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Author's Note: Hello everyone! How are you? Hope you're doing well! Today I have for you, can you believe it, the next chapter of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner! Are you shocked that the chapter is up this quick? I'll be honest, I am! Lol But I lot of the reason for this is because of you AMAZING, AMAZING readers! I never imagined that this story would get such a nice welcome back from readers, gaining quite a few new readers. Thank you! It was your encouraging words and reviews that really made me excited to continue to work on this story! Thank you so, so so, so much! I really hope you all enjoy this chapter, it's a little shorter but I'm thinking most of the chapters will be around this length, not too long and hopefully not too short. Thanks again for your incredible support, it means so much, I really hope that you all enjoy this chapter, and please don't forget to review and lemme know your thoughts or just to let me know you're still reading and wanting more! Thanks for reading, hope you like, and as always, Enjoy!

As Steven Hyde walked up the remaining steps of the basement staircase he reviewed in his mind all of things he planned to tell his wife. He wasn't going to hide anything from her and have it blow up in his face, he was going to come clean and tell her everything. Tell her how Sam was coming over, that she had been invited by an accident that he had nothing to do with; he planned on telling her how this wasn't a big deal, she was just coming for dinner. Thanksgiving dinner. With their family. With their kids.

And then if she hadn't killed him by then he'd remind Jackie that she had nothing to worry about, she was his wife now, they'd been married for almost ten years—he and Sam were never even married to begin with.

Since Hyde wanted Jackie to stay calm and collective, he made sure that he was in that same frame of mind when he stepped into the kitchen; however, the moment he saw Jackie, calm and collective went out the window and panic set in.

Jackie was seated at the food covered kitchen table, her back slumped with her head in her hands so that her palms covered her eyes and her fingers were woven tightly through the hair at her scalp. Jackie not only loved her raven tresses but was very proud of it too, seeing her practically pulling it out was a clear sign that she was very upset.

Hyde recognized Jackie's distressed state and could think of only one thing:

She knew.

She knew about Sam coming here. Sam was probably here already, coming in through the kitchen's door while he was down in the basement with Donna and Forman, and Jackie had seen her. Jackie knew everything. Now she was going to be too angry to listen to him and wouldn't let Hyde say any of the things he planned on saying—not that could blame her.

A well thought out explanation was now out of the question, Hyde's explanation had to be short and to the point and most importantly tell Jackie that Sam's arrival was not his idea.

"It was all Forman's doing," he swiftly told Jackie as he stepped over to where she was seated.

Skinny fingers unraveled from her hair and Jackie lowered her hands so that her husband could see the confused look that his statement had caused. "What is?"

Looking down at his wife, Hyde could see that she was upset but she wasn't as upset as she would be had she seen Sam. There were a few subtle hints that told him this, one of them being that she didn't kick him in the shins the moment that she saw him.

Maybe she didn't know. He was going to have to tread carefully with what he said next.

"What's got you so upset?" he asked, both curious and concerned.

Jackie's big brown doe eyes gazed up at Hyde, her bottom lip trembled and she began to snivel, "Thanksgiving. Is. Too. Hard!" she cried sounding like Laura Petrie ala Mary Tyler Moore.

"Oh," Hyde replied, not realizing how relieved his tone was until he saw the scowl Jackie shot at him. "Yeah, I know. That's why people only do it once a year."

Watching her husband take the spot in the empty seat beside him, Jackie sniffled again, "Most people."

Hyde hated seeing how upset Jackie was. He couldn't tell her about Sam now, it would only upset her more and that wouldn't be good—for either one of them. But especially himself. So he decided to hold off giving her the rundown of his ex-fake wife's arrival and instead focus on Jackie only and hopefully help her feel a little better.

"Jackie, you've never cared about thanksgiving dinner before," he pointed out, being sure that his tone did not sound dry or sarcastic. "Why's makin' it so important to you this year?"

"Because Steven," Jackie sniffled just slightly this time. "We've been married for almost ten years. And a good wife should be a cook in the kitchen, a maid in the living room, and an acrobat in the bedroom. You do most of the cooking at home and Esmerelda comes in twice a week to keep things tidy. I only have one out of three!"

A smirk played on Hyde's lips, "It's the best one out of those three."

"Pig," she chided him but could do little to contain the corners of her mouth from pulling upwards. While Hyde's smile grew from watching Jackie, her own grin flattened and her eyes gazed downwards. "I just wanted to make you and the kids proud. I wanted to make something you guys would actually like eating…and not get sick from it later on."

"Who says you can't?" Hyde asked, surprising Jackie. "You wanna make Thanksgiving dishes, make 'em."

The encouragement coming from Hyde was sincere and real. Not just because he hoped her being in a good mood about Thanksgiving dinner might make her a little less upset when she found out about Sam, but her reason for wanting to do it in the first place struck a chord for him. She wanted to make their family happy, do something different for them, and he wanted to help her reach that goal.

Jackie remained down and discouraged, shaking her head. "No Steven. There's too many recipes and not enough time or ingredients."

"You're Jackie freakin' Burkhart Hyde. You're good at everything," he reminded her of the outlook she'd had earlier when first making her announcement about working on the big family dinner. She gave a weak smile and he went on, "Come on I'll help ya."

"Steven, no…" She attempted to stop him as he stood up from his chair.

She's already declined his help earlier and Hyde knew why she was doing it again, she was still determined to do this on her own. But a few bouts of help couldn't hurt.

"I'm not gonna do anything, I'm just gonna help you get things started then it's all you, doll," he explained and this time when Jackie grinned it didn't vanish soon after. "What recipe were you working on now?"

A small, aged, index shaped card was handed to Hyde.

"Cream Cheese Pumpkin Roll. Cool," he nodded in approval then looked around the kitchen finding a small stack of food that matched the ingredients of the recipe card he held between his fingertips. "Looks like you already got some of the ingredients, I'll get the rest then help you get the oven ready."

"Oh, I already did that," Jackie was happy to inform, she was feeling a new burst of hopefulness as she got off the kitchen chair, "Preheated it and everything."

"You did? Where's the…"

Before Hyde could even finish asking it, his question was answered when he spotted a puff of gray smoke seeping out of the oven's closed door.

Immediately the couple hurried over to the oven but it was Hyde would pulled open the door open causing a dark cloud of smoke to puff out and around them. After putting on Kitty's oven mitts, Hyde dived into the dark colored fog to retrieve the thanksgiving dish that had been forgotten when Jackie had set the new—higher—temperature for the oven.

Hyde pulled out the pan, it was heavy and so hot he could feel the heat through the mitts. With a somewhat loud clank thump, the pan and its contents dropped onto the empty burner on the stove that Jackie had momentarily cleared up.

Husband and wife stared at the dish that had once been a delicious looking thanksgiving turkey. The golden roasted skin now had dark, crinkly, black splotches all over and the icky 'turkey sweat' looked even grosser as it had hardened and become stuck to the inside of the cooking pan.

Jackie looked horrified said the one thought that filled her mind, "I ruined Thanksgiving dinner!"

0o0o0o

After managing to dry Jackie's tears, Hyde helped her hide the evidence of the fatal feast and convinced her that everything would be fine. He even pointed out that this burnt turkey might be for best, now it gave her the chance to try her hand at making the main attraction of Thanksgiving dinner. Hyde wasn't sure he believed the words that he spoke but Jackie did and they appeared to make her feel better—that was all that mattered right now.

Of course they did have a few problems with the idea of Jackie cooking the new thanksgiving turkey and the main one being that there was no back up turkey.

Hyde told her he'd go to the store it get it, his mind so focused on keeping Jackie happy that he didn't realize that him going out to the store could lead to Sam arriving while he was gone and him not being there when Jackie saw her. It sounded good on paper but he knew if this really did happen it was going to come back and bite him in the butt.

He had just stepped outside, trying to figure out the quickest route to take to the closest store, when a familiar vehicle pulled up making Hyde stop in his tracks.

The driver's door was pushed open and a grumpy bald man emerged, stomping over to the trunk of the car.

"Red, man. I'm glad to see you," Hyde said as he approached the father figure.

"Forget it, Steven," replied Red, holding out a halting hand in front of him. "I'm not giving out any handouts today."

"Don't need money," the younger man stated. "Need you to go to the store."

A deep scowl indented itself onto Red's forehead, "You had a better chance with the money."

"It's just for one thing," Hyde tried to reason but Red didn't want to hear it.

"I just came from making two trips to the damn store," Red declared, retrieving from the trunk the paper bag from his second trip. "What's Kitty need from there now?"

Hyde shook her head, "It's not her this time. It's Jackie."

As if this new detail interested him, Red's eyebrows rose upwards. "Your wife?" Hyde nodded and those same intrigued eyebrows scrunched back into a scowl. "Then you go."

"I can't," he said, deciding not to go into how he had been planning to before he spotted him.

"Why not?"

"It's complicated," Hyde started to say but knew that the response would suffice with Red Forman. "Look, I'll explain it all later but right now all I can say is something happened. And when Jackie finds out she's gonna be pissed, so I gotta stay here and try to keep that from happening. And I know getting this thing she needs from the store will make Jackie happy and I'm hoping less upset when the time comes. I gotta do both things I can't do 'em on my own."

The older man stared at the man he'd long ago began to think of as a son. He knew that unlike the other dumbasses, Steven would only come to him for help if he really, really needed it. At times he could see a lot of himself in Steven and this was one of these times. Red knew what it could be like to have a wife angry on a holiday, it wasn't a pretty thing for anyone involved.

"What does she need?" Red asked, his fury having soften just a bit.

Hyde knew there was no way to sugarcoat this one. "A turkey."

"Are you to of your dumbass mind?!" the question flew out of Red's mouth with even more rage than before and the way he scowled at the other man it looked like he was sure that Hyde had gone crazy. "You want me to go out there and buy a turkey on Thanksgiving Day?"

Appearing unfazed by Red's loud question Hyde continued. "Yeah, I know it's a lot to ask but if you do this, I'll owe you one."

Red chuckled but it wasn't exactly the jolly kind of chuckle. "Steven, if I did this for you, and I'm not going to," he made sure that this was very clear. "You'd owe me a lot more than 'one."

Understanding how true this was, Hyde nodded in agreement. "Alright. For the next month, every Sunday you can come over to our house, watch football, drink beer, and eat all the greasy junk food you want. And I'll make sure Kitty never finds out."

The amused mocking sort of grin Red had previously been wearing had flattened as he heard the deal being pitched at him.

"You'll pay for the beer?" he asked.

A nod was given from his adopted son. "You got it."

This deal was definitely becoming more and more interesting to the elder Forman; he lifted his chin and eyed the younger man. "If I wanna watch the game by myself, you and your family'll leave your own house till the game's done?"

"Fine," Hyde agreed.

Red continued to stare very carefully at Hyde. He had no intentions of taking him up on any of the terms he'd given (although maybe the beer one would do) but the way Hyde had agreed to both terms so quickly was very telling.

"You really screwed up, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Hyde nodded. His screw up happened over 10 years ago but he was gonna pay for it today.

After giving a single nod of his head, Red handed his brown papered grocery bag to Hyde and walked back to the driver's side of his car. He opened the door but before he slid back inside the vehicle, he looked over at Hyde standing in the driveway with sack in his arms.

"Dumbass."

Author's Note: So what did you think? Yya? Nay? A little of the two? Let me know is a review!

I hope you all liked this chapter, again thanks for the wonderful support! I'm hoping to have the next chapter up very soon! The plan is Monday BUT it could be sooner…could also be later but I'm aiming for sooner! :D

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Until next time, thanks for reading, hope you liked, please review and lemme know what you think, stay tuned, take care, have a nice day, and remember only 21 more days till Thanksgiving 2016!