I don't own the Beatles. I do, however, own a bottle of dog pheromones. Actually, I don't really care about this disclaimer anyroad, I just wanted to tell you about the dog pheromones.

A/N: Firstly, a thank-you to all of you for your incredible patience in waiting for this update! I'm so sorry it took me so long - I was a) busy and b) freaked out about writing this chapter, as its tone is a little different. But I'm back now, baby! Also, ta to all of my wonderful reviewers: FanFiction - Swimmer girl 17, leah9712, ThisBirdHasFlownToRhye, and Macca's Little Teddy Bear; WattPad - InmylifeIloveLennon, Macca40, cityofstarlight, and MasterofFire; Archive of Our Own - Peyton. You guys keep me updating :0)

Green and brown and grey bled together in the gravelly, crumbling edge of the road as the ground flew past. John adjusted his glasses and pressed his nose against the cool window, trying to make out an individual pebble or blade of grass, but they blurred together like a Monet, swirling and rushing by in the wind. John's warm breath clouded the glass, a puddle of fog slowly spreading across the glass. John pulled away his nose and drew the body of a stick figure down from the nose-smudge head.

He paused to admire his work, staring through the smudged stick-figure's head at the green-brown grass and the rippling blue water of another loch. Suddenly, a stone structure appeared in the head. For a split-second, John stared at a snatch of crenellations and moss, before it vanished into a backdrop of brown and purple hills.

John hurriedly wiped away the fog with his sleeve and peered out the window. He found himself mesmerized by a pair of crows wheeling and twisting in the air above the ripples of the windswept lake.

"Is that a castle?" asked Paul, glancing away from the road.

John pressed his cheek against the window. Cold seeped into his face as his eyes roamed over the crumbling battlements and ivy-covered walls of a once-great fortress. The castle's posture may have crumpled as its foundations sank unevenly into the dirt of the peninsula in the lake upon which it stood, but its pride was clearly still intact, hidden perhaps in a rotting chest in the bowels of the structure.

"Looks like it," John informed Paul.

The road curved along the coastline. Paul swept the car around the bend smoothly, like an experienced painter sweeping his first broad brushstroke.

"Let's stop and explore, then!" enthused Paul, pulling the car off the road and through the scraggly green grass. The silvery-blue Ford Anglia ground to a halt in front of the glorious ruin, water sparkling on three sides, ruffled by the wind.

"Haven't got anything better to do," shrugged John, unlocking his door and shoving it open. He pulled himself out of the car and stared up at the decaying three storeys of Gothic arches and huge grey stones. A tiny brown bird fluttered out from one of the windows and twirled through the brisk Highland breeze. The wind scurried through the fortress, clinging to the stones before swirling out to meet the new visitors. It whispered tales of laughter and tears, smiles and veils, before it forgot and flew onward. John smoothed down his tousled hair.

Paul glanced over at John, grinning. "This is great!" The younger Beatle led the charge into the castle, the heels of his Beatle boots tearing up the dust and grass behind him. John followed his friend up the sun-drenched, mossy steps into the shadowy arch beyond.

He blinked rapidly, trying to clear shimmering blue sunspots from his retinas. As they flickered out of his eyes, he stared at the vaulted room around him. Streaks of bright light from pointed windows were thrown across the floor like golden cloaks of the gods, discarded as their wearers tossed them aside.

"I bet this was the dining hall, or the ballroom, or something," said Paul, craning his neck back to stare at the shadowy heights of the high ceiling. John wandered across the flagstones, leaning down to see the stunted weeds clambering up through the cracks. He reached out and ran a hand up the rough stone wall, feeling its bumps and notches, its pores and cracks.

"I've got an idea," said Paul suddenly. "Let's find the way up to the tower."

"What, so you can play Knights of the Round Table?" asked John snidely. He lowered his voice to a gruff, London bellow. "Excellent shot, Lancelot!"

Paul shrugged. "Gives us a goal, at least."

"I'm game," replied John, strolling away from the window. "Should we start with the back room, then?" He pointed at the dim outline of a doorway in the back of the hall.

"Why don't we try this door first?" asked Paul, pointing at a narrow black door to his right.

The two Beatles walked across the room, their shoes echoing against the worn stones. Reaching the doorway, they peered down a windowless spiral staircase leading down. They both swallowed.

"Bit dark, isn't it?" wondered Paul aloud, his voice shooting up a little higher than it normally was. He cleared his throat.

"You can go first," replied John, staring down into the depths, adding hastily, "Just being polite, 'course."

"No point in going down there anyroad, we're trying to go up, remember?" pointed out Paul. "That's just the dungeons or something."

"Yeah, you're right," replied John quickly. "Absolutely no point whatsoever in going down into the dungeons of an abandoned castle."

They both backed away from the door and walked along the wall, away from the entrance.

"This place has obviously been empty for quite a while," mused Paul, running his fingers lightly across the wall. "There isn't any furniture or wooden doors or anything, just stone."

"It must be pretty well built," added John. "I mean, there aren't any gaping holes in the floor."

"This is great, isn't it?" said Paul, gazing around the great hall fondly. "We're in a castle! Imagine, there would've been people eating in this room five hundred years ago."

John wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, people who hadn't bathed in years eating undercooked meat with their grimy fingers in this room. Great image, Paul."

"Look, another doorway! How'd we miss this one?" exclaimed Paul, pointing at a faint stream of daylight across the grey flagstones. The bassist raced over to the doorway.

"There's a staircase!" he called back to John. John jogged to catch up with his friend. They stood at the base of the stairs. The stone of each step was worn lower in the middle from countless feet travelling up and down. Another Gothic window let light, air and the caws of the crows float down the staircase.

"Sir Lancelot, I challenge you to a duel," said John pompously, pushing out his chest. "Whoever gets to the top of this staircase first will win the hand of the fair Brunhilde."

Paul extended a hand stiffly for John to shake. John stared at the hand for a second before turning and racing up the stairs. Shocked, Paul followed hot on his heels.

"I win!" shouted John, slapping the window-ledge of the window triumphantly. Golden afternoon sunlight framed his mop top like gold leaf on a medieval painting.

"Not . . . fair!" gasped Paul, slapping John lightly on the arm. "You cheated!"

"Ooh, look at that!" said John, wandering down the hallway and through a doorway. Paul sighed and followed his friend into the room.

"Yeuck," said Paul, wrinkling his nose at the bird droppings coating the floor of this room so completely that the stone floor was invisible.

John carefully tip-toed across the room to look out the narrow slit of a window on the far side of the room.

"There's the highway," he said, leaning into the window a little to see out. The walls were at least two feet thick; no wonder the castle had stood the test of so many lonely centuries. The guitarist watched a station wagon zip past the loch and whiz around the curve and out of sight.

"Can you come back, please?" asked Paul, pinching his nose. "It's revolting in here."

"Spoilsport," grumbled John. He reluctantly pulled himself away from the view of evergreen-blotched hills and carefully squelched back to Paul.

Paul led the way back into the hallway, where John wiped off his shoes on the flagstones. The pair wandered down the hall to the next room.

"This is where Robert the Bruce sleeps," John informed Paul. The guitarist led the way into the room, only to be yanked back into the hallway by Paul.

"That's not safe, John," said Paul worriedly, peering over John's shoulder into the nearly wall-less room. The stones had crumbled away, breaking down over so many seasons of snow, wind, sun, and rain. In their place was a wide, crumbling gap, with a soaring, sweeping view of rippling wavelets and puffy clouds. A narrow band of green hills in the distance was all that separated the water and sky.

"We should probably go back downstairs," worried Paul. "It doesn't seem very safe up here."

"You worry too much," said John, reluctantly strolling back the way they had come.

"Where should we spend the night, then?" asked Paul as they retreated down the stairs. "We can't sleep in the car again, my neck still hurts."

"We could sleep here," mused John. "We haven't looked in that back room yet, it could be nice."

"Sounds fab!" enthused Paul. "If the back room isn't as drafty as the great hall, that is."

John and Paul strode under the great hall's sweeping, dim ceiling to the doorway to the back room.

"Ladies first," said John, dramatically ushering Paul through the doorway. Paul rolled his eyes and stepped through.

"It's like a sitting room," said Paul, looking around. John followed him through.

The room had far more windows than the entrance hall had, but the room itself was much smaller. John wandered across the room to stare out one of the windows at the view of the loch, the sky, and the muted tones of the hills.

"Let's go get the sleeping bags," said Paul. John nodded and followed Paul back through the cavernous hall, down the mossy steps, and across the scraggly grass to the Ford Anglia. As their boots crushed down the dust of centuries that fed the scraggly grass of that day, they glanced at each other and grinned.

A/N: I would ask you for dog pheromones, but I already have those. Maybe you could leave me a review instead?