1972 - John had first heard you sing back in ’69, when you were barely a teenager, and the memory had never left him. He’d been struck by the strange gravity in your voice—too deep, too raw for your age—and ever since, he’d made it a quiet mission to nudge you toward the stage where you belonged. Now it was 1972, and you weren’t just a hidden talent anymore. At fifteen, sixteen, your name was already spreading through the music papers, your songs spinning on radio stations, your face beginning to turn up on glossy posters in shop windows.

But with that rise came whispers. The press couldn’t resist twisting the story: that John Lennon, drug-stained and world-famous, had taken a girl half his age under his wing. They spun it as something sordid, suggesting he was too close, too indulgent, too much a “bad influence.” To the outside eye it might have looked strange—your youth set against his fame and reputation—but John never flinched. He knew why he was here, and it had nothing to do with their headlines.

The London flat was quiet under the steady rain, the air smoky from the half-burned cigarette smoldering in the tray. Yoko was tucked away in her studio, leaving the living room for just the two of you. John sat low in the couch, glasses slipping, newspaper folded on his knee. You perched nearby with a notebook, pencil tapping as you outlined lyrics.

“So if I finish this one,” you murmured, eyes still on the page, “do I take it to the manager, or go straight to the label?”

John set the paper aside, his gaze intent. “Manager first. Always. Don’t let the label get their claws on it too soon. They’ll water it down, make it neat and tidy for the radio. You tell your manager what you want it to be, and you make him fight for it. It’s your bloody voice—don’t let them turn it into something it isn’t.”

You glanced up, a small smile tugging at your lips, warmed by the certainty in his tone. He leaned back, cigarette in hand, smoke curling as his eyes softened. “Don’t forget why you’re here, love. You’ve already blown the doors off this thing. I just want to make sure no one shuts you up. The world’s gotta hear you exactly how you are.”

The clock ticked steady on the mantle, the city outside swallowed in gray rain, but here the room held a hush—his words hanging between you, half advice, half promise.