Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and are only used for fan related purposes.

Visionary

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Jack Kelly can't sleep at night anymore.

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The sudden panic drapes over him like a cruel and unforgiving winter's night. Dark and cold, he fights against it blindly, trying his best to escape its icy hold. But like the sun bringing relief to another endless night, only a handful of deep, shuddering breaths and a quick set of feet can stave it off. Stave it off and keep him from falling under and falling prey.

It disappears as quickly as it arrives, leaving a sour, bitter taste in his mouth and a splitting headache in its wake. Jack doesn't know where exactly he ran to but the to had never been that important to him. It's the from that he runs from—

—from a crook of a father, and the memory of a martyr of a mother. He runs from old friends, dead friends, scattered ashes and pure regret. From self-loathing, denial and hatred. And he runs from the truth…

Jack Kelly is running from the past but it still manages to catch up to him.

But he can't run forever, and he doesn't. The panic's fled so there is no more reason for him to flee. A quick glance over his shoulder confirms that Spot is gone, his careful footsteps off to haunt someone else. A second glance at his shoulder shows him that his panic and his fright was in vain.

The handprint designed from Spot's spilt blood is gone, too. Without a trace, the stain is as if it has never been.

Giving himself a small shake, he makes himself forget. He's good at that, the blackness coming easily as if summoned by name. He doesn't want to remember. Not the gash, not the blood, not the taunts… and not the threat. He shakes himself until he feels his upset and his grief and his goddamn fear slide off of him and down his crippled back like a second skin.

The weight doesn't seem so heavy all of a sudden and he finds the strength to straighten up. He stands like a broken man, but no longer is he hunched, cowering like a wild animal.

Jack knows every inch of Manhattan like he knows every inch of his defeated body, so he knows where his flight has taken him—but he doesn't quite recognize it all. His eyes see the now, the change and the new that the visionary had never foreseen… but his mind sees the past, the lives that have surrendered, the people that aren't and the way things used to be.

He walks in a daze, unfeeling now, unafraid. He takes the steps he's always taken, a blend of the then and the now making it damn hard for him to walk straight.

It's just past morning, maybe twenty four hours since the last time the headaches started. He feels the pounding as it begins again, the incessant knock knock knocking against the inside of his skull. But his pockets are empty save for lint and a prayer; the memory of David and the feel of a phantom fire keep him from running back to the tavern regardless.

No. There's only one place from him right then.

There's only one place he can ever return to, one place that will accept him back no matter how hard he tries to break away from it.

The cries of the newsboys already on the street can be heard all around him, the distribution bell long since rung. The worthless rags are clutched like prizes in their ink-stained hands. Lies and improvisations and anything but the God's honest truth is hollered, screamed and offered on the corners and in the streets.

It's been too long since he was part of that world. Anxious fingers fiddle with the frayed ends of a belt rope that barely serves its purpose and he grits his teeth and bares the pain. Too long, and too far away. He can never go back.

This visionary has seen, done, given up too much to.

The numbness persists. Even the pounding staccato is dulling in the wake of Spot Conlon's last words and haunting threats. With his eyes open, wide and unseeing, he can still visualize the wicked grin that warps his old pal's face; he hears the drip, drip, dripping of the blood as it hits the floor.

And he remembers the message.

You're next.

Racetrack would know. It's only fitting for the old gambler's soul to find him in the place that they'd met.

Jack doesn't need the sign on the corner to tell him that he's found himself—unwittingly, unwillingly and entirely on purpose—on Duane Street. Just the stink in the air and the child's screams that give renewed life to his headache reminds him that this, as far as he tells himself, is home.

The morning edition is up and the customers with their trusting ears and heavy purposes are on the streets. He doesn't expect to see any of the fellas he used to know—or even the new ones he can't be bothered to greet—because they, unlike him, have their purpose. They have a reason to live—

—but Jack just wants to live.

Inside, Kloppman is standing at his post, his hat knocked to one side, his knowing grin curving up the other. He's hazy, barely there, but Jack doesn't notice the faint glow that surrounds the old man, or the black smoke that lingers around his mouth. If he looks hard enough, he's sees ghosts everywhere. It doesn't hurt so much when he tells himself that they're real.

So consumed with the forever pain and the nothingness that overwhelms him, Jack spares a small wave at Kloppman. "Just goin' on up," he tells him, his voice hoarse and rough. "You can add it to what I owe ya."

Kloppman doesn't say a word in response, no scolding nor a joke. His bright blue eyes, blue like an early September sky, shine behind a dusty, streaky set of lenses; his crooked grin stays in place, the man as silent as the grave. He doesn't move, either.

Jack doesn't notice. Already he's forgotten everything that has led him back to Duane Street this morning. Everything but Spot's haunting last words.

You're next.

He's lost track of how much he owes the old superintendent. Between drinking his rare profits away and barely returning to Duane Street as it is, Jack hasn't paid lodging fare in what seems like forever. Then again, Kloppman stopped asking for it long ago…

Halfway up the rickety stairs that lead to sanctuary, his far-reaching ears catch his name. The two symbols are unfamiliar, filtering in through a heavy head, wrapping around a reluctant heart. He pauses, still as a statue as he listens. What do they have to say about New York's great Cowboy now?

There was a time when every kid on the streets knew his name. It echoed in the underground, rang out from the alleyways, was whispered from within the darkest slums. A hero he was, the Cowboy who took on the bigwigs and, gosh darn it, won!

But then… then the dreams started, the visions began. David was gone, Sarah was gone… and, bit by bit, Jack went with them.

Nobody talked about him anymore—

"Say, ain't that Cowboy over there?"

"Yeah. Looks like shit, don't he?"

"Yeah. But who's that he was just talkin' to?"

"That? Just another one of his ghosts."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

—unless they were talking about him.

The words are as sharp as Spot's but he deflects them, ignores them. His solitude is his armor, as cold as it is impenetrable. The pain can't get in just as the grief can never escape. The tired remains, the ache remains and the solid certainty that there has to more than this just doesn't go away.

They don't understand. But then again, neither does he.

The bed is as hard as he remembers, the old, stained pillow smelling of dirt and sweat and old. There's no sign that anyone uses it but him, though he uses it so rarely, and he understands why. Who'd want to sleep in a haunted bunk? Who'd want their rest stolen, their very soul drawn from beneath slack lips, and their nighttime dreams cursed forevermore?

His eyes feel like there's grit in them. It stings and he has the strange desire to render himself blind. He can't sleep anymore because of the nightmares and the things he sees. Would they go away if he sacrificed his eyes?

Would the ghosts leave him alone if he sacrificed his life?

Spot had told him that dyin' ain't half as bad… but Jack doesn't buy it. He's seen countless friends perish and felt pain over every death until the numbness came and never left. If it hurt that bad for the living, it could only be excruciating for those who had to die.

Like Spot Conlon had to die.

He remembers…

It was a cowardly killing, vicious at the same time. Spot was attacked from behind, his blood and his guts and his arrogance spilled for the whole of Brooklyn to see. It had to have hurt, his life bleeding out of him, agony and a cruel twist of fate keeping him alive longer than if the bastard who knifed him had been a man and stabbed him in the heart instead of being yellow and stabbing him in the back.

The rumors of Conlon's death still circulate, even though no one remembers you in New York when you die. He's a hero, not because he had nerve and a quick slingshot, but because he got knifed and didn't cry out as he died. He took it like a man, a boy of sixteen dying long before it was time.

And Jack remembers it as if it was yesterday.

He wants to forget but sometimes… sometimes he has to remember.