Author's Note: Much thanks to Stretch for helping me with this story.
"I wanna go home," 5-year-old Lyddie cried, tugging on Halle's hand.
"Stop, Lydia," Halle snapped.
Lydia just cried harder.
Halle sighed and knelt down in the snow. "What's wrong?"
"I cold...and s'eepy..."
"I know, little bit...but we have one more stop to make."
Lyddie rubbed her wet eyes with her gloves.
"Remember that boy that we helped last night? The one that hurt his eye?"
Lyddie nodded. "I like him. He was nice."
"We're going to tell a friend of mine about him. Tim has a place for the boy to stay."
"But we never help others like that..."
Halle smiled. "I know. We're going to help this one a little more. You are my helper right?"
Lyddie nodded, a grin on her face.
Halle took a deep breath. "You know how we pretend sometimes?"
Lyddie nodded again.
"Can you pretend like you're my little girl and I'm your momma?"
"Yes Halle."
Halle stood and lifted Lydia onto her hip. "Rest your head on my shoulder, sweetie." Lyddie did so as Halle continued down the street. As she approached the building where Tim worked, she wasn't sure she was doing the right thing. She had loved him and leaving him had been a hard decision. The hardest of her life. The opportunity that had been offered six years prior had been the chance of a lifetime. But to accept the offer, she had to tell him goodbye. She had dreamed of going to college, but there was no way that her family could afford it. Then the men had spoken to her at the cafe where she worked. They had been there many times before watching her work, like they had so many others. They worked for one of the most important men in the state and they needed her help. Their boss would pay for her college expenses, if she would work for him for five years after she finished. But she couldn't tell anyone.
They saw in her what many looked over, even sneered at, in the personality of a street rat- determination and resolve. The men acknowledged their inability to help everyone, to perfect the streets that seemed to crawl with increasing numbers of children raised in the gutter, however, she was one of the fair different few. Her needs they could give her, and, in return, she held the ability and characteristics likely to return the favor in the way many others had. She could help others the way she had been helped. Do onto others, as they say, a phrase repeated in her own mind as she gazed up at the large brick building. Inside worked the man she gave it up for. Tim had done well for himself in the time that she had been gone. She took a deep breath and walked inside.
"Can I help you ma'am?" a young man behind the desk asked.
"Yes. I need to speak to Tim Larkson," she answered, shifting Lyddie from one hip to the other. The girl had fallen asleep.
"One moment," he said, disappearing. He returned a moment later. "Down that hallway. Fourth door on the left."
"Thank you," she replied, heading down the hall. She knocked on the door to Tim's office.
"Enter."
She opened the door and stepped inside. "Hello Tim," she said, softly.
"Halle!" Tim said, standing quickly. "Come in...have a seat." He cleared the chair in his office of papers, which he tossed on his desk. "You look beautiful...as always." He had to stay polite. Not only because wanted to, but because he needed to for the sake of his broken heart that had taken years to piece back together again.
"Thank you," she whispered, sitting down and settling Lyddie on her lap, cradling the girl's head carefully.
Cap leaned against his desk. "She's adorable..." The little girl looked enough like Halle to be her daughter, but he couldn't bring himself to ask.
"Her name is Lydia...but we call her Lyddie."
"What can I do for you Halle? I'm sure you didn't came all the way to the Pinkerton Agency just to bring up old memories..."
"I found a little boy yesterday that I think you can help. He's a street child...and was injured in a fight yesterday. He's got a patch on one eye until it heals..."
"So you're the one."
"What are you talking about?"
"I've been hearing things from newsies all over the city. About an angel who always seems to show up when a street kid needs her. From the description, I thought it might be you."
"I'm not the only one, Tim."
"I knew that. It would be impossible for you to cover the whole area. Where can I find the boy?"
"He was in the alley behind Tibby's last night, sleeping on the steam grate."
"Why did you leave him in the alley?"
"He insisted, Tim. Downright stubborn...but you've dealt with stubborn children in the past."
He smirked. "Still have the little brat too."
"How is Rae? She's got to be getting so big now."
"She's almost ten...thinks she knows everything...is a little troublemaker..."
She smiled.
"Trent just laughs at her...I think it encourages her."
"Of course," she paused. "Tim, he's the other reason I'm here."
"Trent?"
"Yes."
"What about him?"
"I know a man who is willing to pay for medical school for Trent, if Trent will agree to come back to this area and work for ten years...doctoring the street children and those that can't afford to pay doctors."
"Is that why you left?"
"College...not medical school."
"Who would pay for something like that?"
"I can't say Tim."
He sighed and nodded.
Lyddie shifted and whimpered. "I should get her home," Halle said, standing.
"Can I see you again?" Cap said, opening the door.
"I don't think that would be a good idea..."
"You found someone else," he stated simply.
She nodded.
"Goodbye, Halle," he whispered, bending down and kissing her forehead. Despite the six years of wondering, despite the void created without her presence, in this moment and the ones to follow, he was happy for her and the opportunity given to her. If giving him up meant a life she deserved, then so be it, and he smiled as she made her exit, the tiny girl balanced gracefully on her hip, leaving him once more to his work and the child in the back alley of Tibby's.
Cap led the little boy into the lodging house and helped him sign in at the desk. He then turned to see the little newsies huddled in one of the corners. He cleared his throat. They all turned quickly, dropping the cards in their hands. "Playing poker?" he asked.
All four shook their heads.
"That's what I thought. We have a new guest. His name is Lewis, and I expect all of you to be helpful until his eye heals."
Rae grumbled something under her breath and the three boys gasped loudly, looking at her in shock.
Cap motioned Rae to him. She stood and slowly walked over to him. "What was that?"
"Why did you have to bring a blind bastard home?"
The little boy with the patch looked down and sniffled.
Cap grabbed her arm, looking angrily at the little girl and instructing, "Rae, apologize. Now."
"I'm sorry, Cap..." she whimpered. She bit her lip as she looked up at him. "Are you gonna spank me?"
"No..."
She smiled in relief.
"I have a better idea..." he said, dragging her toward the kitchen.
"What are you gonna do? Cap? Please let me go..." She was beginning to panic, having no idea what he had in store for her and, well, she was a little kid who'd just overstepped the line in a big way. However, her thoughts weren't on how badly she had transgressed, but, instead, how bad the consequences were bound to be, as she wiggled and squirmed, trying to get him to let go of her arm.
Jack, Spot, and Race looked between the newcomer and the spectacle at hand, deciding Cap and Rae were, currently, a bit more interesting than this eyepatched stranger. Unfortunately for Rae, Lewis decided that, whatever she got, he had the right to see. It was his ego she had hurt, anyway. So, there all four boys stood, watching curiously, albeit a bit dangerously, seeing as Cap would have seen him should he turn around.
"What's he gonna do?"
"He's grabbing the soap!"
"Why?"
"I can't see..."
"Shut up, runt."
"I'm not a runt..."
"Are too..."
"Are not!"
"Shh...he'll hear us."
"Not with the way she's screaming..."
They observed as Cap moved her toward the kitchen sink, Rae yelling up a storm for the sheer sake of either attempting to break glass or just keep her adoptive father/older brother from doing whatever he had it in his mind to do. Uncertainty was certainly not a friend of newsies, children, or anyone for that matter, and Rae was fighting tooth and nail to make sure she survived to see tomorrow. After all, her thought process was, as any child's would be, clouded by what she had done and the fact that she was being carried off by a livid parental figure, boys watching wide-eyed
"What's he doing?"
"He's washing her mouth out," Jack observed, witnessing the entire event clearly due to his height advantage over the rest.
"My ma did that to me once..."
"Ewww...I bet the soap tastes nasty."
"It sure does..." If they weren't so interested in the entire ordeal Rae was going through, they would have laughed at her flailing to ward off a simple bar of soap after going through worse in street fights with kids older than herself. Of course, this didn't mean they wouldn't keep the memory fresh in their minds to use at a later date. At the moment, though, they were simply preoccupied with her actions and Cap's old fashioned way of dealing with his foul-mouthed charge.
Rae poked Spot in the back with a stick. "Walk the plank you scurvy blige rat."
"You aren't playing fair, Rae," Spot protested.
"Am too!"
"Tell her, Lewis...pirates don't act like that."
Rae turned to the younger boy. "Pirate Blink...if you answer, you will walk the plank too."
Jack sat on the grass. "It's no fun playing with you, Rae."
She pushed him. "You're a fuddy-dud."
"Leave him alone, Rae," Spot said, dropping onto the grass next to Jack.
"I no wanna play no more," Race mumbled, sitting next to the older boys.
"Fine...I'll play with Blink," she snapped, turning and waving her stick sword at Blink.
He shook his head and dropped onto the grass as well.
She growled. "I hate all of you!" she yelled before storming away.
Spot looked at Lewis. "Didn't Doc say you didn't need that dumb patch no more?"
Lewis nodded.
"Then why you still wearing it?"
"Cause it sells papes...and if I don't wear it, I can't be Pirate Blink no more."
"You ain't a pirate...you're just a kid..."