A sea of newsboys roared into the double doors of Medda's theater lobby that next day. Smalls watched as wave after wave rolled in. Brooklyn. Flushings. Queens. Woodside.

She leaned against the wall next to Jules, just observing with little comments here and there as the flow gradually began to cease.

"We should go into the house," Jules said. "The rally's gotta be startin' soon, with or without Kelly."

"Yeah," Smalls responded, eyes glued to the now-closed doors.

"Somethin' wrong, Shortie?"

"The girls hafta have heard about Spot Conlon by now," Smalls griped. "Why aren't they here yet?"

"Runnin' late, maybe," Jules answered, though she seriously doubted their eventual arrival.

"I'm jus' gonna wait here for a while," Smalls told her. "Jus' in case."

"You know where you can find me," Jules said as she swung the door to the house open and disappeared.

Smalls slid down to sitting against the wall and stayed there for a while, alone in the lobby. She didn't want to give up hope, even though she knew the girls couldn't be motivated to much of anything outside of their own interests.

Actually, she knew that they wouldn't show for a fact. Why was she kidding herself? If nothing else, they would be too lazy to trek all the way over to Manhattan.

She twidded her thumbs in her lap. Maybe it wasn't the girls she was waiting for.

Suddenly, voices came from behind the double doors.

"Don't you gotta story ta tell the boys!"

"Guys, let's not make too much of a deal 'bout it..."

Smalls stood straight up. Was that...?

The doors peeled open from both sides, sending the afternoon sun flooding in and silhouetting three tardy newsies. To the right was Mike. To the left was Albert.

In the center, with a face of black and blue...

"Specs," Smalls realized, voice trembling with disbelief. He was in his regular clothes again, but she'd never seen him in such bad shape.

He had actually made it out.

Specs' weary eyes locked on hers, and he immediately had to smile. "Hey, Smalls."

Mike and Albert somewhat awkwardly moved out from between the two and hurried through the door to the house.

"Smalls," Specs started again in a somewhat frantic manner of trying to find words. Here he was. This is the girl he fought for. This is the girl that inspired him to finally take a stand. This was the girl whose smile could always brighten his day. Where the hell were his words? He shook his head. "I'm so sorry I left you... You gotta know how worried I was 'bout you that night... I... I..."

Smalls hurried up to him, eyes gently reassuring. There was a struggle to keep the grin off her face and make her words serious. "No, no, you didn't hafta do no worryin' about me..." She reached up and placed a single hand on his chin. "Worry about you! What are these bruises all about? Did Snyder cut ya bad? Did he lock you in the cellar? You still hurtin'?"

There went the butterflies again. Her tiny nose was a mere inch away from his face.

Words weren't what he needed to tell her.

"Specs?" She questioned with a light, nervous giggle. "Your face is gettin' all re-"

Not another single thought crossed his mind before he grabbed Smalls by both arms and locked his lips onto hers.

Damn it, had he wanted to do that for a while.

It was a brief kiss, interrupted in the moment that Specs realized what he was actually doing and pulled straight back. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot!

Smalls' gaze back at him was unreadable and a bit on the spacey side. She didn't move a muscle. She was bound to think he had gone insane in the Refuge. Maybe he had.

Or maybe he just toughened up.

Maybe now he was too bold for his own good.

No. He was just plain stupid.

Specs didn't know what to feel anymore, let alone what to do. The door to the house was at his left. The rally was about to start anyway.

He looked away from silent Smalls and gripped his left hand around the handle, wishing he could trade this moment for another whipping at the Refuge. He lightly thumped his head against the door as it began to open. He probably just ruined everything she thought about him.

Specs felt his right hand intertwined with another and dropped his grip on the door in a flash. He looked back to find Smalls right by his side, for once with a nervous, unsure gleam in her eye and a warm glow to her cheeks.

"Looks like I'm a blusher, too," she laughed shyly. She took either side of Specs' face in her hands and stood up on tiptoe to tenderly kiss him back. Neither knew exactly what they were doing, but somehow it felt right.

Applause rang out from the house, and the two could only guess that Davey had stepped onstage and called the rally on. They pulled away after a few long seconds, still a bit dizzy from a volt of pure electricity.

"How long have you...?" Smalls asked faintly.

"Too long," Specs admitted.

Her eyes twinkled with a controlled sort of giddiness. "Mutual."

Though Smalls' back was to the door by now, Specs was fast in seeing Jules approaching through the window to the house. A little panic surged through him, but he came up with something, dropping his hand from her back and fiddling with the side of his glasses.

"And that's how you get the spots outta glass," Specs improvised, clearly eyeing Jules as she walked in the door as an indication to Smalls. The butterflies were hard to swallow down all at once, but he tried his best not to let them show. "Had these for five years now, and it's never failed."

Smalls glared at him confusedly before Jules appeared in her peripheral vision. "Oh..." She continued, raising eyebrows knowingly to Specs. "That's a real neat trick, huh?"

"Oh my God, you guys are such kids. Anyway, David's already onstage. You comin', Shortie?" Jules asked.

Smalls whirled around as if she just noticed her. A bit too nonchalantly: "Jules, hi! Uh, yeah. We were jus' about to come out."

Jules seemed to not even listen and opened the door again. "Saved us two seats in the balcony, but it's packed tight in there. Specs hasta find somewhere else."

Smalls flashed a "Sorry for her existence" look at Specs (to which he replied with a goofy "What are ya gonna do" shrug, to which she answered with a flirty smirk) as they followed Jules out into the immense house of Medda's Theater.

She was right - the place was filled to the brim. Specs had never seen so many newsies in one place before in his entire life, which of course translated to him never being surrounded by so much noise before in his entire life. On the stage alone, Davey nervously looked out into the crowd, trying to stall until Jack showed up. It was pretty pathetic.

"Pulitzer's gonna pay, right, guys?"

Smalls and Jules settled into their seats high above the crowd.

Soon, Spot Conlon leaped up from the audience to save the show. Another, more genuine round of applause crashed through the audience. Spot noded and shut them all up with a single conductor's gesture and handed it to Davey.

"Thank you very much, Mister Spot Conlon," Davey said. "All right, let's take a roll call."

"Brooklyn's here!" Shouted four overly-enthusiastic members of Spot Conlon's posse.

"What about right here in Manhattan, huh?" Davey shouted, trying to pump up the audience.

"Manhattan's here!" Replied a volley of nasal city accents.

"Flushings?"

Energy began to build back up. "Flushings' here!"

"Richmond!"

"Richmond's here!" The news carriers chanted.

Spot Conlon strode downstage. "Woodside!" He declared.

"Woodside's here!" A scream ran out.

Then it was (relatively) silent. Had they forgotten...?

Smalls leapt up with the sign she made just for the occasion, pre-set underneath her seat by Jules.

"So's the Bronx!" She yelled. She couldn't find Specs in the ocean of newsies, but she blew a short raspberry to the crowd just for him. Claps and hoots of her audacity circulated around the house.

"Brooklyn's here!" The same four mindlessly repeated. Spot Conlon made an extra "shut up" gesture to them, and the rally formally begun.

...

Author's note:

I know compared to the others, this chapter's kind of a shortie (no pun intended), but here it is before I can second-guess it.
Rally continues in the next chapter, I just didn't know how to link the rest of it into this one. So it's not over yet. You're stuck following this crappy fic forever.

Any and all reviews/favorites/critques are taken with lots of love :)

~CW