Change of Heart

"DARREL SHAYNNE!" I screamed after the little dark brown haired boy that was toddling in front of me. I pretended it was hard to catch up with him before scooping him up in my arms and planting a noisy kiss on his cheek.

He wriggled a little bit, giggling, as I put him back down on the ground as he raced toward his father, his namesake. Darry took him and threw him up in the air before catching him and swinging him back and forth.

For a second, Darry looked up at me with that grin, and everything came back to me. That summer, that dramatic summer, which ended up to start a life that could not have been better if it came out of my imagination.

Darry had surprised me by somehow finding out (I'm assuming Johnny was to blame, the little sneak) about what day my graduation was and coming to surprise me. I had raced toward him, crying, since I hadn't seen him in years. He was still the same, and yet different somehow. Even older, if it was possible.

We had picked up right where we left off, being inseparable and moving into an apartment in a small town near where I grew up in northern California. I got a job as a psychiatrist, and it was fulfilling to know that I helped someone even a little when they walked out of my office. I just wanted to make the world a slightly happier place.

It wasn't until a few months after I'd moved in with Darry that he finally told me about Soda. Soda had felt that he had to enlist in the army when Vietnam rolled around, and Darry told me that he was proud of Soda, but he was nervous at the same time.

It turned out that Darry was right to be nervous because Soda never came home. He had been killed in an explosion. I didn't think I'd ever cried so much in my life, realizing that I would never see Soda again. I was also a little angry at Darry for waiting so long to tell me, but that was such a small matter at the time.

But we moved on, as we had to do. A couple years later, Darry proposed, and I accepted. Not too long later, we got married in a rather small ceremony. I'd invited the whole gang, but Dally didn't show up. That was alright though, since I hadn't actually expected him to.

A few years after our wedding, we decided that we wanted to have a baby. It didn't take long, and before we knew it, Darrel III came. He was only over a year, walking up a storm. Every day, he made me so proud and he looked so much like his daddy.

"You okay, babe?" Darry asked, kissing my cheek while holding baby Darrel on his hip. It was weird, since I didn't really like any boys names, I told Darry that he could pick the name, and he just decided to name our son after him, after Darry's father. I didn't really care though.

"Fine. Just...reminiscing," I smiled, kissing him again. Darry took the baby into the house to give him some Cheerios to munch on.

I stayed outside though, sitting on the little tire swing that Darry had set up not long after we moved in. The swaying back and forth was comforting, and I let myself drift back into my memories.

The rest of the gang seemed to turn out okay too. Ponyboy was currently engaged to a girl named Maria, and she sure was a Spanish beauty. I would have never thought of her as Pony's type, but they worked well together.

Sammy was married to a friend of hers that she'd known her whole life, which I thought was cute. He was strong and protective, the opposite of Ponyboy, and they bickered like an old married couple. At the end of the day though, they made each other happy, which was the most important thing.

Two-Bit was currently dating a girl he met at a supermarket in Tulsa named Cindy. As expected, her hair was a light blonde, but she had a good head on her shoulders, unlike most of the girls that Two-Bit had ever dated.

Johnny had just met a girl with light brown hair named Ireland, and she was the complete opposite of him, loud and peppy. Somehow, they balanced each other, and they really were the absolute cutest couple I'd ever seen in my life. I hoped that they would stay together for a long time coming.

Dally...he was different than everyone else. He had never had another real relationship, and he just roamed the streets alone, since the rest of the gang had found people. Maybe he was still looking, maybe he just didn't ever want to have someone else to depend on. No one would ever know.

"SOPHIE!" Darry called out the back sliding glass door, smiling widely. "Someone's calling for you!"

I smirked a little before walking into the house, closing the door behind me. Baby Darrel was holding out his hands, opening and closing his tiny fists. Obliging his order, I picked him up in my arms and bounced him up and down a little bit. "Have a nice snack?" I asked in a cutesy voice.

He babbled in response, and I nodded as if we were having an intellectual conversation. "Oh, I see," I mused, looking at the ceiling as if pondering the thought.

Then, mid-babble, Darrel just fell asleep. He had a weird habit of doing that, falling asleep at the weirdest times. It was nothing to worry about though, the doctor assured us. He was just a quirky baby.

"Want me to put him to sleep?" Darry whispered.

I shook my head. "I'll take care of it." I disappeared down the hallway and put Darrel down in his crib. The room was a pale green with white furniture, since we'd tried to stay away from the blue for a boy, pink for a girl stereotype. It looked pretty good, I had to say.

When I confirmed that Darrel was still asleep and safe, I left the door open a crack and sat next to Darry on the couch.

"Doesn't he just make you smile?" I questioned before getting back up to clean up the mess from Darrel's snack.

"Yeah. Let's have another," Darry joked. He got up too and took the tray from me so he could wash it with the soap and water. The one time I'd tried to do it, I'd accidentally left some of the soap on the top and when Darrel went to eat on it, his face contorted and until we figured out what was wrong, he refused to eat.

"Uhhhh...I don't know about that," I laughed. "Let's wait a little bit."

"I can live with that," Darry agreed, shutting off the water. Then, he walked over to me and kissed me. "Sometimes, I just can't believe that this is all real. When I saw you leave to go on that plane...at the time, I thought it would be the last time that I'd ever see you."

I bit my lip before remembering that wasn't the case. "Well, fear not. This is real."

He picked me up and spun me in the air. "And I couldn't be happier."

We settled down on the couch in the living room, him sitting up and me lying down with my head resting on his lap.

This was how life was for me, and I was perfectly content. As I closed my eyes, I thought about what was still to come. Darrel's first day of school, his first date, his prom, his graduation. Then, maybe, a baby girl behind him, following in her big brother's footsteps. Her big brother would be her protector, and she would never have to feel scared.

"It's okay," Darry's voice whispered soothingly in my ear. "You can go to sleep if you want."

He'd noticed that I'd been struggling to keep my eyes open. So I let my heavy eyelids close and began to breathe deeply, smiling in content.

I could not have wished for my life to turn out any other way.