Disclaimer: I own nothing. Other than Samuel, Samuel's unnamed wife, Virginia Matthews, unnamed son #1, Beatrice Lane, unnamed daughter # 1, Peter, random director guy, and Jean-Luc.
Again, just to clarify, I own none of James Cameron's Titanic characters. Those other one that I listed are all made up by me.
"What now, Cal?" Rose asked, sounding exasperated as she continued walking down a long hall towards her room. Her, his ex-fiancée in question, kept walking as if she had never talked and he continued to follow her.
Admittedly, he had been more than a bit stunned to see that Rose had a room in this hotel. For one, he was staying here. Two, if she had been here six months like she said, how was she affording to stay in a place like this. More than that, the top floor of this hotel was all suites.
"Can we talk, perhaps? Please?" Maybe it was because she had seen him crying earlier and thought he was someone else, or maybe it was because the look on his face looked as if she had just driven over his brand new puppy, or more accurately, taken all his money away from him and made him live like some third classman.
"Fine," she sighed, opening the door to her suite and stepping inside, flicking on the lights. There was a big bouquet of red roses in a crystal vase on the sitting room table. "Not again. 'Rose,'" she read from the card, "'you're a doll. Never worked with an actress as wonderful as you. -Samuel.'" She rolled her eyes, moving around the room and then into the other room, muttering something that sounded like, "You wouldn't be thinking that if I hadn't saved your little wifey's life and brought her home with me. No, because then the two of you wouldn't have met."
Meanwhile, she hadn't returned from what appeared to be the bedroom, leaving Cal standing awkwardly in the doorway. When she walked back in the room, she poured herself a brandy and sat down on the divan, lighting a cigarette and taking a drag from it. She motioned to the plush armchair.
"Well, aren't you going to sit or are you going to stand there all night?" Cal moved awkwardly to the chair, and Rose watched, rather amused from the divan. He looked like a schoolboy who was admitting to the headmaster that he had done something wrong. "What? Want one?" she asked as she caught him staring. He had never stared so openly at her before, but then again, all his walls seemed so far down tonight and Rose was actually finding it amusing. She had the upper hand. Cal was in her world now, not the other way around. He shook his head, and when she spoke again, her voice was low and dangerous. "Last I remember, you rather enjoyed cigars and brandy."
Cal flinched. Good, she thought, she had struck a nerve.
He choked to find the words. He wasn't used to Rose acting like this. He realized he didn't know the woman in front of him at all. She had to be in her twenties and she had to be pretty well off, considering her fancy dresses and lavish suite.
"You changed your clothes," he noted her changing in outfits from when she entered the room to when she entered from the bedroom.
"Give a man a prize," she said sarcastically, taking another drag from her cigarette.
"Why?" he choked out.
"Well for one, the studio owns that dress. It's absolutely priceless," then seeing the opportunity, she couldn't help but add, "like something else I know of." He didn't make a move. He didn't flinch, he didn't confirm nor deny. He did nothing. Rose stared at him, stunned. "My God, that's why you're here isn't it? For some stupid necklace. Well I hate to break it to you, but it's at the bottom of the ocean with the rest of that godforsaken ship." She stood, "You can let yourself out," she told him, marching into the bedroom and shutting the door.
Something in Cal seemed to snap. He didn't care about that necklace, not now. His ex-fiancée who had supposedly died on the Titanic eight years ago had been sitting in the same room as him. He thought it was only right for him to be… well… shocked at the recent discovery.
"Rose," he said, walking to her bedroom door, "I'm not here for the necklace. If you had it, it was yours to do want ever you wanted with it." He felt himself sliding to the floor, unaware that on the other side of the door, she did the same thing. "I wanted to apologize," he finally was able to say. "I hurt you and made your life miserable and I'm sorry. I'm sorry what happened there. I'm sorry Dawson-" he coughed out finally, "died."
"How did you know he's dead?" Her voice came from the other side of the door, sounding more like the sixteen-year-old girl he hand known when they first got engaged. She sounded lost and scared. He didn't know how to react.
"I sent out private investigators," he finally admitted, "I gave them your name and his, pictures of you, a miserable sketch of him, hoping that if I found one of you, I would find the other. They couldn't find you. Everyone just assumed you had died. Father finally got sick of it after three years. He threatened to cut me out, forced me to marry a woman that made me wonder why I hadn't just stayed on that ship. I would have been better off."
"How so?" she whispered. He would like to think that some of the tears that he could hear from her voice were for him, but he knew they probably weren't. Even so, he wanted to make her laugh. He wanted her to smile and not acting cold towards him. He wanted his Rose, his sweet Rose back.
"Well," he started, wracking his brain to figure out something to make her laugh or at least smile, "I wouldn't have had to listen to her, for one. Listening to her try to act smart was antagonizing, unreasonable torture. Listening to her in general was cruel and unusual torture."
Then he heard it. A small laugh muffled by a hand came from the other side of the door. "That's awful, Cal," she said softly.
"Your mother," he continued softly, "she blamed herself that you had died. We even had a funeral for you. She found ways to support herself pretty quickly though."
"Let me guess," Rose's voice came, "She went to a party, met a rich man, and was married before the year was out."
Cal chuckled softly, "You know your mother well." He stared at the wall before him. "Why'd you do it, Rose? Why did you pretend that you died? I would have settled for us breaking the engagement. I wouldn't have left you on the streets."
From the other side of the door, Rose sighed. Tears were streaming down her face as she twisted the small charms on her charm bracelet that had charms from all the places she had been since the sinking. "I was dying, Cal. I was suffocating and screaming and no one ever reacted. And then that night, on the ship, I was just so angry," Cal listened in horror to what she was saying, "I wanted to make them all pay because that will teach them not to listen. Then suddenly I was at the back of the ship, climbing over the rail and not even the Titanic was big enough."
She didn't need to continue. He got the picture. She had wanted to kill herself just so she would get attention from the people around her. He had always wondered what Dawson had that he hadn't but he finally understood. Dawson had loved Rose and gave her the attention she deserved, while he had tried to buy her affection. And though she didn't direct the statement at him, Cal knew he was included on the list of people in the 'them' she was talking about. His head fell back against the wall, tears rolling down his face. He would never admit that he was crying.
"I wish I had known," he said softly, his voice breaking, "I wish you would have told me."
"You wouldn't have listen," she said back in the same quiet, hollow voice. He went to protest, but she continued. "You probably don't hear it, but you've changed a lot."
"Is that good or back?" he asked. He heard her take a deep breath.
"I don't know," she admitted.
"Can we start over?" he asked, listening closely to hear her answer, trying not to be too hopeful. Hope, he had learned, was a dangerous thing.
"I can't forget all the things you did to me. For goodness sake, you shot at me! You shot me into a sinking ship! That not exactly something one can forget."
Caledon Hockley was a lot of things; prideful, arrogant, snobbish, but stupid wasn't one of them. He knew when he was unwanted. He knew when somebody wanted him to leave. These past several years had done wonders to his comprehension of these people.
"I know," he said quietly, wiping his eyes and standing, "For what it's worth, I really am sorry."
He walked to the door, pausing only to fiddle with the small, bottom lock on the door to try to open it.
For what it's worth, he thought, I really did love you, Rose.
"Cal, wait," he froze at the door at the sound of her voice directly behind him. "I wasn't done."
Rose reached out to him as he turned and she took his hand in hers, walking them to the divan before she continued. "We hurt each other so many times, Cal. I want desperately to say yes, let's start over, but I can't. We have too much history together." Cal nodded, thinking she was done again; he stood to walk to the door. Rose yanked him back down with their still intertwined fingers. "Instead of starting over, we can move forward from this point? We can be friends and make something work?"
Why was her statement phrased more like a question? Was she really looking for his approval? He looked at her hopeful smile and realized she was still painfully young, younger than both of his wives had been, and yet, she had suffered more hardship that most of grown men and women he knew.
To both of their surprise, he found himself nodding. What would it mean to be friends with the girl he had loved and mourned for so long?