Always - A Jackie and Hyde One Shot

Always

"...it runs on water, man". Hyde smiled his goofy, high-as-a-kite smile as he finished his theory, often revisited in the circle.
"Anyway..." Kelso changed the subject, "Brooke still won't do anything with me and cheek kisses are getting old".
"Were cheek kisses ever new and exciting, Kelso?" Eric asked, skeptically.
"I would do anything for the warm touch of a woman's rosy lips to my cheek" Fez said, dreamily. Hyde, Kelso and Eric stared at him in confusion and amusement for a moment, soon writing it off as a symptom of his being foreign, being in the midst of an almost impressive dry spell and, mostly, Fez being just plain weird.
Suddenly, Red charged down the stairs, ordering all the dumbasses who didn't live in his house to vacate it. Hyde assumed he was angry at Eric for something and decided, despite his current residence in the Forman house, that he would leave along with the others.
When he reached the El Camino, a strange feeling overtook Hyde and he froze with his hand on the open driver's side door. His Camino had been a gift from Leo and as Hyde stared at the dented fender and ran his fingers over the scratches on the driver's side door, he thought about how Leo was gone. And just like that Hyde was hit like a ton of bricks with the realization that everyone he had ever cared about had left him and the ones that hadn't probably would soon, if the past was any indication. Bud, Edna, Bud again, Leo — they had all left him and taken some part of Hyde with them. Hyde wasn't terribly in touch with his emotions, but he was pretty sure that this train of thought had left him feeling some sick form of nostalgia. He missed home — not the Forman's house, which, truth be told, had always felt safer than his own, even before moving in there. No, he missed the home he had grown up in. Inexplicably, he missed his broken, drunken, dirty, dangerous home in that shitty, crime-ridden neighborhood in that small house with Edna. Edna ... he sort of missed his mom. She had never been warm or loving or particularly motherly towards him, but she was still his mother. And, despite the abusive boyfriends and the alcohol and the drugs and the running out on him, some strange part of him missed her too. But when he thought about what a mother was, it seemed that somewhere along the way, Edna had stopped fitting the bill; not because she had changed, but because he had. Hyde's perception of what a mother is had changed. He figured Mrs. Forman was to blame. Because now when he thought of a mother, he thought of what she was for Eric: a safe place, open arms always ready to wrap you in a warm hug, a source of wisdom and advice and absolutely unconditional love. But, she was sort of that for Hyde too, wasn't she? She had taken him in, cared for him and protected him. And, with that thought, the profound feelings of loss and despair began to melt away. He hadn't lost a mother and he hadn't lost a home, he had just replaced them. And he had taken an upgrade, too.
Nonetheless, Hyde felt like he had to go see his old home. Now, not because he missed it, but because he had to say goodbye to it. He needed closure.
He would go to his old home and then he would never go back. He would leave that part of his life behind.

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And suddenly, there he was. He knew the way from the Forman's house to his own like the back of his hand. He had made the walk so many times growing up, it was like second nature. He would make a left, make another left, wonder if his mother's boyfriend would be there when he got home, make a right, hope to god that if his mother's boyfriend was there, he was asleep, keep going straight until he reached the stop sign on which he had spray painted his name, pray that if his mother's boyfriend was there and awake that he wasn't drunk because when he was sober, he didn't hurt him and just grunted on the couch, hang a left at the drug den, fear for his life if his mother's boyfriend was there and awake and drunk for just a moment before he made one last left and his dirty, old shack of a house came into view.
And although Hyde had no angry, drunken boyfriends to fear at this house anymore, he still found himself running through that same string of emotions he had always felt going home.
He parked in front of the house and reached for the door handle, but paused before opening it. Did he really want to go in there? Terrible, scarred-for-life type of things had happened to him in that house.
The memories flashed before his eyes. He remembered waking up the morning after Bud left and watching his mother cry until she went out and got drunk and high on god knows what and came home absolutely shit-faced and told a ten year old Hyde that his father had left and then passed out on the couch. He remembered the first boyfriend Edna brought home, Kevin, and the first time he watched him hit her. He remembered crying himself to sleep that night, unable to get the image of his mother's bloodied face out of his mind. He remembered the second boyfriend and the third and the fourth and all the others after that, until their names and their abuses started to blend together. He remembered the first time one of his mother's boyfriend's had tried to hurt him and he remembered how his mother had screamed and fought and told him to go to his room and stay there until she came to get him. He remembered that she had protected him exactly six times before she just stopped trying. He remembered the night he had been beaten within an inch of his life and she cleaned him up and hugged him, saying nothing but an empty "I'm sorry". He remembered the night he was beaten within an inch of his life and she did nothing; no bandages, no "I'm sorry" and he remembered every time after that when she had nothing to offer. He remembered waking up one morning to find his mother gone and he remembered when he realized she wasn't coming back. He remembered that he hadn't cried like his mother had when his father left. He hadn't gotten drunk or high or passed out on the couch. He remembered trying to survive all alone in that house until everyone found out and the Formans had taken him in. That house was filled with memories, the worst moments of his life.
But yes, he did want to go in there. Hyde knew that despite the emotions that seeing the house brought forth, his reasoning for going held up: he had to let go of that part of his life, the good and the bad and the so bad he wouldn't even tell Jackie because he knew it would break her. So, he pushed the door open, got off his ass and made the short walk from the street to his old front door.
The door wasn't locked, it never was, and he opened it without hesitation. There were a lot of bad things he had expected to see when he entered the house: rats, broken bottles, broken everything, rotting food, blood, needles. There was one thing he had completely ruled out the possibility of laying his eyes on upon entering his old house. He had never, not for a moment, thought that his mother could have returned to the house, been living there and have not said anything to him, the son she had abandoned in that house. But there she was, drunk and bruised, lying before him on the dirty couch in the center of the room. Hyde tried his hardest not to think about the times he had seen his mother in this position before. She didn't look good, beyond her being drunk off her ass. At a cursory glance, Hyde spotted bruises on her arms and legs, a cut on her cheek and dried blood on the left corner of her lip. She had probably been beaten by another abusive boyfriend and Hyde didn't feel as bad as maybe he should've.
All Hyde could manage was a strangled "What is wrong with you?" He went on, "What the fuck? I mean, leaving is fucking one thing, but coming back and not saying anything to me ... Jesus Christ." Now he was yelling. "I guess I was wrong. You actually didn't fucking care about me.  I don't think you ever really did. Lord knows you never cared for me. I mean, you treated me like shit — like absolute trash. You were the worst mother in the fucking history of bad mothers. Pretty much doesn't get worse than you."
He couldn't stop. It was all pouring out of him, vulgar and honest. Edna stared at him with glassy, drunken eyes for a long moment before she spoke, her voice hoarse and dry from alcohol and disuse, "I'm sorry". And the words were all too familiar. She had said them before and they had never meant anything. Hyde's blood boiled. But she went on, "I loved you. I cared about you. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't stop them from hurting you. It was too hard. They never stopped. It never, never stopped." She stared off into the distance, distractedly. Hyde almost wanted to accept whatever bullshit apology she had offered and just stop being angry. Almost. But it was more than clear that she didn't understand and she didn't care because she couldn't seem to really take the blame and she was still drunk and she still dated abusive men. She was right. It never, never stopped.
He knew that nothing had changed, that his mother was still an absolute disaster, but the thought of leaving her behind, just like she had done to him, still tore him up inside. It didn't feel anything close to the sweet revenge he had imagined he would inflict if he ever saw her again. Hyde felt no pride or sense of justice in what he knew he had to do. He felt only cruelty in his actions. He had never hated himself more.
Hyde closed his eyes for a few short seconds and then turned back towards the door, taking small, staggering steps until he could feel his foot push the gas pedal in his Camino. He drove the same path back to the Formans' that he had taken to his old house: left, fear, left, pray, straight, hope, right, wonder, left, left — until he reached his destination. This time, Hyde didn't feel any of those things as he passed the drug den and the stop sign. No, he felt an entirely different set of loathsome emotions.