So it SHOULD be a one-shot thing, I think. I dunno. We'll have to see, huh? Please review.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Outsiders or any of the characters that S.E. Hinton invented. If I could write best sellers do you think I would be posting themhere?

Ponyboy's POV

We were walking home from the Nightly Double. Half the gang was anyway, Two Bit was with one of his blondes, and Soda had been spending a lot of time working extra shifts and the DX lately. He said it kept him busy, but I couldn't understand why he needed to be busy all the time in the first place. I kinda missed him. Not that I would admit it to a rock, but I did. But Steve and Darry were with me, odd as it was. After all, Steve was Soda's best friend, and though he was starting to forget of thinking of me as a tag-a-long, we still weren't on that great of terms. It had been Darrys idea to go to a movie, and Steve and I were the only ones there when he had decided he wanted to go to one. I had no problem with it, and Steve said he didn't have anything better to do, so that's how we all ended up going together. I'll never forget what happened on the way home.

We were walking, clowning around, yakking about who was with who and why, the usual when a girl came bolting out of one of the houses about a half a block or so ahead of us. From where we were we could see that her shirt was ripped up and so was the skirt she was wearing and she was running like the devil was after her. The guy after her was big and burly and quick. He caught her easy in the middle of the street. Darry had picked up his pace and since we were following him we were close enough to hear what the guy was saying to her, which was a bunch of unprintable things which I won't even get into. He had her wrists caught in his hands and was lifting her off the ground. She was shaking pretty bad, but she didn't say anything, not even a whimper when he told her exactly what he was plannin' on doing with her. I glanced over at Darry. He doesn't like it when guys pick on girls that mind. I could see the blood rushing to his face and his hands tightening into fists that made the veins on his arms stick out. The guy said something real bad to the girl and who glared at him and hissed something real fierce like at him, followed by her spiting in his face. The guy shook with rage and he threw her to the ground hard, making her gasp. He started yelling and kicking her, hitting her square in the head a few time, but not for long. Darry got real mad. He rushed at the guy and landed a shattering punch on him. The guy turned around and saw us three standin' there looking all tough. Out of nowhere Steve handed me a broken bottle. It was great watching him run off, me and Steve hollering like wild Indians and running after him. When he jumped in a car about two blocks away and drove off toward downtown we stopped and went back to Darry. I was amazed at what I saw when we got back to him.

He had knelt down next to the girl and had put his jeans jacket around her shoulders. She was shaking something awful, and he was talking to her like he was gentling a horse. She had dark hair, real long, and wavy, ending in curly wisps. I couldn't see her face, because her head was lying in Darrys shoulder and her hair hung around it like a curtain. I will never in all my born days forget how gentle Darry was being. He was combing his fingers through her hair, and I wondered briefly if it was as soft and silky as it looked. He was murmuring into the top of her head, telling her that it was okay, and that the guy was gone, and that no one would hurt her now, and not to cry because it was okay now, honest. When he heard us coming, he glanced up, kind of worriedly and mouthed the word "gone". We nodded and he nodded too.

"You okay, honey?" He asked his voice soft and mellow. She went kinda stiff in his arms.

"I'm not your honey." Her voice was rough, as if she was used to saying that a lot.

"Didn't mean it that way. I just don't know your name."

"Angel." Her voice was soft and low, kind of sultry. She moved her head from his shoulder, shaking her hair away from her face. She had big blue-green eyes fringed with long, dark lashes.

"I'm Darrell Curtis. That's Ponyboy, my brother, and he's Steve." He used the hand that he'd been stroking her hair with to point us out. She attempted to smile.

"Nice to meet you." Neither of us said anything.

"Thanks for running him off." She pushed away from Darry wrapping his jacket more tightly around her. She swayed a bit and put a hand to her head.

"Did you know the guy?" Darry asked her ask he stood up and offered her his hand. She accepted it and Darry pulled her up as easily as he would a two year kid.

"I—Um...Yeah, a little." She didn't let go of his hand right away, hanging on to it, her eyes bright and almost feverish.

"He gonna be uptight about us helping you out?" He looked down at their clasped hands like it was the first time he noticed, but said nothing. She followed his gaze and looked at their hands like one didn't belong to her before quickly withdrawing hers and putting it to her head again.

"No. He—Well...I don't think so...This isn't--" And she fell over, just like that. Just went flop, like a rag doll or something. If Darry hadn't been standing right there she woulda broken her head on the pavement. But Darry caught with such ease that I could swear he practiced, like he just went all over the place looking for fainting girls to catch. He looked at her sagging against him, and then at us, and then at her again.

"What do I do with her?" Steve looked at her appraisingly.

"Take her home. Have some fun—" He didn't get any further because Darry smacked him real hard on the back of his head with his free hand. He looked at me. I shrugged. He stuck his arm beneath her legs and lifted her all the way up and started towards home.

Darry's POV

I don't plan things like this, honest. I wish I was like other guys. I wish I could just leave well enough alone. But no, I'm "Superman" I can't help but get mad when girls are being taken advantage of. Seriously though, you should've heard the things the guy was saying. It made Ponyboy turn so red you woulda thought he was being boiled or something. I can't help it if that stuff makes me mad.

So, I decked him. He was a real tough guy. I'll give him that much. Normally when I get mad and I hit someone they pass out cold on the street. I can hit pretty dang hard. He was smart to run. The second hit would have landed him in the hospital. Ponyboy and Steve ran him off pretty far too. I doubted he'd be back for a while. I had time to see if she was okay.

That wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done. I should have known better than to approach a scared girl. Scared girls are like wounded animals. They're real hard to get calmed down enough for you to see if they're okay. She was propped up on one elbow, a hand clutching her shirt closed, and her hair hanging around all over. It was long, but the front was cut so of she ever put it up, little bits would hang in her face. She was positioned so that she could flee at any minute. I didn't know what to do really, but she was shaking really, really hard, so I took off my jacket and crouched to wrap it around her shoulders. She drew away from me it a frenzied, fluid motion, clutching her shirt closed tighter.

"Hey now," I whispered, "It's okay. I won't hurt you." She stared at me with big, aqua colored, terrified eyes.

"He's gone. My buddies ran him off, didn't you see?" I knelt completely in the middle of the road, extending my jacket to her.

"I won't hurt you. I swear, I won't hurt you." She didn't stop shaking, but she loosened up a little bit. I reached out to her and she didn't shy away.

"Are you okay?" She nodded a little bit.

"Fine." Her voice was shaking too. I gently put my jacket around her shoulders and left my arm around her. Suddenly, without warning, she launched herself into my arms. I heard her stifling a sob and instinctively started running my fingers through her hair, pushing it out of her face and stroking it. I kept my arm wrapped tightly around her, holding her close to me. She laid her head on my shoulder and kept it there. She was trembling like leaf and I was so wrapped up trying to get her to stop I didn't hear Ponyboy and Steve coming until they were right in front of me. Steve was staring at me, gobsmacked, as was Ponyboy. I mouthed the word "gone" and when they nodded I sighed inside. I tried to talk to her and she got all stiff and pushed away from me. She was used to fighting off boys, with a face like that I'm sure of it. She kept putting her hand to her head and you'd think all the time I'd spent with Pony when he had concussion that I'd know when she was gonna pass out. But I couldn't tell, and one second she was standing up, talking, and the next she was falling. I caught her easily; the gang doesn't call me Muscles for nothing. She was really light and I wondered briefly if she got enough to eat. Two minutes later, after a crude remark from Steve, I was walking home, with a girl in my arms. Sodapop was gonna pass out when we walked in the door.

You see, I don't bring girls home, conscious or otherwise. I hadn't since the eleventh grade. It's not that they didn't like me; I couldn't shake some of them off. I'm not being conceited either. That's just the plain truth of it. I guess I got sick of how catty most of them are and all that high pitched giggling really gives me a headache, ya know? I went out with one or two, every now and then, but nothing serious ever came of it. And then when Mom and Dad died I just stopped paying attention to them all together. I didn't have time for a girl. I didn't have time for just about anything else either. Two jobs aren't that easy to handle and when you come home from them all you want to do is drop dead for a couple eight hours. And then the first time in six months that I decide to have any fun, whammy, I end up walking into my living room with a girl lying in my arms. How do I do it?

I sure wish I had had a camera to capture the look on Soda's face when I waltzed in carrying an unconscious, real pretty girl. His jaw kinda dropped, and his eyebrows almost disappeared, they raised up so high. But he wiped the shock off his face pretty quick and cocked an eyebrow at me, grinning.

"And how was the movie?"

"It was okay. No plot, just a bunch of girls in swimsuits."

"I thought you didn't like that kind of thing."

"I don't."

"Who's that?"

"Her name's Angel." At this point Pony couldn't stand our nonchalant conversation any longer.

"A guy was beating her up in the middle of the street and Darry got mad a socked him real good. Me and Steve ran him clear down two blocks and when we get back, there's Darry, holdin' her and petting her hair. We walk up, she stands up and falls over. Superman over there catches her like she's a football and WHAM! Here we are."

For a kid that doesn't talk that much he can sure let loose sometimes.

"Don't she got a house?" I pushed past him and walked into my room, which is generally the cleanest one in the house since Sodapop and Ponyboy are slobs, and laid her down on my bed.

"Someone get me a wet wash cloth." All three of them went to get me one. I could here them talking in the bathroom, giving Soda all the details. I rolled my eyes and worked on waking her up.

Angel's POV

One second I was standing in the middle of Birch Road, the next I was lying on a bed in a dimly lit room, a guy who looked vaguely familiar dabbing my forehead with a damp cloth.

"Feel any better?" He asked me. I liked his voice. It was nice, all calm and soothing. I sat up in the bed.

"Huh? Where am I? Who are you? What—Ohhhh..." Everything came back in a huge rush that made me lay down again. My head hurt.

"Are you alright?" The guy who had been dabbing my face was looking at me worriedly.

"What? Oh yeah, I'm fine. Just dandy. Who did you say you were?"

"Darrell, Darry for short." The guy who'd walloped Jim, right.

"How'd I get here? Where is here?" I propped myself up on my elbow and looked at him. I noticed that we weren't alone. There were three guys scattered around the room. "Who are they?"

He had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. "I carried you here, this where I live." He pointed at the guys behind him, "That's Sodapop, over there's Ponyboy, and the one checkin' you out is Steve."

"Sodapop and Ponyboy, love the names." I examined the boys behind him carefully. The one called Sodapop was extraordinarily handsome, like a movie star or something. He bore a strong resemblance to the one named Ponyboy, who bore a stronger resemblance to the guy kneeling on the floor next to me. The once named Steve I didn't pay much attention to.

"So why do you have a normal name?" I asked Darrel.

"My mom got to name me. Dad named those two."

"Likes being different, does he?"

"He liked to, yeah. He did." I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed, ignoring his use of past tense and the pain in my head. I clutched my shirt closed with one hand and steadied myself with the other. I was barefoot and my skirt was ripped way up the side. I bet my hair was terribly mussed up too. Great. Someone tapped my shoulder and when I looked over Darry was handing me the shirt off his back leaving him wearing jeans and a muscle shirt. I grabbed the shirt and hastily put it on, buttoning it up all the way to my chin. As I did so I talked.

"Thanks. Where exactly am I? I need to get home. You should stop looking at me buddy or I won't be a nice person to be around." That got some comments from Soda and Ponyboy turned red, even though it was Steve who was looking.

After the shirt was buttoned up I walked out of the room like I owned the house or something. The boys all followed me, gapping a little bit. Except for Darry, he was just watching me, not in a perverted way, almost protectively. I felt my neck heat up. Not once in my whole life has anyone tried to protect me from anything. Ever. I wasn't used to it. But this guy, he had saved me. I remember now. Jim had been trying to bash my head in with those steel toed boots of his and Darry had stepped in and smashed his face. Lord, he was gonna be mad at me later. I managed to find the door and get outside, the night air felt cool on my face.

"Holy---" They lived right on the corner of Mystic and 10th street. "You carried me all the way down here from Birch?" I looked back at Darry incredulously. "Nine blocks?"

He shrugged it off, "It's not like you weigh anything over 80 pounds." I happen to weigh a lot more than that, but I didn't say anything. Instead I started walking home.

Darry's POV

And off she went, just like that.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Soda hollered. She paused and glanced over her shoulder.

"You can't walk home alone." She raised her eyebrows as if to say "Oh, can't I?" But that didn't throw ol' Soda for a second.

"Darry'll drive you."

"Oh will he?" She turned all the way around and looked at me. I shrugged and gestured to my truck. She smiled a shy, quiet smile and hopped in the passenger's seat. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Steve nudge Soda and Soda shove him back. But then she spoke and I forgot about them.

"Thank you for what you did today." I opened my mouth to say that it was okay, but she held up her hand and went on. "You didn't have to, but you did anyway. You risked a lot, pounding a guy you didn't know, and I---" This time I held up my hand.

"It's plenty okay. Wasn't that much of a risk, not unless he got real mad at me and he's got a lot of friends." She bit her lip.

"That's the thing. He might get real mad. Either at me or at you, I don't know which. I hope it's me."

"He wouldn't hurt you, would he?" She shrugged.

"Turn right here. It depends on how drunk he is. Sometimes, he can be real sweet, and then there's time like today...I just don't know anymore."

"How do you know him?"

"He's an old boyfriend of mine. We stayed kind of friends after we broke up. But then he started drinking, and now he wants me back and when I wouldn't go back I decided he was gonna get me anyway. That's why this all happened. But it'll all work out." She kinda half smiled at me and I swear my heart jumped a little. She was really beautiful when she smiled.

"Why were you over there?"

"My mom ran out on us a couple of months ago, and my dad's been working a lot, says it makes him forget, and I was stir crazy, so against my better judgment I went over to see him." She shrugged again. "Sometimes I just don't think, ya know?"

I don't know what possessed me to say what I said next, but I said it anyway.

"If you ever need somewhere to go, my door's always unlocked. Even in the dead of night. You can come there and stay for as long as you need to."

"And your parents don't mind you offering invitations to crash at their home whenever a silly girl takes a whim?"

"My parents died in an automobile accident a few years ago." I then proceeded to tell her my theory about if one of the guys ever needed to blow off some steam in the dead of night that I would rather have them at my place then robbing a gas station, and that I had no worries, because my brothers and I were all hoods and we could beat off any unlikely burglars if the need to do so was ever aroused. I then had to tell her that we really didn't have anything to steal anyway, so the door stayed unlocked.

"How kind." Was all she said after my speech died down. "You know, we're a long ways away from my house." I looked around, while we had been talking, I had been driving aimlessly. We were now driving downtown. I raised my eyebrows.

"You wanna stop at Dingo's for a Coke? My treat." She looked amused, glancing down at herself and then at me. I realized that she was still barefoot and wearing my shirt. She raised her eyebrows.

"Sure." So we went to Dingo's. And we ordered Cokes and talked, and talked, and talked some more. Long after the Cokes were gone, we were still talking. Only when a fight broke out did we leave and go to the truck. I glanced at my watch once we had started on our way.

"Holy cow! I gotta get you home! I've gotta get home! I'm gonna catch it for staying out this long. Boy are my brothers gonna have a cow. Dang." She grabbed my hand and looked at my watch.

"It's only one thirty." I barely heard her.

"If Ponyboy is still up when I get back, boy is he gonna---"

"Calm down. So you forgot. I'm delighted that you found me so interesting." She smiled at me, and I calmed down. I also blushed. Boy was I glad it was dark. The rest of the ride was spent in a companionable silence which was only broken when she told my which way to turn.

"Right there, the one with the white trim." I pulled up to it and looked over at her.

"Thank you Darrell. For everything. I'll see you." She took my hand and gave it a squeeze. "Good night." I watched her disappear into her house, smiling at me over her shoulder before she went inside.