I've had this chapter, along with the latest one, written ever since I posted chapter 7!

Enjoy some more angst. :)

-endless

fix you

Someone is curled up against my robotic chest.

Darry's calloused hand is still laced through mine, so something tells me this sleeping body is Pony. Though, I can't tell who's breathing louder: the fake oxygen inside of my body or snoring. My arm is folded around so that my IV doesn't come rocketing out of my hand, and the wires surrounding my body are holding on by a thread.

I know all four of them are terrified. I know they're wishing, hoping, praying that I wake up, even if it takes three thousand years. I know they want me to be back to the same, high-on-life Soda that they've watched me become. I know deep down, I can become that person again.

But also deep down: I don't want to.

And I've never really believed in God, but I know that my spirit is currently spinning in my mother's arms in a land I can't see, in a warmth I can't describe. I know that my father is watching fondly, all traces of the abusive tyrant gone, the reek of alcohol, tobacco, hard work, and poor choices no longer part of him.

I know my brothers will die for me to survive.

But I will die for this.

"Do you think he's in pain?"

Darry's voice rouses me from sleep. For a minute, I forget that I'm huddled against Soda, laying in the very edge of the bed with my feet plastered across a waiting room chair. I blink against the harsh overhead lights and focus on my brother, who's looking right at me, but also straight past me. My body tenses as I try and stretch without disturbing Soda's lifelines, and that seems to bring Darry back to me.

He scoffs, half to himself, half to me. "Sorry." His voice is the same whisper, the same hollow tone, and his eyes are scalding fires of red. "Guess I felt like talking out loud."

Silence follows his words. I look around the room, finding no one else in the corner, where Two-Bit and Steve stood just a half hour ago before the doctor came.

"You don't remember giving them permission to talk to her?"

I shake my head no. I must have been exhausted to the point of short-term memory loss.

"They'll be back. The doctor said it could take a while."

The only word that comes to me is "oh."

The tear lines that mark Darry's face might as well be part of his skin. His eyes drift from Soda to mine, and I feel my chest tighten at the way he smiles. It's pained, terrified, but also proud. Slowly, I climb out from under Soda's wires and tubes, putting his arm back on the bed. My body goes cold the minute I leave, as if Soda is the only heat source I have. I wind around the bed so that Darry's other hand, which is holding his chin up so that he doesn't fall asleep, is wrapped around mine.

It's here, sitting in front of my oldest brother, that I answer his question: "I don't think he is."

He nods, though I don't think I've made his anxiety fade. "I figured I'd ask you, since y'all probably have telepathic powers or somethin'. Always knowing what the other is feeling." My face runs red, and he smiles again, letting out a small laugh. "Nothin' wrong with that, Pone."

We're quiet for a few minutes, listening to Soda's machines. And then, out of the blue, Darry says:

"I'm proud of you, Ponyboy."

I can't hide the shock on my face. Darry and I have always been at odds with one another, never seeming to agree on the simplest of things. It has always been Soda to bring us back together when we weren't sure if we would make it. Hearing Darry say he's proud of me, maybe for the first time in my entire life, makes all of the air in my lungs crumble to dust.

"What for?"

"For holding me together."

Again, the only word that comes to mind is "oh."

"I know it should be the other way around. I should be holding you, comforting you, being your protector. And yet, here I am, losing my fucking mind..."

"Darry," I say, noticing how he's already tearing up again, "I'm sixteen."

"That doesn't make it right."

I move my hand from his and lightly guide his chin onto my knee. My pant leg grows wet as his tears soak through the denim. I take his hand again and squeeze it tightly.

"You're my baby brother..."

"I ain't a baby no more, Dar."

"...I know that since Mom and Dad died we've been at each other's throats, and Pone -" he stops, turning his head away to cough and wipe more tears. "I never wanted that."

"We wouldn't be Curtis's if we weren't rough once and a while." I think of Dad when were younger, throwing us all on the couch one by one, our squeals of joy brighter than the sun.

"You mean so much to me." His hand squeezes mine back, and our eyes fall on Soda. "You both do."

I brush hair out of his eyes. He moves so that his forehead rests on my knee, his whole body shaking with the effort of holding back tears. I use my other hand to rub at his shoulder blades, just like Momma would, and I see the white tile floor reflecting in the light above our heads.

The door opens and shuts rather quickly, and Steve and Two-Bit slowly make their way into the room. I look up, keeping my hands on Darry, and their eyes are shining. Two-Bit's lips are pressed in a thin line and Steve just sniffles. They put their arms around each other in silent grief.

We walk on a fine line. We walk on a line between this life and the next.

And I can see Soda on the other side, and I just hope that he forgives himself enough to come back home.