A/N: I own nothing you recognize.

A/U: Curtis Sister

12 Things Johnny Cade never told anyone:

-That he loved when Babydoll would wear his jean jacket. It would smell like her perfume and Breck shampoo for days when she gave it back.

-He liked that she was shorter and slighter than him. It made him feel strong for once. Like he could protect her from anything.

-He'd liked her for as long as he'd known the Curtis family, though he was too shy to talk to her for most of that time.

-He didn't like for her to see him after his dad had been at him. Her seeing him all bruised up and defeated made him feel..., what was that word Ponyboy had used? Oh yeah, emasculated.

-There was no better music than Elvis Presley, but he loved when Babydoll sang girl group songs to him in the vacant lot.

-He asked Babydoll to the Spring Dance two years ago because he thought one of the Soc boys was about to without realizing that she was going to actually want to dance and he didn't know how.

-He'd begged SodaPop to teach him how to dance but Steve kept making fun of them. Finally, Mrs. Curtis had taken pity on him and taught him a basic slow step but he still sat out most dances while Babydoll had danced with Two-Bit and Dally. He didn't mind Two-Bit. Her dancing with Two-Bit was like her dancing with Darry.

-He did mind her dancing with Dally. Just a bit. Especially when at the last Winter Dance, she'd been singing Baby Love to him. He didn't like her singing that song to Dally. That was his song.

-He'd hidden from her after his first run in with the Socs. How could she ever look at him as strong if she saw him beaten to hell?

-Darry never wanted Babydoll to hangout alone with any of the boys. This didn't apply to Johnny. As silly as it was, Johnny resented this. Did Darry think he wasn't man enough to put the moves on Babydoll?

-That with Babydoll he felt like a man instead of a scared little boy.

18 Things Babydoll will never forget:

-The way Johnny's black eyes would sparkle when he looked at her.

-How soft his lips were.

-That he was her first kiss and she was his.

-Lying on the old car seat in the vacant lot, just talking with Johnny.

-Johnny wrapping them up in his jean jacket and asking her to sing to him while staring at the stars.

-The first time Johnny told her 'I love you.'

-Hiding in the broom closet, making out with him because if Darry found out, he'd cut Johnny's balls off.

-The night Darry banged on the closet door and told her to go to bed and Johnny to go home. She thought her heart had stopped for a moment.

-Fighting with him for just disappearing when he'd finally stopped avoiding her after the run in with the Socs. Letting things go just a little too far making up from that fight.

-Johnny didn't want to see her when he was in the hospital after the fire. By that point, she'd come to realize it was about his pride and not that he didn't love her but it still hurt.

-Johnny's funeral.

-Dally didn't have a funeral, his father couldn't, or wouldn't, afford it, but the gang had a wake for him.

-Two-Bit finding her sitting in the vacant lot a month later at three in the morning. "I know the beef with the Socs has been settled with the rumble, but they aren't likely to turn down such a pretty target sitting out here all alone," he'd said, wrapping his jacket around her shoulders and walking her home.

-Darry yelling at her to tell him whose bastard she was carrying over and over.

-Two-Bit finally jumping between them and saying, "It's mine, Darry! It's my bastard! You want to be mad, be mad at me."

-Darry knocking him clear across the living room.

-How proud Two-Bit looked holding Johnnycake the day she was born.

-The day she realized that she didn't just love Two-Bit, she was in love with him.

5 Things Two-Bit doesn't regret and the one he does:

-Finding Babydoll in the vacant lot.

Doing the right thing by Babydoll.

-Cleaning up his act.

-Not putting his hands on Babydoll until she asked him to, even if it was damn hard not to sometimes.

-Giving his girls all the love they deserved and more.

The one thing he does regret:

-Doing the right thing cost him the best friendship he'd ever had. He'd expected the beating but things were never exactly the same after that.

5 Things Johnnycake Mathews doesn't understand:

-Why Mama gets sad in May when everyone else is getting happy.

-Why the guys in the neighborhood patted her hair and gave her quarters and silver dollars.

-That Mama loved to dance with Daddy, especially to the old girl groups but Baby Love made her cry and hide in her bedroom for hours.

-Why Mama and Daddy hid her from the mean eyed woman who lived next door to Uncle Darry.

-Why her earliest memory, the one that she wasn't even sure was real, was of Mama, sitting at the kitchen table with Daddy standing beside her, trying to talk to her. "Because I'm not Johnnycake? Dammit, Daisy! How long are you going to punish us because I can't be Johnnycake?" Why did her daddy want to be her and how would that make Mama happy again if he could be?

June 1978

Uncle Ponyboy gave me this journal for my birthday and told me I should write down things I think. At first, I just put it in my desk and forgot about it, but now I'm bored so here goes.

Hi. I'm Johnnie Mathews. My parents are Two-Bit Mathews and Babydoll Curtis. Well, that's not their real names. Her real name is Daisy Mae Curtis Mathews. With that name, I'd let everybody call me Babydoll too. And everyone does call Mama Babydoll, except Daddy and sometimes Uncle Darry. Daddy calls her Daisy or just Baby, and Uncle Darry calls her Little Sister if he doesn't call her Babydoll. Mama has three brothers. Uncle Darry, whose real name is Darrel Shane Curtis, Jr., Uncle SodaPop, and Uncle PonyBoy. That's their real names. Like on their birth certificates and everything and while we're on the subject, my name on my birth certificate is not Johnnie. It's Johnnycake Mathews. My parents actually named me Johnnycake. I just say that it's Johnnie because that sounds a little less weird if a girl named Johnnie can sound less strange. I feel like I should tell you that Daddy's name isn't really Two-Bit, either. It's Keith Mitchell Mathews, but since Grammy died, Mama is the only person who ever calls him that and only when she's mad at him, or they're being all kissy and gross. I also have an Aunt Kim. She's my daddy's sister, but she got married and moved to Washington when I was three. She doesn't come home very often. I have a little brother. He has the completely normal name of Keith Mitchell Mathews, Junior. And my PARENTS are having TWINS this summer. That is soooo gross. I mean, the babies part is fine. I like babies. It's just that it means my parents still do IT and now all my friends know it too. My mom has this like, huge stomach now and Daddy is always rubbing it or talking to it and all my friends see them. They even kiss in front of my friends and I. It's disgusting. There should be a point where parents stop doing that kind of stuff. The worst part of it is though, is that the babies have made mom sick somehow and she has to be in the hospital on bed rest until they're born. That's why Keith and I are staying with Uncle Darry and Aunt Emily this summer. Daddy works all day, then comes over and takes us to see Mama for visiting hours, then brings us back to Uncle Darry's, or sends us with Uncle Soda if he's there and he usually is. He and mama are twins and super close and Aunt Marcia is Mama's closest friend, so they're almost always there. Then Daddy goes back to the hospital and spends the night with Mama.

There is absolutely nothing to do at Uncle Darry's. That's why I'm writing in this journal now. I'm so bored that even writing seems fun. I wish I could go to Uncle Soda's but he and Aunt Marcie are at the garage all day so there would be no one to watch Keith and Mama says I'm not old enough even though she used to babysit Uncle Pony when she was thirteen.

Uncle Pony is a famous writer so maybe he knows what he's talking about with the journal. He writes for a paper in Oklahoma City and his column is, um..., what do they call it when it runs in other papers? Oh yeah, syndicated. It's syndicated all over the country. He has also written a bunch of books for teens. I've read most of them already. There is one Mama says I'm not old enough to read yet. But I am twelve, starting junior high, and I can read on a college level. I've asked her to let me read it every year since I was nine. She always says no. Well, she's not going to be around this summer, so I'm going to read it. Tomorrow, I'm going to ask my cousin, Jamie, to walk to the library with me so I can check it out. He's a good egg. He won't tell anyone that I've got the book like my cousin, Sara, his sister, would. Maybe we'll ask my friend Melody to go with us. It's just a book. How bad can it be?

Well, it's almost five thirty and Aunt Emily is calling me to get ready for Daddy to come to take Keith and me to see Mama so I'll write more next time I'm bored to tears.

Johnnie

Johnnycake hid her journal away in her overnight bag and went to the mirror in the room she was sharing with Sara and pinned her black hair into a ponytail and carefully applied some pale pink lipstick on her lips. Her Daddy had said she couldn't wear makeup until she was thirteen. But last week, he'd taken her and Keith to the drugstore for hamburgers and milkshakes before going to the hospital and she'd swiped a tube of Kiss Me Pink lipstick when Daddy was paying the ticket. He'd never notice and she'd rub it off before she saw Mama. She thought it looked nice against her brown skin.

"Johnnycake Mathews!" Emily called again. "Come on out. Two-Bit will be here any minute."

"Coming Aunt Emily," she called back, stashing the lipstick with her journal and running into the kitchen.

Please R and R.