entitled; Again I Can Breathe
summary; The chilled waters that separated might just bring them what the need to be reunited. Rose and Jack both get a hope to keep them going as the dark night of the sinking takes them away. Inspired by BellaVision.
rating; PG
disclaimer; Okay, so I rewrote this because I felt like it and I feel like this flows better and thank you to Dani Course whose review helped me in fixing my story and Fuck you .Lurker for being an ass to a 14 year old beginner writer who just need constructive help and I hope one day you stop hiding behind an anon account and stop being a hater like all those creepers on tumblr.
"Oh simple thing where have you gone?
I'm getting old and I need something to rely on"
The night was cold and the boat's lights were the only things to be seen. But it wasn't my boat- ship. It wasn't the one I took sail on. The Carpathia sailed to rescue us all from the frozen waters of the Arctic, but for some it was just too late. Jack was gone, but Cal had survived some how, probably by lies and deceit to get away from death no matter how much he should deserve it. I walk around the ship's starboard with two blankets cloaked around me. Though I was long dry, I was still numb. I feel a tug on my dress and look down. A little girl holds to her a doll made of rags and couldn't be more than four. Her body takes on shivers by the seconds and I waste no time to relieve myself of my own blankets and wrap her in them. She is so familiar. "What is it, sweetheart?"
She looks out toward the water. "I think they're lost." I look at her strangely. "Momma and daddy, they got me up top and then crowds were everywhere. I don't know." I weave a soothing hand over her tangled hair and pull her into a hug. "I know you- you knew uncle Jack." I nod onto her shoulder. I pull away, keeping her close to me for her warmth and her comfort. "
What is your name?" She tilts her head.
"Cora." I am suddenly back on the ship, in the lower quarters, sipping a beer with my hair falling down from the humidity of the sweat and the musk. I see Jack dancing with a little girl, I see the little girl jealous because he chose to dance with me instead. "You'll always be my girl, Cora." he told her.
"Well, Cora, I'm Rose." She nods and holds tight to me. "Don't worry, Cora, nothing is going to happen to you on my watch."
What do you do when your love has been taken from you? When a girl finds solace in your arms? You go on. Time passes in spades and I take each blow the best I can. Life has changed- from being little miss rich to middle class with another to care for and the title of survivor. California has been good to us. It took us time to get here and more money than we had. "Cora, baby! It's time to get up!" I call through our little apartment. The best one can get for minimum wage. I see Cora with her messy brown hair in tangles and her doll dragging from her hand behind little five year old.
"Mom?"
I smile, "come on, honey, time to get a bath." I usher her into the tiny bathroom and turn the faucets on as she get her sweaty night clothes off her and climbs in,. leaving dolly on the counter by the sink. "You know what to do?" She nods and I put her bath toys in with and leave to continue getting ready myself.
The titanic sank around a year ago leaving us both orphans. Me by choice and Cora by force. We spent 6 weeks after trying our hardest to track down the missing duo known as Louise and Alfie Marson, Cora's parents, and only wound up finding them on the dead list when it was finally released. She spent the next two days crying and sitting in a corner and that was when I took all the money I had earned enough by being a waitress and bought two tickets- one adult and one child- and took us to California. We had to stop some and I would wait tables to earn enough to keep going. When we arrived, I waited on more tables and got enough to rent out an apartment to some sexist landlord. I went to the courthouse soon after arriving and sent in an order for Cora's birth certificate along with a payment of a weeks worth of tips. In two weeks, Cora's last name was changed to Dawson and she was mine."MOM!" I look up from lacing my shoes and rush to the bathroom where I find Cora sitting in water with a head filled with suds. "Get it out please?" She panics, probably got it in her eyes like last time.
Too much time has past since Cora got dressed and had ate breakfast. She would now be late to tutoring with Madame Gurch, a theater friend of mine. I had met her waiting a table next to the lady in green and she asked me if I had ever done any acting. I looked at her as if she was crazy and she smiled, gave me a card and told me to come audition. I did as she asked and got a small part along with $400. So along with waiting tables, I picked up acting as well and a good tutor for Cora.
We hop onto the trolley and ride it until we reach the road with the big gray house and the blue trim. Gurch is waiting for us and I rush Cora up the steps to go learn. I stay at the base and call up to my dear friend. "I'll be back at 5." She nods and I walk down the street, ready to make some tips- once so strange to me, coming from a world where I inherited everything and worked for nothing. Now my fingers are callused from cleaning with chemicals and scrubbing the ground til it shines.
The morning goes smoothly and I feel like I should be thankful but you know, love isn't easy to let go of. A picture I had painted of Jack by an park painter hangs in the living room/dining room and it has never came down. Walking the beach path when we get the chance and money to go out that far only brings dead memories and nightmares. Letting Jack fade isn't an option but closing down and being a zombie myself will never be an option. The life of sorrow kills a good heart, but once broken, it can only get stronger. I will never be as free as singing on the ship with him holding me as we look at stars, but I do know that life isn't what I always thought it would be and at least I am not trapped in a loveless marriage and bullied by a money hungry mother.
I take table after table pulling money of the finished plates and cleaning away used dishes. My feet were sore in the heels we had to wear- luckily I had practice- and the itchy fabric made my skin ache. People were impatient and couldn't hold long enough to wait to get food. The clock on the wall read 3:30, an hour and a half left. "Rose." I turned to see Diane, a fellow waitress. "There's a guy up at the register, says he and you go back." I nod and drop the dishes in the back and wash my hands of the sticky syrupy mess and check my hair. Probably Mr. Smith, my old director.
I go up to the register and look into a ghost's eyes. "What?" I whisper and freeze.
"Hello Rose." My feet turn to ice and suddenly I am the ice queen again.
"Jack?"
We sit across the table from each other. My boss had let me go early for the reason I had given him and now here we are. "I saw you sink to the bottom, Jack." I say. "I felt your skin grow cold and dead."
"What? Go through one bad experience and lose all hope?" He grins at me with that boyish charm like he did when we raced around the Titanic.
"This isn't a loss of hope but a with to the devil!" He looks at me confused. "I saw you die!" I put my head in my hands. I
feel the table shift and his hands find my arms. "I was gone. I was trapped in my mind, fading away and I couldn't escape. I had lost feeling in every part of my body, my eyes were sealed and my heart was probably so slow, no pulse could be detected. All I know is when I woke up, I was in Canada with a bunch of ice fisherman and their wives and youngen's. They steered me toward a guy named Paul Duncan and he told me about how him and some buddies had decided to try and sail across the ocean to England and their ship had gotten a bit off course- they left before Titanic had even sunk- hell! Before it even hoisted off!" He laughs, "great shock to them with they steer their ice boat right into a graveyard of floating bodies! They
didn't realize it had been a morning or to since and grabbed as many as they could and turned the ship right around." I keep my head down. "I was one of the few they grabbed. My body must have floated back up and when they got back to their home, they kept us all on heat, the ones that were dead as dead could be, well, they were buried and given blank headstones and three of us were labeled comatose.
"They kept us pumped with meds in their hospital and after 4 months I awoke, the second to awaken actually, but the first was unfortunately a little brain dead for too long for her and now wears a lovely white jacket- it really matches her eyes." I can hear him smiling and can't help but laugh a little. "Even my brain was frozen, had quite a bit of damage. I can't remember much before the sinking and my right hand is basically useless, so I had to learn to draw with my left . . . It's a work in progress. I had to also relearn a lot. They told me that when I awoke, I was basically a zombie who really liked flowers." I laughed at that and finally looked up at him.
"I tried to get to you as soon as I could, but being Rose Dawson- well you were a bit hard to locate." I nod. His brown hair fall down into his eyes and he still has those piercing eyes.
"How did you find me?" I ask him.
"You were in a couple plays, got a few reviews. I remembered that I talked about California with you, took a chance when I gained back walking in my dead legs- can you believe they said I would be paralyzed for life? Ha! Hell, I showed them. Worked everyday, days of therapy- months actually. It's been what? A year a 4 months since the beauty met her end? Well I spent 8 of those in getting my body back and the last trying to find you. But I came to Cali, saw a review for The Ice Queen and it said the star, Rose Dawson, had the voice of an angel and then I followed it and found you here. First I went to the theater and it was closed but the janitor gave me the usual director's name and I tracked him and well, he wants to make a play about my story, you know? Says it could be the next Romeo and Juliet. and now time-"
"Shit! What's the time?" I jump up and go to the clock, ripping his hands from my arms.
"Shit!" I rush for my things and run out the door. I hear footsteps behind me.
"What is it? Rose?" He is so confused and I really want to hold him, but I can't. I'm half an hour late!
"I'm sorry, Jack." I stop and turn to him, letting him catch up. "You see, I left my daughter at the tutor like I do everyday and I pick her up at 5, and it's almost 5:30 and she'll be mad because she's five and stubborn-"
"I'm sorry did you say daughter?" He looks really shocked and who could blame him- I didn't even think!
"No, no! She isn't mine, Jack- well, she is mine, now, but I didn't give birth to her or anything. She is an orphan of the Sinking, she found me on the deck on Carpathia and I adopted her." He cocks his head like Cora did this morning and I reach up to touch his face, running my hand down the smoothness of his jaw. "Do you remember the little girl called Cora?" His eyes go bright for a second and then he grabs me.
"She survived? Cora lives?" I nod, happy that he is happy. So much changed today and I can't even wrap my head around it- to have Jack back in our lives, returned from the dead. He looks at me and kisses me on the sidewalk. It's sweet and fiery and I want more, but he pulls away. I've been starved of touch for so long and his touch, my crave in dreams, has come back to me. "Let's go get your daughter then." I smile at him, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips and he grabs my hand and I take him to the gray house with the blue trim.