Author's Note: Dude, I am so pooped right now. I don't think I've ever had a chapter this long so, seriously, please enjoy it. You guys put out the reviews (12 last chapter, woot) so you guys deserve this chapter. I want to make a quick note though: some of the dialogue will sometimes resemble lyrics from the songs. That's only because I'm trying to put up parallels but, hopefully, you guys can tell the difference between what is original and what is blatantly ripped off from RENT. And, speaking of ripping stuff off, the poem-type dealie at the end of the chapter is totally stolen. I'll give credit next chapter. First I want to see if anyone knows where it came from. Cookies to anyone who knows. Woot.

Disclaimer: I do not own, nor stake any claim, to any of the original characters shamelessly borrowed from Newsies – they are the property of Disney, © 1992. Any other character, when noted, is property of their respective owner and will be noted in the disclaimer. The core idea to this story – the adaptation of the Broadway musical, RENT, is © 1996 to Jonathan Larson.

--

How can you connect in an age where strangers, landlords, lovers, your own blood cells betray?
Because one can never be sure if such a moment could be the last...

October 25, 2006

--

You look familiar…
Like your dead girlfriend?

--

Jack lifted his head up from his work and shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he's still looking for the keys you threw, Dave. You never were a good shot. For all we know, Blink's down there on his hands and knees looking for your keys."

David faked a short laugh before shaking his head. "Real funny, Jack. I'll have you know that I only missed him by a bit. He had the keys in his hand before he hung up the phone, so there. And, besides, I just checked outside. He's not there." But, just to be on the safe side, David lifted the sheet back up and looked past the jagged edge of the broken window so that he was gazing down into the street. He nodded to himself. "Nope, he's definitely not down there."

"Well, then, go look for him," Jack said simply before bringing the tip of his pen to his lips. He chewed on it for a second, looking quite thoughtful, before leaning back over and scribbling again. He did not look concerned at all that Blink arrived at the apartment building almost an hour ago and still had not made his way up to the loft. He was too preoccupied with his work.

David, however, was very concerned. "Maybe I should. I mean, who knows? Blink could be lying in the gutter somewhere, bleeding to death, calling out to his only friends – us. Or, maybe, someone saw him outside and decided to make him their pet or something. You know, maybe they shoved him a car and Blink-napped him to make him their own personal sex slave. They might have a box waiting for him somewhere and we're letting the car get further away by not worrying about him. I read about that happing to someone once. But it was a girl… and in California. But maybe it's happening to Blink now. You don't know."

The more David stood there, his blue eyes straining to see if there were any signs of foul play on the street below, the more nervous he got. His imagination was working on overdrive, coming up with every insane possibility; it did not help that one of his hobbies was researching crime journals – they just made all the possibilities gory and murderous. And perverted.

"Dave, you sound like your mother," Jack replied, sighing heavily as he sat back up again. He could not think with David prattling on and on about something or other. He lifted his pen up and rested it behind his right ear. Then, with his free hand, he pointed to the still open door; Spot had neglected to close it behind him. "If you're that worried about Blink, the door's open. Honestly, just go look for him. He's a grown man, though. I'm sure he's fine. I mean, if I know Blink, he's probably out getting some ass right now."

"Yeah, Jack," David scoffed, backing away from the window, letting the sheet fall again. "Blink was calling us from the payphone outside but stopped just so he could go get a booty call. Right…"

"Dave," Jack said, his voice purposely void of emotion, his eyes wide as if highly disgusted. "Do not say 'booty call' in front of me ever again." He could not keep his voice straight and it cracked as a chuckle fought its way out. "My ears are burning."

David rolled his eyes. It was never good to deal with Jack when he was in these sorts of moods. Add his mother's phone call, Spot's unexpected (and less than pleasant) visit and the fact that Blink was missing and God only knew where the hell he went, and David's nerves were shot. Pointedly ignoring Jack – he could see out of the corner of his eye that Jack had stopped in his writing and was waiting for David's return in their banter – David went in search of his jacket. If he was going to go looking for Blink, he was not going to freeze doing it.

"So you're actually going to give into your paranoia and go looking for Blink?"

David shrugged on his brown overcoat before glaring at Jack. "Yes. You're welcome to come if you want. I might need help identifying his mangled body."

Jack laughed, a rich hearty laugh at odds with his earlier attitude. He shook his head. "No thanks, Dave. I think you got that one covered."

"Alright. Hopefully I won't be gone too long. Behave." David cringed as soon as the words were out of his mouth. I really do sound like my mother. Oh, well. Jack deserves it. David pointed at him as he retrieved his camera. "And don't forget to take your pills."

"Okay, mom," Jack tossed back, crossing his eyes though he knew David, with his back turned as he headed towards the door, could not see him. It made him feel better though; if David was going to treat him like a child, he was going to act like one. "Take a picture of Blink's dead body for me. Maybe it would make me feel better about myself."

David's answer was a derisive snort as he hurried out of the loft. He really was worried that something had happened to Blink; Jack's morbid sense of humor did not help him.

Jack shook his head again. And people think I'm the weird one just cause I like to stay inside…, he thought as he reached forward and grabbed his notebook. Depending on how long it took for David to find Blink, fuss over him and make sure he was alive, Jack might as well use the time to work on his writing.

He held the open notebook with his left hand; with his right, he lifted up a candle and placed it before the page so that he could read what he had written. He was trying, as he had been trying for two years now, to write a great novel that would exist long after he perished. He would dedicate it to Sarah, he vowed, and would call it 'Lost'; that one word alone would suffice to describe his entire life – and, yet, after two years, all he had was the title.

It was to be a book which expressed all the emotion that he kept bottled inside but he had not made any progress on it. Oh, he had pages upon pages filled with his loose and flowing script but none of which he wanted to leave behind as the very essence of who Jack Kelly was. There were short stories and novellas, poems and ballads but nothing that made him proud. Nothing that he wanted to use to personify his wasted life.

His time was running out; he did not know when he could go only that it was possible that it could be any moment. He could take his pills, his AZT as David often reminded him to do (as if he could ever forget; Sarah may have given in but he was a fighter), but how long would the medicine last? How long before the disease took over?

Two years and he had nothing to show for it but anguish, a thinning temper and forty-two broken pens.

Jack sighed again. His stomach was beginning to churn again, the familiar sense of nausea rising up. He was on a deadline only he did not know when his work was due – and he hated that. Careful not to drip wax onto the sofa (not like anyone would notice an additional stain on the old couch), Jack stretched his arms, loosening his muscles. If he tensed up, he would never be able to finish any more writing that night. And what good would it be to waste a perfectly good bout of angst, thankfully donated by Spot Conlon?

He rolled his head back and forth, relaxing his neck muscles, before lifting both the candle and his paper back up to his brown eyes. He moved his lips as he began to read the words he had jotted down following Spot's phone call. They were more of a description of emotions rather than any sort of story; he had planned on working on a short story – devoted to Christmas maybe – but had not been able to even come up with an opening sentence after hours of work. But, one phone call from that asshat, and negative and rough adjectives flowed like water. But that's all they were – descriptors.

"No, no, no," he said out loud, mumbling under his breath. "I can't do anything with this," Jack continued, roving his eyes over the page. Really, considering he was the one who wrote all that down, it irked him that he could make nothing of it. "Damn it," he muttered as he tossed the notebook beside him on the sofa. He knocked the pen out from behind his ear and set the candle back down (he might have been annoyed with himself but he wasn't stupid enough to throw a lit candle down atop of a wooden coffee table).

"Forget it," he grumbled, as he stood up from his seat. It may not be late, but it was dark and, since David had left, it was quiet. He might as well go to sleep if he was not going to be able to get any good writing done.

And that's when someone knocked at the (obviously) open door.

Assuming it was David, he did not even turn around. "What did you forget, Dave?"

But it was not David. It was a girl; at least, the voice that answered him was feminine, if not sultry. "Hey. Got a light?"

--

Despite the cold, the walk to her small one room apartment did not take long. There was something about a good argument – especially with a no-good ex-boyfriend – that warmed her up and, before she knew it, she had arrived just outside the building. She entered it, still silently fuming over the nerve Spot had had. Three months after she learned that he was married (married!), he had the audacity to come around to the Kit Kat Club as if nothing had happened between them.

Jess huffed as she all but ran up the stairs to her fifth floor apartment. She was glad that she had exchanged her heeled shoes for sneakers; after the last time one of her neighbors complained at the noise the clicking shoes had made – complain meaning that they threw a rotten tomato at her as she ran by, calling her to 'shut the fuck up… I'm sleeping here' – she preferred to wear noiseless shoes on her way in and out of the building. That and it made it easier to run in case she met someone seedy on the streets. She was a stripper, after all, not a prostitute. Not many tourists (and some locals, for that matter) could tell the two professions apart.

She shook her head, her long curls swaying as she made it to her door. She retrieved the key out of her faux fur coat and roughly shoved it into the lock on her door. One of her boyfriends, maybe one or two before Spot, a big brute called Oscar, had grown angry at her one night and busted her lock. Ever since then she had to jiggle the key in the hole for a few seconds until she felt the gears inside give way. Only then could she get inside her apartment.

Though her anger had kept her warm on the walk home, her anger did nothing for her eyesight. As soon as she entered the apartment, Jess saw that it was much darker than normal inside. And cold. Very cold.

She cursed under breath and fumbled alongside the inner wall, looking for the light switch. When her fingers found it, she flipped it once. And then again, her fingers frantically flipping the switch up and down until the truth dawned upon her. "Shit," she muttered, louder this time. The electricity had been turned off. And no electricity meant no plug-in heater. "I'm going to freeze tonight," she complained to herself as she blindly started to walk into the room. However, even though she was wearing Keds, she stumbled on her third step, tripping over a pile of clothes she had resting there. She did not fall all the way to the ground but her annoyance doubled anyway. "That's if I don't break my neck first," she added, clumsily regaining her balance.

Jess remained standing in one spot, not daring to move until her green eyes could grow adjusted to the darkness. It was then, as she was standing there, that she got an idea. A wicked idea. A wickedly amusing idea. She just needed one or two things first…

Slowly, Jess removed her leopard print coat and added it to the pile of clothes that had tripped her. Then, once she was sure she could make it into her quaint kitchen without killing herself, she started to go through one of her kitchen drawers; it was the drawer she called 'the crap drawer' and, as it's name would imply, it contained all sorts of knickknacks and things she might need at any given moment.

Her fingers felt the cold steel of a pair of scissors, rustled across countless expired coupons that she had never had the chance to use, and wrapped themselves up in useless bits of strings and tangled rubber bands before she felt the cool waxy texture of the object she was looking for: a candle.

Jess removed the half-used candle from the drawer and tapped it gently against her cheek as she allowed herself to adopt a coy smile, though no one was there to see it. She had been trying to find a suitable way to introduce herself to that handsome man that lived above her but, apart from running across him in the stairwell a few times, the opportune moment had never presented itself – especially now that she was single again.

Could tonight be that moment?

It just might…

But, before she left her apartment, she reached her free hand back into the drawer. She reached for the first paper her fingers found and brought it out. She set it on the counter before pulling a pen out of the same drawer.

It did not work at first but, after scribbling on the back of her hand, the ink began to flow. She put the pen to the paper and wrote down seven digits. Right below that, she printed her full name, using a little heart to dot the 'i'.

"There," she said to herself, sliding the paper into the right hand pocket of her skirt. It nestled right beside a little baggy that was already occupying the cove. "Alright, Jessie, let's go say hello to our neighbor," she added, rolling the candle between her palms.

After all, she did not want to look too desperate or come on too strong. But, after the way that Spot had just treated her, she thought it was high time that she proved to him that she did not need him. Besides, the mystery man who lived in the loft above her was much more handsome that Spot Conlon.

--

Carefully, Jess made her way out of her apartment and, rather than enter the hallway, she headed straight for the stairwell. From her careful observations she knew that he lived one floor above her with one person; it had not always been that way, though. She had been living in her apartment for almost eight months and, back when she moved in, there were four people who lived in that loft: a loud, pretty woman; a handsome (but totally and obviously gay) blonde man with an eye patch; a dorky-looking man with curly hair who, whenever she saw him, always seemed to have a camera with him; and the man she was crushing on.

Over the course of the time she lived below them, she noticed that two of the roommates had left: first the man with the eye-patch and then the only woman that had lived there. That left the dork with camera and the handsome man. If she did not know any better, she would have thought the two remaining men to be a couple but, from what she had learned, it turned out that the woman had been dating the dorky man; their relationship must have ended when she moved out.

The man she had her eye on, a tall looker with sandy brown hair and chiseled features, was actually a friend of Spot's (Spot had called him Jack. I remember. He got mad when I said the name Jack was ten times better than Spot). During their brief fling, Spot had told her all about his friends from the building – he, too, had lived with them in their loft before he, as he put it, came into money and bought the building.

Jess paused on the steps, a few away from the floor above her, as she let her thoughts fall back on Spot. She could just imagine how he would have looked if she admitted to him outside of the Club that the man she was referring to was his old friend. Spot had taken great pains to keep her from meeting his old friends; she now understood that it was because he did not want her to find out about his wife. Spot would have shit a brick if he found out I was going after his buddy. She grinned. Good.

The candle tight in her hand, she looked herself over real quick. She had decided to stay just how she had been dressed following work: a black pleather miniskirt; a tight spaghetti strapped pink shirt, with her black bra liberally exposed; a black lacy sweater that barely covered her up at all. She was freezing but, on the upside, she looked older than nineteen (she hoped; Cowboy had to be at least twenty-three, twenty-four and most older guys, she found, were dubious about her age – at least, until they got to know her). The only thing that offset her outfit was her white sneakers but there was nothing she could do now.

Jess brushed out a wrinkle in her miniskirt before continuing on her journey upwards. When she got to Jack's floor, she was surprised to see that the door in front of her was open but, rather than just enter, she paused just outside the door. She knocked.

"What did you forget, Dave?" It was him. It had to be. That thin camera weirdo could not have such a sexy voice. Right?

Jess ignored what it was that he said before taking a step into the large loft, trying not to feel envious of the size; the room she was entering could fit four of her cramped apartment inside comfortably. Instead, she answered him, trying to sound as enticing as she could. "Hey. Got a light?" she asked, lifting up the white candle that she held in her hand.

Jack spun around, surprised to hear a woman's voice. However, when he met the person at the door, he could not help but think that it was not a woman but a girl. Her clothes were provocative and very revealing, yes, but she had to be about half his size. Though she was only a head shorter than him, she was so thin that she looked like she would break in half if he even sneezed on her. Yet… she was pretty. And familiar.

He could make out the candle that she held out to him. He stooped down and picked a pack of matches up off of the coffee table before walking over to her. "Uh… sure," he said, a bit ineloquently, as he met her. She had taken a few steps into the room, stopping just next to a window; the moonlight flooded in through that window (the one not broken and, consequently, covered up by a sheet), illuminating her face. He struck the match and held it out to her. "Do I… Do I know you?" he asked, unsure of himself. It had been so long since he left his apartment – he was not too sure of anything anymore.

Jess leaned her candle inward, letting the wick accept the flame. "Thanks," she said, coyly. She purposely did not answer his question. Instead, she bowed her head, though she kept her eyes on him (he looks cute when he's confused), and started to head back out the door. However, just as she got to the open door, she stumbled again.

The near-fall was unintentional but there was no mistaking the look of concern that crossed Jack's face. He reached forward for her, helping her get steady. Well, this is going better than expected, she mused, feeling the strange warmth of his cool touch.

It was a sweet moment, she had to admit. She kept the candle lifted so as not to burn him; he kept his hands on her waste for a beat too long. But, as quick as it happened, Jack seemed to be aware of where exactly his hands were. Or, maybe, that was because, under his touch, she shivered.

Jack drew his hands back. "You're shivering," he said, unnecessarily.

"No heat in my apartment," Jess said apologetically. "No electricity, either. Got to love New York, eh?" She laughed, a pretty little laugh, before trying to leave again. This time she could make out another expression on his face; she was sure of it – he was intrigued by her. He wanted her to stay. Which, of course, was why she had to leave. But not for long…

Wait.

Before she could even leave, she saw it. The expression she had seen had left but now… Now he was openly staring at her. He looked confused, his head cocked to one side, but there was no mistaking it – he was definitely staring at her. Interesting…

Jess could not resist. "What are you looking at? Do I have something on my face or something?"

Jack started. He had not expected to get caught. He coughed to cover his embarrassment. "No… I mean, you remind me of someone."

"Really? Who?"

"It's weird but, you see, you… standing in the moonlight. Smiling. You reminded me of Sarah."

Jess could not keep the disappointment out of her voice. There's already a girl. Damn it. "Sarah?"

"Yeah. She died, though."

Now, Jess knew that it was bad to be excited that someone had died. But, hey – Jack was hot. "I'm sorry about that." She paused to see if he would answer. He did not; he had turned his head away as if he was ashamed at admitting what he did. "Well, good night."

"Night."

Jess took only three steps out of the room, pausing just as she got to the steps. She purposely blew out her candle. "Crap. It went out," she said to herself (though loudly) before turning back around. Jack had left the door, giving her the perfect opportunity to re-enter the apartment. She met him just near the sofa this time. "I'm sorry but would you do me another favor and light my candle?"

Jack, who had been busy thinking to himself, ripped another match from the book and struck it. He walked next to Jess again and, while she held her candle out, he put his left hand on top of hers to steady it. She noticed that he was more confident with being in contact with her this time. Until…

"Ow."

Jack pulled his hand back as he shook the match so that he flame would go out. "Are you alright?"

Jess lifted up one of her tiny hands, the hand not holding the candle. "Wax," she said in way of explanation as she wrinkled her nose. It had hurt a bit.

"Sorry."

"Don't be."

Jack did not know what to say. It had been so long since he had been around a girl that was not Twister or David's mother. It worried him that this little sprig of a girl was intimidating him. He shrugged. "Well. Night."

This time the flame was out even before she left the apartment. One minute the flame had been flickering. The next, she had spun around and back, now holding a dark candle. "It's out again. Do you…"

Something told Jack that he should have been expecting this. At the very least, he had not moved from his spot. He struck another match but refused to place his hand on the candle. He leaned in to light it, though, and, when his face was only inches from hers, he glanced up. He could see the flame dancing in the depths of her green eyes. It was nice.

Jess cleared her throat and Jack knew he had been caught again. He backed away. "You know, you look familiar," he said again. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

"Like your dead girlfriend?" Jess shot back, not intending to sound snippy. But, even though he was incredibly attractive, it was beginning to unnerve her how he kept relating her to some dead chick.

"No. I've seen you before. At least, I think I have…"

"Oh. Well, I work down at the Kit Kat Club. I'm a dancer there."

It was Jack's turn to laugh. "That's right. Now I remember. I was there one night with my pal, Dave, and wow. You do some sick shit down there, don't you?"

Jess was glad it was dark. She was sure that she was blushing. "It's a living." She paused. "Goodnight." Maybe this wasn't the best idea I've had all day…

However, just because it had been her turn to be embarrassed by him, it did not mean that she was going to chicken out. She reached into her pocket and, as nonchalantly as she could, she knocked the contents of her pocket out onto his floor. She had done her bit; if he really was intrigued, he could get in touch with her.

There was only one problem, though. Just as soon as she had gotten outside of his apartment, Jess remembered that the piece of paper with her phone number was not the only thing in her pocket. Shit. Jess spun around and stopped right outside of the door. She knocked, harder than she had before.

"It blew out again?" Jack asked her, sounding a bit amused.

Jess was not in the mood to be amused. She could not afford to lose that baggy. "No, I dropped something important in here," she explained, squatting down and using her candle to illuminate the floor.

That's when it clicked for Jack. She was thin, she was shivering, she looked like she was about to have a panic attack… He could just imagine what the 'something important' was. "What does it look like? Maybe I can help you find it."

If Jess had been thinking clearly – which she was definitely not doing at that moment – she might have noticed the tone of voice he had. But she did not and, instead of assuring Jack that it was nothing, she told him. "It's a little white baggy. I don't know why I can't see it…"

Maybe because you're looking in the wrong spot, Jack thought. She was too far too the left now. She was nowhere close to where she had been standing in the apartment before. He grinned to himself – he could see it. There were two white things on his floor: a piece of paper and a small baggy full of white powder. I knew it, he sighed. He had hoped that maybe this girl was not into that sort of thing; it had almost killed him when he was hooked on the stuff. He at least had had Sarah who talked him out of using. Who did this girl have?

He bent down and scooped up the baggy, leaving the paper alone on the floor. He had hoped to do so inconspicuously but, as soon as he stood up, his hand sliding behind him to put the baggy into his back pocket, he saw that she was watching him.

"Did you find something?" she asked. He was right. She even sounded like she was about to panic.

He shook his head, lying to her. "Just a piece of paper."

Now, Jack was a damn good liar. He could tell David that the sky had turned green overnight and convince him that he was telling the truth – in fact, he had actually done that once. But this girl had him beat. She could see that he was lying at once but, instead of calling him out on it, she re-adopted a coy smile.

"You know. It wasn't really that important, after all. By the way," she said, as she began to grow closer to him. The way she moved made him feel like she was a predator and he was her prey. If it wasn't for the fact that he had to have at least eighty pounds on her, he might have gotten a bit nervous. "What's your name?" she asked, as she stood up on her tiptoes and draped one of her arms, with the hand holding her candle, lazily around his neck.

He was so preoccupied by the hand with the candle that he did not notice the sneaky way her other hand was reaching around him. "Jack. How about you?"

"My friends call me Chance," she said, her voice once again that low and sultry voice that he had heard when she first knocked on his door.

"Chance? Really? Well, what can I call you?" he asked, flirting back at her. Maybe if he did that he could get her mind off of her drugs. She looked way too young to be interested in junk like that, anyway.

Just then her fingers slid into his back pocket and closed around her precious baggy and he knew that she had played him. She lifted her face so that it was next to his. "How about 'Never Had a'…" she whispered before pulling back, carefully removing her arm from his neck and shoulders. She lifted her left hand and waved the baggy before laughing.

He stood there dumbfounded. This girl had just played him. He did not know whether to be annoyed or awed.

Her laugh rang in his ear as she bounced out of his apartment. He saw that the flame of the candle had gone out just before she left; he was not surprised that she did not come back and ask for him to light it again. He had the suspicion that whatever had just happened, whatever game she had been playing – it was not about her candle. It never had been.

Jack walked over to the door and, for the first time since Spot had arrived at the apartment, he shut the door. That's when he saw the piece of paper on the ground again. He reached for it but had a hard time reading the writing on it, it was too tiny. He brought it over to the closest candle and laughed in spite of himself as he made out what it said.

The girl, Chance as she said or Jessica as she had written (Jessica who dots the 'i' with a little heart, cute), had left behind a name and her phone number.

I guess I do have a chance after all… it's just a pity I can't take it.

--

Right after the girl, that Jessica, had left the apartment, and the piece of paper she left behind had been placed in his back pocket, Jack had been hit with inspiration – as little as it was; instead of trying to working on that same short story that had been giving him such a hard time, he had been compelled to write poetry.

When he had finished, there were six or seven lines of unpolished poetry that explained his present mood perfectly. He was not sure what good they would do – perhaps, if he worked further and expanded the idea, the poem could be an opening to a chapter in 'Lost' – but, as he read them out loud, he liked the sound of them: "I am out of my mind… I am out of control… Full of feelings I can't define… It's a sin with no name… Like a hand in a flame…," he smiled, thinking of the candle and the wax that had dripped onto her tiny hand, "And our senses proclaim – it's a dangerous game…"

Jack closed his notebook and rested it back onto the coffee table. There was something about her that intrigued him yet frightened him at the same time. He had been telling the truth at the time; Jess vaguely reminded him of Sarah. But, now that he was once again alone in the loft (Where the hell was Blink? Where the hell was David?) he found that he could not help but remark on the differences between the two women. Sarah had been safe. But Jessica?

His eyes traveled over to the red cover of his notebook. A dangerous game… He had not just captured his present mood with his words. He had explained the effect that the girl had had on him as well.