(A/N: I am bringing this story back, or at least attempting to. Nothing much happens in this chapter, but I hope that this breaks through the block that I had on this story. I hope that you enjoy the chapter regardless)

Rose was sitting on the couch, leafing through a magazine when Jack and the boys returned. Glancing at the clock, it had just turned four, so they hadn't been out for too long. Happy relief filled her as she noticed that the dark gloom that had been surrounding Max now seemed to be gone. He was actually smiling and laughing at something Jack had said, which gave her hope. She got to her feet, wanting to welcome the men home.

"How did it go? Did you have fun?" Rose asked, hoping not to sound too nervous. By all appearances, things looked to have gone well, but one could never know.

"It was great! We caught a big one, mother!" Max happily exclaimed, still unable to believe his accomplishment. "I almost lost it, but Jack here helped me reel it in! We're going to have a great dinner tonight! I didn't know catching fish could be so much fun!"

"Your son is a natural, Rose," Jack chuckled, impressed with Max's feat as well. "One would think that he's been at this since he began to walk."

"Oh, I assure you this is his first time," Rose chuckled, watching Jack and Max disappear into the kitchen, leaving Jacob behind. Rose looked at him with wide eyes, hoping that this wasn't a hallucination. "How did Max get along? Really?"

"He'll be okay. He and Jack are friends now. At first it was rough going, but I left to get more bait and when I returned, they were talking and laughing. I think Jack smoothed things over," Jacob reassured his mother.

"Good. I want Max to be comfortable here. He's already been through so much with Cal's death. This is a new start for all of us."

Jacob looked at his mother, his mind putting everything together. His mother and Jack had been apart for a good twenty years now. He was now Jack's age when the two had met and fell in love and had conceived a child together. His mother had healed from her loss and had finally fallen in love with the man that had raised him as his own. Now that man had been gone for two years and she had discovered the survival of her first love. Could it be possible that those feelings had never left?

"You had never stopped loving him, had you? I mean, I know that you loved father. That had been more than evident...but the love you had for Jack...it had never left."

Rose sighed, motioned for Jacob to follow her over to the couch. Everything was so complicated now, she didn't even know where to begin. She could always tell him to mind his business and refuse to discuss the subject, but that was not the relationship she had with the young man. She had always been an open book to Jacob, ever since she and Cal had told him that Cal wasn't his biological father. She wasn't going to start shutting him out now. Besides, he would see through such a move. He was like Jack in that way. He could see the truth behind the lies.

Once they were both seated, Rose turned to face her oldest son. "I will not lie to you, but I want you to understand something. A woman's heart...it's a deep ocean of secrets...some she may share, and others she may not. As you go on, you will learn that. Life is also not simple, especially when it comes to emotions such as love. It's a very complicated emotion. You can love more than one person, each on a different level...you love them for what they mean, or have meant to you. I loved your father, Cal….because he grew as a person. He...he became the man that I needed him to be...that you needed him to be. When we were first engaged, he was horrible. You would not have recognized him. He was posessive, arrogant, creul...unforgiving. I had abhorred him back then. When I met Jack…I was at a point where I was desperate to escape the situation. Jack, was kind and compassionate and...he listened to me. He saw the person I was and helped free me from the chains that mother and Cal had me in.

"Then I had lost him...I thought he was dead and...I didn't want to go on, but I did. But the love I had for him had never died...it even grew when you were born. He had left me this perfect angel that became my entire reason to hold on to that promise I had made that awful night. Then...four year later, well, Cal came back into our lives and I don't know how you did it...but you had melted that ice that was around his heart and he became a different man...one that I grew to respect, care about, and even love...despite the love I had for Jack. What I felt for Jack, I knew could never go anywhere because I thought he was dead. It would be holding on to the past and breaking the promise that he had forced me to make. So...I had pushed that love aside...never dwelling on it, except for on that one day of the year…

"Cal understood of course. He had been there. He knew what I had felt for Jack, but he also knew what I felt for him and that the love I had for the both of them were different. Each had it's own place. So, to answer your question...you're right. I had never stopped loving Jack Dawson. I love him today, like I had loved him then. I love that happy, care free young man that had taken me to a steerage party, that had taught me how to fly, and had made me promise to survive. The young man that had saved my life. Just like he still loves that seventeen year old girl that he had freed from her gilded cage and he had thought that he had lost all those years ago…

"But we are different people now. Both of us know that. If Jack and I are to be anything more than friends, we're going to have to get to know who we are now, not who we were then. I guess that you can say that I love the memory of Jack...of what we had. But it says nothing for what we can have now. That remains yet to be seen."

"There are feelings there, though. Right?" Jacob continued to push, unble to stop his curiousity.

Rose chuckled. "Yes. There are very real feelings there. I will give you that."

"Well, for the record, in case those feelings turn into something else, you won't have to worry about Max. He knows now that Jack won't try to take father's place. That he knows the boundaries. That was what was bothering him. He didn't want to replace father."

"You know that too, right?"

"Of course. I like Jack, I want to get to know him. I'm curious about what I had gotten from him and what I had gotten from you. I want to learn about his travels and get to know him...but I still see Cal as my father...I still love him as the man that raised me and was there for me...despite how much I like Jack. I think Jack knows that and he respects it."

Rose simply nodded, not knowing how else to respond. "I want you to get to know him as well. I wish I could give you back the time you had missed, but I am glad that you can have something now. I think people come into our lives for a reason. Jack came to me, when I needed someone. You came to Cal when he needed someone to show him that he didn't have to be his father, and now it's full circle again, for whatever reason."

"Maybe...you and Jack need each other now. Maybe now, it's your time."

"Maybe. Well, I guess we better head into the kitchen and learn how to prepare that fish. Who knows when we'll need such a skill," Rose got to her feet, feeling even more at ease.

"After you, mother," Jacob smiled, getting to his feet as well, happy to have had that talk with Rose. He will always love Caledon Hockley, he will always consider him his father, but he was glad to have Jack in his life now and that there was a possibility that he won't have to worry about his mother being alone now. That is if things kept going well between them.