It was two in the morning by the time Paul finally calmed down enough to call George, and it was three in the morning by the time George got to the house. Paul was pacing in the kitchen when he got there.
"Have you messaged Barney?" was the first thing George said.
"Barney?" Paul said. "Is this a Barney kind of situation?"
"It is officially the day John's supposed to die," George said. "This is a Barney kind of situation. Everything is a Barney kind of situation now."
Paul sighed. "You're right, yeah. I'll message him." He hurried up to the room where he kept the little phone and tapped out a message to Barney:
December 8, 1980. 03:12. John gone, don't know where. Come quick.
Back downstairs, he and George stood silently in the kitchen, waiting anxiously for Barney's arrival. The minutes crept by, and minutes, slowly but surely, turned to hours. When seven in the morning rolled around, it did so only to find George half asleep at the kitchen table, and Paul pacing madly.
"Paul," George said groggily.
"Hm?" Paul hummed.
"Paul, get some rest," George said.
"I can't," Paul said, shaking his head. "No, I — I can't rest. Not until we've found him." He kept shaking his head, he kept pacing back and forth. "Do you think we should go looking for him?"
"Paul," George sighed.
"Shit, we should've gone as soon as you got here," Paul hissed.
"We're miles from any town or city and he could've gone in any direction," George said. "By the time I got here he could've been in London, he could've been in town, he could've been — God, Paul, no. We had no way of finding him without help."
"Whose help?!" Paul cried. "Who's going to help us?!"
"Barney," George said. "We need Barney."
"Well, Barney isn't here!" Paul said. "It's been hours. I don't know what to do."
George shook his head. "You could send another message?"
"What good is that going to do?" Paul said. "Sending messages through time travel is — I don't even know how it works."
"You should eat," George said.
"I can't stomach anything right now," Paul said.
"The nerves are making you nauseous but you still need to eat," George said.
"It's December eighth," Paul muttered to himself, not listening to George at all now. He resumed his pacing. "It's December eighth. How did we get here?"
"You still need to eat though," George persisted.
"How did we get here?" Paul said again.
"I'm going to make you some food," George said, and Paul didn't agree, but he didn't protest either, so George got up from the kitchen table and went over to the fridge. He set to work putting some food together that he thought Paul would be able to stomach in his current state — nothing too heavy — then he sat Paul down at the table and made him eat. He watched him like a hawk until he had swallowed every bite. Then he made him drink some water, and once he was satisfied, George took away the plate and the glass. He washed the dishes, and put them away. "Would you please go take a nap now?"
Paul frowned. "Barney —"
"I'll wake you up as soon as Barney gets here," George said.
"But if he doesn't show up ever," Paul said. "Then I need to find John."
"He'll show," George said.
"If something's happened to him —"
"Nothing's happened to him," George said.
"You don't know that," Paul said.
"But I have to believe it," George said. "You need rest. You're no good to John if you're falling asleep standing up. Go — get — some — sleep."
Paul wanted to argue some more, but he couldn't deny that he was tired. So he agreed to go take a short nap on the couch, but he didn't leave the room without telling George how sure he was that he wouldn't be able to sleep at all. When he laid down on the sofa, however, a cushion nestled beneath his head, he was asleep within minutes.
When George went to check on him at around eight in the morning, Paul was fast asleep and snoring. George picked up a throw blanket from a nearby chair and laid it over Paul's sleeping form.
George returned to the kitchen and sat back down at the table, ready to wait, sure that Barney would be there very soon. Alas, George sat in silence for a couple of hours, and dozed off some time around ten in the morning. When he jolted awake a few hours later, he was still alone in the kitchen. He got up and wandered into the sitting room to find the Paul was still sleeping soundly.
Back in the kitchen, George made himself something to eat, and he ate in silence. He drank some water, then washed the dishes, and put them away.
George leaned against the counter, staring at the time ticking away for a while, then he buried his face in his hands and cried. Sobs wracked his body, and he quickly realized that what he was doing was morning his friend before he was even dead. Then, after a little while, he breathing slowed, he wiped his tears, and he made some tea.
Halfway through the afternoon, when George was sipping on his second cup of tea, on the verge of falling asleep again, Barney appeared out of thin air.
"Where's Paul? Did you find John?" Barney said so quickly that George, in his half-asleep state, almost didn't catch what he had said.
"Paul's sleeping," George sighed. "We were waiting for you. We have no idea where John went."
"What happened?" Barney asked.
George explained everything that Paul had told him — Paul and John's argument, John storming out the door, and driving off into the night. "He could be anywhere by now," George added. "We don't know what to do."
"Go wake Paul," Barney said. "I'll call Darren, see what he can do. I might have to call the F.H.O. if we don't find him soon."
"That seems like a bad idea," George said.
Barney frowned. "I don't love it, but we may need all the help we can get. We need to find John, and fast."
George nodded. He hurried to the living room and shook Paul awake. "Barney's here," he said, before Paul's eyes were even open, and Paul leapt to his feet, nearly knocking George down.
"Where is he?" Paul asked frantically.
"Kitchen," George said.
Paul bounded into the kitchen. "Where the fuck have you been?!" he bellowed.
"Wh-what?" Barney said.
"You're late!" Paul yelled.
"You did keep us waiting for quite a while," George said. "Twelve hours, in fact."
"But you said three-twelve!" Barney said.
"Yeah, we use military time here," George said, rolling his eyes. "That means in the middle of the night."
"Yeah, I set it — I —" Barney looked at the window, at the light trickling in from outside, then to the clock that told him how late in the day it was. "Oh, fuck. I fucked up the settings, I — shit."
"It is what it is now," Paul sighed. "What do we do?"
"I just called Darren," said Barney. "He hasn't heard anything. The only other thing that I can think to do would be to call the F.H.O."
Paul frowned. "I don't love that idea. Don't you still have Carlos Vega under lock and key? Maybe he knows something?"
"I can call Darren back," Barney said. "Have him ask, but it seems like a long-shot. We can't waste too much time on that."
The phone rang loudly where it hung on the wall. Paul sighed, and Barney moved into the next room over to talk to Darren on the phone while Paul answered the call. He took the phone off the wall. "Hello?"
"Is there an explanation as to why I just ran into John in Central Park?"
Paul frowned. "Yoko?"
"Yes!" Yoko snapped. "Why is John in New York City? Why are you in England? Why are you not with John today?"
"It's a long story, but — but okay!" Paul said. "We know where he is! That's something! Yoko, we're coming as fast as we can! Can you start looking for him? Try to keep him busy? Keep your cell phone that the Unknowables gave you with you, we'll contact you as soon as we get there."
"Okay," Yoko said, sounding unsure. "Paul, what did you do?"
"Never mind that," Paul sighed. "I'll explain later. Just go. Start looking."
"All right," Yoko said. "Goodbye." And the line went dead.
Barney came back into the kitchen. "Vega doesn't know anything — at least, he says he doesn't. But we don't have the time to —"
"I know where he is," Paul said hurriedly. "That was Yoko on the phone. She just ran into John in Central Park. She's out trying to find him now. We have to go — Barney, take us to New York right now."
"Oh," Barney said. "That's — that's good that we know where he is. But I can't take you to New York."
"What?" Paul said.
"Why not?" George frowned.
"I told you the second time we ever met, Paul," Barney said. "Things done by magic can be easily undone by magic. Things done in the physical world are more complicated to stop with magic. So if I take you to New York by means of magic, and the Shadows find out that's how you got there, they can easily go in and switch that around."
Paul groaned. "Fuck."
"It's fine, it's fine," George said. "Yoko is out looking for him, we'll go get a flight, we'll be there as soon as we can."
"But that's so long and —" Paul began, but George cut him off.
"Well, it's either that or give up," George huffed. "So what are we going to do?"
Paul fell silent, but nodded. "Okay," he said. "Let's go."
"I'll go to New York now and contact Yoko," Barney said. "The two of us will look for John. Send me a message when you get there."
Paul nodded. "Got it. Be careful."
"You, too," Barney said, and then he was gone into the air, and George and Paul were racing out the door.
***
Paul and George took off from a small airport just past four in the afternoon, and that took them to London where they took off just after five in the evening. They arrived nearly four hours later, just after four in the afternoon in New York City given the time difference.
They went into a men's restroom upon arriving in the airport, and George stood idly by, pretending to be freshening up, while Paul slipped into a stall. He took out the small phone that Barney had given him several years ago, and tapped out a message:
Landed at JFK. 4:17pm local time. Where should we meet you?
It took only a few seconds for Barney to reply:
Get a cab. Meet us at Central Park, where Strawberry Fields will be.
So Paul and George hurried out onto the street, hailed a cab, and headed straight for Central Park. The traffic was heavy — of course it was, it was Manhattan — and Paul was bouncing his leg the whole ride, the same way he had done for four hours on the plane.
"Paul, it's going to be okay," George said reassuringly.
"Youdon'tknowthat," Paul said, blinking back tears.
"Okay, okay," George said. "We're almost there. We're almost there."
"Almost there," Paul breathed out.
"Here we are!" the cab driver called from the driver's seat, and George paid him quickly before he and Paul piled out of the car and rushed into the park.
"Over here!" Yoko called to them, and the two of them followed the sound of her voice and raced toward her and Barney.
"Have you found him?" Paul said breathlessly. "What do you know?"
"We haven't found him," Barney sighed.
"And we don't know much," Yoko added, frowning.
"Oh, God," Paul said, dropping his head into his hands. "What do we do?"
"Okay, Paul, I know this is hard, but remember you need to do your best to stay calm," George said. "You're no good to him if you're freaking out."
"I'm no good to him if I'm freaking out," Paul repeated back to him.
"You need to eat," George said.
"I don't have time to eat," Paul said.
"I'm going to get you food," George sighed, then walked away.
Paul huffed. "What are we going to do now?"
"Paul, we —" Barney paused, and glanced at Yoko. He sighed. "We don't know what to do."
"Well — well, we can —" Paul said, shaking his head. "We can do something. There has to be something."
"Paul, we — we don't know what to do," Yoko said. "There's nothing left to do. We've exhausted all our options."
"No, we haven't!" Paul yelled. "We can keep looking! We can keep — we have to keep —"
"Our best bet is to find a way to figure out where it is he's staying," Barney said. "If we can figure that out, then we can go there and wait him out."
"But how are we going to figure that out?" Paul said.
"Well, how do you expect to find one person in a city of seven million?" Yoko shot back. "It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack? Worse even, it's like trying to find a needle in a pile of needles. How do you expect to do that?"
"I guess you're right," Paul sighed.
"Anyway, how many friends does he have living in this city?" Yoko said. "He's got to be staying with one of them."
"Just you," Paul said.
"Freddie Mercury has a New York City flat," Yoko said. "And Sinatra has a penthouse here. You've worked with both of them."
"I doubt he'd stay with Freddie," Paul said, shaking his head. "And reaching out to Frank Sinatra for a place to stay? I mean, the man's a living legend. Far beyond anything The Beatles have done. I don't think John would go to him."
"Probably not," Barney said.
"Well, there's also —" Yoko began, but was cut off by George coming up behind Paul and shoving food and a bottle of water into his hands.
"Eat," he ordered. "What's the plan?"
"We were just talking about where John might be staying," Barney said. "So that we can go wait around for him. What were you going to say, Yoko?"
"There's also Stuart," Yoko said.
Paul looked up from the food he was quickly scarfing down — because he didn't realize until just then that he was really very hungry — and he frowned. "What?" he said around the large bite of food in his mouth.
"Who?" George frowned, too.
"Stuart Sutcliffe?" Yoko said, eyebrows raised. "He used to be in your band?"
"Yes, yes, I know," Paul huffed. "But he lives in Germany."
"No," Yoko said, shaking her head. "He's been living here for the past two years."
Paul looked to Barney, who also looked very concerned. "Barney," he said. "Stu said years ago that it was the Shadows who saved him. And he turned them away because he didn't want John to die."
"That doesn't add up," George said. "Wouldn't the Shadows just kill him then?"
"That's what Paul and I thought at the time but nothing came of all that," said Barney. "But I didn't know that he was living in the City."
"I don't remember John ever saying anything about that," Paul said. "But maybe... I don't know."
"Where does Stuart live?" Barney asked Yoko.
"Oh, I have absolutely no idea," Yoko said, shaking her head. "I just remember John calling me one time to catch up and he mentioned it in passing — that he was moving to Manhattan, I mean."
"Well, there must be some way to figure it out," Barney said.
"Er — a phonebook?" George said, eyebrows raised.
"I'm not sure that I've got one," Yoko said. "I grew so used to not having one."
"Why didn't you have one?" George asked.
"Oh," Paul said. "Erm, phonebooks are going to become pretty much obsolete."
"What?" George said. "How?"
"Never mind," Paul said. "You'll see." He turned to Yoko. "Maybe someone who lives in the same apartment building as you has one? A neighbor might be willing to lend you one."
"Maybe," Yoko agreed. She glanced down at her watch. "It's almost six o' clock."
"Let's hurry, then," said Barney.
They hailed a cab, because Yoko lived on the other end of the city. On the way there, Paul thought that it was just their luck that they ran into three different car accidents that were causing a build-up of traffic (even more traffic than one would usually find in the city, that is). They didn't reach Yoko's apartment until well after seven in the evening.
They set to work, going door to door and asking to borrow a phonebook. Some of Yoko's neighbors rudely declined while others admitted, obviously embarrassed, that they did not own one. A few questioned them suspiciously about why not one of the four of them owned their own phonebook, then slammed the door in their faces. At long last, though, a sweet old woman allowed them to borrow her phonebook.
Yoko took it and flipped feverishly to the letter S, scanning the pages until she found what she was looking for.
Name: Stuart Sutcliffe
Telephone Number: Unlisted
Street Address: Unlisted
Yoko sighed, disappointed, and showed the other three her findings before thanking the old woman, and handing her telephone book back to her.
The four of them trudged up the stairs and went to Yoko's flat, collapsing, defeated, in the living room just past eight o' clock at night.
"Why would it be unlisted?" George wondered aloud.
"I mean," Yoko sighed. "You can pay a fee and keep your address and telephone number private."
"Yeah, but why?" George said. "What reason does he have to do that?"
Yoko frowned. She didn't reply.
"I don't really want to think about that," Paul said quietly. He stared down at his hands for a while, the whole room sitting in palpable silence. Then, after a while, Paul shot up onto his feet and began pacing madly. "There's got to be something. There's something we can do. There's still time — we can still do something — we have to do something. We can hit the streets, just look for him. We can —"
"Paul," Barney sighed.
"We can, uh —" Paul shook his head aggressively.
"Paul," Barney said, and Paul stopped in tracks. "I think all that's left to do is hope. Hope that we have done enough to change the outcome of tonight. Think about it, Paul, okay? Just stop think for a second. He's lived a whole different life, he's not settled down here, he won't even be in the same part of the city."
"But," Paul said, voice cracking. "But, I —"
The phone started to ring, but no one paid it any mind.
Paul sobbed, hand flying to cover his mouth. "I've been here almost twenty years," he choked out.
"I know," Barney said.
"I've done everything I could," Paul said. "I've never stopped, I've always tried my best."
"You have, Paul," Barney said. "You've done so much, and you've done it so well. There's only so much you can do."
Yoko moved to answer the phone, but she froze when Paul said, "He has been my number one priority since the day I woke up in 1961."
She looked at him, tears welling up in her eyes. "I know he has. I never should have said — I am sorry, Paul. You have done your very best."
The phone stopped ringing.
"Paul, this isn't your fault," Barney said.
"It is," Paul said, his voice squeaking. "I threw it all away over one stupid fight. One really stupid fight. I didn't mean to lose my temper. I kept it together for the most part but right there at the end I —"
"You have reached Yoko Ono. Please leave a message at the tone. I will get back to you as soon as I can."
"I can't —" Paul started, but another sob wracked his body.
Beep!
George sat down next to him and rubbed circles into his back.
"Hi, Yoko, it's John!"
All four people in the living room looked up, mouths agape.
"Sorry for rushing off earlier when I ran into you. I was sort of in a hurry. Anyway, I'm staying over on the corner of First and Seventy-Second, and if you happen to get this message really soon and you'd like to join me and Stu for dinner, we're heading out in about a half hour. Hope to see you. Bye."
"First and Seventy-Second, but that's —" Yoko began bewildered, but Paul was already on his feet and racing out the door without so much as putting his coat on.
"Paul, wait!" Barney cried, rushing after him, and Yoko and George followed at his heel.
Paul bounded down the stairs, skipping over every other one, then hitting the landing and whipping out the nearest exit and onto the sidewalk. He hailed a taxi and he was inside, door shut behind him before George, Barney, and Yoko had even made it to the door.
"Take me to the Dakota, and step on it," Paul said to the driver.
Paul thought that, surely, this would be the longest cab ride of his life. But he swore they flew.
The driver pulled up to the Dakota, and Paul tossed too much money at him. He was sure there would be a piece written about how incredibly rude he was in a tabloid the following morning — that didn't matter.
He slammed the door of the taxi behind him and started across the street, spotting John, who was exiting the building.
"John!" Paul cried. "John!" He'd made it in time, and even if John wasn't very happy to see him right now, at least he had made it in time to save his life.
But better yet, a grin broke across John's face. "Paul! What?! How are you here?!"
"John, I'm so happy to see you!" Paul exclaimed. "John, you've no idea! You have —" his voice caught in his throat. He broke into a run. "John!"
There was a figure stepping out from the shadows behind John, raising a gun, and shouting, "Mr. Lennon!"
"JOHN, RUN!" Paul yelled uselessly, running faster, harder.
Another cab pulled up on the other side of the street, and three people tumbled out, shouting a chorus of "Paul!" and "John!" and "No!"
BANG! The first shot hit a window, shattering it.
BANG! The second shot hit John in the arm, and he cried out in pain.
Then BANG! BANG! BANG! The last three hit home.