Break Me One More Time [McLennon]

in which someone survived

A couple weeks after Paul had gone to the F.H.O. with Barney for that rather unsettling meeting, he and John were in their kitchen dong the dishes. Of course, being them and all, they weren't doing a very good job of it. They were goofing around and John had soap in his hair, Paul had water down his shirt, and they'd broken a plate.

"John, that tickles! Stop tha- whoops."

Make that two plates.

Paul continued washing and drying the dishes while John swept up the shattered remains of the plate and tossed them into the rubbish bin. Just as Paul was finishing with the last of the dishes, moving across the kitchen to put away a bowl, the phone began to ring.

"Hello?" John answered the phone, then he paused. "Stuart?"

Paul froze, and there was a crash, and he looked down to see that he'd broken a bowl, now, as well.

John looked up, startled.

"Sorry," Paul mouthed.

John shook his head, "Don't worry about it," he mouthed back then returned his attention to the phone call.

Stuart? Stuart? Paul's head was spinning. Start should have been dead in April! What was he doing calling John on the telephone? It didn't make any sense and Paul's first thought was that he needed to talk to Barney.

A few minutes later, after Paul had cleaned up the remains of the bowl and John had talked to Stuart, John hung up and turned to Paul. "My, God. That was Stu. He said he was calling to make up and make sure there weren't any hard feelings between us."

"That's..good," Paul nodded. "But why now? It's been almost two years since you last spoke to each other."

"He said he had a health scare recently," John said. "He had something wrong in his brain, but they've fixed it now. He said he almost died, though."

"That's good," Paul said. "That he was able to be saved, I mean."

"Yeah," John nodded. "I can't imagine what it would be like to have, like, Astrid call and say that Stuart had died. It would be awful. I can't even begin to imagine what it would feel like to get that phone call.."

I can, Paul thought to himself with a frown.

~~~

Paul laid awake that night, his mind racing, his thoughts uncontrollable, until he heard someone moving around in the kitchen and he leapt out of bed and scurried off to the kitchen. "Barney!" Paul said.

At the same time, Barney spoke urgently. "Paul!"

"Stuart is alive!" They spoke in unison.

"You know already?" Barney said.

Paul nodded. "Yeah. He phoned John today. He said he had a health scare, that something was wrong in his brain which is right. That happened before. But the doctors managed to save him... So according to your prophecies or whatever, was he supposed to live?"

"No, that's what's hit me worried," Barney shook his head. "He was supposed to die."

Paul sighed. "I don't get it. If the Shadows want everything to be as it's supposed to be then why don't they just leave you alone?"

"Like I've told you before, they don't agree with out meddling." Barney sighed, too. "I mean, they're doing a hell of a lot of meddling now, but that's besides the point. They think we should let whatever is going to happen happen. They think we should ignore the prophecies and just let everything go rogue if that's what's going to happen naturally. So since they can't stop us, they fight us. They're trying to make everything that we're trying to fix go wrong. So, for instance, John. He wasn't at all what we were trying to fix when we were trying to fix the Beatles. But then the Shadows swept in, somehow managed to get John and Cynthia to stay together, and years later they made sure he was killed."