The days continued to fly by, and Jackie could no longer see an end to her stay in Africa in sight. It was always there though, a slight nagging, that this couldn't last forever, that she needed to head back to Point Place eventually.
Things between her and Eric continued to progress, and they grew more comfortable with affectionate gestures and lingering touches, but as intimately as Eric knew her body now, she couldn't say that she knew the same about his.
He was content to simply hold her in the aftermath of whatever highs his clever fingers and mouth took her to, and would gently refuse her efforts to do the same for him. He seemed for the most part, able to control his urges, and only once, the first time he had used his mouth and tongue on her, did he get up stiffly afterward, and headed out of the room, telling her that he would be back in a few.
She had watched him leave, and the strain of the material from the bulge at the front of his jeans was particularly noticeable, and testament to his ardor for her.
It was a heady experience for Jackie, who's first relationship with Kelso had mostly been about being pressured to 'do it', and then she had jumped into another relationship with Hyde that had started at hot and dirty.
Eric was a breath of fresh air, and he really did seem perfectly okay with not getting any back in return. Heck, she had never even seen him naked yet. Though as insanely attracted to him as she was, she was also relieved that he was allowing her to progress at her own pace.
"Hey, look, we both got a letter," Eric said as he walked through the door.
Jackie raised her eyebrows in question.
"It's addressed to the both of us, see."
"Where? Gimme that."
She settled the two cups of tea she had brewed for them down on the table and grabbed it from him to take a closer look. She was excited for no one wrote to her. She didn't expect it, since there was no one back in Point Place for her to expect a letter from, and she was thrilled. She glanced down at it and read:
To: Eric & Jackie
Address: Africa
Jackie burst out laughing. She recognized the almost child-like scrawl immediately. "Thank goodness your mom thought to include it in her package to you. It would never have found its way to us otherwise."
"Yeah, Fez has never been one of the brightest bulbs."
"Hey!" she protested, slapping his arm. "That's my friend you're talking about."
He smiled his lopsided smile and turned his attention back to the parcel on the wooden table. He pulled out a cast-iron dish wrapped tightly in layers of tinfoil.
"Huh." He shook his head in disbelief. "I think she sent us an actual casserole." He sat down and read the note:
Kids,
I took my chances and made you an apple pie. I sent it via International Express so I hope it's still good when you get it. If it smells off, chuck it, you hear?
Love,
Mrs. Forman/Mom
"Okay, pie then." Eric tore back a bit of the foil and sniffed delicately at it. "Smells okay."
Jackie looked over in amusement. "I guess dessert's sorted."
She pulled out the letter they got from Fez and settled herself on Eric's lap. She held out the letter and leaned against him, reading it aloud.
Dear Eric and Jackie,
Uh, I hope you have room for one more because things are really getting intense here and Hyde and Donna are both really pissed that Jackie left for Africa.
She stopped and looked up at Eric. "Looks like the secret's out."
Somehow it's my fault even though it was your mother, Eric, that let the cat out of the bag. Anyways, either don't come back or take me in.
Me,
Fez
"Ooooo-kay. Looks like they're not happy that I'm over here."
Eric considered her. "Does it bother you?" he asked.
She pulled her lips together in a tight line. "Honest?" She nodded her head slightly. "Yeah, it does."
"Right."
She exhaled through her nose and folded her arms, finding a more comfortable spot against his chest. "Well, doesn't it bother you? I mean, Steven's your best friend and Donna's, well, Donna's what she is."
He barked out a laugh. "And what's that?" he questioned.
She rolled her eyes and shot a glance at him through her lashes. "She's, you know, The One." She lifted a slim shoulder in a shrug. "Much like what Steven's to me, I guess. I don't suppose you'll ever stop caring about her," she finished in a low voice.
"If she were, 'The One', she would be right here right now wouldn't she?" Eric answered shortly.
A slight frown wrinkled her features and she pushed out her bottom lip. "I just… I feel… I don't know," she finished with a slight huff and blew some hair out of her face.
She turned to him in all seriousness. "Eric, do you, you know, feel that this is wrong?"
He tightened his arms around the circle of her waist. "No, I don't."
She pushed her head back against his shoulder and her eyes traced the strong line of his jaw. She unfolded her arms to pull his arms tighter around her.
"Whatever. They're an ocean away, who cares?"
But even as she said it, even as she closed her eyes to the feel of his lips on hers, she still couldn't help the feeling that she and Eric had started what would only snowball into disaster.
Eric threaded his fingers through hers as Jackie rested her head on his shoulder. They were sitting in complete silence under her thorn tree on top of a blanket that Eric had laid on the ground. The stars above winked down at them, and even after so many evenings spent just like this, Jackie was still taken by the sheer number of stars they could see in the sky.
Their day had started out wonderfully, with him returning to the coziness of their hut clearly moved by something. When she had asked him about it, he had simply held out a sheaf of papers. She recognized his scrawl in red ink over each and everyone of them and realized that they had just been graded.
"Read them," he said in his quiet way.
She did. And she was blown away. It was an assignment for his younger students - between the ages of nine and twelve, asking to write a short composition of a hundred and fifty words about their favorite thing in the world. A simple one, one that an average ten year-old would have no problems with, so the fluency and the penmanship that these previously illiterate children had exhibited in completing their assignment was mind-blowing.
Eric was a fantastic teacher, she realized. He had accomplished so much for the kids and he was tireless in wanting more for them, tenacious in his drive to do more, to give them more.
"Look at this," she had said to him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "Look at you," she continued, looking up from the papers and at him with pride. "Saving Africa, one child at a time."
"People should know about this," she said to him now, breaking the quiet of the evening.
Eric shifted a little, but didn't answer, waiting for her to continue.
"People should know," she said again, turning her head up to look at him. "What you're doing here, for the villagers. About the villagers."
Eric laughed softly. "About the villagers and the country, yes," he agreed. "But what I'm doing is what other people have been doing for years. It's not that special."
She felt his chest rise with a sigh. "I only wish that more people are willing to help," he said.
She nestled closer to him in response. "Me too."
An owl hooted somewhere in the distance and a breeze blew past.
"Maybe you should think about getting into television again," Eric said musingly, staring down at her dark head. "Something different this time, more serious. Like broadcasting or something. After all, you're always writing and doodling in those notebooks of yours - and I know they aren't idle thoughts either."
Again, Jackie was touched at his apparent regard for her. Her arm tightened about his waist and she pressed a kiss to his shoulder.
"You know, you're the only one who's ever thought that I was capable of more," she said lightly.
Eric thought about his friends and family and realized that he could say the same about her. "Same here, Jackie," he told her with a wry smile.
She wrinkled her nose. "I wonder why we weren't friends before."
He leaned away slightly so he could look at her. He raised an eyebrow at the innocent look on her face.
"Seriously?" he asked with a tinge of incredulity and she giggled.
"All right, fine. I was bossy and mean and thought you were a loser." She smiled into his eyes and leaned up for a lingering kiss.
"I definitely don't think so now," she continued softly when she pulled away.
"Well, you're still bossy," he said and yelped as she pinched him lightly in the arm.
"But I like your bossy," he added charmingly.
She laughed. "You say the nicest things," she told him.
"That I do." Then he added almost as an afterthought, "You bring that out in me."
"I'm glad." She was quiet after that and let her thoughts wander. They chanced upon an odd direction and she spoke aloud with thinking. "Eric, do you feel that everything happens for a reason?"
He turned to her in surprise. "What do you mean?"
She fumbled a little with her words. "Like everything that led me here to Africa."
He thought about it for a little while, then shrugged. Who knew? "Who knows," he said to her, echoing his thoughts.
She made herself more comfortable by burrowing deeper into his side. He raised his arm around her and looked down in amusement.
"Well, I like to think so," she said decisively, and closed her eyes.
His eyes fell over the perfect features of her face and rested on the pout of her lips. He leaned down to tease them open with the tip of his tongue. She returned his kiss with fervor and his heart rate sped up as it always did when she responded to him.
He was under no illusions that she loved him. Or that this would end in anything other than heartbreak for him. But for whatever time they had together, for whatever duration of time they had left, he would be forever grateful that he at least got a chance to taste the sweetness of her kiss.
A few days later saw Jackie shielding her eyes against the glare of the sun as she was out with Afia in the clearing that made the village square where the women were laying out sweet potatoes to dry in the heat. They swore it made the flesh sweeter, and Jackie was inclined to agree with them.
Afia's baby was strapped to her back in a cloth bundle and Jackie smiled every time he tried to grab fistfuls of her hair to stuff in his mouth.
She stopped and straightened as she heard the distant cries of happy school children as Eric released them for the day. The shouts and cries scattered as they scampered off in different directions throughout the village and Jackie smiled as a great contentment stole over her.
She was happy here, too happy. She looked up, spotting Eric's broad frame some distance off as he made his way towards her, and a large cloud stole over the sun for a moment, throwing a brief shade to the land below. Then a rogue breeze blew past and she shivered.
Things were changing again, she could feel it, and it scared her. Because every time a wind of change blew into her life, it robbed her of things, of people, and only left her pain in its wake.