Author's Note: Sorry, again, for yet another long wait between chapters. The excuse this time is I found out I was pregnant shortly after posting the last chapter, and have been dealing with the usual first trimester symptoms this whole time, which hasn't left much room for writing. I never forget about these stories though, they're always floating around in my mind somewhere!

This chapter correlates with the time-frame from chapter nine and ten of Ticket to Ride, though nothing really interweaves in this chapter.

Please be aware that all familiar characters and locations belong to S.E. Hinton and her book, The Outsiders. The chapter title and lyrics throughout are from Twenty One Pilots' song, Heathens. And the title of this fic comes from the song of the same name by The Beatles.


Thursday, 30 January 1969

All my friends are heathens, take it slow

Wait for them to ask you who you know

Please don't make any sudden moves

You don't know the half of the abuse

"So, are you and the Brumly girl done with your lover's tiff yet?" Tim asked Curly as he drove his younger brother and sister home from school.

"What?!" Angela exclaimed from the backseat, eyebrows reaching up into her hairline at the new piece of gossip. "Katie Thomas? With Curly?"

"Fuck you, man," Curly growled at Tim before looking into the backseat of Tim's car and telling Angela, "He's talkin' shit." Angela gave Curly a skeptical look before Curly turned back to Tim in the front seat beside him. After a few moments of contemplation he told Tim, "She hangs around sometimes when Susan's with us."

"Does her brother know?" Angela teased, glancing between her two older brothers.

"No, and you keep your mouth shut about it," Curly snapped at her again, "it ain't your business to go tellin' the world and makin' it out to be somethin' it ain't."

"What's said between us stays with us," Tim said, looking at her in the rear-view mirror when she opened her mouth to respond to Curly. "What is it, exactly?"

"I don't know," Curly said with an aggravated shrug of his shoulders. "It ain't anything. Her buddies from Brumly are gone most of the time, so she hangs off of Susan, who's always with Dale these days."

"So y'all are friends?"

"She seems to like me less than the rest," Curly responded, crossing his arms over his chest with a dark look on his face, "Might have somethin' to do with my brother supposedly causin' this whole mess with her brother."

"Rick's boys have been downtown more and more lately."

"Well I guess that explains why they're not at school then," Curly said, a slight sigh of relief escaping his mouth with his words.

Tim left Curly alone the rest of the drive home from the school, the definite scorn of a love unrequited plastered on his younger brother's face as he glared out the window. Tim didn't know the specifics, but he could tell that something was going on with Curly and from his failure at nonchalance when Katie was mentioned; Tim was willing to bet that the something going on with Curly was Katie. Tim chose not to make his knowledge of whatever was happening between the two star-crossed lovers known, though, for fear that Curly might guess his true motives for encouraging the situation. He couldn't help thinking the rest of the way home that it would mean more power and support to Tim if the sister of Rick Thomas were to go against Brumly and side with the Shepard Gang. And it would eliminate the need to get Jodie King into bed purely to one-up Rick, something Tim wasn't keen on. He knew Jodie. He didn't know Katie. He couldn't lure Jodie into bed with him to one-up Rick, as Pete had suggested last week, knowing that there was a possibility she could be hurt any more by Rick than she already had been.

You'll never know the psychopath sitting next to you

You'll never know the murderer sitting next to you

You'll think, how'd I get here sitting next to you

But after all I've said, please don't forget

Jodie had been wondering all week when she would see Tim again, not doubting for a moment that he would seek her out again soon with the hope that she had changed her mind about giving him what little information she knew about Rick and the dealings of his gang. So when Tim sauntered into the salon fifteen minutes before it was due to close, Jodie wasn't the slightest bit surprised.

"You need a haircut?" Linda asked from where she stood at the front desk, checking over the appointments booked for the next week.

"No," Jodie interrupted croakily before Tim could respond, "he's here for me," she said as she stored her combs away neatly at her workstation and lifted her forearm up to her mouth as she coughed. The walk from Bucks to the Ribbon last weekend had been just another dumb idea on her growing list.

Tim shot Linda a charming smile, his eyes lingering on her almost eight month swollen stomach for a moment, before walking further into the salon and coming to a stop by Jodie's workstation, leaning against a set of drawers holding more curlers than Jodie could count.

"What do you want?" she asked, looking up at Tim as he grinned down at her.

"I can't stop by and tell you how good you're lookin' today?" he teased and she rolled her eyes at him. She had certainly seen better days, Tim conceded as he took in her paler than normal skin and the way she kept sniffling, but he'd be damned if there wasn't something about her curly, brown hair and the look she always gave him that didn't make him hungry for anything he could get from her.

"Every time you tell me that, I wind up in trouble," she told him, unimpressed, remembering each and every thing Tim's managed to get from her with his rare compliments. "What's it gonna be this time?"

"I was thinkin' of throwing a party tomorrow night," Tim told her as he watched her continue packing her things away, "and since your pile of invitations is smaller these days thanks to you wanting to avoid Thomas, I thought you might want to get out and go somewhere you know he won't be."

"Too many people," she said distractedly as she wound up the cord of a hairdryer, "there's no way word won't get back to him that I'm partying with Shepards."

"You're a girl, ain't you?" Tim asked, "And you ain't his. You can do whatever you want."

"In a perfect world, maybe, but not this one," she said, giving Tim a pained look. "We might not be together anymore, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna do something to blatantly hurt him."

She supposed people like her brothers and Tim would consider her compassion a character flaw, but despite how much he had hurt her and how angry he had made her throughout their relationship and in the last month or two particularly, she wouldn't be the person to add to how much he was suffering.

"So do somethin' to help him then." Jodie stopped midway through picking hair out of a hairbrush and looked at Tim. "Forget the party. Tell me what you know about Brumly and I'll shut them down."

"How on earth is that supposed to help him?" Jodie asked, though she knew where Tim's logic was coming from. He had said enough last Friday night when he had saved her from the cold and driven her home for her to know that he believed Rick's gang, and particularly the gang's business, was causing Rick's instability. It made sense, though she still wasn't sure things would work out the way Tim saw them working out in his head.

Tim glanced back at Linda, still sitting at the front desk and not paying any attention to their conversation, before telling Jodie quietly, "That shit ruins people, and it ruins their gangs."

Tim had seen it happen with a downtown gang he had done work with a couple of years ago. It was why he wouldn't even give his boys the tiniest bit of dope to sell and chose to stick to lifting car parts and other various goods. It had done them well in the past and was the reason the gang was still going strong while others had already fell into chaos.

"What do you think he's gonna do when you take away his drugs," Jodie hissed at Tim, leaning in close to him so they definitely wouldn't be overheard, "and then his gang? When he has nothing left to lose?"

"He'll stop pushing away the only thing he has left," Tim said, looking her up and down. "You."

Jodie held his stare for a few moments, an agreement lying unspoken between them that when everything came to an end and the smoke cleared she would still be standing by Rick's side.

"Can you give me a ride home?" Jodie asked Tim, glancing out the front of the salon at where Tim's car was parked on the side of the street. Troy had taken the day off to drive with George to Alabama, where George knew a guy who knew a guy he'd been in prison with a few years back and was going to get him a good deal on firearms, leaving Jodie without a lift home from work today. And she wanted to continue this conversation away from where Linda might hear them, not wanting her manager to know any more than she already did about the delinquent life she lived because of those around her.

"Sure," Tim answered before Jodie turned to Linda and told her she was going to head home.

Linda waved the two of them out the door and when they were both in Tim's car and cruising down one of the main downtown streets, Jodie told him, "This can only go one of two ways. Rick could be defeated, and from that defeat he could learn a good lesson about dealing with his problems in a more level-headed way. Or he could be so incensed that you've done everything you can to ruin him that there'll be nothing stopping him from comin' after you."

"That sounds a bit like it is now," Tim snorted.

"This ain't a game, Tim," Jodie said seriously, her body shaking slightly with the intensity of it.

"I know it ain't," Tim groaned at her, "but the way I see it is he and his gang are gonna end up tryin' to kill me or mine soon enough anyway. If we take away the people who would do his bidding for him and the drugs that are drivin' him mad right now, then we might all have a chance of this bullshit mess ending without another dead body."

"How're you gonna take away his boys? They're not gonna leave him just because the supply's been cut off. They've made money other ways before, and then they'll come after you for screwing with their supply."

"I might have somethin' in the works with his boys. And if I don't, then they'll still be off it and thinking clear enough to see that this war ain't helpin' anybody. Nobody needs to know we're behind the supply cut off."

The more he spoke the more Jodie felt like she didn't have any other option. He was right. The crap that Rick was selling was affecting him in a way that he wouldn't see reason until it was out of his system. They could either wait for Rick to destroy them all, himself included, or they could do something to change the course of that path. Everything Jodie had done to help Rick since Mike's death had gone wrong and backfired on her, and chances were the same thing would happen to this new attempt, but she would try it anyway. One more time, she thought to herself, she would try for him one more time. If it didn't work, she would walk away for good and he would never know of her involvement. But if it did work... Her eyes glistened at the possibility of Rick normal again. "The Devilhawks have a warehouse downtown. I don't know where they keep the stuff normally, but Rick's boys have always picked it up from there."

"Where downtown?"

Jodie sniffed back her tears, frustrated that they always seemed to come when she was with Tim. "I don't know. I might be able to find out from Troy or George, but I'll need time." They wouldn't be back until the end of the weekend, and managing to get the information from her brothers without explaining why she wanted it would be tricky.

Tim nodded, satisfied, and turned the conversation elsewhere. "So it's still a no to the party?" he asked, giving Jodie a sideways glance as she tried to inconspicuously wipe her right cheek.

Jodie let out a short laugh, a smile on her face for a couple of moments before sniffing again and lightly punching Tim in the shoulder, "I think it's probably best if I stay away from hoods for a while."

Tim grinned back at her, despite his doubt that she would be able to stick to that idea.

We don't deal with outsiders very well

They say newcomers have a certain smell

You have trust issues, not to mention

They say they can smell your intentions

Jodie followed through on her word and stayed home on Friday night, watching a bit of TV with her dad before he needed to leave for his next truck drive interstate, eating leftover pasta for dinner and then proceeding to throw the pasta up when she thought too long on what her brothers might be up to at that moment. She continued to feel nauseous throughout the course of the rest of the weekend, and was relieved when George and Troy finally arrived home late on Sunday night.

The gun run had gone well without any problems, and Jodie was relieved enough to see them unharmed that she left asking them about the Devilhawks warehouse for another time. She still hadn't worked out a way to get the location out of her brothers without raising any suspicion, and the more she thought on it the more she convinced herself it would be impossible. They would never tell her if she told them the real reason she wanted to know because they'd just think she was interfering and making another stupid decision. And maybe she was. No, she was almost certain that she was.

If she couldn't find out the location of the warehouse, though, then Tim would be on his own, which Jodie thought might not be such a bad thing. She didn't want to be involved in this, not if there was a chance Rick would find out, and nothing ever stayed secret for long in the circles they all ran in.

Jodie spent most of the week after Troy & George came home curled up in her bed, coughing her lungs up and sneezing her brains and other questionable boogers out. She had called the salon on Monday morning to let Linda know her cold was now too much for her to handle at work. Linda understood, of course, because she had listened to Jodie's cold get progressively worse throughout the previous week, but Jodie still felt bad leaving Linda to pick up the slack when she was so heavily pregnant. But the rest was exactly what Jodie needed, and she was able to return to work by Thursday and had two full days of clients Linda had had to reschedule earlier in the week to keep her busy before the weekend arrived.

Still not feeling a hundred percent, Jodie watched her brothers leave to go to Jay's and to the Ribbon and to parties she had been invited to, but didn't feel like going to over the weekend and instead chose to lay on the couch in her cold, empty house. By Sunday morning, she was well and truly cured of her cold and sick of lying in her bed or on her couch watching TV and reading books. So when George and Troy traipsed downstairs, dressed and ready to go somewhere, and into the lounge room where Jodie lazed in an armchair she was desperate to tag along wherever they were going just for a bit of sunshine on her face and fresh air in her nostrils.

"You can't come," George told her when she opened her mouth to ask, and she glared at him in response, jumping out of her armchair to face him head on with hands on hips.

"And why not?" she asked, glancing at Troy. "Where're y'all headed?"

"Not anywhere you wanna be," George answered, picking his car keys up off the coffee table.

"Come on," Jodie whined, "I've been cooped up in here for longer than I remember. I don't even remember what the outside world looks like," she added for dramatic effect that had Troy chuckling and George rolling his eyes, but grinning at her theatrics nonetheless.

"If it were somethin' social then sure, but this one's business," George responded, "sorry, kid."

Jodie groaned, "You could've just said that to begin with," she said. "What business is it?"

"Pickin' up the rest of our money from the Hawks," Troy answered for George as he snatched up his jacket from the couch and shrugged it on.

Maybe little sisters like Angela Shepard and Katie Thomas didn't know much about their brothers' gang business, either because they didn't want to or because their brothers didn't want to share that kind of information with them, but there had never been any deception between Jodie, Troy and George. Family just didn't betray one another, and that made her feel that much guiltier about the idea that was forming in her mind as she casually sat back down in her armchair and asked, "What do they owe money for?"

"The rest of the guns we dropped off on Sunday night. They paid for most of 'em then and the rest now they've made their own money off 'em."

"Be safe," Jodie told them as they walked out the front door.

She stayed seated and listened for George's engine gunning to life before reaching forward and grabbing Troy's car keys from the coffee table where they had been with George's. She watched from the corner of the front window as George backed out of the driveway and took off down their street before dashing out the front door after them and climbing into Troy's car where it was parked on the verge of the sidewalk. She gave no second thought to the daggy, old house clothes she wore as she turned the key in the ignition, watched George turn right out of their street, and then pulled Troy's car away from the sidewalk to follow after them.

Why'd you come? You knew you should have stayed

I tried to warn you just to stay away

And now they're outside ready to bust

It looks like you might be one of us