#come on how else would Denton have enough money to get the newsies out of jail?

[violetwolfraven]

Peace and Joy

@spot-king-of-brooklyn I’m your secret Santa! @newsies-secretsanta

You said your favorite ships are sprace and/or javid and you’re good with pretty much anything so I’m gonna write two separate vaguely holiday-related oneshots in the reincarnation AU. Don’t worry though nothing heavy, just fluff. No COVID because I’ve had enough of that dude and I say so. Enjoy! Happy Holidays!

Tw: referenced past period-typical homophobia.

...

Spot couldn’t remember being this happy... ever. Not in the early 1900s or in the early 2000s.

Well, the closest he could think of was 1902, when he and Race moved on from being newsies and from being leaders of their respective boroughs and rented that old apartment in Brooklyn together. But that had been muted by the need to be careful. They couldn’t be normal young people in love because they always had to hide.

And that was fine at the time because it was expected. It was them doing whatever it took to be together not knowing they’d ever get the chance to do it another way.

Now, in the bright, beautiful, forward-thinking 21st century, they could be safe. They could be in love without fear of the consequences. They could go out Christmas shopping together, and Spot didn’t know if that counted as a date, but it kind of felt like one as he watched his boyfriend bop a little to Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You as he looked around.

He ended up having to look away before he started blushing too hard. Even if he wasn’t the King of Brooklyn this time, he still had a bit of a reputation as a stone cold badass. For all he knew, one or more of their more mischievous friends could be spying on them right now. And besides, this thrift store probably had stuff he could get the few Brooklyn kids who’d come back, too.

He was still deciding if Hotshot would think it was funny if he got him a tank top that said ‘hot stuff’ on it. The others would find it funny, but Spot honestly wasn’t sure if it would make his former second uncomfortable.

“Hey, Spottie, ya think my little brother would like this?”

Spot turned back to see Race holding up a bright purple worm on a string, but a giant version of one. One that was big enough to be a scarf.

“Knowin’ your family,” he admitted, “I think any of ‘em would be happy to get one of those.”

It was true. Honestly, the most sensible Larkin brother was the second-oldest, Crutchie, but Spot could still see him proudly wearing a worm-on-a-string-scarf to school after winter break ended.

Besides him, Medda, Race’s mom, tended to embrace whatever unique fashion choice she could find. And Jack, of course, didn’t let being the oldest of four stop him from being a theatrical little shit who liked drawing attention to himself.

And Romeo was somehow even more eccentric than Race, so he would definitely like that thing.

Race grinned, “I’m gonna get Ro a worm scarf for Christmas.”

“Your family is ridiculous.”

“Thank you. So, what’re ya gettin’ for Denton?”

Oh, shit. Spot had completely forgotten about getting anything for Denton.

He really should get something for him. After all, the teacher hadn’t even known Spot when Jack asked if he could stay with him. All he’d needed to know was that Spot needed a place to hide from his terrible parents and couldn’t stay with the Larkins, mostly because Medda had a strict rule about her boys’ partners sleeping over unless it was absolutely necessary. (it was also because Spot couldn’t think of anyone he’d want to live with less than Jack Kelly, but Denton didn’t really need to know that, did he?)

So far, Spot’s parents hadn’t shown any signs of missing him, and Spot couldn’t decide if that hurt or not, but it barely mattered anymore.

Because Denton didn’t really have any rules beyond ‘do your homework’, ‘take a shower occassionally’, and ‘if you leave the house, let me know where you’re going.’ He helped Spot pick out a Halloween costume, let him spend Thanksgiving with Race, and gave him money for Christmas shopping. He was fine with Spot being gay and having a boyfriend, even if there was an added rule with that of ‘you can’t have the door closed if you’re alone in your room with Race.’

He gave Spot space, but also made it clear that he could come to him for anything he needed help with. He never hit him, never pushed when Spot wanted to be alone, never even raised his voice unless they were in an already-loud room and he needed to get his attention.

In short, in only a few months, he’d become the best adult Spot had ever had in his life. He wasn’t his father, but he was closest thing Spot had ever gotten to a dad.

The Denton they’d known in their last life had been kind of like that, too. He’d helped as best he could whenever one of the newsies got into trouble, always being there for anyone who needed him since Kath first introduced her new reporter friend to her newsie friends. Of course, Spot hadn’t been living with Denton then, so he’d never really thought about it.

“What do you even get a middle-aged man for Christmas?”

Race shrugged, “Power tools?”

The idea of getting Denton power tools was so ridiculous that they both laughed.

“Uh... he’s a writer,” Race pointed out, “So... fancy pens?”

“Fancy pens? We’re at a thrift store, Racer.”

“Well we don’t gotta stay here forever. There’s a Barnes and Noble across the street.”

He wasn’t wrong about that, but Spot wasn’t sure about the whole ‘fancy pen’ thing. It seemed a little generic.

“Yooooo! Spot, check this out for Jack!”

He was holding up a bright blue sketchbook that said ‘Sketchy Bitch’ on the cover.

“Oh yeah, ya definitely have to get that for Cowboy.”

Spotting (no pun intended) something else on the shelf behind him, Spot grinned.

He had the perfect thing to get for the man who’d taken him in.

...

“This is gonna be so fuckin’ awesome.”

Davey snorted, “You’re way too excited ‘bout this, Jackie.”

He loved his boyfriend, but he had a tendency to get overenthusiastic about things.

Well, he loved that about Jack, too. And he loved being able to call him his boyfriend, now. That they didn’t need to hide this time.

He and Sarah had both been a little worried about their parents’ reaction, but it had turned out to be for nothing. They’d each gotten a t-shirt with their respective pride flag for the first night of Hanukkah, and Jack and Kath were always welcome to come over as long as at least one parent was home.

Davey loved Jack just as much in this lifetime as he had in his first, but it was different, not having to hide it. It was good different, but definitely different. Being able to be who they were and be in love and knowing that it was generally frowned upon to be homophobic now, at least where they lived.

And being able to do random shit that was romantic and fun as hell, but not something would even occur to most people to do.

After a sleepy conversation once Crutchie, Race, and Romeo had fallen asleep watching White Christmas (which Davey appreciated for the choreography in the dance numbers) one time about how there weren’t really any Hanukkah movies, Jack had collaborated with Kath to write a lesbian Hanukkah musical romcom to post to YouTube.

Objectively, it wasn’t that great. It was good for a movie made by a bunch of high school juniors, but they couldn’t afford good cameras or microphones or anything. Plus, it was appealing to a very niche audience, so Davey doubted this movie would get more than twenty views.

Still, it meant a lot that Jack was so excited about it, that he was working so hard on props and editing in the lighting and music for it so Kath and Saz could play Jewish lesbians fake-dating at a holiday party who fall in love. It was cute.

“It ain’t gonna win any awards,” Jack admitted, “But I think we’s got somethin’ good here!”

“We do,” Davey agreed.

Was he actually talking about the romcom starring his sister and her girlfriend? Partially. It was a pretty good movie for something produced by teenagers.

But they had something good there that wasn’t on the screen of Jack’s laptop, too.

Jack seemed to share those thoughts, with the way he was smiling.

“What’s with the look, mi amor?”

Davey rolled his eyes as the other boy put his arm around his waist.

“Like you don’t know, love,” he chuckled, “Remember the last time we did somethin’ like this? And by ‘we’ I mean ‘you.’”

“Shh,” Jack shook his head, “Nope. We don’t talk about the latkes incident.”

“You mean when you almost burned down our tiny little kitchen trying to—“

“We don’t talk about it!”

Davey laughed. It was funny, how Jack couldn’t, in any lifetime, cook anything more complicated than like... chili or stew. While he could make something edible, he couldn’t make anything that was really considered good.

“Davey, love, luz de mi vida, it was literally over a hundred years ago, so stop. Bringin’. Up. The. Latkes. Incident!”

He punctuated the sentence by hitting Davey with one of his mom’s throw pillows.

“Okay, Jackie, I get it! Stop hitting me!”

“Fine,” Jack grinned, “I ain’t almost burned down a kitchen in over a century, babe. I thinks that’s a good record to have.”

“Most people never almost burn down a kitchen,” Davey pointed out, “I know I—wait, did you just call me ‘babe’?”

Jack was definitely not meeting his eyes to try to hide how he was blushing, “Uh... is that okay?”

Davey smirked. Jack didn’t get flustered that often, but it was adorable when he did.

And even if he had almost burned down their apartment, it had been cute back then, how he’d tried so hard to try to do something nice for Davey for the holiday season. It was cute now, too.

That was one thing that hadn’t changed through the decades, he guessed.

“It’s definitely okay, babe.”

...

“Spot, is this a... ‘Best Dad In The World’ mug?”

“...if you cry, I’m outta here.”

[norseblooded]

Title: Photographs on the Wall Word Count: 1443 Genre: Drama / Angst Characters: Sarah Jacobs, Jack Kelly, Jacobs family Ships: Rooftop Lovenest (Sarah/Jack) Summary: Faced with the loss of the man she loved, Sarah must find a way to carry on. By: vesta/stillgoldie1899

AO3 Link

He was...gone.

Not to Santa Fe, not out west, not out there in the desert living a dream. He was just gone.

It was so stupid, a fight over territory. Jack wasn't even a newsie anymore, but when his boys called for his help, of course he'd gone to help them. They were still his family. And the midtown boys had been giving them a hard time for a while by then, it had been brewing for a long time. Jack had been mentioning it at dinner for weeks, until it was frustrating to not get a word in edgewise. Frustrating because he'd moved on, he'd gotten a real job at Irving Hall, Medda was paying him real money, enough for an apartment of their own, now that they were married, now that he'd made an honest woman of her. It had been small, and simple, but the happiest day of her life, as she stood with him, spoke the words that would make her his, make him hers. They had done it, were doing it, were making a family together, a life together. It was small, and they didn't have much, but it was theirs.

And then, the boys had called him, begging for help. They'd never really sorted out leadership after he'd left, much like they had never sorted out leadership when he'd been there, he'd been leader in a de facto way, at best. And now they were really leaderless, although Blink tried to pick up the pieces, Mush helping out, but both of them were getting too old as well, she knew they were looking for real work, too.

All of which might make the fight seem a bit unfair, a pack of boys and grown men pitched against Midtown, except they were in the same boat, a group of newsboys whose leaders were simply too old to keep on at this, but afraid, like she knew a lot of Jack's boys were, of failing at being adults. Which really only made the fight more dangerous, a fight between men, not a simple brawl between boys.

After a while, they seemed more like gangs than groups of newsboys, it was true. And it was upsetting to her that Jack was still, at least marginally, part of one. But he was, his loyalties lay there, and off he'd gone, a pair of brass knuckles in his pocket, and she was sure he'd pick up some bit of debris or other to whack people with if he had to. She knew he thought they were prepared for the encounter.

But someone on the other side didn't apparently know it was rude to bring guns to a brawl. She'd never be sure how any of them had even managed to get their hands on one, guns were expensive, and dangerous if you didn't know what to do with them, more likely to blow up in your hands if poorly maintained than anything else. These weren't poorly maintained, however, and Jack wasn't the only one hit.

He was just the only one who'd died.

She'd been fretting, pacing in their cupboard sized kitchen, wondering if she should even put dinner on, was he going to want to eat? When there came a crashing banging on the door. She'd run, jerked it open in time for Blink to collapse under the weight of her husband's limp form, blood soaking through his shirt, soaking through Blink's, as well. There was nothing she could do to stop herself from screaming at the sight of it. But rationally, a moment later, she pulled herself together and helped the blond boy bring her husband inside, and onto the dining room table, her mother's lace table cloth forgotten under him.

She wasn't a doctor, or a nurse, or even marginally versed in medicine, but she knew, as she pealed layers of fabric away from the wound, that it was bad, very bad. And that she wasn't sure she could help him, worse, she wasn't sure a doctor could help him either. But Blink was already running for one, while she tried to clean the blood off, pressing napkins against it, struggling to keep herself calm, to hold the panic at bay.

And she was right. There wasn't anything the doctor could do by the time he got to Jack. Too much blood lost, the bullet had gone through in the wrong places, he was bleeding to death, and there was nothing any of them could do to stop it. The whiskey on the man's breath didn't exactly instill a sense of security with the man's ability, but he'd been the only doctor Blink could get to come, the only one any of them could have afforded, and he was the one, an hour later, who declared Jack Kelly dead.

And that was that. Her life, a life that just hours before had seemed to spread before her like a hopeful dream, came crashing down on her. The struggle against panic settled into a dull numbness that seemed to smother her. Had it not been for her parents, her brothers, she wouldn't have managed to get through it all, the planning, the funeral, Jack's body laid to rest on a day when even the sky seemed to weep for the loss of him, a downpour of rain that lingered for days.

She was so lost. For so long, she just barely made it through the motions of living, her mother's insistence on bringing her food the only reason she kept eating, the need for money for the rent the only thing that got her up in the morning, and to work. She just drifted, lost, through the weeks that followed.

And little surprise that she didn't notice. Not for a very long time. Longer than it should have taken her. She only really noticed when she actually started showing. A swell of belly, hard to the touch, her corset getting uncomfortable, both at the top and at the bottom, and the sickness that had been lingering for weeks suddenly made more sense than sickness brought on by grief.

But her joy about it was tempered. Even as the child growing in her got bigger, as she got more cumbersome, as she should have been planning for the baby, getting ready for it, thinking of names, and knitting blankets and booties, she couldn't. Her child, Jack's child, would never know their father. She didn't even have photographs or pictures to show them. All she would have was tales. Of the man he was, the man she dreamed he might someday have been.

Those worried dogged her, even as she gave birth, a blurred, horrible event, hours of pain and screaming, first hers, then the small wail of first one child, and then another. A boy, and a girl. She thought of naming the boy Jack, but that was too painful. Instead she named them Peter and Rebecca. And as she lay in her bed, feeling bittersweetly heartbroken, smiling tearfully down at the two tiny, sleeping faces in her arms, her mother informed her that there had been a messenger while she was in labor, and that he'd brought her a package.

It took her a few days to even get to it. The twins kept her, and her mother, very busy, and learning how to be a mother herself took her time. But eventually, a week later, when the twins were both down for a nap at the same time, and actually sleeping, she took a moment to study the package. It was thin, and squarish, and heavy, and the note attached simply said, "For the children."

As she peeled the brown paper wrapping it off, her heart stopped a bit. A framed picture, in a wonderful carved wood frame. Her fingers brushed against the detail of it, smooth and lacquered, shiny black. The frame itself must have cost a fortune, but it was the picture that mattered. The only picture anyone had ever taken of her husband, surrounded by his family. Denton's picture, carefully tinted.

There was her husband, smiling at her. Still a boy, a bare hint of the man he might have become. She'd been so proud of him that day. So proud of all of them, standing up for themselves.

Holding the expensive frame, and the precious picture to her chest, she finally really let herself just cry. Not for her own sorrow, but for the children, for his friends, for everyone. For the man the world had lost, the man the world would never know. The man she loved, and would always love. For Jack.

[theragamuffininitiative]

Newsies Live, a review of sorts

So it’s looking like the reply I wrote up last night for @party-with-books on mobile, during a wifi issue, is just not going to ever post and is lost to the netherworld, which is unfortunate because, even if nothing I said was coherent, I wrote it while everything was still fresh and I was still on the most beautiful ecstasy high - the kind you can’t get arrested for. But I’m gonna try to do the play justice here, and using a lot of gifs, XD so we shall see.

Guys. Guys. Guuuuyyysssss. I just can’t. Let me start by saying I have never seen a stage production of Newsies. I’ve been listening to the soundtrack for months, but for a lot of the bits the stage show has added or edited from the original film’s story, I had absolutely zero context for, and the soundtrack is sadly missing like a crap ton of reprises. Therefore, if you care about spoilers, I suggest you stop reading this and wait for the dvd to come out or something, because I don’t feel like holding anything back.

After that note, where the heck do I even begin? The production itself. And by that, I don’t just mean the sets and the cast and the lighting and the camera. Nah, primarily at this point, I mean Spectacle.

I’ve now seen a good number of shows, in various formats, but none of them have been so energetic, alive, and overwhelming. The dancing is superb. I know for the filming they pulled out all the stops, with bigger leaps, more twirls, and a larger number of Newsies on stage, and let me tell you, IT WAS WORTH IT. A stage filled with forty or more singing, tap-dancing, leaping Newsies is a sight to behold.

I mean, there was this:

This is Ryan Steele, as Specs, doing the full-out twirl. Our Specs was played by the amazing Jordan Samuels, but it’s a different cast member entirely who performs this move, and we get a sky high view of the spin, which I’m pretty sure is faster and longer, and the entire theater gasped and applauded.

There were hundreds and hundreds of flips, spins, cartwheels, splits, jumps, tricks, and moves I cannot name. There was tap dancing on tables. I HAVE NEVER SEEN A DANCING TROUPE OF THIS LEVEL OF EXCELLENCE IN SUCH AN EXTRAVAGANT SHOWING EVER.

The set and staging was absolutely dynamite, and it will never cease to astound me how theatrical productions can amass an entire world on a few hundred feet of stage.

Near the end of “Once and For All” the Newsies completely drop out on the vocals and then come roaring back in, and again, my entire theater gasped in awe and delight, and I was crying and covered in goosebumps.

As for Jack...

Jeremy Jordan is the definitive Jack Kelly for me, okay?

If you’re a die hard Christian Bale or Corey Cott fan or anyone else, I’m sorry, but it’s true. There will never be another player who so fully encompasses that role for me. His Jack is so intense and passionate the. entire. time. Every single thing he says and does. The only moments we see him physically relax at all are when he’s with Crutchie (and we’re too busy crying to notice) or sharing the stage with Katherine.

And that brings me to Katherine Plumber. I was not especially anticipating her role, I have to admit. I love my Denton too much, and I was horribly concerned that the romantic angle between her and Jack would be too strong, taking away from the real love story of the play, that of this family whose name is Newsies. But I couldn’t be happier with her character and Kara Lindsay’s performance. She was amazing, and I could feel the rest of the audience connecting with her too. “Watch What Happens” is just one of her shining moments, and I am in love with her, and so happy of the way the writers brought her character in.

It’s also beautiful to weave in the feminine vocals of Katherine with the only other female singing cast member, Medda Larkin (our very own being played by Aisha de Haas) in the middle of all those guys. Don’t get me wrong, because the Newsies chorus is the epitome of what makes the show so great, but having those softer moments and the gals singing brings enough of a change that it completely enlivens every other male vocal in the story.

Okay, enough being calm, rational, and technical for a minute. Let me “be real.”

I Am Not Okay. Not in this or any other universe will I ever be the same.

(The rest of this post is probably going to just be me screaming at random about different things.)

CRUTCHIE. HOLY COW. CRUTCHIE MY BABY. “Letter From the Refuge” absolutely killed me. THE FREAKIN ATTACK ON CRUTCHIE FREAKIN KILLED ME. Just him standing with Jack in the prologue with “Santa Fe.” THERE ARE NO GIFS FOR THIS. Andrew Keenan Bolger is of such high caliber, I can’t even begin to describe how much I love him in this role.

I BASICALLY CRIED SO HARD WHEN THE BULLS CLOSE IN ON THE NEWSIES. AND WHEN JACK SEES THEY HAVE CRUTCHIE. I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO BE SICK.

Oh, yeah, also, little itty bitty detail here i was completely unaware of BROADWAY VERSION JACK KELLY IS A FLIPPIN ARTIST?????!!!! LIKE WHAT????!!!! OH.MY.GOSH. I LOVE THIS ANGLE SO MUCH. KAJLLGDFHLJFGHIERUNZUIZLGRF. HE’S PAINTING SANTA FE GUYS. LSLDGJAGKJHRUIGKNG. During “I Never Planned On You” he draws Katherine and the LED screen that assisted the set showed him sketching her as they talked and sang AND IDK IF THAT HAPPENS USUALLY IN THE STAGE PRODUCTION BUT I AND MY FRIEND AND PROBABLY EVERYONE ELSE WAS LIKE “HOLY CRAP AWWWW OHMYGOSH HOW PRECIOUS HOW PURE I’M NOT CRYING AT ALL NO” SO YEAH THAT IS A THING THAT  HAPPENED.

Little Les is amazing. Like, in the old movie, he wasn’t so much a character as a plot device. He was literally the little boy with the cute face who could sell the papes. In this, Les is the one who strikes up the deal with Jack, and Les is the one who shouts a message for Pulitzer as the guard closes the door in their faces. He is so precocious and adorable and perfect, and so much more a character in his own right, I am so pleased.

DID I MENTION BEN FANKHAUSER AS DAVEY???

HIS SINGING. HIS ACTING. HIS CHARACTER AND INTERACTIONS WITH JACK AND LES. The confrontation between him and Jack later on when Davey is trying to get Jack to rejoin the Strike, and he says “it’s not like anyone died” and Jack whirls on him in rage, because of what happened to Crutchie, who could very well die at that point. I COULDN’T HANDLE. And when Davey reminds him what they’re fighting for, and why they shouldn’t stop. PERFECT BOYS, PERFECT.

AND I ALMOST FORGOT RACETRACK LAJKDHF. Race is my favorite Newsie from the old movie, and I was not disappointed by him here. Benjamin Cook is an adorable angel and my favorite bit of him probably has to be when he is staring wide-eyed at Governor Roosevelt at the end, so happy and in awe. Unfortunately I can’t find any gifs of him either arg.

AND SPOT, HOW COULD I MISS SPOT CONLON Tommy Bracco’s performance left nothing to be desired, he was as spot-on as his character’s name. WE ARE BROOKLYN NEWSIES

Oh.

Oh, and then there was This:

I HATE/LOVE THIS PART OF THE STORY SO MUCH. When Pulitzer forces Jack’s hand, makes him face the Newsies and turn on them, in order to save them and save Crutchie and Davey and Les, but Pulitzer also gives him money to go to Santa Fe and that is all the Newsies ever see. LKDJFLHDHFAJDHFLA MY HEART HURTS

I love Jack Kelly more than Raoul or the Phantom, or Dimitri, or Valjean or Marius or Enjolras, or even arguably Fiyero. I feel every single beat of “Santa Fe” as it blooms and changes from dream to dust to dream.

I adore how the stage version plays up the affect the Newsies strike had on child laborers everywhere, how Jack proclaims it isn’t only Newsies’ rights they’re striking for.

The singing was absolutely flawless. Flawless I tell you.

IDK GUYS I JUST DON’T HAVE ANY COMPLAINTS OK

This is on par with the night I saw Wicked on tour. I will be buying the DVD. I will watch it at least once a year. I guess, if I wasn’t before, I’m a Fansie now.

So, yeah, to close: I don’t think I will ever find another thing on this earth that impacts every bit of my soul as much as musical theater does. That is a part of me I will never outgrow, and never give up. Doesn’t matter if I ever make it to see a show on Broadway, or if I ever get on behind the scenes at a theater company. This is me.

This is an experience I want to relive every day for as many days as I have. I laughed, I cried, I came home to my roomies in such a state of embarrassed, blissful exhilaration you’d think I just came home from my first date with the love of my life - which is a completely accurate comparison.

I cried so much, I laughed so hard. #NewsiesForever and all that. There is so much more I could say, so much I feel like I am completely leaving out. But truthfully, when it comes right down to it, there are no words in the human language to describe this experience and how thrilled I am that I was able to go, that I live in the same universe as this caliber of artistry and storytelling. This phenomenon is beyond anything I can say, so I’ll stop trying. ;)

I hope that answers anyone’s questions to whether or not I enjoyed Newsies Live.

[violetwolfraven]

Her Own Place

This is mostly just me writing some Katherine appreciation but yeah there’s some newsbians in here too. :)

Tw: a hint of internalized homophobia fueled by period-typical homophobia.

...

It was the day they won the strike, and just a few hours after that euphoric rush of victory, Katherine Pulitzer packed her bags and left her father’s house to find her own place, and no amount of pleading from either of her parents would make her stay.

She still had a contract to be a reporter for the World, signed that morning, but in anything other than a professional setting, Katherine would be happy to never either of them again.

Was she worried about that contract getting terminated in an attempt to get her to move back in? A little. But as Darcy so eloquently pointed out when she arrived at her friend’s house, every news desk in the city wanted the reporter who wrote the Newsies Banner writing for them. If Joseph Pulitzer tried to fire her, Katherine Plumber would find other work.

And if all else failed, she, Darcy, and Bill would open their own paper. They knew where to find inside information on what headlines sold the best, after all, and every newsie in the city would be happy to circulate their paper.

And there was the fact that Spot Conlon had offered to send some guys to rough up her father if he was stupid enough to actually fire her. While Katherine would honestly like to see that, she declined.

Just like she declined when Darcy asked her to stay, because while he was a good friend, she needed to find her own place. Not just in a home, but in the world.

She’d only come to Darcy because she needed time to find a women’s boarding house, and as soon as she found one in a part of the Upper Eastside that Jack deemed ‘not shifty,’ she was gone, living on her own for the first time in her life.

She was the youngest woman there, at 18. The other women seemed to find her a bit out of place, this young reporter with no husband and no contact with her father.

And most of them really didn’t like Jack, who always brought along spare papers when he visited and tried to sell to them, ‘just being efficient.’

Jack was probably also most of the reason they didn’t like Katherine, but she didn’t tell him that. Let them stare. It wasn’t as if she and Jack were doing anything improper, courting the way plenty of young people did.

Courting Jack was fun, in a way that got Katherine’s heart pumping and reminded her she was alive. It wasn’t much, given that she was now living on the only kind of reduced reporter salary a woman could make and Jack was making only a few dollars a week, but it was theirs, and it was exciting.

And Katherine didn’t love him.

She didn’t know when she realized it, but once she did, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

The realization was probably helped along by how she and Jack fought. A lot.

They fought about where to go for an evening stroll, whether Kath should help pay for medicine when half the boys were down with the flu, whether Jack should walk her home when it was dark outside...

They weren’t exactly an ideal couple, though they were healthier than some Katherine had seen. She hadn’t missed how one of the women who lived in her boarding house always came back from visits to her family with bruises.

But she and Jack were two bonfires, and they always just goaded each other into burning higher and higher until they were boiling and scorching and scalding everything and Crutchie was yelling at them to take the fight outside.

Maybe a blaze was what was needed to get things done during the strike, but in peacetime, it was nothing but destructive. It was exciting, but it caused pain for everyone involved.

It was about when she realized that that Katherine realized that she didn’t love Jack.

She didn’t know if she ever had. Did she get a rush when she kissed him because she was excited by him or because she was excited by doing something her father and society wouldn’t approve of? Did she hold his hand in public so people would know she was his or just so other boys wouldn’t flirt with her for once? Did she enjoy letting him sleep over just to cuddle or because of the look on her stuffy old landlady’s face in the morning?

The fact that she didn’t know wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to her, staying with someone she didn’t love, but more than that, it wasn’t fair to Jack. Once Kath realized that, she felt guilty for ever leading him on that much, knowing she had only set him up for hurt.

So Katherine broke up with Jack, and she told him why, and she knew that he was only pretending he was fine, but she also knew that it was for the best. For both of them.

And to her pleasant surprise, breaking up with Jack didn’t mean she lost the friends she’d made through him, though they were none too pleased that Kath had hurt him. But Specs listened to her reasoning and told her she did the right thing. Albert still came to her for advice or to share some gossip. Les and Race still invited her to play poker like nothing had happened.

And Jack forgave her, eventually. He picked himself up and healed and found someone else. Davey was much better for for him than Kath was, and he was also a friend of hers, so she was happy that both of them were happy.

Kath was definitely glad that just because she and Jack weren’t together anymore didn’t mean she was alone. She had friends besides just Bill and Darcy, now, in Jack and his boys and girls. Those valiant, fearless kids who didn’t care where she came from, only that she was on their side.

“Run along to your children, then,” Kath’s father sneered when she refused yet another attempt to reconcile, knowing that he would never change.

Well, if those children were Kath’s, she was theirs. Their reporter, their friend, their king of New York, whatever. They were a family, and Kath was now part of that family. The newsies believed in her the way her blood family never had, anyway.

Her father saw it as Katherine choosing them over him. It wasn’t. It was choosing her over him, because he would never stop underestimating her and the newsies had learned not to.

That wasn’t to say that Kath needed them the way he thought she did. She didn’t need anyone. She’d clawed her way to the reporter position she had now on her own will and determination. She’d had to believe in herself, because no one else did. No one was opening any doors for her, so she kicked them down herself.

Kath didn’t need them. She didn’t need anyone. But like Miss Medda told her, they were nice to have, anyway.

Medda was uniquely qualified to understand Kath’s position, having gotten her theater from the money her oil brought, but kept it because of her own talent. Hell, she’d had it more difficult than Kath had, but still was willing to give advice to a young woman who was, to some extent, following in footsteps that looked like hers.

Medda gave good advice, on balancing friendships with ambition. Someone would always say that Kath’s success was all because of the newsies, and none of it was through any skill of her own, but it was her choice whether to hold her head high and keep doing what she knew she was good at or believe it when other people said she was worthless.

It was her choice whether to push away the people she loved so everyone could see she wasn’t leaning on them or to keep them close despite the people who assumed they were the ones holding her up instead of her standing on her own among them.

It was true that Kath and Medda had very different experiences, given that they came from two different industries and two different races. But they got along because they were both successful women who no one had wanted to see succeed, and the only people who did have faith in them happened to be an energetic family of newsies.

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. Not for Kath, at least, and she was lucky for that fact.

Bryan Denton was a world-class reporter, and though he worked for the Sun, he helped Kath out when she needed to get a story published and editors were hesitant to listen to her.

“It’d be a shame to watch good writing go to waste,” he said, and it didn’t matter to him that Kath was a woman or that she worked for a rival paper. And it didn’t matter to him that Jack came from nowhere when Denton asked for drawings to go with his stories or that Davey was a poor Jewish boy when he gave him for advice on possibly becoming a writer, too.

Kath liked Denton. They worked together on stories whenever there was a story that couldn’t be covered by just one person. He became... not a father to her, but an uncle, maybe. Not a mentor, because Kath didn’t need one, but someone to believe in her and help her get her writing where it needed to be when she couldn’t kick down the doors in her way fast enough.

It was Denton who suggested the story that would change Kath’s life for the second time. A piece on the working women of the city, which he didn’t feel qualified to write, himself.

Considering Kath’s experience was very different from most, she had to rely on interviews to write off of. But most of the women at her boarding house didn’t speak to her and the few girl newsies could only provide their own experiences and Kath wanted a range. She did interview the girl newsies, along with Medda and a couple of her showgirls, but she still needed more perspectives.

That was when she remembered that Davey had a sister, didn’t he? And she worked in a factory before joining her brothers selling newspapers.

Kath had seen Davey’s sister a few times, in passing, but she’d never really spent time with her until she sat her down for an interview and...

Sarah Jacobs. Witty, smart, funny Sarah Jacobs. The other newsies called her... honestly, Kath wasn’t sure if the nickname was ‘Saz’ or ‘Sass,’ but it hardly mattered. Like Jack and Davey, her nickname was more optional than the others.

Sarah was the most amazing person Kath had ever met, and by the end of that interview, her face was flushed and her heart was pounding and goddammit these were all the things she had never felt for Jack.

These were all the things that she wasn’t supposed to feel for another woman, and Kath was absolutely screwed.

She wasn’t blind. Besides just Jack sneaking around with Davey, she knew damn well why Race went to Brooklyn so much and why Blink and Mush disappeared from time to time. She could see how Smalls and Sniper blushed when they held hands, the two 13-year-olds badly hiding their little puppy love.

But that was them. That was other people. It was one thing when your friends were queer and it was another when you realized you might be, too.

Trusting no one but her oldest friend to confide in, Darcy, surprisingly, wasn’t very surprised.

“I’ve known since we were kids, Katherine,” he told her, “Or, I suspected. All the other girls our age started looking at boys around 12 or 13 and you didn’t.”

When Kath responded that she didn’t recall seeing Darcy look at girls at that age, either, he blushed and told her a secret, and it almost made Kath want to laugh, how three of the biggest newspaper heads in the city had no idea their kids were queer.

Of course, having someone who knew who she fancied didn’t help Kath much, seeing as how she was almost certain Sarah didn’t even like women. Sarah was, by pretty much everyone’s definition, a good Jewish girl. She didn’t exactly seem the type.

That was, until Mrs. Jacobs found out Kath was planning on spending Hanukkah alone, and insisted she come over for at least a few of the nights, for one of which Jack was there, too, and spent a significant amount of it giggling in a corner with Les, clearly both in on some kind of conspiracy.

For that, Davey was fairly exasperated with him, but when the conspiracy came to light, Sarah didn’t seem to have any issue with it when she accidentally wound up kissing Kath.

That was Les’s fault for pushing her, but Kath wasn’t sure why until she saw the blush on the other woman’s face, and realized that in some not-so-innocent, twisted way, the boy had been trying to help his sister.

That kiss naturally caused a lot of thoughts, and no amount of talking with Darcy could fix it because for the first time in her life Kath could remember, something might actually be going her way.

She’d had to fight for everything she had in her life. For her position as a reporter, for her friends, to even have a life of her own and not be someone’s trophy wife. And now, cut off from her father’s fortune for daring to defy him, she fought for every story she got to put food on the table and pay her own rent.

Kath had clawed her way uphill through walls built by men who didn’t want her to reach the top and kicked down locked doors that wouldn’t let her in and the fact that Sarah might actually be easy didn’t make any sense.

It didn’t seem right, that Kath might get something she wanted without fighting so hard she barely won to get it. She’d fought for everything else around her in this little place she’d carved out for herself in life, so why should this be any different?

It took a talk with Jack, a talk with Davey, and a talk with a very annoyed Les, but after sorting through everything, Kath figured out that yes, she did want this, and yes, she could have it if she just let Sarah know that she wanted to try out being together.

And after only a few months... they weren’t trying anymore. They were everything the fairytales said love was supposed to be.

It was the day Jack moved out of the Lodging House, over a year after the strike, and Kath saw how Davey was moving in with him as everyone who couldn’t know the real reason assumed it was for financial reasons.

That very same day, she decided to ask Sarah to move in with her.

That very same day, only a few hours later, Sarah said yes, and Kath Plumber decided that she had found a place for herself in the world she liked to call home.