Prologue - Summer, 1996
It had been years since she'd actually held the diamond – decades, probably. Its weight had surprised her, at first, as she slipped the half foreign, half familiar stone out of the burlap sack that she had kept hidden out of sight, but never quite out of mind.
She had only ever worn it the once, and had known for years that she never would again. The first winter after her arrival in New York, she had tried to pawn it to fund her move to Santa Monica, but after a series of incredulous refusals from shopkeepers who assumed it was a cheap knockoff, she lost her nerve and stored it away in the sack at the bottom of her wardrobe.
Years later, as they began converting passenger liner after passenger liner into warships, and the German U-Boats began sinking those passenger liners one by one – even the Carpathia had not made it through the war – she nearly hurled the damned necklace into the fire to keep the painful memories at bay. But as the red light of the flames danced across the deep blue facets of the stone in her hand, a new image appeared in her mind. Her breath slowed and the weight she felt in the palm of her hand was replaced with the phantom weight of his eyes looking back at her, focused, but gentle and caring. Tears welling in her eyes, she closed her fingers around the diamond as tightly as she could and didn't dare let go until she laid it out on the pillow next to her. The cold blue rock was an exceptionally poor substitute for the warm body with blue eyes she willed herself to pretend it was. When morning came, and it was still just a necklace, she crumbled into the pillow, tears flowing freely, and then shoved it haphazardly back into the bag.
Over the years, it had stayed in its bag in some sort of limbo. She could only rarely bring herself to look at it, but could never even consider bringing herself to discard of it.
Now, as an old woman, she had little need of the actual diamond. She had made as much peace as possible with the pain and trauma of that night, and that allowed her to see the bright moments of the preceding days all that much clearer. Her memories of Jack had never faded, and it had taken her far too long to realize she didn't need a crutch to remember just how deep blue his eyes had been or just how tender his touch had been.
She had brought it along on this trip to the Keldysh nearly as an afterthought. Lizzy had asked her if she remembered her coat, and she had pressed her fingers to her forehead with a self-deprecating sigh. How forgetful of me. Both women stood up at once to retrieve the forgotten garment, but Rose assured her granddaughter that she needed to stretch her legs before the long journey, and took the few slow steps to her old wardrobe and the wool coat she had only needed once in a great while since moving back to California after her husband's death, fifteen years earlier. As she pulled the heavy garment off its hanger and neatly folded it, she caught just the smallest glance of the old burlap sack that contained a necklace worth millions buried deep in the back of the closet. Without pausing to think twice, she picked it up and shoved it into the jacket pocket and went back to rejoin Lizzy.
Now, as she held the diamond in her hand, tracing her papery thumb over the same lines Jack's had all those years ago, having finally just finished telling their story, she moved as if in a dream towards the back of the vessel. Her legs moved without her brain ordering them to, her hands still clasped tight around the diamond.
With a small, gleeful cry, she let it go. Before she even realized it had left her hand, she watched it slip beneath the surface of the sea. But, then, time suddenly slowed, and she watched as the necklace made its slow, spiral descent to where it belonged, where it had belonged all this time. For now she knew, she had only ever borrowed it. It was never meant to go to a pawnshop, it was never meant to be thrown in the flames in 1918. It hadn't been meant to sit in a dull bag at the bottom of her wardrobe. Once the heart of the ocean had sunk low enough that she could no longer see it, a sudden calm washed over her and she made her way back to her warm bed.
Chapter 1 - Friday
She awoke to panic. A very strong, very cold wind was blowing in her face, astringent against her raw face. Had she been crying? She was no longer in her bed, but standing straight and tall, both of her hands tightly grasping metal.
She opened her eyes to pitch blackness. She had never seen it this dark, not since—
"ROSE!"
The freezing wind still whipped across her cheeks, and as tightly as her hands reflexively grasped the metal, her eyes will still adjusting to the dark and her brain had not yet caught up to what her body had recognized moments ago.
"ROSE!"
The voice was getting closer, startling her just enough to jolt her into the cold realization that the metal her palms were gripping was the railing of a ship. That ship. That the dark in front of her was the dark sea meeting up with the black sky, littered with stars. She was standing where she once had, on the wrong side of the railing on the stern of Titanic, and someone was calling her name.
"J-Jack," she let out in no more than a whisper, more from instinct than from any surety.
Suddenly, two strong arms wrapped around her middle, anchoring her in place. She froze, speaking just a fraction of an octave louder, with just a speck more confidence this time.
"Jack?"
"Rose? Oh my God!"
There was more confusion in his voice than she had ever remembered, but it was unmistakably his. Her name coming out of his mouth was the best sound she had ever heard, her panic beginning to dissipate as she heard it once again.
"Rose, let's get you back over the railing, okay?
Trembling, she kept one hand tightly gripped on the railing and cautiously turned around to face him. His hands, never leaving their post, slowly guided her body around until she could meet his gaze. Even though she was sure she had remembered every detail of his face, the piercing blue eyes in front of her did not hold a candle to the ones she saw in her memory. She was suddenly aware of nothing but the warmth of his hands, now on the small of her back. Keeping her other hand tight on the railing, she lifted her right hand and clasped his bicep: warm, solid, alive.
She was unable to look away from the man in front of her—Jack! Alive as she had ever seen him. There was concern in his eyes, but it was different from his expression the last time he had helped her over the railing. There was something deeper, more familiar.
The question was out of her mouth before she even realized she was asking it.
"Jack, have we—? Have we been here before?"
She felt his grip on her tighten, and then he stared back at her with growing wonder on his face. As their eyes locked, he nodded back at her ever so slightly.
"You remember?" His voice came out in a crackly, near-whisper.
Now it was her turn to nod. "Yes," she croaked. "Everything."
And then his lips crashed onto hers. His arms held steadfast around her, cognizant of the fact that she was still on the wrong side of the railing. The hand that she had been using to hold onto his arm drifted up to his neck, so her thumb could stroke his jawbone, and she deepened the kiss. Every second she spent in his arms, kissing him, another layer of sorrow seemed to float away. The other half of her body and soul had returned to her, and she felt whole again for the first time she could remember.
She broke away first, reluctantly, stealing just another brush against his lips before settling back into his arms around her waist.
It was then that she was struck once again with the realization of where she was and what had happened the last time Jack pulled her over the railing. She could tell from his expression that he was coming to a similar realization.
They both spoke at once, then paused, waiting for the other to continue, before both speaking together once again. Jack smiled and tilted his head in her direction to indicate she should go first.
"When we were here before, my foot caught my skirt and I slipped."
"We won't let that happen again," he said, with the same stoic confidence she recognized from the last time she had seen him.
But she was more resourceful now than she had been. Those 84 years had taught her a lot.
"I'm going to see if I can rip the hem of this dress off without moving too much. Don't let go of me."
"Never, Rose." She felt the solemness in his voice as if it had been a vow, and her eyes quickly swelled with tears, before she remembered the task at hand.
In a rapid move, because she didn't know if she'd be able to tear her hand away from him otherwise, she pulled her right hand away from his shoulder and started to tug at the fabric along the seam. With only one hand to work with, she had to pull hard in all different directions to get the right purchase. Jack's sturdy hands never left her, even though she was sure her relentless motion didn't make it easy for him. Finally, after what could have been dozens of attempts, she felt the fabric loosen and start to give way, followed by the satisfying sound of beaded fabric ripping. Casually dropping the severed piece, she took her first now-steady step up the railing.
Just as before, as Jack pulled her over the final rung, he lost his balance, and they both crumbled into a tangle of arms and legs on the deck. This time, however, there were no screams, and it was only the two of them and the dark night.
As they landed in a heap, her lips found Jack's, and she rolled, still attached to him, so that he lay half on top of her. They continued kissing hungrily, urgently, until she shivered beneath him and he suddenly broke away.
"Let's get you somewhere warm," he said, his lips mere inches away from hers.
"I'm not cold. Not anymore. But I would like to go somewhere a little more private."
Grinning, he took her hand in his and fully stood up, bringing her with him. She kissed him again as they stood, unwilling to be apart.
"The best I can do is a single bed below decks with three roommates."
"Top bunk or bottom?"
"Bottom. I don't know how Fabrizio convinced me to let him keep the top."
"Well," she said, affecting haughtiness. "It's a good thing I love you, Jack Dawson, because I certainly wouldn't go with anyone else if they couldn't even offer me the top bunk."
"I love you, too, Rose. I think I loved you before I knew you."
Neither of them knew who started the kiss that time, and they never really separated. Even as they started walking to his stateroom, they stayed in a close embrace, stopping every few steps to satisfy their hunger for each others' lips. To reassure each other that they were solid. To shed any last shadows of their separation.
Jack broke away just long enough to fumble for the key in the pocket of his trousers, and then took her hand again and led her into the miraculously empty room and to the unmade cot.
She sat down, absentmindedly grabbing the pillow to hold in her lap. For a moment, she breathed in to catch the faintest scent of him that lingered on the pillow, but it was nothing compared to the real thing, standing right in front of her.
"May I?" He asked, indicating with a small gesture that he would like to sit next to her.
"Of course, Jack." As he sat down she folded himself along his side, her head resting on his shoulder. "I've been waiting 84 years for this."
"84 years? Rose? You made it out?" His face lit up in a grin, rivaling the one she'd seen when he was talking about art or Santa Monica.
"I did. I missed you terribly the whole time; sometimes so much that I was wondering what I was even doing. But I also had a lot of good times, and I owe everything to you."
"Tell me everything."
"I will. You can ask me anything and I promise I'll tell you. But, first, I want to know what we're doing here. Is this—is this some sort of—"
"Some sort of afterlife?" Jack finished for her. "I don't know."
"What's the last thing you remember?"
"We were in the water. I was listening to your voice and then I woke up on the bench." he vaguely indicated upwards, towards the deck where they had met tonight and for the first time. "And I heard you running past."
"I was an old woman, asleep in my bed."
Jack stole a kiss on her forehead and squeezed her closer into him.
"So we're both," he started, suddenly unable to make himself say the word. Dead. Even though it meant they were now together, it was not a word he could associate with the beautiful woman next to him.
"I think maybe we were dead?" She ventured. "But now we're not? Standing out on that railing felt too real." She kissed him, then, slow and languid, but pulled away before they could get lost in each other. "Kissing you feels way too real for us to not be alive."
He smiled back at her, gently. "So why are we back here?"
"I have no idea. I hope it's so I can save your life this time."
The expression on his face was unreadable, but he threw a casual arm around her shoulder and squeezed.
"No tall order, huh."
After a few moments of comfortable silence, where they both were re-acclimating to fitting in each others arms, thinking about what had brought them back here and the monumental task they had to do, Rose was the first to speak.
"There was an inquiry. Two actually. For years, the subject of Titanic kept coming up in the news as they released some new detail of what they thought had happened or came up with some new theory of how more people could have survived. It was always too painful for me to read them fully. But now, Jack, now if only I had."
"It's okay, Rose. We have a little time, we can figure it out together."
"Together. Yes, I like that idea."
He kissed her, once, quickly, a promise that they would talk more about this, later.
"Tell me about your happiest memory."
And then, the words starting pouring out before she could control them. She told him about riding a horse on the beach in Santa Monica, about running and jumping into the open doors of slow moving trains when she couldn't afford a ticket. And, because she didn't always know where those trains were headed when she jumped on them, she told of having to talk her way out of a hefty punishment after getting caught as a stowaway in Mexico City without any travel documents. She told him about the time the train had just stopped, for what felt like days, in the middle of nowhere in Montana, and how she had finally decided to get off the train at just the right time to be walking through a clearing in the woods when the biggest meteor shower of her life crossed the sky.
She told him about voting for the first time, about visiting art galleries, and flying in planes. She told him about when she finally settled in California and scrounged up enough money for dancing lessons – not the kind she had had in finishing school, but the kind they did on the stage. She couldn't hold back her smile as she told him about the first night she actually performed, and her smile turned into the tiniest of blushes when she told him that, at least in her mind, she had been performing for an audience of one.
She had spoken so vividly, so happily, that he could hardly hold back the tears, now knowing that he had done the right thing that night, even if it had come at the cost of not getting to experience these things with her.
He shifted so that he was now facing her, twirling a curl that had escaped from her elaborate hairstyle around his finger.
"Will you dance for me, for real, one day?"
"Yes, Jack. Any time you want."
She saw a strange look cross over his face, as if he couldn't decide how to ask what he really wanted to.
"What else? What else brought you happiness?"
She decided to help him out a little. But didn't want to bring him all the way there if he wasn't quite ready.
"I took my first pottery lesson on my ninetieth birthday. So many people thought I was too old to start pursuing another hobby, but you know no one was ever going to put me on a shelf. I got pretty good over the next few years. My granddaughter Lizzy even bought me a wheel for my ninety-fifth birthday after I moved in with her full time."
"Tell me about your family, Rose."
"Do you really want to know?"
He steeled himself. "Yes, I want to know everything."
"All right." And then she steeled herself, too, making sure that Jack's hand was clasped tightly in hers and the rest of her body was as close to his as possible. She didn't think she could do this unless they were touching.
"I landed my first theatre role in 1924. It wasn't a big role, but it was with a serious theatre company. As soon as I stepped on the stage, I knew I had found my calling. I could step into someone else's shoes for ninety minutes and then step right back into my own. The atmosphere in the theatre was alive – it was electric. It was the most free I'd felt since—"
Jack nodded, understanding what she was trying to say. "Go on," he said, gently.
"After the initial run of that play ended, I took in sewing and sometimes worked at a restaurant to pay for more singing, dancing, and acting lessons. I kept trying out, and I did end up getting a few more small parts. It took two years, but finally an opening came up to be a permanent member of the theatre company. I spent every free moment I had practicing, living in different characters and imagining myself as a real performer."
"You got the spot, I know you did."
"I did," she said with a smile. "The company was very tightly knit, a family of sorts. There was one person in particular. His name was Robert Calvert – he hated that his names rhymed and he always tried to convince people to pronounce it like" she put on a heavily exaggerated French accent "Ro-Berrrr. He became my closest friend in the company. We could joke together, while still knowing we'd always support each other on stage. Part of the reason we got on so well was there had never been any hint of" she stopped here, hunting for a word "well, any indication from either of us that we wanted anything other than a close friendship."
"So, it came as quite a shock when he told me his father had died and he had inherited the family farm in Iowa. By that point, we had been in the company together for well over a decade, and I had only heard snippets of his upbringing. We shared our goodbyes, but it was only a few months later when he showed up back in California. We had a long conversation, one of the most candid I had ever had – probably the most candid up to that point – and he asked me to come back to Iowa with him."
"Did you love him?"
"Do you want me to have loved him?"
"Look. I maybe didn't have the right to ask you before, but I do now. Please tell me, Rose."
"You have always had the right to ask me anything." But, as she saw his face, still, expressionless, she knew she owed him a real answer. "I did love him. Not in the same way I love you. He—" she paused. What she was about to reveal was not her secret to tell. But this was Jack. She wanted him to know her fully, and he needed to understand this part, too.
"He told me before we married that he preferred the company of men. He had been in love once, too, but had not been free to openly pursue it, especially not in a small farming town in Iowa. He must have recognized that in me, and that we'd both need a friend to grow old with. I told him about you – he was the only person who ever knew about us. Or, at least, until I told our story to Lizzy and that treasure hunter – but that's a story for another time. We set off knowing that we would never be what the other needed, fully, but we ended up building a wonderful partnership, based on mutual respect and a deep friendship."
"I was too old to have children by the time we finally married, which actually ended up being the perfect excuse for us to take in children who needed a loving home. Some came and went, but there was a terrible time in 1941 when a typhus outbreak killed our neighbors, leaving their young son and infant daughter orphaned. We ended up raising Alice and Henry. Seeing them grow into strong, capable adults were some of the proudest moments of my life."
She couldn't quite read the expression on Jack's face. She wondered if he was thinking of his own childhood. In some small ways, her son Henry had reminded her of Jack. His blond hair was lighter than either of his adopted parents' which, coupled with a resourcefulness streak and a gentle protectiveness over his sister, always made Rose wonder what their children would have been like, had it been different.
"Henry was my father's name," said Jack, almost reverently.
At that, she could do nothing but hold him close, tears welling in both of their eyes.
"Rose, I'm so sorry. I'm thankful – and truly glad – that you had such a close friend and a happy, loving family. But I wish it had been different for us."
She wanted to promise that it would be, this time, but a sudden uncertainty overtook her. Instead, she voiced a question that had been on her mind all evening.
"Jack, can I ask you something?"
"You know you can, Rose."
"You said that we were in the water and then you woke up on the bench. Was it—was it instantaneous?"
"No, not exactly." His voice was measured, as if he were trying to decide if what he was saying was actually accurate after all. "It certainly felt like time had passed, like I had been in a really long, really deep sleep. I've heard people describe what it's like to come back after being given ether – like being asleep but without even the hint of consciousness. It was maybe a little bit like that."
"So the last time we saw each other?"
"It feels like it was years ago. But somehow it also feels like it was minutes ago. I must have gotten out of this bed this morning and not made it up, but I have no clear memory of that. But as soon as I saw you tonight and heard you say my name, it was like we had never been apart."
"There was always a part of me that felt your presence, that hoped you were somehow watching over me. I realize now that might have been a selfish thought. I'm grateful that the years weren't painful for you."
"I may not have been able to watch you, but I loved you this whole time. I loved you then, I love you now, and nothing changed about that while I was—away."
"I love you too, Jack. So much. I felt the same way when I saw you tonight. I can't promise that nothing at all has changed – I will always have the memories of the intervening years, of course – but as soon as I felt your arms around me tonight, it truly felt like we were starting from where we left off. I have never stopped loving you."
At that, they reached for each other – hands grabbing at fabric and flesh wherever they could. She deepened the kiss practically before it began, needing his lips on hers more than she needed oxygen. Still locked in a tight embrace, one of them managed to shift position so they were lying down. He broke the kiss just long enough to search her face for agreement to keep going.
"Please don't stop, Jack."
He crashed his lips back onto hers briefly, before working his way down her neck. One of his hands moved towards the ripped hem of her dress and his fingers started a slow path up her leg. Just as he was starting to tease her decolletage with his tongue, her small moan muffled the sound of the front door of the stateroom swinging open.