A/N: This story is going to be updated every other Friday from here on out. I would love to update it more often, but I have a resit of an exam and various other things, that just mean I can't spend as much time on this, as I would love to do. The first two chapters were already up on ao3, which was why I was able to post so quickly. I'd rather promise you every other week, and be able to keep it, than every week and not. As a consolation price - at least we're getting into the fun stuff now.

Point Place, Wisconsin

August 11th, 1989, 0:31 AM

Donna and Eric's Driveway

They arrived at Forman and Donna's house, Kelso and Fez stumbling out of the car, clearly having to hang onto each other. Jackie hugged her jacket tighter around her. Donna paused in front of one of the planters in their front garden, like she was considering something, before slamming both hands in front of her mouth, and making a bee line for the house, leaving the door open behind her. Forman just shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot, like he wasn't sure about what exactly was happening. Donna was probably going to throw up, and be pissed at Forman for having to take care of it by herself, tomorrow. Forman was even sober for crying out loud. Jackie looked between Forman and the door, and rolled her eyes, almost like she was thinking the same thing, he was. "Eric, she's going to puke! Go help her!"

"Oh dear god, you're right," Eric said, clearly realizing that Jackie was probably right, while storming for the door. He almost knocked over Fez and Kelso on the way, which he had to admit, was kind of funny. Jackie had her hands in her jacket pockets, looking down at the floor. He'd only caught her out by the water tower, because she would have whined and complained too much, if she'd fallen down. Not that he needed to justify it, or anything. Hyde turned his attention to Kelso and Fez, waiting to see, just when they'd actually fall over. Jackie was probably just waiting for Eric to come back and drive her home.

Fez tried to sit down, but Kelso, the moron, apparently hadn't realized it, so he fell over his own feet, and landed next to Fez on the front porch, basically falling flat on his face. He laughed, which he didn't feel bad about at all, or at least only a tiny bit. "Ow, my eye!" Kelso exclaimed.

"I should get home," Jackie said, mostly to herself. She was smiling, like she was trying not to laugh at Kelso. Jackie hooked up in her bag. She looked between Kelso, Fez and the house. "Guess, I'll have to walk myself home."

"I can walk you home, if you want," he heard himself say, before he knew what was happening. Jackie gave him a confused look. Fair enough, he was just trying to be nice to her. It was pretty late, and for Point Place it was pretty far. She shouldn't have to walk that far home by herself, despite technically being his annoying pushy ex-girlfriend. "Or not. You know, whatever."

"Thanks, but I'll be fine," Jackie replied. She crossed her arms, and uncrossed them again. "You should stay here, and make sure these morons don't throw up on each other, or something."

"Jackie, you can't walk that far by yourself," Hyde argued. Maybe, it was about being right, more than anything else, instead of just letting her walk home by herself. Jackie still didn't look convinced. Besides, he knew Fez and Kelso weren't that drunk. "Look, those two will be fine. Forman can take care of them, once he's done holding Donna's hair, or whatever."

"Hyde, I didn't say that, just so you'd offer to walk me home, if that's what you think," Jackie said. He rolled his eyes. Hyde wasn't offering, just because she'd guilted him into doing it, or whatever. He didn't know why exactly, but that definitely wasn't the reason. He'd actually prefer to stop thinking about it.

"Just let me walk you home. I'll feel bad, if you get mugged," Hyde retorted. Her shoulders fell, and she shrugged. He started walking in the direction of her house, and Jackie hurried to walk next to him. He wasn't going to wait around for her. He wasn't that considerate. It didn't look like Jackie really minded. Neither of them said anything, but naturally, it wasn't like it used to be. Silences between them used to be comfortable, but now it felt much more tense.

Normally, if you ran into someone, you hadn't seen in a while, you could at least talk about, what had happened since you saw them last. Not, that he would have. He'd probably just have avoided them, or burned them and hope they'd go away again. But most of the shit, that could be considered polite conversation or whatever, had already been said at the water tower. "So, Sam really divorced both you and Larry?" Jackie asked without looking at him. She had clearly run out of stuff to say too.

"Yeah, she must really like the new guy, if she was willing to give up Larry's cash," Hyde said. He didn't look at her either. He had no idea why, Jackie had asked, and he wasn't really sure, he wanted to know either. It wasn't like he really gave a shit about Sam anymore at the very least, the last time, he'd seen her, was when she'd showed up with the divorce papers, and that was a year after they were through for good. Even though their marriage had never been legitimate, he apparently still had to sign the papers. "Gotta say the whole marriage thing, wasn't all you cracked it up to be," he said, knowing that was unfair to her, but not stopping himself either.

"Well, of course you'd say that," Jackie said. But she didn't sound upset, or defensive, like he might have expected. He couldn't really read the tone of her voice. "You got drunk, blacked out and married a stripping whore, instead of trying to talk things through with me."

"Alright, guess I deserve that," he said. Because he knew, he did. "But you didn't exactly make it easy to talk, seeing as you ran off to Chicago."

"Yeah, I guess I deserve that too," Jackie said, looking down at her own feet. None of them said anything for another beat of silence. Maybe, they had just needed to air it out. They had never had the fight about Chicago or Sam. They'd had a lot of fights, but not that one. In Chicago, he'd had the opportunity to either talk with Jackie or beat the shit out of Kelso. He had chosen a third option, opting for the El Camino. He wanted to go somewhere where he could get so drunk, he'd forget what either of them looked like, and whatever weird shit they were about to do. After he got back from Vegas, they had been about to talk, but then Sam had showed up and there hadn't really been any talking after that.

After that, it had just been more or less passive aggressiveness and hostility, until Jackie had decided she was fucking in love with Fez, and she and Fez had ditched Point Place for San Francisco. Then Hyde saw her a lot less, and the problem solved itself. Her hair was tied back into a ponytail, but locks of it had fallen out, and were framing her face. Jackie worried her lip between her teeth. She turned her head to look up at him. "Hey, I should tell you this: I talked to David Gilmour a couple of months ago on the phone. Tried to convince him to come on the show."

"Wait a minute, are you serious? You really-" he started, practically fumbling over his words, until he saw the satisfied and definitely amused smirk on Jackie's face. "That's not a joke, Jackie."

"But it's funny like a joke," Jackie said, her grin only wider. He could tell from the way, her eyes were practically shining, that she was on the verge of laughing. Hyde shook his head. "Besides, people in the industry usually have a publicist. If I had talked to anyone, I would have talked to them. You're drunker than I thought you were, Hyde."

"You're so annoying," he said quietly, even as a smile almost tugged at the edge of his mouth. Maybe they'd just needed to air it out, or maybe he really was drunk, but his chest felt lighter, than it had around Jackie in years. He was at least drunk enough to be willing to admit to himself that, he'd missed that feeling.

"So here we are, one Jackie Burkhart delivered straight to her affluent childhood home," Hyde said, slurring slightly on the word affluent. Jackie just rolled her eyes at him behind his back. He was still drunk, clearly. Jackie felt the ground sway slightly underneath her, she wasn't that drunk, but it was probably a good thing, she'd went home. She reached out for one of the columns on the porch for a moment. Neither of them said anything for a moment. Jackie was about to turn around to unlock the door, when Hyde finally broke the uncomfortable silence. He looked over her with something that looked a lot like pity. "Jackie, why are all the lights out?"

"My mom may have- left for Portugal three weeks ago," Jackie said quickly. She didn't owe Hyde anything, least of all an explanation, but there was no point in lying anyway. They were still friends, or at least sort of friends. If you could still call it that, when they barely saw each other. Despite all the stuff, that had happened in 1979, Jackie didn't actively hate him at least. "I still had the key, and mom said I could stay here. Whatever, it's not like you care anyway," she said more defensively.

"Jackie, you're drunk, tiny and alone," Hyde retorted. In the dull light from the streetlights, she couldn't read his expression. But then again, if she could have seen his face properly, she doubted, she'd be able to know what he was thinking. "Could you at least go back to Forman and Donna's place, or you could even crash at mine. It's just a stupid idea to stay here alone."

"Drunk? Please, my mom's been drunker than this on a Tuesday afternoon!" Jackie fired back. She was aware that, that wasn't really a defence. But at least it might get him to shut up, or laugh. She would honestly be fine. It did make him smile, the edges of his mouth curving up slightly. "But thank you, again," she said in a quieter less defensive tone, a smile sneaking onto her face too.

"Yeah, you don't have to keep saying that," Hyde said. He looked down to meet her eyes. He was still smiling. Before she really knew what was happening, she had two hands in his hair, and he had an arm around her, pulling towards each other, kissing him, hard. She opened her mouth immediately, and he grazed his teeth against her bottom lip, as she tugged at his hair slightly. He groaned at that, the noise bitten off by her kissing him again. She tilted her head back. His free hand held her chin, fingers splayed across her cheek. His hands felt warm, they'd always been warm. She remembered him always whining about her having cold hands, when they had slept next to each other in the cot.

"Ste-" Jackie had forgotten how awesome they were at this. If they hadn't made such a mess of it, they might have never stopped. She liked to think of herself as a good kisser, but it never got any better than this. Jackie suddenly realized, who exactly she was kissing. Her eyes flew wide open and she practically jumped backwards away from him. "Shit!" she exclaimed loudly, and she was suddenly really happy, her mom wasn't home.

"No, no, no, no. You and me don't do this. What the hell?" Steven rambled. He glared at Jackie, and she glared back. If he was going to blame this on her somehow, there'd be hell to pay. "You and me don't do this anymore," he said almost like he was trying to convince both of them.

"Steven, what part of me loudly swearing made it seem like I somehow planned on this?" Jackie fired back, crossing her arms. She took a couple of steps away from him, still feeling like she was too close to him, and swayed slightly. Jackie was drunk, drunker than she'd thought. Drunk and dumb enough to kiss her stupid, asshole ex-boyfriend, who never did anything a boyfriend's supposed to do, who had married a stripper, and who she'd broken up with 10 years ago, and she'd kissed him. It didn't matter, that he kind of looked nice with his hair slightly ruffled.

"Look, we're just drunk. And we used to be together, ages ago. So, we probably just had a relapse, you know. Like alcoholics or something," Steven said. Jackie nodded, that had to be it. She didn't very much like the comparison, but it seemed to fit. "And to not embarrass ourselves further, we will never speak of it again."

"You think I want to speak of it?" Jackie fired back, he just shrugged. Because of course, he did that. He never seemed to do anything else. And because she was partially embarrassed, and partially angry, and partially just because it was Steven fucking Hyde, she continued. "I was engaged to a guy who was a partner in a law firm!"

"And you left the guy, so clearly I don't know what you'd do," Hyde fired back. Neither of them spoke for a moment. Steven looked away from her for a second, looking down at the ground before meeting her eyes. Jackie really wasn't sure why. She'd given up trying to figure that out. "Look, the important thing is, that none of us is ever going to speak of this, ever."

"Of course, we aren't," Jackie retorted. Apparently, he was always going to doubt her. Another reason why it was a dumb drunk mistake, obviously. Jackie crossed her arms. "I just want to forget about this whole thing already."

"Yeah," Steven replied, making something in her chest sink, that she didn't want to own. "Same here."