YES IT IS: What If Stories - Just Like Starting Over Part I

Authors: Jenny Wren & Lovely Rita

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 Historical Fiction.

A/N: Here is Part II of our little short story "Just Like Starting Over". We hope you enjoy it! Part III will probably be next week sometime.

If you've read our first story, Yes It Is, you will know that our heroine time traveled to 1964, hung out with the Beatles, went back home to 2006, only to find that despite warning John, she hadn't saved him. She goes back, and..well, we don't want to spoil too much more for you. If you haven't read it, you should, because there's obviously more to it than what I just summarized for you! ;-)

This new ficlet was born when Lovely Rita texted Jenny Wren and said "What if Maggie hadn't been able to get back the 2nd time? And what if John missed her so much he found a way to time travel to the future for her?"

Well, the idea took hold, and after a few phone calls between Rita & Jenny, a plot was born for a one shot Alternate Universe (AU) to the already existing AU. Then our writers realized that there was no way this could be told in just one short story... so here we give you Part I. Parts II and II should arrive in the next few weeks or so.

Don't worry, we're still working on Real Love - but sometimes another story grabs you and you've got to write it!

If you want to refresh yourself on Yes It Is before reading this, you'd only have to read up through the first part of Chapter 6, because that's where this story veers us off into another "What If?".

Just Like Starting Over, Part II

John watched Maggie as she slept. Her hands were underneath her head and she softly snored into her pillow. She was beautiful, and more importantly, she was real. He never thought he'd see her again. "Your memory is like a ghost, and my heart is its host." The remnants of a song he'd been working on for the last week or so fluttered around his mind.

A week for me, thirty years for everyone else.

The thought still made him a bit sick, but the idea of dying was worse.

Plus now I've got a second chance with her.

He eyed her long dark hair as it fanned around her head on the pillow. He wanted to touch it, to see if it was as soft and silky as he remembered. Truth be told, he wanted to wind his hands through it again, to pull her in for a long kiss that could lead to so much more.

Slow down, Johnny boy. Best to get to know her again first.

Besides, John remembered the disastrous results the last time he'd suggested anything of the sort. And he was still married. Or was he? He had died and he and his wife had been parted for thirty years now, hadn't they? Of course, he'd had a sixteen-year separation from Maggie as well – a separation he'd thought was permanent.

Sixteen years for me, four for her.

Time travel made his head hurt.

More lyrics would their way through is brain. "I thought I'd forget you, but I guess I forgot to."

He wasn't messing up again, not when he'd been gifted with a second chance. A second chance at life, at music, and dare he think it, at love?

His hand hovered over her hair, and then he gave in and stroked it lightly, smoothing it against the pillow. Maggie smiled softly and her eyes fluttered open, the movement mesmerizing John. He recovered quickly. "Good morning, luv. Was it as good for you as it was for me?" He winked at her.

She promptly screamed, and fell off the side of the bed, taking the blankets with her.

"Maggie? Luv, are you ok?" John grabbed at his glasses on the end table, cursing his need for them. Hopefully that's something I can get fixed permanently now.

"I'm fine," a muffled voice sounded from the other side of the bed. "You just startled me is all. I'm still getting used to the idea that, you know, you're not dead." Maggie's head popped up, and John forced himself not to laugh at the sight of her struggling to extricate herself from the bed linens. The static electricity caused by it all was doing a number on her hair as well, and it floated out around her in a dark halo.

"Don't worry, Miss Margaret, I'm still getting used to it myself."

She yawned and rubbed at her eyes. "I'm going to take a shower-"

"Lovely idea, mind if I join you?"

Maggie shook her head at him and quirked up her mouth in a smile. "You're incorrigible!"

"Well, you can't blame a bloke for trying, can you?" He waggled his eyebrows at her.

She laughed, and continued, "As I was saying, I'm going to take a shower – alone – and then we'll go… where?"

John's face sobered. "Yoko. I need see Yoko before we do anything else."

Maggie's eyes were wide as she took in the interior courtyard of the Dakota. She still couldn't believe they were getting away with it, but John had insisted it would work, and so far it had. She was carrying a small stack of packages, and John had a large flower arrangement that obscured his face for "delivery." One of the corner elevators dinged, and they entered the car, alone. John punched in the number for his floor, and up they went simple as that.

They rode up in silence, with Maggie's mind replaying the events of the last twenty-four hours. It was still all so surreal to her. Surreal and wonderful.

She smiled at the memory of John yelling something while she was in the shower, and she nearly slipped and fell in her haste to get out of the bathroom to see what was the matter.

He'd been pointing at the television, mouth open in shock or glee, she couldn't tell.

"Fuck, Maggie! They just said FUCK on the telly!" Then he'd seen her standing there, wet, dripping, and covered in only a towel, and a new smile crossed his features. "I think the telly's about got it about right don't you?" Then he'd winked at her, and she'd bolted back into the bathroom before he could see the blush that'd spread across her entire body.

Maggie gave a small frown as the elevator dinged, and she followed John out onto his floor. It wasn't that she wasn't attracted to John – she was certain that it was pretty obvious to anyone who saw them together that she was – it was that she didn't want to be another notch on his belt, another in the long line of women he'd slept with. She had no doubt he'd take to her to bed at the drop of a hat – he was John Lennon after all, even if he'd decided to call himself Jonathon Mae. He was still the same man.

The same man I've loved and adored since I was twelve.

Was it so wrong of her to want to be "special," to be different? She wanted all of him, or nothing at all. A fling wasn't enough for her any more – she knew him too well now. It was as if she'd had a sip of the finest wine all those years ago, and now only drinking the rest of the bottle would suffice.

But John wasn't the type to give that, so she had to content herself with just being his friend.

It's what he needs most now, anyway.

"Oompf." The air forced itself out of her chest as she ran smack into the back of a now still John Lennon. He faced a door, and she belatedly realized it was his door. She could only imagine how he must be feeling, how disorienting this had to be for him. As it was, his eyes were constantly darting back and forth everywhere they went, as if he was trying absorb all the new sights, sounds, and smells. Those eyes were currently riveted on the door knob.

"I wonder if she's changed the locks in thirty years?" John mused, his voice a little shaky. He set the flowers down, and pulled out a set of keys from his trouser pocket. "I guess we'll see."

He'd just set his key against the dead bolt when the door opened, and a small, older Asian woman dressed to go out, nearly ran into him. She took one look at John, eyes widening, and moved to shut the door right in his face.

I would too, Maggie thought. Hadn't she thought John was just a Beatle Impersonator in bad taste? It had to be worse for Yoko.

John stuck his foot in the door. "Just a minute, Mother. We need to have a little chat." Pushing the door open, he stepped inside, and the last thing Maggie saw before the door shut once again was John plucking Yoko's cell phone out of her hand and tossing it behind him.

She listened for screams coming from inside, or sirens coming from outside, and when neither happened after a few minutes, she sat down on the floor, and leaned up against the wall. Since she couldn't eavesdrop either, she pulled her iPhone out of her pocket, pulled up iBooks and began reading one of the novels she'd downloaded onto it, prepared to wait for as long as it took.

The phone clattered to the floor and John waited for Yoko to scream, to run for the house phone, to do something, anything, but just stand there, opening and closing her mouth wordlessly.

Thirty years, and she still looked so much the same, her elfin facial features, her intelligent, deep eyes – albeit now filled with fear and confusion – her pitch black hair, cut short around her head, making her look more like pixie than before. She was still lovely, but she was older, much older.

The reality of his situation crashed into him like giant wave. He really had traveled into the future. Yoko, and everyone else had lived with the knowledge that he was dead, murdered, all these years…

"Yoko…" His voice broke. "It's me. It's John."

He opened his arms to her, and a wail escaped her mouth as she launched herself into them. He cried with her.

Two hours later, and half way through reading Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Maggie looked up when she heard the doorknob turn and saw the door pull open. John stepped out, his eyes red-rimmed, and he gave her a weak smile. She stood up, tucked her phone back into her pocket and went to give him a comforting hug, when the door opened wider, and Yoko was there. She was tinier than ever, yet she still somehow filled up the space.

Her eyes were as red as John's, but the rest of her facial features betrayed no emotion. She glanced at Maggie, quirked up one eyebrow and then nodded. Maggie didn't know what to do, and simply nodded back dumbly. Was she accepting accountability for John? Was Yoko "giving" her John, the way she had May Pang? Would Yoko someday call John back to her again like she had with May?

Yoko turned her gaze back to John, and her eyes lingered on his, and for a moment Maggie thought she could see all the depths of emotion that were missing from her face reflected in them. Then she turned back into her apartment, and closed the door softly behind her.

John just stared at it. The symbolism was obvious – this part of his life over, and he had to move on. At least, that's what Maggie hoped it signified.

She heard John take a deep breath, and as he let it out, slowly he turned down the hall, squared his shoulders and started walking. She caught up with him, and kept pace until they got onto the elevator, once again riding in silence. When they reached the bottom he walked out into the Dakota's courtyard and out to the main gate, hesitating on the spot where he'd been shot only yesterday, staring at the world beyond.

Instinctively, Maggie took his hand and gave it a soft squeeze. He squeezed back, and looked down at her.

"I could really go for some of that shite tea we had yesterday, Miss Margaret."

She smiled up at him. "Well you're in luck, Mr. Mae, as there is a Starbucks on every street corner in New York City."

She gave his arm a gentle tug and they stepped out into the noon sun, relatively low in the sky and cold overhead. She was, of course, dying to know what happened in the apartment, especially given the naked emotion still present on John's face, but she figured he'd tell her when he was ready. Or not – either was fine, so long as he was ok.

"I bet you're dying to know what happened in my apartment, Miss Margaret." John gave her hand a squeeze, but didn't let it go. "You're a good friend not asking and all."

"Well…"

"Personally I wouldn't have been able to help myself. But then I'm a nosey git, aren't I?"

"Well…" Maggie gave his hand another squeeze. "I don't know you well enough personally yet to know if you're a git." She paused. "Though I have read stories..."

They both laughed at that, and then John returned to being sober.

"Turns out she wouldn't have me now even if I wanted to go back." He looked at her over the rim of his glasses. "Which I don't."

"What do you mean she doesn't want you?" Maggie was shocked into stopping her footsteps. "All that woman has ever done is fought to control you, even after you died – especially since you died! No way she'd give you up so easily now."

John just stared at her, and horrified at what she'd just said Maggie clapped a hand over her mouth and prayed the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

But then he started chuckling, and taking her hand back in his, kissed her gloved fingers.

"Sounds like you've got Mother all figured out, luv." He gently steered them back toward the Starbucks. "You're right, she doesn't want to lose control of John Lennon. And with the agreement we've reached, she won't have to."

"But-"

"You forget, I'm no longer John Lennon. I'm Jonathon Mae now."

"But doesn't she want you?"

"Well, she can't exactly suddenly have a boyfriend that looks and sounds just like her dead husband did thirty years ago, now can she? Especially since her eternal love for John Lennon has kept her from ever seeing anyone else seriously since then, right?" John shrugged, trying to convey that none of this bothered him, and failing miserably.

They were at the Starbucks, and pausing outside of it, he faced her. "She's changed a lot too. I don't even know her anymore. And I'm nothing but a reminder of a man she once loved – thirty years is a long time, luv. A very long time. She's moved on. And... she's not the woman I married; I had that figured out within the first five minutes of being with her today. The truth is, I want to move on too. She's just had more time to do that." He looked at Maggie with a serious expression on his face.

"What will you do now?" Maggie felt her heart beat pick up, and tried not to be thrilled over the fact that John was now holding both her hands in his. She needed to just be his friend right now. Still... John would be worth waiting thirty years for. I feel like I've already waited four years for him. But she really couldn't blame Yoko – she'd watched her husband be murdered in front of her. She'd already buried him and mourned him. Maggie shuddered at the thought. No, Yoko was done. That much was clear.

"Yoko's arranging for my 'official' documents saying I'm Jonathon Mae, and I'm letting her retain control of my old name. She is setting me up with an account with more than enough for me to go my own way comfortably on. She's also agreed to fix it so my relatives that she evicted are taken care of. " John looked tired, but a spark of excitement filled his eyes. "And now that that's settled, I'd like to see my sons. And everyone else too." He brushed the back of his fingers along her cheek, and then tucked a stray hair behind her ear. "And I'd like to get to know you better. If that's alright?"

Their eyes locked, and Maggie thought her heart would explode it was racing so fast. She stepped in closer and tilted her face up toward his. "Yeah, I'd like that. A lot."

The hand that had tucked her hair back was still on her neck, and his thumb started tracing circles over her skin their while his fingers buried themselves deeper into her hair.

So much for taking it slow and just being friends, Maggie thought with a smile. She realized quickly that this way was much better!

He leaned down, and she got on her toes to meet him halfway when suddenly they were thrown apart by a teen girl, earbuds in her ears, music so loud Maggie could hear it, and head bent over her phone, texting.

"Watch it!" she called without looking up.

Maggie just stared at her, mouth agape, while John started laughing again.

"Ah, New York. Some things will never change." He opened the door and the heat from inside wafted over them both. "Shall we?"

Maggie smiled up at him and stepped inside. "Yes, we shall. Also, try their hot chocolate. It's much better than their tea." She wasn't upset about their lost kiss. John was alive, he was free of Yoko, and by all appearances seemed to want to spend this free time with her. There would be plenty of time for kisses in the future. Their future.

One more part to go for this story! Tune in next week!

A/N: We did want to note that John's lyrics here were actually borrowed from Collin Raye's song "I Can Still Feel You" which seemed to capture his feelings perfectly. Part III will probably be next week sometime!