Disclaimer- I do not own The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton does. Enjoy!

Chapter 1. Gaps Within

"Mr. Curtis!"

Ponyboy immediately jumped at his name and could already feel the heat crawling up his face as the peers around him started to laugh.

"Yes?" he tried to keep his voice composed, but he could hear the embarrassment in his own voice, which only made the heat in his face worse.

"What's the answer?" Mrs. Trill all but demanded, her manicured fingers tapping testily against her crossed forearms. She already knew that he didn't know, so why even bother? Sometimes Ponyboy liked to believe that teachers just like to indulge in shaming their students.

"I-I don't know, Mrs. Trill." He answered meekly as another round of students started to laugh.

"Then it would be best that you pay attention, Mr. Curtis." Ponyboy nodded mutely as he shrank a little deeper into his seat. Mrs. Trill immediately settled the class with a slap of the ruler against the whiteboard, though some snickers still persisted.

This was the third teacher in the past two weeks that scolded him for slipping off into the clouds. He better get his head screwed on more tightly before they decide to report this to Darry. He sighed silently as the attention was shifted away from him and back to Mrs. Trill as she continued on with lecture with an extra bounce of authority in her voice.

A few of the snickering socs were eyeing him while making cut throat motions with their fingers. He tried to ignore them the best he could, but it was hard when they were sitting so close and throwing spitballs at him.

Pony propped his textbook up vertically to avoid everybody's gaze for the rest of the period.

"You sure are taking a lot of those lately."

Ponyboy jumped at the voice. It seems like he's been jumping a lot lately. He turned to Soda who was now fully leaning against the kitchen counter.

"Hey, Soda. I didn't hear you come home."

"Hmm," Soda's nodded toward Pony's hand. Pony stared down at his own palm and immediately closed his palm around the aspirin, almost as if Soda couldn't see it, then he would forget about it. "Didn't you take some this morning?"

"It's nothing, Soda." Pony assured. Soda passed him his glass of water as Pony took the aspirin. "And I only took one this morning."

"You not getting sick, are you?" Soda reached out to feel his forehead, but Pony evaded the intruding hand.

"I'm fine, Soda." he sighed. "I've been working on this project for school and it's stressing me out a bit."

Soda frowned slightly at that. "So you take aspirin?"

"I get headaches."

"I don't remember you getting so many headaches from school before."

Pony smiled as he filled up his glass with more water. "That was before I had Mrs. Trill for Biology."

Soda laughed as he ruffled Pony's hair fondly. "I think I heard of her before. Maybe I should pay her a visit and charm her up. The ladies love me, you know."

Before Pony could say anything, the front door ricochets open with a fuming Steve yelling for Soda and saying how the new employee at the DX, Eric apparently, had screwed up big time on somebody's car. Soda left him to go to the living room where Steve was complaining about how he had to clean up Eric's mess and how idiotic their boss was.

Pony watched them for a moment, before turning back to the kitchen.

He made sure that Soda's attention was occupied, before he shook out three more aspirins and swallowed them dry.

Rubbing his head, Pony went to rest in bed before dinner started. He collapsed onto the creaky, old bed with a sigh. He practically finished his project two weeks ago, and was now in the stages of just reviewing it and setting in the final touches, and yet his headaches still persisted.

Pony squinted his eyes as his vision blurred for a second.

Was it him or were his headaches getting worse?

"Shit, you're bleeding real bad, kid." Pony blinked owlishly at Two-Bit as Two-Bit turned to Steve who was staring at him hard. "Steve, you got a handkerchief?"

"What?" Pony looked around and noted that he was in the school bathroom. When did he get here? His head felt fuzzy as if he just woke up from an overdue nap.

Steve produced an old rag from his back pocket that Pony seen Steve use a lot at the DX. Instead of offering it to Two-Bit, he came forth and pressed it directly on Pony's forehead himself. Pony immediately winced and tried to pull back, but Steve kept on pressing.

"Hold still, kid," Steve demanded gruffly.

"You don't have to be so rough with him," Two-Bit scolded lightly as he took a few step closers to look. "Is it getting better?"

Steve just shrugged.

"What are you two doing?" Pony reached up to try to push Steve's arm away, but Two-Bit stopped him with a hold on his wrist.

"What do you think, smartass?" Steve took the rag away to see if the bleeding had lightened up some.

Pony's arm shot out quickly as he caught sight of the now stained rag. Steve looked surprised at the sudden quick movement and stopped. Pony held the rag in his hand deftly and touched the red wetness. The copper scent that filled his nose made him want to gag.

"Is that blood? My blood?" he squeezed the rag, and felt some of the blood run down his arms. "What happened?"

Steve and Two-Bit suddenly looked worried.

"That's not funny, kid." Steve's voice sounded angry, but his eyes looked scared. Steve carefully took the rag back and suddenly looked unsure as to whether to keep on pressing the wound. Instead, he just stared which unnerved Pony.

"They must have banged your head harder than we thought," Two-Bit took another step closer and grabbed his arm. His other arm reached out to touch Pony's head but seemed to think better of it and left it to drift awkwardly at Pony's side. "You didn't get a concussion did you?"

"Concussion?" Pony rubbed his head, trying hard to remember what happened. He could have sworn he was at his locker packing his books to take home and then...blank, emptiness, that's it. He couldn't remember anything after that.

Two-Bit turned to Steve who was now washing the bloody rag in the sink. "Should we take him to the hospital?"

Steve rubbed his face tiredly. "It didn't seem like they banged his head hard enough for a concussion, but," Steve's eyes slid over to Pony who was still looking confused. "Do you feel off or anything, kid?"

"No, I'm fine,"

"Do you feel like you're going to vomit? Or does your head hurt real bad?" Two-Bit jumped in.

"I'm good." Pony shook his head as he moved toward the bathroom mirror and looked at himself.

"Do you really not remember what happened? None of it?"

Pony ignored the question, and studied himself instead. The corner of his forehead had two nice cuts running across it. Pony had enough experience with bullying socs to recognize a head-bashing-to-locker wound when he saw one. Considering his last memory was one that involved him being at a locker, he decided to venture a guess. "They hit my head against a locker?"

Based on the visibly relieved expression on Steve and Two-Bit's face, he assumed he guessed right. They were apparently so relieved at the thought that he had remembered the events that transpired that they didn't notice that he had phrased it as a question instead of a statement. But Pony didn't want to correct them at the fear of having to go to the hospital.

"Golly, you scared me there, Pone," Two-Bit was back to all smiles now. Two-Bit took the rag out of Steve's limp grip and proceeded to wring out the water from the rag and gently dabbed it against the younger's still bleeding forehead. "Thought they messed up your head really bad for a sec."

"Do you remember who did it?" Steve asked, still somewhat suspicious while his eyes studied Pony intently.

He didn't. Of course, he didn't. He couldn't even remember the event much less who did it. But they didn't need to know that.

Somewhat snarkily, he said, "I was kind of too busy holding my bleeding head to notice."

Two-Bit laughed good naturedly, while Steve snorted but he could see a ghost of a smile playing on his lips as the tenseness in his shoulders disappeared.

"Whatever, kid." Deciding that if Pony was well enough to be smart with him, then he should be fine. "We beat their faces in for you." and just because he wanted to return the snarkiness, he added, "You're welcome."

Two-Bit grinned at that. "We sure did. They sure as hell won't be messing with you anymore." Two-Bit showed him his slightly red knuckles as if it was a trophy to be admired. "Gave one of them a bloody nose."

"Thanks." Pony smiled slightly at that.

After spending another ten minutes in the restroom, Two-Bit grabbed his arm and guided him to Steve's car since he kept on stumbling.

All the way home, they joked on how Socs were probably going to be too embarrassed to come to school tomorrow and how Darry and Soda are going to have a fit once they caught sight of Pony's new shiner.

But under all those smiles, Pony couldn't help, but worry why he couldn't seem to remember the whole event.

Then again, it was normal to have gaps in one's memory every now and then, especially when you bang your head against a locker, right?

"What the hell happened to him?" There was a hand in his hair for a few seconds before it lifted away. Pony scrunched his eyes tighter, trying to block out all the voices.

He was so tired.

"What does it look like?" Steve asked as he popped his knuckles and looked toward the kitchen. "Two-Bit get me a beer too."

There was a distracted grunt from the kitchen and the sound of the fridge opening.

"Looks like the kid got his head slammed."

"Well, there's your answer."

"Darry should just home school the kid." Dally snorted lowly as he threw himself in Darry's chair and inclined it as far back as he could. After a moment, he said in a somewhat offhanded manner, "Who did it?"

Steve shrugged. "We took care of it already."

Dally nodded curtly at that and eyed Pony's sleeping figure. "How long has he been out?"

Two-Bit came into the living room and threw a beer at Steve and Dally before settling down on the floor with a chocolate cake. Two-Bit leaned his back against the bottom of the couch. "He fell asleep after an hour from getting home." Two-Bit looked at the clock. "So, uh, hour and half already. He seemed okay, no concussion."

Dally swung around his chair and kicked the base of the couch that Pony was sleeping on.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked, but neither Two-Bit or him moved to stop the action.

"Checking to make sure he's alive." Dally did another hard kick. "Shit, kid, wake up."

Pony groaned groggily and swatted blindly at Dally's kicking feet. "What?"

Dally must have been satisfied with the verbal response. "Nothing. Go back to sleep."

Pony shifted around the couch as Dally threw a blanket that was on the floor haphazardly on him. It landed on his head with a soft thump.

Pony groped at the blanket mindlessly and tried to straighten it along himself without much success. Two-Bit sighed before leaning over and rearranging the blanket along Pony's body and gave him a pat on the leg when he was done.

Pony was starting to drift off again when he heard Two-Bit's voice come out in a hush undertone. "The kid scared me earlier."

"Yeah?" Dally guzzled his beer before tipping it back to get to last remnants. "What did he do?"

"He said he couldn't remember what happened."

Pony unconsciously fisted the blanket closer to his chest, but none of them seemed to have noticed the action. He was still bothered by that.

Steve snorted. "He was just messing with us, Two-Bit."

He wasn't.

"Pony doesn't mess around like that." Two-Bit frowned slightly and pointedly looked at Steve. "You looked pretty worried yourself."

Steve almost sounded affronted. "I was not."

Two-Bit snorted at that.

"Shut up," Dally said nonchalantly. "He got his damn head on straight now so who cares."

But he didn't…

And that scared him.

A/N: Hi, guys! Long time, right? To those of you who know me, sorry for being out of the writing world for so long. And I bet some of you are like, "She didn't even finish her other fics and she's starting another one. The audacity!" Haha. I know, and I'm really sorry about that. Life has just been kind of tough. If it's any comfort, I have not given up on any of my stories – they're my babies (at least until I do decide to give up on them). ^^

Anyway, I just kind of had this idea floating around in my head for like the past two weeks and I thought "Whatever. Let's just write it and see what happens."

I haven't written in so long. My writing is so rusty and it took me a lot longer than it used to. I usually like my chapters at least 3000 words, but I just couldn't manage this time. So I'm sorry for the short chapter, guys.

I'm also still deciding on whether or not Pony is going to die in this fic or not. What do you think?

What do you think? You like? You hate? Want to vomit?

Anyway, please R&R. Reviews inspire me and make me happy. No flames, please. Constructive criticism is welcomed.

7.2.17