December 22, 1918

Rose

The evenings pass, turning from Fall into Winter, though the season in Santa Monica is mild compared to what Rose experienced as a child in Philadelphia. The days grow shorter, the nights cooler, and so does her heart. It's difficult to remain hopeful when the war has been over for more than a month, and there's still no word from her husband– not one telegram from the army, not one backdated letter from Jack, nothing. She doesn't want to give up hope, but as time goes on, the probable truth of it all becomes easier and easier to accept.

Rose has managed for so long on her own, in all of this. Will anything really change from where things sit now, if Jack never comes home?

Still, one evening, she's doing the dishes at the kitchen sink after having put the children to bed, and something she'd never expected happens.

The room is dimly lit, with only the light over the dining table on, casting the room in a warm golden glow. The radio in the living room is on, but not too loudly so that she doesn't keep the children awake, but Rose finds herself singing along to it in a soft voice, all to herself. Her bare feet shift against the cool tile of the kitchen. Rose dries another plate and sets it in the cabinet in time to hear a knock at her door, and she wonders how long whoever it is has been at the door without her noticing. Not many people have cause to visit at such an hour– Mother had made no such plans known to her.

The knocking sounds insistent. "Just a minute," She calls, setting the half-damp towel to rest on their dining table. Rose ties her dressing gown around herself better, so as to not appear too underdressed for whoever is stopping by. But when she opens the door, her heart stops inside her chest.

"Hi," Jack says to her, a soft, bashful smile on his face, like he'd been nervous.

The noise she makes is somewhere between a cry and gasp; it comes out a desperate sob, and all at once she's reaching for Jack and being pulled into his arms. "Oh, hey," He whispers against her hair while her tears are soaking through his shirt to his skin. A shuddering breath leaves her, eyes closed, a kiss pressed to Jack's neck, her hand over his heart. It's beating, She catches herself thinking. He's alive. He's warm, he's breathing. It's been a year and a half, and finally the worst thoughts she could ever think are being put to rest. "I know– I know I surprised you–"

"I don't care, I don't care," She says, picking her head up from his shoulder. Rose blinks at her tears, and she lets her hands slide up his chest to his cheek. He's a bit dirty and pale– he looks like he hasn't seen the sun in weeks. There's still a gleam in his eyes, but it looks a bit sad now, and his hair is a tad long and overgrown, flopping down over his forehead and into his eyes. He's still hers, and that's what matters. For better or worse. "I don't care, Jack. I'm just– I'm just so glad you're here,"

When kisses her, she's seventeen again, on the bow with him, wrapped in his arms. The sun is fading ahead of them, and she can't feel the cold of the wind, only Jack's warmth, and she doesn't have a care in the world. "Never go away again," Rose whispers against his lips in the few moments they can bear to part. Both of them are crying, breaths warm on one another's faces. Another kiss, as Jack's hands are pulling through her hair, and hers are roving over his back. "Never." She gasps, his lips warm and insistent against hers. "Never, Jack, promise me."

"I won't," He promises. Jack means it, with every beat of his heart, with every bone in his body. Nothing could ever take him from her again. Nothing. "I promise, I won't. It was terrible being without you. I never want to have to go through that again." It's late, they should be sleeping. They will, in time. For the moment, Jack is still too in awe of her presence to sleep.

"I didn't have one good night of sleep the entire time you were away," Rose tells him, her voice shaking and her entire body trembling with it. "It was so terrible, Jack. When I found out you were missing…"

Jack feels her tears against his skin, though he can't see them with how close they are, in the dark of the living room. He kisses them away. "It's alright," He promises her. "It's all over now,"

Rose sniffs against him and pulls back a little. "Someone's been waiting to meet you," She says, her voice soft but her eyes suddenly alight with excitement. Now it's Jack who can feel himself shaking, who can feel all the blood rushing from his head– but he's determined not to faint. Rose is beaming at him in the semi-darkness. Her fingers curl into his shirt, lips brushing against his cheek. "Are you– are you ready to see her?"

Her. Jack swallows, breathing hard against his wife. Of course, He wants to say. Absolutely. But his words have failed him, because there are no words that would do for this, none in the whole world that could convey the joy and longing and mess of other emotions in the last months, how badly he wants to meet his daughter. He nods.

"Okay," Rose smiles, a laugh playing in her voice, an amused sparkle in her eyes at his speechlessness. She slips out of his arms to close the door and takes his coat to hang up, but keeps hold of his hand and leads him down the hall to the spare room; it had been the spare room when he left. Now, however… Jack swallows at the sight of the cheery blue color of the door, his heart racing inside his chest. Then, Rose pushes open the door, and, moving quietly so as to not wake Josephine and Tommy, crosses the room to the cradle. There's a baby in it.

"You're supposed to be sleeping, Miss," She whispers to the infant, who's looking up at her with eyes that shine bright in the soft blue shadows. She's in a tiny white nightgown, bare feet kicking at the air, and makes a little cooing noise when Rose talks to her. "I have someone special here to see you, though. Maybe you knew? Maybe that's why you're awake," She looks up from the cradle, back at him. "This is Ada," Rose says with a smile, her fingers brushing over their child's fingers. "Ada Mae Dawson, this is your Father,"

"Ada Mae," He grins, lowering a hand down to the baby, to touch her soft cheek and feel her breathing. Jack doesn't even try to hide the way his heart melts at her name, he just lets it take him. He knows he's crying– he can feel the tears on his face, and their little daughter makes a noise when one of his tears lands on her. "You named her after my Mother,"

"We talked about it once, a long time ago," She answers him, resting a hand on his shoulder as he's leaning down to look at the baby. "It just felt right,"

Rose reaches down into the cradle and takes Ada in her arms. She makes a sweet little noise when her mother picks her up. Jack holds out his arms when she approaches him and he realizes what she's going to do. Rose puts the baby in his arms– she's warm and heavy, and looks up at him with curiosity, like she doesn't know what to make of him. It's alright, though. Jack knew it would be that way, he's a stranger to her. She's never been held by him before, it might take a bit for her to warm up to him. I've got all the time in the world now. "Hello, Sweetheart," He whispers to her, as Rose crosses the room to light a small lamp, just enough for them to see by. She returns to hover at his side. "Hi. I'm your Dad," She squeaks, wrinkling her nose in the way that infants do. "I know, I know," He assures her. "We'll just have to get to know one another better, huh?

"She's so beautiful," Jack tells Rose, turning to her as Ada grasps at one of his fingers. She looks like you, is what he means. In the dim light of the oil lamp, he can see the downy red curls covering Ada's scalp, like her mother's hair.

"She is," Rose hums beside him, resting a hand on Ada's chest to sooth her while she's being held by a stranger.

"Was it very difficult? The birth?" Jack looks at her, finally able to tear his eyes away from their daughter. In the lamplight, he has a much better look at her than he did at the door. Her hair is loose and billowing around her shoulders, and she's wrapped in her purple dressing gown, skin aglow and eyes warm. She doesn't look like she's changed at all, but for having a general air of being a bit more worn out than she was when he left– but then, she's been managing two and then three children on her own for more than a year.

A soft smile curls onto her face, a coy look in her eyes that refuses to give away more than she says. "It wasn't so bad," Rose eventually settles on. "But she came backwards. Like I did."

They stay like that for a long time, Rose and him whispering songs to the baby and rocking her until their arms ache and eventually, she falls asleep. His wife sets Ada back in the cradle, and lays a kiss on her head while Jack goes to put the lamp out. Somewhere in the middle, their hands meet again. "I guess we've got a lot to talk about," He says.

"We do," Rose nods, pulling him close to her, arms settling around his waist, her nose brushing against his jaw. He smells the same as he always did, like mint and smoke. She wants to know the rest of him again, to spend the night in his arms. "But we don't have to do that now. It's late. That's something for tomorrow," She says. And all the days after. "First, tonight is ours,"

"Okay," He agrees, laying a tender kiss on her brow, and letting Rose lead them from the nursery into their bedroom down the hall.

The clothes come off, one by one, first his shirt and then her dressing gown slipping from her shoulders, but then onto his trousers and Rose pulling her nightdress over her head. There's stumbling and laughter when he tries to take off his shoes, and messy kisses as they reacquaint one another in a strange sort of dance. Eventually, they find their way to the bed, Rose's legs curling around him as they come together. There are kisses– on each other's faces, and necks, and other places, for they have all night– but there are also tears. Jack spends the night relearning the curves and bumps and scars of Rose's body, even though he could never really forget. Rose feels the new scars on him more than she sees them– it's easier to be unfettered and free in the dark like this, even though they can't get enough of the sight of one another. She pays her love to those scars as much as she can, and Jack finds himself kissing at the new marks over where she carried Ada.

They rock into one another, chasing oblivion and hiding moans inside kisses, and eventually, there's a breathless release and neither of them feel so much like strangers to one another anymore. It just feels right, familiar, like it always did. When Rose curls into his arms afterward, and he smells the lingering remnants of Lily of The Valley perfume on her neck, he knows that he's home.

December 23, 1918

The daylight through one of their bedroom windows is what wakes her– sunlight in her eyes and breaths fluttering on her skin, and the gleam of golden hair, and warmth wrapped around her. There's a weight on the other side of the bed, where there hasn't been in more than a year. A glance at the clock on her vanity tells her that it's far too early for their children to be up.

Rose sighs; she'd like to snuggle closer to Jack, but she's afraid that any movement from her will wake him. She's spoken to one or two other women whose husbands had come home before him– they weren't the same, they were more jumpy and slept lighter. She settles for watching him while he sleeps, soaking in his presence, the warmth of him, his soft breaths and steady heartbeat. The sunlight shines a golden outline around the fine bone structure in his face. It catches on his eyelashes and on his hair, lighting them up in a pretty way. Rose lets herself lean up a little to press a kiss to his forehead, and when she does, she feels his legs shift against hers.

His eyes are open when she looks back down, still the same stunning shade of aquamarine they were when he left, gorgeous in the morning light. "Hello," Rose whispers.

"Hello," He answers. Jack leans forward to kiss her, slow and sweet, drawing her closer in his embrace. Her hands tangle in his hair, and then he rolls over onto his back, dragging her to sit astride him, her soft nightgown drawn up around her hips.

"I'm never letting you leave again," She vows in a low voice, smiling as she kisses her way down his neck with abandon. Jack's hands travel across her body, arms to back and across her ribs and hips, setting her skin on fire through the thin fabric. His blue eyes look up at her, amused, and then he smiles. Rose knows by the look on his face that he wants to kiss her again. Her auburn curls fall around them, glowing coppery-red in the sun, and acting as a curtain to separate them from the rest of the room. "You're just going to have to stay here all day,"

He leans up, chasing her lips with his and manages to nip her a little before she pushes him back down on the bed with a laugh. His hand slips down her waist and over the curve of her hip to squeeze her bottom playfully. "I'd be alright with that. We've got lost time to make up for."

Rose's hand brushed over his shoulder, where some puckered white scars were. She'd felt old ones and new ones last night, but it was different to see them in daylight. She can see small white marks around some of the larger ones, the marks of clumsy stitches– she wonders idly about who made them. There's a large one at his hairline, tracing across his temple onto his forehead a little and then vanishing. It must have been a horrid gash when he first got it– forehead wounds always bleed profusely– but now it's just a pale raised line across his skin. Rose leans down, and she kisses one of the scars on her shoulder, and then the one on his forehead. "You were wounded,"

"You had a baby," Jack counters. One of his hands slips between them, fingers brushing across her belly.

"You went missing," She says. "And I was so upset that I almost went after you," Rose confesses.

"You were in a film," He says. "More than one. And by the time we found our way again… I didn't know what to say to you."

Rose sits back, letting her hands slide across Jack's bare chest. "I guess we do have a lot to talk about," She muses, more to herself than to him.

Jack swallows, and averts his eyes. "I have things I should tell you," he announces, rubbing her hips in what seems to be a soothing gesture. "Things I'm not proud of."

"I do, too." She answers. Rose sighs, looking out the window at the perfect day, the sunlight and at the ocean. "I don't want to do this now," She admits. Why air all the dirty laundry inside the first day of his return, why sully such a happy occasion? I don't want to remember the things I'm not proud of at this moment. "Or even today. I want… right now, I just want to be happy, Jack. We have all the time in the world to… to get to know one another again, to be sad or angry at ourselves, at each other. We've waited so long to just be together again, I… I want to enjoy this. Anything else, we'll… we'll talk about everything later. Soon, just…"

Jack takes her hands in his, and sits up underneath her on the bed. He kisses the hollow of her breastbone, just above the slipping neckline of her nightdress, and looks up at her through long golden eyelashes. "I can do that," He promises her, arms curling around her waist. Rose leans down and lets her lips find his. "Where are the kids?" Jack mutters through their kisses, both of them falling back down into the soft linens of their mattress and pillows. Heat swells in her stomach, heart racing. "Is the door locked?"

"No," She breathes, easily letting the passion consume her again. "But it's six in the morning on a Saturday," Rose would be thoroughly surprised if they had even stirred at this time of day. "They'll be out of it for at least an hour yet. We've got time,"

"There's a lot we could do in an hour," He says with a devilish grin. Again. Jack's hands creep up under her nightgown, teasing her thighs and hips, and stroking the heat between her legs. I've forgotten how good he is with his hands, Rose bit her tongue, stifling a moan. She kisses him hard, tongue going over his lips and in his mouth. Her hands pull through his hair- the way Jack's looking at her sets her on fire. "Let's have another one,"

She breaks their kiss, laughing as her body arcs against his, "We already have more kids than we know what to do with,"

"So?" Her husband smirks, kissing her again and again. Rose admits she wasn't completely averse to the idea; the children doubled their love, they didn't divide it. Rose loved her children more than words could say, and Jack was a wonderful father to them. The thought of another- one more- a baby that Jack didn't have to miss out on any part of thanks to war, was certainly not unwelcome. Except…

"So, you're not the one that has to do the carrying and birthing and nursing," Rose laughs. "I thought we didn't want six, remember? Besides, I just had Ada, it hasn't even been a year yet, Jack…"

"We'll figure out something to do with them. It's like us, to do something like this, isn't it? We always seem to bring good things out of disasters,"

That was true. … A child made out of relief. Rose sighs, looking down at him. Jack smiles up at her– Truly, he's very hard to say no to. "I'll think about it," Rose shakes her head at the ceiling. She looks back down at him. "But if we do, this is the last one! Four is enough, Mister!" She insists, poking him in the chest.

"Alright, alright," Jack laughs, kissing her again. Her face flushes with heat at the look he's giving her. After six years, most wouldn't think that her husband could still fluster Rose, but they'd be dead wrong. He starts to speak in a low voice, pupils blown wide with affection, "Now, since we have time, what do you say we get started-"

"Daddy! Daddy, Daddy!"

Just like that, her and Jack transition into parent mode, as Josephine and Tommy come busting into the bedroom. Rose quickly slid off of him to lay at his side, pulling her nightgown back over her hips. I should've locked the door, She thinks, shooting a look at Jack.

"Good morning, sweetheart," Jack smiled, kissing their small Daughter on the forehead. Without any ado, she hops up on the bed with them, her brother Tommy toddling right behind her with a sunny grin.

"You're home!" Jo exclaims, "I knew it was you, I heard your voice!"

"Your father got in late last night," Rose smiles, picking Thomas up from the floor and settling him on her lap. He promptly begins playing with her loose hair. "We didn't want to wake you."

"You could've," She pouts, clinging to Jack's side with no obvious intent to release him anytime soon. "Daddy– we– we missed you so much," Josephine tells him, looking up at him with big blue eyes– eyes she got from him. Rose reaches over and runs her fingers through her daughter's blonde curls, messy from sleep.

Jack kisses Jo's forehead, and then Rose's when she leans over. "I missed you all too," He answers, putting his spare arm around Rose and holding her and Thomas close. He's got a soft grin on his face as he looks at all of them, his dimples showing, but there's a touch of sadness in his eyes yet which betrays him, and whatever pain it is he doesn't want to talk about yet. Rose expects it will linger there for a little while longer, and that's alright. We're all a little banged up right now, She assures herself, and lets her head rest on Jack's bare shoulder. "You both got so big since I left!" Her husband deftly changes the topic of conversation, remarking on Josephine's height and how Thomas is walking on his own, and talking much more. "I don't believe it. And you got a new sister, too? What do you guys think of that?"

After a little, Ada does start to cry, hungry for breakfast, so Rose leaves their bed to fetch the baby, and comes back to nurse her, not wanting to miss a moment now that Jack has returned. That brings talk of the other's breakfast, and what they should have– Thomas wants pancakes, Josephine wants eggs, Jack would be content with anything other than army food, and she really should call Mother to let her know that Jack's returned– but none of them seem interested in moving. In fact, if she could, Rose would live in this moment forever, with Jack and their children in her arms, in their bed wrapped in sheets and blankets and bathed in sunlight. Right now, she has everything she needs. Right now, there's nothing else in the whole world that she wants.

June 10, 1919

Chippewa Falls

"It's been a while," Jack says to his parents headstones. "I know Rose and I haven't been here as often as we should have." Seven years, it's been since he and Rose left his house in Chippewa Falls, headed west to a tiny apartment waiting for them in Santa Monica. "We… Rose and I had our daughter the winter after we were last here. Actually, we've got three kids now. Right, Ada?"

Ada blows a raspberry-kiss into his neck. Jack cracks a smile. She's more than a year old now, but he's only known her for all of six months. Jack sits down on the grass in front of the graves, and puts his daughter down beside him, where she promptly begins to pull up fistfulls of the verdant grass in front of her. Earlier, she had been entranced with his Mother's Lilies of the Valley, and now small white bouquets rest against the aging grey headstones, the growth of lichens in the shady spot more substantial than ever.

The healing had come slow over the last few months, but it was coming. He didn't wake from nightmares so much anymore, and Rose slept easier with him there, too– so she said. The past months have been time spent together with their family, for the most part. Rose had been in a stage production in the spring, and Jack had picked up his drawing tools again. She had started writing more, as well– It helps me clear my head, his wife explained one day, when he found stories jotted down about their adventures during the sinking and of her grief during the war.

Their art is how they end up talking to one another about the war. With his drawings, he's able to tell her about his time in the trenches, and of his friends who died, and of Colette and the weeks spent south of Compiegne, thoughts of never returning to the war when he had the chance. It's Rose who takes the shame and hurt and regret off his shoulders, and from her he takes loneliness and guilt, and despair. In letters she wrote while he was missing, she tells him the things she can't bear to say in words– of her struggle dealing with her pregnancy alone, of how when she discovered he was missing, she nearly went to france as a nurse, of Cal's cryptic visit to her and of her conflict over Ian's attentions in the final months of the war.

For all of the worrying on both of their parts, neither of them has it in them to be jealous. What happened, happened. And the little of it that did, there was no undoing. There was only forgiveness– forgiveness for being blind and desperate, forgiveness for being lonely and unsure. They move past it together.

One day, she finds it in her to tell him that she doesn't think You jump, I jump, quite works the same way between them now as it once did, not with the children they have to take care of. But that's okay– everything changes, everything ends. Rose and him have more of a foundation to their relationship now than just plunging ahead and daring the other to pull back.

She comes up to sit beside him and Ada on the grass, pressing close with an arm around his waist. He feels the line of her nose against his skin, the flutter of her eyelashes. Rose makes a soft noise in the back of her throat as she kisses his cheek, and then he feels her mouth curve into a smile. "I see someone found the flowers," She teases.

Jack brings her hand up to the back of Rose's head, pulling through her newly-shorn red curls. After her play had finished, she'd made an executive decision to cut her hair into a shorter bob-style which was becoming more and more popular these days. It was as much for the purpose of getting new roles in films as it was due to the fact that Thomas and Ada had both gotten very grabby of late, and she didn't enjoy having her hair getting pulled on and dirty. She'd surprised him with the new style one day when he came home from drawing at the pier, not certain how he'd feel about the loss of her picturesque raphaelite curls, but Jack had proclaimed the new haircut 'very sexy' and whisked her off to the bedroom as though they were teenagers again.

"She did," Jack answers with a soft smile. "I think she could've stayed there for hours if I hadn't brought her to sit with them," He nods at the headstones. "What did you miss?" Jack asks her after a moment. It's a game they've played with one another in the months since he came home, telling one another what they missed in their absence. At the start, it was easy– things like the way they smelled or sharing the bed, but now they're forced to come up with more and more ridiculous things.

His wife cracks a smile, "Stealing your shoes," She laughs.

"I guess," Jack says with a laugh. "You know, when I came back, I kind of forgot how big your feet are,"

"You did not!"

"I did,"

"Liar," Rose kisses him. She pulls back and rests a hand on their daughter's head, still blissfully playing with the grass. Her fingers brush through the soft red curls. "What did you miss?" She asks him with sweet blue eyes.

"Sitting in coffee shops with your paintings and making bets about how many people recognize you," He answers, and then, after a moment, "And winning,"

She snorts, "You haven't won once since you came back, as far as I'm concerned you still miss it."

"I intend to best you yet," Jack counters. "Where are Tommy and Josephine?"

'Thomas fell asleep and Jo was reading some of your old books, last I saw," Rose answers. "I'm so glad we decided to come here," She sighs, letting her head lean on his shoulder. Once she finished with her play, since Jack had freedom of his own hours, they'd decided to return to the house in Chippewa Falls for two weeks. It was nice to return to the place where they'd spent the first few days of their marriage, and to show the children pieces of Jack's past. They planned the trip just in time for when the flowers were starting to bloom. "Josephine said something about wanting to watch the stars tonight,"

"It should be a clear sky," He answers, looking upwards at what he can see of the bright blue day through the green of the willow overhead. Jack looks back at Rose and her sparkling eyes, the blue there equally vivid and easy to get lost in. "Maybe we'll see a shooting star,"

"Why?" Rose asks, a sweet smile playing on her lips, her red curls fluttering in the wind. "What would you wish for?"

She echoes a question he had once asked her years ago, and it makes him smile. Then, she could have asked for the moon and he would have found a way to give it to her. Now, it was just as true. But for himself… You. You, always you, His heart answers. Wishes never seemed far from reality, with Rose. Her gaze is patient, waiting. Jack smiles when he leans closer to her, and says, "To keep something I already have,"

I'm sorry that the first scene changes perspective so much– I wanted both perspectives because of what an emotionally charged moment the reunion was, but I didn't want to disrupt it all with line breaks. I feel it works reasonably well now, with a bouncy perspective rather than forcing it down one path.

I had wanted to write a full on sex scene for their reunion, but it didn't seem to fit here. The more graphic scenes like that fit much better early in the story, with their newer relationship– throughout the story I gradually stopped writing them without even meaning to, as the tone changed and their relationship developed to be about much more than just the physical intimacy of it all. It didn't seem fitting to go back to that style just for the end, it would have felt jarring. I understand if you're disappointed at the lack of a play-by-play love scene of whose hands were where and what was being done… because as a reader, I love those scenes too, and it's great to be a fly on the wall. But creatively, it didn't fit. It's also one of my favorite facts that 'sexy' is historically a slang term in use during this time period. I had to work it in before the story ended. I wanted to give Rose the 1920s bob-haircut, and this seemed the best place to get it in– in the movie we see that one of her pictures has her with bleach-blonde hair, which also came into style in the 20s, so the haircut is a precursor to it.

One of the stories I remember hearing from on-set of Titanic was that Kate and Leo would sometimes swap shoes– since Kate is taller and thus has larger feet. I meant to work in a comment about them stealing one another's shoes before now, but I obviously forgot, so here it is. I have no idea how true the story is, but it's very cute either way.

Do Jack and Rose end up having six children? If they do, we'll never know about it. I'm not planning on adding any more to this series, but they are very enthusiastic about the um… making of children. I had thought about showing them in the epilogue a few years down the line with whatever post-war child they decided to have, but it just didn't seem to fit. For the record, I would also like to say that I can definitely see these two having an 'oops' baby in their later years as well.

Thanks so much to everyone who supported me as I was writing this, especially to those individuals who commented– your feedback means so much to me, truly. This story is officially and finally, complete. This was a really fun story to write, and I'm so happy to have actually completed a writing project, which I haven't done for a long time. I don't know if I'll return to the Titanic Fandom– at the moment, I'm going to say probably not, but things change and you never know. For my readers, I'm not certain that I'll be returning to this site with future projects- I don't enjoy the format and posting process- but again, never say never, and you can always find me on AO3. I'm really excited to work on other projects, both fanfic and otherwise. I hope to see you all around again, and wish you many thanks, and all the best for your future!