A/N: This whole review concept is exciting, isn't it? So before I go on, I'm going to address some of your questions/comments directly.
Moonlight Oh Bright- Considered and accounted for. I know Fabrizio has so far only popped up once, but I promise he'll back and become something of a major character. And as far as Jack goes- read on!
Clumsy but Elegant- It makes me feel very badly, too, because I would like to update as often as possible. Thankfully next week is March break, so hopefully I'll be able to get at least three or four chapters out before school starts again.
Everybody else- THANKS SO MUCH.
And another thing- there is a section of dialogue here that is taken directly from the movie. It belongs solely to James Cameron, as does everything else. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter Six
The Brooklyn Bridge
Since he'd been living on his own, Jack had personally witness six would-be jumpers. Only two of them had been able to pack up the courage to actually jump, and one of them had still survived. All in all, jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge seemed like a pretty stupid concept to him, and he'd grown so used to it now that he hardly even paid attention to it anymore.
This time was different, though. For the first time since he could remember, the bridge was virtually free of tourists. Even at such a late hour, it was normally packed. Everywhere in Manhattan was normally packed. But at that moment, for some unknown reason, there was almost nobody around, which told him that this one wasn't doing it for the attention.
On top of that, she was so very young. He couldn't see her face very well in the dark, but as she climbed over the edge and positioned herself to let go, her thin frame and evident agility showed that she was definitely younger than most jumpers- probably even younger than Jack himself. Suppose she was only seventeen or eighteen, with her whole life still ahead of her. Maybe someday she was meant to go off and see the world, fall in love and raise a family. There was no way he could just let her throw all that out the window. He was going to save this girl's life tonight.
"Don't do it."
The girl, who appeared not to have noticed him before, snapped her head around to reveal a terrified, tear-stained face- a terrified, tear-stained, familiar face. In took Jack less than a second to place her- she was the girl he'd seen at the art gallery earlier that afternoon. The one who'd had pain and suffering and anguish written all over her face. The one who'd been grabbed by a man twice her age; a man whom she clearly couldn't stand. As soon as put the pieces together, he promised himself that as soon as he met that son of a bitch, he was going to make his life Hell. He was going to hit him and kick him and choke him for ever having made such a beautiful young girl suffer so much.
Sobbing, the girl yelled, "Stay back! Don't come any closer!" Even in the darkness, Jack could sense a look of pure terror coming from her tear-filled eyes, which led him to believe that she wasn't really suicidal or clinically depressed or any of those things that cause people to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. To him, she appeared to be an angry and frightened girl who wasn't old or independent enough to build her own way out of whatever horrible life she was living.
"C'mon," he said calmly, approaching the girl despite her warnings. He knew she wasn't really going to do it. "Take my hand and I'll help you back over. It's gonna be okay. Just take my hand."
"No!" she said boldly. "You just stay right where you are. I'll jump; I mean it."
Jack laughed, not because it was funny, but because he genuinely cared about this girl. He wanted to make it seem as though this was no big deal- as though she was making a mistake and someday she'd look back on like any other day of her life.
"No you won't," he stated simply.
"How would you know?" she demanded. Jack could tell she was just being argumentative now. Drawing it out to prove that she was right and he was wrong. "You can't just tell me what I will and won't do! You don't know anything about me!"
"Look," Jack began, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, "If you were gonna jump, you would have done it by now. You're making a big mistake. Now, take my hand and I promise I will help pull you back over."
"You're distracting me," she said. "Go away."
Okay, now she was just being stubborn. Jack had half a mind to walk away and leave her standing there, freezing, on the edge of the Brooklyn Bridge, too afraid to jump but with no means of getting back over. A second later, though, he remembered her face earlier that day, and took a good long look at her face now. He reminded himself of why he was doing this in the first place.
"I can't. I'm involved now. If you let go I'm gonna have to jump in after you. And that's not something I really want to do. That water looks pretty cold."
It appeared to Jack that the reality of what she was about to do was finally sinking in. He could just see the cogs whirring in her mind- did she really want to do this? Did she want to end her future this way, to cut her life short? Was it really worth it?
Her voice shaking, she asked, "How cold?"
"You ever been to Wisconsin?" he asked her, to which she shook her head quizzically.
"No," she replied, sounding perplexed. Good, Jack thought. That meant she was actually listening and not just humouring him. Which was good, because he knew what he was talking about.
"Well," he began, "they have some of the coldest winters around, and I grew up there, near Chippewa Falls. Once when I was a kid my father and I were ice fishing out on Lake Wissota... ice fishing's where you chop a hole in the ice and-"
"I know what ice fishing is!" the girl shouted. She sounded quite offended too, which Jack thought was a good thing. At least she'd been pulled out of her suicidal trance.
Jack couldn't help but laugh. "Sorry," he said. "Just... you look like kind of an indoor girl. Anyway, I went through some thin ice and I'm tellin ya; water that cold... like that right down there..." he pointed to the waves that lapped up against the support beams of the bridge far below them. "It hits you like a thousand knives all over your body. You can't breathe; you can't think... least not about anything but the pain."
As the meaning behind what he was saying sunk in, the girl's face began to twist from a look of anger and desperation into a mask of fear and disgust. It seemed to Jack as though she was beginning to really realize what she was about to do, and that the man standing behind her was the only one who could save her.
Jack continued his story, knowing that he would be finished only a few seconds when the girl decided to hope back over onto steady ground. "Which is why I'm not looking forward to jumping in after you. But like I said, I don't see a choice. I guess I'm kinda hoping you'll come back over the ledge and get me off the hook here."
The girl was completely silent for a moment. She gazed at Jack for a long time, as though in wonder. How could someone care so much about a person they didn't even know? People who live New York City see jumpers all the time- why did he decide, on this night, that she mattered to him? For the first time since her father had died, she felt truly and honestly loved.
"You're crazy," she stated, as though it was a bonafide fact.
Jack just shrugged nonchalantly. "That's what everybody says. But with all due respect, I'm not the one about to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. Look," he said, shuffling closer to her, "you don't want to do this. Give me your hand."
The girl on the other side of the ledge stared at him long and hard. How he wondered what she was thinking. Was she impressed by him? Awestruck? Perplexed? Creeped out, perhaps, by this crazy guy who was trying to save her life. Whatever she saw in his eyes, it was captivating her, because she held her gaze for a long time. Jack looked back into her eyes- her absolutely beautiful eyes. Big, green, full of wonder... and although pain and fear still shone through as the dominant emotion, there was something new dancing around them, something Jack hadn't seen before- a glimmer of hope.
"Alright."
With one syllable, a huge weight appeared to be lifted from the young woman's shoulders. She held her head high and rolled back her shoulders as she put one hand in Jack's and supported her entire weight on the other.
"I'm Jack, by the way," he said, unable to stop a smile from spreading across his face. He'd done it. He'd made a difference in someone's life. No- he'd saved someone's life. That was even better. "Jack Dawson."
The girls opened her mouth to introduce herself, but before she could speak, her shoe got caught and she lost balance. It all happened so fast that Jack didn't really know how. She was standing there, and then she was hanging in midair. Somehow Jack had managed to grab her with his free hand and keep her from falling to the death that he'd been trying to save her from. The girl shrieked, and Jack pulled her up with all his might. It wasn't easy- he was supporting her entire weight on just his hands- but after what felt like a year, he finally managed to pull her back over the edge.
The lump that had developed in his throat instantly disappeared and his stomach slid back down from his chest to where it was supposed to be.
Picking herself up off the ground and getting her bearings, the girl extended a hand and said, "I'm Rose. Rose DeWitt Bukater."
Finally, Jack thought. He'd first laid eyes on the angel standing in front of him only eight hours ago, tops, but every minute that he didn't know who she was felt like a hundred years. Before that afternoon, Jack hadn't really been the type to believe in love at first sight, but with Rose it had been like the way described it in those tacky romance novels teenage girls and single mothers liked to read. She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, and he finally knew her name. Too bad there was no way in Hell he could pronounce.
"You're gonna need to write that one down for me," he said with a laugh. "So, where are you headed from here?"
Rose shrugged sadly. "I don't know," she said, sounding exasperated. "I was with my mother and a... a friend before, but I was trying to... well... I don't know where to go from here, to be honest."
It didn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the 'friend' she spoke of was the man who'd approached her at the art gallery. The hesitation in her speech and the contemptuous way she'd pronounced the syllable gave of the impression that she hated that person with all of her heart. If Jack where her, he definitely would have hated that guy. Heck, he already hated him and he hadn't even met him!
"Well," Jack said nervously, not wanting to say the wrong but not knowing the whole story, "I really think you should go back to your family. I'll go with you, if you'd like."
Rose didn't look Jack in the eye as she spoke. Instead, she stared up at the starless Manhattan sky, as though searching for an answer from Heaven.
"I don't want to go back to my family. I'll run away!" she exclaimed, as though it was the first time the idea had occurred to her. Then, as though she'd suddenly received divine inspiration, she turned to Jack and looked at him curiously. "Where do you live?"
All of a sudden, Jack felt very insecure. Obviously that comment was just a teenage girl looking for a way out, but just the thought of bringing a person like Rose into his tiny, two-room apartment made him extremely uncomfortable. Instead of revealing that, however, he tried to make a joke of it.
"Trust me," he said with a laugh, "you'd hate it. And don't say I don't know you; I'm telling you. You'd hate it. No, I think you need to go back to your family. Come on, I'll walk with you."
Jack started to walk in the direction that Rose had come running from, leaving her glued to the spot for a moment. Once she realized he wasn't joking, though, she ran to catch up with him. This man who seemed to know everything that was best for her was so interesting that she would have followed him wherever he went, even if it meant going back to the very place she was trying so desperately to get out of.
The mismatched pair, poor boy and rich girl, walked in silence for a long time, Rose leading the way back to the restaurant where her mother was probably still waiting in shock. Aside from wanting to be with her for as long as possible, Jack truly would not have felt secure allowing a teenage girl to walk around downtown New York City on her own. Now, though, it was becoming apparent that Rose was totally fine on her own. The silence was starting to grow awkward by the time they were half a block away from the restaurant.
"You know," Rose said timidly, breaking the silence, "I really want to thank you for... for what your did. I mean, we only get to live once, you know. So I could never really repay you enough."
"It's okay," Jack said, continuing to walk towards wherever Rose was leading him. "I couldn't let you do it; it was no trouble, really."
Rose stopped in her tracks. "Well, whether it was trouble or not, it meant a lot to me. I just- I've never really felt before that someone really cared about how I felt, and what you did for me... like I said, it meant a lot. So I'd really like to return the favour, even though I know I can't really do that. What I'm trying to say is that my mother is having something of a dinner party tomorrow, and I was wondering if you'd like to join us?"
When Jack had said that it had been nothing, he'd really meant it. Rose didn't have to pay him back. But as far as he could tell, the angel sent down from Heaven who was standing in front of him right now had just invited him to join her for dinner. Within half a second, a million thoughts ran through his mind. He undoubtedly owned no appropriate clothes for any sort of party hosted by Rose's family, and his presence there probably wouldn't be appreciated, and he was going to have to practice some major self control if that psychotic man from the art gallery was going to be there, but he didn't care. He was going to go to dinner with Rose.
Part of him felt bad because he was going to have to tell Cora that he'd be showing up at her house a little bit late, but it was only a very small part. He was going to have dinner with Rose! How great was that?
"Well, I'd love to," he said, trying to sound cavalier and failing horrendously. "That's be great."
Rose smiled shyly, not really knowing what to say. "Umm, can I meet you sometime early tomorrow so we can talk a little bit more about it? Because I really should be getting back now."
Jack nodded. "Yeah. Umm, I'll be in Central Park pretty much all day. Does that work for you?"
"Sounds great," Rose said. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow then?"
"See you then."
Rose turned on her heel and walked towards the restaurant, then stopped and turned back around to face Jack. It appeared as though she was looking for something to say that would impress him. 'Trust me,' Jack thought, 'you don't need to try.' She already had him wrapped around her finger.
"Thanks," she said simply, then turned again and walked into the restaurant.
Jack watched her go, her bright red hair trailing in the wind. Her beauty was completely indescribable. He couldn't wait to get to know her better, to really get under skin and find out more about her. Clearly she was living a life that was destructive and oppressive and destroying her spirit. And underneath all of that pain, her spirit was beautiful. Beautiful and wild and just waiting to get out.
