Note: Sorry this chapter has taken longer than usual. I started this story while on winter break, and my life's fallen into a bit of a shambles since then - besides being back to school, cramming for exams, and starting exams (yesterday), we just found out that my cousin has cancer, and that was a bit of a family crisis. So, needless to say, I haven't had as much free time as I'd like, and as I hopefully will again soon. :)

November 17, 1899

"If The Sun doesn't get a new headline writer soon, I'm going over to the Journal," Jack said with a sigh as he walked into the apartment. His reasons to complain seemed to have multiplied since his fight with David on Halloween; he had gone off to sell as usual the next morning, and returned that evening covered in bruises and cuts. He told Cassidy that it wasn't a big deal, that he'd take a day off and then go back to work as usual, but she insisted that he didn't do anything that might result in him getting hurt, and suggested that he take more than a day off, or stop selling altogether. They eventually agreed that he would go back to work in a day as he wanted, but not at The World. "The Sun could use someone who can sell like I can," he said (referring to the troubles that the paper - for which his old friend Denton wrote - was going through).

It had only been a little over two weeks, but Jack was growing increasingly miserable, and his misery was beginning to rub off on Cassidy. She heaved a sigh as she heard him enter the apartment, and walked out of the small kitchen to greet him. "You want dinner? I made some soup," she said, and she looked it - her hair had been pulled back messily, there were beads of sweat on her forehead and along her hairline, and she smelled as if she'd been in a kitchen all day.

Jack let out a sound of frustration. "Again?" he asked irritably, walking away from her and sitting on the bed to take off his boots.

"It's all we can afford, Jack!" she snapped. He looked up without saying anything - curious, maybe, to hear what she was going to say. "You know," she began, "if you're that unhappy selling, you could stop and get a real job. Or I could get a job-"

"No," he said firmly, standing up. "I told you before, I don't want you going off to work."

Cassidy scoffed and stood too. "Jack, we need the money! You can't just keep me holed up in here. I had a life before I came to live with you; what do I have now?" She paused briefly, a rueful expression on her face. "Some good sex, maybe? Someone who I'd like to think cares?" Another pause - somehow the words meant something to Jack, although he remained silent as she finished. "You've barely let me leave since I first came here with you, and I just can't do it anymore! It's like I'm some secret you have to keep hidden, or -"

"If you're so unhappy, then leave." Jack's voice cracked as he spoke and he sat back down on the bed, resting his head in his hands.

"Maybe I will," she retorted, without even thinking. She was a bit startled at her own words, but she had never been one to make a threat and then back down, so she walked to the door and took her jacket off one of the hooks there.

She was halfway out the door when Jack stopped her. "It was my father," he said slowly. Cassidy froze; she had never heard him speak of his parents before (or his past at all, for that matter). When she looked back, she saw that he hadn't moved. She took a step backwards and turned, closing the door and leaving herself just inside the apartment, leaning against the wood of the door as she stared at Jack. "He used to send my mother off to work while he stayed home and drank, and then he'd use her money to buy more booze." He paused and looked up at her, now standing just in front of him. "That's why I ain't just gonna let you go off to work so we can have money."

"What happened to them, Jack?" she asked gently, taking a seat next to him.

He laughed bitterly. "They got in a fight one night and he killed her."

The words made Cassidy feel like her stomach was sinking. "Did he…did he ever…" she stammered awkwardly. "You know… hurt you?"

He tilted his head up, his typical way of nodding. "I was fine, though. It was her that really got the worst of it."

"And what happened to him after that?"

"He got arrested. Life in jail." Jack's tone was nearly apathetic now, moreso than she had ever heard it. "The bastard deserved it."

If Cassidy had never loved Jack before, she certainly did now. "And you, what did you do?" Without thinking, she placed a hand on his leg, just above his knee.

Something made Jack crack a bit of a smile, though she wasn't sure what (my hand? she thought hopefully). "Well, I wasn't going to no orphanage, I was gone before anyone even got to the apartment. Got by on the streets a while, as best I could, got picked up one day for stealing food. Food I needed so I wouldn't starve, you know? But they hauled me off to the Refuge, this jail for kids - that's where I met Spot. He got let out, though. Probably right before he met you." Cassidy's mouth fell open slightly. She and Spot had never talked in detail about their pasts, but he had never mentioned being arrested. As Jack continued, she found herself wondering if she had ever really known him at all. "The warder, Snyder, was a real jackass, keeping the food we were supposed to eat, making all of us - a bunch of young kids, whose only crime was being alive, for Christ's sake - do hard labor, things like that. And, well…I was very…vocal about not liking the way we were being treated, and I tried to escape once, so he kept adding time onto my sentence. Eventually, though, I did get out, on Teddy Roosevelt's carriage, no less. It was in the papes and everything."

"They got you during the strike, right? I remember Spot mentioning something like that, or…" She trailed off, not needing to finish. "Why did it take them so long to find you?"

Jack smirked; he had known the question was coming. "I was born Francis Sullivan. I started going by Jack Kelly after I broke out, so they wouldn't find me. And to cut all ties from that bastard father of mine. Even pretended for awhile like I had folks out in Santa Fe - it became like my excuse to go there. Almost did go, day the strike ended."

"But you didn't."

What she had wanted to say, of course, was 'I'm glad you didn't.' Things were complicated enough, though, that she didn't feel the need to add to it by saying something that would lead her to need to explain how much she was starting to feel for him. She was sure, when she really thought about it, that whatever they were doing was no more than just a fling. After two months, things had barely changed, so it wasn't likely that they were going to change any time soon, was it? "Why didn't you?" Cassidy blurted out suddenly, needing to say something before the thoughts in her head got worse.

"Dunno," was all Jack said, but he was full-out smiling again now, the way he did when he had a trick up his sleeve. She didn't notice that his boot was in his hand until he flung it playfully at her, and said, "Wish I had, though, or I wouldn't be sitting here in this crummy apartment with you." He laughed, his way of telling her that he wasn't being sincere; she laughed, hoping he meant the opposite of what he said. Everything was better now, it seemed, and back to whatever "normal" might be.