Ponyboy ran out of the car, ignoring any protests from the two adults with the kids, me, Johnny or Dallas. Not even a moment later, Johnny ran off to the burning building right behind him to get however many kids out of the church. I looked over and saw Dallas shake his head in annoyance. "They're idiots… they're gonna get themselves killed," he said in an annoyed tone.

Not long after, Dallas was at one of the windows helping the two kids the kids out by taking them from the two and setting them down on the grass. . What was I doing? I was helping the two teachers in charge of the little kids to calm down any kid who was crying or upset about the whole situation, while at the same time, hiding my own fear and worry. It wasn't easy, considering two of my friends were inside the building that was on fire, the other right outside of the window leaning into the building.

Dallas set another kid down on the grass, who then came running in the direction of me and the female teacher. The little girl stopped when she reached me and hugged my leg. I leaned down to her and picked her up to calm her down a bit. She tried to stretch her little arms around my shoulders but only managed to wrap them loosely around my neck. She buried her head in my shoulder and rubbed circles on her back with my hand. I couldn't help that, even with the situation, I looked over to the church and saw the fire start to spread more throughout the outside of the building. "Where the hell is the fire department?" I thought, kind of annoyed at their absence.

After a few minutes the girl calmed down and I put her down. All the kids who were in the church were out by now, but my two friends who were still in the building were struggling to get out I bit down hard on my bottom lip while I waited for the three of them to get away from the building, my heart beating as fast a rabbit's and getting faster with worry every second that passed.

My eyes widened and I jumped when a huge fire started up inside and I heard a huge crash from inside the building and heard a yell. I saw Dallas put Ponyboy down on the grass and went back into the church through the broken window he had been leaning into before. I knew I had lost it at that point cause I heard a scream, knowing full well that it was mine, and started to run toward the church and struggled when I felt someone's hand s wrap around my arms to hold me back from getting any closer to the building.

I felt the tears that formed in my eyes from worry start to run down my cheeks. I was still struggling for the person to let go of me, but it was no use- and I knew that, but for some reason I still felt like trying, thinking maybe I could get out of the person's grasp. I could hear myself screaming things like, "Let me go!", "Those are my friends!", "I have to see what's wrong!" and "Someone help them! They're all just kids!" But even with all my yelling and screaming, I didn't see anyone do anything till the cops, firefighters, and EMT's got there.

When the fire was finally out, the person who'd been holding me back the entire time finally let me go. I turned angrily and saw the female teacher. "Why didn't you let me go?! I could've helped get my friends get out of there and now they're hurt!" I yelled at her, tears still running down my cheeks.

She shook her head, "This whole thing was too dangerous and one less person getting injured helps both you and them."

I gave her a look of both shock and annoyance. "Oh really? So, does me not being hurt make it like this whole thing never happened? Me not being hurt, does that make my friends better and outta those ambulances and like they never got hurt? No! It doesn't!"

"I know you don't understand what I'm saying, but one day you will."

I shook my head, glared at the female teacher, then turned and walked toward the ambulances.

The male teacher was getting into the ambulance that I saw Ponyboy was in. Before letting the EMT close the door, he looked at me, "You're friends with these boys, right?" I nodded. "He held out one hand toward me, holding onto the ambulance with the other hand, "C'mon, I'll help you in." I gave him an unsure look at the man, unsure what to do. He must've noticed cause he then gave a small smile and nodded. I took his hand and he helped me inside, and the ambulance was off.

"I heard that little argument before," he said, handing me a tissue to wipe my cheeks. I accepted the tissue and let him continue. "She's right, you know."

I snapped my head in the man's direction and gave an annoyed look, "How's she right?"

"These three boys are your friends, you said it yourself. When they're all healed up and out and about again, they'll be even more thankful that you didn't get hurt like they did."

"How do you know?"

"Cause you're a girl. And judging by the whole situation, you must be one of those girls who's friends with a whole group of guys instead of a group of other girls. Am I right?" I nodded. "Then to some extent, you're one of the things they care about most in this whole world, and more so, your well being. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about."

I scoffed a bit, "Maybe… but I doubt it. Three of 'em have girlfriends, and one of 'em really loves her a lot."

"How many guy friends, including these three, do you have?"

"Seven."

"And how long have you known them all?"

"About nine or ten years, eleven at most."

"So you've know them since, before any of you ever started dating?" I nodded. "That means you have a special place in all their hearts that no girl could ever take. They all probably love you like a sister, go to you for advice on girls instead of another one of your guy friends, those sorts of things. And they have a different love for you, one that can never be replaced by another girl cause you've been there their whole lives."

I let out a small sigh, look over at Ponyboy- who was still unconscious- the looked down at my feet. I cleared my throat, "Um… thanks, for the tissue." My voice was quiet. I saw the man from the corner of my eye.

I felt bad about cutting the man off, especially since I knew he was trying to be helpful and make me feel better, but I really didn't feel like talking at the moment. I just wanted to think. I knew both the man and the female teacher were right, it had taken me a while to calm down and realize it, but I didn't think I was mentally ready to accept and didn't think I would be till this whole mess was taken care of. Once they were found innocent on self-defense, once they were back home and we were all sitting around in the Curtis' living room, I wouldn't be ready to accept.

By the time we got back into town, we were still in the ambulance one the way to the hospital. Ponyboy was awake by now. I didn't notice or realize how dirty and how much soot and smoke and dirt had gotten onto him till he started to move once he woke up, and I had to let out a chuckle. "What's so funny?" he mumbled tiredly.

I chuckled again, "I didn't really how dirty you got till just now."

I saw his eyes scan over his body to look over and see for himself without moving his head and he lifted his arms in the air a little, then he chuckled. "I guess I am."

"On the plus side, it makes your hair look almost it's natural color again." My voice was so obvious that I was teasing him, and he chuckled. I chuckled again. "So howya feelin'?"

He shrugged, or at least tried to the best he could in his position. "As good as I can be…"

"That's your answer a lot lately."

He chuckled again. "I guess so… hey, uh, did you see how Johnny and Dallas were?" His voice was already quiet, but now it was so quiet it was hard to hear him.

"I, uh… I didn't get to see them before they were in the other ambulances." Now my voice was quiet.

The man, who said his name was Jerry, then started to talk to Ponyboy. I had been listening to their conversation for about a minute until my mind drifted off somewhere else in the world. Everything that had happened this past week, and everything at the fire on the mountain flooded into my head. It all felt so unreal, like I would wake up and this whole thing would be a dream. Like I'd wake up, it would be the day Ponyboy, Johnny and Dallas had gone to the movies and nothing went wrong, like I'd be at the Shepard's house and never get the call from Darry, like Darry would've never had that conversation with me and the newspaper never came about how they killed that Soc, like the interrogations at the station never happened, and most of all- like this whole stupid fire never happened.

"... professional heroes or something?" was the words that took me from my thoughts.

"We're Greasers…" I heard Ponyboy say quietly and weakly.

Jerry gave a shocked look and looked back and forth between me and Ponyboy, then stopped on Ponyboy again. "Are… are you kidding me?"

"No I ain't kiddin' ya… take me to town and you'll found out pretty fast."

Jerry looked at me, silently asking if he was lying and that if I wasn't, if I was a Greaser too and I nodded. He didn't say much of anything else the rest of the drive there, probably trying to figure out how Greasers- like the hoods most people thought of us as- could've pulled such a stunt like we did on that mountain.

This chapter was longer than most, but that's expected… kinda dramatic though how I incorporated Rain, don't ya think?

Anyway, this chapter was kinda hard believe it or not… I don't know why, it just was. And there's more where that came from folks!

I has a birthday party today :3 I picking up my best friend after the school day is over cause we go to different schools now (I'm online, she's at my old nasty private school)-

OH MY GAHD THAT REMINDS ME! I remember I wanted to say: I've said before that I used to go to private school, whether in this story's notes, or another's notes but either way- people have thought that I was some private school jerk. Like some spoiled brat, but I'm not. You know how there's always that one kid in a private school who is basically the poor one who's struggling to pay to go there- that was me, and I was surrounded by a bunch of spoiled brats with what I call "Rich People Problems". Like once, my friend complained that she couldn't go to Europe for vacation, but was going to Florida instead and I was there like- screw you, I've never been on vacation… so basically, in outsiders terms- I was a Greaser, stuck in a place full of Socs…. Plus my mom thinks basically like a Soc probably would, so I'm stuck here.

Wow, that was random and you probably don't care but whatever, these notes are usually looks into my crazy life.

Whatever- hope you like the chapter! Peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=