Now and Then- 𝓂𝒸𝓁𝑒𝓃𝓃𝑜𝓃

𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝒯𝓌𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓎-𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑒

"... Brian died due to an overdose." Says Paul, his voice low: remembering the horrific period that ensued post-Brian's death. "An' I believe tha' it was an accident. But... there's no way of knowin' for certain, y'know." He shrugs, his shoulders heaving heavily in-time with his breath. "Not like it matters whether or not he'd meant to kill 'imself: it didn't change the fact that he was gone. This man, who'd been the head of our band, who'd kept us all in line for all these years- was gone in an instant."

"How terrible," Michael mumbles, shaking his head reverently, "And it's not something that you can undo. You can't just call him; tell him to come back: it's like, this is it."

"Exactly," Paul nods, shifting in his seat. "It left us all in a rather odd state o' mind: all sort o' shocked, and didn't really know 'ow to proceed. Y'know, we needed to move on for our own sake, but we didn't want to... erase the memory of our beloved late manager."

"I can only imagine," Michael nods, pointing his pen at Paul and saying, "How did you all end up fairing?"

"We... well, we all sort o' handled it differently." Paul shrugs. "We were busy already with our latest film project, the Magical Mystery Tour, y'know. But aside from tha', George and Ringo clung to their wives- their families. I did tha', too, as much as I could, with Jane: but it wasn't quite the same." He pauses for a moment, in order to think. "John handled it rather differently, though. I s'pose I'd almost expected that, 'cause Brian had been closer with John than any o' the rest of us."

"How exactly did John handle such a personal tragedy, then?"

"Well... he started wi' Cynthia- an' Jules, of course. But then, somethin' odd started happenin'." Paul leans back onto the couch, his head tilted as he says, slowly, "John started gettin' these constant phone calls: calls on his home telephone, mind you." He pauses again, then adds: "Calls from someone I'd nearly forgotten about: from someone I'd had a feelin' abou' since I'd met them, but had been unable to place the meanin' behind their significance."

"Who was this?" Michael asks, obviously, very curious.

A trace of a smile ghosts upon Paul's face as he answers, "The calls were from Yoko Ono. After all this time, she'd never forgotten about John: and was now, more than ever, pursuin' him."

___________________________________________

It was now early September of 1967: Paul was paying a visit to Kenwood for the afternoon.

He'd brought Jane along with him, albeit, only for her to socialize with Cynthia. The girls knew that it wasn't their place to interrupt whenever the boys were composing music, and hardly ever even tried to do so.

But today was a casual hangout, and the boys and their girls simply sat on the plush furniture in the living room for several hours, talking.

"I quite like the set for the film." Said Cynthia, raising her steaming teacup to her lips, "Y'know, Magical Mystery Tour- I think tha' it might be better than the other sets you've 'ad for your other films, y'know."

Only a week earlier, the band had begun the filming of Magical Mystery Tour. Currently, they were taking a day off from filming: though they'd been assured by the production team that the filming should only carry on for a week longer, at the rate they were filming. It was, admittedly, largely improvised: proving to be a rather easy job for the band.

It was much more enjoyable, too: at least, in Paul's opinion. He'd gotten a great say in the scenes they shot, and his input nearly always resulted in the final take. He'd even gotten the boys to do a ballroom scene for his song, Your Mother Should Know, and had it choreographed just as he liked (despite, of course- the slight irritation and embarrassment expressed by his bandmates.)