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Disclaimer:

Alright listen up ‘cause I’m only saying this once.

I don’t own anything or anyone from The Outsiders. I’m just borrowing for my own amusement. And if you read this, hopefully yours.

Well now that that’s done…

Enjoy!

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1.

She sighed.

This wasn’t exactly how she wanted to be spending her Sunday afternoon: dressed in black and soaked from head to toe, consequently freezing her ass off.

But she didn’t complain.

She was only this way because she’d wandered off into the rain when she’d attempted to escape the mourners when she’d gotten tired of having to fake emotion any time one of Aida’s old associates gave her their condolences.

She refused to let herself complain.

No, she’d told herself she’d just have to suck it up and to put up with it all in relative silence and secret annoyance. All because her grandmother was supposed to be dead. ‘Supposed to be’ being the key phrase here.

In reality Aida wasn’t dead, yet. She was in Mexico, sipping margaritas, smoking her Salem’s, and getting tan on some remote beach while some cabana boy fanned her with a giant leaf. Okay, so she’d made up the part about the cabana boy, but she knew the rest was true. She knew her grandmother well enough to know that much.

In reality, she’d given up constantly pretending to mourn someone who wasn’t really dead about the time they’d lowered the empty box into the ground, and by the time they’d all met up for drinks and hours devoirs she really could have cared less if anyone thought she was a heartless bitch.

She just wanted to get away from them.

Those people who kept asking her how she was taking ‘the tragic losses’. Exceptionally well, she thought.

Or telling her not to blame herself. No worries there, really.

Or slipping her business cards for psychiatrists and flyers for support groups. She didn’t think they had support groups for this kind of thing; but then again, you just never know now-a-days.

She laughed and almost lost her balance. As she steadied herself she sighed again. She reached down, pulled off her shoes and silently wondered why she’d ever thought wearing heels would be a good idea. With her gracefulness, or lack-there-of, it was just asking for trouble. She left her shoes lying in the wet grass as she brought her attention back to the world around her. She turned expecting a stupid comment from someone next to her when she remembered she was alone.

She’d been alone for awhile now. But she couldn’t complain. Because it was her own fault. She’d forced Dallas and Two-Bit to go back to Tulsa a few days after she’d seen Aida’s house, or rather what had been left of it. She didn’t give them an explanation or an excuse. She’d just told them they needed to go back and they’d left. Truthfully she’d expected more of a fight from them, or from Dallas at least. But no, they’d dropped her off and they’d driven home the very next day. They left just a few days before the questions had started. The news had spread far quickly, like some kind of disease. By the time Sam had woken up half the freakin’ state knew what had happened. Or at least what they thought had happened.

The lie the reporters had been told was too blah. An accidental fire and a botched attempted robbery. That didn’t sell very many papers. So most of them had just made up their own ideas about what had happened; though none of them were as messed up as the truth. The truth, Sam had quickly realized, sounded like something out of a bad soap opera. An arranged marriage. Secret identities. Attempted murder. Two people faking their deaths and fleeing the country. Betrayal. Lies. Scandal. Death.

She tucked a stray piece of drenched hair behind her ear and continued on her impromptu walk through the burial ground. She stumbled through the mud and the wet grass reading the grave markers. She was looking for one in particular. One that she hadn’t seen in a long time. Not that she’d admit she was looking for it. Not that she really knew she was.

She headed toward a familiar steep hill suddenly thankful that she’d ditched her shoes a while back. She trudged up the hill trying not to slip. Something that was becoming more difficult as the rain came down harder.

She stopped for a second, debating turning back.

As much as she loved it, rain had never meant good things for her. Rain usually meant something big was about to happen. And when the rain started coming down harder… well things usually got worse.

She laughed at herself. How could things get any worse.

She regretted the words almost as soon as they’d appeared in her mind; so much that she actually covered her mouth like she’d spoken them out loud.

She silently prayed that whoever was in charge of karmatic bitch-slaps had sneezed or something and hadn’t caught her little slip up. She attempted to turn around but caught something moving out of the corner of her eye and froze.

Too late.

She turned to see what it was she’d just caught sight. Before she knew what she was doing she was running down the other side of the hill getting closer to the unclear outline of whoever it was standing in the rain before her.

She stopped suddenly a few feet away from the grave, not quite believing what she was seeing. “You…You’re supposed to be dead.”

He turned to face her and after he got over the initial shock what she’d just said he laughed at the dumbstruck look on her face. “Am I? I don’t think I got that memo.”

She shook her head trying to erase him from her vision, because this had to be some sick hallucination she was seeing. Because if it wasn’t… And he was alive… That meant he always had been… That meant she’d been lied to… Again… And that meant he was…

She looked at him again and closed her eyes.

“I’m giving you to the count of three to disappear, do you understand?!”

She took his silence as a good sign and continued. “One…”

He watched her with an amused look on his face.

“Two…”

I mean, what did she think counting to three was going to accomplish?

“Two and a half…”

And if she wasn’t even going to do it properly…

“Three!”

She opened her eyes and saw him silently laughing at her. She groaned inwardly. He didn’t go away. Which meant not only was he really there, but he was laughing at her stupid behavior.

She sighed.

He was really there.

Just like before.

Smiling and laughing at her. Watching her act like a fool to get his attention, and enjoying every minute of it.

Sure he was older, more laugh lines and his brown hair was starting to gray in places. But he was still the same. An almost exact copy of what she’d forced herself to remember him as. Only… this wasn’t a memory or some moment captured by a camera. He was really standing there, looking like he’d never even gone away, like he’d never left her alone.

On that thought her emotions flipped dangerously fast.

“Get out of here!” she growled.

It was his turn to be dumbstruck. “What?”

“You heard me!” She yelled. “Go back to where ever the hell it is you’ve been all this time!”

He looked more startled than hurt so she ignored the guilt growing in the back of her head when he said her name, “Sam…”

She glared at him waiting for him to leave. She stopped soon after, realizing he wasn’t planning on going anytime soon.

“Fine! If you don’t want to leave I will!”

She turned quickly and tried to climb back up the hill.

She wanted the stupid mourners back. She’d take the damn fliers and business cards and the misplaced pity and all their stupid condolences for two people who weren’t even dead.

Anything would be better than being there. With someone else who was supposed to be dead, but wasn’t. Another zombie to add to her list. Another liar. Another lie.

She slipped and slid down the wet grass on her knees and stayed where she stopped. She couldn’t find the will to stand up and run. She couldn’t handle this right now. Of all the times he had to go and pop up he had to pick then? Where was he months ago? Where was he years ago? He was the one who left, he shouldn’t be able to just take it all back after fourteen years.

Why was he even here?

She dropped her head and stared at the ground.

Why the hell had Finn Turner bothered to rise from the dead?

“I’m sorry.”

She tensed at his words at first.

He’s just feeling guilty, she told herself. That was the only reason he bothered to find her. He just wanted a clear conscience and if this was how he got it, then so be it. So what if he had to go to the trouble of faking an apology to a stupid girl.

She shook the thought from her head as quickly as it had come.

Slowly she remembered the words and them sink in; she relaxed again. She’d heard more lies in her life than she cared to even attempt to recall, but that wasn’t one of them.

She felt his jacket go around her shoulders and a hood cover her head.

She let out a tired, “It’s a little late for that.”

Finn stood there slowly getting drenched. As he shoved his hands in his pockets sadly he let go of a breath. It was obvious that she wasn’t too happy to see him. Okay… in the whole five minutes he’d been there she’d never once looked happy to see him. But, at least she’d acknowledged him again.

“I know its a few years too late to say I’m sorry…”

She looked up at him seriously. “I was talking about the jacket.”

He stared blankly at her. “Oh,”

She stood up and brushed the dead leaves off of her legs. She looked up at him again and saw his expression hadn’t changed much. He was still very much confused, and looking slightly embarrassed. She decided to spare him the added embarrassment and trouble of having to explain to the ‘associates’ who he was and why he wasn’t dead.

Or maybe she just wanted to know why he was really there.

“If you want to go back to the funeral I understand,”

She laughed as an image of the appalled socialites came to mind.

“Well since we’re both soaked I don’t think we should bother the mourners.”

She only stopped laughing when she felt a slight pang in her stomach and remembered she’d run out before they’d served any edible food.

She put her hands on her hips and smirked.

“So father of mine..”

“Yes?”

“Do you know where I really want to go?”

--

“God, if I’d known it’d be this easy I would have skipped the emotional breakdown and went straight to the blackmail.”

Finn laughed secretly glad she had inherited his sense of humor. After all, there were worse things she could be joking about at the moment.

“So dad,” she paused to take a drink and also think over her words carefully one last time, suddenly consciously aware that she had to be careful of what she said around him, at least for a while.

“Were you surprised to see me there?”

He shook his head, “I was surprised you even knew who I was.”

She was quiet for a moment. She wanted to say she was surprised too but in a messed up way she wasn’t. She didn’t want to say that she’d been more surprised that he was standing there at her mother’s grave than the fact that he was alive and standing. The more she thought about it she’d never really believed it when Aida had told her he’d died.

She really didn’t want to say all that so she settled for a short, simple, to the point answer to his statement.

“I’ve seen pictures.”

“Pictures?” he questioned.

She smiled. He sounded almost horrified. Maybe he was a vampire and his picture couldn’t be taken. Or maybe he was one of those people who believed that cameras steal a persons soul.

She smirked.

She’d used that one when a photographer had tried to take a picture of her and… she thought about it and settled on Peter.

She dropped the thought quickly.

“Aida was actually a very sentimental person.”

He scoffed. “She could’ve fooled me.”

She played with a straw wrapper sitting in front of her almost debating standing up for Aida. But she couldn’t. She wanted to, but no defense came to mind. She was sort of an ice queen.

Finn took her silence the wrong way almost instantly.

“I heard about what happened.”

Sam started to rip the paper into tiny pieces.

Pity Party. “Who hasn’t?”

He looked at her for any hint of emotion but couldn’t find any. He frowned, beginning to worry about the fact that she was being so quiet suddenly. She diverted her attention from the pile of shredded paper and back to her father’s face.

“So, are you going to tell me why you’re really here or not?”

“You think I have an ulterior motive?”

She sighed and simply said, “I know you do.”

He smiled. “I’m here to take you back with me.”

She stared at him silently causing him to push back his hair nervously. He hadn’t exactly been expecting her to say yes and jump for joy at the idea but he hadn’t thought she’d be that surprised.

“Well you’re not eighteen yet and I cant let you live all alone and I am your legal guardian so it my responsibility to take care of you until…”

She stifled a laugh as he continued rambling on nervously.

So this was her dad. Not exactly the most composed person she’d ever met, but she couldn’t exactly blame him for being a nervous wreck.

After all, its not every day you pick up the paper and see your mother-in-law on the front page because her funeral is later that day. And its not everyday you read the accompanying story about how she and your secret daughter’s fiancé were killed in a house fire while said secret daughter lay bleeding a few blocks away in her apartment while her cousin’s friend tried to keep her alive. And she was pretty sure its not every day that you go to the funeral and end up at your late wife’s grave with your secret daughter screaming at you that you’re supposed to be dead and then telling you to disappear like you’re a freaking hallucination or something. Then after telling her why you really drove hours to see her she stares at you emotionlessly as she’s stuck in her own little world thinking about stupid things like how you probably don’t do things like this everyday…

She shook her head and stopped her train of thought. She realized her dad had never stopped talking and was now looking. She held up a hand signaling him to shut up.

She’d already made up her mind.

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TBC... O course. .