chapter two: a new buddy
School was going to be starting up in a few weeks and Hyde had only seen Jackie in passing since she broke up with Kelso.
He would be outside shooting hoops or doing some chores and he would catch her heading over to the Pinciotti household. It was just brief glances but it was more than he had expected.
Hyde of 1976 didn't know it, but Jackie didn't spend as much time in her own home because there was never anyone there to make sure she was home. Her mother was a lush and her father was always working—and getting into white collar crimes—and with only maids at home, young Jackie was left to her own devices.
She was a spoiled brat and no longer his problem but it didn't stop him from thinking about her.
"I think I'm going to lose it," Donna exclaimed as soon as she entered the basement through the outside door. "How many dresses does one girl need to try on for a stupid dinner party?"
"I'm guessing you just came back from the mall?" Hyde looked up from the television. He had just been debating sparking up on his own before Donna had entered. "Didn't expect you of all people to hang out willingly with Jackie Burkhart."
That was a lie. Despite the fact that Jackie had forced her way into their group with her association to Kelso, Jackie had always been the person Donna could talk to other than Hyde himself when it came to her Forman problems. And there was a limit to how much Donna could talk to Hyde about when it came to Forman.
"Well, I feel bad about the whole Kelso thing and if I can get her to stop insulting my height and my hair...Jackie could potentially be a lot better company than Kelso." Donna plopped herself down on the couch and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Also she got me these hair clips that are really freaking cute."
Hyde chuckled at that. Despite her demands for gifts, Jackie tended to buy things for those she latched onto. It was an unhealthy trait to buy affection but it was the only way she knew at this age because of her parents.
Donna chewed on her lower lip, the action catching Hyde's attention. He narrowed his eyes at her and then smiled.
"Is that new lipgloss?" He teased.
"She took me to the makeup counter, okay?" Donna defended herself. She pouted, a wrinkle forming between her brows. After a moment of silence she spoke up again. "I oughta kick Kelso's ass."
"As fun as watching you beat his ass would be, what did he do this time?"
"I thought he was dressing better all last year because he had to because of his princess brat girlfriend, but it turns out that she was buying him those clothes so he could have nice things." Donna sighed and slumped into the couch. "It makes sense considering he's one of six kids, no way his allowance is enough for all of that crap. And with how much Jackie forks over when we hang out, I can only imagine how much that cheating bastard was getting the whole time."
Sitting up straighter, Hyde cocked his head in her direction and observed her through his shades. When it came to Jackie, usually none of them were that observant and Jackie hid too much from everyone due to her pride. Donna of 1976 wasn't supposed to know this about Jackie at this point.
"She's still a brat but it's no wonder she expected him to get her stuff. It would have only been fair for him to return the favor." Donna looked at Hyde then away. Her gaze drifted back to him and she sighed, her face falling into her hands.
"You have something to say to me?"
"Okay, listen." Donna slid across the couch until her stomach was pressed against the arm closest to Hyde's chair. "I need a favor and I think you're best for this 'cause, well, you get to burn Kelso."
"...okay?" Hyde stood up and headed to the deep freeze. He pulled out a popsicle and pointed it at Donna. "I'm listening."
Donna wrung her hands together and scrunched up her face in discomfort. She opened her mouth and then raised her hands defensively at him before dropping them and twisting her mouth. She opened her mouth and pointed a finger at him. She closed her mouth and shook her head.
"Just spit it out, man."
Donna rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. She exhaled long and slow and then gave him a tight smile.
"Okay, so technically this favor is for Jackie..."
Cotillion classes were like riding a bike, all the lessons stuck—or at least they did for Jackie Burkhart. She carried herself with poise and smiled at the right moments even when all she wanted to do was scream.
It was one of the things that made hanging out in Eric Forman's basement so liberating. Yes, at times she still employed proper etiquette—she wasn't an urchin!—but it wasn't something she had to do.
Jackie had always loved dinner parties. She loved dressing up for them, the clinking of silverware as they were lifted, the shine of crystal underneath the lights. She adored the flush on cheeks and the chitchat and the beautiful invitations. It felt so adult, so grown up, something she wanted to be.
At her parents' dinner parties, she didn't speak much which was a shame considering how great a conversationalist she was. Jackie was the beautiful and polite daughter—an accessory. She enjoyed praise and attention, especially from her parents, but all the talk was around her or at her not with her.
It was why she had wanted to host one so badly when she was last a sophomore. She wanted to sparkle amongst her friends in a mature setting. Of course at the time she had also been dating Michael and had wanted him to prove that he could show some maturity.
At least there was no chance of him burning her house down this time. No way in hell was she repeating that mistake.
"So you and Buddy go to the same school." Mrs. Morgan directed her focus towards Jackie. "He's in the grade above you."
Buddy Morgan gave her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. The last time this dinner party was held, Jackie was so caught up in herself and her fantasies of Michael that she hadn't given the older boy and his mother any thought.
Jackie knew that Mrs. Morgan was attempting to play matchmaker when she dragged Buddy with them to these parties.
He was a sweet boy, Buddy Morgan. Besides being rich and driving around in a cool car, he was loved by everyone because he was genuinely nice to everyone he met. Why he ever had a crush on Eric, Jackie would never understand.
It wasn't until years later that Jackie found out that Buddy batted for the same team she did and Steven had told her about the Eric incident. Buddy Morgan had run away with a traveling salesman after a bad break up with some Fort Anderson football player during her sophomore year of high school. It had been a huge scandal but the longer Buddy stayed out of Point Place the sooner everyone forgot him, especially after Jackie's father had been arrested the following year and became the major scandal.
Looking at his warm brown eyes and his dimples, Jackie thought it was a shame that he was interested in men but it was even more shameful that a boy as kind as him could be so easily forgotten by everyone.
"Yes!" Jackie nodded cheerfully. "Buddy was lab partners last year with a mutual friend of ours."
There was a slight panic that crossed Buddy's features before his face settled back into that pleasant but false smile. It looked nothing like the smiles he used at school.
"Well," Mrs. Morgan flashed a smile at her, "it was nice to meet you Jacqueline. Looks like the Petersons are here." She wrapped a hand around her son's arm and attempted to lead him away in the direction of Kat Peterson and her parents.
Jackie didn't remember Kat Peterson being at her house for a dinner party before the disaster that was her own. She had been so wrapped up in her own bubble she had forgotten that their parents were acquaintances.
Discomfort and jealousy rolled in Jackie's stomach. In only a couple of weeks, the Steven of 1976 would begin an affair with Kat. Jackie had caught them leaving her garage an hour after all the unwanted guests had left, clothes rumpled. At the time, Jackie had been disgusted that Steven Hyde had fornicated in her home, especially while she was there and could hear it. She had been disturbed that Kat Peterson, the most popular girl in school would want to have sex with Hyde who wasn't in the same social class as her.
A few weeks after that incident she was disgusted with Kat Peterson for a different reason altogether.
No matter how much he hid it, Steven Hyde was sweet and he didn't deserve to be a dirty secret. Her Steven wasn't for slumming and then kicking to the curb. He had deserved better than to be ignored by those girls in public.
It didn't really matter to Jackie that Steven had been as he put it, "cool with it."
And Buddy Morgan deserved more than to have his mother try to shove him in Kat Peterson's direction.
"You have a Trans Am, right?" Jackie placed a hand on Buddy's upper arm to slow down his mother's retreat.
"Don't get him started on that car." Mrs. Morgan waved a hand dismissively. "I swear he likes cars more than girls."
Both Jackie and Buddy tensed up. They caught each other's eyes and Jackie looked away, laughing nervously.
"Well, some girls tend to love cars so he's ahead of the game," Jackie offered, winking and giving Mrs. Morgan the okay hand gesture. "Like Leslie Cannon!"
"Yeah, she calls me Trans Am," Buddy muttered.
Jackie tried to stifle her giggles. Leslie was one of her fellow cheerleaders and she had a bad habit of only calling people, especially boys, by what kind of car they drove. When she had started dating Steven, Leslie didn't recognize his name but recognized his El Camino.
How quickly she had forgotten him despite being yet another one of those flings for him.
I gotta stop thinking about that, Jackie chastised herself.
"And I like cars too, they're cool." Jackie waved a hand towards Buddy to pull him back to the conversation. "Like, I really want a Mustang for my birthday, but Mr. Forman says their front ends are problematic so I should consider a Firebird."
She had never gotten her Mustang for her upcoming birthday. By the time September of 1976 came to a close, her father had completely forgotten about getting her her own car. Jackie ended up borrowing his car when she needed a vehicle or relying on Michael and then later Steven to drive her around.
"Are you talking about Eric Forman's dad?" Buddy raised his brow in interest. "You talked cars with him?"
"Uh-huh, he totally loves me." Jackie pressed a hand over her heart and beamed. "I helped him work on the Vista Cruiser."
She had also helped Mr. Forman on the Toyota and even the El Camino, but that wouldn't be until later. It had first started with the feeling of being needed that she enjoyed. Jackie enjoyed being the one he called "not useless." And then she realized what she enjoyed was that for a few hours, she had a father.
Sometimes she would pretend that it was her own dad with her in the garage. She would pretend that he was the one with his sleeves rolled up and grease ground into his forehead.
Jackie's gaze shifted to where Jack Burkhart stood with Mr. Morgan and Mr. Peterson. A small smile twitched at her lips, quirking them up at the corners. It had been so long since she had seen him like this, confident and well dressed and free. Prison bars didn't stop him from being her daddy.
Neither did daydreams.
She could pretend all she wanted, but her father would never hold a wrench nor would he ever risk staining his silk and suits. Of all things that shined, Jack would hand her beautiful pendants and white gold hoop earrings—never lug nuts that gleamed under fluorescent lighting. And for a long while that was okay with her. Jackie forced herself to be content with the feeling of velvet from jewelry boxes and not the warmth of a large hand brushing against hers.
Jackie rolled her eyes when her mother drifted into her line of vision. From across the room Pam Burkhart gestured to her daughter to smile wide and show her perfectly straight and proportionate pearly white teeth. Subtly, she reminded Jackie to stand up straighter.
Teeth and cleavage Jackie, Pam mouthed at her.
Jackie was surprised her mother wasn't buzzed enough yet to forget that she was in the room.
Turning her attention back to Buddy Morgan, Jackie realized on the most superficial level they were alike because they were both rich and lived in the same posh community. Looking more closely, Jackie realized they had something in common that translated differently.
In some form, their mothers were both disappointments. In less than two years, Jackie's mother was going to abandon her—stay away from Point Place for almost a year. In a metaphorical sense, Buddy's mother was abandoning her son without even stepping a foot away from him. All of her smothering and shoving in the way of eligible girls instead of seeing and accepting him was pushing him away.
Jackie may not have understood Buddy's sexual orientation or wanted to know more than the basic intro notes to it, but there was at least the understanding that sometimes, parents weren't what you wanted them to be like.
"So why a Trans Am?" Jackie took over the conversation giving Buddy her full attention. Maybe if she threw him a bone, feigned interest in him, his mother would back off for a night. "Did you pick a Firebird for the same reason Mr. Forman suggested it?"
"Honestly?" Buddy's lips quirked up in a crooked smile. "It's just the coolest car. I had no idea about that front end problem."
"By the way," Jackie linked arms with him and turned him away from his mother, "I love your shirt. It's so nice when a man knows how to dress."
"Um," Buddy tensed in her hold but let himself be led away from the adults. "Listen, Jackie—"
"Don't flatter yourself, I just needed an escape and you obviously needed one too." No way was she going to let Buddy Morgan voice that she wasn't his type. She was every man's type. He just happened to not appreciate women or that she could be if he swung that way. "I don't want to be here and neither do you, so let's just not be here."
"Well, okay then." Buddy shot her a disgruntled look, when she tightened her grip on him. "Then where should we be?"
Hitting it by himself would have been preferred. Sometimes Hyde would look through the smoke at his friends and forget that he was back in 1976. But then Donna would walk in with her longer red hair and Fez would be scrawnier and without his forelocks blown back. The only one of his friends that still looked the same was Forman considering he hadn't yet grown the single inch that would make him taller than Hyde. An inch that wouldn't really make much of a difference when Hyde put his boots on.
Even the brief glimpses of Jackie were a mindfuck. She seemed even smaller than usual and the baby fat on her cheeks hadn't melted off yet to reveal the angular features of a woman. Fifteen year old Jackie with her small pert nose and big doll eyes was still beautiful, but Hyde had spent so much time alongside her that one day she had just looked older. There had been no fanfare, it had just crept slowly up on him and just was.
One day her hips flared out more, her breasts filled his hands a little more heavily, and her voice had slightly dropped a pitch and was smoother.
It got him thinking about how eighteen year old Jackie had stood in front of him and demanded the future. Two years didn't seem like much time, but now that he was looking at all of the minor details that didn't exist yet in all of his friends and himself, the major details screamed much louder at him.
"How does it feel to finally be sixteen, Fez?" Forman asked as he stood to open the door in an attempt to air out the basement. The door swung open before he got a chance to reach it. "Hi-hello-Buddy-hi!"
"Well, that's new," Hyde muttered under his breath, leaning back in his seat.
Jackie stepped into the basement with Buddy Morgan in tow holding a cake box like it was the most natural thing in the world. Hyde barely registered Kelso's indignant yelp as his ex walked in like she had every right to be there.
"We can totally smell what you guys are doing from the stairwell," Jackie laughed. She plopped herself on the couch, making sure to pull the skirt of her brown and white peasant sleeved dress out from under her. She turned her body to look at Fez and beamed at him. "Happy birthday Fezzie!"
"You know when my birthday is?" Fez gasped, a hand pressed to his heart in awe.
"We brought you a cake." Buddy placed the cake box on the spool table. "Well, we stole you a cake from the Burkharts' dinner party."
"Meh, they won't miss it." Jackie shrugged. "It's chocolate by the way."
"And this cake is just for Fez?" Fez asked, slowly edging the cake box closer to him.
"Well, I thought you would share it with━"
"You can't just come in here!" Kelso interrupted Jackie, standing up quickly from his seat on the couch.
"Sure, she can!" Hyde smiled broadly and took the box away from Fez and ripped the tape closing it. "She brought us cake."
"Look," Jackie whipped out a package of candles from her purse," I even got candles for you to blow out."
"Jackie!" Kelso shrieked and tried to get her attention, but she just ignored him.
Clapping her hands together, Jackie leapt from the couch. "I'm going to go get Donna. Eric, get some plates and forks."
Forman looked to the basement door from where she exited and back to everyone else and back. "What just happened!?"
Buddy chuckled at Forman's antics and pointed over his shoulder toward the stairs that led to the kitchen. "Should I grab those plates? Jackie wasn't kidding about you guys smelling really strongly and I'm sure if your parents are in the kitchen they'll know right away."
"Uh, noooo." Kelso turned towards Buddy, his hands on his hips. "What you should do is explain what you're doing with Jackie!"
"Who cares?" Fez clapped his hands excitedly. "They brought cake!"
Buddy looked up at Kelso unimpressed and not a bit intimidated by the taller boy. "Yeah, I'm going to go get those plates."
"Ugh!" Kelso shrieked as Buddy brushed by him and jogged up the stairs to the kitchen.
Hyde couldn't help but smile to himself. Donna had asked him to help run interference when it came to Kelso acting like a jerk to Jackie after their break up, but had told her not to expect him to be active about it. Luckily for Donna, it was just way too easy to mess with Kelso.
"Looks like someone has been replaced already." Hyde chuckled as he removed the cake from the box. Eric shot him a questioning look which Hyde returned with a look of his own that he would explain later. They both knew that nothing was going on between Buddy and Jackie.
"That's just━that's just━not true, Hyde!" Kelso stammered defensively.
"What's not true?" Donna asked, entering the basement with her arm looped around Jackie's arm.
Kelso ignored Donna and began interrogating Jackie. "Are you dating Buddy Morgan, Jackie?"
"Not that it's any of your business who I date, but Buddy's just a friend." Jackie led Donna to the couch and sat on the side closest to Hyde's chair and made sure Donna sat on her other side, close enough that Kelso couldn't muscle his way in between them.
"Got the plates, forks, and a knife," Buddy cheered, setting them down on the table and moved the mushroom ottoman closer to Jackie and taking a seat on it. Hyde bit down on his lower jaw to keep from making a comment.
"Is no one else weirded out by this?" Kelso continued to complain. "Jackie shouldn't be allowed in the basement anymore."
"Shut up, Kelso." Donna rolled her eyes and placed the candles around the cake, making sure there was sixteen for Fez's age and an extra candle for good luck. "Today's about Fez, not about false injuries to your person."
"Why is Kelso so mad?" Hyde heard Buddy whisper his question to Jackie.
"Oh, he's just upset 'cause I dumped his ass." Jackie didn't even bother to whisper. Whispering wasn't something she cared about doing unless she felt it was absolutely important.
"Wait. You broke up with Kelso?" Buddy scrunched up his face in confusion but then he shrugged. "Smart move."
"I know, right?" Jackie beamed, completely ignoring Kelso's sounds of protest.
Hyde concentrated on lighting up the candles on the cake. The last time Fez had turned sixteen, there hadn't been any cake and Jackie didn't even know it was Fez's birthday. And Buddy definitely wasn't hanging around the basement with them. Buddy hadn't even been friends with any of them after he stopped being Forman's chemistry partner.
He had simply drifted away once Forman and Donna became official, barely greeting Forman in the halls up until the day he had run away from home. The rumors had been murky. He either ran away with an older boyfriend or was sent away. The details were lost once people stopped caring.
But none of that was important at the moment. 1976 was starting to completely change course from his timeline.
There just wasn't enough weed to make any of it make sense.
"You guys have made my first birthday in Amedica so special," Fez thanked them after blowing out his candles. "Now let's eat cake."
"And then he just slugged me on the arm," Donna huffed.
"If you keep moving your head around your braid is going to come out all weird."
Jackie had come over to the Pinciotti household to teach Donna how to style her hair in different ways to go along with her new hair clips. Donna needed a great start to the new school year and just looking good could help it really sparkle which was exactly what Jackie had told her.
"I'm having a dilemma here, Jackie. It would be really nice if you could listen."
Jackie sighed and took out the braid she had been making that would wrap from the front of Donna's hair to the back. Maybe she should just tell her to go blonde already. Nah.
"Eric's just being an idiot, Donna." Jackie truly believed he was. She had almost forgotten about the 'I love cake' incident until Donna brought it up. "You would think the boy would be grateful that someone like you loved someone like him and was willing to admit it. Not that I would ever love Eric, but I would have buried that so deep down, you would have to find those feelings in China."
Hell, he should consider himself lucky that you were going to marry his small diamond buying, jilting at the altar bum.
"Jackie." God, she hated it when Donna had that scolding tone in her voice.
"Alright, alright." Jackie smiled to herself when the braid finally came out properly. "Just, back off. Cool down the emotional heat. You're probably just being more serious than he's ready for right now. Girls do mature faster than boys. We kind of have to."
Donna nodded, taking in Jackie's advice. "You might be onto something."
"Of course I am! Now let's talk about feathering your hair. I think it could really work for you."
"My head needs a break from all of this rearranging you're doing to it. Let's just head over to the basement and see what the guys are doing."
The basement. Except for Fez's birthday, Jackie had avoided going down there, opting to visit Donna at her house or inviting her over to the mansion.
Jackie had spent the first day back in 1976 calmly. She wrote down a list of events she remembered that were important and could change the course of history. She closed up her diary and went to sleep, confident that when she woke up she would be back in 1979 and depressed over Steven but pretending she wasn't.
Her second day back in 1976 was the big blow up.
She woke up in the same underdeveloped body, her calendar reading the wrong year and her father's newspaper that he wasn't even around to read telling her events that had already happened.
Her room took a massive hit from Tornado Jackie that day. She had flipped over her chair and knocked over books and knick knacks from her shelves. Not even Fluffycakes had been safe. The poor stuffed unicorn's head had been separated from its body and it wasn't until Jackie calmed down that she realized that she had been the one that ripped it apart.
Every morning for a week and a half, Jackie woke up expecting it to be 1979 again. She would call up Donna to ask her what she was up to and if she was free they would hang out.
It was summer vacation and Donna hadn't gotten her job at the radio station yet so it opened up more time for Jackie to hang out with her, but Jackie was wary of entering the basement.
Steven was living in the basement and he was still going to be living there for another month or so until he ran into Bud Hyde again. Hanging out in a large group like they had on Fez's birthday made it much easier to deal with the fact that she couldn't talk to him like she used to or touch him like she wanted to.
"Sure," Jackie agreed to Donna's request. "You can practice being aloof around Eric." In reality she needed to be the one practicing for Steven.
Donna gave her a quizzical look and then smirked at her. "Since when does the cheerleader know the word aloof?"
"God, Donna. You should know by now how smart I am."
It was day whatever and Kelso was still hung up on Jackie breaking up with him. It was getting to the point that Hyde wanted to get back to 1979 just to get away from Kelso's crying.
"Kelso, man. You gotta stop this already." Hyde scrunched up his nose in disgust. "You're starting to reek."
After Vanstock, Kelso had still been confident that Jackie would take him back. Fez's birthday had made him change his tune when Buddy Morgan had come to the basement with her. Hyde expected stalking and harassment from Kelso's end, not utter defeat until he had pointed out that Buddy was the kind of boyfriend Jackie's parents would approve of and want for their daughter.
It's really too bad that he's gay, Hyde thought. It was that one thought that kept him from admitting he didn't like the idea of Jackie and Buddy together either. Buddy had the grades, the money, the family. All things Hyde didn't have in 1976.
He refused to think about how impressed this much more shallow version of his ex would probably be of W.B., his real father. As shallow as Jackie of 1979 could be, all she had wanted was Hyde to have a shot at a decent parent—to finally have something they both wanted.
"Yeah, Kelso," Forman had raised his shirt collar over the bridge of his nose, "if you don't shower you're not welcome here. That's a message from Red by the way, but we all agree with him."
Kelso post-Jackie came in stages. First stage was denial. It was also the third stage after he reached stage two where he wallowed in his grief and either didn't shower or ate his weight in pudding. The return of the denial stage had Kelso adamantly forgetting why it was that Jackie broke up with him and start to woo her and grovel like he deserved a second of her time.
The fourth stage was hooking up with whatever girl he had cheated on her with and flaunting them in front of her. He had done that with Pam Macy, Laurie, and Annette—although Annette was more like the ambassador for the beach trash he had hooked up with before he received Jackie's break up letter. Any day now Hyde expected Kelso to announce that he was dating Laurie.
"Yes, what was it that Jackie said you smelled like?" Fez tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Oh yes, like a pack of wet dogs had rolled in a pig truck full of onions. A-burn!"
Hyde shuffled the deck of cards and nodded his head. It was a pretty good burn. "Nice."
"When did Jackie tell you that?" Kelso asked, wiping his nose with his sleeve.
"She invited Donna and me for a tea party and we had some girl talk."
All of the boys turned to look at Fez, gawking at him.
"What?" Fez looked back at them innocently. "I'm not a girl but I like the girl talk. And Jackie had recommendations for a hair treatment that was most satisfying. But none of you sons of bitches noticed how shiny Fez's hair is!"
"You sure you're not a girl, Fez?" Hyde scowled. At least some things never changed.
The timeline was getting all screwy and there was no one Hyde could really talk to. He finally went and got his job at the Fotohut and that had been worth it just to see Leo again. Hyde had missed him severely but talking to him about time travel was pointless. Leo would start to take him seriously only to jump off into a different topic.
Last time Jackie had caught Kelso with Laurie and broke up with him, she had latched onto Hyde. He had been anticipating that kind of behavior from her only for Jackie to have latched onto Donna.
"It's weird y'know." Donna had spoken to him once about Jackie when they were alone and she needed a break from her parents. "She's always making weird makeup and hair analogies, but she, like, gets it."
Hyde didn't need Donna to tell him that. That had once been his privilege. Now he was stuck in 1976, knowing all that he did about Jackie that made her lovable and real and could only look without even being able to think about touching. In 1979, there was at least the chance of reconciliation.
But here he was in 1976, jealous of Donna who got to talk to Jackie and realize how great she really was.
"So get this," Donna bounded into the basement, excitement oozing off of her, "I went to pick up Jackie from practice and the El Dorado stalls. I'm ready to walk back to the school and call my dad or AAA and Jackie just pops the hood open and checks it out herself."
"Was she wearing her uniform when she did it?" Hyde flashed her a lascivious grin. Forman nodded in intrigue, shrugging for her to continue.
Donna frowned instantly. "Okay, maybe the wrong group of people to mention this to." She sat down on the couch by her boyfriend and crossed her arms in front of her chest. She was silent for a moment before perking right back up again. "But it was just so cool! It was the perfect example about how no matter what kind of woman, she could still do traditionally masculine activities and not need a man."
"Yeah, Donna," Hyde shook his head, "should have just left us with the image of Jackie recreating a layout."
"You guys are disgusting." Donna scowled at them. "But yeah, when I pointed that out Jackie said 'eww! Donna, don't you dare make me out to be one of your ugly feminist friends in public' and it kind of ruined it all."
"Okay, that sounds more like Jackie." Forman nodded with a shiver.
"Where's Jackie if you went to pick her up?" Kelso demanded. Donna shot him a look and it looked like she was contemplating shoving him over the top of the couch.
"After she discovered what was wrong and took care of it, Buddy drove by and he gave her a ride home since they live near each other."
That was another unexpected blow. Hyde had joked the other week that Kelso was being replaced but in reality it was him that was being replaced according to the events of his original timeline.
Whatever government agent that was in charge of following his every move knew exactly what they were doing to mess with him. He kept expecting something to happen and it never turned out like it was supposed to from what he remembered.
At least it wasn't freaking Chip that Jackie was spending time with, he told himself.
"Kelso, you smell like a dump truck." Donna moved to the deep freeze to get as far away as possible from him. "I think we need a basement ban until you start acting human again and wash up."
"It's that or Red gets the hose."
"I'll get the freaking hose." Hyde was getting fed up with the woe-is-me act.
"What? No!" Kelso was by the door before Hyde could stand up from his chair. "Ugh, fine!"
Kelso stomped up the stairs, slamming the door behind him.
"I think we need to light some incense to mask the leftover Kelso funk," Donna suggested.
"I wish we had some of that stuff from Jackie's house," Fez whined. "It always smells good in her room."
"What were you doing in Jackie's room?" That was an even weirder change for Hyde. Jackie had always thought Fez was too creepy to allow in her house even when she enjoyed it when he showered her with attention.
"Fez is better for clothes talk than I am apparently." Donna rolled her eyes. "I just can't fake interest enough."
"Why would you want to?" Forman laughed. At least there was that, Forman still hating on Jackie. Ol' reliable Forman was the only constant.
Fez made some sort of comment in defense of Jackie before excusing himself. Another constant that Hyde could rely on was Fez's signature exit phrase.
"Hey," Donna's voice dropped so she could speak softly to Forman. "You might not believe it but Jackie is a pretty good friend. I can talk to her about a lot. She even called you sweet."
"Now that I don't believe!" Forman protested, holding his hands up defensively.
"She did," Donna insisted. "She thinks it was sweet that you just held me all night. She called you a good boyfriend."
Forman looked over at Hyde, waiting for his input or an insult but Hyde didn't have the energy for that.
This was another change to the timeline, but Hyde was active in this one. He had made fun of Forman during breakfast about not making a move, but this time around he kept Donna's sleepover a secret from their other friends instead of burning him in the circle.
When he was sixteen, it had been fun to mess with Forman about his and Donna's lack of a sex life and while it still was, it wasn't something he had much in common with Kelso anymore. He now saw the benefit of just sleeping next to someone you cared about.
Eighteen year old Hyde had created a space just for Jackie, one where she felt safe and could exist without any expectations. Sharing a bed with a girl became more than just somewhere to fool around. And somehow, Jackie in his cot made him feel safe as well. Her arms were thin and she was softer than anything he had ever known, but those weeks of sharing his space with her wasn't just for her. It was for Hyde too.
He didn't need music playing on the radio when he had the sound of Jackie's soft breathing and the feel of her heartbeat against his fingers that were intertwined with hers.
"And you are a good boyfriend." Donna smiled sweetly at Forman before frowning. "And Kelso is a creep."
"That's not news," Hyde muttered.
"I had to explain to Jackie what coercion is." Donna crossed her arms in front of her chest but her face didn't hide her discomfort. "I know you guys don't give a crap about feminism, but that's one of the reasons we women need it. God, the more I talk to Jackie the more I wanna kick Kelso's ass."
"You should do it," Hyde told her, reaching for a magazine on the spool table. He still had time before he had to start heading over for his shift at the Fotohut. He was used to having his El Camino for transport so he had to do some adjusting when it came to travel times.
If everything continued as it was, Hyde wouldn't be getting his El Camino from Leo for a couple more months. He was going to need his set of wheels again if he was going to be stuck in nineteen-freaking-seventy-six again.
He still couldn't figure out why he was sent back to that particular date nor how. Nothing special had happened his last night in 1979. Hyde had watched Jackie walk down the driveway and out of sight. Then he went into his room and lit a joint and laid out on his cot under the twinkle lights he had expected Jackie to take back when they split.
His room had been dark save for those lights. They blinked at him through the hazy smoke while The Doors' I Looked At You played over his record player's speakers.
The fucking irony of the line "And we can't turn back" just for him to have stepped a few years back into the past.
For all Hyde knew, he had fallen asleep after getting too comfortable under his goose down comforter with the joint still lit and had started a fire and now he was in some fucked up afterlife. Dead because he was trying to escape thoughts of Jackie while surrounded by the things she gave him to bring him comfort.
Hyde refused to acknowledge that there may have been some sort of correlation between his refusal to talk about the future and his trip back in time.
There was no way they could be related at all.
Wisconsin had the worst weather. Donna had once asked Jackie why they weren't out in Mexico enjoying beautiful sunsets and fruity cocktails. It had been a joking afterthought when discussing Pam Burkhart's return to Point Place, but really Jackie was surprised Donna had even been able to survive California.
A Wisconsin summer barely reached eighty degrees Fahrenheit and that usually only lasted for a few weeks before the thunderstorms dropped the temperature. Jackie would have expected Donna to have passed out from the heat as soon as she stepped foot on a California beach.
Jackie had always hated her home in August. In the Pinciotti house or the Forman house, the storms—rain or snow—made the homes feel like snow globes, scenes in perfect little bubbles. When thunder crashed over the roof of the Burkhart estate, Jackie felt exposed as if the walls had expanded and opened up to the universe.
The halls seemed longer, the rooms larger, and the house emptier than it usually was.
She used to have space in a cot, a larger body wrapped around hers. Her very own scene in a perfect little bubble. Steven would hold onto her with disproportionately large hands that she slid her tiny fingers into the grooves of. She missed the serenity of that, of how a military cot in a storage room could make her feel safer and more at home than a mansion.
But she didn't have that right now. What she had was Donna in her full sized bed.
"The boys would freak if they knew we shared a bed during slumber parties," Donna joked. "They're such freaks!"
When Jackie was making her list, at first there were a lot of events she wanted to avoid or change for herself. It seemed like the most obvious course of action to try and fix up her own life.
But then Jackie remembered nights sharing a room with Donna when her mother was drinking away in Mexico. She remembered Donna holding her as she cried over Steven. Remembered how she was there for her when she was afraid that she was pregnant and like an older sister supported her getting birth control pills.
She remembered Donna who never cried, crying when Midge left her family and when Eric broke up with her over the promise ring. Jackie could still see Donna's blotchy face when Casey Kelso broke up with her in front of everyone and she remembered how Donna held herself up in her room and refused to come out when Eric didn't show up for their wedding.
So this time around Jackie let Eric do his role as Donna's boyfriend, but she picked up the slack. Bob and Midge were constantly fighting and doing strange things in their house—stuff Donna had always wanted an escape from. Jackie used to use the basement and the Pinciotti residence as her escape, why not let Donna use her mansion as one.
"Your house is like one of those fancy B&Bs," Donna told her after the first sleepover at her house.
"They think we have pillow fights in negligees." Jackie shuddered. "Sometimes I wanna ruin the fantasy and tell them that all we do is watch the girly romance movies they hate and stuff our faces with junk food. But knowing them, they'd still find a way to dirty that up."
Donna clutched one of Jackie's flower shaped pillows to her stomach and flipped over onto her back. Quickly turning her head back to Jackie, Donna kept her gaze on her.
"What?" Jackie asked, getting irritated with the stares. "Your staring is creeping me out, you goon."
"I, like, never see your parents, Jackie." Jackie's breath hitched as Donna turned her body so she faced her fully. "At first it was cool 'cause it was quiet and God did I need that, but it's been going on a while and sure your dad is a city councilman and a lawyer, but come on Jackie. Your mother is a real estate agent in Point Place, Wisconsin. No one moves to Point Place and there's no way those lucky to get the hell out are keeping her that busy."
The red hair was a giveaway, but sometimes Jackie would forget that this wasn't her Donna and that she wasn't already privy to some of the bullshit of her life. She tried to censor herself but it was usually so hard to do, especially when it came to words and phrases she had only introduced to her vocabulary when she had started dating Steven.
Donna's parents were fighting and one day her mother was going to leave, but Donna was going to still have the love of two parents. She would end up caught in the middle of their fights, but she didn't know what it felt like to be completely abandoned by her parents. Even when they still lived within the same walls.
"I don't really wanna talk about it, Donna." Jackie snuggled deeper under her covers, pulling them up to her ear.
Under the glow of the lava lamp, Donna's face was washed in pink, her green eyes dark in the poor lighting but still full of warmth and concern. They crinkled at the edges when she smiled softly and said, "Okay, midget. Just know you can come to me for whatever. Well, within reason. I'll always lend an ear."
Warmth burst in Jackie's chest and she nodded timidly. It might not be Donna of 1979, but she was still Donna, her best friend.
Day's Notes: hello! Updating early because I'm not feeling well (I'm chronically ill) and I thought indulging my excitement will help me feel a little better. And it did lol