March 15, 1958 — Point Place, Wisconsin
The first thing Monica understood was that she was still alive.
Not alive the way she'd been—grown, aching, exhausted, with hands that smelled like toner and acetone and lavender oil, with a calendar full of clients and a mind full of plans that never stopped scrolling. Not alive with a phone buzzing in her pocket and music streaming through earbuds and the world moving at the speed of a swipe.
This alive was… small.
Small enough that the air itself felt heavy. Small enough that the ceiling lights were galaxies. Small enough that the sound of her own cry ripped out of her like it didn't belong to her at all.
And yet her mind—her mind was unmistakably hers.
It slammed awake in the middle of chaos: sharp voices, clattering metal, the sting of antiseptic, the pressure of hands that lifted and turned her, the rush of cold that made her lungs seize and then obey.
She tried to form a word.
Nothing came out but a wet, furious wail.
No. No, no, no—
Her thoughts were adult-fast and adult-terrified, but her body was a newborn's. She couldn't sit up. Couldn't open her eyes properly. Couldn't even breathe without being reminded that everything about her had been reset down to the bone.
Somewhere to her left, another cry cut through the room—higher, more demanding, as if the universe owed her something.
Laurie, Monica realized with a clarity so strong it felt like a blow.
The name wasn't hers, not from her old life, but it arrived in her head anyway, packaged with a whole avalanche of knowing: Point Place. The Formans. The basement. The circle. Red's scowl. Kitty's laugh. Eric's face.
Her heart—tiny, frantic—kicked against her ribs.
That 70's Show.
It was ridiculous. Impossible. A sitcom. A set. A world she'd watched the way you watched storms from a window.
And yet—here she was, screaming in a hospital that smelled like bleach and boiled linen, in a time where the air didn't hum with Wi-Fi and nobody looked down at glowing screens.
Her memory came in flashes: her former name—Monica Jeverkoski—written on a certificate. Her salon chair. Her kit of shears laid out like a ritual. The way people looked at her hands when she did something delicate and perfect, like she'd stolen their confidence and stitched it back on prettier.
Then the flash dimmed, and the present yanked her under.
"Two minutes," someone said, brisk and satisfied, as if two minutes meant nothing. "That's it. She's right behind her."
Behind her.
Monica's throat clenched around another cry she didn't mean to make.
Behind Laurie.
Two minutes behind a girl who would grow up to weaponize smiles and cruelty like they were lipstick shades.
But that wasn't the worst part.
The worst part was the feeling that settled over her like a blanket soaked in ice:
She remembered everything.
Everything she'd been. Everything she'd lost. Everything she hadn't gotten to do yet.
And she remembered what this family became.
A shape leaned over her. The shadow smelled like sweat and soap and something metallic—work. A man's voice, rough around the edges, softened in a way she didn't know men like that could soften.
"Look at her," he said quietly.
Warmth came with it—hands, bigger than her whole body, firm but careful as he received her. Monica's world shrank down to the weight of those hands and the deep vibration of his voice traveling through her.
Her eyes, still blurry and overwhelmed, tried to focus.
A face emerged: square jaw, dark brows, a seriousness that looked permanent even when he wasn't scowling.
Red Forman.
Her dad.
The word hit her so hard she nearly forgot to breathe.
Not Red like a TV character, not Red like a punchline. Red like a man with real hands and real warmth and a pulse in his wrist where Monica's tiny fingers reflexively curled.
Her fingers closed.
His thumb stilled against her back as if her grip had surprised him.
"Would you look at that," he murmured, almost to himself.
Monica tried to hold on harder.
She couldn't speak. She couldn't explain. But in that moment, with that grip, she made a vow that settled into her bones like something ancient:
If I'm here, I'm not wasting it.
Someone laughed through tears nearby—bright and ringing, a sound like sunlight on kitchen tiles.
"Oh, Red," a woman's voice said, and Monica felt her whole body tilt as the man turned.
Kitty Forman. Her mom.
Kitty's face hovered, soft and damp with emotion. She looked exhausted and radiant at the same time, the way only mothers looked in old photographs—hair pinned back, lipstick faded, eyes bright with disbelief.
"Oh my God," Kitty whispered. "Hi, sweetheart. Hi. Oh—look at you—"
Kitty kissed Monica's forehead, and the heat of it made Monica's eyes sting.
In her old life she'd been older than both of them. In her old life she'd had bills and clients and a spine full of tension and the kind of independence you earned by bleeding for it.
In this life, she was a newborn, and the way Kitty looked at her—like Monica was the best thing that had ever happened—nearly broke her.
Behind the curtain of her newborn body, Monica's mind spun.
Okay. Think. You can't panic. You can't… you can't just scream for eighteen years.
But she could plan.
She could build.
And she knew—she knew—that she had exactly two advantages in this impossible second chance:
1) she remembered a future that hadn't happened yet,
and
2) she was being held by the one man in Point Place who would protect what was his, even if it meant punching the world.
Red Forman didn't look like a protector. He looked like a storm with a job and a temper.
But Monica had watched the show. She'd watched what he did for his family even when he didn't know how to say it.
And in her new life, with her tiny fingers still wrapped around his thumb, she decided something else too—something quieter, more dangerous:
I'm going to make him proud.
Not with the kind of pride that came from being pretty or obedient.
The kind of pride that made men like Red stand taller without meaning to.
Across the room, the other baby wailed again. The sound was sharp, offended, already certain the world owed her attention.
Kitty turned her head. "Is that Laurie? Oh—oh honey—"
Red's mouth twitched as if he was trying not to smile. "That one's got lungs."
Kitty let out a watery laugh. "She's going to be a handful."
Monica lay in Red's arms and listened, cataloguing the moment like a historian.
Laurie is two minutes older. I'm two minutes behind. Two minutes doesn't matter… unless you let it.
She tried to turn her head toward the sound—toward her twin—but the effort was too much. She could only shift enough to catch a smear of pink and the blur of a tiny face.
Laurie, squalling like she'd been born to demand.
Monica didn't hate her. Not yet. Hate required energy, and Monica's body had none.
But she felt something that would one day grow teeth:
Competition.
Not over Red and Kitty. Not over love.
Over survival.
Because Monica remembered the future—remembered the way Laurie could charm a room and then burn it down, remembered the way Eric would become the family's soft spot and the family's excuse, remembered the way people assumed the loudest child was the most important.
Monica couldn't afford to be invisible.
Not in this house.
Not in this town.
Not in this era.
Red adjusted her in his arms, careful and gruff, and Monica's cheek pressed against his shirt. It smelled like soap and metal and work and home.
"I'll be right back," Kitty said, voice hurried with worry as she turned toward Laurie's cries.
Red didn't hand Monica over.
He stood there, holding her, watching Kitty with a look that softened at the edges. It was subtle—barely there—but Monica saw it anyway.
Because she'd always been good at seeing what people tried to hide.
In her old life, it had made her good at reading clients: who was grieving, who was lying, who needed a gentler touch, who needed to be told the truth.
Now she read Red.
He was tired. He was terrified. He was proud. He didn't know what to do with any of it.
Monica's eyelids drooped.
Newborn physiology didn't care about existential crises. The body wanted sleep and milk and warmth and nothing else.
But Monica fought it long enough to take in one more detail: the way Red's hand cupped her back as if he was afraid she'd break.
Good, Monica thought, drifting. Be afraid.
Be careful.
I'm going to do things in this life that will scare you.
And then, as the world blurred and softened at the edges, another thought rose like a small, steady flame:
I won't call you Red. You're my dad. Always.
—
She woke in pieces.
Sound first: the squeak of shoes in a hallway, the distant ring of a phone, a nurse's voice like a metronome.
Then smell: powder, clean cloth, and the faint, always-present antiseptic tang.
Then touch: the scratch of blankets, the cool air kissing her face.
Her eyes fluttered open, but "open" was generous. Everything was milky and wrong. She could see light and movement, not clarity.
Someone leaned into her field of vision.
Kitty's face appeared, closer than before, softer now with exhaustion. "Hi, sweetheart," Kitty whispered again, as if the words were a spell she could cast to keep Monica safe.
Monica tried to smile.
Her lips twitched. That was all.
Kitty laughed anyway. "Oh, I think you're going to be my sweet one."
Monica's mind snagged on the phrase.
Sweet one.
In the show, Kitty called Eric "honey" and "sweetie" like she couldn't help it. Laurie was… Laurie. A princess, a problem, a performance.
But Kitty was calling Monica the sweet one.
Monica's chest tightened.
I can work with that.
A shadow moved behind Kitty, and Red's voice came from somewhere near the door. "How's she doing?"
Kitty turned. "She's awake! And she made a little face. Like she's thinking."
Red snorted. "She's a baby."
"She's my baby," Kitty shot back, like that settled it.
Monica's gaze drifted toward Red's silhouette. The shape of him was unmistakable: broad shoulders, posture like a man who refused to bend, even for happiness.
Red stepped closer, and Monica's world filled with him.
His expression was neutral, but his eyes were on her like he was taking inventory.
"Hey," he said, gruff, as if greeting her like a person. "You sleep?"
Monica blinked slowly.
Red's jaw shifted, as if her blink meant something. "That's good."
Kitty reached down to adjust Monica's blanket, gentle hands tucking and smoothing. "Your sister's awake too. She's… oh, Red, she's got opinions."
From somewhere nearby, Laurie shrieked, outraged at being a baby in a world that wouldn't obey.
Kitty winced. "See? Opinions."
Red sighed in a way that sounded like a man already imagining the next eighteen years.
Monica wanted to laugh. She couldn't.
She could barely wiggle her fingers.
But her mind ran anyway, chasing future threads.
I can't do anything yet. I can't write. I can't sew. I can't invest. I can't—
She stopped herself.
Not yet.
But she could observe. She could memorize. She could build a map in her mind of the people who mattered, the moments that would define everything.
And she could start with one small, vital truth:
This family was real.
Red and Kitty were real.
They weren't sitcom safe. They weren't protected by laugh tracks.
If Monica was going to change anything—if she was going to survive with her mind intact—she couldn't treat this like fiction.
She had to treat it like business.
Like war.
Like love.
Kitty leaned in again, brushing Monica's hair with her fingertips. "We're going to take you home soon," she whispered. "And you're going to have a room, and you're going to have toys, and you're going to have everything you need."
Red muttered, "Within reason."
Kitty shot him a look over Monica's tiny body. "She's a twin, Red. She needs her own things. She can't always—"
"She can share," Red said automatically.
Kitty's eyes narrowed. "You would say that."
Red didn't argue. He looked down at Monica instead, and for a moment his stern face softened—just a crack.
"Don't worry," he said, almost like a promise. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."
Monica's throat tightened.
Her old life had been full of promises people didn't keep—promises to show up, to care, to protect.
Red sounded like a man who meant it.
Monica wanted to tell him she was going to make him rich enough to spit in the face of the factory. That she was going to build something so big Point Place wouldn't be able to ignore them. That she was going to need him as more than a father.
As a shield.
As a manager.
As the one adult in her world she could trust not to sell her for a paycheck.
But all she could do was stare and blink.
Kitty lifted Monica carefully, the way mothers did, and cradled her against her chest.
The warmth was immediate.
Monica's body settled, soothed by the heartbeat beneath her cheek.
Her mind—still sharp, still adult—quieted just enough to let her feel something she hadn't expected:
Not dread.
Not panic.
Not even anger.
Something softer, heavier.
Hope.
And with it, the faint outline of the person she was going to become.
Not Laurie's twin.
Not Eric's shadow.
Not Point Place's odd little "gifted" girl.
Monica Forman.
A name that would one day mean contracts, headlines, flights, recordings, royalty checks, and a man named Beau Burkhart who hadn't even entered her life yet.
A name that would make Eric choke on resentment and Laurie bite her tongue for profit.
A name that would get Red out of that factory.
A name that would give Kitty weekends that weren't spent worrying about bills.
Monica's eyelids drooped again.
Newborn sleep reached for her like a tide.
Before she slipped under, she caught one more sound—Kitty murmuring to a nurse, voice proud and shy at once.
"Monica Katherine," Kitty said, tasting the name like it was sweet. "Monica Katherine Forman."
Monica sank into sleep with the name wrapped around her like a spell.
Two minutes behind Laurie.
Two years ahead of Eric.
And a lifetime ahead of everyone else.