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 58
SOFT GAMMA REPEATER

April 8, 1995

Paradise, Nevada

McCarran International Airport
…

Steven had accompanied Jackie to Gate 34 at McCarran International Airport. The waiting area wasn't packed, but it had enough eyes to make her uncomfortable.

She and Steven were in costume, though, and hiding behind a beam. Her hair was split into two parts and braided. She wore ripped jeans, an oversized, touristy Las Vegas T-shirt, and a pair of Converse sneakers finished the look. She resembled a twelve-year-old girl, but it would throw off any paparazzi who were lurking.

Steven's disguise, however, was more off-putting. He had on a T-shirt with a faded Nike logo, a pair of cargo shorts, and sandals. He kept tugging on the shirt, as if the commercial branding made him uncomfortable, but the shorts probably had the worse effect. She'd never seen him show off his legs, not even in summer. When the forty-degree temperature of Minneapolis eventually hit him, he'd get quite the shock.

"What?" he said when she laughed.

"You're in for it." She poked the center of his chest. "You're going to get so much crap from people on the plane."

He pointed at the Yankees logo on his baseball cap. "They'll think I'm an arrogant, ignorant New Yawkah," he said, with an exaggerated mock accent. But how he'd managed to stuff all his thick, wavy hair into that cap was a magic trick. Not one curl poked out from underneath. "You must be ready to go back home, huh?"

"Not really." The fallout from Come On Magazine's article, or its publication of her birth certificate, hadn't reached her yet. "But whatever's waiting for me, I'll cope."

"If anyone gives you shit, call me." His face grew tense, a sight she hadn't seen in almost two days. "I mean it, man. You're not alone here." He grasped her hand. "My dad''ll know where I am at any given moment, and he'll forward that info to you. Just give him the code word."

The skin of her arm prickled from his touch. His protectiveness—and her feelings for him—had a similar effect on her stomach, making it quiver.

Since their stargazing experience in the desert, a lightness of spirit seemed to possess Steven, the likes of which she'd never witnessed in him. Yesterday, the charity truck hauled away Edna's furniture and other belongings. Afterward, he and Jackie had gone hotel-hopping: lunch at the Venetian, small-risk gambling at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel, gawking at the sights on the strip. Through it all, joy shone in his eyes, and her fear of him returning to alcohol was all but gone. A deep, inner part of him had changed.

He nodded now past the beam to an empty row of chairs at the gate. "Let's go over there. We'll blend in more."

"You scheduled your flight after mine on purpose," she said once they'd sat down. She put her carry-on bag on the seat next to her, to dissuade anyone from sitting there. "You're watching over me like a bodyguard."

"I'm used to doing that with the fianceé. It's somethin' I should've done better with you."

A buzzing, stinging heat crept up her neck. "You're not responsible for what happened to me—or for what might happen. I'm not some damsel in distress."

"No, you're not." A smile full of admiration slid over his lips, and her mouth moistened with the desire to kiss him. "You've been savin' yourself your whole damn life," he said. "But what I'm telling you is, you've got someone at your side. Same way you look out for me, I'm lookin' out for you. Got it?"

Static crackled through the gate's PA system, and a woman's nasal voice broke through: "This is a boarding announcement for Flight 48 to San Francisco, California. We'd like to invite those passengers who are disabled and who are traveling with small children to board. Repeat, we'd like to invite those passengers who are disabled and who are traveling with small children to board at this time."

Luggage wheels rumbled and squeaked on the waiting area's gray carpeting. More than just those who were invited to board rose from their seats. A general movement toward the gate entrance was occurring, like a mass exodus, and Steven glanced toward the growing line of people. "Want to join the mob?"

"No." She swallowed from nervousness and an attempt to dry out her mouth. This moment between them was supposed to be their final goodbye. But her love for him consisted of far more than romantic feelings. She needed his friendship, and after their experiences together in Nevada, she knew he needed hers, too.

Her heart pulsed in her fingers and ears, even her eyelids, but she had to keep the full breadth of her love a secret from him. His presence in her life was a gift, and when he married Ro and—fifty years down the line—celebrated their golden anniversary, Jackie would accept whatever he could give her.

She leaned her head on his shoulder, and his arm glided over the back of her chair. A few minutes later, the gate agent's nasal voice crackled through the P.A. system, announcing that general boarding would begin momentarily, and Jackie shut her eyes. Visions of Steven's future were playing out in her mind, a future without her.

"Invite me to the wedding," she said.

He chuckled. "You prepared to fight it out with Forman, my dad, Red, and Leo over who's gonna be the best man?"

She sat up straight. "You'd make me a groomsman?"

"Well, you're sure as hell not gonna be an usher."

"I'm not wearing a tuxedo."

"What about the bow tie?"

She scrunched her face. "Please."

He chuckled again and patted her arm. "You better get in line."

They stood up together, and she forced her arms to remain still despite that she longed to wrap them around his body. "I don't want to say goodbye."

"So don't."

Her hand tightened on the handle of her carry-on bag. Her mouth had moistened again, and she bit down her desire. "You have the list of books I wrote down for you?"

"Yup." He turned around and showed off his backpack. It wasn't the one he normally carried with him, the one patched with duct tape. "Kept it in here so I wouldn't lose it."

"There should be some boy-specific books on the subject in the same shelf," she said. "They can help. You might not go through what I did, but that am-I-insane? mental-emotional state could sneak up on you. Your body might react to things your mind doesn't, and—"

Her eyes didn't blink, as if they'd been frozen open by a blast of cold, and her confession echoed in the halls of her brain: You might not go through what I did. YoumightnotgothroughwhatIdid.

You.

Might.

Not.

Go.

Through.

What.

I.

Did.

He could assume she was talking about Michael and Chicago, but she'd been releasing chunks of the truth into the wild. Once he learned about what she'd walked into, about Dale Fischer, it could alter his view of her irreparably. Or, in his words, ruin him for her again.

"Hey." He gripped the side of her hand, drawing her back to the present. "Told you it was cool to talk about this with me. You said nothin' wrong."

Maybe she hadn't, and she blinked a few times. The parallels between their lives had always surprised her, but none so much as what he'd shared a few days ago. For over a decade, she thought she was alone in the universe, but she wasn't. Not anymore. Steven was standing beside her. No matter the physical distance between them, he stood beside her.

"You're not as alone in the universe as you think, either," she said, squeezing his hand back. "You'll know what I mean someday," as soon as she found the bravery to show him.

The gate agent repeated her announcement about general boarding. Jackie rolled her carry-on bag toward the line of people, but Steven caught her arm softly. "Not just the one I used to call Grasshopper," he said. "You're in here, too, Jackie." He tapped his temple. "You."

She pressed her lips together, unsure if a grin or frown were trying to form. Whichever it was, she suppressed it. During this trip, they'd both revealed raw, vulnerable parts of themselves. But a feeling in her blood, like a roiling terror, warned that their remaining secrets could still rip them apart.

Camera flashes broke through the tinted windows of Jackie's hired Sedan. She rolled onto the floor in front of her seat, an attempt to hide. Her driver had been warned to expect paparazzi activity in Foster City, but dozens of photographers flanked the car. They'd been waiting for her, maybe for days. Polynesia Drive was the only way onto Flying Mist Isle. It was a wide enough street for the Sedan to maneuver, but each shout and burst of light made Jackie fold tighter into herself, wishing her driver would run each one of those paparazzi over.

She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her hands over her ears. The car floor vibrated beneath her. She tried to control her breathing and managed to inhale enough air to keep her conscious. The Foster City police should've been called. Her neighbors must have noticed the strangers lurking in their neighborhood.

"Miss Burkhart—Miss Burkhart!"

She uncovered her ears. "What?"

"We've arrived at your destination," the driver said. "I need you to sign the receipt."

"Just hand it to me." She reached up toward his seat, and camera flashes went off. Either the windows weren't tinted enough, or the paparazzi had pressed their faces to the glass. "Toss it!"

The driver seemed at a loss, but his billing pad landed gently at her side, along with a pen. She wrote in a tip and her signature. "Miss Burkhart," he said. "I'll accompany you to your door."

"You don't have to," she said, but the pressure in her chest had cleaved her to the car floor. "But my suitcase is heavy, so you can help me with that."

"Yes, Miss Burkhart."

The driver opened his door, and different male voices called her name in the brief moment before he closed it. The driver's muffled voice shouted something back to them before the car shifted slightly. He'd popped open the trunk. The car shifted again when he closed the trunk, and Jackie sat up. She ripped off her copy of the receipt from the billing pad and crammed it into her pocket.

She'd get through this gauntlet. None of these people were Dale Fischer. Tabloid pictures of her exiting a Sedan wouldn't destroy her life.

Her fingers gripped her house keys as the driver opened her car's passenger door. He offered his hand. She grabbed it, but the few steps to her house might as well have been miles. The paparazzi crowded around her, penned her in. Tape recorders were shoved into her face, and questions rammed into her ears.

"Are you sleeping with Steven Hyde?"

"Is Steven Hyde behind your divorce from Scotty Roxx?"

The driver shielded her as best he could with his own body. He was easily six-feet tall, but a paparazzo shouted, "Out of the way, asshole!"

Jackie had planned on remaining silent but her voice quaked out of her: "You're the assholes! You have no right to call him that!"

"It's okay, Miss Burkhart," the driver whispered in her ear, but her spine stiffened at the close contact. Although she'd grown more comfortable with being touched, she wasn't at a place where being squashed together with a virtual stranger, no matter how kind, felt safe.

The driver did feel less dangerous, however, than the camera flashes. The bursts of light seared her vision. They branded her skin and herded her toward the past.

"Are you and Steven Hyde having an affair?" said a pimply-faced paparazzo. "Is that why you were in Las Vegas?"

She cursed herself for wearing a shirt from the Paris Las Vegas Hotel. It had given the tabloids an angle to write their next story.

"Did you just come from a secret rendezvous with him?" another paparazzo said, and she stumbled into her suitcase. It was waiting for her, beside her carry-on bag, at her front door. Her fingers unfurled painfully from her house keys. She unlocked the door, and the driver kept the paparazzi from trying to force their way inside.

"You need to hire a bodyguard," the driver said.

"Oh, I will. Thank you for everything!" She kicked her luggage into the house and slammed the door shut. She locked it and shouted for Patricia. Her housekeeper arrived within moments, but Jackie cringed. She'd sounded exactly like her mom.

"Ms. Burkhart," Patricia said, "your phone has been ringing endlessly for days—"

It was ringing now, just like her doorbell.

"Never mind that. Help me shutter the blinds!"

"Yes, Miss."

Together, they blocked the paparazzi's camera eyes and the late afternoon sun. Patricia turned on the living room lights, and Jackie sank onto one of her sofas.

"Should I even ask about your trip?" Patricia said.

"Orange juice," Jackie said. She was being rude, but she had to calm down. "Please."

"Of course, Miss Burkhart."

Patricia left for the kitchen, and Jackie looked at her answering machine. She'd moved it from her bedroom to the living room before flying to Chicago, but its red light was steady rather than blinking. That meant the hour-long message tape was full. She grasped her ringing phone with sweaty, shaky hands and mashed down the switchhook, hanging up on whoever was calling.

She dialed 911 as Patricia returned with the orange juice. A dispatcher came on the line, and Jackie explained the nature of the emergency. "I'm not a public figure or a celebrity," she said. "This is stalking and harassment. They're banging on the door. They might break it down—"

She was only slightly exaggerating, but she had to convince the police to show up. She'd heard horror stories about similar situations from Ralph's bandmates in Wildebeest, where the police ignored calls like hers.

"A police car will drive by in a few minutes," the dispatcher said. "Stay on the line."

The woman was true to her word. A siren blasted through the paparazzi's shouts. The doorbell-ringing stopped, and several minutes later someone knocked on the door. Jackie checked through the peephole. Two male police offers were standing in front of her house, and she opened the door to them.

"Miss Burkhart?" the shorter of the officers said. She nodded, and he continued. "We dispersed the photographers. We can take a statement if you want."

"Did you get their names?" she said. "The tabloids they work for?"

"No," the taller of the officers said.

"Then I have no one to sue or get a restraining order against."

"You should really think about hiring private security if you can afford it," the shorter officer said. "We won't always be able to get out here this quickly."

"And we can't watch your back twenty-four hours," the taller one said.

"I understand." She dug her heels into the floor, making sure it was still beneath her. "Thank you."

The shorter officer acknowledged her thanks while the taller spoke a code into his shoulder mic. He was communicating with his precinct. "We'll patrol the area for ten minutes before leaving," he said afterward, and she thanked them again before closing the door.

Patricia was waiting for her by the kitchen door. "Can I get you anything to eat? Should I bring your bags upstairs?"

"No, no. I can handle that." Jackie sat on the sofa, the one facing the television. The other sofa, the one perpendicular to the TV, was empty. It needed decorative pillows. It needed a friend, but an invitation to Patricia died on her lips. She had to maintain boundaries and increase Patricia's salary. She'd be lucky if Patricia continued working for her under these conditions.

"I'm sorry for being curt before," Jackie said. "I didn't expect this kind of homecoming."

Patricia's Scottish accent, usually subtle, had grown thick. "I said nothing to those people."

"I know you didn't." Jackie's blood began to throb behind her eyes. She rolled her head to one side, to stretch her neck, but the growing headache came from tension. "Could you get me the Advil?"

Patricia did as she asked, bringing her the Advil bottle and a glass of water.

"I'm going to take care of this," Jackie said with an Advil between her teeth. She swallowed it down with the water. "I won't be their victim."

She swallowed a second pill, but her past with Steven was being twisted and weaponized against him. She wouldn't let their present to be used the same way, but his lawsuit against Come On Magazine had to be successful. It would send the strongest message to the tabloid hordes.

The door bell rang, and her body jerked. It was a hard, deliberate ding, followed by a slow dong. She scraped her fingers through her hair. "Go away!"

Patricia rushed to the door and looked through the peephole. "It's your neighbor, Mrs. Fitz."

"Great." Jackie took Patricia's place at the door. She didn't bother with pretend cheerfulness when greeting Mrs. Fitz. "What can I do for you?"

"You can get those journalists out of our neighborhood, that's what!" Mrs. Fitz was a tanned white woman in her fifties, with a sleek gray streak in her otherwise dark hair. She and Jackie had never particularly gotten along, but they were civil to each other and sometimes talked fashion. "One of them shoved my son on the way to your house."

"Did you talk to the police?" Jackie said and closed her eyes briefly. They were still throbbing with her headache.

"No. I'm talking to you. We've tolerated your presence here, but you attract trouble." Mrs. Fitz glanced at the surrounding houses. "We know you married that Scotty Rocker guy for his money, and we know you're after that Steven Whoever for the same reason. My kids can't stop talking about it."

Jackie tightened her fingers on the door knob. "You know nothing."

"Is that right?" Mrs. Fitz's lip curled in a malicious smirk. "We saw him here last month. My kids begged to come over to get his autograph. I did you a favor by not letting them. You could thank me for that, by the way. I'm sure they would've caught you two in some kind of unsavory position."

"Thank you," Jackie said and flung the door closed.

Patricia sneered at the shut door. "Bolt, ya mangled fud!"

Jackie understood some Scots from living with Patricia, but that phrase was beyond her. "What did you say?"

"I'm too polite to translate it, but that woman is trouble. You shouldn't let her speak to you that way."

"The neighbors here never liked me," Jackie said, moving away from the door. "I'm just a gold digger to them." And with this latest round of paparazzi, the neighbors would like her even less. "Funny how you can live in a place for years, remain essentially unknown yet be judged and convicted for a crime that only exists in other people's minds."

"There's nothing funny about it," Patricia said. "People fear what they don't understand, but they'd rather remain ignorant."

Her eyes glinted with more than sympathy. She appeared to be speaking from experience, but Jackie knew so little of Patricia's life—purposely, to hold that boundary, but Jackie said, "You've been through it, haven't you?"

"I have, but I'm a survivor, just like you are. Strong women need to stick together."

"Yes, we do." Every heartbeat darkened Jackie's vision slightly. It brightened a half-second later only to be dimmed again, such was the way of stress headaches. She lay down on the sofa, but a red light twinkled at the edge of her sight. The answering machine. Her headache wouldn't abate until she faced what was on that tape.

"Patricia, you can clear the coffee table and take a rest before dinner." She scrubbed her hand over her face, the way Steven often did when he was stressed. "If you'd like some time off while I secure the property—"

"I'm staying," Patricia said. "If one of those goons gets in my face with his camera, I'll smash it with a can of chickpeas."

Jackie laughed quietly. Patricia was definitely getting a raise, but she couldn't let Patricia support her beyond what she'd already done today. "I'll be fine. I'll shout if I need you."

Patricia hesitated before gathering the glasses from the coffee table. She disappeared into the kitchen, and Jackie mentally made a list of people she could go to for help. She'd need a referral for a reputable security company, one that could provide a bodyguard for Patricia. Jackie wouldn't be leaving the house herself anytime soon.

She grabbed a pad of Post-It Notes from the table and a pen. Her head pounded, but she pressed the play button on her answering machine. The first dozen messages were from tabloid reporters. Another half-dozen were from various annoyed neighbors, including Mrs. Fitz. She fast-forwarded through them, making their voices sound like a chipmunk's, until an unexpected voice came through.

"Jackie," her stepfather said in his mild Swedish accent, "this is Anders. I would like to meet with you to discuss your mother." His accent thickened on the last two words, but his mouth wasn't accustomed to speaking them. For years, he'd been led to believe his wife was Jackie's sister. "Please call me at your earliest convenience."

He left the phone number to his office. She wrote it down, but she had no idea if he and her mom had separated or not. They could be in collusion, with the intent to use Jackie for business purposes. Anders wasn't as elegant a manipulator as Pam, but Jackie had experienced enough to be cautious. Her earliest convenience would be a lot later than he would like.