[identity profile] evewithanapple.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] inthewildwood
Belatedly (but by god, I WILL have this posted before the end of the month) here is my commentary for the second Yuletide story I wrote! I had fun with this one.

The title, by the way, is from "Louder Than Words" from Tick Tick . . . BOOM. It's a bit of a heavy song for what is essentially a fluffy story, but it is one I associate with these two ("How, as we travel, can we see the dismay and keep on fighting?") and I didn't have a bootleg of their song in the musical at the time. (I do now.)

If there is one thing Katherine Plumber is good at, it’s looking brave. She can be downright terrified, quaking all the way down to her shoes- has been, on more than one occasion- but no matter what she’s feeling, she has always been able to look whoever she’s talking to right in the eye and demand their respect. It’s a skill that comes in handy, when you’re one of New York’s few female reporters.

"Courage cannot erase our fear; courage is when we face our fear." I love this girl so much, especially because she IS scared, she MUST be scared- look at the odds she goes up against- and even when Jack tells her to go away, or her father tries to knock her down, she just keeps getting up. 

(I don't know if the "few female reporters" bit was too on-the nose. On the one hand, it's true, and she's not bragging; she IS one of the only female reporters out there. On the other, it feels like of like . . . "look at this! RARGH LADY REPORTER!" But in it stayed.)

(According to Jack, she is brave- and beautiful and brilliant and generally amazing. She tries not to pay that much heed. For one thing, it’s Jack. For another, believing your own press- especially when it comes from someone you’re also married to- almost never ends well.)

Because you know he would. You KNOW. And you know she wouldn't take it wholesale (flattered though she may be) because she's more sensible than that.

But whether or not Jack’s opinions of her is correct, it’s the skill she knows she has that allows her to march up to the front desk of the police station without quailing. The man sitting behind the desk- apparently not high enough in the ranks to have earned a name plate- doesn’t even bother to look up. “Can I help you?”

“Katherine Plumber,” she says, pleased to note that her voice doesn’t waver at all. It’s the first impressions that count the most. “I’m here for two of the men you arrested tonight.”

That does get his attention, albeit only enough to make him raise his head. “Names?”

“Jack Kelley and David Jacobs,” she says swiftly. Come to think of it, she actually isn’t sure how many men were arrested tonight- just that Jack and David were among them. One of the benefits of working for the paper is that she gets tips like these ahead of time. Of course, she might not have gotten their names at all, had Jack not- from the sounds of it- singlehandedly started a riot.

Okay, exaggeration. But she got it secondhand. And he DID punch a dude.

As soon as she got him out, she was going to kill him.

The man at the desk was looking back to his ledger. “Do you have bail money?”

She drops the dollar bills on his desk without blinking, and is pleased to note that his eyes widen as he takes it in; he clearly wasn’t expecting her to be able to come up with the money. She breezes on through. “Will there be any charges?”

D-did they use dollar bills in the 1900s? I DON'T KNOW. I'm usually meticulous with research, but somehow I never thought to Google this. Bad self. Anyway, this is NOT Pultizer's money; I'm a little sketchy on what his relationship with his daughter is (besides "distant") but there is not a doubt in my mind that she would refuse handouts. She's just clever with money. Tangentially, there are a million things I want to know about Katherine's relationship with her father and how she grew up and when she decided to move out, but that is a different story.

He’s still blinking owlishly at her. “A- a fine probably. Nothing you can’t handle, I’m sure.” Belatedly, he closes his mouth. “Sorry, what was your name?”

“Katherine Plumber,” she says briefly. Chances are he won’t recognize it; her union work is all under her married name, and few people know her newspaper work well enough to recall who wrote it. “With the New York Sun.”

Jack and David, as we will see, work with the unions, so it's easier to go by "Katherine Kelley" with them. "Katherine Plumber" is how she established herself with the paper, so Plumber is her work name.

(Katherine, by the way, is based on Nellie Bly. So obviously this is a few years before she writes an expose that makes her famous. But since I didn't work that into the story, I feel kind of bad for that line. She's going to be an award-winning journalist!)


She breezes past him without further conversation. For one thing, she hasn’t got time for it- they’ve already been in there for at least an hour, and while she hopes they haven’t come to any blows with the other inmates, she’s heard stories of what can happen in holding pens. For another, she still has to get home and finish the article she was working on before one of her contacts at the newspaper had arrived to tell her that her husband had been arrested.

She really is going to kill him.

A thought Jack no doubt inspires frequently. It's a good thing they're crazy in love with each other.

Once she reaches the holding cell, they aren’t hard to find. David is hanging close to the bars, eyeing the other inmates worriedly, Jack leaning against the wall by his side, looking insufferably smug. She clears her throat. “Were you intending to spent the night here? Because I have things at home to get back to.”

Jack, as established in both movie and musical-verse, as someone who has experience in far worse places than a holding pen. David, who is not a troublemaker by nature and who has never been in jail before, does not. And I love the picture of him clinging to the bars going "OH GOD, GET US OUT OF THERE. I DON'T THINK ANY OF THESE MEN BATHE AND THEY SMEEL LIKE BOOZE AND I'M SCARED." (I love David.)

They both look up at the sound of her voice. David, being David, has the grace to look slightly abashed. Jack, being Jack, looks nothing of the sort. She gestures to the guard, who moves to unlock the cell door. “I could have left you here all night, you know.”

The "David, being David" line was one of the first I ever wrote for this story. Actually, this is the first thing I ever wrote for this story. And now you know!

“But you’d miss me.” Jack says, winking broadly. Next to him, David blushes slightly. The guard, looking just as bored as the desk clerk, ushers them both out. “Keep out of trouble from now on, then.”

“It seems unlikely,” Katherine says tartly. Jack is sporting a fresh bruise on his cheek, and David is favouring his right side as he walks. It was too much to hope for, she supposes, that they would’ve have avoided sustaining battle wounds. She jerks her head towards the exit. “Let’s go.”

Once they’re outside, she looks them both up and down. Now that she’s seeing them close-up, it’s slightly worse than it looked inside- the bruise on Jack’s cheek “is accompanied by a cut that’s still bleeding lightly. She starts to reach out to see how bad it is, then checks herself. They are still standing on a public street; besides, she’s still angry with him. “Well? What happened?”

You know when someone you care about does something foolhardy and survives, and you're torn between "thank God you're okay!" and "YOU IDIOT I COULD KILL YOU?" That's where Katherine is right now.

David clears his throat awkwardly. “Well- Sarah’s husband is with the streetcar drivers, and since their union was having a meeting tonight and he’s laid up, and asked me to take her-”

Sarah, for those not familiar with the movie, is David's sister and Jack's original love interest. She and Denton (The original reporter character) were almagated into Katherine, but I love her, so I wanted to include a shout-out.

There actually was a streetcar strike in New York, but all I can find out about it is that it took place in 1916, and that this picture was taken. I actually envisioned this story being earlier, given that Jack and Katherine are (relatively) newly married, but I'm sure that the streetcar union had meetings before 1916.

“The other guy started it.” Jack breaks in. Katherine shoots him a frigid look, then turns back to David. “And?”

“Well, the cops showed up,” David says, still rubbing at his side. “And they were being quiet enough at first, but a few of the men started shouting at them-”

“Wasn’t me.”

“And then,” David continues, ignoring Jack, “someone swung a punch- I didn’t see who- and of course all hell-” he checks himself, looking sideways at her. She rolls her eyes. She’s heard worse. “-well people started panicking, running for the exits, and that made the cops angrier. One had this woman by her hair, and Jack saw, and- well, he knocked him over.”

Because he WOULD. Also: lol, David. Trust me, she really has heard worse. I do love this kid, and how much he clearly respects and admires Katherine. They make a lovely little family.

“Think I might have knocked him out,” Jack says proudly. Katherine pointedly does not comment.

“Anyway, he had a friend with him,” David finishes, “so he grabbed us both and dragged us out. And that’s how we ended up at the station.” He lets out a heavy breath, then winces. “Sarah got out before people started fighting, though.”

He probably had a rib cracked en route to the station. *pointedly does not launch on a rant about police brutality*

“You should get home to her,” Katherine says, and David nods gratefully before making his way off down the street, towards his sister’s apartment. “And as for you-”now she turns the full force of her glare onto Jack- “I suppose that cut needs looking after. And I still need to finish my work.”

He still doesn’t look the slightest bit ashamed of himself. Of course he doesn’t.

It's noteworthy here, I feel, that she's not mad he went to the meeting or stood up for that woman- she would do the same. It's that he did this without TELLING her that's pissed her off.
* * * *

“Katherine?”

“Hmm,” she says, not looking up from her typewriter. She really does need to finish this story.

“You almost finished?” He’s right behind her, she knows without looking, bare-chested and still holding a wet towel to his face, having discarded his shirt when they got home. She is not going to look. It would destroy any attempt to finish the evening’s work.

Don't think I didn't enjoy that mental image

Of course, the fact that he’s now kissing her hair isn’t helping.

BECAUSE HE WOULD. I mentioned earlier that I envisioned Jack and Katherine being relatively newly married; this is part of why. They can't keep their hands off each other.

“Stop that,” she orders, trying not to shift in her seat. “I’m working.”

Katherine got needs, son.

“Almost done?” Now he’s moved down to her collarbone. This is the height of unfairness, and they both know it, but that’s never stopped him before.

She is still not going to look. “I would be, if I hadn’t had to leave for the police station an hour ago.”

“That’s a shame.” He’s moving dangerously close to her neck now. She is never going to get this story done. “No time to spare for your injured husband?”

“Perhaps if he hadn’t caused the injury himself.” Now he’s arrived at her neck. Getting work done really is a lost cause now, so she turns in her chair to glare at him. “You really do make it impossible to get work done, you know.”

“Newspaper work, maybe,” he says, and kisses her. Pff, you think making out is WORK? You're lucky she's too turned on to get mad. She makes an effort not to kiss him back, she really does. But among her many talents- including the ones Jack ascribes to her- resisting her husband when he’s like this is not one of them. She comforts herself with the fact that her willpower is strong in all other areas. The kiss is shorter than she’s like- although if she had her say, it would have taken hours to end- ugh, that line is so cheesy and he pulls away, a thumb still on her face. “Do you really need to finish that?”

Not to brag, but I really liked the "thumb on her face" line. I like how they move around each other in general. Jeremy Jordan and Kara Lindsay are both fantastic in the way they use body language in "Then I See You Again," and I wanted to incorporate that into the fic. Also I wanted them to touch each other a lot.

She stands up and takes his hand. “It can wait til morning.” KATHERINE GOT NEEDS, SON. Also they both have adrenaline to work off.

     * * * *
     

“I had to do it,” he says, afterwards. “You know that, right?”

“Of course I know,” she says, equally quietly, her head resting on her chest. That was the person he was, and she wouldn’t love him as much if it wasn’t. She’d known that when she married him, after all. “I would have been there with you, if I’d known you were going.”

And here we get to the heart of it. She loves him. She loves what they fight for. But the key is that they fight TOGETHER, because they can't do anything without communication. Communication is important! Talk to your spouse when you're going to union meetings! And just, you know, in general.

His hand is absently carding through her hair. “I’m glad you weren’t.”

I mentioned I love them touching, yes? I have written pure smut before, but I think this is the most intimate thing I've ever written.

She raises her head to level a glare at him. “Be careful where you take that sentence.”

He smiles, finally looking somewhat contrite. “I don’t want to see the cops hitting you.”

“I’d rather they didn’t hit you,” she retorts, “but they will and they did. If you’re going to get beat up, I’d prefer to get beat up with you.”

He chuckles. “Romantic.”

She huffs, laying her head back down on his chest. “Should have said ‘if you’re going to be foolish, I should be foolish with you?’”

A quiet exhalation lifts the hair off her neck. “You don’t think it’s foolish.”

“No, I don’t.” she admits. If she did- well if she did think it was foolish to attend the union meetings, or rail against the police officers who dragged women around by their hair or publish exposes soon! Well she already did with the newsies' strike. But she'll do it again. that made some of the city’s ruling class furious, she’d be a very different person. They both would. That’s easy enough to accept. It’s harder when Jack comes home with bruises.

He really had frightened her earlier, when she’d seen the damage.

Remember that line in Tamora Pierce's Wild Mage: "You were dead! I could kill you myself?" Yeah, pretty much that.

“Just tell me next time,” she says, tilting her head up to look at him. “Give me some warning. I at least want to know where you are when you’re getting beat up. Deal?”

He presses his lips to her forehead. “Deal.”

Kissing kissing kissing kissing KISSING. ~The most enlightening commentary~ Anyway, they're in the early stages, and still negotiating their partnership. They'll figure it out.

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art in the blood

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