A.N. Okay, for all you reviewers who keep begging for longer chapters, here you go. Also, I have borrowed a song from Coldplay for this story – probably breaking all sorts of copyright, but I've seen it done in other fanfics plus I could not write anything a quarter as good as my favourite band. The song makes most sense if Chapter 14 is fresh in your mind. So here goes and thanks again for all the write-ups.

Chapter 19

"Quick, someone get him a drink of water," Eric shouted, helping his friend to stand.

"Screw that – we need a six pack of beer stat!" Kelso yelled urgently.

"Kelso," Hyde said, breathing heavily as he tried to draw air into his lungs, "you know everything about Jackie, right?"

"Are you kidding? I am the grand authority on all things Jackie. I'm like the Merv Griffin of Jackie trivia."

"What's her favourite flower?"

"Pink roses," Kelso replied.

"And her favourite donut?"

"Chocolate with yellow sprinkles."

"And – oh God – what tree would she be if she was a tree?"

"A birch. She says their trunks are very slimming."

"It's her," Hyde breathed.

Eric's eyes widened into saucers as he realised the revelation that had just hit Hyde. In high excitement, he yelled "I didn't tell him! If Donna asks, I never told him that Jackie is Blue."

"Jackie is Blue!" cried Kelso and Fez. "Blue the hot chick drummer?"

"Oh crap."

"How long have you known, Forman?" Hyde asked. Eric was dismayed to find the angry accusation had crept back into his voice. Learning from recent events, he widened the distance between himself and Hyde. "How long have you been laughing at me behind my back?"

"Donna told me yesterday. I haven't been laughing for more than 24 hours, I swear." When Hyde took off his sunglasses to reveal the fury coiling inside of him, Eric wished he had rephrased his reply.

Hyde stalked Eric into a corner until he was trapped. "Forman, you had better answer this next question right or it will be the last thing you hear in this lifetime. Where is Jackie now?"

"At rehearsal," Eric squeaked.

……………………………………………………….

Hyde peeled out of the Forman driveway leaving a trail of burnt rubber tire treads for Red to grill him about later. As soon as Eric had gabbled the address of the place of rehearsal, he had left the basement, not sticking around to watch Kelso and Fez marvel at this late breaking news. Each time a new detail occurred to him that pointed to the truth, he pounded the steering wheel with his fist.

Never in his life had he felt like such a fool. It was like every burn he had ever put out into the universe had come back at him in some huge karmic barbecue. He knew he would never live this down and his anger at Jackie for doing this to him was only matched by his sense of betrayal with Blue. Just like his mother, she had wormed her way into his heart with sweet lies for the pleasure of breaking it. Even yet he had trouble thinking of Blue and Jackie as the same person.

He screeched to a stop outside of Trevor's house. From behind the garage roller door he could hear a guitar playing. With a face set like judgment day, he yanked open the door to confront his betrayer – only to find the skinny kid who had started that ridiculous fight on Veterans Day.

"Where's Jackie?"

Trevor sized Hyde up; he had known all along this moment would come. Judging from the menace in Hyde's manner, it was a good thing Jackie had caught a ride home with Dave ten minutes ago.

"You just missed her," Trevor answered. "Steven Hyde, right?"

"Yeah," Hyde said, passing a frustrated hand through his hair as he surveyed the garage, as though expecting Jackie to be concealed behind the paint cans. "Wait, what do you know about me?"

"Are you kidding? You're Jackie's favourite topic; Oh, Steven danced with me last night so romantically,'" Trevor mimicked in a Jackie-falsetto.

"Sounds to me like you've been in on her scam from the beginning," Hyde growled. Most people lacking Trevor's muscle would have become pretty fearful at this point, but Trevor was unfazed. There was even a touch of hostility in his voice as he replied,

"You could say that. I mean, I did talk her into the whole secret identity thing, and I did give her some tips on how to keep up the act with you so you didn't screw up everything the band has been working for." Trevor picked up his guitar and began tuning it, as though he found it more worthy of attention than Hyde. "Of course, I don't think either of us could have guessed this ruse would play out for so long. I mean, come on, Man! Her disguise wasn't that good – how could you not know who she was?"

Hyde was taken aback to find the offensive turned towards him. "Hey! How the hell was I supposed to know? Blue was nothing like Jackie." But even as he said it he knew it wasn't true. There had been so many similarities, so many slip-ups, not to mention the way his body would react to both girls the same way. How ironic that his penis was actually smarter than his brain.

Trevor looked up from his guitar, his usual larrikin humour absent from his eyes. "If you really believe that, then you've got nothing to be mad about. If you couldn't see past the packaging, then she couldn't have meant that much to you. Better that you end this thing with Jackie now; she's got enough people in her life who only care about how she looks, not who she is."

"What's that supposed to mean," Hyde asked, but with less attitude than before.

"I've known that kid since we were 10 and I've never met anyone more convinced that what showed on the surface was all there was to life. I used to tease her about it, you know – called her a stuck-up princess, that kind of thing – but when she would let slip stories about her parents" Trevor's face twisted as though he tasted something bad, "I kind of got how she had come to think that way. And I felt sorry for her having to grow up like that."

"You felt sorry for Jackie? The richest girl in Point Place? I don't know what kind of line she's been feeding you, but Jackie's always boasting about her folks to the rest of us. I can't count the number of times she's bragged about the car her daddy's gonna buy her or all the credit accounts her mom opened in her name at the mall. I should be so lucky to grow up with "bad" parents like that."

"Yeah, sounds great. Tell me, have you ever heard Jackie talk about something good her parents did for her that didn't involve giving her money?"

"Well… no," Hyde said, thinking back. "But she did say her dad works long hours and so can't spend as much time with her as he'd like."

"Like I said, appearance is everything to her. She's not gonna say that her parents are selfish flakes who have never been there for her a day in her life."

"How do you know all this if she's never said anything?"

"Unlike you, I can read between the lines," Trevor replied. "Like the way she was blown away when my dad taught her how to play the drums. She just couldn't get over a father figure actually spending time teaching something to her. Or how whenever time would get away from us and we'd play late into the night, she never once said "My parents are going to kill me". What kind of parents don't care where their kid is at night?"

"Well, mine never did," Hyde said gruffly. "Maybe her parents didn't pay as much attention as they should, but it's better than having an alcoholic whore of a mother."

"Ah, I take it you've never met Pam Burkhart."

"Really?" Hyde's eyes widened in surprise. "You mean…" he made a drinking gesture.

"And then some."

"Wow, I had no idea."

"Of course you didn't. Jackie's the daughter of a member of the town council and an ambitious socialite. It's been drummed into her from infancy that she must behave herself to fit their image and not spill anything that would tarnish their precious reputations. You may have had it rough, Hyde, but at least you had the freedom to gripe about it. Jackie couldn't even do that or she'd lose the only positive thing her parents would throw her way – their approval. No substitute for love, but a kid will take what she can get. That's why the drums have been a salvation for her. All that resentment at her parents she's been stuffing down inside of her all her life finally had an outlet. It's also what kept her coming back here, even though it was in direct opposition to her life's purpose of keeping up appearances."

Hyde felt an alien emotion overtake him. It took him a moment to recognise it but was annoyed to find that it was guilt. Guilt that he never saw what Jackie was going through, even though out of everyone in that basement he was the most qualified to recognise it. But this wasn't fair – Jackie had tricked him, he wasn't the one who should be feeling bad about it.

"Look, I'm sorry for the poor little rich girl and all but that's no excuse for what she did to me!"

"And what exactly did she do to you?" Trevor asked coolly.

"She made a fool of me, Man," Hyde cried, reclaiming his grievance. "She lured me in with her rocking ways and fake zen and once she had me all sewn up in her little spider's web she tells Donna and Eric about it so they can all laugh their asses off behind my back."

"Actually, Donna found out on her own and I'm guessing she was the one who told Eric. She followed Blue here after school one day and, I can tell you, Blue was not happy to be discovered. Her determination to keep this part of her life a secret is pretty much an obsession for her. I think you'll have to acquit her of doing this for the purpose of bringing you down. This really wasn't about you at all."

"Oh yeah? Then why did Blue come onto me? If she wanted to keep it a secret, she should have sent me packing from the start."

"And didn't she?" Trevor asked quizzically. "I remember Jackie telling me about that night; I was very proud of her for not breaking character and giving the game away. But she told me that she gave you a pretty brutal set down so you'd keep away from her. Something about turning your own words against you."

"My own words…" Hyde suddenly remembered how Blue had dissed him that night; "You're, like, a 'burb. A white bread. You're just too square for me." Reluctantly, a grin spread across his face as he realised how neatly Jackie had turned the tables on him for calling her a square at the Hub two months ago. "Well, what do you know?"

"Well, I guess you can remember what came after that," Trevor remarked with a knowing grin. "According to Jackie, the earth stood still and the stars exploded in the heavens."

"She always did have an overly romantic vocabulary," Hyde said, remembering his first kiss with Blue. Still, he couldn't disagree with her assessment.

"Look Man," Trevor said seriously, levelling with Hyde, "Jackie hid the truth from you firstly to protect the band – cause if management or her parents ever found out about her, we'd lose our drummer – but then it was to protect herself because she thought you would drop her if you knew who she really was. But then these last couple of weeks, something shifted for her. Lately she'd come back from being with you all irritated that you still hadn't seen through her disguise. And let me tell you, it's a pretty major thing for Jackie Burkhart to want someone to look under the surface and know who she really is. Then there was Veterans Day – she never told me exactly what went down between you two, but from the way she's been pounding murder on the drums this week I'm guessing it wasn't good."

"Yeah," Hyde said, not meeting Trevor's eyes as he remembered how he had lied to her about their kiss. He had told himself he was doing the right thing, staying loyal to Blue, but now he realised it was fear that had held him back. He had a choice between a girl who would enhance his reputation and a girl who would detract from it and he had taken the easy way out, ignoring his instincts and his heart. It came home to him that Jackie was not the one who had made a fool of him – that had been a do it yourself project.

Trevor observed the chastened Steven Hyde and gave a satisfied nod that he had plead Jackie's case well. Perhaps it was time to throw him a bone of hope and help his old friend in the bargain. He stood up and started fiddling with the makeshift stereo system, rewinding a tape recording back to zero.

"I guess I really can't complain too much about the fact that you broke my friend's heart," he said cheerfully, "seeing as how her song writing always improves when she's feeling down. Take this song she wrote a couple of days ago, for instance. Now, you'll have to give me some licence with this number - I know a back-up tape is no match for the real thing, but it will give you an idea." So saying, Trevor pressed play on the tape deck, accompanying the taped back-up keyboard and drums with his guitar. Hyde listened spell bound as Trevor sang Jackie's heart out:-

So I looked in your direction,
But you paid me no attention, do you.
I know you don't listen to me.
'cause you say you see straight through me, don't you.

On and on from the moment I wake,
To the moment I sleep,
I'll be there by your side,
Just you try and stop me,
I'll be waiting in line,
Just to see if you care.

Did you want me to change?
But I change for good.
And I want you to know.
But you always get your way,
I wanted to say,

Don't you Shiver, Shiver, Shiver
I'll always be waiting for you,

So you know how much I need ya,
But you never even see me, do you?
And is this my final chance of getting through?
On and on from the moment I wake
To the moment I sleep,
I'll be there by your side,
Just you try and stop me,
I'll be waiting in line,
Just to see if you care.

Did you want me to change?
But I change for good.
And I want you to know.
But you always get your way,
I wanted to say,

Don't you Shiver, Shiver, Shiver
I'll always be waiting for you,

And it's you I see, but you don't see me.
And it's you I hear, so loud and so clear.
I sing it loud and clear.
And I'll always be waiting for you.

"Not bad, hey?" Trevor observed to a dumbstruck Hyde. "I'm thinking it's the sort of song that won't make a break away radio hit but will always be a secret favourite of the fans."

"Jackie wrote that?" Hyde asked in awe. The words of the song had been simple, but her frustration and sadness had rung through them with the clarity of a crystal bell.

"Sure did. It'll be much better when we find a new bass player," Trevor said, his mind slipping back into its usual music obsession groove.

"What, I thought you had one – that slimeball I knocked out last week, wasn't it?"

"Well, there's no way I'm gonna have a guy on my band who calls my friend a bitch to her face," Trevor stated. "My cousin is subbing for us this weekend but I'll have to get the word out on the circuit that we're looking for a bass."

"You know, I may be able to help you out there…" Hyde said thoughtfully.

Next week will be all Hyde and Jackie – and my favourite chapter, by the way. Thanks for all the good wishes and I assure you I am healing nicely.