So This Is War

Chapter Three

I know, so many other fics have crashes, but this one was mine lol. Here we are, enjoy!

I feel funny, like my body is filled with light. I struggle to open my heavy eyelids, but manage. The gang is scattered around the unfamiliar room. Everything is so bright, except for them. They don't belong in this white room with their colorful clothes and dark expressions. I think back to my essay and laugh softly. They look like outsiders!

They all snap their heads toward me, surprised I was awake. I know they don't understand my joke since I said it in my head so I tell them in a breathy voice, "We're all outsiders! Get it? Just like my essay. Hey Darry, I got an A on that. Did I tell you?" I can't remember much after the essay. I was fourteen when I wrote it, but that felt like just yesterday so how am I eighteen? I know that I'm eighteen so what happened for four years? Darry's gentle voice breaks me out of my silent debate. It wasn't important anyway.

"Yeah, yeah you told me little buddy. How're you feeling?"

Soda came over and stroked my hair. I leaned back and closed my eyes, thinking. I remembered giving Darry the graded essay and all of us reading it together. That felt like yesterday too. Everyday felt like yesterday. "Fine and dandy, which rhymes with candy." Two-Bit starts cracking up and I lift my eyes back up. I chuckle with him even though I have no idea what's so funny. I felt like I should...

Steve's familiar voice chuckles, "The kid's higher than a kite right now Dar. I don't think he's gonna be real conversation for a few hours."

I pout. "I'm real conversation. And I'm not a kite. Or a kid? I mean, I'm not a kid kite or kite kid. Hey Steve, can I have a cigarette? Smoke flies high!" A hundred different fragments of thought floated through my head and I just picked them out of a hat. I must really be on something. Nothing made sense, but at the same time the things that did made perfect sense. Like only knowing half of the quiz material but knowing that half really well.

Darry rolled his eyes and answered for him, "No. You ain't smoking in the hospital Pony. And you quit, remember?" Oh that's right. Darry doesn't know I started up again. I winced from the blunder.

"Oh, that's right," I lie pathetically.

Darry narrows his eyes at me. "Pony..." Just then a nurse comes in and cuts off his lecture that was sure to come. I looked at her tag, 'Jill.' She was pretty.

"That's a nice name, Jill," I smile up at her.

She gives me a small smile back. "Why thank you, Ponyboy. And how are you?"

I grin. "Just fine. Hey, want go fly some kites?" They all laugh like I've made a joke. I was serious!

She laughs lightly. "No thank you, Ponyboy. Maybe another time. I'm just going to check your vitals okay?" I nod and let her put the stethoscope up to my chest. I flinch as the cool metal hits my skin. She goes about checking my bandages and everything. Tight things I hadn't noticed before, and my sling still attached. I pull on them and she slaps my hand away. "Leave them on please," she instructs. I put my hands up in surrender and sink into my pillows. She was bossy. She address Darry, "Well, he appears to be okay. Some cuts and bruises that are all bandaged, slight concussion, dislocated torn shoulder. He's going to need surgery if he wants to regain full range of motion, but the doctor wants him to schedule an appointment for it since it's not mandatory to his health at present. The morphine should wear off in a couple of hours, but as a family member you can sign him out and take him home now if you want."

Darry nods and says tiredly, "We'll take him home. Anything we need to do to take care off him though? I know with concussions they want to wake him up every few hours, right? Anything else?"

She goes through some painful shoulder exercises and elaborates on the concussion. Then she leaves with her chart to fetch the discharge papers. A few minutes later, Darry is signing forms and wheels me out of here. Man, do I feel great! The crisp night air tingles my senses and makes me feel more alive than I have in over a year. I feel human, I feel young, I feel innocent, something I never expected to feel again.

We drive home and I continue to take the world in. It's like being reborn or going back to a younger you. Things that seemed foreign to the old you were new again and you felt at home. It was perfect peace in an otherwise battle scarred mind. Darry pulled in the driveway and they helped me stumble into the house. I wanted to linger on the porch to watch the starry sky, but they wouldn't let me. Soda helped me to bed and left me to sleep it off. I didn't think I would and I definetly didn't want to, but it happened. Darkness dragged me back down out of thought and into the rebirth.

The next time I awoke, Darry was making me sit up. I groaned and pulled myself up to a sitting position. Everything hurt. There was no happy light feeling now. All that was left was the gaping hole inside of me, consuming like a black hole rotting my core. He asked me how I felt and I answered honestly. "Like shit. What happened anyway?" I could remember, all too clearly, visiting Marcia's house and getting rid of that damned letter, but nothing after. I was driving...

"You don't remember?" he asks, concerned. I shake my head carefully. My head is pounding. "There was an accident. Witnesses say you ran a red light and a truck not paying attention, creamed the passenger side of our truck. Did quite a bit of damage, but Soda thinks he can fix it."

I close my eyes and it all comes rushing back, the sick crunch of metal crumpling, glass shattering, being thrown into my own door. A chill runs down my spine and I quickly open my eyes to escape the memory. I have so many bad now. I almost wish that I could go back to the blissful ignorance I felt when I was high on the morphine... No, Darry and Soda would kill me.

"I'm sorry, Darry," I say miserably. Everything was my fault and the list just kept growing.

He wraps me up in a careful, but firm hug. "Oh Pony. It's fine. We got enough saved from the Army's pay to cover the costs with no problem. Nobody else was hurt, so just you worry about getting better. You hear me, little brother?"

I nod against his shoulder. I didn't care about getting better though. My misery had nothing to do with my minor physical discomfort. The pain I had was deep down where nothing physical could ever reach. I try to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, "Sure, because that'll fix everything."

He pulls me back as fast as if I were a snake. "Don't you dare. I know what you're doing, Pony. Nothing that happened over there was your fault so don't you even think about blaming yourself. This was just a little accident, could have happened to anyone. I know that it only happened because you were upset about Marcia. I know that because you're blaming yourself and you were doing so well until yesterday. You know how scared we were when we got the call that you were in the hospital? Terrified because all I could think was, one of us should have gone with you. No one should have to deliver a message like that alone, but we respected your wishes. You didn't try to get in that crash, did you?"

"No way! I ain't suicidal, Darry," I growl. It was insulting that he would think that low of me.

"Look, I just don't want you doing nothing stupid like Tim Shepard. You're struggling, Pony. You and Steve both. We all see it, but we're hoping that it's something that's just gonna take some time. Your unit went through more shit than most, so I get that. We're all here if you need to talk. Just let us in, Pony," he begs, looking scared and brotherly. I felt a small part of me melt. I wanted to break down right then and there, knowing that he wouldn't judge me and he'd be right here to pick up the pieces, but I couldn't. The larger part of me held on to my stone reserve tighter than any leech.

I flip back under the covers and close my eyes. I hear him sigh, the conversation obviously over. "Night, Darry."

"Night Pony," he answers sadly.

Morning comes bright and early. I give up my restless sleep and drag myself out of bed. Nobody is up yet so I take the first shower and examine myself in the mirror when I'm done. I'm covered in bruises and scratches. My shoulder is a mess, deep bruises, strong evidence of muscle damage, and dark angry sutures. I get a clean bandage and patch it back up. I dress and shave, pulling my sling back on over my shirt.

My brothers are awake when I step out. I join them in the kitchen and sit down. Darry greets me with a steaming plate of bacon and eggs. Soda is already eating his covered in jelly. I shake my head at him and he grins around a mouthful. Steve is sleeping on the couch. Two-Bit wasn't here yet. Darry joins us at the table with his own plate and we make small talk around our breakfast. I take care of my plate once I finish and think about what to do. Nothing is appealing. It was hard to do KP with one arm, not that Darry would let me anyway, and there was nothing to patrol. I was sick of poker, although I'd gladly get out a deck if my old group was here because that's all we ever did and it was familiar. Whatever taste of home I had last night was long gone, leaving only the new unwelcome feeling in it's place.

"I'm going to go see Curly. See y'all later," I said, walking out of the room.

Darry stood up from his chair. "Uh, Pony... I don't think that's such a good idea."

I stopped and turned back around, defiant. "And why's that?"

He scratched the back of his head. "Well, uh, just that Tim might be there and I don't want you around him right now."

I snapped at him, "Oh yeah? Well he's out friend too ain't he?"

"Yeah, but he ain't himself right now-"

"So we just leave our friends to destroy themselves now?"

"Ponyboy, we ain't ourselves right now! How are we supposed to help him if we can't even help ourselves?"

"Well what about Curly? He's our friend and he ain't been destroying himself. We gonna leave him to suffer alone some more? Hell, his whole world's only been crashing down ever since Tim came home. Maybe even since Tim got the draft letter!"

"Ponyboy, stay away from them right now. I mean it."

"Darry, I'm eighteen. You can't order me around anymore."

"The hell I can't!" He shouted, waking up Steve.

I narrow my eyes at him, growing more livid with every passing second. "Watch me." I spin on my heel and make it all the way to the door.

"Ponyboy," he calls, softer now. "Just try and stay out of trouble alright?" I nod curtly and go on my way. I remember running the week of the draft. I'm in far better shape now even after the car accident, but I feel like taking my time to cool off before I get there. Nothing much in the neighborhood has changed.

Curly's house is even worse than last time. The grass was dying, more junk rusting into the ground. I saw the flamed out shell of the monster-mobile pushed out into the yard. It only completed it. Instead the driveway held two beat up cars, nothing special that looked full functional. They must have gotten hold of Curly's car dealer and offered up a trade: his life for the two junk cars to replace Curly's.

I hesitate on knocking because Tim might be home and the sound could startle him. I slowly open the door and let myself in. The inside might as well not even belong to the Shepard's. Tim is sitting on the couch, the cluttered coffee table in front of him. My eyes widen slightly at all the drugs and evidence of recent drug use. The entire house smells like chemicals and marijuana. Around the corner on the kitchen table, I see a random person passed out. Tim himself looks like a different man. He's pale, dark circle under his red eyes, stringy hair, too skinny. He's a worse off version of Marcia.

Tim looks up when I close the door behind me and it takes him a moment to register. "Well if it ain't Ponyboy Curtis. I haven't seen you in almost two years! Sorry to hear 'bout what happened and all. So how the fuck have you been? You just missed Curly, the dumbass is moving out."

I take a seat across from him, looking down to check for any stray needles. This was news to me. "Oh yeah? When'd that happen?"

He blinks his bleary eyes. "Today. Said he was tired of dealing with this shit or something. Whatever that's supposed to fucking mean."

"That's too bad. You know where he went?"

"Nope. Hey, can I ask you something? How bad was it for you, coming home I mean?" he asks, growing excited with a manic gleam in his otherwise dull eyes.

This was getting on personal ground. The Shepard weren't sensitive people in the remotest sense, but I answered, "Rough. It's like back there is home, y'know? Here feels like a dreamland or something. I keep waiting to wake up and pretend it was all a nightmare..."

He nods like it was what he was expecting. I never heard of any other soldiers with this problem. They all felt ecstatic to be back, as they should. "Which is why you're here. To wake up." Could I? The obvious answer was no way in hell. I should back out and leave now. That taste of morphine made me feel so good though, so alive. Here I was sitting in a drug addict's house surrounded by drug paraphernalia where I should be terrified, but I didn't feel anything but a longing to feel better. How messed up was I?

I don't answer and he takes that as a yes. He ties a tourniquet on my arm to expose the veins and puts the needle up to my skin. "No!" I say, jerking my arm away. Darry would kill me! Soda would! I would! Nobody in our gang ever messed with drugs, not even Dallas Winston because they were smart. I was supposed to be the brain of the gang and here I was actually considering it. I just had one question. "Does it make it go away?" I ask, afraid of the answer. I want it to say yes, but at the same time I need it to be a no. I can't take the memories anymore, what I saw, what I did. I need that innocence back, which is why I'm afraid of what I'll do if he says yes.

"Yes," he answers with a knowing smile. Shit. I let him take my arm back and he injects the heroin into me. It flows through me and takes me far away. All the pain and guilt is washed away like grime in the rain. Johnny, Dallas, Roger, Andy, and all those other guys weren't my fault. I didn't even remember who they were, and who wouldn't want that? I was changing again... Trying to find that lost innocence... That lost gold...

Oh Pony. Opinions? Please Review!