Howdy! Thanks for checking back in, y'all.

Here's a little throwback to Soda and his army buddies, who we saw a little of in Chapter 2.

Also a reminder that in my universe, Soda is dyslexic, hence his troubles with school and eventual dropout.

Chapter 6: The Flames

Vietnam 1968

"Anyone up for some gin rummy?" Liniewicz pipes up, holding up that ragged and torn deck of cards, the only thing that seems to bring him any joy anymore. "Parkinson? Curtis?" Though he's an unusually large man, all I see right now is a little kid looking for some kind of a distraction to our second week being stranded out here.

"Ah, hell, LinnyWinny, I'll play with ya if nobody else will." I offer from my corner of camp, lying on my back with hands behind my head, hoping I don't actually have to since I'm just about bored shitless of that game. That and I was really hoping to catch another chapter of the prince book Parson got from another soldier in Long Binh before he was sent to the front lines with us.

Fortunately, Crawford emerges from the jungle, zipping his pants and kicking some of the rainwater from off his boots and steps in. "Set me up, Liniewicz. I'm 'bout to win my pack of cigs back after last night." He says, lying down some lobster claw leaves in front of Lin's station so that he doesn't have to sit directly in the mud made from this afternoon's storm.

"You're off the hook, Curtis." Lin nods, on to me the whole time, and I whack Parson on his shin with the back of my hand. He immediately pulls out the water-warped paperback from his pack and I can hear him flipping through the pages, just as curious as me about what's coming next in the book.

"You mind doing a chapter?" He questions, rubbing his eyes a bit from sleepiness.

"Sugar Rush ain't so much of a reader." Crawford chimes in for me, somewhat protective in his tone because he knows I don't always like explaining to people that back in the day, I was a certified dumbass.

I look up at Parson who's staring back at Crawford with a confused look, so I jump back in, "Gee, I never did tell you I'm a dropout, did I, Parson?" I laugh to break the uneasiness before anyone can resort to pity or disapproval.

"Huh," Parson finally says. "I never would've guessed... what with you seeming to know so much about books and stories and stuff."

"That's all 'cause of Ponyboy." I tell him, because it's true, the only reason I know anything about anything that isn't cars or girls or rumbles is because of Pony and those chapter books he used to read me when we shared that tiny room of his. Crawford smiles back at me, because as much as Parson is my Ponyboy, Crawford is my Darry. They must be sick of hearing so much about my brothers, but at the same time, I think we all like the reminder of home, even if it's someone else's memory. I can't get enough of hearing about Parkinson's two-year-old, Theodore, or about Crawford's six crazy sisters and one off-the-wall brother, or Parson's best friend Johnathan who didn't get drafted because of one of his legs don't work too well. There's something about remembering what's home that makes all this seem like it won't be forever. The downside is, when war swallows up a guy who's told you his whole story, it's hard not to feel like a piece of you has been swallowed up, too.

"Man, Parson, you gotta meet the kid, I think you two would get along real well, you're so damn similar. Hell, you even look a little like him. In fact, 'been a couple times I gotta do a double take thinking he's right here with me." I wish he was here, but I'm so thankful he isn't.

Lin places down a hand-torn cardboard rectangle the size of a playing card with a three and a club scribbled in Sharpie just Crawford intercepts it, "Now what the hell is this?"

"We ain't got no King of Spades or three of clubs, CrawDaddy. Not since Curtis decided to take a damn fall in the river with the deck in his unzipped pocket." Lin's voice is loaded with animosity, but he still has a hint of a smile when he rolls his eyes over at me. I wink at him and blow a kiss.

"In my defense, I did stand and salute once I got to the bank when I saw that King floatin' downriver face up." I add, but I don't think Linny really counts that as the effort he was hoping for. But like always, we manage, two cards short is no problem for us, even if it does defeat some of the purpose of the game.

"Shut up and read your stories." Lin kicks my boot with his with enough force that it uncrosses my ankles and rolls me from my back onto my side.

I wind up to tackle him over but Parson's voice pipes up and shuts me quiet real quick.

"The Little Prince. Chapter Seven," He begins, voice soft and timid just like Pony's on those nights crammed in that tiny bed back home. I get a bit lost in my memories of Tulsa, thinking of Darry and Pony smoking on the porch and watching cartoons with Two-Bit and Steve, our overcrowded bathroom, our potluck dinners with whoever decided to crash with us that night. I think of everybody back home, every single person I can remember, right down to that grocery store bagger at the Winn-Dixie who asks about Mom and Dad every time we pass through the line no matter how many reminders we give him.

Sometimes I forget to think about Mom and Dad, too, but not tonight.

I miss it all.

It's then that I realize that Parson's well into the chapter by now, and I tune back in, any escape is a good escape if it's an escape from here.

"...It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye..."

It's like that thing Pony's always saying about sunsets, I think. If ever it happens I get to see my little brother again, I'll ask him what he knows about The Little Prince. I'll tell him all about everything here, because he'd sure love to hear about it.

Tulsa, May 1976

"How're things today?" I ask as he tears into that meatball sandwich, feet up on his office coffee table, and napkins strewed around the ancient couch that's lived here at the DX since way back before Mr. Cohen passed it down to Soda.

"Peachy keen," He smiles wide back at me with marinara all in his teeth. "You? How's the new job? Must be a real break to cover the news in Oklahoma when you come off a year of covering New York."

Even though he's right about that, I shake my head at him, "C'mon, Soda, you know I'm not looking for small talk." I've tried small talk and has yet to do us any good other than waste time. He looks back at me, and this is where Soda and I might be different now. I'm always wishing someone would ask me how I feel, but I don't think he wants that anymore, not from me at least.

"Oh, I see. You noticed all those candy bar wrappers in the trash huh? I swear, Pony, I'm trying to quit." He's got a look on his face that could either be contentment or contempt, but I'm not sure I would opt for either of them. I watch him rip into another bite. I'm starting to get resentful towards him and how little he's giving me to work with. After how many weeks it's just been the two of us since he and Darry officially quit talking, and he's reverting to small talk again.

"Why the fuck won't you talk to me?" I'm not usually the one who throws that word around. "What is so special about Darry that made you open up to him and not me?"

He looks surprised back up at me, so surprised in fact, that I wish it wasn't so shocking for him to hear me call him out like this. "Shit, Pony, I was not expecting that."

His attention goes back to the sandwich after motioning for me to eat my own Manhattan Club, but I'm stuffed with the burden of all this skirting around he wants of me, so I just glare back at him. He sees my pissed off self without even needing to look up.

I watch as he drops his sandwich back down on the wrapping paper that sits precariously on his lap and licks his fingertips so he can interlace them together over his chest before he addresses me. "What do you want to talk about, Pony?"

"You're not okay, Soda." Here we are, back at square one. It's like we keep failing Level One of this stupid game and every time we do, we're thrown right back to the start. Shouldn't it be getting easier each time? "I'll do whatever you need, I just don't know what that is."

I wish his eyes weren't such clear windows into his substance abuse. The way they stare blankly back at me when they used to hold the fire of mischief and passion and curiosity- how could they possibly be blank like that? How is that even an option when it comes to him? What I wouldn't give to see that fire in his eyes, even for just a moment now, to remember how he used to fight for things, and not sit by quietly.

"There's got to be someplace we can start, right?"

A quick scratch of his eyebrow gives him just enough time to muster a smile back, "I wish I knew, kiddo," and he tears back into that fucking sandwich like I'm no kind of a brother. Everything Soda does is magnified, so when he hurts you, it really hurts. "It ain't nothing personal," he says, mouth full again, but there's no way it isn't at this point. Credit me the decency to admit that there's something I don't know, and it feels like it's own form of betrayal that he's going to pretend like I don't see that.

"Bullshit." I say, watching as he starts to get fed up with me, now. "Please, quit fighting me." I sound just like Mom. "It's just me and you now. Tell me about the city. Or... or about your buddies... Crawford, and uh, Liniewicz, and um, who's the other guy... Parson?"

"I don't want to talk about Parson." His voice is panicked and rushed, but he calms himself pretty quickly. He scratches the lock of his elbow where he's got those needle cicatrixes. I double check to make sure none are fresh. "Listen, Pone. I ain't no kind of hero. You can't fix it, but you should know it. There's not much else to say."

Maybe it's selfish of me to push, and make it about myself, but I can't fight the feeling that there's something here everybody seems to know but me. "Then how come Darry knows about everything?"

Empty eyes look back at me and they don't even try to meet me where I'm at anymore, almost like they want to hide the fact that they belong to someone I used to know so well. Someone who seems like a speck on the horizon right now, no matter how many miles it feels like I'm trekking to get closer, that speck never quite develops a true shape.

"I know you did... things. Anyone who got shipped over there like that did, but that doesn't make you a bad guy. It can't."

At that, he finally breaks away from that sandwich and frowns back at me. "Why you gotta hold me up here, Ponyboy?" and he lifts his hand high above him, head cocked and eyebrows wrinkling. "Why can't you just accept that I'm not the kind of hero you want to think I am? Sooner you see that, I think the better off you'll be."

I ball my fists right there on top of the table so he can see them, even though it's not meant to threaten, but more express what's firing up inside me.

"Don't talk to me like I'm some kind of a dumb kid. Quit acting like a coward trying to push me away. You're not a coward." My vision starts to blur from those stupid tears I can never quite get control over, and they only make me more angry. Leaning forward, I pound one of my fists on the coffee table and the sound reverberates through his office and out to the garage where I'm sure anyone working can hear. "I've been here for two months just waiting for you to open your eyes and see that you've got somebody here ready to fight for you. It doesn't matter what you've done, you're my brother."

"Ponyboy, it ain't so simple."

"I'm right here, Soda, and I'm not going anywhere. Jesus, it hurts like hell to watch you nosedive like some kind of a kamikaze, like you don't even care, because that's not who you are." I'm granted my wish when Soda's irises burn like they used to for a split second, like he's ready to jump back on board with me, but something inside must've been quick enough to extinguish it because it's gone as quickly as it came.

"I don't want you right here, Pony." His voice is passionately hollow, his eyes brimming with tears as he reaches over the table to grab both of my hands. "You ain't done nothing wrong, Pone, but I can't have you right here. I can't have you falling down too." Whoever took him apart and tried to piece him all back together again did a lousy job.

I grab his hands back with no sense of delicate sweetness, just pure force and desperation in a final attempt. "You remember that constellation? Phoenix? In that one story Dad was always telling us about? How it rose from the ashes, bigger and better than it was before?"

He looks me hard in the eyes, too smart not to know exactly where I'm going with it. He beats me to the punch, and his packs a harder hit even as he holds my hands tighter. "Yeah, but the fire comes first, Pony."

"Thanks for meetin' me."

"You're looking rough, Sodapop." Curly doesn't call you Sodapop. Not since you were young together and all he wanted was a cool name like yours. That was before they started calling him Curly, and his dream came true with a nickname that gave his mischief an appropriate title.

"That's just 'cause things are rougher." You respond even though he's never actually cared, so why would he start now? But then when you raise your head up to figure why he isn't already passing you the goods, it's because he's looking directly back at you. "I have the money, if that's what you're worried about."

He shakes his head and cocks his eyebrow, shoving his hands into his pockets passively. You didn't know Curly had the capacity for soft. "I ain't gonna to sell you no dirt tonight."

The buzzing streetlamp in the parking lot is the only thing that lights him up and the scars that plague his face, and you're sure in the right context people might think he's a real life, full on monster. You wonder if you could be seen that way, too. You wonder if Jackie or Maddie or Junior saw you now, would they recognize you? You hope not. "Why's that?" is all you can help but ask as you're starting to get cold again, and everything is stiff like you'll turn to stone, and that's just the physical, not the mental, but if you could just get a little hit it would all go away.

You wouldn't dare cry in front of Curly Shepard, even if it's all you feel like doing right here. You hate that you're here alone, and the worst part is you can follow the trail of your sins to figure why that is. And they lead you right smack dab here in this parking lot begging to graduate on to needles with teacher Curly telling you even in drug use you haven't passed.

Curly nods to something behind you, and for a moment, you wonder if you're about to get mugged. You wouldn't put it past the Curly you see these days, and it was pretty stupid to agree to meet him with all your cash alone in this dark parking lot.

As you turn to look, the dark that surrounds you feels like it'll just swoop in and swallow you whole the longer you look into it. But before that tightness in your chest can come in to cripple you to your knees, two size twelve black boots step across the line from the black night into the light where all your truths and sins and fears are revealed. You know that walk anywhere, no matter the boots are standard issue, and every cop in the state has got them. And the uniform that should scare you away, instantly wraps you in its familiarity for who lies beneath it.

"Hey, little buddy." He hasn't called you that in years, and since you're twenty-six now, you'd normally take it as patronizing, but instead, it fills a hollow part of you even just a little. Something that ties you back to before your life decided to take a turn towards destruction. Hell, even if he threw you in a noogie you'd take it as a gift.

"What are you doing here?" You want to sound unaffected since you're stubborn and somehow making him feel like you've never needed him at all feels like it might solve that shriveled up feeling you've got in your stomach. But being where you're at, your acting skills have been a bit impaired.

"Curly called me about an hour ago. Said you were fixing to meet him here and order something a little stronger than usual."

Your head whips around to study the drug dealer who always seems so painfully apathetic to anything but his empire.

"You?" Is all you can muster as you realize Darry's spy is the last person you ever would've bet on, though if you're being honest, you've known all along deep down, and were glad at least a little that some form of tabs was being kept by him.

"Now's not the time, not with the baby." Curly says, the way his eyes won't meet yours tells you pretty quickly it's because even he's a little surprised at his own empathy.

You turn back to Darry, feeling the safest you have in a while as you stand in the crosshairs between cop and robber without any inclination to run. He doesn't look mad at you. In fact, there's a semblance of understanding in those eyes.

"I've had a real bad day, Dar." You try and justify, knowing it'll fall flat, and you can almost hear the plea glide just a few inches from your mouth before it smacks hard onto the concrete below. You're probably better off if it didn't reach his ears at all.

"I know. But this ain't gonna fix it." He always gets back to the facts. Maybe that's what you need more of... less feelings and more facts.

When you turn back, Curly's gone like a whisper on the wind, your cure for your demented brain gone with him. Sometimes Darry scares all the fun away, but you can't help but notice you might be a little relieved about it tonight. Maybe you didn't even really want that stuff. You've never really wanted it, so why does it always end up in your hands?

"I ain't gonna make it." Nothing you've ever said makes you feel more free from the weight on your shoulders, and you top it off with, "And I shouldn't... make it."

He's the one to bridge the gap, in three of his largest strides, he's over to you in just a moment. His shadow casts a big one over you, but at least it means you're not out there in the open where people who can see who you've become. "It don't gotta be like this." His voice is cracking, and you feel like praising God that Darrel Curtis has got a tell so at least you can tell where he's at even when he doesn't want you to. Even when others won't see it.

Your arms wrap clear around his waist and you hold on for dear life, like you're nothing but a skinny sixteen-year-old with greasy hair and a popped collar, fresh off your first of many tastes that world isn't a safe place. There's nothing more safe than when he holds you back. You're the first to cry, but how can you not, when you finally feel the crack of isolation that is the tyranny of grief?

...

I wake up to Debbie's hand on my shoulder, jostling me awake gently.

"You were crying, Darry." She says softly and grazes her fingers below the rim of my eyelids.

The sound of the dryer actually does a lot to calm my nerves, or maybe it's just that now each wave of pain comes with the strength and practice from the last one. If it's possible to get better at contractions, well then maybe that's what's happening now.

The sun was high over the house when I noticed that our faded blue couch beneath where I sat was suddenly wet. I don't know how long it's been, but now the orange glow of the sunset is starting to shine through the windows like some sort of an unwanted spotlight.

The phone's been right on the table stand next to me the whole time, I could call the DX myself, or an ambulance since Soda's got the car, but I haven't even tried to reached for it yet. Another wave of fire shoots through my back and abdomen. I've gotten into enough of a rhythm to know if I squeeze the edge of the couch as tight as I can and count thirty, it'll be over eventually, at least for a few minutes.

And yet, even in all my control and perfect breathing technique, it's taking almost all of my being not to launch into what I can only guess is a full fledged panic attack that's lying and wait deep in my core.

I should call someone. I need to call someone. But I'm not ready for her to come into this family, not when I can't be sure she'll be safe under the crumbing hell hole our home has become.

This is not how things are supposed to go, this is not how my life was supposed to be, and yet I still feel so anchored to the exact spot I'm in right here.

Another death grip on the edge of the couch and however many seconds of inhaling and exhaling, and I'm hoping maybe it'll all just stop on its own. Braxton Hicks, like last time when Darry came to get me. It all went away in the end, maybe this isn't the real thing. If we could just have a little more time, I'm sure we can clean ourselves up for her.

And then another one courses through, they're coming much more frequently now.

I'm not ready for this, I can't do this.

The door opens right around six, as usual. "Home!" He hollers before he can turn and see me on the couch looking like the hot mess I'm sure I am.

He stares at me all dumbstruck for a moment, and I watch with a high strung impatience as it clicks in his head, like a cartoon, that it's happening- and that look makes it all more real than I want to feel right now.

"Oh, shit!" he says, and hops around his spot by the door like a caffeinated grasshopper for a moment trying to figure what comes next, before he bounds over to me and kneels next to the couch, taking my hand. "Is it time?" he smooths the hair out of my face with his other hand so he can get a good look at me in the eyes.

"No, no." I assure him with an airy but obvious untruthfulness, but I keep going anyways. "Just some discomfort, but it's nothing-" but then I crumble inward, releasing his hand to grab my belly and this baby that's trying to expose me and my lies. It's then that he sees the mess I've made of the couch, and he looks up at me with a smile.

"Baby, unless you peed your pants, I think it's time."

I shake my head violently. This time I grab his hand to squeeze it instead of couch's corduroy fabric when another bit of "discomfort" announces itself. He braces me through it, saying something encouraging I'm sure but I can't hear him through the pulsating pain. When it's over and I open my eyes, he's still staring back at me with a sympathetic look.

"Let's get you to your feet and to the car." He starts to tug at my elbow to pull me up and I rip it out of his hold, that heavy panic inside starting to puff up to the surface.

"No!" I yell at him, the volume surprising us both. "I'm not going today!"

He stops, deadpan and frozen for a moment before he kneels back down into my vision.

"Grace, it's time..." he starts to plea but stops when as I begin to cry. "It's okay, baby."

"I'm not going," My quiver is near unbearable. Once upon a time, I was the collected and steady one in this house. "We're not ready, Soda. We can't do this, we're not ready for her yet."

He puts both hands on my cheeks and brings his face close to mine.

"Hey. We will figure this out." He says clearly, but his hands are shaking and though he fights that numbness from the pills, I'm certainly not blind. "I know you're scared, baby, you have every right to be, but I'm not going anywhere. Are you going anywhere?"

There's a long and hesitant pause before I shake my head, even though I mean it more than I've meant a lot of things lately.

"Then we're a team."

He only says that because he doesn't know what I've done behind his back. I think about telling him about Roger right then and there, as imperfect of a time that it would be, but I just need us to have a clean slate before all of this starts. But then, another contraction interrupts our moment.

"It'll be alright." His voice is calm, and though there's no way it'll be alright when his spare pill bottle is stashed right underneath this couch pretending not to exist, it helps that he's trying to make it look like he believes it fully. "We can do this."

I nod, my sobbing has turned to pitiful hiccups as it dies down, and I take his hand to help me stand, but as I do, I'm dunked in a pool of urgency and realize it's too late.

"Oh, no." I say, and I can see my own horrified reflection in his dark brown eyes, his expression matching mine pretty quickly. I can hardly hold myself up when a contraction like fire waves down my body. "She's coming now, Soda."

"Right now? Right here? I thought it took hours after..." Maybe the high pitched panic in his voice would be funny any other time, but he's making me scared all over again, so I shoot him my look that says it all and he nearly staggers back from its impact, an all too large grin pasting itself across his face. "That's great!" Then under his breath, "Shit." And then to me again, "We can do this." He repeats, giving me a quick kiss on the forehead before grabbing the phone off of the stand next to the couch.

Another wave of pain, and I've got hold of his free hand again, squeezing it so tight that his face contorts in agony and he screams with me just as the operator chimes in on the line.

Author's Note:

Big shout out to S.E. Hinton, who, you know, created the foundations for which I write, and you know, (unknowingly) sharing these characters with me.

As always, thank you for continuing to care about this story! I am so grateful to each of you.

Le Petit Prince (1943) was written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and is a wonderful book.

'This Is On Me' by Ben Abraham has been an inspiration in the last couple of chapters

The RANDOM section of second person during Darry's dream was simply meant to give that sort of distorted, disrupted feel.

Thank you to SimonaK1 for giving me some awesome feedback, helped me steer this chapter in a coherent direction and was patient enough to listen to my jumbled process :)