Rose threw herself on the bed in her empty house and pulled her knees up to her chest. The tears came fast and warm. Her carefully built up world was starting to crumble around her.

For the last eighteen years she had worked her best to create a situation that was comfortable. It was false, but comfortable—allowing Rose to thrive as well as she possibly could. Rose did her best to live out the dreams she had shared with Jack. She learned things she never would have imagined herself knowing—how to drive a car, ride a horse, feed and clothe herself. She wasn't cavalier about her life, which was Jack's final gift, but she was much less afraid of perceived dangers than she had ever been before. No, the only risks she took were letting little snippets, memories and reminders of her time with Jack into her life. Though the happiest times in her life were the times she was daydreaming about dancing with Jack, flying with him, making love to him, the time after she relived these memories were painful and full of despair. Eventually, she had created for herself an impenetrable shield to ward off any thoughts too painful.

But impenetrable was far too close to unsinkable for her taste. It felt—fallible.

She had dated, actually fairly often. Though she had not quite felt the tug of motherhood at seventeen, when she rethought the words of her promise, she knew she wanted to care for a child and to watch him grow. Her problem was, Rose wanted the child but she couldn't imagine allowing herself to trust anyone other than Jack enough to give her one.

That is why she was sitting on her bed with tear lines on her face. She had finally allowed herself to poke a series of holes in her blockade from men. She had enjoyed spending time with the handful of men she had become close with. She made easy friendships with most. She had even enjoyed kissing them. Tonight, however, she was with a man she had seen four or five times—a Russian actor she had worked with years ago. He was lacking in perceptiveness enough to notice neither the occasional first class air she put on nor her occasional slip into distraction.

They had gone to a speakeasy and he had introduced her to some of the warmest, most forbidden vodka she had ever tasted. It had comforted her from the first sip and Rose relaxed into the evening. It had felt so good to let herself go for a night. All of the recent worries that had been plaguing her mind were gone for a night.

It was well past midnight when she followed the Russian into his home. It was only a few blocks away from hers, but Rose had never noticed. When the door swung closed he kissed her fiercely and she closed her eyes and responded. His coat was off before they fell back on his large sofa.

Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the passage of time, but something shattered Rose's barrier that night. A smooth hand lightly touched her cheek before slipping down to the first button on the front of her dress. There was only a moment's hesitation before the lithe fingers slipped the button out of it's hole. Rose then felt his lips leave hers.

"Please Jack!" she shouted. "I need you Jack."

When he didn't respond, Rose's eyes flew open. In her entire life, she had never been more dispirited. The face that greeted her had cold grey eyes marred with confusion. The weight of the Russian man combined with her heavy heart threatened to strangle her. This was betrayal. He had died for her. Died. Here she was letting someone else become intimate. She owed it to him to let him to be the only one she shared this with.

She squeezed her eyes closed, trying in vain to stop the tears. With all her strength she shoved the Russian to the floor.

"Eighteen years ago I—" but as she looked back at the angry look in his eye, she just pushed the door open and ran back to her own home. First she had betrayed Jack, then she had almost told someone else their story. She had kept him locked inside her heart for so long. It would not do to let him out just for a man that she didn't really know all that well. She thought it her duty to protect her fragile world and his memory by keeping him away from the outside world.

"I'm sorry Jack," she mumbled through her tears as she ran home.

Now that she was curled on her bed, she could let the tears really flow. The leftover tears she hadn't shed for Jack were reserved for herself. She cried for they life they could have had—with children and a home that was anything but lonely. She cried for her future. That night she had realized she wouldn't—couldn't love anyone like she had loved Jack. The high point of her life had been for three days when she was seventeen. And though she had created a semblance of a happy life, nothing and no one would ever match what she had known with him. That night, Rose had given up trying to find love.

At this thought, Rose's anger started to rise. It was so unfair that someone like Jack didn't get to experience all of life. It had been years since she had allowed herself to feel this kind of pain. It was worse than she remembered.

Hoping for nothing less than a large dent in the wall, Rose grabbed the high heeled shoe off her foot and flung it across her bedroom. But another wave of tears came when she remembered that it wasn't really her room.

When the stock market had crashed only a few months ago, the public was less than willing to spend money on things like plays. Rose had given up on movies a few years earlier after appearing very briefly in two pictures. She much preferred live theatre. Unfortunately, the jobs in theatre were growing slimmer by the day. Rose had not been able to make the last few payments on her small house.

Her options were not great. Four years earlier, Rose had grown tired of taking rides with other people. She had saved up all of her money for months and months. Every paycheck she got went into the fund she had created for buying a car. She had never been prouder than when she had finally purchased a new GM pickup and learned to drive it. She cared for it with precision. She knew that Jack would be incredibly proud of her for learning to drive, something that almost no women took the initiative to do. It was this thought—of Jack's pride—that made her treasure her car above anything material she had ever possessed.

So now that she could not find work, she had to sell her house by the end of the month. She could not bear to lose the car she had worked so hard to earn. She could already tell that her career in acting was coming to an end.

The world that she had so carefully made for herself was ending. She had nowhere to live. She didn't think she could bear to build another barrier against the memories of Jack. She regretting living falsely for eighteen years. Now the pain would be even worse for the rest of her life.

Rose didn't even notice that she had drifted into sleep until she woke up the next morning in the same position, wearing the same clothes. She slowly got out of bed and leaned over the tap in her small kitchen. She splashed some water in her face, trying to erase the memories of the previous night and of her entire life. Her head throbbed from all of the crying. She mindlessly grabbed a handful of aspirin and collapsed in a heap on the kitchen floor.

A bit later, Rose felt alive enough to crawl over to the newspaper sitting innocently on her front porch. Couldn't the rest of the world see that she was in distress?

It only took one glance at the headline to convince Rose that the last eighteen years had not healed her by any means. There had been no reminders of her time on Titanic and she had convinced herself that she was doing fine—that she was healing. But at this time of weakness, when she was already thinking of Jack, every possible memory she could think of came flying back to her.

She was holding on to the stern of the ship by just the tips of her fingers. The cold wind was whipping her hair out of its form. She had never hated herself more. She had never hated life more. Was she only doing this to prove a point to Cal and her mother? She didn't really take the time to consider her reasons. She didn't care. All Rose knew was that she wanted out and she could only think of one way. But an angel had come to save her. Save her from herself, save her from her society's constraints.

"Don't do it."

Just the memory of the first words he had spoken to her broke her heart.

Again, Rose saw herself. She was numb and cold, her firm grip on his hand her only lifeline. Her saviour was gone. It would have been so easy to join him. It would have been perfectly acceptable, understandable, justified. She didn't want any part of a life that didn't include him. But then as the boat was going further and further away, she heard his voice again.

"Don't do it."

When she heard her own voice whisper his words, she was shocked back to reality. Rose was sitting on the floor of her kitchen with the newspaper open in her lap.

IMPOVERISHED TYCOON HOCKLEY DEAD BY OWN HAND

She didn't know what to feel. The news didn't exactly shock her, but she was so far removed from her former fiance that she wasn't exactly saddened either. The only thought occupying her mind made her wonder why he hadn't had an angel to ask tell him not to do it.

She didn't know exactly what she believed about afterlife, just that she somehow knew she would see Jack again. So her next thought scared her immensely.

"Be careful, Jack!"

After only skimming the article to see that he had left a young wife, a fifteen year old son, and a twelve year old daughter, Rose flung the newspaper back onto the porch where she found it. She quickly gathered a small bag of clothes and got in her truck. When she turned on the ignition, she didn't really know where she was headed.

There was some farm work available up North, but she had heard that what little was available was only going to strong farm workers.

With only her small knapsack sitting on the passenger seat of her trusty truck, Rose drove without even glancing at the rearview mirror. The billboards passed her by without notice. The endless horizon of agriculture was the only thing Rose saw for her entire trip. When night fell, she was in an old mining town of Yreka. She parked the car and slept, ready to see if this was where her life would take her next.

A/N: I'm so sorry for the delay in this chapter. I'm moving to my apartment next week and it's really time consuming getting everything packed. The next chapter should be up a little sooner. Thanks for reading.