Disclaimer: I own nothing but the words.

AN: This story in its present state is very different from the original idea I had…the original was a slashy fic where everyone goes and gets drunk after the strike; VERY different XD ((that one will happen eventually, I think)) This was something thta nagged at me and seemed like I needed to write it. I think it ended up a little jumbled, but it's still good. Thank you to Stage for reading this for me first -- you've got no idea how much I appreciate your willingness to do so ^^

Standing in the Middle
by LuLu

"Is dis what da Woild's becomin'?"

David Jacobs remembered those words when they were spoken by Racetrack during the strike, on the afternoon before Denton's photograph of them was to appear in the New York Sun. He hadn't realized that the word "world" referred to the newspaper at first; it took Kid Blink to elaborate.

"Dey's sendin' gangs against kids who just want a break…I ain't sayin' we can't take it, but don't dey have the guts to come out heah demselves?" asked Kid.

"'Course dey don't," Racetrack answered. Other newsies sounded their assent in low, erratic sounds around him.

"Dat's what it's gonna be!" Jack cut in sharply enough to silence them. "Dat's how it's all gonna be til we change it. And we'se gonna change da Woild."

August 3rd, 1899. David traced the thick black letters of the New York World with his index finger as he sat on the fire escape outside his family's tenement. He didn't even notice the dull, dark gray stain the ink left on his fingertip as he did so. There had been no booming headline, no magnificent fanfare to signify their victory to the rest of the city. The writers briefly mentioned a rally of children in the city, but nothing about its relation to the World or the fact that it had been initiated by the newsies. But that was what newsies did, or so he believed. They made themselves the voices of the city without receiving a word of thanks or recognition. Their voice had only been heard when the World had tried to silence it.

The strike had had a profound effect on David. Before that, he had been a boy in a bubble, a bird in his own private cage. He knew the world he was in wasn't perfect, but the bars he saw them through were still gilded. He was not from a rich or affluent family, yet he was indifferent to the suffering of others and their daily hardships. His own life was such a full routine of school, family, and chores, he had no time to contemplate anything more than what came out of textbooks. His father's injury, though, was the beginning of the opening of his eyes. There was an imminent danger in his father not working. The family could go hungry or even lose their house. Although Mayer had always told David that his education would be the key to his freedom, he had to abandon it to keep his family from being dropped into the prison of poverty. The bars of his own cage could be bent and broken through this event, but if his family fell farther down, they would not be able to free themselves.

"You can always go back to school, David," Mayer said. "Even if you are behind when you go back, you can catch up. But us, your family, we cannot always go back to surviving if we are too far from it."

When he began his career as a newsboy, David fell under the sway of Jack Kelly. It soon became apparent that Jack was his kindred spirit. He had taught David the meaning of making yourself and living for others, the thing David had been missing in his previous routine. Jack held a power over the boys that David had not seen before, a power that made him strive to see more, know more, and be more, more than anything he had ever read in a book. Yet the book learning had not been a waste. On the contrary, it had made him more valuable than the others. David's education and skill for reason had made him the voice for Jack's passion and charisma during the strike. And though there had been bumps and obstructions along the way, they had won. They had beaten Joseph Pulitzer, the most powerful man in the city, and yet they…

"Day-vid!" His thoughts were interrupted when his mother called to him from inside the house. "Come in soon. It's getting late."

For the first time, David noticed the cracks in his mother's accented voice. It was the same trait he had heard once after Racetrack had finished speaking to another, younger newsie in Italian. Race's voice was shaky and unsure when he'd switched back to English, as if he didn't know the words he should say at first. His mother, after all her years in her native country speaking her language, was the same way. She hadn't learned English until her teens, so it was an impediment. David's father had been taught English from childhood; language then became one less barrier for him in the new world of America. David was lucky not to have the boundaries they had had. He was the child of his parents, neither his mother nor his father. He would never be called a "Pollack" as he rushed down the streets like his mother had, or taunted by the word "Immigrant!" day in and day out like his father and grandfather had. No matter who Esther and Mayer were, nothing could change the fact that David, along with his siblings, was an American. The other newsies were either immigrants or the natural-born children of them. He wondered if they received any verbal abuse for their origins; he had not been around long enough to hear it for himself. One thing David had learned in his youth that Joseph Pulitzer was actually a foreigner born in Hungary. Had Pulitzer been teased because of an accent he could not control? David pondered. Had he sworn that he would rise over prejudice and become someone important? He was the most powerful man in New York City now. No one dared to take note of such things as nationality when Pulitzer could sweep them away with the drop of a hat. The newsies had tried to go up against an injustice, and they had seen what Pulitzer could do…

But this, David reminded himself, was the world he had found himself in the middle of on the evening of August 3rd, 1899. A world where children were attacked by men twice their size. A world where even if the underdog could be victorious, they were still held in by a larger, binding power…sometimes even the person they had defeated in the first place. This was the world they were all in.

Throwing his newspaper down into the alley, David cried that night not for himself, but for everything else the world had become.

------------------------------------------------

Like? Dislike? No opinion? Drop a review and let me know! :D