"We didn't even know that he was coming back. I mean it's been awhile since anyone heard from him, he sent some letters. Still Lip really thought he'd have let us know but Fiona was just about to leave for work and then he was standing on the doorstep." Mandy continued on as if everything she was saying wasn't a bullet right into Mickey's chest. "He seems good though. Readjusting."

Readjusting. That's a scary fucking word.

He bit the inside of this cheek. "I gotta go."

"Wait what? Are you going to call me back?"

Mickey growled out "I don't have your fucking number you're the one who called me." She stayed silent and there was that twinge of guilt he tried to put out of his mind ever since he left that night in December. Mandy slept soundly even when he tripped on his way out the door. He left an envelope with two measly hundred-dollar bills for her in his secret drawer full of gay porn. He knew she'd go there to throw it out and cover his ass, even after he abandoned her. A classy goodbye for a Milkovich. "Just call me again in the morning. Don't forget. I need to get some sleep and can't deal with this shit right now."

She moved something close to the receiver on the other end and for a painful moment Mickey thought he'd made her cry. "Yea ok, I'll talk to you later."

Click.

By the time he switched back to the other line it was dead, nothing but a dial tone. Gallagher was gone.

And suddenly everything seemed wildly and cruelly unfair. Who gave Lip the right to find him? And who gave him the right to let Mandy torture herself by dragging him back into her life? He didn't talk to her all this time for a reason.

Still, here he was sitting in his shitty place in the sketchier part of town half naked, smelling like another man – no doubt unemployed now – and fucking miserable.

It made him want to chew out Mandy and Ian. He couldn't even call them back. Not that he wanted to, but still it was the principle of it all. And that's when he started to get pissed.

If he hadn't grown up in the Southside, if he'd had a normal shitty parent – one that just drank and didn't love you and tried to buy your affection instead, maybe he could have stayed out of juvie. If he had a father who wasn't so well versed in weaponry and violent hatred then maybe he wouldn't have needed to get a gun himself.

If he didn't have to set fucking everyone straight in that damn town then maybe he would have been able to hold a job and would have had enough money to get a phone with fucking working called ID and he would be able to call Ian back.

He didn't want to, but still. He should have at least had the fucking option.

Mickey threw his phone across the room and sucked his breath in at the loud clatter it made against the wall. God he hoped it didn't break.

There's something warm and sticky covering his hands and he thinks he's probably just fucked another loser but it's not right. It doesn't feel right. He looks down and see's that his hands are covered in blood and the smell is so strong it clings to the back of his throat.

"It was an honorable discharge." Ian's talking to him like nothing is wrong but his eyes are dead and unfocused and he only has one arm and Mickey wants to say something about it. He wants to tell him to stop bleeding all over his goddamned floor because he didn't want to wash it out and he'll let it stain he swears.

A gunshot sounds from outside and he sees the bullet pierce through Ian's stomach like it's the most natural thing in the world. Another one goes off and clips his left shoulder this time.

Ian doesn't even flinch but just looks from wound to wound and back up at Mickey. "I'm glad you came back Mick." And he wants to ask him what he's talking about but he can't get it out because Terry comes in shooting a third time with a bullet right to Mickey's brain —-

A gasp rips from his throat as he jolts awake and hears the 4th gunshot of his phone go off. It had been a nightmare.

"What?" He's drenched with sweat. "Mandy?" Silence."Gallagher?"

"Don't call me that."

The alarm clock glowed 4:34 at him angrily. He'd only slept for 3 hours. "It's 4:30 in the morning."

"4:34." Ian corrected. "4:34 AM, Tuesday morning."

Mickey grimaced. "Yea ok thanks for that I almost forgot the names of the days of the week." He wanted to hang up and drink himself back to sleep; he didn't want any of this. "How did you get my number?"

"Lip."

"Lip." Mickey repeated. "Well he's fucking officially number one on my list to kick the shit out of."

Ian didn't say anything and Mickey wondered if they had gotten disconnected. The only sign of his presence were shallow breaths that sounded wet and rattle-y. "So you got out huh? Army all it was cracked up to be?"

"When are you coming home Mick?" Home. The word sounded wrong.

He got up and closed the open window next to his bed because it was fucking cold nowadays. "Why the fuck would I do that?" Mickey wondered if Lip and Mandy were living in their own place now. It seemed weird even for them to pull this shit. Tag team phone attack – unless she didn't know. "Why aren't you sleeping?"

"Why aren't you?"

He laughed. "You're kidding me right? I was sleeping until you woke me up!" And by sleeping he meant having the most hellish nightmare since he first left town but Gallagher didn't need to know that.

Ian cleared his voice on the other end and he heard what sounded like a blade hitting a wall. "I wake up every night still. It's hard to readjust."

"You knew what you were signing up for."

A horrible sound that may have once been the refreshing laughter of the younger man's crawled through the phone. "Yea I did."

When he heard the line click dead Mickey was so beyond the idea that he had been hung up on that he actually said hello over and over into the phone like an idiot. It was useless though; there was no one there.

Just as fast as Ian punched his way back into his life he ran right out of it and Mickey thought maybe he understood how Jeff or Jon or whatever his name had been had felt earlier that night.

Because he was sure some part of him was just ripped out and stolen and being clutched tightly by a red head in Chicago.