Thank you so much for the reviews and messages so far. I have now finished writing this story and it is about 20 or so chapters long and I am currently working on two others as well.
This story will have M content later for those who ask. Perhaps even more than was in Free Me or Twist of Fate. (hide face emoji!)
Chapter four
How he spoke. Across Rose's whole-body, goose bumps appeared across her flesh beneath the heavy, woollen period clothes. Butterflies took flight within her stomach, fluttering as though they had contained for over a decade and now, they had their freedom – finally.
Finally.
His lips formed her name expressively, and Rose opened her mouth for a word that she could not produce. She told herself that she needed to move, meet him halfway, but her feet remained glued to the spot where she stood. Her eyes filled with tears that just wouldn't shed. Her heart hammered. Dropped. Twisted. Breathing was painful, heavy and restricted.
Jack Dawson dropped his coat on the floor as he ran to the stage; his own vision temporarily interrupted. His feet flew up the small set of stairs towards Rose. He reached out to her, and she closed her eyes, melting as his arms should have embraced her-
''No.'' Whispering that one word stopped him dead within his tracks. ''I-I.''
''Yes.''
His voice was Jack's. That tender, little whisper which had wrapped itself about her silly for so long. How his beautiful caressing voice would soothe her. He had sent shivers down her spine many moons ago, by placing his lips against her ear and singing their song Come Josephine...
She felt him step closer, heard his breathing. Two hands, shaking, came to her waist and then she was falling into him, unable to stop herself. Falling into his body, into his arms and back into his heart. Now, she knew that this had to be real; she would never forget the smell of him. It was the same smell that had clouded her senses during that dance the night before. It was only then; a small tear found its way down her cheek. She clung to his shirt, breathing him in and holding onto his body as though her life depended on it.
Perhaps it did.
Anticipating him to have disappeared from within her embrace, she kept his shirt fisted within her shaky grasp.
He was real.
She dare not glimpse up.
Dare not speak.
Dare not move.
On stage, Rose had been unable to contain the emotion which she was kept locked away for a long time. It had flooded out beyond her own control and by the end, she was sure that a lid would have been put back upon the bottle and it would be kept inside for another unknown length of time.
Now, it threatened to spew out violently. Like never in the past.
"Jack." Her voice was hoarse, almost shrill. She could tell he was worried, concerned. Jack swallowed and grinned, his smile betrayed by his turbulent eyes. Those eyes. The blue of them had embodied her dreams for years now, haunting her like some bittersweet song. But now, here they were, in front of her again. ''Jack.'' She swallowed and rested her hand on his upper arm, searching his face for some easy answer.
There was none.
Ten years.
Ten. Lost. Lonely. Years.
Jack moved his hand to her hair. It fell down, cascading down her back as the pins popped out one by one, but that was unnoticed. Rose's eyes bore into him, staring as if she didn't believe that he was real. But they were soft, deep, the same. Her full lips trembled as he himself tried to find the words. There weren't any. How foolish could she be to think that words would ever be enough to suffice?
''Yes.''
''How-'' She breathed, still unable to find the words. Were there any words? ''How are-is this? How are you here?''
Jack's jaw tensed; his grip tight. He looked down upon her graceful face, her vulnerable nape and the words fell out of him like rain from the sky.
''I think I died once,'' his throat tightened. ''I was there. The war. We were blown to bits. Everyone around me was dead or dying.'' Swallowing the lump, he kept on. ''It was hell. Worse than I had seen before, though God knows I had seen enough death by then. My mother. Father. Fabrizio and Tommy. Every other person who perished that night, and then you. Always you.'' He sighed; the torment very much present in him just as it was inside of her. ''I always came out alive. Felt like a perverse joke, after a time.''
Her head turned until her chin rested upon his shoulder. ''How did you bear it?''
''Tried to see outside the hell. Find something beautiful wherever I could, as my mother had taught me. That day I sketched the shoreline but even beauty becomes a taunt when you watch so many men die for nothing.''
Rose stepped back into him, and he slid his arms across the front of her shoulders and around her waist. It was natural. It felt real.
"After the sinking, I was sick..." He closed his eyes. Regaining his thoughts, he shook his head, fighting back memories. "All I can remember is trying to find you...and then suddenly I was on a lifeboat...I..." Jack appeared disgusted with himself, taking a deep breath.
Trying to hold back anymore tears, she raised her chin shakily, "You're here. That's all that matters.'' Her green eyes were filled with something. He couldn't tell quite what it was. "I could never find you, Jack. I went to all the hospitals, but some of them wouldn't tell me...who was there, that they couldn't disclose information like that." Her voice caught, and she sought his eyes for support; those gentle eyes. They had made her fall in love with Jack Dawson. They seemed to be unchanged, but something new was in his face. He was a man now. His clothes told her that he was not the man that he was and even though part of her wanted to ask further, she never quite managed to do it. It was too much to even attempt to comprehend.
Jack's rough hands moved over hers, sending the all too familiar jolts down her spine, her arms, in her stomach. He took her fingers in his, moving closer while he spoke. "I didn't know that. I was lost, Rose. When I woke up, days had passed. I was so tired, in and out of sleep. I was weak; hyperthermia they said.'' He shivered just recalling how he had felt during that time. ''I was trying to speak but I just couldn't." He paused and watched her eyebrows raise in confusion. "I never knew that you were alive, not until the war.''
That much startled her. Stiffened her within his arms, and from the sparkle of his eyes, he felt it there with her.
''The-the war?'' How had he known so long of her existence?
''Yes, you were there, weren't you? Did you see it?'
The tremble started there, rocking her body as though she was still there. Still seeing the effects. Still shattered, well beyond repairing.
''Y-yes.''
As though he was taking her back in time, five years. She was suddenly terrified, clinging onto him like a child.
''I thought you had gone. I hated myself for living. I hated God. I hated the world. All beauty left when you did.''
''But I was right there.''
''I never knew that.'' His eyes twinkled, and Rose was lost in them again, just like she had been that day in the gym aboard Titanic.
"Your name wasn't on any lists.'' Jack smiled wistfully and went on. "When they finally let me out of the hospital, I was a mess. All I wanted to do was find you, but I had nowhere to go. There were no leads. No signs.''
Rose took a shaky breath and looked around her, suddenly aware that the theatre was absolutely empty, except for the two of them. Some of the house lights had even been turned off again.
"So, how-" Rose held onto him, the pure shock she had experienced still coursing through her body. ''What did you do?''
"I found a job. I had to. And I started looking. But I never realised how large New York is..." Jack stopped, and noted how she changed once more. How it was as though before her eyes, she was recalling her steps at the same second as he was. Could they have crossed paths before now?
''I stayed in the city about a year. I was an assistant in a cake shop. I went out West just after that.''
''And your name, it was on the list, wasn't it?'' He could still see it now. It just had taken him five years to find it. ''I searched every list, for months because I was so sure that I had to have been mistaken, somehow.'' A smirk pulled at his lip. ''Then, after the war, I found a copy of the survivors list once more and then, it was just...just printed there...Rose Dawson." Jack whispered her name, and Rose looked down. Of course, she had never thought she would have to explain anything to him. What could she tell him? That she had taken his name because the man in front of her had changed her life? She had given up everything to be with him and would have continued that life with the tools he had given her, without him.
"Jack, I...I had to..." Rose tried to sputter a response, but was halted by Jack's hand, which he laid carefully across her lip. And it was then that she saw the look in his eyes. It wasn't anger or confusion, but happiness, pride.
"I knew it was you. And, I know why." He watched her eyes soften, again. ''I knew then, that we had met, in France.''
Parting her dry lips, Rose gazed at that solemn face through such confusion that she pulled herself back from his arms a fraction to ensure that she was no longer crowded by such intensity.
''How could we?''
''I was injured. April 30th. A mustard gas attack.'' Jack's lips twisted, his eyes glazing over like a dark cloud had descended upon them.
''I was a nurse there-'' Rose swallowed harshly; her emotions still intact until suddenly it was as though she was hurtled down a large hill with no way of stopping. ''I kept my promise. I tried to-''
''I kept my distance from every place that we desired to travel to together-''
''And I went to each and every one.'' She completed his sentence. "I went to Santa Monica."
''And then, the war started. You were there. You were one of the nurses who tended to me, Rose.''
''No, I couldn't possibly. I recall each and every one. Every man who died, every man who lived, every man who was shattered and who cried to me. Every man who felt they failed their country. Every man who was scared to die, who was scared to live. Every man who shook from the tremors. Every man who screamed from the second they were brought in on a stretcher until they died of the most excruciating pain. That was the day of the mustard gas attack-'' Rose paused to take a breath, releasing memories which she had kept caged for such a long time. The anger was still as vivid, perhaps the emotion which had frayed her at the edges until this very day.
Jack's throat was tight, his voice coming out as a low, hoarse whisper. ''They screamed for me to help. I couldn't do anything. I saw men fall; burnt. Frail. They dropped down but the worst part was that they never died right away, death never allowed the good to be claimed fast and painless. It was always the good who sobbed for release but never could have it with dignity.''
Sickness circled in the pit of her stomach, and suddenly she was moving away from him, clutching at her skirts for fear of losing grip on reality. There was no comfort, not even from Jack.
''You were there?''
''Yes.'' Jack watched as she came undone before him. ''I went down. I was taken to the hospital in a small town. I never knew where.''
''The men were screaming.'' Rose clasped onto her stomach. ''I had never smelt death like that. It was a lovely morning, and by the end, it was like Hell itself.''
''There were broken pieces of everything. Shrapnel embedded in my skin.''
''You would have been black. Covered in blisters. We could not put out the screams of them until they finally succumbed to what we thought was death.'' Tears exploded, and weakness clouded her. Clouded her memory. It had claimed her entire soul. Given her another façade to hide behind. ''Some never woke. But others did. They were never the same.''
''I awoke and there was a nurse. An angel. She was washing my feet, talking so beautifully that I thought I had gone to heaven.'' Jack paused, to smile. ''I thought I had died and that voice pulled me back from the beyond.''
''What voice was that?''
''It was beautiful.'' He took one step to her, and she didn't shift the way he expected her to. ''She told me that one should never have favourites, but she did. I think it was me. That they said to never be too involved, but she was-''
Rose's lip quivered. Her stomach felt as though she had been kicked a hundred times but none of it compared to the pain of realisation as it hit her at full pelt.
''-involved too much with him.'' She finished. ''They always said how handsome he would be without the dirt and the blisters and the bandages.'' As if she had been cut open, and started to bleed out, Rose bent over double. ''I never saw the face. I never-'' Her voice contorted, choked and trembling.
''Never gave me your name.'' Jack finished for her. Her eyes shifted to his, trying to collect memories to piece together lost time with a man who was almost a stranger to her. It was like collecting two halves of a whole that didn't quite piece together correctly. Not yet.
''I was never allowed. I never gave my name, only to one.''
He had no words. No words to explain. What he feared was impossible. What she feared was already in front of her.
''R?'' He slowly whispered. ''You told me that your name was R.''
Slowly, her eyes raised from the cemented floor up to his watery line of blue and met the gaze which she was pinned beneath. A strange calm approached, before sending her spiralling into realisation. Spiralling and hurtling.
''Yes. I was R.'' Five years of guilt, of pain and earth-shattering memories piled upon her one by one and it was as though she had been flattened by the biggest of boulders. ''R for Rose.''
''It was you?'' His voice was cracked. Darkness had fallen across them and it was hard to see the other.
''Y-yes. It was me.''
Suddenly, as she was about to collapse to the floor, a pair of arms came to her. Strong. Capable. Pulling her toward him and within the sturdiness of his broad chest, she sobbed. Sobbed.
''It was you,'' he whispered, hoarsely against her hair to confirm everything once more. Fingers caressed her face, his own tears falling and mixing with her own. Hearts were crying out, breaking when they should have been repairing. The sun of late had turned into a stormy shadowy night. She felt his chest tighten. His heart hammering against her face as she buried her nose into him.
''As soon as I woke up, the morning after the war ended, I left that hospital and I went to the library where I obtained a copy of the survivor's names. I found it there, looking at me and taunting me. I had never thought you could possibly live. But you had. With my name.''
Her lashes fluttered and lifted. Riveting green focused upon him. ''I called myself a widow. I felt a widow. When you died, you took me with you. I was a shell. Empty. A carcass of some kind that never fully regained itself.''
''I was always here.'' His voice was like frayed rope. ''I've imagined holding you like this.''
She swallowed. ''Am I silly for ensuring that I went to all of those places we talked of. How I tried so very hard to be the Rose that you met, the one who wished to be a carefree girl and I never fully allowed myself to be. My heart died with you.'' Tears spilled onto her pale cheeks. ''I heard your voice out there in my mind, at the pier. You spoke to me in death and I was so sure that you were guiding me along the way.' She pitifully laughed. ''How foolish could I have been? Perhaps I just succumbed to insanity, just how my mother would always predict.''
His soft palm came up to stroke her cheek. The tenderness ceased her breathe. The callouses upon his fingertips were rougher, the scars upon his knuckles were not bothersome. The tightness in his chest unravelled, making breathing easier just for a second.
''I haven't truly felt alive until I saw you last night, just standing there, alone.'' He frowned and held her tighter. ''It was like a vision.''
''You frightened me.'' Her eyes were wide, pinned beneath his own piercing gaze.
''How so?''
''There were no words. Just a dance. Just you and I. Like so many years ago.'' Rose recalled the uncertainty within herself. How she questioned her own sanity. How she perhaps thought he was the contents of her own mind until Stuart had confirmed seeing him and then Clara, too.
It was as though he was a ghost of some sort.
''I couldn't speak. Not then,'' he struggled with something, tormenting him, perhaps it was painful.
Moving back from his embrace, she heard how his voice was in shreds. ''Jack?''
Parting his lips to speak, he had sensed how coldness had already set in. Frosting clouded him, then her. His arms pulled back, recoiling, then clasped together behind his back as though he was restored to a default setting. As though he was retreating. As he had when he approached her the night before.
Rose parted her dry lips. ''You had no intentions of speaking to me, did you?''
His chest grew tight and cold. His jaw tensed. But his eyes...they watered, flared in the dim light.
''You were unsteady on your feet, and with so many eyes upon us, I never thought that one dance would stir up such-''
''I see. The press. The pictures.'' It was all very clear now. Dawning on her, vastly approaching and unable to be ceased.
''Not just that. I never gave a damn for that, Rose. It was you.''
''What of me?''
''I-I heard that you were with another man. The man in the play. The one who took you home.'' The poison within his voice altered him in a way which Rose never pictured. Perhaps it was jealousy. Perhaps it was torment. Perhaps it was nothing but her own cruel mind. In that moment though, she fled. Just as he had done the night before.
She left him there. Alone. Again.