AN: As you guys have probably noticed, I've been having more Bandstand inspiration than Newsies inspiration lately, but I'm working on it, and I'm pretty sure I will have no lack of inspiration once Newsies Live is back in theaters in a few weeks. For now, enjoy very minimal angst and a tiny bit of fluff.

Jack was gone, once again, and this time he wasn't as easy to find. After the boys had left The World (with some unhelpful shoving, courtesy of the police), they'd gone to find Katherine, and spent a good portion of the night searching for him. They went to Medda's, Newsies Square, they even checked the train station, and Jack was nowhere to be found.

After a few hours, they all knew that wherever he was, he didn't go there by choice. And they had a pretty good idea of where he could be.

"The Refuge."

Katherine stared at Race, all the pieces falling into place. She didn't want to believe that that was where he was, but it made perfect sense.

"How did he get caught?"

"The Delancey's." Race cursed under his breath. "I should've stayed with him."

Katherine shook her head. "That only would have gotten you locked up too, and you can do more good from out here than in there." Race nodded, though he clearly wasn't at all reassured by that. "I'm going to go back to The Refuge and just make sure that he's there. We shouldn't jump to any conclusions."

Race looked at her as though she'd gone insane. "That ain't safe! I'll go, you stay here with the boys."

She shot him a look. "Again, it's safer for me to go than it is for any of you. They can't lock me up, but they'd put you there in a heartbeat. I won't be long, and I'll come back to the Lodging House afterwards and let you know what's going on. Alright?"

He gaped at her, not used to being spoken to in such a matter of fact manner from anyone but Jack. "Yeah, okay, fine. But be careful, Jack'll kill me if anything happens to you."

"I'll be fine. See you in a bit." She gave him a small wave and headed down the street, towards the building that all of the boys rightfully feared.

oOo

She made it up to the fire escape (though she felt somewhat self conscious climbing the ladder in her skirt without Jack climbing behind her to block the view of any passersby), and she was startled to find exactly the person she was looking for sitting at the window.

Jack jumped slightly, clearly not expecting to see anyone, but it didn't take long for him to recover.

He tried to keep his voice down for the sake of the other boys in the room, who were all mostly asleep at that point. "Katherine? What the hell are you doing here?"

"What the hell are you doing here?" He opened his mouth to speak, but she stopped him. "How did you get caught? They haven't managed to bring you back here for years now."

"It ain't my fault." He retorted, ever his stubborn self.

Rather than questioning that statement, Katherine decided to move on. "Are you okay?"

He shrugged. "Not really. But I'm a whole lot better than Crutchie, Davey, or Les. The Spider's been beating on them pretty bad."

"Davey and Les have only been there a few days, Snyder's already gotten to them?"

"He doesn't waste time."

The more Katherine learned about that man, the more sick she felt. "And Crutchie?"

"He's pretending he's fine, but he ain't."

 She could see how concerned he was, so she grabbed one of his hands through the bars and squeezed it tightly. "Just hold on, me and the boys are going to find a way to get you out of here as soon as we can."

He nodded. "You gotta follow through with the strike though. Davey was right earlier, we can't just stop fighting 'cause we're locked up in here. Win the strike, then we'll work on an escape plan. I'll take as many beatings as I can, try to keep the brunt of it off of the others."

That fact may have reassured Jack himself, but it did nothing to calm down Katherine. "Jack - "

He cut her off, bring her hand that was in his up to his lips and kissing it gently. "It's okay. We'll be fine." He grinned at her. "Now go show that old man of yours who the superior Pulitzer is, huh?"

Katherine couldn't help but smile at that, though she was far from reassured. "Okay. I'll see you soon."

"For sure."

"For sure." She confirmed, giving his hand one last squeeze before turning and heading back down the ladder.

Jack watched her from the window until he couldn't see anything but the darkness of the New York City streets.