Change can be good

Summary: Ponyboy goes off to college with a scholarship but what happens in College?

Disclaimer: I don't own the outsiders. I only own Malvina(Mally), Jason, Jamie, and Maddie. I also own Katie, Kayla, Sam, and Nancy.

Chapter 9:

Pony POV:

"YOURE DAUGHTER?" everyone shouted at once, making Mally hang on to my shirt and lean against my chest even harder. She liked to stick to me when she got scared and she got scared when there were a lot of people in one room and she didn't know lots of them.

"yes, my daughter." I said. Somehow I couldn't take my eyes off of Soda and Darry, which was easy seeing as they were standing right beside each other. I wanted to know what the rest of the gang thought but I just couldn't take my eyes off of Darry and Soda. They both seemed upset, angry, happy, hurt, and surprised.

"why don't I take Mally outside for a minute?" Maddie asked me as she took Maddie out of my grasp and walked outside, followed by all the women (including Silvia who was also taking Mason). Jason and Johnny stayed behind and I was guessing they were staying to help me out if someone pounced on me.

"someone wanna say something?" Two-Bit asked after a moment of yet another silence.

"how?... What?... When?" Soda stuttered.

"when I came back from spending the summer here in Tulsa, you know the one after I broke up with Jaime. Well when I came back Mally was on my front doorstep with a note from Jaime saying that Mally was two months old and she just couldn't take it anymore, so she was dumping her on me. she hadn't chosen a name yet, so I got to choose her name. I never really told y'all cause I wasn't sure how you'd react but one night I just totally lost it and called Johnny up and confessed everything. Judging by your faces, I should have to all y'all bout her over the phone, and then given you these last two years to let it sink in." I explained my thoughts and story.

Soda sat on the couch and I knew he was letting it all sink in, Darry was just standing there looking at me like I had just told him that I wanted to die or something aweful like that. Steve didn't really seem disturbed by the news, Two-Bit was shocked, and Dally, well I wasn't sure what Dally was.

"so…" Johnny said after another moment of silence. I could practically hear Mally's soft laughter as the room silenced again for a minute.

"Well I can't say that I'm exactly happy with this but I can see you're serious about this and I wouldn't wanna desert the newest member of the Curtis family so I guess I'm just gonna have to get used to it. Bring in the youngest Curtis." I had been looking on the ground but as soon as Darry finished his speech I looked up with a huge smile on my face. He was the one I was worried about the most, and if he was ok with it there was no way Soda wouldn't be.

"ya, he's right." Soda said as he stood up from the couch, a smile appearing on his face.

"ALRIGHT!" Two-Bit shouted, he was apparently happy about all this. Then he walked over to the door, opened it and yelled… "BRING IN THE YOUNGEST CURTIS PLEASE!"

A few moments later Maddie came in holding Mally and, yet again, all the women were following her. When Maddie reached me she handed Mally over to me and Mally looked calmer, and happier. Seeing her cute little smile made me smile even wider.

"alright, well you can't keep her to yourself give her here." Darry said as he came up to me and took Mally away from me. I think we all saw a side of Darry come out when he was holding and talking to Mally that we'd never seen before.

The night went on like that for a while, everyone got a chance to hold Mally and after she had been passed around the room, she stayed n my lap. We talked and talked about everything and anything that came to mind. The only thing I hadn't told them about Mally was her disease, N.M.D.

"Oh my god, Ponyboy! She's asleep!" Maddie shouted all of a sudden at around 11:00. I looked down and sure enough Mally was sleeping on my lap, I could feel her start to fidget meaning she was starting to have one of her nightmares. It wasn't that she couldn't go to sleep without taking a pill, it's that if she did after a long time of taking them she'd have even worse nightmares. I personally hated it when that happened, cause it took almost forever to wake her up, and the first night it had happened I got so scared I thought I would scream.

"shit" I muttered as I picked Mally up and started to walk to the other room. "Maddie can you get me her pills? They're in the front pocket of the bag." I said and she tossed the bottle to me, within a few seconds.

I went into the room Soda and I used to share and placed Mally down on the bed, hoping that I would be able to wake her up before she started screaming, that horrible, terrifying scream. I lay down on the bed beside Mally and started to whisper things into her ear.

"it's alright honey it just a dream. Wake up baby, it's alright. Come on baby just wake up." I said hoping it would calm her down enough to allow me to wake her up.

"no… daddy… hewp me… mommy?" Mally started mumbling random things and I started to get scared. Never in the history of her dreams had Mally started to talk in her sleep.

"come on baby, it's just me daddy. Can you wake up for me? honey? Babygirl?" I kept saying.

"daddy no weave me… I didn't mean to." It broke my heart to hear her saying things that I had probably said to Soda and Darry after my parents died. I put m hand around her tiny little waist and pulled her closer to me hoping that it would calm her down but it didn't work. I finally gave up knowing that no matter what I tried, it just wouldn't work tonight. I'd just have to let her suffer through this one terrible dream.

I stayed there with her for what seemed like a whole hour before she started shaking and abruptly sat up and screamed her lungs out.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Darry POV:

We were all concerned when Ponyboy left so abruptly with Mally and asked Maddie to give him some pills. My heart started to beat faster and it didn't slow down while Ponyboy was in the other room.

"what's going on? is she going to be ok?" Soda asked Maddie and Jason.

"ummmm, I think so. She should be." Jason answered.

"what's wrong?" I asked. I had only known Mally for a couple of hours now but I already loved her.

"I think that its Pony's job to explain that to y'all." Maddie said.

We went on to talk about random things to keep our minds off of the fact that Ponyboy was in the other room giving some kind of pills to his daughter. Every now and then my mind wandered back to them and I'd look over at the door of Soda's and Katie's room. I could see Soda doing the same thing a couple of times and I knew he was thinking the same thing as I was what's going on and where are they?

"anyways, I guess I've always like rodeos because…" Dally was cut off mid sentence by a horrible, terrifying scream from the next room and we could hear Ponyboy trying to comfort Mally, as we all rushed to see what had happened.

Pony POV:

I knew the gang would be coming in to see what was going on any minute so I got up from the bed and locked the door before any of them could make it inside.

"daddy?" I heard Mally say between sobs as I made my way back over to her.

"I'm here baby, it's alright it was just a nightmare. It'll be ok." I said as I took her in my arms and rocked her back and forth until she calmed down and her breathing was back to normal. The gang had tried to open the door a couple of times but after they figured out I wasn't gonna open it for anyone they left me and Mally alone.

"daddy, me sleepy." Mally told me after she had calmed down.

"alright, we'll go home but just in case you fall asleep in the car I want you to take your pill. Ok baby?" I told her and she nodded. I took out her pills and gave her one. She had become such a pro at swallowing them that she didn't even need water anymore.

I took her in my arms again and she rested her head against my shoulder as she dozed off. After I made sure she was asleep I came out of the bedroom getting prepared to be bombarded by questions as to what had just happened.

"Ponyboy, everything ok? What happened?" Soda was the first to ask. I was thankful that they noticed that Mally was asleep in my arms so they didn't yell all at once and wake her up again.

" everything's fine, it was nothing. Look, I think I'll just take her back to Johnny's she's tired and I better get some rest too." I said and headed to get my coat.

"oh no mister. You ain't going nowhere." Darry told me.

"what? Why?" I asked him, obviously confused.

"one. Cause we're all staying here tonight. And two, cause we all wanna know what just happened." Darry told me.

Thanks for your reviews, again I'm not sure when I'll update. Please R&R in the meantime.:)