12-08-80

.15.

"What...What happened?" John gasped as he sat up and rubbed his sore body.

"It didn't work..." I breathed in shock.

John growled in anger and punched my wall. His fist penetrated through the sheet rock with a crackle.

"I, um, I'm sorry." John stuttered as he laid his head against the wall.

"That's okay, I can get it repaired." I told him as I crawled to his side. He was a terrible sight. Blood was still stained into his clothing but it was disappearing. The wounds seemed to call out for my attention but I refused to linger on them.

"No," John said to me. He opened his blood shot eyes and looked to me. "I meant sorry that I put you through that. All of it! I really thought it would work. I thought that if we shot Chapman it would reverse my death and I'd go home. But it didn't work." John sobbed. He pushed himself shakily to his feet and said in a hushed voice that he was going to bed.

I felt so sorry for him. He'd been so ready to go back and tell his son everything he'd done wrong. He wanted to back and live. Who wouldn't? He was so sure that it would work, he hadn't even planned for if it didn't.

I was helpless. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I didn't really want to kill a man, and that's what kept the bullets from staying in Chapman. I dismissed the thought. It was ludicrous! Absolutely impossible. However, so was the fact that I was living with John Lennon.

"It wasn't you." John's voice said from the bedroom door.

I kept forgetting that he could read my mind. It was a bit creepy. But I used it to my advantage. I didn't feel like speaking, so I thought my next sentence to him.

"It was like he wasn't even Chapman though." I thought.

A mental light bulb flickered on inside of John's head. He walked into the living room from the bedroom. 

"Maybe you have a point there." He said with an inward enthusiasm. "Maybe that's it! Maybe this Chapman was a practice dummy type thing. Something to plan with!" John began to get excited. His full strength had returned.

I jumped up and followed him as he paced the room.

"What if we were meant to plan with the dummy-Chapman and then kill the real Chapman in action?" John asked with a goofy grin on his face.    

"The real Chapman?" I asked. "But he's already dead."

John stopped pacing and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Not in nineteen eighty." John said with a smile.

"I'm not following you." I chuckled nervously.

"Don't you see!" John laughed."We have to go back to December eighth nineteen eighty!"

I looked the man deeply in the eyes. My hands on his shoulders. "John, this is real life, not the twilight zone. We can't time travel!"

"How do you know?" John asked with a smile.

"It's impossible!" I chuckled.

"You said it yourself; Its impossible in itself that we are living together, and yet here we are. How do you know we can't time travel?" John smirked.

I sighed deeply and gave in. "I hate it when you use my thoughts against me." I smiled and planted a short kiss on John's lips. "I hate it worse when I know you're right.

"I'm always right!" John smiled mischievously and leaned in for another kiss. I stopped him and backed away.

"None of that!" I said. "You go find a way to time travel and then we will talk." I joked.

"No wonder you didn't have a boyfriend." John joked as he walked away. He walked into my kitchen and set up my computer. "Where do I even begin to look for that?" He asked.

"How should I know?" I spoke, fidgeting with a ring on my finger.

John started by hacking into my wattpad and asking the entire Sci-fi community how time travel works. Each of them gave different answers but none of them were possible for us to try.

I decided to let him search while I got some sleep. When I woke up the next morning he was still gazing at my computer screen. His face was barely being held up by his his palm as he scanned the words of whatever page he was on.

I took a peek at the screen.

"Did you find a book about time travel?" I asked through a yawn.

"No." He sighed. " I gave up. I saw this book in your reading list and I thought it looked cool."

"Oh what's it called?" I asked as I took the milk out of my fridge.

"Help!" John said with enthusiasm. "As you can imagine, it's about me and the guys on the set of help with this bird named Annabel." John summed up the book I had yet to read.

"Sounds good." I acknowledged.

"Yeah, It's great. Very convincing. I feel like I'm experiencing a memory, not reading a book." John doted on the work.

"That's neat." I smiled as I sat down beside him.

"You know there is time travel in this book too." John started.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Annabel gets stuck in an elevator and she gets electrocuted when she tries to fix it." John informed me.

"Think we should try it?" John asked with a creeper smile.

I spit my milk out across the table and then wiped my mouth clean.

"John! I don't think you quite know what you're saying!" I accused him.

"I know what I mean. I mean for us to do what she did and go back in time, kill Chapman, and live our lives like normal." John spoke confidently.

"John you're asking me to electrocute myself to go back in time! That's all good and fine if it works, but what if it doesn't! What if I die? What happens then?" I rejected his idea.

"What if it does work?" John asked.

"Then like I said, fine and good. We lived! But chances are it won't." I spoke angrily.

John pushed the computer screen down and pushed it out of his way.

"Julian please!" John begged. "It's the closest thing I've come to a plan in over twelve hours. Please just try it." He begged. John inched closer and closer and on the last word he kissed me shortly.

He knew exactly what he was doing. In my haze of hormones and emotions I said yes. John remained close to me. I leaned in for another kiss. But John mocked me by pulling away and saying with a smirk, "Not until you go through with this."

I punched him playfully. "Jerk." I smiled.

"I'll take it." John smiled and stood up.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"To find some wires we can cut." John winked at me as he walked out of the kitchen.