LilMissSummer

That's great Symphony. It sounds like she really makes an effort to reply to everyone.

I'm liking Charlie and Angelo more and more with each episode, he's really good for her and she's really opening up to him. That last scene between them tonight where she was lying on his lap and he was stroking her hair showed a real closeness between them that I haven't seen between them before. And the way she clung to him when he arrived after Grant's reappearance in her life shows she really trusts him and feels safe with him. I really hope she doesn't start shutting him out again.

I think she does, you could see that in yesterday's episode when she apologised for putting Charlie in a position where she might have to confornt Grant again. And also when she was at her Auntie Michelle's house and she saw that photo album and heard how broken Charlie was by everything. But I also think she just desperately wants answers, she wants to make Grant pay but then she meets him and he comes across as a decent guy and she doesn't want to believe he could be capable of rape, that she's the product of rape. I really don't think she is intentionally setting out to hurt Charlie, she's a headstrong 16 year old who needs answers.

For me that is one of the really interesting things about this storyline because I can understand where they are both coming from. I feel sorry for Charlie and I feel sorry for Ruby and you get why both of them are acting/have acted the way they do. Ruby has just had everything ripped out from under her, her mother and father aren't who she thought they were, her sister is now someone she can't trust and her father is a rapist, she's bound to be confused and Grant is offering her an explanation that doesn't mean she's the product of something terrible that happened to Charlie, I think she believes it because she wants it to be true, she doesn't want to believe that she was concieved when Charlie was raped. Charlie on the other hand has had keep everything to herself for 16 years, she has had to deny that she was Ruby's mother but has also had to live with the fact that she rapist is out there living his life while she's been living with the scars of his actions. This backstory explained a lot about Charlie and her previos actions. And now everyone knows she's being forced to confront it. She's not thinking like a cop at the moment, she's thinking like a terrified 14 year old whon was made to feel ashamed and denied any type of justice.

I'm really enjoying this storyline. Last nights episode seemed to me like Charlie and Ruby we're really making progress in their relationship. Ruby seemed really touched that Charlie had come to rescue her and it seemed like she understood the position Charlie was in. If only Grant hadn't of shown up maybe they could have talked some more. Was it my lousy hearing or did Ruby call Charlie 'mummy' only when Charlie pulled up it really sounded like Ruby said "Mummy I've done something terrible." Of course she could be saying Charlie it's hard to tell 'cos she's crying.

Just a little something I've been pondering ... I've always been a BIG Charlie fan ever since she first joined, even though she was quite a prickly and judgmental character I always found her very vulnerable underneath and I liked the fact that she was flawed and didn't always think before she spoke. Then as they started adding more and more layers to the character and peeling away at her backstory I found those flaws all the more interesting because the backstory actually made sense of a fantastically complex character that I can't help but wonder if they always knew Charlie was going to be Ruby's mother. I remember when Ruby first entered the show there was a little converstion between her and Charlie in which Ruby said that Charlie had always been angry at Ross for as long as she could remember and Charlie sait it was because she always felt like he was letting her down. And then recently you've had the Charlie/Ross showdown where she finally told him how let down she felt that he didn't charge Grant which fits in with that first conversation. I really hope Ruby and Charlie can find some middle ground after all of this because Ruby is the one person in Charlie's life that means the most to her. Then there's her romantic relationships which have never exactly been uncomplicated, it always seemed to me that Charlie went for relationships that were complicated and seemingly unattainable to start with on purpose because that way when the relationship broke down she always had something to blame, it was almost as if she expected them to end before they had begun. The recent reunion with Angelo is developing nicely because she's letting him in to her heart and life in a way she hasn't with anyone before. It's as if she's finally believing that maybe she can make a relationship work and she's not unloveable (is that a word?) I look forward to seeing what the future holds.