In which the illegitimate granddaughter of Beatle Paul McCartney finds herself in Liverpool in the early 1960s, falling hopelessly in love with John Lennon.
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31st October, 1960
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Paul didn't know where John - or the stranger that he had been following - would have gone, but he did know that John had only been gone about fifteen minutes, and so he couldn't be too far away. Paul knew this because unless the German stranger was an athlete, he would not have been able to run too far without having to stop for breath, at which point John - who was quite a fast runner when he needed to be - would have probably easily been able to catch up to him.
Paul ran through the streets of Hamburg, ignoring the frustrated and angry shouts of people who he pushed aside in his haste to find his friend before he killed somebody - which, going by what Ruby had reported the Kraut to have said - John was likely to do.
"You fucking Nazi!" Paul heard a familiar voice and followed it, knowing that he would be walking in on John's (very scary) temper.
When he reached John, he was down a back alley and a man was on the floor in front of him. He was kicking the man repeatedly, and the man was faintly begging him to stop, using halted English as loudly as he could - which was not very. John was in a blind rage, "think you can fucking talk to my girlfriend like that!?"
"John!" Paul called from the mouth of the alley. His friend didn't answer, didn't even show any signs that he had heard him. "John!" Paul tried again, but got no response. With a sigh, Paul rushed down the alley and pushed John away from the man.
John tried to go for the man again, but Paul stood over him. He hated it, because in truth he wanted to give the German scumbag a good beating too for talking to Ruby like that, but somebody had to stop John from committing a serious crime, and he was the only one who could make sense of the situation.
"Fuck off, Paul!" John tried to push Paul out of the way, but the younger boy steeled himself. "Paul -"
"You're beating this fucker to a pulp and there's a fucking girl waiting for you to come back -"
John's fist collided with Paul's face, and at first the younger boy was surprised... but then he just sighed.
"Better now, idiot?" He was trying not to show how much the punch had hurt him - both physically and mentally. His best friend had hit him.
Upon hitting his best friend, John had sobered immediately and his eyes had grown wide.
He had hit Paul...
He had never done that before.
Paul was on the floor beside the man, and he had his hand to his face. He looked surprised at the blood - he hadn't expected John to hit him, but in truth, he wasn't surprised. John had to take his anger out on somebody, and it was better it was him than the stranger who may well have died at John's hands if Paul hadn't have intervened when he did.
John's mouth opened and closed in a wide 'o' shape for several seconds, and then he leaned down and grabbed Paul's hand. "I-I'm sorry," he said, sounding genuinely apologetic. He pulled his friend to his feet, "Paul I don't know what came over me, I just -"
"You're alright, John." Paul waved dismissively, still trying to staunch the flow of blood from his nose with his other hand.
"He just said something really awful about Ruby, and -"
"She told me what he said, John, and I don't blame you... but you could have done some serious damage here." He gestured to the now-unconscious figure on the floor. "He needs to go to the ozzy, we can't just leave him here -"
Back to his usual, hard self, John scowled and replied, "he deserves to be at the bottom of the fucking Rhine."
"You've beat him senseless, I think he's learnt his lesson... least we can do is get him to the ozzy for stitches, don't you think?"
"No."
Paul sighed, because he knew he wouldn't win the battle here. He had intervened in John's payback for the man, and been able to stop his friend - now John was standing his own ground, and he would not back down.
"Fine," Paul sighed again, "but can we at least turn him on his side so he doesn't choke on his own blood?"
John replied, "do what you want with the fucking Nazi, Paul, but I'm going back to my girl."
And then he turned and began the walk back to the Kaiserkeller, leaving Paul with a mess to clean up - like he so often had in the past, and like he would so many times in the future.
