[TM Garage — March 8, 2009, 4:00 PM]
Cameron's voice was wrong.
I'd taken the call in the back office, away from ears that didn't need to hear. The moment he spoke, I knew something had shifted. The usual calm, the measured Belfast cadence—it was frayed at the edges.
"Politics are changing," he said. "Watch the news from Belfast."
"What kind of politics?"
"The kind that gets people killed." A pause. Static on the line, or maybe just his breathing. "The Army Council is... reorganizing. Old alliances are breaking. New ones forming."
"How does this affect us?"
"I don't know yet. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything." His voice dropped lower. "Just watch, Cole. And be ready."
The line went dead.
I sat in the office for a long moment, staring at the phone. Cameron Hayes—the man who'd built his life around control, around careful calculation—had just called to say he didn't know what was happening.
That's not like him. That's not like him at all.
---
[Juice's Workspace — March 8, 2009, 6:00 PM]
"Belfast news." Juice pulled up multiple browser windows, news sites from Ireland filling his screens. "What am I looking for?"
"Anything about the IRA. Internal conflicts, power struggles, arrests. Whatever's making Cameron nervous."
Juice typed rapidly, filtering through headlines. "Okay, there's been some activity. Three suspected IRA members arrested in Derry last week. A car bombing in South Armagh—no casualties, but the usual suspects are being blamed."
"What about the Army Council?"
"That's harder to find. It's not like they issue press releases." He clicked through several more pages. "But there are rumors. Some of the political sites are talking about a split—hardliners versus those who want to stay with the peace process."
"Which side is Cameron on?"
"No way to know from here." Juice looked up. "Why? You think he's in trouble?"
In the original timeline, something pushes Cameron to betray SAMCRO. Something makes him desperate enough to kidnap a baby and kill a brother. What if this is the beginning of that something?
"I think something's wrong. Keep monitoring."
---
[SAMCRO Clubhouse — March 8, 2009, 8:00 PM]
Chibs was nursing whiskey at the bar.
That wasn't unusual—the Scotsman liked his drink—but there was something different in the way he held the glass. Tight. Like he was afraid it might slip away.
"Heard Cameron called you." He didn't look up. "About Belfast."
"He said politics are changing. Told me to watch the news."
"Aye." Chibs took a long drink. "I've been watching. For years now."
I slid onto the stool beside him. "Want to tell me what you're watching for?"
Silence stretched between us. The bar noise faded into background—music, conversation, the sounds of brothers being brothers.
"There's a man," Chibs said finally. "Jimmy O'Phelan. True IRA, before there was even a Real IRA to split from. I knew him. Back in the day." His scarred face twisted. "He's the one who gave me these."
The scars. Glasgow smile, they called it—cuts from the corners of the mouth toward the ears, leaving permanent marks that looked like a grotesque grin.
"He did that to you?"
"Aye. After he took my wife and daughter." Chibs's voice was distant, reciting facts from a wound that had never healed. "Fiona and Kerrianne. They're still in Ireland. Under his... protection."
Jimmy O'Phelan. Season 3's villain. The man who uses Chibs's family as leverage, who pulls strings from Belfast, who eventually brings chaos to everyone he touches.
I knew the name from the show. But hearing Chibs talk about it, seeing the pain in his face—that's different. That's real.
"If Jimmy's making moves," Chibs continued, "if he's involved in whatever Cameron's worried about... things could get complicated."
"Complicated how?"
"He's got reach. Connections in places that matter. And he doesn't forget grudges." Chibs finished his whiskey, set down the glass. "Neither do I."
I didn't have words for what he'd shared. So I just sat with him, silent, watching the storm gather outside the windows.
---
[TM Back Lot — March 8, 2009, 10:00 PM]
The clouds had been building all day.
Now they broke, sheets of rain hammering the lot, turning dirt to mud and metal to mirrors. I stood under the awning, watching lightning fork across the sky, feeling the particular electricity that came with major storms.
Distant thunder. Cameron's warning. Chibs's history. The pieces are starting to move.
In the show, Season 2 ends with Half-Sack dead and Abel kidnapped. But that's connected to Cameron's desperation, to the IRA situation, to pressures that are building right now.
What if you could stop it before it starts? What if understanding the IRA politics gives you leverage to prevent the tragedy?
Another lightning flash. The thunder came seconds later, closer than before.
Or what if understanding just means watching helplessly as it happens? Knowing exactly how your friend dies and being unable to change it?
I stayed outside until the rain soaked through my jacket, until the cold became impossible to ignore. Then I went inside, dried off, and started planning.
More storms coming. Always more storms.
But this time, you're not going to be caught unprepared.
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