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Chapter Text

Ringo was worried about his bandmate.

That was nothing new, of course, but what was different this time was which bandmate he was worried about.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t worried about John and his terrible fucking decisions and new drugs and, frankly, lack of washing. He was.

And it wasn’t that he wasn’t worried about Paul’s increasingly desperate attempts to get John to notice him, his overwhelming need to keep the momentum of the band going and the inevitable heartbreak he was setting himself up for. He was. Of course he was. He was human, wasn’t he?

If he's your grandfather, who knows?

He shook the memory off.

It was George, though.

George, who was meant to be the one he didn’t worry about. The one he could rely on to exchange long-suffering eyebrow raises with. The one who filled the studio with flowers to celebrate him coming back to the band. The one who fucking took a punch for him a long time ago, in a club far, far away when the chant was “Pete forever, Ringo never!”

The last time he had worried about George, he had been with the Hurricanes at the godawfully sticky bar looking at the Beatles onstage, wondering who the hell had let a 14 year old in the Kaiserkeller.

George had been quiet the first day at Twickenham. He had crept in that first morning with barely a word of greeting, but it didn’t look like he was pissed off, which would have been understandable.

He looked scared.

Ringo had written it off as being intimidated by the cameras. But that didn’t account for everything else.

It didn’t account for the deep sadness George didn’t bother hiding when looking at certain people. John and Paul he could understand to an extent. There were days when looking at them made Ringo want to burst into tears, too. But Mal, who he’d given a long hug to and told him if he ever needed him that he was to call him no matter the time or where he was? Paul’s new bird, Linda, who he’d sat next to and given tea to and told her to mind herself and to always take care of her health, while sounding more like good old Louise Harrison than himself? He’d even put a hand on Yoko’s shoulder and offered her a sympathetic squeeze and told her he was sorry for all their trouble before Christmas.

That one had thrown Ringo off for the rest of the morning.

It didn’t account for how he was acting with the band, either. That was just bloody weird. He wasn’t angry, like he had been in so many sessions before. He wasn’t biting out sarcastic remarks. He wasn’t even visibly biting them back either, which he could make himself do when Paul’s obvious anxiety made him sympathetic. There was no rolling his eyes or muttering to himself or to Ringo. No sly remarks aimed at Paul’s soft underbelly.

He was being so fucking gentle with them. Like they were a bunch of orphaned kittens he’d found and was trying to tame.

He’d handed over cups of tea “because that one’s cold now, Pauly” and insisted on John eating “because you’re falling away to nothing, Johnny, have another bit of toast”. He hugged each of them when he got there in the mornings after that first day and when he was leaving at night. He sat next to Ringo at breaks and asked him to tell him all about how Zak and Jason were doing and listened with a smile that somehow looked lonesome.

And it didn’t account for the plain fuckin’ odd shit he was saying, either.

“Never mind, Richie, Billy’ll come in next week and we’ll cheer up.” Spoken not so much like a prophecy, or a promise, but more like telling you the end of the story when you’re still on Chapter 9.

“Sorry, no, I’m off the fags. Liv’d kill me if I had one.” Who’s Liv, he’d asked. He received a smile and a promise to introduce him “around 1974, if you’re available”.

So Ringo was worried. And he wasn’t the only one.

Chapter Text

Paul did, despite claims otherwise, admit to some faults. Mike may occasionally have joked that his big brother had only figured out he wasn't perfect around 6 months ago, but Paul had always known he could get very wrapped up in himself and what he thought was important. That didn’t mean he wasn’t ever aware of what was going on around him, though.

He’d have had to have his head firmly stuck up his arse, though, to not see that something was not right with George.

While he wouldn’t claim he knew him best, Paul had known George longer than anyone else there. And all the little things were adding up to something very fucking weird.

And while it was mostly small things that were niggling at him (the care, the hugs, the uncanny ability to smooth things over that George had never possessed before, or at least, had never cared to use), one conversation wouldn’t leave Paul’s head.

They had been on a break and Paul was following George out of the bathroom when George had stopped stock still and he had nearly walked right into him.

George had frozen, then seemingly without thought moved nearer to the mirror.

“Oh, fuck. God, they were right. Carbon fucking copy,” he muttered.

Startled, Paul cautiously put a hand on George’s shoulder.

“You alright, lad?”

Absently, George reached up and patted Paul’s hand. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright.”

That was a fucking lie, anyway. George looked absolutely fucking miserable, and from what? Looking in a mirror?

“Are you though? Georgie, you know if something’s wrong-”

“Nah, it’s fine. Don’t you worry about me, you have enough to be getting on with.”

Usually, there’d be a dagger hiding in something like that from another Beatle. A little dig at how he’d pushed himself to be the leader (though no-one else was pushing themselves to do it either and someone had had to do something or they’d have just sat down and stared at each other waiting for someone to move first for a hundred years or more…). Just a reminder that they had his number and he wasn’t to forget that.

No weapons to be found here, though. Just concern. As much as experience told him otherwise, Paul would swear blind that George was only saying exactly what he meant. Paul shouldn’t worry about him, because George thought he had too much to worry about.

If only there was a limit to how much Paul could worry.

“George, you can’t stop me from worrying about you. What’s the matter?” He shook George gently on the shoulder, a connection from Paul to George which he hoped would transfer his concern directly to him.

George’s eyes flicked to his reflection then back to Paul. “Ah, nothing really. Just- You know when you just look in the mirror and see someone else?”

Paul didn’t really, but gamely tried to keep up.

“Sure, mate. You mean, like you suddenly realise why everyone says you’re the spitting image of Great-Uncle Albert?”

George summoned a weak smile. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Oh? Gave you a fright, did it? I’d probably be the same if I looked and saw Jim McCartney in the mirror, to be fair.”

George didn’t seem inclined to laugh it off.

“I just miss home, I suppose,” he admitted quietly, turning away from the mirror.

“Oh, Georgie, that’s alright. You know, that’s alright. You should go visit after this. Go up home, see your mam and dad, get a few homemade dinners, that sort of thing. Do you a power of good.”

George’s unconvincing smile wasn’t giving Paul a huge amount of confidence that he was helping in any way.

“Might just do that. Yeah, get home. Hope so, anyroad.”

“Be nice to be home again,” Paul offered.

“Yeah, it would,” George replied, still sneaking sidelong looks at the mirror. “Maybe I might be able to stick around longer this time.”

Chapter Text

Paul was looking at George again. His brow was furrowed in that way that always meant that Our Lord and Saviour James Paul McCartney was running through all the miracles in his back pocket and coming up with nothing to suit.

Not that John had seen that look directed at him before.

No more than ten or a hundred times, anyway.

And when he hadn't seen it all those times before, he certainly hadn't felt smug as fuck, either for stumping the man who had all the answers.

But regardless, whatever the fuck was going on with George was worrying Paul now and that wasn't on.

John couldn't leave the worrying about George all on Paul's shoulders, anyway. Hadn’t he taken on some custody of George when he had let him join The Quarrymen all those years ago, when he’d been a gawky kid with the biggest ears Speke had ever seen and a flash guitar style?

Fuckin’ chords, they weren’t all they were cracked up to be, anyway, John would swear that ‘til his dying day.

And it wasn’t that John wasn’t worried in his own way about George, anyway.

It was like he wasn’t himself, while still being himself or maybe he was himself while not being himself. And it wasn’t in that transcendent way that they both had loved when they were on acid together at first, where all the illusions and stupid social niceties were just blown off like so many cobwebs, leaving only the absolute core of you and the core of the universe staring at each other for the very first time.

No, it wasn’t like that, was it? It was more like George was a ghost floating around between them, with all his sarcasm and spikes and scepticism missing. Stuff John would have sworn came to George natural as breathing. All gone. Whatever it was, it unsettled John something rotten.

It didn’t help that George was not only bending over backwards to keep everyone happy, but he wasn’t playing them anything of his own. And it wasn’t like he didn’t have anything, either. He was writing loads of songs, and pawning them off on the likes of Jackie Lomax when the big boys told him they weren’t wanted.

Maybe he wasn’t even going to bother giving them first refusal from now on, which was a thought that made John equal parts annoyed and guilty.

So three days in, at a lull between takes on Don’t Let Me Down, he’d given into curiosity and asked “Any new Harrisongs, then?”

George just curled over his guitar and shrugged with a half-hearted smile. “Nothing worth bringing in, Johnny. High standards hereabouts, y’know. Can’t bring you lot any old rubbish.”

And that had been that. George refused to be drawn on it, no matter how he had prodded. Any time he had tried (and he had, he did care enough to try), George had offered much the same self-effacing rubbish.

The George Harrison John knew was entirely aware of his own worth and damn anyone who tried to tell him otherwise. And John liked that George Harrison.

And now, it was day seven in this bloody freezing film studio and Paul had made yet another comment about how he didn’t like what George was doing in Two Of Us. And George hadn’t argued. He just nodded and handed his guitar over to Paul and asked him to play what he thought it should be, “and I’ll try to do what you want justice, then”.

Paul, finding George’s Gibson in his lap, looked bewildered, then made that face that John was so very familiar with. Then he shoved the guitar back at George.

“No.”

George, clutching his guitar again, looked for all the world like someone had kicked one of his cats.

“Paul, I’m not trying to argue-”

“Yeah, and that’s the problem! What’s going on? You aren’t like this!” Paul had started pacing back and forth.

“Like what?” George hugged the Gibson closer, his eyes following Paul’s movement anxiously. “What am I doing wrong? You can tell me and I’ll do something else.”

“That! That’s what’s wrong!” Paul flung his hands up. “That’s not you, Georgie, and I don’t know who this version of you is.”

John hated to admit it, but Paul had put his finger on it. He nodded his agreement, and George’s head swivelled between the two of them, panic starting to rise on his face.

“But I was trying to help.”

Quiet as he had been, the words were perfectly audible across the now silent studio. The crew and hangers on had cottoned on to the fact that something was going on and had frozen where they stood.

“I made it worse, though, didn’t I?” He didn’t seem to be asking them, more talking to himself. “Thought I could do it different, but I just made it worse.”

He stood, carefully putting his guitar to the side. “I think I’ll be leaving the band now.”

Chapter Text

As what remained of the band flung themselves into making the loudest noise possible, Mal took the opportunity to get a breath of fresh air. It had been a hell of a morning, what with all the ructions and listening to them all shrieking wasn’t exactly helping clear his head. He found himself ambling towards the car park, trying to get as far away from the chaotic atmosphere as he possibly could without pulling a George himself.

When George had darted out the door before lunch, barely managing to get his coat on, he’d tried to follow him, tried to check with him if he needed anything, but George had been practically running and he’d lost sight of him. It hadn’t helped he’d had to run the gauntlet of camera crew fluttering about, not knowing whether they should stop filming or not.

He’d have to ring Kinfauns later, he thought, make sure he’d be okay for residuals, see if he could do anything to help him either come back or set up on his own.

He leaned against the back bumper of his own car, lit a ciggie and let out a sigh.

Whatever the fuck was going to happen, he supposed, was just going to have to happen and they’d all deal with it.

“Hiya, Mal.”

A quiet voice greeted him from down beside the driver door.

George.

George was sat down on the bare ground, arms hugging his knees and his chin perched on top of them. Looking like some lost kid.

“Hiya, George.” Mal slowly sat himself down on the ground beside him. “Thought you’d gone home.”

George shrugged.

“You could walk back in there right now, you know,” Mal gently suggested. “They’re going crackers in there without you. You can fix it.”

George made a noise somewhere near a laugh. “Fixing things. That’s funny. That’s fuckin’ funny, that is. That’s what got me here.”

“Well, I could drive you home if you wanted,” Mal offered. “If you want company.”

“Thanks, Mal.” George angled a glance over at him. “Always looking after us. But you’re alright.”

“Course I’ll look after you boys. Always will.” And he meant it too. They might ask for the moon some day and at the very least, he’d go look for a ladder to check if it was doable.

“Made a right mess of things, haven’t I?” And with that, George began to cry.

The tears were quiet, sorry little things dripping down his face, soaking into the collar of his coat.

He shifted and turned more towards Mal, pulling his coat tighter around him. “Mal, do you think I might have gone mad and just didn’t notice?”

“You’re not mad, George. At least, not that I reckon.” That was true for all of them, he’d put money on it. It wasn’t their fault they were so ahead of everything. People just had to catch up with them, that was all.

“You sure? You might change your mind if you knew what was going on in my head.” He buried his face into his knees.

Mal gently bumped his shoulder against his. “Doubt it, though.”

George sniffed, then shook his head. “Nah. I barely believe me when I think about it.”

“Try me.”

George gave him a wobbly smile. “You’re worth ten of any Beatle, Mal. Or a hundred.”

“I’ll put in for a raise, so. Go on.”

“Right.” George seemed at a loss for words for a few moments. “Right. Well, the thing is I’ve done all this before, y’see. But it’s not like how they talked about it in India. It’s not reincarnation or anything. I’d have been alright with that. Grain of sand somewhere that used to be George. Fine. But I lived my life, Mal. Longer than some, shorter than others and I was happy for a lot of it. I was old, and dying, or dead - I don’t know which, but one of them anyway - and then I woke up in me bed in Esher and I’m 25 again and, and it feels like some great power just took a look at me life and went “Not good enough, Harrison! Try that bit again!” like some bloody schoolmaster and the worst thing is now I’ve tried it again and been all the things I thought I should have been back then or back now or whenever the fuck and it’s still gone wrong.”

Mal had to give it to him. It did sound absolutely mad. There wasn’t an ounce of madness to be seen in George’s face, though, and he seemed sober as a judge. If anything, he looked tired.

Maybe he hadn’t been getting enough sleep and that was making him talk like this. He doubted any of them got enough good, proper sleep now.

He was crying again.

“You know what, that last bit’s a lie. The worst thing is I don’t have Liv and I don’t have Dhani and I hate it. I get to see my friends while we were all still some kind of friends and I’m still not bloody happy because I don’t have them. Because of course I’m fuckin’ not. And I can’t even fix the things that went wrong? Any of ‘em?”

He looked up at Mal then, desperation on his face. “Is that the lesson I had to learn? That nothing can be perfect, and there’s no point in wishing you could have done things different? Is that enlightenment? Because I didn’t want it. I don’t want it, Mal.”

Mal couldn’t find anything to say to that. So he just hugged George as hard as he could and let him cry into his shoulder.

Chapter Text

After they had created the noisiest noise they could possibly think of, they were still left with a George-shaped problem. Rather than let the others slope off home, Ringo made a decision. He didn’t feel right letting the sun set without them doing something about it. If he had left out of anger or frustration, it would have been one thing. But whatever had chased George out of Twickenham, it hadn’t been either of those two, but something Ringo really hadn’t liked the look of.

So, Ringo made a decision.

“Cup of tea would be nice,” he announced, shooting a meaningful look at the other two.

Unfortunately, they were staring at each other and the only thing that happened was Kevin trotting off to fetch Ringo a cuppa.

Subtlety wasn’t going to work then.

“John. Paul. Let’s us three go to the canteen and get a cup of tea, then.”

“Eh?” Paul squinted over at him.

“Us three,” Ringo insisted. “Go to the canteen. Have a cuppa. Have a chat.”

“Oh. Oh! Right, yeah! Sounds good, that. C’mon Lennon, move yer arse.”

Once they were settled in the canteen at their usual table, tea in front of them, the nervous tension that had energised them since George had left deserted them all and they slumped into their chairs.

“What’ll we do, then?” Paul asked plaintively.

“Get Clapton,” John replied off-handedly, stirring sugar into his tea.

“Well, you can fight Ginger Baker for ‘im if you want, Johnny, but I don’t fancy your chances much,” Paul drawled.

“Fancy me chances, fancy me chances…’ John crooned, then grinned at them. “Yer right. Me face is me fortune, after all. Any other Yardbirds available?”

Ringo didn’t bother paying him any mind. He knew there was no shortage of guitarists who’d probably kill their grandmothers to join the Beatles, session musicians or otherwise. Clapton, Page, Beck, Mick Taylor, Rory Gallagher, Peter Green, Alvin Lee… the list was endless and that was only people he could think of who’d played the Marquee in the last few months.

“Might be we should try to hang on to the guitarist we have rather than go shopping for a new one,” he said with a serious look. “What got your back up with him anyway, Macca?”

Paul shifted uncomfortably and started to fidget. “Dunno. It were- It were weird, Rich, y’know? I mean, I can hear meself annoying him and there he sits, not a bother on him and it’s not even that he’s trying to say he’s above it all, it’s not that at all.”

“No,” John said slowly. “Not that.”

“And I know we’ve had our moments before, and I know he’s not been happy lately, but it was like all that had been sucked away and something else was there instead,” Paul continued.

“And you didn’t like the look of it,” John agreed.

“No, didn’t like the look of it at all.” Paul seemed to relax slightly at the confirmation that John and he were once again sharing a wavelength. “You can’t say you haven’t seen it, Richie.”

He reluctantly nodded. He’d been dissecting George’s odd behaviour over the last week in his head while they had been battering away at their instruments earlier, but no matter how much he tried to push the pieces together, he couldn’t make it make sense. What could he say? George had been sad. He had been kind. He wouldn’t argue. He hugged them. He threw himself into John and Paul’s songs. And all this best behaviour had only led to a blow up and him leaving the band.

Really, all he wanted to do was give George a call and tell him it was no fun being there without him.

When he had left last year, stomping back home to Mo, packing his suitcase and heading off to the Med, had it felt like this for the others? Like after a funeral, when all the mourners had gone home. He’d have to ask George.

Ringo exhaled and leaned back in his seat, staring at the ceiling. A mess, a mess, another fine fucking mess. It felt like it had been consecutive messes ever since 1966.

“Well, maybe someone should ring him, yeah?” Paul was properly fucking jittery again. All fidgety fingers and bouncing his leg. He’d blame the cocaine, but worry and anxiety would, ten times out of ten, win out over any drugs in the system when it came to Paul. Not a known relaxer, was Paul.

John hummed his agreement.

Ringo pulled himself up straighter and cleared his throat.

“Well, I was gonna call him anyway.”

A grateful smile from Paul and a nod of the head from John.

And a suspiciously guilty looking Mal Evans looming up behind them all.

“Lads, er, about that.”

“About what, Mal?” Ringo didn’t like that look on Mal’s face. When it came to them, he couldn’t lie for toffee. Lie for them, certainly. To them? Not a chance.

“Well, you see Rich, um…”

“Mal.”

“Y’see…”

“Come on, Mal, spit it out.” Paul had sat up straight now, staring apprehensively at Mal.

“If you ring Esher, he won’t be there,” Mal got out in one breath.

Well, that was fair enough. Maybe he’d talked to Mal before he left and told him he was off somewhere. Didn’t explain why Mal looked guilty as sin, though.

“Right…” Ringo said slowly. “Why’s that then?”

“Cos I just left him at my flat. He should be asleep. Least, I told him to get some sleep.”

“Mal, why’s he at your flat? Is ‘e alright?” Paul was now in danger of knocking over his tea, he was bouncing his leg under the table so rapidly. John reached over and moved it to safety.

Mal practically wriggled with discomfort. “He was out in the car park. He didn’t seem too good. He was talking about- Well, never mind about what. Anyway, he got upset. And he didn’t want to go home so it was the only place I could think of I could take him.”

The hollow feeling at the centre of Ringo that had been there since lunch suddenly started swirling around. It didn’t suit Mal, being worried. And he didn’t like how worrying about George had suddenly become the hot new thing.

“D’you think, well, could we come over tomorrow to yours, then, Mal?” Paul cautiously asked, looking over at both him and John in case they had objections. “See if we could talk to him. Sort things out.”

Mal looked unsure at first, but eventually nodded. “Yeah, lads. Course.”

The question of what George could have said or did to worry Mal in such a way remained unspoken as they gathered their coats and left.

Chapter Text

Mal opened the door of his flat to Paul and Ringo looking bloody exhausted. After a bit of small talk, he ushered them in and settled them in the kitchen.

The flat seemed ominously George-less. You could usually tell when George was in residence somewhere. He warmed a place up. Anyone who didn’t know him didn’t get it, but he was like a small sun, just radiating warmth.

Well. When he wanted to be, amended Paul.

Mal gave them tea, then sat down with them at the kitchen table.

“John’s on his way. He rang a few minutes ago.”

“How is he, Mal?” Ringo asked quietly.

Mal took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes and then replaced them again.

“I don’t really know, lads,” he let out in a sigh.

Paul tightened his grip on his cup of tea.

“He’s just been quiet, really. Hasn’t said much of anything, ‘cept for apologising to me.”

“Why’s he apologising?” Paul asked, then winced. “Never mind if it’s not my business.”

“Um,” Mal looked hunted for a second. “Just me lettin’ him stay, really. Bringing him here. Sending someone to feed the cats. That sort of thing.”

That wasn’t the whole story, Paul knew, but he didn’t push. The situation was so stupidly delicate, he hadn’t a clue what to say to anyone, so erring on caution was probably best. He absently spun the cup around in his hands and thought about what Ringo had told him in the car on the way over.

“I don’t know what to say to him, Rich,” he confided.

Ringo shrugged. “I wasn’t plannin’ on saying anything other than to ask him to come back. An’ tell ‘im we love ‘im.”

“But what’s goin’ on with ‘im?” Paul had been coming up with worse and worse theories as to what since he’d got home. Linda had tried to talk him down, told him he was jumping the gun, but all he’d done was just stop voicing them out loud.

“What if, uhm, what if it’s like what happened with the Floyd? They-”

Ringo cut him off sharply, but with a hint of pleading. “It’s nothing like that, Macca, you know that.”

Don’t speak it into being, he didn’t say.

Beatle-words could do that. They all thought it, but they never really talked about it. If they said it was so enough, acted like it was so enough, it could happen. Would happen.

Ringo was right. Better to be careful.

“Alright, it’s not that like it, but you remember what they were sayin’. It was like Syd was a different person all of a sudden. And I meant that when I said it to him. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so-”

“Prickish?” asked Ringo, deadpan.

“Blunt, I was going to say. But he’s different, Rich. He’s not like how he was before Christmas.” People didn’t change like that overnight unless something had happened. Something bad.

“Yeah, well, no need for that kind of talk. Especially not to him, mind you.” Ringo had pulled up by then and parked. “I’m serious. He doesn’t need that.”

“Just need to tell him we love him and to come back?”

“Know it sounds corny, lad. But we gotta start with that.”

The knock on the door came soon after Paul had drained his tea. Mal eased his way out of the kitchen, and after a few moments, returned, John in tow.

And Yoko.

Paul froze for a moment before smiling at the two of them. Of course he’d bring her. Really, what a situation like this needed was John taking the opportunity to remind them that those two were joined at the hip.

There had been a moment the day before in the canteen where it had felt almost like the old days and they were speaking a language only the other knew. One that didn’t really even need words. He was beginning to hate those moments now. The comedown afterwards was worse than anything.

Ringo gave him a quelling look. The smile wasn’t too convincing then. He cleared his throat.

“Alright, you two. Nice morning.”

John shuffled towards the kitchen table, Yoko slipping in behind him. “Aye. Great morning. Love a meeting first thing.”

He wasn't exactly moving at high speed but he seemed a bit sharper than he had been earlier in the week. Whether he had decided to be at his best for the meeting or the day before’s dramatics had shaken him out of his funk, Paul couldn't guess.

“It’s half-past eleven, John love.”

“Thanks, Macca, didn’t know you’d taken up as the speaking clock.”

A barely audible “Alright, lads” from behind them silenced any further back and forth.

George, in the same clothes he’d worn the day before, but dishevelled and barefoot, stood at the kitchen door, eyes fixed on the ground.

“Alright, George,” replied Ringo mildly. “Want some tea, then?”

He just shook his head and slumped against the door-jamb. He didn’t look like he’d slept much. “S’pose you’re here to talk, then.”

“If you’re alright with that, Georgie,” Paul offered gently. “We could come back tomorrow if you’re not.”

George hadn’t even raised his head to look at them yet. “Won't make a difference if you do or you don’t.”

Oh god, thought Paul. He’s actually ill. This is all because he’s actually ill.

“Sit down, then, young Harrison,” John urged. “Start at the start, tell us how rotten we are.”

George looked at them then, seemingly noticing them all there for the first time. “Oh,” he said quietly. “Hiya, Yoko.”

Paul saw a complicated look pass over John’s face at this and it suddenly dawned on him why he’d brought her at all. It hadn’t been a power play or a shout at the world about how in love they were.

It had been a test.

Chapter Text

John didn’t like it one bit.

When George saw that John had brought Yoko to a Beatles band meeting, one which would deal with his own future with the band, he hadn’t reacted at all. He hadn’t lost his temper and demanded she leave, like John would have sworn he would have done up at any point up to now.

George hated Yoko, just like the rest of the bastards out there. They didn’t understand. George didn’t understand.

Hadn’t he tried to poison him against her? That had been behind the call from George in early December when he’d come back from the US, after all.

“Look, she’s got a bad name in New York, John, no-one’s got a good word to say about her,” George had said bluntly.

John had scoffed. “Oh, and I suppose “no-one” is Dylan and his cronies. Take his word as gospel, do you?”

“Oh come on, I’m trying-”

“What? Tryin’ what? To wreck us? You and the rest of the planet. You think I’ll take notice of what that fucker up in Woodstock has to say?” he had snarled.

“Fuck, fine! Fuck you then! If that’s how it is, fuck you. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.” With an irritated growl, George had hung up.

He’d rung up Paul then and railed for a while about ungrateful, childish, third-rate guitarists who wouldn’t be anywhere or anyone without people like them.

Paul had hemmed and hawed but couldn’t really argue with him about George being out of line.

And John hadn’t said one word more to George, nor he to him, until that first day in Twickenham when he’d walked up to John (who had been somewhat, as the saying went, tired and emotional) and hugged him.

And now, he didn’t have any opinion on Yoko sitting in on this?

No, John didn’t like it one bit.

Mal led the way to the flat’s poky sitting room. John thought it must have looked comical: all these rockers trudging along dutifully behind him, carrying their cups of tea.

He and Yoko curled up on the couch together, hand in hand, a united front. Paul and Ringo took the armchairs.

George just dropped himself down gracelessly on the floor by the fireplace.

“Right lads,” Mal said diffidently. “I’ll leave you to it, then, will I?”

“You can stay if you want, Mal,” George offered him with a weak smile.

Mal looked around at the rest of them for objections, then decided to lean against the wall. “If you’re sure.”

“Don’t see why not. You know the story already, don’t you?”

John tried to summon anger at the idea that George was getting people like Mal on his side and taking them away from his. It only halfway worked, considering the doleful picture he made sitting on the floor.

“You tellin’ tales out of school, then?” he snorted.

George shook his head, then winced. “No. I mean, I didn’t mean to. I was out in the car park and got upset and Mal took the brunt of it. Sorry, Mal.”

“I’ve told you, it’s fine.”

“It’s not, but thanks. Anyway. We better start, hadn’t we?”

“Thought we had,” Ringo sighed and sank back into the armchair.

“Start at the start, then.” John leaned back on the couch, looking down his nose at George.

“The end, actually,” George looked back at him, clear-eyed. No challenge, no scorn or anger there. Nothing like any argument they’d had before.

“Don’t be smart,” he replied unthinkingly.

“I’m not, I promise. That’s the start of it. The end. My end. I was dying. I was old and I was dying.”

Paul made an indignant noise. “George, have you dragged us here just to tell us about some bad trip?”

“Just- just let me finish, alright?” George pleaded. “I promise, I’m not lyin’ and I’m not messin’.”

Paul subsided back into his chair.

George took a deep breath, like one of the meditation ones they were taught in India. He fixed his eyes on his hands in his lap and started again.

“Like I said. I was old. Dying. I’d lived a life. Not a past life or anything. This life. My life. It was ending, I- I was sick. Had been for a while. And you think about your regrets, you know? When you’re dyin’.”

He looked up at them briefly, then back down at his fidgeting hands.

“So, I was dyin’. I died. But then I wasn’t dead. I woke up in Kinfauns even though I hadn’t lived there in thirty-odd years. And I was twenty-five and staring into the Twickenham sessions again. That whole first day I was just wanderin’ around the house thinkin’ I was gonna wake up any minute and Liv would be there and-” He cut himself off sharply, a faint shudder running through him.

He took another meditative breath and started again.

“I hadn’t a clue what I was gonna do when I got to Twickenham that morning. Act normal? Give up and go home again? Shout the odds at you all? Tell the truth and beg you lot not to have me locked up?”

He shook his head.

“But I walk in and you’re all so fucking young, you know? How could I do anything except try to look after you the way someone should have done? And I thought maybe that might be enough to make it different this time."

John wanted to make some disparaging remark. That George had meditated himself into dottiness or that he should sell this fantasy to the BBC for a few bob. He couldn’t bring himself to, though. The pain on George’s face was too raw, too sincere to be mocked and he was only getting more and more worked up.

“I don’t know how. I don’t know why. God, I’ve been going over and over it in me head since I got here and I don’t know. Have I gone mad? Is it just me that gets this? It wouldn’t make sense if it was just me. Does it happen everyone?”

He flicked a frantic look at John, then. “You’d tell me if it happened to you as well, right, Johnny? Did this happen to you too?”

Yoko’s hand tightened in his and John felt as if he’d been punched in the throat.

“What rubbish are you talkin’ now, Georgie?” he eventually croaked out.

George’s hands came up over his mouth and he let out a pained groan.

“Fuck. Fuck. I fucked it up. I fucked it up. I shouldn’t-”

Paul made an abortive move as if to go comfort him, but ended up just sitting on the edge of the armchair.

“George, you don’t sound well, maybe you should-”

George laughed at that. Well, if John could call the noise that erupted from him a laugh. It sounded more like a wail. “I’m not well. I’m dead, remember?” He looked over at Paul. “I miss people I haven’t even met yet, y’know. Missing’s not even the word. Feels like part of me’s been gutted out and left with them. Liv has me heart and Dhani has me soul. What does that leave me with?”

A man with no heart and no soul. Just a body animated by regret. If any of this was true, John thought, it would make sense why it had felt like George had been a ghost haunting the sessions.

It would be because that was exactly what he was.

Chapter Text

Mal hated feeling helpless. It had been lurking in him at a low level ever since the day before, when George walked out and it had worsened listening to him tell this in the car park. Once he’d brought him back to his flat and settled him in the guest room, it had receded a bit.

But after a night listening to George pace back and forth in the guest room, never settling, and now, seeing the rest of the boys thunderstruck by it all, it was back in full force.

All eyes were on George, sitting on the floor and breathing jaggedly after his outburst. He was practically curled up into a ball and was refusing to meet any of their gazes.

The room, just about built to fit four people somewhat comfortably, felt smaller than ever.

Mal surreptitiously caught Yoko’s eye. She was as shell-shocked looking as the rest of them, poor lass. He inclined his head towards the door.

Should we go? This should be just the four of them, shouldn’t it? He tried to get across with just his eyes.

She looked torn, then inclined her own head down towards the couch where her hand was being squeezed tightly by John’s. Then she shook her head minutely.

Whatever about what she might have wanted, she couldn’t leave John. Fair enough.

“That sounds horrible, lad,” Ringo eventually said, breaking the silence, but so soft and careful.

“D’you actually believe me, so?” George didn’t look up, but straightened slightly.

“Whether I do or I don’t, it still sounds horrible for you,” Ringo answered straightforwardly. “But, yeah. I do believe you. You’re me mate, aren’t you? Have to believe you, don’t I?”

Ringo slowly slipped down off the armchair and cautiously shuffled over to George. He sat down on the floor next to him and carefully drew him into his side.

“Georgie,” he murmured. “It’s alright, you’re alright.”

It seemed for a second like he hadn’t heard him, but then George shuddered and leaned into him.

“I’m sorry.”

His voice was very small and if Mal closed his eyes, he’d nearly have sworn that it had come from one of his kids.

“It’s alright,” Ringo repeated and squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t fret, now. Don’t upset yourself.”

“I shouldn’t have lost it like that.” George still wouldn’t look at any of them. “I shouldn’t have said any- God. I’m sorry.”

Not for the first time that day, for a brief moment, Mal entertained the hope that George hadn’t meant any of what he’d said. That any minute, he’d raise his head, give them that crooked grin of his and ask why they all looked so bloody miserable.

It was only a brief moment, though.

“After all, I’m meant to be the grown-up here, aren’t I?” George asked with a bleak chuckle. “Should have a better handle on meself. Set a good example to you youngsters an’ all that.”

Mal saw, rather than heard, John mutter “Youngster?” under his breath. He seemed to have recovered somewhat from what George had said about-

Well. What George had said.

George had managed to calm himself somewhat and took a shaky breath. “So, yeah. That’s the story. Yesterday, it all just got to me, I s’pose. I just thought there was going to be some meaning to it. That I might be able to change things, but I can’t. And what’s the fuckin’ point of all this if I can’t change anythin’?”

No-one seemed to have an answer for that.

“Look, lads, maybe that’s enough for today,” Mal appealed

Ringo sent him a grateful look. “He’s not wrong. We can come back tomorrow, or the day after and talk again with clear heads. There’s no rush, right, George?”

George didn’t answer, just continued looking down at his fidgeting hands. But he had tensed at the question.

“Was I sick, then?” John asked abruptly.

George’s head shot up. “What?”

“You said you were sick. That’s why you died. Was that what happened me, too?” John clarified. If you didn’t know him well, you’d have sworn John was furious, but Mal could hear the fear that lay underneath it all.

“John, don’t!” hissed Paul.

“Anyone who’s still breathing doesn’t get to interrupt, Macca. This is between the two dead men,” John snapped back. “Now, come on then. Tell me. I can handle it.”

George looked like he wanted to argue, then slumped again against Ringo.

“Right fuckin’ mess,” he muttered to himself. “Well done, Harrison. Making everything worse since 1943. Top marks.”

He looked up then at John and Mal wished he hadn’t. He never wanted to see that look on George’s face, on anyone’s face, ever again.

“Someone- someone attacked you. Killed you, Johnny. Around ten years from now. I’m-”

“Don’t you dare say sorry again,” John interrupted savagely.

George shrunk in on himself. “See? Made it worse.”

Stop it, Mal wanted to say. Just stop all of this. It’s not fair.

He didn’t know who to say it to, but he just wanted it all to stop.

Chapter Text

Ringo had come to Mal’s flat with as much hope as he could muster these days. He’d thought that, whatever the problem was, they would talk about it, argue about it most likely and, just like all the other times, they’d sort it out eventually.

When Yoko had followed John into Mal’s kitchen, that hope had been chipped away at, but it was still there.

When George had started talking about a life he’d already lived (and died in), it had been like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. But it managed to linger somewhere within him. They’d weathered things no other boys from Liverpool had before, after all. Why not this?

But now, it was just gone.

He sat as close as he could get away with to George (still warm, still breathing, still there). As long as he could feel George solid beside him, he didn’t have to start thinking about how it would feel to let him go some day.

Everyone in the room jumped when Paul flung himself out of his seat. He looked thunderous behind his beard, a proper Old Testament God Almighty and he paced back and forth, eventually stopping in front of him and George.

“What d’you think you’re playin’ at, George?” The words were angry, but Paul’s voice was clogged with despair. “Why’d you tell us that? Why’d you tell him that? He didn’t need to know any of it!”

George wilted further into himself. “I shouldn’t have said anything about it. And- and I wasn’t going to. But I know and you know that, once I'd said anything, John wouldn’t let it go. You wouldn’t, Johnny. I know you. You’d ask and you’d ask and you’d threaten and you’d ask. And I’d crack.”

He looked away from them all, shamefaced. “I always cracked when it came to you.”

John, still clinging to Yoko, nodded reluctantly. “No. I’d never let something like that go,” he conceded.

“It’s not true, though, is it?” Paul’s voice was practically warbling now. “You’re havin’ us on, right? It’s been a great laugh and all, but you can stop it now. Please.”

“Pauly, I’m sorry-”

“John’s right, stop sayin’ sorry an’ all!”

George flinched at this shout and Ringo pulled him somehow closer again protectively.

“Pauly,” John’s plea stopped Paul in his tracks. “Don’t be like that. He didn’t ask for any of this. And I did ask him. I did that. Don’t take that out on him.”

Paul looked near tears. “But it can’t be right, can it? All of this sounds so… So mad. And I don’t want us to be talking about any of this. I mean, how- how’re me an’ Rich supposed to manage without you two?”

And that was what Ringo didn’t want to think about.

Wasn’t it bad enough for George to be gone before them? John as well? Ringo knew that it wasn’t like they’d all drop dead in a row one day together, but to know that him and Paul would be the last two standing…

George was the baby of the group, for god’s sake, how was it fair that George would go before him? And John… John was so alive, it was hard to imagine how they would go on without him. How the world would.

“We didn’t want to leave you,” George whispered. “I promise you that. No one wants to leave you. We just… had to.”

Ringo rubbed his shoulder to try to soothe him. “We know, Georgie.”

“Yeah, George,” Paul wrapped his arms around himself, calming himself. He had ended up leaning against John’s side of the couch, rather than back in his armchair. “I just can’t get me head around it, y’know. Just need to do that.”

George exhaled a chuckle. “Let me know when you do. You might give me a few pointers.”

“It’s all too much, is it then?” John asked wryly.

“I’d nearly forgotten you did that so much,” George murmured. A corner of his mouth pulled up into a smile.

“You know Johnny,” Ringo said lowly, close to George’s ear. “Communicates in lyrics and Goonisms only.”

He got another chuckle out of George, which was what he’d been aiming for, but a shiver followed it.

“Look at that. Communication between Beatles in 1969. Wonders never cease…” he trailed off.

“George?” Ringo prompted. “Y’alright?”

“Yeah,” he answered vaguely. “Sure. Just me head hurts.”

“Just?” Ringo didn’t like where this was going.

“Um,” George was beginning to look a bit out of it. “It’s been something that’s been happening when I wake up. I wake up and I’ve forgotten what’s happened. And, and it’s happening for longer. Yesterday, it took me a good half hour. I’d forgotten everything. And I saw something out of the corner of me eye and it made me remember. Me head still hurts from it. Couldn’t sleep last night for fear of the same thing happening. It’s like there’s a deadline an’ I don’t know it. Is it if I don’t fix things in time, I have to just live it all the same?”

He stilled then, with the same thoughtful, serious face on him that he usually had when he was trying to figure out a solo.

“I just figured it out. What’s gonna have to happen me.” His voice was very flat. Not in the deadpan way that he had used to such great effect in their interviews. It was like the words were escaping him without his knowledge.

“What do you mean, love?” Paul asked. “You can tell us. We want to help.”

George looked around at all of them, then took a deep breath.

“I don’t know how it works,” he got out. “I told you. I don’t know why and I don’t know how. I thought I was here to change things, but if I change things, where do I come from? God, I wish I’d paid better attention at school. Probably didn’t cover this, but it’d be just my luck if they did and I was too busy drawin’ in the margins.”

“What d’ye mean, where do you come from?” Paul looked about as confused as Ringo felt after trying to follow George’s rambling.

“Well,” George began slowly. “I said I was scared there was no point to me coming back to fix things, right. But if I did fix things, where would I come from to change things? That life’s different. That me, this me is gone. I don’t exist. An’ it’s getting harder. Harder for me to remember every time I forget. I feel worse, too, now I’ve told you what’s happened. So maybe it’s not that I’ve fucked up and not changed things, it’s that this isn’t something that’s gonna last. It can’t last. I change things enough and I’ll just disappear. That’ll be it.”

Ringo didn’t want to understand this. As cruel as the whole thing had seemed before, the idea that this older George would just cease to exist was horrifying.

But if this older George stayed, wouldn’t that be exactly what happened their George? (Not that this George wasn’t their George, but it shook him that the George that had been there up to New Year’s had just been… recorded over, in a way. Ringo thought it sounded like a nightmare.)

“Or maybe I need to want to let go. Let go into infinity,” George mused, his voice sounding quite far away. “I was trying to do that before, but I mustn’t have done a good enough job.”

“Cos you ended up back here?” Ringo asked quietly.

George made a weird swaying movement which could have been a nod. “I didn’t want to leave the people I loved, but I knew I had to go. I tried to look forward. The next thing. Didn’t- didn’t know what it was gonna be. We always did that, y’know. We never looked back. New, new, new.”

He trailed off then, but shook himself and continued.

“But I was thinkin’ about how much time we wasted not bein’ friends. I thought it was so silly. So pointless. I wouldn’t have minded not bein’ in the band with you, got over that eventually, didn’t I? But there was so much anger there and hurtin’ each other. I wished, no, I still wish we hadn’t done that. All the lawyers and cruelty and fuckin’ Klein. God. I wish I hadn’t done any of that. You’re me friends. I love you. I’ll love you until the day I die. And after it.”

His words were slurring a bit now.

“Maybe I’ve done enough now. D’you think-” He didn’t finish the sentence. He blinked once, twice, then slumped over, Ringo just about managing to hold him up.

Ringo would swear that he’d never seen John and Paul move so quick in their lives. Between them all, they got George lying down on the couch and after a few minutes or so of fussing, George opened his eyes again.

“Ow. Fuck. Turn off the fuckin’ sun, someone,” he grumbled and scrunched his eyes closed.

“You alright there, Georgie?” Ringo asked gingerly.

“Must have been one hell of a party for New Year, lads,” he groaned. “Don’t even remember gettin’ to Mal’s.”

He shifted to sit up a bit and squinted at them. “What’s wrong? Why’re you givin’ me those looks?’ He rubbed his eyes and scowled at them. ‘What did I do wrong now?”

“Nothin’, lad,” Ringo eventually said. “We were just a bit worried about you.”

Chapter Text

After George had gone back to sleep on the couch barely a minute after waking up (“I’m fuckin’ knackered, lads, dunno how you’re so bright-eyed, now fuck off and lemme sleep”), they’d sat in the kitchen silently and tried to figure out what the fuck had just happened.

Paul thought that, if he tried to talk at all, he’d just cry, so he just sat at the kitchen table not drinking the fresh cup of tea Mal had put in front of him and watched the others do the same.

He could feel his mind trying to catch hold of the thing, but he hoped it wouldn’t. He wasn’t sure he could handle it.

The universe had more death in store for him, it seemed.

Fuck the universe, he thought viciously. Just fuck it. It can’t fucking have them. I’m keeping them.

Anger was an easier thing to focus on right now than anything else.

“Someone should ring Pattie,” Mal said eventually.

Paul froze for a moment. In all the hullabaloo, he had, in all honesty, forgotten about Pattie. He should have felt badly about it, he supposed. He couldn’t manage it. There was too much else going on in his head and his heart.

Ringo looked uncomfortable. “Maybe not.”

“Why not?” John asked sharply. “You been holding out on us?”

“No… I wasn’t sure it were part of it. Said I’d say somethin’ if it came up. Now, I’m dead sure it’s not.”

“What, though?" prompted Paul.

“I asked Mo last night if she’d been talkin’ to her. Just off-hand, you know, nothin’ that’d make her think somethin’ was wrong, but I thought I’d ask in case she’d heard anything odd. Turns out, Pattie cleared out just after Christmas. Some bird of Clapton’s causin’ trouble supposedly. Last thing Mo had heard, Pattie was stayin’ with her sister. I didn’t think, still don’t think really, it’s anythin’ to do with this.”

Strife with the wife, Paul thought mordantly, was normal enough for them that they could probably ignore it, alright.

“Yeah, probably not,” he agreed. “But should we ring her still, do you think?”

Ringo shrugged and took a slug of his tea. “Doubt either of ‘em would thank us for gettin’ in the middle of their quarrel.”

“He shouldn’t be left on his own, though,” Paul fretted. What if this whole mess had consequences that none of them had even considered yet? No, George shouldn’t be left on his own.

“Don’t worry about it, lads. I’ll manage it,” Mal said, steady as usual.

“He won’t stay here, though,” John warned. “He’s an independent young lad. He’ll be off home, quick as a shot.”

Ringo see-sawed his hand. “Maybe. I mean, we’ll have to tell ‘im it’s not New Year’s Day for a start. That’d put the wind up anyone, even George. Findin’ out you’ve lost, what, nearly two weeks? You’d excuse a day, two at most. Not that long. But they’re both right, Mal. He won’t stay here long and he shouldn’t be on ‘is own. Well, not for a while, anyroad.”

Mal repeated, “I’ll manage it.”

As much as Paul itched to argue with Mal, tell him that they were in such a mess that not even Brian could have led them out of it, he refrained. They’d asked Mal to do the impossible so many times now, after all. He wasn’t even being asked now, he was volunteering and looked sure as the sun on its path. Which was a sight more than could be said for the rest of them.

“That’s somethin’ else, though,” Ringo noted. “What do we tell ‘im?”

“The truth,” John answered immediately. “We can’t fuck that up, and we’d definitely fuck up a lie. We can hardly tell the world, right, everyone, if George Harrison asks, it’s actually two weeks ago. Hang on to your old Melody Makers, we’ll be sendin’ ‘em on to his place.”

“We can’t tell ‘im the truth.” Paul knew it in his bones. It would be wrong. Cruel. Wasn’t it bad enough that they knew about it?

“He’ll know we’re lyin’, though,” John argued back, tapping his index finger on the table in front of him. “You know ‘im. One look at us and he’ll see right through it.”

“An’ he won’t think this is bullshit?” Paul demanded. “We believed it cos we saw it. Heard it. All we’ve got is a second hand story that sounds bloody demented!”

“Calm down, Macca,” Ringo hissed. “D’you wanna wake him or what?”

“Well, what do you think we should do?” Paul hissed back. “All ideas welcome! Even from drummers!”

“No need for that,” Ringo said mildly, but still affronted.

Communication between Beatles in 1969. Wonders never cease, the other George murmured in the back of Paul’s head.

“Yer right. Sorry, Rich,” he mumbled, chastened. “Just- just a bit freaked out, still. I mean, I hate that we know what he told us. I don’t want to know it. You bloody don’t either, I can tell. How can we do that to George?”

“He did it to us,” John muttered to himself, then looked repentant. “No, but he didn’t want to, did ‘e?”

“No,” Ringo agreed. “That wasn’t the point of it.” He looked down at the kitchen table. “Won’t say it’s not shite, though. It is.”

“Was there a point though?” Paul knew he sounded dismal, but he couldn’t help the question. All he could see was an old man - no, not just a man, a friend - who had been ill and tired and deserving a rest that didn’t get one. Just got landed back into a miserable time in his life, given an impossible task and then being lost to- to wherever. Infinity, maybe, like he’d said.

Maybe he should start praying again.

“Course there was,” Ringo chided gently. “Said it himself, didn’t he? He wanted to look after us, see that we didn’t make the same mistakes. Now it’s up to us to make sure of it. We’ve got a chance to do things right. We don’t have to live that life. None of it has to happen now.”

“So, what, we try to dodge what’s comin’?” John sounded wary, but a bit of hope was creeping in.

Ringo shrugged. “Well, what else can we do? Carry on the way we were? I doubt we’d even manage that now, knowing what we do.”

“But what do we even know for sure?” Paul asked, hating how negative he knew he was sounding. Usually, the role of Cassandra was played by George, after all. He wondered for a second if it ever got to George the way it was getting to him.

“He got sick. He died,” said John quietly. “But he died after me. Long enough after me that he’d forgotten things about me. And it was at least thirty years from now.”

“The band broke up,” Ringo offered. “But it wasn’t the band breaking up that mattered to him. It was how we went about it.”

“Aye,” agreed John. “What was it? “Lawyers and cruelty and Klein.” S’pose that’s Allen. Well, we can drop ‘im for a start.” He shrugged. “No harm. Seemed a bit of a know-all.”

He had been dead keen on that know-all, but John could be fickle as anything, Paul knew. Just as likely to cut you dead as be your best mate. Best not to make anything of it and nod along.

“So that’s some things, anyway, Macca.”

“That’s still not a lot to go on.” Paul stared down at the chipped formica table-top. “There’s loads we could fuck up that we don’t even know about.”

“Pauly,” John said gently. “Don’t give up before we’ve even started.”

Paul could feel tears closing up his throat, so he just nodded.

“We drop Klein, right,” John continued, gaining enthusiasm now. “We keep an eye on George, his health and that. An’ we can try not to be lousy to each other. Even if we break up.”

“We don’t have to break up, though, do we?” Paul knew he sounded like he was begging. He didn’t care. How could he not?

“Maybe. Maybe not. Dunno. We might want to in a year or five years,” John pointed out.

I won’t, Paul didn’t say, but he didn’t have to. The other two exchanged a long-suffering look.

“We’ll have to call it a day eventually. It’s not like we’ll still be playin’ together in fifty years, anyway, lad,” Ringo reasoned. “We’ll be pensioners. Sittin’ in bath chairs somewhere complainin’ about the youth of today and their haircuts.”

“Can you imagine,” John shuddered theatrically. “Us as eighty year olds still singin’ I Saw Her Standing There. We’d ‘ave to change it from seventeen to seventy or it’d be dead creepy.”

“S’pose you’re right,” Paul conceded. They were both wrong but he didn’t have to say it just then.

“An’ in around ‘78 or ‘79, we just hide you away somewhere for a year or two so you can’t get hurt,” Ringo said to John.

“Scotland,” Paul suggested suddenly. “I’ve that place up there. Middle of nowhere. You’d want to really be committed to doin’ something to go up there. Takes twelve hours on a bus.”

“Or if you don’t fancy that, we hire you a bodyguard, or teach you self-defence, or somethin’, Johnny. We’ve got time,” Ringo reassured him.

As much as John had been trying not to look affected by all this, Paul could see his shoulders lower at this and he nodded wordlessly.

“We still need to come up with somethin’ to tell George,” he said eventually. “Or tell people about George, if we end up tellin’ him the truth. It’d be one thing if it had just been us lot seein’ ‘im for the last while, but it’s all on soddin’ film.”

“Bollocks,” Paul winced. “I’d forgotten about the bloody film crew.”

After a long silence, Yoko hesitantly spoke. “Migraines do strange things to people’s brains, John. You hear that sometimes. The brain is very delicate, they say. They don’t understand it yet.”

“Eh?” John looked down at her. “Migraines? George doesn’t get migraines, though.”

“People don’t know that, though, do they,” Ringo considered. “It’s not a bad idea.”

“So, what, we say he got a blinder of a headache an’ it knocked everythin’ since New Year right out of his head?” Paul couldn’t keep the scepticism out of his voice.

He could see John’s back stiffen and he cursed himself.

“Why not?” he asked, spikes out. “We can get a doctor to sign off on it, no problem. It’s a good idea, in my learned opinion.”

Course it is, grumbled Paul to himself. It’s Yoko’s. Then he regretted it.

Try not to be lousy to each other. That, for good or ill, included Yoko now.

“It is a good idea. I agree. I just don’t know,” he said carefully, “that people’ll buy it. He weren’t actin’ up or nothin’. The opposite, really.”

“Well, do they have to buy it?” John said, somewhat mollified. “They’ll just blame drugs, anyway. They’ll think that ‘e went on a bender after leavin’ and it did a number on ‘im. Then it’s just a cover story, which, alright, fair enough, it is. But they won’t guess for what. They won’t in a million bloody years. It’s a great idea.”

“Best we have,” Ringo declared. “Thanks, Yoko.”

“Yeah, thanks,” mumbled Paul, as sincere as he could manage.

Fuck, they probably should be grateful to her. Paul couldn’t find it in him, though.

What did it matter, having a cover story, an easy answer for the public, if they didn’t have any answers for themselves?

Or for George?

Chapter Text

They had left Mal’s place eventually on Saturday, none of them the better for the day they’d had. George had still been sleeping, something that had evidently worried Paul until they had reminded him that he hadn’t had any sleep at all the previous night and that George on a good day could probably sleep through kingdom come. John didn’t wonder at the concern, though. Paul, despite George’s own feelings on the matter, considered him to be a little brother. His responsibility. Through the laws of partnership, he was John’s responsibility too.

What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is my own, Pauly.

He spent the rest of the day and most of Sunday in a haze and a daze, both with and without the aid of various substances. He thought about ringing Cyn and Julian and Mimi, but didn’t. What could he say? “I might be dead in a decade, sorry for being a fuck-up”?

Jesus. Julian. He would be, what, the same age he had been when- No.

He couldn’t think about it.

It was the only thing he could think about.

Yoko tried to talk to him about it, reassure him and that, but he may as well have been on a different planet. He’d stayed on the couch and listened to old records all night.

By the time he’d gotten to Buddy Holly, he’d been in a right state.

After he’d gotten over that little episode, he’d curled up with his head on Yoko’s lap, early Sunday morning.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “Help me.”

“Everyone is dying. All the time,” Yoko mused, stroking his hair. “They just don’t realise it.”

“And now I do?” he asked.

“I think so. Even before this.”

“You believed it all, then?”

“Why not? We don’t understand all of the universe’s mysteries. This is just one of them. I’ve told you before, John. You’re special. The universe sent a message to save your life through George. The universe loves you.”

He tried to believe her. The universe loved him. Yoko loved him.

George loved him. Loved him enough to come back to help him.

He could doubt anything else, but that was a proof that was hard to deny.

Now, after dragging himself to Twickenham on a grim Monday not-exactly-morning, he sat staring at a half-asleep Ringo who was the only other Beatle there.

Mal had assured them on Sunday evening by phone that George had been packed off to Kinfauns “under appropriate supervision”, whatever that meant (apparently more than one of them had double-checked that this did not mean Klaus, as Klaus had never been able to say no to George about anything). One wayward Beatle accounted for, then.

John bloody hated having to be the responsible one. For all Paul’s talk of him being ‘the boss’, he hated all the palaver that came with it. Like making sure people whose idea it was for this bloody film in the first place actually turned up.

That was the thing. It was Paul’s idea. He didn’t ever abandon his own ideas. Sure, he’d do things like forget to turn up on time to their first meeting with Eppy because he’d slept in, but if it was something that was his baby, he’d be there early, with bells on, every day.

The Magical Mystery Tour is coming to take you away!

The lad was nothing if not consistent. So, anything other than that wasn’t worrying in the slightest.

All they could do was sit and wait for him.

Well. That, and ask Mal to try to get him on the phone.

They idled away the time by chatting unenthusiastically on and off. People asked how they had gotten on at Saturday’s meeting and they couldn’t give them an answer. Glynis had mentioned his wife, Sally or Sylvia or Sarah or something, was pregnant. Hindsay-Logg or possibly Lindsay-Hogg wittered on about whether they should consider cancelling or postponing. Never mind they hadn’t even actually decided what they were or weren’t doing on the 18th or 19th. It was almost one of those riddles they gave to you when you were an annoying kid just to make you shut up. How do you cancel something that isn’t actually happening and nobody knows what it is yet anyway?

Eventually, Mal shuffled up to him and murmured, “I’ve got him on the phone in Cavendish. Want to talk to him?”

John nodded and levered himself out of his seat, wrapping his coat around him again and trotting after Mal.

“Any luck on sorting the heating out, Mal?”

Mal shook his head dolefully. “It’s proper packed up. Only thing we could do is bring in some portable ones and power them off generators, but the noise off those’ll not suit you boys or the film lot, or Glyn.”

John exhaled loudly. “True. Still. It’s a bugger it’s so cold.”

Mal handed him the phone and made himself scarce.

“Alright, Macca.”

Silence for a moment, then, “Alright, John.”

Paul sounded terrible. Not just like he’d crawled out of bed, though that was definitely the case. He sounded like he was pulling his voice up from the depths of hell.

“Bad when I’m the early bird, lad,” John said as gently as he could manage.

Paul let out a mirthless laugh. “Well, everything’s bad nowadays, isn’t it?”

John closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, pressing the phone as close to his ear as possible.

“Well, it can’t get much worse,” he tried to joke. The silence he received showed how well it landed.

“Y’know, we’re better than you think, Macca.”

“And how’s that then?” The retort was sharp and bitter as anything.

“We’re not them.”

The line went silent again. He could hear voices in the background. Linda and her kid, likely.

“How aren’t we though?” Paul sounded less combative now. John let a small smile play across his face.

“Remember what Richie said. We couldn’t be them even if we wanted now. Just us knowing about it changes things.”

He could hear Paul let out a sigh. “I- I dunno. I just can’t get it out of me head. How am I s’posed to just come in an’ play like nothin’s wrong? How did you manage it?”

John took a quick look around for any eavesdroppers, then turned around to practically lean into the wall.

“I’m not going to tell you I weren’t bad enough yesterday. But d’you know what I ended up thinkin’?”

He waited for a reply and eventually got a reluctant “Hmm?”

Good enough.

“The universe doesn’t want it to happen, Pauly. Things went wrong for another set of Beatles, but not us.”

“Not yet,” came the reply.

“No. Not us ever. That happened somewhere else. Somewhen else. To somebody else. Yeah, we could have gone down that path, but we’re not gonna now. We’ll make other mistakes, but not those ones.”

A shaky inhale, then: “We?”

Ah. There it was.

“Yeah. We.”

He could hear shuffling and a muffled noise, as if Paul had covered the mouthpiece to tell someone something.

“Alright, I’ll head in. See you in a while.”

“See you.”

John hung up the phone and slumped against the wall. Two wayward Beatles accounted for.

Hard work herding Beatles, he thought. And not done yet.

Come Wednesday, they headed down to see George. Mal had put them off and put them off calling to George until today when he’d given in. Mal wasn’t trying to cause trouble or nothing, more like he was trying to be as careful as possible with George. None of them really wanted to argue the toss with Mal about it, given how he’d been at the sharp end of things since Friday. But today they were given the all clear.

They had parked up in front of Kinfauns but none of them had gotten out of the car.

“We’re gonna have to brave it eventually, fellas,” Ringo said, not moving.

Paul exhaled and crossed his arms. John just kicked the back of the driver’s seat.

“We have to face him,” Ringo said quietly. “We can’t hide.”

“I know.” Paul slumped in the passenger’s seat. “Just tryin’ to work up the courage, here.”

“Courage, nothin’,” John grumbled from the back. “I’m tryin’ to figure out how the fuck we tell ‘im what happened without actually tellin’ ‘im what happened.”

Really, that they hadn’t figured this out before now was classic fuckin’ them.

Paul groaned. “Not this again, Johnny. We talked about this. We can’t tell ‘im.”

“As I recall, it was a one-all draw, with one abstainer. A certain R. Starkey.”

“Look,” Ringo defended himself. “I don’t know what the right thing to do is. Best I can say is we’ll figure it out when we see ‘im. Now, come on. Shake a leg.”

They extracted themselves from the car slowly and made their way towards the house. They clumped together on the path, dawdling their way to the front door.

John paused, taking in the colourful designs that covered the walls. The house stuck out like a sore thumb among all the magnolia that seemed to be de rigueur for the bankers and accountants that made up the neighbours.

He loved it. No fitting in or keeping up with the Joneses here.

George had even used some of John’s own drawings for a mosaic by the pool. He grinned to himself thinking about the reactions it had to have gotten.

After ringing the doorbell, they shifted uncomfortably by the step, listening to the approaching footsteps and the door unlatching.

“Sorry lads,” Louise Harrison announced with a very familiar grin on her face. “George hasn’t finished his homework, so he can’t come out to play.”

“Ohgod,” Paul squeaked. “Er, hello. Mrs. Harrison. Um, hello!” He shut his mouth then, trying to not embarrass himself even more. John made a note to mock him later.

“Louise, lad,” she answered with an equally familiar eyeroll. “I’ll keep tellin’ you, Louise.”

“Alright, Louise,” John grinned at her. “Down to terrorise the Southerners?”

She narrowed her eyes at him playfully. “I don’t know what you’re implyin’, John. I’m a quiet, retirin’ soul, aren’t I.”

John winked at her and she let out a cackle.

“Aye, an’ pigs’ll fly, right lads?” she laughed. She gave a quick look behind her.

She carried on, quieter now. “Mal Evans gave me a ring Saturday night. Said George had had a bit of a turn and weren’t well and asked if I’d come down. Sent a car up for me an’ all. He’s a nice lad, that Mal, you’d all do well to remember that.”

They all murmured agreement.

“Is he- I mean, how’s he been?” Ringo asked hesitantly.

She pulled a face. “Well, he were dead tired for a day or two, but that’s to be expected with these migraines, you hear. But ever since then, ‘e’s been running around after me like a blue-arsed fly. ‘I’ll get that for you, Mam.’ ‘I’ll do the washin’ up, Mam.’ ‘Why’re you standin’ on that chair, Mam, I’ll fetch that down for you.’ Can’t do a bloody thing without ‘im poppin’ up like a jack in the box. You’d swear I was the invalid, not ‘im! Now, how are you boys? John, have you eaten anythin’ today? D’you want a sandwich, love? I’ll tell George you boys are here and put on some tea, will I?”

She waved at them to follow her in without waiting for an answer and they trooped after her. John lingered at the back, still none the wiser as to what the hell they’d say to George to explain the last two weeks. He hoped Ringo was right. That they’d know the right thing when they saw him. They needed him, after all.

One last wayward Beatle to be brought back into the fold.

Chapter Text

He kept trying to tell himself that this wasn’t something to get upset about. Not in the great scheme of things.

Just another experience. Just another part of life.

If he could think about it in the right way, then it’d all be fine, wouldn’t it?

Breathe in, breathe out. Accept it.

All things pass. Even this, he told himself.

It was just the actual getting past it was the problem.

George vaguely remembered going to bed on New Year’s Eve - well, it had been New Year’s Day by that time - in his own house. It had been a relatively quiet evening with a few drinks and listening to an early pressing of the Fairport Convention’s latest album, the one with their new singer. It really hadn’t been the wildest night, so it should have worried him more when he woke up on Mal’s couch the next day to the sight of the other three staring down at him anxiously. But his head had been pounding so hard, he hadn’t the ability or will to think about it.

If it looks like a hangover and kicks like a hangover…

He had an image of Mal hauling him up out of the couch and essentially carrying him to the spare room at some point that night, but he’d been so tired and his head wouldn’t stop hurting, he hadn’t really woken up properly at all until the following morning.

He had dragged himself out to Mal’s kitchen and flopped down into one of the chairs, after mumbling something approaching “good morning” to him.

Plied with tea and toast, he’d eventually been lucid enough to hold a conversation.

“Sorry for imposin’ on yer hospitality, Mal,” George said into his mug of tea.

“It’s no problem, George,” Mal answered quietly.

No joking about how he would have to pay rates, or comments about how he could do with a wash (because he could) or anything. He thought perhaps Mal was feeling sorry for him because he looked proper pathetic. He felt proper pathetic.

He hated getting blackout pissed.

“I’ll be off home there, soon as I can,” he offered, but Mal’s face fell.

“No! No, George, I’ll get you home, lad. But we have to have a bit of a chat first, alright?”

“Alright…” George didn’t like the tone of voice Mal had. It wasn’t disapproving or angry. It wasn’t even disappointed which was usually what “a bit of a chat” entailed when it came to George.

It sounded like someone had died.

He heard that tone before, in Bangor, when Brian had died. It sounded sad and serious and hollow. And he remembered feeling like every word he said himself had an empty space at the centre of it. Like something that could shatter into pieces at any moment.

“You had a bit of a turn, lad,” Mal began gently. “You’ve not been well.”

“But it’s just a hangover,” George protested. “I’m not exactly doin’ cartwheels or anythin’ but I’ll be fine.”

Mal looked about as sick as George felt. “It’s not a hangover, George. You collapsed.”

George froze as unease crept through him. He’d say Mal was lying but Mal didn’t lie to them. And the way Mal looked right now, all grey and serious, was proof of how worried he was. But what had he done to make him worry?

“Y’what?” George eventually got out. “No, but I didn’t- I mean, I don’t remember-”

Mal closed his eyes and exhaled. “What’s the last thing you do remember?”

George tried to ignore his stomach suddenly starting to churn. “I were at home. New Year’s Eve. Had a few. Listened to records. An’- an’ I thought I went to bed at home, but then I’m wakin’ up here.”

“Then, no. You don’t remember.” Mal looked grim. It didn’t suit him.

“Mal.” George was starting to get properly scared now. “What’s goin’ on? Did I- did I do somethin’? Why’re you lookin’ at me like that?”

Mal shook his head and gave George’s hand a reassuring pat. “I’m sorry, George. You didn’t do nothin’, I promise. It’s just- Lad, you’ve forgotten things. Days, really. Today’s the twelfth of January.”

He couldn’t say he’d reacted well, exactly. He’d argued. He’d scoffed. He’d tried to pass it all off as a bad joke. It had taken Mal showing him the day before’s newspaper and putting on the radio for the lunchtime news for him to believe him. And once he’d started believing Mal, he’d ended up practically flying into the bathroom to throw up his breakfast.

Mal had taken him home that evening, once a doctor had been to the flat to take a look at him. He’d told him exactly what he’d told Mal and Mal had told the doctor what he knew. George had been slightly off for the last few days at Twickenham, apparently, and he’d complained of a pain in his head that had started two days before. Then, there was a band meeting at Mal’s flat (why were they there, wondered George, and not at one of their own houses or Apple), and George had collapsed.

The doctor checked him over and couldn’t find anything particular to pin it all on. A migraine, perhaps, he said doubtfully, though he hadn’t a history of them. He’d have to come back in a few weeks to follow up. They’d need to keep an eye on him, but he was young and fit and didn’t seem to have anything particular wrong with him.

Probably thought it was drugs, George thought cynically. He couldn’t remember taking anything that could do something like this, but that wasn’t going to convince anyone who had their minds made up already.

Then, they left for Kinfauns, George managing to pry one or two more details from Mal on the way. One detail in particular.

He’d left the band.

The meeting had been about him leaving The Beatles. Mal had broken it to him as gently as he could and with as much reassurance as he could manage, but it still knocked him sideways.

“Don’t be worryin’ about that, now, George. You just need to concentrate on gettin’ better, alright. The boys’ll be down to see you in a few days and you’ll sort it all out, no problem.”

George hadn’t argued. He’d been too thunderstruck to manage more than a reply of “I s’pose.” Anything like “but why” or “did I jump or was I pushed” or “should I be sad or happy or-” was beyond him.

When they got to Kinfauns, Mal handed him over to his mother.

He supposed he should be irritated that they had called her down to mind him, a grown man of 25, but he couldn’t be, not really. Not when all he wanted was for her to give him a hug and tell him it’d all be alright.

He’d left the band he’d been in since he was 14.

He couldn’t remember anything since New Year’s Eve, no matter how he tried to jolt his memory.

His head still hurt like a bastard.

It would have been one thing, though, if that was all there was. Those days gone from him forever and the only things left were a bridge burning behind him and a lingering pain shooting up and out through his eyes.

It wasn’t, though.

He couldn’t call them bad dreams. He couldn’t even really call them dreams. He’d wake up with a weird, sad feeling and the remnants of a conversation he could have sworn he’d heard before (but he hadn’t) or an image of something he’d never seen before but he would feel like he knew in his heart.

Once, he’d woken up apologising. He didn’t know who to or what for.

The not-dreams and the headache eased a little as the days passed. But he was still off-balance. He wasn’t feeling entirely himself, was the thing. He’d spent long enough trying to figure out exactly who that was, and it was a work in progress, right, but it felt sometimes like he was thinking things and feeling things that came from somewhere else.

He’d be halfway through telling Mam that she really needed to take things a bit easier and he’d start wondering when he’d started thinking of her as needing minding. It didn’t make sense. His mam was like one of them dynamos. Always brimming with energy and in the middle of doing something as long as he could remember. Why was he suddenly so worried?

It was no harm, he tried to tell himself, for him to take a few things off her shoulders. Hadn’t she worked hard enough all her life?

In any case, him doing the washing up or fetching this, that or the other thing for her, was a decent distraction from thinking about his missing two weeks and everything else that had gone wrong.

Mal’s promise that the other lads would be down to visit him to sort things out loomed in the back of his head, as well. He hadn’t a clue what they were supposed to be sorting out, never mind how they were going to do it. He could guess, but the holes in his memory made him wary of it. What had he said? Done? He’d meant to go into the sessions with as good a grace as he could manage, but he’d left, so that mustn’t have worked out.

Did he jump or was he pushed?

He had been ill, he didn't remember what he did, whatever it was, he pleaded with himself, how could it count if he didn't know what he did?

Did that even matter now? It wasn’t like they’d have him back. He wasn’t going to kid himself that he was the greatest guitarist out there in the first place. He certainly wasn’t what they wanted or needed, just going on how things had been the last few years. Their arguing had been getting worse and worse. And now, he was some kind of liability as well. What if he had something like this happen again? No, they wouldn’t want him anywhere near the band.

There might even be an ad ready to go in Saturday’s NME.

Maybe it would be best to just tell them it was alright. They didn’t have to pretend they wanted him back.

Breathe in, breathe out. Accept it.

All things pass.

Chapter Text

Ringo stifled a yawn as he followed Louise Harrison further into the house. God, it felt like he had been constantly tired for the last seven years. As soon as he stepped on the Beatles treadmill, it had never, ever stopped. Oh no, it just got faster and faster. Even when they had stopped touring, there still hadn’t been any let up. The recording sessions just got longer to take up the space that the live shows had taken up. And even if he felt like he had nothing to do in a particular session, they still tired him out. 1968 had rolled over into 1969 and the background grumbling of “where’s the single, where’s the album” continued.

And the last few days, well, they hadn’t exactly lent themselves to rest, now, had they? At this point, it was probably better to list the things that weren’t aching.

Eyelashes. Maybe.

He hadn’t slept much since Saturday. Every time he closed his eyes, he remembered that moment when George had lost consciousness, falling limp against him.

When that older George had… left.

Lying there in the dark, he tried to think instead of the relief he had felt when their George, the George who should have been there all along, opened his eyes.

It didn’t really work.

He’d have to face that moment again one day, he knew. No point in denying it. Not just for George, of course, there’d be many others, but it seemed a particularly cruel thing for the universe to make them do a dress rehearsal for his departure.

He kept it all to himself, of course, though Mo knew something was up. They had never been in the habit of airing the dirty linen with their wives, though he knew this had changed when Yoko came on the scene. And he didn’t know if Paul was talking to Linda about this stuff. He couldn’t predict him lately. But Mo, Pattie and Cynthia had all been kept separate from it.

But it wasn’t just habit keeping him quiet.

It was what Paul was getting at when he was saying they couldn’t tell George. Ringo had noticed it at the time. Couldn’t tell him. Not shouldn’t. It was how he knew Paul wasn’t pulling the “I’m being the sensible one here, everyone just listen to me” thing, for once.

Knowing about it hurt. It was like holding something sharp and jagged in your hands. You couldn’t grasp any part of it without it injuring you.

But that was another thing keeping him from sleep. Going backwards and forwards in his head trying to figure out the right thing to do.

Yes, Ringo understood why Paul hated the idea of telling George the truth of the matter. Ringo was about as keen as Paul was on hurting George.

But the hell of it was, John was right, too. The thought of lying to George about anything, never mind something like this, made Ringo feel awful. John said he was just being practical, knowing that keeping something like that up indefinitely would be a nightmare. But Ringo knew that the one thing that could possibly hurt George more than knowing the truth was feeling like he was being isolated within the band.

Wasn’t that all their problem, when you got down to it? Feeling like the outsider within the gang. And doing something like lying to George on purpose about something so huge would only be proof to George that he wasn’t one of them. The four-headed monster becoming three.

Ringo had meant what he’d said, though. They wouldn’t know the right thing to do for George until they saw him.

Louise led the way into Kinfauns’ sitting room where George was lying on the couch, a cat sprawled on top of him.

“Shoes off the couch, love,” Louise commanded. “Company for you.”

George sat up and the cat jumped off with an insulted look. John being John, he immediately started trying to get the cat (Corky, Ringo thought its name was) to come over to him.

George looked as shite as the rest of them probably did, to be honest. Pale as fuck, bags under his eyes and it looked like he hadn’t shaved since they’d seen him last.

“Alright, lads,” George said warily. “Didn’t know you were comin’.”

“Well, we were passin’ by,” John said airily.

“Seein’ the sights of Esher?” George asked dryly, the usual smirk that would accompany his jokes absent.

“Be nice,” warned Louise (“Sorry, Mam,” mumbled George) “Now, I’ll bring in some tea and you boys can have a chat.”

George jumped up off the couch at this. “I can do that, Mam, no need for you to be runnin’ about after us.”

Louise gave him such a withering look, it was a minor miracle George didn’t turn into dust right then and there. “Think I might manage four whole cups of tea. Maybe even a plate of biscuits.”

George hunched his shoulders and shuffled his feet. “Right, Mam. Sorry, Mam.” Ringo hid a fond smile at it. It was like seeing seventeen year old George again, minus the quiff.

Time travel in its own way.

She softened then, reaching up and tidying his hair. “You’re alright. Now, you just talk to your friends, pet.”

“Right, Mam,” George murmured with a small smile as she bustled out to the kitchen.

Left on their own, they stared at each other uncomfortably for a few seconds before settling in the various armchairs, leaving the couch to George.

George cleared his throat and looked down at his shoes.

“Good of you to come down,” he offered. “Weren’t no need.”

“Course there was, lad. We only took so long so’s to let you get your feet under you again,” Ringo informed him. “Mal would have had our heads on sticks if we’d been botherin’ you before you were able.”

“Still. Not like you’re obliged, though. Not anymore.” George’s lip curled, but he didn’t look confrontational. He wouldn’t even look at them.

“Eh?” Paul sounded genuinely perplexed.

“Mal didn’t tell me much ‘bout the last while. Well, hardly anythin’. But I left. So he said,” George elaborated. “It- It’s alright, lads. I know. I’m not a Beatle anymore.”

He crossed his arms and leaned back into the couch, feigning nonchalance. And it was feigned. Ringo knew it as well as he knew the back of his own hand. George had been pulling that same pose for nearly all of the years he’d known him and more and more lately. Never wanting to let on to them that he cared what they thought. But he did. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have had to put on the pose, now would he?

“You’re our mate, George, course we’d come round when you’re poorly,” Paul said quietly. “You’re stuck with us. An’- An’ don’t be silly, you can come back, you know that.”

George looked unsure for a moment, then the nonchalance was front and centre again.

“Nah, you’re probably better off. It’s not like I’m Clapton or anythin’,” he said flippantly. “Not exactly irreplaceable, am I?”

“We don’t need Clapton,” John countered. “We need George Harrison.”

George shrugged. “You could do worse than Eric, y’know. I could give you his number, if you wanted. Or ring ‘im for you.”

Any protest was cut off by Louise coming in the door with a tray filled with mugs of tea.

“Thanks, Mam,” George said quietly. She gave him a warm, if a little worried, smile as she left the room again, closing the door behind her.

Silence fell over the room for a long moment. The clock on the wall ticked and the cat, finally tempted up to John’s lap, purred.

“George-” Paul started, but George interrupted him.

“I mean it, an’ all. I’ll ring ‘im, tell ‘im you’re lookin’ to get someone. Tell ‘im you’ve got me blessin’ to give ‘im me place.” Ringo didn’t know who George was trying to convince, but his voice was getting sharper and more upset and it was getting harder and harder for him to hide the distress on his face.

“No!” Paul looked fit to be tied. “God almighty, George, you’re not listenin’!”

“Macca,” John warned. “Wind the neck in. We’re not here to frog march ‘im back in, whether ‘e wants it or not.”

Paul closed his eyes and nodded, slumping back into the chair. “I know, I know. It’s just-”

“-he’s bein’ very George,” John finished, a sly grin on his face aimed at the man in question. “Mind you, we wouldn’t change ‘im for anythin’, would we, fellas?”

“Not for all the tea in China,” Ringo agreed. And he meant it with all his heart. There wasn’t anyone else who fitted into George’s place in his life. Never mind the band.

“We mean it, Georgie,” Paul added. “You’re our mate, not Clapton. And you’re the one we want in the band.”

Ringo caught a flash of disbelief in George’s eyes, before he forced his face to become unreadable again.

What was it that George didn’t buy, the offer to return or the claim of friendship? One was bad, the other…

Well… It meant they had their work cut out for them, didn’t it?

The older George had been thrown back to this time and he had thought it was to salvage their friendship. If he was right, then it couldn’t be too late to fix this. If he was right.

Just need to tell him we love him and to come back, eh? That had been his first instinct, way back before he even knew the depths of the problem. Maybe it was still worth trying.

“We love you, George,” he said firmly. “We want you to come back. John’s right, we can’t force you. But we can tell you you’re wanted. An’ you are.”

There. No room for debate.

“I- I dunno what to say,” George faltered. “I mean, me head’s all over the place anyway an’ now you lot are here an’ sayin’ all this an’ I don’t know!”

“What don’t you know, Georgie?” Ringo leaned forward in his armchair, ignoring the panic that was rising in him. “If you wanna come back? You don’t have to make up your mind now, if you want a bit of time. We’re not rushin’ you.”

The conflict grew on George’s face. “It- It’s not just that. I mean, it is, but there’s other stuff, too.”

“Like what?” They were edging up against the elephant in the room now.

George wrung his hands together, almost unconsciously. “I mean, why did I go in the first place? If you’re all so keen on me bein’ in the band, why did I go?”

Any minute now, Ringo thought to himself. Any minute and I’ll know the right thing to say. I’ve seen him. Talked to him. Any minute now.

Any minute.

Chapter Text

Paul hadn’t wanted to get up that day.

He hadn’t wanted to get up any day since Saturday, but this day, the day they were going down to see George, especially so. It wasn’t him not wanting to see George, not really. It was knowing they were wading deeper and deeper into dark waters. And not knowing where the right path was to avoid what The Older One had told them.

The Older One. He’d had to stop thinking of him as George. He couldn’t hold the two of them together in his head, it hurt too much. George didn’t have that sadness in his eyes. George didn’t regret. George didn’t talk about people they’d not met yet.

(Maybe they never would, now.)

Walking up the path at Kinfauns usually felt a bit like coming home. Their houses were always open to each other. You could turn up there or at Sunny Heights, day or night, and you’d be home. It was like being in Liverpool when you were a kid. Wandering into each other’s houses at all hours, only to be sat down at the dinner table and given a plate.

Paul felt like nothing more than a fraud walking in there today. Prepared to lie to one of his oldest friends. And he would argue he was right to do so, but he still didn’t feel particularly good about it. He didn’t want to. He just had to. It was for George’s own good.

Right?

He had only ever wanted to look out for George’s wellbeing.

Telling him the truth would only hurt him. It might put that sadness in his eyes. He didn’t ever want to see that again.

He decided as they walked into the sitting room that he’d keep a close watch on George’s eyes. They’d be his canary in the coalmine.

And then Paul had seen it. Not the sadness, but the doubt in George’s eyes. When Paul had told him that he was their friend and he belonged in the band, he hadn’t believed him. George had always believed them. Believed him.

When had that stopped?

And when had George started to look at them, at him and think they weren’t friends?

A month ago? A year? More? When should he have been looking at his eyes, looking for the change?

If he could pin it all on the last two weeks, he would, but he couldn’t. That distrust was new to Paul, but in George’s eyes, it was old. It sat there just as comfortably as the warmth and love for his mother that was visible whenever she was near and that Paul knew to have been part of him all his life.

When he and George had been kids, they’d been inseparable. And now, that kid, that man, his fucking kid brother thought he’d just drop him out of his life without compunction just cos of some row.

Weren’t no need to call, his fuckin’ eye. If that was what was going on in George’s head, he’d nearly consider all this fucking disaster a good thing.

Nearly.

Paul stewed on this as Ringo told George in no uncertain terms how things stood as they saw them.

God bless Ringo. Paul didn’t know how he did it. Any time he tried to talk about anything important, he couldn’t get the words out. Best case scenario, it was tortuous, round-the-houses nonsense. Worst case, he said something glib and shiny and worthless. And Ringo could just sit there and say these things. Out loud.

You’re loved, Georgie, You are.

Paul never thought to say it. And it turned out, he could have, should have said it ages ago.

But he hadn’t said it, even now. Ringo had. He’d looked George dead straight in the eye and told him they loved him. If Paul were honest, he’d admit to being half-jealous, half-terrified by the thought of it.

The Older One had said it too, to them.

Wasn’t Ringo scared by it? It never seemed like he was, but wouldn’t anyone be? He couldn’t imagine otherwise.

He told Lin, of course. And telling Heather, when she insisted on giving him hugs or brushing his hair (and beard), came to him as easy as breathing. But the idea of telling one of his oldest friends the same, of being soft. made his mind blank out with fear.

Paul clutched the arms of the chair as he examined George’s face, his eyes, for any slight change, any thaw, any human emotion that gave them a chance to fix things and listened to Ringo’s reassurance.

And there. The flat, fake indifference quivered and vulnerability and confusion took over.

“If you’re all so keen on me bein’ in the band, why did I go?”

Ice in his lungs, his heart, his mouth.

Ringo winced and turned pleading eyes to him and John. He’d run out of road. He needed help. Needed words. Needed them.

His hands started to shake. John seemed struck dumb, his uncertainty visible behind his glasses. Paul would have been more reassured if he was smug or gloating. At least that would mean one of them was sure of the right thing to do.

“Lads, what happened?” George looked between them all, confusion melting away into fear. “Oh god, what did I-?”

“Don’t-” Paul felt his voice crack and he cleared his throat roughly. “No, don’t, George. It don’t matter. Not to us. It- I promise, Georgie.”

He would. He’d promise George the whole bloody world right now, just as long as he let this be. Left it alone.

“Paul-”

No such luck.

“It don’t!” A plea and a promise and a prayer, all in one. Beatle-words, he thought hysterically. Don’t fail me. Don’t fail us. Make it true.

“You can tell me, I just need to know what I did, alright?” George held his hands out in front of him towards them, open and surrendering, but every bit of him was pulled taut, like a bow.

Or a guitar string.

“We never said you did anythin’, lad,” John said gently, but George shook his head dismissively.

“Didn’t have to, did ya? You can’t see your own faces. Plain as day.” He leaned forward towards Paul. “C’mon then, son. Let me have it. Aren’t I big enough an’ ugly enough to hear it?”

I can’t do this to you, Paul thought desperately, still clutching the arms of the chair for dear life. Don’t ask. I can’t tell you. I can’t lie to you. Don’t ask.

“You didn’t do nothin’.” It sounded feeble. Like he didn’t believe it himself.

George’s face twisted and Paul couldn’t tell if it was fury, hate or fear burning through him.

“No!” he spat out. “Somethin’ happened. Had to. I fuckin’ left. If it were somethin’ you did, you’d either be all apologies or makin’ it into a thing of nothin’ that I overreacted to, but you’d say it. Don’t you get it? I know you. I know what you’re doin’. You don’t wanna tell me, cos it was me.”

“It’s not that, Georgie,” Paul tried. “It’s not-”

“Just tell me!” Paul jolted back from George’s anger. “I know you think I can’t handle it! Stop pullin’ the big brother act, I’m not Mike!”

George calmed himself with a visible effort, breathing heavily and eyes screwing shut. “Whatever it was, I’ll have to live with it whether I know what it is or not. I’d prefer to know.”

Paul threw John a beseeching look, but John shook his head.

“He’s not wrong,” Still no smugness or gloating. Just resignation. “Not right we should make that decision for ‘im.”

“Richie?” George’s voice was quiet now. “What’s your vote then?”

“If it’s what you want, George lad, I won’t stop ye,” Ringo said softly. “You’re right. You’ve gotta live with it. But it’s not what you were thinkin’. Weren’t somethin’ you did. Not really.”

Outvoted then. Paul wanted just then to be the little dictator that everyone secretly thought he was. Put his foot down and shut the whole thing down.

Never speak of it again.

They had to speak of it right now.

“Alright,” he mumbled. “Alright, so. We’ll tell. It- It’s jus’ difficult, lad. It’s hard to explain.”

The others nodded and George sat straight-backed, waiting.

“Start at the start, then,” he said gently.

“No,” Paul corrected sadly. “The end.”

Chapter Text

“Y’see, George, uhm, you- well, it weren’t you, y’know- well, no, you don’t know, but-”

Paul trailed off, then tried again.

“I mean, if you look at it one way, it was, but not in another way. An’- God, I’m not makin’ sense.”

John weighed his words carefully, his eyes on Paul. They usually were on Paul, to be fair. Maybe that hadn’t helped matters over the years. Always looking at each other and damn the rest of the world. George had joked once or twice that they forgot anyone else existed when they were looking at each other, but there had been a small dose of gall in there fuelling it. A needle hidden in it to puncture their little world made for two.

But he’d been watching Paul for years and Paul had been fraying at the edges for months now. Since they’d started on the last album, really. Or when they’d gone to India. Or lost Eppy. Maybe something had been slowly pulling him apart since they’d met and it was only obvious now.

Looking at him now, stuttering and stumbling over his words, it seemed like he was a stiff breeze away from falling to pieces entirely.

A stiff breeze. Having to break an old friend’s heart. Either would take Paul McCartney and smash him to pieces. The old impulse to stand in front of him and deal with whatever came was still there, deep within him. It’d probably never leave, god help him.

And wasn’t all this something John was better at anyway? Breaking things. Breaking people. Paul, the velvet glove ready to make nice with the public and John, the blunt instrument underneath. A hammer, maybe. No wonder together they were a weapon to beat all.

God, he tried so hard to be anything else. To be gentle. Even with all the destruction left behind him, he still tried. He was always walking out of the wreckage and swearing that next time it’d be different.

Ah, but he walked out of it. Wasn’t that proof positive he was good at destruction?

Right. If he was gonna do it, he’d have to get it all straight. Get it right.

Once upon a time, there was a sourpuss guitarist who wasn’t such a sourpuss after all-

No.

Well, there was this rabbit, y’see, an’ you followed it from the future back to 1969-

No.

This is the BBC Light Programme-

No.

None of that. Start at the end, like the man said. And be sure to look him in the eye.

Well then, Lennon. Time to tell the truth and shame the devil.

“It weren’t a migraine, George,” he interrupted Paul’s dithering. “What made you collapse at Mal’s.” He held George’s gaze steadily. “It were something else. Someone else.”

George furrowed his brow and he could see he was about to lob in a question about what the fuck he was on about so he ploughed on as quick as possible. “You were someone else.”

Any interruption died on George’s lips, but his eyes widened and he looked between them all. Waiting for someone to crack and start laughing, probably.

“I know it don’t make much sense, lad. Trust us, we’re just as addled by it as you. But you said- well, it were you but not you, if you get me.”

“No,” George said faintly. “No, I don’t, really.”

John gave him a quick look over. George didn’t look great, no, he was all pale and tensed up. But he didn’t seem like he was about to pass out or throw up or go for one of them. Just sat there chewing on his bottom lip nervously.

Good as anyone could hope for. Keep going, then.

“Well, you an’ everyone else, lad. You were actin’ odd. Actin’ odd and sayin’ odd things.”

“Not bad, mind,” Ringo added. “Just odd.” Loyal as always, was Richie.

“Aye,” John agreed. “It weren’t right, because it weren’t you. That’s it, exactly. That’s all it was. You know us an’ we know you. An’ it weren’t you. It started after New Year, but we noticed it more an’ more. All of us. An’ by the time Friday comes, there’s a row.”

“My fault,” Paul said quietly, picking at his thumbnail. “That were my fault. Kickin’ up about a song, as bloody usual.”

“That’s what started it but it weren’t the point of it,” John corrected him. They could rake over who started what afterwards. Paul could be as much of a martyr as he wanted once they’d gotten everything out in the open.

“What’s the point, then?” George wasn’t looking away from them, but he wouldn’t focus on any one of them either, his eyes constantly darting between them all. John couldn’t tell how he was taking it.

“The point- well, we knew somethin’ was off. You weren’t yourself, that’s as good as I can put it. So, there’s a blow up an’ you said you were leavin’ the band.” He knew he was leaving things out. He couldn’t think of a way to put them that didn’t make them sound either inconsequential or melodramatic.

You made me eat when I couldn’t think to do it. We threw all the usual shite that drives you mad at you and you didn’t even blink. You had a grief in you that I knew from my own heart and it made me afraid to look at you.

He couldn’t dwell on it. He had to keep going.

“Mal found you out in the car park an’ ended up havin’ to bring you back to his flat. You weren’t- Well, you weren’t well an’ you weren’t you. Gave poor Mal a right scare, it did.”

George shrunk in on himself. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t-”

“Exactly,” Ringo stopped him. “You didn’t. That’s what we’re sayin’. It weren’t you.”

If John never had to hear George Harrison say “sorry” ever again, it’d be too soon.

“An’ when we went to see you the next day, that’s when we got the full story. Well, as close to the full story as we ever got,” John took a steadying breath. This was where the sting would be.

Hold out your hand and grasp the nettle, Lennon.

“He said he was you, but older. Not just older. Dyin’. He said ‘e closed his eyes expectin’ to die an’ he woke up as you. You now. An’ he panicked, cos you would, wouldn’t you, but ‘e figured after a bit ‘e could try to make things go better for us this time around.

“You’ve got to be fuckin’ jokin’,” George said flatly.

“Not jokin’. Or lyin’.” John looked over his glasses at him. “Sounds mad, I grant you, but Paul an’ Richie will back me up.”

They nodded on cue. The rhythm section in perfect sync as always. But the audience wasn’t having it..

“You’ve all gone fuckin’ daft,” George spat out, disbelief all over his face. “That’s your story? I got fuckin’ possessed or somethin’ by some dodderin’ version of meself?”

John could feel his temper rising. George had landed them in this situation in the first place and now he wasn’t even gonna believe any of it? Cheek of it.

“Now then, Georgie,” he snapped. “No respect for your elders? That dodderin’ version of yourself kept a fuckin’ civil tongue in his ‘ead. Nice to know you’ll get the hang of it eventually.”

A part of him winced at himself. Ladies and gentlemen, the hammer in action. But he couldn’t stop. Or maybe didn’t want to.

“Don’t you wanna know what you had to say for yourself, Georgie?” he crooned. “Such a lot of interestin’ things. You mucked things up, or so you said.”

“Play nice, children,” Ringo warned.

“Big enough an’ ugly enough to take it, I thought,” John carried on, determinedly ignoring him. “Or are you just all talk?”

George’s fists clenched. “Stop talkin’ shite, Lennon.”

“Stuck on your death-bed and you fucked things up enough with us that you ended up back ‘ere to-”

“John!” Paul threw a hand out between the two of them, almost as if he was some bird trying to stop a pub brawl. “Stop it! That’s not fair an’ you know it!”

“None of this is fuckin’ fair, Macca,” he hissed back. “You’re not the one who’s gonna get fuckin’ killed!”

Their glaring daggers at each other was interrupted by a strange noise coming from the couch. George had raised shaking hands to cover his mouth and he sounded like he was choking.

“You- Jesus, John, oh Jesus, you do. You get killed.”

Chapter Text

It had been a dream. It had been there in his head, but it had gone when he had woken up and now, it was back and-

It had been a dream !

He couldn’t breathe.

“Shit!”

He couldn’t fucking breathe.

“I thought he didn’t remember. Mal said-”

There was talking around him, but he didn’t want to hear it. Could barely understand it. It sounded like a far away crowd roaring, a surefire way of making him feel sick ever since ‘65. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and wanted to cover his ears but he couldn’t move his hands away from his mouth. He had to keep them there. Just in case he’d start screaming or throwing up or god knows what.

“You thought fuckin’ wrong, then!”

Paul. That was Paul.

Paul shouldn’t be shouting at John. He shouldn’t, not after- No, but they weren’t after, were they?

Were they?

He remembered the words down the phone, the newspaper headlines he’d desperately not wanted to see, the dull pain of missing his friend that he had lived with forever afterwards. Remembered trying to hold in his heart that he wasn’t gone, not really. No-one ever really was gone. He’d tried so hard to believe that.

He remembered that.

But it hadn’t happened yet. Had it? John was there in the room, but in his head, he was gone. Which was right? God, he wasn’t sure. He used to be able to tell what was real and what wasn’t.

“George?”

A hand on his shoulder and the couch sinking beneath someone’s weight beside him.

“George, you just need to take a breath, alright.”

Richie, he tried to say, but he just ended up choking again.

“Just one breath, go on.” The hand on his shoulder was something real to focus on. He could trust it. It was something solid. It was real.

You’re not the one who’s gonna get fuckin’ killed!

The hand. The hand was real.

(Breathe in.)

His dream (a dream, just a dream), that wasn’t real.

(Breathe out.)

Breathe in. Breathe out.

All things-

“Georgie?”

He opened his eyes slowly and cautiously lowered his shaking hands.

“Y’alright?” Ringo asked tentatively. He looked nearly sick with worry and George wished he could fix it. Any other time, he’d try to crack a joke or something to bring a smile to Ringo’s face. He always hated it when Ringo looked sad.

He couldn’t manage anything like that right now, though.

“Dunno,” he whispered roughly. “I- I don’t think so. It was just a dream, Richie. You’ve got to believe me. I thought it was just a dream.”

Ringo gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Course I believe you, Georgie.”

Paul and John had finally stopped snarling at each other and were now just staring at the two of them, mournful and guilty respectively. He looked away from them quickly. It hurt, seeing that expression on Paul’s face again.

And he couldn’t look at John at all.

He could feel his eyes burning and his throat hurt. He didn’t want to- No, he wasn’t going to cry, he told himself. He wasn’t a fucking kid anymore.

Keep your eyes on the floor.

Follow the pattern of the carpet.

Breathe in, breathe out.

But his mind kept slipping back to where he didn’t want it to go.

No. The warmth by his side. The steady rhythm next to him that would guide him to safety. Always there when you needed him.

George felt like Ringo was the only steady thing in the universe. The only reliable thing.

He’d steer him right. Even through this. Whatever this was.

That was the first thing, so. He had to ask. He was afraid to ask but he had to.

I’ll have to live with it whether I know what it is or not. I’d prefer to know.

“What’s wrong with me, Rich?”

Ringo blinked a few times, as if he was trying not to cry himself. “Oh, Georgie. No. There’s nothin’ wrong with you.”

George wanted to believe him, he did, but, ungrateful, argumentative bastard that he was, he couldn’t let it go.

“But- but he said it, an’ I knew it were true.” It had appeared in his mind as an accepted fact, and he knew it was true like he knew the sun rose in the east and set in the west. “It wasn’t there an’ then it was. Cos something- someone was in my head. I’m scared, Rich.”

Ringo pulled him closer. “Don’t fret about it Georgie, it’ll all be alright. We’ll be alright. Don’t be scared.”

“What if there’s other stuff?” The thought abruptly hit him. “Jus- jus’ hidin’. Richie, I can’t-”

A wealth of horrors there in his mind, sleeping. Waiting. And every dream he’d ever have could never be just a dream anymore. He’d never be able to trust it to stay inside his head.

He couldn’t stop the tears this time. He could barely stay sitting upright. He’d probably be on the floor, if it hadn’t been for Ringo.

“I shouldn’t have fuckin’ said anythin’, should I.”

John. Guilty and alive and so very John.

“Yeah, it’s not like I said how well it would go, or anythin’,” Paul sniped back.

“Jesus Christ, it’s not like I wanted this!”

“Well, how’d you think it’d go? Oh, that’s right, ye didn’t think, did-”

“Stop!” George couldn’t listen to them anymore. “Stop, for fuck’s sake!”

It didn’t matter he couldn’t stop crying. Didn’t matter he sounded half-mad and probably looked it, too. He couldn’t keep hearing them argue. He had to stop them. He had to get them to see.

“Georgie, I know you’re upset-” Paul began cautiously.

You don’t know. You couldn’t. No-one invaded your mind, your body and left you with nothing except a headache and a horror story.

Someone had been in his head. Walked around in his body. Ate and slept and went to work and talked to the people he loved.

Not now, Harrison. Not now. Maybe not ever.

“Just stop arguin’” he said miserably. “You’ll regret it. You will.”

Paul froze momentarily, then guilt and grief washed over him visibly.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “Yeah. An’ I’m sorry, Johnny. I know you didn’t want this.”

“It’s alright,” John answered quietly. “I didn’t think.” He let out a humourless laugh. “I never fuckin’ think. I’m sorry, Georgie.”

George warily looked over at him. It was like a weird inverse of seeing double. His eyes told him that John was sitting across from him, pale and grim and unhealthy looking, but breathing. His brain and his heart told him he was looking at a dead man. He tried to hold his head up, to keep looking at him, but his eyes swam again and he couldn’t.

“It’s alright, Johnny,” he managed to say, closing his eyes. “You didn’t mean to.”

He hadn’t, George knew that. Or if he had, he’d only meant it for a short while. John only ever wanted to hurt people for half a second, never any longer. Pity. That was all it took, sometimes.

He always meant his apologies, though. At the time. That was something.

George drew in as deep a breath as he could manage and let it out again.

“Was that it, then? What you were gonna tell me?” He kept his eyes closed. As tempting as it was to examine each of their faces for a hint of anything remaining hidden, he couldn’t trust himself with them open. “I got- got hijacked or borrowed or stolen or somethin’.”

“That- that’s it, yeah,” Paul eventually answered. He was trying to bury the grief in his voice, god bless him.

“An’ this fella. This… me, he told you about- about-” He couldn’t say it. It was bad enough thinking it.

Ringo took pity on him. “Yeah. He didn’t mean to, though. It just slipped out when he got upset.”

“Don’t!” George’s eyes flew open and he jerked away from him. “Don’t be nice about ‘im. He- Look what he’s done. What he’s left me with.”

“George, no, that’s not-” Ringo tried.

“Don’t! Alright?” he pleaded. “Richie, I know you mean well, but don’t.”

“Okay.” Ringo pulled him closer again. “Alright, Georgie. I won’t. Now, do you wanna hear the rest of it, or have you had enough? We can tell you later or not at all, if that’s what you want. There’s not a lot left to say, but there’s no shame in stoppin’. You’ve had a rough ol’ time of it, son.”

George looked around the room. They all looked fucking exhausted from it. Worse than usual, even. And he felt like he’d been through around ten different wringers. But the idea of there being more and not knowing it…

“Is- is there worse?” he asked. “I jus’- I mean, what I know. About John. Is that the worst bit?”

“That’s the worst of it,” Ringo confirmed. John and Paul nodded.

George felt his shoulders slump. Thank heaven for small mercies.

“Alright,” he said quietly. “Might as well carry on, so. Whatever else you’ve got to tell me, just say it.”

Ringo let out a sigh. “Only if you’re sure, lad.”

He nodded.

“We broke up the band,” Ringo began. “An’ we stopped bein’ friends. But that wasn’t the most important bit.”

“What’s that then?” George asked hesitantly.

“He said he loved us,” Ringo said simply. “An’ he always would.

Chapter Text

“He said he loved us. An’ he always would.” Simple words, maybe, but Ringo would say any day that he was a simple man. Might have been a lie, but he’d say it anyway.

George loved them. He’d said it and Ringo believed it. Believed it and believed in it with his heart and soul. Love is all you need, after all.

Wisdom of the Lennon and McCartney variety, but wisdom nonetheless.

Love, love, love. They all loved each other. While, no, it wasn’t all you needed, it was a beacon in the dark. A foundation for them to work with.

It had been love that had gotten them all through the last few years. Any day, one of them could have turned around and walked away from it all for good. From each other. But they loved each other, so they’d always come back to each other in the end. Ringo knew it.

He wasn’t so sure the other three knew it. Felt it for each other? Yes. Without a shadow of a doubt, yes. Knew it was returned by the others? Debatable. That was where he had them beat. He knew they loved him just as much as he loved them.

He saw it in how Paul looked at John like he was about to fly away from them, from him forever. Saw it in how John closed in on himself, sure that no-one would try to draw him out, that he wasn’t worth the effort. And he saw it in every time George had held out a hand to one of them in friendship with the expectation it would be ignored at best or mocked at worst.

But the love was there. It wouldn’t hurt them so much if the love wasn’t there. It was just a matter now of getting them to realise it. Realise each other’s love. Unfold it, someone might say.

God, all his mates had a real way with words. If only they fucking talked to each other, they might get somewhere. It was fear, of course. Fear and custom which kept them from it. You didn’t talk about how you felt, after all. Men didn’t. They might have dressed it up between them as being beyond talking now (or John did, anyway), but Ringo knew it was just the same as it was for any other poor bugger who felt things and couldn’t say them. He could hardly begrudge them it, even if he knew that they’d scoff at any idea of them bowing to any conventions. They’d smashed through so many, though, what was this last one? All he could do was just do it for them. Lead the way and hope they’d follow.

They had to talk, if they wanted to get through.

“He loved us,” he said again when no-one else seemed willing just yet to take the first step after him. “Even after everything they went through, even after they hated each other, they still loved each other.”

Ringo had been clinging to this love with all his might ever since Saturday. It wasn’t a cosmic kind of love, the type that George tried to tell him he felt from and for the universe when he was meditating. It was battered and worn and ordinary. But it survived. Ringo could appreciate a love like that. That was a love you could rely on. And if it was in the older George, it was in the younger George now.

“That’s it?” that same George asked, still leaned into his side. He sounded worn threadbare by it all.

“Yeah. That’s it.”

I’ll love you until the day I die. And after it.

Not a mantra handed down from on high by a guru, but something Ringo intended to keep with him for the rest of his life, nonetheless.

“Might not sound like much, lad,” he said to George. “But I think it’s somethin’. Y’know, that might be the point. Him tellin’ us that. So maybe we can manage the love without the hate.”

“You’re probably right,” George quietly conceded. “You usually are.”

“We’d do well to listen to ol’ Starkey, here,” John said with a small grin on his face. “Wise beyond ‘is years.”

Paul nodded in agreement. Ringo could still see his worried eyes roving over George. He didn’t know what Paul was looking for, but he had his suspicions. Paul was looking for a wound to bandage, most likely.

The thing with Paul doing that though, was how he always prodded too hard and too much at them and made them bleed anew, god love him.

Meant well, though. Though it always came across as him trying to get everyone to agree on how right he was, he did mean well. He genuinely seemed to think that everyone could be talked around to his way of thinking, which was surprising for someone who’d known John and George for as long as he had.

“Course I’m right,” he answered them. “As bad an’ all as things could get, knowin’ you love someone’s not the worst thing to hang on to. An’ that George hung on to it. An’ came back to here an’ now cos of it. Even if it hurt him.”

Their George sat silent and pensive and just as hurt next to him. He could tell from his face and his drawing in on himself that his head was paining him again and the tiredness was beginning to get the better of him. But Ringo had a feeling that this was their chance to get things straightened out for once and for all. That if they let it go to the next day or the next, they’d just pass over it again, skating over the badness like they had so many times before. But if they didn’t drag the badness out of the depths, it’d stay there waiting for a chance to grab them and pull them under for good. And the badness here was something that hadn’t just appeared with a spirit from the future. It had been there for a while now, no matter how much they all liked to pretend everything was fine in Beatle-world.

It might not have been their George who walked out of Twickenham on Friday. (How was that less than a week ago? It felt like a year or a lifetime, at least.) But it could have been. Maybe that other George had done it himself on the first go-around. Maybe it happened in every universe that had a Beatles in it. It had been Ringo walking out only last summer. He had come back when he’d realised they’d all felt useless and miserable and isolated, that it wasn’t just him.

Funny, though. It had never been just him. There might have been countless Ringos out there in all the universes feeling exactly the same. All of them feeling alone together.

And while he felt rotten drawing this stuff out into the daylight while George was sitting next to him, trying to hide how he was shaking like a leaf, there wouldn’t be a better time to do it. Any other time, and George would put up that front of his, hiding all his pain and fury and John would be disinterested and caustic to cover up any hint that he could ever be hurt and Paul would be shiny and impenetrable and still somehow bleeding at them for bringing it up at all. But right now, when they were all cracked open and holding their hearts out to each other, there was a chance.

“We’ve got to hold onto that love, lads. Cos there’s so much else there that’s hurtin’ us, we’re gonna need that to keep us goin’. An’ the only thing that’ll do any good is us talkin’. Bein’ honest with each other.”

Someone had to do this, he reminded himself. Make them talk to each other. And listen as well. He’d do it gladly. Even if it meant at the end of the day, there was no band left. And if no-one made them talk, talk properly, there might be a band, but no friendship. They’d had it spelled out for them, hadn’t they?

Maybe they couldn’t have both. As far as he was concerned, though, as long as there was friendship left behind, the band could go to hell.

Chapter Text

Ringo wanted them to talk.

Ringo wanted them to talk.

He had met them before, hadn’t he? Paul wondered in a daze. He did know who he was talking to, right?

Of course he had, a mocking inner voice said that sounded uncannily like John, that was why he wanted them to talk.

Paul wanted to argue, wanted to ask Ringo where the hell talking would get them.

The answer to that, of course, would be that here and now was where not talking got them.

He wasn’t just being selfish, though. Even though, yes, part of him was unendingly selfish. Part of him was screaming at the idea, wanting to flee the room, the house, Esher, the country itself just to get away from it. If his insides had their way, his lungs would be halfway to Calais at this stage with his skeleton trailing behind it. Didn’t Ringo know he wasn’t built for talking in the way he wanted them to? It just wasn’t in his make-up. Whenever that ability had been handed out, he’d probably been out the back smoking or chatting someone up.

If you could do that sort of thing wherever these things get handed out.

But, no, it wasn’t just his selfishness. He was genuinely worried for George. Worried that this was going to be too much for him, that this would be the last thing, the thing that broke him for good.

(He had been lost in the dark on his own for two weeks and Paul couldn’t bear thinking about how it must have felt. He must have felt so alone. Must still feel so alone, with none of them able to understand it.)

And then where would they all be? The band couldn’t continue if they lost George to this nightmare. Paul didn’t know how he could continue if he lost George.

This bright, brilliant kid. His bright, brilliant friend.

He would never, could never be the same again.

(Did he mean George or himself? He wasn’t sure.)

No, he tried to tell himself. George was tough. Tougher than any of them ever gave him credit for.

Never mind that toughness hadn’t spared anyone he’d ever known any pain.

And never mind that he doubted that anyone could be tough enough to shake this off.

And George was soft, too. There was a reason why his family were so protective of him, after all, even now he was grown up. Paul knew it, too. Always had. He would never call him naive, no, or soft to his face. (God, no, he preferred not having his head beaten off him.) Open-hearted, maybe. And he wasn’t afraid to show it, even if Paul thought it would have been wiser if he didn’t.

But, and Paul hated to admit it, there was one more reason why he hated the idea. There was fear as well. Fear for what truths were there to be spoken aloud.

It’d be about him. He knew it.

How he was ruining it all. Too bossy. Too keen. Too much.

Too him.

He could be a prick. He knew it. Didn’t say it out loud, but he knew it. And he didn’t need the lads to say it to know when they were thinking it. He meant it when he’d said to John and Ringo back in the canteen that he could hear when he was annoying George. Or, at least, when he would usually be annoying him. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t just want people to give in on an argument. That didn’t feel right. He wanted to make them happy to go along with him, happy to say he was right about something, but it always ended up with people (well, George usually) just that bit more frustrated with him, not understanding why he wouldn’t let something go when he’d ‘won’.

He didn’t want to win. He wanted to be right. It was different.

It didn’t help that there were more and more arguments lately. And, yes, he was at the centre of most of them. Every idea he had for the band seemed to provoke the others. Touring, the documentary, even the songs he brought in. Every single little thing was a battle nowadays. A battle to get them to care, to get them to participate, to turn up on time, to get them to, oh alright, fine, do it his way.

He just wanted what was best for them all, for the band to keep going. But all they saw was a stubborn git, convinced of his own infallibility.

But with Ringo sitting there asking them to talk, asking them to follow him and trust him…

(He’d trust Ringo with everything: his life, his songs, his family - fuck, he was family.)

How could he refuse?

“Okay.” He bobbed his head and swallowed back his fear and worry and selfishness. He’d do it for Ringo. And George. And John. “The love without the hate. Yeah. If talkin’ gets us that, then we should. Should talk.”

Ringo gave him a small smile. “Good lad. An’ no-one’s gonna hate anyone, right?”

“I doubt anyone ever hated you, Rich,” George said quietly. “I don’t think anyone could.”

On the surface, that sounded like George just being lovely, the way he could be sometimes. But there was something underneath that Paul didn’t like and by the troubled look Ringo shot him, he didn’t either. It wasn’t that he didn’t mean it. The words were entirely sincere. But there was something there that unsettled.

Well. Maybe start there, then.

“How’re you feelin’, Georgie?” He tried to keep the question from sounding like a demand or a plea for reassurance that he was fine. That the answer had anything at all to do with him who was asking.

George just shrugged.

“I know it’s a lot, lad,” he kept going, for want of any better idea. “But we’re worried, y’know. Richie’s right, we need to talk about stuff like this. An’ it’s alright if you’re not alright. Don’t think any of us could ask you to be.”

George sat silent for a few moments. Paul could see him trying to gather himself, trying to stitch himself back together as best he could in order to answer him. George always felt so deeply about things, it was probably the most difficult question you could ask him to give an honest answer to.

“I- I don’t know if I should be in the band anymore,” George said finally, head still leaned into Ringo’s shoulder. “I don’t know if I can be. After all this, I mean.”

Paul did his best not to let his reaction show on his face, but it was pointless. As well as he knew George, George knew him just as much, if not better and by the guilty look on his face, George could tell exactly how Paul was feeling and was blaming himself for it.

“I’m sorry, alright?” he broke out with miserably. “I jus’- What if it happened again? Or I had another fuckin’ freakout, an’- an’ people saw? Or-”

“Fuck ‘em.” The reply was out of his mouth before he even thought about it. “None of their business.”

“But-”

“No,” John interrupted, stern-faced. “Macca’s right. It’s our business. Our band. An’ our guitarist. If we want you in the band - an’ we do - then that’s the end of it.”

“You know that’s not right,” George argued. “An’ you know exactly what’d happen. The press would eat us alive. Destroy the band. Destroy you. I can’t sit back an’ let my shit bring everything down around your ears.”

“But you don’t know it’ll happen again,” Ringo countered. “Come on, lad. Leavin’ cos of that is no good at all.”

George looked around at them all, a mix of disbelief and despair on his face.

“But it might be what has to happen. What if- What if I’m supposed to leave an’ that’s what fixes things? You said it yourself, the older me was the one who left. Maybe that’s the thing that did it. You don’t break up. It’s just me gone.”

“No, it can’t be.” Paul refused to believe it. “It’d be one thing if you wanted to, but you don’t.” There had been days that he would have believed George wanted to leave, but not today. Not like this.

“You don’t know what I want.” George had gone mulish now. Always the least fun part of an argument with him, but Paul had to admit it was almost comforting to see he was still that same George on some level.

“Neither do you,” Ringo pointed out. “None of this is sayin’ what you want, lad. Just things like “I should” or “I’m supposed to”. Paul said it. It’s alright if you’re not alright an' you want to go, but d’you actually want to leave?”

George wrung his hands together. “I- I dunno. I mean, does it even matter what I want? I’m only a fuckin’ liability to you lot now. More than ever.”

And suddenly all the different pieces of the puzzle that he’d gathered since walking into Kinfauns, or even since walking into Twickenham, clicked together in Paul’s head.

“Who the fuck,” he asked as calmly as he could manage, “ever told you that you were a liability to us?” Because I’ll kill ‘em, he promised silently. I’ll fucking kill ‘em.

How dare they. How fucking dare they.

George refused to look at him. “No-one. Jus’ leave it. It’s nothin’. Don’t-”

“Tell me,” he demanded. “An’ don’t say it’s nothin’. It’s not.”

George curled up into himself again. “Jus’- I’m not stupid, alright? I know I’m not good enough. I’m not what you want, anyway. Every time I can’t do what you want in a song, that’s me not bein’ good enough. That’s me holding you all back. An’ now, you can’t even trust me to not have some weird fuckin’ flashback in the middle of a conversation? That’s a liability if ever I heard one.”

If George had gotten up and kicked him in the stomach, it probably would have hurt Paul less.

Chapter Text

“That’s a liability if ever I heard one.”

God, when it came to breaking Paul McCartney’s heart, Jane Asher really had nothing on George.

John couldn’t exactly claim he didn’t have an idea of what George was getting at, though that truth would have to be dragged out of him. He could hardly deny all the memories of those months when they had been closer than him and Paul: doing acid, talking all hours, discovering the secrets of the universe together and losing them in the morning… One of those nights, George had confided in him, told him how he felt he could do no right sometimes when it came to the great Lennon/McCartney. More often than not, the McCartney side of it.

But what good had it done George, telling him? All John had ended up doing was occasionally using George as a weapon in whatever fight he was having with Paul at the time. He hadn’t tried to help. Hadn’t a clue how to, if he were honest. Anything in that vein seemed far beyond him. John could barely help himself, could he, never mind try to navigate peace between two people like Paul and George.

But the problem wasn’t just Paul-and-George, was it?

I said,"Who put all those things in your head?”

Hardly a bloody mystery, was it? If Paul was at the top of the very short list, he was there beside him, as per usual. Side by side as ever, whether it was for acclaim or blame. Even if he wasn’t always the one picking and picking and picking at everyone’s playing (and writing and producing…), he probably was the one off to the side, egging it on. Making smart remarks. Being entertained. Finding it funny.

Thinking it’d help shore up him and Paul’s place at the top of the pecking order.

Paul was grey faced now and stuttering. “I- I never- I- No, Georgie, you don’t think that.”

Wrong.

John knew it as soon as the words left Paul’s mouth. That was the exact wrong thing to say to George. It was always the exact wrong thing to say to George. No-one could ever tell George what he was about and he’d let you know that right quick. All the years John had known him, saying something like that was a guarantee for a front row seat to Krakatoa.

No explosions this time, though.

George just shrugged and tried to hide his face. “Maybe. Yeah, I- I dunno. ‘S not important, anyroad, is it?”

Well, that certainly wasn’t worrying in the slightest, was it?

George wasn’t one to just give up in the face of an argument, either. Not as long as John had known him, anyway. Even if he rarely bloody won one.

“Course it’s important,” Ringo said quietly. He hadn’t moved away from George any bit. If anything, he seemed to be keeping a stronger hold on George. Keeping him as close as possible.

Like he had that morning in Mal’s flat. As if he were afraid that, if he let go, the future would come for him and claim him for death again somehow.

George shook his head at Ringo’s words and somehow managed to look even more unhappy.

God, for all the importance of talking, none of them seemed to be saying the right things. Ringo might have been right to say they needed to air all this, but all they were doing was grasping around in the dark and managing to poke people right where it hurt.

Well, at least he couldn’t make things worse if he stuck his oar in. Probably. This time.

He could hardly do worse than making George remember, could he?

“Think you’re outnumbered, lad. Three to one, right, Macca?” He tried to sound as light as possible, but only ended up sounding slightly manic.

Paul nodded, still looking half a breath away from crying.

“But it don’t matter,” George pleaded, looking between them all. “It don’t. I don’t know why you lot are makin’ such a thing of it.”

“Fuck sake, course it’s important!” Paul retorted hotly. “You can’t say somethin’ like, like that and then say, oh, no big deal or anythin’, jus’ ignore it!”

Though no-one outside of Beatledom would believe it of picture-perfect-Paul, he was well able to fly off the handle when he wanted to.

And now they’d gone off the rails. Again. Jesus, they really were rubbish at this talking sincerely lark. Get some reporter and a microphone in front of them and they’d spout rubbish ‘til the cows come home. Stuck in a room together on their own and trying to be honest with each other and they were two seconds away from someone either throwing a punch or bursting into tears. Again. And, if John were honest, he’d probably take the punch over the tears. Seeing George cry earlier had just felt wrong. And hurt. A burning pressure under his ribs and a stone stuck fast in his throat. A black eye and a bloody nose was easier to handle by far.

“C’mon now, Paulie,” he tried. “Give the lad a break.”

Paul threw him an incredulous look, but he persisted. “Don’t jump down ‘is throat, is all I’m sayin’. Won’t get anywhere that way.”

Paul opened and closed his mouth a few times, then slumped down into the armchair. “Doin’ it again, aren’t I?”

John let out a sigh. “A little, yeah.”

“Don’t mean to.”

You never do, thought John. At least you say you don’t. We’ll never get the truth on that one, now will we?

“We know, Paulie,” he said instead. “Just not helpin’ matters right now. An’ you,” he turned back to George, “Macca’s got a point in there somewhere. You might wish you’ve not said anythin’, but ye have now. Just like all the rest of this, we can hardly forget any of it.”

“But what’s the fuckin’ point, though?” George was back to staring at the carpet. “All I’ll do, right, is just make everyone angry. An’ upset. An’ if I’m gonna be leavin’, I don’t wanna go like that. With everyone miserable an’ it bein’ my fault.”

“So, what, are we supposed to fling confetti about an’ cheer you out the gate?” John couldn’t help the scepticism coming through in his voice. “Lad, you’re not gettin’ away from us that easy.”

George let out a horrible sounding laugh. “God, I don’t wanna get away from you lot. That’s not- no, you’re not gettin’ it. Any of you.”

“Explain it, then,” Ringo said patiently. “We’re not gettin’ it, alright. Give us a hand, then.”

John, even with the aid of the memories of a drugged out conversation from two years before, had to agree. George was the very definition of that saying about still waters running deep. Every now and then, something completely unexpected would bob up from the depths and floor you.

George still looked unconvinced, but it was hard to argue with Ringo. George certainly found it hard to do so. John sometimes wondered why he had latched onto him as much as he did. There had even been a time when he was jealous of it. Stupid really, considering how much he rubbed George’s face in his and Paul’s friendship. But Ringo was older and cool in a way that wasn’t trying to be and proper working class the same as George was. And John never liked sharing. He’d blame it on being an only child, but Ringo was one as well, so that didn’t wash.

“Alright,” George said quietly. “Alright. I’ll- I’ll try to. Jus’ don’t…”

“Don’t what, Georgie?” Ringo prompted.

“I dunno,” he shrugged. “Blame people. Wreck us even more. Make it into somethin’ I don’t mean.”

He looked intently at Paul, then. “Cause I don’t, y’know. Mean it badly. Or- or meanly. Or anythin’ like that. It’s not me tryin’ to be a bastard to you.”

Paul let out a wet sounding chuckle. “I know when you’re tryin’ to be a bastard, Harrison, don’t you worry.”

A small smile appeared briefly on George’s face, but disappeared as quick.

“I don’t want to be a bastard to any of you. You might think I do, but I don’t. Maybe I might have even wanted to be a couple of times, last year or- or whenever, but I don’t now. Not today. Not after- Not after this. An’ I’m worried to drag all this stuff up cos I know it won’t do no good. Might do the opposite, even. Make things worse. I don’t want to make things even worse.”

Made it worse though, didn’t I?

John didn’t know whether to be sad or impressed by George’s consistency through the years.

“Hidin’ it hasn’t helped, though, has it?” he pointed out. “Hasn’t gone away, hasn’t changed, hasn’t done anythin’ ‘cept make you worse.”

“John,” Paul warned. “Careful.”

“I don’t mean made ‘im bad or anythin’, Macca. Jus’ made ‘im feel worse. It’s like a wound that needed a bandage or- or air or somethin’. An’ all it ever got was worse. Cos it was ignored,” he tried to explain.

“It’s alright,” George said softly. “Not like ‘e’s wrong, or anythin’. I know I’ve been difficult. And gettin’ more so.” He snorted derisively, a sneer curling his lip. “Always bloody difficult, aren’t I?”

“Georgie, no,” Ringo disagreed. “You’re not. You’re no worse or better than the rest of us.”

“An’ that’s not what I meant, anyway,” John added quickly. God, if George thought he was bloody difficult, how would anyone class him? Astronomically difficult? A curse upon creation? Hell on earth?

Come to think of it, Mimi had definitely said one or two of those about him.

George shook his head incredulously. “But it’s not wrong. I’m always sayin’ no to stuff. Always arguin’ about songs. Seriously, why do you lot want me to hang around again?”

“Takes two to tango, lad,” Paul muttered. “You’re hardly arguin’ with yourself. If you’re gonna say you’re bloody difficult, then you can say the same for me.”

“An’ me,” John offered. “Though half the world probably would be there before you in sayin’ it. So yer in good company. Richie excepted, o’ course.”

“I object,” Ringo said loftily. “I can be a right fucker when I want to be.”

“If you say so,” John answered with a grin. “Take your word for it.”

“D’you really-” Paul started but paused, looking conflicted.

George waited for a moment, then raised an eyebrow at him. “Do I really what?”

Paul screwed up his face, as if he felt the very thought had a bad taste. “D’you really think that I think you’re no good?”

John knew, logically, that the question had to be asked if they were going to get anywhere. But it still sucked all the air out of the room. Who would want to give an honest answer to that?

George looked like he was about to either faint or throw up and John didn’t blame him one bit.

Chapter Text

“D’you really think that I think you’re no good?”

No, no, this was all wrong.

What the fuck was George supposed to even say to that?

And god, his head hurt.

Paul leaned forward in his seat, as though he was holding himself back from just reaching out to George.

“An’ don’t lie. You can tell me the truth, y’know. Big enough an’ ugly enough, right?” He gave George a shaky smile which didn’t convince for a second.

As if he wasn’t feeling like enough of a bastard.

George snuck a look back at Paul from under his fringe. For all he was hiding under the beard and the hair these days (Aye, pot and kettle, pet, he could hear his mother say), George thought Paul was looking more open and emotional than he’d ever seen him before, bar when his mam had died. ‘Course, kids that age didn’t usually know how to hide stuff like that, or at least, they had to learn damn quick. Paul had, at any rate. But for a short time, he’d been a raw nerve exposed to the world and George had done his childish best to keep the world away from him, playing music together while hiding away in his room or skiving off class.

And now, here they were. Doing their childish best. See how far playing music together had gotten them?

Had they ever really grown up? George was getting less and less sure of that as he got older. In amongst all the Beatle nonsense, it felt like he’d aged centuries, but had no more idea about anything than he had when he was seventeen. Less in some cases. Like Paul.

There were days he’d look at Paul and see the weird kid who made faces on the bus to amuse himself and he’d think, oh, there you are, you’ve been here all this time, here with me. And there were other days he’d look at him and not know him at all, no more than a stranger in the street. He wondered sometimes if Paul felt the same way about him.

He wondered sometimes if Paul felt any way at all about him.

But now, after hearing that trembling “d’you really think that I think you’re no good?”...

Like what he said or thought was important. Like Paul cared.

He’d been waiting years for the chance to say anything, hadn’t he? Here it was, here on a silver platter and he hadn’t a fucking clue what to do with it. He couldn’t just fling it away. He’d never get the chance to say it again, would he? An’ John was right, damn him. It had been eating away at him for years now, the pain of it poisoning nearly every happy moment.

But he never wanted it like this. Had it anyway, though, didn’t he? He’d have to drag this out of himself, or it’d destroy them all, not just him.

“Sometimes,” he croaked. “Yeah, sometimes I do.”

Paul’s face fell and if George hadn’t already been feeling like a proper rotten bastard, he would now.

He hurried on, propelled by the urge to fix everything he was breaking. “I don’t think you mean it to hurt, though. I don’t think that’s in you. Not to me, anyway.”

He hoped that anyway. God, he hoped.

“No,” Paul whispered. “No, I never meant it, for what it’s worth. You’ve got to believe me.”

Did he? How could anyone not, seeing Paul sit there looking like the world was collapsing in front of his eyes? Still, it took a moment to get the words together.

“I- I do, yeah. Course I do,” he reassured him. He had to, right?

“Do you?” There was that hollowness again that had haunted Mal’s voice that first morning. It seemed like everyone around him was mourning something and it was his fucking fault. Or at least, some version of him.

George swallowed down his useless fucking guilt and nodded. “You’re me mate, aren’t you? Course I believe you.”

But from the way Paul shrank away from him, he might as well have slapped him.

“Dunno why, though. If that’s the way you’ve been feelin’. An’ that’s what you’ve been thinkin’.”

It could have been an accusation or a condemnation, but if it was, it was only of Paul himself. The vitriol was entirely self contained. Not like George’s, which took out everyone around him, it felt like.

But, god, this wasn’t what he’d ever, ever wanted. Even on his worst, most miserable days, the days he’d felt lower than dirt in Paul’s eyes, he’d never wanted Paul to feel like he had in those moments.

Ringo and John watched the two of them anxiously, their eyes flicking back and forth between them. George couldn’t blame them for not saying anything. It wasn’t like he knew what to say, either, so god alone knew how they felt. And, well, getting in the middle of an argument over a decade brewing was no-one’s idea of a good time.

“No, but you’ll always be me mate,” he tried. It sounded weak and trite and Paul just shook his head. “No, honest, like. Me an’ you, we’ve got too much life together not to be, right? Not just years, but everythin’. All the mad stuff.”

He meant it. He couldn’t picture a life without any of the others, but Paul had been there for so long in his life, it was like his roots had twined around George’s and were impossible to untangle at this point without damaging them both beyond repair.

“Memories longer than the road ahead. Aye, you’re right there,” Paul said, almost to himself and straightened up a bit. George blinked and tried to not look confused. Paul gave him a sad smile. “No, don’t s’pose you know that one yet.”

“But you know what I mean, though,” George insisted. “No matter what, I think we’ll always be some kind of friends. I’ve never wanted to give up on that. An’- An’ I don’t think I’ll ever want to, seems like, with, with-” He stopped, finding it impossible to put the last few weeks into words. He carried on. “Well, y’know, with everythin’ from the other fella. An’ in forty, fifty years time, I’ll think the same, you wait.”

“But you doubted it, though, didn’t you? Times were bad enough, I were bad enough, you weren’t so sure of that.” Paul swept his hair back and out of his face, looking intently back at George. Greasy as fuck, he noted absently. Hadn’t he been taking care of himself? He gave himself a little shake. God, he really was turning into his mother.

“An’ don’t you try to save my feelings or my face, mind,” Paul continued. “You keep sayin’ stuff like, oh, you didn’t mean it or, oh, it’s nothin’ to get het up about, but you’re forgettin’. We can see your face too, George. All that hurt. It’s right there to see, if you know where to look, an’ I do. I might not have been lookin’ before, an’ that’s my fault too an’ all. But I am now. Have been since I got here. Ye can’t jus’ write the whole thing off like you’ve been tryin’ to do. That won’t do you no good. Nor me either, an’ I know that’s what you’re fussed about.”

“I don’t- I mean, it’s not-” George stumbled over denials, but he couldn’t get any of them right. Not with Paul being so focussed on knocking them down. He was right good at that when he set his mind to it.

“No, George. Jus’ stop it, right?” Paul shook his head again, then focussed intently on George. “I meant it, y’know. Like you did. Jus’ tell me straight up what I did. I can take it. An’ anyway, you know anything I come up with in me head will be worse than the truth, anyway.”

George had to give him that. Bad and all as talking about it would be, leaving Paul to just guess and torment himself with possibilities would be crueller than anything he’d ever say.

“Yeah, I mean, s’pose you’re right,” he agreed reluctantly. “Alright, I’ll tell you, then.”

Be honest. Be straight up. Tell Paul to his face what had hurt him. Easy as anything, if it’s only ever thought about or daydreamed about and there’s not a chance in high heaven of it ever happening. Not quite so easy, with Paul right there in front of him.

“I s’pose,” George began falteringly, staring at his feet. “I mean, it don’t sound like much when I’m tryin’ to talk about it, but- Well, I s’pose it started early enough on. When we went into the studio an’ that. Shows were fine. But, in the studio, first few times, none of us knew what we were doin’ an’ we were all in the same boat, so it were fine. But after a while, it were different. Whatever I did, you weren’t happy with at all. An’ I’ve never minded doin’ what you wanted in songs, but there was stuff you said you wouldn’t have said even to a session player. But you’ll say it to me. Cos you know me an’ oh, that’s alright then. An' I tried not to pay it mind for ages, y’know. But I s’pose I heard so much ‘don’t do that, why can’t you do this, that’s no good, not like that, oh fuck sake, jus’ let me do it’...’ An’ I heard it often enough, I jus’… started believin’ it. Second-guessin’ everythin’ I played. Stopped likin’ playin’ even. An', an’ it felt like everyone was thinkin’ all that stuff, too, not jus’ you. There’s George, whinging again. Don’t want to do his part, always kickin’ up a fuss. Takin’ ages to do somethin’ bloody easy. Thinkin' I was just some kid who got lucky. Who couldn’t play worth a damn an’ was a pain in the arse to boot. It was only the last record I felt like I got listened to at all. An’ that’s all I want, y’know? Jus’ hear me out. Jus’ want the time of day, really. You don’t have to go along with me or anythin’.”

Ringo’s steady supporting warmth next to him never wavered through any of his rambling, which he was grateful for. When he finally trailed to a stop, he just murmured a quiet “good lad” into his ear.

He stayed looking down at the carpet, unable to meet anyone’s eyes. He didn’t know what would be worse to see. Pity? Anger? Guilt? Before all this, he’d have said indifference, but he knew better now. He could live with feeling hurt, but not his hurt hurting other people.

And didn’t it all seem pathetic, now he’d laid it all out? Compared to what he knew was coming for John (or had come, or might not now…), what did a few hurt feelings and a bruised ego amount to? Nothing much, in the grand scheme of things. He winced and opened his mouth to say as much when Paul reached over and put a cautious hand on his knee.

“Come on, son. Look up at us. It’s not as bad as you think.”

George slowly raised his head and followed the line of Paul’s arm, from hand to wrist to elbow to shoulder and finally to his face. And while he certainly looked guilty and angry and all of that, more than anything else, he just looked sad.

“I’m sorry, y’know. If it’s worth anythin’,” he said quietly.

“It’s worth a lot to me,” George answered honestly. It was. More than he thought. Maybe it was because he could tell Paul meant it. “It is, y’know. You listened an’ you got it, right?”

“Yeah, I got it.” Paul’s grip on his knee grew firmer. “Y’know you’re good, right. Better than good, even. I didn’t think I had to say stuff like that. But I said all that other stuff an’ that was all you heard.”

“You’re sayin’ it now.” George offered a small, but sincere smile. “Think that’s the main thing.”

Chapter Text

Look, committing yourself to a few years of nose-to-the-grindstone work for one of your lifelong obsessions wasn’t something that was exactly new to Peter Jackson, but he had to admit to a few scattered moments through the months (fine, years) he was working on Get Back where he wondered if he’d ever see daylight again.

Ah well. It wasn’t as if he was going to be doing anything else once lockdown hit, anyway.

But complain as he might about film conversions this and machine learning that and whatnot, Peter knew as soon as the meeting with Apple had been set up back in 2017, if there was any, any way of him getting to see the fabled Get Back sessions footage, he’d be there with bells on.

Fifteen year old Beatle nerd Peter would never have forgiven him otherwise. Hours of film and audio of the Beatles, locked away from public view like one of the secrets of Fatima… How could he walk away?

Those burning questions he’d had back then had never really disappeared. Why had the sessions been abandoned? Why had neither the film footage nor most of the songs begun in the sessions seen the light of day since? Why was any mention of January 1969 in interviews verboten, regardless of who in the Beatles camp was talking?

And the question that underscored them all. What had made George Harrison walk out of both Twickenham Studios and the Beatles?

It was a tired old chestnut by now. The Sixties had ended that day. Not at Altamont. Not when Brian Jones or Sharon Tate had died. No, the Sixties ended when George Harrison left the Beatles. Killing off the band and an era in one fell swoop.

John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr may have played together on their various solo albums afterwards but the Beatles hadn’t played together as a band since January 10th, 1969. George himself hadn’t even officially recorded music since then (whether he had contributed to any of those solo albums over the years was a hotly debated subject in muso circles). Naturally, all the important anniversaries led to an upsurge in rumoured reunions, not that that kind of talk ever really died down at all. There had been such heightened talk surrounding the run-up to Live Aid that Geldof had had to firmly deny anything of the sort (“Ah Jesus, c’mon. That’s never gonna fuckin’ happen. There’s more chance of Elvis appearing with back up from The Big Bopper.”)

And rumours of everything from unreleased Beatles songs to unreleased Beatles albums to a tell-all book authored by all four (to be released either on their deaths or after a Mark Twain-like interregnum of a century) had run rampant over the decades.

And rumours of where George was had run rampant, too. Some said he’d gone mad and had been hidden away by EMI or some other corporate menace. Others claimed he’d joined a cult (reports varied as to which). Still others said he’d disappeared to escape a cult (ditto). There was the inevitable contribution from the ‘Paul is Dead’ conspiracy heads who said he’d gotten fed up of covering up Paul’s death and had cut all ties to the band to live in exile on an island somewhere.

And there was the frankly fantastical claim that he’d started getting visions of the future and became a prophetic hermit living on Glastonbury Tor.

The actual truth, that he had lived quietly in Oxfordshire for decades as his neighbours would testify, didn’t really seem to dampen anyone’s belief in any of these. There was talk, of course, that there were vaults and vaults of unreleased music, but there was never any hint of anything being released. He wasn’t signed to any label, played no gigs and simply lived a quiet life over the decades. There were barely even any paparazzi photos.

And no-one ever got a satisfactory answer to the question ‘so, why did he leave?’

Well, it was 2021, Peter was damn near sixty now, and he was probably as close as anyone would ever get to an answer. At least for someone that wasn’t actually in the bloody film.

As much as it was scoffed at back then and ever since, the official Apple Corps line was that it was ill health that caused George to leave. Well, it was hard to deny it on inspecting the footage. The first moment he had walked into shot on Day One, Peter had sucked in a breath. Even taking into account the condition of the film reel, it was startling. He looked- Well. He looked ill. Green about the gills and shaken looking, cautiously walking around people, barely getting a word out. And later on, while he seemed to be accommodating and acquiescent to a fault, worryingly so even, it seemed fuelled by a frantic energy. Peter had found himself focusing on George in the background of shots, those tired dark eyes flicking constantly between the other three, never settling. Almost as if he was afraid something dreadful would happen the moment he lost sight of them. If you wanted to be funny about it, you could compare it to a tired parent of a couple of toddlers.

Peter couldn’t quite bring himself to chuckle, though.

Not when George’s anxiety seemed contagious. Paul’s eyes, seemingly glued to John for the first few days, slowly but surely started trailing towards George. And John’s eyes, glued to Paul’s, followed them.

And Ringo, saints bless and preserve him, looked at him like he was breaking his heart.

And no, there had been no fistfights, no screaming matches, no drug-crazed breakdowns like all the rumours had it.

(Well, jury may have been out on the last one with regard to the jam sessions immediately following George’s walkout. It wasn’t not a breakdown to start clambering around scaffolding like a kid after too many sweets and Peter would put money on it not being a sugar high.)

None of that. Just a few fraught minutes which broke Peter’s heart every time he watched.

Just George Harrison carefully putting aside his guitar and walking away forever. And that was that. The end of the greatest band of his lifetime. A quiet fizzling out after nearly a decade of sheer joyous creation. Over and done in barely four and a half minutes.

God, they had longer songs than that.

It almost brought him to tears. He wasn’t sure why that moment got to him so much, but it all seemed so unassuming. Pathetic, almost. Deeply and simply human, despite all the superlatives thrown at the four throughout the years.

And everyone kept returning to the scene of the crime, day after day, until, at last, the plug was pulled on the whole thing. Michael Lindsay-Hogg had said, in a long-distance phone call to New Zealand, that he really hadn’t known what to do except to keep filming.

”I knew I was on borrowed time," he’d confided. “I’m surprised they let me stay as long as they did, really, given how upset they all were. You almost felt that there had been a death in the family. But you can’t imagine how happy I am they’ve let you work on it. I genuinely thought it’d never see the light of day. And you’re terribly kind to let me be involved now. But, yes. It was almost like wandering around after some kind of natural disaster. Nobody quite knew what to do with themselves.”

Glyn Johns had said something similar, if more curtly. “A natural disaster sounds about right. Pity it never got straightened out. You can imagine how much I wanted ‘the producer that killed off the Beatles’ on my CV. It wasn’t the music, though. Whatever went wrong was not the music.”

No, it wasn’t the music, though not much was played after January 10th. Bits and pieces of songs from the Fifties. A brief airing of what would become The Backseat of My Car. A song fragment from Lennon that wouldn’t come to anything until the mid-Eighties. Really, most of the days were spent in meandering conversation, all present carefully stepping around the notable absence in the room. And at close of business on January 14th, the three Beatles present left the studio and never returned.

And yes, they’d carried on individually and recorded albums and did interviews, but never, never did they say what had happened. They talked about it in the broadest of terms, but anyone trying to get specifics was very quickly frozen out. It was sweet, almost, to see how protective they were of their old bandmate, even years after the fact. Even now, with the documentary, Peter could see it. The Harrison family were to be given equal production credits with the other three surviving Beatles. There seemed to be no ill-will there in the slightest, the bonds formed in the late Fifties lasting even after death.

It had occurred to Peter on one of his late nights going over footage, that George Harrison had never really left Twickenham. In the public mind, he would always be that extraordinarily talented young man who walked in there at the start of January. Instead of Twickenham, in a way, he’d really walked into amber. Forever twenty-five and forever a Beatle.

Maybe he had been happier that way. Maybe that was even why he left. Go out on top. Why try to change the way he was seen, when it was a fool’s errand? The first thing in all those four boys’ obituaries was going to be ‘Beatle’ and, unless one of them discovered cold fusion, nothing any one of them did was going to change that.

So, that was that. A question, answered. Ill health gave him the reason and a pathway out of the spotlight gratefully taken. Understandable. Nearly admirable.

And not the whole story, Peter would put money on it. After watching hours and hours of footage, he knew there was more to it than that.

Talk of Billy Preston was one thing. He was a friend of the boys and maybe George had heard he was coming to England for a few shows. That was reasonable. Especially seeing as nothing came of it. It was odd, though. The absolute conviction evident in George’s voice when he told Ringo that, of course, everything would be fine when Billy showed up was oddly convincing. If Peter didn’t know what was on the rest of the film reels, he’d nearly have believed him.

Talk of Olivia Arias Harrison, who wouldn’t meet George Harrison until 1972 was quite another thing.

Well, alright, Peter had to admit he was guessing that when George had offhandedly mentioned ‘Liv’ to Ringo, he had meant his future wife.

But anyone would have to admit it was weird. Peter certainly found it weird enough for him to put a mental asterisk over that bit of footage and ready himself for the inevitable ‘you’re going to have to cut that bit out’ from someone, probably Olivia herself.

Which didn’t come.

He’d had quite a few mental asterisks of that nature, most of them related to George Harrison.

And there was a huge likelihood that he’d be told to edit them out. Peter knew, when it came to the Beatles, every tiny detail in anything available would be taken by fans and scrutinised and analysed and taken entirely out of context. All the stuff he’d noticed would be chewed over for decades.

Things like the one-sided half-muffled telephone conversation recorded on the 13th between a present John and an absent Paul where the only comprehensible things, even after weeks of painstaking audio work, was a mysterious allusion to something Ringo had said and being better off than some other mystery band.

But the absolute pinnacle was the secretly recorded conversation in the canteen between Ringo, John and Paul after George had left. When he’d listened to it in full for the first time, he could barely believe it existed. A hidden microphone capturing the band at a pivotal point in their history? Absolutely corking, and that was before you even got to the meat of the conversation. Scandalous enough when the talk went from joking about who would replace him to earnest discussion of what could be going on with him. But the entrance of Mal Evans had frozen his blood somewhat, Peter had to admit.

”He was out in the car park. He didn’t seem too good. He was talking about- Well, never mind about what. Anyway, he got upset.”

That ‘never mind about what’ would drive people crazy. They’d never know now what George Harrison had told Mal Evans that day. But Peter guaranteed there’d never be an end to talking about it. Really, a documentary about the Beatles’ last days was bound to be essential viewing for fans, but when you added something like that into the mix, it was a guarantee that the world would be talking about it.

All the more reason why he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. As time crept on and the day came for the previews of the two parts to be viewed by the Apple camp, he started to make a list in his head of clips he could put in to substitute, going so far as to compare runtimes on some scrap paper.

But they loved it. No notes, no complaints, no ‘we’d very much appreciate if’.

It didn’t make a lick of sense.

And Peter decided that looking gift horses in the mouth never worked out for anyone and ran full-tilt into getting the final edit to Disney.

Two weeks before the premiere, categorically the worst time possible as it was when it was too late to change anything and you couldn’t help but want to change everything, he received a long, rambling email from Paul McCartney.

(And didn’t that beat everything - Paul McCartney had an email address that, hypothetically, Peter could use to email him. It beggared belief.)

It zigged and zagged between reminisces and congratulations. A few bitchy asides about things that rankled even now decades after the fact. He passed on John and Ringo’s takes on the documentary (broadly positive, but with hints that John had a few devastating criticisms that were being stored up for his next interview) and confirmed that the Harrison family were happy with it.

”Of course,” he wrote, “you’ve probably realised that we’d held it back all these years because of George. Not because he stopped us, you know. We knew it would remind him of a terrible time for him. The last thing in the world we wanted was to hurt him. And the world never understood why he did what he did back then. If we can do anything to change that, then we will and your documentary is a great start for us with that.”

And at the end, an intriguing sign-off:

”Hope to work again with you. The next archive project could do with some of your audio magic trickery. Working title of ‘Abbey Road’. I’ve asked Giles M. to send you a sample. Let me know what you think when we see you at the premiere.”

And sure enough, an email from Giles Martin followed two days later. A link to a secure site for an audio file with the name ‘Here Comes the Sun’ was attached.

He clicked play.