Chapter Five: A Helpful Friend

Criss-Cross stumbled numbly through the window behind her bunk in the girl's bunkroom. She watched the other girls sleeping silently for a moment, and then walked slowly into the bathroom. Propping the cane against a sink, she stared at her face in the mirror for a minute, realizing for the second time in her life how much she actually looked like Spot.

Upon hearing the news of his death, she'd felt like she been hit by a train, and it had just carried her away at top speed, squashed on it's front, leaving her emotions far behind. But finally, it seemed, they had caught up. Lowering her head into her heads, she began to sob openly, her shuddering breaths echoing off the walls of the empty bathroom.

He's dead... she thought, He's dead...He's gone...My brother's gone... Having already lost her mother, Ellie -who had become older sister, mother, and grandmother to her, Frisk -the newsie who had saved her life and become like an older sister to her, and now her brother, Criss-Cross didn't know how she would go on. She'd never really gotten to know her father in the year she'd spent working as though she was a maid in his household, nor had she ever gotten to know the girl, Ruckus, who was supposed to be her half-sister. She was not ready to lose her brother, whom she'd considered her only real living relative.

She heard a door open on the opposite side of the bathroom, and immediately turned on the water to drown out her sobs. She splashed some water on her face to hide the fact that they were tear-streaked, and tried to look like she was just getting ready for bed. Her eyes, however, betrayed her. They had grown red from the tears, and her lower lip still quivered a little.

"Criss-Cross?" Dan, one of the boys from the boys's bunkroom asked her. She splashed a little more cold water on her face, and then reached for a towel, realizing a second later that he was holding one out for her. She gave him a small smile that made the quivering of her lower lip all the more obvious, and accepted the small token, immediately burying her face in it.

"You okay?" Dan asked, concerned. Criss-Cross gave him another small smile and nodded, not looking him in the eye. Dan had always reminded her of her best friend Chris from back in Queens. Or, Queens as it had been before Trigger Jones had taken it over.

Dan sighed, remembering how stubborn Criss-Cross could be. It was obvious to him that she wasn't okay, and that she probably wouldn't be. He had heard her sobs when he'd first opened the door a crack, and now he could see her red eyes and trembling lower lip. He stepped in closer to her, and putting his hands on her shoulders, looked straight down into her eyes from his greater height.

"Criss-Cross, tell me the truth, are you okay?" he asked, his voice sympathetic and full of concern.

"I'se'll be fine," she replied, her New York accent even more obvious against his calm, gentle, low midwest one.

"What's the matter?" he asked, still resting his hands on her shoulders. He was one of the few Colorado newsies who actually knew her story, her real past of what had happened in New York. He'd managed to get closer to her than Criss-Cross'd like, but surprisingly, she'd been okay with it.

"I'se…Wells…Dat is…" she tried to say.

"Yeah?" he asked, comfortingly. But then his eyes grew a tad suspicious. "Does this have anything to do with what happened to you earlier?"

"Yas know about dat?" she asked, a little surprised.

"Yeah,Dark told me."

"What! Please tells me 'e didn' go spreadin' it 'round da house…"

"He didn't…He just told me because he was concerned. Said it looked like you'd hit your head hard."

Criss-Cross gave a nod, and suddenly realized that tears were streaming down her face again. Feeling ashamed, she reached up to wipe them away. Only a few people in her life had ever seen her crying like this, and that had only been when she was younger. First when her mother had died, then when Ellie had died, and finally, when she'd been ten years-old, Frisk had died. Ever since no one had ever seen her cry. She'd always kept the hard-core reputation. She'd always kept up the hard appearance, which hadn't been hard, because she was tough.

"What happened today Criss-Cross?" Dan pressed, holding out a handkerchief to her.

Criss-Cross accepted it and tried to steady her breathing. "An' ol' friend a mine from New Yawk stopped came by dis aftahnoon, an' he told mes some really upsettin' news, dat's all," she said, choosing her words carefully. She didn't want to tell Dan everything.

Dan nodded, and then the gold-tipped cane caught his eye. "What's that?"

"Oh, it's nuthin'. Jus' somethin' dat me friend from New Yawk brought wit' 'im."

Dan stared hard at the cane, trying to remember why it rang a bell in his memory, and then he looked up at Criss-Cross. Her hat was at an odd angle, and was falling off her head as they spoke. There… he thought, that's why it sounds familiar. He was looking at the small scar that lay barely visible right as Criss-Cross's hairline. He remembered that her brother had given it to her the last time she'd seen him, when he'd hit her with a gold-tipped cane!

"It's your brother's, isn't it?" he asked. Criss-Cross just nodded, looking down lovingly and longingly at the object that stood propped against the sink. Suddenly Dan understood. Something happened to her brother… he thought. That's the news her friend brought.

"Wells, I'se gotta get ta bed. T'anks d'ough," she said, picking up the cane and stepping towards the door to the girls's bunkroom. Dan watched her leave, feeling sorry for the tough 14 year-old. She does so much… he thought. Goes through so much… And now she's got to deal with this on top of it all…