A/N: In the last installment of this hopelessly drawn-out serial (blame chemistry class on the lateness of the update. Don't worry, though-I have realized, somewhat late in the day, that one has to choose between homework and fanfic once school starts in the fall, and I have chosen fanfic), I promised you love, birth, death, sex, betrayal, happiness, grief and Max Casella. In this chapter, I have pretty much everything except the last one. So sit back, relax, and let the story unfold. We'll just have to see about Race in the chapters to come. ;-D

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Home

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This is what happened between Saturday, November seventeenth, the day that things began to go wrong, and Monday, November twenty-sixth, the day I found my way back home:

Saturday morning. Spot was going up to the Battery to visit a few friends, hitching a ride on the back of a trolley in order to avoid parting with the nickel it would cost him if he actually paid. He had two hard-earned dollars in his pocket that he wasn't going to let go of easily, at least not until the poker game that night.

The more dramatic continuation (and probably the one you've been expecting to hear) would be to say that Spot never made it to that poker game. But this was hardly the case. A few bruised ribs, he thought (in fact one was fractured, but he didn't learn that until much later), shouldn't keep him from having a good time. He had dealt with worse in his life than a fall from the back of a trolley. So he paid no attention what pain he felt and went about his business as usual, and when he found himself a few days later with a fever and a bad cough he wrote it off as a cold. It was, after all, almost December-the first snows had already fallen and people were falling ill left, right, and center. He wasn't the kind of person who got sick all the time, and when he did he just ignored it and waited for it to go away. What reason did he have to make a big deal about it? None. He couldn't let people think he was softening up.

On Tuesday morning he was coughing up blood. He could barely breathe; he had woken up that night soaked with sweat. Something that had been nothing to worry about had become pneumonia. Spot was an easy target. The squalor he was living in, and the cold, and the city-the fall from the trolley had left him wide open. A fractured rib was nothing short of an invitation for disease. It was something that happened all the time, nothing to worry about at all. Quite common among people like my brother. Things looked bad now but with some rest he would be back on his feet in no time-with just a few exceptions this was always how it went. Just a few exceptions.

This I learned at the hospital that day, talking to a nurse with a uniform as blindingly white as the brilliant winter sun. At the time all this was going on-when Spot went down for the count that day, when Wolf took him against his will to the hospital and sent me twelve words of summoning that night-he knew none of it. Only now, as I sat by his bed in that enormous ward full of sickly cleanliness and white white white, did things at last start to clear up. My brother was sick now, but he would be fine. This was how it went. With just a few exceptions.

It took him a few moments to realize it was me. I sat quietly as he struggled to identify his surroundings, and when his eyes like two blue purey marbles at last settled on my face I took a deep breath, smiled, and did my best. "Hi, Spot."

He sank back into bed, more tired than I had ever seen him in my life. He looked up at me. "I'm gonna kill Wolf."

I laughed. "I'm glad you haven't gone and changed on me."

"Yeh," he said, trying visibly not to cough. "Can't say the same for you, though, Sam."

I thought about this before I let myself answer, as I was sorely tempted to, with a smile and a cheerful "not me". Whether I had changed or not in the last six years was a question that had been at the back of my mind since I left Alaska, and now I tried yet again to find an answer.

I had been sixteen years old when I left; now I was twenty-two. That, at least, was something. But did age really count? For years to go by was inevitable, but to grow up was not, and at that moment I was certain that although I was older I was definitely not any wiser. I would make the same mistakes all over again, if only given a chance. The only changes I could truly discern were skin-deep. The yellow hair that when I left had fallen to my waist-on an archaeological dig in Knossos a year and a half before I had found it nothing more than a hindrance, getting stiff and coarse with sand and salt, and bobbed it loosely with a pair of shears-for the rest of my time in Greece I had been known to all the locals as "Snip". My thick Brooklyn accent had dissolved over time, replaced by a broad, stubborn, Western tongue. I had a handful more scars, my skin no longer so pale. But my hair fell past my shoulders now, and in time would grow back completely if I let it, which I knew full well that I would. I could feel that edge coming back into my speech, the dialect of a girl who knew no greater beauty than a steel-cabled suspension bridge. And always, underneath, who I was had remained constant as the stars that had guided me. I was Samantha Margaret Conlon, daughter of Kathleen and Samuel, sister of Spot. My heart still beat with the same steady cadence, still loved and remembered the same people, a feeling that went deeper than the mind. I realized for the first time, then, not only that I hadn't changed at all, but that maybe I didn't want to.

I shook my head. "No. I haven't changed."

"You're still the same person," he said. "But you're...you're different." He tried to sit up a little, but gave up when he couldn't quite find the energy. "I dunno. Maybe ya grew up."

"I don't think so."

His lips curved in the beginnings of a smile. "I'se old enough an' wise enough to know that you're older and wiser. Did that make any sense?" he added.

"Kind of," I laughed.

He started to say something else, then, but halfway through the first sound of the first letter he lost for the moment whatever authority he still had over his body and began to cough almost uncontrollably. It terrified me to see him like that, and it scared me even more when all I could do was move a little closer and try to lay a steadying hand on him. It hadn't struck me before what a strong hold the sickness had on him, the same sickness that years before had...no. I wasn't going to think about that. Spot was sick now, but he would be fine. This was how it went. With just a few exceptions.

"You're fine," I said shakily, after it had ended and his breathing was more or less steady.

"Look," he began, "Sam, if I die-"

"You're not gonna to die. I won't let you."

He nodded. "But if I do-an' they bury me and everything, make sure they don't put 'Samuel', y'know, on the, on the tombstone. Make 'em get it right. Spot Conlon."

I didn't say anything.

"Sammy, promise me."

If I had known words loving and kind, I would have given them to him. If I had known sweet songs I would have sung them. If I could have done anything to make him feel safe, then I would have done it. But I didn't know any of that-or if I ever had, then it was long forgotten by then. So I comforted him the only way I knew how: by insulting him.

"You ain't dying, you goddamn girl. Jesus Christ, you're a pansy. You're gonna live."

"It hurts to breathe," was all he said.

"The King of Brooklyn, smote by a cough? Forget it."

He smiled. "Smote? Sammy's been readin' her thesaurus."

Knowing I had convinced him, I let myself laugh. "When you move around so much you tend to pick up a few things."

"Yeh?" he said with interest. "Like what? I wanna know what you've been doin' all this time, find out if it's so much better den bein' a newsie." He smiled.

"Well," I began, wondering just where to start. "I can shoot a rifle. I was in Alaska for the past few months, and the man I was living with taught me to hunt. I wasn't too bad at it. It was really the only way you could make a living there anyway. You do what you have to do." I turned to him, memories coming to me too fast to recount, trying to spill it all out. "Like in Oregon. I ended up cooking at a logging camp-you did breakfast in the morning for the first group, and then for the second, and the third, and the fourth, and by the time you were done with that it was time to start with lunch. But you learn a lot," I added. "Whether you want to or not. I mean that's how I really learned how to cook. I can play a pretty good hand of poker now-I'm pretty sure I'd still lose my money to Race, though--and I can drink any man under the table, because that's what they do for fun in Siberia and that's how you win money for your train ride out. I can read ancient Greek and Hieroglyphs, and I know a little French and Spanish, and Mandarin-"

"Mandarin?"

"It's a kind of Chinese. But I only know enough to ask how much a room costs and say I'm not a prostitute."

"Well, that's all you really need."

I smiled. "I can sail. I was on a fishing boat in the Philippines for a while. And I was in Russia for a winter. It's amazing there, Spot. And Amsterdam! Do you know what they do there? There are all these canals, and in the wintertime they freeze up, and everybody skates. You'd love it." I sighed. "There are so many things I have to tell you about."

"You will tell me. You'll tell me everything."

I nodded. "I'll come back every day, and I'll tell you. All of it. I'm not going anywhere. I'm home."

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Past

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Even in the summer of 1878, when she was at her peak, Kathleen McKenna was by no means the prettiest girl on Water Street. Not to say that she was plain, for with her long golden hair and cloudless, pale blue eyes, she was anything but. And though her figure might not have been as full as one might have wished, nor her hands as dainty, nor her walk as graceful, her voice held the lilting cadences of a Dublin girl even after five years in New York, a voice that, although it did not make her irresistible to every man in Brooklyn, was alluring enough for Samuel Conlon.

It was a charmed love affair. He was the type of man she had always dreamt of, strong an honest, and maybe he was poor, but certainly no poorer than she. She was nineteen; he, twenty-one. They were still young enough to believe that if they had love for each other than they had all they needed. And they certainly did have that.

Their blossoming romance was common knowledge to the gossip-hungry inhabitants of Water Street, and often a topic ripe for debate among adults, of the common "how long will this thing last" variety. They didn't have to wonder long. Sam and Kathleen got married in the spring of 1879, with a cake donated by the bakery down the street and a feather bed provided by the downstairs neighbors. Beyond that, they had to fend for themselves. Sam found good work, doing construction on the new bridge, and he brought home a paycheck at the end of every week to his beautiful wife. She was doing what she could as well, taking in laundry and doing some housework here and there, and between the two of them, they had enough. Meat on Sundays and money for rent, a coin or two in the cracked mug that rested on the windowsill, waiting for a rainy day-that was really all they needed. And for a while, things seemed like they were going their way. For a while, they were happy. But all that changed when the children came.

First, it was a boy. Born with the birth of 1880, almost nine months to the day since the wedding. He was smaller than most but he had the fighting spirit in him, everyone could see that from the very beginning. They named him after his father, Samuel William Conlon, and for a while he had a life fine enough to fit such a name. Some of the boys that he would meet later on had been orphans from the outset, never knowing a real home- but he knew what it felt like to be wanted. To be loved. It was something that only made it harder for him, once things changed for the worse.

They really only had enough money for one child. A second would be asking for trouble, they both knew it. But Kathleen wanted a daughter. Around the time Samuel was first learning to walk she began to have visions of a little girl all her own. A little girl with fair hair and sunny blue eyes just like hers, who would be her companion during the day when she was running errands and at home fixing supper, who she could tell stories to and teach to sing the songs that she had learned as a child. She would make sweet little dresses for her to wear, in pink and yellow and pale blue, and she would braid matching ribbons into her plaits, and all the ladies up and down Water Street would comment on what a lovely little girl Kathleen Conlon was bringing up. So on February fourteenth, 1883, another child born into their little family, a girl who was named-in a manner that parents always found adorable, never realizing that it would most likely cause their child endless teasing and frustration later in life-Samantha Margaret Conlon.

She had her mother's hair all right, and her beautiful blue eyes, but that was about the only thing that matched up to Kathleen's ideas of what her daughter would be like. She was a tomboy from the outset, born ready for a fight just like her brother. When she was old enough to join in the neighborhood children's games, she chose not to go off with the other girls skipping rope and playing with dolls, but to play stickball and marbles with the boys instead. Even when she was only a few minutes old it was clear where her destiny lay, the first sound she made not a cry but a laugh. But she was their daughter, and they loved her dearly, all of them a family. That was when things were right, when storybook endings really did seem to come true in real life. But we all pay dearly for our happiness-or so Kathleen believed, anyway. And in this, at least, she was right.

The trouble began just after Samuel's fifth birthday. Quite simply, the money dried up. Work on the bridge had stopped a while back and their father had found work here and there, in the steel mills and the like, but nothing that lasted. Money was scarce, and made scarcer by the fact that he drank away at least half of his wages. That was the time when Sam Conlon became two people, as different as night and day, and it was anyone's guess which one would emerge from day to day.

The first Sam Conlon was the one they all knew, the one Kathleen had fallen in love with all those years ago. He was handsome and strong, the one who gave his son a slingshot for his birthday, to his wife's token admonishments ("Sam, he's too young for it!" "Nonsense, Kath. All boys need to learn to defend themselves. And besides, when Samantha's of age and all the boys are linin' up 'round the block, ready to eat chips out of her knickers, do you think make a fuss?" "You? You'll chain her to the radiator"). He was the one who carried his son proudly on his shoulders, singing in the strong tenor that everyone on Water Street couldn't help but admire.

In Dublin's fair city, where the girls are so pretty

I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone

As she wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow

Crying cockles and mussels alive a-live O!

And young Samuel, held up almost as high as the sky on the shoulders of a man he was certain was the most wonderful father in the world, would sing out the chorus as loud as he could.

A-live a-live O! A-live a-live O!

Crying cockles and mussels alive a-live O!

Then there was the other Sam Conlon. He was the one who came home drunk, the one who would belt you for showing him too much cheek and belt you for not showing him enough. He was the one who let his children go hungry, the one who made Kathleen shiver with dread when he got into bed next to her. And as the months went by, this Sam Conlon more and more was the only one they ever saw, and they were left wondering where their husband and their father had gone.

Kathleen did her best to keep her children safe. She couldn't shield them from all the pain in the world, she thought, or even all the pain that went on in their home, but she could at least try to protect them. She bore the brunt of his anger. Bruises in muted shades of umber and violet began to show up on her face, colors that would have been almost beautiful if it weren't for their origins. It hurt her children to see them almost as much as their father did, for she could only protect them for so long, and soon Sam would take any excuse to tear into them. "Don't talk back, boy!" "Shut yer mouth and eat what's put before you!" "Do as I say!" And Kathleen protected little Samuel and Samuel protected his sister and in the end all of this was no protection at all. He was a strong man, with big, thick hands, powerful as a racehorse. Even years later, Samuel would be terrified at the very thought of those hands.

But once in a while, they would see the old Sam Conlon. The Sam Conlon they all loved. And they would think that maybe it was worth it, just to see him once and a while, and every time they would try harder to appease the other man, each time failing--and so it went, for months, years, until one day it just couldn't go on any longer.

It was the day after Christmas. Samuel was six, going on seven, and he was happy. Happier than he could ever remember being. He and Samantha had awoken on Christmas morning to find water street covered with a fresh coat of snow, and for a while they had even forgotten about presents as they went out to play with the other kids. He was especially proud of himself for how well he was doing with his slingshot-he hadn't quite hit the snowman he was aiming for but had been in the right general direction-only a couple inches to the left and he would have nailed it. And even if he hadn't been happy with it, there was something about new snow, all the flaws in the world covered up by a pristine layer of white, that always made him happy. And after they were done playing they had gone inside, and Mumma had made them cocoa and they had opened presents and then had Christmas dinner and gone to bed, and everything was perfect. Just as it should have been. And the best part was that the old Sam Conlon hadn't left for nearly a week, their real father was back for Christmas, singing carols with them and being the man they all knew he was. It would have been enough to make Samuel think that maybe he was back for good, if he hadn't been through this so many times before.

Years later, no one could remember what the argument was about, or even what started it. Maybe Kathleen burned the oatmeal, or Samantha lost her skate key, or Samuel was too loud. Maybe it was nothing at all. But at any rate, the man they hated was back-and by the end of the day Samuel had a broken arm. Kathleen took him to Dr. Hennessey to get it fixed, saying he had fallen down, and by the time they got back to the apartment it was dark. Samuel was sent straight to bed, and as he lay awake in the dark feeling brave, his sister sleeping peacefully on the other side of the room- it would take a brass band to wake her up-he listened as the voices rose around him, some words disappearing, swallowed up by the night, and others hitting him with such force he thought he would cry out.

"...can't treat our children this way. I won't stand for it." That was Mumma.

"Don't you EVER tell me...my own children."

"Don't touch me, Sam. Don't-"

The sound of a body hitting the wall that separated the bedroom from the kitchen. Samuel could feel the vibrations in his own body. It was then that he smashed the pillow over his face, rocked back and forth, trying with all his might not to hear.

Nearly an hour later Kathleen pushed the door open, shards of light shed by the lamp burning dully in the kitchen spilling across the bare wood floor. Walking over to where her son was skillfully feigning sleep, she sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled the pillow away, looking carefully at his face. So like an angel, she thought, brushing some loose hair away from his forehead-he really did need to get a haircut. An angel of mercy, sent down to watch over Water Street. How had she let this happen to him for so long?

"Mumma?" Samuel whispered, opening his eyes.

"I'm here."

"He's gone, isn't he?"

Kathleen took his hand in hers. "Yes. He's gone now. He's not going to hurt you anymore."

"Will you miss him?" he asked quietly.

She nodded. "Yes."

"So will I."

"I know, Cuchulain," she said, sighing. "But it was what had to be done."

Samuel nodded. "I have to take care of you and Samantha now, don't I?"

"You're to be the man of the house now," Kathleen said. "You have to be strong."

"I'll have to..." Samuel furrowed his brow, deep in though. "I'll have to get a new name, won't I, Mumma?"

"Why's that?"

He picked at the edge of his blanket, looking up at her. "Well I can't...I can't be called after him. I might..."

Kathleen knew what came next. "Don't worry, Cuchulain," she said, bending down to kiss him on the cheek. "We'll find you a new name. That's what tomorrows are for."

And with that his mother got up, walked out of the room and closed the door behind her, darkness so thick that he couldn't tell the difference between having his eyes closed and having them open. Eventually, he let himself close them, realized that he was warm in his bed and that the worst was over. A new name. A new life. Tomorrow.

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TBC...