January 21, 2008.

Alrightly, last chapter to edit and hopefully I can start new chapters. Wish me luck!! Ponyboy is still 14 years old and will be celebrating his 15th birthday in upcoming chapters.

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Sorry about the delay in the update. This chapter is really short but hopefully the next will be longer. I'm going to also see about getting the other updated while I'm up and can't sleep.

My friend Joanna Rodgers went missing over 2 years ago from here in Lubbock, Texas.

"Bring Jo Home!"

A guy recently confessed to killing her. She was a good friend of mine in High School and enjoyed reading my fanfiction.

Joanna Kathryn Rodgers, I miss you and love you. If you…are dead…may you rest in peace. This chapter is for you my friend, I miss you.

Welcome home Jo.

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Not again.

Watching my little brother as he slept in my arms, his face was not peaceful but twisted in pain and sorrow. A look that no fourteen year old kid should have on his face.

I look outside the window of his and Sodas bedroom, sometime ago it had started to rain.

Not again. The dark cloud is back.

Soon he would be fifteen years old and it broke my heart to think he did not even want to reach his birthday.

I ran my hand across his forehead and smiled slightly as his brows relaxed and he looked more a peace. I couldn't help thinking at that moment, about the first day I saw him. The first day I held him.

Soda and I were in the waiting room of the hospital, he was sitting in his seat his tiny legs not even folding over the edge of the chair, just sticking straight forward. He was eating some chocolate pudding a nurse had brought us. I kept wiping his face, but he kept getting it covered back up with the chocolate mass.

Dad came in shortly after the pudding bowl was empty. A big grin on his face and his eyes were red and glassy. "Ponyboy." He gasped; he grabbed us and hugged us with all his might "You're both big brothers! A little boy, Ponyboy Michael Curtis!"

He pulled back, his grin still present. "Ya'll want to see him?"

Seeing Pony for the first time was, scary to be honest. He was smaller than what I remember Sodapop was, of course he was a month premature the doctors said. When mom handed me him, I thought he was going to let out a shout like Sodapop did. But, he didn't, he was silent his big eyes looking up at me.

"Don't worry." I said as he yawned, "I'll protect you."

"He okay?" I turned from the window to look at Soda standing in the doorway.

"I don't think so." We stared at each other for awhile and there was just silence. He started to step forward but stopped. His eyes were focus on Ponyboy and he looked scared.

"When…when is everything going to get better Darry?"

"I wish I knew." I looked down at Ponyboy again, his face was completely relaxed now. He snuggled in closer to me his eyes still shut, he loosened his grip on my shirt and brought his arm up and rested his hand on my shoulder.

"Ponybo-" He pulled him self up and rested his head on the opposite shoulder his hand was on.

"Don't call me that" He mumbled, his breath hot on my neck. I heard him chuckle, "Ponyboy isn't here right now."

"What-"

He placed his finger on my lips "Don't talk." he whispered into my neck. He then pulled away from me and out of my arms and stood up. Staring down at me, his eyes narrowed and a small smirk on his lips.

He turned towards Soda, who looked very frightened, his mouth was slightly open as if he wanted to say something but couldn't. That seemed to amuse 'Ponyboy' who chuckled.

He then looked down at his arms which were bandaged "Why do you even try?"

"What?"

"Why don't you let us die? Let Pony die. All this would be over with if you did. You can go back to having a normal life, and not worry about this good for nothing."

"Wait a minute! Why would we…why are you talking like this?" I stood up and reach for him, but he just backed away his back hitting the closet door.

He shut his eyes and slid down the door until he was sitting on the ground. He pulled his knees to his chest and hid his face; his shoulders started shaking as if he was crying.

He was crying. I knelt beside him, Soda still hadn't moved, and pulled him into my arms. "It's okay, baby. Its okay."

"No…it ain't. It ain't eva' gon' be okay, ya dig. Nothin' gon' be okay." He sniffed, raising his head and wipping his eyes. "Look at me, cryin' like a baby. I ain't no baby though."

"No one said you were, Pony."

"Brents da' baby. Not me, I'm tuff." He looked at me shooting me a smirk I never saw on his face before. A smirk that Dally wore, like someone who was raised to be tuff and nothing but tuff would work.

Not Ponyboy.

He rested his heads on his knees again, and his body leaned in to me.

"Help me, Darry." He whispered clutching my shirt in his hands again. "Please, make them go away. They confuse me, I don't know who I am anymore."

"What are you talkin' about Ponyboy, you're you and no one else." Soda, finally moved from the door and came over to us. "Nothin' is wrong with you. You're just stressed out or somethin', you're getting better."

I looked up at him from my position on the floor. He wasn't making a move to comfort our younger brother like he normally would. He was just standing above us, clenching his hands at his sides in fist.

He's giving up.

Sodapop, the guy Pony ran to before anyone was giving up on him.

"You're fine." He repeated.

"You hate me." Pony mumbled into my shirt, but Soda heard him.

"I don't."

"You do. You're not home anymore anytime I'm around you go the other way."

"Because…I'm tired."

"…of me."

"No, I want you to get better! But you don't want to!"

"What?" Pony and I both exclaimed. Pony again pulled away from me to turn to Soda.

"You're always cuttin' up or burnin' your skin and doin' weird things!"

"It's….not me!"

"Then who is it!"

"Soda…" I warned, but be ignored me.

"The voices? Is it the voices who are doin it then?"

"You don't understand."

"I'm tired of hearin' things about you! I'm tired of workin' and people comin' up to me askin' if I'm the brother of the boy who cuts himself! The one that tried to off himself! I'm tired, of comin' home not knowin' if you're gonna be on the floor dead of hangin' from the ceilin'!"

"What do you want me to do, Soda. If you can tell me what to do, I'll do it!"

"GET BETTER!" He screamed and then turned running out the room. The door slamming let us knew he was gone from the house.

"He hates me, Darry."

"No he doesn't. He's tired and stressed." I pulled him towards me, "You'll be okay" I said, sounding like a broken record.

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Sodas POV

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The rain how slowed and lighted before I reached the end last porch steps and by the time I reached the end of our block it had stopped.

The rain left behind signs of its visit of course. Puddles dotted the streets and lawns. The smell, oh the familiar heavy scent of rain, a smell that brought back good times.

I don't hate him. He is my little brother, he is everything to me. I'm the person he would always run to when there was a problem.

I love him.

Mom and dad quickly followed behind us, making sure we had on our rain galoshes and rain coats, even though it had stopped raining long ago. We just wanted puddles!

Darry and I were in the backyard jumping in larger and muddier puddles. He laughed when I actually got my boot stuck in some mud.

"Better hope you didn't step in Mister Whisker's grave, Soda."

Mr. Whiskers was a old tomcat that hung around, it let us feed it and play with it, so he was considered a pet. He died last year, not sure how, guess he just ran out of lives. I paled for a second, mental image of my booted foot squishing the beloved dead cat- before I remember we buried him closer to the fence.

I glared at Darry giving my foot and boot one good tug and I was free. Before I could say anything back to my older brother, dads booming laughter caught our attention. We went to the front only to immediately double over in a fit of laughter.

My four year old brother was sitting and splashing around in a big puddle, laughing like crazy. The rain water reached half way to his belly button. Wait...belly button. Last I saw he was fully clothed, rain coat and galoshes just like me and Darry.

"Oh! My! God!" Moms reaction only stacked on the laughter. She rushed over to him, pulling him from the water. "You're going to catch a cold! How-" She stopped talking and looked around the yard. Pony's clothes were thrown all over the lawn his coat had seemed to be the first thing he got rid of since it laid near the steps. Not at all far from dad who was our so called 'adult supervisor'.

"I told you Mama, don't buy a little boy a pink coat." He said as mom stormed past him into the house. But, not before letting a laugh escape from her lips.

I'm just, scared. Mom and dad aren't here. They can't help. He is sick and I don't know what else to do for him. I can't drape my arm around him and make these problems go away. I can't smile at him and make the scars fade.

I don't want to come home and find him hanging from the ceiling of our bedroom or in the bathroom bleeding from his wrist.

I just want everything to be normal again.

I wish Dally and Johnny were alive. Maybe none of this ever would've happened.

A couple of weeks ago, when everything was kind of normal. I did something I haven't told anyone- I cut myself, I just wanted to see what kind of "joy" Pony got out of it. But it hurt like a son of a bitch and I never did it again.

I just don't understand. I don't know what to do anymore. So many trips to the hospital and to Dr. Dawn. So many bottles of pills to make him better. So many long night talks.

Nothing is helping.

And now, these "voices" are back, and they are making him act different. Sound different. Like, they are taking over or something.

A shiver ran down my spine.

"I'm not Ponyboy." He said, what did that mean. DO they take over?

No, that makes no sense!

I sit down on a old car seat in the lot, holding my head in my hands, a lit cancer stick dangling from my lips, the smoke made my eyes sting. I didn't smoke much, the taste was brutal but I needed something!

I just want my little brother back. My happy, nerdy, spacey little brother.

I'm…..giving up on him?

I think so.

"Are you going to be a good big brother Pepsi-Cola?" I barely recall dad asking me when Pony was born.

"Baby Horsey." I said, pointing to the baby in his arms, to Pony.

Dad laughed, "Remember, how I thought you to hold a baby?"

I nodded, crossing my arms. "I hold 'im"

Slowly dad put my little brother in my arms. Keeping his arms around me making sure I was holding him right and didn't drop him. "Good. See your little brother?"

"He look funny…" Pony was staring up at me with his large green eyes. "I kwep you safe, me, mama, papa, Darry kwep you safe."

I'll keep you safe. I promised you, I can't give up on you now. Plus, I have to get you back for peeing in my face that day. I can't give up.

I stood up and began running back home.

I will be okay, someday, it will.

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TBC

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