Thanks for the awesome reviews! As promised, here is the next chapter!

I do not own The Outsiders.

Dally POV

I knew something was wrong with my oldest brother, Darry. He jumps at the smallest sounds and he keeps rubbing his face, like he's tired. I wondered sheepishly if I had caused it.

He said we would talk about it when he got home from work, but I waited until we were eating to ask. Everyone's happiest when they're eating Darry's delicious food.

"Hey Darry?" Darry looked up from his plat, which he hadn't touched. I think he may have been falling asleep at the table. He forced a grin. I was getting to know these people, and I could tell when they were lying.

"What's wrong Dare?" His smile disappeared, and he put his head in his hands. He and Soda exchanged glances. I guess they both knew what was going on.

"Uh, Dally, do you remember- or- do you know what jail is?" I felt something in my stomach. I can't remember ever having this feeling, but for some reason, I knew what it meant. I ran out of the room into the bathroom. I started to cry as I heaved my insides into the toilet bowl.

All of the gang ran after me, and Darry and Soda took their positions next to me, rubbing my back. Pony, Steve, and Two-Bit stood in the doorway awkwardly, unable to fit into the tiny bathroom.

After a minute, liquid stopped hitting the toilet bowl, but I continued to make the motions of throwing up. It was a disgusting feeling, and I hated the taste in my mouth. This only made me cry harder.

Darry heave me up to the sink and forced me to rinse out my mouth an brush my teeth. I felt better afterwards, but I was still crying. I collapsed onto Darry's shoulder, not even sure why I was crying anymore.

"Shhh. Dally. Shh." Darry kept saying, almost sternly, but I didn't listen to him. I had images of jail in my mind. Bars and grime. Torture machines and mean looking police officers in every room. I had no memories of what jail actually looked like.

After a while I hiccuped and then smiled. Darry looked surprised as I grinned broadly. Then I started to laugh, more in relief than humor. The gang looked at me like I was insane, but I also saw a flash of recognition in their eyes. They looked lie, for the first time, they recognized me. I realized later that this was because I was laughing off such a sentence as going to jail.

"Uh, Dal?" Steve looked Wary as he went over to me. I hadn't had much contact with Steve, but I liked his hair. I liked looking at the swirls and trying to follow one piece of hair all the way around his head.

"Yeah Steve?"

"Why are ya laughin' bud?" I frowned, wondering why no one else was laughing.

"Darry wasn't serious. He was just pulling my leg." I grinned at Darry, glad that I got the joke, even it deep down I thought it was a little cruel. "I didn't do anything to get into jail, so I can't go."

Darry guided me over to the couch, our dinner lay forgotten on the table. I leaned into Darry, smiling trustingly up at him.

"Dally, I wasn't kidding." My smile faded a little when I realized that I had no idea what had happened before... before...

"Darry, I can't believe I haven't asked this yet. How was I shot? Did a bad guy get me?" Pony and I had read comics with bad guys in them. They always wore black or red, the colors or evil and blood. I imagined me with a cape on and a bad guy shooting my in the head. Despite the severity of the situation, I giggled a little.

"Um." Darry looked at a complete loss at what to say. Soda sat on my other side, always the understanding one.

He and Darry exchanged a look and then they both nodded in unison. "Dally, we've told you about...Johnny." Soda choked a little on the last word. I nodded sadly, patting his shoulder.

"Well, Dally, you loved him more than anything. He was your little brother, the only person that kept you sane." I frowned. I had not missed the implications on "kept you sane." If something had to keep me from going crazy, I must have been on the brink of insanity.

"And the night he died, you were really sad. Really sad." I nodded apprehensively. "You had a gun Dally. You went to a store and robbed it with the gun. Then the police came after you. You held out your gun, and they thought that your were going to shoot them, so they pulled out their own guns and...one of them shot."

Soda seemed in a rush to finish his story until the last few words which he slowed down, painfully. I stared at my hands. I didn't remember any of this. I didn't remember loving Johnny like a kid brother, or robbing that store, or getting shot by the police when it all became too much.

I felt tear come from my almost dried up tear ducts. For some reason I didn't want to cry right now. I didn't want the gang to see me cry again. I had come to the conclusion that crying displays weakness. I wasn't going to cry anymore.

Glory, it was hard as hell not to cry.

"Nothings definite yet Dal. You have to appear in court and tell your story. Maybe the judge will believe you."

I nodded stoically. Darry looked at my painfully. He leaned close to me and whispered, 'It's ok to cry Dal." I shook my head, trying not to let the tears spill.

He put his arm around me and squeezed me to him. Soda patted my arm, and I felt amazingly loved. Even Pony, Steve, and Two-Bit had come to sit at our feet, just looking at me concernedly.

Darry POV

As I forcedly walked Pony (complaining loudly) and an unusually compliant Dally to bed, I reveled at how young Dally seemed. He reminded me irresistibly of Johnny.

I hugged Pony goodnight, giving him a look that said, "Wish me luck with Dally." He grinned. One thing Dally had not lost was his stubborness.

I shepherded Dally to his bedroom, but did leave when Dally lay face-down on the bed. I crawled through his closet sized bedroom to sit next to him on the bed. I rubbed his back in between his shoulder blades where I knew he used to always be sore.

Not often, but sometimes I missed the old Dally that could take anything. He was so tough...But I had always known that was a facade. Now I saw the real Dal, the one that maybe even he hadn't known about, and he scared the hell out of me.

"Dally..." I was glad he interrupted me, because I honestly didn't have anything to say.

"Darry, was I always a bad person?" He turned on to his side so that he could see me. I hesitated, then nodded.

"I deserve jail then." He said flatly. I cursed myself for being so harsh.

"Dally, I'm gonna tell you about yourself and I don't want to be interrupted, ok?" I waited for his curt nod then continued. "Before you were shot, you never showed any emotion. You never told us what had happened back in New York, but something awful, we were sure of it. I ain't sorry that you've forgotten about that. Everyone thought you were a no good hood, but the entire gang loved and respected you, especially Johnny. You did everything. Drank, jumped little kids, beat up old people, but you never crossed the line that would make you go to jail forever. You had enough sense to not do that. you never did an honest days work in your life, but we all knew that you had more capability of love then any of us, even Johnny. That's why you cracked and no one else did. You reached your breaking point. But god or whatever, karma, decided that you needed a second chance."

Dally was silent after this bomb was dropped. "I deserve whatever I get." He mumbled. "I can't believe I would hurt people or steal or drink."

I sighed and stood up, patting Dally on his head. I couldn't deal with this emotional crap.

I walked towards Pony's room. "Hey Pony, can you talk to him?"

Pony POV

I noticed that Dally was crying when I walked in. He quickly brushed aside the tears and smiled up at me weakly. I hated how he tried to hide his tears from me now. Darry had told me about that Soc, and I figured that had something to do with it.

I closed the door behind me and kept the lights off, wanting to calm Dally down a little bit, and let him cry where he thinks I can't see him.

"Hey Dallas." He shuddered at the sound of his name.

"Hey Pony." I walked over to him, and let him put his arm around me. I think it's good for him to feel like he needs to protect someone else, even though I'm not as innocent as him.

"Hey Dally?" He shook again, but I pretended not to notice. "I want to share something with you. It's a poem that Johnny and I used to say to each other." I hesitated then began to speak again.

"Nature's first green is gold

He hardest hue to hold

her early leafs a flower

but only so an hour

then leaf subsides to leaf

so Eden sank to grief

then dawn goes down to day

nothing gold can stay."

Dally was silent for a long while, and I almost though he was a sleep. Then he spoke abruptly. "I get it. Your saying that I get another chance. In the line 'then leaf subsides to leaf' that's actually saying, 'then life gives way to new life.' Your saying nothing I do now will matter anyways, but I still have to try. I have to try to stay gold, and I have to keep Eden alive. But this poem, no matter how pretty it is, isn't going to change anything. I'm still Dallas, mean, too tough Dallas."

He waited a moment then spoke again. "I hurt people, I tried to murder myself, and now I know as much as a six year old does. Darry's right. It's karma."