Break Me One More Time [McLennon]

in which george and ringo find out

    Paul didn't see Barney for a long time, and he was beginning to worry. Early in September Tessa showed up for the first time since the night in June when she showed up and introduced herself to Barney.

    "I'm stressing out," Paul sighed. "Why did you do that? Like, really? I haven't seen him in almost two months, Tessa. What if he told the F.H.O.? What if they're going to come after you and me?"

     "He wouldn't do anything that would compromise your safety, Paul," Tessa rolled her eyes. "And besides, they'll blame him if he tells them and he'll get fired and have his memories of his life since he started working for the F.H.O. wiped and replaced with fake ones. You think he'll go through with that?"

     Paul sighed and shook his head. "No, I suppose you're right."

     "Of course I am," she smiled and Paul rolled her eyes. "Just relax, okay? Everything is pretty calm around here right now. Enjoy it. With the way your life has been in the past few years, Paul McCartney, you should know that the calm is just the eye of the storm."

     "Yeah, you could say that again." Paul laughed. "Any news on the F.H.O.'s big Plan B?"

     "None that I can give you," Tessa said. "Well, there's a little bit that I can tell you. We're pretty sure that they're going to bring her in sometime around 1970, all things depending.""

     "Well, at least I've got like five and a half years to prepare myself." Paul sighed, but then he shook his head. "No, scratch that. I'll never be able to prepare myself. It's going to suck, big time."

     "Yeah, it is." Tessa admitted.

     "Thanks," Paul chuckled.

     "Ooh, guess what!" Tessa exclaimed excitedly.

      "What?" Paul asked.

     "Guess." She grinned smugly, but paul glared at her so she laughed and continued. "Okay, okay. We finally caught those men from Italy who were using artificial magic and messing with history!"

     "That's great!" Paul grinned. "What'd you do with them?"

     "Wiped their memories," Tessa said. "And we obviously took all of their artificial magic products and destroyed them."

     "Good," Paul nodded.

     "Yeah.. Well, I'll see you soon, I suppose." Tessa said. "Try to relax, okay?"

     "Okay," Paul nodded, sighing. He wasn't sure if he even remembered how to relax at this point, or what it felt like to not be constantly stressed and worried. "Bye."

    "Bye," she waved, then she disappeared.

     And after that, weeks passed by, and soon months, and before Paul knew it, it was December. Beatles For Sale was out and they were writing new songs to record the following year for their fifth album, Help! (which, to Paul's dismay, they were not planning on pairing a movie with).

     And then, in the first few days of December, Paul got up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water and jumped in surprise when he saw Barney leaning against the counter with a somber look on his face. "Barney," he said. "It's..it's good to see you. It's been a while."

     Barney nodded slowly. "You were right. You and Tessa were right."

     Paul looked surprised. "Really? You believe us?"

     "Don't have much of a choice." Barney frowned. "I — I kind of hacked into President Wilson's private files.. I didn't want to believe Tessa, but she had six names of people who had supposedly died. And how could she have known that? Yeah, maybe they did some research. Maybe they've got a lot of resources. But why? Why lie about that?"