Authors Note: Okay so I apologize, this chapter is going to be a bit rough, it's been awhile since I have written anything. Enjoy.

Chapter 12

"As his legal guardian now don't I have the right to speak to him?" I demanded into the telephone. I was in the kitchen early Friday morning, it had been a little over a week since the court hearing and despite my best efforts had still been unable to speak to Ponyboy.

I had driven out to the reformatory the day after the court fiasco. The cold hard unemotional look on my brothers face as they lead him back out in handcuffs, haunting my sleep the night before. Not to mention the slightly deranged look on one of the guards making my inside feel as though a block of ice was in the pit of my stomach. I thought if I could just see him reassure myself that he was okay, I would all seem less surreal, more something tangible ,that I could fix. I was superman after all. I had to be.

That hadn't work either however, after a solid hour of arguing cursing and all right threatening the man behind the entrance desk, I was forced to get back in my truck and drive home unable to see my brother, yet again. Their excuse at the time was that they still had the state as his custodial guardian and until the paperwork came in saying otherwise they would not permit me to speak to him. So after an angry call to the state who assured me the proper paperwork would be sorted out by my brothers case worker. The next time I contacted the reformatory they stated that he was in confinement for bad behavior and was prohibited visitors.

Upon Soda's call last night asking to speak to him the person on the other end of the phone slipped stating that he was still in the hospital wing and unable to come to the phone. I had been in my night class at the time and Soda had called the office panicking so as I was I called out of class and came straight home.

My guts twisting still seeing the glint in the one officer's face. As soon as I walked in the door I found Soda already on the phone with , I found out later he had called the operator to get her private home number. She reassured us that she would call strait away as soon as she found out anything. We stayed up most of the night waiting by telephone, playing cards. Two- Bit had stopped by but when our somber mood wasn't improved by his jokes and I finally told him if he didn't keep his trap shut I would shut it for him for good he decided to scram and hunt up "Better looking action than us two apes."

Soda and I had both fallen asleep me in dad's old chair and Soda on the couch. Strangely reminiscent of that terrible night years before. Only this time there was no Pony wondering in the door, just Johnny shaking us awake to go to bed.

By the next morning I was up with the sun making calling everyone I could think of that I thought may help. I had tried to call Ms. Lincoln several times at both her home and office with no luck. I was strangely disappointed, it wasn't that I had come to rely on her, you don't grow up in our neighborhood to rely on anyone but your friends and family but as of this point she had provided more help in the past few weeks than anyone else had even done for us. I was on the phone with the state board of corrections who oversaw the reformatory after being hung upon twice calling the reformatory itself.

Soda had been up and watched me until he finally had to get ready to go to work himself, after I had had to convince him to go and swearing up and down I would contact him as soon as I found out anything. I had called out myself and was switching to do a double shift the next day. After being told repeatedly there was nothing they could do I slammed the phone back into its cradle with a curse. I ran my fingers through my hair with a frustrated growl, the panic I had just barely been suppressing building up in my throat and for the first time in a long time I thought I may cry.

"No news yet Darry?" A small slightly raspy voice said behind me. I turned and looked down. Johnny's big black eyes met mine, and I absently wondered how long he had silently been sitting there watching me.

"None yet kiddo." My voice came out more strained than I intended and from the look on Johnny's face I wondered if I looked as screwed up as I felt.

"Pony, he going to be fine you know. He's tough but he still our Pony, he still in there Dar, I know he is. He's angry but he cares, probably more than any one of us realize and as soon as we get him home and find out what the hell happened to him, we'll fix this all of it Darry, I just know it." His eyes looked so young and earnest he looked so much younger than eighteen, more like ten. A child who had never seen death or pain. I swallowed the lump in my throat, perhaps Johnny could see more of what was bothering me than even I could, if truth be told I had, had this knot in my chest since seeing him at the courthouse, seeing the cold hood who had possessed the body of my sweet, sensitive little brother. A look I never in a millionyears I would have ever bet my youngest brother could pull off. Dally's look.

Walking out of the kitchen before the tears could come to my eyes I grasped Johnny's shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze. "I hope you're right kiddo." I hoped for all our sakes.

I inhaled another deep lung full of smoke, savoring the pleasant burn as every muscle in my body seemed to relax. That was the worst part about being confined to myself, the unavailability of cigarettes. Out with the rest of the guys we weren't suppose to be caught smoking but we all did anyway. In the time out pen there was no way to smuggle them in without bribing the trustee's which depending on who was on was not so easy to do. I hated it for more than that though, it left me time to think to myself and under the current circumstances that was not good to do.

I had done pushups until my arms were too weak and shaky to support my weight, then I had switched to sit ups until my lower back was bruised and I couldn't breathe due to cramps. They had kept me in there for five long days before letting me out. After the hearing I had expected to "fall down the stairs" several times in penance for my behavior and its reflection upon the reformatory. However whether due to Officer Howard or not wanting to add to the damage my face already represented Ryan's brought strait back and just shoved into the timeout pen.

On the day they had let me out the guy Slider had almost killed and five of his friends cornered me, I didn't have beef with any of them. In fact I hadn't even remembered seeing the one guy ever before the work crew; they were all on the same side of the facility as Slider, far away from me. I guess he figured he still had a score to settle however, and since Slider had been shipped out it came down to me.

It had been a good fight and one I sorely needed with the events at the trial and the long isolation having just about drove me crazy I needed an outlet to release the pent up frustration and anger. I had gotten a few good blows in and took out at least two of the guys before one of the remaining managed to get a blow into my gut, right in the exact spot the knife had gone in months before, while the wound itself had healed, I think some of the remaining nerves had been damaged and an electric shock went threw my body momentarily stunning me, and that's all the time they needed. Before I had a change to regain my composer and defend myself one of the guys had me on the ground and was bashing my head repeatedly into the tile floor, I had felt a boot connect to the ribs at the same time and dazed I remembered the last rumble I had been in back in Tulsa.

When I came too I was in the hospital wing with one of the guys who had jumped me on the gurry next to me, apparently I had managed to shatter the left side of his jaw, it was wired shut. The nurse had said I had a concussion and some broken ribs. Damn, again.

The first day I had slept on and off until late evening when a couple of the other guys; (there were four of us in total not counting wire head) had started a card game. I had joined in on, after winning a pack of cigarettes' I had folded out. I was now sitting back enjoying the smoke.

In a little more than a month I would be out again and back to Tulsa, my old gang, and my brothers. I felt like the knot in my throat may choke me at the thought. I could always do something to get more time here, but I didn't like that thought either, I really don't enjoy being locked up, while I could handle it I don't think I had it in me to do a long stint.

The thought of living with my brother's, of being so close to Soda again made the muscles in my stomach clench and in combination with the headache I was currently sporting, I thought the soup they had fed us for dinner may come racing back up. I was vulnerable there, and I couldn't allow that vulnerability to get to me again. While I couldn't quite put into words the reasons for my feeling toward my brothers, perhaps it was just a result of the accumulation of years of feeling different. I remembered the court hearing the lawyer and Darry talking, Had Darry been asking for them to take away custody of me? I hadn't believed that at the time. Then in my drug induced haze I had seen all the gang together building Johnny a ramp to our house. They hadn't missed me at all. If g nothing else they looked the happiest I had even seen. Soda's arm going around Johnny. " He was the gang pet, everyone's kid brother." Darry and Soda already had a kid brother however, one in that instance it seemed they had completely forgotten about.

Jealousy had built up within me until I literally thought I may die from it, everything amplified so much more at the time by the drugs, then the jealousy had morphed into pain, which if possible has even hurt worse. I felt helpless younger and more fragile than I had ever remembered feeling in my life, I wanted my brothers. Soda to hug me and with his crooked grin tell me everything was going to be alright and Darry's strength and cool demeanor, the knowledge that he could take on anything and it would all be okay.

At long last the final emotion had taken root. Anger and this was the easiest to deal with. Fuckem'. Fuck them for being just fine without me. Fuck them for their lying to me in the letters talking about how they couldn't wait to have me back. Fuck me, for being such a pussy, following the rules, being diligent in school trying to be some smart ass greaser. What was the point, I would just have to get a job as soon as I got out anyway. Go to work all day busting my ass for what some pathetic paycheck I would have to stretch out until the next one. No thanks.

College would never have been an option, we would never had had the money for it, beside's, greasers didn't go to college. I focused on the anger until it consumed me. Every negative feeling, every bad thought I had had in my life, the death of my parents, Bob's murder, I let consume me until that's all I could think about every monument. The anger,the hate, the pain, I let it fester. I let it consume me, and now it was so ingrained within me I didn't know how to live without it.

I had been staring out the window lost in thoughts, a beam of light appeared, for a monument I thought a car was coming at us then I realized. It was the sun, it was morning. Shaking myself I looked around. Shit, apparently I had been sitting here smoking all night. I looked down from the pack I had won, three cigarettes'all that remained. Damn, I would have to win some more. I stuffed the last three under my pillow to ensure no one would steal them. Sighing laid down in the cot and pulled the thread bare blanket over my head, might as well try and get some sleep.