Disclaimer: The character of Spot Conlon in this story is the property of Disney and his likeness is only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.


Red


You must know me
I'm one of your secrets.
From what I see
You're trying to hard to keep it

Well, I belong to you
I belong to you
I belong to you
And you belong to me

- "Secret", Seal


Charlotte whispered, "Papa?"

"Ed's boy. Tommy."

Those words broke whatever spell the unexpected announcement held over Charlotte. With a gasp that sounded more like a strangled sob, she turned on him and fled to her room. The slam of the door did little to make his announcement any less deafening and she flung herself on her bed, burying her face in her pillow.

But she didn't cry. Her shock and surprise and sense of utter betrayal were too great to produce even a single tear.

Mr. Woods didn't stay alone in the kitchen for long. He didn't knock on her door, letting himself in quietly as he waited for his daughter to lift her head up. Charlotte was glad to see that, when she finally found the strength to look over at her father again, there was no sign of the plastic bag or the damn dress kept inside.

Her heart pounding and her chest heaving, Charlotte blurted out the first thing that popped in her head: "Married? Me? To Tommy?" And then, because she couldn't help herself, she went on to add her second thought before she even had the chance to think twice: "What about Spot?"

Her father was ready for any argument but that one. His shoulders sagged, visibly defeated, as he asked, "You found him then? That street boy you once knew?"

"And what if I have?" she demanded, reckless in her abandon. She'd never spoken to her father that way before—she'd never had any cause to.

He knew it, too. Mr. Woods sank down on her bed, right on the corner, right by Charlotte's feet. Like she had with her pillow, he buried his head in his hands and when he spoke, he sounded much older than he was. "I tried so hard. Finding you a friend, keeping you in the apartment... but I left you alone too long. You disobeyed me and left, Charlotte, just like you told me you wouldn't. You must have." He sighed. "You got out."

"I did," she confessed, a tiny niggle of guilt beginning to gnaw at the edge of her consciousness. This wasn't how she wanted her father to find out about Spot—she didn't want him to find out at all—but now that he had, she felt like maybe she was the one at fault... until she ran his words through her mind again and they clicked. Sudden understanding dawned on Charlotte's face. "That's why you kept me inside? Not because of the Beast—" She spat out the name, furious, "—but because you didn't want me to find Spot again? Why didn't you say?"

"We couldn't have you running off with that... that boy. He would ruin everything." Her father lowered his hands from his faces, wringing them together, twisting his fingers. His glasses were left askew on his nose. His mustache began to quiver. "I think he already has."

Charlotte ignored that. She refused to let her anger fade and turn to shame. "He was my friend, Papa!"

"I know, my girl. But you're young and you're lovely and I... we couldn't risk it. Because you're also a romantic, Charlotte. You say friend but what of him? What does he think of you? You're too innocent... he would corrupt you." And just when she thought her father couldn't say anything that would wound her further, he said in that simple, understated way he had: "You've been promised to Tommy since you were little."

She flinched, drawing away from him. "Promised? Papa, it's 1900!" Charlotte picked up her pillow and hugged it to her chest. The words were as foreign as any of the languages that colored the New York streets. She couldn't believe she what she was hearing. "No one promises their girls anymore. I should get to choose who I love!"

"But don't you love Tommy?"

Her father's quiet question was like an arrow to her chest; the simple pillow she clutched so tightly did nothing to soften the blow. Because that was the thing: did she love Tommy? Did she love anyone? Charlotte didn't think she knew what love was at all. Did she care for Tommy? Oh, yes, just like she cared for Madge and... and for Spot. She cared for them all in different ways.

She just couldn't say in what ways.

"I've always thought I'd get a choice."

"Sometimes we don't get to choose who we fall in love with," he answered softly.

And again Charlotte thought of Spot. Of the afternoons they shared, the days at the docks, that time on the bridge, the trip through Prospect Park that very evening... the dandelion she kept and how a simple weed could mean more to her than the most expensive of roses. Then she thought of Tommy. How he was so sweet and caring, always coming to sit with her and Madge at lunch, telling the girls stories, always looking out for them. How he wanted to protect her, and how Spot had saved her twice already.

No, she allowed, sometimes we don't.

"Is that why we came?" she asked suddenly, desperate to leave her earlier train of thought behind. "The shop, this place... did you bring me back here to marry Tommy?"

"Charlotte, I—"

"Papa, please!" That was the most important question she asked, the answer she had to have. She couldn't stand it if their return to Brooklyn was tainted in such a way but she had to know. "Tell me!"

"It's not like that... I mean, I won't deny that times have been hard and that Ed's offer of a new start was welcome news. We've always planned that you and Tommy..." His voice trailed off again, almost as if he didn't know how to say what he had to say. "Tommy asked me for your hand. There was a choice, and he made it first. He loves you and he wants to make you his wife. I always hoped it would be this way. Wouldn't it be nice to marry Tommy?"

And Charlotte was reminded of her discussion with Madge. About how Tommy was going to be a wealthy butcher, following his father in his trade. About how he was a kind young man. About how he was crazy about her—

She said nothing.

"You will marry him, won't you?"

Despite him telling her that their newfound fortune had nothing to do with this... planned engagement, Charlotte wasn't so sure that Mr. Sanders would be so generous if Charlotte refused to marry his boy. Madge's words echoed in her ear again: Your father would approve. You could do a lot worse than Tommy.

Madge was right. Her father was right in his way, too. Tommy would make a good husband and, if things were different, if she were older and more prepared, this new might even have been welcome. She was seventeen and had no intention of getting married any time soon—but just because she didn't, it didn't mean that it wasn't going to happen anyway.

One look at her father told her that it was going to happen no matter what.

Charlotte took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She felt like she was teetering on the edge, as fragile as her father thought she was, and she was determined to prove him wrong. Kneading her fingers against the lacy edge of the pillow, twisting the fabric, pulling at the holes, she found a small release and, after a few tense moments of silence, she softly breathed out one word, "When?"

"Charlotte?"

"When, Papa? When is he going to ask me? When will we be married?"

Mr. Woods looked over his daughter carefully, trying to understand where this change of heart was coming from. Was she coming around so soon? He knew she had no reason to say no to Tommy Sanders—he even thought she shared his affection... until that newsboy of hers was brought up. He should've known better; he blamed himself that he didn't.

"Soon," he said at last. "I thought it best if you had a couple of days to prepare for his proposal. We can start setting the details for the actual wedding after that."

Charlotte nodded, absorbing the information without really understanding what it meant. Spot was still very much on her mind, and she said stubbornly, "I want to tell him."

"Who? Tommy? What did you want to tell him?"

She shook her head. "No, Papa. Spot. He's my friend. I won't let this stop me from having a friend."

"You have Madge," argued her father, but even he knew it was futile.

"Spot's different from Madge. I love them both, and if that makes me a romantic, then that's what I am. But no more of this keeping me inside." Charlotte's jaw was set, a habit she picked up from watching Spot. She only hoped she came across half as defiant as he did. "I... I'll marry Tommy, and I'll say yes when he asks me. But I want to keep my friends, Papa. Will you begrudge me that?"

Charlotte knew she was like a tightrope walker in a circus, walking a dangerously thin line where one wrong step meant she was through. Her father could very easily keep her inside if he chose to and, now that he knew of her afternoon escapes, she had no doubt that he would be watching her closely.

But Mr. Woods allowed his daughter this one victory. "I won't, my girl, but I can't speak for your husband. If Tommy tells you not to see that boy ever again, you'll have to mind his wishes. You do know that, Charlotte, don't you?"

And Charlotte lowered her eyes, staring at the print on her comforter. She bit down gently on her bottom lip.

"I do."

The victory wasn't enough but, for now, she would take it.


"Hey, you... you're awful quiet over there. Whatcha thinkin' 'bout?"

Secrets. That was what Red was thinking about. Secrets.

The air smelled like salt and fish and heat when she was able to get past the steamy Brooklyn stink. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes and tried to enjoy the time she had left to spend with Spot but she couldn't and the secrets were the reason why.

They were far from alone on the docks. She enjoyed the noise; it was so different from the silence of her apartment, of her old cage, and she embraced it. It was another hot day in early August and she was willing to wager there were more boys splashing around the river, diving off the wooden planks than those who actually tried to sell their papers that afternoon; then again, she decided, with headlines like those, they could've all finished by now. Shielding her eyes against the sun, she lost track as she tried to count them, anything to keep the secrets from gnawing at her.

She was sitting on the docks, her skirt folded beneath her. Spot had pulled a piece of cloth from one of the crates that littered the docks—the tailor's daughter recognized it as canvasand he laid it out to keep Red's skirt from getting too dirty. He didn't sit with her, though, choosing as always to stand, watching over his city. Watching over her.

Watching over his boys.

Something changed after Mr. Woods told her about her arrangement with Tommy Sanders. Red avoided Madge in the days that followed because she couldn't bear to hear Madge's "I-told-you-so"'s and she refused to see Tommy until she could figure out just what she felt about him and the fact that he wanted to marry her. Mr. Woods kept his promise and allowed her out as long as she promised not to stray too far. He tried to get her word that she would likewise avoid Spot but that was one promise Red wasn't willing to make.

Maybe it was how suddenly free she seemed, coming and going when she pleased, arriving at the docks shortly after Spot did and waiting patiently for him to sell his morning papers, but Spot easily welcomed her. Having her near made him sell through his papers even quicker so that they could spend the rest of the afternoon together before he went off to sell the evening edition next. Even then, Red didn't press the need to return home and Spot didn't ask.

Still thinking of Cinder and how she always seemed to be wherever they were the nights after her shift at the textile mill had ended, Spot kept Red close. And it was as if their friendship, secret as it had been for so many weeks, became something stated. It was there for all of Brooklyn to see. Eventually, with Red waiting for him as he worked in the morning, Spot stopped keeping her away from his newsboy life. He stopped keeping her away from his role as leader of the Brooklyn newsies—and he stopped keeping her away from his newsies.

Of course, he had his reasons. Just like Red had her reasons for not wanting to leave Spot alone for long: mainly because she didn't know have any idea how much longer she'd be able to see him at all.

Red, in turn, watched the half-naked newsboys jumping and twisting and flailing as they flew freely and hit the water with a smack. She could feel Spot's heavy eyes resting on her and, where that used to make her feel secure, now she felt like a snake. Her insides squirmed and she didn't know who she blamed more: herself for keeping the secret to herself, her father for making this secret hers, or the Beast from preventing her from telling anyone.

It wasn't supposed to be a secret. No matter how much she wished she didn't have to, Red knew there was nothing for it: she would have to tell Spot about Tommy eventually. She planned on telling him that very day—in fact, some part of her was a little surprised he didn't know already. Spot always had his ear to the streets—he knew everything about everybody and Red had yet to figure out how. It would've been easier if he had known because then she wouldn't have had to tell him.

Now she couldn't find the words to say it.

It was the Beast's fault, Red decided. The Beast and his most recent attack on a twenty-five year old named Tessa from Far Rockaway, Queens. It had been weeks, nearly long enough that people were beginning to sleep soundly at night again, and then he struck viciously as if to remind the city he was still out there. Still hungry. Still hunting.

Spot hadn't said a word to Red about it but he hadn't needed to. She almost swallowed her heart when she saw him standing in front of the butcher shop that morning, throwing small pebbles up at her window. She managed to make it downstairs without Madge stopping her and inviting her in to lunch, and she was out of breath when she grabbed Spot's hand and pulled him away from the butcher's window before Mr. Sanders—or, worse, Tommy—could see them together.

She heard the newsies' cries about the Beast and knew at once that was why he came. In that way Spot was like her father: he wanted to make sure that the Beast stayed far, far away from Brooklyn and even Queens was too close for comfort. Spot rarely spoke of the Beast—he seemed to be the only person in all of New York who didn't—but she thought she knew him well enough by now that the killer was always on his mind. With the most recent death, Red couldn't bring herself to add anything to his worries.

Not especially now when his very concerns over the Beast led him to welcome her right into his fold. It hadn't escaped her notice that it was that day of all days, the first mention of an attack of the Beast in the papers in weeks, that Spot brought her to this dock and allowed his two worlds to collide.

Spot had some secrets of his own, it seemed.

Still, Red hadn't been able to tell Spot about Tommy just yet and she knew that, when she went back to the apartment, when she was simply Charlotte Woods again, she wouldn't tell her father about the Beast's most recent victim. She didn't think his promise to let her have free rein for the rest of the summer would hold if he discovered that the threat of that monster was alive again.

Secrets... She couldn't tell Tommy about Spot, either. She was actively avoiding him until she could work out exactly how she felt about him because, while she regretfully understood that the engagement was happening whether she wanted it to or not, he hadn't actually proposed marriage to her yet. As long as she refused to see him, they couldn't have that conversation, and Tommy was being respectful enough to give her her space while she worked through this. She had to assume that her promise to her father had been enough to satisfy him for the time being.

Red suspected that everything would really change if Tommy found out about Spot. And she couldn't tell Madge, either—Madge was the one who called the upcoming marriage in the beginning and, for that, Red hadn't even been able to tell Madge her father's news, let alone about her friendship with a newsboy. Madge would never understand about her relationship with Spot or why it was so different from what she had with Madge or what she had with Tommy... Red barely understood it herself, but she knew she didn't want to lose it when she married Tommy.

And that was her biggest secret: that if she had to, she wanted to have both of them. She didn't want to have to give either of them up.

"Hey, Red?"

The insistence in Spot's voice was probably the only thing in the world just then that could drag her out of her thoughts. She blinked away the sun in her eyes but didn't move other than that. "Yes?"

"I said, whatcha thinkin' about?"

"Secrets," she murmured, the word out before she knew it. Red tilted her head back, looking up at Spot. He was watching her with the ghost of a smirk on his lip, curious and concerned and, overall, amused at the same time. For some reason, that made her bold. She couldn't tell him any of those secrets, but she didn't have any that she couldn't share. "Can I tell you a secret?"

"You know you can tell me anything." His answering expression was cocky and sure and a nice change to the preoccupied frown he'd met her with that morning. "What is there about you that I don't already know?"

Red was torn between wondering if Spot could read her mind and wiping that smirk off his face with one of her confessions she wouldn't make. But she didn't. All she said was, "I kept it."

"Kept what?"

"Your marble," Red admitted. "I still have it."

For a moment, she was afraid he wouldn't remember. Spot's face was emotionless, his thin lips drawn into a line as he thought about what she had said. And then the hard look in his eyes softened, his lips twitched just a little and she exhaled softly. He knew exactly what she was talking about.

It was Red's last afternoon in Brooklyn. She appeared in Buckbees that morning, tears in her eyes but a childishly stubborn will not to shed them. Her father was moving them away, to a small city in upstate New York where he was guaranteed more work. They would be leaving the next morning, early, and Red wanted to run away—but Spot wouldn't let her. Eight years in age but far older than that, he was wise enough to tell her she had to go, that she had to take care of her Papa. And, as much as she didn't want to admit, he was right.

They shared one last day together, two children running underneath the muggy Brooklyn sky, and when Red left to return to her father, they both knew they were saying goodbye for the last time; their summer of friendship and freedom had come to an end. Red tried to give her cherished ribbon to Spot to remember her by but he refused to take it. The suspenders were enough of a gift, he argued, and he was too proud to take anything else.

But he did have a gift for her. A perfect, round marble, a black shooter that was the best one he'd ever found... he made her take it. Because he was her guard dog, her protector, and he wanted Red to remember that.

Spot kept his voice even. "And you kept it all these years?"

"It's in my hope chest. No matter where I've gone, all the places I've moved with Papa, it's come with me."

"Why?"

That was another secret. How was she supposed to tell Spot the reason she kept his shooter all these years was so that she would never forget her first real friend? That she brought a little piece of him wherever she's been in life? She couldn't. So she told him a different truth: "I guess I always... I've always wanted to learn how to shoot a marble out of a slingshot."

Red didn't have to tell him. Spot understood what she was saying underneath it all. But he kept it cool; there was no way he was going to let her see how her confession, her secret made him feel, not with his boys around. It wasn't like Scotch was there and nobody else would even try taking a shot at their leader, but still. He had a reputation to protect. And, besides, it wasn't like he couldn't be accused of the same damn thing. He was still wearing her suspenders, wasn't he?

"I can teach ya," Spot said with a casual shrug of his shoulders.

"You will? When?"

"Right now."

As Red watched, Spot moved around the stacks of crates on this end of the dock, slipping beneath the wooden rungs, searching for she didn't know what. Thick coils of rope went flying and more canvas before Spot chuckled under his breath and came out with two bottles in each hand. They were brown bottles, made of glass and filled with some unknown—or, at least, unknown to Red—liquid. Climbing back, he set all four of them on the wooden rail and nodded at them. "Targets," he explained. "I don't need you aimin' at me and shootin' out my eye."

"How could I," Red asked sweetly, "with you as my teacher?"

"Let's see how much teachin' I'm gonna have to be doin' first." Pulling his slingshot out of his back pocket, he held it out to her. "Try and hit one of those bottles," he instructed, pressing a marble against the palm of her free hand after she'd taken the slingshot.

She got as far as trying to fit the marble against the sling and watching with a forlorn expression as it fell out, slipped through the planks of the dock and landed in the East River below with a sad, little splash before Spot clucked his tongue. Red felt her embarrassment like flames licking at her cheeks and she only just managed a little bit of dignity as she said, "It's harder than it looks."

"That's 'cause you're doin' it wrong." He held out his hand for the slingshot. "C'mon, give it here."

Red gave it back with a small huff. "Okay. Show me."

It was amazing the way that Spot handled the weapon. Because that's what it was once it was back in his hand: it wasn't just a piece of wood anymore, it was a deadly weapon. It was like an extension of his hand, two extra fingers that managed to fling the shooter with precision. The glass bottle seemed to explode in a shatter of brown rain.

"And that's how you do it." Spot tossed the slingshot up in the air once, caught it, then handed it back to Red. "Now you try."

The slingshot weighed more in her hand than it had before. It was a foreign object and her fingers, already so clumsy when it came to a needle, didn't know what to make of it. But she would be damned if she didn't try. She brushed a loose strand of dark blonde hair out of her eyes, staring intently at the brown bottle mockingly waiting for her.

It seemed a lot further than when Spot took his shot.

Red set her shoulders and lifted the slingshot up. She was just starting to pull the sling back, the marble nestled neatly inside, when—

"No, no, Red. You're still not lookin' down the sight far enough. You gotta line up the shooter at the bottom of your eye, then make it match with the target you got. And your arm... it's too loose." He gripped the underside of her arm lightly and a chill shot up Red's spine. Spot didn't seem to notice as he stepped behind her and, her back pressed against his chest, he used her elbows to guide her into the proper position. His breath was hot on her neck as he muttered, "That's about right... now you just bring this hand back while gripping the sling and—"

He manipulated her hands like she was the puppet and he the master. Red delighted at the feel of his hand on her skin, but she was even more excited when the slingshot let fly the little black marble and it smacked right into the next bottle Spot had set up. It wasn't as clean of a break as Spot's—she hit the neck and it broke off, leaving the rest of the bottle whole—but that didn't matter. With his help, she'd done it.

She laughed giddily. "I want to try again!"

Spot let go of her arms but he didn't step away from her; the heat from his body warmed her back and Red, enjoying the sensation, refused to move, either. She did take the next shooter when he handed it to her but she leaned back into him, trying to mimic the pose she'd only just been in. It wasn't the same without his callused hands guiding her, but she thought she might be close.

"How's this?" she asked. When Spot didn't say anything, she turned to look over her shoulder, checking with him that her form was right. "Spot?"

When she turned, the red ribbon in her hair just missing slapping him in the face, she turned to meet his stare head-on.

Spot was right there, no more than a breath away. She could see his long, fair eyelashes and the way they made his piercing eyes seem even more powerful. She could see that his skin was still smooth despite the long years he'd spent living on the streets; despite all he'd seen, he still maintained an innocence to him, a little boy edge that was just as dangerous because she knew he was a fighter underneath it all.

Her gaze flitted downward, drawn to his lips next. They were right there and so were hers. And Spot was already leaning in.

It was only natural what happened next.


End Note: I told you I'd be able to get this out a little sooner than the last chapter ;) I think this might be my favorite part so far (though, I have to say, that's gonna change pretty quickly, heh) and I hope you guys liked it. Drama, drama, right? Just wait until you guys see what happens next!

Oh, and by the way? Secret so totally doesn't look like a word to me anymore. Just sayin'.

- stress, 05.06.11