Out of Time [Brian Jones]

(Bonus) Epilogue 2 AV

A.N.: This might sound similar to the previous Epilogue and it is, because this is an alternative version of it. For more information, read the chapter a quick warning.

Well this one is much longer tho than the epilogue 1! If you didn't like the last one, maybe you'll prefer this one. This was for the longest time the original planned end for the story. I don't want to give too much away, but there's a surprise at the very end- A surprise I wanted to explain in a sequel, but I think leaving it this way has more impact than explaining it.  <3

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Whenever he celebrated his birthday he had to think about her and it got worse the older he got. Nowadays he nearly wondered about her daily. Simply because it astonished him that she had been right with him not dying any time soon, which was considering the way he had lived nearly a miracle and he had to admit that he had seriously doubted her prediction at some points in his life.

The last time Keith had seen Charlie was late '69, just before she had disappeared without a word to him or anybody else. The next two years he had spent looking for her nearly obsessively if Mick was to be believed, but Keith had felt so immensely guilty at her disappearance that he just couldn't let her go. He had misused her trust in the lowest way he could have; she had needed comfort and he took advantage of it by sleeping with her.

If there was one thing he seriously regretted in his life, then it was the one night he spent with Charlie. He would have done everything to turn back time or at least to forget about it, but he couldn't, nearly as if his mind was trying to punish him for it as well.

It had been the first Wednesday in August and it had been a rather sunny day. Brian had nearly been dead for a whole month, but the interest was still high, considering the details that had surfaced after his death. Keith knew that Brian had married Charlie and understood his reason for doing so, but it hadn't been public and it didn't take long for people to suspect her of killing him for money or because he had cheated or whatever. It got so bad that Charlie hardly left the house anymore and she needed a friend more than ever. Keith had really only wanted to comfort her when he visited her, but then she had put his arms around him, pressing her body close to his and he couldn't resist the urge. He had thought about sleeping with her since the first evening he had met her and the fact that Brian had been so mad about her made him only the more curious and this chance nearly irresistible, but Keith got his payback fast.

He still could remember that moment as if it had only happened yesterday and not 50 years ago. They were laying in Brian's bed. He had just rolled off of her and had managed to light a cigarette he had taken out of a package on the nightstand, which probably had belonged to Brian, when Charlie started to sob. At first he had been totally caught off guard that he had just stared disbelievingly at her until his consciousness kicked in and he had hugged her to try to calm her down. She immediately shoved him away, yelling and screaming. Keith hadn't understood everything what she had said, but he had had a pretty good idea anyway...

He had tried to talk to her a few times after that, but she had ignored him and then she had just left and he had never heard a word of her again. He didn't even know if she was still alive or not... He hoped she was and that she was living her normal life somewhere. Charlie definitely deserved that much after what she had gone through... It was a nice thought, but somewhere deep inside him lurked another far more probable scenario of Charlie's future... She had always drunk too much and in the three months after Brian's death, she had just looked like a ghost, hardly eating nor sleeping... and Keith doubted she had stopped drinking when she had left. The chances that Charlie still lived somewhere were slim, she was most likely dead as well. At least she was with Brian then, Keith reassured himself. However it still was a rather sad thought and he certainly would have wished for a different outcome, but he hardly could change it... At this point all he could hope for was maybe to find out what had happened to Charlie to finally get some closure.