(Author's Note – Hello again! Here's the long-overdue next chapter! Thank you to Styx67, Talia, Pegasus and Cap for feedback! Featured in this chapter are Firecracker/Dutchy, Mush, Gunner, Big Shot, Spot, Relic/Ryker, Rachel and Skittery. Guest appearances by Avalanche, Jack, Erin and Bristol. Leave some feedback, let us know you're still reading this thing!)

Chapter 6: Only Time Will Tell

by Relic

"And – wait for it, wait for it – the woman says to me, she says, which jackass are you talking about, my donkey or my husband?" Dutchy slapped the table at the closing of his story as he and everyone nearby burst into gales of laughter. Soon pleas came for him to tell more stories, and after taking a quick drink, he opted to oblige. "Okay, alright, I got another one. Guy wants to buy a pape, but he needs me to make change…"

Oh no, not the 'change' story again. Firecracker managed to contain her impending eye-roll, but just barely. It wasn't that Dutchy didn't tell good story; his handsome face lit up, pushing back his spectacles after he got overly-animated retelling a sequence (which was the only time he ever got overly-animated), he was a born storyteller. And decently hygienic. And perfectly attentive. And wonderfully nice. And always respectful. And a perfect boyfriend.

And she just wanted to scream.

At first, she'd thought the nagging little voice in her head was just her having a bad day. Then, when those moments began popping up that she felt a bit of resentment towards her perfect boyfriend being – once again – perfect, she'd wondered if it was maybe something more. And at last, when other boys began to look so appealing and spending time with Dutchy was more agonizing than selling papers all day in the scorching heat, she knew something had definitely changed. She had outgrown him.

The love that they had was just so much… puppy-love, as far as she could tell. The cute kisses they'd sneak when they got a moment alone, the holding hands while walking through the park, the silly little smiles they'd exchange when one caught the other looking at them.

But here now, a year later, he still asked permission to kiss her! Still insisted on being a perfect gentleman! All the initiation to move forward had been from her; he'd obliged, of course, and it was all generally enjoyable, but why did she always have to get things going? Wasn't he a man, weren't all men supposed to have feelings like that? Was it too much to ask that he be the tiniest bit aggressive?

It seemed a bit shallow at first glance, so she kept it tightly to herself, though accepted the reasoning as fact. The truth, though, as much as she'd never admit it to herself or anyone else, was that if he wasn't interested in her like that, was he just not interested in her at all? A year was a long time, and people lost interest. What if he wasn't initiating anything because he simply wasn't interested in that kind of thing with her? He was far too nice a guy to ever break up with her. And deep down, as much as his perfection and her associated feelings of insecurity bothered her, he was her best friend and she didn't want to lose him.

"Change story again, huh?" She nearly jumped out of her seat at the whisper that came from directly next to her ear, breaking her train of thought. Stunned, she turned to face the intruder, and heaved a sigh of relief when she saw that it was only Mush, smiling his wide Mush-smile. "Sorry, did I scare ya?"

"Only your face," she told him, laughing and pushing his cap over his eyes.

"You're killing me. I thought you liked my mug? What about from this angle, huh?" He proceeded to turn his head to various awkward angles, making ridiculous faces until she was giggling breathlessly despite herself. "Come on, you look bored. You know he'll start on the buttons story next and that one's a good thirty minute-er, so let's go get a drink. He won't even miss you."

True enough. Dutchy had missed the whole exchange, he was so deep into his story. She used to find it pretty endearing, but now it was just pretty annoying. "Alright, but you're paying."

"For the woman who sets my heart on fire? Of course," Mush replied with a cheesy look that only he could pull off without looking like a total idiot. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her over to the bar, ordering two of whatever horrible, cheap drink they were all slinging back. "So, how's the night treating you? I saw you over there, you looked kinda down. Something wrong?"

"Oh, you know. Just tired, I guess," she offered, and the two shared a look that made it very obvious that neither of them believed that. "So, you were looking at me, hm?"

"It's pretty hard not to," he said simply, but held up a hand before she could reply and attempted to cover his very telling statement with a bit of humor. "I guess it's pretty lucky you're with Dutchy, huh? Don't know what I'd do with myself if you were single."

Fire bit her lip to think over Mush's thinly veiled 'joke', but that didn't quit do enough to stop her from blurting out, "I'm not with Dutchy right now."

Mush did a double-take, and indeed appeared to not quite know what to do with himself, as he looked between her and the drink trying to figure out if he was hallucinating or if she was serious. "You really shouldn't kid around like that, get a guy's hopes up," he offered, a bit lamely.

She looked intense, now. "I'm not kidding."

And so, he was stuck. On the one hand, Dutchy was his buddy, and this was his girl. And that would still be true in the morning, when the lights weren't so dim and there wasn't so much alcohol in his veins and she wasn't looking so pretty… And then he realized that during this thought process, his body had apparently opted to already lean forward and kiss the waiting girl. Well, so much for the rational road!

Fire finally pulled away, eyes wide. "We shouldn't be doing this."

"You're right," Mush agreed, adjusting his cap and thinking it over before grabbing her hand and pulling her out towards the back of the hall. "There's got to be a room or something. Too many people out here."

Fire allowed herself to be tugged along, finding it increasingly easier as the moments passed to justify this. Dutchy would never know, right? Of course. Who would it hurt? No one, certainly, if kept properly quiet. It was, she decided, a very harmless thing. Just a little fun, something exciting and out of the ordinary… finally.

No, she didn't want to lose Dutchy. But maybe just a few moments away from him wouldn't hurt.


Gunner looked at his companions once more, clearing his throat as he stopped outside the door behind which loud music and laughter could be heard. "Just remember, if we're gonna do this, no going off on your own and we all leave together, alright?"

Gunner waited for the nods from his companions, which they eventually gave. When Big Shot and Avalanche, along with a dozen or so of his other guys, had expressed interest in going to this party, Gunner had gotten that bad feeling in his gut that he always got before a particularly bad incident. Jet had agreed with Gunner and said the party was a no-go, what with 'Manhattan' (Duane Street) boys being invited.

However, at their constant nagging, he finally relented and allowed them to go, sending Gunner in his place as leader; Jet was certainly smart enough to know that he himself was currently a major target for being jumped. And it was true that some of the other boys' reasoning was dead-on; they had been invited, and the leader of Midtown turning down the leader of Brooklyn would not have been wise, especially when the leader of Brooklyn was Spot Conlon. And truthfully, right now, they needed all the allies they could get amidst all the tension and rumors surrounding this feud with Manhattan.

So, here he was. Parties weren't really his thing, but that apparently wasn't going to be a problem as the party seemed to come to a dead stop when he opened the door and stepped in. Conversation halted and all eyes were on them for what seemed, at least to Gunner, to be possibly the longest few seconds in the history of time.

"What do you think you're doing here?" Gunner knew that voice. He hadn't heard it since the strike, which was what he considered to be a distant memory now, but the voice of Jack Kelly stuck with a person. Especially when it was angry.

"We were invited," Gunner said calmly, sensing the tension both in the room and in his own boys, who were finding it rather uncomfortable to be so suddenly on the defensive. "If that changed, we didn't get the letter."

"Yeah, it changed. Now turn around and get out while this is still civil," Jack replied, now standing and looking rather fierce, despite his girlfriend Erin desperately tugging on him and trying to calm him down.

"This ain't your party, Kelly. Why don't you just sit back down," came Big Shot, clapping a hand on Gunner's shoulder in support. Besides, Big Shot thought a bit indignantly, where did they all get off being so angry? They started all this! Everyone in Midtown was just minding their own business; yeah, selling spots were tight, but they had enough to worry about without a feud in the picture. If anyone had a right to be angry, it was Midtown, in Big Shot's estimation.

"Why don't you come over here and make me, tough guy. I'm not a little kid on my own, so let's see how you do," Jack challenged.

Big Shot exchanged a confused look with Gunner, but any more talk was cut off by Spot Conlon's very formidable shouting. "What the hell is going on here?"

"You tell me, Conlon," Gunner said, earning himself a very cold look from Spot, but finding it worth it. A little disrespectful maybe, but so was being invited to a party that was apparently filled with people who wanted to beat him and his friends to a pulp. "You forget to send a message telling us our invitation had been revoked?"

"No. Midtown, Manhattan and Brooklyn were all invited, and they're all welcome. Any problems from over the bridge better stay over there." Avalanche moved to point out that they did not appear very welcome at all, evidently, but Gunner jabbed him in the side with his elbow. It was becoming fairly apparent by the fiercely annoyed look Spot shot Jack until the other man finally looked away that this was Spot's way of stopping the conflict, not ignoring it.

Slowly, very slowly, the people in the room went back to what they had been doing before the interruption. Jack sat back down after a particularly aggressive final yank from Erin, though his eyes never left the Midtown group, and Spot headed over, extending his hand to Gunner. "Was in the back getting some stuff, guess I missed the grand entrance. Where's Jet?"

Gunner shook Spot's hand firmly, shrugging slightly. "Didn't want to come, thought it might make things uncomfortable. Guess he was right."

"No kidding. Look, you were all invited and you can stay if you want; nobody in Brooklyn's got a problem with you. But a lot of people from Manhattan are around…" In other words, he could only protect them as far as the bridge, and after a party with so much drinking, with such high levels of tension…

Gunner got the gist, as did the rest of his friends. "Don't worry about it. Guess we didn't realize how bad this thing had gotten. We'll come around next time, after things have cooled off a little."

"Smart," Spot agreed, and Gunner managed not to smirk proudly at being on the receiving end of one of the man's rare compliments. "Tell Jet hello."

"Course," Gunner agreed. "I'm sure he'll stop by, let you know the next time we've got something going on in our area."

However, once the group was back outside with the door to the hall firmly closed, all pretenses dropped. Big Shot looked the most angry, but they all – save for Gunner, who was rather stoic – looked rather unhappy. "Hey great, that whole walk for nothing. We oughta do this more often."

"It's Conlon's party, why'd he invite us all if he knew there'd be trouble?" Avalanche demanded, earning several nods in agreement.

"He didn't know," Gunner offered neutrally, shrugging. "Besides, you really want to get going on him, have somebody hear and piss him off? Seems like we've got enough people ticked off at us."

"So, who's fault is that? We didn't do nothin'! Manhattan keeps pushing us around – now they even got us kicked outta parties – parties that we were invited to!" As opposed to the many they just crashed. Big Shot's last words would have been enough to break some smiles from his companions any other time, but not tonight.

Gunner frowned, but nodded after awhile. "You're right. We gotta do something, show them that this has gotta stop. They can't just walk all over us, turn our friends against us."

Avalanche cracked his knuckles for a moment, before leaning in as the group started to head back towards Manhattan. "Well, there's one thing that'll get their attention…"


Another smashing success. Spot smiled proudly – with only a little arrogance – at the party in front of him. He'd made his rounds, said his hellos, and now he could just kick back, and join in. With all the drinking and laughter and cheering, though, he figured he could use a cigarette break before joining back in again. After the moment earlier, and with all the stress built up surrounding the Midtown/Manhattan feud, he supposed, people needed to let loose, and were definitely doing so tonight.

Besides, he'd seen both Sig, undoubtedly off to find Prince and get into whatever trouble the two seemed so apt to find together, and Relic, with that bum she was dating whose name Spot refused to acknowledge knowing, head off in this direction. Since they were the only two people he liked to speak to that likely weren't fall-over drunk by this point, it couldn't hurt to see if they were out in the much quieter hallway.

No sign of Sig as he rounded the corner into the empty hallway, but he did hear Relic's voice – coming from the closet at the end of the hall. Oh great, a make-out session with the Loser Boyfriend. Rolling his eyes and feeling particularly scornful towards the girl for some reason, he turned to head back inside when he heard more words come from the closet – and noticed that they were very, very tense.

"I'm not kidding, I want to go back to the party. I didn't come all the way here for this, I want to see our friends, now come on." There was the strong girl he knew. Spot paused and decided that maybe he would light up a cigarette here. From the sounds of it, he might have someone to converse with soon.

He heard more angry words but couldn't make out what they were saying. Not that he was trying; Spot Conlon did not eavesdrop. …And if they'd just talk a little louder, dangit, he wouldn't have to! He was about to give up, when…

"Ryker, stop it. Come on, knock it off – stop it!"

Spot had had enough. Yanking open the closet door and finding, to no real surprise of his, a very surprised – and rather upset, for different reasons – couple, he used their moment of shock to his advantage and grabbed hold of Ryker. "Go cool off," he said simply as he dragged the other man out of the closet and away from the girl.

Ryker looked, for a moment, like he might just knock Spot out and go back to his previous activities, but then seemed to shrug it off all at once. For all of his bad qualities, no one could say Ryker wasn't smart; besides, as far as he was concerned, it wasn't worth it. "I'm cool as winter," he said finally, holding up his hands and offering a cocky smirk, though did walk away when he saw that Spot had no intention of leaving.

Relic stepped out of the closet and looked absolutely miserable, refusing to meet Spot's gaze. She was silent for awhile, until she noticed that he didn't seem to be moving on, and finally held out her hand. "Do you have an extra?"

"Yeah, sure." Grabbing another cigarette out of his pocket, he handed it over, moving to strike a match and light it for her. Thinking it best to ask, despite the rather obvious answer, he offered, "You okay?"

She gave him a shaky smile. "Yeah, no problem. You know how it goes; don't drink and kiss."

Yeah, he knew how it went. He ran Brooklyn, after all; he'd seen everything. "You oughta make these things a habit. Calms the nerves."

"Are you saying I'm jumpy?" she questioned, with another hint of a smile that dropped off her face instantly at his next words.

"No. But you're stupid." Watching as the girl's face fell, he silently groaned. This was why he couldn't handle too many girls; couldn't just tell them the truth, straight-like. Oh no, girls, they got all fragile, started to cry. Pain in the ass, trying to communicate with them, as far as he was concerned. Clearing his throat, he tried again. "He's going to do that again."

"I know," she replied dully.

This only served to further confuse and infuriate the poor man. She knew?! And she stuck around the guy anyway? Still, as much as he'd have liked to just call her an idiot and move on, he really seemed to have a soft-spot for her. So, he tried once more to explain the very obvious to him. "You're a good-lookin' girl. You could find somebody better, even in this crowd. Not like he does a thing for you."

"I know."

"He's not gonna change. Some guys are just like that. Whatever you're givin', won't be enough for him."

"I know."

Soft-spot or not, Spot Conlon was not a limitless fount of patience. "So what's the matter with you, huh? You don't get treated like dirt enough during the day by strangers in this city, want to go home to it, too? I really thought you were different. Smart, for one thing. I've been offering you a spot in Brooklyn for a month now, told you to come down, selling's better here, less girls, less competition. Get you away from the bum, at least enough he can't try somethin' like that without anyone seeing. But do you listen? You got the thickest skull I've ever seen! If you think I'm gonna have people runnin' around, saying what an idiot that friend of Spot Conlon's is for dating the biggest bast-"

"Really?" Her simple question paused his tirade instantly.

"Really, what?" he asked cautiously. Was this the part where the girl flipped him the bird and stormed off? That seemed to happen to him a lot with girls, at least from outside Brooklyn.

"You're really worried about what people are going to say?" Realizing by the look on his face that that was not anywhere near the response he'd been expecting, she shrugged. "I can't come to Brooklyn right now, not with everybody so tense with all this war talk going on. They'd think I was running off and hiding, or something. But I'll start coming by more often. Maybe the time apart would help me and Ryker, you know, get things working better."

What was wrong with this girl? Whatever it was, Spot wasn't going to push her. "Alright." They stood silent for a few minutes, smoking and collecting their thoughts. Finally, Spot couldn't take it anymore. "So, yelling at you, that's your motivator, huh?"

"Nope," she said, before shooting him a smile and dropping her cigarette, grinding it under her heel. "You've never said I was your friend, before. Now come on, you promised me a game of poker."

"That's what did it?" The statement caught him a bit off guard, and he gave the girl a quizzical look despite tossing his cigarette and moving to head back into the party. Still, it bothered him a bit for a reason he couldn't quite put his finger on, so though the girl was too far ahead and out of earshot now, he said simply,

"I didn't know I needed to."


The party had lasted deep into the night, and though there was still drinking and debauchery going on, Rachel decided she was ready to head home. More than ready, in fact; if it hadn't been for Skittery looking so happy that she hated to pull him away from it to walk her home, she would have been gone some time ago. But, now that Skittery had gambled away all his money, she seized her opportunity and dragged him to the door.

"Did you have fun?" she asked idly, as she stuck her hands into her pockets and smiled at him as he opened the door for her, stepping out.

"Sure did. Hope I have better luck next time, though. What about you, was the noise too much?" he questioned, following her out.

"No, and it was nice to see everyone. Thank heavens tomorrow is my morning off from the shop; I don't know how you all are going to manage to wake up and sell newspapers. Half of them are going to still be half-drunk in the morning, anyway," she said, laughing lightly as a very obviously drunk fellow newsboy stumbled past them, waving as he sang some terribly distorted sailor's tune. "Like him, for instance."

"Most of 'em won't, probably. The ones that do will manage because they'll wake up and realize they're broke after gamblin' away all their money tonight," Skittery laughed.

The two fell into a comfortable silence as they walked on. They were always comfortable together; it was what Rachel loved about her friend. They'd been best friends for some time now; in fact, next month would be the two-year mark. When they'd met, it was an instant connection, like something she'd read about in books. And since then, it had proved itself to not be a fluke; they'd been, for the most part, figuratively connected at the hip.

"You cold? I brought my coat," Skittery offered.

Rachel smiled. Skittery was forever concerned with her wellbeing, though he never showed it around anyone but her. He had an image to protect, after all; she wasn't exactly sure what that image was, but she just went with it. Anyway, she found it sweet. He'd make some girl a great boyfriend some day. Not that it would particularly bother her to be that girl…

Truthfully, she supposed, it wouldn't be a far stretch to move to a 'couple' status, though the two had privately never broached the topic. It just seemed to never come up, and even when friends brought it up, it was so awkward that they'd deny it vehemently. Maybe this walk would be a good time to finally bring up the topic, so that they could –

"Rachel."

Skittery had stopped short so quickly that she bumped right into him, and the low tone in his voice when he spoke her name cut into her thoughts completely. Something was wrong. "What is it?"

"Look at that guy over there," Skittery said quietly as he pointed to a lump on the sidewalk across the street from them.

On first glance, he simply looked like a drunk passed out on the sidewalk to her; however, after looking more closely, she saw that his body seemed to shudder when he took in a breath. Even if he was a drunk, he didn't look good. "Should we go over there?" she asked, now feeling a slight sense of panic at all the things that could potentially be wrong with the stranger.

"Hey! Hey you, you okay?" When Skittery's shouting got no response, he frowned, and glanced at Rachel. "Stay over here under the light, okay? If it turns out to be a trick, just run."

If she hadn't be so very suddenly frightened, she would have been faster at telling him that that plan was unacceptable. As it was, though, by the time she formed the words, he was already halfway across the street.

She watched as he flipped over the man, and immediately dropped down and let off some curse words she wasn't quite sure she had been aware that he even knew. "Skittery? What's wrong? Is he okay?"

At the lack of response, she came over, and immediately wished she hadn't. The handsome face of Bristol, one of the few Brooklyn newsies she knew (due mostly to his heavy British accent and his friendly demeanor), was almost unrecognizable from all the bruises that were now upon it. The rest of what she could see of him, she noted, didn't look much better. "Oh my – what happened?"

Skittery moved to help the boy up with Rachel's help, and after a moment gave her a tight, humorless smile. "Midtown just gave Brooklyn a reason to get involved."