Colors chosen: Red (anger), violet (romantic)

Word count: 6128

Disclaimer: not mine. It's just not mine.

Chapter 1

Katherine stormed into Miss Medda's theatre. She found Jack almost immediately, painting another backdrop of, guess where, Santa Fe. Just as she suspected.

"What on earth do you think you are doing right now?" Katherine fought to keep her voice under control. Jack turned around, startled. He saw Katherine and grinned. He dropped his brush and wiped his hands on his colorful apron. After the Newsies convinced him to stay in New York (with a bribery kiss from Katherine), he had been happy living in the famous New York City. Until lately. He started thinking about what he could have been doing if he had left. On Sundays, he imagined himself taking the day off of work. On nights where he worked especially late, he imagined himself sitting around a fire with marshmallows on a stick, laughing and telling stories.

Jack always had to shake himself out of those wistful daydreams, and never told anyone about them. He was confident he could overcome them before anyone would notice how… out of it… he was lately. Well, he underestimated his genius girlfriend. Katherine noticed him staring off into space more and seeming more depressed within the first week of his new development and had his 'problem' figured out within the next week.

"How are you doing, lovely?" Jack asked his favorite person in the world. He advanced towards her so he could give her a heartfelt kiss. He leaned in, but she pushed him away with her hands on his chest.

"Not good!" Katherine was practically simmering with exasperation. Jack's forehead wrinkled with worry.

"Why not?" Katherine's fury melted away a little bit when she looked at her boyfriend's innocent face. It immediately built back up again, though, when she remembered what he'd done.

"Jack. Think really hard about what you might have done this morning to make me disagreeable." Ever since Jack started pursuing art as more of a career, he began to think in colors. Katherine had an aura that was red. Bright, fresh paint on a stop sign, red. He started thinking. After a few minutes of consideration, his eyes widened in horror. He knew what he had done.

"Oh, no. Katherine, I am so sorry!" Katherine passed her tongue over teeth and rolled her eyes in annoyance.

" 'Fess up, Michelangelo." Jack almost whimpered. The sin he had committed was too big to be forgiven by his already stubborn girlfriend.

"I… I left my paints open so they stunk up the apartment," he said miserably. Jack and Katherine had moved into an apartment together a few months ago. Jack and Katherine were both making way more money than previously in their lives, and were able to afford living quarters. Katherine's nostrils flared.

"That, too. What else?" Jack shook his head at himself. What could he have done worse than that horrible mistake? How could he be such a dolt? When he realized his second mistake, he nearly broke down in tears. He was a terrible, terrible person.

"Katherine…. I left my clothes on the floor." Katherine was a huge neat freak. If anything was out of place, she actually had a panic attack until it was back in place.

"Exactly. And you knew that it was laundry day!" Jack looked down and shuffled his feet in embarrassment.

"Sorry. I really am sorry. I'm a stupid idiot who has memory problems and has no respect for the most beautiful girl in the universe." He looked up with sorrowful eyes that made Katherine give in immediately. She sighed heavily and leaned in for a soft apology kiss.

"You just know how that bugs me." Jack leaned in and captured her lips in his again. She pulled away and smirked. Her eyebrows raised.

"Do you know what you got yourself into?" Jack, brain still short-circuited from their kisses, shook his head while blinking madly.

"You get to unstick the apartment by tonight otherwise I'm moving out. You also get to do the laundry. Have fun! Goodbye, now!" Katherine pushed him away and Jack stumbled. Her comment finally seemed to catch up with him and he frowned. But Katherine was long gone.

Jack wearily sighed and walked down to his apartment. He was so caught up in his thoughts of "stupid, stupid, stupid! Jack, what the heck, you idiot!" that he didn't notice when he walked into the wrong apartment. He apologized vehemently to the old lady who occupied that same apartment. She stood up creakily and shook her sewing needles at him, while screaming something about how he made her 'drop a stitch' or something. Jack held his hands up in surrender and ran out, newly aware. It wasn't his fault the door was unlocked! His respect for the elderly definitely grew after that experience.

He successfully located the correct apartment on try two and found that the door was, in fact, locked. The one time he remembered to lock the door in the morning. He was definitely not having a good day. In a heart stopping moment, he thought he had lost his apartment keys and was about to kick his door down, when he realized he had been holding them for the past five or so minutes. He opened the door, but slammed it shut again almost immediately. The fumes. Oh, the fumes. Jack was woozy from a split second of smelling the aroma of his paints.

Either Katherine purposefully didn't tell him about how bad it was, or the smell had gotten worse in the past hour. It was most likely the second option because there was no way Katherine could be that steady after walking through that room. Jack plugged his nose and walked back into the apartment.