AN: Sorry for the delay… I hope that this was worth the wait. (Also you guys kick ass. This is my most alerted story ever with 70 freakin' 5 alerts! There are 75 people who liked this enough to want to be notified every time I update. If you are one of them, steal some of Fez's candy on me if not… I love you anyway.)

April 22 1981 (Hyde)

At the end, it all came down to this. Jackie was lying in a hospital bed, her breaths shallow as she slept in a drug induced haze.

She wasn't dying. That was the only happy thought he had to hold on to. The rest was just a blur of sadness and regret. She had miscarried, the police were looking for Larry, Mrs. Forman was somewhere talking to a distraught Kris, and he sat here—in this sterile room that was the color green he thought might be universal for hospitals—waiting for her to wake up.

He didn't know how he was going to tell her. He didn't know why the task even fell to him. Sure Kitty had pulled a few strings so that he could stay with her and sure he had been one of the first people to be told about the miscarriage, but he had no damn clue why he had to be the one to tell his ex-girlfriend that her dick of husband beat her, nearly to death, and she has three more broken ribs, a shattered ulna, and that the baby she thought would save their marriage was killed in his rage. Not to mention it was his damned girlfriend's fault.

He hadn't talked to Kris yet, he was too angry. They had been so happy, and Kristen had just thrown it all away because of a misheard conversation. What was it about Jackie that made the women he dated nervous? They hadn't been together in two years, and she still had this power over him.

The girls he had dated (and married) after Jackie seemed to be nothing more than distractions on the crash course of their relationship. It seemed, now, that even Larry was some kind of tool to force them back together. Hyde was done fighting the inevitable, and now nothing stood in the way of their reunion. It just sucked that it had taken this much for him to realize it.

:.:.:.:

When she finally opened her eyes, he knew that she knew. There was a dullness to her jewel-toned eyes that hadn't been present since 1979, and it killed him a little inside, but she asked anyway, in her child's voice that was hoarse from hours of sleep. Two words, "The baby…" he shook his head to the side in a silent negative not knowing if he was telling her not to ask or giving her the answer she dreaded.

Her lower lip started to quiver and then the tears came, raging full force down her cheeks. Seeing her like this seemed to strengthen his earlier resolve.

He still loved her. Maybe he had always loved her. And she needed him. So he swallowed what little remained of his pride and rose from the chair right beside her bed to place a gentle hand in her hair. It was no longer about Sam or Larry or Kris or all of the burns that had passed between them, in that moment they were the same people they had been that first summer. She was a heartbroken girl, and he was the guy whose kiss could make her forget everything. Except this time their problems were so much larger than runaway boyfriends and boys who refused to leave the bathroom.

She grabbed the hand he had placed in her hair and pulled him down using his arm as a makeshift teddy bear and squeezing him closer until her eyes ran dry. "I failed. I… I'm not good at being a wife, my husband was convinced that I cheated on him, I couldn't even protect my fucking baby." He stared at her in shock as he registered her use of the cuss-word—if her state of panic wasn't so frightening he would have laughed.

"Jacks, you're not a failure. You got caught in a bad situation and there's nothing we can do to change the past. We just need to know that there's a future." He didn't sound like himself—calm, controlled, adult—these were not the adjectives that people used in conjunction with his name, but he sounded like an adult, even to his own ears. When the fuck did this happen?

"What are you even doing here? Why is it always you who has to save me?" She sounded like she was angry with him, which just kind of confused him, but he brushed away the confusion because she was probably in shock or something, and, hey, he should probably tell the nurses that Jackie was awake.

"It's a long story, and you're probably in shock. Let me get a nurse." Disentangling himself from her iron grasp he made his way to the door to call one of the nurses.

To his turned back she murmured something that wasn't quite a whisper, "It's always you." He wasn't sure if it was meant to be heard so he continued on his walk to the nurses' station.

(Jackie)

Running away seemed like a plausible option at this point. She was just so damn embarrassed. Her thoughts kept oscillating between two words. Both singular, both related to each other, both the most complex thoughts she could entertain in this state. Failure. Baby. But baby just hurt too much so she tried to settle on failure because it included baby but didn't hurt quite as badly. Like somehow placing it with all of her other failures made it less real.

Crying hurt, which meant that she had more broken ribs and her right arm was in a cast—she remembered the blow that had shattered it as she tried to shield her…baby. And the injuries hurt, but nothing hurt quite as much as that word.

She hadn't yet cried all of the tears that needed to be released, but she refused to let another fall in front of Steven Hyde. He had a life and a girlfriend and—why was he here again? Why was it always him who had to see her at her worst? The one person to whom she always wanted to appear strong. Life wasn't fair if it was then there would be no need for Larry or Kris—it would have always just been Jackie and Hyde.

And damn it all to fucking hell because he was making her fall in love with him all over again. They'd played this game before, and the moment she'd been most vulnerable he'd destroyed her.

When he re-entered the room, it was to a stark silence, penetrated only by her muffled sniffles. He shifted in his boots clearly uncomfortable, and she reveled in his discomfort. He sat in his original chair and spoke. "There's a nurse coming to check on you." Her response was a terse nod and then a question of her own.

"Where's Kris?" The unspoken shouldn't you be with your girlfriend hung in the air between them.

"She and I aren't on speaking terms right now," through her own pain she could still see how much Kristen's betrayal hurt him.

Jackie let out a breath before adding her two cents, "She heard me telling you about… my situation. She told Larry what she had assumed?" It was a question because she had forgotten most of the events prior to her beating.

"She didn't trust me and that lead to a poor decision that nearly got you killed. So…yes."

"I would've done the same thing if I were her. You know that right? Don't hate someone who makes you happy just because I'm stupid." She wondered when she lost all of her self-esteem.

(Hyde)

He was about to do the most clichéd, out of character, moronic thing he had ever done in his entire life, and he couldn't care less. Before he realized that the words were forming they were there, "Jacks, you make me happy. You make me happy like Kris never could and never will. So please stop beating yourself up," he winced at his own word choice, "For something that you couldn't control. Doll, I know you've got issues, but so do I, and the thing that I've just realized is that you mean more to me than all of those other girls combined. Look me in the eyes and tell me that you couldn't ever love me again and I will leave you alone. But if there's any chance for us then I'm taking it. And I'm never letting go again."

It was that precise moment that the nurse entered her room and ushered him outside. Like she had been waiting until the exactly right second to leave him most vulnerable. He simply stood outside of her room for the ten minutes and paced—her answer had the possibility to break him, and right now he was more of a pussy than Forman.

The nurse exited the room and offered him a warm smile before gesturing him back inside. She spoke the moment his head entered her line of sight. "Did you mean it?"

"Every. Word." He had never been this intense in his life. Never had such a momentous goal that he yearned to achieve.

"I'll always love you, Steven. Always. And I knew that on my wedding day, and I knew that when I introduced you to Kristen. But this is the first time that you've ever been the one to bridge the gap, and I don't know if I can trust that." It felt like she couldn't stop crying.

"Second. There was July, Jackie, and I tried then but you wouldn't let me. You're too stubborn, and I'm too distant, and it shouldn't work, but it does. I love you. I know it's not enough, but it's true and I will do whatever I can to keep you."

(Jackie)

She was crying—still—but this time she was sure they were happy tears because she had lost so much only to be given the only thing she'd ever really craved. He—Steven J. Hyde—had just admitted that he loved her.

She wondered why it had to come to this, and if there was an easier way she would have chosen it hands down, but this instant of complete understanding between them would be worth the months of pain ahead, and make right the year of pain they were leaving behind. Because they finally saw each other for exactly who they were, who they had always been, and who they would always be.

AN: I talked to a few of you about this chapter and how demanding it was to write. This entire story had been such a rollercoaster for me, and I thank you for staying on for the ride. We have only the epilogue left and I promise it will just be a fluffy reward for the angst fest that was the rest of this story. I just have a few questions: Do you want to know what happened to Kris? What about Larry? Are there any more loose-ends that need tied up? Happy reviewing. :)