A/N: Hey, guys! I was listening to a song and one part of it inspired me to write this, just a little oneshot. The Soda/Sandy dynamic really fascinates me. This is my second Soda/Sandy fic, and it kinda fits in with the other one. There are three parts: one where they're fourteen, the next when they're fifteen, and then the last when they're sixteen. My other fic, Lies Come Easy, could fit in after this. But this stands alone fine, too.
Disclaimers – Susie Hinton owns the Outsiders. Muse & their record label own the song Madness.
Madness
Yes, I know, I might be wrong
Maybe I'm too headstrong
But our love is...
Madness.
For the past week, she hasn't been able to take her eyes off him.
Not like the other girls, who all agree he's cute. No, they're shallow. Sandy sees him, really. Past his hair, his face, his clothes. She sees Sodapop Curtis, and she's not sure the rest of the girls do. She sees how nice he is, a gentleman, how he'd never hurt a girl he dated, unlike some of the other boys.
He's in her math class, a couple desks to the left. He always taps his pencil when the teacher is talking. Not as a distraction, not to annoy anyone. More like a habit. Lately, Sandy has been doing that, too. Not to copy him – simply because.
Today there's a test, and Sandy keeps stealing glances at him. Not for answers. In fact, she's sure the teacher has seen her look at him after specifically saying anyone who looked at another's paper would get a zero. She guesses the teacher thinks no one would bother to copy off of Soda's paper. Everyone thinks he's dumb, even the girls who think he's cute. Sandy knows they're wrong.
Maybe math isn't his forté; it isn't hers, either.
He chews on his lip, taps his pencil or his foot, looks up at the clock every so often. And she watches him, between each not-very-thought-out, scribbled answer.
She's decided something.
When the class is over...
The bell rings, and the teacher calls for the tests. Soda's last in line, and Sandy positions herself strategically in front of him. She's out of the room just before he is, and when he comes, she stops him.
"Hi, Soda," she says. She smiles.
"Hey." There's a smile from him, too. A brilliant one. No one can say he doesn't know how to carry himself around girls.
Best to start small. "Man, that test was hard."
"Sure was."
"I probably failed."
"Nah. But I did, that's for sure."
She's walking a little too close to him, and she can feel that he's pretending not to notice.
"The Nightly Double's open tomorrow." She drops him a hint.
Soda grins, all perfection and smugness that he's picked her up. "Sounds like a plan. See you at seven."
xxxxxx
There's a fleeting memory of their first date. The Nightly Double, roughly a year ago. It's sweet, but bittersweet now because she's holding Soda, and he's crying. Not sobbing; he's not a baby. But there are tears, and he's shaking, and she understands that.
His parents are dead, after all.
"You'll make it."
He shakes in response. She pulls him closer.
When he finally speaks, it's numbly. "I can't believe it. They're gone."
"I know, honey. I know." Soda's parents had to be the kindest people on Earth, save their middle son. They were always accepting of her. Let her stay over for dinner, let Soda out times they normally wouldn't because she wanted to do something with him.
"What the hell is going to happen to Ponyboy?"
It's a rhetorical question, so she doesn't answer it. But it bugs her. He never thinks of himself, only of his brothers.
"They're gonna put him in a boys' home, damn it." There he goes again, ignoring his own welfare.
"No, they're not, baby. Darry's fighting for him, for you, you know that."
"If he doesn't win?"
Sandy sighs and kisses him. "He will."
Finally she has his walls broken down, his resolve. Now he kisses her with ferocity, and his lips are salty from his tears. But it's Soda, and so she likes that. This is how it should be; herself and Soda, together. Bodies intertwined, indistinguishable.
God, she loves him.
xxxxxx
Sandy threw-up this morning.
She's pregnant.
Her fingers trace her stomach, where there's a baby inside of her. Not Soda's – she wishes it was Soda's, even though she doesn't regret going behind him for the other man. The other man was truly a man. Soda needed to grow up.
Don't get her wrong – Soda was sweet. Soda was handsome, and beautiful, and kind, and he always put her first. Soda would never have wronged her. But he was too perfect, and she found herself wanting more.
So she found her other man, and he gave her what Soda couldn't. Fights. Harsh words. Desperation when they were together. A little pain from when they made love; when she did with Soda, it felt too good.
There's only the slightest bit of guilt at two-timing him, and she chases it away.
Because she does love Soda, in a way, and she can't let herself remember that.
She forgets all the times at the Nightly Double, all the kisses they've shared and all the words. She forgets a conversation after math class that led them to all of this. She has to.
She's pregnant, with the other man's baby, and so she has to forget the other man. It's only right to forget Soda, too.
She can't kill the baby, though. She may be a two-timer, but she's not a murderer. There can only be two people in the world that matter anymore: herself, and the baby.
But she did love Soda, once.