Disclaimer: I don't own 70S SHOW or anything like that.

After writing out her short story just to have it critiqued by Adrian, Ash was in a poor mood after her workshop. This was the second time she'd been paired with him and she had just about had it. She biked furiously to Dinkytown, determined to wallow in music and self pity. She parked her bike by Grooves, and strolled in. She had called Jackie in a tizzy, asking her to meet her at the Purple Onion on her break, and Jackie said she'd be there at one. That was ten minutes from that moment.

"Well welcome back," Hyde said. She nodded, and stormed to the rock section. "Bad day?"

"Stupid jerk Adrian LAWSON in my class said that my story wasn't very focused," she said, flipping her hair from her face. "And, I was out of clean clothes so I had to wear this shirt that is meant for bedtime only!" Hyde looked at the Led Zeppelin shirt.

"I used to have that exact shirt," he said. "Gave it to a girl and she never gave it back."

"That's rough," Ash said. "Man, I know how to write better than any of them and he dares critique MY stuff! He's just jealous because I'm the best." He smirked, and leaned on the counter.

"People suck," he said. "By the way, I checked, I do have Duran Duran. It's in the Pop section."

"Well thank God for that," Ash said, rushing to it. "I just…. UGH! People can be such assholes!"

"Tell me about it," Hyde said, smirking at this girl who was so confident in herself. He remembered being that way, but time tends to fix that. She found a CD, and smiled.

"My allowance is going to be blown to pieces now that I've found a store like this," she said. "I love music so much, dude."

"It's good stuff," he said. She growled. "Uhhhh…. Are you okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine," she said. "I just think that people in my class are idiots who couldn't point out good literature if it was standing next to..to…. Anne Rice!"

"You're bitter," he said.

"It's just stupid because I'm a great writer and I know it, and I'm being critiqued by amateurs!" she exclaimed, setting the Duran Duran on the counter. "Do you ever just feel like you're better than everyone else around you and they don't know it?" He pondered this question a little bit. While he did act like he was cooler than his friends, deep down he always felt inferior to them.

"No," he said. "Not even when I was your age." She sighed, and put out her money. Hyde rang her up, and bagged her CD.

"So do you like Zeppelin?" he asked.

"Yeah, I guess," she said. "This is my Mom's shirt, I don't know much about Zeppelin. Not that she does, but she has it for some reason. I don't ask questions."

"Sometimes it's best not to," he said. "Actually, if you want to know more about Zeppelin, I would recommend their album Physical Graffiti. It's not as cited as Zeppelin Four, and it has some great music on it."

"Okay, I'll remember that," she said. "Say, do you like Nirvana?"

"They're okay, I guess," he said. "The death of Kurt Cobain is what rocketed them to stardom. Nothing like the premature passing of a musician to make the band super popular, even if they don't deserve it."

"Ouch man, that's harsh," she said. "Come on, Kurt Cobain was a poet. If Jim Morrison was a poet, so was Kurt."

"All I'm saying is that you can't expect to write all this music and make a deal with a record company and not expect to be a) selling out, and b) ripped off," Hyde said. "When you sign with a music label, you automatically sell out. So use your selling out to your advantage, don't whine and kill yourself over it."

"So you support selling out?" she demanded.

"I'm just saying that over the years I've learned that life is all about selling out," he said. "I'm sure you've sold out before, and I know I have in more ways than I would care to talk about with a teenage kid."

"That's cool," she said, and it seemed peculiar to him. Before he could say anything else, the door to the store opened.

And Jackie walked in.

"Ash, it's ten after one," she said, and Ash turned around.

"It is not, it's one exactly!" Ash said, and looked at her watch. "See?"

"Your watch is slow," Jackie said. "Look at the clock on the wall." Ash did, and bit her lip.

"Oops, sorry," she said. "How did you know I was-?"

"I saw your red bike chained to that light post," Jackie said. "Are we going for coffee or-?"

"Oh my God," Hyde said, standing up straight in shock. "Jackie?" She looked, and the color drained from her face.

"Steven?" she asked, almost a whisper.

"Mom?" Ash asked, looking at Jackie and concerned she was about to faint.

"Wait, 'MOM'?" Hyde asked, looking at Ash. "She's your Mom?"

"Steven…." Jackie repeated, and then began to panic.

"Steven… who?" Ash asked Jackie, looking at Hyde.

"Ash, let's go," Jackie said, her flight instincts kicking in. She took Ash's wrist and began pulling on her. "I'll drive you home."

"Mom, what is going on?" Ash asked. "And I have my bike!"

"So we put it in the trunk , it's a Volvo, it'll fit," Jackie said, dragging Ash out of the store.

"Ash?" Hyde asked to himself, and before he knew it they were out the door. "Jackie….. Wait a minute….."

Jackie yanked on the bike as Ash fiddled with the lock.

"Mom, it won't come off the post until I've unlocked it," Ash said.

"Unlock faster!" Jackie snapped, and Ash gave her a look as the lock came undone. "… Sorry. But let's go."

"What about coffee?" Ash asked. "Mom, I'm sorry I'm late, but can't we still do coffee?"

"I'm parked over there," Jackie said, rushing to the car. She popped the trunk, and heaved the bike in it. Ash looked at her Mom, surprised by her sudden strength. This wasn't about coffee anymore, and Ash began to get worried.

"Mom, what is going on?" she asked.

"Get in the car."

"Mom, I-."

"Ashleigh!" Jackie exclaimed, the panic overtaking her voice. "Please! Car!" Ash nodded, knowing not to mess with Jackie when her full name was used. She got in, buckled up, and Jackie leapt in the drivers seat and started up the red Volvo. They drove out of Dinkytown towards the Lake Nokomis neighborhood, where their house was. Jackie was nearly hyperventilating, and Ash was looking at her the whole time, warily.

"Mom," she said at a red light, after five minutes of complete silence. Jackie turned to look at her. "Who was that?" Jackie bit her lip, and did her best to keep from crying.

Now Ash wasn't stupid. She saw how her Mom looked at this Steven Fellow and she saw how he looked at her. Her mother wasn't scared off by much, she was a loud opinionated woman who would argue until the cows came home. Ash knew this from experience. But this Steven… She was terrified, and not in the way one is terrified of a slasher killer or a corrupt politician.

"Mom," Ash said, softer this time, "….. Who….. I mean….. What the hell? Who was that?" Jackie just kept driving, her mind racing a mile a minute. They eventually pulled up to their house, and Jackie looked at Ash. She touched the shirt Ash was wearing.

"This shirt used to belong to him," was all she said, and she got out of the car. Ash sat in the passenger seat, shaken to the very heart of herself. She opened the door, and did the only thing a somewhat awkward girl like herself could do in a situation like that: she puked into the grass by the driveway.

Hyde was still in shock. He flipped the sign to his store over to 'Closed', and sat in the back room. When Jackie left Point Place in April of 1980, there had not been much said between the two of them. Well, nothing nice, anyway. She and Fez were broken up (which they had been since a couple days after New Years when she broke it off), and she was dating another man named Bill. Bill was a pretty decent guy, but she was taking it very slow with him. She hadn't gone anywhere with Fez, but she had tricked herself into thinking she was in love. So Bill and Jackie were just casually dating.

One night, after a date with Bill, Jackie walked into the basement. He had been down there, watching TV. She was looking very sexy, wearing a clingy dress and her hair up in a messy bun.

'Is Donna here?' she asked.

'Nope, she's out with Eric,' he answered. 'How was your date with BILL?' He always said 'Bill' with such contempt in his voice. The truth was that he didn't like Bill, he was too perfect.

'It was fine,' Jackie said, sitting next to him on the couch. 'It was…. Average. Dinner, movie, that's it.'

'I don't know what you expected.'

'You should be nicer about Bill,' she said. 'He's very nice.'

'…. Want a beer?'

'…. PLEASE,' she said, and he smirked and they began drinking.

They drank and watched TV for awhile, laughing and just chilling out. Eventually it was getting late, and Jackie was almost falling asleep on the couch.

'I should go,' she said.

'Don't drive,' he stated. 'You aren't sober enough.'

'I'll just call Bill,' she said. '… But then we'll have another boring conversation…'

'Bill doesn't do it for you, huh?' he asked, and she shot him a look.

'Bill is a perfect gentleman,' Jackie said. 'Besides, it's about time I dated outside of this circle.'

'Bill doesn't do it for you,' Hyde said, mockingly. She turned to look at him.

'Excuse me?'

'I said that Bill doesn't do it for you,' he said. 'Just like Fez didn't do it for you, so you dumped him.' She scoffed, and her cheeks flushed. He wasn't sure if it was anger, tipsiness, or embarrassment. Whatever it was, it was hot. And he was horny. And selfish. Frankly, it had been awhile for him too, and he did like it when she was angry with him. It made her feisty.

'It's not your business or anything, but Bill will do it for me when I'm good and ready for him to do it for me,' Jackie said. 'Every time I rush into things I end up getting hurt, so this time I'm just guarding myself.'

'But you miss the fire,' he said, scooting close to her. She exhaled a little bit. 'You hold back but it gets a little harder with each passing day, doesn't it?'

'….. No,' she said, staring back at him. Their faces were almost touching. 'I don't miss it. I don't miss you. You were always a pig.'

'You liked it,' he growled.

'You broke my heart.'

'You liked that too.'

'No, I really didn't,' she said, and he kissed her. And they had sex on the couch of the Foreman basement. He'd forgotten how great it was with her, how hard she could make him come and how loud he could make her moan. But to him that was all it was. So after they were finished and sober, and after she had snuggled up next to him on the couch, he had to tell her it was just fun. After all, he liked his lifestyle of just work and random women. He wasn't going to give up simplicity for something as complicated as he and Jackie were. And it broke her heart again.

'I can't believe this,' she said, tears streaming down her face. 'I can't believe that I fell for it AGAIN.'

'Oh what are you doing now? Playing the martyr again?' he asked, getting goaded. 'I don't know what you expected, I mean you're with BILL after all…'

'I don't want to be with Bill, Steven!' she snapped, throwing her clothes back on. 'I want to be with you, that's all I've ever wanted these past four years, but you just don't get it!'

'Oh what's to get, Jackie, we never work out because you expect too much!' he snapped, throwing his clothes back on too. 'Why am I the one you always latch onto when things go bad in your life?!'

'Because you're the only one who gets me!' she exclaimed. 'Not that I want you to be but you are! Why don't you want me? Oh, I know why, because you are into the trashy girls, the girls who love you and leave you, just like your mother did. How Greek Tragedy of you! You should learn to let someone love you, Steven, because I really pity you! It's like you want to be a loser your entire life!' She grabbed her purse, and stormed from the basement.

He had seethed about it all night, mainly because she was right. And he threw back the Bob Dylan song at her. And it hurt because she knew HE was right too. But he never expected it to hurt so much that she'd leave without so much as a goodbye or an explanation. It especially hurt that she had written notes to Donna and Bill, but not him. He knew he shouldn't have expected one, but it still hurt him.

Donna wouldn't say what Jackie said in her letter, but Hyde knew that she'd never forgiven him completely for the loss of her best friend. He'd never really forgiven himself for the loss of the love of his life, but he dulled the pain with work, women, and alcohol.

And now, after sixteen years of not seeing her and trying not to think about her, she was in his store for a minute. A minute that felt like fifty years.

And she had a daughter who looked to be about fifteen.

His head was spinning like mad, and he could barely breathe. That girl that he had sold White Zombie and Duran Duran to was….. HIS daughter? He could add, it made sense, so unless Jackie had slept with a guy quite quickly after that once she came here, which was not Jackie like at all, whose kid was it going to be?

This was really heavy. So he grabbed his phone and called the only person who would be able to listen to it.

"Hello?" Eric Foreman asked.

"Eric, it's Hyde."

"Hey Hyde, how're-?"

"I found Jackie."

"…. What?"

"And I think I have a daughter…."

"WHAT?!"