Danny's words bounced off the dark, tall casement windows of Primrose Hill “You gonna shoot me again?” and Megan stopped rubbing her head to just stare at the pair of them, face to face in the street, the hard white light of the street lamp drawing sharp shadows. They looked old, different somehow, both of them engaged completely in the circles they were pacing around each other.

“Why the fuck did you say that Danny?” Jamie was hardly breathing, his fists clenched tight “I’ve not shot yer”

Danny just glared back, shit, he didn’t know why but at the same time it was crystal clear, he rubbed his chest, the rush of blood through his veins pounding away the shards of strange thoughts in his head “I don’t know! Anyway fuck you! What are you doing here? What is she doing here with you? I saw yer fucking message mate- ‘need to talk’ my arse…you forget Jamie, I know yer…” Easier by far to be in this life, even this place now, than answer why his chest felt like somebody kicked it. He hardly heard Megan shouting at him to stop, what he wanted to do was hit Jamie hard, none of this Queensbury rules shit. He wanted to feel that skin against his fist, hurt him. A lot.

“You are a fuckin’ idjut, you know that?” Jamie stepped up to him, he was angry now “you haven’t got a fucking clue what is going on here- and it has nothing to do with me hitting on Megan, yer bastard.” His whole body was shaking, something about not being understood by the man he shared his first cigarette with.

“Aye I am an idjut alright- didn’t see this one coming, should have known better” but he could have said anything, he didn’t care, and his heavy hand jutted through the air to smack against a cheekbone, Jamie staggering back.

“Jesus! Danny what is wrong with yer?” Megan’s’ entreaties fell away as Jamie pulled himself back up and he ducked under Danny’s next intended blow. Hit him! The bastard Jamie finished the whisper in his head and struck out, a cracking sound from his own knuckles on the delicate bone of Danny’s nose. The rush of blood took them both by surprise in the moment before Danny’s hands grabbed the retro jacket that Jamie was so proud of; a hard punch to the stomach and Jamie felt his guts heave.

Megan’s hands were on them both, the blood that covered Danny’s shirt on her fingers too, screaming at them to stop, trying to get them to listen, but there was no space that wasn’t already filled with their strength. They staggered and punched and hurt each other, the grit of satisfaction, physical to its core as if they had been let out of Pandoras box for this one moment

Megan cursed just as the white, blue and fluorescent green of a cop car pulled to a stop at the curb “Jesus, that’s all we need” as two dark clad men made that show that they did of getting out of the doors, an ‘I have arrived’, that was the modern equivalent of John Wayne dismounting his horse.

“What have we got here then?” Jamie and Danny hardly seemed to notice, not until truncheons had their hands up behind backs and the colder brick wall grated against sore faces, rage still burning in their eyes as they stared at each others flattened and bruised features, the coppers behind pushing hard.

“It’s just a fight Officer, had a little too much to drink is all- I will get them home” Megan was however completely here now, the future of the night panning out in front of her, not centuries past.

“What’s your name sonny?” A deep south London sneer that was a challenge more than a question addressed Danny first

“Danny Campbell”

Notebooks were already being filled in, the other officer radioing in, those computer systems worked well these days “and yours?”

“Jamie McGuire.”

The policeman nodded at his partner with recognition, some sport to be had evidently on a Friday night in north London “Paddy’s. Well we don’t take too kindly to you lot bringing the Troubles over here, we have long memories see…Guildford, Birmingham, Hyde Park. We don’t take kindly at all. Now, which one of you is the bloody taig?”

Megan stepped forward, making a mental note of the silver numbers etched on the blue uniform “Officer!. I don’t think that’s relevant” but there was barely a glance back to where she stood on the edge of the pavement

Jamie pulled against the hands that were holding him, only to be shoved harder against the brick “What was that poem? I always liked poetry…If guns are made for shooting, then skulls are made to crack. You’ve never seen a better Taig than with a bullet in his back”

 There was nothing in the world that would have stopped him except good sense and that, it seemed, was evading him “Me. And he is the stinkin’ proddy” which earned him a kick of his legs wider and a growl in his ear that sounded like menace. He watched Danny being pulled away from the wall and lead to the car, nothing else even touching him except the sight of blood all over that shirt and Jamie felt his eyes prickling I didn’t want to shoot yer Aaron, Jesus but I had to...He squeezed them shut and let the copper pull his hands further up his back, cold metal snapped shut and he started to feel the punches, wanting to feel them. Christ he was losing his mind

“Address…?” he was answering in monotone, ducking his head to avoid the edge of the door as his body was pushed into the backseat. A copper between them, and both staring straight ahead, as the lights sped by the window leaving Megan standing, her face white, on the curb, her shout of “Where the bloody hell are you taking them?!” too little too late. She had to find out what police station, had to follow them there and she reached into her bag and cursed at the sky “Shit!”

 Of course it was at home and Megan looked around desperately for a phone box, Christ she’d be lucky, British Telecom seemed to have given up on the idea that some one somewhere might have a need for one. “SHIT!” A quick scout through the options had her run into a swish looking hotel, one of those ones with a ‘cocktail lounge’ in the huge plate glass window like an animated candy shop front full of beautiful people, she pushed past the wrong footed doorman and slapped a tenner down on the desk “Get me an outside line! Please…”

“I am sorry madam…this isn’t the General Post office...”

Megan gritted her teeth, sometimes it would just be handy to have a pistol “My Irish friends have been unlawfully imprisoned...How do you expect me to behave, other than to stand up against this treatment?” What the fuck was she talking about? No one speaks like that, and she felt a cold lurch in her head.

“Are you having trouble?”

You could say that and Megan swung round, never knew when you might need a perfect knight in shining armour…well at least a man with a frigging phone. Let’s start small. “Oh! Orlando..I mean Mr Bloom”

He giggled a little “Its only the bank manager calls me that. Orlando, please! Megan wasn’t it? Can I help? You look errr… Well…like you aren’t having such a good night, are you ok?” No she wasn’t, but he distinctly and definitely was ok, a little flushed in the cheeks and those eyelashes batting against them when he looked down, he was really quite beautiful. Jesus, Joseph and Mary, here she was in front of an evidently slightly tipsy Orlando Bloom, who had made it his business to leave his table full of friends to come talk to her, and she was about to use his phone and run. She would swing for those two.

“It’s Jamie. He is in trouble with the police…” She might have just as well said “Hey guess what? The sky is blue!” for the look he gave her as he handed her his phone, still warm from his back pocket and Megan did her best to concentrate. Several calls to Tom Lloyd found her what she needed- the address of the police station they had been taken to. “No Tom…no its alright, you don’t have to meet me there, no point in you getting mixed up with the coppers as well...never know when I might need someone on the outside to plan a rescue huh?…JOKING Tom!!...You are a good friend” Megan snapped the phone shut and closed her eyes for a second, she had almost forgotten that he was there, leaning against the chrome pillar, his hands deep in those loose pockets, someone should buy him a belt flashed through her mind before she smiled ‘thanks’ and handed back his phone. “Let me give you some money!”

“Don’t be daft, it’s all paid for with Pirate Gold…” he made a play of drawing a sword “swash swash buckle buckle and all that” and Megan couldn’t help but grin back at him, damn it, a few cocktails more and who knew? She was still mulling that over, watching him enjoying the movement of his body, when he frowned “Megan do I know you? Have I…” 

“Threatened me before?” she smiled back

“Johnny got all the best lines” he mock rolled his eyes

“Yeah he did, but no we haven’t met before the other day; I think I would have remembered. Don’t you?”

He just nodded a bit, you didn’t get to be as gorgeous as this man in front of her and not have an inkling of it “But you feel familiar, like Jamie, well him maybe more”

Megan laughed, him feeling her familiar or otherwise wasn’t quite the image he had intended, but it was a welcome one all the same, best not whimper right now though and Megan cleared her throat “Yeah Jamie is generally more than most” Jesus, Millie was not going to forgive her ever for walking away from this.

“Anyway” he sighed “Can I do anything- you need me to come? Help sort it out?”

“I don’t think Orlando Bloom making an appearance at Camden Police Station is going to be the best thing for you, publicity wise and all that… Imagine the furore in the News of The World!  ‘Police Probe Pretty Pirate’, or maybe not…” He was giggling again, jeez, she wished he would stop, it was really quite arresting, which in the circumstances might be appropriate but wasn’t going to get Jamie out of jail. Megan grimaced a bit “Anyway I really have to go, but thank you- Orlando”

“No problem…hey you want to take my number? In case…well in case he needs bailing out…something” he was serious now and Megan nodded stepping up to the front desk with a slightly smug grin to where the pristine young woman was all eyes and decidedly more helpful looking

“I know this isn’t the General Post Office, but wouldn’t happen to have a pen and a piece of paper for Orlando Bloom would you?” a little aside of “you can probably sell the pen on ebay after” and she turned to watch the curl his fingers round the too thin pen as he bent to write on the headed paper. Take this down Joe Damn! What was that? Megan was still frowning when brown eyes caught hers and his hand touched her arm

“Megan? Phone me alright?” and with the piece of quality embossed paper in her hand she smiled at him and ran out to find a cab.

It was a world away, Camden Police Station, the walls scarred with one too many fracas, the ground littered with butts and the smell of disinfectant as soon as you pushed the door to the oh so attractive, once pastel coloured, waiting area. What she wouldn’t do to be anywhere else. The sergeant behind the metal screen hardly looked up, just said she should wait, no he couldn’t say if they had been charged or not, and no he had no idea when he would know that, and no the investigating officer wouldn’t see her now, and no there wasn’t a coffee machine.

Megan tried to sink back in the seats enough to go unnoticed by the other ‘guilty by association-ees’, some she wasn’t so sure were on the right side of the grill, others clearly drunk, and others, well, with faces like hers no doubt. But not too far back, she couldn’t hide too far back, because then the desk clerk might forget her, might forget that she was there waiting for news, anything. A difficult balance. So she took up her position and just sat. And sat. After an hour she had read all the posters on the wall about Neighbourhood watch/Securing your car/Community Policing in your Area and Have you seen this man? Last seen doing a runner from his parole. Evidently those tag things weren’t quite as effective as the little chip they put in Scully’s head that time in the X Files. ET phone home. Jesus.

The arrival of a whole posse demanding the release of ‘Our Michael’ got the Desk Sergeant in an even worse temper as they shouted and banged the window and Megan pushed back into her seat, just don’t look up. That what her mum told her to do if she had the misfortune to come across a mad dog, fortunately she hadn’t had cause to heed the advice until now.

In the hustle of uniforms arriving through a metal door to, what did they call that on American TV? Ah yes ‘secure the area’, yeah that was it, arrest some people was the general gist anyhow, and they certainly were, if she hadn’t moved out of the way she might never have seen him and Megan felt her stomach turn. Emerging through the entrance to the cells was  Danny, dried blood on his shirt, a piece of paper in his hand, the recently issued charge sheet she imagined, and a face like darkest thunder. She had been there all this time and had no idea what she wanted to say to him. In a cell down a corridor someplace Jamie rubbed his wrists. Christ those handcuffs hurt. Evidently Danny hadn’t required them. Fuck it.