Where…am I?
That was Rose Calvert's first coherent thought upon waking.
But her surroundings were not the same as they had been when she shut her eyes.
This was not the Keldysh.
Wherever this was, it was bright. Impossibly bright. There was noise too, like the muffled chatter of a crowd behind a shut door.
"Lizzy?"
Rose gasped and placed a hand to her mouth, only to gasp again upon realizing the hand no longer looked as if it belonged to her. Nor had her voice sounded like her own either.
Gone was the croak of old age, gone were the wrinkles and prominent veins in her hands. These were the hands and voice of someone much younger than herself.
Raising a hand to her face, Rose also realized that she no longer felt the sagging wrinkled skin she was used to. No, this face was firm, smooth, and soft.
Was she…was she young again?
Pulling a lock of her hair over her shoulder, Rose laughed.
Red! Her lovely red hair that had slowly faded to white over the years, that her husband had once said burned like fire in the sunlight, was back!
It seemed that with her laughter, the impossible brightness shattered and Rose immediately recognized her surroundings.
No…
No!
Not here! Anywhere but here! Anywhere but this place of loss and death and tears!
Rose!
That voice…
Rose's panic shattered. She knew that voice. But that was impossible! Unless…
"Jack?" A tentative question, a disbelieving one.
This way Rose! We're waiting for you!
Waiting? Who was waiting?
Like metal to a magnet, Rose felt as if she were being led down the corridor, which she now recognized as a promenade deck. But it wasn't a forceful or hurried pull. IT was like gently being led, like her father had once done years upon years ago.
"We've been waiting for you, miss." A young man in uniform said as she passed him in the corridor.
"Thank you Bride." How had she known his name?
The corridor went on and Rose followed it, feeling the years melt away as she did so.
Gone were her aches and pains, the arthritis in her hands and the general ache in her knees, back, and shoulders.
"The Grand Staircase…" Rose whispered.
The man who opened the door for her smiles happily at her, just as Bride had, and Rose smiled back.
And, as she looked upon the faces of those who had perished on this ship, all the smiling happy faces, Rose tried to put names to them
Fabrizio, Jack's best friend.
Tommy, the Irishman who had stared at her in disbelief when she stood on her toes that night in the third class galley.
Cora, the young girl Jack had called his "best girl."
Mr. Andrews…oh how happy he looked!
Was that…it was! Jack!
The first and only true love of her life smiles at her, blue eyes twinkling and a single thought shining in them.
Glad to see you made it.
As Rose smiled and took his hand, and Jack took her into his arms, it seemed as if the crowd, which had erupted into applause, all said the same thing, their voices rising in a single thought.
Welcome home Rose!