Disclaimer: I own nothing!

Author's Note: Hi everyone, thanks for all the reviews as always and if you keep thm coming I'll be a very happy camper. Well I don't have very much to say except, thanks to my readers and hope your holiday season is going great!

Red Forman pushed open the swinging door and walked into the avocado colored kitchen. The sight of Kitty standing by the stove mixing the batter of some sort of Christmas treat, made him smile. But only for a second or two, he still had to show some annoyance.

"Well my job's done." He announced as he walked past his wife and over to the circular table to take a seat, "So there you go, Merry Christmas. And I don't want to hear you ask for anything else."

Kitty smiled at her husband's act. "I'm guessing you locked Jackie up in the attic?"

"Yup." Red nodded before opening up his paper, "This plan of yours better work, Kitty." He said looking up from his paper, "I don't want our attic being the scene of some murder."

"Oh Red." Kitty scolded with a shake of her head, "Have my plans ever failed?"

"Yes." Red was quick to answer.

Kitty frowned as she left her baking off to the side and turned to her husband. She dusted the flour off her hands before placing them on her hips.

"Never mind." She said, "This plan is going to work. Because it's taking place during Christmas." Her smile soon appeared as she went on, "And Christmas is a time for peace, hope, and love."

"Bah humbug." Came Red's response as he turned his attention back to his paper.

Kitty sighed in frustration as she crossed her arms over her chest, "What happened to you Red?"

"What do you mean?" Red asked his eyes staying on the paper. The tone of voice he used showed he wasn't too interested in her question anyway.

"You use to be so happy and jolly during the holiday seasons." She reminded him. "What happened to that Red Forman?"

Red looked up at Kitty, now looking clearly annoyed, "He moved out when the six dumbasses moved in."

With that said, Red lifted the newspaper back up to read as Kitty rolled her eyes. She dropped her hands back down. Shaking her head again, Kitty walked back over to her baking. There was just no getting through to the man.

As Kitty mixed the uncooked batter for some sugar cookies, her husband's words replayed in her head. The circular motion her arm was moving in suddenly stopped. She looked over at Red, who was still reading the darn paper.

"Red." she called out, actually getting him to look up at her, "When you said our attic could be the scene of a murder, you meant…"

"That the Loud One would kill Steven."

Kitty nodded, that's what she had been thinking too.

Red went back to his reading while Kitty went back to worrying. Now she really wanted her plan to work. She didn't want any police coming to her house on Christmas Eve. She wasn't even sure she was going to have enough food for the family. And of course a dead adoptive son and an adoptive daughter going to jail didn't look good either.

The plan had to work.

******

"Mr. Forman!" Jackie shouted for the zillionth time as she continued to bang on the closed door.

Hyde stood in his same space, a few feet away looking really annoyed.

"Can you stop with the screaming." He said, sounding more like an order than a question. "I've been debating about it for awhile, and I realized that's more annoying than the banging."

Jackie stood up from the floor and brushed the dust off her knee length, red skirt. Her frown never seemed to leave her face.

"What are you even doing up here?" she asked looking up at him briefly before going back to getting the dust off of her.

"This is our secret hang out. We needed one after you found out about the basement."

Jackie snarled up at him as she crossed her arms. "I was gonna tell Mr. Forman about you being up here when he came back for me, but now you can just rot up here for all I care."

"He's not coming back." Hyde said with a shake of his head.

"Yes he is." Jackie confidently argued, "I'm his favorite. And I was doing him a favor. I came up here to hide Mrs. Forman's gift for him, because she was upstairs. Mr. Forman probably just saw Mrs. Forman coming so he closed the door, so she shouldn't see and he'll be back in no time."

Hyde just stared at her. She sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than him. And he couldn't help but notice how similar their stories sounded.

"Yeah, well I came up her to do a favor for Mrs. Forman." He began to explain from his little fort, "She wanted me to bring down some Christmas decoration for her. But then she heard Red get home so she went down stairs to distract him."

"See." Jackie began, "So she'll be back."

"That was an hour ago."

"Oh." Was all Jackie could say.

The room fell into a silence for only a few seconds, Jackie was in the room after all.

"Oh my God!" she exclaimed as she came to a realization. Hyde looked over at her, slightly hoping she would continue, "Mr. and Mrs. Forman are old."

Hyde frowned not really sure where she was going with this.

"Um, ok."

"That means they could've forgotten we're up here." Jackie explained sounding slightly panicked, "Old people forget things, Steven."

Hyde shrugged, if you really stopped to think about it, Jackie did make a little sense.

"Yeah I guess so." Hyde agreed before remembering just how alike their stories were, "Or they could've done it on purpose."

"Steven, please." Jackie scoffed, "I'm Mr. Forman's favorite and your Mrs. Forman's." she paused, "Besides if they wanted to get rid of one of their kids it would probably be Eric."

Hyde nodded, "That's true."

The two shared a quick smile before Jackie remembered where she was at. Then she got upset, again.

"Ugh I can't believe I'm stuck up here!" she whinnied, "It's dirty, and dusty, and old, and it's cold."

Hyde watched from afar as Jackie looked around at the cardboard boxes as she rubbed her arms, trying to get warm. Before he knew what he was doing he started talking to her again.

"It's warmer over on this side."

Jackie frowned, "Why?"

Hyde rolled his eyes, "Jackie, it's not like a pool, it's not warm because I peed in it."

"Ew!" Jackie exclaimed with a look of disgust, "You pee in pools?"

Hyde sighed and threw his hands up in defeat, "Fine, just forget it." He muttered as he began to walk away.

"No Steven, wait." Jackie was quick to call out.

There was no telling how long they would be up there. Jackie didn't want to be stuck up here at all. She didn't want to be stuck up here with Hyde. She especially didn't want to be stuck up here with an upset Hyde.

Jackie quickly walked over to the wall of boxes and came face to face with Hyde.

"I'm sorry ok? I do wanna go over to the warmer side." Jackie then began to look around to see where would be the best place climb over. There was none, "But I'm gonna need some help."

Hyde sighed as he reluctantly gave in. "Fine. Swing your leg over and I'll help you with the rest."

Jackie frowned at the wall of boxes. It was pretty high; she didn't know how her little legs would be able to do it. But she trusted Steven. Sort of. Slowly Jackie lifted her right leg and paced it on top of one of the boxes and the out stretched her arm for Hyde to grab.

Hyde grabbed her arm before moving closer to Jackie and then stretching his other hand over to the side of her left hip. Using only some of his strength—Jackie was a tiny girl—Hyde pulled her over the divider.

When she reached Hyde's side of the attic, Jackie's feet may have touched the ground but her balance wasn't exactly with her. Luckily she didn't fall back and into the boxes of junk. However falling the way she did, wasn't too lucky either.

Wobbling slightly, Jackie fell forward up against Hyde's chest. Hyde was able to catch her and keep his balance; otherwise they would have fallen over on the floor in an awkward position.

Of course this position wasn't the best either.

As their bodies were pressed closed together and Hyde held onto Jackie's arms, they looked at each other. Hyde looked down and Jackie looked up, both unsure of what to do.

At last Jackie slowly pulled away and cleared her throat, "Um thanks."

"Yeah." Was all Hyde could say as he watched his ex-girlfriend walk a few steps away and then take a seat on the floor.

Not wanting to stand either, Hyde took a seat as well. He sat in front of Jackie, leaning back on some of the boxes.

"There has to be another way out." Jackie thought out loud as she looked around the attic.

Hyde kept a Zen expression on his face, "Gee, why didn't I think of that?"

"A simple 'no' would have been fine." Jackie said looking and sounding annoyed.

"No." he answered almost harshly.

"So would a nice one."

"Whatever." Hyde replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

Jackie glared at him. How was it that she had to be stuck up her with him? The Zen master. She hated when he acted Zen, especially when he acted Zen with her. It drove her crazy.

But this time she wasn't gonna take it.

Looking around, she found a nearby box that was by itself with nothing on top of it. Jackie reached over and grabbed hold of the cube, sliding it over to where they were sitting. Hyde frowned slightly as he watched her adjust the box to be right in-between them.

"What are you doing?"

"If we're gonna be up here together, we need boundaries." Jackie explained before looking up from the box, there was no way she was letting Steven have more room than her. "This side of the room will be mine and that will be yours."

"What, you don't think I can remember that so you have to put a box?" Hyde asked in disbelief.

"Yeah."

"Whatever."

"Ugh!" Jackie exclaimed as she stood up. One box was not going to cut it. She walked over to a stack of boxes.

Hyde watched her, "What are you doing?"

"Building up the wall." She answered as she grabbed a hold of one of the boxes that was on top of three others.

Hyde continued to watch Jackie and noticed she was having a hard time.

"Watch it Jackie, we don't know what's in those boxes."

The boxes were beginning to shake, and he didn't want to deal with Mrs. Forman's crying about some useless thing, she hadn't seen years, being broken.

"Steven, they're boxes in the attic." Jackie said as she continued with her task, "They're probably full of…ah!"

Before Jackie could finish her sentence a crash was heard and Hyde quickly stood up and made his way to Jackie's side.

Author's Note: Chapter 8 of "Stuck with You" Done. Hope you liked!

Picked this song today because I finished watching the classic, 'A Charlie Brown Christmas.' Remember 'A Eric Forman Christmas?' That's one of my favorite Christmas eps.

Until next time, thanks for reading, hope you liked, please review and lemme know what you think, stay tuned, take care, have a nice day, and remember only 17 more days till Christmas!