dani

Besides, I don't often get the chance to enjoy that time of the day. I start work at 9:00, so I get ready at 7:00, which is when the sun starts setting, and sitting on the beach and watching the sky doesn't pay the bills. I've become sort of nocturnal, but I like bartending. It's not the worst job I've had. The downside is the people. Rêve is a luxury hotel that hosts many exclusive guests, which is code for 'ultra-elite, Hollywood, old-money assholes'. I should know; I'm the one serving them.

As for my other work, I have not been as...successful. I...have no report on Subject #6251. His last public sighting was his trip to Bermuda with the Culkin family in June. He's reported to be here in California now, but Mr. Jackson keeps a strictly personal security team, and public appearances are brief and scarce. But for the past five months, something I heard when I hitched has been bouncing around my mind: I'll see you in July. Maybe it didn't mean anything at all. Maybe it did. I guess we'll see.

You groggily stir out of bed at half past five to the unbearably familiar sound of your alarm clock. You unplug it altogether after you miss the button a few times and groan as you're forced to move out of your comfortable position and plug it back in. When the analog numbers appear, a voice crackles through the static.

"-so it's looking like a nice, summer night over here in West LA," the newsman announces as you swing your legs over the side of the bed, "with partial cloudiness around 11:00. Now, to Alice on entertainment."

The station continues on your other stereo in the living room, which you must've accidentally left on last night. Strange, though. You don't remember turning it on. You shrug it off; this forgetfulness hasn't been uncommon lately. Even five months after hitching, your memory still gets a bit fuzzy at times. It comes off as ditzy and air-headed to your colleagues, a role that you begrudgingly play into; you've started to wonder how much longer until the side effects wear off.

You pop a slice of bread into the toaster while flicking a small lighter in your hand. Holding the flame up to the overhead light, you watch as the reds and yellows turn translucent and jagged, crystallizing into the air before your very eyes.

Not all light is different now. Electrical energy holds up just the same, but the sun and fire─untouched by humans and completely, naturally of the Earth─are luminescent in ways you never imagined possible.

When you've finished admiring the flame, you pop a thin cigarette between your lips. You aren't a smoker─at least, you weren't. But with time in your hands, the reversibility of any harm is enough reason to allow yourself a vice here or there.

Truth be told, you've changed ever since you arrived. You wear your hair a bit differently now, but beyond physical changes, you've had a strange sense of self that the 21st century could not provide, the kind that can only come with a slower pace of life, no alerts and notifications, or mindless, short-form media. You're more mindful of your surroundings, more present in the given moment. Contentedness suits you rather well.

"And this just came in, folks," the newsreader continues, "Earlier today, Michael Jackson was spotted in Tom Toy's, a toy store in Beverly Hills that the popstar is known to frequent. Less than a minute after fans first noticed him, a crowd of approximately two hundred gathered..."

A cloud of smoke surrounds you as you exhale slowly, despite the fever rising in your blood. It quickens your heart and leaves your mind racing.

Tom's Toys in Beverly Hills...You sort through the mental map you've made of the city. Tom's Toys on N Beverly Drive. The very road you pass on your way to the Hôtel de Rêve─with the very man you'd hoped to see. Quite possibly the closest you've been to him, and, dishearteningly, you've just missed him.

That voice repeats itself in your head again. "I'll see you in July."

Nicotine settles into your bloodstream quickly. Out the window, motor vehicles of all kinds─trucks, SUV's, limousines, and taxis─maintain their routes on the city street with blaring bass lines and the periodic, angry honk. Your toast pops into the air, but your stomach is suddenly sour with guilt, and you've lost your appetite.

You leave your flat promptly at 8:34, sparing twenty-six minutes to get to the bus stop. It feels silly to be so adamant over a schedule when you know now that time is so irrelevant.

Try telling that to your boss, you think to yourself as you hurry down the sidewalk, swiftly maneuvering past others moving slower than you. Ever since hearing the news when you first woke, you've been excessively hard on yourself. Self-criticism certainly does nothing to help your case, yet you can't help but give into the overlapping thoughts that race through your mind like the cars on the road.

You wouldn't have missed him if you didn't have this fucking job.

A job that you need to pay rent.

Rent that you pay because you went and sent yourself back in time. Do you even hear yourself?

Contrary to your earlier mishap, you luckily arrive at your stop just as the bus pulls to the side. You and the usual others─a short grandmother who didn't speak English, a moody teenager who always wore black, and a man twice your age with a prosthetic leg; you love to subtly watch these stranger and the intricacies of these small moments you share with them─file onto the bus. You take your seat and recognize the intro of a familiar song playing through the driver's radio.

"Whispers at morning. Our love is dawning. Heaven's glad you came."

You enter the hotel through a back door. It takes you through a hallway lined with fluorescent lights. If you think for too long, you can feel yourself back in those halls they'd led you through. Those last moments of normalcy, though surely there was nothing normal about it.

Nevertheless, you shake off that nasty feeling as you cut through the kitchen, waving hello to the chefs. In the break room, you stash your bag into a locker as quickly as possible and tuck your top into your pants. The uniform is undoubtedly comfortable, but high-end dining calls for high-end appearing staff. "Don't forget, Margot," your manager says to you in the back. "Special guest at 10:00."

Another Hollywood prick to bless your night without leaving a tip. You don't say that part out loud.

Your night continues like any other. Hotel guests linger at the bar, some alone, some with company. Some strike up conversation, though most don't. Around an hour in, you find yourself craving a smoke break, which a coworker encourages you to. In the dark alley behind the building, the two of you briefly talk about his recent engagement to a girl he met in Vegas. He swears that she's the one.

When you come back, you return to the kitchen and bar staff frantically scrambling around as if the place were on fire. Servers are frantically cleaning, the cooks are arguing, and someone runs by with a bag of ice. Your manager asks where you've been and, before you can answer, points to the clock on the wall. The big hand points at 10.

You mentally curse at yourself.

"My other bartender just fucking fainted," your manager complains and tells you to take your partner's spot.

Quick to comply, you messily tie your apron around your waist and hurry towards the bar. The doors push open with ease, and the first thing you notice when you walk out is the silence. The Hôtel de Rêve is not usually a boisterous place; etiquette calls for a low, respectable volume. And it isn't unusual for private guests to rent out the bar to themselves. But this complete quiet that blankets the air envelopes you into the room as if nothing exists outside of it─nothing but you and your guest of the night.

And when your eyes finally land on him, your heart stops.

Because it's him.

Undoubtedly and sublimely him. His raven-black suit jacket is adorned with small, onyx jewels that reflect the bar's amber lighting almost as much as his lusciously dark eyes. Within them is a depth too vast to scale, and when they meet yours, and you feel yourself teetering over the edge. He wears the softest glint of a smile.

And, most profoundly, a thin, lucid line of opalescent light traces his figure─the same light that reached for you five months ago and has touched your soul ever since.

I'll see you in July, you think to yourself.

In his presence─and no one else's─you cannot move. You don't try to. You stand there, behind the bar, in your apron and uniform, completely still. Composing yourself, you move to follow the same formal script you've generated during your time at Rêve: "Good evening, sir" and "What would you like to start with?"

But before your voice can even find itself, his fills the air, soft and quiet as if to himself.

"It's you."

His words debilitate you, and you are utterly and horribly helpless in his gaze. You remain there for seemingly an hour, but what is an hour to a minute in the grand illusion of time?

He doesn't await your reply. He doesn't even appear to expect your professional greeting. The moment is as startling to him as it is to you, and you cannot determine why; but the moment lives on, along with the pulsing glow of his aura.

When he finally notices the confusion in your eyes, he breathily chuckles.

"I'm sorry. That was strange of me to say. I just-" you approach the bar, and he smiles in awe. "I saw you today."

You're intrigued. "You did?"

"I was on Ruemorth," he nods. "You were walkin' down the street. I could see you were in a uniform of some kind, but I wouldn't have guessed it was the Rêve."

I was pickin' at my nails and lookin' out the window. Bill had the jazz station on, which was calming and all, but I still had such an awful feelin' in my stomach. I don't know where it came from, or when, really, but, as I was lookin' out the window, I saw you. And the sun was angled so perfectly on you─y'looked so pretty. Unreal. I couldn't even believe my eyes. It was you...But Bill kept driving, and then you were gone.

"I live on Ruemorth," you concur, fulfilling your commitment to conspicuity. Though you would be lying if you said the truth of the moment wasn't short-circuiting your mind. You'd walked to the bus stop earlier this evening in such agitation that you'd forgotten to mind the cars on the road and the people inside them. But even if you had, would you have seen him? How many times had he been just out of your reach, so close yet so far?

"Well, how about that," he leans back in his seat with one arm rested on the edge of the bar.

You smile, "What can I get for you tonight, Mr. Jackson?"

"Please, call me Michael."

"Alright, Michael," you smoothly muse despite your racing heart. "What would you like?"

"A coke and vodka, please." You gracefully drift further down the bar to the rail and pluck a bottle of Stolichnaya. The crisp snap of a cold Coca-Cola cracked open; the quiet fizz once it hits ice in a crystal glass, the blur of fluids mixing together. But Michael doesn't miss the way your nose crinkles in distaste as you garnish the glass with a slice of lime. He grins, "What, you don't like it?"

You place the drink on a napkin across from him with a small smile. "Vodka is just an...interesting choice," you politely rib.

He hums as he takes the first sip; his eyes never leave yours. "How many Cuba Libre's do y'get asked to make in a night?"

"Quite a few," you reply once you think it over.

"Does it ever get boring?"

You want to disagree. Provoke him a little more so you can talk a little more; God forbid you were having fun. "Actually, it does," you nod, much to Michael's satisfaction. "Thanks, you’ve really made my day." The hint of sarcasm excites him, but you mean every word.

"You're welcome," he raises his glass. “Anything for the pretty girl walkin' down the street.”

Your breath hitches in your throat as a warmth gathers in your cheeks. Your nails dig crescents into your palms to fight the flutter in your stomach. Guests often flirt with you. Most of them are men twice your age who hide their wedding bands in their pockets. You’ve learned to smile and accept their unsolicited remarks without encouraging any more. But with him, you are speechless.

And, by the way he watches your drawn-out reaction, you realize he’s rather accustomed to this.

“What can I call you?” He asks, balancing the glass between his fingertips.

You smile bitterly, hoping he doesn’t notice. “Margot,” you offer; it feels vile to say it so plainly. As soon as it leaves your mouth, you wish to tell him that’s a lie─that’s not your name.

You aren’t who you say you are. You aren’t where you belong.

But he looks at you, and his eyes─deep, velvety voids—are filled with such adoration, you can’t imagine you belong anywhere else than here.

“That’s a lovely name,” he says before taking a sip.

A serene silence falls over the two of you. With no other guests or customers to wait on, no glasses to clean, no mess to sort, you idly stand to the side as Michael continues with his drink, only to stop halfway, his body suddenly stilling.

"Y'know what?" He catches your attention. "I think I will take that with rum."

"Right away," you nod and move towards the liquor rail again before Michael interjects.

"When I got here, your boss mentioned a rare collection in the back. Said somethin' about a bottle of Clément by Tournaire in the back. From 1966, I think?" Michael ponders to himself. Then, he looks back at you with those deep eyes again. "Would y'be a doll and grab it for me?"

Though his words make your knees weak, you internally groan at the request; the rare bottles are kept in a locked compartment whose key belonged to your shift leader. You explain this to Michael, who instructs you to, “Tell him I wanna give him my autograph".

When you warn that it'll take a bit to securely retrieve the bottle, he simply says, "Take your time."

If it were any other customer, you would have─but now, there isn’t a moment to spare. You’ve waited almost half a year for a glimpse, a scrap, and now you’ve been graced with the whole feast. You fetch the key from your manager. You try to ignore all of the fluorescent lights in the hall. The unit hisses open, its crisp air instantly biting your exposed skin. It threatens to freeze your fingers as they nimbly sort through the various bottles before finally landing on the Clément. With it securely tucked under your arm, you lock the unit door behind you and trek back down the awful hallway, through the kitchen, and towards the bar.

As you approach the doorway, your manager barges through with an unsettlingly keen look in his eye. He muttered to leave the keys at the bar.

But before you can question his manner, you enter the dining room and Michael's eyes land on you again.

"There she is," he beams.

You hold the bottle up, allowing him to admire its golden concoction as you prepare a glass with ice.

"Make it a double," Michael interjects your train of thought again.

"Expecting company?" You ask, reaching for another cup.

He shakes his head but waits until you crack two more cans of soda open to speak. "I got good company right now."

The ice crackles underneath the rum as you process his sentiment. Your soft smile soon disappears. You furrow your brows, but Michael's expression is steadily patient. "Oh," falls from your lips as it dawns on you. "I- That's very nice of you, but─I'm on the clock."

"Then don't drink. I'll pay for it anyway." He insists, so you continue with both drinks. "I'd like for you to join me, at least, in conversation."

"Weren't we doing that already?"

"No, you were serving me. I'd like for you to sit with me," Michael affirms. His kindness is perhaps the most unusual part of the night. "And, as of...right about now, y’not on the clock anymore."

"What did you-"

"It's alright," he reassures you. "I told your boss to send everyone else home. They're closin' up for the night right now. And, while I have you here," he reaches over the counter with long, lean arms and grabs one drink at a time, placing one across from himself and the other at the seat beside him, "I wanted t’get to know you."

Your face has undoubtedly gone red by now. Surely, he can hear your heart thumping in your chest. A part of you, buried and unearthed until now, eases into his proposal despite your best efforts.

"Does this work on every girl y'see?" You smirk.

"Dunno," his expression matches yours. "I haven't tried it before."

With that, you slowly untie your apron from your waist and leave it on the counter. Michael's eyes remain fixated on yours as you glide around the bar, meeting him on his side. And now that he's finally up close, you swear your heart stops again.

You can see the layers of color corrector and concealer blended and dusted onto his skin with perfection; the inky black line around his eyes; the way his dark curls have begun to loosely fall in front of his face, shadowing the contours of his cheekbones and nose. He’s unbearably real this close to you.

He asks you where you’re from. About your family, your parents or any siblings. Your favorite album, your first record, your favorite food. Through it all, you remain as loyal to the truth as you can, providing only fragments of it, and Michael’s eyes watch you as if there was nothing else in the world to see.

Eventually, the conversation veers from personal to casual and comfortable. The two of you shift as you talk, soon relaxing into the ease of the moment.

"My mother wanted me t'get rid of him," Michael chuckles to himself. "Said 'it's not right for a monkey to live in a house!' and made a big fuss to Joseph."

You smile as if you'd been there. "And now?"

"Now, she loves him. She won't say it," he points his finger matter-of-factly, "But I know it. I listen to her singin' to him, sometimes, or laughin' while he plays in the living room."

"Bubbles, the Chimpanzee," you smile to yourself with the rim of your glass between your lips. "Now, I want to meet him."

"You should," Michael enthuses.

Conversation comes so naturally with him that you wonder why you ever bothered interacting with any other guests. Occasionally, you crack a small joke, earning yourself a glimpse of his infectious laughter. And despite your earlier hesitation, you allow yourself one drink, which appears to be enough for the words to start spilling out of your mouth before you can stop them.

You don’t try to. You let the evening run its course, whatever it has in store. And, as Michael talks about himself ─a recent feud with one of his brothers or his stress with his upcoming album, which he refuses to speak more of ─you watch him.

The angelic aura surrounding him is no longer reminiscent of tessellated light. In fact, it isn’t reminiscent of anything. Not even the strange light of the sun or fire. His light glows in its own beautiful way, and it suddenly hits you that you aren’t looking at him through a magazine page or the static on your television, and you aren’t seeing him through the tessellation─you’re seated beside him, and however unreal he was to you before tonight is now the opposite.

Yet, there’s still a space between you and the present moment. All of it─the bar, the dining tables, the hanging Murano lamps, the shelves of luxury liquor─is horribly far away from you. Unreal.

Apart from him.

He who sits beside you like starlight, glowing and chimerical, yet present nonetheless. Flesh and blood, just like you. He who draws the same air as you, filling it with his light for you to take in, and from it, you feel an inexplicable sense of euphoria.

And, as hot, heavy tears begin to collect at your eyes, it dawns on you just how precious this moment is. An epiphany.

And a single question rattles around your mind begging for an answer.

How can I save you?

“There’s people out there who need real help, y’know?” Michael says, now rambling. You wish he’d never stop. “And I can reach them all─isn’t that beautiful? They listen to me, they love me…and I love them. I don’t want anyone to hurt. I have the power to really change their lives, to take away all that pain. I should try, shouldn’t I?”

He looks at you then, noticing how your eyes have turned glassy, but he doesn’t question it.

“Of course," you blink the tears away. "Is something stopping you?”

Michael thinks to himself for a moment. "No. I s'pose not."

Any tension you felt an hour ago has dissipated by now, though the shot of rum has certainly helped. His glass is empty, while yours is nearly finished, leaving lumps of watery ice and diluted Coca-Cola swimming at the bottom. It stays quiet for a long moment that fades into minutes, each one extended by the way his eyes remain on yours.

It makes your heart flutter, but you're oddly calm. There's something about it all that feels right─the first comfort you've felt in the past five months─as if you were meant to be here all along.

As you take the last sip of your drink, you realize that Michael has been waiting for you to finish. "Would you like another?" You instinctively ask.

He chuckles, "I told you, you're not serving me anymore."

"So, what now?"

After a few seconds, he finds the words, yet he still speaks them hesitantly. "Well, Ms. Margot, I hope it isn't strange of me t'say that I've had a very pleasant night with you. And-" He cuts himself off, now letting the words find him. "I'd like you to come home with me."

"You only met me tonight."

"I did," he nods. "I want to continue our conversation."

You squint at him.

"Not that kind of conversation," Michael gently laughs, taking your glasses and setting them on the other side of the bar. You watch his slender fingers reach back and offer themselves to you as he offers his hand. You feel yourself swooning, peering over the edge of the void again. This time, one foot dangles above the abyss.

"I can see plain n'clear how beautiful you are on the outside," he says while you place your hand in his; Michael's thumb rubs over your skin. "I'd like to see more of what's inside, if that's alright with you."

And, into the abyss, you fall.

“Oh no. No no no.”

A distant shout of “Get back here!” echoed in the narrow, rain-slicked alleyway.

“Fuck, where did I leave that thing?!”

Boot heels clicked sharply against the dark asphalt. Panic, cold and copper-sharp, tasted like old pennies resting under your tongue. You scrambled through the dark, your hands sweeping through the mist until your knuckles scraped against cold, dented sheet metal.

“Hey!”

There it was. Nestled between two overflowing dumpsters like a piece of abandoned, mid-century debris: your beloved Voice-o-Graph booth.

It was a beautiful and quite ridiculous disaster. A heavy, oak-and-chrome telephone-style box meant for recording three-minute audio discs in the 1940s, which you had hollowed out and crammed with unauthorized jury-rigged temporal coils.

It wasn't spatially folded yet, you hadn't quite figured out the math to make it larger on the inside, so you practically threw your weight against the heavy glass door, squeezing yourself into the cramped zinc-lined interior.

With a manic, trembling grin, you fished a heavy silver-plated token from your pocket and jammed it into the coin slot.

You didn't look at the dial settings. You didn't give a damn about the temporal coordinates.

You just needed to not be here.

So you proceeded to grab the heavy cast-iron mechanical levers on the dashboard and yanked them downward in a chaotic cascade.

The glass door rattled violently. Through the pane, the narrow alley began to tear at the seams.

The hunter rounded the corner, his silhouette illuminated by the predatory purple glow of his wrist-brand. His half-synthetic eyes locked onto yours through the glass—a seething glare meant to paralyze.

“What are you—“

Mustering a wide, entirely unbothered smile, you lifted your right hand.

“Sayonara, sucker.”

Hand still in the air, you folded your fingers—except the middle one, obviously—a smile of absolute triumph etched on your face.

Reality dissolved into a violent blur of vertical television static.

The air curdled, turning into a blinding grid of monochrome white noise that smelled faintly of burnt wires. The hunter’s furious face shattered into pixels, his final angry shout swallowed by the deafening, pressurized vacuum of the slipstream. Your stomach did a sickening zero-gravity flip as the horizontal hold collapsed, stretching your vision until the century snapped like an old rubber band.

Thump.

The Voice-o-Graph booth hit solid ground with a heavy metallic shudder that rattled your teeth.

Inside the casing, the small, custom digital display you’ve wired into the vintage dashboard blinked rapidly through the amber dust before settling into steady, glowing digits:

[LOCATION: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

[YEAR: 1987]

You let out a ragged breath, leaning your forehead against the cool glass of the door. “Okay. Okay, we’re okay. Late twentieth century. Perfect.”

Stepping out of the hidden alley where the machine had squeezed itself, the sound hit you first.

Shouting.

Directors yelling into megaphones. The blinding glare of massive studio lights cutting through the artificial evening mist of a closed-off city street.

You stumbled right onto a film set.

And not just any set.

Standing beneath the warm, amber wash of a Hollywood streetlamp was…

Michael Jackson.

He was wearing a blue button-down shirt over a pristine white tee, his black trousers catching the artificial moisture of the air. He was pacing with that loose, feline grace of his, a charming, half-amused smile playing on his lips.

Because right next to him, laughing a little too perfectly, was the female lead of The Way You Make Me Feel, Tatiana Thumbtzen.

She was laughing, a sound that was entirely too perfect. Her beauty was undeniable, but as you watched her whisper into his ear, a sudden, aggressive vibration rattled against your ribs.

Your modified Walkman—the one you’d re-wired with a ferrofluid core to detect tachyon friction—was practically leaping out of your pocket. The little red recording light on the plastic casing was flashing a warning purple.

You pulled the foam headphones down around your neck, your eyes narrowing as you watched her through the haze of the studio smoke. The Walkman’s sensor was screaming because the temporal air pressure around those two was reaching a tinderbox peak.

Is she a Collector? you wondered, your fingers tightening on the strap of your bag. You couldn't see her wrist from this distance. A telltale subcutaneous brand of a 31st-century art thief would be hidden beneath her sleeves. That facial structure was far too symmetrical, far too flawless to be a genetic accident of 1987.

She may be playing the part of an up-and-coming actress, but she also looked exactly like a high-end operative sent to bag a living masterpiece for a private gallery.

Across the asphalt, Michael suddenly shifted his weight. A subtle, pained shadow crossed his face, and he raised a hand to press his fingertips against his temple.

He could hear it.

The very atmosphere was rubbing against itself because the music he was currently birthing was a fixed pillar of human history, and Tatiana was standing entirely too close to the nexus.

“Hey! You!”

A sharp voice shattered your focus. A crew member with a clipboard and a headset was jogging toward your alcove, his expression sour.

“Extras belong behind the barricade by the catering trucks! Who let you onto the active set?”

You looked at the crew guy. Then at the lethal, gorgeous—and possibly cyborg—model whispering to the king of pop. Then at your vibrating, jury-rigged Walkman.

You needed a cover, and you needed it five seconds ago.

"Uh," you stammered, pulling the headphones up and putting on your best, most innocent smile. "I'm... I'm new! It's my first day. I'm with wardrobe."

The crew guy with the clipboard didn’t buy the wardrobe line for a single second. He opened his mouth, clearly preparing to yell loud enough to wake up all of Los Angeles, but you didn't give him the chance.

You stepped right into his personal space, locking your eyes onto his.

In your century, looking good wasn’t just a lucky roll of the genetic dice anymore, it was entirely achievable through the right connections. Because your family held high-ranking seats in the Temporal Preservation Agency, or TPA, they had access to top-tier molecular editing. Just like most powerful families in the distant future.

You had that striking, objective facial symmetry that came with a powerful lineage. Admittedly, it was an aesthetic cheat code, and you weren't above using it.

"Listen to me," you whispered, your voice dropping into a smooth lilt that sounded entirely legitimate. "The coordinator sent me. There’s a smudge on the lead's collar that’s going to ruin the entire wide shot. If we have to reset the lighting because of a grease mark, it's coming out of your department's budget. Do you want to explain that to management?"

The guy blinked, completely transfixed by your face and the utter confidence radiating from you. He swallowed hard, looking down at his clipboard, then back up at you. "Right. Uh. Go. Just—be fast."

"Always am," you said, flashing a brilliant, fleeting smile before slipping past him.

The moment you stepped onto the pavement, your brain screamed at you.

Why are you walking straight toward the target?!

Perhaps the adrenaline from escaping the hunter in the alley was still pumping through your veins, making you way too upfront.

This trip was supposed to be a low-stakes hobby. A practical way to field-test your modified Voice-o-Graph booth away from your overbearing family. Your entire household was stuffed with elite TPA agents who constantly lectured about the sanctity of history and the corporate greed of the 31st century. You hated the politics. You just liked the quiet mechanics of building things, soldering wires, and listening to old music.

But you knew why a Collector would be here.

Michael Jackson was a colossal historical nexus. Even a thousand years in the future, his name was legendary.

It made total sense that gallery owners would try to steal him. It was one of the reasons the TPA was starting to heavily regulate time travel, turning your harmless joyrides into a high-stakes crime. Well, maybe not a crime yet.

Besides, you were always careful to avoid trouble. When you remembered to be.

As you neared the center of the set, the Walkman inside your denim jacket began to thrum against your ribs like a trapped bird.

Michael was leaning against the fender of a parked car, a slow, playful smirk on his lips as he talked to Tatiana. He had one hand tucked loosely into his pocket, his head tilted back with effortless charm. He was completely in his element, enjoying the flirtation, entirely unaware that this woman was calculating his market value.

But as you stepped into the harsh glare of the studio lights, his smirk faltered.

Michael’s hand moved to his forehead, his fingers pressing against his temple. The static in his ears was suddenly deafening. Like most historical figures, he was sensitive to the timeline, and right now, he was standing directly between one, or maybe two, people who didn't belong in 1987. The temporal air pressure was throwing his equipoise entirely out of whack.

Then, he looked past Tatiana’s shoulder and saw you.

Michael’s eyes widened slightly. He took a slow, appreciative breath, his gaze lingering on your face with sudden curiosity. The headache was still there, but his natural instincts took over. He straightened up, shifting his focus entirely to you as you approached.

"Hey," Michael said, his voice a soft, melodic drawl. He didn't wait for you to speak, stepping slightly around Tatiana to get a better look at you. "I don't think I've seen you around here. You new to the crew?"

Tatiana’s smile didn’t falter, but her eyes went instantly sharp. A faint, high-frequency hum was bleeding from your jacket, and while she didn't recognize your jury-rigged Walkman as a tracker, the strange frequency made her dangerous instincts prickle.

You didn't look at Michael just yet. You forced yourself to focus somewhere else, marching right up to the gorgeous model.

"Sorry to interrupt," you said, your voice smooth and completely professional as you deliberately ignored the intense interest in Michael's eyes. "Coordinator sent me over. There's a grease smudge on your collar, Ms. Thumbtzen. Let me just fix that before the camera rolls."

Tatiana took a slow step forward, her movements a masterclass in manufactured grace. She reached out, her fingers brushing against your arm with a warmth that felt entirely genuine. To anyone else, it probably looked like a friendly gesture between two women on a hectic set.

But as her sleeve shifted, the studio lights caught the back of her wrist.

Right below the skin, was a faint, iridescent glimmer. A tiny brand shaped like a cracked hourglass. It looked like a faded tattoo, a piece of blurry ink you’d get on a dare. But you’ve seen enough to know better.

It was logo of the Epoch Syndicate.

"Oh, goodness, I am so sorry, sweetie," Tatiana said, her voice dropping into an apologetic tone that sounded incredibly convincing.

She immediately reached for her collar, her eyes wide with a gentle, starlet panic. "Is it really bad? We were just getting into the scene. I didn't mean to mess things up.”

You simply stared at her wrist, a cold spike of disgust hitting your chest.

You may not be a field agent like your parents or your insufferable older siblings. You may not give a damn about the grand bureaucracy of the timeline, or the thick manuals full of rules you were supposed to memorize.

But you loved history.

You loved the raw, messy, beautiful way humanity stumbled through the dark to create masterpieces. The sheer audacity of it made your blood boil. The idea that some billionaire in the 31st century could just pluck Michael Jackson out of reality to keep him in a private glass cage like a taxidermied bird?

To treat a living, breathing human legacy like a piece of high-end real estate for the ultra-rich? It was disgusting.

Art belonged to the world, not some tech-baron's private gallery.

Before the strangely tense energy vibrating between you two could draw any attention, Michael stepped in, completely oblivious to the gravity of the situation.

"Hey, it's okay, don't worry about it," Michael said. He offered you a soft, dazzling smile, his dark eyes holding yours with a curious interest. He tilted his head. Your chest was heaving slightly, and your eyes kept darting toward the dark edges of the street. "You look a little... shaken up. Are you alright?”

"I'm fine, Mr. Jackson,” you said quickly, trying to force your voice to stay level. "Just... a little nervous. First day jitters, you know? It's a big set.”

It was a total lie, but you needed him to think you were indeed just a panicked rookie. The adrenaline screaming through your veins wasn't actually from Tatiana, it was still from that idiot hunter in the alleyway.

God, he was a nightmare.

An unseasoned rogue traveler who had somehow discovered your reputation. Word traveled entirely too fast in the underground chronostatic community about the youngest child of one of TPA’s most powerful family. Unlike the other back-alley mechanics making illegal and dangerous weapons, you had direct access to top-tier Agency blueprints and you liked to tweak them, stripping away the bulky, boring regulations to make them sleeker, faster, and infinitely better. At least, for you.

Rogues wanted you to build them custom paradox-engines, the TPA wanted to harness your skill, and Syndicate members thought they could buy your brain. That hunter had been tracking your temporal signature for weeks, and flipping him off in the alley had been great, but your heart was still hammering against your ribs like a piston.

Michael noticed the way your fingers were twitching near your jacket pockets, where your tools were tucked away.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Michael said, his voice dropping into that comforting register. He stepped a bit closer, offering a reassuring presence without forcing it. "We were all newbies once. Trust me, I know how scary a big crowd can be.”

You finally looked at him. Really looked at him.

Any other time, you would have been completely starstruck. You had met a few major historical figures during your joyrides, and the awe usually hit you immediately. But because you had just tumbled out to this year after a literal timezone chase, the reality of who was standing in front of you hadn't settled in yet.

When your vision finally cleared, your eyes caught his face. He had the most striking, arresting eyes you had ever seen, framed by thick lashes like those of a startled fawn, yet holding a depth that felt almost infinite. Under the harsh glare of the overhead lighting rigs, they caught the illumination and shattered it into a brilliant, liquid sparkle.

You had seen his face a thousand times in the archives, but the cold pixels of the 31st century had completely failed to capture this; face-to-face, he was, quite simply, an exquisitely beautiful man.

You had always imagined him taller based on his silhouette alone. He possessed the elongated proportions of a much larger man, all lean limbs and impossibly long legs, yet he was more… compact in reality. Still, he carried himself with an effortless, almost feline grace, a natural charm that seemed to warp the very atmosphere around him.

A sharp prick of adrenaline snapped the tether of your awe. His striking appearance wasn't your main concern right now.

There’s more pressing matters at hand.

You needed a distraction, and you needed it before the cyborg realized you were sniffing around her temporal signature.

"Thank you, Mr. Jackson. You're really kind," you said, forcing a sheepish, grateful smile his way before pivoting sharply toward the model. "But I knew it! I knew I saw it from across the street!"

Your hand, still shoved deep into your denim pocket, brushed against a forgotten, half-melted Hershey’s Kiss you’d swiped from a 1950s diner two jumps ago. Perfect. With a swift, practiced flick of your thumb inside the fabric, you smeared the warm chocolate right onto your fingertips.

Before Tatiana could register the movement, you reached out and firmly pinched the crisp white collar of her shirt, pretending to inspect it. As you pulled away, you left an ugly greasy-looking streak directly against the fabric.

"Oh, no!" you gasped, stepping back and holding your hands up in a theatrical, and almost comical, panic. "Look at that! It must have been from the grip trucks. If the director rolls tape on that, the studio lights are going to catch the sheen and ruin the entire shot."

Michael leaned forward, squinting at the fresh brown stain in the dim light. "Oh, wow. Good eye. I didn't even notice that." He looked at you, an impressed laugh escaping his lips. "You're pretty sharp, you know that? What did you say your name was?"

You stammered out your old childhood nickname to make sure nothing tracked back to your family's official TPA records.

"I'm just the new assistant in wardrobe. And if the lead actress looks less than immaculate, my boss is going to literally skin me alive. I'll just go grab a replacement shirt from the trailer right now!"

Tatiana’s eyes narrowed into thin slits. The sweet facade didn't completely disappear, but the micro-expressions of her synthetic facial muscles twitched with sheer annoyance. She looked down at the smudge, her manicured fingers hovering over the stain, before her gaze snapped angrily toward the shadows past your shoulder.

You didn't turn around, the adrenaline was wearing off and you were more cautious now, but you carefully took note of the exact direction she was looking.

"Hey, it's okay, don't worry about it," Michael said softly, reaching out a hand to calm your somewhat exaggerated panic. "Take your time. We can wait a minute." He gave you a reassuring smile, clearly amused by your energy.

"Thank you!" you squeaked.

Turning on your heel, you fake-scurried off the active set toward the wardrobe trailers. The second you hit the dim periphery of the studio lights, you finally glanced toward the spot Tatiana had been staring at.

Standing near the catering tables was one of the background extras, a tall guy dressed in a 1980s leather street-gang outfit. He had a styrofoam cup halfway to his mouth, but he had frozen completely still. As you watched, he adjusted the heavy cuff of his jacket. For a split second, the leather rode up, revealing the exact same iridescent, cracked-hourglass tattoo beneath his skin.

Shit, you thought, your stomach dropping. Almost forgot they never work alone.

A full-blown temporal brawl in the middle of a crowded Los Angeles street with fifty civilian crew members and Michael Jackson standing three feet away was a one-way ticket to a massive timeline paradox.

If the local 1987 authorities got a hold of future tech, the clean-up crew from your parents' agency would have to wipe half the city's memories. You had to play this incredibly smart.

You slowed your pace just enough to pass right back by Tatiana's side under the pretense of apologizing again. Your hands were still moving in a flustered wave. But tucked into your palm was a small, sleek device disguised as a silver vintage Zippo lighter, an invention of your own making.

With a smooth, and hopefully unnoticeable, flick of your thumb, you struck the wheel. Instead of a flame, the Zippo emitted a silent, high-frequency chronostatic pulse. It firmly bonded a microscopic tracking frequency directly onto the metal buckle of her wristwatch.

Now, wherever she or her partner went, your modified Walkman would pick up their encrypted Syndicate comm-links.

You didn't look back to see if she noticed the faint static pop. You kept jogging toward the edge of the set, your mind racing as you scanned the shadows for anyone else with tiny hourglass tattoos. You needed to get back to your Voice-o-Graph booth, and were even thinking of grabbing your heavy gear.

You also needed to figure out how to keep Michael safe before the Epoch Syndicate realized someone was tapping into their frequency.

Jogging past the towering cables and heavy sandbags, your brain finally caught up with your feet.

Wait.

Going back to the alley to grab your heavy-duty tech? That is an absolutely moronic move. If you showed up on a 1987 film set carrying an un-concealed, grade-four temporal disrupter, you might as well hand Tatiana your head on a silver platter.

Besides, Michael Jackson wasn’t some low-tier renaissance painter or an obscure 21st-century politician. Even in the far, glittering future of the 31st century, the man was an absolute titan. A historical monolith. His cultural footprint was so massive that his auction value in the underground galleries would be astronomical.

Maybe even enough to buy a small moon.

There was no way in hell the Temporal Preservation Agency would leave a nexus point this valuable completely unguarded. There had to be a field agent stationed here already.

You slowed your pace to a brisk walk, trying to regulate your breathing, when a heavy hand suddenly clamped down onto your shoulder from behind.

Adrenaline spiked violently. Your survival instincts, honed by a lifetime of hiding not-so-legal engineering projects from your family, kicked in on pure reflex. You ducked your shoulder, pivoted your weight, and drove your elbow backward with sharp precision, aiming straight for the stranger's ribs.

Smack.

A large, calloused hand caught your elbow mid-air, absorbing the kinetic force with an effortless, practiced ease that screamed high-level combat training.

"Still got that nasty left hook, kiddo," a low voice muttered right above your ear.

You blinked, freezing in place. You slowly looked up.

Standing in front of you was a tall, ruggedly handsome man in his late thirties, wearing a faded denim jacket and a headset looped around his neck. He looked exactly like a seasoned 1980s key grip—complete with a ring of keys clipping to his belt—but his eyes had that sharp, unmistakable hyper-awareness of a seasoned TPA field operative.

"Agent Zayd?" you whispered, yet very loudly, your jaw dropping in the slightest.

"Keep your voice down," he muttered, smoothly turning you around and guiding you away from the catering trucks, acting as if he was just lecturing a clumsy staff member. "What the hell are you doing in 1987? Your mother thinks you're at a mechanics convention in New New Chicago."

"I was field-testing my booth!" you hissed back, defending your honor. "And thank God I did, because Tatiana Thumbtzen over there is packing a subcutaneous Epoch brand, and she's got a partner lurking by the coffee urns!”

Zayd didn't look shocked in the slightest. He just sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "We know about the Syndicate operatives. We've been tracking this specific cell for six months.”

"Then why haven't you neutralized them?!" you demanded, throwing your hands up in a silent, frustrated gesture. "They're literally walking pieces of corporate espionage standing three feet away from one of the most expensive historical asset in human history!”

"Because we play the long game, kid. Unlike you," Zayd said, his tone dropping into a firm, parental lecture.

He knew your parents, your older siblings, hell your entire overachieving, agency-employed family. "We have a strict non-interference contract regarding Michael's primary timeline. Tatiana has to stay in the video. She has to go on the Bad tour. If we pluck her out now, the ripple effect collapses the next three years of pop culture history. We intercept the Collectors after their contract with the timeline expires. Now, you? You're a liability. You don't have field clearance."

"I can't just jump right back out," you muttered, looking down. Honestly, the adrenaline from the alleyway chase finally wore off completely, leaving you exhausted. "Can't I just stay for tonight? Just to get a breather? Please, Zayd. I'll stay completely out of the way.”

He looked at you, his tough exterior softening just a fraction. As the youngest of a family he respected, he knew you were more of a reckless tinkerer than a malicious rule-breaker. Though he didn’t hold you above being the latter either. He just sighed again, looking over his shoulder toward the director's chair.

"Fine. One night. But you want to be useful? Stop acting like a rogue mechanic and let me handle it. I'll vouch for you. I'm the head grip on this unit. I can hire whoever I want.”

True to his word, Zayd marched you right back onto the active set five minutes later. He gave a loud, staged lecture about you making sure the talent's wardrobe stayed spotless before telling the production stage manager that you were his niece from Ohio, hired on as a temporary wardrobe assistant to help handle the heavy shoot.

By the time the director yelled "Action!" again, you were officially part of the crew, stuck holding a clipboard and keeping your head down.

From a safe distance, you watched Tatiana and her leather-jacket partner. Thanks to the micro-frequency bug you’d snapped onto her watch with the Zippo, your Walkman was quietly recording their encrypted Syndicate comm-links. For now, they seemed entirely unaware that they’d been tagged, their focus remaining on the production as they tried to figure out who you were and why you were suddenly attached to the head grip’s crew.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Hours later, the bright studio lights finally powered down, plunging the simulated Los Angeles street into the cool dampness of midnight.

To celebrate the completion of the grueling shoot, Michael had ordered an absurd amount of food from a local 24-hour diner, turning the back of the studio lot into a mini impromptu wrap party. Neon signs buzzed overhead, and the crew was laughing, drinking cheap beer, and unwinding from the long day they all had.

You were sitting on an overturned plastic crate near the equipment trucks, holding a glass of Coca-Cola, your eyes scanning the crowd.

Zayd walked over, dropping a heavy clipboard onto the hood of a nearby truck. He kept his gaze on the crowd.

"The Syndicate agents are backing off for the night. They're huddled near their trailers, probably trying to decode your frequency signature. You're safe for now.”

"And your team?" you asked softly, taking a sip of your soda.

"Stationed in the perimeter," Zayd said, giving a small nod toward two background extras laughing by the punch bowl, both of them completely blending into the 1980s aesthetic but keeping their hands dangerously close to their concealed gear. "We've been assigned to Michael since the '83 shift change. We don't lose assets on our watch. Tomorrow morning, I want you back in your booth and heading home. Got it?”

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever," you muttered, rolling your eyes.

Zayd offered a genuine smile, patting your shoulder approvingly for keeping your cool before walking away to debrief with the other two agents in the shadows.

You sighed, leaning your head back against the cold metal of the truck. You were exhausted. The adrenaline from the alleyway stalker, the chocolate-smudge lie, and the stress of dealing with a literal cybernetic assassin had left you completely drained.

"You aren't hanging out with the others?”

The soft, breathy voice caught you entirely off guard.

You snapped your head up. Michael was standing right in front of you. He had changed out of his filming clothes into a loose, comfortable red sweater, but his hair was still damp from the set's artificial rain. He was holding a paper plate with a half-eaten slice of cherry pie, a pleasant smile warming his features.

In the dim, romantic wash of the party's string lights, your features caught the light. Michael lingered on your face, his eyes wide and completely captivated by the sheer, striking harmony of your expression.

He was a man who appreciated beauty in all its forms, and you were a completely fresh, utterly mesmerizing face in a sea of typical Hollywood casting choices.

"Oh. Mr. Jackson," you said, scrambling to stand up from your crate, suddenly remembering your role as the lowly, stressed-out newbie. "Hello. Sorry, I was just... resting."

"No, no, please, sit down," he said quickly, waving his hand to stop you. He didn't sit on the crate, but he leaned comfortably against the equipment truck right next to you, tilting his head with a playful but curious expression. He took a small bite of his pie, chewing thoughtfully before looking back at you. "You know... I watched you earlier. You were running around like a little tornado. Very intense."

"Just trying not to get fired," you lied smoothly, offering a sheepish grin.

"Is that why you were talking to Zayd just now?" Michael asked. His voice was soft, but there was a distinctly sharp edge of curiosity underneath it. He shifted his weight, his dark eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that made your chest tighten. "He seemed... pretty intense with you, too. Are you two... close?"

You blinked, momentarily stunned. Michael Jackson—who most consider as the biggest pop star on Earth—was currently leaning against a truck, eating pie, and subtly trying to figure out your relationship status with the head key grip.

It was almost comical.

"Zayd?" you let out a genuine, sharp laugh, shaking your head. "I guess? He's... he's my uncle. An incredibly annoying, overbearing uncle.”

Michael's posture instantly relaxed. The subtle tension in his shoulders melted away, replaced by that slightly mischievous smirk you'd seen on him earlier. He set his plate down on the truck bed, stepping a fraction of an inch closer to you, his eyes holding yours with a gentle, magnetic charm.

"Uncle," Michael repeated, his voice dropping into a quiet, pleasant purr. "Well... that's a relief.”

He smiled.

"Well, I think you did a wonderful job today," He said, his voice dropping into a smooth, comforting cadence. "You’ve got a really good eye. Most people wouldn't have noticed a tiny mark like that before the cameras rolled."

"Just trying my best, Mr. Jackson," you replied with a playful shrug, leaning back against the equipment truck.

His eyes softened, holding yours with a sudden, shy intensity. "Please," he murmured, his smile turning tentative. "You don't have to call me Mr. Jackson. It's just—"

"Well, well. Look at this."

The voice cut through the cool night air like a jagged piece of glass.

You froze. That voice—dangerously arrogant. You snapped your head toward the shadow of the equipment truck.

Marcus.

Tatiana and her partner must have logged your temporal signature. And now Marcus, who had already been stalking your jumps from the future, had bypassed the centuries to intercept you right here.

He was an old acquaintance from your academy days, back before he flunked out and started selling his services to the Epoch Syndicate. You two used to get along purely because of your shared obsession. You’d spent countless nights locked in the academy labs, tinkering with experimental chronostatic gears while he spun wild, ambitious dreams about breaking the rules.

He knew your talent, and unfortunately for you, he knew exactly how to track it.

Marcus looked at Michael, giving the pop star a polite but entirely dismissive nod. He had no idea Zayd and two other TPA agents were monitoring the perimeter; he thought you were here alone on another one of your rogue joyrides.

"You're a hard person to track down," Marcus said, his eyes locking onto yours with a familiar, competitive spark as he stepped directly between you and Michael. "I heard a rumor you were jumping the late 20th century. Didn't think you'd be playing dress-up on a music video, though. Someone who can build a localized wormhole generator out of any old thing shouldn't be wasting their time shuffling jackets. It's a tragedy."

Michael’s brow furrowed. He stepped forward, his protective instincts instantly flaring as he sensed the sudden shift in the atmosphere. He didn't understand the jargon, but he understood predatory body language. "Excuse me," Michael said, his voice firming up, losing its soft edge. "Who are you? The crew area is restricted."

Marcus didn't even look at him, keeping his focus entirely on you. "The Epoch Syndicate could use your brain. We don't care about your family's boring little rules. You want funding for your inventions? Unlimited resources? Come with us. You don't belong with the TPA boy scouts."

Your heart hammered against your ribs. The code of absolute silence in front of civilians was the most sacred law in existence. If Michael realized what was actually happening, the timeline collapse would be catastrophic.

"I don't know what kind of drugs you're on, Marcus," you said, your voice dripping with ice as you stepped around him, putting yourself subtly between him and Michael. "But I like my job. Get off the set before I have security throw you out."

Marcus sighed, a disappointed smirk playing on his lips. "Always stubborn. Fine. If you won't come willingly, I'll just take the asset and let you watch."

With lightning-fast movement, Marcus’s hand shot toward his waistband, pulling out a sleek, metallic cylinder—an Epoch-grade sonic disruptor designed to temporarily paralyze anyone. He aimed it straight at Michael.

You reacted on pure, unadulterated instinct. Reaching into your kit, you grabbed a heavy metal stylist pen. It was actually a specialized Vector-Shielding Grounding Rod you’d built to absorb electrical surges. You threw your arm out, clicking the pen’s cap.

ZAP.

The invisible sonic pulse from Marcus's weapon collided mid-air with the micro-friction field of your grounding rod. The clashing energies short-circuited violently, creating a snapping blue spark and a high-pitched whine that sounded like a blown amplifier. The force of the temporal backfire slammed into Marcus’s weapon, instantly melting the internal components into a smoking, useless lump of plastic.

Marcus stumbled back, his hand smoking as the ruined device hissed.

"What the hell did you do to this?!" he snapped.

"I built it better," you hissed.

Before Marcus could lunge, three heavy shadows materialized from the darkness. Zayd and his two undercover agents slammed Marcus against the side of the equipment truck, a pair of chronostatic stasis cuffs snapping onto his wrists.

"Secure the perimeter! Move, move!" Zayd exclaimed, dragging a cursing Marcus away into the darkness to be processed and shipped back to the future.

The lot went dead silent again. The string lights flickered back to normal.

Michael was standing behind you, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps. He looked at the melted metal on the ground, then at you. He didn't understand the technology at all. To him, it looked like a terrifying, high-tech explosive device.

"Are you... are you hurt?" Michael breathed, his hands instantly coming up to gently grasp your shoulders, turning you around to face him. His eyes were wide with shock and adrenaline. "He had some kind of... weapon. I don't even know what that was, but you stopped it."

Before you could fabricate a lie, Zayd walked back over, his face completely pale. He didn't look at you, by the how things went down he knew you handled it pretty well. Instead, he looked directly at Michael, his hand slowly reaching into his denim jacket for a neural-regressive flash device.

"He's a just stalker, Mr. Jackson," Zayd said smoothly, his agent training taking over as he prepared to wipe Michael's memory of the last five minutes. "We're going to take care of it. Just look right here—"

No.

Your eyes widened. You stepped directly in front of Zayd's hidden hand, locking eyes with him in a silent, furious panic. If Zayd flashed Michael with a standard TPA memory wipe, the aggressive neural backwash could fry the delicate synapse structure of a hyper-creative mind. You'd seen the studies about it. Wiping him right now could accidentally erase the musical matrix of the entire Bad album.

"Don't," you muttered to Zayd under your breath, an authoritative warning in your tone. "He's fine. We don't need to do that. I've got it."

Zayd hesitated, his fingers freezing on the device. He knew there were risks of wiping a major historical nexus point, but he didn’t know the gravity of it. You interfering was enough of an answer. He slowly let his hand drop, giving you a hard, assessing look.

You turned back to Michael, forcing your breathing to slow down as you offered a reassuring smile. "It was just a malfunctioning pyrotechnic battery pack, Mr. Jackson. He's a disgruntled ex-crew member who stole some special effects gear. He was trying to scare everyone, but the battery short-circuited when I hit it with my pen. It's totally fine. You're safe."

Michael stared at you, his grip on your shoulders tightening just a fraction. He looked down at your hands, then back up to your face, a deep, unshakeable intensity in his gaze. He had spent his whole life surrounded by security guards who protected him for a paycheck, but you had thrown yourself into a blinding explosion for him without a second thought.

Zayd let out a long, defeated sigh, putting his hands on his hips as he realized he was trapped by your logic. He needed a technical handler on this set to monitor Michael's neural stability now that the Syndicate was acting out.

"Alright," Zayd said, clearing his throat and playing along. "Looks like your wardrobe contract just got extended. The production manager needs you on set for the rest of the tour to keep an eye on... the specialized equipment."

You blinked, a slow, triumphant smirk spreading across your face. "Does it come with a raise, 'Uncle' Zayd?"

"Don't push it," Zayd muttered, walking away to coordinate with his team.

The playful, magnetic charm returned to Michael’s eyes, brighter and more focused than before. He reached out, his fingers gently brushing against your sleeve.

"It’s good that you're staying," Michael murmured, his voice dropping into a whisper. He smiled, a genuinely dazzling expression that lit up his whole face.

"But seriously... after all that? You definitely can't call me Mr. Jackson anymore. It’s Michael. Please."

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Over the next few weeks, you became the TPA’s most effective, albeit probably illegal, undercover tech-support.

You didn't know if Zayd had reported your little 1987 detour to your family or the higher-ups at the Agency, but considering you were still here, you figured he was keeping it on the down-low.

Technically, it wasn't against explicit TPA law for you to mess with their gadgets. There was no policy that said “Do not improve Agency property.” But it definitely wasn't encouraged either.

Zayd never deliberately handed you his tactical gear either. You’d just swipe it off his workbench when he wasn't looking, tinker with it for an hour, and give it back completely overhauled. At first, his team grumbled, but they stopped complaining when they realized your calibrations actually made the tech work perfectly, maybe even better.

"If I have to use a stasis-grid that takes three whole seconds to boot up, someone is going to shoot me before the screen even loads," you muttered one afternoon, casually melting down the internal wiring of an agent's standard neural-neutralizer with a soldering iron. "I'm doing you a favor. Now it has a voice-activated override. You're welcome.”

Zayd just rubbed his temples, muttering about how your mother was going to strip his pension if you accidentally short-circuited the 1980s.

But while you were busy turning the TPA's boring armory into a playground of hyper-efficient micro-tech, you kept running into Michael.

Literally.

The head of the wardrobe department—a formidable woman named Sue who took absolutely no prisoners—had taken a massive liking to you. Because you were obsessed with perfection and detail, you could spot a loose thread from twenty feet away and organize a costume rack by fabric weight and historical layout in under ten minutes. Most of your peers back home could do the same, you just happen to be lucky to have actual experience.

Sue, on the other hand, thought you were a natural prodigy. And as if it was no-brainer, she made you the primary wardrobe assistant for the star himself.

Which meant you were constantly in his space.

There was the afternoon in the rehearsal studio where you had to crawl under a grand piano to retrieve a rogue silver buckle that had snapped off his loafers. Michael had peeked under the dust ruffle, laughing his high-pitched, breathless laugh, and instead of pulling away, he’d sat right down on the hardwood floor to help you look.

"You're always under something or fixing something," he’d teased, his eyes sparkling in the dim studio light. "Are you sure you're just wardrobe? You look like a mechanic."

"Clothes have mechanics, Michael," you replied casually, sliding the buckle into your pocket. "It's all about tension and structural integrity. Someone’s gotta keep you from falling apart on stage.”

He lingered there for a second, just looking at you. Really looking at you. The initial "pretty face" spark was rapidly turning into a genuine fascination. You didn't fawn over him. You didn't freeze when he touched your arm to steady himself. You treated him like a normal person, but with a sharp, guarded personality that kept him entirely intrigued.

Then came the telephone incident.

Michael had called Zayd’s direct line late one night to discuss a security concern regarding a fan who had breached the studio perimeter. Zayd was out back scanning for Epoch Syndicate tachyon signatures, so you picked up the receiver.

"Zayd's phone, this is his very overworked niece," you grumbled into the receiver, a pencil tucked behind your ear.

"Oh! Hello," Michael’s voice came through the wire, soft and surprised. "I didn't expect you to answer. Is... is everything okay?"

"Yeah. Just fixing a zipper that has decided to rebel against mankind," you sighed, leaning back in your chair. "Zayd is out. Can I take a message, Michael?"

He didn't give a message. Instead, he stayed on the line. For forty-five minutes.

It started with him asking about your day, then transitioning into an incredibly passionate, twenty-minute monologue about the history of theatrical costumes, and ending with him asking what your favorite cartoons were. You kept an eye on your pocket chronometer the entire time, checking the local nexus stability. Talking to him didn't alter any fixed points in time. It didn't change his music. It didn't shift his history. It was safe.

So, you let him talk. And from that night on, the phone rang every evening at exactly eleven o'clock. Sometimes it was for five minutes; sometimes it was for an hour.

To Michael, you were becoming an anchor. A completely unbiased, brilliant confidante who didn't want anything from him. To you, he was becoming a friend. A very fragile, very precious friend.

[SEPTEMBER 1987 — THE BAD WORLD TOUR]

The neon-drenched Tokyo humidity was thick enough to chew.

Behind the massive backstage curtain of the Korakuen Stadium, the TPA command center was tucked inside a disguised wardrobe crate. You stood over a holographic tactical map of the stadium, your fingers flying across a customized interface you'd wired directly into a vintage 1980s television set.

Zayd and his two agents stood behind you, faces grim.

"The Tokyo leg is the Syndicate's prime extraction window," Zayd said, tapping a finger on the map. "Tatiana is on stage for the silhouette dance during The Way You Make Me Feel. That's when her proximity to Michael is at its highest. Marcus’s cell has been reinforced. They’re going to try to trigger a localized temporal bubble right during the bridge of the song, freeze the stadium, swap Michael with a high-fidelity replica clone, and extract the original through a wormhole in the upper rafters."

"They won't get the chance," you said, a determined frown cutting across your face. You reached over and dropped a small, modified black disc onto the table. "I overhauled the stadium's acoustic soundboard. I wired a reverse-frequency chronostatic pulse into the microphone feedback loop. The second Marcus tries to open that pocket dimension, the sound system is going to emit a localized audio frequency that will instantly fry the Syndicate’s extraction tech. It’ll sound like a standard microphone screech to the audience, but to them, it’ll feel like a flashbang to their temporal drives.”

Zayd picked up the disc, inspecting it with a deeply impressed whistle. "Your brother is a senior director and he couldn't have designed this. Good work.”

"Yeah, yeah. Save the praise for when we're back in the 31st century," you muttered, though you couldn't help the swell of pride in your chest.

"Two minutes to showtime!" a stage manager yelled down the corridor.

You snapped out of tactical mode, grabbing a fresh, pressed blue button-down shirt from the rack. "That's my cue. I have to do his quick-change under the stage for act one."

Running down the narrow, dimly lit corridors beneath the stadium, the roar of thousands of Japanese fans was a literal physical force, vibrating the walls. You reached the quick-change pod. It was a tiny, curtained square illuminated by a single warm bulb, just as the stage elevator hissed open.

Michael descended into the pod, breathing heavily, sweat glistening on his skin. He had exactly sixty seconds to get out of the Bad leather jacket and into the blue shirt for the next number.

"Hey," he panted, a huge, ecstatic smile breaking across his face the second he saw you standing there with the wardrobe items ready.

"Don't 'hey' me, move your arms," you commanded playfully, your hands moving with lightning speed. You unbuckled his heavy leather straps, sliding the jacket off his shoulders and tossing it to the side.

He cooperated perfectly, lifting his arms as you slid the crisp blue shirt over his shoulders. Your fingers flew down the front, buttoning the fabric with practiced precision. Because you were so close, you could hear the faint, sharp rhythmic static ticking inside his ears, the absolute friction of the timeline asserting itself as he performed his hits. It was louder tonight. He was tuning into the music, completely unaware of the war being fought in the shadows to protect his future.

As you reached the collar, your fingers brushed against his neck. Michael’s breathing hitched.

He looked straight into your eyes, his gaze heavy, intense, and profoundly soft. He reached up, his cool, damp hand gently resting over yours, stopping your frantic movements for a split second.

"You're always here," he whispered over the thundering bass shaking the floorboards above you. "Every night. Every city. You're always the one waiting for me."

"It's my job, Michael," you said softly, your heart doing a strange, unprofessional flutter that you couldn't quite blame on the adrenaline this time.

"No," he said, shaking his head gently, his dark eyes holding yours with unshakeable sincerity. "It's more than that. I know it is. When I'm up there... when the noise in my head gets too loud... I just think about coming down here. I think about talking to you. You make me feel... safe."

The stage elevator gave a sharp click. Ten seconds.

You offered him a soft, reassuring smile, gently pulling your hands back to pat the front of his shirt. "Go out there and blow them away, Michael. I'll be right here when you get back."

He nodded, the brilliant, show-stopping charisma instantly locking back into his posture as he stepped onto the lift. As the elevator began to rise, lifting him back up into the blinding white lights and the screams of thousands of voices, he looked back down at you, his lips mouthing a silent Thank you.

You watched him disappear into the light, your hand drifting down to your pocket where the remote detonator for the acoustic pulse was waiting.

Not on my watch, Marcus, you thought, your eyes turning cold as you turned back toward the TPA monitors. Nobody touches him.

The bridge of The Way You Make Me Feel echoed through the stadium, a booming, syncopated rhythm that shook the concrete floor beneath your feet.

On the holographic tactical map, a cluster of red dots—Marcus’s tachyon signatures—flared to life right above the stage.

"Now!" Zayd shouted through the comms.

You slammed your palm down on the remote detonator.

Above ground, the localized audio frequency fired perfectly. It sounded like a massive, earth-shaking bass drop to the crowd, perfectly timed with Michael’s spin. But in the rafters, the red dots on your screen flickered wildly and vanished. Marcus’s extraction bubble shattered before it even formed, the temporal backlash throwing the Syndicate operatives out of 1987 and straight back into the 31st-century holding cells.

Tatiana, stuck mid-strut on stage, faltered slightly as her internal comms link died. She finished the song, but her smile was tight, her eyes scanning the dark edges of the stadium in quiet panic.

The Epoch Syndicate had failed. And with her contract demanding she stay on the tour, they had just lost one of their best windows.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Over the next few months, the Bad tour crossed continents, and your relationship with Michael became something the entire crew noticed but no one dared mention.

You were completely oblivious.

Or, at least, you genuinely thought it was just the reality of the job.

Since Sue had made you his primary assistant, you were required to be around him most of the time anyway. Michael was a massive people person, and you figured he just appreciated having a regular friend who didn't walk on eggshells around him.

When you handed him his fedora before Billie Jean, his fingers would linger against yours. You’d just chuckle and tell him to hold onto it tight.

When the press swarmed the hotel lobbies, he would instinctively look for you, subtly positioning himself so you were always in his line of sight. You’d just stand there, arms crossed, genuinely glad you could offer a familiar face to a guy dealing with a sea of chaos.

"You're a robot, you know that?" Zayd muttered one afternoon in London, watching from the wings as Michael spent twenty minutes animatedly explaining a chord progression to you while you casually re-hemmed his jacket. "The man is literally orbiting you.”

"He's just friendly, Zayd, and my job literally requires me to be near him," you replied, not looking up from your needlework.

But you weren't a robot.

It had just been a long time since you’d made a real friend outside of your intense, hyper-focused family. You didn't want to overthink it. He was history. You were a tourist.

But that fragile balance shattered in Rome.

You were in the belly of the stadium, calibrating a new stasis-cuff, when a heavy hand grabbed your wrist.

You whipped around, ready to strike, but froze. It was your older brother, Elias. A senior director for the Temporal Preservation Agency. He looked immaculate, wearing a sharp suit that definitely didn't belong in 1988.

Zayd hadn't deliberately sold you out, but under routine TPA questioning, he'd accidentally let it slip that you were with him.

"Time to go home," Elias said, his voice clipped and authoritative. "Your vacation is over. You're going back to the academy."

"No," you said, yanking your wrist out of his grip.

"It wasn't a request," Elias snapped, stepping closer, using his imposing height to try and intimidate you. "You're playing with fire here. This is a level-one historical asset. You're a hobbyist. You don't belong in the field. It’s too dangerous for you, and it’s a massive risk to the timeline.”

"I'm keeping him stable!" you shot back, your voice raising, defensive and thick with a sudden, raw emotion. "Zayd needed someone to monitor his neural timeline stability after the Marcus debacle, and I'm doing exactly that! I built the counter-frequency that saved him in Tokyo. I rewired the perimeter alarms in London. For once in my life, Elias, I'm actually being useful instead of just messing around in a garage. I am helping.”

Elias stared at you for a long moment, caught off guard by the fierce, unshakeable determination in your eyes. He saw that you weren't just running away from home anymore, you were actually handling a critical operation. He finally sighed, adjusting his cuffs.

"Fine. You have until the end of the tour," Elias muttered, stepping back into the shadows. "After that, I drag you back myself.”

He stepped into a blind spot in the corridor and activated his personal displacement drive, vanishing into a sudden, silent wash of temporal static. You slumped against the concrete wall, rubbing your face, trying to stop your hands from shaking.

"Are you alright?”

You gasped, spinning around. Michael was walking down the end of the corridor. He hadn't seen Elias vanish, but he had clearly caught your stressed-out posture and the sheer panic radiating off you.

"Just... family matters," you said quickly, trying to compose yourself.

Michael didn't push. He walked over, the silence thick and heavy between you. He sat down on a nearby flight case, looking at his hands. "Family is complicated," he murmured softly.

You sat next to him, the proximity comforting. "Yeah. They want me to go home. To a place I don't really fit in."

Michael looked up at you, his eyes incredibly sad and deeply empathetic. "I know exactly how that feels. They want you to be one thing, but you just want to... be." He reached out, his hand gently covering yours. "I don't want you to go home. Not yet.”

"I'm not planning on it yet, Michael," you promised softly, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze.

But three nights later, in Paris, the promise almost broke.

It was 3:00 AM. You were walking back to your hotel room after a late-night wardrobe check when you heard a violent crash from the stairwell.

You bolted through the hallway. Michael was pinned against the concrete wall by two men in dark tactical gear. These weren't Marcus’s men. This was a rival Syndicate faction—brutal, smash-and-grab Collectors who didn't care about finesse. One of them held a pulsing chronostatic neutralizer to Michael’s neck.

Michael was struggling, his eyes wide with terror, but the temporal dampening field was already making his movements sluggish.

"Get off him!" you screamed, not thinking, not calculating. You threw yourself forward.

You didn't have any of your gear. You just had your modified pocket watch. It was a crude, concentrated gravity-inverter. You slammed it against the first Collector’s chest. The man flew backward violently, hitting the ceiling with a sickening crunch before crashing to the floor, unconscious.

The second Collector swung at you with a heavy, cybernetic arm. You ducked, the blow grazing your shoulder and sending a spike of agony down your spine. Forcing yourself through the pain, you reached for your belt and unclipped your high-powered, industrial micro-welding torch, a tool you carried for heavy-duty metal wardrobe repairs on his jackets.

With a hard flick of your thumb, you overcharged the battery grid and jammed the live tip directly into the Collector's exposed cybernetic neck seam. A massive arc of blue electricity surged through his neural wiring. He stiffened, convulsing for a split second, before dropping like a stone.

You stood over them, panting, clutching your throbbing shoulder as the heavy metal welding tool hissed in your hand.

Slowly, you turned to Michael.

He was sliding down the wall, clutching his chest, staring at the unconscious men, then at the strange, smoking tool in your hand, and finally up at you. His eyes were wide, completely blown out with shock.

The illusion was completely shattered. He had just watched you throw a 200-pound man into the ceiling and short-circuit a cybernetic assassin with a modified piece of metal.

"Who..." Michael breathed, his voice trembling violently as he looked at your face. "What are you?”

You stared at him, your throat completely dry.

Michael was still on the floor, his chest heaving, his dark eyes wide and completely locked onto you. The terror in his expression was slowly morphing into something worse. A deep, crushing confusion and disbelief, possibly distrust too.

Lie, your brain screamed. Tell him it was a prop. Tell him they were crazed fans and you took martial arts.

But you looked at his face. At the raw, defenseless vulnerability there and the words died in your throat. You’d caved like this a few times before across the centuries. But you always told yourself it was fine because you could just use a localized neural-wipe before you jumped.

This time around, you knew there wasn't a quick fix. The entire reason Zayd had allowed you to stay on this timeline was because a standard TPA neural-wipe was far too risky to use on a hyper-sensitive creative mind of a major historical figure. You couldn't just scrub tonight from his head without risking catastrophic damage to his thoughts. You felt a heavy wave of guilt making up a lie, and at the same time, you knew there wasn't anything you could do to instantly fix what he’d just witnessed.

"They're... they're collectors, Michael," you said softly, your voice trembling as you knelt down in front of him, keeping a respectful distance.

He swallowed hard, his eyes flicking to the unconscious men. "Collectors? Like... paparazzi? Stalker fans?"

"No," you said, taking a deep breath and filtering the truth through a tight mesh of security protocols.

"They’re from someplace else. A very, very distant place. An unauthorized organization. They want you. They track people of massive historical significance. They want to extract you from your life and keep you hidden away in a private gallery. They treat people who shape history like high-end property.”

Michael stared at you, his jaw slightly slack. He looked at the smoking devices on the floor, then back at your face—"And you? Zayd? You're...”

"We're the ones keeping you safe," you murmured. "I don't work for wardrobe, Michael. I mean, I do—and I'm honestly a little surprised by how much I actually enjoy helping Sue out—but my real job is making sure you finish this tour. Making sure you stay exactly where you belong.”

You didn't drop names. You didn't mention the Epoch Syndicate, your family, or the TPA. And you absolutely didn't mention Tatiana. The timeline required her to stay exactly where she was.

Michael let out a shaky breath, a hand moving to his temple. He looked up at you, his eyes intensely focused as his mind raced to connect things that had never made sense before. "The noise... the ticking in my ears. I always hear it when I'm around you and Tatiana at the same time. And when I'm writing... it's like a heavy static. What is that?”

"It's temporal friction," you whispered. "You are way bigger than you consider yourself to be right now, Michael. The sheer scale of your footprint... it causes a sort of ripple in the background of the universe whenever you create something meant to last forever. You're just sensitive enough to hear it.”

He sat there for a long time, processing the sheer magnitude of it. But as he looked at you, the fear completely evaporated, replaced by a profound, overwhelming awe.

“You... you've been staying here this whole time just to watch over me?”

"Well, arriving here and walking into your set was an accident," you said, your voice cracking slightly as you stood up, deliberately trying to erect that wall again. "But I chose to stay. I wanted to help.”

Zayd found out within an hour. He didn't need Michael to tell him; the localized gravity spike had tripped every alarm in his command crate.

"Have you lost your mind?!" Zayd roared, slamming his clipboard onto the table inside the wardrobe truck. "You broke the prime directive! You told a level-one asset about the reality of the timeline!”

"I handled it, Zayd!" you yelled back, hands on your hips, matching his energy. "He was going to be extracted! I filtered my words. He doesn't know about the Agency, he doesn't know dates, and look at the chronometer!”

You pointed aggressively at the digital display. The local timeline stability index was sitting at a perfect, beautiful 99.8%.

Your confession hadn't altered a single fixed point. Michael wasn't changing his schedule. If anything, he was completely determined to perform.

"Besides," you added, your voice dropping into a quieter, more serious tone as you confided in him. "I'm not going to use a standard neural-wipe on him anyway. I found out there's research happening back at the TPA right now—they're developing a specialized neural-wipe specifically for individuals who carry heavy timeline importance. It won't fry their creative centers. I've been doing my own research on reversing standard wipes, so I know I can figure out a way to adapt their new specialized version. I'll make sure he's safe when the time comes.”

Zayd glared at the screen, then at you, letting out a long, defeated groan. "If your mother kills me, I'm haunting your workspace in the garage back home.”

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

The tour pressed on into late 1988, and the dynamic shifted into something electric.

Michael kept your confession as a secret, but his eyes still followed you everywhere.

Tatiana, noticing his slight distance, started getting incredibly bold. She’d linger by his dressing room in hyper-revealing outfits, laughing loudly at jokes he hadn't even finished making, trying desperately to find a vulnerability to exploit before her contract ran out.

You weren't worried. You didn't see her as a huge problem—you were a 31st-century time engineer, and she was a glitchy corporate cyborg whose left hip still squeaked whenever it rained. To you, she was just an annoying mosquito you couldn't swat yet.

The real shift happened during the mid-tour celebration party at a lavish club in Munich. The entire crew was drinking, dancing, and letting loose. You were standing by the bar, sipping a gin and tonic, chatting with Zayd about optimizing the battery life on his stasis-cuffs.

Across the room, Michael was the center of attention.

He was fully aware of the massive influence and charm he carried, and tonight, he was leaning into it. He was surrounded by a flock of gorgeous European models and up-and-coming actresses, laughing, flashing his dazzling smile, and pouring them champagne.

But every few seconds, his eyes would cut through the crowded dance floor, searching.

He looked at you. He saw you laughing at something Zayd said, completely unbothered, entirely focused on your tech-talk, looking radiant but totally detached from the rest of the room.

Michael’s smile faltered for a millisecond. He turned back to the blonde model next to him, laughing a little louder, pulling her slightly closer. He was trying to squash the frustration.

He knew he could easily capture the attention of any room he walked into, but the one girl he actually wanted—the brilliant, dangerous girl who had saved his life—looked at him with a gaze that felt completely out of reach.

From the corner of your eye, you notice him guide two of the women toward the VIP lounge. Suddenly, a strange, heavy sensation settled in your chest.

It was uncomfortable. Something you hadn't felt in a very long time, that now it almost feels entirely novel. You took a sharp gulp of your drink, your eyes lingering on the closed curtain of the lounge.

"Hurts a little, doesn't it?" Zayd asked quietly, keeping his eyes on his beer.

"I don't know what you're talking about," you muttered, your voice tight. You genuinely didn't fully understand the feeling yet, and you were unsure if you wanted to.

"You can be a great actor sometimes, kid, but you're a terrible liar to someone who's watched you grow up," Zayd said, sighing as he set his glass down. He nodded toward the VIP area. "He thinks you don't care. He’s trying to distract himself from how intense things have been between you two since the stairwell incident. He feels the distance you're putting up. But you do care. And that's the part that’s going to make leaving this timeline really, really difficult."

You didn't answer.

You set your glass down on the mahogany bar with a sharp, definitive clink.

"I’m heading back to the hotel," you told Zayd, checking your pocket chronometer. "The power cells on the reverse-frequency pulse are draining too fast in this German humidity. I need to solder a new dampener before tomorrow’s soundcheck."

Zayd didn't look up from his beer, but he gave a slow, knowing nod. "Right. The dampener. See you tomorrow, kiddo."

You ignored the edge in his voice, turning on your heel and slipping through the crowded, neon-lit exit of the Munich club just as the VIP curtains parted. You didn't see Michael emerge, his dark eyes instantly scanning the bar, tracking the exact moment your jacket disappeared through the double doors.

The hotel corridor was dead silent, a stark contrast to the thumping bass still vibrating through the soles of your boots. You walked briskly, the heavy weight of that strange, hollow feeling still sitting square in your chest. You reached your room, sliding the keycard into the slot. The little light blinked green.

"Wait—please."

You froze, your hand still on the doorknob.

Michael was leaning against the floral wallpaper of the hallway, a few yards away. He looked completely disheveled. His hair was damp, his red shirt was slightly unbuttoned, and his breath was coming in uneven, ragged gasps. He smelled faintly of expensive champagne and sweet liquor. He was drunk. Not stumbling, but loose, raw, and completely stripped of his usual polished restraint.

"Michael?" you stuttered, your fingers tightening on the handle. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at the party."

"I left," he said, his voice dropping into a thick, emotional drawl. He walked toward you, his steps slightly heavy, his eyes locked onto yours with a desperate, burning intensity. "I told them to leave. The girls... I apologized to them. I felt so... disgusted with myself."

You blinked, totally caught off guard. "Disgusted? Why?"

"Because I was using them!" he burst out, his voice cracking, a sudden, unfiltered drunken rant spilling out of him. He stepped right into your space, his hands hovering in the air between you, trembling violently.

"I was trying to forget you. I saw you at the bar, just talking to Zayd, completely unfazed by everything, looking right through me like I’m just a box to check. And it hurt. It hurt so bad. So I thought, if I just... if I went with them, if I flirted, I could stop thinking about you. I could be normal. But I couldn't. I kept seeing your face. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I did that. I’m sorry to them, and I’m sorry to you. I’m begging you, please don't do this to me. Don't pull away from me.”

He stepped even closer, completely unraveled, his voice dropping to a broken, desperate whisper that sounded exactly like the vulnerable, pleading tracks he cut in the studio. "Please... just give me something. A real reaction. Cry, yell at me, tell me I’m crazy... just don't look at me like a historical assignment anymore. I can't bear it. I'm begging you. Just look at me."

Your heart hammered against your ribs like a trapped bird.

This wasn't the first time an asset had confronted you across the centuries—you vividly remembered the raw, agonizing conversations with a kind-hearted baker in Victorian London and a terrified jazz musician in the 1920s—and it always left you feeling entirely strange, entirely untethered.

But this was Michael.

And it was the first time you felt the walls of your composure entirely crumbling. You stuttered, your brilliant lying brain completely short-circuiting.

"M-Michael, you're drunk," you stammered, frantically turning the knob. "Let’s just—go inside, okay? Don't stand out here where someone could see you.”

You practically dragged him into the room, snapping the door shut behind you. The very first thing you did—on pure, panicked instinct—was yank your pocket chronometer out of your vest. Your fingers were shaking as you booted up the local timeline stability index.

You expected to see flashing red alarms. You expected a massive, terrifying drop warning you that your presence was shattering the 20th century.

[TIMELINE STABILITY: 99.8%]

It hadn't moved. Not a single fraction of a percent.

"Is this thing broken?" you muttered to yourself, shaking the gadget, tapping the screen in utter disbelief. How could the biggest pop star on Earth be having a drunken romantic breakdown in a time traveler's bedroom without causing a massive paradox?

"What is that?" Michael mumbled, his eyelids drooping heavily as the alcohol finally caught up with his adrenaline. He stumbled forward, his foot catching on the edge of the rug. "I just... I want you to understand...”

"Michael, whew—okay, down you go," you caught him mid-air, your future-enhanced strength the only thing keeping his dead weight from slamming into the floor. He was completely out, snoring softly against your shoulder.

With a heavy sigh, you hoisted him up, carrying him over to the bed. You laid him down gently, slipping off his loafers and pulling the heavy duvet over his shoulders. He looked so vulnerable without the stage lights.

Just an exhausted, lonely man trapped in a reality too big for him.

You stared at the chronometer again. Still 99.8%.

"Unbelievable," you hissed, pocketing the device and slipping out of the room to find Zayd.

You found him down the hall, sitting in a dim stairwell, smoking a cigarette. You marched right up to him, throwing your hands up in a silent, furious gesture.

"The gadget is broken, Zayd. Michael just basically confessed his life to me, he’s passed out drunk on my bed, and the stability index isn't moving. We need to recalibrate the sensors."

Zayd took a long drag, exhaling a thin cloud of smoke into the shadows. He didn't look surprised. "The gadget isn't broken, kid."

"Then why isn't the timeline collapsing?!"

"Have you considered maybe it’s already part of the original history?” Zayd asked softly, looking at the concrete steps.

"Think about it. History books in the 31st century talk about his music, his tours, his public life. They don't mention what happened in dark hotel rooms at three in the morning. Maybe you being here, protecting him, giving him someone to talk to... maybe that’s the reason he has the strength to finish this grueling tour in the first place. You might not be changing history. You might just be fulfilling it.”

You froze, the clarity hitting you like a bucket of ice water.

"I've seen it happen before," Zayd continued, his voice dropping into a rare, solemn register. "A couple of field agents back in the '20s. Fell hard for a civilian. They spent months panicking, waiting for the paradox alarms to trip. They never did. The universe is a lot bigger than the TPA manuals make it out to be. If it’s meant to happen, the timeline accommodates it."

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

The morning sun cut through the heavy velvet curtains of the Munich hotel room, painting the carpet in warm gold.

Michael groaned, his eyes fluttering open as a splitting headache hammered against his skull. He sat up quickly, the sheets tangling around his legs. He looked down, and a sudden, violent bolt of panic seized his chest.

He was wearing a pair of loose, oversized cotton sweatpants and a plain white t-shirt. His heavy stage makeup was entirely washed off. But more than that, his shirt sleeves were loose, and the makeup covering his hands and wrists was completely gone, exposing the uneven, pale patches of his vitiligo.

He pulled the sheets up instinctively, his chest heaving as a deep, defensive shame flooded him. He was incredibly self-conscious about his changing skin, constantly hiding it from the public, and the thought of you seeing him like this—bare, unpolished, and completely exposed—made his heart race with terror.

You noticed the sharp shift in his posture the second you stepped into the room. He was practically vibrating with tension, his hands white-knuckled as he yanked the fabric over his wrists, his eyes wide and darting around like a cornered animal waiting for a blow to land.

He looked so fragile sitting there, trying to make himself as small as possible under the duvet.

Noticing the raw panic in his eyes, you consciously forced down that cold wall you’ve been keeping up. You wanted to be gentle. You needed to be.

Setting the heavy breakfast tray down on the desk instead of the nightstand to give him some space, you walked over to the edge of the bed with slow steps. You didn't stare at his hands, nor did you awkwardly avert your eyes; you simply kept your focus entirely on his face, softening your expression into something calm and steady.

"Hey," you said, your voice dropping into a quiet, unhurried register you rarely used. "It's just me. Breathe."

Michael swallowed hard, his jaw tight, his eyes searching yours for any sign of disgust or pity. "You... you saw," he whispered, a painful strain in his throat as he pulled the sheet up a fraction higher. "My hands. My face. It's... it's getting worse."

You sat down on the very edge of the mattress, keeping your movements relaxed so he wouldn't feel crowded.

Slowly, without any sudden gestures, you reached out and placed your palm over his trembling, sheet-covered knuckles. You didn't try to force his hand out into the open, you just let the steady warmth of your touch ground him.

"Michael, look at me," you said softly, waiting until his dark, frantic eyes finally locked onto yours. "It's not a flaw. It's not something to hide, and it's certainly nothing to be ashamed of. I see you. The rest of it is just skin."

The words that came out of you were completely genuine, and you hoped he knew that.

For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the quiet hum of the air conditioner. Michael stared at you, his breath hitching as the defensive fear slowly drained out of him, replaced by a profound, trembling quiet. His grip on the sheet loosened slightly under your hand.

You offered him a small, reassuring smile, deliberately breaking the heavy tension before it could overwhelm him again.

"Anyway, it’s good that you’re awake. You drink like a lightweight, by the way."

Michael let out a soft, breathy laugh that was part exhaustion and part sheer relief. The heavy panic that had gripped his chest moments ago completely melted away under your calm gaze.

He looked at you properly then, his eyes tracking your casual appearance.

You were wearing a pair of oversized gray sweatpants and a faded band tee, your hair tied up in a messy knot. Without your structured wardrobe uniform, you looked soft. Fully human. Completely approachable. He had never seen you look so normal, so effortlessly beautiful in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with Hollywood glamour or stage lights.

"I... I didn't..." he stammered, his face flushing a deep crimson as he looked around the room. "Did we... did I...?"

"Relax, Michael," you said with a soft, genuine laugh, setting the tray down on the nightstand next to him.

You handed him the glass of water. "Nothing happened. You gave me a very dramatic, very drunken speech in the hallway, collapsed into my arms like a sack of potatoes, and I dragged you onto the bed. I washed your face and changed you into some spare crew clothes because you smelled like a brewery."

"And don't worry, I closed my eyes for the wardrobe change.”

He took the water, his fingers brushing yours, his dark eyes looking up at you with an overwhelming sense of relief, and something much deeper.

The profound vulnerability from last night hadn't vanished with the alcohol.

"You stayed," he whispered softly, taking a sip of the water.

You sat on the very edge of the mattress, looking back at him without any of the old, rigid filters.

"I told you," you said softly. "I'm not going anywhere."

Michael set the water glass down, the soft thud of the glass against the wood mirroring the heavy thud of his heart. He looked at you, his eyes scanning your bare face, the oversized band tee, the complete lack of that impenetrable armor you usually wore.

"You're acting different today," he murmured, his voice still thick with sleep and the remnants of the alcohol. "More... soft.”

"Zayd gave me a lecture last night," you said, a small, wry smile pulling at the corner of your lips. You tucked your legs up onto the mattress, sitting cross-legged facing him. "He said... the universe doesn't mind me being here. I’ve spent my whole life measuring reality in algorithms and temporal fractions, Michael. I didn't think there was room for... this."

Michael reached out, his hand hesitant, before his fingers gently brushed against the hem of your sweatpants. "And is there? Room?"

"I think I'm willing to find out," you whispered, looking directly into his dark, searching eyes.

A massive wave of relief washed over his face, so intense it looked like he might cry. The agonizing belief that he was falling for a beautiful ghost who only saw him as a historical assignment simply evaporated. He let out a breathless, giddy laugh, burying his face in his hands for a second before looking back up at you, a soft, incredibly sweet smirk tugging at his lips.

"So..." he teased gently, his eyes sparkling with a sudden, mischievous warmth. "You're saying I actually have a chance?”

"Don't let it go to your head, Jackson," you shot back, but your cheeks flushed a brilliant, involuntary pink.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

After that morning, the entire atmosphere of the tour shifted.

Michael walked with a lighter step, and he completely stopped hiding his affections. Now that he knew you didn't dislike him, he was openly putting in the effort to work his way into your life, showing his fondness in the quiet, chaotic cracks of a global stadium tour.

Your response to him was deliberate and slow, but you were no longer closed off. You accepted his attention in your own gentle, measured way.

There was the rainy afternoon in Tokyo where you were sitting on a wardrobe trunk, quietly stressed out over a fried circuit board in a scanning device. Michael had crept up behind you, completely ignoring his massive entourage, and slipped a pair of oversized foam headphones over your ears, plugging them into his personal Walkman. It was a rough, unreleased demo of a ballad he’d been humming.

“For your ears only,” he had whispered, leaning over your shoulder, his breath warm against your cheek as you listened to the raw melody. You didn't pull away. Slowly, you set your tools down, your fingers lightly finding his under the cover of the hanging clothing racks, squeezing them gently.

There was the night in London where he snuck into the wardrobe truck after a five-hour rehearsal, exhausted and covered in sweat, just to lay his head in your lap while you hand-stitched the rhinestones back onto his glove. You didn't say anything. You just ran your fingers through his damp curls, the steady, rhythmic movement grounding both of you while Zayd watched the perimeter monitors outside, pretending he couldn't see what was happening in the back of his truck.

Naturally, Tatiana was losing her mind.

With the tour entering its final stretch, her window was slamming shut, and Michael wasn't letting her within three feet of his personal space unless the cameras were actively rolling. She knew you were the source of the interference.

One evening, during a late-night costume check in the empty, cavernous backstage of the Wembley Arena, she cornered you.

You were pushing a heavy rolling rack of shirts down a dim corridor when a slender arm slammed against the concrete wall, blocking your path.

Tatiana stood there, her model-perfect face twisted into something ugly and cold. The faint, subcutaneous hourglass brand on her wrist was pulsing a dangerous purple through her synthetic skin.

"You think you're clever, don't you?" she hissed, her voice dropping the sweet facade completely, replaced by a flat, dangerous growl. "You're just a TPA legacy brat playing dress-up. You got lucky because of your family and your connections, but you can't protect him forever. If you don't step aside, the Epoch Syndicate will ensure you're taken care of.”

You didn't flinch. You didn't even drop the hanger you were holding. You slowly turned your head, your striking gaze locking onto hers with an icy, unblinking confidence.

"Listen to me, you glitchy piece of corporate scrap," you said, your voice dead calm and dripping with absolute certainty. "What I did to you and Marcus before? That was measly, basic work. I build heavy-artillery tech even your bosses are terrified of. If you take one more step toward me, or toward him, I won’t just fry your temporal drive. I will personally de-engineer your entire neural matrix until you’re nothing but a collection of very expensive toaster parts. You can't intimidate me, Tatiana. I am fully capable of making you disappear.”

Tatiana’s jaw tightened. For a fraction of a second, she looked genuinely terrified. She slowly pulled her arm back. You scoffed, tossing a sequined jacket over your shoulder and pushing the rack forward.

The final night of the European leg arrived, a massive, sold-out spectacle under the starry skies of a warm summer evening.

The stadium was a roaring ocean of sound, but inside Michael’s private dressing room, the world was completely still. The show was over, and the adrenaline was fading.

You were standing by the vanity mirror, packing away the final pieces of his wardrobe into a secure trunk. Michael was sitting on the edge of the velvet sofa, wearing his favorite loose black silk shirt, his hair soft and framing his face.

He was just watching you.

"We leave for the states tomorrow," he said softly, breaking the comfortable silence.

"Yeah," you said, turning around to face him, leaning against the vanity. "Zayd says the Syndicate is temporarily laying low. They have other operations across the centuries that they consider a higher priority right now. They left a coded threat that they’d be back eventually, but for now, they're backing off. The timeline is secure.”

Michael stood up, walking across the room with that effortless, feline grace. He stopped right in front of you, the distance between you melting into nothing. He reached out, his long, slender fingers gently cupping your jaw, his thumb wiping a stray speck of glitter from your cheekbone.

"And what about us?" he whispered, his dark eyes wide, full of a deep, unshakeable devotion. "Is that secure?"

"Michael..." your voice hitched, your heart doing that familiar, chaotic dance. "I'm a time traveler. I don't belong here.”

"I don't care about the years," he murmured, leaning closer, his eyes asking for permission as his gaze dropped to your lips before rising back to yours. "I care about right now. With you. May I?”

You didn't argue. You couldn't. You gave a small, barely perceptible nod, your breath catching.

Michael slowly closed the remaining distance, his movements incredibly gentle as his lips met yours.

The kiss was soft at first, a sweet, hesitant question that had been building between you for months across continents and eras. But as his arms wrapped securely around your waist, pulling your body flush against his, the kiss deepened into something breathtakingly sweet and full of pure, comforting warmth. He smelled like vanilla and rain, holding you like you were the only real thing in a world made of stadium lights.

When he finally pulled back just an inch, his forehead rested against yours, a soft, breathless giggle escaping his lips.

"Your heart is beating really fast," he teased, his eyes sparkling with pure, unadulterated happiness.

"Shut up, Michael," you breathed, a massive, genuine smile breaking across your face as you finally let yourself lean into him, burying your face in his neck and holding him tight.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

The weeks leading into the final stretch of the American leg were a blur of stadium lights and hidden, breathless moments.

Michael had gotten bold.

Delightfully, absurdly bold.

He was testing the waters now, constantly seeing how you would react to his affection.

There was one time, right behind the heavy velvet curtains while the opening act’s bass was rattling the floorboards, where the moment felt completely perfect. He had leaned in close, his dark eyes asking a silent question as his breath brushed your lips, murmuring a quiet, soft request while his hands hovered at your waist. You had given a small, breathless nod, allowing yourself to just be—to finally feel the weight of him against you.

Apart from that one breathless kiss, it was mostly small, stolen instances of closeness. Once, during a closed rehearsal, he’d pulled you into the dim, quiet space beneath the bleachers, his arms winding around your waist from behind, burying his face in your neck with a soft, giddy giggle.

You were opening up more and more with every passing day, letting down the rigid walls of your training.

"You smell like soldering wire and vanilla," he’d whispered against your skin, making you shiver.

"And you smell like hairspray and three million fans, Michael. Let go, I have to calibrate Zayd's cuffs."

"No," he’d murmured, tightening his grip, pulling you completely flush against him.

It was during one of those quiet nights in a dimly lit LA studio, with the city breathing softly outside the glass windows, that the conversation shifted.

You were sitting on the edge of a mixing console, your legs dangling, while he sat on a stool between your knees, his hands resting gently on your thighs.

He leaned forward, looking up at you with those wide, vulnerable eyes. "I know everything about your world is defined by rules and coordinates," he began softly, his fingers tracing a light pattern on the fabric of your pants. "And I don't want to make things complicated for you. But when you look at me... when you're just here, like this... what does it mean to you?”

You froze, your breath catching in your throat. The 31st-century brain in your head immediately tried to calculate a safe term.

Before you could stutter out a response, Michael reached up, his long fingers gently cupping your jaw. He offered a small, reassuring smile. "You don't have to answer. Not really. I don't mind not being anything specific. As long as I’m with you... as long as you're the one waiting for me when the lights go down... that's enough for me."

You reached down, slowly sliding your hands over his wrists, gently pulling his fingers away from your jaw just enough so you could lace your fingers with his. You squeezed his hands tightly, a quiet, deliberate acknowledgment of the affection you were finally willing to accept.

"You're ruining my professional detachment, Michael," you whispered.

"Good," he murmured, his sweet smirk widening before he slowly leaned up, pulling you down into a kiss that tasted like sweet cherry cola and absolute permanence.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

"Elias is tracking the chronostatic signature of your booth," Zayd warned you three days later, not looking up from a pulse-rifle he was cleaning inside the wardrobe truck. "The tour ends in Los Angeles next week. He’s coming for you, kid. He told the director he’s personally bringing you in, by force if necessary.”

"Let him try," you muttered, though a cold dread settled deep in your stomach.

Your brother, however, didn’t wait for the final curtain.

Two nights before the final show, you were walking down a secluded corridor in the stadium, holding a fresh stack of black fedoras. Suddenly, the air in front of you violently rippled, turning into a blinding grid of vertical white noise.

Elias stepped out of the temporal fog. He didn't look angry. He looked completely exhausted and entirely done with your behavior.

"That's enough," Elias said, his voice clipped and heavy with authority.

"Elias, wait—"

Before you could pull your Zippo decelerator from your pocket, your brother raised a sleek, high-grade TPA stasis-baton. A sharp, localized pulse of chronostatic energy hit your chest. Your limbs instantly locked up, the fedoras scattering across the concrete floor in slow motion.

"Zayd!" you tried to scream, but your vocal cords were frozen.

Your brother caught your rigid body before you hit the ground, checking your vitals with a swift, practiced scan. He tapped his wrist-comm. "Extraction code alpha. Secure the rogue asset's booth and lock her coordinates to the family estate. We're going home.”

The world pixelated into a sickening smear of monochrome static.

When reality snapped back, you were sitting on your childhood bed in the far future. The room was clean, and entirely devoid of your tools.

Your soldering iron, your gears, your beautiful, jury-rigged booth—all gone. Confiscated by the Agency. The door was locked from the outside with a grade-nine genetic seal.

You spent three days pacing the floor, kicking the titanium walls, and feeling a suffocating sense of helplessness you hadn't felt since you were a kid.

To you, it was seventy-two hours of absolute agony. You couldn't sleep. Every time you closed your eyes, you heard the faint ticking of the 1988 timeline, wondering if Michael was looking for you.

On the fourth morning, the door hissed open. Your mother stepped in.

She looked regal, her TPA director uniform immaculate, but her eyes softened when she saw the sheer misery on your face. She sat down on the edge of your bed, smoothing down her skirt.

"You've caused a massive bureaucratic nightmare, you know," she said quietly.

"I kept him safe, Mom," you whispered, your voice cracking as you stared at the floor. "The Syndicate would have taken him. I built the tech that rendered their primary temporal weapons completely irreparable.”

"I know," she sighed, her expression growing solemn. She looked at you for a long moment before leaning back. "The last time you got this attached to a mission... it didn't end well."

She didn't say the words aloud, but the heavy silence spoke volumes. It had exceeded the bounds of simple friendship, a deep, painful bond that had shattered your willingness to feel anything for years.

"You buried your ability to feel anything so deep after that, we thought you'd never bring the walls down. And now you're risking everything all over again. Are you certain you want to open that door?”

Your mother's words hit you like a physical shock.

The walls you had built to protect yourself hadn't just been keeping the TPA out; they had been keeping you completely numb.

Michael hadn't just been a mission. He was the first person to make you feel alive since the heartbreak that had buried your emotions in the first place.

Everything finally clicked.

You did have feelings for him, deep and undeniable, and you were completely done running from them.

"Yes," you said, your voice steadying as you looked up, tears pricking your eyes. "I'm certain.”

Your mother stood up, walking toward the door. She tapped her wrist-comm, unlocking a small, emergency temporal-tether. "The Agency is preparing your formal disciplinary hearing. It takes place in six hours. Until then... I suppose there is a localized system glitch in our containment ward. If you happen to slip through a rogue wormhole for a few minutes... I certainly wouldn't see it.”

You snapped your head up, your heart leaping. "Mom—"

"Go," she said, a small, proud smile gracing her lips. "Fix your mess."

You materialized in the exact same 1988 stadium corridor, tumbling out of the static white noise and crashing right into a rack of costume boxes.

You scrambled to your feet, your chest heaving, your eyes wild as you looked around. You checked your pocket chronometer. The one your mother had secretly left on your nightstand.

To you, it had been four grueling, painful days in a futuristic prison. But here? The digital clock showed that only four minutes had passed since Elias had dragged you out. The fedoras you’d dropped were still spread out across the floor.

The contrast hit you like a physical blow. The absolute realization of what it meant to be a time traveler crashed down on you:

You could live an entire lifetime in the blink of an eye, completely separate from the people you loved.

"What the hell?!"

You spun around. Zayd was jogging down the hall, his eyes wide as he saw you standing there, panting and disheveled. "How are you back? Elias just extracted you!”

"My mom let me slip out," you panted, wiping a stray tear from your cheek. "Zayd... it was four days for me. Four days locked in a room. I can't... I can't keep playing this game. I can't just be an assignment or a rogue hobbyist.”

Zayd stopped, looking at your exhausted, determined face.

"Look, kid... you're too talented for the Academy. And frankly, the TPA needs you. The Syndicate is expanding. If you choose to side with us officially, I’m sure the higher-ups can negotiate a truce. A special field status. You design the gear, you run your own jumps, and maybe... just maybe... your mother can look the other way again regarding certain 'fixed points' on your schedule.”

You blinked, a sharp spark of clarity cutting through your exhaustion. "An independent contractor? I choose my own coordinates?”

"Better you're with the TPA than the Syndicate," Zayd shrugged, a small smirk playing on his lips. "Go talk to him. He’s been looking for you for the last four minutes.”

You walked into Michael's private dressing room without knocking.

He was sitting at his vanity, rubbing a towel over his face, looking slightly exhausted from the pre-show jitters. When the door clicked, he looked up through the mirror, his face instantly lighting up into that dazzling, breathtaking smile.

"There you are," he said, turning around on his stool. To him, you’d just been gone for a quick bathroom break. "I was wondering where you went. Can you help me with the buckles on the shoes? They're feeling a little loose again.”

Instead of answering, you walked right across the room, steps heavy, and threw your arms around his neck, burying your face deeply into his shoulder.

Michael gasped slightly at the sudden, fierce intensity of the hug. He didn't question it, though, his long arms immediately wound around your waist, holding you tight, his chin resting on your shoulder.

"Hey... what's wrong? You're shaking.”

"Nothing," you whispered, your voice thick with emotion as you squeezed him tightly, feeling the solid, comforting warmth of his heartbeat.

"I just... I missed you.”

This was the first time you were openly saying words as raw as this, and you felt him stiffen slightly in surprise before his hold softened completely.

To him, it was just another Tuesday. To you, it was the first time you’d held him in ninety-six hours.

He let out a soft, sweet giggle, rubbing his hand up and down your back. "I missed you too, crazy girl. You were gone for like, five minutes.”

"Felt longer," you murmured, pulling back just enough to look into his dark, beautiful eyes.

"Michael," you said softly, your fingers gently tangling in his curls as you offered him a bright, beautiful, completely unbothered smile. "After the show tonight... let's go get some of that cherry pie. I have a feeling we're going to have a lot of time to talk."

Michael’s eyes sparked with pure, unadulterated happiness, pulling you down for a quick, sweet kiss before the stage manager’s megaphone started echoing down the hall. "It's a date."

Six hours later, you stood at the center of the TPA High Council Chamber, the emergency temporal-tether snapping back into its cradle.

The circular room was imposing, filled with senior directors and high-ranking temporal physicists looking down from elevated glass tiers. Elias stood near the perimeter, his arms crossed, while your mother sat at the center podium, her expression unreadable.

"You skipped your containment block to return to 1988," a senior director barked, his voice echoing through the sterile chamber. "You are facing immediate termination of your field privileges, permanent booth impoundment, and—"

"With all due respect, Director, you’re looking at the wrong set of metrics," you interrupted, your voice ringing clear and completely steady as you stood your ground.

You tapped your wrist-comm, projecting a holographic display of the modified 20th-century components into the center of the room. The complex engineering schematics lit up the dark chamber.

"The Epoch Syndicate didn't just target a pop star. They deliberately targeted a fixed point to create a localized reality collapse. Your standard-issue TPA dampeners completely failed to handle the unique resonance of his stadium frequencies. If I hadn't stayed, and if I hadn't jury-rigged a reverse-frequency pulse using vacuum tubes and radio wire, the timeline stability index wouldn't be sitting at ninety-nine point eight percent right now. It would be at zero."

The council members shifted, murmuring as they scanned the undeniable data. Elias lowered his arms, tracking the flawless math of your temporal grid.

"I didn't break your rules to play tourist," you continued, looking directly up at the panel with icy determination.

"I broke them because your manuals are fifty years out of date for modern field threats. You need my engineering. You need someone who can fix your blind spots on the fly. So here is my counter-proposal: Independent contractor status. I design the weapons your high-tier cells use, I run my own jumps, and I choose my own coordinates. If you try to lock me in a room again, I'll simply take my designs to the independent sectors—and you can figure out how to patch the next Syndicate breach without me."

A heavy silence fell over the room. Your mother slowly leaned forward, a subtle, proud glimmer in her eyes as she looked around at the nodding directors.

"The Council will deliberate on the terms of your... independent status," your mother announced, her voice authoritative but smooth. "But given the revolutionary stability of your tech... your booth will be returned to your custody immediately."

You offered a sharp nod, turning on your heel and walking out of the chamber. You knew exactly what you had to do now. You were an independent time scientist, embarking on your own journey, setting your own rules, and protecting history on your terms.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

The American leg of the Bad tour finally came to its thunderous, screaming end in Los Angeles. The stadium lights cut out, the fans went home, and behind the closed curtains of the dressing room, the reality of the universe settled over you like a cold shroud.

You sat on the edge of the velvet sofa, your fingers mindlessly tracing the intricate gears of your pocket chronometer. Michael was sitting on the floor between your knees, his head resting back against your thighs, letting out a long, contented sigh.

"We did it," he whispered, his eyes closed. "It's over. We can just rest now, right? You don't have to keep staring at the doorways waiting for monsters."

You ran your fingers through his curls, your heart aching with a profound, heavy sorrow. "Michael... we need to talk. For real this time."

He opened his eyes, sensing the sudden shift in your energy. He turned around, kneeling up to face you, his brow furrowing. "What's wrong? You look... so sad."

"I went back to my present, the future, Michael. Before the show tonight," you began, your voice tight as you forced yourself to look directly into his dark, trusting eyes. "I stood my ground with the high council. The disciplinary board is still deliberating on my official status, but given how much of my tech stabilized this leg of the tour, I'm confident I'll get my independent status. I'll be a rogue scientist, free to run my own jumps. But... that independence comes with a heavy price. I have to respect the architecture of your life. The grand design.”

"What does that mean?" he murmured, reaching out to grasp your hands.

"It means..." A tear slipped down your cheek, and you didn't bother wiping it away. "It means I can't stay here with you consecutively. Your life is a tapestry of fixed temporal points, Michael. There are massive, beautiful pillars of your history that must happen exactly as intended—people you are meant to meet, beautiful, incredible moments of joy and creation that are entirely yours to live out.”

You swallowed down the lump in your throat, trying to filter the massive, crushing weight of the 31st-century database into words he could understand.

“But there are also... deep valleys. Dark, cruel times ahead from a world that won't understand you. You have to walk through those fires, Michael. And if I stay by your side as a constant, permanent fixture, the timeline will split. The paradox will erase the very legacy we just fought to protect.”

Michael stared at you, his face turning incredibly pale. His fingers began to tremble violently within yours. "You're... you're leaving me? To go through all that alone?”

"Never alone," you whispered fiercely. You squeezed his hands back with a sudden, grounding strength, leaning in so your voices were the only things filling the quiet room.

"I am going to watch over you. Always. From the shadows, from the back of the crowded rooms, from the quiet spaces between the decades. I will be your ghost. Whenever the Syndicate tries to exploit your vulnerability or slip their tech into your dark moments, I'll be there to break their cells. When you feel a random, warm breeze in an empty arena, or when a piece of tech suddenly fixes itself... that's me. I am going to protect you through every single second of it. But I have to step out of the frame now. For a little while.”

Michael closed his eyes, a single, heavy tear escaping his lashes as he pulled you down into a desperate, crushing embrace. He buried his face in your neck, his chest heaving as he held you like you were the only real thing left in 1988.

"I love you," he whispered against your skin, the raw confession slipping out of him, thick with an unshakeable devotion. "I don't care about the years or the distance. I love you.”

"Promise me," he choked out, his fingers digging into the fabric of your casual shirt. "Promise me you'll come back to me when it's over."

Your cautious, protective heart was still sorting through the terrifying magnitude of what he meant to you, but you let out a soft, emotional breath and offered him a smile that said absolutely everything.

"I promise, Michael," you breathed, kissing his temple gently.

The silver Zippo in your pocket hummed. The vertical lines of monochrome static began to bleed into the edges of the room. You held on until the very last millisecond, until his touch turned into a grid of white noise, and then—you were gone.

And you kept your word.

God, you kept it.

You became a specter weaving through his timeline, an invisible shield operating across the decades.

During the grueling, exhausting days of the allegations, you didn't just sit in the back of the courtroom. You spent three sleepless nights in an underground London lab intercepting an Epoch Syndicate cyber-cell that was attempting to manipulate the local media servers to amplify the public hysteria. You fried their transmitter data from three miles away, ensuring his legal defense remained uncompromised.

One afternoon, as he left a chaotic press conference, his eyes exhausted and bloodshot, his gaze briefly locked onto the empty space near the security perimeter where you stood cloaked in a localized distortion field.

He didn't see you, but his posture suddenly straightened. He felt the warmth. He knew.

There was a time, you went further.

The Syndicate attempted a localized temporal extraction at the hospital hours after Paris was born, aiming to weaponize his children against the fixed timeline.

You intercepted the operatives in a subterranean utility corridor beneath the ward. Using a heavy-yield chronostatic pulse rifle you had custom-built, you completely shattered their tracking devices, leaving the agents locked in a localized time-loop while you secured the entire floor’s security matrix.

Later that night, under a temporary, localized sleep-stasis that kept the guards dreaming, you slipped into the quiet nursery. You looked down at the beautiful, sleeping baby girl, adjusting her vitals monitor with a quick, future-tech calibration to ensure her health remained perfectly stable.

Before you slipped back into the shadows, your eyes caught a familiar sight resting on an armchair by the door: his old, worn fedora from the Bad tour. Tucked securely into the ribbon was the tiny, silver buckle you had retrieved from under the piano in Tokyo all those years ago.

He had kept it.

You didn't interfere. You let him love, let him marry, let him father his children, and let him fight his battles. You just held the line against the future, ensuring his timeline remained entirely his own.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

When the final fixed points settled and the Syndicate cell officially abandoned the 20th-century sector, the chronometer in your hand finally flashed a steady, permanent green. The temporal restrictions were lifted.

You stepped out of the heavy sliding doors of your custom temporal booth into the year 2005.

You were older now. Years had passed for you in the future engineering bays—years spent designing, surviving, and fiercely protecting the man you loved across time. The sharp, erratic adrenaline of your youth had entirely settled into a grounded, mature wisdom.

It showed in your posture, your eyes held the deep, calm gravity of someone who had watched decades pass in a single breath. You wore a simple, elegant dark sweater and tailored trousers, your hair falling softly around your shoulders.

You weren't a chaotic, panicked mechanic anymore. You were a veteran protector who had fully earned her place in reality.

You walked up the stone steps of his rented California mansion, the quiet afternoon air smelling of eucalyptus and rain. The front door was completely unlocked.

Stepping into the grand, sunlit foyer, the chaotic, joyful sound of children’s laughter echoed from the sprawling living room. You walked toward the wide archway, stopping just on the threshold.

There he was.

Michael was sitting on a thick rug, looking older, his face carrying the faint, permanent lines of the heavy trials he had endured. He looked fragile, but when he looked at his kids, his eyes were full of absolute devotion. Prince, Paris, and little Blanket were running in circles around him, playing with a set of plastic building blocks.

Michael shifted his weight to catch a stray block, and suddenly, his head snapped toward the doorway.

The room went dead silent.

The children stopped playing, instantly sensing the sudden, profound stillness that had taken over their father.

Michael stared at you. He rose to his feet slowly, his breath catching so violently it sounded like a gasp. He looked at your mature, grounded posture, your wiser eyes, and the deep, unshakeable love radiating openly from your face.

"You're back," he whispered, his voice trembling exactly the way it had in the Munich hotel corridor in 1988.

"I'm back, Michael," you said softly, your voice steady and warm.

He didn't care that his kids were watching, nor did he care about the world outside. He crossed the room in long, swift strides, throwing his arms around you and burying his face deeply into your shoulder. He smelled exactly the same—vanilla and rain— but there was a profound relief in the way his hands gripped the fabric of your sweater.

He wasn't the untouchable pop icon of the Bad era anymore. He was a man who had survived the world, and you were the anchor that had held him through the storm.

"I saw you," he mumbled against your neck, his grip iron-tight as if terrified you'd dissolve back into white noise if he let go. "In the courtroom. In the theater. I felt you everywhere. I knew you were keeping your promise.”

"I told you I’d never leave you alone," you murmured, finally letting your own arms wrap securely around his back, running your fingers through his hair as you let yourself completely sink into his warmth.

Prince, who was around eight at the time, walked up slowly, tugging gently on his father’s trousers. "Daddy? Who is that?”

Michael pulled back just an inch, keeping one strong arm securely locked around your waist. He looked down at his son, his eyes shining with a radiant, tearful happiness that completely illuminated his face.

"Prince, Paris, Blanket... There’s someone... someone very special I want you to meet. She’s an old friend."

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

You chose to stay. You knew, with a heartbreaking technical certainty, how limited his time left on this Earth was.

The chronometer told you the exact parameters of his final years, but instead of fleeing back to the safety of the 31st century, you locked your Voice-o-Graph booth in the cellar and threw yourself into the embrace of a quiet, domestic life.

The snippets of your new reality were sweeter than anything you’d ever engineered.

There was the quiet afternoon where you sat at the kitchen island, a screwdriver in your hand, fixing a broken, motorized toy train that belonged to Blanket. The little boy was standing on his tiptoes, his dark eyes wide with absolute fascination as you explained how the tiny gears worked.

"See that?" you pointed with the tip of the tool. "If the tension isn't right, the train derails. Everything needs balance."

Michael was leaning against the doorframe, a mug of tea in his hands, wearing a loose flannel shirt and his reading glasses. He was just smirking, his heart completely full as he watched you naturally slip into a parental, guiding role for his youngest son. "Careful, Blanket," Michael teased, his voice full of warmth. "She’ll rewire your train to fly to the moon if you let her."

Then there were the longer, deeply domestic moments.

Like the rainy Friday night where Paris had a breakdown over a school project about ancient history. She was sitting at the dining table, surrounded by crumpled papers, crying because she couldn't understand how the ancient Roman aqueducts worked.

You sat down next to her, gently pulling the textbook away. "Hey. Look at me. Forget the book. Let me tell you how it actually felt to stand next to one."

For the next two hours, you spun a narrative so vivid, so rich with sensory details—the smell of the limestone, the exact temperature of the water, the sound of the Roman soldiers shouting in the valley—that Paris stopped crying entirely, her eyes wide with awe. She hung on your every word, entirely unaware that you had actually walked those stone paths centuries ago.

By the time she finished her essay, she threw her arms around your neck, hugging you tightly.

"You know everything," she whispered into your shoulder. "I'm so glad you're here with Daddy."

You hugged her back, your eyes meeting Michael's across the room. He was sitting on the sofa, his reading glasses slipped down his nose, a few quiet tears slipping down his cheeks.

Later that night, when the house was completely asleep, you and Michael stood out on the balcony, looking out over the dark, quiet trees. The cool night breeze stirred your hair.

"You're amazing with them," he murmured softly, his voice a peaceful, contented sound. He stood right beside you on the threshold, his profile illuminated by the moonlight, just drinking in the impossible sight of you after a lifetime of waiting in the dark.

"They're easy to love, Michael. They have their father's heart."

He swallowed hard, the sheer weight of the last seventeen years catching in his throat. When he turned his head to look at you, his voice came out heavy with a raw, agonizingly beautiful devotion that made the air in the room feel completely still.

"I missed you so much," he whispered, his dark eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that sent a violent shiver down your spine. "Every time I stood on a stage, every time I wrote a melody, every single night I sat in an empty room... I looked for you in the shadows. I looked for your face. I love you. I love you so much that it used to terrify me, but it was the only thing that kept me anchored when the world got dark."

The words hit you like a sudden whiplash of emotion, a pristine, sharp ache that rippled through you like the climax of a song that gives you goosebumps. It was overwhelming, a beautiful, heavy wave of absolute truth that left you completely breathless.

"After all this time, Michael?" you breathed, your voice trembling as you looked at the elegant, weathered lines of his face.

"It never went away," he said, his voice cracking slightly, but holding an unshakeable, permanent depth. A soft, bittersweet smile touched his lips, his eyes tracing your bare face. "It just... it laid low… but it never fully disappeared. It was always there, breathing under everything else. Just waiting for you."

Tears finally spilled over your lashes, warm and entirely unfiltered. For the first time across the centuries, the hyper-analytical, cautious front you had completely surrendered.

You reached out, your fingers shaking as you gently cupped his jaw, feeling the solid, living warmth of him beneath your palms. You owed him this. You had owed him this since a smoky dressing room in London, since the neon lights of Munich, since the very first day you fell out of the sky into his life.

"I'm sorry," you whispered, your voice breaking with the sheer, crushing magnitude of the feeling. "I'm so sorry I didn't say it back then. I was still so terrified of the rules, and the timeline, and what it would do to the world... but I was so wrong to keep it inside."

"Shh," Michael interrupted gently. He didn't let you finish. He leaned his face deeply into your hand, his eyes closing as a long, shaky, relieved breath escaped him. "It doesn't matter. None of it matters. I can finally feel it now."

"I love you, Michael," you said, the words pouring out of you like a dam breaking, pure and fierce and permanent. "I love you so much."

That was the exact moment his restraint completely shattered.

Michael reached out and pulled you into him, his long arms winding securely around your waist as he buried his face deeply into the crook of your neck. It was a crushing, desperate embrace, his chest heaving against yours as if he were trying to weave your two existences together so tightly that time could never separate you again.

When his grip finally loosened, just a fraction, he didn't let you go. His forehead rested against yours, his hands sliding up to frame your face, his thumbs wiping away the wet tracks on your cheeks. His breathing was still shallow, his eyes wide and bright with a lifetime of unshed tears, but the heavy shadow that had hung over him for seventeen years was completely gone.

You looked into his eyes, a sudden, nostalgic warmth blooming in your chest as the weight of the centuries fell away. The image of a dressing room in Los Angeles flashed through your mind—the raw promise left hanging in the air right before the stage manager’s megaphone had ruined the moment.

"Michael," you murmured, a small, breathless smile finally breaking through your tears. "Are you still up for that cherry pie?"

Michael froze for a millisecond, his gaze dropping to your lips before lifting back to your eyes as the memory rushed back to him. A soft, disbelief-filled chuckle vibrated in his chest, and then, that familiar, dazzling smile slowly illuminated his face, warmer and more radiant than any stadium lighting rig could ever manage.

"I've been holding our table for seventeen years," he whispered, his voice dropping into a sweet register as he leaned in, his lips brushing yours with a gentle, lingering promise. "Take all the time you need, crazy girl. I'm not letting you skip out on the bill this time.”

The ticking of the timeline in your head finally grew completely quiet, replaced entirely by the steady, beautiful beat of his heart against your chest. You knew the future, and you knew the end, but right here, in the quiet spaces of the 21st century, you had found the one fixed point that truly mattered.