Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THAT 70'S SHOW.

Chapter 21: Heartache

Rating: Teen

Smut: No

Jackie sat in Lillian's car practicing her breathing; she hadn't pulled out of the parking lot yet. There was no way she could drive with all the emotions she was feeling. She leaned her head back and placed a shaking hand on her temple.

'Did Steven really sleep with her?" She wondered. 'And the night before he and I had sex…did our night together even mean anything? Or was I just another use for his sexual release? '

Jackie let out a deep breath trying to ease the pain in her chest; it stabbed her sharply inside when she thought about the night before.

They had made love for hours; it was almost like when they were dating, gentle and passionate.

Numbly Jackie stepped out of Lillian's car and slowly walked back to the store. She wasn't going to drive an hour out to Wisconsin to talk to Hyde. She had responsibilities here she needed to fulfill.

Jackie ignored everyone's curious looks as she strode back into the shop and to the back office. She heard footsteps heading in her direction; she knew it was Lillian coming to check on her.

"Hey are you okay?"

Jackie rolled her eyes. "Do I look like I'm okay?" She snapped dully.

Lillian frowned and began to turn around. Feeling bad Jackie stopped her.

"Wait, I'm sorry. It's just that…." She took a deep breath as she forced the next words painfully from her mouth. "Melissa slept with Steven."

Lillian's eyes widened and mouth gaped in shock.

"You're Steven?"

Jackie nodded.

"Our Melissa had sex with your ex-boyfriend Steven?"

Jackie nodded again slightly annoyed.

"Jackie I'm so sorry." Lillian said placing a comforting hand of her shoulder. "How did that even happen?"

"He was the guy she met after our grand opening party on Friday night."

Lillian shook her head confused. "No, but he didn't even come here for the party."

"He must have at least been here in Chicago that night. He just didn't want to come and celebrate with me; instead he wanted to sleep with a slut….could've stayed in Wisconsin for that."

"I don't think Melissa knew who he was; if she had I'm sure she wouldn't have done it Jackie."

Jackie scoffed, "Please she knew exactly who he was and that's why she did it."

"Well, have you spoken to him about any of this?"

"No, I was going to…but I won't, I'm just going to leave it alone. I know Steven and confronting him about it isn't going to do anything except cause more problems between us." Jackie replied sitting down at her desk.

Lillian nodded understandingly. "So you're just going to forget about it and give things another try?"

Jackie looked up at Lillian as though she was brainless. "No."

Lillian knitted her eyebrows together in confusion. Shaking her head she snatched her car keys from Jackie's hand and pulled her by the other. "Come on we're having lunch, I see that this conversation is going to last a while."

Jackie pushed her food around her plate frowning, she wasn't hungry; she was still too upset to eat anything. When she looked up from her plate, her eyes met with Lillian's ice blue ones as she gazed at her.

"What?" Jackie said.

She shrugged, "I don't know, I'm just waiting for you to talk."

"Talk about what? I don't have anything to say. Steven lied to me, he had scratches on his back from that night, Melissa did it to him, and when I asked him about it he told me that he did it to himself. That he had a rash."

"Maybe he just didn't want to upset you. No one likes to hear that the person they used to love slept with someone else."

"He still should have told me the truth. I still can't believe that he even did it."

"But Jackie, you can't really be mad at him about it. You two weren't even talking to each other when it happened. And I'm sure he didn't know that you were going to be together the next night." Lillian said.

Jackie sighed. "Thanks for taking his side."

"I'm not taking his side. All I'm saying is that it's not really fair for you to tell him that you don't want to be with him anymore and not want him to be with anyone else. But meanwhile you're seeing Chris."

Jackie looked back down at her plate. 'Christopher, I forgot about him.'

"None of that makes what he did okay." She began playing with her food again, pushing it around her plate with her fork as she thought. "He bought me flowers." She said after a moment.

"Who? Chris?" Lillian asked.

Jackie shook her head. "No, Steven. He never bought me flowers once while we dating. They were these pretty little blue roses, I saw them once a few years ago when I was traveling with my parents. They're very beautiful but hard to find. At least in Point Place anyway, I haven't seen any here so far either. He must have driven around a while to find them."

"Oh, that was sweet."

Jackie nodded a small smile on her face as she continued to look at her plate.

The two sat in awkward silence, neither sure what to say.

"Um, I love those earrings you're wearing, where did you get them?" Lillian said.

Jackie lifted her hand to her earlobe unsure of what Lillian was talking about, and then she remembered.

"Christopher bought them for me yesterday." She said while gently touching them, she had forgotten to take them off.

"That was nice of him."

Jackie nodded, "It was, he's a nice guy. Really nice…"

Lillian frowned as she watched Jackie continue to play with her food. She looked as though she was in deep thought about something. Lillian felt for Jackie, she was trying to start a new life in Chicago but still seemed to be holding on tightly to her old one in Point Place. She needed to figure out which one she wanted and let the other one go and soon. Because if she didn't Lillian feared she would lose them both and land herself in a completely different one. One filled with unfixable heartache and sorrow.

When nine o'clock finally rolled around, Jackie let out a sigh of relief as everyone prepared to close up.

Jackie couldn't wait to get home; she wanted nothing more than to take a warm bath and then curl up on her couch with a good book. It had been a long, crazy, eventful day and she desperately wanted to try to forget it, if even for a minute.

She walked to the back and put on her jacket, her eyes lifting when the door to the office opened. She gawked wide eyed when Chris walked in.

"Christopher, what are you doing here? I thought you had to stay at the hotel all day today because you were gone yesterday."

"That was the plan but I convinced a few people to stay a little longer so I could come here and spend a few hours with you. I hope that's okay." He said, giving her a smile.

"Of course it's okay. But I've had a really hard day. I would just like to grab something quick to eat and go home if you don't mind."

"You know I don't. But at least let me buy you your dinner."

Jackie buttoned her jacket as she considered his offer.

"Sure, that sounds good."

Chris smiled at her again. "Great I'll let Lillian know that I'm taking you home."

Jackie nodded; maybe Chris was just the distraction she needed to help her forget about her awful day.

Walking over to Chris and Lillian who were speaking quietly about something, Jackie said goodbye to Lillian and told Chris that she would be waiting outside for him when he was finished with his conversation.

As she walked out into the cool fall night Jackie hoped that Lillian did not tell Chris about anything that happened with her today. She turned the corner into the parking lot and her stomach twisted when she saw Hyde leaning against the building.

"Hey," He said when he saw her.

"Steven, what are you doing here?"

"I told you this morning that I'd try to come back later….so now I'm here, I was going to drive you home. And I was hoping that we could talk."

Jackie looked around the corner to make sure that Chris wasn't walking towards them.

"So talk now." She said.

Hyde shifted uncomfortably; he didn't want to talk to Jackie about them maybe getting back together in a dimly lit parking lot. "Can we go somewhere else?"

"No," Jackie replied shortly crossing her arms.

Hyde frowned, why did she have to pick now of all times to be difficult. "Fine, Jackie I've been trying to figure out what last night meant and-"

"Yeah and what did last night mean Steven?" Jackie snapped impatiently.

Hyde flinched at her tone, confusion settling over his face. "Maybe we should go to your place to talk about this."

"No Steven, I'm going out with Christopher tonight and he's going to take me home after."

Hyde looked at her in disbelief. "Jackie what the hell are you talking about?"

"You heard me, don't make me repeat myself."

"Well sorry, but I'm just a little confused about why you're going out him." Hyde said his temper starting to rise.

"Maybe for the same reason that you went home with Melissa."

Hyde looked at her with even more confusion. "Who?"

Jackie chuckled half-heartedly. "You really are a jerk. You don't even remember her name. The girl that you had sex with the night of my grand opening party when you were supposed to be at the record store. You know because it was so busy, and that's why you couldn't come to the party."

Hyde's body tensed as he realized what she was talking about. "How do you know about that?"

"Oh I'm sorry Steven, was I not supposed to find out?" Jackie answered sarcastically.

"Look Jackie what happened with me and her was before you and I even—"

"That doesn't make it okay, you lied to me Steven."

"I didn't lie to you about anything! I've done it with chicks before we were together and each time after we broke up."

Jackie blinked away the tears that were beginning to fill her eyes along with hurt. She wasn't going to let him see her cry.

"I wanted you and you rejected me." He continued. "So don't get pissed at me because I moved on." Hyde took a deep breath and lowered his voice. "Jackie, I don't care about her okay? It was a stupid onetime thing, it meant nothing. It's no big deal."

"No big deal, how would you have felt if I had been with Christopher?"

Hyde frowned, but luckily for him she couldn't see the flash of anger and jealously in his eyes through his sunglasses.

Jackie didn't wait for a reply. "Would you be okay if you knew that I had been with him, kissing him, touching him? Would you think it was 'no big deal' if I had let him make love to me only hours before you?"

Hyde looked away from her, just the thought of her being with any man besides himself in that way made him sick. But he couldn't admit that to her.

"It wouldn't have bothered me." He lied. "And you shouldn't care about that other girl."

Jackie shook her head and began to move past him. "Whatever Steven."

Hyde reached out and grabbed her arm, stopping her from leaving. Defenses spilled from his mouth as he feared this could be his last chance to get her to take him back.

"Jackie, I'm sorry okay? I was waiting outside for you that night so I could talk to you about us but then she came out and told me that you were in there with him….kissing him. And I was mad; I didn't know what else to do."

Jackie's eyes widened in disbelief. "So this is my fault? She tells you something and you go off and screw her because you didn't know what else to do?"

"I told you I'm sorry Jackie." Hyde said his grip still tight on her arm. "What else do you want?"

"Nothing Steven, it's fine, I can forget about it if that's what you want."

Hyde nodded. "So can I take you home?"

Jackie gave him a confused look. "No, Steven I just told you that I'm going out with Christopher."

"What do you mean? I said sorry, and then you said that you would forget about everything."

"And I will, but in the meantime I made plans with a friend to have dinner and I'm going to keep them."

More anger flashed in Hyde's eyes. "So what the hell Jackie, me coming here, apologizing to you….everything that happened last night. It was all for nothing?"

Jackie shrugged, "I guess so." She said bitterly.

Her heart softened as Hyde let go of her arm and walked slowly away and back to his car. She knew he felt bad and that he was trying but she wasn't ready to forgive him yet.

She could hear voices from afar and looked around the corner. Lillian and Chris were walking towards the parking lot.

Jackie straightened herself up, breathing deeply trying to relax. Hyde drove past her and out of the parking lot; she pushed away any bit of guilt as she convinced herself that she did not need to feel guilty.

"Jackie, you ready to go?"

She turned around to see Chris and Lillian standing in front of her, both smiling brightly. Jackie assumed that Lillian hadn't said anything about to Chris about Hyde.

"Yes, I'm ready." Jackie walked with Chris to his car saying another goodnight to Lillian before getting in.

"Ok, so I'll just take you get your food then I'll let you get home." Chris said to her once they were both in the car.

Jackie looked over at him with a smile. "Actually, I'm feeling better, and I was thinking that instead you could take me back to your house and show me some of those culinary skills of yours…if you're up for it."

"You know I am." He said flashing another smile at her. "Let's go."

A/N: Sorry Saturday turned into Sunday. Thanks to all of you that reviewed the one-shot. I'm glad that you liked it. To Monicabbm and one of my anonymous guest reviewers I read your requests and I will try my hardest to think of something for you. But for Monicabbm I have question, if I do a one-shot about that scene would you like it to be M rated and smutty? Or a simple teen rated fluff fic? Either way is fine with me. I'm not sure when I'll have the time to post another one-shot but I will try to do it asap.

Thanks for reading.

Kayla