A/N: So this may end up being a one-shot but let me know if anyone wants me to continue. I'm having serious Shameless withdrawals.

This part shifts perspectives but it's easy to tell whose perspective it is but it all centers around Ian.

Enjoy!

XXX

"What the fuck were you thinking?" Fiona shouts, opening her arms. "Joining the army as Lip? Seriously?"

"Well I'm not old enough," Ian bites back.

"I'm going to tell you just what I told Lip," she says. "You're graduating high school. You can go join the army after but you're not doing anything without a high school diploma."

"You don't have one!"

"Yeah, and my life is just fucking perfect, isn't it?" she cries out hysterically. "You're generally the fucking sensible one in this family, Ian!"

Ian doesn't respond.

"How the hell could you just run off and join the army without even telling anyone?"

"Because everyone else has their own damn lives and I just wanted something for me! The army is my thing. It's what I'm good at."

"Ian, we need you here," says Fiona, softening.

"You don't. I'm always that middle kid. The one everyone forgets about. Did you even notice I was gone?"

"Of course we did, Ian. Lip almost punched that hole through the wall," she points to a clear dent in the wall, "especially after he figured out how you got yourself on the bus. Debbie started that death shit again like after Aunt Ginger's friend died, and Carl's been mopey since Frank got his death warrant and this didn't help anything," her shouting fades, "But we noticed, Ian."

"Whatever." Feeling a little worse, but not enough to back down and apologize, he shrugs and turns his body.

"Ian, I know there's been something going on with you. You should have known that you'd get yourself in a shit load of trouble. You can talk to me."

"I can't."

With that he grabs his duffle off the floor, storms up the stairs, the sound of Fiona shouting, "Back to school Monday!" following him.

He throws his dirty army duffle by his bed in the much too small room he shares with too many brothers and climbs into his bed. He kicks his army boots to the ground and puts his hands behind his head, elbows out like awkward butterfly wings.

He doesn't know how long he lies there for, hours or minutes, but time doesn't seem to matter. It ticks by, the sun rising higher and higher in the sky. Ian doesn't move. After an undetermined amount of time, the door to his room slams against the walls and he's shocked out of his trance. His body jerks and he turns slightly towards the huffing figure in the doorway.

"Oh hey, jackass," snaps Lip, making his way into the room.

"What do you what?" he grumbles.

"Oh, you know, just have a talk, catch up, find out why you joined the fucking army under my name." The whole sentence is like a crescendo, going from soft, calm pseudo friendliness to, 'I want to rip your head off.'

"Just leave me alone, Lip," he snaps.

"Leave you alone?" he questions rhetorically. "Did you not even think for a second what consequences your actions might have?"

Ian shrugs him off turning his back to his fuming brother.

"MIT called, they threatened to revoke my acceptance."

"You didn't even want to go to MIT."

"Yeah well now I do. I had to so kindly explain to them that my dick of a brother took my name and tried to join the fucking army before turning eighteen! Real fucking nice, Ian."

Ian doesn't respond. He simply looks up to the ceiling while his brother stands staring at him, fuming. Part of him wishes he felt worse about what he did but it's like everything is numb around him.

"I was right," snaps Lip. "We should have just put you on fucking suicide watch. Is that what you were doing by joining the army? Trying to get away from fucking Mickey Milkovich?"

Ian, a scowl etched upon his face, turns towards his brother. "You know what, fuck you, Lip."

"No. Fuck you Ian." Lip violently points at his brother, with a sharp lunge, and rips a hand through his curly hair. "And you didn't even think they'd do some kind of background check? It's the United States government, Ian. How stupid can you actually be?" With that he storms off, slamming the door aggressively behind him.

As he lies, staring at the ceiling, once again, Ian can hear the faint sounds of Liam crying downstairs.

XXX

Hearing a knock at the door, Mandy puts the X-Box controller down, walking towards the door. No one ever knocked on the door. Besides the police, and Ian. So she assumed it had to be the police. Looking through the peephole, she saw a buzz cut red head.

She rips the door open and looks her best friend up and down. "Ian?"

"Hey."

Without another thought, Mandy smiles and launches herself forwards, throwing her arms around Ian quickly, before pulling back. "What are you doing back?"

"Could we take a walk?" he asks.

"He's not here. Neither is dad," she tells him knowingly.

"Still."

Watching the seriousness in his face, she shrugs. "Sure."

Mandy closes the door and leads Ian away from the house. She keeps watching his face as they walk silently, looking for any sign that he's going to speak. But he doesn't. They just walk for a while, ending up under the L.

"So, you gonna tell me why you're here?" she asks finally, figuring he had enough time to stew.

He looks to her for a second, then looks away. "Got kicked out."

"Seriously? You're like young G.I. Joe."

She can see the corner of Ian's lip turn up into a small smile. "Well, they do a background check and fingerprint when you join the army. Philip Gallagher wasn't only a bad candidate for military service but he is also enrolled at MIT and his prints from his multiple arrests don't exactly match mine," he says, oddly calm.

Mandy doesn't know what to say. She knows the army is Ian's life. "Well, can you try again at 18."

Ian shakes his head. "I've pretty much fucked my chances of joining the military ever."

It's silent for a moment, Mandy doing anything not to look at him as she searches for an appropriate reaction. "I'm sorry, Ian," she says, hoping it's the right thing; she's never been quite sure. But she's not sorry. Ian is one of the few people in her life who usually isn't a total dick and she wants him around.

There's a silence again and she doesn't know how to break it, so they keep walking. The L rumbles overhead as a train passes. Neither even turn their heads up to look.

Mandy awkwardly links her arm through Ian's looking at his face again. He gives her a small smile, holding her arm with his.

After some time, Ian speaks: "Can you not say anything to Mickey? About me being back; about anything?"

She debates saying something but she just nods.

XXX

Mickey puts the cigarette between his lips, holding it with his right hand, sucks in a sharp breath, then puffs out the gray smoke from his lips and nose, following it with a swig of the near empty bottle Vodka in the brown paper bag in his left hand.

He looks back and forth on the street corner, scanning the nearly empty street for his mark. Moments later a shaking man, hidden under a gray hoodie, walks up to him and they make the quick pass off, then Mickey is on his way. Once again he raises the mouth of the bottle to his lips, completely draining it in a single gulp.

That's all you're going to say to him?

He feels the all too familiar of the alcoholic warmth spreading through him, dulling everything around him.

You're a fucking pussy.

He kicks himself for drinking too much, something he'd done every day for the past two weeks. He realizes he passed the numb and to the dullness that sparks self-realization. Coward.

Not everybody gets to just blurt out how they fucking feel every minute.

He'd always been told emotions are a weakness; real men don't show emotion.

It's only now that he's feeling the strongest emotion since his mother died that he realizes: It's easy to be numb. Feeling things and dealing with it is hard.

You're a fucking pussy.

Though he knows it's empty, he puts the bottle to his lips again, hoping even the smallest drop will fall out. With the increase on his already grossly enormous alcohol consumption over the last two weeks, he thinks bitterly to himself that he could drink his drunken bitch of a Russian whore-wife under the table now.

His footsteps echo through the underpass as he makes his way, swaying from foot to foot, home.

As he nears the Gallagher home, he takes a sharp turn, making sure to take the alternate route home.

Just as he turns he sees a flash of a familiar face with freckles and red hair across the street. Immediately he tells himself that he's just having some kind of alcohol or coke induced mental break—caused by guilt, regret, longing, or any of the horrible emotions even the alcohol wasn't chasing away—and walks away, taking a long, slow drag from his cigarette.

He almost trips over a crumpled beer can but instead he starts kicking it along with him on the abandoned street for a few blocks.

It feels as if the world is crushing him as he approaches the old house that stores nothing but pain for him.

"Mand, you here?" he calls out, pushing the door. The sound reverberates through the seemingly empty house. He doesn't expect her to answer though; she hasn't said a word to him in two weeks. He's not confused as to why.

He walks through, looks down the hall and nothing. Part of him worries about where his sister got off to now that she and Lip aren't a thing, but he knows she can definitely handle herself.

He hears a knock on the front door and confusedly walks towards it. No one knocks on the Milkovichs' door. Only one person had really ever done it. He saunters towards the door and pulls it open a crack.

For a second it feels like the world stops. The person in front of him is no longer a person; it's just a swirl of pain and red. It takes a moment before he's in focus again and a weight settles in his throat.

"What are you doing here?" he chokes out, trying to mask the feeling that his lungs and heart were getting sat on by a fat guy with his strong words. "Aren't you supposed to be getting your ass shot off in Fallujah or some shit?" He swallows thickly cracking his neck to distract himself.

"Yeah, I am," Ian replies shortly. "Is Mandy here?"

"No," he replies, disappointed. There's an awkward pause. Mickey looks down at his feet, kicks one against the doorframe then looks back up at Ian. "Wanna come in?" He cocks his head towards the interior of the house.

"Nah, Mick. I was just here to see Mandy. Tell her I was looking for her?"

"I'm not your fucking messenger boy," he says passive aggressively.

The corners of Ian's lips turn up into a small smirk. "I'll just come back later then." With out further goodbye he turns his back and walks away.

"Ian!" Mickey calls out, voice cracking roughly.

Ian turns his head slightly, his brown eyes looking back at him somewhere between expecting and hopelessness. Time stands still as they stare at each other.

Feeling the familiar feeling of a surge of his throat closing up and his eyes moistening, he looks away. "Nothing," he says finally, attempting an offhanded wave off.

Once again Ian's lip curls up into the smallest of knowing smirks and he turns away, continuing away from the house. Mickey follows the red haired boy with his eyes as he walks down the stairs and finally out the gate of the house. Once Ian is out of sight, he closes the door to the old, rickety house, and slams his back against it.

"Fuck," he sighs, wiping the slightest bit of moisture from his eyes.

I am such a pussy.

XXX

A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Reviews make my day (and tell me if I should continue this).