Ian loves his daughter.

She's seven now, in first grade. She's one of the best readers in her class, and can climb trees faster than the other kids in the neighborhood. And she's so adorable. She has dark brown hair that tumbles down into messy curls. Mickey keeps buying her headbands and hair clips to keep her curls in place (which prompts Ian to playfully give him shit for being all domestic now). Her nose is small and cute, upturned ever so slightly.

But it's her eyes that still catch him off guard, even after all these years. Big, vulnerable brown eyes that stare into his soul. Eyes that look up at him in the middle of the night, filling with tears after having a nightmare and needing comfort. Eyes that expose her joy for the world to see when she's chasing her cousins around.

Her mother's eyes.

Most of the time it makes Ian smile. Looking into her eyes reminds him of warmth and comfort. They remind him of hair ruffles, family dinners, heated fights, and make-up hugs. They remind him of having chicken pox and being comforted all night. They remind him of "I'm really fucking proud of you."

Other times, Ian looks into those eyes and can't breathe.

Ian watches from the kitchen as Mickey chases their daughter around the room. He grins as Mickey picks her up and tickles her. She laughs and kicks her legs in the air. The second he puts her down, she runs upstairs, still giggling.

Mickey stays at the bottom of the stairs. "Hurry up, Allie! You have five minutes to brush your teeth and get your ass down here, or we're gonna be late for school!" he calls after her. Then he saunters into the kitchen and stands behind his husband, wrapping his arms securely around him.

"She has your smile, you know," he whispers into Ian's ear.

Ian turns to face him. "She does not," he responds, laughing a little.

"Does too."

"Y'know, technically I'm only her half uncle, so I don't think she got many of my genes," he protests. A part of him wonders if what Mickey is saying is true.

Mickey steps away from Ian and gives him a withering look. "She'd come kick your ass if she ever heard you talking that shit," he snorts. "You were never fucking half to her."

Ian stands alone in their bedroom after Mickey and Allie leave for school. He stands in front of the mirror in his EMT uniform, trying out smiles to see which one fits.

It took Ian two months to cry and a year to call himself Allie's father. When he thinks back on it, he doesn't know if it was the meds or just his natural process. He doesn't remember much of the initial days, but he remembers small snippets.

"Your sister and Jimmy Lishman were in an accident today. A head-on collision involving another vehicle. I'm sorry …. We did everything we could, but the damage …."

Lip losing his shit, screaming. "A fucking drunk driver killed my sister!" Then he was sitting down, his head in his hands.

Debbie pulling Franny into her lap, stroking her hair and whispering that everything would be okay. Her face was white.

Carl openly crying. Ian remembers this detail a little better than the rest, because he doesn't recall ever seeing Carl cry like that, not even after Monica slit her wrists.

Liam clinging to one of her old shirts, tears silently sliding down his face.

Frank slipping out the back and disappearing for a few days.

Mickey trying to help Debbie with the funeral planning, checking in on Ian.

Ian vaguely recalls sitting in the middle of it, not really taking much in. He remembers how blue the sky was and how bright the birds were outside the window.

"They listed you two as the godparents."

Even though Fiona chose them, Ian and Mickey had to prove themselves capable of raising a child. Two convicted felons, one with bipolar disorder, didn't seem like the ideal parents. But Fiona's choice, as well as her two page letter detailing what made her choose them as Aliie's parents, eventually won over the judge. Allie was almost three then.

The next few weeks are a blur in Ian's memory. He remembers assuring everybody for the thousandth time that he was still taking his meds, and he was fine. Really. Except being fine felt like desperately trying not to drown.

He sort of remembers the day that he came home from work early. His new EMT partner was getting on his last nerves, and he couldn't take it anymore. Debbie was babysitting Allie that day, so he took the rare opportunity to get shitfaced. Which wasn't hard on his meds. Mickey came home to see him throwing darts at the dartboard, but he was missing every shot and sticking them into the wall.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"My new partner is a fucking bitch." Ian can remember his voice getting louder and louder with every sentence. "She thinks she can tell me what to do. Like she's so much fucking better than me. She doesn't give a shit about me! She's a bitch asshole! She fucking left! And I told her to go, because I wanted her to have a better life than she could have here! But then she goes and gets herself hit by a fucking drunk driver, and she left her kid! She left all of her kids!" By the end of his rant, Ian knows he was screaming. He knows he was sobbing, and he thinks at one point he took a dart and continued to stab it into the wall. Mickey took him into his arms and held him tight.

Mickey didn't say anything, he just continued to hold Ian and rub his back until his sobs stopped violently moving through his entire body.

And Ian remembers finally giving in, slumping down and whispering against Mickey's shoulder. "I miss Fiona."

It's Ian's turn to read Allie a bedtime story. He reads her Green Eggs and Ham. Usually it's one of her favorites, and she giggles at the silliest parts, but today she seems preoccupied. When he asks her what she's thinking about, she pauses for a second before telling him.

"Daddy, you must have met a lot of tough people in prison," she says earnestly, staring up at him. Ian pauses. He doesn't like to talk about how messed up their lives got at times, but he and Mickey agreed they would never lie to her about their pasts. They told her an incredibly sanitized version of prison life, and she had been fascinated ever since.

"Yeah, I met some pretty tough people in prison," he smiles, stroking her dark curls from her forehead.

"Who's the toughest person you've ever met?"

Ian smiles wider, because it's not even a contest. "The toughest person I know? I didn't meet her in prison. Your mom was the toughest person I know."

Her eyes widened. "Tougher than you and Dad?"

"Yep. Have I ever told you the story of how she saved my life?"

Allie shakes her head, her eyes wider than ever.

He glances at the clock. They have time for a quick story before bed. Settling in, Ian adopts his best storyteller voice. "Well, I was only a baby then, so I don't remember it. But this is how she always told it …"

He used to wonder how he could even begin to pay his big sister back for everything she's done for him. The answer to that question comes to him at around 3 AM one night, as he cuddles with Allie in her tiny bed. She has a fever, and she's been tossing and turning all night, feeling like a furnace. It hurts Ian to see her in such a bad state, but he wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

After she wakes up for what seems like the hundredth time, she turns around and peers at him. "Don't you have work tomorrow, Daddy?"

He smiles down at her and kisses her forehead. "It's okay," he tells her. "I can always sleep on my lunch break."

Allie smiles too, a weak little exhausted smile. "I love you."

"I love you too. Always."

Ian's itchy and he can't scratch. Fiona will smack his hands away again. He huffs in discomfort and looks at the clock. It's just after 3 AM. Just beside it is Fiona, lying beside him and stroking his hair. By the look on her face, she hasn't slept at all.

"Fiona, I'm itchy," he complains. "And I can't sleep."

His sister grins at him. "You'll feel better in the morning. Just don't scratch. I don't want to apply the lotion again."

Watching Fiona, he thinks for a minute. "Don't you have an important test at school tomorrow?" he asks.

She smiles again and kisses his forehead. "Yeah. But it's okay. I can study at lunch."

He smiles too and closes his eyes. "Thanks, Fiona."

Author's Note: So Fiona and Ian are probably my favorite sibling relationship on the show. But because I seem to be incapable of writing happy stories, you get this instead. Hope you enjoy! I hope I kept Mickey mostly in character, but it was hard with the situation being so different than the one currently on the show.

P.S. Ian can't really be an EMT again because of his conviction, but I think it's a good fit for him and I wanted him to go back to it.

Disclaimer: I do not own the show or any of the characters.