Author's Notes: Well, here's the fourth chapter! Thank you so much, everybody who reviewed. Hell, everybody who read and didn't review, I still appreciate your time:) Please do review though, because you could have some great comments or suggestions that I may really need to hear!

Some quick replies to the reviewers: Phaerie-Mage1313 – Good to know that the writing improved. :) Makes all the time I spent rewriting worth it to hear somebody say that, DonnyLuvr – Thank you! I'm glad to hear that you didn't keel over, Messalina – Thanks, Lady Rose 05 – I did put major effort into it, so it's good to know that it showed through! Thanks for saying so! Kimmerkay – Just reading your screen name made me ecstatic. I think my exact words were 'Hey! Someone I know!' The lengths you went to, to read chapter three were beyond admirable, they were awe-inspiring. I hope I didn't cause you too much trouble:) It's also great that you mentioned the sad/humor mix; although I love drama my writing always seems to be leaning towards humor. I have no idea why, that's just the way the events play out in my head. Hopefully I'll keep the balance, and it doesn't sway too much one way or the other! I'm glad you liked the intern… You'll be hearing more from him in a bit. Don't worry; I love your rambling. Thanks so much for the input, Silverstagbeauty – Thanks, IamOnlyMe – Thank you! It's good to know my attempts to stay in character were successful! Hopefully they stay that way… :), BratPackFan1985 – Hahaha. Well, this is just my version of the infamous Stacie Matthews, I'm sure there are many fics out there where she is a nice, sweet little girl. ;) Hopefully she hasn't turned you off Two-Bit's sister fics altogether!.

Oh dear. Well, I tried to make it quick. Enjoy the new chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsiders.


Dawn broke through the darkness of night silently, giving no warning to its arrival until bright beams of golden-red hues spread over the skyline of Tulsa's cityscape, signaling its unmistakable presence. Rose, cerise and tangerine were painted in broad, vivid strokes across the deep cobalt sky. At the center of it all, a glowing curve just peaked over the buildings and trees, searing through the cloudless sky in indescribable shades of champagne brilliance.

Glimmering beams crawled over the storefronts and parked cars down the main street. They peered in windows and gathered round parking meters; searched out the shiny burger wrappers strewn on the concrete and dripped into storm drains. Creeping gently, their touch unfelt but for the warmth left by their wandering fingers, they approached a large, sprawling building covered in grimy windows with cheap and ineffective curtains. The rays seeped through a gap on one of the second floor rooms, drifting past the yellow striped drapes effortlessly. They climbed over the eggshell linoleum and reached up onto the white sheets of a bed. They passed a slim, pale wrist marked with tape and long, thin tubes spreading like tiny writhing snakes outwards. They pushed onwards, finally resting on a boy's sleeping face, lighting him with the gentle glow of morning.

His face was glistening with sweat, his peroxide blonde hair dark against the whiteness of the pillow and his forehead creased with pain. His hands at his sides suddenly clenched shut, and his head rolled with the finest of movements to the side, then back again. Suddenly, his arm jerked, and he twisted to one side, eyes shut and moving frantically under the lids. He rolled weakly onto his back once more, and his head tilted at an angle. His lips were moving, silent, then gaining volume.

"...Soda...Help..." His voice was thick with exhaustion and emotional agony. "...please...Darry?..."

A tear rolled down from his shut eyelids, only to be absorbed by the starched and unfeeling white material of the pillowcase.

Out the door, down two halls, a flight of stairs and another hallway, four boys sat in a waiting room.

-

-- Darry's Point of View --

"Darry, why are hospitals white?" Soda asked lazily from where his head was cushioned on my lap.

I leant my head back against the smooth, cool (and the aforementioned white) surface of the wall behind me and closed my eyes. There was a consistent ache in the middle of my forehead, throbbing in time with my heartbeat. There was an even stronger one in my chest, sharp knives of worry and guilt stabbing me every few seconds. For a moment I considered answering Soda's inquiry with a vague 'because', but then I came to the realization that this would only prompt him to ask another, perhaps even more unanswerable question.

"It's supposed to be soothing. To calm everybody down and look clean and sterile." My voice was deep with fatigue, and my mouth was almost painfully dry.

"I ain't soothed." Steve muttered from a few seats down. I could see him in my mind's eye, slouched down painfully in his chair and glaring at the wall.

"Why don't they paint it?" Soda wondered out loud. He was bored. We all were. But for a kid who couldn't sit still to save his life, Soda was doing exceptionally well. If talking was what it would take to get his mind off Pony for a few seconds...

"What colour would you paint it, little buddy?" My eyes still closed, I rubbed the bridge of my nose with one hand, trying to ease the ache in my head and failing miserably. Unfortunately, there was no such thing I could try for my heart.

"I like blue." Soda answered after a moments thought. He sounded exhausted, and I knew he looked it.

"Blue's too cold of a colour. If you paint a hospital blue, people would be depressed all the time." I answered absently.

"They don't need any help. Have you seen some of these doctors?" Two-Bit's voice drifted up to us from the floor. If he hadn't moved in the past few seconds since I shut my eyes, he was still sprawled out on the scruffy linoleum, his hands behind his head. He had found the chairs "too damn uncomfortable" and settled for the ground instead. I'd thought a couple of times about telling him how filthy the floor was, but I figured he already knew, and just didn't care. If he wanted to roll around in God-knows-what, he should go right ahead. I was too tired to nag uselessly at the moment.

"Blue moon..." Steve started singing deeply in a lame but passable Elvis impression. I could imagine how he must look, wrinkling his forehead and curling his lips. Suddenly, I heard a muffled thump and a pained curse. Two-Bit must have kicked Steve from the floor.

I felt Soda's head shake slightly on my lap and knew he was laughing silently.

Good. Mission accomplished by the Two Stooges. If they cheered Sodapop up, I don't care how annoying or loud they were.

"What about red?" Soda asked after a few moments. It took me awhile to remember what the hell he was talking about. Oh right, what colour he wanted to paint the hospital.

"Red would make people angry." My voice was getting hoarse. "I don't think the hospital staff really wants infuriated patients and their families attacking them constantly."

"At least they wouldn't have to clean the blood off the walls." Two-Bit added, being cheerfully morbid. I swear that kid had a lost career in acting.

"Green?" Soda continued, sounding like he was falling asleep.

"We ain't plants." Steve grumbled helpfully. He had ignored my suggestion that he get his ribs looked at, and instead had Two-Bit swipe him a bottle of aspirin from somewhere. I hadn't forced the issue, because in the back of my head a voice was whispering to me that I would barely be able to pay Pony's hospital bills, nevertheless anyone else's. I knew that Steve's drunkard of a father wouldn't cough up money to pay for his son's hospitalization if his son's life depended on it. The aspirin didn't seem to be doing much for Steve, but he wasn't complaining. Not that he would, even if he were about to pass out from the agony.

"Orange?"

"You wanna drive everybody in here crazy?" Two-Bit asked incredulously. "Orange is damn annoying."

I drifted out of the conversation and listened thoughtlessly to their banter. My mind felt filled with cotton balls, and it wasn't a completely unwelcome feeling at the moment.

"Yellow?"

"Too bright."

"Brown?"

"Too dark?"

"Purple?"

"Evie has a purple blouse. It's ugly, but makes her look real nice."

I wondered lazily through my stupor what this had to do with painting the walls that colour, but I couldn't be bothered to give it any further thought.

"Black?"

"Hell no."

"Gray?"

"Too boring."

A thoughtful pause.

"Pink."

There was silence.

My mouth twitched weakly, and I think had I been any less exhausted I would have smiled.

"Okay Soda." Two-Bit allowed blandly, as if he had the power to make such decisions. "You go tell that receptionist over there that what this hospital really needs is to be painted pink." I heard a strange gasping sound, and it took me a second to realize that it was Steve laughing slowly and painfully.

For better or for worse, (although I'm willing to bet it would have been the former) I never found out if Soda would have taken him up on that or not, because at that moment the weight left my lap and my kid brother leapt to his feet. Soda started asking questions a mile a minute, and before I even realized what I was doing I was on my feet beside him.

I blinked and rubbed my eyes impatiently as I listened to Doctor Field talk in his low, rough voice.

"...can see him now. He's in room 206, and Nurse Richardson will lead you there-"

As he spoke, he glanced to the side, searching out Nurse Richardson to indicate to us who she was. When he turned back, still talking, Soda and I had disappeared.

As I ran down the hall, I concentrated on following Soda's plaid shirt as we tore through the groups of people in the hallway. Doors and rooms sped past me on either side, but my only thoughts were on my sudden, mindless need to see my youngest brother. After somehow telepathically making a unanimous decision to take the stairs, we ran up them two at a time.

We're coming, little buddy, hold on...

-

-- Two-Bit's Point of View --

Steve and I wove through the hallways as fast as we could, narrowly missin' being taken out by a gurney whippin' past at lightnin' speed. I woulda taken the stairs like the Curtis boys, but one look at Steve's pale and sweatin' face and I knew he never would've made it. Seein' as how I didn't particularly fancy the idea of havin' to carry Steve up a flight of stairs, we headed in the other direction down the hall in search of an elevator.

When I finally found the stupid goddamn elevator, I pressed the stupid goddamn button. Why this sudden fury against elevators you may ask? Well, because apparently they are the most fuckin' difficult things to find when you're in a hurry. I mean, common. Where are the clearly marked signs? Sure, there're signs, but how am I s'posed to know which way that sonofagun arrow is pointin'? What if one of us had been bleedin' to death all over the floor and we needed emergency medical treatment on the second level? We woulda died, and it woulda been this stupid goddamn hospital's fault. Can you put a rant against hospital elevators on a tombstone?

I had plenty of time to think about such pressing matters as these in the fifty years it took for us to first wait for the elevator to come down to the ground floor, then to wait for it to take us to the second floor.

I was worried about the kid more than I wanted to show. I don't think I was foolin' anyone, but for some reason I found myself tryin' anyway. If he-... if somethin' happened to him, I don't know what would happen. I've never seen Soda so torn up as he was the week Pony was gone. Darry neither. When I showed up at the Curtis house the morning after he ran away, I never expected to find Soda with his head in his hands on the couch and Darry staring at the newspaper without really seein' it.

"What happened?" I stopped in my tracks; the sound the door made when I slammed it shut was still echoin' through the unusually silent house. Somethin' had happened, I didn't know what, but I knew right away it was somethin' bad.

"Pony's run away." Darry said quietly, focusing on foldin' his newspaper directly on the crease. He was purposefully avoidin' meetin' Soda's eyes. The younger Curtis was glarin' at him, almost...challengin' him?

I automatically glanced around the livin' room, searchin' for the kid. Pony...run away? But I'd just seen him last night; I'd walked him and Johnny home from the movies.

"Truth?" I asked, momentarily stunned. "Glory, why?" Of all of us, with the exception of maybe Soda or Darry, Pony seemed the least likely to get up and split. Johnny, yeah, Steve, sure, Dally, of course, me, why not, but Pony?

"He got home late after curfew; said him 'n Jonnycake fell asleep in the lot. He had a fight with Darry." Soda explained slowly, twistin' his hands together and refusin' to look at Darry. What the hell?

I nodded, suddenly rememberin' from my hazy, mostly drunken memories of last night Ponyboy sayin' something about how he thought Darry hated him. It wasn't true, but I don't think he believed me when I told him that. Darry did usually rag on him somethin' fierce, but it wasn't 'cause Darry hated him, it was 'cause Darry worried about him. What I wouldn't give for someone to worry about me like that...

"When?" I asked, already tickin' off in my mind the places he could be. He wasn't in the lot; I'd passed it on my way to the Curtis house and looked in to see if Johnny was sleepin' there. He wasn't. Maybe he was off somewhere with Johnny? I looked over at the clock on the wall, 10:24.

"2:30. We already went looking for him. We were just about to go again." Darry shoved a hand through his dark hair, his eyes closed for a moment.

I nodded. "Y'all stay here. I'll round up Steve, Johnny 'n Dall, and we'll all go lookin' together." I opened the door, the screen rattlin' on its hinges. "Don't you worry, we'll find him. He couldn't have gotten far. Then we'll bash his head in for runnin' off in the first place." I tried to smile, but I don't think it was as reassurin' as I wanted, because Darry and Soda just looked at me miserably.

Believe it or not, I can be serious. I know alota people would think I was tryin' to pull a fast one if I told them that, but it's true. But being serious ain't fun, there's too much to think and worry about. And once you start it gets harder and harder to stop.

When Steve and I arrived at the second floor on the elevator, I was just about ready to pull out my switchblade and try to do some damage to the control panel. Then I realized I didn't have my switchblade, 'cause I'd given it to Dally before the rumble, and that just made me mad.

"Room 206, room 206..." I mumbled to myself while I looked at all the numbers on the doors around me. Shoot but there were a hell of a lotta rooms. Where the fuck was room 206?

I glanced over at Steve, and saw him glarin' at the door numbers as well, lookin' angry and in pain.

"210, 208- Glory hallelujah, 206!" I shouted gleefully, happier to see that little plaque at the moment then I was last time I saw Mickey on television.

My exclamations of joy were rudely interrupted by a short, chubby woman with curly hair placin' herself directly between the door and Steve and I. I was just about to cuss her out when I realized that she was wearing a white dress and hat. She was a nurse. Oh. Damn.

"Only family are allowed beyond this point." She said stiffly, crossing her arms. Was she tryin' to look intimidatin' or somthin'? She couldn't be more then five feet tall. Steve and I could take her... "I could call security." She added quickly, eyein' the two of us suspiciously.

Double-damn. That meant we actually had to listen to her, unless we wanted to get kicked out of the hospital. And I wasn't going nowhere until I saw Ponyboy.

"We are family, Ma'am." I answered politely, standin' a little straighter. "My name is Two-Bit Curtis, and this here is my brother Hotdog Curtis." I pointed at Steve. The nurse glanced over at him, and he nodded, smilin' helpfully. As soon as she turned back to me, his look turned into a glower aimed in my direction.

Her eyes narrowed. "You don't look like that boy in there."

"He's my little brother, Ma'am, honest to God." Okay, God, if you're up there, please don't smite me. "You can check the file and everythin'. Darrel, Sodapop, Ponyboy, Two-Bit and Hotdog Curtis. We had real original parents." I bluffed smoothly, my poker face carefully honed from years of losin' money. Damn but I love poker.

"Fine. You can go in, Mr. Curtis." She still seemed a little dazed by my rendition of the New Curtis Family.

"Thank you, Miss!" I grinned, and she walked away down the hall, glancin' back over her shoulder once.

I was reachin' for the knob when I felt somethin' very solid smash into my arm. "What the-"

Steve glared at me, raisin' his fist threateningly again. "Hotdog?" He growled angrily.

I raised an eyebrow. "Steve ain't weird enough to be a Curtis name. Two-Bit is." I explained, proud of my logic. Besides, he was lucky. It was either Hotdog or Lollypop because those were to first two things to come to my head. What can I say, I was hungry...

Steve muttered obscenities under his breath.

I turned the knob and threw open the door.

-

--Soda's Point of View--

You know, it's funny... Feeling detached really comes in handy. I never realized before how doctors can perform surgery without their hands shaking, or how firefighters can walk into flames while still remembering all their training on how to deal with hysterical victims. How can you be that focused when there must be so many other things to think about? Well, now I know.

There were so many things rushing through my brain as I ran down the hall beside Darry. I can't even describe it. Like being caught in the middle of a stampede of horses or something, and there's not a thing you can do about it. All I know is a second later the only thing I noticed was the sound my sneakers made as they pounded down on the white linoleum. It was like there was a solid wall of glass between my shoes and me and everything else. I knew it was all there, I just didn't think about it. Anyway, the sound my shoes made was real nice; the dull thud was very repetitive and almost soothing.

I was so numb to everything that when Darry suddenly stopped I almost ran right into him. I was gasping for breath, and my eyes focused on the door in front of me.

Room 206. Pony's room.

Oh thank God.

I reached past Darry for the doorknob, but some nurse materialized between it and me. She snapped something about family only, I don't know exactly what, I wasn't really paying attention. When she switched her gaze from Darry to me, I reflexively grinned, even though it was the last thing I felt like doing. I was panicking. I was so close...

Out of my way, you cow. I want to see my little brother.

She smiled tentatively back at me, slightly taken aback.

"My name is Darrel Curtis Jr.-" Darry started tersely.

As soon as her eyes flickered back to Darry, I bolted past her and was through the door in less then a second. She squeaked, appalled and shocked beyond words behind me. I didn't care. Darry could take care of her.

The first things I noticed were the curtains. They were striped and yellow and hideous. I guess they stood out in such a sea of white. Then I saw the bed, and started forward as fast as my sore limbs could take me.

The figure in the bed was lying on his side facing away from me. The white sheet was tangled around his stomach, and one long, slim white arm dangled off the side. On the other side of the bed there was a pole where a partially empty bag hung beside a whole mess of equipment. His hospital gown had slipped off his shoulder, revealing a dark bruise on his collarbone. His blonde hair lay limply against the white pillow.

I froze. Blonde hair? Pony has brown hair. Reddish-brown hair, it's real tuff.

I was in the wrong room.

Disappointment rushed through me like a wave, leaving my knees weak and my eyes misty. A choking sob came from deep in my chest and I thought I might crumple into tears right there on the spot. Yupp, Sodapop Curtis, resident bawl-baby at your service!

Through my fit I somehow noticed the figure on the bed move slowly. First his leg twitched, then he rolled onto his back. His head twisted restlessly against the pillow, and when it tilted in my direction I knew in an instant it was my brother.

He bleached his hair in Windrixville, you fucking idiot.

Now there really were tears running down my face. The next thing I knew I was at his side, his hand in mine. I stroked the side of his face with shaking fingers and pushed the moist tendrils of blonde hair away from his pale forehead. I crouched down beside the bed, so that my head was level with his.

"Oh Pony..." I whispered, but I know he could hear me. I don't care how asleep he was, he always reacted to my voice. Or used to, anyway. "Common, Babe, you gotta wake up..."

Then Darry was beside me, his breath loud in my ear. He clutched the fabric of Pony's gown, as if to make sure he was really there. His insecurities rubbed off on me, and I ran my thumb over the bruised and broken skin of my little brother's cheek. It was slick with sweat, and I could feel the heat radiating off his skin.

Pony moved his head again, his forehead creasing in agitation. My fingers paused a few inches from his face, unsure what to do.

"...Mom?..." He mumbled, forming the words on his lips and barely breathing them out.

Without knowing what I was doing, I gently smoothed back the hair from his forehead. "I'm here, honey. Go back to sleep."

Darry's head jerked up to stare at me in disbelief, but I didn't look away from Ponyboy. The kid made a small gasping sound, filled with pain, but then his forehead smoothed out once more.

I heard the door open, and I knew Two-Bit and Steve had arrived. I didn't care.

Darry wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me slightly to his chest in a half hug. I rested my head against his neck and squeezed Pony's hand softly.

We were here for Pony. He would be all right. He had to be.


-- To Be Continued --