What's So Great About Brooklyn?
I do not own Newsies in any way. I only own my OC's.
A/N - I know that time-traveling fics have been done to death in the Newsie fandom, but I think this one will bring something different. You guys may need to help me out with the ending, because I'm not sure what I want to do with it. I think I've got most of this already written, so you won't have to wait forever for updates. Same with my other newsie story I posted today.
What was so great about living in Brooklyn?
Lilli never understood why people loved this borough so much. She preferred the bright lights of Manhattan.
Something was always going on there.
All Brooklyn had was a bridge and the harbor.
Manhattan at least had Broadway and Central Park.
Brooklyn's streets were rough and you certainly didn't want to go walking around after dark.
Manhattan was only bad in some parts, so Lilli would feel safer in Manhattan after dark.
Lilli could see the bridge from her room in her family's apartment.
"Lilli! Come on, we're going to be late!" her mother yelled.
They were dragging her to her grandmother's for the afternoon.
Lilli rolled her eyes and got up.
They arrived at her grandmother's house. "Lilli! You get more gorgeous every day!" she said, hugging her.
After having lunch, they sat in the living room with Lilli sitting on the floor.
Her grandmother could tell that Lilli was in one of her moods. "Dear, would you go up to the attic and bring me down a box?" her grandmother asked.
Lilli rolled her eyes, but did as she said. When she came back into the living room, her parents were gone. Lilli sat back down on the floor.
"Look inside", she told Lilli.
Lilli opened the box and saw a key on a piece of twine on top. Underneath that was an old newspaper. "Children's Crusade?" she read out loud, "Newsies Stop 'The World'. Grandma, what's a newsie?"
"Newsies were children who sold newspapers to people before they had it delivered to their doorsteps. My grandfather was one of the leaders of the strike". She pointed to one of them in the picture.
He had long-ish hair and a cane looped through his suspenders.
"His name was Liam Conlon. Although everyone knew him as the fierce newsie king, Spot Conlon", she said.
"How come we don't talk about him? I've never seen any pictures of him until today", Lilli said.
"Because he died almost 2 years after this was taken. He was killed by another newsie leader. Can't for the life of me remember which borough it was".
"Killed?" Lilli asked.
"It's a tragic story really. His girlfriend Julia, can't remember her newsie name, was pregnant with my father when he passed. She was left to raise him all on her own".
Lilli had heard of her great-great-grandmother Julia, but they never really talked about her because she had died years before Lilli was born. But legend went that after Spot's death, she never looked at another man because her heart belonged only to him.
"That key was his".
Lilli picked it up and looked at it with curiosity. "Does anyone know what it goes to?" she asked.
Her grandmother shrugged. "My father said it went to the apartment that my grandmother and Liam were looking at before he died. He said it belonged to Spot's mother at one time, but who knows? It's more likely that he saw the key and liked it so he kept it".
"Lilli, time to go", her mother said, re-entering the room.
"But mom…" Lilli said. She wanted to stay and hear more about her ancestor Spot Conlon.
"It's okay, Lilli", her grandmother said, "Why don't you take the box with you?"
Lilli closed the trinket box and left with her parents.
The next day, Lilli left her house while her parents were out on an errand. She played with Spot's key necklace around her neck.
As Lilli walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, she thought about Spot and how sad it was that he had died so young. She felt sorry for Julia and how hard it must have been to a young unwed mother at the turn of the century. Lilli looked up at the bridge she stood on and wondered what it looked like back in the 1900's.
What was life like back then? Without modern technology and cars. The streets were probably quieter back then. What would've happened if Spot had lived? Would she still exist today?
Lilli climbed over the railing like she always did and sat on the edge of the bridge watching the boats coming in and out of the harbor. After a while, Lilli started to stand up, but her foot slipped and she felt herself falling.
The one thing she didn't feel was her body hitting the water.