Forman Basement

1980

Fez rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, rising up from the couch. He couldn't remember what time they all called it a night, or day, since after midnight technically was day. Ah, the first day of the New Year, he thought, extending his arms above him, the crack from the stretch satisfying him. Turning his neck in a circle, climbed up the stairs to the kitchen.

Not the first time he spent the night, whether the Formans knew he had or not, his nostrils twitched at the lack of aromas wafting above the kitchen. No maple sausage frying in a skillet, no rolls doing one last minute in the oven, no oranges seducing the other scents from the bowl on the table—what the hell kind of New Year's Day was this? Opening the refrigerator door, he poured himself a glass of milk and propped himself up on the countertop.

"Good morning," Mrs. Forman sang, bundled up in her housecoat. "Oh, honey, now don't eat or drink anything else. You kids all being home, my baby finally home…I'm making waffles!"

"Music to my ears," he said, but with a frown. Of course it was wonderful having Eric back, but when he and Donna took to the dark, secluded upstairs after all the singing, drinking, and noise-making, Jackie just waved goodnight to them and pulled a magazine out from the basket next to the armchair. She had kissed him at midnight, he remembered with a smile, and she kissed him goodnight when he announced he would be going to sleep on the basement couch if anyone, anyone at all, wanted to join him. Even his cough at the end of his statement failed to register with her. She had planted herself in the cushions of the living room couch, flipping through a Lady's Home Journal as if it were a Cosmo.

"Oh, darn!" Mrs. Forman clanged a mixing bowl against the counter. "No butter. The one time I get to welcome my baby boy back and I didn't make sure there was butter in the house!"

"What's all the yelling?"

"Hyde, you look surprisingly sober," Fez said before gulping down the rest of his milk.

"Yeah, well, that takes skill, my friend."

"Since you two boys are up, would you mind going out and picking me up some butter?" Mrs. Forman asked, already taking the syrup out of the pantry. "There are some waffles in it for you if you do."

"Sure." Hyde dragged his keys off the countertop and burrowed into his winter coat, still draped over one of the kitchen chairs. Fez followed suit, taking an extra second to adjust his earmuffs. Both of them pulled down the fingers of their gloves to fit their hands into them, and were about to open the backdoor to the driveway, when Fez heard a gnarled scream in front of him.

"What is it? Is there yellow snow?"

"My car! My car's gone! It's buried under, like, a thousand feet of snow!" Hyde pressed his body into the door. "Snow's blocking the door. We can't even get out."

"You mean we have to have waffles with no butter?" Fez cried. "I hate snow! Nature's instrument of destruction."

"Oh, dear," Mrs. Forman said. She huddled into herself as she went to the phone and picked up the receiver. "At least the phone lines are still working. I'll go get Red up and break out the shovels. Now's there's only two, so I guess you boys'll just have to flip a coin to see who takes the first shift with him."

"Hey, guys," Kelso said, passing Mrs. Forman on her way out of the kitchen. "Did you see all the snow out there? What do you say we go to Mt. Hump and start the New Year off right with some super-sledding?"

"Kelso, man, you crashed here, too? Where did you sleep?" Hyde asked him, still trying to muscle open the door.

"Laurie's room. Yeah, it's practically a shrine to me. Fez, I know she's still kind of your wife and everything, but I know when I've left my mark in a room."

"You couldn't even give Jackie the extra bed for the night? What's wrong with you?"

Fez swallowed, knowing he should have been the one to look out for Jackie, still sleeping under a mound of quilts on the living room couch. He knew she'd probably wake up with a sore back and neck. He knew she would complain how sleeping on a couch never left her with that refreshed, sparkling feeling awakening from a bed left, and if she were in a particularly unpleasant mood, she would make a comment that the cheap fabric of the couch would be sure to leave blemishes and blotches all over her skin. But he didn't even think to make sure she had a bed for the night?

"Damn, Hyde, a guy wakes up and within five minutes he's being yelled at?"

"Whatever. Can you get the door open? My baby's out there freezing to death."

Kelso jiggled the handle of the door, Hyde and Fez close behind him. Repositioning themselves so their sides faced the door, they began driving their shoulders into it.


"Well, isn't this cheery?" Red said from his seat. Everyone now in the kitchen chewing on unbuttered waffles and sipping orange juice, they could all sense the sarcasm oozing out of his voice. "Here we all are, trapped together in a blizzard with no way out. It's just like something out of a POW movie, except soon, I may have to eat one of you."

"Oh, Red, it's not that bad. This gives Eric a chance to spend some real quality time with everyone." Mrs. Forman let out a nervous laugh, patting the top of Eric's head. He sat on the countertop, his plate in his lap, partially covering Donna's hand.

"Mom, no offense, but this kind of quality time is probably why we all get into so much mischief."

"Well, I can certainly fix that." Muttering under her breath, she dug through the hall closet, contents of boxes of various sizes soon filling up the narrow hall. "Here we go. 10,000 Pyramid! Oh, now don't groan. What else do you have to do? Go down in the basement and stare at each other all day? Well, divide up into teams!" No one moved. "Fine. I'll do it myself. Red, you'll be team captain and you'll have…Donna, Eric, and Michael. Everyone else—my team, the winning team! Yay! All right. The pyramid is set up and since I did all the hard work, our team will go first. Come up here, Fez!"

"All right, I am first!" Fez sprang up from the counter to Jackie, who was seated next to Red and clasped both of her hands. "I will seize all the points possible, my dearest."

Inspired by her amused laugh, he stood across from Mrs. Forman, arms folded, ready to tap into her mind and respond to her clues. If there was one thing he was good at with Jackie, it was impressing her. Maybe she had always underestimated him, but, he remembered, any time he showed off any kind of skill, it wowed her. It had wowed her enough to pick him to be her skating partner, her dance partner, and damn it, if she could be impressed in any way from playing 10,000 Pyramid, then he would do that, too.

"Category is 'Bundle of Joy: Words Related to Babies,'" Red said in a monotone. "You have thirty seconds. Go."

"Okay, this is what you feed the baby with."

"Breasts!"

"No, no, no, you put the milk in it."

"Oh, bottle!"

"Right, and when you change the baby, this is what you sprinkle on him. It's white, soft…"

"Powder." Fez shrugged, knowing he was two for two. Shaking off the mistake he made with the first word, he zeroed in on Mrs. Forman's face deeper. Word after word, he ignored Kelso's bursts of how much time was left, counting in his head how many he had. Six! Six words with just a few seconds left. Stop thinking about time.

"Ooh, this one is hard. You dress the baby in this."

"Diaper."

"No, it's…" The back of Mrs. Forman's hands faced him, shifting back and forth with the fingers wiggling, trying to grab the word out of the air. "Oh! In baseball, it's a way to hit the ball."

"Bunting!"

He said it at exactly the same time Red shouted time was up, causing him to jump up and down into Mrs. Forman's arms, swinging her back and forth. Seven for seven. The other team was no match for him. He never saw Nipsey Russell or Betty White do any better, and who here was really competition? Red? If the subject wasn't kicking someone's ass or war or politics, Red would be a pushover. Donna? Well, he wouldn't think about whether Donna was good or not. Even if she was, Kelso was too stupid and Eric would hesitate too much.

"I think Red and Eric should be partners," Kitty announced. Everyone's head jerked to see Red and Eric exchange hesitant, reluctant expressions. They stood and slouched over to the tile of the kitchen. "Your category is 'Things That Are Wet.'"

"Our whole team is all wet," Eric muttered.

"Oh, can it," Red snapped. "Just don't give any Star Wars or Africa clues and we'll be fine."

Fez tried to concentrate on Eric, to somehow will him to think of the upcoming sequel that promised to continue Luke Skywalker's quest to become a Jedi Knight, but his head kept swerving back to Jackie, still seated cross-legged in the kitchen chair, hands folded and in her lap. When he dated Nina, even when he dated Big Rhonda, he caught them staring at him. Catching Nina ogling him from the corner of her eye at the DMV turned him on like nothing else, but he never caught Jackie staring over at him. She was just watching Eric, fumbling every word.

"Time!" Mrs. Forman shouted. "You only got five! That means our team goes to the Winner's Circle! Steven, are you going to give or receive?"

Eric and Kelso snorted laughter.

"Uh…" Hyde stood, glancing at Jackie. "I'll receive." Without looking at her, he managed to make his way over to the center of the kitchen, arms folded, the clues on the pyramid behind him. A rush of jealousy flooded Fez's body in spite of the apathy Hyde displayed. He knew better. That's how the sneaky bastard had always acted around her, and with those sunglasses, no one could ever tell if he was really in an apathetic mood or not. The son of a bitch could be thinking anything, anything!

He tried to catch Jackie's eye by giving her a smile of encouragement, but she stood diagonally from Hyde, avoiding facing him. She kept her eyes straight on the category behind him.

"Go."

"Chinese food. Chanel, Christian Dior…Italian leather." Her voice was steady, each clue the same tone. Fez avoided the category, preferring to make his own inner guess from her clues. She tossed her hair before folding her arms. "Gucci." Her mouth and eyes widened, her hands preparing to clap together. "Imported Gucci purses."

"I don't know. Things that are expensive."

Fez shook his head, knowing that wasn't it. Come on, Jackie. Let me read your thoughts before he does.

"Fez!" she screamed.

"Things that are foreign."

"Good!" She clapped her hands, absorbed now in making her way up the pyramid. Her posture eased, the stone-faced expression she had adopted to match Hyde's vanished. "Okay, uh… 'Let's clean those teeth.'" Her arms had worked up and down like she was jogging.

"What a dentist says."

About to open her mouth, the shrill ringing from the telephone startled everyone.

"Pause the time, Mr. Forman!" she ordered.

"Hello?" Mrs. Forman answered. "Oh, yes, he's here. Just a minute." Bringing the receiver down, she twisted her side. "Fez, it's your father."

Papa! His eyes lit up, ready to run into the living room with it as far as the cord would allow him. Fighting the instinct to push Jackie aside, he squeezed in between her and the oven, nudging her closer to Hyde. He entangled with her and almost sent her down to the ground had Hyde not caught her.

"Watch it!" she barked to Fez, prying herself out of Hyde's arms.

Her voice, for once, could not capture him, not now. It took a split second to look back at them, but he saw it. He saw their eyes lock for a split second before reality hit them and they couldn't simply fondle each other as they used to—on the couch, in his room, in his chair. He refused to look back now that he entered the living room, the cord of the phone already growing taut.

"Are you there, son?" Fez grinned at hearing his language spoken to him. His father spoke so often with a growl, even when affectionate, that his body rumbled and intimidated anyone who didn't know him to see he had more in common with a teddy bear than a grizzly.

"It's so good to hear from you!" Fez said back in a language he knew Red never foresaw being used in his house. "Happy New Year!"

"Your mother and I are getting ready to make a trip to America sometime. We bought some American clothes and I can't wait to have…it is the burger place…McDonalds? Yes. McDonalds. Oh! Listen to this." Fez listened to his father clear his throat, knowing there was a cigar interlaced in his fingers and the ones on the other hand busy jangling the one or two coins in his pocket. "Don't go changin' to try to please me/you never let me down before/don't imagine you're too familiar/and I don't see you anymore."

"Ah, you have been studying the words and music of Billy Joel," Fez laughed, wagging his finger even though he knew his father couldn't see it.

"Yes. I sang it to your mother. Then she showed me her breasts."

"Papa!"

"I am sorry. I forgot you do not like to hear about my needs. I won't keep you. Say hello to your friends." There was a pause. Just before Fez assumed they had been caught off, he heard, "Don't go trying some new fashion and don't change the color of your hair. We will write!"

Holding his breath, he pushed open the kitchen door and hung the phone back up on the wall, Donna rolling her eyes at Kelso's last guess. Peeking at the category, "Things You Do Nude," he nodded his head at Donna's blushing, her hands covering her face. Taking a seat next to Jackie, her cheeks still flushed, she at last made eye contact with him.

"How's your dad?" she asked.

"Oh, he is just fine," Fez said. "Dearest, are you happy?" He made sure to whisper it, taking her hand and entwining his fingers with hers. Anyone else might think it was the beginning stages of a lovers' tryst. "You don't wish I was someone else?"

"Fez." Her eyes burned solemn resolve into his. "You're always there when I need you. That's all that matters."

"So…you need to know I will always be the same old someone that you knew?" He licked his lips, hoping the reference to the song his father just sang would curl the corners of her pouty mouth up into a smile.

"Yes, Fez. Just the way you are."

About to say the same thing to her, the turn of her head quelled any desire he had to speak. Maybe she did like him just the way he was, but it meant nothing if she loved someone else. Shaking his head at the sound of her sighing, he began to think more and more that she did.

A/N: Please read and review! Updates will be soon. I do not own this great, underrated tv show.