Chapter fifteen:
Far in the distance of the Atlantic, the horizon began to quiver. Low bruised clouds hung on the unsettled skyline, tugging nature's plague behind them. The silent waves were no longer idly staring at the world above them; instead, mother nature's infuriated army, massing, stared back, beckoning them to join their ranks. No longer silent, nor idle, the waves embodied all of nature's wrath, lashing and whipping anyone and anything in sight. The frosty morning had lifted and given way to a storm.
RMS Augusta had no choice but to receive each ferocious attack. Paralysed in the midst of the battle, the feeble body of the ship was continuously abused by each crashing wave – as though it were a deer within a lion's den, entrapped, with nowhere to run. Trembling, windows were coated by the merciless waves, leaving the crew inside fearfully staring into the empty abyss of the inky sea. Although the tiny windows were blotted with the spray of the murky water, blasts of thunder were heard and shook the frailness. Hearing every shriek, the stewards envisaged the bolts of electricity dominating the sky and braced themselves for the next attack.
A cold bath had failed to rid Rose of the blasted seasickness. It was more than nerves. It was absolute terror of coming thus far, to die alone, aboard a ship which was returning her to a place where she didn't wish to be. Clinging to the edges of her bed, until her knuckles were completely white, she squeezed her eyes closed before failing to ignore the waving of her stomach and quickly, she dashed to the bathroom to cast up her accounts once more. Only this time…there was nothing left within her stomach.
The lightning darted across the empty granite sky, stripping the air of its final breath. Bolts of rage blasted the inky void and, as every strike of lightning threatened, it inched away, seeking comfort in a distant rocky cove. It was as though the Gods themselves were partaking in the war; Zeus' demonic spears hammered on the sickly sea, unleashing his rage upon the human world.
After every lethal spear was released, the land and sea shuddered, revealing something far on the horizon. It appeared to be another ship. Maybe two. Nobody dared succumb to the feelings of joy and relief – the war was far from over but other ships were about.
Inside, the crescendo almost mirrored the frantic scene outside. Some ran around screaming for supplies, some desperately attempted for help, some were attempting to climb aboard a lifeboat in case the ship sank with murmurs of the Titanic disaster echoing about in their minds. The rest of the stewards, limp and defeated, sluggishly began to pray for help from their benevolent God, oblivious to the reality that they were unwilling to accept: their omnipotent God was their opponent in battle.Secluded in his cabin, the Captain attempted to manoeuvre them to safety. Despite his determined efforts, in the end, his actions were rendered useless so far as the night chased the dawn for some sort of light.
Soon, it was just the rough seas to survive and the rain dashed down onto the slippery decks. Rose was mad with worry. Mad with sickness. Hours before, she and Jack had parted upon the entrance to the first class corridor, and despite the urge for him to settle in her cabin for the evening, she had watched him return to the cargo hold where he would find a bed for the evening.
What did her cabin hold for Jack? With a stupidly deep knowledge of what would have possibly happened, her stomach fluttered even though it was completely empty.
The lunge in her tummy urged her strongly, pulling her from the comfort of her armchair, to the corridors of the ship. There had to be something which she could do. The tremors had died down slightly, but walking in a straight line aboard was still almost impossible as the roughness of the sea carried her onwards, without the urge to move her feet as rapidly.
Rose stepped over picture frames and wooden debris which had come loose in the storm. Aside from the litter, the ship was silent. Her own footsteps echoed in the long corridor and the lights quivered then and now.
It haunted her, and her mind was thrust towards the Titanic. The loss is still not fully sinking in. The corridors seemed endless but Rose went onwards with one thing cradled in her mind, the one thing which ensured her no rest.
Was he all right?
Since they had parted, she had cursed herself. More than once she had tried to envision his arms about her, just cradling her to safety. His arms had more than once offered her full solstice at times she didn't even know she needed it.
Weakness seemed to be claiming her body as her legs trembled. She came to the end of the final corridor, it darkened, narrowed and grew more bleak. Each moment which passed, she felt as though she was being dragged further and further towards a strange abyss of the unknown and the spiralling waves did very little for her wishing to cast up her accounts again.
The ship's engine could be heard and Rose felt the motion gently roaring. Strangely, the lull of the engines was an imaginary security blanket ensuring they were safe. The ship was still afloat.
Going deeper into the ship, she was suddenly aware of the scent of the cargo hold. It was damp. Cold. Fuelling her with determination to reach him. Inside, it was a massive riot of stacked mail and luggage, all of which she assumed were once completely in some sort of order and had now fallen into disarray. Amongst the piles, she stumbled and felt the ship rock even more so down below. She wished to call out to Jack, but her voice would have grown lost within the engine's. Down here, it was her version of hell. Still, she managed a feeble call.
''Hello?'' She tried to call out, but still all she could see was the darkened figures of luggage. It was eerie.
Moving cautiously, she shivered beyond her own control and realised in that very moment that she could not allow him to stay down here. It wasn't even a place the rats should reside.
''Hello?'' Her voice grew to be laced with an edge of urgency.
As she called, her foot tapped something softer than the other objects. One pale blue eye peeked at the intrusion, the other followed. His dry, cracked lips moved, curving into what Rose pictured to be a smile.
Jack.
She knelt, quickly beside him, her cold fingers going to his forehead.
''You're freezing cold!''
''Rose, you're so stupid,'' Jack's voice shook, unable to stop trembling as he pulled his coat further across his body, ''you're so damned stupid for coming down here.''
''I'm stupid?'' She responded, incredulously. ''I am not the one lying with the rats. Come on, get up.''
With chattering teeth, he focused on Rose, and searching for her eyes within the darkness with a new quietness which had fallen over them.
Jack clambered to his feet, and as soon as he was in a standing position, felt the rocking of the ship even more so. Rose tried too hard to not stumble, or cast up her accounts in front of him.
''Are you all right?''
''Yes.''
''Did you see the storm?''
''I felt it. I wanted to go upwards but it was far too hard to even move through the wreckage down here.''
It was clear that the pull of the ship was even more difficult deeper into the ship. Ignoring the need to vomit, Rose concentrated on the task at hand.
''Come with me.''
As they made their way back through the cargo hold to the corridor leading back to some sort of civilisation, it was dark and empty, two lit lamps causing an eerie glow and doom in the corridor and Jack took the lead to take Rose towards the crew quarters, towards the light which was looming out ahead near the entrance to the lower decks. It was like a different space up here.
As they found the light, and their eyes adjusted to it, Rose could see that Jack's shirt was completely torn, half of it from her fall earlier that evening and she queried him, with her crinkled brows.
''I was laid on the wooden floor. A nail caught in my shirt and ripped it.''
''It could have been embedded into your skin instead.''
''But it didn't.''
''But you're freezing.'' Rose placed her trembling hand upon his shoulder, he shuddered, the feeling that he only had from her touch. Raking her hand across his dirty face, he clutched onto his chest and let out a cough, so body-wracking, that Rose held onto him to aid in supporting any way she could. It continued, and he covered his mouth but it did very little to help. It was as though someone was clawing the last breaths out of him.
''I am not stupid either,'' she warned through gritted teeth, ''how could I let you sleep there? How could I allow you to be down there and I lay in a warm bed when the person that I-'' Rose couldn't finish as she watched him with a fiery gaze which made his blood warm in an instant, he moved his dirty right hand to her nape.
''You should have let me.''
First, Rose stroked his face with tender motions and kissed his jaw softly. She had tried too hard to not, to curb any instincts to become close to him, as close as they had in Southampton, but in that moment, he appeared to be nothing more than a vulnerable boy.
''You're the stupid one, for following me aboard.''
The touches soothed him in ways he hadn't realised he needed. So long he'd gone without her being beside him. Just merely days which felt like forever. But her skin and her breath, her lips and her whispers led him back from the brink. From the broken.
''I couldn't leave you. Without knowing that you were all right.''
"Jack," she sighed, stroking his brows with her thumbs. She kissed his lips. Softly. Chastely. Nothing as intoxicating as they had shared in Southampton, but then, this was beautiful in another manner. Then, she caught his gaze and smiled, his eyes as blue as cornflowers dancing in a summer field. "I'm—I have to marry him.''
And just like that, Jack's heart broke. Wide open. It was painful. They say that words wound more than a physical blow, and this was very much the truth. He didn't know what to say. What could he say? She had just kissed his lips, so lovely and sweet, to just deal a blow to him.
''Do you?'' He challenged.
Rose tiredly clasped onto his hand, feeling the full force of his tremors.
''I-'' Squeezing her eyes closed, she could only sigh. ''We should settle and sleep before having such a discussion. Do you not agree?''
''Yes.''
His own eyes stung. His body ached. And so, he followed with her still clutching onto his numb fingers.
Ascending the stairs from the well deck upward to the B deck, Rose ceased growing painfully aware of the fate of them both. She would have to return to Philadelphia. Or at least to New York to see her fiance and her mother. When thinking of any event past the ship docking, her mind was at a complete loss of what to do, what to even think.
When they finally reached the main corridor which led towards Rose's cabin, she asked, amongst the debris.
''Do you anticipate there is much damage done?''
''To the ship?''
Rose paused for a moment, until she came to run her eyes across his almost abashedly torn and dishevelled state.
''No, to you.'' As her throat rippled, she kept watching his hands. They had trembled in hers.
"No, don't worry about me, I'm a survivor, all right?" Catching sight of Rose's worrying expression, Jack softened. ''I have rarely had another person asking me how I am.'' Jack whispered, slowly, his eyes raking over her filled with such a drowsy, intense stare that it penetrated her soul and within three strides she was beside him, caressing his face. ''I never needed anyone to help me. Especially not from a person that I-'' he almost said 'love', exposing possibly his inner soul for the very first time, if it wasn't already completely bare to her.
''That what?''
''That cares for me,'' he whispered. ''And it's hard to accept that, sometimes.''
Now, Jack Dawson was utterly vulnerable to her. Never before had she seen a man so openly bruised.
''I resonate with that, perhaps more than you could believe.'' And it was true. She had never particularly needed another. Never felt the need to become so absorbed into another. Now, with Jack so available to her, Rose felt her heart sink. This battered ship had weathered a storm and both of them, too, had both become bruised right along with it. ''Come, you need to sleep.'' The subject change was a drastic one. One which she was sure he would have known was a ploy to cease their intimacies once more. She had already failed herself by kissing him, once. And then, his heart, she was sure, was pumping out of his chest just the way that hers was. It had felt deadened since boarding the ship.
But now, the way her heart went, was as though it had jump started. Back to life. After a long sleep. A long period drowning within the desires of her own mind.
Now she was awake. Fully.
The tension within his shoulders was evident. The tension within her own body was riveting her to the spot, but somehow sparks were forming in her veins, causing her to tremble.
It was his voice. The velvety, silky way in which he spoke the name, as though he was the only one meant to speak it. Ever.
''Rose...''
With a frightened breath, she spun and went to the cabin door just ahead of her whilst retrieving the keys to unlock it. The jangling and fumbling told him that she was just as terrified. All the while, Jack stumbled about, examining the debris of the storm. Then, he came to stand beside her, bringing with him the scents of sandalwood. It wasn't what you would expect from a man who had slept within the cargo hold, Jack's scent always was startling and calming, until this very moment.
"Can I help you with that?"
"I am all right." Rose glanced up at him, noting how one lock of hair fell over his forehead, darkened and in need of a wash. With a second twist of the key, the door fell open and almost took her with it due to the fragility of her body. Of her brain. Stumbling within the room which had become her home for the duration of the voyage, suddenly she was aware of how intimate this was.
Offering up the linen cloth which she had used earlier that afternoon to dry after bathing, Rose fought the urge to run her fingers over him. "You may bathe if you wish.''
The stroke of Jack's fingers against hers felt deliberate and tingly. He wiped at his face with quick swipes and ran the cloth over his hair before tossing it onto the nearby table.
''Thank you.''
Why he should weaken her to the point of breathlessness, she did not know. Perhaps his lips, full and shining, were to blame. Perhaps it was the revealed part of his chest which she longed to lay her chest upon. Rose knew that she must tear herself away before something happened. Something irreversible. She dropped her eyes and took up the towel, busying herself with folding it into a neat square as best she could before placing it onto the rack.
''The bathroom is through here,'' she gestured with her hand. ''I shall inquire after another breakfast tray in the morning. Until, then, should the sofa suffice? I found it adequately comfortable this afternoon as I napped.''
Then, she moved to a side table and started to fumble about with the beading of the lamp. Anything was a distraction.
"Are you going to marry him?"
Half-bent over the side table, she froze. Then straightened. And breathed. In. Out. In. Out.
"I realise I have asked a lot." As usual, his baritone sent shivers over her scalp and down her spine. ''But you just don't seem so set on the idea, not as set as you had in Southampton to swim or to eat cake.''
"No," she managed through a tight throat with the wonderful memories. "It is an insult to ask. An insult, Jack."
In the golden light, his blue eyes held a hard intensity she'd rarely witnessed. ''Is it?''
''Yes, my mother is dear to me. Believe that or not.'' Rose started. ''Cal is my fiance. The one who I have to marry, if not for myself, then for my mother.''
"But what about you?" His voice was pure steel, his eyes flashing as he moved in close, crowding her with his heat and scent. "I am trying to tell you-''
"He is a good man, Cal. One who I hold dearest to me," she insisted, retreating to gain some distance. He granted her nothing, advancing until the table's edge was at her back. "He-he was never my lover, just my intended. And I didn't feel the need to return to him on that account.''
''That doesn't matter.'' His voice was a whisper, clouding her ears and sending shivers across her. ''Just what happens now, isn't it?''
Mutely, she shook her head, surrounded by his strength and heat, watching a bead of water wend its way from his jaw to the hollow at the base of his throat. "Even if that-" Rose started, finding how unchanged his eyes were in such light."-nothing is changed."
He refused to release her, holding her captive with eyes that flickered and burned. "Be with me, Rose. Even if nothing ever happens as it did before, just-come with me, let us have adventures together like no one else can.''
In the silence that followed -pounding, fraught silence, she wondered if he was drunk. Or worse, jesting. A cruel sort of mockery, indeed, given her feelings for him. But as she explored his face from nose to tempting lips and back up to sapphire eyes, she detected no signs of humour. Quite the contrary. She'd never seen him more sober.
"Jack," she whispered. It was the best she could do without proper air.
Jack rested his palm on her cheekbone, ran his eyes across her face and finished with her trembling, half-open lips. Now, Rose's eyes searched for him, a crinkle forming between her brows. She cradled his hand against her cheek and shook her head gently. "I think you're in need of sleep," she murmured. "You are crazy, through and through."
He laughed, his chest expanding until he thought his ribs might crack. "That is what everybody says."
Suddenly, her soft mouth crimped. Dimpled cheeks flushed. Flashing eyes narrowed. And Jack staggered back as a pair of surprisingly strong, feminine hands shoved him back using his coat. ''You-you cannot ask this of me.'' She needed air. Strength. Something. ''You cannot ask me, knowing that I am to marry the man that I am engaged to.''
She turned then, to retreat to the bed which she had tried to avoid all that afternoon. And Jack could only find solstice in the sofa and the riot of dreams which failed to give him a decent night's sleep.
