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

CHAPTER 53
SLIPPERY SUN

April 5, 1995

Chicago, Illinois

Brooke and Betsy's Apartment
…

Jackie needed a safe place to stay. Unanswered phone calls had ceased being enough for the press. Paparazzi were staking out her house again, even harassing Patricia. Going to Donna and Eric's was out of the question. They were being just as hounded. Donna had called Jackie last night with the news, speaking with a voice hoarse from a day full of talking.

"I set everyone one of those journalistic bastards straight," Donna told her, and this morning's L.A. Times had indeed carried Donna's statement about Hyde: "Steven Hyde has been like a brother since I was six. If people want to know the truth about him—or the truth about anyone—don't read Come On Magazine."

Newspapers across the nation probably carried the same statement, but Jackie couldn't match Donna's bravery. Or face the press, its cameras and questions. That would bind her to the nights she couldn't outrun, the ones she'd just started facing down in therapy, and force her to dig her own grave. So, with shame burning in her stomach, she'd fled to Chicago.

Betsy had answered the phone when Jackie called from O'Hare Airport. She must've just gotten home from school, and with a panic that resembled Jackie's, she said, "Yes! Please stay over. Please. Don't worry about Mom. She'll be okay with it."

Brooke was home by the time Jackie arrived at the apartment. Jackie embraced her by the front door, unplanned, and shed unexpected tears. She hadn't hugged anyone fully but Steven and Donna since her dad's death, and she certainly hadn't cried while being held. Her dad's arms were the last safe harbor where her fear, frustration, and grief had anchored themselves. After he died, in the rare times tears fell, they evaporated whenever someone touched her.

But she wept quietly into Brooke's shoulder. She'd reached her breaking point. Starving herself of physical comfort for so long had taken its toll.

"Betsy told me you needed a place to stay," Brooke said. "That disgusting article's done a number on all of us."

"Aunt Jackie?" Betsy's voice drew Jackie from Brooke's arms. Jackie wiped her tears with her wrist, and her chest tightened at the sight of Betsy's face. One eye was swollen shut, the skin around it a deep purple. The other was red and rimmed with its own tears.

Brooke rushed to Betsy's side and took a washcloth-covered ice pack from her. "Keep it on your eye, sweetheart," Brooke said and held the ice pack to Betsy's bruised skin.

"What happened?" Jackie said.

Brooke inhaled through her nose, clearly exasperated. "Where Zen ends, ass-kicking begins."

Jackie felt shaky and weak. She left her suitcase by the front door and sat in Brooke's armchair, closer to Brooke and Betsy. Steven must have shared his philosophies with them, but Jackie said, "Kids at school?"

"Three boys," Brooke said.

"They called Steven Satan!" Betsy's fists were clenched at her sides. One had a fat Band-Aid across the knuckles. "This asshole Brandon and his asshole-buddies. They hate Degenerate Matter and always start shit with me and my friends about it. So in the hallway, Brandon shoved the magazine in my face, and Nick and Fred surrounded me, chanting, 'Satan Hyde, breaking up relationships! Satan Hyde, screwing girls who aren't his. Satan Hyde, Satan Hyde!' And—and all I saw was red."

Betsy reclaimed the ice pack, and Brooke sat with her on the sofa. She tucked some of Betsy's hair behind her ear and gazed at her with a compassion Jackie never experienced from her own mother.

"Mom, it's okay," Betsy said. "I'm okay."

Brooke's facial expression was as pained as her voice. "She's been suspended for three days. So have Nick and Fred, but Brandon got ten. That little sh—boy touched Betsy first. He poked and hit her with the magazine, and enough witnesses said he provoked the fight."

"Steven taught me how to throw a punch—" Betsy leaned her head back on the sofa and laughed once—"and I did! I popped him right in the mouth! Nick and Fred grabbed my arms, but they weren't strong enough to hold me back. I dragged them to Brandon, who punched me in the eye.

"All of us got brought to the principal's office, along with the kids who saw what happened. And the principal knows Steven is basically my dad, so he understood why I got so pissed." Betsy looked at Jackie with her non-swollen eye. "I mean, if someone called your dad Satan and accused him of breaking up other people's relationships, would you ignore it?"

Jackie cupped her forehead as the room spun around her. She wasn't breathing properly, had made a mistake in coming here. This conversation wasn't one she'd anticipated. Betsy's dad, her biological dad, did more than try to break up a monogamous relationship, Jackie's with Steven. He'd raped her.

Not the violent kind of rape in thrillers or cop shows. Or the manipulative charmer of ABC Afterschool Specials and Lifetime movies. What Michael had done was an isolated, narcissistic, selfish error in judgment, but it was still rape.

Real life was often more complicated than the media depicted. Definitions were fuzzy. Solutions were imperfect, and the injured didn't always get justice through proper channels. Or at all. Jackie had thought up half-a-dozen reasons for Michael's act. He'd become a sex-addict long before he became an alcoholic. Maybe his extreme libido took him too far, overriding his rational mind. He'd always had trouble with social cues.

But that answer had never settled well in her being. It reminded her of Degenerate Matter's song "Hoaxed," about people who refused to own their behavior. Whenever she asked herself—without judgment—what Michael's act truly felt like, only one answer rose up: punishment. For choosing Steven over him.

"No matter what people told me," Jackie said, "I'd have a hard time believing Michael was guilty, too—" She slapped her hand over her mouth. She'd meant to say my dad, and she corrected herself.

Brooke sighed and combed her hand through Betsy's hair. "Our family's a bit complicated, huh?"

"Aunt Jackie, did you read the article?" Betsy said. "The whole article?"

Jackie nodded. She was afraid to speak, of destroying this temporary haven with a truth it couldn't support.

"Mom—" Betsy pulled the ice pack from her eye—"the drunk-driving arrest."

"I knew about it before," Jackie forced out. "Steven told me."

Betsy shook her head then winced. She placed the ice pack back on her eye. "What version?"

"Bunny, this isn't the time," Brooke said. "And you should really get some rest."

"It's exactly the time! That magazine told so many lies about him. Someone has to tell the truth."

Betsy's statement hollowed out Jackie's insides. For half a year, her instincts said she didn't know the whole story about Steven's DUI. In Oshkosh, Steven's recitation of it had sounded rehearsed. "What really happened?" she said.

Betsy began to speak, but Brooke interrupted. "I will tell her, and you will go to your room and try to relax."

"But, Mom—"

"It's not a request."

Betsy stood up and stomped to her room as if the floor had harassed her today, too. Brooke asked for Jackie's help to move the coffee table away from the sofa. She did, but Brooke didn't speak again until Betsy's door clicked shut. "Steven's said you two have gotten close."

Jackie shrugged, even as heat inched up her neck.

"I'm glad you were able to heal your friendship," Brooke said, but Jackie had never been friends with Steven, not until now. Their relationship had transformed into a new state, itself transformative—reshaping her love for him against her will. "He gave me permission to answer your questions," Brooke went on. "He said you might have a few."

Jackie held one end of the sofa. She and Brooke unfolded it, and Jackie chose one of the fifty questions in her mind. "The DUI. Start there."

"Promise me you won't judge Michael too harshly for this. It was over ten years ago, and he's not that man anymore."

"I promise," Jackie said, but a chill set into her bones. Her therapist called it a manifestation of anxiety. "I know how much work he's done on himself." She tried not to shiver but hugged herself when Brooke disappeared into the hallway. Steven hadn't mentioned Michael at all in his recitation of the DUI.

Brooke returned with a blanket and fresh sheets. "It was the evening of Betsy's fifth birthday party," she said. "Michael shows up drunk. He tries to convince me to give him another chance, makes a loud ruckus when I refuse." She spread the bottom sheet on the folded-out bed, keeping her eyes down. "Steven gets him out of here, and they end up at a bar fifteen miles away. Steven drinks with him. … They were both such a mess back then."

She stopped talking, struggling to get the bottom sheet to fit over the mattress. Jackie took over. Even though she was unaccustomed to making her own bed, she had experience enough to free Brooke's concentration.

"Michael steals the keys to Steven's car—" Brooke's voice hitched— "and he gets behind the wheel before Steven can stop him. Michael intended to drive back here, and I don't know what would've happened if he had. But Steven gets into the passenger seat. He can't convince Michael to pull over, and … would you mind if I sit down?"

Jackie had a folded blanket in her hands, and she waved it toward the armchair. "Go ahead."

Brooke sat in the chair and clutched her knees. Then she unclutched them and laced her fingers together. A second later, her hands parted and laid limply on her lap. "You saved their lives."

The blanket slipped from Jackie's grasp to the floor. "Excuse me?"

"Even drunk, Steven had the presence of mind to put on his seatbelt. He fastened Michael's, too. It was the first thing he did when Michael pressed on the gas. Steven said you drilled it into him, that it had become second nature thanks to you."

Jackie dropped onto the half-made bed, shaking. The chills wracking her body lowered in temperature. Steven hadn't been lying to her in Duluth. What she said and did mattered. Her influence had protected him.

"Steven kept shouting at Michael to stop driving," Brooke said, "but Michael was too drunk and too angry. He was the one who drove into that woman and paralyzed her. His head smashed into the steering wheel, knocking him out cold.

"Michael had two DUIs on his record already. A third would've landed him jail for a long time. Steven didn't have any on his record. So he gets Michael into the passenger seat, bangs his own head against the steering wheel purposely and puts his fingerprints all over it. Then when the police show up, Steven takes responsibility for what happened."

"Why?" Jackie said but swallowed the rest of her thoughts. Michael didn't deserve the rescue. He should have gone to prison. "Why would Steven do that? He's been carrying around this lie for a decade!"

Brooke leaned back in the armchair, face angled toward the ceiling. She shook her head a few times, as if trying not to cry. "Finding Michael half-dead in the woods changed him, Jackie. He became protective, over-protective. Not just of Michael but Betsy … and me."

Jackie's breath scratched against her throat. The freezing chill in her body had melted into scorching heat. She gripped the bed's bottom sheet and pulled. It was tucked under the mattress too tightly to move, but that was exactly what she needed. Excess energy had built up in her fingers, her muscles, and she yanked on the sheet until her biceps spasmed.

"Jackie, I'm sorry," Brooke said. "I didn't mean to anger you."

"I'm not angry." Jackie's hands throbbed from pulling on the sheet, but she must have been angry. She was acting angry, but she wasn't emotionally connected to it. "Steven doesn't call Michael his friend."

"Oh, that's just him. He still hates admitting that kind of thing out loud."

Jackie flexed her throbbing fingers. Brooke's explanation didn't match Steven's attitude about Michael. She was seeing what she wanted to see, and Jackie muttered, "He might not be the only one denying things."

Brooke stood from the armchair like she hadn't heard Jackie and said, "Would you like some tea?" She glanced at her watch. "I'll have to start making dinner soon."

"Tea would be great." Jackie picked the blanket off the floor and finished making the bed. She wasn't gentle, slapping and tugging bumps and ridges out of the top sheet. She was definitely angry but couldn't understand why.

Once her tea was ready, she joined Brooke in the dining area and sat at the table. Brooke had a mug, too, and after a sip she said, "I can't believe how hateful that article about Steven is. It's like the magazine has a personal vendetta against him."

"Money is a powerful motivator..." Jackie tapped her fingernail against her mug. "But one of their 'unnamed sources' might have a vendetta."

"Like his mother? He's told me stories..."

"I was thinking of someone else." She kept her voice down. The dining area was at the other end of the living room and not separated by a wall. She couldn't risk Betsy hearing the conversation. "Have you considered the possibility that Michael's somehow involved in this?"

Brooke's expression hardened. "Absolutely not."

"But it was Betsy's picture of Steven and Ro that sicced the tabloids on him. Come On made claims about me and Steven that are eerily similar to what Michael used to say. And, on top of all that, don't you find it odd that his name, your name, and Betsy's are never mentioned in that article?"

"Jackie, I understand your suspicion—and the need to blame someone—but Michael's not like that anymore." Brooke clutched her mug of tea with both hands, and in the light from the pendant lamp overhead, her engagement ring sparkled. It had a princess-cut diamond with pavé diamonds around the band

"Your engagement ring is beautiful," Jackie said. "It must have cost Michael a small fortune." Five-thousand dollars, to be precise. She knew her diamonds.

"I have no idea. I didn't ask him the price."

"Michael proposed to you on New Year's Eve, right?"

"Yes..."

Jackie swallowed a large gulp of tea before continuing. "And Betsy's picture of Steven and Ro was stolen around Christmas, a party Michael attended." She lifted a silencing hand when Brooke began to object. Sharing her speculations could end their friendship, but she was tired of hiding. "Tabloids would offer a big payout for that photo, enough to pay for a ring like yours."

"Michael transferred departments at Blinkhorn Toys last year," Brooke said, her tone a blade. "It came with a raise, and he received his end-of-year bonus in December. That's how he paid for the ring." Her voice and the look in her eyes both softened. "So, please, stop accusing him. He'd never do something so terrible."

"No? When Michael and I dated, he was terrible—"

"He cheated on you, and that's awful, but he was a teenager. It was a phase."

"A phase? Brooke, he accused me of making him cheat. That's not a phase. That's pathological. He stalked me, too. Did he ever tell you that?"

"Stalked? How?"

"Followed me to work and hid, spied on me because he thought I was cheating on him," Jackie said. "Then when Steven and I started dating, Michael got worse. He shot Steven with a BB gun. Imagine if it had been Mr. Forman's rifle! He was always after me, one way or another. He never understood the word no. He wouldn't stop. He didn't stop."

Jackie bit into her knuckle to stop herself. She was dangling over a bottomless pit of truth. Only a fraying strand of will power prevented her from falling.

"I'm just trying to warn you," she said and chose her words carefully, "that Michael has a mean, vindictive streak. He's goofy and funny, so it can be hard to see, but it's there."

"You don't think I know?" Brooke said, and Jackie stared into her mug. "I experienced it firsthand. It was my front door Michael almost kicked off the hinges when he was drunk. It was my wrists he bruised by grabbing them too hard. It was my arms he tried to steal our child from."

Jackie shoved the mug away from her. She was sick of tea, sick of herself. "How did you forgive him?"

Brooke met Jackie's gaze with wet eyes. "He's the love of my life. I gave him a chance to prove himself. … I had to give us that chance."

Hyde snatched the jade paperweight off his dad's desk before sitting down. He passed it from one hand to the other while Dad finished up a phone call. They both should've gone home already, but they were staying at Grooves HQ late, doing damage control.

The article in Come On Magazine had started a shitstorm. Degenerate Matter was involved in many human rights organizations, and the accusations lobbied against Hyde had their leaders nervous. Donna's statement to press, refuting Come On's portrayal of him as a hell-raising homewrecker was a good start. But only a victorious defamation lawsuit—and a retraction of the article by the magazine—would heal his reputation.

His team of lawyers was already on it. He'd spoken to the Formans, and they agreed to be represented by the same firm. Hyde insisted on paying; they couldn't afford that caliber of representation.

Dad scratched at a pile of papers on his desk with his thumb. The call seemed to be taking longer than he expected, and he mouthed to Hyde, "A few more minutes."

Hyde nodded and put the paperweight back on the desk. The office chair he sat in was comfortable enough. Upholstered, but his body craved nicotine. He shoved a piece of gum into his mouth instead. The day had been full of phone calls and talking. So much damn talking, but it was better than thinking. His thoughts led only to one place, that Come On's libelous exposé was karma. Its lies about him were no worse than the hidden truth.

Blood stained his hands. He'd taken Kelso's life in those woods, destroyed his face and memory and sense of self. He'd helped Kelso regain the last of those, but the years he'd deprived Kelso of couldn't be returned.

And he didn't wholly regret it.

The law of retaliation. Violating Jackie's body and mind stained Kelso's soul. Hyde's rage escaped, and his vengeance deprived Jackie of a future that couldn't be restored. Years that should've had Hyde in it … as more than her friend.

"Fuck." He rubbed his cheeks and the nape of his neck. This was the kind of thinking Ro constantly warned him against. He couldn't change the past; he could only move forward.

A loud click brought Hyde's focus to his dad. He'd finally hung up the phone and said, "Sorry about that"

"It's cool. What'd you call me in here for?"

"We'll get to that in a minute. Did something happen I should know about?"

"Why?"

"Because you're trying to rip yourself out of your body."

Hyde sat up straight and laid his palms flat on his thighs. His cheeks and neck were burning. His shoulders had tensed up. He hadn't been aware of just how bad he'd been fidgeting.

"Haven't been this close to drinking in a while," he said. "Maybe I shouldn't have quit smoking. My mental coping mechanisms aren't doin' their job. "

Dad's forehead wrinkled. "Son, I've got a list of A.A. meetings you can go to. I'm sure there's one tonight—"

"Appreciate the thought, but the twelve-step thing's never been my deal. Just got to remember the law of human gravity."

"I can help you with that. Tell me three good things your sobriety's allowed you to have."

"Good, huh?" Hyde scratched along his jawline. Two days of not shaving, and he had enough stubble to scrape his fingers. "I'll tell you one that encapsulates 'em all: the freedom to fix my fuck-ups."

"That is a good thing, but it's not enough" Dad got out from behind his desk. He repositioned an empty chair beside Hyde and sat down. They were at an equal eye-level now, father-and-son rather than boss and employee. "Name three things that are yours, that bring you some kind of happiness."

"See, that's the problem. Not sure I should have them." He glanced away and laughed quietly. "Guess positive reinforcement isn't my deal either."

"Are you buying into that rag's bullshit about you? There's nothing you've done that—Steven, look at me.

Hyde forced his gaze back to his dad, and the love and worry in Dad's eyes clenched Hyde's jaw.

"There's nothing you've done," Dad started again, "that makes you undeserving of happiness. Mistakes are part of the growing process. You've lived most of your life for other people. It's time to live for yourself."

"Can't do that." Hyde hid his fingers in his hair, digging his nails surreptitiously into his scalp. "Man, I've got loose-ends I'll never tie up."

"You have your secrets. I can respect that, but surely they aren't insurmountable." Dad held out his hand and gestured subtly. He wanted Hyde to quit scratching up his skull. Hyde obliged. "Have you ever thought of giving those loose ends up to God—or the cosmos, as you call it?"

"Cosmos gives most to those who take risks," Hyde said, echoing one of his own lyrics, but his phone call with Forman this afternoon played back in his head. It was the one bright spot in an otherwise dark day.

Forman had told him that Red insisted on reading the exposé, that Red was spitting fire over it but his heart didn't give out. Apparently, he already knew about Laurie's pornographic past. He'd stoically kept it to himself for years, to protect both Mrs. Forman and Laurie. Seeing how well Laurie had turned her life around, he didn't want to set her back.

Red's health, physical and mental, was one less shard cutting into Hyde's skin. Laurie's past was a secret he and Forman no longer had to carry. Also one they'd never had to carry in the first place, but assumptions and silence created unnecessary burdens.

His dad sighed, prompting Hyde to speak. "Listen, I get what you're saying. And if I could let this shit go, I'd be a hell of a lot happier. But I'm not gonna act on what my body's beggin' me to do, all right? Long as I'm feeling like this, I'll make sure I've always got someone with me."

Dad clasped Hyde's shoulder. His palm gently slid up Hyde's raw neck and cupped his cheek. "You promise me?"

"Yeah, I promise."

"I'm not going to lose you again." Dad pushed softly but emphatically against the side of Hyde's face. "You're my son—" his voice caught, and he cleared his throat—"and I don't give a damn what you think you deserve. God blessed me with two wonderful, compassionate, and brilliant children, and I'm incredibly proud of both of you."

Alarms clanged in Hyde's brain. His dad rarely got this emotional, and Hyde went through a hundred possibilities at once, but only one came out of his mouth: "Are you sick? Is that why you called me in here? Crap, I'm yappin' about myself, and I don't even freakin' ask about you—"

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Dad's hand fell from Hyde's cheek. "My health's as good as ever, and don't you beat yourself up over not asking me one time. We talk plenty about me. It's your mother. I received a phone call—"

"Great." Hyde pushed himself out of the chair. Edna had impeccable timing. She'd last shown up thirteen years ago, when he was coping—badly—with a double-loss: his breakup with Cheryl and the abortion of their kid. "She sure knows how to make shit stink even worse."

He went to the office's expansive ceiling-to-floor windows. The sun hadn't quite sunk below the horizon. Its light doused the surrounding skyscrapers in orange. He imagined scooping the sun into his hands, but even in his mind, it slipped from his fingers.

"Thought it would've happened sooner," he said. "My connection to the band's been out there since January. What's Edna want now? Her own record deal?"

"No, son," his dad said. "She's dead."