December 1902
The gleeful shouting from the merry ice skaters in Central Park made Bottle Cap try to remember when he had started hating the winter. The contemplation didn't last long as the newsboy smacked into a bundled up creature and dropped half his papers into a mound of night old snow.
"Well there went half my afternoon." Bottle Cap mumbled. He didn't even attempt to save his papers from the dampness that would render them unreadable in seconds. Instead the angry teenager directed his attention to the cause of his painful reminder to why he hated the winter at all.
"It's only five papers, I'm sure if you tell Laces about it. She'll pay for them." The bundle of rags suggested. Cap shoved his knee against the bundle, demanding a proper greeting with just the right amount of Brooklyn annoyance.
The tips of uncovered fingers swept up and untangled a pair of scarves before the bundle stood up to face him. At her full height, Daisy was still taller than Cap and the scowl on her face was a clear enough signal that she expected an apology for his brutish behavior.
"What you doing in the middle of the sidewalk anyways?" Cap demanded defensively instead, tucking his remaining papers under his right elbow as he crossed his arms.
"Saw you coming." She spat out annoyed as if it was the only answer to such a question. The two stood glaring at each other for a few moments, though neither expected the other to apologize it was procedure to at least pretend.
"Where is she?" Cap finally asked instead, slipping his free hand into his jacket to pull out a cigarette. Daisy quirked a smile and shook her head but nodded, all the same, up the hill. On the steps of the castle of Central Park, sitting on top of her coat and next to her boots, Miss Audrey read the afternoon edition of the New York World. As Cap surged forward, Daisy clasped her hand on his shoulder.
"Wait." She whispered.
"For what? She's down there without a coat and shoes on, she trying to catch her death?" Cap stomped his foot impatiently.
"She's wearing more clothes than you've ever worn." Daisy frowned at him. Cap huffed again but stood rooted next to the bird, watching.
Audrey started laughing and Cap suddenly noticed that she seemed to be talking to someone. Her cheeks were flushed, not from the cold but from amusement. As if she had been laughing in a way that Bottle Cap was sure he hadn't seen since Jack Kelly had left Manhattan.
"Who…"
"Jack. She's talking to Jack." Daisy explained quietly, smiling sadly down at the odd scene.
"Jack ain't here." Cap stated alarmed, as he again surged forward. But Daisy had anticipated his movement and her grasp had tightened enough to pull the collar of his green shirt collar against his Adam's apple.
"She knows that." Daisy gritted her teeth as she pulled Cap back to stand next to her again.
"She seeing things? Maybe she's running a fever?" Cap suddenly sounded like a child, the child Daisy remembered so well.
"They use to meet here sometimes. Even before she became his girl, sit and read the paper together. Try to find headlines before she went off to sell. You know Laces never liked selling papers, and well Jack. Jack was the best." Daisy chuckled. Jack Kelly had made his own legend, saying the same words enough times that anyone who had heard them repeated them willingly as truth.
"When you learn from Jack… you learned from the best." Cap nodded softly repeating a phrase he had heard so often, it was impossible not to repeat it when prompted.
"Just give her a minute to finish the paper before you go down there." Daisy practically pleaded. Cap gave a curt nod as Daisy let go of his shoulder. He lit his cigarette and took a long drag of it before handing it off to the bird. Audrey turned another page and looked up at the sky a moment, her eyes closed and her shoulders tensing.
"She knows he's not there?" Cap ventured to confirm again.
"When you knocked your knee into my back, did you hear Conlon reminding you that Brooklyn boys don't apologize?" Daisy asked settling back down on the ground.
"Maybe." Cap grumbled uncomfortable that Daisy knew he still heard his old leader's voice.
"Maybe you even felt his stupid gold cane smack into your shoulder when you dropped your papers because you didn't notice me." Daisy chuckled to herself.
"How'd you know that?" Cap demanded.
"I knew Spot very well." Daisy shrugged. "So did you."
Cap frowned. It was true, often times it seemed as if Spot Conlon had never left New York because of how often Cap thought of him. It was a strange mixture of memory and habit. As if Bottle Cap and Brooklyn couldn't exist without some part of their constant leader. It had never occurred to Cap that it might be the same for Audrey, no matter that she was no longer Laces.
"How often does she…" Cap began to ask.
"Every time she can." Daisy sighed, tying her scarves back up. Audrey was folding up the paper and as Bottle Cap started traveling up the hill to her, he knew she had seen him. She was pulling at the laces of her boots, still sitting on her coat defiantly when he finally reached the steps of the castle.
"I never took you to be a bird." Audrey spat annoyed.
"I wasn't watching for long." He assured her. The young man was ready to calm the anger he had seen boiling in her features since she had noticed him. The Kai temper was one he had become nothing but acquainted with over the last few months.
She looked up and her brown eyes glittering with unshed tears he hadn't seen in the distance. Cap frowned as he held out his hand to help her stand, not daring to ask her about what she had been doing.
"What are they doing in Manhattan?" She demanded as she accepted his hand. Cap rolled his eyes as he reached down with his free hand to collect her coat.
"Matters of the Brooklyn Birds hardly concern you anymore then they concern me." He replied. She looked away from him now, her eyes wandering up the stone staircase of the castle and up to the turret.
"You know this castle has been here since the Civil War and hardly anyone comes to it." She commented. A small crease of dismay formed on Bottle Cap's forehead again, it was unlike Audrey to be so flighty in conversation. When she had been angry before, she stayed angry. When she had been sad, she had been inconsolable. But this, this jump in emotion and conversation was unlike any Laces he had encountered before. He found the change uncomfortable.
"Who has time to go to a castle?" He questioned attempting lightheartedness.
"We did." She searched the castle once before turning back to the newsboy in front of her. She was more focused when she turned back to him, the tears gone as quickly as the anger. Trained eyes noticed his minimal supply of papers immediately and her uncloaked arm shot out and pressed her fingers against his rib cage.
"You are thinner." She stated.
"Less people buy papes in the winter, you know that." Cap stepped back from her touch and quickly stepped around her to wrap her back in her own coat. But Audrey spun with him, scrutinizing him suddenly running a thumb under his right eye where a black eye was lingering.
"Fighting?" She smiled.
"Brooklyn boys are always fighting." Cap reminded her again stepping around, attempting again to get her into the coat.
"More fights when they are hungry." She nodded as if she was suddenly remembering some life lesson from years ago. Bottle Cap finally achieved getting her arms in the coat and as he stared at the strands of her brown hair tucked up into a fancy bun the boy suddenly realized it had been months since he had seen her. Months since she had seen him.
"You look radiant." He smiled at her as he tucked his hand around her waist to guide her away from the castle steps and back into the cover of the streets.
"And you look tired and hungry." She sighed sadly.
"Not that tired or hungry. Though maybe I should have looked at myself more carefully in that shop window." Cap joked.
"What happened to your papers?" She asked.
"Dropped them in the snow." He shrugged.
"Should be paying more attention to where the birds are sitting." She laughed quietly. Cap cursed under his breath the irreversible training Critter O'Connell had given the girl.
"Heard you tried to run away, again." Cap ventured.
"You'd have heard it from me, if I ever saw you anymore." She spat back, the bitterness of her voice clear.
"Look, I'm sorry I haven't been around…" Cap began trying to find an adequate excuse. But she shook her head, patting his shoulder softly.
"Can't be seen around." She understood why he had abandoned her. Audrey Kai understood only too well why everyone had abandoned her.
The two friends walked quietly through the bare trees and piling snow of Central Park, traveling away from the bustling noises of the ice skaters. Never speaking of a destination, or needing to constantly chat of the months they had not seen each other in. The change in each was obvious enough to the other and though nothing was quite the same, everything remained familiar.
"I've missed you." Audrey finally sighed, slipping her hand into his. Not allowing herself to notice how the roughness had changed and his boyish hands had grown strong and mature.
"You've missed Brooklyn." He laughed knowing her true meaning.
"And you." She insisted stubbornly and Cap nodded believing her.
"Slingshot reminds me a lot of you." He commented.
"Except you can knock some sense into him, I suppose."
"I suppose." He agreed.
"Not too many fights?" She asked worried.
"Not more than ever before. Slingshot is just as hotheaded as Conlon." Cap laughed away her concern.
"Have you heard from him?"
"Conlon? Got a letter when they arrived in that place with the stupid name in California. Can't believe Spot Conlon is in California…" Cap said in awe.
"California." Audrey hissed the word.
"I'll come around more often." Cap promised earnestly and Audrey nodded as Jacob Canterbury hurried up to the two.
"Buying the evening paper from this chap?" Jacob smiled at the newsboy, a genuine sincere smile that made Cap smile back at him. A flutter of recognition crossed Jacob's face, for a moment trying to place the newsboy in front of him. But without a clean face and a smart suit, it was impossible for Jacob to place Bottle Cap. The reality also made it safe, because why would a young gentleman know a young newsboy?
"A wife convicted of murder." Cap took out a rolled up paper from under his arm.
"That sounds like a good headline, doesn't it?" Jacob asked excitedly pulling out a quarter from his coat pocket.
"As good as any." Audrey nodded.
"Miss Audrey loves newspapers." Jacob gave an amused explanation to Bottle Cap.
"Ah, the lady might enjoy this evenings paper." Cap winked at her as Jacob took his change.
"Thank you, boy." Audrey reached up and ran her fingers over where Cap knew the familiar necklace of a key sat on her chest. He nodded as he ducked away in a different direction, shouting a headline.