God, spent the morning watching Titanic to inspire me to write. Usually I watch the scenes, or just until the ''I'm getting off with you part'' and imagine a happy ending, but decided to watch the entire movie. Jesus, its a killer. Ran out of tissues and still sat streaming! Why do we love this movie so much? 25 years and still touching us!
Twenty-four:
''A fire,'' Molly nursed a brandy, having never taken such a liquor aback in the way a gentleman did but since returning with Jack to his state room, she had poured two glasses for them. ''A fire that couldn't be quashed. Perhaps that is a sign.'' A raised eyebrow to Jack did nothing to dispel his temper. He sat on a chaise, paying no mind to the way in which his friend watched his every move, it was as though he was under house arrest, or worse, been mothered.
''One is different to the other.''
''How so?''
''Which could you refer to?''
''Jack, I saw how you watched her, how you longed with an infatuation. Lord knows there was no shortage of women who would do anything to please you.''
''That's what makes them boring.'' He said gravely. ''I do not want any woman.''
''Rose DeWitt Bukater is a woman who couldn't be handled even by the most experienced of men.''
Jack sighed in exasperation. ''I do not wish to handle her, or do anything other than to protect her. It will be a smooth exchanging of vows, almost like a business transaction of some kind. I can ensure that she is safe then-''
''From Hockley?''
''Yes, and from the vultures of society. She wants freedom, more than anything I do wish to give her that.''
Molly sat forward in the chaise; her eyes red from exhaustion. ''Do you know, I would put money on that girl, chasing you from dusk until dawn. I am not blind, but I am a mother, and in tune to this behaviour. The girls a fool and so are you, but she is in love with you if nothing else.''
''What did you say?''
''I said do not be a fool. You already risked your life, do not risk hers."
With fear at his side, suddenly gripping him, Jack was taken aback when the door to his stateroom opened and Rose stood, with eyes widely startled as she entered. In love with him?
The thought was like a dagger into his heart. A dagger which had been inserted and now he was slowly bleeding. There was life within him. Life which stirred for her; those feelings which he had cradled for what felt like a damned eternity were alive, and existing. Love, or something which felt closed to the emotion.
Darting between Molly and Jack, she settled them on him alone, sitting on a chaise with his back straight, holding his liquor and dressed in his three-piece suit as though he was just about to attend dinner and she, her, Miss. Rose DeWitt Bukater in a rose hue gown, simple cut, but the bodice was provocatively low and the waist snug but the entire slender beauty of her figure was a joy to behold. The pain from Jack's shoulder would have taken his breath away if the sight of her, there, in the doorway hadn't already. Rose must have caught sight of the way of his gaze, as she turned to Molly and released a breath as she pulled her camel coloured coat further across her shoulders. It wasn't fit for winter but it would have to do.
''We're underway. There is a ship approaching, the Californian, I heard. They are sending lifeboats here for passengers and the officers launching boats to take passenger across to the rescue ship.''
Jack nodded in approval. ''Very well, let us make our way up to get into the lifeboats. I have no desire to sit aboard until we sink.''
''You must see a doctor.'' Molly intervened. ''You need that burn looking at, Jack, at once. There has to be a physician about with the supply to medicate you right away.''
''I will once we are on the rescue ship.'' Jack turned to Molly. ''Go on ahead, I have to pack one or two things.''
''John and Madeline are waiting in the A-Deck foyer for word on when we can get underway,'' she raised a brow, ''I shall expect you there shortly, both of you.''
''Yes, ma'am.'' Jack smirked at her orders, when a large rumble escaped the ship and it trembled beneath their feet, the walls and the chandeliers beading. ''Go, Molly.''
''The rescue ship only has enough room for a small number of passengers, I heard a couple of hundred at most.''
Jack turned toward Rose, then back to Molly.
''See that Mrs. Astor is quite safe, and do not think to come back to tend to me, I shall see that Rose and I are safe.''
''Yes, you will be safe.'' Molly came to Jack, her hands upon his shoulders ever so carefully, and then, her face seemed to soften in a way that Jack hadn't witnessed before. ''You have no parents to worry over you, that doesn't stop others having the right to think of you in that way.'' Her lips came to his cheek, and she went on her way, leaving Jack alone with a heavy heart.
Rose started toward him. Jack's head ached viciously. His back and arms felt as though they were apart from his body. His bones were sore, and so was his skin. Every facet. In fact, he had undergone some strange reversal in which everything hurt except his wounded shoulder, which glowed with a near-pleasant warmth. He tried to move forward but struggled to as though a force was holding him back.
"I must be in hell," he muttered. ''I never feel ill.''
Rose smiled down at him with a tenderness he found unbearable. "You wouldn't see me in hell, would you?"
"In my version... yes." Her smile turned quizzical, faded.
Rose would be featured prominently in Jack's hell. The most profound, gut-wrenching pain he had ever experienced was because of her-the agony of wanting and never having, of loving and never knowing love. And now it appeared he was going to endure more of it. Which would have made him hate her, if he didn't worship her so. Worship every single part of her and how she made him feel, how she reacted to him and everything between them. An affinity. A woman worthy of more than him, yet, she would settle, because he had offered for her and risked her life to find him in a hazy, dark, spiralling Hell of smoke.
''Before we leave, I have to see my mother.'' Rose dipped her head low, as though anticipating his reaction to her request. ''When Mr. Astor and Molly brought you inside, Cal came to me.''
''I thought that he might.'' Jack's jaw tightened, and Rose sensed the change within him. ''I had thought he would wait until we had evacuated the ship.''
''He has acknowledged that fact that our engagement is over.''
''So, freedom is yours finally.'' The low, coarseness of his voice from exhaustion and exhilaration chased a spark through Rose. He covered her wild heartbeat with a gentle palm, he kissed her cheek and whispered. ''Does this mean that you intend to be my wife still?''
Rose took a fitful breath. ''I have gained freedom and yet, the first thought is how much I wish to enter into a forever binding bond with a man that I hardly know.''
That drew the rarest of grins from him. ''Insanity comes in many forms.''
''Yes, perhaps I am as my mother once described me to be; a temperamental adolescent with far too much impulse for a woman of my station. My father's temper, which apparently, he could rein in yet mine spews out like hot lava. My mother's ability to work into hysterics and yet I can stop my own anxiety before it takes over and my mother has to take to her bed with a sleeping pill and a dose of something strong to calm her nerves. Once she insisted that a pill might calm my tongue.''
''I don't doubt that, but where would be the fun in been tame?''
''You don't wish to tame me?''
''Never.'' Jack drew closer to her chest, listening to the even beat, and the flow of her breathing. "I knew when I first saw you, what you would mean to me,'' Jack whispered. "Wild, angry woman that you were. I was drawn in at first glance. You felt it, too, didn't you?''
Rose nodded slightly, luxuriating in the feel of him, just as he did in return. Her skin smelled sweet like plums, with an arousing hint of feminine musk, despite the fact that she had been amongst the smoke just a little time before.
"I wanted to tame you," she said. "Not all the way. Just enough that I could be close to you." She threaded her fingers through his hair. "You could have kidnapped me, but I would have come to you willingly.''
"I was hoping that you would," he said in a muffled voice. ''Hoping that you gained enough strength to leave Hockley, for yourself but not for me.''
Rose chuckled and stroked his scalp, the scrape of her oval fingernails nearly causing him to purr. "Extending your hand to me was what I was in need of.'' It was true. ''You kept insisting that you had to leave me alone, but if you hadn't have come to me, then I would have to you. Just like I did last night, I found myself needing to never part from you.''
''I was in no position to save you, that had to be done by yourself.''
''And now, you have laid down your life for the sake of others, and I was terrified of losing you before our lives together could have even started.''
''I saw you above me in that boiler room and thought you were truly an illusion of my own mind.''
Rose shook her head. She ran a flirtatious fingertip around the rim of his ear. ''Me coming to you was no risk, it was a necessity.''
''Of what?"
''For my sanity.'' A quiet laugh caught in her throat.
"What is it?" he asked without moving.
"Oh, I was just thinking of all the years I spent trying to get out of bed, to break the spell of melancholy and then suddenly now, I feel wide awake and yet I am on a ship which will sink, with a man that I met less than a week ago and will marry.'' She sighed, heavily. ''Cal was never the one to enable me to be anything other than trapped.''
"I think he feels entitled to play with life and death. Like the gods of those mythology stories, you women are so fond of.''
"You don't know Cal as I do."
Jack didn't reply, only continued to watch her, in spite of the horrendous pain which shattered through him. Perhaps he was under the illusion that it was something he would be able to work through. Once, as a child, he had fallen through thin ice and the pain of the freezing water had stabbed at him, thousands of times, excessively, this felt like that, but instead of ice, it was heat. Repeatedly. His father had insisted that Jack had imagined how agonisingly cold the water was, and that he would be all right. And so, he adopted that sound of his father over an over. You will be all right.
Rose watched his dark face through the veil of light, as beautiful and implacable as an angel. "I shouldn't even bother to defend him," she said ruefully. "You'll never be disposed to think well of him, will you?"
"No," he admitted. ''I have no reason to.''
"And if you believed Cal was the better man?" she asked. "Would you have allowed him to marry me?"
She saw the muscles in his throat tense before he answered, "No." There was a touch of self-hatred in his response. "I'm too selfish for that. I could never have let it happen. If it came down to it, I would have carried you off on your wedding day." Asking for the invite to the wedding was an idea on Jack's part, to almost convince himself that if he was to witness their nuptials, and she was unavailable to him completely, then he could remove himself from the tangled web of Rose DeWitt Bukater. Now though, he was trapped beyond his own doing.
Rose wanted to tell him that she had no desire for him to be noble. She was happy—thrilled—to be wanted in just this way, with a passion that left no room for anything else. But before she could say a word, he pulled her possessively to him in a way that could have almost knocked them backwards until he gained his footing. Snuggling into the crook of his arm and shoulder, she sighed deeply. His hand made a slow, lovely pattern over her back. It was there, within his beautiful eyes that she found the sense of home. Of longing. There was the sanctuary which she found the evening that they had met.
"Will we have a cottage someday, perhaps by the sea?" she murmured, tranced by his gaze.
''You truly desire walls and ceiling?''
Rose gazed at him, confused. ''You don't?''
Being Jack, he had already come up with a plan. "We'll live out in the wilderness for a little while. I don't mean sleeping under bridges but perhaps upon the soft sands, a bed in the woods beneath starlight. Then I'll find a suitable property for a farm, and build a house for you. A bit larger than what I would need, I expect." His hand slid to her bottom, rubbing in slow circles. "It won't be an extravagant life, but it will be comfortable. You'll have a cook, maid and a footman and a driver. I will never truly be a business man, but with you, I will have a peace to live on God's good humour, just how we intended to. I may never be able to separate myself from society, nor from Dawson steel but I can enable us to live how we wish to.''
"That sounds lovely," Rose managed to say, so filled with happiness she could scarcely breathe. "It will be heaven." She had no doubt of his ability to take care of her, nor did she doubt that she could make him happy. They would create a good life together, though she was fairly certain it would not be an ordinary one.
His tone was sober. "If you marry me, you'll never be a lady of position."
"There is no better position for me than being your wife."
One of his hands clasped over her skull, pressing her head against his shoulder. "I wanted more for you than this."
"Liar," she whispered. "You wanted me for yourself."
Laughter stirred in his chest. "Yes," he admitted.
They were quiet then, relishing the sensation of standing together in the morning-filled room. They had been close before this. They had known each other so well...and yet, not at all. Physical intimacy had created a new dimension to Rose's feelings, even from just his touch, and now, the feeling of taking only his body inside hers, but also a part of his soul. She wondered how it was that people could engage in this act without love, how empty and pointless it must be by comparison. Baring her own soul to him had been liberating, meaningful and although he had only touched her once, in a way that one never thought could happen.
After you left me this evening," Jack said, "I thought I would go mad. There was no place I could go to feel better. No person I wanted to be with. I wanted you to be free—I would have given my life for it. But at the same time, I hated you for turning me away. I hated everything. My own heart for beating. I had only one reason to live, and that was to see you again."
Rose was touched by the severe simplicity of his declaration. He was a force, she thought. One couldn't subdue him any more than one could settle a lightning storm. He would love her as intemperately as he pleased, and devil take the hindmost.
''There was always a touch of loneliness.''
"Did the women help?" she asked softly. "Did it ease you to lie with them?"
He shook his head. "It made it worse," came his soft reply. "Because it is only now that I realise, they weren't you."
''Because we hadn't yet met.''
''No, I mean, because, there was something about them, that was, yes, satisfying, for the shortest time. It was as though it was pointless even laying with them because it was as significant as combing ones hair in a vast breeze.''
''But, you haven't-we haven't been together in such a way. How could you possibly conceive an idea of what it could be like when you have yet to know?''
Jack watched her struggle through the words, in such a gloriously innocent way, that he almost blushed for her. ''Because I know how I feel. I know how kissing you, touching you feels, what is next would only be an extension of that.''
Rose leaned farther over him, her hair falling in glinting light ribbons that went across his chest and throat and arms. She stared into eyes as blue as cornflower. "I want us to be faithful to each other," she said gravely. "From this day forward." Rose bowed her head, ''well, I have been with no other.''
There was a brief silence, a hesitation born not of doubt, but awareness. As if their vows were being heard and witnessed by some unseen presence. They may as well have taken their vows already because he already adhered to them.
Jack's chest rose and fell in a long, deep breath. "I'll be faithful to you," he said. "Forever."
"So will I."
"Promise also, that you won't feel the need to part from me."
Rose lifted her hand from the centre of his chest and pressed a kiss there. "I promise." She was entirely willing, eager, to seal their vows then, but they couldn't. There was no way for them to be able to but in that moment, she was anticipating the feel of having him as her husband.
Jack exhaled, slowly, feeling the burn of his lungs. Molly had been correct, he would need to see a physician, but there was no time at the moment.
''What of your mother, then, we must allow her to be made aware of my intentions because as soon as I can, I am to marry her daughter.''
Rose moved with a suddenness which shocked him, she withdrew her body from his and with a burning gaze sweeping over, she was almost giddy.
''I am afraid that my mother will not be blessing us with her well wishes.''
''Well, then, I shall have to settle for a scowl and a hurling of insults but nothing can stop me, regardless.''
''Truly? Rose smiled. ''Now, we have to go now, for sitting about here, we will soon be burned to ashes and I have intentions of living, Jack Dawson.''
If he wasn't already amused, then he would have laughed. There beside the wooden door was the suitcase which Molly had helped him to pack whilst Rose had been outside on the decks, assuming, with Hockley.
Taking a confident, but painful breath, Jack allowed Rose to lead him on towards the B-Deck stateroom.