Here I am again with another chapter! Sooo… I think I'll write another couple of chapters or maybe three…but no more than that because I feel it's time to finish this story. I'll definitely miss it and I'll miss you all, my great reviewers, but hopefully I'll keep writing and you'll be able to read my stuff!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Outsiders.

20 – Healed

"Soda, have you seen my blue shirt?"

"Which one?"

I was looking frantically around the bedroom but that damn shirt had disappeared. "The light blue one, with the large sleeves."

"Nope." Sodapop reached me from the bathroom, wrapping a towel around his waist. "Maybe it's in the group of dirty clothes downstairs."

"No way, I'm sure I ironed it just a couple of days ago!" I insisted.

"Well, I don't mind if you just walk around the house like that until you find it." He grinned. I wasn't wearing any shirt at the moment.

"Yeah, and you can walk around in your towel, so if some neighbor comes by to ask for sugar they'll think we're perverts or something." I replied.

"Let 'em think what they want!" Soda hugged me. "I'm crazy about you."

I smiled. "You're saying this just because you're leaving for Texas with Mr. Danes and you feel guilty." I pointed out.

"No, I'm telling you cause it's the truth." He kissed me. "And I'm crazy about Jesse James and leaving you for a week sucks, but I'll call everyday."

"You better!" I joked and kissed him back.

Suddenly Jesse James, who had been sitting in the middle of the bed playing with a stuffed toy peacefully until that moment, started crying.

"Why are you crying, baby?" I picked him up and tried to comfort him.

"Daddy's leavin'!" he exclaimed.

"I'm not leavin' you, Jesse!" Soda grabbed the stuffed toy that was on the bed. "Look, Neal's talking!" He started speaking in a funny, cartoon-like voice: "You don't have to cry, daddy'll be back soon! I'm your friend and I'll keep you company…" Soda said. Jesse James stopped weeping. "But if you cry mommy and daddy will be very upset!" Soda added and started nudging our baby's nose with the stuffed toy. Jesse James finally laughed.

I left the two of them alone and went downstairs to look for my shirt. No such luck.

"I should get going!" Soda exclaimed, reaching me with Jesse James in his arms. "So, be careful while I'm away, don't go out at night on your own, and-"

"Where would I go at night anyway?" I interrupted him.

"I don't know, I was just sayin'."

"And you made it sound like the boogeyman is out there ready to grab me."

"Not the boogeyman but there's plenty of other bad stuff out there." He looked at the clock. "I gotta go. I'll call you soon, okay?" He kissed Jesse James and me and then went outside. I watched him from the window as he started the car. I stared outside for a while, until I couldn't see the car anymore, and turned to my baby: "Let's have a bath, okay, teddybear?" Soda laughed everytime I called Jesse James like that, but I had a soft spot for that nickname. It was perfect for our child.

"No." Jesse James shook his head.

"Why not? I'll put in the water your duck toy, you know, the new one we just bought." I tried to persuade him.

"No." he repeated. "I want daddy."

Great, Soda had been gone for three minutes and Jesse James was already missing him. "Daddy will be back soon, but he'd be disappointed if he knew you didn't want to have a bath and get cleaned. Tell you what, after the bath we'll watch some cartoons before you take a nap."

"Awright." Jesse James finally agreed. The more he grew up, the more stubborn he seemed to become. And he was only sixteen months old.

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"Sibyl!"

I heard Ponyboy's voice and I replied: "I'm washing Jesse James!"

He reached us in the bathroom. "Oh, hey...do you mind if Julie stays for dinner? I met Evie and she was so mad for something I don't know, she kept snapping at Julie and I felt bad for her, so I-"

"You invited her?" I finished. "Sure I don't mind…" Sometimes it was a hard competition between Ponyboy and me, about who was most sensitive. "She's in the living room?"

"Yeah, watching TV. I'll go and keep her some company."

When Jesse James was all cleaned up, we reached them. "Hi, Julie!"

"Hi! Hi, Jesse!" she exclaimed. She loved Jesse James for some reason, even more so since he was now talking quite well.

Jesse James looked at her before focusing his attention on the TV screen. He remembered I had promised him he could watch some cartoons.

I let him and Julie with Pony while I went to the kitchen to fix dinner. There were some jeans of Sodapop lying on a chair, so I picked them up and went to put them in the pile of dirty clothes.

But there was something in one of the pockets…

"Pills?" I wondered out loud as I looked at them. They looked a lot like aspirins, but weren't. I didn't think much of them and just put them away.

That night I didn't feel like going to sleep. I stayed up until late, watching some stupid show that was on TV, until they started speaking about the Vietnam war on another channel. At first it was just about the state of things in the country, but then they started speaking about veterans of war who had a hard time adjusting to everyday life back in the US. They also said lots of veterans had committed suicide and many others were addicted to drugs or alcohol. And most of them had psychological issues…

I had to turn off the tv because I couldn't stand hearing and seeing about that anymore. Maybe it was wrong, but it was painful, and I didn't want to start thinking about Sodapop and his experience in Nam once again. I wished it had never happened and I wished the war would end already. It was June 1974, the President had promised the troops would leave Vietnam soon and everything would be over, but how much truth was there? So many young people had paid a terrible price and had been involved in a war they didn't want, sent to a country they didn't even know existed, and forced to see and do things no one could ever forget, not even in a thousand years.

Not to mention the people of Vietnam, all those innocent lives destroyed for nothing. I was sure there was more to their side of the story, but of course you wouldn't find out anything from the media. Soldiers knew better than to trust blindly someone, though, and Sodapop was no different. He had told me a lot about what was going on in Vietnam, what normal people weren't informed of, and it wasn't pleasant. He couldn't really talk much about it without getting upset, but it was way better than years before, when he couldn't even hear the news on TV without freaking out.

"Sibyl…" he told me one night, some months after Jesse James' birth, just after we'd gone to bed. "I think…I'm healed."

"What?" I'd asked. I didn't know what he meant.

"You and Jesse James healed me."

He had kissed me and I hadn't asked anything else, but now I knew what the meaning of those words was.

I shivered. It was a bit cold and I decided I'd better go to sleep when I remembered the pills. I'd ask Sodapop about them when he'd be home…a week later. I didn't want to ask him on the phone, they probably were nothing important anyway.

"Mommy?" Jesse James noticed me when I checked on him.

"You awake, teddybear? What's wrong?"

"Bad dream." He was on the verge of tears.

I tried to comfort him until he calmed down, then I went to sleep as well, hoping Sodapop was alright, too.