Disclaimer: I own nothing except for my character. Everything else is S. E.
Hinton's.
A/N: *cries* I just finished The Outsiders and am now very upset because Dally died. I therefore decided to do a what-if fic. Here it is. Set a couple of days after Dally gets shot.
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"Is he going to die?"
"No, I don't think so."
"He got shot in the chest five times. How could he not?"
"Could you stop yelling? He needs his rest!"
Jessica Matthews gently pressed the wet cloth to Dallas Winston's forehead, ignoring everybody's yells. Dally had been shot three days ago, but they couldn't take him to the hospital. Instead, they had brought him to her older brother's, Two-Bit's, house. A close friend who wouldn't tell where Dally was had come over and taken the bullets out. He had given them specific instructions, but had said that Dally would most likely die. His condition since he was shot has remained the same; he'd been unconscious the entire time.
Jessie sighed and put the cloth aside. Every three hours they were supposed to check Dally's wounds to see if they were getting either better or worse. How Jessie had managed to get stuck with the task almost every time, she didn't know. There were really only two things that bothered her about it. Two and a half, really. She just chose to ignore part of it. First off, she hated the sight of blood. Jessie was a greaser, and a hard one at that, but she always got queasy looking at blood. Luckily, he had stopped bleeding ages ago, and they had washed off the blood, but it felt like blood. For another, Dally was a boy. She was a girl. Having to examine his chest felt like an intrusion of his privacy.
Jessie lifted his shirt up gently and looked and unwound the white gauze bandages that the doctor had wrapped around the wounds. She looked at the holes in her older brother's friend's chest and decided that they hadn't changed since the last time she had looked. She took out some more gauze and wrapped it around his chest and pulled his shirt down again. She took the cold compress and wet it again and went back to her seat. She put it back on Dally's forehead and waited for someone else to come and take care of him.
What bothered her most about this whole situation was that it didn't need to happen. Johnny did die, yes, but Dally didn't need to go get himself shot. If he would just look around, he would realize that the entire gang cared about him, not just Johnny. Jessie thought that if Dally would stop looking for people hating him instead of caring, he might find someone who did care. And maybe if he cared about anyone aside from himself, Jessie thought angrily. She knew that if Dally survived this, she wouldn't be thanked by him. Probably by the rest of the gang, but would Dally ever get rid of enough pride to apologize to Jessie? Not a chance.
Sighing, Jessie looked back at Dally as opposed to staring out the window. He looked so different unconscious that when he was awake. He looked like someone with feelings. Since he was shot, Jessie had been watching his face while he slept. She thought that he was dreaming because his range of expressions was far larger than when he was awake. Jessie reached out and gently moved the clod compress from his forehead and trailed her fingers along it. Dally's eyes snapped open.
"What's going on?" he asked in his typical bossy way.
Jessie stared at him. After all he had been through, he still managed to be as sassy as every. Jessie called to the other boys that Dally was awake. They came running and Jessie was instantly pushed off to the side. She sighed; she never would get that thank you she wanted.
Going out of Dally's room, she walked into her own room, a place she hadn't been since Dally was shot. Practically everyone in the gang wanted to be near him until he got better, but nobody wanted to take care of him. Jessie had landed the job of caring for him and Two-Bit had volunteered Jessie's room to whoever needed it, so Jessie had been sleeping either on the couch, on the chair next to Dally's bed after having dropped off after caring for him or not at all. Now, however, everybody was with Dally and so she went into her room and locked the door behind her.
Thankfully, Two-Bit had enough sense to give her room to Darry, who was the neatest and most polite, so it wasn't a complete and total mess. Darry's bag was in the corner and that was about it. Taking out one of her favourite books, The Fellowship of the Ring, she went over to her bed and collapsed on it and started reading.
About five minutes later, she heard the handle on her door rattling and then someone banging on the door.
"Who is it?" Jessie yelled from her bed.
"Two-Bit! Dally wants to see ya!" her older brother yelled.
Jessie was surprised, to say the least. "Why?"
"I dunno. GO talk to him!" Two-Bit yelled. "Maybe he likes ya!"
Jessie groaned. Having Two-Bit as a brother wasn't an easy task. "I'm coming, I'm coming," she grumbled and got out of bed. She unlocked her door and went to the extra room where Dally was. The door was closed, so she knocked softly.
"Come in," Dally said. Jessie opened the door and walked in. Dally was still lying in bed and even though he was awake, he looked much more vulnerable than ever before.
"What is it?" Jessie asked, pulling the chair that she had been sitting on back over to Dally's bed.
"Why'd ya take care of me?" Dally asked softly.
Jessie honestly didn't know how to answer. The truth, because nobody else wanted to, would only make him want to do something like this again. However, she didn't want to lie either. Choosing a half truth, she said, "Everybody else was busy. Darry, Steve and Soda were working, Pony's still recovering and Two-Bit was helping. I just happened to be here when you woke up."
"Oh," Dally replied awkwardly.
"Is there anything else? I haven't had anything to eat in a while . . ." Jessie said. It was another half truth. She hadn't eaten in a while, but she wasn't hungry. She just wanted to get back to her room and lock it before Darry was in there again.
Dally squirmed slightly. "Yeah . . ."
"What?" Jessie asked, imagining that Darry was already in her room.
Dally mumbled something.
"What?" Jessie repeated.
"Thanks," he said quietly.
Jessie stared at him. This was the last thing she had expected. She hadn't been expecting a thank you, but it was greatly appreciated. "It's nothing," Jessie said and went back to her room. Thankfully, Darry wasn't their yet so she sat down and started reading again.
A few minutes later, Two-Bit walked in. Jessie groaned and prepared herself for a bunch of smart comments.
"What did he want?" Two-Bit asked, sitting down on Jessie's bed.
"Nothing," Jessie replied and turned around.
Two-Bit poked her in the back. "C'mon, Jess. Tell me."
"Don't call me Jess!" she yelled. The last person to call her Jess was her ex-boyfriend and, even though he had broken up with her over a year ago, she still didn't like anyone to call her by that nickname.
"Touchy," Two-Bit muttered. "So, what did he say?"
"He thanked me, if you must know!" Jessie yelled.
Two-Bit didn't say anything so Jessie turned around and saw that her older brother was staring at her.
"What?" Jessie spat.
"He didn't say anything like that to me," Two-Bit said. "And I told him that I helped as much as you did. Did you say that too?"
"Yeah. What did he say to you" Jessie wondered.
"He was all angry at me for, y'know, making a big fuss out of him. He said that it wasn't a big deal," Two-Bit replied, still in a sate of shock.
"Oh," Jessie replied uncomfortably.
"I told ya he liked ya," Two-Bit said and walked out.
"No he doesn't!" Jessie yelled down the hall and slammed her bedroom door behind her and locked it. She went back to her bed and sat down heavily on it. What Two-Bit had said really got to her. She didn't believe that Dally had a crush on her; it would just be too weird. Sighing, she picked up her book and started to read.
~*~*~*~
Six hours later at seven thirty, Two-Bit came in and said that they were going to have dinner in Dally's room to celebrate his being awake. The Curtis's had brought chocolate cake Two-Bit himself had made a bunch of spaghetti.
"I hafta come, don't I?" Jessie groaned. Whenever she had dinner with the entire gang, she ended up feeling left out and unwanted since the boys couldn't talk about things they always did, like girls and stuff.
Two-Bit grinned hugely. "Ya sure do! C'mon," he said happily and took Jessie by the arm, dragging her into Dally's room.
Jessie laughed and pulled her arm free. Two-Bit had a bad habit of dragging people places that they didn't want to go, but Jessie had learned to take it as a complement. If Two-Bit didn't care if she went, he wouldn't bother to drag her.
"Close yer eyes," Two-Bit said and went around behind her and out his hands over her eyes.
"Two-Bit!" Jessie squealed. "What're you doing?"
"It's a surprise," he answered and led her into Dally's room. He sat her down on a chair and walked away.
"SURPRISE!" the gang yelled. Jessie opened her eyes and looked around in shock. She was sitting next to Dally on a chair next to his bed and the gang was around them, smiling hugely.
"What?" Jessie said.
"A toast!" Soda yelled, passing around glasses with water in them.
"To what?" Jessie asked.
"To the good health of Dally and the kind person who got him there!" Two- Bit said and raised his glass. Everybody followed suit and then took a sip. Jessie turned to Dally.
"Didya know about this?" she asked.
"Kind of," he said. "When they told me to close my eyes I got suspicious."
"Oh," Jessie said and happily took the plate of chocolate cake that Ponyboy was passing around.
~*~*~*~
At eight fifteen, Two-Bit glanced at Soda who looked at Pony who looked at Darry. They all left.
"What's going on now?" Jessie asked Dally.
"I dunno," Dally replied. Jessie glanced over at him and saw that he was fidgeting.
"Dally, tell me," Jessie demanded.
"I said I didn't know," Dally replied.
Jessie sighed. "Fine. I'll be right back," she said and walked out in search of Two-Bit. She found him, and the other boys, in Two-Bit's room, which is the room next to Dally's, one ear pressed against the wall and the other boys around him. "Keith Matthews, are you trying to set me up with Dally?" Jessie demanded from behind him.
All the boys jumped and turned around. "No, of course not," Two-Bit said nervously. Nobody called him by his real name.
"Two-Bit . . ." Jessie said. "Tell me."
"Well, ya hardly need it," he blurted without meaning to.
"What are ya talking about?" Jessie half yelled.
"What do you mean, what am I talking about? You're, like, always with him! Shoot, Jessie, anyone of us would've been glad to take care of him. He's part of the gang. We take care of each other. Ya aren't even in it, and you were by his side practically the entire time," Two-Bit replied.
Jessie just stared at him. "Y'all never even offered! Lemme guess; y'all were trying to get us to spend some time 'together,' right? Even if he was unconscious? Why do ya want us together?"
Nobody said anything, but there was much nudging and smirking among the boys.
"Well?" Jessie demanded.
"Go talk to him," Two-Bit eventually said and pushed Jessie out the door and into Dally's room.
Jessie glared at him, but let herself be pushed. Soon enough, she was sitting next to Dally again.
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So, do ya like it? Please oh please review!!!
A/N: *cries* I just finished The Outsiders and am now very upset because Dally died. I therefore decided to do a what-if fic. Here it is. Set a couple of days after Dally gets shot.
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"Is he going to die?"
"No, I don't think so."
"He got shot in the chest five times. How could he not?"
"Could you stop yelling? He needs his rest!"
Jessica Matthews gently pressed the wet cloth to Dallas Winston's forehead, ignoring everybody's yells. Dally had been shot three days ago, but they couldn't take him to the hospital. Instead, they had brought him to her older brother's, Two-Bit's, house. A close friend who wouldn't tell where Dally was had come over and taken the bullets out. He had given them specific instructions, but had said that Dally would most likely die. His condition since he was shot has remained the same; he'd been unconscious the entire time.
Jessie sighed and put the cloth aside. Every three hours they were supposed to check Dally's wounds to see if they were getting either better or worse. How Jessie had managed to get stuck with the task almost every time, she didn't know. There were really only two things that bothered her about it. Two and a half, really. She just chose to ignore part of it. First off, she hated the sight of blood. Jessie was a greaser, and a hard one at that, but she always got queasy looking at blood. Luckily, he had stopped bleeding ages ago, and they had washed off the blood, but it felt like blood. For another, Dally was a boy. She was a girl. Having to examine his chest felt like an intrusion of his privacy.
Jessie lifted his shirt up gently and looked and unwound the white gauze bandages that the doctor had wrapped around the wounds. She looked at the holes in her older brother's friend's chest and decided that they hadn't changed since the last time she had looked. She took out some more gauze and wrapped it around his chest and pulled his shirt down again. She took the cold compress and wet it again and went back to her seat. She put it back on Dally's forehead and waited for someone else to come and take care of him.
What bothered her most about this whole situation was that it didn't need to happen. Johnny did die, yes, but Dally didn't need to go get himself shot. If he would just look around, he would realize that the entire gang cared about him, not just Johnny. Jessie thought that if Dally would stop looking for people hating him instead of caring, he might find someone who did care. And maybe if he cared about anyone aside from himself, Jessie thought angrily. She knew that if Dally survived this, she wouldn't be thanked by him. Probably by the rest of the gang, but would Dally ever get rid of enough pride to apologize to Jessie? Not a chance.
Sighing, Jessie looked back at Dally as opposed to staring out the window. He looked so different unconscious that when he was awake. He looked like someone with feelings. Since he was shot, Jessie had been watching his face while he slept. She thought that he was dreaming because his range of expressions was far larger than when he was awake. Jessie reached out and gently moved the clod compress from his forehead and trailed her fingers along it. Dally's eyes snapped open.
"What's going on?" he asked in his typical bossy way.
Jessie stared at him. After all he had been through, he still managed to be as sassy as every. Jessie called to the other boys that Dally was awake. They came running and Jessie was instantly pushed off to the side. She sighed; she never would get that thank you she wanted.
Going out of Dally's room, she walked into her own room, a place she hadn't been since Dally was shot. Practically everyone in the gang wanted to be near him until he got better, but nobody wanted to take care of him. Jessie had landed the job of caring for him and Two-Bit had volunteered Jessie's room to whoever needed it, so Jessie had been sleeping either on the couch, on the chair next to Dally's bed after having dropped off after caring for him or not at all. Now, however, everybody was with Dally and so she went into her room and locked the door behind her.
Thankfully, Two-Bit had enough sense to give her room to Darry, who was the neatest and most polite, so it wasn't a complete and total mess. Darry's bag was in the corner and that was about it. Taking out one of her favourite books, The Fellowship of the Ring, she went over to her bed and collapsed on it and started reading.
About five minutes later, she heard the handle on her door rattling and then someone banging on the door.
"Who is it?" Jessie yelled from her bed.
"Two-Bit! Dally wants to see ya!" her older brother yelled.
Jessie was surprised, to say the least. "Why?"
"I dunno. GO talk to him!" Two-Bit yelled. "Maybe he likes ya!"
Jessie groaned. Having Two-Bit as a brother wasn't an easy task. "I'm coming, I'm coming," she grumbled and got out of bed. She unlocked her door and went to the extra room where Dally was. The door was closed, so she knocked softly.
"Come in," Dally said. Jessie opened the door and walked in. Dally was still lying in bed and even though he was awake, he looked much more vulnerable than ever before.
"What is it?" Jessie asked, pulling the chair that she had been sitting on back over to Dally's bed.
"Why'd ya take care of me?" Dally asked softly.
Jessie honestly didn't know how to answer. The truth, because nobody else wanted to, would only make him want to do something like this again. However, she didn't want to lie either. Choosing a half truth, she said, "Everybody else was busy. Darry, Steve and Soda were working, Pony's still recovering and Two-Bit was helping. I just happened to be here when you woke up."
"Oh," Dally replied awkwardly.
"Is there anything else? I haven't had anything to eat in a while . . ." Jessie said. It was another half truth. She hadn't eaten in a while, but she wasn't hungry. She just wanted to get back to her room and lock it before Darry was in there again.
Dally squirmed slightly. "Yeah . . ."
"What?" Jessie asked, imagining that Darry was already in her room.
Dally mumbled something.
"What?" Jessie repeated.
"Thanks," he said quietly.
Jessie stared at him. This was the last thing she had expected. She hadn't been expecting a thank you, but it was greatly appreciated. "It's nothing," Jessie said and went back to her room. Thankfully, Darry wasn't their yet so she sat down and started reading again.
A few minutes later, Two-Bit walked in. Jessie groaned and prepared herself for a bunch of smart comments.
"What did he want?" Two-Bit asked, sitting down on Jessie's bed.
"Nothing," Jessie replied and turned around.
Two-Bit poked her in the back. "C'mon, Jess. Tell me."
"Don't call me Jess!" she yelled. The last person to call her Jess was her ex-boyfriend and, even though he had broken up with her over a year ago, she still didn't like anyone to call her by that nickname.
"Touchy," Two-Bit muttered. "So, what did he say?"
"He thanked me, if you must know!" Jessie yelled.
Two-Bit didn't say anything so Jessie turned around and saw that her older brother was staring at her.
"What?" Jessie spat.
"He didn't say anything like that to me," Two-Bit said. "And I told him that I helped as much as you did. Did you say that too?"
"Yeah. What did he say to you" Jessie wondered.
"He was all angry at me for, y'know, making a big fuss out of him. He said that it wasn't a big deal," Two-Bit replied, still in a sate of shock.
"Oh," Jessie replied uncomfortably.
"I told ya he liked ya," Two-Bit said and walked out.
"No he doesn't!" Jessie yelled down the hall and slammed her bedroom door behind her and locked it. She went back to her bed and sat down heavily on it. What Two-Bit had said really got to her. She didn't believe that Dally had a crush on her; it would just be too weird. Sighing, she picked up her book and started to read.
~*~*~*~
Six hours later at seven thirty, Two-Bit came in and said that they were going to have dinner in Dally's room to celebrate his being awake. The Curtis's had brought chocolate cake Two-Bit himself had made a bunch of spaghetti.
"I hafta come, don't I?" Jessie groaned. Whenever she had dinner with the entire gang, she ended up feeling left out and unwanted since the boys couldn't talk about things they always did, like girls and stuff.
Two-Bit grinned hugely. "Ya sure do! C'mon," he said happily and took Jessie by the arm, dragging her into Dally's room.
Jessie laughed and pulled her arm free. Two-Bit had a bad habit of dragging people places that they didn't want to go, but Jessie had learned to take it as a complement. If Two-Bit didn't care if she went, he wouldn't bother to drag her.
"Close yer eyes," Two-Bit said and went around behind her and out his hands over her eyes.
"Two-Bit!" Jessie squealed. "What're you doing?"
"It's a surprise," he answered and led her into Dally's room. He sat her down on a chair and walked away.
"SURPRISE!" the gang yelled. Jessie opened her eyes and looked around in shock. She was sitting next to Dally on a chair next to his bed and the gang was around them, smiling hugely.
"What?" Jessie said.
"A toast!" Soda yelled, passing around glasses with water in them.
"To what?" Jessie asked.
"To the good health of Dally and the kind person who got him there!" Two- Bit said and raised his glass. Everybody followed suit and then took a sip. Jessie turned to Dally.
"Didya know about this?" she asked.
"Kind of," he said. "When they told me to close my eyes I got suspicious."
"Oh," Jessie said and happily took the plate of chocolate cake that Ponyboy was passing around.
~*~*~*~
At eight fifteen, Two-Bit glanced at Soda who looked at Pony who looked at Darry. They all left.
"What's going on now?" Jessie asked Dally.
"I dunno," Dally replied. Jessie glanced over at him and saw that he was fidgeting.
"Dally, tell me," Jessie demanded.
"I said I didn't know," Dally replied.
Jessie sighed. "Fine. I'll be right back," she said and walked out in search of Two-Bit. She found him, and the other boys, in Two-Bit's room, which is the room next to Dally's, one ear pressed against the wall and the other boys around him. "Keith Matthews, are you trying to set me up with Dally?" Jessie demanded from behind him.
All the boys jumped and turned around. "No, of course not," Two-Bit said nervously. Nobody called him by his real name.
"Two-Bit . . ." Jessie said. "Tell me."
"Well, ya hardly need it," he blurted without meaning to.
"What are ya talking about?" Jessie half yelled.
"What do you mean, what am I talking about? You're, like, always with him! Shoot, Jessie, anyone of us would've been glad to take care of him. He's part of the gang. We take care of each other. Ya aren't even in it, and you were by his side practically the entire time," Two-Bit replied.
Jessie just stared at him. "Y'all never even offered! Lemme guess; y'all were trying to get us to spend some time 'together,' right? Even if he was unconscious? Why do ya want us together?"
Nobody said anything, but there was much nudging and smirking among the boys.
"Well?" Jessie demanded.
"Go talk to him," Two-Bit eventually said and pushed Jessie out the door and into Dally's room.
Jessie glared at him, but let herself be pushed. Soon enough, she was sitting next to Dally again.
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So, do ya like it? Please oh please review!!!