Okay, so I felt like it needed an ending, and it's only short. But still. . . here you go. Enjoy. . .

Mickey fidgeted about where he was standing, chewing on the corner of his mouth frantically. He felt like a deer caught in headlights. Part of him wanted to bolt, wanted to say how stupid all of this was, but that was mostly the old him. Mickey had changed enough to want to keep put.

He was surrounded by young families and he felt slightly out of place. Maybe more than slightly, but he couldn't help it. Some of them were looking at him, obviously wondering who he was to the soldier he was waiting for, but Mickey just gritted his teeth and waited.

Ian was one of the first to come running out, panting slightly, but laughing as he saw Mickey. And Mickey relaxed at the sight of that shit eating grin. "Fuck Gallagher, you're late!" Mickey said, half-shouted to him as Ian walked over.

"Sorry, I'll tell the pilot to fly faster next time," Ian retorted, dropping his stuff and grabbing the sides of Mickey's face, pulling him in for a brutal, crushing kiss. Mickey laughed into the redhead's mouth at his enthusiasm and nipped at his lower lip.

"I missed you," Ian muttered when he pulled back.

Mickey smirked, "Well, I'd fucking hope so, it's been a year."

Ian socked him lightly around the side of the head and Mickey rolled his eyes as he grabbed up Ian's bag. "Get your ass in gear, Gallagher, we're late!" he said, not evening caring that there were people watching them, staring at them. He'd rather face these people than the wrath of his sister if they turned up much later.

They made it just in time. Well, sort of. They ran into the room just in time to hear the first twin scream and Mickey had wished they'd been later when he almost threw up at the sight of the second baby being born. "That is not something I needed to see. . . ever!" he said, grimacing and turning away, trying to focus on his sister's red face instead.

"Fuck you Mickey," she screamed at him and he instinctively reached out to grab a hold of her flailing hand since Lip was now holding the first baby, bouncing it in his arms. Mickey winced when Mandy squeezed his fingers hard enough to break something, but kept his mouth shut.

The second twin arrived with a sort of coughing scream, its eyes wide and bulging. She was tiny, a lot smaller than her brother and Mickey didn't know why that immediately made him dub her his favourite. He didn't normally do that, didn't decide on favourites, but he did then.

And later on, he sat in an armchair with her and touched her parted lips gently with a forefinger. Lip was nodding off with his son in his arms and Mandy was curled up fast asleep. Most of the Gallaghers had cleared out by some stroke of luck, which left Mickey alone; or about as alone as he could be with the twins and the happy couple.

He jumped a little bit when Ian's arms wound around his shoulder and it was the redhead taking advantage of the fact that he was holding a baby, because otherwise Mickey would have shrugged him off. He wouldn't have been able to explain why, he just would have.

"So guess what I decided," Ian said, his chin resting on Mickey's shoulder and he reached around to touch the baby's cheek gently.

"I'm sure you're going to tell me," he replied, unconsciously leaning back against Ian since he couldn't really get away and to be fair, he hadn't seen Ian in almost a year.

Ian bit his cheek lightly in retribution. "Shut up you," he muttered, "I was just going to tell you that I was asking about extending my tour of duty."

Mickey could feel something inside of him tense up and freeze, maybe it was his heart. Maybe it was his soul. He didn't have any right to tell Ian what to do, he knew that, but he wanted to tell him to stay. He wanted to cart him off where nobody else would find him and never let him go. It seemed like Ian was always leaving and in a way Mickey was okay with that, because it was his dream and all that shit. But still, he hated it as well.

"Oh." He didn't know what else to say.

"I turned them down," Ian said, his voice low and husky sounding, right by Mickey's ear, making the words seem all the more private, all the more personal, "Told them I had something much better to be doing with my time now."

If he didn't smirk, he thought he was going to cry and that was just stupid.

"Oh, do you now?" he asked, shivering when Ian rubbed their cheeks together, almost cat-like.

Ian chuckled in his ear and nibbled on his earlobe lightly, making Mickey's eyes slide closed. "Yeah, told them I was going to take up knitting or something," he said and it Mickey had had his hands free, he would have punched Ian.

"Could you be any more gay?" Mickey asked him, turning his head a little to narrow his eyes at the redhead.

Ian smirked and shrugged a little. "Probably," he admitted and Mickey forgot to be pissed off at him when he gently pressed their lips together. Mickey was always forgetting what he was supposed to be doing when Ian did that. Because that was the one thing that would never change: everything was always Gallagher's fault.