Summery- This is a one-shot about Steve based loosely on SE Hinton's plans for after the Outsiders. Someday maybe it'll turn into a story. That depends on if I feel like it and people enjoy it.

I liked it too much to keep it off forever. It's crappy but until I get it fixed this will have to do.

Disclaimer- I do not own The Outsiders nor shall I ever, sadly

Tulsa Oklahoma, 1985

I awoke to the sounds of small cries. Heaving a sigh I heaved one foot over the other and walked to the old wooden crib just beyond my bed. I picked up the tiny pink bundle and held it close to my chest.

"Easy dose it now. Daddy's here." I felt for a wet diaper but that was not the problem. "You hungry kiddo?" My three month year old daughter looked at me still crying as if to say that she was indeed hungry and wanted food right now.

"Sssh, okay Daddy's going to get you some milk. Let's go." I walked into the warn kitchen and took a bottle of formula out of the icebox. I then placed it in the one luxury I had, a microwave. I rocked my baby daughter close. "Almost ready. It's okay." I hated to hear her cry. I know it is her only way of communication but it always makes me think my little girl is sad or sick or something.

Beep.

I pulled the bottle from the microwave and guided it toward my little girl's mouth. She stopped crying immediately and began to suck away happily. The way she ate you would never guess that little Codie-Anne Rain Randle was ever a premie but she was. My little miracle, that's what she was.

I had a ruff time of it after Vietnam, a very ruff time. I got mixed up in drugs and became a downright drunk to boot. I even, regrettably, used to deal the stuff. Even though I had Ponyboy, Darry and Two-bit I had never felt so alone. I guess I did kind of push them away.

In fact I know I did. I concentrated on the drugs, the drugs were my lifeline. As long as I had some heroine I was okay or so I thought. I suffered from some bad post traumatic stress. The nightmares were hell. If Ponyboy's were half as bad as mine I feel really sorry for the kid. Scratch that I'd feel sorry for him anyways.

I couldn't even escape them in the day. Flashback after flashback hit me almost daily, unless I was high. Old scars never seem to heal. The junk seemed to calm me. But it made me mean. If I was bitter before the war that was nothing compared to afterwards. I admit I scared myself sometimes, teetering on the edge of obsession and insanity.

All that crap would be bad enough to deal with. I tell you this. The sucker that thinks war is a breeze was dead wrong, no ifs ands or buts about it. The images enough were enough to mess any guy up but those were my buddies dying out there. You may only know a guy a little while but in war you get close pretty darn fast. The losses cut deep. Even that would be bad enough but no it just got worst. Vietnam took away from me the one person I'd ever loved more then anything, my best friend Sodapop Curtis.

We were thick as thieves, Soda and me. He was my first friend, the first person who gave two cents about me. He was the greatest guy I ever knew and there is not a day goes by that I don't miss him something awful. His death hurt the worst. He was my other half. We were a pair. We came to Nam as a pair and I figured on us leaving it together. I didn't figure on old Soda leaving in a box three months before me.

Like I said I was dead lonely after that, a lonely, bitter junkie. And then for better or worse a year or two ago I let Dally's old girl, Sylvia, move in with me. No idea why really-I hated Sylvia- but loneliness does crazy things to a guy. Well that and she was a junkie too. Makes life a little easier you know, not being pestered so much about kicking the habit.

Well she up and gets pregnant. She doesn't want the kid of course. She's as selfish as they come. She don't get no abortion though. I was tired of being called a baby killer and wasn't about to solidify the name by killing my own kid. Too much trouble for her anyhow.

So she goes on with her life pretty as you please drugs booze, smokes and all. I kinda felt bad starting about in the fourth month. I never'd been crazy about having a kid but when Pony calls me and tells me his wife's pregnant I think about how it would be pretty tuff if our kids buddied around.

So I try to get clean for the kid. It was murder and I failed. Sylvia tried after awhile too. Not because she was a motherly woman, believe me an alligator would make a better mother then her, but because she hears the fuzz aint so hot on pregnant junkies and she don't want her pretty little behind carted off to prison. It doesn't work though.

So two and a half months early my little girl comes into this world not only a premie but drug addicted. The doctor's didn't hold much hope out for her. Suddenly that pain I felt from Vietnam resurfaces heavier and harder then ever. I could very well lose my kid.

So I do the one thing I haven't done since old Dallas and Johnny were alive, I go to the chapel and pray. This chaplain comes up to me and we get to talking. I'm a Christian and all that but haven't really been one for faith since I was a little kid. Well anyways we talk and talk. I more or less give him my life story and he tells me some stuff about God and Jesus and how we all have are cross to bare. Long story short he prays with me and I promise God that if he makes my little girl well I'll never ever touch any drugs or alcohol again and I rededicated my life to him. And you know what? I haven't touched drugs or booze since, not a drop.

That's a miracle in and of itself because if you've never been through withdrawal let me tell you, you sure don't want to. It made my PTSD ten times worse. Luckily I had Darry to get me through it. No wonder he's my daughter's godfather.

After that I never left my daughter's side. She was the tiniest thing I'd ever seen but boy was I ever crazy about her. Sylvia though was a different story. She said plainly to me that she wanted nothing to do with our child and left the hospital. I haven't seen her since.

Codie-Anne has been home for about a week now. It's hard not having the hospital staff to help me our but I manage. I remember how I couldn't even hold her until she was a month old and how odds were she'd be dead or severely challenged. So far neither holds true. She's fit as a fiddle and seems intelligent to boot. And you know what, at the end of the day it makes it all worthwhile.

Well anyways Codie-Anne finished her bottle and a carried her into the living room. It's rather small but there's an old rocking chair there. Codie, as I call her, loves for me to sit there and rock her for hours on end. So after every late night feeding, that's what I do.

She clutches my t-shirt and begins to fall asleep as I hum an old Elvis tune. I'm an okay singer, though not Elvis by any means. Codie doesn't seem to mind much though. She loves to hear me sing. It puts her right to sleep. I love to hold her as she sleeps; to feel her chest rise and fall and feel her heart beating against mine. Some how my littler girl erases my pain ten times better then the drugs do. Her presence is both soothing and comfortable.

I look up to a small book shelf Darry made for me when Codie was born. On the very top, longest shelve there are pictures: pictures of the gang and me, Soda and me, my army pals and me. There's a photo of Two-Bit's very large family. Nobody loves having kids as much as him; he has five so far. One of my favorites is from Ponyboy's wedding. He, Darry, Two-Bit and I are in our tuxes smiling. Ponyboy is turning rather red from one of Two-Bit's dirty comments. That was one of the better times before I had Codie.

Someday I reckon she'll hear all the stories the pictures have to tell but for now at least she will just sleep in my arms and be rocked gently. I've been through a lot of crap in my thirty-five years but having Codie makes it all seem more or less worth it. I just pray she'll never have to go through what I did.