Tomorrow Never Knows - Chapter Twenty Five
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.
"Come on, then – tell me who I marry."
"Paul, I can't tell you that! Don't you want to be surprised?"
"Not really, luv."
Paul and Maggie were sitting together on the banks of the Ganges. The river was usually full of people, but the two of them had found a secluded spot that was perfect to hid in when they skipped out of the Maharishi's classes. Paul had brought his guitar - he was hardly ever apart from it if he could help it - and was picking out little riffs on it while they were talking.
"You'd make my life a lot easier if you'd just tell me if it's Linda or Jane."
"Since when do I ever make your life easy?"
"Too right." Paul smiled at her showing that he knew she was joking then he paused thoughtfully. "I don't know if I ever properly thanked you for trying to help me out, you know, with Jane and Linda at the party. I never should have put you in the middle like that."
An actual and seemingly heartfelt apology from Paul? Sure it was months late, but maybe he was growing as a person. Or trying to. "Oh, it's okay, Paul."
That fateful party had been months ago and Maggie had mostly put it behind her, though not without some lingering regrets over which woman Paul seemed to have ultimately chosen.
"So, we're all right then? You and I?" Paul looked down at his guitar, avoiding Maggie's eyes. This clearly embarrassed him, and for a moment Maggie was tempted to press her advantage and tease him a bit, but her kinder side won out.
"Of course."
"Good!" Paul visibly brightened, and smiled up at her. "I know you and I have had our problems, especially in the beginning. But I wanted you to know that I was wrong about you. I think you're really good for John. He was really difficult when you were gone. He'd started with the LSD and he really liked it. I have this feeling that if you hadn't come back, that we might have lost him to it."
"You would've," Maggie said sadly. "Paul...I...well, thank you. For saying that. Sometimes I don't know if I'm doing any good here or not. Changing things like I have. I don't know if I will end up making them better or worse."
"Tell me then, what happened to John and Paul and the Beatles that you knew? I know bits of it. You know, like that we all came tragic ends..."
"Well," Maggie smiled. "Despite all the bad stuff, you and Ringo were still going strong in 2006."
"I hope that doesn't change! Only it'd be nice if all four of us stayed alive this time around." Wanting to lighten the mood a bit, Paul asked, "What do I do when I'm finished with this rock n' roll lifestyle?"
Maggie laughed. "You won't ever finish with it, Paul. In 2006, you'll be..." She paused to calculate his age. "...64! Just like the song."
"Why do I have the feeling that I will regret writing that one?" He grimaced.
"They do make a big fuss about it, you know. When you're 64." She grinned at him. "Anyway, you'll be 64 and still making albums and selling out stadiums."
"Making albums, I can see, but selling out stadiums? It's not pathetic, a 60-year-old me, prancing around stage, still shaking his head and going 'ooooooh'?" He shook his head and pursed his lips in imitation of his younger self.
"Are you kidding? No! The girls still love it! In college, my best friend Jenny and I went to one of your shows. We were screaming our heads off along with the rest of the 80,000 fans at the sold-out stadium concert." Maggie smiled, and for a moment her eyes and thoughts were a million miles away as she remembered another life. Then she shook her head and looked back towards Paul. "It's obvious you love it, and you're still good at it, Paul. You were born for this. For music, for entertaining. You'll never stop, and that's a good thing. Your last album was really good, and you would have had another due out sometime in 2007. I'm sorry I missed hearing it."
Paul blushed at her effusive praise for him. It was not something he expected to here from her. Lightly he said, "So it's not all tragedy for me, then?"
"Not all, no."
They were quiet for a moment, listening to the gentle sounds of the river and Paul's guitar. Maggie was broken out of her reverie when she realized that she recognized the melody Paul was playing. It was "Blackbird". She smiled knowingly to herself.
"You did say I lose my wife to breast cancer," Paul said, bringing her back to the conversation at hand.
"Yes."
"And you won't tell me if it's Linda or Jane?"
"I can't Paul. I promise I will tell you if it's one of them that will get sick - but not until you make a decision. And it has to be you, because I think that if you let me tell you who to marry, then you'll never really be happy. You'll feel like whoever it is was forced on you by destiny, and that you never had a say. Besides which, I get the feeling that making a mature adult decision like this would be a good experience for you." She smiled teasingly.
"You sound like me mum, now," Paul grumbled.
"Well, maybe you need that once in a while." Maggie's smile turned into a broad grin, before sobering again. "But I promise you this. I will do everything in my power to make sure your wife, whoever she may be, doesn't die of cancer."
Paul nodded solemnly, taking her at her word. "Let me ask you this then. How am I supposed to decide? I care about them both."
"Maybe you should try and look at this logically."
"Oh, here we go. I've heard about you and your famous logic!"
"It's worth a try! Make a list. Pro and Con."
"All right then. Jane. Her family practically took me in. Pro. We've been together for a very long time. Pro. Or is that a Con?"
"She wants a career. That seems like a Con for you. Are you going to keep her from acting? I don't recommend that, by the way." Maggie eyed him, trying to gauge his reaction.
"Would I keep her from it? I don't think I could if I tried. But do I like her being away so much? No. I travel enough for the both of us. I want her with me."
"Her, or just someone?"
"I like being with her," Paul protested.
"Really?"
"Well..."
"You two can't even agree on the temperature of a room!" Maggie laughed and shook her head. "And how about kids?"
"Okay, okay. I get it. And I know you want me to pick Linda but..."
"But you and Jane have a history and losing that shared life and everything that it represents..."
"Con. I mean Pro. Christ, logic is confusing." He wiped the imaginary sweat off his brow, which made Maggie giggle.
"How about the pros and cons of Linda? You know, assuming she'd take you back."
"Of course she will. I'm a Beatle, aren't I?"
"Paul!" Maggie was immediately outraged at his flagrant use of the "Beatle card" until she realized that this time he was actually kidding.
"I think she would take me back if I showed I wanted more than a casual relationship, don't you?" Paul asked.
"Honestly? I don't know. But you've got a good shot at it I think, if she knows you're not playing around this time."
"That's why this decision is so important – either way I choose, I think it has to be for keeps," Paul said seriously. "And it's why we're applying logic to the situation, because we can do anything with logic on our side, right? Isn't that what you always say?"
"I guess," Maggie said dubiously. Usually she was a big proponent of logic, but it was a different story with Paul wielding it.
"All right then, Linda loves kids. Pro. She's easy to be with, and the sex is amazing. Definite pro! "
"Okay, that I didn't need to know." Maggie wrinkled her nose.
"Oh, please! You and John are always at it. Don't think I didn't see you two sneaking into the loo on the airplane."
"Oh my God." Maggie covered her face with her hands in embarrassment.
Paul laughed at her discomfort. "It's all right, luv. Besides, I hear that it's my name you're calling out while you and John are..." He raised a suggestive eyebrow. Maggie hit him.
"Did George tell you about that? I'm going to kill him!"
Paul's lip quivered as he tried to keep a straight face. "No. It's just the walls are so very thin..."
"We're supposed to be talking about you and Linda, not me and John! Con!" Maggie pointed at Paul.
"All right," he relented. "I haven't known her that long. She's American. Con."
"How is being American a CON?" Maggie glared at Paul mockingly, but he waved her away, suddenly quite serious.
"What if I break it off with Jane and then it doesn't work out with Linda?"
"Ah, and now we come to the crux of the problem, right?"
"I guess so. Am I willing to risk it all on this?" Paul stopped playing his guitar and stared out across the river, as if perhaps its depths held the answer for him.
"How much risk is there really?"
"Well, I could stay with Jane, lose Linda, and then discover in six months, a year, 10 years, that Jane and I aren't suited and are desperately unhappy. By then, Linda will probably have moved on."
"Maybe you'll find happiness with someone other than Linda or Jane. Did you ever think of that? It's not necessarily an either/or is it?"
She could tell the thought hadn't occurred to Paul. "So I don't choose either of them?"
"I didn't say that! But it's possible."
"This situation is complicated enough!" He rubbed his forehead with his hands, as if he was starting to get a headache.
"All right, let's just focus on the two women at hand for now."
"Okay, if I break things off with Jane, then I would what? Fly to New York and beg Linda to take me back? And then I've got to either move there, or talk her into uprooting her child and coming back to London, which is more practical, because that's where the Beatles are. Where my career is." Paul paused. "You know, when you said I'd be playing stadiums when I'm 60, you didn't say that it was with the Beatles."
"No, I didn't." Maggie said softly. "But that was at least partly because John and George were no longer alive. I have hopes that maybe you guys might still play the occasional gig together in your dotage."
"That would be something to see!"
"It certainly would!" Maggie mused. "I'll be there in the front row if it happens."
"Might you be sitting in the front row with Linda?" Paul raised on eyebrow. "Or Jane?" He looked at Maggie hopefully for a hint.
"Paul," Maggie laughed, "That's not going to work! I'm not telling!"
"I must pick Linda, right? You've been really pushing us to get us together."
"Yes, but maybe that is just because Linda is my friend and I think she'll be way better for you than whoever you chose originally?"
"Damn it, woman! You're driving me crazy! Just tell me!" It was Paul's turn to bury his face in his hands. "I'm so tired. I haven't slept well all week. I'm smoking too much. Damned Sir Walter Raleigh and his bloody tobacco!" he shouted into the wind. "If I don't stop, I'll be the one with the bloody lung cancer, not George."
"Wow," Maggie said, watching the impressive display of Paul's frustration.
"Sorry, luv. I just... I want to choose the right one."
"Pros and Cons didn't help, eh?"
"I don't know. I guess I need to do some more thinking. Let's talk about something else. Tell me more about the Beatles-that-would-have-been."
"You mean, if I hadn't stepped in and saved you all from yourselves?" Maggie grinned.
"Yes, our hero," he said dryly. "Tell me about John."
"Okay, well, John, as you may know, likes drugs."
"Yes, we all do at that."
"Yes, but you can take them or leave them, and I suspect George can too. Ringo, as I've told you, developed some pretty serious problems with alcohol. But John...the LSD, it totally consumed him. It made him very distant and not-all-there during Sgt Pepper. And it just got worse. Yo...er, his second wife was sort of responsible for getting him off of LSD."
"Oh yeah?"
"And onto heroin."
"Oh. That's bad."
"Yeah – as you know, it's a pretty dangerous drug and super addictive. And he gets hooked and even further removed from the band. It's why I've been such a stick-in-the-mud about drugs. He's got such an addictive personality and I don't want to lose him. Or you to lose him."
"You started to stay a name." He narrowed his eyes at her speculatively.
"No, I didn't." She'd thought Paul had missed her slip, but he was clearly quicker than she gave him credit for.
"Yes, you did. You started to say his second wife's name. Yo..." Paul stopped. "Oh my God, he marries Yoko, doesn't he?'
There was no point in keeping the secret now. "Yes," she sighed.
"That's why you've been so crazy about Yoko! John has no idea why you're so jealous of her." The truth dawned on him. "Oh my God, you haven't told him!"
"No! And you can't tell him either. You have to promise not to!" Maggie was suddenly alarmed. If John found out, it had to come from her, not Paul.
"I won't, I won't. But why on earth haven't you told him?"
"Because I'm afraid if he finds out that his interest in Yoko will become…stronger. She had an odd hold on him. Once upon another time, she separated him from the band, from his son. She wasn't good for him – or for you or the Beatles. If he knows that in another time, that she was the one... Won't that make him all the more curious to see if she's the one this time too? "
"I don't think you're giving him enough credit, luv. I've known John a long time, and I've never seen him the way he is when he's with you. He didn't cheat on you once while he was on tour. I'm not sure there was a day he was with Cynthia when he wasn't cheating." Maggie looked up. Did Paul really think telling her how often her fiancé used to cheat was comforting?
"Forget Yoko." Paul continued. "You're the one with the hold on him and as I told you before, I've come to think that's a good thing. You're keeping him clean, and involved in the band. You've got your fingers in our money, and you could make away with it all, but you haven't. In fact you've made us even more money. We're all rich, thanks to you, even with the crippling taxes."
He waved his hands excitedly. "The Boutique is running great, and somehow you sorted out that whole Stigwood mess after we lost Brian. You're even trying to get our catalog back from Dick James." It was Maggie's turn to blush as he listed her accomplishments, "You've more than proven yourself to us, and we all trust you. You know I could never trust someone who tried to come between us and John. That's why I was so hard on you in the beginning. I thought that was what you were doing. But I was wrong."
"Thanks, Paul. That means a lot." She was both embarrassed and incredibly flattered by Paul's words. She knew she was doing a good job at Apple, but she also had the benefit of knowing which things would really cost the Beatles if they weren't taken care of sooner than later.
Paul reached out an arm and pulled her close to him and gave her a squeeze. "Trust me on this one, luv. John is yours. You should tell him the truth."
There was more to it than just fear that John would go running into Yoko's open arms if he knew the truth – there was some underlying guilt on Yoko's behalf too. Whether or not she liked Yoko or her relationship with John, the truth was she had stolen Yoko's husband away. John had been Yoko's first. And Sean – Maggie had cost Yoko her son too. If John knew that his son was gone forever because of her… Admitting all this to herself was difficult. Admitting it to John was nearly impossible. She felt John was hers in so many ways, but by traveling back through time, really what she'd done was stolen him and changed all of their futures irrevocably.
Plus, she had tried to tell him. Half-heartedly, but her intentions had been good. John had known just how to distract her from something he hadn't wanted to talk about. Avoiding potentially unpleasantness was actually one of the things John did best. For a man that could be the source of unpleasantness, especially while drunk, he was actually very non-confrontational. Poor Pete Best was a prime example of that.
In any case, Maggie had to admit she'd employed her own distraction tactics here in India to get out of meditating, and to keep John from getting too deeply into it. Sex was clearly an effective diversion for both of them.
"I tried once," she told Paul, omitting why she had failed to get the truth out. "But he wasn't much interested in what I had to say about Yoko. I think he's tired of talking about her. But you're right. I need to try harder. To get this all out in the open finally."
"That makes both of us. I have the feeling that Jane and I are going to have it out soon as well."
"You're going to pick Linda then?"
"I don't know." Paul heaved a sigh. "But I know I can't see picking Jane unless we have a good long talk about the future and what we both want out of it."
The sun was starting to set, which tinted the water with orange and red hues. The spot where they were sitting was so peaceful that it was with great reluctance that they got up to hike back up the path to the ashram for dinner.
"What do we say if someone asks where we were?" Maggie called to Paul, who was a few steps ahead of her.
"We were in completely separate spots, deep in meditation. It's easy to lose track of time when you're four hours in, you know," Paul laughed.
"Only four hours? Please, I was up to five!"
"No way, I had it from a reliable source that you were goofing off down by the river with one of those no-good Beatles."
"I hope it was with the cute one!"
"None other!" he batted his lashes at her.
"Oh my God, it's a Beatle!" Maggie shrieked, and grabbed for Paul. He evaded her easily – he'd had years of practice, after all. "Sorry, luv, this Beatle is taken! I think. I don't even know anymore!" He gave her a quizzical look that made her laugh. "But let me introduce you to my mate, John. I think you might be just his type."
"And what type is that?"
"Female." He jumped back again before she could smack him.
"You've got good reflexes, Paulie. I'll give you that."
"Years of fending off John," he laughed.
"I guess that makes you his type too?" Laughing she pushed past him to scramble up the last part of the incline.
"I am not a bird!" he protested. "You're just jealous of my long eyelashes...."
"Well, that is true..." Maggie admitted. "They're very nice."
"Thank you. See? It's much more fun now that we're friends, isn't it?"
A/N: So sorry this chapter is late! But I will post a couple to make up for it! Thanks for reading! The next update will hopefully be next Sunday! We love comments, so please tell us what you think!