Ten
It had gotten awkward working with Mickey, but Ian couldn't bring himself to stop, couldn't bring himself to change the arrangement. Not even when the thought of Mickey with some girl made him want to tear his own hair out and made him feel like he was choking on nothing but the thoughts in his head.
Mickey didn't say anything about her, changed the subject whenever the handful of sparse conversations they did have threatened to turn towards this mystery girl. Ian sort of wanted to meet her, wanted to know what she was like, but he didn't have the courage to ask. Just like he didn't have the courage to ask if Mickey knew what had happened to Lilly.
The only time he had had the courage to ask anything of Mickey was when he'd realised he had very little to remember Mandy by. Mickey had turned up with a handful of pictures and a bracelet that Mandy had always worn – Ian didn't know and probably never would know that Mickey had sat there for hours with Lilly, showing her all the pictures, pointing out the people in them and Ian would also probably never know that Mickey had asked Lilly to find something else to give to Ian that was Mandy's.
Ian had tied the bracelet, a simple woven thing that she'd no doubt stolen from somewhere around the wrist of the arm that shook and he liked to imagine that having it there helped, both with the pain in his chest and with the shaking, but it didn't. Nothing helped, he'd given up thinking that anything ever would.
He wondered what Mickey thought now, what he saw when he looked at Ian. He wondered if the ex-con thought he was broken, if he'd ever thought he was whole at all. He wondered if the subtle glances Mickey gave him sometimes meant he gave a shit, or if they meant nothing at all.
He spent a lot of time wondering nowadays.
"Ian, phone," Fiona dropped it onto the table in front of him as she hurried past, getting Liam ready for school and trying to organise the rest of them. She never stopped, even though she didn't really have to look after them anymore. Well, Liam still needed caring for, but the rest of them not so much.
"Hello?"
He didn't have a clue who could be ringing him so early. Nobody ever really rang him at all, actually.
"Ian, I need you to stop by Mickey's house and see if he's okay," Linda said, although it was more of an order than anything else, "He was supposed to be here a while ago to open up like usual, but he never turned up and he hasn't called to say that he couldn't come in."
It was the worry that he heard in her voice under the usual commanding tone, but he also sort of wanted the excuse to be able to go around to see Mickey at his house. He hadn't set foot even near there since Mandy died and he hadn't had any excuse to. There would have been no point turning up without an excuse.
He wondered if this girl of Mickey's lived there or if she only dropped by, he wondered if she was the reason he wasn't calling in sick, the reason he was delayed. The images in his brain made him want to try and carve out his eyeballs with the spoon in his hand.
His feet felt like they were made of lead, like they were glued to the pavement as he walked the familiar path to the Milkovich's home. He had so many theories in his head that he felt like they outnumbered the cracks on the pavement. The one that took root the most firmly was that Terry had made a reappearance after all these years. Well, it wasn't that long actually, but normally he dropped by pretty regularly when he wasn't inside.
The first thing he noticed was that there wasn't the usual litter outside in the yard, the decades old beer cans and bottles, hidden under layers of snow. It wasn't like it was pristine or anything, the paint was still cracked and the air still tasted thick on Ian's tongue, but it was still cleaner than he ever remembered it being. Than he had ever seen it.
He wondered if that was Mickey's doing, or his girl's. He couldn't imagine Mickey cleaning, he'd said himself he didn't like cleaning up after people. He'd said so in that dug out a lifetime ago, when things had been simpler and better and so incredibly different. Back when Ian had still thought that going into the army would give him everything he had ever wanted in life. Sometimes he thought it had robbed him of it, because looking back, he'd always felt like he'd had everything just by standing by Mickey's side.
But then, if he found that out, the ex-con would probably throttle him for it.
Nobody answered the front door, so Ian looped around the back, because he knew Linda would kill him if he didn't check properly. The first sign that maybe Mickey wasn't just passed out drunk inside was that the back door was slightly ajar. He knocked on the doorframe and called out as he walked in, but nobody answered him.
Everything was cleaner inside too, almost eerily so. There were no beer cans, but instead crayons and random items littered about. There were no dishes stacked dirty in the sink, but instead clean ones in the drainer beside it. The air wasn't as thick as he remembered it either, it didn't smell of weed or meth and he didn't feel like he was getting high just by breathing.
He checked the sofa for a passed out person, rested a hand on the wood of Mandy's bedroom door, but was too terrified to go inside. He didn't want to see if Mickey had thrown things away, didn't want to see the evidence of Mandy never being in this house ever again.
He hesitated for longer outside Mickey's door, his ears straining for sounds that something was going on within that he didn't want to see. The 'Keep the fuck out' sign was still in place and he smiled at the fact that that hadn't changed. He pushed the door open slowly and stopped, because everything was the same, but everything was so incredibly different.
Most of the posters on the wall had been taken down in favour of photographs, ones of Mandy, of Mandy and Mickey, of Mandy and Ian, of a baby that didn't look quite like Mandy, but that he supposed had to be. The covers on the bed were the same, but they looked cleaner than Ian had ever seen them. There wasn't the usual clutter, no random knives or beer bottles lying about, instead there were random objects that Ian could find no meaning in being there. There weren't the usual pile of clothes on the floor, just one shirt that he remembered Mickey having worn a few days ago – because he was sad like that.
He walked into the bathroom to check that Mickey wasn't passed out in there or something and wide blue eyes stared up at him from over the top of a ragged doll and Ian could have sworn his heart stopped beating in his chest.
The little girl couldn't have been any older than two and she straightened up out of her huddle, standing fully clothed in the bath and he half smiled at her t-shirt that read, 'Two's are terrible! I'm having a blast!' She looked strikingly like Mandy, with her wide blue eyes and her dark hair that fell around her shoulders and the way she stared at him, like she thought that she could take him on, that was a typically Milkovich attitude.
She clutched that ratty doll to her side that he swore he'd seen in Mandy's room once.
She looked like she'd been crying.
"Lilly?" he asked, even though he knew it was already her. She just carried on staring at him and he felt it the moment her gaze zeroed in on the bracelet around his wrist. She cocked her head to the side in a way that made her look a lot like Mickey and also eerily intelligent for such a small child.
She nodded slowly after a second and worried her bottom lip with her teeth.
"I'm Ian," he said softly, not wanting to freak her out, "Are you all alone here?"
He sort of wanted to kill Mickey if he was the one responsible for leaving Lilly here all on her own. Knowing Mickey, his attitude would probably be that she'd be alright for a minute or two, she'd survive.
She nodded, still not saying anything and Ian wondered if that was because she'd been told not to speak to someone she didn't know.
"I'm just going to ring my friend, okay?" he asked her, already dialling Linda.
"What is it?" she sounded like she'd been expecting him to ring and tell her something was wrong, "Is Mickey there, is he okay?"
"I don't know," he admitted slowly, "But I found Lilly sitting in the bathtub, looks like he went out and left her here."
Linda snorted down the phone. "Don't be stupid, he'd rather chop of his own arm with a penknife," she snapped at him, "Is Lilly alright?"
"She looks fine," he admitted, surprised that she sounded quite so venomous over the suggestion Mickey had just left her. She was obviously implying that he cared a lot for the girl, but Ian had a hard time actually picturing that in his head.
Following Linda's instructions he handed the phone over to Lilly, who awkwardly held it against her ear, her grip white-knuckled on the doll she held. "Daddy gone," she said, a scowl on her face which again was oddly Mickey-like, "He take rubbish in black van."
Ian frowned and it wasn't just at the title she was giving Mickey. "He got into a van?" he asked her, now knelt down at the edge of the bath.
She looked at him like maybe he was stupid and nodded.
Linda must have said something to her then, because she suddenly held the phone back out to him. "Okay, you probably won't believe me, but Mickey wouldn't ever leave her on her own," Linda said, "It was hard enough getting him to let me take her upstairs while he worked in the shop, do you think we should call the police?"
"No, they wouldn't do anything, especially not since Mickey's a Milkovich, they'd just say wait," Ian said, scratching his head and following Lilly as she climbed out of the bath and went into Mickey's room. She climbed up onto the bed and sat staring at the pictures stuck on the wall. "What do you want me to do now?"
"I have to take the kids to see their grandmother," she said after a moment, "Do you think you could take Lilly or would you rather I try and cancel?"
It was strange to have the girl he'd been wanting to find all this time sitting in front of him. If he'd only had the courage to ask Mickey before, he would have found out that she was fine all along. He wondered why Mickey hadn't told him.
"Yeah, that's fine," he said almost automatically, "Fiona won't mind."
And she wouldn't, she wouldn't put out a helpless child, even if she was a Milkovich.
"Okay, make sure you leave a note so if Mickey comes back he doesn't freak out," Linda advised, "Call me with you need to find out anything and whatever you do, don't try and feed her sweet corn, you'll wind up wearing it."
He found himself nodding even though she couldn't see him.
"You," Lilly said when he moved closer to sit on the bed beside her. She pointed to a picture on the wall of him and Mandy.
"Yeah," he said, nodding and her face broke out into a smile, "Linda says you should come to stay with me for a while until Mickey comes back, is that okay with you?"
He didn't know why he was asking because he didn't know what he'd do if she said no.
She nodded slowly and then slid her hand into his to pull him out of the room, he followed sort of dumbly because he didn't know what else to do. She took him into what had been Mandy's room and it was still more or less the same safe for the removal of a few things and the replacement of some. Lilly sat on the bed whilst Ian made a beeline for the photograph that stood on her bedside, right beside the fish bowl. It showed Mickey with his face screwed up, almost in disgust, Lilly pressing a fat kiss to his cheek, it made Ian smile.
He packed some things from Lilly's drawers, finding that there was absolutely no pink in the room or amongst her clothing whatsoever. He wondered if that was Mickey's choice or Lilly's, he figured probably Mickey's. The guy would only think that pink linked to being gay rather than Lilly being a girl.
"What's your fish called?" he asked, watching Lilly staring at it.
"Bob," she replied, pressing a finger against the glass, never for a second taking her eyes off of the fish.
He smiled even though he didn't know why, maybe he didn't need a reason. "Well, we better take Bob with us," he said, "We wouldn't want something bad to happen before Mickey comes back." He didn't want to say, 'your daddy' even though he didn't know why. Maybe it was because he wanted to see if Mickey acted like a parent before he branded him one.