Chapter Text
January 12, 1976
(Monday Afternoon)
It was the absolute worst possible start to the second semester of her freshman year.
Her mother had, after one too many glasses of wine, mistakenly signed her up for the carpentry elective instead of cosmetology—and as if working in the smelly woodshop of the high school wasn’t bad enough, when she entered the classroom she saw that it was full of boys. The majority of them gawked at her in some way, shape or form the moment she arrived. She lingered in the doorway and felt her face grow warm, briefly feeling overwhelmed by the sea of faces—all of them ranging from bland to weird to unsightly. On the one hand, she knew she was the prettiest freshmen currently gracing the halls of Point Place High, but that did not mean she reveled in the unwanted attention from boys she had no intention of wasting her time on. She grimaced in disdain, continuing to scan the room for any place where she might be able to sit with someone that was either marginally popular or not creepy.
She spied the only other girl in the room—well, she wasn’t particularly ‘girly’, with her plaid shirt, worn jeans and lack of make-up, but it was at least someone that she could sit with that wouldn’t be a disgusting pervert. The only problem was the seat next to her was already occupied by a curly haired boy. She glanced towards the adjacent table, seeing that the sophomore foreign exchange student was sitting there with a vacant seat next to him.
Jackie quickly decided she would rather sit with the redheaded tomboy.
She approached their table, and the other girl turned to look over her shoulder at her. Jackie displayed her most winning smile at the redhead, but all that earned her was the questioning raise of copper colored eyebrows (and oh god, they weren’t even properly shaped). She cleared her throat, trying not to allow her increasing discomfort show, and addressed the boy, who hadn’t even once looked in her direction.
“Excuse me,” she said, finally capturing his attention. His brow furrowed instantly, displaying blatant annoyance as he turned to look at her. Jackie was accustomed to many reactions when people met her for the first time—reverence and adoration were usually among the most common—but never had anyone so expeditiously expressed irritation, as though merely gazing upon her caused their joy to wither. She felt her temper flare, and spoke in a demanding tone as a result, “I want to sit here.”
He just scoffed in response. Only when she raised her brows and gestured for him to move did he finally speak—his voice was acerbic and unfriendly. “Whatever.”
He turned back around—effectively dismissing her—and her mouth popped open in shock. Who did this boy think he was? Did he not know who she was? She folded her arms across her chest and said, “um, I’m waiting?”
“Yeah well, you can stand there all class if ya want to,” he remarked indifferently, continuing to face forward.
Her face flushed as he callously refused her. She knew he looked like a scruffy, impoverished wretch, but he was still a boy! Was chivalry completely dead? She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, before her right foot began to tap restlessly. Her attention was briefly drawn from the mess of curls at the back of his head to the redhead next to him as the girl turned on her stool to face her a little more. Their eyes met and for a moment, Jackie thought she might also tell her to take a hike. Her hands curled into little fists, and she saw the redhead’s eyes flick down to them. After an awkward pause, the redhead rolled her eyes and sighed in resignation.
“Hyde, it’s fine,” the girl said, her voice was huskier than Jackie was expecting, “I’ll just switch with Fez.”
“Whatever.”
To her relief, the other girl moved over to the adjacent table and Jackie followed. The redhead asked the foreign kid—Fez, she presumed—to swap spots with her and he agreed easily. After collecting his things and getting up, he smiled briefly at Jackie before he went to sit with the rude, curly haired boy—who she now knew to be Hyde. With the other seat at the table being free, Jackie finally sat down. There was another slightly awkward silence that followed, before finally—
“I’m Donna Pinciotti,” said the redhead. Oh, right, she supposed introductions were in order—although a part of her felt like this other girl should have already recognized her.
“I’m Jackie Burkhart. You may have already heard about me, I'm one of the few freshmen that made the cheer team.” She beamed up at her.
“Right.” Donna forced a laugh, before she made a face—apparently not very impressed by this achievement. There was a pause, before Donna added, “honestly, I wasn’t expecting there to be another girl in this class.” She’d said it a little incredulously, her posture appearing uncomfortable. Between that, and her terrible fashion sense, Jackie got the impression she didn’t have a lot of female friends.
Well, Jackie didn’t either, at least not friends in the real sense. She had numerous acquaintances for the purposes of socializing and establishing her popularity, of course, but they could hardly be called friends; and despite Donna’s tall, lumberjack figure, Jackie felt already comfortable around her. She may have looked like a goon, but she had still agreed to sit with her, after all. There was also the fact that she could not imagine there was much this Pinciotti girl could do to threaten her social standing. If anything, Jackie would elevate Donna’s by spending time with her. Maybe she would even let her introduce her to blush and lipstick.
“Well, I was supposed to be in cosmetology, but my mom signed me up for the wrong class,” she admitted with a shrug, “I don’t really want to be here.”
Donna stared at her for a long moment, before a laugh burst out of her, a genuine one this time. “That makes so much more sense.”
“I know, right? Me, in this type of class? Mismatch for sure!” Jackie said with a wide smile, before she began inspecting her delicate hands. “What am I even going to do in this class? I can’t get a failing grade, but just think about what this type of work is going to do to my nails!”
Donna sighed heavily, glancing away from her. “And now I’m regretting my decision.”
Jackie’s brow furrowed. “Why? Donna, I’m the most popular person in this room—and I picked you to sit with, you should be thanking me.”
“Right…” The other girl’s face scrunched up thoughtfully, as though she was searching for the right words to say in response. Finally, she just blurted out candidly, “yeah, I don’t care about any of that, Jackie, I was sitting with my friend before you got here.”
“Ew!” Jackie exclaimed, frowning. “You’re friends with that jerk?!”
Donna smirked, before she offered what sounded like a gentle warning, “yes, and I’ve been friends with him since kindergarten.”
“Oh my god, Donna.” Jackie adopted a sympathetic expression, reaching over to gently rub the other girl’s arm. “I’m so sorry you had to deal with that for so long.”
The other girl shook her head and laughed again—but Jackie had meant her words sincerely, not as a joke, so she blinked up at her in confusion. Donna ran a hand through her flat, straight hair and said, “look, you didn’t want to sit with any of the creepy dillholes in this room, right? Well, that’s the only reason I’m sitting here. We don’t have to be friends, really, it’s fine.”
Jackie still wasn’t following. “Well, why not? Why wouldn’t you want to be friends with me?”
“Well, for starters, I signed up for this class on purpose,” Donna informed her slowly, “and you’re worried about breaking a nail.” She punctuated her explanation with a shrug—as though the reason they would be incompatible as friends was obvious. Unfortunately for her, once Jackie Burkhart had set her mind to something there were very few things that would convince her to give up.
She gasped. “Oh my god, Donna, ew! That's seriously the worst! You picked this class intentionally?”
She then patted the other girl’s hand comfortingly, as the teacher moved towards the front of the class to begin the introductory lesson. Jackie leaned towards Donna with a conspiratorial wink and whispered, “maybe it was fate intervening that my mom messed up my schedule—don’t worry, I’ll help you out.”
Donna grimaced a little, her expression caught somewhere between disbelief and worry. But that was okay, that redheaded lumberjack just didn’t know any better—not yet, anyway.
February 3, 1976
(Tuesday Afternoon)
“You’re friends with Jackie Burkhart?” Hyde repeated the preposterous statement Donna had just uttered aloud to him and Fez, yet even as the words escaped his mouth he still couldn’t quite believe them.
The three of them were walking through the halls down towards the shop room where their carpentry class was. He should’ve seen this coming—as strange and unexpected as this turn of events was, little moments over the past couple of weeks began to stick out in his memory as he continued to absorb the knowledge. Donna had initially complained incessantly about the obnoxious, vapid cheerleader that had basically bullied her into being her deskmate; however, over recent weeks, her complaints about Jackie Burkhart steadily decreased, as the amount of laughter he’d overheard from their table noticeably increased. Some sort of mysterious cause and effect had occurred, and now they were allegedly ‘friends’.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Donna said with a shrug, before admitting, “I was surprised too, but she’s kinda different when we’re alone. She’s kind of like the bratty little sister I never had.”
He had known Donna since they were in kindergarten, and he knew—or, thought he had known—that she was not someone who would ever tolerate a prim, princess type of girl like Jackie Burkhart. But now she was telling him that they had been hanging out even outside of carpentry class. His surprise was only tempered by his general indifference. It wasn't any business of his if Donna wanted to waste her time palling around with some pampered rich girl. It didn’t impact him.
But, it also didn’t protect her from getting burned about it.
“You better be careful Big Red, you might turn into a square if you spend too much time with her—or maybe you’ll end up joining the cheer squad.”
“Shut up, Hyde.” Donna laughed and rolled her eyes.
But as they entered the room, the three of them beheld Jackie Burkhart—who had arrived early for class and was in the middle of reviewing a history textbook while jotting something down in her notebook. What the hell kinda person showed up early for class and studied another subject? A grin slipped across his face as he glanced towards Donna again, who flushed a little in embarrassment.
“Wow, doing her homework in between classes, that’s so hip,” he muttered sarcastically, and then shook his head and laughed.
Truly, he didn’t care. Being possessive over friends was something for chicks, or Forman. But Jackie was annoying in a way that made her difficult to ignore during class—with her colorful clothes and shrill voice. Even amidst the noise of drills, hammers, and table saws, she always elevated the volume of her voice so she would be audible to someone. “Donna!” She would often say, her tone grating and demanding, before one of the two of them would talk to each other in voices too quiet for him to catch the words—and then Jackie would either laugh at something Donna said, or she’d pout and shout: “You lumberjack!”
Regardless of how little he cared about whatever bout of temporary insanity had possessed Donna to befriend the small, noisy brunette, a part of him wanted to tease or offend the silly rich girl. Mostly because she made it easy, since it was so obvious she disapproved of his and Donna’s friendship. Which was a good thing, maybe if he kept it that way she’d stay far enough away from the rest of them.
That particular afternoon, after they’d been given free time to work on their projects, he wandered over to their table under the pretense of asking Donna for something. Jackie didn’t acknowledge his approach, so he peeked over her shoulder. She was busy drawing out what looked like overly complicated schematics for a birdhouse. The title at the top of the page was written in excessively girly handwriting and sparkly pink ink—it read ‘Le Chateau du Jackie’. An abrupt laugh burst out of him and she glanced up at the sound, their eyes met. He didn’t bother hiding the smirk on his face.
“What do you want?” She asked, her mouth instantly forming a pout.
“Don’t you think that’s a bit ambitious?” He asked evenly, gesturing to her drawing.
Her cheeks flushed red, but she didn’t flinch. Instead her eyes narrowed. “Maybe compared to someone who’s only working on something as simplistic as a cutting board.” Idly, he wondered when she’d paid enough attention to him to pick up on what project he was working on. She continued to talk, her tone condescending, “some of us want to get a good grade.”
Admittedly, her dauntless resolve impressed him, no matter how ridiculous she was—and she was ridiculous—she wasn’t at all intimidated by him. Still, it wasn’t enough for him to be nice to her. “Yeah, well, not all of us are sniveling teacher’s pets.”
She uttered a delicate scoff.
“Well, do you know who will be laughing when you get a C minus and I get an A?” She returned primly.
“Oh boy, do I ever!” He answered, feigning an amiable tone, before his voice dropped to its natural deadpan. “Me, at you, specifically.”
“Ugh!” She made a face at him, and turned her eyes back down to her draft schematics.
He walked past her and leaned against the tabletop in front of Donna. She glanced up at him and asked, “why do you keep talking to her if you don’t like her so much?”
“Because it’s funny,” he answered easily, picking up one of Donna’s stray pencils and twirling it between his fingers. Hyde felt Jackie cast a glare in his direction—he grinned without looking at her, pleased that he’d managed to get a rise out of her so easily.
Donna just rolled her eyes, and kept drawing out her own plans—it looked like she was working on a set of shelves. Unlike her little cheerleader friend, Donna’s project looked both functional and attainable.
“Yeah, well, Hyde you’re kind of being a dillhole,” She informed him tersely.
“Oh, come on Big D.” He stopped twirling the pencil and jabbed a thumb in Jackie’s direction. “It’s not like she gives a damn what I think about her.”
Donna opened her mouth to say something, but Jackie immediately interjected—emphatically agreeing with the point he’d just made. “Oh my god, he’s right Donna. As if I would ever care about what Hyde thinks of me, I mean just look at him! Ew, can you imagine me taking advice from someone who wears raggedy clothes like him?”
He pressed his mouth into a thin line and maintained his composure in the face of her insults. After all, he would rather die than allow himself to be affected by someone like her; and besides, it wasn't as if she was saying anything untrue. Still, he felt righteous and smug for having baited Jackie’s rich girl attitude, so he tilted his head to the side and continued to meet Donna’s gaze—and her expression faltered. Clearly she had lost the will to defend Jackie’s snobbery, but was as yet unwilling to admit defeat.
“Oh my god, well, I hope you two girls have fun!” Hyde said with a fake smile, his tone mocking. He laughed, tossed the pencil back onto the table with a shake of his head as he left them to their own devices. He anticipated that it wouldn't be long before Donna came to her senses, hopefully before the end of the semester.
February 13, 1976
(Friday Evening)
“Don’t be nervous,” Donna said for what seemed like the millionth time.
“I’m not nervous, Donna!” Jackie insisted, as she smoothed out the front of her dress for what felt like the millionth time. Before she could stop herself, she blurted out, “besides, they’re the ones who should be nervous—I’m like, way more popular than all of them combined, except maybe you and Michael.”
Donna rolled her eyes and grabbed her arm to stop her as they reached the Formans’ driveway. “Can I make a suggestion? Maybe don’t open with an insult, people will usually warm up to you a lot faster.”
She frowned and looked down at the hand gripping her arm. She considered the words and mumbled in a testy voice, “I don't mean it as an insult, I’m just stating the truth, Donna!”
“Jackie,” Donna warned, arching a brow slightly, “I invited you over because you said you wanted to get to know my friends, and they agreed—reluctantly, might I remind you.”
“Let me guess, the reluctant one is Hyde.” She folded her arms across her chest.
If her capacity for humility was just a little bit stronger, she might admit she had played a role in their initial interaction not having left a good first impression on either party. But it had been years since she’d exercised any of the emotional muscle requiring both self-reflection and modesty in tandem, so her pride remained a little too stubborn to concede any ground to him. At least she could say she had gone out of her way to avoid him, whereas he had continued to actively try and make a bad impression. He had even scoffed at her proposed carpentry project, doubting her capabilities—as if she wanted or needed his opinion!
No matter, she would just have to prove him wrong.
“Well, as I'm sure you've noticed, he’s not your biggest fan,” Donna stated plainly. “But he’ll leave you alone as long as you leave him alone—for the most part.”
“Whatever, as if I care about anything he does,” Jackie said with a shrug. She then gestured for Donna to get a move on, an eager grin appearing on her lips. “Let’s just go, introduce me to this Eric you’ve been telling me so much about.”
“Oh my god, Jackie, shut up.” She blushed deeply, and tried to school her expression into something neutral.
It was so obvious that the redheaded lumberjack was head over heels for Eric Forman, but for whatever reason she continued to deny her crush. Maybe she just didn’t trust her enough yet to talk about it with her, but Jackie had figured it out all the same. Donna kept referring to him as her ‘best friend’, but the affectionate twinkle in her eyes betrayed her real feelings—and if that weren’t enough, the way she talked about him was a dead giveaway. ‘He loves the same music I do!’ and ‘He’s the funniest guy I know!’ and ‘He loves to watch the Packers like I do!’ Jackie was supportive, of course, but she wanted to understand why Donna was so smitten with him—after all, at no point had Donna described Eric as ‘rugged’ or ‘rich’, which were, like, the two main factors for attractiveness in guys.
“Donna, it’s okay, you can trust me—I’ve done so much research, I’m practically a love doctor.”
The taller girl rolled her eyes again, deciding to just ignore the implication altogether and finally lead Jackie the rest of the way down the basement steps to meet her little, ragtag group of guy friends.
Four boys were sitting in the basement, three of them looked up as they entered. She immediately recognized Fez, who gave them both a friendly smile and a wave from his seat on the couch. “Hello ladies!”
Both of them offered a greeting, and Jackie returned the wave.
Michael Kelso, whom Jackie was moderately familiar with, stood up abruptly from the lawn chair in front of her. At his full height he towered above her, as he flashed her a wolfish grin. “Hey Jackie.”
She blushed a little at the way he was looking at her, and she allowed herself to smile coyly back at him. “Hi Michael.”
But he wasn’t who she was here to meet.
Her eyes flicked away from him, to the skinny beanpole of a boy sitting on the couch next to Fez. He must’ve been Eric, because his eyes lingered on Donna conspicuously before he spoke. “Hey Donna.” He then glanced at her, regarding her a little warily. “And you must be Jackie Burkhart.”
“The one and only!” Jackie batted her lashes, giving a slight curtsy.
“Well, welcome,” Eric said neutrally. Although he hadn’t expressed the same level of disdain as Hyde had upon seeing her for the first time, it was near enough that she immediately didn’t like it. Still she kept a smile on her face—for Donna’s sake—as he gestured to a chip bowl on the table. “We have snacks.”
That left only one more.
Steven Hyde didn’t look in their direction. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of aviator sunglasses and his attention seemed glued to the television screen. He’d only muttered a disinterested, “hey,” as they entered. She chewed on the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from blurting out a snippy comment in his direction.
Be nice, she tried to remind herself, tried to think about what Donna had told her. But she could also hear Pam Burkhart’s dismissive tittering echo in her head, as her mother would often say, ‘Jackie, dear, who needs honey to attract bees when you’re as pretty as we are!’ She opened her mouth to launch a verbal assault in his direction—but was interrupted by Donna noticeably clearing her throat. She closed her mouth.
Donna took a seat between Eric and Fez, and Fez got up and offered her his seat—opting to lean against the arm of the couch.
“Thank you, Fez!” She sat down next to Donna and glanced around the room, before unceremoniously launching into a new conversation with little care or concern for what they might have been discussing before her arrival. “Oh my god, have you guys heard about the new spring fashion line-up that Halverson’s is expecting to come out next month? Bold patterns and sequins are in, if you guys are looking for some style advice—which some of you so clearly need—I can tell you all about what colors would best suit your complexions, if you want?”
“Wow!” Hyde blurted out with sardonic glee. “That’d be super!”
She ignored him, continuing to prattle on despite no one else expressing an interest—ironically or otherwise.
February 17, 1976
(Tuesday Afternoon)
He should’ve known she was trouble from the moment she’d spoken to him at the beginning of the term. She had been hanging out in Forman’s basement multiple times over the weekend, and she almost never stopped talking the entire time she was there. The extra exposure to the strident pitch of her voice had at least made for useful practice in tuning her out—blocking out the trend-obsessed, popular girl nonsense that came out of her mouth. Her mind must’ve operated at a breakneck pace, whether it was about clothes or make-up or school gossip, her stories would meander all over the place in a way that only Donna seemed to somewhat follow.
Kelso and Fez made an effort to follow along, but both of them often got lost in the forest of her babbling—for different reasons, at least. Kelso was just a moron, whereas Fez’s first language wasn’t English. Nevertheless, the two of them acted like moony-eyed dolts whenever she was around, despite the fact that she displayed hardly any interest in what either of them had to say.
There was, however, one thing he’d found funny about her hanging around—though he would be loath to admit it.
Whenever Donna was out of earshot, she would needle Forman about Donna and it was kind of funny to watch him squirm. Funny, but also annoying, because it wasn’t as if Donna and Forman were a sure thing yet. But the way Jackie interrogated him—“Eric, don’t you think Donna looks pretty today?”—seemed to suggest otherwise. Of course, he’d already known that they liked each other, but knowing other people knew about it and were drawing attention to it made him feel restless in a way. Donna was the hottest and coolest chick he knew, and maybe, with Forman dragging his feet the way he was, maybe she deserved someone who would actually make a move.
His awareness was suddenly drawn back into the classroom as Jackie emitted a sharp squeal that cut through his thoughts. He’d gotten better at tuning her out with the weekend practice, but it was, as yet, an imperfect science.
He glanced over at their table when he heard Donna’s laughter followed by: “Oops, sorry, Jackie.”
Donna was holding a hand plane and she must’ve blown her work station off, because there were a bunch of wood shavings tangled in Jackie’s dark hair. The younger girl looked annoyed as she shook out the thick waves, and little pieces of oak scattered to the floor. She made a frustrated sound and said, “Donna! Now my hair is going to smell like a hardware store!”
“Hey, some people really like that smell—it’s rustic,” Donna shot back with a grin.
“I don’t want to smell rustic! I want to smell like a romantic field of flowers, thank you very much!”
Jackie went back to her own project. Her birdhouse was taking shape and she was making pretty impressive progress, all things considered. For a girl that wrote with sparkly pink pens in notebooks with unicorns on the cover, she seemed to be a natural at this shop class type work. The surprise of it was almost like a tickle, tempting him to laugh or smile—but he didn't.
He did, however, wander over to her, scrutinizing her hair.
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “What do you want, Hyde?”
She still didn’t address him in a friendly tone—which was just as well since neither did he towards her—but she was no longer acting like he didn’t belong around Donna (or her, by extension). Maybe she was just becoming familiar with him. Whether that was for better or for worse, he wasn’t quite sure yet.
He’d put money on ‘for worse’, though.
“Hold on a sec,” he said, as he reached towards her. He was expecting her to smack his hand away, but her eyes only narrowed suspiciously as she stood her ground. He smirked and gently plucked a stray wood shaving out of her hair. He held it up to her face before flicking it towards the ground.
“You missed one.”
A blush crept across her face, but she seemed otherwise unaffected as she exclaimed with annoyance, “ugh, whatever.”
He laughed as he walked back to his table. He was still feeling sure and certain that this whole ‘being friends’ thing between her and Donna was temporary. There was no way it would last.