AN: What am I doing? I asked myself as I started writing to satisfy the plot bunny that had stalked me for months. No, seriously, what are you doing? I questioned as I completed the first half of chapter one. What? Are? You? Doing?! I wanted to know as I sat here, uploading a completed first chapter to a site I hadn't written anything on since two years previous, where many of my old fics sat either unfinished or deleted.
But, alas, the story is here, and so I shall publish it. Some of you might remember the last time I attempted my hand at a fic for this fandom - a little thing called Picnic Gone Wrong, a horrible, really terrible story where I swear the majority of characters were OOC, but it for some reason had fans, so I thank you for that.
However, I absolutely hated the way I had written it, so it, like several of my GH fics, went into the trash.
You all know how terrible an updater I am. I can only hope I'll be better at updating this fic than I have my previous ones.
Especially to you poor souls who are still waiting for an update on Unbreakable. And you'll probably still be waiting awhile (that is, if I ever finish it. I had a change of heart about Sam and I don't like what I did with her character. Such a shame, because I really got into writing that one.)
So I'm blaming Nina and Prissy, just because their fics are so damn good and make you itch to write your own. Oh, and Cassababe, because she's the one who said sometime back in January or so that I should write a JH fic. And I, for some reason, listened to her. (Writing a JH fic is really intimidating. It's so easy to write Steven Hyde super OOC, and no one wants to do that. Leave that to the shit writers of season eight.)
Anyway. On to the show.
Hope you enjoy!
X April Dawn
XOXO
Chaos. The place was utter chaos. Nobody was following orders; he'd had to yell "Cut!" more times than he was happy with - and not the good kind of "Cut," where you could leave satisfied you'd just shot something worthy of a Golden Globe. He'd been so frustrated, he spilled soup on his brand-new blazer at lunch and now he really needed a damn drink.
Or coffee. Coffee would suffice. Where the hell was that intern with his damn coffee?
"Jacqueline! Has anyone seen Jacqueline?" the balding man hollered.
"Here! I'm here!" replied a petite brunette as she ran to give the older man his coffee of choice.
"Thanks, dear. You're a doll," Alan Pultz told the production assistant with a grateful look and a large swig of the caffeinated beverage, before returning to the cast that better start following his orders soon, or there would be hell to pay.
"Jackie!"
A whirl hurled itself at her, nearly knocking Jackie Burkhart to the ground as she was pulled into an almost bone-crushing hug.
"Michael!" came an exasperated voice from the other side of the building.
Jackie peeked over Michael Kelso's shoulder and smiled as she saw Michael's pregnant and very tired-looking wife, holding Jackie's sleeping goddaughter.
"Michael," Jackie laughed, trying to squirm out of her ex's strong grip.
"Woah," Kelso said, his jaw dropping. "Who's that? She's hot!"
"Hello to you, too," Jackie said.
"Michael!"
"Don't worry, babe. You're hotter, of course, but you've got to admit, she's pretty hot."
Brooke Kelso looked at the woman in question and sighed. "Yeah, she is."
"Isn't this woman fantastic?" Kelso grinned, looking at Jackie as he wrapped an arm proudly around his wife.
"She is. And you're still a pig," Jackie laughed.
"Hey!"
"Thanks, Jackie," Brooke smiled.
"But seriously! Who is she?"
"That's Demi Moore," Jackie replied. "And I can tell you right now she won't be interested in you."
"Hey, I'm a one-woman man now. But if God hadn't wanted me to look at other women, he wouldn't have made them so hot. And damn! Is she hot."
"I'm not going to introduce you."
"Aw, come on, Jackie, please?" he pouted.
"You know that's not going to work, Michael. I like invented the puppy dog pout. It only works when I do it."
"She's right," Brooke told her husband with an apologetic grin. "Jackie's the master."
"Hey!"
"Why thank you, Brooke," Jackie grinned at the older girl. "Now come here!" she demanded, pulling her in for a hug. "I haven't seen you in ages! Why don't you come visit me more?" she pouted.
"Hey, don't give me that. You could've come to Chicago over spring break, but you hung out in San Diego with your college friends instead."
"It was cheap! And close! We can't all fly through college, graduate earlier than planned, and have a job at The Newberry waiting for us."
"She really is something," Kelso said, looking at his wife with the usual awed expression he wore when he was around her. Michael Kelso might be the most vain person Jackie had ever met - which was saying something, she knew, as her younger self had been just as vain - but it was clear even he had the decency to be amazed why someone as brilliant as Brooke Rockwell would choose to live the rest of her life with him.
"Oh. my. god!" Brooke exclaimed. "Rick Springfield!"
Sure enough, the creator of her current favourite song was standing just a few feet away, draped in a pristine lab coat and talking to an older woman dressed in a nurse's costume.
"Oh yeah," Jackie giggled. "Did I forget to mention Rick was filming today?"
"Uh, yeah!" Brooke glared, patting her hair down and smoothing out her dress as she kept an eye on the Australian heartthrob.
Jackie knew she had been listening to Calling All Girls non-stop for weeks, mostly because a frustrated Michael had complained to Eric, and Eric - who really couldn't keep a secret to save his life - had told Donna, and then Donna had told Jackie.
"Right here. I'm right here," Kelso told his wife, clearly annoyed.
Brooke looked at him. "And the really hot Demi Moore is over there, so," she said, pointing to where the young girl sat in a diner chair, drinking from what was almost certainly an empty mug.
"Aw, come on," he replied, looking like a kid who had just been caught trying to secretly give his teacher the bird.
"Hey, if God didn't want me to look at Rick Springfield, he wouldn't have made him so hot."
"BURN!" Jackie said.
Kelso frowned, then grinned. "Yeah, that's a really good burn."
"Maybe one of these days, Brooke will be the Burn Master," Jackie told him.
"I'm the Burn Master. Brooke can be the Burn Queen."
"Works for me. Historically, a queen is better than both a master and a king," Brooke said.
"Girl power!" Jackie said.
"No fair. I'm surrounded by chicks," Kelso whined.
"And Miss Moore is over there talking to Tristan Rogers, so you don't stand a chance with her, anyway."
"I'm just looking! God, Jackie!"
"Jacqueline! Jacqueline, darling, can you copy these scripts for me?" an older woman with a curly pixie cut and domineering presence said as she came up to them with a stack of papers and a voice straight out of a classic Hollywood film. "Then you may go."
"Yes, of course, Ms. Monty."
"Fantastic! Thank you, darling!" Gloria Monty's gaze traveled over the three and onto the set where Demi Moore was sitting with Tristan Rogers. "Geary! Get back on set!"
The actor in question turned and, with a sigh, rejoined his co-stars.
"This won't take long," Jackie told her friends as she rifled through the scripts. "I'll be right back. Can you wait for me outside?"
"Of course," Brooke said as she watched the brunette hurry away on her Yves Saint Laurent multicolor wedgies.
"Come on, Michael," she told her husband, shifting a now wide-awake Betsy in her arms.
"Coming, babe," Kelso said, draping an arm around her and their daughter as they turned to leave the set.
"And cut! Fabulous! Five-minute break, and then get back to work," Alan Pultz told the cast behind them.
There was a flurry of activity as various actors, actresses and crew members headed over to the refreshments table.
"Who are you?" asked the woman who the Kelsos now knew as Demi Moore.
"Michael Kelso," he said with a proud, narcissistic grin. "I know I'm beautiful, but I'm kind of taken at the moment."
"At the moment?" Brooke hissed.
"That's nice," Demi told him with a flippant gaze and a toss of her hair. "You're in my way," she pointed.
"Oh. Sorry," Kelso blushed as Brooke laughed.
"Hey!"
"That's what you get for telling her you were taken at the moment."
"Aw, come on Brooke, I was just kidding."
"Wow. Who's the babe?" asked Rick Springfield, as he came up to them and looked Brooke over with an appreciative grin.
"That's my wife," Kelso glared at the rockstar.
"Brooke Kelso. I'm kind of taken at the moment," Brooke introduced herself, managing to hide her glee at meeting the singer. Kelso supposed the numerous artists Hyde had introduced them to had given her a calm exterior when it came to meeting one of her favorites.
"Rick Springfield," he said, taking her hand and planting a kiss on her smooth skin.
"I know," Brooke smiled.
"Well, lovely Brooke Kelso, if you ever decide to ditch the bogan with the Farrah hair, here's my number," Rick said, handing her his card.
"Farrah hair? Excuse me! If I look like any of the Charlie's Angels, it's Jaclyn Smith! And I definitely don't look like a bogey."
"Bogan. Whatever you say, Farrah," Rick said as he winked at Brooke and walked away to speak with Jackie Zeman.
"Taken at the moment?" Kelso glared at his wife.
"Hey, if you don't want me to repeat it, don't say it in the first place."
"Man, being a one-woman man is so hard," Kelso said.
"But you wouldn't trade it for the world," Brooke said, knowingly.
"Not for the world," he conceded, giving her a kiss over their daughter.
"You two really need to get a room," Jackie said as she returned from giving the script copies to Gloria Monty.
"Well maybe if you would hurry up, we could get back to the hotel and get a room," Kelso told her.
"Pig!" Jackie said.
"I like to think of myself more as a man who just really enjoys his wife."
"That's obvious," Jackie said, nodding to the little girl in Brooke's arms and the protruding stomach under Betsy.
"Godmommy!" the little girl said, extending her arms towards Jackie.
"Hello, my darling!" Jackie told her favorite little person. "How is my beautiful Betsy?"
"Good! We went on a plane that took us allll the way from Cago to Godmommy!" the three-year-old girl said as she threw her arms out in the air to indicate the exact distance from "Cago" to Los Angeles.
"Did you really? Wow! That's amazing!" Jackie said as the three adults and Betsy left the set and headed toward the parking lot. She managed to sneak out one arm under Betsy to wave goodbye to Lola, the early thirtysomething receptionist who smiled and waved back as she smacked her gum and told the person on the other end of the line to "spill all."
"Yeah!" Betsy said, nodding her head vigorously. "And I got a bag of apple slices and evewything!"
"She's excited about apple slices," Kelso muttered, shaking his head in mock disapproval. "She's definitely your daughter, Brooke."
"And our youngest is very fond of sugary snacks," Brooke told Jackie as she reached out one hand to rub her daughter's back. "We swear he's part Fez."
"It's genetic transmission! Fez touched her that one time, and he gave the kid, like, pomosis."
"You mean osmosis," Brooke laughed.
"Yeah. That. Osmosis. Like my brilliant, sexy and super hot wife said, Fez gave our kid osmosis."
"I don't think that's possible," Jackie said with a giggle.
"It's possible, man. That kid's going to dress up as Batman in high school and demand candy from strangers."
"Michael, you dressed up as Batman and demanded candy from strangers last week."
"It was Betsy's half-birthday, Brooke! You always celebrate your kid's half-birthday!"
"Dressed as Batman?"
Kelso frowned. "You swore you wouldn't tell anybody."
"And I didn't! Jackie isn't just anybody."
"That's right! I'm not just anybody! Should I tell Brooke about the time I put makeup and a dress on you and we danced in my bedroom before Daddy caught us and strangled you?"
"You already told her," Kelso reminded his ex. "The night I asked her to marry me and you wanted to make sure she knew what she was getting into if she said yes."
"Oh yeah," Jackie giggled. "And she did say yes, for some reason none of us will never understand. So you better not screw it up."
"Hey!"
"He won't. Michael quit his job at the Playboy Mansion."
"What?" Jackie gasped. "No way! You were so happy there!"
"Eh. The girls kept coming onto me and it was annoying Brooke."
"More like the girls were annoyed you kept asking them to do a threesome with us and you quit before Hugh fired you."
"Damn, Brooke, why don't you tell Jackie about the time I broke Betsy's crib, too!" Kelso said, only somewhat irritated at his wife's inability to keep a secret.
"She already knows."
"Okay, this whole wife-and-ex-being-besties thing is really killing my mojo."
"But you secretly love it because otherwise you wouldn't have a reason to visit California twice a year," Jackie said, balancing Betsy on her hip as she felt around in her pocket for her keys with her free hand.
"Ah. Yeah. Good point," Kelso conceded. "Here, let me take her," he said, picking his daughter up out of Jackie's arms.
"Daddy!" Betsy called, snuggling into her father's protective embrace as she cuddled with Jackie's old unicorn.
She had given her old friend to the girl on Betsy's second birthday, and the two had been inseparable ever since.
"Anyway, he's back at the police academy," Brooke said, wrapping an arm around her husband and daughter.
"Yeah," Kelso nodded. "And I won't be the stooge this time. Or burn down the academy. Or lie about my grades."
"I'm surprised you even got back into a police academy," Jackie said.
"I know!" Kelso said with a mischievous and secretive grin.
"He begged and pleaded until they felt sorry for him."
"Dammit, Brooke!"
"Aha!" Jackie said, producing her keyring with the pink fuzzy dice. "Let's go. LA traffic is a bi -" she looked at Betsy - "...bitter nightmare. How did you guys get here, anyway?"
"Took a bus," Kelso said.
"You took the bus from LAX to Studio City with a pregnant woman and a three-year-old girl?"
"Uh...actually, we took a bus from San Diego International to Studio City," Kelso confessed.
"Michael!" Jackie said, smacking his shoulder.
"Ow! Hey! It was cheaper!"
"Mommy! Godmommy hit Daddy! But you said I can't hit Daddy!"
"You can't hit Daddy, sweetheart," Brooke said.
"But Godmommy hit Daddy! Why can't I hit Daddy?"
"If you hit Daddy, Daddy will never play tea party with you again," Kelso said, looking at his daughter.
Betsy considered this for a good few minutes more than Kelso was comfortable with, then nodded. "Okay. I won't hit Daddy."
"And Godmommy won't hit your daddy again either, sweetie," Jackie told the little girl, although all three adults knew she was lying.
"Okay, good," Betsy said, tucking her head back under her father's chin.
"What about that flight I checked into for you? I know that was cheaper to LAX than a ticket would be to San Diego."
"Uh, that," Kelso said, sheepishly. "I kind of...forgot to book it."
"Michael!"
"No hitting! You promised Betsy!" Kelso said as he made a dash for Jackie's backseat.
Jackie shook her head and helped Brooke into the passenger side before taking her place at the wheel.
"You know, I really don't need help -" Brooke started.
"I only see you guys a couple times a year. Let me have this," Jackie said.
Brooke sighed. "Okay, you win."
"I always do," Jackie grinned, checking her rear-view mirror before pulling out of the parking lot into the line of cars that would hopefully move at a quicker pace than the six hour wait of last weekend.
Well, except at one thing.
XOXO
It was times like these he wished he still got high.
How hard was it for a band to come in, record an album, get through every song and leave after a productive day without the lead singer walking out in the middle of the recording?
Tiny Grasshopper's lead singer really needed to get his act together soon, or Steven Barnett would have to give him the pink slip.
But, knowing firsthand the kind of consequences that Gil would have to face if his attitude didn't shape up, Steven was tempted to wait a little longer to make the call.
Bud Hyde had been a failure, a mess of a man who let his life go to hell, left his kid and his woman and drank what little finances he had away. Steven Hyde hadn't been much better, always partying, always getting high, marrying a woman he barely knew after a one-night stand, disappointing everyone in his life. And the only reason he wasn't in the slammer was because of the family who took him in when he was a 16-year-old kid pretending he could survive on his own.
But Steven Barnett, Steven Barnett was the founder and CEO of Fighting the Man Records, the co-manager of Grooves, the pride and joy of the Barnett clan, and a happily married man with three kids -
He laughed. Okay, so maybe he wasn't a father. Truth be told, he wasn't even married. He wasn't much into the dating scene these days - never had been if he was honest. A casual fling here, a roll in the sack there. There were a few months in '81 when he thought he could have something more, but then she cheated and he took her back. He had cheated and been taken back before, it was only right.
When she cheated on him again only a couple months later, that was it. A second chance was fine - he'd been given plenty over the years - but he didn't do third chances (except where Gil was concerned. Lucky bastard was on his fourth.)
So Jules was out of his life, and he was back to considering a life of perpetual bachelorhood.
"You're only 22," his older sister had reminded him when he mentioned it at their last family dinner.
"So? Bachelorhood looks good on me," he shrugged. "No ball and chain. Total freedom, man."
"I bet you'd have a completely different view if the ball in chain was one Jackie Burkhart."
He glared. "Ang, are you still on about that, man? Ancient history."
"Mhm. If it was ancient history, you wouldn't have given me that look."
"You're evil."
"All the best big sisters are," she told him with a smirk.
Having a sister was something he still wasn't used to. He'd gotten a taste of it with Laurie Forman, but, well, as Eric was so fond of saying, she was the devil and therefore, not the best example of a loving older sister.
Oh, Angela Barnett was also the devil, but she was a much more mellow version. Angie was the devil if the devil sat around in the Circle eating candy stolen from Fez. Laurie, though, she was the Devil that haunted your nightmares and made you cuddle with those stupid stuffed animals Jackie used to have all over her room.
Dammit. Why the hell was he thinking about her?
He hadn't seen the tiny brunette since she'd left for Madison with Eric and Donna on Valentine's two years ago. He'd only heard bits and pieces about her life since then, whatever he managed to overhear from his friends before he walked into the room and they hastily changed the subject, every damn time.
He knew she had been in the communications program at Madison for the first year, then transferred to school somewhere in California, he was pretty sure. UCLA, maybe. Or was it Berkeley? She seemed to be doing well in her classes, and had apparently gotten an internship in TV or something. He wasn't quite sure; Kelso had barely gotten it out before he walked into the room.
Oh, she'd been there for the Kelso wedding last spring, of course, but his attention had been on Jules and she'd headed back to - Santa Barbara? - almost immediately following after apologizing to a dismayed Mrs. Forman. Donna had said she had needed to get back to classes; he was pretty sure there was more to it than that.
He heard a knock on the door and called out in relief, glad to have a distraction from thinking about the woman he had lost years ago.
"Mr. Barnett?" said a kid of no more than 16 with more acne than any kid should ever have to deal with.
"Mr. Barnett is my father. Call me Hyde," he responded. He had become Steven Barnett in the business world, but even though he had considered legally changing his name, he knew he needed to keep it as a reminder of who he used to be.
So he had stayed Steven Hyde outside work, and the name reminded him of the kid he'd been who had lost two really shitty parents, but gained a brother, a devil of a sister, the kind of mother most kids only dreamed of, and two fathers - one who was cool and rocked hard; the other, serving the tough love no kid wants but every kid needs.
"I don't think so. Mr. Barnett is his grandfather," said William Barnett, entering his office behind the kid. "Don't you dare call me Mr. Barnett."
"Yes, sir. Mr. Barnett, sir. I mean - um."
"Just call me Mr. Steven Hyde's Very Young Father," WB said, looking at his son out of the corner of his eye.
Hyde stifled a laugh, glancing at the poor kid. "What was it you wanted?"
"Well, I was going to tell you that Mr. Barn - Mr. Steven Hyde's Very Young Father is here, but you already know that, so...yeah, I'll go now."
"Thanks for the warning," Hyde said as the kid left.
"So, this is your office," WB said, looking around with an awed expression.
"You say that like you weren't just here two weeks ago."
"What can I say? I'm still surprised that you even have an office. Willingly."
Hyde shrugged. "It's not so bad. But then, we are Fighting the Man."
WB smirked. "Man, that is still the coolest name for a brand I've ever heard. And my son came up with it."
"Well, Ang helped. A little."
"Telling you that showing up late to open Grooves did not mean you were fighting the man hardly qualifies as helping you think of the name for your record label."
"Maybe not, but I wouldn't have had the idea if she hadn't said it."
"My son, following in his old man's footsteps and founding a record label. Now you have the label, and I have the record stores. The Barnetts are infiltrating the music industry, one by one."
"Next stop: show biz," Hyde joked.
"Well, that Fez kid is on Broadway."
"He's not on Broadway, WB. He works on Broadway."
"Whatever he does, it's still weird."
"Yeah, it is," Hyde agreed.
His little foreign friend had shampooed a client in the hair salon back home who turned out to be some big Broadway star. She'd been so impressed, she demanded her bosses hire him as a hairstylist, and next thing everyone knew, Fez was moving to New York City to style the hair of some really hot chicks.
And in-between shows, he worked as a tour guide at a candy factory.
Man, Fez really was living his dream.
"You ready to go?" WB asked, glancing out the window at the dark clouds rolling in. "Looks like rain."
"Forecast says it might hail," Hyde responded, pulling on his leather jacket.
"Good thing you're not driving to Wisconsin until the weekend."
"Yeah," Hyde agreed. "It's bad enough driving from St. Louis to Point Place in good weather."
"I still can't believe you left Chicago for St. Louis."
"What can I say. I missed you guys."
"Aw! Look at our little Steven getting mushy over his family," Angela Barnett said as she entered her little brother's office.
Yep. A mellow devil.
"Shut up," Hyde said. "Are we going to this thing or not?"
"Oh, we're going. Your aunt will give me a good swift kick in the shin if we don't go. And, man, can she kick."
A lot like someone else Hyde once knew.
"Well, come on, then!" Angie said as she literally pushed both her father and brother out the door and down the hallway to the elevators.
"When did my little girl get so strong?" WB asked, amazed.
"It's all those jiditsu classes," Hyde told his father.
"Jujutsu," Angie corrected. "You know, it wouldn't kill you to come to a class once or twice."
"Nah, man, I'm cool," Hyde said, pushing her hand off his back.
"Okay then. If you want to remain a weak sapling, be my guest."
"'Weak sapling?'" Hyde said, incredulous. "Who brought Grandma's new couch up three flights of stairs last week?"
"You," Angie said in a bored tone. "But you had help from Uncle Eddie."
"Hey!"
"Am I going to have to separate you two?" WB asked, grinning like he always did when his two kids fought. Most dads would yell, but WB was just happy he had two kids to fight with each other.
"He started it!" Angie said.
"Me? You're the one who called me a damn weak sapling!"
"And you can't even say Jujutsu! How hard is it? Joo-joot-soo. Jujutsu!"
"Maybe I don't want to say Jujutsu!"
Somewhere in all the bickering, they'd made it to the limo WB had rented for the occasion.
It wasn't every day your niece got married to the governor's son.
At least, that's what his older sister kept reminding him.
And somehow, some way, his son had agreed to wear a monkey suit for the big event.
But then again, Betty Lou could order around the Devil himself. His son really hadn't stood a chance.
"Hey! She just slapped me!" Hyde said, rubbing his shoulder and glaring at his sister.
"You know I hate being called Angel!" Angie seethed, slapping him again.
"Quit it!" he yelled.
"That's it! I'm sitting in the middle," WB told the fighting siblings as he took his place between them.
Angie looked over from WB's other side and stuck her tongue out at her brother.
Hyde rolled his eyes behind his glasses and lay his head back against the seat, trying not to think of the dreaded thing he'd be forced into later.
Not that he had much of a choice.
XOXO
"That's right. Six o'clock at the Kenosha Hotel on Saturday. You'll be there, right? Excellent! Thank you, Cheryl! I can't wait to see you again!" the older woman said, clapping her hands with a squeal as she placed the phone back in its spot on the wall.
"I still don't understand why we're even having this thing," the balding man sitting across from her said as he looked up from the sports section of his newspaper.
"Reginald Albert Forman! Thirty years ago, I bumped into you at the USO dance and your life was changed forever," his wife told him with a scowl.
"But, Kitty," Red Forman said, trying to make his wife understand, "celebrating the anniversary of the day you met is weird. Nobody does that. That kind of thing is for hippies and hooligans. And Eric."
"Red Forman! My babies are all scattered around the country and this party is going to bring them back under my roof. So we will celebrate the day we met, and you will enjoy it."
"Kitty. The point of retirement is to enjoy life without six mopey teenagers-turned-six mopey adults hanging around the house and stealing my beer from the fridge."
"You pretend all you want, Red Forman, but I know you miss our kids. Especially Jackie."
"I don't miss people," he grunted, but Kitty knew she had struck a nerve by mentioning the Loud One.
She was happy Jackie was exceeding in the communications program at UCLA and had gotten an internship as a production assistant at General Hospital - yes, that General Hospital, Kitty excitedly told family, friends, and strangers she met on the street - my girl is working alongside Genie Francis, Tony Geary and Stuart Damon! Oh, wasn't he such a divine prince in Cinderella? Can you believe it? My baby, working on the set of a show whose fans include Princess Diana and Sammy Davis Jr.!
But Jackie living so far away in Los Angeles didn't sit well with her. Neither did Eric and Donna living in Seattle. Or Steven living in St. Louis. Or Fez living in New York. Or Laurie living God knew where.
Only Michael and his bride lived somewhat close by in Chicago, and Kitty was more than happy to entertain them every other weekend, much to her husband's chagrin.
Children were supposed to grow up and live down the street from their parents. Or, better yet, right next-door.
Oh, these horrid eighties. What happened to a time when everyone was broke and no one could move anywhere?
Now life had scattered her children, and it took an occasion like this to lure them all back home. Even the Kelso wedding hadn't included everyone - it was Broadway's busy season and a very apologetic Fez hadn't been able to get away from work. It had taken about 16 bags of candy before Michael had forgiven him - albeit, half-eaten bags of candy.
But, now. Now, Jackie would be flying in with the Kelsos and Betsy on Friday night, Steven would drive in on Saturday, Fez's plane would arrive on Saturday afternoon, Laurie would hopefully show up at some point, and Eric and Donna…
Eric and Donna, why, they'd be back home in a matter of hours.
Kitty smiled and hummed an old song from her youth as she prepared the mixture for a batch of her famous chocolate chip cookies.
"I'll be seeing you, in all the old, familiar places," came a voice behind her, singing softly in her ear.
"Oh, Red," she sighed, a happy smile playing across her lips.
The usually gruff man continued singing softly as he took her hands and waltzed her around the kitchen.
Husband and wife were so lost in his baritone that they didn't hear the sliding door open behind them.
"Mom? Dad?"
"Eric! Donna!" Kitty squealed, quickly running over to her son and his wife.
She had at first been really upset and threatened to never speak to either of them again when they had confessed they'd eloped last fall. But, after Donna had managed to break through Kitty's rant that That redheaded harlot took my baby boy away to Seattle and then she made him elope so I couldn't even come to his wedding! and they had informed her that they had eloped to avoid getting cold feet again like their first wedding, she had understood.
Somewhat.
Well, she'd forgiven them, in any case.
"What are you doing here?" Kitty demanded, letting go of the tight hug she had both of them in. "We were supposed to pick you up from the airport this evening!"
"We took an earlier flight," Donna told her.
"And we didn't want Dad driving all the way to Kenosha," Eric finished.
"Fine with me. I was going to make you pay for gas," Red said, joining his wife and son.
"Gee, thanks, Dad," Eric said, sarcastically.
"Hey, if you're going to move all the way to Seattle and make your poor mother cry, then you're damn well going to pay for the gas when we pick you up in Kenosha."
"Missed you too, Dad."
"Don't be a pansy. Donna! How's my favorite daughter-in-law?" Red said, turning to the redhead.
"Your only daughter-in-law," Eric said.
"Until Steven gets married," Kitty said.
"Uh, Mom, hate to break it to you, but I'm pretty sure Hyde will never get married."
"Oh, psh. He will. He just hasn't found the right girl yet."
"He found the right girl. He lost her," Donna told her mother-in-law.
"Well, maybe this party can repair their broken hearts."
"Kitty, no. We are not having this damn party if you're using it to get Jackie and Steven back together."
"I'm not!" Kitty insisted. "I can't be held responsible for whatever God decides to do."
"Kitty."
"But if they happen to run into each other, and chat for a bit…"
"Kitty!"
"I'm not doing anything!"
Eric laughed and kissed his mother's cheek. "It's good to be home."
"Then maybe you should come home more often!" his mother said with a glare.
Eric sighed. "Mom, you know how expensive it is."
"I do. Which is why you shouldn't have moved to Seattle in the first place."
"Mom!"
"Donna! Let me look at you," Kitty said, taking the girl's hands and ignoring her son. "You look fantastic!"
"Thank you," Donna smiled, looking at Eric.
"She really does," he said, grinning at his wife.
"Any morning sickness?" Kitty asked.
"Not since the first trimester. Now it's just Eric getting sick."
"About that. Mom, did you have to send us that labor video? It's disgusting!"
"Eric Forman! Childbirth is not disgusting! It's the beautiful miracle of life!"
"Well, nobody needs to record it. Ever."
Donna laughed and kissed her husband.
"Not in my kitchen!" Red said.
"It's really great to be home," Eric said, snagging a freshly baked chocolate chip muffin from the array of home cooking Kitty had on the table.
"And it's really great to have you home," Kitty said.
And it would be really, really great when her other six kids were home.
Soon. Only a few more days, and then she'd have them back under her roof.
And then she might release them back to their respective cities.
Might.
