A Life Filled With Laughter
Jerked apart in that violent torrent of liquid ice, Jack and Rose lost each other. Their fingers simply weren't strong enough to cling on whilst bubbles of escaping air obscured their vision. When they reached the surface, gasping for air they used to scream the other's names, it was already too late. Seperated in the Atlantic, their voices were all but gone when they gave up calling out. It was around the same time the majority of the others there stopped screaming for God, for salvation, for the return of the elusive boats floating an unreachable few feet away.
So they found scraps of wood to cling to, shivering uncontrollably as water turned to ice in their hair. The cold was so much worse than anything either had ever experienced, and to endure it alone was worse. Their tears froze on their cheeks.
One boat came back. Fifteen hundred souls floating in the water were left to scream and freeze by the protected bastards nearby who would be eternally damned for their cowardice. Save for those aboard the single boat that returned, far too late.
Rose attracted their attention by blowing on a whistle. The boat turned around to get her, dragging her aboard and wrapping her in blankets. She was the second yanked from the icy grip of the Atlantic. Two more followed, and then the boat passed close to a man from third class, dressed in barely anything, aboard a piece of floating wood that had once been a wall. He raised an arm weakly and it was grasped by the officers. He was hauled into the depths of the boat that offered salvation and laid down only a few centimetres from Rose.
He didn't notice her for a very long time, and she didn't notice him. Both were too cold and too aggrieved to care who else was being saved. Finally, the boat left the corpses of the damned, unable to bear their glazed eyes doling out judgement upon the survivors, and floated with no direction, no hope, no future unless they were saved.
Who would save them now? Not God. He had abandoned them hours earlier. They were adrift. Cut off from the world, suspended in a limbo where nothing would ever change. They would always be this cold and lost; never able to reach through the veil of the dead to those who'd passed it by.
Then, the sky began to fade from deep purple to light grey. At first, it happened so gradually that it was hardly noticeable, just as the ship had seemed normal, level, solid for a little while after the impact. Suddenly, the sun rose in a rush similar to the forces that had dragged the Titanic away from the rays it would never bear witness to again.
Jack turned away from the harsh, invasive light, and his breath caught as he saw Rose. For a moment, he wasn't sure it was her. All he could see was brilliantly red curls and the tip of a feminine nose. He sat up, the move drawing all of his strength, and yes, it was her, staring at the sky straight above her. He had no voice left to speak to her and there was a man lying in between them, shaking despite his being out of the water for hours. So, Jack reached his hand across the man's stomach, grazing the blankets in which Rose lay. Her head whipped round, shocked by the contact, until she saw who it was touching her.
A gift from God, a small act of penance, saving one relationship even as he condemned a thousand others. Rose took Jack's hand in her own. There was little warmth between them, but they shared what they could, lying separated, a bridge formed by their arms, speechless but ever grateful.
The Carpathia had arrived before dawn and the lifeboat was no longer adrift. It rowed with purpose towards another ship promising salvation. Rose and Jack, however, were unaware of the ship's existence until they were alongside it. They both had to be helped aboard and instantly had hot drinks of coffee heaped with sugar pressed into their hands. Rose stumbled to a step in the deck and sat down. Jack joined her once he was aboard and they leaned against each other, sipping their coffee and staring out at the ocean. It was a flat stretch of water no longer. Corpses littered its surface.
There was a memorial surface that neither Jack nor Rose had the emotional or physical strength to partake in. The Carpathia began to move towards New York and Rose was shocked. They were really just going to leave those poor people to float here, alone?
Jack wrapped an arm around her and she breathed in the smell of salt that clung to his skin.
Cal came looking for them – for Rose. They hid behind their blankets, cowering away from his sight, and he didn't see either of them. Rose knew that in that small action she had chosen the course of the rest of her life. She would never see Cal or her mother again. Jack did not question this decision.
They remained largely quiet for a long time. It was on their second day aboard the Carpathia that Jack apologised for letting go of Rose's hand. She kissed him to silence his words and they clung to each other as they had in that ocean, determined to never be separated again.
The horror of what they had witnessed would never truly leave them. Entering New York, Rose gave Jack's surname as her own, sealing her fate. Jack gave Fabrizio's name. Neither could be identified on a survivor list now. If Cal checked, there was no record of Rose Dewitt Bukater or Jack Dawson. They were free.
Penniless and without ties or direction, they slept in Central Park that night. The police asked them, once, to move on. Upon their discovery that these were Titanic survivors, they gave them twenty bucks and wished them luck.
They left New York as soon as they could, heading for Los Angeles. They drank cheap beer, rode on the roller coaster until they threw up and cantered through the surf of the beach cowboy-style. Rose laughed like never before and they made love in the sand, the ocean coming up, once, to drift across their toes.
Life, real life, was hard. More often than not, they were starving hungry and on occasion fought like cats and dogs, only to make up a few seconds later. Both were uneasy around water for a while. Rose's baths were so hot they scalded and Jack woke up screaming a handful of times, the feel of water in his lungs threatening to suffocate him, but they battled on tirelessly. Enduring whatever was thrown their way.
The Heart of the Ocean, which Rose found in her coat pocket whilst they were still aboard the Carpathia, travelled with them, the only reminder of their past. Rose often considered sending it back to Cal, in the early days, so that the temptation of selling it would no longer torment her, but that would mean indicating she was still alive. Something Rose was not willing to do.
Cal died young and penniless. It was strangely ironic. Rose didn't hear about her mother's death until five years after the fact. She travelled to the cemetery with Jack, across four states, just to lay a simple bunch of flowers that Ruth would have almost certainly hated. The Ruth aboard the Titanic, anyway. Rose hoped her mother had mellowed in her last years and not mourned her too harshly.
Things grew easier with the passage of time. Rose became an actress with some notoriety and talent. Jack's drawings were admired by a wealthy old woman who offered him her patronage; she reminded him of Molly Brown. They made Rose's new last name official when she discovered she was pregnant and ended up settling in Wisconsin for some reason neither could explain. Eternally on the breadline, Rose and Jack made up for their lack of monetary means by living lives filled with laughter and love.
They had children. Their children had children. Both revelled in this, experiencing things they'd only ever read about. Neither ever mentioned the Titanic – what good could it do? They didn't want notoriety or sympathy. Life was too precious for that.
When Jack died, after years and years of happiness, Rose was left bereft. She knew that she would soon join her husband soon, the only man she'd ever loved, and that eased her heartache. But the years carried on. She grew even older, and one day, quite by chance, she saw on the news that someone had found a drawing upon the Titanic. Jack's drawing.
Taking it as a sign, she hurried to claim it and told her story for the first and only time. It seemed to have an impact. Those who heard it packed up their expedition, recognising that scouring through the belongings of the long dead and betrayed was a sin no deity could forgive. Rose didn't care all that much about this aspect of her visit. All she knew was that she had a chance to return to the sea what should have been stolen a long time ago. The heart Cal assumed he had lost in the depths was finally where he believed it to be.
Rose fell asleep and dreamed of the Titanic for the first time in many years. Perhaps it was being aboard another ship that rocked in such a similar way, perhaps it was seeing the evidence that she and Jack had loved so many years ago, but everything seemed so much clearer. She could see the beautiful ship risen from its watery grave, basking in the warm and humble sunshine. Faces that had been lost smiled at her from years gone past. She walked along passageways that were filled with the hum of chatter and life, emerging at the base of the grand staircase. She felt young and invigorated once again, her heart pounding with wonderful, uncomplicated love, and there was Jack, as marvellous and breathtaking as he'd always been, promising her a life of adventure as he smiled and held out his hand.
She took it and wondered if this was heaven as he kissed her the way he had aboard that ship; stolen beacons of light that he saved her in every way imaginable. It should be, she decided. Heaven should always be an endless, good dream.
NB - I love Titanic and their love story, and this is the way I wish it had ended. That's all =]