AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is inspired by the lovely Ace Up Your Sleeve by newsies-on-a-mission, which everyone should go read. That and watching Newsies Live! made me think of what an actual theatre AU for Newsies itself would be like, and so this fic happened.
This is also my first work set firmly in the 2017 Live!verse; my other Newsies fics have been based on the Broadway production. The only "addition" here is Smalls, because in the Live! version they randomly cut her character.
The title is from the song "There's No Business Like Show Business" from Annie Get Your Gun by Irving Berlin.
The legendary Joseph Pulitzer, multiple Tony Awards and an Oscar nomination to his name, can walk into any room in New York City and book any job he wants. His twenty-two-year-old daughter stands on the sidewalk for ten hours for the King of New York national tour auditions like everyone else.
There is a reason Katherine waits in the line that stretches around the block, why her Equity card says Plumber instead of her family name, and why she attends the open call instead telling her agent to mention her father to the director. But if there is anything she has inherited from Joseph, it is drive and talent.
She gets the lead in her first audition after Julliard.
Katherine arrives at rehearsals with her lines highlighted and the songs already memorized, but the actor she sits next to at the long table is downing a travel mug of coffee, his script still in his backpack under his chair.
"Well, hello there," says another actor from a few chairs down. "What part are you playing, doll face?"
She straightens her spine. "My name isn't doll face."
"Back off, Romeo," says the young man next to her, New York accent so thick he probably bleeds Hudson river water. "So what's your real name?"
"Katherine. Plumber."
He raises an eyebrow. "Did you forget your own last name?"
"It's a professional name I'm trying out," she replies as the table fills up around them. "What's yours?"
"Jack." He holds out a hand. "Jack Kelly." He winks, but before she can say anything in return, the woman across the room speaks up.
"Welcome, everyone!" the woman says from the opposite side of the table, and Katherine recognizes her as the show's director from her final audition. "My name is Medda Larkin, and welcome to the very first rehearsal of the first US national tour of King of New York!"
The room erupts into cheers.
"Some of you are familiar faces from the original Broadway production," Medda continues, her gaze flitting from Jack to Katherine, "but others are new, so welcome to the King of New York family. I'm sure we'll all get to know each other very well after a couple of years on the road. To the new cast members, if you don't know the songs perfectly yet, just follow along with everyone else. Let's start at act one, scene one, shall we?"
As Katherine and the other actors open their scripts, Jack still does not take his from his backpack. But when the piano starts, he begins to sing Patrick's opening solo in a flawless Irish accent, powerful voice filling the room, and Katherine has to force herself to focus on the script for her own entrance.
She's here to play Mary, not to drool over an actor with a golden voice.
When they move on from table readings to learning the blocking, she tries to figure out Jack Kelly.
She's in her massive rehearsal skirt over her shorts and old magenta tank top, and walking in an American Civil War era hoopskirt isn't something they taught her at Julliard. So she's caught off guard when she's in the middle of chugging water after a dance rehearsal and Jack asks, "So, do you want to practice Patrick and Mary's kiss?"
Her messy ponytail is starting to stick to her neck with sweat and she's not wearing much makeup, but he still looking at her like he'd like to do more than rehearse. She manages not to choke on her water, and lifts her chin. "That won't be necessary. We're both adults. We know how to kiss already."
And fine, she's only kissed Darcy once in high school before they decided they were better off as friends. But still, she has kissed before, and she doesn't need to rehearse unless Medda orders it.
To Katherine's immense relief, Jack shrugs, says "Okay," and walks off.
They never talk about it again.
By the time the day of the showcase for the press arrives, she gets to know other guys in the cast.
Charlie Morris, the baby-faced actor who hobbles around with a crutch the entire rehearsal process – "for method acting's sake" – is honest and sweet; Les Jacobs, the young actor playing Mary's brother William, is probably more talented than Katherine herself and is confident beyond his years, though his kind but quiet child wrangler and older brother Davey still hovers. Spot Conlon, playing Patrick's cousin John, is a force to be reckoned with, but proves to be brutally and refreshingly honest once Katherine gets to know him. And though the actor playing Mary's former suitor Henry, Reginald Higgins – who insists everyone call him Race – takes a smoke break every chance he gets, she can tell he has a good heart underneath his cocky, brash attitude.
The only ones who cause trouble are the Delancey brothers, but after a few confrontations and a hinted threat of their contracts being pulled, Oscar and Morris keep mostly to themselves. There aren't many female characters in the musical, but a tiny woman just barely five feet tall, Katherine's understudy as Mary, boldly introduces herself as Sally – "but everyone calls me Smalls" – is a welcome sight amongst a cast packed with men.
Yet when the press day arrives, Katherine is inexplicably nervous. She can say her lines backwards, is practically able to sing the songs in her sleep, and knows the dance steps by heart. But her gut still clenches as they run through the numbers they will be performing for the journalists and photographers and film crews, some of whom she knows through her father. After Katherine gets through her duet run-through with Jack, he follows her to the side of the room as Charlie, crutch as always under his arm, starts to sing his solo added for the tour.
"You're really tense, Plumber," her costar asks. "Nervous?"
"What?" she says, fingers trembling as she re-ties the lacing on the Victorian boots she is almost used to dancing in. "Uh, no."
He raises an eyebrow, and guilt pools in her stomach. "Fine," she admits. "Yes, I am, because I've never had Paul Wontorek watch me sing and then tell the internet if I was adequate or not."
"You're here for a reason, Plumber," he says seriously, and she meets his dark gaze. "You get stiff when you're nervous. Just focus on Mary and Patrick, and if it helps, just on me. You'll be fine."
"Thanks."
"And like they always say, picture everyone in their underwear," he quips, and she rolls her eyes.
She tries to focus on Mary, because she is not here to show off how good Katherine Ethel Pulitzer is; she's here to serve the character and the music and the show, not herself. The cameras flash and the film crews follow her every move, but she throws herself wholeheartedly into Mary's world, and it almost works until her duet with Jack.
She is solidly in her zone as the song comes to an end, but when he kisses the daylights out of her, Katherine's concentration snaps for a moment. She is dimly aware of the other cast members and the press applauding, but Jack doesn't move away. When she makes herself step back, he looks like he wants nothing more than to pull her back to him. But with the rest of the cast hurrying forward for the group number, he schools his features into a neutral expression, and Katherine has to remember to do the same.
Her phone blows up with texts when Broadway com uploads the video the next day.
DARCY Today 3:08 PM So the King of New York press video is taking the theatre community by storm.
DARCY Today 3:09 PM A lot of people are saying they want to see the tour now.
DARCY Today 3:10 PM But it's mainly because of your chemistry with Jack.
DARCY Today 3:13 PM Tumblr is giffing the two of you making out and talking about writing fanfiction. So there's that.
Katherine doesn't tell Jack what Darcy said.
Their opening night is in Pennsylvania.
They are told both local and New York press will be in the audience, and Katherine dresses accordingly for her arrival at Pittsburgh's Benedum Center. It's not exactly a red carpet movie premiere, but her purple cocktail dress gets some attention from the photographers, and Jack can't stop staring at her for some reason.
She catches a glimpse of her father walking up to the theatre, and when the cameras turn to the great Joseph Pulitzer, she immediately goes inside. She's already taken off her dress in her room and is sitting before the mirror in her dressing gown, halfway through unpinning her hair when a knock sounds on the door.
"Hey," Jack says, sticking his head through the door. "You alright?"
She nods, because it is mostly true, but keeps staring into the mirror.
"Break a leg, then," he says as she pulls another bobby pin from her hair, and Katherine turns.
"You too."
He starts to say something in return, but Race hollers his name down the hall, and Jack leaves.
The performance goes smoothly, with a couple minor mistakes only the sharpest-eyed audience member would be able to catch. Katherine walks forward in her huge dress for a standing ovation, but her grin falters briefly when she sees her father in the front row. She whirls to join the rest of the cast members, plastering a smile on her face when Jack runs onstage, and she focuses on applauding for him as the audience roars. She takes the hand he holds out, turning to grasp Charlie's in her other hand, and she looks over her father's head into the auditorium as the cast bows and the audience erupts.
She makes it halfway to her dressing room when she sees her father backstage with an armful of roses.
Katherine turns to congratulate Les on his performance, chatting with the boy and his older brother as she sees her father approach out of the corner of her eye. As he makes his way through the crowd of actors, she grits her teeth, makes eye contact with him, and marches purposefully to the wings. There is no way she is going to allow this conversation to happen in front of the entire cast and crew.
He follows.
"You gave a satisfactory performance," Joseph says, holding out the bouquet of roses. As she takes them, she wonders bitterly if he would have still given the flowers to her if she had forgotten her lines or tripped onstage.
Give him a chance, she reminds herself. "Thanks."
"Opening nights can be a challenge," he continues, and she doesn't know how to respond. "I'd suggest working on your diction. Your Ts and Ds occasionally sounded similar."
She bites back a sigh. And there it is. "I'll work on it," his daughter says flatly. "Thanks for coming."
"Get some rest. You don't want to strain your voice." He walks away, and she heads for a trashcan to throw away the bouquet.
"Who was that?" a voice asks, and she sees Jack in the shadows.
"My… former director."
"Oh," Jack says. She can tell he doesn't quite believe her, but she hasn't lied. "Are you going to the cast party?"
She thinks about what her father said, and nods. "Of course," she answers firmly, and gives the bouquet of roses to Smalls.
Just when Katherine settles into the show and the Benedum Center and Pittsburgh, they pack up everything and drive to Ohio.
The bus ride to Columbus is only a couple of hours long, but Jack and the ensemble members are obnoxiously loud and someone is tossing a football, so Katherine stuffs her headphones in her ears, types away on her phone, and doesn't really answer Les when he asks what she's working on.
While everyone else is exploring the city, she finds her dressing room, makes her way to the stage, and heads right back. She may be spontaneous in some ways, but working in a new theatre every month means she needs to get her backstage route in her bones as soon as possible. But after five treks back and forth through the Palace Theater, she hears some of her cast members clattering down a stairwell.
"What's going on?" she asks Smalls as the shorter woman passes her in the hall.
"We've been on the fire escape," Katherine's understudy explains over the noise as Race and Jack bicker about something, Les chiming in as Davey follows. "You can go all the way to the rooftop too."
After a couple wrong turns and a few flights up, Katherine pulls open a door marked emergency exit and steps onto the fire escape overlooking the bustling street. After climbing an endless number of ladders, she finally reaches the rooftop, and looks out across all of Ohio for the first time. The wind tugs at her hair as she shades her eyes from the setting sun, the Scioto River glinting in the distance and skyscrapers reflecting the golden light.
She breathes easily for what feels like the first time since the Pittsburgh opening night.
After retracing her route backstage in Indianapolis, Katherine finds the rooftop of the Murat Theatre, but it isn't empty.
Jack is staring across the horizon, and she calls out his name so she won't startle him. He looks over his shoulder as she clambers up from the fire escape, but turns away without a word.
"Everything okay?" she asks quietly as she walks up to him. A rooftop is not the place to push someone's buttons, and she knows his nerves are already raw.
"Yeah," he says distractedly. They watch the birds soaring above the buildings for a long moment before Jack adds, "Charlie called."
She patiently waits for him to continue.
"He says the doctors told him his knee wasn't the worst break they've ever seen," he goes on. "So that's good, I guess." He pauses. "But he can't come back to the show. Obviously."
Katherine watches him carefully. Charlie's injury mid-show had been terrifying for everyone, but it is clear Jack has taken it hard. She knew they had known each other before the King of New York tour, but she hadn't known just how close their bond went until watching Jack almost have a panic attack when Charlie was taken to the ER. Jack had barely gotten through the remainder of that performance in one piece, and had been the most unfocused she had ever seen him in two months of working together.
"How are you holding up?" she asks, because he has been faithfully checking in on everyone else in the cast, but no one else is checking in on Jack.
He hesitates, and his silence speaks volumes. "Okay."
When it is clear he is not going to elaborate, she brushes her hair back when the wind blows it in her face. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Shoot."
"How do you and Charlie know each other?"
He cracks what is almost a smile, his first since the day of Charlie's injury, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "We were in a foster home together. Let's just say you get close to other kids when your foster parent," he says through his teeth, eyes suddenly hard, "shouldn't be allowed within a mile of a child."
Her heart leaps into her throat as he rolls his shoulders, bringing a hand to his left collarbone. "So how are you doing?" he asks, clearly wanting to move on. "With everything that's happened?"
"I'm alright. Tell Charlie that I hope he recovers quickly."
He nods. "I will."
As they stand side by side, another cool breeze washes over them. "We shouldn't be out here too long," she suggests. "It'll get cold soon, and we have two shows tomorrow."
They climb down the fire escape in silence, but when they go back inside, she stops him. "I just want you to know, I won't tell anyone what you said."
He gives her his first genuine smile in days, but it's gone in a flash. "Thanks."
The performance the next day is different for a multitude of reasons. Though his understudy performs flawlessly, Charlie's absence is felt; Katherine can also hear the edge of a cold in Jack's voice when he sings, and his speaking voice holds the barest hint of congestion as he recites his lines. When she has to shove him back in a scene, she make a point not to push him as hard as she normally does, and he barely makes it to the wings for his usual exit before he starts coughing.
A few days later, he contracts borderline bronchitis.
Katherine goes out between a matinee and an evening show and buys him Mucinex.
She is sure none of the guys in the cast, well-meaning as they might be, will think to do it; and after working so closely with him over the past few months, she isn't sure he will take anything. Jack Kelly is all about pushing through pain and never admitting defeat, not taking cold medicine.
"I've already got some from Davey," he rasps as she stands at his hotel room door with a plastic Walmart bag.
She tries to keep from flushing; this is about Jack's health, not her being embarrassed by her own stupidity. Of course Davey brought Jack medicine. "Well–"
"I mean, I'll take it, though," he says, sniffing. "How much should I pay you?"
"Oh, no, it's fine. You're sick–"
"Obviously. How much?" he says again, tone firm through his cold as he turns to go further into his room.
"No, really–"
He comes back with his wallet. "Plumber. Seriously, what is it?"
"Thirty seven dollars and ninety-nine cents," she finally admits.
His eyes widen. "You spent almost forty bucks on medicine from Walmart?"
"I just got a birthday check from my dad," she says quickly, "and I thought it'd be put to better use helping a friend than like, saving up for a new laptop."
"Okay, now I really have to pay you back," he says, opening his wallet. When he hands her the amount, she gives him the plastic bag in return. "So your birthday was recently?"
"January thirtieth."
"Happy late birthday. Sorry I missed it."
"Thanks." She tucks her lower lip between her teeth. "We all miss you at the theatre."
"How's Oscar doing in the Patrick track?"
"Great." She doesn't allow herself to say but it's not the same without you. "Well, I should get going. I still have to get dinner before the evening show."
"Thanks again for the medicine."
"You're welcome. I hope you feel better."
He smirks. "Thanks. So do I."
She performs opposite Oscar as her Patrick for almost a week, but when Jack returns, he throws her a surprise birthday party with the entire cast. And in her Chicago dressing room, she finds a sketch he drew of her asleep on the bus to Illinois, happy belated birthday and thanks again for the forty dollar Mucinex scrawled on the back.
She saves the sketch between the pages of one of her books.
When the weather improves, Katherine and Jack go out to rooftops again.
It becomes an unspoken tradition, as routine as Jack saying hello to every single cast member before every show or Katherine using her steam inhaler. Sometimes they talk the entire time and sometimes they stand in silence, but on the roof of the Popejoy Hall, she finds him sketching the Albuquerque skyline.
He looks completely at ease, but she feels like she's nearly suffocating in the intense heat. "How are you not about to have heatstroke?" she pants, beads of sweat forming on her upper lip. "It's about a million degrees outside."
"It doesn't bother me too much." Jack doesn't look up from his sketchpad, drawing bold lines with his pencil on the clean white page; he's taken pictures of spectacular views with his phone before, but this is the first time she's seen him break out a pad of paper to record scenery.
"We both grew up in New York City. If you lived through all the same snowstorms I did, how are you so adjusted to heat?"
"But that's just it," he says, brow furrowing as he focuses on carefully detailing a mountain range on the page. "At least if it was warm all the time, then Snyder wouldn't-"
He stops, pencil frozen on the sketchpad, before he continues vigorously shading the mountains.
"Snyder?" Katherine asks, wondering if she should be continuing this topic at all.
Jack lowers his sketchpad. "My foster parent, to use the term loosely. During those snowstorms, he wouldn't always pay the heating bills. He said it was to save money." He swallows hard. "So, yeah, sue me for liking warm weather."
She can't speak for a moment. "Jack, I didn't know…"
"I thought about working in film or TV because you usually live in California, but theatre is more personal." He starts to draw the clouds dotting the sky. "If New York wasn't where most stage jobs are, I'd never go back."
"Where would you go?" she asks after a moment. "If you could live anywhere in the world?"
"Santa Fe," he says instantly. "I read about in a book in my elementary school library, and I've always wanted to see it." He looks up at her. "Where would you go?"
"Oh, I don't know," she answers as nonchalantly as she can manage. Where my father can't find me is where I'd like to be. "Well, I'd love to keep talking, but I can feel a sunburn coming on and Medda won't be happy if we show up for work as red as lobsters. Being sunburned wasn't in the casting call."
As they head for the enclosed stairwell, Katherine is grateful they did not have to climb down a fire escape the temperature of molten lava in this weather. "You know, Santa Fe shouldn't be too far from Albuquerque-"
Her phone vibrates in the pocket of her shorts.
DAD Today 6:10 PM I read your script. I sent it to a few directors and they liked it.
Katherine stops in her tracks, staring at her phone in horror.
DAD Today 6:11 PM I did, of course, tell them Plumber was only your professional name.
"That son of a-" She stops when Les passes by in the hallway, telling a joke to Spot with Davey ever by his brother's side.
"What's wrong?" Jack asks in a low voice, but she only shoves her phone in her pocket and marches to her dressing room. "Katherine," he says, ignoring other cast members as they call out to him. "Seriously, what happened?"
Too furious to speak, she throws open the door of her dressing room, and he follows her inside. Once the door is closed, she finally looks at him, eyes blazing. "Somehow my father got ahold of my script."
"Your script?"
"I'm writing a show about Nellie Bly," she explains quickly, starting to pace. "Either my agent showed the script to him, or he found it from someone else. I don't know. But now he's spreading it around New York City and telling everyone that it's not actually by Katherine Plumber. No, it's by Katherine Pulitzer. He doesn't approve of me doing anything in life that's not attached to him, that people don't know indirectly came from him, that my talent didn't come from anywhere but him."
After a moment, Jack says, "So your real last name is Pulitzer?"
She faces him. "Yes."
"I knew you were making up Plumber when we first met," he says, and she steps forward, hands curling into fists.
"Plumber is my professional name. I never made that up."
"If my father was someone as famous as Joseph Pulitzer, I'd take advantage of that."
Her jaw clenches. "Oh, you would, would you?"
"If your script gets more attention because of it, then yeah."
"But that's just the point. If it only gets recognition because of the name attached, then it's not because the script itself is actually worth anything. It's just as bad as stunt casting a Hollywood celebrity in a Broadway show they should never be in, just to sell tickets. We've all seen it happen. It turns into a ploy to sell money, and that's not what I want from my show."
"This business is cutthroat as it is, so why not take advantage of this opportunity? It could only help."
She raises herself to her full height. "Why are you defending my father?"
"I'm not saying he should have done what he did, but you can't change it now. Be grateful you at least have a parent, or even someone, period, who cares enough to support you."
"Someone who cares? Have you ever met my father?"
"No, but-"
"You only see the great Joseph Pulitzer who has three Tony Awards and an Oscar nomination," she says through her teeth. "You don't know him like I do."
"Right, because it's so terrible having a parent who is alive."
"He's a manipulative control freak who-"
"Hey, Katherine!" Les says cheerfully as the door swings open, and she whirls as Davey calls his brother's name. "Oh, uh, I'll come back later," the nine-year-old says quickly, and shuts the door behind him.
She turns back to Jack, lowering her voice, but her gaze is still hard. "My father likes to control everything in his life, including me. And that means changing my name on my script, and directing every single one of my community theatre productions when I was growing up. He even guest directed a show I did at Julliard, just so he could mold me into the actress he wanted me to be. He couldn't bear to have his daughter turn out to be a failure in his own blessed career field, so he made me into an actor at his talent level."
She takes another step closer to Jack. "You know how everyone says John Ritter's son shouldn't even try to go into acting because his father was so gifted? That's why I'm going by Plumber. So people will see me, not my father's name. And now he's ruined everything before I've even begun."
She wants Jack to understand, needs him to understand when all she's worked for is being taken away from her. But he only looks at her for a long moment.
"Yeah, it's such a tragedy that someone insulted your pride by going out of their way to help you," he says flatly.
The door slams behind him.
The show that evening is one of the hardest Katherine has ever done. She tries to turn off her thoughts and envelope herself in Mary's emotions and Mary's life and Mary's problems instead of her own. But every so often, she has to force herself not to openly glare at Jack when Mary is in the middle of falling in love with Patrick.
Their kiss is shorter than normal, and they don't talk to each other after the show.
The next morning, Jack walks into the hotel breakfast buffet area and purposefully approaches her table. "May I join you?"
She wants to say no, but nods and keeps staring at her bowl of cereal as he sits across from her. "I want to apologize for yesterday," he begins.
She doesn't respond.
"It was wrong of me to assume that you had a better childhood just because you have parents."
"I didn't experience everything you went through," she says honestly. "I had central heating every day growing up."
"But you still had a parental figure who wasn't… perfect, it sounds like."
She nods, mutely.
"I shouldn't have said what I said."
"I shouldn't have, either," Katherine admits. "I was complaining about a script when you experienced so much worse."
"Let's not try to one up each other on who had the more difficult childhood," Jack says dryly, leaning forward on the small table. "How about we just move on from this whole conversation?"
"If you want."
"I don't like being on your bad side, Plumber."
She returns his smile. "Me neither."
Katherine finds a note from Medda in her dressing room about the quality of the previous evening's performance, but the show that night improves drastically anyway.
During King of New York's month-long engagement in New Mexico, Katherine is working out with Jack in the hotel gym one morning when she casually asks, "Do you still want to go to Santa Fe?"
"I guess. Why?"
"No reason," she says, but he sees her biting back a smile.
"What's up?"
"What are you doing on Monday?" she asks instead.
"Nothing much, as we don't have a show."
"Right. Well, do you have any plans?"
He sets down his weights. "Like, maybe laundry? What's with you?"
She can't hold back her smirk as she pulls out her phone. "Just don't make any plans for that day," she says simply as she opens the group text. "The entire day, alright?"
On Monday, she asks him to go for a morning run around Albuquerque, convincing him to bring his sketchpad, and surprises him with a rental car full of their cast members.
"We can make to Santa Fe and back today if we hurry," she says with a grin as their friends holler for him to get in the vehicle. "Happy birthday, Jack."
"Thanks, Plumber," he says, voice thick, and it is his turn to surprise her when he suddenly embraces her.
With Davey at the wheel, Katherine is free to observe Jack during the drive. He composes himself quickly enough around the guys, but his eyes light up when they arrive, wandering through the city's New Mexico History Museum and looking at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi. But it is in the Canyon Road artist district where Jack lingers, and when they hike up the Atalaya Mountain trails to watch the sunset, he's quieter than he's been all day.
She sits next to him as he sketches the landscape, their cast mates tossing a football back and forth a short distance away. "Thanks for a great birthday, Plumber," he says, lowering his pencil.
"You're welcome." She watches Spot let Les win a race across the hiking path. "We should head back down to the car soon. It's going to get dark soon, and we don't want Les falling off a cliff."
"Yeah." Jack keeps looking at her. "I appreciate you putting together all of this. Really."
"Davey come up with some of the itinerary. But, yeah, I guess I did come up with the idea for the whole trip. But it's not a big deal–"
"It means a lot to me," he says sincerely, and she wonders if anyone has ever done something like this for him. Not that she needs to pat herself on the back; all of this is for Jack, not her own ego. But he's looking at her lips, and having their first real, unscripted kiss with a glorious New Mexico sunset as their backdrop would admittedly be picturesque. But the guys are running up and Les is complaining that he's tired, and Katherine gets to her feet.
They manage to hike back to the parking lot with just enough light to get down the mountain safely; as they drive back in the dark. Jack doesn't bring up the almost-maybe kiss, and so she doesn't either. But after they reach the hotel and everyone else has gone into their own rooms, she's putting her keycard in her door when Jack says her name.
He shoves his hands in his pockets as he approaches. "Thanks again for putting this together."
"You're welcome," she yawns. "I'm glad you enjoyed it."
He looks like he wants to say something else, but only adds, "See you tomorrow, then."
"See you tomorrow," she repeats, and goes into her room as he walks away.
Their onstage kiss lasts a bit longer than necessary the next evening, but this time she ponders how many more days or weeks or months they will hide behind Mary and Patrick.
She doesn't have to wonder long, because on the night of their last Sunday evening show in New Mexico, they walk together to their dressing rooms after the performance. His eyes are bright and he's doubled over laughing about something they will not remember later as she wipes away tears of mirth from her eyes; when he straightens, she realizes she can't remember the last time she saw him this at ease and comfortable and happy, and she kisses him.
She pulls back, positive she has overstepped the boundaries of their friendship, but he grins and captures her mouth with his as they stand in the basement of a theatre in layers of Victorian clothes. It's not a mountaintop with an orange sky at their backs, but she thinks she prefers this.
"Well, finally."
They break apart to see Race standing at the end of the hall with the rest of the cast, his arms across his chest. "Took you long enough," he calls as he goes into another dressing room. Spot rolls his eyes as he passes Jack and a flushing Katherine, but the shorter actor can't quite hide his smirk.
"They wanted to lock you two in a closet," Davey comments as Les runs ahead, "but I talked them out of it."
"Thanks," Katherine says with a good natured sigh, and looks back at Jack. "Well, I should change. The costume department has to pack up my dress before we ship out."
"Right," he replies, and he watches her walk away. But after her dresser helps her out of her hoopskirt and the head of the hair department takes her wig, there is a knock at the door.
"Hey, so I was wondering if you want to go get coffee or something?" Jack asks, leaning against the doorframe. She stands there in an old robe she needs to replace and her hair pinned in frizzy rosettes to her scalp, skin blotchy from having just scrubbed off her makeup, but he doesn't look turned off in the least. "I mean, it doesn't have to be tonight…"
"What about tomorrow in Arizona?" she suggests. "We don't have a show."
He grins. "Sure. See you bright and early on the bus, Plumber."
"See you," she repeats, and when she shuts her door, a smile plays at her lips.
She makes a point of sitting next to him on the bus the next morning, and ignores their cast members' teasing. He eventually falls asleep on her shoulder, and she wishes she is half the artist he is so she can preserve this moment. But Katherine is content to take the opportunity to study the morning light shading the contours of Jack's face, and nothing more for now.
Almost ten years later, Nellie Bly opens on Broadway at the Nederlander Theatre.
A thirty-year-old Katherine Kelly is answering Paul Wontorek's questions about the writing process when she sees a familiar trio in the crowd out of the corner of her eye. The press zeroes in on her aging father followed by her husband, the Kellys' adopted daughter staying close to Jack as the cameras flash. As Katherine goes to greet them, Paul smoothly starts to interview one of the lead actors of Nellie Bly, but the scriptwriter has eyes only for her family.
"You made it just time!" she cries over the noise of New York City, throwing her arms around Jack.
"The traffic was heavy," Joseph explains as his son-in-law embraces Katherine, and she pulls Emma to her side.
"Are you excited?" she asks the fifteen-year-old, and though Emma responds only with a nod, Katherine still grins. "I'll meet you at our seats," she says, meeting Jack's gaze, and he shields their adopted daughter from the press as they go inside.
"Break a leg," Joseph says as Katherine turns from watching her family leave, and her father pauses.
"I'm proud of you."
He doesn't sweep her into his arms or make a dramatic speech, but she still swallows hard at his words. "Thanks," she manages after a moment, and she follows his tall form with her gaze through the crowd as he goes through the front doors. After a few more interviews with Playbill and BroadwayWorld and Theatre Mania, Katherine finally makes it to her seat, a mixture of nerves and adrenaline coiling in her gut as the lights dim.
Her hand finds Jack's as the overture begins.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm sorry, but I just can't call Crutchie, well, Crutchie in a modern AU, so Charlie it is.
Andrew Keenan Bolger said in an interview back in 2012 that he believed Crutchie had polio, and that's canon enough for me. However, as polio has thankfully been mostly eradicated by Western medicine in the twenty-first century, there had to be another reason for Crutchie/Charlie's disability. I didn't want to erase it completely, so let's say in the universe of there's no business like show business, he broke his knee as a child while living in Snyder's foster home. I'll let you readers imagine exactly how that happened. Let's say the break didn't heal completely normally, as there wouldn't have been an reliable adult figure monitoring his recovery process, taking him to physical therapy or even back to a regular doctor as often as needed.
But let's say Crutchie/Charlie could walk adequately enough – which you need for performing, as theatre is notorious for not hiring people with major disabilities. Even if he had a slight limp, directors might still overlook him; as we all know, if one person can't perform a role, there are fifty people waiting in line for the part. That's not how it should be, but sadly that's the way the theatre world works. But I'm sure Crutchie/Charlie would be able to perform non-dancing roles; for example, Kristin Chenoweth has an inner ear disorder somewhat similar to vertigo, but still performs for a living. That being said, old injuries are always the first to blow out when your body takes too much stress, especially if they never healed properly in the first place.
The reason I did not include all of this in the fic itself is because it's not Jack's story to tell, no matter how much he trusts Katherine.
This fic started out as a simple one-shot, but turned into six thousand word behemoth. Go figure.