Chapter Text
Ponyboy was in English class, struggling to pay attention as Mr. Syme droned on about the symbolism of flowers in Hamlet. He’d stayed up too late reading—or trying to read—the scene. Shakespeare’s words were more difficult to understand than he anticipated. He wasn’t used to having to work to read. He assumed this was how Soda felt reading any book.
He was almost through his spiel on violets when the door opened and an office TA entered. She crossed the room, handed a slip of paper to Mr. Syme, and slinked back out into the hall. Mr. Syme read through the short note, then resumed his presentation as he placed it on Ponyboy’s desk.
Send Ponyboy Curtis to the office immediately for a phone call.
Pony was confused. He read and re-read the sentence multiple times before he finally stood up and left the room. He walked quickly down the halls, his legs shaking slightly as he got to the principal's office.
A secretary greeted him with a smile. She picked up the receiver and handed it to Pony over the desk. She didn’t tell him who was calling or why.
“Hello?”
“Ponyboy Curtis?” He didn’t recognize the voice.
“Yes.”
“I’m Gene Franco, I work with your brother.”
“Darry or Sodapop?” he asked.
“Darrel.”
“Okay.” Pony still didn’t know why he was calling.
“He was in an accident at work today.”
Pony’s heart sank. “Is he okay?”
He heard Gene take a deep breath before saying, “He’s in the hospital right now.”
“Is he okay?” Pony repeated.
There were a few seconds of silence before he responded in which Pony’s mind was creating images of his oldest brother’s dead body in a hospital bed just like Johnny’s.
“He’s alive,” was the response he got. It soothed Ponyboy slightly knowing that Darry was alive, but dread filled him when he realized that him being alive might be the only positive. “I called Sodapop already,” Gene continued. “He said he’ll pick you up at school and take you to the hospital.”
“Okay.” Pony’s mouth felt dry. This felt like a dream. Gene hung up and Pony let the disconnect tone run for a bit before he handed the phone back to the secretary. His eyes were wide and his mouth was ajar, but he didn’t notice. He was lost in his head, imagining Darry, strong, powerful Darry, in an accident and in the hospital.
He walked absently back to Mr. Syme’s classroom and packed up his stuff. He knew the rest of the class was watching him, but he didn’t have the extra energy to care. He shoved papers wherever they would stay and stacked his books in his hand.
“Are you leaving?” Mr. Syme asked.
“Yeah.”
He walked back to the front of the school still in a daze. He sat on the steps outside, trying not to think of the worst possible scenarios, as he waited for Soda to come pick him up. Was Darry going to die? What happened to him? He really should have asked Gene, but he was more focused on making sure his brother was alive than asking about the specific accident. Did he fall off a roof? That seemed like the most likely possibility. How badly would that hurt? Or maybe he’d been struck by lightning, or there was a very localized tornado, or he was chased by a rabid dog.
A car honk drew his attention up to their truck, with Soda in the driver’s seat. Pony barely had the door closed before his brother was speeding off. Soda was gripping the wheel so hard, his arms were shaking—though they were probably shaking regardless. His jaw was clenched tightly and his eyes were frantic.
“Is Darry okay?” Pony asked nervously.
“I don’t know.” Soda took a shaky breath. “All I know is that he’s alive but he’s hurt real bad.”
“What happened?”
Soda blinked and Pony saw a few stray tears stream down his face. “He fell,” he choked out.
Off a roof? Pony wanted to ask, but he didn’t know if he wanted an answer. He felt like he was just punched in the stomach and all of his breath was stolen. He stared at Soda, waiting for him to tell him that it was all a joke, but Soda’s face remained tense and his eyes glued on the road.
Pony stared out the window at the passing scenery, which began to blur together as tears welled up in his eyes, eventually spilling over and painting his red face.
The boys jumped out of the car the second it was in park and ran to the front doors. They burst in, paying no mind to the people in the waiting room that turned to stare at them. Pony followed Soda to the front desk.
“We need to see our brother, Darrel Curtis,” he said, his voice wavering no matter how hard he tried to keep it solid.
The receptionist looked down at something on her desk, then back up at the boys. “Have a seat,” she said, gesturing toward the dozen other people sitting around the waiting room, “and I’ll get a doctor to come talk to you.”
The receptionist stood up and strode down a hallway, leaving the two boys standing in the middle of the room. Neither moved to find a seat—they didn’t think they could sit if they wanted to. Their muscles didn’t feel like they could relax at all.
The receptionist returned minutes later with a man in a white coat in tow.
“Hello, I’m Doctor Covey,” he introduced himself, holding a hand out for a handshake. Soda reached a quivering hand out and grabbed it, then Ponyboy did the same. “You’re Darrel Curtis’s brothers?” They both nodded. The doctor pulled them into the hall and away from the other visitors.
“Your brother is in surgery right now.”
Those words hit both boys like a train, drawing more tears from their eyes.
“Is he gonna die?” Pony asked, his voice barely squeaking out.
The doctor sighed. “We aren’t certain at this time.” Soda and Pony choked on their tears. “I’ll let you know when we have more information.” He gave the brothers a wary smile then turned and walked down the hall, like he hadn’t just given two kids potentially world-ending news.
Their mouths hung open as they breathed raggedly. Soda put a hand on Ponyboy’s shoulder and guided them both to a pair of empty chairs. Neither of them knew what to do. Soda wrapped his arms around his little brother and buried his face in his hair as Pony cried into Soda’s chest. They stayed huddled together until they ran out of tears. They felt utterly drained, but they had to stay awake for when the doctor came back.
“Should we call Two-Bit and Steve?” Pony asked quietly.
Soda was so focused on his brothers, it was like he forgot anyone else existed. “Yeah,” he whispered. He looked over at the clock on the wall across from them. He wasn’t sure when they’d gotten there, but it was past four o’clock. School was out; Steve would be working at the DX and Two-Bit would be wherever else he went. “I’ll call Steve.”
Soda pulled himself away from his brother and out of the chair. There was a payphone just outside the front doors. He rummaged through his pockets for a dime, nearly dropping it, and his fingers still rattled as he dialed the DX’s number.
He had never been more grateful to hear Steve’s voice. He would have cried if he wasn’t already empty.
“Where the hell are y’all?” Steve asked. “Me and Two-Bit waited for Pony after school for ten minutes, then someone told us he left early. And you ain’t here, and y’all ain’t at home.” There was someone talking away from the phone that Soda couldn’t hear, then Steve added, “Two-Bit says ‘hi.’”
“Hospital,” was all Soda managed to choke out.
Steve was silent for a few seconds. “Why are you at the hospital?”
“Darry.” Soda couldn’t bring himself to say anything else. He couldn’t say that Darry might be dying because then that would make it true.
Steve could hear Soda’s dry sobs through the phone, so he didn’t prod any more. “We’ll be there once I get off work, okay?”
“Okay.”
Steve hung up and Soda kept the phone by his ear for a minute before he finally hung up, too. Then he trudged back into the hospital and took his seat by his brother. Pony immediately leaned into Soda’s side and rested his head on his shoulder.
“Steve and Two-Bit are gonna come later,” Soda relayed hollowly. Pony nodded, but Soda wasn’t even sure if he heard him. Pony looked so far gone. Soda felt halfway there himself.
At almost seven o’clock, a nurse finally came to the waiting room and called for Pony and Soda. Pony had his arms wrapped tightly around one of Soda’s and his face pressed into his brother’s bicep. Even with his eyes open, Soda almost thought he was asleep. Soda shook his arm, jostling his little brother just enough for him to turn and look at Soda. His eyes looked vacant, the redness giving away that he had cried himself out for hours.
Soda stood up and walked to the nurse. Pony followed, eyes floating around but not focusing on anything.
The first words out of the nurse’s mouth were, “The surgery went well.”
Soda breathed a sigh of relief. He felt like a weight had been lifted off of him. He turned to Ponyboy, who hadn’t reacted at all. “You hear that, Pony?”
Pony nodded slightly, still with a far-off look in his eyes.
“Would you like to go see him? Then I can tell you more about his condition.”
Soda nodded fervently, and he dragged Ponyboy with him down the halls to Darry’s room.
Their first thought when the door opened was that they had been brought to the wrong room. They both stood frozen in the doorway. The man in this bed wasn’t their strong, fearless, superhero brother. It was just a guy, barely a man, who looked so old and so young at the same time.
But that was what their brother was.
He had a bandage wrapped around his head and a drab hospital gown on. Darry had never looked so small and frail to either of his brothers.
They rushed to his side and each brother took one of his hands. The nurse stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
“He fell off a ladder at work,” she read from a clipboard. “He had a skull fracture and a brain bleed, that’s what he was in surgery for.”
Those words hurt more than anything Pony and Soda could have imagined.
“The doctors stopped the bleeding and repaired his skull. He also has spinal damage. We can know more when he wakes up and we can examine him better.”
Soda hated the way the nurse spoke—like she was reading out of a fictional book and not talking about a real person.
“He’s gonna be okay though?”
The nurse finally glanced up from her clipboard and really looked at the three brothers. “He has brain damage,” she told them gently, “and we believe the damage to his spinal cord has rendered him paralyzed from the waist down.” They all looked at Darry, laying in the bed, looking too close to death for comfort. “We can examine the full extent of his injuries when he wakes up.”
“When will that be?” Ponyboy asked hesitantly.
“Most likely within the hour,” the nurse assured them, “but he might not be fully lucid. We still have him on some painkillers.”
The boys nodded and the nurse dismissed herself. Pony’s gaze was glued on Darry, like he was trying to open his brother’s eyes with his own. Soda’s eyes flicked between both of his brothers, wishing he could help either of them.
They sat quietly for a while, the hospital ambiance being all that they heard. They didn’t speak; they didn’t know what to say. They didn’t think they could open their mouths without wailing and breaking down again.
A knock on the door drew their attention away from the bed. The nurse from before leaned into the room. “There are two boys here who say they’re family.”
“They are.” She didn’t have to say anything more, Soda knew that Steve and Two-Bit were there. They were family.
The nurse nodded and scurried off. Minutes later, she returned with the other two greasers before running away again. Like the brothers, they stared in shock at the man in the bed before them, not believing that it was actually their Superman. Steve stood beside Soda, and Two-Bit took the spot next to Ponyboy.
“What happened?” Two-Bit asked.
Soda cleared his throat. “He fell off a ladder at work.” He tried to continue, but he couldn’t force his voice to come out.
“He had surgery,” Pony added. His voice sounded so raspy and vacant that everyone had to watch his mouth move to know that it was his. “He fractured his skull and his brain was bleeding. He broke his back, too. He won’t be able to walk.”
All of the air was sucked out of the small hospital room. Darry would never walk around the neighborhood with them again. He would never race his brothers again. He would never play football with them again. He would never be in a rumble with them again. He would never do flips down the pavement again. He would never roof another house.
How would they all live without that?
“He ain’t gonna die, is he?” Two-Bit asked.
The brothers both immediately shook their heads. They couldn’t let that thought live for another second.
“The nurse said he’ll wake up soon,” Soda said, “but he’ll probably be delirious. They got him on drugs so he ain’t in pain.”
Then it was the four of them sitting silently in the white, too-small room, waiting for their brother to wake up.
The doctor crushed those hopes.
“Hey boys,” Dr. Covey greeted, stepping into the room. “Visiting hours are just about over.”
The greasers all stared at each other, then back at the doctor. “Does that mean we have to leave?” Steve asked.
“Yes,” Dr. Covey nodded, “unfortunately.”
That caused an uproar among the boys.
“But he hasn’t even woken up yet,” Soda cried.
“He will wake up soon,” the doctor assured.
“But we have to be here.”
Dr. Covey shook his head firmly. “You boys have been here for hours. You ought to go eat some dinner and get some sleep. Visiting hours start tomorrow at six. You can come back then.”
Soda and Pony already had all the fight drained out of them, but Steve and Two-Bit didn’t. They both stood up and walked towards the doctor.
“You gotta let us stay,” Two-Bit pleaded. “Just until he wakes up.”
“We can’t leave our buddy like this,” Steve added.
The doctor raised an eyebrow. “If he’s your buddy, you shouldn’t even be here. Family only without patient permission.”
“They are family,” Soda reasoned. “They’re as family as they can be without sharin’ blood.”
Dr. Covey cleared his throat. “I’m sorry boys,” he said, exasperated, “but I don’t make the rules. You have to go. Now.”
Before any of them could move or protest, a soft groan and some shuffling caught everyone’s attention. The gang whipped their heads around to look at Darry. His eyes were about halfway open and his head was swaying slightly. His mouth opened, but only another groan came out.
The boys all rushed to him. Soda and Pony carefully grabbed his hands, worried that being the slightest bit rough would break him.
“Hey, Darry,” Soda said softly. He brought a hand up and gently combed through the small tuft of hair that stuck out from the bandages. “We’re all here with you. Me, Ponyboy, Steve, and Two-Bit.”
Another unintelligible sound came from Darry.
“Alright,” Dr. Covey cleared his throat, “you’ve talked to him. Now, visiting hours are officially over. Please don’t make me call security on you.”
Pony squeezed Darry’s hand. “We have to go now,” he softly, “but we’ll all be back tomorrow.”
“Love you, big brother,” Soda whispered.
They could have sworn Darry squeezed both of their hands before they let go.