Tim's POV

A/N: I've decided to do Tim's bits from first person, since he's an important character. Sorry for any confusion.

Now I was just plain annoyed. The girl, Lolly, if my sources were right, was already learning to lie from her brother. And, she'd completely blown me off, which was a record for the night. No one blew off Tim Shepard. The only good thing that had come out of this night was that I now had Rebecca's phone number, which would prove to be insanely useful. Thinking carefully, I decided that maybe tonight, I'd formally acquaint myself with Dessarea Curtis. I was really only after her because Dallas had gotten Sylvie last time, and settling an old score with the gang would be fun. I didn't even know what color her eyes were.

As I padded through the crowd with tiny precise steps-anything bigger would have resulted in stumbling, and I didn't stumble at my own parties-I kept my eyes peeled for her.

She wasn't on the dance floor, which surprised me, but then I remembered that I'd seen the gang pull up almost a half hour ago, which meant that the two'd probably already done their dancing for now and were resting a little. My eyes shifted more to the mass of people ringing the floor, and spotted her in due time. I smiled to myself-she was all alone. Wherever Dallas was, it wasn't here. Idiot kid.

I waltzed up to Dess as smoothly as possible, considering that every time I blinked I had to re-steady myself.

"Hey darlin'," I drawled, sliding up next to her and maneuvering an arm around her shoulder. If she was dating Dallas, the straightforward manner should work. Instead she slapped me open-handed across the face lightly and slipped under my arm.

"Go away. I'm taken," she said in a bored voice.

"Not like you seem happy about it," I frowned. "Don't like your boyfriend much?" She sneered at me.

"More than I like you, and I'll thank you to stay out of my business."

"You didn't answer my question. Do you like him?" Her deep, brown, hard eyes flickered to mine, shooting me all sorts of contempt. I grinned.

"I have something that you could never possibly understand, or even begin to get, Tim Shepard. Now, I feel the overwhelming urge to hit something, and that's gonna be you if you don't leave me alone."

"Oh, fiery. Now I remember. Dally hasn't changed a bit. Quit playin' hard to get, I could give you a lot more than he ever could." I tried to grab her again, and this time she did hit me, harder than before, because it was closed into a fist. It was so hard; I barely registered the irony of the jacket sleeve coming forward to cover her fist, which meant I'd just been hit in the face by my friend/enemy's own jacket, which was being worn by a girl I was trying to pick up. Who, coincidentally belonged to said friend…enemy…thing?

Whoa, drinking too much before a fight is not a good idea. I felt myself being spun around forcefully, and Dessarea started to speak behind me.

"Not one word, Dess. He has this coming to him," a cold, familiar voice proclaimed.

"Aw Dallas, I was jus' playin'," I defended.

"Didn't look like it to me. How many times do I have to tell you?" he growled. "Your job is to pick up girls that I don't already have. You step in, I crack your ribs. Or did you not learn your lesson with Sylvie?" I grinned, looking up at him for the first time.

"If it was Sylvie, I'd be passed out by now? Why talk when you've got fists?"

"Dess don't like the fighting," Dallas replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I don't do what Dess don't like."

"That doesn't sound like the hood I know," I teased, but my mind was racing. Should I have listened to Randall when he told me about how much Dallas was changing?

"I ain't the hood you knew," Dallas replied coldly, stressing the last word with a little shove. "But you'll be seeing a lot more of him than anyone else if you keep up chasing Dess. She's not gonna go for you, and if you try to hurt her for that, you might not live to see your brother come back from reform." He turned from me, but stopped when he realized he'd forgotten that Dess was still there. "Dess?" he called softly over the music, and I noted how quickly his voice had changed from ready to kill to welcoming. She passed me quickly, giving me a cool stare.

I couldn't stand letting Dallas win a fight in my own house, at my own party, with my own gang watching. I snagged Dess's wrist and kissed her quickly. She wrenched back and punched me in the stomach, then threw an uppercut to my jaw.

"Does it take a girl kicking your ass for you to get what he just told you?" she snarled, stepping back from me. As the two walked away, I heard Dess murmur, "You didn't have to step in. I was gonna start fighting before too long." And Dallas replied, "I know Tim. He learns things the hard way, and most of the time he has to learn them from me."

Dally's POV

Dess grabbed my arm and twined her hand in mine.

"Hurt?" I ground out, not capable of using full sentences quite yet.

"No," she replied quietly. "I'd like to meet him in a rumble sometime." I looked down at her, noting that, even though I was pretty short, she was still smaller than me. Looking at her made the anger in me lie down and chew a bone.

"No you wouldn't. He's a devil when he fights. I first met him in a street rumble. The cops had to pull us apart, but we were too alike to hate each other for too long."

"You didn't seem too fond of him just now." I frowned.

"Damn your perceptiveness. No, I've kind of outgrown him. He's still a bit of a jerk."

"The old you was friends with him. You've changed a lot," Dess replied sagely, and I turned my head to look at her.

"How old are you?" I asked, laughing.

"Sev-eigtheen," she replied with a smile. "Why?"

"Because sometimes it's hard to believe stuff like that could come out of such a small mouth," I told her shaking my head. "You're too smart for me."

"Yeah," she replied, rubbing her cheek against my shoulder teasingly. "I'm just too good like that." Then she stumbled and a very unladylike curse slipped out. "Oops. Sorry." I grinned, laughing again.

"God, you can even make me laugh," I told her, tugging a lock of shiny brown hair. She cocked an eyebrow comically.

"You should see what I do to people who still have their souls." I cuffed her shoulder and she returned the favor. I realized that I was acting like a complete idiot…and actually having fun while doing it. I was really starting to change, thanks to Dess. I wasn't mean anymore. I hadn't even felt the need to touch Shepard back there, and yet the fact that I was angry at all proved how much I'd changed from the guy he made friends with. Thing was, I liked this new me. A lot. I could stay this way forever. Too bad things are never that simple.

Dess's POV

One week after Tim's blast of a party, I walked in the house after running to the DX for some Pepsi, and smelled…a deliciousness. It was like fried chicken, only better somehow, like…like essence of chicken.

"Aw Darry, what is that?" I moaned, slipping into the kitchen. Much to my surprise, it wasn't Darry at the stove, rather Elle.

"Elle? What are you doing here?" She turned to me with a frown.

"My stupid landlord kicked me out," she told me. "I'm bunking with you guys until I can find a new apartment." I crossed the room to give Elle a hug. Over the week or so they'd been going out, I'd started to get attached to Elle.

"Why?"

"Because he found out my little sister is dating Tim Shepard. Kicked me out 'before started bringing wild parties and drugs into his apartment.' That stuck-up arse." I laughed.

"Don' worry 'bout it. Living here is about the funnest thing I've ever done." Elle frowned at me playfully.

"Now Dess, it's 'most fun'." I threw up my hands.

"I can't use improper language in my own house? Jeez!"

"No," Elle replied, grabbing my wrist. "But I need your help. I'm making chicken noodle soup for the guys for lunch." I looked at the range top, which had a skillet with browning chicken on it.

"Hon, you know we have condensed, don't you?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow. Elle pulled a face.

"I'm the world's best cook. I settle not for Campbell. Here, cut some celery and carrots, I'll have you on noodle detail in a sec…wait. Where's your good-for-nothing boyfriend?" I shrugged.

"I dunno. Want me to go find him?"

"Yes." I went into the living room and yelled for Dally. "Huh," I muttered, coming into the kitchen and heading for the phone. "He wasn't at the DX." I dialed in the gas station's number, thinking maybe he'd gotten there shortly after me.

"Hello?"

"Hey Steve. It's Dess. Did Dallas just come in?"

"Um…hey, Soda!" there was a muffled "What?"

"Have you seen Dallas?"

"Not since this morning!"

"I guess not, Dess."

"Okay. Thanks. Tell Lolly that she doesn't need to make lunch, would you?"

"No problem. Bye."

"Bye." I hung the phone in its cradle and dialed up Tim Shepard's house. A girl answered.

"Hello, Shepard residence, Angela Shepard speaking."

"Hello Angela. Is Dallas Winston over there?"

"No he's not, Sylvie. Try the Curtis's." I frowned, then realized that this Angela person must have been Tim's elusive little sister, and she thought I was Dally's ex.

"No, Angela, I'm sorry, I'm not Sylvie. This is Dessarea Curtis, Darryl's little sister. I'm Dallas's girlfriend now."

"Oh! I'm sorry, Dessarea."

"It's okay. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Goodbye."

"Bye." I hung up the phone and faced Elle.

"Okay, that was weird."

"What?"

"I just called Shepard's place to see if Dally might've been there, and Angela Shepard mistook me for Sylvia Reynolds."

"I'm not surprised. You two sound alike." Stranger still.

"Oh, wait! I know where he is! He's in my room!"

"Why?"

"I don't know, probably napping or something. He can be real lazy sometimes. When there's no one around to do anything with, he gets bored easily." I tromped upstairs and dragged a bedraggled Dally downstairs.

"What do you want?" he muttered, rubbing his eyes. Then he saw Elle. "What is she doing here?" He seemed so confused.

"I am making food for you." He got a bewildered look on his face.

"I can't be back at the cooler! Dess is here!" he looked more closely at me. "Wait, you're not a dream, are you?" I laughed. Dally was too funny right after he woke up.

"No, sweetie. You're not. Elle is staying with us until she can find another apartment." Dally rubbed his forehead.

"Oh, okay…no, wait. Did you just call me sweetie?" Now Elle joined me in gales of laughter. Even Prosper poked his head into the kitchen with an investigatory mewl, pushing his tiny head into the air when he caught the scent of frying chicken.

"You see what you get when you fall asleep in midmorning?" I teased.

"Okay, you said you needed me for something. What do you need?"

"I need your manly manliness to help me chop some carrots," Elle replied, shaking a carving knife at him and making him sidle behind me. "And possibly many sprigs of celery, and, depending on how many recruits we get in the next hour, some egg noodles."

"I see and obey. Find me a knife and some celery. Dess can handle the carrots." I stuck my tongue out at him, opening the fridge to find a few bags of veggies. I threw him the celery and clutched a bag of baby carrots while I fished in the knife drawer for two paring knives. I passed one to Dally and pulled a cutting board out of a cupboard, setting it between us and fishing some veggies out of the fridge, which I noticed was newly stocked.

Instead of using a knife, which would have been so forties, I pulled out a grater and grated six or seven carrots, racing Dally to get done. Needless to say, I won.

"Well, guess what?" Dally growled playfully, his knife clicking sharply against the cutting board. "At least my celery is perfectly symmetrical!"

"Like mine's not?" I snorted. His mouth dropped open, and he reached around me to pull a carrot out of the pile.

"You see this?" he asked, holding it up to eye level. "This, Dess, is a unround carrot!" Elle snorted.

"One, 'unround' is not a word, two, if you have to use it, it's 'an', not 'a'." Dally looked bored.

"Whatever."

"He just uses bad grammar to be contrary," I gushed, grinning. Elle turned around to make sure I was kidding, in time to see me throw my arms around Dally's waist. "Really, he's a lost little seven-year-old who wants to be loved!" He frowned down at me disbelievingly.

"I cannot even comprehend that you just said that," he muttered. "Get off me." But a smile twitched at the corners of his lips, and a minute later he had to duck behind his arm to hide a laugh.

"Aww," Elle crooned, slugging Dally's shoulder. "You two are so cute when Darry's not around to ruin it!" I blushed. I'd never really though about how we looked as a couple. I guess I'd never really cared, but now I realized that, with our contrast in skin, hair, and eye color and our height difference, we probably did look sweetly mismatched.

"What is up with Darryl anyway?" Dally asked Elle, looking over her shoulder into the soup pot.

"He doesn't like you. At all," Elle replied bluntly, pushing him out of the way. "Back, foul beast. You'll spoil it with your ugly mug." Dallas laughed.

"Okay, why does Darryl suddenly magically not like me?"

"He doesn't like that you're dating Dess. Thinks you'll ruin her. You know…" she shot him a glance and he shrugged.

"Okay guys, I'm not like, eight! You can talk about that kinda stuff in front of me, it's not like I'm gonna puke or summat!" I said loudly, a little annoyed. Dally shrugged.

"Yes, but it's also not something you go around saying in front of your girlfriend, the likelihood-hang on…you know what, screw you!" Dally smiled. He pushed me away from him, but with iron reflexes caught my wrist again to bring me stepping safely back into him. He pulled some quick, easy steps leading me with his hands, and stopped, laughing at the expression on Elle's face.

"Well, I have one thing to say," she told us. "That was, like, the king of kingly randomness."

"And what was that, a waltz?" I asked, a lopsided grin on my face as I turned to look at Dally. His eyes widened.

"Whoa. Did you know you look just like Soda when you do that?"

"No kidding? Did you know you look just like one of Santa's elves all the time?" I replied, my voice dripping with sarcasm. He cuffed the back of my head.

"I am no elf. I am…you know, I don't really know exactly what I am, but I'm thinking something along the lines of a giant panda would be appropriate." Now Elle attacked him with her soup spoon.

"None of you idiot greasers make sense and it's really starting to bug me except I can't kill any of you since I live here now so would you please all just be nice and make some semblance of sense every once in a while?" she yelled loudly, still beating Dally 'round the head with her spoon of death.

"I'm never nice," he said bitingly, but then he looked at me, because we'd said the same thing, at the same time. "Okay, when did you start doing that?"

"Just now, I guess," I replied, blinking. We didn't get much time to muse over that one, because the door flew open.

"Hello, members of the Dominican Republic!" Lolly sang out. "Your saviors have arrived, and they are wreathed with DX uniforms and reek of gasoline and cheap cigarettes!"

"We come bearing cake!" Steve chimed, one arm around Soda's shoulders, the other holding a rather large cake.

"And a bunch of sugar!" Soda giggled.

"LOTS," Steve reinforced. "THE SUGAR FAIRY CAME TODAY!" Lolly looked at us.

"I'm sorry guys, they're on a sugar high, big-time. I don't know how it happened. Hey Dess, Elle. Please stop attacking the merchandise with a utensil. It would be appreciated."

"How much sugar, exactly?" Dally asked, rubbing the back of his head which, as I flitted around to investigate, I found was going to bruise, swell, or both.

"I dunno. I don't even know how it happened."

"Wow. This could be bad. Soda, how many fingers?" Dally held up three fingers and his thumb, like it was a normal exercise. Soda whirled to face him and took a moment to focus his eyes.

"Are thumbs fingers?"

"No."

"Three fingers and a thumb, then."

"Which hand?"

"Uhh…left?" Dally frowned.

"Try again."

"Right?"

"No."

"What the hell?" Soda looked confused. "Which is it, ya ass?"

"Right."

"Well." He turned away again, this time abruptly on his heel, causing him to stumble a little. Dally sidled closer to Lolly and covered his mouth with his hand. I listened.

"Did they get a hold of any alky-hall?"

"Alcohol? No, I don't think so."

"Think again."

"Wow. I don't think I've ever seen Soda drink anything," I observed.

"You won't see him do it much. Something good must've happened."

"Guess what guys?" Right on cue, Soda turned back to us, a ridiculous grin pasted on his face. "Me and Stevie-Boy here gossa raise! We're th' managers now!"

"That calls for celebration," Elle poked in sagely.

"You know where we should go? The swimming hole. You know, the big one that only we know about," Steve suggested. "It's waaaay out there," he said, making his voice high and waving his hand weakly in the general direction of north.

"So no one will eat us if we get loud," Soda concluded. We looked around at each other, all gazes eventually landing on Dally.

"You're the only sober one here who knows about this alleged swimming hole," Lolly told him. "Do you think we should go?"

"We need to wait for Darryl to get home from work. Get some food into these boys now. Soak up some sugar and beer so they don't drown when we get there." His contemplative face slowly turned to a wolfish grin. "You guys have swimsuits, right?"

"Yes," Lolly replied, sounding scandalized. 'What do you expect?"

"Will there be anyone else there?" Elle asked, sounding doubting. "Like, will a bunch of Socs show up in the middle of our little evening and ruin everything?"

"Nah, see, that's the best thing. No one knows about this place. No one. We don't even think it's on any maps, at least, not the ones we can find."

"Sounds perfect," I murmured, and Dally cast me a glance that said it was exactly that.

Dally's POV

When Darryl got home, we introduced our idea to him. Soda and Steve had settled down a little, but they still jumped at small noises and broke out into unexplainable laughing sprees. He said it sounded fine, so we packed a cooler and got dressed, taking turns in the bathroom. All us boring men just wore some jeans or cutoffs, since we didn't have the money or interest to waste on proper trunks, but the three girls went all-out.

Elle wore a navy one-piece that had a very low-cut collar and left her back from her shoulders to her waist exposed. She pulled her hair back into a tight bun. Lolly and Dess chose slightly more statement-making swimwear. Lolly settled on a black two-piece that had a short skirt added to the bottom and ties in the back. Dess's was a copy of hers, only in white, which looked great against her darkly tanned skin. Lolly's fair skin caught the black of her suit real well.

Darry nearly had a conniption when he saw them, and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Two-Bit slip Steve five bucks out of his wallet. Not the kinda thing to be betting on, guys. Jut then, Elle tapped me on the shoulder. Oh, right. I started to open my own.

When we got to the edge of the sparse woods that were, as Steve had so intelligently put it, "waaay out there", we hopped out of the beat-up truck and the 'bird, hiding them as far into the tree-line as we dared. Darry also stuffed a large flashlight in his pocket, since it would be dusk in about a half an hour. Everyone was coming tonight, even a few of the nicer Shepard gang, though we'd tried to keep it as quiet as possible. Party news spreads fast, though. It was gonna be something.

The swimming hole was, and always had been, perfect. The hole itself was deep, about thirteen or fourteen feet, and the water was always warm and crystal clear. It was somewhere around twenty feet square. We suspected that maybe someone had dug out some stone or something, because it was almost perfectly square and lined with limestone. Now it was filled with what we were mostly sure was spring water, and, since it had been cut into a hill slash cliffy-thing, there was a nice eleven foot drop-off where had tied a rope about as big around as my arm to a branch about as big around as my waist. I went up to the top and came off it like a screaming maniac. It was a pretty good dive, though. You gotta give me credit for that.

Soda's POV (once again, Soda is now new and improved in first person!)

The sugar high Steve and I had been on was wearing off, but I never got a low from those for some strange reason, so everything was okay. Instead of being a screaming maniac and running off the cliff like some people, I jumped right in at the edge, my pants weighing me down a little, but hey, I was used to it. The water felt great-we hadn't been swimming for almost two years. To much crap had been going on to do that kind of stuff…you know?

Lolly joined me, doing a perfect side-stroke.

"This is nice," she commented, waving a hand.

"No kiddin'," I replied, floating on my back and looking up into the blackening sky through the clearing in the trees.

"How did you find it?"

"We were just screwin' around one summer out here. Figured it was about the only place in a five-mile area we hadn't explored or claimed yet. Johnny loved it out here," I added more quietly, in case Dally was close by and listening. Lolly blinked a little.

"He sure was a good kid. I hoped he ended up some place nice."

"Aw, you guys shouldn't have gone to Kearney. He grew up real nice, for someone who got treated worse than a dog."

"We didn't have much of a choice," Lolly reminded me, tapping my elbow gently. "Darry pretty much said it was there or adoption, 'cause he 'sure as hell wasn't going to let a pair of girls grow up here'."

"I got real mad about that. So did Two-Bit and Dally. He just had to send our happiness away."

"Dally cared…why, again?" I looked at her, my mouth twitching to a remembering smile.

"I don't really know when he started to latch onto Dess. Doubt anyone but him does. I think he had a soft spot for her, though, 'cause she reminded him of Mom." I thought about how I'd begun to favor Lolly myself back then, although I hadn't known how we'd turn out.

"When did you start to like me?' she asked coyly. I sighed. How did I know that was coming? We glided over to the edge of the hole and I propped myself up on my elbows. Lolly threw her arms over the edge and rested her head in them.

"I dunno. I think I had a crush on you back then, which may or may not be why I ended up decking Darry right after you guys drove off." She burst out laughing, which cause Darry and Elle to look over from where they sat on the other side of the hole. "Hey, I'll have you know, Bit and Dally had their turns to, 'cept Darry hit Dally back 'cause he figured he could handle it."

"Ten years," Lolly murmured. "I can't believe we've been gone so long. It…it doesn't feel right, somehow." She suddenly looked at me. "Like, I missed a whole lifetime with you, and no one even knows it but me." I felt a sadness wash over me. That was what is was like,

wasn't it, to be gone from your friends and family? Then there returned an anger against Darry, who had been the cause of her feelings.

"I can't believe Darry would be so…damn him. It should've been your choice to go, not his," I said forcefully. Lolly bowed her head and grabbed one of my hands.

"Actually, Two-Bit and Mom both said I didn't have to go. But I knew Two-Bit wanted me to. He didn't want me to be ruined by this. But I wouldn't have been. I would've grown up like you and him." Her eyes flickered to mine. "You know, no matter what happened to you, I don't think you could've got mean. You're just not the kind to get bitter like that." I grinned. She was so sweet sometimes. I kissed her cheek, and then led her out to see if she would jump off the cliff, if I asked her real nice.

Darry's POV (his thoughts will be in first person occasionally. In fact, just start accepting that they all will have times like this, unless marked differently.)

The kids were all distracted by the idea of-oh!-water to swim in. They'd always loved the water, every single one of them, from the day I met them all until now. I sat with Elle on the edge, our legs trailing idly in the water.

"You know," she started tentatively, and I looked at her. "I think maybe it's time for you to go to college." She glanced at me quickly to see my reaction. In all honesty, I'd been thinking about doing it myself. I nodded. "Since you guys have royalty money from the book Pony wrote now, you've got more than enough money to go for a while. I think the gang'd be okay if we went together-like a holiday." She grabbed my hand and swung it back and forth.

"I'd like that. God knows I need a vacation. The boys could take care of themselves." Elle then frowned.

"Which reminds me. I want you to start giving Lolly a little more liberty. She's not your charge. She's Two-Bit's. Lordy, he might not be the best one, but he is. And, she's eighteen. You leave her alone." I smiled and laughed a little.

"Okay. I can't help it. I lead everything I can. It's my nature and all that." Now it was her turn to grin.

Elle hadn't been around long, but the whole gang was happy with her. Food was steadily improving around here, and Lolly and Dess in particular seemed to have taken to her as a mother/sister hybrid. Not to mention she had a quiet nature and seemed to know exactly what to say when I was annoyed. I was fighting less with Pony about random stuff, even less than before, when Soda had asked us to lay off a little. God, we actually acted like we loved each other lately. She distracted me from Dess and her…unruliness.

And college. Wow, I'd love to go. Really, I would. I'd probably just stay for a year or two, bet a bachelor's, but even going would be something I'd wanted to do all my life. My eyes flicked to the sky, as they tended to do when I needed help. Mom and Dad seemed to look down on me from all the bright stars there.

Do you think I should go? I asked them, knowing it was unlikely that I'd get an answer, but still hoping for one, even though I was a self-proclaimed skeptic of ghosts and spirits and such. When nothing came, I laughed a little. Elle looked up form watching the various members of the gang becoming more and more like fish to scan my eyes.

"Did they answer?' she asked with a ghost of a smile, and I shook my head. She had this talent to read my thoughts better than anyone I knew, but it didn't bother me so much. I felt younger than ever, like I really had just recently turned twenty, instead of being that age since the day of the funeral. I took it as a sign that maybe things were starting to go north for once, instead of all south. College didn't seem so far away, especially when I looked into Elle's hopeful eyes. She didn't let our…predicament get her down. And her eyes were such a pretty green.

Then I pushed her in the water, having momentarily forgotten I was holding her hand, which resulted in both of us falling in, to the laughter of everyone, who had, it runed out, been watching us. As I shook the water out of my hair and wiped it out of my eyes, I saw flashlights bobbing up and down and heard people coming. Great. The party was really gonna get started now.


Hey. Hoped you liked this. It's the gang's little Christmas break, since it is in fact almost Christmas. This is mostly the boys' chapter, you know, to switch it up a little. I thought some lighthearted fun would make you less mad at me for the next half of the story. Let it be noted that this is projected to be about twenty-three chapters long, counting the epilogue. Review for me, friends.

Merreh Christmas from Tigress