Awareness returned slowly, and with it, came the pain. He couldn't really remember anything, not who he was, or what he'd done to deserve this. All he knew was that he was in a hell of a lot of pain. Well, that, and that he couldn't seem to open his eyes.
What he could do, though, was groan. Or at least, he tried. Though he meant to let loose with the deepest, most heartfelt, and most pathetic groan that had ever been heard, all that emerged from his dried and chapped lips was a kind of wheezing noise.
"Shhhhh," someone whispered above him. "Don't try to speak."
I'm not trying to speak, he thought with some vague irritation. At the same time that the low whisper reached him, he realized that his head wasn't lying on the bare ground – rather, something was cushioning him.
With a great deal of effort, and a not inconsiderable amount of time, he managed to force his eyes open slightly. No matter how he tried, they wouldn't seem to open any more. Frustrated, he tried to widen them, but they just wouldn't give.
By the time the blurry shapes around him slowly resolved themselves into vision that was at least reasonably clear, he was no longer paying attention to the struggle to open his eyes. Instead, he stared with a growing sense of horror at the face that looked back into his.
"Welcome back, darling," his mother said.
And with a flash, it all came back to him: Blue and Race, the fight, the storm...and now he was lying with his head on his mother's lap.
More shocked than he could ever remember being, a soundless scream escaped Spot's mouth as, despite his numerous hurts, his body desperately tried to jerk away from his mother.
He didn't get far; in fact, he only ended up rolling several feet, trying not to register the added pain that came when his head left his mother's lap and crashed against the floor. God, everything hurts. Even my throat.
His mother rose to her feet, hurrying over to hover above him. "Darling? Patrick? Are you all right? Patrick, speak to me!"
Spot, levering himself up with his arms despite the howling from abused muscles, glared at her from eyes that were nearly swollen shut with bruises. She looked exactly as he had remembered her looking: slender, with long light brown hair, and a skinny face. The only thing that he didn't remember was how like a bird she had become: how nervous and twittery, how her hands fluttered vainly. Even when she had become ill, he had still thought of her as strong; now she just seemed... ineffective.
"What're you doin' here?" he rasped through a raw throat, then winced at the pain speaking brought. "You was in a loony bin last I heard."
She blinked. "Well, yes, I was, but—" She broke off at the anger in his nonexistent voice. "Aren't you happy to see me, Patrick darling?"
"Like hell I am," he ground out, pushing himself to his feet. Pain is weakness. He wobbled, his head spinning, but somehow managed to keep his feet.
"Oh, Patrick," she cried out. "Don't hold it inside. These last years on the streets must have been simply horrible for you! I vowed before God that I'd make it up to you if He only would let me find you, and my prayers were answered, weren't they?"
She looked up at him desperately, and it was then that he realized that he had finally grown taller than his mother. Father would have been proud. Spot would have laughed if it would not have hurt so much. Not liking the turn his thoughts were taking, he looked away from her. Where am I? The room looked familiar, but within his spinning head, he couldn't place it. He tried so hard to remember, but it just made his head pound worse.
Though he hated admitting that he didn't know, he asked, "Where am I?"
From the doorway came a cool voice. "You'se in the Manhattan Lodging House, Spot, and you don't know how lucky you is to be alive, do ya?"
Turning his head delicately, Spot was less than surprised (and more than grateful) to see Racetrack standing in the doorway.
"R...Race," he said weakly, trying to stand up straighter. But it couldn't last. His body was being held up so stiffly that it felt like it was about to shatter into a million pieces. Finally, he leaned against the wall for support, trying like hell to act as though he were doing it casually, insolently.
Race, however, was not fooled. He noted the lines of pain on Spot's battered face and the relief as he lightened the load on his feet. "You been through a hell of a lot, kid," he said gently. He walked over to help Spot sit back down without hurting himself. And for perhaps the first time ever, Spot accepted his help.
"How did I get here?" the younger boy rasped, desperately trying to ignore his mother's gaze.
"We got you here," Race answered. "Your mom and me, that is."
Spot's mother hurried over to join them. "It was so frightening, Patrick! It was raining and you were bleeding everywhere."
"That so?" Spot frowned, feeling a spot on his lip break open and start bleeding lightly.
Visibly relieved to get a less-than-angry response from her son, she hastily said, "Oh, yes! I—we—weren't sure that you would make it." Despite his mother's hungry gaze, it was Racetrack who took a small rag and blotted the blood on Spot's lip.
Spot said only one word, and Race understood exactly what he wanted to know. "How?"
Race sighed, sitting down next to Spot. "Well, you lost the fight, Spot." Spot winced. Though he had known that already – how could he not have, after all? – it still hurt to hear it. "Blue was sittin' on top of you, beatin' your bloody head off. Do... do ya remember anythin'?"
Spot met his gaze. "I remember you screamin' my name, Race."
Race nodded. "That's all? You missed a lot, then. So Blue was beatin' on ya, and then he pulled a knife. Don't worry," he added hastily, seeing the look in Spot's eyes, "he didn't stab you with it. Oh, he was gonna, 'course, but one of your boys – the one who picked up Blue's gun – well, he shot the knife right outta Blue's hands." He shook his head. "Damn fine aim."
Spot grinned painfully. "We does a lot of slingshot practice over in Brooklyn. Never know when you'se gonna need it."
Remembering how Spot's newsies had shown up during the strike with their slingshots, rescuing the Manhattan boys from a certain beating as if by magic, Racetrack nodded. "Yeah. So the knife's lyin' on the ground. Blue... Well, he don't like that none. Since he don't have his knife, he starts trying to strangle you... and you wasn't fightin' back so much at that point."
"That would explain why my throat hurts so much, eh?"
"Probably."
"So how'd I get away? I mean, we," Spot amended reluctantly, remembering that his mother was there too.
Race rubbed the back of his neck, as though embarrassed. "I pulled him off of you, Spot."
"You?!" Spot was surprised. Not that Race wasn't a decent guy, but—Well, it had been awfully nice of Race to risk bodily harm for something he wasn't involved in. "You was lookin' out for me, huh?" he said softly. Despite his gratitude for Race, there was a small twinge of hurt: Why didn't any of my boys pull Blue off of me? Why did it have to be the newsie from Manhattan? The one who had nothing to lose?
As though Racetrack were reading Spot's mind, he said, "Most of your boys was fightin' by then."
"Fightin'?" Spot glowered, the effect made more ominous by the fact that he couldn't open his eyes more than halfway, if that. "And who was they fightin', huh? Who was there to fight?"
"Each other."
Spot froze. Impossible. Not each other. No.
"Apparently," Race said gently, "some of the boys was kinda rootin' for Blue to win, Spot. So when you went down, they started shovin' the boys around them, and the boys who wanted you to win started shovin' back, and then everyone was fightin'. Then I pulled you outta the fightin', and your ma helped me get you over the bridge to Manhattan. For a while, I didn't know if you was gonna wake up or not."
"Ya dragged me outta Brooklyn," Spot said softly. "So...so...what's happenin'..."
"Blue's got Brooklyn," Race said flatly. "It's been about three days, and he's got 'em firmly under his thumb."
This, Spot refused to accept. "No. No, he don't."
"Sorry, Spot, but he does."
"No!" Spot came as close to yelling as he was able. "Brooklyn's mine! He—he can't, you hear me, Race?"
Race looked as sad as Spot had ever seen him. "Spot, ya gotta accept it. Right now, Brooklyn ain't yours."
"'Course it—" Spot froze, as his hand went down to his side instinctively to draw his cane and wave it around. "Race," he said slowly. "Race, where's my cane?"
"You— you dropped it," Race replied carefully, watching Spot's face become pallid under the vivid bruises. "Spot... he has it now."
"What...?" Spot whispered. "You'se kiddin', Race. You'se just jokin' with me. Really, where's my cane?"
Race grabbed Spot's arms and stared straight into his eyes. Spot winced from the pain of Race's hands on his arms, but neither moved. "It's in Brooklyn, Spot. And it's probably in Blue's hands right this second."
Never mind that his throat was killing him, never mind that Race's face was merely inches away and his crazy mother was hovering overhead, never mind anything.
Spot screamed. He was barely even aware that he was screaming; the animal sound seemed to be issuing from someone else's throat. Poor bastard, he thought vaguely. Sounds like he's in a lot of pain. Something really bad must've happened.
Slowly, he became aware that he was the poor bastard, but he couldn't seem to stop screaming. My cane, echoed through his head. My cane, my cane, mycanemycanemycane...
Race pulled away, clapping his hands over his ears. Spot's mother tried to put her arms around him, but when he pushed her away violently, she also shied away, her hands pressed to her heart. Other newsies were starting to run up to the attic to see what the commotion was.
He wanted to stop screaming, he wanted to stop being stupid and weak, and stupid stupid stupid, god, I'm stupid, I lost my cane, and it was all I had, all I had all I had, and now I have nothing, not even Brooklyn, 'cause that's gone, isn't it? I have nothing left, nothing, nothing nothing...
Having recovered from the initial shock, Racetrack tried to be heard above Spot's screams. "Spot? Spot, it's all right! We'se gonna get it back, yeah? We'se gonna get it all back!" He tried to wave away all of the concerned newsies who were crowding in the doorway, staring at Spot.
Finally, the scream began to die. Not that Spot felt any better, of course, but he couldn't breathe. As the sound died away to nothing and he gasped for air, the others in the room started to relax a bit, but they tensed up again when Spot stumbled to his feet, and pushed his way through the amazed crowd of Manhattan newsies.
"Dammit," he choked out in a voice filled with rage and despair. "Dammit!"
Stumbling to his feet, he pushed his way through the amazed crowd of Manhattan newsies. His faltering steps led him down the stairs, wanting nothing more than to be out, away, alone. But when he reached the way out, he froze.
I can't leave. I can't go outside, not like this. Everyone will know, they'll look at me, and they'll stare. 'There goes the girly boy who couldn't hold on to what was his.' They'll all know. I can't go outside, I can't leave, I'm stuck here, and Brooklyn's gone and my cane's gone—
"Spot," Race said from right behind him. "Don't go yet. We'se gonna figure out somethin', yeah? You and me and Jack, and maybe some of the others, we'se gonna figure out something."
"Why?" Spot said despairingly. "What's the point? I lost it all. You think I'm a fake, and you don't like me. And I am a fake, if I couldn't even win one measly little fight! And now my mother—" He took a deep breath. "I gotta get outta here."
"Is that what you want, Patrick?" Race looked steadily at Spot as he slowly pivoted to face the older boy. "I don't think it is. I think what you want is your cane and Brooklyn. You leavin' here and goin' straight to get them back, are ya?"
"I...Maybe I'd leave New York—"
"Don't be an idiot," Race interrupted. "That ain't what you want. Look, kid, maybe you don't do things in the way that I would, but you ain't really a fake. You'se a bit...strange, yeah, but you care about the boys over in Brooklyn, don't you?" Spot nodded slowly. "You ain't the same as you used to be, or maybe you kind of are – I don't really know – but you are what you are. You'se Patrick, and you'se Spot. And I don't think that Spot wants to go be a martyr and slink away from what he wants, 'cause that ain't like him, is it? Spot wants to go and take back what's his. If you go and leave town, you'se gonna hate yourself for it for the rest of your life." Spot was still, frozen in indecision. Race added one thing more, just one: "If I didn't like ya, I wouldn't have come to Brooklyn at all, let alone risked my good looks to save your ungrateful hide." He grinned slightly.
Spot turned around. Despite his swollen, multicolored face, there was a determination that Race hadn't seen there moments before, a new fire. "That the truth?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah. I wouldn't say it if it wasn't."
"Listen, Race," Spot said, still softly, aware that their audience was peeking from behind the staircase, "and listen good. I don't need no one: not Manhattan, not my ma, not even you. I go it alone, and that's what I've been doin' for the past five years. If it comes right down to it, I don't even need my Brooklyn boys. I ain't their king for me. I'se their king for them. Got that?" Race nodded, still not sure what Spot was getting at. "All the same... Thanks. For all of it." He took a deep breath. "You're right. I gotta go take back what's mine."