Telluride
Summary: After leaving Point Place for the 2nd time following the end of his relationship with Donna, Eric is working as a bartender in Telluride, Colorado where he finds unexpected love with someone from his past. E/J
A/N: The plot is shamelessly stolen from a Tim McGraw song. This is not a songfic, so before you go racing for your back button, give it a chance. I haven't written anything that was seen by others for a couple of years, but I got inspired so here goes…
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Chapter 1
Telluride, Colorado – December, 1980
This most certainly was not what Eric pictured, or wanted, from his life. His job was decent, the pay was good. It would pay the bills until a teaching position opened up. Unlike his job, his social life sucked. He had been in Colorado for 3 months and he still didn't really know anyone other than the people who worked at the bar with him, and the regular customers. There was really no one he could talk to. Sometimes he thought about packing up and going back to Point Place, but he couldn't do that. He'd come crawling back for Donna once before. As much as they tried to go back to the way things were, it wasn't the same. While he was teaching in Africa he broke up with her, in a letter, and she moved on to Randy. When Eric came back Randy backed off at first to let Donna figure things out with Eric, but after a few months he was pursuing her again, and Donna was torn between them. Eventually Donna told Eric that she didn't want to look back anymore. She saw a relationship with Randy as a way to move forward. Eric didn't stick around in Point Place for very long after that. He got in his car and drove with no real plan for where he was going, finally stopping at a motel near the bar where he now worked. After a week he called his mom and told her he wouldn't be coming back home. Now his life consisted of work and sleep, and on nights when business was slow at the bar he'd drive himself nuts trying to figure out what went wrong, only to be have his trip down memory lane interrupted by the bell that rang whenever someone came into the bar. Sometimes he'd have his back turned, cleaning or straightening up and the customer would have to get his attention. Never in a million years did he think the voice saying "Hey, can I get a drink?" would be a familiar one, but one night it was. It was a high pitched voice with an impatient, demanding tone that could only belong to one person. Without turning around he disguised his voice as best he could and said "Sure, Jackie."
There was a short pause before she spoke again "How did you know my name? Are you psychic?"
Now that his suspicions were confirmed he decided to have a little fun. "Maybe…Beulah." It was all Eric could do not to bust up laughing right then.
There was another pause before she spoke again. "What's going on? Who the hell are you?"
Much to his surprise she didn't wait for a response before hopping over to the other side of the bar and forcefully spinning him around to face her. When she saw him she looked genuinely stunned. Her mouth moved silently for a few seconds before she found her a voice again. "Eric. What, um…What are you going here?"
"I work here."
"I can see that. I meant, what are you doing in Colorado? How did you get here?"
"Car." Eric responded dumbly, causing Jackie's previously stunned expression to change to minor annoyance. "After Donna dumped me I had to get out of Point Place, so I got in my car and drove." He paused briefly before asking her what she wanted to drink. After getting her drink it was his turn to ask questions. "What are you doing here?"
"Skiing with friends."
Eric pretended to look around for her friends before looking back at her quizzically.
"They're back in their hotel rooms making out or whatever. I don't have a boyfriend to make out with, and I was bored so I came here."
"Anyone I know?"
"No, friends from Chicago."
"Chicago?"
"Yeah. I got a job in Chicago working at a TV station so I left home."
"That's great." He smiled, before suddenly picking up on something she said earlier. "Wait, no boyfriend? I thought you and Fez were…"
"No. Well, we were. Not anymore." Eager to change the subject she decided to ask another question of her own. "Eric, a bar? I thought you were going to be a teacher."
"I was. I am. There are no teaching jobs open at the moment, and I needed to pay the bills, so here I am." After a moment of awkward silence Eric decided to lighten the mood. "So…Chicago. You and Kelso—"
"God, no! He's marrying Brooke."
"Really? Wow. No one told me."
"Yeah, well maybe if you hadn't run off without telling anyone where you were going…"
"Aww, did you miss me? Were you worried?" Eric teased
"I'm just saying, Donna wasn't the only one you left behind." Eric was surprised by the sadness in her voice.
"Look, um…I'm done here. So if you don't have plans do you maybe want to hang out?"
"Wait, you want to hang out with me?"
"Yeah, why not? To be honest I don't really know anyone here. I don't have any friends here. It's nice to see a friend from home."
"A friend from home?"
"Yeah."
"We're friends?"
"Yeah. At least, I thought we were."
"No, no. See, um…I was friends with Donna, and you were her boyfriend. And you were friends with Michael and Steven, and I was their girlfriend. We tolerated each other. That doesn't make us friends."
"Oh. Okay. If you don't want to hang out that's cool. I just thought…"
Jackie suddenly felt like he worst person in the world. He was clearly hurt by her words. She didn't understand why. She honestly thought Eric only put up with her because she dated his friends. She didn't think that they would ever hang out if he wasn't with Donna. But he wasn't with Donna now, and he was asking her to keep him company.
"Wait, let me call my friends and tell them where I'll be so they don't worry. We can hang out, if you want."
Eric brought the phone out from underneath the bar, and waited while Jackie made her call. He tried not to listen to her conversation, but he couldn't help himself. It wasn't hard to figure out what the other person on the line was saying.
"No, it's not a guy. It's Eric…Well, it is a guy but it's not like that. He used to be my friend Donna's boyfriend… I told you, it's not like that. Whatever. BYE!" Jackie slammed the phone down in mock anger. She turned around and noticed Eric watching her with amusement. "My idiot friends think we're going to do it tonight."
"Well, you wouldn't want to disappoint them."
Jackie punched him on the shoulder playfully, telling him to "Shut up."
"Ow. Okay. You ready?"
"Well, that depends, where are we going?"
"I thought we'd go back to my apartment and watch TV, or talk." Jackie didn't try very hard to hide the fact that the plan sounded boring. "Jackie, It's too cold outside to do anything else. Besides, before I left Hyde gave me a small stash, and I don't like to do it alone so I haven't touched it."
She still wasn't very impressed but it sounded better than going back to the hotel and watching her friends make out.
After locking up the bar, Eric and Jackie got in Eric's car and made the short trip back to Eric's apartment. Jackie spent a few minutes catching Eric up on everything that happened with their friends in between the time he left town and she moved to Chicago. After that they tried to find something on TV, finding nothing interesting they decided to make use of Hyde's going away present. Without Hyde, Kelso, and Fez their antics were decidedly tamer than usual. Eric entertained Jackie with stories of drunken morons at the bar, and she made fun of her coworkers at the TV station. Just as those topics began to lose steam Jackie began giggling uncontrollably. Eric was confused, he had no idea what she was laughing about, but he began laughing with her anyway.
"I just thought of something." She finally explained.
"What?"
"I've kissed all of our friends, except you."
"Except me and Donna, you mean, right?"
"No. Just you."
"Wait, what?"
"It was during a slumber party. We were bored. It was no big deal."
"I disagree, girls kissing is a very big deal."
"Ugh. Shut up, perv."
"Was there tongue?"
"Just forget it."
"No, Jackie, you can't just tell me you kissed a girl, specifically my ex-girlfriend, and then tell me to forget it. I need details. What kind of kiss was it?"
Jackie rolled her eyes before moving in closer to Eric and putting her arms around his neck. Before he realized what was happening she began kissing him, at first hesitantly and them more aggressively. Just when Eric's brain kicked in and he began returning her kisses she pulled away.
"I gotta go, my friends will be worried." She quickly moved towards the door.
"Wait, you're leaving? Just like that?"
Jackie walked back over to him and kissed him again. "Yeah, just like that." She left before he had a chance to say anything else, giggling a barely intelligible goodbye as she closed the door.
"What the hell was that?"
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A/N #2: To all the Jackie/Hyde and Eric/Donna lovers, I'm sorry but there are way too many stories with those pairings and I wanted to do something a little different. I'm not really sure how I feel about this chapter. It got easier to write as I went along, but at the beginning I definitely felt the effects of having not written anything in a long time.
Love it? Hate it? Let me know.