Title: You were there, Now you're here.
Chapter: Shooting Stars and Ghosts
Focus: Rose
INFORMATION:
It has been a few months since the Carpathia has docked.. That's why Bernard proposed, over those few months.. He fell hard and fast.
Entire Italic sentences are Rose's thoughts.

Shooting Stars and Ghosts

Rose sat in her room contemplating what had just happened to her. Bernard has just asked her to marry him about five hours ago and she had told him yes, and now? Well.. She was a fiancée. Again.

"When will this ever end? I was a single young adult, fiancée, a woman in an affair, partially a widow, and a fiancée again! All in the course of three damn months?!" She yelled at herself furiously kicking off of her bed and walking around the room. Soon after she had arrived at the Newman's that fateful day three months ago, she had gotten a room of her very own.

It was originally the attic, but was converted into Lucy's room when Gwen and Charlie, had a baby boy. It had died because of a chest cold the same year it was born, so Lucy moved back into her old room and the attic was abandoned. Bernard and Lucy were actually the ones who suggested she move into the attic and it wasn't a particularly bad room. Sure, it was always a couple of degrees warmer or colder than the rest of the house, but it was always cozy. Rose liked this room better than anything she had every lived or stayed in. It had a personal and very loving touch to it that she just couldn't figure out.

"Do I even love dear Bernard? It has only been a few months, and honestly, I think I miss Jack more than ever!" She questioned the open window and fell against it softly, sobbing loudly. Rose pulled her blanket that she had been carrying tightly around her. "I know Jack would want me to go on, I mean, he made me promise.." She thought out loud. "I'm going to do this. Quit having doubts Rose!" She told herself as she continued to sob. It wasn't as steady and loud as before though.

"NO! I can't do this!" Rose dropped the blanket and ran over to the door. "I can't! I can't! I love Jack, not Bernard! Not Bernard! I can't go through with this, I need to tell him before I make a mess of things. I don't want to lie to him. He loves me but I don't deserve him. I'm so sorry.. I need to leave." She opened the door and stared down the unlit stairwell into the bright hall. She could hear Gwen and Lucy laughing.

'Don't you dare do that Rose. Not now. They need you and you need them.' She heard Jack's voice and turned around. "Jack?!" She yelled like a mad woman. Nothing answered her. "Of course there's nothing there. Don't be silly!" She shook her head as she tried to reassure herself. She closed the door and turned around. 'Rose, do this for me. Please? ' "I CAN'T HANDLE THIS!" Rose fell against the door and slid down until she hit the floor.

"What am I supposed to do then, Jack?! Marry a man I do not love? Forget you? You expect me to do that?" 'It's not like I can just get over you...' 'I don't expect you to forget me, I expect you to move on. I can't come back. Rose, you do love Bernard. Just not the way you loved me... Please, just do this for me.'

"I know I'll never get over him. It's just not possible or even questionable. He freed me in every way imaginable. I owe him more than my life..." Rose said looking out the window at the deep blue sky that was getting darker by the minute. "He'd possibly kill me if he saw me right now," She said jokingly. "I probably look pretty scary at the moment." She grinned a little. "I have to marry Bernard. If not for me, for Jack." Rose slowly stood up and walked back over to the window. "...To make Jack happy. To live up to my promise... To do his honor out." Rose had ceased her crying and continued to stare at the sky; wondering where her Jack was at the moment. She liked to believe that he was beside her or drawing.

"I hope you know that I'm doing this for you, Mr. Dawson." Rose said through tear-stained eyes. A shooting star passed by as she stared, it brought back that night on the Titanic.
"Are we supposed to wish on it?" She stated.
"Why? ... What would you wish for?" He asked her truly curious.
"Something I can't have." She replied wistfully and neutral. 'Why was it always the same..' She couldn't have it then and she couldn't have it now. She wanted the impossible, for Jack to come back to her. If she hadn't been so wrapped up in her thinking, she would have heard the creaking of the stairs outside her door.

"She'll never be truly mine. I love her do much though... Whoever the bloody hell has her heart is one lucky son of a bitch." Bernard Newman said to himself trying not to alert Rose of his presence as he carefully made his way back downstairs.

Rose stared at the sky for a couple more minutes and decided to start packing for Chippewa Falls, after all... She was leaving tomorrow morning, as early as possible. If Jack wanted her to do this, she would, but she wasn't going to go without a fight. She needed to go to his hometown to see if there was anything left of him that she could grab...

Thanks for the reviews. Every good story must have a twist, and I imagine I added quite a few these past two chapters... Don't worry, everything will be resolved. I'm honestly sorry that this chapter was so short... I couldn't really say that much. It was a chapter that needed to be wrote. By the way, the Jack and Rose conversation in this chapter, it was all in her imagination.. I mean.. we all know Jack is alive. Review. Now. Please?