"Thanks for helping me clean out my dad's garage, Pony." Dally said, opening the door on the side of the house.

"No probs. I'm just here because you said you'd give me 5 dollars." Pony replied, straightening out a stack of cardboard boxes so they wouldn't fall.

"Yeah, but otherwise, I would've had to do it with my uncle Todd. Or worse, my step-father." Dally replies, already looking through the top box in a stack. "These are just Christmas decorations. Let's throw these out."

"Let me see them." Pony looked in the box at the broken lights. "Yeah. These are gone."

Dally puts the box in the trash bin in the doorway and moved on to the next box.

After two hours, they were still only half way done. They'd stacked several boxes along the curb for the dump truck to pick up later, some were stacked in the back of Dally's car so that Pony could take them home later, and some were in the living room.

"How do you have so much stuff in here?" Pony asked.

"My mom never threw anything away. Most of this is hers." Dally replied, tossing a box of linens into the living room. 

"Oh." Pony replied, setting a box by the curb. He caught a glance of what was in the box next to it. The corner of an old torn quilt was peeled back revealing a black and white photograph. He removed the quilt completely and saw the box was filled with albums and photos and old yellowed papers. Most of the papers were just financial documents from the previous tenants of the house probably. But everything else was Winston family memorabilia. He picked up the box and brought it back to the garage. "Why're you throwing these out?"

"I don't want them." Dally says, tossing a popped basketball into the trash bin.

"But they're pictures. They're memories. They're- woah!" Pony wasn't looking where he was going and tripped over something and the contents of the box spilled out. He scrambled to pick everything up. "Why is there a physics book in here?" He asked, holding up a big textbook.

"No clue." Dally said.

Pony opened it, tossing dust everywhere and both boys went into coughing fits. "What's this?" Pony carefully took the old papers out of the hollowed out book. "Poland International Adoption Agency?"

Eyebrows creased, Dally grabbed the papers. "Lemme see that." His eyes scanned over the paper. "IM ADOPTED?!?!?!" He threw the paper to the ground and buried his face in his hands.

"How could you not know you're adopted?" Pony asked stiffly.

"My mom never told me and my dad ran off when I was a baby." Dally shrugged. "I need to call my sister." He went out of the garage and into the house where he yanked the phone off the wall and angrily pinched in a phone number and put it to his ear.

The phone rang twice before a sleepy male voice on the other end answered. "Riley residence."

"Will? Can I talk to Liz for a minute? This is her brother."

"Hold on. She's in the shower. What did you need her for?"

"Family issue." Dally scratched his scalp impatiently.

"I'm part of your family. Why can't you tell me?"

"I don't feel comfortable talking about this with you."

"Okay. She's out now. I'll put her on." Will says before a click is heard over the phone as it passes between people.

"Hi, Dal. Who died?" A female voice says.

"Why do you assume someone died?" 

"Because you never call me."

"Well no one died. I just needed to ask you something."

"Sure. What's going on?"

"Why didn't you or mom ever tell me I'm adopted?"

There was silence on the other end.

"I was cleaning out the garage and I found the papers." 

"Look, Mom was physically incapable of having kids. I'm adopted too."

"But why didn't you ever tell me?"

"We didn't want you thinking that you were less a part of the family."

"One more question." 

"Shoot."

"Why a physics textbook?"

"We had to hide them somewhere you would never want to touch."

"Makes sense. Bye." Dally hung up and stood awkwardly by the phone.

"Should I leave you alone?" Pony asked.

"Please." Dally huffed, replaying his whole life in his mind.

"I'll come pick up the stuff later." Pony said, walking out the door.

When he got back to his house, the rest of the gang was there. 

"Back early?" Johnny said.

"Yeah." Pony replied. "Dal found out he was adopted."

"Whaaa......?" This pulled Two-bit away from the TV. "What are you talking about?"

"Really. I saw the adoption records and everything. They were all stuffed into a hollowed-out physics textbook."

"No wonder he just found out." Soda says.

"We didn't know either." Steve pointed out.

Then Dally suddenly came in carrying a couple boxes. "Here." He said coldly, dropping them on the floor. "There's more in the truck."

"You okay?" Pony asked.

"Yeah. Terrific. The people who raised me aren't my real family, I should be on the other side of the world, and I'm pretty sure I pulled something in my back." 

Johnny put his arm around the blond's shoulders. "Of course they're your real family. They chose you. And you belong right here. And maybe you should rest your back for a while." Johnny guided him to the couch. 

Pony's eyes lit up. "Hey, why don't we contact the adoption agency and see if we can find your birth parents. Would that make you feel better?"

Dally shrugged. "Maybe." He met everyone's eyes one by one. "Let's do it.

...

Two weeks later, Dally walked into the Curtis' house with a brown envelope. "I just got this. It's all the information the agency has on my birth parents. I don't know what's inside."

"What are you waiting for?" Pony says. "Open it!"

"I'm too nervous." Dally admitted.

"Do you want me to do it?"

"No! I need to do this myself." And slowly, he broke the seal and looked inside. He pulled out an old photo of a young woman holding a baby. 

"Is that her?" Johnny asked, looking over Dally's shoulder. 

"I dunno. Maybe." Then he pulled out a few papers that were just normal documents. "Woah. My birth mom's name is REALLY hard to pronounce. But they gave me her current address." He holds up the only new piece of paper in the pack. "Think I should send her a letter or something?" 

"Yeah!"

"Of course."

"That's a great idea!"

"Yup."

"Okay." the bond stood up with the packet and left.

...

"What if she don't like me?" Dally stressed as he, Johnny and Pony stood in front of the mailbox the next day. "What if she didn't wanna hear from me? What if she gave me up because she didn't like me? What if she doesn't speak English?" 

"If she didn't want you," Johnny said, "then she would've suggested for your adoption records to be sealed. They weren't. Odds are, she's been waiting for this day."

"But-"

"Just put it in the mailbox!" 

"Okay." Dally said, slowly moving his hand to the box and slipping the letter down the chute. "It's done." 

"What was in that letter anyway?" Pony asked as they left the post office. 

"Well, I generally told her about myself."