Chapter Text
Ian's phone wouldn't stop ringing. He saw Mickey's name flashing over and over, the phone going silent just long enough for it to start all over again. At first he let it keep ringing, then he put it on vibrate and watched as the screen would light up and eventually go black. But then even the buzzing made its way into his brain and started driving him nuts. At that point, he turned it off. Every so often, he would turn it back on again and watch as the voicemail count grew. One, ten, forty. He sat there, phone in hand and finger hovering over the delete button, but he couldn't bring himself to erase the messages. He didn't want to listen to them, but removing them seemed so... final. The phone would be quiet for awhile until a phone call arrived, testing to see if the line was open. Once again, the cacophony restarted and didn't stop until Ian powered the phone down. After three straight days of this, the calls stopped and didn't come back, and Ian found himself checking to make sure his phone was still on.
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When Mickey woke up, the first thing he noticed was Mandy sporting bright red hair and having a very intense conversation with Iggy. The second thing he noticed was that something was on his face. He tried to reach up to move it but there were wires and tubes everywhere. The motion caught Mandy's eye and she slapped at Iggy's arm.
"He's awake, get the doctor!"
Iggy rushed out of the room and she came over to Mickey's bedside and grabbed his hand. When she realized he was trying to motion to the oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth, she reached up and gently removed it for him.
His throat was dry from disuse and he had to force the words out. "The fuck happened?"
Mandy shrugged and replied, "You tell me, Mick. I got a call from Iggy that you were shot and in the hospital, you've been out of it for three days."
Iggy returned with the doctor, who first looked at Mickey's chart and the machines showing his vital signs. He then pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and held it up for Mickey to see.
"I'm going to use this to check your eyes. Can you tell me your name?"
"Mickey. Mickey Milkovich."
"Great, do you know where you are?"
"The hospital."
"Good, do you remember what happened?"
Mickey stops to think for a moment and shakes his head. The doctor doesn't seem concerned. "That's normal, Mr. Milkovich. Sometimes when we go through something traumatic, our brain doesn't remember everything. You were shot in the back running away from someone who was chasing you. I understand the person was caught, so that should be of some relief to you. Upon your arrival here, you were taken immediately into surgery to extract the bullets. There was some concern because of the location of your wounds and we will need to perform some tests to see the damage. I'd like to ask your brother and sister to step out for a moment while we do this."
Mandy and Iggy left the room, but Mickey could see them watching from outside the door. The doctor ran through a number of tests, asking Mickey to wiggle toes on each foot, move each foot, asking Mickey whether he felt himself being touched, poking Mickey and testing his reaction, and reflex tests. As he went through different tests, he took notes in Mickey's chart and finally motioned for Mandy and Iggy to come back in.
"Mr. Milkovich, I regret to inform you of this, but it seems you have partial paralysis in your legs as a result of the shooting. You were able to feel certain stimuli and properly respond to some questions of where contact was made, but when directed to make certain movements you were unable. The good news is that you do have sensation, which means with proper therapy and intervention, there is a chance you can regain some or all of your mobility."
Mickey watched his brother and sister looking back and forth between him and each other, Mandy's hands covering her mouth which was wide open in shock. He barely heard anything the doctor said after 'partial paralysis.' He watched as the doctor pulled Iggy out into the hallway and spoke with him. He turned back at Mandy, who was still looking stunned. Iggy came back in the room and for the first time, Mickey realized Iggy had his phone and was holding it out to him.
"I've been trying to call Ian since you got here but he hasn't been answering. You wanna call him?"
Ian. For a moment, Mickey had forgotten about him, but now it was all coming back. The breakup, the chase, Sammi.
"Shit, Sammi."
Iggy asked, "Who the hell is Sammi?"
"Ian's sort of sister or something. She's the one who shot me. Chased me down the alley behind Ian's place."
Mandy chimed in. "Why the hell did she shoot you?"
"Because me and Debbie tried to kill her. Guess it didn't work."
Mandy and Iggy nodded as if this type of information was normal. But then, for a Milkovich, it wasn't exactly farfetched. Iggy and Mandy sat down in the chairs next to the bed, content to just keep Mickey company for awhile. After some time, a confused Mandy chimed in with another question.
"So wait, what does that have to do with Ian not taking your calls?"
Mickey sighs. "He broke up with me right before it happened."
"Wait, what?! Why?!"
"I don't know. He went off his meds again, said he didn't want to be on them. I guess he thought I'd force him to." Mickey turned his face away from them and stared at the wall. "I don't want to talk about it. I just want to go back to sleep for a bit. Can you guys go, come back later maybe?"
Iggy and Mandy gathered their things and were going to say goodbye before they left, but Mickey had closed his eyes and wouldn't look at them. They paused for a moment or two before leaving his room. When they were gone, he finally let out the tears that he had been fighting, let them silently roll down his face.
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Iggy and Mandy went back to the Milkovich house. They stood in front at the sidewalk and just stared at the stairs leading to the front door. They didn't need to speak, each knew that the other one was wondering the same thing they were... How the hell could they make this place accessible for someone who couldn't walk? They made their way through the house, throwing out trash and sorting through the stuff that seemed to be everywhere, finding places for it. Mandy went into Mickey's room and started cleaning up. As she went, she found lots of Ian's stuff. A shirt here, a jacket there. She tossed it all on the bed until she was pretty sure she found the bulk of it and she grabbed a garbage bag and shoved everything inside.
Iggy came in as she was finishing up and said, "That Ian's shit?"
Mandy nodded and he grabbed the bag, hauled it over his shoulder and left. He walked the few blocks to the Gallagher house and hurled the bag at the front door. It hit with a loud thump and split open, spilling its contents on the porch. He made to walk away, only looking back when he heard the door open. Ian was there, staring at him. Iggy gave him the finger and rather than respond, Ian just bent down and started picking up his things.
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Ten days after he woke up and nearly two weeks after his arrival, Mickey was finally discharged and allowed to go home. They had run test after test to check the damage he had sustained, they recommended physical therapy to help increase the odds of him being able to use his legs again, they even had a psychologist come and speak with him to assess his mental state. He had asked, angrily, how they expected his mental state would be after he woke up dumped by his boyfriend and injured by that bottle blonde trash box. The doctor recommended regular sessions. He recommended the doctor go fuck himself.
Mandy met him in his hospital room and helped him get dressed and a nurse wheeled him out to the entrance where Iggy was waiting with the car. Iggy lifted him out of the chair and sat him in the front seat, putting the wheelchair in the trunk. Mandy climbed in the back and they left. Mickey found his wallet and counted how much cash he had on him. He grabbed a wad of the money and offered it to Iggy.
"Detour to the liquor store. Whiskey, biggest bottle they got."
Iggy did stop at the liquor store. He figured that Mickey earned the right to drink himself stupid at least for one day, considering everything that had happened to him in the past two weeks. When they got to the house, Iggy got Mickey out of the car and managed to carry him inside, since they hadn't found a way to fix the problem of the staircase yet. Mandy wrestled the wheelchair out and dragged it up the steps behind them. Iggy got Mickey into his room and onto his bed, which they had pushed back against the far wall. Mickey was going to ask why they moved it but when Mandy followed behind them and opened the wheelchair back to its normal size, it made more sense. They made more room to maneuver.
But Mickey wasn't interested in that right now. He was interested in the whiskey bottle Iggy was holding. He reached out to take it and Iggy gave it to him. He laid it next to him on the bed while he got himself situated and then he took hold of it again. He unscrewed the cap and raised it to his lips. He took a long drink and winced at the burn in his chest. He stared at his brother and sister pointedly, hoping they would get the point and leave. It worked on Iggy, but Mandy sat on the edge of the bed instead.
"You just going to drink your problems away?"
Mickey rolled his eyes as he took another sip and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Jesus Christ, I got dumped and then shot. The third time I've been shot over that prick, by the way. Can I have one night where I'm allowed to try to forget about it all?"
Mandy shrugged nonchalantly. "Sure. But don't think I'm letting this become a habit for you. There's a lot of shit you're going to have to figure out with this, and I'm not letting you lock yourself in this room. I'm moving home and we're going to do this. And if you think for a minute that I'll feel bad and not kick your ass, don't. Because I will if I have to. You can have some time to drink and sulk and whatever you need to do and then that's it. I mean it."
She left and didn't come back until much later, when she forced him to eat some pizza that she had ordered. Iggy went out on a run and Mandy sat in the living room, listening to Mickey getting more and more drunk and upset. She could hear him cursing Ian, an occasional choked laughing, more than a few sobs, and she wondered what the hell had gotten into Ian. Not even about breaking up with her brother, she could understand that. But from what little information Mickey had given her to piece together since he told them about it, she couldn't figure out why Ian handled it the way he did.
Normally, Mandy would have went to her best friend to talk to him (more like confront him) about it. But this wasn't the Ian she last saw as she left for Indiana. He could have never done something so heartless. Mandy was angry. She was angry that she had been so far out of the loop, that Ian hurt her brother, that Mickey was now broken, literally and figuratively. Most of all, she was more concerned with helping Mickey get his life together than figuring out why Ian shot it all to hell in the first place.