This Dark Disposition

Chapter 19 - Midnight

TW Violence

The Next Evening

Harry had asked if Danielle would pick up Grace's shift today because the blonde never showed up. Harry didn't know why, and when he asked, Danielle replied, "this job isn't for everyone." Now, as she was closing for the evening, Danielle was washing glasses with the front door locked. When she first started working at the Garrison six months ago, she was directed by Arthur to never close with the door unlocked.

Suddenly there was banging at the front door and Danielle paused for a second, wondering if she should open it. Then the banging continued. She walked over to the door and unlocked it. Tommy burst through the pub, past Danielle and all the way to the middle of the room where he organized a table and multiple chairs. Danielle didn't say anything to him as they were still in the midst of their riff. Danielle could tell that Tommy was nervous, "Are you expecting trouble," She asked.

"Ya,"

"At this hour?"

"Midnight is as good as an hour as any," Tommy checked his gun to make sure it was loaded.

"What the hell is going on?"

"When the St. Andrew's bell strikes midnight," he put the gun on the bar counter, "Two IRA men are going to come through that door. They want the guns, Danny. And when they get what they want, they plan to kill me," he walked behind the bar towards Danielle, "It's your job to stop that from happening."

Danielle sighed and grabbed the gun, "what do you need me to do."

"I just got the message myself, they want to meet here alone," Tommy walked to the back of the pub and pointed to the back room, "you're going to be in that back room, and I'm going to be sitting there," he motioned to one of the chairs he had set up, "when I make a toast, come out with the gun, you don't shoot, you just point, I'll do the rest."

"Will you kill them?"

"No, the police want them alive."

"The police know about this?"

"Just point, alright?" Then the pair heard the bell strike midnight, "go on, go," Tommy pushed her towards the back room, grabbed a bottle of rum and took his seat.

Danielle heard the two men come in but she couldn't make out all of what was being said. Then she heard Tommy say a little louder, "May you be in heaven for half an hour before the devil knows you're dead."

Danielle walked out of the room with her pistol raised. She recognized one of the men as the Irish man who was in the pub yesterday, he had a gun pointed at Thomas. He then shot at Danielle and she ducked to avoid his fire.

When she stood back up she saw Tommy lunge across the table at the man with the gun. I guess the plan didn't work then, she thought. She raised her pistol and shot the second man who was still pulling his gun out of his jacket. She then turned her attention to Tommy and the other men who were fighting on the bar top. She couldn't shoot the man without also harming Tommy. She went to grab the man's neck to pull him off of Tommy and the man let go of Tommy with one arm and slapped her across the face. She fell, hitting her head on the floor.

When she came to, she saw that the man had his arm around Tommy's neck and his cap pulled over her face. She couldn't find her gun and instead lunged towards the man. She wrapped her hands around the man's neck trying to pull him off of Tommy and when that didn't work she dug her fingers into his eye beds, "Ahhhh the man yelled," and he let go of Tommy.

Tommy elbowed him in the balls and the man let go of him all together. Then in the blink of an eye Tommy was on top of the man, beating him with his fists. Danielle saw that Tommy wasn't stopping regardless of the fact that he was no longer fighting back. Then she saw her gun on top of the opposing table. She grabbed it and walked back over to the two men. Tommy was still beating the man and when he went to grab one of the spit buckets, she pointed the pistol at the man's head and pulled the trigger.

Tommy dropped the bucket and looked down at the man. Then he got up and looked at Danielle who was still holding the gun, "give me the gun, Danny, the coppers will be here any minute," with shaking hands she held it out to him, "It's better if they see me with it and not you," she did what he said.

He then took a step closer to her and grabbed the back of her neck. When he did so she gasped, still shaking from what she had just done, and what she had witnessed, "Now you've seen me," Tommy said.

"And you've seen me," Danielle replied, and Tommy pulled her towards him and put his arms around her.

They were interrupted by three coppers who walked into the pub. Danielle knew one of them was a sergeant, judging by the patch on his sleeve, "you were supposed to come on the sixth chime," Tommy said, as he stormed towards the sergeant, "you were supposed to come on the sixth fucking chime!" Tommy yelled. He leaned against the bar, and for a second Danielle swore he looked defeated, "they refused to surrender. They fought well; they were brave men."

The sergeant walked over to look at the two men, he then motioned to the one on the floor, "well he looks like he was killed by a wild fucking animal. Still this never happened."

"Get the bodies out of here," Tommy commanded coldly.

"Ah, right, are they making the lady uncomfortable," the copper turned and directed the other two cops to clean up the mess, "I'll leave you two love birds to it then eh."

"Come on Danny," Tommy said, he put his arm around her and together they started walking towards the flat.

Once they were out on the street Danny took out a cigarette and lit it. With shaking hands she took a drag. She didn't think she'd ever see anything like that again, not after France.

A few minutes later she passed the smoke to Tommy. He accepted it, took a drag, and then passed it back to her as they arrived at the flat.

"I'm sorry," he said before turning to walk back down the street. Danielle wasn't sure if he was sorry about what had happened that night, or just sorry in general.

The Next Morning

Tommy and Finn stood in the middle of the graveyard. Danny Whiz-bang's fake grave had been robbed in the night, and the guns had been stolen.

"There's going to be trouble now Finn," he put his hand on the boy's shoulder, "You look after yourself, do you hear me," the boy nodded, "I'm going to be going away for a while," the man started walking towards the Garrison, "but there's something I need to do first."