Disclaimer: I own nothing. I do not own That '70s Show or any of it's characters. I do not own any of the other characters or movies mentioned in this story. I do not own the prompt of this soulmate AU. I own nothing.

Author's Note: This story was written for the 2017 Zenmasters Anthology on tumblr.

Hi all, hope you're doing well! Today I have for you the first chapter of a little fic I've written for the Zenmasters anthology project on tumblr. It's really not much but I hope you will still enjoy it. Please review if you can, I'd love to hear your thoughts. There's no set timeline for this fic but I had the early seasons in mind when I wrote this fic. And bonus points to anyone who can figure out what I was watching while I wrote most of this chapter lol Thank you for reading, hope you like, and as always please, Enjoy!

Steven Hyde picked up what felt like the nine hundredth beer can from the Forman back yard however, based off the nearly full garbage bag he'd been depositing the cans into from the start of this, the number wasn't on the closest estimate. It might not have seemed like it but he really had gotten the better end of the deal he and Eric had come up with, after all Hyde may have had more trash to pick up outside but Forman was stuck cleaning up more drunk puke down in the basement.

It was all part of the punishment Red had given them for throwing a party while he and Mrs. Forman had been out of town. Cleaning the leftover mess from the party and being grounded for the next two weeks weren't too bad of sentence for the party they had. While it wasn't some Animal House kinda bash it wasn't any dud either, though in a small town like Point Place there wasn't much to compare it too.

Dropping another can into the black plastic sack, Hyde realized it was getting too full to fit anymore cans and still be able to tie it shut. He gathered the ends of the bag, trying to stretch them out so they could tie into a knot without ripping or wearing out too thin. Someone had to invent an easier way to close these damn things.

With the bag securely sealed up, he grabbed the sack, ready to dump it in the Forman's trashcan when he spotted something shinning in the spot below the trash bag.

Curiously Hyde knelt down for a closer look at his discovery, his frown furrowing even deeper when he realized this shinny item wasn't some cheap piece of tin from one of the cans, it was a piece of jewelry. A bracelet to be exact, gold and dainty with what looked like little green beads between each of the golden leaves that made up the bracelet.

Hyde picked up the bracelet to get a better look at it and then looked around his surroundings wondering who the jewelry belonged to. He felt foolish for doing such actions when he remembered he was alone in the backyard, at least until he spotted the nearby rosebush and recalled seeing some of its freshly cut roses in a small vase at the breakfast table this morning. He made a connection that could possibly lead him to the bracelet's owner.

"Steven, honey!" Mrs. Forman's voice instantly pulled Hyde's head up. "Why don't you come take a little break? I've got some fresh lemonade! And I sent Red out to the store for a few things!"

The prospect of some nice cold fresh squeezed lemonade was inviting but knowing there wasn't a chance of running into Red had Hyde nearly running into the kitchen. Of course, not before dropping the trash bag into the open metal can out in the driveway…which was also covered with trash from the night before, but he'd get to that after his lemonade break.

As soon as he stepped into the kitchen Mrs. Forman greeted him with a smile and happy giggle before handing him a cold glass of lemonade.

"Thanks, Mrs. Forman," he said before putting the edge of the glass to his lips and chugging down the refreshing liquid. It may not have been the hottest day in Wisconsin but nothing beat lemonade on any summer day. "And not just for the lemonade."

The smile on her face grew as she poured herself a glass. "Well, I knew the only way I'd be able to get you to take a break was if I got Red out of here. Now sit down for a few minutes, Red won't be back for a while. Eric was already able to come in and have his little break too."

Hyde nodded not only glad that his friend had gotten a break but impressed that Mrs. Forman had come up with a plan of getting Red out of the house and having the two boys take their breaks in shifts so they wouldn't both be caught and gotten into more trouble if Red suddenly got home sooner than expected. He was glad to have her looking out for him, Hyde thought as he settled into his seat.

"Oh hey, I found this out in the back," Hyde said, handing the piece of jewelry to the woman of the house.

Mrs. Forman's eyebrows rose with interest and she finished her sip of lemonade before putting her glass down and taking the bracelet into her own care. "Oh my, this is just beautiful, isn't it?"

"Sure is," agreed Hyde as he poured himself another glass.

"It's so shiny and even though it's very light this is really gold," she was inspecting the jewelry like an expert. "At least 12 karat."

"Cool,"

She slipped into the seat next to his at the table so he could see the details of the bracelet she was describing. "Oh, oh and you see these green beads here? These are not just beads, they're jade."

Now Hyde was impressed. "Wow, what occasion Red get that for you?"

For a split moment, there was a frown on the older woman's face before it flipped into a smile that was trying to contain a laugh. "Oh, honey, Red didn't get this for me."

"He didn't?"

"Red would have had to have done something really bad to have bought me something this expensive," she explained, this time releasing one of her famous giggles into the air. "This bracelet isn't mine, Steven."

She placed the gold chain on the table top and stood from her seat.

Hyde didn't understand. He found the bracelet by the rosebush Mrs. Forman had gotten roses from this morning. He found the bracelet in her backyard at her house….who else could it belong to?

"Laurie?" he wondered out loud.

"Oh no, no," Mrs. Forman shook her head, returning to her seat with her lemonade. "Laurie's dates aren't the kind to give her jewelry."

He's seen some of Laurie's guys and had to agree with that sentiment. "Yeah, they're more the type to give her…" he stopped himself when he remembered just who he was talking to. "Other stuff," he said before quickly putting the conversation back on track. "So it's not yours and it's not Laurie's….Forman's?"

"Sweetie, it's too thin to be a man's bracelet," Mrs. Forman informed with a smile.

It made him shrug, "Forman's got dainty wrists."

"Well, while that is true, I don't think it belongs to Eric either."

Taking the jewelry into his own palm, Hyde looked over it some more. "Who's could it be?"

This time it was Mrs. Forman who was shrugging her shoulders. "Well with that party you boys threw here last night, it could have fallen off any one of those girls who were here last night."

"Yeah," he agreed that could be a possibility but he couldn't remember seeing it on any of the chicks he talked to that night.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Mrs. Forman was smacking her palms on the table top like Ricky Ricardo playing his conga drum. Hyde startled and the growing grin she wore on her face did little to make him feel better. "Steven, what if this bracelet belongs to your soulmate?"

She couldn't be serious, he thought. "My what?"

"Your soulmate," she said once again, her smile never flattening. "The person you're meant to spend the rest of your life with. The person who is your other half, who is the key that fits your locks. They're your perfect fit because not only do they make you a better person but they make your life so much better than you ever imagined it could be. They're the peanut butter to your jelly, the mac to your cheese…"

"The Mike to my Ike?" a smirk curled onto Hyde's lips but Kitty did not look amused; he sighed. "Look, Mrs. Forman, I know what a soulmate is but doesn't mean I believe in 'em. Even if I did finding this bracelet doesn't mean I'm gonna find any soulmate."

Mrs. Forman's smile had now returned to its place. "Now, Steven, you know what they say, Finders Keepers."

"Losers weepers?" He wasn't exactly sure where she was going with this.

"No," she shook her head, and laughed like she was sure he was just pretending to be lost. "Finders Keepers in terms of soulmates means that whenever a person loses something, his or her soulmate ends up finding it. You find your soulmate's long lost items and get to keep each other's hearts."

Hyde had to use all his strength to hold back an eyeroll. "Yeah, I've heard the story." Everyone had. "That's all it is though, a story. That kinda thing never happens with real couples. Didn't happened for Bud and Edna. Forman and Donna only think it happened to them cuz they were too small to actually remember anything. Didn't even happen with you and Red. No offense, Mrs. Forman but I don't get how you can believe in all that stuff."

"Now how do you know it didn't happen with Red and me?" Mrs. Forman seemed to take more offense at that statement than anything else.

"I've heard that story too," he reminded. "You and Red met at a USO dance, nothing lost, nothing found."

His surrogate mother looked a bit nervous before sitting up straighter in her seat. "Well, yes, that is true. Red and I did meet at a USO dance where…where I was reading to the blind and he punched out that rude Marine." She paused and seemed to relax. "But it's not the idea of meeting your soulmate the moment you find their missing item that I believe in. It's the fate of soulmates that I believe in and fate, sweetie, can be a very funny thing."

"Did you know Red and I had been dating for about six months before he had to leave to Korea?" Hyde shook his head at the question, signaling Mrs. Forman to continue. "Oh, it was a wonderful six months and when he got the news he would be leaving I was just devastated. I was scared he wouldn't come back. That last week we had together before he left I must've been an absolute mess, but then he gave me a gift."

There was an unmistakable smile spreading onto her lips but Hyde could see moisture forming in her eyes too. He hoped she didn't start crying and almost started praying that Red didn't come home if she did or he might get the blame for the tears.

"He said that it was something he had found out on the battlefield the last time he was overseas," she explained, her tears remaining intact. "He said he wasn't sure why but it had given him a glimmer of hope that he would be home soon and he carried it with him for the next two weeks before the war was over. And he wanted me to hold onto it for him and hoped it would give me that same glimmer of hope that he would be home soon. Isn't that sweet?" there was a soft laugh. "It was small silver heart shaped locket, it was beautiful but it wouldn't open for some reason. And do you know why it wouldn't open?"

Again Hyde shook his head.

Mrs. Forman's smile seemed to double in size. "Because I had the key. It was my locket. My grandmother had given it to me for my birthday one year and I had lost it sometime in high school."

"So Red found your locket?" this was definitely a story Hyde hadn't heard before.

"That's right," she was beaming, tears no longer in sight. "And he got to keep my heart."

Hyde smiled at her giggle and couldn't help asking, "Did you ever find anything of Red's?"

"When I was about eighteen…right before I graduated high school…I found a pocketknife in my parents' backyard," Mrs. Forman was happy to share this second part of the story. "And while I knew it wasn't my father's I knew it had to be very important to someone, so I held onto it. I think part of me even hoped it did belong to my soulmate. But it wasn't until Red gave me my old locket that I realized the initials carved on that pocketknife, R.F. stood for Red Forman."

"Wow," his slip made Mrs. Forman smile more.

"Red took his pocketknife with him to Korea and I held onto my old locket and a few months after he got back home we were married."

"Now I get why you believe in this stuff," Hyde had to admit.

She continued to smile, "And you know it doesn't stop after that. Now anytime either one of us is missing anything we just ask the other and that person will find it in no time. It's a real time saver." Once again she laughed.

"Huh," he mulled over this information.

He'd seen this kind of interaction between the Formans plenty of times. Red would lose his work gloves and Mrs. Forman would find them in the kitchen drawer or Mrs. Forman would be going crazy looking for her misplaced keys only to have Red walk in holding them in his hands. Hyde had always thought that was just something they did, something that happened in marriage, he never considered it to be part of the soulmate thing.

Hyde saw Mrs. Forman staring at him, waiting for him to say something; probably something along the lines of how he was now a true believer of soulmates and like the dumbass prince in Cinderella would now go out and search the land until he found the maiden whose wrist fit perfectly in the gold bracelet.

But that was not happening.

"Mrs. Forman, it was great story, and it's cool you and Red turned out to be each other's soulmates," Hyde had always figured if there were such things as soulmates The Formans would be a perfect example. Still, they weren't enough to make him believe he had a soulmate out there. "But it doesn't mean I'm gonna find any soulmate cuz of this bracelet…some people just don't have soulmates. That's part of the story too."

This made Mrs. Forman shake her head. "But Steven, sweetie, you found something. You found something that very well could belong to your soulmate. You could be on your way to meeting your soulmate!"

"I don't know Mrs. Forman," he sounded unsure but kept the piece of jewelry in his grasp as he stood from his seat. "I found Kelso's yo-yo once when we were kids…kinda figured that meant he was my soulmate."

Rolling her eyes and shaking her head, Mrs. Forman waved him out of the kitchen and Hyde smirked then thanked her for the drink before heading back outside to finish his chores.

After grabbing a new hefty bag from the garage, he headed back over to backyard to finish picking up the few remaining pieces of trash there before taking on the mess out on the driveway. He was shaking the bag open on his way over but stopped mid-shake when he walked in on a sight that he never expected to find.

Jackie Burkhart on her hands and knees in the Forman's backyard, her hands brushing through the blades of grass that made up the back lawn.

Hyde's eyebrows rose above his aviator shades. He never thought he'd see Jackie so close to dirt on the ground. "Jackie?"

Instantly, the brunette shot up into a sitting position and tuned around to show him the look of relief on her face. "Oh Steven, great you're here."

"Yeah, well for the next two weeks I'm pretty much stuck here," he replied, now finishing the task of opening the sack.

"I need your help," Jackie's voice sounded almost desperate. "I lost something and I need you to help me find it."

The words said felt like a splash of cold water had been thrown in Hyde's face. He tried to keep his cool and stay Zen but on the inside, he felt himself starting to freak out. This couldn't be happening….Jackie had lost something and he had found something…what were the chances it was the same thing?

"You uh, you lost something."

She nodded, it was clear that this something was important to her and the loss was upsetting her. "Yeah. It's my bracelet. It's got gold leaves and little pieces of green jade. It's very expensive. Daddy gave it to me for Christmas one year when…"

Jackie said plenty more after this but Hyde didn't hear any of it. All he could focus on was the words 'My bracelet.' The bracelet he found was Jackie's. Jackie Burkhart. Any other time Hyde would've handed it over no questions asked but after talking with Mrs. Forman about all that soulmate crap, it made him wonder. Did this mean Jackie was his soulmate and worse that she was stuck with him as her soulmate?

As Jackie went on rambling about her lost bracelet, Hyde reached into his pocket and pulled the bracelet out. Saying noting he held it out in front of Jackie, nervously waiting for her reaction.

"And it's the bracelet I wore…." Jackie's worried eyes suddenly held only happiness when she saw the shiny chain. "Oh my God! Steven, you found it! You found my bracelet!" she jumped to her feet and was ready to thank him with a big hug until she realized what she had just said what it could all mean. Her eyes grew wider and her tone lost most of its excitement. "Oh my God. Steven, you found it. You found my bracelet."

"Yeah," he tried not to sound too awkward as he placed the jewelry in her hands. "So…"

Before Hyde got to finish his thought, Jackie managed to shake free of her deer caught in the headlights state and suddenly turned into a frightened deer who'd heard the shot of a hunting rifle and was now running for its life.

Hyde watched her petite form scamper off from the house. "Guess I shoulda seen that coming."

Author's Note: So what did you think? Yay? Nay? A little of both? Be sure to let me know in a review!

Think the next chapter will be up next week, same time, same place…do plan on updating If You Ever Did Believe VERY soon so be on the look out for that too.

Until next time, thanks for reading, hope you liked, please review and lemme know what you think, stay tuned, take care, and have a nice day!