Title: Letters To My Love
Disclaimer: I own Katie and all her friends. I also own the newest members of the police station. So nobody can take them away.
Summary: It's been 16 years since the bomb blast. Jo is alive and well and living in the country in South Australia with her daughter Katie and her gay friend Eric. When Katei finds an old box full of unsent letters to PJ, she finds out the truth about her past. How will she react? How will PJ react when he finds out Jo is alive and he has a daughter?
AN: Ok well I know for a fact this fic is really bad so far. Please if it is possible give me any ideas that any of you have to make it better. I have an idea of what to do next but I just can't seem to find a way to write it. Any who. I hope you enjoy this fic. Comments of any kind are encouraged!
Italics are the letters that Jo has written. Normal writing is the dialogue.
"This is the last one!' Jo said with a sigh as she handed her daughter Kaitlyn a cardboard box.
"Where do you want it?" Katie asked.
"Just find some space up in the attic." Jo replied.
"Ok." Katie agreed. "What is all this stuff anyway?"
"It's all of Sara's old stuff that she needed to take out of storage."
"Oh." Katie replied. "Why have we got it?'
"Because we do ok. Now go put it away so we can get out of here."
"Ok." Katie reluctantly carried the box up two flights of stairs to the very top of the house where all the junk was stored. She placed it in a spare spot on the floor and then as she was turning around to go down the stairs she knocked over another box that was stacked up, sending bundles of paper and books flying everywhere.
"Oh that's just great!' She said sarcastically and bent down to pick it all up. That was when she noticed that the bundles of paper were handwritten letters from Jo. She pulled one out and started reading it.
PJ,
I have missed you so much It's been three months since I left you and everyone else behind me. It's been a horrible time for both of us I bet. I wish I could explain to you why I left but the thing is I don't know how. I know this letter will never reach you for you still believe that I am dead. If only you knew the truth. Then we could be together and I wouldn't have to raise our child by myself. Our daughter could grow up knowing her father. Instead of letting her believe that you were the one who was dead.
"Oh my god!" Katie stopped reading. "Dad's still alive!' She was completely shocked. She flicked through the pile of letters until she got to one a little more recent.
January 16th 2006 The date read.
Dear PJ,
I have exciting news. Our little girl had just said her first word. She's not even walking yet and she can talk. I can tell she's going to grow up to be as smart as her father. She definitely has your looks as well. Her eyes are so much like yours and she has your nose. It's just such a pity that you can never see her. You would love her. I know she would love you too.
A tear trickled down Katie's cheek as she touched her nose gently.
"Wow this is just…Wow." Katie was still shocked. She wanted to keep reading but a call from Jo snapped her back to reality.
"Katie come on you're going to be late. What are you doing up there?" Jo called.
"Nothing Mum. I'll be right down." Katie quickly bundled the letters back up and put them back in the box. She then quickly hurried down the stairs with that one line still stuck in her head.
It's just such a pity that you can never see her. You would love her. I know she would love you too.
"There you are. What took you so long?" Jo asked. "It's your first driving lesson and you're already late." Jo sighed.
"Sorry." Katie brushed the dust off her dress and then climbed into the front of the Ute next to Eric.
"Drive safely. And make sure she doesn't get hurt!" Jo called to Eric.
"Don't worry Jo. We'll be fine. There's not much she can run into out in the paddocks." Eric laughed. "Now you have fun and spend the afternoon by yourself. Relax a bit."
"I'll try. Though it's a bit hard when my only daughter is in danger of injuring herself."
"Quit worrying Mum. Eric will make sure nothing happens. And besides it's not like I haven't driven before."
"Okay. Well just stay safe."
"We will Mum. Bye." Katie waved as Eric pulled the truck out of the driveway and out towards the back paddocks.
"So Katie I hear you're working on a family tree for your school project?" Eric asked as they drove along.
"Yeah actually I am."
"Sounds cool. I did the same thing when I was in high school. I found out so many things about my family that I never knew."
"Umm Eric. Can I talk to you about something?" Katei said awkwardly.
"Sure. Fire away."
"Well it's about my dad."
"Oh. I think this is something you're going to have to talk to your mum about. It's got nothing to do with me." Eric suddenly said.
"Why? What do you know that I don't?"
"Are you ready for your first lesson?" He stopped the car and changed the subject.
"I want to know what you're hiding from me."
"I'm not hiding anything. All I know is your father is dead. That's all."
"Then how come I found…never mind." Katie didn't want to tell anyone about the letters. At least not until she had read them all.
"What did you find?"
"Nothing. It doesn't matter. Can we get on with the driving lesson now?"
"Okay sure." Eric turned the car off and they swapped seats, ready for her lesson.
The next day Jo awoke to find the house empty. She sighed and headed downstairs. She was about to open the fridge when she saw a piece of paper with Katie's handwriting on the door.
"Mum, Gone to Jen's to study. Be back later! Luv Katie!" She sighed once again, putting the note into the bin. It seemed every day Katie was growing up a little bit more. Jo made herself a cup of coffee and sunk down in a chair at the kitchen table to read the newspaper.
"Morning." Eric walked in through the back door. He walked over to Jo and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Morning." Jo replied.
"Have you seen Katie this morning? She said she was going to help me with the horses."
"She's gone over to Jen's place. I figure she'll be back when she gets hungry." Jo laughed. "Why didn't you wake me this morning?"
"I was going to but you just looked so cute when you were sleeping."
"I thought you needed help with the work."
"Not today. It's your day off. All you have to do today is sit back, put your feet up and relax." He told her.
"You're so good to me." Jo smiled.
"That's because you're my best friend and I love you." He said.
"I love you too." She replied.
"Now you go have yourself a nice long bubble bath while I finish the work. Then we can sit down and watch our favourite movie together."
"Sounds wonderful." Jo smiled.
"I know. I always have such great ideas." Eric laughed and left Jo to read her paper in peace.
"So what exactly are you researching?" Jen asked. She and Katie were sitting by the computer in Jen's mum's office.
"I'm not researching anything. I'm looking for my dad." Katie replied.
"Isn't your dad supposed to be dead? What exactly do you want to find?"
"I don't know. I just want to find something." Katie replied.
She typed Mount Thomas into the search engine and waited for the results to come up.
"You know if your mum finds out about this…"
"She's not going to find out is she?" Katie glared at Jen.
"Hey don't look at me I aint going to tell her." Jen cried.
"Good. Besides she doesn't even know I know he's still alive. If that makes sense."
"Ah…yeah sure." Jen replied pretending she understood her friend.
"And if she wants to know why I'll tell her its for a school project. Because technically it is…sort of."
"So have you found anything yet?" Jen asked looking at the computer screen.
"Check this out…" Katie clicked on a site.
"Mount Thomas Gazette." Jen read out. "What is that the local paper or something?" Jen asked.
"I don't know. I don't know anything about Mum's past. But I guess so."
"Hey look there was an explosion. Click on that." Jen cried excitedly.
"Jen I'm looking for information about my Dad. Not about some building exploding."
"Please can we look at it? I want to see if there are any pictures. I could use them for my Chemistry project."
"Alright fine." She clicked on the article about the explosion.
"Man it's taking forever to load." Jen cried impatiently.
"That's probably because pictures always take forever to load."
"Hey look people died. In loving memory of Clancy and Jo." Jen read.
"What?" Katie read further. "Today we mourn the death of two of our favourite Mount Thomas residents Clancy and Senior Constable Joanna Parrish, who died tragically in the explosion of the Mount Thomas Police station."
"Wait. That's a picture of Mum. She never told me her last name was Parrish."
"No way. Your Mum was a cop!" Jen cried. "Why does this say she's dead?"
"Well that's what I'm trying to find out. Mum wrote these letters to Dad that she never sent off. I found them in a box when I was putting some stuff in the attic. Apparently Dad isn't the one who died. Mum is. Dad thinks that Mum is dead and Mum thinks that I think Dad is dead."
"How does that work?"
"I don't know Jen. But I'm going to get to the bottom of this. No matter what it takes." Katie replied.
"Check this out. It's a list of people who attended the memorial service." Jen noticed.
"Senior Sergeant Tom Croyden, Constable Susie Raynor, Constable Evan Jones, Sergeant Ben Stewart…"
"Mum tole me about all of her old friends. She never said they were all cops though."
"Senior Detective PJ Hasham." Jen continued reading.
"That's Dad!" Katie cried. "He is still alive!" She shouted.
"So what are you going to do now?"
"I don't know. I mean I cant just rock up and say 'hey dad it's me, you're daughter. You don't even know I exist because you think my mum is dead.' Yeah that would go down really well."
"Maybe you could think of another way of getting in touch with him. Like you should get to know him first, before he finds out who you are."
"And how exactly am I going to do that?"
"I don't know. Didn't you say your grandpa lives in Mt Thomas?"
"No he lives in St David's which I guess is close enough to there…"
"And you said you've met one of your mum's old friends right?"
"I was only two years old when I saw her. And she doesn't know mum is alive, she thought grandpa was looking after me for a friend of his."
"Oh. Well I really have no idea what to do."
"Well I have some idea of what I'm going to do. Only I'm not sure if it will work."
"Spill." Katie leant over and whispered it in Jen's ear.
"Are you crazy!" Jen cried.
"Shhh." Katie shoved a hand over Jen's mouth. "Promise you wont tell anyone?"
"Kate you know if your Mum found out she'd ban you from seeing me."
"Trust me on this one Jen. What would you do if you were in my situation?"
"You've got a point there." Jen sighed. "Ok I promise I wont tell."
"Thanks." Katie hugged her. "I have to go Mum's expecting me home."
"You'll let me know how things go right?"
"Of course." Katie smiled. "Now, I'm getting kind of hungry. I think I might head home. I ran off this morning without telling mum."
"You've got to stop doing that or else she WILL ban you from hanging out with me." Jen laughed.
"You know my mum loves you, just like I do."
"Okay. Well even so you' better get going. My dad will be back any minute now. and you know how he hates me having friends over when he's not here."
"Okay. Well bye." They hugged again.
"Yeah. Good luck."
"Thanks." Katie smiled and left the house. She climbed onto her horse and rode off back towards her house.
"Hey Mum I'm home!' Katie shouted as she walked into the house. "Mum?" She asked when she got no answer. "Mum!' she called again as she walked up the stairs. "You'd better not be still in bed!' Katie walked into Jo's bedroom without knocking.
"Hey Katie." Jo smiled. Katie walked in just as Jo was putting her top on.
"Did you just get out of the shower or something?"
"Yeah actually. I was dirty from grooming the horses, which by the way you were supposed to help Eric with this morning."
"Sorry Mum. Hey is that a new top?"
"Yeah. Do you like it?"
"Course. But why are you so dressed up?"
"Eric and I have made plans for dinner. We're heading into town to pick up some supplies and we figured we would have dinner while we were there. Did you want to join us?"
Katie was about to say yes when she remembered the letters in the attic. She knew the only time she would be able to read them was if Jo and Eric weren't home.
"No that's fine. I'll stay here. I've got a lot of studying to do anyway." Katei replied. "But you guys have fun."
"Alright. We probably wont be back until later tonight."
"That's alright. I'll be too busy studying to notice that you're gone anyway."
"What is this new assignment about anyway? You seem very interested in it."
"It's just some Social Studies project. The sooner I get it done the less I have to worry about it." Katie replied.
"Alright." Jo replied. "Well Eric is probably already waiting for me."
"You're kidding right? He takes longer to get dressed than you do." Katie laughed.
"Well that's gay men for you." Jo replied.
"Knock, Knock." Eric walked in. "Talking about me again are we?"
"Hey Eric."
"Where did you disappear to all day? You've been gone for hours."
"I went to Jen's for a while. Hey cool pants." Jen noticed Eric's outfit.
"Thanks. So are you ready to go Jo?"
"Yeah. Come on then. Let's get out of here before the shops shut." Jo pushed them both out of her room.
"I'll see you guys later tonight then." Katie said.
"Okay. See you." Eric and Jo both gave her a quick hug. She watched as they left the house and as soon as she saw the car drive off, she waited until she couldn't see them anymore before rushing back up to the attic.
Well that's it for chapter one. I hope you like it…if anyone is reading it that is…
Jess!