Chapter six:

There was a flickering of wings about her face. Softer. Tracing down her cheeks, across her nose and then to her lips.

Will it always feel such a sin to you? His voice had caressed her sleep. It wasn't soothing. It had raced her heart in a way which it shouldn't. Would you always think of me in such a way? Oh, how we should be free to love each other. How we should be able to become the great lovers which people believe us to be.

They should be free to be.

The flickering about her face was gentle. Too exhausted to even open her eyes, there was a period of about six hours in which Rose Dawson drifted in and out of sleep. A muffle of voices was heard not so long after her arrival to—wherever Stuart had fetched her. Her body was oddly placed to lay, upon something far more cushioned than she was accustomed to feeling beneath her body. Her lips were dry, parting to inhale now and again, then she would suppress a sob which came out unexpectedly. This whole tale was in a twist, causing it all to spin...it was as though she was searching. Searching for something which was never enough. It was bleak. More than bleak. Her true feelings for Stuart were span up within a wind of absolute change which was upon them.

There had to be a change. Because...Jack. He was alive.

After the curtain call, she had left him there, paused in a tormented moment in which he had believed her to be with Stuart. Had Jack been trying to protect her reputation, or trying to prevent his own? Perhaps even Stuart's...

Stuart...

Did she love him?

Could she?

The dreams were almost nightmares. Like the ones which had haunted her mind years before. She was dancing, so much. Spinning. With a fire in her feet. Dancing between a love; which made her delirious with madness and a desire; a desire for a man that could be a sin. A sin to love another when Jack Dawson was the one who still held her heart.

It was the lights. You've always hated them. I have known you three years and each damned time the lights are blinding, you start to disintegrate into another being. You shrink. Suddenly, you were gone with the wind.

The photographers. How their bright beams instilled such a fear within and had done for many years. Since the night she had arrived in New York, faced along with thousands of flashes of bulbs from the press, greeting the Titanic survivors and hounding them in their packs...

''Please, Rose. Just cease thinking.'' Jack murmured. He lowered his mouth toward hers. The approach was slow and deliberate. His grip on her was loose and without force. He was allowing her a way out of this. ''Let yourself feel everything.''

She stumbled back, panting because she couldn't breathe when he was so close to her. He watched her retreat with hooded eyes. She was beyond arms reach when he caught her back and sealed his lips over hers. It was the boldness which stole what was left of her air. With one hand at her nape, the other across her lower back, he held her...taking her mouth as though she was meant to be his to claim. She sagged into him, unable to comprehend the ardour with which he kissed. His body was astoundingly hard...warm...inviting.

Her first kiss...her first love.

He loved her.

'''I love you.'' he whispered against her wet cheeks. She shed tears of joy...for him.

''Say it again.''

''I love you, with all of my heart,'' he told her, his tears joining hers.

''I love you, too.''

I love you.

I love you.

I love...

''Rose?''

No...

Her body shook. A hand touched her face.

No...go away.

Stuart

Stu-

''Stu-'' Her voice was coarse, so very dry and came out as a croak. ''Stuart?''

Heavy eyelids flickered open. One and then the other. A groan left her lips as she felt the throb of her back, as she tried to move her body. Her eyes refused to focus, instead everything before them appeared so very blurred. She was disoriented.

''Jack-'' she reached out blindly for something; the figure which roamed about beside her. It was him, wasn't it? It had to be.

''No, my darling.'' Stuart soothed, fetching a broad hand to touch Rose's forehead. It was warm. ''It is just me.''

''Oh,'' Rose relaxed, allowing Stuart to feel her face. She didn't waft him away, perhaps, that was a start. The start of her recovery? No, just the beginning of her reasonability. Reasoning with her would now have to take such careful consideration. Beneath the siren of a woman was a fragility which he knew now existed.

''How are you feeling?''

Rose's beautiful face had paled. She was gaunt, tired and perhaps even more melancholy than first anticipated. After much thought which had kept him awake during the entirety of the night, Stuart had taken the decision to take matters into his own hands regarding the name which Rose had whimpered. A risk to all; yes. But indeed, something which he felt could be a benefit to all.

''Rose?''

''Mmm,'' she muttered lightly in a response, her hair against the pillow, spilling out in a mass of directions. Upon discovering her eyes could indeed focus, she found Stuart, unkempt with ruffled hair, red lined eyes and an open collar shirt seated in a heavy leather chair opposite her. Glancing down and about, she realised that she was not in her own bed. In her own room. Her panic started, but then Stuart explained.

''I brought you here to my flat, it was the closest away from the Savoy,'' a shadow of stubble appeared across his handsome features but beneath that, there was the same haunted gaze which fixed on her. ''The photographers followed us out, into the hackney and saw you come up here. I am sorry for any-'' running his hands through his hair, he exhaled his stress, ''any nuisance which it may cause for you. For your career. I will marry you tomorrow if you feel it would suffice and protect your reputation from those damned hounds.''

Through a watery vision, Rose watched as the man who was usually so put together, so absolutely collected and now he was utterly unravelled. She had started to unravel him the night before...

''M-marry me?'' She managed. ''But we do not love each other, do we?''

Her trembling fingers were pulling at the bed cover which were tangled about her legs. They were bare to the warm air of the room. Sunlight came through the windows, allowing in unwanted light. It tore at her eyelids, making her feel as though she had never seen the light in all its purity before in her life.

''No. I do not believe that we do. At least not the way it requires to be when one enters into a lifelong commitment to another.'' Stuart sprang to his legs, the morning light causing him to squint. He came to the bed, settling himself there beside her. ''But I know how a single woman looks entering the home of another unmarried man, especially regarding the gossips. I know how highly regarded your career is.'' He stumbled his words. ''I know this isn't London society like ten years ago, I know it isn't a situation of you been compromised but-''

''Oh, Stuart. How I was last night-'' Rose cut off his staggering explanation of offering her marriage, simply because her brain could never think of it.

''No, I do understand. More than you could think.'' His smile was genuine. Taking her hands into his own, he lightly pressed a kiss to each knuckle. ''I understand your intentions, and you did give me quite the fright with your absurdity. You had taken back two glasses of champagne and then suddenly speaking to me of how you wished I was the one who you could love.''

''But it is all true.'' Rose spluttered. ''I am the pieces of a woman, one who has cried too many bitter tears. I have looked at you—prayed to love you. I wanted to feel everything. Because you are wonderful.'' The bitter tears started, trailing down her cheeks and then they soaked into Stuart's collar she fell into his warm embrace.

''But you never could for this lover of yours? The one who holds your heart.''

''Yes.''

Stuart stroked across her forehead, down to the ends of her hair.

''I wish I could bring you such sunshine.'' It was bitter but lined with such innocence that Rose wished he could see the true situation. How she could reveal just who she was.

''You do, my love. You have to shine now, though. Brighter.''

''What point is there? For what does life hold for me?''

Stuart felt the determination in his stomach spring out of his mouth. ''It holds your Jack.''

For a moment, Rose's heart seemed to cease beating, her breath was caught in her lungs and her thoughts stuttered as though she had taken a blow to the brain. A simple sentence was suddenly difficult to string together. It was painful. Painful to even think.

''Jack?''

Stuart blinked. ''Yes.''

Green eyes opened slowly, carefully. She blinked them several times. Her focus adjusted to the morning light which spewed from her ceiling to floor windows. Her lips were dry but with a quick dart of her tongue, she moistened them. Her vision had cleared. She held onto his shoulders, as her eyes wandered about the room as though she had just seen daylight for the first time ever. It hurt her head, her eyes and her entire body felt a hundred years older than it actually was. The hours had melted into each other in a blur of—nothing. Dreams had felt a reality, but only now had she realised that they were indeed just visions of her subconscious.

''Do you feel I am a bit touched?'' Rose asked, quietly.

''Just a little lost is all. That is something which we can remedy over time, but I beg of you, open your heart to me, just as I have to you, my friend.''

Rose worried her lower lip between her teeth.

''My life is not one which you wish to delve in too deeply.''

Stuart's frown deepened. ''Why ever not?''

Rose inhaled slowly, feeling the pain as she did so. She squinted, as she recalled the past events. Her mind had fell about a haze which found it hard to dissuade truth from fiction. Reality from her own dreams. Her last known vision of Jack had been at the Savoy, as she had been carried away when she wished to thrust herself towards him. Consuming her wickedly since, the guilt had seeped in and then flooded her.

''I have dreamed a thousand dreams. I hear the marching of feet. I hear it all.'' Rose blinked into oblivion. ''I can see the fires burning into the night.''

''The war?''

''Perhaps. There is never any sense with it. With him. With it all.'' Rose placed two hands across her face to shield the sunlight. ''He was unmarried. Handsome. With exquisite hands.'' A half smile curved her mouth for the first time in a long time. Removing her hands from her face, her glance moved to Stuart who settled himself back on the bed in order to converse properly with her. ''With him I was swept away. In control of nothing at all. It was a heady sensation to be lost in a man and yet, he was equally lost in me.'' A rueful smile lifted her lips. She was unable to stop her hands from touching it. ''Every sense is awakened.''

Stuart paused, his gaze flicking over Rose. Her posture had straightened, her hands less clenched together. Something about her had changed within those few seconds of thinking of this man.

''You love him?'' It was a question, but it felt like a statement.

Rose nodded. ''He saved me. In every way. In every sense.'' Rose glanced downwards to the bed covers. At the blackness of them. Of the room. It was dark. Bleak. Stuart's taste in décor was truly harsh to the eyes, in a morning at least in comparison to the light breaking into the windows.

''He was truly the reason you never married all of these years?''

''Yes. Although, perhaps it was time I was starting to think of such things. I would have liked to be a wife and a mother. And then, something incredulous happened.''

He was alive! Just at the turning point, where one was perhaps starting to examine her own life and its contents. A husband to greet her nightly after the play was through, to hold her in a warm embrace as the curtains came up and then later that evening, lay her in their bed and make love to her whilst ensuring she was loved through. She wanted children. Three or four. A home and not just a boarding house. A house with walls and rooms, decorated to her own taste and a garden where she could keep a pond.

''It was him, wasn't it?''

''Who?''

''The one who swept you away that night onto the dancefloor. That was when you changed.'' Stuart examined her, his dark eyes sweeping across her face, the posture and everything in between. ''How a photographer just took you into his arms, and you become one with him in way I have never seen.''

''I wasn't the dancer. He was in control of my feet.'' It was haunting, that feeling. To relish control of herself. The truth was she had little choice.

''You sacrificed your body to the rhythm of his.'' Stuart bit his lip, holding both of his hands together for fear of touching her would break the beginning of her revealing the truth, in some small way.

''I was riveted by him,'' she barely whispered, ''I always was. He seduced me in a life which I would have never known existed if it wasn't for him.'' Closing her heavy lids, Rose felt herself succumb to the peace within which she had made for herself after years of such turbulence. ''I was seventeen when I met him, just a girl really, but-''

''But what?''

''He was taken away from me. I was robbed of such a life with him that I had planned in my head. I felt foolish for years, believing that I would have been allowed to keep one scrap of happiness for myself. So, I did what I could. I took what shred of hope I had and I lived on his memory until now, until he came to me across a crowded ballroom at the Savoy and led me about the floor, wordlessly.''

''Did you believe him to be alive?''

''No,'' Rose opened her eyes, meeting Stuart's unwavering dark stare as he tried to gain clarity. To make sense. ''He believed me also to have perished. He came to me last night, after the curtain call, and relayed how he knew I had lived for three years. Since we met in France during the war. I never knew. I tended to him, right there and I simply walked away.''

The pain had started in her stomach, curling about like a fist and then it pulled at her heart and then like a knife, it slashed at her, leaving huge, gaping wounds which seemed to be unable to bleed. There was no relief. No place to hide and now that she was exposed, the only thing which she saw was the devastation mirrored in Stuart's face.

''So, you see, dear Stuart. That is why you and I-can never.''

Taking her hands within his, he shifted to the floor just in front of her and shook his head. ''No, Rose. I would never ask that of you. We are—not meant to be that way.''

''Perhaps not.''

''What of this Jack?''

''What of him?''

''He wants you still? Is he still unmarried and un-encumbered?''

Rose raised one hand to stroke his face, to arrange some of the hair which had fallen away from the rest. His eyes, though dark, were clouded with concern and even through her tired state, she saw just how wonderful he was.

''I believe that he might.'' Rose dipped her head, lower until Stuart placed a finger beneath her chin to raise it and ensure that her attention was always upon him.

''Why must you sulk then, dear Rose? Why are you not in his flat, in his bed...''He trailed off, about to pardon his use of words until it dawned just how honest she had been the night before. Gone was the fragile little bird and out had stepped a Goddess of some sort. It was only until the flashes of the cameras had startled her. He intended to ask of that, but now was not the time. ''A man you believed to be dead, is alive, in the same town as you and yet, you sit here as though he had died all over again.''

That stung. Wounded. But she excused it. Excused him.

''Because, he believed you and I to have been together and I never corrected it. I simple walked away.'' Rose felt her heart hammering. Her stomach clenching.

''What?''

''He saw us dancing that first night and with the papers printed all the gossips, he believed it all to be true. I was so afraid, in shock and-'' she trailed off, a sob escaping and then his grip tightened upon her. He lifted his right hand to the back of her neck and shook her.

''You listen to me, now, I don't know what to say to a woman who pines for her great love for over a decade and when he shows up, she runs the other way. You're a fool, Rose Dawson.''

She wanted to laugh. Really laugh. From the tips of her bare toes up to her dishevelled blonde hair, she was shaking and shivering from every emotion rolling and then battering her like waves breaking upon rocks. Stuart's hand at her nape was strong, strong enough to perhaps even leave a mark but it wasn't malicious, it was wakening her.

''I am.'' Her lips were dry. Her body ached. ''I thought-''she started, unable to find the damned words. ''I was-''

''What?''

''I was too disappointed in him. Disappointed that he would think after all these years that there would ever be another love for me.'' Rose heard the absurdity in her own voice. ''I was hurt that he would think there would ever be another for me but him.''

Stuart loosened his grip on her and his hands fell into her lap, he lowered his glance to her dress, how it sparkled and how pieces of the material had come undone from sleeping in the garment. Rose rested her head atop his, taking in the silence of the moment. It was a moment of realisation, of reflection.

''You and I, my love, are destined to always be friends. I don't have a flicker of doubt over that.''

''I hope to God we are. I can only be sorry for my upsetting you. What I said last night was the truth.''

''Yes, and in another life, or if—if this Jack hadn't been here. I would have married you. I would have grown to love you, to give you children and some sort of happiness.''

She wanted to despair, to crumble and say how bittersweet it was and yet, as he lifted his eyes to meet his, she saw the way his soul seemed to have healed in some way and yet her own was still wide open.

''I will escort you home, hopefully the damned photographers won't be there. We can go down out the back building, take a longer route and hopefully that will work.''