Author's Note: Thanks, all, for staying with me thus far! This chapter's very Hyde-centric and gets into his head. Enjoy!

Hyde walked purposefully towards the front of the room, noticing quickly that his destination kept moving further and further away. He picked up his speed to a jog, then began running, trying to reach the point he had his eye on.

Suddenly, he was there, and he jerked to a stop. He focused and slowly took in his surroundings, everything still a little hazy. His mouth opened in awe as he noticed the grandness of the room. It was very large with a high ceiling, and it was very intricately designed.

Behind him, an organ began playing a familiar tune he couldn't quite place and the room suddenly filled with people. Some he knew, many he considered family, and others he couldn't recognize but somehow still knew who they were.

The room filled with chatter, slowly getting louder and louder and louder until it drowned out the organ, becoming unbearable. Suddenly, it stopped.

Quiet.

He looked around again before something caught his eye. He focused and saw a figure in the distance moving towards him. Small. White. Glowing.

The figure kept moving, gliding softly, and eventually she revealed herself: Jackie, in an opulent white dress, a smile adorning her face as she looked at him.

Everything came together and he realized he wasn't just in a large room with a lot of people. He was in a church that had many well-dressed guests.

He was getting married.

He smiled at Jackie, reaching towards her and begging her to come to him quickly. She kept to her pace, almost gliding towards him. Her smile was radiant and a small giggle escaped her. And then he blinked and everything changed.

The room was not as luxurious. The guests were not as merry. And the woman he was reaching towards was no longer Jackie.

She was taller, blonde, and had on a simple expression, even though he couldn't really make out her face. She grabbed a hold of his hand and stood by him, whispering "I do" before everything floated away.

February 11, 1979

1:05 a.m.

Hyde startled awake and his hand smacked against the bed's railing in his sudden movement. "Shit," he whispered, out of breath, and he tried to focus on where he was.

As his eyes adjusted to the room's dim light, he began to recognize his surroundings and the past evening came to him in a flash. He groaned in annoyance, remembering his reality, before the haziness of his dream poked at him—Jackie in a white dress and him in a cathedral. He struggled to sit up, his head pounding, and scrubbed his face with his good hand.

Slowly, minuscule details dangled on the edge of his memory as he recalled the dream. A lot of people. Loud, ear splitting chatter. Bright, fuzzy surroundings. The only thing he really, truly remembered was the feeling of overwhelming numbness as he stood by that blonde chick—Sam, he supposed, was her name.

His wife.

An awful feeling began to pool in his gut, the result of too much bad news and a splitting headache.

Hyde groaned again. It just didn't make any fuckin' sense, man. It felt like just a couple of days ago he'd been really fuckin' happy. He had a nice job, a good family, and a really hot and amazing chick. He could still see so clearly her unbelievably happy expression when he gave her that graduation gift. He remembered how sweet her smile was, how she felt when she threw herself into his arms, the smell of her hair. He remembered how he felt when he…

Shit. How was that not real anymore? How did it fall apart so fast? It just…fuck. It just didn't make any sense.

Hyde sighed and relaxed against the bed again. Nothing ever made any fuckin' sense without her. He needed to talk to her. He had to confirm that this hellhole he'd been handed was real. He just had to… He jumped up, alert, and looked for the phone they always provided patients. Locating it wedged deep between his four pillows, he pulled it out and turned it on.

He reached towards the table to the side of the bed and grabbed the piece of paper Mrs. Forman had left him, opening it and finding the right number.

Riiiing. Riiiing. Riii—"Hello?" hissed a female voice.

Damn. He hadn't considered Donna. He knew he'd have to work some serious magic to get through her, to even have a chance at talking to his girl.

"Donna."

Silence…already a bad sign. Hyde took a deep breath and plunged in.

"Donna, is she there?"

"Why are you calling here?!"

Hyde dropped his head. Yeah, definitely not gonna happen. "Because, I just…shit. You're right. This was definitely a bad idea."

"How do you even have this number?"

Hyde shrugged and looked at a list of names—most he recognized and a couple names he had to work to recall from his talk with the Formans—in Mrs. Forman's neat scrawl. "The Formans gave me everyone's numbers so I can reach people."

"Damn it, those two. Do you know what would have happened if she'd answered?"

Hyde recalled his most recent memory of Jackie—her smiling and throwing herself at him.

"Chaos. That's what. And more crying."

The image in his head quickly morphed into that day in his El Camino when he'd confessed about the nurse. He didn't think he could ever willingly forget—no matter how hard he tried—the look of realization that stole her features when he started talking. A look that had quickly turned in to resolve to leave him. He'd never felt the force of her strength until that moment. "Look, man. I'm sorry, all right? I just…I don't know. I wanted to talk to her."

"No, I can't allow that."

Hyde rolled his eyes. "What are you, her keeper?"

"For tonight, yeah. I am."

"Donna, come on.

"Look, Hyde. I'm really glad you're okay and all, but let me give you the skinny on what's been going on."

A strange and sticky sort of shame began to sweep over him, clinging to his skin like sap, even though he couldn't actually remember anything he'd done. He just knew it was bad.

"You both messed up with Chicago and Vegas. And instead of getting past your shit and working through it, you got drunk, married a stripper, and rubbed Jackie's broken heart in it."

Hyde sighed. That was the third time somebody had told him in the past few hours that he'd been a complete jerk to Jackie about some stripper. It was damning evidence, and it pointed directly at him.

"You don't just get to call in the middle of the night and pretend that all of that didn't happen, memory loss or not. If she wants to talk to you, she'll come to you."

"Fuck."

"I mean it."

He shook his head. "It's not fair, man."

"No, it isn't. But if you want to work things out, then you have to understand where she is right now. You can't rush her into anything."

"Fine." He sighed heavily, resolved to his fate for now. "You're a good friend, Donna." He shut off the phone and tossed it back within the pillows. If the past four hours were any indication, Jackie had a hell of a team guarding her. He just never thought it would be from him. And it made him realize he'd have to work pretty damn hard to weasel his way around them to get to her.

A thought suddenly occurred to him that left him more afraid than he'd like to admit: what if she didn't want him when he finally got through her troop of bodyguards? What if those bodyguards weren't there for her, but because of her?

Since the day they got together on that hot day in the basement—and maybe even before, despite her protests—he'd never really doubted her affection for him. At first, she was always just there. And then, soon, she was there for him, and he liked it.

Getting through to her while she was angry at him was one thing… getting through to her when she didn't even want him was something entirely different, and he wasn't sure he was up to the task.

Author's Note: The next update will come quicker. I'm just fine-tuning it right now. Until then, please tell me what you thought!