By the time Lip and Mandy left the apartment, the sky had already started to go dark.

The last of the daylight was thinning over the rooftops while the streetlights along the block flickered on one after another, washing the pavement in that dull orange glow Chicago always seemed to have at night. A few streets over, traffic moved in a steady, distant stream, not loud enough to drown anything out, just constant enough to remind you the city never really stopped.

The walk to the Gallagher house took almost no time.

That had been part of the appeal of the apartment from the start. It was small, old, and nowhere near impressive, but it sat close enough to the neighborhood that the distance between his new place and the old one could be crossed in a few minutes on foot. No car. No bus. No planning. Just the same cracked sidewalks and familiar blocks Lip had known for years.

They walked side by side in the cooling evening air.

Mandy glanced over at him as they turned onto the block.

“You’ve been in your head since we left the hospital.”

Lip kept his hands in his jacket pockets. “Just thinking.”

“About Fiona.”

“About all of it.”

Mandy nodded once, like she already knew that.

Neither of them said much after that.

The Gallagher house came into view at the end of the street exactly as it always did. Same brick. Same porch railing hanging on by stubbornness. Same front steps that had needed fixing for longer than Lip cared to remember. Nothing about it had changed from the outside, which somehow made the whole thing feel more off after the hospital.

The front door was standing half open.

Lip barely reacted.

“That tracks.”

Mandy’s mouth twitched faintly. “Would’ve been stranger if it was closed.”

They stepped onto the porch and went inside.

The house looked like it always did after a day that had gone badly and nobody had the energy to pretend otherwise. Takeout containers on the coffee table. A blanket half falling off the couch. Carl’s jacket on the floor by the stairs. The kitchen light still on. The place carried that tired, messy feeling of people coming and going all day without anyone ever really settling.

And sitting comfortably in the armchair with a beer in his hand like he had been appointed king of the wreckage was Frank Gallagher.

He looked up the second they walked in.

“Well, if it isn’t my successful eldest son.”

Lip stared at him for a moment. “You’re drunk.”

Frank lifted the beer slightly. “It’s evening.”

“That doesn’t explain anything.”

Frank took another drink like that proved his point.

Mandy stepped farther into the room and looked around. “Where is everybody?”

Frank leaned deeper into the chair. “Hospital rotation.”

Lip frowned. “Meaning.”

“Debbie and Carl went back a little while ago.” Frank waved the bottle vaguely toward the kitchen. “Fiona’s still there.”

Lip folded his arms. “And you’re here because?”

Frank opened one hand as if the answer should have been obvious. “Somebody has to hold the fort.”

Mandy made a sound that was almost a laugh.

Frank pointed at her with the bottle. “See, she gets me.”

“No,” Lip said. “She really doesn’t.”

He walked into the kitchen.

The sink was full. The cereal box on the counter was empty. Somebody had left the fridge open just enough that the motor was running harder than it should have. Same Gallagher kitchen. Same half-collapse that never quite tipped into complete disaster because somebody always came through and dragged it back together before it could.

Mandy followed and leaned against the counter.

“What exactly were you checking for when you came over here?”

Lip looked around once more before answering. “Honestly?”

“Yeah.”

He shrugged. “Wanted to see if the place looked like it was about to cave in.”

Mandy glanced toward the living room. “Still standing.”

“Barely.”

There was not much else to do.

Frank clearly had no intention of becoming useful. Fiona was still at the hospital. Debbie and Carl were out. Liam wasn’t back yet. The house felt suspended, like it was waiting for the next thing to hit it.

So they left.

By the time they were walking back toward the apartment, the sky had gone fully dark and the streetlights were throwing long shadows across the sidewalk. The neighborhood had started settling for the night, little by little. Windows glowing. TVs on behind curtains. Someone laughing too loud a block over. A dog barking and then getting shouted down.

Back at the apartment, Mandy kicked off her shoes by the couch and dropped onto it with a tired sigh while Lip went straight to the table and opened the laptop.

The dashboards loaded.

Phone cases.

Clothing.

He refreshed the page.

The numbers shifted.

Fifty-two.

Then the second store.

Twenty-nine.

Mandy leaned forward from the couch. “Fifty-two?”

Lip nodded. “That’s where it’s been sitting most days.”

She got up and came over, standing beside him while he clicked into the monthly report.

The screen filled with totals and graphs.

Mandy leaned closer, reading over his shoulder.

For a second she said nothing at all.

Then, quietly, “That’s insane.”

Lip looked at the numbers without reacting much. He’d seen them already. Still, seeing them on the screen never quite stopped feeling strange.

The phone case store had pulled in a little over eighteen thousand in revenue that month.

After product costs and ad spend, the profit sat around nine thousand.

Mandy straightened slowly. “Just that one store.”

“More or less.”

She looked back at the screen. “That’s more money than anybody in that house has probably had in front of them at one time.”

Lip gave one shoulder a small shrug. “Phone accessories move fast.”

“And that’s only one of them.”

He clicked over to the clothing store.

Thirty.

The graph on that one was steeper, newer, still finding its pace but clearly moving in the right direction.

Mandy leaned one hip against the table. “So this one keeps growing while the phone cases carry everything.”

“Exactly.”

She smiled slightly. “Not bad.”

The phone buzzed against the table.

Lip glanced down.

Fiona.

He answered on the second ring. “Hey.”

Her voice sounded worn thin.

“They’re releasing Liam tonight.”

Some of the tension in his shoulders eased without him meaning it to. “Good.”

“CPS still wants meetings.”

“Yeah.”

A pause.

Then Fiona spoke again, quieter this time.

“They asked about you.”

Lip leaned back against the table. “What about me.”

“If you’d take the kids temporarily if they push it that far.”

Across the room, Mandy looked up immediately.

Lip stayed quiet for a moment.

Not because he didn’t have an answer. Because hearing it said aloud made it feel real in a different way. Up until then it had been a possibility sitting in the back of his head. Now it was on the table. Him. Mandy. This apartment. Debbie. Carl. Liam. The whole mess shoved into one room if it came down to it.

Fiona waited.

Finally he said, “I told you we’d figure it out.”

Another pause.

“You alright with that?” she asked.

Lip looked toward Mandy.

She was already watching him, and there was nothing uncertain in her face.

“Yeah,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”

After he hung up, Mandy stayed where she was for a second, then walked over.

“So,” she said.

Lip set the phone back on the table. “Yeah.”

She leaned against the edge of it and looked at him. “You just offered up our studio apartment as emergency Gallagher housing.”

“Temporarily.”

“That’s still a lot of Gallagher in one room.”

He watched her face, waiting for the fight he half expected and half knew wasn’t coming.

Instead she just nodded once.

“Alright.”

That almost threw him more than an argument would have.

“That’s it?”

Mandy looked at him like the question itself was strange. “You thought I was gonna say no?”

Lip exhaled through his nose. “You’re a Milkovich.”

“Exactly.”

She folded her arms and leaned back slightly. “If Fiona loses control of this, those kids are not going into the system if there’s another option.”

Lip nodded slowly.

“Yeah.”

They stood there in the quiet for a second, the apartment smaller than ever all of a sudden and somehow more important because of it.

Across the table, the dashboard refreshed in the background and another order slid in.

Fifty-three.

Mandy noticed first.

“See?”

Lip looked over at her. “What.”

She tilted her head toward the screen. “That store.”

He glanced at the number again.

Mandy’s mouth curved slightly. “It’s basically funding the Gallagher emergency plan now.”

That got the first real smile out of him since the hospital. Small, but there.

“Guess it picked a weird side mission.”

Mandy huffed out a laugh and looked back at the screen.

Outside, traffic moved steadily past below the window.

Inside, the apartment stayed quiet around them while the numbers on the laptop kept climbing one order at a time and the shape of the life they had been building stretched again, making room for more people than either of them had expected when they first signed the lease.