Title: Fatherhood

Chapter Title: 1990

Words: 2, 472

Fandom: That '70's Show

Coupling: Jackie/Hyde

Rating: T/PG-13

Author's Note: I'm really sorry about my lengthy delay in updates. Calculus made me its bitch for the last month and a half. But this chapter is much longer than previous chapters so I hope that makes up for the delay. Also, I'm marking this story complete. For now. There might be more updates later on, but I don't want to get people's hopes up.

"Jackie, turn that crap off," he snaps at her before going back to counting the cash in hand. He's perched on a stool behind the registrar trying to get through closing, and she's interrupting his mental count playing the obnoxious sounds of ABBA over the store's speakers.

"You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen…"

"The baby likes it," she retorts as she flicks through a collection of tapes. With a sigh, she walks (actually, more like waddles) over to the counter.

"Steven, aren't you done yet?" She whines loudly causing him to lose count of the cash in his hand.

"No," he tells her sharply. She crosses her arms over her expanded belly and glares at him. She doesn't like his tone, doesn't like how snappy he's being with her.

"Just turn that crap off and sit over there," he instructs, gesturing to the ratty blue couch sitting in the middle of the store. "I'll be done in a minute."

"Fine," she snaps back. "But you have to take me to The Vineyard."

"You said you wanted to go to The Hub."

"That was twenty minutes ago," she replies as though he's not thinking clearly, as though it should be obvious that she would change her mind in twenty minutes.

"Yeah, no," he replies. "You already used up your Vineyard quota for the year."

"But Steven," she whines while rubbing her back. She's been having back pain since early this morning, and she wishes the baby would move out of her back and find somewhere else to kick. A month ago, when the baby was settled up high by her lungs, she could barely breathe. But this pain is quickly becoming worse than that experience.

"Listen, doll," he says in the hopes of reasoning with her, "just sit down and I'll take you to get a burger wrapped in a shiny piece of tinfoil as soon as I'm done with this."

He doesn't wait for her reaction, just returns to counting the cash in the register for the umpteenth time.

"I want a milkshake too," she replies.

"Fine," he agrees without lifting his head to look at her. Massaging her back, she steps away from the counter and heads towards the store's record player to turn off the music. She only gets halfway there when she feels the distinct trickle of liquid rolling down her legs. She lets out a whimper in mortification as the wet spot on her jeans grows in size and a small puddle forms underneath her. There's nothing to wrap around her waist and hide the wet spot, and Jackie has no idea where Steven keeps paper towels to clean up messes.

"Steven," she says softly.

"Jackie," he snaps in frustration until his eyes settle on the wet spot. With a trace of disbelief and laughter, he asks "Did you just piss your pants?".

"Shut up!" She growls.

He can't help but laugh as he walks off to the bathroom to get something to clean it up with.

"Here," he says as he hands her some crumpled paper towels. She glances from his offering to the puddle on the floor and burst out in tears. "What?"

"I can't…I can't bend down," she wails. "And…and my back hurts."

"What hurts?" He asks because he really could not understand her over her blubbering.

"My back," she wails louder.

"How long?" His alarm concerns her because he's the only one that actually read What to Expect When Your Expecting (a gift from Donna and Eric).

"This…this morning."

Without a word he thrusts the wad of paper towels into her hand, grabs her upper arm, and starts tugging her towards the door.

"Where are we going?" She whines as they walk to the door. Her thighs are sticky with urine, and she just feels downright disgusting.

"Hospital," he replies. She tries to protest, tries to wriggle out of his grip as he locks up the store and pulls her towards the El Camino.

"No, Steven," she snaps. "I can't go with…pee…all over my pants."

"Jackie, that's not piss," he tells her sharply. "Your water broke."

"And there's the head," the doctor says with a smile from her place between Jackie's legs. "Next contraction and I think we'll have a baby!"

She looks absolutely relieved as her head sinks down onto the pillow. Sweat from over thirteen hours of labor has plastered her normally silky hair to her head. She is absolutely exhausted and whimpers as the next contraction hits because she doesn't have enough energy to scream or yell or grunt.

Not too tired, though, because she squeezes the shit out of his hand.

"Take a look, Steven," Dr. Albright says, and he glances down before he can help himself. He told himself after watching that movie – the one Kelso tried to warn him about – for Mrs. Forman's baby class that he was not to look under any terms. After all, he'd like to be able to have sex with his chick after this, even if she did say he has to wear a condom every single time from this point forward.

But he looks, watches in amazement as this gooey, reddish thing with a malformed head slides out and then gets unceremoniously dumped on the towels someone (a nurse?) has thrown across Jackie's belly when he wasn't looking. His eyes dart from the mass of flailing limbs to his wife's face, watch her melt into tears and blubbering and repeating the same sentiment over and over again.

"…so beautiful...so beautiful…"

"Come cut the cord, Daddy," the doctor instructs and someone (a nurse?) slaps something cool and metallic in his hands.

"Uh," he stumbles, searching for the words as he watches Jackie clutch the baby closer and cry harder. He hasn't exactly decided if he wants to do this yet, but the doctor's not really leaving him much of a choice and guides his hand holding the scissors to the place between two clamps.

"Right here," she says gently. He cuts it quickly, barely concentrating on the task at hand. He's too busy watching the baby – his baby – be picked up and carried across the room.

"Where is…" he starts to ask. His question is for both of them as the question is reflected in his wife's eyes.

"Just taking the baby to be weighed and measured. They'll be right back," the nurse says from her place on the other side of the bed. He glances at her and then at his wife, who's watching the baby be carried out the door with such intensity and concern, and then at the woman pushing the plastic bassinet holding his baby out of the room.

"We still have to deliver the placenta," Dr. Albright says without looking up from her view of the space between Jackie's legs. "You can go with them if you'd like, Steven."

He looks away from the opened door to the doctor to Jackie. He doesn't know what to do, doesn't know if he should stay with her until the very end of this whole bloody affair or go with the baby. And then there's Mr. and Mrs. Forman and Eric and Donna and Leo and everyone else out in the waiting room waiting to hear some news.

"Go," Jackie says. Her voice is raw from all the screaming and the crying and the whimpering and the cooing over the baby, and he hesitates because he doesn't want to leave her to finish this all alone.

"Go," she says louder and harder this time. He plants a quick kiss on her lips before stumbling out into the hallway. The nurse is wheeling the baby around the corner down the hall, and he starts to follow her but only gets halfway down the hallway when Mrs. Forman's voice cuts him down.

"Steven!"

He turns to his left to see Mrs. Forman and Donna and Brooke and Eric and everyone rushing towards him. Everyone crowds around him except Red, who stands off to the side with his arms folded across his chest.

"Is the baby here?" Mrs. Forman asks excitedly with everyone around her staring at him expectantly, excitedly.

"Uh, yeah," is his mumbled reply.

"Well," Donna prompts.

"Huh?" He asks as he cranes his neck around the group to see exactly where the damn nurse went.

"Boy or girl?" Donna asks.

"Uh," he starts to say. Pauses. He didn't actually hear that part. Everyone's smiles fall in concern.

"It's a her-man!" Kelso shouts excitedly before Brooke throws him a look that immediately wipes that large grin off his face.

"Steven, is the baby okay?" Brooke asks softly, gently.

"And Jackie?" Mrs. Forman asks quickly.

"Fine," Hyde replies forcefully. "They're both fine."

"Oh, thank god," Mrs. Forman replies before letting out her trademark laugh. "So, boy or girl?"

"I…I didn't quite hear…the part," he mumbles.

"Dumbass!" Red shouts from the fringes of the group clustered around him.

"Are you high?" Eric asks with mocking concern.

After twenty or so minutes, he manages to extradite himself from the group and heads back into Jackie's room. He lost sight of the baby, has no idea where it might be. So he's kind of taken aback when he sees her sitting up in bed and holding a blanketed mass in her arms. Her hair is still plastered to her forehead, there are dark bags under her eyes, and she's not wearing any make-up.

He's staring at her so intently that her smile falters. She would run her fingers through her hair or apply some make-up or do something to make herself look better, but the baby in her arms impedes her efforts.

"I must look terrible," she concedes.

"No," he replies. "You look beautiful."

The smile returns to her face. The baby mewls and a tiny fist pops out of the blanket attracting both his and her attention.

"Hi, baby," Jackie whispers with a look of complete awe and adoration on her face. She glances from the babe in her arms to the man standing across the room.

"Steven, come over here."

"Uh," he stalls.

"Come here," she snaps at him, and he follows like some kind of whipped puppy. (He's not whipped, he'll tell you, but Jackie knows she's got this man almost entirely wrapped around her pinky.) She peels back the blanket so he can get a good look at the baby's face.

"Isn't she beautiful?" Jackie asks.

"She?" He echoes, and Jackie looks are him quizzically because she doesn't understand how he's gone all this time without registering the doctor's announcement of "It's a girl!".

"Are you high?" She asks sharply, echoing Eric's early question.

"No," he barks back because he's not. Hasn't touched the stuff in a couple of months after she told him the smell made her sick.

"How did you not hear…" She starts to ask but stops because the baby waves her fist in her mother's face. He waits until she's looking at the baby before commenting.

"She… I mean, Tiffany looks like you," he tells her softly and she glances up at him.

"Tiffany?"

"Isn't that the name you picked?" He asks, the confusion etched into his voice. He's pretty sure that was the one she picked out for a girl but, admittedly, he doesn't always listen to what she says.

"No," she replies with a shake of her head. "I mean, yes. But…"

"But what?"

"I've changed my mind."

"We're not naming her Princess," he snaps with emphasis on the no.

"That was a joke, Steven," she reminds him with a trace of annoyance in her voice. The baby wiggles in her arms.

"Here," she says trying to transfer the baby to him.

"Uh," he stumbles stepping away from her and the baby. "That's okay. You can hold her."

"Steven," she growls.

"Look," he replies trying to deflect her attention from him to the squirming babe in arms. "She's happy with you."

"Puddin', she wants her daddy to hold her."

Daddy? The word sends him into a mild panic. It was so terrifying when the baby was in Jackie's belly and kind of ambiguous thing. But now his daughter is here and all of sudden he's scared shitless.

"Steven," Jackie snaps trying to get his attention. "Just do what we learned in that class."

He stutters trying to think of some excuse when all of the sudden this squirming mass in deposited in his arms. He's looks frantically from Jackie to the baby and back again.

"Why are you cryin'?" He asks her. She frantically tries to wipe away the tears now pooling in her eyes and spilling down her face. "Doll, why are you cryin'?"

"You just look so…hiccup… good together and…hiccup…you love her…and she's…hiccup…here. And I never…hiccup…thought we'd be parents."

"Told you not to worry 'bout it happening, doll," he replies before glancing back at the baby in his arms. There's this surge of protectiveness that courses through him, and he's realizing that Jackie's right – he does love her. Already. Completely.

A quiet moment passes over them. He's locked eyes with his daughter, and his wife is staring at him intently.

"Stephanie," Jackie tells him softly.

"Huh?"

"Stephanie," she replies. "Her name is Stephanie."

"Jacks, we went over this," he reminds her forcefully. "I told you I didn't want our kid named after me and my bastard stepfather."

"Puddin' Pop, I'm named after my daddy," she reminds him. "You're named after the man you thought was your dad. I want our daughter to be named after her daddy."

"Jackie, our dads were crap."

"But you won't be," she assures him.

"Come on. What's wrong with Tiffany or, um, Layla?" She shakes her head no at each of his suggestions. "How 'bout Page after Jimmy Page?"

"No," she snaps at him. "I love you, Steven, and I want Stephanie to be named after the best man in the world."

He diverts his gaze at her complement because he doesn't really feel like the best man in the world. He's done a lot of shit in his life: stolen, cheated, lied, broken Jackie's heart more than once.

"And I just gave birth so her name is Stephanie."

"Jacki…"

His rebuttal is interrupted by the door to Jackie's room flying open and their family and friends spill into room.

"Boy or girl?" Mrs. Forman asks excitedly.

"Girl," Jackie replies as he deposits the baby back into her arms.

"Oh, she's beautiful," Mrs. Forman says as she catches her first glimpse of the baby. She plucks the baby right out of Jackie's arms and proceeds to show off her newest grandchild to Red.

"What's her name?" Donna asks after she gives Jackie a tender, congratulatory hug. Jackie looks at him expectantly and everyone's eyes shift towards him.

"Stephanie," he concedes. "Her name's Stephanie."