The show had stopped much earlier than expected, the soldiers not even getting half of what they wanted, but poor Rose getting much more than she expected. Emmanuelle had gone off to find her second half, awkwardly pulling a silk robe over herself as she ran off of the stage. Jack stood in the talkative crowd, a sea of noise, and there he slowly drowned in his own thoughts, struggling to get up for air. Was it possible? Was it Rose?

An hour had gone by since the incident, and Rose had locked herself in her dressing room. It was a small villa type thing not far from the beach, with tiled walls and pale wooden floors. Mrs Tripoli appeared to be quite the performer back in her day, with old black and white photographs covering the oval mirror, surrounded by old, worn out bulbs. That stage was no doubt her playground when she was a younger. Rose sat and stared at the photographs, lost in her own mind. Thinking about how Desdemona looked now, ancient and withered, compared to the beautiful brunette she was decades before amazed her. It was incredible what time could do to a person. The blonde wife and mother of two with shaking hands and red eyes was but a shadow of the fiery red head 30 years previously.

And then Rose thought of his face, and how much he had changed. She used to think, maybe 10 years before, what he would look like now, in his 30s, but she soon put those thoughts out of her head. Now, they were all she could think about. She saw him for an instant, no more than that, and yet she felt she had stood on that stage and glared at him in disbelief for hours. She never looked at the audience, never! As confident and glamorous as she looked on the stage, she was still nervous and timid. Behind the camera was different, she could seduce a camera lens, but seducing an audience was more Emmanuelle's style. And the one time she looked down into the audience, the one time she was feeling rather courageous, her courage was shattered, and her life was turned upside down.

But what if it wasn't him? What if this man just looked like a dead teenage boy from long ago, now with shaved hair, a lot of stubble and a much broader frame. What if?

But those eyes... those eyes cannot be mistaken. Eyes like that can leave your life, but they never leave your mind. Eyes are the one part of a person that never change.

When Rose was 17, brushing her hair in her stateroom onboard the Titanic, Cal placing a heart of ice and chains around her neck, she gazed into her reflection then, and her eyes were empty, despite the luxury she had been born into. And just weeks before now, when Rose was in her California mansion, staring into the bathroom mirror with headache pills in hand, and her husband was nowhere to be seen, not offering a gentle kiss on the forehead or even a glass of water. Surrounded by fame and fortune, and yet she still had that same look in her eyes. She looked at her 40 year old reflection, and she saw her teenage self with a new hair style and less extravagant nightgown.

She had changed outwardly, but inwardly she was still the same. They say that eyes are a gateway to the soul, and in 30 years Rose's soul had never changed. Not really. She was still as unfulfilled as ever, despite all she had achieved.

Just then, a knock at the door brought Rose out of her trance. Realizing she had begun crying again, she quickly dried her eyes and said through the lump in her throat, "Come in."

The door opened, and in from the late afternoon sun came Desdemona. Her white hair was tied up in a neat bun, and a patterned shawl covered her. "Rose, my dear. Are you alright?" She stood there, arms outstretched, and without hesitation, Rose stood up and rushed into them, breaking down once more.

"Desdemona, I can't... I can't do this." Rose choked on her words, tears streaming down her face.

"I know this world well enough to know that what happened out there wasn't seasickness."

Rose looked at her, slightly confused. "Sea sickness?"

"Your friend had to say something to the crowd."

Rose shut her eyes, tears escaping again. She had left Emmanuelle up on that stage all on her own, and she had let all these men down who were fighting for the allied world's freedom. As shaken as she was, she felt rather guilty. "Are the soldiers angry with me?"

Desdemona laughed lightly, "Oh my child, forget about the soldiers, they'll be fine. They've gone this long without a woman in sight, I'm sure they'll get over it." Rose let a little whimper of a laugh out upon hearing this. "It's you I'm worried about." Desdemona added, brushing her fragile fingers through Rose's shoulder length hair. "What happened?"

Rose thought on that question. Thinking about it again just brought back that lump in her throat, and the lump in her stomach. She walked away from Mrs Tripoli and sat down on the chair in front of the mirror, her back turned, but still able to see Desdemona in the reflection. "You wouldn't believe it if I told you... I don't even believe it myself."

Desdemona inspected Rose's face, looking into the mirror, staring deep into her eyes, her hands beginning to shake again. "Who did you see?"

Rose turned her head around quickly, surprised. "How did you know I had seen someone?"

"My dear, I only had to look at your gaze to know that you had seen someone... someone you either didn't want to see, or didn't expect to see."

Rose listened to her, nodding, thinking about how ridiculous she must have looked, freezing on stage like that and then running off. However, given the circumstances, she had good reason for doing so. "Desdemona... I didn't even think he was alive."

"A friend of yours?"

"I suppose you could say that, yes. A very old friend."

"Had he gone off to war to fight, and you assumed her had been killed in action."

"Nothing like that, no... as far as I knew, he died 30 years ago. He died right in front of my eyes. I saw his cold, dead body, I was holding his hands... like ice. I let him go... he was dead... he was dead."

"And you saw him out there with the other soldiers?" Desdemona was deeply interested, the hushed tone of the girl's voice sending a shiver up her spine.

Rose nodded slowly. "I know it was him... I know it was. But how?"

"Maybe there was a mistake? The amount of times I've rolled over in bed and thought that Demetrius had stopped breathing, only to give him a nudge and bring back his monstrous snores." She laughed, trying to lighten the heavy atmosphere that had descended within the room, like a dark storm cloud of memories. Rose did not laugh however. Mrs Tripoli moved closer to Rose, sitting down on the dresser beside her. "How did you lose touch for 3 decades? Surely you could have contacted his family."

"I only knew him for a few days... I fell in love with him in those few days. He had no one in the world and nothing to his name, and just when we thought we finally had it all... tragedy."

"Tragedy?"

"We were..." Rose tried to hold back the tears that were threatening to force their way out of her batting eyelids. "We were on the RMS Titanic when it sank back in 1912."

Desdemona gasped, and murmured something in her own language, blessing herself. "Oh God, those poor souls. You poor girl. You were on that shipwreck? Oh, I cried for hours when I heard the news of that ship! Such a tragic loss."

"We went down with the ship together... he saved me... the water was so cold, and he had been so brave all night protecting me..." Then, the tears escaped, silently trickling down her pale cheeks. "...and I let him die."

Desdemona put a hand on Rose's shoulder and gripped it firmly. "But he's not dead, my darling. He's here. Do you believe in fate?"

Rose shook her head. "No."

"No? Well I think you better start believing it. What has happened here is God's work. He's alive, and you're here, and now you can see one another. This is a rare gift, Rose. In all my time on this Earth I have seen and heard many things... but nothing as wonderful and magic as this."

"But so much time has passed."

"There's nothing better than catch up with old friends, especially after what you two have been through. As a matter of fact, a catch up after 30 years is more than that... it's a reunion!" Desdemona stood up suddenly, smiling widely, her old face creaked and wrinkled, but her eyes sparkling brightly. "You must go and find him, Rose."

"I wouldn't know where to look, or what to say when I see him. I would probably run away again..." Rose thought about what was happening. This was huge. This was the biggest thing to ever happen to her. She couldn't such an amazing gift slip through her fingers, not again. She had let him go once, she wouldn't let him go again. "I do want to see him... I really do."

"And you will! What's his name?"

Rose looked in the mirror, locking eyes with Desdemona, who was growing more and more excited, like a mother preparing her daughter for a first date. "Dawson... Jack Dawson."

The sun was setting now over the island, and the tall shadow of the mountain had cast itself over one half of the island already, plunging the soldiers and natives into darkness. On the other side however, the sky had slowly blurred from a purple-blue shade to a mixture of swirling pink clouds and glowing orange rays of light. The sun was slowly disappearing beneath the horizon, slowly vanishing more and more with each passing second, threatening to shroud this tropical part of the world in darkness.

Jack was sitting on the beach, watching the giant fireball in the sky as it extinguished itself, slipping into the ocean, too far away for anyone to get to it. He came to the beach every night to watch the sun set. The tranquil setting was the perfect place for him to clear his head and relax, but tonight, his mind was on overdrive, racing with unanswered questions, each one pushing past the other to be the first answered. How was she alive? When he came to on the Carpathia, he had been told that there was no girl with him in the Ocean. He was floating on top of a chunk of debris, clinging onto life by a thread, but entirely alone. The passing lifeboat only noticed him because his clouds of breath were spotted by the beam of a torch. When he woke up on the rescue ship without Rose he broke down, and everytime he tried to ask an officer about her, they would ask the usual questions.

"Name?"

"Rose DeWitt Bukater."

"Class?"

"1st class?"

And he always got the same answers. "1st class? She's a bit out of your league then, is she not? I'm sorry mate, no one with that name on here."

After hearing that sickening reply 10 times in one day, Jack gave up. He wasn't well enough to get up and search for her himself. He had been confined to bed, and most of the journey to New York was spent sleeping and drinking boiling hot cups of tea.

But today, as soon as she had stopped dancing, and she was facing the front of the audience, looking out towards the sea, Jack got a good look at her face. At first he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He recognised her, and yet he knew that was impossible. He had never watched any Cabaret acts, and this music, as catchy as it was, wasn't his thing exactly. And then, as soon as she glanced down at him, their eyes meeting, he knew that she was familiar, and by the time she had run off the stage he knew why.

He couldn't believe it, but he had no choice. He had experienced too much heartache in life to ignore this one amazing stroke of fate when it presented itself. To say that a girl who has been dead for 30 years is now alive and well is crazy, but to not find her again and pursue this possible chance of happiness would be utter insanity. That would mean going to find her, and after the way she reacted earlier, that seemed like a bad idea. He had never felt such conflicting emotions. On the one hand, he was excited and ecstatic that she was alive, but he was wracked with nerves and terrified at the thought of losing her again. He did not want that. He decided there and then, as the sun began its final plunge, that he would go and find her.

But there was no need, for just as he stood up and turned to walk away, he saw her walking towards him. A long flowing dress, billowing in the warm breeze, and her blonde hair, shorter now than it once was, blowing across her face.

Jack stood there, speechless. That soft yellow glow outlining her right now, bringing out her slim, hour glass figure, and her prominent cheek and collar bones. She had matured so much. She was taller. Her face was more defined, less round than he remembered, but still as beautiful as ever.

Rose began to slow down now, until finally, when she was about 30 feet away from him, she stopped. He was fatter, but not in a bad way. He looked healthy, well fed. His arms and thighs were chunkier. Muscle had taken over his body, as had the body hair that was evident from his rolled up shirt sleeves and rolled up trouser legs.

He smiled at her.

She smiled back at him, and after taking in a breath to compose herself, she gently spoke. "Hello Jack... it's been a while. Desdemona told me you might be down here."