Sodapop Curtis walked through the front door, heaving out a long sigh as he closed the door, calling out a forlorn, "I'm home!" even though he knew no one was there to answer. No one but him would ever be there again, after all.

Soda kicked off his shoes by the doorway. He hated shoes. Since he was little, they always made him feel confined to some high social society that didn't give a shit if you were happy or miserable, dead, or alive, just as long as you fit their standard of 'correct'. He stretched a little, shrugging off his heavy winter jacket and throwing it at the couch, even though he knew it would miss. Again. He walked sluggishly into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of milk, even though he knew he wouldn't drink it.

All of this was a long repeated pattern that had started when he was a little kid, and had followed him to this day, even though he was twenty-six as of a week ago. He still loved chocolate cake and coke, he still worked at the gas station, and still lived in his little, old house...The only difference was everything else in the world.

Soda shuddered, No, no, he caught himself, don't think like that, just go over to the lot and see if you can find Johnny-

Soda swallowed hard as he remembered: he couldn't do that. Johnny died ten years ago...Don't thank about that, Soda! His breathing was getting more ragged, go on down to Buck Merrel's and maybe you an find Dally, and-

There was a moment of silence and Soda held onto his glass tighter, until his hand quivered with the force. Dally...Dally had died the night Johnny did. Dead before morning came. He couldn't live without Johnny...

Soda sighed shakily, feeling scarily unsteady. He'd just...he'd just go talk to Pony. Hear about Pony's life. Do something like-

No...Pony had gone off to college years ago and never dared come back and get sucked back into this never-ending hell-world. He had never called. Never written a letter. He had stopped caring...

That was it. Soda lost his control at that. He screamed, a loud, echoing noise that rang through every nook and cranny of this god-forsaken house.

This wasn't how his story was supposed to go! He was the one who loved living! Why couldn't he even bear to look at the life he lived anymore? Why had he stayed in this house for so long...? First...Johnny and Dally, that what started it. Johnny died and Dally couldn't take it, so he died, too. They went as lovers would go, like in the stories in the news where an old man and woman are so in love that one died only a few days after the other and it makes you say, "Aww, it was love," But, you know what people said about Dally and Johnny? Shit. They were only connected as JDs. Johnny was a hood, so it was God killing him, even if he was a hero. That's what they said! And Dally was just gone, and no one was sorry. People celebrated it!

Then...Then the group somehow managed a few more years. Barely able stick together with two of us gone forever. God, maybe it would have been different with Johnny and Dally back, Soda didn't know. But, then...Pony got a scholarship for track, somewhere far away, across the country. Soda had let him go. He wanted Pony to be happy, and he could try to get along without his dear little brother.

He was stupid to think it would all be okay. He should've known that Darry was a bird, and Pony had been his cage. Darry only stayed for Pony, and that was where Pony had always been wrong, Soda guessed. Darry loved Pony more than he could ever love Soda. Pony was his baby brother. Pony was Darry's child. Darry lived the stupid, poor life that he did for Pony to grow up right. Not Soda.

So Darry had left Sodapop with the house and a shit job at a gas station, expected to be able to get along on his own. Soda had begged Darry to stay. Soda had pleaded and screamed, they were already missing Pony and Johnny and Dally, Darry couldn't go, too! Darry had only made one offer, "Come with me, then, Sodapop. Don't be stupid."

...But Soda couldn't. He had always lived in Tulsa. He always would. This was where the gang was, where Two-Bit and Steve was...He couldn't leave all of these memories! They would fade, just like Mom and Dad's did!

But, Darry was already gone, gone like he had never been there to begin with. He left Soda without a second thought because Soda wasn't Darry's baby brother, and he owed no favors, so only two years after Pony left, so did Darry. Finally free, that damned bird.

Soda had been stricken. The group was crumbling like ancient Rome, falling apart until everything faded to black and no one remembered. Soda heard that Pony had a book out by now. Was that it, though? A record of all of the bad times? A show of what a shitty life Greasers will always have, because Greasers are hoods and hoods deserve pain. That's not what should be remembered.

But, that was the truth.

Soda kept muttering things like that, and Two-Bit and Steve were always by his side, consoling him. They wouldn't leave him ever, is what they promised. Good ol' Two-Bit...His old buddy Steve...They hardly left his side, for about a year. They became his brothers. They wouldn't leave him. All they had left of the past was each other, after all.

They were pretty much the same, Soda was a little darker, Steve a little more bitter, and Two-Bit drank a little more. They thought nothing of it, caught up in grasping at those golden grains of the past's sand, not realizing that they were still slipping through their fingers.

Until the unthinkable happened. Something that wouldn't, shouldn't and couldn't happen, did. Not a year and a half later, Keith "Two-Bit" Mathews died in the middle of the night, he had just left the Curtis house, telling Steve and Soda he'd be back later. Drank himself to death, is what the doctors said, it might have been intentional, but it might have just been that he was a Greaser drunk.

...Two-Bit drank himself to death...

Soda sobbed, after that, Steve had changed. He had hardened and became more and more bitter until, when Soda looked at him, all he saw was Dallas Winston. Old Dally, cold, uncaring and full of bullet holes.

It hadn't taken a year before Steve had started hanging around with Buck and Tim and soon enough, Soda and Steve despised each other...Or, Steve despised Soda, anyway. He quit his job at the gas station, saying, just like Dally used to, what a damned stupid job it was, leaving Soda to work alone...and live alone.

Soda threw his untouched glass of chocolate milk at the clock, trying to force it to turn back time, but watching as the glass shattered, some digging into the skin on his arms and face. He didn't care. He wanted everyone back. He wanted the good times back.

He suddenly didn't know where he was going, he just had to go somewhere. He was running, full force. He may have run out of breath a couple times, but he couldn't tell, he was trapped in memories.

Why was he the only one who hadn't moved on or died...? Why did everyone else have a life? Why did Sandy have to leave...What if...What if they could have made a life together?

Soda couldn't think, Soda couldn't breathe, Soda just found himself back at home. and could only see that old clock in the kitchen that would never stop turning, and everyone who had left him behind.

Time didn't stop for them, and it never would. Soda could make time stop, though, if not for anyone else, then for himself. He wouldn't live the same ritual, not ever again.

OoooOoooO

Darry looked back at Ponyboy and Steve, "Thanks for coming along, Steve. This'll mean a lot to Soda, I just know it."

Steve kept his eyes on the ground, feeling guiltier and guiltier the closer they got to the Curtis house, "I hope so, Darry. I hope he won't hold this against me...I wasn't me, for a while...But, a few weeks ago, when Tim died...just like Dally...I figured it would be me next if I didn't try to enjoy life and soften up. I'm just awful sorry I had to fight with Soda before I could realize that. He's been takin' the fact that ya'll are gone awful rough, an' I just left him..." Steve looked up and beamed, "But, y'know, I think when he sees ya, he'll be so happy he might wise up and high-tail it outta this damned town."

Pony grinned, excited, "I hope so. I've really missed Soda, and I want him to know I'm getting married! Plus, I doubt he even remembered his birthday was last week, so he'll be thrilled we did."

Steve chuckled, "He really will. He thinks you two have forgotten him. Have forgotten us."

Darry shook his head, "Never. Soda just had a hard time letting go of everything, and with Two-Bit gone...I'm sorry we didn't come earlier."

Ponyboy groaned impatiently, "Then, let's go!" he ran up to Soda's door, and waited for Darry and Steve to get over. "Ready?" he asked eagerly, nearly jumping with excitement.

They found Soda's shoes by the door, his jacket thrown near the couch, the spilled chocolate milk and broken glass in the kitchen, blood and a limp body, where Soda had finally stopped time for himself, once and for all.

Ponyboy barely remembered Johnny saying how much blood there was in people.

And, in the corner of the room, the clock ticked on.

A/N: Somehow, I see Soda as the one who wouldn't be able to move on, out of the brothers. It said that Darry and Pony would get out, but what of Soda...?

Sorry for the angst :D