Authors Comments: Okay people. This chapter may be very confusing. Especially since it has nothing to do with last chapter. Don't worry, it will come full circle, just not right now. WARNING: this chapter is pure depression, mostly because this is really how a depressed person thinks, and trust me, I know. However, I hope you still get something out of it. The ending may be even more confusing, once again, it jumps around a lot, but its supposed to. So, I hope you can get through it…if not, I will revise it and re-post…just let me know. This is kind of an experimental thing. Enjoy!

Dedication: To Taurie. Thanks for your help and encouragement babe. You know I need it at times. :). You are awesome!

Review Thanks at end…as usual.

Chapter 4

Ponys'POV

Icy eyes bored into me like a tunnel being blasted with too much TNT. I wondered when he would get bored of staring at me intently. Apparently he was trained to stare when he went to school. Just like high school students were trained to sleep, or office workers were trained to eat all day.

While he stared I sat, thinking, torturing myself with anything possible. Contorting my hand in shapes I never imagined it could go without breaking and letting the pain sear my thoughts. Pain I had found was my only friend, it was the only thing that could now succeed at occupying my mind, for it was the only thing powerful enough to sear my inner eyes of hate and sorrow.

"Ponyboy, what brought you here?" His monotone voice sifted through my pain, far off and easy to ignore, but there.

I bit my tongue hard, hoping to soon draw a blood that would seep down my throat and make it raw to anything but pain. The longer I clamped down and the more it hurt, the more I was sure that nothing would slip with this fat bulge of a human before me. I didnt need what he was told to give me, and I wouldn't break. Soon they would find that me being here was worse than not.

I bent my hand back harder as the man behind his Cherry desk with brass paperweights went on about some cycle that our minds supposedly endure. He was droning on, not paying attention to what went on below the edge of his nameplate and out of his site. The more he droned, the more I wanted to do nothing more than drown him out. I found myself bending harder, tears coming to my eyes, until it seeped. The stitches that had been there for three weeks now tore my skin, blood oozing through the bandage. I didn't stop though, it wasn't enough, his voice wasn't yet gone. It wasn't until I heard a snap and had to bend over my hand that his voice stopped, and it wasn't till then that I realized that I truly was crazy.

---

The effect of the "counseling" incident must have been the same on the staff as it was on me. They knew for sure that I was meant to be there, if I could pull a stunt like that in front of the Dr. that was supposed to be helping me, I was surely insane. It didn't bother me that they knew, at least now they had a reason to treat me the way they did. Always giving me wary looks, the staff never left me alone, they checked all around my room every morning for something, anything I had altered to use as a weapon. They wouldn't let me put my hands below the table anymore, and they did weekly exams on me to make sure I wasn't mutilating myself with the tools they couldn't take away, like fingers.

"Mr. Curtis, you have a visitor." The orderly walked into my room for the fifth time in a half hour.

I was surprised, to have a visitor, that is. They never let me see anyone, said I was too bad off, I supposed. What had changed their minds after session and session of blank stares on my part, I knew not.

I looked at the orderly blankly after staring at the ground a minute.

"They will be here in a minute. Just sit tight."

I wondered where she thought I might go anyhow. They locked me in this room of all white on white, and told me to stay put every time they saw me. It's not like I had anything to pick the lock with, and really, I didn't care. At home I locked myself in the room and stared at the ceiling for hours, so this just made that practice easier.

It wasn't long before the door was rattling with a key in it. I again wondered vaguely who would care to see me, but it didn't matter, someone did, and that meant something. I looked down to the ground, surveying my feet with mock care. Of course there was little to see there and nothing to pay attention to, but something inside told me I was scared.

"You can take a seat there. Just talk to him. He doesn't talk much, but he seems to like –"

"Yeah, we know." A deep voice said it. I was familiar with that voice. Much more so than any I had heard in the last weeks. In fact, it was that voice that had told me I was being sent here.

A chair pulled up, close enough that I could see the legs of it, the boots, the worn blue jeans, and another pair of greased up tennies a few feet away, no chair behind them.

"Pone…how are you, Bud?"

Swallowing hard against the confusion in my twisting brain, I slowly let my head look up and make sure I wasn't dreaming it all. A welcome grin, however small, greeted my reaction.

"You look better." It was a lie, but a well placed one. Even if I wasn't allowed mirrors and glass and that, I knew. Through the bars you could see a broken reflection of yourself…by looking around you could see a reflection of yourself. No one here looked good, ever.

I wrung my hands mechanically, not knowing what else to do. They were here to see me, but they sent me here, they didn't care, did they? Of course the doctors said they did, but the doctors never know anything. It could all be a lie, and I wouldn't know.

Another chair was pulled up, and a second later, Soda sat, wrapping his legs around the legs like a five year old does on his first nerve wracking day of kindergarten – if only I could go back to that – then again, maybe I had already digressed to that anyhow.

"Hey little buddy." Darry spoke. His voice was unusually soft, nearly timid , again with the kid stuff.

The door opened again, a white coat flashing by me, a chart banging on a metal table at my back, "Aren't you going to say Hi to them Ponyboy?" Dr. Ratner asked. He scribbled on his paper, a signature, a diagnosis, a note; a scribble. That's all doctors did, they went to school to learn to scribble, then to learn to lie in sincerity. Two-bit would be a perfect doctor if he could stop drinking and laughing.

"You gotta talk sometime, man." Soda piped up. I almost wanted to tell him that I didn't have to do anything if I didn't want to, and it wouldn't matter anyway, but it wasn't worth my efforts. I was never listened to, so I stopped talking, it was that simple.

"Pony, I brought your family here because I think you need interaction with the people close in your life. Wouldn't you agree? Don't you miss them?"

I really hated his question asking, but what irked me even more was that he thought the more questions he asked, the more likely it was I may answer one, when really, the probability was going down with each new sentence out of his mouth.

A hand landed on my leg, making me jump before relaxing, "Are you still mad?" Darry asked me, again in that childish tone.

I shook my head. That was one thing I couldn't deny Darry, a straight answer. No, I was never mad at him, and he deserved to know that. I had only been mad at one person. And guess who the lucky winner is? Me.

"Then why won't you talk?" Soda asked. He was anxious, the quiet did that to him.

I receded back into my hole again, knowing I had nothing left to say. They would leave soon, after the doctor decided I wasn't fit to see them. Then time would pass, and I wouldn't see them again. They would go on with their lives before I made it out of these barred walls and fake mirrors.

They took away my smokes a long time before, but being out in the air made me crave them more than ever. Before things had gone to hell, I would sit out on the porch in the morning and smoke in the dawning sun. Those days would be forever gone, at least until they figured out that I wasn't going to talk, and that was that.

"Time for your appointment." A warden came from behind me, sitting on the bench where I was.

I should have known they would set an appointment right after I got clamed down a little. Darry must have told them how much I liked being out. Damn him.

At the insistence of an inhumane person, I shuffled up to the office of my "therapist". He never did much for me. It wasn't his business how I felt, or why. He would never be bale to understand what happened to me, however simple it was: I'm not gold, I'm not green, and I'm sure as hell not gold turning to an ugly brown like him.

He wasn't in his office when the warden sat me down in his leather chair under a soft lamp and footstool. I remembered the first day, him telling me that he liked us to be comfortable. I thought, "My ass, you do", and I still feel that way.

"Good Morning, Ponyboy. How are we doing?" The doctor walked in five minutes after I sat down.

Avoiding his gaze, I noticed all his funny gadgets and boring books. He didn't have so much as a fiction in the office, and I would bet his family had a very hard time buying him things for fathers day by now. Shelves were overflowing with brain puzzles, toys with no meaning, and visual cues of interest.

"Did you enjoy your time outside? I thought you would feel better after that." He sat behind his oversized cherry wood desk and pulled a pen and pad out of a cubby beside him.

I knew he was just trying me out, to see if maybe I would open up today. Every session since the time my brothers had come in a week or however long ago, he had been telling me how much progress I was making. The truth was he was trying to tell himself that and he was full of shit, but I would let him think what he wanted.

"Hmmm. Okay, we'll do this your way then." A drawer was opened and he pulled out some pictures. "I want to talk about life before this year, and what's changed."

Quickly, I averted my eyes staring down at my white shoes, wishing he wouldn't bring all that up. Long ago I had blocked it all out, thinking that the pain might lessen if I forgot I ever had anything, and to an extent it had half worked.

"You look a lot like your mother, Pony. She was beautiful."

"Don't talk about them!" I stood up screaming at him, "You have no right, you fucker!"

Soon, I had crossed the desk and shot a blow harder than I intended, then two, then three, and then I stopped. Breathing hard, tears came to my eyes. I backed to the corner, feeling like a trapped cat, I felt like Bob must have that night, or Johnny, or both.

------

The water was all over my shivering body, pounding in places I didn't know, far off yelling, cold. But nothing mattered. They should have killed me that night. The fates were wrong. Johnny should be in this family, Dally should, maybe even Bob should have lived a different life. All I knew for sure was that I had lived the wrong one – I deserved to be dead in a tragic accident, or a murder. My life would have been better spent saving someone who begged to see more on his deathbed.

------

I pulled on my tie, twisting it round for the hundredth time that day. The mirror seemed to move to make the tie look skewed. My blonde hair needed to be brown again, Johnny would hate to see me like this for his last time. I didn't like the feel of that black suit. Darry bought us all knew ones on the pretense that the others didn't fit and we had three funerals to attend just that week. One had been missed on our part, but Darry insisted we go to the grave in suits and pay respects to the teen killed in our park. I just wanted to miss them all.

"Pony, lets go! You don't want to miss it, buddy." Darry called back.

I straightened the crinkled tie and pulled the jacket off our bed, Gone With The Wind marked at Johnny's favorite part with a letter from me, all in my hand.

-----

Two-Bit swayed to the words of Tim Shepard, running an appraising thumb over his black handled switch and swigging at his liquor at three second intervals.

Steve leaned on a tree off in the distance, smoking cigarette after cigarette, box after box. His hands were shaking, even from here, as he fiddled with the lighter in his left hand.

Darry, Soda, and I stood in a line, our suits standing out against the greaser dress of every gang on this side. Soda stared at the ground, Darry clenched his jaw, and I just gazed up at the falling leaves.

Two-Bit stepped up in the middle of Tim, threw in his switch and staggered off, taking Steve's arm and dragging him away. Soda threw some cards into the hole - Dal's lucky ones, and I found a tree to sit next to. Tim walked off, not a word in either direction once he was done, and that was it.

Darry wanted me to go home, to eat, to sleep, but I couldn't. I sat until he left, made sure it was clear, and did my thing before going home that night.

"Stay gold, Dal. Johnny wanted that…and I cant do it."

Okay, Review thanks then.

NittanyLizard: Thanks and Thanks and Thanks. I don't know what else to say really. Depression has a way of conflicting a family…that's possibly the hardest aspect of it. Anyway, I appreciate your support. Sorry its been so long. I just felt that I needed to maybe update something… I haven't been so great with that lately. Good luck with everything btw! See ya!

allaboutelephants22: Thanks, I really appreciate the support. Some hate the idea of depression, but I think its real, so I figured to write about it. Hope this update didn't take TOO long…I really just have to wait for the inspiration on stories like this. Hope you enjoy it!

Myhubbyisob: Well, this aint soon, but its something, right? You'll have to wait and see where Pony ends up goin…cuz, that just works itself out. Enjoy!

Keira: Well, you've only read part of this, IF ANY. I don't really recall if you read the first part, but over the days you left, I did a lot, so there. I think Taurie read more than you have…but I dunno. Anyway, hope you liked it.

Tensleep: I think I have tooo much fun when inspiration hits…but hey, its all good, right? Well, this has taken me FOREVER…but I figured you might like an update, and others too…and ive been in the mood. Maybe with this laptop I will get more done, I wont be downstairs in the freezing cold or fighting for a computer. HAHA. Thanks for your review and support. Hope you have a great holiday! Talk to you soon, I hope.

Turner: Thanks! I hope you enjoy this chapter also. Sorry its not sooner…

Hahukum Konn: Hehehe, well, on most stories I try to not have too many cliffies, but this is the kind of story that constitutes a lot of those. And…well, it makes it fun for me…

Tsuppi: Yeah, Darry is the adult, he has to say Keith at times, right? Thanks for your review and support. Hope you enjoyed!