Author's note: Here is the very belated conclusion of my story. Thanks to Kicker, Mystery, and especially Rhapsody for reviewing this fic. You guys rock and I hope you enjoy this (rather short) ending.
Bumlet's winter-cracked lips were so frozen that he could barely will them to form Midnight's name. He had shouted at first but now, as the snow immediately hid his tracks and as the snow struggled to tear her coat from his arms, he was reduced to whispering. He knew she would not be able to hear him over the howling wind, but the action served to keep up his hope.
He marched by a pub filled with people and a beefy man holding a pint of beer shouted to him, "What's a young lad like ye doin' out on a night like this?" He chuckled at the sight of the newsboy striding through the snow.
"I'm lookin' for someone," he replied, attempting to speak over the chattering of his teeth. "A goil, fifteen years-old, wid auburn hair. Ya seen her?"
"Nah, can't say I have. Come in here, there are lots of fine lasses to catch your fancy."
Bumlets hurried away, the sound of high-pitched, beer-soaked laughter biting at his heels. Images of warm beverages and blankets flashed through his mind but his feet, though frozen, pushed him forward. He trembled at the cold and the thought of Midnight alone in an alley without protection from the snow. Stories of young street children, who were unable to find refuge from blizzards, lying pale and frozen and dead in the gutters, echoed throughout his mind. He shivered violently at the thought of finding Midnight in a similar situation on Christmas morning. Lifting his gaze to the cloudy skies, he thought, Please, I don't care if dat happens ta me; jus' let me find her and make shoah she's safe, and I won't ask for any moah.
Bumlets had never truly believed in any higher power. His mother had attended church faithfully but it had not prevented her from dying far too young. As he turned a corner, however, he found his beliefs called into question. He looked down at an auburn haired girl who was blanketed by snow.
"Midnight," he murmured as he fell to his knees at her side. She blinked once but her eyes were focused on the snowy streets. Her face was unnaturally pale and her lips were a faint shade of icy blue. In contrast her eyes were rimmed with red, with the telltale tracks of teardrops running down her cheeks. Bumlets immediately wrapped her coat around her, wishing that the threadbare wool could provide more warmth than it did. She did not acknowledge the act. He opened his mouth to ask her what had happened, but she finally spoke.
"He didn't want me," she said softly and distantly, and Bumlets had the feeling that she had been repeating that phrase like a mantra. "I said I would go with him and he didn't want me. Why didn't he want me?"
"Midnight," he whispered gently but dogged, "let's go back ta da lodgin' house. You'se half frozen." He tugged at her hand but she did not move.
"I was going to leave you," she admitted, the guilt gnawing at every part of her even when the cold had left her numb. She could not look at him, especially when she felt him wince slightly. "I thought he came here to get me and I decided to go with him, even if that meant leaving New York. I wanted to look in his eye…like mine…and see that he had always loved me. But he walked away and I don't think he's ever going to come back. Like I wasn't going to come back."
Bumlets was silent. So Twink was right, he thought grimly.
"He sent me away years ago and he didn't come back to get me."
The newsboy furrowed his forehead in confusion, and then the realization that she was not talking about another young man startled him into speech. "Ya…ya mean your faddah, don't ya?" Midnight had spoken only casually of the man who traveled up and down the coast in search of work. He felt dizzy at the thought of all that Midnight had been hiding during the passed few days. It was not that he felt betrayed by the concealment of this information; he was concerned with the enormity of the burden that Midnight felt she had to bear alone.
She nodded dumbly and stared at the watch she still clutched. It felt frozen to her palm now. "I didn't even get to give him this. And I don't have any presents for anyone else."
"Why didn't you come back ta da lodgin' house?" he inquired softly. "You could die out here."
"But I…I," she mumbled, her voice cracking with the threat of tears, "I was going to leave you. I couldn't just go back, knowing that. And now you know that. I was going to give up you and Cricket and everyone else for someone who didn't even want me in the first place. How could I do that to you?"
Bumlets blinked once and furrowed his forehead in surprise. "Ya can always go home," he told her gently but insistently.
Breaking her gaze at the watch, she turned to stare into his eyes, which were far warmer and more empathetic than she remembered her father's being. A few hours ago I thought of home as Maine, even after spending years in the Manhattan Lodging House. But really, what was there that I could go back to? A smile curled around her mouth as she realized that it did not matter that her father was most likely hopping the next train to God-knows-where. She would not lie awake at night aching for his acceptance and love. She would not deny what had always been right in front of her, what she had never truly noticed until now, as the storm became a gentle snowfall and as the moon peeked out from in between thick gray clouds. Her heart careened against her chest and she aimlessly wondered if Bumlets could hear it pounding beneath the frail layers of wool and flesh. It was cracking like the ice on her eyelashes, warmed by her own tears of love. Moved by a passion greater than any she had ever known, she leaned forward and pressed her frozen lips to Bumlets'.
Both newsies felt a kind of warmth spread throughout their entire bodies so that they were unaware of the snow, of the tears frozen to Midnight cheeks, of the silvery moonlight that blanketed them. They trembled not out of biting coldness and pain but out of love and desire and hope. Love swelled in them like an ocean and sang like they knew the Manhattan newsies would later that evening. They felt like singing themselves, hoarse voices lifted in joyous praise of what they had discovered that evening.
When they broke apart they stared at each other in awe of what they had shared. The bells of St. Patrick's chimed with unusual joviality in the distance, heralding the arrival of Christmas day. Bumlets smiled widely and, climbing to his feet, helped Midnight's aching limbs to rise. They huddled close as they marched back to the lodging house, fingers entwined and torsos seemingly melding together. They knew that they would not separate when they arrived back at the lodging house, even as they were both swept up in the zealous embraces of their friends. They would drink hot cider, munch on fresh bread donated by a local church, and laugh merrily until sleep claimed them. And even with the promise of other winters and holidays and years to come, Bumlets and Midnight knew that they would never be separated. They had bound themselves together in the frigid darkness of Christmas Eve, finding warmth and home in each other's eyes.
The end…please review!