Oh my gosh, where do I start? First, thank you, thank you for the reviews. I appreciate them more than I can say.

Kate, Lilly, arubanprincess and G.W., you guys are so sweet. I'm so glad that this story is meeting your expectations of Rose and I hope to continue doing it justice.

Lilly and Meghann, okay here goes. I'm just going to go with what I feel and that is I think she and Cal didn't do the deed. I think Cal wanted to, but I'm just not sure Rose would have. Whether she did or not remains James Cameron's little secret, lol. SO, with that being said, I'll continue to live in a world where Rose only gave herself to Jack. It's much easier on me if I go with that.

Now, this chapter is longer than most of them. It's a little more involved because this is their 'getting to know you' period. I also changed the chapter title because I didn't like the one the DVD had for it. Plus, I added the deleted scene of Rose going down into the 3rd Class to find Jack. Writing the movie, it almost didn't make sense without it, plus I just liked it, lol.

Oh and Insect Lover, don't worry, I will be sure to make Fabrizio's scenes most memorable. I know how you love him and I will try to do him justice in my story. I will use the advice you gave me and incoroporate that when I get the steerage party scene.

Okay, enough babbling. On with the story...

Chapter Eight

Hello Again

The next morning I awoke early and had Trudy help me into a butter yellow day dress that I wore over a white, silk shirtwaist. Leaving the stateroom before anyone knew was gone, I made my way down into the lower part of the ship. I had a purpose and that purpose was to find Jack Dawson, even if that meant going to third class to do it.

I was a bit nervous when I passed through the gate that separated third class from the rest of the ship. I received a few strange stares, but I was not to be deterred from my mission. I walked further and further down until I saw a large opening where people were either going down into or coming up from. As I neared it I heard the sound of piano being played and that's when I realized that it was a gathering place for the third class passengers.

I slowly made my way down the stairs and as I reached the bottom I was well aware of the people stopping to stare at me. I continued on, searching for Jack as I did. He had to be down here, he just had to be. I smiled anxiously walking through the crowd as more and more people turned their eyes on me. That's when I saw him. He was sitting on a bench surrounded by a group of people.

A handsome young Italian man tapped him on the shoulder alerting him to my presence. As soon as he saw me, a look of surprise came across his face and he immediately stood to face me. I walked up to him and smiled.

"Hello, Mr. Dawson."

"Hello, again," he responded, but it was obvious he was aware of the stares we were receiving.

"May I speak with you?"

"Yeah," he motioned for me to sit down on the bench. That was not what I had in mind when I came here to find him. Hoping that we could be alone, I asked him if we could speak in private.

"Yes, of course," he answered quickly and reached for the book he had been holding when I walked up.

We went upon deck and stopped at the nearby rail. I felt awkward now that he was in front of me and wasn't sure how to tell him what I had on my mind. Jack seemed to sense my discomfort right away.

"Look at that sky. We're sure having good weather," he pointed upwards.

Glancing up, I nodded slightly. "Yes, the weather has been lovely."

"I've always loved being in the outdoors. I was never much for staying indoors even as a kid. I would get up at the crack of dawn and be gone all day. I'd tramp in the woods, making trails and such. I even built a fort up in a tree one time."

"Sounds wonderful," I told him. I had never done anything like that in my life. As a child, my life consisted of lessons of all kinds. Riding lessons, French lessons, lessons in etiquette and speech just to name a few. There were a few free moments, but they were not very often. As I listened to Jack, I felt very envious of the life he had led.

He motioned for me to follow him and so I did. We walked along and talked together. He told me of his life in Chippewa Falls; his parents, his friends and all of the mischievous things he did as a boy. I was captivated by his stories and found myself laughing at his antics. Jack had lived quite a life and in spite of being poor, he was happy and content to be so.

We passed through the gate that separated third class from first class and walked down the promenade deck and up to the boat deck. The stares we received were obvious but Jack didn't seem to mind. He smiled and greeted them as if he belonged there with me.

"Do your parents still live in Chippewa Falls?" I asked him.

"No," he shook his head. "My folks died a while back."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"That's okay, you didn't know," he shrugged. "I've been on my own since I was fifteen, since my folks died. And, I had no brothers or sisters, or close kin in that part of the country so I lit on outta there and I haven't been back since. You can just call me tumbleweed blowing in the wind." He laughed, as did I, at his joke. But, suddenly his tone turned serious. "Well, Rose, we've walked about a mile around this boat deck and chewed over how great the weather's been and how I grew up, but I reckon that's not why you came to talk to me, is it?"

The words I had so carefully formed in my mind now seemed so hollow. Jack was a genuine person, there was nothing superficial or shallow about him at all. He was what he was and wasn't ashamed of it. He lived a real life, not one carefully mapped out for him where he had no choices to make. He made life choices everyday and they were his to make and no one else's.

Still, I had sought him out to thank him for what he had done and so I proceeded. "Mr. Dawson, I-"

"Jack," he interrupted me quickly.

"Jack," I continued. "I want to thank you for what you did. Not just for pulling me back, but for your discretion."

"Your welcome," he nodded and glanced over at me.

Talking to him about his life, about how he had lived it made me realize how I must have appeared to him. I'm sure to him it seemed as if I had everything, but for some strange reason I wanted him to know I was not one the people that milled around us as we walked along. "Look, I know what you must be thinking," I said to him. "Poor little rich girl. What does she know about misery?"

Suddenly he stopped and looked at me. "No, no that's not what I was thinking. What I was thinking was, what could have happened to this girl to make her think she had no way out?"

His words were so sincere and earnest that I felt myself crumble beneath them. I had never met anyone like Jack Dawson. He didn't hide from his feelings… he didn't tuck them away in a velvet box for safe keeping. I stepped forward to the rail and before I knew it, it was rushing out of me.

"Well, it was everything. My whole world and all the people in it. And the inertia of my life, plunging ahead and me powerless to stop it." I lifted my hand then to show him my engagement ring, to perhaps try and explain to him the hopelessness I had been feeling the night before.

"God!" he exclaimed. "Look at that thing. You woulda gone straight to the bottom."

"Five hundred invitations have gone out," I continued. Now that I had started it was like a floodgate had opened. "All of Philadelphia society will be there and all the while I feel as if I'm standing in the middle of a crowded room screaming at the top of my lungs and no one even looks up."

As the words rushed out of me, I couldn't believe that I had said them, but even as I thought that, I felt as if a load had been lifted from me. That is until Jack looked at me, almost as if he could see into my soul.

"Do you love him?" he asked quietly.

"Pardon me?" I was astonished at his forwardness. I realized then that I had given too much away. "You're being very rude. You shouldn't be asking me this," I said to cover the uneasiness his question had stirred in me.

"Well, it's a simple question. Do you love the guy or not?"

Straightforward. That's what Jack was and I was taken aback by it. No one I had ever known spoke so plainly. I wasn't sure how to respond to it, so I slipped into the person I was most comfortable with, the one I had been trained all of my life to be.

"This is not a suitable conversation," I told him in a dismissive tone, but Jack was not going to be dismissed so easily.

"Why can't you just answer the question?" he bluntly asked me.

I didn't know how to respond to his bold honesty. I couldn't possibly tell him my true feelings toward Cal. As comfortable as I may have felt with him up until this point, that was something I was not prepared to disclose to him or anyone else. So, I laughed and stepped away from him to remove myself from his penetrating stare.

"This is absurd," I said in my best haughty voice. "You don't know me and I don't know you and we are not having this conversation at all. You are rude and uncouth and presumptuous and I'm leaving now. Jack, Mr. Dawson," I put my hand out to shake his. "It's been a pleasure. I sought you out to thank you and now I have thanked you-"

"And you've insulted me," he grinned at me, not the least be affected at my attempts to put distance between us.

"Well, you deserved it," I said as we stood there ridiculously still shaking hands.

"Right," he nodded.

"Right," I agreed. I had never had a conversation like this with anyone. He grin grew wider as we continued to stand there facing each other.

"I thought you were leaving?"

"I am," I declared and dropped his hand. I started to turn away but I was immediately drawn back to him. I don't know if it was his smile or his honesty or what it was, but I didn't want to leave him. I just didn't know how to do it without being obvious about it. "You're so annoying," I threw out, which earned me a chuckle from him. "Wait," I came back toward him. "I don't have to leave, this is my part of the ship. You leave." I pointed toward the gate.

He really laughed then and lifted his hand to grab a thick rope that was overhead. "Well, well, well, now who's being rude?"

How effortlessly Jack put me at ease. He was teasing me now and I liked it. Looking for anything to keep it going, and yet not wanting to seem eager about it, I grabbed the leather book he was holding.

"What is this stupid thing you're carrying around?" I opened it and saw that it was drawings. "So, what are you, an artist or something?"

As I looked through his charcoal drawings I knew immediately that Jack was very talented. I was amazed at his artistry and his ability to capture the essence of his subject. I walked over to a deck chair and sat down. "These are rather good," I said as I looked them over. "They're very good actually."

I lifted one of a mother nursing her child. It was so simple and yet so powerful in its simplicity. I looked over at him, amazed that he could capture something so beautiful and natural within this drawing. I turned the page to see one of a child being held in the strong hands of her father.

"Jack, this is exquisite work," I told him as he sat down next to me.

"Ah, they didn't think too much them in old Paree'," he answered with a hint of disappointment.

"Paris?" I turned to him. He nodded in response.

"You do get around for a poor-" I stopped suddenly, aware of how rude that sounded. "Well, a person of limited means."

"Go on, I'm a poor guy," he laughed at my awkwardness. "You can say it."

I smiled, feeling even more at ease with him. When I next turned the next page, the drawing I saw was not like the others had been. This was a nude drawing of a woman lying prone on her side. "Well, well, well," I acknowledged it. Turning the page, there was yet another set of nudes, one of the girl sitting and one of her standing. "These were drawn from life?" I asked, curious now.

Before he could answer me, a man walked closely past us. I pulled the book cover down and waited for him to pass. Jack didn't seem to mind at all.

"Well, that's one good thing about Paris. Lots of girls willing to take their clothes off."

I was a bit shocked at his comment at first, but seeing his face I then found it amusing. He was teasing me again, not taking himself seriously at all. I turned back to the drawings and there was yet again another nude of the girl. "You liked this woman," I noted. "You've used her several times."

"Well," he pulled a drawing out and showed it to me. "She had beautiful hands… see."

She did have beautiful hands, made even more so by Jack's ability to capture them. There was so much emotion in his strokes that she had to have been more to him than a subject to be drawn. "You must have had a love affair with her."

"No, no, no, just with her hands," he quickly amended my thought process. "She was a one legged prostitute… see." He held up yet another drawing and he was right. She had only one leg, the other removed from the thigh down. I nearly gasped at this revelation. Jack laughed at my response and shook his head.

"Ah, she had a good sense of humor though." He lifted another sheet for me. "Oh, and this lady."

I looked down at the drawing of an older woman sitting at a bar. The look on her face said so much; longing, sadness, emptiness. Jack had captured them all so effectively you could almost feel her pain.

"She used to sit at this bar every night wearing every piece of jewelry she owned just waiting for her long lost love. They called her Madame Bijou. See how her clothes are all moth eaten?"

There was no denying his talent. Jack was artist in every sense of the word. "Well, you have a gift, Jack. You do." I told him. "You see people."

"I see you," he said intently as he stared at me.

I smiled and lifted my head. "And?" I asked coyly.

"You wouldn't of jumped," he answered in such a matter of fact tone that it took me off guard. It was as if he had reached into my soul and saw the real me, the one I kept so safely hidden away from the world. It was disconcerting to be so exposed, but I didn't feel threatened by it. If anything it made me sad because I knew the person that Jack saw in me, was the person I would never be free to be.