Disclaimer 1: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC. The 10th Kingdom copyright Babelsberg International Filmproduktion GmbH & Co. Beitriebs KG and Hallmark Entertainment Distribution, LLC. No money's being made through this story. Simply written out of the love for the two series.

Disclaimer 2: I have taken great pains not to reproduce any of the narrative from The 10th Kingdom novelization by Kathryn Wesley. The narrative (i.e. the words) of this story are mine with the exception that some of dialogue has been retained from The 10th Kingdom for the sake of story clarity.

CHAPTER 37
TO SEE AND BE SEEN

Michael was conscious, and Jackie finally breathed. She'd made her way down to him with the others through a winding tunnel. If Kissing Town had been heaven, this dank, dark mine was hell. Steven would have loved it.

"You all right?" Eric said.

Michael groaned. "You know what happens when I fall off the Water Tower every year? This is a lot worse. Something cracked. I can't move."

"Let us help you," Donna said. She put a hand under Michael's neck, and he cried out in pain.

"No! I think... I think my back's broken."

"Okay, um..." Eric's voice was low, "we're gonna have to find another way out of here 'cause we can't go back the way we came, so..."

Tears welled in Michael's eyes. "I don't wanna die in here, man."

"You are not going to die!" Jackie said.

"Why? So you can keep on hating me?"

"I don't hate you, Michael." She caressed his cheek and brushed hair out of his eyes. "And none of us are going to die, so shut up!" She grabbed the torch Donna was holding. "Eric and I are going to go on and find a way out while Donna stays here to make sure tunnel bugs don't eat you."

"We are?" Eric said.

"I am?" Donna said.

Michael swallowed. "Tunnel bugs?"

"We'll come back and get you," Jackie said. "Maybe Fez can smell out fresh air, and—"

"You won't find your way back. There are too many tunnels," Michael said.

"No, Michael, unlike you, I don't get lost in a sandbox. Eric and I will find a way out and come back to get you and Donna, okay? I promise."

Michael didn't say anything, but Eric did. "Why don't you stay with Kelso while Donna and I—OW!"

Jackie had pinched his arm. "I'd rather go with Donna, but Michael's helpless. He needs someone big and strong to protect him. Look," she pulled a stale loaf of bread from her knapsack, "I'm going to leave a trail of breadcrumbs so we can get back here."

"Are you okay with this, Donna?" Eric said.

"Not really, but what choice do we have?" Donna kissed Eric lightly on the lips. "Go."

Jackie grabbed Eric's wrist and pulled him into a dark tunnel. Fez padded beside her quietly, and she was holding the torch high above her head, but the end of one tunnel bled into the opening of the next. The breadcrumbs she sprinkled onto the ground probably wouldn't help much.

They walked in silence for a long while. But soon her arm grew tired from holding the torch, and her mind became edgy from the quiet. She passed the torch to Eric and said, "You know, Donna's really lucky."

"Why? Because she gets to stay with Kelso and have no clue when or if we'll get back?"

"No." Jackie rolled her eyes and sighed. Eric was a great guy to confide in—like a girl—but he could also be really irritating. "She's lucky because she's never had to doubt how much you love her."

"Oh. That's true," Eric said. "Although she does have to deal with he fact that I can be quite the dumbass."

Jackie shrugged. "Even trade."

"What's going on with you?" he said. "Hyde's gone, so now you're all... nice?"

"No, I've just realized how much you and I have in common. That's all."

Eric stopped walking for a moment and felt Jackie's forehead. "Well, you're not feverish," he said. "Therefore, I can only conclude that... you've lost your freakin' mind."

She batted him away. "Whatever. Look, all you've ever wanted to know was that Donna loved you as much as you loved her."

"And you want to know the same thing from Hyde..." Eric spoke as if he'd just made a huge discovery. "I didn't know you still—wait. Are you two back together or something?"

Jackie shrugged again. "I love Steven with all my heart, but he's never really given me the same security," she took a breath, "and when he finally tried to, I doubted it, which hurt him unintentionally," she took another breath, "and he walked away, and then I hurt him on purpose, and now I don't know if he—"

"Okay, backup, backup," Eric said. "We don't even know if Hyde's still—where Hyde is, and all you care about is whether or not he loves you? I mean, he could be..." He shook his head, clearly unable to say what Jackie hadn't been able to bring herself to think.

The air was growing colder as they went deeper into the tunnels, and Jackie started to shiver. "I could live with him not loving me, Eric," she said. "I couldn't live with him being dead. So, yeah. I'm thinking about the easier part, okay?" Her eyes began to sting, but thankfully her tears stay put. "I looked in all those mirrors, you know, in that library? To see if any of them could possibly find him—and I would've asked Gustav where Steven was if Michael's stupid bad luck hadn't ruined my chance."

"Jackie..." Eric frowned. "I'm really sorry. I thought y—where's Fez?"

Jackie looked behind her, but all she saw was darkness.

"Fez!" both she and Eric shouted. "Fez!"

Faint barking echoed ahead of them.

"Come on," Eric said.

They hurried forward, and Fez's barking became louder. Then they hit a dead end. The tunnel went no further.

"He has to be behind the wall," Eric said. He moved the torch all along the stone, but all Jackie saw was rock. She touched her fingers to the wall and quickly withdrew them. It was freezing. She was tempted to warm her hands on the torch, but in the light of it, she finally spotted a hole in the stone—big enough for a dog Fez's size to crawl through. And big enough for Eric's scrawny butt and Jackie, too.

"Let's go," Jackie said.

"In there? But what if it doesn't lead anywhere except to a collapsed tunnel or a pit of lava?"

"Lava? It has to be less than thirty degrees down here, you idiot. We have no other choice but this or go back."

Jackie slipped her arms into the hole then pulled the rest of her body inside. A blast of wintry air hit her in the face, which made Eric's fear of finding lava even more annoying.

She tumbled out of the hole into a mound of snow. Icy stalagmites and stalactites glowed with an inner light, and they illuminated the whole chamber. She'd entered an ice cave. Her breath was white smoke in the air, and she shook with cold, but the light balanced out her discomfort. Traveling through dark tunnels was almost as bad as traveling through dark forests.

Fez's back was to her, and his tail was wagging. He was standing on another snow mound a few feet away. He seemed to be staring at something.

"Jackie?" Eric's voice echoed through the hole.

"It's okay, Eric," she said. "Get in here."

The torch came through first, and she grabbed it although it wasn't needed in here. Then Eric popped through the hole and into the snow.

"Oh, my God," he said and took back the Torch. "It's the Fortress of Solitude."

"What?"

"Superman's headquarters. Do you think he's here, too?"

Eric started to babble on about it, but Jackie shut him out. He could be really irritating sometimes. Jackie sucked in a freezing breath. Was that how Steven felt about her when she'd talk about stuff he didn't care about, like everything she loved?

Fez finally noticed them, barked, and walked up ahead. Jackie and Eric followed him to a circular dais built out of snow. Stairs had been molded into it.

"Look," Eric said. "There's writing around the circumference." He wedged the torch into some hard-packed snow and read, "For seven men she gave her life. For one good man she was his wife. Beneath the ice by Snow White Falls, there lies the fairest of them all."

Jackie's heart started to beat faster, and she climbed the snow stairs with Eric. Underneath the clear surface of the dais was a coffin made of ice, or maybe it was glass. A woman lay inside. Her eyes were closed, but her cheeks and lips had color as if she were merely asleep.

Jackie ran a finger down the ice. She hoped she looked as beautiful in death as this woman did.

"Jackie..." A woman's voice echoed in the cave, and the body disappeared. "Hello, Jackie. Eric."

Jackie gasped and looked up. The woman was standing across the chamber. Her hair was black and shiny. Her face didn't need any makeup because of its natural glow, and... she was fat. Jackie crossed her arms. Yet another fairy tale fantasy broken. There were no princes, magic often tried to kill people, and Snow White—the fairest of them all—was fat.

"You look tired," Snow White said.

"Holy shit!" Eric said. "You're... you're dead! Aren't you?"

Snow White smiled. "Well, yes. I think you'd have to say so. I'm more into the Fairy Godmother, occasional appearances sort of thing now."

Eric's mouth had dropped open. He was in shock. Jackie, though, was feeling intense disappointment. How could this woman have been considered Fairest of Them All? Even skanky Sally Peep had kept herself in shape by chasing after sheep and other people's boyfriends—ex-boyfriends.

"But I still have influence over things," Snow White said and walked to the dais. "I've been protecting you in other ways, shielding your image from the mirrors of the Queen."

She raised her hands to them, and Eric took one immediately. Jackie hesitated, but once she held Snow White's hand, an incredible warmth spread from it into Jackie's skin. Her shivering stopped.

Snow White led them back to the cave floor. "But soon," she said, "you'll both have to see and be seen."

"Um, Ms. White?" Eric said. "I don't understand."

Fez barked and ran up to them. His tail was wagging. Snow White laughed and cuddled his face.

"What do you think of my grandson, huh?" she said.

"He's a perve—"

Eric covered Jackie's mouth. "He's great. One of our best friends," he said.

"Yes. I think being a dog has been very good for him," Snow White said.

Jackie could agree with that. Fez hadn't tried to sniff her crotch or hump her leg since he'd broken out of his golden prison.

Eric's finger traced circles in the air by his temple. "But he's going woof-woof."

"That is why you must now take charge." Snow White was looking directly at both Jackie and Eric. "He needs you to save his kingdom. We all do."

"Us?" Jackie said.

"Me and her?" Eric said. "I think you've got the wrong people."

"I have the right people. I've been waiting for both of you, Eric." Snow White walked through the chamber, and Fez followed. "You see, my mother was a Queen, and every day she would sit by the window sewing, staring at the falling snow, longing to have a baby girl. And one day, she pricked her finger on a needle, and onto the snow fell three drops of blood, and she knew then that she would die giving birth to me."

Jackie felt herself smiling. She'd always loved this story. Her mother used to read fairy tales to her when she was young, really young, before her mother got distracted.

"My father was sad for a very long time," Snow White continued, "but he remarried eventually because he was lonely. And my new mother brought no possessions to the castle except for her magic mirrors. Every day she would lock her bedroom door. She would take off all her clothes, and she would look in the mirror and say, 'Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?'"

"Oh, my God," Eric turned to Jackie, "you married Snow White's father?"

Jackie smacked his arm.

Snow White sat down on a mound of hard-packed snow. "And the mirror would reply, 'My lady, you are the fairest of them all.' And this would satisfy her, for she knew that mirrors spoke the truth. But I was growing older, and by the time I was seven, I was as pretty as you, Jackie."

Jackie sat down on the ground in front of Snow White. A comment like that should have insulted her, but it actually made her feel quite nice.

"And one day when the Queen had asked her mirror, the mirror replied, 'My lady Queen is fair to see, but Snow White is fairer far than thee.'" Snow White frowned. "And my stepmother called her Huntsman and said, 'Take this child into the forest. I am sick of the sight of her.'"

A chill shuddered through Jackie's body. If her mother had done that to her...

"Can you imagine that moment, Jackie?" Snow White said. "When you realize you're so awful your own mother wants you murdered?"

Jackie shook her head, but she could. Steven's mother had practically done it to him, just indirectly.

"When the Huntsman raised his knife," Snow White's voice was trembling a little, "I fell to my knees, and I begged him, 'Let me live. Please, let me live.' And he put his knife away.

"I was so terrified, I ran straight into the darkness. I ran until I was exhausted, and then, right in front of me, was a little cottage."

"Hey, that's the cottage we found!" Eric said. Jackie had forgotten he was even there. He was sitting beside her with Fez curled up in his lap.

"Yes, of course," Snow White said.

Jackie and Eric listened together as Snow White described how the Dwarves had found her and let her stay with them in exchange for her doing the housework.

"When I told them about my stepmother, they became very paranoid about her," Snow White said. "They warned me never to go into town, never to open the door to strangers. But her mirrors found me eventually.

"She dressed as an old peddler and climbed over the seven hills to my house. Twice she came. Once with a corset to crush my ribs, and then with a poisoned comb to drug me."

Jackie's jaw clenched. Being beautiful really was a double-edged sword.

"But the last time she came, she brought the most beautiful basket of apples that I ever saw. And this time she stayed to watch me die. And to be sure, she held me in her arms until I died in front of her, choking on a piece of poison apple."

"That bitch!" Jackie and Eric said together.

"And I often think," Snow White's voice grew whisper-quiet, "'Why did I let her in? Didn't I know she was bad?'"

"Yeah," Eric said, "didn't you?"

Snow White nodded. "I did. Of course I did. But I also knew that I couldn't keep the door closed all my life, just because it was dangerous, just because there was a chance I might get hurt."

Jackie knew that last part was directed at her. Tears had long-since filled her eyes, but she blinked them away and climbed onto the snow next to Snow White.

"What does any of this have to do with me? Jackie said.

Snow White rubbed Jackie's arm tenderly. "Everything. You're not present, Jackie. How did you lose your present?"

She pulled Jackie to her gently, and Jackie lay her head on Snow White's shoulder. The only people who ever held her like this were Donna and Steven—and Mr. Forman when she forced him to.

"You're still lost in the forest," Snow White said, "but lonely lost girls like us can rescue themselves. You are standing on the edge of happiness."

"No, I'm not," Jackie said. Her face felt hot. She didn't want to cry anymore, especially in front of Eric, but she couldn't help it. "I keep trying, but I never seem to get it right."

"You will one day be like me," Snow White said. "You will bring joy to others by first allowing yourself to have joy. Now stand up."

Jackie did, and Eric immediately took her place next to Snow White.

"What about me, Ms. White?" he said. "What am I standing on the edge of? 'Cause I got nothing."

"Greatness, Eric," Snow White said. "You are standing on the edge of greatness."

"I am?"

"He is?" Jackie said.

"You are far stronger, Eric, far braver, far more deserving than you've ever allowed yourself to realize. You are not as lost as you think you are. Stand up."

Eric did, and he blinked his eyes as if to keep from crying.

Snow White plucked an intricately-wrought hand mirror from the snow and handed it to Eric. "This mirror will show you what you do and do not want to see."

Jackie peered over Eric's shoulder at her own reflection. Even without makeup or long hair, she was still gorgeous—but not as gorgeous as Snow White. Not yet. Snow White was more beautiful than any woman Jackie had ever known.

"Poison is the way the Queen will strike," Snow White said, "and the way she must be defeated. You must find the poisoned comb she tried to kill me with."

"Okay," Eric said, "but what can we do all by ourselves?"

"Do not cling to what you know. Do not think. Become." Snow White started to climb the stairs of the dais.

"Damn, our light's going out." Eric pulled the dying torch from the snow.

"Let your light go out," Snow White said. "Embrace the darkness."

"But we won't find our way out in the dark!" Jackie said. She began to shake again. They had to get back to Michael and Donna.

"You may both ask for one wish each, and I will try to grant them." Snow White smiled playfully. "But be sure to ask for the right things."

Jackie looked down. She wanted to wish for Steven to find them.

"I wish," Eric said first, "Kelso's bad luck was over."

"And you?" Snow White said to Jackie.

"I wish... I wish Michael's back wasn't broken anymore."

"It's done." Snow White climbed another step on the dais, but then she stiffened. "Your friends are in great danger. You must go to them."

"Okay," Jackie said, "but how do we f—"

"No. Go to them now." Snow White climbed down the stairs. "Quick. Go to them now. Immediately." She pushed Jackie and Eric toward the hole.

Jackie, Eric, and Fez crawled back into the tunnels and ran.

Kelso's body hurt worse than even that time his arm almost got ripped off by a car door. Every time he squirmed on his bed of rubble, pain shot up his spine all the way to his skull. He couldn't even scream because that counted as moving, and it brought more hurt. This burn wasn't funny anymore.

Donna had tried to keep up a Jackie-level of babble, which Kelso appreciated, but she ran out of things to say a while ago. So she mainly stuck to, "How are you doing, Kelso?" and "I'm right here, Kelso," but it had been some time since her last check-in.

"Donna?" Kelso said. He tried to look to the left, and a railroad spike of pain plunged into the back of his skull. It blurred his vision. Orange light was dancing in front of him, coming closer. It had to be a torch.

"Jackie, Eric? Finally!" Kelso said. "I was starting to think we'd never get out of here."

"That was the right thing to do." Eric's voice sounded deeper and cold and not like Eric's voice at all.

Kelso squinted and saw two blurry faces in front of him. One was clearly Donna's. The other face belonged to...

"Oh, no!" Kelso whispered.

It belonged to the Huntsman. Kelso's bad luck was apparently going to screw him one final time—and Donna, too.

"I move slowly," the Huntsman said, "but I always get what I want."

Kelso's vision finally cleared. The Huntsman was holding Donna tightly with one arm, and he brought the torch's flame near her face. Kelso twitched at the sight of it, but he didn't feel any pain. His back was so badly wrecked that it had finally gone numb.

"Where's the dog?" the Huntsman said. Donna barely shook her head, but Kelso understood. She wanted him to say nothing. "Where's the girl?"

Did he mean Jackie?

"Go fuck yourself," Kelso said.

The Huntsman threw away the torch and pulled a long knife from his boot. He shoved the back of the blade against Kelso's throat.

"Leave him alone!" Donna shouted. She tried to pry the Huntsman's arm off her, but his grip was too strong. She had no traction.

"I'm not going to ask you again," the Huntsman said. He flipped the knife so that the blade now pressed into Kelso's skin.

"Just do it. Get it over with," Kelso said. "The rest of my life's gonna suck anyway."

"You will tell me everything long before you die."

The Huntsman took the knife from Kelso's neck and put it against Donna's. The blade started to pierce her skin. Kelso thought of a convincing lie, opened his mouth to say it and then—

Something slammed into the Huntsman's head from behind. He toppled onto Kelso's legs, knife still in hand, but he'd let go of Donna. He was out cold.

Eric was holding his torch like a baseball bat—no, like a lightsaber. He'd just kicked the Huntsman's ass. Jackie and Fez were standing beside him, and the three of them looked happy.

"M'lady?" Eric said. He reached his hand to Donna and helped her stand.

"Oh, my God—Eric!" She wrapped her arms around him.

Jackie bent over Kelso and tapped his chest. "Get up," she said.

"I can't get up, d'uh! My back's broken."

Jackie smiled at him. "No, it's not."

"What're you tal—" Kelso jerked his head up. It didn't hurt. He wiggled his fingers, flipped off the unconscious Huntsman. "Hey, I think I'm cured!" He sat up. "How the hell did that happen?"

Jackie pulled him to his feet. "We've found the greatest thing ever."

"What?" Donna said. "You've found the way out?"

"Better," Eric said.

"Better? What's better than the way out?" Kelso said.

"Follow us." Eric exchanged his dying, banged-up torch for the Huntsman's. Then he, Jackie, and a too-silent Fez brought Kelso and Donna through the tunnels... until they came to a dead end.

"Uh-huh." Kelso stared at the wall. "This is better than the way out."

Donna clutched Kelso's head, angled it down, and he saw that a hole was cut into the rock.

"I can't go in there," he said.

"Sure you can. All you need is a kick in the ass," Eric said, "which I'll be more than happy to provide."

"Oh. Cool."

Jackie shimmied into the hole first, and Eric passed the torch in after her. Kelso went next. He squeezed his head in, then his shoulders. It was a tight fit, all right.

"So this is what it's like being born," he said.

He tried to push himself the rest of the way through, but he was stuck. Then he felt a hard pressure on his butt, like someone's foot, and—pop!His body shot out of the hole into some snow.

"Michael, Michael—look!" Jackie said.

They were in an icy cavern, empty except for some stalactites and stalagmites.

"What?" Kelso said.

"You have to see this, Donna." Eric's voice echoed in the cavern. "It's like Superman's Fortress of Solitude in he—where did everything go? The light, the coffin—?"

"No, she was here," Jackie said. "Wait, it was..." She pointed ahead of her. Fez padded over to the spot and sniffed.

"What?" Kelso said again. "Did you find the way out?"

Jackie looked at Eric. "Yes," she said, then blew out the torch.

Kelso waved a hand in front of his face, but he couldn't see it. Everything had gone dark.

"Jackie," he said, "why the hell did you—"

"Shh!" Someone—he hoped it was Jackie—grabbed his hand. "Listen."

Kelso heard nothing but the sound of his own breathing.

"Oh, my God," Donna said, "it's—"

"Shut up, Donna!" Kelso said. "I'm trying to hear." But he still heard nothing. "Jackie, what am I supposed to be listening to?"

"Shhhhh," Eric said. He sounded like rushing water.

"I know, but I can't hear anything!" Kelso said.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

"Would everyone quit shushing me? I can't—"

Someone—still Jackie, he hoped—pulled him forward. The shushing grew louder as they walked, and it was joined by a rumbling noise that sounded like a stampede of horses. He could feel the vibration of it through the cave floor. Kelso ducked down and covered his head.

"Michael?" Jackie said. "Michael, what are you doing?"

"Run!" he shouted. "My bad luck's about to cause a cave-in or something!""

Jackie patted his shoulder. "Your bad luck's gone."

"N'uh-uh! I always hear galloping horses before something horrible happens, and now I hear a stampede!"

"We all hear it," Donna said. "That's not a stampede. That's water."

"What?" Kelso stood up, and they continued on. Liquid splashed on his cheek. The rocky walls were wet with water.

They turned a corner, and sunlight streamed into the cave. It stung his eyes, but he shielded them with his hand. They'd found the exit.

Kelso ran outside through the opening in the rock. "Freedom!" he shouted. "Freed—"

He stopped short. He was at the bottom of a powerful waterfall, and he'd almost fallen into a raging, churning river. The force of the water buffeted him like wind.

Eric clapped him on the back, his non-broken back. Jackie and Donna were hugging beside him.

"We did it!" Jackie said. "We're out!"

They climbed up some wet rocks to higher ground, and Eric glanced around. "I think we're back in the Fourth Kingdom," he said and took a small mirror from his pocket.

"Eric, who cares about what you look like?" Kelso said. "We're alive!"

"No, it's—"

Jackie snatched the mirror from Eric's fingers and gazed into it. "Mirror, mirror in my hand," she said, "who's the fairest in the land?"

"Oh, come on!" Kelso shouted.

"Jackie!" Donna said.

But they all, including Eric, peered over Jackie's shoulders. Her reflection in the glass was dissolving away. Another chick's image took its place.

"Oh, my God," Donna said. "That's Laurie!"

"No way," Eric said.

"Yeah, dude, that's totally her!" Kelso tried to grab the mirror, but Jackie's hold on it was firm.

"No way!" Eric said again.

"Oh, it's her." Kelso was smiling. His bad luck really was gone. "That's your sister! And I'm totally gonna to do it with her!"