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A/N:
Summary: A piece on St. Catherine Allerdyce set between No Questions and The Line. Basically filler. AU.
Don't Tell Your Uncle
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St. Catherine Allerdyce had never changed her name with marriage, and Thomas Cross had never asked why. They'd been dating for a while and, while not the best guy, he was honorable enough to marry her when she got pregnant. And stay when she lost the baby, which he'd actually wanted.
Whether you want the baby or not, miscarriage is terrible. There's a big difference between that and abortion. It wasn't her first miscarriage, but that didn't make it any less difficult. She swallowed back the bile in her throat with a convincing smile for neighbors who'd never know and didn't really give a damn if she was smiling anyway, but fuck it she was the neighborhood mother and she couldn't let the kids see her down, and nights she sat sobbing on the couch once Tommy was asleep.
He hit the bottle. She didn't begrudge him that, at first. God knows she'd known plenty of drunks and druggies in her life, and it seemed normal to her. She'd barely touch the shit herself, but once burned twice shy hey. She had two kids to take care of. They weren't his kids, and she couldn't afford to break down over it, so she pretended that the tears had never fallen and sometimes she was just so bitter that she couldn't cry.
She calls Pyro.
His response is a string of violent swears and asking if she'd gone to the hospital yet and a promise to drive out from New York. She puts a stop to that last one. He's in his last year of high school and he's gonna damn well go to college so he wasn't fuckin' missin' school to watch her crack. She doesn't mention that Tommy's started to hit her 'cause then there'd be a pile of ashes and she'd have to move if he just disappeared. It isn't the first time a guy has hit her, and maybe her self-esteem's shit but she can take it; he hits those kids and she'll rip his fuckin' balls off. Because she's a housewife and the only jobs she's ever held are waitressing and bartending, she needs his income; she can't go back to workin' three fuckin' jobs and has got no marketable skills. She's not smart like Pyro, and she can't handle the streets again, not with two kids. She just can't handle sleeping in boxes and selling herself anymore.
She's twenty, but her son is four and her daughter's three, and they ask after their Uncle Pyro and she hands over the phone with a false smile and sad eyes, but they're little and maybe they notice but they know better than to fuckin' call her on it like fuckin' husband from Hell Tommy, who never was anything but an ass, but hey! He married her when others wouldn't've taken her crap-ass baggage and didn't flip on the mutant thing which is damn hard to hide when you live with someone.
Pyro's your brother and your best friend and your kid mixed all in one, but there's some things you just can't tell him and Tommy's one of 'em. They'll never meet if you have any say in it, and you damn well better have a fuckin' say 'cause it's your fuckin' family and your fuckin' problem. You're a Sinner and maybe this is God sayin' "well all sinners get their due", but even if it ain't he's still your fuckin' problem and not Pyro's and ya don't let nobody fight your fuckin' battles for ya.
She needs better than shitty sixty hour days where her kids have to sleep behind the counter of a rowdy bar and listen to fuckwits fight and almost get shot on occasion 'cause she has nowhere else to send 'em and sure as shit can't leave 'em home, even with a babysitter, in a neighborhood like hers. Her kids deserve better, and Tommy, drunken abusive asshole or not, brings in the money that you're savin' at the bottom of that ever-present always packed duffle bag. And setting up identities ain't exactly cheep, so you can save the money from doin' that too, and one day your kids'll be out of this Hellhole if you have to sleep with Satan and kill God to do it.
You die by your husband but you kill by your kids, and Pyro's one of 'em, so there's some shit you can't tell the kid no matter what he's seen. You've gotta protect the little bit of innocence he's got left so that he's not completely disillusioned about people like you are, so he's not wanderin' through life a ghost. So there's things she can't say to Pyro 'cause he may've been an adult long ago but you don't want him broken like you.
St. Catherine Allerdyce had never changed her name with marriage, and Thomas Cross had never asked why. But maybe she'd known how this fuck of a marriage would end from the very start, 'cause she sure as fuck didn't love him.
"David, don't tell your uncle."
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