Apple Corps, Savile Row. Late October 1969.

The sky was that flat London grey, the kind that pressed down on your bones. Damp air clung to the street, and the girls outside were bundled in their coats and scarves, but they didn’t leave. They never left. They stood for hours on end, hoping for a glimpse, a smile, a scribbled name on an album sleeve. Hoping The Beatles weren’t really over—even though everyone knew, deep down, they were.

Paul stepped through the front doors, jacket buttoned tight, sunglasses halfway on, even though the sun hadn’t shown its face all day. He was tired. Not just in the way a man gets from working—but the kind of tired that sank deep. Things were unraveling. George was bitter. John was drifting into Yoko’s world full-time. And Paul… well, he was trying to hold on to whatever was left.

Linda was upstairs, laughing with someone, probably Mary in her arms. She was his anchor, his reason to stay grounded. They were starting a real family now, one that didn’t rely on the screaming of strangers or the spinning of records. But even with that, some part of him still needed to come outside. To see the fans. To feel that tiny rush of being seen. Just a flicker of the old spark.

That’s when he saw her.

She wasn’t like the others. No makeup, no sign, no vinyl. Just a small notebook pressed against her chest like it was something sacred. Her coat was fraying at the sleeves. There was a daisy tucked behind her ear, not for show, just quietly there like it had grown out of her. Her boots were scuffed, her stockings torn at one knee, but she stood still while the crowd jostled and squealed.

Her eyes were on him. Soft, steady, open. Like she already knew him. Not the pop star. Not the Beatle. Just Paul.

He froze for a moment.

Something in her made the noise drop away. She looked like the kind of girl who sat on hillsides and wrote about stars, who smelled like earth and oil paint, who asked questions no one had answers to. Young—too young, that was clear—but not in the helpless, giggling way most of the crowd carried. She had some kind of quiet wisdom to her. And he hated how it pulled at him.

His heart did a strange little twist. His body followed before his mind could stop it. He drifted toward her, just a few steps closer, pen in hand, pretending to still be signing things as fans shrieked and shoved. But all his focus was trained on her.

She didn’t step forward. Didn’t thrust anything out. Just tilted her head a little, like she was waiting for him to say something true.

“You not gonna ask for a signature, love?” he asked.

She gave him a small smile—one of those real ones, slow and secret.

“Didn’t want to bother you.”

Her voice was soft but certain. She could’ve been asking for the world and it wouldn’t have shaken. That quiet confidence hit him right in the chest. Like she knew something he didn’t. Like she saw something in him he thought was long gone.

Inside the building, Linda’s laugh rang again, faint through the window above.

Paul didn’t move. He just stood there in front of this strange, beautiful, far-too-young girl, watching her fingers curl tighter around that notebook like she might disappear if he blinked.

He shouldn’t have noticed her. He shouldn’t have cared. But he did.

Jesus. He was ruined.