Author's Note: Hello everyone! So sorry this is so incredibly late! It's has been a crazy couple months. I won't bore you with excuses, but I will say my brain is pretty fried right now. I tried very hard to find typos, but please excuse if I missed any. Don't forget to review and I'll do my best not to keep you waiting as long for the next chapter!
Chapter Eleven
"Where's Steve?"
The question was like a bucket of ice water being dumped over Darry, yanking him violently back to his senses. He looked behind him, as if expecting Steve to stride in the door just behind him. But he didn't. And suddenly, he couldn't remember what had happened to Steve. After they had freed Soda form the truck everything had become a blur. Had he stranded Steve at the site of the crash?
"Um," Darry said slowly.
"Hey, come sit down," Two-Bit urged, looking up at him with concern.
"Yeah, but…" Darry started, though strangely he wasn't able to quite finish his thought.
He was supposed to take charge of the situation, he was supposed to take care of everyone around him, that was his job and purpose in life. So why was he having such a hard time completing a thought within his own head? Why wasn't he jumping into action?
"Darry?" came Ponyboy's voice, but oddly it sounded like it was coming to him from a great distance, even though he knew that his youngest brother was standing right next to him.
"I… I…" Darry stammered without any idea of what he was trying to say.
"He looks about ready to collapse," Two-Bit said. "Grab an arm."
He didn't resist as he was pulled along. He didn't resist as someone was pushing him to sit down, finding with a bit of surprise that there was a chair under him as he landed. He felt like he had been completely drained and all that was left was an empty shell.
"What's wrong with him?"
"It looks like he's in shock. It's common for people who witness things like this. We could give him something to help if you'd like."
"Darry?" Someone was snapping his fingers in front of his face. "You hear that? They'll drug you up like a hysterical woman if you want."
Darry blinked and Two-Bit's features slowly came into focus, as if emerging from a dense fog. He opened his mouth to say something, but then shut it again as he realized he didn't know what to say. He reached up and rubbed his eyes as he forcefully started to push away the fog that had clouded his head.
"Give him a minute," came Two-Bit's voice. "It looks like he's comin' back around."
"Darry?" A hand carefully touched his arm and Darry turned his head to see Ponyboy sitting next to him, looking up at him with big eyes. "Darry, are you okay?"
Darry took a deep breath, acutely aware of the air rushing in and then out of his lungs again. His youngest brother grounded him with his touch, causing the present to suddenly come into sharp focus for the first time since he pulled Sodapop out of the mangled truck.
"Yeah," Darry croaked. He cleared his throat, speaking more clearly. "Yeah, I'm okay. Sorry."
Pony nodded. Despite looking shook up by Darry's actions, there was a sense of stability in his gaze, something Darry had never seen before. It was clear that Pony was growing up, and doing so right before his eyes. "It's okay, Darry. You don't always have to be the strong one."
Darry swallowed thickly and then gave Pony an appreciative nod. "Thanks, Ponyboy." He thought for a moment. "We need to find a car so I can go look for Steve."
But Two-Bit was shaking his head. "No way. You're not goin' anywhere in your condition."
Darry gave him a confused look. "Condition?"
"You're barely holding it together, Darry," Two-Bit pointed out, though his tone held a surprising amount of gentleness in it. "You've done enough for today."
"But… what about Steve?" Darry said slowly.
"He'll turn up," Two-Bit assured him. "You left him the car, right?"
"Um," Darry hedged as he racked his brain, struggling to remember if he had given Steve the keys to the car at any point. He dug in his pockets for a minute, finding them empty. "I… I think so."
Two-Bit raised his eyebrows in surprise at that. "Well, in any case, hell or high water couldn't keep that guy from gettin' here. He'll be alright, you'll see."
Darry nodded, though it didn't help the guilt that had settled in his gut.
"Look…" Two-Bit went on carefully. "I know you're only holding on by a thread here, but we really gotta know, Darry. What the hell happened?"
Darry sighed. It was a valid question. That didn't make it any easier to talk about though. "There… there must have been a car accident or somethin'," Darry murmured. He could feel Pony tense up next to him, but he couldn't look at him if he wanted to get through this. "I found the truck in a ditch off the road." He swallowed. "He had… he had hit a tree. The steering wheel had him… had him pinned." At that moment his throat closed and he couldn't speak any more.
They lapsed into silence. Darry was really grateful not to be questioned any more, even though he knew he hadn't given the best explanation of what had happened. He closed his eyes as he dropped his head into his hands. He just wanted to know how all this was going to turn out.
He honestly wasn't sure how much time had passed when he felt someone nudge him. He looked up and over at Two-Bit, who had taken a seat next to him, and saw that Two-Bit was looking intently at something across the room. Darry followed his gaze until it rested on the figure that stood in the doorway of the emergency room.
"Steve!" Ponyboy gasped as he looked over.
Indeed, Steve Randle stood in the doorway, looking ragged and a bit lost. His eyes snapped over to the group at the sound of Pony's voice and then immediately he was making his way over to them. Strangely, his hair was wet even though Darry was pretty sure it wasn't raining. He felt like he should get to his feet and properly greet the person that had freed Soda from that nightmare, but it appeared that his feet didn't want to cooperate with him. So he just watched as Steve approached them.
"I brought these for you," Steve said without preface as he handed a backpack over to Darry. He glanced over at Pony and Two-Bit. "Have you heard anything about him yet?"
Two-Bit shook his head. "Not since they took him back."
"What's this?" Darry asked belatedly after he stared down at the backpack.
Steve glanced over at Darry, raising an eyebrow as if surprised that Darry didn't know. "Clean clothes. I stopped by your house and got some for myself too." He ran a hand through his wet hair. "Had to jump into the shower real quick too in order to… get clean."
Darry took a minute to realize what Steve was saying. He glanced down at himself. There were dark stains on his t-shirt and jeans. The stains reached out to his arms where they turned a dark red color. It took another moment for it to really dawn on him.
He was covered in Soda's blood. Steve must have been too.
"Oh," he said flatly.
Steve stared at him, and then he looked over at Two-Bit. "He okay?" he asked.
Darry looked up at Steve in surprise. "Are you?" he asked. He couldn't understand how Steve could seem so normal after what he had seen. Why was this affecting him more than it seemed to be affecting Soda's best friend who had seen what he had seen.
And with that question it seemed that Steve's mask of indifference fell away, leaving behind the raw pain that he felt apparent on his face. He turned and plopped down into a chair next to Two-Bit as he sighed heavily. There was no need for him to answer the question. It was clear that while he had a task to accomplish, he had been able to put thoughts of what was actually happening out of his mind. But that wouldn't last now that he was here. Here in the hospital there was no avoiding the reality of the situation.
It was several minutes before Darry could will himself to his feet so that he could shuffle off to the bathroom. He changed his clothes mechanically and then just threw his dirty clothes in the trash. He didn't care that money was tight and that tossing out clothes like that is usually a mortal sin under his roof. He never wanted to see those clothes again. Then he spent a solid fifteen minutes basically giving himself a sponge bath in the sink, scrubbing Sodapop's dried blood off of his skin.
Once satisfied that he bore no more evidence of the horrific scene from the site of the accident, he headed back out to the waiting room to find that nothing had changed. He took his seat once more and the group sat silently. No words were left to be said. All that was left was to wait and see how this day was going to turn out.
"Family of Sodapop Curtis?"
Darry looked up vaguely at the doctor who had just entered the room and before he knew it, he was on his feet an approaching the man. He desperately wanted answers.
"Is he okay?" he asked immediately.
"You're Mr. Curtis' family?" the doctor asked.
"I'm his brother," Darry confirmed.
The doctor nodded as he looked at him sympathetically. "He's hanging in there," he said slowly. "But he is in very serious condition." Darry sucked in a breath, trying to decide if this was good news or not. "His injuries are very extensive and we had to rush him into surgery right away in order to stem the internal bleeding. However he's been very… unstable through the process."
"Can you fix him?" came Pony's small voice. Darry glanced over his shoulder to see that the others had come up behind him.
"We are going to do everything that we can," the doctor told him. He looked around at the group. "He's probably going to be in surgery for several hours. But I'm going to try and have someone come out and keep you updated as much as I can."
Darry nodded vaguely. "Thank you." Even to himself, it sounded like his voice came from some far off place.
He stood there and watched as the doctor walked away from them, disappearing through some double doors. They wouldn't know anything about Soda's condition for hours. He wasn't sure how he was going to cope until then.
"I've never needed a smoke so bad in my life," Two-Bit announced after a minute of standing around in silence. He pulled his pack of Kools out of his pocket and started tapping it against his other hand nervously. "And some fresh air." He glanced around at the rest of them. "Anyone else?"
"Yeah," Ponyboy agreed shortly.
"Steve?" Two-Bit prompted.
"I already went through half a pack on the way here," Steve said, waving them on. "I'll sit this one out."
Two-Bit only nodded vaguely, before he turned and led Pony back out of the emergency room.
Steve headed for the seats they had previously occupied and after watching him sit, Darry decided it was a good idea to join him. They sat in silence for a few minutes, but Darry couldn't help but notice how Steve fidgeted with his hands and shifted in his seat.
"How did we miss it?" Steve finally mumbled so quietly that Darry wasn't sure if he was talking to him or to himself. "How the hell did we not see it until today? We covered every inch of the city over the past couple days. How many times did we drive down that road while we were lookin' for him? Drove right by him, for Christ's sake…" He let out a frustrated groan as he ran his hands over his face.
Darry sighed. "The truck was pretty well hidden," he said. "The green blended in with the trees and there was also a branch covering a lot of it that I pulled down before you got there."
Steve was quiet for a minute. Then he turned and looked over at Darry, meeting his eyes. "Then… how did you find him?"
Darry just stared at him for a minute. He hadn't really thought of that until this moment. He sighed and looked away, rubbing his hands together.
"I went back to where the drag races had been," he started. "I had a thought… what if he had one of his migraines? You know, the ones he used to get when he would overwork himself just after our parents passed?" Steve only nodded. "So I thought, maybe he was more concerned with getting away from all the bright headlights than with getting home. That thought got me going in the right direction. But…" He let his thought trail off for a moment. "I… I can't explain what happened next. Somehow I ended up on that road. Somehow I just… I just kind of stopped in just the right spot and got out of the car and looked in just the right direction."
"Today, we recognize Christopher as the patron saint of travel and travelers. Many will pray to Saint Christopher for safe travels for them and for loved ones. Let us embrace that. Let us pray for God's children in their day to day travels and pray that those who travel will find their way back home."
The words of the pastor suddenly came back to him in that moment. Had that really only been just this morning? It seemed like so much more time had passed.
Had it been some kind of divine intervention that had put Darry on the path to find his brother?
"You don't know what happened to Dally's pendant he used to wear, do you?" Darry asked suddenly. "The one with Saint Christopher on it?"
Steve gave him a blank look, obviously unable to make the connection as to why that mattered in this moment. "Um, no," he said slowly. "No idea."
Darry only nodded, not surprised. It was probably something that was lost like the rest of the things Dally had on him that final night.
"There's no way that happened on a deserted road, you know that right?" Steve suddenly said.
Darry raised an eyebrow at him, slow to make the connection at to what Steve was talking about. "What do you mean?"
"There's no way that Soda was traveling down a deserted road when he suddenly swerved off into a ditch for no reason," Steve said.
There was a pause. "I know," Darry said quietly.
"There were two sets of skid marks," Steve went on, glaring down at his hands.
"What?" Darry said, snapping his gaze over to Steve's form. This wasn't something he was expecting.
"I went back and looked after I went to your house to change," Steve said. "I found Soda's skid marks from when he was off the road. There was another set that looked about the same color so probably happened at the same time. It swerved from Soda's side of the road to the other side of the road." He paused. "I think someone crossed the center line and ran him off the road."
Darry blinked at that, finding that it felt like it was suddenly harder to breath. He hadn't put much thought into how Soda had ended up in that ditch. But as he absorbed what Steve was saying, he suddenly felt anger building within him, pushing out the numbness that had consumed him. If he ever found out that there was a person on this planet that was responsible for doing this to his brother, he would hunt them down and make sure they paid dearly.
The two of them lapsed into silence after that revelation. Two-Bit and Pony returned soon after that. The four didn't speak much as time passed, but as a group they became increasingly unsettled and restless. Smoke breaks became more numerous for all but Darry, to the point where Two-Bit eventually had to run out and acquire three new packs. Even though Darry didn't smoke, he found himself wandering out of the hospital with the others just to be doing something other than just sitting there as the hours passed by agonizingly slowly.
True to his word, the doctor sent a nurse out about every hour to update them, but the updates tended to be frustratingly vague. He was still unstable yet hanging in there and they were doing everything they could for him.
It was four hours since they had first seen the doctor when he finally appeared in the waiting room again. The man looked worn as the gang immediately approached him, and Darry tried desperately to read in his features what kind of news they were about to get, to no avail.
"How is he?" Darry asked, feeling his heart pounding in his chest so hard that he was sure everyone in the waiting room could hear it.
"We've done everything we can for him," the doctor said. "He had a serious cranial contusion with bruising on his brain, but a scan has shown that he still has some brain function, which is a good thing. He also has some pretty severe infections in his legs as well as fractures in both his femurs. He will need skin grafts to cover those lacerations eventually, but we will wait to see how his body heals first. His hip bone also suffered damage and severely fractured in two places. It's been set for now, but he will need several more surgeries in the future before he will be able to walk again. He also had some very concerning internal bleeding, probably caused by the initial crash, along with several broken ribs."
He focused on the stricken expressions of the boys around him before he continued. "I know this is all very daunting and a lot to take in. But he has been very lucky so far. The fact that he survived so long with these injuries is some kind of miracle. The surgery put a great strain on his body and his heart stopped twice, but both times we were able to revive him. He is still in very serious condition and his vitals are still very much below where I'd like to see them, but his body is fighting to stay alive. That is very significant at this point."
"So…" Darry choked out, trying desperately not to let the severity of the situation overwhelm him. He swallowed, trying to steady himself. "So, is he gonna be okay?"
"We don't know anything for sure yet," the doctor told him sympathetically. "He is being moved to the intensive care unit in order to be carefully monitored. These first twenty-four hours are going to be critical and we should know more about his chance of recovery after that time period. We are also going to put him on life support in order to take as much strain off of his body as possible. Right now, the biggest question will be if he will wake up. And at this point all we can do is wait and see."
"That's… that's it?" Darry asked, having a hard time wrapping his head around this concept. "There's isn't anything more we can do to help him?"
"Honestly, right now, it's all in your brother's hands," the doctor told him. "It's up to him what's going to happen now."
"Can we see him?" Pony asked.
The doctor looked over at him, seeming to take in Pony's small frame. "Visitors are extremely restricted in the ICU," he told him. "But we can take two at a time back to see him for short visits if you'd like."
Pony nodded. "I want to see him."
Instinctually, it seemed everyone's eyes went to Darry, assuming that he'd be the one to go with Ponyboy for the first visit. But honestly, Darry couldn't help but hesitate. He couldn't help but ask himself if he was really strong enough to see his little brother in such a broken state that he might not survive.
But then he looked down at Ponyboy, who was looking up him expectantly. He couldn't let Pony down. He would do this for him.
"I'll go too," he stated, hoping he sounded more sure than he felt.
"Come with me," the doctor told them.
Pony obeyed immediately while Darry followed behind. He was a little surprised to see Pony so assertive, but then again, he hadn't seen the gruesome sight that Darry had seen. He had only gotten a glimpse of Soda as he was rushed through the emergency room.
They reached the ICU a little too quickly for Darry's taste. But in all honestly, it didn't matter much because he knew that he would never really be prepared for this. So when they reached the door he didn't hesitate as he followed the doctor and Pony into the room.
There was a lot more activity going on in the intensive care unit than Darry thought there would be. Beds lined one wall, separated by thin curtains. Scanning the area quickly, Darry could see that about half the beds were occupied. Nurses moved continuously from one bed to another, checking the patients' vitals and scribbling down notes on charts. The antiseptic smell of the hospital only increased in this room, threatening to overwhelm him. Heart monitors beeped all around the room at different intervals, filling the room with a monotonous drone.
"He's just over here," the doctor indicated.
As they followed him, Darry searched ahead of them and immediately found where Soda lay. Admittedly, the scene wasn't as bad as he had been picturing. A blanket covered Soda's lower half and a hospital gown covered his torso. There was also a bandage that was wound around his head. He was still pale as a ghost and his eyes were closed as he lay completely still. There was some kind of unnatural look to him, even in sleep Soda had never been so still. The most troubling thing that Darry could see was a tube that went down Soda's throat, which was hooked up to a ventilator that was breathing for him. There was also a tube that went up his nose and several wires that snaked under his hospital gown, hooked up to a heart monitor that was beeping slowly and with a rhythm that sounded slightly off.
"Oh, Soda," Darry whispered as he approached the bed.
"Someone will be by in a few minutes to escort you out," the doctor told them gently. "We can only allow short visits in here."
The doctor must have walked away, but Darry didn't remember it. He was too focused on his brother who lay so broken in this hospital bed. What had Soda ever done to deserve this? What had their family ever done to deserve this?
He wasn't sure how long they stood there for, just taking in the scene. Time seemed to cease to exist in this room.
"Sodapop," Pony said softly, his voice wavering. Darry refocused to see that his youngest brother had taken a seat next to Soda's bed, one hand resting on the metal railing that barred the edges of the bed. Without even looking at him, Darry could tell that Pony was on the verge of tears. "I'm sorry you had to go through this alone. But we're here now. Please… please don't leave us. Please keep fighting."
Darry found that he was moving, crouching down next to Ponyboy. He placed one hand on Pony's knee for comfort and support, while he braced his other hand on the metal railing of Sodapop's bed. Pony took in a shuttering breath as he leaned toward Darry, resting his head on his shoulder.
Darry wanted to say something to Soda, but words failed him. So instead, he closed his eyes and he sent up a silent prayer to anyone who might be listening. They had gotten one miracle already that day when he had found Soda against all odds. And now, selfishly, he prayed for another.
Please… don't take my brother away from us.