…
"Eric!" Kitty's voice echoed into the basement. "Eric!"
He slowly opened his eyes and found Jackie still cuddled up beside him. He gently got up and lightly nudged her, hoping his mother wouldn't come downstairs.
Jackie mumbled something and quickly inhaled as her eyes opened. She looked at Eric with tired eyes and gave him a small smile.
"Eric, are you down there?" Kitty asked again.
"Yeah, Mom!" Eric called up to her. He crouched down so his face was level with Jackie's. "Sorry about that, I didn't want to wake you, but I didn't want her coming down here either." His voice was soft, being respectful of her freshly awoken state.
Jackie nodded, sitting up as she tried to stretch her neck. "Ugh, I shouldn't ever sleep sitting up like that." She looked back at Eric. "How long have you been awake?"
"Just about a minute or so," Eric replied. "I heard her calling my name."
"Oh." Jackie thought back to the previous night and suddenly felt a little shy being alone in his company yet again. "Well, um, I'm hungry, so I guess I'll go upstairs."
"Oh, uh, yeah," Eric agreed, watching her stand up. He bit his lip and lightly took her hand, surprising her. "Hey, um, maybe we should keep what happened last night to ourselves for now."
Jackie exhaled in relief. He remembered. "Yeah, that's cool." She nodded as she said the words and slipped her hand out of Eric's, heading toward the staircase.
They both went upstairs and saw Red sitting at the kitchen table and an apron-clad Kitty standing over a serving plate of pancakes.
"Well, there you are," Kitty commented. "Now, what were you two doing in the basement so early?"
Jackie took control of the situation at hand. "Well, Eric must have came home drunk off his ass last night and passed out on the couch," she explained, sitting down at the table. "I noticed his bedroom door was open when I got up and got concerned."
Kitty grimaced at the "drunk-off-his-ass" comment and set the pancakes in the middle of the table. "Well, I'm so glad that you two seem to finally be getting along," she commented, smiling at her son. "That only took about five years."
Jackie bit her lip and slid her fork under two pancakes, gracefully guiding them onto her plate.
Eric said nothing and simply poured himself a glass of orange juice.
"What?" Kitty asked at their lack of a response. "Aren't you two friends now?" She joined them at the table and looked between the pair.
"Kitty, just let it go before he ruins it," Red commented. He glanced at his son. "You do have a way of ruining things, you know."
"Okay, well, Jackie and I didn't even really know each other before now," Eric said defensively. "It's not like we hated each other."
"Oh, that's nonsense; you two were at each other's throats the entire first week she moved in," Kitty pointed out.
Jackie made sure that her mouth was full so she wouldn't have the option of speaking.
"Yeah, well… God, I have a headache," Eric said in response as he squinted his eyes, eager to change the subject. "Did I mention I got drunk last night?"
Red smirked, his mouth full, as Kitty shot Eric a look of disapproval.
"I was hoping to just skip over that fact," she admitted. "But I guess you didn't do much of that while you were in Africa, so… just don't make this a habit."
"How the hell did you get home last night?" Red inquired, suddenly acquiring more of an interest in the conversation.
"Leo," Eric stated. "We ran into him outside the bar."
"So you just left the Cruiser in the parking lot of a damn bar?" Red asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Well, honey, what do you want him to do? Die in a horrific car crash because he was driving under the influence?" Kitty asked, looking appalled. She gently patted her son's hand. "You did the right thing, Eric. Jackie can take you to pick up your car after breakfast, right?" She looked at the brunette girl sitting beside her.
Jackie set her fork down on her nearly empty plate. "Um, yeah. I can do that." She swallowed.
"There you go," Kitty said, eyeing her husband, and then looking back at Jackie. "How have you been feeling, sweetie? Is the nausea getting any better?"
Eric shifted in his seat; the topic of Jackie's pregnancy now making him slightly uncomfortable.
"I think it's getting a little better," Jackie responded. "I just wish I could get myself to stop eating so much."
"Now, Jackie, it's normal for a woman your size to put on twenty-five to thirty pounds during a pregnancy," Kitty told her. "I should know; I'm a nurse."
Jackie scowled at the thought of putting on more weight, remembering she wasn't even at the end of her first trimester yet.
"Have you begun to show?" Kitty inquired. "I haven't noticed, but you're far along now where you could be."
"A little," Jackie said, protectively putting a hand on her stomach and quickly glancing at Eric, who was solely focused on eating.
"You know, a woman's body can go through lots of changes during her first pregnancy," Kitty stated. "For one, your breasts start to swell early on, and—"
"Mom!"
"Kitty!"
Eric's mouth hung open as Red gave his wife a disapproving look.
"We don't need to talk about those types of things at the breakfast table," Red said sternly.
Jackie blushed, glancing at Eric again, and this time their eyes met.
"Um, Jackie, I'm done if you're ready to go," Eric offered, eager to escape whatever his mother had to say next.
"Yeah, sure." Jackie stood up and grabbed her purse off the counter. "Thanks for breakfast, Mrs. Forman!"
She hurried out the door and went to her car. Eric quickly joined her, attempting to catch his breath as they fastened their seatbelts.
"Sorry about my mom," Eric apologized, feeling weird.
"It's fine," Jackie told him, starting up the car. "She's just trying to help."
Eric began drumming his fingers on his leg nervously as she backed out of the driveway.
"So where is this bar?" Jackie asked him, noticing his tenseness.
"About ten minutes out," Eric replied. "I'll tell you which way to go once we hit the main road."
It was silent for a moment until Jackie turned on the radio. 'Fire' by the Pointer Sisters was playing, which only seemed to make the situation more awkward.
A million questions that she was dying to ask raced through Jackie's head.
"Is the fact that I'm pregnant a deal breaker?" she wanted to ask. "Is this going anywhere? Are we ever going to tell anyone what happened?"
Instead, she stayed silent until Eric finally told her the next road to turn onto.
"So, you feel better after last night?" she finally asked, and blushed. "After all the drinking, I mean."
"I don't feel terrible," Eric admitted. He let out a deep breath, feeling relieved that they were finally talking. He was not about to let the conversation dry up now, not while the Pointer Sisters were still belting out lyrics that seemed to only be about a hot make-out session. "Thanks for, uh, waiting up for me."
Jackie bit her lip and shrugged, her eyes focused on the road ahead of her. "I was bored… was hoping you wouldn't be out too late."
"Yeah… sorry about that," Eric commented.
"You apologize an awful lot for someone who hasn't done anything wrong," Jackie pointed out. "Must be from all the overreacting Donna used to do." She heard the words fall out of her mouth and gave a little gasp. Why on Earth would she bring up Donna? What was she going to tell Donna? And would she ever tell Donna?
Eric faked a little laugh. "Yeah, maybe." He sighed again. "You know, I don't want to talk about Donna," he admitted.
Jackie felt her heart drop a little bit. Of course he wouldn't want to talk about Donna. He was probably still hung up on her.
"Yeah, um, I don't blame you," Jackie quickly replied. "Sorry."
"See, now you're the one apologizing," Eric pointed out as he cracked a smile, trying to ease the tension. "Right."
"Yeah… right," Jackie agreed.
"No," Eric told her, just as they missed the turn. "Right." He pointed to the street they were supposed to turn down.
"Damn it," Jackie muttered. She exhaled heavily, feeling stupid as she found a place to turn around.
Sensing Jackie's discomfort made his own discomfort disappear, and he suddenly felt the urge to comfort her, as she seemed distressed. Once she made the U-turn, he gently rested his hand above her knee. She initially tensed up at his touch, but then relaxed. The butterflies were back with a vengeance, but she tried to stay focused on the road.
She turned where she was originally supposed to, and noticed a bar on the left side of the road. "This it?"
"Yeah."
She turned into the lot and spotted the Vista Cruiser, pulling her car into the spot next to it and shifting into park. She looked over at Eric, whose hand was still on her lower thigh.
His eyes had been focused on the floor, but he finally looked up at her.
"Eric…" Jackie's voice sounded weak.
"Yeah?"
He gave her a concerned look and she bit her lip. Eric noticed the look of sorrow in her eyes and wondered what exactly she was upset about, but he knew she had plenty of reasons.
"Come here." He leaned over and embraced her. She tightly held onto him, feeling tears well up in her eyes. She didn't want him to go to his stupid car. She didn't want him to go, ever, but she knew that he would. He had a whole life ahead of himself while she had a baby on the way.
Eric gently caressed her hair. "It's okay… everything's okay."
His words soothed her for the time being and she was able to hold back the tears that had been threatening to fall.
He slowly pulled away from her. "Jackie…" He looked closely at her face, as they were only inches apart. "Your lip's quivering." He looked sad upon noticing how close she was to tears. "We can't have that." Eric slowly leaned in and kissed her, more tenderly this time.
She kissed him back for a moment before tearing herself away. "No, no, we can't do this."
The words stung, and Eric looked wounded. "Why not?"
"Because what's the point, Eric?" Jackie laughed bitterly as one tear escaped her eye. "You have a good life, a future ahead of you, meanwhile I… well, we know what my future holds." She sighed. "This is really nice and everything, but… well, what's the damn point?"
Feeling hurt, Eric took her hand in his. "Do you think I'm just fooling around, Jackie?"
"Well, maybe, I mean, you were drunk as hell last night," Jackie admitted. "But even if you aren't, you aren't equipped for this. Hell, I'm not equipped for this, but at least this is a consequence of my own actions."
"You know, ever since you moved in, I've been feeling this way about you," Eric revealed, caressing her fingers. "You're so much different than I thought you were. I care about you, Jackie. I wanna be there for you." He paused. "Yeah, I was drunk, but there was so much more to it than that."
"Yeah, well you're better off without me," Jackie argued. "You'll realize that sooner or later and I can't handle another person leaving."
Eric tightly squeezed her hand and looked her square in the eyes. "Jackie… I'm not leaving."
Jackie listened to his words and could tell he was being sincere. She looked down at their hands and then back up at him. "Do you promise?"
"I can't promise you that we'll ultimately work out, but I promise that I'll try," he told her earnestly. "I promise that I won't break your heart… that I'll always be there for you." He glanced down at her stomach. "Both of you." He paused. "I promise… I'm not gonna leave."
Jackie wiped her eyes and began to laugh lightly, shaking her head at the situation. "You're saying all of this to me after a few stupid kisses?"
"They weren't stupid," Eric said defensively. "And to be fair, I've had time to think about it. Why do you think the car ride was so silent?" He cracked a smile and she smiled back.
"Thank you," Jackie told him. "You're really good cheering me up, you know that?"
"I'll do you one better," Eric replied with a smile, leaning in for a kiss.
Their lips met and a knocking was heard on the window.
"Well, well, well, lover boy," Hyde's voice boomed from outside. "Called it."