Confirmation

Author's Note: This takes place during Whole Lotta Love, after Jackie threw the sweater at Kelso, but before Hyde gave her the Led Zeppelin t-shirt. It is my first story, so please be gentle. You have no idea how nervous I am to even post this. I just had this scene living in my head and I had to write it down.

Disclaimer: I'm a public school teacher, so I own nothing. Seriously. Nothing.

Jackie returned to the basement to return Hyde's jacket. She had been so fed up with Kelso after finding out that he had stolen that beautiful pink sweater that she had taken it off and stormed out with much dramatic flair. She wasn't so caught up that she didn't think to grab her boyfriend's jacket on the way out, though. It was bad enough she had basically flashed Michael and Fez; she didn't need to flash the whole neighborhood, too.

It took her a while to calm down after returning home. It wasn't just that Michael had stolen the sweater. It was everything else. Everything that Steven had made her see about what he was really trying to do in giving her the damn thing. He made her finally realize what Michael had done throughout their entire relationship: buy her love. The worst part was that she was afraid he had learned it from her, just as she had learned it from her parents. Their whole relationship was spent giving each other things to keep the other from leaving. Jackie bought him clothes and gave him sex to keep him from straying, and when he inevitably did, he bought her pretty things to make it up to her.

Yep, giving presents was their "thing" and it always worked.

The thing that pissed her off the most, though, was that after all this time, Michael thought it would still work. And it had. Dammit, hadn't she changed this past year? She thought she had. She hadn't even told Steven it was her birthday, for Christ's sake! Keeping quiet about the biggest present-yielding day of the year was a huge step for her. But she knew he would get her something, and she really didn't want him to. Shocked the hell out of Jackie! But she didn't want giving presents to become their thing, too. She had made that mistake with Michael, and didn't want to make it with Steven.

Besides, they didn't need it the way she and Michael had. She didn't need gifts from Steven to know how he felt about her. She didn't even need the words, not that he'd ever say them anyway. His actions said it all. They always had. Telling her she could do better than Michael, teaching her Zen, taking the rap for her pot all said that he didn't, in fact, hate her. Risking his friendship with Michael, subjecting himself to the mockery of Eric just to be with her said he might even like her. Trusting her after she accidentally called Michael her boyfriend and taking her to that Valentine's Day dance at school, even when every fiber of his being screamed out that only losers go to high school dances, told her that he probably loved her.

So when she returned to the basement, she wasn't mad anymore. Her past with Michael, however regrettable it might be, was in the past and she just wanted to see her boyfriend, who was her present. When she found him putting laundry away in his room, though, she discovered he hadn't found the same kind of peace. He was moving rather quickly around his cramped room, practically throwing his folded t-shirts into the drawers of his dresser.

"I brought you your jacket," she ventured hesitantly.

He turned toward her voice and jerked his chin upward. "Hey," he said as her leaned toward her and kissed her softly, but briefly, on the lips. "Thanks."

"No problem." She sat down on his cot, her hands under her thighs.

His voice was flat as he continued speaking. "If you want that sweater back, you're gonna have to wrestle it away from Fez. I think he's…using it."

Jackie wrinkled up her nose. "Ew. No thanks." She watched as Steven put the last of his jeans into the bottom drawer and shut it. Hard. "You still mad about the sweater?" she asked, not really wanting to get into it.

He leaned back against the dresser, arms folded across his chest. "Nah, man. I'm over that," he said, shrugging. "I won," he added with a slight grin.

"Then what are you pissed about?"

For a split second, he thought of denying that he was angry. But he knew she could read him. Man, when did that happen? So he went ahead and told her, knowing she'd beat it out of him eventually. "Just…all that crap about your friggin' magical first time with Kelso. That dude seriously needs to learn to keep his mouth shut."

"He's just being Michael, Steven," she said, as if that explained everything.

"Yeah, well, he's gonna be Michael with my boot up his ass if he doesn't quit talking about the two of you doin' it," Hyde responded through gritted teeth.

"Steven! That's not very Zen of you," Jackie chastised playfully.

Hyde didn't fall for her attempts to distract him. "Where does he get off acting so smug anyway? Like he's got one up on me or something."

"So…Why don't you just tell him he doesn't?" she suggested with a shrug of her shoulders. "You know, tell him we're doing it, too."

"Too?" Hyde asked, his eyebrow raised.

"No, not 'too' like 'also'," she answered, rolling her eyes. "I meant, tell him you and I…" she motioned between their bodies, "… are doing it, just like he and I used to do it."

He knew what she meant, but it was too fun to watch her squirm. "Just like it, huh?"

"No, no, no," she stammered, rising from the cot. "Totally different. Totally better," she added as she approached him hopefully, laying her hands on his arms that were still folded across his chest.

Hyde remained silent for a moment, his face expressionless. Suddenly, Zen gave way to a grin. "I knew that." He untangled his arms and wrapped them around Jackie's tiny waist. "I mean, he's Kelso right? Man's got the attention span of a teensy fly."

Jackie grinned back, reaching up as he leaned down to kiss her purposefully. As the deep, soulful kiss dissolved into a series of soft, tender ones, Jackie jumped back, startling Hyde.

"Oh, oh, oh!" she exclaimed as she clapped her hands together, her eyes wide. "I could tell him!"

"What are you talking about?" Hyde was confused, but intrigued. Jackie ignored his question and continued excitedly, pacing in the small space.

"Yeah, Steven! I'll tell him how we did if after the Valentine's dance and, like, pretty much every day since then and that it's the best I've ever had. 'Cause it totally is," she added, stopping to look him square in the sunglasses, momentarily quieting her voice for effect.

Hyde just smirked at her, shaking his head. Man, my girl is insane.

Jackie was on a roll. "And…I'll tell him in front of everybody!" A brilliant idea came to her and she gasped, walking toward him once more. "Oh my God, I'll tell him in The Circle! Oh Steven, it'll be, like, the best burn ever!" She eagerly slapped her hands on Hyde's chest, smiling widely, proud of her deviousness.

Hyde simply lowered his head, shaking it slowly from side to side, amused at his girlfriend's excitement. Without saying a word, he raised his hands from her waist to cup her face as he leaned down to kiss her firmly on the lips.

"Nah, never mind," he finally said, straightening back up. "It's not my style to kiss and tell. You know and I know and that's all that –"

"-and Donna," Jackie interrupted.

Hyde stopped speaking, momentarily confused. Jackie looked up at him through her eyelashes sheepishly

Realization came to Hyde and he continued sarcastically, "Well, naturally Donna knows. That goes without saying."

Jackie knew he was teasing her, but still took offense to his insinuation that she…well… had a mouth of larger than average size. "Hey! She's my best friend," she said indignantly. "I'm contractually obligated to inform her of every momentous event in my sex life."

"Whatever. Big Mouth."

"I told you that you could tell Michael," she offered as consolation as she moved to sit again on Hyde's cot. "Or Eric. Hell, you can even tell Fez, for all I care. He'd probably get off on it."

"'Probably'?" he asked, incredulously as he joined her on his bed.

"OK. He definitely would."

They shared a quiet laugh for a moment until Hyde spoke up. "Nah. You know what? It's nobody else's damn business. Especially not Kelso's."

"Really?" she asked, kind of relieved. For some reason, she didn't want her sex life with Steven to become fodder for their infantile conversations in the basement.

"Yeah, man." He reached back to lay his arm across her shoulders.

"So, it'll be, like, our little secret?" she asked, looking up at him as she curled into his side.

"Sure. Yours, mine, and Donna's." His mouth eased into a devilish grin. "Our dirty little secret," he added, chuckling like a perverted old man as they settled back to lean against the wall.

They enjoyed the cozy scene for just a moment before Jackie suddenly jumped off the cot, looking down at him. She gasped as her hands flew up to cover her mouth. "Oh my God. It's because it means something to you! Isn't it, Steven?"

Hyde let out a deep sigh. "Jackie…" he began.

"No, Steven. I understand," she continued excitedly. "It's because this is the first time you've experienced anything like…like the transcendental joining of our very souls and…"

"Jackie,' he tried again, rising wearily from the cot.

But she wouldn't be stopped. "…all those skanks in your poor, seedy past meant nothing to you, so you had no problem bragging about the filthy, dirty things you did with them. But our lovemaking is so pure and beautiful that your conscience won't let…"

Hyde couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Our what? My WHAT? No, Jackie I…"

Oblivious to Hyde's objections, Jackie's face and voice softened with realization. "It's because with me, it's different. It's because you lo-" Hyde's hand clamping over her mouth cut Jackie's declaration short.

"Shut it, Jackie."

Her batting eyelashes just peeked above Hyde's hand and her muffled words could barely be heard as she looked up at him sweetly. "Oh, Steven!"

He dropped his hand from her mouth in resignation and his shoulders slumped. "Oh God."

He was beaten. Shaken down, once again, by a 95-pound brunette.

And, though he'd never admit it, he loved it.