Come Down From Your Fences

Epilogue: Part 1

These are the original notes when I wrote this 100 years ago:

Really long A/N - I last updated Fences over a year ago and I have finally come to the realization that I will probably never go back to it. I feel really guilty, but I just seem to have moved on and can no longer write those guys the way they deserve to be written. Luckily, I did have an ending (mostly) written and I thought I'd share it with you guys.

There's really not much of the remaining plot of Fences that comes into play - just that I intended for Dally to need to make a choice between doing the deal that was going to be set up with Tim or help Pony and Johnny who were inadvertently stumbling into danger because of Pony's friendship with Mark from TWTTIN. He does the right thing for once and decides to warn his friends, but that lands him on the bad side of the crime lord he'd been working with through Tim because Dally jeopardized his business. Realizing he'd painted a big target on his back, Dally decides to leave Tulsa. And that was the end. At least what I had planned ... I have a tendency to make things up as I go, but that was the general idea of how things would play out.

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Ten Years Later

"Okay everyone, I need you all to read the first two chapters over the weekend." An exaggerated groan rose up in the classroom as their teacher held up the book they were starting that night. "It's good. Trust me."

"That's what you said about Tale of Two Cities. Man, was that boring. Who cares about some stupid French guy?" The teacher grinned - that was Tommy. He complained about everything.

"Hey, I liked it." And that would be Jen. She was always enthusiastic and one of his best students.

"You like everything," Tommy countered and the class laughed, right on cue.

"This one isn't about some stupid French guy. It's about a teenager, about your age. In fact, the author was a Sophomore when he wrote it for a class just like this one." The teacher made his way to each row and handed over a stack of paperbacks for them pass to the students behind them. "It's about trying to belong and trying to survive when all you have are your friends to help you out."

"Alright, sounds a little better than that French dude," Tommy joked, his face lit up with a grin. For a split second, the teacher pictured another guy who always had a joke for every situation. Every class had one, he'd quickly come to realize when he started teaching five years ago. He couldn't really laugh along; naturally that would encourage bad behavior. But he always welcomed every quip and joke with a small smile.

He stopped at the last row. The kid there was intently digging the tip of a paperclip into the surface of his desk, etching something into the cheap laminate. Probably his name. In his day, it would have been done with a switchblade, but things have changed since then. The kid didn't look at him, apparently ignoring him. But he could tell by the set of his shoulders, the tenseness of his jaw, and the fact that the paperclip was now making a grinding sound with each stroke that he was completely aware of his presence. This would be Kevin. He was angry at the world and didn't hesitate to let everyone around him know that. The teacher held back a sigh of frustration. The more things change, the more they stay exactly the same.

He dropped the books on Kevin's desk, right on top of the K he had been working so diligently on. He realized long ago that with kids like Kevin, you couldn't show any weakness. They didn't respect that. There was a good kid in there, he knew it. It was going to take a lot of effort to get Kevin to realize that himself. He was going to take his time, he vowed. That vow grew stronger every time he glimpsed fresh set of bruises on his wrists or a scrape on his cheek.