#okay now to go work on chapter three of lmw

[icelovesfire]

for @supernannygirl704things, @melimelrockswell1204, @squirtlewithdagger and @sandalaris.

Back to Zero CHAPTER TWO

He approached the imposing door with a sense of caution. He admittedly hadn’t been in here much during the last few months; Mrs. Forman checked on Jackie every day, twice a day, and Donna had been in at least once every other day, or whenever she could get a break away from Madison. Fez had practically lived in this room, until the hospital staff had to kick him out.

But he had spent the better half of nearly three months avoiding it. The few times he decided to come in, nothing had changed. Jackie was still deathly pale, with those damn tubes the only things to keep her breathing. The scar on her cheek served as a reminder of his hard-headedness; would she have still ended up here if he had stayed to let her explain? Or if he had given her a different answer before she left Point Place? He didn’t like to dwell on what-if’s - his life was one that was already rife with regret - but he couldn’t help it in here. And that’s why he stayed away.

Taking in a deep breath, he pulled down on the handle and opened the door. She looked much better than he saw her last; those damn tubes were finally gone, and she’d clearly talked Mrs. Forman into letting her use some makeup. Jackie was a natural beauty, but he knew doing her makeup let her feel some sort of control that she didn’t have otherwise. When her dad went to prison and her mom split, Jackie had hit the mall - and the makeup stores - hard.

But she was still very much bandaged up, and he could see her wince in pain. He frowned.

Jackie looked up with a wide smile, which quickly diminished when she saw who stood in the doorway. Happiness turned to a flicker of heartbreak, then annoyance, finally settling on sheer anger. Clearly, she’d been expecting someone else - Fez, most likely. His jaw tensed at the thought.

“Oh. It’s you,” she said, as if he were some stranger she had met and immediately taken a strong dislike toward.

“Expecting someone else?” he asked calmly, mustering up as much Zen as he could so his ex-chick wouldn’t notice his inner despair. Damn that Jackie Beulah Burkhart and what she could make him feel.

“Yeah. My boyfriend,” she replied.

“Well he’s standing in front of you.”

“Really? Last I checked, you aren’t Fez.”

He crossed his arms. “Well, three months ago, I was your boyfriend.”

“That was before you ran off to Vegas and married the stripper,” Jackie said.

“Wrong. I was on my way to Vegas when I had to turn back because of blocked roads from a car pileup - which I later found out you and Kelso were involved in.”

“Look, I don’t know what you and Mrs. Forman have been drinking, but there wasn’t an accident. I left my job and Chicago, went back to Point Place to explain to you what happened to Michael, found out you were gonna propose -”

He had to stop himself from displaying the shock he felt. No one knew that, not Donna, not Forman, not Mrs. Forman. The only person who had figured it out was Red, and that was because the older man had confiscated the bag he had the ring stashed in, thinking it contained something green. In hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have stuck an engagement ring in a brown bag, but where else was he gonna put it? Jackie would’ve known the moment she saw his pocket, he couldn’t really stick it in his boot and no way was he gonna wear a coat. So he placed it next to the cheeseburger wrapped in tinfoil, which had long since been eaten by Fez.

Man, she was still talking. “- and so you told me you weren’t ready to get married yet, and I was happy to hear you say yet, and then some blonde stripper skank shows up at the Formans’ door and says she’s your wife and suddenly she’s moving into your room and parading around half-naked in her wannabe Jeannie clothing and teaching Mrs. Forman how to pole dance.”

He blanched. That was an image he had never needed to imagine. “Look, Jackie, that was all a dream, okay? You and Kelso got into a crash and you’ve been in the hospital for the last few months. I didn’t go to Vegas, and the only stripper I met is the one at Forman’s bachelor party, who I can assure you I didn’t marry. But,” he added, “I wouldn’t object to you parading around half-naked in Jeannie clothing.”

“Dream on,” she sneered. “I’ll show the milkman before I show you.”

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. What was she on about now? “What does the milkman have to do with this?”

“You tell me. You’re the one who said I should hook up with him.”

This time, he did roll his eyes. “Jackie. C’mon, man. Does that really sound like something I’d say?”

“You’ve said and done a lot of things these past few months that I never thought you would, Steven.”

“That wasn’t me!” he said. “But thanks for dreaming me up as some asshole.”

“It wasn’t a dream! I don’t know if you and Mrs. Forman are in on some major burn with the others or something, but it’s 1980, I’m with Fez, you’re alone and Eric is back! I’m not sure how I ended up in this hospital bed, but it wasn’t from a car pileup with Michael.”

“It’s 1979, you were with me until you went to Chicago and Forman is still in Africa. And trust me, the crash did happen.”

“So he and Donna are still broken up?”

“What are you talking about, man? Forman and Donna are doing the long-distance thing. You knew that. I think she’s written him like every other week and he’s responded when he can.”

“Right. Eric breaks up with Donna in a letter, and then she gets together with Randy.”

“And I thought you going on about the milkman was crazy. There’s no way in hell Forman would ever break up with Donna through a letter. They’ve been solid since they got back together, attempted wedding and all.”

“Well he does,” Jackie said, “and she moves on with Randy. Ask him. Ask him about the milkman, too; he was there when you said it. Or ask Donna.”

“Jackie. I’m not going to ask some guy I barely know if I said shit I know I didn’t say.”

“What do you mean, you barely know him? He works for you at Grooves! He’s been hanging out in the basement every day!”

“Assuming we’re talking about the same guy, the only Randy I know is Randy Pearson, who hangs around the store every day and doesn’t know anything about music. There’s no way I’d hire him.”

“Yes! Randy Pearson! The new Eric!” Jackie said.

He raised an eyebrow. “‘The new Eric?’”

“He was dating Donna, he likes Star Wars apparently and he really likes his hair.”

“So he’s basically Forman and Kelso. Why didn’t you just dream them up?”

“For the last time, it wasn’t a dream! Besides, Eric was in Africa and Michael went to Chicago.”

“Well that might be the only thing you got right. Forman is in Africa and Kelso does live in Chicago.”

“I know. He went back after I turned down his proposal.”

This conversation was really grating on his nerves. She had even dreamed Kelso proposing to her? He knew she had never gotten over her ex, but did she have to be so callous about it? And why could she never see that she could do better than Kelso? In fact, had done better than Kelso? This was one of the weakest spots in their relationship; he could easily recall the hurt he felt when his chick accepted Kelso’s fuzzy pink sweater. Thankfully, she’d thrown it back and ended the night wearing nothing but his Zeppelin shirt. Man, if they could rewind all the crap and go back to that night, that would be fantastic.

“What proposal? Kelso got with Brooke not even a month after the crash.”

“He proposed to me! Bought me a balloon and everything, at Mr. and Mrs. Forman’s anniversary party. You were all there, well, except Eric, of course and your stripper skank wife didn’t leave your side the whole night.”

“Kelso never proposed to you. And I’m not married.”

“Of course you’re not married,” Jackie said.

He placed his hands behind his neck, working out the kinks he blamed solely on her and her godforsaken nightmare. Nightmare was the only word to define this shit. “You just said I was married.”

“No, you’re not. You’re alone. The stripper let you think you were married, but she’s actually married to some old guy named Larry.”

“So not only did you dream me up an asshole, but you also let my fantasy self become a bigamist. Thanks,” he said, words thick with sarcasm.

“Whatever,” Jackie said. “Just go get Fez.”

“Fine,” he said. “Maybe he can talk some sense into you.”

“Or you could apologize.”

“Apologize? For what?”

“Let’s see, where do I begin,” Jackie said, ticking off on her fingers. “Convincing yourself I slept with Michael when the only reason he was in my motel room in the first place was because he thought Brooke was with another guy -”

“I know,” he interrupted. “It was Betsy’s babysitter.”

“- Not letting me explain and running off to Vegas,” she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Worrying Mrs. Forman and all of us sick when you didn’t even try to make contact, getting drunk and marrying the stripper skank -”

“Whose name is?” he asked.

“Sam,” she said.

“Ah.” He didn’t even know any Sams. The hot Samantha played by the even hotter Elizabeth Montgomery on Bewitched was the only contact he had with anyone whose name might be close to Sam. Surprisingly, all the girls in his high school had been named Cheryl, Amber or Tiffany, or some other cheerleader name. The few that weren’t were Donna, Rhonda, Melissa, Alana. Now that he thought about it, Point Place parents of the kids his age really liked to give their children names that ended with an “A” - well, except Caroline.

“- deciding to stay with her even though Mrs. Forman and Red both asked you if that was what you wanted - I believe your words were ‘It’s cool’ -”

Well, if he said that, Jackie should’ve known he was lying. For him, “It’s cool” had the same sort of meaning as “Whatever.” And even though she thought the worst of him now for some reason he really didn’t understand, he was sure she still understood his use of “Whatever.” He hadn’t patiently coached her through a 20-minute lesson for nothing.

“- and then letting her sit on your lap and hang around in the basement and basically show her off every time I came over so I would know that you never cared about me-”

The remnants of cheese grease and the tiny box in the brown bag hanging around his sock drawer said differently.

“- and then when I had the gall to move on and started crushing on Fez, you slutshamed me!”

“An asshole, a bigamist and a slutshamer. I guess now I know what you really think of me,” he said. Annoyance didn’t even begin to describe how he felt right now.

“If you want to fix this, you can start with an apology,” she said.

“I’m not going to apologize for something I did and said in your dream - your really uncharacteristic dream.”

“Then I guess we’re not going to fix this.”

He shuffled his feet and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Guess not.”

“Can you go get Fez now?” she asked, pulling out a compact mirror and a mascara brush.

“No,” he said.

“Steven. I want to see my boyfriend!”

“And like I keep telling you, Fez isn’t your boyfriend. If we aren’t going to be together anymore, then you’re alone.”

“Well we’ll see what Fez has to say about that.”

“Whatever,” he said.

“Steven?” she asked.

He sighed. “Yeah?”

“Bring in Michael, too. And don’t let Donna get anywhere near here.”

“Whatever,” he said again. Considering Donna might be the only one who could get Jackie out of her fantasy life and into the real world, he would do everything in his power to make sure she did get to see the brunette.

Because there was no way in hell he was losing Jackie again. The past few months he spent thinking he would never see her open those beautiful eyes, that he would have to go through life without his doll rambling away on his lap, were such an eye-opener, and he had resolved that when she did wake up, he wasn’t going to let her leave his side. If she didn’t want to stay in Point Place, he was willing to move to Chicago. He had already talked to WB about opening a store in the city, which meant enduring his biological father’s teasing comments about being a romantic sap.

And he’d be damned if he let some hellhole dream rip her out of his life for good.