Ahh, the line breaks are back. Thank goodness; I missed them far more than I reasonably should have.

Anyway, this is just something I was playing around with. It's third person POV, which isn't something I use very often, so forgive me if it feels weird. This first chapter is kind of the prologue, I guess you could say, and I want to go back in the next chapter and focus on Emma and her relationships a few weeks before this scene.

Constructive criticism is always welcome.

Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders, and Wham owns Careless Whispers, which the lyrics at the top are from. I only own what you don't recognize.


Prologue

There's no comfort in the truth / pain is all you'll find

Quietly, an exhausted middle-aged man slipped through his front door and padded softly to his room. Lying on the left side of the bed, his wife stared at the wall, her eyes open.

When she detected his presence, she sat up, turning on the lamp by the bed. For a moment, she only studied her husband's face, her expression guarded. "Long day?"

George Mansfield nodded, running a hand across his eyes. A day on the force was always hard, but that night had been worse than ever before. The woman waited a moment to see if he would explain why he was stumbling in at three in the morning, but when he said nothing she left it alone. Judging from the agony in his eyes, something had happened that he wasn't quite ready to discuss.

Diane's face softened and she gestured him over. Gently pulling his shoulders down to make him sit on the edge of the bed, she started to massage his muscles. Sometimes it was hard, being married to a police officer. George never got off work on time and he was always coming home upset by things he had seen. But even still, she loved him. It was his deep-seeded need to make all things right that attracted her to him in the first place.

She would stay by his side despite the hardships. Diane always made sure her two children understood the good things their father did for Tulsa. Roger looked up to George with fervor, his short ten years blatantly obvious in the way he wanted only to be just like his father. It was sixteen-year-old Emma that was sometimes a problem.

George was not Emma's real father, only her stepdad, and although she easily accepted him as family, she was at the age that she was becoming less and less loyal to her parents. She loved them, of course, but she challenged them constantly. Even still, Emma respected her parents, and she was proud of her stepfather's righteous nature.

"I shot a boy," George said abruptly, his voice thick with sorrow. Diane gasped in spite of herself, and quickly regretted it when she saw the pain flash through her husband's eyes.

Letting go of his shoulders, she scooted back on the bed so he could sit across from her, which he did. Quietly, her eyes wide, she waited for him to explain.

"He couldn't have been older than eighteen. I didn't know him that well, but some of the other guys did. I'd heard of him plenty though, of course. No one at the station hasn't—he gets hauled in all the time."

As he spoke, George's eyes flitted with grief at his actions, and Diane's heart sank for her husband. She knew in her heart that whatever had happened hadn't been his fault.

"This kid, he robbed a store. He was runnin' when we caught up with him, and he pulled a gun on us."

Now, his eyes shimmered with tears that he would never let fall.

"All I could think about was you, and Emma and Roger. I didn't wanna die, Diane," George's voice was desperate, pleading with his wife to understand, and she took his hand in her own, squeezing it to reassure him that she did.

"So I pulled the trigger. It wouldn't have mattered if I hadn't, Charlie and Jack were shooting too."

Diane silenced her husband, putting a finger to his lips as she saw him losing control over his voice. "You did the right thing. He could have killed you," she said quietly, not wanting to wake the kids down the hall.

At her words, he let out a strangled sound, and managed to say, "The gun wasn't loaded."

It took her a minute to comprehend what her husband had just said, and by the time she got it, he was lying down on top of the covers, still dressed in his navy blue uniform, his eyes shut tightly against the tears that threatened to fall.

All Diane could think about was that boy. Why on Earth would he point an unloaded gun at the police? He must have known he'd be shot. The only thing she could imagine was that he had forgotten it wasn't loaded.

It didn't matter anyway, because the bottom line was that her husband was in wrenching pain at that moment, overwhelmed with regret. So pushing away her shocked musings, she turned off the lamp and laid back under the covers, hugging George with one arm as she snuggled closer to him, trying desperately to make him realize he wasn't alone.