Author's Note:

So, it's been over 4 years since I wrote on here. In fact, it's been 4 years since I've even opened the site. I decided to read my old fics, and well, this idea sparked.

It's been 4 years. God, I've finished college in that time - started and finished university as well. Strange to be writing again.

Anyway, a little context: this is based on season 1 Cat, the mood-swingy, flirty, slightly scene girl, a little ditsy but mostly there Cat. Not the post-lobotomy Cat of the later seasons, where she essentially became a pet. But that's a rant for another day. It's also based in around 2013-2014. I'm not going to follow a year exactly because things like song releases but just picture around that time.

Despite that this is based about a month into her Senior year. Most of the gang is 17 apart from Beck who turned 18 not too long ago.

BRRRR BRRRR BRRR

Cat's alarm buzzed from her bedside table.

BRRR BRRR

Slowly, the redhead's eyes fluttered open, taking a moment to shed the sleep from her brain.

BRR BRR

"Oh, shushie." She muttered, reaching across her pink bedsheets, grabbing her equally coloured pearphone and swiping off the alarm tab. 06:30. She had time to lay in.

No, she didn't. She did this every morning, pushing her wake-up time later and later until it was almost too late for her to walk to school. Of course, if she got her driver's license, she could stay in bed even later, but she never got around to it. With most things, it slipped her mind.

DING - 'Cat get up'

The first reminder of the day, a notification from her past self, set to ping everyday at 06:31. So she got up.

Next she gathered her headphones, untangling the cables which seemed to somehow knot itself each and every night. How they did that, she'd never know, it's as if earbuds got up in the night and purposefully danced around each other. "Hehe" She giggled to herself, the thought of her two little headphones being sentient creatures that skipped and weaved over each other in the night. How fun!

After letting that thought pass, she turned on her music like she did every morning, something upbeat to get her going for the day.

"Moms not home tonight,

So we can roll around have a pillow fight..."

Hello Kitty by Avril Lavigne started playing, not a bad song, that'll do. She concluded, continuing her morning routine.

DING - 'Do your checklist' - notification 2 at 07:00

"Makeup, check. Dressed, check. Hair done, check. Teeth brushed, check." She listed to herself, standing by her bedroom door ready to leave. Without her organisational strategies she'd forget her head if it wasn't attached to her. "Bag packed, check. Meds... oh meds!" She chirped, normally she took those while she did her makeup, must have slipped her mind today. Turning back to her dressing table, she put her hand where the orange bottle normally sat. Normally. It didn't seem to be there today. Nothing strange, maybe she knocked it off at some point, she looked under her dresser. Nope. Maybe it rolled away. Nope. "Sugar". She muttered, putting her school bag down and lowering herself to her knees, face as close to the ground as possible to check under every space in her room. Under her bed, under her covers, under her lamp... Then to her ensuite. Not there either. "Double sugar". She sighed. Maybe she left them downstairs? She never took them downstairs, she couldn't with her brother Matteo around. Still, was worth looking.

She headed towards her bedroom door and went to unlock it - another precaution because of Matteo. It wasn't locked. She'd must have forgotten last night - she had gotten back quite late from Karaoke Dokie with the others.

"Shit." This was a little worse than double sugar, triple sugar even. Preparing for the worst, Cat B-lined into Matteo's room and pushed open the door. "SHIT" she screamed. "MOM! DAD! MOM!" She fell to her knees beside her brother, trying to shake him awake.

In the centre of the dark blue room laid Matteo, sprawled across the floor, still as a corpse and pale as one too. This wasn't the first time Cat had seen her 23 year old brother like this, he wasn't okay anymore.

Once he had been the big brother that lifted her up on to the swing in their yard, laughing as she squealed with delight and demanded to be pushed higher. Once he was the baseball prodigy son, apple of his mother's eye, always running over her in the stands first thing after a home run. But, in his early teens he changed. He had no time for his little sister anymore. He snapped his bat in half in the middle of a particularly bad game and quit the team on the spot. Everyone just said it was to do with his hormones. But then there was the night when police were at the door, pushing him inside telling Leo & Cassandra Valentine that he had been caught under age drinking. And then there was the weeks in Juvie for possession of drugs. Then he randomly took off to Chicago with some mates, where he was shot by a man on a bus for calling him a clown. Both were off their heads on something. There was a time where he always on something. And even when he wasn't, he wasn't the same boy anymore. Either the drugs use declined his mental health, or his mental health started the drug use. It all happened much too quick to know.

"MOM" Cat screamed again, checking her brothers pulse. It was weak but there. Tears brimmed her eyes as she rolled his body to the side, put his hand under his cheek, one knee bent - the recovery position like she'd always been taught to do. As she rolled him over, there it was- her pill bottle. Once full of Ritalin tablets. He'd taken it from her dresser, and he'd taken them all. At once. Around 15 little pills.

Suddenly her parents burst through the door, her mother already on the phone to 911. They'd done this so many times that she already knew Cat's cries were a sign of something wrong with Matteo. "He-" Cat hiccuped, taking the bottles from the floor and handing them to her dad while her mom pushed past. "He stole them from my room. I'm sorry." She spewed out. It was her fault.

"Stupid girl." She heard her dad mutter, "How many in there?!" He questioned, pulling Cat to her feet. Not with intent to hurt her, but to get her out of the way whilst Cat's mother started checking her son over, the phone now on speaker on the floor.

"15. I think." She recalled. "I'm sorry - I."

"Just go to school, you don't need to see this." He sighed, pushing past her too, to attend to their son. "Just go to school." He repeated.

"Kay kay-" Her throat hitched. School. Yeah sure, school. Robotically almost, she walked down the stairs and out of the front door. Slowly, stiffly, without grabbing her headphones off of the nightstand. Or her bag at all actually. She just had her phone in her pocket. She'd use the key in the lockbox that they always left for the ambulance to get back inside later if she needed to. That's how often they came now a days. Didn't make it any easier.

So she walked in silence, all 20 minutes to Hollywood Arts, her brain spinning.

She hadn't taken her meds. Today was going to suck.