Warnings: Trigger warning for abuse.

Disclaimer: All characters and environments belong to Michael MacLennan and Adrienne Mitchell/Global/Shaw Media.

Notes: Title is from Civilian by Wye Oak (and if anybody ever makes a Kate fanvid to that song, I will keel over screaming with joy). Just letting you guys know straight up, this fic will probably take awhile to complete, as I have started PhD and can only write on the weekends.

Mrs Groot's rooming house is a hive of activity, as it is every weekday morning. The women charge from bedrooms to bathroom to common room, grumbling, laughing, calling to each other. To Kate, nowhere has ever felt more like home. Yet she still feels somewhat off-kilter, like a ghost seeing the world move on without her, watching Betty and the other Blue Shift girls go off to work while she stays behind. The way people (Father) talk about how completely unnatural it is for women to have jobs, Kate always thought that she would be ecstatic to give up her job, no matter how she enjoyed it. Yet she's felt so out of sorts the past few months, not working. Another thing Father was wrong about...

"I gotta be on my way in a few minutes," Betty says from the doorway, checking her purse for her identity card. She slows at the sight of Kate. "Everything all right?"

Kate is bent double, rifling through the contents of her bag. "I'm running out of clean clothes," says Kate, avoiding Betty's eyes. It sounds less awkward than saying she ran out yesterday. "I don't want to be a bother, but could I – borrow some laundry soap?"

"You don't wanna be doing laundry on a day like this. Your clothes'll take all day to dry." Betty gestures at her wardrobe. "You're welcome to borrow whatever you like from me, until we go and grab your things."

Though Betty was – is Kate's best friend, they've never really gotten as far as borrowing each other's clothes. They dress so differently, for starters. Kate always liked Betty's pants and boots, but she couldn't have imagined wearing that sort of thing herself. She imagined Betty felt the same way about her own flowered dresses and cardigans.

Theirs was never really a friendship founded on trading outfits and makeup tips. Kate's had so few female friends in her life that last night, on hers and Betty's double-date with Ivan and Buster, was the first time Kate's ever borrowed someone else's dress. Kate was in the same position she is now, rummaging shamefacedly in her bag as though hoping she would uncover a decent outfit if only she shifted her things one more time. When she was just about to give up, Betty breezed by and dropped something carelessly onto the bed beside Kate.

It was a dress, a deep green one with little sprigs of golden yellow all over it. Betty's best dress, the one she wore when she was a little nervous and wanted to impress. There was something cheering about seeing it again, about remembering that first night at Sandy Shores, when they danced for the first time and really became friends.

Kate actually smiled. It was the barest lip-twitch of a smile, but it almost hurt to do, because it had been so very long since she had had a reason to be happy. That little smile, at seeing Betty's green dress and knowing those four months last year hadn't been a dream, felt like it cracked the mask Kate had been wearing right up the middle. She had her own face again, for better or worse.

Then, something occurred to her. "Betty, it's beautiful … but I can't wear it." The gravity of the situation suddenly swamped her, and Kate wished like anything for the mask to come back. She struggled against the urge to blurt out, "I can't wear any of your dresses. I can't go after all."

Frowning, Betty turned from where she stood at the mirror. "Why not?"

Because Father left bruises, Kate thought, but she didn't say it aloud. She never used to have to say it aloud to Mother. She suddenly had the most miserable desire to be really young, three or four, and climbing into her mother's lap for comfort. Mother should be here, helping me get ready for my first proper date. What if she's dead, what if she's dead, what if she's dead...

After a moment, Betty hauled open a bureau drawer and retrieved a green scarf. She held it out to Kate. "Sorry about the colour. I know it doesn't go exactly ... I can always run and see if anyone's got something that goes better. Jeannie has a scarf for every day of the year. I think she shoplifts them."

Kate realised that her hands were lingering at her own throat. Slowly, Kate took the scarf and tied it around her neck, hiding the worst of the bruises. Betty was – is – always doing lovely little things like that for Kate. Nobody, apart from Mother, ever cared for Kate like Betty does. It's why Kate loves to be around her so much, why she feels-

Thank Heaven it's cold, Kate thinks, pulling herself firmly back into the present. Everybody is wearing scarves out in the street, so she won't stick out. She can hide the bruises every day, until they fade. She smiles wanly at Betty and says, "Have a nice day at work."

"When shift is over, we'll go to your caravan and get you packed properly. Then … then you can move back in." Betty looks so hopeful and it makes Kate scared and happy and guilty, all at once. She doesn't feel like she can speak. She just nods, which makes Betty's own smile turn into a grin. "I'll see you in a few hours."

The third floor grows very quiet, after everyone leaves for work. When Kate lets out the breath she's been holding, it sounds almost comically loud. She blushes and, trying to look decisive (Kate usually tries to behave like she's being watched, it's the safest thing), opens the wardrobe to find something to wear.

The wardrobe is filled with skirts, blouses and dresses. Kate knows she shouldn't be surprised. Last night, when Kate complimented Betty's outfit, Betty said something vague about Vera teaching her a bit about dressmaking, about Gladys buying her some material as an unbirthday gift (Betty made a face when she said that – she wasn't raised to accept unbirthday gifts from anybody, even a friend). They should fit me all right, thinks Kate, but something makes her move them aside.

Here they are, the clothes Betty used to wear before, bunched together at the back of the wardrobe. Kate recognises them all. She feels ridiculously glad that they're still here, that Betty didn't throw them away. She spies a familiar pattern and before she knows it, she's pulling out one of Betty's old shirts. Not to wear it, or anything. These clothes aren't for Kate to wear. She just wants to hold it for minute, hold it in her hands.

Kate always used to love seeing this shirt on Betty; the colours, the pretty pattern of little people waiting to get into boats in Venice. It was the most unusual article of clothing Kate had ever seen, yet it looked so tidy, so presentable, so capable, not gaudy or ostentatious at all.

She thinks, Why couldn't I wear it? Betty's a woman. That makes this a woman's shirt. It'll look all right. And even if it doesn't, there's no reason I couldn't try it on. Betty's hardly going to shout at me for trying on a couple of different things before I decide on an outfit for the day.

So Kate tries it. As usual, she refrains from looking at herself while she's in her underwear, or even halfway into the shirt. She always feels dirty, looking at her own body when she's not dressed. It's not hard to keep her gaze away from the mirror, though. There is something rather soothing and orderly about doing up all those little buttons, of the final effect of each one neatly pushed through its corresponding buttonhole. No wonder Betty used to like wearing this shirt so much.

(There is a part of Kate, deep, deep inside, that wonders how it would be to undo each button again, on herself, or another person - but she can't go down that road now.)

She glances hesitantly up at the mirror over the sink. Usually, she'd be uncomfortably conscious of the fact that her legs are bare, despite the mirror only showing her from the waist up. Kate doesn't feel half-dressed, wearing this shirt. It looks good, almost as good with Kate's red hair and blue eyes as it does with Betty's very different colouring.

Now I just need a skirt that'll match, Kate thinks, but her hands find some heavier material and before she knows it, she's holding a pair of Betty's trousers up against herself. She could try them on. She could.

You can't, says a scandalised voice in her head. You can't wear those in the street!

Kate can. It's not like it was before the war, plenty of women wear trousers now. And anyway, who said anything about wearing them in the street? She's just trying them out, for Pete's sake. It's like playing dress-up. The way Gladys tells it, she spent half her childhood in dress-up clothes, used to rope her older brother or Carol into playing various attendants and handmaidens. It was yet another thing Kate missed out on. Well, she didn't have anyone to play with, did she? Her brothers are six and twelve years younger, so she was more like a second mother to them than a playmate. There wasn't really much in the way of dressing-up costumes to be had. Kate only ever got new clothes once she had grown out of the old ones. Mother's clothes were like larger, darker versions of Kate's own, not terribly inspiring. Father wouldn't have ever let Mother wear anything bright or pretty. He didn't like it when women showed their vanity. He didn't like it when Kate gave herself over to flights of fancy, either. Father's clothes were completely out of the question, as far as dressing up went. He would have bellowed at her for so much as trying on his hat...

Pulling the trousers up her thighs, Kate wants it to feel like she's thumbing her nose at him, like he can't scare her or tell her what to do any more. (How ridiculous, to do something so silly as thumbing her nose at someone who wouldn't hesitate to break one of her ribs, snap her wrist, get out his belt and order her to strip to the waist … he barely ever hurt Kate where it would show. The few times Father ever bruised her face, Kate didn't leave the caravan until the swelling had gone down. Meek little church mouse, always doing what she was told. Coward, she thinks.)

Kate has never worn trousers before. She wore coveralls at work, but it felt different, somehow. Different to this.

There is a reason why Betty has banished these things to the back of her wardrobe, why she doesn't wear them any more. She's normal now.

You can't, says the voice in Kate's head, trying to remain calm and matter-of-fact in the face of what Kate is seriously considering, go to the caravan. Not today, not alone, and certainly not dressed like that.

Kate chews her lip. She knows in her heart that it's all true. She's not brave enough, or reckless enough or – whatever it is that Betty is (or was), enough, to leave the rooming house in this outfit. Maybe Kate doesn't even have it in her to return to the caravan, the one room where she spent almost all her twenty-four years of childhood, to get the money that she earned with her own two hands, the dresses she sat up at nights sewing. She is small and she is weak. She can't go deluding herself. She's not remotely like Betty, no matter what she wears.

Just as she goes to untuck Betty's shirt, Kate hears a long, loud creak outside on the landing. She stops dead and listens to the silence.

Is the door locked? she thinks frantically, not daring to move in case she makes a noise. She begins taking stock of her situation in a sickeningly familiar way. It is locked? Did you check it? Are you sure?

Oh, how could she have thought the fall might kill him? He is the very wrath of God. Nothing could stop him from coming for her. He'll chase her to the ends of the earth, chase her until she's about to draw her last breath, just so he can have the pleasure of choking the life out of her himself...

"Go away," she chokes out. She means to shout it, but it comes out as a terrified whisper.

"Kate?" calls a voice from outside.

It's not Father. It's a woman, one of the other rooming house residents. Kate still can't seem to make herself speak.

"Kate, I know you're in there," comes a hoarse, irritable voice.

She screws her eyes shut, making hot, shameful tears slide down her cheeks. "Yes?"

"It's Dolores. You seen my Romance Digest? Phyllis made off with it last night, and I checked her room, but it's not there." Dolores coughs. "I'll be damned if I'm stayin' in bed all day without a magazine."

"I-I haven't seen it," stammers Kate. "Try the common room."

"That's what everyone keeps tellin' me," grumbles Dolores. Kate hears her carpet slippers shuffling away.

Kate wants to scream at herself. She longs to sink to the floor, hold her head in her hands and moan. She wishes she could tear it out of herself, this part of her that she hates, the Marion part of her – beat it, crush it, make it so it can never taunt her again. Part of her wants to sit on Betty's bed and stare at the door for hour after hour, wait for Betty to return so she can hold Kate's hand all the way to the caravan, or even go for her.

Kate doesn't do any of those things. She meets her own eyes in the mirror and very pointedly wipes away her tears. She does not change into a blouse and skirt. Over Betty's shirt and trousers, Kate pulls on her own gloves, her green beret, her brown trench coat. Little touches of Kate, here and there, to remind her who she is. Kate Andrews now, Kate Andrews forever.

She has to go to the caravan. She has to go today, alone and, yes, dressed like this. She has to do all the things that Marion never, ever could. She took her time growing up, but Kate is ready for her childhood to be a bad dream she once had. It's time to lay Marion Rowley to rest.