The weeks rolled by, and for once the South Side seemed to loosen its grip on the Gallaghers.
Frank was gone. No one said the word dead out loud, but he wasn't around, and that was enough. The house was quieter, steadier. Fiona finally slept without jerking awake at three in the morning wondering if Frank would stumble through the door. Debbie laughed more. Even Carl looked less restless.
The Alibi was thriving too. Francis's touch was everywhere—new shelves, a better sound system, cleaner tables. People started calling it the spot instead of just the dive bar they'd end up at when nowhere else wanted them. Kev and V couldn't believe the numbers they were pulling in.
But Francis wasn't satisfied. He never was.
Lip was still tangled up with Karen, no surprise there. Francis watched it all unfold the same way you'd watch a car crash from a block away—too far to stop it, too close not to feel it. Lip wouldn't listen, not yet. Francis didn't push; he just made mental notes. Karen was chaos, and chaos had its uses.
Ian, on the other hand, was glued to Mandy Milkovich. The two were inseparable now—laughing, smoking, walking shoulder to shoulder like they'd been best friends their whole lives. That got Francis thinking.
Mandy meant Mickey.
Mickey wasn't just some hot-headed punk. Underneath all the swearing, fists, and bravado, Mickey had the raw edge Francis recognized—the kind of edge that could be sharpened into something lethal. And if Ian really was going to stay in his orbit, that meant Mickey wasn't just trouble. He was family. Eventually.
Better to keep him close.
Better to build with him.
Francis started talking in whispers, planting seeds. A Gallagher-Milkovich operation. Not small-time hustling, but a machine. Drugs, guns, protection rackets—the Milkovich boys already had the muscle. Francis had the brains and the front. The Alibi would launder it all, easy. No one would blink twice.
Still, Francis knew crime money wasn't enough. Not for the future he wanted.
He had stopped stealing cars—the risk wasn't worth it anymore. Reynolds breathing down his neck already made life tight. He needed something clean, something subtle.
So he went back to what he knew.
Upstairs at the Alibi, he cleared a room. Threw in a desk, a second-hand PC, a stack of notebooks. He called it his office, but it was more than that. It was his lab. His war room.
Lip dropped in sometimes, grumbling about school, then ended up helping anyway. The kid was sharp with numbers, with code. Together, they started sketching out apps. Games. Francis remembered them all from his old world—the colors, the designs, the way people couldn't put them down.
Candy Crush came first. It was simple. Bright. Addictive. Francis mapped out the mechanics in a day. By the end of the week, he had a prototype running.
"If this works," Lip muttered, leaning over the screen, "you're talking millions. Like actual millions."
Francis just smirked, cigarette burning low in the tray. "By the end of the month, it'll be live. And then we use the money to build the rest."
Subway Surfers. Temple Run. Snapchat. WhatsApp. TikTok.
He listed them out like steps in a ladder, each one pulling him higher. This world hadn't seen them yet. He would be the one to bring them.
The Alibi was the mask. The apps were the empire.
But all of it—every blueprint, every dream—was stalled by one thing.
Reynolds.
The thought of handing him twenty-five percent every month burned worse than whiskey. Francis could feel it gnawing at him each time he counted cash at the bar. Reynolds thought he had him boxed, thought Francis was on a leash.
That couldn't last.
Francis leaned back in his chair one night, Lip snoring in the corner after hours of coding, and stared at the glowing monitor. His reflection looked back at him, sharp eyes rimmed with cigarette smoke.
It wasn't just about money anymore.
It was about control.
He had already started sketching Reynolds's end in his head—patterns, weaknesses, times he was alone. He thought about Aizen again, how men like that never fought battles head-on. They planned, waited, and rewrote the board.
Francis tapped ash into the tray, smirk flickering in the blue light of the screen.
He didn't just want Reynolds out of the way.
He wanted to erase him.
At the house, Fiona was lighter than he'd seen her in years. She still drank too much sometimes, but she smiled more. She thanked him one night, hugging him so hard he almost forgot the weight on his shoulders.
"You kept us together," she whispered. "You saved us."
Francis hugged her back but didn't answer. Saved them, sure. But in his head, the gears kept turning.
Debbie was painting the bridge between the houses bright blue. Carl was filling his room with BB guns and traps he swore were "for defense." Ian was glued to Mandy, grinning in a way that made Francis soften despite himself. Lip was building apps by his side, fingers quick over the keyboard.
They were stable. For now.
And Francis?
He was already looking at the next move.
Reynolds first. Then the Milkovich operation. Then the apps.
Piece by piece, the empire was taking shape.
And in the South Side night, Francis Gallagher lit another cigarette, exhaling smoke into the quiet.
The world thought it had already written his story.
But Francis was about to rewrite everything.
A/N
The appearance of Francis after much thinking and deliberation.
I give you the one person that can play Francis Gallagher...
Cheers 🥂 🥂
Drumrolls
Walking to the stage 🤯 🤯
Dylan O'Brien
Removes his mask 🎭 🎭
Arms outreached
And the crowd goes wild 😜 😜
Thank you for reading
Do well to drop power stones