A/N: The Outsiders belongs to S.E. Hinton while "Otherside" is by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Once you know, you can never go back
I've got to take it on the otherside.

Monday, September 19, 1966

Ellie didn't sleep a wink for the second night in a row. All she could think about was Soda seeing her there with Dally, seeing that she knew what happened with Pony and Johnny before anyone else. She didn't know where they were any more than Soda did, but he didn't see it like that. He couldn't see that with his little brother gone. Ellie understood that, but it still made her toss and turn all night long.

She was up long before the sun was, waiting once again for the paper to arrive. It was the only way she may find something out; Dally surely wasn't going to let anything slip. She scanned all of the pages for any mention of Bob Sheldon's death and instead of finding any useful information, found a long article commemorating his life and his achievements. She tossed the paper down on the table in disgust. Ellie knew Pony and Johnny like the back of her hand, but she also knew the Socs better than she liked. They were responsible for all of this and yet, they were the ones being called heroes. It made her sick to her stomach.

Abigail wobbled into the kitchen as Ellie was getting up. Ellie was looking at her ever-growing belly in her night gown when Abigail said, "Where're you goin' this early?"

"Over to Ponyboy's house." She grabbed her jacket off the hook by the door while her mother began a pot of coffee.

"Now, I told you not to get yourself involved in this," Abby scolded.

"They're my friends."

"You better not be missin' school because of this mess," Abigail hollered as Ellie shut the front door.

XXX

School was the last thing on her mind and everybody else's it seemed. She could see through the front window that the boys were all at the Curtises house except for Dally, but Ellie assumed he would be keeping his distance. She wished she could do the same, but her conscience was eating at her. She couldn't hide until they came home.

She hesitated on the front porch for a long time, wondering if she should just barge in or knock. She figured being a coward wouldn't get her anywhere, and there was nothing like diving in head first. She would drown or she was float; there was only one way to be sure. She opened the door and walked inside.

Steve was asleep on the couch, Two-Bit in the armchair and she felt like knocking both of them on the heads for staying over when they shouldn't have. Darry was sitting at the table, and Soda was nowhere to be found. It felt so empty with only four of them in the same room.

Darry looked up from his coffee, looking much more tired than usual. She supposed they all did, but Darry looked worse. He looked haunted.

"Hey," she said. It was such a pathetic greeting, but he smiled tiredly at her.

"Mornin'."

"Have they been here all night?" she asked, gesturing to Steve and Two-Bit.

Darry nodded. "Pretty much."

She crossed the room quickly before she lost her nerve. "Listen, Darry, I'm sorry about yesterday." He held up his hands to silence her, but she powered on, speaking so fast she tripped over her words. "I was out of line. I had no right to say any of those things, and I'm sorry I did. This is nobody's fault but the Socs, and I'm sure Pony and Johnny are safe." She took a deep breath before she said what she was really worried about saying. "I knew they had come to Dally. I saw them at Buck's. I knew they were in trouble, and I didn't do anything. Soda probably already told you all of this, but I should have been the one to speak up yesterday instead of just blaming you for something that wasn't your fault. I wish I knew where they were because I would tell you. I promise I would."

Darry studied her for a long while. She fidgeted awkwardly while he said nothing. She didn't know what she would do if Darry hated her, too.

He finally sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, Soda told me last night. He was pretty upset about it."

"I tried to get it out of Dally."

"He's not stupid. He knows you'd tell me where they are. I'm not stupid either. I know Dally's only trying to do right by them, but he's not. He's making this worse by hiding them out."

She nodded weakly. Tears well up in her eyes, and her voice cracked as she spoke. "They must be so scared."

Darry pulled out the chair next to him so she could sit down.

"I'm sure they are," Darry agreed. "As stupid as Dally's acting right now, he'll make sure they stay in one piece. I just wish I knew when he's planning on bringing them home. Or if he is at all."

Ellie stared hard at the table and sniffed back tears. She had been more worried about when they would be coming home, not if. The if and when terrified her.

"What's she doing here?"

She looked up to see Soda in the doorway, looking as tired as Darry did. She blinked back tears and avoided eye contact with him. She'd never seen him as mad as he was the night before. She could handle Dally yelling at her, and even Tim, but she couldn't stand for Soda to be mad at her.

"Sodapop, you ain't never been rude before," Darry said, turning his attention to the newspaper in front of him. "This ain't the time to start."

"I just came to apologize," Ellie said.

"Apology not accepted," Soda snapped, crossing his arms as if challenging her to try and apologize again.

"I messed up. But I promise, I don't know any more than you do. I promise, Soda."

"Oh, you promise?" he asked.

"Soda," Darry warned.

"No, Dar, if Ellie promises, she's gonna keep that promise. Ain't that right, El?"

She wasn't used to this side of Soda. She wanted him to grin and tell everybody it would be okay and make sure they all had a well-balanced breakfast of chocolate cake and Pepsi. She didn't want him angry with her.

"Of course," she said, only because she didn't know what else to say.

"Guess what? I don't believe you."

She stared after him as he stormed outside, unable to say anything else. She noticed Steve and Two-Bit stirring, from either Soda's yelling or his slamming of the front door, she couldn't tell. It didn't matter.

"He'll come around eventually, El," Darry assured her softly. "You know he will. He's just upset right now. When all of this gets sorted out, things'll go back to how they were."

She felt another urge to cry but held it in. "Yeah, but how long before that happens?" she asked.

Darry didn't answer her. Instead he looked into the living room. "Y'all oughta head on to school. You're gonna be late if you don't get a move on."

"I'm ready when you two are," Two-Bit said, standing up and stretching. She figured he woke up because of the slamming door. From the way Steve was looking at her, he heard the argument. She looked at her hands, feeling completely ashamed of herself.

XXX

She felt like she were entering World War III when they pulled into the parking lot of Will Rogers. The school was completely divided. Greasers on one side of the parking lot, Socs on the other. The place had always been divided to some extent, but this was deliberate. There was hatred behind this division, and she was scared.

Two-Bit pulled into a spot and looked at Ellie in the backseat. "You stay close to one of us. If you don't got a lot of greasers to walk with from class to class, you find us."

"You find Two-Bit," Steve corrected. "Leave me out of it."

Ellie struggled to keep her mouth from falling wide open as he got out of the car and slammed his door shut behind him.

"Stay put," Two-Bit demanded. He climbed out and left her in the car by herself as he caught up to Steve. The doors were shut, but she could hear them through the window.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Two-Bit asked, cutting Steve off as he tried to head for the school.

"Soda told me she was with Dally when the boys went for help. She knew they were in trouble and didn't let Soda and Darry know. She let them find out when the fuzz came to tell 'em," Steve replied. "That's some way to treat them after everything they've done for her."

"And that's some way to treat her right now. You send her in that school alone while this shit is going down, and she'll get eaten alive. We have to have each other's backs until this dies down or until we settle this with the Socs. You know, she was probably scared too, hearing Pony and Johnny killed some kid. You can't blame her for that."

"No, but if she was there with Dally, what else does she know? Dally sent them somewhere and Ellie was with him. She didn't tell Soda the truth in the first place. What if she knows where they are and she's just not sayin' because Dally told her not to? If Dal told her to jump off a fuckin' bridge, she'd ask which one."

Ellie bit her lip. She was so sick of feeling like she was going to cry every second of the day, and she was sick of her friends blaming her for something Dally was behind. She grabbed her books and got out of the car.

"You think Dally would honestly tell her something like that and not tell the rest of us?" Two-Bit asked. "What good would that do anybody?"

"I swear he didn't tell me where they went," Ellie said. They both turned to look at her, and she felt fire ignite in her veins. "You can shut your mouth, Steve, because that's the truth. I didn't even see them until they were halfway out the door and by then it was too late."

"Then why'd you lie about it?" Steve asked

"Guys-" Two-Bit said, his voice pleading, but he was cut off when two cars - one a clunker, the other bright red and shiny - almost hit each other trying to pull into the same parking space. Two boys exited each car, looking ready to duke it out right then and there.

"Stay with one of us today. Who knows what these assholes are capable of?" Steve said. He turned and headed inside.

She looked at Two-Bit who gave her a pained smile, and they followed Steve.

XXX

Ellie walked into homeroom slowly and uneasily. She felt like everyone was glaring at her, and even though that was probably only half true, she ducked her head and made a bee-line for her seat.

Lou, a boy her age that hung with Tim's gang walked over to her with a cocky strut. He leaned against her desk. "Hey."

"Hi," she muttered. She wasn't really in the mood to make conversation with anyone, but a greaser was better than a Soc.

"You're friends with Ponyboy Curtis, right? I see you guys talking sometimes."

"Yeah, what of it?"

He smiled. "Hey, I'm not tryin' to make trouble. I just wanted to see if you had any details about what happened Saturday night."

She looked at him in disgust. Details of the murder? "No. He ran off after it happened. Nobody knows anything about what happened."

He nodded and said in a voice loud enough the whole room could hear, "All right. Well, if you do hear from him, tell him he did a good job."

Lou walked back to his seat, and Ellie shuddered in her own. If she imagined everyone staring at her before, it definitely wasn't her imagination anymore. The eyes of the Socs around her were boring into her back. She sank further down into her seat and, leaning her head on her hand, hid behind her fingers. She all but fell out of her seat when the loud speaker beeped before Principal Greene made his morning announcements. The first few were general, every day announcements: practice times changing or being canceled, student council meeting, a bake sale for new cheerleader uniforms. Then it got bad.

She swallowed hard when Bob's name was mentioned.

XXX

"Over this past weekend, we lost a valuable member of the Will Rogers High family. Bob Sheldon was a talented football player, an excellent student and an asset to this community."

Steve hunched further over his desk, scribbling on the table top. He ignored the murmurs that rushed through the classroom at the mention of Bob's name. He didn't look up again until he heard a slow steady clap from his left. It was Todd Howell, one of Tim's buddies.

Mr. Brady looked up from his attendence sheet. "That's enough, Howell."

Todd kept on clapping. "Well done," he said to no one in particular. "It was a good job. Too bad it didn't happen to more of 'em."

Brady pointed to the door of the classroom. "Get out. Greene's office, now."

Todd pointed to the speaker on the wall. "Greene's busy."

Brady walked over to Todd's chair and physically pulled him out of the seat by his collar. Todd let him, looking like he didn't really care where he was. He was part of the Shepard gang; he'd make a scene no matter where he went and no matter who was there to see.

Todd passed by Steve's chair as Brady escorted him to the door. He patted him on the shoulder.

"You tell your buddies they did one hell of a job, Randle," Todd said.

The Socs around him were really reeling now. Steve had just wanted to come to school and keep his mouth shut, but there was a weird sense of pride growing in him.

"Will do," Steve replied without looking back at Todd.

There were so many Socs talking around him, he couldn't really understand what any of them were saying, but he guessed it had something to do with jumping the greasers every chance they got. He should have been a little more worried, but for some reason, it was amusing. He went back to scribbling on the desk and grinned.

"Randle, you too," Brady said, pointing at the door.

Steve shrugged, gathered his books and grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. "No problem."

XXX

Two-Bit was wandering aimlessly through the halls when the morning announcements began. He should have been in homeroom, but that was the most boring class of the day. It wasn't fun to goof off when everybody else was goofing off too.

He whistled as he walked, running his notebook down a row of lockers to drown out Greene's voice. At a gap in the bay of lockers, he heard Bob Sheldon's name.

"Well, damn," he said with a sigh. "Should've gone to class."

Greene was going on and on about what a wonderful human being Bob was. Two-Bit rolled his eyes and rounded the corner. He almost ran straight into Todd Howell.

"You skippin' class, too?" Two-Bit asked.

"Old Man Brady kicked me out. All I was tryin' to do was give your friends the credit they deserved."

Two-Bit grinned. "It's prett impressive, isn't it?"

"I didn't know your buddies were capable of somethin' like that."

"Well, they are," Steve said, walking up to them.

"Why'd we even come to school if we're all skipping out on class?" Two-Bit asked.

"Ellie's probably still in her class. I would've been, but I got kicked out thanks to Todd. Guilty by association, I guess."

"You're welcome. Can you believe this load of shit?" he asked, pointing to the ceiling where Greene's voice was still droning on.

"I wouldn't expect anything less," Two-Bit replied. It was well-known how much Greene favored Socs, especially after the prank pulled the year before, feathering the Socs at the end of the school year. "Where's El's class? The English hallway?"

"Yeah," Steve replied. "You walking her to her next class?"

Two-Bit nodded. No need to separate if they didn't need to.

"Didn't you go to homeroom?" he asked.

"Hell no, I didn't," Two-Bit said. "If I woulda known they would've been making these announcements, I sure would have. I've got a lot of football players in there. I would've loved to have seen their reactions. Where are you headed?"

Steve shrugged. "Dunno yet. Probably just hang out until next period."

"I'm gonna go make myself nice and comfortable in the back hallway," Todd said with a wave. "That way I won't have to get to class and I can still keep an eye on the Socs. See ya guys."

Two-Bit hooked his thumb in Todd's direction once he was down the hall. "Weird guy."

"He's practically taken Monty's place in Tim's gang," Steve replied. "Of course he's fucking weird."

XXX

English class was Pony's favorite and was hardly Ellie's. She had considered it a blessing to have two classes with Pony for their sophomore year, especially because he'd been put up in honors classes she was primarily stuck behind in the regular classes. On the first day of school she counted her lucky stars that Will Rogers didn't have honors English classes until students were juniors and seniors.

Today, though, she wasn't so lucky. The problem on this day was that everyone seemed to know who was behind Bob Sheldon's murder, and the kids in her English class knew she was friends with one of them. Everyone would have one topic on their mind, and Ellie was very much without a friend to talk to. He was gone, hiding somewhere and wanted for murder, and everyone knew it. She stepped into Mr. Syme's class and kept her head low as she meandered her way to her seat. She tried to sit normally, but she was painfully aware of all of the yammering going on around her. Hushed whispers and wondering stares floated around her desk. She felt guilty about Bob's death just by sitting there.

The bell rang and Mr. Syme stood up and called order to the class. He held his roster in front of him and began to call roll. He stumbled slightly over Pony's name, made a note in his attendance book and went on to the next name. A few hushed whispers circled the room and stopped when they came to her. Ellie stared at his empty desk, once again finding that realization hit her hard. He really was gone. The empty seat proved his absence to her, his guilt to everyone else.

Mr. Syme talked for a while and then passed out a pop quiz over the material they were supposed to read over the weekend. Ellie blanked. She hadn't done a lick of homework all weekend; it wouldn't have mattered if she did, though. As kids started getting up and turning in their quizzes, a tall Soc dropped a folded piece of paper on her desk as he walked by. Ellie stared at it for a long time, and then crumpled it in her hand as she got up to hand in her blank quiz. She tossed the note in the trash and sat back down as whispers erupted again.

XXX

Biology wasn't Steve's strong suit. He did okay enough, but he made it through his days counting down the periods until after lunch when he could retreat to his mechanics class. He liked cars, not cells.

His teacher, who looked like a frog, was scrawling something on the board when he caught fragments of the conversation going on behind him.

"I can't believe all this."

"I know, poor Cherry. Can you even imagine?"

"No. My mom said she couldn't believe that two boys could have done it, but I can. I mean, they're greasers."

Steve whirled around in his seat and glared at the two gossiping hens. They were two sharp looking Socs, exactly what he expected. The ones who had big Socy boyfriends, but Steve didn't care.

"Look. Those greasers are my friends, and they woudn't kill a guy unless he was making trouble for them first. And figuring that Sheldon kid was some big Soc, he probably had it comin' if he was makin' trouble for my boys."

Satisfied with their stunned expressions, Steve turned back around and nearly fell out of his own seat. A big, varsity-jacket-wearing, Soc was standing right at his lab station. Steve glared at him with the contempt for the entire world. The Soc hit his open palm with his clenched fist.

"Bob was my buddy."

"That's your problem, not mine," Steve said flatly.

The Soc punched the table and their absent minded teacher finally seemed to notice the commotion.

"What is going on back there? Martin? Sit back down."

"See you later, grease."

"Counting on it," Steve said.

XXX

Ellie rushed out of Mr. Syme's classroom and into the busy hallway when the bellrang. If making it through one class would be so awful, Ellie dreaded the rest of the day. She waded into the stream of students and toward her next class. A whistle caught her attetion and she looked around. Two-Bit walked up to her.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

"Pony's seat's empty," she said, watching the backs of people in front of her. She shrugged. "It's not like I thought it'd be any different, but I hate this."

Two-Bit just sighed.

There was a bit of roadblock ahead where the hallway split. Kids were crowded around something.

"Stay here. I'll see what's up," he said.

Leaning against a bay of lockers Ellie watched him disappear into the crowd. She should have told him not to bother, it was pretty evident what was going on. Two-Bit shoved his way back through the crowd and rejoined her.

"Fight. Grease against Soc."

"No kidding."

Two-Bit tried to scout a way through the crowd and then the teachers finally came running, pushing the crowd apart to the culprits in the middle.

"Come on," Ellie said. "We'll be late as it is."

Two-Bit stepped in front of her and went to work parting the sea ahead of them. They were no sooner in the girth of the crowd when the shoving started again. People everywhere were on edge and the slightest thing was setting them off. As another pair started fighting in the crowd right by them, Two-Bit grabbed her arm and yanked her through the clearing on the other side.

"Remind me why we came again?" she asked. "This place is gonna be lucky to make it through the week without someone else gettin' killed."

"Can't say I don't agree with that," Two-Bit said.

I push the trigger and I pull the thread,
I've got to take it on the otherside.