A/N: Nope, it's not an illusion… I'm back, a full decade plus after I started this story! I just want to say THANK YOU to the wonderful people who continued to read, favorite, and review this story in the many years since it seemed to have been abandoned. I started this over ten years ago when I was in high school, and now I'm grown and have a whole different life and set of writing abilities (I cringe sometime when I look back… what was up with the semi-colons?). But you loyal readers have been there the whole time, and your reviews and favorites are what reminded me of what I had started and ultimately, inspired me to finish! I made the decision not to post this next chapter until I had actually finished the whole story, so as not to leave you all hanging again. So that's the good news – this will be finished! I plan to post a new chapter each week until we've reached the epilogue. Once again, thank you for hanging in there with me, and I hope I don't disappoint anyone! Welcome back to the AU world of Drops of Jupiter, after a brief (lol) hiatus. Here we go again!

Chapter 8 (VIII)

September, 1984

Eric reached a trembling hand up to straighten his necktie for the millionth time, and glanced at the clock behind his desk. T-minus five minutes until the bell would ring, and his 5th period Creative Writing class would file through the doors.

There was no reason to be nervous, he assured himself. They were just kids, after all. He'd take attendance, play a get-to-know-you game, and have them write a little something about themselves. Easy-peasy. Nothing to it, really. How hard could teaching be?

Dean Marcene Willis, who had grudgingly hired him a few days ago, had seemed…. cautiously optimistic as she walked him through the school, showed him to his class, and handed him his roster. He'd tried to lighten the mood when she'd asked him how he was feeling, and Eric cringed now, remembering their interaction.

"Well, I feel pretty confident. You know that saying – those who can't do, teach? Well I can't do much of anything, so I must be meant for this work!"

Dean Willis had stared at him with a blank expression. "Those of us who have dedicated our lives to education," she'd said, "Do not find that saying to be particularly apt, or funny."

"Oh. Uh, right." He'd rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

So hey, at least he was off to a good start!

At breakfast that morning, his mother had been cheerful and supportive as always. She made French toast for the daycare kids' breakfast, but threw on a side of bacon just for him as a wish for good luck. Red sullenly sipped at his black coffee and barely spared a grunt as Eric left, but that was par for the course. To look at him, you'd never know that he'd called in a huge favor to land Eric the job. Not that it mattered.

What mattered was that Donna would see that he was serious about staying in Point Place. He'd hold down a job in order to prove to her that she could trust him to stick around, and that he wanted nothing more than to get to know Natalia and help raise his child. His child. The thought still sent chills running down his spine. His next thought was conflicted – because surely Donna knew that he would've been there for her if she'd been honest about her pregnancy from the start. Right? Thinking of all the moments he'd lost with Natalia and would never get back made his heart ache, but he quickly snapped back to reality. He couldn't do anything about what he'd already missed, but he could make sure that neither of them lost out on anything else, ever again.

RING! RING!

The sound of the school bell echoing through his sparsely decorated classroom sent Eric spinning from his reveries. Just a few moments later, the heavy wood door to the classroom swung open, and a pair of preteen boys shoved and chortled their way into the classroom.

Right. He should write his name on the board. That's what teachers did.

Eric's hands shook slightly as he grasped a piece of chalk in his hand, and wrote 'Mr. Forman' in loopy, cursive letters.

Slowly, more students began to file into the classroom and take a seat at one of the desks scattered around the room. They all watched him tentatively, and he did his best to smile and project a 'I'm cool, but not to be fucked with' vibe. He remembered his middle school days, and how vicious they were to new teachers. A few moments later the second bell rang, indicating the start of 5th period. Eric glanced out across the sea of young faces – 17 of them, to be exact – and felt his heart sink down into his stomach. Shit. What now?

"W-welcome to Creative Writing," he decided on. He quickly cleared his throat, hoping no one had noticed the slight waver in his voice. "I'm Mr. Forman, and I'll be your teacher." Great. Good start. Get all the important information out there. Eric swallowed. "Um, we'll be doing lots of… well, writing in here. I guess you probably got that from the name." He smiled, but the students stared blankly back at him. One of them yawned loudly. "Right. I guess I'll start with attendance, then."

He headed over to his desk to grab the class roster, but in his haste, he knocked his coffee mug over with his hand. It spilled all over the surface of his desk and dribbled onto his chair indifferently. A few kids laughed, but most still sat silently watching.

"Oh great," Eric exclaimed, grabbing for the roster and pulling it away from the pooling liquid just in the nick of time. "I, uh… I meant to do that. You know, first day jokes. For your entertainment." He crossed to the front of the room to stand at his podium, and adjusted his reading glasses as he glanced down at the class roster. "Um. Okay. Abernathy? Uh, Clyde Abernathy? Raise your hand."

"Me." A tough looking kid in the back row jabbed his arm into the air half-heartedly.

"Great. Clyde. Got it."

"Aren't you going to clean that up?" A small girl with glasses on spoke up from the center of the room. She was watching the coffee drip to the floor with her nose scrunched up, and immediately Eric was reminded of Jackie.

"Uh. No. Not right now."

"It's going to stain," she said, matter-of-factly. "And I already know that I'm the next one on your list. My name is Jemia Blackburn, pronounced Jem-My-Uh not Jem-Ee-Uh. I really hate when teachers get that wrong, so maybe you should, like, write it down."

"Jemia. Right."

"Jem-My-Uh."

"Right, right. That's uh, a unique name. Pretty. I like it."

"Did you just call me pretty? I'm 12."

"No," Eric dropped his clipboard onto the podium with a clatter and put his hands in front of him in protest. "No, no. Your name is pretty. Not you."

"Now I'm ugly?"

A few of the students started laughing and talking amongst themselves, and Eric felt his forehead start to break out in a nervous sweat. This was starting to feel too much like middle school, except now instead of the teacher he was the shy, awkward kid all the others picked on. If it weren't for Donna and Hyde, no one would have talked to him when he was in sixth grade. Those old worries of being shunned and mocked started to prickle at the back of Eric's mind. None of these punks would follow him into the bathroom on his lunch break and give him a swirly in the toilet, would they?

"My mom said you're famous," a new voice chimed in from the side of the room. It belonged to a tall, blonde-haired girl. "You wrote some book. Right?"

"Uh… I did. Yeah."

"She said it wasn't that great. My mom."

"O-okay, well, thanks for that opinion-"

"I hate writing," a new voice declared. It was a dark-haired boy, in the back of the room. "It's like, for girls. Or pussies." The other boys in class tittered, and one offered him a high-five.

"Uh, let's try not to use language like -"

"That's so fucking sexist, Ricardo. Like I can't believe you even think that."

"Whoa, whoa, okay, the F-word isn't cool you guys –"

"Ya'll are being so rude, he's clearly tryna take attendance. Like can you shut up for a minute?"

"Hey, thanks for the support –"

"Don't tell me to shut up!"

"I'll say what I want to say you stupid gringo –"

"ENOUGH!" The students all stopped talking and looked Eric's way, but he might've been the most surprised of all to hear the authoritative tone that had come out of his mouth. He cleared his throat sheepishly. "Look. This class is Creative Writing. I'm Mr. Forman, and I'm going to be your teacher. I don't care if you like my book or if you like me, but I can tell you right now that we're going to be writing in here. A lot. It's okay if you don't like it, and it's okay if you don't do it a lot. But we are all going to practice together every day. It's not a 'boy thing' or a 'girl thing', it's just a person thing. And everybody can do it. So we're going to start now."

Eric turned around to scrawl a prompt on the blackboard, and was shocked to be met with total silence.

"What… do… you…" Eric read the words aloud as he wrote them, "Love." He turned around to face the class again. "Everybody take out a piece of paper right now, and answer the question. What do you love? There are no wrong answers."

The class was silent. No one moved to get out a piece of paper. Eric felt his chest start thumping dangerously. Maybe he just wasn't cut out for this. The dean would have to come rescue him. And then –

"Pizza."

A jokester called it out from the back, and everyone started laughing. The tension delightfully dissipated. Grateful, Eric cracked a smile.

"That's great. Write about pizza."

"Steven, you're so cheap. I think you're the only person on earth who doesn't pay for cable, I swear!" Jackie shouted her criticism from the living room couch, while Hyde delicately removed the frozen pizza from the oven.

"Sorry doll. It's just a corporate scam," Hyde shouted back from the kitchen. "No one owns this mind."

"Except me," Jackie drawled. She splayed herself in the open doorway between the kitchen and the living room, doing her best to appear sexual despite her casual sweatpants and old rock n' roll T-shirt.

"Nah, you don't own it," Hyde smiled, turning his back to her while he sliced the pizza with a pizza cutter. "You just live there."

"I do?" Jackie cooed. She'd moved across the kitchen to sidle up behind him, and she slid her hands around his waist as she spoke.

"Damn right," Hyde agreed easily. "Wish you'd pay some rent, actually." Behind him, Jackie went silent. Hyde finished cutting the pizza and turned his body to look at her. "Hey," he nudged her chin with his finger. "It was a joke."

"Do you ever think about us living together?" Jackie blurted suddenly. "Like, what if I didn't have to leave. Is that," she hesitated. "Is that something you'd ever want?"

"Jackie…" Hyde's tone was warning, and Jackie's hopeful expression dropped.

"I know. I know what you're going to say."

"You're –"

"With Fez," Jackie finished his thought. "I know. It'll never work in the real world." She'd pulled away from him and jammed her hands into the pockets of her sweatpants, not unlike a pouty teenager.

"I wasn't going to say that." Hyde smiled gently, and Jackie looked at him quizzically. "Actually wanted to talk to you about something, okay?"

"I'm listening." Jackie smiled shyly, tentatively, and took a few steps closer to him.

"I don't know how you're gonna react, but –"

Hyde's words were cut off by a loud, blaring sound coming from the TV in the living room. They both jumped, and Jackie leapt towards the living room to see what was going on.

"We interrupt this broadcast to inform you of an emergency weather alert," a man's voice boomed. "Kenosha County is officially under a severe weather warning. Severe storms, including hail damage and potential tornado clouds, have been spotted in the area. Get to safe ground and take cover immediately."

"Shit," Hyde muttered. "Okay, we have to go down to the basement by the laundry rooms and stuff. C'mon."

Jackie, however, was frantically pulling on her pea jacket. "What? No. Steven, I have to go home."

"Jackie, it's a freaking tornado warning. That's not safe."

"Fez thinks I'm at the gym," she hissed, as she stuffed her right arm into the sleeve of her jacket. "He'll be suspicious if I don't go straight home."

"It'll be worse if you die, Jackie."

"Oh, it's four blocks. I'll be fine," she huffed. She paused, with her hand on the doorknob. "Wait. Steven, wait. You were going to say something. What were you going to say?"

Hyde hesitated for a moment, and then shook his head. "Nothing. It doesn't matter. Just go, okay? Get home."

"Just tell me quick." She pooched out her bottom lip in an attempt to garner sympathy. "Please, Steven?" she begged in her baby voice. "It might be the last thing I ever hear, who knows?"

"That's not funny, Jackie," Hyde responded sharply.

"Whatever," she cackled, as she made her way out the front door. "You love me."

The door shut behind her, and Hyde leaned his forehead against it. "Yeah," he told his empty apartment. "That's kinda my problem."

"Eric!" Red shouted from the basement. He was crouched over the fuse box, apparently fighting for some sign of life in the pitch black. "Where the hell are you with that damn flashlight?"

"Sorry –" Eric appeared at the top of the stairs, and gingerly made his way down the steps. "We couldn't find it. Mom gave me a candle instead." He held a small wax candle out in front of himself in explanation. "Ouch!" he yelped, as he reached the bottom step. "The wax dripped on me," he said sheepishly when Red glared at him.

"Hold it over here so I can see what the," Red paused and inhaled shakily, sounding suspiciously like a wheeze, "What the hell I'm doing."

Eric obliged, moving closer to his father with the dim light the candle produced. He stared at him curiously. "You know, Dad, if you need to rest I could…um, I could take over."

Red exhaled sharply, a laugh. "Yeah. Right."

"I could," Eric protested indignantly. "I've had my own apartment for years, okay? I know some of this stuff."

"Okay smart guy. What do you do when the power goes out, then?"

Eric hesitated. "I feel like you won't like my answer."

"What's your answer?"

"….call Jerry."

"Who's Jerry?"

"…The landlord."

"Hrmmph." Red made a sound between a laugh and a sigh. "I raised a boy who doesn't know what a fuse box is. Isn't that perfect."

"Okay not to split hairs, but I know what it is, just not how to use it," Eric began, but was cut off by Kitty, who was descending the stairs with a candle of her own.

"We have company, boys!" she said, accompanied by her signature laugh. "Look who it is: Donna and Natalia!"

Sure enough, a shadowy, hulked figure appeared behind Kitty. As she descended the basement stairs and stepped into the candle light, it was revealed to be Donna, holding a sleeping Natalia in her arms. "Sorry," Donna spoke softly. "We don't have a basement, and I didn't know what else to do." She shrugged helplessly, jarring Natalia for a brief moment before the preschooler fell back against her mother's shoulder, blessedly undisturbed.

"Do you want me to take her?" Eric offered, moving forward with his arms extended, Red's fuse box needs forgotten.

Donna jerked away from him rather sharply. "No," she said. "Natalia is a deep sleeper," she offered a moment later. "Like, dead to the world. We can just put her on the couch here, and she'll sleep right through this." She gently deposited her daughter on the basement couch and then covered her with the blanket that had been draped over the back.

"Sounds a lot like this one," Red jerked his head towards Eric and made his way across the basement, apparently through with his investigation of the fuse box. "He slept through the tornado of '64 – just clean through it. Remember?" he nodded to Kitty.

"Oh, yes. Laurie wasn't like that at all. She was awake and scared through the whole thing, the poor dear."

"Shaking like a leaf," Red agreed. "I remember." He took a seat on the armchair next to the coach, and gazed at Natalia. "I wish I could be that peaceful," he remarked.

"See? She sleeps like the dead," Donna agreed, taking a seat in a nearby folding chair. "Like, once Casey hosted a party for all the employees of his construction company. They were all over the kitchen and the living room and she slept right through it all, just a few feet away in her bedroom."

"How is Casey?" Kitty asked the question with her hands clasped together eagerly.

"He's good." Donna smiled. "Still building a lot. His company owns that new block of residential units off the highway. He's there tonight, actually. He called me to say that they're hunkering down in a trailer one of the builders has out there."

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Kitty nodded vigorously. "A man like that knows how to keep safe." She laughed flirtatiously, and Eric glanced at her out of the side of his eyes.

"Yeah," Donna agreed. "I'm never worried about him." A few beats of silence passed, and Donna gently chewed on the inside of her lip and looked at the ground, clearly a bit uncomfortable discussing her love life with her estranged ex-boyfriend and his parents.

Kitty, unaware of Donna's discomfort, cheerfully continued on with one of her favorite topics. "And I'm sure he's so great with Natalia. A man like Casey can be so rugged but sensitive at the same time."

"Of course," Donna answered, just a little bit too quickly. Eric glanced at her, wondering if anyone else had heard the edge in her voice just now. "They love each other." The odd tone in her voice was gone as soon as it had arrived, and Eric stared at her just a moment too long. She must've felt his eyes on her, because her glance snapped to him, and then back to the floor just as quickly.

"How sweet," Kitty cooed. She patted Red's knee, next to her. "Isn't that sweet, Red?"

"Kitty…" He started, his tone one of warning. He looked like he had another thought to add, but suddenly his mouth began to twitch, preventing him from getting another word out.

"Dad?" Eric frowned and moved to the edge of his own chair. Kitty reached over to grab Red's arm.

Red shook his head, and a few moments later the twitching appeared to stop. "Do I need to tell you to stop fawning over a younger man? Again?" he continued, as if he hadn't been interrupted at all.

"Oh, now stop it," Kitty protested. "You know I have eyes for only you!"

Eric ignored his mother's signature laugh. "Dad, are you okay?"

"The hell do you mean?"

"You, like – I don't know, what was that?" Eric glanced over to Donna, curious if she was seeing what he was, and she gave him an almost imperceptible shrug.

"Must be the dampness of the basement air," Kitty quickly answered for him. "It's not good to breathe in, you know. I don't know how you kids spent so much time down here when you were growing up. All the stale air and strange smells… it's just a wonder you didn't all develop asthma!"

"Right," Eric spoke slowly, carefully studying both of his parents.

Suddenly, the lights flickered on again.

"Oh, wonderful!" Kitty exclaimed. She stood up and turned the TV on, then found the weather channel.

"It looks like the immediate threats to the greater Kenosha area have dissipated," the weatherperson announced. "The storm now appears to be moving south, towards the Chicago metro area."

Red grunted his approval. "Good. Time to get out of this damn basement."

Kitty sprang up from her seat, and immediately offered Red her arm. He ignored it, and slowly pulled himself to his feet. It took him longer than it used to, and Eric almost felt the urge to offer his father a hand. A hand he knew would be declined.

"Stay, Donna, please. If you want to," Kitty gushed as Red stiffly made his way towards the basement steps. "We're going to head upstairs, but you know that you and Natalia are always welcome to stay here. Even if… well," she waved her hand in the air, as if to dismiss an idea. "You're just always welcome."

"Thanks Mrs. Forman," Donna smiled warmly. "But I have to get her home. We'll all sleep better in our own beds."

Red made his way up the stairs more slowly and stiffly than Eric had ever remembered, but he supposed that was the way of getting older. Kitty followed closely behind him, and whisper-shouted her goodnights so as to not wake the sleeping Natalia.

When Eric heard the door at the top of the stairs click shut, he turned to look at Donna. She was still seated in her folding chair, clearly listening to the weather broadcast but staring at Natalia while she slept. On the couch, Natalia twitched briefly in her sleep, and Donna grinned as she watched her tranquil daughter. Tentatively, Eric took a seat on another folding chair across the room.

"You should stay," he offered after a moment. "Look, it'll be safer. And she's already asleep. I can bring you something. Like, the cushions from the couch upstairs? So you don't have to sleep on the ground," he explained.

"No," Donna spoke softly, reminding Eric to whisper in the presence of a sleeping child. "We'll go home in a minute. I just want to see the rest of the broadcast. You know, make sure we're really out of the woods." She paused. "But thanks," her eyes met his and settled there.

Eric swallowed, not knowing what to say for a few beats. Then without warning, he blurted, "I got a job."

Donna frowned. "In Point Place?"

"In Rockford. At a school. I'm a teacher."

Donna seemed taken aback. "Wow," she finally settled on. "I, um, didn't know you were serious about the whole teaching thing. Or the staying here thing," she trailed off softly.

"Well I am," Eric supplied. "Today was my first day. And it went great."

"Really?"

Eric paused. "Okay… no. Great probably isn't the word," he admitted.

Donna laughed a little bit. "No? Were the kids mean to you?" Her tone was sarcastic and mocking, and just what Eric had been missing about their friendship for so long.

"A little bit, yeah. They were," Eric chuckled. "Like, who knew that teenagers have this attitude? Wasn't expecting that."

"Oh, I can't wait for her teenage years," Donna jerked her head towards the still blissfully asleep Natalia. "People say that your kids are payback for your own adolescence, right? Not really sure how I should be preparing," she joked.

Eric tilted his head to the side. "You weren't a bad kid."

"Not a bad kid," Donna agreed, "But I don't think I was an easy one, either." She looked at Natalia thoughtfully. "She's been nothing but easy, so far. I think that means I'm in for it once she hits high school."

Eric shrugged. "I have a feeling she'll be okay."

"Why's that?"

"Because you raised her," Eric answered honestly.

Donna flushed, and didn't seem to know what to say. "Well… thanks," she said, finally. "I'm not always so sure about that. Raising her alone, I mean, without her dad… I don't always know if I'm doing things right," she admitted.

"You are. She's a great kid."

"How do you know that?" she scoffed.

Eric shrugged. "She's my friend."

Donna's eyes narrowed. "Natalia can't be your friend. Natalia is four."

"We've been chatting," Eric said. "At daycare. She likes Star Wars and my mom's lemon bars, I mean… what's not to love?"

Despite herself, Donna laughed. "Yeah, I guess I can't blame you. She's definitely the best person I know." She glanced over at her daughter affectionately.

Eric fought the urge to ask Donna again – what was the deal with Natalia's father? Had she really conceived her in a one night stand just weeks after he'd left for Africa, or was she just afraid to tell Eric that she'd kept the truth from him for so long? Maybe if she knew he wouldn't be mad or blame her, she'd be honest with him. He thought about how best to word that, when the news broadcast interrupted.

"Kenosha County is all clear," the weatherperson on TV announced authoritatively. "Repeat, Kenosha County is all clear, no risk of hail storms or tornados appear on radar. The storm has moved to the south."

"Well, we're gonna head back home then," Donna stood, and carefully scooped Natalia back into her arms. The little girl shifted in her mother's arms, but remained dead sleep. "Tell your parents thanks for letting us come over, okay?" She paused at the door to the basement. "And, um. Congrats on your job, Eric. That's great." She gave a half-hearted smile.

Eric crossed the room, and gently eased around Donna and Natalia to open the door for them. "Yeah, of course. I will." Donna stepped outside. "And, uh. Thanks. That means a lot."

Donna smiled tightly. "Good night," she whispered, before heading up the concrete stairs.

"Night," Eric swallowed. He wondered if he'd ever get the answer he was looking for – or if she'd already answered him, and he just didn't want to accept it.

A/N: That's it for now, folks! The next chapter will be posted next Saturday! In the meantime, you know what to do: review!

Teaser for next chapter: It's Father-Daughter dance night at Natalia's preschool and that opens a whole can of worms, Eric makes a connection with one of his students, and Casey and Hyde have a tense conversation. Wonder what that's about?