Note: I don't own The Outsiders

Chapter 36

He wished like crazy he hadn't noticed them, because once he did he couldn't tune them out. It was like it was the only sound in the world at that moment, drowning out even the deep breathing of his brother, fast asleep next to him. Crickets. Unbelievably loud and obnoxious crickets. Their chirping split through the still night air; an annoying cadence that seemed to bounce off the walls, amplifying to a volume that was impossible to ignore.

Since he was awake anyway, Ponyboy decided to use the time for something worthwhile. Staring at the ceiling, attempting to concentrate - he rifled through his thoughts, trying to come up with a beginning to his article that was due at the end of the week. Hell, at this point he'd settle for a middle or an end. This had never happened before - writer's block. It was frustrating, to say the least. Nothing was coming to him and he was a little afraid that nothing would.

Sighing, he turned on his side. It was the middle of the morning, dark as anything outside, the sunrise not due for several more hours. The window was open and a faint breeze stirred the thin curtains, but it didn't reach the bed. It was hot and that sure wasn't helping his restlessness.

He had no idea why his brain decided now would be a good time to desert him. All summer, like clockwork, he'd written an article a week. Turned them in early and spent the remainder of the week shadowing his editor Chris, trying to soak up as much as he could about working at a newspaper. Chris was great about letting him help out with just about anything. Layout was the coolest; deciding just where to put the pictures, how big to make the headlines, stuff like that. Chris even let him write a few of the headlines. They were corny and clichéd, but he always proudly showed them off to Soda and Darry when the paper arrived in the morning.

Cherry wasn't there as much as he was, but he did cross paths with her a couple of times a week. It was weird seeing her outside of school. For starters, she actually looked at him and talked to him. But that wasn't it, not really. She just seemed different away from the other kids and the rest of the world looking on. Calmer, maybe. Less reserved, less perfect. She smiled a lot - not that she didn't before. But these seemed to be genuine smiles, not like she was smiling just because she thought that was what was expected of her.

The whole Dally mess from a couple of weeks ago, though, started to put up a wall between them again. He wasn't surprised. She had come up to him about a week after she had called him to help her out. She asked about Dally, about how he was. It was all he could do to keep from laughing in her face - whether it would be in disbelief or defeat, he couldn't decide. Leave it to Dal to get a girl interested in him by breaking into her house.

Maybe he was reading too much into it. He had a tendency to do that. But there was something in the way she asked the question - kind of hesitantly, like she'd suddenly become painfully shy. Cherry Valance was anything but shy.

Closing his eyes, he tried willing sleep to come. The chirping grew louder, and he was sure he was going insane because he the sound now had a rhythm that bore a striking resemblance to that annoying song Wild Thing by the band with the name he could never remember. Punching his pillow into submission, he muttered a curse. Now - on top of the crickets, failed opening sentences to his article, and thoughts about Cherry Valance - he had the chorus to Wild Thing screaming in his head.

Finally admitting defeat, he stood up, grabbed his pillow and made his way down the hall to the family room. Maybe some TV would distract him. He realized fairly quickly that there was no television at this time of the morning. Every channel was off the air, either filled with snow or a test pattern. Turning down the volume, he left the TV on and decided on a channel with the snow. He sat heavily on the couch and flopped over, squishing his pillow beneath his head as he lay across the lumpy cushions. The flickering white light from the TV was strangely hypnotic and he felt his eyelids growing heavy.

He was almost asleep when he sensed a presence hovering above him.

"What're you doing out here, Pony?" Sodapop asked, his voice sleepy and a bit confused.

"Couldn't sleep. I didn't mean to wake you up," Pony said as he sat up, making room for his brother on the sofa. Soda flopped down next to him and shrugged.

"No problem. Glory, it's hot," he said as he ran his hand through his hair, making it stick up every which way.

"Hot and quiet," Pony added.

"Usually quiet at night, though. Kinda helps with the whole sleeping thing," Soda said with a laugh.

"Yeah, but my brain wouldn't shut off and let me sleep. Can't think of anything to write and I guess my brain thought three in the morning would be a good time to start worrying 'bout it," Pony sighed, leaning his head back on the cushion behind him. "Now I'm too awake to ever fall asleep."

"Well, what's the article supposed to be about?"

"That's just it - I don't know," he explained, a note of frustration in his voice. "Last week's article finished the whole story about Johnny and Dally and everything that happened. There isn't anything to add. This one is supposed to wrap things up, but I just don't even know how to begin."

"You'll think of somethin'- you always do," Soda said reassuringly as he slouched in his seat and leaned over, resting his head on his brother's shoulder. He yawned and crossed his arms, as though setting in for the remainder of the night. Pony shifted slightly. Soda was heavy and he could already imagine how numb his arm would be in the morning if he let him fall asleep against him.

"Today's Sunday," Pony suddenly said.

"Uh huh," Soda confirmed.

"Darry doesn't work on Sundays."

"Nope."

"Don't you have off today, too?"

"Yep."

"We should do somethin'. We ain't done nothing just as brothers since, well … we ain't done nothing just as the three of us for a long time."

Soda laughed as he pushed himself upright to look his little brother in the eye. "Oh, Darry has plans for us alright. He has a list this long," Soda demonstrated with his hands - one high above his head and the other down toward the floor. "It's full of chores and repairs. We'll be bonding as brothers, alright. Tired, sore brothers who want nothing more than to never see another paint brush or hammer again as long as they live."

"Well, we'll just have to talk him out of it," Pony said confidently, already devising a plan of what to say, how to convince Darry they all need a day of fun.

Soda was a little more skeptical. "Sure, no sweat. 'Cause we both know Darry hasn't been planning this since he realized we'd all be home today." He held both hands out, palms up, like the arms of a scale. "Hang out," the right hand rose. "Teenage slave labor," the left hand rose as the right one dropped. "Hmm … tough one there, Pone."

"Trust me," Pony said, stretching out across the couch, steadily pushing Soda with the heel of his foot until he gave up his spot and landed on the floor.

"I'll believe it when I see it, little brother."

"I can't believe it actually worked," Soda said with awe as they loaded up the truck with fishing gear, patched-up inner tubes and various other "fun" related items they found in the deep recesses of the attic. Darry had even dug out Mom's old picnic basket and packed up a lunch for later.

Pony just grinned - a shit-eating-grin to be exact. He was enjoying his little victory and wasn't going to let Soda forget it.

"Well --" he began.

"I told you so," Soda finished for him. "We both thought there wasn't a chance in hell he'd go for it, so quit actin' like you knew all along."

Darry came out of the house, a couple of old blankets in his arms - well, older than the ones they use everyday, at least. "Don't think this lets either of you off the hook for helping out around the house," he said sternly, wagging a finger at the pair of them as he made his way to the driver's side of the truck. "Pony doesn't start school for two more weeks and all three of us are going to work on getting this place back into shape - starting with a those damn gutters."

Soda looked behind him at the gutter that lined the roof above the porch. He hadn't even noticed that a piece of it had broken off. He supposed that was why there was always a sheet of water to run through whenever it rained hard. He'd always figured that was just what was supposed to happen when it rained. Hell, he'd never even noticed there were gutters there before Darry mentioned them. Or cracks in the plaster in the kitchen. Or a broken step on the porch. Or water damage in his bedroom. Darry just seemed to notice these things, whereas he'd be hard pressed to point out a problem if the ceiling came crashing down on his head.

"So where to?" he asked as he pulled himself up into the truck, squishing Ponyboy between the two of them.

"Figured we'd go to that old spot outside of town that Dad liked so much," Darry said, pulling carefully away from the curb - after looking both ways, of course.

"Yeah, didn't one of us actually catch a fish there one year?" Soda said, a faint memory itching at the corner of his mind.

Darry laughed. "That was Mom, believe it or not. None of us guys ever caught so much as a guppy and there she was standing all proud, a trout dangling from the end of her line. She never let Dad forget it."

"I think I remember that. And didn't she make Dad let the fish go?" Ponyboy piped up. He was only five at the time, but it was hard to forget their father's laugh at the horrified look their mother gave him when he suggested gutting and cleaning the fish and cooking it for lunch.

"She sure did. Dad looked heartbroken," Darry said, shaking his head in amusement.

"Remember how depressed he was when we finally sat down for lunch. Man, what was it she made us?" Soda asked.

"Peanut butter and jelly, of course," Pony suddenly remembered.

"Well, PB and J sure beats fresh trout any day," Soda said with a laugh and it wasn't long before Darry and Ponyboy joined in. The rest of the drive was filled with memories - both humorous and bittersweet. Soda realized they hadn't talked like that since the accident, since losing their parents.

The old bridge was rickety as ever, but still standing. White paint was visible here and there, but had mostly been stripped from the wood through time. Ponyboy wasn't sure it could withstand a car going over it, but the whole area seemed pretty secluded, so he figured it mustn't be used much.

He and Darry had both cast their lines into the creek below at least an hour ago. So far, nothing, not even a nibble. Pony didn't care. It was just nice to sit and watch the water ripple in the sunlight as Soda lazily spun with the current in one of the black inner tubes they'd brought with them. A breeze stirred the trees and for the first time in about a week, the humidity had backed off, leaving them with a heat that was comfortable.

"Thanks, Darry," Ponyboy said quietly as he toyed with the reel and tugged experimentally on the rod. There was no tension on the line. It was looking more and more like it was going to be peanut butter and jelly for lunch. Pony didn't mind. He wasn't really looking forward to watching Darry gut a fish.

"You're welcome," Darry answered. He was quiet for a minute or two before asking, "Um, what are you thanking me for?"

"This - saying yes when I know you probably wanted to say no." He motioned to the trees and the creek and the bright, clear sky above them.

Darry sighed and leaned his forehead against one of the beams forming the bridge. "Even I can admit it's nice to get away once in a while."

"Darry - and please don't take this the wrong way - but do you ever do anything just for fun anymore?" Pony asked carefully. Darry looked at him, his expression blank and Pony began to wonder if he asked the wrong question. It was certainly beginning to look that way.

Soda, apparently finished for now with floating around, was making his way over to the spot his two brothers were fishing from. He had on a pair of cutoffs and Pony could already see the sunburn that was forming on his bare shoulders and nose. Soda sat down between the two of them, his legs dangling over the side of the bridge. He had brought a handful of stones with him and started tossing them into the creek below.

"What did I miss?" he asked with a big grin, looking expectantly between the two of them. Pony was chewing on his bottom lip and Darry was staring blindly at the spot where his fishing line disappeared beneath the surface of the water.

"Oh nothing," he said steadily, "just you're little brother pointing out the fact that I don't seem to know how to have fun anymore."

"Yeah, and …" Soda prompted.

"What do you mean, yeah, and? I have fun."

Soda actually laughed at that one and it was all Pony could do to keep from biting through his lip to control his own laughter.

"When was the last time you went out on a date?" Soda asked almost accusingly.

"I go on lots of dates."

Soda and Pony just stared at Darry. The muscle in his jaw was clenching to the point that they could actually see the vein throb.

"Fine," he said as though it the word was being drug forcefully out of him. "I guess it's been a while."

"How about Sarah?" Pony asked a little too quickly and Darry looked at him suspiciously.

"Sarah Martin - Johnny's social worker?" he asked, furrowing his brow.

Pony nodded wordlessly.

Soda was apparently catching on. "Yeah, Sarah - she'd be great. She's pretty hot and well, you guys always have interesting conversations."

"We fight."

"Everyone fights," Soda shrugged.

"A lot."

"So, that don't mean nothin'. What's that sayin', Pony? There's a skinny road or something?" Soda was motioning like mad, trying to remember the phrase.

"There's a thin line between love and hate?" Pony supplied helpfully.

"Yeah, that's it. I mean, look at how great you guys argue - imagine what it would be like when you're not fightin'. If ya know what I mean," Soda said meaningfully, nudging his older brother in the ribs.

"So both of you think I should ask Sarah out?"

"I think she likes you," Pony said, still staring at the water.

"Really?" both Soda and Darry asked simultaneously.

Pony reddened slightly. "That's what she told Johnny," he said quietly, suddenly feeling like he was breaking a trust even though he wasn't the one she had told it to in the first place. If anyone should feel guilty - it should be Johnny. He was going to have to let him know that the next time he saw him.

He cautiously looked over at his two brothers - Soda was grinning like mad and Darry looked perplexed, like he was trying to solve a hard math problem in his head or something.

"Sarah and Darry, sittin' in a tree …" Soda started to sing in a girly voice as he swung his legs back and forth like a little kid.

"Shut up, Soda," Darry said, but he didn't sound angry - more like amused with an edge annoyance. Or was it annoyed with a touch of amusement? Either way - he wasn't mad.

"I think you should ask her out," Pony said matter-of-factly as he began reeling in his fishing line.

"Oh you do, do you?" Darry said. "And just where do you suggest I take her on this date?"

"The movies," Pony suggested, but was cut-off by a scoffing Sodapop.

"You can't take her to the movies, Darry. She's sophisticated, not some kid," Soda said, shaking his head.

"Okay - so where would you take her, since you seem to know so much?" Ponyboy said, acting a little hurt even though he had to admit his suggestion was kind of lame.

Soda stared off into space, squinting into the bright afternoon sun. "Buck usually has a pretty good party every weekend."

"You can't be serious. Sarah Martin at Buck Merril's? Jeez, that's a swell idea, Soda," Ponyboy said, rolling his eyes.

Darry was smiling and Soda looked at him. "What?" he asked.

"Come on, Soda. That's pretty much one step up from sayin' I should take her in the truck and park up at Inspiration Point or something."

"Well, now that you mention it …" Soda started, trying to keep a straight face.

The rest of the day was as close to perfect as any of them could have hoped for. No fish were caught. Sandwiches were eaten. Rocks were skipped successfully. Memories were made.

The ride home was pretty much silent. The sun was setting, starting it's slow descent toward the horizon. Pony looked at Soda and Darry on either side of him and wondered if they noticed the colors that filled the sky and the beauty of the moment.

"Glory," Soda whispered next to him and he smiled. "You were right, Pony. That was amazing. I ain't never really noticed before."

Darry didn't say anything. He had one hand on the wheel and his other one was bent, leaning out the open window. He was smiling though, an almost dreamy expression on his face. Pony had never seen him look like that - not even when their parents were alive and he didn't have to worry so much.

As though he felt Pony's eyes on him, he looked over at his little brother. He nodded slightly, his smile growing crooked. Grabbing the steering wheel with his free hand, he reached over and mussed up Pony's hair and then playfully punched him on the arm.

Pony grinned and returned his gaze to the window. The sun was almost gone now, the sky nearly purple and he could just make out the stars that were appearing in the sky. He wasn't surprised when the opening sentence for his article started to come to him, easily writing itself as the truck made its final turn onto their street and brought them home.

Whatever happens now - whether it's decided by fate or I have some say in the matter - I'm certain of one thing: My life will turn out just fine as long as I have my brothers by my side.

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A/N Sorry this chapter took so long to write. Gee, I wonder where I got the idea for Pony to have writer's block, lol. Hope you guys like it. Thanks again for the great reviews.