A/N: I am so sorry for keeping you guys waiting so long for this chapter ! i've been so busy with school coming up but this is the last chapter!! Btw all the medical information in this comes off of google, so i apologize if some of it is incorrect lol

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The ride to the hospital was a blur. A rushed, surreal blur. Soda was pretty sure that the officers kept trying to ask him questions, but he couldn't even tell what they were saying through the pounding in his ears. All he could do was focus on Pony, who was lying with his head in Soda's lap, eyes shut firmly no matter how much Sodapop shook his shoulders and whispered into his ear. He kept trying to stunt the bleeding coming from the stab wound, but he honestly couldn't even tell if it was bleeding anymore since everything was already soaked in the dark blood. It was a sickening thought, but he didn't see any fresh blood leak onto the car seats beneath them so he took it as a good sign.

"-Kid!" Soda's head shot up to the noise of Officer Stark's voice, who had the police radio clutched in his hand. "How old's your brother?"

"F-Fourteen," Sodapop stuttered, eyes wide and struck. Stark nodded, the look in his eyes somewhat grim. He repeated what Soda had told him into the radio, seemingly speaking with medical personnel.

Soda looked back down at Pony, whose state hadn't seemed to change. He didn't seem to have gotten any paler in the few seconds Soda looked away and he was grateful for that. He put a hand to Pony's face to try and shake him a bit, trying to desperately wake him up in a last attempt. It didn't exactly work, but his eyebrows furrowed slightly and he let out a hoarse groan, though it was hardly heard, even by Soda. After a second, his face fell lax once again and he was dead to the world. Well, maybe that's not the right choice of words at this moment.

The sound of skidding tires snapped Sodapop out of his swarming thoughts as the police car stopped sharply in front of the emergency room entrance. He looked up through the window and saw all the doctors who were already running out with a gurney and duffel bags of other equipment, and the two officers in the front seat practically flew out to pull open the back door where Soda was sitting with Ponyboy's head on his lap.

Soda only looked at the doctors surrounding the car door, like a deer in headlights. He wasn't ready to let his brother go into the hands of them, knowing all too well that this could very well be the last time he gets to hold Pony alive.

"Hi, Sodapop, I'm Dr. Solace. Can we take a look at your brother?" One of the doctors asked, voice comforting as he held out a hand to him. Soda nodded apprehensively and took the Doctor's hand.

Dr. Solace helped him out of the car while the other doctors and nurses helped to carry Ponyboy out of the backseat and onto the gurney. This elicited another groan from him, except it was a little louder for just about everyone to hear and his hands once again moved to the wound sight just like he did so many times before this.

At that, Soda almost ran to his side, but Dr. Solace's hand on his shoulder kept him in place, yet grounding him at the same time.

As soon as they got Ponyboy strapped onto the gurney, they put an oxygen mask on his face and started running him into the emergency room, all the while talking about something called vitals. Sodapop didn't really notice what that meant, but he had no hesitation to follow him, and Dr. Solace didn't stop him. That was, until they wheeled Pony into a room where the medical staff surrounded him. He tried to peer through the window to see what they were doing, but a nurse shut the blinds before they started anything major.

"Honey? Why don't you get checked out? You're bleeding quite a bit." Dr. Solace spoke up, his hand on Soda's back.

"No. I.. need to call my brother." Soda said after a couple seconds of just staring into the blinds, as if he stared enough he'd be able to phase through them and be at his brother's side. He never thought he'd say this, but, God, he hopes Pony's not conscious. He'd be terrified.

"C'mon kid, just get checked out." Officer Stark's voice spoke up from behind the two of them, his partner still at his side.

Sodapop just scoffed and shoved past them, going to the phone booths. Like hell if he'd listen to them.

He rushed over to the phone and fished out a dime from his pocket. He called Darry's work, figuring he hadn't left yet. It was a wonder he didn't mess the number up as he plugged it in, and grateful that Darry made both him and Pony memorize it the second he started going back to work after their parents' deaths.

It took a couple rings, but eventually a woman's voice answered the phone.

"Hello, Timberline Construction Services."

"I need to speak with Darrel Curtis, it's an emergency." He spoke into the phone, wasting no time on casualties.

"I'm sorry sir, but it can take a while to transfer calls to work sites. It's not recommended that we-" The woman on the other line said, but was promptly cut off.

"It's an emergency, his brother is in the hospital, dammit! Let me talk to him!" In hindsight, Soda felt sort of bad talking to the lady like that, she was only doing her job. But the mixture of knowing his brother was probably being sliced open by those doctors right now and the police officers eyes practically burning holes into the back of his head stressed him more out than he's been in a long time.

All that was heard on the other side was a fed up sigh as a beep sounded and he was transferred. She wasn't lying when she said it would take a while, Soda must've been standing there for at least a minute listening to the ring of the phone.

"James Cahill speaking." A man spoke after some time, nearly scaring the living daylights out of Sodapop.

"I need to speak to Darrel Curtis. It's an emergency." Sodapop repeated himself from earlier. This time, the man did not put up a fight and instead he heard him calling out Darry's name on the other line.

After some brief discussion, Darry spoke into the phone.

"Hello?" He asked, voice tinged with alarm. Soda breathed out in relief. His big brother will have it now.

"Darry? It's me, Soda. Look, Pony's in the hospital," Soda told him quickly.

"What?! What happened?!" Darry shouted into the phone, sounding like all the breath was stolen from him.

"I- we were jumped. They stabbed him, Darry. It's real bad." Soda said, voice shaking. It all felt so much more real saying it out loud for some reason.

Soda heard Darry spew a line of curses from the other side of the line.

"Okay, I'll be there. I'll find you if the doctors take you anywhere, okay?" Darry said, voice unsteady but not shaking like Sodapop's.

"Yeah. Come quick." Soda responded, eager to go back to the doctors and see what they were doing. He went to hang up the phone before he heard Darry's voice coming from the phone speaker again.

"Wait, Soda, are you okay?" Sodapop heard him say after he put the phone to his ear again.

"Yeah, Dar, I'm fine. See you soon." Soda told him, a small smile spreading on his lips. He hung up the phone before Darry could say something more and went back to the main waiting room.

He had to restrain himself from rolling his eyes when he saw the flash of navy blue waiting just down the hallway stemming into the waiting room, speaking with each other. They stopped when they saw Soda walk back into the room, and looked to be ready to walk over to him before Dr. Solace beat them to it and appeared in front of him.

"I just checked on your brother. It looks like they're going to take him up to surgery. Did you get a hold of your other brother?" He asked, his hands intertwined with each other in front of him, which Sodapop realized were gloved. Had he worked on Pony?

"Uh, yeah, he's on his way... wait, surgery? What are you doing?" Soda asked, alarmed at the thought of it happening to one of his family members. The only time someone in his family needed a surgery was his dad, who needed his tonsils removed as a teenager, and that wasn't even a major procedure and it's not like Soda, or even Darry for that matter, was there to see it. His heart panged with dread just thinking about his father. God he wished he were here right now. He would know how to keep Sodapop in stitches.

"Well, the doctors will be performing something called a laparotomy. Basically they'll be cutting through the abdomen and fixing up whatever damage was caused to his organs and flesh." He told Soda, voice steady and sure and Soda couldn't understand how he could be so calm in a situation like this. What organs do they mean? Intestines? Stomach? If something goes wrong, could that mean it could affect the way he eats, or digests food or something? The panic of the possibilities must've set into his face because Dr. Solace seemed to catch on.

"Hey, I know this must be a really scary day for you. But we got really great doctors and nurses who know exactly how to treat your brother. So let us handle it, okay?"

The look in Dr. Solace's eyes seemed more sincere than Soda's seen someone look in a while, so he just nodded wordlessly.

"Good. Do your parents know where you are?"

"They're dead." Soda said shortly. Most of the time he wouldn't be so blunt about that, but he wasn't really thinking properly, and either way, no matter how he broke the news, everyone would have the same reaction. Their eyes would widen and their faces would drop. They'd probably have the same reaction if he had to start telling people his little brother was murdered, too. God, Pony, please don't die.

"Oh. I'm so sorry, honey." He said, eyes widening in shock and expression dropping even more than it already was, just as expected. "So, I'm assuming your brother is your guardian?"

Soda just nodded wordlessly once again, eyes looking away from Dr. Solace and training Officer Stark and Carter watching them silently in the background.

"Alright, well, I'll speak to him later on when he gets here. In the meantime, I'm going to check up on Ponyboy. I won't be his surgeon, but I'll be able to observe his surgery and give you updates. Alright?"

Soda nodded wordlessly once again and Dr. Solace put a reassuring hand to his arm.

"And please, get checked out by nurses. They'd be more than willing to help you." He said before retreating through the double doors that read "STAFF ONLY" in big red text.

Sodapop watched him go before collapsing into one of the seats along the wall of the waiting room, sighing deeply. Now what? He already called Darry, maybe he should call Two-Bit or Steve. He didn't know where Dally or Johnny could be, but he's sure the news would get to them quick enough.

"We're gonna have to talk to your guardian as well when he comes," A voice broke through Soda's train of thought. He looked up to see Officer Carter looming over him, Officer Stark by his side.

Oh. So that's why they were still here, not because they care. Got it.

"Yeah, sure." Soda mumbled, his leg bouncing up and down. He wished they would just go, sit in the chairs across the waiting room from him so he didn't need to see the blood on their hands and the splatters on their uniforms.

Suddenly that made Sodapop all the more aware of his own appearance. He looked down at his white t-shirt and pants and found the front of them were drenched in blood. The sight made Soda's stomach churn and it's a miracle he hadn't thrown up from the metal-like scent of all of it.

He quickly excused himself and squeezed between the two officers in front of him, relieved when he saw them retreat to a couple of seats that was a good distance away from where he was sitting.

He found the restroom and was grateful that he was the only one inside. He immediately went over to the sink and started washing his hands, watching all the dried flecks of blood wash down the drain. He wiped off any of the blood that was on his arms as well, although it wasn't as much and as heavy as it was on his hands. It took a few minutes to get the red staining off his skin from it but after at least five squirts of soap they were clean enough.

Soda tried to rub the blood out of his shirt and pants, but it was almost impossible to wipe any color out of a stark white t-shirt and the blood splatter on his jeans had long since soaked into it and turned into a rusty brownish red color.

Then, after all of this, he looked up at the mirror displayed in front of him and his heart dropped with what he saw.

Soda's face was littered with black and blue, a bruise under his right eye and a bruise along his right cheekbone. His nose was red with irritation and bloody, along with his split lower lip and his tongue that was still slightly throbbing in pain when he accidentally bit down on it thanks to a punch in the jaw. There was a cut in his right eyebrow and a few other scrapes from his opponent's nails or possibly the gravel from the ground.

He continued to scan his face in the mirror, inspecting any cuts and bruises but not bothering to clean them out with water. All Sodapop could do was stare.

And then, he met his glossy eyes in the mirror. He was worried for a second that it could've been from something else, something more dangerous. He's seen the same look in people's eyes who were just recently concussed. At least that was what he thought until the glossiness dripped down into a tear, and that tear ran down his face. Oh.

And all of a sudden, he couldn't stop. Soda has always been a crybaby, even as an infant. His parents loved to tease him for it when he was an older kid, about how he would cry as a toddler when his ice cream melted before he could eat it or if he accidentally colored outside the lines in his coloring book.

Then he bawled and bawled at his parents funerals and wouldn't completely stop for days. And then over his brother's first big fight afterwards.

And now.

Soda must've been in there for a while because after a while he felt a pair of arms wrap around him when he was crying into his hands. It scared the living daylights out of him and he nearly fought them away, until he smelt a distinct scent he could never not recognize.

Sodapop wrapped his own arms around Darry, shamelessly crying into the front of his button-up work shirt. Darry's warm hands rubbed his back and cupped the back of his head, holding Soda close to his chest and letting him cry his heart out all he pleased.

After a few minutes, Soda calmed down and started to retreat from Darry's arms.

"I got here as soon as I could. Those cops told me I could find you in the bathroom." Darry told him, using a soft voice that was strictly reserved for his kid brothers when they were sick or hurting.

Sodapop sniffled and nodded, wiping his eyes with his hand. Darry put a hand to the side of his face, gently moving it from side to side to assess the damage. Then Darry ripped a paper towel from the dispenser beside them and ran it under warm water for a second, and dabbed Soda's cuts and bruises. After he was done, he discarded the soiled paper towel in the trash can and turned back to Soda.

"You okay, little buddy?" Darry asked him, resting his hands on Soda's shoulders.

"Yeah, I'm sorry. They... they told me they're taking Pony up for surgery." Soda said, meeting his brother's eyes.

Darry's jaw clenched for a second and his face got real serious before he squeezed Soda's shoulder.

"Let's go back to the waiting room now." Darry said, moving a hand from his shoulder to his back to guide him towards the door.

They reached back to the waiting room and sat back down in the seats Soda was sitting in before he went to the bathroom.

Soda immediately leaned his head onto Darry's shoulder beside him, and Darry let him. He wrapped an arm around Sodapop's still slightly shaking shoulders and brought him closer.

"Get some rest kiddo. I'll be here." Darry told him, and Soda didn't hesitate to let his red-rimmed eyes fall shut, worn out from the crying fest earlier.

It must've been only forty-five minutes later when he was woken back up to the sound of shouting. Or, that's what it sounded like from where he was resting against Darry's shoulder, but in reality he was trying to put an effort in being quiet, but it wasn't easy. His booming voice practically shook Sodapop awake and he peaked his eyes open against the bright hospital lights.

He saw Stark and Carter standing above them, their faces giving the same cold and unyielding expression that they've been giving Soda and his brothers since the moment they left.

"Sir, we have every right to question your brothers. Kids don't just show up on the street with a knife sticking out of them without causing trouble. Trust me, we know." Stark said, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"Like hell you do! I've said it, and my brother's said it, they were jumped. They were walking home and they were attacked! They didn't cause no trouble, and trust me, I'd freaking know." Darry spat, voice laced with venom as he mocked Stark's last words.

Stark opened his mouth to speak again but Darry cut him off before he could.

"And don't think the doctor didn't come to speak to me, telling me about how the 'circumstances of the situation' made him worse. He said y'all must've waited at least a few minutes before driving 'em to the hospital? He almost died before they could even get him on the table," His voice broke a little saying that, "And you have the audacity to act like you have the right to stay here and want to question me and my brother, who almost saw his fourteen year old one die, and treat us like the bad guys? Are you even concerned about who stabbed him? Go find them for God's sake, get out of my face!"

Soda had to conceal his smile at his point, not wanting them to know he was awake. He knew Darry would handle this.

Stark looked like he was about to say something again, but Officer Carter grabbed his arm before he could.

"Let's just go, we've given them enough grief for one day. We'll send over someone else to do the questioning." He said under his voice, leaning closer towards Stark. For a second, Stark didn't do anything, but then he ripped his arm away and stalked off towards the exit. Carter looked at him as he walked away for a moment, before turning back to Darry.

"Hope your brother feels better," He said bluntly before following Stark. Right, like he cared.

Darry took a deep shaker breathand squeezed Soda's shoulder. "You awake, Pepsi?"

Soda's face morphed into a grin as he lifted his head off Darry's shoulder to look at him. "That was badass, Dar'." He chuckled, and Darry did too, finally getting a pinch of peace and quiet for the first time in hours.

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Soda managed to doze off one or two more times, waking up every time he heard someone enter the room, regardless of whether they were a doctor coming to talk to a family or people here to see other patients. At some point, Darry had left to go call their house, to see if anyone was hanging there and by some miracle everyone in the gang, besides them three of course, were there. Two-Bit had answered Darry was able to tell them what was going on, and despite his complaints otherwise, he didn't let them come to the hospital. He told them they'd be kicked out anyway with how rowdy they'd be, but in all honesty, they probably wouldn't even be able to see Pony until the next day anyway since it was only immediate family allowed.

Once he finished the call, he went back to sit down next to Sodapop, who had his head resting against the wall behind him. After a few minutes, two doctors came out from behind the 'staff only' doors, one Darry and Soda could recognize as Dr. Solace. Soda could vaguely recognize the other doctor, who must've been there when taking Ponyboy into the E.R, but he didn't know his name. He was wearing blue surgical scrubs and a scrub cap with ducks on them, indicating he probably worked in pediatrics.

"Sodapop, Darrel, this is Dr. Mintz. He was the lead surgeon on your brother's case today."

Soda and Darry immediately stood up, shaking Dr. Mintz's hand.

"Ponyboy's surgery went well. There were some ups and downs due to his condition in the beginning, but we were able to get everything under control, and he should be fine. He'll be kept here for a few days for observation, and it won't be easy, but we're expecting a smooth recovery." He told them with a smile, happy to deliver the good news.

Soda'seyes immediately teared up in relief and he covered his hands in his face with a sob. Any other person would think they'd just been delivered bad news, until Darry put a hand on his back, wearing the biggest smile he's had in a while.

"Thank you so much, doctors." He said, rubbing Soda's back and drawing him closer.

"The anesthesia hasn't worn off yet, but when it does, he'll be on pain medication so he won't be in any discomfort. I'll be stopping in often throughout the night, so if you have any more questions, feel free to ask. Dr. Solace here will show you to his room now." He told them kindly, before Dr. Solace began to guide them down the hall towards the elevators and Dr. Mintz walked back in the 'staff only' doors.

His room was on the fourth floor, on the PACU unit. After a few turns, they stopped in front of a closed patient door and Dr. Solace basically repeated what Dr. Mintz said. Once he gave the okay, he left them to themselves and they didn't hesitate to swing open the door and go straight to Pony's side.

Ponyboy laid on the bed, skin still a pale shade in contrast to his usual tone, an oversized hospital gown covering him along with a few blankets. He wasn't hooked up to as many machines as Soda and Darry were expecting him to be, just a couple of IVs, a heart monitor and some other wires that came from other parts of his body. There was a nasal cannula underneath his nose, to help him get more oxygen and recover from the ventilation he was on during the surgery. Soda was awfully grateful for that as well, he wasn't itchin' to see a tube shoved down his baby brother's throat.

They both dragged chairs over from the side of the room to each side of Pony's bed, who was still under the clutches of the anesthesia. They each grabbed one of his hands and Darry started stroking Pony's hair when he asked the question Soda's been waiting for all night.

"What the hell happened out there today, Soda?"

Well, this'll be fun.

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A/N: For any of you who watch, a lot of the hospital scenes and doctors/nurses were based off greys anatomy lol

Also I pulled that construction company's name from my ass i have no idea what the place Darry's work was called lmao

Also a question, would you guys like to see me continue Pool Of Sharks? It was meant to be a multi chapter fic but I saw it didn't do as well as my other works so I didn't want to continue it. But I'm willing to if you want to see more of it!