A.N: During the strike, one of the first big rallies. Set after other published pieces so far
Roisin, meaning 'little rose' is pronounced ro-sheen and roughly translates to Rosaleen, Rosalin. Roise, a diminutive of Roisin, carries approximately the same meaning, is pronounced ro-sha and roughly translates to Rosie.
Not completely happy with this one and it's not even technically done so will probably come back and fix/finish it up later but it's been awhile since I've uploaded on this project and this part is getting long so just gonna post what I've got for now
Esther Jacobs was nearly at her wit's end.
Lord knows she was proud of all her bairns and especially her lads, who had really come into their own of late. David had been listless without a set Path and now he was known in the tenement and nigh on the whole neighbourhood as the dashing Jack Kelly's intelligent and fearless Second. A strike leader and capable newsboy in his own right, alongside all the others. Les was steadier than before, centering himself without his sister at his side to tether him to the earth and keep his feet firmly on the ground was coming easier and easier. He was a tad quieter, being more thoughtful and wanting to be grown up, taking on chores and responsibilities that he had bemoaned and scoffed at before. Though the chores may have been because he had come home from one of their late-night strike meetings that had become a full-out sleepover chattering about how one of the Brooklyn littles had told him that 'Spot Conlon hisself ma!' made loaves of bread and hot oatmeal and fresh coffee for the lads of his lodge every morning and hauled a few loaves of the bread over to the distribution yard for the girls when they came from their own lodgings to get their papers. And she wasn't quite sure how true it was that someone like Spot Conlon (Newsie or not, Spot Conlon was a name well-known in a fair few circles Esther had ears in) took the time to do something so menial and time consuming but she wouldn't argue with whatever got her an extra pair of hands to help around the house.
But saints help her if she didn't find a quiet corner away from the blasted noise and chaos soon. She only needed a few minutes. Some time to rest her swelling ankles and her sore back and catch her breath and-
She bit back a curse as a horde of little ones rushed past her like the devil himself were on their heels and she swore she heard Les' voice amongst the shrieks. Looking about she couldn't spot her Davey, the lad likely off helping Miss Larkin who was playing hostess tonight (thank the lords, her family's tiny apartment was fine for Manhattan's Lodge Heads and Neighbourhood representatives but not a meeting of all the Boroughs and their allies) socializing with the business owners, local politicians and concerned parents who were helping to feed and finance the kids running the strike. And if he wasn't doing that then he was probably at Miss Kelly's side, introducing said business owners, local politicians and concerned parents to the lads running the whole operation. Her poor Sarah was surrounded by a small crowd -that had been slowly growing since she stepped through the door- of boys who seemed to hang on her every word. And saints help her if she knew where little Rosie was. Thank the saints for dear Jack who would periodically go over and keep her oldest girl company, shooing away some of the more forward of Sarah's admirers when he wasn't playing with the younger boys or being dragged into some conversation over a card game by the older lads grouped about the place.
And the babies (lords help her another set of twins) would not settle unless one of them was pressed right up against her poor abused bladder. She let out a sigh, one hand rubbing absently at her protruding stomach, trying to look over the heads of the people gathered about the hall for maybe a chair or bench or something where she can finally just sit herself down for a moment. There are so many bodies all crowded so close together that she's surprised she notices the light touch to her elbow that seems to draw her into a small pocket of quiet away from the throng.
"Now wha-" she's ushered into a soft chair that feels as warm and soft and comfortable as the armchair back home and a cup of something hot and aromatic is pressed into her hands. She looks up from the hands still loosely wrapped about her own and the steaming mug up a worryingly thin arm to a familiar too-thin, soot smudged face.
"Don't worry yerself there none Mrs. Jacobs," The lad chuckles, "Is jus' a tea meant ta help settle yer nerves witout causin' harm to yer bairns none." She couldn't help the soft smile at the almost singsong lilt to the boy's Brooklyn brogue, the Irish in him coming out stronger than normal.
"Thank ye lad," She took the cup with a smile and from the first sip felt a sense of calm wash over her and a chill slips down her spine even as she's filled with warmth. The magic resting on the back of her tongue so familiar and yet still so foreign. "So Roíse, you a healer fer one o' tha lodges then, love?" She takes another sip and keeps her face soft and pleasant and open as the lad tenses and his smile draws tight.
"Uh no, not really ma'am. I do some healin' but we've got Stitches fer the big stuffs."
She hums with a nod and sips at her tea, deciding not to push. It had taken her too long to earn the trust of her daughter's friend and she's not going to risk her hard work now. "Well don't you go wastin' yer evenin' keepin me company, lad. Go have some fun. And if you happen across that Spot fellow send 'im my way will you? I've met most o' the other Borough Heads 'cept him." She shakes her head with a disapproving snort. "If'n I din't know better I would almost say the lad t'was avoidin us parents." And she smiles at the lad again as she shrugs. He's gone a little pale but she did just accuse one of the most powerful people in New York of being scared of something, even if it was in jest.
"Ah, yeah, 'course Mrs. Jacobs. Uh, enjoy yer tea." Esther Jacobs absolutely does not laugh or even chuckle at the lad as he nearly stumbles over himself getting up from the chair.
She had always considered Roíse a nice enough lad, sweet even, but obviously not one for socializing if the way the others seemed to give him a fairly wide berth meant anything. She shrugs to herself like that will dislodge her worry and the persistent sense of knowing the boy her daughter had dragged home like a lost puppy she found in the street nearly a year ago now. Like it will make the way he watched the lads about him, how he held himself steady and firm amidst all of the chaos, a small island of calm, any less familiar. Then she sees her little Rosie -David in tow- weaving her way through the rowdy boys filling the place before stopping at his side, a cloth in hand and a bright smile on her face as she holds it up to the lad.
He gives her a smile and smirks up at David (when did the lads meet that they were so friendly?), taking his cap off before wiping the cloth over his face, getting rid of the soot and dirt. And she nearly chokes on her drink when he smiles softly down at her daughter, cheeks and the tip of his nose a little pink from the violent scrubbing with the cloth and choppy dark blonde, nearly brown in this light, bangs falling into his eyes a bit. Eyes that even from almost half the room away she can tell have shifted to a shade of blue she'd once thought she would never see again until the day she held little Rosie in her arms. Eyes that are looking right at her wide and shocked and he's grabbing David and rushing towards her now.
"Mum, mum!" She's vaguely aware of Sarah kneeling in front of her holding the now empty mug, the tea warming her lap where she spilled it. Jack and Miss Larkin are at her shoulder keeping the boys away saying something about her not being able to calm down with them crowding her. "Mum, wha' is it? What happened? Is it the bairns?" She looks down at Sarah's soft brown eyes, wide with worry and opens her mouth but no sound comes out. Her throat is tight and she can feel the tears cooling on her cheeks as she finally lets out one hiccuping sob.
"Sarah!" and David is kneeling in front of her too now, nearly level with her where she sits like the giant lad he is. "What's wrong mum? Are you alright?"
Roíse, eyes wide in shock and hair she knows is just going to get darker like gold and burnt honey, is holding little Rosie's hand and has Les by the collar of his shirt, like he grabbed the lad before he could hurl himself at her. "I- I-," Oh gods how did she not see it before?
"Sarah, you said it may be the bairns?" He hands her children off to Annie and Miss Larkin and gently ushers her eldest to the side before taking their place. "Mrs. Jacobs, can ya tell me if anythin' hurts? Maybe about yer hips or lower back? Would feel like when the bairns are comin' but sharper, a little too small ta be that."
"Spot-" Her oldest boy's voice sounds like he wants to say more, like he's giving the lad in front of her a warning. Wait, Spot?
"Calm yerself, Mouth. My mum t'was a healer, and a damned good 'un, I know what I'm about till we can gets her to a midwife." Then he's looking back at her with those eyes and presses two fingers to her forehead, muttering something that sends a familiar yet totally foreign feeling tingling down her spine. His magic- gods, his magic that had always felt so familiar even carries an echo of her. "She don't seem to be hurtin' none, somethin jus'-" He sighs and turns back to David and Sarah with a frown that could almost be a pout and moves as if to stand. No, the boy in front of her, who careened into her life and the life of her family, is going to slip away. Out of her life all over again. She can't lose him, she owed it to Rosie. She can't fail them both again.
"Patrick?" Her voice is a raspy whisper that's more of a sob than anything but it makes half the room freeze and the boy whips his head around to look up at her.
"What did you jus' say?" He almost growls and David makes some noise of protest while Jack bites out a warning but the most she can do is slowly reach out a trembling hand to brush his bangs out of his eyes and lightly cup his too-thin cheek.
"You look jus' like yer mum. Like my Róisín. You make her tea jus' like she used ta, afore- afore-"
His eyes go impossibly wider and there's something in them she can't quite decipher. She chokes down another sob as he settles back where he was just a moment ago, most of the lads about her are watching in shocked silence but David finally seems to recover, "Mum, This is Spot Conlon. He's-"
He's cut off when Patrick -Spot, they had called him- grabs her hand and faster than the eye could catch, slices a line across first her palm then his own. She feels more than hears the words he says, almost sings them as he holds her eyes with his own. She feels them sear through her skin and rattle her bones as bond calls to oath calls to blood and the magic in her rises to meet it. There's light and sound and the children are shouting something but he's still just looking at her as it all fades back into focus.
"What the hells was that?!" Jack snarls as he grabs the smaller lad by the collar and hauls him up. David and Sarah are fussing over her again, Les and Rosie clinging to her side as the newsboys seem to split back into their factions, all watching each other like one side is going to strike. "What did you just do, Conlon?"
Jack raises a fist as Patrick continues to just stare at her with those big blue eyes that are so so familiar and that makes her snap back into the moment. She's on her feet using Les as a support to pull herself up. "Jack Kelly you put that lad down this instant." The entire room is silent as Jack freezes. "You put him down this instant or there will be tha hells ta pay, lad."
Esther Jacobs was nearly at her wit's end.
David was spluttering something about impossibilities while his friends tried to hush him and Sarah was whispering to her younger siblings to calm down that their mum was alright. Les and Rosie seemed to be handling it the best, Les going on about it being just like some book he had read at school while Rosie kept saying she wanted to go meet her new cousin. Thank the heavens for Miss Larkin who swept in, putting a hand on Jack's shoulder, whispering something in his ear that had him setting Spot down and taking a step back.
"So we'se kin, but we ain't blood."
She shakes her head and takes a shaky breath. "Róisín Conlon stands as my sworn-sister, meanin' she and any children o' hers have the protection o' meself and me family, me clan. And makin' them good as my own should anythin' happen to her. But I found out too late when she- when she got sick, by then her lad had found a way to get her back home ta me and disappeared and there's no finding a Fae-touched child as don't want to be found in his home territory."
Spot still hasn't looked away from her, something like understanding sparking in his eyes and flashing across his face. "Eistir Parlin, ya married tha Polish fella, tha Jewish factory worker. Yer pa disowned ya fer it."
"Aye, aye that he did." She's laughing and crying and now most of the rest of the guests and children have made their way to the edges of the great big room or just out of the Hall in general. Leaving just her and the newsboys watching her with a wary sort of shock.
She's aware of Jack or her Davey, probably both, somewhere in the background. "Patrick? What's she talkin' about Spot? Who's Róisín?"
"Oh gods, lad. Oh gods I am so sorry." She's sitting again and Patrick is at her knee, one trembling hand wrapped around her own and the other hovering between them like he doesn't know what to do with it.
"You ain't got nothin' to be apologizin' for Mrs. Jacobs, nothin at all. You gotta take deep breaths Mrs. Jacobs, come on breath wit me now-"
"Yer mum has never stopped looking fer ya."
He sighs, his eyes slipping shut and leans the tiniest bit into her palm, "I know. It's safer fer her if we don't meet, you 'ave to understand that Mrs. Jacobs."
"Oh I know love, I know. You're somethin' else now aren't you lad? Is that- is that why-?"
Roíse, Spot, Patrick, shakes his head and let's her hand take the weight of it with a sigh. "Me mum gettin' sick had nothin' ta do wit what I am as far as I can tell. 'Cept maybe pushin me to it sooner than tha fates intended."
"I'm too late ta be of any help to ya aren't I lad?" Her laugh is flat and wet and gods, she's going to start crying again. "Pa- Spot, I-"
"No," he grits out and his grip on her hands tightens just the smallest amount. "No, you calls me Patrick, Mrs. Jacobs. You calls me Patrick and know that you are doing more good fer me and me lads than you could know. You gave us tha Mouth and you gaves us Broadway an li'l Wall Street and-" he cuts himself off with a small hitch to his breath and the flick of his attention to his side that the others seem to miss. But she knows Patrick if only because he seems to be the exact copy of his mum and she had known her like she knew her own mind, never did she think she would find another soul so loving and kind until her Sarah had dragged this lad into their lives. So she sees when Patrick's eyes flit over to her Sarah who's standing under the protective arm of one Jack Kelly. "And you gaves us Sarah who keeps all o' the rest, even Cowboy, in line. And you're there whens I can't be, Mrs. Jacobs. You're there and she's safe so long as you're there. And I- I can't thank you'se enough fer that."
"Yer mother would be so proud of you if she knew, lad." And now those great big eyes are shining and he's pulling away with a forced cough, pulling his cap low over his eyes. "I should never have let her go ta Brooklyn on her own. A fae-touched girl like her? With her gifts? I should 'ave-" She steadies herself the best she can with a shaky breath and time seems to freeze for a moment when the boy looks up at her, bright grey-blue eyes meeting hers and he flashes her a familiar sad, understanding grin. Some hair that has come loose from his cap falls in front of his eyes, golden blonde strands just brushing his nose before delicately boned hands are pushing it back again, tucking it just behind his ear in a way that is so familiar she thinks she's going to be sick. She keeps her answering smile soft and prays he doesn't notice how much she must be trembling.
"Magic will always call to it's own, will claim what as belongs to it. And so does Brooklyn. There ain't nothin' no one can do as to change it."