Author Note: …. Life goes on….for some

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Chapter 10 – Steven and Jackie

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It had only been a couple of weeks, yet it still felt like yesterday; but everyone was slowly getting back into a routine. Steven came back from wherever with no explanation and Jackie didn't ask for one. The wary couple treated each other with caution and respect and danced around the elephant that was still in the room. By the end of the week Jackie declared, "I'm moving."

Steven looked relieved. "I'll help you." Jackie looked shocked. She thought he would at least care where she went! She crossed her arms. "Fine. I want to be out by Sunday night."

Steven nodded his head. "Fine. Just let me know the details." Jackie looked at him with tears welling in her eyes. He didn't even fight for her. He was just "letting" her go. So typical Steven to do this! She swallowed the lump in her throat. "I'm going to work, I'll call you later."

"Fine. Or leave a message. Just take your keys with you."

-o-

Jackie sat in her car in the supermarket parking lot. She didn't have a plan. She didn't even have a place to move to! All she knew was that one more week in that house with Steven was going to make her crazy. She was four months pregnant and the baby's father was still grieving for his dead girlfriend. This was a soap opera if she ever heard of one.

A rapping on her window roused her out of her thoughts. "Mrs. Forman." She quickly dashed the pity tears from her cheeks. "I didn't see you there."

"Ahahahaha, I was sneaking up on you." Kitty laughed. "Why are you crying in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot?"

Jackie tried to smile but the magnitude of what she had just done was too much. "I was supposed to go to work but I ran away from home." She felt one tear leak out and roll down her cheek. Kitty walked around the front of the car and opened the passenger door. "Now, what did Steven do? Did he forget Valentine's Day or something?"

Jackie shook her head. "No, Mrs. Forman. He's….he's seeing someone else. I can't be with Steven if he's cheating on me again. "

"Now Jackie, how do you know he's doing that? Cheating?"

"He smells like another woman. I know what I smell like Mrs. Forman and…and we haven't…..we haven't been together in months. He's never home and after Donna's funeral he was gone for a week and won't talk to me."

"Oh my, this is serious. And I thought the two of you were getting on so well." Kitty folded her hands in her lap. "I knew Eric and Donna were having problems. I didn't know about Randy, and he's such a nice young man, that was part of the problem, but you and Steven? Oh dear."

"Mrs. Forman, I told Steven I was moving out and I opened by big mouth before I realized I have no where to go!"

"Well honey, you could stay with us, except Eric's there until he get's a new apartment. Maybe you could stay in his place."

"With the ghost of Donna? Ew! No thank you. Maybe Fez will rent me a room until I can get an apartment."

"Jackie. What about our basement? There's that small bedroom down there…oh dear, it would only remind you of Steven. My, you are in a pickle." Kitty patted Jackie's hand. "Why don't you come to my house and we'll look at some classifieds and see what's available. We'll let Eric sleep on the couch tonight."

"Thank you Mrs. Forman." Jackie smiled brightly. "I can go back later when Steven's not there and get some clothes."

"Good. That's settled. I'm making lasagna for dinner so bring your appetite!"

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Steven read the same contract five times before he realized he couldn't remember what he was reading. What was going on with Jackie? He couldn't tell Samantha that he loved Jackie with all his heart, surely Sam had to know that. Sam knew it when she went back to Las Vegas. She knew it when she divorced Larry and a year later found him again. Yet, the lure of the stripper's magnetism pulled him back in.

Samantha was low key, easy to be with whereas Jackie was high energy and all drama -which would be great if he was bi-polar. But deep in his heart Steven knew he was not enough for the tiny cheerleader. No matter how much she tried to convince him they belonged together, Steven Hyde always took the easy way out. Samantha understood that about him and never questioned it. Maybe that's why their quickie marriage years ago worked so well.

How could he possibly get Jackie to understand that even though he loved her, they had to be apart? He couldn't live with her anymore. Her family demands and marriage hints were making him want to tear out his curly hair! Thank god he had his job. Maybe he was working for THE MAN but WB was his boss and his birth dad knew that sometimes, Steven worked best when he slacked off.

He picked up the phone and dialed. "Hey Sam….meet me for lunch. You know where. I gotta talk to you."

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Jackie had called WB Production office and asked the switchboard operator to transfer her to Steven Hyde's extension but the operator said he had gone to lunch, could she take a message? Jackie thanked her and hung up. This was the perfect time to go get some clothes.

Brooke and Betsy accompanied the brunette as Jackie opened the condo door. Brooke exclaimed, "God, it seems like everyone is breaking up with everyone."

Jackie pushed the door open. "Who else besides me?"

Brooke looked at her, "Oh! You don't know. Gosh, don't tell Eric that I told you, but when I was helping Midge pack up some of Donna's things….Donna was going to break up with Eric."

Jackie felt a chill go down her spine. "How….how do you know this? Did Eric say something?"

Brooke shook her head. "No. Midge found a bunch of love letters from Randy. Jackie, he was going to propose to her and they were going to fly to California."

Poor Eric! Jackie hadn't really seen him in the last couple of weeks which was odd because they usually spent a lot of time together. The poor guy was probably grieving because Donna died and then he found out she was going to leave him anyways!

"I've got to go see Eric."

Brooke touched Jackie's shoulder. "Honey, what about Steven? What are you going to do about this relationship?"

Jackie needed someone to confide in and Brooke was the next best thing she had to a girlfriend. After all, she was Betsy's godmother! "Brooke, Steven and I are over. I can feel it and I'm telling you this in confidence."

Brooke put Betsy on the floor and said, "Tell me everything and don't squelch on the details."

Jackie took a deep breath and started with her suspicions from last May and how the once tightly knit couple started pulling away from each other. She told Brooke how Steven would come home late smelling different and then that same perfume or odor always accompanied his returns. "It's her. I don't know who she is, but he didn't want sex, at least he didn't want it with me….then something happened."

Brooke was spellbound with the news. "So….if he doesn't want you, why didn't he move out already?"

Jackie wiped her eyes. "Because he felt obligated – a sense of duty. We got this condo and I spent all this time making it feel like a home – where he could relax. I think….he thinks he feels like he owes me. Brooke, there's more and it's not good. Well, it's good but not really."

"Oh honey, you don't have to tell me if you don't want." Brooke really DID want to know. "Why don't you stay here and make Steven move out?" That actually made more sense than Jackie moving.

"He slept with her here. I can't live in a place where another woman has slept in my bed or….or had sex on my couch. But Brooke….I'm no better than he is."

"How's that Jackie?"

"I cheated on Steven too."

Brooke was flabbergasted. "What?" Jackie looked towards the kitchen. "Steven and I had a fight at this bar and he took off and left me there."

Brooke had a feeling this was a nice long story and she wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere. "Can I ask why?"

Jackie dashed away a tear. "I was looking at a client's wedding band. He had something Celtic engraved on the band and it was pretty. Steven assumed I was going on about getting him to propose again and I wasn't. He paid the bar tab and left me there."

"Alone?" Brooke asked. Jackie nodded. "I waited for him because sometimes he would come right back but this time he didn't. I called Donna and Eric's number and Eric drove down in his pajamas."

Brooke laughed, "That sounds like something he would do."

Jackie smiled through tears. "I spent the night at their apartment because I didn't have a key to the condo."

"But…that's not the end of the story is it?" Brooke asked. Jackie shook her head, "No. Eric and started talking and I realized he was going through the same thing with Donna that I was with Steven. He knew Donna was seeing someone but didn't know who."

"That was a tragic way that Eric had to find out on the television, that Randy was at the radio station when Donna was killed." Brooke said softly. "Go on."

"We struck up a friendship and then one night we got drunk and god, for once in months we were laughing and having a good time….and I felt so human."

Brooke looked at her friend. "You guys slept together. The two archenemies of the basement had sex." Brooke wasn't implying that it was shocking, only clarifying what happened that night.

"I fell in love with him. Eric was everything to me that Steven was not. We have the same dreams and he listens to me. He thinks my ambitions aren't a waste of time and he wants marriage and a family. I just started spending more time with Eric than I did with Steven."

"Because Steven was with the other woman?" Brooke asked. "It sounds like all four of you were playing musical beds. Randy was sleeping with Donna and Eric was sleeping with the wife of his best friend who is sleeping with someone else."

Jackie touched Brooke's hand. "I'm pregnant."

Brooke's mouth fell open. She blinked. This was totally unexpected! "Oh no."

Jackie laughed happy tears this time. "It's okay. I know its Eric's. If Steve stays with me, which he probably won't, Eric has no problem sharing custody."

"What if Steven thinks it's his baby?" Brooke offered.

"He won't. We hadn't slept together since Halloween. He may have tried but passed out on the attempt. I checked the timing and this baby was conceived at the end of December or early January. I'm four months pregnant."

Brooke had chills. "I think we better get you moved out of here before Steven finds out your pregnant. Does anyone else know?"

"Only Eric and my doctor. We were going to tell his parents but that was the day Donna died and things were pretty messed up after that."

Brooke sighed, "I think I'll quit watching Days of Our Lives and just call you everyday."

Jackie chuckled but said in a serious tone.. "It's sad, I know…but Brooke…I'm finally going to have my baby and I have my business…I have Eric, sort of."

Brooke replied. "You love a man who still loves and grieves for a woman that was going to leave him. What a mess!"

Jackie agreed. "I'm going to grab some stuff. Can you get those pictures for me? I'll come back here later when I know Steven's gone. I just need some things to hold me over."

Secretly, Jackie hoped that was all she needed.

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