Chapter Text
“Vita in te ci credo, le nebbie si diradano / E oramai ti vedo, non è stato facile / Uscire da un passato che mi ha lavato l'anima / Fino quasi a renderla un po' sdrucita / Vita io ti vedo, tu così purissima / Da non sapere il modo, l'arte di difendermi / E così ho vissuto quasi rotolandomi / Per non dovere ammettere d'aver perduto”
“Life, I believe in you, the mists are clearing / And now I see you, it hasn't been easy / To come out of a past that washed my soul / To the point of almost making it a bit worn out / Life, I see you, you are so pure / That I didn't know the way, the art of defending myself / And so I lived, almost tumbling along / Just so I wouldn't have to admit that I had lost."
Lucio Dalla & Gianni Morandi, Vita
Chapter 1: The Invisible Fortresses
The scratch of the needle on the vinyl was the only honest sound in that downtown Santa Maria apartment. A mechanical, imperfect sound that sought to please no one. Y/N watched the black spiral of the record spin on the platter of the old Thorens turntable inherited from her grandmother, while the warm, raspy voice of Lucio Dalla expanded between the bare walls, saturating the air before the aroma of espresso could do the same.
Thirty years old. A middle age where sociology promised a stabilization of identity that she, in her daily practice, struggled to find both in herself and in her patients. Looking at herself in the brass mirror in the hallway as she adjusted the stiff collar of her gray silk shirt, Y/N allowed herself a crooked smile, tinged with that shade of black cynicism that had become her preferred suit of armor.
A somewhat frayed soul, she thought, her eyes tracing the words of the song. Her grandmother always told her that Italians have the misfortune of feeling too much and the condemnation of remembering everything. In her case, memory was a mathematical equation that never balanced. Her parents, two luminaries of neurosurgery stationed in San Francisco, had applied clinical precision to their lack of interest in her as well.
She had grown up in five-star hotel rooms, cared for by a parade of flawless, icy housekeepers, learning early on that love was an economic transaction based on academic results.
Then came Julian. A marriage celebrated at twenty-four with a brilliant academic colleague who turned out to be nothing more than a carbon copy of her father: a man so full of his own intellect that he failed to notice the woman beside him was slowly vanishing. The divorce, signed three years prior, had been the only act of true applied pedagogy Y/N had ever performed on herself: the surgical extirpation of an emotional parasite.
Stubbing out her cigarette in the crystal ashtray was a methodical gesture. She gathered her dark leather bag, heavy with handouts and essays on juvenile delinquency, and turned off the record player. The music cut off with a small metallic gasp. Outside the window, the Santa Maria fog was slowly clearing under the first strokes of a Californian sun that was far too pale to be real.
—-
The silence of Neverland, twenty miles away, was never a true silence. It was a taut, almost painful chord stretched between the rustle of the wind caressing the branches of ancient oaks and the constant, dull hum of anxiety that Michael carried beneath his skin like a second neural network.
It was six in the morning. Michael stood before the large window of his bedroom, clutching a cup of chamomile tea that had long gone cold.
He wore black silk pajamas, far too loose for a frame that had grown even sharper, almost translucent, over the past few months. Beneath him, his private amusement park stretched out like a gigantic still life: the Ferris wheel stationary against the indigo sky, the carousels silent, the tracks of the miniature train cutting through the perfect grass like polished scars.
The year 1992 had been a time of monumental triumphs, but 1993 was already showing its first poisonous talons. The tabloids were no longer limiting themselves to inventing stories about his biological eccentricities; they were digging tunnels beneath his fortress, trying to turn his sanctuary into a prison of suspicion.
"Michael?"
The whisper was so light it nearly blended with the hum of the air conditioner.
Michael turned slowly. On the threshold of the room stood Bill Bray. His massive frame, reassuring and stern like that of an ancient guardian, was silhouetted against the dim light of the hallway.
"Have you been awake long?" Bill asked, taking a step forward. His tone was not that of an employee, but of a man who had watched that boy become an empire and, simultaneously, a target.
"I didn't sleep much, Bill," Michael replied. His voice was that timid, measured breath he used as a protective shield, a childlike modulation that concealed a fierce alertness to the slightest shift in the air.
“The tour... the dates in Cardiff and Wembley. I keep thinking the transition between Thriller and Billie Jean isn't fluid enough. And then there's that issue with the hydraulic lift. If it's not perfectly synchronized with the smoke, the audience will see the trick."
Bill sighed, walking over to the table and placing a dark leather folder upon it.
"The technicians are working on the safety details in Los Angeles. But you need to eat, Michael. If you keep skipping meals, the choreography for Jam will destroy your knees before you even board the plane for Europe."
Michael set down the cold cup and touched his forehead with his long fingers, partially covered by his trusty white tape.
“The physical pain I can control, Bill. It's the other kind of pain that... that doesn't have a set recovery time." His gaze fell upon the folder. "Is that from City Hall?"
"Yes," Bill confirmed. "The project for schools in the underprivileged neighborhoods of Santa Maria and the county. Mayor Vance confirmed everything for tomorrow morning. He wants you to be the official ambassador. He says it will send a powerful signal to the community."
Michael offered a bitter half-smile, a flicker that tightened the skin of his face for a fraction of a second before vanishing. "Vance only wants my money and my face on the local front pages for his next campaign. But the project... who wrote it?"
"A university professor. A psychopedagogist. Her name is Y/N," Bill replied, consulting a sheet of paper. "They call her 'the iron doctor' in the municipal offices. She isn't an easy person, Michael. The reports say she is extremely critical of private funding and... well, of the star system in general."
Michael raised an eyebrow, a flash of genuine interest in his dark eyes. "An iron doctor? Interesting. That means she won't try to kiss my hand or ask for an autograph for her kids. I like it when people have a backbone. It makes masks useless, because they don't intend to look at you anyway."
—-
The university parking lot was an expanse of gray asphalt reflecting the blinding nine o'clock light. Y/N turned off the engine of her old Volvo, letting the vehicle's silence envelop her for a few moments before facing the department hallway.
The main lecture hall was already packed. One hundred and twenty second-year Education Science students—an indistinct mass of colorful sweatshirts, takeout coffee cups, and glances hovering between exam anxiety and post-adolescent apathy.
Y/N climbed the steps of the wooden platform with precise strides. She used no notes; her mind was a perfectly indexed archive of human failures and reparative theories.
"Today's lecture," she began, resting her hands on the lectern and fixing her gaze on the auditorium, "concerns the deviation of the pedagogical function when it becomes polluted by the educator's need for self-gratification. In simpler words: today we will talk about the savior complex."
An attentive silence spread through the room. Y/N knew how to capture attention: not with gentleness, but with the precision of a scalpel incising an abscess.
"Many of you are here because you think your job will consist of taking a child from the ghetto, reading them a fairy tale, gifting them a basketball, and watching them blossom toward a radiant future at Harvard. This is not pedagogy. This is emotional pornography."
An embarrassed murmur rose from the front rows.
"The truth," Y/N continued, her icy gaze searching the eyes of the most idealistic among them, "is that childhood trauma is a molecular structure. It alters the brain. If you work in a degraded neighborhood, your job is not to be loved by your students. You are not there to receive their gratitude, nor to feel like better people. You are there to build dikes. You will be hated, you will be tested, and very often you will fail because the socio-economic system out there is designed to make those children fail before they even turn six. Cynicism is not the enemy of the educator; it is their only piece of safety equipment."
"Professor?"
The raised hand belonged to Miller, a brilliant student but one still far too inclined to look for a transcendent meaning in things.
"Yes, Miller. Tell me you disagree."
"But if we remove empathy and... and hope from our approach, what do we have left? Don't we risk becoming just bureaucrats of pain?"
Y/N allowed herself a small, sharp half-smile. "We are left with technique, Miller. We are left with urban planning, the allocation of real budgets, the creation of after-school programs that aren't falling apart, and the forced removal of toxic parents. Empathy without infrastructure is just a short-term anesthetic. It makes you feel good, but it leaves the patient bleeding. I'll see you on Thursday. And try to forget the word 'redemption' by then."
As the students filed out of the lecture hall with the characteristic slowness of those who have just been stripped of a comfortable certainty, Y/N felt the familiar weight of her own fortress. She knew she was excessive, sometimes even unfair. But her hardness was the only way she knew to keep from being dragged under by the pain she read every day in social services reports. A frayed soul could not afford the luxury of being pure. It had to be rough to survive.
—-
In the subterranean rehearsal studio at Neverland, the air conditioning was set to a freezing temperature, but Michael's body was covered in a film of sweat that made his red flannel shirt gleam under the halogen spotlights.
“One, two, three, slide...” he murmured to himself, watching his reflection in the mirror mounted along the entire length of the wall.
The music for Jam pounded against his temples with the violence of a jackhammer. He spun on his heel, lightning-fast, halting the movement with millimetric precision, the tip of his right loafer perfectly perpendicular to the imaginary line of the stage. But when he attempted to drop to his knees for the section's finale, a piercing stab of pain shot through his lower back, racing up his spine like an electric shock.
Michael collapsed, pressing a hand against his lower back, his breath reduced to a choked wheeze.
"Michael!"
Bill Bray was by his side in an instant, followed by one of the team's athletic trainers.
“Turn that music off! Turn it off right now!" Bill roared toward the control booth.
The silence that followed was almost more painful than the sound. Michael remained on the floor for a few seconds, eyes closed, lips tight to prevent any groan from escaping. He hated showing weakness. He hated that his body that sole instrument of absolute freedom he possessed rebelled against his will.
"I'm fine... I'm fine," Michael whispered, refusing the trainer's hand and slowly pushing himself up with Bill's help.
His face, under the harsh studio lights, appeared frighteningly pale, almost hollow.
"You're not fine at all," Bill said, his voice hoarse with anger and worry. "This is the third time this week. You're destroying yourself, Michael. For what? For a show that could be cut by ten percent without anyone even noticing?"
"If I take away ten percent, Bill, I take away the magic," Michael replied, his voice faint but animated by a frightening, unyielding determination. He sat on a metal stool, grabbing a towel to dry his neck.
"The people out there need to believe that the impossible is possible for two hours. If they see that I'm tired, if they see that I'm in pain, then everything collapses. I become just... another fragile man. And I can't afford to be just a man."
Bill handed him a glass of water and two white pills. Michael looked at them with a sort of bleak resignation before swallowing them.
"Those pills are clouding your thoughts, boy," Bill said softly, leaning over him. "And tomorrow you have to meet the press and that professor. If they see you like this..."
"Tomorrow I will be perfectly fine," Michael interrupted him, and for a moment the mask of the King of Pop slipped away, revealing the eyes of a man who had spent thirty-five years studying the psychology of his executioners. "That woman... Y/N. I read her notes on the project. She writes that childhood in poor neighborhoods is 'an area of emotional sequestration by institutions.' It's a beautiful phrase, Bill. Harsh, but true. She understands that those children are prisoners. I want to see if she understands that I am one too."
—-
The office of Mayor Robert Vance was a triumph of fake mahogany and real opportunism. A large portrait of Vance shaking hands with the governor of California towered behind the desk, while the air was thick with an expensive cologne that failed to hide the scent of cold sweat typical of local rooms of power.
Y/N sat in the leather armchair across from the mayor, the blue folder of "Project Ark" clutched in her hands like a shield.
"Robert," she said, her voice cutting through the air like a cold blade, "I need you to look me in the eye and tell me this isn't a move to bury last month's scandal over the real estate speculation in East Green."
Vance let out a jovial laugh, waving his hands as if swatting away a bothersome fly. "Y/N, please! We are talking about the future of five hundred Hispanic and African American children. We secured private funding that will cover forty percent of the construction costs for the pedagogical laboratories. You should be thrilled!"
"I would be thrilled if the donor weren't a man who needs a full-time public relations office just to keep his private life from being debated in federal courts," she shot back, leaning back and crossing her legs.
"Michael Jackson as the ambassador of my project is a contradiction in terms. I speak of reality, of uprooting trauma through stability. He represents total escapism, a childlike regression as a lifestyle. How am I supposed to explain to the mothers of West Green that their pedagogical benchmark is a man who lives in a castle with chimpanzees and amusement rides?"
"The mothers of West Green don't ask themselves such sophisticated questions, Y/N," Vance said, his tone suddenly turning harsh, stripped of its electoral polish.
"The mothers of West Green want their kids to stay out of a gang before they turn twelve. And if to do that we need Michael Jackson's millions and his ability to draw the spotlight of the entire state, we will take those millions and say thank you. And you will do the same."
Y/N felt a cold anger rise from her stomach, but she didn't flinch. Her fortress was intact. "So I am just a piece of furniture for his media redemption. Is that the plan?"
"You are the brain of the project. Tomorrow you will present the technical details of the school. Jackson will give the opening remarks and sign the symbolic check in front of the cameras. Nothing more, nothing less. Just try not to use your famous sarcasm during the interviews. The press loves Michael, but they love it even more when someone tries to put him in a tight spot."
"Oh, don't worry, Robert," Y/N said, standing up and settling her bag over her shoulder. "I will be the very picture of academic professionalism. But if Mr. Jackson thinks he can use my work to give a speech about universal love and pixie dust while my kids don't even have textbooks, he will find out that the 'iron doctor' has an excellent memory for budgets. See you tomorrow."
She left the office without waiting for an answer. Walking down the marble corridor of City Hall, her thoughts drifted back to that quote that kept humming in her head.
Just to avoid admitting I've lost. Perhaps that was what everyone was doing: her with her academic rigidity, Vance with his political games, and Michael Jackson with his gigantic, incredibly expensive Neverland.
—-
The sun had now dipped behind the Santa Ynez hills, leaving behind a trail of purple and orange that looked as though it had been painted by a theatrical costume designer.
At Neverland, Michael had returned to his private library. It was an immense, warm room, lined with cherry wood and crammed with thousands of books ranging from art history to child psychology, classical poetry to the biographies of great, forgotten leaders.
He sat in a rocking chair near the unlit fireplace, the drafts of "Project Ark" across his knees. His fingers traced the pages written by Y/N, lingering on the red-ink corrections she had made in the margins. There was an almost military rigor to her handwriting, but also a desperate, undercurrent care for detail that no bureaucrat would ever insert.
"Haven't turned off the light yet, boy?" Bill Bray appeared at the door, holding a tray with a cup of warm broth.
"Look at this, Bill," Michael said, pointing to a passage in the text. "She writes: 'Education is not an act of charity, but a compensation that society owes to those who have been stripped of their future before they could even imagine it.' Compensation... isn't that a beautiful word? No one ever compensated me for my childhood, Bill. They just kept asking for more songs, more dances, more hours on stage."
Bill set the tray on the side table and sat across from him. "Tomorrow will be tough, Michael. The local press is hungry. And that woman... I don't think she'll make things easy for you if she perceives you're using her project for purposes other than educational ones."
Michael looked up, and for the first time in weeks, his eyes were free of that haze of medication and exhaustion. They were clear, cold, and incredibly mature. "I am not using her project, Bill. I truly want those schools to be built. And if she needs my strength to defeat monsters like Vance, then we will use my strength. Even if she hates me for it."
He stood up, letting the papers slide onto the table. He walked toward the dark mirror of the library, observing his silhouette against the faint light.
"Get my black jacket with the gold details ready for tomorrow, Bill. The military one. When people see the uniform, they tend to ask fewer personal questions. They focus on the soldier, not on the man bleeding underneath the dress."
At that exact same moment, in her Santa Maria apartment, Y/N was pouring the last drop of red wine into an ordinary crystal glass.
The turntable was off, but in her mind, Lucio Dalla's melody kept spinning in circles. She stepped closer to the window, looking out toward the dark hills where she knew the Neverland estate lay. An invisible empire, protected by golden gates and security guards, which tomorrow would collide with her reality of concrete and disillusionment.
"Tomorrow, Peter Pan," she murmured against the cold glass, while the reflection of her thirty years gave back a gaze that no longer knew how to surrender. "Tomorrow we'll see if you really know how to fly, or if you just need someone to hold the strings of your carousel."
She finished the wine in one decisive gulp. The battle for the future of the county's children was about to begin, and she had absolutely no intention of taking prisoners.
Especially if they wore a rhinestone glove.