Disclaimer from chapter 1

Hello everyone! Well, if you didn't hate me before, you probably do now. I'm so very sorry it has taken me so long to update. I actually had half this chapter written for like four months, but never finished it. College has been taking up most of my time, and I just haven't been thinking about the story much. I suppose you can thank Sam for my sudden reappearance. Since she has never seen Newsies I have been trying to tell her about it, but failing miserably. Don't worry, we're renting it tonight, but all in all, it has totally gotten me back into the swing of writing. Anyway I hope you all like this next chapter and will keep reading and reviewing, and I promise to keep writing on a regular basis.

ONWARD TO THE STORY!

Spot Conlon spun around, ready to punch whoever had just used his real name. No one ever called him by his real name, in fact, he wasn't even sure any of the Newsies knew his real name. He hadn't even told Jack his birth name, so how did some random kid find out his name? Well that really didn't matter anyway, he was going to make sure that name was never said again.

He scanned the crowd of Newsies, looking for a guilty face, but all of the boys around him seemed to be just as confused as he was. Then his eyes fell on the girl in the middle of the crowd, standing only ten feet from him. She had long, curly brown hair, and fair skin, with a sprinkling of freckles. Then he looked into her eyes, blue, exactly the same as his.

It had been so many years, but he would recognize that girl anywhere. But she wasn't a girl anymore, she was a young woman.

The entire room had fallen silent, all eyes going from Lily to Spot.

Jack shifted nervously, then spoke up, "Lil . . ."

But just then Spot found his voice, "Catie?" All the eyes in the room snapped to Lily.

"Her names not Catie, it's Lily," said Specks.

"Yeah," the other Newsies agreed.

By this time David had made his way to stand next to Lily. He put his hand on her shoulder as if to draw her attention away from Spot, where she had been staring since she had reached the center of the group.

"Cate? Are you alright?" was all David could say.

Still she and Spot stood, staring at each other. Then, all of a sudden he ran forward, wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the ground. She, in response threw her arms around his neck and held him close.

After a few moments he put her back down and looked into the eyes of the girl he had missed for the last ten years. She was smiling up at him despite the tears streaming down her face. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, and she his.

"Morgan, it's been so . . . ."

"I know. I neveah thought I'd see you again, when . . ."

"Last year. When did you . . ."

"A few months after I left home . . ."

"You've been here that long?"

"Yeah." He pulled her into another huge hug, "I neveah thought that I'd see you again."

"Morgan I have missed you so much, you have no idea what it was like."

"What about your parents? Where are dey? Does your father know that you are here, because of what I remember, he wouldn't like you being here."

"Mother is dead. She died right before we moved here. And I haven't seen father for six months."

"What happened?"

"It's kind of a long story . . ."

All of the other boys just stood there in silence. They had never seen Lily let someone touch her that much after just meeting them, but then she and Spot didn't seem to be just meeting. And if her behavior was strange, it was nothing to how Spot was acting. Spot Conlon, the Spot Conlon was acting emotional, talking about his past, and still had his arms wrapped around Lily, whom he was still calling Catie.

When they started talking about Cate's father, David snapped out of his shock. He walked forward and pulled Cate toward him, wrapping his arms around her in a very protective way. He shot a look at Spot, who looked confused by David's behavior, then look down at Cate.

"Would you please tell me what is going on?" He asked, never looking away from her eyes.

"David, remember how I told you about my cousin Morgan? How he left home, and we didn't know what happened to him?" David nodded, following the story so far. Cate turned and reached out a hand to Spot and held it tight. "David, this is Morgan!"

There was more silence. Then Jack spoke up.

"Yous neveah told me your name was Morgan."

Spot turned to him, "I neveah told anyone my name was Morgan, I don't like it."

"And why not", Cate burst in. "Morgan was grandfather's name, and he was a wonderful man."

"So, what about you," he asked in response. "Why are dey calling you Lily? Whats wrong wit your real name?"

"You know that I always hated Cathleen, or Cate, or Catie. Besides, Lily is my new name, Cathleen Flanagan is too recognizable. I don't want people to associate me with father."

Spot looked extremely concerned. "What happened?" He put his ands on her shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. "Catie? Did he hurt you?"

David had had enough. He pulled Cate back from Spot again.

"Look Cate. I know you miss Morgan very much, but you have no way to know that Spot is actually him. . ."

"Of course I do. He took that cane from my father the day he left our house." All eyes turned towards Spot, who was now fingering his cane.

"I didn't think you would remember," was all he said.

"How could I forget. He was so mad he threw things around for hours," she gave a little smile as if remembering a very happy childhood memory. "You know you really shouldn't steel."

"Yeah, I know," Spot looked up at Jack who was staring at them both with his mouth open. "Hey Cowboy, yah bettah close that thing before yah start catchin' flies in it."

Jack shook his head. "Its just I nevah noticed until yous were standen' right next to each othah." He motioned to the other boys in the room. "Look at their eyes, their identical."

And indeed they were. The same curved almond shape, with the same long dark lashes, right down to the same circle of darker blue right around the pupils. It was kind of eerie.

"Yeah" ,Lily said almost sadly, "people always used to say that about us."

David most certainly didn't like the way this was going. While the rational part of his mind told him that Cate and Spot were cousins, and he really didn't need to feel any hostility towards him, the other part of his mind was angry. He was the one who was supposed to hold Cate and comfort her. Would she even want him around anymore, or would she want to spend all her time with Spot, making up for their lost time?

"Wait! I'm still confused," Mush piped up from behind Jack, "could someone tell us the whole story here. How did Spot and Lil know each other when they was kids? I thought Lil's dad was dead. And how the hell did they both end up heah?"

Lily looked at Spot, "Well, I can tell most of the story, but I think that I'll need some help with some parts."

Spot nodded encouragingly, "If yous ready to tell it then so am I."

"Ok. Well I guess it starts with the fact that my father's family has always been wealthy, and his family had a large house right outside the town where our mothers grew up. Spot's mother and mine were sisters.

Now my father liked to have female . . . companions from the village. My mother was one of them, but she got pregnant with me. They had to get married, not to save her good name but to save his. Their marriage was not a happy one, he would beat her a lot, but I didn't really know about that until I was older. Anyway, the main source of arguments between them was the fact that mothers sister, Morgan's mother, was always borrowing money. Uncle John never had very much money, but he and Aunt Catherine married for love and were very happy. But when he died she had no money so had get some from us. Eventually she got sick too and died, so Morgan came to live with us.

Father never liked Morgan. I guess he saw him as just another burden that came from the mistake that was me and my mother. Anyway, father would get mad, and drunk, and sometimes he would go into huge fits where he would break thinks and some times he would take his anger out on others." At this point her eyes locked with Spot's. This was a very personal part of the story, and she wasn't sure he would want all of the Newsies knowing about how her father would beat him.

Spot knew that she was worried about telling the story, but he didn't care. As long as he had her back he didn't care what some bastard had done to them in the past. He gave her a slight nod and she continued on with the story.

"Father would beat Morgan, often." All eyes in the room darted to Spot, who just stood there with a firm look on his face, as if daring any of them to call him a wimp. "Mother and I would fix him up again, but this would just make Father madder. In the end Morgan ran away, I was eight, he was nine. We never saw him again, but on the day he left he took Father's best cane. After that I don't know what happened."

Spot cleared his throat. "Well, I stayed in Ireland for a while, but eventually caught a boat heah, and met Jack and moved to Brooklyn and became leadah. That's about it for me. But," he turned to Lily, "what I want to know is how you got heah with de Newsies. And why yous worken' for Medda?"

Lily's eyes darted around the room, as if looking for some kind of way to avoid telling him what happened. David moved forward and took her hand again. She looked up into his eyes and tried to understand what he was telling her. After a few minutes she decided she could tell them most of the truth, and just leave out some details.

"Well, after you left father would beat Mother. He did it more and more often as the years went by. Like with you I would heal her as best I could. But one night while he was drunk he beat her too hard and killed her. He made me help him drag her to the bottom of the stairs, so it looked like she fell. After her funeral we moved here, I think it was because some of the servants and people in the town were getting suspicious.

I knew it was only a matter of time before he would start hitting me too, and I knew also that I didn't want to end up like Mother. So after he hit me for the first time I ran away, like you. And I ran right into Jack and David. The Jacobs were nice enough to take me in and help me get back on my feet. We changed my name so no one would recognize me in case father was looking for me. And Medda gave me a job. So that's about it."

Spot looked concerned for a moment, while the other boys absorbed the story. "Wait, you just left the house like dat?"

She looked taken aback for a moment, "Well, yes. What else was I going to do? You left too, and you were half my age."

"Yeah, but dats different. You could have gotten into a lot of trouble on des streets alone at night. What were you tinkin'?"

"That's a bit rich, don't you think? Its ok for you to run away and live on the streets by yourself at age nine, but your scolding me for leaving?"

"I'm just sayin' it was dangerous, dats all. Why didn't you go to someone else and ask for help?"

"I just couldn't, okay!" she looked nervously around the group, and then glared back at Spot. "Besides, its not like I need you to take care of me anymore. I've been taking care of myself and Mother for years, while you've been building a new life here. You haven't worried about me for almost ten years, so you have no right to yell at me about it now!"

"You know dat's not true!" he countered, voice slowly rising. "I thought about you all de time!"

"Did you really Morgan? Where were you when Mother was being beaten to death? Where were you when I was trying to save what was left of our family? You have no right to tell me what to do!" By now Cate was screaming at the top of her lungs.

David thought this had gone far enough. He came forward again and pulled Cate into his arms and away from Spot.

"Don't worry," he said looking into her eyes. "You don't have to tell him anything you don't want to."

"Like hell she doesn't! Who do you tink you are? Dis is between me and Catie!" and with that Spot grabbed one of Cate's arm and pulled her away from David.

"He's the one who helped me get my life back together. He and Jack protected me and took care of me when I had no one else!"

"I just don't understand what made you tink you should leave your fadda's. You should have gone to the police or something!"

"I couldn't do that okay!"

By now they were standing toe to toe screaming as loud as they could. Jack thought he would never see anyone who could scream as well as Spot. Must be a family trait or something.

"NO! It is not okay! You haven't given me one good reason dat you didn't do de smart ting and get help!"

Jack reached forward and put a hand on Spot's sholder.

"Hey Spot, maybe you should just drop it for now. We could . . ."

Spot rounded on Jack. "Don't tell me what to do Cowboy! Dis is not your business!" then he turned back around to face Cate. "Tell me what was happening! Why couldn't you get help?"

Cate had reach her breaking point. It was all to much, Morgan coming back, telling the story of their childhood, screaming in a public restaurant. She just blurted out the next thing that was on the tip of her tong with out thinking:

"BECAUSE HE TURNED ME INTO A WHORE! HE WHORED ME OUT TO HIS BUSINESS PARTNERS AS A BONUS, THEN BEAT ME UP WHEN I WOULD CRY!"

In the ringing silence that followed her confession all that could be heard was Cate's heavy breathing. Spot just stood there with his mouth open, staring at her. Most of the other boys looked too stunned to say anything. David tried to reach for her.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" she screamed. Then she was gone. She had pushed past David and the other Newsies in her way and run out the door, into the teaming New York streets.

The boys could do nothing but watch her go, all to shocked to stop her.

Pheeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwww wipes had across brow

There it is guys. Four months of staling now complete. Please review, because you love me. And if you do I promise to update again within the week! I really do!

estrellalily