Disclaimer: That '70s Show and it's characters aren't mine.

This fic is written in Hiberno-English, so there are extra Us everywhere, and probably grammar that doesn't seem right to some people.

A/N: This story is set in Season 8. So spoilers for Season 8 then. Sam is still living in the basement with Hyde, Kelso has gone to Chicago, but Eric has just returned home from Africa, having, for now, spent a full year there. It's early in the summer of 1979, and the Donna/Randy thing still happened.

Jackie sat up in bed slowly. She put her hand to her thumping head. Her eyes felt heavy as they slowly adjusted to the bright grey light of the morning. The curtains were open. Maybe she had forgotten to close them the night before. "Oh good, you're awake,"

Jackie jumped at the sound of another person's voice in her room. She looked to her left and saw Eric sitting by her dressing table, looking exhausted, but with a small smile nonetheless. "Ew! Eric, you perv, what are you doing here?" She pulled her bedcovers closer to her, but then she realised it was pointless as she was wearing the clothes she'd had on the night before.

"Hey," Eric held up his hands defensively. "calm down. I was on drunk-Jackie watch." Jackie just looked at him blankly. "Well, you're just so tiny, no-one's really sure how well you can hold your stuff,"

"Okay, okay, whatever. Ugh," She scrunched up her nose, holding a few strands of hair up to her nostrils. "my hair smells so smoky. That bar probably wasn't the best idea. I'm gonna take a shower." She walked carefully towards her bedroom door, she wasn't very steady that morning. "And get out of my room!"

"Sure," Eric sighed, heading off into the living room.

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Jackie emerged from the bathroom after what felt like a few minutes, in a fluffy white bathrobe, with her wet hair sitting on her shoulders. The living room had a dim glow to it; the blinds had been pulled down so that the sunlight wasn't too hard on her eyes. Eric looked up when she came in. He was sitting on the sofa. "There you are," He smiled. "I thought you were trying to flood the apartment again or something," His smile fell slightly when his attempt at a joke fell flat.

Jackie rolled her eyes. "I wasn't gone that long," She sat at the other end of the sofa.

"An hour, actually. Here," Eric picked up a mug from the coffee table handed it to her. "Have some coffee. I thought you'd only be a few minutes, so I made you some earlier, but it started to go cold so I drank it, 'cause my mom's always going on about that 'waste not, want not' crap. So then I made some more, but then that got cold, and, well, I guess you can see the pattern forming here. And now," He got up and crossed to the bathroom door. "if you'll excuse me, I really have to pee." he said over his shoulder as he shut the door behind him.

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"Why are you being so nice to me?" Jackie asked, narrowing her eyes over her third cup of coffee. She was starting to feel slightly human again. Her hair had dried and she hadn't set it, but she didn't care.

There was silence for a moment, then "..well, you've had such a.. tough time lately," Eric avoided her gaze.

"A 'tough time'? What're you talking about?" She put her cup down and looked straight at him. Eric was in Africa for months, what did he know?

He hesitated, looking down at the ground. "Uh.. well, you showed up at the Hub last night, and at first you were okay. Well, okay as in, you were drunk. You were sitting at the table in the corner, watching me and Hyde play Pinball. Hyde told me about what you've been doing lately. He said it's been the same almost every night for a while now, you show up drunk and fight with him. You came over to us, and you started shouting at Hyde. He shouted back, and you started crying. He said some.. crappy stuff to you. It didn't sound like him at all. At least, not the Hyde I left when I went to Africa. But he was just kinda.. "whatever,". So I took you home." Eric sighed, and looked Jackie in the eye, sadly. "What's going on with you, Jackie?"

"Nothing," Jackie walked slowly to the sink and started washing her cup. She faced the closed blinds so that Eric couldn't see her face. "It's not like I've never drank before," She cast her eyes heavenward, as they brimmed with tears. She was starting to remember some of what Hyde said to her the night before.

"Jackie.. just.. try not to make a habit out of getting so wasted that often, okay?"

"I'll do what I like, thank you very much," Jackie scoffed at the window, angrily blinking away her tears. "What, are you afraid I'll show up and embarrass you guys again or something? Or make a scene by being too loud? I actually felt better last night. And though I'd love to be able to tell you that it was your thrilling company, it was, in fact, the being drunk part." She turned around and glared at Eric, who got up from the sofa and walked towards her.

"Look, I didn't say that for Hyde, or me, or anyone else. I said it for you. You need to be careful, Jackie. Drinking won't solve your problems every night. You could hurt yourself, and not just emotionally. You've really been embarrassing yourself. I'll take your attitude as a signal that you don't need me anymore, so I'm going. No need to thank me, by the way." He muttered sarcastically, striding angrily to the door. "It's only every second day that I stay up the entire night making sure my drunk friends don't fall out of bed and crack their heads open on their beside tables,"

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