And so we meet again.

I have grown up and my writing has matured SO much over the course of my fanfiction history, but I will always look back on Any Time at All as my favorite project. It was carefree, light, and it didn't make me think too much. I was free to be myself, and A.J. became me, in a sense, because of that. More than anything, that is why I'm returning to it now. I know there were several of you that felt like I'd be ruining the story by making a sequel, but I just couldn't let A.J.'s story go. That's why, instead of making this a full on sequel where A.J. goes back in time again, we're going to focus on Maggie Mae's story, told through the insightful, though rather biased, eyes of John Lennon. Chapter one, anybody? Fuck yes.

Five years.

Five years, five months, twenty days, and three hours, to be exact. That's how long it had been since I'd last seen the four boys that I spent a few life-changing months with back when I was seventeen years old. I talked to them weekly on the phone, but lately I had stopped calling. I knew I had to move on, because life was urging me to.

Things that have changed? God, I don't even know where to begin…

I guess there's college. I graduated this month from Northwestern with a degree in English, and a minor in Music. Pretty ridiculous, I know. What can you do with that? But I've always thought that the best things come from the unexpected, from your gut feeling. And so I went with my instincts, followed through with my love for music, and started writing.

I wrote my first novel while I was still in school. It was about heartbreak, the moving on that comes after it, but never forgetting. That was the important part, the message throughout the entire thing; you must never forget your first love, no matter how much it kills you to think of him. I showed the finished project to my Creative Writing professor, who told me it was shit and would never sell. Not that I was expecting anything, but that fucking hurt. So I literally burned the manuscript before anyone else could read it. The story, all three hundred forty-one pages, sits on my hard drive now, and when I scroll through my documents I try not to look at it.

What else? I guess there's Des. He proposed last month after graduation. Like, literally, RIGHT after graduation. He drove into the city, took me out to Bennigan's, and that's where it all went down. I still wore my graduation cap when I threw my arms around him, my body wracking with sobs.

As a matter of fact, I didn't stop crying for a while after that. I kept looking down at my hand, wondering how the fuck I had managed to forget about someone I swore was my soulmate, and thinking about how little closure I had provided myself with in the past few years. Everything in my life seemed open ended, as though I could jump right back into any stage with ease. My novel, still written and waiting for editing. Ringo, who I still talked to and always avoided The Conversation with. Des, who got his 'yes' but still was in love with a girl who could never completely love him back. Everything was just fucked up.

May has always been my favorite month of the year. This May, I just wish it would be winter again. That way I could stuff myself with comfort foods and hibernate for a few months, escaping everything. And as I sit here, in my parent's laundry room, slumped against a wall, I realize that even as I reflect on the past five years, my thoughts are bitter. Cold. Lacking emotion. Everything has been great—no, fuck that—everything has been PERFECT. Just what I dreamed. Northwestern? Shit. Engaged to Des? Just like everybody thought.

So what was wrong?

I pulled out my phone from my pocket gingerly, not even looking at the screen as I pressed speed dial number 9. The keys on my phone were starting to get a little hard from lack of use, seeing as I was avoiding the population as a whole these days. Who the fuck could blame me, though? People suck ass. Like, I'm not even trying to be all cynical and emo and I'm-better-than-everyone-else, I'm serious. They literally suck ass. It's fucking nasty, man. That's all I'm saying.

"'Ello?"

I sighed, leaning my head against the wall. It, of course, was pounding and throbbing and felt near explosion. That was probably from all that crying I had been doing earlier. "It's me," I say, my voice rough and scratchy from lack of use. The words come out in barely a whisper, and he probably has to strain to hear what I'm saying.

"A.J.? Sorry, it's just…you know, haven't heard from you in a while."

He's worried, I can tell. I have to think deeply to remember the purpose of me calling, and for a few seconds I panic because I can't recall. Then I looked down in my lap, where the pad of paper and pen sit, and I remembered.

"Right. About that…" I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, breathing in and trying to calm myself down before I start crying again. Earlier, I had been unable to stop for several hours. "I'm sorry, Paul, but can I talk to John? Please, it's urgent."

There was a slight hesitation, and then he muttered, "Yeah, no problem." I heard rustling, the low mumbling of male voices, a brief spurt of what I supposed to be their television, and then his voice came on the line.

"What the fuck do you want now?"

I drew a quick breath in, his harsh tone not completely unexpected but still hurtful all the same. I struggled for another moment to remember why I was bothering putting myself through this, and then I spoke, my voice weaker than I remembered it being.

"I need you to tell me something."

Apparently, he can hear something in my voice, something different. Maybe it's the misery I've been trying to hide (very successfully, might I say) from the world for so long. Or maybe it's that choked up, throaty sound that you make just before you cry that he was hearing. In any case, his breathing became more gentle and I could almost hear the change of his facial expression. "Huh?"

I tried to clear my head, to form the most clear, concise question I could. Most of all, I tried to tell him what happened. Why I was so sad, and why I was reflecting back on how my life had turned out with such judgmental eyes. But I couldn't bring myself to do it, so instead this is what came out:

"Can you tell me her story?"

Of course, this was John's answer: "What story? Are you high or something?"

I flicker of annoyance crossed my face, and even though I knew he couldn't see me I imagined that he had a look of satisfaction on his. Anything I didn't like, he did. Just because. It had been like that between us since day one, and when I found out that John was my grandfather…well, you could say that I was a little bit perturbed. But just a bit.

"Maggie Mae. The story of her…and you. And my mother."

Sometimes, I think it's hard for John to grasp that he has a daughter. He probably has tons of daughters, now that I think about it, but him finding out that the one girl he KNEW without a doubt that he loved had his child…I think it hurt him pretty bad. And denial was just part of that hurt.

"A.J…why do you want to know that all of a sudden?" he asked, his tone tired sounding. He didn't want to tell me, but he would. He fucking owed it to me. As a matter of fact…he NEEDED to tell me, simply because I had never asked before. Grandparents do that sort of thing all the time. Not that I really considered John Lennon to be my grandfather. That was just a bit TOO twisted for my liking, even though it was the truth.

I swallowed, still considering the answer to his question. "Because…" Tell him, my brain urged. Now is the time.

But was it really? I mean, if I told him the reason NOW, would he want to go on? If he learned the truth about my grandmother—that she could never, ever tell me this story herself—would he want it known? No, I don't think so. Not for a second.

"Because as my grandpa—" I could practically hear his wince through the receiver "—you have a duty to tell me how I came to be. Even if you don't know the entire story…I'm sure the others could help you. And me, too, from what Papa has told me."

Papa, the man I had been raised to know as my true grandfather, told me all kinds of stories about my grandma back in her young days. Before I came back from the sixties, he happened to leave out all the little sidestories that she told him about her days with the boys, but now? He doesn't hold back anything. Some things that he says make me sad, like when he talks about Maggie Mae's and John's wild, angry, violent fights. Some things make me laugh, like all the little anecdotes that she shared about George's blustering ways with girls. Other things made me wonder. Why had he never bothered to tell my mother all of these stories? Why had they never shared with her the truth?

The night before last, I had visited my Papa. He was sitting in his little, cottage style house, rocking in his chair next to the fireplace, book in hand, just like he had always been. This time, however, tears had shone brightly in his eyes, he had taken my hand.

"Tell her," he had said. "You know the story better than I do."

And by 'her', I had assumed that he meant my mother. And by 'the story'…well, that wasn't all that hard to guess at. But I couldn't find the right way, and I realized when I was trying to write it all down that I was missing huge chunks of the story, too.

And so here I was.

There was a long pause on both ends of the line, as I thought about Papa and my mother and my grandma and the boys, who were probably listening to every word of John's side of the conversation right now. John was most likely considering telling me, probably trying to come up with some sort of deal.

"Fine," he finally said. I smiled hugely, letting my head fall back into the wall with a satisfying thump. I couldn't BELIEVE he had given in so easy. Honestly, that was totally out of chara— "Under one condition."

Motherfucker.

"What?" I asked impatiently.

"When I'm done, you come back for a visit." I didn't say anything for a moment, so he continued. "It sounds rather pathetic for me to ask it of you…but it's not me that's been wanting it, if you know what I mean. He just doesn't want to ask himself."

Right. Ringo. He'd been hinting at it for a long time—about four years, actually—and I wasn't exactly in the dark about his continued feelings for me. But as part of my pact to move on, I had never granted him with such things. I don't ever want him to get the wrong idea…that I could come back there, live in his time, and we could live happily ever after.

That's a hard thing to say to someone you love so deeply, so usually I just avoid the topic in general.

"John…" I began, shaking my head slightly. "You know I can't."

"Why not?" he fired right back.

"Des. We're getting married. I can't just…you know."

"Fuck that. You don't really want to be with him, and we both know it."

It was the age old Desmond Debate happening all over again. The one where John acted like he knew everything about me, and that I knew nothing. And apparently I wanted to end everything with Des and move back 'home' and be with Ringo. Because John knows everything, right? So therefore he's always right.

Ha.

"I do, actually. And we're not discussing this right now." In my desperation, I give in rather easily to John's end of the bargain. I have limited time, and I know how long it can take him to spit out a few words, so I simply agree to his deal. Even though I don't have much of an intention to keep it. "But fine, whatever, I'll come for a visit."

John exhaled. "Good. Excellent, actually."

"Well, get on with it then!"

"Young lady, don't take that tone with me!" he said in a mock-elderly voice, even though we're probably around the same age right now. Maybe he's a year older or so. Sometimes I forgot how slow time traveled back then, and how fast it traveled here.

"Alright. Where do I begin?"

"At the beginning, I suppose," I answered.

"Fine, then. The beginning. It all started…fuck, when was it? Must have been in Hamburg, I was too hammered the whole time to really know the date. But I'll tell ya, if there was one thing I remember about that trip, it was Maggie Mae Fitzpatrick."

And so it begins. Alright, so I just realized that this starts in a very similar way as In Spite of All the Danger. With the whole going back in time to tell a story type of thing. However, this story will be much shorter, and unlike In Spite there is a very good reason that A.J. wants to know these things about her grandmother. I haven't really said it yet, but if you wanna go ahead and have a guess, I haven't made it too hard. Nothing THAT twisted. :^) Did you all miss George? I know I did.

Okay, make me happy, will ya? Review, please?