FicWad

John stared at the five year old boy in shock. There was no doubting that it was Paul. The pudding-basin haircut and the crooked eyebrow were unmistakeable. Staring at the boy, memories started to surface of his first meeting with Paul, at a fair in Liverpool where he'd been playing with his mates. Except that both he and Paul had been teenagers.



The boy frowned at him. "I'm not supposed to know you yet!" he complained.



Gardener, who had come in just in time to hear this complaint, stared at him. "Oh, good grief," she groaned. "Keep him at home and I can't get him to keep a memory in his head for five seconds at a time. Take him here, and he immediately starts borrowing history from John. Estrelda's going to love this development."



"Yes, what happened here?" the Mistress said, having followed Gardener into the room. "He was a baby when you two arrived."



"I think his encounter with that other George stimulated a few things," Gardener replied. "Estrelda took him back to babyhood in an attempt to give him some background, and when he met George, he started to get it back again. I think he'll be a teenager pretty soon."



"Speaking of George, how's he going?" John asked.



Gardener sighed. "Your George has...well...failed, I think the best description is."



"Failed?" John asked. "I thought you said Paul had met him recently."



"We met a different George. He came off a porno website, of all places."



The Mistress stared at her sister. "What happened to our version?" she asked.



"He's become a vampire. Silver told me that the memories just wouldn't take. He wouldn't accept them. She and the other George are trying to hunt him down now."



"She was supposed to help him," John growled.



"She couldn't help him," Paul said.



They all looked around in surprise. Paul had been standing quietly, just watching John react to the sisters and taking in the whole thing. Now, he had changed. Very abruptly, he had shot up to be roughly sixteen and, as they watched, his features shifted subtly, losing the angular edge of a boy who couldn't eat enough to keep up with his energy requirements to adulthood.



"Explain," John said flatly.



"He didn't have any characterisation," Paul explained. "The version of Help! that the transcript author wrote didn't include all of the things that he did in the movie. That means he wasn't really a person the way the rest of us are. He was just a shell, and he couldn't take in anything. So now he's a vampire."



"We have to save him!" John said.



"We can't," Paul replied flatly. "He's beyond saving."



John shook his head. "No, I don't believe that."



"All we can do is destroy him before he starts killing people."



"No." John turned, and ran from the room.



Paul stared after him, and sighed. "I hope that he'll accept that other George that Silver found."



A dreamy expression crossed Gardener's face. "If he won't, then there'll be a place for him on my island," she said.



"Yeah, I saw the way you looked at him," Paul said, teasingly. But there was a hint of something in his eyes which distracted Gardener from the heated reply she was going to give him.



"Paul," Gardener said, suddenly worried, "You're not thinking of going after George yourself, are you?"



"I have to see him, Gary," he replied seriously. "I know he's beyond saving, but I have to see for myself."



"Paul..."



He touched her cheek, and then kissed her gently. "I'll be alright. I'll have Lyn with me."



"Who's Lyn?" the Mistress asked, puzzled. The abrupt changes in Paul had taken her by surprise, and she hadn't quite caught up yet.



They both looked at her in surprise. "The winged horse. It was a foal when we arrived, but I rather think she's grown a bit since then."



"Oh."



"I'll be back," Paul said, and left the room.



Gardener sniffled. "They grow up so quickly, don't they?"



The Mistress just looked at her as though she'd grown another head. Then, she turned to go after John.



As it happened, John was sitting on top of the castle, staring out into space, when Paul left. He'd taken to going up there to brood recently, and until now, the Mistress hadn't intervened. He had quite a bit to brood about. The revelations of his past had come about piecemeal, and most of what he'd remembered had been unpleasant, filled with anger and violence and resentment. He was trying to reconcile the cheerful, playful person he had thought himself to be with the angry young man his memories were revealing.



When Paul flew past on the back of a winged horse, he got angrier. Livid with rage, he started screaming abuse in Paul's direction. It was obvious to John that Paul was going after George. He was going to go and kill him. He wouldn't bother to try and save him, he was just going to destroy him. And John couldn't stop him. There was nothing that he could do to stop him.



The Mistress arrived somewhere in the middle of his screamed tirade, and listened, puzzled. "You really enjoy having somebody else in charge, don't you?" she commented.



John spun around in surprise. "What? What do you mean?"



"You wouldn't dream of going after Paul without asking me first."



"Of...of course not," John replied, abruptly puzzled again at his own compliance to her.



"You willingly give up your free will to me, simply because I'm the woman in charge. Is that because you don't want to take responsibility for your own actions? You'd rather just scream abuse at your friend, and then wait for me to tell you to go after him?"



John opened his mouth, and then shut it again. He would never have thought that he would react like that. In fact, his own memories told him that he had never done so before. Previously, he had taken what he wanted, and ignored the consequences.



"Don't you want to stop him?"



John stared at her, silent for several long seconds. Finally, he whispered, "I'm afraid."



"Afraid that Paul is right? He doesn't know himself, you know."



"What do you mean?"



"Oh, he's pretty sure that the situation is irretrievable, but he doesn't know for certain. He's gone to find out."



"And Gardener just...let him?"



The Mistress sat down next to him, and draped an arm around his shoulders. "He's a free agent. He can do what he likes. And so are you. You have enough of your memories back that you aren't in danger anymore. Your true personality is starting to appear."



Hopelessly confused, John stared after the dwindling speck that was Paul. "What do I do now?" he asked.



"You'll have to decide that for yourself."



John went back to staring after Paul. He hoped that Paul hadn't heard him, when he'd screamed at him. But he was afraid that he had. If he had heard, then Paul could easily decide not to come back to the group. And that was his choice to make. But Paul was his friend. He was also the only one he'd seen since the others had left. And what if George couldn't be saved? What was going to become of them then? John wasn't sure that he was ready to go it alone.



He also doubted that this other George that had been mentioned earlier could really replace their George. After all, he wasn't the same person that had been taken out the transcript with them. He had a different history. But then, the George who had come out of the transcript was nothing anyway. He had no personality of his own. And there was no telling what Ringo would be like when he reappeared.



And why were all the memories that were coming through bad? Why did they all show him to be a thoughtless, violent, self-centred prick? Surely there was something there that was good about him. He hadn't been bad in the transcript. He was one of the good guys. Was he going to turn into a baddie in the end? Surely that was not possible. Everything was changing, including him. How would it turn out? What would the end result be? Would there still be the Beatles? He had no idea.