Thank you all for reading and reviewing this story! I know it got a bit dark and away from my usual, but I appreciate you sticking around. Especially Simona, because she was there with ideas and support and editing, even while she was angry for me doing this to Pony. Thank you!

I have also really enjoyed the private messages. I know the site going down was annoying, but there was a silver-lining... I got to talk to everyone!

Chapter 7

Darry

The phone was ringing. Even down here, this far from the nurses' desk, I could hear. It was screaming out to be answered. Breaking the silence of the hall. Of the room. Steve was glaring at the floor like if he stared hard enough, he could disappear into it. Two-Bit looked from Pony to me, then to the clock. Each time the second hand ticked, each breath I'd taken since speaking to the doctor, felt like a waste. I didn't deserve to breathe. I didn't want to.

The man in blue scrubs had been back. Made some final adjustments. Given me his stethoscope to listen to the air push in and out of Pony's lungs. To listen to the beat of his heart.

The ringing of the phone abruptly cut off. There were footsteps in the hall. I knew even before they opened the door that it was Soda calling. It was time.

Steve squeezed his eyes closed. Like maybe if he didn't see it, it wouldn't be real. He didn't turn when they opened the door.

"He's on the line." The nurse carried the light brown phone in her hands, cradle on one side and receiver on the other. She held it out to me.

The hospital had been real good about finding a way to let Soda talk to Pony one last time. Someone had found a cord long enough to stretch from the desk to the room. The nurse carefully stepped over it and arranged the line so it would fit beneath the crack under the heavy door, and stepping out, closed it softly behind her.

They hadn't approved his leave. Apparently his commanding officer, and the government of the United States, thought that little brothers died all the time. There was a war on, after all, and Sodapop Curtis was no one special. The best they could do was give him his entitled R&R. Five days away from the fighting, but no chance to come home. Five days to make as many phone calls as he wanted.

I thought about hanging up the phone. I had the crazy idea that if I didn't acknowledge it, then it wouldn't happen. Follow Steve's lead and just try to ignore what was going on. Just hang up and forget. Make time stop. But life didn't work that way.

I brought the phone to my ear.

"Soda? Hey, Little Brother…yeah." I stared at the blue and white blanket that covered Pony's chest. A pop of color in an otherwise bleached environment. 'Every loop made with a little love and a whole lot of cheap yarn' mom had always said. I avoided Pony's closed eyes. Tried to block out the sound of forced air and artificial breaths and the various clicks and whirls that came from the machines. Didn't look at Steve or Two-Bit. "Yeah, forty-five minutes. That's all…all we've got." I wanted to say so much more. Tell him I-we-needed him here with us as bad as we needed Ponyboy, but every time I opened my mouth nothing came out except a sob. I cleared my voice as best I could, nodding even though he couldn't see me, and doing my best to force out the words, "Okay, Pepsi. Here he is."

Then I took the phone from my ear and held it against Ponyboy's.

Soda

The air under the thick canvas tent was even more hot and still-heavy even- than the air outside of it. And even inside the air itself felt wet. Cigarette smoke hung around me, clouding the stagnant air, making it impossible to draw a clear breath. But the place was private and had a phone. One I could use to call home. One that wouldn't cut off after I'd had just a few minutes talking to them, and one I wouldn't have to feed half my paycheck into just to connect to the States like the other boys did on their R&Rs. China Beach, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Penang, or use of the officers' tent and phone. Those had been the only choices they'd given me.

Leave Denied.

No going home to see my baby brother. No holding his hand and begging him to come back to me. No laying beside him and holding him like all those times that he'd had nightmares. No whispering secrets in the dark of night, quiet so Darry wouldn't hear. No seeing his nose buried in a book or worrying about him walking home from the movies. None of it. Ever again.

I'd been too late. The letter had taken too long to get me. Then it was too many days to get to a place that might have a phone, and that many more to find it and figure out a call home.

They'd found him, and even though things had looked bad, real fucking bad, as Steve had put it, I'd still managed to find some hope after I'd bawled like a baby. I pulled myself back together enough to beg God to take me instead…to let me make things right, somehow. I put in a request to go home, for extenuating circumstances, that I somehow knew would be denied. No one had ever been approved to go back home, even for a few days. None that I'd heard of anyway.

For a minute I stared at the black phone. Stubbed out the end of my third cigarette. Looked at my watch…2300 hours, seven minutes. It was just after ten a.m. at home. I'd kept them waiting seven minutes longer than I'd promised, and even though Darry knew I was never on time, I couldn't keep them waiting. I didn't know if the doctor would wait for me if I kept them too long anyway. But maybe Darry would convince them, somehow.

The nurse answered when I called and said she was "So very sorry, honey," and to hold on while she got my brother. Then after a minute, there was Darry's voice. Shaky and uneven, rasping over top of the cracks and pops of the long-distance call. Later I'd look back and wonder what I'd even said to him…what I had asked. But it seemed my mind went blank from the time my big brother answered, until he put my little brother on the phone.

I thought back to his letter, how he had started by saying he had so much to say but couldn't figure out a way to say it. How everything that came to mind just sounded dumb, or like it wasn't enough. But that it was important he get the words exactly right. It was a last chance to say everything you'd always wanted to. A last chance to say how just how much he meant. A last goodbye.

Darry

The room was quiet enough that we could all hear him. I wanted to squeeze my eyes closed, drop my head, and cover my ears like Steve. Or stare a hole in the wall behind Pony like Two-Bit and force my mind to take me somewhere-anywhere-else. But I didn't. Instead, I sat the phone's base down on the bed next to my littlest brother and held the phone tight against his ear. Ran my hand through his soft hair like I knew Soda would do if he were here.

Soda's voice spilled out into the room, just loud enough he could be heard clearly above the machines. He started out rough, voice breaking and choking on almost every word, until I wondered if he would even be able to continue.

"Pony?" I closed my eyes and thumbed Pony's brow while Soda waited for an answer that I knew would never come. "Ponyboy, it's Sodapop. Glory, honey, I don't…I don't know how I'm going to do this. I'm so far away and I should be there… I should be…Jesus…I never… I never thought…I thought it'd be me…"

He was rambling, sobbing between words, while trying to put a coherent thought together. The silence between the words was long and dark, terrifying, opening the hole in my chest more and more with each passing second. I could hear him take a deep breath and he seemed to gather some strength, and when he spoke again, I could tell he was trying to smile for his baby brother. That soft smile I'd seen him give Pony all those times before when Pony had been upset but Sodapop had been right there to comfort him.

"I keep waiting for you to answer me. To hear your voice. I'd give anything just to hear it one more time. If I had known that I was never going to hear it again… I would've called… I would have found a way…God, I would have found a way just to tell you that I love you and hear you say it back..."

He was crying hard again. A tear made its way across my cheek to drip from the end of my nose as I leaned over our brother, one hand holding the phone to his ear and the other alternating between running through his hair and down the side of his cheek. I wondered when the last time was that I'd said those words to Pony. I couldn't remember.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd told him I loved him.

I couldn't remember if I'd ever said I was proud of him.

I couldn't remember if I'd ever squeezed his shoulder like Dad used to do for me. I couldn't remember if I'd ever sat at the dinner table and told him he was doing a good job…in track, in school, hell, life in general. I'd give anything for just one more day. A chance to make up for everything I'd ever done wrong. A chance to say the things I hadn't before.

"…I know you tried real hard. You've always been a real good kid, Ponyboy, and an even better brother. God, you were always so…good. Smart. Stubborn. I know you fought real hard and…and you must just got no fight left in you...and…and I know you'd never quit, Pone. Never." I could hear Soda draw a breath. I could almost feel all the things he wanted to say flash through his mind like they had mine before he settled on what to say next. "I wish I could have been there. I know you said that I couldn't have done nothing. But I know you, Ponyboy. And I could have. I could have. You wouldn't have had to pretend, and I could have been there to help you…"

I had the feeling that Soda wasn't wrong. As much as I had tried while Soda was away, I knew I could never replace him. Soda was reckless, loud, and stubborn, but he was also loving. When Sodapop was born, God had given him too many feelings for just one soul. And so, years later, God had also given him Ponyboy to share that soul with.

And now Pony was being ripped away.

From him. From me. From us.

Both Sodapop and Ponyboy had always been so full of life, but I had been… I was…just…tired.

Too tired to do more than pat Pony on the back at the end of a long day. Too tired to see a movie. Too tired to take him back up to Canyon Lake to spend the afternoon and watch the sunset like I'd promised we'd do "some time." Just sit and watch and be together like he had done with Mom every time we'd all driven up in the car with Dad.

If I had known that the last time I went to work would be the last time I heard his voice I would have listened harder. Concentrated on the way he said my name. I would have memorized every detail of the hesitant smile he sometimes gave me when I knew he was thinkin' real hard on something. I would have taken the time to walk back in the house and hold him, hug him. Taken the time to drive up to that lake and listen to him ramble on and on about the latest movie he had seen or book he had read…maybe even looked though that sketchbook he was always hauling around that I'd never even seen the inside of. I would have taken the time to do all those things that I never thought I had the time or the energy to do before. And maybe taking that time would have saved him. But time had slowly slipped away from me until there was nothing left but regret.

"I love you so much, kiddo. I don't want to let you go. Please don't make me let you go…Ponyboy, please. Please don't make me let you go…"

I knew no amount of begging would bring him back. I'd already tried. Soda knew it too. We just didn't want it.

"Oh, Pony, I'll miss you. I already miss you. I love you."

I dropped my head to the other side of Pony's and pressed my face into that soft spot just above his shoulder that I'd come to know so well since he'd been in the hospital. I was still holding that phone real close to the opposite ear, and I know Sodapop could hear me sobbing because I could hear him too.

Then I heard a faint "I can't do this" and the line went dead.

XXX

I could feel their eyes on me when the door opened. Doctors, nurses, that man in the blue scrubs whose job it had been to make sure Pony's organs were healthy enough to give away. To give to someone that needed them. Someone that would live. But I didn't know if I could do it. I already had to lose him. I didn't know if I could give away the pieces of what made Ponyboy…Ponyboy. I didn't have to look to know they were all staring. The hospital staff. Steve. Two-Bit. Staring. Waiting.

I couldn't let him go. Most of the hair grease had been washed out by the dank and murky Arkansas water, but with my face buried deep in his long hair and my eyes shut tight I could still smell the Royal Crown he'd used when he combed it into shape and the faint hints of our shampoo. I could feel his heart beating against the palm of my hand. Feel his chest rise and fall beneath Mom's blue blanket. Feel how warm and smooth the skin on his cheeks was.

"Sir," I heard the taps of the doctor's shoes as he stepped closer. Then his hand was on my shoulder. Trying to be comforting. I wanted to jerk away. Soda would have. He would have jerked out from under that man's hand and clutched at our baby brother until they drug him away. But I didn't. I buried my face further into his hair and breathed in. "Sir, I'm sorry, but it's time. You should finish saying goodbye to him now."

His voice was quiet. Calm. Direct. A blade to the heart.

I'd already said goodbye. Begged for him to wake up. Cried that I was sorry. Told him I loved him. Over and over again. I'd said it all, and yet there was still so much to say.

"I can't." Somehow, I managed the words and, even though they were muffled against Pony and by my own sobs, I knew they heard.

"You have to Mr. Curtis. I'm sorry, I know it's hard. But you have to. It's time."

He'd said the words before, I could tell. Told I-don't-know-how-many family members that it was time to watch their loved one be wheeled away, never to see them alive again. And even if this kind of alive wasn't what I wanted for Pony, his heart was still beating. I could feel it.

And when I saw him again, it wouldn't be.

He needed me.

He needed me there to hold his hand. So he wasn't scared. So he wasn't alone.

The scraping of chairs. Steve and Two-Bit were standing. Then their hands replaced the doctor's. I couldn't let him go. I couldn't. It didn't matter that I'd already signed the paperwork or that this was what Pony would have wanted—to literally use his last breaths to save someone else's life. Lives. He was saving lives. More than one.

I didn't want to lose him. But I didn't want any other families to have to go through the same pain that we were, either. There were families—children - counting on him so that they could live.

It was just a small jerk of my head, an unvoiced okay, I'm ready to the doctor. But it was all I could manage. Anything more was too hard.

The doctor waited a moment more, then spoke to the room. "Okay, let's walk. Tell Kate she can begin."

I didn't know what the doctor meant until the bed began to move towards the door. I stayed clutching Pony, and the soft notes of a lullaby began to play over the hospital's intercom. Not the happy notes of Brahms' lullaby that I'd become used to hearing every time a baby was born in the hospital, but slow, mournful tones that floated the halls and sank our hearts.

A gentle voice began to sing with the notes, "…it's alright. You can go. Your memories are safe with us…"

The three of us walked down the hall with him, flanked by nurses and doctors until we came to a corner and private waiting area.

The doctor leaned in. Whispered something in my ear, and for the first time since we'd left the room I looked up.

Doctors, nurses, housekeepers, secretaries…everyone… had all come to line the halls. To watch my brother be wheeled away. To show us they were sorry. To thank him for saving others' lives. To show us—as if we didn't already know—that he was special. Important. Loved.

An honor walk. That's what the nurse had called it when she explained it to me after I'd signed the papers. I hadn't really been listening. I hadn't really known what she meant… that Ponyboy wouldn't just die and be forgotten. His passing wouldn't be just another part of the day for these people, like I'm sure many deaths were. It would not just another death on a nameless face. "Organ donors are heroes," the nurse had said as she described how things would go to me, "and they deserve one last thank you. You and your family deserve to know how much this means; how important it is…heroic…"

They let us walk him all the way to the operating room doors, then stopped.

They let me kiss him. Tell him goodbye again. Squeeze his hand.

Steve patted his shoulder and Two-Bit ruffled his hair, roughly whispering out a "G'dbye, kid," that was barely audible, more of a weep than actual words.

Then they left us standing in the middle of the hall and wheeled him away, to be taken off the ventilator until his heart stopped beating and they could open him up and save another's life…

"…it's alright. You can go. Your memories are safe with us…" the song was still softly and mournfully filling the hall.

"Nooooo!" My voice broke, echoed back through the hallway, but still they kept going. I wanted to run after them. Beg them to give him back to me, but my legs wouldn't work, and I grabbed onto Steve and buried my face in his chest, both of us collapsing to our knees on the hard tile, where Two-Bit joined us.

The door closed behind them, and he was gone.

Gone.

Forever.

The End.

Stay Gold.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

I've already mentioned this to some of you, but I wanted this story to hurt. I wanted you to feel the pain...of Pony, of his brothers, his friends... I wanted for you to see the anger, see their hurt. I wanted to show that many people who attempt suicide aren't doing it for attention. They are truly in pain and trying to escape themselves. It's not that they want to die, but sometimes that is the only way they see of getting out...but it's not the answer. Things can get better, and they will. If you are struggling know that you aren't alone. Talk to someone. Take things one day at a time. Every morning that you wake up just tell yourself " I need to make it one more day," and things will get better over time. You'll heal. You'll make it.