Disclaimer - I don't own Oliver Twist or Oliver! :)

Hello hello!! I'M ALIVE!!

Guys... I'm not sure how I can make excuses for taking this long to update. I've had the world's worst writer's block coupled with swine flu, an ill grandad living with us and needing looking after, choreographing a show, A-levels and the busiest summer ever. I'm so sorry.

On a more positive note – HERE'S THE NEXT CHAPTER (WOOHOO) :D

Corilyne – Well... Ginger can pretend to be as many people as he wants can't he... :P thanks for reviewing! I hope you enjoy this chapter and that this story was worth the long wait :D

.... - Thanks for reviewing! Hope you enjoy this chapter :)

Livi101 – Thanks for reviewing :D I'm so glad you like Emmy's tales :) I really hope you like this chapter!

Devil's Toenail – No there aren't nearly enough Dodger stories are there? That's why I ended up making my own xD I hope you like this chapter!

And thanks to anyone who read and didn't review. Hope you enjoyed it.

We're getting to the crux of the story, and I really hope I manage to do this right, this is by far the most adventurous fic I've ever done, so it's my baby... REALLY hope you like this chapter.

On with the show...

Chapter 9 – Fighting Him

A grey dawn crept over the ramshackle buildings of poor London, bringing with it a cold mist that seeped into the pickpockets' house, chilling the bones of the inhabitants. The cold was what woke Emmy that morning, and she slipped out of the bed that she and Annie shared, stretching her stiff limbs.

She turned, rubbing her bleary eyes, to look at Annie. She was sleeping peacefully now, her face a much healthier colour than it had been the night before. Emmy couldn't help breathing a sigh of relief, she had been seriously worried about her friend.

Dodger was sleeping, sprawled across the bed that the boys shared. Emmy bit back a laugh. Charlie had flung his arm to the side in the night, and it had landed across Dodger's eyes. That would result in wrestling when they woke up no doubt. She bent over the crate 'cot' in the corner of the room and grinned down at the sleepily blinking Beth.

For these blissful couple of minutes she was almost able to forget the task they had ahead of them that day. However, upon entering the main room in an attempt to find a biscuit or some bread to give Beth she was unmistakeably reminded by the sight of Ginger's prone form tied to the wooden support.

His pale eyes glared at her, his tufts of sandy hair stiff with blood from Chamberson's attack on him, and another ugly bruise marring his jaw where Dodger had lost his temper the night before. She now couldn't look at him without noticing the bizarre resemblance that he and Oliver shared. She couldn't believe that none of them had noticed before.

"What the 'ell are you gonna do with me now then gel?" he sneered. Emmy turned up her nose and stalked past him to the table, where some stale bread had been abandoned the night before. She ripped off and a piece and was about to turn back to the door when Ginger yelled,

"'Ow are you plannin' on provin' anythin'? They've already got the murderin' toff"

Emmy opened her mouth to retort, but Dodger had already appeared in the door from the bedroom and spoke before Emmy had a chance,

"We know it was you you maggot, so 'ow about you shut up?"

Emmy contented herself with nodding in support of Dodger, feeling less tense as he took her hand. Dodger hadn't finished however,

"And where are the kids?"

Ginger's lips thinned as his jaw tensed,

"I 'aven't a clue what you're talkin' about"

A poker suddenly appeared at Ginger's throat from between Emmy and Dodger, and the teenager recoiled back as far as he could. Fagin growled through his teeth as Emmy and Dodger watched in astonishment,

"I suggest my dear, that you co-operate with my two colleagues 'ere, or it might be rather more painful for you..."

Ginger's face had turned slightly grey and beads of sweat formed on his upper lip,

"Awrigh' awrigh' jus' get that thing away from me"

Fagin slowly withdrew the poker from under Ginger's chin, handed it to Dodger, and retreated to the stairs, disappearing up them with a whirl of his old green coat.

Ginger hung his head, his eyes fixed on the poker in Dodger's hand. His watery blue eyes travelled along Dodger's arm and up to his face. He examined Dodger's brown eyes, faint freckles, a face still slightly rounded from boyhood. Ginger scoffed,

"You're too soft, both of you"

The poker was back at his throat again. Dodger narrowed his eyes,

"You've been dressin' up as me, dirtyin' my name and Emmy's with it. You put a hinnocent man in the lock up, and you been taking children. You h-onestly think I would be soft wiv you?"

Ginger had flattened himself against the support beam, as far away from the poker as he could get. His head was at an arrogant tilted angle, but fear was flickering in his eyes. It burnt there slowly, desperation and pessimism feeding it and making it grow and fill his mind. Dodger knew that look, he had glimpsed it in Bill's face all those years ago. Here was a boy who knew his time was almost up.

Ginger's voice shook as his mask of indifference collapsed, and the frightened boy was revealed,

"Go to the New Leap, be'ind the counter, go down the stairs"

Dodger withdrew the poker and let it fall to the floor, licking his dry lips.

Emmy stared at Dodger, nonplussed at their victory.

"Um," gathering her thoughts she turned back to Ginger "You're comin' with us today"

The boy still seemed too stunned to answer her, and merely hung his head, his shoulders slumped, defeat clear in his stance.

Dodger squeezed her hand, today was going to be a hard day.

The thick air in the carpet workshop was stiflingly warm. The fireplace of the inn was directly above their heads.

A child looked around in the dark, hardly able to see the dim shadows of his friends working. He squinted down at the fibres in his hands. He could barely feel them between his blistered fingers.

He wanted his mother.

In another dark and much colder prison, Oliver was falling deeper and deeper into despair. Emmy and Dodger and Nancy's faces were blurring together in his mind. A mind that had been used to good food and care for many years now.

The depression and hopeless feelings were resurfacing. He could barely remember them, but the damp and cold of the prison cell were all too reminiscent of his work house home so long ago.

For the thousandth time in so many days, he buried his face in his hands, dragging his now scrawny fingers through his matted, filthy hair.

Then a shock shuddered through him as he was surprised by the sound of the bolt of his door being slammed open.

"Twist, out. Now"

Dodger had put the bag back over Ginger's head. The latter had bitten Dodger's hand more than once while he was attempting this, and Dodger was feeling in a rather worse mood as a result of this.

"Jus' get out the door you rat" he shoved Ginger in front of him as they left the house.

As Emmy followed Dodger out, she was prevented from shutting the door by a battered looking boot. She followed the leg up to see who it belonged to, and found Ace grinning down at her, with Charlie's face peering over his shoulder,

"You didn't seriously fink you could involve us in this an' then leave us be'ind at the hexcitin' bit?" Ace grinned.

Emmy let a corner of her mouth lift slightly and let out a laugh,

"You are... you two are hincorrigable. You know that?"

They nodded like fools, Ace's floppy dark blond hair going everywhere and Charlie's brown curls bobbing. As she laughed, feeling some of the stress that she had been feeling more or less constantly since the incident with Oliver lift from her shoulders, they followed her after Dodger, who seemed to be attempting to make sure that Ginger's skin was as prettily coloured as possible before they got to the gaol.

"I know this is last minute... Serious crime.... Serious punishment..."

Oliver consciousness drifted in and out of the court room. He kept catching random words, his head feeling heavy on his neck, and his hands shaking. His will to live, his optimism, his health. All had been snatched away in the last few days. He did not even know what the men who were deciding his fate were saying.

Then he heard the sharp rap of a hammer on wood, and a few words penetrated the numbness of his brain,

"The criminal... heinous crime... deported... today"

A searing cold feeling seemed to grip his heart, and he felt himself fall forwards onto the bars of the dock. He clutched the cold steel with clammy hands.

New South Wales was a long way away.

Ginger was making everything extremely difficult, dragging his feet and ranging as far from Dodger as he could.

Emmy, Ace and Charlie were walking a little behind the violent pair, none of them talking.

Emmy's head was alive with plans. She still wasn't sure what they were going to do, or how they were going to persuade the policemen that Ginger was in fact the culprit. She wasn't sure if any of this was entering Dodger's head through the blind rage he was displaying at that precise moment.

She suddenly felt the urge to run to Dodger and throw her arms around him. To wipe the furious expression from his face and to see the Dodger that she normally knew, rather than the bitter boy that she saw dragging Ginger down the street.

Emmy bit her lip and scuffed her boot on the floor as she walked, lowering her eyes to the floor.

"You alrigh' Emmy?"

She looked up in surprise at Ace as he smiled reassuringly at her,

"Yes Ace I'm just... Tired."

Ace slung his arm over Emmy's skinny shoulders,

"Don't worry Emmy, it's alright now innit? We've got the bastard ain't we?"

"Yeah, but how are we goin' to persuade 'em it was 'im and not Oliver?"

Ace winked down at her and grinned again,

"Wiv a bit of luck, that's 'ow"

Emmy laughed shortly and looked ahead at Dodger, who glanced back at her and smiled quizzically. She shrugged Ace's arm off her shoulders and twisted her hands together,

"I want this all to be over..."

Samuel, the barman of the New Leap twisted a cloth inside a grimy mug, grunting with the effort as the cloth caught on the rough metal. He slammed the mug back on the counter and looked up to face the man who had just tapped him on the shoulder,

"Can I 'elp you?" he wheezed, glancing over the bedraggled pair of young people who stood before him. One was a young man with thick brown hair and a battered top hat, the other a girl with midnight curls and scabs on her bottom lip,

"Yeah, you can" Dodger lowered his voice to a growl. In any other situation Emmy would have laughed aloud at his attempt to sound intimidating, but she contented herself by standing slightly behind Dodger and smirking in an attempt to look confident.

Dodger continued,

"Ginger sent us... We have business downstairs..."

The barman looked up at Dodger, and narrowed his eyes at the younger man,

"'E always used to tell me never to let anyone down there"

Dodger was momentarily thrown, and glanced to Emmy, his eyes wide and pleading for a lifeline. She stepped forward, leaning on the bar with one elbow and smiling coyly at Samuel,

"We know that, an' you're only doin' what 'e told you. Ginger is a um, a dear friend of ours and we're doin' 'im a favour today as 'e is, erm... indisposed..."

Samuel stood still for a moment, his gaze flicking from the girl leaning on the counter to the boy standing behind her. Slowly he began to move towards the gate that would let them behind the bar,

"Well, if you're friends of young Ginger I see no 'arm in-"

He never finished his sentence, as the metal mug he had been polishing moments before had cracked across the back of his head.

Chamberson stumbled into the New Leap, his brown hair a birds nest, and his lips thin with worry. Ginger had been gone for too long, and Chamberson was worried.

He wasn't worried for Ginger, oh no, he was sure his younger cousin could slime his way out of a tricky situation. He was worried about what Ginger knew, about how involved Ginger was with their plan, about whether whoever was with Ginger now knew everything...

He couldn't risk it.

So he had heaved himself off the straw mattress that he had attempted to sleep on, and staggered out of the dank house. He had practically run down the dark slime laced alleys that connected most of Fiddler's Leap, desperation pushing him on.

Enormous dark eyes watched him from behind barrels, and out of broken windows, as skinny dirty street children watched him run. For in Fiddler's Leap, you are always being watched.

Chamberson gasped for breath, leaning on the door frame of the New Leap, and looking furtively around at the passers by.

A teenage boy with brown curls was leaning against the corner of the public house. He seemed pretty on edge, but that was fairly normal in that area of town. Scowling at the boy, Chamberson slammed open the broken door and entered the pub.

There weren't many people in there, and those who were were old regulars, their faces the texture of old leather, grey wiry beards creeping down their necks, and red noses from the cold and alcohol.

Except two.

Two young ones standing at the bar, a girl and a boy.

A boy wearing a top hat and an old blue coat.

Rage built inside his broad chest as he glared at the young people who were making his life quite so difficult.

He strode forwards, his boots making a dull rhythmic thud, that almost echoed his quickening heart beat. Aware that he was attracting attention to himself, he wasted no time, lifting a metal mug, and glancing a blow off the back of Samuel's head.

The two young people at the gate to the stairs spun around, their eyes wide with shock. The girl was quick though... As soon as she registered his presence she had reached over the gate and flicked open the latch with nimble, grubby fingers. She slipped through the gap, those same fingers tugging on the sleeve of her accomplice.

Emmy forced herself between the stiff gate and the bar, dragging Dodger with her, her skirts catching on the rough wood. Simply to gain time, she jammed the gate shut again, before turning and flying down the stairs, her boots rattling on the bone dry wood.

He heart pounded roughly in her chest. She had seconds.

Dodger's breath was hot on the back of her neck as she fumbled with the latch on the first door they came to, Chamberson's footsteps loud in her ears.

It wouldn't open. The rusty metal left orange stains on her fingers and got under her short nails, but it wouldn't budge.

Emmy flattened herself against the door, sweat beading on her forehead. She looked to Dodger, his eyes meeting hers quickly. There was nothing to say.

Charlie slipped back around the corner, having watched Chamberson enter the New Leap.

"'E's in..."

Ace nodded, his hands keeping a tight hold on Ginger, who was now bound and gagged. His pale eyes glaring at the two pickpockets. As hey had had to leave his feet untied so he could walk, Ace was still having to keep hold of the rope.

Charlie twisted his hands together, glancing back around the corner.

"I don't like leavin' 'em in there Ace... What if they're... 'E's big, that man... Emmy's a gel"

Ace attempted an exaggerated roll of his eyes, but he wasn't quite calm enough to pull it off,

"Charlie, do you remember what Emmy did to Dodger that time when 'e said gels weren't as strong as boys?"

"She almost broke 'is arm..."

"Hexactly"

Charlie still didn't look comfortable,

"I think one of us should go in an' check..."

Ace had had enough,

"Alrigh' alrigh', you go in an' check then"

Charlie's face dropped,

"Jus' me?"

"Yeah, jus' you. Someone's got to look after this" Ace gestured vaguely at Ginger, who was now slumped on the ground, exhausted by his many escape attempts.

Charlie took a deep breath.

Then he turned on the heel of his battered old boot, and marched purposefully into the dilapidated public house.

Emmy backed down the dim corridor, feeling behind her with her hands, Dodger just in front of her. Her breathing was thick in her chest, terror freezing her muscles.

There had to be something here, anything.

He was here now, standing silhouetted at the foot of the stairs. This short passage was not long enough for escape. He couldn't be more than ten paces away.

Finally Emmy's hands brushed on something metal behind her. She was right at the end of the passage now, and there was a small table behind her with assorted rubbish cluttering it's rough surface. She was holding an iron candlestick.

Chamberson's heavy footsteps made her heart jump in her chest. She wanted to show Dodger what she had, but subtlety would be impossible.

She held it there behind her back, sweaty hands slipping on the grainy surface of the metal. There would be a moment.

Ten seconds trickled past. Time itself seemed to slow down to beat in time with the slow thud of Emmy's heart.

Then it happened, a sudden flurry of movement. Chamberson lunged forward, his hands stretching out towards them, his eyes wide and bloodshot, a low growl escaping his throat. Emmy felt her breath catch as she and Dodger ducked and twisted out of the way, scrabbling back up the steps, whirling around once they reached the top, nudging Samuel's prone form out of the way as they waited for the man who was about to emerge from the darkness at the foot of the stairs.

A shout turned their heads for a second, one of the bearded scarecrows at the bar had noticed the strange absence of the barman. And that second was precious.

A heavy hand caught Dodger's head and sent him crashing into the rickety wood of the bar. He felt hot pain as blood oozed from the wound on his temple, and the world blurred. He tried to speak but he had bitten his tongue and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth.

Emmy almost felt the blow herself as it was delivered to Dodger's head. Gasping, she ran to the gate, desperately trying to lure the man away from where Dodger was sprawled on the floor. She threw herself over the gate, hearing Chamberson's footsteps behind her as if there was no other sound in the world.

She had never felt the same terror. As she ran, her boots thudding on the old floor boards, her skirts catching on people and benches, her head pounded with adrenaline, sweat was forming on her forehead and all sound faded save for those foot falls.

Suddenly a calm realisation slipped into her chaotic mind, spreading its soothing presence over the writhing terror that had been dominating her thoughts.

Emmy turned silently, to face the man charging towards her, met his frantic murderous eyes with her cool blue ones. The cold weight of the candlestick twisted in her hands as she gripped it tightly and raised it. The eyes burning into hers widened with surprise as she brought her weapon down on his skull.

And Matthew Chamberson crumpled at Emilia King's feet.

Well!! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter - I know it is ridiculous and awful how long I've taken to do this, but I hope it was worth it :) Keep looking out for the next chapter - and please review!! (Reviews are like cookies to me :D)

Blackfishyxx