The train and her heart lurched simultaneously as they pulled into Grand Central. She was home, but she was a different JoAnna than she was when she left. That wide eyed, dreamy little girl was no more and the person she was now had never seen those streets before. A beautiful redhead smiled up at the train next to the dark haired man who could only be Racetrack. He'd grown a bit and his face had matured, but his terrible taste in waistcoats remained. The woman's smile was as dazzling as her shiny red hair and her green eyes that shone like jewels. The more JoAnna stared at her, the more she was sure she knew her and her jaw dropped when it came to her.

Eli was struggling to pull their cases down from the rack over their seats. His arm would never be the same as it was thanks to her late husband, but he made do. A nudge at her arm made her pull away from the glass, embarrassed at the face print she left from her gawking. He smirked at his wife knowingly and held out her old carpetbag to her. "Coming?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. It didn't matter that they'd been married nearly a year and that she saw his face every day, that face would always drive an unruly herd of butterflies through her stomach, especially when it was doing his talking for him.

"That's Clara Renwick," she answered, pointing at the woman outside the glass in awe.

"Uh-huh…" he answered curiously, cocking his head to the side at her strange behavior.

"Racetrack Higgins is marrying a Gramercy Park Renwick."

Eli kissed her and picked up both of their cases, one tucked under his arm and one in his left hand, before pulling her against him. She would never tell him, but she liked that his right arm was too weak, because that meant it was nearly always free to circle her waist and hold her close to him. "Nnnnnnot A Ren-Renwwwwwick," he answered in her ear and nodded out the window, "th-that one."

She tilted her head up and kissed under his jaw, "I was supposed to marry a Renwick, you know. My mother figured they would be the only family odd enough to put up with me. Clara was there, at the table when I told them all where they could stuff it. If I hadn't run, Racetrack Higgins might be my brother in law next week."

They looked at each other and laughed at that thought. Eli took her hand, "Rrrrrrrready now?" he asked. "T-too late to go hhhhhhhome." He led her down the aisle and out of the car to the platform. Her feet barely hit solid ground before Eli was tackled by a flash of black hair and loud waistcoat and landed with a oof on the floorboards. Clara stepped up next to JoAnna as the boys wrestled like children.

"Nice to see you again, JoAnna. I'm so glad you made it," Clara said quietly and grabbed Jo's hand. Even with only one fully working arm, Racetrack had no chance against Eli. They rolled around, garnering curious looks from passersby until Eli managed to get Race off of him and stand up, brushing the soot and dirt from his clothes, not a bruise or scratch on him.

Race grinned charmingly and Jo couldn't help but join him. "You disappear into thin air six years ago, lose me two separate bets to this beautiful ginger and show up out of the blue married to my best friend and I don't even get a proper hello?"

She laughed and wrapped him in her arms, "Well, you seemed a bit preoccupied mauling my husband. I thought I'd give you two your moment." They both glowered as the girls laughed at their expense.

Not long after, Eli and JoAnna were settled in their suite at the Benjamin Hotel. The heat and humidity outside were stifling. JoAnna came out of the washroom, stripped of her limp dress to find Eli looking out of a big picture window. He had his shirt off, letting the breeze through the open glass cool his skin. He made her skin tingle in a delicious way, just watching him. His right arm hung at his side, still weak and unable to move. The scar on his back faded to a faint pink, and it called to her, always the first thing she needed to kiss in moments like this. Her lips pressed against the shiny, wrinkled skin and he leaned back into her. Her fingers pressed into the skin at his navel, scratched by the small patch of hair there. Her other hand rested just below his breastbone and his covered it, rubbing back and forth. "You ok, Jo?" he asked, pulling her around and kissing the top of her head.

"Just nervous, I guess," She answered, closing her eyes and settling her body into the curve of his, the breeze coming in the open window cooling her skin. She rested her cheek against the small patch of pink, puckered skin just below his collar bone, the other side of the scar. He kissed her slowly and deeply, telling her without words that he would be by her side the whole time before leading her back to the bedroom to sleep for a bit.

She awoke to a note on his pillow telling her that Clara would meet her in the lobby at three. He had a favor to do for Cici. Jo twinged with jealousy at being abandoned in a city that seemed so foreign to her. She was rarely allowed to venture outside the high walls of her garden as a child, so she sat in the grand lobby and waited for her chaperone.

She was near tears with worry and loneliness when Clara blew in the door like a breath of fresh air. She hooked her arm through Jo's and started walking down the street. "I'm sorry if you were waiting. Eli sent a telegram asking me to swing by and take you around on my errands but I was already out when it came so they had to track me down. This wedding business has me going non stop. Is that how it was for your wedding?"

JoAnna smiled, thinking back on her whirlwind wedding day and grinned, "No. We got married the same day I asked him. I wore the only dress I had clean."

Clara looked utterly scandalized. She easily shook off her shock and smiled brilliantly. "Well, good, all the more reason to help me soak up the last bits of 'fun' getting ready for mine." With that, Clara dragged her into a dress shop. They sat on plush sofas, while shop girls served them finger sandwiches and tart lemonade with ice cubes floating in it

Clara went into a curtained off area to change into her wedding dress to have some last minute alterations made. That was when the dress caught Jo's attention. It was deep forest green silk with large deep pink roses embroidered on the loose, blousey bodice. A sash at the cinched waist and a ruffle of skirt at the bottom, peaking out from below the green were both a brown so deep that it seemed black until the light hit it when it glowed warmly with golden highlights. Champagne colored lace softened the plunge of the square neckline into a much more modest V shape and adorned the short sleeves. It really was breathtaking. She'd never cared much about what she wore, not that she was ever given much of a choice. The frothy, frilly light colored day dresses that girls of her status wore during the day made her feel like a walking meringue and she was forever in trouble for getting them dirty. This dress, this beautiful green silk dress made her heart flutter and her mind come alive. She could imagine things, beautiful things happening in this dress. Eli loved her in green and she loved roses. She could imagine the way his eyes would light up when she stepped out in it for the first time. She pulled the hanger down and held it up to her front, swaying back and forth in front of the full length mirror, smiling at the girl who looked back at her. She finally looked happy, not like she was trying to be happy, but like she just was.

The curtain opened and Clara stepped out looking like a vision. Her snow white dress made her beautiful auburn hair look even richer and her skin like cream. "JoAnna," she said, stepping away from the pedestal that the seamstress was trying to get her to step on and towards her friend, "if you don't say yes to me buying that dress then I will hold you down on my wedding day and shove you in it myself." She had her hands on her hips trying to look as imposing as she possibly could, and Jo gave in. She smiled again, squealing happily and finally stepped onto the pedestal. After that, it was on to a cake shop.

The bakery door opened, the delightful sugary smell of vanilla sponge cake and chantilly cream wafting out into their noses when Racetrack's voice carried up over the din of the city. "Clara!" He ran up, the air of mischief surrounding him just as thick as the smell of butter and sugar surrounding the bakery. He leaned his elbows on his knees to catch his breath, wiping his sweaty brow with his sleeve. "Your mother wants you home. There was a...uh...problem with topiaries in the garden."

Her skin blanched as her eyes widened. "What problem? What happened?"

He cleared his throat, trying his hardest to keep a straight face as he fiddled with an unlit cigar. "The uh...neighbor's dog got out and spooked the gardener...and he uh...decapitated one of the lions...".

JoAnna choked trying not to laugh while Clara's face contorted and turned white. "Anthony Higgins, if this is one of your pranks..."

"Cross my heart, Dollface, I ain't LION!"

Clara narrowed her eyes and seethed at him for making light of something that was disastrous to her mind. "You better watch yourself, Mr Higgins, or you'll find yourself quite alone at that alter on Saturday. Take care of her, check on the cake," she ordered and took off running.

"I don't know what she thinks running there is going to accomplish," Jo said, watching her disappear, "The lion lost his head, it's not like she can reattach it if she gets there in time, but I feel bad for that gardener."

He laughed loudly. "Heads are gonna roll...besides the bush's...you don't mess with a pissed off redhead."

"In my experience, the tinier the girl, the more scary they are when they're mad."

He smiled, "Add wedding stress in on top of an already fiery personality...and watch out!"

"Especially when beheaded shrubbery is involved." They shared a short look before both of them cracked up. He laughed even more when she couldn't stop the little snorts that always accompanied her belly laughs. They began wandering back in the general direction of the hotel.

"If you woulda told me seven years ago that the girl who I took on her first walk over the Brooklyn Bridge would be walking on my arm the week before I married a different Gramercy Park Gibson girl, pretty sure I woulda checked you into the loony bin myself." She laughed thinking back on that day, walking across the bridge with Race. He stopped and gave her a thorough once over. "But it wouldn't have surprised you, not even then after knowing him two days that you'd be married to Trout."

"I'd have been surprised," She argued, but grinned and felt her cheeks heat up, "surprised but delighted and deliriously happy."

They moseyed along and she breathed in New York, telling Race about the space of time between her disappearance and showing up in Colorado as the Fletcher's next door neighbor. He'd gotten Eli's version in letters, but Nosey Nancy that he was, he enjoyed hearing her side. "Race," She asked suddenly, cutting him off mid-sentence, "do you feel grown up yet?"

"Who me? Nevah." She chuckled, completely convinced that was true. "'Specially not when you call me Race. Its almost believable when I'm Tony, but Race...Race will always be a newsboy running these streets. Tony...he might grow up. It's possible."

"Possible," She said wickedly, and looked at him out of the corner of her eye, "but not likely." He chuckled. "I think I'll always be looking for a more grown up grown up in whatever room I'm in, but I don't need a babysitter Race. You should go back to Clara's house, protect that poor gardener. I'll head to St Xavier's." He blanched and his jovial smirk dropped. "Eli said he was helping Cici..."

"He...he his, but they ain't at the school. He wanted you to have something else to do. They's at The Foundling. " Her heart sank.

"Go home, Race," she whispered. "Go take care of the headless lion."

He shook his head and hailed a carriage. "He's gonna kill me either way, might as well make sure you get there safe and sound before I die. Just try to lie to him and tell him you threatened me, beat the secret out of me."

A grin lightened the load on her heart, "Deal."

The Foundling was a fixture of New York life on Lexington, a hospital for women in trouble and home for the babies if the mothers couldn't care for them. Jo didn't belong in a place like this. These women had a problem she couldn't fathom, children they couldn't keep, while she struggled with the opposite.

After a few questions at the front door, she was directed to a high floor in the Children's Home and found Cici standing in a dim hallway, staring through a glass sidelight into a classroom. At the sound of shoes clicking on the wooden floorboards, the now middle aged woman turned and stared at her niece like she was seeing a ghost.

A huge grin spread across her face. Her jaw was still strong and her hair was still piled regally on her head, always reminding Jo of Alice Roosevelt. "Oh, my girl!" she breathed, throwing her arms wide. Jo flew into her welcoming embrace and was soon crying harder than she had in ages, since just after Gordon's death. Cici's arms held her so tightly, with such relief to finally see with her own eyes that Jo really was alive and safe.

The door opened, and she was handed off into a different set of arms, his arms. He held her silently until she had no more tears to cry and handed her a hanky with his eyes full of regret. He wanted to protect her from this place. 'She's like me,' he signed. 'I knew coming here would upset you, but I had to help.'

She wiped her eyes and peaked around his shoulder into the classroom where a little girl, just about Clarice's age on the floor with a slate in her lap. Her chocolate brown hair fell down to the bottoms of her shoulder blades in dark tangles and her black stockings had holes in them at the knees. The little girl's lovely deep green eyes stared back curiously. A navy blue bow had somehow been attached to the mass of tangles around her her round, lush baby cheeks. Those green eyes, not the same bright, sparkling emerald as Clara's, but more earthy and warm, like apothecary glass, gleamed back, large and mistrusting. She scowled at them for interrupting her play. Jo smiled at her, and her little brow furrowed, the frown on her perfect little strawberry of a mouth relaxing. That sweet child needed him. "Go back to her," she whispered, kissing the corner of his mouth.

'Come with me,' he answered, taking his wife's hand in his. She shook her head and pushed him back.

She wasn't ready to go in that room yet. "Go on." He closed the door behind him and she watched through the glass as he folded his huge frame to sit on the floor beside her. She looked up at him and then back to the window, shifting to sit closer to him and pointed at her slate.

"Her mother understood her," Cici said, putting her hands on Jo's shoulders. "She was allowed to talk as she pleased and her mother translated for her, but now that her mother has passed she expects everyone to do the same. She's too young to understand that we can't. This is the third orphanage she's been at in as many months because she gets so violent when she's punished for not speaking correctly, and speech training was a disaster. Her mother must have told her that she's perfect just the way she is..."

"As she should have," she snapped without thinking. Mothers and motherhood were touchy subjects, since one had scarred her and the other was eluding her. "Any mother with half a heart would do the same." Just like that, she was ready. That little girl needed Jo and JoAnna needed her.

She didn't bother knocking, just slipped in the door quietly and went to them, tucking her legs under her skirt as she sat down on the floor. He smiled that mesmerizing grin that was once so fleeting, but was making more and more appearances as things got better for them. "R-r-rosie, this is my wwwife, Jojo. JoAnna, this is R-rosie."

"Hi Rosie," JoAnna said, a tremble coming into her voice. Eli grabbed her hand and wove their fingers together. "You know, roses are one of my favorite flowers, I love the way they smell." The child stood up and walked around the two of them, inspecting the newcomer. She touched Jo's dark hair, the buttons on her dress, the watch that hung on a chain around her neck. Jo heard a little whimper before Rosie's face pressed into the back of her hair. She breathed deeply and came back around to the front, mumbling something and miming smelling her hand. She hid her face, three months of being told her way was wrong after five years of being told she was perfect was starting to show. She was ashamed. "Your mama smelled like my soap too, huh?" Jo asked. She nodded and Eli watched them, fascinated. Rosie had tears in her big green eyes. "She must have liked it because it reminded her of you." She took a step closer, her full little rosebud of a mouth trembling and Jo pulled her in. It never occurred to her to do anything else. "Do you want to tell me about her?" Rosie's face lit up and she launched herself into an animated frenzy of sounds that no one understood a lick of beyond 'mama.' She looked up expectantly.

Her green eyes, her tangles, her bottom tooth that was wiggly and would soon fall out, they were all casting a spell on the young woman. "If you tell me again and go slow, I will learn. We just met, but you ask Eli, I'm a quick learner." The child looked up at him curiously and he winked at her. She never left JoAnna's lap the rest of the afternoon, talking in her mumbled, hard to understand way and drawing pictures when Jo didn't understand. Eli hardly said anything, but when he did, he let himself stammer without shame in front of her. They were all disappointed when Cici came in and told them it was time for Rosie to go to supper.

They walked back towards the Benjamin, hand in hand. "It sssseeemed c-cruel too take you there," he said. "All...all those b-babies no one wwwwanted..." He stopped and pulled her close. She wanted a baby of her own so badly.

"I understand why you did it," I whispered as his mouth moved to cover hers.

They went to The Foundling every day, and Rosie improved almost every day. She wasn't much more understandable, but she was more patient, more happy. Every day it was harder to leave her to go back to the Benjamin. The night before Race and Clara's wedding, they had to tell her that they wouldn't be able to come the next day, and Jo tried not to sob just as hard as the little girl did as the sisters unwrapped her from around JoAnna's legs.

Even the new dress that was delivered while they were away didn't make her feel better. It was powerless against the pain in her heart that was breaking for a little girl who had no one left. Her fingers ran along the hand embroidered roses and Jo thought of her. The deep green of the silk reminded her of Rosie's eyes. Eli buttoned her into it and she tried to let herself feel the way she did with Clara. He saw what she wanted him to. He traced the roses with his finger and smiled. 'Beautiful.' She still blushed like a schoolgirl at his compliments. 'Don't be sad, she'll be there when we come back." Her breath came out shaky and slow. "T-try to be happy, Jo. For R-Race and Clara..."

The wedding was beautiful and by the time they got to the reception, Jo had almost convinced herself to give in and enjoy the night. They sat at tables peppered around the Renwick's lavish gardens and she caught Racetrack's eye and pointed to the lone squirrel hiding in the pride of topiary lions, sharing a laugh that made Clara scowl. Eli was staring at something that no one else seemed able to see. His azure eyes were trained on a shadowy part of the gardens for a long while before he excused himself and went over. It was only once he stopped and was talking to someone that she could see the dark man who was hiding there. Eli smiled at her, and the man, his eyes not nearly so blue as Eli's, but just as startling because of their contrast to his deeply olive skin, followed his gaze. She blushed under their scrutiny for a moment before a hand came to rest gently on her shoulder.

Scott Renwick stood over her, his ginger hair, just a tiny bit more auburn than Clara's with his hand out. "Might a spoiled milksop have a dance?" His emerald eyes glimmered playfully.

She blushed and chuckled under her breath, "Of course, thank you, Scott." He led her out on the floor and twirled her around artfully, the cad.

"Was it always Eli?" he asked in a low voice, "Even way back when?"

"It's only ever been Eli."

With gentle hands and the expert steps of a boy trained for nothing in particular, he led her around the floor. "Funny guys, these newsboys. They suck us in. We come from the best, and yet we're always out there looking for more, because even with all of this around us, we're not actually happy. There's always something lacking."

"Adventure," She answered, leaning back into a gentle dip. Her body still knew just what to do. The steps came easily and they glided seamlessly across the brick patio. "Upper class life is so...placid. We crave adventure, and when we can't find it under all the stuffy clothes and decorum and brandy and tea cakes, we have to go make it for ourselves, whether with books and stories or wild card games with gang lords," She shot him a knowing look and he grinned sheepishly.

"Or making friends with newsboys," he added with a jerk of his head towards Race, Mush, Blink and Jack. "They have nothing, they come from nothing, and yet I can't imagine my life without them, Race and his buddies. They're like the brothers I never had. They know what family is supposed to be like." He looked at their joined hands. "I would have taken care of you, just so you know, if your mother had managed to make us happen. You would have been fine in our family."

"I would have been fine, but I would have hate you for it," She answered. "What I did made no sense, but I don't really regret it. I ended up with the best family I could have ever wished for because I ran. Eli and Spot, Darcy, Marta and Fletcher, they collected each other, like treasures in a museum and I'm honored to have been considered a worthy addition to their collection."

He smiled, "You really are one of them. Our kind, blood, breeding is everything, but you were always different." He smiled, "A rare antiquity, and they should consider themselves damn lucky to have been found worthy of protecting you." Without another word, he gave her one final spin and handed her off into Eli's waiting arms.

"Cutting in again, I see." He grinned and pulled her close. He still had perfect timing and danced like a dream even though they didn't get much practice. Wrapped back in Eli's arms, everything was more right, everything made more sense. JoAnna leaned into him, listening to his heart, but her heart was yelling more loudly than ever. Scott's words about family were on repeat in her head like a skipping gramophone spool. She would be so lucky to have a beautiful green eyed, Rose in her collection. "Eli, do you need a baby?" She blurted out, suddenly, wincing at her own abruptness. His grip tightened around her back and she squeezed his hand until the blood pooled in his fingertips turning them purple. "I don't think it will ever happen. Two marriages, no lack of trying, and not so much as a miscarriage. It's made me sad and angry, but someone reminded me that you and I have always been better off with the family we made, not the one we were given." Her eye caught Race's and he danced with Clara and he winked, giving her courage to keep going. "Maybe we're supposed to be collectors, finding our babies, just like we found the rest of our family."

He stopped and held her out at arm's length, searching her face for what she meant. As the moments passed, more and more excitement filtered in. 'Go on,' he signed.

"Rosie. She's ours. That's my baby, and I'm not leaving New York without her. We are her family, Eli. You and I."

He grinned. "A-are you d-d-done?" Her heart melted because his smile didn't falter. He pulled her back in, until his lips were right next to her ear, whispering against her skin as he murmured, "Let's go get our girl," without a single stutter.

Jo wanted to run through the streets but, the blazing August afternoon, the prettiest dress she'd owned in her adult life and the two glasses of champagne she had with her cake overruled her romanticism enough to let Eli hail a cab, pulling up in front of The Foundling just as the sisters were coming out to lock the front doors. The Mother Superior had supper to oversee and evening prayers, but put that aside to push Rosie's paperwork through. She wanted Rosie to have a home as badly as they did. The young couple might be her only chance.

Rosie fell asleep between them in the carriage, one hand tucked in his big one and the other tightly gripping a handful of green silk from JoAnna's skirt. The child rolled over and nestled in, and a soft sigh left her lips as she murmured, "Na-nigh, Mami." He reached the arm that wasn't acting as her pillow over to Jo, asking with his eyes for her to help him use it to cup her face in it. This was where they belonged. They had their perfect life, their garden of roses grown up out of the rubble of the Brooklyn streets, discarded pearls and taffeta and the burned out shells of other lives that weren't meant to be. All of those disasters, they were the perfect fertilizer for a bird and a fish to grow their own Happily Ever After.