"I found her," Lovejoy says with a hand on Cal's elbow, having appeared over his shoulder a moment ago as if out of nowhere. He's a little out of breath, hair askew-- not as Cal is used to seeing his valet. He looks tired, which isn't surprising. Lovejoy has been at his side for half of Cal's life; he was getting old. And Cal imagines very few people on this ship had thought they would still be awake at this hour of the night. "On the other side, waiting for a boat. With him."

Dawson. Lovejoy said he was locked up somewhere on E-deck, last he saw him-- that he'd guarded Dawson in lieu of the Master at Arms' absence, and had left him there when it became apparent that the ship was sinking. Cal doesn't know how Dawson managed to get free. Jack strikes him as the clever sort-- cleverer than he looks, at any rate. Perhaps he managed to get out of the handcuffs on his own, or one of the Crew took mercy on him.

Or perhaps it was Rose herself. I'd rather be his whore than your wife, She'd told him, the words a cold scrape against his heart, so shocking that his grip on her arms had relaxed for a moment. He still remembers the sting of her spit in his eye, the slime of it. And then she was gone, flying off like a hurricane in billowing pink and lavender fabric, red curls streaming behind her with every step. Rose was stronger than she had ever let on to be-- stronger than Cal had ever given her credit for. Perhaps that strength was enough to brave cold waters in a sinking ship to save someone she cared for.

"Any more women and children?" Murdoch calls behind him.

"They're all aboard, Mister Murdoch," He hears another man say-- the voice, he thinks, might belong to Bruce Ismay.

"Anyone else, then?" Murdoch bellows. Lovejoy's eyes flit over his shoulder, nodding in the direction of the lifeboat. Murdoch pauses at his side as Ismay ushers the last of the women and children into the lifeboat, gaze heavy and waiting. "Anyone else?" He asks again. Cal can hardly hear a thing over the pounding of his heart, the roaring of his blood. His hands tingle at his sides. It's my money, echoes through his mind. In Murdoch's pocket. Because I put it there.

Cal doesn't move-- can't move. His feet are rooted in place, even though every instinct in him says to say Yes, and to climb into the lifeboat with the others, to survive by taking the easy path. He's a Hockley of Pittsburg. His steel had gone to build this ship, and he's not above bribery to get off it. Cal has no intention of dying tonight-- he's better than some rat fleeing a shipwreck, better than freezing or drowning and dying. A moment passes.

Murdoch turns away.

"Oh, god damn it all to hell," He breathes, when the sound of his heart quiets, as he lets his jealousy win over. He just can't leave yet. Not with Rose still on board, about to throw everything they had together to the wind. And what for? A life with a drifter, who could promise her nothing and would leave her destitute and pregnant the first chance he had. Foolish, naïve girl.

He does love her, in a strange way. Perhaps not as he ought to have, but he does. Perhaps when Dawson is dead, he can make things right and they can start again, as if none of this messy business had ever happened. Perhaps she will move past her flights of fancy and choose him again.

Cal turns and starts to move towards the other side of the ship, coat swirling in the wind. "Shit," He hears Lovejoy swear behind him, but he doesn't care.

"Fire!" A crewman cries as another firework is launched "Sir! Sir, you can't go through here!" The man says as he crosses the room, Lovejoy on his heels. "Sir, you can't go through!"

The sky lights up behind him with the explosion, but Cal can't hear it, nor could he hear or care about the Crewman who tried to stop him. He thinks about the drawing Dawson left of Rose, bare and lovely as Cal had never seen her, about her smiling at Jack, about Lovejoy's report of them dancing belowdecks, and them disappearing together for hours at a time, and what they must have done when that drawing was finished. He thinks about Jack Dawson, putting his hands on Rose.

Cal's heart turns black with hate.

"Oh, God. I couldn't go. I couldn't go, Jack."

"It's alright. We'll think of something,"

"At least I'm with you,"

"We'll think of something…"

The words sound distant, like they're being said underwater or something. That pounding in his heart has returned, like a drumbeat banging so loud in his head that he can't make sense of anything else. They're entirely wrapped up in one another, limbs tangled in a lovers' embrace, sharing tearful kisses. Cal feels sick watching it.

I always win, Jack, He had promised the man. One way or another. Because it was a promise. He'd never been more sincere about anything in his life. Cal would make it off of this ship, and Jack would not, and he would have Rose. He would have her by any means necessary.

Only now, he looks at them, he sees how foolish he was to think that he could ever have had Rose even in a world without Jack. Cal sees the way she clings to the artist, the way he loves her. It is not Dawson who is the intruder in this scenario, it is him. And he thinks that he should have known. He should have seen it before. They'd made a fool of him. Rose had slipped through his fingers like sand falling away. There was never any contest, there was never anything to win. Cal had already lost. Somehow, before he had even started, before competition was even an inkling in his mind, he had lost her. I've lost her. I lost her without even knowing it. How could I have lost her?

Lovejoy is pulling him away, hands on his arm and shoulder-- there's no use in trying to get Rose off the ship when she doesn't want to go. She won't go without Dawson, and Cal won't waste time trying to save Dawson just to save her when Rose will never choose him. She will choose Jack every time. He's sure of it.

Cal feels unsteady on his own two feet when they leave the railing, drunk with jealousy and rage.

Then, he thinks, maybe he has lost her. That doesn't mean he has to let them get away with it. The thought is sharp, like a shard of ice has pierced his heart. His heart is ice, now, too. Cal remembers the pistol Lovejoy keeps holstered under his arm, and before he even has time for a second thought, he's grabbing it, and running, without a care for anything else in the world but his mad envy and anger and hatred, because he cannot let this stand, will not let this stand, even if it kills him. I will not be made out a fool, he'd told Rose. He doesn't care how it looks to those around them, if he will be forever remembered as the maniac with the gun as Titanic was going down. If I can't have her, no one will.

He runs for them, pistol raised, thinking, Damn them. Damn them both to hell.

So, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, even though it wasn't in Jack and Rose's perspective. I was primarily writing this because I wanted to play with the villain perspective, and jealousy as an emotion/motivator. I freely admit that Cal was fun to work with.

Notes on Lovejoy: As Cal is supposed to be around thirty years old, I decided that Cal's Father would've been likely to hire him when Cal was around Fifteen or so (teenage boy causing trouble) hence the 'half Cal's life' remark. Also, I really don't understand a lot of the hate Lovejoy gets as a character. Like, yeah, we're not meant to like him, exactly. He's a Lackey, but he's really nothing more than that. He's not going out of his way to cause problems for Jack and Rose, or doing it of his own volition-- he's following orders. He's just some guy who used to be a cop and is taking money from Cal's father to do what Cal says and to keep him out of trouble. He's like a babysitter. You can literally see him thinking at several points in the movie 'Oh, shit. Now they've done and gone this, and I have to put up with it,' I'm honestly glad James Cameron decided to cut that fight scene between him and Jack, because it would be very out of line with what Lovejoy's character is for the rest of the movie (him going after the diamond for greed rather than orders, versus him typically taking the most reliable option that causes the least amount of trouble for himself) He is, at his core, a man who is doing his job and nothing else, which is what I have tried to write him as.

Notes on Cal: As said before, Cal's perspective of this was fun to play with. He's an interesting character in that he just doesn't see a problem with his actions. These two scenes are when we get to see the most of Cal as a character, because he's acting against his own instincts and giving into a very different, darker part of himself that he's not familiar with. Typically, Cal is a save-his-own-skin-first sort of guy, when it comes to the sinking, or maintaining a good reputation, or seeing that his own needs/wants are met before anyone else's. Except for in these two scenes, with Rose wanting to choose someone else. He just can't let go of that, and let Jack have her, so he gives into envy and hate and anger-- heavy themes in these parts. I also do believe that in his own way, Cal did love Rose-- not in the way that two people love one another, but in the way that a person loves a possession. It's really towards the end of the movie where he's realizing that she's not just a possession, she's a person with wants and desires that are independent of him, and how badly he's fucked up their relationship in looking at her that way. When we see him at the end of the movie, it's like he's not just mourning her, but that he never really knew Rose, and now he'll never have the chance to.

Anyway, this was so much fun to write, and I really hope you guys enjoyed it. I need to get to writing the next part, which is the last chapter of movie content before we get to events following Titanic. For any confusion I have caused on your part, the new content will be posted on this fic-- I am not starting another one (yet-- the jury is still out). Hopefully I'll be back with the next chapter soon. Until then, Best Wishes!