AN: This may/may not be my last chapter for a while; I have to go get my laptop exchanged for a new one because one of the mouse buttons isn't working. So, if I can't update for a while, when I get back, I promise I'll have, like, three chapters! Thanks! Oh, and I know that Rose wouldn't live until 2012, but this is fiction. So imagine. ~Georgia
Rose's POV
"Come, Josephine, in my flying machine..."
Everything was muddled. The only noise was the stirring of the waves, and even that sounded as if she were underwater.
"And it's up she goes, up she goes..."
She sensed Jack's hand in hers, but just barely. Her whole body was numbed with cold; it was painful to breathe. She could only wait. Wait for death. For life. For something.
"Come, Josephine, in my flying..."
She never finished. A dim light, but light all the same, bathed her deathly pale face.
Words. Someone was saying something, though she couldn't hear... Life had come. Hope surged through her.
Her hearing began to come to focus. She shook Jack's hand gently and croaked, "Jack." Get up, Jack.
No response.
As Rose lifted herself up to grasp Jack with both of her hands, she heard the cracking of ice as her hair left the frozen surface of the debris she was floating on.
"Jack," she repeated, shaking him a little harder. "Jack." Why won't he wake up?
She turned to look at the boat, which was skimming across the water slowly. The crew was pushing lifeless people out of the way as they went on. No! Don't leave!
More words were being spoken, but she was too worried about Jack to notice. There's a boat! Why won't he wake up? They'll pass us up, we'll be left here to...
Die.
"Jack. There's a boat! Jack," she whispered hoarsely, still shaking him harder, becoming more frantic by the second.
She kept shaking him. Her hope was diminishing as fast as it had come. No... He... He couldn't... No! God, please...
"Jack..." Please. "Jack." Please! "Jack!" Tears were falling, turning to ice on her cheeks. "There's a boat, Jack!"
"Jack..."
The realization hit her... like a thousand knives stabbing her, all over her body. Jack wouldn't be waking up. He was busy making plans with God.
"There's a boat..." And it was floating away.
Rose put her head on Jack's hands, sobbing silently. I cannot live without him.
"Promise me you'll survive."
Now or never.
"Promise me now, Rose, and never let go of that promise."
"I promise."
"Come back..." she tried to call out. "Come back. Come back. Come back! Come back... come back... come back!" Her voice came out as a whisper; they would never hear her at this rate.
"Can anyone hear me?" a voice shouted, coming from the boat.
"There's nothing here, sir," another said.
"Come back. Come back!" Turn around!
She looked at Jack, and pulled his frozen hand from the wood. "I'll never let go. I promise." She kissed him, and released him into the depths of the ocean, her heart shattering like millions of fragments of glass. Never.
Rose slowly slid off of the debris, paddling over to a frozen man with a whistle in his mouth. She took it, and blew.
Life came back slowly, though she wished it would go away.
100 years later...
"Scientist Robert Allen discovered a body at the bottom of the Atlantic nearly four weeks ago. It seemed impossible, but doctors and scientists have nursed him back to health, and he is now conscious. The odd thing is, folks, that the man at the bottom of the ocean bore clothes from the early-1900s, as well as an early-1900s hairstyle. They have detected signs of hypothermia and pneumonia. Therapists will be talking with this man until his identity is clarified." A picture of the man appeared on the screen.
A very elderly Rose stared at the picture in disbelief. "Holy hell."