Revolution - An Outsiders / Sodapop Fanfic

Two

Soda and Steve didn't come home until very late that night. Darry and I figured they were out partying or with Steve's girl Evie. But it turned out, Evie wasn't the girl they were with.

When the door flew open at eleven o'clock, I heard Soda yell, "Hey Darry! Ponyboy! Probably Two-bit too!"

He sounded so cheerful, I hardly recognized him. He hadn't been this happy since before Sandy had left. He actually seemed even happier than before.

Steve was the first one I saw. He walked right past Darry, Two-bit and I in the living room and went straight for the fridge. Soda came to the living room with an arm around a girl.
"Look who I found."
I couldn't believe my eyes, and neither could Darry. I couldn't move. I was frozen to the couch as a montage of a younger Sydney Lucas flowed through my brain. She looked just like she did back then. Two-bit threw the remote. Darry, however, was out of his seat the moment he saw her. He wrapped Sydney and (involuntarily) Soda in a man crushing hug.

"Hey Lucas! Where ya been?" Two-bit laughed as he jumped up and joined the hug.
Sydney's eyes nearly popped out of her head, "God Two-bit, you look so much older than you did in senior year!"
"Funny," Steve laughed from the kitchen, "since he's still in senior year!"
Her eyes dashed to me and she laughed as she said, "Oh Ponyboy, blonde sure isn't your colour."
But she broke away from the gang's hug and pulled me off the couch, hugging me too. She smelled like strawberries and coconuts, just like she always had.

"Hey Syd!" I smiled, "What are you doing here?"
"Is everyone surprised to see me?" She asked, leaving the hug, "Did Steve not tell you all I was coming?"
Every eye in the room turned to stare at Steve in the kitchen. He put his hands up in surrender and said, "Hey, I wrote you the letter and I still didn't know you were coming."
"You wrote her a letter and didn't tell me?" Soda asked.
"Yeah," Steve said, "She never replied so I figured might as well not get your hopes up."
"When?" I asked Steve. Why was Sydney here?
Steve's voice was sad and serious, "I wrote to her the night Johnny and Dally died. Asked her to come for the funeral."

No one said anything after that, merely just stared at their feet. Except for Soda, he hadn't taken his eyes off Sydney. Finally, Two-bit broke the silence, "Golly Steve, I didn't know you could write."

Sydney cracked up. She had her hand over her face and she had to sit down she was laughing so hard. Soda started laughing too. He always did when Sydney laughed, it might've been because he found the thing she was laughing at funny. Or it might've been because he liked her so much. But I think it's because her laugh is always funnier than the joke, because that's what I do. Shoot, she sounds like a hyena - her mother used to tell her so, too. It wasn't long until everyone was laughing. The house was shaking. My stomach hurt too but I couldn't stop. I think we might've all laughed so hard we fell asleep, right there in the middle of the living room, Steve in the kitchen.

I was the first one awake that morning. I was lying on the couch with Darry but everyone else was asleep on the floor. Two-bit was by the TV, and Steve was under the table. Soda had Sydney wrapped in his arms. Her upper body was calm against him but she had one leg on the nearest chair and one behind her her, somehow.

It reminded me of the one time we went to the cottage. I was ten and Soda, Sydney, and Steve were twelve, Darry was sixteen. And mom and dad were alive. I believe it was the weekend before Sydney was moving back to London, so her siblings were there too. It was a "together one last time" kind of trip. That was when Soda promised Sydney he'd take her to the moon one day. I think she's loved him for it ever since. I woke up first there, too. Darry and Sydney's older brother Shawn shared a bed, I had my own bed, Soda and Steve were supposed to be sharing a bed and then Sydney and her older sister Abbey were supposed to be, too. When I woke up though, Steve and Abbey each had their own beds and Soda and Sydney were asleep on the floor together. Nearly in the same position they were in now. Only, Sydney's legs were in different, wild spots. I doubted, just like now, that they purposely slept together. Back then, they both moved around so much they fell off the beds and just gravitated toward each other. And last night they probably gravitated toward each other too, because they've always been really close.

I watched them until Steve woke up. I knew from experience that Soda moved around a lot in his sleep, but Sydney actually did too. They were all over each other, but it wasn't weird, you know?

Steve came over and stared at them.
He said to me, "Well that's interesting."
He sat down and watched them too, smirking the whole time. We both were kind of laughing at them, I knew Steve would tease them when they woke up, but Soda was happy and that meant everything to me and Steve. It had been too long since he'd been happy.

"Y'know what, Ponyboy?" Steve said to me, keeping his eyes on Sydney and Soda.
"What?" I asked.
Steve sighed, "I didn't say it in the letter, but one of the reasons I asked Skwid to come back was because I hoped she'd make Soda happy again."

He looked up to see what I thought of that. I thought about it for a minute and then came to my conclusion.
"Steve, that is fine by me."

Sydney went to the DX with Soda and Steve that day. She complained all morning that Soda and Steve took too long to get ready, it was hilarious.
"Honestly Sodapop!" She yelled through the bathroom door, "Are you getting ready for a beauty pageant?"
"Hey," Soda poked his head out the door, "I gotta shower, brush my teeth, do my hair, and get dressed... It only takes an hour."
"I can do all those things in fifteen minutes. Hurry up," she said.
"Maybe you can, but it'll take you forty-five minutes to eat a bowl of cereal so you might wanna start on that. We'll be ready at the same time, then."
He was right, Sydney was a slow eater.

Sydney made them walk to the station that morning. She wanted to see Tulsa again.
"It's an amazing thing, seeing the three of them together again," Darry said to me as we watched them through the window. They were doing all their flips, cartwheels with no hands, back handsprings, back tucks too.
"This is one I learned on the Russian gymnastics team!" Sydney announced as she did a no handed front walkover.
"It's called a Front Aerial!"
"The Russian Gymnastics team?" Steve asked.
He turned to Soda and said, "Is she telling me all those rumors are true?"
"What rumors?" Sydney asked. She had stopped flipping.
"When you left," Soda explained with his hand on her shoulder, "everyone in Tulsa was telling stories about where you were. Broadway, surfing in California, going to parties with Elvis, having tea with the queen of England. Did you actually do those things?"

Sydney's cheeks turned slightly pink.
"I mean, I went to parties Elvis threw, just not with him like as a date..."
"Well shoot," Steve said, "He's gotta be thirty years old!"

Sydney started laughing again so the three of them had to stop. Probably five minutes later, Soda watched a white mustang drive by and a bunch of socs looking at them through the windows. The car drove by again and then one more time. The third round, the stopped in front of them.

"Sydney Lucas?" One of the ugliest guys Soda had ever seen said, "You back in town?"
Sydney smiled. Her arms were resting on Soda and Steve's shoulders.
"You got it," she said.
The boys in the mustang cheered with each other and the ugly guy said, "Well what are you doing with these two bums?"
Steve shifted, ready to go at the socs, but Sydney stopped him.
"These bums are my best friends, Paul."
Paul shook his head and said to her, "Sydney, you know you can do so much better than this."
Sydney leaned her head onto Soda's and joked, "Oh I know. But these two are as close as I'm going to get to my level."

Paul squinted, bit his tongue, and decided to change the subject, "So is Abbey around?"
"No, she should be in North Carolina right now."
"Oh, alright. Well I'll see you around, Sydney," Paul said and the mustang began to drive away.
"Bye," Steve spat at the socs.