Michelle (a beatles fic) ☆彡

Chapter 1 - Birthday

"Oh my god! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Michelle jumped up and down with glee as her mother enclosed a stack of crisp, £20 notes into her delicate hands.

"Wonder what you'll spend that on!" Her father joked, but Michelle was oblivious, as she was busy musing about just which album she would add to her album collection. "Michelle? Hello? Earth to Michelle!" her father snapped his fingers in front of her light green eyes, adorned with 60's-inspired eyeliner. She looked quite out of place among her family members, who were all dressed in regular old modern-day attire.

"Ah! Sorry!" the young woman jumped and giggled. She couldn't last five minutes without drifting off into another daydream about one of her favourite bands and all of the memorabilia she could purchase to showcase her adoration. Behind her, her mother whispered to her long-time best friend and current roommate, Amy, and suddenly, Michelle was blindfolded. Confused at first until she heard the group singing 'Happy Birthday to You', she buried her head in her hands from both embarrassment and gratitude.

Her mother gently moved the blindfold down around Michelle's neck, allowing her to see a tray of sweet-smelling cupcakes, two of them adorned with candles shaped as the numbers '21', and four others had little fondant figurines of the Beatles in their iconic grey suits on them. Her eyes sparkled and she immediately reached for the cupcake with a little George Harrison, her favourite Beatle, who was even holding a miniature Gibson guitar, and held it up close to her freckled face.

"Aww! He's just too cute, I can't eat him!"
"For god's sake woman, blow the bloody candles out!" Amy laughed, and Michelle followed the order, smiling all the while.

*

"Honestly, Michelle, you've got enough records already!" complained Amy, playfully, to which Michelle just rolled her eyes and replied:

"Um, I really don't! And besides, even if I did, it's my birthday, so you cant have a go at me for buying any more!"

Amy shook her head and sighed as they approached the quaint little record shop in the corner of their local town. The bell let out a faint chime as the door creaked open, and the cashier, who was familiar with the two girls from how often they had visited, gave them a smile.

Michelle scanned through practically the entire shop, and at one point ended up carrying no less than six records at once, unable to decide which ones to take home. Upon finally making a very tough decision to put three of the records down, her gaze was dragged towards one album in particular: Rubber Soul, by The Beatles. Michelle had to refrain from dropping the vinyls on the floor out of excitement as she picked up and analysed the slightly worn cover. Interested to see how old it was, as it was clearly aged, she carefully removed the record from its sleeve and observed every last inch of it. As a rightfully self-identified record connoisseur, it wasn't hard for her to realise that this specific copy was, in fact, a first pressing - an original! It was hard, however, for her to wrap her head around this. A million thoughts circled through her head (mostly about the cost), but her train of thought was quickly thrown off-rail when Amy popped up behind her.

"You decided what you're getting yet?" she asked, holding a couple of albums of her own choice under her arm.

"I really want this - it's a first pressing, I'm sure of it, but i daren't look at the price." Michelle ran her fingers over the sleeve and recounted the money her mother had given her. Amy held out her hands, beckoning her friend to let her have a look for her. After carefully passing the record over, Michelle watched her roommate's eyebrows raise in surprise as she read the price, but she knew Amy, and she knew that this eyebrow raise was not a 'bloody hell, that is ridiculously expensive' eyebrow raise, but rather a 'bloody hell, that is surprisingly cheap' eyebrow raise. Hope quickly manifested deep in her heart as she heard her roommate read out that the album was an astonishing £18.99, which is very cheap for an original Beatles album.

"No way. You're joking." Michelle took a look for herself, and Amy was right. "Oh my god. And I can afford the other three albums as well. Wow!" she squealed before rushing to the counter and slamming the wad of money a bit too harshly on the tabletop, giving the cashier a fright.

*

The girl was sat on her bed, gently grazing the Rubber Soul album sleeve with her fingers. As gently as she would be as if she were handling a fragile, newborn baby chick, she delicately separated the vinyl from the sleeve and placed it on the vintage-style, brown record player that was perched on her wooden bedside table. Ever so carefully, she inched the needle over to the edge of the record and turned the device on. To her relief, the familiar opening riff of 'Drive My Car' was as clear as day, and the record seemed to be in practically mint condition.

Michelle sighed as she dropped down onto her bed and admired all of the old band posters strung up all over her cream walls. A yawn escaped her mouth and her eyelids began to feel like they weighed a thousand kilograms.
'No wonder I'm tired,' she thought to herself, 'it's been quite the day!'

And so, with some reluctance, she decided to get up from her bed and walk over to her drawers so that she could change out of her orange mod dress and into her periwinkle silk pyjamas, but suddenly she started to feel extremely dizzy. Stumbling backwards and back onto her floral sheets, the dizziness consumed her and everything went black.

*

"Hello? Miss? Y'alright there?"

"She's breathing, so I don't think she's dead."

"Any of you got a bottle? Thanks. This is whiskey. What good is whiskey going to do?"

"Helped me through a few hard times."

Michelle's brain felt as though it was on fire as she came to. The light invaded her eyes like an attacking troop, causing her to struggle to open them. She let out a dazed groan.

"I think she's waking up! Hello? Miss?"

"Mm." groaned Michelle, as her eyes finally began to adjust to the light.

"Hello? Can you hear me? Say something, please..."

"Oh, er, um... hi?" Michelle grumbled, as she slowly sat up and rubbed her forehead to soothe her blaring headache. Confusion engulfed her as she noticed that she was not in her room, her house, or, to her knowledge, anywhere near, but rather on some random, unfamiliar street corner.

"Where am I? Mum?!" she yelped in panic as she went to stand up to gather herself, but only ended up falling down again as her knees wobbled beneath her. Forcing her eyes shut and preparing to embrace the impact from hitting her body against the hard pavement, she was suspended, mid-fall, by what felt like someones arm, heroically catching her.

Looking over to discover just who this saviour was, she saw three familiar figures standing beside her, and she was in the very arms of none other than George Harrison himself.