Disclaimer: I don't own anything relating to Titanic.
A/N: My first fanfic after a long hiatus! Enjoy.
A Second Choice
With the fading sunlight from her window, Rose Dawson applied a fresh coat of lipstick. Another West Coast sunset, another night out with her hodge-podge collection of friends from the set of her latest movie. Many of them she'd worked with before; Lucy, Marcy, Clem, Sally, Hugh. They'd created a sort of makeshift family, working together on projects and gallivanting around California in between. Rose had been here for about four years now, and had been thoroughly content with her time by the Pacific.
Things were changing, though.
Rose put her lipstick back into her makeup case and stared at herself in the small vanity mirror. She was 27, still young, still with many years ahead of her. It was quite obvious, though, that she was not young enough to deny what was happening.
The light from the window continued to soften as if to soothe her mind. She turned and followed the light out the back door of her cottage to the beach outside. The tide was high and still rising, limiting her to only a small stretch of sand down from her stilted home. The water found her feet, and the warmth of it surprised her, as it always did. Her friends said it was because she grew up an East Coast girl. She had smiled and consented to their ideas, knowing there was much more. The Pacific may have been kinder, but she could not connect to it in the same way as she could the Atlantic. It was not definitive, merely safe. Most would have preferred the latter.
Rose sighed as the sun set before her. It had traveled with her from one side of America to the other.
When Hugh had asked for her hand the night before, he did not allow her to immediately speak.
"Rosie, just hear me out before you say 'yes' or 'no.' Take a whole day and think on it, but first, just listen."
She had nodded, not entirely surprised that this had come.
"You remember when Missy ran off? She was the love of my life, Rose, and she dropped me for some flashy actor. I was obviously the better man, but she was misled by some silly fascination with his "brooding" and "emotional" temperament. I told her that the dark and mysterious nature would get pretty boring after a bit. Who knows where she is now.
"Hugh, you just don't understand me. Hugh, why aren't you more romantic? Hugh, why can't you be more like Kennsington?" Hugh's mockery of his former fiancé was one that Rose and the others had heard frequently. He may have been a set manager, but it seemed like he was more meant to be a comedian. When he didn't have his mouth open to make an impersonation of something, he was contorting his face into the most absurd configurations. He generally passed off as being light-hearted, though Rose could see after four years of knowing him that when it came to Missy, he was hiding something behind his usual grin. Rose could see that same pain last night.
He had stopped then, and quietly rocked himself slightly on the porch railing of the restaurant that their group had just eaten at. It was quiet for a moment as they both stared down the street that led to the shore.
"I would be lying if I said you weren't the main reason I'm all right now, Rosie. You've been my best friend since you came out here to Los Angeles, and I hope I may have been the same to you. I loved Missy, but I think I may love you too, but in a different way. It's nothing offensive to you, I just mean it's a different sort of love." Hugh by that point had been quite red.
"I'm only asking you this because I get the feeling that something similar happened to you, years back. Now, I don't like to snoop, and I know you've kept pretty quiet about your life back East, but you don't act like the other girls. You look like you got the same pain I do." Rose had felt herself go from calm to cold in a manner of seconds; this was the closest thing she had had to having a conversation about what happened ten years ago. She kept her eyes averted to the street to avoid eye contact.
'So, Rosie, I'm just thinking that could make the both of us happy. Like I said, take a day. Think it over. You will not have hurt me in the least if you so choose to decline. Now, shall we join our companions? They'll be wondering where we got off to." She had nodded and agreed, though looking back did not remember much of the rest of the night.
Rose sat herself down in the sand, far away enough from the water so that it only licked her toes. She was aware in some area of her brain that she was going to get her dress covered in sand, and that the water could choose to go past her feet at any moment, but the part of her mind that controlled physical movement seemed to have been temporarily turned off.
If only she didn't have to make this decision . . .
She pulled up her knees to her chest, hugging her legs close.
Why did that God-forsaken ship have to sink?
Why did it have to take Jack?
The new life that they had together had been forced to fit into days. In the frigid waters of the Atlantic, they had fit years into hours. Her ability to love in the same way to another had gone down with the Titanic, and there was no way to surface it.
Now Rose had been granted this extra life, currently being spent by water where it seemed minutes could stretch into eternity. Instead of two lives being together for an instant, she had the responsibility of living for two for a considerably longer chapter.
She remembered her promise she made in the freezing water; she knew that she needed and wanted a family, children. Jack had needed and wanted the same, and she had to stay faithful. He was painfully unavailable in this life, but there was a second choice.
Rose did not love Hugh Calvert, but she did care for him deeply, and the fact that the feeling was mutual gave her comfort. He was a friend, and that friendship was something that she wanted as she grew old. He was adventurous, funny, caring . . . and would make a good father.
Her heart could not be given to Hugh, but she could marry him with a clear conscience.
The End