Summary: He was done. He was done watching from the sidelines. He was done not talking. He was done waiting for one of them to screw it up just so she could go back to Kelso—the thing Hyde had been waiting for. She was it for him and he was done screwing it up.

Disclaimer: I don't own That 70s Show. And the part in italics is lifted directly from the episode "On With the Show" (7x15), which this mostly takes place in.

Author's Note: This may very well be the fluffiest thing I've ever written… and I don't apologize ;) (Also, I employed a different writing style here, so let me know what you think.)

(Also, I just realized I didn't click "Complete" like I thought I had, so to those who have already read this and thought there was more, I'm sorry! It's a one-shot, and this is all there is.)

It began as a small thing—minuscule, really, when you compared it to their whole history.

He was a relatively smart guy. He knew going after your best friend's girl was a bad idea. It always ended in anger, shouting, and tears. (From the girl's end, of course. What do you take him for?) It never ended well and usually got ugly fast.

(It was only a minor consolation that this had gotten ugly eventually. The beginning parts—the parts when she had been straddling him on the couch that first summer giving him so much tongue he almost couldn't stand it—had been really, really good.)

It had been a Wednesday, the day this small thing that had happened (this really tiny, inconceivable at the time, almost stupid thing—this thing that he hadn't even realized was a thing until later when he'd gotten a taste of her and wanted more) happened. It had been blistering hot and Hyde had already had a crappy day.

Kitty had decided she didn't like Red spending all his time in the garage, so to punish him she demanded he help her rearrange the cabinets.

"This is something we can do together, Red! Won't that be fun?"

Red's answer, apparently, had been 'no' because he had called up Hyde and Forman to finish the job while he and Kitty ran upstairs for their own "activities."

The squirming coming from Forman at the realization of what his parents were doing upstairs Hyde could handle. He had to frog his friend for the gagging though. The sound was getting on his nerves.

In the end, some film had made the mind-numbing job of rearranging cabinets a little more tolerable (though he later remembered Kitty did not appreciate them forcing the cups, plates, and bowls into one cabinet so that they could make room for a larger one they deemed "munchie-cabinet," stocked full of chips, soda, popcorn, and cookies), but it was still sweltering in thekitchen and his shirt had begun to stick to his back, a thin layer of sweat coating his upper lip.

By the time he had collapsed into his chair in front of the television downstairs, finished, Hyde had been miserable. That was, of course, the moment the twittering lovebirds had walked in.

"Michael! How many times do I have to tell you? Never buy me anything pastel colored. I'll look amazing in it, of course, but jewel tones highlight all my features best. I'm a beautiful, porcelain-skinned, raven-haired doll—not a backwoods redneck with blonde pigtails."

"I'm sorry, Jackie! I thought it looked nice! And you said you liked pink, didn't you? Damn."

"Good pink, Michael! Good pink, and in good quality." (It disappointed Hyde immensely to find that he knew exactly what shade she was talking about—and she was right. She looked amazing in the "good pink.") "Not this gross pastel thing. It's even checkered!"

"But it's hot, baby. I thought you'd like something that would keep you cool."

"You just want to see her in the least amount of clothing possible that's still socially acceptable. She's a girl with some modicum of class, Kelso. Not a cheap hooker," Hyde had stated then with a sigh. (Honestly, he had no idea where that had come from. He'd blamed it later on the sweltering heat and the need to shut their yapping.)

She had smiled brilliantly—the kind of smile that he'd seen before (and had always taken notice of) that lit up her eyes and brightened her spirit, but had always been aimed at someone else. This time it was directly at him. Directly at him and no one else.

(Later—much, much later when he had begged her to take him back and she finally did, happily—he confessed how much that small, tiny little thing—her smile—had blinded him and changed his world forever.)

"Thank you, Steven," Jackie replied, her eyes trained on him so intensely Hyde swore Kelso could have disappeared in a puff of smoke and she would have remained happily unaware.

Maybe, just maybe, the tiny thing would have remained just that—a tiny thing. Something easily looked over and never thought of again. But she kept talking, pulling him in—subconsciously—deeper and deeper until nothing was ever, nor would be, the same again.

"I've told him a thousand times, too!"

"You should know he doesn't listen," Hyde replied as he stretched his feet onto the coffee table, his boots making a satisfying clunk on the old wood.

"I know. I just…" She stopped and squinted at him, causing Hyde to tense up at being so shrewdly inspected. Jackie reached over and with quick, short movements of her fingertips, brushed away some stubborn imperfection on his left shirt sleeve—dust from the cabinet he had brushed up against earlier—until she was satisfied and sat back again. "I just keep hoping for the best, I suppose."

In a moment of clarity, he realized that her nagging and whining was the way she took care of the people she loved. She fussed and fussed over them—somewhat like Kitty, he thought—until they were so smothered in her love and affection that they couldn't bear to live without her.

In that one, simple movement (on top of the blinding smile he had received just moments earlier), he had somehow become one of those people she fussed over. And for a split second (of which he denied and denied and denied to himself that had even happened), he envisioned a life that not only included her—her fussing over the dust on his sleeves or his tattered and dirty old boots—but a life with her.

And really, he was gone.

Could you blame him?

o-o-o

For years he watched her hang all over him, watched her stare up at him dreamily and listen with rapt attention at every word that came from his pretty but dumb lips.

For years he had to watch that gorgeous little fireball spend all of her love and attention on a person who hadn't even noticed.

But he was done. He was done watching from the sidelines. He was done not talking. He was done waiting for one of them to screw it up just so she could go back to Kelso—the thing Hyde had been waiting for. He was done waiting for that to happen because she had now made it clear that she wouldn't do that.

She was in it. She was in it, and now so was he.

No more screwing it up.

o-o-o

Hyde walked into the studio, the heels of his boots clicking softly on the cement floor. "Hey, man, is Jackie around?"

"Hey," Donna replied, turning towards him. "Yeah, but I thought you weren't talking to her." She gasped and a silly grin lit up her face. "You're going to make up with her, aren't you?"

He didn't dignify her with an answer. This was between him and Jackie.

"Oohh," Donna continued. "You're gonna tell her that you loooove her. And your little sunglasses are gonna get all fogged up." She smacked his arm, laughing at her own wittiness, before alerting Jackie to his presense. "Jackie, there's someone here to see you."

…

o-o-o

It began as a small thing—minuscule, really, when you compared it to their whole history—and over the years had finally morphed into this, Hyde pacing outside of Forman's house in a severe state of agitation and anxiety.

He had the chance. She had asked him, very clearly, what it was that he had gone over to the stupid TV station to talk to her about, and he froze, unsure of where he now stood in this world where she no longer needed him.

Like it or not, he had gotten used to being needed by her—especially after an entire lifetime of being needed by nobody. What could he offer her now, now that she had gone out and gotten it all on her own?

Thankfully at that moment (because later when he thought back on that precise moment that he'd realized his own new-found insignificance in Jackie's life and resolved to walk away, he was really, very thankful that he was apprehended), Donna walked up.

"Hey, how'd it go?"

"It didn't," he replied calmly, leaning back against the El Camino and almost shivering at the feel of the cool metal leaking through his thick coat.

"Why not? Did you chicken out again?" Donna asked harshly.

Hyde quirked an eyebrow.

"Oh, don't give me that. You always get scared when it comes to her, then pissed when it doesn't work out. You want Jackie, go after her. Simple as that."

"When exactly did I get pissed when it wouldn't work out?"

Donna leveled a glare at him. "Every single time you would brood around here like someone stole your stash whenever she'd go back to crying on Kelso—even before you two ever got together. I talked to Eric earlier, you know. What is it you told him? Right. You were 'less pissed off' with her… well, guess what, Hyde? The second she entered your life, your happy medium was destroyed. It was either less pissed off with her or more pissed off without her… there was never an in between."

(She was right, of course, but that didn't make Hyde want to frog the redhead any less. Whatever he'd been before Jackie had been obliterated the second she'd become a part of his life.)

Donna huffed and rolled her eyes before grabbing him squarely by the shoulders and spinning him around towards the basement, muttering, "I swear, the shit I do for that girl," along the way. She gave him a decent push and sent him stumbling down the driveway. "She's down there now. Go."

And with that, Donna sent Hyde on his merry way towards his doom with a cheerful, "Good luck!" leaving him no less nervous than he had been earlier that evening.

He walked down the steps slowly, hearing the low sounds of The Price is Right playing behind the door to the basement. He paused, attempting to figure out what he would say if she turned out to not be in there alone.

(Ultimately, it didn't matter since she was. The room had been dark when he'd entered, her lone form still on the couch as the bright lights from the television lit up her face in flashes. Low lighting and dingy couch aside, she was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.)

"Jackie," he said in a low voice, still not entirely sure if he wanted to go through with this or not.

She turned to look up at him and smiled before whispering a soft, "Hi, Steven," and that was when he saw it—she had her brave face on. It had taken him a couple of years, but he had become a scholar on the many moods of Jackie. And the one she was giving him now meant she was deeply troubled by something but didn't want anyone—probably him, especially—to know.

"Jackie, I…" Hyde paused as the television blared in cheers and he glanced towards it without any real interest to see an old lady (one who probably couldn't even reach the wheel, he thought with a small smile) jumping up and down in glee. Without another word, he walked over and shut the sound off, content with the flashing lights coming from the now silent television.

Taking a deep breath, Hyde stepped toward Jackie once more (the girl who he finally realized he couldn't live without and who hopefully wouldn't reject whatever was about to come out of his mouth in the next few minutes) and sat on the edge of the coffee table, his knees stretching out and encasing her own form within them.

She looked at him with a mixture of confusion and trepidation, as if she weren't sure what he was doing, but also as if she knew even better than himself what was going to happen and was scared of what he would say.

(Truthfully, she was hoping against all hope that whatever came out of her Steven's mouth wouldn't rip her heart to shreds any more than it could already stand—was he finally ending it all between them, making an eternal promise that nothing would ever become of Steven and Jackie again?)

"Jackie, I need you to know that I'm sorry."

Jackie looked at him with confusion in her eyes and he hoped that he would be able to go through with this and make her understand how serious he was this time—how resolved he was to never screw it up with her again if he could help it.

"Steven?"

"About Christmas. I know how much that upset you. And after the wedding when you needed an answer from me. I'm sorry I couldn't give it to you then."

"I… then?" Jackie looked at him with a sudden alertness and he swore he could see the hope flare up in her eyes—as bright as the flashes of light that were still coming from the TV. "Can you give me one now?" she asked softly and so slowly, as if afraid he might get up and run away at any sudden movement.

He reached over and took her small, dainty hands in his larger ones and looked at her—really looked at her.

And in that moment, he almost fell in love with her all over again.

Her body was stiff in anticipation, her entire awareness set upon him. Her eyes were wide and staring at him intently, a small crease formed in the center of her forehead. Her lips were slightly puckered, almost trembling—and any fear he might have had just moments before evaporated at the complete and utter need he saw in her eyes for him to let her know he loved her and always would.

(Because he really did... and it was time to let her know.)

Author's Note: Thank you for reading. This came upon me (as most of my half-baked ideas do) at a moment's notice. I had a little trouble placing it, but then that scene where they got back together in "Down the Road Apiece" (7x17) came to me and I knew I had to write something that replaced that (because we all know they deserved more than getting back together because it could get "wronger").

What did you think?