Motherhood, for Rose was a blessing and a curse. She would never give her daughter up for a thing in the world. Her daughter was her life, and she truly enjoyed watching her grow into the lovely young woman she was becoming, but having her daughter had been extremely hard on her body, with a complicated pregnancy at the end, and something that had been so very hard to come to terms with; that from one night with Jack she was given this human life to care for that was separate from her own, when she barely knew how to take care of herself without maids and money.

Ten years later, however, she was extremely proud of the life she had made for herself and her daughter, and was glad that some of the more trying moments nowadays were merely attempting to her stubborn child out of bed, and dressed, and fed before she would be late for school again. Rose felt as if she herself were on thin ice with the schoolmaster over the number of times her child had been late, and this so happens to be one of those mornings where Josephine, or Jo as she liked to be called, is being extremely difficult to rouse.

She knocks on the door to the girl's room again before peeking in to find her daughter with her covers still pulled up over her head with only some red-blonde curls peeking out, completely ignoring that this is the third time her mother has called her down for breakfast.

"Josephine Cora Dawson!" Rose comes fully into the room this time and pulls the patchy blue quilt away from her daughter's face. "I have called you three times already this morning. You get dressed and come down for breakfast this instant! If you're late to your lessons again I won't be making excuses for you this time."

The girl squints her eyes closed tighter, but sits up this time, now that the warmth of her covers is gone.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming!" She grumbles it loudly, clearly wanting to be obstinate. Rose wonders if Jack had been like this as a child, or if her daughter got her stubborn streak purely from Rose herself.

"Good," Rose replies, laying out a pretty green dress for her daughter along with a sweater and some shoes and socks, before exiting the room again. When Josephine finally appears in the kitchen and slumps into her spot at the table, Rose is happy to see that her daughter has actually put her hair up with a ribbon. Normally it would be flopping into her eyes and into her food as well.

Josephine picks up a spoonful of oatmeal, letting it drop back into the bowl with an unattractive noise. "It's cold," she says, her nose wrinkled in distaste.

"Well, maybe if someone had gotten up the first time she was called, then it wouldn't be. Eat up. Its all we've got until lunch time," Rose replies, placing a packed lunch of a sandwich and an apple in front of her. Josephine grumbles some more but does as she's told. After years of rationing food during the war, she had learned not to question what she's given.

The walk to Josephine's school is uneventful, and the young girl has been yawning the whole way.

"I know I sent you to bed at a decent hour last night," Rose comments. "What were you doing in your room so late that has you fighting life this morning?" She smooths the hair from her daughter's face again, genuinely concerned and curious.

"Nothing, Mama. I was just drawing. I know I should have slept but I wasn't tired then, and I just want to be as good an artist as Papa was."

Rose frowns slightly, her heart pulling at the mention of Jack; at how her daughter refers to him as Papa even though they never met. She kneels down in front of the young girl, fixing her coat and taking in her innocent face which reminds her so much of the young artist she once knew. "My darling, you will be if you keep practicing as much as you can. Your drawings are already beautiful. There's a right place and time for that practice though, and it is not in the middle of the night on a school night, and its also not during school." Rose had been notified by Jo's teacher that the young girl liked to doodle during her lessons. "Now, you be a good girl today, and try not to fall asleep in class and I will see you this afternoon."

As she kisses her goodbye and sends her on her way she can't help but wonder if she's doing alright at this whole parenting thing. It's a hard balance between being her daughter's friend, and her mother as she is desperate not to cause resentment between them as her own mother had. She hopes she's doing it right. As she makes her way across town, her mind wandering, she's thankful that today is a short shift at work. She's so tired herself that she knows she isn't up for a full day, and can think of nothing better than an afternoon nap.

— — — —

"Jack Dawson, as I live and breath! I thought you were dead!"

Jack is at the town hall, talking to Mr. Murphy, the lawyer and town magistrate who had been in charge of the papers for most of Chippewa Falls for as long as he could remember: marriage licenses, and wills, and that kind of thing. Neither he nor his parents had ever known the man terribly well, but he supposes that its something that he's remembered by someone. After all it is Mr. Murphy's business to know everyone around and all of their business.

"I'm afraid not," Jack gives a wry smile, "Not quite yet anyway."

"Oh my boy, don't get me wrong. I mean nothing by it, its just…"

"I know. I've been away for fifteen years. I'm not dumb, Mr. Murphy, I know that I've left it too long and that there's probably nothing left at this point, but I figured there would be no harm in finding out. Is the house still there? or has someone saved any of their things at least?" He doesn't have to say what house, or whose things. It goes without being said. The deaths of Irene and James Dawson and his sister Julia had been a tragedy that the whole town had felt.

"I'm sorry Jack… We were… we were all under the impression that you had passed on."

Jack nods, looking at his hands. "So its gone." He says it as if he's trying to reason it out in his own mind. "All their things. And the house?" he asks, looking up. Mr. Murphy still looks rather confused.

"Oh, the house is still there, as are their things, I assume, Jack. You get me wrong. You see, a young woman lives there now. A young woman with a child."

"They let the place out without cleaning it out first?" he asks, somewhat bewildered, and a little angry now. What about his father's tools, and his mother's trinkets, or his sister's poems and stories? Those were supposed to be his. It had said so in the Will, he was sure, not that he had stayed around for the funeral. He knew though, that everything including the house was to be passed to he and his sister when his parents passed, and since he was the only one left, that meant it all went to him. His father had told him that on a fishing trip once when he was nine. He knew that after this long it was a bit of a shot in the dark, but he had thought that at least something would be left over; something to have as a reminder of the family he once had, even if it was just some photographs and journals.

"It hasn't been let, Jack," Mr. Murphy says now, looking worried. "But perhaps its all a mistake. You see, about ten years ago a young woman showed up here, claiming to know you. She gave the last name Dawson and claimed to have been married to you and carrying your child."

"What?" Jack asks, wanting to tell this man that the story is horse shit, but he bites his tongue. "I never married." He had only ever truly been with and loved one woman in his whole life, but the town magistrate didn't need to know that, and he had certainly never married anybody.

"Oh it's true alright," Murphy says, looking more concerned now. "She came into town around 1913, her belly swollen and eyes full of sadness. Maybe we shouldn't have believed her but she did have your name, and knew that you lived here. she came telling us this story about how you died on a ship saving her life and she had nothing to remember you by. She said she wanted us all to know that you were gone, and that she wanted her kid to grow up where you did. Of course when we all saw the kid after the girl was born, we all thought there was no doubt… but you say you've never been married?"

A ship. That's all Jack could hear after Mr. Murphy had said those words. Here he was getting his hopes up again no matter how dangerous that habit was. But could it be? Could it actually be that all that time he spent looking for Rose that she had been here the whole time?

"Titanic…" Jack mumbles, and the older man is staring at him now, very confused. "Mr. Murphy, please," he asks, now feeling frantic. "Her name.

what is her name?" He knows he must look like a crazy person right now. His eyes are so wide, and he's on the edge of his seat, practically grasping for the older man.

"Well, Dawson, Jack." Says the lawyer with a shrug. "A uh, Rose Dawson, I believe. Lovely girl. Hard working, and quite pretty… but you say she's not your wife after all?"

Jack is out of his seat before the man is finished with his sentence, startling him.

"Do you know where I can find her?" he asks, heading toward the door. "Where she might be?

Confused at their meeting being abruptly cut short, and wondering if he had made a mistake in allowing Rose to reside in the Dawson home, Murphy stands as well. "She does work at the diner in the mornings; the one on the corner of Princess St. ; Richardsons'."

That's all Jack has to hear. He's off as quickly as his injured leg will allow, ignoring the throbbing pain as he puts pressure on the wrong places. Heading towards the diner that's in the opposite direction as he had walked the day before. He only has to go about half a block before he's there, standing in front of painted windows reading Richardson Diner. He used to come here as a kid with is father after the weekend markets where he had sold his furniture. His dad would let him have some of his beer if he kept it a secret from his mother and sister. Looking at the sign, and knowing that Rose could be just a few feet away, he realizes that he could really use a beer right now, prohibition be damned.

Peering through the window to the inside he can see that she's not there, unless she's in the back. There is only Mrs. Richardson, much older now than he remembered her being, and a cook, counting money at the counter. Still though, he enters. Maybe Rose is in the back or would be returning. It wouldn't hurt to ask. He's so close to seeing her again that he can feel it.