A/N: Hello, I'm back with more writings and romance and drama and whatnot. So enjoy. And in response to your review dadicofan, I don't know. Did he? ;) I glad that everyone is still reading and interested. This is one of my favorite stories, just because I love writing out a softer side of Darry, and Jacquelyn is just too much fun.

DISCLAIMER: I don't won the Outsiders.

When she woke up, he was not there. She wasn't surprised and because of that she should not have been disappointed. However, she was. Very disappointed. It would have been a fantastic start to her day of what she was sure to be chaos, if she had woken up in his arms. She rolled over to his side of the bed, inhaling. The spot still smelled like him, and his spot was still relatively warm. He had only left a short while ago. That was more than likely what woke her up. Darry radiated so much heat at night and when he left the bed, he took all that heat with him.

After a long moment, she got out of bed, stretching and running her fingers through her hair. She glanced over at the clock and sighed. She had work in about an hour and a half. She moved across the room and opened her bedroom door.

"Mother?" she called into the house. "I have to go to work today," she said as she padded out into the living room where she was sure that her mother was. She was telling her this because she needed to get to her car, which her mother had left at the Curtis' "You hear me?" she questioned when she spotted her mother on the sofa looking through a book. 'Mother."

"You were so cute," her mother said. "When you were little and wore your hair like this."

Her mother was holding a worn photo album on her lap and flipping through the pages. Curiously, she moved towards her mother who was sitting on the sofa. The brunette sat on the arm of the sofa, carefully balancing herself as it wobbled, and looked at the picture in the book. She was at someone's house, she wasn't really sure whose, and she had her hair pulled into two long pigtails. She was wearing some sort of dress, but it was rather difficult to make out exactly what the pattern on the fabric was.

"Your hair was always so long," her mother commented as she reached up to touch her daughter's messy hair. "I could never do anything with it but braid it up or put it in a ponytail. You wouldn't let anyone cut more than the split ends off."

Jacquelyn touched her hair and laughed. "Yeah, I know. I still won't." Every now and then she would get a few inches cut off, just to keep it manageable, but other than that, she never let anyone come near her with scissors.

She turned the page and there was a picture of her and Darry. They were at a football game, because he was in his uniform and rather sweaty and she was in his letter jacket. She couldn't place what game they were at or even who old they were. But they looked so happy.

"You know, I love him," Jacquelyn said quietly. Her mother made a face. "I'm serious. I really love him."

"I can see that," her mother replied. "You're too young to understand why I did what I did," she said, answering her daughter's next question before she asked it.

"Try me."

Sadie Ross was silent for a long time. Jacquelyn sat on the arm of the sofa patiently. "I met your father in high school. We were high school sweethearts. We did everything together when we were younger. My mother hated him, because he didn't have money. My parents were what people in this town call socs. You know that."

Jacquelyn nodded. She was fully aware of that. Her grandparents lived comfortably and always sent her a nice sum of money for her birthday and Christmas and any other occasion of importance. However, she had never been particularly close to her maternal grandparents. They always kept their distance, living comfortably in Kansas.

"But I just figured that I loved him so much that I didn't need them to help me and to tell me not to fall in love with the poor boy that loved me. Then we got married right out of high school. We were on our own and it was tough. I had never paid bills or had a job. We struggled. We always struggled. Even when we had you we were struggling."

"I know, Mother. We struggled, for a long time. Dad drank because.." she let her voice trail off, "well, I have my ideas as to why he was a drunk, but I never asked him. But he drank to cope or deal with it or whatever. I don't know. Anyway, so we struggled. There was never money for liquor but there was always liquor, and when there wasn't..." she let her voice trail off again as she absentmindedly brought her hand to her cheek. "Yeah, so we struggled a lot, and then dad got a job here, in Tulsa, and we moved here in high school. Then you got a job as a secretary and I got a job at a store. We didn't struggle so hard then," Jacquelyn finished.

They were quiet.

"It's not like that with Darry," Jacquelyn countered quietly. "You regret marrying him because he was poor and you lost money and then it didn't turn out the way that you thought it would be."

"I don't regret it because I lost money and because he was poor," her mother said.

"Whatever your reasons, it's not like that with us," Jacquelyn told her mother as she got off the sofa. "I need you to take me to his place. My car is there."

Without waiting for a response, she started out of the living room and towards the shower.

"Also, I'm going back there, Mother," she informed her. "I love him," the daughter continued placed a strong emphasis on the last word in the sentence. "He loves me. Our story is different from yours. You can't just end our story."

"Jacquelyn, I'm you mother-" the older woman started.

"Then let me learn about life by living it," Jacquelyn almost begged. "Let me make my mistakes. I don't want to learn from yours. If he hurts me, then I get hurt. But I don't think that I'll love anyone like I love him. I believe in soulmates and he's mine. He's been nothing but kind to me, he took me in and he took care of me when I needed him. I can't see why you wouldn't like him."

Sadie ran her hands down her face. "You're too young to understand."

"You don't want me to end up unhappy. I get that. That means you're doing parenting things, but parenting means letting me do stupid things and scrape my knee. You're supposed to be there when I scrape my knee, to help me. Not stop me."

Sadie looked at the girl before her. Her daughter was not the little girl that she saw her as. The pigtails were long gone. The crooked teeth were gone. She was not a little girl anymore. She had somehow become a strong, independent woman. She'd gained her own opinions and her own ideas. She wasn't following her mother around anymore. She'd taken care of her father. She'd paid the bills. She'd been the adult. She'd learned about life.

Before she could open her mouth to speak, her daughter was already behind the closed door of the bathroom. "Okay, Jacquelyn."

"Wow, really?" Gina said as she leaned on the counter at the record shop.

"You could help you know," the brunette told her blond haired friend as she dropped a few records into their proper places. "If I can talk and stock so can you." She handed the remaining few records to her co-worker and smiled.

"Well, what are you going to do?" Gina asked as Jacquelyn walked into the back room to get more records to put out.

"She's leaving day after tomorrow," Jacquelyn replied as she entered the store front again. "Well, she's supposed to be leaving day after tomorrow anyway." Jacquelyn paused. "So I'm going back to Darry's."

"When is the funeral?" Gina asked.

"Oh, it's tomorrow. Wanna come?" Jacquelyn offered as she stood on her toes to place a record on the shelf. "It's at 9. We aren't doing like a service or anything, we're just gonna have someone say some words and then lower him down."

Gina shrugged as she flipped the record in her hand over and looked at the list of songs. "I'll be there if you want me to be there."

"Like the sister I never had," Jacquelyn teased as she bumped her hip against Gina's.

'Can't believe you're at work the day before your dad's funeral."

'The bills don't stop because he died," Jacquelyn said, characteristically blunt.

Gina looked over at her, but before she could speak the door creaked open and without looking up both girls said, "Welcome to Penny's, let us know if you need anything."

"Jac," the voice said.

The brunette turned to face the customer that had just entered. "Sodapop? What are you doing here?" She placed the record on the floor at her feet and approached him slowly. "Is everything okay? Is Darry ok?" she questioned rapidly.

"Are you okay?" he asked her as he pushed his hands into his pockets. not bothering to answer her questions. "I know that Darry went over to your place last night, but I wanted to check on you. You know, you're like my sister." He rubbed the back of his neck. "And you know, you mean a lot to, um, Darry."

The brunette laughed and hugged him tightly. "I'm okay," she answered. "You were worried about me and you wanted to come see me," she teased. To that, Soda lightly flicked her arm. She looked down and saw that there was a slight oil smudge on her arm were he'd flicked her. "You're filthy," she teased.

Soda stepped back and shrugged. "I'm on lunch. I just wanted to see if you were okay. Your mom was awful loud last night."

"I know," she replied. "I'm sorry."

"Shit."

Jacquelyn's hazel eyes turned towards Gina, who had somehow managed to get her foot stuck in a box. Before she could move to help her, Soda was there first. He knelt down to pull the box from her foot. Jacquelyn was sure that this was the first time that either of them had paid the other any attention. Gina got red in the face very quickly and Soda's charming smile appeared.

"Um, Sodapop, this is my friend Gina Fields," Jacquelyn introduced.

"Nice to, uh, meet you, Sodapop," Gina replied as she ran her fingers through her blond hair.

"The pleasure is mine, I'm sure," Soda replied.

To that Gina giggled.

The brunette rolled her eyes, clearly forgotten, and started to restock the shelves. Behind her she could hear the two of them talking. Gina laughing and Soda charming the pants off her. In the back of her mind, she wondered why she was so immune to Soda's charm. She saw it in action all of the time, but she was never affect by it. Probably because she'd seen him as a younger brother since the day that she met him.

"Gina," the girl said suddenly. "I'm gonna take lunch."

"Yeah, okay."

"Sodapop, you know where Darry is working today?" she asked, hating to interrupt their courting... again.

"Uh, Rivers Road, he said," Soda replied as he looked over at her briefly. "Tell him I say hi."

Jacquelyn's hazel eyes scanned the green street signs as she drove down the street. Rivers Road. It sounded so familiar, but she could not for the life of her remember where it was. She leaned back into the seat of her car and sighed. Leave it to Darry to have a job on the most impossible to find street ever.

Suddenly, she slammed on her breaks and made a hard left, without so much as using a signal. She finally managed to find the most allusive street in all of Tulsa. Rivers Road. This was the easy part. All she had to do was find the house were all the men were working on the roof. So her hazel eyes turned upwards to the roofs of the houses, scanning left and right until…

The brunette pulled over against the curb and turned off the car. After running her fingers through her tangled hair, she stepped out of the car and looked upward.

"Curtis!" she shouted, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. For a moment, it looked like he didn't hear her. "Curtis!" she called again. She was certain he didn't hear her. Then the man standing next to him tapped his shoulder and said something to him. Darry's brows furrowed and he looked downward. His cobalt eyes met her hazel ones and she waved to him. He held up one finger and disappeared.

When she saw him again, he was rubbing a towel on his hands and face. She smiled at him as she approached and leaned against her car, crossing his arms across his chest.

"What are you doing here?" he questioned. It wasn't that he wasn't glad to see her. He was always glad to see her. He was just surprised to see her.

"I came to see you," she replied. "What did that guy say up there?"

"Howard," Darry smiled. "Howard told me that there was a 'fine brunette broad calling my name' and that I had better take advantage of it seeing as it doesn't happen often."

"I was going to tell you to tell him thank you, but I retract my thanks," she said. Her facial expression was somewhere between disgusted and embarrassed. Darry found that amusing and he laughed at her. "It's not funny. Stop laughing."

Darry shrugged. "Are you on lunch?" he asked. She nodded. "You're wasting your lunch here?" He glanced upward to see that Howard had called some of his buddies over to watch him. They were all starting at them, unashamed. He didn't really mind having them looking at him, however their eyes were scanning over Jacquelyn as well. He took a moment to glance at her from his peripheral. The way that her sweater clung to her body. Darry tensed.

It was Jacquelyn's turn to laugh. "Are you going to protect me from the big bad roofers?" she teased. She'd looked up and seen them watching them too. However, Darry's reaction to this was far to amusing.

He shifted uncomfortably. "Jacquelyn?" he asked his voice holding a serious ring to it.

Her laughter ceased. "I was just kidding, Dare."

"No, it's not that. Did you hear anything I said last night?" he asked, he hands pushed into his jeans pockets.

"I'm not really sure I heard the answer to m question about if you were going to be there in the morning," she replied honestly. "Why did you say something important?"

He shook his head. "I didn't." Of course, he had said something important. He had said something so important that he wasn't sure if he could bring himself to say it to her again. Granted, he knew that she had fallen asleep when he said it. However, he couldn't believe that he had said it. While it wasn't phrased the exact way that it should have been, the meaning was all the same. The meaning was all the same.

"Why?"

"No reason," he replied.

Of course, she knew him well enough to know that he was lying. There was something that he wanted to tell her or ask her or talk about. However, she wasn't going to push it. When he wanted to talk, he would talk.

"I have a question to ask you," Jacquelyn said after a moment.

"Oh?" his eyebrow lifted. "What's your question?"

"Can I come back today?" she questioned, batting her eyelashes.

She was going overboard with this. He honestly couldn't tell if she thought that he was going to tell her that she couldn't stay or if she was just trying to be cute and flirtatious. "You know that's not necessary," he said gesturing towards her batting her eyelashes, "You know that you can come back. Just don't bring your mother with you," he teased.

"I won't."

One of the guys on the roof whistled, and Darry tensed again. His cobalt eyes shot up to the roof. Jacquelyn would have hated to be on the other side of that glare. The man on the roof shrunk under the glare. He backed away from the space where he was.

"Okay, okay, I'll leave."

"Thank you," he said through gritted teeth, his eyes still looking upward.

"Can I kiss you or will that interfere with the alpha male vibe you got going on here?" she asked playfully.

His gaze softened as he looked over at her. He reached over and opened the driver's side door and she slipped into the seat. He leaned down against the car and kissed her. Another whistle came from the roof. Before Darry could look upward, she grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him again. Which earned another whistle.

"I think I'm helping your alpha male vibe," she told him.

He kissed her again. "Yeah, I guess you are. I'll see you tonight?" he asked as he ran his fingers through her brown hair.

"Of course, you will," she replied as she started the car again. He closed the door and leaned into the window after she rolled it down. "I love you," she said.

Darry's eyebrow knitted together. They didn't often exchange the phrase. They probably should have used it more often, but he wasn't good with telling her that. He would just rather show her, and he didn't need her to tell him. He knew.

"What?" she questioned and she reached over and smoothed out the wrinkles in his forehead.

"Nothing, it's just that we don't say that often," he told her.

"Maybe we should," she told him with a soft smile. "So, I love you."

"I love you too," he replied as he pushed away from the car. "I gotta go, Jacquelyn. I'll see you later."