A/N: Woah...I reread the last few chapters before reading this and saw in my last note I mentioned being in my final semester of college. And now, here I am, a full gap year later & now nearing the end of my first semester in grad school. That's...crazy. But it felt so good to jump back into this. It was also very terrifying and intimidating, but I forced myself to stop putting so much pressure on it and just write SOMETHING, and would you look at that. I think a big part of my "break" from being on here was that I'd gotten so used to writing lengthier chapters that anything remotely short, even if it was GOOD, was never good enough to be posted, and especially for missing moments like this...i've learned that in this case size does not matter. So hopefully without the pressure of a word count or some other unnecessary rule I have stuck in my head I'll be able to post here more often. Not as much as I used to, but more regularly definitely. I've also been toying around with writing for other fandoms/ships so...stay tuned, maybe we have some of the same interests :p

Anyway, THIS CHAPTER...is absolutely nothing like it was supposed to be. Literally at all. Which I guess is another problem I had, trying to force myself to stick to my notes and not just write what feels right. Well, this is the end result of me saying fuck the notes just get this DONE. So I hope it's enjoyable. More at the end. Missed ya x

Jackie wasn't happy.

Sure, she was pretending to be. But the truth was hidden in the increasing pockets of time when she fell silent, brows crunching together, fingers scratching at one another, eyes wandering. The way she was acting more irritable and insufferable than usual, like she was trying to pick a fight out of him.

Normally, he'd give it to her. But, hell, it was Thanksgiving, and it's not like he cared about that or anything, but she loved finding any reason to celebrate. He'd been expecting a nice, long, pleasant evening together not-talking when he'd suggested coming over here. Not this. He couldn't figure her out. She seemed fine less than an hour ago, eating up all the drama that unfolded at the Formans.

"All right, spit it out," he sighed, sitting on the edge of his bed, hands sitting on his knees expectantly.

"Spit what out?" she asked, giving him a damn good look of innocence.

He sent her a knowing one back. "Whatever's goin' on in that skull of yours."

She frowned. "Nothing. Well, nothing important."

He raised his eyebrows. "If you wanted to stay you could've said so."

"No!" she answered quickly. "No, I want to be with you. And here we'll have privacy, you know? Lots and lots of privacy."

Ah.

"Sucks your parents aren't here."

"Yeah," she stiffened. "But it's okay. They're busy."

God, it pissed him off sometimes, how good she was at pretending. If he was just a little newer at this he'd never be able to tell that she was just barely holding it together. And that pissed him off too, that she felt like that, cause it wasn't even something he could fix, even attempt to. The pain of not having a real family, one that cares about you.

Not even surrounding yourself with people as caring and amusingly distracting like the Formans and their friends could heal that kinda damage. Sometimes it actually made it worse. Cause when that loud, comforting distraction went away (and it always did), that empty feeling got stronger somehow. More all-encompassing. Lonelier.

Hyde cursed himself silently.

She'd been fine. Laughing and chatting and perfectly distracted at the Formans' Thanksgiving dinner. And he'd dragged her away from that. Back to her house, where both her parents were conveniently absent, the one place she couldn't be distracted from that aching loneliness. To make out.

He suddenly felt like the world's biggest asshole.

"C'mere, sunshine," he said defeatedly, reaching his arm out to her.

With a sad smile, Jackie finally stepped within reach, placing her hand in his, and allowed him to drag her forward until she was standing right between his knees.

"Sorry I killed the mood," she offered halfheartedly, dropping her hands on his shoulders.

Hyde faltered.

He sucked–sucked–at comforting. He had no idea what to say, but he had to say something. He thought maybe he should hug her, but he was sitting and she was standing and her bed was just short enough that it made her taller than him, so it would be more like she was hugging him than him hugging her, and that made a difference didn't it? And now he felt and looked like a moron.

"Lemme put on a record," he said awkwardly, standing up, forcing her to take a few steps back and move her hands away from him. He ignored the disappointed look on her face, ignored the way it felt like a stab wound in his gut.

He put one of hers on, ignoring the ever-growing stack of his own records he kept next to her shelf. Some girly, ballady crap she was always trying to get him to listen to.

Then he turned back to her. Now she was sitting on the bed, quiet as he'd ever seen her, smoothing her hands over the new dress she'd been fawning over earlier.

"I like that dress," he said, sitting right next to her, legs pushed against each other, and threw an arm over her shoulder, pressing a kiss to her head.

"I knew you would."

He talked to her about things of little importance for the rest of the night. They eventually found themselves lying over the covers, Jackie tucked firmly into his side, listening to him, still not saying much. He would have thought she'd fallen asleep if not for her little hums when she agreed with something, or small escapes of air that took the place of her laughs, or the way her fingers stayed tight around his.

When the record finished, he got up and put on another of hers, then went back to his place next to her, not missing the way his heart clenched when she turned her head and kissed the edge of his arm.

At some point, they heard an unfamiliar disturbance rumble through the otherwise quiet neighborhood, and shortly after, a key being jiggled through a lock.

He tensed.

"Do you want to go?" she asked, looking at the window he'd mastered climbing in and out of.

Hyde swallowed. "You want me to?"

She shook her head.

He tried not to slow his heart rate so she wouldn't notice he was just the tiniest bit nervous. He knew it was useless the longer she still lay there, not making any attempt to sit up, just squeezing his hand tighter and tighter.

Forever passed, then there was a soft knock, a deep voice, saying, "Pumpkin?" then footsteps.

Hyde couldn't take it anymore. He sat up, bringing her with him, at the very least not wanting to get caught wrapped around her in bed if he was going to do this.

"Daddy," she said, her voice soft but firm.

"Oh," the older man said, taking note of the boy in his daughter's bed.

"Daddy, this is Steven. He was just keeping me company tonight since you and Mom were busy."

Predictably, her dad turned his scrutinizing gaze on him.

"Mr. Burkhart," he managed to say with a nod, despite the surge of anger that flooded him.

Logic told him that he should get up, shake his hand, ensure he only had good intentions, but he wasn't feeling all that respectful. Besides, the way Jackie was trying to break his fingers, he didn't think he'd be able to one way or the other.

Jackie's dad's eyes studied him hard, taking note of the bed, still fully made and only slightly rumpled, nothing but their shoes kicked off. Could've been much worse considering his and Jackie's track record.

Still, he was expecting much worse than an equally indifferent nod, a small smile at Jackie, and "Hope you had a good day, sweetheart. Keep the door open."

Then he walked out.

It could have been so much worse. So why the hell did that make him even angrier?

But then Jackie turned to look at him, and he was surprised to see she was smiling. Really smiling this time.

"He liked you," she announced, pleased.

Heart constricting, he replied, "Think it was the beard."

She laughed her first real laugh in hours, scrunching her nose. "No it couldn't be."

He was so relieved to hear her laugh that he let the rest of it go–the nerves and the anger and the very real concern that Jackie's parents were far more absent than she even knew.

That was originally supposed to be all fluff and lighthearted! But it just wasn't working so that's what you got instead. Hope it was good, albeit short.

If any of you are on tumblr, I'm gonna try to be more active on there ( cncermoon) just to kinda stay inspired & maybe interact with other people in the fandom (my twitter era has come and gone it seems). I also have no idea how it works so if anyone wants to help me out with maybe setting up one of the ask things so I can maybe do some short drabbles and post snippets and stuff that don't really make the cut for ao3/ffn. I think that's all I have to say!

Sorry for such a long absence. If I can pull my shit together it will definitely not happen again.

Much love, m.