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 "Point of No Return,"and all the lyrics contained therein copyright to the author of this story (username: MistyMountainHop, maker of Those '70s Comics).

CHAPTER 21
THE ACCRETION OF MATTER

September 10, 1994

Toledo, Ohio

West Bancroft Street
...

Hyde stuck a cigarette between his lips once he and Forman left Mab's Diner. They were headed toward Ottawa Park, at the recommendation of their waitress. Locals usually had better suggestions than tourist brochures, but he should've asked where to buy more cigs. He was liable to smoke his whole pack before Forman quit their current topic of conversation.

"It's a pattern of behavior," Forman said as they walked down West Bancroft Street. "Bud. My sister. What you do for Brooke and Betsy. My God, Hyde, you gave up part of your life to take on Kelso's."

"Had to. Should've served a fifteen-year jail sentence for what I did. You know that."

"As far as I'm concerned, your time's been served. And Jackie's the one who owes you. Owes all of us."

Smoke escaped Hyde's mouth, and the breeze grabbed it. "How do you figure?"

"She's the one who sent you into that rage. Kelso's face is wrecked because of her. I wasn't wrong when I used to call her the devil. If she hadn't spun what happened in Chicago—"

"Hold up. Time-out." Hyde clamped the cigarette in the corner of his mouth as he spoke. "I take full ownership of what I did. Made my own choices. Whether you believe what Kelso did to her was rape or not—and it freakin' was—I'm the one who lost control. You can't hold her responsible for any of that."

"I can, and I do."

The trees of Ottawa Park rose at the junction of West Bancroft Street and the Ottawa Parkway. A paved walking trail led into the park, and Hyde dropped his stub of a cigarette before he and Forman took the trail.

"Your loyalty to Kelso's cloudin' your judgment," Hyde said.

"I thought we agreed not to talk about this."

"You can't say your piece then expect me to keep my trap shut." Hyde slid another cigarette from his pack of American Spirits. "Sure, Kelso might've stopped that night if Jackie had told him to. Or maybe he wouldn't have. Doesn't matter."

He inhaled a long drag from his cigarette, and the end brightened like a tiny orange star. In his younger days, he would've smashed the closest tree with his fist. Instead, he let the smoke burn his lungs.

"Kelso saw she was hurting," he said in a curtain of smoke, "and grabbed his chance. No excuses for him, man. She was in no mind to protect herself, but she shouldn't have had to scream. Or push him off to get him to stop. He didn't even fuckin' ask if she wanted to have sex."

Forman's next step stomped the pavement. "Your loyalty to Jackie's clouding your judgment. Always has. That's the problem. For all we know, she asked him to—"

"She didn't ask."

"She was never shy about getting what she wanted. "

Hyde held in the cigarette smoke after his next pull, but his body revolted, and he coughed the poison out. Forman's point of view was crap, but it wasn't crazy. Neither he nor Hyde had been in that motel room with Jackie and Kelso. But if Jackie said she didn't ask for it, as far as Hyde was concerned, that was all he needed to hear.

"No gun to her head. No knife to her throat," Hyde said. "That's what you're thinking. Kelso didn't bruise her knees when he yanked them open." He raised the index and middle fingers of his left hand. They were flush together, and he eased his lit cigarette between them. "But he's the one who opened them. Passivity ain't the same as permission. Sometimes the worst violence is subtle. Quiet. It's harder to trust shit happened to you when the damage doesn't leave any obvious visible wounds."

Forman's face flushed, like he was trying to hold in a counter-argument, but he eventually said, "Come on! Jackie and Kelso used to screw like rabbits. She stood vigil at Kelso's hospital bedside every day while he was in that coma. There was nothing violent about what happened that night in Chicago, not until she lied to you about it."

"She didn't lie, and we're done debating that point." Hyde shoved a third cigarette into his mouth as he mashed the second with his boot. "What Kelso did to her was violent, man, and it brought out my own damn violence." Forman opened his mouth to speak, but Hyde said, "My own violence, Forman. Mine. It was always there."

A gust of wind swished through the tree leaves, blowing Hyde's smoke in Forman's face. "That's what I'm afraid of," Forman said, coughing. "That if you get involved with her again—in any capacity—all the badness will come back. You'll..."

"What? Start boozin' again? Not gonna happen."

Forman waved in front of his nose, probably to clear the air, and his gaze fixed on a jogger who passed by.

"Been sober a decade," Hyde said. "I wouldn't chuck that for anyone, not Jackie, not Ro. No one."

"Then I ask again: why are you doing this now, after fifteen years of staying away? Of making sure Donna and I said zip about you to her? You could've found Jackie at any time if you'd tried hard enough. Cut another chunk of yourself out to give to—"

Hyde counted on his fingers. "One, Jackie was in college, and my skull was still messed up. Wouldn't fuck up her life more than I already had. Two, when my sobriety actually stuck, I was hopin' to talk to Jackie at your wedding. Jackie didn't show, and not even Donna has a clue why." He sucked in smoke from his cigarette and blew it in the opposite direction of Forman. "Three, I wrote Jackie a letter explaining shit, knew it'd never be enough, burned the letter. Figured after nine years, I'd do more harm than good by contacting her."

He grasped the bill of his Brewers cap behind his head, moved it up and down a little. His scalp was itchy from wearing it this long, but some of his hair fell free from the cap. He stuffed it back into hiding.

"Four," he went on, "Brooke confirmed my thinkin' when I told her about possibly contacting Jackie. She said Jackie flinched like a knife stabbed her whenever Betsy mentioned my name. Hurting Jackie again..." wasn't an option. It was a promise he made when he'd regained his sanity in Milwaukee—on August 23, 1979, another date he'd never forget—while begging the cosmos to protect her the way he hadn't. His absence, his presence, both could equally cause her pain.

He cleared his throat and removed the cigarette from his mouth. "Five, Kim's funeral puts me and Jackie in the same place. Izzy's party does, too. Then Betsy's bit of trickery brings us together, and the timing finally seems freakin' right. So far, we're doin' okay."

Forman looked at him again, with the same intensity from the diner. "You're not still … your not in love with Jackie, are you?"

"No." Hyde's third cigarette was barely smoked, but he stubbed it out on the trail, hoping Forman would get the symbolism. "That ended with Cheryl," his first serious girlfriend after Jackie, "and I've been with Ro for almost four years."

"Four—" Forman coughed again, but cigarette smoke couldn't be the cause this time. "Four years? You kept me out of the loop for four years?"

Hyde grinned. "Yup." He pulled Donna's note from from his jeans and unfolded it. "We're done talkin' about Jackie."

"Sure ... unless I see she's screwing with your head again."

"She won't," Hyde said. She hadn't in the first place, but he gave up correcting Forman on the subject. Jackie was Forman's scapegoat. He needed to blame someone for their fifteen-year-old trauma—someone he didn't care that much about—and Jackie was it. Hyde hadn't found the words to change that. Neither had Donna, and they likely never would.

Hyde and Forman reached the park's amphitheater, saying nothing. People were scattered on the stone seating, and Hyde chose a spot away from everyone. Forman followed as birds chirped at them from the trees, but he stayed silent as Hyde read Donna's note to himself:

Hyde,

Jackie told me you two are trying to be friends. That's great. You don't know how long I've wished for that to happen. But if this is just a short-term charity case for you, end it now. She doesn't need to be "fixed". She needs real friends. People who won't drop her the second things get uncomfortable or she makes a mistake.

Treat her gently—with the same care and patience you would Izzy or Betsy—or I'll kick your ass to the moon.

Love,
Donna

Hyde laughed softly. Donna never minced words with him. He appreciated it, as well as her loyalty to Jackie. It meant she probably kept Forman in check whenever Jackie visited them.

"What's the note say?" Forman said.

"None of your business." Hyde tore off the top half of the note and crammed it into his jeans pocket. Then, using a pen from his denim jacket, he scratched out a few words on the remaining note. The stone seating made a decent writing surface, and he added some words of his own. "Now it's your business," he said and passed the note to Forman. "Read it out loud."

"Okay..." Forman sounded wary, but he did as Hyde said. "'Forman, treat Jackie kindly. Treat her with the same respect you would Izzy or Betsy—or I'll kick your ass. Sincerely, Hyde." He half-smiled. "Nice touch with the closing."

"Wanted you to know I'm sincere."

"I'll keep that in mind."

September 10, 1994

Beverly Hills, California

Pam Burkhart Eliassen's House
...

Jackie tried to scrub off Don's touch with a long, hot shower. But his earthy cologne coated her nostrils, and his voice wriggled in her ears, and she crouched on the tile floor. Water pummeled her back, a stand-in for the tears she couldn't cry. Without Degenerate Matter's music, her emotions stayed caught in the rusted gears of her heart. They refused to move through her blood.

Her mom had treated her little better than property today. Offered her to a man Jackie would never love, someone who'd carve her up to make her an acceptable wife.

Jackie bowed her head, letting water strike the nape of her neck. She could've stayed in the shower until tomorrow. Or bought a ticket for an earlier flight home, but she couldn't let her mom get away with what she'd done.

Hours passed until they next met. Wilhelmina called Jackie to the dining room for dinner. Pam was already sitting at the table with a glass of white wine, and she raised it to Jackie. "Cook's preparing chicken Florentine just for you."

Jackie glanced toward the kitchen door. Chicken Florentine was one of her favorite dishes, and it could've been Pam's way of apologizing. She rarely apologized directly but through gifts or actions. Perhaps whatever she'd been doing since leaving Don's estate—whether getting a facial or thinking deeply about her choices—had given her clarity.

"Thank you," Jackie said and sat across from her. Pam had changed outfits, too, from her designer dress to a more casual cold-shoulder shirt and slacks. It all had to be a message, but Jackie couldn't decipher it.

The cook brought out an appetizer first, crispy asparagus in a lemon butter sauce. That was also one of Jackie's favorite dishes, and unlike her mom, she focused on eating.

Between bites, Pam gossiped about friends of hers, how one husband got calf implants. "They're the hardest muscle to build up," she said, and Jackie stomach clenched. Almost any topic but plastic surgery would've been better. But her mom likely saw no correlation between what had happened earlier and that man's calves.

On top of her usual self-absorption, Pam was drinking. Maybe she'd already had a glass of wine before dinner. Her speech was faster, her words less enunciated, but she she seemed in a good mood. So once the cook served the chicken Florentine, and Pam finally ate as if she were hungry, Jackie said, "I want to do something special for the anniversary of Dad's death."

Pam's posture straightened like someone had shoved a gun against her back. "That's not until January."

"I know, but I want to get his friends involved, and—"

"It's only been nine years."

Jackie gripped her fork until her knuckles hurt. Of all the dates her mom had gotten wrong over the years, that one she had to get right. "I don't care that it's not a 'special' anniversary," Jackie said. "I miss him, and I want some time around the people who knew him best."

Her mom should've been one of those people, but she'd refused to talk about him after his funeral. Jackie had tried waiting to celebrate Dad's life at the ten-year mark of his death, but she couldn't do it. She was growing less numb by the day, and pain had seeped into all her empty spaces.

"I don't want to hear this," Pam said.

"I have a book of his contacts, but it's incomplete. It doesn't list who was strictly business and who was also a friend. You know so much more—"

Pam banged her plate with her fist, sending chicken and spinach into the air. "I don't want to hear this, Jackie!"

"Too bad!" Jackie shoved her plate aside and leaned forward into the table. "I didn't want a strange man's hands all over my thighs today, but you didn't care. So you are going to hear this, Mom.."

"Stop calling me—"

"You're my mother, Mom, and Jack is my father, and nothing can change that! No matter how badly you wish it could." The volume of Jackie's voice stung her ears, but she refused to lower it. If she couldn't speak up now, she might as well cut out her tongue. "He died in front of me. I still see it, feel his chest beneath my hands, and I need help remembering how he—"

"Shut up!" Pam rose from the table, knocking over her wine in the process. She was more than buzzed. She was drunk. "Men his age have heart attacks every day. You're not special because you witnessed one."

"He's not just someone. He's my dad!"

Jackie was done. She fled the dining room to the living room, headed up the staircase. She had to get her suitcase and go home, but Pam followed.

"She's gonna try to make it about you," a memory said in her mind, "but it's not you." The voice was Steven's, from many years past. Recalling his empathy was jarring, but she clung to it as her mom cornered her in the hallway.

"Look at you!" Pam shouted. "A lump of self-pity!"

Jackie pushed open the guest room door, but Pam still followed. Jackie's rolling suitcase should've been at the foot of the bed. But someone—Wilhelmina—must have moved it during dinner, on Pam's orders.

"It's not like you have cancer," Pam said, and Jackie searched the closet. "You should go with Anders on his charity rounds to the hospital. Then you'll see people worthy of the pity you reserve only for yourself."

The closet was empty, except for a fluffy robe, and Jackie slammed shut its sliding door. "Don't hold back," she said. "These are thoughts you've carried with you for years, right? Let me hear it all so I know what I'm up against. So I can prepare myself the next time you set me up with a scalpel-wielding wacko."

"You are so incredibly ignorant. You used to be worldly—" Pam gestured at Jackie's face—"and beautiful. But you could be that way again with some surgery and behavior modification."

Pam closed the guest room door and stood in front of it. Jackie remained still, despite the tautness of her muscles, the shortness of her breath.

"Oh, yes," Pam went on. "I heard all about the stunt you pulled at the Cosette photo shoot. Can't you be unselfish for more than five seconds?""

A scream crawled up at Jackie's throat, but she bit it down. Ann-Marie must have reported the gossip to Pam, as if Jackie were a wild animal needing to be wrangled. Or controlled.

Her fingers pulsed with her desire to dig into Pam's flesh. Her hands tightened to fists, but she knelt behind the bed. Her suitcase was squeezed under it, and she channeled her fury into yanking the suitcase out. Feeling rage wasn't always a choice, her therapist said, but how Jackie—or anyone—acted on it was.

"I'm calling a cab and going home," Jackie said and stood with her suitcase.

"You'll never marry a man of substance again at this rate."

"I'm not getting married again, period. There's more to life than marriage."

Pam laughed, staring down at Jackie from her six feet of height. "Marriage is everything! It's allowed me to live the life I have now … but I suppose this is my fault."

"Finally, you're making sense." Jackie picked up her purse from the nightstand. At least Wilhelmina hadn't hidden that, too, or the phone. "And that's a wonderful note to end this visit on."

"I must have trained you so poorly. First, you choose cute but brainless Kelvin—"

"Michael," Jackie said. She took out her wallet out and found the cab company's business card. "Michael Kelso."

"Then you're with that no-good low-life Sven."

Jackie grabbed the phone receiver. "Steven."

"And poor Dale Fischer. You could've been his muse—

"Don't talk about him."

"His star. But you and your father had to make such a big deal out of that joke he pulled."

Jackie slammed the receiver back on its cradle. She tore the phone from the jack and tossed it at Pam's head, but it flew awkwardly in the air, like an emu with a twisted, coiled neck. It landed with a clunk far from Pam's feet, and Jackie shouted, "He raped me, Mom!"

The words hadn't come out like that since the trial, but she leapt onto the bed and said them again: "He raped me, and he terrorized me!"

"Oh, he did not! He was your boyfriend. He was playing around, and you misinterpreted—"

"You're the one who keeps fucking misinterpreting!" Jackie said, standing atop the bed. She was taller than her mom now, and she widened her stance for stability. "You weren't there! It was so much more than 'playing around'." Dale's booze had slowed her thinking and reflexes. The rope their friends used to immobilize her had scratched her skin raw. And Dale's round, unblinking eye was never off her.

Pam stepped away from the door, an inch too close to the bed. "I saw the video! The jury saw it, and it wasn't rape!" She stepped even closer. "You enjoyed it. You admitted that in court—"

Jackie swung her foot at Pam's face. Pam was too slow to dodge, and the tip of Jackie's shoe rammed into Pam's cheek.

"Who are you? Who are you?" Pam screamed, clutching her face.

"Your daughter!"

"My daughter wouldn't act like this! My eye is going to bruise thanks to you!"

Pam wasn't wrong. Jackie had turned into a wild animal, lost control. If she stayed here any longer, she'd beat her mom unconscious.

"Leave," Jackie said, "so I can leave. Or call the police and have me arrested. But if you do that, everyone will know who you really are, including Anders."

"Just phone a cab and get out!" Pam said and left the room.

Jackie jumped off the bed and locked the door. She and her mom fought often, and they'd been due for a major scuffle. But she'd never expected it to be over Dale Fischer—or to kick her mom in the face.

Jackie waited on the gravel driveway for the cab. According to the dispatcher, it would arrive in ten minutes. Even if she couldn't book an earlier flight, the airport was safer than her mom's house.

Her pulse raced with adrenaline, and she shivered from the frost inside her. The lion who'd attacked her mom wasn't who Jackie wanted to be. But she was a skittering mouse around everyone else, and she despised it. Her feelings had become an icy, white ball of indistinguishable anxieties. She needed to talk to someone who understood, who could separate them out. But her therapist wasn't here, and the only other person capable of helping her was dead.

She hugged her purse, the half-moon Chanel handbag Dad had given her. It was lumpy, full of what she considered essentials, including her Discman. Her music.

It would have to do.

Degenerate Matter's "Point of No Return" entered Jackie's ears. "Arms and legs can't move under the weight of you," Ro sang through Jackie's headphones. "Why'd I come? Body out of my control, taken over by friction and your Four Roses."

They were O. MacNeil's lyrics, and they told Jackie's story, as if he'd been with her the last ten years.

"The night lasted forever, and what came after was worse," Ro sang in the second verse. "Collapsed in on myself, became a black hole, all gravity. Pulled light to me, held it together—a galaxy, shining. Thought I'd murder it, but I crawled out of my event horizon."

Her eyes fell shut, and she listened to the song again when it finished. The cab honked during the second chorus. She'd been oblivious to its arrival, but she greeted the driver politely. Her anxieties had split into their individual colors, allowing her to function. She'd have to sort her feelings later, but one shone brightly as the cab drove her to the airport.

Hope. If O. MacNeil could crawl out of his event horizon, maybe she could crawl out of hers.