"You wanted to talk to me about something as well?" Jack asks after they finally pull away from each other. "You mentioned it earlier."
Rose nods, gathering her thoughts. With all that Jack had just told her, she had nearly forgotten what she had been planning to speak to him about tomorrow; about the conversation with Miranda earlier that day.
"Oh, yes," she says, settling back into the sofa again, trying to figure out how she wants to go about saying all she needs to. "Well, Jack, after the busyness if the day, and how all of the gossip around the diner, Miranda thinks it may be best if I take a few weeks off to — well, to get sorted."
Jack frowns. "All the talk of my showing up here hasn't put you out of a job has it?"
"No! Oh, no, that's not it at all, Jack. It's just, Miranda sees that this is all an adjustment for me, and has given me a bit of, well, a vacation. I'll still be paid, I just won't be working for a fortnight in order to.. get settled."
"Oh?" Says Jack, still not fully understanding what she's trying to get at.
Rose closes her eyes for a second, steeling herself. She needs to just come out with it. "Jack, I think you should move in here. I want you to move in here…"
"Rose-"
"It just makes sense," she says, rambling now, afraid to hear an actual answer. "I mean, you're paying for a room at an Inn that you've already not returned to twice in order to sleep on this old couch instead, and I know what that Inn is costing you— its where I stayed when I first arrived, plus, well, it is your house and —"
"Rose." Jack says again, laying a hand on hers. "I will move in, but only if you're sure. Only if you truly want me here. I don't want anything between us to move faster than you're ready for. I want to do everything right."
"I do want you here, Jack. I truly do. And I know that its early days, and that we said we would take things between us slow, and I still want to do that if that's okay; still sleep separately for now but share the living spaces."
"Absolutely," he says, giving her hand another reassuring squeeze. "That's fine with me."
"I think for now, for our own sakes, and for the sake of Josephine, it's better if we have separate rooms. I'll continue to stay in the room down here like I always have, and you can have the master bedroom upstairs… or your old room if you prefer that, but I think the bed in there might be a bit small for you now."
A frown tugs at Jack's lips again, worry line deepening between his brows. "Are you not sleeping in the master bedroom now?" he asks, tilting his head to the side.
Rose looks down at their joined hands, brushing her thumb over and over his knuckle in a nervous gesture. "No. I never have. It felt like invading someone else's space to be in there. I'm sure your parents were lovely people, Jack, and I didn't want to dishonor their memory in any way by taking the room. It's a lot of why I barely changed anything around here. It wasn't mine to change."
Jack shakes his head. "Well, it's yours to change now, Rose. Officially. I give you all the permission you could ever want. If my parents were around now I'm positive they would just be thrilled to have you in the family. If I'm going to be staying here I can't have you cooped up down here in the smallest room in the house. There's not even a washroom down here."
"Really, Jack, I couldn't stay in that room. At least, not the way it is now. Plus, I'm perfectly accustomed to my room down here. It's quite comfortable."
Jack bites his tongue, having better sense than to argue. He would just have to fix the master suite up himself and convince her to switch.
"Alright. I'll take that room then, for now. I think it would bring up too many memories I want to leave in the past for me to stay in my old room right now."
Rose nods, understanding, and stifling a yawn.
"Did you want to stay tonight?" She asks, untucking her legs from under her and smoothing her skirts before standing up. "Or did you want to go back to the Inn?"
"What would you rather?" he asks, standing as well before shifting his weight off of his aching bad leg.
He's searching her eyes, reading her again, and she finds it impossible to lie when he does that. "If I'm honest, Jack, the past two times you've stayed, that first night and then after that dinner, even from my bedroom with you out on the couch, just knowing that you were somewhere in the house made me sleep a lot sounder. You make me feel safe just by being here."
Jack smiles, his heart swelling. "I'll stay then. I can always get my things tomorrow."
"It'll be the talk of the town, I'm sure," Rose jokes, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "I'll show you where upstairs you can find towels and linens. You'll probably want to change the sheets on that bed. I don't think I've done it since just moving in."
"Alright," Jack responds, following her up stairs that he hasn't walked since he was fifteen. Everything in the hallway was much the same, as he had come to expect. Rose was using a different closet for her linens, and the door that he knew to be Josephine's now by the top of the stairs no longer had the embroidered "Julia" on it that his mother had made the way his old door still says "Jack," but nothing else had changed.
Rose turns back to him with an arm full of sheets and towels, which he takes, and she's watching him, looking a little uncomfortable. "I'm sorry if its weird for you to be up here," she says, apprehensive.
Jack nods, not willing to lie to her. "It is little harder than I expected, but I'll be okay," he says, placing his free hand on her upper arm. He limps forward to the end of the hall, and opens the door to what had used to be his parents' room, stepping in and laying the bundle of fabric he's carrying onto the bed before pausing to look around, and then turn back to Rose who is standing just outside the doorway.
"I'll be more than okay, Rose. Don't worry about me. I'm just glad that we've found each other again, and that we're under the same roof. With a little work, and packing up their things this room will be great." He reaches for her hands again now that both of his are free. "I've said it before, Rose and I'll say it again however many times you need to hear it; winning that ticket was the best thing that ever happened to me because it brought me to you. Anything bad that has come before or after has only set in motion my finding you, and I'd go through it all again if it meant I'd wind up here and now."
Leaning forward, he kisses her once on the lips and again on the forehead. "Go get some sleep, love. We'll figure more of everything out tomorrow."