This took a lot of PMs between Marauder and I. So, introducing, Tommy Randle, Steve's darling son, who's about a year younger than Jennifer.

He belongs to Marauder, so any compliments on character should go to her.

Blindfolded

Five

"How am I supposed to get back?" Jennifer asked, standing on the edge of the field and looking down. It was very gray below her, like there were a bunch of dust bunnies hanging out in the sky.

Dallas took a drag on his cigarette, put a hand on her shoulder, and shoved her forward.

And Jennifer went shrieking back to Earth. Literally.

xxxx

Gasping, Jennifer jerked awake and sat up, flailing her limbs for a moment. "Holy shit," she breathed, her breaths heavy but even, despite the fact that her heart was skipping like a rabbit.

Jennifer let out an empty sob and ran a hand through her hair, looking around. She was still in Alice's "bedroom" but, she wasn't on the floor like she expected to be. Instead, she was on the bed, the lone pillow on the floor from her jerking about.

"I never ever want to do that again," Jennifer muttered, looking at the floor. She smiled. Well, Dallas had been nice enough to throw her journal after her.

"Hey, Pony! How come the 'touch-this-door-and-die' door is open?"

"Stay outta there Tommy. Someone's resting in there."

"Then why'd he leave the door open?" a voice muttered. Jennifer watched, a bit curiously, as the shadow that had been moving across the floor was finally accompanied by a pair of shoes. Beat up shoes, not much different from the ones she had been wearing... where ever they were now, she had no clue.

Slowly, her gaze wandered up and, realized that the shoes belonged to a boy about her age, who was studying her in return. But, Jennifer decided that since he wasn't snapping at her he wasn't bothered by her staring. She wasn't sure who he could be, but she noticed he had blue eyes.

Like her's ... or Dallas's... Jennifer was aware that her facial expression had probably changed from curious to annoyed and looked away. But the boy didn't leave.

Sighing she looked back at him. "No, 'Sorry, I didn't mean to bother you'?"

His eyes narrowed, but he didn't say anything.

"Anything?"

"I'm sorry am I bothering you?" He asked sweetly, a smile on his face. Jennifer narrowed her eyes.

"Huh, a little smart ass. I can do that," She thought, moving so her feet hung over the edge of the bed.

"No, actually, you aren't."

He shrugged and stepped into the room, looking at the walls and the few items scattered on a dresser.

"So... your name's Tommy?"

"Yup," he said, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

"I'm Jennifer."

"That's nice."

"... What were you saying, before you came in here?"

"Why did he leave the door open?"

"No, before that."

"About the door?"

"Yeah, what did you mean by that?"

Tommy stopped his little investigation and leaned against the wall. Jennifer noticed that he seemed to be watching her more than was necessary. "You ever get yelled at to never go in a room? Ever?"

"Yeah, my Aunt's dining room."

"This is your Aunt's dining room."

"Oh."

"Why're you here?"

"... Uh, it's kind of personal. I dunno if I want to tell you right now... why're you here?"

"I come here all the time. My dad's these guys' friend."

"So why aren't you with your dad?"

"That's kind of personal-"

"Okay, I get it," Jennifer said, cutting him off before he had the chance to fully mimic her. "I don't ask, you don't ask."

"Oh, but I was really hoping to get to know you better."

"... You're being sarcastic, aren't you?"

Tommy shrugged, eyeing her again. "Dunno. You seem kinda interesting. Not everyday I walk into a room and find a blonde girl just sitting on a bed in a room no one else is allowed in," he said, walking closer to the bed. He bent down and picked up her pen that was laying on the floor and sat down, tapping it on his shoe.

"How old are you anyway?"

"Old enough."

"I'm just trying to figure some things out. It isn't that interesting," Jennifer said, looking at her socks. Her stupid, bright green socks. "Probably should have turned a light on before I grabbed these," she muttered, fingering the top of a sock.

"Probably should have burned 'em, if you want my opinion."

"You're probably right," Jennifer said, laughing.

"Where you from Jennifer?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm from Chicago."

"Does everyone sound as weird as you do?"

"Yes."

Jennifer grinned as Tommy laughed.

'So Tommy's not all that bad, despite the fact that he keeps watching me. I keep waiting for him to jump on me and rip my throat open or something, but I doubt he'd do that. I doubt any person would do that, but, you never know. Some people are kind of weird.

'He seems like a pretty honest person. Maybe I could ask him if this entire trip was just a waste. I mean, I find out things that just... ruin the image of my mother forever, I can't stop wondering about things I never wanted to wonder about... and I got pushed off of the edge of someplace in the sky by an Angel.

'Not exactly what I was expecting.'

"Could you please stop doing that?"

"Doing what?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about Tommy, and it's getting on my nerves."

"I'm bored. Ya know why? You're boring, and right now, the only thing keepin' me occupied is my shoe. I'm not really jumping at the chance to give up my only entertainment."

Jennifer sighed, snapping her journal shut and tapping her pen on the edge of it. "Well? What do you want to do?"

"Stop it, that's annoying."

"Shut up."

"Let's just get outta the house," Tommy said, standing up and walking out of the room. Jennifer sat for a moment, before grabbing her shoes and following him, pushing them onto her feet as she went. She'd never actually been asked to go anywhere by a boy before. It was a bit odd.

After avoiding a near collision with the screen door, she caught up to Tommy as he was jumping over the chain link fence that surrounded the house's yard. Jennifer used the gate.

They walked down the street in silence, Tommy with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched a bit and Jennifer on full alert, looking around with a bit more interest now that she had somewhere to stay. It wasn't as hot out as it had been before, which was a hint that the afternoon had come and gone.

"Hold up," Tommy said, putting an arm in front of Jennifer, before she crossed the street.

"... Wow, a personal crossing-guard. I can cross the street on my own, you know."

"I never would have believed it, but I'll have to take your word," Tommy bit back. "That's not why I stopped you. I wanna tell you, the tourist, the things that I, the native, happen to know about this place."

"Oh, well go right ahead. Enlighten me, oh Native one."

"Sure thing, Tourist. See that street light?"

"It's kind of hard not to."

"Well, anywhere around that street light is supposed to be haunted. But it usually doesn't get bad until school's already started."

"... You're kidding, right? How can a street be haunted?"

"Well, it ain't that hard. Some places on the back roads are haunted too. People die out there all the time and with the Trail of Tears an' all..." Tommy said with a shrug.

"Well? Why don't we sit on that haunted corner and you can tell me a story," Jennifer said with a smirk, crossing the street.

"I'd love too. But it'd be better if we waited until night, ya know. That, and I didn't tell Pony we were leavin' and he's gonna be none too happy about us bailin' out on him. You 'specially, since your well being is in his hands now that you're stayin there."

Jennifer's eyes widened and she looked at Tommy who was smirking. She remembered how snappy Darrel had been on the phone... and what would her Unlce say once Pony called him to say she was missing? Would he call? Or would he just be waiting at the door like her grandmother did?

"...It must be bad if Tommy was willing to... oh that little-"

"...You little rat! You did that on purpose!" Jennifer shrieked, making a move to catch Tommy in a choke hold. Tommy moved, laughing.

"Hey, I didn't think you'd be dumb enough to just walk outta the house," Tommy said, raising his hands in defense.

Jennifer glared at him and shoved him back against the corner store wall they were standing near. Tommy stared after her as she stormed away, a bit more than surprised.

"Jen! Wait!"

"Fuck you, Tommy!" Jennifer shouted over her shoulder. She'd go back to the payphone if she had to. It was the only other street she knew and she had no intentions of getting lost just because some boy had upset her enough that she'd storm away.

She looked over her shoulder and sighed in relief when she saw that Tommy wasn't chasing after her. That was really the last thing Jennifer wanted at the moment. She made sure to keep an eye out for some place to just hide. She didn't care if she would get in trouble, she just needed to sit somewhere and not be bothered for awhile.

Jennifer finally came upon a messy lot in between two buildings, with enough junk in there for her to duck behind and not be seen from the street. She waited until the street was pretty much empty before she hopped the fence surrounding the lot and fell to her hands and knees on the way down.

She scurried past an old, broken refrigerator and ducked in between that and an old couch. She kept an eye out for rats or any other less than desirable creature (Tommy included), before getting a bit more comfortable.

"Why me?" Jennifer muttered, looking up at the now twilight sky. Was that where she had fallen from? That cloud up there? Or that one? Or maybe Inbetween was even higher up than that. Above all of those clouds. Above the airplanes too. Had she passed an airplane on the way down?

She couldn't remember.

Was Alice up there somewhere, watching all of this happen? Or maybe it was someone else she knew that had died. She couldn't think of anyone else.

"Huh, great, screwed down here and screwed up there. Life doesn't get more low than that," Jennifer said to herself, picking at the dying grass as her vision blurred.

"Damn it!" Jennifer cursed, hitting the wall behind her with the side of her fist. "This wasn't supposed to make things worse."

"Hey, there you-" Tommy knelt down in front of Jennifer, out of breath. He stopped and looked at the mess of blonde hair. "What, you're hiding from me now?"

No answer.

"Jen? C'mon, it's not that big of a deal."

"I never should have come here."

"What? I can't hear you when you're talking into your-"

"I should have stayed in Chicago! Nothing good is coming from this," Jennifer said, looking up at him. "I should have waited at home and just left it alone, but no, I fucked up again and came here!

"You wanna know why I'm here? Because my mother mentioned some stupid things and now she's dead and laughing at me somewhere because she got me to come out here so I could learn how awful she was!"

"I doubt she's laughing at you."

"Someone out there is... life is laughing in my face right now and I can't do much about it, now can I?" Jennifer muttered, wiping the tears away from her face with her hands.

"... C'mon, I think I'll show you that street corner."

"Yeah, that'll make me feel better."

"Just do it."

Jennifer sniffled and stood up, brushing her pants off. Tommy didn't wait for her to catch up, and jumped the fence, Jennifer following a few feet behind. When they did reach the corner, the streetlights were on.

Jennifer looked up at the street light and the trees, a weak wind making the remaining tears on her face dry and feel funny.

"About twenty years ago, a boy got shot here," Tommy began, as the occasional car drove by. "Dad said that life hadn't even bothered laughing at him. It just turned around and ignored him."

"Why'd he get shot?"

"He robbed a store... and he ran down here, the cops followin' 'im in their cars, 'cause it was an armed robbery."

Jennifer listened, looking down the street. She could almost hear the sirens and the heavy breathing of a runner.

"He turns around right there," Tommy said, pointing. "Pulls out a gun and says, 'You'll never take me alive!'"

"Then..." Jennifer glanced at him, before looking back at the circle of yellow light on the street.

"Bang," Tommy said, making a gun with his fingers and shooting at the air under the street light. "Shot him down. His friends came runnin' up as he was gettin' shot, my Dad said it was at least six times, 'cause he had called them and told them he needed somewhere to lay low for awhile. So, that's where he was runnin' to."

Jennifer continued to stare, the sounds still echoing in her head. The boy yelling to the cops... the gun fire, the screaming.

"They run up screaming, tellin' the cops not to shoot. And this is what really got me. They start screamin', 'It's not loaded! It's not loaded!'"

Jennifer shuddered. "Suicide."

"Yup. Anyway, sometimes, if you come by here around that time, you can hear it all happening again. At least, that's what I've heard. Just ask around, I'm sure someone'll tell you somethin' crazy."

Jennifer smiled a bit, "You know that one street, where the boy got shot under the street light? See anythin' weird there?"

"Yeah. You."

"Was there a point to tellin' me that story?"

"Yeah. Life is laughin' in everybody's face, not just yours, how ever pretty your face may be."

"What'd you say?"

"...What?"

"What'd you just say?"

"Life is laughin' in everybody's face."

"... All of it."

"Not just yours."

"That wasn't-"

"It's gettin' kinda late... and I'm kinda hungry. And I know someone's made dinner by now. I'm gonna go home. You know how to get back?"

"No..." Jennifer said, wondering what Tommy had meant before. Was he complimenting her or just saying it in general?

Tommy gave her directions and after a few minutes, Jennifer was growling in anger. He had gotten her lost. So after a few more minutes, she found the street the pay phone was on and got some pity change from a woman passing on the street.

"Hello?"

"This isn't Darry is it?"

"Jennifer? It's Ponyboy. Tommy came back without you, and-"

"Yeah, I'm not surprised, since that little shit is the one that got me lost in the first place. I know how to get back from the pay phone, I'll be there to kill him in a few minutes."

"Alright, I'll save some dinner for you," Ponyboy said with a laugh.

"Thanks," Jennifer said, before she hung up the phone.

xxxx

To her surprise, Tommy was waiting on the front porch, a smirk on his face. "So," He said casually. "I heard some pretty interesting stuff about you. There a reason your mom dropped you off at some girl's home or did you ask her too?"

Jennifer froze. "What?"

"Or maybe your mom was a whore, is that it? She too young to take care of you? That usually means the kid was a mistake, ya know. That they weren't wanted in the first place."

"Shut up."

"And now your new mother decided to die on ya."

"Tommy..."

"Does that mean you'll be goin' back to that girl's home? They gonna throw you a 'Welcome Home' party?"

"Stop it."

"No, I don't think I will. You were right, life is just laughin' it's ass off right now 'cause of you. You're the only blonde in the family aren't you? And your own dad upped and left too. I imagine that Life is just about to bust a gut at the rate this is goin'."

"Shut up!"

"Do you even know why your mother died? How she got sick? I mean, she may not have been sick at all. She may have just decided to cop out and took one pill too many. You don't seem to be real popular in the 'loved child' department to-"

"Shut your fuckin' face!" Jennifer screeched, ramming into him and knocking him back into the wall. "I don't want to hear you anymore, you got it? So you can just shut the fuck up!"

Jennifer had a firm grip on his shirt, but Tommy seemed unfazed. "You're pretty cute when you're violent," he said with a smirk.

"I can't believe you... you're just... ugh. Just leave me alone, huh? Why don't you go home?" Jennifer said, shoving him back again and walking to the front door.

"Bad news sweetheart, I'm stayin' here tonight."

Jennifer slammed the front door shut.