The Moon is on Fire

(A Titanic Fanfiction)

Disclaimer: Jim Cameron owns these gorgeous characters and everything to do with the 1997 film Titanic; this story is meant for entertainment purposes only!

Chapter Three: A Little Bit Higher

My mother went once to a trance lecturer, a medium, at Cleveland Hall in London; it was 1880, Ruth was twelve and watched in awe as a raven-haired girl not much older than herself levitated, comatose, five feet from a gurney onstage. Spiritualism crested, then, all around the world, and my grandmother had recently lost a new baby to unexplained fever. As a family they sought out the comfort offered by some sort of window into the afterlife. The hope of a portal.

The way Ruth described the floating of the girl, the weightlessness, it always stuck with me. I have no idea if it was real. Perhaps my mother only truly relays the subjective recollections of her own mother that day, not the living of it. But since I was a small child and heard this story I often imagine myself as the levitating one. When I'm anxious. When I feel outside myself, I am the girl half with the living and half headed upward, up, up, up to join the dead. And so this morning I floated down the corridors, really, so smooth but so fast (the beat of my heart!) that the weight of me had to disappear a bit for the rest of my body to function.

I must have looked frightened, or frightful. Likely both. I'd taken no brush to my hair, no water to my face. Trudy wouldn't have arrived at my room until eight and I would have turned her away today anyway. I suspect she'd have been updated on my situation, thus her sweet face would have been corrupted only by fear. I'd avoided the mirrors but I actually felt the hollowed-out blue of my eyelids enough to picture them, the ghost part of me showing. I refused to change a thing about my body until I was with him again. It felt obsessive, it felt childish, but there was no other way I'd operate right now. I wanted our bodies together. I wanted another chance to stand with him. For him.

It was early. I passed stewards yawning, uniforms fresh-pressed and stubborn cowlicks from cheap shampoo. I saw Mr. Andrews from a distance, scurrying down a passageway to stairs that would lead below (where he worked tirelessly with every cog of this beast of a machine) and I was tempted to stop him simply for the fact of his kindness but that wouldn't make sense right now.

I stood before B-67 and it was as if I had no legs. I'd slipped the two jade rings just inside the bodice of my dress and they poked at the sensitive skin near my right nipple, which was an incredibly odd sensation to deal with in a moment like this. They might be a lifeline, they might be everything.

I knocked, meekly at first, then with three loud taps. A shuffling, quick (which meant, thankfully, that at least one person inside had already been awake), and the door opened to reveal not a steward, not a maid as I'd expected, but Mr. Ryerson himself. He looked alert but the whites of his eyes were bloodshot, as if he was sleep-deprived but horribly used to it. He was a man of about sixty, regal with a brilliantly manicured mustache that extended an inch past his cheeks in both directions, somehow both blonde and gray, but he stood hunched. The sadness was palpable.

As it was in me now, I realized, and ridiculous given that eight hours prior I'd been enveloped in impregnable joy. I wanted it back, all that joy, but, more importantly, I had to make sure that Jack got it back. The lightness in his step, the hope his limbs moved with, the gift of the now that he carried and spread around him like some sort of magical dust. I couldn't believe that I'd stripped it from him, stolen his magic. Not just Cal but me as well. Guilty! For and in my silence. For and in my abandonment of him at the first sign of a test.

"Miss Dewitt-Bukater, yes?" Eyes searching eyes. Only an idiot would miss the mess of me, the wildness of me now. The glorious loss of innocence. To this set, scandal. But holy to me.

"Yes, hello," I gulped and studied the tips of my shoes for a few seconds before I looked into him again, "I know this may sound odd, but have you by any chance been informed of the status of your missing coat, Mr. Ryerson?" New creases formed near his eyes. I'm sure I confounded him, with both my presence and this bizarre inquiry.

"I was on deck with Frederick Spedden and his son...what's his name…" He sighed. I felt blood dripping inside me, inexplicably, from my heart to my stomach. I knew the Spedden boy was named Robert but my mouth was so dry and cavernous inside that I found no space to let the moniker leave my lips. "Adorable boy. Cheered me up, he did, Lord I wish I could remember his name. He was spinning tops. That's where the coat was taken yesterday afternoon. It was on a damned chair. I made note of it with a steward." He scratched the top of his white head. "But I haven't heard anything about it. Why would you be asking?"

"Were you close by the gymnasium, by any chance, Mr. Ryerson, when it happened?" I already knew the answer. I would want to tell Jack I already knew the answer by now.

"Yes, yes, I believe so, just down the way from it."

Of course.

"But it was a hat as well." His fingertips traced the alarmingly-wide part of his hair now and I thought about how strange it was that I barely knew him but I needed so much from him this morning. The electric heater was on blast in his room, and my face began to sweat simply from the overflow of artificial air into the hallway.

"What?" I bit my upper lip, bit into it and forced myself to stay present. Little passageways opened up in my head, little lines like in a maze and they all led me back to Jack in that otherwise empty room, how his heartbeat seemed somehow out on display upon his arms.

Hat in hand.

"Rose. Rose, I need to talk to you."

And his breath smelled like mint, which meant he'd just brushed his teeth or produced an Altoid from his impoverished pocket, from somewhere. When he came close it was the heat and the mint and my thighs burned; I felt like a woman for the first real time in my life.

"Hat in hand," I nodded, tears springing to all four corners of my eyes. Mr. Ryerson's face was inexplicably some human equivalent, then, of ten precious pieces of bone china breaking. And perhaps his expression had nothing to do with me and everything to do with his own grief. His son had been Jack's age, I think, right at twenty, and he'd been taken in an instant. Twisted metal, an instant.

I spoke again. "My. Ryerson, I know where your coat is," words caught in my throat like some fish struggling on a hook, "I'm not so sure about your hat, it might have gone in the wind." He looked like he cared very little, really, about any of it. But he seemed intrigued by my conviction.

I told him everything.

Almost everything, of course. Almost. He stayed mostly silent save for his confession that Caledon Hockley's father had once swindled ten thousand dollars from him when they roomed together at Yale.

Ten minutes later we were walking down corridor after corridor, down to the crew passages and I let him trail behind me. I knew so much of the ship, so much of it because of the chase of the evening before. Tour via chase. We'd drawn a map with our bodies, their frenetic movements. It felt like a thousand years ago. And it felt like five minutes ago. Those moments. Just a few moments and my little life would never be the same. Looking down from the deck in the middle of that horrid lunch and I believe I was angry, really, at first, to have that kind of reaction so deep in my gut to a face. A face shouldn't stir you in one glance! If I'd looked away in that instant would we be the same? Or the way I fell into his arms in a pile upon the deck at the stern, would we be the Jack and Rose we were now if his mouth hadn't skimmed an ear as he pulled me desperately, heroically, over? Did the one shiver, then, decide it all? Make me want that hot mouth on me and with me?

"Life is not usually like a novel, Rose," my father used to say, breathless in a sigh, "though I've wished for most of my life it could be." He'd always pause. "But if you're lucky there are moments that come at you and feel as magical and you'd swear you were living one. If you find those, pull them in with a rope and don't let them go."

Don't let them go. Hold on tight.

My heart skipped a beat as we approached the Master at Arms' quarters. The hallway felt as if it was narrowed. My throat felt as if it narrowed. I slowed and Mr. Ryerson glanced up at me several times, then back at the floor as his shiny black shoes slid on the carpet; he didn't know whether to judge me for what I'd told him or to admire me, to admire what it took in me to face this honestly and stand for Jack. He was a man from this world, born in it and marinated in it, so he would likely eventually settle on the former. But for this moment he seemed softened.

"Ahhh...I see, then, I understand," the steward who had been in our rooms last night, fresh from a night's sleep (a much longer and more serene one than mine, surely), informed me that his name was Ned and that Jack had been released hours before. Behind him I could see the room that held a small cell, just a tiny white box with riveted walls that could barely contain one human. I imagined Jack sitting inside it, on the pallet, and something constricted in my abdomen. "Miss, I'm sorry, I can imagine why you're looking for him, but we were instructed to ease up."

Dear, dear Ned (perhaps my new favorite person!) turned to Mr. Ryerson. "We've sent your coat for cleaning in haste, of course," Ned made fists with both hands then as if he was a bit nervous for the next part, "but Mr. King assumed you'd be lenient on the young man, the one who took your coat?" Eyes to me, then Mr. Ryerson, then me again. He knew. How many men would know all the intimacies of my last twenty-four hours before I pushed past the shock of it and into some sort of power again myself? "He seems quite innocent, we all agreed." A sniffle. "That he should have a second chance to be on his way." A nod to me, followed by an awkward bow; he felt the partial architect of this situation and hoped we'd be thankful.

"Of course, of course, it's fine," Mr. Ryerson placed his hands in his pockets and leaned closer to Ned and to me. We stood in almost a perfect triangle, scents and breath and body heat too close for three people who knew so little of one another. "I wouldn't have wanted him kept here for something so small anyhow, you know. I think I understand what happened."

I thanked them both but I couldn't stay, I couldn't linger. My whole body vibrated, tremors along my spine and up the column of my neck until the tiny hairs there seemed at attention. I tried to ask where Jack had gone but I realized that there was only one place he could, really, and he'd gone there hours ago without coming back for me. Maybe both men realized it too and that's why their expressions read somewhere along the road to pity. Maybe some deep part of me, some shameful part, had been hoping he would still be here and I could rescue him, hold our reunion in my hands like a little dove and nourish it. But he wasn't trapped, just as he shouldn't have been, and he'd retreated.

I would have to walk to him, walk further into my mistake to salvage anything.

"Miss Dewitt…" Mr. Ryerson's frail face was in motion but I was gone as my name left his lips. Gone as Ned the steward reached for a piece of paper on a tiny wooden desk but I wouldn't know what he intended to put upon the page. Gone and my cheeks were wet even though I hadn't remembered crying at all this morning. Gone down the narrow corridor, gone. Room to room, the ones that were open, my hair frantic behind me in long clumps and wisps. So far down into the ship already because I'd begun at the crew passages. I shouldn't even be down here, and I was aware with every step that if discovered I'd be removed and without a scrap of a plan.

I was just beginning to think it was hopeless until I heard Fabrizio, his voice so loud in a doorway because he is perpetually jovial, isn't he, and I had no doubt he'd have counseled Jack by now. Something along the lines of steering clear of me, pardoning all nautical puns. Maybe something about starting fresh, sticking with their plan to hop trains across the western plains and then up the California coast.

"Hi." He turned around, smile interrupted and he seemed to be guarding the entryway, then, to G60. And I knew. That it had to be Jack inside that room. His room. This place he'd been sleeping each night after he encountered me, after we wrecked one another really, shook the world and softened it and made it a child's clay in our hands.

"Hi." Fabri tipped his head as if he wore a hat but he wore no hat. He glanced inside the room once more as if looking for a signal but gave up and scooted away from the door. "I'll go, I'll go, have some time." And I watched for a second as he made his way three doors down, where a small group of men huddled, all awake and, by the sound of it, already watching some sort of card game unfold.

I was scared, somehow. Until I allowed one of my eyes to peek inside, just one, and there he was, sitting on a bottom bunk, wringing his hands. Without his sketchpad because, of course, Cal had likely thrown it into the cold of the ocean by now. His hands looked empty, robbed. He'd changed into a blue corduroy shirt that was close to a muted lapis; I'd never seen a color like that on him before, and when he looked up it matched his eyes. And he sighed. And I sighed, leaning against the doorframe out of fatigue but also just from the want of him.

"Rose."

I swallowed and stepped into the room, aware of his eyes on me and every breath, even every half-breath, as I reached to close the door behind me. I probably shouldn't have but now was no time to begin caring what anyone thought.

Hat in hand.

"Jack I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." I could feel the tears, then, like rain when it's warm, and he stood because I think no matter what he couldn't stand to see me cry.

Standing in front of me, his rough hands came to each one of my forearms, grazed, and goosebumps filled out every inch of my skin. This. This again. Would it always be like this, that being a foot from him would signal my wanting to devour him? The air smelled like stale cigarettes. Coffee from the third class kitchen somewhere. Bacon cooking. I didn't care. I ached for him, still ached from him, wanted him to attack what was sore and make me open up more.

"Lovejoy, he was going to put the diamond in my pocket, wasn't he?" He bit his lip. "That's what they were looking for? That was the plan?"

"Yes," my lips felt swollen, "I think deep down I already knew but I saw it, too, after they took you, I saw Cal with it."

"I just took the damned coat to see you, to be able to see you," he smiled just a little, and one corner of his gorgeous mouth gave me all the hope in the world. "I was going to give it back."

And I told him, breathless, shaking, about going to Mr. Ryerson. I pushed into his body, asked no permission though perhaps I should have, pushed in and his arms came around me almost frantically. I spoke into his chest. He'd bathed. He smelled like soap but also somehow of the sea. I apologized ten more times but it wasn't enough.

"Rose, I understand," his mouth on my hair, near my left ear, "it's scary, it was all so fucking scary." A pause. "But I needed you to believe me. I need you to trust me." He kissed me softly on my temple but it created a fire. "Or this won't work, Rose." He was pleading with me. He'd done it once before, in the gymnasium, and when he spoke like this, two of his lower teeth that were slightly crooked, they seemed to take on their own conviction.

I stepped back and I took him in and I needed him to come to me when he was ready. I'd been selfish. I was spoiled, I was a brat, I knew nothing of this life I was begging for.

"I do Jack, I do." The heater rattled behind him. This whole ship was too hot. "I know you," and the words meant so much, I blushed, "I feel as though I do, but I would understand if you don't believe me."

One instant that he hesitated. It was there. Jack wouldn't be human if he hadn't, if it wasn't. A few seconds and he tried to walk away, at least inside his own mind. I'm sure he thought of the road with Fabri, and with others (and I'm sure there had been other girls, could always be other girls if he wanted them), and considered his life without me in it. But God, thankfully it was only a tiny window, just a few breaths before he grabbed me and before I knew it I was penned, still standing, against the bunks. My head hit the upper berth and I felt nothing but his arms at my waist, his mouth as it tamped down unto my bottom lip so forcefully I thought briefly it would bleed. I never knew I could be pressed into with such passion, that I could claw with such passion, that I'd fight to become part of someone like this. I growled, low, guttural, and fought to bring my tongue to his, desperate and then euphoric as we danced, like that, our mouths a dance, our arms some sort of chaotic symphony.

When we came up for air he gasped and he looked down at me and he was happy but he was nervous.

"Rose, what in the world are we going to do now?"

I looked up at him, brain clouded with how he'd looked above me in the Renault, how much I knew of his body now and how it met mine at the center here in this cramped space too. But there was so much more to think about, so much that was urgent.

The rings nipped at my breast, heaved along with it underneath my thin dress.

I had a plan. Maybe.

"I have a plan, Jack."

Author's Note:

***Altoids were first produced in the 1780s, a little fact I stumbled upon during research and just had to mention.

***I refer to James Cameron as Jim Cameron in my disclaimer; someone mentioned in a review that this was wrong. It's not a mistake. I've read a lot about him, he goes by Jim to colleagues and friends and family, so this is just my little fun nod to him.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING AND COMMENTING. It means the world. And good God is it fun to write a faster-paced chaptered piece. I feel as though I can unveil a little at a time, build some suspense, it's amazing.

xx

RGD