Here is the next chappie. I hope everybody likes it. I spent class time writing this. I hope you're grateful. Especially Meytal, thewickedwitchofthewest93, who is now my beta for the Titanic fandom. Yeah, she badgered me so much, she was like, "Pick up a pen and take our a sheet of paper and write!!" It was cray-zee.
Ok, so yeah, I own nothing. I wish I do, but I don't. I don't have anything those people want either.
Oh and before I start, I have one message: I apologize for any typos I may make and not correct in this story. I reread my stories looking for errors, but I probably won't do that until later, so tell me if you see a typo, other than the ones that it's painfully obvious that they're on purpose.
Rose was shocked. Someone had just said her name. Her last name but her name nonetheless. And the woman actually pronounced it right.
"Who are you?" she asked, cautious.
"Molly Conner. I'm a nurse who was watching Jack Dawson. I checked you too, remember? He's locked in a room. I unlocked his handcuffs, but I left the room locked so no one would know I had been there. I had heard that he had been locked up, and I went to help. He's very nice. He's tall, blonde, and pale. But I'm sure that's just because he swam to the boats and was in freezing water for hours with no protection. He's about twenty... does this ring a bell?"
"Yes..." Rose replied, voice trailing off. She was still a bit disoriented and confused. Either she was telling the truth and Jack had sent her here, or she was lying and Cal had sent her here.
"Look, if you didn't believe me, he said I should start singing 'Come Josephine in my flying machine going up she goes, up she goes-"
Rose immediately said, "I believe you." Even Cal didn't know about 'their' song.
Molly's face brightened. "All right. Now that that is settled, we need to move, and fast. I've gotten you two a room, but I would advise you not to leave it once I take you there. Jack tells me this Cal guy will be after his life if he finds out that you two got out. He will find out though. But he doesn't have to find out where you are. The room locks from inside, so you will be relatively safe, unless Cal decides to break the door down, which is against the law."
Rose was so grateful she could barely speak. Here was a woman who was willing to risk quite a lot for someone she knew for a few hours and his girlfriend. If Cal found out she had helped them, he'd be after her life too. Rose hoped Molly knew that.
"You're not safe in the room where Jack is locked, or in here. We have to get you to the rooms I found without anyone noticing. That will be a job in and of itself. Then I will go get Jack and you two will stay till the end of the voyage to New York, then Cal won't bother you. I might though. I need more friends."
"Thank you, thank you so much..."
"Don't mention it. We need to hurry. Come on, quickly."
It was a miracle they were able to get to the room without any of Cal's people noticing. When they did, Molly said, "Make sure you lock it. I will knock four times, then twice to let you know it's me. No scary guessing in this game."
"Thank you so so much, how can we ever-"
"I need to go. Anyway, frantic thank-yous scare me."
Rose smiled and closed the door as Molly left, locking it securely. She didn't want someone bursting in on her. Least of whom Cal. She sat down on the bed and stared around while she waited for Molly and Jack.
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Molly walked along the deck, heading towards the room where Jack was being held.
As she neared the room, she noticed something was wrong. There were no people walking here. She rounded the corner into the hallway where the room was, and a man was standing right near the door, leaning against the wall. He straightened and asked, "What are you doing here, girl?"
Remembering that, to him, she looked like a member of the Carpathia's crew, she lied, "I'm doing rounds to make sure everything is in order and as it should be."
The man sneered. Molly held her blonde head high, looking the man straight in the eye.
"You know what?" he asked, superior smile still pasted on his lips, "I don't think you should be here."
She was trying to be polite as possible, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. "Are you a Titanic survivor?"
It was a perfectly justified question. It was also completely necessary. Anyway, he had a high-class accent (if that exists) and his perfect suit looked as if it had been ruined by water.
"And what if I am?" he said snottily. She almost thought he wasn't a survivor. Most survivors looked haunted and sad. He didn't. Even the passengers on the Carpathia were shaken by a thing they had only heard about. This man looked like he had no problems. Like the Titanic was not sitting, in pieces, at the bottom of the ocean with thousands of frozen people. But he had to be a survivor.
"If you are," she answered, completely cool to his superiority, "then you don't have any right to tell me where I can or cannot go. You have no right to any of the rooms on this boat, unless loaned to you by their passengers. Since that is not the case, I have every right to go in there and do my job."
He hit her across the face then shoved her to the ground. "Do not question me!" he snarled, looking for all the world like a spoiled dog confronting someone who had eaten out of its food dish. "I can do worse to you than you can to me! What can you do anyway? Report me to your captain?"
He would have continued to rant, if his shouting had not brought a cabin boy who was a friend of Molly's by the name of Joe. He ran over to her and helped her up. She was still sitting on the floor where the man had pushed her. She didn't need the help, but it looked like she needed to be brought back to her senses. Joe asked her what had happened, and she told him. The man was led away by Joe, but the only punishment he would get would be a fine, no problem for someone of his apparent wealth.
She walked over to the room. No doubt Jack had heard everything. She opened the door and stopped dead.
The room was completely empty. Jack was gone. Molly's stomach turned over when she saw there was a bloodstain on the floor.
Then the truth came rushing over her, so sudden it nearly knocked her down again.
That man had been Cal. He had had Jack moved, then stood 'guard' on the empty room and tried to prevent people from figuring out the truth. Jack was either somewhere else on the boat or... She didn't want to think about it. While transporting him, Jack must have hurt one of the men, or they had hurt him. Whoever had taken the wound, it was a bad one. She needed to go back and tell Rose what happened, then they needed to think of a new plan.
She walked back, knocked four times, then twice, and the door immediately opened. Rose's face was lit up, then fell when she saw Jack wasn't with Molly. Rose ushered her inside and Molly quickly told her the whole story (leaving out the bloodstain; it would have given Rose a heart attack). Rose confirmed that the man had been Cal from the description Molly had given her.
When Molly finished talking, Rose whispered, "We have to find Jack. Who knows what they'll do to him?" Molly could tell that her mind was thinking up the worst case scenario, not very good if they wanted to think up a plan.
"I'm going to be the one who ends up doing the finding. You need to stay here, or I might never see you again. You'd be married to Cal in a heartbeat. And Jack will be dead." At the horror on Rose's face, Molly quickly said "I'm sorry. I'm too blunt. That probably wouldn't happen, but you aren't the only one think up worst case scenarios."
Rose forced a smile and nodded, but she didn't seem very convinced. Molly cursed her fat mouth.
"Anyway," she said hurriedly, "I'm going to go try to find where he's being held now. As soon as you are off this boat there isn't much he can do to you, but we have to find Jack before the boat docks, or God knows what will happen to him."
Molly left, and Rose locked the door, sat down, and sighed. She hated sitting helpless while other people did the things that mattered. For all intents and purposes, right now, she was just here to look decorative. She sniggered when she looked in the mirror. She did not look the least bit pretty. Her face was pale, her hair was messy, and her clothes were ragged. But before she was only there to look nice, not to be of any use. It was a wonder Cal wanted her so badly.
Jack doesn't see you as just pretty, said a voice at the back of her head, (A/N- Rose is NOT schizophrenic) Jack knows that you are more that first class allows you to be.
As soon as Molly found Jack, and the two of them got off this God-forsaken boat, away from Cal, she would do something constructive. She would not just be a delicate little flower anymore.
As Rose was comforting herself with these thoughts, Molly was beginning to panic. She had been searching for ten minutes, and still had not even found a clue. She had searched the whole top deck, and half the second. Then it hit her. She felt totally stupid for no thinking of it before. He wouldn't be towards the top. He would be held near the bottom.
She immediately took a flight of stairs all the way to the bottom deck, just above the engine room. She began searching from the bottom up. On the second t last deck, she found it. A man was standing in front of a door with a lock on the outside. This had to be it. One comforting thought was that Cal wouldn't guard a dead body. The thought made her shudder.
She immediately thought of a plan. It was so simple, yet so dangerous. She went quickly back to Rose's room. She knocked, and as soon as rose opened it and she was inside she asked her one thing before telling her the plan.
"Rose, can you run fast?" Rose nodded, and Molly shocked the other girl with on sentence. A simple one, really. It was amazing how much effect a few words strung together cold have on someone.
"Good, because Jack's life, and your freedom, depend on it."
You hate me, don't you? Don't worry, I'll do my best to update again tonight. You won't be waiting so long. I hope. Thanks to Meytal, however grudgingly, who looked over this and told me it didn't suck. She did not hesitate in telling me how much she hated me for the end of this chapter, though. She wanted to read the next one as I wrote it. Sorry, Moo-Mey. Not this time.
Tootles! (gotta love and hate Sharpay Evans...)
Jennarnoldthefemalepurplepygmypuff (the one and only)