Disclaimer- I do not own The Outsiders. Its plot and characters belong to SE Hinton. The One Last Wish Series is by Lurlane McDaniel. Although this is not a crossover a lot of my ideas for this fic came from the book Someone Dies Someone Lives in that series.

December 1967

Ponyboy Curtis hadn't been feeling too hot lately. He'd been very tired and short of breath for the past five weeks. It was getting worse. He wasn't worried though. It was December and he always got a cold or the flu around that time His mom had used say that you could set your calendar by two things: Soda doing some crazy stunt and getting hurt and Ponyboy having his December flu bug. Sometimes the bug varied. One year the young greaser even had the chicken pops.

Ponyboy's POV- "Wake up kiddo. It's Saturday, you have a track meet." I groaned. Golly but I was tired.

"Five more minutes." I begged. Of course I should have known better. Asking for five minutes of sleeping in at my house was like asking for a miracle, a miracle that never would happen. I needed it though, I didn't have any energy.

"Ponyboy Curtis if you're not out of bed and dressed in ten minutes you're going to be late!" Darry yelled. Did he have to yell so load? I groaned again and opened my eyes.

The garish light coming from my window almost gave me a headache it was so bright. I had to blink quite a few times to get used to it. Heaving a sigh I through my legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

It took me all of about five minutes to slip on my warm up pants and jacket. I slipped on my worn out converses. I gasped for air a second. I really needed to stop smoking. It wasn't doing me any good, especially with this flu bug I can't shake. Still I shouldn't be this weak.

I slothily made my way to the living room not wanting to think about how bad I was going to louse up my meet today. Soda came up behind me and spun me around. I really wasn't up for rough housing but I couldn't let my brothers know this. If they knew I was sick I couldn't run today and boy did I want to run.

"You okay Pony? You look kind of sick. You're yellow." Soda asked. I nodded and playfully punched him on the shoulder.

"I'm fine will you stop worrying so much. You're gonna have more grey hairs then Darry if you don't." I joked trying to steady my breathing.

"You want to say that again little buddy?" I bit my lip and turned around. Just my luck. Darry was standing right behind me with his arms crossed wearing a very stern look. I tried to give him an innocent look like Soda usually gives Darry when he's in trouble.

"Just kidding Darry." I wheezed. Darry gave me a concerned look. Oh great, I thought, here comes the lecture.

"Maybe you don't need to run today kiddo. You do look sick."

I rolled my eyes and tried to give a confident smile. "I'm fine. I'll be fine. Let me run. Come on we got to cream Grapeview today. The team needs me." I begged.

Soda and Darry exchanged glances which meant they were secretly discussing something. Sometimes I wonder if my brothers aren't telepathic.

Darry gave me one more quick look and then sighed. "You can run today but if you end up sick don't come crying to me." I nodded.

One Hour Later…

Reader's POV- Ponyboy's brothers watched eagerly from the stands as their brother took his place for his first race of the day. He looked kind of flushed and sick but they tried not to think about it. If Ponyboy said he was okay to run he was okay.

Down on the track Ponyboy felt very wrong. He couldn't catch his breath. Bang! The starting gun blared off and the racers ran. A panting Ponyboy, who was usually was extremely fast, was far behind. All of a sudden he clasped not being able to breath.

Their was pandemonium as people rushed to help Ponyboy. Franticly his brothers pushed through the crowd to get to their brother.