A/N: Yay, tenth chapter! There's a lot of dialogue here, so you'll have to bear with me. Anyways, thanks anyways to my wonderful reviewers. Just you guys wait, chapter eleven is going to be so much fun.

A few days passed, and Hyde had gotten over being sick. The rest of the basement gang hadn't been to the Forman's since the night they contemplated what would happen if they couldn't get the rebel of the group back to normal.

As Hyde walked down to the basement, he smelled a very familiar scent. His friends were in the circle.

As soon as he reached the bottom step, Kelso started persuading, "Hyde! It's not what it looks like!"

Hyde leaned against the wall. "Really man, 'cause it looks like you're in the circle."

"Oh, well then it's totally what it looks like," Kelso laughed.

"That's cool," Hyde said halfheartedly.

Kelso sighed a sigh of relief, happy that Hyde wasn't going to go off on him this day, adding, "well, in that case, you want a smoke?"

Hyde looked at him quizzically through his mini-aviator shades. "Kelso, man, I know your high and all, but have you gotten dumber?"

Kelso looked up in thought, then laughed, "yeah, maybe!"

Hyde scoffed, deciding not to waste anymore time by a circle he couldn't join in.

"Hey, Mrs. Forman," Hyde said glumly as he joined her in the living room.

"Did you see the kids come in? They'd probably like to see you." She said, wondering why he wasn't with the others.

"Yeah, I saw them."

"You don't want to be downstairs with them?"

Hyde paused. "Not right now."

Kitty cocked her head, her interest peaked. "Is something wrong, Steven?"

He took off his sunglasses and polished them with his Grateful Dead shirt. "No," he said simply.

Kitty smiled and turned sideways to look at the curly haired boy. "You know, Steven," she started, getting ready to prepare the speech she had been planning out, "Red and I were talking the other night…you know that you can live with us as long as you need to, even if, well, if whatever happened doesn't wear off."

Hyde looked down. This again. If he hadn't been so distracted with the flu or whatever that was, he would still be brooding on the possible irreversibility of this…anti-aged state, after everything the gang had said about it.

Kitty spoke up again, knowing that, since this was Steven Hyde, after all, no response would come. "And don't worry about how much it costs or anything like that. We want to just like we did when Edna left."

"What about the government?"

Kitty laughed. That was just like her little boy.

Hyde sighed, then clarified, "I mean, they think I'm sixteen. If I never go to school, they'll have the attendance officer after me."

Kitty smiled sadly. "I was going to talk to you about that, but then you were sick…"

This didn't sound like a promising start. "Yeah?" Hyde urged her to continue.

Kitty wrung her slightly wrinkled hands, the same tick Eric had done when he had to tell Donna that Kelso wasn't making things up. "Steven, I'm sorry, but you'll have to go to school again sometime."

Hyde shook his head. "Man, please don't say kindergarten-" he could barely stand to even say it. He almost had to laugh at the situation, just so he wouldn't flip out like he did the other day with the gang.

"Well, when I was working a few days ago, I took out your chart to look at, and I brought it home…"

"And?"

"I realized that we don't actually know how-well, how old you are now, which is something that we probably will have to know if we can't get you back soon," she said awkwardly, trying to put things as nicely as possible. By the befuddled (and somewhat annoyed) look of the kid's face, she knew that she still hadn't explained to his satisfaction.

Finally, she worked up the courage to explain that she wanted to measure Hyde, so they could compare his height to his old growth chart and pin point an age.

Hyde hesitated uncertainly before reluctantly standing up, training his eyes on the soap opera Kitty had been watching in an attempt to block out what was going on. He tried not to notice Kitty walking into another room in search of a tape measure, tried to ignore when she stretched it from the floor to his head, keeping his eyes focused intently on the television set as she compared his height to his old pediatric growth chart.

He stood quietly for a few minutes before allowing himself to gradually sink back into the living room sofa. There was a seemingly unending, insurmountable awkward pause as neither of them quite wanted to hear the results out loud. An uncountable about of time passed before Hyde finally gave in. "Okay."

Kitty silently handed Hyde the paper, pointing to the intercept on the chart correlating to his current height. Hyde took a deep breath, then dared himself to read it.

He felt a slight lunge in his stomach as he read the numbers. "four years, ten months." His face grew hotter than it had been with the fever, hotter than after he threw up right before Eric walked in. He wasn't even five. Not even old enough for kindergarten.

He didn't care if Eric had proven to be good at keeping secrets, he wasn't telling anybody about this.

"Steven, there's nobody home during the day…" Oh God, she was going to make him go back to the hell hole!

"This is Point Place, Wisconsin, I don't think there are many kidnappers or anything around here."

"I know, but just in case-"

"I think I'd rather take my chances," Hyde ended as he sulked down into his room to mentally beat himself up harder than ever before.

A/N: Tada! Whaddya think? Yes, his age here was planned from the beginning. Remember, reviews are great, as are my reviewers. Does flattery work? I think next chapter, though I haven't started typing it yet, is one of my favorites. It'll be fun, I promise.