If I Fell│John Lennon/Beatles FanFiction

Chapter 76 - 20.Nov.1966 - 21.Jan.1967

Chapter 76

November 20, 1966 

It only took two weeks of being home with John to realize what would fill his time now that touring and filming the movie were behind him.

John was home, but he wasn't really home, not when his mind was often so far away, on his way down yet another acid trip. I'd told myself time and time again that I wouldn't interfere with him doing what he chose to do as long as it didn't have a significant impact on our life together...but his choices were beginning to creep into our lives more than I liked.

And it was impossible for me to know if I was worrying too much or too little about John—if I was allowing my mind to spiral about something that meant very little. Because I was still struggling with my own worries, my dreams, and my fears about one of us leaving Maggie. I also continued to struggle with the little yellow pills because I didn't want to rely on them...but the more I took the pills, the more I seemed to need them.

My eyes flicked up when John walked into the kitchen. He was dressed, ready for a party, though he looked like he'd just rolled out of bed and thrown on some clothes that he'd taken off the night before and left in a heap on the floor.

He collapsed into a chair across from me, his glasses on his face and his eyes only half open. He'd been sleeping all day and was now ready to head out with George to a party for the Four Tops at Brian's place. I peeked up from sorting through my mother's belongings but didn't speak as I poured him a cup of tea and pushed it toward him.

"Maggie missed you today," I said eventually, rubbing my runny nose, the bug from weeks ago still lingering. My eyes fell back to my mother's journal. I'd put Maggie down for the night an hour ago, and she'd gone the entire day without once seeing John. "I missed you today."

"Don't bloody do that, Liv," he grumbled, tapping his fingers against the table.

"Do what?" I raised my eyes for an instant.

"Give me some kind of guilt trip."

"If you're feelin' guilty, then that's yer doing, not mine." I leaned over and began to sort through yet another box, and grabbed a folder that I hoped might be filled with something useful. And then I looked at John, my eyes unblinking. "All I said was she missed her bloody father."

He didn't say anything. He just reached for his tea and took a sip.

"I'm not in this alone, John." I gave him a pointed look. "She's yer kid, too, y'know."

"I know." He bit out the words.

"Do you?"

"Yeah, I bloody do. Christ, Liv."

John raised a brow and gave me a glassy stare, apparently in no mood to be told off. And I, for some reason, backed down. I shouldn't have...I should've kept pushing because this wasn't at all like us, this kind of stiff chatter. We worked because I usually pushed, he pushed back, we fought and made up, and we didn't keep any damned secrets.

We were at our best when we communicated. And we were at our worst when that communication failed, when we didn't fight...when we kept things to ourselves. And lately there were definitely things we were keeping from each other, of that I was sure.

I lowered my gaze and leafed through the open folder, still not even sure what I was looking for. The longer I looked at the papers in front of me, my eyes scanning my mother's beautiful handwriting, the more my heart constricted and the more I wished she would pop into the kitchen for a long chat, and maybe along the way answer my many questions.