Break Me One More Time [McLennon]

in which paul has a blue christmas

"I have agreed to the Unknowables' terms of the Shadows becoming their allies," Marbella said. "One of those terms is that John Lennon shall live. You have nothing to fear."

"But you still want him dead!" Paul exclaimed.

"I don't want him dead," Marbella said. "I just believe that he should die, there's a difference."

"Is there?" Yoko said before Paul got the chance.

Marbella looked to her, one eyebrow arched. "Yes. He is meant to die because that it what was determined by the universe, by fate. But we let some things go for the greater good. So John Lennon will live and I will learn to be okay with that. And you will have to learn to work with me, Paul, if you want to get anywhere."

"Bare with us for today," Darren said. "Please."

Paul sighed, but he took a seat at the table. Yoko and George followed suit.

There were a couple people who Paul figured were of the original Unknowables team as they stuck near Darren, and there were a few people who he figured were former Shadows as they were sat closer to Marbella's end of the table. Barney was there too, sitting by Paul, George, and Yoko.

"Alright, so here's the deal," Marbella said. "We put all of the files that we've taken from the F.H.O. and put them through a filtering system so that we could look at any files that included the names Roger Taylor and John Deacon, and we added Brian May, Freddie Mercury, and the band name Queen in there for good measure. As you can see," she paused to gesture to all of the papers laid out before her, "we found quite a lot."

"More than we were expecting to find," Darren noted.

"It appears that they've taken John Deacon and Roger Taylor both from the year 2019," said Marbella, "and they have placed them in the year 1974. According to all of their files on this case, however, it doesn't appear as if they plan to contact them until December ninth of 1980."

"That's... suspicious," Yoko said, while Paul had frozen completely.

"We think so, as well," said Barney. "We thought at first that it might be that the F.H.O. is waiting until the Lennon Case is resolved to move onto whatever this case with Deacon and Taylor may be, but that doesn't really make sense. There are so many case advisors working for the F.H.O., all of which are allowed to be placed onto more than one case at a time. Additionally, they have no guarantee that the Lennon Case will be a success — no offense — so what's the point in waiting?"

"Right," Yoko said, nodding. "Okay. So... what, then?"

"Well, that's all we've come up with," said Darren.

"You don't know why they've brought them into their past?" George asked, eyebrows raised.

"Well, no," said Darren. "We can't see why they're waiting so long to contact them. And it wasn't a mistake, it was definitely that they were deliberately placed in 1974 because their placement date is stated over and over again within the files. And then their contact date, December ninth, 1980, is also stated repeatedly."

"Do we know why they were brought back from 2019?" Yoko asked. "Are they meant to keep Freddie Mercury from dying?"

"As far as we can see, there is no reason at all for them to be where they are," Marbella said. "And, in fact, while the names Roger Taylor and John Deacon came up a lot, and the band name Queen came up quite a bit, and Brian May popped up a few times here and there, Freddie Mercury was only mentioned, I believe, twice."

"F-F-Freddie's going to die?" George stammered.

Paul looked to him with wide eyes, unfreezing for the first time since Marbella had said "December ninth of 1980".