Placing her shaking hand on the door, Charlie twisted the door knob and as quietly as she could, she opened the door slowly. Holding her gun with a firm grip, she stepped out into the corridor, the cold floor on her bare feet sending a shiver down her spine. Just as she was about to move towards the kitchen she heard a noise coming from the living room. Feeling the tension rise, Charlie hesitated for a moment and then she began to make her way into the living room.
Moving stealthly into the room she glanced around at the darkness. She edged towards the wall and removing one hand from the grip of her gun, she flicked on the living room light quickly and then reinforced her firm grip aound her pistol. Looking down she noticed the glisten of a thousand shattered pieces of glass sprayed across a portion of the floor. It was from there she looked up and noticed the window that once housed a pane of glass was now nothing more than a whole in the wall.
It was then that Charlie felt panic set in. Looking around she couldn't find the ability to think clearly as she was overwhelmed by the sheer danger that surrounded her. Looking back at the window she tried to focus her train of thought and narrow in on what she had to do. Just then her mind zeroed in on one thing...Ruby. With her brain no focused Charlie was just about to make her to her daughter when suddenly from behind her, she felt the tip of a gun nudge into her back.
"Drop your weapon and don't move", the voice from behind said in a quiet whisper that, even though it was silent, evoked anger.
Without thinking, for fear that trying to fight would possibly endanger both herself and Ruby, she dropped the gun on the floor and kicked it away. Slowly, she turned to face her intruder. And just as she suspected for weeks, John Doe had finally arrived to exact his revenge. Stepping back, he hovered his gun in the air, pointing it straight at Charlie. She stood there breathing intensly as she manovered round the far side of the coffee table putting some distance between them.
"Look, just put the gun down, we can talk about this. This doesn't have to end like this", Charlie tried to reason with him.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a shadow appear on the corridor floor and then the figure moved into the light. Ruby stared at Charlie and the fear paralysed her, literally, in the spot she was in. Looking down at her daughter, Charlie could see Rubys hands shaking as they rested on the wheels of her chair. Noticing that his target was distracted, John Doe turned his head following Charlie's gaze.
Seeing Ruby, John turned his gun on her and cocked the gun. With a look of anger he prepared to pull the trigger. Charlie, without so much as a thought, leaped over the coffee table and flung herself against John Doe, his gun firing off as they both crashed to the ground. Ruby screamed as the bullet whizzed past her and lodged itself in the wall, inches away from where she was rooted.
After wrestling with John for what seemed like a never eneding struggle, Charlie finally freed herself from his grasp and picked herself off the floor. She raced towards Ruby and crashed to her knees in front of her and cupped her face in her hands as she tried to help Ruby breath through one of her panic attacks. Wiping the tears from her daughters eyes she whispered words of comfort and hope. As Charlie spoke, Ruby reached behind her and revealed Charlie's police issued pistol she had picked up off the floor when she came out of the room.
Noticing the gun in Ruby's hands, Charlie gave her daughter a small smile at her quick thinking. Charlie pulled her daughter into a hug as a cover to shield the transaction between mother and daughter. Whilst in the embrace Charlie grabbed the gun from Ruby and took a firm grip of it, cocking it and preparing to face their attacker again. Standing up she turned around, keeping a strong stance in front of Ruby to distance her from John Doe.
Charlie looked down at the floor and found a groggy John Doe picking himself off the ground nursing a head wound from the fall. She walked over to where he was kneeling and hovered above him, pointing her gun directly at him.
"Get up, put your hands up where I can see them and sit on the couch", Charlie said to him with a stern tone. "NOW!" she ordered as he took his time getting off the floor.
John Doe walked slowly around the couch, Charlie keeping her gun on him at all times, and sat down. As he sat on the couch, he looked at up at Ruby and let out a quiet laugh.
"I can't believe the reason I'm in this whole mess is because of a cripple like you", he said.
Standing over him, Charlie felt her anger boil over to the surface. Unable to take his sniggering, she raised her gun and struck him across the face with blunt force. John Doe rubbed the side of his cheek and noticed the blood.
"Don't you ever talk to my daughter like that", Charlie said as she began to well up with tears.
"Oh yeah, well at least you have a family. Your copper mates took away the only family I had", John stated coldly.
Both Buckton women seemed stunned by the statement. However their thoughts on the matter seemed to go off in two completely different directions.
"We took him away. He almost killed my daughter. TWICE. He deserved what was coming to him" Charlie screamed at him.
John Doe looked down at the ground and then looked back up at Charlie.
"Oh yeah, will did I deserve to lose my brother. He did what he did cause he was scared if he went down, I'd go down with him", John stated matter of factly. "I didn't want him to do what he did, but he did it. Doesn't mean I don't hate you or friends in blue for ending his life. I have nothing now".
Ruby looked at John Doe as he rubbed his temple out of anger and frustration. Taking in his words, she felt a sense of remoarse for the young man sitting before her. She was snapped out of her thoughts by a frantic Charlie as she continued to grill him.
"If you're so sorry for what your brother did, why did you come here tonight and shoot off at her?".
"I didn't come here to kill her. I came here to scare you into getting the charges dropped", John said. "I didn't mean to shoot at her but when you jumped me the trigger slipped and I couldn't stop it".
Charlie looked at him. Failing to be convinced by his story.
"Look, my brother looked out for me my whole life. His way of doing things, it's the only way I know. Yeah he did some stupid stuff and he messed up her life pretty good. But he only did it so he could stay out of jail and look out for me", John continued this time with tears in his eyes.
Charlie was about to continue her angry tyrant at him when she was halted by the squeeze of her hand from her daughter. Looking down she saw Ruby glance into her eyes, with a look that pleaded for her to stop. Not wanting to further upset her daughter, Charlie stepped back. Moving her chair foward, Ruby stopped right in front of John Doe and placed her hand on top of his. He looked up at her, confusion deep within his eyes as he looked at the hand she had place on his.
Ruby looked down and thought for a second about what she was going to say. Although she struggled, she finally found the strength to say the words she never thought she would.
"I forgive him", she said. Short and brief, Ruby summed up her entire feelings in those three words. "I....forgive him".
John Doe looked her in the eye and saw the sincerity in her in her gaze. At the moment he felt all anger leave him and he finally broke down. Placing his hands and head down in Ruby's lap as she stroked his hair trying to comfort him. Charlie stood rooted to the same spot, a free flow of tears running down her cheeks as she took in the moving scene before her. To her it felt like her daughter had finally moved on.
To Ruby, it felt like she had finally found inner peace, and that now she could finally put the bad memories and feelings to rest.
Within moments of Charlie calling the police, they arrived at the scene and arrested John Doe. The charge, breaking and enetering. Both Ruby and Charlie watched as he was driven away in the squad car and disappeared out of their lives for good.
Back inside the house Ruby sat in silence in the living room. Staring at the spot John Doe had been sitting in prior to being arrested. Charlie walked in and looked at her daughter. Suddenly her dream made sense. Ruby's grave wasn't a sign of death. It was a sign of peace. A sign that her daughter would finally be at peace with everything that had happened to her and that life would go on after the past had been buried.
Walking over to the coffee table she sat down and spun her daughter's chair around so that she was facing her.
"Rubes, are ok?", she asked concerened for her daughter's wellbeing after the night's events.
"It's over", she said. "It's really over".
Ruby began to she tears of joy as she felt the weight being lifted off of her shoulders. Registering what Ruby had just said, Charlie realised she was right and pulled her daughter into her embrace, stroking her hair and feeling a sense of relief.
"Yeah, it's over", Charlie said as she comforted her daughter.
With a small smile Charlie planted a kiss atop of her daughters head and then allowed herself to fall into the brace completely. Free of any feelings of fear or anxiety. The guard finally down, she hugged her daughter in what seemes like just a regular show of affection and comfort.
