YES IT IS

Authors: pennylane_fic, jenny_wren28 & lovelyrita_mm

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.

Chapter Seventeen

When Maggie had called her job to say she was back, she'd asked if she could push her start date off another week, again giving the excuse of some sort of family emergency. Since she was genuinely distraught by everything, her words had been believed without question. She felt a bit guilty, but surely disrupting the space-time continuum constituted an emergency.

She had been in email contact with her band (most who were friends from grad school) since she'd been home though, some of whom were also doing postdocs at NASA too. She knew that she couldn't put them off forever. Plus, she didn't want to. She thought she had learned a lot, musically, from her time in the 60s, and she was eager to show off! Also, she wanted to take John to her band practice and to share with him what he had once shared with her. She thought it might help get John out of the funk he had been in, since discovering the not-so-good news about the people from his now-past.

Of course, they'd already concocted a story about John being a Beatle impersonator. Her band would never believe he was the real thing.

When she had brought him in, her bandmates' eyes went wide before they instantly began to tease her about coming back from England with a fake John Lennon as a souvenir. John did nothing to discourage it either, finding it hilarious.

"I actually get told all the time that I look like him. I don't see it, but then again, who am I to complain? He was a handsome devil and a musical genius as well."

Maggie rolled her eyes.

"Don't let him fool you. He's in a Beatles impersonator band because of his looks. He's really got no talent."

Sighing heavily, John responded to that with an exaggerated imitation of himself, mimicking playing the guitar as be bobbed his knees and shook his hair, going "ooooh." They all got a laugh out of that, though Maggie got two laughs. If only they knew.

"I suppose it's time for a formal introduction. Everyone, this is my new boyfriend, um… Winston." Maggie began while John glared at her. Elbowing him she continued, "Winston, this is my band. That's Rick on lead guitar, Bob on drums, and Karl on bass. And as you know, I'm rhythm guitar and vocals."

"Just like me!" he grinned and leaned in to kiss her cheek while he whispered in her ear, "You are going to pay for that. You know I hate that name!" Maggie smiled sweetly up at him and batted her lashes prettily. She elbowed him once more before leaning down to pick up her guitar. "So Winston, what shall we play?" she laughed, handing John her spare acoustic.

Smiling down at her, he threw the guitar over his head as he turned to address the band. "Does everyone know One after 909?"

Music and playing with her band had definitely been the right thing to do. Though Maggie was no closer to figuring out how to get John back to 1966, she found that they were both in much better moods.

Gradually they settled into a routine. Maggie had finally started her new job, and was spending her days at work, while John spent his days in the apartment writing songs, watching TV, and enjoying the freedom of not having girls scream and yell at him or reporters hounding him everywhere he went. Maggie's apartment was small, but in a nice neighborhood in Washington, and John enjoyed his long, anonymous strolls.

As Maggie had expected, eventually the newness began to wear off for John. Though he loved his freedom, he found himself missing being a Beatle. This shocked him, because at home he had hated how it had defined him so absolutely, even if it got the birds to spread their legs for him without any effort on his part.

At home, he was used to getting whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it. Mal wasn't here to go fetch whatever John had gotten a whim for. He didn't have an unlimited income. In fact he had no income since he had no job. He missed Julian. He missed Ringo and George, and he really missed Paul. He missed writing with Paul, and felt like some of his creativity had been drained out of him without Paul there.

Tapping his pen on his thigh, John stared down at a piece of paper, the words he had written beginning to blur together. He could hear Maggie somewhere in the background as she readied herself for the day and he found that he took more meaning out of that, then the strand of letters he had been staring at for the past hour.

Coming up behind him, Maggie draped her arms over his shoulders, resting her cheek against his. "What are you working on?"

"Nothing," he mumbled, taking the piece of paper and crumpling it between his palms. Maggie watched as he threw it into the wastebasket; the one that was already filled to the brim with similar pieces of paper. Without Paul, he had no one to bounce ideas off of and ultimately, it was starting to affect John and Maggie's relationship.

Almost imperceptibly at first, John started to withdraw into himself. Maggie didn't know what to do, any more than John knew how to reassure Maggie after that disastrous party at Donovan's. Maggie wanted to be enough for John, but she knew that she never would be. She didn't doubt his love, but he had given up everyone else he loved for her. She would have to put more thought into how to get him home. For now though, she was going to try her hardest to get him out of the rut he was slowly sinking in to.

"Why don't you come with me today?" she asked, straightening back up.

John frowned. "Where?"

Maggie knew she had already told him where she was going today but didn't feel like arguing the point with him. He had enough on his mind as it was. "I'm giving a talk over at the University of Maryland on "Signatures of Planets in Circumstellar Debris Disks." Maggie looked at him nervously. She was hoping this would be a way to introduce John to her professional world and maybe show off a bit in the process.

John looked at her. "What?"

Maggie smiled. "Science," she explained. "Like I said, not only can women drive cars and vote, but we are also kind of smart."

Taking in a deep breath, John gave her a little smile as he pushed out all thoughts of the song he was trying to write. It was no use anyway. No, he had to learn how to adapt to this modern world without his friends, The Beatles, and Paul. He'd made a conscious decision to come here, and he would make it work. Getting up from the chair, John nodded his head and plastered a smile on his face. "Alright then, let's go and watch you show off," he teased.

John didn't have an ID of any useful sort, so she couldn't get him into NASA, but no one would ask for one at the Maryland University where she was giving her presentation. Plus, there would be a small social after the talk, so John could meet more of her friends. She wasn't sure he'd understand much of what she planned to say, but she wanted to show him what women could accomplish in her time. She wasn't a Beatle, but she did have a PhD.

Her talk went very well, though she got nervous every time she looked over at John. She worried that he would be bored, or nod off. On the contrary, John had been impressed by Maggie's knowledge of science. He couldn't say he found her talk boring, because he enjoyed studying her as she spoke. He liked seeing what excited her mentally. But beyond that, he found the whole thing incomprehensible. He knew she was talking about planets with stars. Or stars with planets. Something with planets. He'd barely absorbed her introductory slide when she'd flipped her computer-thing to the second slide, and the equations started flying. Equations with lots of indecipherable characters, which Maggie was obviously very familiar with. John felt dumber by the minute.

Things didn't improve at the social.

John was used to walking into a party and having all eyes (and blondes and brunettes) on him. He was clearly out of his depth here.

Maggie had been tentative after her talk until John had beamed at her proudly. He was proud of her, and tried to swallow his growing insecurity, hoping she couldn't see it. Afraid she would see how stupid he felt showing on his face, John excused himself and went off in search of a wash room. After making sure he was alone, he gave himself a pep talk in the mirror. The pep talk had partly involved him fussing with his hair, his famous hair, which the birds went batty over. He was Beatle John. Women screamed and cried and fainted in his presence. Maggie was lucky to have him – didn't she know how many would kill to be in her place? John didn't have his PhD, but he was a Beatle.

Feeling much better, he emerged from his hideout, and scanned the room to see Maggie talking to a curly-haired man. They were standing close together and laughing. What really caught John's eye though was the fact that the man kept touching Maggie's arm, and she didn't seem to be discouraging him. He was instantly jealous.

John strolled over and draped a possessive arm around Maggie's shoulders.

"Hi, Winston," Maggie said. He cringed at the name and as he felt Maggie begin to pull loose from his grip, he felt his insides clench. He dropped his arm before she wiggled away from him.

"This is Nick," Maggie said, gesturing to the curly haired man before them. "We used to date back at Harvard. He's an assistant professor here at Maryland now."

"Nice to meet you," Nick had said, smiling at John and revealing a mouth full of big pearly white straight teeth. Bloody yanks and their teeth, John thought to himself.

"Nice to meet you too. What did you think of Miss Margaret's talk?"

"Fantastic!" Nick exclaimed. He turned to Maggie. "I see you included the recent result from Eric's Ap J paper."

"Yes – well, I liked the solution they proposed for the underluminosity of 2M1207B - you know, the hot afterglow from a protoplanet collision," she added for John's benefit. The conversation even less intelligible after that, and John found himself wishing he were at Donovan's party, holding a rum and coke and a joint. That was something he could understand. Despite his innate cleverness, John had never done well at school, and had even managed, over the years, to convince himself that he was too clever by half for formal education. Hell, he'd been almost proud of his unimpressive academic record. Right now though, for the first time in his life, John felt stupid and completely out of his league.

John tuned back into the conversation as Nick was inviting Maggie to some scientific conference in New York to which Maggie was excitedly agreeing to go.

John stared out the window most of the Metro ride home, offering only slight nods of his head or minor grunts when Maggie tried to engage him in conversation. She could tell something was wrong, but any time she tried to get it out of him, he pretended as if he simply didn't hear.

When they got back to her apartment, he didn't even turn to her. Instead, she flipped on the lights, getting ready for some form of conversation, only to watch him walk straight to the bedroom. She stood there, stunned for a few moments before deciding that maybe he just needed a few minutes alone. She felt that way herself at times.

When she walked into the room an hour later, he laid still under the sheets, pretending to be asleep. Not knowing what else to do, Maggie laid down beside him, staring at the wall for the rest of the night.

* * *

A/N:

Take that Johnny boy! How do you like being the fish out of water this time around??!!! And Maggie-Sue, what were you thinking talking to an ex-boyfriend when you of all people should know just how jealous John gets!? *tsk tsk* So now we are right back were we were after Donovan's party... will John pull a "Maggie" and run for it? Leave her and go racing back to the 60's and a world he understands? Or will he be stronger then Maggie and stay to tough it out and make it work?

This is a complete story, so you won't be left hanging! We are planning on post approximately 2 chapters a week.

Also, we'd love to know what you think so far, so please drop us a line. :)