This random rambling nonsense is brought to you in part by: the recent anniversary of Newsies closing, me missing my own mama at college and cooking up some surrogate Mama Medda as a result, me being lonely and friendless at college and naturally writing dark angsty things, and me being quite busy and taking a devastatingly long break from writing and therefore being somewhat out of practice. But if you wanna read it anyway …

Standard disclaimers apply. I (sort of) own my overwhelming tuition at the school where Corey Cott once studied drama.

When she doesn't see Jack for a few days after that first night, Medda desperately wants to believe it's because he's already better. She's seen children bounce back from horrible things, after all; getting right back up and taking on the world again where most adults would falter and fade away. There's a part of her that knows Jack Kelly is no longer a child, not really — he's been through too much, been beaten down for too long. She wishes that negative part of her would go away. None of them needs the reminder.

There's one alternative she refuses to let herself consider, though: that he was found by the cops and hauled back to the Refuge. Because after what they'd done to him last time — after the shape he'd been in when he dragged himself to her door — well, she's fairly certain he won't be escaping another capture, not on his own two feet anyway. From what she knows about Snyder (which admittedly, isn't as much as she's like — she wants to see him torn apart in every paper in the city) he'll be even more brutal regarding this second escape. There's a horrible part of her deep within herself that whispers she didn't do enough for the boy. She tries to force it away. She fails.

But then she catches a glimpse of him on the street, already lugging Romeo's papers around in addition to his own, sees him at the corner table in the deli holding Specs's glasses just out of reach, and it's as if her far-fetched wish has somehow come true. He's smiling, laughing even. The bruises have all but faded from his skin. Everything is just as it was before.

Except it's not. And eventually, it becomes impossible to ignore. He sees the theater as a kind of safe haven now — in fact, more and more of the boys do — so she has a front-row seat from which to witness the devolution of Jack Kelly.

For example, he is now plagued by relentless nightmares.

She knew he came to the theater late at night sometimes. She'd never actually caught him at it before, but there were always elaborate paintings left as evidence when she returned in the morning. She never confronted him about it, either — she figured it was another way of coping, a way to dissolve real life among the brushstrokes of his newest masterpiece. That wasn't a crime, after all. As long as he was handling it, she was happy.

But by chance she happens to see him there one night, and it is so very clear that he is not handling it. She can tell he's shaking even from the back of the house, and in his struggle to pick up a paintbrush he knocks the entire container to the floor. When she calls his name, he jumps about a foot in the air.

"Medda!" His eyebrows are scrunched in a little scowl that almost masks the exhaustion in his expression. The frustration is plain on his face as she approaches, but she also notes the sheen of sweat and the glassy look in his eyes. His breathing is deep and uneven. She places her hands on her hips and raises her eyebrow at him.

"Do you have a fever?" she murmurs, concerned. "You look sick, honey."

Instead of smiling gently or waving her concerns away like he usually does, Jack turns away abruptly and kicks a few of the brushes into a messy pile. She frowns.

"Nice to see you too. No, I don't have a fever." He says the words through gritted teeth. She notices distantly that he never refutes being ill, though she's sure by now this affliction is not physical.

"Are you sure?" she asks, stretching a hand out to feel his forehead. She gives him plenty of time to pull away, but is somehow disappointed when he does.

"I'm sure," he says, and, shaking her head, she withdraws. The poor kid obviously came here in a hurry. He's only half-dressed, his shirt unbuttoned and untucked and only one side of his suspenders in place.

"Is it dreams?" she demands suddenly, with only minimal effort to keep her voice gentle. It's three in the morning and he looks awful. She's not going to waste time on pleasantries.

His flinch is answer enough. He grabs for a brush from the floor, leaving the rest scattered, and attacks the scenery with a fierce intensity. He goes over the same section three times, each layer added more roughly than the last. For once, his art doesn't look effortless — it's choppy and smeared. But she knows he's not angry with her. Something — or someone — in the nightmares has left him hurting and upset all over again. And she has a pretty good idea who it is.

She wearily runs a hand through her hair, studying him in concern. There's only so much she knows how to do here. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He laughs dully, shaking his head. "I know this is your theater, Medda, but with all due respect … Could you just–"

Leave me alone, he was going to say. Stop talking about it. She pulls him into a tight hug instead. It's a testament to something — either his exhaustion or his need for support — that he only struggles for a minute.

"'M fine, honest," he says finally, his voice barely a whisper. She holds him for a minute longer, and when she finally lets him go he staggers back limply against a stack of crates.

"Sure you are, sweetie," she says, doubt plain in her voice. He grimaces.

"I think it's worse in the lodging house," he says finally, slowly, like he's carefully choosing his words. "It looks different enough during the day. But at night — the dark, the bunk beds — I just can't–"

He trails off, but she knows what he means. She doesn't, however, know what to say to fix this. So she settles herself onto the ground and watches him paint, hoping that the confidence his art seems to lack tonight comes back. It doesn't.

Finally, she can't watch him struggle with the same three inches of canvas anymore. She climbs to her feet and gently pries the brush from his fingers. "You really need to get some rest, even if it's just a nap here," she says, unsure of how he'll take the advice but knowing she has to try. The poor boy's dead on his feet. "You can finish this later — it can't be easy when you're this tired."

"I know," he says, voice cracking.

"They can't hurt you anymore."

He stands there looking at her defeatedly for several minutes, then turns abruptly and heads backstage without a fight. He looks back over his shoulder at her and smiles weakly. "You can go home Medda. I'll be fine."

And go home she does. But not before she hears his restless cries already beginning to echo through the wings. He must have fallen asleep the second he was horizontal.

She wants to wake him, but he so desperately needs the rest. Anyway, she has a feeling that he sent her away for the same reason he came here in the first place — he doesn't want anyone to hear him.

Like so many other times, he's gone in the morning — and this time, he doesn't come back for several more days.

When he returns, she notices another thing: he doesn't like to be touched anymore.

Sure, he'll initiate contact with the boys. He drapes himself across Crutchie's shoulders whenever he gets the chance, manhandles Romeo onto his lap, snatches Race's cigar right from under his nose, ruffles Sniper's hair. If anything, he reaches for them more than ever — maybe it helps to assure him that he's here, with them, instead of locked away in the dark. His boys don't mind. They missed him, too, after all.

But if they grab his shoulder when he's not expecting it, his face turns ghostly white and he jerks away with enough force to jar bones. He's been known to draw blood if grabbed suddenly from behind. He doesn't mean it — when he realizes, he turns whiter still, stammers out an excuse about overactive reflexes on account of the weather or something equally trivial. But for a moment, from the look in his eyes, she knows it's not the newsboys he feels touching him.

She'll never forget the moment at the rally, when he draws back a fist to hit Les before he ever consciously realized who tugged so innocently at his shirt. And she doesn't think he'll let it go anytime soon, either. The look on Les's face mirrors his own — confusion laced with desperate, pained horror. And before he can apologize, before he can scoop Les up and squeeze the memory away in a famous Jack Kelly hug, Davey hustles him away.

Jack stands there, hand outstretched and mouth half open as though he wants to say something, anything, to fix this. He only gets a betrayed glare shot over Davey's shoulder in return.

Medda's not sure Davey really understands what the Refuge is like. Some days, she's not even sure she does.

He doesn't sleep much, either, even on the nights he doesn't come to paint after a nightmare. As the marks of the beatings fade, the signs of sleeplessness set in instead: the chalky pallor of his skin, dark circles under his eyes, the sharp angle of his cheekbones.

But there's one person who, for some reason, can grab him without fear of frightening him, who gives him pleasant enough dreams that slowly, miraculously, the dark circles start to disappear.

Medda notices this, though she's not sure he does himself. But she for one knows they shouldn't take it for granted. So she sends Specs to take Katherine to the roof. And she prays that somebody up in heaven wants this to work out as badly as she does.

It seems like the angels might be listening after all.

Reviews are confidence boosters!

Much love,
KnightNight