Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
A/N: I'm so sorry this update is so long in coming. It's a busy time at work and the recent spoilers have sucked some of my enthusiasm. But I've got it back now! Thank you so, so, so much to those of you who've left reviews. If I didn't know there were people out there enjoying this story, it'd be hard to keep writing. I'm working on a finale story for jackiehydelover's contest (Hi Chris!), so it may be another week or so before I can update this. I do have the next two parts and the epilogue outlined, though. It's just a matter of actually writing them! Here's a teaser: next chapter is Eric.
In Case of Emergency
Chapter Four: Kitty
Hyde pushed the door to the living room open with his backside. His arms were full with the sandwich, chips, and soda he planned to eat in front of the television. Samantha had gotten home about an hour before that and, tired from her long flight, was still taking a nap. Hyde didn't want the noise to disturb her, so he came upstairs to watch t.v.
Okay, so he was also a chickenshit.
He didn't want to be in the basement when she woke up. She would probably want to have sex or something, and he was just not up for that. Not after his scare with Donna. And he knew they were going to have to have a talk. They couldn't go on the way things were, that much was sure, but he didn't know where they should go from here. He had no idea what he was going to say to her.
Have a talk. God, he sounded like a girl. Or Forman.
"Steven! I'm glad you're here," a female voice called excitedly from behind him.
Hyde spun around to see Mrs. Forman sitting on the sofa with a large cardboard box in front of her on the coffee table. Several of the items had already been taken out and set aside next to it. He saw some lacy things and tissue paper and what looked frighteningly like a photo album.
This was not something he wanted to be a part of.
He tried to make a hasty retreat back into the kitchen, but Kitty's voice stopped him.
"You're just in time to join me on a little trip down memory lane," she giggled.
"Aw, Mrs. Forman," he almost whined.
"Yes, you have to," she directed sternly, answering his question before he could even give voice to it.
Hyde groaned inwardly, then sulked across the floor to join Kitty on the couch. As he sat down beside her, she patted his knee happily.
Forty-five minutes later…Kitty sat next to Hyde with her wedding album opened and balancing on their laps. She was poring over a photograph of the wedding party, pointing out the hideous nature of the corsage that Red's mother had picked out for herself.
But she didn't notice that Hyde wasn't paying any attention to Red's mother's flower thing. His eye was glued to the picture directly below it. It was a candid shot of Kitty in her white wedding dress, standing next to Red and smiling up at him. Hyde couldn't believe she had ever been that young; she was practically still a kid. The smile on her face was a familiar one, though. Even now, she could never contain herself when she was happy about something or another.
But as his gaze followed Kitty's in the picture, his eyes widened in shock. Red was smiling too! And it wasn't the evil smirk Hyde was so accustomed to seeing after he or Eric or one of the other kids did something stupid. It was a genuine, honest-to-God, ain't-life-fantastic smile. Like he was actually happy to be signing up for the life he ended up with.
It was weird. Hyde could always tell that Red was a lot softer on the inside than he let on. He knew that, in spite of all the complaining he did about Kitty and his kids, he was fairly content with what he had. But Hyde had never thought about how he had gotten there. He had never imagined Red as a young man, much like himself, meeting Mrs. Forman. Dating Mrs. Forman. Deciding to marry Mrs. Forman.
The way Red usually talked, Hyde always imagined he had gotten hitched grudgingly, to make Mrs. Forman happy. Or to make their parents happy. Or, since it was the Fifties, to get in her pants. But the guy in the picture in front of him looked sickeningly happy to be getting married. Christ, he looked like Forman used to look at Donna.
Hyde snorted a quick laugh, thinking how pissed Red would be to know that.
Still smirking, Hyde began to turn his attention to the opposite page in the album. The picture there stopped him short, wiping the smirk immediately from his face. It was of Mrs. Forman looking down at the bouquet of flowers she was holding to her nose, shot from behind her shoulder. The pose was almost identical to the portrait Jackie had insisted on getting done professionally for the yearbook her senior year.
Immediately, an image of Jackie standing in the mall, wearing a wedding dress, flashed in his mind. He hadn't thought of that day in a long time, but he was remembering every bit of it now. She had looked incredible: her skin, her hair, her eyes, everything. It had stunned Hyde so much that, even though he was usually reluctant to compliment her too often, he couldn't stop himself from telling her that she looked beautiful.
And it wasn't just that. At that moment, with her hair swept up and wearing that gown, she wasn't a high school girl anymore; she was a woman. He remembered thinking that maybe Jackie was right. Maybe she was born to be a bride. And maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he were the guy to make her one.
Of course, then she had opened her big mouth, babbling on and on, all excited about pink ponies or riding doves to Hawaii or something ridiculous like that, and the moment was gone.
Hyde frowned, thinking about Jackie's face that day. The smile that had appeared on it had been as big as he had ever seen, as big as the one on young Mrs. Forman's face in the picture with Red. He sighed deeply, thinking that he hadn't seen Jackie smile like that in a long time. Not since before Chicago.
Kitty noticed Hyde's shift in mood and immediately abandoned her reminiscing to switch into mothering mode.
"Oh, Steven," she said sympathetically as she closed the album on her lap. "Are you thinking about Samantha? About your own wedding?"
Hyde furrowed his eyes and looked back at her, confused. "Um, not exactly."
It was the truth, sort of. He had been thinking about his wedding. Only it was the wedding he thought he might have had one day, not the one he actually ended up with.
"I know you don't remember your wedding because you were feeling under the weather…"
Hyde interrupted her. "I was plastered, Mrs. Forman. Let's not kid ourselves."
Kitty placed her hands over her ears, not willing to accept the unpleasant facts. "I can't hear you," she sing-songed before clearing her throat.
"I know," she announced happily after a moment. "Why don't you have another wedding? You could renew your vows. I assume there were vows," she added, although she wasn't sure at all. She didn't know the etiquette of quickie weddings in Las Vegas.
Hyde only smiled weakly at her, amused by her consistency. He found it comforting that with everything that had changed this past year, Forman and Kelso leaving, him and Jackie breaking up, he could count on Mrs. Forman to stay the same. She was a mother to the core. No matter which kid it was, hers or not, she wanted to take care of them.
She was eternally optimistic, believing she could close her eyes to the bad and believe only the good. It reminded Hyde of the way Jackie tried to hold it all together when her mom was gone and her dad was shipped off to prison.
But Mrs. Forman was a master at the art. She truly believed she could make things better for everyone she cared about. Over the last few years, Hyde had finally come to accept that he was one of those people that Kitty Forman wanted to fix things for.
That knowledge was probably what gave him the balls to say what he did next.
"Mrs. Forman, I don't want to marry Sam again." His courage, however, did not extend to raising his eyes from the hands he had clasped firmly together in front of him.
"What are you saying, Honey?" Kitty asked. The concern in her voice gave him the strength to straighten up and look directly at her.
"I'm saying… I think I made a huge mistake." He let out some of the hair he had been holding in his chest. He couldn't believe he had finally said it. Out loud.
"You mean marrying her in a drunken stupor?" Kitty asked, trying to lighten the mood. Hyde was not usually so forthcoming and, frankly, it made her a little uncomfortable.
"Well…yes, that," he answered quickly, almost dismissively before continuing. "But… mostly I mean staying married to her after she showed up here and I was all sobered up."
He looked at her sheepishly, afraid of what she might say.
"I see," she managed. Hyde couldn't tell what she was thinking. Was it a good reaction or a bad one? God, if he couldn't get it right talking to Mrs. Forman, how the hell was he going to do it with Sam?
"Can I ask what brought this on?" Kitty was asking him.
Hyde sighed deeply. Where do I start?
"Well, it's a lot of things. It just kind of…feels wrong. I don't think I feel married."
Kitty gave him a look that let him know his answer was a good start, but was not going to cut it. He was going to have to spill his guts, like it or not.
"Okay, fine," he began, resigned to his fate. "Last week, I was filling out some insurance cr-…I mean, paperwork…"
Kitty smiled at him knowingly and urged him to continue.
"And when I had to pick an emergency contact, I picked you and Red," he explained, and as he heard himself say it, was once again surprised at the denial he had been living in.
Kitty, of course, was touched. "Oh Steven, that's so sweet."
"Yeah but, Mrs. Forman, that's not the point. Don't you think it's kinda weird that I didn't think to put Sam's name down?"
"Well…yes," she agreed.
"Me too," he said, nodding his head. Encouraged by Kitty's affirmation, he continued.
"And Donna said some things the other day about the future and kids and stuff like that and I just…it seriously blew my mind."
"But Steven, don't you want that one day? I'd like to think that living here with us might have warmed you up to the idea of having a family."
"I don't know, Mrs. Forman." He was bordering on whining, so overwhelming was his confusion and his frustration with it. "Maybe I do…just…"
"Not with her?" she finished for him gently.
"Yeah," he answered quietly. "I mean, can you imagine having me for a father and her for a mother? Poor kid wouldn't have a chance."
He tried to play it off as a joke, but he meant it. He had grown up with crappy parents and he was not about to do that to another kid.
"Oh Steven, I think you'll make a wonderful father. One day, when you're ready," she added when Hyde looked at her skeptically.
"I just think you'll need someone a little more…conventional, to balance out your…unique style of….well, whatever it is," she finished, giggling.
Hyde knew she meant 'someone like Jackie', but he wasn't ready to go there. Not yet. He cleared his throat, trying to get off the subject of fatherhood.
"So anyway…the scariest part of it is, even Kelso and Fez got my head all messed up. They were runnin' their horny little mouths about…"
He stopped himself when he saw Kitty raise her eyebrows. "Well…about some stuff that would be way too creepy to discuss with you, and it got me thinking."
He lowered his voice and added reluctantly, embarrassed, "I don't feel about her the way a man should feel about his wife."
Kitty felt for the boy in front of her. He had been through a lot since she had known him: being abandoned by his parents, trouble at school, getting arrested.
Loving a girl for the first time.
But, through most of that, Hyde had chosen to go through it alone. He rarely asked for help or let on that he needed it. For Pete's sake, when he wanted her and Red to go to Milwaukee with him to meet his dad, he just stood there in the kitchen, waiting for them to figure it out.
But he was talking now, and she was not about to stop him.
"I mean, it seems like everywhere I go there's some neon sign flashing in my eyes, telling me that I've screwed up royally. Even this album," he said, indicating it with a jab of his hand. "Those pictures of you and Red? I didn't feel like that when I married Sam. I've never felt that way about her. I don't…I don't love her," he added quietly.
"The thing is, Mrs. Forman, I never thought I'd get married. Ever. I didn't want to. My parents were horrible at it…all the married people I ever knew were miserable."
Kitty opened her mouth to defend the cause of married people everywhere, but Hyde cut her off.
"But," he stressed, "I could tell that you and Red were pretty happy, even if you do seem to get on each other's nerves an inordinate amount of the time," he added, almost under his breath. "And Eric and Donna were always so nauseatingly perfect together that I could see why they'd want to get married.
"I don't know…after so many years of living with all you normal people, getting married didn't seem quite so intolerable," he said, his mind beginning to wander and trying to pinpoint exactly when it was that his feelings began to change.
Kitty didn't know where Hyde was going with this. "So that's why you decided to marry Samantha?" she asked, confused.
"No," he answered, looking at her pointedly. "That's why I decided to marry Jackie."
Kitty and Hyde looked at one another, both silent, for several seconds. The magnitude of what he had just confessed was not lost on either of them.
"Oh Steven," Kitty sighed, not knowing what else to say. She didn't know exactly what went on surrounding Jackie's move to Chicago. Eric had told her about Jackie's "ultimatum" when she had wanted to know what exactly had caused Steven to drink so much at the beer warehouse the night before Jackie left.
She had tried to explain to Eric that there was absolutely nothing wrong with a young girl deciding that she wouldn't pass up an amazing career opportunity for a relationship that might not have a future, but she didn't think Eric really got it. He was too concerned with sticking up for his friend.
And she couldn't blame him. Steven had been visibly shaken when he read the note telling him Jackie had left for Chicago without waiting for his answer. She and Eric had left him sitting there on the couch, staring straight ahead for almost a half an hour before he finally retreated to his room, where he stayed until dinner.
He had moped around like that for several days after Jackie left, but Kitty had been too preoccupied with Eric leaving to do much to help him. And when he had walked into the kitchen with a packed duffel bag after Eric left, Kitty was surprised to see a genuine smile on his face again. He announced that he was leaving for Chicago and that he might not be back for a day or two, and Kitty understood that he was going there for Jackie.
But she had no idea he planned to propose to her.
Until now.
Kitty felt a sharp pain in her chest for the boy she had helped raise. It all made sense now. No wonder he had been so upset when he found Michael in Jackie's room. No wonder he had run off for a month without telling anyone where he was going.
She was pulled out of her reverie by Hyde's voice. "I just don't know how everything got so screwed up. One minute I'm deciding it really wouldn't be so bad to…marry Jackie…"
He had to swallow hard over the lump in his throat before he could get those two words out.
"…and the next minute I'm married to some chick I hardly know. Mrs. Forman, what am I gonna do?"
His eyes were pleading with her to help him. She wasn't sure what would be the right thing to say. She had always believed in honoring commitments and didn't like the idea of people getting divorced on a whim. But she also didn't think that a boy as young as Steven should spend the rest of his life miserable, just because of one mistake. Samantha, too, deserved better than to be stuck in a marriage that wasn't much more than a sham.
The pain on Hyde's face compelled her to tap into her maternal strength. He looked absolutely lost and it was her job to help him find his way. She reached for his hand.
"Steven, I think we should call Mr. Anderson. He's a lawyer. We've used him for our wills and for buying the muffler shop…I'm sure he could talk to you about your options."
"You mean, a divorce?" he asked.
"Or an annulment. If you were drunk, Steven, you were not in your right mind when you married her. I'm pretty sure that's grounds for an annulment. But you need to talk to Mr. Anderson about that."
"OK," agreed Hyde. He was relieved, and felt a hopefulness he hadn't known since the drive to Chicago so many months ago. Yes, his life was still a mess, but at least now he was doing something about it. There was light at the end of the tunnel.
Kitty was pleased to see Hyde's expression relax. But she was afraid that might change when he heard what she had to say next.
"I'll go find Mr. Anderson's phone number for you, but there's something you need to do before you call him. You need to talk to Samantha."
"I know, Mrs. Forman, but what do I say? 'I only married you because I was drunk out of my mind'? 'Because I thought the girl I actually wanted to marry cheated on me'? 'And I only told you to stay because I couldn't deal with my ex-girlfriend who, incidentally, I can't stop thinking about'?"
The last part was news to Kitty, though no exactly surprising. But she decided against commenting on it.
"Well, I'd put it a little more delicately than that, but yes. That's the general idea."
Hyde looked unsure that he was up to the task, so she patted his hand and gestured toward the kitchen.
"Come on. I'll make us some chocolate peanut-butter cookies and we'll figure it," she suggested encouragingly.
As she turned to walk toward the door, Hyde stopped her. She turned again to face him and was pleasantly surprised when he bent down and kissed her on the cheek.
"Thanks, Mrs. Forman," he said with more sincerity than she'd ever heard from him.
"You're welcome," she replied.
Hyde followed her into the kitchen, trying not to think about the sleeping stripper in the basement, or the reaction she might have to his announcement. Knowing it was probably inappropriate, he tried to suppress the grin that threatened his face as he thought that he might be a free man again.
But it only grew bigger as he let his mind wander to what that might mean for him.
And, maybe, for Jackie.
