A/N#1: I did add a scene from the movie.

A/N #2: I'm warning you right now, tread lightly. This chapter gets a bit...weird...with the extra scenes. You'll see. Anyway, any reviews at all are greatly appreciated. (P.S. Thank you for all your encouragement, Crowbar! =D Cookies for you!)

You don't even talk for ten minutes. I don't bother to tell you guys about Steve, or even the whole me blowing-up thing. There's no need for that much alarm, at least, I think, not yet...you're not outta the woods if you still see trees above you.

I break the news to you about the spy, "that Soc, you know, Cherry What's-her-name," and you two gag some more. As if you weren't nearly gagging on your food seconds before.

"Cherry?"

"Yeah," I say a little quieter. I hope you don't talk about her. I don't want to think about her right now, because, as if God really wants to annoy me today, some little kids just came up to us: "Hey, mister."

I sink low in my seat and mumble the world's longest Shit.

"Hey, mister. Hey. You got fifteen cents?"

Nothing.

"Mister. You have fifteen cents?"

These two bottomless pits just drained me of all the money I had sucking down one hundred and seventy-two hamburgers. I ain't got no goddamn fifteen cents. Go away, you little fucksters. Leave us alone.

"No. Go away."

"But—"

"Get outta here! Go!"

The kids finally go away and I breathe a sigh of relief. "That was close."

I pull out something from the compartment.

"You have a heater? You kill people with heaters, Dally!" Pony shrieks.

"Shut up."

I start up the car and you're glued to your seats. Pony shuts up, but since he just shut his trap, now it's your turn to talk my ear off. I swear, I put you two together and you're worse than a pair of tag-teaming Socs. What's a guy gotta do to get a frigging break around here?

Then you say you want to turn yourself in. I almost fall over.

Do you want me to have a heart attack? No fucking way!

"I have to turn myself in. We'll say it was self-defense. Pony won't get in any trouble, but if he stays here...you have to take me back," you say.

I yell at you. I don't really know what I'm saying, because now all I see in the rear-view mirror is your head, hanging down.

"Johnny," I say. Dammit. "You think my old man cares if I'm in prison, drunk or dead in the gutter?"

My old man—now there's a face I haven't thought about. Don't even remember his name. All I know is is that he had a young face and that he left my old lady for some blond dyke he met at church.

I was maybe five when it happened.

I can't remember any of their names. All I remember clearly—hang on, I'm gunning another red light—is having two sisters who were identical twins, 'cause at the time I thought they were aliens or something. Well, whadd'ya want? Twins are such freaks of nature. They do everything like each other. My sisters were so fucking creepy it made my skin crawl.

See, kid, we were put in a foster home after Mom died, and after that all three of us got separated from each other. Not that I'd give a rat's ass now. I'll try till I turn blue in the face, but I can't remember either one's fucking name. I'd probably spit on them if I saw them walking down the street.

Mom died not long after Dad left. She took a .38 revolver and shot herself right in the brain while we were away one morning, playing at the park. The babysitter almost had an aneurysm coming home, but I'll give credit to Mom that she was real smart about it.

She didn't let us see her. She shot herself in the fucking basement.

Most people are clumsy or on the fly when they do shit like that...but Mom...wasn't. It wasn't like in the movies, kid, where you see the woman shoot herself two seconds after the man leaves, and she falls flat on the bed while the kids are just standing there bawling their eyeballs out in the hallway. No way. She had called CPS and the foster home beforehand, and made sure she got it in writing that they'd take us in. She had been planning to kill herself since the minute Dad walked out.

Let me tell ya, kid, Mom was a real smart bitch. She didn't do it until eight months later, when she was sure Dad didn't want custody and we were almost safe.

Almost.

The family I went to was rich. I lived with them for about a year in uptown Brooklyn, and boy, were they real hardcore Bible thumpers. If there's anything worse than Bible thumpers, kid, it's Bible thumpers who're rich—they think poverty is the eighth deadly sin.

I was their bastard child. They despised the fact that Mom was a Lutheran who killed herself, so naturally they took it out on me. I won't say how. But it was enough to make me run away from that house thirty-two times. Yeah. You're hearing that right. Thirty-two. Lucky for me, the family was prominent in the area (Kids in the slums downtown get kidnapped and cut up to pieces every day, but God forbid their little ass-fucks get their own toes lost in a sandbox.) so the police dragged my ass back every single time and filed it on record. So, whenever you hear some motherfucks say shit about me in the parking lot, know this as coming straight from the horse's mouth: that's how I famously got arrested at the ripe old age of ten—the cops caught me sneaking out on trip number twelve.

Then one night, that was it. I strapped myself with nothing but two small boxes of shells and a loaded heater the dad kept in the trophy room. That's the heater Ponyboy's freaking out about, the one I have locked in the glove compartment now. Really ain't a heater to me anymore. Sentimental value's more like it. I kept it on me for years, with three bullets locked in the chamber at all times: one for Dad, one for my rich dad in Brooklyn, and one for me, just in case the other two don't finish what they start.

Always gotta be extra-careful, my dad in Brooklyn always said. Someday, some wino might break in and have his way with your daughter.

Now, I've seen some real messed-up things. Things I don't even remember wanting to remember... Mostly people getting killed in fucked-up ways. Trust me, kid. I've seen guys kicking on the floor trying to hold in their own guts. I've seen cops crying like little girls, begging. People can do the sickest, most fucked-up things imaginable. These things other people don't know, and the things they don't do...that's even sicker. All it is is silence, the kind of silence that fills a room after the gunshots face out. It's the brand of silence of someone who just doesn't want to know.

They don't know what I know. And what's worse, they don't even care that they don't know. Prisoners can hang themselves with just a piece of wire they take out of a bed-spring. Guys can kill other guys in their sleep with nothing but a sliver of glass someone forgets to pick up after they knock over a picture frame. You can choke to death drinking your own blood. That shit you see on the news, and what you don't always see, it's all real. It happens every single day. I know—I should be used to it. But that's why I came here. They're not nearly as sick here. What's considered bad here is absolutely fucking nothing compared to what they can do to you there.

I don't want you to have my eyes, Johnnycake. I don't want you to see what I've seen. I don't want you to have my ears. I don't want you to speak my words or think my thoughts. I don't want that kind of silence to touch you, ever.

That's all.

There's some black smoke hanging in the air—it's coming from the church. Then there's rattling like gunfire. Jesus—what's in there?

God damn it! ...the gun.

"It was my light," I hear you say.

"You left a light in—"

But you and Pony are gone before I even pull over.

I hate this noise. The fire booms and these little kids keep crying their eye sockets out. You and Pony pretty much throw them out the window while I stand outside and catch them. It's kinda funny—fly, you little snot-nosed brats, spread your fucking wings and fly—and scary. Now, don't let me catch you going around sayin' big bad Dally Winston said something was scary—I meant scary as in the whole thing is just so fucking pathetic. At least, technically, for you, when we get home. Man, are you gonna get hell. A new low for grease, y'know? I mean, little kids...how sappy can you get? Let them turn into mini crispies, that's what'd I say. But, rules or no rules, I know you're not like that. I just hope you'll be fucking safe.

I always knew you wanted to be a hero or some shit. It's something we all go through. But, for you, it lasted just a little bit longer. I'll admit it; you hung on, kid. You wanted to be a hero. You wanted to be a hero that time you stood in front of the entire street as your old man whipped your bare back with a two-by-four. You wanted to be a hero that time you took a jumping that scarred your face and almost broke you. You wanted to be a hero that time you tried to test yourself by the end of a clean, black blade with almost no one around. You wanted to be a hero that time you saved your buddy by destroying someone else.

Well, I got news for you. We can't always be heroes in the real world. At least, for the best of us, not all the time. Now is definitely not that time, but you just don't see that. You can't. That's why I love and hate you. You're already a fucking hero, Johnny Cade, but that's just not enough for you. Now you wanna be a dipshit with a death wish, billowing cape and all.

Get out of there!

Ponyboy comes out but you're still in there. He looks like he's out of it, just standing there staring at the fire. Doesn't he realize that the shirt on his back's gone up? I'm sorry, but what kind of idiot does it take to not even realize you're on fire like that? It's like, Knock, knock, answer the door. Oh, who is it? It's Rick, Mrs. Jones. Can Tom come out to play? Why, yes! Yes, he can most certainly come out to play—WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? YOU'RE ON FUCKING FIRE, YOU DUMBASS!

I try to take it off him, but it's blazing, so I take my arm and beat the flame out. Yeah—I'd wrestle the devil if I could.

Pony is down and you're still in there.

I was late once. I barely missed fucking up the second time. It's as if you're giving me one more chance. Come on, Johnnycake, I don't know why you test me like this. I'd do anything for ya—isn't that even enough?

The roof is collapsing. I look up—it doesn't matter what you're doing. You're doing what you think is right. Whatever the hell it is brewing behind those black eyes.

I bust open the window.

I won't be too late this time.

The next thing I see is a ceiling full of wires and a paramedic with an ugly face. Really, that joker's got some overbite to fix. Hey you, you with the syringe, don't you touch me like that. Fucking tellin' me to cough, hey, how about you go fuck yourself up the ass with that five-mile long needle? God damn, that burns! Shit! People say they'll kill you with their bare hands—I'm gonna kill you with your own bare hands!

"Good morning," smiles the jackass.

I say something I can't hear.

"Yes. The schoolchildren got out fine. A little scared, but they're alright."

"Fuck you, man. I dunna'mean them."

Jesus! I sound worse than Two-Bit after five shots of vodka on Saturday night.

The paramedic smiles. "Sounds like you're still out of it," he says.

"Shet. Cann strangle you wit' th' IV in two secounds flat."

"No one's strangling anybody here."

I sigh. I can't go anywhere and do anything but sit here and bear it. I'm not going to bust out if all I'm gonna do as soon as I hit the pavement is fall asleep.

"Was talkin' 'bout Pony an' Johnny," I say.

"Oh, them," he says, and right then I want to permanently wipe that look off his face, "okay. One kid has very severe burns across his back. A roof rafter collapsed on him. They have him in the first car because he's in need of immediate surgery. Another kid has a case of smoke inhalation. And you, sir, have burned your arm taking out that fire on your friend's back."

"Fuck m'arm. Which one's worser'off?" I say.

"I can't tell you that," he says, clipping another IV bag on.

"Johnny was...in there," I mumble. Then I snap awake for a minute. "Did Johnny get out okay?"

"What?"

"Johnny."

"Now, which one is Johnny?" he says.

I flip him off the best I can.

"Need t'see Johnn'...if you cann' tell 'em apar' already...they should fire your...your green-ass righ' now, you fuckin' sonova...bit..." is all I manage before blacking out.

I have no clue where I am after that. My arm isn't burned, as far as I can tell, but I can't see all too clearly; they dressed me in this weird black get-up.

A long white box sits at the end of a hallway.

Church.

I'm in another church. They dropped me off at a church? How long was I out of i—?

I realize it's someone's funeral.

No.

No, that's not—I wasn't too late.

I can't be!

I run out the door and run into someone.

"There you are! They've been looking for you. Are you alright?"

A redhead is standing in the corner, dressed in black.

God.

There's no way she'd be here if it were...she's a Soc. So this has to be that guy you killed, Bob with those rings or whatever. Well, it could be any Soc, really, 'cause they go all-out for those ones. Maybe one of ours finally went shitty-shitty-bang-bang off the deep end. Like Steve said...all in bad blood.

Unless she's an already sour apple turned bitter. God, a double agent...this air is making my hair stick straight up.

"Cherry. What the hell you doing here?" I say, when what I really ask her is, what the hell am I doing here?

"What?" she says.

"What kinda spy are you?" I say. "Forget it—you know where can I find Ponyboy and Johnny? They were hurt. They dove right into a fire saving some little kids."

She looks down at her feet.

"Where are Ponyboy and Johnny?"

Then she looks up.

"Cherry!"

It's not Cherry—her eyes are blue.

"Who's Cherry?" she says.

"Damn," I scratch my head. "I coulda sworn it was you."

"What?"

"Um," I say. "Sorry. You looked like someone I knew."

I'm about to leave when another girl that looks exactly like her approaches us. Wearing a long black dress, she stands beside the girl with the blue eyes who otherwise looks like Cherry, and whispers something in her ear.

I'm confused as fuck.

"You look just like h—who are you?"

"Sarah," says the girl with blue eyes, seeming a little bit embarrassed when she looks at me. "Don't you remember me?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You're not acting like yourself today. I guess that's to be expected, though," she shrugs.

"Look, you have five seconds to tell me just what the hell's going on—"

"Oh, my! What's the matter with you today? Is your memory failing again?" the other says, looking surprised. The next thing she says as if a baby could understand it: "I'm Savannah." After that, she points to her clone: "That's Sarah."

I say nothing.

"Are you all right?"

I say nothing for almost two minutes.

"Maybe you should sit down for a bit."

It's them.

After all.

These years.

"Oh good God, don't tell me the fuzz gave you bitches my records," I say. I throw up my hands and start towards the door. "Fuck this shit—I'll fucking find them myself! I don't need you! Now leave me the hell alone!"

"Fred, I heard you down the hall—you okay?" someone passing by us asks.

"His memory," says Sarah.

"Ah."

"How the hell would you know? You don't even know me," I spit, waving them away. "And the motherfucking name is D—"

Wait.

Fred—that was the old man's name.

Fred Winston.

Probably dead, I think. Dad always looked young—these people got me mistaken for him.

I look down the aisle. "Hey—who's in the casket?"

The girls look at each other, hanging their heads miserably.

"I'm sorry, Father," says Savannah. "Dallas was a lost soul."

...What?

...you mean to tell me I died?

I'm dead.

I'm dead.

I'm dead and I'm lying in that casket.

I want to laugh my guts out, but oh, wait, they're dead too. This is fucking hilarious. I'm dead. I am dead. I died in a fire. Two-Bit'd be rollin' over at my dead ass. Shit, he's probably painting the words "Kiss me to see if I'm really dead" on my forehead right now. So, God, tell me...what's next for old Dally? You gonna burn me some more with that fucking fire and brimstone, or what?

I turn around and smile at them. No fucking way, you bitches, don't you two look at me like that. I'm still alive. This is a sick fucking joke. I'm outta here. Obviously I'm not dead because I'm not a ghost; people are still looking at me. Everyone can still see me and I'm still—

Wait a minute.

Father?

I grab a silver candlestick hanging over the ledge and look at myself.

I'm not dead.

I'm...

I'm Dad.

The candlestick cracks the ground as it falls.

I'm Dad.

I'm Dad.

I'm Dad.

I'm Dad.

I'm Dad!

MotherFUCKER!

My hand balls up into the tightest fist I've ever made, and, like that Soc George exploding on the crowbar, I pour all of my force into myself.

"Father!" the girls scream, clasping their hands over the perfect little O's their mouths make.

My nose drips down my upper lip. I don't feel a damn thing. Like always. "What the hell did I do—?"

"Father, trust me, I know. I know you're in pain...but Dallas is dead, and that is that," Savannah says. "He died in a fire that started in an old abandoned church. We cannot change that."

I glare at her through the red haze in my eyes.

"You must still be in shock over the whole thing," whispers Sarah. "It's natural. Denial is only the second stage of grief, Father."

"Why are you calling me that?" I hiss.

"Dad—you're doing his service today," says Savannah quietly.

Then, looking down, I want to open my mouth and let out a scream, realizing that the girls weren't trying to be formal tightwads; the old man was actually a reverend.

Candles burn; people murmur; priests hobble.

And there is nothing I can do.

There is nothing I can do. I died and somehow got stuck in Dad's body. And to rub salt in it, he's a man of God now—the definition of a fuckin' hypocrite. Damn it—no one goes to heaven or hell. That's all just a bunch of bullshit they use to scare you into paying your taxes. Your eternal soul just gets stuck inside another fucker for the rest of time, just like that dead battery you need to replace but stow away in a broken appliance instead. For safekeeping, I grimace, wishing I could make Dad feel it on his face.

There is nothing I can do, but things aren't adding up here. Where's Johnny and Pony? Did they get out okay? Or are they walking around as Steve and Soda now?

I walk up to the podium. The aisles swell around me and there are people I both know and don't know swarming into the little room. They're filling up seats one by one. I can only see bits of them at a time—Darry's eyes turned flat, Soda's hands wrung together, Two-Bit's smile set straight.

I make Dad's blood pound a little faster in his veins. I feel like a blind prisoner being taken among a screaming mob to the executioner's block, or a deaf man looking up to the sound of a firing squad. They don't know who I am—past, present, or, if I ever somehow get out of this, future—and the minute I open my mouth they'll know. Dallas Winston. What could I say about him? He was my son and a motherfucker.

I look down to the first person sitting in the row.

As I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death,

Mom is sitting in the very front pew, her hands clasped together and her eyes half closed. Half her skull is showing and her brain slowly drips out of it. Her eyes lift to look at me.

They're red.

She smiles when she sees me.

I fear no evil, for Thou Art with me.

This can't be real.

I can't say a thing.

"I—"

Every little thing is magnified one thousand times, to the point where everything is swollen huge and horrible. I can even hear people's breath swing open and shut like valves.

I was crazy once—now I'm a damned madman.

Someone's silver cigarette butt falls through the air, and all I see is the smoke it makes as it trails through the air.

"I—"

Then time resumes, and everything goes too fast. Smoke starts curling up the walls. The walls are dripping down on themselves like candles.

"I—"

I can't open my mouth to say anything. Melting, the walls burst into fire. Everyone sits perfectly still, waiting for me to speak. No one notices the blood-red fires blazing overhead. Run away, you dipshits! I think as the roof starts to cave in under black smoke.

I run up to my casket, which is engulfed in flames. I rip it open, hoping to jump back into my own body. If I'm dead, I'm going to stay dead, eternal nothing or not—I'm not living only to die a second time.

I scream when I see myself.

It's not me who's lying in there.

"Breathe! For Chrissakes, just breathe!" someone standing over me says. "Okay, he's not responding. I'm gonna need fifty more milligrams—you're hyperventilating, kid—just calm down."

"Johnny! What the fuck happened? Mom—Dad—what is this? Who the hell are you people—why is this fucking needle stuck in my neck!"

"Calm down," says the doctor. "Breathe. Sit back. Nothing's happened to you. You just had a hallucination brought on by smoke inhalation. That dark-haired kid you call Johnny is in the other room, but he's in far worse shape than you are. He just got out of surgery. You keep waking up screaming about him, and it's so loud it's waking him up. Now my nurses are coming in every goddamn hour to tell me the poor kid won't stop crying. Calm down."

To be continued.

A/N: OK. Listen up, dudes and dudettes. I am seriously getting a stomachache trying to feel all of Dally's emotions...nah, not really, just coming up with clever ways to swear is what's really gettin' me...XD Gonna take a break now. I might not update for just a (little!) while. Constructive criticism is always appreciated, and cookies shall henceforth freely be given to all whom durst review... (Uh-oh, it must be bad...I'm starting to speak in Old English now. O.o)