All In Good Time - A Time Travel Beatles Fanfiction

Track 4 - I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night

A horn blared and Lainey whirled around to see a black sedan bearing down on her. She was yanked backward onto the curb, groping behind her for the lamppost that she somehow knew was there. A middle-aged man had her by the arm, keeping her from tumbling onto the sidewalk.

"Mind where you're going," he said with a frown, before continuing on his way.

Somehow Lainey still clutched her phone, and Paul was still singing his heart out. Lainey punched her mother's picture. "Mom?"

"Hi honey, just making sure you made it into the city."

"Mom! Oh my god, the craziest thing just happened—" Lainey broke off, making a complete turn in the middle of the sidewalk as she realized her purse was gone. And with it her passport, her wallet, her identification, all her tube passes... Shit. Alone in London with nothing but her phone.

"Are you okay, hon? What's wrong?"

"Um, everything? I almost got hit by a freaking bus, for one."

"Elaine Louise. I told you about looking the wrong way before you cross the street in London. Your head naturally goes the wrong way, and you—"

"Mom! There's a bigger issue right now. My purse is gone."

"Were you mugged?" Her mother sounded frantic.

"No, nothing like that! I think I left it...on the tube. Yeah, that's it."

"For heaven's sake Lainey, go back to the station and ask if they have a Lost and Found."

"I already did," Lainey lied, rubbing the back of her head. "They don't have it."

There was a long sigh, and then Lainey listened patiently as her mother told her she never should have gone into the city alone and now everyone was inconvenienced and Matt would have to take the train all the way from Oxford to rescue her.

"Thanks Mom, love you," Lainey said as they rang off. She wondered if her mother would be less angry or more angry if she knew Lainey had a head injury and had hallucinated herself into bed with a Beatle. A Beatle with soft warm lips and a comforting voice and eyes that she could get lost in. Part of her wished the phone had never rung, that she was still back there, having dinner with Paul, falling asleep in his bed...what?

The whole experience was insane. She stared down at her phone. Not more than ten minutes had passed since she'd written George's name on the wall in front of Abbey Road studios. She could still see it from where she was standing. The American girl who'd handed her the pen was still there, laughing with her friends as they posed for photos with their cell phones. In Lainey's mind she'd spent hours in 1963, and she'd come back to 2012 in the same instant she'd left.

She moved out of the pedestrian traffic and leaned against a nearby stone wall. Her hand shook as she stared at the scarab ring. Had it been an aberration, brought about by hitting her head, or was time travel something she could do at will with this ring on her finger?

Her head was spinning. She had just kissed a living, breathing, very warm-blooded, drop-dead sexy 21-year-old Paul McCartney not twenty minutes ago. He still had her purse.

Maybe she should leave a message for him on the wall. Ha! That was it, they could communicate with each other by writing messages on the wall in front of his studio.

She looked up and down the street, making sure the little gypsy woman wasn't still larking about. Satisfied that she was nowhere to be found, Lainey typed in the passcode on her phone and pressed her Grandma Marie's contact picture.

"Lainey? Hi, honey, I was just thinking about you. Your mom says you made it safely across the pond."

"Grandma. I wish you could've come." Already Lainey felt her pulse slowing down at the sound of her grandmother's soft voice.