"Water! From the ceiling – there is water pourin' through the ceiling-"
That, Katherine realises, upon walking through the door, is David's voice. And if David is shouting about water pouring through the ceiling, that something is deeply, deeply wrong. She considers her options, the unholy amount of food in her hands, and the current situation. Debates about turning right back around and walking out of the door, leaving the food in the corridor for the boys to find. She's not going to take that – she couldn't eat it all if she tried over the course of a month, and besides, it's their pay.
The newsies, at least the older ones who can spare the hours, have been turning up at the house every weekend to help Jack install electric wires and repair floorboards. Jack, of course, had gathered them together at the end of the first day and tried to pay them all – not much, mind, because they haven't got much to give, but he'd tried – only to have a veritable riot on his hands. All of the newsies have refused, despite spending hours working on the house, to take so much as a penny. Therefore, Katherine has found a solution and provides, courtesy of the sandwich shop down the street, meals for whoever turns up that day to help out.
Setting down the basket filled to the brim with sandwiches wrapped in newspaper, she takes off her heels. Jack is speaking now, she can hear his voice coming from the kitchen, a low rumble that somehow manages to soothe whatever nerves have been blooming in her stomach.
"Relax, Dave, jus' hand me that bucket – hey, Race, I ain't no expert but I's pretty sure the sink shouldn't empty into the kitchen-"
"Less water wastage?" Comes Race's voice from upstairs.
"I'll waste you 'f you don' fix it!" Jack calls back, emerging from the kitchen into the hallway just as she's picking the basket back up. When he sees her, his face lights up, a grin cracking across his face from ear to ear. There's something proud and excited and affectionate that bursts in Katherine's stomach at the sight of it. Still, he doesn't have time to stop, squeezing past her in the narrow hallway with a brush of his chapped lips against her cheek, throwing her a greeting as he sprints up the stairs. "Hey, Kath, jus' gimme two ticks."
Amused, Katherine pads through to the kitchen in stocking feet. And, well, Davey wasn't entirely wrong about the water. There's no plaster ceiling in the kitchen, just beams supporting the floorboards above, and though the water appears to have stopped, drips are still slipping through the cracks between the floorboards and splashing into the half-full bucket that is sat on a rather damp kitchen table. Davey, who is huddled in the corner, staring dolefully at the bucket, looks up at her and sighs.
"If we manage to renovate this house without me havin' a heart attack, it'll be a miracle."
Katherine laughs, setting the basket down on the sideboard and tossing a sandwich over to Davey, who fumbles to catch it. Above them, she hears the rumble of Jack's voice, low and pleasant, one she'd know anywhere.
"Well that's what happens when you don' seal the pipe-"
"How was I s'posed to know that?" Race whines.
There's a quiet smack sound, somebody cuffing Race upside the head, no doubt, before a troop of them clatter down the stairs, Jack and Race first, closely followed by Henry, Mush, and Albert. Katherine gestures to the basket as they enter. "I brought dinner."
"Thanks, Princess." Race grins, the boys, with the exception of Jack, falling on the food like animals.
Jack, however, crosses the room to her, where she's backed up against the sideboard, and lowers his head to kiss her properly, even if it is disappointingly chaste and short. All too soon for Katherine's liking, he pulls away, snatching up a rag from the sideboard behind her and throwing her a wink as he turns to mop up the worst of the water that's gathered on the surface of the wooden table.
"Where are we up to?" Katherine asks, watching as he empties the bucket down the sink and begins wiping up the excess water.
"Well," Jack says, as he wipes up the worst of it, "we's got a flushin' toilet-"
"Which I christened!" Mush pipes up, around a mouthful of sandwich.
"Wi'out permission." Jack scowls, lobbing the wet, balled-up rag at the boy's head. Mush, however, ducks, and the rag hits the wall with a splat only to slither to the floor, leaving a greyish circle on the peeling paint. "An' once I's sealed the pipe then the sink should be sorted an' all." He turns back to Katherine, grimacing in apology. "We's livin' a house wi' runnin' hot an' cold water, Kath. 'S fancy."
"Really fancy." Katherine nods, a smile quirking at the corners of her mouth.
It pleases her, that Jack can tentatively joke about these things with her now. Sure, he actually does live in a world where hot and cold running water are a luxury, but that's okay. They can find the humour in it together, now.
"Electric's done, too." Race comments, hefting himself up to sit on the sideboard next to Katherine.
"That's great!" She exclaims, her eyes returning, as they always do, to Jack. "Is it just painting and cleaning, then?"
"Well," Jack huffs, pulling off his cap and running his hand through curls stiffened by the sweat and dirt of the working day, "I's gotta replaster the ceilin' in the bedroom now's we's insulated the eaves, but downstairs, yeah. An' floors, we's gotta do floors."
"Davey and I will get started on the living room, then, shall we?" She smiles, bright and excited to get stuck in.
"Yes." Davey cries. "Yes, please, I would like to be with Kath and away from all unsealed pipes."
Jack rolls his eyes at David, but doesn't protest, instead turning back to Katherine. "I's left those old paintin' clothes you asked for in the little bedroom, sweetheart, but they ain't goin' to fit you."
She smiles, pressing a kiss to his cheek as she sets off upstairs. "I'll make it work."
Jack is right. His old painting clothes definitely do not fit her. She's brought a belt, though, which she's hoping will fix the worst of it. None of her dresses exactly seem conducive to painting. Jack's trousers need rolling up five times before the hems stop trailing along the floor, and his shirt almost reaches her knees, but the belt stops the trousers from falling down and she ties her hair up in a scarf to keep it out the way. David still tells her she looks ridiculous when she emerges, but that's fine. Looking pretty whilst painting is something that she's certain, from experience, only Jack can manage.
It takes five coats of white washing to cover up the soot stains on the living room chimney breast, and even more than that to erase the yellowing patches of nicotine smoke from the ceiling, but they manage it, her and Davey. The sounds of the boys working upstairs are nothing short of ominous, but upstairs is Jack's problem and he isn't letting her within five feet of the staircase to the master bedroom, so she's content to leave it. Whatever he's got planned, she's sure that she will love it.
Katherine likes Davey's company, glad that she has somebody who will talk to her about the importance of education legislation with any degree of insight (Jack tries, bless his heart, but she knows that he's only humouring her with it). She's also glad that she has somebody to hold the chair steady as she stands on it to paint the ceiling. He is, however, noticeably absent, scurrying around in search of a rag to wipe up the paint he's managed to drip onto the skirting board, when Katherine hears someone wolf-whistle directly behind her and falls off said chair.
"Woah!" Jack. It's always bloody Jack. Still, she can't be too annoyed at him, as though he is the cause of her potential injury, he is also who saves her from it.
A few months of office work haven't dimmed reflexes honed for eighteen years and he leaps forward, catching her with easy strength and setting her down gently.
"Careful, sweetheart." Jack says, steadying her on the ground, and shaking his hand to flick off the paint she'd smeared across his forearm mid-fall. "Don' want you limpin' down the aisle."
"I wouldn't be if you hadn't made me jump!" Katherine scowls. Then, deciding that it's a perfectly suitable punishment, she taps the tip of his nose with her paintbrush, leaving a white blob there. Jack goes momentarily cross-eyed to see her handiwork, before returning his gaze to her and grinning.
"Jus' admirin' the view."
Cheeky boy. She rolls her eyes. "Why am I marrying such a monstrous flirt?"
"I dunno, Ace." Jack grins, ruffling his hair with one hand. "Is it 'cos I's real handsome, or 'cos o' my artistic talent, or 'cos-"
"It's because I'm an idiot, it's been decided." She interrupts, laughing, even as he growls playfully and catches her by the waist, pressing kisses to her jawline and nuzzling into her skin, leaving white streaks across her face from the paint on his nose despite her trying, in vain, to push his head away.
"You two are disgustin'." Davey remarks from the doorway as he returns with the rag.
Katherine pulls away from Jack a little and though he lets her, he keeps his eyes and hands on her. "'S six-thirty. You needs to be gettin' back 'f you don't want another talkin'-to by that handler o' yours."
"She's not my handler;" Katherine grimaces, "but thank you for the warning. I'll see you on Friday, for the dinner?"
"As if I'd miss seein' you."
…
Their house won't have a dining room, Katherine supposes, as she walks into the one in the Graceton's townhouse on Friday evening, her arm hooked through Jack's so tightly she's pretty sure that she's cutting off all blood circulation to his hand. That's okay though, because it's comforting her, and his left one is the one that he draws with – he can afford to lose this one. No, their house doesn't have a dining room. Jack has, however, done the rounds of the flea markets and managed to find a nice little oak table with four chairs that fits perfectly in their kitchen. Admittedly, one of the four legs is two inches shorter than the others, lending it a rather concerning slant that has lost them more than one plate already, despite them not yet having moved in. But Jack's said he'll fix it. She didn't go into this thinking that it would be easy. She's going into this knowing that it will be worth it. That said, she's not entirely sure that this dinner will be.
Rose has advertised it to her as a 'small affair', which definitely means at least one person that she can't stand is going to be here. Lo and behold, she's right. The table is set for eight. The Gracetons, herself and Jack, Eliza and Mr. Vanderbilt, and, speak of the devil, Cornelia and Darcy. Katherine suppresses the urge to spin them both around and march straight back out of the door. One dinner. She can do this. She's got Jack with her, they can totally do this.
Jack's thoughts are rather less positive. Honestly, he'd been entering into this whole thing with the attitude of 'it can't be worse than the dinner at the Pulitzer's' and yet it somehow is, because he's not even got Ralph and Constance to sit next to now. And they've only gone and told him to sit in a seat that isn't next to Katherine's. Indeed, he's diagonally away from her, across the table, which feels, frankly, about a million miles away. As it is, he's sandwiched between Eliza and Cornelia, and sat opposite Darcy, of all people. He hasn't spoken to Darcy since the Christmas party, of course, and though the two of them have never exchanged a cross word, he's pretty sure that the whole trying to get Katherine to leave him thing is a bit of a hurdle for any potential friendship.
But Katherine's told him to be on his best behaviour (When ain't I? Literally all the time, Jack.), so he's going to damn well try. He tells Rose, who is seated on Darcy's right, that he thinks that the soup is very nice. (He doesn't – it's cold, for some unknown reason, and grey, and has a poached egg lurking at the bottom, the purpose of which he cannot fathom.) That makes her smile and she asks him whether he's had much Italian food before. Jack tells her about the time that he and Katherine went to Luigi's and her article had been framed inside the menu, because no, he knows absolutely sod all about Italian food, but he could talk about how fantastic his future wife is for hours.
Katherine blushes at the praise, wondering when exactly Jack got so good at socialising. He's always been charming, of course, charismatic, but he seems to have brought the women at the table, at least, completely under his spell. It's a sight to behold. And, honestly? It's kind of irritating. Because these are three women who have implied all sorts of things about Jack, few of them nice, and here they are hanging off his every word and following his easy movement and eager, still slightly paint-stained hands, with their eyes. She knows that Jack's attractive – hell, she knows that all too well – but they're looking at him in a way that seems entirely inappropriate considering that she's right here and all of them are either engaged or already married. The spell breaks, however, when Jack makes a passing comment about their wedding, shooting her a smile across the table – not the smile he's plastered on for the present company, but a proper, Jack Kelly grin that's completely hers.
"Oh, yes." She cuts in. "We aren't doing paper invitations, just because it's a small thing, but we'd really love it if you all could come."
The wedding's size has absolutely nothing to do with it. Jack saw the price of paper invitations and balked, and half the newsies can't read well enough to appreciate them anyway, so they've forgone tradition altogether. It's not like they don't forego tradition in most other aspects of their lives. That, however, is the least of Katherine's worries. Because as soon as she mentions the wedding, the conversation dries up altogether, the only sound the awkward clinking of silverware on china.
"It's the, uh, twenty-sixth, isn't it, Katherine, dear?" Rose chimes in, her focus entirely on the piece of salmon on her plate.
"Yes."
"I'm afraid we have a… prior engagement, don't we, Roger?" Rose's gaze doesn't leave the fillet of salmon as she pokes it with her fork, sending a shower of its breadcrumb coating spilling onto the plate. She frowns down at it in distaste. Jack can't imagine why – it's bloody good food, this, and he doesn't even like fish-
"Yes, we do." Dr. Graceton replies, as impassive as ever. "Terribly sorry to miss it."
"We also have something on that day, don't we?" Eliza asks, her eyes flitting to Mr. Vanderbilt, who responds with a curt nod.
"Oh, well," Katherine shrugs, taken aback but still attempting to inject some lightness into her tone, "I'll just have to have you round for tea and show you the photos then, won't I?" There's a murmur of assent.
"Darcy and I have spoken about it," Cornelia simpers, "and we just don't think it would be entirely appropriate for us to attend. Isn't that right, Darcy?"
Katherine's eyes fly to Darcy, her body awash with cold humiliation. He meets her gaze, holds it, just for a second, then looks away. That feels like more of a rejection that when he confirms it with his words.
"It is."
So. A shunning. This is how it's to be, is it? "Appropriate?" Katherine bites out.
Finally, finally, Rose looks up from her plate, biting her lip and shifting in her seat. Katherine glares at the other woman. I dare you. They've spent years accounting for Cornelia's little insults, all because it's what they're all thinking, deep down. But this? This is too far, even for them. How is Rose going to fix this one? How is she going to save her polite little dinner party? You should have known better, Rose, Katherine thinks, if you wanted it to be polite, then you shouldn't have invited the reporter and union leader, penniless, disowned. Because, of course, it's always them who cause the problems, it couldn't possibly be anybody else.
"I think what Cornelia means to say-" Rose hedges.
"I'm sure Cornelia can explain what she means herself, Rose." Katherine says, her voice tight. "Thank you."
Cornelia frowns, finally, finally, discomfited. "Your own parents aren't attending, Katherine. That will be reflected in the calibre of guests, their manners, I mean, and we just think-"
"Excuse me," Katherine jolts to her feet, staring down at the salt and pepper pots that are sat on the table before her, already, even as inanimate objects, a more acceptable couple than she and Jack will ever be, "I am feeling rather unwell."
With that, she scrunches the heavy linen napkin in her hands and places it on her half-finished plate. The material sucks greedily at the reddish sauce that the salmon sits in, its colour rising up, being pulled upwards through the threads of the material. Katherine walks out. Nobody says a word. They all look down at their plates. Jack hopes that it's in shame.
"I should, uh, go check on her. Thank you for dinner." He says, rising to his feet, the napkin sliding off his own lap and onto the floor. He doesn't bother to pick it up.
But as he's walking toward the door, he's rather inclined to give these people a piece of his mind, seeing as he can't do it to Pulitzer, so before he gets there, he turns around and, just loud enough for them to hear, not bothering to raise his voice, says: "Considerin' how much you care about the manners of the people you's associatin' with, you really oughta work on your own."
"I hate them!" Katherine cries out at the empty street, as Jack emerges from the front door, hurrying after her. "I hate them all!"
So, Jack doesn't know which fork to use for which course at dinner. So, the newsies make stupid jokes and swear too much. So, if they don't work, they don't eat. So, what?
She's now unworthy, apparently. Tainted, somehow, by her association with them. She'd known they all disapproved, but this? And to think that she'd thought they were friends. They'd planned this, of course they had, to invite her and reject her all at once, to humiliate her. And Darcy. She'd hoped, prayed, that it might be just a phase, that he would come back, come around. But no. No, she's committed one too many sins now. A woman audacious enough to want a career of her own. A woman with a scar that mars her face. A woman who is getting married to an orphan off the streets of New York.
"You mighta mentioned as much." Jack says, eerily calm, though she knows it's just a front, knows him too well not to see the tension in his shoulders and the set of his jaw, the expression on his face that means that he wants to knock somebody into next week. "Ace, they ain't worth you gettin' worked up over-"
"Everybody keeps leaving, Jack."
Her voice is barely a whisper, but over it Jack is pretty sure he hears his heart crack in two. "Oh, sweetheart."
Jack takes hold of her, pulling her into his embrace, one hand coming up to cradle the back of her head, holding her against him, letting her shake and tremble in his arms. And he knows that this isn't about the dinner, not really, or about these people not coming to the wedding, that this is just the straw that broke the camel's back, but still, he wishes that they could start the evening over again, that those women back there would agree to attend so that he wouldn't have to see her cry.
"They all keep leaving me." She mumbles into his chest. "I don't understand - I don't understand why who I am isn't ever good enough."
"You's more'n good enough." He tells her, face buried in her hair, dropping kisses along her hairline. "You's brilliant. An' 'f they can't see that, then they's blind."
"I don't want you to leave too. When I turn out not to be what you wanted."
And that's it, isn't it. They're both walking on eggshells, waiting for the other one to leave, and they know it.
"Hell, Ace," Jack tilts his head back to look at the sky, trying to blink back the sudden wetness in his eyes, because he's not alone, he's never been alone through any of this, because she feels the same damn way about him as he feels about her, "that's s'posed to be my line."
He lets her sob into his chest for a little bit before he pulls away just slightly, hooking two fingers beneath her chin and forcing her to look at him. "C'mon, I's got somethin' to show you."
It takes Katherine longer than it probably should to realise that Jack is directing them toward the house, soon to be their house. She worries, momentarily, about somebody seeing them going in together, late at night, and the two of them not yet married, but quickly dismisses it. People are clearly going to think what they like no matter what the truth is, so damn them all to hell.
Jack unlocks the door and leads her up the stairs, then higher, into the attic space that's going to be their room, eventually. Before they get there, though, Jack stops, turns to her, stuffs his hand in his hair. "Now, I was goin' to save this for after we was married, but, here."
And then he takes her in, and turns on the lights.
The entire ceiling is covered with one enormous painting. Up one of the eaves, there's a sunset happening over a cityscape, and – yes, it is, of course it is, it's Santa Fe. Not the real Santa Fe, of which Katherine's seen photographs which she studiously hides from Jack, anxious not to steal what little childhood he's scraped together, but Jack's Santa Fe; one that's cool and green and lush, with haphazard clay houses clustered along the horizon, giving way to a sky that swirls in oranges and purples and pinks, before fading up, up, into the zenith of the eaves, and then down, onto the other one of them, easing into a wash of midnight blue, dotted with darkened clouds and stars – so many stars, winking and hopeful – and a moon, full and yellow and with craters that almost seem to form a smile.
"Oh, Jack," she breathes, "it's beautiful."
"Y'like it?" He asks, and he actually looks nervous when she turns to face him, one long finger scratching at the back of his neck.
"Like it?" She laughs, tears in her eyes. "I love it."
"Good." Jack nods. "I wanted you to be able to look at it, so's you won't worry 'bout me leavin' for Santa Fe no more. 'Cos I's got it right here."
When he says it, he knows that it's true. Santa Fe isn't a voice that's calling out to him in the night anymore, there's no craving for adventure on the frontier. He's happy here. It's a strange feeling, this contentment, but it's the most wonderful one he's ever known.
And, oh, the way that he's looking at her. Jack's never been one for big speeches. Sure, he can stir up the newsies when he needs to, or murmur sweet nothings to a girl that he's just kissed. But this? This is new. Or maybe it isn't new, maybe she just hasn't taken the time to look before.
"We should get blankets." She announces.
"Eh?" That was not what he was expecting, honestly.
Katherine scurries down the stairs, fully ignoring Jack's pleas to be careful, and finds the linen cupboard where she's already stowed the few cushions, blankets, and sheets that they've scavenged to furnish their new home. They're all mismatched, in a way that would send her mother into cardiac arrest, but Katherine's pleased with them; they're quaint, somehow, in their patchwork patterns and clashing colours, messy, all of them, but pretty in their own right. Scooping them into her arms, she heads back upstairs, where Jack has barely moved an inch, his forehead crinkled in confusion even as she spreads them out on the floor and tugs him down onto them.
When she lies back to stare up at the ceiling, Jack finally gets the message, lying down beside her and pulling her close.
"Did you paint in actual constellations?" She asks, her voice quiet.
"Davey told me if I was goin' to do it, I had to get my astronomy accurate." Jack replies, a note of amusement in his voice. Only Davey.
"See that one?" She points upwards at a collection of white dots and Jack tilts his head to one side, following the line of her finger. "That's Hercules. You can only see that one well in summer. It's the eighteenth today, you know, of July."
Jack frowns. Is this some sort of anniversary? He's sure that isn't yet. Is he supposed to remember the date of their first kiss? The day that he met her? Damnit, first test and he's failed. "And?"
"It's a year since the strike started."
And, yes, he supposes it is. He's hardly even noticed. The person he was a year ago feels foreign to him now, someone he'd pit as a stranger if he met him in the street. He wonders if seventeen-year-old strike-leader Jack Kelly would be proud of the man that he's become. About to turn twenty, impossibly, it seems, about to get married. Owns a suit, a house, paints fucking commissions for rich toffs. He hopes that Jack Kelly would be proud. This Jack Kelly is.
"'S been one helluvah year." He sighs, and that's the understatement of the new century. Jack turns his head, watches Katherine in profile, the soft curve of her lips, the way that her eyes sparkle. "Wouldja change anythin'? 'F you could?"
"There's lots of things I'd like to change." Katherine says, still staring straight up at the ceiling, unable to tear her eyes away.
"Like what?" Jack asks, not entirely sure that he wants to know her answer.
"You not nearly dying would be nice." Katherine smiles, wry and wistful, as she turns to face him, her face so close to his that their noses almost touch. Jack's breath hitches in his throat. "And my house not burning down. And not getting disowned."
"Fair."
"But I wouldn't change anything."
"No?" The question is so quiet, it's almost a whisper.
"Changing things might mean I wouldn't be where I am right now. And I wouldn't change that for the world."
Eventually though, they have to move. The world isn't going to stop turning because they're where they want to be. There are other people to think about, work projects, a wedding. It's only the promise of the wedding, of knowing that he'll get to lie beside Katherine and stare at the ceiling in this room every night for the rest of his life, come August, that persuades Jack up and out of bed. "We oughta get you back, 'fore Morton has a conniption."
"Will you get us an actual bed, before we move in?" Katherine groans, wincing at the twinge in her back as she sits up.
"You propositionin' me, Ace?" Jack asks, wiggling his eyebrows, and is rewarded with Katherine throwing a cushion at his head. He laughs, delighted. "I'll get you twenty, 'f you wants 'em."
"One will do just fine." She sighs, shaking her head. Then she looks up at the sky once more, her eyes skimming over constellations and clouds alike and whispers the next part. "When I'm with you, the evening always seems to come too soon."
