Guys. It's my third snow day in a row. So youse are gettin' another chapter. Ya can thank my boyfriend, who has joked that he "bribed the school board". Anyway.

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JustVildaPotter: WOOHOO! Move over, online classes! WAN is more important. Indeed, no one's having a good morning. And in this chapter, it only gets worse, because we're checking back in with Jackie-boy. See you shortly, in a PM!

That first part of my intro was the most newsie accent I've ever used in non-Newsies-related speech. So yay. Okay, let's go.


Chapter 42- Jack

Sunday, September 19, 1999, 8:15 a.m.

If he simply laid on the couch staring out through the skylight above him, Jack could pretend, just for a minute, that his world hadn't blown to pieces. That he was still on the Duane Street rooftop, and Crutchie would come to wake him up any second. Everything would be fine if he didn't move from this spot.

"Hey, honey," Medda's gentle voice, along with the sound of a water glass being set on the coffee table beside Jack broke the illusion. He turned his head to look at her, grimacing at the aches that throbbed throughout his entire body as he did so. "You've been layin' awake for an hour. Are you okay?"

No, was what Jack wanted to say, because it was the truth. All the helpless and broken feelings from last night had just returned to him, full force. He knew Crutchie was still in deep trouble, and that he, Jack, had abandoned his best friend in a time of need. That guilt was currently tearing a hole inside him, and had been for hours.

The details relating to how he'd come to be at Medda's apartment over the course of the night were incredibly fuzzy, but Jack did vividly remember waking on the rooftop in the middle of the night. At that time, consumed as he had been with mulling over all that had transpired, Jack saw only one thing to do: visit Crutchie at the Refuge. It must have been near two in the morning, but he'd made his way there, climbed the fire escape. And then he had stood on the outside of a barred window. Said window still haunted his dreams every now and then, though the bars were a new installment; during his time at the Refuge there had only been a half dozen locks with unknown combinations. All too well, he remembered being trapped in that room; it had taken him and Race months to crack all six of the codes to the locks. It was almost certainly illegal for the window to be blocked in the way it was with the bars, but the Spider hadn't cared about legalities when he'd used not-so-simple combination locks to keep his kids captive, and he clearly didn't care now, either. If the building were to catch fire, the man wasn't going to be concerned for the kids he looked after. Jack knew how Snyder was, and that Spider was certainly cruel enough to save his own skin without a thought for anyone else. As it happened, the man had replaced the window locks after Jack and Race had finally succeeded in breaking them on the night of their escape. Looking closely, Jack could still see the dents he'd once hammered into the sill through the process of lock-smashing.

On a top bunk in the far corner of the room Jack had been looking in on from where he stood, someone had stirred, and all of sudden he was facing Crutchie. The younger boy had immediately spotted his friend and had opened his mouth to say something, but no sound was heard. Instead of talking, the boy had forced himself to sit up and attempted to move off the bed. Clearly, the effort had hurt him, as he hadn't gotten far. And Jack, for the second time, had been unable to do anything besides run away, for he couldn't stand to watch Crutchie struggle for very long.

He still wasn't entirely sure why he'd gone to see his friend in the first place. Doing so had only reignited the panic inside him. Subsequently, Jack had wandered the city streets, trying not to break down again, and as luck would have it, he had run into Medda. Maybe she had been out looking for him. He hadn't asked yet.

Sitting up and pressing his back against the plush couch, Jack shrugged in response to Medda's question. If he admitted that he wasn't okay, or went on a tirade about recent events and his feelings around them, she would worry. He couldn't have her concerned about him. Jack's problems had to stay his to deal with alone. Pretending to be fine, even when he was far from it, had always favored him in past foster homes. Whenever he had tried to talk about his feelings with his foster siblings or guardians, they would quickly grow bored and annoyed. So Jack had learned to keep his mouth shut and his worries to himself. It was better that way. No danger of scaring people off with a sob story that was too much for one person to handle.

Medda asked, "Can ya tell me what happened yesterday that led ta you wandering Manhattan at three in the mornin'?"

To avoid the question, Jack took a sip of water. In doing this, he discovered his bottom lip was split perfectly down the middle. How pleasant. Medda stared at Jack, waiting for an answer, and he came to the conclusion that he was going to have to tell her something.

"Police broke up our strike." Five words. A simple, straightforward answer.

But it wasn't sufficient for Medda. "I heard about that from Katherine. She called earlier to explain everythin', an' ta ask where you were. But what I-"

"Kath?" Jack interrupted, "Didja tell 'er I was here?" Katherine couldn't know he was at Medda's. She would tell the other newsies, and they would come to see him. If Jack was forced to lie to his friends, pretend he was fine in front of Racer or Smalls or Kath herself, they would see right through it. Then he'd have to come clean, and that would make him into even more of a mess. He'd never live it down if they discovered how upset he had become over one rejection letter.

"Actually," Medda admitted, taking a seat on the couch next to Jack, "I lied. Told her I didn't know where you were either."

Jack let out a sigh of relief. Thank goodness. The less people that knew where he was, the better. At least for today. Tomorrow, he was sure he would find the strength to face them, the ability to keep from breaking in their presence.

Medda continued the sentence she had started previously, before Jack had forced the conversation onto a different path. "What I want to know, Jack, is what led ta you wanderin' the streets right when the city was finally asleep."

Jack said nothing. He didn't have a convincing lie prepared.

"You walked into the lobby of some building, desperate to get in touch with me. The doorman sounded awful put out when he called."

The night before had certainly been eventful. Jack didn't remember the experience Medda described, but her account explained how he had ended up in her apartment.

"When we got here and I told you this was a penthouse, ya nearly had a heart attack. Started shakin' and cryin' like someone died." Medda patted the seat of the couch. "Which brings us here. Now, I don't know about you, but I think a reaction like that ain't normal. You've talked to me before about certain things you've been through, so I need you to talk to me about everythin' that happened yesterday."

"I toldja already: bulls broke up da strike." Jack didn't meet Medda's eyes; he looked at the wall behind her instead. There was a famous-looking painting hung on it, distanced just the right amount from one of the wide glass windows. He could barely tell what it was supposed to be of, but it looked like there were instruments involved.

Jack was wishing he could sit in silence, focusing on the painting all day, when Medda spoke again. "Is that all the happened? Just the cops showing up?"

"'Course that's all."

"Really. 'Cause when I found ya this mornin'-"

"I was in shock or somethin'," insisted Jack. This conversation needed to end. "Tha's the only reason I was so upset when I got here."

He could tell, from the creases that formed in her forehead, that Medda didn't believe him one bit. To his surprise, she did not press the subject any further. She rose from the sofa, proposing, "How about some breakfast?" as if it were a normal morning. Like she had teenage boys endure crying fits in her apartment, then lie about it, every single day.

"Uh..." Jack stopped. This simple suggestion of having a meal prepared for him felt odd for more than one reason. For one, nobody ever went out of their way to offer him food, not even Mr. Jacobi. And for two, Medda acting like a guardian, taking care of him, was something Jack had imagined occasionally, but seeing it happen in real time, well, that didn't feel right. As it was, he had already overstayed his welcome in her penthouse. Medda hadn't said so aloud, but Jack knew his sudden arrival had to be messing with her agenda.

"I ain't real hungry," he told her, standing up. That lie being said, he started toward the door.

"Where do ya think you're going?"

Jack needed an excuse this time, or she would start with the questions again. The problem was, he didn't even know where he was going, only that it was away from Medda and her obvious concern for him. Quickly, he said the first thing that popped into his mind. "Church." It was Sunday, after all.

Medda actually snorted. "You haven't set foot in a church once in your life, Jack Kelly. I may call ya 'man of mystery', but I do know some things." She had him. There was no way out.

"I-" started Jack, not knowing what he was planning to say in protest.

"Have a seat," Medda waved a hand at her dining table. "Now, I ain't the best cook by any means, but I do happen ta be rather skilled at making frozen waffles. How does that sound?"

"Sounds great." That phrase was probably the most truthful thing he had said all morning.

"Excellent."

Maybe staying here for a day would do him good, Jack thought, trailing after Medda as she bustled into her kitchen, which did provide a welcome distraction from the problems in his life. It was far easier and less painful to focus on waffles in the toaster rather than Crutchie in the Refuge. A little bit of normalcy could be nice, so long as he didn't get too used to it. Medda would surely ask him to leave later that day. She was only doing this for him because she was that kind of person. Any of her other students would be treated exactly the same if they went looking for her in the middle of the night after escaping from a riot. Jack would stay one more hour, eat a few waffles, then be on his way. That was all.

Even as he decided this, he couldn't ignore his overwhelming desire to disregard that entire plan, to stay at Medda's forever. Her penthouse worked just as well as his had for blocking out reality, and it was easier to keep up the mentally stable facade in front of her, which was admittedly odd considering he oftentimes felt more of a connection with Medda than with his friends, but no matter.

Putting waffles into a toaster didn't require a great deal of effort, so once she had done so, Medda came over to the dining table. She set a pad of paper and a pencil in front of Jack, with the instructions that he write down anything he thought he might need. "I expect you'll be staying here for a while."

"Why d'you expect that?" scoffed Jack.

His teacher pulled out a chair, took a seat across from him. "Little bird told me you got nowhere ta live right now."

"Kath."

"Mhm. I assume Snyder's after you again?"

Jack didn't want to discuss Snyder or the Refuge. With a shrug, he asked, "Ain't he always?"

"You never told me you were in trouble again."

"I- I ain't in trouble, I just... messed somethin' up, so I had ta leave Duane Street. You know how I am." In actuality, all he had done was lie to Mr. Kloppmann, pretended there was somewhere else for him to stay, then forced the man to kick him out of the group home. Jack's plan, after having left Duane Street officially, had been to look out for Crutchie, and if need be, do something really stupid that would put him in the Refuge with the younger boy. That way, they could break out together the way he and Race had. So maybe it was a flawed plan on multiple levels, and Crutchie had never been in danger of being sent to the Refuge anyhow. Except, the strike had happened. And Crutchie was there now. And of course, Jack was the cause of it. All along, he had been right.

Boy, did that knowledge hurt. Guilt gripped Jack's insides for the millionth time. How could he have let this happen? Crutchie's safety was his responsibility; he had made it so the first day they'd met, upon the initial realization that his new friend was no more prepared to be an orphan at fifteen than Jack himself had been at eleven. Crutchie was Jack's to look out for, but within less than four weeks, he had failed that duty. He was a horrible friend.

"Jack?" Jolting out of his thoughts, Jack realized he must have been looking absently into space for far too long, because Medda was again looking at him with concern in her eyes.

He couldn't have that, so he swallowed the lump in his throat and said in as stable a tone as he could manage, "I'm alright. Just tired."

Medda nodded, relief flooding over her face. For a split second, Jack considered shattering that relief, opening up to her about the riot and the Refuge and maybe even the letter from Santa Fe. But he shunned the thought as quickly as it came, deeming it ridiculous. He couldn't bog down Medda's life with his personal problems. Normal and happy were what he needed to be right now. Nothing else.

Sticking to that decree, Jack forced a smile. "How're those waffles comin'?"

Medda grinned back and stood up to check.


MEDDAAAA! Jack's gotta stop hiding his feelings, though. It's not good.

Please review, as usual! I'd love to know your thoughts!

Okay, now this time, for real, I won't post again until the weekend. See you then!