Righting All Wrongs
Prologue: "...Only Changed"
Author's Note: This is a test, if no one reads or if no one likes, this story will die and fade away. But if you like it, or think you might not hate it passionately, let me know and I'll keep going. And if you read my other stories, Melting, For the Sake of the Innocent, and Encounter will all be updated this weekend. Let me know what you think, I beg of you.
Disclaimer: The characters and context of That 70's Show obviously do not belong to me. I'd be much less bitter all the time if they did.
Matter cannot be created, nor destroyed...only changed. But in taking a good long look around the waiting room of Point Place's Hospital and one might find that "destroyed" seemed exactly what described it. Six people not yet grown, but far passed young, looked beaten and worn --crumpled bodies slouched silently in uncomfortable chairs.
Eric Forman sat in the middle. His eyes framed by the dark blue bags of exhaustion, his lips dry and cracked. His thin, pale fingers were wound up in the hands of Donna Pinciotti to his left. She held on with all the strength she could muster, an attempt to comfort since her own grief prevented her from speaking. To her left, Jackie Burkhardt sat, head resting on Donna's shoulder, arm wrapped desperately around her friend, the tracks of her tears still shining on her cheeks.
On Eric's right sat Steven Hyde, face set stern and tight, noticably holding in sobs, shoulders shaking from the tension, shades in place to veil the watery eyes. Beside him, Michael Kelso, biting down on his lip, eyes welling up full, arms folded stiffly, held to his chest.
And Fez was inconsolable.
Laurie Forman had been, at her worst, the butt of their jokes and the sluttly wick for their hottest burns; but at her best, well, she'd almost been one of them. And after a year where they had all been slipping farther and farther away from each other, they now sat packed close together, shoulder to shoulder, clinging with all their might, all because she was lying in a hospital bed, weakening with each breath, and had said outloud what they'd all forgotten:
"I might have been the "favorite", little brother, but your family was twice as big as mine. You're lucky, Eric. You're all lucky."