Author's Note: I know I just told you I would only be updating on Fridays, but I couldn't help posting this one today anyway. This week has been so strange and exhausting that I wasn't able to post anything yesterday and I didn't want to make y'all wait another week. Things are chilling out now in my life. The craziness was due to my mom shattering a bone in her foot and having to get surgery while my dad was away on a business trip, so I was flown home to help her function until she got back. She's already healing up and my dad is with her now. I'm back in Seattle and ready to power through to the end of this story with y'all. :)

Chapter 36- Sorry

"I'm not to blame for what you've done to me
I thought I was over you
Now I'm under you
And I can't breathe
I can't breathe."
~Over You: Meghan Tonjes~

Sarah rubbed at her eyes with the back of her wrist, doing her best to stifle a yawn while she was at it. It was nine in the morning and though the buildings around her cast long, lazy shadows, the sun was shining brilliantly in those places where the sky filled in the spaces between roofs. She had never been much of a morning person and today was no exception. The brightness of everything around her burned her eyes. She couldn't help wishing she had stayed home a little longer. But she had things to do and it was better to get a move on then spend the morning listening to her mother fuss about the fact that Les still hadn't come home and pestering Sarah to help her make the grocery list.

She adjusted the large basket in her left arm by moving it to her right and did her best not to glare at the newsboy shouting about whatever headline he needed to improve this morning. She wondered if Logan would have any coffee left over by the time she got to the Lodge. Clearly, her morning tea hadn't had quite enough kick to it today.

By the time she reached the Lodge, the damn basket felt like it weighed fifty pounds. The door to the Lodge was wide open, which was a relief, because she didn't want to have to learn to juggle just so she could open the door.

The Lodging house was practically a ghost town, something Sarah still wasn't used to. It was a place that was meant to be filled to the brim with teenagers who had too much energy and too little appreciation for the use of inside voices. When it was silent like this, it felt wrong. Like she was walking into a hall of ghosts from her past.

The place wasn't completely silent, though. As she set down the basket by the front door, she heard the sound of Logan's loud laugh coming from upstairs.

"Logan?" she called, picking up the basket again and making her way to the second floor. She called his name a second time before going into the bunk room. Technically, there were two bunk rooms now, but this was the main one and where the boys would expect to find their things. She made her way to the bunk bed she knew Listener and Runner shared. The top was disheveled, the blanket crumpled at one end and the pillow wedged between the mattress and the wall. Runner wasn't a particularly tidy boy. In stark contrast, Listener's lower bunk was neatly made and looked pristine.

Sarah chuckled to herself as she started unpacking the contents of her basket onto his bed with the clothes she had mended or acquired for the newsboys this time. He would know better than her whose bunk was whose, not to mention who needed what. She heard Logan coming down to meet her and finished her job by tucking a copy of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" under Listener's pillow, knowing he enjoyed it when she loaned him books.

The bottom of the basket was filled with other books Mama had practically been stockpiling for the younger boys. She liked to send Sarah over with some whenever she could so that Logan wouldn't run out of material to use in teaching the boys when he could.

Sarah glanced down at the basket and sighed. She was going to have to start getting one of the newsboys that sold near her house to start taking them for her. She was tired of lugging them all that way.

"Let me get that for you."

Sarah was so startled when Jack spoke, she jumped nearly a foot in the air. She threw a hand over her heart and frowned at him. "You scared me. What are you doing here?"

He shrugged as he lifted the basket, trying not to grin. "I came to see Skittery. Figured he needed someone to keep him company in this dusty old lodging house."

Logan was leaning against the doorframe. "Don't lie. You wanted to see the place again more than you wanted to see me."

Jack rolled his eyes and let Logan direct him as to where he could unpack the books. Sarah moved to stand beside the new owner of the Lodge. "Where are the kids? It's too quiet for them to possibly be here."

He nudged her with his shoulder in greeting. "Maggie's with her grandma today. Jack said he left the kids at Al's. I think Listener's teachin' 'em poker."

"I'm sure Race'll be all over that," she answered.

Jack slipped out of sight and Logan lowered his voice, leaning into her. "Sorry he's here. I didn't know he was coming over. I know you two are . . . uncomfortable."

"It's fine . . ." she answered quietly. She would've continued, reminding Logan that Jack was his friend and she knew they would want to spend time with each other, but Jack reappeared at that moment and she would rather he didn't know they had said anything about him at all.

"The kids'll be beatin' Race before the day's out, I'll bet," he said, wiping his hands on the sides of his pants as he talked. "They're brilliant, ya know."

Logan and Sarah shared an amused look despite themselves.

"Let's go back to my apartment. Do either of you want some coffee?" Logan asked. Sarah accepted almost before the words were out of his mouth and the three made their way upstairs.

Sarah couldn't help but smile when she entered Al and Jack's old place, which was now half-drowned in little Maggie's discarded clothing and papers, half of those being receipts and other things that helped Logan run the Lodge while the rest were pieces of his daughter's artwork. Jack plopped onto the sofa while Sarah took a seat at the table that was spilling over with paperwork. Logan kept them talking while he brewed and poured them coffee. He placed a warm mug in Sarah's hands and then Jack's before taking a seat across the table from her.

"So, Al got another letter from Mush today," Jack said after taking a pull from the steaming mug. Sarah held hers in her lap, knowing she was likely to burn her tongue of she tried it. She and Logan straightened at the mention of Mush. It was rare to hear from Newsies after they stopped selling papers. After all the friends they had lost that were practically family, Mush's continued correspondence was considered something of a treat by all.

"What'd he say?" Logan asked.

"He's upset it's takin' so long for Al to have the baby and wants to know what names she's picked out - not that she'n Davey have agreed on any." Jack chuckled. "I don't know much about what else he said. Al wouldn't let me read it 'cause she wanted to write him back immediately and said she needed it so she could answer all 'is questions. I know he said somethin' about the girl bein' sick and running around, coughing on her brother to scare 'im."

"Sounds like Rachel's been spendin' too much time with Blink," Logan answered with a laugh. "I could see him pulling something like that. In fact, didn't he often do that to Race every time he got sick, just to piss 'im off?"

They all laughed and nodded in agreement.

Logan looked at the clock on the wall and made a face. "Uh, I gotta go pick something up from the store real quick. It'll only take a second, sorry. I wasn't expecting you both to come over today." He stood slowly and gave Sarah a long look, like he was trying to think of some way to get her out of this uncomfortable situation. "I'd wait 'til later, but the boys . . ."

Jack looked down into his coffee cup and Sarah felt like melting into the floor. Was it so impossible for these two to be subtle?

"No, it's fine. Jack and I are perfectly capable of bein' in the same room without murdering each other," she snapped. She punctuated the statement by taking a gulp of coffee and immediately regretting it when pain seared the roof of her mouth. It was the hurt look on Logan's face that made her wince, though. She hadn't meant any offense. He was dragging his feet for her sake, after all. "We'll be fine," she told him, softly this time. "We'll be here when you get back."

When Logan left, he was replaced by a deeply uncomfortable silence that settled over the two like a blanket. Sarah blew on her coffee and took a sip from it this time, rather than a gulp. She couldn't remember the last time she had been in this room, but she remembered the last time she had been on the roof all too clearly. It had been the night Jack broke things off with her and shattered her heart into tiny pieces. How many years ago had that been?

"I did love you."

Sarah nearly dropped her mug. Her head shot up so quickly that it hurt her neck. "What?"

Jack was looking down at his coffee again, afraid to meet her eyes. "That night I . . . told you I couldn't do it anymore. You said you should've known I wouldn't love you, but I did. I loved you so much it hurt." He took a loud, deep breath and looked up into her eyes as if daring her to find a lie in them.

Sarah's heart jolted uncomfortably in her chest. "What- Why are you telling me this?"

"I'm not really sure, I just- I wanted you to know." He looked about as uncomfortable and unsure of himself as she had ever seen him.

She choked on her words, not knowing what she was supposed to say to that. Why was he telling her this now? What was he playing at?

He kept talking. "I've been wanting to apologize to you about that, about leaving, and especially about what I said to you at your parents' house. I never meant-"

"I don't want to talk about this," Sarah interrupted, her voice sounding loud and out-of-place even in her own ears. She suddenly felt trapped. She wished she had volunteered to go with Logan, or pick up whatever he needed for him instead.

"Please just hear me out," he pleaded. She didn't move and he continued, "It wasn't fair of me to come back after I hurt you like that and expect things to be fine. It was wrong of me to expect ya to go along with my 'fresh start' idea after I 'ad hurt you. And you're right . . . I don't know you now and I didn't know you as well as I thought I did back then. But what I said on the roof the other night was completely out of line and I said a lot that I didn't mean to because I was mad that you didn't want me anymore . . . that you didn't care whether I was in your life or not. I'm not trying to make excuses or anything. I just wanted to say I'm sorry while I have the chance."

Sarah gripped her coffee cup so tightly that she was surprised it didn't crumble in her fingers. She didn't know what she was feeling. She was feeling a lot of things, but the anger was boiling over the fastest. That anger felt more reassuring than any of the other emotions in her chest, so she let it.

"You done?" she asked coldly, when she could finally trust herself to speak.

He looked up and jerked his head back at the look in her eyes, almost as if he'd been hit. He looked like a wounded puppy and Sarah almost felt a twinge of regret, but she was too angry to let it become more than that. Besides, he didn't have the right to be hurt. She was the one who was hurt.

"This is too little too late, Jack. I'm not interested in makin' amends or whatever it is you think you're doing. We're a part of the same family now so we can be civil around others, but that's it. I don't want anything more to do with you," she growled.

His adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "Okay."

"Okay? That's it?" The anger wouldn't dissipate. She pushed her mug haphazardly onto the table as she rose to her feet. "That's all you've got?"

"I'm trying to respect your wishes."

Sarah interrupted again, almost before he was finished with the sentence. "Oh, well that's quite the change. You've never respected me before. You just expected me to follow orders- do whatever Jack said because he's leader of the newsies an' can't deal with anyone having a mind of her own."

"That's not-" he cut himself off and sighed. "Well, I'm doing my best to respect you now."

Sarah's teeth ground together and she barely resisted the urge to kick out at the chair or the table beside her. "You're such an ass, Jack! You don't get to do this to me. I'm not the one who broke your heart! You broke mine!"

"What am I doing wrong here?" Jack asked, rising to his feet too and letting his voice rise with him. His face was turning red from frustration. "I'm just trying to apologize. I know what I did was wrong and I'm sorry."

"That's not good enough, Jack!"

"Then what do you want me to do? Go back and make it all so it didn't happen? Well, I can't do that! No matter how much I wish I could, I can't go back and fix all the fucked up things in my life. You think I don't wish I could?" He turned away toward the window and ran a hand through his hair. "What do you want from me?" he said, almost in a whisper.

"I don't know."

She studied his profile from where she stood, barely managing to keep herself from screaming. She didn't know what she wanted or why he couldn't stop haunting her. He was so damn infuriating. How did he still have this power over her? After everything they had been through, how dare he walk in and make all those feelings she was certain she had buried come rushing back? Why couldn't she make it stop?

What was he trying to do here? Trying to apologize, she told herself. That's what he had said. No matter how callously he had broken her heart, he had never been dishonest with her. He had never gone out of his way to break her heart.

No, he hadn't needed to go out of his way. It only took a word.

She barely noticed the tears that were leaking from the corners of her eyes, but she swiped at them anyway. Here it was, happening all over again because he couldn't leave well enough alone.

Jack turned back and looked on the verge of tears as well. "I just wanted to apologize. You don't have to forgive me, you don't have to be nice to me. I just want you to know that I'm sorry."

"Why? It never seemed to matter to you before," she answered, her voice thick with her tears.

"Of course it mattered. I've been wanting to say I'm sorry for years, but I didn't- I couldn't. I was too scared . . . too confused. You have to understand, I was terrified. I was a kid and I didn't know how to deal with everything that was going on and you- my feelings for you- were what made me most vulnerable, most scared. So I ran away from it."

The tears were falling harder now. "You're a bastard for that, Jack."

"I know," he laughed mirthlessly. She could see the tears in his eyes now. One escaped, then another. "I've been telling myself that for years. And yet, I can't seem to stop hurting you." He reached out, as if to wipe the tears away on her face, then pulled back.

After all those years, Sarah had never once considered the idea that Jack had come away from their relationship with as much pain and baggage as she had. The thought startled her. She didn't understand and she wasn't sure if she ever would, but she felt the animosity start to dissolve. She didn't think she could hold onto the anger much longer. But if she let go of it, what would she have left? That anger had been her life raft since he left her. She felt naked without it.

Sarah sat down hard and put her head in her hands. She felt at such a loss. She didn't understand and she wasn't sure she wanted to.

It was at that point that Logan came back, carrying a sack with whatever it was he had left to retrieve. Sarah didn't look up when the door opened, but she could tell when he paused to get a feel for the situation.

He let out a sigh. "What happened?"

Sarah lifted her head then. "Apparently we can't be left alone," she said shakily. She got to her feet and wiped at her face. "I'm going home. Thanks for the coffee, Logan."

"Don't-"

"Let her go, Skittery," Jack said softly, not turning from the window.

Feeling completely drained, Sarah made her way past Logan and to the door. She put a hand on the doorknob and looked back at the newsboy who had stolen her heart so long ago. "Just tell me one thing," she said before she could lose her courage. Jack turned toward her and she caught her breath when she saw the shiny tear tracks that trailed over his cheekbones. "When did you stop?"

His brows furrowed. "Stop what?"

"Loving me?"

He took a sharp breath inward and Sarah wished she could suck the question right back in between her teeth. She wasn't sure she wanted the answer to that question. She opened the door and took a step when he finally answered.

"Honestly? I don't think I ever stopped."