A/N – Hello All. Here is the next chapter. It's a pretty sad one and I almost thought I would wait till after the holidays to post it, but to make up for this one being sad, I promise some sitcom-y humour and much more cheerfulness in the next chapter ! I should be able to post the next one early next week.

Chapter 3

Later that week

Jackie woke very late again that Saturday morning. Her work had been very well received all during that week at the fashion event and she was feeling quite pleased with herself. She would be flying back to mainland Europe the next day and classes started again on Monday.

Grabbing a piece of toast from the kitchen, she went over the phone in the living room of the service apartment. The place was unusually quiet and she guessed everyone else was still sleeping in, there had been plenty of celebratory drinking the previous night.

She dialled the number of her student apartment in Paris and as expected, her roommate, Cecile, answered, sounding very much like she was curled up and sobbing right then with a ball of tissues in her hand.

'Ceci, what's wrong?' Jackie was side-tracked from her intention of asking if there had been any calls for her that week.

'Jackie, I think it's over. I thought things were going fine but now it all seems to have gone wrong…'

Her roommate's husky voice trailed off into a fresh round of sobs.

Jackie was pretty sure Cecile was referring to her latest boyfriend, an Australian who had transferred to their college recently. She had been gushing about him non stop in the days before Jackie had left Paris a couple of weeks ago.

'What happened? You guys were doing great just a week ago?'

'He's been avoiding my calls and says he's really busy, Jackie. That has to mean he's thinking of breaking up with me, right?'

Jackie sighed. How many times had she seen this pattern unfold all around her? She fleetingly remembered her own heartbreak years ago when Michael had abruptly split on her that long ago summer. He had preferred driving all the way to California in a van that smelt like fish rather than just stay and tell her that he wasn't ready for commitment in their relationship.

'Ceci 'She wasn't going to give her friend false hopes but neither did she think overreacting was the answer.

'Yeah, it could mean that he needs some space for a while or it could be because he thinks you guys are moving too fast. Or you know, it could be something totally unrelated to his feelings for you. Maybe his favourite grandmother is sick, or he's working on his car ….or … who knows, he's foreign.'

She continued warming up to her theory. 'He's from Australia so, maybe he needs to disappear every now and then to chug beer and watch some stupid sport on TV'.

Jackie, even after 3 years away from home, still referred to all Non-Americans anywhere in the world as foreigners.

She could hear Cecile blowing her nose over the phone.

'Thanks Jackie, you're right. I should wait a few days before letting my heart break'

Jackie had seen Cecile's heart break many times and fully knew that it was capable of mending itself and moving on at remarkable speed.

'Were there any calls for me this week?'

'Oh Jackie, yes, in fact I was searching for your London number all over the place last night' Cecile was speaking in a rush now, remembering the sudden volume of people trying to reach Jackie some hours ago.

'There were two calls from Wisconsin. '

There was the sound of rustling paper as Cecile looked at the names she had written down when the calls had come in. 'Someone called Kitty Forman called very late last night. And then there was another call from someone called Bob Pinciotti. And then your mother called and asked you to call your friends at Wisconsin. Do you need the numbers? '

Jackie ended the call quickly, a knot of anxiety forming in her stomach.

Why would both Kitty and Donna's dad have tried to reach her yesterday night ? What was going on…..

She had only ever dialled the Forman house number a handful of times in all her years at Point Place. But the Pinciotti number was etched clearly in her memory and she quickly called long distance.

Her last thought before Bob answered the call was trying to reassure herself that all the panic was probably only some trivial wedding related crisis like a disagreement over the colour of the bridesmaid dresses.

A couple of hours later - Heathrow Airport, London

She was still numb with shock as she stood at the British Airways desk having managed to get a last minute ticket on a flight bound west.

She had taken only an hour to leave the apartment after the call to Point Place. She had walked around like a robot getting ready to leave not bothering to see what she was throwing into her bag and what she was leaving behind. Having checked only to make sure that her passport was in her bag, she was heading out of her room when she realised she was shivering.

She and gone back in and lay on her bed for a few minutes to calm herself before forcing her body up again. There was no time right now, she had to get home.

10 hours later,

General Mitchell International Airport, Milwaukee

Travelling across time zones meant that there still some daylight when she reached Wisconsin. She hired a car at the airport and drove as fast as she possibly could down the highway that would take her home to Point Place.

She almost crashed the car a couple of times when she kept forgetting to stay on the right side of the road.

At any other time, she would have been delighted to be back home. The only place in the world that would ever really feel like home.

She would have rolled down her window to breathe in the fragrance of the crisp summer air, and smiled with delight at the sight of the maple trees and the clear blue skies.

But she was oblivious to all that right then. How could this happen? It was the 80's and they were almost in the 21st century, surely planes didn't just crash anymore and fall out of the sky?

She had almost convinced herself that it all some sort of cruel joke and there would be a logical explanation waiting for her at her destination.

But the tears were already blinding her eyes as she turned into the most familiar street in the world and saw all the visitor cars parked outside the two adjoining houses where she had spent most of her evenings during her teenage years. All the people standing near the driveway had the same expression of shock and disbelief that she was feeling and she knew then that the phone call had not been a cruel joke.

Almost 10 days later

She had the keys to her parents' house.

The house was deserted right now, just as it had been for long stretches of time ever since her parents had divorced a couple of years ago. Her mother had moved in a huff to the West coast and her father had fled to the East coast. But even the distance of a whole country between them didn't deter them from continuing their arguments. Long distance calls were used to fight about the divorce settlement terms.

She had meant to use the keys and spend a night or two at her childhood home. But in the end, she had stayed right where she was. Both Midge and Kitty seemed to need her around and she couldn't bear to leave yet either.

That morning, she had spent a couple of hours with Midge in Donna's room. Midge's intention had been to look through some of the stuff and start sorting it, but it was way too early for that and they ended up only reminiscing over various objects lying about in the room before coming downstairs to the kitchen again.

They were seated at the kitchen table drinking juice when Bob had come in and asked Midge to take a walk with him. They had left hand in hand.

Jackie looked at them leave and couldn't help remembering how hard Donna had tried to get her parents back together. But in all her years at college her parents had remained un-reconciled and bitter at each other.

Their daughter's passing had finally made them friends again when everything their daughter had tried doing to get them on friendly terms had failed.

Jackie's head ached as she walked slowly back to the house next door.

Kitty had been trying to do everything and be there for everyone in the past few days and had almost collapsed the previous day due to exhaustion. Jackie had made her promise to stay in bed that morning.

She went into the kitchen through the back door and rustled up a tray of food for Kitty and took it upstairs to her. Kitty was fast asleep and Jackie covered the food and left it by her bedside. She tiptoed downstairs to avoid waking the woman whose face was covered with dried tears even in her sleep.

She sat back down at the kitchen table with some juice in her hand. It was as if the house itself was silent in its shock, the very atmosphere was tinged with a lingering sadness that threatened to never go away.

Michael had left the previous day, driving all the way back to Silicon Valley in California where he was now based.

Steven and Fez were still around and were probably in the basement right then. They had both promised Mrs. Forman they would stay with Eric a while longer. But no one knew if it would make any difference to Eric. He had completely withdrawn into his shell and didn't even seem to want to see any of them around right then.

He had driven back to his Madison apartment that morning. Months ago, he and Donna had signed off on a tenancy agreement with their landlord that confirmed that they would vacate the place once they had graduated. So, he didn't have the option now to stay on there, forever, as he now wanted to, at the place where he and Donna had made so many memories in the past few years at college.

Red had gone with him and the idea had been to start packing things up.

But the sound of the car pulling up into the driveway an hour later suggested to Jackie that they had gotten no further in clearing things up at the Madison apartment than she and Midge had at Donna's room next door.

It was too soon and everyone was still in shock.

Red walked in and past her into the living room, acknowledging her with a grim nod. Even he seemed to have visibly aged and weakened in the past week.

She had barely spoken more than a few sentences to Eric in the past week. What could you say to someone who had lost everything he cherished so abruptly like this?

He walked in, and didn't even seem to have noticed her at the table as he sat down numbly.

'Eric, let me get you a drink. And then, it might be a good idea for you to go lie down for a whie.'

He didn't seem to have heard a word of what she had said.

He pulled something out of his coat pocket and laid it on the table.

His voice was hoarse when he spoke ' I found this in the bathroom. She must have taken it just before she left.'

Jackie looked down at the object on the table.

Inside a carefully closed Ziploc cover , was a used pregnancy home test. The result was clearly visible through the transparent plastic – 2 blue lines, the test had shown a positive result.

'That was why she sounded so excited when she called from the airport'.

She was standing next to him as his voice broke while speaking and he laid his head on the table, his eyes closed.

She wanted to say something, she wanted to reach out and comfort him as she might a crying child. But she stood there next to him, feeling frozen with sadness herself, as he started crying.

His parents heard him and it was only a moment later that Kitty and Red came through the kitchen door.

Kitty put her arms around her son and murmured calming words while stroking his hair, just as she had done when he had been a toddler and come to her with a scraped knee.

A few minutes later, his parents managed to convince him that he needed some sleep and the house fell into deep silence once again.

A/N – There will be a time jump at the start of the next chapter. It will be 1986 when Jackie returns to Point Place. I feel like I'm starting to gain some momentum now with writing this sequel and this chapter took very less time to complete, so I hope to post the next one by early next week. Hope you liked this one, please review.