Jackie and Hyde:  Missing Moments

by Jaded

Summary:  Jackie resolves that she's not going to lose Hyde because of her jealousy of Annette, and her slip about Kelso being her boyfriend.  Takes place during "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You," after Hyde breaks up with her, and before she goes back to the Foremans' basement to win him back.  Jackie POV.

Disclaimer:  That 70's Show is not mine, although I wish Hyde were mine, but what can you do?  This is for fun, so no one go 'round suing me.  ABBA also does not belong to me.  They are an entity onto themselves, and themselves alone. 

A/N:  "Where You're Going" started out just as a stand-alone story, but then I thought, there are so many "in-between" moments that we never get to see…and so many fan fics to be written about them!  So I thought, why not just combined them all together and have a short collection?  So that's what this is for.

Take A Chance On Me

"If you change your mind,

I'm the first in line,

Honey, I'm still free,

Take a chance on me"

                       

                        -ABBA

            Oh my god.  Steven just broke up with me. 

            I can't breathe.  And I can't feel my hands.  Or my legs.  I'm just outside the door to the Foreman's basement and I just can't leave, and he's still inside.  Hating me.

            Oh god, I can't breathe. 

            I have to leave.  I can't stay here.  I can't.

*~*~*~*

             When Michael and I were together, and then when we broke up—I don't remember which time it was, maybe all of them?—I cried myself to sleep all those nights (sometimes during the day, even)  when weren't together.  I'd cry until I was so exhausted that there wasn't anything else to do other then fall asleep.  But now?  With Steven?  I've been crying, and then I've stopped crying now, but I can't sleep.  I just sit here on my bed and all I can do is think about Steven and how I don't want him to hate me; how I don't want him out of my life.  I just feel tired and empty, and I want him with me to hold me, to help make me feel better because he always there when I need him, even when he didn't like me and I didn't like him. He always made me feel happier.  And he's the only one who ever makes me feel good, at least without having to buy me something pretty and shiny.

            Steven hates it when cry, or at least that's what he acts like.  But he's so good to me when he tries to make me stop.  Like the time Michael didn't ask me to Prom and Steven took me instead.  He was so sweet to me that night, but then again, he's always sweet to me, and now I've ruined everything. 

            My house is so empty now with Daddy in prison and Mom…somewhere drinking a lot.  No one's really ever here anymore.  All the help are gone because we can't pay them, and I don't make enough selling cheese to pay for servants myself.  These last few months I've been actually spending most of my time at the Foreman's house with Steven. 

We spend a lot of time in the basement and in his bedroom.  His room's really crummy, and sometimes I don't know how he can live there…but I don't know…I kinda like it too.  It's actually a lot like him.  Kind of messy and hidden, but when you get inside, it's like being home.  It's comfortable and when you get inside there are all these little things that you'd never think you'd find there, like this picture he has of him and Eric when they were nine sitting together under a tree. 

            He has a picture of me too, a blurry snapshot that's a little worn around the edges.  Or at least he did.  I don't know what he's done with it now, if he's ripped it up or thrown in away.  He doesn't know that I know about it.  I found it in his dresser one day.  I was, you know, just looking around to see if he owned any shirts with buttons, and there it was, underneath his Beatles t-shirt. 

This was even before he called me his girlfriend.  Before he shaved off his beard for me.  It was a picture from last year where I was wearing this really cute flowered skirt with super pretty crème colored sweater.  It wasn't even really a picture of me because in it I'm not even looking at the camera, and if there's anything I've learned about pictures it's that you always look at the camera, because how is it supposed to love you if you don't love it?  I think it was a picture Mrs. Foreman took of us in the driveway, but I'm not sure because half of it is missing.  I think it was a  group picture because I can see one of Donna's giant lumberjack arms in the picture, but the rest of it cut-off.  It's just me.

In it I'm kind of looking off towards the house, smiling.  I can't remember what I was smiling at.  At him?  At Michael?  I don't know.  It seems like I don't know anything anymore. 

Except…I do.  I know that I don't want to lose Steven.  I know that if there's anything in the world that I don't want, it's to lose him. 

Right there and then, I get up.

Stupid Michael!  He is SO NOT WORTH THIS! 

I need to talk to that stupid skankwad, Annette. Because I'm not going to lose the most important person in my life over that stupid-cheating-on-me-all-the-time dumbass Michael and his California bubblehead.  If there's anything I've learned from being with Steven, it's that everything isn't just going to be handed to me on a plate.  If I want something, I gotta do it myself.  That, and sometimes you just have to go out and kick some ass.

*~*~*~*

            "If you want Michael, you're going to have to fight for him, Jackie."  Annette looks at me with her big, stupid cow eyes and shakes her head a little bit. 

            Ugh.  Why is she still talking?

            "You know what, Annette?  I'm good.  You can have him."

            "That's it?"  She doesn't believe me.  I sigh.

            "It really is."

            "I don't believe you."

            Oh.  My.  God.  How can I make it clear to her? 

            "Use smaller words," I mutter.

            "What?" she asks.

            I start.  Did I just say that out loud?  I stifle a laugh.  "This may be hard for you to understand, Annette, since your head is filled with so much air, but I don't want Michael.  I'm with Steven.  He's the one I want to be with."  I don't mention that he just broke up with me.  I just hope she didn't hear me when I told Donna and Eric about it in the Hub. 

            "Then why did you call him your boyfriend?"  She flips her blonde hair, (probably fake—really, no one is that blonde unless it's out of a bottle), and pauses.  "Since he's actually my boyfriend."

            And that's where the problem is.  Why did I call Michael my boyfriend?  I don't even think about him anymore, especially when I'm with Steven.  Because why would I think about my ex-boyfriend when I can think about how Steven kisses me, how I kiss him, and when we can be alone to kiss some more?

            I look at Annette and I think.  The scene plays out again, the two of them on the couch making-out, and then it comes to me.  I think about the time I saw from the sliding door Michael kissing Laurie in the Foreman's kitchen.  I think about the time I heard he was making-out with Pam Macy behind the gym at school, and then I think about how I never really got to catch him and yell at him and whatever slut he was with.

            Michael cheated on me so many times, and I never caught him—until Annette—until he wasn't my boyfriend anymore.  But he was my boyfriend for so long.  It felt like we were together for years.

            Annette's still waiting, although now she's twirling her hair in her fingers.  God!  What a moron.  Stupid Michael deserves her.

            "I don't want Michael, Annette.  I don't want to fight for him." 

            "What about your feelings for him?" she asks, and for a moment, I'm almost sorry for her.

            I take a deep breath.  "Maybe," I say slowly, "maybe I still have some feelings for him."  I hold up a hand to stop her—she looks like she's going to say something.  "But they're residual feelings."  Annette looks confused.

            I sigh again.  How can I explain this to her in a way that she'll understand?

"It's like—it's like your first really beautiful pink tutu.  When you're young and naïve, you love it and wear it all the time. But then you grow up, and though maybe you still like it, and it has a lot of memories attached to it, but it's not like you're going to wear it anymore because it won't fit.  And you'd look really stupid if you did try to wear it.  Instead, now, you have this new, gorgeous dress that you bought in Chicago that you absolutely love and—"

            Suddenly, my hands fly to my mouth and I realize something really and truly for the first time.  I love Steven.  He is my new, gorgeous dress.

            "I have to go, Annette.  I have to find Steven!" 

*~*~*~*

            This thing with me and Steven is JUST like the new ABBA song I heard on the radio just last week.  It goes, "Let me tell you now/Our love is strong enough/To last when things get rough/It's magic."

            That is SO us!  Those Swedish people really know a lot about love, you know?  I just hope Steven knows it too.  Because when this thing between us started this summer, I took a chance on him, and now I love him, and I can't imagine being without him. Now it's his turn to take a chance on me.

            I just hope he does.  I don't know what I'm going to do if he doesn't even want to try. 

            I'm just outside the Foreman's back door now, and I know he's inside.

            Breathe, Jackie, I tell myself.  You have to breathe.  You have to take this chance for love.  So I finally open the door, and there he is, his glasses off, his eyes…I can't tell.  Are they red?

            "Steven," I say, looking at him, loving him so much it hurts, "there's something I have to tell you."

[the end]