Tomorrow Never Knows - Chapter Thirteen
Authors: lovely_rita_mm, jenny_wren28, & pennylane_fic
Starring: The Beatles and Maggie Sue
Rating: M for language, implied sex (though none of it is explicit) & implied drug use. Characters used in this story are either our creation, or are historically-based (ie, The Beatles).
Disclaimer: We don't own any of the Beatles, this obviously never happened, and is a complete work of fiction.
September 21, 1967
Maggie was happy to be back home, back in England and back in John's arms. The morning after she returned, John caught her up fully on how poorly the movie was going. This was unsurprising to Maggie, who while not knowing the specifics, knew that the Magical Mystery Tour had been plagued with problems. Apparently filming had not gone smoothly from Day One, starting with the coach being delayed because it was still being painted. On Day Two, the coach got stuck on a bridge. "Two days in and I was filmed absolutely losing it, screaming and cursing, and carrying on," John told Maggie. "I ripped the placards off the side of the coach and everything!" He seemed a little bit proud of this. "Paul had better not use that footage or I'll cripple him!" John pounded his left palm with his right fist mock-menacingly.
"I don't remember it being in the film," Maggie reassured him.
"Was my spaghetti scene?" he asked eagerly. He'd had a strange dream one night and had turned it into a scene in which he shoveled spaghetti onto a large woman's table.
"Yes," Maggie had sighed. That bit of the movie had kind of grossed her out.
"What else was in it?" John was eager to know what Maggie remembered of the film.
"I…don't remember," she lied, knowing she'd never get away with it. She dug another armload of clothes out of her suitcase and dumped them on the bed so she could sort through them.
"Tell me, Miss Margaret! I know full well you remember!"
"Don't be silly John, I don't think I even saw it." She tried to look focused on her unpacking.
"What kind of Beatles fan are you?" he asked accusingly.
"Would it make you feel better if I started screaming and tearing your shirt off?"
"It might," John smirked at her.
"Would you settle for simple unbuttoning, rather than tearing?" she smiled at him, glad she had succeeded in distracting him from the uncomfortable truth that she hadn't liked his movie all that much, even though she knew it ruined her credibility as a Beatles fan.
"I guess it'll have to do. The tailor bills are getting so expensive from all the ripped clothes," John said, grinning as she pulled his shirt off and then pushed him down on the bed, heedless of the laundry scattered all over it.
A little while later…
"Did the scene with Paul…" John only got half his sentence out before Maggie cut him off with a "No!"
"How about…"
"NO!" Obviously sex hadn't kept John distracted for long enough. "John, honestly, I only saw the film once, and I don't remember much about it specifically."
"Only once? Wait, you've seen Help! and A Hard Day's Night loads of times, but this one only once? Why?"
Maggie looked over at John. "You don't have a director or a script, right?"
"Right."
"And this film is just basically you guys riding around in a bus."
"A coach," he corrected her. "Right."
"Well, you do the math," Maggie swung her legs off the bed. Finding her bathrobe conveniently on the ground, she put it on and tried to collect the rest of her scattered clothes.
"Didn't you like anything about it?" John asked a little forlornly.
Maggie softened. "Well, it does have my favorite Beatle in it. And he wears a very sporty-looking hat." She ruffled his hair fondly.
"Well, I guess that's okay, then." He seemed slightly mollified.
"Oh, you thought I meant you? I was talking about George," she giggled.
"You're going to pay for that, Miss Margaret!"
"You'll have to catch me first!" And with that she threw her armload of clothes at John to try to slow him down and took off running. The master bath was too obvious, so she headed instead to the guest bath down the hall. She managed to lock door that led to the hall, but didn't quite make it to the other door that connected with the guest room before John burst in.
"A ha! Thought you could escape, did you?" He grabbed her around the waist and lifted her up on his shoulder.
"John! Put me down!"
"Tell me you loved our film!"
"I …." She was laughing too hard to get the words out.
"Say it!"
"Okay, okay, I loved your film!" She crossed her fingers behind her back.
"That's better!" He put her down and kissed her forehead. "Really, I have no idea how it will turn out, but people have loved everything we've done so far, even things I thought were shite. What could go wrong?"
Maggie raised an eyebrow.
"Never mind, luv, never mind." John turned around, eyeing the tub. "Fancy a bath?" he turned back to her with his own eyebrow raised.
"You don't mean bath, and you know it!" She laughed at him. "You're insatiable!"
"Well, someone has to console me. I've just been in a terrible film! My career in the movies is over. OVER!" He summoned up his best fake sobs, which weren't terribly convincing, and never really had been.
She couldn't help laughing. "Okay, okay, a nice, soothing bath it is!" she said and she started to run the water into the tub.
"I'll get the bubbles!" John said, racing out of the room, leaving Maggie shaking her head in amusement.
---
A few days later…
Maggie hadn't missed the entirety of filming, she was home from New York in time to watch the boys trooping down a staircase in a warehouse at West Malling Air Station in Maidstone Kent, singing "Your Mother Should Know", which was one of her favorite songs from the album. At least she didn't have to lie about loving the music they'd created for this movie, because she truly did. And even if the end product wasn't fantastic, she enjoyed watching them film one of the video sequences, which were, frankly, the best part of the movie. She was sad she'd missed watching them film "I Am The Walrus", but John looked very elegant in his "Your Mother Should Know" tux, and to her delight, not only was Yoko not present, but John ignored all 160 of the dancing girls hired for that number. Instead he stayed by her side when he could, and made faces at her from across the room when he couldn't.
Her happiness was somewhat diminished a few days later when Maggie found a postcard addressed to John in the mail. It said "Breathe at midnight," and was signed by Yoko. Maggie sighed. She was sure this was a crappy performance art project of some kind. Maggie's first instinct was to tear the postcard into teeny tiny bits and then bury the evidence in the back woods, but she couldn't bring herself to totally destroy it. Destroying someone else's mail was wrong. She still had her principles, didn't she?
Maggie thought for a minute, and then unable to resist leaving the postcard unmolested, she stuck it in the sink and ran the water over it until the ink smudged and ran, making it just barely legible. She pondered for a moment and then tossed a couple of other pieces of junk mail in the sink with it. Pulling them out, she patted them dry. They were still damp, but John wouldn't be home 'til tonight anyway. She'd just explain that the mail had gotten rained on, and she had no idea what that postcard was about. It was immature, but Maggie couldn't help herself. Yoko just brought out the worst in her.
Sure enough, John barely glanced at the mail, and didn't even question its bedraggled state. He'd been busy with recording sessions for the Magical Mystery tour, and was spending all his spare time at the studio. He was hardly home long enough to care about things like mail.
Maggie went with him to the studio a few times, wanting to see how "I Am The Walrus" was coming along. On one of these visits, George cornered her almost right away.
"Did you watch me on the telly, Mags?" he asked her eagerly .
"Of course I did – I wouldn't have missed it." George had gone on the "Frost Programme" the previous night, to talk about transcendental meditation. It was true that Maggie wouldn't have missed watching George, but she wished he'd been talking about music instead of that hokey religious crap he was still so into.
"What did you think?"
Maggie thought quickly – it wouldn't do to hesitate for too long. She settled on an old trick borrowed from Paula Abdul on American Idol (which George couldn't possibly know about yet) and complimented his appearance, therefore cleverly avoiding commenting on what had actually been coming out of his mouth.
"You looked really great, George!" What else could she say? He had spouted some mumbo jumbo about reincarnation and life and death being only relative to thought, whatever that meant. Even if Maggie hadn't been a scientist, she still would have had trouble with anything that sounded so New Agey and ridiculous.
"We're putting off India 'til after this album and film are all done, but we're definitely going. You'll come?" He sounded a bit hesitant asking, so Maggie was quick to answer in the affirmative.
"Of course I will." Maggie meant it and also knew there was really no escaping it. The trip was important – she knew the Beatles had all written some amazing songs during their big trip to India. She didn't have to like it, but it was meant to be, and so she would go along with it. For the good of the Beatles – and the good of her friendship with George.
For the good of her relationship with John, Maggie knew she had to tell him the truth about Yoko, but it was all too easy to come up with excuses not to. Sometimes things between her and John were so good that Maggie didn't want to chance altering that by bringing up the subject of Yoko. At those times she thought she wouldn't even have to, that Yoko would never be an issue. But then, Yoko would appear, and John would seem bemused by her, and Maggie's insides would twist into knots. The question always seemed to be – would John want Yoko more if he knew the truth of who she'd been in Maggie's original timeline? Could telling him even make a difference one way or the other? Once or twice, she'd started to try to tell him, but something would always stop her, either John would stop her lips with his own, or the words would stick in Maggie's throat, and the opportune moment would pass away. Maggie knew she couldn't hold this confession off forever. It had to be done – surely the perfect time would present itself, and when it did, the words would certainly come then.
Until that time, Maggie was alone in her fight against insecurity, and against Yoko's advances. Yoko was…persistent. The postcards, phone calls – and once the housekeeper, Dot, had informed Maggie that a strange, bushy-haired Asian woman had talked her way into the house, insisting that she'd left a ring there the other day. Maggie didn't know what to believe – had Yoko been in their house before or was she bluffing? She trusted John, and didn't think he'd done anything with Yoko - at least not yet. But it certainly couldn't have been for lack of effort on Yoko's part.
The next day brought a second postcard from Yoko that said "Breathe at dawn." That one she tore up in to teeny tiny bits and buried in the woods behind the house. Principles be damned. Enough was enough.
A/N: Thanks for reading! The next update will be next Sunday! We love comments, so please tell us what you think!