One

Mickey was drunk when they rang him, because he spent a lot of time drunk nowadays. It helped numb the pain in his chest and burn away the thoughts in his head. It stopped him feeling anything, because Mickey was done feeling things. He just wanted to be numb.

He blamed the alcohol for why he cried when they rang him.

"I'm sorry Mr Milkovich, but it's about your sister," the woman on the other end of the phone said and Mickey rubbed his eyes and scowled at the bar top, wondering what the fuck Mandy had gotten herself into now, "She overdosed at her home last night."

If Mickey hadn't felt numb from the alcohol, he had done then.

"Oh. . ." he didn't know what else to say, couldn't say anything else past the clog in his throat.

"Yes, I'm sorry for your loss Mr Milkovich, but I have some other news for you," the woman said and Mickey had to concentrate hard to hear her words, he was starting to switch off, "You're sister left her daughter in your care."

And that was why Mickey was sitting in his old living room after the funeral, in a house that was completely empty now that Mandy had gone. He was staring at a two-week-old baby in a stupid pink jumpsuit thing and wondering when the hell his life had done a number on him. It was all because of a stupid note he hadn't had the heart to throw away. Give her to Mickey, tell him he fucking owes me.

That was all it had taken for social services to hand the baby over to him. Mandy's final wishes. They didn't give a shit about that, they just didn't want to spent the money trying to track down someone to take her. But Mandy was right, Mickey did fucking owe her, so he'd just nodded and signed the papers and now he had a fucking baby that he didn't know jack shit about.

Nobody knew who the father was, Mickey didn't even know Mandy had been pregnant. But then, he hadn't been back to Chicago since he'd run from it. They'd said the kid was called Lilly, which had made Mickey laugh. They didn't understand why, but that was because they didn't have the image of that fucking doll Mandy had adored in their mind.

Mickey held the ragged thing now, thought how stupid it looked with one eye missing. It was just some little stuffed toy, in a dress Mandy had found somewhere and probably the dirtiest fucking Mickey had ever held, which was saying something. He'd found it under Mandy's bed. He remembered giving it to her after he'd stolen it from some stupid charity shop place. It had been the first thing he'd ever really stolen, he'd been six, she'd been four, she'd loved it. That had made Mickey happy for a ridiculously faggy reason.

It amused him that Mandy had finally managed to pop out her own Lilly, a real live breathing one and she wasn't around to play with it. He didn't know if they overdose had been intentional, but they were guessing it was with the whole note thing and everything. That made him fucking hate his sister for offing herself at twenty and lumping him with this responsibility at twenty two, but it wasn't like he could fucking argue with her now and he did owe her, she was right about that.

The house was full of baby stuff, things that he didn't know what the fuck they did. He supposed that was a blessing, because he didn't have the money to buy any of the shit. He didn't know where Mandy had gotten it either.

"Just for the record, you're going to end up fucked up," Mickey told the baby, because he felt like he should forewarn it or something. Mickey wasn't cut out to be a father, had never planned on it, had never wanted it. But here he was. "Suppose you're better off with me than one of those other fucktards though."

He was sure he wasn't supposed to be swearing at a baby, but oh well.

It made this retarded sound and waved its hands in the air and he scowled slightly because he didn't know if that was supposed to mean something. "So what the hell do I do with you now?" he asked, like it could fucking talk or something.

The feeding part wasn't too hard, even though sterilising the bottles was a bitch and the formula fucking stank, but all he had to do was follow instructions. And it wasn't like the kid refused the horrible stuff for even a second, just guzzled it down like there was no tomorrow. Although, she was a Milkovich, so it was probably instinct to eat whatever the fuck you could when you could.

Mickey used Mandy's laptop – he supposed it wasn't Mandy's anymore – to Google what the fuck to do with newborns. And it was confusing, but he did sort of understand that he had to burp her or some shit otherwise she'd get pissy. The kid didn't burp, she fucking belched. But again, she was a Milkovich.

"I hate you," Mickey said, hoping Mandy could hear him and the baby started crying, "Shit, not you, I didn't mean you." He gingerly picked her up and did this sort of retarded bouncing thing to try and get her to shut up.

She was all red in the face and ugly, but he thought she'd probably been kind of cute before actually. She didn't stop crying. She screamed until she was out of breath, until Mickey didn't know whether he wanted to cave her head in or his own.

It was because he was stupid that it took him an hour and a half of screaming until he realised that the smell wasn't just the fucking house. "Now I do mean it, I hate you too," he said, glaring at her as he gingerly changed her diaper. He thought he was going to retch, because it was actually the single most fucking disgusting thing he had ever done.

He pulled faces while he wiped her clean and cursed Mandy under his breath the entire time. He went through three diapers trying to get them on right – the second one he sort of ripped up in frustration – and then held commanded her to stay the fuck where she was on the floor while he got rid of the fucking smell. He made a mental note to get some air fresheners or some shit like that as he ran the defiled diaper down to the bins outside.

Lilly was asleep when he came back and he figured she actually had the right fucking idea there, so probably being more gentle than he had ever been in his life, he transferred her to the retarded looking crib and collapsed onto the couch.

He was out like a light before his head even his the arm.

He was woken up by a screaming fucking baby.