For some reason, amidst the pounding of her heart and the rushing in her ears, Donna found herself at home. In the bedroom she grew up as a little girl and met and loved the scrawny neighbor boy next door. She sat by the window seat staring out the window, and as she had since she had left Eric's apartment, feeling as if everything in the world had ceased to make sense.
A stray breeze rustled the curtains of the open window and her gaze sharpened as she saw a familiar raven-haired figure cross the Forman driveway and make her way gracefully down the stairs to the Forman basement.
The dull ache in her heart gave way to a blazing anger.
The door to the basement crashed open as Donna swooped in, eyes shooting sparks as they swept the basement and narrowed on Jackie thumbing through a magazine, alone on the couch.
Jackie looked up, surprised, then smiled uncertainly in greeting at the belligerent expression on her friend's face.
"I don't understand," Donna ground out.
She frowned in answering confusion, flipping the magazine slowly shut. "Don't understand what?"
"Hyde. You said you loved him. Him."
Jackie gave her a blank look, blinking slowly, and then, in a sudden moment of insight, understanding dawned.
"No…," she breathed. "Oh Donna… I do, I do love him. But I'm not in love with him anymore. I— I haven't been in a long while."
"So you're not in love with him anymore." Donna barked out a laugh that sounded alien coming from her. Her eyes raked down Jackie's form, and she spat out her next few words like arrows to wound. "You're saying you love Eric?" Her eyes swept slowly down Jackie's body again, and condescension oozed from every pore, "That you're in love with Eric. My Eric."
It came as a shock, those words from Donna's mouth, and despite the sudden leap in her pulse, a calm swept over her. With a soft click, everything fell clearly into place for her. She stood up from the couch and met Donna's accusing gaze head on. Her eyes when she answered were steady and never wavered.
"Yes," she said simply.
It happened so fast Jackie never saw it coming. With a resounding crack, Donna's hand slammed against her cheek with so much force it snapped her head sharply to the right and she fell to her knees.
"You bitch," Donna snarled, spittle about her lips.
Dazed, Jackie's eyes were bright with unshed tears as she looked up at Donna. She raised a hand, breathing heavily and literally seeing stars. "Look, Donna, we never meant for it to—"
But Donna was shaking her head violently, sending red hair flying in all directions, and cut her off before she could finish. "There's no 'we' about it. It was all you. You seduced him. Eric would never. Never," she said fiercely, eyes wild, "fall for someone like you."
It hurt. It really hurt to hear someone tell her that to her face. The tears Jackie had been trying to hold back spilled over and coursed down her cheeks. She sucked in a sob, and tried to explain once more. "Donna no, please just listen. It wasn't anything like that. I—,"
Heavy footsteps clumped down the stairs and a booted foot nudged the door open as Hyde came in carrying a box of baby stuff.
He frowned as he took in Donna's furious countenance and Jackie's shrinking figure on the ground, eyes swiftly zooming in on the blooming red imprint on the pale skin of Jackie's left cheek. He dropped the box instantly, crossing over in three strides to insert himself between Jackie and the much larger figure that Donna presented.
He stared at her incredulously. "What the hell? Did you hit her?"
Hyde had never hit a woman in his life, but he was sorely tempted to deck Donna right now. He shot Jackie a quick glance to make sure she was okay before he turned to face Donna again.
Donna barely noticed him. Spitting with fury, she tried to shove past him to get to Jackie. "You whore. You filthy, filthy whore. You're not my friend."
She lunged herself at Hyde to round on a sobbing Jackie, and he barely managed to latch on to both her arms as she did so.
"Woah. Easy, Donna," he exclaimed, more than a little shocked. Her knee narrowly missed his groin and he grunted a little at the close shave.
And then she said it. With as much vitriol as she could muster, she spat the words at Jackie. "How long did you wait before you slept with him, huh?"
Something in Jackie snapped, and she whipped her head up to scream back at Donna. "How long did you wait to sleep with Randy?!"
Donna was a big girl, and Hyde was a strong guy, but it was not easy to hold her off when she was fueled by a haze of anger. Her arms lashed out and her legs swung forward, and it took almost all his strength to keep her back.
Thoroughly confused now, his head swivelled back and forth between the two girls. With a bad, nearly sinking, feeling in his gut, and his arms full of a raging Donna, Hyde scarcely managed to grate out, "Slept with who?"
He heard Jackie scramble to her knees. "You've no right! No right at all. It was never like that between us!" she shrieked at Donna from behind him.
'Stop it. Stop it. The both of you," Hyde ordered desperately, at the same time trying to avoid Donna's swinging fist. "Slept with who?" he asked again, in between breaths.
They ignored him.
"You knew! You knew what he was to me! How could you? How could you?!" Donna screamed at Jackie, anguish in every syllable.
He heaved a deep breath and with a mighty shove, Hyde sent Donna backwards a couple of steps. She stumbled but barely noticed, her very soul consumed with wretchedness that Eric had somehow chosen Jackie over her. Hyde adjusted his shirt, breathing heavily.
Not without some sick sense of trepidation, he too, slowly turned around to face Jackie.
Jackie was a wreck, her hair fell in a riot of waves around her face and her cheek was tearstained and beginning to swell from the blow that Donna dealt her.
"Slept with who, Jackie?" he tried to ask her in a level tone. His thoughts were a whirl but the inane thought that she looked absolutely beautiful made an appearance in his mind.
Her eyes were wild and bright with more tears as it swept warily back and forth between the both of them. Despite herself, she involuntarily took a half-step back as they advanced towards her. Heaving sobs shook her slight frame and she bit down on her hand, hard, to try and stifle them.
Hyde's glare would have sent lesser individuals scurrying for cover. "Slept with who?" he bit out harshly, and she flinched, but he was desperate to know, and at some level, was refusing to believe that this entire scene was playing out in front of him.
Jackie had never seen him this mad before; not even when he had found her with Kelso in Chicago. There was a crazed look in his eyes that frightened her, and she willed herself to stop shaking.
She stiffened her spine, and met their gazes head on. Her lips started to form an answer around Eric's name, but the door opened again behind them and Jackie's eyes flew to meet the cool green ones of the figure by the door.
This time she couldn't hold back a strangled cry and she nearly fell over herself to hurl herself in his arms.
"Please, please, take me away. Please," she sobbed into his neck, as he cradled her to him and raised forbidding eyes to the other two occupants in the room.
Stunned into shock, Hyde could only stare, the sight in front of him straight out of his recurring nightmare.
"Who struck Jackie?" Eric asked, his voice tight with barely controlled fury.
Donna sniffed loudly, and swiped her hair off her forehead. Hyde didn't move, still frozen in disbelief.
"Who?" he barked, and Donna jumped, while Hyde slowly came to.
Eric read the defiance in the bluish-grey of Donna's eyes and came to his own conclusion. "I've never in my life held anything but respect for you, but after this," he told her, holding her gaze. Ice filled his as he continued, "No more."
She looked into his green eyes, once filled with so much love and passion for her, and knew she had lost him forever.
"If you had a problem with my choice, you could have come to me directly, not gone around my back and taken it out on my girlfriend."
Donna hitched back a sob at the word. He chose Jackie. He really did. And he had staked his claim in front of the two people that it would matter the most to.
A guttural growl tore out of Hyde's throat and without warning he launched himself at Eric. He didn't care that Jackie was in the way. He hated that her face was in Eric's neck and it was Eric's arms still protectively around her. He wanted to rip Eric to shreds.
Eric saw Hyde coming at him and reacted, pulling Jackie deftly off him and out of harm's way. He braced himself for the blow that came to his jaw, the force of it whipping his head back, but he stood his ground.
He heard Jackie scream when it landed and saw Hyde pull back his fist for another blow to the gut. This time however, he blocked it nimbly with his forearm, and sidestepped the other fist that Hyde aimed at his face. The momentum it carried sent Hyde hurtling towards the wall behind, and Eric caught him in a stronghold with both arms behind his back.
A mad scuffle ensued; and Hyde tried to wiggle free. He yanked to the right and then the left and they both fell to the ground with a heavy thump.
"Stop it," Eric gritted out. He pulled him to his feet with his arms still behind his back.
"No," Hyde hissed, and tried to wrench his arms free. He pulled suddenly forward and planted both feet against the wall, kicking off it and trying to throw Eric off-balance, but Eric held strong and shoved him roughly back into the wall with a sickening crunch. He leant forward to growl next to his ear.
"Look. The first throw I allowed because I deserved it. I know what she meant to you and that's on me, for she's now with me. But that's it. We're even. I didn't steal her from you — you were married long before she even knew about how I felt about her."
Hyde jerked back violently, his breath heavy and coming out in spurts, and Eric eased up on his hold enough to force him to turn around. He threw him back against the wall again and pinned a forearm firmly against his throat.
His hands flew up to tug against Eric's arm, but it didn't budge. Hyde glared at him, hatred spewing from his shaded eyes. "You son of a bitch."
Eric returned the look with a cold one of his own. "No, you listen. You gave her up. You had your chance — she loved you even when you were with Sam and would have taken you back in a heartbeat."
"You moth-," Hyde started, then choked and clutched at Eric's arm as he exerted enough pressure to nearly cut off his air supply.
He continued as if Hyde had not spoken at all. "But thank God you were too stupid to do so because you didn't, and she belongs to me now. So stop making her life a living hell like the selfish asshole that you are and let her go."
"No," Hyde spat out.
"That's your choice. But Jackie and I are together whether you like it or not. And now we don't have to hide it anymore. Which by the way she insisted out of consideration for your feelings."
A crazed look made its way across his face and quite suddenly, Hyde started cackling. Then without warning he stopped and spat in Eric's face.
"Fuck you, Forman."
He shot Jackie a look of pure hate and watched in satisfaction as the glob of spit made its way down the side of Eric's lean cheek.
"The next time you fuck her you should think about the number of times I blew my load inside her."
Blind fury took him, and Eric's honed control snapped. Grabbing Hyde around the throat, he pulled his curly head back and slammed it against the wall.
It hit the wall with a sharp crack and Eric pulled it back to slam it again.
And again.
Hyde's forehead split and blood flew. The sound of his manic cackles filled the air.
If he could, he believed that he would have done him a serious injury. But then Eric felt Jackie pulling on his arm and he let go, the mad haze of anger draining out of him at her touch.
Hyde sidled to the floor, blood flowing from the wound. His glasses had fallen off their usual perch and were askew on his face.
Eric's eyes were lethal as they fell on him. "You don't speak to her. You don't look at her. You don't fucking talk about her."
He turned to Jackie and noticing the pallor of her face, swept her up in his arms. She wound her arms tightly around his neck and turned her face into his shoulder.
He spared Hyde one last condescending look as he lay sprawled on the floor. "You might want to get that checked out. I'm sure my mom will do it for you. Better yet, head down to the hospital and get one of the nurses to do it. We all know how much you can't resist one."
He turned to Donna then, who hadn't moved from her spot by the couch. She had a hand stuffed in her mouth and tears were running down her cheeks.
"If you weren't a woman, I would have killed you for laying a hand on Jackie, friend or not." His eyes were steel, and she shivered at the coldness of his tone.
She stared numbly as he carried Jackie tenderly out of the room, then she wrapped her arms around herself and all the sobs that she had been holding back since he came in poured out in the face of what she had lost.