Disclaimer: This is a non-commercial work of fanfiction. Anything recognizable from Newsies belongs to Disney and not to me.
Chapter 112: Coming Clean
Jack cursed under his breath as his pencil stub snapped suddenly beneath his fingers. It was the second one he'd ruined in the past hour, and if he didn't get a handle on his frustration soon, he was going to run out of drawing implements.
Rifling through the box where he kept his art supplies, he located his last available pencil and pulled it out, setting it down on the table and deliberately flexing his fingers in an attempt to loosen the tension. His sketchbook lay open in front of him, an unevenly-drawn portrait of Theodore Roosevelt staring up from the page. It was the most recent of at least half a dozen unenthusiastic attempts, and Jack hated each new iteration even more than the last. His deadline to submit the requested political cartoon denouncing the governor was in less than twenty-four hours, and if he didn't start making headway soon, he was going to be in a pickle…
But for whatever reason, inspiration had completely eluded him.
Maybe it was his distaste for the assignment that had made his sketches turn out so lackluster, or maybe he simply wasn't in the right frame of mind to rise to the occasion, but whatever the case, he was no closer to completing the task now than he'd been hours ago, and the stress was beginning to get to him.
Gingerly picking up his pencil, Jack tapped it gently against the table, staring morosely out the window at the afternoon shadows as they lengthened across the streets of the city below. Somewhere down there, his boys were selling their last papes for the day and were getting ready to head back to the lodging house. Katherine was probably wrapping up the last of her remaining tasks at The Sun, and Crutchie would be making his way back to the apartment after taking a walk around the neighborhood to get some fresh air and regain his strength after his temporary convalescence.
They would be moving back to the lodging house soon, for Crutchie was all but well again, and though Jack had relished his time with Katherine, he knew that it was time to go home. Race, he was sure, would be happy to be relieved of his leadership duties, and Jack was eager to see the rest of the newsies and to assure himself that those who had fallen sick were now on the mend. It never felt right to be away from his boys for long, and this past week or so had been no exception, as welcome as the stay at Katherine's had been.
The only newsie whom Jack didn't really want to see was Davey, mostly because Jack had chosen to ignore the latter's advice to follow his conscience and decline the unsavory assignment that Pulitzer had dealt him.
It hadn't been an easy decision. The pros and cons had plagued Jack all week as he'd weighed his options in his head. Sometimes, Davey's principled exhortations had felt right, but other times, Race's pragmatic suggestions had seemed superior. Jack had vacillated between the two approaches so much that he'd even had a dream about them one night, a rather bizarre dream in which his two lieutenants got into a heated dispute defending their respective views and decided to settle the matter with an arm wrestling match, a challenge which Davey easily won (which was also when Jack had woken up, and when he had realized that it had only been a dream).
He'd debated over whether or not to ask Crutchie for his opinion, for the younger newsie could easily break the tie, and if there was anyone whose opinion mattered a good deal to Jack (besides Katherine) it was Crutchie. Jack had been hesitant, however, to involve his friend in the matter, for he didn't want to broach the subject of The Refuge (no matter how indirectly) if he didn't have to, not when Crutchie had weathered a stay there so recently and was still getting over its residual effects. It was probably being overly-cautious, but to Jack (and his still slightly-guilty conscience), it seemed worth the cost. He'd failed to protect Crutchie from The Refuge during the strike; the least he could do was not bring up the place in conversation if he didn't need to.
A few sleepless nights and more than one uncharitable thought towards Pulitzer later, Jack had reluctantly decided to go through with drawing the cartoon. Living with Katherine - even for a short period of time - had provided a tantalizing taste of what the future could look like, and he'd found himself loath to disrupt the comfortable, steady understanding between them that would no doubt be thrown into jeopardy if he "cooked his own goose" (to use Race's phraseology) and refused Pulitzer's order. He knew that Katherine didn't need the money his job brought in, but the respectability that it bestowed was something else altogether, and if he willingly gave that up, she was sure to be disappointed. He'd only had the job for a few months, after all, and if he quit now, it would only confirm Pulitzer's insinuations that he was nothing more than a penniless gutter rat with no chance of amounting to anything, a bum who couldn't hold down a proper job even when it was handed to him on a silver platter.
And so, Jack had resigned himself to the unpleasant task of drawing up the cartoon and of shoving his conscience aside. In his mind, he could practically see the look of disappointment on Davey's face, but he'd pushed that aside, too. Davey wasn't madly in love with a girl whose standing in life was superior to his own; he wasn't the one who had no idea what he was going to do after he stopped being a newsboy; and moreover, he wasn't the one with a rattlesnake of a potential father-in-law hissing in his ear and threatening to strike at the first sign of a false move.
It should have been simple enough after that, but apparently, when Jack's conscience had been dismissed, it had taken his inspiration with it, and he had found himself unable to do more than produce a handful of uninspired, vapid drawings that he knew wouldn't be acceptable to his editor…
Which brought him to where he was now.
Glancing at the clock on Katherine's fireplace mantle, Jack bent over his sketchbook and forced himself to begin drawing again. As tentative sketch marks appeared, an idea came to him, and he cautiously explored it, letting the figures take on clearer form and the highlights and shadows deepen. It wasn't the fluid, easy outpouring of creativity that he was used to, but even a trickle of inspiration was welcome at this point, and soon he had fallen into a slow but steady rhythm as his pencil moved across the page.
He wasn't sure how long he'd been caught up in his work, but after some time, he was drawn out of his focus by the sound of Katherine returning to the apartment.
Jack set down his pencil and looked up, greeting her with a smile.
"Heya, Plums. How was work today?"
"The same as usual." She took off her coat and hung it by the door. "I ran into Crutchie on my way back here. He said you've been having a hard time coming up with a cartoon for tomorrow's deadline, and that he was going to take an extra few laps around the neighborhood to give you more time to work."
Coming over to the table where he was sitting, she gave him a worried look.
"Jack…it's unusual for you to wait until the last minute to start working on a project, and I've never seen you lacking for ideas."
"Yeah, well," Jack laughed mirthlessly, "it happens to the best of us - life of an artist, you know? Sometimes the ideas come easy, and sometimes they don't. Ain't it like that for you writer folks, too?"
"Sometimes," Katherine agreed. "Actually, it's like that more often than we'd care to admit." She took a seat beside him, brushing her hand over his shoulder as she did so, and the tender gesture made Jack simultaneously relax and feel more uneasy than he had before.
"I actually wanted to talk to you about something," Katherine said, the tone in her voice immediately putting Jack on edge once again. "It has to do with my father."
"Yeah?" He sat up a little straighter. "What about him?"
"He knows I wrote the article about The Refuge."
Jack's jaw dropped. "How'd he figure that out?"
"I don't know," Katherine admitted. "But a few days ago, he sent a note to my office with a clipping of the article. He must have recognized my writing style and put two and two together - he knows the subject matter is important to me, and that I'd have access to the newsboys' stories. He has eyes and ears all over this city, so someone could have tipped him off, too."
She grimaced. "I should have known that he'd find out. Now Lena and the editors at The Sun could face repercussions for letting me write in defiance of his blacklisting order."
"He can't prove it was you," Jack asserted, even as he felt an uneasiness settling into his gut. "Not if they all back you up and stick to the story that Ms. McClain wrote it."
"Lena won't give me away," Katherine assured him. "But the editors already stuck their necks out once, mostly because they were eager to run an exclusive story that the other newspapers wouldn't have the scoop on, so if it comes to an all-out confrontation with my father, they'll certainly back down and agree to his demands. It's just business, after all."
"Well…" Jack scratched his head, "...you said he sent'cha that note a few days ago, right? If nothin's happened, maybe he ain't too upset about it. Did he ask you to come talk to him?"
Katherine shook her head. "No. He didn't even sign the note - but I knew it was him. I think it was an intimidation tactic, a reminder that no one can pull the wool over his eyes." Her voice turned grave as she added, "And just because he hasn't struck yet doesn't mean that he won't."
Jack was silent for a moment. Here was yet another complication to an already-sticky situation. He'd noticed that Katherine had seemed more preoccupied the last few days, but he'd been so consumed with his own worries that he hadn't taken the time to ask her about what was bothering her.
Pulitzer was up to something. It wasn't a stretch to assume that the two incidents - his ultimatum to Jack and his cryptic missive to Katherine - were related, and that the old man was trying to use whatever means he could to put pressure on them.
Jack could feel himself beginning to sweat. It was like a replay of that meeting in Pulitzer's office all over again, that terrible encounter where the newspaper owner had caught them all in his trap and had tightened the noose, using the secret of Katherine's undisclosed identity to nearly strangle their fledgling relationship.
This time, however, Jack was the one hiding something.
You need to tell her everything, urged a voice in his head. It's the only way to keep Pulitzer from driving a wedge between you.
Jack was tempted to tell Davey to shut up (for he was half certain that it was the other newsie's voice interjecting itself into the conversation), but even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew that coming clean was probably the best way forward. Katherine's disclosure - that Pulitzer was poised to strike - only made it more imperative that they watch each other's backs, and they couldn't do that if they didn't know exactly what they were facing.
Jack steeled himself. If he was going to tell Katherine about Pulitzer's order (and the likelihood that he would lose his job if he defied it), he might as well tell her everything: that he hated this cartoonist job, that no amount of money or respectability could offset the loss of his freedom, and that the longer he was in her father's employ, the more he'd wished he'd never taken the job in the first place. She would be disappointed - maybe angry, even - but at least she would know the truth.
And then she could decide whether or not she still wanted to stay by his side.
The possibility of abandonment was frightening, pressing on old wounds that had lingered despite the passage of time, and part of Jack still balked at revealing the truth rather than running from it, for avoiding compromising situations felt far more natural to him than facing the fallout head on…
But he knew that if he wanted to have any hope of keeping Katherine, he had to be honest with her. And he had to start right now.
No more running. No more lying.
Jack took a deep breath.
Then he told Katherine about Pulitzer's ultimatum: about the assignment to disparage Roosevelt, the insinuation that his position at The World was on the line if he chose to decline it, the unspoken assumption that refusal was both ingratitude to Pulitzer and irresponsibility when it came to Katherine, and the suffocating feeling that had settled into place ever since the assignment had been laid on his shoulders.
"I know I just started this job," he admitted, dropping his gaze to his lead-smudged fingers, "and it's probably my only shot at makin' something respectable of myself...but I dunno, Plumber. I ain't sure I'm cut out it, all this posturin' and backbitin' and lettin' your father push me around."
He gestured to his open sketchbook. "I never wanted to draw for money - it was just somethin' I did 'cause I loved it. But now havin' to use it for whatever petty agenda your father chooses feels like sellin' out…like I'm betrayin' my conscience just to make a few dollars."
He gave Katherine a guilty look. "I know that ain't what you wanna hear, and that you's probably real disappointed in me for even thinkin' of refusin' your father and givin' up the job...but I dunno if I can keep doin' this, Plums."
He searched her face, and despair began to grow as he saw the hardness in her eyes and the grim set of her mouth. He'd risked it all to tell her what he was feeling, and now it looked like he would be paying dearly for that decision.
Before he could say anything more, Katherine abruptly got up from the table and walked to the window where she stood gazing out at the city, her arms crossed and her posture rigid, saying nothing, but clearly fuming.
The moment of silence that passed between them was one of the longest of Jack's life.
"That's just like him," Katherine muttered finally. "Trying to leverage his position to - " she broke off, and Jack could barely contain his surprise at the revelation that her ire was directed towards Pulitzer and not towards him.
"Jack," Katherine turned from the window, keeping her voice level with apparent effort, "my father has no right to put you in that position. If you don't want to draw up a cartoon denouncing Roosevelt, then don't."
Relief rushed through him, but with it came disbelief.
"But…your father practic'ly said he was gonna sack me if I didn't come up with somethin' by the deadline," Jack protested.
"If he sacks you, then he sacks you," came Katherine's firm reply. "My father is the kind who will take everything he can if you don't stand up to him. He's testing you with this situation to see if he can get you to compromise."
"Sure seems like it," Jack sighed. "Didn't think it was an option to call him on it, though...at least not to his face. He's real intimidatin' when you's in that office of his."
"Jack," Katherine sounded amused, "you're not really scared of my father, are you?"
He gave her an incredulous look. "Scared of him? 'Course I'm scared of him, Plumber!"
"But why?"
Jack made a disbelieving sound.*
"He's your father!" he sputtered. "Your father, the father of the girl I'm fixin' to –"
He broke off, shaking his head in an effort not to get ahead of himself.
"Look, I know you's your own woman, Plums," he continued, giving Katherine a sidelong look, "and that your father ain't got a say over who you's gonna love…but a fella can't help feelin' a little pressure, ya know? 'Specially when he knows his girl is somethin' special. It would be kinda nice if your father approved of us, or at least if he wasn't breathin' down our necks so much 'cause he thinks I'm a gutter rat who's no good for his daughter."
He'd shown even more of his hand than he was intending to, but it was the truth. As much as he'd put up a bold front, and as much as he could care less what Pulitzer thought about him personally, the fact was that he wanted the old man to approve of him for Katherine's sake, and that was where the intimidation came in.
It had hurt Jack's pride a little to admit as much, but as he stood there looking at Katherine, he saw her expression soften, and a moment after that she closed the distance between them, wrapping her arms around him in a comforting embrace
"You don't have to be scared of my father," she declared. "He is powerful, and he does hold sway over much of this city, but he can't tell us how to live our lives. If you comply with his order this time around, he'll only take the opportunity to push you again - I know that from personal experience, and I know that you're doing the right thing by putting your foot down, even if you're scared."
She let go of Jack and stepped back, looking into his eyes as she added firmly, "And no matter what happens with your position at The World, I'm here, right by your side. You're not going to lose me - even if you lose your job."
Elation flooded through Jack at her declaration. "For sure?" he asked, a grin splitting across his face.
"For sure," she answered, giving him a fond kiss on the cheek. "My father may have the upper hand in this situation, but he doesn't hold all the cards, and I think he's underestimated our resiliency."
Returning Jack's smile, she added, "We're going to come out of this on top, I know it. If we found a way to use my father's own printing press to bring him down, we'll find a way to turn this in our favor, too."
A/N: I didn't use the "For sure?" "For sure." exchange between Jack and Katherine earlier in this story, so it got recontextualized here. :)
*And in case you were wondering, the sound Jack makes here is similar to the one he makes in response to Davey when the latter says, "Tell me how quitting does Crutchie any good!" (if you know what I mean ;)).
In our next chapter, we'll be joining Davey for dinner with the Beckers, so bring your appetites and come ready for a generous helping of our other romance subplot. Hope to see you there! If you have a moment, I'd love to hear what you thought of this last chapter before you head out. Your feedback really motivates me to keep going. :)
UPDATE: For those of you who are following along with the supplemental chapters in Interstices, there are two one shots that have been posted which take place roughly around this time in the main narrative. "Shadow and Starlight" explores Crutchie's perspective on recent events (and his reflections on Jack and Katherine's progressing relationship), and "Down at the Docks" is a dip into the perspective of a newsie I don't write very often (it also has some important foreshadowing for events to come in SWW proper). If you're interested, please go check them out! :)
