❝I feel like a part of my soul has
loved you since the beginning of everything.
Maybe we're from the same star.❞
In which Mickey Milkovich's older brother, Toby, is a fool for Ellie Gallagher.
[SHAMELESS US - SEASON 1]
[FIRST BOOK IN THE ELEANOR G...
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The first conscious memory Eleanor Gallagher has is of her family. She and Lip are five, Ian is four, and Fiona is nine. They're at a park, playing on the swings and competing to see who can swing the highest. It's mostly been reduced to sounds at this point, having been revisited several times throughout her life; joyous laughter and playful taunting and gentle teasing echoing over and over again in her head. She can remember the crisp smell of autumn in the air, the crunch of dead leaves, the squeak of the swing set.
The colors don't start to come in until the end, when the exuberant shouts morph into screams of pain.
Red. Deep, vivid red.
She remembers that Lip had dared Ian to jump off, had accused him of being a wuss when he hadn't. She remembers that Ian always wanted to impress Lip, who was smarter than all of them, who always knew how to manipulate people and take advantage, even when it came to his twin sister.
She remembers the sharp snap and Ian's immediate howling. She remembers Fiona's frantic cries, telling him incessantly that everything would be okay. She remembers Lip sitting in his stopped swing, wide-eyed and open-mouthed and shocked. She remembers that she'd screamed herself hoarse watching her brother bleed and sob as their older sister tried to do something for his mangled arm, Lip quickly hopping off and shielding Ellie away.
She remembers not knowing where her parents were; she never knew where her parents were.
The parents of the other children at the playground were horrified, and one mother had called for an ambulance, yelling over Ian's agony. The paramedics arrived and loaded Ian in, looking around for an adult to ride with him. Fiona had grabbed Ellie and Lip's hands and stepped forward, still crying but keeping her head high. When they'd gotten to the hospital and were unable to find Frank or Monica, child protective services had been contacted. They'd tearfully confessed to the woman who interviewed them that no, Frank and Monica didn't have cell phones, no, there wasn't a work number, no, there wasn't a house number. "We don't have a house, we live in our van."
That was their first time in foster care.
The siblings had been split down the middle--Ian and Fiona placed in one home and Lip and Ellie in another, originally the two oldest being made placed together while the youngest were until Lip threw a fit, sobbing loudly that, "no, you can't take his Ellie away, who else is gonna protect her?"--until their parents finally turned up and managed to fabricate something; a judge believed them to be reformed and, lo and behold, the first Gallagher con of the system had been a success. Frank was very proud of his accomplishment, getting blackout drunk and partying with Monica while still wearing their sobriety pins, slurring that no one would ever take his kids away from him, that he would always get them back.
For a few weeks after that Ellie found herself missing the home she and Lip had with Mrs. Green. There were a lot of rules and the children who lived there were locked into their rooms at night, but they'd managed to make friends and it was an actual home, with a bed, regular meals, and heat. Ellie felt safe for the first time.
