Dallas Winston Has A Sister? (Outsiders Fanfic)

Flashback

        Dally remembered what Tara used to be like when she was little.  She was nine the last time he saw her, before he ran away to Tulsa after getting jailed when he was ten.

        He had stolen his father's rifle and went around town pretending to shoot it, but it had been locked.  He'd accidentally clicked the safety off, and was pantomiming shooting at a cop's head, but he had actually pulled the trigger.  Thankfully, his aim had been horrible-back then- and he only managed to hit the cop's car.  He spent two days in jail before his father sobered up enough to get him out.  Since then, jail had been his second home.

        Johnny had always reminded him of Tara, what she used to be like when she was little.  His quiet, shy ways reminded him of Tara, who never said much but could blow up like a volcano if she was mad enough.  Johnny occasionally did that when Dal was being a real jerk, usually to some Socy girls.

        As usual, whenever someone got mad at Dally, he wanted to smack them, but the way Johnny and Tara flinched, terror showing in their eyes, he could never hit them.  He could knock the block off of Pony, Two-Bit, or Steve with no problem, no second thoughts, but it was almost as if his sister and Johnny were too fragile and would break at the slightest touch.

        After he ran away, not being able to stand his horrendous, drunken, selfish slobs of parents, he had wrote letters to Tara, to make sure she was okay.  That was why he hadn't run away from home directly after he had gotten jailed, he was worried about his sister, and Dally didn't want her to have to deal with their parents alone.  They wrote letters back and forth for five years, usually once a month, though there were months at a time where he wouldn't hear from her because he was in jail.  In her letters, Tara had always seemed the same as he remembered her, but everything changed when she wrote that their mom had died and that their dad was drunk all the time and hitting her.

        Without even thinking, he had told her to come down to Tulsa to live with him, he didn't want her to end up like Johnny who was scared of his own shadow from his parents belting him every time he turned around.  When she had called him from a payphone, saying that she was at the bus station across the street from the drugstore at the corner of Pickett and Sutton, he knew that she had changed.

        He drove up in Buck's car to pick her up and was shocked by how different she looked.  She used to have a round face with high cheekbones and chubby cheeks, and her hair was a dishwater blond that was so long it almost touched her butt. 

        Now her face was narrow and almost hard, her eyes not a shining light blue but a piercing icy blue even though they hadn't really even changed color.  Her hair was short now, just touching the tops of her shoulders and brown, but it wasn't dyed, it had gotten darker as she got older.  She was taller too, but didn't look to feminine, no offense to his sister. 

        She was skinny but not curvy, and she didn't flaunt her body about like most greasy girls.  She was wearing a jean jacket over an old T-shirt and worn-out jeans, and Converses, which was very unusual, at least for a girl.  She wore no make-up, which was a relief to Dally, and didn't have on a tight, too-small shirt bursting at the seams and skin tight pants with heels, like the girls Dally dated.

        With her short haircut and too-long bangs hanging in her eyes and her baggy clothes, she could almost pass for a guy, but not quite.  You could tell she was slighter than a guy, no broad shoulders and a slender neck, though that was hidden in her popped collar.

        Dally couldn't help but smile as he pulled up to the curb, she looked just like one of the gang.  Though he was not very willing, yet, to let her near his crazy friends.  They could definitely be a bad influence in her, at least he thought.  Until she got in the car, throwing a bag in the backseat and grinned at him.

        "Can I hitch a ride, hood?" she asked, and that sounded exactly like something Two-Bit would say, and the grin reminded him of Sodapop.