"There was something in the air that nightttt... The stars so brightttt!" warbled Donna as she stumbled her way back to Kelso's apartment, one arm around Hyde's shoulders for support.
Fez was half-drunk and walking up ahead with Jackie who had Betsy sleeping on her shoulder. And following behind was a semi-conscious Kelso whose weight was being supported between Eric and an exasperated-looking Brooke.
"Fernando!" Donna shouted.
Jackie winced as Betsy started in her arms. Thankfully though, she didn't wake.
They arrived at the apartment block and Fez sank against the rails lining the steps. His face had taken on a green tinge.
"Jackie, catch!" Brooke called, and tossed Jackie the keys to the apartment.
Before Jackie could fumble with the doors to the building though, Fez grabbed them out of her hand and bolted down the hallway and up the stairs with one hand over his mouth.
She turned to see if the others needed help, but Brooke waved her on. She and and Eric manoeuvred Kelso around Hyde and Donna, who didn't seem to want the night to end just yet.
"...You and me! For libertyyy!"
Hyde sighed. "Carry on. I got her," he muttered.
Eric nodded and half-dragged Kelso through. He and Brooke exchanged a look as they stared at the flight of stairs leading up to the apartment.
He heaved Kelso's arm a little higher on his shoulder, shifting more of his weight on him and off Brooke. "Kelso, man, you gotta help us out a little alright?" he said.
Kelso opened an eye and grunted.
They managed to get him up the stairs with some of his help, though Brooke's face was red and she was breathing heavily when they entered the apartment.
Jackie had turned on the heat and was just exiting Betsy's room when they deposited Kelso on the couch in the living room.
"She didn't wake?" Brooke asked Jackie as she closed Betsy's door quietly.
"Just a little. But I tucked her in and turned on the night light and she dropped straight back to sleep."
Brooke sighed in relief. "Thanks, you're a lifesaver."
Jackie smiled. "Anytime." She nodded towards Kelso who had rolled onto the floor despite Eric's best efforts. "What're you gonna do with him?"
Brooke looked at him with her hands on her hips. "Dunno. But I'll figure something out." She turned to Eric, "I think you'd better go help Hyde with Donna."
"Yeah, I was going to," he replied and headed to the door. Jackie followed him.
They arrived downstairs to find Donna slumped over the front steps next to the sidewalk with her face on the concrete ground and Hyde leaning against the rail, a cigarette dangling from his lips.
"What you just let her lie there?" Eric asked with a raised brow.
Hyde lifted a shoulder. "Yeah well, she wanted to. Wouldn't move."
"Jeeze man, she's drunk. Of course she can't move," he muttered. He bent down and slid a hand under Donna's cheek. It was as cold as ice from the stone of the ground. "She's freezing," he said to no one.
Jackie bent down to try and help but Hyde held her back. "Don't, Doll. Let Forman do it. Donna's mean when she's drunk," he said with a dark look at Donna's prone form.
Jackie rolled her eyes at him and bent down anyway.
Donna's arm came swinging upwards suddenly and nearly took her nose off with it. "Ooof," said Jackie as she fell on her butt, the air knocked out of her.
"Told ya," smirked Hyde as he reached down to help Jackie back to her feet. She stood and dusted at her outfit crossly.
"Careful," Hyde said sideways to Eric, all the while keeping a careful eye on Donna, "that girl of yours has got a mean swing."
"She's not Eric's girl," Jackie said irritably, frowning at Hyde. He didn't seem to notice, busy warding off Eric's attempts to get him to help with Donna.
Eric blew out a breath. "Fine," he muttered, and gently shook Donna's shoulder again. "Donna, come on, it's freezing out here, let's get you in."
"No," she mumbled petulantly. "I wanna stay out here. Underneath the starsssss..."
Jackie sighed testily and pushed past Hyde to crouch down next to Eric. "Donna, come on you big oaf," she huffed, lugging at one of her arms. "It's late and we—" tug, "—need to—" tug tug oof! "—get you inside so we can all get to sleep!" She ended on a semi-shriek, frustrated as hell that Donna wouldn't budge.
"Fine," slurred Donna. "You both head in, Eric and I will stay out here under the stars." She beamed a drunken smile at Eric and clumsily rose and tried to put her head in his lap.
Irrational jealousy flared in Jackie's gut. More so when Eric didn't try to protest the action. Instead he had a small smile lurking at the corners of his lips as he looked down at Donna who had wrapped her arms around his waist.
"Okay, Donna. You're halfway there, let's get those legs moving shall we?" He hooked his hands under her arms and attempted to rise, but she made her body a dead weight and he lost his balance instead.
He sat back heavily on his haunches and this time he really did crack a smile, finding the situation absurdly funny. Donna took the opportunity to crawl onto his lap, purring like a kitten as she did so. "Mmmm," she hummed, pressing herself into him, "niceeee..." She borrowed her face into his neck.
Hyde snickered. "I think Big D's kinda horny." He blew out a puff of smoke and crossed his arms. He hadn't been so entertained in a long while.
Eric shook his head and tried to unwind her arms from their current spot around his neck. "Donna," he said exasperatedly.
Donna hummed again and Jackie let out an outraged gasp. "She is!" she exclaimed, turning wide eyes to Hyde. "You are!" she cried and leapt at Donna and tried to pry her away from Eric.
"Donna, stop it! Steven! Come take her away from Eric!"
Hyde blew out more smoke. "Why should I? This is more fun than I've had in years." He settled himself comfortably on the ground next to Eric. "Besides, I bet Forman hasn't been laid in ages, and I wouldn't be a good friend if I tried to prevent that from happenin'." He winked at Eric.
"Hyde, she's with Randy."
"Meh, semantics."
Eric shot him a disgruntled look. "Do you seriously think I'm the kind of asshole who'd take advantage of a drunk girl?"
"Ha! So you're thinkin' it!"
"No, I'm not. I'm tired and I'm trying to help a friend. Which is what you should've done in the first place dammit."
"She shoved me in the ribs! And kicked me!" Hyde fixed a glare at Jackie and continued, "who'd you think taught her that particular move!"
Jackie glared back at him menacingly. She turned that same glare on to Eric who sighed and returned it with a "What do you want me to do" look.
Donna chose that moment to start pressing a line of kisses up his neck. Startled, Eric jerked, but Donna held on tight as her tongue darted out and she nibbled on his ear.
Jackie turned an unflattering shade of green. "Don't you dare," she hissed and yanked out a fistful of Donna's long blonde strands.
Donna yelped in pain and whirled around drunkenly, falling off Eric and rolling down four steps instead. "Ow!" she howled and real tears filled her eyes.
Jackie's hands flew to her mouth, instantly contrite. "Omigosh! Sorry! Sorry!"
Hyde doubled over, clutching his sides in laughter as Jackie ran to Donna's side.
Sighing, Eric stood up and walked towards the girls. He gave Donna a once over and decided she hadn't suffered any serious damage.
"Ready to head in now?" he asked her gently.
She nodded hazily. Then stretched her arms out to him. "Carry me?" she asked him in a wobbly voice.
Eric hung his head and heaved another sigh. He calculated the time he would save if he just did so.
"Fine," he muttered.
He bent and scooped her up effortlessly, giving Jackie a look as she started to protest. "I'm tired, babe," he said to her in an undertone.
Donna gave him a dreamy smile. "You've never called me that before," she sighed. "I like it." She shifted in his arms, testing the strength of them. "I like this. Mmmm."
She turned around to look at Jackie. "Hey, do you think you could give me an Eric a moment here?"
Jackie stared incredulously at Donna. Her eyes shifted to Eric's and even in the dim light of the street lamps she could pick out the green in them. He gazed back at her with the love and assurance that she had so come to expect from him.
Screw it, she thought. What could be worse than having to deny Eric? She turned to Donna and opened her mouth. "Actually, no. Eric and I are—"
"C'mon, Doll," called Hyde from the top step. "Let's give Forman and Donna some time alone."
"No," she insisted, and stepped closer to Eric, her arm already sliding itself around his waist. "He and I—"
Donna turned over in Eric's arms and vomited all over the sidewalk.
They packed the Vista Cruiser for the drive back to Point Place the next day, and chaos reigned supreme when Fez couldn't find his bag of munchies for the ride home. He threw a huge tantrum and accused all and sundry of stealing them, and for some reason, Kelso took immediate and grave offence at the accusation.
Donna, hungover and nauseous, spent the better half of the morning running to and from where they were loading the car and the bathroom of Kelso and Brooke's. She was snappy and irritable, too sick to pack her own bag, so Jackie volunteered to do the packing for her.
The argument between Kelso and Fez escalated, and soon, to defend his own honor, Hyde too found himself in the thick of it. Donna's head swam, and with the ever increasing racket between the three of them bludgeoning her ear drums, she declared dramatically that she wouldn't, and couldn't, make the trip back.
Exhausted from holding Donna's hair back over the toilet and trying to calm the three guys, Jackie soon gave up and left Brooke to cajole Donna and replace the cold towel she had on her face and went to sit by Eric. He was by the bar, in the living room, quietly ignoring the ruckus around him and she hopped on to the stool next to him.
"Fiddling with that again?" she asked him, as she saw him roll a crude wooden circle between his fingers. It was about half a centimetre thick and maybe two centimetres wide and made from a rich black wood.
"This? Yeah."
She laughed. "Definitely not a block of wood anymore."
He glanced at the ornament in his hand. "Morathi did say it was the key to happiness." He looked up and indicated the squabbling group. "Peace among chaos at least," he muttered.
Jackie reached over and took it from him, eyeing it skeptically. "Morathi is wise. But I doubt that smoothing it into a true circle will bring you any happiness." She squinted at it, and twirled it around the second knuckle of her middle finger.
He smiled as he watched her, then let out a breath, taking it back from her and fingering the circle gently. "But for now, it's gonna be this faceted hollow roundish thing until I scrape my fingers raw and whittle my knife blunt."
She giggled, charmed by his unusual show of despondency, and impulsively pressed a kiss to his cheek before hopping off the stool and tugging him along with her.
"C'mon," she muttered under her breath, "if we don't get them to haul ass we're never gonna get home at this rate."
They fought over trunk space, they fought over seat allocation, they fought over who got into the car first, they fought over who got to seat next to whom, and even Eric himself was surprised when Jackie called shot gun and insisted on seating herself right next to him.
She ignored the comments and the raised eyebrows, sliding a pair of oversized sunglasses over her eyes and stared straight out of the windshield while the rest of the gang argued over the remaining seats.
For some reason, Hyde chose to seat himself next to her, which didn't bother her so much and she simply scooted closer to Eric, till her thigh was flush against his.
In the backseat, Donna, nursing a giant headache and seated next to a semi-slumbering and equally hungover Fez, frowned. He hiccuped, and shifted his head which was pillowed on her lap and the stench of alcohol wafted upward. Donna fought the answering surge of nausea, her mood getting darker with each passing mile.
She saw Jackie's arm brush Eric's and a curl of dark hair make its home on his shoulder. When Jackie started to nod off and her head automatically tilted towards Eric, Donna had had enough.
She pushed her face between the both of them, the sudden motion causing her head to spin. She swallowed past the sick swirl of alcohol-induced nausea in her stomach. "How much farther?" she bleated out in false cheer.
Jackie jerked alert, and a yawn escaped her.
Eric frowned, and then spared Donna a quick glance, "You know how far," he said drily.
She tried a pout, but Eric was already looking back at the road.
She stared at him, fighting a deep attraction to him and an intense yearning for things between them to be as they were before he left for Africa. The entire trip to Chicago had only cemented one thing in her mind and that was that she wanted Eric back with all her heart.
A/N: As some of you might know, most of this story was written a while back which was why I've been updating so quickly prior to this chapter. But I'm fast approaching that point where the story comes to a grinding halt (goddammit Inspiration, how rude of you). Thankfully though, I've found my mojo again and am working towards bringing everything to a satisfying big bang fireworks kinda conclusion - rejoice! (despite the goodly amount of time I spent brooding and angsting over it, bleahhh).
Credit for this goes to all your lovely reviews. Some of you have left really thought-provoking ones and I appreciate them so much because it provided a lot of perspective and gave me a fresh direction to take this story and our favourite couple towards. I owe it all to you, so thank you for your interest, and your thoughts, and your critique, and on my part, I will continue to deliver, hopefully in the manner that you will all continue to love.
XO times a hundred to all of you. XD