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Do you remember the time?

Michael Jackson × Reader | wc: 2,9k | Remember the Time

The clock on the oak desk read 11:07 PM when Y/N finally allowed herself to sigh. The light from the articulated desk lamp cast a golden circle over the scattered papers—interviews to transcribe, deadlines to meet, articles to revise. The house in Neverland was too silent, one of those nights when silence weighs more than any word spoken aloud.

It had been two weeks since she and Michael had dinner together. Two weeks of quick encounters in the hallways, of notes left on the kitchen table, of hurried kisses that no longer warmed the mouth. Their marriage, once a refuge of dreams and music, now felt like two ships sailing in parallel—close enough to see each other, too far apart to touch.

Y/N rubbed her temples with her fingers. Seven interviews this week. Him with rehearsals until midnight. Then the studio until dawn. When was the last time we laughed together?

The memory came unbidden—a rainy Saturday in 1987, six months before the wedding. Michael improvising dance steps in the living room while she tried to read a book, him pulling her by the arm, spinning her until she dropped the book amid laughter. "You're terrible," she'd said, and he answered with that smile that lit up everything around him: "But you love me like this."

She did love him. Still loved him.

But love, she had discovered over time, wasn't always enough to keep things warm. There were the days when Michael arrived exhausted, one-word answers, a lost look. There were the nights when she herself no longer had the energy to try. There were the small fights that grew like weeds—veiled jealousy when some photographer lingered too long near her at a press conference, muffled annoyances when some woman's name appeared in the studio notes. Nothing serious. Nothing definitive. But the accumulation of small chills formed a silent winter between them.

Michael had his demons—she knew that better than anyone. The wounds of childhood, the relentless demand for perfection, the confessed fear of being abandoned by those he loved. And Y/N had hers—the need to prove she was more than just "the wife of," wounded pride that sometimes kept her from giving in first, the exhaustion of a career that consumed her just as much as his tours consumed him.

Two hearts full of love. Two souls learning, painfully, that love wasn't just feeling—it was choosing, every day, the other.

The knock on the study door made her look up. She didn't need to guess who it was.

"Come in," she called, surprised to hear her own voice come out softer than intended.

The door opened silently, and Michael appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the dim light of the hallway. He wore a long-sleeved navy blue shirt over a white t-shirt underneath, black pants, his curly hair half-pulled back. There was something in his posture—a hesitation that wasn't unfamiliar to her, but that lately had been accompanied by a tension in his shoulders that he couldn't hide.

"Hey," he said, softly, almost as if he wasn't sure he could come in.

Y/N's heart turned over in her chest. Why does he seem so... cautious?

She forced the corners of her mouth into a small smile, one of those she could still offer without effort. "Hey."

Michael took one step forward, then another, until he stood behind the chair where she was sitting. Without a word, he leaned in and wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind—his arms crossed over her chest, his chin barely brushing her hair. It was such an unexpected and yet so familiar gesture that Y/N felt her throat tighten.

For a second, she hesitated. Then she let her body weight lean back against him, her hands rising to touch his forearms.

"You're working late," he murmured against her hair.

"So are you," she replied, feeling his stubble gently graze her scalp. "Still at the studio?"

"I'm done for today. But... I need to show you something."

Y/N frowned. She turned her face slightly to try to see his, but only caught the outline of his jaw. "It's almost eleven-thirty. Can't it wait until tomorrow?"

He carefully released the embrace, walked around the chair, and crouched in front of her—at a height where his dark brown eyes could meet hers. There, at that angle, he looked almost like a boy again. The years of stardom, the weight of the world on his shoulders, the invisible scars he carried—all of it dissolved before that gaze that now shone with an intensity Y/N hadn't seen in months.

"It's important," he said, slowly. "I can't explain it. I just need you to come with me. Please."

She was tired. There was piled-up work. There was a half-transcribed interview that needed to be delivered the next day. There was the exhaustion of weeks accumulating in every muscle of her body.

But he said "please" in that voice—the same voice that one day, in a dressing room in London, made her forget all the questions she had planned for the article and accept a dinner that would change her life forever.

She sighed. She saved the document. She stood up.

"Alright. Let's go."

The path from the main house to Neverland's private studio was walked in silence. Michael walked half a step ahead, illuminated by the white globes lining the stone path. Y/N watched the movement of his shoulders—broad, but now curved in a way that betrayed more than just fatigue. Worry.

The studio was a spacious room, with walls covered in dark wood and equipment gleaming under the bluish light of the control panel. Michael told her to sit on the black leather sofa against the opposite wall.

She sat down, hands on her knees, watching him as he adjusted something on the console. His broad back, the meticulous way he turned knobs, the way he bit his lower lip when concentrating.

Michael didn't sit beside her. Instead, he pulled up a swivel chair and placed it facing her. Their knees touched. He seemed to be gathering courage.

The only light in the studio came from the console panel and a small lamp on the mixing desk. The room was tinged with blue and shadows, and the silence was so dense that Y/N could hear her own breathing.

"I want you to listen to something," he began, his voice low, deep—that tone he reserved for talking about things that hurt or mattered too much.

"Michael—"

"Let me speak first." He raised a hand, a pleading gesture. "Please. I've been thinking... I've been thinking a lot about us. About how things are."

Y/N felt a cold knot form in the pit of her stomach. This is it. He's going to say he wants a break. That he wants to end it. That's why he's so strange.

"Everything is so different," he continued, his eyes fixed on his own hands, which he had clasped over his knees. "In the beginning, it felt like nothing existed except us. I remember... I remember how simple it was. How easy it was. It didn't matter how many shows I had that week, I always found a way to see you. And you, with your notepad, pretending you weren't interested, but I saw the way you smiled when I walked into the room."

She remembered. How could I forget?

"And then we got married," he went on, his voice faltering just a little on the last word. "And I swore it would be different. That I would be different. That I would protect you from all of it—the craziness, the schedule, the fame that sometimes swallows everything."

He looked up, and what Y/N saw in his eyes made her hold her breath. It wasn't anger. It wasn't accusation. It was a sadness so old and so contained that it seemed to have learned to live there.

"But that's not quite how it turned out, is it? The months went by. The Bad tour was still happening when we got married, the recordings for the new album had already begun. And you... you're increasingly in demand too. I see it. You're brilliant, Y/N. You always were. I met you because you were the best at what you did. And I would never, ever ask you to dim your light for me."

He paused, biting his lower lip.

"But I don't know how to do this anymore. I don't know how to balance it. I don't know how to find you in the middle of so many things. And sometimes... sometimes I wake up in the morning and you've already left. Or you come home and I'm already in the studio. And I think: 'When was the last time she really laughed? When was the last time I made her laugh?'"

Y/N wanted to say something—a million answers were jostling in her throat. I miss you too. I don't know how to do this anymore either. I wake up thinking about you too. But the words wouldn't come. Or if they came, they got stuck in the same cold knot still tightening in her chest.

"I look back," Michael continued, his voice now rougher, "and I see the two of us on the hotel balcony in Paris, you in that yellow dress, barefoot, dancing without music. I remember that like it was yesterday. And I remember thinking: 'This is it. It's her. I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to make this woman happy.'"

He ran a hand over his face, a tired gesture.

"It's just that... we lost each other along the way. Not all at once. It was slow. One more show here, one overdue article there, a phone call I didn't return, a dinner we canceled. And before I knew it, it was no longer us against the world. It was us against each other."

Silence fell again, heavy as a lead blanket.

"There were nights," he whispered, as if confessing a sin, "when I lay down next to you and thought you didn't love me anymore."

It was like a punch to the gut. Y/N's eyes widened, her head shaking in a quick, instinctive motion—no, never, how could you think that—but when she opened her mouth to speak, Michael raised his hand again.

"No. Let me finish. Please." He took a deep breath. "Those thoughts came. I won't lie. But they never lasted long, because then I'd look over and see your face on the pillow. Or I'd find a Post-it of yours on the bathroom mirror, saying 'don't forget to eat' with a little heart drawn on it. Or you'd hold my hand, without even realizing it, while we watched TV."

A sad smile curved his lips.

"And I thought: 'She's still here. She's still trying. Even tired. Even with everything.' So I knew the problem wasn't love. The problem was never love."

Michael leaned slightly forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands now dangling between them.

"The problem is that we forgot. We forgot who we were when it was just us. We let outside things come in and take up spaces that should have been ours. And I... I don't want that, Y/N. I don't want to wake up five years from now and realize we've become two strangers sharing the same house."

The word "end" hung in the air, even unspoken. Y/N felt her eyes burn, but refused to blink. If I blink, the tear falls, she thought. And if the tear falls, I'll fall apart.

"So," Michael said, straightening up suddenly, as if he'd made a decision, "I needed to bring it back. I brought back everything I had kept. The memories. The beginning. What made me fall desperately in love with you."

He stood up, walked to the console, and pressed a button. Then he returned, sat down again, and pointed to a note he had left on the small table beside the sofa—a folded piece of paper, written in his own elegant handwriting.

Y/N picked up the paper, unfolded it, and read:

Remember The Time.

"Listen," he asked, and his voice was now calmer, almost tender. "Just listen."

The song began—the characteristic intro, so immersive that it transported anyone to a place of memories and warmth. And then his voice filled the studio, but it wasn't live—it was the recording, something he had been working on, a track that Y/N hadn't yet heard in full.

"Do you remember..."

The first line echoed and Y/N felt a shiver run down her spine. Michael remained seated in her side, but his eyes were half-closed, following the lyrics as if each word were a prayer.

"When we fell in love? We were young and innocent then..."

The images came in an avalanche. 1987. London. The first interview, her trying to maintain professionalism while he made jokes to disarm her. The note he sent through security afterward—a bar napkin with a phone number and "You forgot to ask what I like to eat for breakfast. Finding out requires a second date." The first kiss, in the hotel's back garden, beneath the streetlights.

"Do you remember, how it all began? It just seemed like heaven, so why did it end?…"

She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling. She remembered the engagement—him kneeling in the studio, in the early morning. She remembered the wedding, small, just their closest ones, because he wanted it to be "theirs, not the world's." She remembered the honeymoon, whole days without leaving the room, talking about everything.

"Do you remember…us holding hands? In each other's eyes, we'd stare…tell me"

Michael's face, held an expression she hadn't seen in a long time—total vulnerability. He wasn't singing along. He was just there, present, listening with her. And in every verse, it was as if he were saying: Do you still remember us?

"Do you remember the time…when we fell in love? Do you remember the time, when we first met, girl?"

Y/N let out a low laugh, almost a sob, when the memory of their first real kiss hit her—not the one in the garden, but the first real kiss, the one that lasted hours, on the sofa in her apartment, while an Off The Wall tape played on loop because neither of them wanted to interrupt to change the record.

"Do you remember…how we used to talk? You know, we'd stay on the phone at night 'til dawn…"

The studio suddenly felt smaller. The dark wood walls, the bluish light, Michael sitting a foot away—everything contracted until the only universe that existed was that circle of shadow and music between them.

"Do you remember…those special times? They'll just go on and on, in the back of my mind…"

Y/N's eyes filled—not with sadness, but with a kind of painful gratitude. He went and brought it all back. He went and put into music what I couldn't put into words. And while I was here, worrying about what was dying between us, he was here trying to save us.

"Those sweet memories…will always be dear to me. And girl, no matter what was said…I will never forget what we had"

She thought about what he had said. There were nights when I thought you didn't love me anymore. That hurt in an almost physical way, because she knew he wasn't lying. She knew that at some point, perhaps without realizing it, she had stopped showing it. She had let exhaustion speak louder than affection. She had let deadlines shout louder than love.

"Do you remember, girl? On the phone, you and me, 'til dawn, two or three, what about us, girl?"

But here he was. Here was Remember The Time—not a song about endings, but about remembering. About reclaiming. About not letting time erase what had been built with so much care, so much tenderness, so much devotion.

Y/N finally allowed the tears to fall—slow, silent, without her making any move to wipe them away. The verses were warm and at the same time light, as if each one carried out a little of the weight she had been accumulating.

"Remember the time... Remember the time..."

When the song ended, the silence that settled was different from all the others. It wasn't heavy. It wasn't cold. It was a silence pregnant with everything that still needed to be said, but also with everything that, suddenly, no longer needed to be.

Michael turned off the sound and turned to her. His eyes were also moist—she could see the glint under the bluish light. He didn't say anything. He didn't ask what she thought. He didn't ask for a professional opinion. He just waited, with the patience of someone who had already risked everything and now could only await the answer.

Y/N stood up. The movement was slow, almost solemn. Then, without thinking, without planning, she threw herself into his arms.

The embrace was desperate and tender at the same time—her face buried in his shoulder, her arms wrapping around his neck, her body pressed against his as if trying to make up for every inch of distance that had settled between them in recent months. Michael instantly enveloped her, his arms tightening around her waist, one hand rising to stroke her hair.

"I was never going to stop loving you," she whispered against his shirt, her voice muffled, trembling. "Never, Michael. Not for a second. I never stopped. I swear I never stopped."

His hands pressed harder against her back, and she felt his chest rise in a deep breath, as if, for the first time in a long while, he was inhaling relief.

"I'm sorry," she continued, her voice firmer now, though still choked. "I'm sorry for the times I let work speak louder. For the nights I came home and didn't even look for you. For the times I treated you impatiently without even realizing it. You didn't deserve that. We didn't deserve that. I don't want anymore... I don't want us to become strangers. I don't want to wake up five years from now and not recognize us."

She pulled her face back just enough to look into his eyes. The tears still glistened in the corners of his brown eyes, but there was also something there she hadn't seen in weeks—hope.

"I remember," she said, and smiled—a small, fragile, but true smile. "I just... lost my way. But I still remember. I'll always remember."

Michael tilted his head, and she found her way to his mouth as if she had always known the way home. The kiss began gently—almost shy, as if both were redrawing territories they thought they had lost. His lips were soft, and there was still the salty taste of the tears he hadn't fully shed.

Then, the kiss deepened. Her hands slid to the back of his neck, her fingers curling into his loose curls. His hands tightened around her waist with more force, as if he feared she might disappear right then and there.

"I love you," Michael murmured, his voice still rough, but warm now.

Y/N laughed—a low, wet laugh that mingled with a final sob. "I love you too."

He kissed her forehead, then each of her eyelids, then the tip of her nose.

"Let's try again?" he asked, and there was a vulnerability there that disarmed whatever pride might still remain.

"Let's try again," she agreed.

divider by @cursed-carmine