I combined the songfic chapter and the brief little bit about the redhead news assistant, because I think this makes more sense. (Edit: I have also combined it with chapter 3! The transition is a bit rough, but I think it works. It is a little longer, now. However, it is still a sad excuse for a chapter)
"Fifty papes!" Emma commanded, flipping her two bits expertly onto the ledge. She never paid for her papes without a small sense of accomplishment. Though she had been affiliated with Spot, and the Brooklyn newsies at the time, Emma had been fiercely proud of her part in the strike. She'd felt such power and camaraderie among everyone. That feeling still overwhelmed her dreams. She would wake from these dreams with stars in her eyes, her pulse running hard to keep up with the thrill of that day.
It wasn't about papers. It wasn't about Weasel or two bits or even Hurst and Pulitzer. It was about taking control of the life that had been thrown at them. It was about freedom. It was about Jack Kelly, a no-good orphan, a dreamer. It was about David and doing right by the newsies. It was about where the power truly lay.
The kids she'd met that day. The thin faces, the burns and broken bones and desperation that she had seen enraged her. She had tasted acid and anger. She knew that, any moment, the police might come to break it up, to lay into the crowd with bully clubs, guns, even— to try and beat them into submission. They were newsies, they were sweat-shop kids, they were poor and unlucky and unwanted and at last, for that one growling, riotous moment, they were powerful. If they fought, they fought.
Emma had found herself itching for that fight. The crowd got to her, made her crazy. No more weakness. She would no longer be a victim. Not this time. These were her brothers and sisters, now. She loved them, and would stand with them. Together, she had thought, they could take on everything that wasn't fair in life. She could win back everything she had lost. Her father. Her faith. This was the way she had always wanted to feel. She found, in that moment of knowing, that she could not go back to Brooklyn. The strike had changed her. She needed to be there, in those streets where she had found a voice. She needed to live where she was constantly reminded of the power of what was right.
A year had passed, but the pride seemed to flare and glimmer like copper each new morning when she hit the front of the line and traded her two bits for fifty identical bundles of paper.
The clerk nodded and relayed the message to his freckled helper. Emma grinned cheekily at the brash, redhead as he slid her papes under the grille. The boy stuck his tongue out at her, and smiled back. These two employees, by general consensus, were a welcome change after Mr. Weasel and his Delancy morons.
Exchanging pointed, vulgar banter with her friends in line and waving to those who shuffled in late, she made her way towards the main street. She lifted a copy, still hot from the press and began to send her voice out, over the crowd, calling attention to the news of the day.
Life was hard but familiar. Emma gave and received beatings, sold her papes, read them and cursed the publisher's stinginess. Sometimes she cried out in her sleep for her father, but Eleanor's baby was cute, even if he didn't remember her every time she went home. There were days when went hungry, or had to beg. She hated that, it dug at her pride. The lodging house and her safe bed there were still a luxury.
Besides, the newsies were good company. Morose, filthy and given to laughter, they had accepted her despite her initial, glowering distrust. The few fights she'd had had been quick and honest. Emma had proven that she was tough enough to hold her own, or at least to make beating her more painful than it was worth.
After all, she had learned from the best in Brooklyn.
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