The fire was put out in record time, thanks to Sra. Rojas being swift with the extinguisher. As Paul, John, Gail and Isabel quickly exited the premises, a brief moment was taken to settle back into reality.

Paul glanced over at Isabel as he breathed deeply, "Do the parties in the cottage always get that rowdy?"

"Actually, this one was rather tame..." Isabel confessed, a distant look in her eye.

"Who was that bloke you were talking to..?" Paul asked, biting his lip, a shakiness to his tone.

Isabel blushed, lowering her head. 

"Well, where to next!?" John posed with a new-found enthusiasm as he downed what was left of his shot glass.

"Reed always throws extravagant bashes at his office on the weekends..." Gail suggested. "We could try sneaking into that..."

With a collective shrug, they were off.

~~~

"Who are you?" a gruff voice asked. 

"It's me, Gail Greene!" 

"Is that name supposed to mean something..?"

"I work here!"

"I've never seen you before in my life..."

"Oh," Gail chortled a bit. "I see where the confusion is. You see, I'm a writer..."

"Gail, please shut up..." Paul rubbed his forehead in annoyance. 

"Okay..." Gail relented, slightly panicked. 

"The Beatles?" the large man towering in front of the office doors raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

"No! The bonobos!" Gail snapped impatiently. "Of course, The Beatles!" 

"Oh, of course!" the security guard stammered. "Right this way..."

~~~

Once again, Isabel felt bombarded by judgmental looks as soon as she entered the building. It was smoky and dark. There were crowds of people. Too many people. All at once, she felt multiple hands grazing up and down her body. She felt herself switching in and out of reality as her mind flashed back to previous times her breasts had been groped.

"Come, sweetheart, dame un besito!" Isabel abruptly opened her squeezed-shut eyes to a tipsy Paul grinning and extending his cheek.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed or how many shots deep in she was, all she was sure of was how giddy Paul's face made her feel. Giggling, she let herself fall into his arms and smothered his cheek with light kisses.

"Can't say I blame her for falling for him..." Gail noted solemnly as she observed from a distance.

"Yeah, I mean, you did, didn't ye..?" John sternly remarked, approaching her from behind.

Shaken by John's comment, Gail was suddenly reminded of the harsh way her 'friend' Louise had humiliated her hours before.

"I'm a whore..." Gail moaned under her breath. She tipped another glass of champagne to her lips.

"Gail, who writes better songs? John or me?" Paul drawled, his breath beginning to wreak.

Gail sighed as she began to tend to him, "Not this again, Paul..."

"No, I want you to be honest this time!" 

"You wrote, 'I'm not half the man I used to be' when you were barely a man yourself!" Gail stated in a calm tone, placing a comforting hand on his back. "I'm still deeply moved by that song..." 

"You always did love Yesterday, didn't you?" John interjected.

"Yeah, so what?" Gail turned to face him. "I really like your songs, too..."

"Ah, yes, even-stevens," John mocked. "How you approach everything..."

"That song you wrote for me, In My Life," Gail continued. "I don't even think you realize that you wrote something so beautiful and meaningful; a masterpiece. It came so naturally that it was like a throwaway to you..."

As Paul trotted to the side and continued to mope, Isabel looked to Gail, confused. 

Gail met her eyes and shook her head, smiling knowingly, "He's insecure. He can be even more insecure than John at times. He just wants someone to tell him he's great and mean it."

"I'm sure he's heard it from you more than a few times," John presumed curtly. 

"John, this constant competition and jealousy between you and Paul needs to stop!" Gail barked. "It's childish!"

"Oh, well, easy for you to say! You had your way with both of us, didn't you!?" John clapped back.

"John, that's not fair!" Gail objected.

"You have no room to lecture me on the subject!" John maintained. 

Gail crossed her arms, "Fine..."

In response, John huffed. Both him and Paul being with Gail was a point of sensitivity for John's ego. He resented the fact that Paul got to properly be with her before she left.

As Gail stomped and grumbled away, John followed her to a faintly illuminated hallway in the office.

"Something the matter?" John mused.

"Nothing's changed!" Gail cried. "You're always driving me crazy!"

"Why did you fucking leave me, Gail!?" John confronted her, cornering her into the wall.

"Really? We're gonna go there? We went over this already..."

"I'd like to hear it again..." John stated in a delicate tone, casually throwing one arm over the other. 

Feeling pressured, Gail began to sweat, "You know that I left to pursue my writing..."

"Bullshit," John spat. "There was more to it and you and I both know it..."

"Ugh," Gail's frantically massaged her face with her hands. "I was really close to doing something stupid!"

"What's stupid?" John asked knowingly.

"Nothing, can we please drop this?"

"No, I'm fucking sick of you running away!" John bellowed as he leaned towards her.

"Ooh! This is getting good!" John and Gail turned their heads to see Pattie, alongside George and Ringo, watching eagerly from a distance. 

~~~

The remaining Beatles, plus Pattie, had been tipped off about the afterparty. Temporarily distracted from their troubles and delightfully sozzled, they were now all engaging in harmless party games. 

"Never have I ever..." Gail slurred loudly. "Seen the boys naked!!!"

"You know you've thought about it, Gail..." Ringo teased, wagging his eyebrows suggestively.

The lads all snickered.

"Oh, yeah, and you mean to tell me you've neeeeeeevvvveeeeeer thought about me naked..." Gail garbled.

They all glanced cagily at each other.

Pattie laughed, shaking her head at Gail and glimpsing at John, "I love this girl..."

John glared at Pattie in disgust.

"Well, now that it's ALLLLLLLLLLLLLL out in the open..." Gail exclaimed, beaming widely but getting agitated.

"Come, George," Pattie chortled. "What say we retire to the broom closet and take care of that stiffy of yours!?" 

"Jesus, Pattie," Gail commented. "Is anything sacred with you?"

"Not when it comes to George's cock!" Pattie sneered. "Talk about a hard day's night!"

As George and Pattie giggled and scampered away, Gail locked eyes with John and his lips formed a suggestive frown.

"Do you know about George and Maureen..!?" Gail shrieked as her eyes widened.

John scoffed and rolled his eyes, "Yes, it's incestuous." 

"Pattie is a beauty queen with her perfect fringe!" Gail asserted, sighing wistfully.

"She ain't all that..." John observed.

"Oh, shut up, yes she is..." Gail grouched.

John, once again, rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"My dear, I'd love to see you do that dance again..." Paul soughed into Isabel's ear, sneakily wrapping his arms around her waist. 

"Mmm, maybe later," Isabel answered shortly, her body tensing as she pulled away.

"You've got everyone eating out of the palm of your hands, Paul, and then you bring an innocent girl into it!" Gail spat, taking an angry sip of her drink.

"We're not getting into this, Gail," Paul voiced flatly, scowling at her. 

"Why not!?" Gail cheeped giddily, flashing a wink. "I know you guys like it when I get assertive, right?"

"Should I be concerned..?" Isabel inquired softly, turning her head to Paul.

"Gail becomes an...interesting character when she's drunk," Paul explained morosely.

"Oh, don't deny it, Paul, ALL YOU GUYS WANT IS ATTENTION!!!" Gail abruptly blew up at the two lads.

Disturbed, Isabel pulled Gail aside, "...Is everything okay between you guys?" 

Gail looked up and smirked, "Yeah, they know I'm not really mad at them. Sometimes I just need to put them in their place. And frankly, they like it."

Isabel opened her mouth to speak, but Gail began to cackle loudly in her face, further confusing her.

"If you start to find them obnoxious, then you know that you're in!" Gail persisted. "The rest of the world sees them as these inhuman beings..."

"I guess I never thought of it that way..." Isabel mused, glancing to the side, not knowing what to say in response.

"You got spunk, kid!" Gail remarked, guffawing. "What did we ever do without you!?"

Interrupting her cheerful laughter, Gail then felt a poke on her shoulder, prompting yet another outburst as her head snapped around, "WHAT!!??"

"Just wanted to step in and have a twirl with this lovely lady..." a young bloke offered, smirking deviously, reaching his hand out to Isabel.

Isabel's large, chocolate-colored eyes looked to Gail, silently communicating a need to break free from all the madness.

Automatically picking up on her signal, Gail glanced back over at the lewd chap, "Take a hike, buddy!"

~~~

"Why do the bad boys always look so good..?" Gail pined to Isabel as they both gazed at John and Paul, hopelessly sloshed, from their safe hideaway in the powder room. 

"Oh, what I would give to have those two fall in love with me!" a lass chirped as she appeared from behind one the stalls, legless.

"Weeell, it's nice in theory but..." Gail stopped herself in her high-pitched ramble, wary of revealing too much to Isabel. 

Isabel remained silent, staring blankly.

"I'm far from the first or the prettiest girl they've fought over," Gail resumed, now more somberly. "I'm not special..."

"I can tell you're different in their eyes, though," Isabel suddenly spoke up. "You mean a lot to them, they care deeply about you, you're important to them..."

"I can see they feel the same way about you, too..." Gail observed. 

"The boys...you mean something to them, " Isabel reiterated, shaking her head, as if to disregard Gail's last statement. "They see you differently than they do the other girls. You mean more to them than Maureen, Pattie, Jane, even Cyn..."

"Yeah, sure," Gail scoffed. "They see me as their little pet, that they can use and abuse until they're bored of me. Until there's something better." She took a long pause, guzzling her bottle of champagne. "But you, you're different. The boys respect you 'cuz you're not a slut like me..."

"Gail, do you remember when I stowed myself away in the closet over my nails..?" Isabel questioned, anxious to change the subject.

"Yeah..." Gail rubbed her eye in perplexity. 

"You told me I needed to stop hiding away from my problems and that I needed to face them," Isabel elucidated. "Now you need to face them..." 

Gail followed Isabel's gape as her eyes motioned to where the boys were partying.

~~~

"Man, I really need to get some air..." Gail declared as she stumbled out of the ladies room. "I'm heading out!"

"Gail..?" Paul called out to her quietly, uneasily, his eyebrows perched together.

"You can come, too, Paul!" Gail teased with a smirk as she fingered his chest.

Paul's eyes widened, "Um..."

"You broke my heart, pretty boy, it's the least you could do!" Gail pointed out, snickering, holding herself up on Paul's shoulders.

"...Some fresh air would be nice," Paul simpered, drunkenly aroused yet soberly conflicted at Gail's offer. 

"Oh, you snake oil charmer!" Gail remarked with a wink, tongue in cheek.

~~~

"...Gail, do you ever think about your mum?" Paul earnestly asked as they both stood, staring out into the night sky. "John and I used to always look up at the stars and tell ourselves it was our own mums watching over us..."

Gail chuckled mockingly, in disbelief, "That's sappy, even for you guys..."

"What can I say?" Paul shrugged, chuckling lightly. "We're saps."

Just then, their elbows touched and Paul gulped as Gail leaned forward, pouting her lips in a comically exaggerated fashion.

"...HAHA I'm not gonna do that!!!" Gail howled. "I'm in love with your best friend! And my best friend is in love with you!!"

Paul said nothing as he felt the nervous sweat dripping down his brow, his hazel eyes threatening to pop out of his head. 

"How does that song go..? Life is very short...and there's no tiiiiiiiiiiime, for fussing and fighting, my friend..." Gail sang off-key. "WE CAN WORK IT OUT...WE CAN WORK IT OUT..."

Paul stepped back, letting Gail have her moment. He bit his lip slightly.

"That's the irony, though. We didn't work it out..." Gail looked up at Paul, her misty eyes in lock with his. "You broke my heart, Paul. And you don't even seem sorry. You just moved on to another girl within a year."

"I did it to start over," Paul defended himself in solemn. "I knew I had lost you and I wanted to do things right this time..."

"How that working out for you..?" Gail spat harshly.

The guilt hit Paul like a truck. He couldn't deny he'd made a mess of things with Gail and Jane. Now he had dragged Isabel into that mess. All the same, he couldn't help feeling utterly helpless to the circumstances.

"Why can't you just give me a chance to prove things have changed? That I've changed? I'm really not the same guy anymore, Gail, things are different now!'

"I'll believe it when I see it..." Gail said.

~~~

"I'm a whore..." Gail echoed her moan from earlier, letting the last of the champagne drip down her throat.

John overheard her moping and found her leaning against her desk at Reed's offices, miserable. 

"I can't compete. You guys win. I surrender!" Gail wailed, clutching a book close to her chest.

"What are you prattling on about?" John asked as he attempted to help her stand upright.

"I've read In His Own Write..." Gail gasped for breath. "13 times and I STILL don't know what it's about! All I know is that it's better than anything I could ever hope to write..."

John's lip trembled in both pity and amusement as he watched Gail's display, "Abbie, it's just a silly poetry book, I was stoned out of my mind when I wrote it..."

"And yet!" Gail slurred in retort. "It's still genius! My writing's crap! I'm a phony!"

"There you are!" Paul remarked as he came strolling in from behind. "Gail, we need to go home..."

"And you guys know I'm a phony, too!" Gail spurted, ignoring him. "I know you were making a mockery of me in Paperback Writer, Paul..."

Paul flashed a look at John, "...Gail, I-"

"There was other pointed stuff, too!" Gail continued. "She's a big teaser!? She took me half the way there!? Those lyrics aren't exactly subtle! Was that just your shade song against me!?"

"Ugh! Not every blasted song is about you!" Paul exclaimed in frustration. "That was written way before I met you..."

"Ugh, and what about the bloody A-side I was singing earlier!? I had to listen to your lovey-dovey make up song with Jane after you had..." Gail's voice began to falter. "Completely shattered my heart..." 

In an angry furor, she threw an empty glass bottle and it smashed against the wall. She then hunched over and broke down in tears.

"Yeah, and then what did you do!? You bloody left us!" John countered. "You weren't the only one who came out of this with a shattered heart, Abbie!"

"Aha! So, you guys are mad that I left!" Gail surmised.

"Well, you did kind of drop us like flies..." Paul shrugged, a dry bitterness to his tone. "You were with us for three years and then you just ditched us like that."

"You two are unbelievable! You don't think it broke my heart to leave you, too..?" Gail cried, tears streaming down her face. "That was the hardest thing I've ever had to do!"

"Then, why'd you do it, Abbie..?" John asked, his eyes gazing downward.

"Yes, Gail," Paul echoed. "I thought you said we were a team!"

"Are we a team or not!?" John questioned.

"Ugh, don't you get it!? I wasn't proud of who I was before I left!" Gail yelled. "I didn't want to come back until I was successful!!!"

"What do you mean?" Paul asked after a long pause.

"I'm not really a big-shot writer here," Gail confessed. "I'm just a lowly intern. I do the exact same thing I did at EMI...serve tea, fetch papers...but for a lower pay and not the same level of companionship. I haven't even gotten Reed to so much as glance at my writing. No one here takes me seriously..."

"...So, that novel?" John questioned.

"Not even close to being finished," Gail revealed. "I just didn't want you guys to see me as the same frail girl I was a year ago..."

"I never saw you as frail, Abbie," John assured her. "But you're still every bit as frustrating..."

"Well, you guys don't have to hold me up on a pedestal anymore," Gail stated sadly as she sat down and lit up a cigarette. "You now know how pathetic I really am..."

"Gail, you've taken up smoking..?" Paul inquired, concerned. 

Gail narrowed her eyes, answering softly, "Yeah, why do you care!?"

"That stuff'll kill ya!" John piped up, inferring on a hunch.

"Hypocrites! You lads smoke all the time!" Gail rejoined. "But I guess you really do care..."

Just then, George cleared his throat, "...Couldn't help but overhear..."

"Ugh," John scoffed. "What do you want, Harrison!?"

"I can't help but feel partially responsible for this blow out," George commented. "I was the one who encouraged Gail to leave..."

"What!?" John spouted angrily. "You did this!?"

"I just told her to follow her heart!" George stated defensively. "I was sad to see her leave, too!"

"Well, I hope you're happy now!" John said.

"Maybe I shouldn't have left..." Gail remarked quietly to George in remorse as they stood aside. 

"Gail, you made the right choice leaving," George asserted. "Don't let these bozos tell you any different!"

~~~

After pulling Isabel out of the bathroom where she had hid for the rest of the night, they all took one more swig for the road and then headed out. 

"You know that song, Day Tripper?" Paul giggled into Gail's ear. "...It totally was about you! John and I were pissed!" 

In reply, Gail batted her eyelashes, "Well, I admit I might've been a bit of a tease..." she leaned in to kiss Paul, but instead ended up hurling all over the ground.

~~~

I had to prove that I could make it alone
But that's not me
I wanted to show how independent I'd grown now
But that's not me

I could try to be big in the eyes of the world
What matters to me is what I could be to just one girl

I'm a little bit scared
Cause I haven't been home in a long time
You needed my love
And I know that I left at the wrong time
My folks when I wrote them
Told 'em what I was up to said that's not me

I went through all kinds of changes
Took a look at myself and said that's not me
I miss my pad and the places I've known
And every night as I lay there alone I will dream

I once had a dream
So I packed up and split for the city
I soon found out that my lonely life wasn't so pretty
I'm glad I went now I'm that much more sure that we're ready

I once had a dream
So I packed up and split for the city

NOTE: So, um, yeah. I apologize for drunk Gail. I had planned all this out years in advance and I was saving all the craziest shit for this chapter, if you couldn't tell, but I don't know if I did the best job of building up to it. I was trying to really dig deep into Gail's psyche, but I feel I did a shit job. I don't know, you tell me! I'm sorry if it all reads horribly disjointed. Still, hope you enjoyed!

Also, RIP Little Richard! I, myself, didn't have a huge attachment one way or the other to his music, but I know many did, and he will be missed and cherished greatly in the rock 'n' roll community.

This chapter is lovingly dedicated to my amiga, @groovymusic! She's the best friend an emotional Venezuelan girl could ask for! Love you and thank you for being here for me! ❤︎❤︎❤︎