April 23rd 1912, Santa Monica
Eleven days. That was the short time she had known him.
It was a regular Tuesday morning for everybody else except for Jack and Rose Dawson. At just after ten AM, they were stood, hand in hand, before a pastor, who was about to marry them.
Nobody knew them. Not the two witnesses they had randomly found, nor the pastor…not a soul.
There was nobody there to help seventeen-year-old Rose, to guide her or to give her away. She had done it alone. Her hands still shook not from fear but from excitement. She looked beside herself and saw no-one. An empty space where her father should have been walking her down the aisle. Empty seats where the five hundred people of society should be but there was no-one and she was happy. The happiest she had ever felt in her life.
Only one person's eyes had watched her walk toward her love, slowly almost as though she was living in a dream. His eyes were blue, not deathly dark. His hand extended to her as she had reached his side, a smile on his handsome face.
She wore a summer yellow dress which she had purchased herself with the little money she had, she wouldn't wear white for she had already given him the most intimate part of her; more than once. A fresh picked lily was tucked behind her ear and she carried two in her left hand. Her hair was down, curled and passed her shoulders. Make up wasn't a necessity but she had purchased a nice red lipstick to wear as well as to use as a blush. Something for her.
The church was small not one of the biggest buildings in Philadelphia. The pastor stood with kind eyes and an open book. Two witnesses stood present, two strangers...
She wasn't marrying Caledon Hockley on this day as she should have been, even just a week before as planned. She was marrying the man she barely knew, who had promised her the world and who she believed. She believed and trusted. To many she would be deluded, but she was perfectly sane. Defying society and leaving her family had led her here and she was about to marry Jack Dawson.
She stood at the altar with him, holding hands, gazing into each other's eyes, for this was a moment they would never forget. The engagement ring which sat upon her slender finger barely glittered but that didn't matter, size didn't matter, the people didn't matter, just each other.
Jack squeezed her hand reassuringly and he smiled gently at her. The nerves seemed to disappear and she felt wrung through with love.
''Now, Jack do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?''
''I do.''
The small wedding band slid up her fourth finger.
''And Rose, do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?''
''I do.''
The wedding band was placed on his finger as their hands joined together.
''And now, I do pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride.''
This was the moment they had both been waiting for; their first kiss as husband and wife. Slowly, he leaned towards her and kissed her lips, just once. That was it, they were married. Rose felt a tiny tear fall down her cheek but she didn't wipe it away, she didn't care who saw, she and Jack were married now, it was all that mattered.
When they met he saved her, she became a woman. She was now independent and learning to make her own way in life. She was no longer in a world where she had to be perfect. Yet, he fell in love with her perfection.
There was so much they didn't know about the other and yet, as they exited the small white church and faced the world for the first time joined as one, that didn't matter at all.
She knew nothing of his past. He had roamed the world without a care but how would he cope with having a partner in life? A woman no less. That didn't matter. Did he still want to live out all of the dreams they had put together in just one short afternoon aboard a ship? Could they afford to?
The little things had dissolved as soon as he had led her to the church that morning. They were not conventional; they were in love. She owed everything to him. She felt as though she knew how to spread her wings and fly somewhere with him just stood by her side. She had been reborn.
She had traded her life as an upper-class girl, a handsome rich fiancé and more jewels and diamonds than she had ever hoped for, to marry a penniless drifter who she had known just eleven days…
His eyes were brimmed with tears; it wasn't the first time she had seen him cry, but this was the first time she had seen a happy tear shed. She wiped it away. They had each other now. He would no longer be alone; an orphan and she would no longer be trapped in another world.
They were one.