Chapter Text
Jo Davidson walks down the dark, snowy lane back towards her cottage. Her hands are freezing, despite having gloves on and having them shoved deep into the pockets of her coat. She’s desperate to get home, to where she knows the fire is going, and her dog is waiting for her. She can’t help but smile as she thinks of Gary, her golden retriever who for the last three years has been the only thing keeping her going.
Three years being someone else, Anna Davis. Quiet, introverted Anna Davis, who works from home as a freelance book keeper. A job she hates, under a name she hates. ‘Choose something from our list, they’re all close enough to your old name that you’ll get used to it quickly,’ the relocation team had said. Jo hadn’t cared enough and had just picked the first one on the list. She thinks she’d have probably hated any of the names, but does wonder if she should have paid more attention. Davidson was the last link she had to her mum, and even that was gone now, replaced with no thought in her rush to escape her old life
Three years living in a cottage halfway down a lane on the outskirts of a tiny village near-ish Stirling. Hardly a village, she thinks to herself, and more of a hamlet. She thought she’d hate this part too, but actually it’s grown on her, this place. It was a tough transition after her sleek city centre apartment, and the hustle and bustle of life there. But she’s found a tiny bit of equilibrium in the quiet- the way the birds wake her in the summer, the way she can see a vast white streak of milky way in the sky at night because she’s in the middle of nowhere. It’s also the way that she can walk the dog for miles, and if she chooses, not see another soul. She knows a few people to say hello to- her nearest neighbours, the woman who runs the shop in the village. One or two other dog walkers, and that’s it. She’s never really bothered beyond that, preferring to keep a low profile. It suits her, she thinks. Actually suits the real her, Jo Davidson. It’s the only part of Anna Davis’s life she would choose willingly.
The rest of it, the job, the sensible car, the boring backstory of a girl who grew up in the suburbs of Edinburgh, moved to London for a boy when she was 18, and has come back to Scotland after a particularly acrimonious divorce 20 something years later? All that she despises. The life story of Joanne Davidson is all but dead to everyone, something she has to keep pushed deep down inside her. Still, she thinks, it’s not like she’s never kept a secret before. Really it’s second nature to her. But there’s something that tugs at her soul, makes her unbearably sad that nobody thinks of Jo Davidson any more.
Farida probably just describes her as her crazy ex-girlfriend, the one who planted evidence at her house. She’ll be consigned to just an entry on the list of Chris’s previous bosses, hazily blending into the line-up of people he’s served under. And Kate. Kate…
Jo pulls in a shuddering breath. She rarely allows herself to think of Kate. Of all the people from her past life forgetting her, when it’s Kate she imagines struggling to remember Jo’s name, or just filing her away with her past cases, something inside her shatters. For a brief few weeks Jo had thought that happiness, real honest-to-god happiness might possibly be within grasping distance for her. She ought to have known better. Good things never happened to Jo Davidson. Ever. It was like a universal constant. And so, as Anna Davis, she had allowed her heart to harden to everyone, bar Gary her loyal retriever.
Jo picks up her pace as she spots the streetlight near the end of the driveway that leads to her cottage. Snow has started falling again and she’s sure that the temperature has dropped a little more even in the last few minutes. She’s glad of her hat, her gloves and her boots, though she still wants to just flop down in front of the fire with a hot cup of tea. As she’s picturing that, she feels her left foot slide out from under her. She puts her arms out to try and regain some balance, but she knows, really knows, that it’s going to be too late to prevent the inevitable slip. Her last thought before she hits the ground is that she just hopes it doesn’t hurt too much when she makes contact.
“Ow, FUCK,” she shouts into the darkness, rubbing the back of her head. The back of her head really fucking hurts, and there’s going to be a bump there tomorrow. She sits still for a moment, cataloguing body parts and any associated pain. Aside from her head and her left hip, she appears to have escaped relatively unscathed. And at least she wasn’t knocked out, god knows how long it would be before anyone found her down this lane and in this weather. Gingerly, she picks herself up off the ground, dusts the snow off her backside and legs and continues the last couple of hundred yards to her cottage.
As she draws closer, she hears Gary barking, which is unusual. Jo frowns, but resists the urge to run to the house, not wanting to slip again. Her head is beginning to throb and she knows her hip will be black and blue. But she arrives at her front door without further incident, slipping the key into the lock and stepping inside, stamping the snow from her boots.
“Hey Gary- I’m home now! No need to keep woofing. Did you hear me wipe out- is that what’s got you upset? It’s icy out there!”
Gary bounds up to her, wagging his tail furiously. He lets out a deep woof and Jo frowns. “What’s up big guy?” She asks him, picking up her mail and following him to the kitchen. “I’m home now, you can calm down, seriously!”
Jo sorts through the envelopes. Junk, bills and her heart sinks as she spots a plain brown envelope. Police stationery, she recognises instantly. It will be another letter from the witness protection team.
Three months ago, Jo’s case officer had called out of the blue. A terrifying moment for Jo, who thought she’d been found and would have to move on, move to another dreary life under another dreary name. Instead, she had delivered the news Jo could never have hoped for, and had never expected. AC-12 had concluded their investigation into the OCG, now almost completely eliminated through imprisonment or death among its members. It had been concluded that Jo could return to her old life. There were heavy caveats, of course. She couldn’t work for the police again, in any capacity. She wouldn’t be able to move back to her old flat, which had been sold, and the witness protection team highly recommended she did not return to the same part of the city, or better still she move to another city entirely. ‘What’s the fucking point, then’, Jo had spat down the phone. The few bright parts of her old life were gone. If she couldn’t be a police officer again, then frankly she might as well stay up here and carry on being Anna Davis.
“After all, Gary. It’s not like anyone back there misses me, or frankly even fucking remembers me now, is it. Besides, I’ve got you now and what more could a girl want, hey?” she asks the dog.
Gary wags his tail in response, and Jo reaches down to ruffle his fur.
“Are you quite sure about that, Joanne Davidson?” Comes a voice she doesn’t recognise.
Jo’s head snaps up to the source of the voice and there, sitting on her kitchen worktop is a red-headed woman. For a horrifying moment Jo thinks it’s Cassie, that woman she dated for a few months not long after she moved here. The one who declared it was over with tears in her eyes saying that she didn’t think Anna could really give her what she wanted, which was an emotional connection. Jo had let her slip away. She had been nice enough, pretty, and she had helped her settle Gary in. But she was right. Anna absolutely couldn’t give her an emotional connection because Anna was a made up person, a fabricated backstory with some manufactured documents to back it up and nothing else.
But it’s not Cassie. Definitely not Cassie because for starters, Jo can see through this woman. Can. See. Through. This. Woman.
“What the fuck…? Who the fuck…? How did…?” Jo slumps to the floor, back against the kitchen cabinets convinced that she’s having some sort of neurological event.
The see-through woman walks over and sits close to her. Jo reaches out a shaking hand to touch her, but it swipes right through the woman’s shoulder.
“Oh fuck, I think I’m going to…” Jo leans over and throws up on the kitchen floor.
“I’m sorry,” says the woman. ”I forget the whole translucent thing can be a bit… unsettling.”
“Unsettling? UNSETTLING? I mean, I’m just here chatting with my dog, and some see-through twat has let themselves into my kitchen. Are you here to rob me?”
“Rob you? I can’t fucking pick anything up Jo. The whole ‘see-through twat’ thing, remember?”
Jo nods slowly. Yes. A ghost then. But if she’s talking to a ghost, does that mean she’s dead?
“Nope,” the woman says, startling Jo again who doesn’t realise she even said anything out loud. “Not a ghost. Neither are you dead.”
“In that case, and I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself, but who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing in my house?”
See-Through chuckles and stands up. “Never mind that, Jo. Get up. I have things to show you that are important. Come with me.”
She beckons Jo towards the living room door. “Come with you, to my own living room?” Jo asks incredulously.
“No. Well yes. Sort of. Think of it more as a portal.”
“I do think of it as a portal. Because that’s what it is. A door. A portal to another room…”
“Ah,” a grin creeps across See-Through’s face. “Not this time. This time it’s a portal to the past.”
Jo grimaces. “Whatever’s going on here, and I am still very hazy about that, I do NOT want to re-live my past. Once was more than enough, thank you.”
“I didn’t say your past, did I. Now would you stop asking so many bloody questions and just get your arse over here?”
Jo is uncertain what has happened in her life that she’s standing in her kitchen getting shit from a not-ghost-but-very-see-through-person, when she has a moment of clarity.
“Ah, fuck it. I mean, it’s not like I’ve got anything to lose, is it?” She looks imploringly at See-Through. “I’m coming back though, right? I need to know that, because who will feed Gary?”
See-Through laughs. “Yes Joanne. You’re coming back. Don’t worry.”
Jo nods curtly. “Good. Because I need to be here for Gary.” And with that, she crosses the kitchen to the living room door. “OK. Shall we get this over with, then?”
Stepping across the threshold, Jo is momentarily disoriented. She’s outside, but not outside at her house- this is somewhere unfamiliar. She’s in a snowy garden belonging to a house she doesn’t recognise. She can’t be sure but she doesn’t think she’s in Scotland any more, either, so she’s hopeful that at least that part of See-Through’s offer definitely wasn’t a lie and that it’s not her past they’ll be visiting. There’s a warm glow coming from the house- it exudes comfort. It's clearly still the middle of winter wherever she is, or whenever she is, but Jo realises that she doesn’t feel cold. Unusual for her- she’s usually freezing. She glances over, to check that her new transparent friend is still there.
“Look over here, Jo,” Says See-Through. “There’s something I want you to see. Come to the window.”
Jo obediently trudges over, and dutifully looks through the window. She finds herself looking at an older woman fussing around a younger woman who has her back to them. The younger woman is wearing a wedding dress. Must be some sort of fitting, thinks Jo. The younger woman smooths the fabric of the wedding dress over her hips, and twists this way and that.
“I don’t know mum, I’m just not sure it’s very me.” she says as she turns around.
Jo recognises the voice instantly and is halfway to panic before she even sees her face. She knows exactly what she’s going to see, and her suspicions are confirmed when the woman looks out of the window, straight past Jo.
“Kate,” Jo whispers, the name catching on her tongue and feeling awkward and unfamiliar to say. She sinks to her knees. “Oh, Kate…”