Disclaimer: I own nothing. I do not own That '70s Show or any of its characters. I do not own any of the song, movie, or TV shows referred to in this chapter. I own nothing!
Author's Note: Hello everyone! How are you? Hope you're doing well and having a great first week of the month. Today I have for you the first chapter of my new story "Baby Cakes" This is an idea I've been wanting to for a long time but had to put off thanks to other writing but I've finally gotten to writing and posting it and really it has been so much fun I am just hoping that you all enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. It does star Red and Kitty and Jackie and Hyde, my two favorite pairings, and it's got a similar format as some of my other stories that I have written before which includes a flashback that will be occurring in the next chapter. I'm hoping to keep this as a three shot but you know how sometimes stories take a life of their own so we'll just have to wait and see! This idea was inspired by real life events, lots of baby fever over here lol, and the episode of All in the Family called 'Mike's Pains.' Now there's no set year for the story but it would probably be some time in the 80s. I also have a few thank yous to give out before we get started, thank yous to MidniteRaine, LedZepGrl, and ItsNOLANim for your interest in the story. Thank you MistyMoutainHop for your advice on the cover. Thank you to TvFanaticDayDreamer who support the idea from day one. Thank you to Marla's Lost for once again helping me out and giving me a wonderful title for this story. Thank you! And thank you to you readers who have stopped by to read the story. I really hope you all like it, please review if you can, I'd love to hear your thoughts, and as always, Enjoy!
Baby Cakes
Red and Kitty Forman sat at their small kitchen dinette enjoying the club sandwiches and sweet tea that Kitty had prepared for lunch.
The only sounds in the room seemed to become from the dishes and food as the pair sat in the kind of silence that most couples who had been married as long as they had, could be found sitting in. It wasn't an angry silence or an uncomfortable one either. Things weren't being said because there was nothing to say, things weren't being said because nothing needed to be said. Usually their home was filled with lively, sometimes overly lively, sounds from their constant visitors but now it was only the two of them and their silence that they each found peaceful and comforting.
"Mr. and Mrs. Forman," a voice called breaking through the silence as the intruder pulled open the glass sliding door and walked into the house…though waddled into the house might be a better way to describe it.
With frowns indented onto their foreheads, one filled with annoyance and the other concern, Red and Kitty turned to see a very pregnant Jackie entering their home with her husband tagging not too far behind. The younger couple had their own set of frowns, though they both appeared to be upset with their anger directed at the other.
"We need your help." Jackie declared.
The Forman's surrogate son kept his eyes on his wife, "No, we don't."
Jackie whipped her head to look to her right and at Hyde, "Yes, we do."
"No, we don't, Jackie." he argued firmly, his focus still on Jackie; in fact it was almost as if the Formans weren't even in the room as the argument that had obviously been going on long before they came into the kitchen, continued to rage on, "We're adults, Jackie. We're gonna have a kid and be parents ourselves, we can't always come running to the Formans whenever we have a problem."
"Oh Steven, don't be silly." Kitty scolded slightly, "No matter how old you are, you can always come to Red and me for help with any kind of problems you kids are having. Right, Red?"
Much like Hyde's frown, Red's scowl grew deeper as he barked out, "No."
"Red." His wife said with her own glare and warning tone.
Red sighed before grumbling, "Fine."
While Kitty smiled at her husband's agreement, Jackie stood there looking in on the scene in awe.
"See Steven, why can't you be like that and just agree with everything I say?" Jackie demanded to know.
Her question earned her the sight of Hyde rubbing his temples, a deepened and angry scowl from Red, and a head shake from Kitty.
"Oh Jackie, honey, you can't expect Steven to quickly agree to everything you say. You two have only been married two years." She reminded before shaking her head negatively once more, "No, no, no, getting him to do that, takes years of training."
The irritated look that Red had been directing towards Jackie, shifted over to Kitty and stayed there for several seconds before slowly he turned his head back to the couple standing in the middle of where he and Kitty were seated.
"Whatever damn thing this is all about, I'm on Steven's side."
With a smirk on his face, Hyde gave an appreciative nod to his adopted father before dropping into the seat beside the man. Meanwhile his expectant wife didn't look all that happy with the announcement of this news.
"But Mr. Forman, I'm your favorite, remember?" she asked with a pout, "You're supposed to be on my side."
Red shrugged his shoulder and kept his eyes on Kitty as he spoke, "Guess my training wore off."
Having caught Red's eyes with her own, Kitty knew the comment was directed at her but she merely brushed it away with a shake of her hand a quick wave of her hand.
"Never mind any training talk." She said, hoping that would close the discussion after all these two had come in here for another—probably more serious—reason. Kitty turned her attention to the young woman standing beside her, "Jackie, honey, what did you need our help with?"
"Well," Jackie began to say, taking in a deep breath but it wasn't enough to keep her smile from breaking onto her face, "We have our baby's gender!"
Jackie's excitement instantly transferred over to Kitty as the older woman's jaw dropped open then soon turned into a beaming smile before she moved her own palm to joining Jackie's on the growing baby bump—letting out one of her genuinely happy Kitty Forman giggles.
"Oh honey, this is so exciting!" she said in an over the moon type of tone, "Which is it, Jackie? A girl? No, a boy? Oh what is it?"
"It's either one or the other, Kitty." Red quipped from the sidelines.
Kitty looked over at her husband and laughed at his joke but seconds later her attention was back on Jackie, looking at the younger woman with a kind of eagerness that could be found on a child's face Christmas morning. Jackie really couldn't help smile—she was glad at least someone was excited about all of this.
"So…?" Kitty asked again, she was obviously getting impatient, "I'm I getting a grandson or a granddaughter?"
"I don't know yet." came Jackie's reply and when she saw the puzzled scowl emerge on Kitty's forehead she knew she had some clearing up to do; she took in another breath, "See we have the sex of the baby but we don't know it yet. I had the doctor write it down on a piece of paper and stick it into this envelope."
To help with her explanation, Jackie lifted up the small envelope that Kitty hadn't noticed she had been holding earlier. It didn't look like the kind of envelope that bills or other boring mail came in, it looked more like the kind of envelope that were always exciting to find in the mail. Usually they held a special surprise like a birthday card, a letter, or a thank you note but from what Jackie said this envelope was holding something better than all those three things combined!
Slowly Kitty's smile began to reappear, "The answer is in that envelope? Oh this is just like those big fancy award shows!" she said with another excited laugh leaving her lips.
"Yeah," Jackie nodded but swiftly added the main part of the story, "But Steven doesn't wanna open it!"
"Neither does Jackie!" Hyde threw out with a finger pointed at his wife as soon as he felt his mother's eyes on him.
Red scowled at what he'd just heard, "Who the hell are you dumbasses waiting to open it? The baby?"
"No," Jackie shook her head at the balding man before turning her attention to his wife, the envelope still clutched in her hands, "The reason I didn't want to open the envelope was because I thought we should give it to you, Mrs. Forman."
Kitty placed her palm over her heart and her facial expression showed just how touched she was by the gesture, "Oh, that is so sweet." she said sounding close to tears for just a moment before she suddenly snapped out of it and snatched the envelope out of Jackie's grasp with a quick and demanding, "Gimme that."
As soon as the packet was in Kitty's own hands she immediately went to work on getting it open until Jackie placed a halting hand over her own.
"Mrs. Forman, you can't open that in front of Steven and me." she stated before explaining things a little further, "See I thought we could give you the envelope, you'd read it and see what our baby is gonna be but you don't tell anyone."
Hearing this Kitty's eyes widened a bit with worry; after all, keeping secrets especially happy and joyful exciting secrets was not one of the things Kitty Forman was known for. Jackie of course, noticed this and decided to continue on, hoping to settle Kitty's anxiousness so she could at least have someone on her side.
"But instead of telling anyone you get to make a cake that on the inside will tell us whether we're having a boy or a girl!" Jackie's tone changed to one that was used when bargaining with a small child to a tone that showed complete and absolute happiness.
And it looked like the happiness was contagious and Kitty's face quickly lit up, all worries forgot.
"Oh, oh! I saw that the other day on Wake Up Wisconsin." The older woman said and the younger girl nodded excitedly, "And it was just the cutest and most creative thing ever. What a great idea to do it too, Jackie!"
Jackie's smile was stretched from ear to ear and she turned from Kitty to Hyde, "See Steven, I told you it was a great idea!"
Looking quite unconvinced, unamused, and very Zen, Hyde shot out, "You just want an excuse to eat cake."
"I don't need an excuse to eat cake, Steven, I can eat cake whenever I want." She argued and placed her hand on her growing belly, "I'm pregnant."
With that said Jackie knew she had won that discussion and she turned her attention back to Kitty so that the two of them could talk more about this gender revealing cake and how great of an idea it was for Jackie to want to do it. Meanwhile as the women went on with their chattering, the men sat in silence watching them but it was Hyde who ended up shaking his head at the scene before them.
"That's been her excuse for everything lately." He shared with his adoptive father who merely smirked, "The other day she kicked Fez off the sofa and stole his popsicle, tellin' him she could do it cuz she's pregnant."
Red chuckled at the story, "Get used to it son. After she has the kid she'll use the excuse of 'because I'm a mother.'"
Hyde appreciated the advice that the older and experienced man shared with him. It did sound like something Jackie could very well begin doing after their child was born, but that didn't mean he liked it. However, that was still months away and right now he was still having to deal with this gender cake thing that he really wasn't looking forward to. He looked over at the still prattling duo.
"Mrs. Forman, I don't want you going through all that trouble." He said and just as Kitty opened her mouth to protest against his words, Hyde continued on, "Jackie'll probably end up eating the paper before we get a chance to read it."
Jackie glared at her husband, "You don't stick a paper in the cake, Steven. It's not a fortune cookie."
"Jackie's right, sweetie." Kitty informed with a nod and then went on to elaborate some more of the details, "You see it's the inside of the cake, the breading that tells the gender of the baby. We could do chocolate for a boy and vanilla for a girl or vise versa." She said, whooshing her hands happily before getting a new idea, "Oh! Or I could use some food color and add it to the vanilla batter. I could make blue for a boy and pink for a girl!"
"Oh let's do that one! Can we do that one?" asked the bubbling Jackie.
"Of course!" Kitty replied and soon let out a keyed up giggle before looking at the pair of husbands, "Oh this is going to be so much fun, don't you think?"
Red showed how interested he was in the whole idea by moving his attention back to his lunch while Hyde expressing his interest with words, well word.
"No." he said straight forwardly causing Kitty's smile to flatten and Jackie's to turn into a frown.
"Ugh, don't listen to him." Jackie instructed Kitty, getting the older woman's attention once again, "He doesn't wanna find out the baby's gender at all."
This new piece of information came as a shock to Hyde's surrogate parents. His mother figure's head quickly shot back to looking at him, her eyes wide with surprise. His father's surprise wasn't as obvious but he had turned to look at him with a sort of frown that was usually reserved for Eric when he did something really stupid or Kelso on any day.
"You're a dumbass." Red told Hyde before glancing over at the standing brunette, "Jackie, I'm back on your side."
"Yay!" Jackie squealed happily with her chipper hand clap.
Hyde knew that Red joining Jackie's side of the argument meant he was now on his own and while he wasn't thrilled about it, he wasn't worried either. He could handle this by himself plus he figured if he worded the next part of his thoughts right, he wouldn't be on a one man team for long.
"It's not that I don't wanna find out what our kid's gonna be, I just don't see what the point is." He began to explain to the older couple, his words had already been said to Jackie on the car ride over, "It's not gonna make it come any earlier, it's not gonna do anything but get us either an overload of blue or pink stuff. I don't see a problem of letting the kid decide what they like."
Jackie rolled her eyes, her husband had been spending too much time with Donna, "Steven, our daughter will not be a tomboy. And our son…if he has girly things growing up he could turn into Eric!"
"She's got a point." confirmed Red with a nod of his head.
However the argument didn't sway Hyde and he stayed on his own side of things, giving a shoulder shrug before speaking up again.
"Look, I just think this gonna be one of the biggest surprises in our life," he said his blue shaded eyes focusing on meeting his wife's, "There's no need to rush it, right Mrs. Forman?"
He looked over at the woman who had suddenly become quiet during this part of the conversation but he figured if anyone would side with him on wanting things to be as surprise it would be the woman who loved nothing more but throwing surprise parties—even when, and especially when, they weren't wanted.
Kitty appeared a bit nervous, "Well…"
The single word caught Hyde off guard. 'Well?' He never got a 'well' from Mrs. Forman especially not in that tone. His head lifted up to look over at Kitty but found that she was already walking closer to the seat he was residing in, her smile more sympathetic rather than the happy kind she had been sharing with Jackie moments before.
"Steven, honey, I think it's very sweet that you want to wait until the baby is born to find out whether you and Jackie are having a boy or a girl" She told him, placing a motherly hand on his upper arm, "But finding out the sex of the baby before it's born is a bit more practical. And you could start referring to a baby as a 'he' or a 'she' not just an 'it.' And that makes things feel more real!"
A giggle escaped Kitty's lips after that statement and she seemed to have missed the hard swallow made by Hyde as she went on with what she had to say.
"And finding out what the baby is going to be before the birth won't take any of the magic or beauty of out that delivery room." The nurse and mother assured both of the soon to be parents, "Oh and finding out the baby's gender before the birth really can be exciting and so much fun."
"Did you find out what you were having when you were pregnant?" Jackie wanted to know.
"Yes, we did." Kitty said while smiling and nodding, "Of course, when I was pregnant we didn't have all these new fancy schmancy gizmos you have, so we had to use a different method to tell us the baby's gender."
Hyde was curious, "What different method?"
"A lucky guess."
Kitty glared at her husband for the comment he'd made, "It was not a lucky guess. It was more than that. It was…an old wives tale, that worked!" she made sure to point out before there was another interruption, "I remember my sister Paula came to do it because she said she had the gift for doing the test and getting the correct results. But of course, we all knew it was really something she was going through to help find her true self."
"Yeah, that was during her gypsy phase." Red recalled.
"No, no, no." Kitty shook her head but her smile stayed in place, "Not gypsy. Fortune teller."
Red didn't seem to think there was a difference between the two as he said, "All I remember is her wearing a bunch of those weird colored head scarves."
"Anyways," The older woman said, bringing the conversation back to her story, "to find out whether we were going to have a boy or a girl Paula came over to do the ring on the string test."
"The ring on the string test? What's that?" Jackie asked as she settled into a seat at the table, no longer able to stand the pain in her lower back.
"It's where the pregnant woman puts her wedding ring on a string and then you hold the string over her stomach with the ring dangling from it." Kitty explained the steps, remembering them from her own experience, "And the way that the ring on the string swings tells what your baby is gonna be!"
Hyde smirked, "What'd the ring do with Laurie? Swing into three number sixes?"
"How'd you like me to swing my foot into your ass?" Red asked, clearly not as amused by the joke as Hyde's wife was.
Meanwhile Kitty frowned but not because of what Hyde had said, though his words did help her recall this new detail, "You know come to think of it, we didn't find out with Laurie, we had her be a surprise. And she had been just full of surprises since!" she ended with a nervous laugh escaping her lips.
"You see Steven," Jackie said with big eyes, "Isn't that enough to change your mind and not have our baby be a surprise like Laurie."
"Nope." He said with a smug smirk that just made his wife roll her eyes.
"Oh I remember the day we did the ring on the string test with Eric like it was yesterday." Kitty spoke with her smile becoming bigger and bigger, it was evident that a story was coming on, "I was about seven months along and Laurie had just turned two a few months before. Paula came had come over and…Oh Red's brother Marty was here too. Remember Red?"
"Yeah," Red confirmed grimly, "Even back then this house was filled with people who didn't live here."
Author's Note: So what did you think? Yay? Nay? A mix of the two? Do you wanna read more? Be sure to let me know in a review!
I really do hope that you all liked this first chapter, there's still more to come! Also just a little reminder to those who don't know or may forget this Sunday Kurtwood Smith's new show Resurrection premieres on ABC. You'll have to check your local listings for times and such but just thought I'd throw it out there as a little reminder I know I'm looking forward to seeing him on TV again. :D
Until next time, thanks for reading, hope you liked, please review and lemme know what you think, stay tuned, take care, and have a nice day!