This is an AU, all the kids were created by my friend, beverytender on fanfiction for her extended universe of Skins.
Franky very quickly develops a habit of picking up strays.
Teens, that is. Sometimes kids, but those Mini usually made her try to turn over to the proper authorities.
But Franky understands about runaways. She gets it on a level many can't. And she knows how indescribably valuable a helping hand can be. No judgment, a place to crash for a night, some food in the morning, someone who cares. None ever stay long; they move on or go back where they came from with a couple quid and usually a handmade clothing item or two. There are a couple repeat guests, and they keep in contact. Franky likes that.
Franky sets them up in Dean's shed. If he comes to crash and finds his place occupied, Mini lets him have the couch. He doesn't mind in the slightest. Usually gives Franky a peck on the cheek for her trouble.
Elsie is three when this strange activity of teens rooming in her uncle's shed starts to occur. She's not allowed to go out there when the place is occupied, and the back door is locked, which is a new concept to Elsie. Not that she could just go out whenever she pleased, but she's never had to see her mums do anything special to make the door open to the back before. Locked doors aren't really a part of Elsie's world, and it's a mystifying event when there are strangers in the shed.
When she asks her Mum who those people are, Mini isn't really sure how best to explain it to a three-year-old, so she says they're Franky's friends. When Elsie asks Franky the same thing, she gets the answer 'cousins', which adds to the confusion.
She takes to hanging out at the back door, which has glass all the way down to Elsie's eye level, and if she pulls a cushion from the couch she can sit by the back door and watch to see if she sees any of the friend-cousins. She gets bored of this quickly, and soon the back door blocked by a mess of toys and coloring books and crayons, and Mini watches in bemusement from the kitchen island as Elsie alternates between all tasks and then, every few minutes, looks out the window with curiosity.
Those first years she only ever sees them at breakfast, which is a very strange affair. She's never seen Mama mad before, or impatient, or anything. Usually Mini makes the rules and Franky is less strict. But with the friend-cousins, Franky is snappish and sharp, and when they're rude Franky raps their knuckles with a breakfast spoon and tells them to mind their manners. There can be a lot of yelling, and sometimes Mini picks Elsie up and takes her out of the room before she even gets to finish breakfast, and then they're gone by the time she's allowed back in.
By the time Kenzie is old enough to start noticing these occasions, Elsie considers herself a bit of an expert on the cousins. (She starts calling them that around five, but quickly explains to Kenzie they aren't like the Hardbeck cousins at all, they're like secret cousins that Mama likes to help). Kenzie is all questions: "What are they doing in our yard" and "Why aren't they inside, then?". And she promptly starts trying to open the door even when it's locked, which starts to worry Mini, because even though none of the teens has ever been a violent guest Franky has made it clear that they aren't your normal types of kids, and it's best to keep the kids from seeing them on their own. Mini tasks Elsie with the careful monitoring of her sister, which makes Elsie roll her eyes because duh that's her job, but then Uncle Dean tells Elsie that the cousins can sometimes turn into bitey monsters, which makes Elsie more wary even though it just makes Kenzie glare stubbornly at him.
Kenzie is six the first time she manages to get out of the house when a cousin is there, and Elsie has to chase after her but it's too late, Kenzie has already burst through the shed's door and demanded to know who the teen is inside. It's a boy with shoulder length hair and lots of Band-Aids on his hands, who looks startled and a bit scared even though Kenzie is only six and the gasping Elsie behind her is almost ten. He tells them his name is George, with a suspicious look on his face the whole time, and that he isn't their cousin, when that's the follow up Kenzie question. Kenzie asks why his hands are bandaged and he glares at her and turns around, then picks up an old guitar off the floor and explains he's playing without a pick. Elsie immediately lights up, all wariness gone, and asks him to play a song.
It's a metal song, though the girls only recognize it as Uncle Rich music, but Elsie manages to dance to it anyway. Kenzie decides to sit right next to him on Uncle Dean's bed and watch as he works the strings, and they spend ten minutes in the shed doing this until Mini comes bursting in, a whirlwind of worry and anger. When George quails at this Mini tries to relax, unsuccessfully, and marches the girls back into the house.
George stays for breakfast and helps Franky take the girls to school.
Mini tries to re-establish the rules, but the dam is burst and there's no going back. Elsie doesn't find them scary anymore and Kenzie insists she was never scared anyway. They find ways to meet all the next guests, and start to recognize quickly who they can bother and who they can't.
It isn't that Elsie stops going to visit the teens at the shed, exactly, but at fourteen she becomes so busy with doing absolutely as much as she can every single day that her visits are only half an hour each or so, unless she's really taken with the guest. Kenzie, on the other hand, spends whole evenings with the teens when one shows up, if they'll have her. She may be stubborn but she doesn't often force the point, and usually the kids are receptive to her company. Soon she starts finding they're the same age as her, and then younger, and she fancies herself more in charge of them than Franky. She looks for lost looking teens (though is never as successful as Franky, who just knows where to look) and she talks to them for hours and is the first to invite them to breakfast. She gives them tips about where to go and who to see, and she gives them all her contact info, even on top of the contact information that Franky always gives. She's more hurt than Franky when they disappear, which they so often do, but when Franky tells her that's just how it goes sometimes Kenzie insists she knows that and is just as present with the next one.
Peter, out of all of them, doesn't take much interest in the strays Franky brings home. He'd much rather keep his mother from having a third heart attack, and he knows Kenzie's the one who'd be the best at it anyway.
Elsie is Mini's daughter from her relationship with Alo, but Mini and Franky raise her (Alo is present, it isn't as if he's a bum dad, but Mini starts seeing Franky and they become the primary caregivers). Kenzie and Peter are Franky and Mini's two other kids. Elsie is four years older than Kenzie, Kenzie is two years older than Peter.
Also Grace didn't die in this universe, so the Hardbeck cousins are her and Rich's kids.