Chapter Thirty-Six
January 8th, 1914
New York City, New York
Jack had to blink rapidly to be sure he was seeing straight. Even Tim himself was still reeling by who he was confronted with. Both the men stood in an extended awkward silence, each second causing a new tensity to form in their shoulders.
"Tim," Jack finally found his voice, "w-what're you doin' here?"
"I was here to check on Rose... after her fall," He replied, rather dazed, "What are you...?" Slowly his eyes drifted past Jack to lay on Rose. Her bruise was very noticeable from where he stood, but it's not what he was fixated on. Rose's eyes were glassy, some tears falling down her cheeks. Her shoulders rose and fell heavily and she pressed her palm to her lips, disappearing onto the other side of Jack. Tim's eyes went back to Jack, who was gripping the door and standing entirely still. Tim's hazel eyes darted all over Jack's face, scrutinizing every detail.
Finally, Tim shifted the weight between his feet and said quietly, "So your Rose... is the same Rose as mine?" Jack still remained silent, his eyes slowly lowering away from Tim's, "Jack Barnes isn't your real name, is it?" Jack simply shook his head, "What is it, then?"
Jack looked to Tim with his chilling blue eyes, "It's Jack Dawson."
Tim's mouth opened, but for a moment, no sound came out. He licked his lips and glanced up and down the hallway, "I need to speak with Rose."
My cards on the table... What about yours? Jack swallowed roughly and nodded, opening the door wider. Hesitantly, Tim came through the door. He looked around the familar apartment for a moment before he turned to face Rose, who was gripping the back of a loveseat. Her stomach was tossing again and she thought she was going to be sick, right there, all over the carpet. Tim's eyes nearly pierced straight through her. Her heart nearly stopped beating. Jack closed the door, pressing his back against it. His eyes only hovered on Tim.
"Are you okay?" Tim asked, which threw Rose off guard. She only stared at him. Again, Tim shuffled his feet, digging his hands into the pockets of his trench coat, "It looks like you hit your head pretty good. Did the doctor give you a good outlook?"
"Yes," Rose said, breathily. She nodded rather stiffly, "I'm going to be fine."
Tim nodded and looked to the carpet for a moment, heaving a sigh, "I was coming over here to check on you... and I thought maybe we could talk," Tim looked between Jack and Rose, "But now... I guess I understand your question. What is there to discuss?"
"Tim, you have no idea how badly I wanted to tell you," The words came out faster than what she expected. Tears sprung to her eyes and she clung to the loveseat before her, "There's so much about me, so much about my past, that I could never bring myself to say to you. I didn't think it'd be fair to burden you. I... I'm horribly sorry."
"You didn't want to burden me?" Tim echoed, hurt oozing his voice, "Rose, the biggest burden was knowing you had things to say to me that you wouldn't. Do you have any idea how much that hurts? I worked so damn hard to make you comfortable, to get you to trust me. I wanted nothing more than for you to be happy. For us to be happy, together."
Rose's breathing shallowed as the tears continued down her flushed face. She took a large unsteady breath, looking to Tim, "I just couldn't say it, Tim."
"Just like you couldn't tell me you loved me," Tim replied evenly, holding direct eye contact with her. He paused, glancing to Jack, "So, this is the hero, right? The one who saved the girl?"
"When I started seeing you, I had no idea he was alive," Rose said, coming from behind the loveseat. She stopped abruptly, however, as the smell of sandalwood reached her nose. Her stomach constricted tightly and she balled her hands into fists, "I... I took his name after I thought he died," Rose said behind clenched teeth, willing every fiber in her body to not allow her to throw up, "I thought he had gone down with the Titanic."
"You left your fiancé for him?" Tim asked, arching his eyebrows, "So, all this time I've been thinking you're haunted by your decisions with your mother and Cal, you've really been ruminating over the loss of a lover? This entire time, you couldn't tell me that you had found true love?" Tim ran his hand along his jaw, obviously bothered, "If we couldn't talk about true love... then..." Tim grew quiet, "This entire time I thought we had something, Rose. But we didn't. We never did."
Rose blinked rapidly, her eyelashes heavy with tears, "I told you, Tim," She said with a pinched voice, "It wasn't you. It was me."
"What did I do wrong?" Tim asked quietly. The grandfather clock ticked persistently behind him. Rose was quiet for awhile, clenching her nails tightly to her palms.
"Nothing," Rose finally whispered, "You have no control over the timing of things, Tim."
"And all this time..." Tim turned his head towards Jack, "Your friendly advice telling me to move on... was just so you could re-secure your relationship with Rose?"
"I didn't think we would ever see each other again," Jack said, his voice slightly husky, "The first time I went to your office... I was just... mad," Jack shrugged, "Mad about life and I wanted to see what you looked like. I never expected anything to come of it, Tim."
Tim fell silent and looked towards the open windows, listening to the cicadas hum as night time came alive. Rose's breaths were still curt and short. She struggled to even keep herself on her feet as she watched Tim in the warm candle light before her. She couldn't help but hate herself more than ever. She really still was that cowardly God-fearing little girl. She still couldn't rely on her own two feet to hold her firm or for her voice to carry. The salty tears stung her eyes as she was forced to confront and live in the skin of what she considered to be a monster.
"Our time together was special," Rose whispered, making Tim look to her, "I'll never forget any of the things you did for me, Tim. I was in a dark place and you lit a candle for me. I'm sorry... if I burnt you with that very candle."
Tim looked towards the door behind Jack fleetingly before he licked his lips, "Why didn't you think you could tell me about him?" His hazel eyes gazed towards Rose, "What stopped you?"
Rose sighed and looked towards the wintry night just beyond the open window panes. She eventually shrugged and looked back towards the ever-patient lawyer, who simply wanted his answers. Rose licked her lips, "I don't know... I didn't tell anybody in my life about him. I kept him locked away in a part of my heart that I thought I would never open again," She paused, lowering her eyes to the carpet, "All those memories... our time together. I simply put it in a capsule, doomed to only exist in my mind."
"And what about him makes you so drawn to him?" Tim asked gently, as if Jack was not there.
"The same thing that drew me to you," Rose croaked. She still was trying to catch her breath, as if she had run a mile, "Something about both of your eyes... the way you looked at me," Rose said as the sound of the Atlantic Ocean began to wash through her ears, "He didn't look at me like I was an object to be attained. You didn't look at me with lust. Neither of you undressed me with your eyes. There's only a few difference..." Rose paused, meeting Tim's eyes.
Tim nodded, the candle light bobbing in the lens of his glasses. He lowered his head for a moment and cleared his throat, "All this time I've spent with you... you've spent pining over Jack."
"That's not-"
"You were trying to convince yourself I was Jack's replacement," Tim continued, "Even though we're nothing alike, Rose."
"I was wrong," Her voice rose unsteadily and for the slightest moment, she felt a surge of blood towards her head. She paused, biting down on her lip as her entire body radiated, "I acted foolishly and I know that. I've hurt people. I've damaged things when it could have been avoided. I know that, Tim. If I could go back in time and change all of that, I would, without a moment of hesitation."
"What would you change?" Tim asked, holding his arms out at his side.
Rose's face was hard as stone, "I would have jumped off the Titanic, like I was going to. Before Jack stopped me."
Tim froze, staring at Rose. Even Jack stood up straighter now, his lips slightly parting, as together, both the men stared flabberghasted at the trembling crying woman. Rose lowered her eyes and her shoulders bucked as the sobs now ripped up her throat. She pressed her palms to her face as it grew a frustrating red. She staggered back, leaning against the arm of the loveseat as the tears came. She was simply exhausted and had no power to fight it, so she simply let it come. She hated it, though. She wanted to be strong and here she was, broken down, like an old junky-car on the side of a forgotten country road. She felt the car still had more worth than her in that moment.
"Rose," Tim's voice came through her sobs and she hiccuped as she swallowed the next, shakily raising her head to look between the two men in the room, "Please, don't cry. It breaks my heart to watch."
Rose sniffled, rubbing away more tears from swollen eyes. She sighed unevenly and closed her eyes, "Your hands. They're smooth."
"What?" Tim knit his eyebrows together. Rose now gazed across the room at him.
"I was told to pay attention to people's hands," Rose replied, her head throbbing, "Yours just didn't... electrify me, in a way. I'm sorry."
"So... this is it," Tim asked, his face covered in hurt, "We'll... never see each other again."
"We will at the diner," Rose told him, "You're still welcome to eat there."
"But we won't see each other... outside of the diner anymore?"
"Maybe on the streets," Rose shrugged and lowered her eyes, "There are so many of them weaving throughout this city. And there might be hundreds of thousands of people here, but," She paused and looked to Tim, "You still manage to bump into the same ones again and again."
Tim's eyes became glassy in the candle light and he bowed his head. In his pocket, he gripped the velvet box containing her engagement ring. He thought he would break it under the tremendous force. It felt as if his heart had been ripped into two. How did he miss all the signs? How did she go under his radar for so long? He had thought the world of Rose and just like that, it was entirely gone. Tim lifted the box from his pocket and cradled it in his hand, gazing down on it. Rose looked to the box as well, the lightheaded feeling returning. She gripped the arm of the loveseat beside her thighs. Jack racked his hand through his hair and paced a few steps towards the writing desk.
"I saw an entire lifetime ahead of us, Rose," Tim croaked, still staring at the velvet box that glittered in the candle light, "I thought, whatever it was, we could overcome it. Become one. Work as a unit together against this world," He licked his lips and a few tears fell from his eyes. It hurt Rose to see him cry, she felt it physically, "I thought we were growing something beautiful together. Something we could live off, together. I just thought... we were going to be together."
"This isn't what I intended to happen," Rose told him, "It wasn't supposed to be like this."
"Misery is infectious."
Jack slowly turned his head towards Tim, who was already looking at him. Tim sighed and shook his head, his hazel eyes never leaving Jack's stare. Tim tucked the box into the pocket of his trench coat and wandered towards the door.
He looked one last time towards Rose, his eyes momentarily flickering towards Jack, "I hope you enjoy your time together," And with that, he let himself out.
...
January 9th, 1914
New York City, New York
The wind and snow were howling that morning when Jack and Rose woke up, not long after dawn. Rose's entire body ached and she opted to take a bath. She closed the bathroom behind her and pressed her back to the cool wood for a moment, letting it seep into her skin. She got the water running to a warm temperature. Slowly, she undressed, glancing at herself in the mirror. She could hardly stand to look at herself. She clipped her curls atop her head and slowly sank into the warm water. She tilted her head back against the tile and sighed.
As she lay there in the water, her hands slowly gravitated towards her stomach. Rose tenderly prodded at her skin, feeling the smallest little lump in her abdomen. She couldn't believe there was life growing inside of her. Rose lifted her head, looking to her body beneath the ripples in the surface. After a moment, a small smile grew across her face. A baby. What a ridiculous blessing in disguise, she thought. She decided it could be a pivotal moment for her. A chance to really get herself together. She laughed to herself, her voice echoing in the small tile bathroom.
Jack came in the bathroom at the sound of her voice, not quite sure what to expect. But what he was confronted with relaxed him and even made him grin. There she was, though tired and feeling unwell, looked so beautiful in the bathtub. Her porcelain skin glowed in the overhead light, her hair on her head looking like a mountain of fire. She was smiling, her shoulders bobbing and rippling the water with each one of her chuckles.
"What's so funny?" He asked, sitting on the edge of the tub and pressing his back to the cool tile.
"It's really just dawned on me that we're having a baby."
Jack looked down to Rose, running his hands along her wet shoulders, "We really are. What a crazy time, huh?"
"Crazy, indeed," Rose sighed as Jack gently massaged her shoulders, "I honestly don't know what to do with myself anymore, Jack."
"What do you mean?" He knit his eyebrows together, grazing his fingers over the nape of her neck and making her shudder.
"Did you see what I did to him last night?" Rose asked, staring straight ahead at the shiney spigot, "I destroyed his heart, like a fiend. You gave me advice and I... I failed to listen and look at the even bigger mess I've created now."
"This will surely just blow all over," Jack replied optimistically, "You know Tim, big ol' time cruncher and calculator. The past will become the past soon enough, Rose."
"He's going to tell his mother about me," Rose sighed, wiping her hand across her face.
"Who cares? You never have to see any of them again," Jack shrugged.
"My mother told me one time that I left destruction in my wake," Rose tilted her head to gaze up at Jack, "She told me that right before a debutaunte ball. The same one I would meet Cal at. I ruined everything as a child and that night, I tried to do her right and still, I picked the worst one of the lot. And now, I've failed with Tim and royally hurt him. My mother was right. I am the destruction, Jack."
Jack gripped Rose's shoulders tenderly and whispered, "Don't let her be right. Don't let this destruction burn away to ashes. Get a bucket of water and a broom and clean it up, Rose. And clean it up how you want to. Not how you think someone else would," He brought his thumb up to graze her cheek, "You're not the destructive fiend you think you are."
"But I don't know what to do," Rose whispered, "I'm afraid if I speak to Tim, I'll only do more damage."
"You'll find your moment," Jack assured her, tucking his thumb under her chin. He tilted her head further up and dipped down for a gentle kiss, "But for right now, why don't you relax? I hear babies know when their mother's are stressed."
Rose sighed and smiled, pressing her damp forehead to Jack's chin. They gripped each other tenderly as both their minds wandered away to the same question: What now?