It had been weeks since any of the gang had seen Jackie; and what was once six was now down to three.
The three of them sat spread out across the sitting area in Eric Forman's basement:
One on his chair by the deep freeze, with three empty cans of beer at his feet.
One arms folded and legs crossed, all by herself on the couch.
And the last one with his face in a dirty magazine by the basement door.
A lewd giggle would emanate from the one by the door from time to time, breaking an alien silence that had never before been part of the basement atmosphere. Back then anyway — when there had been six.
Two of the three would never admit it, but the sudden disappearance of Jackie weighed more heavily than they had anticipated, but in differing ways to the both of them.
The sweet smell of something baking wafted down from the kitchen, and the three of them latched on to it like bloodhounds.
"Smell that?" Hyde asked and crushed the can of his fourth beer in his fist. He threw it under his chair.
"Yeah," answered Donna, looking up towards the stairs.
"Mmmm, cookies," said Fez, magazine forgotten and he leapt up and bounded towards the stairs.
And then there were two.
Fez was pouting in the kitchen with his hands on his hips.
"But Ms. Kitty, why didn't you make Fez's favorite kind with the M&Ms?"
"Now, dear, you can have some of these instead," Kitty answered, as she carefully sorted the cookies in two different piles to cool.
"But, those are Eric's favorite," he grumbled as he poked at one. "Chocolate sprinkles are not real chocolate," he whined and looked cursorily at the other pile. "And no chocolate in these here at all."
He grabbed one and looked at it closely. "What's this one anyway, Ms. Kitty?"
"Macadamia nut," she said absently and looked up as he put it back. She frowned disapprovingly. "No honey, you touched it, you eat it."
"But I don't even like macadamias," he complained. "Those are Yackie's favorite kind."
There was a sudden silence as Kitty jerked her head up, wide-eyed.
Their eyes met.
A moment passed, then two.
Fez's eye brow twitched. Something clicked in his head. His eyes grew wide and he gasped loudly.
He pointed a finger at Kitty. "You know!"
Her hand flew to her chest as she stared at him in indignation. "You know?" she asked in a loud whisper, an affronted expression firmly on her face.
"Of course I know! I live with her! She swore me to secrecy," he hissed back.
Kitty huffed. "So did he!"
She paused to consider the accuracy of her statement, and then retracted as she reached for a letter in her apron pocket.
"Well, actually what he said was: 'Mom, Jackie's in Africa. She doesn't want anyone to know.'" —she looked at Fez from beneath her brows— "He underlined that part hahaha." Glancing back at the letter in her hand, she continued reading Eric's words out loud, "'She misses cookies, send some along with mine please.'"
Kitty re-folded the letter. "Well then," she said and looked up to find Fez dragging a shoe across the ground guiltily.
"Ai," he said uncomfortably, looking at something behind her.
She turned around slowly and reluctantly, to find Hyde and Donna staring at her with identical expressions of stunned disbelief.
"Jackie's in Africa?!" Donna yelled.
"Looks like everyone knows now," Fez muttered.
Kitty looked from Donna to Steven and back to Donna again.
"Um," she said. "Ah-hahahhaha!"
"Jackie? Hey look what I—"
Eric stopped mid-sentence as he walked into their hut clutching a small bouquet of flowers only to find it empty. A trader had stopped by the village earlier in the day with a cart loaded with freshly cut roses. They were beautiful, an intense orange with red edges that reminded him of the sun. He had bought a bunch without hesitation, for he had sensed that something had been troubling Jackie for the last couple of days and he wanted to cheer her up.
She had lunch on the table ready for the both of them, but she wasn't there waiting for him like she usually was. He placed the flowers on the table and went out back to see if she was there.
Twenty minutes later, he had scoured the entire village and the usual places where she might be at this hour and came up empty. No one had seen her since breakfast this morning when she had walked him to the school building like they always did. Eric was beginning to worry, but then he remembered her Thorn tree.
He found her huddling figure at the base of the sprawling tree, and even from the distance, he could tell that she was distraught. He crossed the distance in brisk strides and bent over her form with deep concern.
"Sweetheart, what's wrong?"
She looked up at him with a devastated look on her face.
Eric squatted down and pulled her into his arms. "Jackie. What's wrong."
There was a long pause and she battled with how to tell him her news. Then, in barely a whisper, she said, "I'm late, Eric."
Eric froze. A searing pain almost knifed him in two at her words. Jealousy, white and hot, flooded his being and he could barely breathe.
Jackie felt him tense and instinctively held on harder. She began talking, a string of words pouring forth in a jumble, explaining how she was never regular, but this time she was really, really late.
She looked at him to find his gaze fixed resolutely at a point in the horizon. His jaw was taut and the arms that he had around her were rigid with tension. She clutched at his arms, desperate for him to say something, anything.
"Hyde?" he finally asked.
He felt her nod, the top of her head brushing his chin.
He felt bile rise up the back of his throat and ruthlessly forced it back down. He willed himself to focus on the girl in his arms and not the sick swirl of unnameable emotions eating at his gut.
"I slept with him a few days before I came to Africa," she said brokenly. "It was after Sam left. He needed me. And I… I just love him so much."
Eric visibly flinched at her words.
"I'm so worried," she cried out. "What am I going to do?"
It took almost all that he had to say it. But somehow, he managed to force it out.
"Don't worry, Jackie. I'm here," he said quietly, and as he said it, he knew he meant every word. He brought a hand up to stroke her hair as she sobbed in his arms. His voice was low and thick with meaning as he repeated, "I'm here. Always."
When her period came two days later, Jackie was sobbing with relief. She found Eric and flew into his arms, slobbering and blubbering and generally not making much sense.
Startled, he ran his hands about her form to check for injuries and when he was certain she was fine, held her till she calmed down and finally made out what she was babbling about.
More relieved than he let on, he asked, "So you're not pregnant?"
"No, thank God," came a muffled croak from his shoulder.
He expelled a breath. "O-Kay." His arms tightened about her and he rested his chin on top of her head for several seconds.
He rubbed his cheek against her hair and asked softly, "And you're okay?"
Jackie bobbed her head a couple of times in response.
Eric dropped a kiss on her head. He hesitated before he spoke.
"So, um, perhaps I could get back to teaching then?"
She looked up from where she had soaked a puddle in his shirt to find twenty pairs of eyes staring at her with varying degrees of fascination. Her cheeks flamed and she raised her hand in a feeble wave.
"Good morning, Miss Jackie!" they chorused.
She gave them all a watery smile, then turned and swept out of the classroom with as much dignity as she could muster.