Disclaimer - I don't own Oliver Twist or Oliver! :)

Hey guys!

Leigh Miller - thank you! i'm glad you thought it was worth the (very long) wait. I think I can promise NEVER to make you wait that long again :) Hope you enjoy this chapter!

Coralyne - Haha yes here's the next update.. just don't kill me... :P lol. Hope you enjoy this chapter and thanks for sticking with the story!

Anyone who read and didn't review, I hope you enjoyed the chapter too :)

Hope you all enjoyed the last chapter!

I was going to hang on for a few days before I posted this chapter... but i couldn't resist :P

In this chapter we get a short private audience with Fagin :P lol.

Enjoy.

On with the show...

Chapter 8 - Doppelgänger

His hair was in his eyes again.

He blinked, forcing his itching eyes to open.

How long had he been here now? The lack of food and light was deceiving him...

The damp.

The cold.

The smell.

The dark.

Heaving a deep breath, he pulled himself up.

He pushed his blond hair out of those dull blue eyes.

Oliver Twist had never felt so completely alone.

Dodger pushed again,

"Keep walkin'" he snapped.

Ginger glared up at him with his pale blue eyes,

"I'll do what I please-" he stopped as Emmy fixed him with the most withering look that she had ever mustered,

"You'll do what we please" she spat. Ginger smirked weakly,

"Calm down.. little cat"

He stumbled forwards again, helped by a quick kick from Dodger,

"Wait!" Emmy said suddenly, "Blindfold!"

Charlie looked at her blankly, Emmy sighed,

"We can't 'ave 'im knowin' where we live" she explained.

Ace held out the bag that Emmy had had over her head the previous night. She took it and pulled it over Ginger's head, while Dodger and Charlie held his arms. Once she had tightened the knots, the two boys led him forwards again. He was silent with rage.

Ace looked at Charlie and grinned. Charlie looked suspiciously back at him,

"Wha' you lookin' at?"

Ace smirked,

"Oh nothin'... It's jus'... you're bein' unusually 'elpful... You know... instead of standin' round like a-"

Dodger couldn't help a laugh escaping his lips as Ace darted out of Charlie's range. Emmy's blue eyes flicked to his, and he smiled broadly at her, allowing himself to forget, just for a minute, that they still had a murderer to find, and an old friend to save.

Fagin drummed his scrawny fingers on the table, his other hand fiddling with his beard.

Where the hell was everyone?

A couple of days ago Emmy and Dodger had disappeared! Gone off on their own. Pah! How selfish of them! To leave him and the boys...

But when he thought that was bad enough, Ace and Charlie had up and left too.

So selfish.

After all he'd done for them.

He ran his gaze over the piles of pennies in front of him, and the gold watch that Dodger and Emmy had brought him from a house, just a few nights ago.

They were a good team those two... Of course, he still thought Emmy could have earned better money...

He didn't understand what her problem was, who in their right mind would prefer picking pockets to -

But he was getting distracted. He picked up the silk purse that he had put down five minutes earlier, and tipped the contents onto the table, only to accidentally knock them onto the floor at the sound of an roar of sound from downstairs.

What the hell were they doing down there?

He stood up slowly and walked over to the stairs, beginning his regal descent.

Oh what the hell, regal descents were too slow, he bounded down the final steps and threw open the door to the main room.

Dodger would have admitted that it wasn't the most subtle way he'd ever entered a room.

They had burst through the door, shoving the blindfolded Ginger in front of them.

Of course it was just their luck that every pickpocket that lived in the house just happened to be in the main room at that precise minute.

The shouts, greetings and the rumble of boots on the floorboards made a wall of sound as the little boys and girls descended on the bedraggled party at the door.

Dodger grinned at little curly Tom, who was hanging upside down from a low beam,

"Come orn, gerroff!" he said with mock annoyance, trying to steer the very disorientated Ginger through the mass of little pickpockets. Once he had got him into the middle of the room, he grabbed the rope that Emmy had found him, and tied his wrists behind his back. He then tied the other end of the rope to a supporting wooden post - one of four that kept the roof up.

He then took the bag off Ginger's head, and smiled widely at him.

"Stay there would you?" he asked, the grin still firmly in place. Ginger scowled.

And the door to the stairs flew open, Fagin emerging like some sort of insane, scrawny genie, his long green coat billowing around him,

"WHAT THE 'ELL ARE YOU LOT YELLIN' AB-" he froze with his mouth open, as he stared at the collection of older pickpockets, and the boy tied to the post.

"You lot?" he asked no-one in general, then recovered, "Nice to 'ave you back my dears!"

Dodger smirked at him, doffing his hat,

"Fagin"

Fagin looked gleeful, rubbing his bony hands together as he grinned at them "We 'ave missed you"

Emmy held back a knowing smile,

"What, for the 'ole day we've been gorn?"

Fagin cackled, his hand automatically rising to his beard as he tried to think of a response.. but then his gaze darted to Ginger.

"But why, my dears, have you brought Oliver Twist back with you?"

Chamberson had never been so furious in his life. That stupid young cousin of his was missing, presumably taken by a girl and possibly that ridiculous Artful Dodger.

Fool.

He stormed around the room again, his big hands trembling.

He had no idea where they could possibly be. They could be anywhere in the whole of London.

Bloody Ginger and his plans.

Mind, he was still profiting from one of Ginger's plans.

Chamberson suddenly knew where to go. He strode out of the door and down the filthy street. He shoved passers by out of his way, not bothering to stop and look at their faces. Normally a pretty face would have stopped him, a low cut dress. He had never had a problem with women, he was a handsome man. But not today. Today he had no time for any of that nonsense.

He reached The New Leap, and barged inside, ignoring the drunken yells from those he had disturbed. Reaching the bar, he barked at the bartender,

"Samuel"

Samuel turned, about to snap back at whoever dared speak to him like that. But he stopped when he saw who it was,

"Ello there Matthew"

Chamberson didn't pause for niceties,

"I 'ave some business to hattend to, downstairs"

Samuel didn't bat an eyelid,

"Alrigh', down you go," he gestured to the narrow stairs behind the bar, "God 'elp me if I ever find out what you've got down there"

Chamberson shot him a glare. Samuel knew when to stop asking questions. He slipped behind the bar and made his way down the rickety stairs.

Dodger looked at Fagin as if he had completely lost it.

"That ain't Oliver!" he exclaimed, glancing at Ginger incredulously.

But then he saw it.

And Emmy said what they were all thinking,

"I knew I'd seen his face before"

It was uncanny, Dodger had never seen a likeness like it. There were obvious differences, Ginger's lips were thinner, his hair more gingery, his eyes paler... But other than that...

Dodger shook his head as he tried to make sense of everything... Had Ginger been impersonating two people? Both him and Oliver?

Emmy fixed her eyes on Ginger, narrowing them, as if she was trying to see who he really was. Then she let out a low hiss through her teeth,

"Murderer"

Chamberson threw the old door open, grimacing at the thought of what Samuel would do if he knew what he had down here. But then his thoughts were distracted as he looked around the room.

This plan really was genius.

The children were all quite young, their ages ranging from around five to nine years old. Not old enough to put up a real fight.

They learned quickly too, their little fingers working quickly over the carpets, weaving the thick fibres in and out. The room was so dark that they could hardly see what they were working on, let alone how blistered their fingers were. The darkness hid another thing too. Their sight. The dust from the fibres filled the air, Chamberson's eyes were full of it already, and he'd only been standing in the room for a couple of minutes. He couldn't begin to imagine how the children would react when they realised how their sight had deteriorated, how little they could see.

But it didn't bother him, it wasn't his problem.

His part of this was selling the carpets and getting the money.

If these brats wanted feeding, they had to work hard.

He smiled as he thought to himself.

A genius plan.

Dodger couldn't believe it. How had he not noticed?

The resemblance was unbelievable.

For the first time, Ginger looked genuinely worried.

"Murderer? Me?" he spluttered after a few minutes of dead silence "Why the 'ell would you think-"

"'Cause we were with Oliver Twist when you set 'im up. We know it weren't 'im"

Ginger was still trying, his pale eyes darting desperately around the room,

"'O's Oliver Twist? I don't know - OW!"

Emmy had slapped him hard across the face, those dark eyes that he so hated burning with disgust

"Don't lie" she hissed in his face. He flinched backwards, what was wrong with this girl? Was she half wild or something?

"Get away from me, whore"

Emmy froze in her tracks,

"Whore?"

Ginger smiled smugly. He had given up on escape for the moment...

Dodger looked furious and moved towards Ginger, while Fagin sighed quietly behind him,

"No, believe me, I've told 'er the money's better, I 'ave..."

Ignoring his 'benefactor', Dodger looked Ginger straight in the eye

"If you think you're gettin' out of this, you're very wrong"

And once again Ginger's world turned black.

Dodger turned to face the other pickpockets in the room, but one drawn anxious face caught his eye. A figure that had just emerged from the bedroom.

Barnsey.

Dodger had forgotten all about Annie's illness, and he felt yet more guilt settle on his shoulders. Emmy took his hand wordlessly, and together they followed Barnsey back into the pickpockets' bedroom.

Annie was paler than Emmy had ever seen her. Her blond hair was dark with sweat, and the shadows under her eyes were dark purple.

"Annie.." Emmy sat down beside her friend, "'Ow you feelin'?"

Annie's voice was horribly dry,

"Alrigh'"

"No you ain't" Emmy's whisper burst from her lips "I'm gettin' Nancy. She always knows what's what"

Emmy stole out of the room, ruffling Dodger's hair on her way past. Smiling grimly at Barnsey, Dodger followed Emmy out of the house and onto the dark, quiet street.

Emmy's lips curled up into a smile, the bottom lip was now a mass of scabs and dried blood, but the top lip was the perfect Cupid's arch that it had always been. He brushed a kiss on her cheek and slipped his hand into hers as they walked towards the Whipping Stocks.

The silence was precious.

Neither of them needed to say anything.

John and Lis were slowly losing hope. It had been two weeks since the first children had disappeared. Two weeks since they had first seen that shadowy doppelgänger.

How were they to find them?

They could be anywhere in the whole of London.

It was very late when Nancy arrived with Dodger and Emmy trailing behind her. She had brought broth and a thick blanket, and almost as soon as she entered the room Annie was calmer, and Barnsey visibly relaxed, Dodger imagined, for the first time in days.

Oliver lay back on the hay mattress.

Hope - that fluttering, feeble flame that had been burning inside him - was dying, was slowly being extinguished. Their faces were fading in his weakened mind.. the faces that had been keeping him strong. Dodger, Nancy, even Emmy. Fading like a memory that he'd had for years rather than days.

And still, he couldn't escape the cold.

Hope you enjoyed that! I know this chapter was a little weird and not much happened... but i enjoyed writing it, and I hope that you enjoyed reading it!

Please review! (Keep me going!!aren't you proud? two chapters in two days?!)

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Love

Blackfishy

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