If I Fell│John Lennon/Beatles FanFiction

Chapter 88 - 28.June.1967

Chapter 88

June 28, 1967

I hurried down the stairs as I ran my fingers through my hair, attempting to make it look half decent. And because I wasn't looking at all where I was going, I rounded a corner and nearly crashed into poor Dot, who stepped out of the way and smiled as I steadied myself. After a series of hurried apologies, I made my way to the kitchen.

John stood at the counter, an apron hooked around his neck and tied tight around his waist. Maggie giggled in his arm, flour all over her face, and a pile of dough sat in front of them.

I stopped short, and my mouth fell open. "Are you makin' bloody bread?"

John didn't bother looking up from kneading the dough with his free hand. "Can't get anythin' past you, you brilliant bird."

"Do you even know how?"

"Yeah, I bloody know how...just follow a recipe. Can't be that hard, can it?"

"Dunno," I said as I shifted. "I've never once tried."

"Maggie seems to like it." He shrugged, tapped Maggie's nose with a dough-covered finger, and looked at me. "I've made you a cuppa. Go sit."

A steaming cup of tea rested on the table, and I looked between John and the tea a few times as I raised my hand to rub my aching head, my stomach churning a bit from the lack of food.

I'd spent most of the previous day in bed, falling in and out of fitful sleep. John had insisted that I stay and rest for the day because I looked like utter shite—his words exactly. And I found it impossible to resist the temptation of staying in bed, especially because I didn't just look like complete shite, I felt like shite too.

When I'd been awake, nestled into soft blankets that smelled of John's aftershave and a hint of smoke, my thoughts had gone to my mother. I imagined what life might've looked like if she'd left my father and taken me back to Blackpool. My father would have been out of the picture, my mother safe from his abuse, and he wouldn't have been able to threaten or hurt me. Would Mum still be alive? Would we be happy?

But would that life have been one without John in it? It was then that I stopped speculating about what might have been because no matter what I went through, life without John was simply unimaginable. Whatever it was that brought us to each other, I'd go through it millions of times if it meant him being in my life.

And when I wasn't thinking of my mother, my thoughts had been overtaken with worry, especially because my little yellow pills were still at Catherine's flat. My body craved them in a way that made my skin crawl. It was almost as if the longer I went without taking a pill, the more I needed one.

I worried about the note and about keeping everyone safe, but there had been at least a slight reprieve from my endless worry after I finally told John everything about the blackmail. And pure exhaustion had helped draw me back to sleep despite my churning mind.

While I rested in bed, Dot had been at the house to help John with Maggie. And John had somehow managed to talk me into sleeping at home for a second night, this time with him beside me the entire time, holding me tight.

My conviction to not move back home yet was slowly crumbling with John taking such good care of me and handling Maggie like it was second nature to him. He'd always been a wonderful father when he put his mind to it, and he seemed more like himself than he had in months.

But I had no plans to stay at the house permanently until I knew without a doubt that Maggie and I could do so safely. Only a few days before, at the live broadcast event, John had all but admitted to still bringing strangers home. So how much longer would this new, more settled side of him last before he itched to return to what he'd grown so used to lately?