"They'd never believe a greasy-lookin' mug could be a hero." But looks can be deceiving, can't they?

-Steve Randle

ignorance is the best kind of wisdom

Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsiders; all credit goes to SE Hinton.

Hero

~Rae Reegan

The first grade curriculum never taught you what to do in a fire.

She knew that if she was on fire, she should just stop, drop, and roll. But she wasn't on fire; everything else was.

The flames danced everywhere she looked, climbing and spreading and lapping at anything they touched to the point where she couldn't even tell up from down. It was disorienting, terrifying, and the intensity of the light hurt her eyes. All she could smell was the acrid, suffocating fumes of the smoke, and all she could feel was the heavy layer of heat that blanketed everything. She was breathing heavily, wildly, erratically… but she couldn't seem to get any air. Her throat was burning and her lungs were working overtime, and she still couldn't breath. This knowledge just made her breath faster, and she started to get an even stronger dizzy, light-headed feeling than before.

But the worst part about the fire was the dark.

No one had ever told her it would be dark. But whenever she turned to try and run away from the flames, it was like she'd just closed her eyes, and that scared her most of all. She couldn't see a single thing besides the fire… the taunting, advancing fire... Now she worried about the flames burning her and about getting lost in the dark, or something jumping out at her, or tripping and falling on some hidden thing and not being able to find her way out…

She stumbled forward blindly, trying to find some kind of escape, but there was still nothing but darkness and flames. Finally, her legs just gave out, and she collapsed with her back against a wall. She curled into a ball, hoping it would somehow help protect her. She wanted to panic. She wanted to get up and yell and keep looking for an exit, but she couldn't. Her eyes stung, her throat hurt, and her entire body ached; she couldn't even open her mouth. She could hear her friends somewhere in the distance, screaming for help, but they were so far away…

They were gone.

She was alone.

She was going to die. She knew it. It scared her, and she suddenly wished for her mother or father or teacher… anyone…

She didn't want to die in the dark.

And suddenly, above the roar of the fire around her, she heard the pounding of footsteps and the welcome sound of frantic, shouting voices. She struggled to her hands and knees, dragging herself towards the noises that meant freedom, but her sense of direction was still muddled by the confusing labyrinth of light and dark, muffled sound, and blazing heat. Eventually, she just lost her will to keep moving, even though the voices sounded closer… or was she just imagining it?

Either way, when she finally tripped, she didn't get up…

That is, until she felt someone hauling her to her feet.

She didn't know who it was, but she didn't care. He was saying something to her, and she tried to listen, but she could feel her eyelids drooping even then, in the face of death. Her world was going fuzzy, and she was falling into blackness. She was desperately fighting against it, but it was so overwhelming, so powerful…

As she drifted away, the only thing going through her head was a single, repeating mantra: I don't want to die in the dark…

And the last thing she saw was her rescuer's black, greasy hair, and his dark, fear-filled eyes.

Then she fell into the darkness.

"Lucy! Lucy, dear, look! You're in the newspaper!"

A week later, the same first-grader ran through her high-society house at the sound of her mother's voice, stopping at the fancy couch in their pristine living room where her parent was sitting, gesturing towards the first page of the daily paper. She tried to peek over the arm of the couch, but the print was too small for her to read.

"I'm in the newspaper?" she repeated, still straining for a glimpse at it.

Her mother smiled and pulled her up onto the seat next to her, holding the paper down at her level. "Yes, you see? You made the front page!"

Lucy's young eyes scanned the article, but she could only recognize a few words here and there: Fire… Church… Boys…

"He saved me!"

Her sudden exclamation was because she saw that there, on the front page, was a picture of the boy. She knew it was him not because of his tan skin or his curly, black hair, but because of the look in his eyes; even though the picture was grainy, she could see that same haunted, hurt look reflected in them that she remembered from the fire.

There were two other photographs there, both of boys that looked about the same age. They were both blonde, and both of them seemed very… sad. She had no other way to put it; they had such immense sorrow in their expressions that it was overwhelming. However, one of them looked hard and cold, like he didn't care about anything, while the other had a sort of kind look to his eyes. She didn't know what either of them had to do with the fire, but they were there.

"Mommy, what do those words say by his picture?" She looked up expectantly, pointing at the first boy's photo.

Her mother frowned. She seemed hesitant, but Lucy was so insistent… Eventually, she cleared her throat and read aloud: "'Johnny Cade; sixteen-year-old hoodlum turned hero.'"

Lucy beamed at her mom. "He really is a hero! I have to tell him thank you—"

"No, sweetie, you can't," her mother interrupted sharply.

Lucy's smile faltered, and she turned a confused gaze up to her. "Why not? He did something nice. You told me I should always thank someone who did something nice."

Her mother heaved a long, heavy sigh, as if this were a conversation that she'd been dreading. Still, the way she saw it, her daughter needed to hear this eventually and now was as good a time as any. "Look, Lucy… you really just can't thank him."

Lucy shook her head, interrupting her mother's already halting explanation. "But I have to! It's the right thing to do!"

The mother rubbed her daughter's shoulder comfortingly. In truth, she had been hoping that Lucy wouldn't ask about Johnny Cade at all. The article went on to say that he had already passed away because of the burns he suffered during the fire… How was she supposed to tell her six-year-old daughter that her new hero was dead? That would just crush her, and she certainly didn't want that. Still, she had to tell her something; otherwise, she'd run off on a never-ending quest to find him and find out eventually from someone else.

The older woman bit her lip as she realized that her best option was to lie. She didn't like the idea, but if it would spare Lucy's feelings, then it was worth it.

She looked down and sighed. "He's… missing, Lucy. After the fire, he ran off somewhere, and… they just don't know where he is." She stopped talking, taking in her daughter's distraught expression. "I'm so sorry, sweetie… but there's no way to find him."

Lucy nodded mutely, staring down at her lap. Truthfully, she was starting to cry, and she didn't want her mom to see.

She hadn't done a very good job of hiding it, anyway, and her mother's gaze softened with sympathy. "Do you want to help me bake some cookies?" she asked, hoping to cheer her up and help her forget.

Lucy paused for a while before looking up, but when she did, the tears were gone and she flashed a genuine smile. "Yes."

Her mother returned the smile warmly as she stood up and set the paper on the coffee table, glad that she'd gotten Lucy's spirits up. "Let's get started, then."

However, what she didn't know was that it hadn't been her promise of baked sweets that had put the grin on her daughter's face; it was because she'd already made a plan.

She was going to find Johnny Cade somehow and thank him for saving her life.

The next day, the elementary school recess bell sounded, and Lucy raced outside to the playground with all her classmates. But she chose to head alone to the field with a red kickball that afternoon instead of playing tag like she usually did because she wanted some time to herself to think about how she would thank the boy from the newspaper. She still hadn't been able to figure it out, and time was ticking away. So she set the ball on the ground in front of her and kicked it around absentmindedly, following it wherever it went as she concentrated on her meandering thoughts.

Besides his name, she didn't know anything about him. That wasn't a lot to go on. She didn't know where to find him, so she couldn't thank him in person, and she didn't know his address, so she couldn't send him a letter… And apparently, he was missing, so even if she had known everything about him, it wouldn't have made a difference. It was frustrating; she knew exactly what she wanted to say, but that didn't mean a thing if she couldn't find the person she needed to say it to.

She frowned in frustration and kicked the ball as hard as she could, sending it tumbling away, but suddenly let out a small gasp when she realized how close she was to the road. She'd wandered all the way to the edge of the schoolyard, and had just sentenced the kickball to death by sending it sailing towards the busy street. Her first impulse was to run after it, so she immediately took off chasing it, charging towards speeding traffic without realizing her mistake. But just as she reached the edge of the grass that marked school property, someone came racing down the sidewalk in a blur of denim and quick-moving limbs. Whoever it was stepped between Lucy and the road, grabbed the ball just in time to save it from tumbling off the curb, and turned around to return it to her.

Lucy grinned and exclaimed, "Thank you for saving my kickball, Mister!" then reached out to take it back, but stopped short when she recognized who was standing in front of her.

"You're the boy from the newspaper!" she exclaimed excitedly as she grabbed the ball and threw it to the ground behind her.

The boy's smile faltered, and his gaze dropped to his feet, but he nodded a bit and mumbled, "Yeah, that's me."

Lucy clapped her hands in delight and started bouncing in place. It was the kind-looking boy with the sad eyes and blonde hair that she'd seen in the picture with Johnny Cade. But she still didn't know his name, or what he had to do with the fire.

"And do you know a Mr. Johnny Cade?" she asked hopefully, completely oblivious to the sorrow he was poorly hiding from his expression.

All at once, at the mention of that name, a conflicting storm of emotions crossed his face: grief, hurt, confusion, pity, indecision… Yet it was so fast that Lucy didn't notice any of it, naïve as she was. She didn't know about the internal battle that was raging through him at that moment, practically tearing him apart, and she didn't realize what kind of memories her questions were making him relive.

And so, she didn't know that she should have been surprised when he finally said in a small voice, "Yeah, I know him. He's… he's a friend of mine."

Lucy nodded and leaned forward, anticipation fluttering in her stomach. "Then… could you please tell him thank you for me?"

The boy stood there, stunned into silence as Lucy looked up at him expectantly. For a while, he could only gape at her and look confused… but eventually, his expression darkened with sadness, he let out a small, choked noise, and he shook his head.

Lucy's face immediately fell. She looked away and began playing with the hem of her shirt, doing her best to stop the tears that were threatening to fall. She didn't want him to see her cry just because she didn't get her way.

"O…okay," she whispered in a small voice. "Thank you anyway."

As she turned away, she hurriedly brought her hand up to wipe away a salty tear as she felt it leak out and trace a path down her cheek. Her mother had been right: she shouldn't have even tried. He was missing. No matter what she did, a little first grader would never be able to change that.

Once she'd realized this, it meant she officially came to terms with the fact that she'd never get to thank him… and that's why she was sobbing into her hand as she trailed dejectedly back to the rest of her classmates, unable to stop the tears this time. She couldn't even handle thinking about it. She knew that she would just have to forget about all of this, act like it had never happened—she was already forcing herself to think about what to do with the rest of her recess…

"For what?"

The sound of his voice stopped her dead in her tracks. She quickly spun around and was surprised to find the boy still standing there. For the first time, she noticed the anguish in his expression… but this time, it was mixed in with something much more powerful: hope… hope for closure.

However, the most shocking thing that Lucy noticed about him was that he was crying now, too.

"Thank him for what?" he repeated shakily, through the tears. He didn't even bother to wipe them away, almost like he was used to their numbing presence.

It was Lucy's turn to hesitate. While she didn't know why, she could tell there was something wrong with him. He just seemed so… broken. She didn't know how she'd missed it before, but he was radiating wave after wave of intense sorrow, and his eyes were deeply shadowed by hurt. She didn't know how it was possible for one person to be that damaged all at once… but it wasn't right, and she was going to do her best to help him get fixed.

So, she proceeded to the last thing that he expected from her:

She ran forward and threw herself into the best bear hug that a six-year-old girl could give.

He stumbled back a bit, surprised, and looked down at her for an explanation. His arms were hovering by his sides, unsure, while she had hers wrapped around his stomach, since she'd managed to jump up that high. He didn't know where she'd suddenly gotten the idea that he needed a hug… but when she looked up and smiled encouragingly at him, a few stray tears still trailing down her face, he couldn't help but smile back. She was right. He knelt down on the sidewalk so that he was nearly at her level, and this time, they shared an embrace. Both of them were still crying, and both for someone else besides themselves. They were two total strangers, and yet they were closer than some friends would ever get to be in a lifetime.

Because of this, he thought he might finally be ready to let go, to stop living in the past and denying the present…

Then she whispered something to him, and that's when he knew that he'd finally found the last bit of closure that he'd been waiting for ever since he wrote his theme; that's when he knew it was okay to move on.

"Tell him thank you for being a hero."