I don't usually do requests but I felt strangely like I needed to do write this one. For you rosesjack. I hope I do this some justice and thanks for reading!
Beneath The Stars.
''Something that I can't have.''
The cards were stacked against them both; a first-class lady and a steerage, bohemian boy who seemed to be more than enchanted by her, just as she was him. Beneath the stars, Rose felt more exposed, more alive and more vulnerable than ever before. She wished to run; felt her feet itch to move, but there was something about the way he watched her, with such a beautiful vigilance, as though he was waiting for her. To speak. To move. Her breathing became hitched, and she was suddenly aware of just how close he had grown to her since they had seen the shooting star. The air turned slightly awkward and Rose felt the discomfort. Her reply had sent waves down Jack's stomach. Her heart was now open, wider than she had ever believed that it could be. Slowly, her gaze wavered downwards to where her hands rested upon the rope she had been leaning against and Jack's hand was just beside her own.
The giddy mood had disappeared, turning serious and now, there had been a dawning realisation and perhaps even a pivotal point of her relationship with the stranger beside her. Jack Dawson fascinated her; from his stories of travelling the world so freely, he was almost a speck of dust which barely had time to settle before it would be blown onto its next adventure. Her attempts to feel as though she had experienced anything other than becoming an ornamental figure were feeble and the vast spaces between them seemed to be dawning upon her but then, she could almost feel his breathe upon her cheek. It caused goose bumps to run across her chest, her arms and she shivered. It was freezing cold out on the decks; going from the warm, sweaty Third Class General room where she had danced for three hours to the icy night air where Jack had draped his jacket across her shoulders had been a big change in temperature but then the giddiness of the mood had descended into this...
She should say goodnight—or goodbye. For they could never be anything other than two opposites who met aboard an ocean liner and had a shared interest in art, in expression and having fun. He had allowed her to dip her toe into another world and whilst she had relished in it, been able to act as the way she had wanted and what felt natural to her. Inside her mind, she felt as though she was a modern woman. A woman who wished to smoke, to drink and to dance as she wished to.
The deck seemed to vanish for a second from beneath her feet and everything about her, even the beautiful starry sky seemed to grow dreadfully dull in comparison to the beautiful sapphire eyes beneath the deck lamps.
"What would you wish for?" She tried to break the silence with a small smile.
His eyes left hers and went to the bright and beaming lights in the sky above. He seemed to concentrate on them, contemplating as though they would reveal something of his destiny. Beneath the darkness, the sparkle of the blue seemed enchanting, just like they had the night before when she had fully turned to face him, after making a decision to live and to accept his help. Just after her hand had slipped into his, and her eyes locked onto the shimmering glass of his iced blue. She had found something which felt like trust there...
"Well, last night, before you decided to try practising high diving from the rail, I was laid on the benches smoking cigarettes and watching how the stars moved above. The ship seemed to move, and with the tremble of it, the sound of the waves. I saw two shooting stars last night, none as long as this one, but I made a wish then."
Rose listened intently as his cotton soft voice caressed her and caused her to shiver more. He was calm, smoothing and quiet. She never queried further because he revealed it soon after.
"I wished to know what the cause of the sadness was." Jack narrowed his gaze at her, and she struggled to understand and so he elaborated. "Yesterday at lunch time, I was drawing on the decks and you appeared on the deck above, just so sad and fragile looking that I almost tried to sketch you until I realised that I could never draw all the lines of sadness upon your face."
Rose's brow crinkled. "That was why you were staring at me ever so rudely?"
Jack nodded. "You appeared to be so heavy with such a burden and then it was only minutes after I wished, that you appeared from the shadows like a ghost and I followed the sound of your cries."
Feeling the foolishness envelope, her again, Rose removed her hands from the rope and went to move to the entrance but Jack turned with her and suddenly was in front of her, almost trapping her against the rail. It frightened her when he moved, for he was so intently fixated on her stare that she failed to move further.
"You know now my reasons."
"Yes and I have seen them with my own eyes."
Those eyes which burned through her entire soul. She felt as though he was laid atop her, crushing every breathe from her body.
"They've got you trapped, Rose. You've got such a fire in you. Your spirit. Your wild nature. Your passion. Its not meant for that world."
Rose wished to laugh, hard. How could a mere stranger have such an evaluation of her after just one day. How could he seemed to have read every single facet of her mind and soul. Yet, they had spent the entire day together; speaking of their dreams and passion. She had shared thoughts with him that she never would dream of to Cal for it would cause him to laugh, to mind what she read from that moment on and accuse her of owning such a vivid imagination for a girl so young and educated to such a high degree. It was as though having an interest which differed from Cal's, or one that didn't involve needlework or the pianoforte was the Devil's work.
"Mother would agree with you there. How many times I have curbed enthusiasm. Dimmed my happiness at the prospect of not attending a particular ball or gala. When Cal proposed marriage I struggled to so much as smile."
"Isn't that to be the most happy a woman could be when the man she loves is wishing to spend eternity with her?"
This time, she did laugh. "Yes, I suppose it is, when she loves him."
Realising that she had answered Jack's question from that afternoon and ultimately sealed her own fate, Rose glanced to Jack with her soul bared just a little more.
"So why you marrying him?"
Rose exhaled and it caused a cloud of breath to dance about them both. "Because in my world, love is the last reason to marry. Because my father left a legacy of debt and my mother would fall from grace if I didn't marry Cal. His father is wealthy and one day he will inherit Hockley steel."
"That is the cause of your unhappiness, right?" Jack noticed how she shivered. "Because so much weight is on your shoulders. How old are you?"
Rose hesitated. "I am eighteen in October."
"And will you be married by then?"
"May the fifteenth." Rose confirmed, with a future as bleak as black. "Look I know you don't understand—" She tried to reason but he ignored her and simply placed his jacket about her shoulders again and she felt the touch of his fingertip at her skin. The smallest contact felt like the knick you get when sewing and catch your finger upon the needle. Or the spark one has after consuming too much champagne.
"Maybe I'm old fashioned. Or sentimental." Jack told her, grasping the rope and she watched as his fingers played with a small fray.
"What sentiments do you have? You seem to be preoccupied about Europe to consider marriage."
Jack hesitated, struggling with something. "No, no, that's not the way of it." He softened, coming to her softly and slowly. "Life is a gift. I can't see why spending an eternity married to a person who you don't love would be anything but terrible."
Rose turned about to the black sea behind her over the rail and studied its flat calm surface and the vastness of it in comparison to her and to Jack. And even to the largest ship to ever be built. They were all just particles of dust in comparison to the whole world. She could study the sea forever but would never gain the clarity of its wonders. She could look at the great majestic ship on which she stood and never truly appreciate its form but as she turned to view a man she deeply cared for. Who resonated with her. Who understood her. Somehow, she threw cautions to the wind. The same wind which whipped about her face and awakened all of her senses.
"What did you wish for?" Jack stood still, hands at the rope and eyes upon her; blue beacons of light in the dim night.
With a dry throat, she wished to tell him but almost couldn't until his hand was upon her cheek suddenly. It was cool, but warm and real. Touching her in a way that was both inappropriate and quite sentimental. Cal had never touched her face, held her hand or caught her waist as she had fell about dancing. With that, she felt a movement of something within her stomach and it drew her closer to him. The feel of his forearm near her chest, the warmth of his pulse at her jaw and then he was close to her. Closer than when they had danced. It urged her forwards to chase the scent of him. The heat of his touch and then, the mere inches closed as torsos pressed to the other to gain warmth and the tenderness which was so new to her.
"I wished I could have a life like yours." She whispered, with closed eyes. "I wished for the freedom and for the world to be open to me just like it is for you but I wished to not fear the vastness of the space then I realised that..." she broke off, as it dawned on her, "I realised that I wanted to have that with...with you."
Slowly, Rose opened her eyes and allowed the darkness which she has hidden herself within whilst telling him such a thing to disappear and it was replaced with Jack, his lips parted and his breath clouding about heavily, as though he was losing oxygen. She started to struggle to think straight as his lashes lowered, eyes on her lips and then back to her eyes. It was then, she saw how he concentrated on everything about her as though he was in tune with her entire being.
''I have nothing to offer you,'' Jack told her quietly, ''I know how this world works. With ten bucks in my pocket, I learnt to make that last. Learnt to live without the need to be conscious of money all the time.''
''And you're happy.''
Jack nodded. ''Yes, I am happy. But there are some days without food, there's no hot water to bathe, no warmth or shelter.''
''But isn't there beauty in that? There is wonder to the world; you head out to the horizon, to chase the sun whenever you want.''
Jack exhaled. ''I think you would like California. Women are able to vote out there. There is some progression with women's rights which seems to be more forward than the rest of the country. The air is warm, the sights are beautiful and life is just easy.''
Rose became lost in his idyllic words and when they wrapped about her, warding off the Atlantic chill, his touch stroked upwards towards the loose strands of curls which had come undone from her dancing.
''I know it wouldn't be easy. I just want to amount to something. To be of some use. I am not delicate. I not a porcelain doll. I am not a foreman at a mill to command.''
''You have the spirit of a drifter,'' Jack smiled, ''and if you can last beyond the hardships then you will survive anything. You learn to become a survivor.''
''Is that how you came to be a good swimmer?'' She asked, recalling how last night, he had told her that.
''No, that was from falling into too many sheets of thin ice, from falling into the river fishing as a kid, and from swimming in the surf in California.'' He smiled, and she felt his hand stroke up again. The empty spaces within her stomach felt whole somehow when he watched her, talked to her, filled her with such hope.
''I am not a good swimmer.'' Rose confessed. ''You will have to show me after teaching me how to ride like a real cowboy does.''
Jack moved his hands, slowly, downwards, inside of the jacket and placed them at her waist ever so gently and she trembled as they snaked down the silhouette of her dress corseted tightly into the curved shape.
''The water would need to be about here.'' He tapped her waist and then held her there, steadily. ''I would hold you, then you would kick your legs out and move your arms. When you felt confident enough, I would let you go...'' Jack's hands moved from her waist, and one tucked back within his pocket as he leant against the rail with her.
''What if I didn't want you to?''
When Rose breathed, she took him in and slowly, she was drowning...
Rose saw how heavily he swallowed, moving his hair from his eyes which had fallen out of the style. Intensely, he concentrated on how serious her face had grown. ''It wouldn't be up to me to save you, Rose. Only you could do that.''
It was suddenly clear, that they were no longer talking about swimming. About anything other than them; Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater.
Suddenly unaware of how to proceed, Rose turned from him to the rail and over it. The black of the night spiralled out into eternity. Truly, from this view, it felt as though they were the only entities in existence. In the centre of a large world, she was overwhelmed with intoxication of feelings; infatuation, need, desire, wonder, inspiration and as the flat calm of the glassy water was cut through by the propellers of the ship leaving a white foam, Rose listened to it and how the great woosh seemed to both soothe out the nerves of her situation and then add to it, just as his hand rested at her waist again, and she slowly gained the strength to turn. There, in his hazy eyes, she found the mirrored feelings but with a great hesitance, he rested his right palm against her cheek again and this time it was warmer.
Jack's lips were on hers then. Once. Gentle. Shivering. Frightening. Right there, in the full view of the First-Class Entrance. All cautions were thrown out to the sea. He never fully pulled back, just wide enough to see her eyes, and she tilted her head to gauge his face better. Melting against him and discovering a deeper warmth than she had ever known, Rose allowed him to pull her tighter into him and with a growing confidence, he moved to her mouth again, as though the first small touch had been a test to them both and now, Jack was able to taste her properly. Two hands held her back firmly, and her hands pressed to his chest, feeling how his heart seemed to thump against her palm the way that hers did against her ribcage. Butterflies tried to break free from her belly. An occasional dizziness came across her and then, there was the kiss...
Jack claimed her mouth, moving his lips in a slow rhythm and she matched it the best way in which she could as he took her to greater heights than flying like a bird ever could. Rose had believed such an act to be stifling; her mother had once or twice declared it to be quite disgusting but a necessity to show affection at times, mainly once married and then, lovemaking would be an extension of that required to conceive a child when the time came but now, as she pulled at Jack's collar to grow closer, deeper and his grasp on her grew stronger, she felt the longing for something...more. Something stronger. Her weakness ensured that he had to become her strength and as her legs almost buckled beneath her; his arms kept her steady. Sane.
The pace slowed down, and catching her breath was easier than before. How was this all done wordlessly? How could one capture another's entire feelings just from the movements of one's mouth and the passionate way in which she was pulled towards him. It made no sense. None of this did. But she felt alive. Wonderful and as they parted, with great hesitance, all they could is stare at the other in wonder.
Never before had Rose kissed a man. Never before had she encountered such intimacy. Never before had she known that it existed. She was on the precipice of something unknown and with one small motion she would be over with verge on the other side of the life. Maybe in another world. Survival would be the only fear. As his hands slowly released her, she almost collapsed to the floor in a boneless mess until his fingers at her hip steadied her and she clasped onto his shoulders.
''I've got you, and I won't let go.'' Jack whispered, kissing her hair softly. Breathing him in, she smiled against his neck.
''You seem to always catch me as I am to fall.'' As she said it, she realised, that soon she would be falling, and would keep doing so indefinitely without any aid or saving. She would fall in love with him.
Beneath the stars, Rose allowed Jack to hold her to him, and together, they just swayed to keep warm and found themselves filled with the promise of change.