you know it's not nice to ignore someone when they give you a compliment?" He demanded. Mattie cursed her temper for the billionth time in as many milliseconds. How had she allowed herself to end up in a situation like this?

"Where are you going?" He asked, gaining ground easily. Mattie was quite sure that he didn't have exactly honorable intentions.

"Leave me alone!" She shouted back, not in any state to defend herself from an onslaught. Not in these shoes, or this dress.

"And let a lovely young woman walk alone in the dark of the night?"

"I'm fine." She said, trying to walk faster as the man kept gaining on her, clearly taking pleasure in making her struggle.

"You don't look like you're from around here."

"I'm fine!" She repeated, turning a corner and hoping that she looked like she knew where she was going. The man was not deterred. Damn it! Damn it all to Hell!

"I don't think you are. I've lived here my whole life and ain't never come across a dame as fine as you."

"Please, leave me alone!" She pleaded, considering kicking off her shoes and making a run for it. If anyone in the looming buildings overheard her, they didn't come to her rescue. If she got out of this, she was going to learn boxing so that she could beat any man who came near her. Before she can act on her thought, a hand grabs her by the arm and pulled her up against a wall.

"I just want to take you somewhere safe." He said he smelt like alcohol and cigarettes. He had a stain on the front of his shirt whose origins she didn't even want to know. One of his massive hands came up and took hold of her jaw. "It ain't safe for pretty gals like you to be out here."

She squirmed and tried to get away to no avail. A hand came to her wrist to grab her purse. Mattie scrambled in place, and then in a moment of brilliance jammed the heel of her shoe into his foot. With as much force as she is able. The bloke screams out, releasing her in shock. She abandoned her purse and stumbled away from him as fast as she could. She was running in what was now officially a blind panic. She overturned a metal garbage can and over her shoulder, she heard him stumble over it. Good, flashed in her brain as she tried to keep on moving.

She kept moving, losing one of her shoes in the rush. Having the shoes was bad, having one was even worse as she limped on and tried to kick the shoe off. She fails and ended up tripping and landing on the ground. Seeing her weakness, the man leaped for her. He grabbed a fistful of her skirt and held it in his hands, tearing at it in anger. She can only yell.

"Hey! What the Hell are you doing!"

Someone was here. Mattie began screaming for help as the new feet came into her limited field of vision.

"Fuck off, Davis." The man said, sitting up.

"Why don't you?" Davis asked as the man got to his feet, allowing Mattie to stumble and get to her feet.

"Why do you care? Ya want in?"

"Wha-No! She is clearly not a wanting partner to you right now. Get outta here."

"Be careful what you accuse me of, bastard." He said and threw a clumsy punch in Davis's general direction. Davis moves aside in time and then pulls up his fists and throws a punch of his own in return. The fist fight is brief. Davis got in a couple of punches before his small-ish size plays against him and he got thumped in the face. With the bloke slightly distracted whaling on the other man, she delivers one good kick to his leg that sends him to the ground.

Davis grabbed her purse and took her hand, leading her forward. They ran. The ground vanished under her bare feet as she thudded down the rough pavement. Davis pulled her around one corner and then the next with expert precision. Eventually. coming to a stop at the steps in front of an ancient looking building, even in this neighbourhood.

She panted for a few moments, and Davis gave her back her purse.

"Thanks." He said, leaning back on the big cement pillar.

"Ditto." She replied as they paused to clam themselves and their breathing.

"You got a name?"

"Do you?"

"I'm Charlie."

"Mattie."

"Just out of curiosity, what's a upper-class woman like you doin down here?" She looked at him.

"Do I really look that out of place?" She asked, not willing to admit to a total stranger that she was very, very lost.

"It's the dress. No one 'round here wears red. It's too hard to keep clean and it fades." Mattie looked down at her now damaged dress. She hadn't even been thinking about that. It was mostly ruined now, she thought, running her hands along it.

"What do they wear?"

"Brown and tan. You didn't answer my question."

"You did the right thing and helped me. I don't owe you shit."

"I'm not asking like that! You shouldn't be out this late. No one should be out this late."

"You're out this late." She pointed out. "What's your story?"

"Walking home."

"So late? From what?"

"A fight." Now, in the light, Mattie looked at Charlie's knuckles and noticed that indeed they were very bruised.

"What were you fighting for?"

"Money. I wanted to be a boxer."

"Why can't you be a boxer?"

"Because I'm going to carry on the family tradition and become a cop."

"Ah. I had a fight with my dad."

"Oh."

They paused again to take a breath and rest. Charlie did some knuckle cracking. They sounded a bit like pop caps.

"You got away to go home?"

"No." She admitted.

"Can you call them? Do you have a home phone?" Which is a strange question to her, everyone she knows has a phone.

"Don't you?"

"No. No one around here does." Now that he's out in the light, Mattie notices that his clothes are a bit worn. His pants are patched and almost worn through. That was probably cruel of her.

"Oh. Well, yeah. We have a phone."

"I can take you to a payphone," Charlie says, pushing himself up off the wall. Mattie nods and follows along beside him as he walked down the pathway under the bright light of the street lamps. "Oh, wait. Do you want to wear my shoes?" He offered. "It might protect your feet." She looked down at Charlie's white plimsoles and then nodded. They then stopped at another stairwell so Charlie could sit and take them off. Mattie notices blood against the heel but doesn't mention it. She tied them to her feet as tightly as she could. They were several sizes too big her for tiny size four feet. But they were protecting them against the rough concrete so she doesn't mention it.

Once she had the shoes on, they kept walking. She had no idea where she was or where the nearest phonebox was. She hadn't seen one for pretty much the entire time she'd been down in this neighbourhood.

"What did you and your dad fight about?" Charlie asked as they rounded a corner. Mattie debated not telling him but he seemed trustworthy enough and frankly, she did want to talk about it and have someone else condemn him.

"He told me that he doesn't want me to go to university because it might make him look bad." Charlie gave her a side eye.

"I thought all rich people went to university. It is the forties, after all." Mattie laughed, not particularly flustered as being labeled 'rich'.

"Well, we don't. There's plenty of women who just want to play tennis and get married. Then I don't know…Have some babies."

"You don't want to get married and have babies?"

"Maybe, in the future. I want to go to university. I want to be a nurse. I want to see the world. How about you? Do you just want to settle down and have babies?"

"Well if my mother had her way I'd already be married with babies."

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen just turned."

"That's too young to get married, I think. How will you know if you love someone at eighteen?"

"That's why I haven't gone along with it." Charlie explained, "In six months, I'll be joining the police force and then if I want to climb the ranks I might as well never get married. How about you? You don't look eighteen."

"I'm fifteen."

"And you're already thinking about the university? Most fifteen-year old's I know are more concerned about where to find a job."

"I want to make sure that he knows where I stand." She said, "You got a job?" Charlie nodded yes.

"I work for the fruit shop down on Briar Parade."

"Good produce?"

"I wouldn't know, I just think fruit is fruit." Mattie had no idea how to contradict him, knowing nothing about fruit either.

"You like working there?"

"It brings in money."

He pulled them to a stop in front of a large phonebox and held the door for her. She walked in and became aware of his closeness in the confined space. He fished around in his pants pocket for a few coins.

"I can't take your money." She said, concerned.

"How else are you going to call home?" He asked, rolling the coins into the machine. "I'll be outside."

She turned her number into the phone, listening to the click of the spinner. On the other end, the phone rang only once before her father came through.

"Constable, have you found her?" He called the police for her? He must be really worried.

"Daddy it's me."

"Matilda! Where are you?"

"Uh-" She paused, having not seen any street signs. "Hang on." She leaned out and looked for Charlie, who had started picking dried blood out from under his nails with a small piece of metal she couldn't identify. "Where are we?"

"Corner of Peachtree and Jackson drive."

"I'm on the corner of Peachtree and Jackson drive." She echoed.

"Who are you with?" He demanded.

"Someone who gave me directions to a phone box." She said, "Can you come get me?"

"I'll call the police station and send someone to get you." He said, "Are you alright?"

"I'm okay." She lied, "Just fine, I really want to go home. I'm sorry for storming off."

"As you should be." He said and did not apologize for upsetting her. "I'll see you shortly." And then he hung up.

Mattie put the phone back on the hook, looked at it and then pressed the coin return hopefully. Nothing happened. She stepped back out into the street.

"That was fast."

"He's not very happy with me."

"Ah." He paused, and then sat down on the gutter. His feet were red and a little swollen. She sat next to him, smoothing her skirt over her knees.

"Is he going to try and get you back?"

"Who? Icky? Nah. He'd have to admit he got suckered by a girl and I don't think his fragile ego could take it."

"Why do they call him Icky?"

"Cause none of us can say his real name. It's from one of those Scandinavian countries that make chocolate."

"Sweden?"

"Eh maybe. Never really been a mate with him to be honest." She could see why.

"I presume they call you Charlie because your name is Charles?"

"Charleston, actually."

"That's a very dignified name."

"If I ever get outta here, I'll fit right in." He said, jokingly. "How about Mattie? I've never met a girl called Mattie, but there's a bloke on my block called Mathias we call Matty."

"Well, I'm proud to be the first. It's short for Matilda."

"Like the song?"

"If you call me Waltzing Matilda then I'll punch your lights out." Charlie laughed, he had a weird, but affable sort of laugh that Mattie can very much imagine enjoying the company of.

"I'd like to see ya try, these fists are registered weapons."

"Dream on." She said, cheerfully. It'd been a long time since she'd had friendly banter with a member of the opposite sex.

They sat in silence for a pregnant moment, the air was cool but pleasant. She tugged a ring off of her finger and examined it in the yellow light. A gold band with a single pearl on it that she'd been given by her father as a gift for not causing a fuss a few weeks ago.

"Here." Charlie looked surprised as she offered it to him.

"What do you want me to do with it?"

"It's a payment, for all your help. And for the phone."

"I don't want it."

"I know. You should still keep it. Pawn if off, it'll be worth a few pounds at least."

"I mean I don't want charity."

"It's not charity. It's a payment." She curled his hand around it. "Please?" He sighed and tucked it into the same pocket he put the change in, probably because it was too small for his large, masculine fingers.

"Thanks." He said, finally. Like he really had to mull it over. "But I was just doing what anyone would do."

"I think you'll make a pretty good policeman."

"Thanks." He said, again. He looked very out of his depth. "If you can talk to your dad the same way you punch then I can't imagine you'll have any trouble getting into university. If that falls through, you don't need a degree to be a boxer." After a moment, she put her head on his shoulder. Her feet ached, she was exhausted and his bony shoulder more comfortable than the alternative of keeping her head upright.

They sat in comfortable silence again, neither of them prying too deeply into each other's personal histories. From where she was lying, his eyes looked less blue and more grey. She doesn't know quite how long she was waiting, just that she was struggling to keep her eyes open now she was out of both energy and adrenaline. A black car came to a stop a few feet away from them, and Charlie helped her to her feet like a proper gentleman.

The chauffeur opened the door and she slid inside, hesitating to say goodbye to her evening companion.

"Good night, Charlie."

"See you later, Miss Mattie."

And just like that, he was gone, and she was still wearing his shoes.