A/N: Okay so I started this story to try and get over the writer's block I was stuck with in my other story. Long story short, it hasn't helped but I now have 8 chapters of this one ready and waiting. I've decided to post now and see if there's any interest so leave a review and let me know whether to continue. Maybe if I stop this I'll get back to writing the final two chapters of my last story...you just never know!
Backstory: I know, I know - Jackie pregnant - how very unoriginal. But...in this story she finds out she's pregnant after her and Hyde's season 5 summer fling. Everything that happened previous to that is the same, but in this story Jackie and Hyde decide to go their separate ways when Kelso and Donna return therefore no one finds out about their hook up - until they have to tell everyone she's pregnant that is.
Jackie's feet padded the length of the grand Burkhart foyer for what felt like the hundredth time. It had only been 20 minutes but to the small seventeen year old doing the pacing those minutes seemed like years and the marble floor beneath her bare feet felt more like hot coals. She checked her watch again. 3.30pm. In just over two hours her father's Lincoln was sure to be pulling up the long driveway and she needed to get this over with before it did.
Keys in the lock drew her attention to the door and she ran over to the short, plump woman walking through it.
"God, what took you so long?" Jackie growled, pulling a paper bag out of the woman's hand.
Rosa, the Burkhart's loyal housekeeper, sighed as she unzipped her thin jacket and hung it on the hooks by the door. "Miss Jackie, it's after 3 on a Friday, the town very busy," she explained.
"Rosa, we live in Point Place, not New York City. Point Place doesn't do busy, the town can barely hold ten people at a time. If I find out you stopped to gossip with your maid buddies I'll-"
Shaking her head the maid took Jackie's hand. "No, Miss Jackie, no gossiping today, I promise. Now come," she said, leading Jackie up the large staircase, "you must hurry before your Papa come home. I don't know why you bother though, we already know answer."
Jackie held the paper bag tightly in one hand and Rosa's hand even more firmly in the other. As much as she didn't want to believe it she knew Rosa was right. She did know the answer. She'd known five tests ago. But it didn't mean she wasn't still hanging onto hope that a great big batch of pregnancy tests were duds and that she had just happened to buy all of them.
"Just one more." Jackie opened the bathroom door before turning to look down at Rosa. "After this one I promise I'll believe it, Rosa."
Rosa's lips crept into a small smile that belied the worry evident in her big brown eyes. "Good, because I no buy anymore of those things. Man at drugstore think I'm crazy!"
"Last one," Jackie said as she waved the bag about, "I promise."
Jackie closed the door and began the drill that over the last week had become a thrice daily ritual. She no longer had to read the instructions on the packet, it was all too easy. She'd even perfected the art of collecting 'mid-stream'. Just like everything else in her life, Jackie was good at doing pregnancy tests. So much so that she wondered if she should become an obstetric nurse when she was older. If the job entailed just administering and reading pregnancy tests she'd be a shoe-in for nurse of the year.
As she placed the little yellow cup on the bathroom vanity there was a small knock on the door.
"Everything okay, Miss Jackie?"
Jackie opened the door and smiled at Rosa who was still standing in the same place. "Now we wait," Jackie said. She walked to her desk and pulled her chemistry textbook out of her bag. "May as well do some homework while that stick works it's magic."
The first test Jackie had taken, last Sunday, had been done in a blur and the two hours she'd waited for the results had been absolutely torturous. Sitting on the bathroom floor, with Rosa at her side, Jackie was sure she'd heard every single minute tick by on Rosa's cheap watch while she waited to see her fate. When the test had been positive she'd burst into tears and ordered Rosa to go and buy five more tests, each one taken through a myriad of tears, screams, sobs, and curse words. Yes, Sunday to Thursday had not been kind to Jackie. Not that today had been any more giving, but at least she had made it through the day without an array of comments such as "Jackie, you look terrible!" and "Oh my, Jackie, are you ill?" There had been no tears at school today, well no visible ones anyway. Instead she'd cried on the inside and told everyone that the terrible bout of food poisoning she'd picked up from the nasty new deli in town had finally passed.
Two hours later Jackie still didn't know what Charles' Law stated about gases and temperature but she did know that she was pregnant. As she tipped her urine down the toilet she felt a single tear trickle down her cheek.
"Enough!" she said to herself in the mirror. Her eyes were deep set and bloodshot, tell tale signs of the week from hell she'd just had. She quickly splashed cold water over her face and dabbed it dry with a towel. "You are Jackie Burkhart. You may be seventeen and..." Okay, this pep talk to herself may be harder to get out that she'd prepared for. "You may be seventeen and pre...pregnant-" a wave of nausea washed over Jackie as she said the last word, but still she continued, "-but you are still Jackie Burkhart and she never gives up." She smiled at the look of determination on her face. "It will be hard, but you will be okay, so there will be no more tears!" With that Jackie bounded out of her bathroom trying to hide the fact (from nobody in particular) that she didn't believe a word of what she'd just said.
...
Sitting through dinner with her father had been a painful experience. Over chicken cacciatore her father had asked her ten thousand questions about school, cheerleading, boys, and the worst of all, her future. She was almost positive that she had a sign on her head that said "Daddy, I'm an idiot and I'm knocked up". Why else would he have chosen tonight to take such an interest in her life? Usually his eyes were glued to the nightly news while they ate, only aiming them in Jackie's direction to ask her to pass the dinner rolls. But there was no news tonight, well not on the television anyway.
After twirling the chicken and pasta around on her plate for twenty minutes Jackie had asked to be excused. Jack Burkhart must've grown tired of trying to be a father because his eyes lit up at her request and he enthusiastically granted her permission to leave and handed her a fifty dollar note for good measure. Last Friday Jackie would've delighted in his generosity and slipped into something pretty before slipping out of the house to find something to do. But tonight those normal teenage shenanigans already felt like distant memories. She was pregnant; knocked up; had a bun in the oven. And all she wanted to do was curl up on her bed and die.
"Going to bed already?" Rosa poked her head around Jackie's door just as Jackie hopped into said bed and right before she planned to die.
"Might as well, Rosa. Hopefully when I wake up this will all be a dream and I'll no longer be a disgusting harlot with a bastard child growing inside me." Jackie pulled the comforter up to her chin, cocooning herself in the safety of her bed.
Rosa chuckled, shuffling closer to Jackie. "Always with the dramatics, Miss Jackie," she said, fluffing the pillows and tucking in the sheets just like she had every night of Jackie's life. "I know it hard for you, but you will be okay. You strong girl, you can handle this. I here for you. And the child."
Jackie's eyes closed for a moment when Rosa's soft hand stroked her forehead. Whenever she'd had a problem that couldn't be fixed with her father's money, Rosa had fixed it for her. But this was something Rosa couldn't fix no matter how much Jackie begged or threatened her. No one could fix this.
"I don't think I can handle this though, Rosa. Not a baby." If there was one person Jackie could be honest with, it was Rosa. The maid never judged her, never set her ridiculously high expectations that she struggled to meet. Jackie was able to be her real self in front of Rosa and Rosa seemed to love her, all of her. She was the only person in the world who knew the real Jackie Burkhart. "Even if I survive telling my parents I don't think I could handle the ridicule I'll get at school. Those cheerleader bitches-"
Rosa frowned. "Language..."
"-sorry. Those cheerleader friends of mine will crucify me for this! Teenage pregnancy happens to girls in trailer parks. Or sluts. It doesn't happen to people like me. I'm better than that. I'm rich...and pretty...and I'll be successful one day."
"But it has happened to you, Miss Jackie," Rosa pointed out, almost crushing Jackie with the truth. "Maybe once you tell Michael you feel better? Not so alone?" Rosa bent down and gently kissed Jackie's cheek, while Jackie inwardly cringed at the sound of her ex's name. "Goodnight, beautiful," Rosa quietly said as she turned to leave the room.
"Goodnight, Rosa," Jackie said before she quickly sat up. "Oh, and Rosa, thank you for getting me all those tests -I know it would've been embarrassing for you...although not quite as embarrassing as it would've been for me."
Rosa turned around and Jackie could just make out her face through the light coming in from the hallway. "Your welcome, Miss Jackie. But you leave me not much choice, you have me fired if I don't get them. You a wicked, wicked girl sometimes," she growled.
Jackie grinned. "I know that, Rosa," she admitted. "And I learned from the best." Burying her head in her pillow Jackie could just hear Rosa mutter "Mrs. Pamela" amongst a slew of Spanish curse words she'd become accustomed to hearing from the mouths of their Mexican help. Pamela. If only her mother was here right now. If there was one woman who knew how to soften a blow to a man it was Pamela Burkhart and as she was currently on vacation in Brazil there was no way in hell Jackie was telling her father about the pregnancy. He would hit the roof. Probably pack her off to some Catholic boarding school out East or to some 90 year old aunt's house she'd never met. No. Until Pamela was back Jackie would be the only Burkhart who knew their family was literally growing.
Jackie rolled onto her side and pushed her hair away from face. It was hot. Too hot to be snuggled so tightly in her blankets but Jackie needed to hold onto something and as there was no mother, father, or boyfriend to hold onto her heavy comforter was it. She thought about the fifty dollars her father had given her after dinner and realised she probably should've offered it to Rosa as payment for overtime, then maybe she would've stayed longer, even just until Jackie fell asleep. But no. The fifty was still scrunched up in the pocket of her shorts and her maid, slash nanny, slash best friend, had gone home for the night and wouldn't be back until 6am ready to prepare breakfast. Jackie was alone.
Kind of.
There was still the fetus growing inside her.
The fetus that was conceived sometime over summer during one of the many hot, dirty, hook up sessions Jackie had partaken in with someone who was not her boyfriend. Someone she didn't love. Someone who until fairly recently she hadn't even liked all that much, and who had made it clear on many occasion hadn't liked her either.
Clenching the comforter tightly in her fist Jackie closed her eyes. Her life was a mess. And it was going to get a whole lot messier before it got any better.
...
The next morning Jackie was still alive, still pregnant, and her mother still wasn't home. So she did what any normal girl in her situation would do; she got herself as dressed up as she could and went to tell another teenage girl her dilemma so that they could fix it together. Who better to understand and guide a teenage girl than another teenage girl?
When she arrived Jackie didn't bother knocking on the Pinciotti's kitchen door. Bob and Donna were both completely boring therefore she knew she wouldn't be interrupting anything of importance. In fact, her arrival was sure to liven the place up.
"Hi, Bob," she said with a forced smile as she closed the door behind her.
Bob looked up from his bowl of cereal and grinned. "Good morning, Jackie. Haven't seen you here for a while, how's life?"
Jackie positioned her sunglasses on her head and did her best demonstration of a seventeen year old girl whose life was completely normal. "Oh life is great thanks. My summer tan hasn't faded and my dad's giving me money again. All is well in the world," she said before frowning. "Well, as well as could be expected considering you took my best friend away from me and sent her to that dreary catholic school. It's thrown everything off for me at school you know?"
Picking up his full bowl of cereal Bob rushed to the sink. "I've told all of you kids, Donna needed to be punished. She couldn't get away with running off to California. I did what any good father would do-"
"What? You punished her by dressing her up in a skanky catholic schoolgirl uniform to make her even more desirable to the boys? Yeah, that's teaching her a lesson alright...lesson being - a short, plaid uniform will bring all the boys to the yard."
"Jackie!" Donna stood in the kitchen, the door swinging behind her, her jaw dropping to the floor.
Jackie's face lit up at the sight of her friend. "Hey, Donna. Quick-" she rushed over and pulled Donna back through the door, ignoring Bob's ramblings about the benefits of a Catholic education, "-I really need to talk to you."
"Jackie, what the hell were you just saying to my dad? I heard you say my uniform is skanky and I'll have you know it's not. Millions of girls worldwide wear uniforms and it's not to please pervy males, it's to-"
Jackie waved a hand in the air as she made her way to Donna's room. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, Donna. We have bigger problems to deal with right now than your school attire, will you just hurry up." After pulling the redhead into her bedroom Jackie closed the door and took a seat on Donna's bed. Donna, clearly still upset about Jackie's attempt at getting Bob to change his mind about schooling, stood by the door with her arms folded across her chest.
"I'd really appreciate it if you didn't call me a skank to my dad," she growled.
"I didn't call you a skank, I called your uniform skanky, and for your information I said it to help you. You should be thanking me."
Donna's brow furrowed as she glared at Jackie. "Help me? How exactly?"
"Bob doesn't want boys after his daughter, he can barely tolerate your poor excuse of a boyfriend nextdoor. If he thinks guys are after you because of your school attire he'll let you come back to Point Place High and resume your position as school lumberjack. I have it all figured out." Explaining this all to Donna was growing tiresome, and frankly, quite boring. Jackie stretched out on the bed, holding her head up in her hand. "By the way, your welcome."
"Jackie, did you ever think I may not want to come back to Point Place High? It's been a month now and I kinda like Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow-"
Jackie gasped. "You can't be serious?"
"I've made friends there," Donna said, taking a seat at her desk. "Plus there's the added bonus of not being with Eric every day at school. We have a chance to miss each other now which makes it even better when we see each other after school...if you get what I mean." She winked and a sly grin crossed her face. Jackie's face, however, screwed up in disgust.
"Ew, gross, I don't want to hear anymore about you and Eric." Pulling one of Donna's flower cushions into her chest Jackie braced herself for the big reveal. "I get you may think you're happy at that school, but have you ever thought about how I feel-"
"Not really."
"-I need you back at school with me, Donna."
Donna looked puzzled. "Why? We didn't hang all that much at school anyway. You have your cheerleader pals, you don't need me."
In a perfect world Jackie wouldn't need Donna by her side at school but Jackie's world had recently gone from perfect to downright crappy. Once the girls at school found out about her pregnancy she'd be dropped quicker than a hot potato and would spend her remaining time at school as an outcast. Her only hope was her best friend coming back.
"I won't have those girls by my side for much longer," she explained.
"Why not? Have they all found an exclusive cheerleader school to go to?" Donna laughed.
"Of course not! If there was such a thing I'd totally be going." Jackie sat up, keeping the cushion tight against her stomach. "No, they'll leave me once they find out that I'm..." Not sure that she could say the word out loud to someone that wasn't Rosa, Jackie paused.
"You're what?"
"I'm," Jackie started. "I'm pregnant." Her eyes shot up to look at Donna just as the pen in Donna's hand fell to the table.
"You're what?!"
"Pregnant, Donna. I, Jackie Burkhart, am with child." That sounded a whole lot nicer than knocked-up or up the duff, and a lot less slutty. Jackie decided she'd probably go with that when she told her daddy. However, it didn't seem to be softening the blow right now. Donna looked more surprised than when she'd found Fez naked in her shower.
"Oh my god..." she stuttered.
"Pull yourself together would you? I'm the one pregnant and in crisis and I came here for your help, not to watch saliva drip out of your gaping mouth because you all of a sudden lost the ability to swallow. Focus, Donna, focus!"
Donna closed her mouth before blinking rapidly. She sat up, attempting to regain some composure. "Sorry," she mumbled. "Look, Jackie, are you sure? Like really, really sure? You've had a scare before so maybe-"
"I'm 16 tests and 2 boxes of tissues sure," Jackie explained, remembering the wastepaper bin in her bedroom overflowing with white balls of tissues from all the tears she'd cried this week. "So now do you see why I need you at school? You have to come back, you just have to."
"Jackie, me coming back to Point Place High is the least of your worries right now. You have way bigger problems than who you're gonna sit next to at lunchtime. What have your parents said? Are they mad?"
"Mom's on vacation, dad's busy at work," Jackie shrugged, " so they don't know. I've only told you and Rosa."
Donna leaned forward. "What did Rosa say?" she asked.
"Oh the usual...it's not the end of the world, she'll support me yadda yadda yadda," Jackie's eyes flicked up and stared straight into her friend's, "But she doesn't get it, Donna. I don't think they had cheerleading squads in her village in Mexico so she can't possibly understand the social exclusion I'm about to face." Falling back dramatically on the bed, she cried, "I'm doomed, Donna, doomed!"
Donna stood up and walked to the bed, sitting down next to Jackie. Rubbing her hand up and down Jackie's arm she stayed silent for a moment, allowing Jackie this moment of self-pity. The moment wasn't long enough though and she soon asked the question Jackie was dreading. "Have you told Kelso?"
Telling everyone who the father was would be harder than telling everyone she was pregnant. It would not go down well and it could potentially change the lives of a lot of people. Bravely, Jackie sat and turned to Donna. "No, I haven't told, Michael," she began. "Because Michael isn't the father."
Looking more stumped than before, the redhead asked, "It's not Kelso? Then who? Who have you been seeing? You told me you didn't meet anyone over summer."
It was gonna come out sooner or later, Jackie had always known that. She just hadn't figured her sordid hook up with Hyde would be revealed because it resulted in a pregnancy. In her head, years from now when everyone was settled and happy it may have come out during a drinking game. It would've been so long ago and so insignificant no one would've cared. Their affair would've been old, funny fodder. But it wasn't old now, and it certainly wasn't funny fodder.
"Steven." Jackie swallowed hard. "Steven's the father."
"Steven who?"
There were probably four Steven's in Point Place and two of those were married with kids, so Jackie found it amusing that her and Hyde 'doing it' was so far-fetched that Donna needed a last name.
"Steven Hyde, Donna. Hyde. Hyde is my baby's dad." Ignoring Donna's loud gasp, Jackie looked to the floor. Saying the words out loud had made them more real than before. Hyde was her child's father. Jackie's son or daughter would call him dad. This wasn't the way her life was meant to go and she wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.
Donna jumped to her feet, her hand flying over her mouth. Jackie was in for it, she could tell, so she decided now probably wasn't the time for laughing. Tears would get Donna more than laughter over her child's paternity.
"What the hell?!" Donna screamed. "You and Hyde?! Oh you have got to be kidding me!"
Jackie's brow creased as she looked at the door. "Ssssh, keep your voice down. I don't want Bob hearing about my sex life."
"Oh my god." Donna was pacing now, taking unusually large strides around her bedroom. "I don't want to hear about your sex life, especially when it involves Hyde."
"So you probably don't wanna hear how hot and dirty it was then?" Jackie said sarcastically, annoyed that Donna was proving her worries warranted. People were going to be more concerned with who her baby's daddy was than the fact she was pregnant.
Stopping in her tracks, Donna stared down at her friend. "I especially don't want to hear how hot and dirty it was," she stated firmly. "But what I do wanna know is, how the hell did this happen? You and Hyde hated each other. And he's Kelso's best friend for crying out loud, how could you two do that to Kelso?"
Jackie was swiftly overcome with anger. She had not betrayed Kelso, she was the betrayed as far as she was concerned. Quickly, she bounced off the bed and stood before Donna. "Listen here, I don't owe Michael Kelso anything. He cheated on me, numerous times, and he was the one who left me right after proposing. What I got up to while he was galavanting around California with you is nothing he doesn't deserve-"
"But you did his best friend, Jackie. That's kinda harsh."
Jackie shrugged. She did feel a little guilty about hooking up with Hyde, and she knew that if Kelso found out he'd be hurt, but it was worth it at the time. Hyde had made her feel wanted and special, two things she hadn't truly felt since she'd found out Kelso was nailing Laurie behind her back. And, to be honest, she had never in a million years thought he'd have to find out this way.
"It is what it is," she said with a clipped tone. "Anyway, Right now I'm more concerned about how I'm going to cope with Steven's child growing inside me...God, it's probably developing sunglasses and a beard as we speak!" She sat down on the bed again, overwhelmed by the reality she was faced with. The thought of telling Hyde she was pregnant scared her to death, but the thought of telling Kelso scared her even more. He would never want her back now. Their fairy tale romance was well and truly over.
"Okay, putting Kelso aside for a minute, I still don't get how you and Hyde hooked up. I mean, it's so creepy, and unnatural. Like, who made the first move?" Donna asked.
"Steven of course."
Once again Donna looked perplexed. "Hyde? Really? He spent months avoiding your advances when you had that crazy crush on him and now we're expected to believe he's done a full 360 and gone n got you pregnant? This shit is surreal."
Jackie rolled her eyes. "I can't help it if I'm irresistible, Donna. Out of the blue one day he called me up and asked me to come listen to a new album he had. Next thing I knew he had me in his arms and was asking to kiss me. It really was rather romantic."
"Hold up - Hyde called you? As in, called you on the phone? I don't believe it," Donna questioned.
"Well believe it."
So maybe none of what Jackie had just said was true but if she was having a child out of wedlock she was going to make damn sure the story of the child's conception was romantic. Now would've been the perfect time for war to break out and for Hyde to get drafted, then she would have an even better story; lovers ripped apart by war, the child the only reminder of the love they shared.
Two friends hooking up because they were bored just didn't have the same romantic element.
Donna shook her head and smirked. "Jackie, come on, Hyde doesn't call anyone unless it's for them to bail him out. He didn't call you and invite you over."
"Okay, he posted me the invite."
"Even less believable."
Now Jackie was even more irritated. Holding a defiant hand up she said, "Enough with the third degree, Donna. It doesn't matter how Steven and I got together, what matters is that I am now pregnant and about to lose my position as most popular girl in school. So what are we gonna do about it?"
Donna took Jackie's hand and pulled her up. To Jackie's surprise Donna wrapped her arms around her and held her tightly. The hug was comforting, so comforting that Jackie didn't even mind the lumderjack's heavy arms pressing against the curls in her hair that had taken her an hour to perfect that morning. Someone cared about what she was going through. Someone who wasn't being paid to care.
After a few minutes Donna pulled away but placed her hands on Jackie's shoulders. "I'll tell you what you're gonna do," she said softly. "You're gonna go next door and tell Hyde he's gonna be a dad-"
Jackie's stomach suddenly cramped. "No, Donna! That's so not how I wanted to spend my morning!"
Donna ignored her protests. "You're gonna tell him because for one, he has a right to know, and two, you shouldn't be going through this alone. Both of you got yourselves into this mess so you need to work together to fix it. Now once you've done that, we'll start sorting everything else out, okay?"
Jackie nodded as Donna led her out of the bedroom. "Donna?" she said quietly as they walked down the hallway.
"Yeah?"
"I'm scared..."
