Author's Note: Hey guys, sorry this chapter took so long, I had a really crazy week. But it is a longer chapter (about twice as long as my chapters usually are actually) with a lot going on, so hopefully that makes up for it! It actually may be a bit excessively long, but the first part was too short to be its own chapter. I hope it's not too confusing, though it is supposed to be a little disorienting. Just remember the bits in italics are flashbacks going on in Soda's head. Also there is a bit of cursing in this chapter, just a heads up.

Also just an FYI, I know I usually update once a week, but this next update may take a little longer than that. I am going on vacation next Wednesday for a week and even though I'll be taking my laptop with me and keeping up with my writing at night, I may not have internet access so I'm not sure if I'll be able to post. But I'll be sure to post as soon as I get back, I promise! I may or may not get another chapter before then too, depending on how busy I get.

Please review and I promise to update ASAP!

Chapter Twenty-Six

Flashbacks

"Soda, wake up!"

Soda's eyes flew open and he shot straight up, gasping for breath as a cold sweat trickled down his face. His eyes frantically searched the pitch black space before him for danger. He didn't know where he was or what was going on and that wasn't good. Were they under attack? Was the enemy near? Soda tried to grab for his gun but he couldn't find it, which made him panic even more. He had to be able to protect himself.

Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light. Soda jerked away from it, throwing up his hands in a futile attempt to shield himself. He blinked and looked around. Sterile white walls came into focus. He was sitting in a bed. He turned his head as he slowly lowered his arms back down, seeing Steve standing near the door, his hand still on the light switch as he watched him unsurely.

"Soda?" Steve said carefully.

Soda sighed and rested his head in his hands. "Yeah," he said, confirming that he in fact knew that Steve was there. "Sorry, Steve."

"It's okay," Steve said as he approached the bed. He stood there a bit awkwardly for a moment. "Was it a nightmare about the war?"

Soda nodded. Then he glanced around. "What time is it?"

"A little after two in the morning," Steve said, glancing at his watch.

"Sorry I woke you," Soda said, rubbing his face.

"Don't worry about it," Steve said. He studied Soda for a moment and seemed to realized how worked up he still was. "You wanna take a walk or something? Clear your head?"

Soda gave him a strained yet grateful smile. Steve knew him well. "Yeah, that sounds good," he agreed.

Steve grabbed Soda's cane from where it leaned up against the wall. Soda shifted around so that his feet were hanging off the bed, taking his cane in one hand and allowing Steve to help him up with the other. Soda slowly limped after Steve as they headed out into the hallway. Steve headed over to the nurse's station to assure the nurses that they would be right back before they started wandering aimlessly through the hallways of the hospital.

They were quiet for several minutes, Soda's cane tapping on the linoleum floor the only real noise.

"Can I ask something?" Steve asked as they walked along, finally breaking the silence.

Soda hesitated, a bit unsure. "Yeah, sure," he said finally. Steve had agreed to stay here all night with him; he really didn't feel like he could deny him the right to ask questions. He just hoped that he wasn't going to ask what the nightmare had been about. That was something Soda really didn't want to think about.

"Why were you so against staying at the hospital tonight?" he asked carefully.

Soda was quiet for a moment. It wasn't an outrageous question and he didn't have a reason not to answer it.

"Before I came home, I was in the hospital for several weeks," he said. "I don't remember much of that first week; I was in and out of consciousness a lot. I do remember being in a lot of pain." He paused, lost in thought for a moment. "At one point I remember wishing my leg had just been blown off. Figured it would hurt less if it wasn't there anymore."

"Please, can't I get any more painkillers?" Soda had begged.

"I'm sorry, Private, you're at your max," the doctor had calmly explained, making Soda want to punch him in the face.

"How can I be at my max, it still hurts!" Soda had cried out.

"We have limited supplies over here and our most recent shipment is running a few days behind because of a bad storm so we have to ration."

"Why am I still here then?" Soda had demanded. "Just sent me home!"

"You are in no shape to be travelling," the doctor said. "You need to let your leg heal up some more if you want to have any chance at walking again."

"I felt… trapped," Soda continued. "I couldn't even get out of bed. All I wanted to do was go home. Every day over there was hell and I wasn't any use to them anymore so I just wanted to be back in Tulsa. But I ended up having to have a second surgery and the doctors didn't want me traveling until my leg was better. It took so long… I've had enough of hospitals to last me a lifetime." He paused. "It's got a smell, you know? The hospital? I can hardly stand it anymore."

"Well, you seem to be doing pretty well," Steve commented. "I bet you'll be out of here tomorrow."

"Yeah, I sure hope so," Soda mumbled. "I… I don't want to be here alone." He felt a bit like a whiny little kid admitting that out loud. "It's too quiet. There are no distractions…" He let the thought hang. He remembered being overwhelmed by memories as he lay in that hospital bed in the army hospital, unable to move. It was why that Soda had only lasted one day at home alone before he insisted on going back to work. "Thanks for staying, Steve."

"No problem," Steve said with a shrug. It was clear that he wasn't quite sure how to react to what Soda had told him.

After another minute of walking Soda's leg was starting to get sore. "C'mon, let's head back," he said.

"You're leg starting to hurt?" Steve guessed as they turned and started heading back to Soda's hospital room.

"Yeah," Soda confirmed, wincing slightly.

"How long is it supposed to keep hurting like that?" Steve asked, sounding a bit worried.

"It's usually not too bad," Soda said. "Today was a rough day."

"Yeah, you ain't kiddin'," Steve agreed.

Soda was glad that Steve didn't appear to notice that he didn't really answer his question. The truth was that question terrified him. He wasn't sure how long this type of injury was supposed to hurt like this. He was really afraid that the pain may never go away. What if he was in pain for the rest of his life? How could he handle that? He did his best not to think about it. Instead he was just taking his life one day at a time and hoping that someday soon he would finally catch a break.

By the time they finally made it back to the room Soda's leg was beginning to throb. He was grateful to get off his feet as he fell onto the bed. Steve took his cane for him and Soda heaved his legs up onto the bed. He felt exhausted by the time he lay back and was already drifting off to sleep as Steve flicked the lights back off.

xXxXx

Soda was up early the next day as usual. Unfortunately today he couldn't head outside to his punching bag, today he had to lay still in his hospital bed. After twenty minutes he was about ready to crawl the walls. He watched Steve sleeping soundly in the chair next to the bed, his feet up on a chair across from him, snoring lightly. He selfishly hoped that Steve wouldn't stay asleep too long, but he felt too guilty to consider waking up his friend.

Thankfully not long after he woke a nurse came into the room, though he felt weary when he saw that she had a wheelchair with her.

"Oh good, you're up," the nurse said with a smile. "The doctor would like me to take you down for your MRI now."

Soda felt his chest tighten up at just the thought of going back in the MRI machine. He knew there would be no arguing though. He had stayed here all night; he might as well do the MRI. He really wished that Darry were here though. Resignedly he sat up and swung his legs around so that they were hanging off the bed.

"I can walk," Soda said, eyeing the wheelchair with distaste.

"It's hospital policy," the nurse insisted.

Soda sighed, deciding that pointing out that it was a stupid policy wasn't going to change anything. She brought the wheelchair over to the bed and as Soda was maneuvering himself out of the bed and into the chair the commotion caused Steve to stir a bit in his sleep. Soda realized that he probably shouldn't leave without telling Steve.

"Would you mind waking him?" he asked the nurse, nodding across the bed at his friend.

"Sure," the nurse agreed. She moved around the bed and carefully shook Steve's shoulder, causing him to quickly jerk out of his peaceful sleep.

"Wha'?" Steve mumbled, blinking around confused.

"Hey Steve," Soda said, drawing his attention. "I gotta go down to get the MRI." He had a hard time keeping the bitterness out of his voice. He certainly wasn't looking forward to this.

"Oh," Steve said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Then he focused on Soda, looking serious. "You want me to come with you?"

Soda studied him for a moment. "Darry told you what happened yesterday, didn't he?"

"Yeah, he did," Steve said defiantly, as if daring Soda to complain about it.

Soda sighed. He figured it was probably for the best. He wasn't so sure that he would be able to get through it on his own. "Yeah, could you come with me?"

"Yeah sure," Steve said with a shrug as he stood.

The three of them headed out into the hall and started down toward the room with the MRI machine. As he was wheeled along Soda felt his anxiety growing. He was suddenly glad that Steve had offered to go with him. Soda felt his breath catch in his chest as they entered the room just looking at the large machine through the window. He felt his entire body tense up and he wanted nothing more than to get up and run as far away from that room as possible.

"You can wait in here," the nurse said to Steve, indicating the room they were standing in that had a window into the room with the MRI machine. "It should only take about fifteen minutes."

Soda was quickly shaking his head even before she had finished speaking. "Yesterday they let my brother stay in the room with me," he pointed out, trying to hide the panic in his voice. Suddenly he desperately didn't want to go in there by himself. He sent an anxious look up at Steve who moved to stand closer to him, almost protectively.

"Oh," the nurse said, sounding surprised. "Yes, he can go in the room with you." She looked over at Steve. "You have to remove any metal objects."

Steve cocked an eyebrow. "Why?" he asked.

"The MRI machine is a giant, very powerful magnet," she explained.

"Ah," Steve said. He paused. "Well then I got a problem." He glanced down at his jeans which of course had a metal zipper.

"We can get you a pair of sweatpants to change into," the nurse said.

"That'd be helpful," Steve agreed.

The nurse indicated to a different nurse standing over by where the machines were by the window. "If you go with Laura she'll find you a pair," she said.

The nurse began pushing the wheelchair into the other room but in a burst of panic Soda grabbed the wheel, stopping the chair in its tracks. "You won't start till he gets back, right?" he asked.

"No, we'll just get you set up so that when he gets back we'll be able to start right away," the nurse assured him.

"Don't worry, I'll be back in one minute," Steve spoke up.

Soda looked up at him and then nodded, taking his hand off the wheel and allowing the nurse to push him into the next room. He hesitated as she pushed him up to the table, then gathered his courage, heaving himself up out of the chair and sitting on the table. He found this was much more difficult knowing what was coming.

"You can go ahead and lay down on the table," the nurse prompted carefully.

Soda considered refusing until Steve got back, but he felt very silly about the whole thing. He was nineteen years old and had fought in a war, and he was afraid of an MRI machine? Though to be fair if he hadn't fought in a war it probably wouldn't bother him so much. He took and deep breath and pulled his legs up onto the table, laying back. As the nurse was attaching the cage-like contraption around his head he heard someone approaching and Steve came into view.

"How're you holdin' up?" Steve asked.

"I just wanna get this over with," Soda said tensely.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better I don't have to stand in here with no pants on," Steve said lightly, pointing to the sweatpants he had changed into.

Soda gave a dry laugh and cracked a smile. "Yeah, no one wants to see that."

"Hey, you don't know that," Steve laughed.

"Okay, we're ready to begin," the nurse cut in. "Just try to stay as still as possible."

Soda took a deep breath as she walked away, though it didn't do much to calm his frayed nerves. It was strange how much this affected him. Explosions and gun fire had been a very regular part of his everyday life for so long, he would think he would be used to it by now. But he supposed keeping so still went against all of his instincts. Not to mention he didn't like to think about his deployment at all, and when he heard all those noises he couldn't seem to think of anything else.

"Hey," Steve said gently, all joking gone from his face. Soda looked up at him and met his calm eyes. "You're okay. I'm gonna be right here the whole time."

Soda desperately wished for some of his calm. He felt the table jerk underneath him and suddenly he was moving forward into the heart of the MRI machine. He watched Steve for as long as he could until the machine cut off his view. His breathing quickly became shallow and ragged as he anticipated what was coming. He knew what was going to happen but he felt powerless to stop it. How could he protect himself from his own memories?

"Soda?" He heard Steve call from somewhere behind him. His voice echoed slightly in the large chamber.

"Still here," Soda called back, his voice sounding strained.

A moment later a voice crackled over the intercom system. "We're going to turn on the machine."

Soda swallowed hard as he clenched his muscles, willing himself to stay as still as humanly possible. He was convinced that they hadn't gotten a clear picture last time because he hadn't kept still enough and more than anything he didn't want to have to repeat this again. He closed his eyes and then quickly realized that was a bad idea and opened them again as he heard the machine whirl to life around him.

Stay still, stay still, stay still… he chanted in his head.

BANG!

Soda twitched ever so slightly with the first clang, resisting his urge to duck.

"Christ, that's loud," he heard Steve say in surprise. Soda laughed dryly at the comment but he was still wound tighter than a rubber band.

BANGBANG!

Soda forcefully sucked in a shallow breath. He could almost hear the sound of a machine gun in the background, he could almost smell smoke.

"Curtis! Behind!"

Soda had no idea who had spoken but he didn't question the command for a moment. He whipped around, took a split second to take a steadying breath before firing at the Vietnamese solider that had been running up behind him. He collapsed in a heap on the ground and Soda fired once more just to be safe before he turned back to the bulk of the battle. He would think about that fallen solider later. He had been close enough that Soda had spotted the briefest flash of fear in his eyes as he fell.

'What am I doing here?' Soda wondered to himself, though certainly not for the first time, as he fired again.

"Soda? Still with me?" Steve's voice pulled him back to the present.

"Barely," Soda croaked.

"Just hang in there, buddy," Steve said. "It'll be over soon."

"Not soon enough," Soda said quietly, clenching his hands into fists.

BANGBANG! BANG!

Soda squeezed himself in as tight as possible, feeling flakes of bark ricocheting around him as the enemy soldiers fired at him through the trees. Their unit was scattered around, surprised by the attack. From where he stood, barely shielded by a tree, he could see Private Lambert, a scrawny guy with glasses who had no business in the middle of a rumble in Tulsa let alone on the battlefield in a foreign country, pressed up against a tree twenty yards from him.

Soda's heart was pounding and everything in him was telling him to run, but be couldn't bring himself to leave the relative safety of his hiding spot. He could see Private Lambert looking over to him for direction, God knew why since he was just a Private himself, but Soda was frozen in place. The gunfire was getting louder, the enemy was getting closer, he didn't know what to do and time was quickly running out.

"Curtis, Lambert, get out of there!"

Soda took half a second to recognize the Sergeant standing up ahead, flanked by a few other soldiers as they fired at the enemy, covering both him and Lambert, creating a window for them. Soda sprinted forward, angling toward the outside of the line of fire. He heard a bullet buzz by his ear, causing a tree off to his left to splinter and sent bark flying at him, but kept running, not flinching as he gripped his rifle.

"Curtis, duck!"

As he approached the line of American soldiers Soda went down without question, sliding on his knees through the dirt and twisting around to see where the enemy was. He lifted his rifle from where he knelt and began firing, hardly bothering to aim.

It was several minutes later when Soda realized that Lambert wasn't with them. He glanced around to see a body laying not far from the tree he had been hiding behind. Soda quickly turned his gaze away, knowing the he couldn't allow himself to be distracted, but also knowing that easily could have been him.

"Steve?" Soda called out blindly, almost desperately.

"Still here, nothing exciting to report," Steve said lightly, obviously trying to release some of the tension. BANG! "Glory, that's annoying. I'd except that such a fancy machine would be a little more dignified."

Soda coughed out a laugh. "Maybe you should take a look," he suggested.

Steve laughed. "Yeah, if I had a car that came in sounding like that, I'd know something was wrong with it."

BANGBANGBANG!

Fire was raining down on them. Where did the Vietnamese soldiers get all those grenades from? They seemed to never end, one explosion right after another. The entire Earth seemed to shake. They were all huddled in a long trench, praying for the enemy's ammo to run out.

"Shouldn't we be firing back or something?" a new recruit demanded. Soda hadn't bothered to learn his name.

"You wanna stick your head up there, be my fuckin' guest," the Sergeant growled. "I ain't cleaning up your brains which will be splattered all over this trench though."

"You got family, Curtis?" Soda looked at the solider next to him in surprise. He was a few years older and seemed surprisingly at ease with the whole situation as he sat back in the trench smoking a cigarette. Private Danes was his name.

"Yeah," Soda said. "Two brothers. And also two friends who are basically family."

Danes nodded. He reached down and pulled a photograph out of his boot and held it out. A smiling woman holding an infant looked out at him. "My wife and my daughter," he said. "Lucy was three months old when I had to leave. Just hoping I get to see them again."

Soda just nodded, not knowing how to respond. He knew that he couldn't assure this guy that he would see him family again. Soda had seen too much in the past five months he had been here and he knew that going home wasn't guaranteed to anybody.

"Incoming!"

Soda glanced up and immediately rolled away from the grenade that was arching up in the sky at a perfect trajectory to fall into their trench. Staying as low as possible he scrambled with everyone else as they all scattered in different directions. The blast was defining. Several bodies were thrown into him, knocking him to the ground. Debris rained down on top of them. Debris that was soaked in red. Soda forcefully swallowed back the bile rising in his throat. Now was not the time to fall to pieces.

Four men in their unit had been killed by that one grenade. Private Danes among them.

Going home wasn't guaranteed to anyone… not even little Lucy's daddy.

BANG!

"Soda? Talk to me man, you okay?"

Soda was gasping for breath, every muscle in his body clenched up painfully.

"Get me out of here!" Soda called out desperately.

"It's okay, Soda, it's almost over," Steve assured him. "You just gotta hang in there a few more minutes and it'll be done and you won't have to do it again. C'mon, I know you can do this."

BANGBANG!

Soda took in a shuttering breath. Could he do this? If he made them stop now they would just have to start all over. He desperately hoped he was staying still enough for them to get a clear picture because there was no way he was going to do this again.

"Soda? You still breathing in there?" Steve asked, worry in his voice.

"Kinda," Soda choked out. His heart was pounding wildly out of control and he had no idea how he was still able to lay still.

BANG!

"It's almost over," Steve said and Soda did his best to listen to his words and use them as an anchor. "Then we'll go home. You'll see Pony when he gets home from school. He'll work on homework and help you make dinner. Darry will come home from work exhausted and aching, but he'll be happy to see you two. Just another night in Tulsa, Oklahoma, right Soda?"

"Yeah," Soda agreed. "Good old Tulsa…"

Suddenly everything got real quiet. Soda could clearly hear his own ragged breathing as he looked around frantically. Suddenly the table jerked to life again as it started moving back out of the machine. Relief washed over him like a cool breeze. It was over.

As the table came to a halt again outside of the machine Soda was about ready to pry the cage around his head off himself, feeling trapped. He started reaching for it but Steve reached out and grabbed his arms, stopping him.

"Hang on, just let the nurse do that," he said. He glanced back at the window to the adjacent room. "A little hurry would be nice!" he called out to them. A moment later the nurse came hurrying out of the room, shooting Steve an annoyed look. "Well Christ, he almost had a panic attack tryin' to stay still in there, the least you could do is get him out of here quickly," Steve mumbled mostly to himself.

Soda looked up at his hands as Steve still held his wrists, seeing them begin to shake. A moment later the cage was gone from around his head and Soda immediately shot up, swinging his legs around so that they hung off of the table. His entire body began to tremble as he gasped for breath. He hunched over, placing his head in his hands.

"Easy, buddy," Steve said gently. He placed a comforting hand on Soda's back. "It's okay, it's done now."

The nurse had approached the table with the wheelchair. "We need to get the next patient in here," she spoke up.

"Would you give him one goddamn minute?" Steve demanded angrily. He swore again as he turned back to Soda.

"Thanks Steve," Soda mumbled, feeling completely drained.

A few minutes later Soda was feeling a bit more stable and he allowed Steve to help him off of the table and back into the wheelchair. He slumped down in the chair as he was wheeled out of the room like an invalid. He took once last glance back at the MRI machine. If he never had to get an MRI ever again in his entire life it would be too soon.