I don't own anything in this story, I'm just using them.

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There is a lot of cursing in this chapter, and it marks the return of someone very special to my heart.

Chapter Three: Purgatory.

"What happened when I died?"

Hyde blinked as he was forced back to the present. Turning his head towards the others in the car, he realized that they had stopped and that he was alone. Quickly, he got out to find Eric was on the payphone with Kelso and Fez standing next to him. Hyde looked through the window of the gas station and saw Jackie and Donna walking through the aisles, both wearing baseball caps and sunglasses.

He wished he knew where they were. As the girls walked out the store carrying bags of snacks and beverages, the guys walked towards them.

"Well, I just talked to Leo." Eric told them.

"And?" Jackie questioned.

"He said good luck." Eric said. "And that he'll watch after Grooves."

"Maybe I should call Randy and ask him to look after it." Donna pondered.

"We agreed we wouldn't call anyone from Point Place." Eric reminded her. "I know we all want to call people, God knows I want to call my folks, but we can't."

Hyde shook his head, why the hell was everyone being so vague? Why couldn't they just say what was going on and talk like normal people? Frustrated, Hyde turned from the group and walked off into the distance to get his head together. How was he supposed to know what happened to him if they just continued to act like he never existed?

What if he had never existed? What if for some reason, they all forgot about him? What was he going to do then? Just live out the rest of his life as a specter, following his friends around while they carried on life without him? What if Jackie decided to start dating other guys? Worse, what if the ring she was wearing wasn't the mate to his?

He had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he never heard the engine turn on. It was the sound of screeching tires as the Vista Cruiser made its way out of the parking lot that caught Hyde's attention. He could only watch as they drove down the vacant street and into the sun.

Hyde closed his eyes as the hot sun glared down at him. He wished he still had his trademark shades, at least to block out the sun's rays.

"What happened to your sunglasses?" Jackie asked as she stroked the stubble on his face.

"Uh, Donna threw them at a tree." Hyde answered.

"Really?" Jackie gushed. "Well, we'll just have to get you a new pair."

Hyde winced at the memory. She had so understanding of him and how had he repaid her? He was invisible and or worse, stranded in the middle of no where, with no direction to lead him home, and no way of ever catching up with the others.

He knew objectively that he had no one to be mad at but himself. Why had he turned his back on the group? They had no idea he was with them, and yet, he couldn't help but resent them for leaving him behind. It was almost as though he didn't exist to them at all.

Suddenly, Hyde felt a chill in the air that wasn't there before. Not knowing what else to do, Hyde started walking in the direction the Vista Cruiser went. If it was as he feared, and he was, in fact, dead, then the afterlife sucked. Perhaps he was in purgatory, forced to walk an empty highway across a deserted wasteland for the rest of eternity. He wondered what would happen if he actually made his way back to Jackie and the rest of his friends. Would he be sent back to the beginning, forced to keep walking the same road over and over again?

"Shit." Hyde said as he kicked a rock. He left the road and started walking down the hill to look at the ravine below. There was no fence blocking the edge, making it easy for someone to fall off, not that it mattered to Hyde, given that he was no longer alive and therefore, unable to feel pain.

Hyde looked out at the vast landscape in front of him, suddenly engrossed in the emptiness that surrounded him like water surrounds an island. He ran his hands through his hair and wished he had a cigarette.

"You don't want to smoke here anyway."

The familiar voice of his friend made him turn around. At the side of the road, Eric Forman stood in the flesh.

"Forman?" Hyde asked, rushing back up the hill towards his friend.

"Ugh." He said, "I'm not Eric, I just happened to get a body that looks remarkably like your friend. He really is quite scrawny."

On closer inspection, he realized that the man was right. While the facial features were exactly the same, this man's hair was darker and cut much shorter. He also looked like he could handle himself in fight, something the real Forman could never do, foot ball games not withstanding.

"Uh, okay." Hyde said slowly. "Then uh, who are you?"

"I'm your guide, although I have to tell you, I'm a little surprised to be seeing you so soon, after all, it was just a few months ago that I saw your girlfriend."

"Jackie?" Hyde asked, "You know Jackie?"

"I do." The man said with a casual shrug of his shoulders. "She's your wife now if I'm correct. Oh, and she's carrying your child, man, you must really hate yourself right now."

Hyde narrowed his eyes at the guide. "Uh, not really, although I am kind of wondering what happened."

"Ah, loss of memory, that's to be expected. Don't worry; it'll come back soon enough. Tell me, what's the last thing you remember?"

Hyde closed his eyes and tried to focus on his memories.

"Jackie asked me what happened when I died."

"Then what?"

"Then, I… the next thing I know, it's three months in the future and no one can see me and I'm watching my friends cut their hands and perform so sadistic blood ritual and they're setting fire to Jackie's house and we're married! I don't remember getting married, I don't remember getting Jackie pregnant, I don't remember anything except finding out that I'm dead and I'm in some stupid afterlife with some guy who looks like my best friend but isn't, because he's in a car right now, driving to fuck knows where!"

Not! Eric just blinked. "You're not dead."

"I'm not?" Hyde asked in surprise.

"No." Not! Eric replied as he shook his head. "This is much worse, but don't worry, if Jackie can get through it, so can you."

"Who are you?" Hyde asked.

"I told you, I'm your guide, Jackie never asked this many questions."

"I'm not Jackie."

Not! Eric grinned. "That's for sure; for one thing, she's much better on the eyes than you are."

Hyde glared at the guide. "You better have kept your hands off my chick."

"Or what?" Not! Eric laughed for a moment before straightening himself and looking Hyde square in the eye.

"We're going to get one thing straight here, if you knew who I really was, what I really am, you wouldn't be saying those stupid things, so I'm going to ignore that comment and I'm going to tell you this once and once only. I'm not Eric, so don't think you can bully me into getting what you want. I'm here for one reason and one reason only, and that's to help you figure out what happened to you so that you can fix it, got it?"

Hyde actually took a step back after Not! Eric finished his speech. He was never one to feel intimidated by anyone, sans Red Forman, but the guy in front of him could give Red a run for his money.

"Uh, so what do I call you?" Hyde asked, now more curious about this so called guide more than ever. What did he mean by if he really knew who he was? Who the hell was he?

The guide shifted his gaze and relaxed his posture to a more non threatening stance.

"Call me Virgil."

"As in Dante's Virgil?" Hyde questioned skeptically.

"Yeah, you're right, that's awfully cliché isn't it? Uh, well, you think of something."

"Think of something? You're telling me you can't tell me your name?"

"Nope." The guide shrugged. "Jackie called me Not! Eric if that helps."

"Yeah, I'm not going to do that." Hyde said. "I'll call you V."

The newly named V nodded his consent. "V it is."

"You wouldn't by any chance actually be the real Virgil would you?" Hyde asked as the two started walking down the highway.

"I wish." V laughed. "Though I don't envy the work he has to do."

"Right." Hyde said unsurely. "Uh, so I gotta ask, if I'm not dead…"

The guide ignored him. "Why'd you choose an abandoned gas station?"

"What do you mean? I didn't choose to be left at a gas station, and it wasn't abandoned." Hyde argued.

"Look." V said pointing back toward the gas station. Now it looked as though no one had been there in years.

"What the fuck?" Hyde yelled. "It wasn't like that twenty minutes ago! My friend's just left me!"

V stared at Hyde for a moment before he grabbed his shoulders and the next thing Hyde knew, they were back at the gas station. Hyde quickly glanced inside to see the shelves were all empty, and no one was standing behind the counter. On the door were cardboard boxes with the word closed written on them in red ink.

"Tell me the last thing you remember, exactly." V demanded.

"Uh, I told you, Jackie asked what happened when she died!"

"Not that!" V yelled in his face. "Here!"

"Uh, they were all talking and I got mad for not saying where they were going, and so I walked away to get my head clear, and when I turned around, they were gone."

"You saw them leave?" V asked.

"Yeah."

"Motherfucking Christ." V cursed. They both pointedly ignored the lightning in the distance. "And then what?"

"Uh, I started walking."

"What direction?"

"West, and then I stopped and left the highway and that's where you found me."

V slowly took a deep breath and calmed down. "You must have stepped into a time portal by accident."

"Which means what?" Hyde asked fearfully.

V cocked his head and grinned. "It means that you managed to send yourself into the future. The good news is I can help, the bad news is it won't make finding Jackie any less difficult, although that's the last thing you need to worry about now."

"What do you mean I shouldn't worry about Jackie?" Hyde growled. "She's my wife; I need to be with her."

"Ah, that's so romantic." V said sarcastically. "I still think she was better off with the Prince."

"The who?"

"Forget it." V ordered. "You need to get your memory back and find out what happened to you before you can go running off to be with Jackie, and besides, you being with her right now will only put her in more danger."

"Danger, what danger?" Hyde asked.

"Again, memory, get it back."

"I've tried!" Hyde yelled.

"Try harder!" V yelled back. "What do gas stations mean to you?"

"Uh, I've got a lot of relatives who work at gas stations, the ones who aren't in prison anyway."

"That's it? Nothing else? Come on think, you must have chosen this place for a reason, gas station, empty highway with nothing around?"

"Sorry, this is the first time I've ever been here." Hyde shrugged.

"Great." V mumbled. "Take my hand." He ordered as he struck his hand out towards Hyde.

"Uh…" Hyde said hesitantly.

"As much as your homophobia amuses me, take my fucking hand."

Hyde quickly took the guide's hand and swallowed nervously. "So where…"

He never got to finish his sentence, as the next thing he knew, he was being catapulted back to the moment Jackie and Donna were walking out of the gas station.

"So do I go with them this time?" Hyde asked walking towards the car.

"No." V said pulling Hyde back. "You're going to let them leave; I told you that you can't be with them right now."

"But…"

"No buts." V ordered. "Just watch."

Hyde did as he was told, and watched the gang split up and walk back to the Vista Cruiser. He saw Jackie pull Donna aside and he went to eavesdrop on them.

"I don't feel safe around here." Jackie confided to her friend.

Donna nodded. "I don't either, I still feel like we're too close to Point Place."

"Let's get in the car." Jackie said. "And tell Eric to keep driving."

Hyde watched as the girls got back into the car, Donna sat in the front seat with Eric, while Jackie sat in between Fez and Kelso.

"How am I supposed to just watch her leave?" Hyde asked V. "How am I supposed to know she's going to be safe?"

"Don't worry." V told him. "She's safe as long as she's with them, and they're not going to let her out of their sights."

"Swear your life on that."

"If I had a life to give, I would." V told him sincerely. "You might want to say goodbye for now."

Hyde turned back to the car. "Bye Jackie, uh, everyone. I'll see you around I guess."

V nodded and the two watched the Vista Cruiser leave the parking lot once again.

"What now?" Hyde asked his all too familiar companion.

"That's up to you, what do you want to do? And don't say go be with Jackie, that's not an option."

"Just tell me where they're going at least." Hyde pleaded.

V closed his eyes. "I don't know." He admitted.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" Hyde demanded. "I thought you guys knew everything!"

"Okay first off, what do you think I am exactly; secondly, I don't know because whatever ritual thing they did is making it impossible for me to keep track of them. Every time I try to find them, it gets all distorted, which is why she's safe as long as she's with them. If I knew where they were going, I still wouldn't tell you though, because it's not safe for you or for them."

"What do you mean it's not safe?" Hyde asked. "I thought we were alone."

"Shit, okay, the faster we get your memory back the better. Otherwise, I'm going to have to keep explaining things that you really should already know."

Hyde sighed. "Fine, um, to answer your question, I guess I want to go back to Point Place. That's where all this started right?"

V nodded. "Fine, but first, we need to make sure you understand some things. First, you stay with me, second, don't go trying to be some hero, because you're not one and you'll only get you and or Jackie killed, third, talk to no one except me, got it?"

"I got it, but uh, who am I going to being talking to?"

V sighed. "You said the last thing you remember is Jackie asking you what happened when you died right?"

"Uh, yeah." Hyde replied.

V turned for a minute and closed his eyes, as though he was debating as to what he was going to tell Hyde.

"The moment Jackie died, what did you do?" V inquired.

"I didn't do anything."

"You didn't beg, plead, and ask for her back? You didn't say you'd do anything for one more chance with her, nothing of that nature?"

Hyde shook his head, confused. "No, I heard the doctors call out the time of death and then I started to leave, and then Red Forman ordered the doctors to try again, and then the next thing I know, she was alive." He looked at V skeptically, remembering that he had told him he was Jackie's guide. "Where were you when it happened?"

V knew what Hyde was really asking.

"I'm not going to explain myself to someone like you." V said with an air of distain. "If it wasn't for you, none of this would have happened in the first place."

"How the hell was any of this my fault?" Hyde questioned. "Is it because I didn't help Jackie when she fell in the creek, because…"

"No." V interrupted. "It was the moment you told the whore from Las Vegas to stay. You might as well have signed a pact with the devil right then and there, oh wait, you did!"

"What?" Hyde asked confused. "I made a mistake, but I got her to leave right? I got Jackie back, things are… or were, good."

"Do you really think that's enough?" V asked seriously. "So you said some nice words and gave her a couple kisses, you still told Samantha to stay; you still broke Jackie's heart. I got her to forgive you, but that's only half the battle."

"Fine, I get it, I fucked up, but what do you mean I signed a pact with the devil?"

V sighed and clinched his fists. "When you said Sam could stay, you chose what you considered to be the path of least resistance, but in reality, what you did was sign your life away."

"So Sam was the devil?" Hyde asked confused.

"Please, you think the devil would give herself that pig nose?" V scoffed. Hyde resisted the urge to make a joke about the devil being a woman.

"The point is, without realizing it; you gave up your soul, which if you think about it, explains a lot right?"

Hyde nodded as he remembered what he told Eric. "I felt empty, but then Jackie woke up and said she forgave me, and I felt whole again."

"Because she rescued your dumb ass." V told him. "Someday you're going to have to get her to tell you what happened, it's a great story."

"I'm sure it is." Hyde allowed, "But in order for that to happen, I have to get my body back."

"Not an outer body experience." V said dismissively.

"I took a guess." Hyde said with a shrug. "So, I got my soul back right? So why is everything still fucked up?"

V raised an eyebrow; the look was eerily familiar to the look Jackie would give him.

"Because," V spoke as though he was talking to a very small child, "Without your soul, you were content to just let things happen without any regard to how they would affect the greater good. You were content to watch your friends suffer at the fate you caused them."

"I don't get it." Hyde admitted, "How was I supposed to know that staying with Sam would do this?"

V shook his head, exasperated. "Whatever you do, affects others. Your choice to stay with Sam caused a downward spiral that unbeknownst to you, is still on going, regardless of what you might think, hence, your current position The good news is that like I mentioned early, Jackie rescued you."

"You mean if Jackie hadn't fallen into the creek none of this would have happened?"

"That's right, it'd be much, much worse."

"How much worse?" Hyde was scared to ask, but did anyway.

"Well, for one thing, you'd still be sporting that awful mustache, and Donna… don't even get me started on her. But worst of all, Jackie would have ended up with someone else." V cringed.

"Who, don't say Kelso."

"No, not him, but close."

"Forman?" It was preposterous but stranger things were known to happen.

"Try again."

Hyde stared blankly at V as the answer came to him. "No fucking way, there's no way. No, no, no. That's just… fucking no."

"Congratulations, your drunkenness actually saved Jackie a life of being touched by Fez." V patted Hyde on the back.

"Okay, I gotta ask, what would have happened if I had told Sam to leave?"

V smiled wirily. "There are endless possibilities to that, which I think is what makes life so interesting, but I can tell you this, you would have been happy and probably alive."

"Uh, that's comforting." Hyde remarked. "So how do I fix it, I mean, when we go back to Point Place?"

"That comes later." V told him. "Right now, we still have work to do here, starting with your memory, what does this place mean to you?"

Hyde looked around at the vacant landscape. "I'm telling you, I've never been here before."

"Doesn't matter." V told him. "There has to be some meaning behind this, otherwise you wouldn't have come here."

"But I didn't!" Hyde shouted. "I was with my friends; they're the ones who left me here."

"Please, you're smarter than that. You knew that you should have stayed in the car, but you didn't. You let yourself be left behind here, and what I need to know is why?"

Hyde closed his eyes again. The place had no special meaning to him, but how was he supposed to tell the guide that again?

"Is this a dream?" Hyde asked. "Cause you said you were with Jackie, but I know Jackie was really in hospital bed, so what'd I do? Hit my head on a counter?"

V shrugged. "I suppose you could say this is a dream, however, that would be wrong, and besides, you and Jackie were two different cases."

"So I'm not in the hospital somewhere?"

"Nope."

"That means…"

"Yep."

"So this really is all happening?"

"Uh huh."

Hyde felt like punching someone. All of his hope was no gone, replaced by a more familiar emotion, dread. He walked over to the edge of the ravine and sat down into the abyss. Soon after, V sat next to him.

"Look," V said after a moment, "There are forces at work here that are much bigger than you could possibly comprehend, and somehow you managed to get yourself right in the middle of it. No, let me amend that last thing, you managed to get Jackie in the middle of it. Now her and all your friends are running for their lives. For your baby's life."

Hyde closed his eyes. V's words had a certain déjà vu to them. Hyde could remember the emotions, but he still had no way of remembering the details.

"How do I get my memory back?" Hyde asked.

The guide stood up and Hyde reached for his hand to pull himself up.

"We start walking." The guide told him. "High ho, high ho, it's off to Point Place we go." He said tunelessly as the two started walking down the long, abandoned highway. The sun was setting, making the horizon seem that much farther. He wondered where the gang was, if they were safe, and how long it would take him to find his way back to her.

"You know, my mother used to always threaten to leave me at gas stations, said I was too much of a burden for her." Hyde said conversationally as they walked the darkened street.

"So, alone in a gas station with no where to go." V commented. "And you said this place means nothing to you."

Hyde shrugged. "So what, I haven't thought about it in years."

"Doesn't matter, you still ended up here. It's interesting that you ended up somewhere alone. Says a lot about you don't you think?"

"Like what exactly?" Hyde asked warily.

"You've convinced yourself that you're going to end up alone, which is why you push everything you love away. It's almost like you actually had a sign on your back that said come! Buy this soul for a ridiculously low price! Seriously, what did you get for it? Talent, prestige, better stamina in the bedroom, nope, you got nothing. They got your soul, and you got zilch."

"Wait a minute." Hyde said as he stopped in the middle of the road. "I don't even believe in this soul crap, and I definitely don't believe in heaven and hell."

"I don't give a crap about what you believe." V announced. "I supposed to be back home, eating crappy onion soup with my friend, but no, I have to be here with you. It doesn't matter if you believe in this or not, it's real so get used to it."

Hyde couldn't think of a proper response to V's insults, so he glared at the man, hoping he'd shut up. Finally, V stopped walking and pulled Hyde to the side.

"Look, this isn't the way we typically do things, but usually people remember what brought them here far sooner than this, and given that if I have to look at this crappy scenery anymore, I'm going to shoot myself, I'm going to break the rules just this once."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Hyde admitted, confused and bewildered at V's rant.

V grabbed Hyde's arm. "The past you cretin, we're going to the past!"

"To change things?" Hyde asked hopefully.

"What exactly?" V asked. "You don't even know what you did!"

"Yeah, but…"

"No buts, this is strictly no touching."

Hyde wasn't so sure about the prospect of going back in time to watch himself make the same mistakes,(even if he couldn't really remember what they were) but he didn't have time to voice his concerns, as the next thing he knew, he was standing in the hospital, watching Jackie and his past self lie on the bed.

"What happened when I died?"

The present day Hyde closed his eyes. And so it began.

Why yes, this is very Dickensian, except I think Not! Eric is far more likely to kick Hyde's ass than Scrooge's ghost of Christmas Past ever was.

I hope no one was confused by Not! Eric's name change. For those wondering about the Gnome, I said in Into the Woods that you'd see him again, and you will!

For those wondering what the hell is going on with Jackie and the gang while they're on the road that will be covered in Act II. ACT I is purely the events that lead to chapter one.

I've got a lot of work to do for school, so I don't know when my next update will be. I'll try for next week but I'm not making any promises.