[A/N]

So I made some mistakes considering school and stuff in the first story. The Basement took place in mid-January in case I failed to mention that before.

Here are the birthday's of the greasers, released by S. E. Hinton:

Darry: January 5
Two-Bit: June 20
Dallas: November 9
Steve: April 15
Sodapop: October 8
Johnny: March 1
Ponyboy: July 22

The ages for the previous story should've been, if they weren't:

Darry: 20
Two-Bit: 17 (Would turn 18 in the summer)
Dallas: 17
Steve: 16 (Would turn 17 in April)
Sodapop: 16
Johnny: 15 (Would turn 16 in March)
Ponyboy: 13 (Would turn 14 in the summer)

The ages for the beginning of this story are:

Darry: 20
Two-Bit: 18
Dallas: 17-going-on-18
Steve: 17
Sodapop: 17
Johnny: 16
Ponyboy: 14

This story takes place about nine months after The Basement, so it'll be set around mid-October (About nine months, not exactly. About nine and a half months after The Basement). (He had been home since January but was found in December since he had stayed a few weeks in the hospital before going home. I don't think I made this clear so I'm sorry for any confusion. I forgot this detail myself). Sodapop's birthday was a couple of weeks before this story started. Dally's birthday will occur during the story but it won't be mentioned until later (You'll see why).

Also, I made some mistakes with the grades in school. Ponyboy'sgirlfriend pointed out that the high school the boys attend was 10-12, not 9-12. I haven't done my own research on this but I'll take her word for it. So I had to change the grades the boys were in a little bit.

The grades they should have been in in The Basement are:

Two-Bit: Junior
Steve: Sophomore
Sodapop: Sophomore
Johnny: Ninth grade
Ponyboy: Ninth grade

Johnny and Ponyboy were supposed to go to a separate school since they were in middle school and not high school. I won't go back to the previous story and change it but just know that in the first story, Johnny and Ponyboy were supposed to be in a separate school from everybody else.

The grades they are in in this story are:

Two-Bit: Junior (Same as The Outsiders. He's a Junior for the second time)
Steve: Junior
Sodapop: Dropped out (I didn't write about him dropping out. It happened during the nine months between the two stories)
Johnny: Sophomore
Ponyboy: Sophomore

I hope this clears most things up. Sorry for any confusion this might have caused you. I try to be accurate with my information but sometimes I am wrong. If I made things even more confusing (which I honestly probably did) just ask and I'll clarify. Now on to the story. It's going to start off in Two-Bit's POV but for the most part, it's going to be in Ponyboy's POV, just like the previous story. (Like I mentioned, the story starts about mid-October which is ABOUT a month after The Outsiders book took place, even though the events didn't happen in this story).

***Two-Bit's POV***

I didn't think I would ever understand the kid's love for running. He was locked in a basement for nine years and the first thing he found a true love for was running. Sure, he loved other things. He loved his stuffed dog, Scruffy. He loved reading books and he sure loved learning in school. He loved his brothers and the gang. He rarely openly said his love but it was visible in his eyes. His eyes may have been mostly fearful but I could usually see the underlying love hidden deep in them. There was sadness there, too. Sadness and pain. It didn't go unnoticed by anybody in the gang.

I watched him round the corner on the track and I sighed in boredom. I hated gym class because my gym teacher happened to also be the track coach. The beginning of class was always full of running, whether we wanted to or not. We all had to put in a full effort every single time we ran or else we had points deducted from our grade. I didn't care about the grade, to be honest. When it was my turn to run, though, I ran as hard as I could. I did it more for Ponyboy than for my grade. I knew he felt alone knowing that he was the only person in our gang who cared much about stuff like that. I didn't want him feeling more alone than he already did, so I did my best to put him at ease. I would try to convince the coach to let me race against my buddy. He let me for the most part because it got me to participate. When me and him raced each other, he would look back at me with a huge grin on his face. That was really something.

Ponyboy was just such a fast kid. Running came easily for him. He wouldn't get winded as easily as the rest of us and when he did get winded, he pushed himself harder to meet his own goal. Nobody had ever beat him in a race once he really got started. At first, when he first started running, he wasn't the fastest by no means. But he got faster quickly and without much practice. Within a couple of weeks, the coach asked him to be on the team. Everybody agreed that he should do that if that's what he wanted to do. He never lost a match.

"Let's go, Curtis!" the coach shouted, bringing me out of my thoughts. I looked back up at track and saw that Ponyboy was losing speed. I sat up straighter, ready to jump over the bottom of the bleachers in order to get there quicker. I had been sitting on the opposite side of the track on the bleachers waiting for my turn. Not to mention coach benched me for being too loud and obnoxious to Pony. I was poking him and cracking jokes. He didn't mind but the coach said that I was too big of a distraction. The coach was pairing Ponyboy with another fast kid in order to push him for the big track meet that was coming up. That's another reason why I wasn't paired with him for the day.

When his opponent passed Ponyboy, I was up on my feet and running across the field to make it to the other side faster. I watched him stumble as he slowed down to a jog. Then he stopped altogether and leaned over into the grass, throwing up. Everybody started to surround him and I ran faster, knowing that he would not appreciate being crowded. He wouldn't want anybody in class or even the coach to be near him. I knew he would rather me be there. We were buddies.

"Don't touch me!" Ponyboy gasped out when Coach put his hand on his shoulder. He had lost his balance and fell to his hands and knees, still emptying his stomach. I knew he was probably close to a panic attack. He usually got close to one when he was crowded. Or intimidated. It's very intimidating to be that vulnerable with a large group surrounding you.

I would normally have been winded after that sprint but I was too worried about the kid to feel the full sting. "Get back!" I snapped, pushing the other students aside. I walked up to Ponyboy and knelt down beside him, pushing the Coach's hand off. I took a good look at my friend's face. He looked so young and scared. He always did but it was worse at that moment. I knew he wasn't in good shape. "Pone?"

"Is he okay?" Coach asked, looking directly at me. Everybody knew about what happened to Ponyboy and how protective the gang was of him. They knew that we would know everything that was going on and that we could understand the kid. There's been a couple of times that one of us were called down to help the kid if something was going on. More than a couple.

"Probably just sick," I mumbled and told them all that he didn't like being crowded in an attempt to get everybody to back up. It didn't work. I moved so I was sitting down next to the kid instead of kneeling beside him. "Hey, kid. It's Two-Bit."

He looked up at me with pained eyes once he finished throwing up. "It hurts, Two," he whispered, sounding so sad and vulnerable. I guess he was. He was on his hands and knees on the track having just thrown up with a whole group of people around him. If that doesn't say vulnerable, I don't know what does.

"I know it hurts, kid," I said, gingerly putting my hand on his back. I was both delighted and surprised that he didn't flinch but I wasn't going to complain. "We'll get you to the nurse and Darry'll pick you up." He pushed himself closer to me so that his head was on my arm. In the nine months that he had been back, he hadn't gotten any better in most areas. He ate more and his eyes weren't as sensitive but he still barely spoke and he flinched at nearly every noise and physical contact. To say that I was shocked that he pushed himself closer to me would be an understatement.

"I'm dizzy...I don't think I can get up."

If there was one thing everybody knew about the kid, it's that that kid never spoke up. He didn't tell anybody when something wasn't okay or when something was bothering him. He wouldn't say he was sad or scared. He wouldn't talk about his nightmares or flashbacks. He wouldn't open up about his thoughts. We didn't know what made him angry, if anything did. We didn't know if he was ever happy. We didn't know if anything was ever wrong as opposed to normal. It was serious if he spoke up. He would talk to Sodapop and Johnny sometimes and, surprisingly, Dallas. I don't know what he said to Dallas but I knew it had to be something. He was vague with Johnny and Sodapop. He would say he had a nightmare or had a flashback but he wouldn't say what any of it was about.

"I'll carry ya, kiddo," I said and waited him to give me consent to pick him up. He nodded so I knew it was okay. I wrapped my arm behind his back and under his knees to pick him up. He wrapped his arms around my neck and laid his head on my shoulder. I noticed how warm he felt. His entire body was burning up. "You got a fever, kid?" I asked as I carried him off of the field, ignoring the stares of everybody around us.

"Sorry," he whispered, shutting his eyes. He probably knew that he had a fever and that was why he was apologizing. He didn't normally do things that we told him not to. If we told him to make sure he ate, he did. If we told him to work on his homework, he did. We hated that he was so obedient unlike normal teenagers but at the same time it wasn't like we were asking him to do anything serious. Eat, sleep, homework. That was mainly all we asked of him. We never commanded him to tell us what was on his mind because we didn't think that was fair. What we did ask of him, though, was to tell us if he was sick. If it was anybody else, I would've scolded him for not telling anybody. I couldn't do that to him, though. Instead I only pulled him closer to my chest. He was like everybody's kid brother, not just Darry and Soda's.

"You look like shit, kid," I said, trying to lighten the mood a little. He liked when we would joke about things and be brutally honest with each other. I think he just found comfort in the fact that that's normal for us.

"Always the charmer," he mumbled and I grinned. We all loved when he would get like that. He could talk back a lot sometimes. Never in a bad way, though. I don't think he ever talked back with attitude. He could get sassy sometimes.

"Gettin' mouthy on me?"

"It's impossible not to."

He almost seemed like a normal kid to me which was a nice change. I knew he wasn't a kid anymore. I didn't know him when he was a kid. He was already fourteen. But he still reminded me of a kid. To witness Ponyboy getting mouthy or something like that was like witnessing a baby's first words. But sometimes - most of the time - it was one step forward and two steps back. This wasn't going to be any different.

"You seem to be feelin' better already," I chuckled, knowing he wasn't but trying to get him to keep going. I knew he wouldn't be joking for long and I was right. His body started shaking worse than it had been so my grin fell. "You okay, kid?"

"I'm gonna throw up again, Two," he whined, squirming to get out of my arms. I gently lowered him to his feet and held onto him as he wrapped his arms around his stomach, throwing up. He was throwing up worse than he had been before and he was basically dead weight in my arms. I tried my best to rub his back while I held him up to try to ease him a little bit. When he was done throwing up, he leaned back against my body. I rocked him side to side slowly, hoping to calm him down. His breathing was heavy and I didn't want him to start panicking. It'd make him more sick.

"Get it all out, kiddo?" I asked when his breathing slowed, making my voice as soft as I could so I didn't scare him.

"Yeah," he whispered. His body got a little heavier and his head fell back against my shoulder. Without looking at his face, I knew he had passed out.

"Glory, kid," I mumbled, picking him back up. I jogged the rest of the way to the nurse. I just wanted it all to end because he was getting worse. I was worried. He seemed off. I wondered about what could've been making him act differently. I could tell by the far-off look in his eyes that something was really wrong. I wondered if he was on drugs or if he was drinking but I couldn't tell. I didn't smell any alcohol on him but that didn't rule out drugs. But I knew the kid wouldn't go back to that. He expressed his hate for them once. He was on drugs while he was in the basement and I knew it had left a bad effect on him.

I just wanted the kid okay. He was suffering so much and nobody knew how to help him. We tried everything we could think of but he was holding things back from us. Those bastards had taken away his childhood and we were worried they took away his life as well. He had been through so much and I was shocked as to how he was still breathing. I would've ended it if I were him. I'm so glad he didn't but that didn't take away the worry. How could he handle all the pain that he had been through? Hell, even I considered ending myself and I went through nothing compared to him. I never realized how selfish I was for even considering that. So what, my dad left my family. I grew up poor and got jumped a lot before I got tough. I still got jumped but at least I could hold my own. I lost people who came and went in my life. I had to grow up before my time just to help raise my kid sister. I turned into a giant jokester and a drinker in order to deal with the pain. I went through a lot and I knew that. But I also knew I didn't go through as much as many of my other friends.

Darry and Sodapop grew up without their youngest brother who had been kidnapped. That alone was horrible. Then right after they got their broken brother back, they lost their parents for good. There was no chance they'd come back. Steve's mom wasn't in the picture and his dad kicked him out constantly. He threw him out and he beat on him. Steve didn't just take the beatings but I knew that was probably the reason he became such a hateful person. Steve dealt with all his pain with hate. He watched his best friend suffer for years and he suffered himself when his mother walked out on them and his dad started drinking. Dallas' mom died when he was young and he grew up on the rough side of New York in different gangs. He got arrested at such a young age and his father really couldn't care less about him. He was as cold and heartless as it got and yet I knew there was something deep within him. He was hurting but I don't think he even admitted that to himself. Johnny, well, it wasn't a secret that he was hurting. He didn't feel ashamed to let the gang know that he was hurt that his parents didn't care about him. He tried to get them to love him even though we all told him it was pointless. His parents were bad people and that's how they were going to remain. His mom ignored him unless she was screaming at him. His dad beat him nearly everyday and the beatings could get vicious. Then he always had the Socials on his case because he was smaller and quieter than other greasers. He had given up hope more than a few times but the gang has always been there to pick him back up. But Ponyboy. He was a different case. It would take me hours to talk about what he's been through. It was horrible.

I had no right to even consider ending it. I had it better than anybody else in the gang. I lost my dad, sure, but he was still alive. I had my mom and I had my kid sister. My friends were better than anybody could ever ask for. I was loved. I made people smile. I had as much as I could ever want. I loved my life. I had no reason to ever even think about hating it. All I ever wanted to do with my life was to make people laugh and that's what I did every single day. I had all the support in the world. I was a hood yet my mom still loved me as if I was her innocent little baby I was at three years old. My kid sister looked up to me like I was her father instead of our actual dad. Sure, I drank a lot and I stole things but I was the best influence on her. I kept her motivated. I had my family happy and I kept my friends moving.

I had the best life a guy could ever want. I smiled to myself as I stared down at my unconscious friend. "We'll help you yet, kid," I whispered, rubbing his arm lightly. "I've never given up on anythin' before and I sure as hell ain't quittin' now."