''You can just call me a tumbleweed, blowing in the wind.'' Jack Dawson, April 1912.
''I never really had roots. I spent too much time watching birds in flight, watching the stars in the sky.'' Rose Dawson exhaled her cigarette smoke out into the open air. ''Perhaps it's why I became a dancer, a singer. I felt a wild paganism about me, in my spirit, and it wasn't just the rebellious streak of adolescence.''
''What made you that way?''
Rose paused for a moment, her thoughts collecting about one man, when she flicked the ash away from her cigarette, a knowing smile came to her lips. ''My nature. And my husband.''
''Ain't you a little young to be married?''
Rose simply narrowed her eyes at the young face before her and found the smug arrogance she had seen once before. In another man. A controlling man.
''I mean, I bet if you're so wild, then your husband is doing a shit job of raining you in. that is all.'' He continued.
Before she even thought about it, she had upturned a pot of ale atop his head and left the bar without so much of a second thought.
She was on the road again.
''I can't believe what you did!'' Jack's hand at her waist, pulling her further towards him, calmed her racing anger.
''Why not! The little-'' Rose trailed off as Jack clamped his hand about her mouth, and her entire being shivered to the core.
''Shh, we have a few more stops, you trying to get us kicked off?''
The train rolled on towards their destination; wherever that was. Together, they lay crammed in a tight holding for the luggage. At every stop, they would hide deeper inside until the right time to run came at them. They were fast. Fast enough to never have been caught when stowing away. That was part of the entire thrill; the chase of it. Adrenaline was always rattling around within her veins. The addiction as real. Like morphine. And then, there was her addiction to her Jack...
''You're crazy.'' Jack removed his hand from her mouth but not before Rose nipped his palm with her teeth. His eyes glowed in the darkness and all she could do was giggle, lightly, as he replaced his hand with his mouth. Together, they collapsed backwards into a pile of suitcases and other unidentifiable objects as all that mattered was Jack. The way that he kissed her. The way of everything...
''You knew this when you married me.''
''And I would have you no other way.''
''That is quite a piece.'' Rose folded her arms across her chest. Her new cream day dress brushed along grass as she stepped back to admire it once more. There, sitting on a portrait stand, Rose admired Jack's work. It was his finest yet. He stepped down from the stool and wiped a bead of sweat away from his face with a folded handkerchief.
''You think?'' He squinted in the late morning sun, joining Rose to look at the work.
''Yes!''
''It's not so bad.''
A greying fifty something man handed Jack a couple of coins from his suit jacket pocket. ''It's just wonderful! All I could ask for.'' His beagle came to his owner's feet, loyal as he sniffed at the ground before squatting to sit.
''Are you sure?''
''Young man, this kind of work is what I would pay good money for. Where did you study?''
Jack wiped his hands down his trousers once more. The dusty charcoal seemed to stick to his clammy hands. Both nerves and excitement had patterned about in his stomach. Whilst paper was still good to work with, he had collected little money together and started to paint also, the odd landscape but before him, he had done a hand drawing of the man before him, with his trusted dog upon his knee on a canvas. Not a large one, just big enough to be almost life size. Jack saw the flaws in the drawing; he always did. The dog's paws could be a little better, he pondered. Other smaller parts, but as he glanced to the man before him, Jack collected his negativity and put it away for another day.
