A.N.- Short chapter, I know, but I thought this moment deserved its own.
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(Rose)
I stood, halted at the wide doorway, rain pelting with a determined ambition. I wasn't going to come by the theater today, but I needed the distraction. I needed to feel like the person I had become since he had gone. It had thrown me off in a shock I had dreamed of, but never truly expected.
He was right there and I didn't have the courage to even touch him. If I had, would it have made any difference? He couldn't remember, but could I have expected him to? After all, logically I told myself, our time together wasn't very long. Several days as compared to a lifetime.
The rain continued to pound in white sheets that left puddles on the muddy cobbles they called a road. I was being an idiot. How many times had I wished it? To be given this chance for something, anything with this boy…man…that I had loved. Even if he couldn't remember, I realized I wasn't even fighting for what remained. He deserved more than that.
I made a move to step into the chaos outside, but a voice stopped me.
"Don't do it."
I spun, finding Jack standing there with a curious look on his face. He made no move to come closer, but a smile formed. "Catch a cold or something if you go out into that."
For just that moment, I wanted to defend myself with a pang of annoyance, one that within the same moment melted into a mesh of joy and embarrassment.
"But if you still do, I came prepared." He smiled wider, pulling out a simple, black umbrella that had gone unnoticed at his side.
It was him. In that otherwise mundane moment, despite everything, I knew it was really him. Here, in front of me. Alive.
My eyes watered despite my attempt to keep control. Control I lost within that very instant as I was in his arms. He seemed stunned, but only for a moment before pulling me closer, arms taking me in a comfortable embrace, umbrella and all. I sobbed, with none of the inhibition I had kept as my companion since leaving the deck of the Carpathia. Tears I had only allowed for an instance here, an instance there, normally in my weaker moments in the dark of my own room before allowing sleep to consume me.
I wept. With every emotion I couldn't place, and all that could flicker clearly in my mind was that my Jack was here with me, alive. His words of comfort wrapped me almost as soothingly as the feel of his body against mine, yet I never understood a word of it as my heart released. Even the scent of his skin assured me that this moment was not only in the mind of a woman lost, sitting in the dark on an empty bed.