A/N: Yeah... sorry about that. In my weak defense I had midterms, followed by a law course twice a week which is kind of slowly exhausting me. But there should be one or two more updates in May, and then I get on break from university and that frees up a lot of time.

It was all a mind thing, Eric figured. He'd managed to survive 17 years without driving the Cruiser. Managed 17 years with having to ask for rides or walk to places along with his friends. So, however long his dad decided Eric couldn't use the Vista Cruiser because of the one little scratch, Eric would manage. The door to the school swung shut behind him, and he took a step into the parking lot. The parking lot was still filled with cars. He was full of it, he had absolutely no backbone whatsoever, and damn it, he missed the car.

Kelso's plan to just borrow a car from a couple of days ago, hadn't worked out so well. It had ended with Hyde, having to apologize to Jackie being the end result of it. So, not exactly a great success. Even if there was something kind of funny about Hyde of all people, having to apologize to Jackie. Especially considering how often Hyde had made fun of Kelso for the same thing.

Eric continued his slow walk across the parking lot, practically dragging his feet after him. Maybe he was being overly dramatic about this, but he missed the car. Donna had taken her bike to school over the last couple of days, and Hyde had skipped classes today, which wasn't exactly anything new. Eric honestly had no idea where Kelso and Fez were.

"Hi Forman," a voice cut through Eric's thoughts, almost making him jump. Buddy Morgan gave him a grin, and Eric internally told himself to calm down. He hadn't seen much of Buddy since the whole kissing disaster, but they were still lab partners, and it wasn't like Eric didn't want to hang out. Things were just weird with his friends, so they mostly talked in chemistry. Kelso, who was the only one in the same chemistry class as Eric was usually busy trying to blow something up. Eric smiled back to him. "So still stuck without a car huh?"

"Don't remind me, the wound is too deep," Eric retorted immediately, and made Buddy let out a laugh. There hadn't really been anything weird, since then, but he could still tell Buddy was sometimes eating his words. Even if Eric didn't exactly mind getting called cute, even if it was a guy doing it.

"Well, I can drive you home, if you want?" Buddy suggested with a shrug. Eric should say no, if any of his friends were here, he definitely would have, because he didn't want to restart the whole Buddy argument again, or the clique jumping thing that Jackie had started going on about. And he knew, it was stupid that he didn't want to. But then again, none of them were here.

"Are you kidding? Of course, I want to," Eric said, which only made Buddy's smile brighter. Both of them got in the car, and Buddy rolled out from the school parking lot. As much as Eric loved the Cruiser, and he did, and he intended to fight for getting her back, at least in time for the wrestling show in Kenosha the coming weekend, the Trans Am was so cool.

It wasn't exactly news to Eric, that everything about Buddy was cool. It had pretty much been his conclusion, the first time, when his friends had accused him of ditching them for Buddy Morgan. But the car ride was nice. Buddy actually had a proper cassette player in the car, unlike his own multiple failed attempts to get one, so he'd put The Eagles on, as soon as they'd left the school parking lot.

Buddy parked the Trans Am a little further down the street from where Eric lived, the engine shutting off, and the radio falling silent. "You know, just in case Hyde comes charging out with a loaded shotgun," Buddy argued.

"I don't think Hyde has a shotgun," Eric said, which wasn't really the point, and he knew that, but he didn't know what to say. He knew, it had just been Hyde being mean, but he also didn't know how to convince Hyde to change his mind about it, if Buddy hung out at the basement. Usually, if you told Hyde not to do something, he'd just dig his heels in and do it even more. "Besides, I doubt he's here. He skipped school, so he's probably at his mom's house."

"You know what I mean," Buddy replied, and Eric just nodded once. There was a part of him, that wanted to apologize to Buddy, but he didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to say it either. He was faced with this, whenever he saw Buddy now.

Eric turned to open the Trans Am door and get out, but then paused a moment and turned around. An idea had suddenly struck him. It might be something, Buddy would say no to, but Eric wanted to ask. "You know, we were thinking, if I have the Cruiser back by the weekend, we would go to the wrestling show in Kenosha. Wanna come along?" Eric asked.

"Thanks," Buddy said and there was a bright smile on his face again. It wasn't like Buddy wasn't more popular than Eric, he could definitely get invited to things a lot more than Eric. But it was like, it was that nice that Eric was asking, which he wasn't going to think too much about. "But no, wrestling's not really my thing."

"What? How is wrestling not your thing?" Eric retorted, because honestly, he hadn't been to see wrestling shows live before, but the ones they occasionally showed on television were awesome. Everyone in their friend group pretty much agreed on it, except Jackie, but she was also the devil, so it made sense, she wouldn't have the same tastes, as mere mortals would.

"You know, it's all fake, right?" Buddy replied, crinkles around his eyes.

"Yeah, sure- Still, wrestling should be everyone's thing," Eric replied, making the other boy in the car laugh.

"I don't understand what the point of that show is, man," Hyde said to no one in particular. The whole gang was sitting around in the basement as usual. The girls and Fez on the sofa, Forman on the back of it, conveniently behind Donna. Kelso and Hyde took up each of the chairs. Forman gave him a raised eyebrow. "You know, Gilligan is never going to get off that island, right?"

"Hey, you don't know that, man!" Kelso immediately protested, sounding like Hyde had personally offended him. He gave Hyde a long look, his mouth hanging half open before he continued: "They could get off it!"

"Nah, man. If Gilligan got off the island, they wouldn't be able to produce any more episodes," Hyde said. It was something, he'd been thinking of, and even though the show was good, it was something Hyde knew to be true. It was the same with most TV, got to keep making more, so the thing could keep making money. "Gotta keep those capitalist wheels churning. I bet it has like a hundred episodes."

"Whatever," Jackie said, and rolled her eyes. Something about it made him feel weird. It was the first thing Jackie had said to him, since the other night. It was still weird to him, the whole thing, as well as this. Luckily, it didn't show on his expression, he was way too practiced in the art of zen to let it. "It's still a good show!"

He'd apologized to Jackie of all people, because she'd made him. He wasn't the type to apologize to anyone, and especially not to people like Jackie, and especially not because she forced him to do it. Even though, she hadn't done that much forcing. While he had mostly managed to convince himself, the only reason he'd done it, had been to get them out of jail, the whole thing sat weird in his gut. Didn't help that his friends kept bringing it up, as soon as Donna wasn't there to try and get a rise out of him.

"Thank you, Jackie," Kelso said with a beaming smile. Hyde resisted the urge to say something. Someone really needed to explain to his friend, that just because Jackie agreed with him, didn't mean she liked him. In fact, when it came to Jackie, the less she was giving Kelso a hard time, the more she probably hated him, if Hyde had to make a guess.

"Not talking to you, Michael," Jackie bit back with another eye roll. She was going to get her eyes stuck or something, if she kept doing that. But surprisingly, he didn't exactly blame her, as insufferable as both of them were being.

"Well, damn Jackie!" Kelso protested with a wave of his arms, a frown reappearing on his face. Jackie just got up from her seat, as the credits started rolling on the screen. There would be another episode on, after the commercials had finished, but that wouldn't be for another ten minutes at least. They always played two episodes on Wednesdays.

"I'm gonna go get a soda," she announced. Nobody seemed to pay her any mind, and honestly Hyde didn't blame them that much. "Donna!" she said sharply, making Donna get up with a heavy sigh, and follow Jackie up the stairs.

The four boys settled back into a comfortable silence, as soon as Jackie and Donna had left, and the door slammed shut behind them. It always got much quieter in the basement, as soon as Jackie left the basement, in Hyde's opinion. "I can't believe, Jackie, man," Kelso said, because the only other person beside Jackie who could ruin the silence was Kelso. "She won't even be nice to me."

There were times Hyde wondered how the hell Kelso had managed to score chicks to begin with, considering how dumb he was. Kelso was his friend, but that didn't mean he wasn't well aware of that. Almost anyone should have been able to figure out, why Jackie was being even more pissy at Kelso, than she usually was. Jackie was never exactly nice, but of course, she was going to be mad Kelso cheated on her with Pam Macy of all people.

"Kelso to be fair, you cheated on her with Pam Macy and then she broke up with you," Eric said, his voice kind of slow. As if he wasn't sure Kelso would get it otherwise. Which was fair enough.

"Whatever, man," Kelso said, sulking.

"Right," Eric said with a shake of his head, clearly like he was giving up on Kelso. Which in Hyde's opinion was another fair assessment on Forman's part. "Are we all going to the wrestling show in Kenosha this weekend?"

"Yes, I cannot wait to see these grown men hitting each other," Fez said with a grin, and Hyde decided not to overthink the expression on his face. It was definitely, something.

"Hell yeah," Kelso said, reaching over to high five Fez. It would never not be impressive to Hyde, how his friend's mood could flip on a coin. "But Fez asked Jackie, and she said not in this universe."

"What the hell do we need Jackie for, man?" Hyde asked. Sure, it might not be the worst thing in the world, but she would probably also complain the entire time, about it being too violent and dirty. It would ruin the show, no doubt about it. Although, it might also be fun to watch her bitch about it, in a sort of masochistic way. "We're going to see wrestling."

"Oh really, what do we need Jackie for, Mr. I am so sorry, Jackie?" Fez asked with a smug grin plastered on his face, Hyde sent him a murderous look. For once, Kelso didn't seem bothered by any of them bringing up the prison incident from last week, instead he just kind of laughed at Fez' joke.

"You're lucky, I don't punch you, Fez," he bit back, and Fez seemed to have grown a shade paler for a second. Hyde could put up a decent threat, even underneath the zen, if he wanted to. "You sure you can get the Cruiser back before the weekend, Forman?" Hyde asked.

"I'm working on it!" Forman said with a wave of his arms and a defeated sigh. "You know, Red isn't exactly an easy man to convince. I'm on the verge of begging."

"We all commend your effort, Forman," Hyde said with a pat on Eric's arm.

The stairs back down to the basement creaked underneath Jackie's feet. Normally, Jackie would just have left out of the kitchen door or the front door. Like a normal person. But there was something, Jackie wanted to do before she went home, or rather something she wanted to say, and the person she wanted to say it to, was more than likely in the basement.

Michael and Fez had gone home, and Eric was being gross with Donna upstairs. Nobody in their right mind wanted to see that, and Jackie considering herself part of that category. But unlike Michael and Fez, Jackie knew Hyde usually hung around the Formans' house much longer. Because his mom was even poorer, so it was perfectly understandable in Jackie's mind. Just like she expected, she found Hyde at the foot of the stairs, sitting in his favourite chair. "Hey," she said, as a way of announcing her presence.

"Shouldn't you have gone home by now?" he asked. His expression was hard to read behind the stupid sunglasses. Sometimes Jackie had a hard time understanding how anyone could even begin to have a conversation with him. But maybe that was also kind of the point.

"In a minute," Jackie said without meeting his eyes, and moved to take a seat on the couch, closest to the chair, where he was sitting. She folded her hands in her lap and then unfolded them. Hyde gave her, what she was pretty sure was a suspicious look, but again it was hard to tell. "There's something I wanna say first," she said.

"Jackie-" he started, and she could clearly tell he was already annoyed with her. Which wasn't the way, she wanted this to go. She wasn't even sure, why she was here exactly, but surprisingly she wanted to say something about what he had said to her the other night. And Jackie was going to say her piece, regardless of what Hyde thought about it.

"No, this is important. Shut up!" Jackie protested, before he got a chance to finish. She cringed inwardly. She turned her head to meet his eyes, and surprisingly she actually managed to do it. "Sorry. What I wanted to say was, thank you. You didn't have to say what you said when you guys got stuck in jail, so I wanted to say thanks for that."

"Jackie," Hyde began, and the tone was different this time, more unreadable. It always annoyed her, when she couldn't tell what other people were thinking. Life was easy to navigate, when you knew what was on other people's mind. She could do it without thinking when it came to both her parents, had had to learn to do it with them. She'd thought, she could do it with Michael too, she had been wrong on that one. "You gotta know, I just did that to get you to help us out, man, right?"

"Maybe, but you still did it," Jackie replied. She took a deep breath, before she continued. "I don't need anyone's apology, Steven. If I'm honest, I asked you because I thought it'd annoy you so much, you'd hang up and leave me alone."

She hadn't meant to actually tell him her intentions behind asking him for an apology. Jackie had figured, he could probably guess already without her necessarily telling him. Her plan had just been to go down here, flash a smile and say thanks and then leave. She still wasn't sure why, she had even wanted to say thank you for his apology. It was an apology he owed her fair and square, even if she didn't need it.

"Huh," Hyde started, the same unreadable expression still on his face. The expression still annoyed her, but there was also something that made her pause. "I'm impressed."

"Well, anyway, it was nice to hear," Jackie said, and moved to get up, caught off guard by the second half of his statement. She collected herself for a moment, digging her nails into her palms, before heading for the basement door intent on being home for dinner.

"Hey Jackie," Hyde said from his chair, and the statement for some reason made her turn around. He'd gotten to his feet, but otherwise hadn't moved away from the chair. Jackie wasn't sure, how he would have managed to either. "I know Kelso is being a dillhole-"

"If this is the part, where you try to convince me, Michael isn't so bad, I don't wanna hear it," Jackie quickly cut him off. She crossed her arms to look as stubborn and defiant, as she possibly could. Because if Hyde started telling her about the good things about Michael, she might think of all the good things about Michael, she was trying to keep filed away in the back corner of her mind.

"Nah, just wanna say, I get it," Hyde said, voice even. "I mean, Kelso is being whiny as hell, and as much as you annoy me too, you shouldn't have to be stuck with him being a dillhole, just so the rest of us can be left alone."

"Well-" Jackie started, because she was in a rare instance, actually not entirely sure what to say. The only times Fez seemed to invite her to hang out in the basement, seemed to be when Michael was there too. And sure, both Eric and Hyde disliked her more than Fez did, but she'd still sort of expected them to take Michael's side in this. "Thanks. I think."