(A/N Okay, so I may have missed the boat - pun intended - by a few years on writing Titanic fics, but I recently binge watched the whole thing along with too many fanvids and got stupidly inspired, so here we are. I am mainly gonna use this as a tool for practicing my prose, because I typically write poetry and haven't written a real fanfic in about, eh, four years? Saying so, criticism is MUCH appreciated. And yes, I think there is a plot here. Sort of. Heh.)

Epilogue

The sun is only just beginning her lazy ascent towards California high noon when the artist presses his charcoal to the page. He is here, perched on a lonely bit of driftwood, because early morning light can make anything appear beautiful, and beauty is something far and in between these days. Besides, the Santa Monica saloon doesn't serve liquor until three, and the artist can't think of a much better place to be when sober.

The beach is empty, aside from the gulls and the shells - the tourists that once swamped the area no longer have any reason to visit, not now that the pier had burned to the ground in years past. The sea has since claimed the blackened wood and skeletal remnants of the fire, as the sea always has and always will swallow the reminders of tragedy. Time does not wait within the borders of Poseidon's kingdom.

The artist, however, is an anomaly. The sea had him in her clutches, practically already forgotten by the walking world above, and yet by some miracle, he escaped. At least, for the most part. The sea still charged a fee in exchange for release - if one were to observe the man, now, one would see that his eyes are blank, his hands sketching without thought. He is thin, perhaps too thin, and his shoulders slump beneath an invisible weight. He does not lift his head at the wailing cries of birds, nor at the sound of distant hooves on the sand.

And as such, he is almost shocked when the heaving chest of a bay horse is suddenly before him. Squinting against the sunlight, he looks upward. Dirty boots, long thin legs in men's riding breeches, a plain cotton shirt, a tanned face framed by crimson curls escaping from a braid, a tanned face that is hauntingly familiar, no, no it can't be, not here, not now -

"Excuse me, but ghosts are not welcome on my section of the beach. Leave."

A tanned face that is now at once haughty, angry, and more than a little afraid.

"Rose," is all he can manage to croak out at first. But then something like his old self presses forth, and he smirks and says, "Don't you know that nobody can own the beach? I was here first, and your spoiled brat attitude isn't going to change that -"

"No!" Her voice is trembling, and as it cracks she involuntarily yanks on the reins, making her horse paw and dance in the sand. (Despite the shock threatening to overwhelm his already fragile mind, the artist can't help but note the grace with which she sits in the saddle.) She legs her horse back around to face him, braid whipping with the motion, and practically screams,

"You...you're supposed to be dead. I mourned you for five God damned years, and yet you have the audacity to show up here and ruin my life all over again! Fuck you, Jack Dawson. Fuck you."

And though her words threaten to turn to tears, and though any other man in his current position may have stood and done something romantic or dramatic or... something, all Jack Dawson can do is smile.

"Still haven't lost your fire, I see."

Rose only stares, her mouth gaping, clearly at a complete loss for words. Her right hand is still hanging in mid air where she had only moments ago been angrily brandishing a finger. Panic begins to creep into her expression, and Jack can't help but think that if he doesn't do something right now, offer some sort of explanation as to why he isn't still a corpse in the infirmary of the Carpathia, then Rose will ride away and the reawakening of the fire in his life will have been so brief that it may as well have never happened at all.

"Rose, I - please, don't be upset, I - " but that red hot gaze of hers is boring into him and he's been dreading this moment and planning what to say for five bloody years and now that she's really here, Jack is at a complete and utter loss.

Molly, please, please, lie to her. For me. She can't see me like this, she'll be better off in the long run, we both know it. I'll be okay, I've always been able to take care of myself.

Jack, if this is what you want, I'll have to tell her mother and Cal. They're mad with worry , and you know how they, in their own twisted way, love her. I can't let her go off into this big world alone.

I don't care. If that's what it takes, then fine. Please, Molly. Tell her.

"What are you doing here, anyway? Drawing or something?" The snottiness has returned to Rose's voice as she attempts to cover her outburst, and Jack is wrenched back to the present. Rose has set her face into something resembling neutrality, and he remembers how stoic the woman before him was even as she hung her life off the back of a ship.

She clucks gently to her horse, nudging him a few steps closer to Jack, peering over the animal's neck in an effort to see the lines on the page.

Just as nosy as ever, Jack thinks to himself, not without fondness. However, he shuffles his sketches and tucks them back into their leather satchel before she can really take them in, and turns his face away.

Suddenly, the confrontation has become too much for him, and the breeze carrying the scents of the sea has become a trigger rather than a comfort. He closes his eyes, reaches in his pocket for a cigarette, and says simply, "I am here every morning. I'll wait for you."

He keeps his eyes shut, indicating the conversation is over, and does not exhale again until he hears the sound of her horse retreating down the beach. A part of him thinks he hears distant sobs beneath the crash of the surf, but pushes the thought away.

Rose rides on, her back straight as a rod, and does not turn. She does not see Jack reach behind his seat for a wooden crutch, and she does not see the way he drags one leg in the sand as he makes his way back towards town, in the manner of a cripple.

To his enduring credit, the artist does not cry. He does not allow his mind to wander towards thoughts of drowning this day in drink, for if the sea herself had failed to drown his love, then what hope did he have? He instead lights another cigarette and does something he has not dreamt of doing since boyhood.

He prays.