A week passed, and everything was better than ever before. The newsies had gone back to selling and circulation was up, higher than it had been before the strike, Katherine was back writing articles for The Sun and had been promoted from the social pages, and the twins were finding their way in this new world of theirs.

Early in the morning that Sunday, the newsies were all waiting in line for their papers. Race, as usual, was leading the group of newsies who attempted to convince Wiesel and the Delanceys to spot them some papes. “Hey Weasel, do ya know what day it is today?” Race started, leaning against the wall of the distribution center.

“Clearly you don’t know my name, so of course you don’t know the date either. It’s Sunday. Now pay up,” Wiesel retorted, gesturing to the cash box.

“Right. It’s Sunday. Don’t ya think the Lord would want ya to be kind to all of us and spot us some papes?” Race smirked and held up a cigar to his lips, certain that this new angle would work.

Wiesel just laughed. “If I were religious, I’d be at church right now instead of workin’ here right now. So either pay for your papes and get lost, or Morris might make you see the Lord sooner rather than later,” he threatened.

Race, knowing he had lost, silently put his money down for his papers and moved through the line. It looked like he was going to need a new tactic for his next try.

While some of the other newsies were making similar attempts with the same lack of success, Jack was deep in thought, with his mind running on twelve different tracks. His main focus, though, was trying to come up with an idea for his newest cartoon. Pulitzer wanted the new submissions by five in the afternoon so they could be put in the next day’s paper. Right now, Jack had absolutely nothing.

Something else was on his mind as well. With all the work he was doing and Katherine’s promotion, he had hardly seen her. He was going to change that tonight. Jack planned on taking Katherine out for some quality time together.

Davey was behind him in line, and when he tapped Jack on the shoulder, it snapped the newsie out of his thoughts. “Whaddya want?” Jack asked as he turned his head to look at his friend.

“I have a question,” the taller boy stated in response. But, he didn’t immediately say more, leaving the two of them briefly in silence.

“Well, what is it?” Jack prompted, rolling his eyes as they moved up in line.

Davey shifted a little bit in his place. “How do you get a girl to like you?”

Jack couldn’t help laughing. He didn’t see that question coming, that was for sure. “Ya really want my advice?” he asked when he could manage to speak.

“Well, if you’re gonna laugh at me like that, maybe not,” Davey replied, which immediately shut Jack up.

“Right, sorry,” Jack apologized as they both moved up in line, though a smirk was still playing on his lips. “Okay, who’s the lucky lady, then?” When Davey started to stutter a bit, he shrugged. “Ya don’t have to tell me, Dave, if ya don’t wanna.”

They moved up again as Davey admitted, “It’s fine. I just, I’ve been spending some time with Rebecca, and-”

He didn’t need to hear any more. Jack cut him off and said, “I get it. So it’s Becky. Lemme think.”

When they reached the front of the line half a minute later, Jack was still thinking. His thoughts were a mixture of answers to Davey’s request, cartoon ideas, and outing plans. But, none of that meant that Wiesel was going to take it easy on him. “What, no wisecracks? Pick up your papes, Kelly, or get outta line.”

“Yeah, yeah, gimme the usual,” Jack replied, waving it off as soon as he snapped out of it. He put his money down on the counter and took his hundred newspapers from Morris at the end of the line.

Davey came through the line right afterwards. While he silently double-checked the number of papers, he strolled over to Jack. “So? How do I do it?” he asked as soon as he finished his count.

Jack leaned against one of the distribution carts as he stuffed his papers into his bag. “Well, normally I just act like myself, flirt a little and they fall pretty fast. But Kath was different, so I don’t know what to tell ya on that. I think I kinda had to work to get her to gimme a chance. So, I dunno what worked for her. But you, I think you should just stick with the ‘be yourself’ thing. Write it down or somethin’. That’s the best Ise got for ya.”

Davey sighed and adjusted the cap on his head. “Be myself. Well, that works for you. Not sure how it would work for me, but I’ll try.”

“Oh, c’mon. Girls like nice guys,” Jack declared as he elbowed his friend slightly, offering the guy a smile. “Let’s get goin’, though. I gotta lotta stuff to do today.” And before Davey could make another comment, he had flagged down Les and started off towards their usual selling spot.

*****

After over a hundred sales and running a couple errands, it was nearing the middle of the afternoon. Jack had over a dollar jingling in his pocket from the good sales day, and he knew he was going to be paid next week for his political cartoons, so he was really making money now. He wasn’t going to risk spending very much money this early, just in case it turned out that something didn’t work out soon. But even though he was still a little wary, he was so relieved to find that everything was finally going well.

Now he just hoped that Katherine was home and available tonight. Jack wasn’t sure he had enough money to spend on a nice dinner, at least not yet, so he was crossing his fingers that he could figure something out. It was a Sunday afternoon, which meant that Elizabeth was reading chapter four of Treasure Island, so he went with Crutchie to ask if the other girl knew where his girlfriend was. The group of kids who were listening to the story had expanded since the week before, as some of the little kids had invited their friends to join them.

When the pair arrived, Jack stayed back, allowing Crutchie to find his place next to Elizabeth. “Hey, Eliza, can you tell me which way is Kath’s apartment? I want to surprise her,” he told her, leaning against a handrail on the steps.

Elizabeth nodded, already looking much better after a week of treating her various injuries. Her broken arm was still in a sling to keep it in place, but the bruises were fading and the cuts were healing. Her visits to the doctor were doing her some good. “Yeah, she lives down that way in the apartment building across from The Sun. Third floor, apartment 304.” With a quick gesture with her good arm, she directed him in the right direction.

After thanking her, Jack quickly headed over to Katherine’s home. But, when he tried to enter the building through the front door, he was immediately shooed by an old lady who didn’t think he belonged there.

This left Jack to get climbing. He snuck to the back of the building and climbed up the fire escape to the third floor. The young man lightly knocked on the window and leaned against the railing of the fire escape, hoping that she would be there.

Thankfully, she was. He watched as Katherine came to the window and pushed aside the curtain, which allowed him to see the look of confusion on her face. Jack just grinned at her, while she shook her head and opened the window. “What are you doing?” she asked, skipping over the polite greeting and getting straight to the point.

“Can’t I come and see you?” Jack asked in response as he walked over to the window to be closer to her.

Katherine crossed her arms over her chest, tilting her head to the side as she looked at him. “Can’t you come up the stairs and use the front door?”

“You’ve used the fire escape before. The twins told me,” Jack declared as a smirk formed on his lips. “Besides, there was an old lady down in the lobby who didn’t seem to like me too much, so I didn’t wanna deal with that.” That was when he motioned to the open window. “So, can I come in, or…?”

Katherine sighed, but stepped aside and uttered, “Yeah, okay.” As her boyfriend climbed through the window into her small living room, she questioned him further. “So, as much as I like spending time with you, what are you doing here, Jack?”

“Didn’t ya hear me before? I just wanted to come and see ya,” he started as he shut the window behind him. “Well, that, and I was gonna ask what you was doin’ tonight.”

The young woman laughed softly, shaking her head a little bit. “Well, I have to finish up this article, but as soon as that’s done, I’m not doing anything,” she replied. “What do you have in mind?”

“I thought it was time I took you out,” Jack stated as he stepped a little closer to his girlfriend. “I was thinkin’ we could go for a walk, maybe see a show at Medda’s, somethin’ like that. Unless ya don’t want to.”

She smiled and nodded. “If you give me fifteen minutes to finish this article, I’d love to.”

It ended up taking more like thirty, though. When she knew what she wanted to say, her fingers flew across the keys. But when she wasn’t sure, she doubted herself quite a bit and stalled, just like she did when she was writing the article about the strike. She certainly preferred it when she knew exactly what to say, especially in the case of articles like these. Now that she had been promoted, she was having to deal with a lot of important subject matter, and maybe this article could be another defining point of her career.

When she was finally done with it, she sighed in relief and removed the paper from the typewriter. “Alright, Jack, I’m ready to go,” she said as she prepared her article. “Do you think we could pass by The Sun so I can drop it off really quickly before we go?”

Jack nodded and stood up. “Yeah, sure,” he said, and the two of them exited the apartment together by the front door rather than the window.

The old lady in the lobby certainly didn’t like seeing the two of them together. The look of disgust on the woman’s face was evident from the other side of the lobby, but the pair didn’t care. Jack offered his arm to Katherine, partially to spite the woman, and the two of them strolled out of the building. If Pulitzer’s dislike of the relationship wasn’t going to faze them, some random old woman’s wasn’t going to either.

*****

Before going to Irving Hall, the two of them were strolling along the Hudson, still arm in arm. “Sorry about my neighbors,” Katherine apologized, kicking a small stone on the path as they walked together.

Jack laughed. “You’re apologizin’ now?” he asked in response while he nudged her. When she shot him a glare, he relented. “Okay, it’s okay. I get what their problem is. I’m not the kind of guy they’d want comin’ to visit a girl in their buildin’.”

Katherine shrugged. “It’s not any of their concern, though. It’s none of their business who calls on me,” she commented as she offered him a smile.

Under his breath, Jack mumbled, “Yeah, well, those other guys would be able to give you a better outing than this cheap one.”

“That’s not true.” Katherine stated, trying to drop the conversation the best she could.

Jack didn’t hear it, though. “I mean, some other guy could buy you dinner at a nice place, while I can’t pay for much more than a seltzer or two for us, because I gotta save my money to make sure I eat tomorrow and can pay for my usual tomorrow. But I’m workin’ on it, and then I’ll take you somewhere nice like you deserve.”

Katherine stopped walking and turned to look at him, unhooking her arm from his in the process. “Jack Kelly, stop that,” she ordered, immediately taking control of the situation with the single look she gave him. When she was certain he wasn’t going to try and fight back, she continued, “I don’t care about any of that. I don’t care if we eat at the best restaurant in all of New York City or skip rocks over there on the banks. I just want to be with you, no matter what we’re doing. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

Jack opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He sighed and shrugged, not meeting her gaze.

His silence gave Katherine her answer. But, she didn’t accept it. “Hey, up in your penthouse, did it matter who each of us was? No. We were just Jack and Katherine, two people who care a lot about each other,” she explained, taking his hand in hers. “We’re still Jack and Katherine. It’s been a week, Jack. My feelings for you haven’t changed, and they won’t. Please, just accept that. We can move on and be happy once we both understand it, okay?”

At first, Jack didn’t say anything. His eyes were looking anywhere but at her, analyzing the situation in his head. Davey’s question from earlier that day was running through his head. How do you get a girl to like you? It was a good question. How did he even get Katherine to like him in the first place? What had changed?

He didn’t really know, but there she was. A girl who could have had the whole world if she wanted it, both literally and figuratively, but she was independent enough to want to make her own path. A girl who could have stayed where she was comfortable and taken care of, but chose to make the hard decisions in order to cement the possibility of achieving her own dream. A girl who could have had her pick of any eligible man in New York, but was here with him. A girl who may have despised him when they first met, but now saw him in a new light. That was something that didn’t happen every day.

So, as his eyes locked with hers again, he finally spoke up. “For sure?” he asked, offering one last chance for her to leave this behind.

But she didn’t take it. Katherine Pulitzer knew what she wanted, and that was Jack Kelly. With a bright smile and a kiss on the cheek, she replied, “For sure.”

Jack couldn’t help but smile in return. “Well, then,” he started, offering his arm to her again, “let’s go to Medda’s. She said tonight was gonna have a great show, and I don’t think you’re gonna wanna miss it.”

Katherine smiled and linked her arm with his. “Sounds perfect.” And with that, the two walked back into town, the nerves and weights were finally off their shoulders.

If only some new weights weren’t going to replace them.

*****

A/N

Hey everyone! Here's the first of (hopefully) many more updates this weekend. My goal is to update this story one more time if I have the time to write the next chapter (which will be very important to the plot) and post Chapter 2 of my new Newsies story. If you haven't checked it out yet, it's called Those You've Known, and is inspired by the song of the same name from a different Broadway show, Spring Awakening. I think you'll like it if you give it a try. I'm honestly so pumped to write more of that one, and this one of course. I won't leave you hanging on this, I swear.

Anyway, thanks for reading! Please don't forget to vote and comment! I love feedback! See you next update!