A/N: Not an entirely huge chapter in length, but packed with paragraphs. Enjoy!

A Brooklyn spy still lingered in Harlem. He, Noodle, had been there ever since the first spies had been sent out. He acquired such name from his excellent use of using his eleven-year-old brain and slipping through groups of people quite easily. To the Harlem newsies, he was quiet, stupid, and boring, and stayed out of all the fights or social aspects of their area. He knew better, though. Yet on this particular day, Noodle was coming back to the lodging house to hopefully gather any speck of information that would allow him back into Brooklyn. Out of all the spies sent out, he was the one that had to stay undercover until he could come back with something juicy since Bolt thought he was the best to stay. They were not messing around.

The lodging house was empty as Noodle rested with his hands behind his head upon the matted blankets on the worn and tattered mattress. He stared up at the bunk above him, tracing the lines of splintered wood with his mind. To date, he had been stationed in Harlem for one month and four days. So far nothing had happened and it was starting to agitate Noodle that he had been there for so long. If they (whoever "they" might be) were going to do anything, they would have done something by now. At least Noodle liked to think so.

Minutes later, Noodle got up from his bed and made his way to use the restroom. While in the cramped stall, the door to the bunkroom creaked open and soon after were two male voices, both firm and strong. Noodle had become accustomed to hearing the first one, given that though he had seldom heard him speak, he knew it without having to distinguish it otherwise. With his definite suspicion as to who was speaking, Noodle did not move from the stall and sat up on the toilet seat to hide his feet. He pressed his ears against the wooden door and listened carefully.

These two boys were insane to be talking about this topic so openly in the lodging house, where inquiring minds searched for the answers they were giving. As they conversed, a smile spread deliciously onto Noodle's small face. The boys had given him a ticket back to Brooklyn.

The weather had changed rapidly over the course of two days. It had been happening a lot lately. One day it would be rainy and cold, and the next it would be dry and hot. This day was no exception. Late in the afternoon, the sun scorched New York with a vengeance. Movement was quite slow in the streets and the time seemed to pass even slower.

One of the few trees in the city of Brooklyn stood between the newsboys lodging house and the building next to it. It was a particularly odd sight to see, for not many green plants grew in Brooklyn and stayed for a long time. But, this tree was doing a civic duty as it provided shade to overlook the fire escape at the lodging house. Spot claimed shade rights first over anyone else, so he and Gabby sat lazily beneath the branches of the rare tree in Brooklyn.

"If it ain't for the heat today, you'se know I would be sittin' real close to ya, right?" Spot said to Gabby. He leaned his bare back against the dark red brick of the building and a bead of sweat trickled from his hairline as he swept it away with the back of his hand. He would also be showing better manners by having his shirt on if it hadn't been for the heat.

"Mhm," Gabby mumbled in response, leaning against the railing of the fire escape across from Spot in the rationed dark space available. She opened her heavy eyes tiredly and pushed up the sleeves of her red dress. In light of the heat, she had worn a more loose-fitting dress yet it still dipped a bit low in the neckline; then again, Tyce was not there. She closed her eyes again and added, "No offense taken."

Spot bent his knees upward and placed his elbows on either of them. He took the hat from his head and began fanning himself off with it in hopes of enticing a nice cool breeze. Gabby opened her eyes again just barely and watched Spot. His suntanned skin glistened only the slightest in the sunlight and with each wave of his hat it blew back a few pieces of golden brown hair from his beaded, slick forehead. It may have been the warmth of the day that drew forth the lustful, shameless thoughts to Gabby's mind, but she could not help but watch contentedly the person before her, the taut muscles in his arms and firm abdominals and all. After all, it was his choice to remove his shirt…

Gabby pressed her lips together to fight the smile itching to come out as she closed her eyes once more. She did not want to allow herself any more of those thoughts considering the position in which she was. Spot pressed his forehead against his forearm that rested on the top of his knee and held the hat out to Gabby, mumbling a form of speech that she guessed was along the lines of an offer. She graciously accepted and began slowly moving the gray cap about the air in front of her face and chest. The minutes dripped at a snail's pace like the sweat on the back of her neck. Once more she opened her eyes to peer at the boy in front of her, so innocent and so oblivious. She wondered to herself to know what the ultimate act of betrayal would be like; she certainly did not like that thought. At first she figured she only had to get in, get some secrets, and get the hell out. She did not read anywhere that spending this much time with Spot was part of the job description. It was bittersweet, though. Gabby was pleasantly surprised with his company and it sickened her to think of how this would end.

Gabby's eyes fixed their gaze between the bars of the iron and down below. A group of boys, stripped to the bare essentials of their clothing, played marbles on the street next to the house as bystanders walked idly by. She wondered what Spot was like when he was their age, seeing as how they must have been near ten years old. Perhaps he was bossing people around even then, telling people what to do and taking shit from nobody. Gabby then remembered how Ace acted that way before his parents died. When they were kids he was the one ordering the others around. Now Tyce filled those shoes. The teeniest lump then formed in the back of Gabby's throat as she shifted her gaze back to Spot. She quickly, though, flicked her eyes back to the ground.

"Somethin's wrong," Spot said suddenly. He looked at her with a concerned face when she turned to look at him. "I can tell. Whenever ya're thinkin' real hard 'bout somethin', ya get that look. Are you'se okay?"

Gabby gulped down the lump and mentally straightened herself up. Her mouth spread to a closed-lip smile and she slowly moved over to sit closer. She locked her eyes with his and sat down next to him, far enough for cooling distance but close enough still. "What's your real name?" Gabby inquired randomly. Don't do this, Gabby, don't get yourself in deeper.

"What?" Spot gave her a subtly strange look with a short laugh. Gabby sat cross-legged with her dress draped over her legs and positioned Spot to do as she did likewise. Spot furrowed his eyebrows slightly with a look of both skepticism and intrigue. Gabby reached out her hand and held the key on his necklace.

"What's…your real name?..." Gabby repeated with a somewhat saddened undertone. Her eyes worked over the key's ridges and she told herself to stop at once. She looked back up at him.

Spot breathed a laugh as he watched her play with his necklace more. "I'd tell ya but then I'd have to kill ya." He watched her eyes drop from his and her fingers let go of the key. She placed an arm on her leg and rested her head upon it. Spot thought to himself for a couple of moments and looked around. He leaned back and let out a powerful yawn, thinking about what Gabby had just asked him. He sighed to himself and sat back up. "Patrick Liam Conlon."

Gabby lifted her head again and looked at him, a combination of content and distress. "You're right, you are very Irish. I guess that nickname of yours is an entirely different story, though…"

Spot took her free arm and held in his palms her delicate hands. He rubbed her skin gently and massaged slowly her wrist and forearm. "Got a middle name?

"Rose," Gabby answered weakly. "Gabrielle Rose Lawrence." Her voice clarified only a little as if to remind herself who she was, but it fell back again to a saddened state.

"I like that. Ya're like my little flower," he laughed. His face returned back to serious. "I'm not gonna ask ya what's wrong 'cause I know somethin's the matta, but you don't gotta tell me if ya don't want." Gabby let down her other arm and he instinctively took hold of it. "I wanna help, whatever it is, seein' as I pretty much tell you everythin'. So if somethin's real bad, ya know ya can tell me 'bout, a'right?"

With a grateful and fighting smile, Gabby nodded as she looked deeply into his eyes. She told herself to look away as she could not bear to look at him and keep from him her secret. He pressed his forehead to hers and kissed her lightly once on the lips, her eyes open completely while his shut.

"It's really hot…" said Gabby desperately as they simply sat closely together. She needed a distraction sentence from her thoughts to keep her from spilling everything.

Spot smiled. "Yeah, it's fuckin' hot." He kept his hands with hers and leaned back with his hands melting onto the iron, basking in the luxury of the shade. Gabby hesitated to move to a more comfortable position as the licentious thoughts came flooding back to her: Spot's firm features of his chiseled stomach and chest began to dizzy her. She shook them away and sat back against the building.

From inside the lodging house came a round of quick steps, followed by several fast steps. Gabby looked at Spot, who sighed to himself stressfully. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. She heard him mumble obscenities to himself as he felt around for his white checkered shirt. Then, Bolt suddenly popped his head out the window next to Gabby's face and turned to Spot.

"Conlon, we got it!" he said energetically with a brisk smile.

Spot simply looked at him strangely while he held the shirt with his hands. "What? Who d'we got…"

Bolt's smile decreased slightly and looked down next to Gabby. He turned back to Spot. "Oh hell, Noodle's back and he got…well, come inside and we'll tell ya." Bolt vanished again back into the house, where murmurs and conversation sprang up instantly.

Spot jumped up to his feet in one fast motion while Gabby lugged herself up leisurely without strength. He looked at her apologetically and hopped back into the room to join the others in hearing what Noodle had to say. Gabby stretched her arms high over her head and decided that she should probably listen in to what was going on. She knelt next to the window and listened very carefully.

It was difficult to hear at first, but soon the words were clearer than day: Noodle, an apparent spy for Spot, had intercepted information from Harlem that Jumper and Tyce were planning to call Brooklyn to a meeting to attack them. Gabby's stomach dropped instantly upon hearing this and her pulse began to race hastily and speedily. Oh, shit, she thought, Oh, shit, shit, they know. Her heart pounded angrily in her chest as her jaw dropped and her eyes widened. She stood up quickly, a little too quickly as she stumbled, and began pacing about the tiny area of space. Her hands clutched the roots of her hair at her forehead as she cursed to herself more than ever.

"Ya're kiddin' me!" she heard Spot say. "Those fuckers tryin' to double-cross me, double-cross Brooklyn! Well, they sure as hell ain't goin' far with that."

"Yeah, Noodle got everythin', too," Bolt added, "the dates and shit. I can't even begin to think what they'd do to him, though, if they found out he was a spy…"

A gut wrenching feeling formed in the pits of Gabby's stomach as she stood there on the fire escape facing the window. She stood there petrified at what had been brought to her attention: what would happen to her if she was caught, what would Tyce do? Her head suddenly felt incredibly heavy and too hard to keep up. Her vision started to blur terribly as she could feel her chest heaving in and out heavily, the sound of her breath resonating within her ears as the only echo she could make out clearly. She could see Spot notice her within the building and heard his footsteps coming quickly to the opened window from the far end of the room inside.

Gabby's breath suddenly fell short and her entire body felt weak and frail. She heard Spot call her name as he made his way closer to the window. She held out her hand to the air to grasp something that wasn't there and just as her legs began to give in to the weight of her body, her fingertips brushed against his just barely and her mind went blank and she collapsed to the hard iron.

No more notes. seemed to go in a clean out a bunch of stories; another author's story got deleted for notes. Sorry!