Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and are only used for fan related purposes.

--

The Sparrow

When Sarah disappears, it's up to David to go looking for her.
With only a simple clue to where she could have gone, and the understanding that he's in over his head,
it won't take him too long to discover that his sister wasn't the only one with a secret.

--

I blinked once, barely closing my eyes for more than a second, but nothing changed—the girl was gone, that much was sure. There wasn't even any sign that she had ever been there at all, from what I could see; no shoe prints left in the dirt at the entrance, even. Just an empty alleyway that led out onto the busy New York street.

I crossed the small amount of space that separated me from the street, nearly tripping over my feet in my hurry. While I was still somewhat rattled, and my trousers were covered in dust from my fall to the ground, I chose to conveniently forget about being attacked in favor of checking to see where Rachel had gone. She couldn't have been that fast. Maybe I could catch up with her.

Moving my head from the left to the right so quickly that it gave me a pain, I looked for her but it was pointless. There was no flash of a long, grey skirt, no defined yet nervous profile glancing back at the alley. Rachel had been swallowed up by the constant crowd; she was definitely gone.

I couldn't really understand why. She'd been nervous, sure, and there was no doubt that we had been assaulted by someone, so maybe she went off to find out who'd thrown the rock. Or, considering the way she seemed to be intimidated by this Sparrow character, maybe she tried to escape from whoever threw that darn rock.

And it was not only that. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, there was a little voice that asked me if I'd imagined the whole meeting. My imagination had been working overtime ever since I'd seen that the apartment door was open—if it was possible that Sarah could vanish so abruptly, then perhaps it was possible that I'd hallucinated my talk with Rachel.

If it wasn't for the scrap of paper I held in my right hand and the rock I gripped with my left, I might've bought the idea that it was all in my imagination. It wasn't often that I had a conversation with a girl that I wasn't related to; it was hard to believe that I might've had one with Rachel.

It all seemed so strange.

Deciding it was in my best interest to accept everything that was happen as real and to believe everything that Rachel had told me, I stepped out into the street myself. Someone had known that we were in that dark alley and we'd been lucky that their aim was poor. The painted rock could've done a lot of damage if it me or her. I didn't want to take the chance of being a target again.

Once I was back on the street I moved a couple of feet away from the alley, taking shelter in the open doorway of a small bakery. After slipping that scrap of paper that Rachel had give me into my pocket, I lifted the rock up and tried to get a better look at it. Maybe I would notice something about it that made sense out of everything.

Just as I'd first thought, it was a rather large black rock. It must have hit the wall hard when it was thrown because the chip actually led to a crack that spanned half the rock. That made me very nervous; I could only imagine what would have happened if it actually hit one of us.

Using the sunlight, I stared hard at the white painting on the topside of the rock. It was a sparrow all right, painted in a similar style to the blue drawing on the crumpled piece of paper.

I felt my stomach tighten as I let the rock drop from my hand. It landed with picture facing upwards; a quick tap with my shoe was enough to turn it over so that the painting was out of sight. The last thing I wanted was another look at the Sparrow's sign.

Who was the Sparrow, I asked myself, and what did he want with my sister? What was he doing, throwing a rock at me, a rock with his sign on it? What was going on with Rachel? And what—what—did Jack do to Sarah?

When I started that afternoon out I only had two questions: Where was Sarah and why did she leave a note for Jack? Now, not more than an hour later, my questions had multiplied and, apart from the information from Rachel, I wasn't any closer to answering any of them.

The way I saw it, it all came down to this Sparrow person. I had no idea who, or what, he was but he seemed to be at the center of everything. According to Rachel, it was a possibility that my sister was with him—she must know who he was. And, of course, Jack had to know him, too. Why else would she have given him the Sparrow's sign and an address?

Quickly, I repeated the address to myself, just like Rachel had had me do. "460 Madison Ave." There was no way I was going to forget that.

I didn't know what exactly I would find at 460 Madison Avenue but I also knew I had to go there. With any luck, maybe Sarah would be there. I wondered if that was where Rachel had run off to. I wondered if that was where Jack would head next.

I stole a quick peek at my old pocket watch. Not much time had passed at all since I'd foolishly stormed out of Tibby's. It had been my goal, as soon as Rachel had first mentioned the Sparrow and his sign, to run back to Jack and demand that he tell me what exactly he knew. I'd been sidetracked both, fortunately, by Rachel's admission that she'd read Sarah's note over Jack's shoulder and, unfortunately, by an unseen rascal throwing a rock right where we stood.

There was only one thing to do now. I had to go back and find Jack. And then, after I did, we both needed to head on uptown.

Sarah needed us.

--

I think I underestimated Jack. I knew he was fast from all the times he'd run away from the Refuge's warden, and the way he could always lead the chase when the Delancey Brothers were after him, but I must've forgotten just how fast he could be. By the time I made it back to Tibby's he was already gone.

From my place at the window, watching the diners, I could see that the amount of people I knew sitting inside had whittled down some. They still occupied the two tables but their seats had changed: Swifty had taken up Jack's seat, talking to Crutchy and Mush; Blink, Skittery and the tiny, dark-haired girl were having an animated conversation over the last remaining piece of chicken.

Jack was missing, there was no doubt about that. Rachel, I determined after looking for Jack and finding him gone, hadn't bothered to return to the restaurant. For some reason, I didn't think she would have so I wasn't surprised to see that she wasn't there, either. I wondered vaguely where she'd run off to but only for a few seconds before I turned my attention to figuring out what to do next. I'd really thought that Jack would still be there and I was at a loss for what to do now that he wasn't.

I didn't go all the way inside the restaurant because I didn't want to get drawn into another conversation with some of the other guys. Crutchy, for one, would keep me there for hours if he could and I didn't have the time to spare.

Turning away from the window, I nervously stuck my hands in my pockets and stepped away from the restaurant. My fingers brushed against the crinkled scrap of paper that I'd stowed in there. Automatically, I recited, "460 Madison Avenue," as I waded my way through the afternoon crowd.

Just because Jack wasn't still at Tibby's, it didn't mean I couldn't find him. Like I told myself earlier, there were countless places where Jack Kelly could go—and, with Rachel's information, I added one more to that list. 460 Madison Avenue. If I didn't find Jack before I got there, I was pretty confident that I'd find him there.

As I continued on my journey uptown, I decided that I would stop over at the distribution center for the World and just check to see if Jack had popped in over there. It was getting later, and it was possible that he'd gone off to sell some more papers.

I couldn't really be sure that he'd immediately started for the address that Sarah had left for him. He'd tried so hard to reassure me—or maybe he was trying to reassure himself, I don't know—that Sarah was fine that I found it hard to believe that he would rush off to follow an address, even if it was one that she'd left for him personally.

He was lying, I knew that. Even without Rachel's hint that Jack had a bigger part to play in Sarah's disappearance than I would have guessed, I knew he was lying to me. From the first moment, when he opened his mouth, all he did was lie and I made a mental note to call him out on it when I met up with him again.

After I asked him about the Sparrow, of course…

The walk from Tibby's over to Newspaper Row didn't take long at all. Most of it passed me by in a blur, and I barely remember any of it. My head was so full of imagined scenarios and fuzzy details that I arrived at the distribution center before I knew it.

The gate was open but there weren't many newsies milling around. I didn't need my pocket watch to know that this was not a prime selling time; only the youngsters, the poorest of the poor street kids and the scammers had arrived back at the center so early to try to grab a few of the last remaining papers from the morning edition. To them, especially the scammers, it may be late news but, if they could get a sucker to believe it was an early evening edition, then that was an extra penny in their pocket.

I knew right away that Jack wouldn't be there. In my opinion—and I'd probably never tell him this to his face, unless he made me angry enough first—Jack was the king of the scammers but he didn't need to pawn off old news to his customers. He had a God-given talent, or so he liked to claim, to "improve the truth" and sell any headline that the writers threw his way.

He'd go back to the distribution center when the evening edition was hot off the presses and not a second before. I don't know why I didn't remember that before.

But, just because Jack wasn't there, it didn't mean that none of the newsies I knew were there. There was one, a short boy with brown hair that stuck out from under his cap, pudgy cheeks and a wide gambler's grin. His cap was slung low, hiding his eyes, and his fingers were absolutely dirty.

He was crouching down low, a couple of papers stacked haphazardly at his feet. There were maybe five or six of them in total and one of his boots kept them from flying away in the wind as his fingers picked through the dirt and garbage that littered the gutters.

I recognized Snipeshooter immediately, and not only because he was looking for half-smoked cigars in gutter trash. There was something undeniable recognizable about Snipes, a certain oily quality that made me keep my hands in my pockets in fear that, if I didn't, he'd find his hands in there, instead.

But, if he was known for his love of a good Havana cigar and his sticky fingers, Snipeshooter had enough reputation: he loved to talk and, even better, he loved to listen, even if he wasn't supposed to hear whatever it was he was hearing.

In that way, Snipeshooter learned a lot. I just hope that, somehow, he might've learned something about Jack, or my sister. Or, if I was being real hopeful, maybe he learned something about the Sparrow.

Quickening my pace, I walked over to him. I tried to sound friendly as I greeted him.

"Hey, Snipes," I said, smiling earnestly at him as I looked down at him. "How have you been?"

The young boy lifted his head and his hand. Holding it out as if he was clutching some great prize, he showed me the ends of a cigar that he'd just found. It was three-quarters of the way smoked but, to a boy like Snipeshooter, if it had but one drag left on it, then it was a treasure.

He grinned cheekily up at me. "Can't complain," he said, his voice deeper than you would expect from a boy his size. "See, lookie what I got here."

"That's… nice," I said. I sounded flat but what else could I say? It was some stranger's old cigar and he was acting as if it was a nugget of California gold he'd fished out of the gutter.

Shaking my head, I decided to change the subject. The idea that he was actually going to smoke that after he found it in the garbage made my earlier hunger vanish entirely. "Um, Snipes? I got a question for you."

Snipeshooter stood up, listening to me as I talked. He slipped his bare foot back into his old, cracked boot before bending down and scooping up his fallen newspapers.

When he was standing straight again, he looked over at me and shrugged his shoulders. "Sure thing, Davey. Whatcha got to say? But make it quick," he added, shortly, "I got some papes I gotta move if I want to wash this smoke down with a sarsaparilla."

"Have you seen Jack at all today?"

It was the easiest way to begin the conversation, I figured, and, depending on his answer, I could then steer the conversation in any direction I need—even in the direction of Madison Avenue, if I had to.

"Jack? Sure. He just passed here, oh, ten minutes or so ago." Using the hand that was clutching tightly to his newfound cigar, he gestured behind him. "He only stopped for a second before runnin' that way. Said he was headin' on over to Brooklyn."

"Brooklyn?" I repeated. I could feel my eyebrows rise, matching the question in my voice. I hadn't expected that. "He said he was going to Brooklyn?"

Snipeshooter didn't seem too concerned by my surprise. Slipping the half-smoked cigar between his lips, he shrugged his shoulders and nodded up at me. "That's what I said, Davey," he said casually, his speech mumbled by the used cigar he was currently chewing on. He paused for a second before adding, "Hey, you got a match on ya?"

I shook my head glumly, not really listening to what he was asking. I was far too preoccupied with what he just told me.

Brooklyn?

"Ah, well. That's a shame, ain't it?" he said, removing the stub and waving it carelessly. Snipeshooter shrugged again and hit me in the thigh with his small stack of papers; he was a short boy whose aim was off but it didn't matter. "I gotta be goin'. I'll be seein' ya, eh, Davey?"

"What? Oh, sure. Thanks. Take care of yourself, Snipes," I said absently, barely even noticing his playful smack. If anything, all his action did was knock some of the loose dirt away from the knees of my trousers.

"Whatever ya say."

I waited until he had taken his unlit cigar and his handful of papers and had left before I shook my head and bowed my head, more confused now than I had been before. I'd been convinced that, if I didn't stumble across Jack on my way uptown, then I'd find him already waiting on Madison Avenue. But one conversation with a gossip monger like Snipeshooter had quickly squashed that theory—and I was left with another question:

What sort of reason did Jack have to go to Brooklyn when Sarah was missing?

I didn't realize that I'd forgotten to ask Snipes about Sarah and the Sparrow until he was long gone and I was, once again, all alone.

Author's Note: Hey, guys! Well, here we go. I couldn't decide on one of two directions for this chapter—both would eventually lead to the same place—and I finally decided on going with this. I just hope it works out as well as I want it to. And, as always, the idea of Brooklyn definitely leads to some intrigue, eh?

New chapter should be up soon, as well as a more coherent A/N and (possibly) another chapter of Legacy. I blame it on my new kitty (a black shorthair called Salem) and very little sleep. Yes, he's adorable but I'm definitely not when his little bell keeps me up all night ;)

-- stress, 04.30.08