Encounter: Chapter 12
Answers.
Author's Note: This is the end of this story, thank you so much to all who have read it...and especially to you generous souls who have reviewed. Since I was in third grade and wore my bathrobe to school for career day, carrying around a toy typewriter and a coffee mug, writing is all I've ever wanted to do. This is the closest I'm getting, that I may ever get, and you have no idea how appreciative I am of all of you, and your feedback. Just knowing that somebody, anybody is reading...
I adore you, thanks again, and I sincerely hope you enjoy this:)
Disclaimer: If they were mine, I could afford a car with a working heater.
Can I Trust Us?
"I didn't disappear. I was thinking. And I agree, we can fix this. So, where is she?"
Hyde's tone was surprisingly calm...but Donna didn't believe it for a second. His skin was pale from lack of sleep, his chin shadowed with careless stubble. She noticed his clothes were dirty, still wet in places. He looked cold, inside and out.
Her eyes narrowed. "Where have you been?"
He shrugged, and hid behind his glasses. "Around. Where's Jackie?"
Donna was not fooled, let alone intimidated, by the hardass-zen Hyde was trying to pull, and stood a little straighter, crossing her arms across her chest. Even if it was too little, too late, it was her duty to try and protect her friend.
"In her room, sleeping off the hell she was in last night. And I don't know if either one of you are up for this right now."
"Listen, Big D, I'm not up for this right now," he motioned between himself and the solid and defiant-looking blonde standing before him. "And I believe you were just whining that you wanted this fixed. So that's why I'm here. Now move out of my way." His eyebrow raised over the top ridge of his shades, and Donna took a subtle step to her left. Then taking deliberate steps towards Jackie's bedroom, Hyde had thought the protests were over. He was surprised when he heard Donna speak, quietly, evenly, just as he was reaching for the door.
"Steven Hyde, when I got here last night she was drunk. Hysteric. Hatefully pounding her fists everywhere she could she was so angry. I can't see her like that again. I won't. If you go in there, and I hear so much as a raised voice from either of you, you will pray for death over what I will do to you."
They weren't facing eachother, still he nodded before breathing deep...and jumping in.
Jackie moved quickly to get back in bed, refusing to be caught listening in again, pulling her blanket to her chin just as the man she loved and hated more than she understood made his way in.
She'd rolled slightly to her side, so that her shoulder and hair guarded her from his gaze, and she held her breath as for a few minutes, he stood there, silent, doing nothing.
She willed herself not to move, to lay there waiting for him to make the effort.
Finally, barely audible over the hum of stillness, he whispered her name. His voice was low and thick, and she had to fight away the victorious smile ...this was what the terrified Steven Hyde sounded like.
Hearing him creep towards the side of the bed, feeling before contact him reaching for her shoulder, he said her name again, and she allowed herself to stir in response. She had remembered she wanted this over with.
With better acting than she knew she was capable of, she rolled in his direction, opened her eyes slowly, and manufactured the look of waking, the flash of surprise, the hint of wonder at what he was doing there.
She didn't have to create the cool anger in her eyes though. That came on its own, as soon as she saw him.
She spoke his name, without any control over her voice. It was hoarse and shakey from sleep, from the screaming of the night before. His name hurt leaving her body. The alcohol had burned her throat. He had burned everything else.
Pushing herself up, she moved to the far side of the bed. As far from him as possible. He reacted to it, but shielded himself by quickly looking away, and moving to lean against the wall.
They had taken their corners...now they were just waiting for the bell.
She surprised herself when she spoke first. "Why are you here?"
"To talk."
She raised her eyebrows at him.
"To do whatever it takes until we aren't going to hurt each other anymore."
"Because we can't, or because we won't."
"I'm hoping for won't, but honestly, at this point, I'll take it either way."
She nodded, and smiled ruefully. She knew what he meant.
She motioned towards the door. "And Donna and Fez trust us not to kill each other in the process?
He shrugged. "I trust that we're both too tired to fight like that again."
She had to surpress fresh, stinging tears. The first time he'd placed any amount of trust in them...
Can I Live Without You?
They'd been sitting quietly, looking at nothings hidden in the corners of her room, wondering how to start this, wondering how to end it. Everything was so tense. It was just brushing at him, and then pulling away. He wished it would either surround him or disappear.
It was both of their pain. It was hopeless.
When he heard her sigh, he almost smiled. Thinking of all the times she'd heaved her breath in and out, just to get him to ask what was wrong...thinking that might be how she'd get him to care. This sigh was different. He suspected she didn't care if he asked what was wrong. He knew she didn't expect him to. And he feared that she might think he'd never care.
It was such a lame line, and he heard it in Eric's voice rather than his own, but he asked her, "What are you thinking?" He just wanted desperately to get something to hold onto out into the air, before they both drowned in it.
"Why?"
"Why am I asking or 'Why' is what you are thinking?"
She looked at him like he was stupid. It'd been so long since she'd looked at him like that. It was almost comforting.
"'Why' is what I'm thinking."
"Why what?"
"Why do you keep showing up now, rather than when I so desperately wanted you to? Why am I not more glad that you are here? Why do I feel like if I can get through this without my heart breaking anymore it will feel like every birthday and Christmas and 'I love you' I've ever had rolled into one?" She took a deep breath. "Why am I so afraid that I'll get what I want this time, an ending, when I was denied all the beginnings and continuations and chances I've ever wanted just as much? Why am I not so sure I can live with any of the outcomes?"
"What does that mean?"
"I'm not sure if I know."
"What are the different possible outcomes?"
She looked at him, over the bony knees she'd pulled under her chin. "Well, we could both be naive to think any good can come from this conversation, for lack of a better word, and it could explode in our faces at any moment, cause even more anger and pain and hatred...that we didn't even know we had in us to experience."
He nodded. "Or we could make it to the final bow, go our separate ways and realize what that means for our friends, what that says about the last four years of our lives."
She sighed. "Or I could go my separate way, only to find..." She sniffled back a tear.
He finished for her, "that you still miss me?"
Looking, nodding, with the first glimmer of softness in her eyes, "that I can't live without you."
He sucked in a breath...hoping he was hearing her right, but scared of pursuing it. He was weak. He let the moment pass...the softness escape. "Or we could realize we can get passed this, you know, together."
"I really don't think that's a possible outcome. Not anymore."
Can I Forgive You?
He prentended that didn't sting. Though he knew she knew it did. But she hadn't meant it to be brutal, or pointed. She just really meant that. And that's why it hurt.
"You know, I never expected you to get under my skin like you did. Like you do." He chuckled softly, surreally. "I mean when it started, I really thought I was in control. That it wouldn't be like this. That it couldn't be." He looked at her directly, and yet she didn't flinch. "I really never expected..."
She didn't blink. And the smile she gave him was humorless. "That's funny. I did."
"I know you did. And maybe that's why I was so angry sometimes. I was jealous that you were prepared for us. While I felt so blindsided."
"A lot of good being prepared did me. I expected from the beginning that I'd love you enough to break me. Yet I never expected that you would."
"Sad thing is, maybe that's what I need to be able to forgive you for. For not expecting that bad parts. For not expecting the worst from me."
He knew it sounded like passing the blame. But he meant it. And he heard the four years of tears in her voice when she answered.
"Sometimes I think I need to forgive myself for that."
Can We Start Over?
It had gotten quiet again. He wondered if they were trying not so hard to repeat the mistakes of the last few days that they were missing their chances at doing anything at all. He knew he must have been in there, propped against the wall, leaning all his weight and agony against his now numb shoulder, for hours already. And he'd kept Donna's warnings in mind. No raised voices. But there were no hugs or kisses, no healing wounds either.
He feared they were frozen. He feared risking that for more pain though.
Frozen seemed better than burning at this point. But he wondered for how long.
He looked at her. Her eyes seemed smeared, blurry from the inside out. He thought she looked like she was shaking, but he also thought it might just be his eyes, tense and straine, playing tricks.
He told himself to move forward and touch her and find out. But he didn't listen.
"Jackie." He finally pulled his shoulder from the wall, almost stumbling as it disrupted his balance. As the feeling came back, it felt like fire and he liked it. It was a warm distracting tingling sensation. Somehow it helped his voice get a little stronger, his feet a little braver as they stepped closer to her fortress on the bed. "Jackie, we need to just dive into this. We can't wait it out."
She looked up at him, warily, eyes dancing between surprise and indignation as he got closer to her. He sat on the opposite edge of her bed, and thought for a minute she was going to open her mouth and snap at him to get up, but then the air of fight left her and she seemed to shrug herself into not caring...so long as he didn't move any closer.
"Jackie, what would make it all stop? What could?"
He wanted for her to look at him, through him even.
"I don't know, Steven. I just don't know."
For a moment he wanted to poke and prod the spirit back into her, fury was better than frost, and he was so exhausted. But he couldn't, wouldn't. He didn't want her to have to yell any more.
Still, he wanted to know.
"Why did you lie to me?"
He held his breath as her shoulders stiffened. He thanked God when she exhaled heavily and they released.
"I was desperate. I needed you to leave. I needed to push all the feelings off of me. I was so desperate."
"I've never felt so predictable."
"Oh, come on, Steven. You define love and passion and relationships in physical terms. And you've always been terrified of Michael. Of course I could predict that going there, saying that I'd been with him, would hurt you, push you to run. Anyone would have predicted that. Sometimes in trying to be so solid, you just become more transparent."
"Did you think Michael would back up your story?"
"No. Maybe. I wasn't as concerened with what would happen after you left. But I guess part of me knew that as much as Michael lies about sex, he wouldn't lie about this, to you."
"He said you couldn't. That he tried, but you couldn't. Because you loved me."
Jackie was surprised that they could talk about this, so quietly, when they couldn't contain the screams so many hours before. But she wasn't even crying when she whispered, "Yes."
"Do you wish now that you could have?"
He waited, ignoring the rumbling and twisting of his nervous, hungry stomach, searching her profile for an answer.
She was silent so long he almost thought she was ignoring him, or that she hadn't heard him.
Finally, there was a shaking of her head, so slight he thought he might have imagined it. "No. I just wish you could have waited to find out. That was the point of no return, Steven. And Michael wasn't even in the room. He got the billing and the blame, but he wasn't there. It was just you and me. And then it was just me. And that's the point when I start wishing all sorts of things were different."
He was surprised that it didn't sound like an accusation. He was surprised that his mouth didn't fly open to defend himself, to blame everyone else, to hurt her for saying the the truth. He nodded. Accepting his guilt out in the open, for once in his entire life. He was most surprised at how good that felt. Like a second chance. Like starting over.
Can You Hate Me More?
"Do you ever wonder how much more there is, how much more you can take? What your limit is?"
She watched him look at her, waiting for her to go on.
"Like you hurt so much you feel like you can't breathe...and then you wonder, how much hurt until I really can't. How much hurt until I just cease to be? How much hurt can I take before everything stops and it's all over? Do you ever wonder if you can always hurt a little bit more? Even when you think you're at your absolute limit?"
He still just looked at her. Intently. Curious.
"I often wonder when it stops being metaphors, and hyperboles...and then I'm always scared I'll find out." A slow breath. "What an awful way to die."
The tense silence had become as much a part of the conversation as either one of them. And Hyde caught himself thinking it was like sitting on a glacier...just getting used to the cold.
"I try not to think about hurting. Thinking about it would mean that I accept it. I've never wanted to accept that I was hurting. I was always afraid then that would be all I'd ever do."
"Where was this honesty when we were together?"
"Bound and gagged in the basement."
She knew that was truer than he meant it to be.
"I don't think there's a limit though. You can always do more. Love or Hate. Hurt someone, Be hurt."
His voice was quiet. Her voice was near silent. "I don't know if I could have loved you any more."
"Could you hate me any more?"
"I don't know about that either."
Can You Hear What I Can't Say?
"You know what I've always wondered?"
He'd been quiet a while, so she seemed almost startled at his voice...like she'd forgotten he was there...as if she could.
She was laying down again, staring at the ceiling. He inched his way back so that he could rest his head back against the wall. There bodies were closer now. He could have lifted his arm and touched her, with little effort. But yet the idea, flashing only for a second in his mind, was exhausting. So instead he had decided to speak, and now she was looking at him, telling him to continue.
"I've always wondered why you always wanted things said aloud. Why, after Kelso lied so much, and your parents made so many empty promises, why did you want me to say everything?"
She snorted. And he was surprised that she didn't care that she'd made such an "unflattering" sound.
"And I always wondered why you couldn't just say it. Feeling it is the scary part...if you can get through that, saying it should be easy. And I'd at least always assumed that you'd felt it."
"I did."
Her smile was ironic, but genuine. "Good to know."
Can You Still Love Me?
She had rearranged herself. Head resting on a pile of sheets, still tangled from a night of restless sleeping, on the bottom edge of her bed, her feet propped against the wall. She ran her toes along the raised texture of the plaster, letting the ridges tickle the thin flesh of her feet.
He'd finally given in, letting his neck take a much needed break, resting his head on one of her lace-covered perfumed pillows, his arm tucked underneath it. She hadn't fought him on this, and he'd been thankful. He was so tired.
"I'd always thought it was a done deal. Loving someone. Once you were in, you were in. End of story. Forever and Ever. I didn't believe you could fall out of love, only in." She sounded tired too."Then again, I also believed in unicorns until I was seventeen. I suppose I'm just gullible."
He winced at that. Her falling out of love with him, implied, said out loud and left in the open. He didn't like it. "Me too."
She lifted her head then, to look at him. She seemed surprised. "Sometimes I didn't think you believed in love. Not really. Let alone in Love Everlasting."
"I did. I think I still do. Maybe I think other things become stronger, more apparent than love. But I don't think I am ready to believe it ends and disappears." He caught her eyes and didn't let them go. He wanted her to see how sad they were, how sorry, how honest.
She looked scared, and on the verge of tears, so he looked away and let her go.
Can You Be All I Need?
"I'm hungry."
"You got anything in the fridge? I'll make you something."
She started to smile, but it never made it all the way across. She slowly pushed herself off the bed, and made her way across the room and opened the door. She paused a moment, waiting for him to follow.
They found three friends sleeping in various uncomfortable looking positions around the living room. Keeping guard.
Jackie smiled that they'd all been there. She smiled again that they had stayed...
The late afternoon sun was mostly blocked out by the drawn curtains, and she and Hyde took extra care to walk quietly.
Making their way to kitchen, Jackie turned on the light and began looking through cabinets and the pantry.
After putting together enough to feed them both, they took to cooking, silent and side by side. After tidying up a bit, they carried their bowls and plates, two cans of coke stuck in Hyde's pockets, back to her room. Softly shutting the door behind them, they sat on her floor, as ready as they could be for an awkward picnic between two ex-lovers.
For a few minutes, long minutes, the only sound was the slurping of soup, the crunches nibbling a sandwich, the faint snoring of Michael Kelso drifting under the door.
With the finality of the clink of the spoon against the empty bottom of his bowl, Hyde set aside his dishes and looked at the woman across from him. "Did you get enough to eat?"
"Yes. Thanks. It was good." She put her spoon in the bowl without a sound.
He smirked a little, mumbling a modest 'Thank you.'
He looked away. She looked away.
They snuck glances back at each other, and smiled when they were caught.
He thought it was funny how tense they felt over the fact they didn't feel more tense. If that made any sense.
It probably didn't.
He was pulled out of his head by a more charactersitic Jackie-tone -- bossy."Look, Steven, I would like to say I'm over it. All of it. The anger, the hurt, the longing...everything. But say, that I could get passed all of that. Back to the point when what mattered most was that I loved you. How lonely would I be there? How long would I be there, before you hurt me again? We were always so different. And all we have established so far today is that we didn't understand a lot of things about each other, that we didn't clear the air where we should have. It's like we've spent our entire relationship missing each other. I don't know if you could ever give me what I need from you, Steven. And I don't know if you'll ever let me in on what you need so that I could try and give it to you. But somehow, sitting here, just sitting here with you, for hours without yelling, without crying, and I'm back to wondering if it'd be worth it to try. And that's a dangerous thought for me. I thought I was finally finished with that."
All Hyde could do was blink. And having taken his shades off somewhere in the haze, he couldn't hide his surprise, his hopefulness, his fear at her sudden and revealing honesty.
And as she continued to look at him, intently searching, he realized she had asked him questions. Would she be alone? Would he hurt her again? She doubted he could give her what she wanted, needed.
This wasn't the first time she'd ever asked. This maybe the first time she'd get a straight answer.
"I don't know if I could give you all you need. I know I could give you all I have. And regardless of the circumstances, Jackie, I'm done hurting you on purpose. That's the best I can do."
Her face changed. For a moment he was afraid it was disappointment. Then he realized it was relief.
Can You See Me?
It hadn't been silent in a while, but the talk had been about anything and everything but the two of them. The sun was gone and it was night again, and Hyde felt his fiftieth wind. He was still tired, but he was so relieved to still have this, to have her sitting, giggling, right beside him, though still carefully not touching, that his eyes were open wide and he wouldn't give in to sleep.
Jackie wouldn't let him turn the lights on. She said her eyes couldn't take it. She sat beside him on her floor, their backs against the bed, the blinds over the window allowing thin strips of light from the street lamps to leave stripes across the carpet, their arms and their legs.
She was giggling, over some silly story of a misadventure they'd had what felt like fifty years ago in their adolescence. But when her eyes opened and glanced at him, he was staring at her and it was like magnets pulling at metal. Forceful and attractive and she'd wondered why he'd never looked at her like that before. Like he couldn't be held responsible for what he'd do if he was denied her presence. Like he wanted to take her in, every last drop of her.
Sure he'd looked at her with lust, with raw passionate need. He'd wanted her before, and she'd seen it in his eyes. He'd looked at her with fondness, maybe even love. But never before was it this persistent. This innocent and basic and vulnerable.
He was looking at her like she'd always looked at him, when they were alone,when he'd let her love him.
"Steven." She wasn't sure why it came out a whisper. She was even less sure as to why his voice seemed to hitch and break a bit when he spoke.
"I couldn't stop Bud from leaving. Or my Mom. Or even Eric, when he ran to Africa for reasons I'll never know. They all, in varying degrees of severity of course, abandoned me. And like it or not, that's done a lot to define who I am. Being abandoned. And I thought you were on that list too, Jackie. But that's not the case. I could have stopped you. I could have even gotten you to come back. And to be honest, it was just as much about me running, me pushing you away, as it was you leaving, for Chicago, for the Carribean with your mom. You didn't abandon me. I let you go."
All Jackie could do was take shaky breath after shaky breath.
"I don't want to let you go."
His eyes were like electric sparks in the darkness, and Jackie reveled their gaze.
Can You Feel The Beat?
He never wavered in his stare, not even when she put her hand on his cheek to wipe his tear away. She'd never thought she'd see Steven Hyde so desperate, so crazy, all for her. Part of her thought she must have been dreaming. Part of her knew this was better than anything she could have ever imagined.
Her thumb brushed across his lips, dry, rough. Her hand slid down his chin, and she didn't flinch as the beginnings of a beard scratched at her palm. She continued to his chest. To the place right over his heart.
Steven Hyde had the shakes. He hadn't been brave enough to entertain the thought he'd ever get to feel her touch again. At least not one this gentle, this full.
He watched her force breath in and out, making it match is own. She placed her other hand on her own chest. She wanted to know their heart beats were the same.
He was afraid of breaking whatever was happening, of shattering it and being left with awkward regrets and anger all over again. He almost was afraid to breathe.
"All I ever wanted was to know it wasn't just me. That it wasn't a relationship that I built, that I nurtured, all on my own, and as a result didn't really exist outside my head. All you ever had to do, was meet me halfway. And I could have forgiven you anything." She began leaning in, so slow, eyes never leaving his. And then she stopped, leaving a small distance between them, and let her eyes slowly shut. "I can forgive you anything."
A moments hesitation was all he needed to be sure that it all was real. And then he seized her lips.
Can You Taste It?
It was a long, slow kiss. It said more than they ever could with words. It was all said so softly, and yet it echoed in their ears. She could feel that he was sorry, that he loved her. He could feel that that was enough. And when they could feel the dampness on their cheeks, and taste the salt of tears, at least they both knew that this time they were happy ones.