Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC. Degenerate Matter, their albums Vagabondage, Ultrarelativistic, WIMPs and MACHOs, Frozen Stars, the song "Farther and Further" and the lyrics contained therein copyright to the author of this story (username: MistyMountainHop, maker of Those '70s Comics).

CHAPTER 16
HOAXED

August 27, 1994

Chicago, Illinois

Brooke and Betsy's Apartment
...

Two main types of lies existed. One of commission: speaking falsely in order to deceive—and that of of omission: withholding information. Betsy had plenty of practice with the latter. She'd been trained to keep all truths about Steven a secret, at least from Jackie. And this time, Betsy had kept Steven's very presence from her.

Jackie was standing outside Brooke's apartment, frozen in place, unsure what to do. Her grip on her suitcase handle tightened as Brooke issued frantic apologies to both her and Steven. Betsy, meanwhile, clutched Steven's hand like it was a lifeline.

"It's okay," Jackie said first, keeping anger out of her voice. Betsy had been taught to lie from a young age. She was just putting her lessons to use and had to be acting out ... for some as-yet undiscovered reason.

"I'll get my stuff, stay in a hotel," Steven said. He extricated himself from Betsy's grasp but touched her back in a reassuring manner, as if silently saying, We're okay, despite the stunt you pulled. "We can coordinate this."

"You don't have to—get a hotel, I mean." Jackie still hadn't moved from the hallway. Brooke was in the doorway, glancing back and forth between her and Steven. "I'll take the sofa," Jackie said. "You have the guest room." Because she wasn't going back to California, back home, until she uncovered what Betsy was trying to do. "Just—" she stretched her arms out on either side of herself—"I need this much personal space. From everyone."

It was a request she'd planned on making during this visit anyway. No hugging. No close-sitting. But her stomach lurched at setting this boundary in front of Steven, to Steven. He'd already seen her semi-breakdown at Izzy's birthday party. He probably thought she was psycho, someone he was grateful to be rid of for so many years.

"You got it," Steven said, "and you get the guest room. "I'll move my shi—crap out here."

He walked a third of the way across the living room, but Brooke hurried after him and took his hand. She spoke to him in a hushed, intimate tone, but Jackie heard her: "Are you sure? Maybe it would be best if you got a hotel room."

Steven squeezed her hand and said, "I'm sure," before disappearing into the guest room.

Jackie's neck flushed. Brooke and Steven were friends, close friends, and Jackie was ultimately an outsider. She'd been disowned from a life that used to be hers, could have been hers. But who she was now didn't belong in that life, and this Steven wasn't from her past. He lived in her present, a wholly different person from whom she remembered.

"Betsy," Brooke said, "take your aunt Jackie's suitcase." Jackie hadn't moved an inch, but she let Betsy wheel her suitcase into the apartment. Betsy was taller than Jackie by four inches and had no trouble with the heavy bag. "Jackie, again, I'm sorry," Brooke beckoned Jackie inside the living room. "Betsy's never done anything like this before."

Jackie entered the apartment with her carry-on bag as Betsy wheeled her suitcase to the guest room. Steven came out a moment later, his own suitcase and a pair of boots in his hands. He was dressed so damn casually, like this was his home: a faded Jimi Hendrix T-shirt, ratty jeans, and a pair of white socks.

"Excuse me," Brooke said, "I have to have a conversation with my daughter." She followed Betsy into the guest room, leaving Jackie and Steven alone. That was surprising. Just a minute ago, she was worried about them staying in her apartment together. But maybe Steven's tone earlier had reassured her.

Jackie stood by the bureau near the front door. She could probably flee. Steven wasn't looking at her. His russet hair hung in thick waves around his face as he arranged his belongings around the sofa. Both Betsy and Izzy seemed to trust him implicitly, but they had a different history with him. And, unlike Jackie, those girls weren't history to him. They were part of his present.

Fifteen years of questions and fury and pain quaked in Jackie's chest. But speaking them aloud to this man, whom she no longer knew, would do more harm than good.

He was unfolding the sofa into a bed. To make room for it, he'd pushed some of Brooke's furniture out of the way. The coffee table and armchair sat between the wall and the sofa, unusable. Behind him, the television was off, but he filled the silence by humming. It was melodic, creating a dissonance within her. Underscoring her lack of familiarity with him.

He'd been kind at Izzy's birthday party and offered to stay in a hotel this weekend. He was respecting her boundaries so far, but she remained rooted in place by the bureau.

Across the living room, several gift-wrapped presents sat on the dining table. He'd come here to celebrate Betsy's birthday just like she had. That made no sense.

"I thought you went to the birthday dinner at Benihana," she said. Her voice had broken through his humming and sounded scratchy.

"Huh?" He looked up from the fold-out bed. It needed sheets and pillows, but he sat on the bare mattress. "Oh, right. Yeah. Couldn't make it. Scheduling conflict." He picked up a round candle from the coffee table and cupped it in his hands. "I run a record label. Shit comes up on short notice."

He rolled the candle between his palms before replacing it on the coffee table. "Gotta get sheets," he said and disappeared into the hallway. The linen closet's metal door shrieked open. The track clearly needed WD-40, but Steven's arms were piled with sheets, pillow cases, and two pillows when he returned.

"You don't have to keep standing by the bureau," he said. "You can put down your bag, settle in." He dropped his heap of bedding on the mattress. "Want me to make you tea or something?"

"That's okay." She stepped away from the bureau, but her body felt like a dry, brittle twig. Her shoulders were slightly hunched, but she feared if she straightened up her body would break in two

Steven was a representation of her past, of all she'd lost; but he carried on as if they had nothing between them, smoothing a bottom sheet over the fold-out bed. "You'll have to wait a few minutes to get into the guest room," he said. "Brooke and Betsy are in the middle of 'negotiations'. Heard 'em through the door."

"An argument," she said.

"Yup." He finished with the bottom sheet and, in an impressive show of strength, hefted the armchair into the air. No grunt of effort. The chair might as well have weighed nothing to him, and he placed it on the fold-out bed's left side. A generous amount of floor-space spanned the two pieces of furniture, and he angled the chair so it faced the TV. "That enough distance?"

No annoyance was discernible in his question. Only sincerity, and her eyes began to sting. "Yes, thank you." She blinked a few times, and the stinging sensation faded. She refused to shed tears because Steven was being kind again. Or because he used to be so much more to her than that.

"You were lying before, weren't you?" she said and sat in the armchair. She hugged her carry-on bag to her chest, protectively in front of her heart. "About why you couldn't make Betsy's birthday dinner."

He glared at her, with such intensity that her breath caught in her throat.

"You were fiddling with that candle," she forced out and pointed at the coffee table. "You always did that when you were uncomfortable with something. I just—"

He laughed softly, and the sound startled her more than his glare had. "Guess some tells you never get rid of, huh?" He turned on the TV. "Anything you want to watch?"

"Not really. I'd rather have it off." She usually kept the TV on at home or music. It stopped her from obsessing over the creepy, creaky sounds of her house, but it also made her crave quiet when she wasn't home.

"Nothing good's on anyway," he said, "even with a hundred cable channels. Saturday-afternoon programming could use a lot of work." He shut off the TV and put sheets onto the fold-out bed. "You're right, though. I was lying. Don't want to get into it."

She nodded, although he probably hadn't seen it. He was focused on tucking in the top sheet, but a measure of relief spread through her. His tell with the candle was a recognizable, unchanged part of him, and he hadn't gotten angry when she identified it. In fact, he'd been friendly—was being friendly—to her.

Her arms relaxed, and she let her carry-on bag settle onto her lap. He was putting her at ease. She might actually survive this weekend, but Brooke had been "negotiating" with Betsy for a long time. Maybe it had become an interrogation.

Steven tossed the two pillows onto the fold-out bed and plunked down on the mattress. Then he pulled a stick of gum from his jeans pocket, offered her one.

She put up her hand. "No, thanks."

He popped the gum into his mouth and leaned back on the pillows, acting like being in her company wasn't strange. "Forman told me you got Donna an interview with a major magazine," he said, meeting her gaze. "That's cool of you to do that."

"She deserves it." Jackie slouched in the armchair. His earnestness unnerved her. She couldn't look at him anymore and, instead, stared at her thumbs. "Donna's career was derailed unfairly."

"Hell yeah it was. Come On screwed her over."

Come On was the rock magazine Donna used to work for, the one she'd quit when it became exploitative of its subjects. Jackie had listened to her frustration about it two years ago, and in the time since, Jackie kept thinking of how to help her. But Brie had come through, gotten Donna a feature article in Cosette Magazine. The fashion shoot and interview would take place next week.

"It's like 'Act IV, Scene II,'" Jackie said, citing a song off Degenerate Matter's second album. "'Filths savor but themselves.' I know it's a line from Shakespeare, but Ro fits it in perfectly with the rest of the lyrics."

"You listen to Degenerate Matter?" His tone intensified significantly, either from alarm or excitement. "Didn't think you'd be into a band like that. Figured you'd love Ace of Base—"

She scowled. "No. I didn't see the sign, and all that I want is for their music to get off my goddamn radio."

He laughed again, still soft but throaty this time. A smoker's laugh. "Sounds like you've got a crappy rock station wherever you live—"

Brooke and Betsy emerged from the guest room. Betsy trudged into the living room with Brooke behind her.

"Steven, Aunt Jackie," Betsy said miserably with flushed cheeks and wet eyes, "I'm sorry for lying." Her frown resembled Michael's exactly. "I'm grounded after tomorrow, during my last week before school starts. So..." Her fingers were clasped together at her stomach. "Yeah."

Jackie wasn't satisfied, but she kept her mouth shut. She didn't need Betsy to be punished. She needed an explanation.

"Look, what's done is done," Steven said and went to Betsy. "People make mistakes, and the ones I've made—" he held his out hand to her, and she grasped it—"they'd burn yours to a crisp."

"Steven," Brooke said. His name was a warning.

"Give the kid a break, okay?" He wrapped his arms around Betsy protectively, as if embracing her that way were natural for both of them. "She messed up. She won't do it again … right?"

"Right," she said and buried her head in his chest.

"Steven," Brooke said in the same warning tone as before, "this isn't helping."

He cupped the back of Betsy's head. It was added protection. "Come on. She feels crappy enough."

Betsy's hands tightened in a knot at his back, and her body began to shake. She was sobbing, and Jackie clenched her jaw. Steven was acting more like Betsy's father than her godfather, and Brooke was responding to him like an ex-wife. The foreignness of his behavior made Jackie dizzy, and she shut her eyes. For a brief moment, she'd thought she might possibly recognize this man. She was wrong.

Hyde's guts were as tangled as that soundboard cable at Woodstock '94. Betsy had lied because of him, because of what he'd done to Kelso fifteen years ago. Brooke didn't know the truth, but he deserved her anger, not Betsy.

Brooke was controlling herself now. Standing by the dining table with her arms crossed over her chest. Betsy was seated and unwrapping one of her birthday presents. His were first, and as she ripped the paper off the biggest of them, her elbow thumped the dining table. More than once.

Strong emotions did that to her, blanked out her spacial awareness. She was like Kelso that way, but when she finally tore off all the gift wrap, she became as still as a the floor lamp behind her.

"This..." Her fingers rubbed the canvas material of the guitar case. "What did you do?"

"Just open it," he said.

She unzipped the case, revealing a reissue of a 1963 Fender Telecaster guitar. Its light, butterscotch finish was covered in the signatures of everyone in Degenerate Matter, including O. MacNeil. She pulled the guitar completely free of the case and laid it on her lap, brushed her fingertips over the strings. Then she let out an ear-piercing scream that Jackie couldn't have missed in the guest room.

"Betsy!" Brooke shouted while covering her ears.

But Betsy was busy gasping and repeating, "Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God!"

"Hey, you're gonna hyperventilate if you keep that up," Hyde said, but he was smiling. The kid was happy, and she was going to be even happier when she opened all her presents. .

"What happened, what happened?" Jackie said, rushing out of the guest room. "Is everything okay?"

"My daughter's just hysterically ecstatic," Brooke said. "Steven got her a guitar."

"Not just any guitar, Mom!" Betsy said. "It's the same kind Ro plays on half her songs. A '63 Telecaster."

"Reissue," Hyde clarified.

"Close enough." With shaking hands, Betsy put the guitar back in its case. "Will you play this for me later?"

"Sure." He glanced over at Jackie. She was standing several feet back from the dining table, with her arms at her sides and her legs together, like she was trying to appear as small as possible. The sight raised the hairs on his arms and the nape of his neck. She used to crave being the center of attention, but she'd become self-effacing and shy. In all his imaginings of how she'd ended up, this version never occurred to him.

It should have. Kelso had violated her body. Hyde had violated her heart, but Jackie was resilient. She'd recovered from everything he and Kelso had done to her before Chicago—and she hadn't been touch-averse after Chicago, not with him. The last fifteen years must've laid some heavy shit on her.

He stood from his chair and pulled another from the dining table. It was close enough to the action to include Jackie but far enough away, he hoped, to give her the space she needed. He patted the seat and said, "If you want it," before sitting back down.

"Come on, Jackie, join us," Brooke said, and Jackie hesitantly moved forward. She sat on the chair with her head bowed, and her blond hair hid her face. Earlier, she'd called him on his lie. Even after all their time apart, a portion of him remained transparent to her. But she was completely opaque to him.

"Which one do I open next?" Betsy said. She'd put the guitar safely aside, and she gazed at her other three gifts like a starving peasant at a feast.

"I'll make it easy for you." He pointed to a box-shaped present. "That's an amp. The weirdly-wrapped present is an extra set of strings, a bunch of picks, and a headphone-jack adapter so you won't disturb your mom—or your neighbors."

"Thank you," Brooke said. "That's a present for me."

"So you're telling me to open this one." Betsy grabbed a rectangular gift from the dining table. "It feels like a video tape."

He gestured to the gift, urging her on.

She opened it and stared at the VHS tape in her hands. "Who wrote that?"

She showed him the tape's white label. Scrawled on it in rough, feminine handwriting were the words, "Happy Birthday, Betsy."

"Plug your ears," he said to Brooke and Jackie, and he shoved two fingers against his own ear holes. "Ro wrote—"

Betsy screamed again. She hugged the tape to her chest and tears gathered in her eyes. She was normally more laid back, but everyone had limits. Plus, she was fifteen-years-old. "Is this a concert or something?" she whispered.

"Let's find out," he said, and Betsy followed him to the TV. She put the tape in the VCR and sat on the edge of the fold-out bed.

"I can't press play," she said. "I'm too excited!"

Her hesitation gave Brooke time to join them. Jackie, however, stayed in the dining area. She was isolating herself, and he didn't like it.

Or, maybe, a relic of his younger self didn't like it. She'd become an unknown quantity, someone whose emotions he couldn't read, except for fear.

"Jackie," he said somewhat loudly, and she perked up her head, "if you haven't guessed it by now, I signed Degenerate Matter. And if you dig the band, you might like this."

"You signed them?" she said with a pep that didn't match her current state. It sounded forced, but she got off her chair and came to the TV. Someone must have told her about his career, or she didn't really care about it. Either way, he wouldn't risk spooking her by calling her out.

"All right, ready?" he said and pressed play on the VCR, but nothing showed on the TV screen.

"What's happening?" Betsy said.

"The TV's off," Jackie said from the armchair, and a smirk rose on her lips. It was a relief to see. He hadn't known if she were capable of smiling anymore.

He pressed stop on the VCR and rewound the tape. "Good thing Red ain't here." Red would've called him a dumbass for this one, but neither Brooke nor Betsy got the reference. Jackie's smirk, though, evolved into a full-blown grin.

Until she caught Hyde looking at her. Then her face went as blank as the TV screen.

"Let's try this again." He turned on the TV, and Degenerate Matter's rehearsal space flickered onto the screen. The band practiced in a warehouse they'd converted for the purpose, and Ro walked toward a lone stool.

Hyde sat on the fold-out bed with Brooke and Betsy. Betsy covered her mouth with her hand, but she whispered, "Holy hell," as Ro plugged Betsy's new guitar into an amp. "She is not," Betsy said. "She isn't—"

Ro sat on the stool and shredded a punk version of "Happy Birthday". Then she went into a five-minute musical medley, playing and singing truncated versions of Betsy's favorite Degenerate Matter songs.

Betsy's eyes grew wide and wet with tears as she watched, and Hyde couldn't quit grinning. Ro refused to meet Betsy backstage, or at all, until she absolutely had to. But she'd done the next best thing, made a personal gift for Betsy's birthday.

"Have a badass day, Betsy," Ro sang at the end of her jam. "Don't give up. Never give in." She finished on a cheerful A-major chord and said, "Toss me a marker."

A permanent marker flew at her from behind the camcorder. Hyde had thrown it, and she caught it against her chest and signed the guitar.

"Show it to the camera," Hyde's voice said on the tape.

Ro brought the guitar close, too close, and filled the lens with a blurry image of her signature. "Looks good, right?" she said, and gray static filled Brooke's television. Ro had been teasing him then, which led to an X-rated post-script to Betsy's birthday video. He'd had to rewind the camcorder and erase that part of the tape.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Betsy said and thrust herself into his arms. He hugged her, too, and Brooke squeezed his hand as it lay on Betsy's back.

"Thank you," Brooke mouthed silently. No lingering shards of anger were evident, and he ran his thumb softly over her knuckles.

Jackie had trouble eating dinner. Not that Brooke's cooking wasn't good because it was. She'd made hamburgers with a mixture of pork and beef, the way they should be made. They were savory and paired well with the honey-glazed carrots she'd also prepared. But Jackie's insides wouldn't stop quivering. Every nerve inside her was like a thin, metal string, vibrating discordantly.

After Ro Skirving's birthday performance. Jackie had retreated to the guest room. Steven, Betsy, and Brooke were in the midst of a family moment, and Jackie didn't belong. She'd laid back on the bed with Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, a book of her father's. But she read only a chapter before Degenerate Matter's music drew her into the living room again.

She'd expected to find Betsy rocking out to the stereo, but she was sitting quietly in the armchair. Steven sat near her, on the side of the fold-out bed. Betsy's guitar was strapped over his shoulder, and he was playing the song "Act IV, Scene II".

His fingers ripped through the cords with an ease that made Jackie's legs unsteady. She leaned against the wall for support and prayed he didn't spot her.

"How about 'Farther and Further'? Betsy said when he'd finished. It was a song off Degenerate Matter's latest album and one of Jackie's favorites. O. MacNeil had credit for more than the lyrics on this one. He'd also co-written the music with Ro.

Steven strummed the main riff, an emotive and driving melody, and Jackie closed her eyes. He didn't have the technical skill of her ex-husband, but his playing had a soulfulness that Ralph's lacked.

"The further into space you look," Betsy sang on-key with a tentative voice, "the farther back in time you see. ... My father wasn't my future. He wasn't even my father, but he was my ma's past, and she saw his present in me."

Jackie returned to the guest room. That had been another private moment not meant for her eyes or ears. And by the time Brooke called everyone for dinner, Jackie's feelings of being out of place were overwhelming, but she forced herself to eat.

Brooke, Betsy, and Steven were talking about Betsy's upcoming sophomore year. Brooke tried to bring Jackie into the conversation, but Jackie said, "High school is so different these days. I don't have anything useful to contribute."

A lie. Talking about high school in front of Steven would punch too many bruises. She never thought she'd see him again, not like this. Yet she wasn't really with him. The last few hours had revealed how little she knew him, save a vestigial habit or two.

She managed to eat two-thirds of her burger before she left it aside. Betsy began to help Brooke clear the table, but Jackie volunteered in her place. "This is your birthday celebration," Jackie said and stacked her plate on top of Betsy's.

Afterward, when Jackie was seated again, Brooke brought out a platter of cupcakes. They were decorated with purple frosting and dragées. Jackie used to love picking those small silver balls off cakes, but she wouldn't touch any of these.

A 15 candle was stuck in the middle of one cupcake. Steven pulled out a silver Zippo lighter, and Brooke's face paled. "Matches, Steven," she said and dashed into the kitchen.

She brought out a box of long kitchen matches. Steven stuffed his Zippo back into his jeans pocket, but Betsy said, "Why do you have a lighter?"

"Never leave home without one. Advice from my uncle Chet." Steven lit Betsy's birthday candle with a match. "You never know when you'll need to start a fire to keep warm."

"You get to make another wish, sweetheart," Brooke said, in a higher pitch than usual. She was obviously nervous, but Betsy seemed to believe Steven's story. Or she was a better liar than she'd already proven to be. Granted, Steven did a good job keeping the smell of cigarettes off him. But he chewed gum like he'd choke without it in his mouth, and his laugh was gritty.

"I'm wishing for what I wished for last week," Betsy said, "to strengthen the wish." She shut her eyes, waited a moment, and blew out the candle. "Can I see it?" she said to Steven with open eyes. "Your lighter?"

"Nope." He pulled a cupcake from the platter. "Your dad's a firebug. You probably inherited that trait from him. Can't risk it."

She yanked the smoking candle from her cupcake. "But I'm super responsible."

"So am I," he said, "which is why you ain't touching my lighter."

"Fine." She removed her cupcake's wrapper and stuffed half the cupcake into her mouth.

"Betsy!" Brooke said, but she was half-laughing. She took a cupcake from the platter and unwrapped it daintily.

Jackie eyed the cupcakes covetously. But eating one would become devouring two, and devouring two would become consuming all of them. With the amount of stress she was under, she could easily fall back into old patterns. A smart decision would be to distract herself.

"You know what, bunny?" she said. "It's time for you to open my birthday present." She excused herself from the table and came back with a large rectangular box, wrapped in shiny paper.

"Ooh!" Betsy snatched a napkin from the table and wiped frosting off her hands. "I have no idea what this is!"

Jackie stood back as Betsy tore off the gift wrap. The box had a picture of its contents on the outside, and Betsy read the title, "Perseid SkyExplorer Telescope." She opened the top of the box, and Steven helped her lift out the telescope. "This is so cool!" she said. "Is it ready to go?"

"We'd just have to put it on the tripod and focus it," Jackie said, "but—"

Betsy stood from her seat. "Let's go to the roof!"

"Honey, I don't think you'll see very much," Brooke said. "The sun's just setting."

"Can we go later tonight?" Betsy said.

"We could," Brooke said, "but Chicago's light pollution keeps the sky pretty bright at night."

Betsy exhaled loudly and put the telescope back into its box.

"You won't have to wait too long," Jackie said. "I made some phone calls and found out Willow Springs Woods has a public observing session on September tenth. It's only a half-hour drive from here."

"That sounds wonderful." Brooke slid her arm around Betsy's shoulders. "Maybe we can go with your dad."

Betsy slumped in her chair. "I hate waiting for things."

"Part of life, kid," Steven said. "But no reason we can't take the telescope out for a test-run tonight. See the moon's craters."

"Yes!" Betsy said then looked at Jackie. "Oh, man, I didn't even thank you!" She leapt off her seat and enveloped Jackie in a hug. "Thank you!"

Jackie patted Betsy's back awkwardly, even though her body was shrieking for freedom. Betsy's touch was warm, loving, and exuberant, but all touch to Jackie had become venomous. Her body couldn't process it properly.

"Hey, French fry," Steven said, "how's about we play a game of Monopoly to make the time go faster, huh?"

Betsy released Jackie and darted past her. She reached the living room's main closet and pulled open the double doors. "We're all playing, right?"

Jackie inhaled a deep, steadying breath. Steven had deliberately gotten Betsy off her ... or that was a foolish assumption. Regardless, he'd freed her.

"Aunt Jackie, are you in?" Betsy said at the dining table. She held the Monopoly box at her side. "It's more fun the more people play."

"Sure," Jackie said, but she hadn't played the game since college.

Brooke cleared the table of cupcakes, and Steven set up the board with Betsy, who said, "Mom, will you be the banker?"

"Aren't I always?"

"I'll take care of the deeds," Steven said. He was already putting the colorful deed cards in order. "Jackie, you want the limo?"

"Yes." The answer came out without a thought. Back when they were dating, he used to hand her the limo automatically. He placed the limo piece on the GO space now, and her heart pounded in her ears.

Because he still remembered.

Jackie excused herself to the bathroom after the Monopoly game, but she'd won thanks to her devious trades. Hyde was impressed and, more significantly, reassured that some of her old spirit remained. It meant the rest could be sparked back to life. How, he wasn't sure; but to see her in this ghostly state hurt him on a fundamental level.

Betsy was busy putting away the Monopoly board with Brooke. Once they were done, though, he pulled Betsy aside, by the kitchen. "When you and Jackie go to the roof," he said quietly, "remember her boundaries, all right? Try not to tackle-hug her."

Betsy stared at him blankly at first. Then her gaze sharpened with awareness. "Oh, no! I forgot." Her shoulders hiked to her ears. "Should I apologize? Or, like, not make a big deal out of it?"

"The second one. Long as you give her space, should be fine."

Her shoulders relaxed. She grabbed the telescope box from its place against the wall, and Jackie returned from the bathroom.

"Ready?" Jackie said.

"Yup!" Betsy carried the telescope box past the fold-out bed. "I hope we can see at least one star."

"I'm sure we'll see more than that."

Jackie and Betsy met Brooke by the front door, and Brooke said, "Steven and I will be up in a half-hour or so."

"Okay, Mom." Betsy opened the door, and Jackie followed her out. The two of them hadn't had any real alone-time since Jackie got here. Hyde hoped they'd have more fun than he was about to.

"You want to talk?" he said.

Brooke locked the front door and spoke with a combo of exasperation and mild amusement: "You know me so well."

"I also know Betsy." He leaned back against the wall, halfway between the dining area and the fold-out bed. He didn't feel like sitting right now, and he hooked his thumbs into his belt loops.

Brooke stepped in front of him, and her demeanor was the diametric opposite of Jackie's. Her posture was straight. Her shoulders were squared, and she looked in his eyes unflinchingly. "You and Betsy have a special bond, and she loves you," she said, "but it's important she transfer her daughterly feelings where they belong. Michael's her father, Steven. And I..." She glanced down, just for a moment. "I love him."

"I'll keep stepping back, but I ain't stepping away." He drummed his fingers against the sides of his legs. "Like it or not, the kid sees me as her dad." The words sounded strange to say out loud. He'd thought of his uncle Chet the same way, as a dad. Especially after Bud ran off. Then Chet got locked up, and Hyde started acting out worse. "But that's how it is."

"It has to change."

"You can't force it to happen." He stood away from the wall. "You've got to ease up on her. She couldn't depend on Kelso for most of her life. Hell, Kelso scared the crap out of her when she was a little kid. Same goes for you."

Brooke's temple pulsed. She was silent but clearly listening.

"I get that Kelso's working on building trust between them," he said, "but it'll take time. You can't snap your fingers and make Betsy's childhood go away."

"You're right," she said, exhaling loudly. "Of course, you're right." She reached out to him, and he grabbed her hand. "But Betsy is trying to force something else that isn't going to happen. Maybe you should tell her about your engagement."

He stiffened, despite that he'd had the same thought recently. "If I do that..." He pulled away from Brooke and rubbed the nape of his neck. "If I do that, I can't tell her who I'm engaged to. And it'll freak her out, not knowing. I can't lay that on the kid."

"Then just tell her. She'll probably be excited." Brooke strode to the armchair, sat, and crossed her legs primly at the ankles. "Who am I kidding? She'll want you and Ro to adopt her."

"Ro'd rather eat glass than have kids."

"Which is a shame," she said, "since you're so good with them."

He waved at her words dismissively. That wasn't the point they were discussing here. "Betsy'll have to keep her mouth shut about it to everyone. To her friends at school, to Kelso. Not even Forman knows, and he's gonna piss his pants when he finds out."

"I think Betsy can handle it, and I also think telling her the truth will settle things. But you have to do what you think is best." She uncrossed her ankles and cupped her knees. "And I'll be more understanding of Betsy's feelings. You really are right." Her shoulders slouched a little. "Just because my relationship with Michael is becoming serious, I can't expect Betsy's to progress as fast."

"Listen," he said, "I won't get in the way of Kelso earning his dad-privileges, but Betsy's gotta feel safe—and I'm always gonna be a safe place for her."

Brooke didn't argue. She simply nodded.