Cap sat in the old rocking chair in Rae's room watching her sleep as sunlight began to fill the room. He would be leaving this morning, but he didn't know how to tell her. He had tried to tell her for over a month now. Her little heart had broken when he had sent Spot to Brooklyn and he knew this would break it again. If he wasn't going to be working so much, he would have loved to take her with him. Going to the World's Fair in Chicago would be something she could remember her whole life. He wanted to take her and had even begged his boss to allow her to go along, promising that she wouldn't be any trouble. But permission had not been granted.
Rae crawled from her bed and walked over to him, crawling into his lap and closing her eyes again. Cap took the tattered quilt she had drug across the room and tucked it around her as he slowly rocked her, kissing her forehead. The times she allowed him to hold her now were few and far between. She was nearing her twelfth birthday and had decided that she was too old to be rocked or tucked in. He knew it was just because the boys teased her about it, but he had honored her wishes, choosing to slip in after she was asleep and kiss her forehead as he had always done at night.
"I don't want to get up..." she moaned, burying her face in his flannel shirt.
He ran his fingers through her sleep-tangled hair. "You don't have to, Imp."
She snuggled closer to him.
He sighed. "We need to talk, little one."
"Hmm..."
"I have to go to Chicago."
She opened one eye and looked up at him. "To the World's Fair?" The World's Fair in Chicago had been in the papers for months. She and the other little newsies had talked about how exciting it would be to be able to go and see all the things they had read about in the newspapers.
He nodded.
"When are we leaving?" she asked, sitting up suddenly.
He hesitated for a moment before answering. "You aren't going, baby."
"But you said..."
"I said that I was going, sweetie."
Tears filled her little eyes. "Why can't I go?" They had never been apart, even for a night. He couldn't leave her behind. She wouldn't let him.
He brushed the hair from her face, hating that he was breaking her little heart yet again. He loved her dearly and hated to be away from her, but this wasn't his choice. If he had his way he would take her with him. "I'm not going for pleasure. I have to go for work."
She pulled away from him. "I won't get in the way...and I'll be good. I promise!" she pleaded, tears pouring down her cheeks.
"My boss said you couldn't go, baby."
"Why!" she sobbed.
He hugged her close. "There is only room for immediate families where we'll be staying, and because you aren't mine I can't take you, sweetie."
"But you always say that I'm yours..." she argued.
"I love you just like you were my own daughter. But you aren't really mine. I only wish you were, baby." He wiped the tears from her cheeks.
"Why can't I be yours?"
He paused a moment before answering, trying to come up with a way to explain it to her that she would understand. "Because I'm not really your daddy. I have to ask some important people for permission...and I have to fill out a lot of papers. It could take a long time before you could officially be mine."
"You just don't love me!" she sobbed, jumping from his lap and running from the room.
"Rae..." he stood and followed her to the door of the room. "Rae...come back..."
"Are you gonna drag me clear to Manhattan before you tell me what your problem is?" Spot demanded, pulling his arm away from Rae.
"He's leaving!" she exclaimed.
"Who's leaving, Rae?"
"Cap's leaving, dummy!"
"I'm not dumb." He sat down on a crate in the alley. "Sides, you should've know that he wouldn't stay in the lodging house forever. He needs to be out on his own for a while"
"But we're his family...you and me and Kloppy...he can't leave us."
Spot rolled his eyes. "Yes, he can, Rae...and he is." She may as well face the facts now. Promises weren't meant to be kept. They were just lies that adults told kids to make them do what they wanted them to do.
"I thought you would be on my side..."
"Oh grow up Rae!" Spot snapped at her. "Cap has a real job...and he probably found someone to make him forget about Halle. Did you really expect him to stay forever? People change, they grow up and move on. Get used to that now."
"How can you say that Spot? He took you in when your own father didn't want you. He raised you." She couldn't believe that he was acting like this. This wasn't her best friend, but just someone who looked like him.
Spot glared at her. "And then he sent me over here, Rae. If he really cared, he wouldn't have sent me away."
"He told me it was because you couldn't behave!" Rae retorted.
He stood quickly. "Figures that you would believe him over me."
"You were always getting me into trouble!"
"No, Rae! You were always getting into trouble and dragging me along with you."
"You were right there with me most of the time, and didn't try too hard to stop me...sometimes you even helped!"
"And look where it got me! I've been exiled to Brooklyn where I have to stay with Cork who is almost as bad as my old man." The two continued to argue for quite a while before Spot finally stood. "Just go away and leave me alone. You're nothing but a stupid orphan anyway..."
Rae stepped back as if she had been struck. "Cap would adopt me if it wasn't so hard. He loves me..."
He snorted. "And he's leaving you," he said, walking out of the alley.
Rae stared after him for a moment before racing back to Manhattan. She ran to Cap's office, but a man stopped her in the hallway. "Let me go!" she yelled, trying to get away from him.
"You aren't supposed to be in here, miss," he said.
"I need to see Cap!" she protested, tears pouring down her cheeks.
He held her firmly in place. "I don't know anyone named Cap."
She looked up at him, trying to remember Cap's real name. "His name is Tim, I think..."
"Tim Larkson?" the man asked her.
She nodded quickly. "He takes care of me."
He sighed. "I'm sorry honey, but his train leaves in five minutes."
She pulled away and ran blindly toward the train station. As fast as she ran, she was too late to say goodbye.