Neverland sings of Christmas. A towering tree is draped in tinsel and decorations. Colorfully wrapped gifts are piled underneath. It smells like cinnamon and hot chocolate and gingerbread men, sounds like a small train chugging it's way through the house, and music boxes tinkling out Good King Wenceslas. Outside, it's dark and chilly, a smiling snowman welcoming in to the warm home, lit up early in the morning.

"Okay, ready?" Elizabeth giggles, excited. "Oh, wait! I want to say something first. Point the camera towards me."

Frank complies, and she begins. "It is 1993 and this will be Michael Jackson's very first Christmas. it has taken me, I think, five years of talking him into celebrating Christmas at Neverland because I understood that if you were a Jehoviah's Witness they don't celebrate Christmas. When he quit being a Jehoviah's Witness, I said to Michael, I think Christmas is a wonderful way of celebrating love, it's a celebration of love. And I can't see Christmas without Michael, or Michael without Christmas."

She laughs. "Okay, that's enough of an introduction. I think I'm too used to doing these speeches. Come on!" She leads him down the cluttered hallway to Michael's room.

"Michael?" She calls, knocking on the bedroom door. "Michael?" She makes her voice rough and scary, imitating old Dickens plays. "It's the spirit of Christmas, come to haunt you!"

Michael inside lies fast asleep, sprawled over the covers in red silken pajama bottoms and a white short-sleeved undershirt. He usually finds it difficult to get to sleep, but when he's not touring, and it's a cold winter's night, it feels so good to be warm and inside his Neverland home with his best friends that he instantly falls asleep and stays in bed late into the morning.

The pounding on the door jerks him awake. "Michael..." Elizabeth calls, and he smiles. He knew she must have been planning something like this. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes, rolls off of the bed, and pulls on the matching pajama top, grabbing his hat as he pushes the door open, smiling at the sight of Elizabeth.

"Don't jump at the sight of my little dog," she mocks. The small white poodle is jumping at his leg frantically. He giggles; Liz always makes fun of him for his fear of dogs, but although they're little they can bite. He dodges the poodle deftly in socked feet and follows her to the main room, putting on his hat.

He gasps at the sight of the room. Everything is covered in Christmas; it's a changed house. "Oh my God, it's incredible," he breathes. "I can't believe this." He walks around, touching, looking, listening, feeling the branch of the Christmas tree, like he's never felt it before. "This is the first time."

He gazes around him in awe and notices a wrapped present on the coffee table, a smile widening on his face.

"That's yours," Elizabeth laughs.

"Santa came?" he asks innocently, face alight.

"Santa from Bel Air," Elizabeth jokes.

"Santa from Bel Air?" He walks over and picks it up. "I open it?" His hands and voice are hesitant, awed.

"Sure."

He smiles and begins to rip it open.

"Oh my God, Elizabeth, I love it!"

"Shh," she whispers, "don't let Frank see what it is." He laughs and covers it with the wrappings.

"Okay, Michael, you've opened your first present, now you have to go get dressed."

He pouts. "But I want to open my presents!"

"Go put on your clothes, and you can open them. As amazing as you look in pajamas, we want to be distinguished adults, don't we?"

He giggles. "Of course, Elizabeth, of course." He runs to the bedroom, slams the door, and comes out minutes later in his lopsided hat, red buttoned shirt, and black pants. "Ready!"

"Okay. Frank has one for you, don't you?"

As Frank digs through the pile of gifts, Michael plays with Elizabeth's puppy, trying to put a gift bow on it's head, laughing as it runs around him and flinching back when it nips. Frank hands him the gift, and he rips it open. It's a red sweater, Michael's favorite color.

"Ooooh, love it," he says, feeling the soft fleece and holding it up against himself. "I'm gonna put it on right now." He pulls it over his head, attempts to pull his head through the arm sleeve, and emerges, laughing, with his hat fallen off and his hair messed up.

Elizabeth laughs at the sight of him. "Quick, Frank, film him. Film him like that right now."

"No!" Michael jumps up, pushing the camera to point at Elizabeth, smoothing his hair down. "I have beautiful hair, Elizabeth, don't try to defame it. You'll never take away from it's beauty."

"Okay, okay," she says. "Frank, camera back at Michael. You realize you're photographing me without any makeup on?"

"It's videotaping, not photographing. Come on, Elizabeth, get out of the fifties."

"This is the man who still thinks he's about four years old."

"And I'm getting presents to match. Oooh, look!" He rips the wrapping paper off a large box. "Love it. Super soaker! Now I know how I'm going to wake up Elizabeth tomorrow."

"How?"

He holds up the box, taunting her. She snorts. "You're awful, Michael. Oh, God. A shooting gallery."

Michael throws wrapping paper at her, uncovering another box. "This is a super soaker! I can feel it and tell." He rips off the paper. "What did I tell you?"

Frank chuckles. "Why do you need two?"

"You'd ask me that, Frank? Haven't I soaked you too many times for you to ask me that?" He picks up another box, and Elizabeth snatches it out of his hands.

"I want a squirt gun. I want a squirt machine gun," she pouts, hugging it to her chest.

"She's snatching presents!" Michael whines, pointing at her. "She's snatching presents!" He yanks it out of her hands.

"Please, Michael?"

"Fine." He hands it to her, and she unwraps it to find out it's a Disney Princess playset.

"Aww, I wanted that." He digs out another box, and giggles; he can see what it is through the badly wrapped paper at the top. "I have this one, it's for you, but can I have it?" he asks Elizabeth, smiling.

"Yes."

"Thank you." He begins to pull off the ribbon.

"What is it?"

"It's a water gun," he laughs, ducking his head.

"How do you know it's a water gun?"

"Cause I see at the top." He shows her the words "SUPER SOAKER" visible at the top of the box, then rips off the paper.

"That's not fair!"

"It's a super soaker!" he crows, pulling it out in triumph.

"You're such a cheater, Michael."

"I know I am!" He giggles and then his face freezes.

What is he doing?

Michael sits in the bathroom, knees pulled up to his chest, tears silently pouring down, guilt pounding at his chest. Elizabeth and Frank are in the living room, and they've invited friends to come over for a snowy Super Soaker fight, but he can't make himself get up.

This was wrong. He knew it was wrong, he's always known it was wrong. Just being woken up by his best friend, seeing Neverland decorated and transformed into such a beautiful wonderland, made him forget. How could he forget about his values, his beliefs? Just because he's left Jehoviah's Witnesses doesn't mean he doesn't still believe in the truths he was taught.

He pulls at his hair. No. No. No. No. How could he have enjoyed this? Let himself go and enjoy this base pleasure?

He cries, opens his mouth and sobs, stifling the noise with his hands. He doesn't want to stifle it, he wants to scream his guilt, but he doesn't want his friends to feel bad either.

It's so difficult to make moral decisions. He knows celebrating birthdays and Christmas is wrong, idolatry, disrespecting Jesus, and that's the last thing he wants to do. Yet it makes him feel so happy, light, carefree. Sometimes it's so hard to not just give into his emotions.

Elizabeth always told him to celebrate it. She said it was a beautiful holiday, that Christmas wasn't Christmas without him, and that he wasn't himself without Christmas. And sometimes her words tugged at him, made him think it might be worth it--and then later he'd be wracked with guilt over even considering it.

He looks at his face in the mirror. His eyes look black with sin and regret.

Just half an hour ago he was the happiest man on earth. Of course it never lasts.

He sinks down on the cold tiled bathroom floor, wanting the chilliness to numb his thoughts. The child in him is pushed aside, it's laughing voice silenced, so that the grown man can hate himself with complicated thoughts.

"Michael?" He can hear Elizabeth's voice outside the bathroom door, but he ignores it. "Michael?" She's worried now, the light joy that had been in it all morning stifled with anxiety. He hates that his sadness depresses everyone around him. And again, he feels guilty. "Are you in there? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he forces out, and his voice sounds croaky. Like he's been crying. Elizabeth's known him for as long as he can remember; she'll know what that voice means, and he cringes from it.

"Michael, you're not beating yourself up in there, are you?"

He presses my lips together.

"Because you know you have no reason to be. We all love you, and I saw how you were like this morning. You loved it. You felt true joy. There's no reason God would want to keep you from feeling that, and there's no way that it's wrong."

He gets up and pushes the lock on the bathroom door. It clicks. Soon he can feel her presence disappear, and he's alone again.

He feels the tears on his cheeks. They're cold and dry. He turns on the sink and splashes water on his face, letting it run through his fingers until it washes away all the confusion and lies.

Elizabeth's right. She's always right; she's always been the best friend she's ever had who's never told him anything but the truth.

And he forces a smile onto his face, makes sure his eyes aren't red from the crying, and emerges from the bathroom.

"You okay, Michael?" Elizabeth asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He flashes an unconvincing smile at her.

"Are you sure?" She sees right through him, and both of them know it.

"As good as I'll ever be, I guess."

"Well then..." she reaches behind her back for something, "Merry Christmas!" She blasts him with a Super Soaker, and he shrieks, jumping back.

"Ahaaaaa! Gotcha!" she yells, grinning, and chases him onto the lawn.

"Liz! No, please! I don't have any defense! This is brutal injustice!" He dodges her, runs back to the porch, and grabs his own super soaker, his wet hair swinging in front of his face. She blasts him again and he barely dodges. "Oh, no you don't." He smiles evilly and begins to chase her around the lawn, giggling and screaming. Finally they both collapse into the snow, staring up at the white sky.

"You okay now, Michael?"

He takes a second, and then answers truthfully. "Yeah. Thanks, Elizabeth. I love you."

"Love you more."

"Love you most." He turns his head and gives her a mischievous glance, then runs his hands through the wet hair. Winter is not ideal Super Soaker weather, and now he's shivering, but the warmth inside him, the child inside him will not let him feel anything but comfortable happiness.

Elizabeth giggles. "There's the smile I love. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Christmas is nothing without you, Michael."

They get up and let themselves into the house, where Frank has poured them hot chocolate. Michael finally feels the cold and wraps his long fingers around the steaming mug, letting the homey chocolate smell warm his face. "I'm nothing without Christmas," he says, and he knows it is true.

(a/n) Okay, you all know this one already. But some of these memories will be from actual events, some made up, whatever. I hope to include 50 chapters before this upcoming Christmas. Some of them will be emotional, some happy, some sad, some romantic, you know. This is different from some other fics I've been planning... just let me know if you want me to continue. And feel free to request a particular Christmas for the next one. (: