A/N: Sorry, I was on vacation the last week. Also, I was trying to figure out which song off this album to title this chapter after. Figuring that out had a lot to do with how I was going to write it.

Tomorrow was going to be a big day. When Pink Floyd had released Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, they had been two of the biggest selling albums in the history of Grooves as a record store chain. W.B had sent Steven the sales figures from those releases and they were massive. When the latest album was released tomorrow – less than a month before Christmas – he was expecting it to be big.

Hyde got to the record store early to find Leo already hanging around out front with a cup of coffee from the Dunkin' Donuts down the block. "Leo, man, since when do you drink coffee?"

"Not since I was in the army, man." Leo took a drink. "This stuff is artificial, it messes with your body, man."

"So, why are you drinking it?" Hyde felt the lock click and open.

"Because I didn't get much sleep last night and it's the only thing I could think of." Leo took another sip. "But it's awful, man." Hyde grinned and popped the door open. There was an area that they cleared out last night to set up the display for the new release. The truck from the Grooves warehouse in Chicago wouldn't be there until almost the close of business that night. Tomorrow, this place was going to be absolutely slammed. There would be kids in here grabbing the album, parents in here picking up Christmas gifts, burnouts looking for a new tune to spark up to.

They still came in to get Dark Side of the Moon. If he checked the sales charts for the store, it would still be one of their best-selling records since he'd started working here. That was six years after it had first been released. And Hyde couldn't tell you how many times they'd commenced a circle with Us and Them or Wish You Were Here playing in the background. There was something about the way David Gilmour played guitar that just mellowed you right out.

Hyde started his routine of getting the store ready for another day. Leo disappeared into the back to prep the stock room for what was going to be an insane few days. Normally, new releases sold for a little more than the stock that had been sitting around the store for a while. There was a temptation with something that you knew was going to move. Just an extra fifty cents or even a buck, nothing that would actually cause a customer to change stores but enough to bump the stores margins a little.

There was something inside of Hyde that hated that part of the business. But, then again, gas for the El Camino wasn't getting cheaper. Nothing was getting cheaper. That included rent on the space that the shop was in.

"Hyde!" He heard Leo shout from the stock room and it instantly got his attention. Leo never shouted. He couldn't even remember Leo raising his voice. The dude was too chill for that. Hyde bolted from behind the till and practically sprinted through the stock room. He was half expecting to find the aged hippy collapsed under a box. But when he didn't see him in the stock room, he stood there puzzled.

Then he noticed the back door was open a crack and he pushed through it. There, he ran into Leo standing over the prone form of Randy Pearson, seemingly passed out in the alley behind the shop. "I don't think he's breathing, man." Leo looked up, somewhat helplessly, at Hyde.

"Leo, man, go into the shop and call 9-1-1." Hyde instructed in a tone of voice he wasn't used to using. "I'll take over here."

Leo nodded and headed back into the shop. Hyde crouched down on to the pavement and pulled Randy closer. Yeah, the guy had had a rough couple weeks but he'd watched people go through rough stretches before. Sure, he came in reeking of bourbon now and then. And once or twice he'd been a little out of it. But who among them hadn't felt the lingering effects of a circle long after it was over?

Hyde gently jostled Randy and slapped his cheek to try and get him to come-to. "Come on, man." He grunted to himself as he shook him. In the back of his mind, he was reminded of some of the things he'd learned from Mrs. Forman over the years. Two fingers snuck in under Randy's jaw line to try and check his pulse. What he found would barely count.

He tried chest compressions. Pounding on Randy's chest until he heard the sirens approaching the alley. Leo stood over him, his eyes wide. He'd been a solider, he'd been in the movement after the war. It wasn't like he'd never seen people struggling to hang on. It had just been a while since it was someone who wasn't even twenty yet.

When the paramedics took over, Hyde and Leo just stood there looking at each other. Hyde decided to climb into the ambulance, leaving Leo to look after the store for the day. If he could, he'd come back later and finish up getting the store ready.

BAD-TIME-TO-BE-IN-LOVE-THAT-70s-SHOW

When Eric got home that night, the kitchen was full. His parents were sitting at the table. So were Donna and Bob Pinciotti. Hyde was there. No one was talking. It was one of those moments where you instantly knew that something was wrong, even if you didn't know what it was. He tossed his car keys on the counter and leaned against it. He waited for someone, anyone, to start talking.

Donna's eyes were red and swollen. It was the only time he could remember that Bob Pinciotti had sat at the Forman's kitchen table without a plate or a napkin. The real telltale sign was Hyde's sunglasses. Normally, after work, you'd need the Jaws of Life to get those sunglasses off of Hyde's head. He liked a joint after work as a way of relaxing. The sunglasses were a way of keeping his bloodshot eyes from attracting Red or Kitty's attention.

"What's going on?" Eric had a note of, if not concern, definitely hesitance in his voice. He knew Jackie was okay. He'd just dropped her off at her apartment and he'd run into Fez out front. There weren't too many people that would cause this group of people to gather in this sombre mood around his kitchen table.

"Eric, honey, why don't you just take a seat." It was a typical way for his mother to deal with this. She'd ask him to take a seat when there wasn't a chair available. He put his hands back on the country and pulled himself up on to it in a seated position.

"Randy died, man." Hyde sort of sniffled as he grunted the revelation out. He blinked hard and buried his chin in his chest again. "Leo found him in the alley behind the shop and he wasn't really breathing. We tried to get him back, the paramedics tried when they got there but nothing worked."

Eric wasn't sure how to feel. He didn't know Randy at all. All he knew about Randy was what he read in that letter that Jackie and Fez had sent him a few months back. Then there was the day that he came back. But, other than that, he wasn't sure how to feel. He looked over at Donna who looked like she was on the verge of breaking down into tears again.

"I'm, uh, sorry man." Eric cleared his throat. It was sadness but it wasn't like when his grandfather or grandmother died. He knew them. Deep down, maybe, there was a part of him that was still blaming Randy for the Point Place that he returned to being different than the one that he left. "Do we, uh, do we know what happened?"

"The doctor told Steven that it was…what was it he said Kitty?" Red got up from his chair and headed over to the fridge.

"Pulmonary aspiration." Kitty headed over to the stove. Whenever someone died, his mother had a routine. The baking began and usually lasted well through the funeral. "Caused by alcohol poisoning."

"You hear that." Red came face to face with his son. "He choked on his own damn puke. That's why your mother and I worry when you kids go drinking."

Jesus, Eric thought. He wondered if he'd ever been that drunk. A lot of them had, no doubt. Those nights on the water tower weren't exactly sober ones. Evidence for that was the number of times that they'd ended up in the Emergency Room as a result. "Dude, that sucks."

"Yeah, man." Hyde got up from the table. It was typical of his mother that she'd want everyone upstairs for when he got home. But it had all been a little too much. Now, everyone was chafing to grieve in their own way. Hyde would disappear into the basement and raid his stash. Red would wait until the kitchen was empty then sit there with an Old Milwaukee. His mother would bake. Right now, his concern was Donna who seemed like she'd been on the verge of tears since he walked in.

He took his mother's seat at the kitchen table, next to Donna. "Hey, um, how are you?"

She gave him a look of disbelief, as though just asking the question was stupid. But he wasn't sure what exactly he was supposed to say or how he was supposed to feel here. "How am I? How am I?!" Donna almost screeched the second question out. "How do you think I am, Eric?"

"Upset." Eric avoided her eyes when he answered. "If there's something that you want to talk about, I mean…" She cut him off.

"Like what?" She challenged him. It wasn't shocking. For years, anger and sadness had gone hand-in-hand with Donna and he almost anticipated it in conversations like this. "You want me to tell you how I feel? Fine. I feel like I had a hand in this. I feel like this whole last couple of weeks has just been impossible and now this?" She pushed herself out from the table. Her anger, the depth of it, seemed to shock everyone. Including Bob.

They always told you that it was impossible to stay friends after a break up and now Eric was seeing evidence of it. "I'm just…I'm trying to be a friend. I'm trying to help. God."

"Yeah? Well stop trying." Donna launched herself to her feet. "I probably killed him, Eric. I definitely didn't help." She headed for the door to the kitchen before turning back. "And you showing up probably didn't help either."

Wow. It was like that one line brought time to a stop in the Forman kitchen. That was the first time since he'd been back that Eric could recall almost watching his father's eyes pop out of his head. Kitty dropped the cookie sheet that she'd been handling. Bob pushed out from the table and hurried to get Donna out of the house before things really blew up. Eric just sat there stunned. He'd seen her angry. He'd even seen her angry at him before. But not in a way that just looked like hatred.

The same silence that he'd walked into returned as he hunched over the table. The instinct to join Red in a cold beer was overwhelming. So was the instinct to head down into the basement and join Hyde. If he needed a reminder that he wasn't in high school any more, those last couple words from Donna were it.

There was the hard clanking of metal hitting the kitchen table and then the slow fizzing of a tab releasing pressure from a can. "Here, take this." Red sat down next to him. "That's a hard thing for anyone to hear."

"It's bullshit." Eric sort of muttered into his chest.

"Eric." Red's stern tone said all it needed to.

"No, Dad, it is." Eric could feel the anger starting to well up in his back. "I didn't know the guy at all. All I did was come home. And for Donna to do that…"

"Son, she's going to feel like crap tomorrow morning when she realizes what she said." Red took a swig from his beer. "You're young. You all do stupid things. But none of you are used to what happens when reality kicks you in the ass. Well, it just kicked Donna and she's angry."

"No." Eric shook his head. "She always does this. It's always my fault because I can't read her mind. I tried to be nice. I tried to help her even though I had no damn idea what to say." Eric got up and pointed at the sliding kitchen door. He settled for a second, beer in hand. "When's the funeral?"

"Probably in a couple days." Kitty answered.

"I'm not going." Eric shook his head. Then turned and headed for the basement.

BAD-TIME-TO-BE-IN-LOVE-THAT-70s-SHOW

The funeral was comparatively small. The Pearsons weren't a big family. Randy hadn't had a ton of friends, though he'd definitely had more than his share of girlfriends. That was something that both Hyde and Fez had noticed as they sat up front looking around the funeral home. When he'd first that Forman wasn't going to be here, he'd been angry with him. It felt like he should be just because the rest of them were going through something. It wasn't like Eric.

But, after hearing about how Donna had blown up at him, it wasn't shocking to Hyde that his friend had decided to bag off this one. The store had been jam packed the last couple days. He'd felt run off his feet, particularly now that he was short staffed but in a way he'd been grateful for the distraction.

Both Red's muffler shop and Grooves would open a little later today. The Formans took a spot a little further toward the back. Fez, Jackie and Hyde had taken a seat next to Bob Pinciotti. Donna sat on the aisle. Over the course of the last few days, all of them had been grateful that they hadn't been asked to deliver the eulogy. Each of them, except for maybe Jackie, wondered what they'd actually say.

When Hyde thought about it, he kept coming back to what a terrible friend he felt he'd been since Eric got back. He'd kept Randy around not because he enjoyed his company – and he did – but because he needed the help at the store. Fez just kept bringing up the letter that he and Jackie had sent to Eric in Africa. Finally, Donna had just closed down. It was easy to tell that she felt guilty. Like it was somehow her fault that Randy had decided to go on a never ending binge since they broke up.

It was hard to tell which of the Formans looked more uncomfortable. Red just seemed to hate all funerals. Kitty had clearly sided with Eric after Donna had blown up at him and just looked like she didn't want to be here. Hyde figured that if Red hadn't been talked into pallbearer duty, he probably wouldn't be.

At the end of the service, the pallbearers gather to life the casket and carry it out to the hearse. Hyde, Fez, Leo, Red and Bob had been drafted into service for this particular task. It had been amusing to think of Fez, always afraid of anything dead, being asked to help carry a casket. But, it turned out, when his turn came, he'd done his job just like he was asked.

After the door had been closed to the car, the group of them wandered back into the parking lot. Bob's car, Red's Toyota and the El Camino were parked next to each other. Bob and Red stood off to one side talking to each other and Hyde figured that it was probably the right time to try and talk to Donna. "Hear it's been a rough couple days."

"Yeah." Donna let out a hard breath. "Probably has been for you, too."

"Store's been nuts." Hyde sat on the hood of Bob's car next to Donna. "You ready to talk? Heard you bit Forman's head off the other night?"

"Can you believe he didn't show?" The question itself was an indication to Hyde that he probably started this conversation off on the wrong foot. "I mean, what the hell?"

"Listen, I told Randy once that whatever was between you and him and Forman was going to stay between you and him and Forman but that isn't the way it's ever been." Hyde pulled his tie loose. "Forman didn't know him and with the way you blew up at him the other night, I'm actually kind of shocked that Mrs. Forman made it. The way I heard it, he was trying to be nice when you went after him."

"He was asking stupid questions!" Donna protested. "How the hell did he think I was feeling? You found my ex-boyfriend dead behind your store because he choked on his own vomit after he passed out."

"Sounds like you've got some stuff to work out." Hyde bobbed his head. "I don't think there's anything Forman could have said that night that would have mattered. You were going to blame him for Randy no matter what happened. Same reason that you're blaming yourself. Hell, I'm blaming myself because I told him a couple weeks ago not to pass out on the cot in the store after a binge."

"Well, why the hell did you do that?!" Donna vaulted off the car. "God, Hyde, you can be such a jerk."

"Do you actually think that where he passed out would have changed anything?" Hyde's voice gained a little gravel. "Some people can handle stuff and some people can't, okay? That's just the way it is. It's not Forman's fault for coming home early and it's not your fault for breaking up with him and it's not mine for telling him not to pass out in the store."

"He was just going to die?" Tears were starting to run down Donna's face. "Is that what you're trying to say? It doesn't mean anything? Nothing we could have done would have stopped it?"

A stiff silence passed between the two of them. "What I'm saying is that he didn't want to stop drinking." Hyde took a deep breath. "And that's not the only thing that was in his system. You weren't at the hospital, man. I watched my mom do this kind of thing for years. The only reason it didn't kill her is because she passed out on her stomach!"

Those hardened words cut into Donna. It was hard for her to hold on to her anger against Eric or Hyde or even herself. She did the most natural thing she could think of. She collapsed under her own emotional weight. Right into Hyde's arms.

But it was only fantasy
The wall was too high
As you can see
No matter how he tried
He could not break free
And the worms ate into his brain

BAD-TIME-TO-BE-IN-LOVE-THAT-70s-SHOW

At the end of another shift, Eric stood outside the back of the store staring up at the stars. He didn't want to go home yet and he really didn't feel like there was anywhere else he could go. If he went home, he'd deal with all these questions about why he didn't go to the funeral today. He'd risk having Donna blow up at him again. This was one of those nights where he kind of wished he smoked, or at least he understood why people did.

The cold breeze ripped through him as he stood behind the store after the mall had closed. No Jackie to drive home tonight. This was actually the first shift where there'd been no Jackie at all. It was amazing how he'd gotten used to having her around at work. He'd almost felt a little lost when he had to put on his own beard and moustache today. There was no Twinkle operating the camera or handing out candy canes. The little guys who visited Santa's workshop didn't have the legs of the short brunette to cling to on their way out.

He laughed a little to himself. It felt like the first time he'd smiled in days. The door to the store room creaked open on its rusty hinge and Eric looked over his left shoulder to see Shelly Wessler coming out into the parking lot.

"Hey, Santa." She walked over with a little attitude. Her hips had an exaggerated sway. Her long legs seemed to give her more of a glide than a gait. "You look a little blue."

"Just got a lot of stuff going on." Eric waved his right hand around his ear. "You know today was Randy Pearson's funeral, right?"

"The guy who hung out with some of your friends while you were in Africa?" Shelly questioned. "No, I didn't. Car accident?"

"Something like that." Eric didn't feel like going into the details. "Everyone was there and they all seem pissed that I wasn't."

"Were you friends?" She leaned forward with her chin on his shoulder.

"No." Eric hung his head. "But it's like they think my going would have made them feel better."

"People die every day that you don't know." Shelly answered. "I don't think you're wrong."

"When Donna blew up at me the other night…" Eric paused just long enough for her to get a word in.

"Why'd she blow up at you?" There was a concerned look in Shelly's dark eyes like someone had taken a kick at her favourite puppy.

"I don't know." Eric shook his head. "The two of them had been dating when I was gone maybe she thought I was being insensitive or something."

"No offence, Eric." Shelly gently laid a hand on his chest. "But in the short time I've known the two of you, it's like Donna blames you for a lot of things that aren't your fault."

He looked down at her. In a lot of ways, she was so inviting. Comforting even. She was gorgeous in a way that was so obvious, so over the top. She had that long, feathered, Farrah hair and pouty lips. Her eyes were big, dark pools that could be soft and seductive in equal measure.

In that moment he wanted to lean down and kiss her. After all, she was Mrs. Clause. If nothing else, it was thematically appropriate. But something held him back. As much as he felt the urge, it was like his limbs arms were made of cement. They didn't want to embrace her and bring her close. He couldn't muster the urgency to kiss her right in this instant.

"Eric, there's a lot out there for a good guy like you." It was like she was reading his mind. The double meaning was so obvious to both of them. She leaned up and pressed her soft lips into his cheek. They lingered there for just a second. Once again their eyes met.

Hey you out there on your own
Sitting naked by the phone
Would you touch me?
Hey you with you ear against the wall
Waiting for someone to call out
Would you touch me?
Hey you, would you help me to carry the stone?
Open your heart, I'm coming home