13 April 1912

On any other day, the mesmeric First-Class Lounge, decorated stunningly in Louis XV Style, would have captured Rose's mind and heart until she was spellbound, unaware of the world spinning about her as she drank in the ethereal beauty of it all. On any other day, she would have meandered about the room and scrutinized every detail in its mahoganies and fine golds and powdered blues with infatuated eyes until her mother had to yank her away by her lace-bedecked arm.
But instead, on this day, her mind was weighed with the bitter and frigid tendrils of regret sneaking its way around her consciousness. Her thoughts were halted and sprinkled with poison until all she could see and hear in the shadow of her mind were the "what-ifs" of the situation in which she had found herself inextricably entangled.

What if she had accepted Mr. Andrews in his proposal, whatever it was? What if she had kissed him in the Third-Class General Room or on the promenade deck? What if Caledon Hockley ceased to exist and she had bumped into a kind Irishman in the middle of London or in quaint little Southampton and they had fallen for each other as they had on Titanic, and it was his ring she wore on his finger, his name she was to take in a few days time, the bridesmaids' dresses of their wedding that her mother was gossiping about to the Countess of Rothes and Lady Duff-Gordon before her?

She could not bear the thought and yet it remained, as steadfast and definite and concrete as one of New York City's skyscrapers. She could not escape it, just as she could not escape what awaited her on the other side of the ocean, just as she could not escape the rest of her life which had been stripped of the title of being her own. It was not her life that she was to live when dry land rested beneath her feet; she was the damsel of the novel, and her mother and Cal were the authors with their pens leaking ink onto the page, dictating her every move and bringing to her unspeakable misfortunes and travails from which she had no refuge.
Mr. Andrews was the only true refuge she had known in her seventeen years, and she would lose him in less than one-hundred hours, never to see him again. She was reminded unmistakably of Bruce Ismay, vaunting about Titanic's size, just as the world was going to do to her in a matter of days. It would exult in her grandness, her multitude of lands and oceans, her superfluity of people who called her their home, and separate Rose and Mr. Andrews until they were so deep within their respective lands and worlds that any hope of reunion was done away with. And all the while they would be walking the same Earth, blocking their eyes from the same blinding sun, wishing and reminiscing on the same moon and stars, reminded of one another whenever one shot across the sky, and yet no wish would be powerful enough to bring them together again.

She could bear so much, had borne so much in her short life, but the thought of living the rest of it without Mr. Andrews somewhere in it was one she could not bear, not with even a surplus of strength and willpower. And as she sat there in that beautiful room, the one he has forged with his own brain and overseen with his adoring eyes, her tea growing cold, Rose took to staring at the plate of teacakes and wafers in the middle of the table, for if she looked at her mother or her intimates or the rest of her companions in the First-Class world, she would have wept and caterwauled until her state of mind was brought into serious question.

She stared at the plate of baked goods until despondency had her feeling violently ill and the sight of food nearly had her retching. She let her eyes drag across the floor to another table just ahead and to the left of her, and saw a woman and young girl, no older than four, seated with the teacups and a vase of wildflowers sat in front of them. As the waiter refilled their cups, the mother reached to the girl, pressing an elegantly gloved hand to her back and the child shot up until she sat straight as a lamppost, keeping her chin up and her hands folded upon her lap. While the woman fiddled with her, straightening her back, wrenching her shoulders to correct her posture, positioning her hands, the little girl flicked her eyes from the table to her mother every few seconds, surveying her expression, desperate for her approval and eager to please. The woman pointed to the napkin upon the table and the girl, with dainty, white-adorned hands, pinkies lifted, took it and folded it upon her small lap, smoothing it down with her little fingers until it was as smooth as glass.

Rose suddenly was bereft of breath. Watching this young girl, suppressed of childish impulse and impropriety, desperate to oblige her mother, was like being taken back in time and bearing witness to herself at that same age. Ever since she was little, all she had wanted to do was please her mother, all she wanted was for her mother to be proud of her and instead of speaking to her friends about the scandals of Philadelphia life, to begin the conversation with, "Oh, you'll never guess what Rose did today," or, "My, was I lucky to be blessed with such a good daughter as Rose," or, "I've never known a girl to act so naturally a lady as my little Rose."
And yet, all she did, all of herself she shoved away with a forced and bitter distaste, her mother's gossip always began with who-had-an-affair-with-who and who-saw-who and who-was-caught-doing-what. Never once did she hear her name brought up willingly in the conversations on which she used to eavesdrop like they were the most delightful story in the world, waiting for a happy ending that never came.

Nothing she could ever do would ever please Ruth DeWitt Bukater, not even marrying Caledon Hockley. It was what her mother wanted of her now, but there would always be something with which to fault her; she did not gossip demurely as a new wife should, her soirées were too vulgar, her baby's name was too modern and she held it wrong. She was trapped on an endless carousel of conciliation and she could do absolutely nothing but fall victim to it.
Rose loved her mother, she always would, no matter her shortcomings, but as the adult she had implored her to become and with the adult mind which came with it, she realized she was fighting an unconquerable battle.

And so, with this thought fresh in her mind, she thought of Cal.
Rose had always seen people in her mind alongside the things of which they reminded her, and when she summoned her fiancé to the forefront of her mind, all she saw were metal chains and tears. She saw him with a great mantelletta, worn by him as the figurehead of all that was expected of her, a scepter in his violent hand as he tyrannically dictated her every act.

But then she turned her mind to the man she swore she would not think of for the rest of the day, at least, and for the rest of the voyage hence. Rose saw with little effort the smiling brown eyes, ardent and adoring as they looked only on her. She could not see him in a royal mantle of tyranny; rather she could see him shoving it off his shoulders, disgusted at it and at the very idea. She saw him reaching with gentle hands, those genius hands which she loved so much, for her as he reached his fingers to her heart and intertwined them together, an unbreakable knot which she would wear with pride for the rest of her days.

Cal was a king, bathing in riches and superiority, and Mr. Andrews was her equal in peasantry, character reigning true over wealth, content in having her as what she was, not what he wanted her to be and saw himself clever enough to mold her to be.

And that was the moment it all became so apparent to her, like a slap to the face or the cut of one thousand knives to her flesh, punishing her for her foolishness. Her mother was forever impaired to her daughter, sitting idly and comfortably in her half-blindness, seeing her daughter as incomplete, marching down the path of furtherance, and set her sights on what she wished her daughter to become.
She did not see the true Rose; she did not see her true thoughts and feelings, beliefs and opinions, affections and resentments. She did not see her love for Mr. Andrews and she, so immersed in her phantasm, had tricked Rose into living it and believing it with her.

You do not love Mr. Andrews.

Oh, but she did! She did!

She loved him more than she figured her little young heart could handle and soon it would burst in a color show of golds and reds, painting her entire body, inside and out, with the palpable glory of her devotion to him.

Rose DeWitt Bukater loved Thomas Andrews so violently, so ardently that she would never let anyone, mother or fiance, influential elite or celebrity or hero, impugn in it themselves or her ever again.

The white tablecloth was clenched in her fingers as her heart began to pound beneath her aching ribs. All of the veins in her body sang as her blood sparkled and glimmered and she felt suddenly reborn, free of chains and woes. She wanted to jump from the table and run to him, she wanted to gather all two thousand-two hundred souls aboard the RMS Titanic onto her decks just to kiss him in front of them and hold him to the sounds of their scandalized gasps and exclamations.

But were his affections the same, she wondered. The thought barreled down on her like one of the Rolls-Royces brought aboard with one of Titanic's electric cranes.
Rose knew him to feel something for her, as it was made all too clear that morning; but did he love her as she did him, enough to hold on with strong arms of hope that was undeterred by even the most seemingly impossible obstruction? She suddenly doubted it, but she knew she would never know for sure if she did not try.

And so, she laced a single milky white finger around the ear of her teacup and feigned a knock of her elbow to the table, forceful enough to slam the cutlery against it to the jolting of the women present around her, and in an instant, the lukewarm tea was spilled into her lap.

"Oh, look what I've done," she exclaimed, throwing her hands up and looking to the damp mottle on her skirts.
Ruth rolled her eyes and turned to the ladies, "I do apologize. My daughter's head has not been at this table, nor on this ship this entire day!"

The words "my daughter" were spoken with considerable venom, but Rose was far past caring as she swiftly rose and sped from the Lounge.
She made her way into the Reception Room, catching a young steward who could not have been much older than she. "Excuse me, do you know where I can find Mr. Andrews?"
The boy pointed out the doors. "I just saw him on the decks, madam, headed aft."

Rose thanked him, feeling none the wiser as she knew all too well the man's tendency to wander in every direction that it would make anyone else lightheaded.
As she stepped into the whipping sea winds, grown colder with the tiring sun, she crossed her arms around herself, undeterred. She knew not where to look and surveyed each man who passed her, but was unsuccessful in finding the one man she sought.
Suddenly, enraptured in discovering if the object in a passing man's hand was a particular black notebook or simply a cigarette case, she collided with a hard shoulder and was sent stumbling backward with a quiet cry.

"Whoa! Sorry, there, Rose!" The voice was American and as rough but warm hands seized her by the waist, she knew just who it was.
"Jack! No, I'm sorry. I wasn't looking where I was going. Forgive me," she replied, blushing and looking away.
"Hey, no harm done," he shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets. "But you look like you're in a hurry and you look kinda upset. What's goin' on?"

Rose hesitated for a brief moment. She wondered over telling Jack the truth of her quest, for, after all, he had suspected it before it was clear to her. But she knew not whether Mr. Andrews was to share in her affection, and she did not want to falsely raise the hopes of both the player and the most devoted spectator.

"Well, to be completely honest, Jack, I'm looking for Mr. Andrews," she mumbled, playing with her fingers.
The blonde man smirked, skin alight with a red glow in the sunset. "Mr. Andrews, huh? You finally stopped bein' blind, then?"
Rose scoffed playfully and shoved him on the shoulder with the back of her hand. "Be quiet, you! If you must know, yes. He...He actually confessed his affection for me, after a fashion, and...and I suppose I'm finally through with being a puppet to everyone else."
Jack gave a boyish laugh and knelt his knees so his face was level with hers, giving her arms a brotherly shake. "That's so great, Rose! I knew you could do it! I knew you weren't like the rest a' them! But then...why do you look sad?"

She frowned and turned from him and began to stroll slowly and he followed her. "Well, I denied him when he confessed. I told him he misinterpreted everything and what was between us was nothing more than two people enjoying the other's polite company. I know I love him now, but I don't know if he feels the same, or at least if he feels strongly enough that he won't be discouraged by what I did."
Jack walked fast to catch up to her and shoved her gently with his elbow. "Rose, you're bein' stupid again. Of course, he feels the same! You can see it in his eyes when he looks at you or talks about you! I just talked to him a little while ago and I brought you up when we talked 'bout the dance the other night. You shoulda seen him, Rose! He looked like he could cry and fly all at once!"

With a jump Rose wrenched him with a strong arm, whipping him to face her, and stared at his smirking, relaxed face with wide, serious eyes. "You saw him? When? What did he say?"
The man chuckled. He's clearly so very amused by this, Rose thought. Bastard of a boy, he's lucky I like him. "Just a few minutes ago. He's a real nice fella, Rose, talkin' to me even when I snuck into First-Class territory, but I don't even think he noticed, he was so distracted. He didn't say much, just kinda listened."
"Oh, Jack," she cried helplessly, rubbing her face with clammy palms. "I want to speak to him, I must, but I'm so afraid! I must've driven him away with how stupid I was, I know I have!"
He turned her to him, gentler than when she had done the same, and his eyes were aglow as he cradled her face in his calloused hands. "Rose, stop it. Life's too short to be thinkin' about things that ain't true, and if you think he doesn't love you enough to withstand one rejection, then you're bein' really dumb. He does."
"B-But...this is going against everything I've ever known. I'm so afraid," her voice failed her, and for once, Rose DeWitt Bukater allowed herself to be vulnerable in the arms of someone she trusted with her whole soul.
"I know you are, Rose, but I also know you're strong as all hell. Life is way too short to be confined to your people's rules, Rose. You love him and he loves you, so fuck what society thinks!"
She gasped. "Jack!"
He laughed, a conspiratorial giggle as she craned her neck to see if anyone had heard. "Well, you're thinkin' it, too! We all gotta do what our heart tells us to do. I have."
Her eyebrows peaked at the top of her forehead. "You have? How?"

Jack seemed to draw back a bit, loosening his grip on her face but never letting go, looking away from her. He looked unsure, but he wetted his lips and took a deep breath.
"Me and Tommy. We...We kinda got a thing goin'."

Rose could not help the flush which crept up her neck to her cheekbones. She had heard about men being with men and women being with women, but it was considered so verboten it was not even whispered about over the First Class's garnished glasses and seven-course meals.
And yet, she did not feel affected nor repulsed and only wanted to hug Jack and Tommy to her for all eternity.

He gave a nervous laugh and stroked his thumb up to her flaming cheek. "Is this it, Rose? Have I finally driven you away from me?"
"N-No! No, I-I don't mind. I don't mind it at all, I just never—So you're—"
"I'm both. I swing both ways. Bat for both teams, you could say. Never had a thing for a man before, so I guess you and I both can't resist the Irish charm."
Rose sputtered and laughed, as did he and, for once, the urge even for curiosity's sake to spy if the passersby were looking with arched brows and pinched lips escaped her completely. When they calmed, stomachs aching a wonderful pain, Jack gave her a pat to the cheek.

"Last I saw him, he was headed towards the bow. Said something about inspecting the crows' nest or somethin', I dunno. Check there."
She could not help herself and it was like they were two alike magnets as she threw her arms around his neck and held him close, letting warm, relieved tears drip, coloring his brown shirt collar nearly black.
"Thank you, Jack," she said as she kissed his cheek.
"Yeah, yeah. Now get over there before I drag you there myself! Then you'll really have some explainin' to do!"

The bow was basked in orange light and the only sounds which pervaded the air were the whipping of the Union Jack flag above, the ocean beating against the ship's hull below, and Rose's thudding heart which harmonized in tandem with both. She stepped down each stair to the bow deck with careful feet as if she were crossing some sort of physical threshold, and she nearly jumped and ran straight back to the Lounge when she indeed saw a figure clothed in grey, leaning against the rails in front of the center anchor.
She knew it was him, from the attire to the brown and silver hair atop his head and the notebook splayed open in his large hands, a charcoal pencil dancing across a white page. Thankful was she that the wind and the waves were so loud that her footsteps remained unheard, for she was not sure she would be able to withstand him hearing her before she was prepared.
What she said, how she formed her words, how she let her true emotions bleed into them as she never had before could change her life and she knew it, and the very thought had her feet trembling in her heeled slippers.

"Hello, Mr. Andrews," she called without thinking, and the figure started and turned as if a ghost by which he had been haunted all his life, with a frozen gust of air, made a return to torture him once again.

He said nothing, only closed the book and placed it carefully within his inner pocket. His hair scuttled against his forehead in the wind and he blinked, his face downcast and forlorn, expectant of nothing and his hope dry.

Rose could not help the smile that forged its way on her lips as her fingers trembled together. So it's all come to this.
"I-I've changed my mind. No, that's not right. I...I realized you were right. It's not a coincidence, how we feel and so quickly. I-It means something and it means something significant and I...I'd like to find out what it is...with you. That is…if you still desire me."

And then Mr. Andrews smiled.

He smiled, too overcome with relief and emotion for his lips to part and his teeth to show, but instead, they delved within his cheeks as if he were implanting the feeling coursing through him at that moment in a single smile reserved only for her.
Rose walked to him, more confident, more sure of every step until she was right before him, the love radiating like a holy glow and the shades of the sunset mixing together until she was too perfect to possibly be real.
He said nothing still but held out his hand to hers which she took, unapologetically and unwavering.
So this is what right feels like.

"Oh, Rose," he said, Irish accent thick in his whisper, and he pulled her into his arms, wrapping them around her delicate figure as his body seemed to collapse in relief, in a disbelieving windfall.
They held each other as the world around them seemed to change, as the sunset beaming around them seemed to deepen its colors to darker reds and yellows and oranges until it seemed an impossible hue, making acquaintance with the impossibility of their fulfilled love. The earth seemed to cease turning as everything slowly seemed so impossible in its existence, the colors of the sky, the nip of the wind, the ship beneath them. And that very ship, his ship, was carrying them into the future, whatever it was, and for once, Rose was unafraid of it all, of the future and what land would bring unto her.
She began to laugh into his shoulder, her body trembling as they mixed with relieved tears that cooled her burning face. "I feel like I'm flying."
"You are flying, Young Rose. Look," he detangled himself from her gently, cradling her right hand in his left palm like the most beloved flower, how the waiters in First-Class presented silver trays of teas and sweets, and she turned to look out into the vast and endless ocean, the horizon growing closer somehow but never moving.
"Come, Josephine, in my flying machine," he sang quietly, the words almost unintelligible, and she giggled, joining with him as their fingers interlaced. "And it's up she goes, up she goes!"

He was nervous, she could tell; nervous to be free of his solitude, nervous about the fragility of what this was that they had, this meeting of hearts in denial of circumstance. She could tell he wondered when circumstance would become mightier than both of them and swallow them whole, but Rose could not bear to let him think such thoughts, not then, when life had chosen to be so sweet to them.
Her small gentle hand reached to his face, caressing his cheek beneath her palm, studying intently the face of the man who had so shaken the reality she thought she knew.

She could find no magic in those dark eyes, no sort of witchcraft or wizardry which could have enchanted her, but found only a human, kind and modest of temperament, humble of achievement and intelligence. It was all him that bewitched her, pure Thomas Andrews as Thomas Andrews was forged by God to be, that she loved as she never thought she would love in her entire life, and the divine simplicity of it sent her heart and mind reeling, unused to this new beautiful truth.

He turned to look at her, eyes glistening gold in the setting sun, their faces closer than they had been in the Third-Class General Room after they danced their hearts out, closer than even when he had pleaded with her, cramped between the lifeboats, in what seemed like a lifetime ago.
But it felt different, for then their hearts had been almost strangers then, blushing and stumbling about each other in their rushed emotion, but now they were kindred spirits, united and unashamed of their love, no matter how quick or star-crossed it seemed.

Rose delved her fingers gently into his skin, knowing he should never take that first cross of this inception and knew she must for the both of them, and she pulled him closer, slowly enough that it would seem he imagined it if he were to think about it. But all he could think about was the ocean of her eyes and the ruby of her lips as they came so very close to him that all else ceased to exist in his gaze.
They looked to each other's lips, their sole craving for completion, to each other's eyes and were reminded anew of their adoration for one another, and then back again. It was a painful and beautiful impasse in which they had found themselves, and Rose, emboldened by all her new thoughts and actions, was going to surge forward, close the damned gap which had haunted them for their souls' eon but the real world's days, when the most dreadful sound, carried by a southeast wind, reached their ears and tore them apart like a sheet of paper.

The dinner bugle.

Rose clamped her eyes shut, wishing it away like one does an alarm clock or bright bolt of lightning as a frightened child. She looked to him again and his eyes seemed to restore themselves, suited with armor for a return to the real world, and he smiled at her.

"I-I must get to dinner. Mother will be looking for me," she whispered, afraid for her strength should she talk aloud.
"Yes, Young Rose, you must," he nodded, boyish impishness returning to him.
"Will you be there?" It was a beg poorly concealed in a question.
"I'm afraid not. I've neglected dear Dr. O'Loughlin long enough and I'm to dine with him."
A giggle burst through her disappointed front, and she fell more in love with him for it, his next of many displays of kindness and amiability to all.

"When will I see you? I don't think I can bear to wait until tomorrow."
"No, nor I," he pulled her from him, Rose hardly noticing, and led her to walk in the direction of the rest of the ship, the rest of the world in which they still had dues to pay. "Meet me in my stateroom this evening, after dinner. I hate the way I sound when I suggest it. I feel like a scoundrel, I promise you my intentions are honorable, but I'm afraid if we meet in the open we should be faced with a sort of attention that should be helpful to neither of us," he took her hand in his, begging her with his gaze to believe in him. "A-36, on the landing of the Aft Staircase. I will see you then, Young Rose."

Without another word and with a kiss to her fingers which left her chest tingling in some sort of bittersweet prologue, he gave her a polite push to her arms and sent her on her way, as she tried frenetically to recover before she reached her chambers the tatters of her disguise of who she was supposed to be when who she truly was had finally grown beyond its bearings and torn it away. But she did it with a smile, a knowing smile that one only displays when they have the upper hand, a sort of secret knowledge absent in everyone else.

And that secret knowledge was that she would kiss Mr. Thomas Andrews at long last when dinner was through. And with that thought that served as her strength against an eternally browbeating world, she began to hum quietly enough so only she could hear.

Come, Josephine, in my flying machine, going up, all on, goodbye!