Author's note that will probably not matter to anyone: I'm starting this now because my other work in progress, Wine From Your Tears, is on hold - I lost an entire chapter when my computer was being stupid, and trying to rewrite it right now really doesn't seem like it'd be fun. So, we have this, my new and much less crazy story.
April, 1903
It was raining, and Jack's bags were packed. He'd been twenty-one for all of a week now, and his timing couldn't be more right to finally leave for Santa Fe. He once said that he had nothing left to stay in Manhattan for, and he had been wrong. This time it was true - or so he thought until he heard quick footsteps on the stairs and a hard knocking on his door. "Yeah, what is it?" he said carelessly as he opened the door, without even looking to see who was there. Standing before him was one of the lodging house's younger boys, whose name Jack didn't even know. He had stopped bothering to try to learn their names around the time he turned eighteen; considered too old by most to continue being a newsie, he began renting out the apartment in the basement of the lodging house (a favor from Kloppman, who would have let him live there just to keep him around the place).
"Um, excuse me, uh, I was told to come get you - " the skittish boy stammered, too nervous to look up at Jack. It wasn't an uncommon reaction from the younger boys, who had all heard tales of the great Jack Kelly, leader of the unprecedented strike four years earlier.
Jack sighed. "Yeah, yeah, out with it. I got places to be, kid." He walked to his bed, taking a bag from it and slinging it over his shoulder as he spoke.
The boy gulped loudly. "It's Mister Kloppman. He's lyin' on the floor and he won't get up."
"Christ." Without another word, Jack dropped the bag and nearly sprinted up the stairs.
Kloppman's funeral was the next day, the rain had not yet stopped, and Jack was still in New York. The old man, it seemed, had taken a particular liking to Jack, and had left specific instructions in his will that Jack be the one to take his place in charge of the lodging house, as well as live in the basement apartment for free, and was given one-fourth of all money Kloppman had.
The only other person in Kloppman's will was the eight year old girl standing at Jack's side, whom Jack didn't even know existed until that morning. Katherine Malloy was Kloppman's orphaned granddaughter, and his only remaining family member, who was now left with no family herself. She was entitled to the other three-fourths of Kloppman's estate as soon as she came of age, and Kloppman had specified what he had intended to happen for the girl in the event of his death: Jack Kelly was to keep her as his ward.
Neither of them really knew what to do with each other, as they watched Kloppman's coffin be lowered into a six foot deep hole in the ground. Jack almost couldn't stand to look at the girl who was now his responsibility, the slight little thing who, in the rain falling from the slate-colored sky, seemed to consist only of her curly red hair. But her big eyes turned up to the tall young man whose large hand she clung to, perhaps hoping for some answers, although she recieved none. When Jack finally did glance down at her and met her gaze, he felt as bewildered as he was sure the child did. The girl's lips were parted slightly, silently questioning all that was happening, and in a rare moment of sympathy, Jack took her by her waist and swung her up into his arms. "It's alright, kid," he whispered in her ear. "I gotcha."