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 56
DESCENT

April 6, 1995

Paradise, Nevada

Edna's House
…

Jackie stood away from Steven as he sorted through keys on a keychain. A fifteen-minute drive from the Vegas Strip had brought them to Edna's house, a two-story, two-bedroom in pre-foreclosure. From the outside, the house appeared little different than the Formans' home: utterly middle-class. Jackie had expected peeling paint, missing roof tiles, and mice scurrying from holes in the foundation. But the house was nothing like the roach-infested dump where Steven had grown up.

"Here are the fuckers," he said and held up two keys. They'd been jumbled with others from Carlotta, Edna's friend, and he opened the front door.

Jackie did her four-four-eight breathing exercise before following him inside. Her Chanel, half-moon purse was clutched in her left hand. Steven's empty duffel bag dangled from her right shoulder, and her right fist tightened around the strap. His mom was dead, but Jackie was primed for battle, as if she'd have to kick and bite to get outside the house again.

In the living room, she noted each window's location, six in all. She slid her shoe over the travertine tiles, making sure they weren't slippery.

"Jackie—hey, Jackie!" Steven snapped his fingers at her, like he'd been trying to get her attention for a while

"Yes? What? Sorry," she said, and he gestured for her to shut and lock the door.

She did as he'd instructed while he took care of the windows. He closed the blinds, pulled the curtains closed, too, and the house darkened. It was a safety precaution, in case someone had tipped off the paparazzi, but panic clambered up her spine. Her skin tightened around her bones, and her breath stopped. She needed Steven to speak, to reassure her they were alone in the house, to—

He turned on the lights. The living room brightened, and her panic receded. The ceiling was dotted with recessed lighting. It revealed the walls' peach color, which would've seemed cheery had the house not belonged to Edna Dunbar-Hyde-Whatever.

"You okay?" he said. She wanted to ask him the same, but the answer was obvious. The emotion she'd grown used to seeing on his face had vanished. He'd reverted to the blank mask from their high-school days.

"I'm good," she said. It was a lie, but her own demons had to wait in line today. "Where do we start?"

He nodded at the duffel bag. "You don't have to carry that around. Grab a seat somewhere."

In front of the fireplace was a chenille sofa. It had to be comfy, but she sat at a card table by one of the windows. She dropped the duffel bag by her feet, pressed her lips together, and scratched at the table's felt surface.

The room was organized and clean. It contained enough furniture to feel lived-in but not cluttered. Personal knickknacks, however, seemed to be missing entirely. The bookcase had a smattering of books and nothing more. No photos were on display, nor were any awards for World's Best Croupier.

"You want water?" Steven said, but his gaze wasn't on her. It was roving the walls, over framed paintings.

"Steven, I'm good. Really." She managed to keep her tone even, though her pulse was pounding in her neck. She hadn't taken any Valium, but if she did so now, he'd realize how anxious she was for him ... and because of him. "You said you saw your mom again once—"

"Thirteen years ago." He pulled a painting resembling Monet's Water Lilies off the wall then replaced it. He did this with all the paintings until he found an envelope taped behind one. He pried it free, opened it, and plucked out a key. "Bureau," he said.

She squinted at him, not understanding. "That friend of your mom's gave you almost a dozen keys."

"Edna's got secrets only I know."

"Clearly," she said as he passed her by. He crossed the living room to the other end, where a scuffed bureau stood against the wall. Near it, a spiral staircase led to the second floor.

He unlocked one of the bureau drawers, hauled out a pile of folders and other items she couldn't quite see. They landed on top of the bureau with a whoomp! and she carried the duffel bag to him. "Thought you might need this."

"Thanks." He took more folders out of the drawer and slammed them onto the others. "Tax crap."

"Do you want me to put them into the bag?" she said. He indicated yes, and she placed the folders inside the duffel bag carefully. "How much money did she try to get from you?"

"Hit me up for a few hundred—the first day." He unlocked the second drawer. It was stuffed with photo packets, and he opened one. The pictures from that stack showed an older but prettied-up version of Edna. Her makeup was thick and bright, and she wore clothes that didn't hide the contours of her body. "Huh," he said. "She doesn't look much different."

"Are you kidding me? She looks completely different." Jackie tapped the photo at the front of the pack. "No hairnet. No lunch-lady clothes. She's wearing a low-cut blouse, sure, but it's tailored and not trashy."

If he had any thoughts about her observations, he kept them to himself. Silently, he put the photos back into their packet and opened another. The first picture of the stack revealed a white but tanned gray-haired man in an Armani suit. He was sitting at a poker table in a casino and smoking a cigar. The next few pictures were of him, too, gambling. Edna appeared beside him eventually, arm around his shoulders, lips kissing his face.

"Her husband," Jackie said.

Steven returned the photos to their packet. "Who knows?" He gathered five more packets and handed them to her. "Bring 'em to the sofa?"

It was a request, not a demand. But his voice had become deeper, throaty, like the effort of speaking was too much. She brought the photo packets to the chenille sofa. He joined her there with the rest of the photos, and his weight made the cushions sink a bit.

"Are you searching for something specific?" she said when he gestured for her packets.

"Yup."

"What?"

"Me."

He began looking through the packets, and her gaze fixed on the fireplace. It was electric and appeared like it hadn't been used in a long time. So far, she didn't feel used either, but she also didn't feel needed. She was little more than Steven's assistant at the moment.

"You have a lot of pictures to get through," she said. "Let me help."

He continued flipping through the photos. "You sure?"

She slid her hand onto his knee, a risky move, but it drew his attention. "I'm here, Steven. Let me help."

His chest rose with a heavy breath, and he shut his eyes. When they opened, a glimmer of emotion surfaced on his face. "Sorry," he said, and his palm glided over her hand on his knee. He turned it palm-side up. A packet of photos landed there. "I'll be the kid with the gold moss growin' on his head."

She swallowed a laugh and smiled at him. His lips twitched but didn't smile back.

"The third day Edna was back in Point Place," he said many photos later, "she wanted twenty grand."

"Twenty thousand!" Her body jerked, and two dozen photos fell to the floor. None of them were of Steven anyway, just like the dozens she'd glimpsed before. This collection of memories was from Edna's recent life, not her past. "How could she possibly think you'd give that to her? After everything she'd done to you?"

"Because of what she'd done—" His mouth clamped shut, and he shoved the last of the photos back into their packet. "I'll pass these off to Carlotta."

She picked up the photos she'd dropped, and once all the packets were inside his duffel bag, Steven unlocked the third bureau drawer. It held medical records and assorted legal documents. He dumped them into the duffel.

"Your mom turned out to be more like mine than we thought," she said when he opened the fourth and last drawer. "Edna wasn't just an alcoholic. She was a gold digger."

"Guess so." He shook a large Ziploc bag full of Christmas, birthday, and Get Well cards. "Never thought she'd have one of these not filled with weed."

Jackie clicked her tongue at the cards, both the ones inside the Ziploc bag and those remaining in the drawer. "Her friends didn't know her. If they had, they would've sent her Don't Get Well cards."

Steven's fingers eased over her palm. They were warm, and he squeezed her hand tenderly. "Appreciate the empathy, Grasshopper."

Her body stiffened. "Why did you call me that?"

His warmth disappeared from her hand, allowing cold numbness to circulate through her veins. "Forgot," he said.

"Forgot what?"

"That you're out here. Real." He rubbed the back of his neck and clawed at his thick, wavy hair. Her reflex was to stop him, but he stopped himself. "Been talkin' to you inside my skull so long, the old you—young you—but you're here, man. As compassionate as you ever fuckin' were."

Her icy blood should've frozen the gears of her heart, but her heart beat harder and hotter, burning in her chest. "You can't call me that again," she said. "I'm not her."

"I know," he said, and all traces of emotional detachment fled his steel-blue eyes, "but you've got the same soul."

Hyde and Jackie spent twenty minutes going through the living room closets, but they contained mostly clothes and boxed-up books on gambling. The junk-removal service he hired would take care of it and the furniture. The service he'd chosen recycled whatever it could, so maybe some of Edna's crap would end up in a happier place. Anywhere had to be happier than here.

The misery soaked in the walls was leaching into him, tensing his muscles. His ma's choices had cast a shadow over his life, and that shadow was strengthening. Or his defenses against it were weakening. Calling Jackie Grasshopper was proof of that.

"Kitchen's next," he said and gave Jackie directions how to access the semi-open kitchen. He couldn't go himself, not without risking his sobriety. He'd observe through a cut-out in the wall, where the sink countertop had been built. "Check the cabinet beneath the sink for garbage bags."

She did and placed a pack of garbage bags on the counter. "How did you know they'd be there?"

"That's where she kept 'em in our house. You're probably gonna find booze in that cabinet overhead." He pointed to the wall opposite the sink countertop. "They'll be behind the cleaning supplies. I need you to dump out whatever's left."

"Okay, except I need a ladder." She reached toward the cabinet. Her fingertips grazed the bottom of the door and managed to open it, but she couldn't get to what was inside.

"Shit." He had no clue where Edna would keep a stepladder. He hadn't seen any in the living room closets. Jackie could stand on an overturned piece of furniture, but it might not fit in the kitchen. "No ladder. I'll take care of it."

"Don't." She pointed to herself. "Lift me up. I can get to them."

He appreciated the suggestion, but ... "That's gonna require me holdin' onto you in a way you might not like."

"It'll be fine. You won't hurt me."

He gripped the sink countertop. He'd already hurt her. Ro was right; he'd gone back in time. But the young Jackie wasn't the only one he carried inside his head anymore. The current Jackie resided there, too, consisting of the same light, the same strength.

"Come on," she said, and her hands covered his on the countertop. "We can do this."

Her thumbs rubbed over his skin encouragingly, and he swallowed. She was so damn forgiving. He'd screwed up big-time when they were barely adults, abandoning her when she'd needed him the most, but she hadn't shut him out. She was offering more of herself.

He walked slowly to the kitchen. It allowed him to scratch the hell out of his neck, with the dividing wall shielding him from Jackie's eyes. Physicalizing his feelings was a bad coping mechanism, but the pain gave some relief.

His skin was burning by the time he arrived in the kitchen, but he hid the evidence with his hair. "Let's do a test first," he said.

She assented, and he wrapped his arms around her legs. They were clad in linen pants, good for Nevada's hot weather. Shorts probably would've been more comfortable, but she tended to conceal her body no matter the temperature.

He lifted her into the air, but she wasn't as stable as he would've liked. He put her back down on the floor. "We got a problem."

"No, we don't." She grasped his hands and placed them on her hips. "Just pick me up the way you used to."

"I don't want to trigger you, man. I'll just grab the booze—"

"Steven." She said his name so forcefully that she commandeered all his focus. "I won't break if you touch me, but you're on the verge of panic. I recognize the signs." She placed two fingers on his neck, at his pulse point. "Your heart's racing. You're sweating. Your skin's red with scratches, and you're speaking with short breaths. If it were anyone else, I wouldn't let him—or her—pick me up, but it's you. Just don't drop me."

"Not on my fucking life." He lifted her into the air again, this time by her hips. Scuffing sounds came from above, as if she were pushing plastic bottles out of the way.

"I've got two big ones," she said. "Put me down."

He lowered her gently, but she darted to the sink like what she held was on fire. She emptied out half a bottle of Absolut Vodka and a fourth of Four Roses Bourbon. They dropped into a garbage back with a clink, and his throat thickened with gratitude … and fear.

"I saw three more up there," she said. "I hate to say it, but I think your mom was trying to kill herself."

"Slow, narcotized suicide runs in the family."

"Edna was never your family." She waved to the cabinet. He picked her back up, and she came down with three bottles: Bombay Sapphire Gin, Korbel Brandy, and Montilla Rum. "She certainly liked variety, huh?"

He scratched his cheek. "Actually, that's new—to me, at least."

"Well, it's gone." She dumped the booze into the sink and put the empty bottles into the garbage bag. She washed her hands afterward without him asking, and he cleared his throat. It was too tight, craving the alcohol slithering down the drain. "Do we have any other kitchen tasks?" she said.

"Junk truck'll deal with it."

She tied the top of the garbage bag into a knot. "I saw trash cans at the front of the house. I have to get rid of this."

"I'll do it—"

"I'm not letting you anywhere near this." She shook the garbage bag, and the bottles inside clanked together. "Sniffing alcohol, putting a drop on your tongue, will be so much worse than what you really need to do."

"And what's that?" he said with some difficulty. His throat had constricted to the point of pain.

"Stop protecting me and go to the white-hot center of your hell. Just tell me how to get you out."

A wave of self-loathing surged beneath his skin. All she had to do was be herself to get him out, but exposing her to his underworld could burn her up. She'd let him into her life again, but she wasn't completely out of her own hell yet. She'd called him her Orpheus. He knew the story, and if he looked at her now with his true face, she might descend back into a ghostly existence.

"Your emotions don't scare me," she said, and the garbage bag crinkled as she twisted it around her arm. "What scares me is when you don't feel."

She carried the garbage bag to the living room. He followed and unlocked the front door for her.

"I'll be right back," she said and dashed outside. Sunlight shone from above, but Jackie was the brightest spot in the world right now. "Close that door," she shouted at him. "I'm not leaving this bag anywhere you can find it. Give me five minutes."

He didn't like the idea of taking his eyes off her. Vegas had a lot of seedy types wandering around, but he put the door on the latch.

Four minutes later, she returned, seemingly unharmed. "Where'd you go," he said, "the Vegas strip?"

"Not telling." She crossed her arms over her chest, as if to emphasize her point. "Now where?"

"Upstairs. Edna's bedroom."

Her nose wrinkled. "Do you have a hazmat suit?"

"Nope." He glanced up the spiral staircase by the bureau. Hell was supposed to be underground, not on the second floor of a house, but he reached for Jackie's hand.

She grabbed hold of his palm, and the tension in his muscles eased a little. She wasn't going to strand him, even if it meant witnessing the boiling of his soul.

At the back of Edna's bedroom closet, Hyde found what he was searching for: a jewelry box. He removed the first shelf of the box with all of Edna's rings and necklaces. Beneath it were baby pictures of him. He hadn't seen them in over twenty years, not since she ran off with that trucker.

"Your memory is ridiculous," Jackie said. She was picking through Edna's jewelry, using only her thumb and forefinger. He'd left the jewelry box on the dresser but stayed relatively close by. Sitting on the bed was a no-go. The sheets were pulled back, a snapshot of where Edna's body had lain before being taken to the hospital.

"Edna didn't reorganize shit when I was a kid," he said and looked through the pictures. Most were black and white and no bigger than his palm. "She kept things where she could remember, even while drunk. I figured she'd keep up the practice." He paused at a picture of Edna holding him as an infant. "Can't believe she didn't toss 'em."

"Even horrible people can love their children." Jackie pressed her back against the dresser and faced him. She didn't speak again until he got to the last picture. "Can I see them?"

He passed the pictures to her, and her expression lit up. "I've always wondered what you looked like as a baby," she whispered. "I half-expected you to have sideburns."

The laugh in his chest escaped through his nose, a breathy gust of air. "No baby 'fro, either."

"But your hair's curly here. Look." She showed him a picture of when he was three or four. He was sitting on the sofa from his childhood home, before the upholstery had been shredded. His hair was a blond mop on his head. He also had a grin on his face, probably because of the cherry Popsicle in his fist. "You're so young..." She stared at the picture again. "God, you're adorable."

"Want to keep that one?"

A wet sheen formed over her eyes. "Really?"

"Yup." He started putting the jewelry box back together. Jackie was one of a rare few who'd treasure old photos of him. "But make sure to show it to Mrs. Forman next time you see her. She'll be pissed if she misses out."

"She'll cry when she sees it—when she sees all of them. Your dad will, too. Especially at this." She held up a photo of Hyde at a playground. He couldn't have been older than two, and Bud was pushing him on the swings.

"He just might." He tried to smile but failed. The closet door was still open, and empty clothes hangers hung from the rod. "Maybe I'll get copies made."

"You should. You don't want to lose them again … and I'm losing you. What's wrong?"

Her perceptiveness hadn't dulled at all, but he waved in the direction of Edna's headboard. Above it was a print of Dogs Playing Poker. "Tryin' not to be reminded of Edna's bad taste in art."

"That's not it." She hiked her thumb at the closet. "What's there?"

"Nothin'."

"Something, but you don't have to tell me. I'll drop it."

He dragged in a few deep breaths through his nose. "The hangers," he said. "Edna used to say she should've taken one and aborted me. It was on her Top Forty playlist."

Jackie winced and pressed her hand to her stomach. "When she was drunk, right? It had to be because she looks happy with you in these photos. Truly happy."

"In vino veritas," he said. "But her feelings about me were as screwed-up and scrambled as mine are about her."

"If she'd gone through with it, she would've aborted part of me, too."

His gaze snapped to hers. She must've spotted his disbelief because her spine straightened, and her features grew harder.

"You said you carry some version of me inside of you," she said. "Well, it's the same for me. Even through my worst mistakes and the consequences, your light flickered somewhere in the dark."

She held up the pictures of him, fanned them out, and blocked her face with them. "But I avoided looking at it, the part of you that's mine. Tried to forget I even had it because it hurt too much—" her voice caught, and she quit blocking her face— "until the real you chased so many of my shadows away. So don't you dare think what you're thinking, that the world would've been better off without you. That's my personal mantra about myself. I'll sue you for infringement."

She glanced at him sideways, an amused, self-aware glance. Inside him, a place deeper than his guts reacted violently. His blood pumped caustically through his veins, flooding his brain with hell. It was the oldest defense mechanism he had, deaden himself with pain, but it didn't work.

His soul was making demands he couldn't satisfy. It held his emotions hostage, and his mind chopped his thoughts into increasingly smaller pieces until they became incomprehensible. But Jackie's arms slipped around his waist, and she laid her head against his chest.

"It's okay, Steven," she said. "It's okay. You don't have to make any big decisions. You don't have to think about yourself differently today. Just be where you are."

He forced his limp arms to embrace her, and life rushed into them. She understood what he needed, instinctively understood. He held her tightly, allowing her to be a bulwark against the chaos of his skull. Her love glinted in his broken thoughts, but if he gave into it, his truths would bury her.

"Let's get out of this room," she said, her words vibrating into ribs. "Unless there's more we have to do here?"

He answered by ending the embrace and taking her hand. The bedroom had drawers to ransack, and the second floor had more rooms to search, but he led her back to the spiral staircase. They climbed down, and she said, "Are you going to put your baby photos in an album?"

"I'll probably stuff 'em in a box somewhere. Not gonna have kids who'll care, and Ro won't look at them. No point in makin' a baby album thirty years after it should've been made."

"I can do it." She leaned against the wall by the front door. The photos were still in her possession, and she clutched them at her side. "I mean, I can hold onto them for now and get copies made. I'll make albums for you and Mrs. Forman. For Betsy and your dad. For me. They deserve to be seen, to be treasured. You deserve it. So much about your childhood was terrible, but these—" she raised the pictures into the air— "these are memories that should be kept."

He tugged on his shirt. It was clinging to him with sweat. His heart beat uncomfortably fast, and a prickling sensation set into his hands and feet, like pins and needles. The only time he'd felt anywhere close to this was when he'd get drunk. It had to be panic, like Jackie said earlier.

She held the pictures out to him. "Or I can give them back to you."

"No—yeah. Keep 'em. Do what you got to do." He backed away toward the spiral staircase and slumped onto the third step. He hid his face in his hands, pressed his palms into his tinging cheeks.

"I won't make copies of ones with Edna and Bud," she said. "I'll put those in an envelope so you don't ever have to see them."

She was guessing the reason for his behavior, but it was beyond her knowledge of him. His thoughts had coalesced into a CONDEMNED sign being nailed to another of his relationships.

Ro should have been here. He'd fought for her to be here, but she'd waved the white flag of truce rather than surrender. He'd conceded defeat to her more times than he could count. He needed her to surrender now, but a draw was the best he could hope for.

His full self was a load she refused to bear. Prying the CONDEMNED sign off their relationship would require a permanent sacrifice from him, a severing of his past from his present. No integration of his disparate parts. But the prospect of that sacrifice, of never being fully himself, hurtled him toward an oblivion where nothing and no one would have any meaning to him.

Steven hadn't moved from the spiral staircase in over a minute. Jackie crouched in front of him on the travertine tiles, and he removed his hands from his face. His features were slack, corpse-like, but he said, "We got more work to do upstairs."

He stood up, but she grasped his ankle. His struggle to remain present had allowed a cloud of depression to billow inside him. It was easy to spot. She'd encountered it when they were teenagers, experienced how it deadened his eyes, his voice. "Sit back down," she said. "Please?"

"I want to get this over with."

She strengthened her grip on his ankle so he wouldn't flee upstairs. "You wanted me to do this with you for a reason. Let me do what I'm here to do. Otherwise, you're going to 'process' your feelings the one way that'll kill you."

Her pulse was racing. She'd promised herself to support him only, not bond with him closer, but he trusted her to pull him out of the nothing. If she didn't open herself up to him, he'd seek refuge in a bar or a liquor store.

"I'm here to keep that from happening," she said and gestured emphatically for him to sit. "Brooke told me the truth about the DUI, how Michael was responsible for crippling that woman, not you—"

He heaved out a breath. "I've got as much responsibility for that as him."

"You don't." Her grip dropped from his angle to his boot. "Talk to me about what's happening inside you—or write it down, and I'll read it. Or just feel it, and I'll sit with you quietly. Or I'll stand across the room, but you need an enlightened witness. Someone who understands what you've been through and is completely on your side."

"Enlightened witness … that a term you picked up in therapy?"

"Yes, but you don't have to pay me."

He chuckled softly, and some life returned to his eyes.

"I'm serious," she said. "Having someone care simply because they care, regardless of whether it's their job to care, is important. I didn't realize that until—" Her mouth went dry. She swallowed a few times in an attempt to moisten it. "I didn't realize that until I heard your music."

He sat on the stairs again, but he hunched over knees and bowed his head. His fingers laced over the nape of his neck.

Her heartbeats filled the silence. She'd planned on cutting him loose from her life, but not like this. Not because he'd lost himself.

"You carry so many secrets, Steven. Too many. I know there's more than the DUI from the last sixteen years—"

"Try the last thirty-four." His fingers unlocked from his nape, and he looked up at her. "Jackie..." He adjusted the chain around his neck. The pewter guitar slipped from the collar of his shirt, and he tucked it back in. "In Duluth you said you wanted me to go first."

"'Point of No Return,'" she said, barely moving her mouth. He nodded, and adrenaline buzzed through her body like a thousand hornets. He was finally going to tell her what the lyrics meant.