You win your first fight at sixteen. You break a finger and your nose bleeds down your face. The headlights of a cat illuminate the ring, the wind rustles the money on a small table nearby. It's November. Far away the distant sound of fireworks accents your punches, the cries of 'remember remember' fill your ears. You hit harder because that's why you're here, Charlie. You hit harder because you don't want to remember.

It's not until many years later, when you're almost twenty nine and sitting in the studio of your lodgers house, and the fire burns in front of you, casting a slightly yellow glow onto his face, and hollowing his cheeks, when your head is on his shoulder and the weight of his arm over you is comfortable that you really let yourself feel guilty. It's not the sort of permeable guilt that you feel when you think about the dog that died when you were ten, but rather, a slight guilt that eats away at the back of your mind. The worst sort. He asks you what's wrong, but you don't have a reply for him because you only just got him. You don't want to lose him by telling him that when you were sixteen you beat the shit out of a fourteen year old boy.

When you are five, and small, you can see your father's police uniform. It''s black, there are shiny buttons on the epulets and they fit nicely in your tiny hands. He calls you 'Charlie' and he carries you to your bedroom because you shouldn't be out of bed right now. You have no siblings to worry about yet, so you let him. The three of you live inside a small house close to the station. There are two bedrooms. One for your parents, one for you. You don't have a lot of toys, not really, your father is a constable. He isn't paid much. He married your mother young, and had you young. But you do have a bed. He tucks you under the covers, and kisses your forehead and he whispers 'Good night, Charlie." It's different to your mother, who says the same thing to you in German. (It's not illegal to speak it yet, just frowned upon) You ask him to stay for a while, and he does. He tells you the story of how he arrested a murderer. You're so excited because you have a hero father.

It's not until your almost twenty eight and walking back into the office with Blake that you realize how very little you really have to do with it. You think about the bee book that Blake hasn't returned to you, and you think about how very easy it is to slap on handcuffs compared to Blake's mystery solving. You think about how you tried to stop him. You think about the report that Melbourne wants from you, but you just can't give. You think about the formal suspension request sitting on your desk, you think about the feeling of Blake's hand on your shoulder. You feel proud when he says Lawson should be proud of you, but the feeling vanishes just as quickly as it came because Lawson is leaving you. And it's your fault, even if he tries to tell you it's not. Blake invites you to his place for dinner but you make the excuse of having paper work so you don't have to face his eyes anymore.

You are ten when your first brother is born. Your father is at war, fighting the incoming German threat. Your mother warns you about the Australian people, and how they will say you are not Australian. She tells you that you are, and that you shouldn't worry too much about them. You pretend it doesn't hurt. Your baby bother cries and she lets you hold him. He stops crying when you kiss him on the nose. You promise to always look after him.

It's not until you are seventeen and sitting in the police station in handcuffs that you realize you have failed him. The sergeant calls you German trash. You don't say anything in return because deep, deep down inside yourself, you know you are right.

When you are twenty five, and the golden boy of the Melbourne station, and he's the inspector, he tells you 'good job, Davis' you realize that he has forgotten you. He invites you out for drinks, and you say yes despite yourself. You want to be liked. You forget that you hate him, at least, for a little while, at least, while the alcohol is inside you.

When you've just turned twenty eight, you're the senior constable. You've worked hard for this, you're put up for promotion to sergeant and you couldn't be happier. You're smart, and attractive and fast and reasonable and you would have made your father proud. (Or at least, that's what the superintendent tells you.) And then the bombshell comes, when you're standing in his office, hat under your arm, two fingers bandaged together after being dislocated in a scuffle. He tells you that if you want to be promoted then you must go to Ballarat. "Victoria, Sir?" You ask, confused as too why they would need you there.

"Too keep an eye on things, Davis." He tells you. "I need someone I can trust down there." You wonder why he can trust you but not anyone else. But you think of how much extra money the promotion will bring, you consider how it might help take some of the sadness from your mother's eyes and the nicer things you can buy your brothers so you say that you'll go. Even if at times you curse your choice and say you would take it back if you could, you end up being happy you took it.

You are twelve when your mother remarries. You hate him. His name is David, his last name is Helter. Charlie Helter is a stupid name, in your own ears. David tells your mother that she cannot speak German to you anymore, lest you get an accent. (Speaking German is illegal now, looking back, it's probably for the best that she stopped, but at the time it had been a scorching humiliation) David calls you Charles, despite your insistence that your name is Charlie. No one has ever called you Charles.

When you a caught in the middle of twenty eight and twenty nine, Blake calls you Charles for the first and last time. You know he means nothing by it, and that people sometimes use names interchangeably. But that doesn't stop you from being reminded of David's ruining influence over the three years he was married to your mother. "That's what you think, Charles." It's cheerful, and you know he isn't trying to hurt you. He likes you, he's your friend. But you don't smile back. He puts a warm hand on your shoulder. Before he can ask what's wrong, you reply with
"My name is Charlie." All three look at you, before Blake nods.
"Of course." And he never asks, but later, when you go to bed, he tells you he's sorry. You probably believe him.

David walks out on your family when you are fifteen. Your mother begs him to stay. She cries, and she pleads. You wonder why he would leave you. You were never too bad to him. You always did everything he said. You feel angry towards him, and you cut him out of all the family photos. You realize, slowly, that your mother has cut your father out of them as well. You find out months later that she was pregnant. She gives your brother the last name Davis.

When you are eleven, there is a knock at the door. You don't get many visitors, so you are confused. Your mother rises, and flattens her skirt. She drags a hand though her soft blonde hair. She answers the door with shaking fingers. (You find out years later she thought it was social services coming to take her children away) A man stands there, you don't know him, but she does. He lowers his head, and gives her a telegram. You watch the exchange. She opens it, and cries. You watch from in front of the fireplace. She hugs the both of you and promises it will be okay. She's lying, but you don't know at the time.

It takes you six months in Ballarat to pick another fight. You come up short on the rent because you had to help pay for your brother. He's sick. He's a loser and so are you. You scuffle, and fight and yell. Coins land at your feet but you don't care. You win. Blake will have his rent, and you will have a place to stay. You tell Blake it was a work thing, and no one will ever tell him differently.
Blake has gentle hands. All doctors seem to. You appreciate them, and you appreciate the way he holds your fingers when he fixes them up. You wish not for the first time, that you had been born his son.

Your father wears his hair curly. He parts it on the right, but that's all he does to it. And so do you, sometimes. When you are nearly fourteen, you start to part yours on the left, to make yourself look different to him. It's a small change in your overall face. You still looks too much like him, Charlie, and you hate that.

When your fifteen, you get a tin of hairgel from a friend. Having smooth hair gives you a difference from him. You love it, so you wear your hair like that everyday. Your mother thinks you look foolish. For the first time, you find that you don't care in the slightest.

When you are older then twenty eight, but not twenty nine for some time yet, Jack Beazley crashes into your life like a comet on a trail. He steals what you thought you had. And your twenty pounds. He almost breaks your rib, and you try so hard to stay strong when Blake doesn't even look at you after. Logically, you know it's not because you came second but rather because he knows who came first, but you still feel like you've failed him.

When you are four years old, your father sits you on his knee, and shows you the sky, and the fragile chandelier of stars that hang in it. He tells you stories you don't remember about them, at the time, you don't care much, you just like being next to him. His fingers are longer then your tiny baby hands but you don't mind because he is with you. Your mother tells him to bring you inside because it is cold and you are young.

The spoon clinks softly against the cup when you are twenty eight and sitting in the Blake kitchen, watching the same stars from the window. In the next room, the piano springs to life. It makes you smile, because you always did like it when the Doctor played. You dance with yourself for a few steps, but you feel foolish. You make him a cup of tea as thanks.

When you are seventeen, you run more then you ever have before. You break out into a sprint as you leave the station, the sprint slows into a jog as you run out of energy. An empty stomach combined with a desire to leave boil inside you, like a storm that shakes the ground as you run. You run until you are sick. And then you run home to your poor mother. She says 'Richard!' and you say
'No Mum, it's me, Charlie!' And you realize that this is all you ever will be.

When you are twenty eight, but close to twenty nine, you leave Ballarat. You tried to run, but you can't run all the way back to Melbourne. You walk for hours until the lights of the doctors car illuminate you. You try to get him to leave, but when he puts a hand on you, you simply can't hold back. You cry.

At age six, your father carries you to bed, after you fell asleep having him read to you from a thick book full of pictures and words that you don't know. You put your head on his chest, just to hear his heatbeat. You love the sound of it, it feels like for the first time in your life, you have something in common with this man.

When you are twelve and in bed, a moth flings itself against the light in the roof of your ceiling. Across, you can hear your brother's soft snoring. He won't sleep with the light off so you have to wait. You don't understand why the moth is trying so hard to get to something it can't reach. It seems foolish to you.

You're only a few months shy of twenty nine, when you look out the window at the Blake house, and see them having fun, that you finally understand why the moth wants so badly. You cannot believe that you feel a connection to a moth.

When you're almost twenty nine, standing outside Munro's office, Blake's hand on your arm and his eyes carving into yours, you think that you understand why the moth would die for the light as well. Because you have found your light, hidden in the space between you and Lucien Blake.

...

A/N Another chapter down, another on the way I guess. (The next installment is called 'Please Just Stay Dead' Featuring Jean.) I decided to try something new with this chapter, hope y'all enjoyed reading it! Let me know, leave a comment! I don't think I'll try writing like this again, such hard work!