The entire passenger car smelled like a strange mixture of booze, stale cigarette smoke, perfume, and cold winter air. Designs made by frost were etched in the window beside Jack, and when he breathed warm steamy clouds of moisture accumulated on the glass.
They had been given the option of stowing their luggage underneath the car, but Jack hadn't trusted the workers, who looked like they had just gotten out of prison. They had hungry expressions on their faces, dark smudges under hollow eyes, and dirt-smeared clothes and skin. Instead he had carried the suitcases up the steps himself and strapped them in with frayed buckles in a luggage rack. They sat there now, being jostled against the restraints as the train bumped along.
Rose had asked to sit in the aisle seat because it was warmer there than near the window. Now she traced little circles on Jack's shirt, cautiously observing their fellow passengers. One woman in particular caught her attention. She was still very young and fairly pretty, with sandy blonde hair twisted up atop the crown of her head and a complexion almost as porcelain as Rose's own. She was dressed in a deep green frock, and the only sign of age was in the tired way she looked at what was around her. She was balancing two little girls on her lap, one who didn't even look like she was even a year old and one who was maybe three. There was a boy sitting on the second seat in her row, who appeared to be eight or nine. He was keeping himself occupied with a bit of string where he was practicing different knots. The older girl was completely intoxicated with the sticky mess of candy, and Rose noticed that her mother had to dodge the gooey hands that reached for her hair. The little baby, who was draped in a pink blanket that had faded pinkish-grey, was fast asleep in the crook of her mother's arm. A pang of longing shot through Rose's heart, but she pushed it away. She wouldn't fall apart again, and especially not here, of all places.
They would arrive late tomorrow morning, if she remembered what Jack had said. For now, there was nothing to do but wait. She glanced past Jack, who appeared to be deep in thought, and watched the miles of city fly past the glass. The buildings eventually spread out and became less grand, and soon they had vanished altogether and there was nothing but farmland and an occasional barn or farmhouse.
Jack felt Rose's curious stares that she shot in his direction, but his heart was heavy and he knew that if he turned to her now he would betray his fear. That was something he refused to do, no matter what. He spent the first two hours of the trip trying to get some sort of control over his skyrocketing emotions, taking himself from Heaven to Hell and back again. It suddenly struck him that he didn't know where his parents were buried. He hadn't stuck around long enough to find out. That had been one of the first things he had wanted to do when they finally arrived in Chippewa Falls – find his parents. He knew he'd get to them eventually, but without warning he saw what a horrible son he had been. His duty to his parents hadn't just ended when they had died; he had been silently given the solemn task of making sure they were laid to rest, and he hadn't done it. He had failed his mother and his father both all at once.
He knew that tears were trying to push themselves onto his face, but he refused to give them the satisfaction and instead sat there like a stone statue, afraid to move. If he did move, he was sure that his precarious position would be lost and he would be left to drown in his confusion. However, despite his best efforts, he soon felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and he knew Rose knew that he was struggling. He tried to ignore that hand, tried to pretend nothing was wrong, because he was still too scared to look at her.
But then Rose's soft lips lightly touched where her hand had been, the lips that said without uttering a sound that she was not going to leave him hurting like this, and he couldn't hold out for much longer. He felt like he had been punched in the stomach, like something inside of him had left him. Maybe it was guilt, or maybe it was happiness, he was too terrified to find out what had gone.
There was still a patient concern that he could feel from coming from his wife, and when her palm roamed questioningly over his chest he couldn't help himself anymore. He turned towards her, and she saw in that one second every single one of his bitter fears and resentful memories. Her eyes suddenly mirrored the pain he knew was in his own, and his heart told him that she had taken his burden to bear with him. That made him so grateful to have her, to love her, and to be loved by her that all he was capable of doing was allowing her to quietly bring her to him and lay his head in her lap. She stroked his hair comfortingly as he covered his face with his hands to keep from sobbing.
Dusk had faded into black as the train determinedly continued to creep forward across the country throughout the night, its yellow headlights throwing evidence of human existence towards land that looked like it had not been changed since the beginning of time. Wintry forests broke into icy grassland just to resume again a few miles later as the engineer deftly picked his way through, over, and beyond the treacherous Appalachian Mountains.
Rose was drifting in and out of an uncomfortable sleep. There were no beds, only the hard wooden seats, and her entire body felt like it was in a cramp from staying in one position for so long. She yawned, and saw that finally the three children had nodded off and their mother, who had earlier looked like she was about to cry, was finally able to settle in herself. There was absolute silence in the compartment. The steady grinding of the wheels on the track and the shaking of rushing metal were the only sounds that made their way through the thick walls and windows.
She managed to catch a glimpse of the amazing winter sky that was awash with billions of glittering, twinkling stars. There were so many that in places there appeared to be huge splotches of white, like a baby had spilt milk. They cast an unearthly glow onto the meadow that they were currently cutting through, making everything appear ghostly. It all looked so majestic that she involuntarily gasped, thinking that she had never looked at the stars in that way before. In Philadelphia and London, the stars hadn't mattered. It had been irrelevant how awesome they looked or how bright they were because no matter what, her life was still going to end up being hell. She hadn't had the strength to look up at something so beautiful, since she had convinced herself that beauty did not truly exist. How could she have ever done that to herself? How could she have deprived herself of life and love and laughter? She had been so terribly close to dying . . . to being nothing but a listless shell where a person should have been.
She then tore her eyes from the heavens to look at a much more magnificent sight, one that was right next to her. A tender smile crossed her face as she studied the scene as if she wasn't really a part of it at all, as if she was just allowed sight into a brief foretaste of a perfect eternity. An unbelievably handsome artist was folded up in the seat beside her. His head was propped against the window, bumping along with each movement of the engine. The blonde hair that gave him an innocent boyish appearance was mussed over his face and his eyes were closed. One of his hands was tightly grasping her own, even in his sleep. His chest rose and fell with deep, dreamy breaths against his homespun soft, cheap cotton shirt that was dyed a fading navy. She lightly ran her free fingertips over the muscles in his arms, afraid to touch him for some reason, like he was a dream and not her husband.
He shifted slightly and a silent sigh escaped from his lips. Suddenly he became human again, a human that she loved desperately and could never be could enough for, but a human nonetheless. Without warning, a thick exhausted feeling threw itself over her, and she gently allowed her head to fall upon Jack's shoulder. His coat that he had covered her with to warm her against the bitter winter chill was doing its duty and locking in her body heat. Finally somewhat comfortable, she breathed in his rich scent of sandalwood and sunshine and charcoal as she began to drift off but was jarred awake by something that made a soft smile appear on her face. Drunken with sleep, his arm hurriedly and unconsciously reached out and wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her even closer to him and burying his face in her bloody curls. She felt her heart bursting again with passion and adoration that reached to the deepest depths of her soul. God, she loved him so. She was dangerously close to tears of devotion, and she didn't want to wake him with sobs. Instead, she kissed his cheek before laying her head back down, and quickly she fell into the relaxing land of dreams next to her love of this life and all the lives after this.
The harsh, bright light that only winter could bring seared through Jack's eyelids, yanking him out of a deep, actually comforting sleep. He wanted to know what time it was. That was the first thought that hit him as he floated awake.
Suddenly the other thought came, the one he had toyed with as he had fallen asleep last night. Today he was returning to Chippewa Falls. Today. He took a deep breath and ran his shaky hand through his hair.
He wasn't ready to think about that yet. Instead, he looked over at a Rose who, even though she was still dreaming, managed to look absolutely ravishing. She was clutching at his shirt with limp hands, and her fiery curls spilled over his chest and down to his lap as her head rested on his shoulder, which was beginning to ache. However, no matter how much it hurt, he didn't have the heart to wake her.
He had not envisioned his going back home to turn out this way. A year ago, he had thought there would be a heavily-accented Italian man slumped in the seat next to him instead of a magnificently gorgeous woman who happened to be his wife. He had imagined them dividing up the last pack of cigarettes they had between the two of them from the last drawing he had just sold, but he had not smoked for months.
He closed his eyes and willed with everything within him that, for once, he could have his way. It was selfish, he knew, but he wanted to blink and see Fabrizio in the next row, staring tenderly at the seen of two lovers and giving Jack a hearty wink or a silent chuckle. He was begging God that Tommy would be there too, looking enviously at the red-headed beauty, fishing cards out of some deep pocket so he could start a round of poker. He kept praying this for so long that it almost seemed true. He could almost here a soft, melodious conversation between two people who he knew were dead.
"Jack?" Rose murmured sleepily, burying her face in his arm and then yawning gently. Jack's eyes snapped open and he turned to look at her as if she were pointing a gun at his head. She gave him a curious stare, and he exhaled loudly. She had scared him, because for a minute he had forgotten what was real and what wasn't.
"What is it?" She asked quietly, searching his face for anything that gave him away, but unlike last night he would not let her in and she saw his need to be strong. When he told her nothing, she knew better than to pursue it, but she also knew better than to believe him. A strange look crossed his deep blue eyes, as if he was trying to make it impossible for her to read his soul. In that second as he drew the curtains down, she could see the depths of his adoration for her, so immensely enormous that she couldn't find the bottom of his feelings. Maybe there wasn't any bottom. She saw herself reflecting from those pools of ocean, and finally she understood that she was all he saw now and forever.
He cast a guilty glance at the floor, as if she had caught him doing something expressly forbidden, and that made her heart break. She didn't know what she had done to make him feel that remorseful when all he had done was let her simply see all of the love he held for her. But suddenly that guiltiness was gone as quickly as it had come, and deep inside of him she managed to find a broken man, the only thing holding him together being absolute adoration for her, because of her.
She smiled at him, a magical smile that told him she would never leave him, no matter how much he blamed himself, no matter how often he let himself slip back into the past, no matter how horrible of a person he believed himself to be. She was the only soul on Earth who could convince him that it wasn't his fault. It wasn't because of him that his parents were dead, or that his best friend was dead, or that his child had never breathed. It wasn't his fault that the same glassy look of regretful pain that he wore in his eyes was buried deep within her own heart and that it was impossible to ever get rid of. It just wasn't his fault.
There was a grateful emotion that washed over his face, and he knew exactly what she was telling him, even though there were no words shared between them. He took a deep breath and, trembling, reached out a hand to touch her cheek. She kissed his palm, and he closed his burning eyes just to regain control over his feelings. Then he brushed his lips against her forehead and it was a mutual, silent agreement between the two that they were going to make it to Chippewa Falls, and they were going to arrive there completely intact.
He hadn't seen this train station since the night he had fled. For some reason, perhaps because of the hurt that had been in his heart last time he had been here, he had unintentionally expected the people to be more somber, more quiet, maybe draped in black . . .
It shouldn't have shocked him to find that the bustling travelers were just as obnoxious, loud, colorful, and flustered as they had always been. It seemed as if almost everyone was late and they all appeared to be running, even if they didn't look like they had a particular place to go.
The station itself surprisingly just appeared, breaking up the tiring miles of nothing but the green plains stretching on and on forever, reaching to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The grasslands were lush in the summer, unlike most others, and covered with a fair amount of tall and stately trees. Yet now, in the winter, a blanket of thick snow had fallen over the ground and choked the color and vibrancy out of all the plants. There was nothing but grey, white, black, and a painfully blue sky. It seemed out here that humanity didn't exist, and it was alarming to suddenly have a place full of people pop up in land that had seemed empty.
He heard the passengers beginning to unsettle, grabbing trunks and boxes and bags, gathering children, cleaning up old whiskey bottles, downing one more gulp of alcohol before they got off of this horribly tedious train ride. Next came the sounds of the engine's wheels screeching against metal as the engineer abruptly braked and the huge iron beast began to come to a deafening halt.
Jack found himself silently begging the conductor to just fly right by Eau Claire, perhaps forget all about this stop, and keep going and going all the way to California. He was filled with that emotion of suffocation that had plagued him when he had first left and he began to panic again. With each steady thud of the train slowing down to a crawl, his heart began pumping faster and faster. He didn't know what he had been thinking. No way had he been prepared to confront his yesterdays like this, no way did he want to visit these ghosts again, no way would he survive another –
"Jack? Jack? Darling, it's okay. It's alright. I'm here."
He heard the note of concern in his wife's voice and suddenly realized that he had been gripping his seat so hard that his knuckles had turned white and he was breaking out in a sweat despite the absolute terrible cold in Wisconsin. His breathing had been coming out way too ragged and way too fast.
Her arms crept around him again, and she embraced him with a hug full of so many fears and worries and wonders and hopes that he shuddered. He looked into her magnolia eyes, filled to the brim with trust above all other things, and he felt his entire body relax. There was one huge thing that divided this time from last time. He had an angel with him now, a woman that would stand by him no matter what, regardless of what happened or why.
"Thank you," he whispered into her ear, and he knew that he meant it when the slamming in his chest was not because of nervousness, but for a wholly different reason, something that had to do with being this close to a Rose that could kill him with that look she was giving him now.
"It's just your past, Jack," she murmured as the locomotive finally crawled to a stop and the fear began to rear its ugly head in Jack's irises again. "It's just your past."
He sighed deeply and nodded, staring out the ice-encrusted window.
"Here, sir, and accept our gratitude," Rose gasped, not because the words were too terribly important or hard to say, but because Jack had just opened to cab's door and the awful cold had swept into her lungs again, making speaking difficult. She rummaged into Jack's pocket before he could step out, which resulted in him being pulled down from midair as he attempted to get up and landing spread eagled on Rose's side. She didn't seem to notice and managed to succeed in finding the dollar and ten cents charge for transportation service and the ten cents for tip. She swore she saw the driver stifling a hearty laugh as he tipped his cap towards her and threw the change into an already half full cup of coins.
Jack cursed softly, his face turning a magnificent shade of red when he realized he had, grinned sheepishly, and stepped out into the snow that had already been packed by many other motorcars and footprints. As he went around to the other side of the automobile, he absolutely refused to lift his eyes from the ground. He would not allow himself to soak in his childhood home until he was ready, but in his mind's eye he already knew what was around him – one long, frosted street dotted randomly on each side with several small wooden houses, a general store and a bank on the corner, and rows of stark and dead-looking but enormous trees growing wildly among the small town clutter. Further along the dirt road that curved past the frozen Lake Wissota, there was the white-washed church that he had said goodbye to his parents in five and a half years ago.
Yet all of this he saw from memory, and even as he heard a few people scurrying past him he pressed back the urge to glance and see who they were. He was afraid, and he admitted it without any reluctance whatsoever. Being afraid was not something to be ashamed of, he knew that – shame came from the rash actions that developed as a result of fear. He forgot who had told him those words, probably his father, but he continued repeating them in his brain again and again to keep himself under control.
His numb hand found the icy handle of the side door and carefully pulled it open as he stepped back, concentrating with all his might on the car, on the chipped paint, on the rustling fabric as a woman inside positioned herself to get out. Little things that he could handle were the only things he allowed to enter his mind. Stubbornly he pushed the rest out, even if for just one more moment of peace. Rose carefully climbed from her seat out into the freezing cold and onto the slick dirt road covered in layers of ice. She gasped as one of her small, old shoes slipped and she began to fall, but Jack, who had been staring at her with all of his power, threw out his arm and grabbed her around the waist before she even had the slightest opportunity to catch her balance. Then a sudden, beautiful, and strange sound penetrated the air, a sound that didn't match Jack's emotions at all. It took him a minute to realize that it was Rose's pleasing laughter. He couldn't keep a small grin from cracking on his own face when he saw her delighted expression as she shook a few flakes of light snow out of her wild red curls. The happiness and energy that so plainly was filling her heart calmed him down, and he took a deep breath and closed the door behind her.
She gazed into his icy blue eyes, and she saw fear. Desperately, she tried to think of something, anything at all, that she could do to help him, but the frantic realization that she couldn't do anything except just be here slowly dawned on her. She wasn't part of his past, and the fact that he had to hurt pained her just as much. There was a tenderness in her expression as she searched his face, trying to comfort him somehow.
Almost without warning, Jack felt ashamed. He saw how much Rose was agonizing over him and white hot anger at himself burned his insides. What kind of man was he? He couldn't even bear his own childhood on his shoulders. He couldn't even spare his Rose from his own ghosts. The one thing he loved with more than just love was always the one thing he inflicted the most disastrous pain on, and he hated it almost as much as he had ever hated anything in his entire life.
Before he could say he was sorry and beg her forgiveness and try urgently, but hopelessly, to pretend like nothing was wrong, she had stood on tiptoe and pressed her warm lips to his forehead, a wordless gesture of adoration and a promise that she wasn't about to leave him like this. Her slender fingers interlocked with his rough ones, and she met his steel blue eyes with her deep green gaze. As the cab slowly drove away and the town became more impossible to avoid, Rose whispered, "I'm right here, Jack, right here."
He bit his lip and swore to himself that he would not cry. Jack Dawson was a twenty-one year old man who had been through enough to kill him and he had toughened with each year. He could comfort dying people in alleyways without shedding a tear, he could say goodbye to his parents in a church without breaking down, he could face death without a stitch of panic. But right now, there was a woman standing beside him who he loved more than his own life, a woman who had shed all of her innocence so quickly and become so strong in the face of so much pain. Yet a gentleness still burned within her, a softness that somehow managed to get through all of the layers of hardness that the world had put around his heart.
He closed his eyes and lifted his face up to feel the cool breeze he hadn't felt in six years, to breathe in air he had sworn he would never touch again, and to stop tears from falling. Finally, when the tight pressure in his throat was gone and his eyes had stopped burning, he looked shakily back down at her pure face and murmured, "I know."
She smiled then, a brilliant smile, and he knew that any of his demons that were faced with that smile didn't stand a chance. She leaned against him as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and they slowly made their way down the narrow street coated in white.
The cold had the few brave people outside so bundled up that Jack couldn't even tell if he recognized them or not. He wasn't looking too terribly closely, because that struggling piece of him was still comfortably lounging in ignorance. He left it there for the time being.
His footsteps rehearsed a path that they had walked on so many times before in what seemed like another lifetime ago, but in reality had just been a few years back. He wondered if everyone thought he were dead. Several times since he had left and once in particular, he had thought he was dead too. But here he was, whole, healthy, and not alone anymore. Rose, on his side, seemed contended to simply follow him and not ask where they were going, trusting that he knew well enough for the both of them. Instead, she was drinking in all of the sights, watching the silver clouds slide lazily above them and drop more and more snow upon the little town. Each building she fixed her gaze curiously on, and he decided to take her and show her around after he had finally become at ease. He hoped it wouldn't take too long.
Something pushed against his mind, something about a promise he had made to Fabrizio that involved this place, but he wouldn't let it in. It battered against the walls of his brain, yet stubbornly he kept it out because he knew that he couldn't take any more, he couldn't handle another knife to his heart right now. He apologized profusely, if silently, to his best friend in this world and all the worlds after, and begged that he just wait a little longer, and for some reason the storm raging inside of him quieted a little.
Rose's hand idly found his and laced in and out of his fingers as her eyes were drawn to his, almost as though magnets were bringing her to him. She smiled a slight reassuring smile as, inside, she prepared herself to meet her husband's past. He had told her enough for her to know that this was impossibly hard for him, almost impossible, and she made sure that he never forgot that he was there. She knew what it was like to feel like one was suffocating, to not be able to escape from something . . .
And suddenly, like often these days, her memory began to race back in time, rewinding back and back until she was caught in this flashback so horribly that she could smell the aromas and taste the sensations and hear the sounds that she hadn't heard for more than nine months, and it scared her, but she couldn't stop it. Her grip on Jack's hand tightened and her breathing accelerated as she was hurled back to another place.
It was a beautiful night, there was no arguing that. Stars like Rose had never seen before in her life were burning stubbornly against a deep black backdrop that failed to snuff them out. In sections it seemed like the stars were crammed together, as though a sugary dust had been spilled on a dark floor. The sea matched the sky above it, glassy and salty-smelling. It was late, after midnight, and there were no other passengers out on the boat deck. A chill had recently found its way into the previously pleasant weather, and the breaths of the couple that were strolling along turned a smoky silver as soon as they left their warm mouths.
The cold bit against her skin and involuntarily she shivered, something she hoped Jack hadn't seen. She remembered with bitterness the times that she had shown discomfort because of the weather and Cal had dragged her back inside like a little child, deaf to her pleas to remain outdoors. Whenever she was with him, she felt convinced that he was trying to act like a parent towards her, correcting her whenever she spoke, never allowing her to make decisions for herself, ordering her about in the manner one would a servant . . .
No, Rose, no, you mustn't do that, you can't, she fiercely reminded herself. She absolutely refused to even think about spending the rest of her life with that man. She knew that if she allowed herself to, she would break apart. She might not agree with Society, but she did honor dignity, and she would not give up that dignity in front of Jack Dawson. With great effort, she turned her mind back to the frostiness in the air.
It took her a moment to realize that Jack must have seen her tremble from the cold, because he was already shrugging out of his black dinner jacket. The gesture surprised her, and vehemently she silently rebuked Cal's earlier words, the shocked exclamation of, "You could almost be a gentleman!" In that second, it took simply a jacket to convince Rose eternally that this penniless artist was more of a gentleman that Caledon Hockley could ever be, even though he seemed to have more money than God and the world at his feet. He didn't know how to care.
"Here, Rose, you wanna put this on?" Jack asked breezily, holding out the article of clothing, his eyes dancing under the electric lights that burned above him. There was such genuine concern in his gaze, regardless of the easy way in which he spoke. Her heart unexplainably picked up pace, but she ignored it lest she do something she might regret.
"Thank you, good sir," she teasingly answered, allowing Jack to wrap the jacket around her shoulders. While doing so, however, his finger brushed against her neckline and electricity bolted down her body so fast it seemed to stick her feet to the floor. She had never felt that strange emotion before, an emotion that confused her. The fact that one index finger could invoke so many stormy results throughout her heart terrified her. Her breathing became unsteady as he gently pulled back, his task done, and she made the mistake of looking into his eyes.
He had been staring at her even before she had glanced up at him, but even as he was caught in the act he did not look away. He was searching for something, but he was silent and did not tell her what. She shook, this time not from the cold, as he continued to delve into her soul. His blue eyes drew her to him in a way that she couldn't have stopped even if she wanted to. She was lost in them and she had let go of reality. She had no escape, but was happily puzzled to realize she didn't want one. They stood like this for only a few short moments, but it may as well have been days. Nothing that she recognized crossed his face, and he left her bewildered but bizarrely amazed when he finally ripped his blue eyes away from her and to the deck. He began to walk again, slower. It took a little while for her to be able to follow his lead and focus on things other than him.
"So, did you like the party?" He asked casually, sliding his hand furthest from her into his pocket. A grin crossed his face like he knew what she was going to say even before she said it, and she strongly suspected that he did.
"Oh, Jack, it was wonderful! I've never had so much fun in my entire life!" Rose couldn't stop the giggles that rang from her throat, and he didn't appear to be able to stop his own laughter as he meekly nodded. He appeared to be about to speak again, but she cut across him so quickly that he didn't have a chance to even form a word. She needed to tell him this, needed to like she needed the air she breathed, needed to because he had saved her from her horribly claustrophobic life even if for one night. "Thank you," she murmured, softly smiling at him as they continued along, glancing up at his face.
He wore an expression of humble satisfaction as his grin widened and inclined his head towards her. "You're welcome," he answered quietly, finally looking over at her to meet her own eyes. "Fabri sure seemed to like you. I reckon he called you bella Rosa about a dozen times before the night was out," He said it like it was a joke, although Fabrizio really had.
Rose couldn't help but laugh when she thought of that stocky Italian. He seemed so sweet, in an almost innocent way, but there was a mischievous twinkle in his warm brown eyes that told her that although he was compassionate, this was also the man who was worthy of all of Jack's entertaining stories. "He was being so kind, even if he was a little crazy," she replied, which caused her companion to chuckle heartily.
"Yeah, Fabrizio de Rossi is very crazy," Jack agreed. "But he was right, you know." Rose shot him a questioning look, and his face suddenly appeared serious. "You are beautiful."
Rose was desperately thankful for the blackness because she had never blushed so vividly red. She didn't know what to say, and there was silence for a few seconds except for the sound of their feet against the wood. He thought she was beautiful? He didn't use to demeaning words Cal did, or the hurtful roving stares. He said beautiful.
"What's your favorite song?" Jack asked without warning, hitting her off guard. Without thinking very much about it, she found herself giving the programmed response that she had practiced faultlessly for years and years.
"Father always loved Vivaldi, although my mother prefers Bach. They both appreciated Beethoven, however, so that was usually what was played in our estate just to keep the peace. I suppose I got used to it after awhile." She smiled quietly, then stared up at the opaque sky, waiting for a new conversation to begin.
"No, no, Rose, that's not what I asked," he laughed. "What's your favorite song? Not your parents, not what you tolerate, but what's your favorite song?" The emphasis shocked her and incredulously she realized that he was genuine. It had not been small talk, but he really wanted to know.
She had never really thought about it before, no one had cared enough to ask her, but she knew the answer almost immediately. "Come Josephine," she said, trying to stem her surprise from her voice, "because I sometimes just want to be Josephine, and fly away . . ." She trailed off, but Jack seemed to understand.
"It's a wonderful song," he admitted, and then, would wonders never cease, he broke into the melody. "Come Josephine, my flying machine . . ." A sudden free feeling overtook Rose's heart, and she felt like she was no longer chained to anything, to nobody, except for maybe Jack Dawson. She fearlessly joined him. "Up she goes, up she goes, where she goes, there she goes!"
Neither of them got any farther because they had dissolved into laughter, tears actually streaming down their faces, not because the situation was too terribly funny but because a terribly heavy burden had just flown from their shoulders. It was like there had never been any seriousness between them, just this feather light giddiness that wouldn't leave.
When they had finally straightened up and could breathe again, Rose wiped her eyes and teased, "Why, Mr. Dawson, you certainly have a fine singing voice." That wasn't the truth, because if she had to be perfectly honest she'd have to admit that Jack couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. But he tried without caring what people thought, and that was what was so magnetic about him.
"Why thank you, Miss DeWitt-Bukater," he answered in a mocking British accent, an awful accent to be sure, and that just made Rose giggle all over again. She had never felt like this. Every time she looked at him, she wanted something strange, something that she had never had before.
They had reached the first class entrance, she saw, and for the first time all evening Jack appeared to hesitate. His footsteps slowed, and he looked unsure of what to do. That was when Rose realized she didn't want to go and she didn't want to leave him. Not just now, but ever again. Terrified but too frivolous at the moment to see it, she dreamily crossed over to the lifeboat davit and leaned against the railing, gazing out at the black sky.
"Oh Jack! Look! Look!" She cried out, her hand reaching behind her. Without thinking, she grabbed his hand and pulled him next to her. The sizzling hotness again erupted through her body, but this time she simply allowed it to run like blood through her veins as she gazed with unfailing joy towards the heavens. "A shooting star! I didn't get to wish on it! Did you see it? No . . . it disappeared . . ." She trailed off, disappointed but her expression still one of awe.
"Rose, there's another one," Jack whispered, close enough to her for her to feel his breath on her neck. This time she did rip her gaze from above to his face, and he was grinning, as though he had lived his whole life for this moment. He was right behind her, his chest was pressed against her back, and she couldn't think. How dare he assume that she could even function with him against her like this, so close, so warm . . .?
But suddenly it was his turn to take her hand. At first she was stunned and couldn't move. There was something so electrifying about his presence that she felt its power coursing through every nerve in her system, but gradually she managed to calm her fiercely beating heart and concentrate on the phenomenon that was him. She noticed again how wonderful his hands were, rough and very strong but so gentle it almost seemed like he was afraid to break her, as if she were some sort of lovely and delicate butterfly. No man had ever treated her with such soft concern, no man had ever tried to make her see the world in a light that encouraged her, no man had ever made her feel anything even close to what this poor artist who slept underneath bridges was making her feel. It took her a moment to stop staring at him and to follow his hand as he pointed her fingertips towards something far off in the distance.
She saw it immediately, but it was different than all the other times. It was like she saw it through his eyes, with a mature respect and fascination but a child's innocence and amazement. There was a pure white streak that was falling down and down from inky blackness, tossing dust behind it and sparkling with a brightness that seemed magical. As it sped above them, diving in a perfect arc towards the horizon, she heard herself gasp without meaning to.
He had let go of her by now. It seemed as though he had been suddenly aware of how near he had been to her, and she had felt him drop her hand as though it burned him and step back immediately. She chose not to think of why he would do that, instead she refused to tear her eyes from the celestial miracle above her as it wove a path through other heavenly bodies.
"My father always used to say," Jack started softly, jarring reality back into Rose's mind as they both looked upward, "that a shootin' star is a soul that's on its way to heaven."
Rose had gotten the feeling that Jack didn't talk about his parents much. When he had first started mentioning them, he seemed lost and disoriented, like he hadn't visited his past in his mind for a long time. The more he spoke of them, the less rickety the door to his memories appeared to become, but it was still apparent it pained him to remember. She wondered why he did it, why he let her so deep into his heart, when she wasn't supposed to be there at all.
"Mmm . . ." she murmured, hugging Jack's dinner jacket tighter around her shoulders, "He sounds like he was a wise man." She suddenly remembered how much of her own heart she had given him tonight. From the sunset, when she had expressed her dreams of being free, to the middle of the party when she had giddily told him she wanted to act, from dancing with him and laughing with him and enjoying every single second she spent with him . . . in one day, this man had gone further into her soul than anyone else had in her entire life, and she didn't even know how he had gotten there. She took a shaky breath.
"Yeah . . ." Jack nodded, but it couldn't be plainer that he suddenly wasn't thinking about his father anymore. She continued to look at the black horizon fringed with a gray blue haze, where the star had vanished, fallen to Earth or gone to the other side of the world or perhaps simply disappeared, just like her mother was trying to make her do.
He moved from behind her to the railing next to her. There was nothing presumptuous or uncouth about the movement. He didn't look at her suggestively or try to awaken her body. Yet with all this, she was painfully aware of him standing there, and pained even more because of that pain.
"You don't belong up here, with all of the rest," he said suddenly. All the happy dizziness from their conversation had evaporated, and she heard the dead seriousness in his voice. He wasn't gazing at her, but out over at the pitch dark sea, seeming to concentrate with all his mind on the folds of water as they rushed off to who knew where.
She didn't want the talk to get heavy. She didn't want him to worry about her. She didn't want him to think that she was incapable of handling her situation herself. Without warning a fierce determination to this to him overtook her and she refused to be open to him, refused to even be open to herself. She shoved thoughts of overbearing mothers and abusive fiancées far away from her and managed to laugh a laugh that was fake, and they both knew it. "Oh, really!"
He didn't miss a beat. That was one thing she loved about him, even if she wished urgently that he would leave well enough alone. Nothing threw him off his path. Instead, he finally turned towards her and his unbelievably blue eyes focused like a magnifying lens upon her own eyes, staring intensely and relentlessly into the depths of her heart, and she couldn't pretend anymore. She couldn't have shut him out then even if she wanted to; she was helpless against that gaze. She felt her mouth open slightly, and he did the worst possible thing he could have done at that moment to her fluttering emotions. He took a step closer, filling in all of the space between them, almost nearer to her than he had been while they had danced, so close that she had no air just to herself anymore, it was his too, but it didn't matter – she couldn't have breathed anyway. She just looked up at his figure towering over her, feeling like a deer caught in the headlights, unable to move, unable to think.
"Yeah . . . really." She felt his words form in the air and brush against her skin, which made her tremble. He still did not touch her. "You got mailed to the wrong address." His voice had fallen to a barely distinctive mutter, but she heard him. And she knew he was right. She knew that she came from a place she didn't belong in. She knew she had been given to the wrong parents. A flash of pain momentarily muddied her expression as she remembered . . . she remembered she could never break free from her father's lies or her mother's grip. She knew Society had a rope around her neck and she couldn't get out. Every movement she made to try and escape only tightened the choking hold of the life she lived and she hated it, hated it desperately and passionately.
"You're right," she murmured quietly, turning from him back to the ocean, looking out over its endless dreary depths. The truth was she found it increasingly difficult to look into his eyes now, because in their blue pools she saw exactly who she could be if she was given room to grow. She saw her dreams exploding into life; she saw a path that she wanted to take with every particle of her body.
But it wasn't too long until that same magnetic force drew her back, and she had to gaze at him again. She was shocked to find his face much closer to hers than it had been before, only inches away, and she realized that she had unconsciously stepped closer to him. She couldn't help it! She couldn't stop the pull he had on her!
She made to move away, but there was something in him that she could see clearly begged her not to. A frantic pleading was silently screaming in his eyes as he begged her for something that she wanted to give him so terribly, but it was not hers to give. Her heart, she knew, was no longer in her possession – it had been ripped from her and she was left empty-handed. That didn't stop her from violently wishing that she could hand herself over to him, give him everything, because right there in those blue irises she saw that he was offering her all of himself in the best way he could think of. There was a soundless question in his face. She felt rooted to the deck. In her mind, she besought God frantically. She asked Him again and again why he would do this to her, why . . . why He let her fall in love with Jack Dawson.
Terror burst through her veins like blood the moment she admitted this to herself. She couldn't do anything about it! All of the feelings she had been fighting since the moment she had seen this artist finally found a crack in the wall around her heart and they came rushing in so fast there was no possible way for her to block them again. The worst part was that, right before her, she saw that look of pure, innocent desire and soul wrenching adoration that was in her own eyes mirrored in his. There was something stronger about him, though, something bold and yet very cautious. He obviously knew he was in someone else's territory. Jack wasn't stupid, he knew she was engaged, and he knew the importance of Society engagements. He knew that this was crazy. And yet . . . he also seemed to know that she was a woman, she was not a girl, and she could make her own decisions. He knew she needed freedom to want for herself and not for others, to finally see that there was more out there than money and husbands. He knew she wanted frantically to discover the rest of the world, to discover . . . him. Everything in his face said he simply knew. He didn't force himself on her, but he didn't shy away. He just stood there, baring his spirit, waiting for her to do as she willed.
His lips were far too close. There was nothing but a few inches of air separating them, and the temptation to close the distance was such that Rose surely would have if she had been able to move. Half of her was praying mightily that he would do what she couldn't and kiss her right there, while the other half of her was trying to repel him and grasping at whatever shards she could remember of supposed dignity – she was promised to another man, for God's sake! A man she had never willingly stood this close to, a man she would never kiss, a man that didn't make her feel even a sliver of what she felt like right now. But nonetheless, she wore his rock on her finger and he had seized her heart with his cold iron grip, refusing it to her, even though he had no right to it.
No Rose, no, she silently berated herself. Get out of this situation right now.
But it was so hard, and then it became nearly impossible when a look of resolve crept into his hard blue eyes and it seemed as though he was lowering his head, slowly, testing the waters and gauging what her reaction would be if he went all the way. And she wanted him to, she really did, but Rose was a creature known for her common sense. She might own a huge colorful imagination, and she might dance and laugh and dream, but she also had enough practicality to know when she was straying too far too fast and too dangerously into the stars. She always knew when to put her feet back on solid ground she had been on before, no matter how much she hated it.
She kept on reminding herself of these thoughts far into the night. It was for his own sake as well as hers that she stepped back, even though her legs felt like lead. It was for both of them that she snaked her hand back like she had been burned from where it had previously rested so close to his that she had been able to feel the friction between their skin. But, she realized numbly, it was only because she was terribly afraid of hurting him that she refused to stay in his company any longer. When she finally spoke, the words sounded harsh and fake and foreign – not the words she used when she was being herself, but rather the words she used when she was being who her mother wanted her to be. They weren't really her words at all.
"Thank you, Mr. Dawson, for the wonderful evening." In that one sentence, she had cut off any intimate relationship that they had built that night. She saw the pain flame into his eyes and she wanted to scream at him that this pain was so much better than the pain that would be his if she had allowed him to fall in love with her. She wanted to stomp her foot and shriek that she was doing this for him, just so that he would be able to move on, just so that this hideous problem didn't grow bigger. She wanted to yell at the top of her voice that she needed him to forget about her and just go on with his free, floating, glorious life; she needed him to get away from her and run as far the other direction as he could so that he didn't get caught in this horrible trap she had been snagged in. But that honest-to-God, passionate Rose had been laid to rest again and the Rose she hated continued to possess her body. "I hope America is everything you want it to be. Goodnight." There was such finality in those words. Those words basically said that she never wanted to associate with him again and she certainly didn't plan on speaking to him again.
She was not oblivious to the confusion that passed in his face, and she saw that he honestly thought she felt that way, that she didn't care, and that she didn't have a single emotion for him that went over being a polite acquaintance. He thought that she had been playing with his heart; he thought she had been looking for a bit of cheap entertainment. He thought she was like every other rich pampered brat, he thought she had been slumming! That humiliated her and infuriated her and she didn't know what to do or what to say, because she could never take those words back. But then there was a glimmer of something wistful and beautiful in his eyes, something that would not burn, something that said no, she was different, he knew her life was killing her, and he couldn't leave her like that. Something that said he knew she was lying. However, that light was gone in an instant, quickly hidden when he saw the look of wrath on her face, even though that wrath had by now died. She couldn't speak. If she stayed any longer, she wouldn't be able to resist him and she'd do something foolish that would totally alter the entire course of her life. She was too much of a coward.
The thought mortified her, and without waiting for him to say anything she flung open the door to the Grand Staircase and tripped inside, inside of a place which Society dictated he could not enter. She expected to feel safer, more secure, but the suffocating feeling just rose higher in the back of her throat and burned in the pit of her stomach. She knew she had just left the only safe place she had had in the past several years, and sorrow for what should but couldn't be crept into her heart.
She was shaking so much that she instinctively reached out for a mahogany column so that she could remain standing. He had taken all the strength from her and she found it hard to walk at all. But there was something much worse than that, something that made her sigh and put her head in her hands so as to hide the tears dripping down her face from herself. Already, only five seconds later, she wanted to see him again. Oh God, what had she gotten herself into!
When Rose suddenly found herself again in the present, the first thing she saw was a front door. Her mind had not been with her body for the last few minutes, but she still had been able to feel the apprehension that enshrouded her husband like a thick blanket he couldn't take off. He was nervous now as they climbed up slick porch steps and were sheltered mercilessly from some of the icy wind and driving snow by an old dilapidated roof. She could tell by the way he kept running his hand first through his hair and then through hers, glancing nervously over at her and then away. Suddenly it seemed like a realization dawned on him, and he gave her the explanation she deserved.
"This is . . . well, this was . . . probably still is . . . my . . . my . . . uhhh . . . friend . . . Peter's . . . house." He stumbled over his words and it was amazing the sentence got out at all, because he didn't seem to be able to speak much. Yet, with amazing determination, he plowed on and she listened patiently. "He'll . . . he should know about . . . about the house . . . my house . . . our house, you know . . . and what shape it's in . . . if it's even still there . . . " Inside of her heart, a tenderness that he was willing to share his past with her fought with great concern that he apparently had just realized someone might have had the audacity to tear down the house that he had grown up in. Concern won, and she wrapped her freezing arms around him wordlessly. He buried his head in her scarlet curls flecked with melting white drops, but only for a second before a new motivation crept into his eyes again and the became more sure, more hard, more resolved to get this over with.
He strode up to the door with much more nerve than he had showed all day and pounded his fist cracked from the dry air onto the old wood peeling with fading black paint. He then took a slight step backwards and exhaled shakily before grabbing Rose's hand and towing her up next to him. He pulled her against him and held her there, but she knew that he didn't need support right then. The fiery look she loved was in him again, the same one he'd had when he had said, "We're gonna make it, Rose. Trust me," the same one he'd had when he'd made her promise to live, the same one she knew never let him down.
Within seconds, there was the sound of a door being unstuck and a handle jiggling. Finally, the ugly black slab of wood swung open and behind it stood a young woman, perhaps a few years older than Rose, with black hair pulled back into a tight bun and delicate features set into a pale but pretty face.
There were no words for a few moments. Gusts blew snow into the house, but the woman didn't appear to notice. She grabbed the doorpost as if it would hold her up and stared in wonder at the man in front of her, who stared fearlessly back.
"Jack?" It was a timid question, a question that came from a person who was afraid of being let down, and who had perhaps been let down before far too many times. Her voice came out as barely more than a whisper, as if she couldn't muster the strength to speak. Something from years back that Rose did not know stirred behind her deep navy eyes and in Jack's ocean blue ones. It was through that monstrous thing that the pretty girl recognized him at last. "Jack!" It wasn't a question anymore, but a statement, an exclamation of joy, of disbelief.
Though Rose detected confusion in Jack's face, he didn't ask whatever he wanted to ask at the moment. Instead he spoke the girl's name as softly as she had just spoke his, and a tinge of jealousy actually burned alive in Rose, but she put it out quickly, knowing how hard this already was for her husband. "May."
Then, before Rose knew what had happened, this person had flung herself against Jack's chest, not noticing the cold, and Jack had let go of Rose so he could catch May. It left Rose feeling alone, very alone, and puzzled. But still she remained silent.
"Oh my God! Peter! Jack's here! Jack's here!" She clutched Jack's wrist and dragged him along behind her, although he looked like he would have preferred to walk in on his own accord. This made Rose feel slightly alright again and even better when Jack's free hand fished behind him for a part of Rose so he could take her with him. She closed the door behind her, already sighing with relief from the big fire the crackled in an open living room.
The dull white house on the outside gave way to a pleasant, cheery warmth on the inside. It seemed as though the house had been worn down with use, but it was a happy contented sort of use that made Rose feel like she was someplace happy that belonged only in storybooks. The moment May let go of Jack to go search for Peter, whoever he was, Jack's arm again claimed its rightful place around Rose's petite frame. He roved the living room, gazing at its threadbare throw rugs, old overstuffed sofas, and ancient picture frames almost longingly, and then whispered as if almost to himself, "Nothing's changed much." He turned without warning to her and suddenly he was the one giving an encouraging smile, as if he knew how out of place she felt. Of course he knew. Jack knew everything.
A man appeared from a rickety staircase Rose hadn't noticed before, a man who had pale brown hair but May's deep dark blue eyes. He wasn't as tall as Jack, but he had more of a stocky build. Stubble like fine grains of sand covered his chin and he too seemed struck dumb.
Two friends who before used to know each other better than they knew themselves stared at the complete, yet unnervingly familiar, stranger that stood across from them. Obviously this man had thought the moment of reunion would never come and had not been at all expected for it. He looked at Jack like he was some sort of a ghost that wasn't really there.
There were no words for a long time. Nobody moved or breathed or did anything of any sort to suggest that the people standing in that room were anything other than statues. There were many things present in the house right then – there were the visible occupants, and then three young teenagers who had been frozen in a suspended time and were finally getting permission to awake again. When Rose turned to look at the man she adored, she saw a shock in his eyes that told her he had just realized the enormity of the situation he was in. She felt horrible for him, and she wanted to help him, but she was the one person excluded for reasons she had no control over; reasons that she didn't even understand.
It seemed like an eternity that memories glared at memories head on. It seemed like the clock had stopped, and forever would these four people just stand in the middle of a living room, none of them believing that everyone present was truly real. However, reality has its way of slamming through allusion eventually, and the deep navy eyes of this man, this Peter Filner that Jack had mentioned on rare accounts, opened wide with realization and truth. In two hesitant steps he was in front of his friend, searching his face, searching for an explanation that Jack was not giving yet. "Jack Dawson," was all Peter said, and then he gruffly embraced the person he had been convinced was dead and he would never see again. He stepped back again for a moment, surveying this long lost boy that had been like a brother to him, seeing that he had grown and was much more of man than Pete had ever been able to imagine. Unable to stop himself, the first thing that came out of his mouth was, "My God, Dawson, where have you been? You never wrote, you never came back, you never did anything to convince us you were anything other than stone cold six feet under!"
There was an impenetrable silence that answered his question. Secrets like Peter had never known stared back at him from the irises of his friend, secrets shrouded with hideous pain, unspeakable agony, tumultuous regret, and yet encased in something beautiful . . . something that just looked like love.
Rose shivered from the harshness of the question this stranger had just spat out with venomous anger, but fury that was released with relief. She was still invisible to these two people, siblings, she remembered from Jack's offhanded remarks months ago. She stood there helplessly as May broke the tension by running to Rose's husband with reckless abandon. Her pale arms were laced around his neck, and she began sobbing uncontrollably into his shirt, her entire body shaking violently. Jack, kind-hearted person that he was, enveloped her in his arms. Rose gasped out loud when he ripped his hand from hers to comfort the weeping girl, and it was like she had caused a disturbance in the room that was very unwelcome. She suddenly wished urgently for her invisibility again. Jack lifted his head from May's raven-colored hair and cleared his throat. He timidly reached for her fingertips again, knowing he had made her uncomfortable, and gently managed to separate himself from May. "Pete, I'll tell you about where I've been later but . . . uh . . . this is my wife, Rose. And Rose, meet my . . . my . . . friends . . . Peter and May Filner."
With such goddamned vivid red hair, Peter vaguely wondered how he had missed her in the first place. But then he lost the capability to think, because her drop dead magnificence was absolutely stunning beyond the point of breathlessness. If she had told him she was Aphrodite herself, Peter would have believed her without question. He lost all body control for a moment, and although he was somewhat aware that his jaw was hanging open, he was unable to do anything to close it. Her eyes, those insanely green eyes, were drawing him in much more powerfully than any magnet had ever sucked up iron. And those lips . . . Holy Mother of God . . .
Rose's manicured Philadelphian Society manners had been pruned to perfection by her mother, and to her dismay, that had stuck with her ever since. They didn't fail her now, even though she knew this was neither the place nor the time for them. But she also wanted to make a good impression on these people, no matter how uncouth her first impression of them was, and she reasoned that whoever was friends with the love of her life sure as hell was her friend too. "How do you do, Peter, May? I've heard so much about you; it's lovely to meet you."
May could hardly move. The best moment of her life had just been slammed down by a horrible heartbreak that was taking place at that exact second. She could literally feel her heart tear. In that second, without pausing to analyze anything, without stopping to think about the lovestruck look in Jack's eyes when he gazed at the woman next to him, May decided she hated this Rose. She hated her gorgeous eyes, she hated her beautiful hair, she hated her smooth skin, she hated how she nobly held her head up high but gave the appearance of perfect dignity and humbleness, she hated her flawless posture, she hated her wealthy accent, and she hated her unfaltering politeness. She shot poisonous arrows at her with her gaze, both hoping and not hoping she got the shameless message.
"Damn, Jack, you got married?" Peter laughed the first real laugh he had laughed for weeks. This was not at all like the dreamer he had known. This was not the boy who had refused to sit still for more than two moments. No, this was a man, who looked hopelessly, eternally, and terribly in love. It shocked Peter, for Peter had never seen anything like what he saw in his friend's eyes when they fell on his new bride. There was yearning, more than a physical want, but a spiritual need, a thankfulness and a desperation that seemed almost impossible to understand. Everything about Jack softened when he gazed at this celestial woman, like dry ground that was finally getting the beautiful relief of rain. No matter how long he gazed at her, Jack's expression never changed and never dulled, just continued to flame with an intensity that even Jack's artwork had never basked in. Peter knew, suddenly and instinctively, that Jack would easily leave everything he had before talked about for so long – dreams, choices, the apex of freedom – for this Rose without a second thought. She was his dream, his choice, his apex of freedom, and even more than that. She was his soulmate, his heaven, his eternity, his life, his heart, his everything, and Peter was as sure of that as he was that two plus two equals four. All of this hit him in a matter of seconds, leaving him stunned that Jack Dawson could possibly have changed this much and yet still remain so much the same – compassionate, brave, and honest.
"Would you like to sit down?" Peter asked, motioning towards the sinking couches. There was a hope in his face, a hope that maybe a broken friendship could be repaired. Rose saw it immediately, and she didn't miss a beat.
"We've endured a long journey. Thank you," she graciously replied, instantly moving towards the nearest available sofa as elegantly as she had ever approached a velvet upholstered chair. There was no hesitation as she gracefully took her place on the cushion. She missed the look of extreme admiration and gratefulness mixed with amazement that Jack shot her. Suddenly, Jack thought the first coherent thought he hadthought in a long time. He thanked God that his wife was here with him, for here in the living room of someone who had once been his closest friend, she was the one that eased away the tension and she was the one who acted like she had known Peter and May Filner all her life. He smiled lopsidedly at the host and hostess, and then followed Rose's example and sat down beside her, preparing himself for the inevitable conversation that had finally come.
