Break Me One More Time [McLennon]

in which paul is in danger (but when is he not?)

"Oh, Paul," Linda said in a sing-song voice. "I asked you a question, or did you not hear me? Did you miss me? Or did you forget about me?"

"I never forgot about her," Paul choked, holding back a sob.

"Oh, are you sure about that?" Linda said. "You're telling me you never forgot about me? Not even once? Not even with John's dick up your —"

"Stop," Paul said. He squeezed his eyes shut.

"My poor baby, my Heather, she had to go back to her father in another country," Linda hissed. "Yes, she just got shipped away. My lovely Mary, my sweet Stella, and my little James will never see the light of day. They'll never be born. They'll never exist. All because of you, Paul."

"I didn't choose this — I swear!" Paul cried, then he gasped. He shook his head. "Not real," he reminded himself. "Don't argue. Not real."

"That's what you'd like to think, I'm sure," Linda laughed coldly. "Because you don't want to face me. But the time is here, and you've got to do it. You have to face me, and you haven't even honored my memory. You've just left me behind. A forgotten memory in the recesses of your mind."

"That's not true," Paul said.

"What have you done to honor my memory then, Paul?!"

"I wrote the song down, I always remembered it. I never let myself forget it, but I never sang it — never in a world where she wasn't there to hear it — I never dared!"

"Excuses. You silenced the song. Buried me."

"That's not what I meant to —"

"I'm dead because of you."

"The F.H.O. — I didn't know until I saw it in the papers at my —"

"You couldn't save me from my illness," Linda tutted. "And you couldn't save me from a fucking tree."

"You're not real."

"I felt the flames lick my skin and burn me alive before I went out. I died thinking that my baby was going to die with me. At least I didn't die thinking you're the one who killed me."

"You're not real."

"But that's real," Linda said, eyes narrowed. Paul frowned. "Isn't it? That's what you always envision, isn't it? Me, in my last moment, knowing there's nothing I can do to stop it and there's nobody who can save me now," she started to sob like she was there in the car, and patches of flames appeared all over her body. "There's nobody who can save me! There's no one who can save my baby! Will she be in as much pain as I'm in now?! Oh, GOD, MY BABY! SOMEBODY, PLEASE SAVE HER!"

Paul was sobbing with her and he cried, helplessly, "She was saved! She was saved! I met her on the streets of New York!"

"But the real Linda will never know that, will she?" the vision of Linda said, still one fire but no longer screaming in pain. No longer bothered by the flames in the slightest. "Because I'm not real, am I, Paul? The real Linda died thinking that her baby did, too."

"There's nothing I can do," Paul muttered.

"Oh, right." Vision Linda puffed out her chest and sighed. "Because you can't go back in time and stop someone from dying. That would be bad. Right?"

Paul frowned. "That's not —"

"Face it," Vision Linda snapped, and her fire went out. "You don't want to go back and save me because if you did then you'd have to choose between me and John Lennon. And you really don't know what you'd do then, do you? You don't know what the right answer is. You don't know if there is a right one. Am I hitting the mark at all?"