Well, here it is the end…. I'm sad to see this one over. I know this was a favorite amongst a lot of you, and I'm deeply grateful for your continued support, not only with this story, but my others as well. You're the best group of readers a girl could ask for.
Anywhere the wind blows…
"Jackie." he says, completely surprised that she's standing at his door, "What are you doing here?"
Jackie shrugs and holds up the bottle of wine, "I got this from my office, and I don't want to drink alone, and since you're the only person I know who didn't leave town for the Holidays, I thought I'd stop by."
Hyde leans against the door way and studies Jackie for a moment, "What the hell." he finally says, "Come in."
"I don't want you here." Jackie finally says.
They've been sitting on her couch for the last hour in complete and awkward silence, both trying to get their thoughts together so that they can make their arguments. Jackie feels like they're in a courtroom, both battling for her heart.
He wants to take it.
Her only goal is to see that it never gets hurt again. What's so wrong about that?
It was a mistake asking him to come up here. It was a mistake to go over to his place, a mistake to bring wine, to talk to him. To flirt. He's right, she was the one who instigated the other night, and it's her that will suffer the consequences.
"You always do this Jackie; you always want things to be on your own terms."
Her terms, she laughs out loud. He's one to talk about wanting things on their own terms.
When she says this to him, he glares at her, "I don't know why I bothered."
Finally, she thinks, they're getting somewhere. "Neither do I!" she exclaims, throwing her hands up in the air, "I don't even know why you're here!"
"Well that makes two of us!" Hyde yells back. This time, he gets up from the couch and walks over to her kitchen.
"Do you want a beer?" he asks.
Jackie's confused, why isn't he leaving? He's supposed to leave. That's the way this usually works out. They fight, he leaves, the end. No where in this story is he supposed to get a beer and ask if she wants one too. But it's okay, she decides, he can drink as much as he wants and pass out on her couch for all she cares. She's not touching anything that will reduce her defenses though.
When Hyde comes back from the kitchen, he's looking at his can of beer intently, "This is Fez's beer."
Great, Jackie thinks, here we go.
"Yep," Jackie says. "You're very observant."
"So I guess that means he was here."
Jackie shakes her head and laughs bitterly, "Don't tell me you're jealous."
He shakes his head and shrugs, "Nope, just curious."
Jackie studies him for a minute, proud of herself for being able to still read him, "We hang out every once in a while, he leaves his beer here so he doesn't have to remember to buy any, and for the record, we did not sleep with each other."
"I didn't say you did." Hyde states, "I just… so what do you do, watch old movies and do each other's hair?"
"In between making out, yes."
Hyde spits out his beer. "What?" he asks, coughing.
Jackie laughs and points at a now sticky Hyde. "Man you're easy."
"You're mean." Hyde says, wiping his face off. "Great I have beer on my shirt; I'm going to smell like a lush."
"How does that differ from how you usually smell?" Jackie inquires thoughtfully.
"Har-Har." Hyde retorts with no laughter in his voice, "Guess I'm just going to have to take this off."
No, no, no, there will be no shirtless…
Okay, too late.
Fine, Jackie decides, she can handle a shirtless Steven Hyde. If he wants to play dirty, then they'll play dirty.
"I think I have one of Ted's old shirts in my closet." Jackie says with a saccharine niceness aimed to kill.
It works.
"I'm not going to wear one of your pansy ex boyfriend's shirts," Hyde spats. "I thought he left you to go to Peru or some shit."
"It was Argentina, and he went because he's a doctor and they need help."
"How noble of him," Hyde remarks, leaning over to her, close enough for her heart to start racing, "I'd never leave you behind."
That's it, Jackie tells herself. It's one thing to bring up her ex boyfriend, it's one thing to parade around shirtless and all smooth and muscular, but to talk as though their past didn't happen? As though he hadn't done exactly what he just said he wouldn't do?
Well screw that, Jackie decides.
"And yet," She says slowly, "That's exactly what you did. You, left, me."
"After you left me!" Hyde argues for the sake of arguing, "Fine, alright, I messed up, but that was a long time ago."
"And yet you're still doing it!" Jackie tells him.
"What am I doing?" Hyde asks softly.
"You're…" Jackie has no words, has no way of explaining what she's feeling.
"You're making me feel." she finally says.
He's making her feel… something about her words is making him feel even hotter than before. He has to smile to himself, he knew that eventually his plan would work, and if he's lucky, maybe he'll get her back tonight.
"What am I making you feel?" he asks. He removes a strand of hair from her face but keeps it in between his fingers, playing with it gently as he strokes her chin with one of his other fingers.
She gives a little shrug. "I donno."
"Like you could love me?" He asks gently.
She gives a sad nod. "Yeah."
He leans in close to her so he can whisper into her ear. "I already know I'm in love with you."
"So, did you get an invitation?" Jackie asks as Hyde attempts to find his corkscrew.
"It's on the coffee table." Hyde replies from the kitchen. "Under the magazines."
Jackie picks up the car magazines and lifts up the yellow envelope that holds the infamous wedding invitation.
"So are you going?" Jackie asks.
Hyde comes out of the kitchen with the corkscrew in hand. "He wants me to be his best man."
"Oh." Jackie says softly. "That's got to be awkward."
Hyde laughs and hands Jackie the corkscrew. "Not really." He replies. "They're perfect for each other, and well, I've moved on from that a long time ago."
Jackie doesn't know what to say so she nods and begins to open the wine. "Yes, I suppose I believe them more than I believed you two."
"Yeah." Hyde agrees. "Crazy how things work out isn't it?"
"Yeah," Jackie agrees as she pops the cork out of the bottle. "Crazy."
He's saying all the right things, making all the right moves, and here she is, falling for it.
"Oh." Jackie replies in a low tone.
What she needs, she decides, is time. Time to think things over, time to gather up her defenses. She doesn't need the pressure that he's putting on her. Not now, not like this. Not when she's spent the last five years getting over him.
He doesn't have the right to do this to her.
"Ignoring me isn't going to make me go away." he tells her, still playing with that loose strand of hair.
Jackie can't think of an argument for his comment, so instead, she sits and continues to wait out him and the night. One of them has to give in eventually and she's going to be damned if it's her.
One of them has to give in soon and he's going to be damned if it's him. It's not like he's asking for much, just a sign really, a token. How hard is it to convince a girl that you're crazy about them anyway?
"This really shouldn't be this hard," he says.
Jackie doesn't agree nor disagree with him, she simply shrugs.
"So what about you," Hyde asks, "are you going?"
"If I can find the time off from work, yes." Jackie answers as she pours the wine into two small glasses. She should have realized that Hyde wouldn't have had regular wine glasses.
"Well, no one will blame you if you don't go." Hyde tells her sympathetically.
"Oh I'm fine," Jackie replies flippantly. "I ended that chapter a long time ago."
"Yeah," Hyde says, "Me too."
"Why did you even ask me up here anyway?" Hyde asks.
That, right there is the ten million dollar question. At the time she had thought it was a good idea for them to actually talk, to get things out on the open, now though, she understands that it was a mistake to think they could ever talk.
"You once told me that words are meaningless, and that it's actions that are important," Jackie says, staring at the wall, "and here you are, trying to convince me that you still love me, when your actions have done nothing but prove otherwise."
"Is that so?" Hyde asks slowly.
Finally, Jackie turns to look Hyde in the face.
"You told me that you weren't ready to be married yet, and what did you do, you married another woman."
"Ah," Hyde says, "so it really is all about that."
Confused, Jackie cocks her head to the side and asks, "What else could it be about?"
"You know this is good wine."
"Let me taste." She hasn't even had a sip yet.
"No." He pulls away from her and laughs. "Drink your own."
"But I want yours." Jackie pouts. She straddles his lap and presses her lips against his. "Just one taste."
There's a pregnant pause between them.
"Just one." He agrees, and the wine is forgotten for the rest of the night.
"If this is really all about something that happened five years ago," Hyde tells her, "then all of this is meaningless."
"You're calling last night meaningless?" She doesn't know how to react to that.
"Yeah." Hyde says, "you're still so hell bent on the past that nothing I say or do will ever be good enough for you, god Jackie, I've watched you grow up, I watched you get your heart broken by Kelso, by me, by Fez and by that Ted guy, and you always pick yourself up. I watched you go to college, get a job and become the woman you are today. You know what I was thinking when you came over last night, I was thinking I get to spend a night hanging out with the greatest woman I know, but none of that matters to you."
"No," Jackie says softly, "it does matter."
"Then why are you still blaming me for it?" Hyde yells, standing up from the couch.
Jackie's quick to follow him. "Because you never apologized."
"Jackie, I'd tell you a million times I'm sorry if it thought it would do any good."
"What are we doing?" Hyde asks between heated kisses.
"Nothing," Jackie replies, "we're doing nothing."
"Oh," Hyde says after a moment, "can we do nothing in the bedroom?"
"I was on my way." Jackie tells him, pulling him up from the couch.
"So, I'm just supposed to forgive you for what you did to me." Jackie ponders.
"At least accept the fact that I'm not that guy anymore." Hyde requests.
"Really?" Jackie wonders, "what kind of guy are you, Steven?"
Hyde has his answer ready. "I'm the guy who went to every one of your plays in college when no one else, including the Formans did, I'm the guy who cheered you on at your graduation, who took you out on your birthday for the last five years, who has been broken up with by at least a half a dozen girls because they're all jealous of you, and they're right to be. If we're both right and words are meaningless, then all I have are my actions, and I think they stand by themselves."
Jackie wants to reply, wants to say something scathing to hurt him, to make him as desperate as she is not to play this game anymore, but she can feel each one of the bricks in the wall she's carefully constructed for herself come crumbling down, piece by piece.
"I'm the guy who has waited five years to be with you." Hyde continues, "The guy who wouldn't go to New York to open up a new record store because you weren't there."
All this time she's been so focused on that one moment in the past that she's completely forgotten everything that happened since then. He's more than proved himself to her and if she's half as smart as she thinks she is, then the only logical conclusion is to accept defeat.
"Okay," she resigns, "But we're taking this slow, and I meant really slow, we're not going to make the same mistakes we did last time, so that means dates, flowers, you're going to be romantic, Steven Hyde."
He doesn't respond, just grins and leans towards her.
"Steven, I said slowly, that means no kissing..." She's stopped though by his finger on her lips.
"Jackie, shut your pie hole."
Whatever, Jackie thinks as they kiss; it's probably too late to be complaining about moving too fast anyway.
I was deliberately vague about who the wedding invitations belonged to, although I had a clear idea in my head, and I'm giving kudos to anyone who can guess. I personally think they would have made a lovely couple. Okay, maybe not lovely, but entertaining at least.
Thank you for reading and reviewing. Rock on!