AN: I'm so so so sorry I didn't update sooner. I was really, really sick all weekend and then I had Freshman Orientation on Tuesday and Wednesday. I didn't even get to start writing until yesterday. Hopefully this update was worth the wait. There isn't too much JH in this, but its mostly to set up for the HUGE JH chapter that is to come next. Fenton also makes a guest appearance in this, so if you love him as much as I do, you should enjoy it.

Read, review, and enjoy!
Chapter 9: Broken Hearts

Jackie and Donna sat slouched on the couch watching some sappy day time television soap opera with numbly brain dead looks drooping on their faces. Donna glumly turned her head to lay her eyes on Jackie who was too busy chewing on her thumb nail and hanging on the words over dramatically being yelled by the actors on the TV.

"Do you think I should just go talk to him?" Donna asked, her sad eyes pleading for Jackie to just give in.

Jackie puckered her lips to the side becoming very perturbed by Donna's pestering. "No Donna. He has to come to you. Remember? You're tired of him not fighting for you?"

Donna stuck out her bottom lip in a pitiful protest. "But what if he thinks I need space. Eric tends to read into these things wrongly."

"Well if he's going to be that way then you're better off without him, Donna. You don't want him to be taking you for granted the rest of your life, do you?" Jackie patted Donna on the knee and her attention diverted back to the soap.

"Easy for you to say," Donna mumbled bitterly. "Your guy has actually come for you."

Jackie huffed in her seat and crossed her arms. "Do you think this whole experience has been easy for me?" Her eyebrows raised in an arch across her brow. "Steven stabbed me in the back way worse than anything Eric has done to you, and he keeps tempting me to forgive him with all of these out of character gestures that are really really working."

Donna turned her pensive eyes to the ceiling as Jackie sighed in defeat. "I don't know." Donna pondered. "It isn't too out of character. He fought for you like this right after he cheated on you with that nurse and Kelso was in the competition. And his memory doesn't go too far after that." Donna looked to Jackie again, the lines on her forehead revealing themselves from realization. "I guess you could say he's actually perfectly in character."

Jackie shrugged her shoulders but a small smile that she tried to hide teased at her lips. "I guess you're right."

"So what are you going to do when he gets his memory back?" Donna asked as she reached forward casually to grab some chips. She didn't notice the flicker of worry that blinked in Jackie's eyes.

"What is the possibility that his memory will come back?"

Donna was about to respond how she would typically answer this question, optimistic and hopeful, but she picked up on a shocking clue in Jackie's voice.

"Jackie," She eased into the question gently. "You do want Hyde to get his memory back, right?"

When Jackie didn't answer right away, Donna jumped from her slouched position on the couch, sitting fully erect for the first time in days. "Jackie!" She cried.

Jackie cringed at Donna's scolding tone and went back to biting her thumb nail. "I'm sorry, Donna. I just don't want the old Steven to come back, okay?!"

Donna's look softened as Jackie continued. "I really am falling for him again, Donna, and I don't want to lose him. I've lost him too much, and I think if it happens again, I just won't be able to handle it."

Donna quietly nodded, understanding what she meant. A sharp series of knocks vibrated off the front door, announcing their awaited acquaintance's arrival.

"Come in." Jackie called, not even bothering to move from her place on the couch.

Fenton waltzed into the apartment, his chin held high and his shoulders dancing smugly as he entered. "Look what I brought." His voice sang to Jackie and Donna as he presented a tub of ice cream with both hands. "The perfect medicine for a bug I've caught many times."

Donna reached for the tub and made room for Fenton to join them on the couch. "You've had guys take you for granted too, Fenton?"

Fenton snorted and rolled his eyes. "Oh please honey. Every man appreciates this," he gestured to himself, "to the fullest." He giggled at a distant memory that Jackie and Donna really didn't want to prod into.

"Maybe we should have been gay men, Donna." Jackie offered, spooning some ice cream out of the tub.

"Oh, you would make a great gay man, Jackie." Fenton nodded his head, swatting an effeminate hand her way. He then turned up his nose at Donna and lazily pointed, "This one, not so much."

Donna swallowed a spoonful of vanilla and turned to look to Fenton, clearly offended. "Now why can't I make a good gay man?"

Fenton rolled his eyes. "Well, if you have to ask then there is no sense in explaining."

Just then, Fez whistled a happy tune as he walked through the door, stopping dead in his tracks once he noticed Fenton sitting a little to comfortably for his liking on the couch. "Jackie," He folded his arms across his chest, keeping his line of vision dead center on his nemesis. "What is he doing here?"

Fenton smirked and stood up from the couch, preparing himself for his next battle with his favorite bantering partner. "Still feeling the burn of Sherry wanting me over you?"

"No." Fez steadied his stance and his voice began rising. "Not since I found out that Sherry isn't really a Sherry at all. Why didn't you tell me she was a man?"

Fenton let out one of his trademark muffled giggles and mischievously met Fez's eye. "Because it's funnier that way."

The two held their stare as Jackie tried to break up the queen showdown she just knew would erupt any second. "Fezzie, Fenton is just here for some girl talk with Donna and me."

Fez ripped his eyes from Fenton's glare, looking quite offended at the little pixie perched on the couch and leaning over its arm. "Why can't you have girl talk with me?"

Jackie looked back at Donna for a little help. Donna caught her pleading gaze and piped in her explanation. "Well you weren't home yet, Fez."

"I see." Fez's dark eyes narrowed, his furiousness reaching boiling levels. "So while I'm away, you replace me with this whore!"

Fenton gasped and Jackie jumped from her spot on the couch rushing over to Fez. "No, no, no Fezzie. We would never replace you. Fenton was just, uh, subbing for you."

"Yeah," Donna enthusiastically agreed. "Like a substitute teacher. It's okay temporarily but not as good as the real deal."

Fez still held his narrow stare with Fenton, but allowed Jackie to push his body towards his bed room. As soon as he let him guard down, Fenton retaliated.

"Closet case." He murmured and marched out of the apartment without turning to see Fez's flaming eyes.

Fez slammed his door causing Jackie to jump from the harsh noise that bounced off the walls and her ear drums. She looked at Donna apologetically and took a seat on the couch again, staring at the tub of ice cream as if it was now disgusting instead of helpful.

"I don't even want ice cream anymore." Donna announced, not even realizing that Jackie was thinking the same thing. "Are you sure that I shouldn't just go and talk to Eric?"

Jackie tossed her spoon into the tub and sighed. "Just give him one more day. I'm going to go see Steven later on anyways, and if I run into Eric to, I'll talk to him for you."

"What are you going to see Hyde about?" Donna curled up into the corner of the couch, temporarily satisfied with waiting for one more day.

"I actually sort of have a plan." Jackie ventured to admit, feeling the sting of Donna's wary eye.

"What sort of plan, Jackie?"

"I'm going to ask Steven to go on a date with me." Jackie covered her tracks with a false matter of fact tone and confidence. "If he passes my little test, well, I'm not sure after that, but I'll definitely be testing him."

Donna laughed at her scheming friend, rubbing her forehead to alleviate her mild irritation. "Didn't you try to do this with Kelso all those years ago? Look how wonderfully that turned out."

Jackie rolled her eyes. "This time is different, Donna. For one, Steven won't have you force feeding him the right answers."

Donna let a little grin play at the corners of her mouth. Jackie's expression didn't mirror her amusement. Her lips tightly puckered and her eyes bitchily waited for Donna to explain herself once again.

"I'm sorry." Donna finally gave in. "I already told you about this like 2 years ago. Are you still pissed?"

"Well, considering I have put you on friend probation, I'm bringing back all the old bitchy moves you did to me in the past that I chose to forgive and forget."

"I'm on friend probation?" Donna asked, clearly alarmed.

"Yes," Jackie rolled her eyes once again. At this rate, she feared they would get stuck like that if she continued this conversation with her friend. She loved Donna like a sister, but the girl could really be dense when it came to the code of conduct that she thought was just understood by all women. "Now stop asking questions. I'm trying to explain my plan to you."

Donna relaxed again, gesturing with her arms for Jackie to continue.

"I'm just going to set it up in a way that Steven will have to talk to me. He can't blow me off this time, and I'll remind him that he's working for my love, so he'll have to do as I say." Jackie took a pause to think of other loopholes that she could easily avoid. "And, Steven won't lie just to say the right things to me like Michael did. He might be ill tempered and a dirtbag, but Steven is not a liar."

Donna just nodded her head in agreement, too tired to want to argue with her determined, petite friend. She looked to Fez's bedroom door and frowned at the thought of what they had to do next.

"You wanna go tell Fez we're sorry now." She offered reluctantly.

Jackie sighed and got up from her seat on the couch. "I guess. I'm sure he's cooled off by now."

Hyde sat next to Mrs. Forman on the couch, uncomfortably staring down at the photo album in front of him. Mrs. Forman insisted that he look at some of the pictures she had taken from the period that he had "missed out on" as she liked to put it. Hyde tried to correct her little euphemism, but she just waved her hand and forced him to sit down next to her. She also thought it would help trigger something in his mind that would just have those memories come right back to him. Just as he suspected, she was being completely optimistic about the situation. It really made him uncomfortable when she talked like this. He was pretty sure that his memory would never come back. To be honest, he was actually hoping it would stay wherever it had run off too. Almost no one had anything good to say about the passed two years, and he was quite fine with staying ignorant to his own feelings about the strange 180 degree turn everyone had seemed to take, including himself. The only person that had told him positive things was Fez, and that mostly had to do with his strange new ability to attract women and actually get them to sleep with him. As far as Hyde was concerned, the world he "missed out on" was completely backwards to what he was used to, and he was quite content with only hearing and not experiencing it for himself.

That was why he only slightly looked at the pictures that Mrs. Forman so enthusiastically showed and gave a full explanation of each.

"Oh, and this is when all of you went to the Packers game." Kitty exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "That was such a fun time for all of you. Well," her voice dropped as she began to remember herself. "You and Jackie weren't doing so well but Eric beat up a football fan that day." She smiled again, moving onto better memories. "That was such a special day for Red. He doesn't like to admit it, but I know he was so proud of Eric that day. I, however, was not happy. I have always told him that fighting is not the answer, but hey," She held her hands up in mock defense. "I'm just his mother so what do I know!"

Kitty noticed Hyde's uncomfortable shifting due to her outburst and she quickly straightened up and changed her demeanor. "Is any of this ringing any bells?"

Hyde shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "Nope."

Kitty frowned and then laughed off her pending opinion that her little plan might not be working. "Well, how about we move to more recent pictures, shall we?"

She flipped towards the back of the photo album, scanning the page she had turned to. Hyde ran his hand through his hair, trying his best to hide how incredibly bored he was.

"Well, now here is a picture of Sam." Kitty said as she pointed at a picture sheathed in the right corner closest to Hyde. The mention of the name perked up Hyde's attention. He quickly turned his eyes to the picture next to Kitty's finger and studied the woman who was posing a little too provocatively for a family album. The first thought that entered his mind was she was hot, but that really didn't come as a surprise. Most blondes that wear hardly any clothes tend to have that sort of reaction on him. However, his thoughts completely stopped there. She was just an ordinary type of hot, almost hitting Laurie territories in his mind which didn't settle his stomach anymore with the fact that he used to sorta be married to this woman. Laurie disgusted him, and this Sam woman was starting to as well. The only thing that eased his mind from seeing his picture was he knew exactly who she wasn't.

Ever since his doctor had put in his mind that this dream he had been having may actually be a memory, he started searching all the crevices and cracks of his mind, trying to think who he knew that would wear a dress like that. After a good while, he fearfully began wondering if the white dress was in fact a wedding dress, and the only thing he had been told that had happened in the past two years involving a wedding of any kind was his own drunken one.

He knew now though after seeing this picture of Sam that she couldn't have been the woman. Even without seeing her face, this woman was more than just hot. She was beautiful. Dreaming or remembering her made him feel all these unexplainable and new emotions that seeing Sam didn't even begin to stir up. It was nice to know that his sham of a marriage was really just a tiny footnote in his brain as well.

Just then, Eric hobbled down the stairs, looking like he hadn't showered in one too many days. His hair stuck up on one side of his head and laid flat on the other. Stubble from the week he had spent not shaving was almost starting to push the boundaries of becoming a beard. Kitty and Hyde looked to him disappointedly, one feeling motherly sympathy and the other wanting to pound him for being such a pansy.

"Honey," Kitty tisked her tongue. "You really need to get out of the house. It isn't healthy to lock yourself in your room and not see the sun for so long."

"Mom," Eric groaned. "Donna dumped me. I'm really not in the mood to deal with people who are happy and have love in their lives."

"Nonsense." Kitty laughed, waving her hand at Eric. "You don't need that girl anyways. You know she made out with her boyfriend in your room while you were gone."

Eric looked like he was about to vomit, and Hyde patted Kitty on the knee. "I don't think that helps, Mrs. Forman."

"Well the boy should know. While he was away helping out the poor little children in Africa, she was just being the town hussy."

"Look Mom," Eric pinched the bridge of his nose. "I already know about Randy, and at the time I wanted Donna to move on from me. That has nothing to do with our problem now."

"Well I still say you shouldn't be moping around here over her. Go out and have fun with your friends." She turned to Hyde, offering him a toothy smile. "Steven, you can take Eric out to have a good time, can't you?"

Hyde was about to protest until he caught on that this was the perfect opportunity to escape this trip down nonexistent memory lane with Mrs. Forman. He jumped from his seat on the couch a little too enthusiastically and walked over to Eric, making sure he didn't stand too close because he immediately noticed that Eric really hadn't taken a shower in days. "Of course, Mrs. Forman. I'll take Eric out and show him that there are other fish in the sea."

Kitty closed the photo album and laughed as she stood up from her seat as well. "Well thank you, Steven." She gave him one more smile and walked toward the back of the house.

Eric turned to Hyde, trying to shoot daggers with his eyes, but his depression wasn't very helpful in the delivery. "Are we seriously going out?"

Hyde dropped his fake smile as soon as Kitty was out of the room and turned to his foul smelling friend. "Yeah, but we're just going to The Hub, so slap on some deodorant or something."

"Well I don't want you introducing me to any girls. I really want to patch things up with Donna."

Hyde rolled his eyes and turned on his heel to walk into the kitchen, "Trust me, Forman. I can think of plenty of other painful things that I'd rather do to myself than having to explain to girls that you really aren't as much of a chick as you sound." He turned his head slightly to flash an evil smirk. "Besides, I'm a horrible liar."

Hyde chewed on the last French fry he had, silently telling himself that maybe spending another hour looking at photos with Mrs. Forman might not have been so bad.

"It's just that," Eric whined from his seat against the wall. "I really thought Donna and I were passed all the wedding stuff."

Hyde knew that the best way to handle Eric when he was like this was just to let him whine until he grew tired and then make fun of him until he ran up to his room again. Unfortunately, it looked like he would have to also drive Eric home just so he could run to his room, and he knew more than 5 minutes in the car with him would start the whining again. He needed an exit strategy.

"Just talk to her, Forman." Hyde stated after swallowing his fry. "You guys always work these kinds of things out when you do that stuff."

"Maybe." Eric sighed, grabbing for his soda. "But she isn't even home. I went over there the other day."

"She's at Jackie's."

Eric dropped his jaw. "Why is she at Jackie's?"

Hyde shrugged. "I don't know. Jackie finally let me in yesterday, and she told me that Donna has been staying there this past week."

Eric slumped back against the wall. "She's probably trying to get away from me."

Just then the door of the Hub swung open with Jackie bouncing through and scanning her eyes over burger joint. Hyde caught her gaze, and she walked over to the table. She turned her body to face Hyde once she sat down and placed her purse behind her to block Eric out of the conversation.

"Steven," she stated firmly. "You're taking me on a picnic tomorrow."

"What?" Hyde's mouth hung open in shock. His natural instinct to revolt kicked in. "No way. You know I don't do picnics."

"I know you don't do picnics and that's why you're going with me tomorrow." Jackie folded her arms over her chest, resting her back against the chair.

Hyde didn't even need to question the backwards logic she was presenting to him. The bossy tone and demanding arm fold told him exactly what she meant. "Jackie…" he began to protest.

"There's no getting out of this one, Steven." She wagged a perfectly manicured finger. "If you want another chance at us, you are going to have to go on a picnic with me tomorrow and you will talk about whatever I want to talk about. No "whatever" or "that's cool" is allowed."

Hyde didn't even know how to answer that. He just stared back at her with his pissed off, dumbfounded expression. He heard Eric snicker behind her purse. Jackie must have too because she whipped her hair around, turning her wrath onto the scrawny man.

"What are you laughing at? Shouldn't you be kissing that lumberjack's giant feet?"

Eric's smile fell off his face. Jackie wasn't even fazed by the disheartened look he gave her.

"You better be glad that she is still willing to hear you out after you have made her wait a week! If I was her, I'd already be parading around someone ten times better than you just so you could eat up what a dumbass you are."

Hyde was about to laugh at the mega burn Jackie just smacked Forman with until he felt her piercing eyes turn his way again. "You keep that fact in mind when it comes to picking me up at noon tomorrow."

Jackie picked up her purse and left the boys just as she intended, with a little less of their manhood intact. She held her head high and walked with a swing in her hips. It was nice having the upper hand again.

AN2: I'm planning on the next update to be rated M for smut. Yay smut!