Sorry it's shorter, but I'm on a time crunch for homework and stuff and break is almost here, so I'll be writing a lot more I hope. Here's the fruits of my labor, the product of loss of sleep and a day of stage-handing. Enjoy!

Race woke up with a fabulous headache. His thigh was splitting, and as a cry of anguish breached his lips, hands pushed him gently down.

"Hey, hey, Race. Youse good, kid. Just lay still. Gonna get yah doctah, 'kay?" Jack's voice moved through the haze like a gentle embrace, a firm grip to reality.

"Jeck?" he moaned through his teeth, "What 'appened?"

"Youse got it kid, real good, Race. Got some metal in your thigh, buddy, sos you gotta stay real still. Jus' take it easy kid."

Race heard Romeo's voice arguing with Jack. He could feel the vibrations of a set of footsteps taking off. Romeo could be heard again, one last time before he slipped out of it.

"We'se don' have dah money. What's he thinkin'?"

….

Jack returned at dark with a young man in a long black coat, whose eyes were hard and serious. His jaw tightly clenched, he kneeled first in front of Crutchie. The boy's swollen eyes were only cracked. His bad leg hung off the side of the bed; even now, hours after the event, he couldn't catch his breath. His ribcage felt hot and painful on each inhale, and achingly sore with each exhale.

"Go help Racer," he murmured through a split lip. He smiled carefully, "he's gotta be okay."

The doctor shrugged, and moved on to the older boy.

His demeanor completely changed when he knelt next to the bed. The sheets were tangled and bloody under his left leg, and his chest was heaving. He didn't come around after Jack slapped him gently on the cheek.

"How long ago was he stabbed?" the doctor asked.

"Uh, um," Jack scrambled to think. His hands raked his hair.

"Dis mornin'. Doc, Ise hurtin' real bad," Race stared blearily up at them. "'S Crutchie okay?"

"Crutchie? That's a... colorful name." The doctor inspected the makeshift tourniquet that had been put on Race's leg hours ago.

"Yeah. He's okay, 'danks tah you." Jack ruffled Race's hair.

"Alright, you need to hold pressure on the wound while I remove the tourniquet."

"The what, now?" Jack stared at him, "oh yeah, the belt…"

He put his hands over the bloody rip in Race's pants, pressing down gingerly.

"More pressure, Mr. Kelly."

"Hell, none o' dat. Jack."

"Um, then, Jack, keep the pressure steady. Here we go."

As soon as the tourniquet was removed, Race reached down for his leg.

"Hey, Jack, m' leg feels funny."

"The blood is circulating back into it. Keep the pressure on there. Good."

The doctor drew out a small knife from his bag.

"Hey! Hey! Youse didn't say youse gonna take the leg!" Jack yelled. It was all he could do not to sock the guy. But he had to keep the pressure. Even now his hands were covered in his brother's blood.

"I'm not taking the leg, not if I don't have to. We have to cut his pants away."

"He only has the ones." Jack gestured to the dark brown trousers, a little ripped, but still more valuable than this doctor knew.

"He can have his trousers or his life." The man replied. "Make the choice." Jack relented.

After the leg of the trousers was slit up the side, Jack momentarily removed his hand to reveal the three inch long, deep wound. Jack leaned away. He saw a stripe of bone under the torn skin. The doctor didn't make a sound, but grimaced slightly, and at this point Race had passed out again.

"Hand me that bottle."

Jack picked up the small clear bottle, filled with strong smelling, brownish liquid. Liquor. The doctor gave Jack a look, and the boy took a firm grip on Race's shoulder and upper thigh as the man poured the alcohol over the wound. Race bit back a scream as he was wrenched from sleep.

"Sorry, buddy."

The doctor stitched up Race's leg, and gave him some light painkillers. He moved over to Crutchie.

The boy stirred, and asked in a quiet voice, "Is Race better?"

"He's gonna be, Crutchie, before yah know it."

The doctor had Crutchie sit up so he could take off his shirt and examine his ribs. When he was finished he concluded that four were broken, and there were probably many more fractures he couldn't see. Crutchie had a mild concussion, and his leg was pretty siff.

"Probably just dah weathah changin'," he muttered, embarrassed.

The doctor found no other broken bones, but he did pull Jack aside after getting paid for his services.

"I wasn't going to tell you this. No point in killing hopes, but my conscience won't leave me be. The older boy, Race, as you call him… that leg is what worries me. Blood loss he may recover from. Don't let him up for a few days, until he regains his balance. But the knife went in deep. He may be crippled if the bone shattered."

"Can't you fix 'dat doc? Didn't you?" Jack glanced at Race, who was sleeping with a hand tightly clutching his spasming leg.

"There are some things we still can't see and change in the human body son, like bone fragments, at least not all of them. They could sever an artery, or hinder the healing process. There's a good chance he'll never walk with that leg the same way again."

The doctor left then, taking with him the promise and hope they'd had before, when there was a chance Race would go back to what he used to be- energetic, healthy, filling the boys with life and exaggeration and quick-paced wit. But no more. Race was pale and weak and quiet, except for his labored breathing.

…

On his fire escape, with a gentle few fingers of wind in his hair, Jack Kelly paced hopelessly. His mind was too busy to draw, and his hands were too asleep to even try. The skin on his hands was tightening with drying blood, Race's blood. Crutchie too was in bad shape. His bound chest meant he could barely breathe, and his eyes were swollen and bruised. The kid was really warm too. He and Race got soaked bad, but Jack's mind kept running in circles and finding itself back at Race. What if he never walked again? What if he couldn't learn to adapt, like Crutchie had, to take life seriously as a job and not just give up? How would they afford medication if his leg pained him for the rest of his life. Jack wouldn't toss him out like garbage. That was the one thing he could be sure of. His penthouse, his brothers, his record, and Crutchie and Race's resilience were auspicious. But nothing was for certain. A few years ago a guy from Queens got a fractured shoulder, and his whole arm was paralyzed. Jack only knew about it because the kid had been Copper Leer, the big cheese in Queens. Copper was tough as nails, even though Jack only knew him as a twelve year old. The kid was bright- could have been a lawyer, anything he wanted if only he hadn't been poor and in the right place at the wrong time. His was found almost a month after he went missing, in an abandoned house in the basement. What they found wasn't pretty, and neither was the story. The point was, he'd seen guys turn on a dime when bad luck hit. Race was a drinker, a smoker, a gambler, and everything else that meant street trash to rich guys, like Pulitzer, or even middle guys with low-life positions, like Snyder and Wiesel.

"Dammit." He sat down, crossing his shaking legs. Jack's face began to fall slowly into his hands. Jack Kelly never cried. Not for love, not for hate. He didn't cry on the streets or on the tough days. But alone, bitter, confused… Jack Kelly cried for himself.

So. Fun stuff. Hope you guys are still hangin' in there with my disorganized, totally random and rambling plot, and completely unedited paragraphs of me trying to express why everyone should love Race and Crutchie and Jack and everybody.

Oh yeah, and today I mastered a New York accent, and I am pretty psyched about that. Helps writing it too, so if you're a writer, go look up how to do it. It's really fun. Anyhow, good night everyone, and thanks for reading!