A/N: I'm SOOOOOOOOOO SORRY for that long wait in between chapters. I know this seems like a short chapter, and I'm sorry. But I think I have been suffering from author jealousy, as I've been reading MistyMountainHop's comics and all I can think about is how awesome she's done the show! That being said…it also makes my writing seem/feel like crap. Boo.
But anyway… I just love every single frickin one of you. Seriously. I must pimp out one of my favorite J/H stories right now, b/c the girl that wrote this is absofuckinglutely fabulous. It's called "Six Years Gone," and she actually gets Jackie's eyes right (they're BROWN, not mismatched, but I'm not changing it here, b/c well…let's face it. I'm lazy. Lol), and she's just…awesome. And oh, and check out MistyMountainHop's T7S comics. If they don't have you cracking up (and a little emotional), then there's something wrong w/ you, as they are FABULOUS! No, seriously…
Disclaimer: Look at Season 8. Then look at me. See where I'm going w/ this…?
Chapter 6: Parental Guidance
Kitty Forman was, first and foremost, a mother. It was what she knew God had wanted her to do, to be. And regardless of whatever biology said, every one of those kids that had come through those basement doors were her children.
She cooked for them. Looked after them.
Loved them.
She also knew – though it was wrong – that she had a favorite. It was wrong of her, she knew, and felt incredibly guilty about it. Parents weren't supposed to have favorites, but parents were human too, weren't they? They had faults and made mistakes, just like everyone else. Parents were imperfect, but this she knew very well, as her imperfection consisted of peach schnapps. Lots of peach schnapps.
But she loved her children. Oh, how she loved her children…
And it was this love – this overwhelming emotion that caused her the deepest grief when any one of her children were unhappy – that made her want to kick her favorite child in the nads.
Really, really, really hard.
But, as her favorite, she gave him the benefit of the doubt. That he would wise up, and send that stripper packing.
She was wrong.
That after the stripper's real husband came to claim her (and good riddance to them both, she thought), Steven would finally wise up, and apologize and marry Jackie so they could give her pretty blue-eyed grandbabies.
Again, she was wrong.
Her favorite was not acting accordingly.
Not even the teeniest bit.
She knew what went on after that. The cruel way that he would taunt Jackie ("burns" the kids called them), the way he made her feel like she was complete dirt. Like she was some trash…hurting her so much that she had to fly almost a thousand miles away to be away from him, from her family.
It was shameful.
And yet, she couldn't completely blame Steven. It was his parents doing, wasn't it? For surely if Bud and Edna hadn't been such horrific parents, Steven wouldn't treat Jackie that way. He would never have gone to Vegas, he would never have married that…that individual, and ruin the best thing that ever happened to him.
No, she didn't completely blame Steven.
She blamed herself.
Maybe if she had paid more attention, been more aware, then Steven wouldn't have had to have the childhood he had. Maybe if she had brought him under her roof sooner, he would've learned what parental love was. How it felt to be under the same roof with people that love you, and want you.
And didn't abandon you when you needed them the most.
While logic told her otherwise – that she couldn't have known what was going on in Steven's home, as he was very private – her mother heart knew that was complete crap. And, God forgive her, but she hated Bud and Edna. Hated what they did to her baby boy, hated that it was their rotten behavior that made her Steven so distant and cold. He was worthy of so much love, was capable of so much love, but he didn't trust it. Didn't believe that he was worthy of it. But, oh God, he was. He was so loved. By his friends, by Red, herself.
And, Jackie… Oh, good Lord, Jackie…
That tiny girl loved that boy with everything she had…and then loved him more than that, somehow. She didn't think that Jackie had much to give at first (she was so bossy) – but Jackie gave Steven all of herself. As a woman in love herself, Kitty could see it happen before her very eyes. How Jackie's face would light up when Steven walked into the room, how she was the first to rush after Steven when he balked at meeting his real father…Good Lord, Jackie loved that boy.
And Kitty knew – with her mother's heart and the maturity that came with experience – that her baby felt the same. Hadn't she noticed the way Steven's blue eyes would track Jackie's every movement? Or how his gaze focused on her lips when she was blabbing about something or other?
Those stupid sunglasses didn't hide everything, ya know!
And yet here they were, her precious Steven, raging at everything and everyone, hurting so much because he loved so much. Jackie had awaken in Steven emotions that he never thought he had – emotions so deep, so burning in their intensity, that it terrified him. With Jackie, the all consuming control he had over his tightly reined in emotions was lost. Vanished into thin air as if the chains binding them deep inside his chest had never existed in the first place.
It was heartbreakingly beautiful the way those two were together when no one was looking.
But Kitty always looked. She's a mother, she needed to look.
She saw.
And because she looked, because she saw, she was now heartbroken for both her children. For the one that loved so much it broke her, and the other for being so terrified to openly love her back.
It took almost all of Kitty Forman's willpower to not shout out from the rooftops where Jackie was. Because no matter how Steven behaved, no matter all the garbage that he sprouted to his friends about how happy he was finally to be rid of her, Kitty knew that Jackie's absence cut Steven down to his bones. She didn't sense this with her eyes, or her ears.
Kitty Forman sensed it with a mother's soul.
But the woman inside of the mother couldn't help but be a tad bit pleased at his misery. Oh, she wasn't proud of it – but, Jackie was her child, too. And every atom of every cell that was packed into the matter that was Kitty shredded every time she saw that tiny girl walk away from her house with tears in her eyes.
Her house was supposed to be a happy home. Kitty had tried hard to make it so. Yet, coming to this house was tearing Jackie apart. It was taking a part of her, slowly. Killing that bright light that burned so deeply inside Jackie that the man on the moon could see it. The final months of 1979 was the dimmest Kitty had ever seen her be. And she knew – though it killed her to admit it – that if Jackie hadn't left when she had, she would slowly start becoming exactly like her mother.
If that process hadn't started already.
And both the woman and mother cried when Jackie left, and rejoiced seeing her go.
Jackie deserved better.
While Kitty loved each and every one of those that hung out in her basement, she couldn't help but carry around a ball of resentment towards that redheaded harlot and her favorite son. It wasn't right, this resentment, but she couldn't help it. As much as she knew that Jackie needed to go, the fact that she was gone had left a gaping hole in her place. Jackie may have been known to lie on occasion, and there was no doubt that she could be shrill and bossy. But under all that shrillness and bossiness was a huge heart that was filled to the brim with liquid gold. She had used that gold, even if it was strangely done, but she had used that gold to warm others, confident in the fact that she was loved the same way.
Donna and Steven had proven otherwise.
It was disgraceful the way those two had treated someone who had loved them so dearly. To be completely honest, it shamed Kitty as a mother that two children she had both seen grow up and raised herself to be so completely ignorant of someone else's pain. Donna had always been self-righteous, and almost always refused to see what was directly in front of her. Kitty hated to say it, but she wasn't exactly surprised at Donna's lack of sensitivity when it came to Jackie. She had seen it when it came out that Jackie had been left on her own, and Donna had been so reluctant to let her stay at her house. It tore Kitty to pieces to see Jackie so alone – and amazed her when Donna almost had to be forced to ask Jackie to stay at the Pinciotti's.
It was shameful.
And now Jackie was in a new city, knowing no one and fending for herself on her own. Kitty realized that it was for the best – there was a part of her that was boiling over with pride at Jackie's burst of independence. But the mother – the mother that had watched this tiny girl blossom into a beautiful woman, in spite of life's cruelty – was worried and afraid. Worry for Jackie alone in the big city, and fear for the life that Steven would lead if Jackie never came back.
They were meant to be together, those two. Kitty Forman knew this to be true down to her bones.
The worry became less intense, though, as Jackie would try to call as often as she could to tell her of her new life in New York. While her chipper voice didn't exactly match the Jackie that she had met, she felt better knowing that Jackie was trying to be happy in New York.
She was trying to be happy, and Kitty would never deny her that. Jackie's happiness had always been dependent on other people – her parents, Michael, then Steven. Kitty, though loving having her kids – biological or not – close to her, understood Jackie's need to finally put herself first. Finally choose to seek out the happiness for herself, instead of depending on other people to give it to her. It made Kitty so proud to see Jackie taking initiative, fighting for her right to be happy.
She just wished that it didn't come at the cost of her surrogate son's wellbeing.
It was a monumental effort for Kitty to not yell out from the rooftops where Jackie was. She understood Jackie's wishes, and even agreed with her on some of them, but every time that Kitty had to watch Steven nurse hangover after hangover tore her up inside. It didn't matter what Steven said about being glad that Jackie's gone, about finally being free from that "evil bitch" as he called her.
He was falling apart without her.
Kitty wasn't as oblivious as she seemed. She knew what went on in her house – she's a mother. She's seen the women walk past her kitchen, having come from the basement outside stairs. Women Steven used and discarded, their only appeal being their ability to erase Jackie from his memory for a time.
They never lasted more than a couple of days.
Kitty hurt for her son more than words can ever begin to describe. It was a pain that she would've gladly taken from him, if he hadn't been at fault. But he had, having thrown away Jackie's love out of jealousy and pride. And just outright meanness.
If she didn't love him the way she did, his behavior over the last several months would be enough to have her make him eat Pop-tarts for the next year.
But she did, oh God, she loved this poor lost boy so much. Her heart ached for him – this orphan boy who tried so hard to show how he didn't care. But she knew. Steven had an overwhelming depth of love inside of him, and the intensity of that love terrified him. Loving meant having to be vulnerable, and Steven hated being vulnerable. The only people he trusted enough to be vulnerable with were herself and Red, and even that took years of feeding him her chocolate chip pancakes.
Not many could resist her pancakes, ya know. They wouldn't dare…
Kitty sighed into her cup of coffee, watching the boy- oh, he was still so very much a little boy – nurse yet another hangover in her kitchen. She knew it wouldn't do any good for her to say anything.
So she didn't, and silently prayed that the demons that Bud and Edna had set loose upon Steven's soul would just leave him in peace.
And with Jackie.
Hyde watched the television without really watching it. He was nursing his fourth beer, and it had yet to hit three in the afternoon. Not to mention the two solo circles – and was a circle really a circle if there was only one participant? he wondered – he had imbibed in earlier.
After all, getting fucked up was what was on the agenda today.
As it had been for the past three months.
Or was it four?
He could barely remember anymore.
All he knew was that this was the life. He was happy – he had a lot of beer, a shitload of weed, and a little black book of chicks that were still aching to ride him as hard as they could.
They didn't nag. They barely even talked. All they cared about was his dick and how hard he could give it to them.
To Hyde, it was the perfect life.
But it wasn't. And he knew it.
It wasn't perfect because there was no short bitchy brunette to nag him. There was no shrill voice demanding he make more of himself. No kicks to the shin with pointy shoes when he did something to annoy her.
And, fuck it all, he missed it, man!
Hyde threw his half empty beer can across the room, suddenly furious, pacing around the basement. Jackie wasn't here, and he was losing it. Losing his grip, his zen, because she was no longer around. He missed her more now more than he ever knew – and it infuriated him that she could so easily get him to this point. All that beer, all that weed, all those fucking chicks – it meant nothing because no matter how drunk he got, how much weed he smoked, how many chicks he nailed – Jackie Burkhart was always the first face he needed to see in the morning, and the first to pop into his mind the moment he closed his eyes at night.
What he wouldn't give to burn that bitch out of the water for turning him into a pussy like Forman.
He wished, with all that was in him, he wished – that she had never sunk him so low. That he never noticed her, that he secretly never wished for her while she was still with Kelso. That it wasn't the memory of her coming beneath him that would send him over the edge every time he was out nailing other chicks. She had seeped into his blood, man, making herself a part of him that he was desperately seeking relief from.
She was like a fucking disease.
As he calmed himself down, once again grabbing a hold of his zen, he went to grab a mop so he could clean up the spilled beer. Mrs. Forman shouldn't have to clean up after his fucking temper tantrums, she had already had enough with her twitchy son and whorey daughter. She didn't need to suffer from cleaning up after him, too.
As he started to clean up the spilled beer, Red came rushing down the stairs, eye blazing with temper and fiery purpose.
"What the hell is wrong with you, boy? What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Hyde looked at him, confused.
"Kitty is upstairs, crying her eyes out because of you and Jackie!" Red thundered.
"Uhhh…Red? Jackie and I have been broken up for awhile now…"
"You think I give a shit?" Red yelled, almost seeing red and shaking from fury. "You don't think I don't know what's going on in my house, with my own kids? That girl loved your dumbass more than life, and you're here fucking drinking beer! Kitty hasn't seen Jackie in months and it's you and that redhead's fault! Do you know that she wants to plan a trip to New York to go see Jackie now...?"
"Wait – Jackie…Jackie's in New York?"