Disclaimer: This is a non-commercial work of fanfiction. Anything recognizable from Newsies belongs to Disney and not to me.
Chapter 42: A Tentative Truce
Davey found Race in the second place that he thought to look: out back behind the lodging house. The gambler was hunkered down against the wall with his cigar in his mouth and a sullen look on his face, scowling darkly at nothing in particular.
Davey walked over slowly, then crouched down next to him without saying a word.
They sat in silence for a moment before the latter finally spoke.
"Did Jacky-boy send you to do his dirty work and convince me that he ain't the low-down rotten scumbag I think he is?" he asked bitterly, snuffing out his cigar.
"He didn't send me," Davey answered. "I volunteered to come."
Race scoffed. "Ain't you tired of playin' middle-man, Dave? You ain't a liar, so tell it to me straight: are you really gonna let him get away with what he did? Are you gonna sit here and tell me that I oughta go back and make peace him 'cause he's got some kinda good excuse for leavin' us when we needed him most and then stabbin' us in the back on top of it?"
"Whether or not Jack's excuse is a good one is up for you to decide, Race," Davey answered, trying to keep his tone neutral. "But I am going to ask you to go back and at least listen to his explanation. You don't have to accept it if you don't want to."
The answer seemed to surprise Race, and he said nothing for a moment, clearly conflicted but still opposed to the prospect of confronting Jack again.
Davey held back a sigh. He completely understood Race's reaction; in fact, there was a part of him that probably would have come down a little harder on Jack if the gambler hadn't already voiced the frustrations that both of them had been feeling. But after hearing Jack's explanation, the situation wasn't so simple. His decisions may have caused Race and the newsies undue grief, but he had acted with their best interest at heart, and now he was clearly trying to make amends. It really was imperative that he and Race reach an understanding of some sort, and though Davey wasn't naive enough to think that a simple conversation would solve everything, he knew they had to start somewhere if any kind of future reconciliation was to be hoped for and if the strike was to proceed.
A thought that had been hovering in the back of his mind suddenly came to his attention. He hadn't planned on bringing it up any time soon, and in the context of this current discussion, it would be a risky move...but maybe it would be an angle that would get Race to agree to talk with Jack. Davey didn't really want to arouse more of the gambler's ire, and he especially didn't want that ire to be directed at him...but something had to be done, so he would need to push his hesitation aside and take the chance.
"Race…" Davey began slowly, "now that Jack's returned, there's really no reason for three people to be leading the newsies…especially not once we get Crutchie back."
Race glanced at him sharply. "What are you tryin' to say, Dave?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.
Davey forced himself to meet the accusing look without flinching. "I'm saying that you and Jack need to figure out a way to make things work," he said, more calmly than he felt, "because once the strike's over, I'm going back to being a regular newsie. I don't know how to lead the boys the way you and Jack and Crutchie do, and I don't want to make things more confusing for everyone, so once this is over, I'm stepping back, which means that you and Jack will need to be able to at least talk to each other, even if you don't agree on how things should be done."
"So you's gonna bail on me too," Race muttered bitterly.
That was the exact sentiment Davey had been afraid of eliciting.
"I'm not bailing on anyone," he answered, willing himself to be patient. "I'll still be around. I'll just be taking the orders instead of giving them."
When Race said nothing in response, he added, "This was going to happen eventually. I was never supposed to be leading the newsies in the first place; I barely knew more about starting a strike than the rest of you, and I know nothing about hawking headlines. Any expertise I have to offer is going to be irrelevant once the strike ends."
The logic of his statements seemed to have no effect on Race.
Find a new tactic, Davey told himself. This isn't working.
He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to massage the tension away. What was really upsetting Race so much? He'd held his anger in check all this time before Jack had shown up, and Davey knew that the gambler was capable of moving past his emotions when the situation required it. He'd also seen enough over the past week and a half to know that, while Race resented the unasked-for mantle of leadership that had been thrust upon him, he cared a great deal about the newsies, and had tried his hardest to lead them in the best way that he knew how. Surely he could see that reconciling with Jack was something that had to happen - for the rest of the boys, if nothing else?
But the logic of the situation wasn't really the sticking point here, was it? There was something else that Race was hung up on, and as Davey mentally revisited the conversation that had taken place earlier with Jack, he slowly began to get an inkling of what it might be.
You sat it out!
I thought I could trust you! I thought you would be there!
You said a family looks out for each other...guess those was all just empty words.
It's loyalty, Davey thought. That was the matter in question here. Race didn't have the advantage of knowing what Davey did now: that Jack had acted out of his own conviction that he was protecting the newsies by denouncing the strike. That (contrary to what it had looked like with the money changing hands) Jack had put the newsies before himself. That even Jack's earlier failure to rejoin the strike had been caused not by a lack of care, but by caring too much, and by being overcome by his perceived failure to keep the newsies safe.
Race needed to know that Jack's loyalty hadn't wavered, even though his actions seemed to say otherwise. But Davey couldn't be the one to convince him of that. Race needed to hear it from Jack himself.
Just get him back to the lodging house. That's all you need to do.
"Race," Davey acknowledged, "you have more right than any of us to be angry at Jack, and I don't blame you for not wanting to talk to him right now. The last week and a half has been the hardest on you, and you've constantly had to make sacrifices for the rest of the boys. I know it's not fair of me to ask you to do one more thing on top of all that you've already done…"
He put his hand on Race's shoulder. "...but I'm going to ask you to do it anyway." He gave the other boy an imploring look. "If you won't do it for Jack, then do it for me. And if you won't do it for me, then do it for the rest of the newsies. We need you and Jack to be on speaking terms if the strike is going to survive."
Race shook off Davey's hand, looking irritated, but he didn't refuse outright. "Sure am ready for this whole striking business to be over with," he muttered.
"Yeah." Davey let out the sigh that he'd been holding in. "Me too."
They sat in silence for another moment. Then Race suddenly got to his feet.
"Guess goin' back and talkin' to Jacky is the only way I'll getcha off my back," he grunted. "You sure know how to hound a fella, Davey."
"You haven't seen me at my worst," Davey replied, relieved at the other newsie's sudden capitulation. "I can be twice as overbearing as that when I want to be. Ask Les."
He, too, got to his feet.
"If this is you at half-strength, I don't think I'd wanna see you when you's really tryin' to get a point across," the other newsie grumbled.
"I'm just returning the favor, Race," Davey responded lightly. "You did your fair share of hounding me last night at Irving Hall."
"What are you talkin' about?" the gambler gave him a quizzical look
"The speech, remember?" Davey prodded. "I didn't think I had it in me to convince the newsies to join the strike, but you told me that I did...and you were right. This is kind of the same thing. You might not think you have it in you to listen to Jack right now...but I think you have it in you to overlook his offenses long enough to just give him a chance to explain himself."
He gave the other newsie a small smile.
Race snorted, then abruptly pushed past him, heading for the front of the lodging house. "All right, Dave, all right," he muttered. "Enough already!"
The words were curt, but Race's tone had softened perceptibly, and Davey smiled a little to himself as he followed the other newsie back into the lodging house and up the stairs.
He'd done his part. It was up to Jack now.
The sound of footsteps on the stairway reached Jack's ears, and he straightened up as Race entered the bunk room followed by an almost smug-looking Davey. Jack had to admit that he was surprised that the latter had been able to locate Race at all, much less convince him to return in such a short amount of time, but he was thankful for Davey's quick work. He didn't know how much longer he could have stood waiting alone in the bunk room.
He and Race had butted heads occasionally in the past, and their verbal disagreements generally didn't end well. In previous confrontations, however, the gambler had always backed down, because Jack was the undisputed leader of the lodging house, and they both knew it. Race would go off for an hour or two (or in some cases, for the night), blow off steam, and then return, and the two of them would proceed as though nothing had happened, joking and laughing and ribbing each other like the brothers that they were.
But Jack had never seen the other boy as angry as he'd been when he stormed out of the bunk room less than half an hour ago.
Race walked over to where Jack was standing and pointedly took a seat at the table. "We gonna discuss this civilly, Jack?" he asked stiffly. "Or you wanna throw fists just to clear the air first?"
Jack saw Davey open his mouth to protest and then quickly shut it. If the situation hadn't been so tense, the sight would have been a bit comical.
"Guess we oughta try the civil way first," Jack allowed, taking a seat opposite Race and leaving the chair in the middle open for Davey, who slid into it looking slightly disconcerted. "You have anything else you wanna say to me, Racer, before I tell you my side of the story?"
"I'll hear you out," Race answered shortly, checking his impulse to say more with apparent effort.
Jack nodded. "All right." He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. He knew that he had to approach Race differently than he'd approached Davey. The gambler was already riled up, for one thing, and Jack knew from experience that he also wouldn't be as easily persuaded by logic as Davey had been.
Where should he even start?
Suddenly, the memory of the dream that he'd had in Pulitzer's basement came back to him - that feeling of hopeless despair upon seeing Race back in The Refuge, trapped in the place that he'd sworn he would fight tooth and nail to stay out of. Most of the details of the dream had faded from Jack's mind, but the one image that had remained, clear and sharp and haunting, was that of Race, injured and unconscious, lying on the dirty ground in the Reflection Room.
Jack felt his throat constrict at the memory.
"Racer…" he began hoarsely, "do you remember that night when you made that vow that you'd never go back to The Refuge?"
Race blanched. He clearly hadn't been expecting that, and Jack watched as he struggled to regain his composure. It only took a moment, but that moment was enough to make it clear that The Refuge was still a touchy subject, and that the old wounds hadn't completely healed.
"I remember it," Jack said quietly, not wanting to cause Race further pain, but knowing that he would need to risk making things worse before they could get better. "I remember like it was yesterday."
"Where are you goin' with this, Jacky?" Race broke in, his voice shaking a little.
Jack paused, momentarily unable to continue. He hadn't expected Race's defenses to crack so quickly, and the sudden vulnerability in the other boy's voice made his throat tighten again.
He swallowed, forcing himself to speak. "I'm tryin' to tell you that you wasn't the only one who made a vow that night," he said hoarsely. "When I saw how much you was hurtin', and how dark it was for you after you got out, I made a promise that I'd never let anything happen that would make you haf'ta go back there. I didn't tell you - but I vowed that night with you that you'd never haf'ta go back The Refuge - that they'd haf'ta get me first before I'd let them take you again."
Jack felt his emotions welling up, and he swiped a hand across his eyes. "Pulitzer, he - he was threatenin' to arrest you and Davey, to lock you up in The Refuge if I didn't shut down the strike myself," he continued, his own voice shaking now. "I couldn't let that happen, Racer! I couldn't stand the thought of seein' you in there again!"
Tears threatened anew, and he looked away for a moment, not wanting to break down in front of the other two at the table.
"So that's why I did it," he continued. "I showed up at the rally, and said what Pulitzer wanted me to say. I thought it was the only way I could keep you fellas safe." He looked Race in the eye. "The money was just part of the offer…but it wasn't what made me do it." He held Race's gaze for a moment until the gambler pointedly looked away.
"I know I let you down, Racer," Jack muttered. "I shouldn't have run on you and the boys after Crutchie got arrested. I still ain't really sure why I did it...I just felt like I couldn't face you fellas after what happened." He sighed. "But I'm tryin' to make it right. And Katherine and I came up with a plan that I think is gonna take us to the finish line, if…" he swallowed his pride, "if you fellas is willin' to hear me out."
It was completely silent for a moment. Race was still staring off into the middle space, his expression unusually distant, as though he was having trouble processing what Jack had just said. Davey's eyes were fixed on the table in front of him, his shoulders tense and his hands still, but his mind probably going a mile a minute.
Jack forced himself to wait. It was a humbling position to be in - he'd never had to answer for his actions before, let alone ask for permission to speak from his subordinates - but he knew that he owed Race and Davey the choice of whether they wanted to listen to him or not. They were the leaders of the strike now; he'd skipped out on them too long to come back demanding an equal place at the table.
After several agonizing minutes, Davey finally moved, shifting a little in his seat, his gaze settling on the boy at his left.
"Race…?" he asked quietly.
The single word seemed to draw the gambler out of his pensiveness. Race quickly sat up, leaning forward and resting his hands on the table, his expression once again sharp and alert. He exchanged a brief look with Davey. No words were spoken, but they must have come to an agreement somehow, because when Race finally broke the silence, he spoke for both of them.
"We'll hear your idea."
It was a cautious statement, far from the open acceptance that Jack had been hoping for, but it wasn't an outright rejection either, so he could work with it. Maybe their friendship would take some time to mend, but if they were on speaking terms, at least they could proceed with the plans for the strike.
Quickly, Jack filled Race in on the subject of Katherine's identity. If the gambler was surprised, he hid it well, seemingly once again in control of his emotions, and the only remark that he bothered to make was a sarcastic observation that Pulitzer must be even more of a rat than they'd thought if his own daughter was scheming to take him down.
Jack took the snide remark as a good sign.
He then laid out the plan that he and Katherine had created for Race and Davey's evaluation. The former had no remarks or questions at all, but the latter had far too many for Jack's liking (he didn't think that coming up with an organized plan of retreat in case they were discovered was really necessary, but had to grudgingly admit that some of the other points Davey raised, such as whether or not they should consider involving Spot and the other newsie leaders, were worth discussing. They'd had to tangent there for a bit, Jack expressing his surprise that Spot and the others had already agreed to support the strike, and Race coming out of his slight taciturnity to tell him that, contrary to Jack's best efforts to ruin the rally, the night had been saved after all by another one of Davey's motivational speeches. Davey, clearly uncomfortable taking credit for the success, had quickly redirected them back to the plan in front of them).
After talking through things until they'd adequately put to rest Davey's long list of logistical conundrums, they had a slightly more complicated but much more robust plan for how they were going to approach printing and distributing the Newsies Banner.
"So, when should we break the news to the fellas?" Jack asked, sitting back in his chair. "You said this is their day off, right?"
"Today and tomorrow," Davey answered. "We needed some time to recover after the rally, and we also wanted to give the other newsies a chance to make the impact of the strike felt in their neighborhoods so that all of New York is feeling the pinch before we take our final stand."
Jack nodded. "All right - so maybe we call a lodging house meetin' and talk to 'em all tomorrow?"
"That makes the most sense," Davey agreed, "and it will give us time to invite Spot and some of his boys if they'd want to attend."
They'd decided to involve only the Brooklyn leader in the covert printing of the Newsies Banner - Spot, after all, had been the first to pledge his support, and he'd probably want to be a part of the action - but they would invite all of the city's newsies to join them in front of The World after the papers had been distributed. Having another day to get the word out would mean less strain on the Manhattan newsies who would have to act as couriers.
"All that sound good, Racer?" Jack asked.
The gambler grunted his assent.
"All right, we's in agreement, then," Jack said, pushing back his chair. "I'll go update Katherine on the plan and see if she can make it for our meetin' tomorrow with the boys. It'll probably be good for her to be there so she can help explain everything - though it's probably gonna get a little crazy with her and all of us bein' there and tryin' to run things."
"Actually…" Davey interjected. He let the word hang, shooting a slightly uneasy glance at Race before looking at Jack, who was awkwardly poised halfway in and halfway out of his chair.
"You have somethin' to say, Dave?" he asked, secretly hoping that the other newsie wasn't going to raise yet another administrative concern.
"Yeah, I - " Davey cleared his throat. "I do." He sounded unsure of himself, as though he was about to say something that he hadn't had time to adequately think through.
Jack slowly sat down in his chair again.
"I was actually thinking...since you brought it up, Jack, about it being a little crazy with the three of us trying to run things," Davey continued, rambling a little, "that it would maybe be better if I didn't come to the meeting tomorrow. It would mean one less leader in the lodging house," he added quickly, before either Jack or Race could respond, "and it makes more sense for the two of you to be there, and for me to take a step back, because I'm not going to still be leading the newsies after the strike is over."
The statement, so simple and sensible, was more sobering than Jack would have expected.
"Besides, I wouldn't mind having a day off to go back to school," Davey continued, the lightheartedness in his voice sounding forced. "I've gotten a little behind on my studies, being so busy with the strike and everything, and it would be nice to be able to get back into the classroom, even if it's just for a day."
He gave them an unconvincing smile.
Jack and Race exchanged a wry look, and for the first time since the brawl at the distribution center, Jack felt a tiny spark of camaraderie between them. Davey hadn't fooled anyone - they knew that he was trying to take himself out of the picture so that they'd be forced to work together - but his awkward attempts to provide a plausible explanation for his absence without resorting to lying were amusing in their predictability. (Oddly enough, though, his strategy seemed to be working. Jack could already sense the tension beginning to thaw).
"If you's wantin' to take tomorrow for school, Dave, that's fine with me," he said, deciding not to put up a protest. "Pretty sure you deserve some time off as much as the rest of us." He looked at Race, who nodded his agreement.
"Am-scray, punk," the gambler muttered, shooing Davey towards the door. "You get a pass this time, but I'm expectin' you back bright and early on Tuesday. You ain't gettin' rid of us that easily."
Davey grinned, clearly relieved that Jack and Race were in agreement on something. "All right, that sounds good," he said, rising from his seat. "I'll get going now so I won't be underfoot, but I'll see you both on Tuesday morning."
He spat in his hand and shook with both of them, looking (Jack noticed) not the slightest bit perturbed by the ritual that he'd decried as disgusting only a few weeks ago, then took his leave, an almost-cheerful spring in his step as he headed down the stairs, leaving the two of them alone in the bunk room.
"That bummer wouldn't last a minute at a card table," Race remarked dryly. "Couldn't bluff to save his life, not with that kinda face."
Jack chuckled. "Yeah, I guess Davey's good at a lot of things, but foolin' people ain't one of 'em." He gave Race a half-smile. "So...you think we's gonna be able to get through that meetin' tomorrow without killin' each other?"
The gambler rolled his eyes. "Let's go, Jacky," he said, pushing back his chair. "We got a union to run."
A/N: Reconciliation is not always straightforward or simple, and it takes time, but at least there's progress in the right direction for this friendship. Thanks for reading this chapter! Please let me know what you thought of it.
Review responses:
Guest: Thank you so much for your feedback! I'm glad you're still enjoying the story, and thank you for sharing that you've missed Sadie's presence in the last several chapters. You're right, it's been a while since she's made an appearance, and I'm sorry that it's been such a long gap! :( This story reads differently in installments than it does as a whole, so if you were a reader going straight through it, a six chapter gap without Sadie doesn't seem as long (and it's only a span of about 48 hours in the world of the story), but when you're only getting one installment a week...that's a month and a half without her, and that's a long time, so your disappointment is completely valid.
I wrote this story in a way where Sadie's scenes with Davey don't interfere with/contradict what we see in the musical because I wanted the reader to be able to imagine this story taking place within the context of the musical (rather than in an alternative universe where Sadie is altering and not just influencing the events of the narrative), but the down side of that decision is that I can't write Sadie into any of the canon scenes, so there are these long stretches of time where she is absent by default. And because of this, I'll be honest and admit that we won't be seeing as much of her as the strike draws to its conclusion...but I promise promise promise that in the post-strike section of this story there will be significantly more chapters featuring Davey and Sadie (or Savey, to use the portmanteau nycnewsgirl came up with) and their relationship. Sadie is going to have her own character arc in this story alongside her relationship with Davey developing, so please hang in there with me, and I guarantee you'll get more time with her post-strike. She began this story, and she's going to be the one to end it. :) (And she'll actually be in the next installment too, if that's any consolation). Thank you again for sharing your thoughts!
