Chapter Text
Jack recognized the dreamy look in Katherine’s eyes.
“Off to bed with you, macushla,” he said, picking her up off the couch and carrying her the few steps across the hallway to her bedroom.
“Mmm,” she murmured in protest, wrapping her arms around his neck and nuzzling her head to his chest. “Not tired.”
“For someone who’s just outwitted a pack of gangsters, you’re a terrible liar,” Jack said fondly. Katherine was far too sleepy to think of a clever response, so instead she responded by shaking her head against him and making squeaks of disagreement. Jack laughed and eased her bedroom door open with his bare foot. The floor was dusty after having spent so many weeks away from the apartment, but there would be time for cleaning later. In Jack’s world, sleep always took precedence over cleanliness, and although Katherine was generally of the opposite opinion, he was sure that right now she’d agree with him.
He dipped down to pull back the covers before lowering her gently onto the bed. “There you are, that’s it,” he said, easing his arms out from under her. She put up a bit of a fight at first, refusing to let go of his neck, but he soon kissed her into submission.
Katherine giggled and sank back into her pillows, trying desperately to stay awake. “Not tired,” she mumbled again, reaching up to stroke Jack’s stubbled cheek but not quite making it. Her arms felt heavy, and she was having trouble keeping her eyes open long enough to tell exactly where Jack was.
“Sure you aren’t,” Jack said, pulling up the white top sheet and tucking her in.
“Stay with me?” She asked, reaching up to him again even as her eyes fluttered closed.
His heart leapt. Even after five weeks of sharing an apartment with him, she still wanted him with her. Five weeks of falling asleep with him in the room, five weeks of being woken up by his searing nightmares, five weeks of knowing that at any minute the other shoe could drop and Paul Kelly’s men could come in to drag both of them away, and now—now she had a chance to sleep in her own bed in a safe apartment, to spend a quiet night all by herself, and she wanted him to stay?
Jack was used to sharing a bedroom; now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure he’d ever had his own. Heck, after he’d transitioned from sleeping in the lodging house bunks to sleeping on the rooftop, he’d spent the first two weeks waking up in cold sweats, subconsciously spooked by the fact that he was no longer sharing a bed with someone else, let alone a bedroom. As he’d gotten older he’d slept alone outside sometimes, sure, especially in the winter, but even then the whistles and snores and sneezes of thirty boys were just a set of stairs away.
It was different for Katherine. She was used to her own space, used to privacy, used to her bedroom being her sanctuary. And that was a boundary she’d been careful to preserve in their relationship, too, at least until the two of them had gone undercover and had to share a one-room apartment. But even then, they’d slept on separate mattresses. Which isn’t to say that he hadn’t yearned for more—he’d wanted to hold her close every single night of those difficult weeks, to fall asleep with her scent on his skin, to burn alive as the heat of her body mingled with his in the summer haze, to have Katherine anchor him to the knowledge that he was who he thought he was and he could be who he wanted to be. He’d wanted that so much that at times he’d ached with the pain of it, but he knew that physical distance was important to her, and he wouldn’t put his comfort before hers. So he’d wrapped his arms around himself and hung on to the knowledge that even though they weren’t touching, she was right there. Katherine was with him. He wasn’t alone.
Put short, he could count on one hand the number of times they’d actually fallen asleep in the same bed together.
But tonight she had asked him to stay.
He almost didn’t believe it.
But he knew Katherine, and he knew she meant what she said. So he smiled at the almost-sleeping girl and said, “Of course, love.” She stirred and cooed in response, causing his smile to widen until his cheeks dimpled. He watched her for a few moments, seeing the rise and fall of her chest become slow and even. Then he rolled up his pants and stripped to his undershirt so as not to sweat too much in heat of the Indian summer. Still smiling, he padded over to the window to push up the sash and let in a breeze that ruffled his hair. Ah yes, that was better.
Jack leaned on the sill and shook his head in amazement. He was wanted. He was loved. He was engaged. Engaged to Katherine Pulitzer, no less. He huffed a short laugh and then went back to the bed, nestling himself behind Katherine and curling his arm around her waist. “You’s an angel, Kath’rine Plumber,” he said softly, knowing she couldn’t hear him. “An’ soon you’s gonna be my angel.” He shifted slightly on top of the sheets, settling his head just behind hers so that he could breathe in the scent of her freshly washed hair, her long braid still dark and damp from the shower. “I can’t wait ta marry ya, Ace,” he said, and gave himself over to a blissfully dreamless night.
***
Jack woke up all alone the next morning and bolted upright, his heart doing a quick stutter-stop until his brain had time to register where he was. Katherine’s apartment. Right. He fell back onto the pillows in relief and threw an arm over his eyes. “ ‘S okay, Jack, you’s okay,” he murmured, and as he spoke he realized his throat wasn’t raw. And he couldn’t remember having woken up during the middle of the night, either; his last memory was of lying next to Katherine, feeling safe and dreamy as he held her tight and closed his eyes. Had he… had he slept through the night? Without any nightmares at all? He’d forgotten that was even a possibility…
Jack stripped off his undershirt as he shuffled to the bathroom, blinking back drowsiness and disbelief. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but he didn’t really care. He wasn’t about to rush himself into the office, not after the hellish month he’d had. He’d show up to work when he showed up, and his editor could just deal with it.
Jack brought his clothes with him into the shower to wash them and hung them on the fire escape to dry while he got breakfast. Katherine’s landlord pitched hissy fits whenever anyone used the fire escapes to dry laundry—said it made the building look low-class—, but Jack figured he could get away with it this once. He’d pull everything back in and deny it heartily if the man knocked on the door to complain. But first, breakfast. Or at least coffee. Katherine rarely had much food in the apartment, and after so long away, he didn’t expect to find anything edible at all, but there was always coffee in the cupboard.
And so it was with great surprise that he entered the kitchen to find the table heaped with fruit, a paper bag full of cinnamon raisin bagels, one jar of strawberry jam and another jar of peanut butter, a whole pound of butter, six white eggs, and a gleaming glass bottle full of fresh milk. Pinned to the paper bag was a little note in Katherine’s familiar, looping handwriting:
Good morning, love! You were sleeping so soundly that I couldn’t bear to wake you. I’m off to work and planning to stay late, so I’ll see you tomorrow. (Or tonight, if you decide to come back to mine instead. You know you’re always welcome.) Enjoy your breakfast, fiancé dearest.
Your Wife-to-Be, Katherine
He traced her words with his finger, not even conscious of how broadly he was smiling. Your Wife-to-Be, Katherine. The only reason he knew he wasn’t dreaming is that he’d never had a dream this nice before. He reached for a perfectly yellow banana and peeled it slowly, singing to himself as he heated up water for coffee. “Jack and Katherine, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the ba—” Realizing too late where the song went next, he spluttered and choked on a piece of banana. Oops.
The rest of the day was less eventful. His editor congratulated him on getting over the pneumonia that had sidelined him for so long, commenting that the illness sure had done a number on him, had he forgotten what food was? He checked in on Bug, the little newsie who had helped keep him from getting soaked by Monk Eastman’s gang and who was now working as a messenger boy in the building. He sifted through a stack of illustration assignments, picked out a couple that caught his eye, and chewed through the end of a pencil while trying to find a witty way to link the inaugural World Series of Baseball to the escalating tensions between Russia and Japan (he failed). And all the while, his heart was flipping and fluttering away inside him. Engaged to Katherine. You’re engaged to Katherine. She’s going to be your wife. You’re getting married.
These thoughts propelled him homewards that night, causing him to practically float through the door of the boarding house room he shared with Crutchie.
“Jack!” Crutchie yelled, springing off his bed and launching himself into Jack’s arms. “You’s here!”
“Sure am, kiddo,” said Jack, pounding Crutchie’s back with one hand and mussing his hair with the other. “I missed ya like the dickens, how are ya?”
“Better’n ever now that you’re back,” Crutchie said with a grin, pushing Jack backwards to get a good look at his friend. “Geez, Jackie, you look like hell.”
“Been hearin’ that a lot recently,” Jack grumped. “How’s about a ‘Hi, Jack, you look as handsome as ever, let’s eat?’”
“I could eat,” said Crutchie.
“Good,” said Jack, “ ‘Cause my stomach’s ‘bout ta eat its way through my spine. Jacobi’s?”
“Sure.” Crutchie hopped back to the bed to grab his crutch, Jack reached over to his bed to pick up his newsboy’s cap, and the two boys headed out.
Jacobi’s was still the place to be for newsies who’d had a successful selling day, and so Jack and Crutchie spotted Race and Albert at a table in the back and made a beeline for them.
“Jack!” Albert sprang from his seat and pulled Jack in close, slapping him on the back and rocking him side to side. “Ya did it!”
Jack laughed and squeezed Albert right back. When they pulled apart he said, “I didn't do a whole lot, ya know. Ya really oughta be thankin’ Kath. An’ Crutchie an’ Davey an’ Sniper an’ Finch an’…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Albert interrupted. “Always with the modesty.” He punched Jack in the shoulder and the boys settled down for dinner.
“Hey Jack, ya know some of the littler newsies don’t think you’s real?” Race said. “They thinks you’s some sorta Paul Bunyan Johnny Appleseed King Arthur Santa Claus mash-up what flies in on a dragon ta save the newsies every now an’ again.”
“But I was just at the Lodging House yesterday!” Jack protested.
Albert shrugged. “Yeah, well, you know how little kids is. They thinks maybe Davey dressed up ta play you or somethin.’”
Crutchie snorted. “Davey ain’t never been as short as Jack is,” he said, taking a swig of his seltzer.
Jack elbowed Crutchie, causing the boy to slosh seltzer all down his shirt. “I know you’s happy ta see me, but ya don’t gotta be so obvious about it.”
Crutchie rolled his eyes and grabbed a napkin to sop up the worst of the mess. “Ya don’t got a dragon, neither.”
Albert smirked. “How ‘bout Kath?”
“She don’t belong ta nobody, ya peabrain,” said Race, shoveling a forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth.
“That’s for sure,” Jack said. “But say, fellas, I got some news for ya.”
“What, news aside from how ya saved the newsies, ya look as handsome as ever, let’s eat?” Crutchie said with a wicked grin.
“As it happens, yeah, I do,” said Jack, aiming for sarcasm but ending up in giggles. Once he'd caught his breath, he continued. “So, ya wanna guess or ya want me ta tell ya?”
“You’s takin’ control of the art department at The World,” said Race.
“You’s retirin’ from the paper an’ workin’ full-time fer Medda,” said Crutchie.
“You’s got a secret lair under Manhattan where you’s built a doomsday machine you’s about to unleash on the city,” said Albert.
“Albert wins,” said Jack, taking his friend’s arm and lifting it into the air like a prizefighter. The other boys groaned in disappointment and leaned back in their chairs. “So, Albert, whatcha want as your prize?”
“A milkshake,” the redhead answered seriously. “An’ ta not be killed by your doomsday machine.”
“You’s still gonna die,” Jack said, motioning Mr. Jacobi over to the table, “But ya gets ta decide if ya wants chocolate or vanilla before ya go.”
“Chocolate,” said Albert, shimmying a little in his chair in anticipation.
“Chocolate it is, then,” said Jack, placing the order.
Once Albert had gotten his milkshake, Crutchie got the conversation back on track. “So, Jack, what’s the news?”
“Kath an’ I—we’s—” His heart was so full he could barely speak, and his smile was so big he wasn’t sure he’d be able to form words. After a few moments of the boys leaning forward in silence, he managed to say, “We’s engaged.”
Race shot up out of his chair with a whoop, Albert’s eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped, and Crutchie flung himself sideways to hug Jack around the shoulders.
“Engaged!” Race yelled. “Hey, Mr. Jacobi, Jack ‘n Kath is gettin’ hitched!”
“That calls fer milkshakes all ‘round,” said Crutchie, his nose scrunched up in glee. “Congratulations, Jackie!”
Albert was still staring at Jack in shock, unable to form words, but eventually he shook off his surprise and began drumming on the table in excitement. “A weddin’!” He said. “You’s gonna be Kath’s husband! She’s gonna be your wife!”
“That is how weddin’s work, Albert,” Crutchie said, watching Albert with amusement.
“Yeah but… it’s Jack an’ Kath, Crutchie!” Albert said with faint reverence.
“So where’s ya gettin’ hitched, then, Jackie?” Race stood behind Jack, bouncing slightly in place and shaking his friend’s shoulders with each question. “When’s the ceremony? Is ya gonna have a reception? Whatcha gonna wear? What kinda rings is ya gettin’? Will there be food? Gonna get hitched Catholic-style? Who all is invited? Can I come?”
“Whoa, Race, slow down,” Jack said. “I only knows the answer ta that last one, an’ the answer is only gonna be yes if you stops shakin’ me like an apple tree in the fall, yeah?”
Race chuckled and socked Jack in the arm before sitting back down. “You’s gettin’ married, Jack,” he said wonderingly.
“Yeah,” Jack said, adjusting his cap and shaking his head slowly. “I can’t hardly believe it myself. She’s the most wonderful woman on God’s green earth, an’ she’s gonna marry me.”