Miss Understood
Summary: Mandy decided to confront Karen with a knife instead of running her over with a car. No one had ever really understood Karen before, but after Mandy finally forced her to talk instead of holding everything inside, they both managed to become friends and maybe even more. Written for Shameless Femslash Week Day 5: Angst. This is a canon rewrite with a happy ending.
Disclaimer: I don't own Shameless.
Karen's feelings were never really explicitly stated in the show and it really makes me angry because I can never figure out exactly what was running through her head. I really hope that I made this as realistic as possible. Whatever Karen did, I will never believe she deserved what she got.
It's scary how much I relate to Karen. I may have inserted a few things about my own life in this fic oops.
When Karen reached the park, she looked around for Lip with a big smile on her face. She hoped with all her heart that he would take her back. Her time away from home had not been kind to her. She'd been cheated and lied to and almost sold into slavery. No one had been kind to her, and she regretted even leaving.
All she wanted was someone to finally care about her again. Karen didn't actually "love" Lip back, but it didn't matter. Maybe if they got back together, it could be different. Maybe she could fix something within herself that she'd always thought was broken.
Honestly, Karen didn't know what love meant. Her father had never loved her, and even though she knew her mother had tried her best, things between them had gotten fucked up too. When her mother's agoraphobia had gotten so severe that she couldn't leave the house, her mother stopped treating her like a child. Her mother became the one who needed protection, so Karen had to grow up fast. She held back all of her sadness and disappointment over every missed party and Parent-Teacher conference. She kept it all inside, until no one around understood that she was in pain anymore. They all just thought she was a mean girl, even her mother.
Karen missed those early days when her mother had taken care of her as a child. She also missed Lip following after her like a puppy, convinced that she was pregnant because of him, even though she'd told him over and over again that it might not be his. She didn't want to think about her father or her baby or any of that other shit that reminded her of her lost childhood and all the trauma she'd been through.
She was so wracked with guilt and confusion and anger at the world. If she allowed others to see her true self, she knew they would be amazed at how weak she really was.
There was so much of her life that she could never get back, but Lip was someone who had always been there for her. So she chased after him and did whatever she could to break up his relationship with Mandy. She waited for him in the park, cold and hopeful for a better future with someone who "loved" her.
However, it wasn't Lip who stepped out of the shadows. It was Mandy Milkovich, her face full of rage. She pushed Karen up against a tree and held a knife to her throat before the blonde could even make a sound.
"Why the fuck are you really after my boyfriend?" Mandy growled. "I know you don't really like him, so what's your fucking problem?"
Karen looked down at the knife and gulped. She knew that she had to choose her words carefully. She'd heard plenty about the Milkoviches before. She knew what they could do.
"Hate to break it to you, sweetie, but Lip contacted me first," she taunted, all of her words completely true. "The whole reason I came back was because of his call. He's just so obsessed with me, even after all this time. Really, you should just give up and move on to someone else."
Mandy frowned. "You just want Lip back so he can obsess over you? Is that it?"
Karen sighed. That wasn't it at all.
"You just don't get it," she muttered. "Just leave me the fuck alone." Karen seethed with anger and fought the urge to cry. She wasn't about to show her true feelings to some bitch who thought she was better than her.
Mandy frowned. She recognized the look on Karen's face as one that she'd only ever seen in the mirror. Karen was hiding something, some kind of dark secret.
Finally, after a moment of hesitation, Mandy lowered the knife, but she kept her body pressed into Karen's to make sure that she couldn't run away. She grabbed her wrist and pinned it against the tree. "Then fucking explain," she ordered. "Ian always says you're a heartless bitch for no reason. Is that seriously it? You going after my boyfriend cause you're nothing but a psycho whore?"
Karen flinched at the word whore. It reminded her of her father.
"Everything's just so fucked up," she spat back angrily. "I just wanted things to go back to the way they were before."
"Just cause some shit happened to you, it doesn't give you an excuse to be a cunt," Mandy grumbled.
"You have no idea what I've been through!" Karen barked back. "No one does, and yet you all judge me like you know every goddamn thing about me."
"What the hell does any of this have to do with Lip?" Mandy sighed, getting impatient. "You keep coming after him, threatening to poke a hole in a condom. You seriously think there's any excuse for that?"
"I wasn't actually gonna do that. I just want my life back!" Karen shouted, finally breaking down. "After my dad humiliated me and called me a whore, I humiliated him right back, but I just… I ruined everything. Everyone hates me now. I just want things to go back to the way they were. I don't wanna be alone anymore!"
Mandy frowned. "Your dad called you a whore? So what? My dad's done worse shit to me. You don't see me complaining about it."
"Oh yeah?" Karen roared back, feeling all the anger she'd been holding back finally rising to the surface. "Did your dad kill himself because of you?"
Karen had never told anyone about that before. No one knew how much she truly blamed herself for what happened. She'd peed on her dad's grave and turned his death into a fucking joke to try to convince everyone that things were okay. But honestly, she'd never hated him as much as she hated herself.
Mandy was silent. Maybe she didn't know exactly what Karen was going through. She had no idea that Karen's life was so fucking complicated. If what happened to Karen was anything as fucked up as what her own father had done to her, then maybe Karen wasn't so crazy after all…
Karen noticed the distracted look on Mandy's face and realized that she had a chance to get loose. She did the only thing she could think of to confuse Mandy so she could break out of her death grip. She leaned in and kissed her.
Mandy's eyes widened, but she knew better than to fall for Karen's trick. She gripped Karen harder, pressing her firmly up against the tree and kissed her back. Neither one of them pulled away, not wanting to be the one who lost the "fight" in the end.
Finally, after a few minutes of lips and teeth and tongue, they both became lightheaded. Mandy let go of her captive and chuckled breathily.
"So when you suggested that threesome with Lip earlier, was that your way of coming onto me or something?" she teased.
Karen raised an eyebrow. "You wish," she replied.
They both grinned. Somehow everything between them had settled down with a battle of lips instead of fists. Karen felt like someone finally understood her, and honestly, all the rage and pain inside of her finally hurt a little less.
She paused for a moment, contemplating something as she sucked on her lower lip.
"Alright," she muttered finally. "You win. I'll give up on Lip."
Mandy was surprised. "Seriously? Just like that?"
"Yep," Karen answered, a little smirk forming on her face. "I think I'd rather go after you instead."
Mandy laughed in surprise, almost intrigued by the idea. "You couldn't handle me, Jackson."
Karen bit her lip and grinned even wider. "I'll take that as a challenge, Milkovich."
Neither one of them knew it yet, but in the end, it turned out that it wasn't very much of a challenge after all. Mandy understood so many of the things that Karen had been though. She knew exactly what it felt like to keep it all bottled up inside. They were both exactly what the other needed.
For the first time in both of their lives, they knew what the word "love" truly meant.