Disclaimer: The characters in this story are 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.

Fireflies in the Morning

CHAPTER NINE;

It was a tough first few days at the factory. Having a job and going to work was a lot harder than Emma thought it would be and she found herself so absorbed by it, it was as if that was all there was to living: getting up, spending mindless hours performing the same repetitive task, drudging back to the Girls' Home and blissfully falling back asleep... only to have to get up shortly and do it all over again.

She never thought she would miss the Hyde Park school but, well... she was even beginning to look forward to Sister Mary Agatha's lessons. At least the nun never hovered over her, waiting for her to make a single peep out of turn just so she could send the girl home without any pay for the work she'd done that day. No, with Sister Mary Agatha, the worst she could expect was a sharp rap against her knuckles courtesy of the Sister's ruler whenever Emma chatted with Mary O'Halloran during lessons. She would much rather a bruised knuckle than the worry Mr. Matthew's shadow inspired any time he came to check on the cutters, keeping them hard at work, no matter how long the hours were.

And for Emma, more spoiled by her aunt's station than would've ever admitted and unused to any labor at all, the hours seemed even longer.

In fact, she was so tired after those first two days, she barely remembered that she wasn't in New York to live as an orphaned street girl but, instead, to look for her brother. Her newly adopted shift at the Mitchell Shirtwaist Factory was supposed to be ten hours during the week, but if the orders were backed up, Stress confided, Mr. Mitchell wouldn't let any of the girls go a minute before twelve hours—Emma's first day there, she had to spend fourteen hours sitting on the rug on the floor, cutting, cutting, cutting.

It wasn't a difficult job. The repeated action was both tedious and monotonous but it wasn't hard for her to do and, for that, Emma was grateful. Though Aunt Moira always wore gloves on her hands, even in the heat of the summer, Emma had seen her aunt's injured hand on more than one occasion and believed Sally's hushed story that it was from a machine just like the one Stress operated. It was one thing for her to go back to Erie without her hair—she wasn't going to go back without a finger.

Still, fourteen hours left her sore from sitting still and the blisters that formed on the smooth underside of her fingers were even larger than the ones on her heels; only the thought of another poultice in her future kept her from crying out loud. The Mitchell Shirtwaist Factory broke for a small lunch but there was no supper and she found herself following Stress straight back to the Bottle Alley Home for Girls where Mrs. Cook, the matron, and Mrs. Addiman, the real cook, were serving a supper meal of a hearty stew and fresh bread.

Stress spotted Emma two nickels—one for lodging, one for her meal—and if it wasn't for Florence sitting at the end of the same table, sneaking dirty looks whenever Stress lowered her head to raise her wooden spoon to her mouth, Emma would've confessed that she had the money herself. Instead, she just kept track of what others gave her. Like that boy Les, she would make sure to reward those who helped her when she finally found her brother.

Her second day was no better but, now that she knew what to expect, it was no worse.

Mr. Matthews looked at her strangely her second day, almost as if he couldn't remember her ever having been at the factory before, but he said nothing. She took her spot on the rug, pulled out the scissors that Mr. Matthews gave her yesterday and, following the lead of the other young cutters, started cutting again.

The day was shorter, only twelve hours instead of fourteen, and Emma was relieved when the whistle blew and the girls were allowed to leave. Stress brought her to a bakery at the end of the street and treated Emma to a fresh sticky bun which ended up more on her face than in her mouth. Laughing, they joined the other girls, heading back to Bottle Alley for supper where Emma couldn't help but wonder if Florence was making some headway with the young man she was after because, for the first time since Emma arrived at the boardinghouse, Florence smiled at her. Then again, she later thought as she lay awake in the same bunk as last night, it might have been because of the sticky bun that had dirtied her face until she washed up.

The third day, though... that was rough.

Emma woke up later than she should've—in fact, most of the girls in room three were quite close to oversleeping and if it wasn't for Mrs. Cook checking on her lodgers like she did every morning, Mr. Mitchell's factory would've been short a good deal of his garment workers. The reason why was clear almost immediately.

Stress wasn't there.

Her bunk wasn't made, the mess of rumpled sheets and a squashed pillow a telling sign that the Irish girl had been lying there up until recently; in fact, the crumpled blanket strewn at the foot of her bunk suggested a quick retreat. There was no sign of Stress in room three other than that, no wild, tangled curls, no yellow scarf, nothing.

And, as Emma listened to Mrs. Cook's shouts and started to get ready as fast as she could, she quickly discovered that Stress wasn't the only thing that should've been in room three but wasn't—

Her white bow was missing.

After washing up the night before and combing her short hair with a brush that Florence had kindly allowed her to use, Emma put her day clothes and her bow in the top drawer of her night table. But when she jumped out of bed and went to pull on her clothes as quickly as she could, there was no doubt that her bow was missing. She checked the other drawers to make sure she hadn't misplaced it, then looked under her bunk and the next two bunks over, just in case. It wasn't there. It wasn't anywhere.

If it wasn't for the fact that Florence had seemingly decided that Emma was worth a little friendliness last night, she would've suspected that she had something to do with the theft of her bow. Then, because she couldn't count the amount of times Cordelia Miller up at Hyde Park School had pretended to be her chum to only go on and make life even more miserable for Emma and Mary O'Halloran, she decided that there was a good chance that Florence was still picking on her.

She would've confronted Florence except that, in the mad dash to get ready, Florence—who had stayed over in room three last night, bumping Pepper out to stay with her pal Lois in room two—got up and got out before Emma had even noticed that her bow was gone. Instead, she started checking around her pillow, under her bunk again, everywhere she could and couldn't find her bow anywhere. Then again, that could've also been because there wasn't much time for her to look.

Stress arrived in room three not too long after Mrs. Cook, wiping her mouth with her hand, her skin even paler than usual. There were dark circles under her eyes that spoke of a long, sleepless night and as she faced the nearly empty bunk room, she tried to regain some of her clout.

"Rise and shine, lassies," she called, sounding dead on her feet herself. "Up and at 'em, eh? Before Mr. Mitchell throws us all on our rumps. Let's go!"

Stress looked so bad that none of the girls had the heart to point out that if she'd woken them all up like she normally did, well, then they wouldn't have had to worry about being late.

Emma Sullivan was the newest employee at the Mitchell Shirtwaist Factory. As such, it wasn't so unusual that the foreman didn't remember her face or was a little wary of her production. During her first two shifts, she caught sight of him lurking in the cutter's corner more than his treks up and down the operators line. However, by her third day, she had hoped he would have enough confidence that she could manage cutting the tail-end of the loose threads without his supervision.

She was wrong.

No more than ten minutes into her shift, Mr. Matthews appeared at the edge of the rug. At first she wondered if he was there to scold her for coming late—even though she and the other stragglers from Bottle Alley had just made it before the opening bell rang—but he didn't say anything about that. Instead, he leaned over and tapped her on the shoulder. "Young man, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Despite it being much easier to manage and, in a way, it felt like the ultimate act of rebellion against her aunt and all her stuffy rules, Emma was really beginning to regret cutting all of her hair off. She turned and looked up at Mr. Matthews, showing him her face. "It's me, Mr. Matthews. Emma Sullivan. I'm a young lady."

Mr. Matthews pursed his lips and squinted. He nodded. "Very well then. Carry on."

Emma sighed in relief and simply reached for her next shirtwaist, praying that that was the last time she had to explain her short haircut away to the factory foreman.

After Mr. Matthews' visit, she followed the lead set by her fellow neighbors on the rug and, keeping her head down, kept a steady stream of cutting in an attempt not to catch the foreman's attention again. Which was easier than she expected, too, but for all the wrong reasons.

The coughs started softly, one every few minutes so that the sound of the sewing machines drowned them out at first. Stress even managed to swallow a couple, ducking her head whenever they came over her so that she could hide them from the floor foreman. However, after a few hours into the work day, such a terrible fit hit her that, no matter how hard she tried, the coughs exploded out of her, stealing her breath and stealing the attention of nearly everyone on the floor.

Including Mr. Matthews. He appeared at her side immediately, almost as if he had been hovering behind Stress the entire time.

"Miss Rhian," he said, and though he spoke in a flat, no-nonsense sort of voice, it seemed to carry over the factory din, "what have I told you about coming to the factory ill?"

"But I ain't ill, sir, 's just a simple cough," argued Stress. "'S nothin', really."

Mr. Matthews looked down on her with such authority and dislike that she knew it was hopeless. And she was right. A short man, Mr. Matthews pulled himself up to his full height, puffing out his chest as he pointed across the floor toward the exit. "As long as I'm in charge of this floor, I'll not have it. You can just leave, and this time, don't come back until you are cured."

"But, Mr. Matthews—"

"Go!"

Reluctantly, Stress got up from her seat and, in the middle of her sewing, reached over and turned her machine off. And still the foreman wasn't done.

"And that'll be the whole day's wages taken from your pay for wasting Mr. Mitchell's time with your folly."

Stress was horrified. She'd already been sitting at her machine for three hours, doing as much work as she could in that time. She needed that money. "But—"

"And you can count yourself fortunate if there is still a place for you when you return, Miss Rhian." He frowned. "If you return."

Defeated and alone, despite the weight of a hundred pairs of eyes on her, Stress just nodded. "Aye, Mr. Matthews. Thank you, sir." Then, keeping her head down as, for the second time that week, she was dismissed, she headed towards the exit, Mr. Matthews watching her progress stormily as she went.

Like the rest of the workers who slowed their pace in order to watch the scene—each and every one grateful that it was happening to Stress and not her—Emma was so preoccupied then by what was going on behind her with Mr. Matthews and Stress that she wasn't paying attention to what she was doing. Her fingers, so used to the motion after starting her third shift at the factory, kept on cutting while she snuck quick peeks over her shoulder.

And, because she wasn't watching where she was cutting, it was no surprise when part of the fabric slipped between the two flimsy blades and, while the blades were flimsy and dull when Emma found a particularly stubborn strand of thread that just wouldn't be cut, those same contrary blades slid right through the ruched fabric as easily as a hot knife through butter.

After so many hours with the same snick-ing noise coming from her scissors, the muffled sound they made when they cut right through the material, it brought Emma around. Glancing down at the shirtwaist in her hand, she stared in horror to realize the rather large cut she had made. A surge of anger at her own mistake went through her and, in what was probably one of the most foolish things she done since deciding to go to New York on her own was a good idea, Emma slammed her scissors down against the rug in frustration.

She heard the gasp coming from the cutter next to her, a young Jewish girl called Rachel with big, brown eyes and a slight lisp, and knew before she'd seen it that her scissors hadn't survived her temper tantrum. Slowly, lifting her hand, she looked at the thin metal scissors—or, really, what had been a pair of thin metal scissors. Now she had two halves, one of the blades bent and the flimsy handle broken on one side.

And Mr. Matthews' warning from her first afternoon came back to haunt her in that moment: We'll provide your first pair of scissors but if you break them, you'll be responsible for bringing in your own. If you cut more than just thread, the shirtwaist comes out of your pay. Do you understand?

Oh, boy, did she understand.

Darn it!

It was at some point while Emma was both mourning the shirt she would have to pay for out of her wages—just because she didn't exactly need her wages, she didn't want to be working for nothing—and cursing herself for throwing her scissors out of anger and breaking them that Mr. Matthews finished up his talk with Stress. The result being that her machine was turned off and her seat emptied before Emma had noticed—though, without Stress Rhian to occupy his attention, Mr. Matthews' keen sense zeroed right in on Emma.

Emma heard the way his footsteps seemed to edge ever closer, pretended she didn't notice the way Rachel stiffened at his approach, then slumped her shoulders in dismay when she saw the inevitable shadow falling over her.

"What do we have here, Miss Sullivan?" The way he said miss made Emma feel like he still wasn't convinced without her bow. "Hm?"

She didn't know how to explain. Then again, she didn't have to. All Emma had to do was pick up the two pieces of the broken scissors—that was all the explanation Mr. Matthews needed.

The foreman was in rare form after dismissing Stress from her station. He wasted no time in regaining his formidable temper. "Am I to understand that you brought your own pair of scissors to replace the one you've so callously destroyed?"

"Yes—I mean, no. No, Mr. Matthews."

"Yes or no, miss, which is it?"

Emma gulped. "No, sir."

Mr. Matthews tutted his disapproval. "Then what are you doing still sitting there? I don't suppose you expect Mr. Mitchell to pay you to gawp about rather than do your cutting?"

"No, sir," Emma repeated, feeling the heat rushing to her cheeks. She could feel the eyes of all the other workers on her and the floor foreman and without Stress still sitting at her machine, she knew there was no help for her. Leaving the broken blades where they lay, Emma got to her feet slowly, slyly toeing the ruined shirtwaist away from her in the hopes that Mr. Matthews might not notice.

No such luck. The foreman noticed everything.

"And Miss Sullivan?"

"Yes, Mr. Matthews?"

He sniffed. "I'll make sure Mr. Mitchell takes that shirtwaist out of your wages this week."

"Yes, sir," Emma mumbled. Then, before he—or any of the other factory workers—could notice just how flustered and red she'd gotten, not to mention just how entirely humiliated she'd been by the stolid foreman, she scurried past her fellow cutters on the rug and left the factory, keeping her head down as she went.

The only benefit to being let out so early was that she wasn't the only one. Maybe this was just the break she needed. Maybe, with Stress's help, she could finally start her search.

Emma hoped that Stress would be lingering outside since she was sent out not much earlier before Emma had been. But perhaps too used to being sent home midway through the day, Stress was already long gone by the time Emma stepped back onto the street. Thankfully, Emma had always had a head for directions and, after following Stress and the other girls back to Bottle Alley those last two nights, she was confident she would find her way without worrying.

No, she thought with a sinking feeling, that's not what I have to worry about... There was Francis most importantly, and how it seemed like everyone was conspiring to keep them apart. The shirtwaist she destroyed was quite important considering she would have to pay for it herself and that was after she gave Stress the nickels she owed her for the last two night's lodging. And then there was her scissors, and how she wasn't going to be able to go back to the factory... to make the money she owed Mrs. Cook and Stress... to have a place to stay... in order to find her brother.

Well, she hadn't really even gotten a start to finding Francis again just yet but, suddenly, Emma knew how she could at least get rid of one of her main concerns. And, since she knew where she could find Stress when she was done, she decided to embark on a little errand first.

Feeling rather proud of herself, Emma found her way back to the alley where she'd first changed out of her traveling dress and into the clothes she had borrowed from young James O'Halloran. It had been a smart move on her part to remember both the street and a couple of landmarks—the bookstore across the way, the striped fruit cart that stood on the corner, a rusted statue not too far away—so that she would be able to find the right alley. Even better, when she ducked into the side street, feeling a lot more conspicuous wearing a blouse and a skirt without her bow, the satchel was right where she left it.

After only three days in the city, she realized how lucky she had been to find her satchel again. If there was one thing she had learned, especially after that morning, was that nothing was safe. Not even little white bows, she thought with a returning huff.

Emma glanced inside the bag, pleased to see the lovely white fabric of the dress, then reached inside to pet the dress; it was softer and silkier than the material she worked with at the shirtwaist factory, and the sensation of the fabric against her tender palms felt nice. Pushing past the dress, she dug deeper, hoping that—

Yes, she thought with a sigh of relief as her fingers closed around the shears. They're here.

For as long as she would have to put up with this charade—and, considering she was no closer to finding her brother now than when she started, Emma feared it would be still quite some time—she would have a proper pair of scissors for when she returned to the factory. None of those flimsy blades for her. Not any longer.

Clutching her satchel close to her, unable to just take the shears and leave her beautiful traveling dress behind again, Emma worked to figure out how she was to find her way back to Bottle Alley from this starting point. Finding her way through different parts of New York was much easier than it had been, especially once she figured out which way the numbers were going, up or down, and she figured she was heading in the right direction after only a few missteps.

Without worrying about where she was going, Emma thought of her brother again. Despite being so preoccupied with her new job, Emma hadn't entirely forgotten about finding Francis.

Stress was right where Emma thought she would be: lying back on her bottom bunk, clutching another one of those ridiculous dime store romance novels, reading it voraciously. She saw Emma shuffle inside room three, finished the page she was reading, then stuck her finger inside the spine so that she wouldn't lose her place. Only then did she glance up and, raising her eyebrows in surprise, say, "What are you doin' back so soon, lassie? It's hardly halfway through the day yet."

Emma grinned sheepishly. "I broke my scissors."

Stress nodded. That explained it, all right.

Having had her question answered, she pointed at the bag Emma was holding onto tightly. "Say, what have you got there?" She set her book face-down on the bunk, her curiosity lighting up her strange greenish-yellow eyes. She gestured for Emma to come closer. "Come on. Let me see."

Emma hesitated for only a heartbeat. For some reason, she didn't really want to show Stress the expensive dress still inside the satchel but she thought she knew the Irish girl well enough after three days together to know that Stress' curiosity was pretty much insatiable; once her interest was piqued, there was no escaping it. So, trying not to make it look like the bag was as full as it was, Emma wrapped her small hand around the shears and pulled them out.

Stress whistled in appreciation. "Those are a beaut, Em. Where'd ya get them?"

While Stress's attention was on the shiny, silver shears, Emma shoved the satchel underneath her cot and prayed Stress hadn't noticed. After making the decision to keep the truth to herself that first day, she knew she couldn't be entirely honest now. Even if she was, she she'd already let slip a few lies and Emma didn't want her new friend to think of her as a liar. Even if it was only a lie by omission... it was still a lie, wasn't it?

"I brought them with me," she answered honestly, pulling one thick strand of short hair. "I needed to cut my hair, remember?"

Stress laughed, even though it almost looked like it hurt her to do so. "Are ya tellin' me ya left your auntie in Pennsylvania and came all this way, and ya coulda brought anything with ya, and all ya got was a pair of your neighbor's trousers and a pair of scissors?"

"Well, yes," Emma said, and she could feel her face heat up. That would've been the perfect time for her to admit to the dress under her bunk—or even the money pouch she still wore on a string around her neck. But she didn't. "And I'm glad I did, too."

"Why's that?"

Emma launched into the same explanation she'd told herself just outside the factory: how she needed the scissors to make the money to have a place to stay while she was looking for Francis. With Stress as a captive audience, Emma felt a bit of a tantrum come on, and quickly her explanation turned into a rant—

"—so now I have to bring my aunt's good scissors with me to the factory so that I can earn enough money to pay you back for spotting my lodging, because I know I don't want to sleep outside until I found Francis. And there's no way I can stay anywhere else, Mr. Kloppman saw through my disguise so easily, and I like it here. I do. But I broke my scissors, and I've already cut through one shirtwaist, and to make matters worse, I'm no closer to finding my brother than I was when I was in Erie!"

Stress, who had listened so intently while the younger girl let out her frustrations, looked pained at the end. And it wasn't just because she had told Emma her first night that she might be able to help. But there was no way for Emma to know that her words like a slap in the face because there was no way for Emma to know how just the thought of Jack Kelly made Stress feel.

It was during the strike when she first met him. Jack Kelly, the ringleader of the newsboys' strike, was passing out something called the Newsies Banner, a damp, smudged newsletter in order to garner support for the working kids of New York. He was accompanied by a boy with curly hair and big blue eyes and a girl who was everything that Stress wasn't. Of the Mitchell's girls, Stress was the one approached by the newsies' passing out their paper, and she was the one who got an earful from Jack Kelly himself about how the strike wasn't just for them—it was for any working kid in the city in need of standing up for themselves.

Even though none of the Mitchell's garment workers joined in on the strike, Stress was taken in by Jack's charms and his words. Faking her cough—for one of the only times ever—she cut out of the factory early the day of the big rally in front of the New York World building, watching with the crowd as Jack Kelly and his newsboys won. Swept up in the emotions, she cheered with the rest of them, trying to fight her way through the crowd to get as close to Jack as she could if only she could speak with him again.

But she didn't. The crowd was too dense, she couldn't get any further, so she wasn't able to see it when Jack Kelly got into Theodore Roosevelt's carriage and rode out of the city. But, because she didn't have to return to the factory until the next day, she lingered around Newsies Square, and was in perfect position to watch as Jack Kelly came riding back and, with a crowd forming around him, found himself kissing that pretty, prissy girl with the perfect skin and the perfect hair.

And Stress, who'd only ever met Jack Kelly once, felt as if her heart was being squeezed. But that didn't mean that she had forgotten him, or that she hadn't kept her eyes and ears peeled for any mention of the handsome, young newsie who'd captured her attention in the first moment she ever shared one word with him.

She sighed and, trying not to sound too hopeful—or too bitter—finally confessed: "Now, I wouldn't say that. As it turns out, I might know of a couple of places where your brother could be. It's not so hopeless as ya think."

"Really? What haven't you said before?"

Stress shook her head and coughed so suddenly, and Emma knew better than to ask that again.

But that didn't mean that she was done with her questions. The hope was like a balloon inflating her chest; there was a risk that it would pop or that she would drift away and only the understanding that Stress hadn't offered up any further information just yet kept her grounded. Swallowing back her excitement as she clasped her hands to her chest, Emma squealed, "Where should we look?"

Stress grimaced. "Jack—"

"Who?"

"Your brother."

"You mean Francis?"

"Aye. Him." Stress paused. "Say, can I see that clippin' of yours again, Em?"

Emma had taken to keeping the newspaper clipping she'd taken from the Porter house with her at all times. Maybe she was afraid it would go conveniently missing if she left it in her night table—spiteful or not, she was secretly convinced it was Florence who stole her white bow from the top drawer—or maybe, deep down, she was afraid that she wouldn't recognize Francis without it, but Emma refused to leave it behind in room three. Reaching into the front pocket of her skirt, she gingerly pulled out the folded over piece of newspaper and passed it to Stress.

"Thanks." Stress carefully opened it up. She pointed at the picture of Jack Kelly in the center. "That's him, right? Your brother?"

Emma stepped on her tiptoes, looking where Stress was pointing. She nodded vigorously. "That's him."

"Just makin' sure." She handed the clipping back. It would've been so much easier if, perhaps, Emma had said no. "For my sake, and his as well, do ya think we could agree on callin' him Jack Kelly?"

It was such a silly thing but... well, Emma didn't like to think of her brother being called any other name than Francis Sullivan. It only reminded her how much Aunt Moira wanted her to distance herself from her father's surname—and it seemed as if Francis Junior had already done the same. However, since it was such a silly thing—and she didn't want to have to explain it to Stress—she found herself nodding in agreement. At least, she promised herself, until she found Francis again and could call him whatever she wanted.

Stress looked relieved. "That boy, Jack Kelly, if he's still a newsie, and I can't think why he wouldn't be, he would probably be found at one of the newsboy's haunts, wouldn't ya say?"

"That makes perfect sense to me. But, Stress, I think you might be forgetting something." Emma deflated, just a little, as she said: "We are not newsies. I have no idea what sort of place would be a proper newsboy's haunt."

"I told ya," Stress told her, forcing back the uneasy feeling in her stomach. "I might."

She had sworn to herself that she wanted nothing to do with the charismatic strike leader—she lied—and that, if she could get out of it, she would keep Emma safe and away from the trouble that seemed to follow the newsies around. But, confronted with how distraught Emma was at the prospect of never finding her brother, Stress knew she would have to help the girl.

"Then what are we waiting here for?" Emma asked excitedly. "Let's go!"

By expecting Emma's reaction, Stress was able to reach out and grab the sleeve of Emma's blouse a split second before the young girl spun around and started for the door. "Now, hold on there, lassie. Aren't ya forgettin' something?"

"What?"

"It's the middle of the afternoon. By any rights, we should still be workin', so where do ya think your brother's gonna be? Workin', aye, and with so many newsies in this grand, old city, it'll be like lookin' for a four leaf clover, tryin' to pick him out of the crowd. We gotta wait a bit, Em."

Emma saw the reason in Stress's response but that didn't make her feel any less antsy. "Wait? For how long?"

And Stress offered a cheeky grin. For once, keeping tabs on the boy she couldn't have might just have come in handy.

"How about 'til supper? 'Cause, ya see, I know this great place..."

End Note: I didn't mean for this chapter to get so long and out of control but it was significant. I wanted to show that Emma would finally be making a start on her search - as well as the touch of backstory between Stress and Jack. Since the girls are factory workers in this fic, I thought I would switch up the relationship between Stress and Jack; instead of being friends, she just has a crush and, well, he has no idea who she is. I love it ;)

The next chapter will be another Aunt Moira interlude and then, woot, we'll get to see Jack again. We're getting there - and I'm just about at my 50k! 3 more days... wish me luck!

43k down, 7k to go!

- stress, 07.29.11