(Two-Bit's POV)

I drove down the streets as fast as the truck would let me. Johnny was doing a decent job of not freaking out in the front seat, but he kept his head turned around to see what was happening in the back of the truck.

"Don't you dare… don't you fucking dare," I heard Dally say. "C'mon Darry, don't do this man."

"What's going on, Johnny?" I asked, not taking my eyes off the road. We were close to the hospital, and from the sounds of it, we needed to be there already.

"I don't know," Johnny said, obviously starting to panic. "I think Darry passed out."

"Darry! C'mon man, your brothers need you. The gang needs you. Don't you dare give up!" Dally shouted, and I thought he sounded worried, which terrified me. "I swear to God, man… don't leave your brothers like this."

"Darry!" I heard Pony cry out.

Shit shit shit. I don't think he just passed out. I think something worse is happening.

I flew through the last couple blocks before I pulled the truck up to the emergency room doors. The second I jumped out of the driver's seat, doctors and nurses were already rushing to Darry and Soda. I raced to the back of the truck, Johnny doing the same on the other side, as Dally shouted at the medical staff.

"This one's been shot twice, and he ain't breathing!" Dally yelled. "His kid brother over there's got a knife in him and he's bleedin' out."

The doctors immediately got Darry on a stretcher and started taking him out of the truck, but Pony didn't seem like he was going to let up on the fabric he was pressing into Darry's leg, so Dally shoved Pony away so the doctors could hopefully save our friend. Once Darry was out of the truck, Dally jumped out and watched Superman get taken away.

"Darry! Please, Darry!" Ponyboy shouted and bawled as the doctors took his big brother away from him. "DARRY!"

With the kid wailing, I barely heard Steve's voice next. "Soda? Hey, Soda, wake up!" Steve was started to shout as he lightly hit Soda's cheek, but our buddy wasn't reacting at all. "Shit, he's out too! Soda! Come on, buddy, wake up!"

The doctors brought a second stretcher to the truck and quickly put Soda on it, with Steve keeping the pressure on Soda's wound until a medical person took over. The whole time, Ponyboy was frozen in place, but he kept screaming and crying. "No no no, Soda! Please no. SODA!"

Johnny jumped into the back of the truck and sat next to Pony. I was sure he was saying comforting things to Ponyboy, but the kid wasn't having it. With both of his brothers bleeding and taken away on stretchers, I was pretty sure comforting words weren't going to work. I jumped into the bed of the truck, doing my best to ignore the mess that I was surrounded with, and I put my hand over Pony's mouth to hopefully get him to quiet down.

"The docs have your brothers, and they'll care care of 'em," I said, hoping he could understand me in his emotional state. "But they ain't gonna let us inside if you keep shoutin' like that."

Johnny put a hand on Pony's shoulder, and I didn't miss the younger greaser wince from it. "They'll be okay, Pony," Johnny said kindly. Then Johnny looked confused, and after a quick look of the hand that was on Pony's shoulder, Johnny's eyes went huge. "Pony, you're bleeding!"

Alarm bells started ringing in my head. Ponyboy's hurt too. He was trying to help stop the bleeding in Darry's leg, so I assumed all of the blood on him was Darry's, but I was obviously wrong.

Ponyboy looked at Johnny's hand, and at the sight of his own blood, he seemed to pale immediately.

"Ponyboy?" I started, trying to keep my voice soft and calm for his sake. He looked at me, but his facial expression told me the adrenaline rush was disappearing and he must've started feeling the pain. He reached towards his shoulder, but I grabbed his hand, stopping him from touching the wound. At one glance, I knew it was more than just a scratch. "Hey! This kid needs a doctor too!"

The guys all had different reactions when they looked at the wound on Pony's shoulder. I guess we all missed it.

When Steve's eyes landed on Ponyboy, I could tell that he was worried, even if he'd deny it. "Shit."

"What the hell?" Dally said, his eyes going huge when they landed on Pony.

Johnny was the only one that sounded as scared as I knew we all felt. "Pony!"

The doctors brought another stretcher towards us, and I helped the hospital workers move Ponyboy onto it since he looked a little freaked out. Once he was situated, a nurse spoke softly to him like I'd heard Soda talk to his kid brother so many times before. "Don't worry, honey. We'll take care of you."

"My brothers… take care of my brothers," Ponyboy mumbled before his eyes closed, and it about broke my heart.

"Family of Ponyboy Curtis?" a tall man with greying hair said loudly as he approached us.

As soon as Pony was taken into the hospital, I moved the truck into a parking spot and rushed inside to meet the guys in the waiting room. A few minutes later, the lady at the desk needed paperwork filled out for the Curtis brothers, and considering how scared Johnny was and how angry Dally and Steve were, I was the best man for the job. That, and the fact I was the only adult between us made it my responsibility. Darry and I even had a discussion about this scenario once, just in case something extreme happened, so I was sort of prepared. Something extreme did happen: all the Curtises are in the hospital, fighting for their lives.

Once I wrote on the million pieces of paper the lady gave me, she told me a doctor would come find us when they had an update. In the meantime, we all cleaned up a bit in the bathroom. I was sure we made a mess of it and the sinks were probably going to have a permanent pink tint to them, but none of us cared. Luckily, it was only about 45 minutes of waiting before Pony's doctor came to talk to us.

"What the hell happened?" Dally asked rudely as he shot to his feet, all of us following suit and standing up. "What happened to the kid? He didn't get stabbed or nothing, so why's he bleedin' and passing out?"

The doctor didn't look nervous or insulted by Dally's lack of patience or manners. Instead, he looked at Dally briefly before looking at me. "Would you like to speak in private, Mr. Mathews?"

"No, it's fine," I said immediately. Everyone was staring at me, and Dally and Steve almost seemed angry. "All of us should know what's goin' on."

"Who the hell put you in charge?" Dally spat in my direction.

"Darry did," I shot back, hoping that would be enough for him to shut it. None of the guys knew about the conversation Darry and I had a few weeks after his parents died, and I wasn't surprised that someone like Dally got mad about me being in charge of his brothers and their care for the time being.

There was a moment of heated silence, but Johnny eventually spoke up, dissolving some of the frustration and anger in the room. "How is he?"

The doctor seemed intrigued by the exchange between me and Dally, but he didn't address it at all. "He'll be alright. We're giving him fluids right now, but he's awake if you want to talk to-"

"So what was wrong with him?" Dally asked impatiently.

"Maybe if you shut up, he'll tell us," Steve said bitterly.

The doctor stayed calm as he explained fully. "He has a pretty nasty concussion, which could have contributed to him falling unconscious upon arrival, in addition to the blood loss from his wounds. Most of his abrasions are minor, but there is one on his forearm that looks like it was from some sort of sharp object." He eyed us suspiciously, like he knew exactly what we had been doing and that he didn't agree with violence, but he didn't specifically say anything about it either. "The gunshot wound on his shoulder-"

"What?!" Dally shouted, not able to contain himself. "What did you just say?"

"Darrel Curtis is the one that got shot," Steve explained, apparently thinking the guy made some kind of mistake. "He jumped on the guy with the gun so Ponyboy wouldn't get shot."

I could tell the doctor was starting to lose his patience with us, but the second I heard him say Pony had a gunshot wound, I didn't give a crap about the doctor's feelings. Just tell us.

"It appears the bullet grazed Ponyboy's arm, tearing through some soft tissue on the lateral aspect of his shoulder, which caused his most severe wound," the doctor explained. "It's not life-threatening, but it bled a good amount and it required us to bandage the area. His arm will be painful and stiff for a while as it heals, so he's in a sling right now to immobilize it."

We all fell silent as the doctor's words settled in our heads. Ponyboy got grazed by a bullet; the youngest guy in our gang had been shot at, and he didn't escape unharmed. Then the reality of the situation hit me real hard. If Darry didn't jump all over that Soc with the gun, Ponyboy would be gone, and if Pony was gone, I'm not sure what his brothers would do.

Before my thoughts could continue to spiral, the doctor cleared his throat before he spoke again. "Would you like to go see Ponyboy?"

(Ponyboy's POV)

I must've dozed off after the doctor left, because the next time I woke up, I heard several familiar voices bickering around me.

"Jesus, he looks bad."

"You try getting shot and see how you look."

"He didn't really get shot-"

"The guy just told us that it hit his arm!"

"Yeah, but it didn't go in him."

"Oh shut up, Randle."

"He has a concussion too."

I groaned at the volume that four different voices, three of them being quite loud, was causing. "Could you keep it down?" I asked, keeping my eyes closed a little longer.

"Hey, Pony," Johnny's thankfully-quiet voice said on my left.

I opened my eyes almost all of the way, but the offensive bright lights in the room caused my head to hurt, so I kept my eyes only partially opened. "Hey, Johnny."

"How are ya feeling?" Johnny asked softly.

I blinked slowly, not sure how to answer that, but also not truly understanding how I felt. "Achy."

"Well no shit," Dally said roughly as he moved to stand by Johnny. "You were in a rumble and a bullet sliced through your arm. Something would be wrong with you if you weren't hurtin'."

I glanced down at the sling my left arm was in. I was pretty sure it hadn't been long since the doctor talked to me and told me everything that was wrong with me, but I had already forgotten about the part of the bullet grazing my arm. "I don't even remember it happening. I thought he missed."

"We all thought he missed," Steve said grumpily. He was leaning against the wall on my right, halfway between my bed and the door, probably in case he got annoyed with me and wanted to leave quickly.

"Glory Pony, you had us worried," Two-Bit said as he sat in the chair on my right. Even though I was awake and talking, it looked like Two-Bit was still worried about me. "You were bleeding, then you got real pale and just blacked out on us. We didn't know what was wrong."

I remembered a little bit about being in the truck bed and feeling kind of funny and lightheaded, but I didn't remember much after that. "I didn't know what was wrong either," I muttered.

"Next time, try not to piss off the Soc that brought weapons to a rumble," Steve snarked.

"It ain't like I tried," I started, but then Steve's words reminded me of something far more important that arguing with Steve Randle. "Darry and Soda… has anyone heard anything?"

Only Two-Bit replied, but uncharacteristically, he was struggling to speak. "No, we haven't heard anything."

Horrible memories flashed through my head. Soda shoving me away, only to get stabbed himself. Darry tackling the Soc and getting shot because of it. Both of my brothers lying on the truck bed, clinging to life. Dally yelling at Darry and Steve yelling at Soda. What if they don't make it? What if my brothers are gone?

I was suddenly aware my eyes were becoming filled with tears, and I furiously wiped them away with my right hand, which made the inside of my elbow hurt from pinching the spot where the IV was attached to me. Don't think like that. They're alive until someone tells me otherwise.

"That's probably a good thing, right?" Johnny's soft voice boomed in the otherwise quiet room. We all looked at him, and even though I knew the attention made him nervous, he spoke a little louder. "They would've told us something by now if it wasn't good."

I was about to agree with Johnny and thank him for his optimism, but there was a knock on the door, and a voice asked, "Family of Darrel and Sodapop Curtis?"