M-rated scene in this chapter, the start marked by bolded words. It's the very last scene and goes on until the end, so if you want to skip it, then that would be the end of the chapter until next time. :)
Despite having no job prospects and nowhere to live aside from a hotel room that they only had enough money set aside for for a couple nights, Rose threw on her best dress, grabbed Jack's hand, and ran off to the nearest courthouse. Their wedding would be nothing glamorous, but it was still a celebration that required use of their valuable time. Rose tried not to think too much over what was happening, and what they should be doing, as they asked Fabrizio to look over Jo for a couple hours without giving him any explanation of what was going on or where they were going. A logical explanation would be they were searching for jobs and housing, but here they were going to get their marriage license. How typical of them to run off their gut feeling over their common sense, even if they knew better in this case.
"This is so exciting!" Rose exclaimed, though her knotted stomach couldn't choose whether it was going to vomit from adrenaline or not. Then she mused out loud, "I can't believe we're doing this…"
Jack glanced at her and her thoughtful side profile, at the deep thought in her gaze that built a deep furrow in her brow. "Yeah, me neither," he said, and he truly couldn't believe that he was marrying Rose today. The spontaneity of it all was making him dizzy, and Rose queasy. But no matter what the difference in their physical reaction, they were both giddy on their irrationality to the point of drunkenness. He was surprised that no one in the street stopped them, the couple stumbling toward the courthouse giggling near hysterics.
When they reached their destination, Rose's roiling stomach plummeted, and she suddenly felt much less nervous overall. It was as if standing in front of that brick building, where she would shortly sign a sheet of paper entwining her life with Jack's, only affirmed her hasty decision. As she squeezed Jack's hand, and he returned it with a soothing graze of the back of her hand with his thumb, Rose took one last deep breath and opened the courthouse door, knowing fully well that when she would exit them later she would be Mrs. Rose Dawson.
"Ah, here we are." Jack glanced up one last time at the sign to make sure this was still the place he remembered. "The place with the best cheap beer in town."
Rose walked through the doors of that establishment feeling like an entirely refreshed person, walking on air. The ring Jack had gifted her so long ago when she was still pregnant had now been moved to its permanent spot on her left ring finger, and she was compelled to keep touching it as a reminder that their marriage had actually been certified that afternoon. "We did it, Jack," Rose had kept repeating afterwards on their walk here, as if getting married was an accomplishment far greater than any she had achieved before. (And after how her last marriage had ended, Jack wouldn't have judged her if she truly thought of it that way.)
"Over here," Jack grabbed her hand—her left hand, Rose couldn't help but note—and led her to a table in the corner near where the band was playing, waving down a waitress to get their beer as soon as possible.
As Rose sat down, she was overcome by a wave of bliss, of being in this bar on a late weekday afternoon and watching as it became crowded with those coming home from a long, hard day of work. She was going to join those people, having already joined one of them in marriage, and with their daughter at home—
"Oh, Jack," Rose said in disappointment, "I forgot about Jo-"
"Don't worry about Jo, Rose. For the next hour, this is our time, okay?" The waitress came back and set a pitcher of beer on the table with two glasses filled to the brim with the frothy drink. Jack didn't hesitate to pick his glass up. "Cheers to that!"
As Rose picked her glass up, surprised by the hefty weight it held compared to the ones she'd chugged on the Titanic, she thought of what the best thing to say was to express what she was thinking and feeling at that moment. But after a second of mulling that over, she threw it to the wind and said, "Cheers to our lives together, starting now!"
Tipping the glass into her mouth, Rose watched out of the corner of her eye as Jack did the same, and she tried to keep pace with the beer pouring down her throat. Despite not having a sip of the fermented beverage in longer than she could remember—was the last time the Titanic?—she finished just a millisecond ahead of Jack, slamming the glass on the counter right before him. "Another?" she asked, a mischievous and playful energy mingling between both of them.
Before they left that night, they'd each had at least three beers, and Rose refused to leave without one dance—even if it made the contents of her stomach splash around and threaten to come back up. The band had been playing Irisih jigs into the evening, and Rose clasped Jack's hand and shoulder as if she was clinging to dear life as he twirled her around, their laughter disrupting the entire bar. Only then were they able to leave, nauseous but content with their celebratory endeavors as husband and wife.
Returning "home" to their hotel room in downtown Santa Monica, Jack and Rose were met by Fabrizio, who was close to pacing, and Tommy, whose face was a dark shade of red. "Where were you—" Tommy was ready to go into a spiel before Jack, in his drunken state, showed off Rose's hand. "Did you two get married?"
Rose's face was warm, from the drink or feeling flustered, she didn't know. "Yes, we didn't want to say anything because… Well, because…"
"We were being spontaneous, we know." Jack dropped Rose's hand to the side, gripping it tightly in his. His wife…. He couldn't believe he got to wake up every day now and say that.
Tommy and Fabrizio shared a look of shock and, after clearly smelling the room, knew to let it go until tomorrow. "Well, congratulations," Tommy said. Even though you didn't let us in on it.
"Jo fell asleep an hour ago," Fabrizio said. "Let her stay here for the night."
"What would we do without you guys?" Jack said as he and Rose left to their own room, stumbling as the alcohol pooled and metabolized in their systems.
"That's a good question," Tommy muttered under his breath, and Fabrizio held back his laugh.
After collapsing on the bed, Rose didn't realize she had fallen asleep until she'd woken up in the middle of the night and saw that the clock read almost six in the morning. Groaning, she rolled over and almost smacked Jack in the face. "Oh, sorry," she murmured, and Jack responded something unintelligible back.
His eyes remained closed, though, and Rose had the blessed opportunity to watch him doze. Usually, she was the one who was sleeping: first one out, last one up. She couldn't remember a time that she had gotten to see Jack in his most relaxed, undisturbed state. But now, watching his peaceful features, she draped her arm over his chest and curled up beside him. As she did so, she felt the ring sitting on her left hand, and she wondered if it was possible to feel as content as she did in that moment.
Within the month, arrangements had been made: they'd found a cheap place, an apartment complex far from the beach, but still walking distance, to live. Jack was back to work on a squid boat for the time being, which meant early waking hours, and Rose tried her hand at waitressing at the same bar that Tommy worked at. Fabrizio was a clerk at a grocery store a couple blocks away from the commotion of the bar, and Jo was switched off based on availability, or—if circumstances were dire—they had reluctantly allowed a young girl from across the hall, age fifteen, to watch their daughter for a pitiful salary. Sarah didn't mind it, though; she loved Jo, as did everyone, and didn't mind any kind of work she could get, especially work that was so close to the five other siblings she needed to watch.
"Say bye to mum and da," Sarah said as Jack and Rose dropped Jo off at Sarah's apartment; they had similarly timed shifts that day. "She'll be in good hands, Mr. and Mrs. Dawson."
"We know, Sarah," Rose said, though a tickle in her throat carried the jitters anyway. There was never going to be a time when she didn't worry to some degree about leaving her child alone, even when it was with Sarah, whom she'd dropped Jo off a dozen times with already. "Have a lovely day."
"And please, call us Jack and Rose. We prefer the informality," Jack piped up, and Sarah nodded in acknowledgement before closing the door, causing Rose's anxieties to heighten with her.
"Hey," Jack said while grabbing Rose's hand. "She'll be all right. We're good, okay? We're doing good."
"More than good," Rose said. "I think we're doing great. But…"
Jack furrowed his eyebrows, slowing them down with a pull of his arm on hers. "But what?" His eyes studied her facade, sensing that something was off. "What is it, Rose?"
What was there that was missing or wrong? Rose combed through her life in that moment, searching for that inkling of off: She was a mom, a wife. She was doing everything she'd dreamed of, if not more, with Jack. Except—
"Nothing," Rose said, putting on a smile to ignore the gnawing in her stomach. "Everything is absolutely fine."
By the evening, when Rose had returned home from work and picked up Jo, she couldn't ignore that things weren't fine anymore. She knew that something was missing from her life with Jack, and she knew what it was, but the thought of bringing it up wracked her with humiliation and embarrassment, even though she was married to the sweetest man she'd ever met or known. He wouldn't judge her over anything, and yet—
She was ashamed. She thought back to who she was when she was seventeen, how comfortably she could bare herself to him—physically, spiritually, emotionally—and how blocked off she still was in many ways. She felt like a liar, even if her words were true.
Before she could think anything more of it, Jo's cries knocked her out of her reverie and she was back on track, moving away from her love life and toward motherhood. As she cradled Jo against her, her child's cries muffled against her shoulder and softening with her touch, she could feel a little less stressed about her relationship with Jack. At least Jo loved her, could find comfort in her no matter what; she was Jo's mother, and at that point in time, being a mother had become much easier than being a wife. Within a few minutes, Jo was silent, her big blue eyes looking up at her with such affection, Rose almost began crying herself.
Sitting at her vanity later that night (Jack had been kind enough to refurbish one, to give her a small space of her own in their room) and brushing through her curls, Rose, lost in thought, had become so exhausted from thinking that her barriers were too broken to hold herself back any longer. "Jack," she said as she set the hairbrush down. "Can I ask you something?"
Jack, who was working on fixing up some lines on a drawing of Josephine, set down his sketchpad. He was oblivious to just what was bothering Rose, but that didn't mean he was entirely unaware that something had been on her mind. "Of course. Always."
"Are you happy?" she asked, looking at him through the mirror.
"Am I happy?" Jack repeated the question, surprised that she had asked it. "Yes, of course I'm happy. I'm happy every day since being with you again."
Rose turned around in her chair, breaking the gaze from the mirror. "So you're not unhappy with…how our...our life in the bedroom is?" With each word, her eyes faltered, falling lower and lower to the ground. She shouldn't be embarrassed to ask, yet a part of her was.
"Rose," Jack said, having a sense where this was heading. "We don't have to do anything you're uncomfortable with—"
Picking up on Jack's insistence, Rose cut him off. "I know, I know, it's just— I can't help remembering how things were in the beginning. How reckless we were, and free. How can it not be frustrating for things to take such a massive step backward from that?"
A crease dotted Jack's cheeks, a softness in his brow which made her lungs collapse in relief. "I promise, it's not. I only want you to be comfortable."
Looking at Jack now as she sat perched in front of her vanity, always when she looked at him, she had the urge to cry in the happiest way known to man. If she hadn't lost the will to live, would she have ever found this wonderful man sitting in the chair in front of her? A wave of trust washed over her then, crashed over with an overwhelming wave of love she couldn't begin to describe. "Then I want to try."
If this was going to happen, Rose knew she had to approach it her own way. She needed her mind to know that she was the one willing to do this. As she sat on Jack's lap, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pretended like the feeling of his strong, supportive hands on her waist didn't make her nerves slightly nauseous. Her skin tingled, zapping like electricity, and she shivered despite the heat rising inside her. Her robe was sheer, her camisole thin, and the room chilly from the night breeze, but she still kindled the desire to strip herself to her skin, to be with him again. But as her hands traveled to the sash holding her together, they started to tremble. Her muscles tensed, closing her off instead of opening herself up to him like she wanted to. Why is this happening? she thought as she collapsed into Jack's embrace, defeated. Cal is gone...and Jack isn't Cal.
"We don't have to do anything, Rose," Jack whispered as his hand tangled in her red curls, their soft entrapment an experience he didn't realize he had missed until she was in his arms again. "We have the rest of our lives now…"
"I know," Rose said, "but we also thought we had the rest of our lives two years ago, and what happened? We already lost all of that time together. It's not that I want to rush…" She pulled away from him and let him brush a couple of tears off her cheeks. "Even being with you, in our own apartment in California, married to you, this still feels surreal, like I'm in one of my journals, dreaming again. That I'm going to wake up and he's going to be beside me, and I'll have to think about how to survive the day… I never felt that way when I was with you. You made me feel so special when we were together… I want to remember what it felt like to be loved by you, to make my mind realize that this is all real."
As Rose spoke, something inside Jack's chest snapped. He hadn't pushed Rose to talk about what the year had been like as Cal's wife, and a miniscule part of him didn't want to know either. But he suspected why she had become so fearful. As much as he wanted to punch a wall and see Cal punished, having her here now, all he could think of doing was easing her pain and making her feel comfortable. "I need you to tell me what to do, Rose. I'll be as slow as you want me to be."
Rose shivered again when his lips kissed her neck, tickling her with his soft touch. The longer he showed her exposed skin his love, the more she could feel herself melting back into his embrace. By the time he'd traveled across her collarbone, neck, jaw, and cheek, her heart was thudding, and feeling his lips press against hers, she didn't feel quite as afraid anymore.
The first kiss was fast, only a peck, gauging how ready she felt to move to the next step. She leaned forward, and he took the opportunity to elongate the kiss, already feeling a bit breathless when he pulled away. As he captured her bottom lip with his teeth (a gesture she used to love—and, by her reaction, still did) and wrapped his arms further around her waist, Rose took her hands back to her sash and found that they were far less shaky.
When Jack felt her squirming in his embrace, he unlocked his hands from her back and joined her at untying the fabric. When was the last time he had seen her bare herself like this? It had felt like eternity, he thought, as she shrugged the robe off her shoulders and lifted the camisole up.
His hands fell to her hips, his vision having caught an unfamiliar addition to her beauty: white marks adorning her abdomen, far less visible than the purple scars they'd started as and that she had complained about when she was pregnant with Josephine. Seeing how they had healed, Jack was reminded of how much time had passed between them.
Rose wrapped her legs around Jack's waist as he hoisted her up and laid her down on the bed, as gentle as if she was porcelain. He couldn't help but kiss some of the tiny marks around her lower stomach, not knowing how else to express his gratitude, at that moment, for what her body had gone through to gift them with their beautiful daughter. As Rose watched him revere her scars, her mind drifted to how Cal had always kept her clothing on; and though he'd never expressed it aloud, she'd suspected that he'd known he would have been disgusted to see how her body had been tainted. At the reminder of Cal and what she had endured, she started to tense again.
Jack noticed her closing herself off and returned level to her face. "Do you want me to stop?"
She fought back tears when he checked up on her like that. While Cal had only done to her what he thought needed to be done, no matter what she thought or felt, Jack not only listened to her, he worshipped her. Just looking into his eyes at that moment—sparkling blue and full of concern, the same eyes her daughter had been so fortunate to inherit—she eased up. "No, keep going," she said with a watery gaze, and so Jack continued to make love to her, slowing down his pace as he did so.
Before Josephine, when she thought she and Jack were going to escape together that first time, she would have found this speed agonizing and in need of more rough playfulness. But now, the delicacy at which they discovered each other's bodies, as if they were doing this for the first time, returned her to a moment two years ago in the backseat of an automobile, where Jack had treated her with the same gentle hands.
As the tenderness sped up, so did Rose's heartbeat, and she didn't feel any more fear in Jack's arms. He focused so much of his energy and attention on her that night, she thought her heart would burst as her arms and legs tightened around him. A whole cycle of seasons (and a bit more) had passed between the last time they had been entangled like this, Rose had forgotten that love could feel like this: that she could be wanted, and adored, and pleasured. For her own survival, she'd turned to stone to get through her days as a married, high-society woman. Near the end, before she'd escaped, she'd considered that her life was going to harden and crumble into insignificant bits, never experiencing the warm, evocative touch of love again. With Jack, she was melting, completely loose and free.
Afterwards, she remembered what it was like to be in the caring hands of Jack Dawson. She could hardly believe that her wish had come true.