Author's Note: This started running through my head while I was thinking back to some possible past connections between Darry and Pony for Ten Years Later. Hope you like it!

Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders.

Dedication: This goes out to anyone craving a little Darry/Pony interaction.

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The Chaperone

"Hey dorkface, what're you all fancied up for?" Steve circled me like a vulture.

I was wearing jeans and a green t-shirt. The only thing different than normal was that the shirt was new and I had cleaned my shoes. I pushed past Steve into the living room and ignored him.

"Got a big date tonight, loverboy?" he persisted.

"You know where I'm going. Quit bugging me." I sat down on the armchair to wait for Rick.

Steve had recently decided that every time I was going out with friends he needed to point out at what an early age he and Soda had started dating. He knew I didn't have a steady girlfriend, and he thought it bothered me. Maybe he thought I couldn't get a date.

Darry walked into the room then looking…nice? He was wearing a newer pair of jeans with a half-buttoned dark blue shirt over a white t-shirt.

"Where're you headed, Dar?" I asked, directing the focus away from me.

He glanced over at me as he stepped into the dining room. "Same place as you."

Did everyone have to be sarcastic? If he didn't want me to know, he could have just told me it was none of my business. But where could he be going? Darry rarely went on dates these days, and I know he hadn't said anything about going out with friends. I got up and followed him into the kitchen. Curiosity was outweighing my survival instincts. "Really, Darry. Are you going out with someone?"

Darry turned and looked at me like I was deaf and stupid. "I'm goin' to the school dance," he said slowly and loudly. "Same place as you."

I was getting a little nervous. Was he serious? Why would he be going to a high school dance? "Well what are you doing that for?" I nearly snapped. Darry took two steps forward to tower over me. I took a step back, just in case. We get along better than we did seven or eight months ago, but I didn't need to take any unnecessary risks.

"I'm going as a chaperone," Darry explained simply. I laughed. He had to be kidding. Please let him be kidding. I stopped laughing.

"You guys need a ride to that dance thing?" Soda asked, darting into the kitchen to snatch a piece of chicken off a plate on the counter. He hadn't been home for dinner, had taken a quick shower, and was just about out the door again.

"Yeah, you can drop me off. I think Pony's going with his friends." Darry looked to me for confirmation. I was still in something of a shocked fog.

"What?"

"Do you need a ride?" Soda repeated.

I shook my head. "No. Rick's coming by. We're walking." Why is Darry chaperoning the dance? Isn't it enough that he makes all the rules at home and watches me like a hawk? He has to supervise me at school events now, too? I was so mad, I couldn't see straight.

Rick came by about ten minutes after Soda, Darry, and Steve left.

"What are you in such a huff about?" he asked me when we were halfway to the school and I had nearly bit his head off for the third time.

"Sorry. I just found out tonight that Darry is one of the chaperones at the dance." I still couldn't get over it. Rick feigned speechlessness.

"Are you serious?" he finally asked, clearly trying not to laugh.

"Yeah I'm serious, and I'm mad as heck about it. Who does he think he is?" Thinking about it was just making me fume again. "Look, I don't wanna talk about it. Let's just pretend he's not there." No way was I going to let him ruin my fun.

The dance was packed by the time we arrived. There was a local band up on the stage. The songs were okay, but the sound system wasn't great, so it all had a muffled sort of feedback touch to it. Didn't make any difference, tons of kids were out on the dance floor. I'm not really into dancing, partly because it makes me look like a lopsided jackrabbit and partly because I'm not good at it. I guess maybe one reason feeds the other.

"Hey there, Curtis!" I looked over a few people to see Terry Jones waving to me. He looked like he'd already had a few drinks. "What's big bro doin' here?"

"Where is he?" I at least wanted to know where he was, so I could avoid him. Terry led us along near the back wall until we could see across to where Darry was standing, arms crossed, looking more like a prison guard than a dance chaperone. Rick started cracking up. I wanted to crawl under the floor.

"Let's get some punch," Rick suggested, sensing my unease. As we made our way over to the punch bowl it occurred to me how thirsty I was after the walk from home. I downed a glassful right there at the table. On our way back to our spot near the doorway we ran into a couple of other guys we knew who followed along with us.

"So are you serious? I mean, really – seriously? Is that really your brother?" Jason Parks was astounded that I was related to Darry. It was a little insulting. "Really?" he asked again. "That big guy?"

"Maybe I should put up a big banner, so everyone knows," I suggested, getting fed up with the conversation.

"Lighten up, Ponyboy," Rick said. "I think it's funny. I mean, look at him. Can you see what kind of a dance this could turn into if there were more of him?"

Terry caught on, laughing. "Everyone stand to the side of the room," he barked, doing an imitation of Darry's stance and talking like a drill sergeant. "Did I say you could cough? You over there, and you, get on the dance floor now! You've got three minutes!"

Everyone was hysterical. It was pretty funny, and they didn't even know Darry all that well.

Jason joined in. "You people will form a line for the punch – anyone who deviates will be punched out by the great Daryl Curtis!" We all laughed.

"Anyone who doesn't wanna be picking their teeth up off the floor better find another place to ridicule people who are bigger than them."

No one was laughing any more. We had all frozen. Jason looked like he was ready to faint. Darry was standing right behind us.

"I'll catch ya later, Pony," Rick said, hurrying away with Terry, who patted my shoulder and said, "It was nice knowin ya, dude." Jason didn't bother saying anything, he just shot off into the crowd. I turned around to face Darry. He was looking over heads, across the room.

"Look, Dar, we were just messing around," I started, and Darry looked down at me like he had forgotten I was there.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. You think I'm here to babysit you losers?" He was peering across the room again.

Now I was really confused. "Darry, why exactly are you here?"

He took me by the shoulders and turned me around. "Her. Do you know who she is?" He had his head down over my shoulder and was pointing out one of the teachers.

"Yeah. Miss Grey. She teaches French. You're here for a teacher?" This, I would have never guessed. She was nice looking, though, and young. I tried to stand on my toes to get a better look, and stumbled backwards. I was getting a little dizzy.

"Darry?"

"Huh?"

"I think there's something in the punch."

"Of course there's something in the punch," he answered, "this is a high school dance. Since the beginning of time…" he cut himself short and looked down at me. "You didn't drink any, did you?"

"Only one glass." It didn't seem like much. My prior experience had demonstrated just how messed up alcohol could make you, and I wasn't feeling it nearly that much.

Darry was looking at me like he was trying to see straight into my brain, to where my common sense was hiding. It really hadn't occurred to me that someone would have dumped alcohol in the punch. Most of the guys I knew just brought beer and drank it in the parking lot. "Well, hopefully they didn't spike it too hard, because I'm not sitting next to the toilet holding your head all night."

"Aren't you supposed to be here to stop that kinda stuff?" I pointed out.

"Like I said, I ain't here to babysit these jokers. I've got my own agenda to worry about. They can all hang from the rafters, for all I care."

Now this was different. I was completely unaccustomed to seeing Darry act like a real person with interests outside of work and home. Him and Soda sometimes do stuff together, but this was the first time me and Darry were in the same place at the same time for no reason other than that we were both looking for a good time. I hadn't been sure Darry remembered how to have a good time.

"So who are you after?" Darry asked me suddenly. It took me a minute to realize he was asking which girl I was interested in.

I shrugged. "I don't even know if she's here."

"You won't get far fast with that attitude. Do you see her?"

I scanned the faces. I almost thought it was pointless, then I spotted her. I pointed into the cluster of kids over by the punch bowl. "Over there."

"Blue dress or pink?"

"Blue."

"Shortish brown hair?"

"Yeah, that's her. She's in my bio class."

"Cute," Darry agreed after a quick assessment. "When were you planning to ask her to dance?"

"I wasn't. She thinks I'm a hood." I thought regretfully back to the day I'd pulled out my switchblade in class to use for dissecting.

"Are you?"

I looked back at Darry. He was waiting expectantly for an answer. "What difference does it make if I am or not? She thinks I am."

Darry flashed me a sly grin. "You're a coward," he concluded. I knew he was egging me on.

"Well I don't see you exactly rushing over to make a move on the French teacher." I could play this game, too. "How do you know about her, anyway?"

"She was in line in front of me at the grocery store yesterday. I heard her tell the clerk she was chaperoning at this dance. I made a couple phone calls, and here I am. And for your information, I'm making my way over gradually. You can't just go rushing over to a woman like a dog in heat, that'd never fly."

I was startled at Darry's impulsiveness. "So it's better to just stalk her from across the room?" I pointed out. Darry let out an uncharacteristic laugh. "Somethin' like that. I'll bet I still make my way over and get a dance out of this before you do, Romeo."

"Is that a real bet?" I couldn't pass up the chance to make a bet with Darry. Maybe I could actually get something out of this.

He looked down at me. "Yeah, alright. I'll bet you one month of dishwashing that me and the French teacher will be out on the dance floor before you and biology girl." Darry extended his hand, so I shook it. "You're on," I agreed.

We separated ways, each headed for our target.

As I was making my way to the punch bowl I started getting nervous. What was I supposed to say? Something like, 'Hi, I'm the scary hoodlum with the knife from biology class who got involved in a murder rap last fall. Wanna dance?' I talked to her sometimes in class, but only to ask about homework or make comments about the teacher. For all I knew she'd laugh me out of the room if I tried to talk to her in front of her friends, or maybe tell me off for trying to make a move on her. I had no idea.

I was done thinking over it, though, since I had made it all the way over to the punch bowl. She was leaning at one edge of the table listening to one of her friends talk and sipping a cup of punch. I wonder if she knows it's spiked? I'm not an expert about girls, but she didn't seem the type to go for boozing.

Now what? I'm standing at the punch bowl table in the middle of a bunch of rich kids and I don't even want any punch. Talk about your awkward moments. Some of them were starting to look at me. I hooked my thumb in my pocket and started to look tough, then thought better of it. That was the last thing Jill needed to see if I was going to get her to dance. I almost ditched the whole thing, then thought about washing dishes for a month and stayed where I was.

I tried waiting for Jill to look over at me, but she was kind of involved with her friends. She was laughing a lot, too, being really silly. I couldn't see what Darry was doing, but the longer I delayed, the more nervous I got. Finally I bit the bullet and walked over.

Jill's friends stopped talking when they saw me standing right near them. Some of them appeared to be looking me over. One of them gave a half smile. Maybe this wasn't going to be as bad as I'd expected. Jill finally turned around to see what had got their attention.

"Ponyboy!" she exclaimed. Her friends looked surprised that she knew me. Impressed, even, which kind of surprised me. Usually they wanted nothing to do with greasers.

"Hi, Jill," I responded. Now what? I went for the only point of connection we had. "What did you think of that bio test yesterday?"

"Oh, it wasn't too bad. I just had problems with the genetics stuff. How about you?"

"I think I did alright. I can help you with the genetics stuff sometime, if you want." It didn't feel like this was getting me anywhere, but I was stuck now.

"Thanks, Ponyboy, that would be nice." Jill smiled at me. My heart pounded a little harder, a little faster. She took another sip of her punch.

"Um, Jill, I don't know if you know this, but someone spiked the punch." It seemed only fair to tell her. I know some guys who would've just kept handing her glass after glass, to see how far they could get.

She looked at me blankly.

"Someone put alcohol in it," I explained. Jill looked down at her drink in horror, then thrust it onto the table like it had bit her. She looked down at the floor, embarrassed. "Thanks for telling me. I had no idea. You must think I'm pretty stupid."

Stupid? The girl gets straight A's. "No, I don't think you're stupid. I think whoever did it is stupid." That got a smile. She was really cute. Her friends had moved to the side a little, giggling and whispering. I felt my face get hot.

"Do you want to dance?"

You would have thought I'd have said it, with the prospect of a month of dirty dishes looming ahead of me, but it was her. She'd actually asked me to dance. Maybe she'd had more punch than she'd realized.

"Sure," I answered. There was a good slow song playing, so all we really had to do was hold on to each other and sway back and forth. It was still a little awkward, figuring out where to put my hands and all, but once we got going it seemed to work itself out. I even forgot about Darry, until I looked up at some point and met his gaze. He was dancing with Miss Grey.

I ended up hanging out with Jill for the rest of the dance. It was a lot different than talking to her in class. She was real open and had a quick sense of humor. We had a good time.

The lights came on at eleven-thirty, prodding whoever was left to gather their stuff and get out. I met Darry at the North entrance.

"So who won?" I asked.

Darry shrugged. "I guess we both did." He held up a piece of paper with Miss Grey's phone number on it.

We headed off for home. It was a nice spring night, but chilly enough that I was regretting not bringing a jacket. It had been balmy and comfortable earlier.

"Didn't you bring a jacket?" Darry finally asked. My teeth were chattering. I had figured it was only a matter of time until he caught on.

"I know," I said tiredly, impulsively, "I don't use my head. I get good grades but I don't have common sense. I can't think of anything. So I didn't think I would need a jacket tonight because I wasn't thinking about how cold it might get by the time the dance was over."

I realized a few steps later that Darry had stopped walking. I stopped and turned around. "Do I say that a lot?" he asked.

"I don't know," I shrugged. "I guess so. I guess maybe it's true, too. You think of everything, and I don't think of anything." It was getting to be a fact of life for me.

Darry looked at me thoughtfully. "Which way do you think is best?" he asked.

I was a little startled by the question. "I don't know. Maybe a little of each." I really didn't know, but I had the feeling that my way couldn't be the best. I had a notion of what Darry's opinion would be.

"What do you think?" I ventured, throwing his question back at him as we started walking again.

Darry really looked like he was thinking about it as he watched me walk along on the curb like it was a balance beam. I was starting to wonder if he'd had any of that punch. Finally he answered, and I wouldn't have predicted his answer in a million years, but it was the answer that would reverberate through my mind for years to come, whenever I was feeling bad about myself. That it came from Darry made it all the more profound and valid.

"Pony, I think you are perfect exactly the way you are. If you were meant to be like me or like Soda, you would be. I ain't exactly the person to be judging anyone else I guess. Maybe you got two big brothers to make up for all the thought you put into things other than what's going on around you at any given time. Maybe that's the part of you that'll get you outta here. And if we'd been reversed, maybe you'd be the sensible one. But maybe we are the way we are because that's what we each need from each other." He peeled his jacket off and tossed it to me. I put it on, and it was like sinking into a warm bath, with Darry's captured body heat still emanating from it.

"You don't have to be like me, Pony," Darry finished. "We'd probably drive each other crazy if you were."

"And we don't now?" I reminded him cautiously.

Darry reached over and pushed on the side of my head to knock me off the curb into the deserted street, then watched me trip over my own foot and sprawl flat on the pavement. I rolled onto my back and looked up at the stars.

"You're gonna get run over doing that," Darry warned me.

"But according to your theory, you're here to make sure that doesn't happen," I reasoned. Then, for at least the third or fourth time in one night, Darry surprised me again by coming over to lay down on the street next to me.

"Okay, so what's the big deal?" he finally asked after a couple of minutes. "A bunch of pinhole sized lights up in the sky. How can you stare at this for hours on end?"

"Think about it, Dar – billions of balls of fire, light years away. Some of them aren't even there any more, they died off centuries ago, but their light is just getting to us now."

"So?"

"So, how bad can the world be, if we can look up in the sky at night and still see the shining light of something that died years ago? I don't know. Maybe it isn't just the stars. Maybe if we know how to look, we can see that shining light in other things around us, still brilliant and guiding, years after someone we knew…after they…" I couldn't finish, so I didn't try. Months later, it could still be unexpectedly startling and painful.

Darry had propped himself up on his elbow and was staring at me intently. "Is that how you do it? Is that how you make it through the rough times – you try and find some hidden meaning in the stars?" He had asked me like he really wanted to know, not like he was poking fun at me.

"Not hidden meaning, really," I tried to explain. "More like…inspiration."

For a minute it was quiet, just a dog barking up the street and the occasional breeze ruffling the new spring leaves. "Do you think they know they inspire you?" Darry asked.

"What, the stars?" I was a little confused. "I don't think they have any idea I'm even watching them, much less inspired by them."

Darry patted me on the chest and pushed himself up to sitting. "Maybe it works like that all-around," he said, giving me a meaningful look that I didn't yet understand. "Those that inspire us have no idea they're even being watched, much less keeping someone afloat." He stared at me for several seconds.

"We'd better get home now," Darry said, taking my arm and hauling me up to standing with him, "before Soda realizes we missed curfew." He grinned at me, and I returned it.

We walked the rest of the way home in silence, me every so often glancing up at the stars, and Darry every so often glancing over at me.