/Just a little conversation between Charlie and Rose set some time post s4. Written as practice writing Rose's narrative voice. Not sure if I like it or not, but yah know it broke me out of my writing slump so that's good. Not written as a pairing but you can read it like that if you want.

"What the Hell were you thinking?" There are voices that you want to hear when you wake up. Like your mother. Father. Sister. Brother. Cousin. Uncle. Second cousin. Uncle twice removed on your step mother's sister's husband's brother's wife's third cousin's side. And then there are voices you don't really want to hear when you wake up. Point in question: Sergeant Charlie Davis. Her second least favourite sergeant at the Ballarat police station. That is to say that she likes him slightly more than she likes Bill Hobart. And she does not particularly like Bill Hobart. In fact, if she was forced to put words to it, Rose Anderson could very safely say, that in fact, she held a strong dislike for Bill Hobart.

She rolled over slowly, as to not put any pressure on her painful shoulder, to meet his gaze. He looked unimpressed, which is not new. Charlie apparently, has three facial expressions. Verge of tears, unimpressed and bordering on anger, that weird look his got when he looked at the doctor that if she didn't know him, she might mistake for a small smile. He looked pretty worse for wear, though, and that gives her a slightly pleasant feeling in her stomach. The left side of his face is obscured by a large graze, and there is a gauze pad over the eye on the questionable side of his face. His arms are folded over his chest, and he's wearing that God awful green dressing gown that he inherited from her uncle. Curiously, she notes his hair is unstyled, and it was a lot curlier then she had hypothesized it would be. She'd thought it would be the sort of lose curl, easily smoothed out. It was actually a very tight curl, and one, charmingly, was sitting on his forehead. (Did she just think of something about Charlie Davis as being charming? Maybe she hit her head harder than she thought. )

"I was thinking I was going to get a story." Charlie raises the eyebrow that is not anchored to the gauze pad.

"By walking into the playground of a serial killer." It's not a question, and she feels a sort of regret in her stomach. Charlie still has his arms folded.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." She said, in her own lame defense. She tries to suss out her own injuries. There was a bullet in her shoulder, that much she could remember. Bruises. Scrapes. She must have twisted her left ankle at some point. Unfortunate. She wouldn't be able to wear high heeled shoes until that was heeled. She musn't look an awful lot better than him, she supposed. She could feel the tangles in her hair, and one of her eyes was swollen and only agreed to open half way.

"A good idea at the time." He mimicked, in a tone that she found very annoying instantly. He should stick to what he was good at. Policing, and possibly wrangling Bill Hobart.

"Don't quit your day job." She said, turning her face mostly into her pillow.

"You almost died." Charlie said, his frown was strong as she assumed his arms were. (not that she spends a great deal of time thinking about how strong his arms were.)

"So did you."
"Yeah. Saving you."
"Did you want a thank you?" He doesn't have a reply right away, just sort of folds in on his top half so he can rest his face in his hands. "Have you seen my uncle?"
"I sent him home. He'd been watching over you for forty hours straight." She hadn't thought she'd been asleep that long. Surely, that was an exaggeration. It had to be.
"Really?" Charlie's brow furrows slightly.
"How long do you think you've been out for?" Pause. "It's Thursday." Now that was something she hadn't expected. She sighed softly, though it's mostly lost into her pillow. Great. Fantastic. Exactly the news she wanted to hear right now. Maybe someone should teach Charlie a bit of tact.
"Normally when someone gets shot, people show a little sympathy."
"Normally someone getting shot doesn't end up with me almost being blinded in one eye."
"Sorry about that."
"Yeah well I wasn't about to let you die. Then I'd never get to hold this over your head for the rest of your natural life."
"You're a charmer, Charlie." She sighed, opening her good eye again to look at him. He was still bent over. She wonders if Mattie O'Brain would have done something like this, but banishes the thought as quickly as she has it. No point in comparing herself to anyone else.
"Don't tell anyone." He replied, in what, if he was capable of sounding less tired, could have been almost a jest. Except it's not. Because he sounds like he literally smoked an entire cigarette factory, and followed it by a barrel of brandy. And then was attacked by wild dogs in the middle of the bush and blew out his voice yelling for help.

"You sound like shit."
"Thanks."
"When did you last rest?" He looks over his shoulder to a clock Rose can't see, then looks back to her.
"Ten hours ago."
"And the doctor let you get away with that?" Keeping Charlie on bedrest was hard work, she'd heard her uncle complain about it enough the last time he was injured. He just didn't know when to take a fucking break. Idiot. Why were all men like this? What was there to be gained from working oneself into an early grave. Clearly, Charlie didn't see it like that.
"The doctor doesn't know." She can't help but smile into her pillow. While yes, he was an annoying git sometimes, (most times) and yes, it was fun to press his buttons, somewhere, under all that awkwardness and poor choices, there was actually a nice boy. One who she didn't mind. Much.

"You look tired."
"Yeah well, maybe if my friends didn't decide to run like crazy people into abandoned places with murderers I would actually be able to sleep without waking up in a cold sweat every hour. Just a thought." Now she did actually feel a little bad.

"You have bad dreams? About me?"
"It's just the trauma talking. Don't go getting a big head." She could have laughed, if she didn't think it would hurt her already aching upper body, and possibly make Charlie fold further in on himself.
"You wanna talk about it?"
"About as much as I want to cut my own tongue out with a rusty pocket knife."
"Tell it in story form. Maybe your droning voice will put me to sleep." Even though she's not seeing him, she can feel the eye roll in the air as Charlie debated indulging her or not. He was pretty predictable, when you really put your mind to it. Most people are. He took a deep breath, and then started talking.

"Once upon a time, there was a young woman named Rose, who worked at a shitty local paper. Rose was no ordinary woman. Once, when a bad guy tried to hurt her, she hit him right in the face with a dictionary. Rose was friends with a police man named Charlie, who was the most handsome man at the whole station where he worked."
"Was that a joke, Charlie Davis?" She interrupted suddenly, perhaps slightly in shock. Jokes from Charlie were few and far between, and the only person who'd ever laugh at them was the Doctor, and she suspected that was more out of pity than anything else.
"Do you want me to tell the story or what? Where was I? Oh, right. Where he worked. One day, in the little town where the two lived, there was a murder, followed by another, and another. Even Doctor Blake, the smartest man in the whole town, possibly all of Australia, the country where they lived, couldn't solve them. Until one day, someone, maybe the murderer sent a letter to Rose at the paper where she worked. She opened that letter, and inside, was an address for her to go to for her story, as well as a picture of a dead woman. Rose, despite being a very good writer, is not the smartest woman in the town where they lived. Rather than do the smart thing, and call her friend Charlie to tell him that she had a clue, Rose decides to go on her own to the creepy building. Meanwhile, Doctor Blake also finds the location of the warehouse, but because he has to tend to his patients, he sends Charlie in his place. Frank, the head of the local police, ensures that Charlie is armed, because he doesn't know what's going to happen when he arrives. When Charlie arrives at the building, he gets into a fight with the murderer. During the fight, Rose, who was tied to a chair, is shot, and even though Charlie shoots the man who shot her, he can't stop. He can't stop her from bleeding. And she bleeds, and bleeds and bleeds."

"That's horrible."
"You're telling me." He said, finally looking up from the palms of his hand. He gazes at her, for a long few seconds, and then looks back down to his hand, like he can't stand to look at her any longer. She feels somber. It's an unusual feeling. Usually, she feels bursting with energy. Now she just feels like lethargy embodied.
"I didn't realize."
"No one did."
"No, I mean I didn't realize it would affect you." He jammed the palm of his hand into his good eye quite roughly. She reached out with her good arm to stop him, lest he damage his remaining good eye. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry doesn't mean anything if you're dead." He replied, with a soft sigh. He pulled his wrist out of her grasp, and sat back again. "People care about you, Rose. Good people. I don't…I don't want them to be hurt. I don't want you to be hurt."
"I said I was sorry."
"Well prove it. Don't do something so stupid again. No story is worth your life." Rose nodded into her pillow, and shut her eyes. It was a lot of effort to keep them open. Charlie was silent for several seconds, before saying
" You should rest. I'll be here when you wake up."
"Will you rest?"
"I'll pretend when the doctor comes in."
"Alright." She agreed, closing her good eye, and turning away from him as well she can, listening to the soft rustles of his clothes as he pulled a blanket around his shoulders.