The next morning I awoke to find Darry asleep in the chair, and the house startlingly quiet for a weekday. I had no idea what time it was.

"Darry?" I reached over and shook him. His eyes shot open.

"I think we overslept," I said. He looked at his watch and jumped up.

"What time is it?" I moved to get out of bed, forgetting that my midsection was broken. It didn't take long to remember, as my whole body tightened to steel itself against the pain. I cried out and nearly fell over.

Darry caught me before I fell off the bed and eased me back down. "Seven-thirty. You're not going anywhere, though. You got the day off."

I briefly wanted to argue, but there was clearly no way that I could go to school. I could hardly even move.

"I gotta go wake up Pony and Soda. I'll be right back with your pill."

I looked forward to that. I think I hurt even more then than I had the previous morning. Darry headed out the door, and I heard him burst into Soda and Pony's room. "Get up, boys. We overslept. You're late. You got 20 minutes." I heard a protest from one of them- probably Pony, he was not a morning person. Soda usually got up without too much complaining.

Darry came back in a few seconds later with a glass of water and the bottle Mrs. Cummings had sent over with Kevin.

"I must have seemed pretty eager, because, as he handed the pill to me he asked:

"Hurts pretty bad today, huh?"

I swallowed the pill and nodded.

"Well, this should help. I don't want to give you more than one unless you really need it, though, alright? These things are pretty serious medicine."

I knew that. In fact, Mrs Cummings kept her hospital medications locked up, because she was worried about the neighborhood kids (and her own kids, too, probably) getting their hands on them.

"I'll bring you in some breakfast, OK?"

"Don't worry about it, Darry. Go get ready. I can get something later."

"I'm taking the day off. I'm not gonna leave you here alone."

"You don't have to do that, Darry. What kind of trouble do you think I'm gonna get into? I can't even move."

"I know. That's why I'm staying."

There was really no point in arguing with Darry once he had made up his mind, so I didn't. I really didn't want to be home alone, anyway. I closed my eyes and tried to let the pain medication sink in. I heard the front door slam and Two-Bit's voice. He was there to pick up Pony for school. I heard him talking to Soda in the hall, and he finally appeared in the doorway.

"Hey Scoot," he said, coming over to the bed. "You doin' okay?"

I just shrugged. For some reason I just didn't feel like lying about it.

"Been better, huh?" he asked, knowingly.

I just nodded.

"We'll find him, Scout," he said, with no note of his usual silliness.

I started to cry again, not even knowing why. I was shocked when he put his arm around me. "You'll be okay," he whispered in my ear.

"Let's go, Mathews, or you're all gonna be late." Darry stood in the doorway.

Two-Bit just got up silently, rubbed my hair, and walked out. I forget sometimes that he has a little sister, too, younger than me. He gets it.

"You need anything?" Darry asked me. I shook my head.

"Call me if you do," he said. I nodded. He closed the door and I pulled my knees up toward my chest and tried to stop thinking. Finally, the pain medication kicked in and I found sleep again.

_______________________

I woke with a start, cursing my mind for, against my will, replaying and replaying the events that I was so desperately trying to forget. I was realizing that not even my sleep was impervious to the memories of what had happened. I worked to slow my breathing, glad that I hadn't actually cried out, since in the dream I had been screaming. I heard Darry in the kitchen and was about to call him in to ask if I could have another pain pill when I heard a female voice.

"So you're just going to ignore it?" It was Alison, and she sounded angry.

"I'm not ignoring it," Darry said. "I've got everyone I know out there trying to find out who did it. Jesus, I couldn't ignore it if I tried. The whole thing makes me sick!"

"I'm not even talking about that, Darry," she shot back, "I mean, yeah, I hope you find the guy who did it, but what about Scout?"

"What about her? I'm gonna take care of her. Believe me, nobody's gonna touch her again. There's no way."

"Don't you get it, Darry? This isn't a small thing. What happened to her was a crime. She must be scared out of her mind. And she's hurt. She needs to talk to somebody about what happened, not just pretend like it didn't. How can you just leave the police and the hospitals out of it?"

"Look, Alison, you're right. Normally, I wouldn't. But our situation is not normal. We finally got things worked out with Social Services after the whole mess with Ponyboy- if I take Scout to the cops or a hospital over this, they're gonna be all over our case again. I'm not letting them take her and Pony, which is exactly what they will want to do. They'll make it look like I'm a bad guardian because of what happened. I've tried to talk to her about it, and she doesn't want to talk. We'll find out who did it, and it'll get taken care of."

"Oh, so vigilante justice? I thought you were above that, Darry." Her voice was a mixture of disappointment and accusation.

"I am, until somebody tries to rape my little sister!" He was almost yelling. Almost. "God, she's just a kid! Who does that?"

I slid off the bed and dragged myself over toward the door.

"Do you really even know he didn't? I mean, how do you really know that? You didn't take her to the hospital. What if he did rape her, and she's too afraid to tell you? She could get pregnant, Darry. You have to at least have her examined."

"He didn't." Both Darry and Alison spun around from where they sat at the table, surprised to hear my voice.

"Oh God, Scout," Alison said, softly. I guess she hadn't been prepared for what I looked like.

"He didn't rape me, Alison. Darry came home and scared him away. I don't need to go to the doctor. I'm not going to be pregnant." I knew that that was, physically, impossible.

She looked sadly at me.

"I'm telling the truth. He didn't."

"Nobody's doubting you, Scout. She's just concerned." Darry still seemed pretty upset.

"Please don't fight about this, okay? I can't take any more of people fighting and blaming each other. Please." Damnit, I was gonna cry again. Really, though? I had even put Darry and Alison on the rocks because of what happened? How much worse was this gonna get? I was already past my limit.

"We're not fighting, Scout." Alison came over and pulled me up against her, gently. "It was just a discussion. I know Darry is going to do what's best for you. We just both want to make sure you're okay. He just wants to be a good brother and I want to be a good friend."

I wanted to tell Darry that he was a great brother, the best, but I couldn't say the words. I think he knew how I felt. I hope he did.

"He's right, Alison," I said. "It's better to just leave everybody out of it. They'll take me away." My voice cracked on the last word as I said it, and I looked at the floor. Darry got up from the table and came over, hugging both me and Alison.

"Nobody's going anywhere," he said.

He gave me another pill and set me up in front of the television, where I promptly fell back asleep, listening to Darry and Alison talking quietly in the kitchen.

I woke up again as Pony crashed through the front door. After making as much noise as humanly possible, as well as inciting Darry to scream at him to keep it down, he noticed me on the couch.

"Hi Pony," I said, catching him off-guard as he dropped his sack of books on the floor.

"Oh, hey… sorry. I didn't know you were there." He came over and sat down, lifting up my legs and sitting on the couch underneath them, laying them across his lap.

"How was school?" I asked.

"Average," he said. "Lots of people told me to tell you to get better, and that they're…"

"I know. Real sorry about what happened, right?" I was sure word had gotten around.

"Right," he said, and looked at me like he knew how tired I was of hearing it. We still fought a lot, but I did feel like we still understood each other better than we had before our time at the church.

"How are you doing?" he asked. Pony didn't ask that question very often, because, when he did ask it, he really wanted to know. He wasn't looking for the stock answers, like 'pretty good,' or 'okay, and you?' He really cared, when he asked. He really wanted an honest answer.

I truly didn't know how to answer. I was feeling so much. I hurt, still, so much. Inside and outside. I was scared, especially since I had started thinking that since Steve hadn't gotten what he wanted the first time, he might come back and try again. I was worried, about Social Services finding out, about Darry and Alison fighting, about somebody getting hurt going after a person they thought had hurt me but actually hadn't. I felt guilty, about lying and drinking and letting everything happen like it had.

And those were the main things. Then, underneath that, were all the other things: the schoolwork I would have to make up, how I would look when I had to go back to school all bruised, how Ben would feel about me after all of this…

It was too much. I shrugged and shook my head as, for what seemed like the millionth time, I felt tears rise in my throat.

Pony understood. I knew he did, just from how he looked at me and reached out his arm, reaching behind me and lifting me up to hug me. He didn't say anything, he just held me against him. It was exactly what I needed. Of everyone, I realized, Pony was the only one who had never said "I'm sorry." He and I both knew that what had happened had nothing to do with him. He didn't try to apologize or fix what had happened, he had the good sense to look forward and ask:

"What can I do, Scout? How can I make this better for you?" He whispered into my ear as he held me close.

"I don't know, Pony," I whispered back. "I wish I knew." I did wish I had known, because whatever it might have been, Pony would have done it for me- of that I was sure.

He sat and held me until Soda came in and Darry called us in for dinner. When finally he let me go, I almost felt like something had been amputated. But he took my hand and led me to the table.

"C'mon, Scout, you have to eat something," Soda said, looking at my full plate.

"I can't," I said. The pain medication, for which I was enormously thankful in terms of actual pain control, had the side effect of making me completely exhausted.

"Can I just go to bed?" I asked Darry.

I could see him thinking about it.

"Okay. But I'm gonna save this for you so we can heat it up later if you get hungry." He took my plate and put it on the counter, covering it with another plate, upside-down.

"Fine." I knew I would never want it. I just wanted to sleep, to escape. I stood up and walked into my room, falling into bed and immediately welcoming the sleep that came.

_______________________

I woke up to dark. It was silent, and I was in an absolute cold sweat, heart-racing panic. I was petrified to move.

He's going to come back, I know it, I thought. He's going to come back for what he wanted. I tried to listen for Darry's light snoring, for Pony and Soda shifting in their sleep, but I heard nothing. I'm not safe in here, I thought. My mind started in on me again, Steve's hands holding mine down above my head, his hands on me, the knife against me…

I can't stay here, I convinced myself, he knows I'm here.

I got up slowly, trying to be as stealthy as one can be with a couple of broken ribs, and padded silently down the hall, past Soda and Pony's room to my parents' bedroom. All of our rooms had locks, but the only keyhole that ever had a key was theirs. I opened their door silently, closed it behind me, and turned the key in the keyhole.

I didn't need any light. I knew exactly how many steps it was to the bed. So many nights I had been afraid- after a nightmare, or during a thunderstorm- and had come to lay between the familiar warmth of my parents in their bed.

"It's okay, baby," Dad would say, hearing me open the door. "Come on in, climb in with us." I would crawl into the bed, settling myself between the two of them, falling asleep to the comforting snore of my Dad, with my Mom's hands hugging me from behind.

Oh God, I needed them so much.

I climbed into the bed, which was still just as they had left it, awakening the dust that had settled there since they had gone. I pulled the covers up over me and curled up into a ball, imagining as hard as I could that they were there, yet knowing that they weren't, that they couldn't ever be. I rocked myself to sleep as I let the tears fall freely, soaking the pillow that still held the faint scent of my mother.

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A/N: If you are reading, please review. Be anonymous, I don't care. I need the confidence boost. It's hard to write this.