Mandy had already started making her way to the door, but Mickey made a stop by his room to grab the family slugger. Mandy noticed and said, "The fuck are you doing?"

With the bat in hand, Mickey smirked, "Just gotta be ready to send a message if I need to."

She rolled her eyes and dragged him over to the door, ripping it open to see a frantic, out of breath Lip. It looked like he'd made the mad dash all the way from the Gallagher house a few blocks over. Before she got a chance to say anything, Mickey took charge.

"The fuck you want Lip?" He bit his lip, brandishing the bat next to his leg while leaning against the door frame.

Lip paused for a second, "Nice to see you too Mick. Anyway, I came here because we just got a call….from Charles M. Price Army Base down by St. Louis. Apparently, my brother used my ID to get into the military."

Mandy and Mickey shared a worried glance.

"Okay, and what the fuck does that mean?", she said with all of the apathy she could feign.

Lip sighed, before inhaling deeply. "It means, he fucked up. Big time. "

Mickey jumped in, "So how big are we talking? Like Bernie Madoff big or some Martha Stewart look at me I fucked with my taxes shit?"

"Dishonorable discharge. He's getting sent packing. Can't apply to go into the military himself ever. Thankfully, Fi was able to talk down the General dude on the phone and get Ian juvie and community service for a while rather than jail time. She played the 'he's just a fucking idiot kid' card and thankfully it worked." Lip was shuffling uncomfortably on the porch, looking down at his shoes and then scanning the Milkovichs' faces for a reaction.

It took Mick and Mandy a few seconds to process what Lip had just told them, so when he got impatient and said, "Say something!", Mandy had to jump in to prevent Mickey from kicking the ever-loving shit out of him.

She leaned up against the doorframe, "So let me get this straight….Ian can't ever go into the military now?"

Lip sighed, "Yeah pretty much. Unless they fucking lift the dishonorable discharge, he can't even reapply once he's actually legal."

Mickey took a drag from the cigarette he'd just lit and mumbled, "So how'd they catch Fi-….. him?"

"Fucker didn't even think they'd do a background check before he got cleared for the real start of basic. As soon as my priors popped up, they fingerprinted him and checked it against my records. I'm sure the 'NO MATCH' message went over about as well as a loud fart in church. Listen, I'd love to stay and chit chat with you two, but I gotta get back."

With that, Lip jumped down off the front porch and dashed down the road in the direction of the Gallagher house.

Once he was comfortably out of earshot, Mandy looked at Mickey and smirked wildly. "C'mon asshole. Lip's gone. No need to keep up the hardass face. I know inside you were probably like a fucking kid on Christmas when you heard that he's coming back."

He wiped a little bit of a tear from his eyes which were now puffy and red, "Shut the fuck up and come back inside before you freeze your tits off."

"Jeez, I'm just trying to lighten things up." She frowned at him, "I'm going to go over and see if I can help with anything. Have fun brooding around like one of those emo freaks from My Chemical Romance or some shit." As she ran off to follow Lip, she flipped Mickey off with both hands.

With everyone else gone, Mickey made his way back to his room and collapsed onto the bed. He took another hard look at the forms in his hand and the note before tossing them aside. He should have been ecstatic. He should have been fucking singing from the mountaintops like Julie Andrews or some shit, but there were two problems with that. One, he'd probably rather get caught mid-thrust with Ian again before entertaining the idea of watching a musical and Two, he couldn't be happy knowing that Ian's dream was just fucking smashed to bits.

He sprung up and ran over to his dresser. Opening the top drawer, he pushed the boxers and socks aside, and jiggled it a bit to loosen the paper covering the plywood bottom of the drawer. Reaching in, he pulled out something from between the paper and plywood. Nobody knew he had, and he was hellbent and determined on keeping it that way. It was a picture, a shitty little 3"x5" of him and Ian's little league team. It had to have been taken when they were 7 and 9 respectively. Ian was short, kinda squat and actually smaller than Mickey. He looked like one big freckle with hair and eyes, but the grin was the same, the same one Mickey knew and loved. "You fucking idiot. You really screwed the pooch this time." The picture was soon back in its hiding place and the boxers and socks carefully thrown all over to conceal it.

That night when Terry returned from "work" aka the closest dollar strip club he could find, he stumbled upon Svetlana's note. Mickey was in the other room, but he could hear everything. "Fuckin' ungrateful Russian bitch! She probably aborted the fucking thing to get out of here. When I get my hands on her, I'm gonna fucking use her as bait for the dogfights over at O'Malleys. She's fucking dead."

Mickey almost felt sorry for Svetlana. It was a really odd sensation considering how much he'd grown to hate her since the day Terry had called her over to fuck the faggot out of him, but in hindsight, she probably wanted to do it as little as he did. If she didn't fuck him, Terry would have shot her on the spot and sent her back to the spa in a body bag. He was just grateful that his sister had found some twisted fucking way to spare him and Svetlana a life of hell.

Terry burst into his room, "Did you fucking see this shit?" he screamed, pointing to the letter in his hand, "that little cunt killed your son and my grandson and fucking ran." Mickey knew he had to play along and not let on that she'd left him a note too.

"That fucking bitch. Guess it's a good thing that cunt left me these in bed this morning when I woke up. Now I can divorce her ass. None of that shit up in here. I want a piece of the action when you get your hands on her." That was a lie, but a necessary one.

Terry scowled, "Resourceful little whore. She must have had this all planned out. If I catch her, no when I catch her, you get front row seats to see her get torn apart by the dogs." He laughed cruelly, "I'm sure they boys will be tossing money at me to let the Rotties go to town on her skinny little ass. Go to Father Hannigan, show him that shit and tear up that marriage certificate. No commie slut is going to ruin the Milkovich reputation. Now get the fuck out of here."

All it took was 3 signatures, two stamps, and 10 bucks and his marriage was as good as done. Before Ian left, Mickey'd have been using this as an excuse to let things go back to the way they were: a good fuck now and again, nothing more than that. He wished he could believe himself saying that Ian was just a good fuck, but that was a blatant fucking lie. These past few months since he'd gotten out of juvie shot that theory down hard. Mickey had fucking kissed Ian, unprompted. At the wedding, he almost blurted out that he felt the same way, he almost was ready to give it all up for him, and when Ian was in the doorway, turning to leave, he almost was able to finish his sentence, Don't…..just don't with go, please, but he couldn't get it out. The old Mickey Milkovich, the one who went to hunt down Gallagher for knocking up Mandy, would probably look at him, laugh and fag bash the hell out of him. Mickey hated it, but somewhere, deep down, he'd begun to accept what Ian had been saying all along.

Now he had an opportunity, a chance, a fresh start, but would he royally fuck it up like every other aspect of his life thus far?