Warning: description of domestic abuse.

Just a quick note to say that while re-watching Season 3 on Netflix I began thinking about what it might have been like for Fiona and Kerrianne to have to live with Jimmy after the events of Season 2. Also, I have dyslexia so while I try to proof everything very carefully somethings will always slip through the cracks. I think I got all of the errors, but I'm sorry if some slipped by me. I'm also not sure I like the transition from present day, to memory, back to present day so any reader's thoughts on that part of the story would be lovely!

Kerrianne is a reformed thumb sucker. The bad habit soothed her through childhood; she graduated to nail biting during puberty. Like most addicts, Kerrianne only feeds the dependency in private. She tries to keep it her dirty little secret. If Jimmy catches her tormenting the nail buds at her fingertips, he will tease her. When Ma sees, she worries.

And Kerrianne's Ma worries a lot lately. Especially since she and Jimmy returned from California, a journey that left her mother with a necklace of bruises about her neck. He refuses to let them alone; he forbade them to leave the house and posted guards to maintain the state of house arrest they currently enjoy. Jimmy also stole the locks that once made Kerrianne feel safe when he removed all but the front and back doors.

Rarely, does she see Jimmy in person anymore, which fills her with both peace and anxiety. Kerrianne saw him on the eve he and her Ma returned, and tonight he appeared suddenly and toke her Ma into another part of the house.

She thinks about the last time he darkened the doorstep while she waits for her Ma to return; her fingers protest against their abuse. Since Kerrianne's body began the awkward shift from girl to woman, she endeavors not to let Jimmy catch her alone. How he looks at her sometimes, well, Kerrianne does not think he would hurt her. But telling herself that never completely quells the uneasy feeling clawing at the pit of her stomach (she retreats then to the sanctuary of her bedroom; she chomps on her nails and blasts the music through her headphones until her cuticles and eardrums burn).

The night they came home, Jimmy cornered her in the kitchen.

While Kerrianne reached for a glass, Jimmy put a hand down on either side of her, effectively trapping her against the countertop. She freezes, glass in hand.

She can smell his breath and it reeks of whisky.

"Your father wanted me to give you this," he said. With one hand, he pushes her hair away from the side of her neck, sweeping it over her shoulder. Then he presses a kiss to her neck, razing every hair on Kerrianne's body.

"Stop," she whispers. And her voice sounds so weak, even to her own ears, that she knows, she just feels in the pit of her stomach where instinct lives, that Jimmy will not listen.

"I'm just trying to pass on a little love from your father. He'd be so unhappy if he knew you didn't want it."

She breaks out into a cold sweat; the glass slips in her hand. "My father would kill you without a second thought if he knew about the way you look at me."

Jimmy spins her around so fast that Kerrianne does not react until after the back of his hand finds her face.

Pain like she has never known before fills her senses. Her ears and heart pound and shock dulls her reaction. Jimmy stands over her with a look of sheer murder on his face.

"You ought to show me some respect. Do you known where you and your crazy bitch of a Ma would be today if I hadn't stepped in?"

"Yeah." Kerrianne grits her teeth, pushes aside her better judgment to just shut up. "I never stop thinking about where we'd be without you, Jimmy. We'd be with my real Da."

Then Jimmy's undoing the buckle of his belt and pulling it through the loops. Kerrianne curls inward onto herself, arms above her head as she anticipates the crack of leather. When it comes, breaking like lightening upon her shoulders, she expects it to hurt but the pain knocks the breath from her lungs too.

She curls in on herself as Jimmy circles her like an animal, the type of predator that plays with its prey before devouring it in one.

Again he belts her.

"Who raised your ungrateful ass?" Jimmy demands. "Who staid around to put food on the table? Clothes on your back? A roof over your head? Me! I've got news for you, lass, this image you've got of Saint Filip is a cruel lie fed to you by your mother. I could tell you stories that would give you nightmares."

"Jesus Christ, Jimmy! What the hell are you doing?"

"Teaching your brat a lesson, Fi. A lesson that's been a long time coming."

Kerrianne raises her head as her mother steps in front of her. "Go to your room, Kerri," she commands, voice trembling under the weight of fury.

"Ma-"

"Now, Kerri!"

And Kerrianne ran like a coward up the stairs to her bedroom where she ruined her fingernails and ran down the battery of her iPod to drown out the sound of her stepfather abusing her mother. This has happened in the past, but never because of something that Kerrianne did.

The reality makes her feel impossibly small.

Eventually, her thumb begins to bleed. It seems like an age before her mother returns, without Jimmy in tow.

"You should be asleep, lovey."

"Are you all right, Ma?"

Her Ma smiles, a small movement of her mouth that looks painful. "Nothing a good night's sleep can't mend."

Kerrianne knows that her mother will not sleep, though. Ma is always alert; eyes peeled for an escape route. Her Ma changes into pajama bottoms and a shirt with efficiency. A bruise the size of the six counties themselves stretches over her side. The spots of yellow around the outside mean it has begun to heel. She wonders what her Da might say if he saw it.

Her Ma turns off the light and crawls into bed besides Kerrianne. She strokes Kerrianne's hair; there are fresh bruises on her wrists.

"Ma?"

"Yes, Kerri."

"Why didn't you go to Da when I was little?"

Her Ma sighs. "Oh, Kerri. It's not as simple as all that."

For a second, Kerrianne thinks her mother will go on, will offer up an explanation that justifies Jimmy's presence in their lives. In the end, Kerrianne gets silence and she pulls away, rolling onto her side. She slips her thumb into her mouth and, for the first time in years, Kerrianne sucks to soothe away the horror of what her life has become.