Break Me One More Time [McLennon]

in which george sleeps over

 "I give up! That's it! I give up." George set his guitar down on the coffee table then collapsed into a chair, leaning back, letting his eyes fall shut, running his hands down his tired face.

"No, come on, George," John sighed. "It's good."

George dropped his hand into his lap and shot John an exasperated look. "It's not," he said, shaking his head.

"It is," John insisted. "I promise you you, it is. Come on, Harrison, you've known me a while now. You know me well enough to know that if I thought it sounded like utter shite then I'd tell you to your bloody face. But it's not shite, it's a good song."

"Well, it's not good enough," George snapped. "Not for her, at least."

Paul groaned, shifting a little bit where he laid on the sofa. John repositioned Paul's head onto his lap and idly ran his fingers through Paul's dark hair.

"Are you awake?" John asked.

"I am," Paul sighed. "Is he gone?"

"Hello, Paul," George said.

"George, for Christ's sake!" Paul cried, sitting up. "Finish the song, put it on the damned album, and go to sleep!"

"It needs to be perfect!" George exclaimed.

"It is!" Paul sighed. "It's wonderful, it really is! I love it!"

George was silent for a moment before he asked, "Do you really?"

"I do, George, I swear it," Paul said.

"John?" George said.

"Haven't I said it enough, already?" John asked but he smiled. "It's good. Really, it is."

George nodded firmly. "Right, then. I'm going to pop the question. Tomorrow."

Paul's eyes grew wide. "Really?"

"You're going to ask her to marry you?" John asked.

"Yes, that is what 'pop the question' implies," George said, rolling his eyes.

"Alright, you cheeky bastard, that's enough," John said. He grinned. "Oh, they grow up so fast! Little Georgie, getting married, I'll be damned..."

"Well, I'm not getting married yet!" George said. "I've still got to ask and all that."

"But, she'll say yes! Of course, I mean..."

George and John rambled on together about this and that, where to do it and what to say, but Paul was lost in his own thoughts as he so often was. He'd been waiting for this day, George and Pattie finally getting engaged, since they were supposed to be married in 1966 and divorced in 1977. He wondered if they would stay married longer, or get divorced sooner, or if it would still be eight years away. The butterfly effect was a strange thing, hard to understand and near impossible to control especially when he was making such large splashes in the flow of space and time. Paul still worried, most days, whether or not he was doing the right thing. It was not lost on him that the F.H.O. was corrupt and evil, their prophecies were fakes. And if the prophecies were fakes then there was nothing telling him that John was meant to live. And if there was nothing telling him that John was meant to survive the day he was shot, then really that meant that...

"Paulie, you with us?"

Paul turned to look into John's eyes and he wanted to cry.

Really, that meant that John was meant to die.

"Yeah, sorry," Paul murmured. "Just tired."

"George is tired, too," John said. "Would you please tell him it's not safe for him to be driving home?"