A/N: I hope yall are staying healthy! The first few chapter are going to be centered around certain people as you can tell. Not really sure why I started with Kelso, I just did. Hope you guys are cool with it.

Eric Foreman had ice in his veins.

He wasn't cruel, or hard like Steven Hyde, nor was he light and airy like Michael Kelso. He was simply, and unapologetically cold. His sarcasm was what drew people to him. Funny how a coping skill from mental trauma was what people found to be most interesting about him. Everyone except for the basement clan found it endearing.

He never quite understood why people kept coming around when he was younger. He can see now why they stayed at sixteen, but he didn't understand when they were in middle school. It was never an exterior problem that people noticed right off the bat. He lived in a nice neighborhood, with a solid family, that had saved the little Burkhart girl from going into the harsh foster care system. Nobody ever bothered to take a deeper look.

For the most part, Red was good to Kitty. Forgetful, sure, but he always kept a gift stash in the basement. However, Red Foreman was a decorated soilder that served in Korea. That didn't come without it's repercussions. For one thing, Eric remembered when he was younger, Kitty dropped a cast iron pan in the kitchen, and his father went off the rails. It was easier for Red now, that everyone was older, and he had somewhat learned how to cope with his shellshock.

Red favored Laurie, which nobody understood. Laurie was cool when she was younger, but by the time she hit senior year, everything spiraled, and college left her flunked out, wasted more than she wasn't, and being passed around. Every man in Point Place, with the exception of a few, had gotten Laurie Foreman into bed. Maybe it was because it was his only biological daughter, and he had always doted on her. He wasn't as soft with Jackie because she didn't need to be doted on. She needed guidance. Red didn't know how to provide it. It took a second, but now at fifteen, Red could confidently say that him and Jackie had a somewhat solid relationship.

Him and Eric hadn't resolved what happened. They didn't know what had gone wrong. Kitty blamed it on athleticism, or lack-there-of, and maybe that was how it started, but Eric didn't necessarily believe that. He would argue with his father all the time. That was how he earned the nicknames "smart ass" and "porky mouth", because he had to quickly learn how to defend himself. And that was what it was at first, just with his father. He was relatively sweet with everyone else, except Hyde, who he was always rough with. But as he got older, it got harder. Everything was an attack. The only person that didn't take the brunt of his sarcasm were members of the basement clan, and Kitty. Laurie was fair game, and his father and him ended up being down-right cruel to each other.

It took Eric's near-death experience from undetected tuberculosis for Kitty to get fed up with the two, and force them to get on the same page. This was less than four months ago. Him and his father had a huge blowout fight. Eric wasn't feeling good on the last week of school, and his father insisted that he was fine. Called him a pansy. Insults flew through the kitchen, until he collapsed. He remembered it, Jackie remembered it. Laurie didn't. She was wasted.

"Eric, I didn't fall off the turnip truck. You're going to school tomorrow." Reds voice was raised. Eric made a stink about his last week. Finals were over, and it was purely for attendance. His had been perfect all year. He begged, and pleaded. He was a sweaty, sticky mess, and Kitty had insisted on a doctors visit, but Red insisted that his son was fine, and that doctors visits weren't in the budget right now.

He knew he wasn't okay. He couldn't breathe, he was shaky, he was cold. It was hot out. Jackie knew her brother had never been this sick, and she knew that something was wrong, however, if her mother couldn't get through, she knew it was useless to try. It was a Sunday night, and Kitty stood at the stove, making soup for Eric, who seemed to worsen as the days went on.

"Red, the boy-"

"Damnit Kitty! Stay out of this! This is men's business, and no son of mine is going to be a pansy ass little girl!" Eric tried to focus on his father, but the glass of juice slipped from his hands, shattering on the floor. "Damnit, Eric!" His father shouted. It sounded far away, and his breathing slowed, as he went to take a step towards his mother, who reached to him. His foot crunched over the glass shards, and he didn't feel it, falling, and whacking his head on the counter.

Jackie frantically dialed for an ambulance, and her sister stumbled through the sliding door, getting berated by Kitty, who was leaning over her unconscious son, and screaming at her husband. The ambulance rescued him, and Kitty followed after her son, who rode with Jackie in the ambulance.

Jackie had called him first. She always called him first. He was in Chicago with Edna visiting family, when the phone rang around nine o'clock. He left the number, so she could call. He claimed it was for Eric. They all knew it wasn't. She listened to the phone ring, and ring. She stood at the payphone, half expecting him not to answer so late. It was nearly ten o'clock, and he had just gotten there, so he was probably exhausted.

"Hello?" His gruff voice rang through the receiver, and she felt the relief in her stomach, when his voice bounced around in her head. "Hello?" He asked again, this time annoyed, and she realized she had been quiet.

"Steven." She squeaked out, and he immediately knew something was wrong. "Doll? Whats wrong?" He asked, and a tear slipped down her cheeks. "It's Eric." She choked.

Hyde showed up shortly after this, arriving in Emergency around two in the morning, walking right over to Jackie, who collapsed on him. She cried into his chest, looking at her brother, who looked different, cold. Hyde barely left the hospital, and if they thought Hyde never left Eric's side, then Jackie was practically glued to it.

In the four weeks that Eric was in the hospital, Jackie went home once. She slept in the chair, until the nurses brought her a cot. She didn't shower, until they let her use the nurse's station shower, and she wore scrubs until Donna started bringing her fresh clothes. This was partly because Eric was the only person in her life besides Red and Kitty that loved her, and consistently showed that. And, she loved him, with her whole entire heart, or at least what was left of it. He was her first friend, and he rescued her, and she didn't want his summer in the hospital to be alone.

Hyde would play chess with him, and would take him to the bathroom, and would wipe the sweat off his brow when his fever rose and fell. Jackie would read to him, and feed him, until he could do it himself. Hell, Hyde had to sponge bathe him, at one point, and remembered being told that if word ever got out, Hyde would kill him. He remembers who stayed the most. Donna was in a lot, and she would bring him flowers, and sit on the bed and laugh, telling stories. Kelso came in with Fez a lot too. Still no Red.

Three weeks in, on a particularly rainy morning, Eric woke up to his father sitting in the chair beside his bed. He thought it was Hyde falling asleep there, as that was where he normally sat. It was fairly early, around five o'clock. His mother was at home asleep, and he stayed silent, not knowing what to say. He wanted an apology. The apology never came. Eric still four months later, never heard it. There was too much pride. When he did arrive at the hospital, they pretended like nothing had happened. They played some chess, he read him a book, and they talked about the Packers. They bonded, almost. Almost.

They still pretend like nothing happened. Eric still kept up a cold sarcastic wall around others, which held him back from making new friends and dating other girls, but he only ever wanted Donna, and only needed his real friends. His family had a wedge for what felt like an eternity, and it was just starting to return to normal. Or at least, the new normal.

Red and Eric had to go out every Wednesday night, per Kitty's order, and be more like father and son. Eric didn't know what that meant, other than what he saw on television, but he knew it didn't work like that.

Hyde was his best friend, and if that wasn't proven in childhood, it was sure as hell proven when he not only hitchhiked his way from Chicago to the hospital, but also stayed a whole month of summer in the ICU, sponge bathing him and helping him to go to the damn bathroom, and stayed with him so he wouldn't be bored when they let him go home. The two would kill for each other. Eric would take a bullet for him.

Eric and Jackie hated each other when they were little, mostly because Hyde hated her, but they all knew he really didn't. Jackie was brought around by Donna. It didn't make sense why the maids didn't drop her off at Donna's, although most of the time spent was at the Foreman's so he guessed it made sense.

He didn't understand why he was so attracted to Donna, but he guessed it was because she was the only girl besides his sisters that wasn't afraid of his dad.

His heart was cold, and ice ran through his veins, but he was still human. His heart was shattered, but not in the way you would think, but his head never fell, and he was unapologetically himself.

Cold, hard, but humorous.

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