Being so close to his childhood home, South figured that while he was in Manhattan it would be a good time to tie up the loose ends with his family. He hadn't seen them in what seemed like ages, and having been explained the plan that Spot had hastily come up with, South figured that he might as well say goodbye.

Just after the sun had risen on Manhattan, South, Spot, and Jack Kelly had sat down, discussed, and plotted. Lady arrived unceremoniously some time during the boys' meeting and, after having Spot's sudden resurrection explained twice to her, was escorted by Mush to the girls' lodging house to sleep.

When Mush returned, he told Spot everything Lady had told him. "She doesn't know how bad she cut him," he explained after most of the story was told. "She ran right after." He paused. "He could be dead, you know."

"I know," Spot said. He turned to Jack. "Could you—"

"I'll send someone," Jack interrupted, knowing full well what Spot was going to ask. "Send Snoddy," he told Mush, who quickly left the room.

"…Who?" South asked.

"Exactly. Nobody in Brooklyn knows the guy. He'll ask around." Jack shifted in his seat. "Right then, back to business."

The plan was a simple one, and not very good. Spot was out of creative ideas. He just wanted things to be done and over with. The general idea was to walk into Brooklyn, hit Parker, and run like hell.

"It ain't gonna work," Jack argued. "You can't just expect to be welcomed back with open arms. They'll grab you, mess you up, and you'll be dead in a few hours."

Spot didn't say anything for a moment, then blinked. "I know. That's the idea." He paused. "Kind of." He glanced over at South. "You said you're in this, so you're gonna have to bear with me here."

South had a feeling this was going where it was going. "Fine."

"South goes back to Brooklyn, just waltzes across the bridge and goes right in, like he's gonna apologize or surrender or whatever. He gets as far as he can to the house before he's tagged, which should happen fairly quick-like. They'll take him back to Parker—assuming that rat's still breathing—and he'll tell 'em to rough him up. That'll distract anybody important for long enough for me to get in, find Parker, and bleed that son of a bitch."

Neither South nor Jack spoke when Spot was finishing explaining what could have been the Worst Plan Ever. But it didn't seem like anything else was going to work in the amount of time they had. Parker would know that both South and Lady would run to Manhattan, and although their affairs usually didn't concern Spot, he didn't want to bring anything into the borough that didn't need to be there—namely Michael Parker.

Jack was the one to speak, although he didn't look Spot in the eye but instead picked at his fingernails. "Okay, let me get this straight. You're gonna send in your best friend to get beat up and probably killed while you take care of Parker, then just walk right out of there? That's the best you can come up with?"

"Hey, I ain't hearing any complaints from him!" Spot glanced at South. "…Am I?"

South shook his head. A promise was a promise, and whether he liked it or not, he was going to do what Spot asked him to do without protest.

Shortly after the plan was made, the three agreed that South would leave Manhattan once Snoddy returned with news from Brooklyn. So until that time, he would see that his parents and sisters got a proper goodbye without much attention to the details.

Nathan Emanuel had always been a good guy to be around, and not just because his pockets were usually full of his father's money (he himself didn't use it often, but rather spent it on friends, or friends of friends, or complete strangers). As fun as the young man had been, he was finding that he had matured a great deal within the past month, which made sense. He figured, he's probably going to die pretty soon, so all that growing up he still had to do was just coming a lot quicker than he had expected, as unwelcome as that was.

See, that was the thing—South did not want to die. There had been a good handful of times when he would have been okay with ceasing to be, but at the moment it didn't seem like such a good idea.

He had a lot to do still. He had to go to school and become a lawyer (a future that was beginning to look more and more attractive as the days had passed), and find a pretty girl and marry her. He had to have babies and send them to school, inherit a good deal of money, and hang around for a good forty or fifty years. Getting taken out at seventeen wasn't the kind of death he had in mind.

But he was going to do it regardless. All he had left to do was visit his family's house—his house—just one last time.

I knoooooow I know this is really short, but I figured I've had it sitting around, waiting for another part to be written to add to the chapter, but I thought oh well, I'll just post it now!

And MUCH THANKS to x4xBaByBrOwNeYeSx0x, Missa32189, xoborogrlxo, Cakes, HogwartsNewsie92, and Buttons for your reviews! Choco-covered newsies all around for you!!

Soon, a longer update/end of the story...SOON! I promise (maybe)...we'll see! Review, friends!