Okay, there is just something about this chapter that's getting on my nerves. It didn't turn out like I hoped. It's just the set up of it I think. There are a load of "flashbacks" at the beginning, and I'm not a big fan of italicizing the whole entire area. It just messes with the flow of things for me or something like that, I don't know! You should be able to figure it out though, hopefully…

Also, thanks for the reviews, they really make me smile! Keep them coming?

Chapter 7:
When I Get Home

Sandra was home now. Mal had driven her home from the recording studio, along with Paul and John in the car with them. Ringo and George had decided on some much needed shut eye and made their way back to their own flats. The boys who were with her did their best to come up with interesting conversations and fun topics to carry on with, but the girl was preoccupied. Her thoughts still lingered on about her little situation at the studio.

George Martin had entered the room after her moment of frustration with the boys. He told of how he was curious to find out how a complete piano addition would change the song. He also said that he would rather take over and do the part, and with Sandra knowing he was probably much more skilled, she wandered back to the sound booth after she verbally acknowledged this.

When it all was done, it sounded beautiful. There was no doubt in her mind that people would love this new sound. It added that certain "something" that it missed.

"Couldn't have written it better myself," John had said with a smirk, knowing completely the very meaning to what he said.

"You think you're so funny," said Sandra, shaking her head at his antics. She thought of how John was sharper than anyone else in the room, but spent all his time being the joker that you would never know it.

Stop thinking, it's nearly midnight and you need your sleep, she shouted at herself inside her mind, coming back to the empty house that encased her. Marian still wasn't home yet it seemed. Sandra picked up the note from that evening and disposed of it, seeing as how it served no purpose now. She then found herself passed out in her bed just a few seconds later. As she slept, her dreams were filled with the new melodies she had learned that day.

1964

What was guessed to be the last snow of the season had now melted into a light slush that covered the grass and pavement. Everything was still cold; most especially the wind that blew through the city, but on that rare occasion a hint of warmth could touch someone. Still, time in this season was best spent inside, out of any kind of damp, cool atmosphere. No one would want to be out and about in this, and yet Sandra was, if only for a minute.

She had a jacket and boots on over her pajamas, obviously not matching but not caring about the matter. She was only out to walk from the house, to the mailbox, and then back inside. She decided on getting the newspaper that was laying on the side of the road, becoming drenched, while she was at it. She approached the mail box and grabbed the few envelopes that lingered inside, retrieved the newspaper, and hurried back into the house. She removed her shoes and went to the dinning room to look over the letters.

Sandra loved to get letters. It seemed to be becoming a rarity to get an actual one, what with telephones and television taking over a lot of things. She felt like she must have been her grandparents at that moment. She didn't know what to do; was she to keep a hold onto the old, or evolve like the rest of the world and except it? For now at least, she would appreciate the time and effort in the written word, more than just punching the keys on the phone.

The young woman slid her fingertips over the white, sealed notes. She took her time to flip them over one by one; seeing who it was for or who it was from, and then either opening it or setting it down.

The first envelope was simple. They were bills, specifically for heat and electricity. She knew that it was going to be expensive because of the extensive usage during this winter. In addition, the house had played host to several ridiculous parties over the time. With the extra amount of people that meant even more spending for things like food, drink, and decorations. Luckily, and for whatever reason, they were still doing alright with money for now.

These parties, if it wasn't obvious, were held by Marian. They were mainly meant to celebrate the holiday season back in December. Christmas and New Years had come and gone, but went out with a bang when they did. People danced to the latest hits, screamed in joy for that last count down, and drank in the end of the year (which Sandra refused to partake in.) Everyone, naturally, stayed up until midnight and probably even much later.

All of the party guests were friends of Marian's. Sandra had invited some of her coworkers that she knew better now to come too, but all either had plans or politely declined. Not knowing the ones that were in her home in the least, she didn't feel guilty about declining the offer to go out and wander the streets in celebration after dark. She returned to her room when everyone had left, not looking forward to cleaning up nor Marian's hangover that would come the next morning.

Almost in bed, Sandra had looked over to the record player that had before been moved out of Marian's room (lack of interest) and into her own.

She shuffled over to it and pulled one of the albums out of the crate that sat below it. She happened to pluck up one of her new favorites. On the cover it held four faces, each half illuminated and the other half faded into the darkness of the background. Flipping it over, she looked over the list of songs, as if she didn't have it memorized already. This was what she had received for Christmas and she was glad that her cousin would know she would appreciate it.

Sandra fiddled with the square case, sliding the vinyl record out of it. She read the words, With the Beatles, for nearly the hundredth time, still thinking about how ironic it was.

She had still never told anyone she had met them.

Sandra was distracted and pulled out of her thoughts by a rumble in her stomach. Food was probably an important matter and something best attended to sooner than late. She usually found this out the hard way while she was at work. The young woman set down the envelopes, fixed herself something, and then picked them back up when she went to the dinning room to eat.

In one hand, she now held a fork with a bite size piece of egg on it. With the other, she pushed the bill of to the side. She was tired of looking at it now. The next on the stack was addressed to Marian, and it wasn't a surprise who it was from.

When Valentine's Day had rolled around, Sandra was introduced to someone new.

She had awoken to a strange knocking on the front door, extremely early in the morning. Not having any inkling of whom on Earth it could be, she threw on a robe over her pajamas and tiptoed down the hallway. She took a peek out of the small window beside the door to see if she could get a good look at whoever it was, but her attempts were in vain. It was still before sunrise; but whoever it was must have had a good reason for coming here now, right? She mustered up all her courage, but then only opened it as far as the small chain latch would allow her to.

Someone poked their face up quite close to the opening.

She recognized the face, but only from verbal descriptions of him, never from actually meeting him in real life. His hair was short and plastered to his head, showing off all of his facial features without any hanging in his face. He had thin, expressive eyebrows with bright eyes sitting underneath them. His lips were very pink and his ears oddly stuck out of his head like an elephant's. Aside from his odd proportions, maybe he could have been seen as a handsome man. Well, Sandra knew someone who thought so.

"I'm here to see Marian," he spoke up. His voice was full of bass and quite loud even for a whisper. All and all though, Sandra's assumptions were now correct. This man was Lawrence Gilroy, the man that Marian was engaged to. He was the 'rich, beautiful business man born in Scotland.' He really wasn't what the young woman imagined from her cousin's descriptions. Marian had always played him up as an angel in human skin, or that he was built like a Greek statue of marble. But what do I know? Sandra told herself. She was just basing this on him standing on the porch and speaking no more than a sentence to her.

"Oh, sure, you must be Lawrence," said Sandra. She was going to shake his hand on introduce herself, but he had already strolled inside, walked a bit past her, and was now looking around the house from where he stood. She shut the door behind him, locking it once again. She didn't know if he had ever been here before, but then assumed that he had. As Lawrence wandered forward, it showed that he was hiding a bouquet of roses behind his back. "She's still asleep."

"Well, I expected so," he chuckled. Though he knew that fact, he still moseyed down the hallway to the side where Marian's room was. He turned the knob quietly and then snuck in. For some reason, Sandra didn't find herself objecting at all. Maybe this was just a normal circumstance between these two. And in addition to that it was now, technically, St. Valentine's Day. Or night.

An ear piercing scream erupted from the back room, which caught Sandra's attention, but then was replaced by laughs and giggles, which got rid of her split second of fear. The two certainly sounded happy together. Unsure of what to do, and particularly too tired to care, Sandra simply decided on going back to bed. She returned but lied awake, kept up by the footsteps and other noises that filled the house as Marian and Lawrence spent the rest of the Valentine's together.

The young woman flipped over the next envelope on the table. She was almost finished her breakfast now. When she saw the words on the outside of the envelope, she saw that it was something that she dreaded opening more than anything. She put on a brave face and ripped open the paper it was in. Unfolding the notes inside, her eyes scanned through until she reached the end and also the very important verdict.

'Rejected,' it read.

Sandra growled and glared at the paper, as though it would be able to feel insulted, then crumpled it up and threw it hard to the rubbish bin. She had missed by about a foot. Sighing, she stood up in a huff and went to pick it up to throw it away properly and then returned to the table to open the last one. This one too, was meant for her. She studied it for a second, seeing that it was just a plain, white envelope like all the others, but with no return address. She was curious.

This time, she used her clean butter knife to peel open the sealed top. Peeking through the nicely cut edges, Sandra pulled out the piece of paper and began to read it.

Dear Sandra,

Hope I got your last name right; Ringo was having trouble remembering. Sure the postman won't get all that upset about it. But that aside, onto what I was actually writing you about.

We just finished out little tour of America. It's great over here, but we can barely go anywhere without the girls running up and catching onto us or without some sort of disguise or someone watching our backs. I guess what I really should be saying is that the hotels in America are pretty nice. And the views from the high floors were too. That's pretty much all we've really gotten to see. Still nice though, none-the-less.

We were on the telly; don't know if you knew that. That guy, Ed Sullivan, I don't know if you've ever heard of him. Well he's got this big talk show and we got to perform this big set for it. You should have seen all the people, and then all the people watching at home. Tens of thousand of them. We would sing just one line, and then they would scream. Or they were just shouting our names from their seats. No idea how they actually listened to the music, it was crazy.

The songs we played through were All My loving, Please Please Me, Till Their Was You (pretty sure you said you really liked that one,) She Loves You, I Wanna Hold Your Hand. It was over a few weeks though, not all in one. Paul had to sing the lead on nearly all of them, but he said that the fans made it all worth it. But now we're coming home, on the 22nd, I think. So you've better be ready to celebrate.

The other guys send their love. Personally, I don't think you should accept it after they put me under all the pressure to write this, but it's up to you.

Soon you soon,

George Harrison

His signature was straight and perfect, with the 'g's being significantly bigger than the rest of the name. The ink was dark blue, and she noticed were it had smudged in certain places, or the one or two times he crossed out a word and rewrote it because of not being able to erase.

Sandra was finally beginning to realize that there must have been something special about her relationship with these four boys. One of them could have had the opportunity to elope with some American girl for all she knew. And then yet, here was George, writing to her to just to give her updates on how life was going, on behalf of the whole band. She didn't know why they did this but decided she should stop questioning in and just live in this amazing moment.

That's what John told be to from the beginning…

The young woman now knew what he really meant and regretted arguing about it with him. Trying to get her mind off of it, she washed her dishes, and then moved to couch in the other room, turning on the television. It was a joint purchase between her and her cousin recently. It seemed so many families had one now, that it was time they had one of their own. She had turned it on but not bothered to change the channel. The news interview that was currently on had the Beatles on it.

They're haunting me, she jokingly told herself.

What time was it now? Nearly noon, Sandra saw looking over to the wooden clock that ticked on the wall. And the date was told to her by the calendar beside the clock. It was the twenty-second now! The postal service must not have been very good at getting things delivered on time when they were coming over seas or something to that extent.

For whatever reason, Sandra didn't feel the need to get up and rush to get ready on the chance that George had actually meant what he wrote about celebrating. She continued to sit comfortably in her seat with the channel sitting on the Pathe News, watching the four boys at a distance on the screen. She saw their black and white figures that were being interviewed by some random news reporter. They gave their off the wall comments about the trip to America and Sandra would laugh along with them whenever they said something funny.

The four were pressured on about their work, staying in millionaires' houses, the fans, and their money. Apparently, the only difference between the English and American fans was their accents. One of them had come up and cut a piece of Ringo's hair out. They discussed their meeting with a man called Cassius Clay and how the sun was so great in Miami. There were a few topics that stunned Sandra, and she was making a mental note to ask them about it later.

Right now, on the television though, they were the rest of the world's Beatles, not her's.

When the interview was finally over and the regular news returned, Sandra then made her way into the back of the house. She woke up Marian, just to spite her, cleaned up, and got ready for the rest of the day. There was that chance that they would be coming over after all.

After Marian stubbornly got up from ungracefully being awoken by her cousin, the two reclined in the living room. Sandra was dressed nicely, with a smooth coat of makeup on, while Marian still refused to get dressed if she didn't absolutely have to. She was planning on spending this lazy Saturday for nothing except for pure relaxation.

The television showed just a few highlights from the Beatles interview that was showed on the same channel about an hour or so ago. Just some of the moments of the boys were shown before returning to the news that spoke of local incidents and anything else it felt its viewers need to know.

"That John sure is a looker," said Marian, as if she was just thinking out loud. Sandra really didn't expect something like that to come out of her mouth and was really unsure if she should say something or just pretend show didn't hear it. Her body reacted before she could actually decide and she shot Marian a look which was only returned with, "Well excuse me for noticing."

"I didn't say anything," responded Sandra coyly, "But really Miss Getting-Married-In-Two-Months, should you be saying something like that?"

"No," said Marian, "I shouldn't, but I did though, so deal with it." She stuck out her tongue at the end of her sentence.

On that note, Sandra remembered the letter from earlier. She retrieved it from the kitchen and handed it to her cousin, whose face lit up on reading it. She tore into it and read it in a trance of deep focus. Marian's expressions rose and dropped as her eyes went carefully along each and every line. When she finally put it down, finished, a cheeky grin was plastered across her face.

"Why does he hardly visit?" Sandra asked. She truly had been wondering that for a very long time. That Valentine's Day was actually the only time she had ever seen Lawrence. Shouldn't Marian and he be spending every waking moment together or something along those lines? In two months the two of them would be running away to another country together. Sandra would be left to have to move out and fend completely by herself. It was only to be expected though.

He's busy most of the time working late shifts and such," Marian chattered on, "He comes and visits a lot! Mostly when you're at work or when I go over to his place when I get off. We don't want to corrupt your innocent mind just yet." Sandra rolled her eyes.

"You should still invite him over again soon, when I'm around. If he's going to be my," she paused to think for a moment, "cousin-in-law then I need to see him more than once, to see what you're getting into."

"Yeah, well he doesn't-" Marian stopped instantly at the sound knocking at the front door. Looking over to it, she winced and made an annoying grunt that said, 'You go get it.'

Sandra unenthusiastically did so, maneuvering her way off of the sofa and around the coffee table. She opened the door only to have a hand reach in a grab her roughly by the arm and pull her outside all in nearly a split second. She had no time to react. She was at a loss for words, not being able to tell who it was from the speed that it all happened and with all of the worry she was capable of overwhelming her. In the flurry she searched for a face, and found luckily found it in the harsh eyes of John.

"Borrowing her for a bit," John practically shouted, attempting to lean his head into the doorway, but was in to much of a rush to actually get the job done. Marian now stood there, having gotten up in a flash.

"Its fine," Sandra had finally formed some words to assure her cousin she was safe. Her breathing was heavy as she spoke, still in a bit of a shock, "I'm fine." John gave her a pleading look and ushered her on to the sleek, black car on the road. This one was much nicer than the one she had rode in before. They walked on, with Sandra turning her head around, mouthing clearly, 'John Lennon,' and pointing to him with her free hand.

She wished she could have seen Marian's expression but there was no time for that.

Their speed walk turned into a full out run by the time they were no longer shielded behind the walls of the house. Someone inside the car pushed it open, to which John pushed her in. There were a few unrecognizable clicks, some incoherent murmurs outside the car, and then he hopped inside as well. He shut the door behind him and directed the driver to pull away, quickly.

Sandra was taking everything in and trying to process it. Brian drove, Ringo sat comfortably in the passenger's seat, and she, Paul, George, and John were cramped in the back. It was fairly dark, which was caused by the tinted windows in addition to the clouded sky outside. She saw the neighborhood disappearing into the horizon out of the rear window. A small group of photographer huddled around each other. Oh boy, she told herself, that's what that clicking was.

Photographers of this sort never looked like good news.

"Come here," Paul spoke up, grabbing Sandra by the same arm that John had. It was getting a bit sore now, but she cast it away, figuring they just didn't know their own strength. Or that she wasn't in the best shape right now to be handled like that. She was pulled over to sit oddly and crookedly between Paul and George. Half of her was sitting on Paul's thigh and the other half sat on the single inch of cushion that was available. She worried more over how her hand was digging into George's side.

The many attempts she made to reposition herself were met with failure, and in addition to that some jeers and some other comments that where she was was as good as it would get. Sandra was becoming frustrated, giving up and barking, "What's going on here?"

"Saving you from spending another day without us," said Paul, charmingly. Sandra didn't want to turn her head to look at him. She was nearly placed right under his chin from this spot now, and would rather not be confronted with a direct view of his neck.

"Did you not get me letter?" George asked her. It was much easier to look at him, seeing as how there was enough distance for it not to be terribly oafish.

"Hey," Ringo cut it, "I came up with some of that too."

"I actually wrote it," George said back, waving his hands around. "pens and paper and all that sort of stuff, ya' know."

"Yes, I got it," said Sandra, "only just this morning. I wasn't actually expecting you all to show up or anything. I need better warnings for these things!"

"Nah, I think it's more fun to see you get all riled at us like this," John remarked. As only normal, the four boys laughed at his jests. Sandra only crossed her arms over her chest, which only seemed to prove his point more. She tried to play along with it, closing her eyes and sticking her nose high into the air. She crossed her legs, only to be knocked off her balance by a speed bump that was in the road entering the urban area. Simple to say, there was much more laughter.

Sandra tried to regain her composure, keeping her to-good-for-you act on, but it failed. She shook her head and cackled at herself. They always said, if you can't beat 'em, join them. She found things were a bit more fun when she did.

"What would your wife say to you laughing at another woman, Mr. Lennon?" said Sandra through snickers. She didn't mean to bring it up right now, it had just slipped out. That was okay though, now would be a fine time if any. There were many odd responses.

"How did you know about that?"

"Shhhh, it's a secret!"

"John, married? When did that happen?"

"I don't think she'd mind as long as I wasn't shacking up with her."

The last response was John's own. He said it through a devilish smile. The tone of his voice sounded to be pretty uncaring about the whole subject. Sandra's mind ran once more to the relationship between Marian and Lawrence. These responses didn't sound to match in the slightest. Maybe these things were just different for everything, like most normal situations were.

"I'm only sure…" she trailed off, instantly wanting to change the subject. She began, "So, in reality, where are we really headed off to today?"

"Another interview," said Paul in a chipper tune, "then off to play a bit at some club and then we'll dance the night away. I promised you we would a while back." He was grinning ear to ear right now, Sandra knew it.

"Well then," she said, "we've got so much to do in so little time to do it." This was getting her out of the house for a night and she was lucky enough to spend it with some of the best guys she had ever had the pleasure of getting to know. She still had a lot to learn, but she decided right then and there that she was going to stick around long enough to do so. "Let's make the most of it."

There we have it. Umm… Sandra has stupid conflicting personality problems depending on who she's with…? It makes sense in my head. I really hope she's not just coming off as whiny or annoying to you guys ;u;

Totally opposite note/about the author facts: I really have a problem with relationships in fanfics being much too rushed, or love at first site sort of deals. Yes, it does happen, but it's just not really my thing. So I take a while introducing SandraxWho, because I like to keep it a bit wild and fun before she is pushed into a serious, committed relationship. I mean, we all know how John and Cyn worked out, so we don't want that kind of situation for Sandra do we?

Alright, I'll shut up now. I'll say this chapter will be all of your guys' early Christmas presents~ I hope you all do have a beautiful Christmas (or whichever you celebrate) and a happy New Year! (PS- Another present will be me revealing that there is a guaranteed sequel to this story, when we get to that point.

Happy Holidays~