DISCLAIMER: I don't own That 70's Show or anything related to it. I wish I did cause then I could make Jackie and Hyde be together. Humph… Oh well. Maybe the writers will be nice and let them be together soon.

Summary: Takes place in the 8th Season, during and after Fun It. Jackie and Hyde bottle up their feelings because they can't stand getting hurt again by each other. The final season leads them through tragedy and self-discovery. But will it lead them together again?

Chapter 4: Under My Skin

"Hurry up, Fez, the sale isn't going to last forever."

That was the whiney little voice he'd been hearing for five hours now and he was more than sick of it. Oh, he thought it would be great spending the entire day with the beautiful Jackie but it was hell. The bad kind of hell, as Hyde would say. All Fez wanted, more than beer or porno or candy (gasp!) was to be free from the spawn of Satan. He finally understood way Eric referred to her that way.

"Fez," Jackie said, glaring at him. Apparently he still wasn't moving fast enough. For a short girl, she sure could power walk around a mall.

"What Jackie? I have been following you around for hours now, what else do you want?" Fez said, his accent very clear but it had gotten better over the years since he'd arrived in America. Has it really been that long since I've been home to…

"Oh stop complaining. Because you wanted a pretzel, I missed out on ten minutes of shopping! And did I say anything about that?" she asked, very annoyed by her tone.

"Yes you did. And you wouldn't shut up about it for an hour. Then brought up again when we had lunch. And when we went shoe shopping. And…" Fez said before the dark haired midget he was accompanying cut him off.

"Fez! That's not even the point," she raged. "You said you wanted to go shopping, it's not my fault that you weren't ready to commit to it." Some people, Jackie thought. It amazed her that he could be so selfish.

"I agreed to go shopping. This is not shopping. It is cruel and unusual punishment," Fez yelled, rolling his r's throughout the entire ordeal.

"Fine, leave. I don't need to go shopping with you, even if you have better taste than Donna." With that, she spun on her heels and walked away defiantly.

"Good day," he screamed after her and left. Sure he was her ride there but she could find one home. He would have to deal with her yelling when she got home but after the torture he had just put up with, it was a small price to pay.

A while later he arrived at Hyde's record store, hoping that Randy wouldn't be there. He wanted to spend time with his friends that were either always there or at the basement, not hang around with the new guy. The new guy that got treated better than he did, he hated to admit. His brows furrowed with anger as he entered the store and creased more when he saw Randy behind the cash register. He remembered to when he got to stand behind there. He never really did anything but Damnit, it was his place to stand! Son-of-a-bitch.

"Hey Fez," Hyde said when Fez had walked to the couch that Hyde was sitting on. Donna was next to him and they were playing an older Led Zeppelin record.

"Hey," he responded.

"Fez, aren't you supposed to be at the mall with Jackie?" Donna asked with a grin on her face that clearly said 'You unlucky bastard'.

"I was but I left her there. She was being mean and she didn't even let me have any candy!" he said in the tone that half sounded gay, half sounded like he was a small child.

"You left her!" Hyde said and started laughing. He couldn't really help it. He knew what it was like to shop with Jackie and the fact that Fez left her was hysterical. "Way to go, man. I never had the balls to do that."

"I couldn't deal with another second of listening to 'Does this good?', 'How would this look with my red jumper?', 'Stop groping the bras, Fez, it's creepy'," he said and sat down on the edge of the couch.

"Well, someone's going to have to go get her," Donna said and got up, implying that she knew she'd have to do it.

"Hold up," Hyde said and stood with her. "I'll go get her. I've been spending way too much time in this place. I'm slowly becoming 'The Man', man."

Donna shrugged and sat down, "Suit yourself. At least she wouldn't get the chance drag me in there with her. If I ever hear her say that my body is too tall for anything pretty again, I might kill her."

The gang, or what was left of it, laughed. They stayed there for a minute, not speaking, just trying to pretend that everything was the way it used to be. But it wasn't and they knew it. Donna was sitting next to an empty space on the couch. Fez was backing no one up on how man-pretty they were. And Hyde was picking up ex-Jackie up from the mall, not girlfriend-Jackie.

Fifteen minutes later Hyde pulled the El Camino into a parking space in front of the big entrance at the mall. He got out and made his way to the doors, hands placed casually in pockets, glasses on. He had no idea where to look for her first. All he knew was that Fez and Jackie had scoured the top floor. Frustrated he walked slowly through the mall, peering into the shops. Finally he made his way to a small, but expensive shop in an alcove in the mall. There, Jackie was looking through a row of tops, checking the sizes, feeling the fabric, the perfect shopper.

He sighed deeply. He wanted to just stare at her forever, take in her form, remember the private times between them. But he knew she'd look over sooner or later and that would be bad. It might give her hope. And besides pain, that was the last thing he wanted to give her. Because hope led straight to pain and he knew that from every experience in his life.

Gathering his strength he walked into the posh store, ignoring the stares of the other customers until he was beside her. She didn't notice though, she was too busy examining a potential piece of clothing for her delicate body.

It was great shirt she had to admit. She'd spent almost five hundred dollars already but what did it matter? She had the money. Her mother gave her a very large allowance while she was away. But she didn't know if she wanted to spend any more. Suddenly, she smelt her favorite smell in the entire world. The strong, manly smell of smoke and soap. The smell of Steven. She looked over quickly, almost bumping herself into his chest. At the last second though she pushed herself back and away from the one place she really wanted to be. She couldn't be there though, so she glared at him and spat, "What are you doing here?"

"Picking your ass up, so hurry up or I'll leave and you really won't have any way of getting home," his words came out harsher than he wanted but it was better that they had. She looked at him before grabbing the shirt she had been pondering and going to the cash register to buy it. He followed behind her so she couldn't get any ideas of stopping to look at anything else on the way.

The cashier rung up the shirt and Jackie paid. Hyde stood behind her, tapping his foot slightly but impatiently. Why he'd ever volunteered to drive her home, he didn't know. If I didn't need to lay off the stash before, I really need to now, he thought, vowing that he would stick to his plan this time. Only three circles a day from now on.

"I'm done," she said, breaking him from his trance. He looked at her, taking in her face before leading her to where he parked in silence. That was also the way they drove home also, in silence. Jackie shifted in the El Camino, very uncomfortable with being in it. She kept thinking about all the times she'd driven with him. She looked at him and knew from his very slight grin that he was thinking about the other things that they'd done in the El Camino.

He didn't realize he was grinning until his eyes glanced over at Jackie, who was staring at him. Thankfully he had his glasses on so she couldn't tell that he had noticed. He let her continue, hoping that she'd stop soon. It was almost too much to bear. She was the only one who could read him and he knew she was reading him as he drove. Because he was focusing on the road, there wasn't much to read so she moved her eyes to the window and leaned her head against it. Hyde couldn't help but think how beautiful she looked with the light from the fading sun streaming in the window and onto her porcelain face.

"Look," he said, still gazing at the road. "I didn't mean to say anything about your mom. It was really shitty of me. I'm sorry."

"Whatever," she said, but her tone said that she meant a lot more than 'whatever'.

Authors Note: Sorry if I messed up Fez. Its so hard getting the perfect funny that is Fez. Review please!