Ponyboy: Too Soon

*Thanks for the reviews: Blatty (still not breaking it…lol), Burnin' Church Gal (I'm sorry about the monster review of all reviews…I still love your reviews no matter what!! And good luck with the Lent thing…), MaverickGirl (Thanks for understanding! It's almost over don't worry!), Eh, Man (lol thanks so much!), Chase M. Dakota (thanks! I seem to be doing many cliffhangers huh?), Lil Chaos Angel (Please don't go crazy!)

Disclaimer: Nope, don't own them…unfortunately…

            My head spun as I finally came to. I heard a muffled sigh of relief in the background. When I opened my mouth to speak, a clump of snow fell into it. Sputtering, I sat up in an attempt to spit it out, only to fall back down from dizziness and extreme exhaustion.

            "Hey, take it easy," a gentle hand pushed me back down into a laying position. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, now that I had all the cobwebs out of my brain. But it also sounded strange, like I wasn't used to hearing that particular voice being gentle.

            "Ponyboy, take it easy…" the voice came again. Who was it? Why couldn't I figure it out? Slowly, I tried opening my eyes and sitting up again. This time, I made it. But my vision was still a bit blurry. Shaking my head slightly, I tried to clear my vision. It was Steve. Steve Randle. Why was he being so nice to me? This was almost surreal!

            "Wh-what happened?" I asked cautiously. Steve didn't respond. Instead, he thrust a bag of chips at me, "Eat." He commanded.

            "What h-h-happened?" I was shaking from hunger, cold, and anxiety.

            "Just eat before you starve to death." His hand still held the very inviting bag of potato chips. I reached out shakily to take one and began to shift into a more comfortable position. A lighting flash feeling flew up my left leg and I immediately stopped. I remembered what had happened.

            "St-steve?" I grimaced from the pain.

            "Yeah kid?"

            "I think I broke so-something."

            "Where does it hurt?" he jumped up.

            "Left…leg." He carefully rolled up my pant leg and looked, wincing, "Uh…maybe you shouldn't look at that right now. Turn away," he instructed. When I did as I was told, he continued, "I'm going to wrap it so it might hurt a little." He carefully slid his sweatshirt off and wrapped it around my leg, finding sticks so that I wouldn't move it. What I couldn't figure out through all this was why Steve was doing this. He hated me and he'd probably love it if I dropped off the face of this planet. So why was he making sure I was alive now?

            I lay on the snow in peace with myself for awhile. I felt like I was in an alternate universe. Steve was sprawled out closely next to me (for warmth), looking up at the sky like I was. The sun was about to set and the sky was thickening over like smooth paint on its brand new pallet. Smiling slightly, I sighed and watched as the mist glazed over the sky as orange and red teased the edges of the mountains. Watching sunsets always made me happy, but this one gave me a sort of reminiscence. It was like within that sunset, all my memories and special moments came up, floating into the reddish sky. Soon, total darkness took over and I was left to my own thoughts.

            "Wow…that was weird," Steve mused to himself as we lay in the dark on top of the cold and icy snow.

            "What?" I asked curiously.

            "The sunset. It was like home." It struck me then that Steve had noticed what I noticed about it. But the strange thing was, I never told him about sunsets and I never thought Steve could think that deep.

            "I know. You should see sunrise. If you thought this was great, just wait until sunrise."

            "You watch these a lot?" he was curious now.

            "Yeah, I try. Especially since Johnny and Dally died, I've been watching sunsets and sunrises as often as I could. Johnny," my voice caught. I thought I was totally over my best friends' deaths, but I guess not, "Johnny told me to stay gold. He told me to hold on to what I could during my golden years. He told me to tell Dally to watch a sunset. By the time I read that note, it was too late already. Dally was gone. So now I watch them more than ever before. I guess I'm trying to make up for Dally not being able to watch it." I explained, unnecessarily. But Steve wasn't irritated at all. In fact, he was really interested,

            "What do you mean by stay gold?" he asked, turning to face me.

            "Hold on to your inner child and don't lose it because that will keep you gold forever."

            "Damn, Pony. Where do you get all these things?"

            "Books. Maybe you should try reading one sometime. You know, they're these things with pages inside of them. The pages have words on them that make a story; a very interesting story. You even learn things from these stories." I teased. I had started to grow comfortable around Steve, but I tensed after a long silence.

            "You know, maybe I should," Steve said finally, grinning in the moonlight, "Soda said your English theme was long and very deep. He said I should read it sometime."

            "Maybe you should," I said casually.

            "Did you get it back yet?"

            "Yeah, right before the trip," I realized then that I still had it in my backpack, "I have it with me."

            "Can I read it tomorrow morning before we set off to find a way back?"

            "Sure." We smiled a little at each other and finally my weariness got the best of me. I slipped into a dreamless sleep, finally at peace with having Steve around. Maybe things would get better after all…Maybe Steve and I could work things out.

            I spoke too soon.

*What will happen next? I'm not too sure…I'm going to write it tomorrow during my claimed homework time. Hehe…bad Melody…oh well. I gotta go do my math homework! Bye!*