A/N: Well I'm not really sure when this story was last updated but I do know that I'm truly sorry for keeping you guys waiting for so long! Things have gotten really busy and it's been hard to keep up but... here it is, Chapter 27! I'll try desperately not to keep you waiting for the next chapter!

For those of you who's reviews and PMs I haven't responded to-which is pretty much EVERYONE, I'm soo sorry! I'm not ignoring you! Bear with me and I will get back to you! You're all awesome and I can't thank you enough for your continued support of this story! (I'm also working on a few other NEW stories for this fandom... so we'll see how that goes). ;)

The funny thing about the inevitable was that it was undeniably one of the most resilient of concepts on earth. Like a train on a one-way track rushing full speed ahead at an unsuspecting victim, there was no direct way to stop it. One, if lucky, might be able to slow down its progress a bit and alter the outcome of intended impact accordingly. But chances were it wouldn't be enough. It was never enough. Life was funny like that. Funny in an unbelievable cruel and twisted way. And because of its sick sense of humor, three-quarters of a band that once stood tall were forced to watch in a state of catatonic shock as their fourth was taken away via ambulance to some strange and foreign hospital in some strange and foreign region of a country that was overall unfamiliar to them.

There was no gradual decrease in awareness for George Harrison as he somehow managed to take this all in. Nothing to properly precede the complete annulment of sharpness clouding his mental world of perception. Rather, he just shut down; senses and all— while all about him, surrounding chaos, turmoil, anxiety, panic, and fear rushed in like a scheming wave on the most battered of shores; washing away everything remotely sense-worthy in all its entirety. He was merely a grain of sand at the mercy of it all; hopelessly trapped beneath this suffocating and disorienting wave, continuously subject to an ongoing cycle of eroding undertow from which he would gradually wear away in merciless defeat. And all he could think of was the wrongness of it all. How wrong John was for bringing about such mayhem. How wrong he was to quit. To give up. To stop breathing. How wrong the entire universe was as it scornfully spiraled counterclockwise with a blatant lack of control at the notorious hand of the inevitable. And there wasn't a rewind button to be found. No do-overs. No way to wish away fate's tainted touch. No room to play pretend. No hope of taking away the immense amount of pain that had taken the hearts of an apprehensive band, and shoved them brutally into captivity within a jail cell of doom and gloom.

Rain had begun to fall, reminiscent of the cheesiest of movies; light at first, before quickly growing heavy— like mini stones of death raining down from the angry heavens. The air had grown significantly colder too, as a well-timed fog rolled into the streets, shrouding everything and everyone in its sinister veil of sadness. George didn't feel it, the cold. Didn't even feel the rain as it drenched his clothes, soaked his hair, and seeped into every existing orifice of his body. The senses in charge of such sensations were gone astray. Mislaid. Vanquished. They were dead. He was dead. Dead with a beating heart. Dead like how John had looked prior to when he'd been taken away by unfeeling robots draped in white. Dead like the faces of the aforementioned unfeeling robots better known as the paramedics. The unsympathetic paramedics that had stolen John into custody and left without so much a whispered word of comfort or solace. Leaving behind George in limbo. Leaving him wondering. Leaving him questioning John's future… his future… or lack thereof. Never had George ever wished in his lifetime to be able to take a take a glance into the future. Never until now.

"George…"

The lead guitarist flinched at the sound of Ringo's voice combined with his tentative touch to his upper arm but he didn't move.

"Come 'ead, mate…" the drummer went on to say, sounding desperate in his attempt to provoke a response from the lead guitarist.

George blinked in a bit of confusion, his mind still anywhere but in the here and now. He turned to Ringo finally, finding that his eyes were having a bit of trouble focusing. "What?" he mumbled numbly.

Ringo frowned following their stimulated eye contact, his eyes frantically looking over his battered, suffering mate as a whole, "Let's get ye' out of the rain, love. Look at ye', yer shivering!"

"I am?" George lifted up both his hands to the front of his face and peered at them. They were quaking like mad. Why couldn't he feel it? Shouldn't he have noticed?

"Let's go before y'get even sicker out 'ere in all this dampness," Ringo murmured, concern softening the edge to his voice. "The last thing we need, really." Despite the dismal tone to his voice, his eyes remained bright with some kind of contradictory hope; the two orbs shining predominantly in the rain like twin suns of blue.

False hope, George would've automatically assumed as that was about all that was left within the deepest of his own soul. But it wasn't. Ringo was clinging onto something positive like how a young deprived tot on Christmas Eve would cling to the hope that the following day would indeed bring miracles. George couldn't understand how that was even possible. Then again, he had always been a bit more of a realist. He was like John in that sense. And while John's hard life had shaped him unconditionally into the 'pessimistic' mindset he was known to wear like a second skin, George found he'd always been subject to his way of thought. For as long as he could remember, however far back that was. Changing his point of view now even to set his mind at ease, wouldn't reverse what was already happening. "Too late fer me…" the lead guitarist finally mumbled exhaustedly, his dark brown eyes averting Ringo's.

"Don't be daft with that kind of talk," Ringo admonished. His tone was gentle but his eyes, stern. Even then, the light within them somehow prevailed.

George flared in the face of the drummer's scolding. "Didn't y' see a bloody thing of what's just 'appened?" he countered heatedly, "John wasn't breathing. He wasn't breathing when they took 'im away. Y'can't tell me it's a good thing. And y'know what else isn't a good thing while we're on the subject?" the lead guitarist went on, his eyes flashing reproachfully, "Being too optimistic! Optimism leads to disappointment when everything flops."

"But he was breathing, Geo…" Ringo murmured weakly, his eyes dropping to the soggy ground in offense to his mate's bullet-like words, "Hardly breathing but he was jus' the same… They managed to revive that aspect of him jus' before they took 'im away."

"Well, I wouldn't know a thing about it…" George snapped bitterly, "None of those gits in white bothered to fill me in. As usual, I'm left behind."

"I only know because Brian told me…" Ringo softly replied, lifting his eyes back to George's level, "I didn't actually see fer meself. Mal wouldn't let any of us anywhere near the scene."

George shrugged, apathetic to Ringo's words. "Well, Johnny's breathing, then," he mumbled, his voice filled with an implausible amount of sarcasm. "Great. He's 'alfway better already." He sniffled miserably and sneezed into the rain, the mini droplets mixing in with the wet atmosphere. "Perhaps, there's hope fer me after all."

Ringo frowned, a flashback to yesterday plaguing his mind. He shuddered at how George vigorously seemed to be taking on the antics of their rhythm guitarist on his forged path of declination. While both were forever stuck in their pessimistic mindsets, the way they'd been as of late was bloody unbelievable. And not in a good way. And now John was… Ringo shook his head uneasily. "Let's go in," he quickly suggested as a form of disruption from his thought. Let's go in so we can plot our next move and see whether or not it'll involve anymore unexpected hospitalizations… How was that for optimism? Jesus Christ. George was wrong about him. He wasn't a bloody optimist. He was an impostor. On this particular day, they all were.

Placing a hand on George's shoulder, he guided him towards the building he and John had escaped from literally only moments ago. Moments before… Ringo shook his head. Jesus Christ it was unreal. Stopping momentarily in his tracks, the drummer shut his eyes as frightening images of John lying unconscious like a cadaver on the cold hard ground proceeded to wrack his brain. He'd have nightmares about it. He was certain of it. Giving his head a shake to clear it, he started on again in pursuit of the building that had once held his entire band as a whole.

Eppy was waiting in the doorway of the back entrance, eager to get them all out of the rain. John had been taken away and they had no business dwelling on the streets following the highpoint of such a stressful, anxiety-filled crisis. He looked relieved as Ringo and George drew nearer. "Hurry!" he ordered, shifting into worried fatherly-mode, "You'll catch a chill!" He hastily began waving them both forward, "Where's Paul?"

Paul… Ringo frowned. He'd been so worried about George's wellbeing, he hadn't even thought of Paul. He opened his mouth, "Uh…"

"Never mind. Get in!" Brian ordered of the drummer. He could just make out the bassist foolishly standing in the fog by the side of the road, staring. Staring at what, exactly? The manager couldn't make heads or tails of it. Allowing the heavy-duty door to close on two of the three remaining Beatles, he took off into the rain at a quickened pace on track to the third one.

"Paul!" he called out desperately. "Paul!"

Paul didn't react at the calling of his name. Didn't even flinch. He was lost. Lost in a fog, lost in a haze. Lost in a daze. The day mares had already begun for him. Every time he dared to close his eyes, even just to blink, he'd see his best mate lying motionless as his dilapidated body was crudely lifted onto a stretcher, not one bit of fight left within it.

"Cor blimey, Paul!" Eppy muttered breathlessly from somewhere in the background, his words to be ignored.

Paul couldn't have responded even if he had wanted to. The melancholy was too strong. The nostalgia. The overwhelming want for things to fall back into place. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair how this had happened. John hadn't asked for this. None of them had. John hadn't asked for half the crap he'd been prematurely faced with throughout his life. And he'd had all the time in the world ahead of him to make it all better. To improve. To rise above it all. Was it all to end here? It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be fair. Couldn't the universe see? By taking away John, they'd be taking away an enormous part of him. An enormous part of everyone he was associated with. And a bassist would be left without the longtime mate that he absolutely unconditionally adored. The best kind of mate that he looked up to on many an occasion. One that was always saying something. Always laughing, always smirking, always joking, always scowling, always frowning. Always animated. Somehow all at the same time. Sure he was flawed. Sure he was jaded. But none of that ever really mattered. There was much more to him than that. Whenever Paul looked at him, he'd see the perfect blend of wit, sarcasm, cynicism, insecurity, humor, arrogance, bluntness, moodiness, passion, and a larger-than-life personality all of which helping to shape him into who he Winston Lennon was… Paul's other half. His big brother. His mentor. The one that made him feel a peculiar blend of wholesome, secure, inferior, and equal. Without him, well… he could hardly stand. Without him, the world might as well cease to exist.

It was crumbling now beneath him— the world… and Paul could feel it's every defective crack and crevice as it proceeded to do so; brutally and abruptly disrupting the natural order of all things established by a hardworking Mother Nature. If he let it, the ground would eventually crumble away and he would fall into a black abyss of no return.

"Paul… Paul… Paul!"

The bassist turned at the fifth call of his name with a blatant lack of urgency. Brian, the manager who had stayed behind in place of Mal, now stood beside him, his eyes peering at him through the stubborn fog and rain. There was a genuine pain locked within them. Worry, anxiety, apprehension, but mostly pain. Pain and maybe self-loathing. Paul felt no pity. Brian shouldn't be standing beside him chanting his name any more than he should've been on that ambulance with Mal, accompanying Lennon to hell. He owed Johnny that much for all the suffering he'd had to endure. Paul wasn't one to hold grudges but if John didn't come out of whatever the bloody hell this was in one piece, forgiveness would forever cease to be an option.

"Paul," Eppy spoke again, sounding now as though he was coaxing a small child out of hiding, "Come 'ead from the rain."

"Hide our 'eads from a bit of rain. England would be right proud," Paul muttered monotonously, quoting John's words from the day before. The day before… When they'd been naively off to the concert following Lennon's delirious breakdown. Even that had been bliss compare to what had just taken place. Compared to what currently lay ahead. Everything going on at that very moment, made all yesterday's happenings seem like afternoon tea.

"You'll catch a chill!" Eppy stated counteractively. But in all that had transpired most recently, his voice failed to hold the persuasive quality it would naturally take on whenever he was choosing to embrace his domineering side.

Paul regarded him with a smirk, the cold expression unwavering even as water from his hair proceeded to drip into his eyes, near blinding him. "Oh, now our wellbeing's of top priority?" he sharply retorted, sarcasm amplifying his tone, "Why, Brian? Is it because tonight's concert's at stake?"

"I've canceled the concert."

"Oh?" Paul arched an eyebrow in mock surprise, "Now the gloves come off. No choice, huh? And the tour?"

"In limbo until I hear of John's condition."

"Right," Paul grunted, "Wouldn't think that you'd 'ave the nerve to make such a big leap."

Eppy shook his head sadly, "I'm doing the best I can, Paul," he sighed plaintively, "You must understand that."

"But look where it's gotten us so far," Paul callously spat, "John's possibly fighting for his life and who knows what the bloody 'ell will even come of George!"

Eppy dropped his head and nodded, "I know. None of this was supposed to happen. I—I swear if anything happens to any of you boys, I'd… I'd never be able to live with myself…" He paused momentarily, allowing for the continuous sound of the rain to fill both their ears. Paul thought he heard a sob but he couldn't be certain. "…I've… I've made such a mistake," the manager went on after a while, "As it turns out, Mal was right. You can always replace money but… you can never replace a life…" When he lifted his head once more, tears could be seen leaking from his eyes.

Paul softened in spite of his own emotional pain threatening to harden him all the more, "Well, there's nothing we can do about it now…" he concluded somewhat dismissively.

Eppy sighed in defeat, "I don't suppose there is, is there?"

"Moreover, there's still hope," the bassist pointed out, "And if I know John, he wouldn't be in favor of us giving up just yet. He's a natural born fighter."

"You'd make a great manager, Paul, you know that?" Eppy solemnly acknowledged, allowing a hesitant waterlogged smile to grace his face, "The amount of times today that you've taking a stand against me shows a strong sense of leadership."

Paul managed his first legitimate smile in what felt like ages. "It's no wish of mine though, Brian." Maybe he didn't want to hold a grudge. It wasn't like him after all. Grudges were for the self-centered. Grudges led to hate which in turn would destroy the purest of hearts. He took in a deep breath and forced himself to muster the rest of the words that were building on his tongue, "For the most part, yer doing just fine. We all make mistakes, really. It's what makes us human."

Brian shook his head refusing to accept the bassist's return praise, "It isn't when someone willingly lends you a beneficial hand and you refuse it for your own selfish needs… That hardly qualifies as anything good," he countered self-degradingly, "You mustn't be so kind, Paul. I don't entirely deserve it."

"Again, there's nothing that can be done about it, Eppy," the bass player impatiently declared in response. His wits, nullified by the weight of the world, were beginning to reawaken now, diminishing the traces of insensitivity that had taken over his mind, body, and soul. Suddenly he was very aware of the wet and cold that surrounded him.

Eppy noticed the shivers beginning to take over his companion, "You'd better get inside before we have another ill Beatle to worry about," he enforced insistently, "That's the last thing we could stand to have."

Paul nodded, his teeth beginning to chatter ferociously from the unyielding grip of the rain-soaked air, "Right." He turned in his tracks and rapidly started back towards the shelter of the building, Eppy close behind him.

"We must get to the hospital ourselves," the manager added offhandedly with a weak chuckle, divergent of his words, "As it turns out, those of us who were in any form of contact with John within the past twenty-four hours might need to undergo some testing and possible antibiotics. Of course, that depends on his official diagnosis."

Paul turned to him in slight confusion-induced suspicion, "Where'd you hear that?" he asked. None of the paramedics had hardly glanced in the direction of another human being let alone gone into that much detail from what he'd been able to see from the distance he'd been kept at courtesy of Mal.

"Mal spoke earlier with John's caretaker from the hospital back in New York," Eppy casually remarked.

"What did they have to say?"

"Exactly what I've told you…" Brian responded, "… plus they gave a quick breakdown of John's suspected illness…" He quickly breezed through the latter bit of information hoping there wasn't enough for Paul to latch onto and question. He was beginning to regret mentioning the casual bit of information in the first place. Chances were he was only beginning to dig himself a hole. And with Paul being as perceptive as he was known to be, there was no pulling the wool over his eyes in any shape, way, or form.

As expected, Paul frowned, stopping suddenly in his tracks. "A quick breakdown of his…" he trailed off as a more commanding series of inquiries surfaced, "What does he have? He's not too sick is he?"

A shadow crossed Brian's face as he dared to answer the bassist's question. "Well, he's not in the greatest state, Paul…" he gravely responded, regretting with increased magnitude, the turn of the conversation.

"He's dying?!" Paul concluded, uncharasterically jumping the negativity-inspired bandwagon that seemed to beckon to him.

"I didn't say that!"

"Well, yer not denying it!" Paul accused, his eyes wild with criticism.

"He's… quite ill…" Eppy tiredly explained, "Gravely ill… potentially…"

Gravely?! Paul faltered, slowing his mind to a steady halt; this was certainly news to him. "How long ago have you known?" he weakly asked of his manager.

Brian glanced nervously at his watch as though wishing to be absorbed into it, "Oh, who can say?" he affirmed with a trivializing wave of the hand, "Time is… evasive, after all…"

"How long did ye' know about this, Brian?" Paul persisted, sternly and forcefully. "And when were you planning on telling the rest of us?!" He daringly held his ground directly in front of the manager so he couldn't choose to overlook his presence.

It was Eppy's turn to frown in massive guilt and remorse, "Not too long ago, actually…"

"When?" Paul demanded ruthlessly, "We're all adults 'ere, are we not? Don't y'think you owe me the truth?"

Eppy swallowed hard. "I uh… knew before the press conference." The cat was out of the bag now. And there it was lying in the open.

"What?"

"I should've acted upon it," Eppy murmured, suddenly beside himself all over again, "But somehow, I just couldn't bring myself to do it… I thought we'd make it! I thought we'd be okay! I was going to call a doctor myself as soon as it was all good and over!"

Shaking his head in an air of finality, Paul turned on his manager and started to walk again. He couldn't bring himself to even begin to respond. Eppy and Mal… they'd known all along…

On and on Paul walked; completely unaware of anything but the fact. The leering fact slapping him in the face. The fact that they'd known all along and hadn't had the common decency to let on to a single member of their band just what exactly it was that they were being faced with. That they'd heard from a doctor just how sick Johnny was and had deliberately chosen to do nothing about it… Chose to put it all on the backburner until… until… it was too late…

"There you are, Paul! Didn't you 'ear? We 'ave to get to the hospital!"

Paul barely took notice of Ringo, even as he stood there with the door open. The same doorway that had been standing there with inviting arms when John had inadvertently collapsed midway through it. Collapsed and stopped breathing… while Eppy and Mal had all the heads up in the world…

"Paul? Did ye 'ear me?"

The callousness was back with a vengeance. The bassist had reached his limit of startling revelations… And the bassist, in turn, had shut himself off. There was no entering the mind of Paul McCartney. "Let's go then," was his mechanical, lifeless response.

A/N: Hope it wasn't too disastrous a chapter! Might end up fiddling with it here and there but... until then, revieww and... well... review! You guys are fantastic!