Disclaimer: I don't own the Outsiders or Keeping the Moon.

oOoDancingQueenoOo: it is an aw moment. LOL. I love those! Don't you?

Cutiepiepink angle: Do you really think I'd let Evie step all over her like that?

ZELINDA: Woah you really do want her to end up with Dally don't you? I can't really say if she is or not because that would give it away but from now on you should be able to figure out who she's going to end up with.

Babygurl33: my awesome beta-reader! LOL, I like love you for all you've done for this story. Yes Soda is very upset. And yes it is kind of obvious but that's a good thing right? I hope you enjoyed proof reading this. Ha-ha.

Author's Note: Gah…this chapter will have to hold you for a while because unfortunately I have finals starting tomorrow so I'm going to be studying a lot (gah…I'm going to fail chemistry and geometry, I just know it). But after my finals I am free for summer so I can write whenever I want to! Anyhow, you get to see where the title comes from in this chapter. It probably doesn't mean as much as it does in the actual novel Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen but I needed to add it. Dally might be a little OOC here just to warn you. His little talk with Roxie would probably have been better if it was Ponyboy or even Soda telling her. But there is a reason for this! Soda might be a little OOC too but this is needed for the story also. Oh and just to let you know it should be easier from now on to see who she's going to end up with. It was confusing at the beginning because I, myself, didn't know who the guy was. But now I do so it should be kind of obvious but hopefully that is a good thing. Some people maybe disappointed but I am definitely planning more fics after this one so the guy you wanted her to end up with may be featured in one of them. Anyway on to chapter ten (the big 1-0 LOL!)

This chapter is dedicated to the people who decided to issue a special edition of the Outsiders on DVD that is coming out September 20. I am so excited for it. Lots of special features and some deleted scenes that make it more true to the book (more Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, and Emilio Estevez…yum)!

Chapter Ten

"So what's up with you and Dally?" Olivia asked. It was the next day and I was sitting in the living room of Olivia and Trisha's house. Trisha was painting her toenails with red polish and had the radio turned up very loudly. Olivia was in the kitchen making a batch of her famous devilled eggs. Trisha said this was because of her boyfriend Mike. Whenever Mike went a week without calling Olivia would make devilled eggs. She always took them over to the Curtis's house because Trisha could no longer stomach them. Mike was still on his baseball season. Whenever Olivia was upset about him being distant or not calling she would say that he would be coming home at the end of August and everything would be the same again, which caused Trisha to roll her eyes every time she said it. It wasn't that Trisha didn't like Mike but she thought Olivia deserved better.

Trisha looked up from her nails, interested. "Nothing?" I shrugged.

"Roxie, don't tell me you didn't notice how he was looking at you last night!" Trisha said. I crinkled my nose.

"He wasn't looking at me any different than he has since I've known him." I protested.

"So he's liked you from the beginning then? And you didn't tell us?" Trisha teased.

"Our poor little Roxie doesn't even know when a guy is crazy about her," Olivia said covering the eggs in plastic wrap to take over to the boys.

"He is not crazy about me." I protested, grabbing Trisha's copy of the latest Seventeen and flipping through it.

"So what were you talking about when the rest of us were watching the fireworks?" Trisha asked. I shrugged.

"He said he was proud of me for sticking up for myself. That's it."

"Sure." Olivia said giving me a knowing smile. Trisha finished with her nails and carefully slipped her feet into sandals and we headed up to the Curtis's with the devilled eggs.

"Mike hasn't called yet?" Two-Bit asked when he opened the door. Olivia shook her head and Trisha gave him a look that silenced him. Johnny and Ponyboy were watching TV while Soda was playing solitaire. He didn't even look up when we came in which struck me as odd.

We were there about half an hour when I realized something was wrong. Whenever I go over to the house Soda is always joking around and trying to make me laugh with Two-Bit but I hadn't even heard him talk in the 30 minutes I had been there. Trisha and Olivia had to go to the drug store for work, which left me with Ponyboy, Johnny, Two-Bit, and Sodapop.

I looked over at Soda from where he was sitting in the armchair by the door, his card game since ended. His usual dancing eyes were full of care and he just did not look like the charming boy I had known for about a month. I got up off the couch where I was watching TV and sat on the arm of his chair. He looked up at me and patted my shoulder.

"What's the matter Soda?" I asked. Ponyboy looked up at me and shook his head. I looked back to Soda to see for the first time since I'd known him, Sodapop Curtis was crying. It wasn't how I cried. I cried in great big gulps, very loudly. Soda's tears just slid down his high cheekbones, some mixing with his silky hair. He didn't make a sound. Instantly my mind flashed to the worst: Darry falling off the roof of a house, Aunt Candace having a heart attack. When you're panicked like that your mind doesn't exactly work reasonably. If someone was hurt they would have told me right off the bat.

"It's Sandy." Soda chocked out. I bit my lip; I had just seen her the night before and she looked perfectly fine. Did she get in a car accident? Was she in the hospital? Soda was still crying so I cradled his head in my arms and brushed back his corn-silk blond hair the way my mother did in middle school when everyone was so mean to me and teased me. I came home every day crying and she would take me in her lap, although I was much too big for that anymore, and would rock me back and forth and tell me that middle school and high school are the hardest parts of life and things would get better before I knew it.

"What happened?" I asked Ponyboy quietly over Soda's head.

"Sandy broke up with him. She saw him kiss you on the cheek last night and she said that if he liked you more than her best friend they would be better off going their separate ways." Pony explained in a hushed voice.

"Oh Pepsi-Cola this is all my fault!" I said, brushing his hair back again. If I hadn't been so proud Sandy wouldn't have broken up with him. Soda looked up at me and smiled at his special nickname. I learned it from Darry; apparently it was something their father used to call him a lot.

"No Miss Roxanne, I'm just being silly." Soda scolded himself wiping the tears from his eyes. He grinned at me. "Don't blame yourself, ever."

"But if I hadn't had said all those things to Evie and gotten Sandy mad…"

"It's not your fault." Soda said grinning which caused me to smile too.

"Are you excited about the eclipse?" I asked Dally that night. We were walking up and down the street, trying to think of something to do. Darry was working; Johnny and Pony were at the movies, Steve was out with Evie, and Soda was off with Two-Bit trying to keep his mind off Sandy.

"I remember the first time I saw one," he said almost pensively, stopping to sit down on the curb. I sat down next to him and he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered me one. I shook my head and he continued. "I was in New York one night when I was about eight, walking around like this with some of my friends, except it was really late. Then all of a sudden it got really dark and I looked up to see that moon was gone. It's pretty weird when you're a kid and you see the moon is gone. I remember telling them that someone took the moon, that they were keeping the moon."

"But the moon comes back." I said raising my eyebrows at how Dally was acting somewhat like Ponyboy.

"Yeah it does eventually, but it's just a little creepy to have to wait for it. You think that the moon might not come back at all. I wasn't the brightest kid back then." Dally said chuckling. I leaned back onto my palms and cocked my head to one side, causing my short hair to fall into my eyes. Dally hardly ever talked about his past. He didn't talk about the future further then the next week either. He mostly stayed in the present, the here and now. "You'll know what I'm talking about when you see it. You'll just know Roxie."

Yes I made Sodapop Curtis (the sex god) cry. I'm such a bad person, I feel really bad for him. But don't worry. Everyone shall be happy in the end! Well…one character may be a little broken-hearted but for the most part it's a happy ending. And Dally is a little odd there at the end. Like when he walked Roxie to her house that one time (forget which chapter) but I'm sure it made all you Dally lovers go aw! Anyway, until the next chapter:

Infinite X's and O's,

Hannah