Disclaimer: Don't own nothing, including the Price is Right and the Led Zepplin song.  Wish I owned the song though, it completely kicks arse.

A/N: Second part…or the first chapter, making the first bit the prologue.  I haven't decided yet.  The flashes and images, while an effective (and my favourite thing), are an a prologue special.  So no more appearances, well no promises that it will come up again.  It might, I'm not sure yet.

Also, someone said to make Hyde and Jackie have sex because everyone seems to think they haven't done it.  That makes no sense to me.  I know the show has never touched on it, but I can't believe that someone like Hyde wouldn't have slept with her.  That's not a bad thing, I mean I just always assumed that they had.  They have this closeness about their sex life, oh I don't know, that's just what I think. 

Oh and if you don't get some expressions or think I've spelt some words wrong, it's 'cas I'm Australian.  So if you don't get a saying or something, just mention it in the review and I'll explain it later.

That's the way

Summer was ending now.  Kelso and Donna and Eric returned home.  It was getting a bit hard for him to see Jackie anymore.  Which annoyed him.

And it annoyed him that it annoyed him. 

They wouldn't speak during the day, except to rib each other.  She would barely look at him.  Kelso would flirt with her, Donna and Eric would go on about their latest relationship 'crisis' and Fez would be having some mundane misunderstanding about American life. 

It was normal; it was exactly the way it had always been.

But then late at night, he would still be up.  It would be about 1:30 a.m. and he wouldn't be able to fall asleep because it was too hot.  Then, at about 2 a.m., just as he would finally fall asleep, he would feel some warm body curling up next to him.

It was her, it was always her.

She seemed able to know when he was wanting her.  During the day, she would push his back to the couch in Forman's basement and let him slobber kisses all over her.  And in the late hours of the night, or the early hours of the morning, depending which way you looked at it, she would sneak over from her house and slip delicately into his bed.

She made noises when he touched her in the right places.  Not like the annoying drone that her voice sounded like when she was talking about clogs.  No, these noises were sexy and breathless and drove him wild.  He liked it best when they were kissing and his hands would be doing something suggestive down her body and she would gasp and whimper in his mouth. 

They were becoming eerily closer.  Three months had passed since their unanimous hatred of The Price Is Right and three months can be a long time in the summer holidays, especially since you saw each other every day. 

But they were becoming too close.  He started to know all the secret places of her body that made her whimper, that only a boyfriend really knows about.  And he didn't consider himself her boyfriend.  She started to know what he meant and felt when he was saying something else.  She started to understand the double language that Hyde always spoke.  And that bothered him because no one had really ever understood that.  Only Donna, and that was a different story. 

And at night, after she had snuck into his bed and they fooled around, she stayed afterwards.  She would sleep in his bed, right next to him.  He found himself staying up even later still because he would catch himself staring at her, while she slept.  Sometimes he would even put his arm around her.

He hated that.  He hated that even more than he hated summer.

He could tell he was starting to care about her.

He and her started to sneak around even more.  It bothered her and him to admit it but they didn't like the separation and the pretence that they weren't going out.  They found themselves making out in closets, bathrooms, in the back of his car, anywhere they could get.  He liked it in the bathroom.  He would hook her legs around his waist and push her against the wall, kissing her furiously and let his hands wander everywhere.  She liked to run her hands around the top edge of his pants, teasing but only sometimes slipping lower.  Sometimes they would even roll around on the floor.  She would whisper in his ear that she liked the feeling of the cool tiles and his warm skin. 

He wanted to tell people sometimes.  They would often sit next to each other on the couch with the rest of the gang and she would forget that it was a secret and put her leg over his.  He would push it back, fast, because he always remembered and usually no one saw.  But she left his skin tingly and wanting more.  He wanted to be able to touch her in public. He wanted to be able to touch her knee, touch her face, smell her skin, kiss her neck. 

He had a thing for her neck.  Kelso had a thing for her boobs, she said Todd had a thing for her butt but he was the only one who had a thing for her neck.  He didn't know why he liked it, he just did.  It was soft and smooth, and he could bury his face into the little dents and curves.  He had kissed a lot of other girls necks before, but hers was by far the best. 

He caught her singing Led Zeppelin the other day.  She was sitting on the couch with Forman, Fez and Kelso with Donna was sitting in his chair.  He was standing by the door and was on his way out, when he heard her.  She did it quietly, mumbling the words to That's the Way when Forman laughed out loud.

"When'd you ever like Led?"

Everyone stared at Jackie.  Donna immediately starting looking suspiciously at Hyde.  She never missed much, that girl.

Jackie just flustered that a cute boy who worked at the Hub liked Led Zeppelin, so she was starting to like it too.  He was scruffy and hairy but really hot, Jackie giggled.

He left the basement smiling and feeling a little a bit better.

Then Donna and Forman caught them making out on the couch.  Forman ran around like a dead chicken, wailing, while he and Jackie pretended they didn't care about each other, that they could stop.  But then, they realised, they didn't want to stop.

He didn't want people to know, all of a sudden.  He had been wanting everyone to know for three months, and as soon as people did, he wanted to take it all back.

Jackie and him celebrated their 'coming out' as she had giggled in his ear, by her jumping into his bed at 2 a.m., as usual, and taking off her top.  He was used to her breasts now and she was used to showing them to him.  But she surprised him even more by pulling down his boxers.  It was their unspoken rule now for three months now that Jackie's body was entirely accessible to Hyde, but Jackie would not touch the lower half of Hyde's body, at least not with no pants on, and Hyde couldn't try and change her mind.

So when she tugged at his boxers, he briefly stopped her.  He wasn't sure what to do in this situation, he had always been encouraging it every other time.  He didn't say anything or even look at her.  She was turning him soft, he knew it. 

But she just kissed him on lips and whispered that she didn't mind.  He often forgot that she wasn't a virgin.  She looked so much younger than everyone else sometimes.

It was nice, just plain nice.  There wasn't any other word to describe it.  And nice wasn't an insult, like some people said it was.  He liked it. 

They were noisy.  Eric said the next day he never wanted to hear Hyde or Jackie say each other's name again.  But he loved making Jackie make sounds.  And for that first time, she made all the sounds you couldn't thought possible.

He loved the fast paced sexiness of it, as he breathed heavily in her ear and she tried to stay quiet, biting her lip, until a cry of 'Steven' escaped.  He loved the way her toes curled up when she said it, and how a look of achievement would float across her face when he would run his fingers through her hair and moan 'Jackie' into the pillow.

He loved the taste of her sweaty skin and he loved biting and kissing her neck furiously.  He liked that fact that when he touched her, her body would shiver and he seemed important to her.

That was the best thing.  He seemed important to her.  He, Hyde the orphan, was important to Jackie the cheerleader.  Sometimes that thought seemed ridiculously corny to him, like a bad tele-movie. 

Later, when she was yabbering on about how nice it was that they 'proved their love' and he wanted to strangle her, he realised that maybe being important to Jackie wasn't the best thing. But then she would call him Steven, which no one had ever done and he found himself strangely liking it.  Or she would slip her arms around him and lay her face on his chest and sing Tiny Dancer to him, pretending that he was actually singing it to her.  He would always push her off, pretending that it disgusted him, but he liked the fact that Jackie wanted to cuddle him.

And being important to Jackie was suddenly nice again.

Then, after everyone including Kelso knew, they would sit next to each other on the couch, and he would put his hand on her knee.  He would kiss her on the cheek when he left and he could even tell her that she looked really pretty if he wanted, although not that he ever would. 

It was nice to have the option though.

One night, she had snuck into his room while it poured rain outside.  Her hair was dripping wet and she was angry, because he should've known to come and pick her up in his car, apparently.

"How could've I known? I didn't know you were coming! It's 2 a.m. in the morning."

"Steeeven! I've come every night for ages now! You should've realised that the rain ruins my hairs and makes it goes frizzy!"

He pulled her towards him and shut her up by kissing her.  Amazingly though, when he pulled his lips from hers, she was still going.

"I'll have to make an appointment at the hairdressers tomorrow! This has really ruined my hair cycle you know…"

She stopped when she saw his Zen face.

"I know what you're doing," she screeched, waggling her fingers in his face. 

They stared at each other for a long time, neither breaking away.  Teasingly, she placed her hands on his bum and pulled him closer. 

He liked their little games like this.  He liked how her hair curled at the edges and waved down her shoulders.  He liked how her back arched when he touched her right and made a perfect little curve.  He liked how she would rub moisturiser all over her skin to make her silky soft and he liked how she would let him watch her rub moisturiser on herself.  He liked how sometimes she would wear his t-shirts to bed.

He was starting to like her a bit too much, he thought.

She was going to be the death of him, he could tell.  The death of Hyde, the death of everything he stood for.  He was going to turn into a boyfriend that remembered anniversaries, bought presents, said 'I love you' and met her parents. 

She was going to the painful death of him, she was going to bury him deep underground and cry at his funeral.  The Hyde everyone knew was going.

He would exist no more, only exist as the Hyde Jackie had created.

But sometimes, she made him think that maybe they would just be Jackie and Hyde, that she would accept him as he is and he would accept her.  That she wouldn't change him, that she would like him as he was.

That was just a stupid, pointless thought though.  After all, he wasn't her boyfriend and he didn't care about her at all.

He just liked her a little, that's all.