Something was terribly wrong, and Riff was sure of it.

Guys like him didn't just end up in a hospital, being taken care of by nurses, after landing in a morgue. Guys like him didn't have the luck. The world spits on guys like him, so the better his body felt, the worse his mind did.

What really made him jittery, though, was the medical records hanging from his bed railing. After the nurse left the ward, he'd ignored the sharp pain in his stomach to reach over and look through them.

According to the records, he'd been admitted three days ago. The fight had been… how long ago was it, now? The timing didn't feel right. He could've sworn the fight was only two days ago.

He couldn't say for sure, since he'd been out of it for a while, but he wasn't about to ask Bernardo. Bernardo, who always managed to say something charismatic each time the nurse walked in to make her smile. Bernardo, who'd stabbed him.

Riff didn't want to stay here. The longer he was here, the more things seemed wrong.

So he bided his time, and when night fell and the lights dimmed down, he tried to stand.

"Jimminy-" he hissed, clutching at the rail as his knees buckled. He waited a few moments for the nausea to pass before straightening up again.

"You'll never make it out like that," a smooth voice said from behind him.

He slowly turned to glare at Bernardo, who was sitting up and smirking at him.

"I ain't staying here," he replied, taking one shaky step. "Can't afford the bills."

Bernardo let him struggle halfway across the room before calling, "You might want to disguise yourself."

Riff twirled to snarl some reply but swayed as he moved too fast.

"Didn't get your sea legs yet?" Bernardo said.

Riff briefly considered strangling the guy, but decided he didn't have the energy. He settled for displaying his favorite finger instead.

Then, to his surprise, the guy struggled to his own feet.

"What are you doing?" he hissed.

"Leaving," Bernardo replied. Riff opened his mouth to say something, but Bernardo cut him off. "Look, don't worry, I still hate you, but something's wrong about all of this."

"What's that," Riff said derisively, but he was listening. It surprised him that the Shark had also picked up on it.

"That," Bernardo said, pointing at the clipboard hanging from his bed rail, "isn't me."

"How do you know? We could've been here for a while," Riff said, more for the sake of argument than because he disagreed.

"Because it doesn't match up," Bernardo said. "Are you going to mess up our escape chance by arguing or come along?"

Riff struggled to agree to anything the guy said, but finally gave a tight nod.

"Let's go then."

The two gang leaders left the ward, which was unlocked, and started down the hallway. No one was around, or they would've been forced back to their beds.

Abruptly, Bernardo tapped his shoulder.

"What?" he snapped, then saw that he was pointing at a storage closet.

"Wait," Bernardo said, opening the door and going inside. He emerged a moment later with two lab coats, tossing one at Riff. "Put this on."

"Anyone within twenty feet is gonna look at our faces and know we ain't doctors," Riff snorted.

"Twenty feet and it's too late anyways. Put it on."

Riff did, grinding his teeth the whole time.

"How'd you know that was there?" Riff asked as started down a ramp to the floor below.

"We took Maria here when she broke her wrist," Bernardo replied. "They wouldn't let us in after hours, but Anita wanted to see her, so we put on lab coats and snuck in anyways."

Riff glanced over in surprise at the amount of information he'd just been given, but missed the fond smile of recollection.

"Right," he said, not having any response to give.

"This way," Bernardo suddenly said. "Side exit."

Riff followed him out of a side door that only had a doorknob on the inside to a dirty alleyway. "How'd you… ya know what, nevermind. I don't want to know."

Bernardo smirked slightly and pointed. "There's the harbor."

Sometimes, Riff thought, it was really annoying that the immigrant was better at English than he was.

"The harbor? What're we doin' out here?"

"This," Bernardo said, nodding his head at the hospital, "is where they bring people who can't pay."

Riff looked up at the building, taking in the peeling paint, barred windows, and missing letters in the signs. "Guess so." He turned back to Bernardo. "Great working together to break out," he said sarcastically, "but I think it's time we split now." He started to walk away, but was stopped when Bernardo spoke up.

"Don't you want to find out what's going on?"

Riff stopped.

He hated Bernardo. Hated his gang, hated the way they came in and took their territory. More than that, he hated how everything seemed to be shifting around him. Things had been fine before Bernardo and the rest of the Sharks showed up, and he didn't see why things should change now.

But standing here, staring at the Puerto Rican neighborhood boxing hero who had a white bandage stained red with blood across his chest, all Riff could think about was how that red was the same exact shade as the red on the bandage around his own stomach.

The bandage I need 'cause he stabbed me, Riff's brain argued, but it was a weak protest, and he knew it.

Shark and Jet, they'd both almost died from bleeding out. Both of them, bleeding out matching red blood. They should have died. Not only did Riff's prior experience with the world tell him so, but common sense did too. How did they go from laying in the street, to a morgue, to a hospital? Now they were back on the street, and Riff had to make a choice. Should he walk away, and keep doing what he'd been doing, and go on hating? Or, should he put aside the feelings that got him stabbed and almost killed in the first place and figure out why it hadn't worked?

"Yeah," he finally said. "I do."