Hello guys, thank you so much for your reviews! Since some of you said you'd like to read more, I've decided I will write a few more chapters after all, so I can do this story justice. Also, if you want to talk, message me anytime :)

Disclaimer: I don't own The Outsiders or the song "Feel like I'm fixin' to die" by Country Joe and the Fish.

Well, come on all of you, big strong men,

Uncle Sam needs your help again.

He's got himself in a terrible jam

Way down yonder in Vietnam

So put down your books and pick up a gun,

We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.

Soda didn't really spend much time awake, in the following days. He would wake up every now and then, but he was feverish and he felt tired and dizzy, so he'd inevitably go back to sleep in half an hour or so.

The only time he stayed awake long enough to get ahold of a nurse and speak to her, he was told that he'd lost a massive amount of blood and, despite being patched up to the best of the staff's abilities, it would take him a while to recover. He'd still need lots of rest. He had a head concussion as well -sure enough, his head was partly bandaged- that contributed to his tiredness. The nurse had seemed unwilling to let him know about his conditions but he'd been able to get it out of her eventually.

On the fourth day since the accident, though, he woke up feeling better. The bed next to his was empty and he bitterly wondered if the boy there had died or had thankfully made a speedy recovery.

Soda looked around. He couldn't see well from the corner of the room, the curtains of the bed in front of his were drawn and the small place didn't have any other beds in there.

He was feeling so damn thirsty. "Hello?" his voice came out in a whisper and he felt awful. He couldn't even enunciate properly. "Hello!" he tried again, successfully this time.

Nobody replied.

Then he remembered. Maybe calling out her name would bring him some attention. "Sophia?"

Some nurse popped in then, but it wasn't her. That lady looked older, probably in her early 30s, and she looked as tired as Soda felt.

"How do you feel?" She came closer to check on him and helped him drink some water. She didn't have the same gentle manners that Sophia had, but Soda supposed that the war took a lot out of you and they probably didn't have time to pamper the guys around there. He couldn't blame her, but still felt disappointed. "I feel better… I guess. When can I get out of bed?"

"Not so fast, Curtis." She spoke his name in such a familiar way, but he'd never seen her before. Not when he'd been conscious, anyway. "You still need to rest. Maybe tomorrow or the day after that you can try taking a few steps around here, but you will grow even more tired, so take it easy."

She checked his vitals and scribbled something, then turned to leave.

"Wait, can you tell Sophia that I'd like to speak to her?"

The nurse gave him a funny look, but she eventually nodded. "Alright, try to stay awake long enough. She was probably going to check on you in a while, anyways."

Soda didn't understand but felt grateful. Less lonely. Ever since he and Steve had been separated, in Nam, he'd felt more and more detached from home. It had been months since he'd last seen him. Soda didn't know if he was alright, but he sure as hell knew that if someone could make it out alive of that mess it was Steve Randle.

"Hey, Sodapop. It's good to see you awake."

Sophia had just entered the room and quickly reached his bedside, smiling. She had dark bags under her eyes and she looked a bit pale, but still pretty. Maybe it was a shallow thought, but Soda wondered how come a girl like her was in Nam.

"Hi, I wanted to ask you something." He tried to sit up in bed and grimaced, everything hurt. The other nurse had told him that they'd been giving him morphine regularly and he was glad, he didn't want to imagine how much it would hurt if he was off pain killers.

Sophia was by his side in a second, helping him get more comfortable. "Don't push yourself. What can I do for you?"

"Well, I…" Soda hesitated. He didn't seriously think he had a chance of finding out anything about his best friend, but there was no harm in asking. "I don't guess… I don't guess Steve Randle is in this same hospital?" he wondered, hopeful, barely holding it together. If she'd told him that he was seriously wounded or worse, Soda didn't know how he'd cope…

"Steve Randle? The name doesn't ring a bell, but I could check some files. I can't promise anything, this hospital is messy and it's hard to keep track of everything, but I can try." She smoothed the blanket on his bed, an automatic gesture that she'd repeated so many times, and smiled. "Is he your friend?"

"Yeah. We were drafted together, but I haven't seen him in months."

She seemed to sense his uneasiness and quickly changed subject. "Where are you from, Sodapop?"

"Tulsa, Oklahoma. I don't guess you've heard of it? It's no New York City." he tried joking, but he wasn't feeling particularly funny. He was starting to feel a bit drowsy again.

"Yes, actually I've heard of it, even if I've never been there. I'm from a small Californian town. I really wanted to get out of there, you know? I didn't like living there. So I volunteered to come here, I wanted to help." She paused, seemingly wanting to add something. Soda waited, but she didn't go on. And since he had something else he needed to ask, he acted, before she could leave or tell him to go back to sleep.

"I was wonderin' if you could help me… write a letter." He didn't feel good enough to do all the writing by himself, he could already feel a raging headache coming and that was simply because he'd been awake and talking. "To my family. I haven't had the chance to write in a while… I want them to know I'm fine." He tried to give her one of his famous charming smiles and it probably worked, even in his condition, because she didn't hesitate.

"Yeah, of course. I have some free time now, would you like to start?"

Soda eagerly nodded.

Sophia disappeared to retrieve some paper and a pen and when she came back she offered some orange juice to him. "Here. It's not much, I'm sorry, but it will feel good on your dry throat."

Soda thanked her and started taking a few small sips. She sat on a chair that she drew near the bed, waiting.

Then, he suddenly was at a loss for words. "Hum… maybe I should try doin' it on my own…" Everything that came to mind seemed too intimate to say it out loud, all of a sudden. Even if it was a letter to his brothers and not to a girlfriend, he felt self conscious.

"Sure, here you go." She smiled encouragingly at him as she handed him paper and a pen.

Soda scrunched up his face in concentration as he wrote. He knew he'd make tons of spelling mistakes, but he was sure Pony - and Darry- wouldn't really mind. They'd just be happy to hear from him. Before he was ambushed with the rest of the guys in the jungle, before he was hospitalized, he hadn't had the chance to write in weeks.

In the end, he was able to write a decent letter and he sighed when he handed the closed envelope to the young nurse. "Could you write the address?" He was way too exhausted to add anything else.

"Of course."

When Soda gave her the names and the address, she smiled. "You must have quite the creative parents, you and your younger brother have unique names."

"Yeah, they were. At least my dad." Soda seemed to realize something. he hadn't mentioned his brothers to her, for all she knew they could be his father and brother, or friends, or relatives. "Wait- how do you know it's my brothers?"

"When you were unconscious and still running a fever… you talked in your sleep. You didn't say much, but from what I gathered Darrel and Ponyboy are your brothers. Don't worry, you didn't mention anything too personal."

She tried reassuring him, but Soda didn't know if she was only being nice or if she was telling the truth. He supposed he was lucky since he wasn't someone that got embarrassed easily. "Yeah, Pony's my little brother and Darry's the oldest." He missed them like crazy, words couldn't express the feeling in his gut when he thought about them.

"I will mail this tomorrow morning," Sophia promised, pocketing the letter. "You will see them soon, Sodapop. You only have three weeks left in Vietnam."

If this place don't get blown up or nothin', Soda thought, but didn't voice his worries. He smiled instead and hoped she was right. Going home was the only thing that mattered.

Once Sodapop had fallen back asleep, Sophia didn't bother leaving the room. He or the other young man there, also asleep, could need her anytime, after all, and she found herself lost in her thoughts.

When Sodapop had told her he'd been drafted, she'd felt her blood chill. She knew it was nothing out of the ordinary, but everytime she encountered one of these young men, boys still, everytime she realized that most of the ones fighting in Nam had been drafted without having a say in the matter, she felt sick. She, for one, had volunteered - and each passing day she felt as if she was bearing the weight of the world on her shoulders, when she was but a figure in a Monopoly game.

She stared at Sodapop and grabbed a cool cloth to press on his heated skin. The temperature in the room wasn't ideal, but they couldn't do much about the humidity and the hot weather of that country. She wondered if he had a girlfriend waiting for him back home, if his brothers risked getting drafted too, what kind of life he'd left behind. Fantasizing about the people she met gave her the strength to keep going, and at the same time it was tough not to get too involved with some of them, when she got to speak to them and they got to know each other.

Sodapop Curtis was young, handsome, probably perfectly healthy before he was sent to Nam, and she was sure he had a great life ahead of him. She only hoped he'd held out until his time there was over.

"We gotta get out of this place… if it's the last thing we ever do."

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