Disclaimer: We do not own The Ousiders by S.E. Hinton, nor do we own the song, "The '59 Sound" by The Gaslight Anthem. You should check them out, though. Thank us later.

When we float out into the ether, into the Everlasting Arms,
I hope we don't hear Marley's chains we forged in life.

Sunday, September 25, 1966

Ellie stood in the corner with a hand over her mouth to quiet her sobs. Even though she had spent all evening with him, she wasn't prepared for this. Nothing could have prepared any of them for this.

She had been sitting with Johnny, practically watching him fade away right in front of her eyes, when Dally came bursting into the room. Pony lagged behind, and they both looked beat to hell. She didn't know what she was expecting them to look like after a rumble, but it still scared her.

She moved out of their way, but neither of them seemed to see her. Dally was focused solely on Johnny, and Pony didn't look like he could focus on much at all.

Listening to Dally tell Johnny about beating the Socs made her eyes sting with tears. He sounded so proud of what they had done, but none of that mattered to Johnny. The weakness in his voice made her go weak and shaky. Why couldn't Dally keep it together?

"Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold ..."

And that was just it. Just like that their friend was gone

Ellie held her breath, hoping she would see his chest rise and fall again. Maybe he had only passed out from the pain. He had had a long day. Dally leaned closer and pushed Johnny's dark hair out of his closed eyes. She was trying too hard to make sense of it, to understand what death meant. How someone her own age could just die. It didn't matter. Dally was talking, but Ellie couldn't focus long enough to hear what he was saying. It wouldn't bring Johnny back or fix anything that had happened.

She jumped when Dally turned around and slammed a fist into the wall. He was muttering to himself but she was too far to hear what he was saying. She was startled into action when he took off down the hall.

"Pony?" she asked, his name hardly making it through her lips. He was still just standing over Johnny, staring down at him with tears in his eyes. She was torn between staying with Ponyboy and finding Dally. The thought of Dally doing something crazy won out, and with a final look at Johnny, she ran out into the hall. As Dally rounded the corner, and she ran after him as fast as she could.

He was almost to the stairwell when she caught up to him and grabbed his arm.

"Dallas! Where are you going?" she asked.

"Get away from me," he snarled.

She took a deep breath and held tight to his arm, and put herself between him and the stairwell. "What are you gonna do?" He just glared at her. "Stay here!"

"Why?" he snapped. "Johnny's dead. A lot of good I can do."

She looked him dead in his eyes. They were as icy blue as always, but they had a mean gleam to them now. "I need you here."

In that moment she remembered Tim the night after Monty died. How he had been so drunk and she had been so worried about what he would do on his own. It hadn't turned out so well for her, and swallowing past that thought, she was determined to keep Dally from leaving. He wasn't drunk, but he was upset in a way she never thought he could be.

"I'm gonna tell you one more time," he said. "Get away from me."

"Dally," she pleaded. "I'm begging you to stay here. Please don't leave."

"You're a fucking stupid kid," he growled. He reached to his waistband, and her breath caught in her throat when she realized he was pointing a gun right at her.

"Dally," she repeated. It came out as a strangled whisper. Blood pounded in her ears, and she felt sick to her stomach. There was no way to comprehend exactly what was going on right then. She had never had a gun pointed at her, and she couldn't figure out what Dally was doing with a gun.

"Get away from me," he said, emphasizing each word. This was beyond a mood he was in; and she realized just how bad this could get. But it would be even worse if she didn't let him go.

She couldn't hold back her tears anymore. "Dally," she whimpered, her voice breaking as she let go of his arm.

He pushed past her, shoving her to the side. She caught herself against the wall as he ran into the stairwell. She took a few deep breaths and looked down at herself, trying to make sure she was still in one piece. When she found that she was, she leaned against the wall and slid down into a heap on the floor. She rested her face in her hands and cried.

XXX

Dally kept moving. He bounded down the steps, hearing her sobbing growing fainter as he moved further down. He swung the door to the main floor open and he heard her scream his name. He kept on going. He had no idea what he was going to do, he just knew he had to get the fuck away from that damn hospital. They were terrible places. They couldn't save a 16-year-old kid who deserved it.

He walked with purpose down the hallway. The gun gripped in his right hand swung with each step. People parted in the hallway, not saying a word to him, just moving out of his way.

There was a back exit, one Dally clearly read was for emergency staff only, but he lived to break rules. He walked through the doors, and a man stepped into his path.

"You can't be here," he said.

Dally glowered at him and raised the gun. A sadistic smile crept across his lips.

"I can go anywhere I want," he told the man matter-of-factly.

He pulled the trigger and the gun clicked, its chambers hollow. The man jumped and Dally laughed in his face. He pulled the trigger again, this time meaning it, wishing like hell Tim had gotten him bullets, too. The man ran and Dally continued on.

He had to circle around the hospital to get back to his parking spot. He was heading down the row when a pair of feet were running up behind him.

"Dallas," came Ellie's desperate cry. "Dally, please wait."

Dally didn't stop moving for a second. Her feet were pounding the pavement, though, and he felt her hands on his sore arm. He turned around fast and with his good arm, pushed her into the trunk of a car in the lot. She squirmed beneath his grip, crying and Dally hated her just then.

"Leave me alone."

"Please don't do anything. Go to the Curtises. Come back to my house. Anything."

"They didn't do anything to help him," he told her. Ellie had been with him all day. She should have known that they didn't even try to help him. "They fucking let him die. Johnny, man."

"He was hurt, Dally," she said.

He let go of her and turned away, heading back for the car. What the fuck did she know anyway? She let Socs beat up on her. She might be messing around with him today, but she'd be back with Tim Shepard as soon as she could. All broads did was go behind your back. Everything in the world was against him. Everything. He had to look out for number one because no one else was going to do that for him.

"I"ll go with you," she called after him. It was nails on goddamn chalkboard. He kept walking, and she kept following. He waited until she grabbed him again before he turned around and shoved her into the pavement. From the ground she looked up at him with tear stained cheeks. Pathetically, her lips trembled and she let out a whimper. Dally wanted her to go away. He didn't want her anywhere near him.

Nearly flying, he ran the rest of the way to Buck's car. The keys were still hanging in the ignition. He gunned the engine and tore out of the parking space. He peeled out of the parking lot without looking back.

XXX

Numbness swept over her. Dallas was gone and she stood in the hospital parking lot alone and fighting off rabid emotions that threatened to tear her to pieces right there. She knew Dallas well enough to know that he was self-destructive. She knew what he was capable of, and she knew he was without reason to stop whatever it was he might do. She stood frozen to the spot he pushed her in the parking lot, racking her brain for places he might go. Things he might do.

"Are you all right?"

Ellie saw a man and woman standing on the other side of the row, staring at her. They were crossing the street toward her, but Ellie backed away.

"I'm fine," she insisted.

"Where is your coat, dear? You'll catch a cold," the woman said.

The goosebumps on Ellie's arms went unnoticed. She stared at the woman like she was crazy. With everything that was wrong in their world, she was worried about Ellie catching a cold? What was wrong with her?

"It's late," the man said. "Do you need a ride home?"

He was shrugging his coat off and Ellie had stood there long enough. Without another word, she took off running in the direction Dally had driven off, but without an idea of where she was heading. Fresh tears welled up in her eyes, sobs heaved in her chest as she realized the odds were not in her favor. In a car, Dally could go anywhere and beat her there by a hundred miles.

XXX

"Johnny's dead."

The words hung heavily in the air, and no one said a word. Steve looked down at the floor, not knowing what to say or do.

"Dally ran out. He couldn't handle it. He's gonna blow."

Steve looked at Pony, trying to make sense of everything he was saying. Johnny was dead, Dally couldn't handle it. It didn't quite make sense to him.

"So even Dally's got a breaking point," Two-Bit said.

Pony was leaning against a wall, still bloody from the rumble. Darry moved to him and was trying to get him to sit down, and Steve watched as if he were in a dream. This wasn't real. It couldn't possibly be real.

"Where's Ellie?" Steve blurted, suddenly realizing she wasn't there. He'd left her at the hospital before the rumble.

Nobody seemed to hear him. Johnny was dead, Dally was crazy ... where the hell was Ellie?

"Pony, where is she?" he asked, forcefully.

Pony looked at him, his eyes locked right on his. "She ran out after Dal. I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" he asked.

"Cool it, Steve," Darry said. "She'll be okay."

Steve fell back on the couch and watched as Darry and Soda tended to Pony, who seemed to be in a trance beyond all of them. Two-Bit sat down beside him with a heavy plop.

"What the hell happened?" he asked.

Steve looked at his friend and shook his head, the image of Johnny in that hospital bed burned into his mind.

"The whole damn world fell apart."

XXX

Darry ached from head to toe, but he thought most of the ache was coming straight from his chest. The news that Johnny was dead caught him completely unaware. He just didn't really believe that Johnny was that bad off. He was only 16, he couldn't just die. But the truth of the matter was dead set in Ponyboy's eyes. The kid looked so sad, and he was suddenly so distant that he didn't even blink when Darry dabbed at his cuts from the rumble.

He walked back into the living room and found the others looking at him as if they were waiting on him to tell them what to do. Instead, he ran his hand through his hair, exasperated and unable to tell them that he didn't know any better than they did. He was about to sit down when Ellie came barreling through the door. She tripped coming in and Darry caught her by the arm before she fell. Righting her he could feel how hard she was shaking. She looked absolutely terrified and he took her other arm to try and steady her. Her skin was cold to the touch, every little hair on her arms standing on end.

"Ellie?"

She was struggling to catch her breath, each one making her shake harder than the one before.

"Have you seen Dally?" she asked, panic in her voice.

"You okay, El?"

Steve and Two-Bit were standing shoulder to shoulder next to them. Pony and Soda were standing in the hallway. He looked back at Ellie, her eyes wide and trained on him.

"Where is he?"

"I don't know," he told her.

The phone started to ring and kept ringing.

"He's going to do something stupid," she whimpered. "He has a gun."

"It's okay. We'll find him."

"Dally?" Steve said. Darry turned, and he could feel Ellie's muscles tense up under his hands. Steve looked at him, the telephone in his hand. "He wants to talk to you."

Darry let go of Ellie and took the receiver.

"Dal, where are you?"

He listened as Dally told him something about a gun and a convenience store and then asked him for one thing. Darry closed his eyes against the request, not about to turn him away, but not really sure he could hide him for any length of time.

"We'll meet you there," he said, hanging up the phone. He turned looked at the guys all standing and waiting and then at Ellie whose hand was already propping the screen door open.

"That was Dally," he said. "The cops are after him and we gotta hide him. Gotta meet him at the lot." No sooner had he said the word, and Ellie was already gone.

"Let's go," Steve said. They all ran outside.

Young boys, young girls,
Ain't supposed to die on a Saturday night.