by Jaded
Rated: PG-13
Summary: Jackie's mysterious gift leads her to seek out the giver. Final chapter.
A/N: I am so sorry this has taken months and months to finish, but at last it is done. This is the last chapter of this story and probably the last T70S fan fic I will be writing. Thank you to everyone who has been so supported of this story and especially those who have sent me feedback. It's been a rewarding writing experience and I can only hope that I do this final chapter some justice.
Chapter 10: More Than Just
It was not a question about letting people into
his life. He didn't do that. He never had. Even with Mrs.
Forman, who was like the mother he had never really had, Hyde had never let her
"in." The people around him sometimes toed the line or maybe wandered
around the periphery, peering through the cracks of a fence. Once in a
while, he might even let them in to visit, but those times were rare and few
and far in between because he had been burned too many times before. For
instance, when Bud had come limping back into his life, only to run off with
Edna in the end. One amongst many examples.
But now, with Jackie, he had opened a door. Hell, he hadn't
just opened a door. He'd opened the door and shoved in a pair of shoes, that's
what he had done.
He sat on his cot and cradled his head in his hands.
"Oh, God," he moaned.
Yet for all he was feeling, for everything he was thinking about,
he didn't regret his actions, not on that front, at least not yet. He had
laid his cards on the table and had at least that satisfaction that whatever
happened he'd been a man about it. Or
had he? He was still waiting to hear
from her, to find out her reaction. Jackie would understand, wouldn't she? Underneath all that pink, that bubbly-bitchy
front she put on when there were other people were around, Jackie was sharp.
He liked that about her. He liked it a lot. While someone like Donna might have been smarter, Hyde didn't know anyone else, except maybe for himself, who could burn someone like Jackie could. He had to give himself some credit though. Before he had taught her the ways of Zen, she had been another lost member of the flock.
He absently scratched his forearm, not sure what he was doing or what he was supposed to be doing or could be doing, because if he as going to be honest with himself, all he was doing now was thinking about her. Waiting for her. This wasn't an incarnation of himself that he was used to, and he didn't know if he liked it.
He got up and began to pace the room. There was going to be a groove in the basement floor soon if he didn't stop, but he felt nervous and twitchy, like he was expecting the police to come in any second, slam him up against a wall and read him his Miranda rights.
"I just need to get some air," he said out loud. He ran a hand through his curly hair, his fingernails digging into his scalp. He stopped his pacing and feeling determined, headed towards the door to go outside. Hyde paused a second before he opened it. His hand was on the knob, but a heartbeat went by before he opened it. Finally he just twisted the knob and swung the door open to be greeted by the same cement stairs that were always there. He felt embarrassment rush through as a hot flush, and cursed himself for being an idiot. What the hell had he been expecting, really? It wasn't as though she was really going to be there.
*
She flew out of her house to find him, but only after she had tried on the shoes a few times. And of course, since she had been trying on the shoes, she had to try them on with different outfits to see how they would look with this or that skirt, or occasionally, with the right slacks or jeans. She beamed at her reflection in the mirror as she twirled in a periwinkle blue dress, the first outfit she had tried on. The shoes had looked perfect, and she had to admit she looked knock-out. Maybe it had to do something with the shoes, she thought.
Jackie leaned in closer to the mirror and touched the palms of her hands to her cheeks. Was this the rosy flush of a perfect complexion, she wondered, or was this the flush of true love?
"Both?" she said out loud, and decided that yes, that must have been so. She spun around again, glowing with joy. She loved him. He loved her. He had to love her. She felt her heart flutter wildly in her throat. Steven Hyde and Jackie Burkhart. Who would have thought? Not her for one, but she couldn't imagine anyone else in the world besides him attached to her name, not even Donnie Osmond or Andy Gibb.
And certainly not Michael Kelso. What they had had was once beautiful, but it was over now, and she knew and she embraced it. A part of her past would always love him, maybe, but if she chose to live in the past she would still be wearing last year's fashions, and that was just wrong.
She had to find Steven now, to tell him about how she had finally broken it off with Michael, about how she had gotten his shoes, and how she was sure now that she loved him and wanted to be with him, and that he had to tell her the same. Jackie rushed to her bathroom and reapplied her make-up and spritzed herself with her favorite perfume.
An hour and a half after receiving the package, she rushed out of her front door in her brand new shoes and with his note tucked into the breast pocket so it would be near her heart. She touched it one more time and heard it crinkle in her pocket, smiling to herself that it was really there and that it wasn't all just a dream.
*
She pulled into the Forman's driveway at quarter past the hour and rushed down the back stairs to the basement. Mr. Forman who had been cleaning out the garage shouted after her.
"Get your damn car out of my driveway! I have to go to the store and you're blocking the Honda!"
"Sorry, gotta go!" she said, sprinting past him.
"Damn kids!"
When she reached the basement she was greeted by a loud, shrill scream.
"Jackie!"
"Fez!"
Fez looked shell-shocked and guilty, his hands holding onto what had once been a bright blue balloon. They stared at one another, then Jackie suddenly noticed her surroundings. Balloons and streamers were strung around the room in an attempt at making it look less ugly. There was a shiny banner that read "Happy Birthday." This was for her, she realized.
"What's going on?"
Donna emerged from Steven's room, a party hat sitting askew on the top of her mop of red hair. When she saw Jackie she stopped dead in her tracks. Behind her, Eric followed in tip-toe. "If it's a spider," he said, "I want none of that!" When he noticed Jackie his face went from fear to look of pain. "Oh, it's you," he said, his voice bored.
"You guys are throwing me a party?" she said, beaming.
"It was supposed to be a surprise," Donna said, taking the hat off.
"That's so sweet!"
"I'd just like to say right now that I had no hand in this," Eric said. "I was strong-armed into helping out." She saw him glare at Donna, and then saw him rub his arm tenderly. "Literally." Jackie ignored him.
"Well now the surprise is ruined!" Fez shouted, upset. "This means no surprise, no party, and no cake!"
"No it doesn't, Fez," Donna said.
He brightened. "You mean there still shall be sweet, delicious chocolate cake?"
Jackie scanned the room once more, hoping that Steven would emerge eventually, but he didn't appear. "Where's Steven?" she finally asked.
"Hyde?" Eric said. "He's probably off debauching as we speak. You know those wacky kids these days, always getting into some crazy shenanigans."
"Do you know where he is then?"
"Why are you looking for Hyde?" Eric ask, his eyebrow raised in suspicion.
"Oh nevermind!" she said, and turned heel to leave.
"Where you are going, Jackie?" Donna said. She took a giant lumberjack step and grabbed Jackie's elbow. "Since you're here, why don't we just start the party?"
Jackie ripped away from Donna's grip, then turned to her friend, her face fierce. Donna stared back, her look of confusion changing into a look of understanding.
"There's something I have to do," Jackie whispered, her eyes suddenly wet. Donna looked into her face and seemed to understand. She nodded without another word and let Jackie go.
*
With every minute that passed Jackie grew more and more anxious. She didn't know what it was but it seemed to her that every minute they were not together they were only slipping further and further apart. She had to find Steven. She had to find him now.
Her search covered most of Point Place. She went to places she had never ever visited before in her entire life. She went to places that they had been to together. The Point. The mall. The dark alley where he had taken the fall for her bag of pot.
After an hour Jackie began to wonder if maybe he was wandering around the town looking for her. Maybe, she thought, they were both going to the same places but just not at the same time. Maybe they just kept on missing one another. Jackie imagined him standing in the spot where they had had their first kiss, his eyes staring out into the tiny city below and thinking of her.
She considered staying in one place for an hour, maybe half an hour, waiting to see if he showed up. Then she felt her mood blacken and doubt crept into her mind. What if he hadn't been the one to send the gift? What if he was gone because he was with some other girl, some girl who wasn't her?
Jackie pulled her car to the side of the road and put her head against the wheel. What if she had just wasted all this time on a fool's errand?
It was then, though, that she saw a car she recognized, a black el Camino, gliding into the parking lot where the Foto Hut sat. She made out his shadow and no other and quickly pulled her car back into the lane to follow him.
She saw him disappear into the hut before she managed to get her car near, but he did not look as though he was going to be going anywhere soon. Jackie took a deep, calming breath before she got out, but it did little to help. Her nerves felt like she was being prickled with a hundred pieces of broken glass, but she knew she couldn't leave. She couldn't run away anymore. There was only moving forward, and towards him was the only way she wanted to go.
Jackie grabbed the door knob and burst in. "I broke up with Michael!" she blurted out. She waited to hear if he would say anything, or just even if he had anything left to say to her.
*
He had been thinking long and hard about it. "It" meaning "Jackie," and "Jackie" meaning…well he didn't know what but it was putting him on edge.
Hyde had driven around Point Place all afternoon. He had eaten some fries at the Hub, smoked a joint in a back alley near Point Place High, but it hadn't helped to clear his mind. Who would've thunk it, he thought wryly, weed and concentrated amounts of fat not making things any clearer to him?
A garden variety of thoughts had come to mind. He had mulled over various governmental conspiracy points. He thought about his friendship with Kelso. He thought about his relationship with his parents, or what had remained of it. And he had thought of Jackie, and he had thought about her long and hard.
Somehow he had ended up at the Foto Hut. Had he been looking for Leo? Hoping that the old stoner would have some sage words of advice? He didn't know for sure but in the end it didn't matter. Leo wasn't there.
The last person he expected to see was Jackie though, so when she appeared in the doorway a minute after he had entered, surprise would not have even begun to describe what he felt.
"I broke up with Michael!"
Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, but wisps of hair danced loosely around her face. Her cheeks were flushed with the lightest shading of pink and her eyes were large and dark and shimmering ever-so-lightly like the water in a wishing well. Hyde felt himself loose his breath for a moment, but recovered quickly, feeling his resolve harden, his grip on reality return.
"So?"
Jackie froze, taken aback by his response.
"So?" she echoed.
He clenched his fists, looked down at the floor, then back up at her. He shrugged.
"So?" she said again. Jackie took a step towards him. "And a shrug?" Her face burned with embarrassment, a hint of fury. "No!"
"No?"
"A shrug is not going to cut it, Steven!"
She was so close. He wanted to reach out and grab her, pull her into his arms and feel her squirm there. He wanted to remember how warm she felt, how comfortable she felt there next to him. But maybe that had all been a dream. Maybe what they had had was supposed to start and end where it had begun. Hyde didn't believe in fate and all that meant-to-be crap, but he did believe that some things were best left as they were.
What he and Jackie had had over those few weeks in the summer had been, (he felt like a sap for even thinking it), but it had been almost perfect. Every moment. Every day. It had been a reason to get up in the morning. It had been a reason to get up early and go to bed late, and even when he was dreaming, he was dreaming about her, and for a while he had felt something like happiness.
But if they continued any further, in all likelihood it would ruin that morsel of perfection. He wanted to keep it for himself, hide it away in his pocket. If he didn't end it now there would be fights. There would be anger. There would be abandonment or heartbreak, or betrayal. Life was such a joke already. He wondered if it was possible to keep just one thing that wasn't.
"Was there something you wanted to say to me?" he said evenly, trying to keep all emotion out of his voice. He leaned back against the counter trying to look cool and calm as possible.
Jackie took another step towards him. "I thought," she looked at the floor, then into his face, "I thought there was something you had to say to me, Steven." She gestured towards her feet. "I thought maybe, there was something you wanted to explain. Maybe something to declare?" Her voice rose on the list word, a lilt of hope. And here he was, ready to crush it. He had to.
"Well, you thought wrong."
She suddenly lashed out, kicking him in the shins with her new shoes. "Dammit, Steven!"
"Geez, Jackie!" he yelped, jumping away from her but banging into the counter instead. "What the hell?"
"What the hell? What the hell is wrong with you?"
Yes, he thought, what the hell was wrong with him?
"You buy me these shoes, you leave notes at my door. I don't know, Steven, from the evidence it looks like there's something you want to tell me."
A coldness swept through him, and though he knew what he was about to say was hurtful and untrue, he felt that he had to say it because he thought of the summer and he thought about the memory and how he could hold it tight and close forever, and the words came spilling out before he knew it.
"Some things just aren't meant to be, Jackie. Like us. We're not meant to be."
"What about," she started, "what about last summer? What about this whole last year? And what about today? You're telling me all of this meant nothing to you? Because I can't believe that."
"Jackie you believe in unicorns and fairies and true love. I don't. Don't you get it? We just don't make sense. I'm sorry if I lead you on or anything, but you'll get over it. You can write this off as one of those 'unrequited' things, but you'll get over it, and you'll get over me."
"You bastard." She was near tears. "If you think I'm just going to 'get over' this, then you don't know me at all."
"I never claimed to know you," he said quietly.
"But you do," she said, her voice a whisper, "and I know you."
He steeled himself for this moment. You're used to this part, he told himself. Just watch her leave and then turn around and don't look back. It gets easier with each and every time, but he knew he was kidding himself here.
But Jackie did not leave. What she did was drop the bomb, bring out the dragon killer, and it devastated him.
"I love you," she said. "Don't you get it yet?"
Sure you do, his brain told him, but he remained silent on that subject. He cleared his throat, tried to recompose himself.
"I could get any girl I wanted, Jackie. Why would I want to stick with just one?" The words stuck in his throat like a sideways pill, but he managed to get them to jumble out of his mouth.
"Because," she said, another step closer to him. He could almost smell the scent of her shampoo on her hair. "Because maybe you could have any girl you wanted, I could get any guy I wanted, but it doesn't mean that either one of us would really want them, or that any of these random people would actually mean anything. Not like this. Like us."
She put a hand on his cheek. Her hand was soft and small and cold. Without realizing he had done it, his hand had reached up to cover hers. His fingers twined with hers and they held it there.
"I don't need you to say that you love me, Steven, but I need something. You have to give me something. I'm not your mom, Steven. I'm not your dad. I'm not going to leave you if you don't want me to, but I need something."
She waited. He waited, and suddenly it was too long and he felt her pull her hand away from his, felt her slip away. She turned and tucked her hands into her pockets. She headed for the door and he helplessly watched her go. She was halfway out and it was then that he found his voice.
"Jackie."
She stopped but did not turn around, but she was waiting. He just needed the time.
"Jackie," he started again, and told himself to stop thinking and being a pansy and just say it before it was too late. "I--"
"Yes?" she said slowly.
"I do…like you."
She finally turned around and he saw her smile. It had been a long time since he had last seen it.
He bit his tongue and then cursed himself. Bit the bullet, dumbass, he thought. Get it over with.
"I like you. I…I more than just like you."
Jackie squealed, and she as suddenly in his arms, squirming around and kissing him all over his face. He had to fight her off to get another word it.
"Geez, Jackie, chill will you?"
"You like me! A lot! I knew it!" Her grin as triumphant and infuriating.
Hyde knew only one patented way of getting that off her face. He leaned in and kissed her, his tongue finding her lips and opening her sweet mouth to make the kiss even deeper. Jackie more than willingly reciprocated, her arms reaching around him to pull him closer if that was even humanly possible.
She broke the kiss to nuzzle his face, and then he pulled her back in for another kiss, relishing the softness of her face and the warmth that was washing his coldness away. The tiny morsel of perfection began to grow. He could feel it surging through his blood, clouding his brain. Then again, maybe it was just Jackie and the effect of kissing and holding her, but maybe it was all one in the same. He hugged her tighter.
"Thank you for the shoes," she whispered, her lips grazing his earlobe.
"Any time, babe," he said, kissing her again. "Any time."
THE END