AN: Hi everyone! Wow can I just say thank you for all the reviews! It means a whole lot to me. I haven't got much to say about this chapter, but I surprisingly like where this is going, and I hope you do too! This chapter is kind of a filler, if I'm being honest. But it's like super important at the same time, you know? It's got some backstory, some history, some stuff about the girls. Not much action though... Oh well... Next week maybe. I also realized I inadvertently began making this a schedule for every Monday, so I hope to keep that up. To be like a light spot in the dark of beginning the week. Well, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter too! It would really make me feel awesome if you kept on reviewing. Happy reading!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Jackie listened intently as the phone rang in her left ear. She waited patiently for Kitty to answer the phone, hoped Kitty would be the one to answer it. She didn't need another showdown with Steven one day after their previous fight. She wanted to avoid Steven at all costs until he returned to wherever he had been staying. She couldn't think about his soft tone he had used during his apology, or the flutter in her stomach when they brushed shoulders, or the way that he smiled when the girls played the piano.
"Hello?" a gruff voice broke her away from her thoughts. Jackie froze. "Hello?" he asked again.
"Steven?" she asked. She heard him shift the phone and sigh, but he was silent otherwise. "Steven, is Mrs.… I need to talk to—"
"She's not here," he response was curt. Jackie leaned against the counter by the cradle. She rolled her eyes and breathed deeply in and out. She didn't have anything else to say to him, but she needed to leave her message with Kitty, or at least tell her to call back.
"Could you, would you tell her that I called? And to call me back." She began to move the receiver from her ear, but she didn't hang up before he said her name on the other end. "Steven, will you please just leave the message?" her voice was stronger than either of them had expected.
"Yeah, ok, but, Jackie… we really need to talk. About…" he didn't finish, and she didn't want him to.
"There's nothing to talk about, Steven." Jackie rammed her palm against the counter then bit her lip to keep herself from yelping in pain. In the next room, the music stopped, and Jackie could hear extra breaths on the line that didn't belong to her nor Hyde.
"Jackie… I'm, uh, I'm moving back… WB needs someone to run the Point Place store, and… I said yes." She couldn't believe what she was hearing. How many times had she longed to hear those very words over the years? Wasn't this always what she wanted? He was staying, and it was for her. Or, the girls. That much she knew to be true. The look on his face yesterday said it all. He knew she lied, and the awe etched on his face when the girls played for him, it should have brought her to tears.
"And I should care because…?" Jackie normally hated talking on the phone, but now it was another barrier that she needed to hide her emotions. On the phone, she could keep a cool tone without worrying about the emotions being displayed on her face. On the phone, they were in different houses, and she could use that to keep herself from doing or saying things she would regret. Maybe they should have only talked on the phone back in the day.
"Because… because—whatever, you shouldn't." And he promptly slammed the phone back onto the cradle. Jackie still held the receiver in her hand, her fingers twisting the cord. She screamed into the phone and stomped her feet. The girls audibly hissed in pain before placing the other phone back. Their music resumed, and Jackie held her feet in place to keep from yelling at them for listening in on her phone call. It was a rather juicy call though, and she knew that at their age, she would have done the same thing.
It was stupid. So, so stupid that he could make her feel this way. Jackie was a strong, independent, single-mother. She didn't need him! She had raised his children without him for their entire lives. The girls had never once indicated they felt they needed a father, that she wasn't enough. The three of them were close, all they needed was each other. They had never needed men. They had Mr. Forman and Eric and Fez and Michael. They were fine. Jackie was fine.
Well, sometimes she wasn't fine. There were nights when the twins were really little, and Jackie wished that there was someone to share the load with her. There were nights when they lived at the Formans', and Stephanie wouldn't stop crying, and the only way to make her stop was for Jackie to wear some of Steven's clothes that he had never taken when he left town. Or the time that Stacy had chicken pox—a two-year-old with chicken pox who needed to be separated from her sister wasn't easy—and the only way to help her fall asleep were his records. Jackie hadn't realized how much Steven had influenced her children even though he hadn't known about them or been there.
That was what bothered her the most about him returning to town. He hadn't been there. He came back for the first time in nineteen years, discovers he has kids, and thinks he can just stick around now, and it'll fix everything? It wouldn't. The twins didn't even know who their father was. Jackie wasn't going to drop this kind of bombshell on them because said father has shown up out of the blue. It wouldn't be fair to them, and nothing about this situation was fair to her.
Jackie liked to believe she was a good mother. Granted, she had only been nineteen when she found out she was pregnant, and her boyfriend had run for the hills. She had smiled through the pain, the loneliness, the stares, the whispers. She gave birth to not one, but two baby girls. She worked three jobs to save enough money to move out of the Formans' house. She had done all of that when the world was telling her she couldn't. She was emotionally there for her children, and they knew they were always able to talk to her about anything. Nothing was awkward or weird for them. She had raised two phenomenal, moral girls. All by herself.
But, damn. The nights she spent fantasizing about his return. At first, she had imagined he would come back during her pregnancy. He would cry before getting down on one knee begging her to take him back. Then he hadn't shown up while she was pregnant, so her fantasies shifted. The girls were newborns; he would walk into her hospital room, hold all of them while softly confessing his love to her and their children. Wrong again. The girls were toddlers sitting in the shopping cart; she would accidentally bump into him at the grocery, and he would take one look at the girls and cry while profusely apologizing for missing the first few years. By the time the girls reached ten, Jackie stopped her dreaming and returned to reality.
This wasn't how she had planned his homecoming. She hadn't wanted to fight with him. She wanted to fall into his arms, let him kiss her senseless before asking her all about the twins. And she would tell him that Stephanie was in choir, and Stacy was a cheerleader. They were different yet similar in so many ways. They had grown up listening to rock n' roll like he would have wanted, but were still influenced by disco and pop music. Instead, she slammed a door in his face and lied, and he remained Zen and aloof.
The worst of it all, she still wanted to kiss him senseless. They fought, and it reminded her of their younger days. He still had it, and Jackie knew that she was just as hot. She had felt the spark between them, and she had wanted him then. His gruff answer on the phone hadn't helped her longing. She was beginning to sound like Fez with needs. Having kids really didn't help a woman score a lot of dates.
Jackie sat down at the kitchen table, fanning herself the slightest bit. Her face flushed the more she thought about him, about them, about things that took place between them. Those things that had led to her daughters. Jackie shuddered lightly. They had always been good at that.
The phone rang, and Jackie jumped to grab it. Her stomach fluttered when she thought it may be Steven, and she could barely maintain a normal pitch as she attempted to say a single word. It wasn't Steven, though. Her heart still thumped like a jack hammer as Mrs. Forman rambled about her baby coming home before asking what Jackie had needed to talk to her about. Jackie took a deep breath before going into the details pertaining Donna and Eric's surprise anniversary party. Her desires were going to have to wait.
XXX
Hyde was pacing in the basement. His call with Jackie hadn't gone as he had planned. Knowing her, he had expected some big reaction to his announcement. Not the aloof response he was given. What more could he do? He missed out on his kids' lives (thanks to her), and he was moving back to be a part of their lives (and hers), and he had a job all lined up. There was nothing left for her to ask of him.
But just because he was moving back to be with them didn't mean he wasn't angry. No, he was furious. He kept in contact with Forman and Kelso, so there was no excuse that he was unreachable. Maybe if she called, he would have scoffed at her, made a joke about her lying and the baby being Kelso's; but he knew she would persist, and it would have eventually gotten through his skull. He would have been back in this town before someone could say diaper. But she hadn't.
She had kept those two girls away from him then had the audacity to lie to him. Tell him they weren't his when it was obvious they were. Ok, so he hadn't seen it at first, but the more he thought about it, the more startlingly true it became. Thinking about the twins, his daughters, growing up without him, Hyde wanted to break something. Not to mention, they probably hated his guts. Who knew what sort of lies Jackie had spun up for them throughout the years.
At this point, all Hyde wanted was to get to know them. When they had wanted piano lessons. What kind of pranks they pulled at the school. The pranks they pulled on Robbie. Who was better at burns, Stacy or Stephanie? What they liked to do together, and things they liked to do separate. It had only been one day, and he was already going mushy.
He couldn't help but think about what might have been. If he had been there to watch them grow up, would they still be who they were today? Would he be married to Jackie, or just co-parenting? He liked to think that he would have been stern, but Hyde already knew after just meeting them that he would have been putty in their hands. But those were the things he had missed out on! All of it. The sick days, the whining and crying, the bossiness they had inherited from their mother. He had missed so much, and he didn't want to miss anymore. Hyde never had a father, and he never thought he would be one himself, but there had been a time forever ago when he thought it wouldn't have been horrible. He had told himself he would be there, but his choice was made for him without him knowing.
He finally grew tired of pacing. Hyde had thought too long and too hard on a problem he couldn't change. He put a record on—he evilly eyed the boom box as the needle found the groove; CDs were convenient, but nothing beat the sound of a crackle before opening chords—then sat back on the edge of the couch. On the coffee table before him was a picture book. After last night's disaster, Red had "accidentally" left it in the basement while grabbing a beer.
Hyde hadn't been able to tear himself away from it for long. He had studied each picture until they were seared into his mind forever. The first few were of Jackie. She was smiling brightly with her hands resting on her stomach. She was laughing at a baby shower. She was near tears while looking at a made-up room for her and the babies. Then, Jackie was in a hospital bed; her hands were raised to block herself from the camera, but he could see the smile she wore while not in pain.
After that, there was a picture of the twins. Faces red and mouths open mid squawk with pink beanies covering their bald heads. The next were of a tired Jackie cuddling the twins. One photo with each girl, and a few with both. A lot of the pictures at the beginning were from the day the girls were born. Each family member was given a chance to hold them, and Hyde's heart clenched. He pounded on his chest, taking it all in again.
The following pages were filled with the girls slowly but surely growing. His breath caught in his throat when he stared at a picture of Jackie holding a sleeping Stephanie. She wore his shirt, and her smile was tight and tired. She wore a few of his clothes throughout a lot of the photos, Hyde noticed this time around. There was even a picture of Stacy, sick with the chicken pox and fever, lying on the mustard couch dressed in the Led Zeppelin shirt he gave to Jackie for her birthday. Then Stephanie wearing it, looking intently at her arm as she awaited the dots to appear on her skin.
The photos graduated to school age. Hyde looked at the girls wearing matching dresses to their first day of kindergarten while Jackie stood behind them and cried. There was a picture for each first and last day, and depending on the grade and activities done, a few pictures were taken in between. Two pictures were for career day; Stephanie was sitting on the hood of a car in the garage wearing the shirt Red had gotten custom made when he thought Hyde would be working at the muffler shop with him, and the other was of Stacy—holding a shiny clipboard and pink pen—following Jackie around at the TV station to do people's make up and hair. There were pictures of fieldtrips, the girls hitting Robbie or following Betsy around, a few family vacations with the Formans. So much that shaped who the girls had come to be.
Hyde flipped the last page long after the music had finished. He hadn't noticed. His attention held by the life he had missed out on. He felt stupid, incredibly stupid. The emotions swirled inside him, and his face pinched in a grossed-out expression. He didn't have emotions, not strong ones; and he didn't feel regret, often. He was Hyde, an aloof jackass. He didn't have feelings about children or his ex-girlfriend. It wasn't in his nature.
He'd gone soft. No, he was just dealing with so much information at once that it messed with his head. That had to be the case of this mushy, lovey crap he felt in his chest. He didn't care that Jackie didn't care that he was staying in town. He didn't care what she'd told their kids about him. He didn't care… before.
Because if Hyde was being truly honest—it only came around once in a blue moon—he really did care. He was crushed. Not that anyone would know that. Jackie, especially, could never know how much he felt and cared in that moment. He had to stick to his guns, and not think about how hot she had looked in those pictures or how hot she sounded on the phone. Hyde really couldn't think about how much he wanted her, about how much he loved her.
