alyssa @cupcakerainbowsprinkle - Tumblr Blog

　　﹕ (✿˘͈ᵕ˘͈) ┈ handle with care (3).

　　┊ ♡ ﹒ thriller era michael!

　　┊ ♡ ﹒ summary : what happens when someone who has spent his whole life controlled finally has to choose who gets authority over his future?

　　┊ ♡ ﹒ byi : heavy family conflict and emotional manipulation, discussions of abortion, public humiliation and loss of bodily autonomy, manhandling / being dragged against one's will, gendered power imbalance, generational trauma, intimidation, minor injuries and bleeding (scraped knees, bruising), hurt / comfort, literally j*e jackson being absolutely awful. **9k word count.

　　┊ ♡ ﹒ part two here!

“I don’t want you around my son.”

Joe points directly at (Name) when Michael opens the front door, his voice loud enough to carry across the driveway before anybody even fully processes what’s even happening.

Chilly air bites against her bare legs beneath the oversized shirt she’d thrown on half awake as morning light spills across the front steps and over the line of cars crammed unevenly outside the house. The engines are still running from how quickly everybody apparently left to get here. She instinctively tightens both hands around Michael’s bicep beside her, pressing herself closer against him while the men of the Jackson family crowd the doorway.

The boys all look they’ve been dragged out of their sleep.

Tito has a jacket thrown over what looks like his pajama pants, hair barely smoothed down while he keeps shooting worried glances between Joe and Michael. He’s already spent the entire drive over trying unsuccessfully to calm this situation before it escalated. Marlon looks uncomfortable as he stands off near the driveway, arms folded awkwardly across himself while he avoids looking directly at (Name) for too long, he’s visibly aware this has already gone way too far. Randy lingers closer to the cars rubbing sleep from his eyes every few seconds, still trying to gather himself because he quite literally got dragged out of REM. Jackie is larger than all of them, fully awake now out of necessity rather than his choice. He’s prepared to stop his father from switching this altercation from verbal to something physical, already on go.

Michael’s hand wraps tightly around the door knob, trying so hard to be brave. But he looks exhausted. Sweatpants thrown on crookedly, curls flattened unevenly from sleep, eyes heavy from being dragged awake too fast. But when Joe points toward (Name) again, something in his expression shifts.

“Josep—” Marlon attempts to speak.

“No,” Joe snaps, cutting directly over him without taking his eyes off her. “I told you all this was gonna happen.”

(Name)’s grip tightens harder around Michael’s arm and she can physically feel her pulse hammering in her throat now. Nobody’s yelling except Joe, but the front porch already feels like too much is happening. There’s many bodies, too much noise. Michael subtly shifts more in front of her without seeming fully conscious he’s doing it, blocking part of Joe’s line of sight while she stays tucked tightly against his side.

“She’s got you missing rehearsals now,” Joe continues, his eyes locking onto Michael’s. “Hour late already. People waiting on you while you up here playing house.”

“It’s still early,” Michael says quietly.

“It ain’t early when there’s work to do.”

Jackie steps a little closer while Tito mutters something low that sounds like “Joe, c’mon.” But Joe barely hears anything but himself and his own thoughts anymore. His attention keeps snapping back toward (Name).

And then he points at her again. “This right here is the problem.”

Michael speaks again but his voice leaves him before he even has time to think about it. And for one brief moment, he wishes it hadn’t. “Get your hand out’ve her face.”

The driveway goes completely still for half a second after he says it. Because Michael almost never speaks to Joe like that and realization settles over him very quickly.

He feels sick—so, so sick. He could vomit right now.

There are certain feelings adulthood never managed to kill. You can become famous, wealthy. You can become the most recognizable person in the world. and build kingdoms out of your talent alone. But then your father looks at you a particular way, and suddenly all of it feels like decoration. Suddenly you’re not a man standing in front of property you pay for your girlfriend to live in. You aren’t a provider. You’re his son again, a boy again. A little boy waiting to see what kind of mood his father is in before deciding what version of himself is allowed to exist that day because everything depended on it.

“Who you talking to, boy?”

The question makes him turn color. He’s spent his entire life knowing this exact question—the verbiage, the tone. It’s not meant to be answered, but to be reacted to. It’s a challenge, a warning and the reminder. The absolute demand to remember where he came from and who made him. Who’s in charge.

Michael hates that his heart is beating so hard. Hates that his palms feel warm. Hates that fear still comes before anger in his heart. Fear first. Always fear first. It embarrasses him in ways he can’t explain. Embarrasses him because he’s standing beside the woman he loves and is supposed to protect as the man in the relationship. It embarrasses him because his brothers are watching. Embarrasses him because some part of him thought he had outgrown this years ago but, deep down even he knew he’d never be able to escape this feeling.

Beside him (Name) feels the shift happen without fully understanding the nuances. She’s seen Michael sad, anxious. Seen him overwhelmed and collapsing into himself under pressure. But this feels different, older somehow. The fear isn't coming from the conversation they’re having now because it’s coming from hundreds of conversations that happened before she was ever in the picture. A hundred moments she wasn’t there to witness or protect him from. The awful history between a father and a son fills up the space around them until it feels impossible to breathe through.

“I said who you talking to?” The question isn’t really a question anymore, it’s an invitation. An opportunity to back down.

An opportunity to apologize and make this easy.

Michael knows that too. Become smaller, submit to his father’s intimidation and make things easy.

But he can feel (Name) beside him. He can feel her holding onto him and through her touch he can feel her fear. Thee choice becomes unbearable because backing down no longer belongs solely to him. If he shrinks now, he leaves her standing there alone and Joe gets to keep treating her like she’s a cancer to the family name instead of his person.

“I’m—I’m talking to you, Joseph..” His voice is quiet. Not brave in the slightest but it is honest. It’s the honesty people stumble into when they’re too exhausted to lie anymore. And Michael is tired.

Something changes in Joe’s face, its recognition. He’s seeing a version of Michael he doesn’t particularly like. A version that belongs to himself and not Joseph Jackson, his father.

Because that’s the thing Joe never seems to understand. Fear and control are not the same thing. Michael is afraid. Everybody standing here can see that he's afraid. But for the first time in a long time, he isn't letting that fear make the decision for him.

The realization seems to irritate Joe almost as much as the answer itself.

“My girl is not the problem.” Michael says it before he can lose his nerve. “So please.. leave her alone.”

The statement simmers between them.

He’s saying he’s not ten anymore, saying he knows what he’s doing. He’s saying he loves her.

Joe never takes his eyes off Michael.

“Oh, that’s where we at now? You gon’ tell me what to do?”

“I’m asking you not to point at her..”

The argument changes speed when Joe looks at (Name) again.

Up until now, it’s been about rehearsal. About Michael being late, Joe being angry. Familiar territory everyone standing in the driveway has seen before in one form or another. But then Joe’s attention settles on her, a cold chill slides down her spine. Before he even opens his mouth, she knows where this is going. She’s spent weeks carrying this secret around like a live wire, convincing herself there would be a better time to tell Michael. A calmer time. A private time. One more day. One more conversation. One more chance to figure out how to say it without watching his entire world collapse around him.

“Did you handle your business yet?”

Michael doesn’t understand the question. It sounds strangely vague to his ears. He glances toward (Name), expecting her to answer immediately, expecting this to be something small and unrelated to him. Instead, she goes completely still, the stillness that comes from panic. The kind that arrives when the lie (by omission) you’ve been telling up and abandons you. Michael feels it instantly—that shift. The fear. The way her grip on his arm changes. And all at once, a terrible feeling begins creeping into his stomach. He’s not understanding, at least not yet. But the sensation that he’s standing at the edge of something he doesn’t know about but should.

The silence stretches far too long and becomes an answer all on its own. Joe watches her without blinking. Waiting. Michael watches her too with his brows pinched in the middle, now aware of how terrified she looks. And now remembering the strange conversations they’ve had over the last few weeks. Every question she never fully answered. Every moment she seemed on the verge of saying something before changing her mind. The pieces aren’t fitting together yet, but they’re moving.

Joe nods slowly.

“I’m gon’ ask one more time.” The driveway feels smaller as all the brothers have gone quiet. Even the morning doves have seemed to have stopped singing as Joe’s voice lowers.

“Did you handle your business yet?”

And when (Name) still can’t answer, when she just stands there staring with tears gathering in her eyes, Michael watches confirmation settle across Joe’s face. The silence told him everything he needed to know. And standing beside her, Michael feels very afraid of whatever conversation everyone seems to be having except him.

(author’s note: hello! stop reading here if you’re particularly sensitive to manhandling and heavy themes! or maybe even take a break! 💗)

Joe’s hand closes around (Name)’s wrist before anybody fully realizes what he’s doing. One second she’s standing beside Michael on the porch, clutching his arm so tightly her fingers cramped, and the next she’s being pulled down the front steps so abruptly she misses two of them entirely. Her foot catches the edge and she stumbles hard, a startled cry tearing from her throat as she nearly goes down. The concrete scrapes across her bare knee when she catches herself. The sting is hot and sharp. By the time she regains her footing, her skin is already scraped raw.

“Joe, let go of me!”

The driveway erupts all at once with Tito and Randy shouting. Jackie moving so fast he nearly collides with Joe trying to intercept him. Somebody keeps saying Joe’s name over and over as if the repetition alone might somehow break through whatever decision he’s already made. None of it matters. Joe keeps walking and dragging her forward with certainty of a man who has already decided he’s right. The more she resists, the more inevitable it feels. Michael’s voice cuts through the chaos somewhere behind her, the panic she hears from him makes her stomach drop. She’s never heard anything quite like that from him before.

“(Name)!”

She digs her heels into the pavement while ger other knee slams against the driveway when she loses her balance again. Pain shoots up her leg and tears flood her eyes. Fear—this is real terror she’s experiencing. The rear passenger door gets yanked open and now this isn’t just an argument anymore.

“Please!” She sobs. “Joe, please don't—”

“Get in the car.”

“No!” She twists violently, trying to wrench herself free, but his grip only tightens. She gets a good look at him, and really sees him. He looks convinced that he’s solving a problem. And she’s the problem.

“I’m taking her to the clinic.”

The statement is thrown out across the driveway and everything stops. The brothers fall silent and even (Name)’s struggling falters. Michael freezes halfway down the driveway, the color draining from his face so quickly it almost looks unreal. Nobody breathes then.

Joe points directly at her. “This girl is pregnant.”

A sound leaves (Name) before she can stop it.

Not a word or even a small cry, really. Just a small, helpless noise that seems to come from somewhere deep inside her chest, its beyond language. The moment Joe says it, the moment the word pregnant is said out loud in the middle of the driveway for everyone to hear, something inside her simply gives way. All the effort she’d spent holding herself together over the last few weeks vanishes at once. The planning. The rehearsing. The constant bargaining with herself that she’d tell Michael tomorrow, or the day after that, or when she found the right moment. Gone. Torn out of her hands before she ever got the chance. Her eyes squeeze shut instinctively, thinking maybe if she can’t see their faces, the humiliation won’t be real. But it is. It’s real, so horribly real.

Her knees nearly buckle beneath her and she thinks she’s actually going to collapse right there in front of everyone. The driveway tilts sickeningly beneath her feet, blood from her scraped knees mixes with fresh tears tracking down her cheeks, and all she can think is not like this. Not in front of his brothers. Not in front of Joe. Not Michael finding out this way. She had imagined so many versions of this moment. Nervous ones. Tearful ones. Maybe even happy ones. Michael sitting beside her, holding her hand. Michael hearing it from her. Instead she’s standing in the middle of a nightmare she can’t wake up from, her secret hanging in the air for everyone to stare at while her body seems to forget how to stay upright. For the first time since this started, she stops fighting Joe entirely too devastated to remember how to.

Joe shakes his head.

Michael genuinely thinks he misheard him.

The driveway feels like its been stretched one hundred feet and muted like somebody stuffed cotton into his ears. He can see mouths moving. See his brothers reacting. See (Name) crying. But everything feels strangely far away as the words register individually. This girl. Pregnant. But they refuse to connect. They hover in the air like separate things while his brain scrambles desperately to make sense of them.

He finds himself staring at (Name) as though the answer might be written somewhere on her face. And every strange moment from the past few weeks begins rearranging itself into something clear in hindsight. The tears she’s tried to hide. The nervousness he could never quite understand. The questions that seemed oddly specific at the time, questions about disappointment and anger and mistakes and whether people could forgive things they hadn’t expected. The way she’d looked at him lately, sometimes opening her mouth like she wanted to say something before thinking better of it. The fear. More than anything, the fear. He sees it all now. Not as separate incidents but as pieces of the same story. A story she’d apparently been carrying while he remained oblivious to it. His stomach hurts—because she knew. She knew.

The hurt sneaks in rearing it’s ugly little head directly into his chest, nearly hidden beneath the shock. It isn’t intense enough to be anger or resentment. It’s something.. honestly way sadder than that. A dull ache that spreads slowly through his chest the longer he stands there looking at her. Because all he can think about is the amount of time that must have passed between finding out and now. Days. Maybe weeks. Countless conversations that feel different in retrospect. Countless opportunities where she could have told him and didn’t. And the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that what wounds him is a small, ugly part of him wonders why she didn’t trust him enough to come to him.

Pregnant. The word doesn’t even feel real. His entire life just changed between one heartbeat and the next. He’s going to be a father. A dad. He helped create life. This isn’t real life.

She looks at him. And the expression on her face is so devastated, so apologetic, so terrified of what he might be thinking.

The worst part is the fact that she can’t read him right now. Normally she can. Normally she knows exactly what he’s thinking long before he says it. She knows the tiny shifts in his expression, the way his mouth moves when he’s trying not to laugh, the particular look he gets when he’s upset but pretending he isn’t. She knows him. Or at least she thought she did because right now she knows nothing. He’s just staring. And that terrifies her, because the truth is that her fear of Michael being angry has never been entirely rational. It’s actually embarrassingly childish when she really examines it. Michael has never given her a reason to believe he would scream at her or humiliate her or stop loving her over one mistake. Yet she’d spent weeks building these catastrophes inside her own head, convincing herself there was a wrong way to tell him, a wrong time to tell him, a version of this conversation that would make him look at her differently forever.

Now she’s standing in front of him and every ridiculous fear she’s been carrying feels very fucking real because he isn’t saying anything. The silence is unbearable and her mind fills it for him. Maybe he’s angry. Maybe he’s disappointed. Maybe he’s wondering why she hid it. Wondering how long she’s known. Maybe he’s wondering what else she hasn’t told him. The thoughts arrive one after another until she can barely separate reality from imagination anymore. The awful thing is that Michael’s opinion of her matters far more than she’s ever admit out loud. Somewhere along the way, his approval stopped being something nice to have and became something she needed always because loving someone inevitably gives them a certain kind of power over you. The power to hurt you simply by looking disappointed. The power to make your stomach drop with a single expression. The power to make even you feel like you have to prove you’re good enough to be loved.

And right now she feels very young. Very small. Very foolish. Like a child waiting to find out how much trouble they’re in outside the principal’s office. Except Michael isn’t giving her anything and that’s worse. Anger is understandable. Anger can be apologized for. But shock is different, shock means she has no idea where his thoughts are taking him. It means she can’t follow him there. It means that since Joe spoke, she’s completely locked out of the one person whose reaction matters most. So she keeps looking at him. Keeps searching his face. Keeps waiting for something. Anything. A smile. A frown. A shake of his head. Some indication that he is still her Michael and not a stranger standing across the driveway from her. But it never comes. He just keeps staring trying to hold an entire collapsing universe together inside his head. And when fresh tears spill down her cheeks, she realizes the cruel irony of it all. For weeks she’d been terrified of telling him. Now she’s terrified of what happens after he knows.

“I’m not letting her ruin your life.”

“Joe—” Tito starts.

“Stay out of it.” Joe cuts him off before turning back toward Michael.

“You think this is funny? You think this is some game?”

Michael says nothing. He can’t. His mind is moving too fast and not fast enough at the same time.

”How do you even know it’s yours?”

Nobody says anything. Nobody even seems to know what to do with it. The pregnancy is one thing. The screaming is one thing. Joe being angry is one thing. But this? This feels different. Meaner. Like the argument has crossed into territory it never needed to touch. Jackie is the one who finally breaks the silence, letting out a short, disbelieving laugh as he shakes his head.

“Aw, c’mon, Joe. Nah, man.”

Joe turns toward him. “What? You got somethin’ to say to me too?”

“..You know that ain’t right.”

“It ain’t right?”

“No.” Jackie gestures toward Michael and (Name) like the answer should be obvious. His irritation is growing more visible by the second. “They been together how long?” Nobody answers because nobody has to—everybody knows. Everybody standing in that driveway has watched the relationship unfold for years. Through the tours, recording sessions, family gatherings, arguments, reconciliations, and everything in between. “(Name)’s been around since Mike was seventeen. Man, quit it.”

The words seem to irritate Joe almost as much as the pregnancy itself. “That don’t mean nothin’.”

“It mean enough.”

“No, it don’t.”

Jackie runs a hand over the back of his neck and exhales sharply. “You mad? Fine. Be mad.. You wanna get on him ‘bout rehearsal? Fine. But don’t stand here sayin’ stuff like that.” The driveway goes quiet again. Nobody wants to get involved. Nobody wants to make things worse. Yet even the brothers look uncomfortable now because regardless of how anyone feels about the situation, the accusation feels evil and insulting. Not just to (Name). To Michael.

“They love each other, Joe.” He says. “Everybody know they love each other.”

Michael looks up and his eyes flicker toward Jackie, something in the expression nearly breaks the older brother’s spirit. Michael looks devastated—like he’s trying desperately to catch up to a conversation everyone else somehow started without him. The ground beneath him has shifted and he’s still searching for something solid to stand on. Jackie sees it and feels a fresh wave of frustration. Because regardless of whatever happens next, one thing is painfully obvious. Michael didn’t know. Whatever this is, however long (Name) has known, however scared she’s been, Michael is finding out right now. In the middle of a driveway in front of an audience. From his father.

Unfortunately, Joe appears completely uninterested in anybody else’s opinion. He lets Jackie finish, lets his words hang in the air for all of two seconds before dismissing them entirely. Frankly, they’re irrelevant because none of this is actually up for discussion.

“Love,” Joseph laughs a little. “Y’all don’t know the first thing about love.” His grip tightens around (Name)’s wrist and she lets out a small cry, stumbling when he starts moving again. The sudden jerk nearly sends her back to her knees. The scrapes on her legs burn viciously as she tries to keep up, her vision blurred from tears.

“No, please—”

“Get in the car.” The command is flat, final. And that certainty terrifies her more than the yelling ever could.

The rear passenger door is still hanging open. Waiting. The sight of it sends fresh panic crashing through her chest. She can picture it too clearly, all of it. The door closing. The car pulling away. Michael disappearing in the rear window while she screams for him. Her feet plant themselves instinctively against the pavement. She pulls backward with everything she has left.

“No!” The scream tears itself from her throat before she can stop it. Raw and desperate out of genuine fear. It rips straight through the driveway. Straight through Michael.

It triggers something in Michael and he finally moves but Joe is faster.

Before anybody can properly react, before Jackie can get between them or Tito can grab the door, Joe yanks (Name) forward and practically throws her into the back seat. The force of it sends her sprawling awkwardly across the upholstery, her shoulder slamming painfully against the opposite door. The breath leaves her lungs in a startled gasp and she’s too stunned to move and process the fact that she’s actually inside the car. Until panic crashes back in all at once.

“Michael!” The scream tears itself from her throat as she scrambles upright.

Outside, the driveway erupts. Michael reaches the car just as Joe slams the driver’s door shut. The locks drop immediately with a sharp mechanical click that feels horrifying. Michael grabs for the rear passenger handle anyway, yanking so hard the entire vehicle rocks on its suspension.

“Dad!“ His voice cracks with panic. Pure panic.

Inside the car, (Name) throws herself toward the door, fumbling desperately with the handle through blurred vision and shaking hands. Nothing happens. Child lock. She pulls again. Nothing.

“Let me out!”

Joe doesn’t even look at her. “Sit down.”

Outside, Jackie is pounding on the driver’s window. Tito is trying another handle. Randy is shouting. And Marlon looks halfway between furious and terrified. Michael catches sight of (Name) through the glass. Her face. The tears. The absolute terror—fear. Genuine fear.

Then the engine starts and everybody freezes.

Nobody moves because nobody quite believes Joe is actually going to do it. Until he does, and the car lurches into reverse. Jackie jumps back as gravel spits across the driveway and Michael stumbles away from the vehicle as it swings around. And then it’s gone. Down the driveway. Onto the street. Disappearing faster than any of them can process.

There’s a pause in any movement.

“What? Y’all just gonna stand there?” Tito’s voice cuts through the shock.

Everybody is still staring at the road where Joe’s car disappeared, Michael hasn’t moved at all. He’s still standing exactly where he was when the car pulled away, staring after it with an expression that looks almost frighteningly blank.

And Tito doesn’t have the patience for it.

“Get in the damn car, let’s go!” That finally breaks whatever spell has settled over the driveway and everybody moves at once.

Jackie is already heading for his car. Randy nearly trips over himself getting to his. Marlon takes off running. And doors start slamming, engines start turning over. The sudden burst of activity feels frantic and messy and desperate because nobody actually has a plan. They just know Joe has (Name) and every second they’re standing here is another second she's alone with him.

Michael finally blinks, his mind is still somewhere back in the driveway. Still stuck on the look on (Name)’s face through the glass. Still stuck on the word pregnant. Still stuck on the sound of her screaming his name. The thoughts keep colliding with each other until none of them make sense anymore. By the time he reaches Jackie’s car, he barely remembers crossing the distance.

“Mike!” Jackie yanks his door open. “Hurry up!”

Michael practically falls into the passenger seat followed the door slamming.

Tito’s already pulling onto the road ahead of them. Another set of headlights swings out behind them. Gravel sprays beneath the tires as Jackie throws the car into gear and guns it down the street.

The ride to the clinic felt so endless.

The only sounds are from traffic, the occasional turn signal and the shaky breaths she keeps trying and failing to steady. Her wrists and upper arms ache from where he’d grabbed her. Her knees burn every time the car hits a bump, dried blood has begun to crust over her scrapes, pulling uncomfortably against her skin whenever she shifts. She keeps staring out the window because she doesn’t want to look at Joe. But she doesn’t know which is worse, looking at him or catching her own reflection in the glass and barely recognizing herself. Puffy eyes. Tear stained cheeks. Hair falling out of place. She looks exactly how she feels.

Distraught.

The second the car finally pulls into Planned Parenthood’s parking lot, fresh panic surges through her chest.

“Joe..” Her voice comes out weak.

He parks, turns off the engine and opens his door.

“Joe, please. Don’t do this.”

Of course, she gets nothing in response as he gets out.,

A minute later she’s being ushered through the front doors with trembling legs and tears threatening to start all over again. The waiting room smells like coffee and antiseptic, and a slight hint of body spray. People glance up when they enter. A pregnant woman flipping through a magazine. An elderly couple sitting together. A receptionist behind a desk. Normal people having normal days while her entire life feels like it's actively collapsing.

The receptionist looks up with a practiced smile.

“Good morning.”

Joe takes over. ”We need to see somebody.”

The woman glances between them. “..Okay. Is she the patient?”

“Yes.” The receptionist’s eyes settle on her, taking in the red eyes, the scraped knees, the fact that she looks distressed and like she’s been crying for hours.

“Miss? Are you okay?” The receptionist asks and (Name) stares, the simple question almost makes her cry.

Nobody has asked her anything all morning.

Nobody has cared what she wanted.

Before she can answer, Joe does it for her. “She’s pregnant.”

The receptionist blinks, she clearly doesn’t like what’s going on here. “Okay.”

“And she needs to be seen, right the hell now.”

Again, the receptionist looks toward (Name). “Would you like to be seen today, sweetheart?”

Joe’s jaw tightens. “Yes.”

The receptionist doesn’t even acknowledge him as she keeps her attention on (Name). “Honey?"

Before (Name) can answer, the front doors burst open and the entire waiting room turns.

Jackie. Tito. Marlon. Randy.

And Michael.

Michael arrives last, breathless and visibly shaken from sprinting through the parking lot. His hair is disheveled and he looks nothing like the famous pop star Michael Jackson. He looks like a young man who has spent the last twenty minutes terrified. The second his eyes find her, he stops moving.

And she can’t breathe.

Because he’s here. She can’t even look at him because she’s so humiliated.

Unfortunately, Joe notices too.

“We ain’t doin’ this here.”

The receptionist’s smile disappears. ”Sir, what's going on?”

“Family business.”

The woman stares at him. Then at (Name). Then at Michael standing near the entrance looking like he doesn't know whether to run to her or stay where he is. Then back at Joe.

Whatever she sees concerns her very quickly. “Sir, if she’s the patient, I’d like to hear from her directly.”

Joe lets out an irritated breath. “I’m the manager around here and what I say is best for business."

“No, sir.” The correction comes instantly, professional and calm but firm. It’s evidently clear this woman has been doing this for a very long time and will always prioritize and protect every single woman who steps foot into this building. “If she’s an adult, she makes her own medical decisions.”

Joe actually looks caught off guard. “’Scuse me?”

The receptionist folds her hands together. “If she would like an appointment, we can help her. If she would like information, we can help her. If she would like to leave, she can leave.”

“You don’t understan—”

“No, sir.” The woman shakes her head. “I think you don’t understand.” Because this isn’t a family argument anymore. This is reality. It’s paperwork. It’s consent forms. It’s a beautiful stranger with a name tag telling Joe Jackson that he doesn’t actually get to decide what happens next. And that he could go to hell, respectfully.

Then she turns toward (Name). “Is there something you’d like to do today?”

After being dragged out of her home, dragged into a car, dragged into a clinic, and talked about like she isn’t even standing there—let alone a human with feelings, somebody is finally asking what she wants.

And the decision belongs entirely to her.

The receptionist’s words should have ended it. They should have settled the matter the way facts often do, with a simple reminder that reality exists outside the boundaries of family dynamics. Instead, they seem to make Joe angrier. There is something desperate in the way he continues talking, as though volume alone can restore authority that has already begun slipping through his fingers. He isn’t really arguing about the pregnancy anymore. He’s arguing against the idea that there are limits to his control. Against the fact that there are people in this building who don’t know him, don’t fear him, and don’t particularly care what he wants. Every sentence he speaks feels less like an argument and more like a refusal to accept that the world is moving forward without asking his permission first.

”You don’t understand what’s at stake here.”

The statement isn’t directed at anyone in particular. It’s directed at the room—at the entire world for refusing to bend the way Joe thinks it should.

“If people find out my son has a babymama, it’s gon' mess up our product—our brand.”

And that’s when the brothers finally stop trying to keep the peace.

Because there is something uniquely infuriating about watching a grown ass man drag a crying woman into a clinic to force her into an abortion and then continue speaking about her as though she isn’t standing three feet away. Tito’s patience finally snaps first. Jackie, Marlon and Randy follow immediately after. Years of old resentments begin bleeding into the conversation. Old wounds. Old arguments. Old frustrations that have nothing to do with the pregnancy and everything to do with control.

A security guard appears near the front desk and then another. A nurse asks everyone to lower their voices and nobody listens.

For (Name), the noise gradually stops sounding like English. It becomes something shapeless and overwhelming, a wall of sound pressing in from every direction at once. The fluorescent lights overhead seem brighter than they did a few minutes ago and the waiting room very quickly feels too crowded, too exposed, and too public. Everywhere she looks there are strangers witnessing one of the worst moments of her life. A pregnant woman flipping through a magazine. An elderly couple pretending not to stare. Nurses trying to remain professional while an entire family implodes in front of them. People are realizing this is the Jackson family and Michael Jackson’s pregnant girlfriend is here for an abortion. The humiliation crashes over her all over again. She had spent weeks carrying this secret, weeks rehearsing conversations in her head, weeks convincing herself she would find the right moment to tell Michael. Every version had ended with the choice belonging to her. Every version had ended with privacy. Instead, she got a forced trip to a clinic and Joe Jackson announcing he wants her pregnancy terminated. Somewhere, the story stopped belonging to her.

That realization is what finally pushes her over the edge. The loss of ownership of her body, the dehumanization of herself. The feeling that everyone has been discussing her future while she stands screaming at the center of it, reduced to a subject instead of a participant. Her chest begins tightening until each breath feels smaller than the last. Thoughts start colliding faster than she can sort through them. Fear folds into shame. Shame folds into guilt. Guilt folds into the familiar childish terror that Michael is angry with her and she simply can’t tell. She hates how much that possibility matters. Hates that a part of her still wants his approval as desperately as she did when she first fell in love with him when they were seventeen. Hates that, despite everything happening around her the thing she wants most is a sign that he doesn’t look at her differently now.

Michael notices before anyone else.

The argument has long since lost his attention. Her pregnancy is still sitting inside his chest because he hasn’t figured out how to hold it yet. Every attempt he makes to examine it seems to split into ten other thoughts. The shock of finding out. The hurt of being excluded. The realization that she’d been dealing this alone. The image of her in the backseat of Joe's car. The look on her face through the window. It all keeps circling without resolution. But the second he sees the distant look settling into her eyes, every one of those thoughts disappears. He knows this version of her, the difference between crying and panic on her. He’s watched her push herself too far before, watched her try to hold herself together long after she should have stopped trying. What frightens him now is how familiar it looks. Because it looks like him.

The noise of the room continues around them, but Michael doesn’t hear it anymore. The only thing he can focus on is the way her breathing has changed and the fact that she looks like she’s slipping further away from the room with every passing second. His hands find her instinctively, one settling against the back of her head while the other gently covers her ear, creating a small barrier between her and the chaos surrounding them. It’s not a solution by any means and de knows that. But it’s something. A way of saying that she doesn't have to absorb all of it at once. A way of giving her one thing to focus on besides the noise.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, his forehead briefly resting against hers.

The words aren't true. Neither of them are naive enough to believe that. Nothing about today is okay. Their lives have been blown apart in the span of a couple hours. They’re literally standing in a clinic because his father tried to force a situation he had no right to control. There are a hundred conversations waiting for them on the other side of this moment, but his words aren’t really meant to describe reality. They’re meant to communicate something else entirely.

I'm here. You're not alone. You don't have to do this by yourself.

The receptionist notices almost immediately, her attention shifting away from Joe and the growing argument surrounding him. What she sees instead is a young woman on the verge of a panic attack and a young man who looks just as shaken but is trying desperately not to show it, and failing. She sees the way (Name) has folded into him without thinking and the way Michael hasn’t taken his hands off her once. She sees two young people drowning beneath circumstances neither of them had any control over.

“Excuse me, mister Jackson.. are you two.. the couple?”

The question feels oddly intimate amidst everything else. Michael lifts his head, momentarily caught off guard by how simple it is. After all the shouting and accusations and assumptions, his answer is the easiest thing he’s been about to say all day. He nods.

“Yes..”

The receptionist studies them for another moment before her expression softens. “Would you like a private room? Somewhere quiet, away from.. all this?”

The offer feels like a deep cut, it’s the first genuinely compassionate thing anyone has suggested since the morning began. Michael doesn’t hesitate and doesn’t even ask where he just nods again, unable to find the energy for words. The idea of getting (Name) away from this room, away from Joe, away from this noise and the eyes and the prying eyes, feels less like a preference and more like its necessary.

The receptionist smiles gently and motions for them to follow.

The room itself is completely unremarkable. An examination table sitting in the center of the room. Cabinets line the counters, stocked with supplies that all look identical in their sterile blue and white packaging. There’s a sink, a rolling stool, a faded medical chart pinned to the wall. It’s your standard annual check up room and yet the second the door closes behind them, it feels like the safest place either of them has been all morning. There is a door between them and everyone else for the first time this morning.

The silence that settles isn’t awkward though. If anything, it feels overdue. Both of them are exhausted in ways that go beyond simple fatigue. Adrenaline has this cruel habit of keeping people on edge until the danger they perceive passes, and only afterward it allows them to feel the full traumas of what they’ve survived. Michael sits on the rolling stool beside her for a long moment without speaking, his elbows resting against his knees as he studies her. His eyes drift across her face, her eyes are still swollen from crying before he eventually settles on the angry scrapes covering her knees. The sight seems to bother him, perhaps because the cuts are visible. Tangible and a problem with a clear beginning and end. Compared to everything else, scraped skin is refreshingly simple.

Michael can fix that. He can fix that.

He reaches for the supplies sitting in the cabinets.

The avoidance is so obvious neither of them acknowledges it. There are conversations the size of elephants in the room, questions that need answers. But they both ignore it, for now at least.

The alcohol burns the second it touches the raw scrape.

A sharp hiss escapes her before she can stop it, her knee instinctively trying to pull away from the sting. It’s not even particularly painful compared to everything else she’s felt today, but the sensation catches her off guard. Immediately Michael’s head lifts.

”You okay?” The question comes out so soft as he looks up at her from where he’s crouched in front of her, his Bambi doe eyes wide with concern. It’s painfully sweet the way he asks, because the answer genuinely matters to him.

She can’t bring herself to look at him still.

Not when every time she does glance his way, she’s struck by the terrifying realization that he’s.. still Michael. Still gentle and still looking at her the same way he always has—she feels shy.

“Mm,” she murmurs softly, keeping her eyes fixed somewhere over her shoulder. “Just stings a little.”

The concern doesn’t leave his face any time soon and he watches her for another moment, before he returns to cleaning the scrape. The room falls quiet again and its strangely intimate. No one’s watching. No one needs anything from them.

When he finishes cleaning the scrapes, he turns toward one of the drawers and begins searching for bandages. She watches absentmindedly until she notices the subtle shift in his expression.

“What is it..?”

Instead of answering immediately, Michael pulls a small box from the drawer and holds it up.

Disney themed bandaids.

The sight is so absurdly unexpected that a startled giggle escapes before she can stop it and Michael glances between her and the box.

“They have Disney.” He smiles a little.

Carefully, Michael peels some bandages from their wrappers and smooths them over her knees. One ends up slightly crooked. He notices instantly.

His frown deepens.

“..It’s a little crooked.”

“Michael, it’s a bandaid.”

“But it has to be perfect on you..”

Another laugh escapes her when he fixes it and this one comes easier. The tension in the room doesn’t go away, but it is lighter. You could compare it to knot loosening enough to allow circulation back into a limb.

When he’s finally satisfied, Michael smooths the edges down with his fingertips and leaves his hand resting there before something thoughtful settles over his features. The same look she has seen a hundred times before when he becomes lost inside his own head. Before she can ask what he’s thinking, he bends forward and presses a quick kiss against one bandage.

Then the other.

The conversation doesn’t start because either of them is ready for it, every possible distraction has been exhausted. Michael stays seated in front of her, one arm resting loosely across his lap, his gaze occasionally drifting toward the cartoon princesses now stuck to her knees.

“..Can I ask you somethin’..?” He rubs his hands together nervously.

She nods.

“Why didn’t you tell me, dove..?”

There isn’t an accusation hidden in the question, that’s what makes it harder to answer she thinks. He’s not angry, he’s hurt. And hurt simply sits there between them and asks to be acknowledged. (Name) drops her gaze to her hands because the truth is she doesn’t know how to explain it. The answer was never one thing. It was dozens of fears layered together until they became impossible to untangle.

“I was gonna tell you, ’Key..”

”I know.” Because of course he knows. If she’d truly intended to hide it forever, she wouldn't have spent weeks looking fucking haunted. The secret had been leaking out of her in a hundred different ways be just didn’t know what the hell was going on. Michael’s expression softens.

“I think that’s what’s botherin’ me,” he admits quietly. ”You were gonna tell me.. but you were scared to.”

He’s talking about the fact that she’d convinced herself she had to handle this all alone and she’s forced to consider what this morning must have felt like from his side. Finding out he might be a father in the middle of a screaming match. Learning she’d been withholding life changing information from him.

“I didn’t know what to do.. ’m sorry..”

Michael lets out a small breath and looks away for a moment.

“I didn’t know what to do either.. looked like a punk..”

The honesty catches her off guard. She’d spent so much time fearing his reaction that she’d never really considered he might be just as overwhelmed.

The memory of the drive to the clinic rises uninvited. The rearview mirror and Joe’s eyes finding hers every few minutes. The hatred in them. He’d planted these awful doubts in her mind and by the time they’d arrived she’d found herself questioning things she’d never questioned before. Whether she was capable of raising a child. Whether love was enough. Whether wanting something automatically meant she was ready for it. Would Michael get tired of her and leave? Maybe she was only supposed to be a temporary person in his life, a placeholder for someone rich and famous..

“What if we’re not good at this?” She asks like word vomit. “What if I can’t do it?”

Michael takes the question seriously. “Lovey.. I don’t think anybody knows what they’re doin’. I think everybody’s probably scared.”

She studies him for a long moment before asking the question that’s been sitting underneath all the others. “What if you leave?”

Michael’s expression changes, because he understands that that question didn’t appear out of nowhere. It came from weeks of fear, insecurity, and a voice that didn’t belong to her. He reaches for her hand and wraps his fingers around it gently.

“(Name),” he says softly. ”Look at me, please..”

Reluctantly, she does.

His eyes are tired and red around the edges he looks so sure. The most sure than she’s seen him all day.

”I want this.” Michael swallows hard and lets out a small, nervous laugh. “I’m scared. Real scared..”

His thumb brushes across her knuckles. “But I want my baby.”

(Name) feels some of the fear loosen its grip on her chest. They don’t have all the answers. Maybe they never will. But they’re finally found their way back to the same side.

For now, that feels like enough.

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