The Date

[jackkelly]

"yea I live in some strange dangerous little world where I always gotta look over my shoulder," Jack sighed heavily.

[Stagey]

((WOW. So sorry about being gone forever. ><))

"I imagine so," she acknowledged helpfully. Would a fearful kid like Belle Malone really fit in with a dangerous world, looking over her shoulder too? "It's a far cry from my world. But I suppose you knew that." Admittedly discouraged, she turned toward him, trying to figure him out.

[jackkelly]

"I know and that's what I like," He said with a smile. He brushed the hair from her face. "Honestly."

[Stagey]

She welcomed his touch, but frowned somewhat. "I'm not right for you, Jack." It pained her to realize it. "I can try as I might and... I can't match you." Even if she wasn't simply a female copy of Jack, she wasn't his missing puzzle piece, it seemed. "Do you just want to use me to escape everything that's going on?"

[jackkelly]

"No...what do you mean you're not right for me?" He looked at her quizzically, frowning.

[Stagey]

"I'm afraid of my own shadow, for one thing," she readily admitted with a slight grumble at her own inadequacies. "You'll go to Santa Fe soon, and you'll want to go it alone, and I don't blame you for that." She let a defeated sigh leave her lips. "And then you'll likely find a girl there who's braver and more sensible and," she allowed a shrug, "prettier." She felt her world sink around her, as though her shred of hope was coming undone at the seams. Why did her attempt to be with Jack seem so forced?

[jackkelly]

"Why do you always assume things?" Jack asked her, turning to face her. "Maybe I'm sick and tired of going it alone. Maybe I just want normal for a change. If I wanted a girl like that there's tons of em at the lodging house, all of them hard and pissed off all the time."

[Stagey]

She sighed a little, somewhat corrected at this admission. "Guess you're right," she allowed. But that didn't explain one key thing: "Why me, though, Cowboy?" she prodded gently. "Why not some other girl?"

[jackkelly]

"Cause I don't know other girls the way I know you." He said honestly.

[Stagey]

"But you could," she told him. After a lengthy pause between them, she squeezed his arm gently. "I'd better head back," she told him. "And Jack? Don't you dare feel like being with me because you think you have to." He was her hero. He'd always be her hero. But she never wanted to pressure him to be anything he wasn't.

[jackkelly]

He smiled at her. "Well lemme walk ya back at least?" He stood up and offered her his arm.

[Stagey]

She looked him over a bit, cracking a grin. It was almost like she was seeing him for the very first time. "Always the gentleman," she commended, curling her hand into the crook of his elbow.

[jackkelly]

"Thanks" he said with a grin, Jack began to lead her back to Irving Hall. "Where do you see yourself five years from now? I mean if you could dream it up?"

[Stagey]

"Realistically?" she said. She had to think about it. "I suppose someone will have to take over running the lodging house." It surprised her to say it at first, then she thought on it. It made sense. "After all, poor Klopp's not going to live forever, and someone will have to look after the newsies after you--" She cleared her throat.

"But I guess, if I had anything I wanted?" She glanced up at him. "I'd go somewhere far from here. A place with lots of space and air to breathe..." A small laugh escaped her lips. "Maybe one day we'll both go to Santa Fe?" Stagey kind of wanted to eat her words. There she went, pressuring Jack again.

[jackkelly]

"You know, I'd really like that." He smiled at her as they walked. "At least I'd have someone there with me that I know I could trust." Jack sighed heavily.

"I am gonna go ya know? I really am...one day. I'm getting older and it just seems like this city keeps beating me down."