Author's Notes: Sorry for the delay! I just left apartment life behind and moved into a house!

Chapter Twenty-Four

July 25th, 1912
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Rose retired to her bedroom only fifteen minutes after dinner. Ruth and Nathan were getting comfortable in the sitting room. Nathan was there to read leisurely and smoke his cigars. Ruth was poring over every detail of the wedding meticulously. Seating plans, diagrams of the church hall and the banquet hall. She had several sample swatches of fabric and pressed flowers from the local florists. Everything had to be perfect and with each passing day, Ruth grew more and more fixated on it. For Rose, even half an hour of wedding planning had her nauseous. The tug and pull of her body telling herself she had to accept it while the other half seemingly rejected it had Rose horrendously upset at the very thought. She couldn't keep the wall up forever. Her mother was a wrecking ball.

Rose sighed, sinking down onto the chest at the foot of her bed. The french doors to her small balcony were propped open and the crisp night air came through the door. The cicadas chirped brightly and distantly, she even heard an owl hoot. The world seemed so quiet and still in that moment. Rose closed her eyes, pretending she was on a train, whirling through the night time, disturbing the peace. She imagined she was flying at high speeds away from the bear trap that had her by the ankle. She had salvaged herself. Rose's belly curled into knots and she sighed, lowering her head. But really, she hadn't.

Again, that dreadful feeling of being in flight but utterly out of control gripped Rose. She was nothing like the person she desperately wanted to be. She lacked that free spirit and that charged energy she had found on the decks of Titanic. How dearly Rose wanted it back. There was a curt knock on her door, startling her. No one ever came to her bedroom door. After a moment, it peaked open and Cal stuck his head in.

"Yes?" Rose arched her eyebrows, looking over her shoulder at him.

"I noticed you've come to bed earlier than usual," Cal said, still not coming completely through the door. "I was curious if you wanted to have a drink or two?" He held up a box in one hand. Upon seeing it, Rose recognized it as that cheap beer she had drank at that bar they had visited. "That is, if you're feeling alright."

Rose fidgeted with her hands in her lap. What would there be to even talk about? They couldn't sit there and drabble on about things that weren't true or would never happen. They couldn't possibly think that was the right thing to do. For the next hour and a half, would they meerly stumble over each other with words and darting eyes as quick as a hurricane? Rose was fearful it would be awkward or tense... or even worse; that something could spark.

The best of a bad situation.

Rose nodded, glancing towards her balcony. "Sure. It feels nice outside. We could sit at my garden table."

"May I... come in?" Cal asked and Rose paused from coming to her feet. When she turned to him, she could see he was being mindful to play by any and all rules. As if they were starting in the spring of 1911 all over again. Gingerly, she tucked a curl behind her ear, nodding her head. Cal grinned warmly, closing the door behind him. When they stepped out onto the balcony, Cal took in a deep breath while he set the case on the table. "Ah, the honeysuckles. That's how you know it's summer in Pittsburgh." He looked over his shoulder at Rose who lingered in the doorway. "What smells reminds you of summer in Philadelphia?"

Rose came to the balcony's stone railing, running her palms along the uneven surface. Cal watched her slender hands, as if an angel was gracing his presence. "The smell of sweet ripe apples," Rose said, quietly. Her voice was so velvety and smooth; like church bells ringing through quaint towns in sleepy rolling mountains.

Cal chuckled, opening the box and holding a wet can out to Rose. She seemed to smile a bit as she accepted it. Their cans hissed into the night air. "Ah, yes, the apples. Every farmer's market was bursting at the seams with all kinds of apples. I don't ever think I've seen so many in one street block."

Rose's delicate little laugh sent Cal's heart leaping from his chest, flying amongst all the clouds drifting through the sanguine sky. "Philadelphia has many more orchards than Pittsburgh does. I remember taking a tour of nearly a dozen of them. My mother told me I was acting as the definition of insanity. But... there was always something a little different about each orchard; the way they operated or the secret little act of love they did that no one else thought to."

Cal took a sip of the frothy beer. It was not his first pick. It faintly reminded him of the smell of lawn clippings, simply mixed with selzter water. But he knew it'd do the job at the end of the evening. "So, do you like to do those kinds of things?"

"What?" Rose lowered her can, casting a look to Cal.

"Do you like to go on educational tours?" Cal asked, taking another sip of beer.

"Oh," Rose blinked, looking out over the dark garden with its long twisting shadows. "I suppose I do."

Cal grinned. "Have you ever been to Gettysburg?"

"No," Rose shook her head. "I've always wanted to."

"How about we go next weekend?" Cal asked, leaning against the railing and gazing towards her face. The light of her bedroom illuminated one side of her face and it glowed, as if the sun had never set. The other half of her face was plunged in darkness and he desperately wanted to uncover it. "I went there on a school trip once and, I must admit, I was fooling around with some friends the whole time. It'd be nice to revisit and actually learn something."

Rose seemed rather surprised at first, but quickly masked it. Not fast enough, however, for it to evade Cal's keen eyes. "You mean it? You'd really like to go? I don't want to drag you there if it's going to bore you."

"No, Rose, I would genuinely enjoy taking that trip with you."

His voice was so tender. It betrayed everything Rose had known before. She took another drink of beer, mainly to buy herself time, but she was decided she wanted to get drunk that night. Anything to distract her from the dust devil ripping through her mind. Rose closed the french doors, encasing the balcony in darkness. Cal watched her slender figure sink down into a chair. After a moment, Cal copied. His eyes adjusted to the milky moonlight and he observed the way Rose's skin glowed beneath it. She was other worldly to him. He couldn't fathom how someone like her could exist in a universe like his.

"Cal... can I ask you something?" Her voice was so soft and gentle, like fleece against a baby's skin.

"Anything."

There was a hesitance hanging in the air for a few beats. Cal drank his beer, reminding himself to be patient. Rose stared off into the darkness at nothing in particular, picking at the tab of her flimsy tin can. "What made you change?" She eventually asked. "What was it that made you decide it was time for something different?"

It was a question Cal had been expecting for a long time. And yet, he still wasn't sure he had even formed a cohesive solid response. Or, at least one that made sense to Rose as it did to him. But he knew his delivery of an answer in that moment was crucial. It meant everything to shifting to the next gear. He couldn't let it slip and stall on him. He licked his lips, doing his best to remain confident.

"When we were on the Titanic," Cal began very slowly. "It was the night we were due to strike the iceberg. I was in the smoking parlor when Lovejoy came to find me, telling me you had seemingly disappeared. I was, obviously, appalled. The man was an ex-detective for Christ's sake and we were on a boat. There were only so many places you could hide." Cal was speaking so openly, in such a raw fashion. Laying everything out to Rose, like cards finally be turned face up on the velvet table. "After he left in search of you, I sat back down and began thinking about it. Naturally, all the men were making jokes. But all I could hear was my father's voice, with that warning he gave from the beginning of the engagement. That it was easier to make the best of a bad situation, rather than ruminate in it. My parent's, though arranged, I feel had a very successful marriage. And I was doing the exact opposite of what my father advised and I realized, in that moment, I was losing. And you know me... I'm a sore loser."

"So, you grew angry?" Rose asked, clutching her beer can tightly.

"You remember, don't you?" Cal didn't look to her. Between them, the sounds of bullets whizzed through their ears. The racket of handcuffs beating against pipes resounded across the garden. "And when it was all over and I found you, unconscious and pale as chalk, I realized I had lost big time. There had been no wins from the night before. Only nightmares that came true. And I hated myself, Rose. Those three days you were unconscious, I was a mess. I really didn't know what was to become of us. And so I changed. Because I had to."

"What is to become of us?" Rose asked, cautiously. When Cal looked to her in the moonlight, she seemed rather earnest. She crushed her beer can, helping herself to another. Cal did the same while he mulled over her question. He sighed as the beer hissed.

"We'll get married," Cal said, slowly at first. "And hopefully, before that, find some happiness for the both of us. We could really use it, don't you think?"

In the next moment, Rose grinned, surprising the man. "Do you think going to a battle ground where hundreds of men bled to death is where we will find our happiness?" Cal couldn't help but smile like a fool beneath the milky moonlight on that pleasant summer night.

"Maybe we can scavenge something up amongst all the blood-stained dirt, hm?"

...

July 30th, 1912
New York City, New York

When Jack came down for dinner at a half past six, he was surprised to see all the lights off downstairs. He was actually rather confused. Usually at this time, Curt was blasting a record on a skipping needle. Edward would be doing jumping jacks or sprints up and down the stairs. And the kitchen was typically rumbling with the clatter of dishes and Joseph's opera singing. But nothing was happening. It was absolutely silent. Jack began to wonder if they all had somewhere they were supposed to be that night. Slowly, he navigated towards the kitchen and stopped abruptly when rounding the corner.

The entire room was decorated in candles, glowing warmly orange and illuminating the kitchen softly. Sitting at the table were the housemates, with a large glazed ham and sides of stuffing, peanut oil cooked asparagus and a vegetable medley. Jack stared at them like a deer in the headlights while they all grinned back with large expectations.

"What's, uh... what's going on?" Jack asked, rather sheepishly.

"Jack, don't be so modest," Joseph grinned, coming to his feet. Quickly, he pulled the empty chair out for Jack, gesturing towards it. "It's one of our last dinners with the artist before we bade him farewell to his next adventure."

Jack felt his face heat up. He looked towards the chair with a hesitation one would expect from a man visiting the dentist for a toothache. He eventually seated himself, however, and looked towards Curt and Edward who were ready to eat. Joseph looked so pleased as he cut the glazed ham, the meat steamy and tender. Jack fidgeted in his chair, glancing towards the illuminated faces of the men he had come to know in the past three months. In that moment, Jack reviewed the whirlwind of a year it had been. Not everything had completely sunk in yet. And still, things followed him, like ghosts of the past. It was a never ending arrangement of feelings that waxed and waned between vibrantly optimistic and depressingly hopeless. All Jack could do was wake up each day and simply grin and bear it, like he always did.

Joseph held a heaping warm plate out to Jack, who accepted it and gingerly set it down in front of him. Patiently and politely, Jack waited as Joseph served everyone else and himself. "I hope you all enjoy," Joseph said, putting a hunking spoonful of stuffing on his plate. "These receipes are my grandmother's. Her own play on Thanksgiving." He paused, looking between his roommates. "The woman didn't like turkey."

"What a shame," Edward clucked. "It was a staple in our household."

The men breezed through dinner in a more lively fashion than they had before. Everyone seemed relaxed and willing to talk. Jack suspected maybe it was easier to open up to somebody they knew they would probably never see again. With his departure from the house looming only 48 hours away, he felt Edward and Curt could only breath sighs of relief. Jack rolled into a laugh as Joseph described the awful shoddy paint job he had done on a shed as a child.

"... my aunt told me I wasn't allowed to touch a paint brush ever again," Joseph shrugged with a grin. "I'm sure she would have been singin' church hymns if you were the one painting her shed."

"Ah," Jack waved his hand dismissively as he speared an asparagus on his fork. "I'm not really a painter."

"Well, anything you did would have been better than what I did," Joseph laughed.

Jack laid his fork down, glancing around the table. The sun was sinking rapidly and the day was coming to an end. Yet another day Jack faced alone. And another one was on it's way. Soon enough, he'd be in another unfamiliar environment, interacting with people who had blurry faces, who spoke in miscombobulated ways. Every flash of red would taunt him.

"Joseph," Jack finally said. "Thanks so much for making this meal. I hope you didn't go to a lot of trouble. But it was delicious, truly."

"Well, dinner was just the first part," Joseph told him. He glanced towards his roommates. Curt looked rather nervous, Edward's face characteristically didn't twitch. "Let's go to the front parlor." Joseph lead the way, with Curt and Edward on the rear, as if herding Jack into the room. When Joseph flicked the light on, in the center of the room on the tea table was a pan of banana bread and surrounding it were three small parcels, wrapped delicately in brown paper.

"Oh no," Jack made a face. "What's all of this?"

"We got you gifts," Joseph told him, crossing towards the table.

"Well, actually, Phillip got them for us," Edward said pointedly. "Since, you know, we can't leave."

"Open mine first!" Curt bounded across the room, sweeping his up. "My anxiety is riveting." Curt shoved the present into Jack's hands and he felt rather sheepish beneath their eyes. As a child, birthday parties were never something his family could afford. He usually would wake up on Christmas to just a singular present, wrapped with a silky string, sitting on his nightstand. The attention that fell across him upon being given the first present had him uncomfortable.

Jack tore the brown paper back and smirked in the next moment. "Charcoal pencils. Thanks, Curt. I'm definitely going to need these." Next, Edward gave Jack his gift. It was nearly weightless in Jack's hand and he inspected it for a moment.

"You probably think there's nothin' in there, huh?" Edward smiled, crossing his arms over his chest.

"It'd be a good prank," Jack laughed, pulling the paper back. It was a felt flag cut into a long triangle. It was blue with a yellow border. Across the flag it said 'NYU' in bright yellow lettering that glittered in the evening light. "Oh, wow, cool. Thank you, Edward. I'll hang it up in my dorm."

And finally, Joseph, with his big paternal smile, held his present out to Jack. It was the bulkiest of any of the presents that evening. Slowly, Jack undid the wrapping and his eyes grew wide when he found what awaited him beneath that paper. Never before had he had anything like it. As a kid, he could only have wished for it. It was a leather knapsack with belted straps to close the flaps. Along the edges, some intricate handwork was done into the leather, which was a dark burgundy, like tree bark. Jack was speechless for a moment as he held the backpack in his hand. As a child, though he hadn't attended much school, he had always been laughed at for having to carry his books tied in a belt. His family couldn't afford to waste money on a backpack. But now, he would have one on his back as he walked across New York University's campuses. How the tables had turned.

"Joseph, wow, thank you," Jack said, not tearing his eyes away.

"We wish you all the luck," Joseph told him warmly. "We're rooting for you, Jack."

It was all such simple acts of kindness. Gestures that, in that moment, amidst a floor littered in crumpled paper, with tenderly picked out gifts surrounding a pan of golden brown banana bread, it all meant the world to Jack. It highlighted the summer he had just lived through and somehow, it gave him hope that maybe things could work out afterall. No matter how sorely he wished it was different. Jack's eyes scanned through the gifts and then looked towards his housemates.

"Do we have any butter to put on the banana bread?" He grinned.