I didn't remember falling asleep, nor did I remember hearing Darry come in and climb into the other bed. All I knew was that, suddenly, I was screaming, and it was dark, and somebody's arms were around me, and I didn't know where I was, or what was going on. The light suddenly came on and Soda and Pony ran over to the bed, where Darry was already holding on to me, talking to me, and trying to calm me down.

"He's not here. You're okay, Scout."

Okay. I was okay. I listened to what Darry was saying and tried to believe it. Christ, the nightmare, again. I started to remember what I had been screaming about. I was back in the bathrooms by the field, but this time Steve had me, he had pulled me down from the ledge, and pinned me to the floor. I could actually feel it, the cold tile against my arms and the back of my neck as he held me down. I shivered, and Darry rubbed my back.

I struggled to catch my breath. I had thought I was getting better. I had thought I was done with the nightmares. God, How long was this going to go on?

"He won't hurt you again, Scout. We promise," Pony said, reassuringly, and I remembered what he had said earlier, about how he would stand up for me just as much as Darry or Soda would. His tone right then cemented my belief in that.

"He was… in the bathrooms… he got me down…"

"Baby, it's not real." Darry loosened his hug as I started breathing more normally.

"It felt real. It felt completely real."

"I know. It's scary." Ponyboy took my hand. He did know. I never could figure out how he could be so terrified by his nightmares, but now I understood perfectly. "It is really scary. But it's not real. Steve's not here. He can't hurt you. Darry was in here with you. Me and Soda are right next door. Nobody's gonna hurt you."

"When is this gonna stop? Why can't I make this go away?" I started crying from exhaustion and frustration. "I hate this. I hate feeling so scared. What is wrong with me?"

I lay back down, wiping my eyes, and was surprised when suddenly Soda kicked my bedroom door, slamming it back against the wall, and leaving a small hole where the doorknob had hit. Pony, Darry, and I all jumped and turned to look at him.

"Goddamn him! How could he? I trusted him! How could he do this to you, Scout?" He was kicking the door, and hitting it, over and over, yelling.

Darry went over to him and held his arms back, backing him up to the bed and easing him down. In a split second, Soda went from tense and violent to limp and despondent. He collapsed in a lump on the bed. He was suddenly sobbing.

"How could he? Scout, I am so sorry… and Sandy… God, I didn't know. I love her. How could I have not known? Both of you! That bastard! The only two girls I care about, that I love, and he hurt both of you. How could he?"

I got up and went to the other bed where he was lying. I lay down next to him and held him, pulling his head up against mine. He was crying as hard as Darry had been, that night in his bed after our parents died. He was so upset, it was almost like I could feel the sadness emanating outward from him as he lay there.

"It's okay. I'm okay. It wasn't your fault, Soda. I don't blame you. I never for a second blamed you. I love you. Really. I'll be okay," I said.

"I hate this. You're scared, and messed up, and you can't sleep…all because of somebody who was supposed to be my best friend!" He paused. "Do you think she has the nightmares too?"

I knew he meant Sandy. If her experience had been anything like mine…and I suspected that it had probably been worse, since she was pregnant… I was guessing she probably wasn't sleeping so well, either. But I didn't say anything.

"I don't know Soda. She's a lot older than me…"

As if that really mattered... but I was just trying to make him feel less guilty. I truly did not feel one bit of resentment toward Soda, regardless of the fact that Steve was his friend. I wondered if maybe Darry was right- that maybe Sandy resented him, or somehow held Soda responsible for Steve's actions, and wouldn't even want to talk to him. I prayed not. She had to know that he would have never let anyone hurt her, knowingly. I knew that, had he ever suspected what he was capable of, Soda never would have brought Steve into our house in the state he'd been in the night that he attacked me.

Finally, Soda was calming down. Darry and Ponyboy just sat on my bed, watching, letting us work this out between ourselves.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, again.

"Soda, we've been through this. I don't blame you. You have nothing to be sorry about."

He rolled over and stared up at the ceiling.

"I just can't believe how messed up everything is. Why does shit like this keep happening?"

That's for sure, I thought. Messed up - again. Why were things always so complicated for our family? Why was it that every time things seemed to be getting easier, something happened to make everything hard again? It was exhausting.

"I don't know, Soda. But we'll get through it," I said.

"She's right," Darry came and sat next to me, looking down at Soda. "We'll be okay. We'll all be okay."

"I hope so," Soda said. I did, too.

He sat up.

"You okay, for now?" He looked at me.

"Yeah," I said. "Sorry about waking you up."

"Seems to run in the family," Pony said, rubbing my head on his way by.

Soda stood up and he and Pony both headed back to their own room, Soda giving me one last hug before he left.

"I love you, Soda," I whispered in his ear. How could he ever doubt that that my love for him as my brother would take precedence over anything else I might be feeling, I wondered. But, then again, I guess I had doubted all of them at times, too.

"You too," he whispered back.

I watched them go, then crawled back into my own bed. Darry got into the other one, flipping off the light.

"Sorry about waking you up," I said.

"Don't be sorry," he said. "I'm glad I was here. That's why I'm here."

"What are you gonna do, sleep in here 'til I'm twenty?"

"If I have to, I will. As long as you need me."

I silently thanked God again for leaving us Darry, if he had to take Mom and Dad. I'd probably still have been sleeping in the kitchen every night if he hadn't been willing to stay in my room. Yet, I wanted to be better- back to my old self. I wanted to stop the nightmares, and the fear. I wanted to feel okay, in my own room, alone. Suddenly I thought of something I wanted to do, something I needed to do.

"Darry?" I whispered.

"What?"

"I want to go."

"What?"

"With Soda. To see Sandy. Can I go?"

"What? Why, Scout? It's so far away."

"I don't care how far it is. She knows, Darry," I tried to explain. "She knows what happened to me. That's the worst part of this whole thing- how alone I feel. She's the only one who really knows how I feel. She probably feels alone, too. She doesn't know that I know how she feels. We both thought we were alone, but we're not. You know, I thought about running away, too Darry… to get away... but she really did run."

"Scout, don't you ever run away, please. I mean it. We couldn't take that again, me or Soda."

"I know… I wouldn't… I mean, I thought about it but I wouldn't have. But she must have felt like there was no other choice."

"I just don't think…" Darry started to argue.

"I want to go, Darry. I have to. For Soda, and for me. Even if she won't talk to Soda, she'll talk to me. I know she will. I didn't want to say it, in front of Soda, but I'm sure she has nightmares, too. You don't know how alone I felt- I still feel. How scared, and ashamed, sometimes. I'm sure she feels it, too."

"I still don't understand why either of you hid it, to be honest."

"I guess you might never understand, then," I said. "I can't explain it," I added, "but I know she must have been feeling the same way as I was."

"You have nothing to be ashamed of, baby. You didn't do anything."

"That's not how it feels, though, when it happens to you," I said.

"Well, that's too bad," he responded, "but I'm here to tell you, it's not how you should feel."

"Well, Sandy has nobody to tell her that. Let me go, Darry? Please? I think it might make me and Sandy both better to know we're not alone. I need to talk to her. Just as much as Soda does."

I could hear him thinking.

"Let me think about it, okay?"

"Okay," I agreed. I knew I could work on him again, tomorrow. Or all week, if that's what it took.

"Hey, Darry?"

"What?"

"What do you think will happen with …Steve… he works with Soda. I mean, they'll have to see each other."

"I don't think Steve's going to be showing his face at the DX- not this week, anyway."

"What did they do to him?"

"I don't know, exactly, but Two-Bit said he was in pretty bad shape- he said he had to stop Soda from taking it any farther, he was afraid he'd kill him."

I guessed that was to be expected, pretty much.

"Do you think he'll try to get back at me…for telling?"

I had been thinking about that since the boys came back out of the woods after getting their revenge. That's the thing with revenge; I knew if he came back after me, the boys wouldn't hesitate to go after him again. It would just go around and around until somebody came to their senses and ended it. And I really wasn't sure how much of his senses Steve was operating with, at the moment, considering I now knew that he was on drugs. I was still sure that it had been him who threw the rock that night.

"He won't ever touch you again, that I promise. Now that we know it was him, we can make sure it never happens again. What happened yesterday would have never happened if you had just told us, from the beginning. We never would have had him around. Or let him go get you, obviously."

"I know... I thought I was doing the right thing… I don't get it, Darry, how I can do well in school and stuff, but in real life it always seems like I am making bad choices. Now, what I did kinda seems wrong to me, too."

"Baby, just because I don't understand your reasons doesn't mean they aren't valid. It just upsets me, how close he came to hurting you again, just because we didn't know."

"I'm glad Ben told. I'm glad you came in time."

"Yeah, well, me too. Go to sleep, Scout. Don't think about the bad stuff, okay? You're safe. Nobody's gonna hurt you here."

"Thanks, Darry… for staying with me."

"Just sleep, okay?"

"Okay."

And I did. Soundly.

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A/N: Thanks, as always, for reviewing!