Chapter Fourteen: In Which Jack Is Confronted and Katherine Has A Plan

Word Count: 1,728

Manhattan, 1899

Katherine made no effort to put the drawings back when she heard Jack climbing angrily up the ladder.

"What're you doin' up here?"

Katherine had meant to respond calmly, but admittedly, the ferocity of Jack's voice startled her and she responded a lot more defensively than she'd planned. "Well, Specs showed me up!"

"What, and did he say you could go through my stuff?" He asked, snatching them back and rolling them back up.

"I saw them rolled up sticking out of there!" she said, gesturing to the place she'd found them. "I didn't know what they were." She opened the one she still held in her hand. "These drawings...these are drawings of the refuge, aren't they?"

Jack didn't answer.

"Is this really what it's like in there?" Katherine asked, though she knew the answer. "Three boys to a bed, rats everywhere and vermin..." she trailed off. This was the nightmarish place Crutchie was living in? After seeing that, well...she didn't entirely blame Jack for wanting to get away from it all.

"What, a little different from how you were raised?" Jack replied coolly, snatching that drawing, too.

Katherine jumped a bit when he took it, but pressed on. "Snyder told my father that you were arrested stealing food and clothing. This is why, isn't it? You stole to feed those boys."

Again, Jack remained silent, which Katherine took to mean tacit confirmation. "I-I don't understand!" she blurted out. "If you risked going to jail for those boys, how could you turn your back on them now?"

This got a response. Jack whirled around, his face blazing with something like fury. "Oh, I do not think you are one to talk about turnin' on folks!" he said, jabbing a finger in her face.

"I never turned on you or anyone else."

"Oh, no you didn't. You just double-crossed us to your father. Your father!"

Right. There was that. Katherine had totally forgotten about the meeting that Jack had with her father. She'd been powerless to do anything to stop him finding out, but inside she hoped that he'd look past that and continue to help her. It seemed, somehow, like she'd only just gained the trust of the newsies, and she didn't want to break that now. Because the truth was, she liked Jack Kelly, a lot, and she wanted to show him that if there was any way she could help, she would. But he had to let her. Jack stomped across the rooftop, and she quickly followed.

"My father has eyes on every corner of the city! He doesn't need me spying for him. And I never lied." The look of outright skepticism on Jack's face prompted her to continue. "I just...didn't tell you everything."

If she was remembering her mother's teachings correctly, that was technically called a lie of omission, but at the time, the information hadn't been important, so she figured it shouldn't count.

Jack looked at her. "If you weren't a girl, you'd be trying to talk with a fist in your mouth."

How polite, was her first, dry thought. How do I fix this? was the next.

"Look. I told you that I worked for the Sun, and I did. I told you that my professional name is Plumber, and it is. You never asked my real one." It was true, and it was a fact that she was counting on to be her saving grace. Her real name was never something that was important for him to know at the time, and seeing as their relationship (at least, then) was a strictly professional one, it seemed only fitting for that to be the name she gave out.

Apparently, Jack hadn't given this as much thought as she had. "I didn't think I woulda had to unless I knew I was dealin' with a backstabber!"

A backstabber! Remind me, again, who it was that made you front page news? That got you a spot in the papers at all? "Oh, and if I was a boy," she said darkly, finally letting her frustration surface, you'd be looking at me through one swollen eye!"

"Well, don't let that stop you! Gimme your best shot!"

And so, she did.

Or, at least, she meant to.

What actually ended up happening was this: Katherine raised her hand to deliver to Jack the biggest slap of his life, but instead used that hand and her other to grab his face and kiss him.

Funny how quickly one's plans can change.

When they staggered apart, Jack looked as taken aback as how Katherine herself felt. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but she was, for once, speechless.

"I need to know that you didn't cave for the money," she finally said.

"No, I spoke the truth. Ya win a fight when ya got the other guy down eatin' pavement."

Not exactly, but I'll let you have that one.

"You heard your father. No matter how many days we strike, he ain't never givin' up. I don't..." he sighed. "I don't know what we can do."

"Ah, but I do."

"Oh, come on - "

"Really, Jack? Really? Only you can have a good idea? Or is it because I'm a girl?"

"Oh, I did not say nothin' - "

"This would be a good time to shut up." She paused, smirking at the expression on Jack's face. "Being boss doesn't mean you have all the answers. Just the brains to recognize the right one when you hear it." At this, she pulled out the piece of paper that she had, folded up in her pocket, which was her entire purpose for coming up here.

"I'm listenin'."

"Oh, good for you. The strike was your idea's the rally was Davey's and now my plan will take us to the finish line. Deal with it." She held it up for him to read.

"'The Children's Crusade.'" he read aloud, taking the paper.

She began to recite what she had already committed to memory. "'For the sake of all the kids in every sweatshop, factory, and slaughterhouse in New York, I beg you, join us.'"

Jack looked at it thoughtfully.

"With those words, the strike stopped being about just the newsies. You've challenged our whole generation to stand up and demand a place at the table."

"The children's crusade..."

"Just think, Jack, if we publish this...my words - " she gasped excitedly as she walked over to the container of rolled-up parchment, " - with one of your drawings, and if every worker under twenty-one read it and stayed home from work – or better yet, they came to newsies square for a rally! A general, citywide strike. I mean, even my father couldn't ignore that!"

"Only one problem: we got no way to print it."

"Oh, come on, there has to be one printing press he doesn't control."

The two of them were silent for a moment, and then Jack made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. "...Oh, no."

"What?"

"I know where there's one printin' press no one would ever think we'd use."

Katherine laughed. "Well, then what're we still standing here for?" She made to go down the ladder but stopped at the sound of Jack's voice.

"Hey, hey, wait. What's this about? And I don't mean the children's crusade." He made a you-and-me motion. "Am I kiddin' myself, or is there really somethin'..." he trailed off again.

"Well, of course there is!" Wasn't it obvious? Had their kiss not been romantic enough?

"Don't say it like it happens every day!"

"Jack - "

"No, no, I'm not an idiot! I know that...that girls like you don't go for guys like me. I don't want you promisin' somethin' you're just gonna take back later. But standin' here tonight, starin' at you...I'm scared. Tomorrow is gonna come and change everything. If there was a way I could grab hold of something and make time stop, just so I could keep looking at you..."

She smiled softly and walked back over to him. "You snuck up on me, Jack Kelly. I never even saw it coming."

"For sure?"

"For sure," Katherine agreed in her best impression of Jack's accent. "Until I met you, Jack, I thought I knew love. But I guess I didn't have much experience with love then. I'm still learning, and one thing I've learned is that love will do what love does."

Jack smiled, so she continued: "The world comes up with its ways to knock you down and then all of a sudden it decides to give you hope. Even if it is only for a little while. And a little while could be forever, and it might be for only a moment. But when that moment ends, what we have doesn't just go away. Knowing that you believed in me gives me something to believe in."

"I'se pretty sure," he began with a crooked smile, "that we was never supposed to meet in the first place." Katherine giggled. "But for some reason, we did, and now, well, we's here. And you're the reason I have something to believe in." He looked away and leaned on the railing. "If things were different..."

"If you weren't going to Santa Fe..."

"Yeah, if you weren't an heiress," Jack said laughing as she nudged him. "And if your father wasn't after my head."

"You're not really scared of my father?"

"No, but I am pretty scared of you."

Katherine laughed. "Don't be!" She paused. "Listen Jack, I meant what I said. If circumstances change, this - " she gestured around them, " - this moment, this relationship – doesn't. I love you, Jack Kelly."

They kissed sweetly again and discussed plans to print the paper and hold the rally.

They were going to end this, once and for all.

A/N: So, this chapter is a little short, but I really just wanted to focus on Jack and Katherine and their relationship for a chapter, so what better place to do that than the Something to Believe In scene? I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoyed reading it! If you can, please leave a review and share your thoughts.

-mouse :)