I don't own the outsiders; that belongs to S.E Hinton.

The day was starting out to look like a hot one already. The sun was bright and high as could be in the sky. The covers stuck to her sweating skin and she kicked them away; irritated. Her bare feet hit the rough wood flooring, which really should've been replaced years ago with all the scratching it had, and headed down the short hallway and turned into the kitchen.

It was a sad sort of kitchen, with chipping bright yellow paint, pealing flowery wall paper and chipped tiles by the stove. Her mother's taste. The window over the sink had thin, wispy yellow curtains but the rod had broken on one side when Bennie used it for leverage to climb onto the counter last week so now it hung low on one side. The trash was piled up in the can over in the corner and someone would have to take it out later. Plates and cups and utensils lined the wall buy the sink and one of the cupboard doors was missing. Not the mention the sink didn't have hot water anymore and only ran cold. And they were out of dish soap.

Searching for a pan in the bottom cupboard, she cracked the few eggs they had left in the carton, someone would have to food shop soon before they starved, and grabbed a spatula. She flipped some toast into the toaster, though there was only a slab of margarine left. Spreading the eggs between two pans, she made eggs and pancakes, since Kay refused to eat anything yellow. She scrounged around the shelves a bit, looking for the constantly roving bag of chocolate chips, and sprinkled the remaining ones into the pancake batter, forming a smiley face. Childish, she knew, but it lit Kay's face up to see someone put care into her own special breakfast.

There was no milk left and they had run out of juice earlier this week, so she found some clean cups, and filled them with cold water, the only kind the damned sink provided. She started her coffee and lit a cigarette.

Sitting the filled plates on the carved up table, courtesy of her brothers, she placed the cups down, turning off the stove. Padding back down the hallway she stopped at the second doorway, a name carved in messy scrawl into the wood and another written in what she concluded was a sort of maroon red dried lipstick, like they couldn't let only one person's name on the door. She banged twice before twisting the knob and flicking on the light, which flickered dully from the bulb. A groan came from a bed at one end of the room and on the other side a thin, olive toned arm carelessly, but accurately, chucked a sneaker at the door which she managed to close in time, rolling her eyes. Every morning.

She put the stick to her lips for a moment and headed to the next door, shoving it open. The window in the room had a shade pulled down, duct taped to the wall to stay shut which made the room dark. A little tiny fan, probably nicked by one of them, sat on a shelf, making it the coolest room in the whole house. A cloud of smoke came out her nose and she would've flicked on the lights, but someone had taped the switch down too, obviously not keen on being woken up by bright lights in the morning. So instead she wandered into the small room, stepping over the dirty clothes that needed a wash and the sneakers and boots, the leather tearing and the sneakers nearly shredded, and stood between the two beds before sticking her cigarette in her mouth where it hung loosely between her lips and smacked her now free hands down on the broad bare backs of her sleeping brothers.

"Fuck!"

"The hell kind of wakeup call is that?"

"The kind that gets even the dead up and moving. Let's go, you've got school and you've got work and don't think I didn't notice you were both late yesterday."

She ignored the curses sent her way and left, leaving the door open and headed back to her room. The occupant across the hall from her brothers, her grandmother, was usually able to wake herself up by now, though she never made the breakfast or woke the other up. She wasn't into that stuff, what she called 'coddling'. Grandma Theresa thought a kid needed to learn how to wake up on their own, take care of themselves. Well if she didn't wake them all up herself Lord knows they'd never move from their beds unless they needed to piss.

She lifted the blankets from the two in her own bed and shook them awake.

"Rise and shine. Face the day." She told them before heading towards the bathroom down the hall.

She stripped of her bed clothes and turned the water on. The water heater was broken, of course, and like the sink the shower only spewed ice cold water. She made quick work of using the dwindling supply of shampoo and shaved, rinsing herself off as someone opened the door and used the toilet. She ripped open the curtain, folding a towel around herself as someone else walked through the already opened door. James rolled his shoulders as he finished and scratched lazily at his back, yawning, before stepping out of his underwear and into the still running shower.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Brenda, will you get the damn thing fixed?" he demanded before closing the curtain.

"Yeah, when you give me the cash, boy." She replied, ruffling the hair of Bennie, who was moving from where he brushed his teeth in the sink to the toilet.

She found Kay sitting up tiredly in her bed, legs folded under the blankets, a dazed look on her face and gave her a sleepy smile. She walked over to the petite teenager, smoothing her bedhead and giving her a kiss on the forehead.

"You know what you're gonna wear to school today, baby?" she asked.

Kay nodded her head and slowly touched her feet to the floor. Brenda released her towel, throwing it at Kay who headed towards the bathroom and pulled out her clothes for the day. She ran a quick brush through her long, dark and thick hair, tied it up and threw the brush onto the bed for Kay when she came back.

The coffee was ready by the time she entered the kitchen, drinking it black was how she had it every morning since they never seemed to own any cream and sugar made her jumpy. Roy was already at the table, half asleep, shoveling eggs into his mouth.

"Morning." She greeted.

Roy merely nodded his head in her general direction. He didn't function well this early in the day. Bennie came out them, James on his heels, both grabbing seats at the table and practically inhaling their own eggs. Sonny was up now, scratching himself as he gave a large, lion-sized yawn, walking towards the bathroom, and as usual, had no clothes on this morning. A frustrated swear came from the bathroom and Connie stormed into the kitchen, irritated look on her face.

"I swear, he doesn't own a single pair of pants." She muttered.

"Would explain where all mine keep disappearing to." James replied.

"He's old, he's got a job. Buy some clothes already."

"You wanna tell him that, princess?"

"Enough. James, Connie, eat your breakfast, it's getting cold. Kay! Let's go, baby, your cakes are getting' chilly out here." Brenda said.

She couldn't very well yell at the kid. Kay may have been Connie's twin, but they were complete opposites in everything but looks. They were both thin and petite, dark olive toned skin, dark doe eyes and even darker long, slightly curly hair. Though that was where the similarities stopped for the fifteen year olds. Kay was the youngest of the twins and clearly the more submissive one. There was nothing submissive about Connie. Connie was loud and always had an opinion on everything, and she told you about it whether you wanted it or not. She tended to lose her temper quick, whereas Brenda didn't think Kay even had one, and Connie got into fights with other girls. She punched a guy once, someone in the Shepard gang, broke his nose. While Brenda was proud her kid sister could handle herself, the last thing she had needed was a pissed Shepard on her doorstep. Kay was different though. While she wasn't a wall flower, and she was her own person, she wasn't loud about her thoughts like Connie was. Kay was quite, to the point where she really didn't even talk, preferring to use any other sort of method of communication. Sometimes Brenda felt it was like a game to Kay, finding a new way to talk without actually speaking. Maybe she was just using it as a way to release her creativity, which she certainly had a lot of, what with her sketches and paintings that covered the walls of her bedroom, where Kay and Bennie tended to sleep. But she couldn't yell at Kay, cause you just didn't yell at Kay the way you could yell at Connie. Kay was easily frightened and Connie was easily agitated. That's just how they worked.

Kay glided into the kitchen, so light on her feet she didn't even make a sound when she stepped, and sat gently in her seat, her dark doe eyes brightening slightly when she saw the smiley face greeting her again that morning. She smiled a small Kay smile at Brenda before picking at the pancake with her small hands.

"Anyone who isn't walking needs to be at the car in five." Sonny announced, stalking into the kitchen and grabbing the coffee cup and cigarette from Brenda's hands, taking a hit before taking a large gulp of coffee as Brenda searched for the car keys.

Sonny was the oldest, standing tall at twenty-two. He had the look of their dad, with his pale skin and light brown hair, like Bennie, the youngest. Everyone else had shades of their mother, with their olive skin and dark hair. Though Brenda, James and Bennie were the only ones to have their dad's dark blue eyes.

Sonny's eyes were dark and hard though, angry, and Brenda had a feeling they were an older version of Connie's. His light brown hair was slicked back, his shoulders, like James and their father's, was broad, unlike Roy's who had a slim build at fourteen. Sonny worked as a carpenter during the warm weather, had since he was fifteen and had trained under some older man named Bobby who died after falling off a ladder and Sonny took his place. James worked part-time loading and doing manual labor at a warehouse and some factories after school.

James reached for the cigarette in Sonny's hand and their brother smacked his hand away with a gruff 'get your own pack'.

"That's not even yours." James protested.

"So?"

James rolled his eyes, grabbing his and Sonny's black leather jackets from the living room chairs and headed out to the truck with a shouted good-bye that made Kay flinch and a wave over his shoulder. Connie rolled her eyes at his back and nudged Kay gently, nodding her head to get their bags and head out. Kay nodded, standing to give Sonny and kiss on the cheek and a quick hug around the waist to Brenda before following Connie out the door, screen door slamming against the frame behind them.

"I can't believe you let Connie out the front door lookin' like that." Sonny said.

Brenda shot him a dry look.

"You wanna take away the make-up?"

Sonny grumbled under his breath, an irritated roll of his eyes before snatching up the keys, messing with Brenda's hair and ushering the two boys, Roy and Bennie, out of the house. Brenda cleared off the dishes and put them on the counter for washing later. She then made the rounds for the rooms, picking up the dirty clothes and putting them in the basket. She picked up the unfamiliar bra in James and Sonny's room and shook her head.

"Grams, time for your medication." Brenda called through the door before walking into the living room.

She set the basket down, she'd wash it later. She scribbled down a grocery list, since she was getting her paycheck today for the diner. Her bar maids check would handle the utilities this week and hopefully James and Sonny could cover part of the mortgage and car.

Her grandmother, Theresa, came out of her room them, little pale and wrinkled hand clutching her can, scowl on her face as usual. Her grandmother had a heart condition and needed to take her medication religiously, but she hated it. Thought going to church would heal her right up if they made her stop taking the stinking chemical toxins they called medicine and making her pollute her body. Whatever helped her sleep at night, Brenda thought.

Her grandmother was her father's mother, and she was old, having had trouble having kids so her father had come late in her life. Her skin was pale and she had spider-veins and her hair, supposedly a rich red once was now wispy and starlight white. She was getting slightly hunched in her back and her bones were going. She had only broken her wrist last year from stumbling into the counter. She had a necklace around her that held her glasses up and she was constantly forgetting where they were when they were either hanging down on the chain or even still on her face. But her tongue was sharp as a knife, even if her memory was going. Sometimes she insisted Bennie was still seven instead of eleven.

After an hour or so of tidying up the house and listening to her grandmother rant about some political 'hooplah', she finally grabbed her apron and kissed her grandmother's cheek before heading out to go to Phil's Diner for her shift. She lit another cigarette and watched the road for any Mustangs or something. She wasn't likely to be jumped, being a girl and all, but she'd rather avoid the name calling as they drove by.

Eventually she made it to the diner, without any Soc sightings, and tied her apron around her waist, moving to the next waiting table, Caroline having already gotten a few down. It was uneventful there, just taking orders and getting a few remarks from some fellow Greasers which she easily ignored.

It was when she got the phone call at work, specially requesting her, that the day turned in a whole new direction.