A/N: Long time no see guys! I'm so excited to be back. This story is going to have pretty quick updates because it's all written out, and I'm so excited to bring it to you guys. After taking time to mature and work on my writing, I hope this will be my best story yet.

Enough rambling. Enjoy!

P.S. I don't own The Outsiders. S.E. Hinton does.

Ponyboy's POV

There was a reason Darry hated cigarettes.

A star on the football team since he was young, people thought he was just a health fanatic, against risking what he had going, but it wasn't. Not really. It was about what it did to people. What the smell of smoke did to Sodapop and I. About why someone would wreck their health on purpose, make it hard for them to breathe.

"Why would anyone with two brain cells inflict that kind of pain on themselves," he would ask.

Even as the each member of the gang one by one picked up smoking, he refused. He didn't see a need to.

But to me it was just another thing he gave up for me, another thing that made him older and wiser beyond his years, especially now that worrying about me and all of my baggage was his problem now since we lost mom and dad.

Darry's POV

Watching one of my kid brothers having an asthma attack was probably the scariest thing I've ever seen and probably will continue to be #1 on the list.

We had known about Ponyboy and Soda's asthma since they were six and eight respectively. Our house was a chorus of coughs for at least a month, mom and dad thought they had been passing bronchitis back and forth, since their coughing wasn't constant.

That was until Pony ran out of the house to play football with us, after mom specifically told him not to, and caught a whiff of the neighbors smoking.

The sound of his wheezing coughs was terrifying coming out of such a young kid. He sounded like a ninety year old with pneumonia. Mom came running out of the house just as he collapses onto the grass. She scooped him up easily and, panicked, ushered us into the car while dad hopped in the driver's seat.

Ponyboy's lips were a sickly blue and his skin was so grey he looked dead. Dad carried him into the hospital with me running after him, always a step behind him.

I had never been so terrified. The doctors huddled around him, taking him gently out of dad's arms before quickly disappearing with my little brother.

After who-knows-how-many agonizing hours passed, a doctor came out and told us Ponyboy was asthmatic, and had suffered a severe asthma attack.

"He'll be just fine," the doctor assures us, "but your son will have to be on medication to try to prevent any more of these incidents."

My parents continued to talk to the doctor in concerned vices, but I don't remember what was all said. All I wanted to do was see my little brother. That seemed to be Soda's thought too, because he was next to me, his foot was tapping wildly with impatience.

I found out we could see Ponyboy for a little bit, but after that they wanted to test Sodapop for asthma since he had been experiencing the same symptoms as Ponyboy. I got tested too, seeming as it ran in the family.

When mom was growing up, she had asthma, so did her sister, and their father, so they all knew it ran in the family, but mom outgrew it by the time she was eleven. It had never been severe, either.

When the results finally came back, it was found that I was a no go for asthma, as I had figured. I never had any trouble breathing around anyone smoking or when I was playing football, luckily.

Soda however, was a resounding positive. They put both my kid brothers on medicine and our parents bought three rescue inhalers for around the house. One for Sodapop, one for Ponyboy, and one for mom and dad to share between them.

As time passed, we learned how this whole asthma thing worked. First, no one living in the house could smoke. For both Ponyboy and Sodapop, a simple inhale of some cigarette smoke, even just lingering on someone's clothes, had sent them to the hospital on more than one occasion. Whenever I got sick, which luckily wasn't very often, I would have to try my absolute best to stay away from my little brothers. Colds made everything worse. It seemed that whenever Pony or Soda got sick, the other followed suit, twice as bad.

Ponyboy and Sodapop carried inhalers with them at all times, as did Steve and I. And even though it had been years growing up with their illness, I had a lot to learn about taking care of them, and juggling being their guardian and older brother.

Ponyboy's POV (November, 1966)

I hated the rain.

The humidity made it hard to breathe, and the constant gloom was disgusting.

That's what I was thinking about as I walked home from school. The rain, gloom, and ever growing pain in my chest as I tried to calm the ever-present coughs building in my weak lungs.

I was so caught up in my thinking about my geometry homework (that I didn't understand) that I didn't even hear the low rumble of a mustang engine creeping behind me. At least, not until it was too late to run.

"Where do you think you're goin', grease?" A husky voice threatened, sounding so cold a chill ran through me. I was suddenly surrounded by four malicious looking Socs.

"Not good, not good, not good, not good," my mind repeated in a panicked loop.

"Get lost, Soc. Go back to wasting daddy's money," the hateful words flew out of my mouth before I could process them.

"Oh, I see. Boys, I think we need to teach this piece of greaser trash a lesson," another Soc growled, so close to my face I could smell the suffocating stench of chew tobacco on his breath.

Not. Good.

The blow to my jaw came out of nowhere. The fight was on.

I aimed for the smallest Soc's nose, and when I made contact blood poured out in a steady stream of red as he cursed. He looked to be about fourteen, while the rest were at least seniors, so that got him distracted for a minute. Before I could throw another punch I felt a knee in my stomach and I thought I might puke. When I leaned forward with my hand on my stomach, I felt hits all over the back of my head and my head face. I tried to block, but I was getting real dizzy.

"Hey!" A familiar gruff voice yelled. When the Socs began to scatter, I let out a sigh of relief. When my vision cleared I saw a partially blurry image of Curly tucking a knife away. Thank the stars above for Curly and his ever reliable, threatening switchblade.

"What's up, Curtis?" Curly's words weren't slurring yet, but he had obviously had a few already, despite the early time. I laughed, feeling nothing but elation and relief.

"Hey, Curly," I greeted.

"I was 'bout to hit Bucks but then I heard the sound of an inflated ego and daddy's money. I followed it 'till I found you, you sorry grease. Wanna come with me?"

Everything screamed in me to say no. But the word "yes" left my mouth without a thought. I need to work on the connection between my head and my mouth, because it was seeming to have a mind of its own lately.

"Alright. Let's go."

Stay Gold,

- Alee XxX