(A.N. Sorry for the EXTREMLEY long update delay, as i said before, my parents are getting divorced and im going to be moving on the 4th, but you guys will be glad to know this story is finally finished and I'm working on the sequal!Please review if you want the sequal! )
DISCLAMER: I do not own the Outsiders or any characters but Danielle, Switch, Patrick, Drew, and Robyn!
Chapter 12 – Dallas
Ponyboy's POV
"Okay, we checked everywhere in town and can't find her anywhere!" Soda contemplated my words for a minute, it looked like he was about to agree with me. We had checked if she was at the diner, hiding next to the fence around the dingo, at bucks, and even hiding out in the back of the school we hadn't found her in any of those places.
"We never checked the barn, Pone," I shook my head, there was no reason for her to go back there, her horse had just died the day before and the blizzard out there was brutal so I piped up,
"It isn't possible, Do you see the blizzard outside Soda! She wouldn't have been able to walk or run that far! Right Darry?" As soon as I looked over to Darry for support you could easily tell he was leaning more towards Soda's idea. I knew I was outnumbered so I guessed it would just be easier to agree with them.
"Pony, it's better to at least try checking at the barn if she was nowhere else," I nodded my head in agreement, it was better than nothing.
"Maybe it is, lets go," We all bundled up again in our jackets and gloves before walking out into the biting wind. Darry sat down up front and started the truck, soon enough it began moving at a slow crawl through the snow covered street towards the stables...
Danielle's POV
The white horse shivered below me as her hooves slowly fell through the deep snow. Each of her feet slowly lifted out of the snow and back in, it formed a pattern in my head, up and down, up and down, up and down. The poor thing was still shivering as we moved along at the gruesomely slow pace.
"I know baby, I know it's cold, I'm cold too." I shivered but we continued plodding on through the snow. The icy melted snow on my soaked jacket was chilling me to the bone and more and more continued to follow, soaking me even more.
Snowstorm stumbled below me once, and then again, soon enough a fear grew inside of me that she would slip and fall or get hurt. The ground was pretty wet and cold, which definitely meant we were walking along on ice, she could easily break a leg if I kept riding her.
"Whoa, stop girl, stop." Snowstorm halted. I quickly slid off her back landing in the snow up to my knees, it was still falling pretty heavily so it was going to get even deeper soon. She was breathing heavy and soaked with sweat and snow, she would easily get sick in this weather, even with two blankets on her. I was shivering as well, the snow had soaked me down to the bone. I grabbed Snowstorm's lead and tried to lead her to safety. I was shivering all the way, the snow seemed to fall even slower and my vision began to blur. I was barley even aware of where I was, the only thing that seemed familiar were the icicles growing on my hair.
Each step turned to agonizing pain from the cold, I felt as though my whole body was freezing over. Snowstorm was at least warmer because of her blankets, even though they would soon be soaked through. When we reached the river running through the meadow, the last thing that I remembered was a red haze, the sensation of falling, and then nothing, just the sweet silence and the color black filling my eyes...
Ponyboy's POV
"I think were here Darry, you can barley tell though because of all of the snow." I told him from the back seat of the truck. I could just make out the barn's driveway thanks to the little building tucked in the corner and the pasture fences that were barley poking out of the top of the snow.
"Alright, I'm just gonna pull over here, nobody plowed the driveway so we'd probably just get stuck." Darry quickly parked the truck and we all exited. It wasn't much colder outside than it was in the truck so I really didn't have to adjust to the temperature. Soda started walking over to the barn but stopped when he noticed something with the snow,
"Hey guys, there's indents in the snow, it's probably footprints that got snowed over!" I shook my head, sometimes I do understand why Soda dropped out of school, this is one of those times.
"There are other people that own horses here Soda, it could have been anybody." Soda just wrapped his old leather jacket closer to him and continued walking to the old barn, acting as stubborn as a mule. I just rolled my eyes and started to follow him.
"Well, we could ask anyone who might be here if they saw her or somethin'" We just simply followed him in. Soda heaved open the big barn door and we closed it as fast as we could to keep the snow from getting in so that the horses wouldn't get too cold.
I looked around and quickly noticed that there were only the familiar heads of all the horses in the barn, no people. I allowed my eyes to adjust to the light before something quickly caught my eye. Snowstorm's stall was wide open and the back barn door had been left slightly ajar. Snowstorm's halter and blanket were gone as well. My first thought was that her owner probably took her finally but I knew what the truth was. My thoughts quickly escaped from my mouth,
"Either Snowstorm's owner finally got the message that she wasn't welcome here or Danielle was here, and took the horse." Darry looked puzzled, he was probably thinking that she had a little bit more of a thought process than that.
"She should know better than to go out in this weather, let alone steal a damn horse in the middle of a blizzard!" He was shaking his head now,
"We gotta' call the cops, it's to dangerous for us to go out on our own to find her, lord only knows if she's even alive." Soda said with a solemn look on his face. I walked over to Soda and hugged him, everyone knew that Soda's words were probably tearing me apart on the inside and they were, she was going to jail, either that or, or, something even worse was going to happen to her.
While Darry went to call the cops I sat there leaning against Snowstorm's stall playing over every single possible scenario in my head and most of them weren't turning out very well.
"It's gonna' be alright Ponyboy," Sodapop piped up and I cut him off,
"No it aint' even if she is alive she's gonna' get arrested for horse theft! Nothing is gonna work unless we buy the horse now and we don't have enough money for her," Then I got an idea, Danielle had kept money in a small old coffee under the bed. She had at least 800 dollars stashed in there, she had been saving for her own horse, Dally had given her most of the money anyways. I knew it wasn't my money to spend, but this was an exception, it was keeping her out of jail, after all.
"Soda, do you think you could take me back to the house for a bit? I need to do something,"
"Sure, Pone. What do ya' need to do?" I smiled to myself,
"Just need to make a few phone calls is all," We walked out of the barn quickly warning Darry that I was heading home for a bit with Soda. I was still sad, but I knew what I was doing was right, even if she wasn't going to come back...
Danielle's POV
I heard a muffled voice trying to wake me up, the voice was there, but it seemed to be a million miles away at the same time. I strained my ears even more and began to make out the muffled and faint words.
"Danny, c'mon baby, get up," I opened my eyes to a small squint and I could barley make out the person standing in front of me, but I immediately knew it was him,
"Dally?" I still didn't move and I could only see a blurred figure in front of me and an even more blurred figure behind the first. My head hurt and I was still soaking wet and cold, thoughts were swimming in my head and I suddenly felt like I was going to pass out again.
"Yeah, it's me baby, shhhhhh. Don't talk Danny." He moved so that my head was in his lap and he was stroking my hair. "You have to stay strong, it's not your time yet, it was mine, and it was Johnny's too," He pointed over to the faded figure with his hands in his pockets, "and it was Jack's too, but it's not yours," The other figure which I assumed was Johnny came over and sat next to us in the snow, the cold didn't seem to affect them.
"Why," Each word was agonizing for me to utter, "Why didn't you help me, when, when I hurt the most? When I was in the hospital, when I was all alone?"
"You didn't need us, you needed to heal on your own or you never would, were here now because you can't give up, it isn't your time to die now." Dallas' fingers were still combing through my hair, removing the built up icicles. Johnny moved over and grabbed my hand,
"Stay strong Danielle, and no matter what you do and who you end up with, I will always, always, love you." He leaned down and kissed me, but the weird thing was I didn't feel a single thing. Everything began to blur again and before I went out, I faintly uttered the words to Johnny that I had regretted not telling him before he died,
"I love you, Johnny," He smiled his rare smile and reached down, putting his hand on my cheek. Dallas' face was the last thing I saw before the black took over once again...
"Get her on the stretcher and get and IV in her!"
"Yes sir!" I struggled to open my eyes and when I did I saw paramedics milling around me and stabbing something into my arm, and cop cars. Dallas and Johnny were gone and I couldn't see Snowstorm anywhere. I looked next to me on the bench and saw Ponyboy sitting there, tightly clutching my hand and saying my name the whole time, it sounded like he was asking me if I was okay, but I couldn't make out anything before the red haze filled my head again.
Ponyboy's POV
Her eyes seemed to be glues closed. Her lips were a deep blue and her hair was filled with ice and snow, her clothes had been soaked through and her skin had turned to a shade of light blue. I watched in fear as all of the paramedics milled around Danielle, I flinched when one stabbed something into her arm. Her eyes seemed to be opening slightly and I loosened my grip on her hand slightly.
"Danielle? Danielle are you okay? Danny? Please stay awake!" She seemed to look over at me for a quick second before blacking out again a moment later. One of the paramedics shook me and I looked up,
"Here, could you please go talk to the police and meet us back at the hospital, we cant have you in here for the sake of her privacy," I nodded my head yes because I quickly understood what they had to do to her, she was being violated by people she didn't even know.
"Excuse me, young man, we need to talk to you," I looked over to the fuzz who were calling me over to talk to them.
I started walking over and joined my brothers as a cop began asking me questions,
"Okay, so was that horse hers? Or is it another person's horse?" I was shaking and nervous, I never really felt too comfortable talking to the fuzz,
"Yes sir, it was her horse," He looked at me sceptically and I reserved the urge to roll my eyes at him, I knew he was doubting me just because I was a greaser. The cops almost never believe us unless we can prove to them what we are saying is true.
"Do you have the ownership papers with you?" He looked at me with a sort of "gotcha" look, except the thing is, he didn't have me at all, the horse's owner quickly agreed to let me buy the horse and drove me the ownership papers which I shoved in my jacket pocket before returning to the stable, just in case a situation like this would occur.
"Yea, I've got em' right here," I pulled out the papers and held them out for the cop to examine, he seemed satisfied with what he saw,
"Well, I guess there aint' anything left for us to do here, alright boys, lets head back to the station." I watched the fuzz load back up into their cop cars and drive off, quickly after, I ended up in the ambulance, heading towards the hospital, clutching Danielle's hand the whole way there...
(A.N. Sooooo? What do you guys think? Reiview PLEASE!)