Hey, Demon Kairos here. Feeling real bored and I SHOULD be doing a uni assignment but Prof. Fuches (no, not f-you-cks, fucks. That's seriously how you say it XD) can go screw the nearest wall…he pisses me off so bad!

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Outsiders characters, but I wish I did.

Elli awoke in the early hours of the morning to the sound of voices. A light was coming from the kitchen and voices sounded from the bright room. Elli stood up and quietly crept over to the door, keeping out of sight of the kitchens inhabitants. She sat down beside the doorway and listened. Oh my god, I'm a fucking four year old listening in on peoples conversations from behind a god damn door…I'm so lame, she thought to herself, but listened intently to the conversation happening metres away anyway.

"Can we keep her? Please? She's nice!" came a voice Elli vaguely recognised as Ponyboys.

"You make her sound like a lil' lost puppy dog!" a drawl that was unfamiliar replied.

"Pony has a point though, she's very sweet and it's not like it'll hurt us to keep her" Soda said.

"Has Soda got a new girlfriend?" another unfamiliar voice piped up.

"No, he hasn't" came the disgruntled reply.

"Ok, ok, quit it. If we let her stay, where are we getting money for extra food and stuff, we struggle as it is and there's school and a bed that we need to think about, she can't sleep on the couch forever." Darry's clear assertive voice sounded over the playful teasing.

"What if she don't wanna stay?" yet another unfamiliar voice said, this one quiet and nervous-sounding.

"Should we ask her now?"

"And wake her up when she went through so much yesterday? Naw, she needs sleep."

Elli heard footsteps coming towards her and out of the open door came a guy with long rusty-coloured sideburns and a faded Mickey Mouse T-shirt. He started when he saw her and exclaimed "No she don't, the little eavesdropper!" laughing as everyone else came out the kitchen door. Elli saw three people besides the Mickey Mouse guy that she didn't recognise. One looked dangerous, with pale, silvery blond hair that curled in wisps around his neck and onto his forehead, framing his pointed, pale, elven face, which, apart from the scowl, was much like her own. (A/N: so many commas in that sentence…..) Another was tall and had dark brown hair that was combed back in these weird little swirly-things that looked complicated and had an amused expression on his face. The third was a boy about Pony's age with huge brown eyes; long black hair swept to the side that fell on his tanned face. And they're talking about ME like puppy dog, hmph! That guy looks more like a puppy that me, she thought indignantly.

"What are you doin' Elli?" Soda asked, his brown eyes dancing with amusement.

"Umm…would you believe me if I said I went to get a drink but fell asleep before I got to the kitchen and woke up when that guy-", she jerked a thumb at the Mickey Mouse guy, "-woke me up?"

Six pairs of disbelieving eyes stared back at her. "Okay…maybe not…" she tried to grin in an innocent sort of way, but winced when the bruised muscles in her face complained violently.

"It's ok, we were talking about you anyway, you had a right to hear it." Soda admitted, his eyes still dancing. "So…we wanted to ask you…you wanna stay with us?"

Although Elli had heard them talking about it, she was still shocked when they asked. She was on the verge of saying "No, I couldn't…I'm not your responsibility" when she thought, Wait a minute, if I leave where am I going?

"You wouldn't mind?" the bruised little girl almost whispered.

"Are you kidding? Soda's practically beggin' yah to stay, sweet cheeks!" Two-bit cried out gleefully and Soda kicked him hard. As Two-bit hopped around in pain, cursing Soda, Soda looked at Elli trying to read her face.

"I don't wanna be any trouble…but I would kinda like to stay…" she mumbled, looking down at her feet. Soda heard Pony's squeak of joy at her words and watched the girl smile gently. "So we've got two puppies in this gang", she pointed to Johnny then to herself, "A mouse and a Mickey Mouse", she said pointing to Pony and Two-bit, "What other animals are in the gang?"

"Shouldn't I be a pony…?" Pony enquired, puzzled.

"Nah, you sound too much like a mouse to be a pony."

"Yeah, besides Soda's the one that likes horses, he's the pony!"

"I ain't no pony, I'm a proper grown stallion thank you very much!"

"Yeah sure you are." Elli said on the spur of the moment, making everyone except Soda fall over laughing.

"She's known you less than a day and she already knows everything about you, better be careful!" Steve gasped between bursts of laughter.

"So…what are all your names?" Elli said looking up at the gang members she didn't know.

"Oh, uh…Steve, Dallas, we call him Dally, Two-bit and Johnny" Soda went around pointing them out. Then looking down at Elli he noticed she was giggling, "What's so funny?" he asked puzzled.

"Your accent!" she said through a fit of giggles, "Stave, Daaaaally, Two-baat, Jaaahnnee" she imitated him, giggling all the while. Encouraging the others to begin laughing at Soda again, even Dally had a smirk on his face.

"Where's your accent from anyway?" asked Two-bit, "It ain't from anywhere close to here."

"Irish, with 5 years of Australian influence on top of it."

So, she's Irish, thought Soda, that must be where the lilty-ness in her voice comes from… Soda bent down to help her up from the floor where she'd been sitting through the entire conversation, not that it made much difference. She's REAL short, damn; she only comes up to my chest… Two-bit had seemed to pick up on this too, "She's a pygmy!" he shouted, "How old are y'all? Like 9?"

Elli scowled at him and looked incredibly put off. In a disgruntled and irritable voice she told them all she was sixteen and they looked at her disbelievingly. No way was that girl 16. At last Dally spoke up, "You're obviously lying, you can't be older than like…10…"

"I thought she was about 15 when I saw her" Soda said defensively.

Elli nodded at him in an appreciative way and turned to Dally. She tried to give him a look of annoyance, which didn't really translate past the swollenness of her face, so he just stared back at her, apparently wondering what she was doing. Eventually she just scowled and let out a sigh of exasperation and lifted her hands to her chest, grabbing her boobs "Show me a 10 year old that has DD boobs, and I may just believe you," she said haughtily, then stalked off.

Dally stood there shocked. No one talked to him like that. No one. Not even the gang got that smart with him. Strangely, he wasn't angry or annoyed, but impressed. She was real little but she had guts. Two-bit and Steve, meanwhile, where on the floor laughing at Elli and Dally. Dally gave Two-bit a sharp kick in the gut and walked out of the house, though it was still before sunrise, and went off in search of something nice, fun and incredibly illegal to do.

Elli walked through the small house in search of the bathroom. I can't believe they asked me to stay, she though bewildered, I thought this was a 'stay the night and get the hell out of here deal', obviously the Curtis' are nicer than I thought. She stared into the mirror, surveying the damage her father had dealt her. She cringed at what she saw, her normally pale, delicate face, was purple and blue, with tinges of yellow and green, swollen and small cuts dotted her face.

"Painful?" she heard a soft, caring voice at the doorway. That guy, Johnny, stood there, looking at her with sympathy. A closer inspection of his own face revealed to her that they were in the same boat, they got the shit beat out of them at home…but by the look of the long scar on the side of Johnny's face, he got the shit beat out of him by someone with a knife.

"Yeah, a bit," she tried to grin, but it came out as a grimace, "but bruises fade anyway, hey?"

"Yeah, after a while." he smiled. "Your dad hits you too, huh?"

"Yeah…how'd you know it was him?"

"He didn't do anything that could kill yah, but just hurt like hell. Only parents and people that really wanna hurt yah do that."

"You seem to know a lot about getting beat." Johnny blushed and looked away.

"Yeah…I guess so…you do too…I 'spose that's why I can talk to you. I don't really talk usually…just listen" Elli smiled understandingly. She did that a lot too. What was the point of talking? When she did people just stared at her like she was from a different planet, then whispered to their friends "What did the walking encyclopedia say?" "I dunno, something freaky." Johnny smiled back, his eyes lighting up at the idea that this girl would be around for a while…he'd have someone to talk to.

As Johnny was thinking this Soda appeared at his side, startling him and making him jump. Elli spun around from her position of staring at the mirror of the bathroom cabinet. "Soda? What are you doing?"

"Looking for y'all. You went off…"

"Uh…oh yeah…um, I just went to go check out the damage," she brushed her face with her hand and winced as pain shot through her throbbing face.

"Yeah…um…you want an icepack or something? It looks pretty bad" Soda said, his eyes full of worry.

"Nah, I'm ok, just sle-ee-eepy" she said, yawning. Soda walked over to her and took her hand, and started to go on about how the guys would be at the house for the remainder of the night and she'd never get any sleep on the couch as he lead her through the house to another room. He pushed open a half-closed door, throwing the room into a dim light coming from the hall. The room was small, containing a double bed, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers and clothes strewn across the floor.

"Sleep in here, you'll be more comfortable" he said gently and almost motherly.

"You sound like a worried old nanna," teased Elli sleepily.

"Well maybe I am, ever think of that?" Soda replied, his eyes beginning to dance with laughter once again, "Just humour me and sleep here so I don't feel mean for makin' y'all sleep on a couch with the gang keepin' yah up, k?"

Too tired to argue, Elli let herself be lead to the bed and tucked in like a small child. Within moments she was asleep, her hair falling across her face and casting shadows over her cheeks.

Soda stared at the poor girl in his bed. She's so beautiful…even with her face all cut up and bruised, he thought in awe. Wait…what am I doing? Oh no, no, no, no, no, no! I can't like her…gah! Feelings should be illegal! Soda shook his head as if to get the troubling thoughts away from his mind and walked back to the living room to sit with the gang.

"Where's Elli?" asked Pony.

"Sleeping" Soda said with a bemused smile on his face. What the hell? Thought Pony, What's with the freaky smile? Soda continued smiling, staring at the TV, watching early morning programming with Two-bit and slowly fell asleep, only to dream of the sweet young girl he'd saved from her father.

That's chapter 2 of Wild Rose. I don't know when the next chaps will be up. When I get a chance I spose… It may be a while, it may not, depending on when I gotta go to hospital to have my son, and how long I'm there for… So if I'm gone for a while, quit your complaining and try shoving a baby out of your body and writing a fanfic/autobiography (this is seriously my life replacing my friends/family/boyfriend with Outsiders characters).