Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Summer, 1913
Jack
It feels wrong to sit at this desk, and yet this is the room to which he had been led, through grand oak doors, across a marble entry-way more grand hall than foyer, down a hall that he knows had once, not too long ago, probably felt opulent, but the wallpaper is now peeling back from neglect and all the curtains are moth-eaten. He's brought into a study, furnished with rich wood. The shelves lining the walls are stuffed with books– tomes on sciences and history, geography, business, philosophy. There are probably even some novels; the type he can imagine Rose devouring, pages worn and dog-eared with love. It's a warm space, curated with care, and to see it now puts at odds what Jack knows of the man that had been Rose's father. Somehow this warm, inviting space does not match up to the picture of a reckless gambler and uncaring drunk that Ruth Dewitt-Bukater had painted for him. Really, that's the only description of the man he has, as Rose had never mentioned him at all except that he had passed.
Still, though, that's not really his business. He's here for a purpose. The county clerk does as agreed upon and produces the papers from his case– the carefully laid out accounts of the Dewitt-Bukater debts, which, after today, Jack is agreeing to shoulder, probably against better judgment. He still hasn't found Rose, but that doesn't matter. This is something he can do, now, and feel good about, even if he never finds her. Even if he does find her and she wants nothing to do with her mother again at all, this will no longer be hanging over anyone's head. The money lining his pockets– sitting in an account behind his name in that bank in New York– will allow him this, and while it does nothing to put him ahead in his search, it does something, at least, to prove his seriousness to Rose's mother, and it had gotten him behind these doors, to catch a glimpse of Rose again: to see her childhood home, and gaze upon her likeness in photographs and oil paintings, as if he could ever forget how she looked. He had offered to purchase the place so that Ruth might stay here if she wanted. The value had decreased dramatically in the past few years, and he could have swung it, but he had been giving a firm no. She wants to move on from this– from all of the pain and guilt she has now admitted to holding over the ways she had acted towards Rose– the way she had treated her only daughter and the sham marriage she had nearly forced her into. That conversation and that refusal of his offer is probably the most human he has ever seen Ruth be.
She's allowed to gather what personal items she wants; photos, letters and heirlooms, and then, once Jack has signed on the designated lines the debts are cleared, and this is no longer Ruth or Rose's family home. It officially goes to auction, all by her choice, and whatever it fetches will go straight to Ruth, a stable enough sum to see her well taken care of.
He tries to imagine how Rose might react to this. He wonders if she'd be sad to see any of it go. He thinks she might despair a bit at the loss of this library, and so he makes note of what titles he can. He resolves to find copies to put within his own new home, ready for whenever the time may come for her to find them. He wonders if there are any trinkets she'd want to keep from her childhood bedroom, but he doesn't want to invade her privacy to look. He hopes that Ruth will save anything important or sentimental.
Jack's newfound fortune had happened somewhat by accident– or happenstance, if you want to call it that. Lady Luck has been by his side again, and while she hadn't yet been of much help in his search for his love, she had favored him in this way; through connections and lucky conversations leading to deals and investments he wouldn't have ever thought to make, before Molly, and Molly's family.
Once she had learned of Jack's artistic talent, she had been quick to call up the right people and to secure him some steady commissions. He had thought, as it had allowed him to begin paying her back for her charity while searching and building a modest savings, that the occasional commission would be the end of it. He'd be happy to make his living this way; some family portraits and quick sketches. As his work began to circle within Molly's crowd, however, his notoriety began to grow. People sought him out for new projects, for publications, and advertising, and again, he had been happy for the work, and for the distraction that time spent drawing, and learning to paint and create lithographs has given him.
It had been his newest friend, Molly's son Larry, who had made the first suggestion that maybe he ought to invest a bit of his earnings– explained to Jack that with an investment, his wealth could grow without much effort. In truth, Jack knows neither heads nor tails about the stock market, but that it's a gambling game. He doesn't really care about stocks or bonds or business, but he has always been good at poker. What he does know about well, however, is travel, and which railroad lines he had preferred to take when he had been called to move on to the next adventure, and which ones he knew to avoid, and so that's how he made his choices– he invested in the rail lines that he knows people actually choose, and in the growing ones that make the most practical sense. He has invested in automobile manufacturing, and also in aviation: anything that allows people to move around the globe– anything but ocean liners. The returns had grown exponentially, almost immediately, and the more he earned as his artist's reputation grew, the more he learned to invest, until he had built up to this: a man whom people now know, whom they gaze upon with delighted curiosity, because his story proceeds him, a real rags to riches hero.
He lives now on Park Avenue, Molly insists on him owning the building that she had rarely frequented anyway, claiming that that, too– owning the thing– would be an investment. In his mind it means that at least he has a solid roof over his head for the first time since he was a boy; a place to hang his hat, and do his work. It's not a home, though. It won't be, no matter how much he tries to set it up for comfort. It won't be a home until Rose is there to share it with him.
New York City
Autumn, 1914
Jack
Jack hadn't realized, when he had agreed to the meeting about his next big commission, that it meant he'd be showing up at Rose's place of work. He knows from the conversation the evening before that she's a shop girl. In his search for her he had never been able to nail down her employer– her address had come to him first, and only two short days ago– and so it had been with a jolt that morning to realize that the place he was to have his meeting that day was the same place he had promised to meet her after the end of her shift. In truth, with how distracted he had been the entire time, especially after he had caught sight of her in the cosmetics hall, her stormy eyes wide with surprise, it's a wonder he had gotten the job at all– the cover illustrations for the holiday season catalog, and at least five full page ads within, as well as several ads to be placed in publications such as the Saturday Evening Post, and Life. It's a wider scope for his work than he has managed to get yet, and he should be ecstatic, though now, all he can really think about is the woman on his arm. He wishes he could put everything else aside, and put his focus solely on her. He thinks he just might, anyway, for a while.
As they walk, he realizes, maddeningly, that he's out of his depth, here. He has never taken a woman out for a meal before. He has never truly taken a woman anywhere, or courted at all in the traditional sense. His flings in Europe had been more circumstantial and he certainly hasn't been interested in anyone but Rose since they met. He's not really sure how to proceed except that he really, really just wants to clear the air between them and get back to the complete trust he had felt between them on board the ship. He can't help but feel like, with so many unanswered questions, that everything right now is stilted and wrong, and he can practically feel the anxiety radiating off of her.
He decides on taking her to a bistro that he himself visits at least once a week. It's a simple place– homely, with a broad enough variety that he's pretty confident there will be something to her liking, and he knows already that she'd prefer simplicity to anywhere grand, which suits him better anyway. He holds the door for her, and takes her coat, and that earns him a small, shy smile that he counts as a win.
The staff here knows him by now, and they're greeted happily, led to a small corner table where Jack pulls out her chair as well, seeing her comfortably into it before draping her coat over the back. He places his order easily when asked, folding the paper menu back up and handing it to their waiter. He's surprised when he looks across the table back at Rose to see her frozen with indecision, a stricken expression on her face.
"Do you need a few minutes?" he asks, nodding towards the menu clutched in her hand.
"I don't want to hold anyone up," she says, frowning.
Jack glances up at the waiter, who shrugs. They're one of only four other occupied tables in the place. It's still early in the evening, and on a weekday, no less. "No rush, ma'am. Perhaps a beverage to start, and you can have a look over the menu while I fetch it."
"I'm having a beer," Jack offers, "but you can have whatever you'd like–"
"I'll have whatever he's having," says Rose decisively, closing the menu and holding it out.
Jack frowns. "You sure, sweetheart?" he asks, the endearment slipping out.
"I'm sure," says Rose. At a loss for what else to do, he just shrugs at the waiter who takes their menus, hurrying off. Jack thinks that he can sense a bit of awkwardness, and he doesn't blame the guy.
"I'm sorry," says Rose after a few quiet moments. She's staring down at her hands, picking at the skin around her thumbnail anxiously. He wants to take her hand– to tangle their fingers together and squeeze reassuringly, but he doesn't know if that would be okay. He feels like he doesn't know anything right now. He hates that just two years ago he would have been able to take her hand easily– to wrap her up in his arms and not bat an eye.
"You didn't do anything wrong," he tells her, because it's true. She bites at her lip and hesitates to say whatever it is she must want to say.
"I've never ordered for myself in a restaurant before," she says. "I panicked." He can't help but be surprised by that.
"Never?" he asks. He's curious now, how that could be the case.
She shakes her head. "When I was a girl, it was always Father ordering for the family, or my mother, later on, deciding what was appropriate. Then with Cal… well, I had no choice in anything. Since then, I haven't had the means to get food anywhere but the corner market, or the cafeteria at work." She sounds so ashamed of that, it breaks his heart a little bit.
"Well," says Jack, at a loss for what else to say about it. "You'll always have a choice, with me."
The look she gives him is one he can only describe as searching.
"I don't understand this, Jack," she says at last, sitting back in her chair a little bit.
"Don't understand what?" he asks.
"Any of this," she gestures towards him. "I don't understand why you'd put so much effort into finding me. I don't understand why you care. I'm just some girl you met on a boat, Jack. You knew me for three days. I know we both got caught up with each other, but that doesn't mean you owe me anything. I'm not worth it. I'm not."
He kind of wants to laugh. He also wants to cry. Rose is worth so much more than the effort he's been able to put forth. She's worth so much more than this lousy delicatessen dinner. He doesn't know how to make her see that he wants to give her everything– the whole world, and every experience of it that he possibly can, but it also hurts to hear her say that.
"Is that what you think?" he asks, not sure he wants to hear her answer. "That we were just caught up, on the ship? In some… moment of insanity or something? Just swept up?"
"Don't you?" she presses.
The waiter drops their two beers off on their table, and he couldn't be more thankful for the timing of it. He takes a quick swig to clear the emotion from his throat. She stays still, looking at him with the same anxiety she's been wearing since he first saw her yesterday. Somehow he had forgotten that she could be so frustrating– so stubborn and self-deprecating.
"No," he tells her frankly. "I don't. I told you then, and I'll say it again now, you're the most astounding woman I've ever met, Rose. I–" he falters, tripping over his own words, because there's too much he wants to say– so much he wants to get across to her after years' worth of time to think about it all.
"Look," he says, feeling as if he has to level with her. "I get it. It's crazy how I feel about you. I know that. It shouldn't feel like this– this big and important, when everything happened so quickly the way it did, but the fact of the matter is I can't help how I feel, and what i know, and that's that all I've wanted since I lost you is to have the chance– to have the time to learn everything there is to learn about you, and I know that no matter what there is to learn I'll feel the same." He pauses, willing himself to keep calm, because he just needs to get this out.
"If you tell me right now, Rose, that you don't want this– that after today you never want to see me again, I'll respect that. Now that I've seen you, and I know that you're doing okay; that you're strong and you're surviving, it would hurt like hell but I'd be able to live with that, but I need to put my cards on the table. I want this: you, us, for real, and if you give me that chance, I promise I'll do everything I can to make you happy."
Rose across from him is still frozen, looking at him. Her eyes are watering with unshed tears, and he's a bit mad at himself for laying it all out like that, but he needed to say it. He wishes it hadn't had to happen in such a public place. The longer she stays quiet the more afraid he is that this will really be it– that she's about to walk out of his life forever because he doesn't know how not to let his emotions rule his actions; how not to let passion win out over sense.
When she does speak again it's so quiet he almost strains to hear her.
"If you learned everything– if you knew what I've done, you wouldn't want that." 'You wouldn't want me,' she implies.
She had said something similar the night before, he remembers. He also knows more about her past few years than he thinks she probably guesses at. He's sure he knows more than she probably wants him to, and he kind of has the feeling that that's at the heart of the issue.
Taking a chance, he reaches across the table, finally, stilling the dig of her nails digging into the skin of her other hand. He should tread carefully, here, but he just needs her to know that he knows, and that it doesn't matter.
"If this is about the Carpathia, and Cal, or about the men near the docks, Rose, you don't need to worry about that. I won't say it's okay. What they did will never be okay, but you have to know, I don't blame you. I couldn't. Not when you were just trying to keep your promise to survive."