A/N: I do not own Titanic, sadly. James Cameron had a brilliant mind and behind his perfectionist tendencies, there was such detail he put into his work into creating a piece of history before CGI really took off. He made it come to life and it will always remain a special piece to me. Kate Winslet is still one of the golden favorites in my opinion as an actress and the depth she put into her character. Even the changing emotion in her eyes remains a powerful and emotion-invoking performance to this day. And the love story, though fiction, still captures many hearts.
(See the end of the work for more notes.)
__________________________________________
April 19, 1912
Carpathia
Steerage
Late evening
Three days.
Though for her it felt as though time itself had suspended, the seconds ticking by painstakingly slow. Every passing breath unraveled into the misted air, physical evidence she was still breathing.
Alive warm and healthy.
However, why breath still drew from her lungs and not the frigid waters of the Atlantic any longer--was not an easy one to accept. Not when she'd seen so many lost in the arctic waters never to resurface again. Instead, they remained like ghosts haunting her memories even in the waking hours. The desperate cries of survival left to echo for many many years to surely come.
Even as old age passed her by, those last moments of her youth would not.
Now, the rain poured as a mist settled around the RMS CARPATHIA. Yet as the ship drew closer to the Americas, the atmosphere remained silent as a tomb. What should've been a lively bout of cheers from travelers and immigrants bound for better lives, instead was a weighted sorrow. Countless losses had been accumulated from the sunken ship of the RMS TITANIC. There her wreckage would remain as a gravesite for the hundreds of lives left at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
While their loved ones grieved around her.
There were many pale, drawn faces of widows and orphaned children. In her newfound reality, Rose was practically orphaned from her own, having no intentions of returning to the Dewitt-Bukatters. Such a test had already been passed once she'd spotted her ex-fiancé, Caledon Hockley. Ever the survivalist cockroach that God himself deemed him not worthy, he'd come down to third-class deck the day they'd boarded...
The steerage
She'd watched him like a hawk, keeping him in her peripheral as he approached a woman with long tresses in nearly the same hue of red. In a desperate, uncharacterized manner, he'd grasped the young, timid woman by the shoulders. Before he'd pardoned her and made a swift depart seemingly embarrassed.
No doubt, he'd believed the woman to be she.
But Rose had taken precautions just in case of such a contest. Encased in a thin, plaid blanket handed off by 5th Officer Harold Lowe who'd captained their lifeboat. She'd curtained herself amongst the clusters of searching, sorrowful widows questioning the officers. All of which she'd taken pity in her heart, leaving none for him. The tears of those she heard and shed of her own were left for those worthy of her love.
So while Caledon Hockley, an American industrialist and the heir to Pittsburgh's steel tycoon made a fool of himself, Rose remained sitting there in the quiet. Unable to feel even an ounce of sympathy for the soon-to-be-proclaimed millionaire. Once he found another life to pillage and dominate, that is. He'd make sure she was subservient of course, more willing to be molded into the docile dove--
