The Horace Greeley Statue -- The Bench

[Administrator]

Great view of the courtyard

[Jack Kelly]

It was starting to rain. Jack didn't notice. He sat forward on the bench, elbows on his knees, turning over a book of matches through his fingers. He had found them in the gutter, nearly full and very usable. Jack didn't need them at the moment--no cigarettes--but he thought someone might, so he decided to hang on to them. Lately he had been making an effort to think of other people more. It had been working out. Mostly.

He glanced across the courtyard at the gates of the distribution center. The crowd of newsies surrounding it was less dense than usual--no wonder, with the clouds looking like they were made of iron, heavy and dark gray. Rain could often be the bane of a newsie's existence: you had to worry about soggy papers or runny ink, and worst of all was the people hurrying through the streets with their heads down, unwilling to stop for anyone or anything.

Some things needed to be done, though. Jack palmed the matchbook, ran a hand through his hair, and started making his way toward the gates.

[David Jacobs]

Drops started falling from the sky just as David crossed the courtyard around the Horace Greeley Statue and he inwardly cursed the luck of it. It would make for a long day and cleaning up afterwards would be a whole other chore to consider, especially if Les decided today was a day he wanted to sell. His steps slowed almost of their own volition as he moved towards the gate, as though delaying the inevitable that David was admittedly trying to avoid. It wasn't until he was nearly to the gate that he saw the frame of his best friend walking in the same unhurried pace towards the distribution center and he couldn't help but smile. Like minds, at least on most things.

"Hey Jack," David called out as he drew closer, falling into step beside his friend and doing his best to ignore the raindrops as they fell from the sky. They hadn't seen much of each other lately, things had been busy for them both and David was the first to admit that he hadn't been around the lodging house as much these days the way that he used to be. A certain dark haired girl had been taking up his time - and he couldn't even say that he minded, not in the least - though it was probably time he divulged that little bit of his life. "How's things?" He asked, shaking some of the water from his curls as he looked over at Jack expectantly.

[Jack Kelly]

"Hey Jack. How's things?"

Jack turned, and his eyebrows raised in surprise. "Dave!" he exclaimed. "Heya, Dave, good to see you..." He hadn't seen Dave around all that often, and he also didn't really expect him to be out in this weather. "What a shit day for selling..." Jack remarked bitterly. He watched as a few young newsies tucked their newspapers under their ragged coats and ducked their heads, running for a sheltered spot to hawk the papes.

The rain was getting heavier as Jack walked alongside Dave. "How've you been? I mean...haven't seen you around Duane Street. Everything all right?"

[David Jacobs]

David smiled as Jack turned to greet him and reached up to clap him on the back in a friendly gesture - it seemed they hadn't gotten many moments like this lately. Things had gotten so scattered for awhile and things had happened that had kept them both away and from crossing paths, part of growing up David supposed - he really wasn't sure that he liked it. "Shit day indeed," David agreed, lifting his chin in the direction of the distribution center. He should really go pick up some papes and hit the streets, but he really wasn't in the mood for selling at the moment and with the rain falling from above, he figured certain things could wait.

"Yeah...yeah, everything's good," David said automatically in response to Jack's question and instantly knew he was only telling a half truth. Well, it wasn't that things weren't good, they were actually great but there were reasons for that he had yet to share and now that he was getting to it, David realized he didn't know exactly how. "I've been...uh...keepin' busy," He said, kicking at a rock on the ground and watching as it bounced and rolled across the wet cement. "Been spending time with a girl...." He finally said, deciding to let that thought marinate for a bit before he revealed who, that was a revelation enough as it was, throwing Fighter's name in at the same moment might be a bit much for his friend to handle.

[Jack Kelly]

"Yeah...yeah, everything's good."

It wasn't the most genuine answer Jack had ever heard from David. He wouldn't have cared too much about the genuineness of someone's reply to a question like how is everything, because he'd found that the answer a man gave was the answer he wanted to give, all truth aside. And it was rare that Jack found himself in a position to pry, even as a leader. However, that kind of attitude didn't cut it when it came to his best friend. He noticed when David said something in that tone, the one that implied he had something more to say. More importantly, it was significant when Dave did it. It was far more likely that Jack would try to figure out what he really meant, and what the real answer to how is everything was.

"I've been...uh...keepin' busy. Been spending time with a girl...."

Jack smirked and raised his eyebrows in surprise. "No kidding!" he said. He clapped Dave on the shoulder. Although David had proven himself otherwise time and time again, there was always something timid about his character that Jack always recognized. It was that softspoken quality (some, though certainly not Jack, might describe it as "cute" or "innocent") that made Jack surprised to hear that Dave had been out and around with a girl. "Ain't that somethin'. Who's the girl?"

[David Jacobs]

"Yeah...ain't it something," David echoed, quirking a small smile at his friend. All things considered, David was really one of the quietest of his friends, the need for the 'walking mouth' having somewhat faded and David had been able to settled back into the role he preferred. Practical, logical and thinker David Jacobs, whose life wasn't subjected to the daily gossip that the other's was. David figured this was mostly due to the fact that he lived outside of the lodging house and he was okay with that. Still it was likely that most of his friends would be surprised to find that he was making time with a girl -- and what specific one exactly.

For there was a reason David had taken so long in getting around to telling Jack about Fight, because she wasn't a normal girl and he wasn't a normal guy - at least not as far as the politics on the street went. And that made things...complicated. But to hell with complicated. Sucking in a breath, David shoved his hands in his pockets and shook his head free of raindrops once again before answering, glancing over at Jack as he did. "Fighter Mallory."

[Jack Kelly]

"What?!" Had he heard him wrong? No, he hadn't. But he couldn't believe it. Jack didn't really mean it insultingly, to either Dave or Fighter, but there was something about the two of them together that just didn't fit, in his mind. Based on what he knew about David and what he knew about Fighter, it couldn't be true. "You're kiddin' me!" he exclaimed. "Fighter Mallory. Brooklyn hardass, Fighter Mallory? You been seeing her?"

Disbelief was replaced with a kind of discomfort that Jack couldn't match with any emotion he could name. "The hell did this start?" he demanded. "And how the hell did you even..." He wanted to ask how a guy like Dave got a girl like Fighter, but he knew how that would sound, and it wasn't what he meant. They were probably one of the oddest pairs Jack had ever heard of. What had happened that made them end up seeing each other?

Jack shook his head. "Ah...a'right, that came out wrong. It's not that I'm tryin' to make you feel bad. I'm not." Jack took a moment to think. "Surprised me, is all." Another thought. He didn't always think before he spoke. Usually Dave did the thinking and Jack did the speaking, but now he was on his own, and he figured he should start being careful about what he said...given Dave wasn't already offended. "You and Fighter." Jack wiped his dripping hair from his eyes. "I never would've thought..."

[David Jacobs]

"Surprised us too..." David muttered, battling back the smile that was threatening at the sight of his friend struggling to reconcile the information that David had just passed along to him about himself. Because the truth was he knew how it looked, he knew what others saw when they looked at him - Manhattan's right hand and walking mouth, thinker, logical, practical. And then there was Fighter, one of Spot's best girls and the antithesis of everything that David was; or that's what people thought anyhow. David waved off Jack's apology, not at all put off by his friend's sputtering musings, he knew Jack meant no harm and it was sort of a lot of information to try and process.

"Remember back when we stormed the warehouse," David said, knowing full well that none of them were likely to forget the incident but it was what had brought him and Fighter together in the first place. "I told you I spent most of that night helping someone rescue a kid from the warehouse? Fighter was that someone, her friend Gwennie was the kid," David explained, knowing that he was perhaps meandering a little but he hadn't quite gotten past the saying of Fighter's name to Jack in his head.

"I guess that whole experience sort of...linked us," He continued, trying to explain the mystifying connection that had existed between he and Fighter after the warehouse. "We bumped into each other a few times afterwards and then...." David trailed off with a shrug, not certain how to explain what had evolved because he didn't really understand it himself. Instead he let a smile quirk his mouth as he looked over at Jack and it grew into a grin, "And don't worry, I have no idea what she sees in a schmuck like me either."

[Jack Kelly]

Jack could remember the night at the warehouse like it was yesterday: like a true army, all the newsies in New York walked in a grim procession toward the building, hidden from the public eye, to rescue the kidnapped children being forced to work inside. It was one of the proudest moments he could remember, as well as the most tragic. "Yeah," he said in reply. "You were the best you ever been that night, Dave. Think we all were..." Once David had explained that he and Fighter had first--connected--at the warehouse, things started to make sense. How did a timid, practical Manhattan boy and a rough-and-tumble, hard-as-nails Brooklyn girl become lovers? Well, the same way a timid, practical Manhattan boy and a boisterous, easygoing newsboy become best friends. Nothing in the world unites people like fighting together for the same thing, Jack thought. It changes you, and the greater the danger, the greater the lengths a good man will go to keep a stranger alive.

Jack knew more than a few good men. And good women.

Jack chuckled and punched Dave's arm playfully. "Is that where you've been sneakin' around to, over the bridge? I thought for sure you were home, since you weren't around Duane Street anymore." A thought struck him, and he grinned impishly. "Oh, boy. You tell Sarah yet? Wait'll I tell Sarah..." Jack hadn't seen Sarah in a long time, and they rarely spoke anymore, but he couldn't pass up that wide open opportunity to get David a little flustered. As Dave's best friend, it was practically his job.

[David Jacobs]

"I've no doubt of it," David said quietly to Jack's assessment to their quality on the night in question. That murky, dark night that would be forever etched into David's memory and whose relationship with was a complicated one - for all the dark and dreariness that had dredged into all their lives it had offered David a shining beacon he didn't dare be sorry for. Fighter. It was perhaps the one thing that made David unwilling to erase that night from his memory entirely.

He reared back in playful response when Jack punched at his arm, unable to resist a follow up jab that glanced off Jack's shoulder and David grinned over at him. "Over the bridge on occasion, mostly she comes here though. You know Conlon...." David drifted and lifted his shoulder in a half shrug, it was hard to say what Spot's reaction would be to their romance and though Hawk had promised to let Fighter pass along the news it was still out there on the streets of Brooklyn. "Sometimes we meet over in the Bronx, easier to get around without being seen, makes her relax a little," David explained, his eyes instinctively widening at Jack's next comment.

"Yeah, how about we leave my family out of this," He said, trying to laugh of Jack's veiled threat but feeling a bit of panic even if he knew Jack was just kidding. His family didn't even know he was regularly seeing a girl - though he suspected that Les had some idea - let alone that occasionally he sneaked her into his bed late nights when it was far to late for Fighter to slip back to Manhattan. It was a door he wasn't sure he was ready to open just yet.

[Jack Kelly]

Jack listened, and he could understand David and Fighter preferring Manhattan to Brooklyn. Conlon liked to know what was going on on his own turf, even if it meant getting into other people's business. Jack didn't appreciate that too much; he knew he had his own eyes and ears, just like Spot did, but if his boys knew what was good for them, they gave him the news and not gossip. Once David mentioned him and Fighter hiding out in the Bronx, though, Jack had to ask, "Dave...you know, I kinda understand here, but... Lemme ask. Why sneak around? You two going together, I'd figure Fighter to be thinking if somebody don't like it, they can shove it. How come you're..." He waved his hands vaguely.

After seeing Dave's reaction at the mention of his family, Jack's smile evaporated. "Hey," he said. "I'm sorry, Dave. You know I wasn't really gonna say anything, right?" He clapped David on the shoulder. "I barely even talk to Sarah anymore." He meant this to reassure David that he wouldn't be talking to his sister anytime soon, but suddenly worried that it had just sounded insulting. "How is she," he followed up quickly, sounding exactly as interested as he felt...not very.

[David Jacobs]

David considered the question for a moment; in the beginning the reasons had been simple, the romance had been so unexpected and the circumstances surrounding it with the warehouse rescue seemed to create some extra sensitivity around it as well. "It seemed the right thing to do in the beginning," David explained, remembering how uncertain they had been, unsure if what was happening between them was simply an aftereffect of the moments they had shared during the rescue or something more...real and permanent. "We were just figuring things out and we weren't sure about Conlon and how you all would react...things have a way of getting around, you know how it is..." David drifted realizing just how foolish that might all sound to Jack now, even if David knew it had been important to him and Fighter at the time. "Then I think it sort of became habit," David paused and cleared his throat as he looked over at Jack. "But she's been spending more time here lately and I think we are just tired of hiding it anymore."

"Yeah I know," David said with a reassuring smile in Jack's direction, knowing that his friend wouldn't really spill this sort of secret - though the actual reassurance of that fact was somewhat settling. David arched an eyebrow at Jack at his somewhat careless attempt at asking after Sarah and merely shook his head. The truth was he didn't know exactly what had gone down between his sister and his best friend, how it had ended or even really why. What mattered is they both seemed happier because of the decision and David wasn't going to pry for information now after all this time. "She'd doing fine," David said, lifting his shoulder in a half shrug before deciding the conversation could do with a change of subject. "Where you been keepin' time lately? Haven't been around the lodging house the last few times I stopped in."