Title: Can't Keep Running
Summary: It's been five years since the strike, seven since she learned Jack's true history and nine since she said goodbye to Rip -- what's in store next for Stress & Jack? Marriage? A Family? Or the return of the one she fears above all others?
Disclaimer: As I've said countless times before, and I'm sure I'll say it countless times again, I, sadly, do not own any of the newsies. They are © 1992- to Disney, as hard as I try to get them for myself. I do, however, own Jessa/Stress, Luke/Rip, Caitlin/Spindle and Tyler/Danger. Any other character is property of the author I've borrowed them from.
Soul Mates Series: This is the fourth installment in Stress & Jack: Soul Mates Series. It is preceded by Cuts Like a Knife (I), Secrets Behind the Lies (II) and One Year Anniversary (III), in case you would like to read the earlier chapters in their lives.
--
Chapter Two
--
As they had ever since Jack arranged for Jess to work as secretary to his officemate and fellow reporter, David Jacobs, the pair made sure to arrive at separate times. The two had decided to keep their relationship hidden while at work in order to preserve their jobs; in fact, the only person who was aware that they were together was Jack's best friend, Dave, even if Cassandra, Jack's secretary, had her own suspicions.
It was Cassandra, a petite girl in her late teens with long brown hair, who was in the office when Jess arrived alone that morning. Cassandra raised her eyes from a large pile of paperwork on her desk, smiling, though, when she saw who had arrived, the smile was short-lived. "Good morning, Jessa," she said, her disappointment obvious.
Jess tried in vain to return any sort of smile before placing her handbag on her desk. "Hello, Cass," she replied, rolling her eyes once her back was to Cassandra. Though the existence of any relationship between Jack and Jess was denied, it was no secret that Cass had her eyes on her boss. While Jack found the infatuation flattering, Jess was only annoyed. She had the impression that Cassandra knew more than she let on, resulting in her rather dislike of Jess, a feeling that the older girl echoed.
A quiet flooded the cozy office, interrupted only slightly as Cassandra rifled through various papers and Jess pulled out her typewriter. Every few minutes or so, Jess had to bite back a sigh as she watched her opposite look hopefully out the office door. The girl was rewarded about ten minutes later when Jack sauntered in, a broad smile stretched across his handsome face. "Good morning, ladies," he said, with a special wink in Jess' direction.
Jess made to return his morning greet, but was beaten to it by Cassandra. "Morning, Mister Kelly."
"How are you, Cassandra," Jack asked, placing his brown hat onto his desk, before picking up various letters lying on his desk. "All is good?"
Cassandra nodded vigorously. "Yes sir."
"Good," he replied, absently, thumbing through his papers. "Have either of you seen Dave yet?"
Jess opened her mouth to answer but thought better of it. She glanced over at Cassandra's desk to see if she would try to answer first again; when she saw Cass smiling flirtatiously at the oblivious Jack, Jess spoke. "No, Mr. Kelly. I haven't seen Mr. Jacobs yet this morning."
Jack looked up momentarily from his paperwork and nodded. Jess met his eyes and smirked. Maybe Jack was right after all; maybe Dave had spent the night out.
The gaze was broken when Cassandra, noticing the wordless discussion between the two, cleared her throat. "Well, you see, Mr. Kelly, of course Jessa here didn't see Mr. Jacobs, she was late this morning. I, on the other hand, got here an hour early and was in time to see him rush off on assignment. Before he left, he mentioned that there was something that had been discovered downtown, and Mr. Jenkins wanted an article for the afternoon edition of the Chronicle. He also said that Mr. Jenkins left a brief assignment for you, Mr. Kelly, on your desk."
Jack placed his letters down, brushed his hat to the side and grabbed a second piece of paper. His eyes skimmed through the words quickly. Jack nodded as he read the last line and, after folding the memo in a square, placed it in his pocket. "Well, I gotta be going if I'm going to get this assignment done in time for the next edition," he announced, reaching for his hat. "Cassandra, be a dear and type up these letters while I'm gone. Oh, and I'm going to need a copy of the morning World. See what's going on in New York, you know."
Cassandra smiled as she reached on top of her desk. "I already got you a copy of the World, Mr. Kelly."
Jack paused and then returned her smile. "That was smart of ya, Cass. How about the Journal?"
She nodded, holding up another newspaper. "Yup."
Jack's smile wavered. "The Sun?"
Cassandra's face dropped, but she recovered quickly. "I'll get you a copy of the Sun right away, Mr. Kelly."
Jack reached into his pants pocket and drew out a quarter. He tossed it gently to Cassandra, who caught it, and winked. "Buy it off the closest newsie you can find and let them keep the change."
Cassandra nodded eagerly before leaving behind her desk and exiting the office. Jack waited until she had begun to descend the stairs before approaching Jess. He reached over her desk, where she sat, and patted her hand. "You looked a little annoyed back there. Everything alright?"
She snorted. "I really can't get along with her, Jack. Everything about her just rubs me the wrong way -- especially the way she fawns all over you. I got here an hour early... I'll get you a copy right away, Mr. Kelly... honestly."
He gave her hand a final pat. "I kinda figured that was the reason you made that face, but Cass ain't that bad, Jess."
Jack turned back to his desk and grabbed a sharpened pencil. He set it behind his ear and began to head to the exit. Jess waited until he had turned back to her before she spoke. "Actually, Jack, I was a little taken aback at Cassandra's comment – did you hear that Dave has already been to the office?"
Jack turned around and gazed at her thoughtfully. "You know, I think you're right. She did say something about Dave, didn't she?"
Jess nodded, and then shrugged. "I guess it's to be expected. You know Dave, always hard at work."
"Yeah," Jack agreed, resting his hand on the office door handle, "especially since your pal, Grace walked out on him last year."
Grace Delaney, Jessa's childhood friend from their days in Queens, moved to Manhattan four years ago in order to follow her dream of becoming an actress. Upon arriving, she fell for David and, despite that, at the time, Jack was courting Sarah Jacobs, David's sister, and David, himself, was paired with Jess, Grace ended up together with him. In fact, apart from Jack and Jess, it was David and Grace who everyone believed would be married first; it was on their one year anniversary that they were engaged. However, their engagement became prolonged and marriage never followed. Then, just around the approach of the fall season last year, Grace took off with an actor friend she had met, leaving David behind with nothing more than a simple engagement ring, a broken heart and compulsive drive to work.
Jess glared at Jack. The subject of Grace and her abandonment was a sore topic that many people avoided discussing, especially around David and Jess. Understandably, David was crushed when she fled, and he was still far from recovering from her callous departure. Jess, on the other hand, felt betrayed when her closest friend took off to spend her life with some flighty actor she had just met.
Jack noticed the glare and smiled weakly. "Well, I gotta be going. Assignment, you know?" he said before winking at her. "I'll see you later, my dear."
"Of course, Jack," she replied, turning away from him so that she was facing her typewriter again. Figuring she would take a leaf out of David's book, Jess immersed herself in her typing as Jack quietly slipped away.
Nearly ten minutes had passed when Jess heard footsteps approaching the entrance to the office. Assuming it was Cassandra, back with a copy of the Sun, Jess kept her head in her work, looking up only when she heard a crash. "Dave, good morning," she said with a grin, amused at his clumsiness.
David rubbed the shoulder that he had bumped into the door frame as he looked around puzzled. "The same to you, Jess. Umm – where is everyone else?" he questioned, his pale cheeks beginning to glow red.
"Well, Jack just ran out and Cassandra left to get a newspaper for Jack. I guess it's just you and me right now," she said.
David's face blushed more furiously and the notes he had clutched in his right hand slipped out of his fingers. Jess pretended not to notice his embarrassment as he lowered himself to retrieve the pages; David just had a knack for dropping things whenever Jess saw him. As soon as David straightened up, Jess began to ask him about the night before. "I saw you with all those ladies at Jason's and Filly's party last night, did you enjoy yourself?"
"I guess you could say so, Jess," he mumbled, averting his blue eyes from her as he made his way over to his desk, clearly uncomfortable.
"I'm glad, Dave," she said warmly, unaware of his discomfort. "I was just wondering how good of a time you had, since you were at work so early today."
"Well, you know how it is. The news waits for no man," David answered, getting his notes in order. "After the party last night, I decided to take a quick shower and then head over to the office to see if there was anything that could get done early. Good thing I did, too – there was a nasty murder that took place just off Eleventh last night. When I came in, Mr. Jenkins was waiting to dispatch someone over to the crime scene, and since I got here just then, he let me do it instead of one of the more experienced reporters," David continued, his chest swollen with pride. As the junior reporters for the morning and afternoon editions of the Chronicle, both David and Jack were usually assigned simpler topics for articles. To be trusted with something as big as murder was an impressive thing.
After getting the notes together, David set them down on his desk. He then grabbed a separate set of papers and handed them to Jess. "Do me a favor and type this other article up for me? I'd like to have that finished before I start this new one," he asked, apologetically. Even though he was her boss, he never got used to telling her what to do. Luckily she had no problem doing whatever David asked her to do.
"Of course, Dave," Jess answered, taking them from his hand. When their hands brushed accidentally, the scarlet that had receded from his cheeks flared up again. Jess smiled and pretended not to notice this as well, instead sitting the notes up against the typewriter so that it was easier to read them.
David pulled back his hand and rested it on his curly brown hair. "Well, I gotta go talk to Mr. Jenkins. That murder last night was quite nasty and I wanted to run the details by him before I write up the article," he explained as he started to leave the office.
Jess nodded and began to type up David's earlier article. David paused to watch her work for a moment before hurrying out of the office and towards the steps. Mr. Jenkins office was on the twenty-fifth floor, twenty stories higher, and many flights of stairs away from the junior reporter's office.
As soon as she was sure he was gone, Jess stood up and walked over to Dave's desk. As Cassandra had yet to return, Jack was on assignment and David was heading to the boss' floor, she figured it was her chance to sneak a peek at David's notes. He had sparked her curiosity when he said how nasty the murder had been and she wondered what exactly had happened. Though she knew that homicide occurred more frequently in Manhattan than in other parts of the state of New York, it had been news recently that there had not been a publicized murder in weeks. The occurrence from the night before would be the first in quite some time.
Leaning against David's desk, she reached down and picked up the rough draft of the article David had penned at the crime scene. Quickly, she began to read:
For the first time in nearly a month, the "M" in Manhattan stands for murder.
Jess grinned to herself as she marveled at David's work. It was his style of writing, and Jack's ability to investigate even the oddest of situations due to his familiarity of the New York streets, that had landed the pair jobs at junior reporters. It was also their individual knacks that enabled the two to be such a great team. Shaking her head at David's opening sentence, which served its purpose of drawing her into his writing, she continued to read.
On the night of July 30, a man was found slain in a back alley just off Eleventh Avenue. The man, called Tyler Harrison, had been stabbed multiple times resulting in his death. His identity was discovered from identification the man carried and was confirmed when a hysterical young women ran onto the crime scene. The woman, who referred to herself as simply "Cookie", had been a friend of Mr. Harrison, who she called "Danger".
Jess paused for a moment. "Danger?" she asked aloud, even more curious than she was moments before. Oddly enough, when Jess was a young girl living in Queens, she knew of a newsie called Danger.
This reporter waited for the police officers on the scene to escort Cookie out of the back alley before approaching her and buying her a cup of coffee. As she calmed down, she was able to talk a bit about why Mr. Harrison could have been killed. The victim had been, for lack of better term, a bookie, who had a numerous enemies. In fact, the night of his murder, Cookie said, he had arranged to meet some big shot. No doubt it was such an individual who had a part in Mr. Harrison's demise.
The short paragraph that Jess had read was the only coherent account of what had happened during David's assignment early that morning. On the various other pages, David had written his notes in a sort of shorthand, with scribbles and underlines to accentuate certain parts. Jess tossed the last paper down on the desk, resigned to learn more about the murder when she typed up his final article, when a bolded note on the last page caught her eye.
note: According to the police, the victim had been stabbed twice - once in the side and once in the back. However, a detail too graphic to include in the article, is that he had also been sliced across the chest. The murderer had carved three large letters into the man's flesh: R.I.P., an acronym for the phrase "Rest in Peace".
R.I.P… Riposi in Pace… Rip.
All at once, weeks of odd occurrences seemed to fall into place and suddenly make sense to her. Quite a few times Jess had chided herself when she felt that she was being followed. And what about that large man she caught leering at her from across the Chronicle building just last week? He had looked somewhat familiar to her. Now this – a man she was sure she knew had been murdered and branded with the name of a man she had long tried to forget. Rip.
As his name rang inside her thoughts, Jess focused on one single idea before giving way to panic and passing out: "He's back."
