Author's Note: So I wrote the first five chapters of this multichapter fic between season 5 and 6 (you know, back when Gallavich was a thing) and stopped writing it when I was Jossed, but I decided recently to continue it (Eat it, Shameless, you can't make me hate this couple). So it does not include Mickey's arrest (Sammy just stayed wherever that moving truck took her, alright?) and Ian broke up with Mickey and refused medication and continued to make other poor life choices, as it appeared he was going to do at the end of season 5. The story picks up 3 years later. Also, Mickey is a paramedic in this story. Strange that they made Ian into a paramedic and I made Mickey into one (this was before I knew that was the plan for Ian). Swearing, vague discussions of prostitution...etc. Nothing violent or graphic.

Ian woke up slowly and looked around. The room was definitely in a hospital, although it was a nicer hospital room than any he'd woken up in before. He was wearing a scratchy hospital gown and was hooked up to an IV and some other machines. Not a good sign.

The last thing he remembered was agreeing to go to another party for Branford. He told himself over and over that he wasn't really an escort if he wasn't on Branford's payroll, but those five-hundred dollar cash injections sure came in handy, and they popped into Ian's bank account with more regularity than he could comfortably acknowledge. And, though it was hard for him to admit it, sometimes it was nice to have someone looking out for him, even if Branford was only doing it so he could pimp Ian out to his high-class clients.

Hell, without Branford looking out for him he'd probably have HIV and be a drug addict, although he was pretty sure the pills he'd taken to be able to tolerate Branford's latest 'friend in need of companionship' were what landed him in the hospital, but at least he wasn't a junkie or a meth-head.

"So, you're awake," a woman said.

She was pretty but buttoned-up so tight it was hard to see that, at first. Wanted to be taken seriously even though she was young, probably. She wasn't dressed like a doctor, but it was hard to tell sometimes the way everyone wore scrubs in hospitals. "Where am I? What happened?"

She looked at him severely. "You were lucky. I know you young pretty boys think that it's part of gay-culture to take drugs, but those so-called party drugs are really much more serious than people think. I personally can't believe that someone with a fiancé like Mickey Milkovich would hang around Boystown taking drugs and dancing with other guys while Mickey's working a shift. But that's just my opinion. He's a friend of mine, you know."

"Mickey?" Ian asked blankly. He and Mickey had broken up three years ago. Breaking Mickey's heart had been step one in Ian's self-destruct countdown to total annihilation. Steps two through seven had involved cutting all ties with his family, and he didn't really want to think about steps eight through twenty-seven.

He chose to shut up and endure the lecture stoically and without comment. There was something bizarre going on, and he knew asking a question like, "is this some parallel universe where I'm not the guy who threw away everything that mattered to him?" would get him thrown in the psych ward.

Finally, the woman, who still hadn't introduced herself, checked the readouts on his machines and left.

A few minutes later a man came in with none-other than Mickey Milkovich, who looked incredible and was wearing a paramedic uniform. Which, yeah. Mickey in a uniform was really, really hot. Mickey rushed over to his bedside and kissed him chastely on the lips. He leaned down to hug Ian, who automatically hugged him back, and he whispered in Ian's ear. "Just go with this, okay?"

"Mickey brought me in for a quick consult to see if you could benefit from my out-patient program for bipolar. I'm Dr. Hampton."

Ian looked at Mickey in some confusion. He'd long-since acknowledged to himself that of course his family and Mickey had been right and he had bipolar. He even took the medication sometimes. He didn't know what the hell was happening right now. "Can I talk to you for a minute, Mickey?"

"I know you hate when I talk to you about your meds and stuff, Ian, but after this latest stunt you can't tell me your meds are working the way they should be for you. Dr. Hampton is a world expert in treating bipolar and he's here as a favor on his break so he doesn't have much time. I promise you I'll explain everything if you'll just answer the doc's questions honestly right now. Even if he agrees to take you on as a patient, you don't have to sign on if you learn about the program and you don't want to do it."

"Okay. I guess," Ian said.

The doctor took a clipboard out from under his arm and proceeded with his questions, jotting down answers as he went.

"So, you were diagnosed a little over three years ago? Had you shown signs before then?"

"I was probably symptomatic for a couple of years before that," Ian said. "Not that I would have admitted it at the time."

"And your family history…"

"My mother is bipolar," Ian said.

"And in the three years since you've been diagnosed, how often have you been properly medicated?"

Ian paused, and Mickey's hand curled around his. He looked at Mickey, inexplicably there, and decided to tell the truth. "I've taken the meds I got from the free clinic in the proper dosage for a couple of months here and there. It was like being a zombie. I couldn't hold down a job while I was on them; I couldn't even read to pass the time. Eventually I started just keeping a supply of the pills on me and taking a couple when I felt a high or a low coming."

"So you did take the prescribed dosage for more than a month at least once?" the doctor asked.

"More than once. I couldn't stand it," Ian said.

"Okay. I'll let you know, Mick."

The doctor walked out, and Ian turned to Mickey. "What the hell, Mickey? Fiancé? Did we get back together and I just forgot about it or something? I know drugs can scramble your brain, but—"

"We didn't get back together. Two nights ago we got a call to pick up a kid outside a nightclub in Boystown. He, your date, or whoever, left you there, in the snow, half-dead. You had a card on your chest for an escort service that someone had written 'contact info' on, but when we called the number, some guy named Branford said he'd never heard of you. I called Fiona and she said she had enough problems without dealing with someone who wouldn't accept any help and hung up on me. By this time you'd come around in the ambulance, but it was obvious you needed more treatment. You hadn't just OD'd, you were sick. You had some signs of malnutrition and what looked like a lung infection. We would have had to take you to the worst hospital in the city for treatment."

"Would have?"

"I work at this hospital part time. I radioed in, asked if I could get my partner on my benefits before the bill came for an ambulance ride and a stay. They said we'd work something out."

"So this is some kind of insurance fraud?"

"I make fifteen dollars an hour working part-time at two jobs. The only thing this job has going for it is the benefits, and I couldn't just let them take you to some awful place where they wouldn't help you when I could just pull a few strings and maybe do some good. I knew it would probably piss you off, but honestly, I didn't even think about it. I just did it."

"What happens when you don't get married?"

"They think you run around Boystown taking drugs and picking up other guys while being engaged to me. I don't think it's going to rock any of their worlds if the wedding doesn't happen," Mickey said.

"Aren't you still married to Svetlana?"

Mickey looked at Ian curiously. "You really haven't been back to the old neighborhood, have you? Svetlana's dead. One of her pimps got her started on heroin so she could still work after a John kicked the shit out of her. She OD'd a couple of months later."

"Where's Yev?"

"He's with me. Svetlana gave him to me when she noticed suddenly I was the guy with the good job and she was a junkie hooker. He's at daycare right now," Mickey said.

"I'm sorry. I mean, I know you didn't always get along with her, but—"

"—yeah," Mickey said heavily. "So I'm sorry if I've overstepped. But I didn't do much to help her, you know? And I don't want to let the same thing happen to you. Not that you're a smack-head, but…can you let Dr. Hampton try to help you?"

"What was all that about, anyway?"

"Like I said, he's an expert on bipolar. He says that most GPs at free clinics sometimes just throw the maximum dosage at bipolar patients and never try to tweak the dosage so it works, and if the patient doesn't have access to a psychiatrist they just go off their meds because they make them feel like shit. He's writing some kind of paper on how to get the dosage right."

"Aren't you a paramedic? How do you even know him?"

"He bums smokes from me all the time. I asked him what he does when we were out smoking, and when he told me, I told him a little bit about you. I said you were a friend, you know, not that you were my ex-boyfriend from three years ago, so that won't give us away. Ian, I know you don't want any help and you're the most stubborn person I know, but this really is the chance of a lifetime. You could be pretty-much symptom free if they get the dosage right. Get a legit job, and all that shit. Unless you're really happy with your…life choices."

"How did you get a legit job?"

"I had a lot of time on my hands after you broke up with me. I went to the employment office and they told me how to get my GED. Then I found out how to become a paramedic. I thought it was something that would be exciting enough for me, you know? Lots of adrenaline pumping and excitement, and there's hardly any school. I didn't even need my GED, really, although when I was studying for it I learned stuff I needed for the certification tests."

"You have a boyfriend?"

Mickey rolled his eyes. "Yes, I have a boyfriend who's perfectly fine with me pretending I'm marrying my gorgeous ex and moving him into my house so he can get out-patient care from my doctor friend."

"I have to live with you?"

"Is that a problem?"

Ian pictured the flophouse where he and a couple of his friends crashed. He wouldn't miss the place, or even any of his friends, if he never saw either ever again. "It would be really cool to live with you, as long as you don't mind me being around your son."

"Why the hell would I mind that?" Mickey asked. "You're better with kids than I am. Only…a couple of rules. You can't be working for that Branford guy if you're staying with me. And no drugs but what the doc gives you. And, no guests. At all."

Ian swallowed. He really didn't like that doctor. Hampton, was it? The guy had seemed like a creep, and he'd barely treated Ian like a human. And Ian didn't believe that his medication was so much better than everyone else's just because he worked at one of the best hospitals in Chicago. On the other hand, getting away from his old life and all his old friends was sounding better and better. Working as an escort had been kind of fun when he'd been eighteen and had done it mostly for kicks and free drugs, but it was kind of humiliating the longer he did it, and it would only get worse. He'd already been turned down because he was 'too old' a couple of times, and he was barely in his early twenties. He couldn't do it forever, and he wouldn't accept one of the offers of his rich old clients to be a 'house boy'. He might be a lot of things, but meek wasn't one of them.

And it might be really selfish, but if he pretended that he believed he could get better with the proper medication, he could live with Mickey again, even if it was just for a little while.

Ian had spent so much of his life in the land of denial that he might as well get an apartment there, but one thing he'd never managed to lie to himself successfully about was the fact that he'd never been happier than when he had lived with Mickey. He'd tried to tell himself it was just because Mickey was his first love, and you never find the love of your life at eighteen, but even he didn't believe that.

This Mickey seemed like a stranger. He hardly even swore. But he looked the same, and he looked at Ian like he cared what happened to him, even if he didn't look at him like he loved him anymore. If Ian tried hard enough he could imagine Mickey really was his fiancé and all his bad choices in the last three years were the mistakes someone else had made.

He looked at Mickey and remembered all the times Mickey had fucked up and hurt him. He'd more than made up for those times by coming out and trying to take care of Ian when he'd first come back from the army and let the man back into his life. Maybe Ian could make up for all the ways he'd fucked up and Mickey would be able to forgive him in return.