Ringo's POV

I allowed my mind to drift among the clouds and back to Liverpool where a lovely young woman by the name of Maureen was currently residing. She was funny, smart, had a great laugh, and was an all-around wonderful person to be around. We had a lot in common, I'd learned. We both wanted to be hair stylists, my career got in the way and she was still in school. Plus, and this was a big one, she liked my dancing. And she meant it. Not many people could say that with a straight face. Let it be known, I was not exactly the best dancer in the world. She just seemed to like me for, well, me.

"Ringo, due to the glazed-over look in yer eyes, I'd say yer mind is on something," Paul startled me out of my reverie and brought my thoughts crashing back to earth "But the lazy smile suggests that said something may be a someone. Perhaps a someone of the female persuasion?" he wiggled his eyebrows at me comically "Care to share who's captured yer thoughts so thoroughly?"

"That friend of Emily's, Maureen." I replied.

"So that's who ya were dancin' with!" Paul exclaimed "Wot's she like? I never got the chance to talk to 'er cause she was dancin' with a certain drummer fellow."

"She wants to be a hairdresser, she's funny, she's pretty, an' she doesn't mind my dancin'!" Paul made a shocked face, he too knew that tolerating my dancing was a Herculean feat in itself, never mind liking it. I stuck my tongue out at him childishly, but I also couldn't prevent a dreamy sigh from escaping my lips. I plastered my hand over my mouth with a mortified expression and Paul snickered at my lovestruck countenance.

"Would I be so bold as to assume our Ritchie is in love?" asked George. He'd come into the room just in time to hear my last statement and hear my girly sigh.

"Why, I do believe so." said Paul in a posh voice "Any plans to tie the knot?" he taunted. I shot him an irate stare.

"Not quite yet, no. I'm takin' 'er to dinner when we get back to Liverpool." Just the thought of a date with Maureen make my stomach flip-flop like the floor had just dropped out from beneath my feet.

George plunked himself into a chair, and it appeared as though I wasn't the only one a million miles away today. He stared intently at his hands, as though the held the meaning to life itself. George was often quiet and pensive, but this seemed like a different type of pensive somehow.

"Looks like I'm surrounded by lovestruck fools today," Paul commented, "Who captured yer 'eart, Georgie?" He blushed right to the roots of his hair and mumbled something unintelligible. We'd all gotten pretty fair at deciphering inebriated Scouse, but hadn't had much of a chance to comprehend embarrassed-beyond-belief Scouse.

"Wot was that?" Paul teased the lobster-hued Beatle.

"I said I was thinkin' about Emily." This time the mumble was somewhat more audible and the color of his face was now giving the aforementioned girl's hair a run for it's money in terms of vibrancy.

"There's been a lot of that goin' around lately," I said in an offhand sort of way. George immediately shot me an apologetic look, but I didn't need it. If I wasn't misreading my own emotions, I'd moved on. Another girl occupied the majority of my thoughts now. I waved the look off "S'okay. I'd worry more about John if I were ye, Geo. Speakin' of John, where is he?"

"Dunno," Paul shrugged "'Aven't seen him since last night. 'E was talkin' up some barmaid. He'll be back in three, two," he predicted. Right as he said one, the door opened and a pained looking John staggered in. He gingerly closed the door and tried to go quietly to his room. His sudden appearance didn't go unnoticed, though.

"'Ey, Johhny!" said Paul jovially. John winced and put his hands to his ears in a feeble attempt to block out sound.

"Sod off, will ye?" he croaked "Me 'ead's poundin' like Ringo's drums." It became clear that John was the not-so-proud owner of a killer hangover. He opened his mouth to say something else, but closed it rapidly as his face turned a nasty green color. He took off in the direction of the bathroom and the sounds of him being violently sick echoed nauseatingly back to us. Emily came dashing out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel.

"That was John, wasn't it?" she didn't have to wait for an answer when she saw the rest of us standing there looking mildly repulsed. It wasn't anything new, John got hangovers a lot. Hell, so did the rest of us, though. She ran back into the kitchen and reemerged with a glass of water and a bottle of asprin balanced precariously in her hands. While she was delivering these items to John, I asked George a question.

George's POV

I watched Emily run in the direction of the bathroom to give John a means to alleviate his hangover somewhat.

Ringo cleared his throat in the way that asks for attention "George?" he asked "How long 'ave ya fancied Emily?" the dreaded heat of a blush crept up the back of my neck. Paul leaned forward so as to not miss my answer. I glared at him.

"Since I met 'er," I confessed, wanting nothing more than to sink between the floorboards, never again to return.

"As I recall, yer meetin' wasn't exactly what ya could call conventional," Ringo chortled. Of course he'd just had to bring that up. I buried my head in my hands in embarrassment.

"At least ya didn't get deported from Hamburg for "arson"." Paul pointed out, making heavy air quotes around the word arson. I hadn't heard about that until after the rest of them had gotten back.

"I think I 'eard about that," said Ringo. He had still been with Rory Storm at the time that we'd been in Hamburg. Paul rolled his eyes. When the news had gotten around that he and Pete Best had set fire to a condom in one last, grand "fuck you" statement, Paul had just about died of mortification.

"No, but I did get deported fer bein' underage," I said "Not even my fault, it wasn't! You blokes corrupted me innocence, that's wot ye did." I teasingly accused. Paul pulled a face at me.

I got up "I'm gonna go get me guitar, some of the chords in Love Me Do got a little screwed up on my account." To get to my room, I had to pass the bathroom. Emily still stood in the doorway, looking like she was about to leave.

"Why are ya 'elpin' me?" I heard John croak weakly, most likely still huddled miserably over the toilet "I was a bloody bastard to ya."

"That wasn't all yer fault, it was as much me as it was you. An' ya needed 'elp, so I gave it." Her voice was soft. She turned away from the door and gently eased it shut so John could have a little privacy in his misery. When she looked up to see me, she started "Oh, hi, George."

"How do ya stand it?" I inquired "John gets the worst hangovers ever. It ain't a pretty sight." I ran my hand over the neck of my guitar.

"Nothing I 'aven't seen before," she responded quietly, shrugging. I so desperately wanted to tell her how I felt about her, but I didn't dare.

"Something on yer mind?" she asked, catching my pensive stare. I almost said it. Almost told her I loved her. But I didn't.

"Nah," I said, shaking my head no "Just tryin' to remember which chords I messed up on last night."

"Oh, well, okay." somehow, I got the feeling that she didn't believe me. Once she left, I began to shape the notes of a song that we hadn't played in awhile. I sang under my breath.

"Do you want to know a secret..."

Emily's POV

I was scheduled to be at the hotel where Blessed Day was staying at noon. The hotel manager had kindly given us use of the basement of the building.

I got my things together, but there was something missing. It took me a moment that was much longer than probably necessary to realize that I was about to walk out to a band practice in which I played guitar without a guitar. Well, somebody's a little out of it today, I admonished myself.

Thinking that getting a guitar would probably be a good idea, I walked back into the suite in search of George. He sat in a chair, strumming his Rickenbacker gently. Even on stage, he was so absorbed in his playing there wasn't much of a difference in his mannerisms while practicing. It had come to my attention that whenever he was concentrating especially hard on something, his mouth dropped open just a touch. His eyes were closed now and his fingers gently caressed the strings to make them sing sweetly. I didn't want to disturb him, but I didn't want to be late, either.

"George?" I gently touched his shoulder, making him jump "Sorry," I apologized.

"No, it's okay." he said, shifting the guitar a little "Wot can I do ya fer?" he asked in a poor imitation of a cowboy accent.

"I 'ave a bit of a favor to ask ya," I said "Could I borrow yer acoustic today? I've got me first practice an' I don't think it'd go over very well if I showed up without a guitar."

He got up "Yeah, of course. I'll go get it for ya." he disappeared into his shared room of the suite. While he was gone, Paul showed up.

"On yer way to rehearsal?" he asked. I nodded, trying to ignore the flurry of butterflies clamoring around in my stomach "Good luck, yer gonna be gear." he put his hand on my arm. I grinned gratefully at him. Paul somehow always knew how to make me feel better.

"Thanks, Paul." George came back with the guitar in a case. I took it from him and gave him a hug of thanks. Sparks coursed through me wherever our bodies touched, making my face heat up. I hastily turned away to head out the door, lest I betray the glowing blush on my cheeks.

"Lemme walk ya." offered Paul suddenly.

"Okay, that'd be nice," I said, thankful for the company. We put our coats on and went out the door. Paul was silent until we made it out of the building and into the icy, bitter winter air.

"Wot d'you think of George?" he asked abruptly. The question surprised me quite a bit and it was a minute before I could string a sentence together.

"Well, I think 'e's a nice, talented, funny—" Paul cut me off with a roll of his eyes like I was deliberately avoiding his question.

"How thick are ya?" he asked incredulously.

I whacked his arm with my free hand "Not as thick as you! I answered yer question, why're ya givin' me that look?"

"No ye didn't," he insisted. I opened my mouth to protest, but he forged ahead "I asked, wot d'you think of George?" He emphasized, widening his eyes for affect. His meaning came through crystal clear and my face burned crimson.

"Paaaul," I whined, edging around the uncomfortable question. He gave me a look "I honestly don't know," I confessed, throwing my hands up in the air in confusion "I think I might feel something fer 'im, but I'm scared, Paul." My voice dropped to a whisper "I don't want it to turn out bad again. I'm scared to get hurt again." We were in the entryway of the hotel now.

He tipped my chin up "I wouldn't let George 'urt ya, I'd cripple him!" he declared, making me laugh "It's all gonna go just fine."

"How d'you know?" I asked skeptically. Obviously, Paul was no mind-reader.

He suddenly grinned and tweaked my nose "Reasons," he sang childishly, skipping away and swinging his arms.

"James Paul McCartney!" I pulled the I'm-so-mad-I'm-using-your-full-name-be-scared tactic "You are the most bloody irritating person I've had the misfortune to meet!" I yelled after his retreating and laughing form. I just couldn't keep the laugh out of my voice though. I'd found it impossible to be mad at Paul for too long. It just didn't work.

I wandered into the hotel and searched for a sign or a person that could point me in the right direction. A middle aged, thin, balding man stood at the front desk. He saw my guitar case and smiled brightly "Ya with that band, Blessed day is it?" I nodded, grateful for his willingness to help "Down those stairs an' to the left, luv." He pointed at a stairwell.

"Ta," I smiled and waved on my way over to the stairs. The sound of instruments being played drifted through the hallway and it wasn't very hard for me to locate the source of the music. I swallowed a sudden rush of nerves that left my knees nearly knocking together and shifted the guitar case to the side so I could open the door.

Maggie sat closest to the door. She was in mid-conversation with another band member who was out of my line of vision. The sound of the door creaking open reached her ears and she turned to see me "'Ey, Emily! Ready to learn some music?"

I came into the room "You bet." Sarah sat somewhat farther in, her fingers dancing delicately over the strings of her bass and making it sing. She had much the same face of concentration that her brother did. Intently focused, yet relaxed.

After striking a final note, she looked up "Ya here to play some music?" she asked.

I grinned "That's the general idea, yeah."

"We've mostly been doin' covers of songs," Lucy explained as I unpacked George's guitar "We can write, but we're still sorta honin' our skills, y'know? We try to write our songs as an entire group so there's more creative input. But fer now, our sets are just covers." I nodded in understanding. Writing songs was not an easy process by any stretch of the imagination. I had tried numerous times to write music, but usually it turned out not making sense, or was much, much too cheesy.

Aaron peeked over my shoulder as I finished unpacking George's guitar "That's George's guitar, innit?"

"Yeah," I replied "I don't 'ave me guitar anymore an' I haven't 'ad time to go shoppin' fer a new one."

Thankfully, I was a fast learner and after three-and-a-half hours I was able to play all of their songs reasonably well. Some of the harder chord sequences were a bit shaky, but it was nothing a little more practice couldn't fix. We discovered that my voice blended nicely with theirs, which was helpful when singing a three-part harmony version of Amazing Grace. Lucy and Maggie sang the top part, Sarah and I took middle, and Fergus and Aaron covered the bottom part.

We sat around for awhile, making idle conversation. The band that I now found myself a part of was easy to make conversation with, they were quite laid back and friendly. I was going over some chords that were still giving me trouble and Fergus doodled around on his kit. Something about the pattern that he was playing struck a chord in me.

"Oi, Fergus! Could ye slow that way down?"I called over in his direction. He obliged, taking the tempo down several notches. Sarah fiddled with her bass for several minutes and came up with a bass line that meshed with the drum cadence almost perfectly.

"Maybe if ya slow the first bit down and syncopate the next bit it would sound even better," Aaron suggested, experimenting with some rhythm sequences on his own guitar.

Maggie grabbed a notepad and hunted around for a pencil. Once she had a writing implement in her hand she said "Fergus, could ya play yer drum pattern again, please?" he tapped it out again, pausing when Maggie told him to, and she wrote it down "Sarah, could ya do yours now?" Her nimble fingers plucked out the bass line again. Maggie's pencil went back into action, scribbling the notes down as fast as legibly possible, asking Sarah to stop and repeat certain parts now and then "Aaron, could ye play yours?" He strummed the pattern easily and melodically.

I strummed George's guitar with great concentration, picking out a melody that went well with the rest of the song thus far. Maggie's pencil followed my thought process.

"I'm the only one who reads and writes music in the group," she explained.

Lucy tipped her head thoughtfully "It sounds like an angry song, but also a bit sad, y'know?" It reminded me of my dad and the many forms of abuse he had imposed on my family.

"Makes me think of John's dad," Sarah mused, looking a little sad and distant. John had told me the little that he knew about his father, Alfred Lennon. If you could call him that.

"So Freddie wasn't yer—" she shook her head no.

"I'm a year younger than John. Never met me dad. 'E was some soldier that Mum 'ad a fling with while John's dad was away with the navy. Uncle George was the closest thing I 'ad to a dad." For the next hour we tinkered with the mechanics of the song, adding a lead guitar line and choosing lyrics for the melody. The lyrics drew from the pasts of Sarah and I, and to a much greater extent, John. When it came down to tweaking the musicality of the lyrics so they better fit the mood and the music, Lucy was the best one out of all of us.

I looked up at the clock "Oh, looks like I better get goin'!" I exclaimed "Dinner isn't gonna cook itself, y'know." Goodbyes were exchanged.

"If you've got the time, stop back down after dinner with the boys an' we'll show 'em the song." Sarah offered. It made me nervous, as John and Paul were already quite accomplished songwriters, but it sounded like it would be a good idea.

"Okay, I'll keep that in mind." I said on my way out the door.

When I got back to the hotel, John was sprawled on the couch with the TV turned down to a low murmur. He was staring at it, but the glassy look in his eyes said that he wasn't taking a second of it in. Without tearing his eyes from the screen that he wasn't even watching he said "Ya don't 'ear this very often comin' from me mouth, but I'm sorry." I blinked several times in confusion; John saying he was sorry? This was odd. Very odd.

"I'm sorry too, John. I shouldn't 'ave flipped me lid like that." A beat passed in silence again, and then he turned to me with the beginnings of a smile forming on his lips. He got up, walked over to me, and stuck out his hand for a handshake. I craned my neck to look up at him, a quizzical smile curving one side of my mouth up.

"Friends?" he inquired. I grinned and pulled him into a hug.

"Friends," I agreed.

After dinner I went back down to the hotel, this time accompanied by the boys.

"Are we gonna show them the song?" asked Fergus when all greetings had been exchanged.

"Wot song?" Paul asked. I explained to them that we had written a song today and that we were going to show it to them, that is, if they didn't mind? Once we received the go-ahead, I picked up George's guitar and we began to sing a song entitled Dad.

You were such a wonderful father

wait my bad you didn't bother to be a dad.

My memory is confused.

We all sang the opening part together, sinking into the emotion of the song.

I do recall you chugging a bottle.

You would drink and stagger and wobble.

I did that same thing, of course I was two.

I started the solos, the next part was mine. I was the only one of the group who had a dad, if you could call him that, with a major drinking problem.

At times you were so hard to find when we played hide and seek.

You'd run and hide from all of us, one time we searched for one week.

Lucy sang this next bit, her high pitched and pure voice expressing the emotion of a child who has a parent that is often AWOL, but feels more lost than said parent more often than not.

Why were we a part of your agenda

if you never planned to even spend a

minute with us? Give me more than a shrug.

Go on and do what you do.

Grab your comfort and chug.

You were lost and needed direction

stumbled onto younger affection with no regard

for my mother back home.

Your arrogance is what got you busted

leaving us alone and disgusted, that's my old man!

Way to think with your dome.

Yeah, you broke our hearts and ripped them out of our home.

The next part was sung by Fergus, who had a wonderful, rich tenor voice. While we wrote this song, he mentioned that his father had left his family when he was six years old for another woman. And a floozy at that.

You still try to justify, pretend this isn't real.

FYI, you can't deny the scars and scabs that haven't healed.

You found a way to slice up our future,

wipe the blood and pack up the suture.

Dr. Daddy, do your damage and go

Before you head on back to your new life,

brand new kids and that shiny new wife,

There's one thing that I really must know.

Do you have some regrets? 'Cause I'm guessing it's no.

It's getting late, I probably should go.

Aaron and Maggie sang the next part together, as they had also had their fathers leave their homes, but they were teenagers at that point and a little more than resentful about it. I was starting to notice a startling trend amongst out group members.

I don't understand how a father can

turn his back on his wife and his only son.

Daddy please, explain to me, how a man can leave his family.

Fergus' voice was flooded with real emotion as he sang this part.

I''m a father with my own children and you couldn't even imagine

all the lessons that my daddy taught me.

Aaron was nearing thirty, and indeed did have his own children to look after, so he sang this part. It had the right amount of bitterness in it.

Every time he sees a collision, he'll pass on with his tunnel vision.

All his life, he's been refusing to see

that he killed our house and left us lost in debris.

The thing that I learned from you,

is what not to be.

Sarah and I sang the last part, trading lines back and forth until I ended it with the "what not to be" line.

The song drew to a close and I noticed a hastily concealed tear on John's cheek. It probably brought back a lot of bad memories for him. I mouthed an, I'm sorry. To him. I'm sorry that your father left you. I'm sorry your childhood was less than a bundle of roses.

He looked at me and his lips also shaped the words that hardly ever passed his lips. I'm sorry, too. For you more than me.