Disclaimer: This is a non-commercial work of fanfiction. Anything recognizable from Newsies belongs to Disney and not to me.


Chapter 33: Jack's Decision

It was dark.

It was dark and damp, and the walls smelled of mold and seeped sadness.

Jack curled his arms around himself, shivering a little as he took in his surroundings: four walls, dim lighting, a narrow wooden bench, no windows...one locked door.

He'd found himself in this place often enough when he'd mouthed off to Snyder or to one of his guards: it was the Reflection Room - the place where recalcitrant boys were sent to "think on their misdeeds and come to their senses," but what that basically meant was solitary confinement and no food for an indeterminate amount of time.

What had been his most recent offense? He couldn't remember - he'd stopped paying attention, had gotten good at shutting off his mind and his emotions when the situation called for it. He had to, to keep the dismal conditions of The Refuge and the abuse of Snyder and his henchmen from shutting him down completely.

Morosely, he settled himself onto the hard wooden bench, lying on his back as he stared up at the ceiling. Time passed, seemingly fluid...

Then suddenly he heard the sound of muffled shouting coming from down the hall.

Warily, he got to his feet, his body tensing into a defensive posture, a feeling of dread settling in the pit of his stomach as the voices grew louder and heavy footsteps sounded just outside the room. A key scraped against the lock, and then the door suddenly flew open, banging against the wall with a forcefulness that made him flinch.

A few of Snyder's goons stood silhouetted in the doorway, arguing loudly amongst themselves, and for a moment Jack tensed, thinking that they were intoxicated and had come to vent their anger on whatever unfortunate boy was trapped in the Reflection Room (Snyder did not overtly encourage such behavior, but he turned a blind eye to it so long as no permanent damage was done)...but just as he was about to brace himself for a fight, a familiar figure was shoved through the doorway, his wrists handcuffed behind his back, his cap missing and his clothes disheveled.

The goons pushed him towards the back of the room, and Jack let out a silent cry of dismay as Davey passed right through him, stumbling forward a few feet before he was promptly shoved to his knees and then to the ground. The light from the hallway cast his face into deep shadow, and Jack couldn't see any visible signs of injury, but from the way that the dark-haired boy was trying to curl into himself on the floor, something was terribly wrong.

Voices sounded again in the hallway, and this time two more guards appeared, dragging a handcuffed and unconscious Race. The gambler was pulled into the room and dropped unceremoniously on the ground next to Davey, and Jack, whose eyes were adjusting to the lighting more and more every second, could barely bring himself to look at his friend.

But he did. And he immediately regretted it.

Race had made a vow once in Jack's hearing that he would never allow himself to be taken to The Refuge again. Jack wasn't sure what terrible experience had caused the other boy to vehemently swear such a thing, and Race had never told him - or anyone, as far as he knew. But there had been something dark and desperate in the way he'd said it, and even the memory of the steely words still sent a shiver down Jack's spine.

Of course Race wouldn't have gone down without giving his adversaries the fight of his life. But he'd lost. And seeing him badly hurt and completely helpless in the very place that he'd sworn never to go back to made a choking despair well up in Jack's throat. He undoubtedly would have been unable to speak even if he hadn't already been some kind of voiceless apparition in this painfully-familiar yet completely surreal situation.

The guards began bickering loudly amongst themselves.

Jack couldn't understand their words, but he could smell the liquor on their breath.

One of them kicked Race, and when the unconscious boy didn't respond, they laughed, then dragged him over to a corner of the room, out of the way, before turning their attention to the still-responsive Davey.

Jack watched, his heart in his throat, as his friend was hauled to his feet.

He heard the sneering taunts of the men who knew that there was nothing to stop them from venting their aggression on a boy who was completely at their mercy. He heard the heavy clank of the door slamming shut...

And then he thought he heard the sound of Davey screaming...but to his surprise, the voice rising in panic and terror was his own.

And that was when Jack woke up.

It was dark.

It was dark and damp, and the walls smelled of mold and seeped sadness.

But it wasn't The Refuge. It was Pulitzer's basement.

There were no goons.

There was no Snyder.

Race was free.

Davey was safe.

And the rally -

...the rally.

Jack shuddered, rolling off of the printing press where he'd inadvertently fallen asleep. The dream had been so real and so foreboding. Some of it he'd lived through, knew well enough - but some of it was undoubtedly the result of his insomnia-induced anxiety taking over.

Jack began to pace as he tried to shake the last vestiges of the nightmare from his mind. He knew what he had to do. He'd made his decision before drifting off to sleep on the printing press. But the horrifying dream had only strengthened his resolve. He couldn't let even a hint of what he'd just envisioned become reality; if he did, that reality was likely to be even more painful than what his troubled mind had imagined.

How long had he been in the cellar? How long was Pulitzer planning to keep him there? The newspaper owner would likely require a decision soon, for the rally wasn't that far off, and Jack would need some time to get over to Irving Hall if he was to insert himself into the proceedings without arousing any suspicions.

It was good that he knew the layout of the theater well; he'd have to find a place to hide until it was time for his speech. He didn't think that he could face Race or Davey at this point; if he happened to see either of them before the rally began, he would undoubtedly have to lie to them, and that thought was intimidating in the first instance (as Race was too observant to be fooled) and reprehensible in the second (as Davey was too sincere to deceive with a clean conscience). He was going to have to avoid them. Compromising himself, the strike, and his future with the newsies in order to protect them was going to be hard enough; the least he could do was spare himself the necessity of having to dissemble beforehand.

Jack stopped his pacing as he reached the foot of the stairs, looking up at the door through which he had come. If only he could find a way to escape, a way to run far away and never have to go through with it…

He shook his head. Who was he kidding? Escape was out of the question. Even if the Delanceys had left the door open, he'd still be trapped, held here by the ominous threat hanging over his boys.

Pulitzer had him cornered. There was no way out.

Jack felt the encroaching weight of despair settle a little more heavily upon his shoulders. It was a palpable burden that he'd been carrying for years, ever since his father had died. At first it had only felt like a few tiny stones in a knapsack on his back, always with him, but never enough to hinder his progress. Sometimes, he'd even forgotten about it in especially happy moments when he was laughing with Crutchie on the rooftop, when he and Race were running away from the Delanceys after successfully pulling a prank, or when he'd shown one of his sketches to Miss Medda and she'd praised his natural aptitude. In those moments, the weight had almost seemed to disappear.

When he'd been thrown into The Refuge, though, the burden had gotten noticeably heavier. There were things that he'd seen, things that he'd heard, and things that he'd felt that he would never forget, and each of those experiences had added to the invisible weight that he'd carried. When he'd made his escape, hidden in the back of Governor Roosevelt's carriage, he'd been relieved and pleased at his own cleverness, but in the back of his mind he'd always known that he was coming out of The Refuge unalterably changed.

The burden hadn't gotten lighter after that - only heavier.

He must have been getting stronger, though, too, because he'd somehow managed to bear it.

At least, he had…until this moment. At this moment, he could very well buckle under its weight if he wavered even a bit.

So Jack stood a little straighter and a little more defiant, pushing back against the despair that threatened to overwhelm him. He'd carried the weight this far, and he would find a way to bear it still further.

If nothing else, he would not give Pulitzer and the Delanceys the satisfaction of seeing him broken.