*Disclaimer: I DO NOT own TheOutsiders in any way. The lovely S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders - not me :(

A/N: Okay so this was actually based off a dream I had one night and I thought it might be the start of possibly good fanfic. I have a few ideas for how the story's gonna go but if you have any suggestions, let me know :) PleaseR&R :)

Chapter One - Why Me?

Pony's POV

I could hardly walk, let alone stand. I felt like I was going to die. Actually, I really wanted to at that point. Every step I took, felt like I was about to fall. Those… Those Socs… I can't believe what they did. They might as well have just killed me right there and then. They almost did, it seems. But, they apparently didn't want to be arrested for murder. Not that anyone would know it was them. They would have gotten away either way. I just wished that it never would have happened.

I probably looked horrible, just by the way I felt. I could feel blood slowly moving down my chest, as well as my face and legs. There seemed to be smaller cuts along my arms because the burning was there as well, but I didn't feel any blood moving down my arms. I only had half of a block left now to my house, but I felt like I couldn't make it. I just wanted to lay there and die. I just kept thinking that, over and over in my head. 'Why me?' I asked myself, questioning everything that just happened.

As I slowly made my way onto the porch, I could hear Darry talking to Dally and Johnny. Two-Bit was most likely glued to the T.V. and I could hear Steve getting mad at Soda for cheating at a game of poker. Like usual. I just sat down on the porch, though, for a while as the tears continued to fall. I couldn't stop them at this point. They just wouldn't stop. 'Just calm down,' I told myself. 'It's okay,' But thinking that just made me cry even harder. The truth was that it wasn't okay. I wasn't okay. I couldn't stand to think of what Darry and Soda would say or think if they found out what those Socs did. I couldn't tell them. They would hate me.

I eventually began to calm down, trying not to think about it. I stood up, gripping the wall for support, seeing as I was starting to feel dizzy. I took one quick breath, causing me to wince in pain, before opening the door. As soon as I walked into the living room, Darry shot out of his chair and I instantly knew he was mad.

"Where the hell have you- ," Darry yelled, but stopped as soon as I got further into the room. I must have looked worse than I thought, since Darry's eyes showed concern and sort of horror, while his face paled. "Ponyboy, w-what happened–?"

"S-Socs," I said shaking a little.

Soda came over and I suddenly felt like the walls were closing in on me. The longer I stood there, the more I felt like I was just going to collapse.

"Gosh, Pony, what'd they do to ya?" Soda asked in shock.

"What the hell were you doing out by yourself at this hour? Didn't I tell you before that you aren't supposed to be walkin' alone? Especially at this hour?" Darry questioned, ignoring Sodapop and focusing on me. I winced and started shaking as his concern started to fade back to anger.

I could feel everyone's eyes on me as I stood there, trying not to think about what just happened to me while my brothers were trying to break into those thoughts. 'Look it's baby Curtis.' 'All by himself with no big brothers to save him this time.' Their voices filled my head, getting louder and louder until I thought my head would explode.

"Pony?" Johnny asked, trying to get my attention after a few failed attempts from Dar and Soda.

My eyes widened as I came back from the battle in my head, turning my attention to my best friend who now stood in front of me, beside Sodapop. I suddenly felt like I was going to burst into tears again. The walls were still moving in on me. I moved forward trying to get around Johnny and towards the bathroom. He grabbed onto my arms trying to figure out what was wrong, but let go as I winced in pain from the touch. I then hurried around him and into the bathroom, locking the door as I finally reached it. I slowly slid against the wall to the floor once I knew the door was locked. My whole body was shaking violently as I lay there, with no control over what was happening. I honestly felt like dying right there and then. I wasn't concerned about anything else. But I somehow managed to stand up after what seemed like hours. I looked at myself in the mirror above the sink. I suddenly burst into tears as I saw how bad I really looked. There was a long cut from right underneath my eye to my jaw line that was burning like hell. Black and blue started to surface around my right eye from when I got punched down to the ground. My arms were all scratched up from the gravel and rocks, and blood was seeping through my old gray t-shirt. I carefully lifted it over my head to find long slash marks from a blade scattered across my chest as well as a few bruises. As I examined the damage across my chest even closer, I noticed a small letter cut into the center of my chest. The letter 's'. I instantly felt nauseous. I was covered from head to toe with bruises and cuts as well as a few other injuries, but this stuck out the most besides the other…horrible thing. I felt so violated and disgusting. I was supposed to be a greaser, not some piece of trash for the Socs to mess around with. How dare they do this? Why did this have to happen to me?

I broke down right there again and couldn't stop this time. The sobs shook me as I gripped onto the sink, trying to keep my balance. I couldn't think straight or think clearly as I stood there. Everything was just rushing at me and hitting me like a sledgehammer. Half of it wasn't even registering in my head and I didn't think it ever really would. I looked up again and tried to calm down as my breathing became strained from all of the crying. My eyes were now bloodshot and everything was blurry.

"Pony, are you okay?"

I could hear my brothers through the door and I knew I wouldn't be able to answer them, seeing that I could hardly breathe. "I can't let them know" I thought to myself. But as I thought that I realized that I couldn't stay in here forever, and I would most likely have to open the door soon or they'd break it down. And that would most likely lead to them finding out. "Can I just die now?" I barely whispered.

"Ponyboy?"

"Y-yeah…" I managed to say softly, regaining part of my voice, as I got closer to the door.

"Can you please open the door?" Soda asked softly.

Part of me wanted to just completely ignore what I was hearing and just die. But the other part was saying that I had to open the door, even though death plagued most of my mind. I just stood there, not able to move as I tried to pull myself together.

"J-just a sec." What was I thinking?

I quickly pulled my t-shirt back over my head, causing me to hiss in pain. Wiping my eyes off I figured that I could go out there, try to avoid them, or something. Something had to work at this point and I had to figure out what that was real fast.

Opening the door, I came face to face with Darry and Soda. I started shaking as I stood in front of them, feeling so vulnerable and worthless. I avoided all eye contact with them as well, not wanting them to read my eyes, since I have been known to wear my heart on my sleeve at times, and I knew I would be right now.

"Pony, are you okay?" Soda asked getting closer to me.

My only response was shrugging my shoulders. I wasn't alright, but I don't think they'd understand if I said anything.

"Can you come and talk to us?" Darry asked, motioning towards the couch. Sirens immediately started going off in my head at this. He wanted me to talk about it in front of the whole gang. I could hardly get over the thought of it myself, so how the hell was I going to tell everyone else? I didn't even want anyone to know. Not even Sodapop.

"No," I whispered backing up a little, shaking my head. "I want to go to bed," I said, my voice breaking with every word.

As I looked at Soda, his eyes grew wide as he noticed the sound of my voice.

"Okay, Ponyboy. Come on, let's go."

I was followed into my room by Sodapop, leaving Darry in the living room with the rest of the gang. As I sat down on the bed, Soda shut the door behind him and sat down as well.

"You know you can talk to me about anything, right, Pone?"

"Y-yeah," I whispered. "I know…"

"You sure you're okay?'

I paused a moment. I have always been able to talk to Sodapop. Why couldn't I now. 'Because you're filthy and disgusting and not worth it,' my mind answered pathetically. But as I thought this I thought about how many times I had talked to Soda in the past and how he never told Darry about half of the stuff I said.

"No," I said quietly, still looking down.

"Talk to me, Pone."

I sighed, deciding I truly didn't want him to know, "It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

"Ponyboy that ain't true."

"Yeah it is!" I almost yelled, ending up in me gasping.

"Pony, what is it?"

Tears blurred my vision, but I tried my best to blink them away, "N-nothing, just...hurts."

"Hold on a sec," he said before getting up and walking out of the room.

'He better not be getting Darry,' I silently thought. But to my surprise he came back in, shutting the door, with the first aid kit.

"Can you at least let me clean those cuts up since you won't talk to me?"

I nodded.

He started wiping off the cut on my face and then moved to my arms. I hissed as he put some stuff on the cuts that was supposed to help 'em. It didn't feel like it was helping, though.

"Hey settle down, Ponyboy. It'll only sting for a little bit."

I tried to glare at him but failed to.

"Lift up your shirt, Pone."

My eyes widened and I slowly shook my head "no".

"You're bleeding pretty badly through your shirt, Pony. I have to clean it up before anything gets infected."

I pulled it up halfway and let him take care of those cuts, even if I felt so exposed.

"Pony," he said simply as he managed to pull my shirt up over my head quickly.

I started shaking when he did this and automatically crossed my arms.

"It's okay, Pony," he said softly. "I ain't gonna hurt you. No one's gonna hurt you no more."

I merely whimpered, loosening my death grip on my arms. Soda pulled my arms down a little so the rest of the cuts could be seen.

He looked at them for a minute before starting to clean them up. I knew what he had to be thinking when his eyes passed over 'their mark'. He probably thought I was so disgusting. I didn't want to hear what he had to say. No matter what he said I'd always know the truth.

He leaned back grabbing the tape to wrap my ribs as well as my ankle.

"Are there any other cuts, Pony?" he asked gently.

I just nodded my head, slowly.

"Where?"

I turned around so my back was facing him and the 'x' in the center of it was facing him as well.

"Oh, Ponyboy," he said sadly.

I looked down in shame as he started to clean and bandage it. 'You're just a piece of trash and will never be anything better.' 'This is all you're good for.' 'You're worthless.'

Tears were streaming down my face without me realizing until Soda spoke up.

"Anything else, Pone? …Ponyboy? Ponyboy?"

I looked up with tears still moving down my face when he came around and sat in front of me.

"Pony, it's okay, baby," he said reaching out and wrapping his arms around me. "Everything's gonna be okay."

I started crying pretty badly into his chest as he held me. I didn't feel okay. This was not okay. It wasn't going to be okay. I could tell. 'Never,' I silently thought, before the darkness started to fuzz around the edge of my vision and everything was starting to get blurry and dark… Just like I had expected it to.