I Will [Paul McCartney/Beatles Fanfiction]

seventeen

Paul dashed out into the busy city night, trying to process where Carmen could've gone. Her brother's words rang around in his mind... Phonebooth... Relatively main road... Yeah, well, that could be anywhere, Paul internally sighed. Of all places, why'd Jane have to show up in such a big city? Why'd she have to show up at all? It's like she's punishing me for her mistakes or something.

Alright, mind, now is not the time for a deep thought about Jane's reasoning. You've got under an hour to find Carmen before she leaves you for just about forever. Let's focus on that instead, shall we?

Paul made a mental map of the city, picturing what little he could remember from the brief moment in which he glanced at the actual map, and managed to note which roads tended to be the most crowded. From that list of roads, he began narrowing down options based on what he thought Carmen would do. It left him with two major possibilities.

Alright, see, you can do some good things once your thoughts are collected! he rewarded himself. But then, knowing the situation he was unfortunately stuck in wasn't the greatest, made sure he knew, but when you aren't thinking things through, see what you can also do? You can make the girl you very much like run off.

And that frightened him quite a bit.

Allowing himself to give a slight, shaky sigh, Paul ran off towards his first thought of where she could've gone: a (as Carlton had said) relatively main road like any other, but on it was a store that sold Polaroid cameras (Carmen herself had pointed out that little shop as they drove past it on the tour bus). The only thing that made him reluctant to go that way was that it could've been a waste of time; he only had an hour, and the other possibility he had in mind was located all the way on the other side of town.

Since his feet were moving faster than his mind was producing ideas, though, he decided to just let them do the work for the moment and allowed his body to be guided down the narrow sidewalks, feeling a few cold droplets of water from above begin to mat his hair down. The rain slowly grew harder, kind of like the tears of someone watching a sad movie; they try and hold it in at first despite a few drops managing to escape, but then realize it's useless and start freely crying. Yeah, well, Paul thought with irony, my life is pretty much a tragic film at the moment anyway.

The concrete below him was already glossed with puddles formed by the rain, the reflection of light from the streetlamp towering above him being altered by the rippling, by the time he reached the street he'd been heading to. He felt his heart lift in his chest with hope as he rounded the corner...only to sink back down into despair when his eyes met the scene awaiting him. Other than the ever-glowing streetlights, there was no light anywhere. All the shops were closed. There were no cars driving up and down the wet roads, not even a single headlight to get his hopes back up. It looked almost abandoned.

Sighing deeply to try and calm himself, Paul ran a hand through his hair exasperatedly. Well, there goes my first shot. And unless I become some sort of genetically-enhanced superhuman within these next few minutes, there's no way I'm going to get to the other street in time...

I guess that leaves me with one option. I've got to try.

So, naturally, as anyone with such an idea tucked into their brain would, he left his shoes there on the side of the seemingly abandoned road, shrugged out of his jacket and tossed that onto the ground as well, and then bolted off. And by bolted off, no, I don't mean like that kind of proud Olympic runner's way of sprinting. More like a wild animal that just got out of a cage it's been stuck in for years.

He more than likely looked like a madman, and he knew it. But this was important to him. She was important to him. So, when he looked at it like that, it'd be worth getting a few strange glances from people if he could get to find Carmen and have her take him back.