Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns the characters from The Outsiders, not I.

Saturday, 12th September, 1966.

He lay still and silent, biding his time until the nurse finished her check-up and left him the hell alone.

The sound of shuffling feet coming from the corridor outside his room told him it was time for the hospital rounds to change. He crept to the chair nearest the window and unfolded his clothes. He pulled them over his bruised and burnt body. The switch-blade Two-Bit had handed him sat comfortably in the back pocket of his jeans as he snuck out of his room and down the corridor to the staircase.

It was easy enough for him to slip by unnoticed in the bustle of nurses as they changed rounds; it was easy enough to pick out who was just starting and who was going home. Some walked briskly, eager for their shift to begin while others wiped the sweat from their brow, happy to be going home. He didn't give a crap about any of them. Tim had mentioned Johnny was on the floor below; now all he had to do was find the right room.

He took the stairs a floor down. He poked his head around the first few doors; he felt sick already. These people were covered in bandages, hooked up to machines and drips. The idea of Johnny being in one of those rooms made his stomach churn.

It wasn't until he made it to the sixth door that he saw a familiar face. "Johnny?" he asked, unsure.

Johnny looked over at the door, expecting to see another one of the doctors or nurses, ready to poke and prod at him some more. He looked relived to see Dally stood in the doorway. Two-Bit and Pony had dropped in earlier but no one had told him anything about Dally - if it wasn't for Dal he knew he'd of died in that church. Dallas was a hero, even if he didn't want to admit it.

"Hey, Dally." His voice was hoarse and strained.

The door shut quietly behind Dally as he stepped into the room. Seeing him lying there, bandaged and bruised, made him see his friend in a new light. For once he didn't look down at the kid and see how tough he was, see the fighter he knew Johnny was. For the first time he looked at him and saw the one thing that made his teeth grit in anger; he saw him damaged.

They'd all seen Johnny roughed up from his old man before, even beat up by the Socs, but Dallas had never seen this look in the kid's eyes. The toughness had left his face and was replaced by defeat.

He sat in the chair next to Johnny's bed. "Jesus Christ, Johnny," he muttered.

"Shucks, Dal, I don't look that bad," Johnny joked.

His voice was raspy like he'd just smoked three packs of Kools all at once. His was bangered from head to toe apart from his hands and face. Dallas looked at the crisp skin, or at least what was left of it.

Dally shook his head, a tight grin on his face. "Nah man, you look worse.

Johnny didn't argue about the fact that he looked bad. He didn't even try to argue with Dally's unshaved face and wrinkled, blood-stained clothes. Dally was no model either.

"Doc's lettin' you go home?" he asked.

Dally's grin widened. "Yeah, somethin' like that."

Johnny sighed. "You're gonna be in the rumble, ain't you?" It wasn't a question; it was a fact he already knew to be true.

"Don't look at me like that, Johnny," Dally warned. "You know what this rumble means."

"To who, Dally?" Johnny demanded. "To the guys? Or to you?"

Dally's jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed. "This is for you, man. We're doin' this for you."

He sat up and fished out his pack of smokes from the inside of his jacket. He didn't understand what Johnny was getting at; what did it matter what the rumble meant or who it was for? A fight was a fight and every person that showed up tonight had something to prove.

"It's all stupid," Johnny said tiredly. "It's a dumb fight and people are gonna get hurt."

Dallas took a long drag from his cigarette and leaned closer to the bed.

"Everyone gets roughed up in a fight, Johnny, you know that, man." Dally leaned back down in the chair, into a lounging position and watched the smoke leave his mouth and drift up to the hospital ceiling. "Besides, them bastards got it coming."

"And they're probably thinkin' the same about us," Johnny argued.

"Who cares what they're thinking?" Dally exclaimed. "It's their fault, big tough hot shots. Ain't so tough no more."

Johnny moved his head as much as he could to look at Dally. "And what makes you so tough, huh, Dal?"

Dallas sat, puffing smoke off his cancer stick, staring into the eyes of one of the few people that could get away with saying shit like that to him and not get a broken jaw in return. Johnny was still looking at him for an explanation.

"Cause I have to be," he answered forcefully.

"And bangin' a few heads together makes you real tough," Johnny said sarcastically.

Dal didn't understand what the kid was getting at, and right then all he really felt like doing was shaking him until he made some sort of sense.

"The hell you talkin' 'bout?"

Johnny closed his eyes. "You don't get it, do you?"

Dally looked at him like he was a complicated jigsaw puzzle he couldn't quite fit together. He couldn't make sense of the damn riddles the kid kept spouting.

"Get what?" he snapped, agitated.

"Fightin'," Johnny said. "It don't get you nowhere, Dal. It don't make you any better than the guy you're up against."

"Sure as hell worked for me all these years, buddy," Dallas remarked.

"What's it got you, Dal?" he questioned. "You ain't no better off than the rest of us, and you never will be 'cause you don't get it."

Dally didn't understand what the kid was getting at. When you fought, you got respect, and once you had enough respect from the people around you, then you were untouchable. That's what Dallas thought he was at least—untouchable—and those who didn't respect him at the very least were fearful of him.

"Maybe it's you that don't get it," he sneered. "How can you, when you've never been on your own?"

Johnny opened his eyes and stared into Dallas's hateful ones.

"Then tell me how it is Dal."

Kimberley Jayne