All In Good Time - A Time Travel Beatles Fanfiction

Track 2 - I Saw Her Standing There

Someone was slapping Lainey's cheeks. Back off! she tried to say, but her tongue was too thick and slow to form words. The back of her head felt as though it had been hit with a sledgehammer.

She cracked open one eye, and thankfully the slapping stopped. A group of young men had gathered around, peering down at her, blocking the sun. She blinked from one to the other. A Beatle sky. Maybe this was heaven after all.

Her head was propped on someone's knees, which seemed to make it hurt even more, if that was possible. Wincing, she tilted her head back slightly and found herself staring into the down-sloping hazel eyes of Paul McCartney. Of the Beatles. He looked to be no older than Lainey herself.

"You aren't real," she whispered.

He was framing her face with his hands. "You've had a rather nasty knock on the noggin," he said.

"You gave us quite a scare." Another young man who looked vaguely familiar frowned down at her, pulling her attention away from Paul. McCartney. Of the Beatles.

"Yeah! You ran right out in front of us, out of bloody nowhere!"

Lainey blinked up at another new but familiar voice, and in spite of the pain she felt a flood of relief at the sight of his beautiful, unlined face. Just like the little photograph inside the ring. "George. Thank god you're alive. You're perfect."

"What's she sayin'?" someone else asked. Lainey shifted her eyes. Ringo.

"She says thank god George is alive," Paul translated.

Lainey stared into Paul's beautiful amber eyes. "George is my...my..."

Paul ducked his head to hear her over the traffic. "George is what?"

"George is my grandfather." Her voice came out in a croak.

"George Martin?" Paul looked up. "Ritch! Go fetch Mr. Martin."

"No...no..." Lainey swallowed, trying to make her brain connect to her tongue. "George Harrison is my grandfather."

Paul reached his fingers around to the back of her head and he rubbed a tender spot that sent fresh waves of pain shooting through her skull. "Right. And I'm your great-grandmother, love. And you have a knot on your head the size of a golf ball."

Lainey focused on his beautifully shaped eyebrows and tried not to cry out. "What year is this?" she whispered.

Paul chuckled. "I should be asking you that. You're the one who is concussed. What year do you think it is?"

Slowly her gaze swept over the faces of the young men, lingering on each in turn. Their hair was in the early mop-top cut. Paul had the face of a cherub, and George looked like a teenager. "1963?" she guessed.

"Good answer." Paul lowered her head and let it rest against his knees. And damn that hurt.

"What's your name, love?"

"Lainey. Elaine Spencer."

She tried to prop herself up on her elbows, flinching as a wave of pain radiated across the back of her head and down her spine.

"Easy, now, no need to move. You just relax. We'll see you to hospital."

Hospital. Hospital? In 1963? This couldn't possibly be real, but if it was, she couldn't be admitted to a hospital. With this blinding headache she couldn't possibly answer all the questions they would ask her, and if she started talking about the year 2012 they'd likely pump her full of antipsychotic medications. She'd never see her mother and her brother again. She had to stay focused until she found a way to get back to where she belonged.