Again, harsh language and mentions of torture and violence in this chapter...

(Sodapop's POV)

It seemed like a carnival was going on the day that Steve and I left the hospital. There were dozens of people that wanted to say goodbye to us before the doctors gave us our final checkups and we left for good. Butch and Henry came to see us, and they were excited to hear that my brothers and Two-Bit got to read Harrison's letter. I gave them my address and promised to write to them while they were still deployed, and they handed us some photos from our time in the jungle. It was weird looking at the photos; some of the guys in them had died, others went home, and the rest were still in Vietnam. The really strange thing was that I spent more than a year with the guys in the photos, all of us fighting together and saving each other's lives at one point or another, but I wouldn't see most of them ever again.

After Butch and Henry left, a few members of the medical staff that were assigned to us also said their goodbyes. They told us how much they enjoyed taking care of us and wished us the best for the rest of our lives. Then nurse Laura came by. She talked to Steve and me for a bit, asked for my address so she could write to me, and then she gave me a kiss on the cheek before she left. I couldn't hide my blush.

"Did you get a girlfriend while I was out of it?" Steve asked with his eyebrows raised.

I chuckled, and I felt my face get a little warm again. "Not exactly, but she's a real nice girl." She was also pretty and sweet and kind, but I didn't say that out loud. I couldn't wait to stay in touch with her when I got home. "How could I go out with a girl that's across the world?"

Steve smirked at me. "You'll find a way, Mr. Universe."

The doctors gave us a lot of instructions and things to do when we got home to help our bodies heal. I was told my broken ribs were healing well, and that they should be back to normal after a few more weeks of rest. The bullet had messed my shoulder up a bit, and I was warned that it was going to be a longer recovery. I was told to use the sling for at least another week or two, and then gradually start moving my arm around. The doctor also told me my shoulder might always hurt and give me issues, especially before it rains; I didn't understand that, but I just nodded and pretended that it made sense. He took all of my stitches out so I wouldn't be tempted to do it myself at home, and he bandaged the wounds that hadn't fully healed.

Steve was told to use crutches for a few more weeks, and even after that, he would probably always walk with a limp and might need to use a cane to walk. Steve mumbled something about not using a cane until he's 80 years old, which made the doctor chuckle.

As Steve was getting his other wounds looked at, I went to take a leak. When I saw myself in the mirror, I froze. I was shocked at the skinny person looking back at me, and I only had one thought: there's no way anyone will recognize me back home.

The sling was the first thing I noticed, and upon closer inspection, I could see the bandages on my shoulder that were pressing against my t-shirt. My skin was scarred from all the cuts and burns I received from being in Vietnam for over a year. Then I dared to lift the bottom of my shirt, and I saw all of the scars from the grenade blast, torture, and everything else I had endured during my time as a soldier. There were also some bandages on my side from where the doctors took out all the shrapnel they could find. After a moment of shock at my scarred skin, I bit my lip, and let my shirt fall, hiding my past. My hair was cut short for the military, but after being imprisoned and then in the hospital, it had grown out a little bit, but it still wasn't as long as I used to have it. Besides my shoulder, skin, and hair, there was something else that seemed different compared to the last time I saw myself in the mirror, but I couldn't put my finger on it, so I decided not to dwell on it. I used the bathroom and returned to the room Steve and I had called home for the few weeks after our rescue.

When I returned Steve was standing with his crutches, apparently waiting for me. When I looked at him, I realized that he looked just as awful as I did, maybe even worse since his knee was busted up so bad and he had to recover from a bad infection. He was still pretty weak, but he was at least able to move on his own with the help of the crutches.

"Ready to go?" Steve asked.

I nodded. "Absolutely."


Even though Steve and I had been through a lot during our time in Vietnam, I couldn't help but think about how much worse things could've been. The entire time we were flying back home, my mind kept running through other scenarios. What if one of us had been killed in battle? What if our guys never found us? What if Steve died before we were rescued? I didn't realize that I had been staring at Steve until he spoke up.

"Why are ya lookin' at me like that?" Steve asked with a confused look.

The words came out of my mouth before I even thought about them. "Why didn't you tell me how bad off you were?"

"What do you mean?"

I stared at him, trying to see if he was playing dumb or if he really didn't know what I meant. "When we were being held… you knew something was wrong. Why didn't you tell me?"

"How was I supposed to know? I ain't a doctor," he said. He was trying to joke around, but I wasn't having it. He seemed to notice, so he responded more seriously. "It wouldn't matter if you knew anyway. My priority was for you to make it home; it didn't matter what happened to me."

"Bullshit!" I swore loudly, and several people on the plane looked at me. I ignored them. "It matters, Steve. You matter." I had to take a breath to steady myself. "Do you realize what would've happened if you didn't make it? Because there was a time in the hospital that I didn't think you would, and I almost lost it."

Steve seemed to realize his mistake, and he tried to calm me down. "I didn't want you worrying 'bout me, alright? Sure, I knew I was in trouble, but it's not like we had a lot of options Soda. Neither of us could do anything about it."

I huffed. "You didn't have to take more beatings on my behalf."

"Hey, we made a deal that we had to be strong for each other. That's what I did," Steve said. "That's what we both did."

I nodded. "You got that right, and that ain't stoppin' now."

He grinned and nodded. We sat silently, watching the land below us move, then suddenly Steve spoke up. "Does Ponyboy really not know that you'll be home in a few hours?" It was obvious he wanted to change the subject, and I let him.

I smiled. "Nope. He thinks it'll be another week before we're back." Darry and I planned the surprise when I called after finding out Steve and I would be released from the hospital. Two-Bit was going to be with Pony most of the day, and Darry would leave work early to pick us up at the airport. Two-Bit was going to distract Pony until we got to the house so we can surprise him. "It's gonna be the best surprise ever."

"Second best," Steve corrected. When he saw the confusion on my face, he gave me a smirk. "I think the best surprise was when he found out you were alive."

I grinned. "That's probably true, but at least this time I'll get to see the look on his face."


After we landed, I grabbed our bags with my left hand so Steve could just focus on navigating with his crutches. When we stepped off the plane and into the airport, reality hit me.

We were home.

I turned my head side to side, looking for Darry, but I couldn't spot him. A couple seconds later, Steve nudged my good shoulder and pointed at a tall, muscular man standing about twenty feet away. I looked into his blue-green eyes, and both of us smiled. Forgetting about the bags in my hand and the pain radiating through my body, I ran into Darry's arms.

He wrapped his arms around me, and although I could only return the embrace with one arm, I squeezed him tight. His arms were even stronger than I had remembered, and although my ribs and shoulder protested the embrace, there was no way I was going to say anything about it. I had apparently gotten taller since I had seen him, but I could still bury my face into his neck as tears fell.

"Soda… it's so good to see you little buddy," he said in a shaky voice. My big brother was crying too.

"You too, Darry," I said between sobs. So much for being a tough military guy.

We stood there for what felt like days, but eventually Darry pulled away to look at me. "You've gotten taller, and your hair's different," he noted as he ruffled my hair. He basically looked the same as the last time I had seen him, but he still somehow managed to look older than twenty-three. "How are you?" His eyes scanned every inch of me, stopping at my right arm. "How's your shoulder?"

"There's no metal in me anymore, but between my busted ribs and shoulder, it'll be a while before I'm back in rumble shape," I said with a shrug, accidently making myself wince. "But I'm okay… better than okay now that we're back."

Just then Steve approached us, somehow managing to carrying both of our bags while using his crutches. Once he reached us, he dropped the bags on the floor. "See, Superman? I told you I wasn't comin' back without him."

Darry smiled and gave Steve a one-armed hug, obviously being careful not to knock him over. "Thanks, Steve. I'm glad you're back." Once he drew away from Steve, he looked him over just like he had done to me. "How are you doing?"

Like me, Steve shrugged. "I'll be fine once I get a bite of chocolate cake."

Darry and I laughed, and I immediately had to wrap my arm around my ribs. Still, it felt good to laugh with my brother again.

Darry grabbed our bags and easily threw them over his shoulder. "Ready to go home?"

I smiled. "More than you know."


We stopped to get some burgers before we went back to the house. We got a table, and Steve took one side of the booth so he could stretch his leg out while Darry and I shared the other side. After ordering our food, Steve excused himself to use the restroom, leaving me and Darry alone.

"Everyone's gonna have a lot of questions," I stated, not even knowing where I was going with the train of thought.

Darry nodded. "You don't have to answer any of them, Soda. We're all just happy you're alive. You're alive, and you're home."

I looked down at the table, not able to meet his eyes. "It's wild that you all thought we were dead. I can't imagine what that's like." Then I realized that wasn't entirely true. "At least with Mom and Dad we knew what happened and we had a funeral for them. And that one time with Pony, we found out pretty quickly that he was alive and he was just hidin'. This time, we were halfway across the world and you didn't know for a long time."

"I'm not going to lie, it was hard on all of us," Darry said sadly. He put his hand on my good shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. "It's okay now. We're all okay, and you guys are back."

In that moment, I felt safe for the first time since I had opened my draft notice letter.

"Do you wanna know what happened?" I asked barely above a whisper. Then I looked up at my brother. "That day in the jungle… wanna know?"

He pressed his lips in a line, apparently debating how he wanted to answer. "Only if you want to tell me."

I nodded, "I feel like I owe you an explanation or somethin' since we worried you guys so bad." Then I returned to looking at the table and took a deep breath. "It started like a normal day. I had just read the letters you guys sent about schools wanting Pony and you all going to the rodeo…" I continued telling him everything I could remember from that day: the grenade blast, saving Harrison, Steve saving my life, and then hitting the ground. "After that, everything went dark. I don't know what happened before I woke up."

"I'll tell you what happened," Steve said, suddenly appearing. He eased himself down into the booth. "They shot me in the leg twice, the second one got me in the knee and we went down. We were surrounded, but before they killed us, they noticed my rank and that we were both wounded… decided to take us prisoner 'cause they didn't think we'd put up much of a fight and that we'd give 'em information while they waited for a prisoner exchange opportunity. I started to fight them, but they said if I didn't listen to 'em, they'd shoot you."

I stared at him, and I knew Darry was too. "I thought they didn't know you could understand them at first," I said.

"I don't think they did then. They were shouting and pointing guns at you, so they probably thought I just took the hint." Steve said with a smirk. Then he looked at Darry. "They eventually found out I understood them after I yelled a few choice phrases at 'em while we were held prisoner."

I chuckled. "Yeah, they weren't expectin' that."

The smile on my face started to drop as I realized what I was about to tell Darry next. I felt myself frown as I looked back down. "We were held in a cold, damp room. Shackled all the time. They asked us a lot of questions… we refused to answer…" I trailed off, not able to say anything else about that awful place.

"That's okay, Soda. You don't have to say any more," Darry said in a gentle voice. He rubbed his hand up and down my arm.

"They didn't hold back," Steve said grimly, but also matter-of-factly. "It's a miracle our guys found us when they did."

I nodded. "Not sure how much longer we would've lasted." I looked at Steve. "Especially you."

Steve waved me off, but after seeing the confused look on Darry's face, he explained. "After a while, I wasn't feelin' great, ya know, besides the whole torture thing," he said sarcastically. I shuttered as he talked about it like it was no big deal. "The bullet wound in my knee got infected and I got real sick. I hardly remember being rescued. I was out of it for a couple weeks in the hospital. When I woke up, the doctors and Soda told me how bad it was."

I felt myself start shaking slightly, and Darry gently pulled me closer to his side. "It's okay, we don't need to talk about it anymore. I'm just thankful that you're both back."

Steve seemed to have noticed the change in my demeanor, and he quickly changed the subject. "Let's talk about Soda's girl from the hospital."


Darry drove us to the house, and seeing Tulsa for the first time in almost a year and a half was very strange. I looked out the window and watched all the roads, trees, and buildings go by. Everything looked the same, but something was out of place. Me.

"Darry, is my old bedroom still there?" I asked suddenly. I had this strange idea that Darry would've changed it into a study for either him or Pony once he thought I was dead.

Darry gave me a strange look. "Of course it is." He had a questioning look on his face.

I decided to answer all of the questions that he probably wanted to ask, but wasn't sure how to. "It's not that I don't want to spend every moment possible with either you or Pony, it's just… I spent more than a year sleeping next to a gun and ready to shoot first and ask questions later… and that was before we got captured." What I was trying to say was that I didn't want to scare, or heaven forbid, hurt Pony if we shared a bed and something happened. I would never forgive myself.

During our time in the hospital, my nightmares didn't get any better, and I constantly woke up in a state of panic. With the lack of sleep and all of the medications I was on, I always felt like I was a mess in that military hospital, and I didn't need Pony to see me like that. Especially if he was still struggling with his own nightmares.

Darry nodded like he understood what I truly meant. Maybe he did. "Whatever you need, Soda." Then he turned to look at Steve in the back seat. "You're welcome to stay at our house as long as you need. Our house is your house."

At the restaurant, Darry had told Steve that he hadn't heard from Steve's dad since we left for Vietnam. Steve didn't seem surprised or concerned, but I knew he was trying to figure out where he was going to stay. As much as Steve would've loved to live in his house by himself in the past, I wasn't so should he would want to return to his childhood house alone after what we endured in the war. I knew I didn't want him to deal with that either.

"Thanks, Darry," Steve said.

The thought of Steve staying at our house calmed my nerves. He was the only person that would really understand everything that I was going through, and if I had to talk about something, he wouldn't be shocked by anything that I would say. "You can sleep in my old bed, Steve. I'll take the couch."

"With broken ribs? I don't think so," Steve said.

"You have a busted knee." I said with a jokingly-serious tone. "You're not my C.O. anymore, Steve. We're lookin' after each other as buddies now."

Steve rolled his eyes. "It's your bed anyways, Soda. I'll take the couch."

As we pulled up to our house, I saw Steve's car in the driveway, exactly where it was when we left to go to war. When Darry parked the truck in the driveway, I had butterflies in my stomach. I was finally going to walk into my house and not only see a good friend, but also my kid brother.

"He has no idea," Darry said quietly. "Go ahead. I'll grab the bags."

I looked back at Steve, who was grinning as he nodded.

I smiled at both of them and hopped out of the truck. I walked up the steps and to the front door. After I took a deep breath, I walked into the house.

The radio was blasting music, the lights were on, and the smells coming from the kitchen told me someone had recently made a chocolate cake. Steve will be happy about that. As I kept walking through the house, I heard voices coming from the kitchen table.

"We're in here Darry!" I heard Ponyboy shout. My heart started pounding.

I tiptoed to the kitchen, and I saw my brother and Two-Bit playing poker. Ponyboy had his back to me, and Two-Bit was sitting opposite of him, facing me. When Two-Bit looked up from the cards, I could see he was trying to suppress a smile. I put my pointer finger up to my lips, trying to make sure he stayed quiet, which was already one of the most difficult things for Two-Bit to do. Two-Bit looked down at his cards, still grinning like a fool.

"Two-Bit, they call it a 'poker face' for a reason," Pony joked. "Are you trying to trick me with all that smilin'?"

I walked right up to Ponyboy and looked at the cards in his hands. Pocket aces.

I couldn't resist.

"I'd go all in if I were you," I said.

I saw Pony's muscles tense as he immediately froze. After a moment of shock, he whipped his head around to look at me. His green eyes were popping out of his head. "Soda!" He jumped to his feet and wrapped his arms around me. Not only had he gotten stronger, but he was almost as tall as me.

I wrapped my left arm around my kid brother. "Hey, Pony."

Both of us were still hugging and crying when Darry and Steve walked into the kitchen. I heard Darry drop the bags onto the floor before he pulled both Pony and me into his arms. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Two-Bit hug Steve.

Once the two of them pulled apart, Two-Bit shouted, "Now this is the reunion I was waitin' for!"