Disclaimer: If I owned the outsiders I wouldn't be writing here. All credit to the remarkable book goes Miss. Hinton.

Chapter 25-The Others

Darry POV.

We had been talking to the nurse in charge when a doctor strode up to us, pushing up to the nurse.

"Ingrid, could get Darrel Curtis for me when you have time. I have his brother's test result in." Which brother. Soda was just fine, a minor injury on the leg, and Pony was asleep. Who had they tested? I grabbed the guys shoulder.

"Hey, I'm Darrel Curtis. What news do you have about my brothers?" I saw the doctor cringe away. I knew using the scare tactic was wrong, but I was a concerned older brother, I had the right.

"Um, well, y-yes. I've just finished testing Ponyboy, and have just confirmed that he has long-term memory loss, or amnesia. He will be starting pills tomorrow to regain his memories." he said, adjusting his glasses. Pony had just been tested. But he was sound asleep when I left. More importantly, he had lost his memory. I felt my jaw drop. The doctor had said that that was a possibility, but I didn't think it was actually going to happen. Pony had been hit in the head with a piece of falling ceiling, according to Soda.

"Well, can we see him, or is he asleep again?" Two-bit asked from my right. The doctor shook his head.

"No, he's not, you can go right in." The nurse tried to protest.

"But sir, it's after visiting hours." The doc gave the nurse a warning look.

"Ingrid, this specific patient has amnesia. We need this man to help his little brother through his problem." The nurse frowned and mumbled something under breath, but led us back to Pony's room. Halfway there she suddenly had to take care of a problem in the girls ward and told us to hold on. There was a group of girls huddling close together and they were pointing and giggling at Dally. How the hell did they know Dally. One brunette from the pack strayed over to were we were. Two-bit took interest in the girl.

"Hey baby, little far from the pack aren't you?" Two-bit asked smoothly. Or what he thought was smooth."

"Actually, I wanted to talk to this guy." She said, pointing to Dally. All three of us looked at Dally.

"What?"

"We wanted you to give The King our condolences about the fire. Is he okay? Make sure you tell him to get better soon" Was she asking Dally to give Elvis condolences. And if he was okay? I was giving Dally the ultimate questioning look.

"Oh, and good job teaching him your moves. He's so awesome!" She walked back to the giggling girls. What the hell? Dally saw we were looking at him and shrugged, The nurse came back, huffier than before.

"Damned giggly girls." She muttered, shooting a glare at the nearby pack.

"Well come on boys. It's after visiting hours and your boys will be asleep if we don't hurry." She ushered us down the quiet hallway. It was quieter than before, when parents had been flowing in and out of the halls. We finally made it to my brothers' doors. Before I could stop him, Dally burst through them. The nurse gave an angry squawk and ran in after him, me and Two-bit close behind. Soda was looking at us with a grin but Pony, Pony looked like he was ready to piss himself. I had to snicker to myself. I know it was the wrong thing to do and all, but the look on his face was priceless. Then I remembered that he had no memory and my grin slid away from my face.

"Guys, you will never believe what just happened!"

"You actually knocked on a door instead of plowing right through it?" Soda asked with a grin. Dally gave him a mock glare. He seemed to be in a good mood.

"Nope. Some broad just came up to me and thanked me for teaching The King his moves. She said to tell him sorry about the fire and to get better soon. Can you believe that chick? She must be outta her mind! Teaching The King my moves. Ha!" Soda looked thoughtful for a minuet and then looked at Pony before laughing so hard his heart monitor went haywire. Was I missing something? Pony looked at Soda confused.

"Dally taught Elvis his moves?" I was about to laugh along when something hit me. Ponyboy had just identified Dally. I thought he had memory loss.

"Hey Pony, I thought you couldn't remember anything." Two-bit said before I could.

"I can't."

"Then how did you know who Dally was?"

"Coca-cola told me." Who was Coca-cola? Soda leaned towards Pony.

"It's Sodapop."

"Oh, right." So Soda had already been teaching Pony things about his forgotten life? I shook my head and walked over to Pony's bed.

"So, I heard you had amnesia." It felt and sounded stupid, but I wanted to take a soft entrance to this subject. Pony only nodded. Was he still not talking to me.

"Do you know who I am?" Two-bit half yelled, ignoring the fact that was talking to Pony. Pony nodded.

"Your Two-bit."

"The one and only!" I gave Two-bit a glare, which he again ignored as he ran over to Pony's bed.

"What else has Coca-cola told you about your life?" What was with the whole 'Coca-cola' thing? Pony was busy answering Two-bits questions.

"He told me I was a greaser." Dally nodded in agreement.

"Good, good. Now, who do we Greasers hate?" Two-bit used his best teacher voice, as if he were teaching Pony about the life styles of the Greasers. I sighed again, I was never going to talk to my baby brother. I sat as Two-bit and Pony talked back and forth. I had almost fallen asleep when I heard Two-bit stop talking. My eyes shot open. Two-bit was sitting on the couch close to Soda's bed and was snoozing. In fact, everybody was asleep. I thought to myself as I looked around the room. And then I saw the green eyes focusing on me. Correction, I thought, everybody but Pony is asleep. Good, now was my chance to talk to him. I moved to the closet chair to the bed.

"Hey Pony, haven't got a chance to talk to you all night. How you feeling?" I asked in a low voice. I was afraid if I talked too loud, I would wake up the rest of the gang and lose my chance to talk to Pony. I didn't know if he would actually talk to me or not, so I was surprised when he did.

"Fine. Head hurts." I nodded. I didn't doubt his head hurt.

"Is there anything I can get for you?" I decided I wouldn't mention the whole amnesia thing yet. I still didn't know how he was dealing with it. He nodded.

"Could you help me up. I want to walk." I looked at the clock above him. 11:30 pm. Where the hell could he want to go? I shrugged and began to help him up. I knew it wasn't the right thing to do, but this was the first time I had gotten to talk to my brother in two months. If he wanted to walk, let the boy walk. It wasn't like I was going to let him go by himself. I was most definatley going with him. It took him a little while to get steady, but when he was, he was ready to go. We both left the room in silence. I waited till we were far enough away from the room to speak out loud.

"Where are we going?" Pony jumped, as if he was surprised I was there.

"Coca-cola said that I had a best friend who was here. Johnny Cade, I think." So Soda had told him about the rest of the gang. That was good. For some odd reason, we weren't stopped in the halls by any of the passing nurses. I didn't know where Johnny's room was, I had been too set on seeing my brothers to ask earlier, and I didn't think Pony did either. Where was he leading us? Turns out he was leading us to the nurses' station. The overnight nurse, some old woman who was reading a book, hardly looked at us when we came up. Pony spoke first.

"Can we have the room that Johnny Cade is staying in?" The nurse looked up from her book.

"Aren't you a patient here?" I was about to explain but Pony got to her first.

"Yeah, but I lost my way. All I know is that I was sharing a room with Johnny Cade. Could you tell me his room number." The nurse nodded and began looking through several files. Where Pony learned to lie that smooth and quick, I would like to know. I wonder how many times he had lied to me. The nurse looked back up.

"We have a Jonathan Cade on file. Is that who your looking for?" Ponyboy looked to me for confirmation. I nodded to him.

"Yeah, What's the room number?" The nurse looked at the file again.

"324, boys' side." She pointed down we had just came out of. We nodded and Pony thanked her before walking back into the darkened hallway. I followed at a slower pace. I was a little upset me and Pony had yet to have a talk about what was going on, but I didn't want to push it and he hadn't brought it up yet. Maybe I should just talk to him. I was so busy thinking, I almost ran into Pony, who had stopped outside a door and was peeking in. I looked at the room number posted outside the room. 324. Guess we had made it. I looked over Pony's head and into the room. It looked just like his did. I spotted Johnny right away. He was the only one awake in the whole room and it looked like he was reading. I didn't know Johnny read for pleasure. Pony walked into the room first. Johnny looked up from his book when he heard Pony's bare feet hit the floor. He grinned.

"Hey Pony. First visitor I've had all day. How are you doing." I guess nobody had bothered to come see Johnny. I felt kinda bad. I had been here all day. I could've gone to see him. I guess he didn't know Pony had Amnesia either. I'd have to warn him. Pony walked over to Johnny's bedside chair and sat down without a word. Johnny noticed me in the doorway and gave me a questioning look. I returned it with a apologetic look.

"Hey Pony, you okay?" Johnny asked. Pony then spoke.

"Yeah. Coca-cola told me you were here so I thought I would come and say hi." Wonder why he didn't mention the fact that he didn't know Johnny anymore.

"Who's Coca-cola?" Johnny asked both me and Pony.

"He means Sodapop." I answered for Ponyboy. "Pony, shouldn't you tell him about your little 'issue'?" This would be the first time I had brought it up. Pony actually didn't react like I thought he would. He just look at me like was crazy. I pointed to my head. Pony got it and turned back to Johnny.

"Oh yeah, I have amnesia and don't remember anything from the past." I was amazed at how he had said it. Like it was an everyday thing that someone forgets everything he once knew so well. Johnny's jaw dropped open. That had been my reaction to. Pony was staring at Pony as if he was an alien or something. Pony seemed to be interested in other things such as his nails. I could see by the red tinge to his ears that he was embarrassed. I stepped into the room to intervene.

"You okay Johnny?" It worked. He snapped his stare off of Pony and focused in on me.

"Yeah, it's just, well I mean, how could Pony lose his memory?" Easy I thought. He just got whacked in the head really hard. Pony was still concentrating on his nails.

"Well, Soda did say he got hit in the head. The doctor told me he would be put on memory pills to help him get his memory back."

"So he can get his memory back?"

"Yeah."

"How is he doing." Pony looked up, and angry expression on his face.

"You know, you could just ask me! I am sitting right here!" He yelled the last part and woke up a young kid on the opposite side of the room.

"Mommy?" He said, wiping sleep out of his eyes.

"No. Just a loud person. Go back to sleep." I had never known Johnny to talk to a total stranger, even if it was a young kid." I looked over at pony, who was glaring at the floor after his angry outburst. I was about to walk over to him when he suddenly got up and walked to the door.

"I'm ready to go back." I wasn't completely sure what had made him angry. Was it really about Johnny not asking him how he was, talking like he wasn't there. I didn't think so. I said a quick goodbye to Johnny and ran down the hall after Pony. I caught up to him three rooms later.

"What the hell was that about?" Pony stopped and whirled around to face me.

"You were both ignoring me."

"That's no reason to yell when most the kids in the room were asleep!"

What right do you have to yell at me. You have no idea how I'm feeling right now." He had a point. I had no idea what it was like to not have my memory, but that was no reason to yell at me.

"That does not excuse your behavior!"

"Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?" I tried to keep my anger in check. He didn't remember me. He had no clue who I was.

"I'm your older brother and your legal guardian. And I say yelling at your friend like that was rude.. You should go apologize." I was treating him like a five year old. He used to hate that and by the look on his face, he still did.

"Don't treat me like a little kid. I'm not going back there!" With that he stomped on down the hall back towards his room. Crap, I thought. Your first night with him talking to you and you have a freaking argument. What the hell is wrong with us? I ran after him again and stopped him.

"Look, Ponyboy, I know you don't remember anything and I'm sorry about that okay. But that is not going to excuse you being rude to your friends. Would you please apologize to Johnny tomorrow morning?" Right now I wanted get him to his room so he could go back to sleep. It was getting late and I knew the night nurse would be making rounds soon. We walked back to the room in silence. The first thing that tipped me off that something was wrong, was when we got back to the room, the light was on and sound was coming out of it. I ran into the room, ready to take on whatever was coming. The boys were up and running around the room, looking in closets, the bathroom, and under beds. They seemed to be searching for something. They had woken up the other kids.

"Guys, what are you doing?" I practically yelled and everyone stopped in their tracks. Soda, who was still trapped in bed said,

"Oh Darry, thank god. Ponyboy is missing. Have you seen him?" I could've laughed.

"Yeah, me and him went for a little walk, that's all." Ponyboy come in behind me, confused by all the commotion. Two-bit and Dally came back into the room, they'd been in the bathroom searching for Ponyboy.

"Oh god, there he is. Where have you been kid, we were looking all over for you." Pony shrugged and climbed into bed. Way to end a conversation Pony. Dally glared at Pony but didn't say anything. He just stalked back over to his chair and sat down to fall asleep. Guess he was tired from going all over the place today. Sitting by Soda's bed, I closed my eyes and almost begged for sleep to take me.

Really long Chapter, so sorry, but lots happened. I'm enjoying all the reviews so keep them coming! Chapter 26 coming up soon. PLEASE REVIEW!