I hope this will tide you over for now… it's not much, but there's a lot of long paragraphs that should keep you busy.

I stared at Heather from where I sat, head resting beside her wrist. She was propped up by pillows, a mask covering her mouth and nose to breathe for her. The heart monitor still bleeped, but it seemed to be going slower every day.

Heather had been in a coma for the past week.

I stayed in the hospital for just three days. I'd been burned pretty badly, and the doctor said it was a miracle I was alive; if that bullet had hit anywhere other than it did, I would have died, and jumping three stories into a flaming building wasn't all too safe, either. Darry and Soda wanted me to stay longer, to make sure I was fully recovered before I went home, but the doctors managed to convince them it wouldn't do any good. Since they put me and her in different rooms, I would pull the tubes out of my arms to go stay with her. I kept hoping she would open her eyes, look at me and tell me everything was okay now, but she never did.

I sighed, looking at her pale face. The fire had mostly burned her back, but her face had some burns, too. Thin red lines traced jagged patterns along her cheek and above her eye, like cracks in glass. Guilt gripped me again. I'd let my China doll break. Maybe beyond repair.

"Hey, how is she?" Darry walked in, pulling up a chair.

"Same." I said into the mattress. "How was work?"

"Same."

"Soda?"

"Tired."

"He keeps tossing at night… Steve?"

He paused. "Still having trouble."

I nodded. Steve really took this hard. He felt like it was his fault, maybe because of what he said to the Soc, maybe because it was he and Soda who wanted popcorn and sent her on the trip in the first place. He'd wanted another rumble over this, but I convinced him out of it. "What does fighting solve?" I'd asked, "A fight was what got us into this in the first place. It's never gonna end. Besides, do you think that's what she'd want?"

He didn't stop by often. I guess seeing her like this hurt him too much. It hurt me too much, too, but I couldn't not stay with her. She needed me. You know what I mean?

"Two-Bit?"

"Quiet."

Two-Bit was taking it hard, too, as I knew he would. He'd come to think of her as such a close friend she was practically family. Like a daughter, even. But he didn't do -- or didn't think about doing -- anything drastic, like Steve. Come to think of it, he didn't do anything. Just sat at my place and watched TV, totally silent. Not even an attempt at a joke. He didn't visit the hospital much, either.

"Elsie?"

"Said she was coming tomorrow."

Of course we had to contact Ms. Thornton. We had to hear the doctor's assessment first, and we had to wait for about two days for that. Then we had to call Elsie's friend, and apparently she wasn't in yet. So we waited even longer… yeah. You get the idea.

To be honest, I was a little nervous about explaining all this to her. I mean, her niece could -- dare I say it -- die, and the accident happen while she was with me. I hoped she wouldn't get too mad.

Darry sighed, shifting in his seat. "How about you, little buddy? You holding up okay?"

I closed my eyes. I was exhausted, sure, but I couldn't sleep. Lately I've been having the dream, but I wasn't screaming when I woke up, so it wasn't too bad. Still stopped me from getting any rest, though. My whole body ached, my mind was a painful mess of questions that couldn't be answered (When would she wake up? Could she hear me?), and, as cliché as it sounded, I felt like my heart had been torn down the middle. I knew I was gonna break down real soon. It was too much.

"Yeah." I lied, "Just fine."

Darry ruffled my hair. "It's getting late. Why don't we head home?"

I frowned. "What time's it?"

"Quarter to eight."

Wow, today went pretty fast.

"Look, Pony… you've spent enough time with her today. You need some rest."

"Not tired." I mumbled sleepily.

He laughed quietly. "You ain't fooling anyone. C'mon, she wouldn't want you to do this to yourself."

"Hmmmm…" I grumbled unhappily. He was right. "I'm fine."

Darry sighed again, then he was pulling me into his arms, carrying me out. I was asleep before we made it out of the room.

-0-0-0-

I had the dream again.

Only this was different. I knew it was the dream, but this time, I could remember it.

We were walking up a hill. No, a mountain. It was huge, but all of us -- Mom, Dad, Dally, Steve, Johnny, Soda, Darry, Two-Bit, even Heather -- knew we had to get to whatever was at the top, and we wouldn't stop walking. We couldn't.

But then we started to fall.

Mom and Dad went first. Just fell to their knees and didn't get back up. I wanted to turn, to stop and help them back up, but I couldn't. None of us could. We just kept walking. Others started to come out of nowhere. Socs. They grinned at us, pulling out their blades. I screamed for us to stop, to walk around them, anything, but I couldn't even listen to myself. We faced them head on, pulling out blades of our own, walking over their dead and leaving our dead behind. I couldn't even turn back to look at Johnny's face one more time. Just kept walking and walking until they all dropped, one by one.

Then it was just me. Without them, it was so much harder to put one foot forward. Soon I was crawling, desperate to get to the top of the mountain, the goal that always seemed just out of reach… a Soc appeared in front of me, smirking. He shoved me back, and I was rolling down the side of the mountain. All that walking, everything I'd worked to gain, gone. All gone…

I woke up drenched in cold sweat, clutching Soda and sobbing. "I can't… I can't…" I realized I was saying.

"Shh, Ponyboy, it's okay. You're okay." But his words meant nothing.

Hope you like it… Not sure when I'll post next. I still have about three hundred pages to go in Breaking Dawn, and unfortunately, the dreaded band camp starts tomorrow. UGH.

Please review!