Disclaimer: I don't own Newsies.

"Davey, where are Jack and Crutchie?" Katherine asked urgently. Her eyes were wide with concern. The meeting had started fifteen minutes before, and the two had still not shown up.

"Well, uh, it's kinda a long story…" Davey trailed off, but Katherine looked at him expectantly. "Alright. Crutchie got in a fight with the Delanceys after they gave him crap about Journalism. He got beat up pretty bad, but he still has to serve detention, whereas Coach Wiesel got the Delanceys out because the whole school's biased towards the football team."

"What?" Katherine exclaimed, fuming. "And what about Jack?"

"I don't know. He looked really angry. He stormed off somewhere. He might have left. I just don't know."

Race looked over, seeing that Katherine was upset. He frowned, determined to lighten the mood. "Hey, Kath, you and Davey just gonna sulk over there or are you gonna actually start the meeting? Feels like we've been waiting for weeks!"

Katherine tried to hide her own frown with a grin. "Well, I actually do have some good news. This month's paper is all printed out! I actually brought a copy with me," she said, pulling out the paper.

"Well lemme see!" Race flashed her a smile, rushing over. The other boys surrounded her, too.

"Hey, there's my name! My article!" The boys started fighting over the paper, all eager to see what they'd worked on.

"I just wish Jack was here to see it," Katherine sighed.

"Could you stow the seriousity long enough to just drink in the moment?" Race asked her, shaking his head. He then climbed to the top of his desk, announcing proudly, "I'm famous!"

"Yeah, too bad we aren't getting paid," Henry joked.

Race just looked at him, taking a bite out of his sandwich. "Ya stupid or what? Ya don't need money when yer famous. When yer famous, the world is yer erster."

Everyone just looked at him for a moment before Davey finally spoke up. "Your what?"

"Yer erster?" Race swallowed. "Your fancy clam with the pearl inside?"

"Oh! Oyster!" everyone said.

"Jeez, Race, swallow next time before you speak," Henry joked. He then looked from the sandwich to his own bag and to the sandwich again. "Hey!" he snatched it from Race's hand. "That's my sandwich!"

"And how do you know that?" Race asked, trying to grab it back.

"I know what I packed!" Henry yelled. "Pastrami on rye with a sour pickle!"

"You calling me a thief?" Race hollered.

"Hey, you are what you eat!"

"Boys! BOYS. BREAK IT UP." Katherine shouted.

They all turned to look at her, shocked.

"Well, you can't be fighting!" she shrugged. "This should be a celebration!"

Murmurs of agreement filled the room.

"Hey everyone, let's go to Jacobi's!" someone suggested, and there were loud cheers of agreement. The meeting was pretty much over. Somehow the paper got back to Katherine as the others began filing out of the room. Katherine sighed as they all ran out, sitting down in a nearby desk. She thought everyone had left when she heard a voice.

"Katherine, are you coming?" Davey asked.

"Oh, um, yeah," she said. "I just…I wonder where Jack is. I hope he's alright."

Davey seemed thoughtful for a moment. "I think I know somewhere we can check."

"Thanks for doing this, Jack," Medda said as he painted. "It's nice to have an extra hand making these sets."

"It's no problem," he mumbled.

Medda frowned. "Were you telling the truth when you said you didn't have a meeting today?"

He looked up, but didn't meet her eyes. "Of course I was."

"You better not have come here to run away from something again."

"Again?"

"You know what I'm talking about," she said knowingly.

"Hey! Thanks for letting a pal know you're alive! Why didn't you come to the meeting?" Davey asked, entering the auditorium, Katherine in tow.

Medda shot Jack a look of disapproval, then walked a little ways away, giving them some space, but still monitoring them.

Jack sighed. "I didn't exactly want to be found."

"Oh, lighten up! Nobody died!" Davey joked. "Did you see the paper? Katherine's got it right here! All of our articles are in there!"

"Congratulations," Jack mumbled.

"Jack…" Katherine started, walking closer to him.

"'Jack' what?" he turned to face her, visibly angry. "I'm supposed to take care of Crutch! That's how it's been since day one! And the Delanceys just come in and beat him up 'cause they know he can't fight back, and then he ends up in detention and they walk free just 'cause they're some kinda school royalty—"

"But that's not your fault!" Davey insisted.

"I shoulda given those Delanceys a taste of their own medicine." Jack countered.

"But you didn't!" Katherine interjected. "You did the right thing! I mean, you can't fight fire with fire."

He looked her in the eye. "I only did it-er, didn't do it-because I'm one detention from a suspension." He sighed. "It was selfish."

Katherine shook her head. "No, it wasn't. It was smart. Do you honestly think Crutchie would want you to get in trouble over him? Besides, he can take care of himself for an hour or so."

Jack gave in with a sigh. "I guess you're right."

Katherine looked pleased with herself. "So when are you gonna be done here? Everyone's at Jacobi's. When does detention end? We can pick Crutchie up…"

A/N: I let two weeks go by again, didn't I? Oops. Sorry about that. I really wanted to start updating weekly. But here's the next chapter. I know the ending's not to strong. I'll make up for it. To be honest I've just been waiting to write the chapter after this one. I have ideas. Also, as you can see, I kinda skipped over "Seize the Day." That's because for making-sense's sake it has to come a little after this. Hopefully next chapter. And I'm not going to write "Santa Fe," but Jack's definitely going to talk about it more. Also I've been thinking about starting other stories? Like I'm definitely going to see this one through, don't worry about that. But I'm also thinking about a story that would take place actually in 1899, and maybe after this story a series of one shots of modern day life. Also maybe not just Newsies. If you follow my tumblr (katepkelly), you'll see that I've become a big fan of Next to Normal lately. So maybe something about that too? I don't know. I'm gonna stop rambling now.

Talk to you later,

Bella