Until We Meet Again
Summary: Rose is struggling to live her life after Jack died. But she still promised and she knows that she must honor that promise, since it was Jack's dying wish. Meanwhile, in the afterlife, Jack is continuously haunted by his memories of Rose and he begins to doubt that Rose will join him upon her eventual death, even though he promised they would meet again before he departed for the afterlife.
Rose
On Carpathia, I lived as though I was in a dream. Cal came looking for me once, but I didn't reveal myself to him. His petty jealousy had been the cause of Jack's death. How could I reveal that I had survived to a jerk such as that, even if he was my former fiancé. I never saw him after that; he must have assumed that I went down with the ship, since he didn't find me in steerage, which was where I was hiding. A few days after he came looking for me, Carpathia docked in New York City. I looked up at the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of freedom for the immigrants who had survived, and also a symbol of freedom for me. I had been a caged soul, doomed to be trapped forever by my society. Then everything had changed for the short time I knew Jack. He had seen me, seen directly to my soul, and had known exactly what I was like, exactly how different I was from other women of first-class. He had loved me for that, and he had set me free.
"Can I take your name, please, love?" An officer on the ship came up to me and gently asked me this, cutting into my thoughts.
I looked at him. "Dawson." I told him, taking on Jack's surname as my own. "Rose Dawson." Had I not met Jack, I probably would have given my old name, Rose DeWitt Bukater – no. Had I not met Jack, I would be dead now. When we first met, I, in a fit of despair and frustration at how my mother, Ruth, was planning my life for me, was hanging off the railing of the stern of the Titanic, threatening to let go and fall towards the sea if Jack came any closer. He had talked me out of it, making me realize that if I let go, I would be making a mistake. He had held out his hand, and I took it, but as I started to climb back over the railing, my foot had caught in my dress and I had slipped. Only Jack's firm grip on my hand kept me from plummeting to my death. After a few very frightening moments of dangling over the ship, he had pulled me back onto the safety of the deck.
Jack truly had saved me, I thought. The next night, he brought me to a third-class party and taught me how to live again (third-class – much more lively than first-class). I smiled as I remembered Cora, the little girl whom he had danced with before dancing with me. I hadn't seen Cora at all on Carpathia, so I assume she died in the disaster. The next night after that was THE night, the night the tragedy occurred. Jack and I had stayed together until the end. I had even jumped back onto the ship from a lifeboat in order to stay with him. We had remained on the ship, riding the stern into the ocean after the Titanic broke in two. We had found a door floating among the debris and it hadn't been claimed by any of the 1500 in the water yet. Jack had insisted I stay on it when we found out there was only room for one of us on it, willingly sacrificing himself.
I walked down the gangplank from Carpathia onto Ellis Island alone. I had told Jack that I would get off the Titanic with him, and I had promised myself that, since I couldn't get off with Jack, I wouldn't get off with anyone. But I had told him that before – well, before he had died. Mere seconds after I told him that, the lookout had spotted the iceberg. We had then been locked in a race for survival, made even more challenging by the fact that Cal had had Jack arrested for the theft of the Heart of the Ocean, a diamond necklace that Cal had given me, even though Jack had been completely innocent. I couldn't believe I was still wearing Cal's coat, but it was cold and raining and the only thing I had on other than the coat was the thin dress I had worn ever since the night of the sinking, so I was grateful for the coat. I put my hands into the pockets, thinking. My left hand brushed something. I looked down and drew the Heart of the Ocean out of my pocket. It had survived the whole ordeal? I decided that I would sell it later, after the pain of the memories had passed.