**Author's Note: proceed with caution. This chapter contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. If this is at all triggering, feel free to skip this chapter.
Carpathia, Atlantic Ocean
Spring 1912
Rose
The only thing Rose can really blame for being found so easily is the shock: the shock of the whole event, but also the shock of losing Jack, the shock of the cold to her delicate system– the shock of having somehow apparently survived it all. When she thinks about it that way she supposes that having found Jack at all and getting to experience the feelings he had brought out in her in the first place was its own kind of shock, coupled with the surety with which she had been determined to step away from everything she had ever known. She had meant it when she said goodbye to her mother, now, not six short hours ago. She had meant it last night when she had stood on the deck, held fast within Jack's arms and declared that when the ship docked, she'd be getting off with him. Now, the ship would never dock. Jack would never again return home to America, and yet she will somehow have to keep her promise to continue on.
She doesn't really know how to do that, though, when she can't properly feel her limbs, let alone process her emotions or pay any sufficient attention to her surroundings. She thinks now that Jack had been right about the water when he talked her out of jumping that first night– that the feeling of the cold makes it impossible to think properly, even after being submerged so long you've almost gotten used to it. She's got two blankets wrapped around her now and a mug of tea pressed into her hands and it's not enough to stop her shaking. She's not sure she'll ever feel properly warm again. Her ruined dress and the heavy woolen coat draped over her frame are still soaked through, making the chill settle deep within her bones, and so the blankets aren't much help.
She had been hauled on board– handled crudely like a heavy parcel rather than a person with the way she hadn't been quite able to lift herself up, her muscles weak from exhaustion, and as she feels the hand now grasping down upon her shoulder as she makes her way across the deck, only half searching for familiar faces because there's only one she really wants to see, she knows that she should have been taking more care not to be recognized. Of course Cal had found some way to weasel himself onto a lifeboat. She's not even surprised.
"So the whore has survived after all." Cal's voice holds the same condescension it always has.
Rose lets her own disdain show upon her face.
"I see you somehow managed to bribe your way to survival," she says, and tries to pull her shoulder from his grasp but his fingers tighten, winding their way into the collar of her coat– his coat, she remembers now. Her tea spills, and she abandons the mug altogether in the struggle.
"Borrowed," he corrects her. "There was a little brat left to perish on the decks, so I seized the opportunity when I saw it. Really, the kid should count herself lucky I was there."
His admission makes something sick twist in Rose's gut. How could she have once been about to marry a man who would use the life of an innocent child in that way. No doubt he has already abandoned the poor girl.
"You stole your way to safety, with an innocent life. I guess I shouldn't be surprised."
Cal scoffs. "Begged, borrowed, stole– what does it matter how I secured a place when I've won in the end?"
He's leaning in close now; closer than he would normally get to Rose in public where he needs to keep up the pretense of the perfect aristocratic gentleman, but right now they're beyond propriety, she supposes. No one around them cares, because there are much more important matters at hand. Up this close she can see the toll the night has taken– the dark circles under tanned skin, the start of a five-o'clock shadow. His clothes are rumpled and a little torn, though mostly dry– still the tails he had worn to the dinner she had skipped the night before, and his hair is out of its usual coiffure, loose and limp with damp. His eyes hold a kind of dark manic glee at the notion that he has won, and she chafes under the weight of their gaze.
His hand tightens further at the collar of the coat she's wearing as he moves, stepping to the side, and with the weight of her limbs and jumble of her thoughts, she's not able to put up much of a fight as she's hauled from the decks up into an enclosed corridor, led to a set of rather basic state rooms. She has the maddening thought that apparently, enough money can buy you a room on a ship that you aren't even booked on as a passenger. After months of traveling with Cal– their joke of an 'engagement tour' taking them to all of the most fashionable spots in Europe; Venice, Paris, London– while simultaneously avoiding anywhere actually interesting within the cities– she's used to the way that Cal is ready to throw money at any problem in order to make the world turn to his liking. Forget that there are grieving and injured people right outside who could make better use of this room at the moment.
"What are you doing, Cal?" She demands, finally able to yank herself free of his grasp as he fusses with the door– turns the lock, she realizes with blood running cold.
"Oh, just taking back what's mine, Rose," he responds with nonchalance that doesn't fit with the anger underpinning his words.
"What?" She asks. She feels fear spike within herself, but distantly, as if under the din of fog that hasn't cleared since she was plucked from the water. She feels so slow to comprehend. Its the shock, she thinks.
He rolls his eyes, exasperated.
"The coat, dear. Give me the coat."
He says the endearment so sardonically. She feels frozen, still not understanding. Why would he care about a silly coat right now? People have died– people they knew, and hundreds they didn't. All of their possessions are gone, and surely nothing is more important right now– or should be– than reaching an end of the calamity.
Fed up with waiting, his hands are on her again, fingers digging into her upper arm, bruising as he forces her close– close enough to reach his other hand into the deep right pocket of the trench. She's a bit astonished when his hand pulls back and he's got the heart of the ocean clutched within it, the familiar cold gleam taunting her now. She hadn't even known it was there. She feels further frozen, watching satisfaction curl in the curve of his upper lip, a smirk she wants to slap right off of him, but right now she's too scared to move– too scared of what he might do.
He drops the necklace into the pocket of his own trousers, and then without warning reaches into the other coat pocket, retrieving bank-rolls she also had no clue about. He's not shy about his reaching now, no gentleman at all, his hand raking across her body through the fabric of the coat lining and the remains of her tattered dress. When he looks at her again, it's predatory.
Finally, he lets go of her. His hands are no longer on her, thank god, but she is backed to a wall. He's still crowding her space, and the look on his face is so similar to the night before when he had struck her cheek so hard she saw stars. It's eerily similar to the explosion of anger he had had at breakfast yesterday morning. It's the same look she's seen from him countless times over the months since they met– since they got paired together in the first place all without her opinion or input, because Ruth Dewitt-Bukater may think she knows best, but really it has always been big powerful men in suits making every choice for the both of them, all her life, and it's this look here that truly cements it for Rose that no matter what happens now, she needs to break free, like Jack said. If she even tries to stay, now, she'll die, whether by her own hand or his, because she can't live her life within Cal's grasp.
"I've had a lot of things taken from me, these past few days," says Cal. He's leaning down now, into her space. She can feel the tip of his nose and the jut of his chin against her neck.
"Now that I've managed to retrieve the most important piece of property, I think it's time I finally claim the other, wouldn't you say?" His hand goes to her waist beneath the coat, and she feels it like a brand, fingers scratching as he's gathering fabric, pulling, she realizes, to lift the skirts of her dress, and she feels bile rise in her throat to mix with her fear, her heart hammering behind her ribs. "After all, you're damaged goods now, so why shouldn't I? There's no more point in waiting. Your gutter rat saw to that, didn't he?"
The mention of Jack is what gives her any strength at all now; any fight. Quick as she can she brings up a knee between his legs, remembering a long ago conversation with a maid at her old home, of how to try and escape this kind of danger. The effect is more profound than she had hoped, and Cal nearly doubles over, his hands going almost involuntarily into place as if to shield himself.
"You bitch! You fucking bitch!"
He grasps for her, scrambling, his fingers now tearing the skirts of her dress a bit, and grabbing onto her hair, pulling roughly, but she's able to scrabble for the door, fussing with the lock behind her back as he stumbles forward.
He's got her now, but he has left himself open, trying to move through the pain from her kick, and she takes the opportunity. She had punched a man a few hours ago, in her desperation to free Jack from the boughs. She had broken that man's nose, she thinks. Reeling her arm back now, she lets it fly again, her aim not as true, but landing solid enough on his cheekbone to startle him away once more. She's sure it'll bruise terribly, come morning.
She's able to get the door open, by some miracle, stepping out into the hallway under the flurry of his curses. They've caused a commotion by now, and there are several faces peering out at them from similar doorways, some of whom she realizes she vaguely recognizes, and that's a good thing. Out here in plain sight Cal can't do anything to her without repercussions. She can see the moment when he realizes this as well, righting himself and his clothes as much as he can, though it's obvious now what had just been going on. Her dress is torn up the leg, the coat off one shoulder and the only blanket she has left now falling from the other, her hair a wreck. Cal's face, she sees now, is already swelling, red from anger, and there's no mistaking the coldness in his eyes.
She musters her last bit of bravery, and shakes her head at him, willing him not to get any closer.
"You've taken what you wanted, Cal," she tells him. "I'll not let you have more. When this ship reaches New York, I'm getting off alone. Consider the engagement off." It's almost as an afterthought that she remembers the ring, but the loss of its weight is liberating as she throws it at his feet.
By now there are a few stewards fussing about him, and a few onlookers trying to worry over her as well, but Rose doesn't have the time for it. Right now she needs to put as much distance as she can between herself and Cal– to get somewhere where she can hide until they reach the shore. It doesn't occur to her that Cal will deny all of this– that instead of admitting that he had let her get away, he'd claim her to be dead, even with a few eye-witnesses to say she had been here.
She's already on land for a week, before she gets her hands on a newspaper and sees the headline: "Fiancé of Heir to Hockley Wealth Perishes in Titanic Disaster." She's not even given the dignity of a name, but no matter. She's no longer Rose Dewitt-Bukater, anyway, and she'll never be Rose Hockley. That first day had been fraught with fear and shock and adrenaline, and a week on, that first scramble of a fight had seemed easy in comparison to what she'd face yet.
New York City
Spring 1912
Rose
Leaving the ship had been a mad dash; a frantic scramble to dry land, the din of rescued passengers all like drowned rats desperate for the refuge of reaching the shore. The way that onlookers and reporters stood waiting for their arrival, so different from the joyous triumphant affair it should have been at the end of a successful maiden voyage, is overwhelming, but at least without a title or any marker of wealth, the reporters overlook her, leaving her well enough alone.
She wanders into the crowd, using its cover to stay hidden in case Cal or her mother are still searching, but realizes very quickly that she has no idea what to do next. Jack's grand ideas about living in the moment feel of little comfort now when she's faced with the reality of this moment, where she's cold and hungry and exhausted, and she has no idea of which street to turn down to find somewhere that might be safe. She's not sure if she'll make it through the night if she tries to sleep rough the way he had described.
She has no idea of how to seek out genuine charity, though it's being offered all around her. The hotel, she overhears– the Waldorf Astoria: J.J. 's place– is offering rooms to anyone in need. She knows she can't follow the crowds there, though. No doubt that's where her mother and Cal would go first, familiar in its grandeur. She herself had stayed there with them in August of last year, just after the first month of Cal's courtship.
Instead, she catches sight of a group of women who look around her age, dressed simply, who follow another crowd towards a group of men offering rooms elsewhere. She figures it should be safe enough, if it's where others are going– women who would have been Jack's peers. They don't pay her much mind when she shuffles in close. One woman even gives her a kind, sympathetic smile, and offers her an extra blanket, to replace the one she had lost in the fight with Cal. A man, who calls himself John Something-or-other proclaims to be an innkeeper nearby, with spare rooms. He suggests that he'll take in women and children. She follows the small crowd into the West Village.
She stays there three days in a room rudimentary, but comfortable. She is able to choose simple clothing from Red Cross donations, along with the other women there. She's given vouchers for meals from a few places around the city, and it's enough to get her by, until the third day.
That day, the innkeeper, who had been relatively absent until then, just observing the troupe of disaster-worn women in his establishment, knocks on her door. He has come to take payment.
She has nothing. She had told him so– had explained that she'd been told the room was free for a few days; that if he wanted her out, she'd be happy to leave, but that she couldn't pay for her stay. This time, she had had her wits about her enough to clock it when his gaze turned from expectant of money, to predatory and lustful.
"No truly hard-up woman speaks in a high class way, 'way you do," he had told her. "No poor broad ever called me sir, neither. Either you'll pay me one way, or I'll take it another." And this man wasn't Cal. This was someone equally cruel and opportunity seeking, yes, but it wasn't someone with a cruelty she had studied– someone who's missteps she could anticipate. This man was strong– strong enough to have her complying for the sake of keeping her life. He took what he wanted from her, as she retreated into whatever safe little corner of her mind she could find, and then, to add insult to injury, he had thrown a handful of coins her way, before turning her out.
It had taken her two more months, and two more times of deciding it had already happened, so what's one more time if it puts food in her belly- returning to that same inn- before she had found the little place she now calls home, and had scraped up enough of the inkeeper's pitying coin to let her room for a month.
It made her feel sick the whole time, to think of how she had so easily given in– forsaken Jack's kind and loving touch for the rough grasp of another, but she hadn't seen another way, and as she had been taught from birth, her beauty was her only thing of value. It gave her that month, at least, to recover all she could and come up with a plan, before she finally mustered up what felt like the dregs of her courage and dignity, and marched into the big new department store where she had seen an ad in the window, walking by. She knows that she only has what was left of her good looks to thank for getting the position, and has felt that her supervisor, Mrs. Ellis, has known from day one that she's hiding something, but she's done everything she could since, to keep it. She vowed, on donning the uniform for the job, that she'd never again let any man touch her without consent again. She's done all she can to avoid any unwanted attention. She thinks, in the year and a half that have passed, that she has done a pretty good job of keeping to herself.