AN: This is the longest one shot I have ever written wow. So to those of you who love Crutchie (that should be all of you, if you don't love Crutchie, what kind of horrible person are you?): I apologize for looking up post – polio syndrome, and you might want to prepare yourselves for this one.
Jack woke up with a start to the sound of someone crying out. For a moment he wondered if it was himself, that happened occasionally, but he almost always remembered if he'd had a nightmare. He looked around in confusion, and his gaze settled on Crutchie a few feet away from him. The younger boy's eyes were screwed shut and his hands were balled into fists. He let out another cry of pain and Jack tossed his thin blanket aside and quickly crawled over to him.
"Crutchie." He put a firm hand on his shoulder and shook him, not bothering to be gentle. They'd learned a long time ago that gentle never helped. Crutchie's eyes slowly opened, and Jack could see the pain in his eyes.
"Jack."
"Crutchie, c'mon what's wrong?"
"I don't... I don't know. It's my leg, it hurts real bad."
"The bad one?"
"Yeah." That concerned Jack. From what Crutchie had told him, his leg hadn't hurt since he had first gotten sick when he was seven years old. Since then, he hadn't felt anything at all in his bad leg.
"What'd you do to it?" Crutchie closed his eyes again.
"I didn't do nothing to it. It was fine last night, I dunno... it hurts, Jack." Jack didn't have the slightest idea what to do, he just knew that his brother was hurting and he didn't have any way to stop it. He felt completely helpless, and he hated the feeling.
"Crutch... I'm sorry, I don't know what to do." Crutchie could tell just by the sound of his voice that Jack was panicking, and he shook his head.
"I... I know, just..." He held out his hand, and the other boy took it, and Crutchie gripped it tightly. They stayed like that until the morning bell rang, at which point Crutchie opened his eyes and tried to sit up. Jack looked at him like he'd lost his mind.
"What're you doing?"
"Jack, I gotta sell papes."
"You ain't selling anything today, I doubt you can even stand up. You're staying here, and I'm staying with you."
"Jack no, you gotta sell, even if I can't. Not gonna keep us both from making money just cause of a little pain." Jack wanted to scoff that the claim that it was just a little pain, he knew it was more than that, even just by the fact that his voice was still strained. He instead furrowed his brow, becoming lost in thought. After a moment, he sighed.
"Okay. But I'm gonna have one of the other boys stay with you, and you gotta tell him if something happens, yeah? I'll talk to Kath once I'm done selling, she'll help me find a doctor for you."
"Don't need a doctor."
"Yeah you do, now no more arguing." Jack gave his hand one last squeeze before letting go, standing up.
"You're gonna feel better in no time, kid." He said, giving him a fleeting grin before disappearing down the ladder. Crutchie could faintly hear him yelling for the others newsies to wake up, and he rolled over onto his side with a pained sigh, closing his eyes once more.
oOo
Throughout the month, Crutchie's leg had gradually been getting better. The doctor they had found couldn't find anything abnormal about it, which had made Jack fairly upset, to say the least. But Crutchie was finally better to the point of being able to sell again, and while neither of the two boys were completely at ease about it yet, they accepted it anyway. They secretly expected it to wake up to Crutchie in pain once more, but it didn't seem that that would happen.
