Thank you to:

Tree – so, enjoying reading about how precious you were as a child? Laughs doesn't last long!

Skater – thanks Skater! You're character's coming up soon I think.

Kit Blink – I wish Kane didn't die too (it was hard killing her off (waves hi Kane!)), but I just had to follow the plot. Oh! Your character's in this chapter!

Fantasy: I'm glad you enjoyed it! I think Finding Nemo and Newsies put together is a great combination too!

Sapphy – It is like Bambi's mom… scary!! Your character's in this chapter! Enjoy! Italy – thankies! I think your character will be in a couple more chapters. Jazz – thanks Jazzy! I hope it'll be an awesome story too!

Snorts – smiles glad you liked it!

Kane – I'm sorry you had to die too, but I'm glad you still liked it!

Monica – Thanks for the compliment!

Singah – Yeah, I guess I did a pretty good job with the death part. It was hard, since I don't like killing off characters, especially when they're not mine. I hope it'll be good!

Trolley – LOL, I'm glad you like Finding Nemo and this fic so much! Hope you enjoy this chapter

8 years later

Jack Kelly slept soundly and peacefully in his bed. His dreams, for once, were on good things instead of the bad. He hadn't gotten very much sleep the night before, and if he had the choice he would've slept until 10:00 AM in the morning.

But I guess it was just his unfortunate luck, because his 8-year-old daughter came running into his room at 4:00 AM. She was loudly chanting, "First day of school!" and what more, she began banging two pots that she had found in the kitchen cupboard together. After several minutes of banging and chanting, she crawled up onto her father's bed and began jumping up and down on it.

"First day of school! First day of school! Wake up daddy!" she sang in a sing song voice, still jumping on the bed and clanging the pots.

Jack just buried his head deeper between the two pillows he had used to sandwich his head between and tried to ignore his overly excited daughter.

"Come on Dad! Wake up!" she yelled, finally jumping onto him.

Jack let out a loud 'OOF' then removed the top pillow that had been hiding his displeased face. She didn't seem to mind that though, she still shook him hard, yelling her chant, "First day of school!"

"Tree… do you know what time it is?" Jack asked her, glancing at the clock up on the wall.

"No…" said Tree, who had not learned to tell time yet.

Jack let out a tired sigh. "It's 4:10 in the morning, sweetie. You should go back to sleep," he said.

"But isn't school soon?" she asked in an innocent voice as Jack picked her up and carried her back to her bed.

"Not for 4 hours honey," he said, gently lying her in her bed. "Now you should get some more sleep."

Jack watched as Tree yawned and closed her eyes. Within seconds, his little daughter was fast asleep.

Her golden brown hair with a hint of red lay spread across her pillow as she slept, and her bangs hung around her face. Her brown eyes that had some green flecks in them were not seeable at the time, but Jack knew those eyes by heart. Across her right check was the scar she had gotten the night of…

Jack didn't want to think about he. He never had learned to trust the world or anybody else again… well… except for Tree of course. How could he not?

Jack leaned down and kissed his daughter's forehead. He quietly made his way back to his own room.

Jack lay down in his bed, knowing that he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep for the rest of what was left of the night.

Five minutes later he was snoring and off in dreamland once again.

Then the same routine was repeated at 5:00 AM, 6:00 AM, and at 7:00 AM as if Tree had her own personal alarm clock inside of her to always wake her up at the right time. Finally, Jack gave up and got up out of his bed.

"YAY!" yelled Tree, still banging her pots together happily as she followed her sleepy father into the kitchen. She was so busy banging her pots that she didn't seem to notice the small chair in front of her.

She tripped over the chair and did a midair somersault onto the ground, landing on her butt.

"Tree!" said Jack, getting a full wake up call.

Tree, not seeming the least to be hurt, still chanted her really rather annoying chant.

"Are you ok?" Jack asked in a worried voice, swooping down to pick up his daughter.

She gave him a childish smile and nodded her head.

"Are you sure? Are you woozy?"

Tree sighed. "No."

"Did you break anything?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes daddy."

"Did you hear anything snap?"

"No."

"How many fingers am I holding up?" he said, holding up three fingers on his right hand, the other hand still holding his daughter in his other arm.

"Dad!" she said in a whinny voice.

"Answer the question!"

She sighed again, this time a dull sigh. "Three."

"See! Something's wrong with you! I'm actually holding up one, two, three… oh," he said, glancing at his hand. "Ok, you're good."

Tree hopped down from her father's grasp.

"Told ya so!" she said, starting up a new chant. "Told ya so! Told ya so! Told ya so!"

Jack just smiled at her. "So you're sure you want to go to school this year? I'll understand if you wanna wait 1 or 2 or 6 years! In fact, I'd understand if you didn't want to go at all! Look at me! I didn't go to school, and I'm perfectly fine."

"Daddy! I'll be fine! I wanna school," said Tree, grabbing a piece of bread out of the cupboard and scratched some butter across it.

Once Tree had finished up her small breakfast she ran into her room to get dressed. She appeared at her door a couple minutes later in her clean white blouse, gray vest, brown shaggy pants that were held up by suspenders, and her blue newsies cap.

"Honey! I told you to put on the dress I just got for you," Jack said.

"But I hate dresses! They're too… girly!" she complained.

"Honey, news flash. You ARE a girl!"

"Yeah I know that, but I'd much rather be dressed up as a newsie! I'm going to be one when I grow up!" she said proudly.

Jack chuckled. "Actually, I'm hoping that you'll get through school, go to college, get a decent job, and get married to a nice guy."

His daughter gave him a confused look.

"Aw, you're too young to be talking about your future. You'll find out what you want to do with your life eventually."

Tree smiled a very excited smile.

Jack walked towards the door and opened it slowly. He peeked his head outside to make sure there were no suspicious looking people around. Tree thought her father looked hilarious when he did that (which he always did!).

"Ok Tree, now remember, what's the first rule about the outside world?" he asked, looking down at his daughter.

"It's not safe," she said in a lame voice. How many times did she have to answer this question?

"That's right. So you always have to be very careful. And you can't trust anyone! Except me, of course," he said.

Tree nodded. Whenever she left the house with her father (which wasn't often) he always gave her this lecture. Didn't he think she was old enough to know all of this by now? Guess he didn't know she had learned it by heart either.

Jack took his daughter by the hand and began to lead her through the streets of Manhattan. Tree always loved it when they got to leave the house. She loved seeing all the different people and looking at all the different buildings.

"Don't stray, Tree. You don't have a clue what kinds of loonies hang around here in the allies. And always remember to hold my hand when you're with me!" Jack told her sharply. Tree nodded, but barely heard him.

Soon as they began to draw closer to their destination, they began to see children of all shapes, ages, colors, and sizes. Jack recognized some of the students as children of some of his other fellow newsies.

"Daddy, have you ever meet a mobster?" asked Tree suddenly.

Jack let out a little chuckle, trying not to show his nervousness about that word. "No sweetie. Why would I want to?"

"Why are the factory workers protesting?" Tree asked, immediately thinking up a whole knew question in her youthful mind as young children usually do.

"I don't know, but I'll tell you what. If I ever meet one, I'll ask them!"

Jack gripped his daughter's hand tighter as he and Tree entered the large area where children ran around and parents stood around.

"Now I wonder where your teacher is…" Jack began to wonder out loud, until a familiar voice called out his name.

"Jack Kelly!"

Jack spun around to come face to face with his old friends: David Jacobs, Kid Blink, and Dutchy.

True, he saw them every now and then when he sold his papes, but since his wife and sons had died he kept to himself, which separated his friendship between him and the other newsies, also loosing him the role as the leader to the Manhattan newsies.

"Hiya fellas," he said as he walked towards them, trying to act cheerful.

"Well, well, well. Look who finally decided it was time to take his daughter to school," Dutchy smirked, folding his arms.

"Yes, I know. Shocking isn't it?" he said sarcastically.

"How have ya been, Jack?" David asked, a hint of worry in his voice.

"I've been okay. I've still got this little monster to keep me company," he said, grabbing his daughter and tossing her onto his shoulder. She let out a loud laugh.

"Hey! Let me down!" she said, still laughing.

"So, Davey," Jack said while he put his daughter down. "I heard that you're the new Manhattan leader!"

"Yeah, it's true, but I'll never be as good as you were. It's a lot of hard work! Watching the newsies, keeping them out of fights with the other broughs, and managing my own daughter at the same time!" David said, suddenly stopping to look around. "Speaking of which, where is she?"

"Sapphy!" Dutchy called out. "How many times do I have to tell you not to pick on Tumbler?"

Off farther away were three girls and one boy. The three girls appeared to be Tree's age and Tree was relieved to see that they too were wearing newsie type outfits. The girls had obviously stolen the younger boy's hat and were refusing to give it back. They were tossing it back and forth, laughing as the boy ran after each girl as they caught the hat. After they had heard one of the dad's call Sapphy's name, they threw the hat back to him and ran up to get a closer look at the girl standing next to their fathers.

"What's wrong with her face?" asked one of the girls, pointing at the scar on Tree's cheek.

The one called Sapphy giggled. "She looks funny!"

The third girl had just opened her mouth and was about to say something, but before she could get the chance, David hit her on the back.

"Ouch!" she snapped, rubbing her back. "What'd I do?!"

"Be nice," David said sharply. "It's her first time at school."

"She got it when she was younger, kids. No need to get into details. Her name's Tree," Jack said, placing both of his hands on her shoulders.

"Dad!" whined Tree as she yanked out of her father's grasp, not wanting to act too close to her father while trying to make new friends.

"I'm Kit Blink," Kid Blink's daughter said, spitting into her hand and sticking out her hand for Tree to shake. Of course, Tree spit in her own and took her hand, shook it, and gave Kit Blink a nice smile. Kit Blink looked friendly and very peppy. Her pretty blue eyes gave off a strong energetic vibe. She seemed to be around Tree's height. Tree admired her long, brown hair that tumbled most of the way down her back.

"Yeah, and I'm Touchdown," David's daughter said shyly, not extending her hand, but instead staring at the ground for a moment. But you could that tell behind those shy green eyes, was a sweet, caring girl just waiting to become friends. She was short compared to Tree's height. She had long, curly brown hair that fell down her back even further than Kit Blinks!

"I'm OBNOXIOUS!" the last girl said loudly into Tree's face.

"Sapphy!" Dutchy said harshly.

Sapphy let out a slight laugh. "Sorry 'bout that! I'm Sapphy," she said with a big grin. She seemed to be a very nice girl who spoke her mind and always wanted to be the humorous one. Sapphy wasn't that much taller than Touchdown, maybe by an inch, but she was still shorter than Kit Blink was. She had a nice, welcoming face that was surrounded by straight, shoulder length, strawberry blonde hair. Her blue, sapphire eyes described where she had won her nickname right away. She had fair skin and Tree had seen some freckles on her face that were almost invisible to the eye. Tree noticed that Sapphy hadn't stopped smiling, she must love to smile…

"THIS IS THE STORY YOU WANTED TO WRITE, WELL TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT THAT YOU CAN!" came a booming male voice, singing at the top of his lungs.

Suddenly the three girls forgot all about Tree, and they rushed past her, almost knocking Tree off her feet.

"Denton!" the three cried happily.

"Oh no…" Jack mumbled to himself.

Jack saw the reporter that had taken up the story on the newsies strike on what ages ago. Jack hadn't seen Denton for so long. He had heard Denton had taken up a job as a teacher, but then he also heard that Denton had gotten into some sort of accident, doing serious damage to his brain, so it made him tend to sing in random outbursts and be overly happy all the time. Obviously, both the rumors Jack had heard were true.

"Well hello children!" Denton bellowed happily to all the young faces that peered up at him that were circled around the trolley he sat on. "Who's ready to learn some fun facts today?"

"WE ARE!" the kids shouted in unison.

"All right than, ALL A BOARD!"

One by one the children climbed onto the trolley while Denton began singing King of New York.

He stopped singing once he spotted a new face in the crowd of children.

"And what's YOUR name?" Denton asked as Tree moved towards the trolley.

"I'm Tree!"

"Well Tree, if you want to be part of this class you have to answer this one question! What is the name of your father?"

"Jack Kelly!" she said, happy to know the answer.

"Well, you actually got it wrong."

"Huh?" Tree asked, confused by what he told her.

"Well his REAL name is Frances Sullivan, but because he escaped from the refuge he changed his name to Jack Kelly and became a news-"

"DENTON!" Jack yelled, not wanting his precious little girl to know about his past so soon.

"Oh… ok, not old enough to know that. Got 'cha Jack!" he yelled to the newsie loudly. Jack groaned and buried his face in his hands. Suddenly sending Tree off with Denton didn't seem like the smartest idea in the world. It was even scarier to think Denton had 20 kids he'd be watching.

"Ok children, are you ready?" Denton's voice boomed.

The children cheered, which gave Jack a little confidence. The trolley suddenly began to move off. The kids waved back to their parents. Jack had to contain himself from running after the trolley.

"Goodbye Tree!" he shouted, waving his arms high above his head.

"Bye dad!" she called back.

"Bye!" he shouted one last time as the trolley rounded the corner. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh, as he whispered to himself, "Be safe."

"Hey, not bad for you first time as a dad," Kid Blink said as the three walked up behind Jack.

"Well you can't hold on to them forever," Jack said, a hint of sadness in his voice.

"Yeah, I remember my first time when Sapphy went to Brooklyn without me. Boy, I practically flipped!" Dutchy said.

"Well you've just gotta let them grow up-" Jack stopped mid sentence. "BROOKLYN!?" he cried loudly. "THEY'RE GOING TO BROOKLYN!? What are you INSANE!? Why don't we just tie them up now and hand them over to the cereal killers?!"

He rushed past his friend's in the direction of Brooklyn.

"Hey, calm down Jack!" Blink called after him.

"Don't tell me to calm down, YOU PIRATE!" Jack called back before he vanished behind a corner.

"Pirate?" Kid Blink asked in a hurt voice.

"You know for our old leader he's certainly changed a lot," Dave said, looking to the other two.

"Pity," Dutchy said with a nod.