I made a mistake in the last chapter... well... sort of. Johnny isn't the silver candle, just so you know.
Nothing belongs to me except Aishwarya and the children... and the others you've never heard of; the title is all thanks to John Lennon.

Conversation seemed to be a bit forced as the adults sat around the table with coffee and tried to find something to talk about. Johnny constantly glanced at the clock as if he was going to be late to something, but he had never mentioned anything, and Ponyboy supposed it could have just been to see how long they had been sitting in silence broken by soft "um"s and "... so"s that seemed to accentuate the awkward feeling.

"So what happened to Rebecca?" Maureen asked at last as she took a sip of her coffee which had, by now, grown cold and disgusting. "Are you still with her?"

Johnny cleared his throat awkwardly, looking down at his coffee. Ponyboy couldn't help but feel jealous when he took in his friend's appearance. He had aged well... or better than he had, anyway. A few seconds passed, in which the girls could be heard in the other room talking loudly and playing a game of make believe with the dolls Audrey had dragged out the minute the adults had gone into the kitchen.

"Well uh... she left for a uh... well... someone somewhere in Chicago," he replied slowly, looking embarrassed, as if this sort of thing happened quite a lot. Maureen looked taken aback by the news and she reached across the table to pat him lightly on the hand before pulling back as if remembering he really didn't like to have pity taken upon him (which explained his embarrassment in the first place).

Two-Bit (Keith, Ponyboy kept reminding himself, what grown man would want to be called Two-Bit?) had yet to show up and that would surely bring some much-needed conversation, if not some sort of hilarity.

After some more awkward conversation the doorbell rang, and Maureen was the first to show her relief. "It's Keith," she exclaimed, jumping up and nearly knocking over her cup of coffee as she ran to the door and flung it open. From the kitchen Ponyboy could hear the greetings, and the sound of Elizabeth's voice as she and Maureen conversed.

"Jonathan and Ponyboy are in the kitchen," Maureen explained, but didn't bother to join the men with Keith's wife as the older version of the kleptomaniac Keith "Two-Bit" Matthews wandered into the kitchen. Upon seeing the two he grinned and waved, not spouting off some wisecrack like he would have if he had been younger.

"So..."

Ponyboy was tempted to run his head through the wall or some other violent action at the awkward air that settled over them again. He wondered why everything was so tense, so hard to break, and yet he was afraid to ask. "... have you talked to Steve recently?" His own question surprised him, considering he and Steve Randal had never gotten along very well, even after Sodapop's death (which, he supposed, was no longer in history).

Both Two-Bit and Johnny sucked in a breath at the same time and exchanged glances. It would have been comical had it not been for the fact that the news Ponyboy was dreading would come soon after this shared look. "...what?"

"Pony, you were there," Johnny explained, tapping his fingers on the coffee mug and looking into the liquid. "I thought we weren't going to discuss it anymore, anyway..."

Two-Bit nodded in agreement, taking a seat where Maureen had been moments before and took a drink of the coffee, making a face as he did so. There was no need to explain to the man that the coffee wasn't his because from the way he pushed the mug away it was obvious that he already knew. "This is some shitty coffee," he mumbled, laughing weakly in an attempt to get away from the subject of Steve's death. "Mo needs a guide on how t'make this stuff better."

The look that the thirty-eight year old received from Johnny was one that clearly said that this wasn't a time to be joking around. Almost instantly the nervous smile that had been on Two-Bit's face vanished and he looked more concerned now. "Pone, you went to see how Steve was... after, you know... Soda..." He said this slowly, tentatively and Ponyboy felt his face lose colour. Had Sodapop Curtis actually died regardless of what he had done with the candles?

"And..." Two-Bit trailed off, leaving Ponyboy to look imploringly at Johnny. What had happened, what had he seen Steve do that had resulted in the death of his brother's best friend? Questions swirled inside his head like an angry bunch of bees that refused to stop until he got every single one of them answered. Unfortunately for him, more than half those questions were only able to be answered by the woman he had bought the candles from, and he wasn't sure where to find her anymore.

"He electrocuted himself," Johnny stated bluntly. "Dropped the toaster in the bathtub when it was plugged in... you even called us after the ambulance had come, Pone. And you made me call Soda because you didn't want to have to break it to him—"

Ponyboy's mind was reeling from the information that he had just received, but confusion was the first emotion that actually hit him. "Wait—Soda's alive?" His friends looked at each other again, concern on both their faces.

"Are you feeling okay?" Two-Bit asked. "Maybe you should lie down..."

"I should get going anyway," Johnny mumbled as he stood up from the table. "Hazel has a recital and I can't miss it—"

"What happened to Soda?" The urgency in Ponyboy's voice made the two stop and share another look. Ponyboy felt like a child as the jealousy filled him. Everyone was in on this little secret but him, and they weren't even bothering to tell. It was his brother for God's sake; it wasn't as if it was going to be of any importance to anyone outside the family and their friends.

When it seemed like a silent agreement had been reached, Johnny sat back down at the table (although his eyes still flitted over to the clock every few seconds) and Two-Bit stood awkwardly for a few more seconds before sitting back down. "It was just a car accident, Ponyboy. The doctors did everything they could but he wasn't gonna come out of it any time soon." He took a deep breath and Ponyboy noticed for the first time that his hair was beginning to gray, noticed the wrinkles on the face of his friend. Two-Bit looked older than Ponyboy would have liked to see and that frightened him; reminded him of their mortality and just how little they mattered on earth in their short time inhabiting the planet.

Two-Bit took another sip of Maureen's coffee regardless of the taste and the fact that it wasn't his, and sighed. "They put him in a nursing home a few years ago. You and Darry both agreed that with the way his mind is... he can't be living by himself."

Almost as if a switch had been pulled, Ponyboy's head was filled with a memory that shouldn't have been in his head. It wasn't his; he wasn't sure where it came from. He saw himself answering the phone, his expression changing from one of calm to one of horror. The receiver slipped from his hand and landed on the floor as he grabbed his coat and rushed out the door. It seemed like seconds later that he was in a horribly-decorated room, flowers in a vase by the bed of his brother, who was laying in bed with... a picture book. His smile was the same as it had always been but his eyes were vacant. They lacked the spark that Ponyboy remembered so well and as he watched, his past-self wiped a bit of drool that came from the corner of his older brother's mouth.

He was cruelly ripped from his thoughts by Johnny's apologizing but he "really had to go" and asked Ponyboy again if he was feeling okay before he whisked his daughter out the door. They could be seen running to the car, Hazel looking mournfully back at the house as she got into the passenger seat and told her father something that nobody inside could hear. In response, Johnny shook his head and told her something that made her eyes widen and she slammed the door.

In a matter of minutes Two-Bit and Elizabeth had left the house and although it was roughly two hours later, it seemed like seconds when Ponyboy found himself walking upstairs and into his bedroom, taking a seat next to Maureen who looked rather shocked. "Two nights in a row? Are you feeling alright?" It was meant to be a joke, but Ponyboy didn't smile.

"Mo... did we go to Steve's funeral?"

She looked taken aback, but nodded. "Yeah... yeah we did."

"Did Soda?"

"Well of course he did but—"

"Did he understand what was going on?"

Maureen planted a light kiss on Ponyboy's lips, looking upset as she did so. "No, babe."

As she turned off the light Pony remained sitting on the edge of the bed, staring down at his hands despite the fact that the darkness had swallowed them.

"Oh..."

Living on Borrowed Time

Ponyboy was rummaging around the kitchen looking for the candles. If he found them, he could save Steve and he could save Sodapop. He found one candle, the multi-coloured one burning brightly in Iris' room. The next made his heart plummet. The ivory one was unlit, sitting in one of the drawers in the kitchen. After that the rest were easier to find, although the silver one's flame looked as if it was about to go out, and assembled them once more on the kitchen table, a matchbook in hand.

If he lit the ivory one... which would be next to lose the flame? Who would be the one lying six feet underground in a coffin while the other six would attempt to go about their lives? His hand shook as he opened the book and took out a match, striking it and holding it to the wick of the ivory candle. As the flames danced, casting eerie shadows in the kitchen, Ponyboy dropped the match in the sink and went to bed.

Whose life was going to fall to pieces this time?