Disclaimer: I don't own.

Author's Note: Thanks so much to those of you reading and reviewing! Especially those of you who review all my stories. I think of you guys when I let myself feel bad about not getting as many reviews as I might like. the reviews you guys give me are fantastic, and I really, really appreciate all of them! They make me feel all warm and fuzzy. :) Now. I know everyone hates the drug subplot, and believe me, I do too. But it's happening for a reason. And very soon there will be a line that our precious Hyde will not cross. This chapter is transitional. But it's leading up to something important, and something that will, I hope, make everyone smile. :) (As per your request, luvcali!)

For Her Sake

Chapter 5 – A Good Man To Take Care of You

Keeper of the Brooms

March 2, 1980

The smell of perm solution permeated even the back room, and Jackie sat, slumped in a chair and pouting her break away. Break. Right. A whole ten minutes, not even enough time to reapply the nail polish she'd chipped earlier. She rolled her eyes and looked around her. Beauty product, cleaning solutions, mops, brooms, dust pans. The tools of her new trade. Since she lost her job with that bitch Christine St. George, her options had been limited.

She'd ended up at the salon with Fez, in a position even lower than the shampoo boy. She swept hair from the floor. She took the trash out. She did all the most disgusting jobs the salon had to offer, and yet, she stayed. Fez thought it was because she wanted to spend time with him, and she supposed that was part of it. The bigger part of it was that she desperately needed money.

"Jackie! Your break's over, and I need you out here! Bring your broom!"

She rolled her eyes. Her broom. Not the broom. Her broom. How in the hell had she ended up here? As the keeper of brooms?

Groaning quietly to herself, she stood and grabbed the stupid broom on her way out of the supply room. She passed Fez, but he didn't look at her, he was too involved in a conversation with the owner of the salon. He looked excited, and she wondered, with a nasty little tweak in her stomach, just what that stupid whore was saying to him.

"Jackie, please hurry up!"

God, shut up, Debbie! I'm almost there! She shook her head impatiently, but when she reached the hairstylist's chair, she plastered on one of her patented fake smiles.

"It's about time." Debbie, a rather short and stocky girl with a less than even mildly attractive face, turned to the woman in the chair. "I'm so sorry, Hilda. Some people are just not motivated to work hard." She gave Jackie a scathing look. "Some people only have jobs at all because of their boyfriends."

Jackie smiled sweetly and leaned down towards the ugly head of hair Debbie was going to put her even uglier hands in. "And other people only have jobs at all because they have no chance of ever having a boyfriend." The lady in the chair turned, and Jackie's eyes widened. No woman, at least no self-respecting woman, would walk around town with a face like that and no make up! She patted the poor woman on the shoulder. "But I'm sure you know that already."

Debbie's face instantly flushed red, and as her eyes flashed with fury, she hollered across the largely empty salon. "Jeri! Come here! Jackie's insulting my client again and I want her fired!"

Jackie closed her eyes, and her fists clenched. She was sick of this. Sick of being treated like a damn servant by the hairstylists. Tired of being talked down to by the freaking customers who couldn't be helped even by the most skilled hand in the salon. Tired of it all. Her eyes opened, and Jeri stood there, her eyebrow arched in accusation. Jackie held up a hand. "Don't bother," she hissed. Her eyes flickered to her left. Fez stood there, his expression a mix of horror and embarrassment. He was embarrassed of her. It made no sense. Nothing in this damn salon made any sense. She turned her eyes, hot with anger and tears, back to Jeri. "I quit."

She dropped the broom, and on her way to the door, she stepped on the handle. I hope I broke it! The door seemed light when she opened it, or rather nearly tore it off the hinges. The cold winter air soothed the flush in her face, and she stopped. She breathed deeply, her mind whirling so fast she was getting dizzy.

"Jackie, princess, what have you done?"

She turned around to find her boyfriend there, looking at her. At least the embarrassment was gone. Now he was just concerned. What have I done? She shrugged. "I just…Fez, I can't do that anymore. I can't be the store's whipping boy. They walk all over me! Make me sweep disgusting hair! Wipe out sinks where they've washed greasy hair!"

Fez stepped towards her and took her hands. "I know, goddess, but you cannot quit!" He squeezed her hands. "Let me talk to Jeri. She likes me. I will fix this for you."

She pulled away from him. "No! Fez, I just told you, I can't do that anymore! God, I don't know why I even took the stupid job!"

"But Jackie, with you working at the salon, we get to spend all our days together! And besides…Jackie, we have rent to pay. What else are you going to do?"

Jackie stared at him. Translation, Jackie, there is nothing else for you to do but this.

"I supposed you could always go back to being the Cheese Maiden." Fez smiled sexily. "Actually, I like that idea. I always did like your little uniform."

She turned.

Her boyfriend, her boyfriend thought that all she had the skills and ability for was either sweeping dirty floors or strutting around in a short skirt pimping cheese.

And maybe he was right. She'd failed in television, twice over. What else could she do?

Her eyes closed, and a single tear, one that required more energy than her dying soul contained, slipped out to her cheek. Fez's hands touched her hips, and she didn't protest when he pulled her close to him.

"Let me help you, Jackie. I'll take care of it, okay?"

Her eyes opened and she stared at the sidewalk in front of her. Littered with trash, cracks, so many imperfections. "Fine," she whispered.

He hugged her, then was gone, and she was left on the sidewalk. She watched the cars moving on the street in front of her, back and forth. Back and forth. She turned and saw a couple gossipy women, women she personally new to be utter bitches, especially to her, walk into the salon.

This, she supposed, was her future. All that her life had to offer her.

She'd be the keeper of the brooms until she died.

M.R.S. Degree

Later that evening, Donna Pinciotti's bedroom

Donna lay back on her bed with a smile, her eyes closing in rapture. "Oh my god, it's so good to be on my own bed again. I tell you, those little twin beds in the dorms really suck."

Jackie, sitting at Donna's desk and flipping through a University of Wisconsin catalog, lifted a sarcastic smirk to her friend. "At least it's not a cot."

Donna sat up. "Good point." She stood and walked over to her closet. "It's so good to be back."

Jackie giggled. "Donna, you and Eric have been at college for two weeks."

"Yeah, I know. It's just…" Donna opened her closet door and pulled out a sweatshirt. She set it down and began taking off the blouse she wore. "I don't know. I'm just glad Madison is close enough that we can come home on the weekends." She put the sweatshirt on and walked back to her bed, waiting for her friend to respond. Jackie stayed quiet, her nose buried in the catalog, and Donna grinned as she sat down. "What, are you doing? Checking to see if college students dress as badly as you think they do?"

Jackie's eyes poured over the pictures of the campus, over class descriptions, activities, hardly hearing Donna. She'd looked at catalogs before, but she'd never really appreciated them. Now, compared to her lackluster and frustrating job, the college world seemed like a huge, perfect, shining and colorful diamond. "You know what? I think I might like to go to college."

Donna settled back on her bed and laughed. "You? Come on, Jackie. College is about more than just getting your M.R.S. degree."

Jackie's chest tightened, and she glared at the lumberjack who was supposed to be her best friend. "For your information, Donna, I wouldn't be going to get an M.R.S. degree. And I would do great in college."

"Yeah, if the only classes you took were about shopping, make up and cheerleading." Donna sighed when she saw the look on Jackie's face. "Okay, I'm sorry. It's just…Jackie, college isn't like high school. It's way more intense. I just don't think that you're a college type of person." She smiled and tried to lighten the mood. "Besides, aren't you the same person who said college was for ugly girls?"

Jackie closed the catalog, set it on the desk and pushed it away from her. "Whatever," she muttered, her eyes downcast. Not even her best friend thought there was any more to her than what she presented. Not even her boyfriend thought she was capable of doing more than pushing a broom around in a room full of gossipy women. Hell, all her alleged friends probably thought that was exactly where she belonged.

No one thought she had anything deeper than materialistic greed in her.

Steven had. At least at one point. At least I thought he had. God, had he? Or was that all a lie, too?

Maybe they were all right.

The door opened, and Eric walked in. "Hey. You guys seen Hyde? We were gonna hang out, but I have no idea where he is. Kelso and Fez haven't seen him either."

Jackie studied her nails and pretended indifference, but in truth, her stomach was twisting. "He's been kind of avoiding everyone lately," she said. "I don't know what's going on with him."

And despite herself, despite their last conversation, despite the fact that she now knew he never loved her, she worried. At night, she tossed and turned. During the day, she kept thinking about it. What was going on with him? Why was he always in his room, or not at home? Why was he hardly ever at the store?

And where in the hell was he when he was not at home or at the store?

Not your business, Jackie. He's not yours to worry about.

She heard Eric and Donna talking about it, but she turned away from them and tapped the tips of her nails on the desk.

Despite everything, there was no doubt in her that she'd always worry about him.

Natural Charm

Late that night

"Here you go, man. Think you can sell it in two days?"

Hyde smirked. The alley was dark, with only one light splaying dying beams of light against the brick walls and wet, puddled ground. It suited him. He took the proffered bag, full of coke. "It's a guarantee, man." In the last two weeks, he'd turned quite a tidy little profit, and hell, more money meant more beer. He'd indulged in the stuff a few times, and yeah, he enjoyed it. Certainly took the sting off his life, if only for a few golden hours at a time. And yet, the real draw of it to him was the money he was making by allowing others to indulge their addictions.

Somewhere, a little voice that sounded like an odd mixture of Jackie and Mrs. Forman, screamed at him that what he was doing was wrong.

Heh. A lot of fucking things in his life was wrong. Just add this to the list.

Toad elbowed a tall man, the supplier, who was appraising Hyde with a slight smile. "Yeah, man, this guy here got Cancino to double his buy."

The tall man raised an eyebrow, still looking at Hyde. "Impressive. Cancino never doubles anything."

Hyde shrugged. "Chalk it up to my natural charm."

"So we'll see you in three days?"

Hyde looked at him, some guy named he only knew as McElroy. "Two. If not sooner."

McElroy's smile grew. "Confident. I like that."

Hyde nodded at Toad and McElroy, and the other dude, name he didn't know, who stood behind McElroy. "See you around."

Fifteen minutes later, the same alley

"Mackey."

McElroy looked up from where he was crouched in front of a large bag. "What, Adams? I got stuff to do here."

Adams shifted on his feet. "Look, man, I just gotta say this. I don't trust that Hyde guy."

McElroy sighed and rolled his eyes. "Adams, you don't trust anyone."

"He's gonna screw us over."

McElroy stood up. "Oh yeah? What gives you that impression? The fact that he just made us about twice as much money as your boy Toad?"

"Just something about him."

McElroy shrugged. "Well, until he starts costing me money, I'm okay with him. So you need to just chill out." He shook his head and picked up his bag. "Come on. Got places to go, and chicks to do."

Just Like Your Mother

March 3, 1980

Dinner with her father, at the house she'd grown up in. It had been such a long time, and Jackie was both thrilled and nervous. She'd spent all afternoon coaching Fez on her father's likes and dislikes, and apparently, it had been worth it. Fez and her father were getting along famously, though neither of them noticed that she'd hardly touched the roasted chicken and mashed potatoes on her plate.

"So, Fez. Tell me about your job."

"Well, right now I wash the lovely ladies' hair at the salon. But today I was given a promotion, so you will not have to worry, Mr. Burkhart. I will be able to take care of and provide a good life for your daughter."

Jackie looked at him, her body paused in surprise. "What? Fez, you didn't tell me about this."

He reached for her hand and gave her a gentle smile. "I wanted to surprise you. Jeri wants me to become a hairdresser. She is going to send me to beauty school, and when I finish, I will have my own chair at the salon!" He grinned at Jackie's father proudly. "With my magic hands, and all the tips that will be rolling in, I will be able to keep Jackie in the manner to which she's become accustomed."

Jackie slowly blinked. Keep me? Like I'm a toy? Or candy? Of course, I'd be the best candy ever, but still. Keep me?

She saw her father smiling widely first at Fez, then at her.

"Well, Fez, I have to say, I was concerned when Jackie told me she was dating a shampoo boy. And a foreigner. But I've got to say, I'm impressed. You really seem to have plans for the future." He looked at his daughter. "Jackie, it's so nice that you've finally found a boyfriend who will be able to take care of you."

Words her friends, her boyfriend, her father had said stormed in her head, leaving her with muscles that felt useless, with a body that contained nothing but a little girl who needed taken care of.

"Some people only have jobs at all because of their boyfriends."

"What else are you going to do?"

"I just don't think that you're a college type of person."

"I will be able to keep Jackie in the manner to which she's become accustomed to."

"Jackie, it's so nice that you've finally found a boyfriend who will be able to take care of you."

And suddenly, fire burst from her toes upward, warming her useless body with anger. She glared at her father, her precious Daddy. "What does that mean, Daddy? You don't think I can take care of myself?"

Her father stood up, giving her a patient smile before he turned and walked to the bar on the wall. She watched his back as he prepared himself a drink.

"Jackie, don't be silly. Of course you can take care of yourself. But you're just like your mother." He turned and looked at her, sipping his brandy. "You prefer shopping to work, and there's nothing at all wrong with that."

Fez nodded. "And once I am a hairdresser, Jackie, you will be able to shop all day long if you want to."

"Jacqueline, I only want you to be happy. If you have a man, a good man, to take care of you the way I always did, you'll be happy, just like your mother. Just like you were growing up."

She almost laughed. Right. Just like her mother. Her mother had been so happy she'd run off to Mexico and all the other Spanish speaking, tequila serving, Latin men in tight shorts and no shirt countries in the world.

And when she looked at her father, she realized that he actually thought she'd had a happy childhood. When she looked at Fez, she realized that he actually thought all she wanted to do, all she wanted out of her life, was to shop all day.

She smiled weakly and stood, the napkin on her lap falling to the floor in her forgetful haste. "Excuse me, I need to go…powder my nose."

Typical excuse. The excuse all women used.

She stood in the bathroom, stared at herself in the mirror, and started to laugh. She loved shopping. She loved being waited on hand and foot. She loved being worshipped. She loved getting presents all the time, being spoiled by a man who lived for doing just that. She loved all those things, so why was she suddenly feeling smothered and trapped by those very things?

Because not so long ago, Steven thought you were more than just those things. Not so long ago, YOU thought you were more.

Apparently she wasn't.

Yep. Just like her mother.