"Oh, Paul," Linda said in a sing-song voice. "I asked you a question, or did you not hear me? Did you miss me? Or did you forget about me?"

"I never forgot about her," Paul choked, holding back a sob.

"Oh, are you sure about that?" Linda said. "You're telling me you never forgot about me? Not even once? Not even with John's dick up your —"

"Stop," Paul said. He squeezed his eyes shut.

"My poor baby, my Heather, she had to go back to her father in another country," Linda hissed. "Yes, she just got shipped away. My lovely Mary, my sweet Stella, and my little James will never see the light of day. They'll never be born. They'll never exist. All because of you, Paul."

"I didn't choose this — I swear!" Paul cried, then he gasped. He shook his head. "Not real," he reminded himself. "Don't argue. Not real."

"That's what you'd like to think, I'm sure," Linda laughed coldly. "Because you don't want to face me. But the time is here, and you've got to do it. You have to face me, and you haven't even honored my memory. You've just left me behind. A forgotten memory in the recesses of your mind."

"That's not true," Paul said.

"What have you done to honor my memory then, Paul?!"

"I wrote the song down, I always remembered it. I never let myself forget it, but I never sang it — never in a world where she wasn't there to hear it — I never dared!"

"Excuses. You silenced the song. Buried me."

"That's not what I meant to —"

"I'm dead because of you."

"The F.H.O. — I didn't know until I saw it in the papers at my —"

"You couldn't save me from my illness," Linda tutted. "And you couldn't save me from a fucking tree."

"You're not real."

"I felt the flames lick my skin and burn me alive before I went out. I died thinking that my baby was going to die with me. At least I didn't die thinking you're the one who killed me."

"You're not real."

"But that's real," Linda said, eyes narrowed. Paul frowned. "Isn't it? That's what you always envision, isn't it? Me, in my last moment, knowing there's nothing I can do to stop it and there's nobody who can save me now," she started to sob like she was there in the car, and patches of flames appeared all over her body. "There's nobody who can save me! There's no one who can save my baby! Will she be in as much pain as I'm in now?! Oh, GOD, MY BABY! SOMEBODY, PLEASE SAVE HER!"

Paul was sobbing with her and he cried, helplessly, "She was saved! She was saved! I met her on the streets of New York!"

"But the real Linda will never know that, will she?" the vision of Linda said, still one fire but no longer screaming in pain. No longer bothered by the flames in the slightest. "Because I'm not real, am I, Paul? The real Linda died thinking that her baby did, too."

"There's nothing I can do," Paul muttered.

"Oh, right." Vision Linda puffed out her chest and sighed. "Because you can't go back in time and stop someone from dying. That would be bad. Right?"

Paul frowned. "That's not —"

"Face it," Vision Linda snapped, and her fire went out. "You don't want to go back and save me because if you did then you'd have to choose between me and John Lennon. And you really don't know what you'd do then, do you? You don't know what the right answer is. You don't know if there is a right one. Am I hitting the mark at all?"

Paul's voice was thick with tears but he croaked out, "I can't."

Vision Linda laughed coldly. "You mean that you won't. The two are not interchangeable. You won't help me out. You won't bring me back to life, even though you know damn well that I didn't deserve to die. I mean, hell, I'm not even really a part of this. But okay, Paul, you won't do it. Don't make yourself feel better by telling yourself that you can't."

"I can't just —"

"Can't you?"

"There are —"

"Are there?"

"Why are you —"

"Shut up!" Vision Linda hit Paul across the face, but it hurt like she was really there. Paul gaped up at her, thinking that maybe she was real after all.

"Paul, I'm here," John's voice spoke. It echoed around a lot. Paul hadn't even seen John materialize, but sure enough there he was, right in front of the door where Linda had been when she first appeared.

"Of course, he is," Linda hissed in Paul's ear. "Because how dare you remember me for even a second. How dare you focus on me for five goddamn minutes. All John, all the time."

John was talking, but Paul couldn't make out most of what he was saying which was odd. He could make out everything that Linda was saying perfectly. John's voice, on the other hand, sounded to Paul like a garbled and echoing mess. He came closer to Paul and started pulling at the shackles that kept him bound to the chair.

"You're leaving me again, Paul?"

"I don't —"

"You always leave."

"It's not my — I'm not trying to — I've never had a choice."

"Then stop him."

"What?"

"Stay here with me. Stop him."

"John, stop."

"Stay here with me, Paul. Prove you love me."

"John, I want to stay here."

"That's it, Paul." Linda laid her hands on Paul's shoulders. "Sink a little bit deeper."

***

When Barney found a hallway lined with the bloodied bodies of the field workers from the Unknowables who had been working undercover in the F.H.O.'s offices, he immediately regretted sending Paul off on his own. "I need to go looking for Paul," he told the rest of the squadron. "Go on without me." And then he was off.

He didn't know where exactly he was supposed to look. He checked several doors that laid to the basement, but he didn't find any luck there. He was drawn to one place in particular, and he was ashamed to admit he avoided going there because he feared that's where Paul already was. Although, if Paul was there, then there was nothing that Barney could do for him now.

Barney headed up a flight of stairs eventually and into a hallway where he thought that he might go to check some offices, but as he exited the stairwell, he crashed into John.

"Wha—" Barney frowned. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I... uh... sort of snuck onto one of the helicopters that was heading out this morning," John admitted, scratching the back of his head. "Have you seen, Paul?"

"You need to get out of here now," Barney hissed.

"How do you expect me to do that?" John laughed.

Barney groaned. "Ugh. Stay with me. I'm looking for Paul anyway. You stick to my side, understand?"

"All right, all right," John huffed. "Wait, why are you looking for Paul? What happened? Is he okay?"

"Would you shut up?" Barney snapped. "I have an idea of where he might be."

"Oh, good," John said, sounding relieved. Barney didn't have the heart to tell him that it would be a better sign if they were not to find him in the place they were going to look.

But sure enough, they came upon the entrance to the White Room and Barney peered through the little window in the door. "Shit," he said.

"What, is he not in there?" John said, rushing to the door to look through the window, too.

"No, he's there all right," Barney sighed.

"Paul. Barney, help — how do you open this door?"

"You can't, John," Barney said. "You can't go in there. Once he's in there, he's lost. For good. We've got to go."

"What? No." John frowned. "I'm not going anywhere without him. Open the door."

"John, let's go."

"Well, I'm not going anywhere. You said to stick to your side, right? I won't without Paul. I'm not going anywhere until I've got Paul out of there."

Barney groaned. "Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. Okay, let's see —" he accessed the little screened mounted on the wall beside the door. The screen counted less than three minutes since the Room had been turned on. "All right, not awful," he murmured. He turned to John and spoke very quickly. "Listen up. This room gives people visions. Things that are meant to drive people crazy, and they do. There's a psychological effect that you won't be able to fight. You'll have probably thirty seconds, but sixty, before you start seeing this, and between ninety seconds and two minutes until you're incapacitated. If you're in there for more than several minutes there's lasting damage done. Eventually, you'll just go descend into the layers and layers of your mind and you'll be, well, crazy. To put it bluntly. Act quick. Get out. There's no way to know what Paul is seeing in there, so there's no telling what he'll do when you get to him. Do you understand?"

John looked thoroughly terrified, but he nodded. "Yes. I'm ready."

Barney wanted to say more, but Paul was running out of time — he was already out of time, really — so he just nodded to John and used the screen to pop the door open. He watched John bolt in and frowned sorrowfully because he knew that if John took too long then he was going to have to leave both of them in there and move in with his mission. He had no faith of his own abilities to survive in the White Room. (In the final stages of training to be an F.H.O. field operative, one has to last two full minutes in the White Room, and Barney came out of there a shaking and crying mess.)

John burst into the room and almost expected to see someone standing near Paul because Paul looked like he was looking at someone very intently. But John saw no one. Paul looked scared and John's heart nearly broke in two. "Paul, I'm here," he said comfortingly and he ran to him. He tugged at his restraints, breaking them off of the chair. "It's okay, Paulie, I'm getting you out of here, okay?"

"I don't —" Paul said, and then he stopped and shook his head at no one.

"It's okay, it's okay." John was having trouble getting the leg shackles off. "Shit."

"It's not my — I'm not trying to — I've never had a choice." Paul got worked up all of a sudden and it was a quick process. He was crying in a moment.

"Hey, hey. It's okay, Paul," John said while he was tugging at the shackle. He finally pulled it free. "Take it easy, okay?"

Paul stopped crying. John thought, for a second, that Paul had been calmed by what he had said. "What?" Paul said.

John pulled the second leg shackle free. "I said to just take it easy," he said. He reached to lift Paul out of the chair.

"John, stop," Paul said.

John frowned. "What?"

"John, I want to stay here," Paul said.

John blinked. "Paul... that's crazy talk." He lifted Paul into his arms and turned to go, but he was faced with an object that was standing in front of the door. One that hadn't been there before. He walked toward it.

"Leave me," Paul cried.

It was a mirror. John looked into his reflection — which, oddly enough, wasn't holding Paul like the real John was. His reflection waved at him and he could feel it, that little twinge. The beginning of a descent into madness. He was no stranger to this feeling. He closed his eyes and walked out the door, knowing he wouldn't walk into any such mirror because he knew how to spot a hallucination. Paul sobbed for John to leave him there, and this concerned him, but he didn't stop and listen. He got out quickly just like Barney told him to do.

John collapsed to his knees in the hallway, feeling a terrible weight upon himself all of sudden. He could not support his own weight any longer, let alone his own weight added on with Paul's weight. He tried to cradle Paul as he fell, but Paul was in a fit of sobs either way.

Barney quickly slammed the door shut. "You did it. I can't believe it. You did it."

"Yay," John said weakly.

"I — I have to — go back!" Paul cried. "Oh, God — Linda!"

"It's not real, Paul," John soothed. "Hey, it's not real."

"No time for that, John," Barney said, scooping Paul up from the ground and into his arms. "Can you walk?"

"I think I can now," John said. "Coming out of that room was just —"

"Rough, I know," Barney said. "But they'll be coming for us now, no doubt. We need to be on our way."

"Right," John said, and he forced himself to his feet, if for nothing else then for the sake of getting Paul away from whatever crazy lunatics put him in that awful room.

"C'mon," Barney said. "I know a place where you two can hide." He started down the hallway. Paul quieted in his arms, finally tiring himself out and falling asleep. And John just followed behind him, half regretting the fact that he didn't listen to everyone's instructions.