Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

January 1977

Kitty Forman’s answer to everything was baking and cooking. Unless the problem was that she was mad at her husband and children. Then the answer was to stop baking and cooking.

Which was what she did a couple days ago when Eric and Red forgot her birthday. She had only made Donna and Jackie waffles when the both of them had come over to give her a new pair of gloves they bought for her as a present and Kitty found out that Donna was eating chocolate bars for breakfast for the past week.

It was after that, that Kitty had offered to show the girls a few recipes now that she was cutting back on hours at the hospital.

Jackie wasn’t a baker and when it came to cooking Donna was somehow worse than she was, but it was always kind of fun to hang out in the kitchen with Kitty. She never really got to do things like that with her own mother.

As far back as Jackie could remember, she could only recall her mother ordering the cook to make finger sandwiches for their tea parties. Pamela Burkhart made the tea herself, just a habit she had from before she got married. Pam and five year old Jackie would have tea in the back garden, dressed in their matching sundresses. Her mother would correct her posture the entire time and have her practice her etiquette, but it was still one of Jackie’s happier childhood memories with her mother.

“The secret to my fudge,” Kitty paused for dramatic effect, “is a splash of Kahlúa.”

She dropped a shot into the saucepan and set the bottle down on the counter. The phone rang a second later and she turned to pick up the phone. As soon as her back was turned, Jackie quickly grabbed the bottle and took a swig of the coffee liqueur.

“Jackie!” Donna scolded in a whisper, laughing as she snatched the bottle away.

“It’s delicious, Donna.” Jackie giggled, wiping her mouth. Donna shook her head but looked over at Kitty who was now writing something down on a notepad. She took a quick swig of the Kahlúa before setting it back down.

“Holy crap.” Donna touched her mouth, her eyes wide. “That is delicious. Damn. Why the hell do we settle for beer?”

Jackie continued to stir the contents in the saucepan waiting for it to boil. Unlike Donna, she had future knowledge of Kitty’s fudge recipe and how to make it. Once it started to really boil she handed the wooden spoon to Donna and reduced the heat.

Kitty smiled in approval and balled her fists on her hips. “Have you made fudge before? Easier than baking a pie right? Let me grab the candy thermometer so we can check the temperature.”

Once the temperature was checked and Kitty was satisfied she removed the pan from the heat and poured vanilla extract and butter into the mixture. Kitty took over the rest of the work while Donna licked the spoon and Jackie pulled herself up to sit on the counter space by the sink.

“We just have to wait for it to cool and then we’ll have delicious fudge.” Kitty gathered eggs and started cracking them, separating the whites into a glass bowl. “Now it’s time to make the meringue for the pie.”

“I can’t touch eggs.” Donna turned and frowned at Jackie. “They come from a chicken’s butt, Donna.”

“How are you a better cook than I am?” Donna grumbled.

“Hey. You can’t cook chicken and I can’t bake to save my life.” Although most of Jackie’s more advanced cooking skills had been brought back from the future thanks to spending most of her time in the Forman kitchen with Kitty or Steven. “I think we’re even here.”

“I can so cook chicken.”

“Donna, sweetie,” Jackie clapped a hand on Donna’s shoulder, “the chicken was raw enough to still be clucking at me.”

Midge had been at one of her classes in Kenosha and, sick of eating sandwiches, Donna attempted to make something for dinner. The results were horrendous and no amount of love for her friend was going to make Jackie eat her chicken.

Kitty laughed as she beat the egg whites. “You two are still young. You’ll get better at kitchen stuff with time.”

Not likely , Jackie thought. Eighteen year old Donna had given Eric food poisoning with her Chicken Pinciotti and Jackie had turned Steven’s favorite cookies into hockey pucks.

The three of them turned at the sound of the sliding door opening. Buddy slipped in, closing the door behind him and sniffing the air, pleased.

“It’s warm in here and you’re baking?” Buddy took a seat at the breakfast table. “I made the right decision in ditching the guys.”

“Weren’t you guys supposed to watch a movie?” Donna asked, taking a seat next to him.

Buddy looked over at Kitty to see if she was paying attention and shrugged. “I didn’t care for the movie they picked. Wasn’t my kind of thing.”

Oh God. Jackie straightened up, understanding dawning on her features and Buddy raised his brows and pointed at her, knowing she got his meaning. Why would they take Buddy to an X-rated film?

“Well, I hope Eric gets back home soon. My sister Paula is coming to visit for the first time in six years and I’m making pot roast,” Kitty ended her statement in a sing-song.

Jackie hopped off of the counter and gestured to Buddy and Donna to follow her down to the basement. In the original 1977, Jackie had gotten back together with Michael and he had left the nudie flick early because he felt guilty for watching other naked people. He had been very sweet during the first few weeks of their reconciliation.

This time around there was no way he would leave the film early because Jackie hadn’t decided that Michael had matured and deserved a second chance. In fact, she now knew he hadn’t really matured at all and even if he had, she was dating Steven now.

She was dating Steven.

They two of them hadn’t told their friends yet and Jackie wasn’t entirely sure how to come out and say it. In the original 1977, she and Steven were caught making out and had to confess to what was going on. Everything sort of fell into place after that.

It had only been about two weeks but things were going well so far. They had already been walking together in the halls at school, so the only difference was that now they would sneak kisses under stairwells or meet in his Camino during lunch period. She and Steven weren’t trying to hide anything but with the both of them working and Jackie having after school activities, it wasn’t like they were around the others much at the same time.

“Have you met Eric’s aunt before?” Buddy asked Donna, taking a seat on the couch.

“I think when I was ten, we saw her in the back of a police car.” Donna frowned and went to put a record on. “But I’m not sure.”

Jackie took a seat on the couch’s arm rest closest to the record player. She wasn’t sure if she should give Donna a heads up about the X-rated film the boys had gone to see. It could save her the unpleasantness of Eric’s intended move but the discussion that followed was something that had been a relationship milestone for the two of them.

“So you know your boyfriend and his friends went to see a stag film, right?” Buddy’s question was directed at Donna, saving Jackie from having to be the one to tell her.

“What!?”

Jackie and Buddy were then subject to listening to Donna rant about pornography and complain about Eric watching other people have sex.

“I thought the magazines and posters were bad enough and now he’s sneaking into X-rated films? What, is he already bored with our sex life?”

“Aren’t you?” Jackie asked. “I mean, you’re with Eric.”

Donna paused in her pacing to shoot Jackie a glare.

Buddy groaned, covering his face with his hands. “It’s just a guy thing, Donna. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“What I wanna know is,” Jackie examined her nails, chipping at them, “how do guys watch that together? Isn’t that weird or uncomfortable?”

“Why do you think I left?” Buddy blew a raspberry. “It wasn’t really doing it for me anyway.”

The past week was interesting for Buddy as well. He hadn’t discussed it with Jackie, but he had decided to move on from feeling sad about Fez’s rejection. Everything seemed back to normal and he was hanging out with the guys again, but Donna and Jackie weren’t buying the act.

Buddy would deflect any attempts to discuss his feelings or only want hugs and no talking.

“Oh, hey guys.” Eric entered the basement followed by Steven.

Donna looked just about ready to launch into a tirade when Steven moved around her and cupped Jackie’s face in his hands and kissed her chastely.

“Hey,” he greeted her before making his way over to his seat.

The basement was silent as the other three in the room tried to take in what had just happened. Donna floundered like a fish, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly. Eric kept pointing between the two of them like he was trying to put together two pieces to a puzzle and Buddy had actually jumped up and almost fell over the back of the couch.

“What just happened?” Donna finally found her voice.

“Why do you taste like Kahlúa?” Steven ignored Donna’s question and licked his lips.

Considering how casual he was acting, Jackie figured she would do the same. She stood up from her seat on the arm rest and followed him to his chair and took a seat on his left thigh. Without missing a beat, Steven wrapped his arm around her waist and supported her.

“It’s apparently Mrs. Forman’s secret ingredient for her fudge.”

“Huh.”

“What the hell, Hyde?” Eric shouted. Jackie had expected his reaction to be the worst of the three of them. She braced herself for any lame Yoko comments.

She knew that it was very likely that the others would react badly to her and Steven going out. They were friends with Michael for over ten years and had always been loyal to him and considered her an outsider. The only person Jackie knew would be on her side was Buddy. He had even encouraged her to pursue something with Steven.

“I thought we agreed that Donna’s best friend was off limits.”

Jackie stiffened in Steven’s hold. That was not what she was expecting at all. In the timeline she had come from, Eric had been a jackass about the whole thing and acted as if she were some great evil that was trying to violate a ten year old friendship for the hell of it.

“Yeah, I thought I was your best friend, Jackie.” Donna’s cheeks flared red, hurt clouding her eyes. “Why am I just now finding out about this? I should have been first to know.”

“Technically,” Jackie looped her arms around Steven’s shoulders, “ Steven should have been first to know.” Donna blew a raspberry in her direction and rolled her eyes. “And we were kind of busy seeing if this works for us first before letting you all know.” She paused for a moment, waiting for someone to try to jump into the conversation. When no one spoke up and just continued to stare at her she added, “Well, it works and now you all know.”

Steven’s grip on her tightened and she kissed him on his cheek. He was taking her invading his space very well. There was no need to shift to get comfortable or any questions asked. He had let her settle into his lap as if she had always been doing it. In all fairness, in this timeline she was always in his personal bubble whenever they were alone and talking. It was just that now instead of their thighs touching she was using him as her personal chair.

“Do we?” Buddy asked, settling back on the couch, sitting cross legged. “Do we all? Or is it still possible for me to ruin Kelso’s day?”

Eric gasped dramatically and covered his mouth with his hand, pointing at everyone with the other. “ Kelso! ”

That was a familiar reaction. Jackie rolled her eyes and waited for Donna and Eric to start acting like she owed Michael anything.

“He’s going to flip out!” Eric tugged on his hair. “He’s been talking about getting back together with Jackie for weeks.”

“So?” Donna frowned and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Her earlier hurt from not being informed first fizzling into annoyance. “Jackie can date whoever she wants and besides, he’s been sleeping with every skank from here to Kenosha.”

“True.” Eric nodded in agreement. “But Hyde seriously. Haven’t you done enough to the guy? Just yesterday you stole his pants after Phys Ed and he had to walk around in his gym shorts. And it was snowing.”

“So?” Steven curled one arm around Jackie’s waist and shrugged with his right arm. “That’s tough love, man.”

“Where was I that I missed this?” Buddy asked. “That would have been awesome for the school paper.”

“I think you’ve been hanging out with Hyde a little too much, Buddy.” Donna took a seat by him on the couch. “But this does raise the question of how you two are going to tell him. Kelso may be a tool, but he’s our tool.”

“I know a guy that can make a banner,” Buddy offered. “Or we can write it on a cake. It’s bad news, but hey he gets cake.”

“That sounds more like something we should do for Fez.” Steven had leaned his face into Jackie’s shoulder and she could feel his jaw move when he talked. She could feel her cheeks heat up as she delighted in his closeness. It had been far too long since she was able to be that affectionate with him.

“Where is Fez?” Jackie asked, hoping to redirect the conversation. She knew she needed to talk to Michael soon, but was going to put it off for as long as possible. She hoped he would have moved on from her already considering it had been almost six months since she broke up with him, but when he had abandoned her and had gone to California for three months he had still been after her despite having skanked around all summer.

“He, uh,” Eric’s face twisted in discomfort, “had to go home.”

“Ew!” Jackie shuddered in disgust and hid her face in Steven’s shoulder. 

Jackie’s disgusted reaction seemed to flip a switch in Donna and she remembered what Buddy had told them earlier. Jackie lifted her head and caught her shoving Eric.

“What the hell, Eric?”

“What did I do?”

Donna raised her hands and then clenched them. Her face flushed red and she chewed on her lower lip looking as if she couldn’t form the words she wanted to let out. Jackie watched in amusement as Eric braced himself for a Donna outburst. He had his hands up and was rocking side to side matching Donna’s movements as she glared at him.

Instead of yelling at him, Donna released a sound of frustration and stormed out through the outside door.

“I’m guessing she found out about the nudie flick?” Steven asked, humor making his tone light.

“How could she have possibly—?” Eric cut himself off and pointed accusingly at Buddy. “Morgan.”

Buddy nodded and gave him an apologetic look.

“Huh. My money was on Jackie,” Steven confessed.

“What?” Buddy and Eric both exclaimed, turning their attention on the couple.

“I actually kept my mouth shut about it.” Jackie was a little proud of herself for having been able to keep it a secret. Normally she would have blabbed to Donna right away but Donna was already dealing with her parents being weirder than usual, she didn’t need to worry about her skinny pervert boyfriend on top of that.

“You told Jackie you were going to go watch a stag film and she didn’t kill you?” Eric asked in disbelief.

Jackie shrugged. In 1978 he had gone to a strip club for Eric’s bachelor party and that was much more personal than a movie. It had been an interesting conversation when she had explained what she had been doing that night as well.

“Why punish him for being honest? It’s not like he was touching another girl.”

Steven’s inability to lie to her when they were dating had been both infuriating and also one of the best parts of their relationship. She had learned her lesson about picking her battles when it came to him refusing to lie about Brooke being attractive, but it was also refreshing to have someone that wouldn’t lie to her. Her parents lied to her, Michael lied to her, even Donna had lied to her sometimes when she didn’t tell her about Michael’s infidelities, but Steven told her the truth always.

Which is why it had hurt so much when he broke his promises towards the end of their relationship in the future.

“So Hyde and I both go to a stag film and I’m the only one in trouble with my girlfriend?” Eric groaned and slumped back on the couch, his head resting on the couch back.

“Bites the big one, huh?” Steven taunted him. Jackie smiled to herself but refrained from reacting to what had just occurred. Steven could have denied that she was his girlfriend but he hadn’t. Things were already progressing better than they did in her original timeline.

Eric scoffed and glared at Jackie as if she were the one to blame for his misfortune.

“You have a feminist girlfriend that finds pornography degrading to women and has already told you her feelings about porn,” she snapped at Eric, not appreciating the dirty looks he was giving her. “What did you expect to happen? That she’d reward you for going behind her back and doing something she wouldn’t like?”

Eric shot her another dirty look and slumped further into the couch cushions. Jackie could have helped him solve his problem, but she wanted to see how everything would play out if he was left alone. At least there was a chance he wouldn’t try to stick anything up God’s blind spot on Donna.

God, Jackie hoped he wouldn’t try it.

“So am I allowed to record you guys telling Kelso you’re dating now?” Buddy asked, clapping his hands together once and grinning impishly at the couple.

“Buddy. No.” Jackie shook her head. He was finding too much joy in how badly Kelso was going to react to her dating Steven.

Buddy rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. “Fine then. Come on, Eric. You have a neighbor girl to grovel to.”

“You’re going to help me?” Eric smiled sweetly at Buddy and pressed a hand to his heart, touched.

“What? No.” Buddy shook his head and chuckled. “You’re on your own, man. The sooner you talk to her the better though.”

Buddy stood up and grabbed both of Eric’s hands, yanking him up in one fluid motion and then ushered him out the door. They could hear Eric groaning all the way up the cement stairs.

Jackie giggled and moved over to the now empty couch. It was pretty funny watching Buddy drag their friends around to try and fix things. He did it with her constantly when she tried to avoid doing something. Just yesterday he had dragged her to sit at her old lunch table so that she wouldn’t be making an enemy out of Valerie, the varsity head cheerleader. Jackie had to play nice and sit with her on the days that they shared a lunch period because without her endorsement, Jackie could kiss the head cheerleader position goodbye when the seniors graduated.

“Hey.” Steven moved to take the seat next to her on the couch and kissed her, just soft enough to still be considered innocent. “You’re really not going to blow up on me about the stupid movie?”

“Do you want me to?” Jackie raised a brow at him. “Because we can fight about it if you want. We can get a relationship milestone out of the way right now and have our first fight.”

“I’d rather skip it and get right to making up.”

“We can do that.” Jackie batted her lashes and wrapped her arms around his neck and scooted closer so that her right leg was over his thigh and between his legs. “We can save our energy for an actual fight that’s very likely to happen.”

Steven nodded slightly in agreement and cupped her face in his hands. She loved when he did that. His hands framed her cheeks perfectly and she felt for the moment as if she was the absolute center of the universe.

Jackie was glad that there were no differences in the way Steven kissed and touched her with the way 1979 Steven once had. It made it easier for her to let the feeling of being with him consume her and pretend they were the same person.

She knew that technically they were, but the Steven she had left behind in 1979 she had broken up with because they no longer were in sync. She loved him and gave so much of herself to being with him and supporting him and he didn’t even care. This Steven was how Steven was before the stress of growing up had caught up to the both of them.

There were moments when trickles of guilt seeped into her stomach when Steven wrapped her hair around his fingers when he kissed her deeply on the beat up old couch in the Formans’ basement. It wasn’t technically cheating. They were the same person and 1979 Steven and she were broken up. But it didn’t stop Jackie from imagining 1979 Steven pissed beyond belief if he ever found out about her getting involved with the younger version of him.

“Steven?” Kitty called down from the kitchen. “Come join us for dinner.”

“Dammit,” Steven muttered against her mouth. His breath fanned against her face and Jackie giggled at the warmth and peppermint scent.

“I’m actually having dinner with my parents today.” Steven cocked his head and raised his brows in surprise. “I know! I was shocked when it wasn’t rescheduled.”

Jackie had forgotten how often her parents had planned family dinners after her father was re-elected as a city councilman. It was always weird that the dinners were scheduled in advance and she would have to remember to put them in her day planner as if they were appointments, but she always took what she could get when she was younger.

“Have fun?” Steven’s face scrunched up in confusion. Jackie pecked him on the lips and tapped him on the chest until he pulled back and let her up from under him.

The both of them marched up to the kitchen. Jackie had to grab her coat and purse that she had left in there which unfortunately meant that she had to run into Eric’s aunt.

“Your face is the perfect canvas,” Aunt Paula began her pitch, pinching Jackie’s chin between her thumb and index finger. She moved Jackie’s head from side to side and examined her face. “Such beautiful skin. Have you ever tried Kathy May cosmetics?”

“Sorry. My mother just brought me a whole bunch of Mary Quant from London—you know, designer label.”

As if I would take makeup advice from someone that dusts that much blue eyeshadow. Talk about garrish. It’s not even her color. Just because a shade is in fashion, it doesn’t mean just anyone can use it!

“And I’m sixteen. What’s in with the teen girls are glosses and Kathy May doesn’t carry any peach shimmer gloss or the same range of shades in lip pots as Max Factor or Cover Girl for my age demographic.”

Aunt Paula’s smile dropped and her eyes went wide in bemusement.

“Just something you should already know if you’re in makeup sales.”

“Okaaayy.” Steven put a hand on the small of her back and pushed her towards the glass sliding door, grabbing her coat and purse from the high top as they passed it. “I’m going to drop Jackie off at home now.”

“You would look darling in our upcoming Spring collection,” Aunt Paula commented sweetly. “Such vibrant spring colors.”

“I’m an autumn!” Jackie shouted back over her shoulder. How could a makeup saleswoman not see that? Some people were really testing her on the part of the list she created where she said she would try to be nicer. “And a winter!”

“Holy crap.” Steven stopped pushing her and Jackie turned forward and saw the Pepto-Bismol colored Thunderbird sitting in the driveway.

“I can’t believe I’m going to say this about the color pink, but who the hell did that to this poor car?” Jackie brushed the pads of her fingers against the side panel of the Thunderbird. “This is a terrible shade.”

“You would drive a pink car if it was the right shade?” Steven shot her an incredulous look.

“Duh! Pink is an expensive custom selection, you would have to make sure it’s the right shade. Cherry blossom would be fantastic.”

Her dream car would be pink, but that’s all that it was: a dream. She had splurged enough during the holidays, but Jackie had to go back to saving a majority of her paycheck.

Back in 1978, she had an early acceptance to Marquette and also to UW. She had applied to other schools out of state and was still waiting on their answers but with the amount of money that was needed for tuition, books, and housing, there was no chance she was going to be leaving Wisconsin unless she decided Chicago was the direction she was going in. Most of her savings bonds had been cashed out when her mother hadn’t come back and she needed to pay for bills and groceries to continue living in the mansion.

She had looked into the University of Chicago and Illinois Institute of Technology and had wanted Steven to visit the campuses with her but bailed on the idea and made it a long weekend trip with her mother, telling her friends that she was going to Florida.

They, of course, readily believed the trip to the beach. She was sure none of them would have taken her seriously about visiting any college campuses for herself.

It was messed up, extremely messed up, but Jackie had reverted back to lying about the serious parts of her life and filling every conversation she had with meaningless chatter about money, makeup, and outfits that she knew no one else cared about and she barely believed anymore. She didn’t even feel like discussing things with Steven because he was beginning to feel distant. He was shooting down conversations she wanted to have and things she normally would have to simply ask about, she had to beg for him to even consider.

It was so different than the Steven of 1977. He placed her hand on the gear shift and covered it with his own. Having a manual car never held him back from holding Jackie’s hand when he drove. In order for them to do that it required her to sit closer to him on the bench seat and she enjoyed the close proximity. It was just so much like how things used to be with her old Steven.

“You don’t want me to walk you to the door?” Steven asked, shifting the Camino into park outside of the iron gate of the Burkhart estate.

“You think you’re ready to officially meet Jack and Pam Burkhart? After only two weeks?” Jackie flicked his pot leaf belt buckle.

Steven was right out of her father’s nightmares. He was scruffy with sideburns and was almost always wearing his aviators. He was wearing his old scuffed up boots, frayed jeans with the back pocket ripped, and a black dashiki under his flannel coat. And that was just what Jack would judge from the book’s cover.

“What? Isn’t that how it goes?” Steven grinned impishly. “I’m your rebellious phase—the guy daddy wouldn’t approve of. You have to show me off though in order to get his attention.”

“Oh, please.” Jackie rolled her eyes and nudged him with her shoulder. “I have a shrill and demanding voice. I don’t need you for that.”

And both of her Stevens knew that that wasn’t her style. If she wanted to get her parents’ attention she would seek it through their approval. Her only real acts of rebellion towards her father had been her refusal to dump Michael—which had resulted in her being cut off financially—and then her refusal to break up with Steven when Pam had let it slip to Jack that his father was William Barnett, an African-American man. That had resulted in Jackie refusing to speak to or visit her father again until he apologized.

Jack Burkhart was such an asshole and it killed her that she still loved him regardless. It reminded her of Steven’s secret, the one he whispered to her when they were alone in the dark of his room, snuggling in his cot.

“The Formans are cool and I owe them a lot.” Steven swallowed heavily. “But I get it about your mom. The first few weeks of living with Forman and his family...I still expected Edna to come back. I woke up everyday thinking that it might be the day she finally returned.”

Edna slapped Steven when he got too lippy and got so inebriated that Steven had to play the parent for his mother and then there was Pam who wouldn’t let Jackie eat bacon and made her stand on the scale three times a week all three years of middle school. And yet when their mothers left them behind, there was still a part of them that was waiting for them to come back to them.

Despite his attitude and lack of respect for authority—with the exception of Red Forman—people forgot that he was only sixteen when his mother left. And yeah he wanted to leave her first, but he was still a child when it all went down.

“I don’t pick who I date based on who my parents may or may not like. If I did, then I would have dated Jake Bradley when he was interested.”

Steven scowled and Jackie couldn’t help but kiss him on the chin right at his cleft. Her old Steven hadn’t liked when Jake Bradley had confessed that he had had a crush on Jackie right before graduation and she was single after the nurse incident. It made sense that this Steven would carry similar jealous feelings as well, even if he denied them.

Steven practically pulled Jackie into his lap when she peppered kisses along his jaw. She giggled lightly when he returned the action and pressed kisses all over her face, starting at her forehead, down to her cheeks, and stopping finally at her nose.

“Is that all I get?” Jackie brushed her nose against his, mocking the way he would ask her the same question when she was playing coy. She squealed when he grabbed her by the back of her head and crushed his lips to hers.

“I have to go,” she breathed against his mouth between his kisses.

“Yeah, you do,” Steven responded in a dismissive tone. He snaked his hands inside Jackie’s open coat, pressed them against her back and pulled her closer to him. He groaned softly into her mouth when Jackie slid her hand under his dashiki and scraped the tips of her fingernails lightly against his ribs.

It was the first time in this timeline that Jackie had done that and pressed her hands to the warm skin of his torso and the sensation had her parting her lips and tracing the seam of Steven’s mouth with her tongue. He opened his mouth to her instantly and rolled his tongue against hers.

Jackie felt his fingers trailing underneath her sweater and knew she had to put a stop to what they were doing. They were right in front of her house and the Camino was idling. One of the neighbors was going to catch them and tell her parents that she was necking inside a vehicle that only a delinquent would drive.

“I’m going to be late, Steven,” Jackie scolded, pulling herself away from him. She patted her hair down and straightened her clothes.

“Hey, you’re the one that can’t keep her tongue to herself.”

“Oh, I could.” Jackie tugged on his belt buckle and then dropped it. “You just wouldn’t enjoy that much.”

Steven rolled his eyes but pecked her on the lips. She smiled against his mouth and kissed him back.

“Okay, I’m really going to be late now.” Jackie slid across the bench seat to the passenger door and hopped out. She walked around the Camino to the driver side door and Steven rolled his window down. “Can you pick me up after my shift tomorrow?”

”Yeah, I can. I might be late because I’m working tomorrow.” Steven scratched the area below his lower lip with his thumb. “Your dad still not letting you drive the Lincoln?”

“I’m sure he’d let me borrow it if I ask, but this way I can spend more time with you.” Jackie leaned in through the open window and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Stuffing her hands into her coat’s pockets, Jackie walked up the driveway, kicking up some of the gravel with her boots with each step.

So far things were going great with Steven. They still hung out like before they started dating but they also spent time like she used to with 1979 Steven. They were younger here and the future—although not as distant as a teen might think—wasn’t looming right over their heads.

Jackie just needed to figure out how to bring it all up to Michael before someone—most likely Michael—got hurt.

Hyde switched his last load of laundry into the dryer and then pulled himself up on the deep freeze next to Buddy. The other boy gave him a tight lipped smile and then turned his attention to the couple on the couch.

He had almost forgotten about Patty and how Fez had dated her for a short time. He had asked her out weeks later than he had in Hyde’s original timeline so Hyde hadn’t expected her to make another appearance in their basement. Their original relationship hadn’t lasted long but she was his first girlfriend before he officially hooked up with Crazy Caroline. The relationship might not have lasted long but at least Patty wasn’t cucko-for-cocoa-puffs.

“So what’s up, Buddy?”

“He didn’t even pay attention to her during the blind date.” Buddy scoffed, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “He was all over the blonde chick.”

Hyde exhaled a puff of air, blowing it upwards out of the corner of his mouth into his curly locks and watched them go up and down in his peripheral. He didn’t really know what to say to Buddy. Patty had transferred from Sacred Heart to Point Place High at the beginning of December, which made sense considering her political views and her wishy washy takes on religion.

He remembered from the original 1976 how Fez had gotten her attention with love poems that he kept stuffing into her locker, but no one ever got the answer as to why he had decided to turn his attention on her.

Back in his timeline, Fez had been obsessed with Jackie until he got a girlfriend and while at the time it had been sort of funny to see Jackie knocked down a peg when she lost her little worshipper, it had also been fucked up how Fez stopped respecting her as a person when Jackie was trying to be nice to Patty and congratulate Fez on getting a girl.

Hyde had been too caught up on the fact that he had been rejected by a girl with similar interests just for Fez of all people to start going out with her to take interest in making fun of Jackie or to really notice how obnoxious Fez had been. It was eye opening though how little Kelso actually did in his relationship with Jackie at the time. It was no wonder she demanded weeks of romance from him with no fooling around.

In this timeline the both of them were friends and Jackie wasn’t like how she was when she dated Kelso but more how she was after she finally moved on from him so Hyde had no clue how Fez having a girlfriend now was going to affect their relationship.

“Jackie doesn’t like her,” Buddy muttered, leaning over so his forearms rested on top of his thighs. “Partially out of solidarity ‘cause I don’t like her. Partially ‘cause Patty may have said something about her being shallow and falling prey to corporate America or whatever. And Patty doesn’t like Jackie because Jackie shot back about how Patty’s pseudo-rebel with a cause act was getting boring and how she forgot that without consumers like Jackie the economic state of our nation could be worse off than it is and that her shopping and the shopping of others is what helps to drive growth in economic recoveries. Which is kind of important considering we’re in a recession.”

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah, that was Donna’s reaction.” Buddy blew a pathetically weak raspberry. “I sometimes wonder if you guys all think Jackie’s head is full of cotton candy just because she doesn’t go on long winded rants about stuff like that and instead chooses to focus on things that make her happy.”

“I think I’ve heard something similar about the economy from someone else I know,” Hyde mumbled, put off by the accusation.

“Really? Who?”

“You wouldn’t know them.”

And Buddy wouldn't. Hell, Hyde wasn’t even supposed to know she existed, but it was 1977 so Angie was currently in college and majoring in mathematics. The thing about consumers helping drive economic growth sounded exactly like something his older sister would say. She was brainy and understood a lot about business except for dealing with people as people and not just stats. She barely knew anything about music which killed him considering he had to work with her and was related to her.

Angie had also been on his case a lot back in 1979 about his attitude and how he was an even bigger grouch ever since Jackie had broken up with him. Hyde had been stubborn and refused to acknowledge that he had any feelings whatsoever about their breakup.

Forman chose that moment to come bounding down the steps from the kitchen and hop on top of the dryer.

“Donna should be back soon from the bookstore and picking up Jackie so we can all go ice skating soon.”

Buddy groaned and his arms slipped further towards his knees and his head dropped between his legs. “How did you guys convince me to go ice skating with all of you?”

“If it helps,” Forman chuckled, “Kelso is going too and only two out of three couples are known to him so technically it’s not like you’re really a third wheel.”

“How does Kelso still not know?” Buddy lifted his head up just enough so he could look at Hyde. Hyde and Forman both shrugged. Forman didn’t have an answer and Hyde refused to say anything on the matter.

It was now three weeks of dating Jackie and the both of them still hadn’t told Kelso. Donna had told them they should just rip the bandaid off, but it wasn’t that easy. Forman’s suggestion was to make him special brownies and just wait until they took effect.

“It probably would have been a good day to have dropped the news when he found out the Henderson’s got a new dog.” Forman gave him a knowing look and Hyde couldn’t help but laugh at how sure he seemed about it.

“If I get him a puppy do you think he’ll get over it?” Buddy asked, sitting back up.

“You would give Kelso a dog?” Hyde furrowed his brows and pursed his lips at the idea. Jackie would kill them if she knew their idea was to essentially trade Kelso a dog for her.

“It could work.” Forman nodded his head and jostled his arms with the movement.

Hyde was saved from explaining how it was a horrible idea when Jackie and Donna came in through the basement door from the outside earlier than expected. Jackie looked crestfallen while Donna looked downright pissed, her face pink from a combination of the cold and anger.

“What’s going on?” Forman hopped off of the dryer and Jackie stormed right by him and wrapped her arms around Hyde, her face pushing into his chest.

“I was fired,” Jackie murmured against him.

“What?” Buddy and Hyde asked at the same time.

“Supposedly The Cheese Palace isn’t going to need her anymore now that the holiday season is over and they are supposedly going to have a drop in business so they let her go,” Donna explained. “It’s Wisconsin. All people consume here is cheese and sausage!”

“And beer,” Forman added. Hyde and Buddy nodded in agreement.

“Why are you the angry one?” Patty spoke up from her place on the couch. She and Fez had finally popped out of their personal bubble when the door had burst open.

Donna crossed her arms and looked at Jackie before sighing. “Jackie wouldn’t let me kick that munchkin’s ass.”

“Everything was fine but Todd has been acting weird ever since Steven started picking me up from work.”

Crap.

In the 1977 Hyde had already experienced, Jackie had lost her job after the whole kiss incident. Todd had apparently been expecting her and Kelso to break up and for Jackie to become available to him. Despite Kelso taking off for California, Jack had continued to keep Jackie cut off for the summer. In hindsight it probably had more to do with him trying to cut back on spending while he attempted to hide his embezzlement than punishing Jackie for her twelve hour engagement at only sixteen years old.

Eventually Hyde hooked up with Jackie and it was easier to pick her up from work to go fool around. Todd had seen them together and then told Jackie he needed to let her go.

It seemed no matter the timeline, Hyde was going to be involved in Jackie losing her Cheese Maiden job.

“It’s fine though.” Jackie waved her hand dismissively and shook her head. “I told him I would get my lawyer dad to sue him if he didn't give me a good recommendation for the next job I apply to. I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to go skating and forget the whole thing.”

Over Jackie’s head, Hyde caught Donna’s eye. Donna gave him that expectant look he always disliked. That look was one of the reasons they began calling her Mom. He shot her back a look of his own, not sure exactly she wanted him to do in that moment with all of their friends present.

Just as Jackie had pulled away from him, Kelso came in through the basement door, his skates laced together and thrown over his shoulder. The narrow misses of Kelso finding them in compromising positions were getting ridiculous.

“Are we going skating or what?” He asked, looking around the room at everyone.

Because of the inclusion of Patty, space was getting tight in the Vista Cruiser again. Hyde offered to take the Camino and follow them. As soon as he made the suggestion, Buddy agreed and ushered Jackie to the truck and stated that they would ride with him.

“So, Buddy,” Hyde began as he pulled up next to the Cruiser at a stoplight, “do you have some secret ice skating talent you’re going to break out tonight?”

“No, just the basic skills one would have from living in Point Place where our water freezes from November all the way to April and Kelso is mooning us.”

Unsurprisingly, Kelso had taken the chance to flash his pasty ass at them. He wasn’t happy at being left behind with the Forman-Pinciotti and Fez-Patty couples, but Buddy had refused to switch places with him. When he had tried to climb into the bed of the Camino, Donna had grabbed Kelso by the ear and dragged him inside of the Cruiser, reprimanding him about his poor choices and how that was a terrible idea in winter.

“Why do you ask anyway?”

“Just wondering if it’s another rich kid thing and if I need to expect another show off.” Jackie reached under his coat and pinched the skin at his hip. He flinched, but held tightly to the steering wheel. Hyde had expected her to do something but was unable to react as he made a turn.

“I should be allowed to flaunt my many talents.” Jackie turned her nose up cutely and pouted. “It’s not my fault some people don’t know how to skate.”

Crap.

In 1977, the real 1977, Hyde hadn’t known how to ice skate. It was the first winter he was able to afford to rent skates when he went out with his friends but he chose instead to do what he always did and wait on the sidelines and watch Kelso make a fool of himself, crashing into random people—mostly a practicing Fez—and falling. Donna and Eric skated laps, holding hands and acting like the perfect couple. Jackie on the other hand had told Kelso to stay away from her after the first time they had tried to circle the rink together holding hands and he had dragged her down. She had hoped that he would have improved from the previous winter but nothing had changed.

On her own, Jackie had overlapped all of their friends. She skated backwards circles around Donna and Eric and did an ice skating version of her roller disco routine, incomporting more leaps and jumps. Hyde had waited for her to screw up and fall but she danced on the ice without a care. At least until Kelso was unable to stop and had slammed into her.

The following winter they had all gone ice skating again, but Jackie had insisted on Hyde getting on the ice. She had whined and pouted until she got her way but was patient with him as soon as he got on the ice. She held his hands and skated backwards until he got the hang of it. He fell multiple times and she laughed at him, shrieking when he pulled her down with him.

He now knew how to skate just fine, but that wasn’t something the Hyde of 1977 could do and his friends knew that. It would be one thing to breeze by his friends with new skating skills, but Jackie would ask him a million questions.

“So what are you guys gonna do about Kelso?” Buddy asked as they approached the outdoor skating rink that popped up every January. It was one of those things that Hyde had never realized the LoPPs organized every winter. It was like they touched everything in town.

“I was kind of expecting him to have a new girlfriend or something by now so that we could just give him the news and he wouldn’t be able to say anything.”

Buddy laughed, slapping his knee. He stared out the window, his laughter dying down until all it did was escape in a few breathy chuckles.

“That’s a stupid idea, Jackie. I still don’t understand why you guys care so much.”

Buddy’s experiences with Kelso was of Kelso just being that stupid classmate of his and then the ex-boyfriend of his best friend. He was pretty limited to who Kelso really was.

To Hyde, Kelso was a lot more than that. They were best friends and had been since first grade. When it was just him, Forman, Kelso, and Donna, Kelso and Hyde had been the ones on the same team against Donna and Forman. The two of them were the ones getting into trouble together like snaking beers from Kelso’s father, John, and throwing rocks at cars. The both of them even shared hand me down coats and sweaters from Kelso’s older brothers because Hyde had gone without most of the time. Some of Hyde’s nicer cardigans and cable knits were snagged from Kelso’s eldest brother, James.

He wasn’t going to give up what he had with Jackie, but Hyde also wasn’t going to let go of the friend he had since he was six either.

Buddy sighed to himself, rubbing his hands together for warmth. He had been wearing gloves earlier, but they had gotten wet from the impromptu snowball fight Hyde and Kelso had started when everyone was lacing up their skates.

The good thing about going skating in the evening was that families and younger kids didn’t crowd the rink, even on weekends.

The downside was how it highlighted how utterly single he was.

Buddy took a swig of the warm drink Hyde had given him from his thermos and his eyes went wide. Hyde smirked at him and mimed drinking at him. Buddy grinned broadly and took another gulp of the hot cocoa and peppermint schnapps.

“Don’t let me get too sloppy or I might get too honest,” Buddy warned him and Hyde nodded in understanding before turning his attention back to the rink where Jackie was attempting to teach Donna how to skate backwards. Eric trailed next to them, swaying side to side.

“Jackie will kick me if I let you get drunk in public anyway.”

His friendship with Steven Hyde was one he had never expected. It was one his parents wouldn’t have approved of last year because of Hyde’s mother, but that had changed after they found out that Red Forman was his foster dad. They still didn’t like it, but no one in Point Place messed with Red.

There was something different about Hyde that Buddy couldn’t quite comment on because his relationship with him was newer than everyone else’s. It may have just been that he didn’t get to experience being Hyde’s friend before and now he actually knew him.

Hyde was quieter than he had imagined him to be. He was a pretty stoic person, which was different from the Hyde Buddy had seen up until the summer that had just past. Hyde joked a lot and was always laughing with his friends but now he was a lot calmer. He had to assume that change may have happened because of his mom leaving town without him.

Buddy had mostly seen the jerk side of him━the one that argued with teachers and fought with meathead jocks and laughed at the expense of others━before, so he hadn’t expected the more understanding and protective side of the slightly older boy.

“Check it out, there’s something written in tiny letters on the bottom of the thermos.”

“Ow!”

Buddy looked up and saw Kelso holding his nose and the thermos in his hand. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Hyde had smacked the metal thermos into Kelso’s face.

So the guy would still pull pranks on his friends, but something that Hyde was never an asshole about was Jackie and Donna’s parent problems or his sexuality. He still made fun of him and Eric whenever they displayed more sensitivity than he found acceptable but he never made it a point to allude to Buddy being gay. Hyde probably looked out for him the most when it came to it excluding Jackie.

That was another friendship that Buddy hadn’t expected. He knew about Jackie’s existence because they were both rich kids and because their fathers were friends. Because she was a grade younger and had gone to private school during middle school, he had mostly known her through stories from Jack Burkhart that were pretty lacking in personality and from seeing her in passing whenever they had to attend one of their parents’ dinner or brunch events.

Buddy remembered younger Jackie from their primary school days as a miniature of her mother. Pam had dressed her up and styled her hair, always patting Jackie’s curls in the same manner she fidgeted with the diamond tennis bracelet on her wrist. Buddy sometimes wondered if Pam Burkhart would have loved Jackie a lot less if Jackie hadn’t ended up being beautiful.

She had been a sweet and cute kid despite her loudness and smug attitude, but there was a yearning in her eyes Buddy hadn’t recognized until recently. Jackie was a lot more sassy now and sheltered her compassion and sweetness behind biting words, but that yearning never disappeared.

Despite her age, Jackie sometimes felt more like an older sister than a younger one. She could be bossy to the point of overbearing, but Buddy had never felt more loved by another human being before. It was sad that he couldn’t say the same about his parents. They were there for him a hell of a lot more than Jackie’s parents were there for her, but he knew their love was conditional and based on him doing what they wanted versus Jackie and their friends taking him as he was.

Even fucking Kelso was accepting of his sexuality just as long as Buddy didn’t come on to him. God, he was such an idiot.

“Did you guys save me some?” Eric sat down on Buddy’s other side on the bench and took the offered thermos and cup from Hyde. Eric took a sip and smacked his lips. “Anyone else still weirded out that Fez has had a girlfriend for over a week now?”

The four of them turned their attention to the rink where Fez held onto the barrier and Patty trailed next to him.

“Still don’t see what’s so great about Patty.” Buddy found her more sanctimonious than Donna and he only really tolerated it from Big Red.

“Well, that’s because you don’t like girls,” Kelso stated it as if it was obvious, but gratefully had lowered his voice so only they could hear him. “She’s a pretty good looking girl.”

“It’s not like I can’t tell when someone is attractive just because I’m not attracted to them sexually, dumbass,” Buddy muttered, taking another large gulp of the spiked cocoa and refilling his cup. “Like, I get it with Donna. She’s cute and when she smiles she kind of glows and well her curves are obviously there.”

“She does kind of glow,” Eric sighed, staring after his girlfriend with a lovestruck expression. Buddy forgot how low Eric’s alcohol tolerance was.

“And then Jackie is, well, pretty fucking obvious. It’s in your face how beautiful she is. You would have to be blind not to see it and if you were blind she would tell you about it anyway.”

Hyde snorted and snatched the thermos back from him, draining the last of its contents.

“Yeah, she’s got a sweet little bod too. Ow!” Kelso rubbed his shoulder and pouted. “Damn, Hyde! What was that for?”

“And it’s not like looks are everything.” Buddy rolled his eyes when Kelso opened his mouth and cut him off before he could say anything. “So much of what Patty says just sounds phony.” Buddy started waving his hands about and in a mocking tone said, “ ‘Who do teachers think they are, to teach us about history or math?’ Our fucking teachers is what they are. How does that even make sense? History I kind of get ‘cause we are American-centric and biased, but math is a universal language.”

“Yeah, I’m cutting you off,” Hyde informed him, opening up a second thermos and pouring Kelso a serving.

“Hey.” Jackie tiptoed her way over to them and grabbed the thermos from Hyde’s hands. “Aren't you guys going to skate?”

“Uh,” Hyde scratched his cheek with his pinky, “no.”

“I’ll skate with you Jackie,” Kelso offered, standing up and winking flirtatiously at her.

“As if,” Jackie scoffed, thrusting the thermos into his hands. “Come on, Steven. Buddy. You two haven’t gone on the ice once since we got here.”

Hyde groaned, stretching out his legs. “I don’t really feel like skating.”

“Pwease.” Jackie pouted at Hyde, resting her hand on his shoulder.

“Fine.”

What the hell? Buddy watched as Hyde stood up and followed behind her, making sure to walk slow on the blades of his rented skates. How does she do that?

“Let’s go, Buddy!” Jackie ordered him to follow after her. Now that Hyde was going to skate he was left with Kelso and Eric for company and he didn’t really care to sit with them and continue drinking.

“Ask me nicer, Princess,” he hissed at her. Jackie turned back and raised a brow at him, a hand on her hip. “Yeah, sorry. I’m kind of buzzed.”

Buddy slid onto the ice gracefully and sped away, not wanting to be the first thing Hyde grabbed onto if he started to feel wobbly on his skates. He wasn’t able to perform all of the tricks that Jackie could, but he didn’t have to worry about skating too fast and being unable to stop. He completed a lap and circled back to Jackie and Hyde.

Jackie was skating backwards and holding Hyde’s hand, guiding his footwork.

“You’re a natural,” Buddy praised him, circling around the couple. He had expected Hyde to have fallen on his face by now.

“Yeah, he’s pretty good at everything.”

“Oh?” Buddy chuckled and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “ Everything , huh?”

Buddy and Hyde shared a laugh at the way Jackie’s face reddened. She slapped Hyde’s chest and then reached for Buddy but he dodged her attack.

Buddy kicked off and weaved between the couples and groups of friends on the ice as she chased after him. The cold air stung his cheeks as he whipped around using his slender frame to his advantage.

“Get back here, Buddy!” Jackie grabbed the back of his coat and held on as Buddy pulled her forward. Using their speed, the two of them created a slingshot and Jackie propelled forward, speeding ahead of him.

Buddy chased after her in a game of tag. She slowed down as they passed Hyde for the third turn. He was skating lazily, watching the two of them with an amused expression on his face.

“Someone should save Fez.” Hyde pointed at the far side of the rink where Fez was still holding on to the barrier. Patty was skating ahead of him, having given up on trying to skate together.

“Not it!” Buddy was taken aback when the both of them called it out, placing their index fingers on their noses.

“As if you guys weren’t expecting me to go over there.” Buddy scowled at them.

“True.” Jackie shrugged, taking Hyde’s hand in hers. “Bye!”

Buddy stared blankly as the both of them skated away. Sighing to himself, he crossed the center of the rink and stopped right next to Fez who had slipped one more time and fell on one of his knees.

“You need to let go of the wall, Fez.”

“I’ll fall!”

“Well, yeah.” Buddy grabbed him by the elbow and helped him up. “You’re not standing properly. Your feet can’t be too close or too far apart and bend your knees, man.”

As soon as Fez let go of the barrier he slipped, his arms flailing forward. Buddy caught him before he could fall, having braced himself for the inevitable.

“Here. I’ll pull you forward. Just fix your stance.”

Fez bent his knees so that it looked like he was squatting over a chair and Buddy took hold of his hands. Just like him, Fez had also been caught in the snowball fight and lost his gloves. His skin was dry from the cold but the weight of his hands was a comforting presence.

“Aiii…” Fez whined as Buddy slowly skated backwards, pulling Fez along with him. Buddy chuckled softly as Fez’s face scrunched up in fear.

“Don’t look at your feet when you skate. You don’t look at your feet when you roller skate, right?”

“Yes. But that is not on ice. There isn’t even a word for ice in my native language.” Fez paused for a moment, looking around them. “And there’s music playing at the roller rink.”

“Then just hum.”

“Kelso said humming was weird and not to do it on my date with Patty.”

Taking a deep breath, Buddy gave Fez a tight lipped smile. “Patty’s not here right now. And I don’t mind.”

Softly, Fez began to sing On The Good Ship under his breath. Buddy held back his laughter by biting down on his lower lip. Of all songs, Fez would pick the one about candy.

Buddy didn’t understand what Fez would like about Patty, but he knew why someone would like Fez. He was sweet and funny and there wasn’t a moment with him that wasn’t fun.

“I miss hanging out with you.” Fez started gliding on the ice, matching Buddy’s movements.

“We hang out.”

“Yeah, with everybody else.”

Buddy sighed and picked up the pace. Fez tightened his grip on his hands as Buddy sped up.

Hanging out with Fez wasn’t easy anymore. Just like with Eric, it felt good that he still wanted to be friends with him despite the feelings Buddy had for him. But unlike with Eric, Buddy’s feelings weren’t fading. He needed space to move on or to get over them.

There were other boys. Buddy had held out hope that Fez may return his feelings, but he hadn’t turned down other available options.

Those boys—men—were attractive and some even had touches so divine, but none of them made Buddy miss them the moment they were gone. He missed their warmth and their bodies, but their laughter all blended together until the voices sounded the same and impersonal. He could recall their smiles and soft whispers in dark corners but not the colors of their eyes.

“Do you have a favorite eye color?” Jackie’s voice played in his head. “Brown is just really warm right? There’s just so much depth to brown eyes.”

Mirth filled Fez’s chocolate colored eyes as Buddy let go of his hands and he continued to skate just fine. He stumbled but was able to pick himself up and keep from falling.

“See? You’re just fine without me.”

“Hey.” Patty pulled up alongside them, smiling broadly. “You escaped the wall!”

She took Fez’s hand in hers and skated forward, dragging him away from Buddy. Buddy watched as the both of them skated slowly in the same direction as those circling around the rink. Fez said something he couldn’t hear and Patty tossed her head back, laughing.

“See,” he muttered. “Just fine without me.”

Buddy pushed off, skating clockwise against the counterclockwise flow of all of the other skaters. Why not go against the grain? It was how his life was in sleepy, little Point Place.

He knew most of the residents called it a dump because nothing exciting happened in their town. They were all victims of mundane suburbia. Stores closed early—even earlier on Sundays—and unless you were eighteen or older, you were barred from the only establishments that were open at night. Having a license and most importantly a car was the greatest privilege in Point Place because it meant you could get the hell out, even if it was only for a few hours.

Buddy knew what was expected of him. He was supposed to go to a university, Yale because his father was an alumnus, and study law. He would become a lawyer and then come back home where he would be set up with a daughter of one of the LoPPs, who was also a new inductee. He would work at his father’s law firm, start going to church regularly, get married, and have the grandchildren his mother wanted.

And he would be miserable.

Buddy wanted to be on the frontlines, reporting the news, watching history unfold as it happened. He didn’t care where he lived as long as he got to do what he enjoyed and wasn’t trapped in a loveless marriage.

He waved to his classmates that skated by him, cheerfully greeting him as they moved in a steady flow in the opposite direction. He could really use more of Hyde’s spiked cocoa. That or some of his stash. He just wanted to relax and not think about how he needed to start studying for his PSAT and how the guy he liked was having a romantic moment with a girl he found pretentious.

“Stop it! Donna, help!”

And with that Buddy knew he wasn’t going to be having the relaxing night he had planned.

Looking across the rink, he found Hyde and Kelso wrestling on the ice. It didn’t take long for Hyde to get the upper hand and sit down on top of Kelso, who tried to crawl on his stomach away from him. Eric and Donna had skated over and tried to defuse the situation. Well, Donna tried to defuse the situation while Eric tried to calm down Jackie.

“What happened?” Buddy asked as he slid into a stop.

Kelso brushed off Donna’s hands as he finally got upright again and he pointed an accusing finger at Hyde. “How could you dog me?”

Oh, no. The hurt in Kelso’s expression looked sincere, but Buddy was more concerned by the volume of his voice and the very public place they chose to have their fight.

Point Place was a small town. Everyone mostly knew everyone and even though it wasn’t a new sight to see Hyde in a fight, especially one involving Kelso when he was up to something stupid, it would be of interest to the school populace as to why they were fighting.

Especially when she was standing right there, looking panicked.

“Hey, moron.” Donna shoved Kelso back, pushing against his chest. “Maybe take this elsewhere. Somewhere more private.”

“Private would be best,” Buddy agreed, skating over to Jackie and Eric.

“Did all of you know?” Kelso looked at all of them, hurt shooting across his face before shifting into anger. He glared at all of them and then skated his way to the rink’s entrance.

They all followed after him and watched as he ripped his skates off of his feet and changed into his winter boots that were stashed under the bench they had claimed for their stuff earlier. They all scrambled to get their things as Kelso fumed and struggled to put his boots on in his frustration. Buddy looked up at the rink where Patty was trying to help Fez skate to the exit. He was going to have to remind them all not to forget Fez and his girlfriend.

“Kelso, will you calm down so we can talk about it?” Hyde chased after Kelso. Kelso reached the Vista Cruiser and tried to open the locked door repeatedly.

“I don’t wanna talk!” Kelso swung back around, fists clenched. “You’re supposed to be my friend and you dogged me!”

Kelso tossed his skates on the ground and shoved Hyde who took the hit without defending himself. Shaking his head at Hyde’s stupid, unexpected noble nature, Buddy put himself in between the two boys. Eric was likely to get hurt if he tried to get between the larger boys and Buddy didn’t feel comfortable leaving it all up to the girls, especially Jackie. Her presence could potentially agitate Kelso more.

Buddy exchanged a look with Eric and they both sighed. It was getting obnoxious how much Kelso claimed Jackie as his girl considering his behavior. Eric was just finally beginning to tolerate having Jackie around, especially after Buddy had let it slip that Jackie helped him out with Donna without any of the guys knowing about it.

Eric put his hands on Kelso’s shoulders and spoke slowly. “You were just making out with the rink guard girl.”

“So?” Kelso scoffed, brushing Eric’s hands off of him. “What’s that gotta to do with Hyde snaking Jackie from me? He dogged me, Eric.”

Eric’s eyes went wide and he raised his hands up, flailing them around in disbelief. “Kelso. Jackie broke up with you half a year ago. And that’s literally what you said at Prom when you took Pam Macy instead of Jackie!”

“What are you trying to say, Eric?”

“Eric. Dude. You have to spell it out for him.” Buddy rolled his eyes and flicked Kelso’s forehead. Kelso covered his forehead with his hands and glared at him. “You don’t have some kind of placeholder on Jackie. She’s not going to be sitting around, waiting for you to be tired of fooling around and want someone more constant to keep you from being lonely.”

“It doesn’t mean Hyde should date her!” Kelso shouted, trying to push past him, his anger and focus back on the original target. Buddy could hear Jackie shouting something back, but his attention was on Kelso’s aggression more than her words. “She was mine. She’s supposed to be with me. Friends don’t date—!”

“Are you kidding me?” Jackie pushed her way in front of Buddy and pushed her hands against Kelso’s chest. “I don’t” she smacked him on the chest, “belong to you,” she smacked him again with each word, “you selfish son of a—“

“Okay, Doll.” Hyde pulled her away from Kelso, lifting her up from under her armpits. “You need to stay out of this before you end up killing Kelso.”

“It’s not like calling shotgun, Kelso.” Donna slugged him on his arm and pushed him away from Jackie and Hyde. “She’s not property to claim. Jackie is a human being with feelings and thoughts.”

“That-that has nothing to do with anything. Who cares about that?” Kelso raised his arms up in defense as Donna kept smacking him and shoving him as they circled the Cruiser. “There’s a code, Donna!”

“Oh, boy…” Buddy exhaled the words. He turned to Eric who shrugged at him.

“He’s not wrong, but…” Eric winced when they heard a loud slap. Donna was on the other side of the Cruiser, Hyde lifting her up with his arms around her waist and dragging her away as she flailed around kicking. Eric unlocked the Vista Cruiser and Hyde settled her into the front seat.

“Why is Donna beating up Kelso?” Fez had finally escaped the ice rink and got his boots back on.

“Because he’s being a tool,” Buddy answered. He brought Fez up to speed on what he knew about what had happened.

Fez gasped. “Hyde and Jackie are dating?”

“How did you not know?” Buddy gaped at him. Was Fez really that oblivious? “She literally ran to him and hugged him earlier in the basement.”

“She always does that! She’s upset, she goes to Hyde!” Fez exclaimed, gripping his hair. “I’m always the last to know everything.”

“Well, now you know.” Buddy noticed Hyde and Jackie missing and craned his neck around to find them.

He could make out their voices by the El Camino as Jackie argued with Hyde while he attempted to usher her into the cab of his truck. Hyde was finally able to get Jackie inside and have her start the Camino before he marched back to the rest of them.

“How did he figure it out?” Buddy asked him as Hyde walked past him. Hyde brushed past him straight to Kelso.

“Look, Kelso,” Hyde spoke softly, “I’m sorry. I’m really, really , sorry.”

Kelso shook his head, his eyes watering. “Why Jackie?”

“I didn’t plan on it being, Jackie. Can we just settle this?”

“No. I don’t wanna settle shit.” Kelso’s brows furrowed into a hateful glare.

“Come on, Kelso.” Eric moved to stand between them. “You guys have been friends for years and at the rate you’ve been going, it would be a little hard to date someone you haven’t been with.”

Kelso stared at him blankly for a minute before nodding his head in agreement. “That’s true. But, man, who chooses a chick over a friend?”

“You?” Eric spazzed, gesturing to Kelso erratically with his hands. “You made me walk home in the middle of a snow storm just so you could make out with Pam Macy for an extra ten minutes.”

“But I didn’t steal Pam Macy from you!”

“Kelso.” Eric sighed and ran a hand down his face, pulling on his lower lip as he dragged his fingers down. “You cheated on Jackie with my sister. You like hooking up with other girls and you have been. For months. Literal months. Can you just let the girl move on even if it’s in an unholy, abomination of a union?”

“Forman,” Hyde snapped at him.

“Hey.” Eric held up a finger in Hyde’s direction. “She’s the devil and you’re kind of evil and that may make sense, but roller disco and Zeppelin just don’t blend. Or could they?” Eric looked up thoughtfully. “No, nope. That was horrifying.”

“Now is not the time, Eric.” Buddy pinched the bridge of his nose. The whole thing was dragging on more than it needed to be. Jackie and Kelso only dated for a majority of a single school year and it wasn’t the best.

Jackie had been a control freak that bossed the older boy around and made him do what she wanted him to do. It was a normal occurrence for her to be shrill and shouting his name or freezing him out when he disappointed her. Kelso wasn’t any better, always complaining about his girlfriend and claiming he would be breaking up with her and instead just cheated on her with easier girls. And that was the worst of his offenses but not the only ones.

Buddy had excused Jackie’s behavior as her being a first time girlfriend wanting her dream boyfriend and choosing the wrong schmuck for the job. She was young and wanted a sweet, handsome, and dreamy boyfriend, but that didn’t mean Kelso had to be that guy nor did he have to put up with her demands and her shouting. Jackie didn’t deserve to be disrespected and have her heart crushed when the boy she cared about and thought she loved betrayed her and cheated on her with any attractive, more experienced girl.

He knew Kelso could be sweet, like a puppy that didn’t know any better, but there was none of that sweet Kelso tonight.

“Can we all just forget about what just happened and remember that we’re best friends?” Eric pleaded with Kelso.

Kelso blinked back tears as he glared at Eric, his jaw clenched. He looked at everyone and then beyond them to the El Camino. His eyes finally settled on Hyde and he shook his head. Kelso grabbed his discarded skates and without looking back at any of them he took off down towards Main Street.

“We should, uh,” Eric gestured weakly to his car, “make sure he gets home.”

“I’ll give you a ride home, Buddy,” Hyde offered, pointing at his truck and then dropping his hand in defeat. He looked exhausted. “You live on Jackie’s block, it only makes sense.”

Buddy was glad he hadn’t driven his car to the Formans’ house. He wasn’t warming up to the idea of being in any confined space with Fez and Patty. The both of them were constantly making out and acting cutesy. He should have been happy for Fez. It was his first girlfriend, but pretending was all Buddy could do.

He didn’t even want to wonder if it would be the same with any girl. It was easy to not like him dating Patty, because he wasn’t too fond of her even if she weren’t dating Fez.

Right? Yeah, right…

Buddy said goodnight to everyone. He leaned over and pressed his hand against the passenger side window and tried to get Donna’s attention. Her tongue was pressed to the inside of her cheek and she was staring straight ahead with her arms crossed in front of her chest. He was surprised she hadn’t jumped out of the car after Hyde had her sit down. Buddy was sure Donna was going to maim Kelso tonight.

Climbing into the El Camino, Buddy sighed, grateful for the little bit of heat already circulating in the cab. He rubbed his palms together and held them up near the vent.

“Are you okay?” Jackie asked Hyde when he slid into his truck and closed his door.

“I’m fine.”

Hyde pulled away from the curb and turned down the street. They drove in silence, even as they passed by Kelso who made it a point to ignore them as he continued walking.

The evening had started off so differently than it had ended. Kelso, who had made it a point to flash them his rear end only a couple of hours ago, was now giving them the cold shoulder. Buddy hated Kelso’s sense of entitlement and his womanizing ways, but he didn’t want him to stop talking to the friends he had for over a decade.

He had no idea what was going to happen from now on, but he hoped it didn’t ruin things for Jackie.

Tired of the silence in the car, Buddy awkwardly spoke up when they reached a light. “Well, that could have gone better.”

In sync, moving as if they had done it for years, Jackie and Hyde turned to him with matching expressions of judgement on their faces.

Freaky...

Jackie’s parents were home so Hyde parked his car around the corner like he usually did when he would sneak in and out of the Burkharts’ estate. The both of them removed their shoes before entering the foyer. Jackie left hers and her skates at the entrance like she always did and Hyde carried his in hand, using his coat to keep them from dripping on the floor.

Silently, they tiptoed past the grand sitting room and we’re almost to the stairs when a groggy voice spoke up from the sitting room.

“Jackie? Darling?” Pamela Burkhart slurred. “Is that you, sweetheart?”

Jackie’s shoulders slumped. She put her finger to her lips and then gave him an apologetic look. She gestured for him to stay where he was and then walked back into the sitting room.

Hyde ignored her request and looked into the room from around the corner. The sitting room was still bigger than the house he had rented with Edna and full of luxury items like the baby grand piano and bourbon filled crystal decanters. All things that decorated the plush life Jackie had been living.

The last time he had been in the room, there was a lot less furnishing.

Jackie grabbed an afghan that had been tossed over one of the couches and draped it over her mother who was lying on the couch, her baby blue satin robe askew and revealing her matching satin nightgown that fell to her knees.

“Where were you?” Pam asked Jackie in a whimper.

“I went ice skating with my friends, mother,” Jackie explained, kneeling on the ground and tucking the throw around Pam.

“Your father called while you were gone,” she murmured, curling into a ball. “He had to go out of town. Some last minute thing. He couldn’t wait for you to come home, he said.” Pam hiccuped and curled tighter. “I told Jack that he needed to get you some—something when he returns. Something beautiful. A father is supposed to—supposed to make sure he sees his little girl before he takes off.”

“I’m sure he will.” Jackie stroked her mother’s hair away from her face. “And he’ll remember to get you something too, mom.”

“Yeah?” Pam asked weakly. “He will?”

“Yeah,” Jackie’s voice was soft but still carried a cheerful tone. She pressed a kiss to her mother's temple and stood up. “Goodnight, mom.”

Hyde turned back out of the doorway and leaned against the wall. This wasn’t the first time he had witnessed something like that between the two, but it was the first in this timeline.

Pam was a different person when she was drunk at home than when she was surrounded by people. She was needier and all she wanted was someone that loved her and the only person around would always be Jackie. Pam didn’t drink in excess when her husband was present, but he wasn’t around enough and she drank the loneliness away. Jackie was an afterthought and Jackie was left to whatever scraps of affection an inebriated Pam had for her.

It didn’t escape Hyde that Jackie shared the same experiences he did. An absent father and a mother that turned to the bottle and other men to bandage the wounds. At least his parents divorced and he was able to escape to the Formans even before Edna took off. Jackie was still caught between two parents insisting on playing their parts.

And play them well they did.

Red was the first to find a crack in Jackie’s glass house. It wasn’t intentional, but he had let it slip about Jack always being busy. It had made sense because he was a lawyer and a city councilman. Jack Burkhart was rich and popular enough, especially with the picture his family painted.

Jackie never let anyone see how it bothered her. She was raised so that it was normal that her father was always busy and that it was all so she could live the wonderful life she had. She got all of the pretty clothes she loved and any toy she asked for, so why should she complain? It was better to think she was better than everyone for all of the things her father could buy her. It was easier to think that she didn’t need anything else from him.

Kelso had been the second clue to the reality of Jackie’s life. The moron was always bragging about how easy it was to spend the night until Jackie had cut him off from staying over. Everyone hated his Jackie talk especially because most of the time he was either complaining or lying about what Jackie let him do. While the two of them dated, Kelso was oblivious to what really was going on with Jackie’s parents and it was probably for the best.

Jackie brushed by him, looking at him for only a second and then quickly averted her gaze. She hooked a finger and beckoned him to follow her up the stairs.

He knew she wouldn’t want to talk about what had just happened. She hadn’t back in his 1977 when they were hooking up, but eventually they had to talk about it. In this version of 1977, Hyde was already privy to her secrets. Somehow he had missed that he and Jackie were closer friends before they started dating which made it so that she opened up and was real with him a lot sooner.

As soon as they entered her room, Jackie took his wet boots and placed them in her en suite.

“I won’t take long,” Jackie told him, taking her pajamas into the bathroom.

Hyde took a seat at the edge of her bed and looked around. It looked almost exactly as it did the last time he had been in Jackie’s room in 1978. He had been in plenty of girly rooms, but Jackie’s took the prize in being the most dedicated to pink. She covered the walls with posters and magazine clippings and furniture blocked out the walls, but the color still peeked out.

She had glittery decor and useless baubles scattered in different corners of her room. It was all sparkly things that made her feel like her life was just as shiny as those items. She had a mountain of stuffed animals to keep her company and in boxes on her bookshelf, Hyde knew she had saved invitations and holiday cards and photos taken at events. The more people that liked her, the more popular she was, the easier it was to shield herself with shallow adoration and not worry about the two people that were supposed to love her the most.

Jackie came back out of her bathroom dressed in her gingham cotton pajama set. She went straight to her desk and snipped her paper access bracelet from the skating rink and laid it down on her desk. The corner of Hyde’s lips twitched upwards at the sight. She always saved everything. Everything was a memory and despite how things ended at the skating rink, it was a memory of them.

She shuffled over to her bed and on her knees, straddled Hyde’s lap. Instinctively, Hyde grasped her hips in his hands. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he breathed against her mouth as she pressed a kiss to his lips.

“So that was bad.” Jackie sighed and slipped Hyde’s sunglasses off of his face. “With Michael I mean. I was having a pretty good time tonight before all of that.”

Kelso wasn’t what he wanted to discuss with Jackie on his lap. Not with the way she rocked her hips, dipping them and pulling back up just to press down harder in alternating movements.

“How good of a time?” He asked, pressing a kiss to her throat. Closing his eyes, Hyde slid his hands up Jackie’s pajama top and felt her warm, soft skin and smelled the honey, apricots, and baby powder mixture that was her nightwear perfume.

God. Jackie was the kind of girl that had different perfume for different seasons and times of the day and he wasn’t supposed to be into anyone that meticulous about the strangest things but all Hyde wanted was her right where she was, riding his lap and panting.

“It could be better,” she baited him, voice husky.

With his eyes closed, Jackie was the soft sighs, perfect skin, and sweet scent that was the Jackie he left behind in 1979. She tasted like that sweet cherry lip gloss 1979 Jackie had switched to using just for him.

But with his eyes opened, Jackie’s cheekbones weren’t as sharp, her face not as angular and she didn’t have the bangs that framed her face for the more mature look 1979 Jackie had wanted. Her cheeks were pink from being scrubbed clean of her makeup and it somehow made them look a little plumper.

There had to be something wrong about being with Jackie like this. He was physically seventeen, but mentally he was reaching near twenty years old. Hyde was trying to take things slow, slower than the pace they had gone in his original timeline. 1979 Jackie had made Kelso wait a couple of months to properly fool around and eight months before they had sex for the first time. 1979 Jackie had settled into Hyde’s bed barely six weeks after they kissed that first summer of theirs.

He thought that with the many changes to the timeline, that he would have to average it out and he would have time before Jackie was ready to take things further.

“Do you want to touch me more, Steven?” Jackie whispered, taking his hands in hers and flattening them against her taut stomach. She slid them up her torso until they reached the lower swell of her pert breasts. “I want you to touch me more.”

This is where the government simulation mindfuck took over. A sixteen year old Jackie with Kelso being her only sexual experience, was slightly clumsy and mostly used well practiced flirty looks in her seduction. She never had to do much because Kelso had always been the one chasing after her, begging to be allowed to touch her. And as much as her pouty looks worked on Hyde, she had much to learn about what got him really going, not just revving up his engine.

Jackie was a talker and Hyde had expected it while screwing, had heard it when she was with Kelso the one time—the first and last time despite Kelso’s claims of it having been more—Jackie had let Kelso convince her that it was okay for them to have sex on the basement couch. As much as she needed to kink it up with Kelso, she had never wanted him or one of their friends to actually witness it or hear it. He had heard her attempts to guide Kelso over his moronic friend’s grunts before he shut them out with a Judas Priest record and Hyde would have rather cut off his big toes than end up being put in the same league as Kelso in Jackie’s eyes and have her order him around during sex.

But when they finally got down and dirty, Jackie hadn’t spoken much unprompted other than calls of his name. For someone that was loud in every other aspect of her life, he had expected her to be loud when properly fucking as well.

Jackie’s cries of pleasure were as soft as her hair and her skin. She made the cutest sounds, but Hyde was never going to cop to that description. When she came, her noises were guttural, caught in her throat and just for him. It was a strangely new phenomenon for him that was much more appealing than anything else.

She became more vocal as time went by, more confident to let him know what she wanted, but it had taken a bit for her to discover what she actually liked as she experimented with things that had interested her but had never done. Hyde had been more than glad to help out with that during their first summer.

Hyde had expected to have to repeat everything all over again, but Jackie seemed more and more like eighteen year old Jackie.

“I’m doing all of the work here, Steven,” Jackie snapped at him, dropping his hands. She shot him a glare as she stilled in his lap, but it softened the longer she looked him in the eye and she cupped his face in her hands. “Are you okay? We don’t have to fool around if you don’t want to.”

“That’s not it.” She looked like early 1977 Jackie, but moved like 1979 Jackie and it was starting to give him whiplash. “This ain’t too fast for you?”

Jackie gave him a slight frown and shook her head. “Not at all.” She looped her arms around his neck and played with the curls at the base. She laid her forehead against his and murmured, barely brushing her lips to his when she spoke. “What? Do you think it’s too fast?”

“Was just wondering how many bases you were trying to round tonight.”

When they were just a fling, this was around the time they had stalled before sliding into home. It had been a long time for him to wait, but for Jackie it had been too soon in comparison to her dating timeline. The wait had been worth it and he didn’t mind waiting again, but Hyde was her boyfriend—her man—not just her fling so he wasn’t sure if that changed things up or not.

“I’m good for a couple, if you like.” Jackie cupped his face in her hands and sank her tongue into his mouth. Her fingers curled into his hair as he got to work on the buttons of her cotton pajama top.

Her skin was warm. Jackie was always warmer towards her core, the heat running out as it reached her digits. Her fingertips were cold as they traced delicate patterns down the sides of his face, but her touch was softer than that of anyone who had ever touched him besides the Jackie he had left behind in 1979. The way she caressed him, it made him feel like she was trying to tell him that he was the only thing in the world that mattered.

It was a beautiful lie and for as long as Jackie gave him the privilege of looking at her, touching her—be it two minutes or hours—it was easy to believe it.

There were no repeats of how getting to second with Jackie Burkhart was like back in his original 1977. She didn’t stutter in her movements, no hesitation as Hyde revealed her skin. Back in his own timeline Jackie had been an odd mixture of confidence and insecurity the first time she had decided to go topless just for him. She knew she was beautiful, but she was also unsure as she knew she was much more petite and smaller in areas than other girls.

This Jackie didn’t need any reassurance that she had pretty, little tits and that Hyde’s only issue was trying to figure out where he wanted to put his mouth first. This Jackie wasn’t thinking about the dirty magazines the guys left lying around the basement that didn’t have girls with her physique or her mother who flaunted her perfect figure.

She moved against him like it wasn’t the first time she was bare before him with him touching her. Like she wasn’t a different Jackie than the one he had already grown with, been loved by, and had been left behind in 1979.

Hyde chuckled at Jackie’s delighted hums as he laid her down on her bed. It was always good to know that he affected her just as much as she affected him.

With his eyes closed and Jackie smelling like her sweet name brand perfume, it was easy to pretend they were in his own time and not back in the past. Jackie’s kisses were the perfect balance of sweet and insistent. Hyde had no trouble melting into her, letting her pull the layers of shirts he was wearing over his head so that she could press their skin together.

There was a nice buzz running along his brain and down his spine, but a tugging at his waist had him drawing away, his mouth going dry at the small hands unbuckling his belt.

“Jackie?” He looked down at her with bemusement as she tossed his belt to the side and he heard it clink when it hit the ground.

“It’s going to dig into me,” Jackie offered as an explanation, maneuvering her legs so that she had her knees pressed to his hips. Using the muscles of her thighs, Jackie pulled him into the cradle of her legs so that he was resting his body against hers.

Jackie rolled her hips against him, lining herself up perfectly to move against his hardened length. Her moans vibrated in his mouth as they rocked their bodies together.

Of all the different scenarios he had run through in his head about how his night would end, dry fucking hadn’t occurred in any of them. And each time her voice hitched on his name as he pushed her deeper into her mattress, all he wanted was for it to be like that, just him and his chick, but it was too soon and it left a sour taste in his mouth that he was content with an aspect of his life after fighting with Kelso and it not being resolved in any way.

Looking down at Jackie, her dark eyes hooded and swollen lips parted slightly with her pajama top open and her bottoms sliding down her hips, Hyde huffed in frustration and rolled off of her.

It would have been better if he really didn’t have a conscience like he used to claim he didn’t.

Rubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands, Hyde sat up. “It’s getting late.”

“Yeah,” Jackie breathed out and turned on her side. “It is.”

Hyde helped her button up her top and grabbed his discarded articles of clothing from the floor. If he stayed any longer it would make it that much harder to leave.

“Are you going to be alright?” He asked, slipping his coat back on. It was another hand me down from James Kelso and it was his nicest black coat. He could feel that he was stretching it out at the shoulders already.

Jackie looked up from where she was pulling back her covers and removing the extra pillows from her bed. “About what?”

“I don’t know. Kelso? Your mom? Take your pick.”

Sighing, Jackie moved from her bed and wrapped her arms around his waist. “My mom? Such a non-issue. It’s not new, I can handle it.”

That didn’t make Hyde feel any better. He didn’t like when eighteen year old Jackie moved back in with her mother, how was he supposed to let sixteen year old Jackie continue to take care of her floozy mother.

“Jackie.”

“You already know what it’s like and why I don’t want to talk about it.”

Hyde knew too well. He never made excuses for Edna, but he was the only one allowed to talk shit about his mother. He lived it, he experienced it, only he knew.

And then there was Jackie.

No one could touch the subject of Pam Burkhart. Jackie could say whatever she wanted about her mother or her father, but she did it behind closed doors and only to whoever she felt safe with: him. Hyde could respect that. He never discussed—truly discussed—his parents to anyone but Forman and Red on occasion. Donna was only privy to the parts of his shitty life that could relate to hers and he was fine with that. Fez and Kelso were open to what they witnessed and Kelso was too naive and Fez too new for them to get the full picture.

The both of them━Jackie and him━were too prideful to let anyone know about the things that hurt and to ask for help. It was one of the difficult things about dating for them in the beginning and a hurdle he was going to have to jump all over again. It was going to take work to get back to how they were before the end, when neither of them had to actually use words for the other to know what was going on.

“And Kelso?”

Jackie nodded her head and offered him a crooked grin. “More difficult.” She kissed him briefly. “But I don’t regret anything.”

“Not a thing?” Hyde murmured, kissing her back.

“Nope,” Jackie whispered, shaking her head, the smile still on her face. “I like you too much to regret anything.”

It was a major step down from being told that she loved him, but it was still too soon for any proclamations from Jackie. Hyde had been denying love for so long and even after their break up that he hadn’t been expecting his stomach to ache from the downgrade in verbal affection.

“And you?” Jackie asked him, pinching at the material of his shirt. “Any regrets about being my boyfriend?”

“Oh, plenty,” he teased her, earning him a playful slap to his chest. “No, seriously, I have none. Being your boyfriend is cool with me.”

She beamed up at him in that typical Jackie way, as if just a minute ago she wasn’t almost topless and using his erection to get herself off. Hyde had almost forgotten how easy it was to make her happy. She asked for a mile and settled for an inch. Jackie had smiled just as wide as when he first slipped up and called her his girlfriend in his true 1977 like it was some grand prize.

Like he was some grand prize.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” He asked, kissing her on her cheek goodnight.

“I’ll call you if I can’t.” Jackie’s hands moved to Hyde’s and she slipped her fingers into the sleeves of his coat. She ran her finger pads against the soft skin of his inner wrist.

Looked like early 1977 Jackie, but moved like 1979 Jackie.

Sneaking out of the Burkhart house was easy considering he had knowledge from the future of where all of the creaks in the floorboards were. The only roadblock was making sure Pam didn’t notice him moving around in the dark. He usually found her stumbling back to her own bedroom, too drunk to notice that he was there.

The drive back to the Formans’ from the Burkharts’ mansion always felt longer at night. A small town like Point Place was always quieter when the stores closed and the roads were empty of travelers. Hyde sang under his breath to pass the time. He could have turned up the radio, but it didn’t help when he had songs stuck in his head that hadn’t been released yet.

The quiet of Point Place at night with just the hum of his Camino was the liminal space he needed where he didn’t need to act like everything was as copacetic as he kept telling himself it was.

The lights were off when he approached the Forman house, not even the porch lights were on. Forman must have covered for him with Red and Kitty. He parked his truck on the street, not wanting to have to wake up to move the El Camino when they went to church.

Making his way down the steps to the basement, he saw the light on and knew someone had to be waiting for him to come home. Opening the door he found Forman sitting on the couch, watching a rerun of a Twilight Zone episode.

“You’re back late,” Forman commented, crossing his arms in front of his chest with mock authority. “Busy rounding some bases? Have fun?”

“Well, it is the great American pastime.”

“Oh, God, I was joking.” Forman shivered in disgust. “I don’t wanna know about you and Jackie.”

“Then don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.” Hyde hung up his coat  over the shower curtain’s rod and slumped onto the couch.

“Ew! She hoovered you, man.”

Forman gagged and pointed to the left side of his neck. Hyde fingered the spot he vaguely recalled Jackie focusing so much attention on and felt a light throb when he pressed down on the area. Damn. He had been so caught up in the way she grinded her hips against his that he hadn’t noticed that she had left a hickey.

“So…”

Hyde groaned, knowing exactly what was on Forman’s mind. “Do we really have to talk about it right now?”

“Hyde.” Forman stood up and turned the television off. “We kind of do. Kelso looked crushed, man. And no, I’m not saying he was right about the whole you snaking Jackie from him thing ‘cause he screwed himself over about that months ago. He’s our best friend. We gotta do something about it.”

“He needs to get over it.”

“You know what he’s going to say right?”

“What?”

“We’ve been friends with him for over ten years and we’ve only known Jackie for, like, two.” Forman bit his lower lip and puffed up his cheeks. He exhaled slowly and sat back down on the couch. “I don’t even think it’s about being with her. This is betrayal to him. Remember how peeved he was when we let Jackie keep coming round when they broke up?”

That had been an annoying couple of weeks. He had pulled more pranks that week than ever and did anything he could to try and annoy Jackie and Buddy out of the basement.

“We were supposed to choose him, not Jackie. And you my friend, did more than just choose Jackie.”

“Whatever.” Hyde rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I’m pretty sure his entitled ass is still hung up on her.”

“First Kelso, then Fez, and now you.” Forman shook his head. “She’s a demon, I’m telling you.”

“Shut up, Forman.”

Forman laughed as Hyde smacked him with the green throw pillow.

Hyde didn’t expect Kelso to behave the same way he had at the end of the summer of 1977. He was expecting school to be the same after he and Jackie hooked up, but at least this time she had Donna still at Point Place High and also Buddy.

“I thought Donna was going to kill Kelso.” Forman quirked his head thoughtfully. “It was kind of hot.”

Hyde frowned, shooting him a dirty look. He stood up, wanting to distance himself from Forman as soon as possible. “Alright, I’m going to bed.”

He might not be ready for the new changes, but at least Eric Forman never changed.

Some things never changed.

Jackie was subject to derogatory comments from tenth grade boys and come ons from seniors that actually thought they had a chance.

Some of her upperclassmen on the cheer squad kept speaking to her in condescending tones about damage control and Leslie...Leslie was spacey as always but still the person she hadn’t expected to sit with her first whenever she saw Jackie alone for more than a minute.

“Sisterhood, girl,” had been her only explanation, which was the same thing she had said the first week of school in the 1977 that Jackie had already experienced.

It had been easier when she was Head Cheerleader and untouchable. The squad had rallied behind her in defense of their youngest captain in Point Place High history—the one voted by the largest margin as well. Right now she was just the talented sophomore on the varsity squad.

Valerie was at least standing with her. She still expected Jackie to take over the squad when she graduated. Valerie didn’t stop from lecturing her about handling her business better and about how just one of them could ruin the whole squad’s reputation, but she wasn’t the person annoying Jackie the most.

“She thinks she’s better than us just ‘cause she keeps it all under wraps who she screws,” Leslie scoffed, taking her sandwich apart and folding it so that it only had one piece of bread.

Leslie smiled and waved as Kat walked past the table and headed to sit with her country club friends instead of with her fellow cheerleaders. The smile slid off her face into a sneer as soon as Kat’s back was turned.

Leslie Cannon had a very well known “love them and leave them” policy. She dated whoever she deemed worthy, only letting them get as far as she liked if they treated her the way she desired them to. It was why she was also known for being a huge tease, but she made it work.

Kat Peterson had called her out for it during a practice when Jackie was a freshman and Leslie and her had been frenemies ever since.

“So you like being with El Camino?” Leslie asked munching on a celery stick.

“His name’s Steven Hyde, Leslie.” Jackie rolled her eyes and stabbed lightly at her salad with her fork.

“ Right .” Leslie grinned slyly at her. “He’s cute. And so bad. You think he’d let me—“

“Not even if you actually had your license.” Jackie tossed her head back and laughed. She had asked the same question the day Buddy had sat with them at lunch months ago.

Leslie was always a riot and Jackie had really missed her when she had graduated and went off to a school in California. When Jackie was a senior, all of the girls she actually liked from the cheerleading team had graduated and she was left with the girls that shared the same peer group she did, but that was all she could say about them.

“Are you bitches laughing at me?” Shauna Parker, another junior and another one of Jackie’s squad mates that had gone away to college in another state, sat down across from them, shaking her strawberry blonde hair and scooping it into a ponytail.

“Oh, please do share whatever it is we could be making fun of you for,” Leslie propped her chin on top of her hands and rest her elbows on the table top.

“As if.” Shauna wrinkled her nose in disgust. She stole Jackie’s clementine and shoved over her paper boat of tater tots, winking at her. Jackie was about to switch them back when Shauna narrowed her eyes at her and batted her hand away. “Eat the carbs, Jackie. You can afford to eat them you skinny witch.”

Jackie didn’t know how long she had with them, but they were the only two that she truly missed from pep squad. They were the only two she actually liked to hang out with at parties the cheer squad had to attend.

“Hello, letter jackets.” Buddy slid into the seat on the other side of Jackie.

“Sorry, Trans Am.” Leslie jutted out her lip in a pout. “Maybe if you were an athlete like us, you too could wear a cute matching jacket.”

Buddy gave her a weird puzzled look but took out his sack lunch and his journal. “How has your day been, Jackie?”

“Fine.” Jackie went back to stabbing her salad. When she heard no one talking she lifted her head up and caught the three of them staring at her. “I’m fine .”

Ignoring the leers from some of the undesirable members of the male student body, Jackie scanned the cafeteria. Steven and the others had lunch during the same period, but she didn’t sit with them usually so it wasn’t strange for her not to be with them. It was strange for Michael to be missing though.

Michael had ended up sitting with the junior varsity wrestling team. Despite being on the team, he and Donna never sat with their team members. After their group outing over the weekend, Michael had shunned everyone except for Fez who was acting as a go between and passing along messages from him. Most of them were extremely immature and insulting.

It was a change from what had happened in the original 1977. Back then, Michael had discovered what had happened over the summer and he and Steven had called a truce before school had started. She had been able to talk to Michael as well, but this time around they weren’t able to discuss anything.

“I still think everyone’s making a big deal about it.” Leslie sighed and pushed her tray away. “So what if you’re dating a guy that’s friends with the guy you used to date? They expect us to be cycled through sports teams and those guys tend to be close too. Just look at Destroy and Give Back. They don’t go anywhere without each other.”

It wasn’t fair. No one called out Steven for dating his friend’s ex or about how Michael had dated sisters at the same time, but they all talked about how she was now with her ex’s best friend. Donna had said something about double standards that Jackie had barely listened to. Jackie hadn’t minded the explanation until Donna had started rambling on about it and going on one of her feminist sermons.

Jackie loved the girl, but she forgot how involved Donna had been, reading all of the books Midge brought home, and centering so much of her life around feminism that it got to be all that she talked about at times when she was .

“I’m just glad the winter sports season is almost over.” Jackie shoved a bite of salad into her mouth, done with the conversation. She would be glad when she no longer had to balance her time with school, finding a new job, and cheer and having to avoid Michael at wrestling meets Point Place High hosted.

“Maybe you can help out with the style section of the paper when it’s over,” Buddy suggested. “It would only be once a month. We were told to try and come up with other forms of entertainment and really it’s high school so why not?”

Jackie bit the inside of her cheek and pondered what Buddy had offered. It sounded very similar to the ideas that she had been going over as she waited to hear back about an available slot at Point Place Public Access back in 1979.

“Yeah, this school could really use my expertise on fashion.” Jackie fluffed her hair and adjusted her beret. Shauna rolled her eyes but smiled at her anyway, shaking her head.

“Yeah, some people really do.”

Buddy snickered when Leslie pointed at Kat’s Rich Bitch clique and gagged. Buddy wasn’t a fan of those in his own social circle but Kat had left a bad impression on him over things she had said about Shelly before Jackie had even entered high school.

He had told her about his soft spot for Shelly Cooper. Jackie didn’t really know the girl other than some rumors, but Buddy had insisted that Shelly was nothing like the gossip train made her out to be.

Shelly had a reputation for being easy and when Jackie joined the varsity squad her freshman year, her upperclassmen had warned her about girls like her and to stay clear of them for fear of what the association could do to her reputation. After that, Jackie only knew her as the silly girl with the bad taste to like Eric.

Buddy had told her about how he had dated Shelly when he was in ninth grade. Shelly was a sweet girl that grew attached easily and fell hard for the boys she liked. Unlike Pam Macy—who didn’t discriminate about who she fooled around with—Shelly genuinely liked the boys that she messed around with. Even if some of them happened to be dorky and taken like Eric. Her only fault was that none of the boys she picked were truly worthy of her affections and abandoned her as soon as they got what they wanted from her.

“She called me a freak when I told her we couldn’t be together because I was gay,” Buddy had told Jackie, a wry smile twisting at his lips. “I broke her heart, but she never outed me. She never said anything bad about me after that too.”

Shelly had at one point been Buddy’s best friend, someone who liked that he was nerdy and taught her things in a manner she could understand. She wasn’t the brightest girl and she loved that smart Buddy didn’t treat her like an idiot like so many of their classmates did. Their relationship had disintegrated when Buddy confessed that he couldn’t love her the way she wanted him to and he missed the friend he had lost.

When Jackie was actually sixteen, she had found her friendships in her designated clique severely lacking. It was one of the reasons she had clung so fiercely to Donna. Donna was nothing like the girls in the cheer squad or in the rich kid clique. She made friends with someone because she wanted to and no matter how much Jackie annoyed her, she knew that Donna saw something in her that was worth keeping around.

Leslie didn’t care about who Jackie dated and Shauna only cared if Jackie looked good, thus making her look good in association. They were the most fun of all of her squad mates to gossip with and hang out with at events, but they weren’t people that Jackie would let peek underneath the surface.

She wondered if that’s what it was like for Buddy when he was friends with Shelly, if she was his Donna. She knew he wasn’t satisfied with his peer group and it was why he enjoyed clubs like the school newspaper and yearbook so that he had an excuse to float around and not settle in one space.

The three of them walked with Jackie as far as they could before they were forced to split up. Once her buffer was gone, Jackie could hear the whispers and guffaws from random boys in the hallways. She held her head high and ignored them, refusing to give away any sign that she could hear their comments.

“Michael Kelso must have said something about how Burkhart was in the sack and Hyde decided to take her up for a—“

The words were cut off with the sound of a body slamming into a locker. Jackie didn’t need to turn around to know what had happened. She was currently on the way to her English class and when she was headed there, Steven was on his way to his eleventh grade English class with Mr. Palmer—a teacher Jackie would have the following year—and would be walking down the same hallway.

“Hey,” he greeted her nonchalantly, his shoulder brushing against her own as he fell into step with her. The way he carried himself didn’t give away that anything bothered him. At least not to everyone else.

But this was a version of Steven that was easy for Jackie to read. He kept Eric safe from bullies, didn’t let the football team stuff Fez into closets and lockers, was a safe place for Donna to express her feelings about her parents, and he punched out Chip for her—even though that was in a different timeline. He was there for his friends.

Some things never changed.

Shifting her books in her arms, Jackie clutched them to her chest with one arm and reached down between her and Steven with the other hand. She slipped her fingers between Steven’s and he curled his fingers around hers without complaint.

That was something that Jackie hadn’t expected from Steven, the lack of complaints. He fell into the boyfriend role a lot easier than he had when they first started dating. Steven didn’t question when she held his hand in public or straightened his clothes, dusting them off. He accepted all of her touches as if he had been receiving them for a long time, as if it was only natural that she did all of them.

Steven’s classroom came up first, but the both of them bypassed it as Steven continued walking with her toward her class. Jackie bit her lip to keep from making a comment despite how much she wanted to squeal and coo at the boyfriend behavior. He would have passed it off as wasting time and not wanting to go to class, but she didn’t care.

When she stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on his cheek, Steven leaned into the touch before straightening up and turning back down the hall. Jackie watched him for a moment as he walked down the hall. If it weren’t for the long curls with the blonde still in them—a leftover from his childhood that would be lost as soon as he decided to cut them—he was just like 1979 Steven. Jackie had to keep reminding herself that they were in fact the same person.

Taking her seat in class Jackie cupped the back of her neck in her hands and massaged her nape, rolling her neck.

She had had a discussion with 1979 Steven about his hair. He had stared at her blankly as she massaged his scalp and rambled about eumelanin and hair science and how his hair had darkened as he got older after puberty and how stuff like that was so weird how it affected some people and not others like poor redheads. Jackie had gotten irritated with him for not paying attention but he had just laughed and told her he couldn’t believe she knew the word “eumelanin” but then accused him of making up words when he taught her zen.

This Steven hadn’t taught her zen. They didn’t have their zen lessons that had let her know one of the things that made Steven who he was. This Steven didn’t have to and he hadn’t said a thing whenever she utilized his zen. Jackie had to assume that he thought she learned it from observing him.

Jackie was beginning to realize that she was erasing moments with her old Steven. She was rewriting her history and her chest ached at the thought. She had heard Buddy and Eric talk about paradoxes and parallel timelines. It gave her a headache but it also gave her hope that somewhere else, she and her old Steven still had all of the good moments existing out there.

Somewhere in another universe, there had to be a sad and broken hearted Jackie Burkhart pining over Steven Hyde that she left an imprint of. And although someone as beautiful as her shouldn’t have to be alone and miserable, at least those memories of love were more than just figments flashing in her mind but actual moments written into their history.

It was easier when he was an outsider, back when he was viewing everything around him with a clinical eye and when none of it affected him. Back when he was just the closeted rich kid that knew it was better to treat others with the kindness he himself deserved.

It had been almost a week since the ice skating fiasco and Kelso had been avoiding the basement. Buddy didn’t mind it. Out of all of them, Kelso was his least favorite person and the least amount of time Buddy had to spend in his presence the better.

Eric had claimed he was being biased because he only knew Kelso from Jackie’s perspective but it was bullshit and Buddy called Eric out for being loyal to a creep. It still bothered him how Eric always compared Jackie to the devil. The nicknames never felt justified despite the fact that the both of them didn’t care much for the other. He knew Jackie found Eric severely lacking and unattractive but knew he was a nice guy, but Eric’s dislike seemed misplaced as if Jackie was the only one of his friends he could direct all of his frustration at when it came to any insults or jokes.

The one Buddy really didn’t understand about the whole matter was Jackie. It was his opinion that she didn’t owe the asshole shit, but she still felt bad for getting in the way of Hyde and Kelso’s friendship.

“I’m not sorry for having feelings for Steven. It just should never have been a choice for him to pick me or Michael and it’s starting to feel like that’s what’s going on.”

Buddy held his tongue despite the many things he wanted to say about the basement gang and their relationships with each other. It wasn’t his place to tick off all of the reasons Kelso just wasn’t worth it. No matter how much he wanted to do just that when he, Hyde, and Eric entered the basement and found Kelso playing Mouse Trap with Fez.

“Kelso!” Eric greeted him with more enthusiasm than Buddy felt Kelso was worthy of. “Dude. Where have you been all week?”

Kelso shrugged his shoulders and leaned back on the couch spreading his arms across the back of it. “Busy training for the last meet.”

“Yeah, Donna really clobbered you at practice.” Buddy snickered, remembering the incident when he went with Mitch to interview some of the wrestlers about the upcoming event. He was sure the beating was partially fueled by her anger at Kelso and partially fueled by the tension of withholding sex from Eric.

Kelso pouted, directing his glare at Buddy before shifting his focus to Hyde and giving him a tight lipped smile.

“Well look who it is, Fez. It’s the girlfriend stealer.”

Buddy shared a look with Eric and sighed deeply, the inhale shaking his frame. Eric shook his head and held up his hand, preparing to act as the mediator.

“Kelso—“

“I mean, first it was Donna,” Kelso cut Eric off, standing up and making his way to the deep freeze and grabbing a popsicle. “He kept trying that last year but nothing worked and now he’s moved on to Jackie. Who’s next, Hyde? Patty?”

Buddy closed his eyes and squeezed them tight. He remembered that. He had secretly rooted for Hyde to end up with Donna so that Eric would remain single. Actually getting to know the three of them, he was now glad that Donna’s feelings never strayed. She and Hyde would never have worked out and Buddy liked the two of them too much now to want them to have been subjected to what would have been a failure of a relationship.

But Kelso was wrong about comparing the two pursuits. Sure it was a shitty thing to do when Hyde knew that Donna’s feelings lied with Eric Forman, but pursuing a relationship with Jackie wasn’t the same.

Kelso had cheated and strung Jackie along. Jackie had broken up with him and had been single for almost half a year before she dated another guy and she didn’t even have to wait if she didn’t want to. It wasn’t as if there was a lack of guys that wanted to hook up with Jackie Burkhart—some more honorable than others who just wanted to say they were able to do it.

Jackie had been single for months and she had been Hyde’s friend for all of that time. Buddy may have taken up the position of best friend, but there was something about the two that he was sure not even Donna could compare when it came to her friendship with either of them and she was a best friend to the both of them.

There was no real pursuit, it just happened. They were just two friends who fell together in a way that felt natural to the both of them. If Buddy hadn’t been so close to the group, he might have assumed the both of them had already been dating months ago with the way they were together.

“And it’s not like they’re gonna last anyway.” Kelso waved his popsicle around before stuffing it into his mouth. “They’re going to break up eventually.”

Hyde had no remark, but it didn’t stop Buddy from moving so he was between the two warring friends. Hyde didn’t have to say anything. The anger rolling off of him at Kelso’s words was palpable.

“If it’s not Hyde finding her annoying and unbearable, it’s gonna be Jackie dumping him ‘cause there’s no way he’s ever going to be the boyfriend she actually wants.”

Buddy chanced a glance at Hyde before swiveling his attention to the neutral parties in the basement. Eric’s face had settled into a twisted sort of grimace as he weighed Kelso’s argument in his mind and Fez looked like he did when he ate two pounds of chocolate in one sitting.

This is exactly what Buddy knew was going to happen. He had been gleeful at the thought of Kelso finally getting what was coming to him, that he would finally catch on that Jackie Burkhart wasn't going to wait around and be his ol’ reliable. He was ecstatic at the idea of Michael Kelso seeing the girl he hurt by being a no good cheat being happy with someone new. But he also knew that it wasn’t going to end well when Jackie’s heart turned her in the direction of Steven Hyde.

Kelso and Hyde had been best friends since they were in grammar school. They had been joined at the hip the moment they were both made to sit inside during recess as punishment for different first grade crimes. Whenever Buddy heard about one of them getting up to mischief or getting in trouble, the other’s name was usually tied to the same story.

Maybe that’s why it wasn’t so weird to Buddy that they both had at some point fallen for the same girl. Eric and Hyde were like brothers sure, but it had always been Hyde and Kelso.

At least that’s how it seemed before last summer.

There was an odd shift in their relationship that was easy to miss considering they always hung out in a group. Buddy may have even missed it if he hadn’t been adopted into it, but Hyde and Kelso weren’t the best friends they used to be. It seemed like their friendship was just a side effect of being a part of the same group. And maybe Kelso was just figuring that out.

“He didn’t steal your girlfriend, Kelso,” Eric tried to reason with him. “Jackie hasn’t been your girlfriend since early July. Remember? Back when you were caught cheating on her?”

Kelso scoffed, his mouth purple from the popsicle melting against his lips.

“Look, Kelso.” Hyde moved around Buddy to square up in front of his best friend. “It’s not like I went out of my way just to mess with you. Jackie’s been my friend just as much as she’s been your ex. It’s just something that happened. No plans. She’s my girlfriend now, so get over it.”

“I mean, come on,” Eric shrugged his shoulders playfully and grinned at Kelso, “you said it yourself. Jackie’s a lot . No one is going to go through that just to burn you, man. If Hyde wants to sell his soul to Satan, let him.”

“ Forman .”

“Hey. It’s devil remarks or eternal sounds of disgust. Take your pick.”

“Can your stupidity wait until we hash this shit out?”

“What makes you think talking is going to make it better?” Kelso tugged at his hair and his hands shook from how tight he held on. “God, it’s always about words with you two!”

“You should be glad it’s just words,” Buddy muttered, rolling his eyes and taking a seat on the wagon wheel table. If it came to blows he was sure he wouldn’t be much help to stop anything and if Donna was around she would probably turn on Kelso if he opened his mouth and the wrong words came out. And Buddy would cheer her on the entire time she wailed on Kelso.

Another friendship he had never expected but thanked Jackie for introducing to him.

Donna had always been a cliche to him—just the “cool” girl that was one of the guys. She was a girl pretty enough to get passing glances from boys in Buddy’s social circles and gorgeous enough to be the untouchable ideal of nerdy boys who could fantasize about the girl who cared more about music and if someone was a good person than the ranks of the school social hierarchy.

She was that tomboy that found it easier to make friends with guys than girls and was at ease with it because she would rather have her close knit friendships with the boys she had palled around with since she had wobbly knees and was taller than everyone in class. Donna was secure in who she was and her interests and wasn’t going to change for anyone just to join the girl club even if it meant she had no one to play with when she wanted to break out her Barbies.

But it didn’t mean she wasn’t lonely and lost in all of the testosterone.

It didn’t matter that she wrinkled her nose in distaste when Jackie held up skirts to her body or pretended to gag when Jackie spread a mud mask on her face. The two of them were as different as day and night and yet it worked for the both of them.

No matter how often Jackie sighed dramatically whenever Donna failed to comply to her demands of traditionally feminine acts or how often Donna rolled her eyes when Jackie cared a little too much about the opinions of other people, the two of them loved each other in a way that Buddy would have envied if they didn’t love him just the same.

Once upon a time, Buddy had been jealous of Donna. She had the history and was born the right gender to attract the attention of Eric Forman. She had the ginger strands of hair that glistened in the sun in a way that the boy he once liked adored. Now she was his friend and Buddy liked her more than he thought he would considering he didn’t think much of her even before he had developed a crush on Eric the year before.

And knowing her now that she was his friend, he knew Donna would be sick and tired of the Kelso dilemma.

“This discussion is getting circular,” Buddy griped. “Hyde apologizes, Kelso doesn’t want to hear it, and repeat.”

“Yes,” Fez agreed, nodding his head sadly. “Donna would be disappointed in all of you.”

“You’re right, Fez.” Buddy stands up from where he’s perched and gestures to the basement door. “Let’s go. We don’t want to be a part of this and end up a target for her wrath.”

“This is none of your business anyway,” Kelso called after him as he is on his way out. Hearing that, Buddy paused in the doorway and turned to him, lips set so straight and tight they practically disappeared from his face.

“None of my business, huh?”

Once upon a time that would have been true and Buddy wouldn’t have cared. He would have been a temporary fixture in their lives and wouldn’t have cared if the friendships imploded. It would have meant that he didn’t need to find an excuse when he left them in his dust as he packed up and moved on away from this small town and all of the small people in it.

But unfortunately for Buddy, these small town people made themselves a little too comfortable in his life. There was no moving on and away from them.

It was so much easier when he was just the closeted rich boy that had a smile for everyone. He was too real now and too fixed into this ridiculous, mixed pot of a group.

“You made it my business, Kelso, when you decided to take jabs at my best friend and wish ill on her relationship.” Buddy closed his eyes and swallowed deeply, trying to reign in the hateful words building up inside of him. “You’re so incredibly selfish. You need to get over it like how Jackie got over you.”

So not all of them were easily swallowed, but at least those parting words were a softer blow than the verbal beatdown that was rioting in his head for release.

He was never going to be friends with Michael Kelso. If it weren’t for his loyalty to Jackie, Buddy would have found other reasons for his dislike and he had. He didn’t like how Kelso didn’t look girls in the eye when he spoke to them. He didn’t like how Kelso spoke about Shelly so freely without knowing her. He didn’t like how Kelso was a hypocrite that hit on Donna and tried groping her as often as he attempted that with Jackie.

Fez had called Kelso a “sweet, bumbling buffoon” once. Buddy could see how it was easy to sideline Kelso into that label. Kelso could be a nice guy when he wanted to be, but under the goofy smiles, the dopey expressions, and the dumb boy charms, Buddy could only see him as a press on rhinestone that Jackie had once mistaken for a diamond.

“Fez and I are gonna go find the girls and endear ourselves to them ‘cause when they find out you guys have been fighting over this shit again, they’re not going to be happy and I kind of like being on their good side.” Buddy held the door open for Fez as he shrugged his coat on and made his escape up the steps. “It’s nice being the guys they’re never mad at.”

“Well ain’t that swell for you,” Hyde called after them, his voice laced with his usual dose of sarcasm with a side of bitterness.

Buddy wasn’t going to get involved anymore unless Jackie absolutely needed him to. He wasn’t in on what made Hyde and Kelso friends. Buddy may have joined their circle, but most of the time he was still an outsider because of how new he was.

It was probably why Jackie and Fez were his favorite people in the group. The two of them were the most recent of the inductees, only becoming friends with everyone the year before. The three of them formed their own bond like the original four had theirs, mostly based on the fact that they didn’t have the history the others did.

Buddy and Fez crossed the driveway and walked around the hedge that created the boundary line between the Pinciotti and Forman houses. They were likely to find Donna and Jackie in the kitchen doing their homework. One of their few similarities was that they took their studies more seriously than the others and would do their work away from them for some peace.

They opened the kitchen door without knocking and found them sitting at the kitchen table, books and binders scattered on the table top.

“Hey,” Buddy greeted them, shrugging off his coat and taking a seat. “What’s with the outfit?”

Jackie sighed and leaned back, showing off more of her white and pink soda shop waitress uniform. She took her little hat off and smoothed down her hair. “It’s my new uniform. I got a job at Candy Heaven down at the mall.”

“That’s not even the best part.” Donna giggled and lifted up a pair of wings from somewhere on the floor. “She’s a Candy Heaven Angel so she comes with wings.”

Fez gasped dramatically. “Can you get me discounts on candy? Like if I wanted to fill a bag with five pounds of candy?”

“Fezzie. I’m not enabling your candy binges. You don’t need five pounds of candy every week.”

“A week?” Fez averted his gaze nervously. “Yes, yes. It takes me a whole week to eat five pounds of candy…”

The three of them exchanged knowing looks but chose to avoid it. It was a miracle that Fez’s mouth wasn’t riddled with cavities.

“I’ve only worked there for two days and I already like it way more than the Cheese Palace.” Jackie drummed her pen against her notebook. “My boss is a little old lady whose hair reminds me a bit of cotton candy and the shop is so much cuter with rainbows and blue sky designs and all of the bright colors. If I have to work at a food place at least it’s one that’s as adorable as me.”

“Speaking of adorable,” Buddy couldn’t contain his giggles, “how do you keep ending up with jobs that have cutesy uniforms? Has Hyde seen it yet?”

“No.” Jackie shook her head, her curls falling all over her shoulders. “I was going to go over there and wait for him but Michael was there. I tried talking to him and he seemed to understand—”

“Until he tried putting his arm around you,” Donna scoffed, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “He’s such a dillhole.”

“Yeah, we just came back from over there. He was shouting at Hyde again and Eric was trying to keep the peace.”

Donna’s eyes went wide and she dropped her textbooks on the floor in her scramble out of her seat. “How can you leave Eric alone with them?” She shouted as she flung her kitchen door open and marched out. “He’s not strong enough to keep them apart!”

“She’s not wrong,” Jackie explained, picking up her copy of Walden . “I wish Michael would just drop the whole thing. It’s not like he would like who I am now anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Buddy reached for the bag of chips the girls had left out amongst their school stuff.

“Jackie’s too complicated for him now,” Fez took over the job of explaining, stuffing a hand into the chip bag Buddy was now cradling. “Once girls show more complexity beyond being hot he loses interest. He did the same with Laurie when she wanted a more emotionally satisfying relationship and it’s why he never actually hears anything Donna says. Kelso may legally be an adult, but he has the maturity of an eighth grader.”

“You noticed all of that, Fez?” Jackie smiled at him fondly, impressed with his observation. “I’m sure once he finds some purpose in life he’ll grow up a bit.”

“I like Kelso, but he’s a big doof.” Fez wrinkled his nose in distaste, but smiled good humoredly. “I’m happier for you now.”

Buddy wasn’t ignorant of the crush Fez had once had on Jackie. Or the fact that some of the feelings still lingered. But lust wasn’t love.

Fez had wanted Jackie and would have made a better boyfriend for her than Kelso, but anyone could have taken Jackie’s role as Fez’s intended girlfriend. As much as he liked looking at her, Fez didn’t know Jackie. At least not in a way that would encourage love.

He had idolized an idyllic version of Jackie and, like Kelso, knew just enough to know a lot about her that seemed to be knowing her well, but in reality it wasn’t much. It was all stuff that if anyone actually listened to Jackie’s ramblings and chatter about the Burkhart family they would know it. It was the kind of braggart tidbits that Buddy knew from conversations Mr. Burkhart had with his own father.

None of that was knowing Jackie and because of who she was she would never open herself up like that to be seen as less than, especially in the eyes of someone that thought she was perfect.

Fez didn’t truly see Jackie, so any feelings he may have had were negligible to all of their friends. It was probably why Jackie found it easy to stay friends with him and why Donna didn’t try to steer her in his direction despite them becoming closer. It was probably why Hyde didn’t feel any guilt directed toward Fez about becoming Jackie’s boyfriend when he shouldn’t have even been an option.

Hyde was an oxymoron. He was a jerk and decent person. He was lazy and a hard worker. There was so much about him that Buddy was at odds with, but the thing that made him so in favor of Hyde being in a relationship with his best friend was the fact that he didn’t take Jackie Burkhart at face value.

And maybe that was why Buddy was so at ease with Fez having leftover feelings for Jackie. Buddy would never be as pretty as Jackie nor would he be as soft, but Fez would also never fulfill Jackie’s desire for a partner that gave just as good as she did and grounded her when her attitude was loftier than her stature.

Buddy had expected Jackie to complain that Hyde didn’t do what boyfriends were supposed to. He expected to have jiffy pop and bitch sessions with her about how Hyde didn’t buy her flowers or take her out to dine in fancy French restaurants where only Jackie would be able to read the menu. But that never happened.

Fez would have easily done all of that. He had done it for Patty and would do it for any other girl that caught his fancy after Patty and him were done. Which was probably going to be soon going by the switch in conversation.

“I think she’s bored of me.” Fez munched sadly on a handful of potato chips. Jackie scooted away from him when he started spraying crumbs everywhere, sliding her papers away from him and stowing them back into the oversized purse she used as her school bag.

“What makes you say that, Fezzie?” Jackie asked once she was a safe distance from Fez’s snacking.

“She never wants to do what I want to do.” Fez huffed, pursing his lips into a pout. “Patty drags me to lectures or makes me go to protests, but she never wants to go to the mall with me for fun because the mall is a shrine to capitalism and she decided to become vegan and now I have to be a vegan. And she doesn’t let me use my nickname for her anymore. I liked Patty-Cakes.”

Buddy sighed and looked at the expression on Jackie’s face. It probably mirrored his own. He wanted Fez to be happy━he wasn’t going to wish for his relationship to fail━but it was obvious that Patty and Fez weren’t compatible.

“Have you considered breaking up with her?” Jackie asked, snatching the bag of chips from Fez and handing him a napkin to clean his face of the grease left behind. “Also, stop with the greasy snacks. You’re going to break out like Eric.”

“Oh, I have.” Fez nodded enthusiastically. “But I like making out with her. And Kelso says it’s just something I have to put up with until she puts out.”

“Yeah, and do you see how well that worked out for him.” Buddy rolled his eyes. “It’s what he did with Jackie. He didn’t actually want to spend time with her and was miserable, but what he wanted was sex and so he suffered through all of that stuff she liked and you know what happened after that.”

“Right.” Fez smiled broadly, finally getting it. “He cheated and Jackie ended up making out with Hyde.”

“What?” Jackie’s voice had dropped into a low, threatening tone. It was the tone Buddy was used to hearing when she was told they didn’t carry something in her petite size. “Suffer through? He should have felt blessed to be in my presence! And now he’s being an ass about someone else actually wanting to spend time with me? I’m going to rip out his eyelashes one by one.”

They watched Jackie shove her arms into her coat sleeves and grab her oversized purse. She marched out of the kitchen and they realized that was probably the last they would see of her for the rest of the day.

Buddy and Fez sat in the Pinciottis’ kitchen, alone for the first time in a long time. The last time they had been truly alone was before Buddy had confessed his feelings.

Jackie was his best friend, but Fez was a close second. Once upon a time he would have considered Eric for the role considering all of their similarities and common interests, but that didn’t end up being the case. He thought Eric was a nice guy, and he was, but Fez was the one he spoke to and had fun with doing whatever.

They bonded over their confusion of American Football and argued over which candy was the best. Fez taught him about his native language and homeland and Buddy explained to him the ridiculousness of the English language and the differences in customs.

Buddy loved his cheesy puns and his mild obsession with cologne and clothing. Fez was the first person he wanted to talk to when something interesting happened and wanted someone to laugh with.

Fez was someone Buddy wanted to be happy. Even if it meant he wouldn’t be the person that made him happy.

“You should talk to Patty.” Buddy slapped Fez’s shoulder with the back of his hand good naturedly. “I’m sure she would be willing to compromise. If she likes you, she should want to do some stuff you like just like how you do things she likes.”

“You think so?”

Buddy nodded and flashed him a reassuring smile. “Yeah. And I’ll always go to the mall with you if you wanna go. We can visit Jackie and get a pound of those chocolates that look like rocks and mess with Kelso.”

Fez laughed, nudging his shoulder against Buddy’s.

It would have been easier when Buddy’s plan was to be temporary, like the furniture his mother was always swapping out of their mansion whenever she got tired of looking at them.

But when Fez laughed, his brown eyes crinkling with delight, Buddy couldn’t help but desire to be something more fixed like an etching in stone or the stains and cigarette burns on the bench seats of a Vista Cruiser he was growing fond of riding around in.

Jackie loved celebrations, especially when they were about her or the things she loved.

“Hey.” She smacked a kiss on Steven’s cheek before settling in the empty seat next to him at his usual table in the cafeteria.

“Can you at least hold off on your displays of affection until I’m not trying to eat?” Eric glared at her over his bologna sandwich.

“Whatever.” Jackie shot him a glare of her own and pulled out a cellophane package full of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies tied with a blue ribbon from her purse. “These are for you Steven. Don’t worry, Donna helped.”

Jackie could have gotten help from the cook but they wouldn’t have had the same amount of patience as Mrs. Forman or Donna and would have tried to make the cookies for her. She couldn’t ask Mrs. Forman because she wasn’t good at keeping secrets and the Pinciottis’ kitchen was the only other kitchen Jackie was comfortable with using. She had spent more time there and the Formans’ kitchen than the one in the Burkhart mansion.

She had moved with a familiarity in the Pinciotti kitchen that had confused Donna at first until Jackie covered it by saying she got used to the layout when scrounging for snacks when she slept over.

“Cool.” Steven smiled fondly at her and tugged on the ribbon to undo the knot.

“Yeah.” Donna smirked at Jackie before stealing one of the cookies. “I cracked the eggs and made sure they didn’t burn. I’m starting to think Jackie has some sort of attention deficiency disorder, which would explain a lot.”

Rolling her eyes, Jackie pulled out her sack lunch. Hot lunch would have been preferred, but she had never been a fan of school lunch. Cold roasted vegetables were better than hot mystery chilli especially considering Steven and Fez has warned all of their friends of it.

“So what’s the occasion?” Eric reached for a cookie, but Jackie slapped his hand away. Donna could get away with stealing one because she had helped. “I can’t imagine you getting something for someone for no reason.”

“One month anniversary,” Donna snickered, breaking her cookie in half and sharing it with Eric.

“And because there’s no more winter sports, we’re going to go to the new arcade in Kenosha after school.” Jackie beamed at Steven.

They had agreed to the date over the weekend. She had to keep herself from laughing when she brought it up to Steven and gave her suggestion of where they could go. He had probably expected her to demand he take her to a nice restaurant. Jackie had expected him to give her a disgusted look, put off that she would even bother him with something like anniversaries.

Her old Steven had been annoyed when she came up with anniversaries to celebrate. For Jackie it was easier to celebrate the anniversary of when they made out in a photo booth than when they got together because it had taken forever for them to make it official. They had been together, but no labels had been used so she couldn’t exactly pinpoint important moments in their relationship.

This Steven had simply responded that they could get pizza for dinner.

He hadn’t questioned the way she had asked if he wanted to go somewhere instead of demand that they did. Steven just looked at her for a moment and then asked if she wanted to leave right after school.

Eric gaped at her, cookie held up to his open mouth. “The new arcade in Kenosha? We were supposed to go there on Friday. Just the guys.” He flailed his hand holding the cookie for emphasis. “With Kelso.”

Jackie rolled her eyes and got back to spearing a carrot with her fork. The boys had finally got back to their normal routine after Jackie had stormed into the basement and blew up on Michael. She had yelled at him until he said he would drop the whole thing as long as she stopped shouting at him. Everything was almost back to how it was the first time Jackie and Steven had gotten together in 1977.

“Don’t be weird about it, Forman.” Steven has his hand on the back of Jackie’s chair and she leaned back into his arm. “Me going today doesn’t affect us going Friday.”

“Yeah, Eric.” Donna rolled her eyes and bit into her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “You’re stuck at work today anyway.”

Eric grumbled but ended the discussion by finally biting into the cookie. He paused in chewing and then chewed slowly before finally swallowing.

“What?” Jackie narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you going to complain that it’s not as good as your mommy’s?”

“No.” Eric glared back at her. “These taste exactly like her cookies. Did you make my mom bake you cookies and passed them off as your own?”

“No!” They tasted like Kitty Forman’s cookies because Jackie had learned the recipe in the future. She had asked for it again in the past so she could make them for Steven and had bullied Donna into helping her.

Donna took the rest of Eric's half of their cookie and shoved it into his mouth. “I helped her bake them, Eric. I know she made them. Besides, your mom’s been teaching us how to bake and stuff.”

“And yet, she still can’t bake a pie,” Steven teased her, biting into a cookie.

“Construction is easy.” Jackie scrunched up her nose in frustration. “The actual baking part…”

“I’m telling you,” Donna smiled, taking a bite of one of Jackie’s carrots, “it’s an attention deficiency thing.”

“Oh, boy,” Eric muttered, looking over Jackie’s shoulder. Before she could turn and see what was wrong, Fez slumped into the seat next to her and buried his face into her shoulder.

“Ew! Fez, we discussed this.” Jackie shoved him off of her. “You don’t cry on cashmere.”

“But I’m so sad, Jackie!”

“Yeah, we know.” Steven deadpanned, pulling Jackie closer to his side and away from Fez. “You’ve been doubling up on the candy.”

Patty and Fez had broken up the week before. Fez had attempted to communicate with her properly, try and find more common ground. But Patty wasn’t interested and believed they were too different even though he was sweet.

“Her skin isn’t even that nice. You can do better.” Jackie had tried to cheer Fez up when he told her and Donna. Donna had pursed her lips and slapped her shoulder with the back of her hand, shaking her head.

“I just want to hang out with my friends, you know?” Fez sniffed and looked at Jackie pleadingly.

Jackie shifted her gaze to Donna who was making herself seem heavily invested in the book she had brought to lunch. Eric was even worse at looking nonchalant. He scratched the back of his head and looked everywhere but at her.

“You could hang out with Donna and Eric,” Jackie suggested, her tone sharp as she tried to get their attention.

“No. They said they were on Kelso duty today.”

“What the hell is Kelso duty?” Steven scoffed.

“Donna and I are hanging out with Kelso before I go to work just so he knows we’re all friends and everything is fine,” Eric explained staring pointedly at Donna. Donna rolled her eyes and Jackie couldn’t help the smirk she gave her in return.

Back in the original timeline, Donna and Michael had been really close despite the unwanted come ons and selfish things he did so Jackie didn’t doubt that the two of them would get over this rough patch. She hoped that she and Michael could be friends again. Even with her and Eric’s antagonistic relationship, she still considered him her friend and they got along well enough to hang out in a group. Jackie and Michael just had to reach that state of their friendship where he knew they weren’t meant to be and weren’t as compatible as he thought they were.

It was too bad that Michael was such a child around this time. He had the potential to mature but he needed a goal to get him there. When motivated, Michael could really buckle down.

When their lunch period finished, Jackie grabbed Fez by the crook of his arm and dragged him away from the others. “Walk and talk, Fez.”

Fez immediately jumped into a rushed venting of his feelings that Jackie could only claim to have understood a quarter of. Maybe an eighth.

“Fez. Slower ,” she demanded with a roll of her eyes. “And in English because there’s no way that was all in one language.”

Fez shot her a glare, his lower lip jutting out in a pout. “I don’t like being single.” His glare softened as he stared off into space. “I have seen the promised land and it has make-outs.”

“But you were about to be forced not to ever eat bacon again. Or cheese.” Jackie scrunched up her nose in distaste. It had taken her seventeen years in her original timeline to eat bacon and that had been depressing to discover what she had been missing out on. “This is the dairy state. You were never going to survive as a vegan.”

“Yeah.” Fez nodded forlornly in agreement. “And I need my chocolate milk.”

Jackie gave him a quizzical look. “How the hell do you not break out? Everything you eat has sugar.”

Fez shrugged, turning the corner with her. “Genetics?”

Jackie shrugged back, accepting his answer. For now. She was sure he had some sort of skin care routine he wasn’t giving up. The both of them were going to have to come up with something to make sure Eric didn’t ruin his school photos this coming spring.

But Eric’s unfortunate face situation wasn’t why she had pulled Fez away from everyone. The others didn’t mind hanging out with Fez on a normal day, but after the termination of his relationships he tended to get even more needier than usual. Jackie had an anniversary to celebrate and wasn’t going to let anything ruin her redo of her first first anniversary date with Steven.

“Why don’t you just hang out with Buddy?”

“Hang out with Buddy?” Fez whispered, narrowing his eyes at her. “Hang out with Buddy, you say?” His voice raised in volume with every sentence. “You are going to abandon me to enjoy your love and push me off on Buddy?”

“Fez.” Jackie stopped walking and shot him a disapproving look, arms crossed in front of her chest. “He’s your friend and he did say he would hang out with you after the Patty stuff, right?”

Fez turned his gaze guiltily towards the floor, pouting and wringing his fingers together. Jackie raised her brows at him in challenge and readjusted her stance to cock her hip out. He stomped in place, his backpack’s strap slipping off of his shoulder. He looked around, making sure the hall was clear of wandering students.

“I like hanging out with Buddy and I miss our good times together, but…it doesn’t feel good knowing he has feelings for me and I can’t reciprocate.”

Jackie patted his shoulder sympathetically. She had been in that position with Fez earlier in the year and she reminded him of that. “Why don’t you guys talk about it? Like have a real discussion.”

“That’s what you guys said I should do with Patty and look at how that ended!” Fez flailed his arms around, dropping his backpack completely.

“Fez. Fez!” Jackie grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. She gripped him tightly and looked him right in the eye. “It’s not going to be like how it was with Patty. She was just someone you could make out with. Buddy is your friend who cares about you and you care about him. Have the talk Fez.”

Fez turned up pleading eyes, slightly squatting to make himself smaller than her. “Will you come have the talk with me?”

“No!” Jackie refused his request. Fez cringed at the volume of her voice, his shoulders hiking up to his ears in defense. “But,” Jackie settled into a more soothing tone, “I’ll take you on a friendly mall date and introduce you to my boss, Mrs. Mora, after you talk to him.”

“Really?” Fez perked right up. He had been asking to meet the Candy Heaven owner ever since he found out about her new job. Jackie was worried he would embarrass her with his weirdness, but she wouldn’t mind him becoming her coworker.

“Yeah!” Jackie nodded reassuringly. “Just don’t do that thing you do.”

Fez nodded back, but then his expression slipped into one of confusion. “Which thing exactly?”

Jackie patted his shoulders and nudged him into walking down the hall again. “We’ll work on it.”