No. 91

Prompt: Any (except Supernatural), any Irish character, It's the same old theme since nineteen-sixteen
In your head,
In your head they're still fightin'
With their tanks and their bombs
And their bombs and their guns
In your head, in your head they are dyin'
Fiona - Burn Notice + Keith Dagaz
http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/693954.html?thread=91368130#t91368130

"What are you doing here?" Fiona's tone is clipped, sharp, sharper than when she's angry with Michael.

He hangs back, posture casual, face down in his smart phone like so many people these days, while she talks to the teenager at the snow cone shack.

"Happy Easter, Fi," the boy says. He has wine-red hair, no freckles, eyes blue like the North Sea. He's wearing board shorts and a t-shirt and has an electric bass guitar strapped to his back.

"You have a lot of nerve, showing your face in this town."

His accent is thicker than hers. "Do I, now? Just here for the battle of the bands, me and the lads."

"After what you did to me, betraying me –"

"Well now, who betrayed who? Because as I remember, you were the one holding a gun to my baby brother's head –"

"Your mother is a damned Prod –"

"Was a damned Prod, to be precise. Though she called me a damned Taig, to be fair."

"You were supposed to have my back," Fiona hissed.

"No one died," he said. "So what's your problem? It's not 1916 anymore. Our families aren't divided by the barricades anymore. You have to let it go."

"I can't."

"I have, and you were the one threatening to harm my family, not the other way around."

"This from the chemist?"

Chemist, she said. Improvised explosives expert. To Michael's trained eye, he couldn't have been more than seventeen, but the anguish in Fi's voice – they went back a long way.

"I made my share of bombs, you fired your share of bullets, and the war is over now."

"It is not."

"It is. The struggle still goes on," he said, "but the war is over. I don't hate you anymore."

"We were on the same side." Fiona's voice was small.

"We were, and you were a good soldier." The boy's fondness, like an older brother to a younger, made no sense. "But it's time to let it go."

"If you start singing Frozen songs at me –"

"This from the lady who accosted me at the snow cone shack? Now scram. I have a sound check to get to."

"Stay out of my way, O'Connor."

What he replied was in Irish, and it made Fiona laugh. The last thing the boy did before he walked away was hand Fiona a pack of Peeps.

In English he said again, "Happy Easter."

And then he was gone.

"Who was that?" Michael asked.

Fiona said, "An old friend." She turned and sauntered toward her car, humming Zombies as she went.