Disclaimer – I do not own the Outsiders. I don't think I'm as good as a writer as SE Hinton, so if I DID own it, there wouldn't be a forum for it cause it would have sucked lol.

I knew that it would begin with the end, and that the end had been my death. I had known it all along.

I was dead.

The thought that ran through my mind was odd, but it made sense. With everything that had happened to me, I couldn't tell if this was a relief or not. It should be a relief, but at the same time, I can't help wondering if I really want to be dead. I knew I used to want to be dead, I told Sodapop I wanted to be dead, I had believed it then.

But, now, I'm starting to rethink what I said before: Do I really want to die?

Well, it doesn't matter anyways, because I'm already dead. It's just…I at least wanted a say in my death. I guess it's too late for that though.

Wait – what was I thinking?

I'm not dead.

I can't be dead…right?

No, I'm not dead. I can feel it…this…pull. It's trying to pull me out of the darkness, thankfully. I'm not dead, and hopefully won't be any time soon. Will the same be said for Sodapop though?

I felt the sedation wearing off and lucidity taking its place. I braced myself, knowing what was coming.

My body and mind tried to shield me from this memory, the last memory I had, but I hadn't imagined it anything like this.

It seared with sharp color and ringing sound. My skin was ice-cold, and pain nibbled at my limbs, burning them without fire. There was this metallic taste in my mouth, running through my teeth and clinging to my throat. The strongest part of this memory though – was fear.

Fear was all around me, clinging to me as a jacket would – had I been wearing one. I couldn't run, I couldn't flee, and I couldn't escape the fear I felt.

This memory was so frighteningly strong and clear that it sliced through my control – overwhelmed the detachment, made me relive everything I had experienced in the past 24 hours. I was sucked into the hell that had burned through me since I was 15, only this time, it was all bundled into just one moment.

It's so dark. I can't see the ground. I can't see the truck pulling next to me. I run blind and try to reach me and Soda's car before somebody else does, but the pulse is so loud behind my ears it drowns everything else out.

It's cold. It shouldn't matter now, but it hurts. I'm so cold.

I tried to take a deep breath, but nothing happened. I was trapped in my memory, and I could still remember every detail. It seems clearer to me now then it did at the time. I was almost out of it, and then I was dragged in again. My eyes filled with horrified tears – this couldn't have been me. Could it?

I'm lost. It's over.

It's right next to me now, loud and close. The revving of the engine all but shatters my eardrums. I've failed. I know it's over.

I can see the flashing of the lights, but my eyes are still on the crippled car in front of me.

That truck…so familiar.

Heat shot through my veins, and a violent hatred nearly choked me.

Never before had I felt this much hatred, even when Sodapop was drafted, even when Darry had started hitting me. Over and over. For a second, my revulsion pulled me away from the memory. A loud, shrill keening pierced my ears and pulsed in my head. The sound scraped through my airways. There was a weak pain in my throat.

Then I realized - it was me. And I was screaming. That was a good sign right? It meant I was still alive. But…it wasn't exactly the best sign.

As soon as I realized I was the cause of the sound, I froze in shock, and the sound broke off abruptly.

Then the memory, being stronger than my will, sucked me back in.

All I can think about is my brother, and the car, and everything else that had happened.

There was thick bile in my throat again, just like the last time I was sick. I couldn't find the will to let it out though – my body wouldn't allow it.

The car in front of me, the truck beside me - all seeming to go in slow motion. I tried to will my legs to run just a little faster – I tried to get the adrenaline pumping through my veins like I had done whenever I raced in a track meet – but I felt like I was in slow motion. Like everything else around me, I was going slug speed. My car seemed a million miles away, and the screeching next to me told me that the truck wasn't going to give me much time to get there.

No, no, no! I fought to pull myself away from the memory, but it latched on. I didn't want to think about it, but I was sprinting right towards my almost-death. Possibly Soda's.

I feel like laughing when I realize, I'm not fast enough.

All my life I've been fast enough, but this one time – just this once – I wasn't fast enough. I imagined my brother, what his body might be like in the car. Was he dead? Alive? Was I going to die?

I don't have time to pause and double-back.

It's too late.

Too late!

I can't even describe the pain I felt, but it was everywhere. Consuming me, crawling in every inch of my skin. At that point – pain wasn't pain.

It was everything.

Pain isn't enough of a word to describe what I felt then. It felt like my skin itself was shattering. Glass flew towards my eyes, I have no clue from where. I could hear it, see it, hell – I could smell it. I closed my eyes for just a second, trying to block the glass from piercing into them. Luckily my eyelashes did the job, and screened them away from my eyes. Creating a kind of barrier.

The emptiness swallows me. My legs flail, useless. My hands grip the air, clawing through it, searching for anything solid. The air spins past me like tornado winds. I could feel my body turning, too rapidly. It felt like it was splitting in half.

I heard the thud before I felt it…the wind was gone…

And then pain is everywhere…pain is everything.

Make it stop.

When will the pain end? When…?

The blackness swallowed up the agony, and I was weak with gratitude that the memory had finally ended. The blackness took all, and I was free. I took a breath to steady myself, and if I could shake in my state, I would.

But then the color rushed back, the memory reared up and engulfed me again.

No! I panicked, fearing the cold and the pain and the very fear itself.

But this was not the same memory. This was a memory within a memory, yet somehow, even stronger than the first.

The blackness took all but this: a face.

This face I would have known among millions.

This face was diamond-shaped, the shape of the bones strong under the skin. In color it was a light golden brown - a tanned face. The hair was shades lighter than the skin, completely flaxen except where deeper, richer shades darkened it. It was long in the front and sides, and squared off in the back. The circular irises in the white eyeballs were darker than the hair but flecked with light. This was the face of pure beauty, handsome and full of light.

This face was Sodapop Curtis, before he went to war. Before Darry started hitting me. This was how I remembered Sodapop Curtis, the Greek god come to earth, the movie-star. This was the Sodapop I would remember, dead or alive. This was the person that meant the most to me. The person that I loved more than anything. This was the person who kept me going, and I'm guessing that this was the same thing he saw, only my face, that kept him going in the war.

I would do anything for Sodapop, and that included living to see him.

The voices were soft and close, though I was only now aware of them, apparently in the middle of a murmured conversation.

"I'm afraid he won't make it," one said. The voice was soft but deep, male. "Many in his state would never make it. Such violence!" the tone spoke of revulsion.

"He screamed," said a higher, reedy, female voice. She sounded concerned.

"I know," the man agreed, "I heard him as well as everyone else in this hospital, probably."

"I'm sure he'll be fine, just as I told you." The female still sounded concerned though.

"Maybe you took the wrong job," the male murmured in a sarcastic voice. "Perhaps you were meant to be a doctor, like me."

The woman let out a soft laugh, "I doubt that. We cops prefer a different sort of diagnosis."

"Violence is a part of your life choice. Have you seen so much that you can't even care for the people who are affected by it?"

I was surprised at his accusation, at his tone. The discussion was almost like…an argument. Not a heated one, but still an argument.

The woman sounded slightly shocked, but defensive. "We do not choose violence. We face it when we must. And it's a good thing I was facing it when I found this boy and the other one." Other one? Did she mean Soda?

"Violence has many consequences."

"One of which is lying on that bed there."

"If you had gotten there sooner, he wouldn't be on that bed there!"

The woman breathed out heavily. A sigh. "We would have gotten there sooner, but we were…backtracked…"

"That's your problem, not mine," the man said. "My job is to help the people that you forgot to save. And you are here to interfere with my job."

Still slowly surfacing, acclimating myself to my senses, I understood now that I was the subject of this conversation.

"I need to ask the boy some questions."

"He needs rest."

"We need to find out why he needs rest."

"He was hit by a car!" the man said.

"Obviously, but why? Was it just random? By the looks of those bruises on his skin, I'd say they were there before the incident." The woman sounded impatient.

I felt the blood pulse through my neck, pounding behind my ears. My hands clenched into fists. This was what I didn't want to happen, now they would know.

The machines beside me reported the acceleration of my heartbeats. There was a reaction in the room: the sharp tap of the cop's shoes approached me, mingled with a quieter shuffle that must have been the doctors.

"Welcome to the land of the living." The cop said.

"He was never dead." Mumbled the doctor.

A new sensation distracted me. Something pleasant, a change in the air as the cop stood next to me. A scent, I realized. It felt oddly out of place in the odorless room. Perfume. Floral, lush…

"Can you hear me?" the cop asked, interrupting my analysis. "Are you awake?"

"Take your time." The doctor urged in a softer voice than the one he had used before.

I did not open my eyes right away. I still didn't feel the need to move.

"I'm awake." I answered in a coarse voice.

"Good, good, can you open your eyes?" the doctor asked.

I decided to answer him by doing what he said.

Light. Bright, painful. I closed my eyes again. After regaining the darkness, I opened them narrowly, keeping my eyelashes feathered over the breach.

"Would you like me to turn down the lights?"

I thought about it. "No doc, my eyes will adjust I guess."

Both waited patiently while my eyes slowly widened. My mind recognized this as an average room in a hospital. Of course, I internally groaned.

The ceiling tiles were darker with speckles. The lights were rectangular and about the same size as the tile. The walls were a light green – a calming color, but also the color of sickness. A poor choice, I thought, but better than white. Or red.

The people were more interesting then the room though. The doctor was wearing loose-fitting blue green clothes that left his arms bare. Scrubs. He had hair on his face – the same rust color as Two-Bit's. He looked kind enough.

An impatient breath turned my attention towards the cop.

She was very small. If she had remained still, it would have taken me longer to notice her beside the doctor. She didn't draw the eye, a darkness in the bright room. She wore black from chin to wrists – a conservative suit with a silk turtleneck underneath. Her hair was black, too. It was long, I could tell, but up in a high ponytail, letting the ends hang over her left shoulder to stop at her lower breast. She was extremely pale, and the word vampire came to mind. I shivered.

"Can you tell me the last thing you remember?" the doctor asked, coming to stand next to me. I stared at him, of course I could, but that doesn't mean I want to repeat it out loud. I noticed the cop lean forward, her face eager.

"I – I was on the pavement…I couldn't…I couldn't feel anything."

The doctor frowned, and moved towards the end of the bed. He lifted the sheets up slightly, and told me to wiggle my toes.

I did.

He looked back up at me, "they seem to be in working order." He announced.

I didn't say anything, just looked blankly at him. "I know, when they found me, my legs were under this metal hunk thing. I felt it when they lifted it off of me, but I didn't feel it before that. Is that normal?"

The doctor nodded his head, "Completely. It can be caused by numerous things – shock, adrenaline, no nerve-endings (which, obviously you have), you name it."

"Oh."

The cop, apparently deciding it was time to make her move, put a hand on the bed.

"Son," she started, but I interrupted her. "My name's Ponyboy." She looked way too young to be calling me 'son'.

Her dark eyebrows rose considerably, but she said, "Ponyboy, would you happen to know what the car that hit you looked like?"

"It was a truck," I sighed, "a red truck. It looked real familiar."

"Did it have any distinguishing features? Something that you wouldn't see on any normal truck?"

I tried to think back, "There was a long scratch on it, real deep. Right on the front of it."

"Was that before or after it hit you?"

I glared at her, for some reason, that comment stung. "Before. Now where's my brother?"

She ignored me, but continued on. "You mentioned that this truck looked familiar – do you know where you might have seen it?"

"No, I only know it looked familiar. Now where's my brother?" I demanded as the cop took a step back, sighing. It was hard to believe this was the same girl that had sounded concerned. The doctor took her place.

"Ponyboy, how are you feeling right now?"

I looked at him like he was stupid, "I just got hit by a truck Doc, how would you feel?"

The corners of his lips raised to a smile, almost like he was counting on me saying that. "I'm Doctor Bryon Stryder. Do you need anything?"

"Yeah – I want information. Where's my brother?"

He sighed, and pinched between his eyebrows before turning back to me. "He's in ICU, he's alive, and doing better than he was before. Can you tell me your names?"

"Ponyboy…" I trailed off. "Ponyboy isn't my real name." I said a little too quickly. The doctor raised his eyebrows.

"Well, I mean…it's a nickname that my friend gave me. Uh, cause of a dare…" I'm a pretty good liar, but I wasn't sure if that would slide with the doctor. "My name is Michael, and my brother's name is —Patrick."

"Do you have a last name?"

"Randle." I said, because it was the first name that came to mind. I could imagine Steve's pissed off face at my using his last name.

"Mhm." He had grabbed a clipboard and was writing on it.

"Is there anything that's bothering you in particular?" he asked me, still looking at his clipboard.

Before I could answer that cop cleared her throat loudly. We all turned to look at her.

"Excuse me Doctor Stryder, but I need to ask this boy some questions – Michael is it? I thought your name was Ponyboy?"

"It's not my real name, like I said, it was a dare. I know a boy named Ponyboy though – heard he got into some trouble a few years ago." I added, just to make it sound more realistic. "My friend dared me to take his name for a whole month, and it kind of stuck I guess."

She nodded and said, "My name is Claire Harkness. Now, did you see the man who hit you?"

"No ma'am." I answered truthfully. "Only the truck."

"Okay, and your brother Patrick wouldn't know anything about it would he?"

"I don't think so ma'am."

"And when you woke up from the crash, who was the man you saw?"

"He had long blonde hair and black eyes, his name was Gerald something-or-other."

She nodded, then left without another word.

"Sorry," the doctor apologized, "I told them not to let her in."

"It's alright." I said, because I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Now, do you want me to tell you what's wrong with you?"

I nodded.

"You broke your left arm, cracked your skull, broke three ribs, and had a large piece of glass embedded in your stomach – narrowly missing internal organs, you're lucky – and got a large cut on your leg from where the metal struck you. I'm amazed that it didn't do more damage, but from what I heard the whole thing was on top of you, and only that one piece was actually going into you. It would kind of be like having more than a few weights put on your legs."

I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn't find the words. If that was all for me….what was wrong with Soda?

"Wha-what about my brother?"

The doctor sighed, "Technically I'm not supposed to tell you this, but it'll be our secret okay?" he winked at me.

"Your brother, Patrick is that correct?" I nodded.

"He has suffered major internal bleeding, cracked skull, concussion, broke four ribs, broke his jaw, and dislocated his shoulder and both legs (we fixed that up first). He is suffering from atelectasis, or partial punctured lung. He also flatlined, right before we got him here – we managed to resuscitate him, and he's doing better then he was before."

Even though he had less than me, they were all worse. "Is he…going to make it?"

"Yes." The doctor said, and I sighed in relief. He was okay, and that's all that mattered.

"Will I get to see him?"

"As soon as you get better." He promised.

"Doctor Stryder?"

"Yes Michael?"

"Thank you." I murmured. He smiled at me, perfect teeth glinting. "You're very welcome."

Me: Well now everyone, aren't you happy? Sodapop is fine!

Soda: Go me!

Ponyboy: Thank god you didn't give me a concussion.

Me: Don't be too sure of that.

Toby: I'll give him a concussion.

Everyone pulls out a heater and shoots Toby. *YAY!*

Anyways, please review!