Please don’t forget that this never ever ever happened—this is merely a pleasantly odd export of my tiny little mind. Thanks! ;)

 

“Oooo-oooo-oooo!” Althea’s excited squeal made the three-point-turn into concern as Ringo helped the younger Vernon hobble out of his hotel room. “What happened whathappened whathappened whathappened whathap—”

Vernon Jr. quietly put a finger to her lips. “I’m okay. Really. It’s just my ankle is twisted a bit, is all. Don’t worry about it.” He smiled and kissed her on the forehead; they were looking right into each other’s eyes now. “I’ll think of taking walks with you, so it’ll get better even faster. I’d run a marathon if it’d make you smile.”

Ringo grinned too at the lovers’ dialogue before him. Now he could see what they saw in each other. Althea brought out the latent poet in Vern; Vern took the hysterical edge off of Althea.

“A sight to warm the cockles of your heart, innit?” quipped John from behind Ringo—a little too sarcastically, so Ringo shushed him. No matter how John felt about it, this was important to the kids—and, to a lesser extent, Ringo himself.

By now the two had arrived at Vernon Jr.’s arrangement of flowers. “Here. Er—I...” He trailed off, a hot blush highlighting most of his face.

“Ooh, flowers!” Althea rapidly appraised the contents of the homespun bouquet. “You got—lavender, grape hyacinth, purple snapdragons…” Now she smiled at him, wry and affectionate and full of understanding. “You forgot my favorite flower again, didn’t you?”

The younger Vernon reddened even more intensely, but she plowed onward as the two turned to leave. “Well, it doesn’t matter. The point is, you were thinking of me, and that’s all I care about. I’ll dry the lavender into a sachet and press the other flowers in my favorite book…”

“’S’pose it is a happy ending,” yawned George as the Fab Four watched the young lovers depart. Then a thought occurred to him. “Hey, do you think they’d, um…” He trailed off, letting the question hang in the air.

“Harri, be serious,” responded John after a pause. “That lad wouldn’t know what to do with a girl if he was given a handbook and a two-week training course.” He scowled. “I dunno what girls see in that type, really.”

“Much as we’d all like to hear your take on the Modern Woman, Lenny,” interjected Ringo before John could speak any further, “I think we all have our own agendas to get to. Now all this is over, maybe we can all get to bed. Or to whatever else it is you wanna do.” Ringo turned to go into his room. (Paul, mouthing a very naughty word with a look of panic across his features, turned suddenly and pelted back up the stairs.) “But as for me” —he yawned— “I agree with George. It’s beddy-bye for me, lads. Night, John,” he called to the remaining party as he closed the door. “Night, George.”

“Night, Rings,” called John by way of reply as he patted down his jacket. Finally he produced a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “I’m off to go and have a smoke over at that place with the picnic tables. After all that’s happened, I need something to settle me nerves. You go on to your kip, Harri. You look like you need it.”

George nodded mutely. He wasn’t surprised he looked run-down; he certainly felt like it. Somebody had been blowing fog into his brain and replacing his limbs with lead weights while he wasn’t paying attention. If he could just get a few more hours in before their wake-up call in the morning. Then—they had a train trip, didn’t they? Yeah, they spent most of tomorrow on a train. He could catch a few hours more on the train, if he kept himself out of sight of the fans. But the first step was getting through the door to his suite…

“Hi George! What about my poem now?”

Oh no.

Against all the reasonable expectations of common sense, standing in front of the door to George’s room was Gwendolyn Miller, clutching her notebook to her chest and grinning the grin of one who doesn’t so much suffer from a mental illness as enjoy it immensely.

For better or worse, George simply wasn’t in much of a state to appreciate a poetry reading. He reached for the doorknob, only to have his ingress physically blocked by his doting admirer. “Hey!” she cried. “You’re not even gonna give me a chance? You haven’t even heard it! Listen to this—” She began to open her notebook to a specially dog-eared page.

“No!” The angry edge to his outburst startled them both. “I’ve had a hard week and I’m dead tired and it’s hard enough getting along with half a million fans chasing you everywhere and it’s almost four a.m. and I’m in no state to want to listen to some poem you wrote about me! So will you please please please just do the kind thing and leave me alone?”

George almost thought he heard Gwendy stifle a sob as he closed the door. Or it may just have been the door creaking as it shut. He didn’t really want to think about it.

 

***Authoress’s note: If you’d like to use this story for anything or take it someplace, please ask me first. It’s just one little email, not too much trouble, and the odds are in your favor for a yes if you ask me nicely. I just want people to recognize the story as mine, okay? ;-)