A/N: More Tim/Mia. Hope you like it.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Outsiders. I do own Mia.

XXX

The slight movement from the other side of the bed and the sudden lack of warmth against his chest caused Tim to slowly open his eyes and blink. He saw a slim figure sitting up on the side of the bed, the early morning light illuminating her silhouette.
"What time is it?" His voice slurred together from sleep and he cleared his throat to try and get rid of it.
"It's almost 5." Came a quiet voice. "Go back to sleep, Tim. You don't need to be up this early." With that, Mia stood and walked towards the bedroom door, grabbing one of Tim's oversized shirts from the end of the bed as she did so. It was damp in the house from the light rain falling outside, and she was only wearing a short pair of sleep shorts and a tank top.
She walked down the hall of the trailer and walked into the kitchen to make coffee. Tim would need to get up for work in another hour or so, and he wasn't a nice person until after he had at least one cup of coffee.
Mia smirked to herself as she got the coffee maker going and went about getting everything from the cupboards. Not one person in Tulsa ever thought Tim Shepard would get a job, let alone one that allowed him to buy a house of his home AND provide for someone other then himself. It was thought to have been about as likely as Dallas Winston staying out of jail for a year… never going to happen. But it had, and for whatever reason, Mia was thankful.
At the thought of Dally, the smirk slid from Mia's face and she closed her eyes against the tears.
"What's on your mind, doll?" Mia jumped slightly at the seemingly loud voice in the quiet space. She turned to see Tim running his hand through his tousled hair and stretching.
"Nothing, Tim." She said quietly. "I just couldn't sleep any longer." Tim mumbled as he came towards her and let his arms wrap loosely around her waist.
"Sure you couldn't." He said quietly from where he had rested his head on her shoulder. "Cause it ain't like you wake up all the time for no reason." Mia let a sad smile run across her lips as she reached up to run her hand back through Tim's ungreased black hair.
"Come on, chick. What's got you up so early? Most of the time you ain't even getting out of bed until I'm going out the door for work." Mia sighed and turned in Tim's arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck and they swayed gently to silent music.
"Dally always took me out for a walk when it was raining like this." She said after silence fell between them. "Even if it was 3 in the morning. He'd kick my butt out of the bed and tell me to get dressed." A light laugh escaped her lips. "I never did understand why he was so eager to get up when it was raining, but refused to get up before noon when it was sunny." She stops talking and let's her head fall onto Tim's chest.
She can hear his heart beating out a steady rhythm underneath the skin pulled tight against the lean muscles.
Even though he had a job, Tim still enjoyed getting into a rumble now and then. But it wasn't with the Socs anymore; they gave up after Dally and Johnny died. There was still intense hatred between the two groups, but it wasn't fought out anymore. No one wanted to go through that again.
Now it was between rival groups: River Kings, Tiber Street Tigers and the Brumly boys. They were all fighting for turf. Tim's gang got involved because the groups were trying to get hold of what didn't belong to them.
Dally would be happy.' Mia thought. 'He was always looking to have rival groups to fight against where it would mean something in the end.'
"He mostly took me out when we were in New York." Mia continued her story. "We use to walk over to the upper side of town and laugh at all the people who would stare at us because we'd be soaked while they were all huddled under umbrellas and be pulling their rain coats up against the wind trying to keep dry. We'd walk around town until we got to Central Park. Then we'd turn around and head back- normally cause we were starting to shiver- and we'd grab a coffee from the store just outside of the upper part of the city. But sometimes we would have a fight planned with someone over turf problems and we wouldn't have time to stroll around." Mia was quiet for a moment and pulled away when the coffee maker went off.
Just as she was about to pour it into 2 mugs for them. Tim placed his hand on her arm and she turned to see his eyes gleaming with mischief.
"I'll get the coffee, Mia." He said. "You go get dressed." Mia raised an eyebrow at him, even as she put the pot down and headed for the hall.
"Why?" She asked suspiciously. Tim just smirked at her.
"Just go." He said and turned back to the coffee. Mia gave him a suspicious look before finally doing as she was asked and walked back into the bedroom to put clothes on.
It was chilly inside the house, so she figured it would be chilly outside too. She pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. She didn't really own any long sleeve shirts, she just threw a sweater on over the t-shirt.
Mia looked at herself in the mirror and sighed. She remembered when life wasn't like this after Dally died. When she could barely put a bottle of beer or whisky down to save her life, when she and Tim had first started dating. When something clicked between them and they tried harder to make things work, only to suddenly have too much of a load to carry and have everything crash on top of them. Then that faithful day when the sun suddenly shone brighter and life seemed to slide into place. Now here they were, 3 years later, and she still couldn't wrap her head around the fact that she no longer had Dally. No longer had a bodyguard to knock out someones teeth when they crossed the line, no longer got to see that rare but beautiful smile cross his face when he woke up in a good mood. It was all just gone; slid through her fingertips like sand.
Mia sighed and shook her head. She couldn't say she wasn't happy about how her life was now, she was. But there was always those days when she wished the world would stop for a moment and let her catch up. But Tim was everything she needed, and she hoped that was how it would stay.
With one last fleeting glance in the mirror, Mia walked out of the bedroom and down the hall. When she walked into the kitchen, she was surprised to see Tim standing by the door; fully clothed with his jacket and shoes on, with 2 mugs sitting by him on the counter top.
"Where are you going?" Mia asked as she walked over to him. Tim gave her a smile.
"WE are going for a walk." He said as he handed Mia her jacket. "I thought you might like to get some fresh air." Mia felt tears come to her eyes at what Tim was implying. She took her jacket from his hand and put it on before slipping her feet into her old sneakers. Before he handed her, her mug of coffee, Mia threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly.
"Thank-you." She whispered. Tim hugged her back and they stood there for a moment, soaking in each others warmth before Tim pulled back and handed Mia her mug.
He'd used the ones that they'd use when they went somewhere, the ones with the snap on covers so that the coffee would stay warm longer and not slosh around.
"Lets go." He said as he opened the door. He let Mia step out first and she breathed in deeply. When she closed her eyes, she could picture the towering skyscrapers surrounding her once again, and the sound of cars sloshing through the puddles on the road.
Once Tim closed the door, he took Mia's hand and they walked out into the rain.
It wasn't a heavy rain, but it wasn't a drizzle either. Tim wasn't overly fond of getting soaked if he didn't need to, but Mia seemed quite content with her hair plastering to her face as she walked, sipping at her coffee. So he didn't say anything; not when she was in a good mood.
They walked in a comfortable silence most of the way; though once and a while, Mia would tell a story about a particular walk she and Dally had had while in the big city.
"The guys had all thought we'd gone swimming or something." Mia giggled as she remember the time when it had been raining harder then usual, but Dally had insisted on a walk anyway. "They never understood why we liked to go out on our own so much. The one rule was that you couldn't date anyone in the gang- so only I had that problem. They all thought Dally and I were breaking rules that we'd set up ourselves."
"You did break them eventually." Tim said as he took another gulp of his coffee. Mia nodded and sipped at hers before lying her head on his shoulder as they continued to walk down the path through the woods.
There was a small lake not far from their trailer, and sometimes they'd walked down to go swimming during the summer or just to get out for a walk.
As they came to the cliff that everyone would jump off of when they went swimming, they stopped and looked out over the lake; watching as the rain hit it, creating ringlets across the surface of the water and mist rose up.
Suddenly, Tim set his coffee mug down and started to take off his jacket.
"Tim, what are you doing?" Mia asked as she wrapped both her hands around the mug she held.
"It's still only late summer, the water is still going to be warm." He pulled off the t-shirt he was wearing and wrapped it up in his jacket to keep it from getting wet. "Come on, Mia. Don't be a wimp."
"I'm not a wimp." Mia said as she glared at him. "I just don't feel like freezing to death when I got out of the water." Tim rolled his eyes.
"You can wear my shirt when you get out. Leave yours on right now and lets jump in." Mia chewed her bottom lip for a moment before giving in.
"If I get sick, you can be the one to explain to my boss that it's because you wanted to go jumping into a lake while it was raining." She said as she took off her jacket, followed by her shoes and socks. She wrapped them up in her jacket and they placed their stuff under a nearby tree.
"Last one in is a chicken." Tim said with a smile.
"Well then." Mia took off running for the edge of the cliff.
"Hey!" Tim yelled from behind her. But it wasn't very long before his long legs brought him up beside her and they ended up jumping over the edge at the same time.
Mia reached for Tim's hand as they fell the distance from the top of the cliff to the water. She couldn't help but smile as she closed her eyes and hit the water.
It wasn't very often that she and Tim got to do stuff like this; what with still trying to get their life together sorted out. But the moments where they got to go out for dinner somewhere, or go swimming somewhere where no one else was, or just lie on the couch watching a movie or TV, were some of Mia's favorite moments with him.
Dally hadn't ever really tried that hard to make her happy; just the little things he did once and a while had kept her going. But she wished he had put some sort of real effort into their relationship, even a small one.
But that was in the past, and Mia knew she couldn't dwell on it, because she'd put herself right back in the rut that she'd just dug herself out of.
She gasped in air as she came up out of the water and looked over at Tim who was shaking his hair out of his eyes. Mia swam closer and moved her foot around in the water. There was a rock right around here that they could stand on together. When she found it, she pulled Tim up on it with her and they stood there starring at each other. They were still wearing their jeans, and Mia was still in her t-shirt. The clothing clung to them uncomfortably, but they didn't care as their lips met and they held each other close.
In the early morning rain, Mia felt fully at peace for the first time in a long time. Sure she'd had moments where everything seemed OK, but this was the moment she needed to help her see that things were going in the right direction. So maybe Dally wasn't the one she was sharing the moment with; so what. Maybe this was his way of telling her that she couldn't dwell in the past memories they'd had together, maybe this was his way of telling her that he was watching her from wherever he was, and that there was no way she'd ever get hurt like that again.
Maybe it was his way of apologizing for not giving her any warning about how drastically he was going to react over Johnny dying...
Whatever the reason was, Mia felt happy to be wrapped up in Tim Shepard's arms with his lips on hers. As they stood on a rock, in the early morning rain, Mia knew for certain, for the first time in her whole life, that this was where she was supposed to be.

XXX

Well I thought that ending was a little cheesy, and that it may have dragged on a little longer then what was necessary. But what do you people think? Good? Bad? Should I post more Tim/Mia fanfictions? Leave a comment about your opinions on this, I'd really like to know if I should keep up with the Tim/Mia pairing. If they get good umm, good… I forgot the right word. :p That's so like me! I'll just say good reviews for now, but that wasn't the word I was looking for. I've got an idea for an ending to the series I'm working on right now (Dancing Across the Sky/ No Safe Place) and if Tim/Mia get good comments, I have an idea as to how I can finish the series. I know it's crazy that I have 2 different stories going and am saying that they're going to connect, but trust me, I got this sorted out.
As for not knowing that particular word... Ohh well, cut me some slack, it's late, and I'm getting tired.
Hope you enjoyed!

~Stay Gold