Chapter Ten

We're a Union Just By Sayin' So

Disclaimer: Ní féidir liom Newsies féin. 'S liom ach mo OCS.

A/N: Thanks again arosequartz for the thoughtful review :) Hope you all enjoy!

The following evening, a Friday, Blink walked alone through the streets of Manhattan until he found the Riverside docks, relying solely on Mush's somewhat confusing directions.

A light fog had settled on the waterfront, cooling the air and blending into the sky like watercolors. He put his hands in his pockets to warm them.

If Rich hadn't been outside the shack, Blink might well have bypassed it altogether - he watched, intrigued, as she did a sequence of push-ups on the dock. A modified pair of fingerless gloves protected her skin from splinters.

'Evenin'.'

Rich paused mid-elbow bend to look up.

'Well, hi,' she said. 'What brings ya out here? Message from Kelly?'

'No,' replied Blink. 'Just me on my own business.'

She continued her press-ups.

'Entailin' what, exactly?'

'Darlin'.'

Rich stood up and looked him squarely in the eye. He couldn't read her expression.

'Want me ta' get her for ya?' she said at last. Phew.

'If it ain't too much trouble.'

'Wait here,' she said, before disappearing through the doorway of the shack. Blink removed his cap and kept a metaphorical lid on his nerves.

A murmur of voices echoed inside the shack. Then out she stepped.

'Hi,' she said, surprised, but far from displeased. 'Whatcha doin' here?'

'I was, uh, just wonderin' if you'd like ta' take a walk,' Blink said, having practiced that answer several times to himself. Darlin' looked behind her shoulder.

'Well, I should check with -'

'It's fine,' said Madison, whose head appeared behind the door. Her eyes were even wider than usual.

'Sure?'

'Yeah, yeah,' her friend replied hastily. 'Go. Have fun.'

'…Okay then,' said Darlin', satisfied and suspicious at the same time. Madison gave an innocent grin before slipping back into the shack.

As she approached him, Blink was gripped by an unforeseen crisis of etiquette: should he offer up his arm? Would that be inappropriate, especially since she was dressed as a newsboy? Unless her dressing as a newsboy made it more appropriate, in which case…

'Where'd ya have in mind?' asked Darlin', offering her arm.

'…Just up the river,' said Blink. He slotted his arm into hers and felt instantly better about life, the world and the universe.

A flock of seagulls soared high above the rift between New York and New Jersey, with no particular destination in mind. The odd sailor or shoe shiner passed the two newsies, but otherwise they had the walkway all to themselves. Dying trees whispered to each other in a long row.

'How was selling today?' she asked.

'Pretty good, pretty good,' he said. 'Although I was sorry to have missed ya - I'm curious to see what yer sellin' style's like.'

'I know, I was thinkin' the same,' said Darlin'. 'But I was so exhausted after yesterday's, uh, adventure, that the goils couldn't bear ta' wake me up so early. I woke up so confused this mornin', like, 'where is everyone?''

Blink laughed.

'So Skates spotted me some papes and held out until I got to The World.'

'Ah, well that's real nice a' your pals,' said Blink. 'Kloppman wouldn't dream of lettin' us sleep one minute past six a.m.'

Darlin' giggled. It could have been Blink's skewed perspective, but to him the sound chimed in his ears like a polished church bell.

'I hope you'll be there tomorrow though,' said Blink, his pulse thumping a little harder. 'As my sellin' partner. If ya want to, of course.'

'Yeah,' she said, looking at him. 'I'd like that a lot. In fact I can't think of anythin' better.'

They both came to a natural halt between a streetlamp and a tree. Coffee-colored leaves waltzed around their shoes.

'Blink,' said Darlin' quietly. She loosened her arm from the crook of his elbow and let her hand rest on his back. She bit her lip.

'There's somethin' I wanna ask ya, but I don't want ya to be uncomfortable about it.'

'What is it?' he said, despite an underlying certainty of the answer.

'Well, it's sorta out of the blue an' all, but I'se been meanin' to ask ever since we first joined ya.'

'Yeah?' he prompted gently.

'What happened to your eye?'

Blink took a calm breath, wondering how to proceed.

'Well…'bout three years ago, there was this newsie leader called Bones. He was a menace, interested in takin' over as much territory as he could get his hands on. This was back just before Jack became our leader.

'After a while Bones' newsies decided to commit mutiny and take him out. They got half the boroughs in New York ta' help out and fight, all against this one guy. I was there in Brooklyn, when there was chaos everywhere, I mean nobody even knew who was on whose side anymore, an' I was only fourteen, caught up in the mess. The last clear thing I remember is Bones, the man himself, towerin' over me and lookin' ready to kill. His hand went for my eye…ain't gonna forget the pain any time soon.'

Darlin' stood with her hands to her mouth, horrified.

'Then I musta passed out, 'cause next thing I knew, I could only see outta one eye and had the mudda of all headaches.'

'My God,' breathed Darlin'. In the strangest way she wished at that moment to travel back through time to comfort the fourteen-year-old Blink. He nodded to himself and grimaced at the memory he normally kept in a box.

'There was this doc who gave free treatment to bums and street rats - people like us. He made sure things weren't gonna get worse, but he said I'd be blind in one eye fer the rest a' my life. By the time I got out, it was all over: the fightin' stopped when one Spot Conlon sent Bones flyin' into the East River and down to a watery grave.'

Darlin' stared.

'Wow…he killed a man? No wonder Ace was so noivous.'

'Yeah, no kiddin',' said Blink. He shook his head. 'The weirdest thing about that night was that afterwards, when I got myself an eye patch and started gettin' used ta' sellin' papes again, people gave me more attention. They turned it into a gimmick for me.'

Darlin' tilted her head and, driven purely by sympathy, reached out a hand. Blink flinched.

'Oh, sorry, sorry, I didn't mean ta'…' she mumbled.

'No, it's alright,' he said. 'I just ain't used ta' people touchin' that part a' my face. Most of the time they're too afraid a' what might be underneath.'

'I ain't afraid,' said Darlin' softly. More slowly, more delicately, she raised her hand to the left side of Blink's face. He kept his head still for her, despite wanting to shiver when her cool fingertips touched his cheekbone.

Bracing herself for the unknown, Darlin' gently lifted the eye patch. She couldn't stop her mouth from falling open, but she managed to contain the gasp that tried to escape from it.

His left eye was still there, whole, but ghostly white. Darlin' found it difficult to believe that it was once the twin of Blink's other, vibrant blue, eye.

'I know,' he said. 'I'm sorry.'

'No,' she said with an earnestness that startled him. They seamlessly held hands. 'It's a part of you, so it's beautiful.'

Darlin' paused to remove her newsie cap, without taking her gaze away from Blink. The icy blonde tresses of her hair fell lightly against her neck and glowed in the streetlamp. Words could not achieve what she wanted to express next.

Darlin' tucked her cap under her arm and leaned closer to Blink. She rested her hands on either side of his face and kissed the corner of his blind eye. Blink was too shocked to do anything but stand there with his jaw open.

Darlin' felt something electric run all the way to her fingers as she went on to kiss the corner of his good eye. Her heart was spinning like a globe.

She moved her hands from his face to his neck. As naturally as breathing, Blink pulled her closer, arms around her waist and back. Darlin' stared into his eyes, both of them, and then at his lips.

When they kissed, it was like the light of the streetlamp burned into their hearts. It was dizzying and stable; calm and tempestuous; stretched out over time and over much too quickly.

Blink and Darlin' stopped to look at each other, but they didn't dare let go of the other's body. She put her mouth next to his ear and whispered:

'Fay Bletchley.'

'What?' he said, just as quietly. The last thing he wanted to do was break the mood with his confusion.

'That's my name,' she said. 'You're the only newsboy in the city to know.'

Blink stared at her, chest rising and falling. It only felt right to say what he said next:

'Fay…would ya do Louis Ballatt the honor of bein' his goil?'

A/N: So…that's quite possibly the most romantic scene I've written for anything ever in my life. When you review (yes, not if, but when) go e-a-s-y on me there ;)