!! "…Unfortunately, Mrs. Polski, I have to tell you that his condition could get worse…." The doctor explained But Hannah Polski wouldn't hear bad news. Not about her Marty.

She shook her head. "No. He'll be just fine. After all…Christmas is only a few days away…it's his favorite time of year. He wouldn't miss it for the world." Hannah stated, to assure herself as much as the doctor. But as she looked into the window of her husband's hospital room, she had her doubts. He looked so weak...

To get her mind off the situation for a moment, she thought about the letters she sent out more than a week before. "I hope they all got them…I hope they all come." With a silent prayer, Hannah walked back into her husband's hospital room to stay with him for the night. !!

!! Sarah "Echo" Skinin considered herself to be a very reasonable person. She made sure that she was acceptable looking in public, with her curly light brown hair always neat and her clothes always pressed. She always was very flexible when it came to time or dates. She always gave everyone an extra hour to arrive. Not that she didn't yell at them afterward for being late…but that was a different matter entirely. And she never fought or argued with anyone…well, hardly ever, anyway.

So where the hell was everyone?!

"They should have been here an hour ago." Sarah muttered to herself, tapping her fingers on the windowsill she sat on. Her hazel eyes scanned the street outside. "WE never take this long…"

"We probably got the letter before everyone else…I mean we don't live that far away, now, do we?" Michael pointed out from his station as he helped put up decorations. The entire gang was coming back and the house wasn't even close to being done. He wanted it to look good, not that he let anyone else know that he cared about a silly little thing like that. Michael "Skittery" Skinin had a reputation to uphold. "Not to mention you'd never LET us be late for anything. Not even fashionably late."

Sarah barely spared her fiancée a glance. She merely looked back out the window. Her breath started to fog up the glass which began to entertain her for the time being. When the rest of the group got there, she'd give them all an earful…

"That strand's crooked." Michael remarked to his friend, Gabriel "Spot Conlon, who was currently up on a ladder putting up Christmas lights.

"What do you mean, 'That stand's crooked'? It looks straight to me." Gabe spat, frustrated at the fact that he actually had to do something this Christmas gathering.

"I mean that the stand's crooked. Look at it from down here, it's sagging in the middle if you keep it there…"Michael stated, his arms crossed. Gabe growled.

"I can't very well look at it from down there if I'm up here on the damn ladder, now can I? And it's not crooked."

"Whatever you say, Conlon." Michael muttered, going back to the garland. He'd learned over the years of being friends with Gabe that it was just easier for everyone to let him win. "It's still crooked." He mumbled under his breath.

Sarah jumped up. "We have an arrival! Someone's here!" And before anyone could say anything else, she sped out of the room and towards the front door, which she wrenched open to see a very surprised woman with curly light brown hair and blue eyes with her fist raised to knock.

"Oh, we don't knock around here, just come on in." Sarah exclaimed, literally grabbing the woman by her arm and dragging her inside.

"Well sheesh…" said the woman, nearly stumbling onto the floor. "I didn't expect that for a welcome, let me tell you…"

"You'll get used to it. I'm Sarah Skinin, by the way. I used to be called 'Echo' once upon a time, back when we were all newsies and whatnot. Who're you?" Sarah asked, barely taking a breath.

"No way, Echo?" The woman said, a grin flashing over her face. "THE Echo? This is so amazing. I'm Emilie!" When Sarah looked at her blankly, she added, "Spotlight…?"

Sarah gasped with recognition. "No way!" With a whoop she hugged the girl and grabbed her hands to dance a little circle. "This is wonderful! I remember when we'd get our papers together at the distribution office! God, those were the days, huh? Morris took over for 'Mr. Weasel'."

"Really?" Emilie gasped. "Those poor children."

"I know." The two women shook their heads in pity for the poor newsies that would have to deal with Morris Delancey.

Michael peeked his head around the corner. "Hey, sorry to break up this beautifully heart-wrenching reunion, but could one or both of you come help in here? Spot won't listen to reason."

"Sure…" Walking back into the next room, the two women cocked their head's to one side. "That strand's crooked." Emilie said finally.

"See?" Michael demanded with a smug smirk. "I'm not the only one."

Gabe gave a snarl. "IT IS NOT! Why don't you three go throw some tinsel around and leave my lights alone…?" He mumbled bad-naturedly.

The three on the ground simply shook their heads "It's no use trying to talk to that boy. He's still got the hardest head in all of New York." Emilie said with a sigh as they complied with Gabe's wishes. "Although it's kind of good to see him fret over a little detail like that; it means he cares. We are doing it for Marty, anyway."

"Have you seen him lately?" Michael asked. "We only saw him once since we've gotten here, and he wasn't looking so good..."

Emilie shrugged. "He's Marty. He looks really sick, but as usual his hopes are up." She shook her head. "He's always been the optimistic one of the group, hasn't he? Always the sweetest…" Emilie bit her lip. She wouldn't go into what she was thinking of next, but it wasn't very Christmas-y.

Sarah threw an arm around Emilie and rubbed her shoulder. "Don't worry, you. Marty won't pull a Tiny Tim. He'll be here just as long as the rest of us.

"So I heard you were married to a Mr. David Jacobs." Sarah said, determined on changing the subject. Emilie blushed lightly and nodded.

'We've been married for a few years now. We have three beautiful children. We have Danielle, my oldest at 5, Euell, he's 4 (needless to say they fight a lot…), and my baby Gideon who's 2. We also have another one on the way."

"No kidding." Michael muttered, and then grunted when he recieved an elbow in the ribs from Sarah. "I didn't mean anything by it...

"Got a name for the kid yet?" He asked, clearing his throat and averting his eyes for a smooth subject change.

Emilie winced. "Um…well…no."

"Well is it a boy or girl?"

Emilie grinned. "Mmm-hmm."

Sarah gave Michael a light smack on the arm. "It's not like she'd know right now. God."

"Well why wouldn't she? It's her kid, isn't it? God…" Michael muttered, sulking a little as he walked back into the other room. Sarah merely shook her head. "He can be such a baby."

Sarah's remark didn't fool Emilie. She saw the look of love in Sarah's eyes. With a smile, Emilie shook her head and headed into the kitchen.

What she didn't expect to see next, however, was chaos. Flour seemed to be everywhere. Smoke rose from the oven and mixing bowls overflowed with something unrecognizable.

"What the hell happened in here?" Emilie said, speaking what came to both of their minds.

A petite woman of about 25 years looked up quickly from the floor, where she was helping sweep up flour. Her caramel-colored hair was partly in her face and in her vivid blue eyes. Her eyes were wide like a doe's caught in a beam of light.

After a moment of staring at each other, the woman seemed to have gained her courage and began to apologize.

"I'm so sorry for the mess. I suppose I was trying to help make something for the dinner tonight, and well…I caught myself daydreaming. I suppose you can see what happened next…" She said, her voice quiet. "I knew Cassandra shouldn't have left me in charge…" she muttered.

Sarah and Emilie looked at each other, and couldn't help themselves as they began to laugh. The woman looked very confused at their uproar, which brought that doe-look into her face again.

Emilie spoke first. "Don't worry honey; we're not laughing at you. It's just so….awkward." she managed. "Here, we'll help you get this mess out of the way." Together the three women cleaned up the kitchen and finally got the meal underway.

"Thank you so much. I don't know what I would have done if it weren't for you two… I honestly don't understand kitchens." The woman said.

"It's no problem, really. Oh," Sarah thrust out her hand, "Sarah Skinin. This is Emilie Jacobs. We didn't get a chance to properly meet before Cassandra shuffled you into the kitchen."

The woman stared at the hand for a moment before shyly taking it and shaking it lightly, then did the same when Emilie offered hers. "I'm Cosette Bellamont. I was called Mouse a while ago. I'm here with Gabriel…er…'Spot' Conlon."

"Ah, the king of Brooklyn. I've gotta find something to do to him…."Emile muttered.

"Why?" Sarah asked, knowing about her friend's ability to take revenge by pranking a person to death. "What'd he do?"

"He didn't want my advice. It offended me. Gonna finally tie that boy down?" Emilie asked Cosette to change the subject. Cosette smiled shyly, averting her eyes.

"I'm working on it." !!

!! In the other room, Gabriel Conlon remained oblivious to the plans that were being made about him. He had a job to do. And his lights were NOT crooked.

"Stupid…what do they know? Nothing about lights, that's for sure…" he muttered to himself, fixing another strand onto the wall.

'You want to know what you're missing?" David Jacobs asked, looking up from his job at arranging the mistletoe. He had only arrived not too long after the event in the kitchen.

"Not really, but I'm sure you'll tell us anyway." Michael muttered, tacking the garland around the doorframe. He'd considered David one of the guys since the end of the strike, so, naturally, David had to have an extra dosing of his sarcasm.

David, being used to those kinds of remarks, simply ignored it as he took an ornament out of his son Gideon's mouth. "You forgot about a tree. You can't very well put ornaments on a windowsill, can you?"

Gabe glared over at Michael accusingly. "You forgot the tree?!"

Michael returned the look. "We had agreed that YOU would be the one to go get it since YOU'RE the hardest one to please! How could you forget something as important and as big as a CHRISTMAS TREE!?"

As the two men fought over the tree, David shook his head and looked out the window with a secret smile. It was just like old times. !!

!! I shouldn't do this right now, Andrianne thought as she looked through the window into Marty's hospital room.

She felt guilty about going in because he was actually getting to spend time with his wife before he slept again. Also, Andrianne admitted to herself, she knew she probably wouldn't be able to hold up much longer if she went in just now. Seeing her lively friend riddled with sickness made her eyes well up.

But just as she turned to go, Marty looked up and his old bright smile lit up his pale face. He gestured wildly for Andrianne to enter, and being a sucker for the guy, she complied.

"Timber? Though you probably go by Andrianne or Andy or something like that nowadays. Ah, geez, it's great to see you, anyway. I'm real glad you came. Hannah was just telling me that she sent out letters to everyone to get 'em back here for Christmas." Marty rambled, barely taking a breath. "She said that everyone replied and were coming. Is it true? Is everyone back?"

Andrianne couldn't help but grin at him. Sickness or not, Marty would always be the same. She walked over to him and gave him a light hug and a kiss on the forehead and hugged Hannah. "I go by pretty much anything these days, and it's great to see you, too. And as far as I know," she said taking a seat next to his bed, "Everyone's coming. I didn't really stick around the lodging house to see who was there before I came here."

Marty looked extremely pleased to hear that little fact. He began to say so when a fit of coughs wracked his body. Covering his mouth with a handkerchief, he waited until they subsided to continue what he was saying. "So, how have you been? What have you been up to? Are you a famous writer yet? Are you still putting firecrackers everywhere?"

Andrianne merely shook her head and tried to hold a normal conversation with him. God, he looked so sick. Damn it to Hell, why him? "I've pretty much put away my fascination for firecrackers, at least for the time being. It seems Maine doesn't take too lightly to them. "She grinned. How could she tell him what a drifter she was? She'd almost been across the entire state of Maine because she hadn't found a place to call home yet. Not to mention the little mess she made of her life in Chicago…but she wouldn't get into that. "I've been into this and that. But never mind me, what have YOU been up to? Other than worrying people to death."

Marty, finding the humor in what she said, merely shrugged. "Nothing much really, just lying around with a beautiful woman." He winked at Hannah. "Good news though! The doctor says that I could be able to go home in time for Christmas. Isn't that great?"

"That's awesome, Marty!" Andrianne said with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Unlike Hannah and Marty, she tended to be a pessimist. Catching Hannah's eye, they shared the same thought. Marty could be going home before Christmas alright…

If home involved the big, pearly gates of St. Peter and a coffin. !!

!!And that's the end of chapter one! The next chapter I think will be featuring Shoegoil and Styx and perhaps a few others. I hope you liked it and if I messed up your character you're free to tell me so!! (Reviews please! I'll give you an imaginary cookie! and sorry about the extra exclaimation points...it was being stupid)