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A/N:
Summary: Pyro never really knew her, but St. Mary Allerdyce is a *itch, as Catherine will attest. AU. Cathy's thoughts post-The Line.
Give a Damn
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St. Mary and St. Catherine Allerdyce had never gotten along, and as far as Cathy was concerned they weren't sisters.
Mary was seven years older than her, making her ten years older than Pyro, and it had never really occurred to her to care about any of her family. Cathy may have two kids, three if you include her brother (which she does), but Mary's had nineteen abortions and she wasn't ever on the streets. Not like Sinner and Pyro. Mary's a slut and a druggie and not a woman she'd ever let near her kids. She may own a legitimate business now, of all things a costume shop, but all that money feeds straight into her coke addiction and she isn't about to let her kids see that, not when she'd tried so hard to keep them out of it. She may be a Sinner but her worst drug vice is cigarettes. She doesn't do drugs, she doesn't do alcohol, and she sure as Hellfire doesn't do a man without knowin' he's been tested for STDs. She's not like Mary.
Mary never protected her, which was fine. She never protected Pyro, even as a favor to her sister, which she supposes should only be expected from the selfish shit. It was even sort of okay that she pointed her father towards Cathy when it came time for the rape to start because Cathy can take it and she can't. Because they aren't sisters.
Oh, they came from the same parents – like their Mama would ever have the balls to cheat! But Mary had lived with various boyfriends, who thought her a lot older, by the time she was ten onward. But they weren't sisters.
Nikki saw to that.
Pyro was six, she was nine, Mary was sixteen and St. Nicole was three. She'd run a fever during the night, woken Cathy up with her whimpering, and that fever had been running for three days straight. They couldn't afford a hospital trip. They never could. If their father hadn't been an alcoholic she still doubted they'd be able to afford it. Cathy'd had to find a strip of old leather for her little sister to bite down on, not just for the pain but to keep her quiet so that John Sr., their father, doesn't wake up and beat her. Nikki's in pain and delusional and Cathy was desperate.
And Mary just said, "Why the fuck should I give a damn? Let the little bitch die," and went back to her boyfriend of the time and her lines, not that she even had being high to excuse those words 'cause she wasn't at that time.
Cathy was desperate. Nicole's temperature had been a steady 109 and wasn't fading. Pyro was worried but it was all a blur to him now, blocked off memories of what Cathy can never forget. She was desperate.
She tried an ice bath. It sent Nikki into shock.
She still blames herself somewhat, but mostly she blames Mary. Mary had the money to take Nikki to the hospital, but didn't. She didn't give a damn.
She'd tried, one last time, to give her "sister" a chance. She was desperate, and Pyro was only seventeen and couldn't really help, and she just needed a place for the kids to stay for a few nights so she could figure out what the fuck she was doing. 'Cause after she killed Tommy, or rather a "robber" killed Tommy, she'd get his life insurance yeah but that wouldn't last forever and she needed to find a real job so she wouldn't always be too busy working to watch her kids grow up. Something secretarial, maybe, and she'd been a bartender before so she could work one days and one at nights, and it was better pay than waitressing or selling herself. But she's forgotten that Mary's not her sister.
She's a bitch. And she doesn't give a damn.
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