Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter Notes: What if Hyde had confronted Jackie in Street Fighting Man?

Warnings: Minor language.

Imparfait
Chapter 6 – Hyde: Uncontrolled

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Jesus Christ, what the hell was she thinking? I storm down the stairs from the stadium, fuming. Stupid crazy wench. I don’t know what she was trying to pull, but she’d failed miserably. She should know me by now; she should’ve known that would only piss me off even more. Hell, that’s probably why she did it. Manipulative skank.

I remember when she was going out with Kelso, she had him wrapped around her little finger. And I always looked on in disgust, telling myself that no girl would ever get me that whipped. And no girl ever did, but she sure as hell tried, and sometimes I thought she almost succeeded, with her practiced to perfection pout and soft words and freaking manipulative nature.

Not that any of it matters now.

My boots thud hollowly against the concrete floor as I step off the stairs and begin scanning the room for her. I first glance at the popcorn stand, you know, making sure she wasn’t trying the same thing twice. I feel my face turn into a frown (well more of a frown than it’s normally set in), as I look around trying to spot her. I keep moving forward, my eyes darting back and forth so fast it’s beginning to annoy me.

And then I see her, leaning against a wall. I speed up my pace before I realise that she’s not planning her latest scheme to make me suffer. In fact, she looks like she’s in more pain than she’s been inflicting on me today, I note as her shaking shoulders register in my brain. My feet freeze for a second, and I can’t get them to move again, despite many efforts to. Damn it. My eyes rest on her for a minute, as she wipes her nose and tries desperately to regain control of herself. And before I can stop them, my damn feet are moving towards her. I’ve officially lost all control over my legs.

She seems to have seen me coming, though, and she quickly turns around and heads away from me. “Jackie, wait,” I say, speeding up and grabbing her wrist. She spins out of my grip, but turns around to face me anyways. God, she looks bad. Her eyes are all puffy and swollen and red, and they have this defeated look in them. “What the hell!” I explode at her as she tries to pull her wrist back and wrench herself from my grip.

“Let go of me, Hyde!” Her voice is strong and loud and if I hadn’t already had visual proof that she was crying, I never would’ve guessed.

“No,” I hiss at her, tightening my grip. “C’mon,” I say a bit more gently, towing her behind me as I walk away.

Again, she tries to release herself from my hold. “Hyde, no!” she yells at me, causing many people to turn and look at us.

I stop, and turn around, pissed. “Fine Jackie,” I say, annoyed that she isn’t even willing to talk to me in someplace semiprivate. She’s always complaining to me that I’m going to make a scene, and if that’s what she wants, then that’s what she’ll get. “What the hell was all that?”

“All what?” she yells right back at me, and twists her arm out of my grip. “Let go of me,” she spits in disgust. “I’m not going to bolt.”

“All that!” I repeat, gesturing wildly to the field. “All your damn picture and caramel corn crap!”

She rolls her eyes. “I was being nice, Steven,” she accents each word. “Something you should try someday.” Oh god, the sarcasm is just dripping off her voice now.

“Oh give it a rest, Jackie,” I sigh in frustration, glaring darkly at the people who are turning their heads to see the yelling match. As if hearing it wasn’t enough for them, the morons have to turn around and witness it, too. “We all know how damn good you are at exhausting topics!”

“And we all know how damn good you are at avoiding them!” Her voice has lost the sarcasm and is now raw emotion. Anger, frustration, sadness all rolled into one, and for a moment I’m speechless. Of course it would end up on this again. It always comes back to something I did wrong, something I should’ve done differently, something I did to screw us up.

And for once in my life, I realise that having a screaming match with her isn’t helping. “Why were you crying?” I ask softly, inwardly swearing as one of my now uncontrollable hands reached for one of hers.

She snatches it back immediately. “Why do you think?” she snaps at me, giving me one last look before storming past, presumably to the parking lot.

I stand there, motionless. Well, that didn’t work. No wonder I rely on screaming fits to get me somewhere when I’m dealing with people. If that’s how all rational conversations turn out, I’m pretty much set for life. I move to start walking back to our seats when some guy’s voice stops me. “Aren’t you going to go after her?”

I sneer at him. Damn spectators. Don’t they have anything better to do? Without answering, I storm back up towards our seats, planning on just telling Donna and letting her take care of it, but before I reach the top of the stairs, I get to thinking.

What if, just one time, I went after her? If I had gone after her the first time, we may not be here right now. If I had gone after her before I cheated; after I cheated; after she called Kelso her boyfriend, we may not be here right now. And then, there’s only one thought crossing my mind: was it worth it? Was it worth saving face and living through two or three weeks of pissed off remarks and angry retorts from both of us? And then I think of when we weren’t broke up. When she’d slide into bed with me late at night. When she’d curl up against me watching late night TV. When she kissed me each she came into the basement, my car, wherever.

And for once in my life, I go after her.

After reaching the top of the stairs, I made sure to take another set down so I didn’t have to run into the cocky bastard who made the smart-alek suggestion in the first place. I wonder what I’m going to say to her, if she’ll even listen to me, or if I’ll even be willing to speak. I damn well better, since I’m going after her and all. My boots slap against the concrete as I weave my way through the parked cars in search of the Vista Cruiser, where I’m confident I’ll find her. And sure enough, it comes into sight with a small brunette perched on the hood.

Silently, I ease myself up next to her, and lay back on the windshield, my head resting on the roof of the car. For a minute, neither of us says a word, and the silence becomes deafening. Figuring I’ve come this far already (and probably won’t ever get this far again), I decide to bite the bullet and speak up. “So I’ve been thinking,” I start slowly, and for a few seconds, she gives me no indication that she even heard me.

Then, just as I’m about to open my mouth again, her small voice replies. “About what?”

I grin into the darkness. I knew she couldn’t resist a hook like that. “About stuff,” I respond, folding my arms behind my head. “About us.”

Now she’s really intrigued. She turns onto her side. “What about us?” she asks somewhat hesitantly.

This is worse than starting the conversation in the first place. Now I actually have to talk to her. Like, really talk to her. I can’t remember the last time I did that. “About how you’re a crazy manipulating broad.” My response is quick and cool, but hey, it’s not the yelling I was trying to avoid.

Put out, annoyed, and insulted, she falls back so she’s facing the winter sky again. The cold on the metal of the car begins to seep through my clothes, and I shiver slightly. “About how you’re an anti-commitment, present hating jerk?” she asks angrily.

“Yeah,” I reply gently, running one of my hands through my hair, a habit I picked up as a way of calming myself. “That too.” There’s another few minutes of silence, like she’s waiting for me to say something. I don’t, trying to find the right words, trying to decide if it’s worth saying them at all.

And suddenly, it’s too long. She’s had to wait too long, and she rolls off the hood. “I’m going back in,” she says stiffly, her heels clacking against the pavement as she walks around the car. Before I can stop myself, I’m following suit.

“Jackie, wait!” I call to her before logical thought prevents me, and she stops, turning around expectantly. My body freezes in place as I realise that she’s waiting for some profession of love or something I can’t offer her. I swallow hard knowing that there’s no easy way out of this one.

I’ve come this far. May as well go that little bit farther.

“Lookit,” I swallow again, sure my Adam’s Apple must look like a freaking buoy. “I was thinking that maybe if you say you might start,” I’m struggling. Trying to find the words. But I note, with some hope and optimism, that she’s slowly inching towards me. “That if you start y’know, hanging out with me again, I just might be able to stay with you for a while.”

There. That’s as good as it’s going to get.

But it’s not good enough. It never is. She stops her slight movement to focus her eyes on my face. “How long’s ‘a while’, Steven?”

Instead of swallowing, my foot starts tapping. Damn nervous reflexes. “I don’t know Jackie,” my voice has lost its calm tone and it’s back to the snappy, yelling pitch again.

“You never know!” her protest is strong, with only trace amounts of the sadness I detected earlier. I can’t believe she’s bringing this up again.

I heave a sigh and clench my teeth together. “A while, okay Jackie? That’s all I can promise you.”

It wasn’t a set in stone commitment, and it certainly wasn’t a profession of my undying love. But she seems to know she’s pushing too hard, and for once in her life, it’s good enough. She hesitantly comes up to me, and holds on to my hands. When I don’t pull away, she wraps her arms around me and presses her head against my chest. I breathe deeply, and my grip on her waist tightens. This feels right.

“I’ve missed you,” she says in an almost whisper, squeezing her arms tighter against me.

I do the same. “Me too,” I reply quietly.

Was it worth it?

Hell yeah.