Happy New Year everyone. Again I would like to thank all of you who have read, followed, favorited and reviewed. I didn't intend for this chapter to be this long. I'm not a fan of having a million flashbacks in a story and although I felt this chapter could have gone with a flashback to tell the story I chose not to because it would've made it longer. Anyway I hope it makes sense and I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 6

July 30, 1981

It was a little before 6pm at the Burkhart residence. Julian was in his walker playing with his toys while roaming through living room and Jackie was in the kitchen trying to make sure everything for her dinner was perfect. The house was clean, the table was set and her roast was just about done. She just needed to freshen up and make sure the baby was changed and ready for dinner.

Jackie continued making sure everything was in order for the next 30 minutes. Her roast was now done and out of the oven, the rosemary potatoes and orange-glazed carrots looked-mouth watering. She was so proud of herself. She had come such a long way from the girl who used to turn brownies into hockey pucks.

The doorbell rang and Jackie took a quick glance at herself in the mirror. Perfect she thought to herself as she took a deep breath and then opened the door. There on the other side stood Hyde with two huge shopping bags and a potted plant in his hands. "Hi Steven, come in. You're right on time." she said as she moved to the side to let him inside.

"Hey. This is for you." he said as he handed her the plant.

"Steven, Oh my God, It's beautiful. Thank you." Jackie took the plant and placed it on the counter. "What's with the bags?" she asked.

"Oh I uh picked up few things for the little guy." Hyde replied shyly as he handed her the bags.

"You went shopping for Julian? Wow! I don't even know what to say right now." Jackie was amazed that Hyde had gone out of his way to be so thoughtful. He hated shopping. She opened the bag and pulled out different types of toys, mostly cars and trucks and a few blocks and building sets as well as a few books. "Steven this is incredible. I can't believe you did this. Thank you so much." She was truly shocked.

"Yeah well I noticed he didn't have enough guy stuff around here. You're gonna make him girly like Foreman with all these stuffed animals." Hyde said trying to downplay the thoughtfulness of his gesture.

She laughed "Well we can't have that but seriously Steven that was really sweet. Well let's go eat and then maybe afterwards Julian can go play with all his new stuff."

The three of them sat at the dinning area, Julian in his high chair and Jackie and Hyde at the table as they ate dinner. Sitting there at the table made him miss the Formans, both Red and Kitty, in particular, who had made him a huge going away dinner before he left. Hyde was really glad not to be eating dinner alone for the night. He hadn't had a home-cooked meal since moving to Minneapolis. He was able to cook for himself but he hadn't bothered. Most of his meals were either fast food or something out of a can. "Hey Jackie this is pretty good. So much better than the last time you tried to make me something." he admitted.

"I remember that was such a disaster. I'm glad you like it. I got the recipe from a cookbook." she stated proudly. "Would you like a drink? I have soda, juice and oh I bought a six-pack of beer. It's in the fridge if you want one."

"I'll just take a soda if you don't mind." Hyde replied as Jackie went into the kitchen.

"So how's the store coming along?" she asked as she brought the drinks back from the kitchen.

"It's going good so far. It should be completely done in about two months."

"How come WB is opening up a new store? I thought he sold the chain and left you the last one." Jackie asked.

"He did. This new store is actually going to sell electronic gadgets as well as music. WB feels like personal electronics are going to be the wave of the future so we're revamping the Grooves name for the new store." Hyde answered.

"Well I'm sure it will be a huge success." she said thoughtfully.

"Thanks. I hope so."

After dinner was done, the three of them moved into the living room. They all sat down on the floor with the toys Hyde had brought spread out in front of them. They had built things with the blocks, used the cars to knock them down and even read one of the books. Currently Hyde and Jackie were sitting across from each other rolling one of the trucks back and forth as Julian crawled between them chasing after the truck and laughing. They kept of their activities until the infant began rubbing his little eyes and slowing down. Jackie looked at the clock at noticed it was almost 9pm. "I didn't realize it was so late. I think someone has tired himself out. I'm going to go change him and put him down for bed."

"Alright. Goodnight little guy." Steven said as he rubbed the baby's head.

Jackie picked Julian up into her arms and carried him to his room. Steven remained in the living room and started cleaning up the toys that were scattered around the room. After he finished putting everything away he sat down on the couch to await Jackie's return. He thought about how the evening had gone so far. Everything had been going great but he knew that the night was far from over. Now that Julian was going to bed he hoped that he could finally talk to her so they could finally clear the air about a few things that had been left unsaid. He sat quietly on the couch mentally preparing for what was next. About five minutes later he heard Jackie coming back down the hall.

"Julian fell right to sleep once I changed him into his jammies. I'm about to grab a soda from the fridge. The six-pack is still in here. Did you want me to grab you a beer?" Jackie asked.

"Um no thanks. I'm not really big on beer these days." Hyde answered.

"Steven Hyde is not big on beer? Is that even legal?" She laughed. "Well I don't keep any hard liquor in the house. I actually don't keep beer either but I thought you might want one."

"Thanks anyway but I don't want anything else. I uh..I don't drink anymore." Steven said solemnly.

Jackie noticed the serious expression on his face and stopped laughing. "What do you mean you don't drink anymore? Steven what's going on?"

"Yeah I wanted to talk to you about that. A lot of things happened when you left. You might want to sit down."

"Alright now you're scaring me. Is everything okay?" Jackie took a seat next to Hyde on the couch and turned to face him.

"Yeah everything is fine. Well at least it is now. I need to tell you a few things. As you already know I'm not a big talker so this is kind of hard for me but if we're going to be friends this is something you need to know and I owe it to you to fill you in. " Hyde took a deep breath "Jackie I'm an alcoholic. A recovering alcoholic that is."

"Excuse me. What? An alcoholic? What are you…how is that…Steven…" Jackie was at a loss for words.

"Just listen to me. This will be just as hard for you to hear as it is for me to say but please hear me out." Steven pleaded.

"Okay I'm listening."

"I guess I've always drank quite a bit as I'm sure you can remember but it was much worse than you knew, much worse than anyone really knew actually, but after you left that all changed. Probably about two months after you left is when things really started to spiral out of control. I was pretty much drinking non-stop. I'd wake up and drink, drink at work and by the time I came home at night I was completely wasted. Everyone had noticed it by then and all of them had tried to talk to me at some point but I was still in denial. I didn't think I had a problem but I slowed down a bit to get everyone off my back. It seemed to work for a while. Everyone went about their own lives. Foreman and Donna were about to head off to college, Kelso was busy with his family and Fez was working a lot and I found myself drinking heavily again. Then in June of last year is when the shit finally hit the fan." Hyde stopped talking and put his head down.

Jackie could sense that whatever he was about to say was either extremely hard or embarrassing for him. She figured probably both. Steven had never been one to open up easily. When they were together, he would open up sometimes when they were alone, especially after they were intimate. He would tell her things she knew that no one else about him. It was those moments that kept her faith in him all those time when things became difficult. She quickly remembered what she used to do during those moments that would encourage him to talk more. She reached out and grabbed his hand and began stroking it with her thumb.

Hyde looked down at her hand on his and relaxed just a bit. He knew there was no turning back at this point and if he was being honest with himself he didn't want to. He looked back up at Jackie and continued "One night I was coming back from the bar after drinking heavily which was my norm by that point. Somehow I managed to make it to my car and back home. I pulled into the driveway but everything was a blur. Next thing I knew I had run over something. I thought it was probably the basketball or something stupid Forman left in the driveway until I heard the scream. Red and Forman came running out and I stumbled out if the car. I looked down and realized I had run over Mrs. Forman with my car. " Hyde put his face in his hand struggling with the memory.

"Oh my God! Was she…is she…" Jackie said in a panic at the thought of Mrs. Forman being seriously hurt.

"No no no she's fine. Thankfully it was only her foot but Jackie I was so drunk I didn't even know I hurt her. If it wasn't for her yelling out in pain I would've just went in the house. Man I had never seen Red so furious in my life. We managed to get her to the hospital and the whole gang had arrived. I was still pretty drunk but I knew that everyone in that room was pissed at me. WB came to the hospital and talked to Red and Mrs. Forman. Once I was sober enough they finally sat me down to talk to me. I thought I was going to be ripped to shreds by Red and WB but they didn't yell at me at all. They did something else. They told me how disappointed they were in me. Jackie I'll never forget the look on their faces that day. I had never felt so low in my life. It still haunts me to this day. Probably the only other time I can compare it to was the look on your face when you found out about Sam. You know that moment when you messed up so big you feel like there's nothing in the world you can do to fix it." Hyde said honestly.

Jackie was beyond astonished at this point. First with the news that he was alcoholic, then that he'd hurt Mrs. Forman and then the whopper he just laid on her about the moment Sam arrived. She figured they would come back to that but first she needed to find out what happened with him and the Formans. "So then what happened Steven?" she asked.

"Well Red told me that he was seriously considering pressing charges but only thing holding him back at the moment was WB and Mrs. Foreman. WB knew that I'd go to jail if he did that so instead him and Red worked out another deal. Red agreed not to press charges if I got help for my drinking. WB found a program for me in Milwaukee. I would have to go there for 3 months or go to jail. I felt like I didn't have much of a choice. Red threatened that if I didn't complete the program he would be pressing charges. I was so angry with them all. You know how I was about people forcing me to do things and here they were forcing me to go to a place where 'the man' was going to be watching my every god dammed move. I decided that I would go but I was going to do things my own way. Even then, after hurting Mrs. Forman, I was still too proud and stubborn to admit I had a problem. I left the next day for Milwaukee with saying goodbye to anyone. I figured I would do my time in the program and when I got out I was gonna leave Point Place for good. They didn't need me and I sure as hell didn't need them. Well the first two weeks I was there I was a complete asshole to everyone in the place. I went to my meetings and therapy sessions but I wouldn't participate. I was just there to get everyone off my back but then one day I went to the group session and there was this guy who came in that night to speak. He was maybe about a few years away from forty I'd say but Jackie when I heard him speak it was like listening to my own life story. He talked about how he was abandoned early in his life and how he tried to skate thru life without effort and as a result he found a way to destroy every good thing that happened to him. He pushed away all the people that loved him one by one. He couldn't trust people and the few people he did trust had finally had enough of him and his drinking. He said when he finally realized he reached rock bottom it was too late. He drunkenly crashed his car into his ex-wife's car and paralyzed his own daughter. At that moment it finally hit me that I could've killed Mrs. Forman. I thought about what my life would have been like if that happened. I felt hot and suddenly the room was closing in on me. I couldn't breathe and felt nauseous at the same time. I ran out of the room into hall where one of the counselors found me having a panic attack. Me, Steven Hyde, Zen master was having a panic attack. I finally calmed down and after the group session was over the guy who was speaking came and found me. He sat down and started talking to me. Long story short, he told me that I didn't want to end up like him. In a situation where all the apologies in the world would never make up for his mistakes and that since he can't make it up to the people he hurt the only thing he could do is try to keep others from doing the same. He told me if I was lucky enough to still have the chance to apologize and be forgiven, that I should be grateful and never take it for granted. His words really shook me and I finally got serious about my recovery and even therapy. I did my best to make things right between the Forman and WB. I graduated from the program and have been clean and sober ever since. It's been a little over a year now." Hyde finally finished and sat back knowing that he had just giving Jackie a lot of information to process.

Jackie was speechless. She had no idea where to even begin. "Wow. Um okay I don't even know what to say. I'm just so shocked by all this right now. I guess my first question is when did this all start? The drinking I mean."

"I'd say things really start to get bad a little after I found out that Bud wasn't my real father. Edna always told me I was just like my father which I always assumed meant Bud. She knew he wasn't my father but she compared me to him every chance she could. What did that say about me? I was just like him even though he wasn't blood? I felt like I had no real identity. That was when things started to get outta hand. I started drinking heavily from that moment on. I just wanted to forget about it all. I would wake up and drank at least 3-4 beers early in the morning and then go back to sleep. I would drink at work and night. I tried to only drink enough to take the edge off most times. I would only get real shit-faced drunk when we were all together so I wouldn't be so obvious. I thought maybe you'd noticed a few times but you never fully did. I knew you could tell something had changed but you had no idea what the real reason behind it was."

She knew that she had seen a change in Steven but at the time Jackie just thought it was due to his immaturity. She never once thought about how finding out Bud was not his father would affect him. Once they had finally met WB she thought that everything was fine. She had supported him but she was so focused on the fact the WB was in the picture. She had no clue about the psychological impact it had on Hyde. She felt suddenly felt terrible that she could've missed it. "Oh Steven I'm so sorry. I should've seen…."

Hyde cut her off immediately. "Don't you dare apologize to me. You have nothing to apologize for. You couldn't have known. I was the one who didn't believe in talking about my problems. Anyway, by the time you got the job offer in Chicago things were getting pretty bad but I didn't think I had a problem even though I was hiding how bad my drinking was from everyone. I had convinced myself that I was gonna try and get myself together. I knew you deserved that plus with Forman leaving I figured it was time to grow up a bit. Well things didn't go as planned and after the incident in Chicago with Kelso happened I totally lost it. I went on a binge like never before and you already know how that ended…Sam and that whole disaster. Well once I was clean and sober I finally had a chance to reflect on a lot of things that happened in my life. I made so many excuses on why I couldn't do the right thing. It was the government trying to control me or it's what people expected out of me but the truth was I was a coward. I tried to make it looked it was everyone else who had the problem but the common denominator was me. Listen Jackie, part of my recovery process is to make amends with the people that I've hurt by my actions. I've always had a hard time with words and saying the appropriate thing so my counselor thought it would be a good idea to write letters instead. I wrote and gave letters to the Formans, WB, and the whole gang." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out an envelope. "Even though I didn't know where you were or if I'd ever see you again I had lot of things I needed to say to you so I wrote you one too. I thought about leaving it at your old house or sending it to your dad in case he knew where you were but it just didn't seem right so I kept it with me just in case. So um here you go." he said as he handed it to her.

Jackie took the envelope from Hyde in complete shock. Her hands were trembling as she opened the envelope. She looked at him one more time and then began to read.

Jackie,

You already know I've never been one with trying to express myself with words or the kind of guy who says the right thing but I'm gonna try and even though I deserve it, I hope you don't tear up and throw this letter away as soon as you realize it's from me, Steven. You owe me nothing but I ask that you please hear me out. With that being said I guess I'm going to dive right in and just get right to the point of this letter. Jackie I'm sorry.

You're probably saying yeah okay sorry for what, but the thing is I can't apologize for everything because it would take too long to list every awful thing I've put you through. I used to think that an apology was just a way to make the person apologizing feel better. But now I know that even if part of that is true the other person still needs to hear the apology especially when they deserve one and Jackie no one deserves one more than you. And although you might not accept it, I'd like to apologize anyway. We both made mistakes during our relationship but the mistakes I made were so much more extreme than anything you've ever did. I was supposed to be your protector and instead, in the end, I made your life worse instead of better. You were the only woman I ever loved and I took you for granted and I gave nothing in return. I made you feel like you weren't enough when the truth is you were more than I ever deserved. Then when we were over I kept inflicting more grief on you. I regret that part the most.

I'm not writing this to you because I'm asking for another chance to be a part of your life because I'm not sure there's a way to come back from all I put you through. I made a mess of things in my life and I feel terrible at the thought that I've caused other people pain, especially you. I just want you to know that I realize now how toxic I was. I hope wherever you are now that you truly are happy. You deserve that and then some. Whether or not it matters anymore, I just wanted you to know that I really am sorry for everything.

By this time Jackie couldn't control the tears running down her face. She had waited to hear those words from him for so long when she was back in Point Place. She had had finally come to the conclusion before she left that she would probably never hear them but here it was in writing none the less. "For so long I thought that maybe I made it all up. That maybe I was making us out to be more than we were and you and I didn't really have anything. But the hurt, it was so real, so that meant we had to be as well." She was sobbing uncontrollably as the memories came rushing back.

And just like a force of habit, Hyde quickly grabbed Jackie into his arms and he began to console her. "No you didn't imagine it. It was real. I felt it too but I was the one who couldn't handle things and I'm so sorry. Please don't cry. I didn't mean to hurt you again. I just wanted you to know the truth."

She had never seen him look so vulnerable and genuine as he did right now. She could tell that he had been carrying this around with him almost as long as her but it was time to settle things now. "Steven you didn't hurt me again. The truth is I still carry around a lot of the hurt that I felt from our relationship and our break up and it hurts to talk about those memories but I needed to deal with it. We needed to deal with it so I'm glad you gave me the letter. Thank you."

Hyde removed his arms from around her and looked her in the eyes. "Are we going to be okay? I really do want to try to be your friend but I understand if after hearing everything you don't think that's possible." he asked worried that he may have reopened some old wounds.

"Well before I answer that I have one or two question for you. You said that you were recovering. How is that going for you? I mean how are you coping now?" Jackie questioned.

"As I said before I've been sober for a year now. After I left program, I joined a support group back in Point Place and attended meetings regularly for a while. My group leader put me in contact with a group here in Minneapolis. Actually the woman who you saw at the store yesterday was a local sponsor from the group. I kinda had a rough day the other day and instead of doing what I used to do which was drink, I called my group leader.."

"Was that the day I yelled at you?" Jackie asked realizing she probably caused the episode. "Oh my God I'm so sorry."

"No Jackie, you don't need to apologize again. It was just an old bad habit that wanted to rear its head. Every time you and I had problems I always did something destructive but this time I didn't give in. I worked through it. I mean I still have a ways to go but I've come a long way and I'm learning better ways to handle things." he told her truthfully.

"It really sounds like you have. Listen Steven I can see that you've grown quite a bit and I want to still want to try to be friends and as long as you are in control of things we can do that but if things start to get out of control then we have to end it. I can't have that around Julian. I hope you can understand that." Jackie knew that this wasn't the same Steven she left a year and a half ago but she had to make things clear.

"I understand completely and believe you me I would end it myself before I put you or your son through anything like that." Hyde knew she had every right to be concerned but hoped that what he'd shown her so far was a good enough start to their new beginning.

"Okay then we should be good." she said as she smiled a him.

"Good." He smiled back. "Well it's getting pretty late and I have to go early tomorrow to meet with some suppliers for the store. Thank you for tonight. Dinner was really great." He got up and headed towards the door.

Jackie joined him at the doorway. "You're welcome and thank you too. For the gifts and the letter. Do you mind if I keep it?"

"Of course not. It's yours. Well goodnight." Hyde smiled then turned to leave.

"Goodnight Steven." and with that Jackie shut the door and leaned against it and let out a sigh of relief. Dinner had gone so much better than she had ever imagined. She walked back over to the living room and picked up the letter. She clutched it in her hands and headed towards the bedroom. She opened up her closet and grabbed a familiar box and put it inside with a few other things that her dinner guest had given her over the years. She put the box away and got ready for bed. And for the first time in a while, Jackie went to bed feeling so much better than she had in a long time.

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