I looked at the man who held me. I was so weak I could not sit up. We stared at each other for a long time. At that moment I felt too hopeless to hate. Once more the world had crumpled from underneath me and all I could do was lie there like a broken doll.
"It's nice to know something like bomb could bring us together," I said hoarsely. I did not take my eyes off of Cal.
"Rose…" he began to say. "Oh God, Rose…"
"You know," I closed my eyes slowly and smiled, "when Jack died…I had to rip my hand from his…the cold…and the rigor mortis. I thought he was in his twenties, but he was really nineteen. Did you know that?" I paused. Cal said nothing. "Have many people died today? The air's clear now. Are there many dead?" I inquired.
"Rose, please. You must hear me." He propped me up on his lap so that I could more easily look him in the eye. "Emily…" he shut his eyes in pain. "She may be dying. They took her away to the hospital. I love her more than my own children, but I had to find you. Emily told me you were alive. Then I asked Calvert. I had to see you." Then he remembered himself. Where we were. What had happened this day. "Where are you hurt?" He took his hand to wipe the blood from my mouth. I winced from his touch at first, but at that moment I needed a hand to stroke my face.
"I wasn't here for the explosion, Cal. That's not what's killing me today."
Realizing, Cal lifted me off the ground. My head fell limply against his chest.
Twenty minutes earlier
Emily Dawson lay still on a stretcher. Cal watched from a distance as George knelt over her.
"Kid, kid, look at me." George turned Emily's face to him. He brushed her limp, ash-caked hair away from her face. She opened her eyes.
"Is she alive?" she said.
"Who? Rose? I haven't seen her. How do you feel?" He asked, vainly trying to conceal his panic. Emily shook her head. "Do you mean 'he'? Is Cal alright? I saw him. He'll be just fine. Look, kiddo…"
"Is she alright?" Emily lightly touched her middle with her index finger. George remembered the pool of blood between her legs. Gazing at the dried blood on her skirt, George took her Emily's hand and said nothing. Emily knew. "No, George. The baby…you have to help her!" She tried to sit up and clutched Calvert's shirtsleeves. "Please!"
"Calm down, I'm beggin' ya. You hit the ground flying. That's not the only part we're worrying about. Oh, kid…there is no baby anymore." He held her as she cried out.
Medics loaded Emily into an ambulance minutes later. George walked up to Cal after he separated himself from his dying friend.
"Mr. Calvert, I…" Cal stopped. George opened his mouth, but Cal put up his hand. "Do you—do you know about your friend Rose? That she may not be who she says—"
"Rose DeWitt Bukater. Yes, I know. I fished her out of the street just weeks after Titanic went down." George smiled knowingly, "You don't get a whole lot of information, do you? You should ask Holden where he's been lately." He winced. The slight was meant at Cal, but George was overcome by hurt and a strange anger toward Holden. "I'll make a deal with you…you like deals, don't you?" Calvert's comforting-save-the-victims demeanor had vanished.
"Well, we're probably both used to deals."
"Me? Why because I'm cop I must be corrupt. Or perhaps I'm some penny-pinching Jew. We all are, right? Shut up for once in your life. Help me help these people." He stretched out his hands to the ruin and death before them. "If you do this, I will do all in my power to help you…with anything, with the events of the other night…anything. And…" he said, "if you find Rose, bring her to me. Or just let me know that she's okay." He did not know about the letter at this point.
George began to walk away.
"She's a dangerous woman to love," Cal called after him.
George did not turn around.
"Put me on my feet," I demanded as Cal carried me in the direction of the nearest ambulance. Cal kept walking. "I can walk," I said, growing stronger. "I order you to put me down!" He stopped and looked at me and I looked at him. He obeyed, placing me gingerly on the ground, but did not let go. He was still holding me to his breast. "I can walk. You may release me." He slowly backed away, hesitating once only his hands held my arms. "I need a doctor, but not now. Let the victims have the ambulances, alright?"
Cal nodded.
"Calvert is here."
I looked at my former fiancé. I spent so many years perfecting my hatred for him. Did I love him once? I wondered.
"Naturally," I consented, unconsciously putting a hand to my chest. Emily read the letter; George would soon know its contents. Oh, I would lose both of them forever. "I'm a nurse, certified. I was in France during the War. Take to me to someone who needs help."
"Sir, hold still," I said loud and steady to a bloodied man in a business suit. I pressed my hands on his stomach and he moaned. "Doctor!" I called to a man in a white coat.
"Nurse Dawson," I rolled off quickly. "This man has head trauma and may be bleeding internally. There's nothing we can do for him here. Do you have any more empty stretchers?"
"Make him comfortable, Miss Dalton. I'll be back," he waived me off and strolled away, indifferently surveying the damage.
"Damn doctors," I whispered under my breath. I knelt back down to the man and stroked his face. "You'll be just fine. Just stay calm and stay with me. My name is Rose."
It was near two in the morning once I reached home. I tried to get in to see Emily that day, but the doctors at the hospital would not allow. The doctor's insisted that there was no one of that name there. Calvert or Emily herself must have checked her in under a false name. I had known about the man she shot.
I threw myself on Emily's bed and gazed at the Dawson family portrait. I touched the glass over the image of Jack. I missed him terribly at this moment. Oh, had he lived…life would be as it should be. I felt as though I'd been struck with boulder all over my body. I grabbed the frame and pressed it to my breast, curling up into a fetal position on the bed and giving myself to nostalgia and memory.
I tried so hard to picture that night before the iceberg. Jack in all his wonder and glory… But the nostalgia did not last. He would hate me now if I could see me now and what I'd become. But it was not his wrath I feared.
Suddenly, something hit the ground. I moved my chin over the side of the bed to see. It was the Heart of the Ocean. My eyes moved to a large pair of feet and I let out a small cry.
"Returning your jewelry, Miss DeWitt Bukater." I was seeing George's face for the first time since we kissed that summer. His massive self towered over mine as I still laid crumpled on the bed. My God, he looked ominous. "Speak."
"George…I—"
"You what? Lied? Keep a secret from Emily thus nearly killing her? Yes!" I could not answer. "I knew who you were and I kept quiet. Wasn't it our special unspoken rule? I thought you did what you did for a reason. You didn't even tell me a thing, but I believed you. I believed in you. Why for the love of God did you never mention Jack Dawson? He was her cousin for Godssake! Do you know what you done!"
"You were not there!" I raised myself up to my knees. I was still on the bed.
"Did you tell Holden? He knew you. He knew about Titanic too. Did you tell him about Dawson?"
"No!"
"I have seen the elephant, Rose! I wasn't on Titanic, but I've been there. Oh, I've been there. Do you think you alone can own one man's memory? Do you think you can own someone's memory when he had a family? If, if she lives, Emily might be crazy forever. She is shattered. It's not trauma, Rose, it's selfishness. And cowardice. You're worse than Hockley!"
In a rage, he slammed his gun on the nightstand.
"Oh, you have no evidence for that," said I menacingly.
"Remind me the next time I try to put myself on the line for you. Preferably before I'm dead as a result."
"You're a sick bastard," I told him.
"Tell me one thing you've told me that's true. I trusted you!" He stopped, groping for breath. He pointed at me, his finger inches from my face. "I trusted you with more than my life. I will never forgive this sin."
He backed away slowly and walked out of the room. The front door slammed a moment later and I fell into a coughing fit, spraying blood on Emily's sheets.
I knew then I had to get away. I would have to take control of one last thing in my life. I did not tell George I was ill—there was no point. If I was going to die I could at least choose the place. There was only one person who could tell me where that place was.
I forgot how much I liked the Waldorf. It had been so long since I stayed there. It had been so long since I had been surrounded by the money with which I grew up. Once more, I ventured back into my old territory. The adrenaline was coursing through my body, giving me a marvelous high. My gloved hand wrapped itself around the cold metal inside the pocket of my trench coat. There was no amount of money, status, education, no drug and no love affair that can make a human being feel this kind of power.
This was madness.
I carried myself with the air of money and importance thus hiding my mad intentions and modest clothes. When reached my destination, I pounded on the door. The very moment the knob turned I kicked the door, knocking Cal to the floor.
I bent down to pick him up by the collar. He was a not a small man, but somehow I managed quite easily to pull his nose to mine. His feet were jumbled under him as he tried to regain balance. I could smell his breath; he had been drinking.
I kissed him quick and hard on the mouth and pushed him away, pulling George's gun out of my pocket in time to strike him across the face with it before he hit the floor again.
Here he was. The first man to touch me. The first man to hurt me. The man who fired on Jack and me, chasing us into the bowels of a sinking ship. The man whom I gave responsibility for the death of beloved Jack. The man, who, knowing all this, slipped his slippery, good-for-nothing self inside Emily Dawson. Killed Jack. Fucked Emily. Ruined my life. And he was at my mercy.
"Hello, darling. I've come to talk about old times." I smiled madly.
Cal, bleeding from the mouth and nose and crawling pathetically on the ground, looked up at me. "I never knew you wore glasses," he remarked.
"Brain trauma, Hockley! My vision's impaired! Next question! Did you know I could kill you like a dog right now?" said I.
Voices were calling from the hall. Cal struggled to his feet and ran to the door, still pointing my gun at him I warned: "Don't go running. I'm not afraid of being caught."
He acquiesced, calling: "Just a little accident! No need, no need! Sorry for the disturbance, gentleman" and closed the door.
"If there's a gun on stage, does it have to go off?" I asked. "I tell you it feels nice to be aiming the gun at you for once. It feels so intoxicating, I cannot begin to explain. Too bad the hotel's not sinking. Tell me something, did you kill to win a spot on a lifeboat too?"
We were both sitting on the floor by now, a mere yard from one another. I was still pointing my gun.
"You know, darling…can I call you 'darling'?—I've been reliving the past today and it just feels right. Well, you know, darling, together we've managed to destroy an entire generation of one family. One hell of a team we are."
"Do you love him?"
Jack's voice was in my head again: Do you love him?
I lowered my gun.
"What?"
"I can see how much you love him and I admire fiercely for it…though I am saddened that it must all come to this…we two demolishers left to suffer without the ones we love—"
"Shut up," I said, weakly picking up my gun again. "Shut up! I can't do anything for Jack now nor he for me…but yes, you miserable bastard, I loved him."
"Wrong verb tense, Rose. We're not in the past, we're in the present. I was not talking about Jack Dawson. You know of whom I speak.
"The hell you know what's in my heart! How dare you condescend! If you ever did I might never have left! But you're you and there's nothing to be done," I spat venomously.
"There's obviously something to be done. You came to me. If you're going to kill me, you'd better do it sooner rather than later."
I laughed wearily.
"Cal," I said. "I don't have to gall to shoot you. It was mere fantasy. But it's nice to wield the power for a moment, no?" I shook my head, calmer now. I pulled my gloves off my hands and pushed my glasses further up my nose.
I laughed again and Cal with me.
"I—I don't," he paused, fighting through his chuckles, "I don't know what's so funny!"
"Me neither!" I laughed too.
"We're mad!"
"The greatest part—the most wonderful part, is I can talk so freely of these things to you, but for eight years—no one else!—yet I think I still hate you! It's absurd! Amazingly absurd! It's crazy!" I rolled on the ground in a fit of laughter that quickly turned to another fit of coughing. Cal moved closer, but did not touch me. He waited until I was done, got to his feet and grabbed a wash cloth from the bathroom.
"Here," he said quietly.
"I forgot how soft these towels were. I was so blind to such riches once. Now it's blinding. Strange," I shrugged as I wiped the blood from my hands. I tried to put on a casual air, but I felt so weak. I tried to stand up and fell.
"How serious is it?" asked Cal as I knelt on the floor on all fours.
"Enough," I nodded, "I told you I'm a nurse. I was in the war. Saw Holden. Slept with Holden…" I meant that to be a punch to the head, but I wasn't feeling so spiteful at the moment. I wanted to attack his vanity, but he did not have much left at the moment. Cal did not raise an eye-brow at my vulgarity. The world had turned upside down before and it did it again that day. Telling him I had copulated with his brother was probably up there with telling him he had something between his teeth. "Anyway, I know what T.B. looks like."
"Can I help you…in anyway? Please, I don't know what to make of you now, but I know I cannot watch you die."
"You don't have to watch, Hockley," I shrugged. "Can I ask a favor of an enemy?"
"I'm only your enemy if you wish it."
"Where is my mother?" I looked up at him, feeling truly vulnerable. "My…my mother." There was a pang in my heart so deep. "I must see her. I've done her the worst, no matter what George and Emily say. I killed her child…Cal, where is my mother? I must go to her."
Cal remained quiet for what seemed like hours, but was probably a mere moment. I began to shake, fearing the worst answer might come.
"Where she's always been. I give her an allowance to maintain your family's home. She's on East River Drive. She seldom leaves the property. I haven't actually seen her in nearly two years. I can take you there—"
"No," I said. "I will go alone."