Chapter Text
It started with a whisper, at least, it sounded like one from his office. Then the noise escalated quickly, until he could understand the words.
"Mr. Kelly does not take kindly to visitors who did not make appointments!" His secretary, Rebecca.
"I don't give a damn what Mr. Kelly likes or not! He'll see me, an' he'll see me now!" He considered opening the door, or calling down to security, but ended up letting the scene play out. He regretted it now. His door burst open, admitting Rebecca and a dark haired man whose face was somehow familiar. Jack was intrigued by the man, he was drawn to him and yet repelled by him; he wanted to invite him to have a seat and yell at him to get out at the same time. He couldn't place the face, but he was positive he knew it. It was from his past. He dismissed Rebecca with a wave and spent a moment looking at the man who had burst in, who had disrupted his orderly schedule. The man stared back at him.
"Jack?" He spoke quietly, as if he hardly dared to break the silence. But that one quiet, simple word, that one syllable in that voice, served as the key that opened the box. All Jack's memories came flooding back, and all at once he wasn't the editor of the biggest newspaper in New York anymore, he was ten, just thrown on the streets, then twelve, meeting the newsboys-newsies- and befriending and working with them, then fourteen, having the position of leader thrust upon him, then seventeen, lost in dreams and hopes, meeting the man before him as a teenager, meeting his future wife, going on strike, winning, then twenty, no longer a newsie, drifting farther and farther apart from his old friends as he was pulled upwards by his talent as an illustrator and later a reporter, pulled upwards by his fiancé, then twenty-one, getting married and seeing the pride on the faces of his remaining lower-class friends, then twenty-five, in that last argument with his last three friends that burned what was left of the bridges connecting them. Some memories had been forgotten, some had remained behind, but put together they told his story. Yet hidden in all the pain and sadness of his past was a certain happiness that had been gone for a while. Certain newly released memories wanted to make him smile, however hard he fought it, they tried to. Then he was gasping for breath, thirty once more, not Jack Kelly, newsie, but Jack Kelly, husband of the sole heir of Joseph Pulitzer, rich and powerful. And his memories were back, the ones he had left behind and his wife had helped bury, and he was sinking in the rising tide of them all, being crushed beneath their weight.
"Davey?" The name came out of him almost involuntarily, as an expulsion of air that carried sound on it, an accident.
"So you've decided to remember me, then, have you, Jack?" It seemed that now that the silence was broken, he wasn't scared to talk. More memories came back, of how shy and timid Davey Jacobs used to be, and how he came out of his shell. Now words left his mouth in a burning, biting way. A way that wasn't friendly; it was how Davey had spoken in their last argument. "Decided you ain't so good ya can't remember the boy who you owe. Everything." The words cut across Jack, leaving an almost physical pain. Davey's face was contorted, twisted in anger and pain, and Jack wasn't sure exactly why.
"Davey..."
"No! I don't want to hear your voice until I've said what I have ta say, you hear me, Jack Kelly?!" The man's voice rose to a shout. "You decide to forget all about me, about Crutchie and Les and all the boys! You leave them to pick up the pieces of their own brokenness after you abandoned them, and then you decide that you can just leave them all alone! I'm tired of this, Jack Kelly! I'm sick and tired of watching you get richer and richer and not do anything for anyone but yourself, your oh-so-precious family, and your newspaper! In case you've forgotten, you used to be one of us! You used to work with us, you used to talk to us, and now you act like none of that ever happened! You owe absolutely everything to me, to the old newsies! And yet you ignore us! You choose to go on living in your perfect life, with all your money and fame and power and glory, and do nothing at all to help the boys of the kind you once were willing to fight for! Now the old boys need help, and who do they choose to try to get it from but you! You are nothing but a stuck up rich boy who would rather have his money than his friends, and you made your choice! I told them, and still they insisted I come ask for your help! I told them you wouldn't give it, but Crutchie never have up hope, or Les, or Race or Finch or Romeo or any of them really! They're all blind, just like I was! Too blind to see who, what you are! You're selfish, greedy, have too much power! The very things you once fought against! And. You. Enjoy it." Davey took a deep breath. "They still want your help. They still have hope. But I know better. I came. I tried." He turned from his stance in front of Jack's desk and moved to the door. Before leaving, he met jack's eye once more. "I hate you, Jack Kelly. I hate you for what you've done. I hate you for what you've become. And I hate you for the trust you broke in every single one of those newsies. I. Despise. You." And he was gone. Jack was left to stand up and run after him, run past a startled Rebecca and run down the stairs, catching Davey as he was leaving the building.
"What?" The younger man spat.
"Let me take you to lunch. You can explain everything there."
"Why should I trust you? What reasons have you give me to believe that you won't ignore me, or poison me? How do I know you won't use it as a publicity stunt, lunching with the poor?" Davey was bitter, hardened. He wasn't the boy the memories kept showing Jack.
"I guess...I guess you don't. But I will listen. I can't make any promises until I know what exactly you're talking about, but I will listen."
"Fine. We'll go to Jacobi's." The two men walked to the restaurant, new memories swelling out of the box, of boys laughing and chattering and bickering, walking to the same place. Of sandwiches of days old bread, but never moldy, and cheap sausage, the only food they could afford. Now Jack could afford anything he wanted, as much as he wanted. Jack and Davey sat at a table, Davey's glare never leaving his face.
"All right, Dave. Talk."