Erin hated hospitals.
She hated the sounds, the smells, and the people. The only other time she had ever been inside of one, was the night her parents had died.
And she was violently reminded of that fact as she paced around the waiting room of the ER where Krupke had instructed her to wait.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the policeman walked back out from where he had been behind the double doors of the hospital wing. She had immediately marched over to him, trying to peer over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of anything beyond the closing doors.
"Is he-"
"He's gonna be ok." Krupke quickly interrupted, placing his hands on the girl's shoulder.
She let out a huff of relief, steeling her expression as best she could.
"Can I see him?" she asked quickly.
Krupke sighed.
"He's unconscious for now. The nurses say no visitors until he wakes up."
"But-"
"Erin, Valentina called the precinct." he stated calmly.
Immediately, the girl paled at the mention of her grandmother.
"She's worried about you. Said she hasn't seen you for hours...you need to go back."
Erin pressed her lips together briefly, trying to formulate another protest.
"We'll need to question him when he's awake." he continued. "I'll come back and let you know when that happens. Ok? I promise."
She glared back at the cop for a moment longer. Erin had never been the kind of person to trust, or even listen to a person in uniform. She wasn't blind, nor was she dumb. She had seen the way that they treated the people of her neighborhood. But at that moment, she didn't have another choice.
Shrugging her shoulders out of his grasp, she stepped back from the cop.
"Fine." she spat, spinning on her heels and all but sprinting out of the hospital, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her forearm.
It was only ten minutes later that she was pressing the front door of Docs open with one hand, all but storming inside of the pharmacy. And as the gate slid shut behind her, Erin stopped dead in her tracks.
Staring back at her, scattered around in every single booth, table, and stool, were all of the Jets.
Baby John was sitting the farthest from the door, folded up on a stool at the bar, his knees pulled tightly into his chest. A local girl named Tessa was sitting a seat down from him, her expression painted with concern. Mouthpiece, Balkan, Action, and Little Moly were sitting around one of the tables in the center of the room, while Skink, Big Deal, and Ice were sitting at another closer to the right wall. Over by the pinball machine, Anybodys was standing, well more-so hiding, in the shadows of the corner. And in the booth closest to the front window, Graziella was sitting with one of her friends named Velma.
All of those who had been inside the salt shed earlier were still sporting cuts and bruises all over their faces. And the local girls who were there looked shaken to their core, most likely having been informed of the night's events.
The moment the Jet's had seen Erin walk inside, their expressions lit up with anticipation. Her eyes raked over the room slowly, finally noticing where Tony was sitting behind the main counter, Valentina helping him treat the cuts underneath his eyes. At the sound of the bell above the door, the older woman had glanced over her shoulder, audibly sighing in relief at the sight of her granddaughter.
"Erin-"
"Is he ok?" Ice immediately demanded, standing up from his chair.
Erin's head shot towards the younger boy, her eyes igniting with a glare.
"He's alive." she spat, immediately feeling the entire room let go of an anxious breath. Some of the Jet's slumped back into their chairs, others rested their hands on their faces. But Erin's face continued to burn with anger. "No thanks to you!" she shouted.
Valentina passed an ice pack to Tony, walking around from behind the bar.
"No thanks to any of you!" Erin continued to rant, staring out at each and every one of the Jet's faces. "I thought the Jet's were supposed to be a family! Is this what a family does? Huh? Lead each other into stupid, dangerous situations? And for what? Because you are too full of yourselves to fucking share a few blocks?"
No one had responded to her, most of them avoiding her gaze entirely.
"What if he had died? Huh?" she kept screaming. "What if any of you had died? Would this all have been worth it then?"
Valentina finally made it across the room, and upon making it to Erin, she immediately wrapped her arms around the girl in as tight a hug as she could muster.
Erin's tough and angry exterior finally cracked, and she burst into tears in the safety of her grandmother's arms. The sound of her slightly muffled sobs echoed around the otherwise silent pharmacy.
The Jet's exchanged shameful glances, and behind the counter Tony had squared his jaw tightly.
Eventually, Erin's tears ran dry. Pulling back from Valentina, she composed herself as best she could, blinking several times to clear her vision.
"Lo siento, abuela." She whispered.
Valentina shook her head, reaching up to brush some of the remaining streaks of water off of Erin's cheek.
Suddenly, the accordion gate behind them slid open again. The wood of their front door creaked as another person stepped inside of the shop. Tilting her head to the left, Erin watched as Anita, Bernardo's girlfriend, looked out at the occupants of the pharmacy with worry. The air inside the shop was immediately tense again.
As Erin stepped out of Valentina's grasp, Anita immediately turned her attention towards them. Her eyes widened with a purpose, and she marched directly up to the shopkeeper and her granddaughter.
"Valentina, algo está mal." she started. "Chino-"
Grazielle suddenly stood up from the booth she was sitting in.
"Spanish?" she spat. "You come here speakin' Spanish?!"
Anita's eyes darted towards the blond girl, seemingly unbothered.
But Erin was far less calm about it.
Pushing past her grandmother, she walked directly up to the table, her finger jutted out in front of her.
"Sit the hell down." she barked, her voice booming across the shop.
The blond girl glared back at her defiantly.
"She wasn't talking to you. So sit down and shut up, or get the hell out of my store."
Grazie's glare didn't falter, but no sound came out of her throat in the end. In the silence that followed, she carefully lowered herself back down into the seat, her eyes returning to the table in front of her as she pouted like a child.
Erin turned back around, eyeing the rest of the Jet's, daring any more of them to speak.
None of them did.
She quickly walked back over to Anita.
"¿Qué es?"
The girl shook her head.
"It's Chino. He came back to the apartment ranting and raving about Tony and Maria. About the rumble..." her eyes found Erin's, and she could see worried tears beginning to well up in her eyes. "He has a gun...I couldn't stop him."
Tony had quickly pushed himself towards the front of the store.
"Where's Maria?"
"I don't know." Anita admitted. "She wasn't in her room. I was hoping she came here..."
Tony set his shoulders, already pushing past Anita and heading for the front door.
"We have to find her."
Erin immediately took off after him.
"I'm coming with you."
Both of them disappeared out onto the streets, Valentina's pleas for them to stay falling on deaf ears.
A majority of the Jet's, and girls, stayed behind. But Big Deal, Ice, and Mouthpiece had just as quickly pushed back their chairs and sprinted out the door as well.
As the group walked out and down the pavement, their heads were on a swivel. They weren't entirely sure where to start looking, or how long they would have to be searching for. But evidently the answers turned out to be; right down the street, and in a matter of minutes.
"Look!" Mouthpiece barked, pointing down towards the corner adjacent from their position.
Everyone immediately turned, seeing a shadowy figure turning down onto the street. They were moving at a rapid pace, the fabric of their skirt billowing behind them slightly as they went.
Tony let out a breath, darting forward without hesitation. Maria scrambled over to meet him, grabbing at his arms in a clear panic.
"You're ok." she said breathlessly.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm ok." Tony replied, placing a strong hand on the side of her face.
As her chest twinged with an unfamiliar feeling, Erin saw something dart out of the corner of her eyes. Stepping to the side slightly, her attention shot towards a distant alleyway, only a few yards away from the front door of Docs. As her eyes narrowed, she finally saw the figure lurking in the shadows. And as it lumbered out towards the street, its arm began to rise up.
She almost didn't react in time.
A gasp tumbled out of Erin's throat as she ran towards Maria and Tony.
"Move!" she shouted, using all of her strength, once reaching them, to push them forward.
There was a loud bang, and a flash that briefly illuminated the entire street.
Erin dropped to the pavement at the last possible second.
Luckily, the bullet was shot very wide.
Peering up from the ground, Erin saw Tony's head whip back and forth wildly between where Chino was standing at the far end of the street, and where she was laying flat on the ground.
Anita was the first to react. She had instantly began screaming at Chino in wild, almost unintelligible Spanish. In turn, the boy's expression reflected true terror. Terror at what had just happened, terror at his own actions. As if the sound of the gun going off had knocked him out of whatever vengeful daze he had been in. Anita had violently advanced on his position, but a much calmer Maria quickly got in her way, grabbing hold of her arm. After managing to talk the frantic girl down, she then turned to Chino herself.
Everyone watched with bated breath as she held out her hand to him.
"Give it to me." she ordered firmly.
Chino didn't move, so Maria took the gun from his hands before stepping back from him.
Sirens erupted from a few blocks down, and the front door of Doc's flew open, depositing Valentina out onto the street with them. Her eyes were already wide with worry, becoming more so upon seeing her granddaughter laying on the ground.
But by then, Tony had already walked over to Erin, reaching a hand down to help her back up. And once she was on her feet, she immediately found herself enveloped in a fierce hug.
"Thank you." he whispered, his voice wavering.
Erin swallowed the lump in her throat, hugging him back just as tightly.
Valentina hurried over to the group standing in the middle of the street, just as three cop cars rounded the corner. The older woman placed her hands on both Maria and Chino's arms, not saying anything to them, but silently ordering them to stay put as a few cops began to pile out of their cars.
After briefly conversing with them, Maria handed over the gun to one, while another took hold of Chino's arms and handcuffed them behind his back.
Erin and Tony joined them just as Chino was being placed in the back of a police cruiser. The boy took a fast hold of Maria's hand, escorting her back into the pharmacy. Anita was quick to follow, throwing her arms over the younger girls shoulders as they went. Erin watched them go until they disappeared inside, only then turning back to look at her grandmother.
She couldn't quite tell what she was seeing in the old woman's eyes. She looked tired, she looked horrified, but underneath all of that, she still managed to look, somehow, proud.
Erin opened her mouth to say something to her, when another officer walked up to the two of them. Turning their heads, they watched as Krupke placed himself a few feet in front of their position.
"Thanks for calling us, Val." he said, nodding at the woman before gesturing back to her shop. "You sure you don't need any of us in there?"
"Absolutely not." Valentina snapped quickly.
Erin had nearly laughed. Nearly.
Krupke then turned to the younger girl next.
"He's awake, by the way."
She froze in place, and when she didn't respond, the cop nodded.
"I was going to offer you a ride to the hospital, if you'd like."
Swallowing with, admittedly, a bit of difficulty, Erin glanced back at her grandmother. The older woman was quick to nod her head.
"Go, mija." she said gently. "I've got everything under control here."
With a sigh, Erin turned back to the cop.
"Fine."
With one last pat on her granddaughter's shoulder, Valentina walked back into her store, more than ready to once again deal with the chaos inside.
Erin begrudgingly followed a few paces behind Krupke, eventually sliding into the passenger seat of his police car. For the second time that night.
The ride there was absolutely silent. Krupke could evidently tell that if he attempted to say anything to her at all, it wouldn't be met with much favor. So he opted not to.
In the end, he was just glad that no one had wound up dead.
Once back inside the hospital, Erin followed Krupke through the ER, her arms folded tightly across her chest. They eventually came to a stop in front of a cot that had a pale, blue curtain wrapped around it.
"He started askin' for ya the moment he woke up." the cop suddenly spoke casually.
Erin didn't even get a chance to register what he had said, as Krupke had already reached out and pulled the curtain aside.
"I told ya, I'm good! I'm good, I just wanna get outta here-"
Inside there was a nurse, and a boy, engaged in what looked to be a screaming match. The boy was already half out of the bed at that point. He was shirtless, with a large bandage wrapped around his left shoulder.
When the curtain was pulled aside, both of them had turned to look at the cop and the girl standing before them.
Riff's eyes widened immediately.
"Hey-" he breathed out, trying again to slip off the hospital cot. But the nurse was quick to catch him, trying to force him back up. "I told yous, I'm fine!"
"Listen, you need-"
"Nancy-" Krupke interrupted. The nurse turned towards him, and the cop just shook his head. "He's good."
The nurse crossed her arms over her chest pointedly.
"Fine." she huffed, turning back to Riff. "You need to come back in six weeks to get those stitches removed. Got it?"
Riff nodded his head dismissively, and the nurse rolled her eyes. She then walked over to Krupke, escorting him over to the front desk so that he could finish filing the rest of his report.
Erin swallowed heavily, slowly turning her head back towards the cot.
Riff was standing on his own two feet by that point, and was trying to pull his tattered shirt back over his head. However, with an inability to raise his shoulder all the way, he wasn't exactly succeeding.
Pressing her lips together tightly, Erin crossed the floor and placed her hands on the sides of his arms. He immediately stilled under her touch, thus allowing her to gently help him pull his limbs through the holes of his gray tank top. She then tugged it down over his head, revealing his face.
But Erin didn't look at him.
Instead, her eyes traveled towards the ripped and bloody spot on the section of fabric that now rested overtop his bandaged shoulder. Her fingers shakingly lingered over the spot, the horror experienced by all of them only an hour or so earlier slowly began to resurface in her brain.
A hand suddenly grabbed hold of her chin, and Erin's gaze was abruptly torn away from his injury as she was all but forced to look Riff directly in the eyes.
This was all brand new. The quiet. The tenderness. And yet somehow, it all felt so terribly familiar.
"Are you alright?" he suddenly asked her.
Erin blinked in confusion.
"Am I-?" she scoffed indignantly. "Am I ok? Are you insane? I'm not the one who got fucking stabbed, Riff!"
Almost immediately, the boy's expression morphed into a smile.
And he started laughing.
The bastard was laughing at her!
Erin smacked his hand away from her face.
"The hell is your problem?" she hissed, her face hot with anger, and her eyes burning with the sensation that usually precursed tears. "Is everything a joke to you?"
Riff's smile fell, his mouth parting as if to speak, but no sound came out. Erin, in turn, threw her hands up in exasperation.
"You know, I will never understand how you don't see just how many people out there are pulling for you! All of the Jets, Tony, even that stupid cop knows that you can be better than this! And yet you're always so goddamn willing to throw it all away, and for what? For what, Riff?" her voice had begun to tremble at that point. "You have to tell me something because I am tired of feeling like this!"
She instantly regretted speaking. The confession that lay deep underneath the words she had actually said, was meant to be kept buried until the day that she died.
Back in front of her, Riff's expression had glazed over completely.
Her throat went dry, and she took a step back from him.
"Look, I gotta go." she said, having to work to keep her voice steady this time. "Valentina is probably worried sick. I just came to see if you were alive."
With one last shake of her head, Erin finally turned back around, making her way through the halls and towards the front door of the hospital.
She had already made it past the front desk, heading towards the waiting area, when she suddenly felt a hand wrap around her wrist, bringing her to an abrupt halt.
Spinning around accusingly, she found Riff's eyes once again bearing down into her own with a surprising level of seriousness.
"Riff what-"
"Don't leave." he suddenly blurted out.
Erin blinked in surprise, trying to understand why those two words had made her heartbeat jump tenfold.
"The hell are you talking about?"
Riff swallowed with what appeared to be an extreme amount of difficulty.
"Don't leave...me." he said this time.
Erin couldn't do anything else but scoff.
"You're not making sense, Riff." she spat. "Maybe you should stay the night, get your head checked for-"
The boy had suddenly tugged on her wrist, hard. Disrupting her balance, she thought for sure that she was going to fall over. And she might've too, had it not been for the body in front of her.
With his hand still wrapped tightly around her wrist, Riff managed to keep her held upright as his head leaned down to capture her lips with his own in a particularly desperate kiss.
Erin stilled, her entire body feeling as if it were both shutting down and being electrified at the same time.
Riff on the other hand, was terrifyingly gentle. His lips, while firm and purposeful, just barely grazed her own, as if there was part of him that was afraid of hurting her.
She still hadn't managed to recover from her shock when Riff eventually pulled away from her. His face lingered close to hers, gauging her reaction. But all he found was her wide eyes staring back at him blankly.
Riff pressed his lips into a thin, anxious line.
"I'm sorry." he whispered. "You have total permission to slap me if you want to. I just...I had to do that...just once."
He carefully released the grip he had on her hand, taking half a step back, as if preparing for her to do just as he suggested.
But Erin's mind had completely blanked. She forgot that they were still standing in the middle of a busy hospital waiting room. She forgot everything else except the boy in front of her.
Surging forward, Erin's hands reached up to cup either side of his face, pulling it back down to her own with a hasty urgence.
When their lips connected for the second time, it felt like the thousandth. As if they had every miniscule thing about each other committed to memory.
And in hindsight, not that either of them would ever admit it, but they did.
Riff's good arm wrapped tightly around her waist, his opposite hand coming down to rest against the side of her ribcage.
In the end, it was a pointed shout from behind them that ultimately tore them apart.
"You either gotta stay the night, or clear out." Officer Krupke barked as their two heads spun towards where he was standing with the nurse back at the front desk. "Plenty of people still need to be seen tonight."
"Oh give me a break, Krup." Riff immediately fired back sarcastically. "I did almost die tonight."
Hearing his words, and seeing the way that Krupke was clearly holding back a smile, Erin paled. She stumbled backwards and out of Riff's hold, making an abrupt b-line for the door and tearing off into the night without another word.
Riff was left stunned. But another bark for him to decide from the cop finally got him moving. He jogged towards the exit, pushing the doors open with his good shoulder and stepping out onto the street.
The summer night air hit his face. He whipped his head from left to right a few times, eventually managing to catch sight of the back of Erin's head as she frantically sprinted down the sleepy streets. She was heading in the direction of Doc's.
"Hey!" he called out, immediately taking off after her. "Erin, stop!"
His voice echoed off the sides of the brick buildings, but she didn't react. Riff scoffed in disbelief, completely ignoring the pain in his shoulder as he pushed himself to run faster.
"You can't just-!" he gasped for breath. "You can't just kiss me like that and run away!"
Erin's form rounded a far corner, disappearing down her own street.
Stumbling after her, Riff eventually skidded to a halt in front of the pharmacy about a minute later. Without further hesitation, he ran up to two stairs, and threw open the door.
He was immediately met with gasps of surprise, many of the Jet's inside jumping to their feet to greet him.
"Riff!"
"Thank god, you're alive!"
"We thought you were a goner, man!"
He greeted them all with quick nods and smiles, but his eyes were frantically dancing past them, trying to look out at the rest of the pharmacy. That's when Ice pushed forward to the front of the welcome party.
"Riff-"
"Ice, where is-?"
"Bernardo's here." his second in command told him quickly.
That got Riff's attention.
Everyone else in the shop had fallen silent as the leader of the Jets picked his head up, finally noticing where Bernardo was standing by the basement door. Valentina was standing at his side, and a few feet to their right, huddled around the jukebox, were Anita, Maria, and Tony. The latter two of which were tightly holding onto each other's hands as they stared back at him with pointed anticipation.
"He's here about a truce." Ice explained quietly.
Truce? The Jet's didn't do truce's. A truce means you're giving up. And Jet's don't give up. Riff didn't give up.
Glancing around the room again, his eyes momentarily lingered on Maria and Tony's expressions before eventually turning towards the register. That's where he finally found the person he had originally been searching for.
She had refused to meet his eyes at first, but in the silence that followed, she slowly began to tilt her head back up.
And what Riff saw in her semi-broken expression was something he had never thought to consider before; that maybe, this wasn't giving up or giving in. Rather, it was a way for them to move on. Move on towards a future.
That world never used to have any meaning to him, but now...
In his prolonged hesitation, Erin quickly severed eye contact. Returning her attention to the wood of the counter in front of her.
Riff swallowed, straightening his shoulders with a bit more purpose. And without another word, he maneuvered his way through the crowd of Jets until he finally reached the basement door, and the two people standing in front of it.
"You two can talk downstairs." Valentina said sternly. "But I will be coming with you, in case you get any more idiotic ideas."
Both leaders nodded their heads in silent obedience, as Valentina pulled open the door.
The three of them disappeared downstairs, the echo of the door slamming shut behind them causing everyone else in the shop to jump in spite of themselves.