★彡ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʟᴇᴛ ᴍᴇ ᴅᴏᴡɴ | ᴘᴀᴜʟ ᴍᴄᴄᴀʀᴛɴᴇʏ彡★ ✅

★彡[ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 39]彡★

"I don't know if you can hear me yet but mummy loves you, okay? Mummy loves you lots and lots... and daddy will, too."

It was all he could hear.

It was all he could think about.

Abby, and the baby in her belly.

His baby.

"I don't know if you can hear me yet but mummy loves you, okay? Mummy loves you lots and lots... and daddy will, too."

Paul jolted awake and sat bolt upright. It was a cliche, but it was his life at the moment.

He breathed deeply and heavily, his heart thumping in his rib cage.

He blinked, trying desperately to get his thoughts into some semblance of an order.

Any order.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Abby in front of the mirror through the ajar door. He saw her holding her belly.

The world was closing in on him, and he didn't know what to do about it. Paul threw back the covers on his side of the bed and slid out, putting his slippers on and crossing the room. Paul took his dressing gown from beside Abby's on the back of the bedroom door and he put it on before he pulled the door open and exited the room, closing the door closed behind him once again.

Paul jogged down the stairs and went into the lounge. He approached the phone on the table at the side of the settee, but then he decided that the living room was still too open to have the conversation that needed to be had.

Paul went into the house further, heading for the den - which was effectively a man cave - had the idea of one been invented yet.

He closed the door behind himself and locked it, too. He didn't think that anybody would walk in on him, but it was more for his peace of mind.

Paul went to the phone and picked it up, placing it between his ear and his shoulder whilst he dialled the number.

At John Lennon's house, the phone was ringing.

At John Lennon's house, baby Julian was crying.

At John Lennon's house, Cynthia was out of bed making a baby bottle and John was sleeping through.

Annoyed, she shook him awake until he stirred and groaned, swearing at her and cursing her and the baby into the ground.

There was nothing that John hated more than being woken up.

The phone had since stopped ringing, but as if on cue as soon as John was awake and sitting up in bed, it started again. He leaned across to his bedside table and picked it up.

"Better be fucking important." He growled into the receiver.

"It is, John." Paul yawned, pausing before he continued. "Need to talk to you about something."

John sighed, yawning. "Can't it wait til tomorrow?"

"It is tomorrow." Paul answered, looking at the clock on the wall behind him.

"I mean tomorrow tomorrow." John yawned again. "Like, day after this one. Tomorrow."

"No." Paul paused. "I have to talk now. I know something."

"Well it's taken this long, it can wait another day. Night, Macca -"

"Abby's pregnant!" Paul exclaimed, a little louder than he had intended to. He looked around him nervously as if Abby would appear after he had spoken... but she didn't. Paul cleared his throat and continued, "I-I heard her talking earlier, John... and I saw her in the mirror."

John scoffed. "Who was she talking to?"

Paul knew in his head that there was no way John was going to be happy for his friend.

"T-the mirror?"

John groaned. "And let me guess," he sighed, "she said you're the father?"

Paul hesitated, and John knew that he had a little bit of ammunition against his friend.

He wasn't trying to be cruel. He liked Abby, and he liked Paul - and he liked them together. He liked Mollie, and he liked the idea of Paul having a baby with Abby... but what John didn't like was a friend having something that he didn't... and lately, Paul was happy with his partner - his family - and John was not.

"She... she didn't know... she doesn't know I saw her..."

"You're only daddy if she says you are."

His blood boiling beneath the surface, Paul snapped, "and what does that mean?"

"Only," the elder Beatle replied, "that she's a girl who was in a difficult situation before you met her -"

Paul angrily slammed the receiver down and yelled, grunting in frustration and annoyance.

How dare John question the paternity of his baby!

It was not until several minutes later that Paul heard the knocking at the door of the den. He clenched and unclenched his knuckles several times, and then he stood up. Paul crossed the room and turned the lock before he wrenched the door open.

Abby was standing there wearing one of his shirts and a pair of his boxers underneath. She didn't want him to know, but her own underwear was growing uncomfortable to wear during the day, let alone at night.

She looked distraught, so Paul held out his open arms for her. She all but fell into them.

He kissed the top of her head, loving that he was holding his whole world in his arms... well, almost the whole world, anyway. Mollie was missing, but she was upstairs in bed.

But even so, in his arms at that moment he held his future. His future was Abby, and their child and whatever other children they might have after that one.

"I don't know if you can hear me yet but mummy loves you, okay? Mummy loves you lots and lots... and daddy will, too."

His future was Abby.