AN: Okay so this is probably going to be my last chapter on this story for a while cause I'm gonna be starting school in two weeks and I've got color guard camp the rest of this week and Marching band camp next week but then I'll be free for a week when I'll try to update all of my stories. Anyway thanks for the reviews and please bare with me if it takes a while to update I don't mean to take long.

Newsies is owned by Disney which causes me to cry but I'll get over it if I can write about it...and look I can so I'm okay.

"Hey Skittery! How'd work go today? Sell all ya papes?" Racetrack yelled as Skittery entered the lodging house. Even though he asked he only did it to be polite, or at least attempt to be polite. In fact he was too busy with an on going poker game to notice something different about Skittery.

"Jack!" Skittery said hastily to a boy sitting across from Racetrack. Jack looked up with an annoyed look clearly saying 'not now.'

Skittery backtracked out the door to the confusion of the rest of the newsies. Jack leaned back in his chair and watched the door for his return. He didn't have to wait long; Skittery reentered the room promptly this time however, he was accompanied by a young girl. She clung to his arm with wide eyes looking around the lodging house and at all the newsies.

"Jack, Ise need a favor." Skittery said nodding toward the girl.

"Where did ya get a goil Skitts?" Jack questioned. Skittery looked to the girl and back to the newsies as if to say 'where did she come from' but put a hand to her back and gently pushed her forward.

"This is Hope, she's gonna live here." Skittery said a little uncertain of what he was saying. He didn't have the authority to say who could live in the lodging house and who couldn't, that was Jack's territory.

"Well Hope, where do ya come from?" Jack asked the girl staying put in his chair.

"New York." she said quietly.

"Well so do da rest 'a us. Ise mean where did Skittery here find ya?"

"My parents left me at the zoo. Skittery brought me here." she said clutching closer to the boy. Skittery looked from Jack to the others newsies to see if they approved. Jack's face dropped when he hear the girl say she'd been left. Most of his newsies had been abandoned or forced to leave by their parents.

"Well den, Hope let's get'cha a bed." He said pointing them upstairs.

Skittery led her upstairs and into a bunkroom. Taking her to the end he told her to take what ever bunk she wanted. She chose the bottom one and Skittery threw his stuff on top to make sure she was close to him if she got scared during the night.

"Skittery?"

"Yeah?"

"Why did my parents leave me? Did I do something wrong?"

"No an' don'cha ever think that. Sometimes people get overwhelmed wit stuff and dey have ta make sacrifices. Dats all dat dis is. It's a sacrifice ya parents made for you to make yourself a life of ya own. Dey probably thought ya would be better off wit out dem holdin' ya down." Skittery said trying to explain to her that it might be better this way for her.

"Skittery?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you be here for me…always?"

"Yeah."

She smiled and took her shoes off setting them down beside her bed. Skittery gave her a hug and trying to be a big brother told her to go to bed.

"Skittery?" she called to him as he rounded the stairs.

"Yeah?"

"Can I come sell papers with you tomorrow?"

"Do ya really wanna?"

"Yeah, I've always wanted to sell one paper."

"Shoah thing youse can come." He said continuing down stairs to meet a confused bunch of newsies. No girl had ever stayed there and they didn't know if they liked it.

"She's a goil. What if she's weird?" Dutchy said throwing his hand in the air clutching his hat in it. Specs and Blink agreed.

"She ain't weird, and let me remind ya…youse like goils."

"Yeah but she'd different. She's younger den da goils Ise like."

"Well ya know what Dutchy, if she bugs ya so much get outta here, Jack already said it would be okay."

The room went silent at the last comment. Skittery went back upstairs to wash off after the hot days work. When he made his way to his bunk he found Hope curled up into a ball close to her pillow. As he hopped up to his bunk a voice called up to him.

"Skittery?"

"Yeah?"

"Goodnight."

"Night Hope." He said yawning and turning over falling into the silent but restless sleep.