I tackle a few new POVs here. Did I do ok? Let me know what you think

Really appreciate everyone who's been reviewing this story.

XX

"We're - out of gas," Darry said, "We are fuckin' out of gas!" he slapped the window angrily and then the steering wheel. "Look! Look at the gas gauge," he ...it's on empty!"

For the first time, Ponyboy saw that his older brother looked completely and utterly helpless.

"Dammit!" he growled, "I didn't know we had so little gas left. I knew that I should have filled it up when we left…"

"Darry," Pony slurred. Why did his voice sound like he was drunk? Maybe he was delirious. "How many times have I told you to USE YOUR HEAD,"he joked.

He was starting to see some black spots in his vision.

Darry's lips twitched into a half-hearted and short-lived smile. "Using my words against me huh Pone?" he said, with a sheepish grin.

But then he grimaced. Pony looked bad.

He put the back of his hand on Pony's forehead and winced. "You're burning alive, little man," he said. Pony's eyelids fluttered.

Things are BAD, Pony thought as he began to sink down further and further into his seat. Darrel Curtis, Jr. doesn't do helpless. Pony felt his stomach twist and his cheeks burned something fierce. He put his hand on one of them and felt the heat on his fingertips. His heart thumped against his chest, but he pretended not to hear it. He wondered if Darry could.

"I guess we won't be going anywhere tonight," Pony said aloud, and he felt hysterical, like he could dab tears from his eyes. And then it occurred to him that he could BE hysterical.

"Pony, I'm going to fix this. We're going to get home," Darry said and Pony vaguely wondered who he was trying to convince.

XX

Sodapop Curtis peered out his living room window at the madness created by the heavily falling snow, wondering where in the world his brothers could be.

He watched as the frenzied snow storm savagely beat down the trees and whipped its way through the air like a wild symphony. It left its icy mark across the neighborhood, violently hammering into thin tree branches that sagged under its weight and swirling into frost pockets at the corners of the road.

It fell harder now, spilling from gray skies like thick, sticky white paste. It buried cars and mailboxes and rooftops - and Soda couldn't imagine that Darry and Pony were still out in it.

He felt a hand grip his shoulder and then heard a heavy sigh. "Soda, how long are you going to stand there and stare out the window?" the voice behind him asked. "The kid's probably fine! Darry's got it handled. Just because they haven't -"

Soda swerved around to glare at his best friend. "That's just it, Steve! They haven't called. Darry promised me he would. Why hasn't he? It's been 2 hours! Doctor appointments don't take that long."

"They probably wanted to rush home to beat the storm and forgot," Steve said, though he didn't quite believe his own words. He took his hand off his best friend's shoulder and ran it through the complicated swirls that made up his greased hair.

"Don't you think they would be home by now then?" Soda began to pace the room, finally sitting down on the couch before shooting up again less than a minute later.

"Not necessarily. It's coming down pretty hard out there -"

"I noticed," Soda interrupted with an angry huff. "It must be pretty bad for them not to be home after 2 hours," he said, "Geez, and I thought I was the dumb one."

Steve rolled his eyes.

Soda paused, his eyebrows suddenly furrowed with worry. "Steve, what if they got into an accident somewhere? On the highway... You know Tulsa drivers aren't exactly the safest -"

"I think they're fine. You need to be patient, Soda -" Steve interjected.

"What if they're stuck in a ditch somewhere?" Soda, expecting the worse, was afraid his lower lip would start trembling.

"Patience, Soda, patience," Steve said with his devil-may-care attitude, this time gripping both of his buddy's shoulders.

"I cant," Soda said, shaking his head, his voice slightly cracking, "I - I have a bad feeling about this. Something ain't right," he said.

Steve cocked his head and gave Soda a look, which made his blood boil.

"Hey!" Soda shouted at him, "You try being patient when your brothers are stuck out there in this crazy weather and one of them could barely lift his head to take a drink of water. I mean what if Pony's worse off than he was before? Poor kid don't even have aspirin with him."

"Soda, you're pacing, again," Steve announced, as he watched his friend anxiously strut across the room like a grumpy horse.

"I know!" he stopped suddenly and began wringing his hands, "I need to DO something. I can't just sit here and wait for them," he looked up at Steve, "WE need to do something. We need to find them."

"Sodapop, are you outta your mind? We can't go out in this weather!"

"My brother, who has a FEVER, is out in this weather," Soda reiterated. "I can't sit around here waiting- wondering when they will come home. I'm sure they would have been home already unless…" his voice cut off, thinking the worst.

Soda turned to look out the window again, wiping at the glass that had fogged up quickly.

"Is that your car, Steve?" he asked pointing at an indistinguishable white lump on the side of the road near the house.

"Where?" Steve asked, going over to stand next Soda to look out the window. He spotted the lump Soda was referring to. "Yea," he said, "I think that's it."

Steve looked over at his friend, who had a look on his face like he was scheming. "Soda, you're not thinking - no - ohhhh no - we are NOT taking my car!" Steve bellowed.

Soda's eyes were pleading, but Steve paid no attention, "Are you crazy? Have you seen my car? It's good lookin' and all, but no way would it be able to hold up in the snow. The wheels would get stuck in two seconds...the engine would cut out...come on, Soda, you know better than that. Your Ford sits higher, it would do so much better than my Chevelle. You know that!"

"Yeah, I know…" Soda relented, "But you know I ain't got any other options. Darry's got the Ford," he sat down on the couch again, distraught, and put his head in his hands.

Soda looked up and his eyes were sad, "My brothers are out there, Steve.."

"I know what you're trying to do, Soda…" Steve said, thinking of the way Soda always guilt tripped him. It's working, he thought.

There was a long pause. Then finally Steve spoke. " We can use the tow truck - the one at the DX," he said. "It should do ok on the road, if we drive slow. Really slow. We can head towards the doctor's office, see if they're around there."

Soda mulled it over. Suddenly he jumped up, slapping his knee, "Stevie, you're a genius! A genius, I tell ya!"

Steve grinned. "They probably closed down the station hours ago," Steve said, "We'll have to walk over in the snow,"

Steve and Soda both had keys to open the gas station. The key to the tow truck was locked up in the cash register of the store.

"You better dress warm, Sodapop," Steve told his best friend in his most fatherly voice he could muster, "Darry'll kill me if you catch pneumonia when Pony's sick, too," he said.

Soda was already rummaging through the same coat closet that Darry had dug through hours earlier.

"I hear ya," he said, pulling out his own pair of thick black rubber work boots. Thank god Darry took the other pairs for himself and made Pony put his own pair on, he thought. He was about to tell Steve he would have to wear his regular shoes, when he pulld out one final pair. It had been their Dad's.

"Let's see what we got here," he said, his voice muffled as he pulled out a couple of thin coats, a wool scarf, and two pairs of gloves that Darry hadn't been able to located before. While it didn't snow all that much in Tulsa, his parents had saved up quite a collection of colad weather clothing and as much as he was going to freeze his ass off, he was glad that Darry had taken most of them for himself and Pony.

He pulled out a pair of ear muffs that he passed on to Steve.

"Yeah right," Steve said, holding the ear muffs away from himself as if they were toxic, "I sure as hell ain't wearing these," he said.

"It's either that or freeze to death," Soda said, "If only Two-Bit could see us now," Soda joked. Their friend had left more than an hour ago, opting to trek home in the dreadful weather to check on his mom and sister.

"You better not tell him...or anyone else about this," Steve threatened through gritted teeth.

"I got it, I got it," Soda said. The two of them pulled on the boots.

Steve grabbed his pack of Kools that were waiting for him on the coffee table as Soda opened the door and a cold gust of wind nearly blew them both out the door. Then, one by one they stepped into the white slush, already higher than their ankles and began to push forward.

Steve immediately took out a cigarette and lit it, hoping it would warm him up some. Miraculously, the wind didn't blow the fire away.

"Give me one of those, will ya?" Soda said, shivering, and Steve passed him a cancer stick. "This coat s-sure ain't enough," he said.

Still, they hunkered down and kept going.

XX

Ponyboy remembered turning away from Darry and curling up on the seat, his knees bent towards his chest. But he didn't remember actually falling asleep. Suddenly, though, there was a rough hand touching the back of his neck, scaring the bejesus out of him and causing him to jerk awake, which popped his neck and caused agonizing distress up and down the back of his head.

He cried out in pain.

"Jesus, Pony are you ok? I'm sorry," Darry said from somewhere behind him, "I was just trying to see if your temperature was any lower."

Pony's head drooped and he held it up with his wrists on both sides, his fingers balled into fists. The pain was so bad, like someone had hit the back of his head with a metal baseball bat. Dizzy and disoriented, tears actually came to his eyes.

"Daaaa-rrryyyy," he moaned.

"What hurts?" Darry asked, hovering over him and carefully putting an arm around Pony's shoulders.

"My neck...my head...the pain is so bad," he whined.

Pony looked up, trying to contain himself, and saw that Darry's icy blue eyes were melting.

"What's wrong with me?" Pony asked aloud. He couldn't understand where the pain was coming from.

Darry looked at Pony long and hard. "You just got the flu. That's all," he said, hoping it WAS just the flu and he wasn't lying to his baby brother.

"I can't see really good either," Pony said softly. He was scaring the crap out of Darry.

Darry looked around. The snow was still falling, although it had finally stopped being as heavy. Everything around them was covered, though. They were still in the truck - managing somehow - despite dropping temps and lack of heat -to keep warm, even though the pickup truck's radiator had stopped working.

His arm still around Pony's hunched shoulders, Darry leaned over and grabbed the thermos that they had packed. "Here, drink something," he told Pony, handing him the bottle. He couldn't help but notice how rapid Pony's breathing was or how his brother's hands shook when he held the bottle. He closed his own fingers around Pony's shaky ones to help him steady it, helping Pony lift the water into his mouth.

Pony felt like the cool liquid calmed him down some but didn't completely take away the achiness in his neck or the tiredness of his limbs. And it definitely didn't take away the burning in his cheeks.

"I wish I could lay down," he said, not talking to Darry in particular. His head lulled back against the seat, too heavy to lift.

Darry let go of Pony unsure of waht to do for the poor boy. He shifted over to the driver's side of the truck and then put his long muscular arm over the top seat, though he leaned against the door.

"Pony, c'mere," he said, and even though he opened his arms wide, he was still surprised when Pony slumped against him.

XX

Big shoutout to ShinyLane 1.2 for pushing me to give human and animal-like qualities to the snowstorm. It's something I've never done before.

As always, thanks to Indianagreaser for being my guiding force in this new fanfiction writing journey.