Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Author's Note: I haven't written anything in this fandom in a really, really, really long time, but in the process of cleaning out my hard drive in preparation for transferring files to a new computer, I came across this and thought it deserved a better fate than languishing amidst a bunch of unfinished fics. It's not exactly an original idea but it is a slightly different take on one of my favorite kinds of stories so I hope others will enjoy it as well.
I should also let you know that I probably saw about two minutes total of the final season and this was mostly written during Season 7 (though it's been edited since), so it's possible that I may have gotten some small details concerning Season 8 events wrong. I apologize in advance, but I promise that they won't affect the heart of the story. Besides, I like to pretend Season 8 never happened so... :P
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October 1980
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"So you're really going through with it, huh?"
He corners her in the Formans' empty kitchen, where she's gone for a little time alone. He's wearing his sunglasses and a threadbare concert t-shirt, protectively clutching a beer, and she thinks that if this is her last memory of him, it'll fit in pretty well with all the others.
For weeks now, ever since she made her decision, she's wondered if she'd have a moment like this with him, if he'd take the time to say good bye personally, privately. She knew that he'd show up at the party that Mrs. Forman insisted on throwing, because any occasion where beer and chips are passed around freely suits him just fine, but they've barely spoken three sentences to each other all year, none of which have been particularly civil.
It feels like a lifetime since he broke her heart but she still doesn't know how to act around him.
"Yeah, well, let's face it," she says, relying on her old standby, arrogance, to get her through. "I was always too pretty for such a small town. Think of all the poor girls who'll catch a break now that I won't be around for comparison."
He leans back against the refrigerator, entirely unimpressed. That's the problem with him – he's always seen right through her.
"Yeah but L.A.? Why not pick some place cool, like New York?"
When she thinks about it now, Los Angeles is probably the epitome of everything that he despises, with all its plastic, superficial prettiness and shiny, mass-marketed conformity.
"My mother's out there now," she tells him. "And her current sugar daddy works in TV so he's pulled some strings to get me a production assistant job for some news magazine show. It's not my dream job, because you know, it's all behind the scenes and this is a face that was meant to be seen, but it's a start…"
He bobs his head, in that slow, easy way of his, but doesn't seem inclined to say anything. He's comfortable with silence, with long, weighty looks and simmering tension. There's something about him that's always made her a little nervous, thrown her a little off kilter. She nervously smoothes her hands against her skirt, trying not to show it.
"Besides, you know, it's just time to move on," she babbles stupidly. "I've pretty much run out of options around here. Michael, you, Fez… who's left?" She keeps her tone light, hoping he'll take the high road and not turn this into something ugly. "God, even if Donna wasn't my best friend, there's no way I'd let Eric Forman touch me. I've still got some standards, you know."
He laughs, and she can tell it's the genuine kind, deep and rumbly and full of nothing but amusement.
"Good," he says. "Good for you. Every chick should draw the line at Forman. If only we could have gotten to Donna sooner. We might have been able to save her."
She smiles, nodding absently. It must be the fact that she's leaving tomorrow that makes friendly conversation like this possible. If she were staying in Wisconsin, she doubts that they'd be speaking right now, that they'd be standing in a room alone together at all. He lifts his head then, and she can feel his eyes on her, even if she can't see them through the amber tint of his glasses. He cocks his head, a muscle in his jaw twitching faintly, and she's suddenly on alert because she knows that he's always thoughtful and hesitant like this when he's about to say something important, something that needs to be said.
"You know, I pretty much always knew the thing with us was going to end someday," he says, in a voice that is rough and gentle all at the same time. "Because let's face it – all the things that you want, the life that you're dying to have, I don't give a damn about any of that. It's just not who I am. But I didn't like the way things went down between us. I wish it'd been different."
She blinks, her heart beating so hard that she swears she can hear it roaring in her ears. This is the closest that she's going to get to an apology from him, and she tells herself not to cry, not to make this something more than it really is.
"Water under the bridge," she says brightly, full of false cheer. "Bygones and all that crap."
He shakes his head.
"Seriously, Jackie. It sucked. I know that."
She takes a deep breath, hating the way it trembles out of her when she exhales.
"We're just a couple of dumb kids, Steven," she says, and it takes all the strength she has to keep her voice from shaking. "And think about where we both came from – we didn't exactly have the best role models for functional relationships. Sometimes I think it's a miracle we lasted as long as we did."
He nods slowly, thoughtfully, like he's really taking her words to heart. She watches as he pulls off his glasses then, tucks them inside the neck of his shirt. His eyes are glassy, but as blue as ever. She wonders how much he's had to drink.
"We had some good times, though," he says. "I still remember them."
She bobs her head, and now there's no way to stop the tears, stinging at the corners of her eye.
"Me too. I always will."
The corner of his mouth lifts just a bit and she wonders what he's thinking. He's always been so damn inscrutable, so mysterious and distant. It's never been easy to get inside his head, his heart. But then he's reaching out to cup her cheek, his callused fingers skipping along her skin, and suddenly his intentions are as easy to read as a paperback novel. She doesn't stop him when he leans in to kiss her, as softly and chastely as he ever has. She wants to say that that old spark is gone, that the electricity that always burned white hot between them has fizzled out, but she feels it everywhere that his body touches hers. She lifts her arms to wrap around his neck and he must take that as a sign of encouragement because then he's pressing her back against the cool refrigerator, kissing her hard and desperate like all those humid afternoons in the basement a million summers ago when they were always so sure that someone might burst in at any moment. Her mouth opens under his, almost of its own accord, and the taste of him is like a drug, going straight to her head and leaving her weak as a kitten. His hands grip at her hips, tugging her flush against him, and the feel of his warm, firm body, hard in all the right places, against her snaps her back to reality.
They've been down this road too many times. It never leads anywhere good.
She presses a hand to his chest, pushing him back.
"Steven, wait," she whispers breathlessly. "What are you doing?"
He stares at her, wild-eyed, almost dazed.
"Saying goodbye," he tells her. "I wanna say goodbye."
She sighs, her chest aching. They've never had that, she thinks. They've never had a real, honest goodbye. Maybe that's why there's still a part of her that can't seem to forget the way he made her feel, what it meant to be loved by him.
She nods finally, feeling utterly lost.
He kisses her again, but now he's also maneuvering them toward the basement door, never taking his mouth from hers. Somehow they stumble down the stairs like that, tearing at one another's clothes, breathing into one another's mouths. Later, when she's beneath him on the cot in the backroom, the same place where she first took him inside her years ago, she wonders if all goodbyes feel like this, like you've been ripped to pieces and made whole all at the same time.
On the plane the next afternoon, she thinks that she can still smell him on her skin, like somehow he's marked her for good.