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One Small Crash for EO, One Giant Miracle for a Princess (Oneshot)

Captain EO!Michael Jackson x Princess of a distant planet!reader Summary: Captain EO and his crew crash-land on a dark planet on a mission to reach the Supreme Leader, but before they get to her they find you: a princess from another planet, locked in a dungeon, with no hope left. EO refuses to leave without you. Tags: strangers to lovers, mutual admiration, angst with a happy end, fluff, romance, no smut

Note: The images used above are purely for the aesthetic and mood of the story, or to represent aspects of the reader's role, style, or the chapter itself. They are not intended to depict the reader's physical appearance or ethnicity. Note 2: I made MJ/EO sound a bit more polished because he's a superhero. Also, some parts might not be too logical, but I took some liberties because it's sci-fi. I also took some liberties with the Supreme Leader's back story. It follows the real happenings of "Captain EO", only with the added scenes of the princess aka you ❤️ Hope you enjoy! --- EO is the first one off the ship. He steps down onto the dark ground of the unknown planet that looks like it has never seen sunlight, and takes a look around. Not great. Behind him the ship sits at a bad angle, one side scorched from the landing. It won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. They'd made it out in one piece barely, and that was the only good thing he could say about their arrival. He turns away from the ship because staring at it isn't going to fix it. They'd gotten lucky with the landing spot, at least. There are no guards, no structures, nothing but open dark ground as far as he could see. EO scans the area once, then starts walking. The crew follows him. It doesn't take long before the buildings appear in the distance. Cave-like structures, tall and angular, leaning slightly toward each other, with guards posted outside each one. The sky above them is a deep purple and there are no stars and no light.

EO spots a formation of dark rocks some distance from the buildings and walks toward it without a word. The crew follows, crouching behind it closely. "We need to repair the ship," Major Domo says. "How are we supposed to do that? We have too much damage and no tools to repair," Idy says. "We accomplish the mission," EO says, sounding determined, "and then we repair the ship. Once the Supreme Leader is transformed the rest follows. That's always been the plan." Hooter squints at the guards. "Which building do you think she's in?" EO starts scanning the row of buildings.They’re too small and too scattered… she wouldn't be in any of these. She'd be somewhere bigger that mirrors her ego. "I don’t think she’s in any of these,” he says. “And we need somewhere to regroup first anyway. Out here we run the risk of being seen. Let’s go into that one." He nods toward a cave-like building slightly apart from the others. There’s only one guard there who doesn’t seem really alert. And there’s a gap in the wall that might be an entrance if they all fit through. He points to it. "There. We move quiet, we move fast, and nobody does anything until I say."

He looks at Hooter when he says the last part.

Hooter straightens. "I am the picture of caution." He is not, as it turns out, the picture of caution because he clips the edge of the wall on the way in and sends a small cascade of dark rock skittering across the ground, and for one terrible second the guard's head turns. The whole crew freezes. Fuzzball covers its own eyes. Then the guard turns back around and everyone lets out a breath. Inside is all shadow and stone, low ceilings, weirdly shaped walls, passages that branch off and narrow and occasionally lead nowhere. It smells like mold. The only light comes from a small hole in the ceiling, just enough to see the layout of the structure. They find a space near the back, partially hidden behind some bigger rocks, with enough room for all of them and a clear sightline to the main passage. EO stops there and turns, and the crew arranges itself around him. "Okay," he says. The spot is quiet enough that EO's voice carries without him having to raise it. "The mission was always clear," he says. "We deliver the gift. That's what we came here to do. The gift is what changes everything." He looks at his crew. "Commander Bog thought we couldn't do it. He belittled us. That's exactly why we're going to accomplish this mission."

"Right." Hooter nods slowly, then frowns. "Remind me what the gift does exactly." "It transforms," EO says. "Good where there’s evil. Light where there’s… this." He gestures at the cave walls, at the dim glow, at the general atmosphere of a place that has never had any happiness in it. "But we have to get to her first, and that means figuring out where she actually is." So they start to brainstorm. Idy thinks the Supreme Leader would position herself at the highest point of the planet's main structure, because elevation meant power. Ody scoffs and says she’d be at the center of something, not at the top, because her darkness would gravitate inward not upward. They begin arguing about this in hushed tones, two heads of the same body never quite agreeing with each other. EO rolls his eyes at their never-ending arguments. Major Domo suggests they look for the largest concentration of guards and work from there. Minor Domo beeps in what seems like agreement. Fuzzball drifts in a small anxious circle near the ceiling. EO listens to all of it and thinks about their points, because they all sound reasonable. The approach was the problem… the Supreme Leader wouldn't be caught unaware. Whatever they did, they'd have only one chance and it had to count. "If we can get close enough to perform–" EO starts. "She will see right through your plan."

The voice comes from the dark. From one of the corridors they hadn't gone down, hadn't even looked down, because it had seemed to go nowhere. The crew goes very still. Fuzzball lets out a scared squeak. EO takes a step toward the corridor. Then another. The light in this part of the cave is worse. For a moment he can’t make out anything beside the stone, the shadows and the sound of his own footsteps. Then he sees it. A cage, tall and dark, built into an alcove in the rock as if it had grown there. And inside it– You. You are sitting with your back against the stone wall and your knees are drawn loosely to your chest. The first thing he notices is that you’re watching him carefully. There is no light in your expression. Just exhaustion. The crew filters in behind EO and stops. He approaches slowly. You track his movement without flinching until he gets close, and then you start to move back and press your back slightly against the wall, your chin lifting. "I'm not here to hurt you," he says in a softer voice than before. He stops where he is. "My name is EO. Captain EO." He glances back. "That's Hooter. Idy and Ody. Major Domo, Minor Domo. And Fuzzball." Fuzzball drifts forward and blinks at you with his black eyes.

"We came from somewhere very far from here. We're not with the Supreme Leader." You look at him for a long moment. Then you look at the crew. "I know you're not with her," you say. "Her people don't introduce themselves." EO crouches down so he's closer to you on eye level through the bars. "Who are you?" "A princess," you say. "Of a planet that is no longer mine to be princess of." You say it flatly, without any emotion. As if you have repeated this sentence so often to yourself that you’ve become numb to it. "She took my world. Moved her forces in and now she rules my kingdom the way she rules everything, by making sure nobody has any hope anymore." You pause for a moment. "She brought me here so my people would lose hope. A kingdom without its princess is a kingdom that stops believing it can be saved." EO is quiet for a moment. "And how long have you been here?" You look at the wall. "Long enough to stop counting." "We're here to change that," he says. "All of it. We carry a gift, something that can reach the Supreme Leader, transform her, bring her back from whatever darkness took her. That's the mission." You look at him then, and something worse than hope crosses your face. Despair. "I've watched many try to go against her," you say. "I've watched all of them fail. She is not someone you walk up to with good intentions and expect mercy from." "I know."

"You don't," you say, and you scoff. "You think you do, but how long have you even been on this planet?" Hooter opens his mouth, but EO knows you’re right so he holds up one hand and Hooter closes it again. "How are they treating you," EO says. "In here." The question seems to surprise you. You blink once. "They feed me once a day," you say. "The rest of the time I'm left alone." You glance down the corridor. "There were many other captives in this dungeon when I first arrived... There aren’t any beside me anymore." You pause for a moment and look him in the eye.

"I've been told I'm next. I don't know when that will be. I've learned not to think about it too much, I’ve come to accept my fate." EO says nothing for a moment. The crew behind him is very quiet. "I'm sorry," he says. "Nobody deserves this… the captivity, the fear, watching the world from the inside of a cage and not being able to–" He stops. Then he takes a moment to look at you properly in what little light there is, and something in him goes very still. You are exhausted and your clothes are worn and the dungeon has done nothing kind to you, and still there is something about you that the darkness of this place hasn't managed to reach yet. The way your jaw is set and the steadiness of your eyes. You say you’ve come to accept your fate, but he doesn’t believe it because the woman before him looks anything but defeated. She just looks tired. "Nobody deserves this," he says again, quieter. Behind him, Idy looks at Ody and Ody looks back, raising an eyebrow. Hooter has to look at the ceiling to keep from saying anything, because he knows EO won’t like to hear what his crew can see between him and you. EO reaches out instinctively toward you and his hand closes around one of the bars. The shock hits him like something alive. He pulls back fast, shaking his hand out, and you are already speaking.

"Don't. There's a spell on it. There's no way to open it from the outside, or the inside. I've tried." You lower your head and stare at your hands. "I've had a lot of time to try." EO looks at the cage then at you. Slowly, he seems to move past plain sympathy for your situation and arrives somewhere closer to determination. He stands up. "Okay," he says, turning back to his crew. The planning energy is back, different now, much sharper and much more motivated. "Change of plans. We're not just delivering a gift anymore." He looks at each of them in turn. "We're getting her out. Which means we’ll have to find a way to free her before we take down the Supreme Leader. Ship or no ship, Bog or no Bog, we finish this mission."

Hooter pumps his fist. Idy and Ody stop arguing. Even Major Domo seems to stand slightly straighter. EO looks back at you one more time, and you are watching him with those careful eyes. And this time there is something in them that might become something like hope. EO makes a motion to his crew and they gather close to the cage, as close as they can without touching the bars and the planning begins. You talk, and they listen. You have spent enough time in this dungeon to know its rhythms the way you once knew your own palace. You tell them all of it. The guards rotate at intervals you've memorized simply because you had too much time. You tell them where the guards cluster and where they thin out and which ways lead deeper into the planet's interior and which ones dead-end into rock. And then you tell them about the meal. Once a day, always at noon, always the same guard, and when he comes, the cage has to open. That's their window. EO looks at you when you say it. "We free you first," he says. "Then we go to the Supreme Leader." Idy and Ody hang on every word, Major Domo commits it all to memory, and even Hooter is paying attention. Then EO speaks again. "The Supreme Leader herself," he says. "What is she like?" You are quiet for a moment. "Ruthless," you say. "Completely rutheless. There is no softness in her, no compassion."

You pause for a moment. "But I've had a long time to think about her. About why she is the way she is." You look at your hands. "She had a son. A small boy. He was on a planet she was simply visiting before she became the way she is now. And there was an accident.” The whole crew is listening closely. You continue.

“The kind of accident that nobody caused and nobody could have stopped. He…” you stop, take a breath and try again. “He died. And she decided it wasn't an accident. She was so deep in her grief that she couldn’t see clearly and was convinced the planet had taken him from her intentionally. She started war on them. And when other planets came to defend it, she went to war with them too." You look up at EO and his crew. "That's how it started. She lost her boy and refused to accept it, and her anger spread like fire, destroying everything in its path. She's been at war with half the universe because a little boy died and she needed someone to blame." The crew is silent. "That's–" Hooter starts, and for once doesn't finish. "Terrible," EO says quietly. "That's terrible." He isn't talking about the destruction, he also means the grief underneath it. "It is," you say. "It doesn't excuse what she's done. But it's the truth to her." EO is quiet for a moment, and you can see him thinking. "That's why nobody's been able to stop her," he says finally, as if he realized somthing. "Every attempt has been aggressive. Meet force with force, meet darkness with more darkness. But that's not what she needs." He looks at his crew. "She doesn’t need to be overpowered. She just needs to be seen." He straightens with this new-found realization. "Music, dance and empathy. That's always been the gift… love as a language. That's what we will bring her."

Ody looks skeptical. Idy for once looks like he doesn’t disagree with Ody. "You think you can dance the Supreme Leader into being good?" Ody says. "I think," EO says with patience, "that nobody has ever tried to make her feel understood. And I think that might be the only thing that actually works."

You watch him as he speaks. You watch the way his crew, even the skeptical ones, settle slightly when he talks. He is not performing confidence. He just simply has it, because he believes in the gift until the end. You also notice that he treats his crew well. Even when Hooter says something that makes the others groan, even when Idy and Ody spiral into one of their arguments, EO redirects without dismissing, listens without condescending. You haven't felt anything in a long time that could be called warmth. You'd begun to think the capacity for it had been taken from you along with everything else. You are not so sure anymore. – The crew sleeps in the corner of the alcove, because it’s still some time until noon. Hooter falls asleep almost immediately. Fuzzball finds a high ledge and tucks itself into a ball. Idy and Ody just lay against the wall and Major Domo stays upright for a while, then allows himself to power down. EO stays. He sits close to the cage, not touching it. The dungeon is quiet around you both and it is the most comfortable silence you have experienced in longer than you can think. "Tell me about your planet," he says. He sounds like he actually wants to know. So you tell him. You tell him about the light, the way it came through the leaves of trees so tall they seemed to be holding the sky up, soft and different from any light you've ever seen. The creatures that existed nowhere else, that your people had spent generations learning to understand rather than fear. The city your family had ruled since its existence, and the way it sounded on festival days, so full of laughter and joy. Your mother, who ruled with a gentle authority that made everyone around her feel secure. Your father, who used to bring you to the highest point of the palace to watch the stars come out and tell you the name of every one he knew, and invent names for the ones he didn't. The war came all at once, until one morning you woke up and the world was simply different. You had lost your parents. And then you were brought here, hands bound, the journey through the dark between planets with the Supreme Leader looking at you the way someone looks at an insect. EO listens to all of it without a word. He just listens, completely focused, and that is rarer and more valuable than sympathy.

"I feel for you," he says, when you've been quiet for a while. "I mean that. Everything that’s happened to your planet, your people, your parents… You've been holding all of it alone in here and that's…" He shakes his head.

"I'll do anything to make it right. To save your planet and to get you home. Whatever it takes." You look at him in the dim glow of the dungeon walls, this person who arrived on a broken ship a few hours ago and has somehow made you feel like something could still change, and you reach out toward him without thinking, and then remember, and pull your hand back just before it reaches the bars. "Tell me about you," you say, because you want to think about something else and because you actually want to know. "Who are you, really?" He thinks about this for a moment, like it's a question he doesn't get asked often. "A space captain," he says. "Someone who believes that music can do what weapons can't. That if you can make someone feel something, you can reach them anywhere, no matter how far they've gone." He looks at his crew, sleeping in the corner. "Our commander Bog, he's never believed in us. Calls us a misfit mess. Maybe we are." He chuckles. "But I believe in them. And I believe that love is a language everyone speaks, even people who've forgotten they know it. Even Supreme Leaders who've turned the whole universe dark because they're grieving a little boy." He looks up and smiles. "That's what I'm here to do. Remind her she knows it." You are quiet for a moment. "The way you speak," you say slowly. "I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to believe something was possible." He looks at you. "Believe it," he says. "I'm asking you to trust me. I know I haven't given you much reason to yet, and I know you've been here long enough to stop trusting things. But I will get you out and I will make sure you get home. I promise you that."

Something breaks open in your chest that you hadn't known was sealed away. You cry quietly, without making too much sound. You aren't even embarrassed by it. There is something about him that makes embarrassment feel beside the point.

"Thank you," you manage. He stays where he is and doesn't look away, and the dungeon is dark around you both, but somehow you do not feel entirely alone in it. – There is a crack in the cave wall somewhere above you. A thin ray of light that reaches the floor of your cell at a different angle when it's close to noon. You've been watching it creep across the stone for the last hour. "It's almost time," you say quietly. EO is awake immediately. He'd gone down for an hour or two sometime before dawn, sitting propped against the wall with his arms folded, and you'd watched him sleep for a little while before looking away. The crew stirs around him, Hooter with a snort, Idy and Ody untangling themselves and Major Domo coming back online with a soft mechanical sound. "Everyone hide," you say. "There's a rock formation just inside the entrance, close to where they come in. Big enough for all of you." They move without a word and EO goes last. He looks at you once before he disappears. From behind the rocks they watch the entrance and keep very still. "We wait until the cage opens," EO says in a low voice. "Not before." "What if he screams?" Ody says. "We hit him before he gets the chance," EO says. "I'll do the hitting," Hooter says with enthusiasm. "You'll hold his mouth closed," EO says. "All of you hold, I'll hit." Fuzzball makes a sound of quiet agreement from somewhere near the ceiling. They hear the guard come in with heavy footsteps. He doesn't look around. He goes straight to the cage, sets the bowl down and reaches for the lock. The cage swings open.

They come out from behind the rock all at once. The guard turns at the sound and EO is already there, one clean strike to the back of his head and the guard goes down without a word, the bowl clattering sideways across the stone floor. Hooter arrives a half-second late and gets in two kicks anyway. Ody follows Hooter. Idy follows Ody.

"I think," Major Domo says, "you can stop now." Hooter gets one more in anyway. You step out of the cage. It is such a simple thing. Crossing a threshold you have crossed in your mind ten thousand times and never in your body, and then you are standing outside it. The air is the same air and the stone is the same stone and yet everything is different in a way you can't explain except that you are finally on the right side of the bars. EO is standing a few feet away and for a moment neither of you moves. Then you close the distance and your arms go around him and you hold on, your face pressed into his shoulder, and he holds you back without hesitation, one hand at your back, steady and warm. The crew watches. Hooter puts a hand over where his heart presumably is. Idy and Ody don't argue for a full ten seconds, which may be a record. You pull back. EO looks at you and smiles, and then he takes your hand and turns to the crew. "Move quiet," he says. "Everyone out." – The air is still cold and dark and the sky is still purple, and none of it is your home, and yet after the cave it feels like breathing for the first time. You tip your head back for just a moment and let it in. EO's hand stays in yours. You move along the outer wall of the dungeon slowly, hugging the stone, until the structure curves and the open land spreads out ahead of you, dark and flat, with strange formations rising in the distance. "There," you say, nodding toward a mass of dark rock and shadow that sits differently from the landscape around it. "That's where she is. An hour's walk, maybe a little less."

EO looks at it for a moment. Then he nods. "Then that's where we're going."

You don't even make it halfway. The guards come from two directions at once, and there are enough of them that resistance isn't worth it. Hands close around your arms and shoulders and the crew is herded together aggressively. Hooter makes a sound of protest. One of the guards looks at him and he stops making it. You feel EO's hand tighten around yours for just a second before they separate you. He looks at you across the distance they've put between you with a calm expression, and he gives you the smallest nod. You're okay. This is still okay. You're being marched toward the Supreme Leader. It was the destination anyway. – The throne room is not what you expected. It’s vast and open and strange, with cables descending from a ceiling too high to see, and at the end of them… The Supreme Leader. She hangs in the air still and looks down at you all with disgust. Hooter looks up at her. "I told you I'd find her," he says. Nobody responds to this. The Supreme Leader laughs. It’s not a warm sound. "How extraordinary," she says, her voice coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. "You thought you could ambush me. You thought you could walk into my world, free my captive–" her eyes move to you and stay there for a moment, "and stand before me as though any of this was ever within your power." She lowers herself slightly with the cables. "I damn you all to one hundred years of captivity."

"We accept your punishment," EO says without hesitation. The room goes very quiet.

The Supreme Leader looks at him almost surprised. "So we both admit to your stupidity. Why have you come?"

"To bring a gift," EO says, "your highness. To someone as beautiful as you." Something shifts in her expression, clearly liking the compliment. "So let me see this gift." EO looks at his crew. And then he begins. You have heard music before. You grew up with it, festival days and ceremonies and your father humming to himself in the early mornings. You know what music is and what it does. This is different. It starts with his voice and his movement and the way the two become one thing, and then the crew joins in around him and the sound fills the entire space, warm and full and completely at odds with everything this dark place has ever been. You watch him move and there is something in it that bypasses every careful wall you have spent years building because it’s clear to you that he means it. Every gesture, every note, every turn toward the Supreme Leader carries the same thing you saw last night in the dungeon when he sat close to your cage and told you that he would get you out. He is not trying to overpower her. He is trying to reach her. And watching him try with such sincerity, you feel something crack open in your heart that you hadn't planned. You believe him. You believed him last night and you believe him now. When the music fades the Supreme Leader has gone very still. The disgust in her expression is gone. Something else has moved into its place. EO takes a breath before starting his speech. "I know about your son," he says quietly. "I know what happened to him. And I know that what happened was not what you've told yourself it was… it was an accident, a terrible one." He takes a step forward. "I can feel your pain. I can feel how real it is and how long you've carried it." Another step. "But the planets you've taken, the people you've imprisoned–" he glances at you briefly, "none of it has made it hurt less, and you know that. You've always known that." He looks back up at her. "Come back. Please. It's not too late to come back." For a long moment nothing happens. Then a tear rolls down the Supreme Leader's face.

It catches the light on the way down, and that light, that one small glimmer, seems to spread. It spreads slowly at first and then all at once, like a sun coming up, warm and nothing like anything this planet has ever seen.

She changes so completely until the figure descending slowly from the cables is not what had hung there before but someone else entirely. Someone who looks grateful because they were finally seen and understood. She touches the ground. She looks at EO for a long moment. Then she steps forward and raises one hand and touches his cheek, gently, with a gratitude that needs no words except "Thank you." Then she turns, and her eyes find you. She motions, and you go to her slowly, every instinct in your body telling you not to, and she reaches out and cups your face in her hands. "I'm sorry," she says. "I cannot give back what I took. I know that." Her eyes are clear in a way they weren't before. "But I will do everything in my power to help you from this moment on. Your planet is yours again. Your people are free." She holds your gaze. "Go home." Your throat closes completely. One by one the crew bows, and you bow with them, and the Supreme Leader stands in the light of her own transformation. – She gives the crew a ship, one of her own along with a message carried ahead of them to her forces: stand down, withdraw, return what was taken. EO accepts the ship with genuine gratitude. As you file toward the ship you feel the throne room behind you and the open dark ahead and your planet somewhere out there in the distance, waiting for your return. EO falls into step beside you and doesn't say anything. – The planet receives you with an explosive amount of joy. The ship breaks through the atmosphere and there it is below you, green and gold and alive. You press your hand to the glass silently.

You land to a crowd that has clearly been waiting. Word had traveled ahead of you, the Supreme Leader's message, the withdrawal of forces, and then the rumor that their princess was finally coming home. They are loud and warm and overwhelming, and when you step off the ship and the sound hits you it takes everything you have not to cry right there. Instead you stand straight and receive it and you smile until your face hurts from it. You turn back to the ship and find EO standing in the hatch, watching you proudly with gentle expression. You give them the palace. It feels like the least you can do. The crew was given rooms that have been empty for too long and fed properly for what seems like the first time in a while based on Hooter's reaction to the food. You walk the halls you grew up in and they are both exactly as you left them and completely different. Tomorrow you will be coronated. You had not let yourself think about that word until now. The gown is your mother's, altered to fit you. You stand in it the next morning in front of a mirror while servants help you with your hair. EO briefly sees you before the ceremony in the corridor outside the main hall. He stops and doesn't say anything for a moment. "You look–" he starts. "Don't," you say, because you already feel too much and you can't take more of it right now. He smiles and doesn't finish the sentence. The coronation is everything it is supposed to be. You have thought about this moment from inside a cage on a dark planet and from the ship on the way here and from your childhood bed last night, and in none of those versions of it did it feel like this…

Like something settling into place that was always meant to be there. Like your parents standing somewhere just behind you with their hands on your shoulders.

The crown is heavier than you remember from your mother's head, but you carry it proudly.

EO watches from the crowd and feels something he doesn't have a name for. He has seen you exhausted and frightened and quietly hopeful, seen you in the dungeon and on the ship and in the first overwhelming moments of coming home. He thought he understood what he felt then, but he feels something different now. You are standing in front of your people with a crown on your head and grief in your history and your chin high, and you are the strongest thing he has ever seen. And whatever he felt in the dungeon was just the beginning of this. He fell in love with you at your worst. He hadn't thought it was possible to look at you now and feel even more. – The festival lasts well into the night, music and food and laughter, the planet remembering what it sounds like when it's happy. Hooter discovers something on the banquet table that he cannot name but eats four helpings of anyway. Idy and Ody argue about which part of the palace gardens is most impressive and then quietly agree that the whole thing is extraordinary. Major Domo spends a big portion of the evening in conversation with one of the palace's pillars, which seems to satisfy him. EO dances with whoever asks him and laughs more than he has in a while and tries not to watch you too obviously from across the room. He isn’t successful at all. It is late when the crew begins drifting toward sleep and the festival winds into something quieter, and EO finds you on the edge of it all. For a while you just stand together and let the sounds of your planet wash over you without needing to fill it with anything. –

Morning comes softly with the kind of light you had described to him in the dungeon and he had tried to imagine and hadn't quite managed. He understands it now.

The crew gathers at the ship, fed and rested and in better shape than they've been since before the crash. Hooter is carrying something wrapped in cloth that smells strongly of whatever he'd had four helpings of the night before. Nobody asks.

You come to see them off. EO turns to face you and his expression looks decided. "We should get going," he says. "Give you a chance to settle in without a crew of misfits underfoot." You nod. You knew this was coming and you have been preparing for it all morning and you are still not prepared for it. He steps forward and pulls you into a hug, his arms around you properly, and you close your eyes. "I always believed in you," he says into your hair. "I couldn't have gotten here without you," you say. "I wouldn't have gotten out of that cage. I wouldn't have–" You stop. Then you try again. "Thank you for rescuing me. I owe you my life." You pull back. He looks at you for a long moment, and then he takes a breath and squares his shoulders, and smiles at you, warm and final. "Take care of yourself," he says. "Take care of your planet." He turns to go. Your hand reaches out before you can think about it. Your fingers close around his arm and he stops, and you look at him when he turns back. You’re hesitant, but you still hold your chin high and your eyes steady, because you’re wearing a crown and you can do this. "Could you see a future here?" you ask. "On this planet?" He looks at you carefully. "What do you mean?" "I mean…" you take a breath, "staying. Here, with me." The words are finally out.

"Rebuilding what was destroyed. Ruling it together, as… my partner." You watch surprise take over his expression and keep going before you lose courage. "I'm in love with you. Not only because of what you did… but because of who you are.”

You let go of his arm slowly, but continue speaking. “Because you made me believe in your message, that love is a language everyone speaks, and I want–" your voice steadies, "I want it to be our language too. You never gave up on me and you made me remember I was strong when I'd forgotten. I don't want you to leave."

EO looks at you. Behind him, the crew who has been pretending not to listen stirs. "I would like to stay," Hooter announces. "The food here is exceptional and I feel that's worth mentioning." "We love this planet," Idy says. "We genuinely do," Ody says, and the fact that they agree on something without arguing is probably the most absurd thing that’s happened all morning. Major Domo is quiet for a moment, before he speaks. "I could see myself living here." EO looks at his crew. Then he looks back at you, and he laughs a real laugh, full and warm, and shakes his head.

"You didn't need to do any of that," he tells them. He is looking at you when he says the next part. "I would have said yes anyway. Because I love you too." The smile that breaks across your face is not a queenly one. It is not composed or measured or appropriate for someone who was coronated just yesterday. You close the distance between you and wrap your arms around him and hold on tight, and he holds you back just the same. When you pull back you lean in and kiss him, and he kisses you back with the same wholehearted sincerity he brings to everything. Behind you the crew goes completely wild, Hooter making a sound that echoes off the palace walls, Idy and Ody both talking at once, Major Domo saying something that gets entirely drowned out. When you part you rest your forehead against his. "Thank you," you say. "For not giving up on me." He pulls back just enough to look at you properly. "You never needed me to believe in you," he says. "You just needed to remember who you were." Then he kisses you again, soft and slow, like someone who needs to be nowhere else right now. Because he doesn't.

Thanks for reading! Do you like what I did with the title? 🥺👉👈 I didn't have time to proof-read this, but I hope you still enjoyed it. I really loved writing in this Captain EO universe ❤️ And one thing I'll never not do is to make my reader-characters strong, confident women who need to find their own path and power and not rely on a man, even if that man is THE Michael Jackson.

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