Chapter Twenty-Nine
Soda had to shift away from the door when the doctor returned. He was feeling extremely uncomfortable and out of place here. He had been feeling okay when Darry had seemed mostly fine; after all he had seen men in much worse shape pull through in horrific conditions. He himself had been one of those men. He had been able to vividly imagine many of those circumstances on the drive over to the hospital, fully expecting to find Darry clinging to life in this hospital. It had been hard for him to wrap his head around the idea that Darry might only have a minor injury. In his mind it was either your life was in danger or you were fine. Those were the only two extremes that anyone was concerned about while he had been in captivity. If you weren't in immediate danger of dying you were considered fine. So when Darry had been awake and talking Soda had allowed himself to believe that everything was okay. Things had quickly taken a turn though and he wasn't really sure how he should deal with it.
"We have a match," the doctor announced. Soda was only half listening.
"Who is it?" Pony questioned.
There was a pause. "It is Mr. Curtis' brother. Sodapop Curtis."
Soda was slow to comprehend why the doctor was saying his name. Then he remembered the nurse who had come to prick his finger to test his blood. His blood type was the only one that matched Darry's.
There was a heavy silence that followed the doctor's announcement. Everyone shifted uncomfortably. Soda looked around at them. They were all making an effort not to look in his direction. However he could tell what they were all thinking, it was written so clearly on all their faces.
"No." The voice was quiet, but rang out clearly in the silent room. It was Darry who had finally found something to say. Soda felt hurt as he looked over at his big brother. He didn't want his help?
"Sodapop is still recoverin' from a heart attack he had a few weeks ago," Pony went on to explain to the doctor. "He's not in any shape to be donatin' blood."
"I'm not still recovering," Soda said stubbornly. No one seemed to be paying attention to him though. He stepped forward and spoke a little louder. "I'm fine. I can do it."
"Soda," Steve said gently as he came up beside him. "You don't have to do this. I'm sure we can find another way."
"Why?" Soda demanded. "It's simple. Darry needs more blood, right? I have the right blood type. Why complicate it?"
"It's not that simple and you know it, Soda," Pony interjected. He didn't sound angry or harsh, but Soda still took an involuntary step back at those words.
"If you would like, I could pull Sodapop's medical file and see if he is eligible to donate blood given his recent medical history," the doctor spoke up.
"Yeah, that would be helpful," Pony sighed.
The doctor nodded. "I'll be right back." And with that he left.
As the doctor left another awkward silence fell over the room. Several minutes passed by where no one even moved. Finally Pony sighed and walked forward to take a seat next to Darry's hospital bed. Soda studied Darry for a moment, getting a good look at him for the first time since he walked in. He was incredibly pale and his eyes were a little glassy which made him look disoriented.
"There's no way, Soda," Darry said. His words slurred a bit. "You can't."
Soda was taken aback by that. Everything in him told him to back down and do what he was told. But then he had to refocus and really look at his bedridden brother again. Would Darry back down if their situations were reversed? And anyway, he wasn't a child anymore; Darry couldn't tell him what to do. No one could tell him what to do. He was a free man, wasn't he? "I can do this, Darry," Soda tried to assert, but there wasn't much force behind his tone. He wasn't used to fighting for things like this.
"Let's just wait and see what the doctor says, huh guys?" Two-Bit spoke up hopefully before Darry could respond, clearly trying to smooth things over in the tense room.
"I can make my own damn decisions," Soda suddenly snapped, surprising even himself. "I know what my body can handle. I've lost more than a pint of blood in worse circumstances; I think I can handle it in a damn hospital." A ringing silence followed this outburst. Everyone was staring at him, wide eyed. For a moment Soda regretted what he had said. But then he remembered that everyone knew all about the conditions in the prison camp after Daniels' visit. So it wasn't like he wasn't telling them something they didn't already know. He sighed loudly as he rubbed his eyes tiredly. "I need some air," he mumbled. He turned and walked out of the room.
Unsurprisingly as Soda made his way down the hallway he heard footsteps behind him. It wasn't likely his friends were going to let him go off on his own after that. He wasn't sure if that really bothered him or not.
It didn't take Steve long to catch up with him and he quietly fell in step beside him. He didn't say anything until they had reached the elevator. "You know they're just worried about you, right?" Steve said conversationally.
Soda glanced at him. "Darry's the one in the hospital bed this time," he pointed out. "He's the one we need to be worried about right now."
"We can be concerned about more than one person at a time, you know," Steve said lightly.
Soda let out a frustrated groan as they stepped in to the elevator. He felt tense as he entered the small metal box that would seal itself for the fourth time today, but he did his best not to think too much about it. "So what should we do? Just let Darry take his chances?"
Steve shook his head. "I think you should do it."
Soda looked over at him in surprise. He really hadn't expected that. "You do?"
Steve nodded. "It's rare to see you fight for somethin' like this. And you had a good point; you do know what you can handle better than most." His voice wavered slightly when he said it as if were uncomfortable admitting this. He shrugged in an attempt to seem casual. "I think that as long as we get a green light from the doctor than you should do it. I just wanted you to know why Darry and Pony weren't so crazy about the idea."
Soda considered this for a moment. He tried to think of the situation from Darry and Pony's perspective. "I guess you're right," he admitted reluctantly. "I just hate it when I'm still treated like a child."
"Yeah, I get that," Steve assured him. The elevator had reached the first floor at that point and as the doors slowly opened Soda was already moving through them, turning sideways so that he could fit through. Steve followed behind and thankfully made no comment of this behavior. "We're all adjustin' here, you know? None of us are gonna be perfect right now."
"Yeah, I know," Soda sighed, frowning as he ran a hand over his face. He suddenly felt tired.
"Hey, it's gonna be okay, though," Steve said with an encouraging smile. "This is just a minor setback. We'll get Darry out of this hospital and we'll be able to go back to normal soon enough. You'll see."
Soda snorted lightly. "I don't even think I know what is normal anymore," he mumbled.
Steve shrugged. "We'll figure it out," he said simply.
"Thanks Steve," Soda said with a strained smile toward his friend.
They lapsed into silence, but it seemed like a much more comfortable silence than it had been back up in the hospital room. It put Soda more at ease. It was comforting that he could feel this way in the presence of his best friend again. Maybe Steve was right. Maybe things could get back to some form of normal.
They headed out the front door of the hospital. It had stopped raining but everything around them was still damp. But the air smelled so clean and felt cool against his skin. He enjoyed being outside and it helped to clear his head.
Soda and Steve just walked around the outside of the building for a while. Soda sorely wanted a cigarette and he suspected that Steve did as well. Soda was grateful that although Steve and Two-Bit made no big promises to quit like Pony had – in fact, Steve had smelled of smoke when he had arrived with Pony that day – they at least had clearly stopped smoking when he was around. It made things marginally easier for him anyway.
Soda had lost all track of time, but eventually without saying anything they both started heading back toward the entrance to the hospital. It probably wouldn't have taken the doctor long to pull his file, so Soda figured they must be waiting for him to make his way back by now. He let Steve lead the way back, finding that he didn't really remember the way back to Darry's room. When they approached the elevator he briefly considered asking if they could take the stairs, but then quickly decided that he wasn't so sure he'd be able to make it up three stories worth of stairs. As he stepped into the elevator he was finding that the confining feeling was getting harder to deal with instead of easier. He had to just grit his teeth and bare it though.
As they stepped out of the elevator they almost ran right in to Two-Bit who had been hurrying down the hallway.
"Jeez, Two-Bit, watch it," Steve snapped. "Where you goin' anyway?"
"I was comin' to find you two," Two-Bit said, looking back and forth between them.
Soda studied this face for a minute. "Did something happen?"
"C'mon," Two-Bit said without answering the question. Soda and Steve exchanged a look before they followed him down the hallway back to Darry's room.
Soda immediately took stock of the room as they walked in. Pony was still sitting in a chair on the other side of Darry's hospital bed, looking worried. Darry was still lying flat on his back but his eyes were closed and he didn't move at all when they entered the room. A nurse was hovering over him, adjusting his IV. Soda felt his stomach fall. Something had gone wrong. He could feel it.
"What happened?" Steve demanded.
"He had a seizure," Pony said quietly, looking down at Darry. Soda gave a start at that. "Maybe ten minutes ago. He's still responsive but he hasn't regained consciousness yet." He looked up and his eyes soon found Soda's. They were glassy like he was fighting back tears, but his voice was steady. "He needs the blood transfusion more than they had thought. He might even need surgery too; he might have a bleed in his brain that they missed because he had said that he felt fine. The doctor pulled your chart and said that donating blood to Darry would probably be a strain on you, but there wouldn't be any serious risks outside of the possibility of you passing out. It also may take a day or two for you to recover from it. But…" His eyes wandered back to Darry.
"I'll do it," Soda said as steadily as he could. He knew that Darry would do the same for him in a heartbeat. He couldn't let him down.
"We need to do this as soon as possible," the nurse spoke up. "Take a seat and I'll get everything ready."
Soda flinched slightly at the orders being barked at him. He took a deep breath, trying to focus on the fact that he was helping Darry. He forced himself forward and carefully took a seat next to Darry's bed across from where Pony sat. He looked across the bed at his younger brother. He had taken charge so easily earlier that Soda had been amazed with how much he had grown up. But now he looked young again. Young and lost. Seeing Darry's seizure clearly had taken a toll on him.
"It's gonna be okay, Pony," Soda tried. He wasn't sure how comforting he sounded. He hadn't really comforted anyone in years. Pony looked up at him in surprise. Soda took a breath. "Darry's gonna be okay."
Pony gave Soda a small smile. "Thank you, Soda."
The nurse had returned with her equipment at that point, setting them up on a stand that she shifted right next to Soda. Soda felt his heart speed up. He hadn't thought this all the way through. He was much more anxious than he thought he was going to be.
"Roll up your sleeve please," the nurse said.
Soda found that it was getting harder to take steady breaths. His hand was shaking a bit as he reached down toward the cuff of his sleeve. He bit the inside of his mouth, trying his best to focus and stay calm. It was getting increasingly difficult though. Carefully and deliberately he crept the sleeve up his arm, revealing his scarred skin. He tucked the sleeve behind his elbow and looked away, not wanting to see the evidence of his years of torture. He noticed the way the nurse hesitated before she wrapped a thick rubber band around his bicep. He could almost feel her gaze taking in the scars that marked his arm and he could almost hear her wondering what had happened to him.
"Try and relax, honey," the nurse said, her tone decidedly more gentle than it had been before. "You'll just feel a small pinch."
"You gotta relax, it'll hurt less." Soda squeezed his eyes shut at the sound of Daniels' voice echoing in his head. That was what he had said to him when he was trying to pop his shoulder back into socket.
"Soda?" Soda opened his eyes to find that Pony had come around the bed and was now sitting next to him. He was looking at him carefully. "You want to hold my hand? It might make you feel better."
"Thanks, Pony," Soda said quietly, his voice unsteady. Slowly he moved his free hand toward his younger brother and Pony reached out and gently took it, giving it a light squeeze of reassurance.
"Here comes the pinch," the nurse warned him.
He felt the needle pierce his skin, but it wasn't very painful and he didn't so much as flinch. He had been through much worse after all. Still the whole thing was horribly reminiscent of when he used to be tied to a chair for more heinous purposes, so he appreciated the presence of his brother as reassurance. Soda squeezed Pony's hand in an attempt to keep him mind firmly in the present. He deliberately didn't look as the nurse did her work. The room was silent as she worked.
"There we go," the nurse finally announced as she finished. Soda risked a glance at his arm. There was now a tube that was trailing from it that was tinted with the red of his own blood. He stared at it in morbid fascination for a moment. He followed the tube with his eyes and saw that it trailed down to a bag that hung on the side of Darry's bed. "If you have any problems at all just hit the call button and someone will be right in." She indicated the button that lay on Darry's bed. "Someone will be in to check on you periodically as well."
As she left the room Steve and Two-Bit moved around the bed to sit in the two chairs that were opposite where Soda and Pony sat.
"How you feelin', Soda?" Steve asked.
Soda nodded slightly. "Okay, so far." It was a little easier to relax now that the nurse was gone and just his friends and his brother were left in the room with him. It made him feel a little more secure.
"Let us know if you start feelin' off, okay?" Pony said. There was a hint of pleading in his voice. Clearly he was thinking about how if Darry had been more honest about how he was feeling this might not be happening right now.
"Yeah, don't worry," Soda tried to assure him. He paused and glanced around as he shifted uncomfortably. "Can you guys stop staring at me? And can we talk about anything else for a while?"
"Where are all the hot nurses?" Two-Bit jumped in immediately. "You guys notice that there hasn't been one hot nurse around here all day?"
Pony laughed. "You didn't like that brunette nurse that was in here earlier?"
Two-Bit waved his hand as he made a dismissive noise. "Kid, have I taught you anythin'? A brunette? Blondes are way hotter! And way more fun!"
Steve barked a laugh. "Dude, you are hopeless."
Soda felt a small smile pull at his lips. He was able to relax a bit more when the focus was taken off of him. The other three carried on the conversation while Soda did his best to listen and keep his mind off of the blood that was streaming out of his body.
As time went by Soda was actually feeling pretty good. He was starting to think that maybe he wouldn't get any side effects. Soon he was realizing that he had been ahead of himself though. Slowly he was beginning to feel lightheaded. It wasn't too bad at first but after several more minutes things in the room were starting to take on a floating quality to them.
"Soda?"
Soda wasn't even sure who had spoken. "I fee dizzy," he mumbled.
"How bad is it?" It was Pony's voice and he was close by.
Soda tried to assess. He looked up and tried to look around the room but as he did his body involuntarily pitched to one side. There was a flurry of movement around him and someone grabbed his arm while someone else was suddenly on his other side trying to steady him back in the chair. His instincts rebelled against the physical contact in his vulnerable state, but he was too dizzy to do anything about it.
"Hang on, buddy," came Steve's voice.
There was more noise around him. "See if you can get him to drink some water." It was a female voice. They must have gotten a nurse.
"Soda?" Pony said carefully. "Here, here's some water. Try and drink."
Soda felt a cup being pushed in to his free hand. He gripped it and brought it up to his lips carefully taking one sip after another. He didn't realize how thirsty he had been until this moment. He took his time though, afraid of choking on the water if he tried to drink it too fast. That had happened before.
"You okay?" Steve asked.
Soda looked over at Steve and was relieved that things seemed much more stable than they had before. "Yeah," he said.
"You sure?" Pony asked, looking at him unsurely. "You got awfully pale."
"Yeah, I feel better now," Soda said.
The nurse had come around to check the blood bag. "It looks like you're about halfway done," she told him. Soda felt his stomach fall. Only halfway?
"Would half a pint be enough for Darry?" Pony asked.
The nurse picked up Darry's chart and studied it for a moment. "He really needs a whole pint. It isn't good that he hasn't regained consciousness yet."
"I can keep going," Soda said.
"I'm going to go ahead and switch out your bag so that we can start Mr. Curtis on the transfusion," the nurse said. "Keep sipping on the water and I'll see if I can find you some crackers too, that will help."
"Thank you," Soda said.
The nurse left to get a new blood bag. After she returned she swapped out Soda's half full bag and also handed him a few packets of saltines. Then she went about hooking up the bag to an IV that was attached to Darry. After that she left them alone again. Soda leaned back heavily back in the chair.
"You sure you can keep goin'?" Two-Bit asked skeptically.
"I can do this," Soda said, trying to convince himself as much as the others. He took another sip of his water. "I'm fine. Just keep talking about other stuff, okay?" He needed to occupy his mind with anything else. He was starting to feel really anxious about this whole thing. The feeling of blood loss was far too familiar for his comfort.
The others made an effort to do as he wanted as they started up a conversation again, though with less enthusiasm than before. Soda tried to follow along but he wasn't having much luck concentrating on anything. He picked at the saltines that he had been brought but it didn't seem to be helping much. A dull pounding was starting just behind his eyes. As time passed the pounding started to radiate out to consume the rest of his head. He was so used to taking pain in silence that he waited longer than he probably should have to mention it to the others.
"My head hurts," he mumbled, probably interrupting any conversation that was going on around him.
Anything that the others had been talking about stopped immediately. "How bad is it?" Steve asked. Pony was already reaching for the nurse call button.
"Getting worse," Soda admitted. "I'm starting to feel sick too." The sick feeling was progressing surprisingly quickly. He glanced over toward the blood bag anxiously. "Does it look like it's almost done?"
Pony leaned down to study the bag, frowning a bit. "It's only about a quarter of the way full," he reported dismally. He looked back up at Soda. "If you want to stop you can. I'm sure it'll be enough to help with Darry's condition."
But Soda shook his head. "No."
"It's okay, Soda," Two-Bit jumped in. "Pony's right –"
"No," Soda repeated as firmly as he could. "I can finish this." He wasn't so sure anymore though.
Just then the nurse from before came in. "What's the problem?" she asked.
"He said his head hurts and he's feeling sick," Pony told her.
"Those are pretty normal side effects of donating blood," the nurse told him. He looked at him for a moment. "You do look very pale though. Let me check you vitals real quick." Pony had to move out of the way to let the nurse get closer to him. She carefully reached out and took Soda's wrist and Soda had to use all his willpower to keep still as she took his pulse. She looked distressed. "Your pulse is slow. I think your blood pressure is dropping."
"M'okay." Soda noticed his words were suddenly slurring together.
"Somebody get him a bucket," Two-Bit said suddenly.
Soda started to protest that but suddenly his stomach rebelled against him. Luckily Steve had been quick on his feet and had gotten a trashcan under him. Soda heaved hard even though he didn't have much in his stomach to actually throw up. He didn't feel any better after he had finished. It had only seemed to make him feel much worse.
"We need to stop," Pony said, sounding panicked.
Soda wanted to tell them that he could keep going, but the words just wouldn't form. He desperately wanted to help Darry after everything Darry had done for him over the years but he just had nothing left. A feeling of shame washed over him. He wished that he were stronger so that he could better help his brother.
And with that thought everything went dark.
