John's face had been drained of all color, and his hands shook uncontrollably. The message slipped from between his numb fingers and he all but collapsed against Mavis, who helped him to his chair.

"I don't know how I'm gonna manage it," he said at last, "But I have to go to America."

"Of course you do," Mavis agreed in a soft voice. "Let's send a wire back to Paul. Maybe he can help you get there without being noticed."

***

"There ya go, Johnnie-San," said Paul as he stepped back to admire his work. "No one would ever take ya for anything less than a proper old Japanese gentleman. Have a look at yourself."

He handed John a mirror, and his old friend stared at his reflection with wonder.

"That's me, then, is it?" he asked, and the old gentleman in the mirror said the very same thing.

"Yeah--pretty good, huh. I always knew I'd be glad I learned all this master of disguise stuff someday. And to think you used to laugh at me for this!"

"Yeah, well, I was wrong," John told him, setting the mirror aside. "Yer a wonder, Paulie. Now, get me to yer plane and outta here. I don't know how long I've got."

"Okay. Now, here are your papers. Remember, walk bent over and most important--you don't speak English."

"Right. Well, sayonara, Paulie. I'll see ye when I get back. Have ye heard anything more about her condition?"

No...they say she's critical but stable for now...good luck, John."

***

John watched the landscape recede; everything upon the ground grew smaller and smaller until they had ascended above the clouds, and still he looked out of the window. The tops of the clouds stretched out below them like a vast, pillowy mattress. It seemed to John as though if he were to step from the plane onto them, he would be able to walk across their soft, fluffy surface. It would probably feel very good against the soles of his feet, he imagined.; soft and cool as the sand on the beach early in the morning...

He began to drift off into sleep, and in his dream he saw Mavis standing upon the beach at Harmony, their baby in her arms, the wind blowing her long hair about her face and gently raising her shawl as she watched him go with large, sorrowful eyes.

"I'll be back," he called to her, and she tried to smile. "I promise--I'll be home as soon as I can!"

The beach receded until she was no more than a speck upon it, and he closed his eyes wearily only to have them snap open again as he woke with a start.

"It's just some turbulence; nothing to worry about," said the pretty nurse sitting beside him.

He hardly recognized Linda himself in her short, dark wig and full makeup.

"Thanks for goin' with me," he told her. "I know I was never all that kind to ye, Linda, but I hope ye'll forgive me for that."

She smiled at him and patted his hand. "Of course I do...but it's Peggy, remember?"

"Yeah. Peggy. How much longer until we get there?"

"We'll be landing in New York at around eight o'clock in the morning, so we've a while yet. Try to get some more sleep. You've had a shock."

She looked with amusement into his lap and added with a grin, "Fortunately, I've brought along a wheelchair to sit you in when we get there...with a blanket over your lap. All of a

sudden you're not so believable as a frail old man."

John looked down at himself and couldn't suppress a grin. “Yeah, well, I was havin’ a dream earlier,” he said. “It was a pretty good one.”

Linda chuckled and opened her book again, and John smiled for the first time since he’d received the telegram, looking out of the window into the darkness outside. He was sure he would never sleep again during this flight, but within moments his eyelids drooped and fell once more.

***

"Here we go," Linda said quietly as she bent over to arrange the woolen blanket around her elderly charge, " They said she can have visitors, but only one at a time. You can go in as soon as the nanny comes out with Sean."

"He's in there now?"

"Yes, but remember, you don't know him. You're his great-granddad who has never met him before."

As if on cue, the door opened and a middle-aged Asian woman came into the corridor leading a solemn little boy. The child peered curiously at the old man in the wheelchair being attended by the pretty, dark haired nurse.

"Who are you?" the child demanded to know, and it was all John could do not to reach out and take the boy into his arms.

"You must be Sean," said the nurse in a warm, friendly voice. "This is your great-granddad. Your mother is his granddaughter, and he's come to see her."
"I've never heard of you," said Sean suspiciously. "Why don't I know you?"

"I'm afraid he doesn't speak English," explained the old man's nurse.

Sean darted forward and said something to the old man in Japanese which made his eyes widen with surprise. Recovering quickly, the old man gave the little boy a wink and a shaky smile.

"Goodbye, Great-Granddad!" the child sang, skipping away.

The Asian woman scurried after him, giving the nurse and her charge a polite nod. "Please wait, Master Sean!" she called as she went.

"What did he say? Did you understand him?" asked Linda.

"He said, 'I love you, old Father'," John replied in a whisper. He took a deep breath and let it out in a deep sigh.

"Let's go in," he said.

Yoko looked very small in the white bed, her hair cut short, her eyes closed, and her breathing shallow. Wires and tubes crossed back and forth between her body and the blinking, beeping machinery surrounding her and a pair of IV bottles on a stand at her head.

John felt his heart skip a beat, and his throat constricted painfully as he looked at her.

He got up out of the wheelchair, heedlessly allowing the blanket to fall to the floor. He stepped close to the tiny figure in the bed and bent close to her.

"Yoko," he whispered. "Can ye hear me? I'm here."

There was no response, so John took her small hand between his. His vision blurred as his eyes filled with hot, stinging tears.

"Wake up, Mother, please," he said softly. "If ye can hear me, please let me know."

It seemed that her fingers had moved slightly in his hands, and he leaned closer still. There was no other indication that she was aware of his presence. He laid his head against her body and his shoulders shook as he wept.

"I'm going to step outside," Linda told him gently. "I'll be right in the corridor by the door if you need me."

"Thanks," John whispered, his voice catching. "It feels as if she's gone, but I do wanna talk to her."

Linda left the room, and John sat up, his eyes upon Yoko's thin, pale face.

"I'm sorry I left ye, darlin'," he said softly. "I really didn't feel as though I had a choice. I thought it was the only way to protect you and Sean, but look what's happened. I feel like this is all my fuckin' fault. I should've been here with ye, but I've been hidin' out on a fuckin' island livin' me own life. Please forgive me for not bein' here for ye, Mother. I'll promise ye this, though...I won't let anything happen to Sean. I'll protect him with me own life." John sat looking into the face of his wife for what seemed like a very long time, but her eyes never opened, nor did she give any indication that she was aware of his presence at all. The heart monitor beside her beeped and her ventilator continued to breathe for her. John closed his eyes and though of how she had looked on the day he'd married her. She'd been wearing a big hat, and between that and her masses of jet black hair, her face had looked very small, but her dark, almond shaped eyes had shone with love for him, and she had scarcely stopped smiling the whole day.

He thought of the first time they had made love, in the house he'd shared with Cynthia. He'd been so nervous when she had arrived, wondering what he would say or do, not at all confident or self-assured. He'd ended up sharing some experimental tapes he'd been working on with her, and then they had recorded some stuff together. After they were through, he'd set up a camera to take the pictures of the two of them naked--the ones that had been featured on their Two Virgins album--and finally, after watching the sun rise, they had gone to bed together for the very first time.

He remembered how small she had felt in his arms, and how frail she had seemed, but the steely stubbornness and sheer strength of will of the tiny woman had made her seem much more like a hawk than the sparrow she appeared once her back was against the wall.

One time, he recalled, shortly after they had married, a group of girls had approached them, carrying a mass of roses. Well, he'd thought, how about that. Someone is gonna do something nice to her for a change. It's about bloody time.

At the last second, however, the roses were thrust at Yoko stems first, and they were filled with thorns! Yoko bit her lip and did not cry out, but her small hands were bleeding in several places.

The girls ran away laughing, and John had never been more fiercely proud of his wife than he was at that moment...nor had he ever been so deeply hurt by his fans.

The behavior of many of his so-called fans puzzled and angered him even as it mystified him. Here was someone he'd found in the world who he believed he could be happy with--someone who seemed to him a soul mate. Why weren't the people who claimed to care for him happy that his loneliness had been eased at last? There had been some resentment when it had been discovered that he'd married Cynthia back in his Beatle days, but it was nothing like the simmering, barely restrained atmosphere of fury and disgust that seemed, like a living entity, determined to end his relationship with Yoko and destroy their solidarity. Of course, with John being John, rather than to drive a wedge between the two, the fire only served to forge, purify, and clarify what had become an unbreakable bond between himself and his new love. It seemed to them that it was now the two of them against the rest of the world. The pair of them had clung together out of pure desperation at times.

They had been separated for a while, and John had even found new love, but in the end he'd returned to his wife, deciding to try to make it work despite all the odds... then Sean had come, and their relationship was strengthened by becoming a triple cord that bound them together.

It had taken a bullet from an assassin's gun to break that bond; that and John's determination to protect his family. He'd thought his loved ones would be safe with him out of their lives, but now even that fragile peace had been dashed, and his wife, the mother of his youngest son, lay dying in front of him.

"You are dying," he said softly, his voice filled with wonder. He suddenly knew it as sure as he was sitting there beside her. "I can feel you going. Don't be afraid, love, it's not so bad...I almost went meself, and it wasn't what I expected. It was peaceful and kinda warm. Don't be scared, darlin', I'm here, and I'll protect Sean, I promise."

Yoko's eyelids fluttered, and for an instant, he knew she saw him, but her gaze traveled through and beyond him, her eyes fixed upon something or someone only she could see.

Her mouth curved slightly into the shy smile he'd always loved, and her eyes closed for the last time. She exhaled slowly, and her heart monitor began to emit a flat, monotone squeal.

John closed his eyes and leaned to kiss her cheek, then he watched as some doctors and nurses came running into the room. One of the nurses wheeled him out into the hallway and told Linda that they would do everything they could, but John knew that Yoko's spirit was now beyond their reach.

The hospital room door closed and John looked up at Linda, his face wet with tears.

"We have to find Sean," he told her. "She's gone, and I'm all he has now."

As if on cue, the child came running around the corner, hurtling towards the door behind which the doctors were struggling to save his mother's life.

John plucked him out of mid-leap and whispered something to him, and the boy looked up into his face.

"I'll come with you," he said in a soft, sad voice. "Mummy says you'll take care of me."

Linda quickly wheeled both of them away as they heard the doctor call the time of death.

No one seemed to notice or tried to stop the nurse pushing the old gentleman out of the hospital with the solemn little boy seated in his lap.

As soon as they reached their rented van, Linda's elderly charge leapt from his chair and tossed it easily into the back of the vehicle, grabbed the boy up and swung him into the rear seat, then hopped in himself.

"Step on it, Nurse Linda!  Let's get outta here before the nanny finds out he's gone," the old gentleman man said in a remarkably young voice with a Liverpudlian accent.

Sean looked at his 'grandfather' in astonishment. "Daddy," he said wonderingly. "It is you!"

John's eyes twinkled, and he smiled above the wispy beard which had been glued onto his face. "It's me, right enough," he said to his son, "And I've come to take ye home with me."

***

The van reached the small, private airfield without incident, and the trio boarded the little plane quickly. Barely an hour had passed since they'd left the hospital before they were airborne and headed back to Scotland.

Sean was thrilled to be with his father once again, but he was slightly subdued, sobered by the knowledge that his mother was gone and would never return.

"But, Daddy, you came back," the child argued, "Why can't she?"

"Mummy is with God now," John explained. "She can't come back, but she'll be happy forever, and she'll be lookin' out for us from Heaven, ye can be sure o' that. No one will ever be able to hurt her again, and between the two of us, her up there and me down here, we'll take the very best care o' ye."
"Where are we going?" asked Sean, looking out of the window at the clouds below.

" First we're goin' to yer Uncle Paul's house, then we're goin' to yer Daddy's home," John explained. "It's an island called Harmony, and ye've got a little brother waitin' there to meet ye."

"Who is his mama?"

"A very nice, very pretty lady named Mavis," John replied. "She owns a kind of restaurant, and she's been takin' care o' me since I was shot back when ye were little. She's gonna just love ye, exactly as she would if ye were her own little lad."

"If you say she's nice, then I'll let her take care of me," said Sean, stifling a yawn. "But I'm still really gonna miss my own mommy."

A tear slipped down his little cheek, and John kissed it away, lifted his son onto his lap and held him close. "I know ye will," he whispered into the boy's silky hair. "So will I, but after a while it won't hurt as much as it does right now."

Sean slept for the greater portion of the trip to Scotland, exhausted emotionally by all that had happened to throw his young life into complete disarray. His sleep was fitful when dreams of what had happened to his mother encroached upon his subconscious, but a hug and a gentle kiss fro his father, who held him for most of the trip, quieted him whenever he stirred, and he settled back into more peaceful dreams.

***

Mavis was making breakfast for a group of fishermen and farmers when the telegram arrived telling her that John had arrived in Scotland and would be home that afternoon.

An unexpected turn of events, the message went on to say. My son will be coming home with me.

Astonished by the news, Mavis spent the rest of the morning getting a room ready for Sean.

The poor baby, she thought as she waited with the wagon for the plane to land, coming to a strange, new place on the heels of losing his mother. She looked down at her own child sleeping in her arms as the little plane circled the field and began to descend.

She would love him, she knew. He was John's child, blood of his blood, and she could do no less than to care for him as though he were her own little boy.

The little plane rolled across the field and came to a stop about fifty yards from where Mavis was standing, and she held her breath as John disembarked and turned to lift his young son from the plane and set him on the ground before grabbing his suitcase and several bags of clothes given to him by Linda for Sean.

He handed one of the bags to Sean, who struggled valiantly to carry it across the field.

John and Sean had discussed the need to keep their true identities a secret, and it had been decided that Sean would be introduced to the people of Harmony and enrolled in school as Peter Evans, John's son from a previous marriage to a Vietnamese woman who had decided that her son would do well to grow up with his father rather than in her village, where he had been treated as a pariah. It seemed like fun to the child to play at being someone else, and together he and his father had invented an intricate backstory for Peter.

John tossed the luggage into the back of the wagon and took Mavis into his arms at last, relieved to finally be home again.

When he had released her, Mavis handed the baby to John and knelt before Sean.  He looked at her with dark, solemn eyes for a moment, then threw himself without hesitation into her outstretched arms and clung to her. Mavis stroked the boy's silky hair and kissed him fiercely on the top of his head, whispering that everything was going to be fine.

John was astonished by the way his son latched onto Mavis, refusing to be pried away for what seemed like a very long time. At last, the child heaved a deep sigh and loosened his hold upon Mavis' neck, and John took him from her and set him upon a pile of hay in the back of the wagon.

John helped Mavis climb into her seat on the wagon and handed Adam back to her, then climbed aboard himself and whistled to the horse. "That's a good girl," he said as the animal started towards town. "Take us home."

'Peter' buried himself in the warm, fragrant mound of hay until only his face was visible and watched as the countryside rolled past. “Is it far to where we live?” he asked.

“No,” Mavis called over her shoulder. “It’s only a little way. We’ll be there before half an hour has passed, then I’ll show you your new room, and you can tell me what you’d like to make it all your own.”

“Don’t you and Daddy have a car?”

“Nobody in town has a car,” she replied, “That is, except for the doctor. Some of the farmers have vans, though, and there are even some tractors and a couple of trucks on the island. I expect it’ll be quite a difference compared to what you’re used to in America.”

“You mean in Vietnam,” the boy told her. “Sean was from America, but Peter is from Vietnam. There’s a jungle there, you know, and everyone was very mean to Peter, so his mama decided to let him go live with his Daddy on this island.”

“Oh, I see…well, you’d better explain all of that to me, in case anyone asks,” Mavis replied.

“Oh, you’ll catch on, it’s easy, like being part of a story—but we are all part of a story anyway, so it won’t be hard at all. You’ll see,” the child assured her.

***

Sean Lennon's disappearance went unnoticed by the people of Harmony, although John and Mavis held their breath whenever it was mentioned on the radio or in one of the few newspapers that found their way to the island.

No one questioned the boy concerning his story, accepting him at his word, and the little family was left in peace until one morning nearly a year later when a damning photo which had been left inside a teenager's camera came to light and found itself on the front cover of a well known paper.

John was sitting at the kitchen table when he opened the large envelope from Paul and saw what his friend had sent to him.

It was the front page of this popular, so-called 'scandal sheet'; there was a photo of Linda--her face thankfully partly obscured by her dark wig-- dressed as a nurse and pushing a little old Asian man in a wheelchair out the front door of a hospital in New York City, a solemn little child seated in the old gentleman's lap.

Sean Lennon's Kidnappers Caught On Film, the headline said. Authorities Begin Search To Locate Abducted Child.

Sean Lennon, the article said, only son of the late John Lennon and avant garde artist Yoko Ono Lennon, disappeared last year from Roosevelt Hospital in New York City on the day his mother died there after being shot by an unknown assailant.

There have been no leads concerning the whereabouts of the child--until now.

This photo was taken by fifteen year old Sarah Jacobsen while she waited for her mother to come out of the hospital on the day Sean disappeared. The film was left in the camera until it was rediscovered and developed today, nearly a full year later. The boy in the photo was recognized as Sean Lennon by an alert Photo Mart employee, who notified authorities.

"I didn't know who those people were," Miss Jacobsen replied when she was questioned by police. "I just thought it was kind of funny the way they came bursting out the door and across the parking lot. They looked like they were being chased, but no one came running out after them. Right after I took the picture, my mom came out and we went home. I just sort of forgot about the picture after that, and last week I finished the roll at a friend's birthday party and turned it in at Photo Mart. The next thing I knew, you were at the door asking me about when I took the picture."

The nurse and her elderly charge have yet to be identified, but police are working on the case and information will be released as it becomes available.

If you have any information concerning these people, please contact the New York City Police Department.

John crumpled the paper and threw it immediately into the fire in the kitchen stove.

"If anyone on the island sees this picture, they're going to recognize Sean right away," he said softly. "It won't take a genius to put the rest of it together once that happens."

Mavis was stunned; she didn't say anything for a few moments, then suddenly she looked at John and her face went white.

Part 9 Coming Soon!

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