Merry Christmas.

Eric and I went to the local convenient store one night in December.

We went for ice cream...well, I made him take me for ice cream. He didn't really even want to go at all, but Fez was gone to see one of his Foster parents and I was having a craving. Steven had to make him take me too. He had been sitting on the floor next to Steven, just watching the TV and avoiding Donna, who had broken up with him, again…and Steven and I just forced him to drive me to the store so I could have my damn ice cream.

I remember I had been ragging on him; you know, like I always did. I called him so many emasculating names. At the time it had just been a good time; something to pass the seconds away since I was stuck in a car with a total dork. He had returned fire, too. He gave insults as good as he got. Despite the fact that we had been in the car in mid-December with snow falling on the ground in thick, fluffy flakes, with me calling him gay and him calling me a stuck-up bitch, it had been fairly fun. I felt that in some retarded way, we had connected.

I cling to that actually. We connected. We had a mutual love-hate relationship. We loved to hate each other and hated to love each other. I cling to the hope that those few minutes before we entered the store had been enjoyable for him…

"Jackie, get down!"

…because everything afterward had been a nightmare.

Those fifteen minutes in the store will never leave me. When it happened, it happened too fast. I blinked and my life was upside-down. I gasped and everything was over. In my mind though, replaying everything in my head, it all happened agonizingly slow.

We had entered the store, and I immediately went to the ladies room. Being pregnant I had to use the bathroom every five seconds. I was in there for a while, too. I looked at myself in the mirror, and straightened my shirt over my belly…then of course, I had to check my hair and reapply some lip gloss…I think I may have made sure there was nothing in my teeth, as well. Normal girl stuff.

When I came out, Eric was in the candy isle, a case of beer in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. I don't know why that's so important. The store doesn't stick out in my mind, the cashier behind the counter…it hadn't mattered. But that case of cheap beer that tasted like cow urine and the bag of Lays potato chips that he would only be able to eat to chips out of, they stick out in my mind so vividly.

I remember when he saw me, he said, "I thought you got lost in there…actually, I had prayed you got lost in there."

"Jackie, go! Now!"



I didn't get a chance to say anything to that though. I just remember…I keep hearing in my head the door slamming open and a gun shot and these two barbarians wearing those stupid ski masks came in screaming that they wanted all the money.

And I screamed.

I mean, I was scared. I don't like loud noises, and…and they startled me and seriously, how often do you get stuck in a store that's being robbed. I didn't even think about it. I just screamed and and and and…and one of them turned around. Had I not screamed we could have just snuck out; we could have gone home and we would have had a free case of piss beer and bag of chips. That would have been cool, right? But I did scream.

Why did I scream?

The guy came towards us, and Eric told me, "Jackie, get down!" He said it in such an unbelievably calm, firm tone. I had never heard anything like that from him before. He didn't take his eyes off of the man coming towards us with a gun aim…and he stepped in front of me.

I was frozen though. I was scared stiff as I thought about my baby, my life, Fez…all the people I wouldn't be able to say goodbye to if I died in the store. I thought of what would happen to Eric. He was trying to save me. We had never been that close, but there he was trying to save my life that for the majority of our friendship had been useless to him.

"Jackie, go! Now!"

I remember crying. I was balling and sniffling like a baby, and I grabbed onto his arm and buried my head into his shoulder blade. I wanted to wake up. I had been so sure in was just a bad dream. Things like that didn't happen to me, and they didn't happen in Point Place and they sure as hell didn't happen three days before Christmas.

He kept trying to shrug me off. He wanted to get me to leave and I just held onto him! He was doing such a heroic thing and I had been so mean to him throughout our entire friendship, and he was protecting my baby and…I-I-I didn't want to leave him alone. Even at the end, through all our mutual dislike, and our arguing and biting comments, he was a good guy and a good friend and…and…

Another gun shot was fired and there was a thump as the nameless cashier hit the ground. I whimpered, clenching on to Eric's arm harder, even as he tried to get me to go. The other thug came towards us too. He kept telling the guy holding the gun on us to just do it; that they needed to go before someone called the cops.

"Don't be such a pussy, man! Do it!"

I could feel Eric's heart beating just as rapidly as mine was, but he still found the courage to say, "Look, guys…j-just go. We just want to go home. Please…just-just let's go. Okay?"



The one who shot the cashier came forward and put his gun right up to Eric's head, and I was sobbing so hard and holding onto his arm so tightly. I was so scared, but I couldn't leave. My feet wouldn't work, and even if they had, how fast could I have gotten anywhere? I was seven months pregnant! What was I going to do? Roll away?

God! I still remember how tense Eric had been. I can still literally feel the coils and knots forming below his skin, beneath my palms and against my cheek. I still remember the feeling of all the air in his body leaving him as the guy with the gun to his forehead said, "You don't make the rules, bitch!"

"Look," Eric croaked, still trying to shake me off. "Let her go. She's…she's pregnant. Let her go home…please."

We all heard sirens then. Someone had walked to the store to get something too, and she had seen the thugs through the window and had run to the nearest house to call the cops. The guy with the gun on Eric's head lowered it as he stared out the window, and the first guy was already backing away from the crime scene quickly. They had both panicked when the sirens became crisper and they scrambled away from us, running for the door.

I was so sure we were safe. I was sure we had made it, but before the last thug was out the door he fired three shots back at us.

In my mind I can hear my heartbeat thunderously as I watch Eric fall to the ground in slow motion over and over again, the beer hitting the floor with a loud thud and the chips flying behind us.

One bullet…one fucking bullet. The other two had hit the candy shelves, but one bullet hit Eric perfectly in his heart, like there had been a magnetic force pulling that one metal ball to him.

When he fell to the ground I went to my knees with him, trying to hold him up but failing. I managed to keep his head from hitting the floor too hard, but I still heard the crack of his skull against the concrete. I grabbed his hand and…and I-I looked at his chest and there was so much blood. I couldn't stand it I just…I cried even more. I had never seen so much blood, and he was my friend and he had begged for my life…

And I just stood there and cried as everything happened. I didn't try to help him; I didn't say anything.

When I looked at his face I saw tears coming from his eyes, and I don't know if he had been crying the entire time or if he was only crying because he was in pain but he was crying. I didn't know what to say to him. He had blood gushing from his chest, and he had risked his life for me, and the cop sirens were so loud…

Eric's grandmother died when he was sixteen. It doesn't sound important right now, but he had been driving her home and he had told her it wouldn't kill her to be nice and she had died right then and there. I remember Michael and I had sex in the church. We were so disrespectful. But Eric had been, like, super torn over the fact that the last thing he had said to her was that she was a nasty person. Donna told me he got himself into a bar fight so he would feel something besides the guilt over that.



The sirens were blaring, and we were just staring at each other as tears fell from our eyes. Then, all of a sudden, his breathing just went haywire. He had been breathing hard since he hit the floor, but this was terrible. This was last-second-can't-find-air-hurts-to-breathe-but-don't-want-to-give-in-yet labored breathing.

"Eric! Eric, stay with me!" I begged him, squeezing his hand as hard as I could as if the pain in his hand would keep him on Earth with me, would let him live. "The cops are coming. We'll get you help. You'll be fine."

He blinked and then a lazy smile crept over his face even though tears still fell from the corner of his eyes. Through his ragged breathing he…he-he started talking, but it was all broken and everything. "Tell them…t-tell the guys…" He stopped and grimaced and in the background I heard the cop cars screech across the gravel parking lot.

"Eric, hang on. Please, hang on!" I sobbed, pulling his hand to my lips. I didn't want him to go, but deep down I knew he wasn't going to stay. I wanted to make sure he felt something good. I wanted him to know that I loved him, even though we had never gotten along. I wanted him to be in as little pain as possible. But most of all, I wanted him to have someone with him when he went.

He squeezed my hand as hard as he could while he was fading so quickly. Again he tried speaking, trying still to leave everything on a good note, because when his grandmother had died she had left after being a total bitch to everyone. I think he wanted to make up for telling me that he had hoped I had gotten lost in the bathroom, though he had more than redeemed himself when he had begged for me and my child's life. But still he sputtered and wheezed, trying for reconciliation. "Tell…them…" there had been a long pause where his eyes went in and out of focus.

I held my breath, waiting for him to pass on, waiting for him to be punished for my damn cravings and screaming.

But he managed to finish.

He managed to say in a somewhat jovial, if not fading tone, "Merry Christmas."

Then his small smile went away, and his eyes lost focus. He was gone.

The cops found me in a puddle of his blood, still holding his hand to the bump on my belly and pulling his hair to lay flat like he normally had it. A few of the beers had busted when he dropped them suddenly and there was the smell of cheap, piss beer mingling in with the metallic odor of blood. There were bags of candy that had been jarred from the shelves with the other two shots. And a bag of Lays chips that he wouldn't have gotten to eat.

I was still crying and…and I was begging for him to come back.

I don't even like ice cream.



A/N: So, I watched the episode where Eric's grandmother died…and this is what came to my mind. Can I officially be labeled morbid yet? I'm thinking about doing another chapter about everyone's reaction. It depends. I had a paragraph about Steven's reaction to his death set for this story, but I like the way this ended and I didn't want to ruin it. I guess it depends on how you like this story and whether you want to have another chapter for this. shrugs

The characters aren't mine by the way. I don't know if that had occurred to you, but yeah…they ain't mine.

InnocentGuilt