Chapter 56

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Author's note: Apologies for my absence. Have many, many chapters in recompense. The last part of this chapter (and what follows on from it) are the reason for the M rating, friends. No smut, just angst, but, well… you'll see. There's descriptions of blood. And trauma (as in the medical definition, not mental anguish… though that too). So, be careful. I'll see you on the other side.

...

When Katherine had told her that their house was going to be invaded by thirty newsies on Christmas Day, Edith had thought she was joking. As it turns out, she was sorely mistaken.

Christmas morning itself is fairly peaceful, to be fair. They lie in a little, as Jack only got back at a ridiculous time of night the night before from playing Santa, and then they sit in the kitchen and eat bacon sandwiches, Jack cracking jokes about how the bump now clearly visible under Katherine's nightgown is absolutely nothing to do with him and everything to do with her sneaking too many mince pies out of the tin. Katherine flicks a tea towel at Jack's head as he walks past and threatens to tell Mrs. Ross that he doesn't like the mince pies her daughter gave them. (That would be a categorical lie. Her mother might leave a sour taste in their mouths, but Mrs. Chavers' cooking is divine.)

Considering the amount of presents that had been in the living room before Jack's adventures as Santa the night before, the offerings under the tree look a little pitiful. But they have a tree, even though it's sparsely decorated, and there are presents under it, and Jack can't quite believe that this is his life. That he has a house, with sprigs of holly on top of the curtain rails and a tree decorated with cheap tinsel and coloured paper hearts that Katherine folded. That he has a wife and a baby on the way. That there are actual Christmas presents under the tree.

For Katherine, of course, it's rather different. Compared to the lounge in their old house – strange to think that it was still standing this time last year – their living room looks shabby and cheap. With there being seven of them – six, the past few years, without Lucy – and little restriction on budget, the presents usually ended up spilling out from under the tree, making the ceremony of opening them an hours-long affair. This year, they're tighter on money, living on their own with the baby on the way, so they've agreed on nothing extravagant. There are only eight gifts under the tree, but Katherine knows that that's more than anything Jack grew up with, so she prays that Edith doesn't say anything as she sits down.

Jack goes first, Katherine giving him some shirts and socks because he's in desperate need of new ones but is still refusing to step inside a tailor's. And then she hands him a second gift, this one a set of watercolours that she's seen him staring at through the window of the art store for months. His face lights up like nothing on this earth, and Katherine's heart almost breaks at how something so small as receiving a gift is world-shattering for him. And then Edith hands him a gift, followed by one to Katherine. Both of them look at her, stunned.

"I called into the bookstore while you were both at work yesterday." She shrugs. "They refuse to let us walk into the village at school, so it has been rather nice to have the freedom to shop again."

"Thank you, Edith." Katherine says, and she means it. They never did presents to one another at home – presents were just something that appeared under the tree, courtesy of their parents. She can't believe that Edith did this. "I – um, here." Katherine snatches up two gifts from beneath the tree, thrusting them at Edith. "From Jack and I."

Katherine's present reveals a copy of a book called The Yellow Wall-Paper. It would sound dreadfully boring, had the suffrage magazine not run a review of it not two weeks before, hailing it as a 'masterful evocation of the plight of women's psychiatric care'. She might feel as though she doesn't know her sister, she realises, but her sister certainly knows her. And her husband too, apparently, because Jack is flicking through a book about drawing anatomy, with examples on every page. Edith, for her part, receives a letter writing set from Katherine. Katherine hopes that it's plain in the gift, the words she can't say, the relationship she wants to cultivate. Jack has painted her a jewellery box with scenes of New York rendered in perfect miniature. It's the smallest number of Christmas presents Edith's ever had, Katherine knows, hell, the two gifts that Jack sets in her lap next are for her as well, but, somehow, she doesn't feel discontent. She hopes that Edith doesn't either.

Jack's gifts to her are an omnibus edition of H.G. Wells' fiction, with a message scrawled in his messy, childish handwriting on the front flyleaf asking her to read them to him over the coming months. She resists the urge to make a joke about how it's a gift to himself as well. He'd only feel bad about it, and she knows that she enjoys sitting in the armchair and reading to him like nothing else on earth. And then the other gift, well…

He'd promised her a replacement for the painting he'd given her last Christmas, but this goes above and beyond that. It's a sketch of a woman - the face only half-visible because of her position, but unmistakably Katherine – bent over a typewriter, deep in concentration. It's beautiful, of course, all of Jack's work is, but the texture of the piece strikes her as odd until she realises that the paper that the sketch is drawn on is a collage of every article that she's written in the past three months, maybe more, each one neatly clipped out of the paper. And if she sheds a couple of tears, well, she can blame it on the pregnancy hormones.

The rest of the morning passes comfortably; Jack working on his latest commission, Edith reading, Katherine knitting, each one of them sprawled in the living room in companionable silence. Katherine alternates between stitching a row for the baby booties that she's trying to make, staring at her knitting pattern as if it's personally offended her, and throwing down her needles to go into the kitchen to stare pensively at the turkey in the oven. She is determined not to burn it.

It's just after eleven am that their peace gets shattered, almost thirty newsies cramming themselves into the tiny living room, the little ones excitedly waving around the toys that Santa brought. Edith isn't unused to sharing space with others, she has six siblings, after all, but this is an entirely different form of chaos. Ten minutes in, and Edith's skin has started to feel itchy, the room too warm, her ears too full of noise. She retreats out into the hallway and sits on the stairs, trying to clear her head before they all have to go and eat Christmas lunch.

As her breathing slows, she lets her eyes trace over the back of the front door, scratched and a little warped despite Jack and Katherine's clear efforts to make it more presentable with a fresh coat of paint.

"Hey, you alright?" Her eyes shoot up to find Henry in the hallway.

"Quite alright." She clears her throat. "I was just a little warm in there."

Henry smiles a little, coming to perch on the step below her. "The boys can be a lot, huh?" Edith nods, smiling back, something that earns a laugh from the boy. "Tell me 'bout it, I's gotta live wi' them."

She blinks. "Are you an orphan, like Jack?"

"Nah, my mother's round an' 'bout." Henry shrugs. "Ain't no kids allowed at the brothel she works at though, not 'less you wants trouble."

Edith frowns. "What does she do there?"

Henry's expression turns a little irritated – not quite angry, but something closed off and confused. "…she works in a brothel. Ain't you hearin' me right? I know it ain't no fancy career, but 's honest work. She don' rob nobody."

"I am unfamiliar with the term brothel."

"Oh." Henry's eyes widen and he looks away. Edith wonders whether she's done something wrong. "Uh. Maybe you should ask your sister. I ain't sure 's appropriate for me to tell you." He coughs. "So, Mista Pulitzer chuck you out too, huh? That why you's livin' wi' Kath?"

"My father did not throw me out!" She snaps, shifting backwards on the step.

"Hey, hey, okay." Henry raises his hands in surrender. "Didn't mean to tread on no toes."

Edith softens, just a little, sticks her nose in the air. "Our house burned down last January and the new one isn't built yet. Katherine invited me to stay here instead of at school, that is all."

"You stays overnight at school?" Henry asks, wrinkling his nose. Edith is somehow immensely glad that that's the part of her explanation that he chooses to focus on. She doesn't feel like reliving the fire again.

For Henry's part, he's heard things about school from Les, and none of it sounds fun. Reading and writing and arithmetic, with a ruler whacked across your hand for every wrong answer? And having to stay there overnight? It sounds awful.

"Yes. It's a boarding school."

"Ain't that kinda boring?"

Edith looks at him, opening her mouth to mock him, but stops herself. He… sort of has a point. She finds herself laughing. "It is dreadfully dull."

Henry laughs with her, and she decides that he looks rather nicer when he laughs, despite his crooked teeth and uncombed hair. He's still smiling when he leans up, hand raised to brush something off her cheek. "You's, uh, got somethin'-"

She freezes. Good grief, she hopes that she hasn't been wandering around with bacon grease on her cheek or something – she'd be mortified. But before his fingers can so much as brush against her face, Katherine comes out of the kitchen and stops in the hall, raising her eyebrows.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," Henry snatches his hand away, jumping to his feet and shoving both of his hands in his pockets, "uh, jus' makin' sure Miss Edith ain't upset or nothin'."

"Ah." Katherine raises a single, unconvinced eyebrow. "Edith, would you give me a hand in the kitchen, please?"

Edith may be a smart girl, but Katherine knows that whole thing went right over her head. Honestly, she isn't surprised. It had taken her several months of working in the newspaper office, surrounded by men, before she wised up to their ways. It's the downside, she supposes, of spending a lifetime hidden away. When you're finally released, you have no idea how to handle anything.

As the two of them extract the not-burned turkey out of the oven, which Katherine honestly feels she deserves a medal for, Edith looks at her and asks: "Katherine?"

"Hm?"

"What's a brothel?"

Katherine almost drops the skewer she's using to check the turkey. "Why would you want to know a thing like that?"

Edith frowns. "Henry said his mother worked in one."

Did he, now? Well, she's got to learn sometime, and it might as well be now, so that she doesn't humiliate herself in future. "It's a place where prostitutes work."

"Oh." Edith looks down, a little pale.

Katherine keeps her eyes determinedly on the turkey, pressing the skewer into the tender meat. "Was Henry… was he bothering you, Edith?"

"No." Edith shakes her head. "He has been very nice, actually."

Katherine shoots her a tentative look. "Are you –"

"No." Edith shakes her head. "I'm not like you, Katherine. I want comfort, not freedom."

Katherine nods. The turkey is done, juices running clear. She hasn't managed to undercook it either. Frankly, she deserves a trophy. It puts her in a good enough mood that she turns to her sister before she slopes back off to join the boys and smiles at her.

"Thank you. For being so welcoming to the boys this week. It means a lot to Jack. And me, as well."

Edith looks at her, long and lingering, the same dark, assessing eyes as their father. And then she nods. A truce, of sorts. An agreement.

Katherine doesn't bring it up again until after all the boys have gone home and her and Jack are lying in bed that night. He's almost dozed off, at this point, predictably; he rarely sleeps better than when they're like this, Katherine wrapped around him, his fingers tracing those slow circles on her side that make her shiver.

"Jack, my love?" She hums against his shoulder, planting a kiss there just to taste him, the salt and earth of him, warm and grounding.

"Hm?"

"Do you think you could have a chat with Henry?"

"What 'bout?" Jack cracks one eye open.

"Edith." Katherine says, sending him a significant look. "Let him down gently?"

Jack doesn't pretend not to know what she's talking about. He knows his boys well enough to realise that Henry has a raging crush on Katherine's little sister. But all his boys have gone through that phase – hell, Romeo has never grown out of it – when they get their heads turned for the first time by a pretty girl and start making all sorts of stupid decisions until they get their heart broken.

"Kath, 's fine. I has a talk wi' all o' the boys 'bout not gettin' nobody pregnant once they hit thirteen. He ain't goin' to do nothin'."

"I'm not worried about Edith getting pregnant, Jack, I'm worried about him getting his heart broken." Katherine pokes his side. Honestly, she thinks, he's such a boy sometimes. "Look, anything that happens… it'll never work out."

"They's jus' kids, Kath, it ain't that serious-" Jack says, shifting slightly, stretching, hauling the both of them up a little further to sit back against the pillows. He knows her too well to think that she's going to drop this.

"I don't want her ruining her reputation over him."

Because even though Edith had said no, her actions didn't. Jack's expression darkens at Katherine's words; the circles he's tracing on her hip slow, then stop altogether. He turns his face away from her, that tendon in his neck standing out.

"Like I ruined yours, huh?"

He laughs, after he says it, a little breathy thing with no humour in it. I know you ain't seein' that right now, but one day you will. In a year, or five, or twenty. An' I don't wants to still be around when you realises I ruined your life.

"You know that's not what I meant."

Jack sighs, because he does, he does know that's not what she meant. He stares up at the ceiling. "'S the truth, though, ain't it?"

"No, it is not." Katherine frowns, putting her hand on his face, that face that she loves so well, could trace from memory, and turning him to face her. "Edith is fourteen, Jack. She doesn't have options like I did, she doesn't have a career to fall back on. Don't think Father won't have her sent to some sort of convent if she doesn't toe the line, because he will. I don't want her getting into something she can't handle."

She's right, he knows. It just seems like hypocrisy, somehow. "I'll talk to Henry."

And although that's forgiveness, from Jack, Katherine tells him this next bit, just because it's true. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Yeah," Jack sighs, and means it, though it's hard to believe her even as he kisses her forehead and then each one of her closed eyes, "you too."

…

Boxing Day is, apparently, according to Katherine, the day that you go and pay calls. Jack has absolutely no idea where she got this idea from, but it involves her being out for the day and taking different things to different people. So Jack does as he's been told to do, for once in his life, and heads over to Henry's usual selling spot, calling out as he approaches.

"You done for the day?"

Henry looks over, a little surprised, but nods. "Yeah."

"C'mon," Jack slings an arm around his shoulders, "you want a sandwich?"

Henry snorts. Stupid question. "Always."

He doesn't ask what is going on until Jack has sat down next to him on the park bench and handed him his sandwich. He isn't stupid. Get the food first, at least. When he first asks, Jack plays dumb, until: "You's a shit liar."

Jack sighs. "Kath wants me to talk to you 'bout Edith."

"What 'bout her?"

"Your crush on her."

Henry glares at Jack. "I ain't got a crush on her!"

"You's a shit liar." He mimics. Henry takes a violent bite of his sandwich, feeling Jack's eyes on the side of his face. His voice is softer when he asks: "She feel the same?"

"I dunno, I ain't asked."

"Then don' get into it."

Another glare. "I don' take orders from you, Jack."

"I ain't orderin', I's advisin'." Jack tells him, firm. "Don' do it, Henry. 'S goin' to cause a lotta pain an' you won't get nothin' outta it."

And the thing is, Henry already knew. It doesn't mean he has to like it. "You an' Kath worked out." He grumbles.

"We did." Jack nods slowly. "But we was livin' in the same city, an' Kath could support hersel' when her family disowned her, an' I had a steady job. You ain't got none o' that."

"I really like her, Jack."

"I know, kid." And he does, and it's fucking awful. Because somewhere else, in a different life, Jack wouldn't have to have this conversation. In a world where every kid got to go to school and associate with whoever they liked, there would be a lot worse pairings than Edith and Henry. But they don't live in that world. In fact, Jack and Katherine's success is so ridiculously unlikely – a combination of dumb luck and a lot of big sacrifices – that he can hardly believe that this is him, his life. Jack claps Henry on the shoulder. "An' that's why you's gotta do the right thing."

…

Across town, Katherine has a baby in her arms. See, Daisy is spending Christmas with her sister, her sister's husband, and their child. Paul, the child in question, is an infant of frankly frightening proportions, ten pounds at birth and only getting larger. He has the same big blue eyes and blond curls as his mother, the same rounded, ruddy cheeks. Katherine thinks that she might be in love.

She has never been what anybody could call maternal. Children are difficult. They don't make sense and she's never had a way with them. That's Jack, always has been. Her husband can charm adults like it's nothing, but children? They worship him. Holding Paul, therefore, should feel strange. Unnatural. Uncomfortable. But it's actually kind of pleasant, holding him in her arms, cradling him, feeling the soft warmth of a little person against her chest. A little person who needs her, who feels safe enough to fall asleep in her arms, to let her rock him. He has two of his fingers in his mouth, in between rosy, plump lips that sit under the daintiest little button nose.

Her and Jack's baby won't look quite like this, she knows, they'll have curly dark hair and brown eyes. She hopes their baby won't be quite as big. But theirs will be just as perfect.

"You's broody, you is." Daisy remarks, full-on smirking at Katherine from her position across the kitchen, rifling through the little gift basket that Katherine had brought for them, insisting that as she brought shortbread, she ought at least to try a little bit. Katherine looks down at the baby in her arms.

"I can't wait for mine."

She reiterates this sentiment later, when she's curled up in their bed with a mug of tea and her new edition of H.G. Wells.

"How was everythin' wi' Daisy?" Jack asks, fiddling with his suspenders as he gets changed into his pyjamas.

"I got to hold her nephew." She tells him, sipping at her tea. It's good. She's not much of a tea drinker, but Jack knows exactly the way that she likes it, a little bit of honey stirred in to satisfy her sweet tooth. "I really liked it."

"Yeah?" He smiles at her over his shoulder.

She smiles back. "I can't wait for our little one to come along."

"Me neither, Ace." Jack says, climbing into bed beside her. "Me neither."

Only four hours later, he remembers that you've always got to be careful what you wish for.

"Jack? Jack, wake up!"

There's a hand on him, on his shoulder, shaking him. He flinches, then recognises the voice as Katherine's, the touch as Katherine's, and relaxes. "Hm? 'S up?"

"I'm bleeding."

Jack blinks up at his wife, his eyes clouded by sleep. He resists the urge to groan, deep in his throat, at being roused at – he rolls over, blinks at the clock by their bed – three am, knowing that she's in a far worse state than he is at this point. "Must be that time o' the month, sweetheart." He yawns, swinging his legs out of bed and rubbing at his bleary eyes. "Go sort yoursel' out, I'll change the sheets."

"Jack," she says, behind him, and it's then when he hears the fear in her voice, "you don't get monthly bleeds when you're pregnant."

He turns around, eyes wide, pulls the cover back. Bile rises in his throat. Blood. Blood fucking everywhere, like it had been at the Refuge, staining the floor, sticky and wet and spreading across the sheets. It's so red. Not like dried blood, but fresh, bright red and garish, like his paints. If only it was paint. Katherine's nightgown is soaked in it, too.

"It hurts." She tells him, tears in her eyes, hand on her belly.

What is he supposed to do? He's a useless husband, a useless father, he doesn't know what to do in these situations. Blood. Katherine. Blood. Jack snatches up his jacket from beside the bed, squeezing her hand with the other.

"I's gonna send Edith for a doctor, okay? I's gonna be right back."

He almost trips over himself staggering down the stairs, bursting into Edith's room. "Edith, Edith, doll, I needs you to get up."

"Whatisit?" The girl, mussed with sleep, blinks at him, wincing as the light he flips on burns her retinas.

"'S Katherine, she ain't well;" Jack tells her, frantic, pulling her into a sitting position and wrapping his jacket around her shoulders, "d'you know where Dr. Graceton lives?" Edith nods, immediately wide-eyed. "I needs you to run there an' get him, fast as you can, okay? I don't care 'f you has to break a window to get him up, we need him, okay?"

"Okay."

For once in her life, Edith Pulitzer doesn't question Jack. She just stuffs her feet into her boots and runs out of the door, pulling Jack's jacket closer around her, grateful for the layer over her nightgown in the winter chill. She's run through the streets of New York in her nightgown before, almost a year before, and yet this is somehow more terrifying. There's a different kind of fire on her heels now.

Jack, back in their bedroom, sits beside his wife. He has no idea what to do. "D'you want me to-"

"No, no, we'll wait for the doctor."

"What – tell me what to do, Kath, please."

"Pray with me?"

No, Jack wants to scream at her, no, I won't fucking pray with you. Everything, he's had everything, and now her stupid God is trying to wash it away again in a sea of blood. But he doesn't. Instead, he nods, terse and jerky, and pulls her against him, holding her clasped hands in one of his, his arm around her, and watches her mouth move in silent prayer, her eyes firmly closed, her hands clutching his so tightly that her skin turns white. They sit in silence on the life raft of their mattress and Jack tilts his head towards the sky, towards the stars painted on their ceiling that suddenly seem incredibly far away. He prays. One line, over and over again.

Don't take her away from me. Please, don't take her away from me.