On A Night Like This

As Rose had left the stateroom behind, with her mother currently trying to perhaps locate a doctor, she had gone in search of Jack. Her stomach was a riot of mass tumbling. Her mind focused on nothing other than seeing the serenity of the blue eyes which troubled her often.

Tommy had told her that he would be up on decks at the bow. Now as the ship left a wake of white foam, above her the sunset was perhaps the most wonderful which she had ever seen, and Rose ignored the stunning view in favour of studying the deck at her feet. She didn't mind the concentration it took. Instead, she relished the temporary distraction from her confusion. Reaching a bench, she dropped onto the wooden planks and pulled her shawl further about her. She prayed for the sound of the waves lapping against the ship to soothe her as it cut its way through the ocean bound for its destination. Praying for her mind to be taken away, on another adventure away from her own world. She searched for him, in the vast amounts of machinery and then, he was there, right at the bow and her stomach fell. Tilting her head, Rose closed her eyes and rested her cheek against her palm.

Contemplating her life for a second, there had been nothing but utter grief of the engagement as well as the sheer, all-consuming spell which Jack Dawson had placed her under. Instead, now she was waiting eternally. Waiting for whatever fever was taking over her to either subside or just succumb to it. When she thought of Jack, there was a matter of urgency.

Bubbling beneath the surface had been the absolute instinctual urge to place her hands beneath his shirts and allow him to lead her to lay beneath him. In times of need, her infatuation for him had multiplied. The animal sense within her seemed to come alive. Literally everything about him intoxicated her, brainwashed her and made her believe that he was the one who she was meant to live her life with. She was angry; at her mother for believing that Rose was to be nothing but a wife, at the world in which she lived just because she resented it so much. She was angry at herself for the manner in which her mind worked. But never at Jack. If she screamed out now, in an abandoned area of the ship near to the bow, would any other hear her except God? Even he wasn't interested in the slightest of her misery. If he was, then surely, he would offer an answer of some kind.

It was too much to endure and it would only be so soon before her own mother would be hurt. Rose had already been impaled. It wounded her to be away from Mr. Dawson. Yet, her mother was the only reason for her to remain in a loveless engagement and proceed to an even more miserable marriage. Her mother. The situation was precarious and leaving the debts would cement the family's fall from Grace but by God, the fear of marriage was instilled within her to the point where she had been contemplating a life with a strange man. Just what did Jack want from her? What could he offer? Freedom, yes. The ways in which he stole her breath and potentially even her heart was frightening and she knew that her mother was correct about one thing; Jack Dawson was not a gentleman. She had him painted as a man unable to stay away from French prostitutes, a man who was rootless and never had intentions of ever putting down a single root in a solid place. It was all so—conflicting. Startling. But above anything else, Jack Dawson was honest. Unflinchingly so. That was the most frightening part of it, so when he had sworn to her in the gymnasium, and had told her his own thoughts in the most intimate of ways, she had believed in every single word. Staying well away from him had seemed to be the only answer. The voice of reason had spoken to her for days on end, convincing her and now she had finally seen sense. They would have to stay away from each other. The thought was unsettling, making her stomach feel sensitive and her palms to tremble even more but what was the alternative? There was none.

What could Jack Dawson offer her aside from temptation? What about once the infatuation ended? What about the way that her heart was calling out to him, in the most unforbidden ways but she didn't wish for him to be forbidden. She wished to scream it from the top of the ship just so that everyone could hear how her heart worked. Hear her feelings for once. Maybe then, God would listen.

Raising to a stance, Rose came to walk along the side holding the rail until she came right down to the bow; the front of the ship and it seemed to open her eyes in a wonderful way. The sky was painted an array of blues, purples and oranges. Every colour of the rainbow and it seemed to be the most startling of hues Rose had ever witnessed. Her breath was stolen and even more so when she laid eyes on the figure hunched over right at the front of the ship. Just from his stance, she gauged his mood.

Jack had never looked fragile, but he did in that moment. His hair was styled back, but the salty breeze tugged the silken strands free and blew them softly across his handsome face. Just looking at him made her feel like crying and then, something beyond beautiful happened to her for the first time and it was hard to determine what it was.

''Hello, Jack.''

His shoulders stiffened as he turned, before they softened. His eyes softened too, with the tightness of his jaw ceasing as he gazed at her curiously.

''Perhaps I have changed my mind." It came tumbling out before Rose could stop it and suddenly, his eyes were wide. Changed her mind of what? There had never been an offer of his to be refused. Never had he extended his hand to her, but she had somehow taken it beyond knowing.

"Tommy told me that you were up here-."

''Shh,'' Jack placed his fingers to her lips to cease her speaking and she stopped immediately, and her stomach slipped until he held out his hand towards her and she could see that all intensity had left him, and was replaced by a gentle smile.

Rose's eyes started to sting in the salty breeze. Her eyes were lined with unshed tears.

''Now, give me your hand…''

Eyes wide, Rose turned to face him again. Like the time he'd asked her to dance, his sapphire eyes sparkled with challenge. This time though, she would not be goaded into acting foolishly, and she would act accordingly. Perhaps she would cease fighting against what had felt to be the most natural thing in the entire world. Like breathing, or existing...

"Perhaps," she admitted, lifting her chin. "You frighten me. Your determination, your recklessness, your passion. Everything about you scares the wits from me.''

Jack's chest expanded on a deep breath. Behind him the waves continued to beat upon the ship, the relentless driving rhythm. He stepped forwards just once. "You know my feelings towards you.''

Rose searched his face, looking for deceit and found nothing but cool impassivity. His face, so breathtaking, revealed nothing of his thoughts. The determined line of his jaw, however, was achingly familiar.

''Is that why you came to me in the gymnasium?''

''Yes, you know as much or you wouldn't have sent me away earlier.'' Jack told her quietly. ''I just never expected you to come back.''

''And I never expected to myself but I am.'' Rose's free curls whipping about her face in the wind.

''Will you give me your hand?.'' He asked her calmly. His voice was soft, as soothing as the waves which lapped against the ship. He was almost a lullaby, calming a young child to sleep. The flush of his cheeks with the wind caused his face to be all the more handsome. Was it possible? He was so still, so unnerved. ''Do you trust me?''

The lightness of his grip, of a man mindful of fragility, Jack took her hand and led her forward towards the bow. The waves below were louder than she recalled and Rose began to protest.

"Shh for now." Jack placed his finger to his lips and shushed her. She glanced at him.

Jack held out his hand to her in a daze, she slipped her bare fingers into his palm. The moment her hand went into his, she felt as though this was all a dream. He came closer to her, and for a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. For all that she had built up within her mind, he could tear it all down with one single press of his lips to hers and Rose knew that she would surrender without any shadow of a doubt. She would surrender literally everything because she had already told him so.

"Now, close your eyes," he told her softly, and she hesitantly did so.

Glancing at him, Rose felt her insides rearrange. Jack turned her body to face forward and pressed her gently to the rail, standing right behind her.

"Now, step up onto the rail. Keep your eyes closed and don't peek."

He held her two hands and she stepped up onto the rail, trusting Jack completely but beneath the exterior, she was a quivering bundle. He collected her back against his hard chest and he held her firmly. Feeling him kiss the hot, exposed curve of her ear, Rose shuddered.

''Do you trust me?'' His voice was unsteady against her sensitive ear.

''I trust you.''

The scent of his shaving soap drifted to her nostrils, the masculine fragrance comforting and familiar and realised that she was trying to fight her way deeper into his embrace, as though he was her saviour as well as the sinner.

Jack stood behind her on the rail and then slowly took her hands and outstretched them on each side. Rose went along with him, trusting him with her life.

''This is all I wished for you to see. For you to fly.''

Jack lowered his own hands and placed them on her waist, leaving her arms stretched outwards like wings. A sharp wind was hitting her face, caressing her hair and causing the chignon to fall out of its pins and simply billow behind her in the breeze of the ocean waves. Her breathing came in shallow and unsteady bits as she felt his grip upon her as well as the rapid turning of her stomach.

"All right. Open your eyes," he whispered into her ear.

Rose opened them. As she saw the beauty before her, she gasped. There was nothing in her field of vision but water. It was like there was no ship under them at all, just the two of them soaring. The Atlantic unrolled toward her, a hammered copper shield under a dusk sky. There was only the wind, and the hiss of the water fifty feet below.

"I'm truly flying! Jack!" she gasped, and leaned forward, arching her back as tears sprang to her eyes. It was the most emotional that she had ever felt in one single second.

Jack put his arms further around her waist to steady her.

Rose closed her eyes, feeling herself floating weightless, far above the sea. She smiled dreamily, then leaned back, gently pressing her back against his chest. He pushed forward slightly against her. Slowly, he raised his hands, arms outstretched, and they met hers, entwining their fingers and moving slowly as they caressed each other through and around each other like the bodies of two lovers. The watery lines which were cradled in her eyes were now freed, trickling down her cheeks and disappearing into the beyond. She was so shocked to feel his lips brush her cheeks and she closed her eyes so that the tears instantly evaporated. When she finally brought herself to look at him again, she saw that he was wearing a faint smile. He smoothed her hair, and stared into her grief-ravaged face with a depth of concern she had never seen from him before. It frightened her to realise how much of herself she had just given away. Now he knew everything she had tried to keep secret for so long. Or perhaps he didn't. It wasn't verbally spoken but it was within her chest and her heart as her hands worked against his fingers like the wings of a bird that had found itself trapped indoors.

"Jack," she said with difficulty, overcome with such emotion, "I am flying."

"Come Josephine," he whispered, singing offkey, still caressing her fingers. "In my flying machine. And it's up she goes, up she goes…."

Rose laughed, his voice tickling at her ear.

''In the air she goes. Where? There she goes…''

Jack's voice matched hers exactly for calmness, in a way that conveyed gently how he felt for her.

Jack stared directly into her watery eyes. Rose shook her head, unable to speak as he took her shoulders, fitting her against himself with extreme care. Her pulse ran riot. She shouldn't allow him to hold her. Someone might see, even secreted out on the bow as they were, but then there was also the opportunity for someone to see them like this; a member of society to report to Cal or Lovejoy, but as her muscles drew in the warm pressure of his body, the pleasure of it made her dizzy, and she stopped caring about anyone or anything outside his arms.

Jack's fingertips drifted with stunning delicacy over her throat, behind her ear, pushing into the satiny warmth of her hair. Gooseflesh rose wherever his breath touched. "I can't-''

Jack's mouth stole the very words from her mouth, sensation of him all around her.

"Jack," she whispered in between kisses, "I've felt so—"

He crushed her mouth with his desperately, as if he could smother not only the words but the emotion itself. He stole as deep a taste of her as possible, ardently determined to leave nothing unclaimed. She clung to him, her body racked with sustained shivers, her nerves singing with incandescent heat. He was all she had ever wanted; all she would ever need.

But a sharp breath was torn from her throat as he pushed her back, as they fell down from the bow, leaning against the front rail of a great ship and breaking the warm, necessary contact between their bodies. Jack's eyes were a stark contrast; obsidian fire and a responsive shiver chased from beneath the framework of her corset. Rose had never found it so difficult to master her emotions and she swallowed them back along with the hundreds of questions which sprung into her mind. It was unsettling and yet it seemed to not serve the correct purpose. If Rose was free to marry whomever she chose, then it would have to be for love, but as she watched his razor-sharp gaze over her, it sent her thoughts spiralling once more.

For a long moment neither of them moved, both striving to recover equilibrium. And as the glow of desire faded, Rose heard Jack say roughly, "Are you cold ?"

Rose had started to lose control of what to say; her eyes simply stunned by the view before her and the seductive notes of his voice in her ears. ''Yes.'' Smiling, she recalled. ''My mother sent for a doctor, believing me to be starting with a fever. I know it isn't that but I had started to think my mind was lost.''

''You're as sane as I am,'' he whispered against her ears, ''but we should get inside to keep a fever away.'' Feeling the stiffness of her neck muscles, he coaxed the tension out of them, kneading lightly. "I want you to be warm. Happy. You deserve that much.''

Before she could answer, Jack covered her mouth with his. She felt a jolt of heat, her blood igniting, and she could no more withhold her response than stop her own heart from beating. She reached up to his hair, the beautiful blonde locks curling slightly over her fingers. His breath roughened as he deepened the kiss, his tongue penetrating in silken demand.

The approaching moon sent shards of light, outlining the silhouette of Jack's head, touching her own skin with an unearthly glow. Supporting her with one hand, he cradled her face with the other, his breath hot and scented with sweetness as it fell against her mouth. Rose clung to his shirt, his neck, his mouth and everything about him knowing with absolute certainty that this moment was about to alter the course of her destiny. On a night like this, she realised that it wasn't her future which she needed to fear anymore, or even her past. She simply needed to live for the moment. On a night like this, her world would change. The temperature was dropping. A fever could approach but then it would break, leaving a gentle calm afterwards.

Thanks for reading. I just wanted to get another fresh take on this already brilliant scene, but just to spice it up and to try and get my own feelings out onto paper for the first time in a while.