You Jumped, I Jumped, Remember?

Chapter Six: A Promise Kept


Disclaimer: I do NOT own Titanic


Hey, guys. If you have any suggestions for chapters after this one, please let me know. I'd love to hear from you. :) In the meantime, ENJOY! :)

P.S. - You'll be surprised about what happens in this next chapter ;) And I MIGHT try new formatting, so be warned.


After eating the food Tommy had gotten for them from the restaurant that consisted of two bowls of soup, a Caesar salad for the two of them to share, and a couple breadsticks, Jack and Rose walked side-by-side down the street, hand in hand, toward the grocery store that was nearby. The cold rain had been reduced to a light drizzle but the two young adults stayed completely dry by walking under the awnings of the shops on the way. With her hands in the pockets of Cal's coat, grasping the money, Rose entered the large grocery store that could be seen bustling inside from the windows; Jack stayed behind, waiting for his love to return. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of matches and a single cigarette; he struck the match against the side of the box and lit the cigarette while holding it between his lips.

He sighed, leaning back against the brick wall that stood behind him.

Then he looked to the sky. He thought only of his parents, both of whom he'd lost so long ago at the age of fifteen.

What would they have thought of their son who was now an adult in the world?

Would they be proud of him? Or would they be disappointed that he had taken to the bohemian lifestyle?

Then again, Jack knew that his parents would have been nothing short of proud of their son for picking himself up after their deaths and heading out toward the horizon in order to make his own life out in the world, even if it meant being poor and living without any one to love him. He'd been through it all, it seemed. He'd been without anyone to love him for years and he had grown completely used to it.

Until that night he'd stumbled across Rose, the emotionally distressed seventeen-year-old girl who'd changed his life completely.

He had then found something other than his art to love and live for. He began to think about how his life would have been different if he had never stopped her from throwing herself off the stern of the ship; he would have died eventually, with the sinking of the ship and the officers' restrictions on third-class compared to the second and first.

"I love you, Jack..." Rose had told him in the midst of it all.

The memory of the night the ship went down spun through Jack's head.

He then blamed himself for almost bringing Rose to her death; if he hadn't fallen in love with her, she would have stayed in the lifeboat and gotten away, lying in wait for the final deadly moments in the titan's death. But without him, she would never have seen the light of another day. For she would have committed suicide. And he would never have found another reason to live. He would have been lonely for the rest of his life, drawing people and living in a garret until his final days on the earth.

Would his parents have been proud of him for saving and falling in love with Rose?

Perhaps he never would have known. But he did know something. He knew it now more than ever that he had a responsibility to Rose; to love her, to be there for her, protect her, and make her happy all the days that they should spend together. He also had a duty to keep his promise to her to bring her to the pier in Santa Monica, to drink cheap beer with her, to ride the roller coaster with her, teach her to ride a horse properly, not sidesaddle, like it was expected of women at the time, and maybe even continue his lesson of spitting. There was so much for them to do together, yet so little time before they would grow old.

But it didn't matter.

If they were meant to grow old, they were meant to grow old in each other's arms, the way it had ought to be.

Thank you, Lord, for letting me meet such a wonderful girl. Jack thought.

He looked out to the street, noticing that the rain had subsided; he then spit the butt of the cigarette out of his mouth and let it hit the wet pavement before he crushed it under his foot. The young bohemian artist sighed, waiting for Rose to come out of the grocery store. Then, with the stroke of this thought, the door of the store opened and Jack saw Rose exit from the door, two small shopping bags in her hands. He smiled, taking both of them for her.

"I swear I've never seen a more crowded place in my life." She smiled. "It was almost like Southampton all over again."

Jack smiled too.

Rose reached into one of the paper bags and pulled out a large messenger bag; Jack stared in awe at the light brown cloth bag with its leather handle and metal attachment with which one could adjust it. Then his face lit up as she handed it to him. She knew she'd never seen the poor, third-class young artist so happy in his life. Immediately Jack looked to his love, speechless. She truly was an amazing young woman.

"For you. For your drawings and tools." She told him.

Jack placed the bags on the ground and swept her up into his arms, embracing her. He kissed her multiple times on the face and then on the lips. He spun her around, causing them both to laugh, reminiscing about the steerage party and all the fun they'd had while dancing together that very same night. Jack held her close, stroking her hair; Rose linked her arms around his neck, feeling a tear slip from his face to her own.

"You've been so wonderful to me. I don't deserve you." He whispered.

"I love you, Jack. That's why I bought you the messenger bag. And it's also why I refused to leave you for the lifeboat."

"Rose, please tell me that we'll always be together." Jack said to her. "I want to be by your side until the day I die."

"I can promise you that." Rose told him.

"I don't ever want this to end." Jack whispered.

Rose looked up into her love's eyes, seeing everything that was right with her life in them. All she saw was him, all she thought about was him, so why did he think that anything would have come before him in her mind? She pressed her hand to his lips, as she'd done only once before. As he stared into her eyes, she smiled and lowered her hand away from his lips once again.

"There is nothing that can separate us now. We've been through the unexpected, the... the unthinkable together." She told him.

Jack's face lit up immediately, prompting him to kiss her slowly but with every ounce of passion and love that he could give her.

"Like I said..." He told her. "I've got ten bucks in my pocket. I have nothing to offer you... but you can't put a price on this..."

Rose linked her arms around his neck; then she took his hand and held it.

Tightly.

"You and I will be together...

"Forever?"

"Forever."

Jack took the small shopping bags, full of food, and placed them in his new messenger bag, taking a moment to sling it over his body in order to carry all of their belongings. Then he took Rose's hand, kissing it gently, and began down the street with her. Their pace increased gradually to a run. Rose ran with Jack, hand in hand, and laughed at the thought of them running out of happiness. Jack ran behind her, his hand not leaving hers for any reason at any time; he held it, ready to protect her at any cost. Rose ran until she could feel her heart thundering in her chest, almost ready to burst.

But she didn't care.

She was with the man she loved and nothing would ever change that.

Suddenly, someone appeared in front of the two, Jack seeing the person first. Rose, however, had not been so lucky.

She did not see the person and succeeded in knocking her over. Rose and the other person fell to the pavement, both earning scratches, however small, on their hands and knees, landing almost on their faces. Jack ran to his love and pulled Rose up by her arms and brushed her hair away from her delicate, young face.

"You okay, darlin'?" He asked her.

Rose, exhausted by all the excitement that had been put into her life, sighed and smiled weakly to him. "I'm fine."

She kissed him softly and brushed herself off.

Then she turned to the other woman she'd so rudely run into.

"I'm so sorry, miss-" Rose said as she put out her hand to help the woman up.

When the lady turned around to face Rose, she immediately recognized her. Her dark emerald green overcoat trimmed with gold decorations that looked expensive, her rather large dark emerald hat with a feather, and her piercing sky blue eyes and thin, bony face, all had become too familiar to the young woman. Rose felt the need to run away at the sight of her, for she'd caused her so much pain and anguish in the last few years of her life. She'd tried to marry her to someone she didn't even love.

"Mother?" Rose asked.

"Rose!" The woman gasped.

Rose wanted to duck behind Jack had almost done so but her mother was too quick in taking her in a tight hug, tears flooding her sky blue eyes; her bony hands caressing her daughter's fiery red hair; Rose tried pulling away, but her mother had held her too tightly so that she couldn't easily get away from her. Ruth then proceeded to stand with her daughter, her head in her hands, almost bawling with the joy that her seventeen-year-old daughter, her only child was alive.

"Oh, thank the Lord that you're alive, Rose." She said joyfully.

This, for Rose, however, was not a very joyful experience at all.

Rose tried pulling away from her mother, only managing to free her head and shoulders. "Mother-" She gasped, unable to breathe very easily. She was still out of breath from running with Jack and now she felt limp and faint.

"What were you thinking leaving me alone?" Her mother scolded her.

Rose gave her mother a glare that nearly pierced her soul. "I meant what I said, mother."

"What about everything that I've given you? Everything that Caledon has given you?" Ruth DeWitt Bukater demanded of her daughter. "I cannot believe you traded your wonderful first-class life to run away with this gutter rat who doesn't have a damn dime to his name and sketches nude prostitutes for what he thinks is a 'living'! You ruined your fine match with Caledon!"

Nobody talks about Jack like that. She thought.

"He's not a gutter rat at all! He loves me..." Rose said in all defense of the man she loved, taking a glance at him. "And I love him."

"Oh, my poor daughter." Ruth lamented. "You've done your fair share of turning her against me by brainwashing her, you dirty street rat!"

Ruth gave Jack a look of disgust, even though the young man had fallen in love with her daughter, ultimately saving her from her own destruction. Jack stood there helplessly with a defeated look on his face, knowing that it was not his place to ever act through anger toward a woman. He could have said anything to defeat Ruth but he held his tongue, feeling nothing toward her personally, even though she'd treated him like a piece of trash since she'd met him.

Without her, Rose would never have existed.

He, in a sense, owed all his happiness to her, the mother of the young woman he loved so dearly.

"Well, Caledon is waiting." Ruth grabbed her daughter by her hair and led her away for a step or two. "Besides, you can do so much better than this vagrant! Come on, Rose. We're leaving!"

Rose tore her mother's gloved hand away from her fiery red hair. "No, mother..." She defied her.

Ruth gasped. "Rose DeWitt Bukater! How dare you say no to me? I am your mother!"

"You are no mother to me... not anymore. I accredit nothing to you except for my horrible life that Jack Dawson saved me from!" Rose cast all the nastiness she felt inside toward her mother.

Rose took Jack's hand and turned, only stopped by a gun pointed to both of their heads. The two of them gasped, knowing that they had a very good chance of dying right there on the spot; for the man behind the gun now hated both of them. Jack got in front of his love, wanting to protect her at all times, no matter what the situation. He'd done it before, aboard the grandest ship in the world, so who was to say that he couldn't do it now?

"Jack Dawson." Cal purred the twenty-year-old artist's name through spite. "Unhand my fiance or you die."

Jack, fearing for Rose's safety, released his love's hand and stepped aside as Cal approached her. Rose backed away from Cal, horrified that her love had released his hand from her own; Cal intimidated the young woman so that she could not leap toward Jack and Rose looked to her love, remembering all that they'd been through together.

"Jack..." Rose said weakly, a tear slipping from her eye.

Why? She thought.

Jack, in all honest efforts to protect Rose, then realized that he'd made a huge mistake when the aristocrat swung his hand toward Rose, landing a firm smack on her delicate, beautiful face infuriated him... but all he could do was stand there and watch this horrible scene play out. But why wasn't he moving from that spot? He wanted so badly to tackle Cal and beat the crap out of him for hurting Rose. But he was immobilized.

"You really are a little slut." Cal hissed to her. "How dare you! What does the street rat have that I don't?"

Jack, losing control of his anger, leapt toward Cal but felt that he'd been pulled back into the alley by a sturdy pair of hands. The bohemian artist resisted the firm grip, realizing that through the darkness that it was actually Tommy and Fabrizio. They shushed him, placing their arms around his slim figure, holding the young twenty-year-old artist back for fear that they all would get killed.

"You look at me when I'm talking to you!" Cal took a hold of Rose by her shoulders, shaking her violently.

Then he was pushed away.

Ruth, in her anger that her daughter had been slapped by the aristocrat, had shoved him so that he collided with the brick wall behind him. Rose looked to her mother in awe, finding it strange that she had actually done that to Cal, and that she had actually had a change of heart in terms of the situation.

"Mother... why did you do that?" Rose said, barely able to breathe from shock.

"I wanted you to get married to Caledon. I said he could have you as his wife." She said. "I didn't say he could use you as a punching bag."

Immediately her attention went to Caledon Hockley. Ruth went to Cal, delivering a smack of her own to his face, and it was his turn to be held by the shoulders and shaken violently. She looked him dead in the eyes, her anger about him beating her daughter flaring in her eyes and on her bony face. Cal stared at the woman who originally was supposed to be his future mother-in-law, scared out of his mind.

"You don't touch my daughter. Do you understand me, Mr. Hockley?" She stared into his eyes with a poisonous expression in them.

Cal nodded. "Yes, Ruth."

Ruth held the gun to Cal's throat, leaving Rose to stand there watching in horror.

"Leave my daughter alone. Leave me alone. Do you understand me?"

Cal nodded. He was reduced to a trembling, sobbing mess and he slumped to the pavement. Ruth lowered the gun away from her former future son-in-law's neck. She smiled, putting the diamond in her pocket and smiled, pocketing the gun and its bullets also. Cal began backing away and sobbing.

"Get out of here." She told him.

She and Rose watched as the aristocrat got up and ran the fastest he could away from the scene; Ruth then turned to her daughter. Rose and her mother met in a tight hug, sorry for everything that had happened between the two them in the last thirty-six hours.

"Mother... I am so sorry..."


Oh, happy day! - I am such a nerd. The new Celine Dion concert movie coming out soon. I must see it. I'm a HUGE fan of hers since she sang 'My Heart Will Go On' for Titanic :) And I also hear that sometime in the near future, Titanic will be re-released into theaters in 3D! I am so excited. I am slightly obsessed, but at least I'm not a drug addict or anything, right? Haha- I want to see it because I never got to the first time it went into theaters, 'cause I was way too young to see it. I was, like, what... three... I'm going to flip when they finally do re-release it. :)
And getting back to the story: so, what did you guys think? Surprised you, didn't I? Credit for Rose meeting her mother goes to my good friend (whose name will not be displayed for fear of stalkers). And I saw Dear John today... it wasn't what I thought it would be. And sad... :(Oh, well, I guess I'm a sucker for sad and romantic movies. ;) Oh, how I do love my good love story that I can cry for occasionally, such as this one.

Anyway...

R&R, please! I really appreciate it.

I will be getting back to you with the next chapter as soon as I can. Until then... hang in there. :)