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


Chapter 34: Katherine Waits

The approaching daylight was just beginning to show itself through the bedroom window when Katherine rose from her bed and quickly began to get dressed.

She'd barely slept the night before, distressed and guilty over Jack's imprisonment and consumed with worry over whether or not he was all right. She knew that her father would need to release him soon, either to go to the rally to play his part in the scheme set out for him or into the hands of Snyder to be taken directly to The Refuge, but either release was to a foreboding end, and that realization was what had kept her tossing and turning as the night had worn on. Though she knew that she desperately needed her sleep, she was relieved when the first pale streaks of morning had begun to illuminate her window, for she couldn't bear to lie still any longer.

After finishing her usual morning toilette, Katherine left her apartment and hurried over to The World. Thankfully, her father hadn't arrived yet for the day, but Hannah was there, her eyes troubled and her smile sad, and when she immediately opened her arms to Katherine, the latter ran into them without a second thought, letting the tears that she'd held back all night fall silently upon the secretary's shoulder.

"It's all right, Kathy," the older woman soothed. "It's all right...it's going to be fine."

"I don't know what he's going to do, Hannah," Katherine sniffled. "Both options are terrible! Jack loves his boys. Betraying them - even to keep them safe - is going to tear him apart! But if he doesn't speak against the strike and gets thrown into The Refuge…" The tears came again, and she swiped at them angrily with her hand. Now was not the time to be breaking down, and she wouldn't have expected it of herself. She would have expected better. It was probably her sleep-deprived state that was making her so emotional.

"Let's move into one of the empty offices," Hannah murmured gently, glancing over at the clock on her desk. "Your father has a 7:00 appointment; he'll be along any moment to prepare for it before his guest arrives, and it would be better for him not to find you here."

Sliding her arm around Katherine's shoulders, she led the way down the hall, pausing in front of one of the doors and then unlocking it to reveal an unoccupied work room.

Ushering Katherine into the office, Hannah pulled a chair out of the closet and then motioned for her companion to sit. "I'll go make you some tea, Kathy," she said kindly. "Rest here, and I'll be back in a moment."

As soon as the door clicked shut, Katherine sank into the chair, thankful to have something solid to hold on to. She wasn't sure why she'd even come here - there was nothing that she could do for Jack, not while he was still imprisoned in the cellar with the Delanceys standing guard (she'd unsuccessfully tried to go down to see him the night before but had been rudely turned away). Despite her helplessness, however, she felt that she needed to stay nearby. She might not be able to get to Jack at the moment, but she would wait until an opportunity came to her.

There was no chance of her father relenting; this she knew from experience. When Joseph Pulitzer was set on a particular course of action, there was little that anyone could do to stand in his way, and unless an alternative situation arose that was clearly more advantageous to himself, the man would remain immovable and impassive. Trying to get him to capitulate or reconsider at this point would be futile; his plan was in motion, and he would stop at nothing until he'd accomplished his objective. The very characteristics that made him a powerful player in the newspaper world made him a nearly-unapproachable father, and while Katherine sensed that his heart was not bent on cruelty for cruelty's sake, she knew that he would be ruthless if he deemed it necessary to accomplish his goals, ruthless to the point of using his own daughter as a pawn.

Katherine shook her head, telling herself that she would not start crying again.

She shouldn't have been surprised. Her father's empire had always come before his family, and though she knew that he cared about her, when she'd chosen to strike out on her own to pursue a career, her position as a professional opponent had been solidified, and her father's demeanor towards her had changed. If there had ever been any slight indulgence that he'd felt towards her, there now was none - he treated her as he would any other reporter who worked for a rival company.

(A few months ago, she had found a stack of clippings in his home office, tucked away in the bottom drawer of his desk, and had been surprised to realize that it was a collection of her articles - every single one that she'd written since first being published. He'd saved them all: even the monotonous reviews of the flower shows that she hated so much were there. It was the only evidence that she'd ever seen of any kind of sentimentality on his part. But clearly he hadn't meant for her to find out about it).

In a strange way, the man's aloofness might have actually been a mark of his professional respect. Katherine had expressed on no uncertain terms that she didn't want her name and her pedigree to do her any favors when she'd applied for her first job at The Sun, so it was likely that her father had acted in accordance with this desire. She wished that he hadn't taken it quite so far - but she shouldn't have been surprised. In the newspaper world, she was on the side of the newsboys, which meant that she was against Pulitzer, daughter or not. She certainly hadn't pulled any punches when she'd written her article for The Sun denouncing his exploitation of his most vulnerable employees, so it was probably unfair to expect that her father would hold back after she'd been the one to strike first.

Katherine felt her thoughts shifting into the mode of a strategist as she deliberately left the aching grief of a daughter behind. She'd cried her tears on Hannah's shoulder; now it was time to move ahead. The past could not be undone, but the future remained malleable, and she was going to do everything in her power to ensure that what lay ahead was advantageous, not just for herself, but for the newsies, and most importantly, for Jack. The situation as it stood looked bleak, but maybe there was still some hope of recourse.

Was there anything she hadn't yet considered that could turn the tide?

Pulitzer hesitated at little and feared nothing. What he respected and would occasionally respond to, however, was cunning. He was an opportunistic man himself, quick and calculating, and rather than react defensively when he was cornered, he seemed to enjoy the challenge of seeing how he could turn any situation - even what was shaping up to look like a loss - to his advantage. In doing so, he came out the winner far more often than anyone expected. Katherine may not have shared many things in common with her father, but she knew that she had inherited this cagey resourcefulness.

And, like her father, she hated to lose.

The thrill of being the underdog, of being cornered but still standing, was quickly beginning to grow inside of her, and Katherine's brows furrowed in determination as she promised herself that she would find a way to beat her father at his own game. Unlike his other political and professional opponents, she had the very same fighting spirit that usually gave Pulitzer an edge over his adversaries, and she was going to draw on that advantage with every ounce of strength that she possessed.

A light knock sounded upon the door, and Hannah re-appeared with a steaming cup of tea.

"Here you are, Kathy," she said kindly. "This should help take the edge off of things a little...but you do seem to be looking better already, if I'm not mistaken."

"I do feel better, Hannah," Katherine answered gratefully.

She was already beginning to scheme.

"Well, your father's arrived," the secretary warned, "but his schedule is so full today that I doubt he'll be leaving his office much; you should be able to remain here undetected if you want to stay. If you were hoping to catch a glimpse of Jack, though, my guess is that your father will be bringing him up around 3:00 this afternoon - that's the only window he has in his schedule today."

Katherine nodded, grateful for Hannah's inside information. "I need to go to my own office for a few hours," she said, "so I'll head out for a while and come back before then." There were several tasks that she'd left unfinished the day before at The Sun which needed to be completed before the start of the new week, and it would probably be good to step out for a while to clear her head and get something to eat. The events of the late afternoon would likely require all of her emotional fortitude, and she needed to be ready.

Her resolve strengthened by the plan and by the warm cup of tea, Katherine thanked Hannah and stealthily made her way past her father's office and out of the building. She headed directly to The Sun and then spent the next several hours completing the miscellaneous tasks that she'd left outstanding before leaving for a late lunch.

Before long, it was time for her to head back to The World.

She waited downstairs until Hannah assured her that the coast was clear before hurrying back up to the empty office and sequestering herself therein. Only a quarter of an hour or so passed before she heard the sound of footsteps coming up the back stairway from the cellar. She risked a quick peek, and saw that, true to Hannah's prediction, it was the Delancey brothers roughly escorting Jack down the hall to Pulitzer's suite.

Crouching as close to the door as she dared, Katherine watched, hidden in the shadows, as the three men approached. She strained to catch a glimpse of Jack's face, but to her disappointment he passed by too quickly for her to get a good look. However, she caught the stiffness of his shoulders and the irritable way he shoved off Morris' restraining hand as they made their way down the hall, and it gave her hope. It meant that Jack still had some fight left in him.

She heard the sound of the door to her father's office opening and clicking shut, then slowly let out a breath that she didn't realize she'd been holding.

Now the real waiting began.

Katherine paced the room, wishing (not for the first time) that she could be a fly on the wall of her father's office, eavesdropping on the conversation taking place within.

What was Jack's decision? And what would be Pulitzer's response?

After a few minutes of nervous pacing, Katherine made herself sit down. There was no way to know the answer to those questions; she ought to preserve her energy so that she could later channel it into something productive.

Reaching for her handbag, she pulled out the note that Jack had sent her and unfolded it carefully. On the top of the page, he'd jotted down the details for the show that they had planned to see on Saturday as well as where he'd meet her so that they could walk over to the theater together. Then, having conveyed the necessary logistical information, he'd abruptly added:

I wanted to write you something nice, but words ain't my strong suit, so I'm gonna have to let my scribbling speak for me.

Below the writing was a rough but still beautifully-depicted sketch of her wearing the outfit that she'd had on the day she and the Jacobs brothers had found Jack at Irving Hall. He hadn't been drawing while she'd been present, so he must have rendered the sketch from memory, and the thought that he'd taken her in so carefully that he could recall such details with near-perfect accuracy was heady. Katherine knew that she was attractive, but Jack's close attention made her feel beautiful in a deeper way.

At the bottom of the sketch, he'd written one final thought in his smudgy, cramped handwriting:

I never planned on someone like you, Plumber. You sure is something else.

Katherine felt the tears pricking at her eyes again, and she brushed them away, careful not to let them fall upon Jack's note.

Why hadn't she told him sooner? If Jack had known about her true identity, Pulitzer wouldn't have been able to use that information against him, and perhaps the newsie leader wouldn't have been caught so off guard during their meeting. At the very least, the relationship that had been blossoming between them could have been preserved had she exercised a little forethought and come clean before her secret was divulged for her. Her motives for keeping Jack in the dark had been well-intended, but they'd certainly backfired tenfold. The utterly betrayed look that he had given her before being taken down to the cellar had made it clear that the trust between them had been shattered, perhaps irrevocably, and though Katherine understood why he'd brushed her off so forcefully when she'd tried to run to him, his curt dismissal had still hurt her.

But Jack had every reason to be angry, she reminded herself. She'd broken faith with him. There were no two ways of looking at it.

Wiping away one final tear, Katherine folded up the note and tucked it back into her handbag. She was not going to sit and wallow in self-pity. She was here to make things right, not to wish her mistakes away, and while she couldn't discern what was being discussed in the meeting down the hall, she was determined that once Jack was released - to the rally or to The Refuge - she would figure out a way to help him somehow, to stand by his side and show him that she still believed in him, even if he'd lost faith in her.

She didn't have to wait long. The sound of the office door clicking open down the hall alerted her to the meeting's conclusion, and Katherine crept silently over to the door to watch as Jack left Pulitzer's office alone.

He was going to speak against the strike, then.

Katherine waited for a moment until she heard him start down the stairs. He would be watched and likely followed once he made it to the street - she was sure that her father was only letting Jack leave unaccompanied to give him a false sense of freedom, and she was willing to bet a month's wages that the newsie would be kept on a tight (if imperceptible) leash until he'd fulfilled her father's directive.

Sure enough, not a minute later, the door to her father's office opened again, and the Delancey brothers and Seitz appeared in the hallway, conferring quietly amongst themselves before setting off down the stairs in the direction that Jack had gone.

Katherine counted to one hundred, checked one more time to make sure that no one else was coming, then stole into the hallway, making her way quietly past her father's office and down the stairs. She would have to shadow Jack carefully in order to avoid being noticed by his pursuers, but she knew how to keep a low profile and was confident that she'd be able to make it to Irving Hall undetected. She didn't know exactly what she would do once she got there, but some kind of opportunity to help Jack would surely present itself.

And when that opportunity came, she would be ready.


A/N: I've always thought that Katherine's relationship with her father must have been an interesting one behind the scenes, so I'll be exploring it more in this story as we go along. Thanks for reading; would love to hear what you thought, even if it's just a word or two!