Chapter 10
Jackie's Choice
New York City August 2000
Jackie stormed into her ex-husbands office, as he seemed to smile with a sinister look on his face knowing that'd she'd be here in a huff over her interrupted wedding to that low-life Steven Hyde.
"I knew you'd be here, Jackie."
"Shut the hell up, Brad-how dare you use Michael just to stop my wedding to Steven? You son of a bitch!"
He went around his desk to look her over-tiny but sexy. She was a good f***. "You don't have to resort to name calling, do you?"
"You are not stopping Steven and I from getting married, we love each other and there's nothing you can do about it, we're divorced, remember?"
"I know I can't stop the wedding but there's one thing I can stop-why don't you sit down on the sofa there and think about it?"
"Don't condescend to me. Okay, you hate Steven, fine. But what about your daughter don't you love her? Why would you deny her having a good Father? Because it certainly isn't you."
"And it's Steven Hyde? Please, Jackie. No one in their right mind would let that man near a child."
Jackie slapped Brad across the face, "I hate you so much. Steven is a good man and I know that you have a price."
"Everyone does, even you."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that I have all the cards and you don't have a single one to put on the table."
"My lawyer---"
"My attorney can mop the floor with your attorney. There is one thing I might consider."
Jackie bit her lip. "No."
"I'll drag this out in court for years to come-Tiffany will be grown up and won't need to quote you a 'good Father'. And not only do I have the ability to get criminal charges dropped for my friends and me, I can also make other people's charges reappear. So think about it, Jackie. No strings."
She tried not to cry, but she knew that he was serious.
"I'm not married to Steven yet."
"We can arrange something for after."
"You are a bastard."
"So you keep telling me."
"I need to think about this." She wanted Steven and her daughter to be happy.
"Hey, honey, I'm not forcing you to. If you choose to it's all consensual."
Everyone has a price.
Hyde strummed his guitar in the living room. He and Jackie hardly ever went to their country hideaway in Pennsylvania. He wanted to take Tiffany there so she could really run around and get dirty like all kids should. She was putting together a 10-piece jigsaw puzzle that her dill hole buddy got her. He looked at the Grandfather clock and wondered why was Jackie so late?
She didn't have work today, she only said she needed to run some errands.
"I'm home," Jackie tried to sound like her normal self, there was no doubt that Steven would go over there and kill Brad with his bare hands and Jackie knew that he could and would do it.
"Mommy!" Tiffany ran to her. Jackie picked her up, she was getting too big for her to do that much longer.
"Hi, baby, --what are you doing?"
"My R2-D2 and C3-PO puzzle that Eric bought me."
"When you finish it, we can get it framed for you."
"Cool." She ran back to her spot on the floor.
"Hi Steven," Jackie kissed him on the lips as if she were gone for fifteen years and not two hours, "I missed you."
"Are you okay?" He asked
"Yes, never better." Hyde didn't know if he believed her or not.
"I'm in the mood for pizza, do you want your usual garden salad?"
'You better say yes, or he'll know something is wrong' "Sure. Tiffany, would you like to go with Steven?"
She put her last piece (R2-D2's scope eye) in the puzzle. "Okay! Can we get cheese sticks?"
"Sure."
"You guys have fun." Jackie said as the phone rang. She waited for them to be out the door before answering it.
"Hi, Jackie, what's up?"
"Hi, Donna. You sound very tired. How's Eric doing?" She knew he went straight from their honeymoon in Bermuda back into rehab and Donna did not want Hyde or the Forman's to know about it.
"Compared to the state he was in the last time he entered rehab, I'd like to think better."
"He'll pull though." Although, Jackie did know of a great number of people who were in and out of rehab centers for their whole lives. She hoped Eric could beat his demons and those odds that he was destined to a life of more relapses and rehab attempts.
"I hope so. How are you and Hyde? Did you two decide on a wedding date?"
"Good. Probably before September."
"Are you okay, Jackie? You don't sound like yourself."
"I'm fine. I just have something important to think about." She could just picture telling Donna this and Donna freaking out that "a man has no right to make a woman to submit herself to his urges in order for an adoption to go through".
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Listen, Donna, I have to go. I'll talk to you later. Be there for Eric- he needs you. Bye." Jackie hung up before Donna could respond.
For the first time in her life Jackie actually wished that she was Donna.
A week later
For Love
Jackie looked at the clock-four o'clock am right on the dot. It was becoming her wake up time. She tried her best not to wake up Steven who kept asking her if she was all right. He actually thought when he let an insecurity or two get the better of him that she regretted choosing him over Kelso. Jackie reassured him that, that was not true. She loved Steven more than any other person in the world with the exception of her daughter. Jackie quietly walked to the bathroom she needed a scalding shower to drown out the coldness in her soul. What a complete waste of space Brad was. She thought about how they met. It was at a fundraising party that Jackie helped organize. She couldn't help but be attracted to his collegiate upper class summer home in the Hamptons looks. She realized now that she was nothing but a conquest for his Frat buddies and arm candy for cotillions at the Country Club. Little by little she had forgotten about Steven and Michael and settled into this extremely wealthy (so much opulence that it made her background seem like the Forman's!) cover of Town and Country lifestyle. If it weren't for her job she would have been the typical society matron. She was thankful for the nights when Brad wouldn't be home and she didn't have to please him. The only good thing that came from his pleasure was their daughter. Jackie never thought she'd be someone's Mother but she loved being pregnant and had the much talked about glow that everyone says you have when you're with-child. Brad didn't seem interested in her pregnancy. All he cared about was another dividend. She could've used Donna's friendship then, she felt so alone. The caring women at work was not the same. She was alone in the apartment when her water broke and it was the doorman James who had to rush upstairs and put her in a taxi. She never felt so alone in her life. It was worth it when Tiffany was born, when they put her screaming, squirming body in her arms. Brad didn't come the hospital for a day and a half and by that time she was ready to be discharged and was very withdrawn with his own daughter which in retrospect Jackie realized she should've divorced him then. Now it's all come down to
sort-of consensual sex with her ex-husband so that Steven, her soulmate, could adopt Tiffany. Jackie knew that Brad held more important connections than she did-and those judges and lawyers could use those petty crimes against Steven in court making him seem unfit. She didn't know what to do, other than to submit herself. There was that nagging thought in the back of her mind that what if Brad went against his word? What if this was one big lie to get them in bed together and nothing more? She turned off the shower, she was as red as the fire in her eyes, she forcefully grabbed her towel off the hook and quickly drying her body. She hated Brad Worthington, she hated how Tiffany had his surname, and she hated herself for what she was going to do to rectify the situation. But she was doing it all for love. She was doing it all for Steven Hyde, to give him the family that he had always deserved.
A week later:
"What's the matter, Jackie? Are you sure you aren't harboring feelings for Kelso?" Hyde asked over the dinner table, Tiffany was with one of her playgroup friends allowing Hyde to be candid.
Jackie looked up as if awoken from her thoughts she was doing that a lot lately.
"No, Steven. Listen, we can't get married next week."
"Why?" He tried not to get on the defensive
"Because, Donna won't be able to fly in to be my maid-of-honor. She's out of town on business." Jackie felt bad lying to Steven about that, as well, but she couldn't exactly tell him Eric was in rehab again.
"Who needs a fancy wedding? We can elope," He tried to hold her hand but she pulled away, causing Hyde to lose his cool. "Damn, Jackie! Just what the hell is going on with you?"
Jackie stood up, "I don't want to talk about it, Steven, okay? You just have to believe me when I say that I love you." She felt her eyes water.
"This isn't love, it's your Jackie mind games." Hyde stood up and walked away from her.
"Steven, where are you going?" Now she was crying.
"Out."
"You don't understand-I love you."
Hyde never being one to look back just grabbed his jean jacket and went out the door leaving Jackie in a puddle of tears.
"Steven---"
~Jackie's Flashback~1979 Forman basement (original scene by me not taken from any of the episodes)
Jackie lived for moments like these. Her and Hyde had the basement all to themselves. Eric and Donna were off being annoyingly happy somewhere, while Kelso and Fez were busy trying to make their adolescence last longer. She rested her head on his chest feeling complete.
"I love you, Steven." She said, almost in a whisper
"I love you too, Jackie." He never thought he could love someone, let alone popular and perky Jackie Burkhart. Steven Hyde was the farthest you could get from what the popular cliques deemed acceptable. If they didn't like A-V club treasurer-secretary Eric Forman then they certainly didn't like hubcap stealing, government hating, school ditching, hatred of all things authority Hyde. They were a total mismatch on the surface but deeper where true feelings lay they had a great deal in common. Even though she came from money she too had lousy parents. Even though she was popular she sometimes hated being a part of the cliques. Even though others thought "Why are Jackie and Hyde a couple?" The both of them knew it was only their feelings towards each other that counted.
She could hear sounds coming from upstairs. She didn't want to share him with the gang.
"Quick, Steven, before everyone comes downstairs, let's go to your room."
"You know, Jackie," He kissed her on the lips, "I like your style."
~End flashback~
Jackie didn't know what to expect when she brought Tiffany home from her playgroup. Did Steven return? She was so afraid to open the door but had to be strong for her little girl, who was clutching a miniature Stormtrooper key chain that said, "these are not the droids that you're looking for" when you squeezed it driving her crazy.
"Mommy, are you sad?"
"No, honey, why?" It was stupid to lie to children they could always tell if you were lying to them. Especially if you were lying to protect them.
"You were crying."
"Oh, I wasn't crying, baby. The tears were from my allergies."
The door was opened and it didn't seem like Steven was back from wherever the hell is that he went.
Jackie let Tiffany run and play inside the apartment and sat in her office for privacy. This was insane. It was the year 2000 and her well connected, wealthy dill hole of an ex-husband was using her as a pawn in order for Steven to legally adopt Tiffany. It was her choice-Brad made that point clear, still she wondered if he was lying? What if she succumbed to him only to find out that he still would drag Steven's name and small, petty criminal record through the mud? She let Steven Hyde storm out of the apartment. What if he didn't come back?
All their lives they've had set backs. Sometimes it was her fault, other times it was his fault, and sometimes in situations like these it was the fault of the Gods, she supposed. Maybe, they weren't meant to stay together. Maybe all they were good for was a bunch of quick f****. She thought about calling Donna, but she really did not want to tell anyone the situation her ex-husband put her in and besides Donna had enough problems with making sure this was Eric's last stand in a rehab center. She always thought Steven Hyde was someone to behold he was strong and didn't believe in authority. The only adults she ever saw him respect were Red and Kitty Forman. When she smoked her first joint in The Circle she felt like she was accepted into the group and not just because she was "Kelso's girlfriend". She and Donna became closer because of all the time they spent in the basement. It seemed a waste that they had stopped their friendship when they got older. She didn't know what to do. She didn't want to lose Steven (yet again) not when they were this close to being married. She wanted her daughter to have a real Father figure. Jackie heard the door open and close. Steven was back. She wanted to bolt out of her chair and run to him giving him the most passionate embrace, but she couldn't. She pretended to be typing on her computer when she felt his presence in the doorway. 'He's going to break my heart, I know it.' She could feel the tears well up in her eyes. It always ended in tears for Jackie Burkhart.
"Jackie." Hyde said to her not moving from the doorway.
She turned around trying desperately not to cry, "Steven---?" She let his name hang in the air.
She sighed. She knew what was coming. Sometimes when you took a risk, no matter how well you planned it, now matter how often you prayed, no matter how positive you tried to keep your outlook sometimes it would all backfire in your face anyway.
"I'm leaving." 'Yes, I knew that was coming'
Jackie stood up frozen in her spot as well. She wanted to tell him "No", but she couldn't. She wanted to kiss him, but she couldn't.
"Fine." She tried to say with no emotion. 'Don't go, Steven, I love you.'
"I better start packing my things." He turned to leave.
'When he's gone, I'm going to cry an ocean and eat a whole carton of ice cream'.
"You better."
Hyde was stunned he was expecting more of a fight from her.
ONE HOUR LATER:
This one of the hardest things Steven Hyde had to do. It broke his cynical, jaded heart. Tiffany was coloring at her tiny, pink drawing desk.
"Hi, Tiffany."
"Hi, Steven. I'm coloring you a picture."
"You are? Very cool. I have to talk to you first though." Tiffany knew that tone. It always meant grown ups were going to say something important and it was usually always bad.
She continued to color, almost going outside of the lines.
"I have to go. Your Mommy and I are not getting married."
She stood up, "Why?"
"Because sometimes adults change their minds." That sounded so lame to Hyde. The kind of stupid statement that any intelligent child could see right through.
"Don't you love Mommy anymore?" She didn't want to cry.
He picked her up and put her on his lap. "I'll always love your Mother. Sometimes you can love someone with all of your heart and you cannot be with that person."
"I like you, Steven." She started to cry.
"I like you, too, Tiffany." 'Damn Forman, he can still send her stuff in the mail, because he's not linked to Jackie, but I have to cut off all ties to this sweet child. F***.'
Tiffany slid off Hyde's lap and ran out the room crying for Jackie. He felt terrible about the whole situation.
He slowly walked to her table and ripped out the half finished picture of a farmer pushing an apple cart in a field. Tiffany made the apples red, green, and yellow and was starting to color the wheelbarrow brown. He folded it in half and put it in his jeans pocket.
Hyde had one suitcase and his old Army green duffle bag. He would get the rest of his things later. He was about to go out the door when he heard Jackie reasoning with the closet.
"Please, come out, Tiffany."
"NO!"
"I'll call maintenance." Her housekeeper lost several of the keys and Jackie didn't get them replaced.
"I DON'T CARE!"
Hyde put his bags down, trying his best not to look at Jackie.
"Come out of the closet, Tiffany."
"Are you and Mommy getting married?"
"I'm afraid not." Jackie and Hyde said in unison.
"THEN I'M NOT COMING OUT!"
"Okay, fine. But you'll miss supper tonight and I was going to take you to the Hard Rock since you had a great time there when Donna and Eric took you." "I DON'T CARE!"
"We're sorry this hurts you, baby. It hurts the both of us, too."
Silence.
"Are you all right in there?" Hyde asked looking for something to break the lock with.
"NO!" She was so stubborn. Wonder where she got that from?
"I'm calling maintenance they'll open the door." Jackie loved her daughter but was really in no mood for a temper tantrum.
"I WANT TO VISIT ERIC AND DONNA!"
What could Hyde say in response to that?
"I'm sure you'll be able to visit them soon."
"Maintenance is coming up. I'm going to wait by the elevators. Stay by her, Steven." Jackie still couldn't look him the eye and almost tripped over his suitcase.
"If you open the door I'll take you out for ice cream before I leave." That was a sh*** reply and Hyde knew it. He hated those cutesy bribes that adults did with children. It was like torn pages from an old cheesy sitcom script.
Silence again.
"Tiffany, are you okay?"
"NO!" She sat against the wall in the dark closet pressing against her Stormtrooper keychain.
"These are not the droids that you're looking for".
New York City August 2000
Jackie stormed into her ex-husbands office, as he seemed to smile with a sinister look on his face knowing that'd she'd be here in a huff over her interrupted wedding to that low-life Steven Hyde.
"I knew you'd be here, Jackie."
"Shut the hell up, Brad-how dare you use Michael just to stop my wedding to Steven? You son of a bitch!"
He went around his desk to look her over-tiny but sexy. She was a good f***. "You don't have to resort to name calling, do you?"
"You are not stopping Steven and I from getting married, we love each other and there's nothing you can do about it, we're divorced, remember?"
"I know I can't stop the wedding but there's one thing I can stop-why don't you sit down on the sofa there and think about it?"
"Don't condescend to me. Okay, you hate Steven, fine. But what about your daughter don't you love her? Why would you deny her having a good Father? Because it certainly isn't you."
"And it's Steven Hyde? Please, Jackie. No one in their right mind would let that man near a child."
Jackie slapped Brad across the face, "I hate you so much. Steven is a good man and I know that you have a price."
"Everyone does, even you."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that I have all the cards and you don't have a single one to put on the table."
"My lawyer---"
"My attorney can mop the floor with your attorney. There is one thing I might consider."
Jackie bit her lip. "No."
"I'll drag this out in court for years to come-Tiffany will be grown up and won't need to quote you a 'good Father'. And not only do I have the ability to get criminal charges dropped for my friends and me, I can also make other people's charges reappear. So think about it, Jackie. No strings."
She tried not to cry, but she knew that he was serious.
"I'm not married to Steven yet."
"We can arrange something for after."
"You are a bastard."
"So you keep telling me."
"I need to think about this." She wanted Steven and her daughter to be happy.
"Hey, honey, I'm not forcing you to. If you choose to it's all consensual."
Everyone has a price.
Hyde strummed his guitar in the living room. He and Jackie hardly ever went to their country hideaway in Pennsylvania. He wanted to take Tiffany there so she could really run around and get dirty like all kids should. She was putting together a 10-piece jigsaw puzzle that her dill hole buddy got her. He looked at the Grandfather clock and wondered why was Jackie so late?
She didn't have work today, she only said she needed to run some errands.
"I'm home," Jackie tried to sound like her normal self, there was no doubt that Steven would go over there and kill Brad with his bare hands and Jackie knew that he could and would do it.
"Mommy!" Tiffany ran to her. Jackie picked her up, she was getting too big for her to do that much longer.
"Hi, baby, --what are you doing?"
"My R2-D2 and C3-PO puzzle that Eric bought me."
"When you finish it, we can get it framed for you."
"Cool." She ran back to her spot on the floor.
"Hi Steven," Jackie kissed him on the lips as if she were gone for fifteen years and not two hours, "I missed you."
"Are you okay?" He asked
"Yes, never better." Hyde didn't know if he believed her or not.
"I'm in the mood for pizza, do you want your usual garden salad?"
'You better say yes, or he'll know something is wrong' "Sure. Tiffany, would you like to go with Steven?"
She put her last piece (R2-D2's scope eye) in the puzzle. "Okay! Can we get cheese sticks?"
"Sure."
"You guys have fun." Jackie said as the phone rang. She waited for them to be out the door before answering it.
"Hi, Jackie, what's up?"
"Hi, Donna. You sound very tired. How's Eric doing?" She knew he went straight from their honeymoon in Bermuda back into rehab and Donna did not want Hyde or the Forman's to know about it.
"Compared to the state he was in the last time he entered rehab, I'd like to think better."
"He'll pull though." Although, Jackie did know of a great number of people who were in and out of rehab centers for their whole lives. She hoped Eric could beat his demons and those odds that he was destined to a life of more relapses and rehab attempts.
"I hope so. How are you and Hyde? Did you two decide on a wedding date?"
"Good. Probably before September."
"Are you okay, Jackie? You don't sound like yourself."
"I'm fine. I just have something important to think about." She could just picture telling Donna this and Donna freaking out that "a man has no right to make a woman to submit herself to his urges in order for an adoption to go through".
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Listen, Donna, I have to go. I'll talk to you later. Be there for Eric- he needs you. Bye." Jackie hung up before Donna could respond.
For the first time in her life Jackie actually wished that she was Donna.
A week later
For Love
Jackie looked at the clock-four o'clock am right on the dot. It was becoming her wake up time. She tried her best not to wake up Steven who kept asking her if she was all right. He actually thought when he let an insecurity or two get the better of him that she regretted choosing him over Kelso. Jackie reassured him that, that was not true. She loved Steven more than any other person in the world with the exception of her daughter. Jackie quietly walked to the bathroom she needed a scalding shower to drown out the coldness in her soul. What a complete waste of space Brad was. She thought about how they met. It was at a fundraising party that Jackie helped organize. She couldn't help but be attracted to his collegiate upper class summer home in the Hamptons looks. She realized now that she was nothing but a conquest for his Frat buddies and arm candy for cotillions at the Country Club. Little by little she had forgotten about Steven and Michael and settled into this extremely wealthy (so much opulence that it made her background seem like the Forman's!) cover of Town and Country lifestyle. If it weren't for her job she would have been the typical society matron. She was thankful for the nights when Brad wouldn't be home and she didn't have to please him. The only good thing that came from his pleasure was their daughter. Jackie never thought she'd be someone's Mother but she loved being pregnant and had the much talked about glow that everyone says you have when you're with-child. Brad didn't seem interested in her pregnancy. All he cared about was another dividend. She could've used Donna's friendship then, she felt so alone. The caring women at work was not the same. She was alone in the apartment when her water broke and it was the doorman James who had to rush upstairs and put her in a taxi. She never felt so alone in her life. It was worth it when Tiffany was born, when they put her screaming, squirming body in her arms. Brad didn't come the hospital for a day and a half and by that time she was ready to be discharged and was very withdrawn with his own daughter which in retrospect Jackie realized she should've divorced him then. Now it's all come down to
sort-of consensual sex with her ex-husband so that Steven, her soulmate, could adopt Tiffany. Jackie knew that Brad held more important connections than she did-and those judges and lawyers could use those petty crimes against Steven in court making him seem unfit. She didn't know what to do, other than to submit herself. There was that nagging thought in the back of her mind that what if Brad went against his word? What if this was one big lie to get them in bed together and nothing more? She turned off the shower, she was as red as the fire in her eyes, she forcefully grabbed her towel off the hook and quickly drying her body. She hated Brad Worthington, she hated how Tiffany had his surname, and she hated herself for what she was going to do to rectify the situation. But she was doing it all for love. She was doing it all for Steven Hyde, to give him the family that he had always deserved.
A week later:
"What's the matter, Jackie? Are you sure you aren't harboring feelings for Kelso?" Hyde asked over the dinner table, Tiffany was with one of her playgroup friends allowing Hyde to be candid.
Jackie looked up as if awoken from her thoughts she was doing that a lot lately.
"No, Steven. Listen, we can't get married next week."
"Why?" He tried not to get on the defensive
"Because, Donna won't be able to fly in to be my maid-of-honor. She's out of town on business." Jackie felt bad lying to Steven about that, as well, but she couldn't exactly tell him Eric was in rehab again.
"Who needs a fancy wedding? We can elope," He tried to hold her hand but she pulled away, causing Hyde to lose his cool. "Damn, Jackie! Just what the hell is going on with you?"
Jackie stood up, "I don't want to talk about it, Steven, okay? You just have to believe me when I say that I love you." She felt her eyes water.
"This isn't love, it's your Jackie mind games." Hyde stood up and walked away from her.
"Steven, where are you going?" Now she was crying.
"Out."
"You don't understand-I love you."
Hyde never being one to look back just grabbed his jean jacket and went out the door leaving Jackie in a puddle of tears.
"Steven---"
~Jackie's Flashback~1979 Forman basement (original scene by me not taken from any of the episodes)
Jackie lived for moments like these. Her and Hyde had the basement all to themselves. Eric and Donna were off being annoyingly happy somewhere, while Kelso and Fez were busy trying to make their adolescence last longer. She rested her head on his chest feeling complete.
"I love you, Steven." She said, almost in a whisper
"I love you too, Jackie." He never thought he could love someone, let alone popular and perky Jackie Burkhart. Steven Hyde was the farthest you could get from what the popular cliques deemed acceptable. If they didn't like A-V club treasurer-secretary Eric Forman then they certainly didn't like hubcap stealing, government hating, school ditching, hatred of all things authority Hyde. They were a total mismatch on the surface but deeper where true feelings lay they had a great deal in common. Even though she came from money she too had lousy parents. Even though she was popular she sometimes hated being a part of the cliques. Even though others thought "Why are Jackie and Hyde a couple?" The both of them knew it was only their feelings towards each other that counted.
She could hear sounds coming from upstairs. She didn't want to share him with the gang.
"Quick, Steven, before everyone comes downstairs, let's go to your room."
"You know, Jackie," He kissed her on the lips, "I like your style."
~End flashback~
Jackie didn't know what to expect when she brought Tiffany home from her playgroup. Did Steven return? She was so afraid to open the door but had to be strong for her little girl, who was clutching a miniature Stormtrooper key chain that said, "these are not the droids that you're looking for" when you squeezed it driving her crazy.
"Mommy, are you sad?"
"No, honey, why?" It was stupid to lie to children they could always tell if you were lying to them. Especially if you were lying to protect them.
"You were crying."
"Oh, I wasn't crying, baby. The tears were from my allergies."
The door was opened and it didn't seem like Steven was back from wherever the hell is that he went.
Jackie let Tiffany run and play inside the apartment and sat in her office for privacy. This was insane. It was the year 2000 and her well connected, wealthy dill hole of an ex-husband was using her as a pawn in order for Steven to legally adopt Tiffany. It was her choice-Brad made that point clear, still she wondered if he was lying? What if she succumbed to him only to find out that he still would drag Steven's name and small, petty criminal record through the mud? She let Steven Hyde storm out of the apartment. What if he didn't come back?
All their lives they've had set backs. Sometimes it was her fault, other times it was his fault, and sometimes in situations like these it was the fault of the Gods, she supposed. Maybe, they weren't meant to stay together. Maybe all they were good for was a bunch of quick f****. She thought about calling Donna, but she really did not want to tell anyone the situation her ex-husband put her in and besides Donna had enough problems with making sure this was Eric's last stand in a rehab center. She always thought Steven Hyde was someone to behold he was strong and didn't believe in authority. The only adults she ever saw him respect were Red and Kitty Forman. When she smoked her first joint in The Circle she felt like she was accepted into the group and not just because she was "Kelso's girlfriend". She and Donna became closer because of all the time they spent in the basement. It seemed a waste that they had stopped their friendship when they got older. She didn't know what to do. She didn't want to lose Steven (yet again) not when they were this close to being married. She wanted her daughter to have a real Father figure. Jackie heard the door open and close. Steven was back. She wanted to bolt out of her chair and run to him giving him the most passionate embrace, but she couldn't. She pretended to be typing on her computer when she felt his presence in the doorway. 'He's going to break my heart, I know it.' She could feel the tears well up in her eyes. It always ended in tears for Jackie Burkhart.
"Jackie." Hyde said to her not moving from the doorway.
She turned around trying desperately not to cry, "Steven---?" She let his name hang in the air.
She sighed. She knew what was coming. Sometimes when you took a risk, no matter how well you planned it, now matter how often you prayed, no matter how positive you tried to keep your outlook sometimes it would all backfire in your face anyway.
"I'm leaving." 'Yes, I knew that was coming'
Jackie stood up frozen in her spot as well. She wanted to tell him "No", but she couldn't. She wanted to kiss him, but she couldn't.
"Fine." She tried to say with no emotion. 'Don't go, Steven, I love you.'
"I better start packing my things." He turned to leave.
'When he's gone, I'm going to cry an ocean and eat a whole carton of ice cream'.
"You better."
Hyde was stunned he was expecting more of a fight from her.
ONE HOUR LATER:
This one of the hardest things Steven Hyde had to do. It broke his cynical, jaded heart. Tiffany was coloring at her tiny, pink drawing desk.
"Hi, Tiffany."
"Hi, Steven. I'm coloring you a picture."
"You are? Very cool. I have to talk to you first though." Tiffany knew that tone. It always meant grown ups were going to say something important and it was usually always bad.
She continued to color, almost going outside of the lines.
"I have to go. Your Mommy and I are not getting married."
She stood up, "Why?"
"Because sometimes adults change their minds." That sounded so lame to Hyde. The kind of stupid statement that any intelligent child could see right through.
"Don't you love Mommy anymore?" She didn't want to cry.
He picked her up and put her on his lap. "I'll always love your Mother. Sometimes you can love someone with all of your heart and you cannot be with that person."
"I like you, Steven." She started to cry.
"I like you, too, Tiffany." 'Damn Forman, he can still send her stuff in the mail, because he's not linked to Jackie, but I have to cut off all ties to this sweet child. F***.'
Tiffany slid off Hyde's lap and ran out the room crying for Jackie. He felt terrible about the whole situation.
He slowly walked to her table and ripped out the half finished picture of a farmer pushing an apple cart in a field. Tiffany made the apples red, green, and yellow and was starting to color the wheelbarrow brown. He folded it in half and put it in his jeans pocket.
Hyde had one suitcase and his old Army green duffle bag. He would get the rest of his things later. He was about to go out the door when he heard Jackie reasoning with the closet.
"Please, come out, Tiffany."
"NO!"
"I'll call maintenance." Her housekeeper lost several of the keys and Jackie didn't get them replaced.
"I DON'T CARE!"
Hyde put his bags down, trying his best not to look at Jackie.
"Come out of the closet, Tiffany."
"Are you and Mommy getting married?"
"I'm afraid not." Jackie and Hyde said in unison.
"THEN I'M NOT COMING OUT!"
"Okay, fine. But you'll miss supper tonight and I was going to take you to the Hard Rock since you had a great time there when Donna and Eric took you." "I DON'T CARE!"
"We're sorry this hurts you, baby. It hurts the both of us, too."
Silence.
"Are you all right in there?" Hyde asked looking for something to break the lock with.
"NO!" She was so stubborn. Wonder where she got that from?
"I'm calling maintenance they'll open the door." Jackie loved her daughter but was really in no mood for a temper tantrum.
"I WANT TO VISIT ERIC AND DONNA!"
What could Hyde say in response to that?
"I'm sure you'll be able to visit them soon."
"Maintenance is coming up. I'm going to wait by the elevators. Stay by her, Steven." Jackie still couldn't look him the eye and almost tripped over his suitcase.
"If you open the door I'll take you out for ice cream before I leave." That was a sh*** reply and Hyde knew it. He hated those cutesy bribes that adults did with children. It was like torn pages from an old cheesy sitcom script.
Silence again.
"Tiffany, are you okay?"
"NO!" She sat against the wall in the dark closet pressing against her Stormtrooper keychain.
"These are not the droids that you're looking for".