Chapter Text
Chapter Two
I didn’t realize how much had changed until I noticed how little I understood.
Darry and Two-Bit stood at the foot of Pony’s bed, voices low, talking numbers like they were discussing the weather.
“His counts were down again yesterday,” Darry said.
“Platelets or white?” Two-Bit asked.
“Both. They bumped the dosage last cycle, but-”
“-yeah. That’d do it.”
They nodded at each other, as if this made sense. Like these words belonged in their mouths.
I sat there, fingers laced together, nodding when they glanced my way, pretending I wasn’t completely lost.
Counts. Dosage. Cycles.
It felt wrong. Not just that I didn’t know what they meant, but that they did. Like they’d learned a whole new language while I was gone. A language built out of fear and waiting rooms and quiet hope.
The nurses came and went, speaking in the same clipped, careful tones. One of them rattled off medication names I couldn’t pronounce, and Darry answered without missing a beat.
I closed my eyes for a second.
The hum of the machines blurred into the whir of rotors. The steady beep turned into something sharper, more urgent. For a split second, I was back in a village I couldn’t name, surrounded by voices I couldn’t understand, every sound foreign and dangerous.
I forced my eyes open.
This wasn’t Vietnam.
This was worse.
Because here, the thing hurting my brother had no face.
A doctor came in not long after, white coat, tired eyes, clipboard tucked under his arm. Darry stepped out into the hall with him. I stayed seated, watching Pony breathe, counting the rise and fall of his chest like I could keep him there if I tried hard enough.
I caught fragments of the conversation through the open door.
“…imaging this afternoon…”
“…blood work first…”
“…might take most of the day…”
Then it happened fast.
Too fast.
Two nurses came in, all business, already unhooking wires, lifting blankets.
“Ponyboy, we’re going to take you down for some tests,” one said brightly.
Pony’s eyes flicked to me, then to Darry and Two-Bit before going back to the nurses. “Okay.”
My heart slammed into my ribs.
“What? Wait,” I said, standing. “What kind of tests? How long’s this gonna take?”
“It’s routine,” the nurse said, already steering the bed toward the door.
Routine.
I’d heard that word before.
The hallway swallowed them, and just like that, Pony was gone.
The room felt empty in a way that made my skin crawl. Too quiet. Too clean. I stood there, breathing hard, every muscle in my body screaming to follow, to not let him disappear down another hallway without me.
Darry came back in, face calm, controlled.
“That’s it?” I demanded. “They just take him like that?”
“They do this all the time,” Darry said. “He’ll be back later.”
Later could mean anything.
My mind filled in the blanks faster than I could stop it; stretchers, men screaming, curtains, sound of helicopter blades cutting at the air, bad news delivered in soft voices. I’d seen what happened when people were wheeled away and didn’t come back.
And then Darry said, like it was nothing.
“Why don’t we head home for a bit? Get some real food. Real beds.”
I stared at him.
“You want to leave?” My voice cracked. “Darry, they just took Pony-”
“He’s not alone,” Darry said firmly. “He’s got nurses. Doctors. Two-Bit’ll come back tonight.”
“That’s it?” I snapped. “We just...go home?”
The words tasted wrong. Home meant leaving him. Home meant empty cots beds and unanswered questions.
Darry looked at me then, really looked at me, and I saw it again; that bone-deep exhaustion. The kind that comes from knowing the schedule so well you can recite it in your sleep.
“This is an all-day thing,” he said quietly. “Scans, labs, maybe a transfusion if his numbers are low. He’ll be wiped out when he gets back.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know that.” He might not come back.
Darry didn’t argue.
That scared me more than anything.
I’d left for a war thinking I knew what losing felt like. Over and over.
But standing in that hospital room, watching my brother get wheeled away while the world kept moving like it always had—
I realized I was still learning.
And I was already too late.