Ian brought Sophie back to the park around six for Mickey to pick her up.

When Sophie saw Mickey walking toward them, she ran up to him, squealing "Daddy!"

Mickey picked her up, grinning, and kissed the side of her head.

Ian really loved that sometimes. He loved that Sophie was so easily able to bring out the best in Mickey. He loved that Mickey had someone in his life who could do that. Even when Sophie wasn't around, just talking about her made Mickey happy.

"Daddy, I saw the zebras and grillas!"

"Yeah?" he said, "So did you have fun today?"

"Yeah, we did painting and I had ice cream and I held Josh's hand."

"Who the fuck's Josh?" Mickey asked with raised eyebrows.

"Josh is my boyfriend, Daddy. He's really cute!" she said.

Mickey actually chuckled a little. "You're too young to have a boyfriend."

She pouted a little. "But Aunt Mandy has a boyfriend!"

"Aunt Mandy's a lot older than you are. When you're Aunt Mandy's age, then maybe you can have a boyfriend."

Ian laughed. "Yeah, but Mandy was a lot younger than she is now when she got her first boyfriend."

Mickey ignored his comment, looking up at Ian. "Where the fuck were you when my three year old was getting a boyfriend?"

Ian held his hands up in surrender. "Hey, I told her she didn't need a boyfriend. I even told her Josh wasn't nice."

"But then I let Josh use the blue marker and he said he would be my boyfriend." Sophie explained, proudly.

Mickey raised his eyebrows again. "No, you shouldn't have a boyfriend, especially if he makes you give up the blue marker."

"But he's really cute!"

"Yeah, but you're cuter," he said.

"But-"

"No," Mickey said, "You can't have a boyfriend."

Sophie pouted, but didn't say anything more.

"So I think Sophie likes me," Ian said after a moment.

Mickey raised his eyebrows. "Yeah?" he looked at his daughter, "Sophie, what do you think my friend, Ian?"

Sophie didn't say anything.

"Come on," Mickey urged, "you said you had fun today."

"Yeah," she mumbled.

"You want Ian to watch you again sometime?"

Sophie nodded, but was still pouting.

"Sophie," Ian said, trying to distract her from why she was upset, "why don't you show your daddy what you painted?"

"It's in my bag," she said.

"Yeah?" Mickey said, setting her down, "I wanna see it." He helped her take off her tiny pink back pack and unzipped it, pulling out a piece of paper. "This it?"

"Yeah," she said. It was nothing more than a bunch of random swirls and smudges of paint. Then there were a bunch of yellow spots all over the paper. "Those are stars," she said to Mickey, "I named them."

"You named the stars?" Mickey said, "Stars don't have names."

"Yes they do!" Sophie argued, "These ones do!"

"Okay then," he said slowly, kneeling down beside her and holding up the painting so they were both looking at it, "What are their names?"

"Um," she pointed to one of the stars, "this one's the Daddy star, and this is the Sophie star . . . this is the Aunt Mandy star, and Uncle Iggy star, and Uncle Dan star . . . and that one's the Ian star."

Mickey looked at his daughter with a raised eyebrow. "Why're we all stars?"

"Stars are pretty," she said like it should've been obvious. Then she looked down and said quietly, "Grandpa's not a star."

"Yeah? You painted Grandpa too?"

She pointed to a grey ball of scribbles. "He's in there. That's his cell."

"He's in a cell?"

"He went to jail for being mean to me."

Mickey nodded a bit. "Seems fair." After a moment he said, "You know you can't tell Grandpa about this, right?"

"I know," Sophie said, "Grandpa would get mad again."

"You can't talk about Ian around Grandpa either, okay?" Mickey then said, nodding his head toward Ian.

"Why not?"

He sighed. "Because Grandpa doesn't like Ian," he explained, "If Grandpa knows that we spent time with Ian, he's gonna be angry again."

"But why?" Sophie whined, "I like Ian!"

Ian smiled at this, and noticed Mickey trying not to smile too.

"I know," Mickey said, "but Grandpa doesn't like Ian, so you can't talk about him," he quickly glanced up at Ian, then leaned a bit closer to Sophie and whispered, "if you do, he'll get angry again and you'll have to go hide under the bed."

"Okay," she finally said, looking upset.

"Hey, don't worry, we can still hang out with Ian," Mickey assured her, picking her back up, "we just can't talk about it."

"Can I see Ian tomorrow?" She asked excitedly.

Mickey laughed, "But you're going to Aunt Mandy's tomorrow. You were so upset that you weren't going to see her this morning."

"Oh yeah," Sophie said.

"Oh yeah," Mickey mocked her, with a laugh.

"You know," Ian spoke up, "if you need me to watch her again..."

Mickey turned to him, with a scowl, "Why don't you have a job or something?"

He raised an eyebrow, "I'm looking for one in another state."

Mickey stared at him for a moment, his face unreadable, before glancing away, muttering, "Yeah, maybe," answering the question Ian didn't have to ask.

"Think about it..." he said, before starting to turn away, "See ya. Bye, Sophie!"

"Bye, Ian!" Sophie waved excitedly, as Mickey started turning the other direction.

As Mickey walked back to the house, his daughter still in his arms, Sophie looked up at him, "I like Ian, Daddy."

"Yeah, you said that."

"Do you like Ian?" she asked.

Mickey looked at her. "Of course I like Ian."

"Why doesn't Grandpa like Ian?"

"I don't know," he lied, "Grandpa doesn't like a lot of people."

As they got closer to the house, he said, "Remember that you can't talk about this when we get home, though."

"I won't," Sophie promised.

Luckily she did drop the subject then, even though Mickey could tell she was dying to talk more about her day. He was grateful he had a kid smart enough to listen to him.

There was music blaring throughout the house when they walked in. There was a man, that Mickey didn't recognize, passed out on the couch. Loud voices were coming from the kitchen, and he knew that his brothers had probably invited over some friends-or clients.

He was used to this shit, but it was ridiculous for them to be doing this on a fucking Monday.

He walked Sophie to her room and told her to stay in there.

"But what about dinner?" She asked.

"I'll bring you dinner, you can eat in your room tonight." He said, setting her on the bed.

"I want mac and cheese."

"You'll get whatever I fucking make you," He snapped before leaving her room. Having strange men in the house, at the same time as his daughter, always put him on edge.

In the kitchen, there was group of men sitting at the table, including Joey and Iggy, all with beers, taking turns snorting lines of coke.

"Hey, Mickey! Come do a line with us!" One of the guys yelled.

Mickey ignored him and started looking for something for Sophie to eat.

"Nah, Mickey quit, remember?" another guy teased, "He's a daddy now."

Mickey had stopped doing coke anytime his daughter was home. The first time he did it after Sophie had been born, she had only been a month old. Mickey had been so high that when she started crying, he freaked out, brought her into the kitchen, and just left her on the counter.

Luckily Mandy had still been living in the house at the time. The next morning when he realized Sophie wasn't in the crib that sat next to his bed, he pounded on Mandy's door. She came out of her room, glaring at him.

"I don't know where I put the kid!" he admitted, panicking.

Mandy hadn't said anything, but opened her door far enough for him to see Sophie laying on Mandy's bed, fast asleep. Mandy had found Sophie crying on the counter not ten minutes after Mickey put her there. She'd taken care of Sophie the rest of the night.

He moved to go into the room, but Mandy stopped him. He recognized the look on her face, and tried to take a step back, but wasn't able to before she reached out and hit him in the face.

"Fuck!" Mickey grabbed his face. He was definitely going to have a bruise on his right cheekbone. "Mandy, what the fuck-?"

"I'm not taking care of your kid for you every time you feel like getting high!" She practically spit at him, "What if I had been out somewhere-what if she had rolled off the counter before I found her! You're gonna end up killing this kid!"

"I'm not gonna kill her, okay! ? It was a mistake-I didn't even know what I was I doing!"

"How much fucking coke did you snort?"

"I don't remember," he admitted.

"You're lucky you're even still alive." She looked disgusted, "I should call child protective services or something."

Mickey rolled his eyes, "Come on, you're not gonna call child protective services."

"But I should! I mean, I'm surprised you'd even care to have her around if you're just gonna pull this kind of shit!"

"Look-it's not gonna happen again, alright?" Mickey said, moving around her and into the bedroom.

Sophie was just opening her eyes as Mickey approached her. She had that dumb baby look on her face, which Mickey kind of loved, as she started slowly squirming her arms around and making little grunting noises.

He picked her up as gently as he could and turned back to the door.

Mandy was still glaring at him.

"It's not gonna happen again," he repeated quietly this time.

"If it does, I'm gonna have them come take her away," Mandy said fiercely, "If you're gonna be a shitty parent, at least give someone else the chance to be a good one."

After that, Mickey didn't do coke if Sophie was in the house, no matter how much his brothers tried to get him to.

While Mickey was in the kitchen, with his brothers and his brothers' friends-whose names he didn't ever care enough to remember-he did actually try to look for mac and cheese for Sophie. Unfortunately they were out, and she was going to have to settle for ramen.

"Hey, Mickey, bring the kid out!" Joey yelled drunkenly, "I told everyone she can count to ten now!"

Mickey rolled his eyes, as he started boiling the water. "She can't count to ten yet," he said, "she's barely toilet trained."

"What? Do kids need to use the toilet before they can count to ten nowadays?" one the guys barked with a laugh, "Larry in there isn't even toilet trained, I don't think!"

They all laughed, as he gestured to the man who was passed out on the couch.

"Yeah, but I'm not sure he can count to ten, either!" Another guy yelled.

Mickey laughed with everyone else, but knew he'd probably enjoy himself a lot more if he'd had a couple of beers.

When he was finished making the noodles, he went back into Sophie's room, with two bowls. She was sitting on her bed, playing with some toys. Mickey sat down on the bed next to her and handed her one of the bowls. "We didn't have any mac and cheese," he said before she could start complaining.

Sophie didn't seem too disappointed when she took the bowl, though.

"Who are the people in the house?" She asked after a minute.

"They're Uncle Iggy and Uncle Joey's friends." he said.

"Are they you're friends too, Daddy?"

"Nope, I don't have any friends."

"But Ian's your friend!" Sophie argued.

"Hey," Mickey looked at her sharply, "what did I say about talking about him?"

"Oops!" Sophie clasped a hand to her mouth and suddenly looked around her room, crazily, as if Terry would pop out of nowhere. "Sorry, Daddy," she then whispered.

"It's okay," he said, patting her back, "Just be careful when Grandpa's around."

When they both finished eating, Mickey went back into the kitchen, had a beer, and hung out for a little while. Unfortunately, Mickey barely had enough patience with these people when he wasn't sober, but it was a lot harder when he was the only one who was.

Eventually Mickey decided it was close to the time Sophie should go to bed, and figured he should give her a bath now.

He brought Sophie into the bathroom, who only fussed a little at the idea of a bath.

Mickey sat on the floor next to the tub, while Sophie played around in the water for a bit. He always put off washing her hair since she hated that part.

She sat and played in the bubbles that were made with shampoo instead of actual bubble bath, and with the few toys she had, when the door burst open.

One of the guys from the kitchen drunkenly stumbled into the bathroom, paying no attention to Mickey or Sophie as he unzipped his pants.

Mickey covered Sophie's eyes and yelled, "Hey! What the fuck-! ? Get out of here!"

They guy ignored him as he took a piss, getting most on the seat that he hadn't bothered lifting up.

When he finished, he turned around like he had just noticed them. "Shit, sorry, man."

"Fuck off!" Mickey snapped and glared at the guy until he left.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he muttered, moving his hand from Sophie's face, and reaching to grab her shampoo.

Sophie automatically scooted away from him. "No," she pouted, covering her head with her arms.

"C'mon," Mickey sighed, "I gotta wash your hair."

"No," She repeated, "I don't like it."

"Just be a big girl and get it over with."

She just shook her head, her arms still covering her hair.

"Did it hurt last time I washed your hair?" Mickey asked with raised eyebrows.

"No," she whimpered quietly.

"So it's not gonna hurt this time," he said, grabbing her arms and moving them from her head, "Just, come here."

When she was finally all clean, and in her pajamas, Mickey brought her back to her room. Music was still blasting from the kitchen, as he tucked her in.

"I'm gonna tell them to turn the music down," he told her, as he pulled the covers up around her, "When I do, I want you to go right to sleep, okay?"

"Okay," she said.

"And how about this time you try not get up in the middle of the night."

Just as Mickey turned to leave, Sophie said, "Daddy?"

He turned around, "What?"

"Are there monsters in my closet?" She asked.

Mickey looked confused. He'd never even told her about monsters. "What? No."

"What about under the couch?"

"No," he said, "there aren't any monsters under the couch, in your closet, under your bed or anywhere else, okay? Who the fuck said there were monsters, anyway?"

"Slutlana said that there were," she whispered.

"Well Slutlana is a stupid bitch, okay? Monsters aren't real," he walked up to her bed, "And don't tell her that I called her a bitch, alright?"

"Alright," Sophie agreed, as Mickey bent down and kissed the top of her head.

"Okay. Goodnight."

When Mickey went back into the kitchen, he walked up to the old radio that the music was coming from, and just turned it off. No one even noticed. He rolled his eyes as he grabbed another beer, and headed for the living room.

He tried just watching TV for a while, but even as more than half the people in the house finally left, they were still annoying the fuck out of him. Eventually he gave up and just went to bed, trying to block out the sounds of obnoxious laughter.

Not long after he was finally able to drift off to sleep, he was jolted awake by the sound of gunshot ringing throughout the house. It took him a moment to realize it hadn't been a part of a dream.

He quickly went into the kitchen and stopped when he saw one of the guys on the floor grabbing his foot, and another standing a few feet away pointing a gun at him.

"I told you I was gonna do it!"

"What the fuck? You actually shot me, you piece of shit!"

"What the fuck's your problem, man?"

"The fuck did he do?"

"Fuck!"

"Hey!" Mickey stepped into the kitchen, yelling. "I have a fucking three year old in the other room trying to sleep!"

The one wielding the gun turned to him, "Hey, I fucking told him I was gonna do it if he didn't shut up about my sister!"

"I didn't say that her being a slut was a bad thing..." the one on the floor groaned.

Mickey cringed as all hell broke loose and suddenly Iggy and Joey were having to hold back the one with the gun, and the other men in the room were either laughing at the previous comment, or yelling about how that was too far. A fight broke out, and the kitchen was now louder than it had been even when the music had been blasting.

"Fuck," he muttered as he turned away and headed for Sophie's room.

As he reached for the door handle, a lamp shattered against the wall about a foot away from his head. He turned and saw that two of the guys from the kitchen had made their way into the living room and the lamp had been aimed at one of their heads.

Mickey quickly moved into Sophie's room and closed the door behind him.

He panicked when he saw she wasn't in her bed, but then heard the little whimpers, and remembered where he told her to go in times like these.

He knelt down and looked under the bed. "Sophie?"

She was laying on her stomach, her chin resting on the floor, and her hands covering her eyes. She peeked through them at the sound of Mickey's voice. "Daddy?" She was relieved when she saw it was him, "Daddy!"

A loud yell came from the other room, followed by another gun shot.

Sophie whimpered and started crying. "Daddy, I don't like it here!"

Mickey then got up and looked around a little until he found her shoes. He knelt back down, "Sophie, it's gonna be okay," he said, "Come on out, okay? We're gonna go somewhere else."

Sophie was still crying, but managed to crawl out from under the bed.

Mickey helped her put on her shoes, and made her put on a sweater over her pajamas.

Luckily, Mickey was already wearing something decent-sweatpants and a t-shirt-so he was able to quickly get Sophie out of the house without having to go back for anything. His own shoes had been sitting close to the door, so he had been able to grab those.

He walked a little ways down the street, carrying Sophie, before she asked, "Are we going to Aunt Mandy's?"

"Yeah, we are." Not that he had his key on him, or even his phone to be able to call beforehand, but this hadn't been the first time Mickey had had to leave the house in the middle of the night with Sophie. Mandy would be used to it.

When he got there, he banged on the door until a very pissed Mandy opened it, "What the fuck?"

Then she saw Mickey standing there, with a still crying Sophie, and opened the door wider so he could come in.

Mickey didn't say anything to Mandy as he walked past her and into her living room. He set Sophie on the couch, so she was lying down, and took off her shoes. He grabbed the blanket draped over the couch and covered her with it.

He wiped the tears from her cheeks, "Everything's okay now, see? We're at Aunt Mandy's."

Sophie nodded, "Okay."

"Now go back to sleep." He kissed her forehead, and left the living room.

In the kitchen, Mandy had started brewing a pot of coffee. "I doubt I'll be able to go back to sleep at this point," she said.

Mickey looked at the clock on the wall, and saw that it was almost four in the morning. "Sorry." He muttered.

"What was it this time?" she asked, "Dad going on another rampage about something?"

"I don't even know where the fuck dad is right now," Mickey answered, "At least if he were home, he would've scared off all of Iggy and Joey's fucking friends. One of them actually had a gun! And he shot a guy! In my fucking house where my three year old is trying to sleep!"

Mandy raised her eyebrows, "Shit."

"Yeah."

"So what are you gonna do?" She asked after a moment.

He looked up at her. "What do you mean?"

"You can't stay there," she said it like it was obvious.

"Shit like this has happened before, Mandy. We'll get over it."

"When was the last time someone outside the family fired a gun in the house?" She said, "What if next time Sophie gets in the way? What if next time they're aiming for her?"

"No one would even think about it if I were around, okay?"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Mandy looked at him like he was crazy. "This entire neighborhood is full of sick fucks who wouldn't think twice about gunning down a man or his innocent daughter! Did you forget where we were raised? People aren't just gonna look at her and see the precious angel that you see, Mickey."

"Yeah, I know," Mickey rolled his eyes. The fact that what Mandy was saying was true made him feel sick. "I just...fuck..."

"You need to figure something out."

He cracked his knuckles, trying to decide something. Finally he said quietly, "Ian thinks the same thing."

Mandy looked up, and waited for him to continue.

"He-uh," Mickey ran a hand through his hair. He felt weird, since he never really talked about Ian to Mandy, other than casually mentioning to her that he was going to see him (and she would need to watch Sophie), and when Mandy would tease him about it. "He thinks I should-uh... move with him. Somewhere else. With Sophie. So it'd be... the three of us."

Mandy stared at him. "And?"

He shrugged, confused, "And what?"

"What the fuck's stopping you?"

He hesitated, trying to think of a valid answer. "You don't think it'd be weird, making her move in with someone who's practically a stranger?"

"Well, you had Ian watch her yesterday-how did that go?"

Mickey rolled his. "Fine-it went..fine."

"So Sophie likes Ian?"

"Yeah, yeah she does."

"And there were a bunch of strangers-that Sophie probably didn't like-in the house today, right?"

Mickey didn't say anything.

"Not to mention the fact that you trust Ian-more than anyone you actually live with! It's like your knight in shining armor has finally come to save you and your daughter, but you're thinking about saying, 'no thanks, I'd rather stay here with the dragon and the evil queen.'"

"Come on," he snapped, annoyed, "What-what is that? Fucking 'knight in shining armor' shit..."

"You know what I'm saying. You have to do it, Mickey."

He was quiet for a moment, then finally said, "We'd have to move far enough away, you know, so dad won't come looking for us."

"So what-you'd take away Sophie's chance of growing in this amazing neighborhood? Is that what you're worried about?"

He rolled his eyes again.

"You don't even have a good enough reason to not do this. Please tell me you're not just worried that if you move in with another guy, and you start living-I don't know-a gay life, then it'll somehow make you less of a 'badass, tattooed knuckles, thug,' because if you care more about that than Sophie, you might as well be our dad."

"It's not about that-it's just..."

"Just what?"

Mickey sighed. "Fine. Alright."

Mandy raised her eyebrows, "Alright?"

"I'll... do it. I'll... I'll call Gallagher later."

Mandy nodded, "Good. No more of these 4 AM visits."

yeah, so... I'm really sorry this took forever... but, hey, at least its a lil longer than the last chapter, huh? yeah? no? ok :c

(you'll still review tho right?...right?)