For the next couple of days, I stuck to Johnny like glue. I could feel us unravelling and it was making me feel incredibly lost. If we split, that would be the end of our gang.

One day around noon, Johnny and I left Tommy's side to get some lunch in town. We swung by the old diner that I used to work at to get some food and have a chat with Sarah, whom I hadn't spoken to properly in months. She was happy to see me but her smile soon dropped when we gave her the news of Tommy. She'd known all of the guys by sight over the last four years or so and she sent her best to him through us. We thanked her and were just stepping out of the diner when Johnny paused and stared at a guy with dark hair getting in his car a little way down the street.

"What's up, Johnny?" I asked him, looking at the guy too. There didn't seem to be anything remarkable about him.

"Get in the car." Johnny said, shortly.

"Huh?"

"I said get in the car! C'mon! Quick! I don't wanna lose him!"

I was confused but swiftly got into the passenger seat and closed the door as Johnny ran round to the driver's side and threw himself in, turning the key in the ignition with a strange, frantic urgency.

"Johnny! What's going on?" I asked, getting worried. Johnny threw our wrapped sandwiches in my lap and stepped on the gas. The car surged forwards as we followed the black Acura down the road.

Johnny didn't answer me but muttered to himself,

"Can't be..."

I was totally confused and sat, staring at Johnny's unwitting, motorised quarry ahead of us as it rounded corners, paused at junctions and waited at traffic lights. Johnny never lost it. Occasionally, a car or two would end up between our car and the one he was tailing but he always stayed on it until, after about ten minutes or so, we saw it pull into a garage. A garage that already had a white car parked outside with half its body missing. Johnny pulled in and undid his belt, stepping out of our car just as the driver of the Acura did the same. I followed him, dropping the, as yet uneaten, sandwiches in my seat. I joined Johnny as he strode towards the guy.

"I knew it was you." Johnny said as he approached.

The driver looked up and, all at once, I realised who we'd been following.

"Dutch!?" I stared at him. His hair was jet black (even his eyebrows were now dark) and he'd styled it differently. Now he was rocking a pretty stylish pompadour and, in his ear, he had a small hoop of gold. He wore a black leather jacket above blue jeans and brown leather shoes. He'd completely reinvented himself. Although his jacket was over both shoulders, his right arm wasn't through its sleeve. I could see it hanging underneath the right side, still in its hefty cast. "Whoa! You look great! How are you?" I said, genuinely smiling for what felt like the first time in years. I stepped forward to hug him.

Dutch himself just looked kind of stunned as he let himself be hugged, though he didn't return it.

"What are you guys doing here?" He asked. "How did you find me?"

"Saw you in town, man. We were just getting something to eat." Johnny said, smiling. "Haven't seen you at college. Where you been?"

"Quit." Dutch said, shortly, his expression becoming hard and dark. He opened the door of his Acura, picked up a new set of tools (that he must have just bought) with his good hand, then turned and walked into the garage. "And you can forget trying to get me to go back!" He called over his shoulder. "That means you." He said, pointing at me.

"I wasn't going to say anything!" I protested.

"Well, that'd be a first." Dutch remarked. He put the set down on a work bench and set about sorting them all into various drawers and boxes. I rolled my eyes.

"Hey, give Jac a break." Johnny said. "We've missed you, man. What you been doing? Keeping busy?"

"Didn't you see my car out front?" Dutch asked, fixing Johnny with a shrewd stare.

Johnny looked round and back out into the yard.

"That was the Ford?" He asked, surprised.

"Yup. Been fixing her." Dutch said, going back to his sorting. "Dad always said that if I bust it, I fix it, so that's what I'm doing."

"That's really awesome, Dutch." I said, impressed. "I didn't know you did that stuff."

Dutch smirked, despite himself.

"Yeah well. The old man's been a car guy since he was younger than me. Just kinda grown up around it, y'know? And it keeps me busy." He glanced at Johnny who nodded, quietly.

"Well, I think it's really cool. And I'm digging the new look too. How have you been fixing the car with only one hand though?"

"Got a guy helping me. One of Dad's buddies. He's been doing the heavy lifting. And, anyway, it's been over three weeks now. I can still do a bit with this." He wiggled the fingers at the end of his cast and flexed them to prove his point.

"I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be doing that." I said, concerned. "The nurse told you to-..."

"And there it is." Dutch interrupted me. "Look, Mom, it's fine! I'm fine! I'd rather be doing something."

I paused. There was no point fighting Dutch. I'd known the guy for nearly a decade. If he wanted to work with a broken arm, there was nothing I could say to stop him. In fact, he'd probably deliberately exacerbate his injury if I tried. Dutch was just backwards that way. Rebellious to a fault. So I just shrugged.

"M'kay." I said.

"We've been missing you, man! We couldn't reach you. Tommy woke up!" Johnny said, happily.

Dutch looked up from his work bench.

"For real?" He said, his mood seeming to lift, somewhat.

"Yeah, about a week ago now. And you missed the guy's birthday." Johnny scolded him (but not seriously). "Y'know, we could go and see him now, if you want." He ventured, gauging Dutch's reaction. Dutch really didn't seem to know what to say.

"I uh... It's been a long time. It might be weird if I go back now." He said eventually.

I glanced down, wondering if this might have something to do with his own injury. He'd truly hated being in hospital and had practically run out of the building the first chance he'd got and we hadn't seen him since. It had been the devil's own job to get him to stay overnight in the first place. At least there, I felt I had something in common with Dutch. True, we'd never seen eye to eye, but that I got.

"Tommy would be glad to see you." I said, gently. "We really have missed you."

Dutch snorted.

"Don't give me that! It's true!" I insisted. "The group hasn't been the same without you. We need our tough guy back."

I could see Johnny smirk out of the corner of my eye and he turned to hide it from Dutch. He and I both knew that Dutch was a sucker for this kind of flattery. We'd discovered it completely by accident when I was sixteen and full of way too many emotions.

Sure enough, Dutch hung his hands in his pockets by his thumbs, weight on one leg as an internal argument seemed to happen behind his eyes. With one head tilt, two or three quick blinks and a sweet smile from me, I knew I'd cracked him. He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment before looking away from me.

"C'mon, guys. Get in the car." Johnny said, struggling to keep his face straight and his voice level. Dutch grudgingly followed us back to Johnny's car.

"You're an asshole." He shot at Johnny as we reached it and Johnny opened the driver's door.

Johnny sniggered.

"Man, are you ever not going to fall for that one?" He asked, grinning all over his face.

"Fuck you." Dutch spat as he went to sit in the passenger seat.

"Hey, Dutch, wait a minute!" I said, suddenly. Dutch paused with one leg in the door.

"What?"

"You're about to sit on our sandwiches." I reached between the seats and rescued the poor, forgotten sandwiches from being flattened.

I trotted ahead of Johnny and Dutch as we walked down the, by now, very familiar hospital corridors. I could have run through them at full speed to Tommy's room with my eyes closed without running into anything, I knew them that well. It had got to the point that I no longer noticed the clinical, chemical smell or the squeaky floor or the over-shiny equipment or the ominous beeping.

I reached Tommy's door and peered inside. Tommy was sitting up and watching the TV with a decidedly morose expression on his face, and the lingering cuts and bruises only emphasised it. However, this soon lightened as I made my entrance.

"About time!" He greeted me with a grin, and turned the television off with the remote that lay by his side on the bed clothes.

"What were you watching to make you look so bloody grumpy!?" I asked, giggling.

"Soccer." Tommy replied, simply, and pulled a face. "Nothing else on."

"Hey, I brought you a present." I said, as I heard Johnny and Dutch's conversational buzz drawing closer through the open doorway.

"Oh yeah?"

I gestured to Johnny and Dutch as they walked through the door, with a flourish like some glamorous assistant on a game show, showing off prizes.

"Knock it off." Dutch scolded me, and pushed me away by my head (but not that hard). I just giggled and turned to face Tommy.

"Ta daaaa!" I said, happily.

"I said, knock it-...!" Dutch started.

"Hey, Dutch! Dude, you look great!" Tommy said, grinning from ear to ear. "It's been a while. But, you know. I slept in." He giggled.

Dutch just shifted uncomfortably, apparently not sure if he should smile or not.

"Uh... hey, man. How's it going?" he mumbled.

"Getting bored enough to watch soccer. So... pretty bad." Tommy laughed.

The corner of Dutch's mouth lifted in a half-smile at this.

"But how about you?" Tommy asked, a tad more seriously. "Your arm..?"

Dutch shrugged and didn't respond.

"Well, nurse says I won't be here much longer." Tommy smiled, veering off the subject quickly, sensing Dutch's defences going up.

"You're coming home?" I said, happily. Then I caught myself. "Going home, sorry. Where did that come from..?" I muttered to myself.

"Yep! A few more days of watching soccer and wanting to hang myself with the IV, then home." Tommy laughed.

I laughed too.

"Tommy! Ssh!"

"It'll be good to have you back, man!" Johnny said, smiling. "Life is way too freaking quiet without you around."

Casual conversation carried on for the next half hour or so, as we all stood or sat around Tommy. I was happier in the car on the way home later on as the sky began to get darker. I sat, eating my quickly deteriorating sandwich, with a smile on my face as Johnny silently stared ahead at the road.

"Isn't it awesome!" I was saying, "Dutch and Tommy in the same day. I honestly thought Dutch had up and left us and we'd never see him again. Like, I thought he'd left town or something." I paused for a bite of my sandwich. "And Tommy's getting out too!" I said, my voice muffled by bread. I knew it was rude to talk with my mouth full but I was too excited. "Ruth is going to be so happy to have her grandson back, huh?!"

Johnny nodded.

"Yeah." He said, simply. He was smiling calmly, and that was enough to set me off rambling again.

Of course, I should have realised that Johnny being so quiet and monosyllabic was a warning sign.

I should have asked him about it. Maybe I could have changed what happened next.

"Hey, uh... Listen. We need to talk."