Hi Friends!
So, I appologize for this chapter's lengthy-ness. It was actually supposed to be split into two chapters, but wattpad wont let me separate the two parts unless I delete the rest of the story first. I'm not going to do that, so bear with me here. :)
Also, I do not own these people. Though sometimes my friends and I joke about abducting Leo, that's about the closest we've ever got to owning Jack. Anywhose, let's all applaud TEAtitanicfan on this chapter! Because, she wrote a great deal of it. And I'm very proud of her. :) Many of the chapters that are yet to come shall be written by her, as well. Also, I want to continue to thank my glorious editor greenpea, as we couldn't have done any of this without her help and support. THANK YOU!!!!!!!
Rose Dewitt Bukater
She can’t seem to concentrate on anything. Faces and little pieces of ongoing, cheerful conversation float in and out of her perception, but never enough to properly grasp onto. Her mind doesn’t seem to be working properly anymore. It’s like her unhappiness has created a sort of wall in the front of her brain, blocking any other thought from coming through.
Rose’s eyes are glazed and she stares ahead at nothing.
“Awfully quiet, tonight, isn’t she,” Rose’s mother says to someone. If she cared, she would’ve seen that something was most certainly wrong. Rose knows that Ruth is greatful for her silence, though. For once, her feisty, stubborn daughter is actually keeping her mouth shut.
“I say, these crumpets are absolutely delightful!” Says a woman to her far left.
“Pass the caviar!” Says another.
“Only a quid? My shoes are worth at least two.” Says someone far across the crowded table, as if these ridiculous, material objects are the most important things in world, coming far before people and feelings. And this isn’t even the worst part.
The worst part is that nothing will ever change for Rose. She knows it, and they all know it, too. That’s just the way they all want it. Her life will play out in the exact same way, every day, for the next eighty or so years. She’ll wake up in the mornings, dress in her nice things, and then spend the rest of the day having high society tell her what to do and how to do it like she’s their insignificant, foolish puppet. And then she’ll do this the next day, and then the next day, and then everyday afterwards. Until she dies. And then her children will have to, and then their children, and their children….She can see her entire life laid out before her as if she’s already lived it.
And there’s not one thing she can do about it, especially now, since her favored escape lies somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.
I can’t go on existing like this…I need to get away. I need an escape. I wish life came with a refresh button, so that when the world kind of caved in I could be done with it all. I could press refresh and start all over. Just like that. Somewhere different.
I need an out.
Rose pushes her chair back suddenly. Nobody even glances in her direction. Even with her head so foggy, she knows just what she has to do now. It’s the only thing she can think about.
Oh God….Oh God forgive me, I need an out…..
She can’t even wait until bath time. Rose gets up, and she runs.
She’s out of the dining hall and onto the deck faster than ever imaginable, even while restricted by her long, flowing red dress. Her heart beats wildly. She can feel the cold night air slap her in the face like a secret blow to the head.
Rose doesn’t take any notice of the strolling couples, or of the children tossing a Frisbee about the deck, or the mother arguing with her older son, or the girl leaning against a pole and reading, or the boy on the bench looking up at the stars. All she takes notice of is the roaring of the sea, and it gets louder and louder as she gets closer to her desired destination.
Anyone who gets in her way is knocked aside without a second thought, bruising and bumping the tender parts of her body. A salty river floods her red cheeks, and she doesn’t try to fight it anymore. Just like that, the curse has been released. She is too weak to care or feel ashamed. With every second, Rose feels herself getting weaker. Already she can’t go on anymore.
Soon, she thinks, soon it’ll be all over. It’s going to be okay, Rose.
Once she reaches the bough, the siren of the ocean is as like a mermaid’s song—alluring and powerful. She can’t fight its enchanting, beautiful call. The only thing she smells is salt and for a moment, it’s only her and the sea and it’s absolutely wonderful. But when Rose grabs onto the smooth metal ahead of her, the cold chill it sends throughout her veins isn’t nearly as comforting.
Soon it’ll be over, she keeps telling herself, just a few more minutes. She brings her healed foot to the first bar of the railing and takes a deep breath. Her body wobbles. Ocean mist sprays her face. She’s so close. So, so close….
Water pulses beneath her. It’s black, like the plague, and screams.
Rose holds onto the thick mast above her, carefully bringing her body towards the opposite side of the boat. Cold wind eats away at her raw skin. It blows her curls about her face, and she can hardly see. She turns to face the ocean, like a mermaid on the front of a powerful pirate’s ship. If she closes her eyes, she can picture the beach. It’s sand is warm and beautiful in between her tiny toes. All she can smell is salt. She almost smiles. Her grip loosens. Perhaps that’s what heaven will be like.
“Don’t do it.”
Rose opens her eyes and whips her head back. This is her moment. Her time. Damn it.. A groan escalates in the back of her throat. Who dare interrupt me in my last moments of life?
“Stay back!” She commands, willing her voice to sound powerful and authoritative—everything that she used to be and isn't anymore. Somehow, though, it comes out as more of a squeal and a whimper, a sound Rose is definitely not proud of. She tries again. “Don’t come any closer!”
Her eyes are so blurred that she can hardly even see the person behind her. All she can tell is that he’s tall, and is, in fact, a ‘he’, judging by his outline and the broadness of his shoulders and the deepness of his voice.
But coming closer is exactly what the man does. He takes little baby steps, inching towards her like she’s a rabbit he might scare away if he moves too quickly.
“Come on,” he says, reaching out a hand. Muscles pulse. He looks strong. “I’ll—I’ll pull you back over.” His voice is gentle, sort of like a sweet lullaby. If she were in any other place, any other time, any other life, perhaps she would have enjoyed its low, lyrical tune. Perhaps she could listen to it for hours. It’s enchanting. Allouring.
Some people are just like that.
But of course she can’t listen to him now. And the fact that he’s the only force standing in her way makes Rose's head pulse with agitation.
“No!” She tells him. “Stay where you are!” The sobs in her throat make it hard to sound determined, something she's normally so good at. Her voice doesn’t seem to do anything she tells it to. “I mean it, or I’ll let go!” She turns back to the ocean. Her hands are slipping…slipping…falling away.
The man is so close now, only about a few feet behind her. She wonders what he’s thinking. Don’t you have anything better to do? A wife to tend to? Cards to play? Dinner to eat? Raw frustration boils within her very soul, taking hold of everything within her, like a virus. She blinks, not wanting him to see the saddness in her eyes. She will not let him see her weak, not when she wants to tell him what do do. Her eyes clear, and she opens her mouth to give him an earful. But then she stops, her breath stopping short in the back of her throat. In that very moment, she glances at him clearly for the first time.
And he isn't a man at all. He's a boy. With bright eyes with long lashes, a smooth jaw and golden hair. His face is lovely, like a glass crystal that reflects little rainbows onto the ceiling in astonishing, shimmering beams, but all the while you can’t help but think: how is that possible? For several seconds, all she can do is stare. It's fascinating. It's almost unbelievable-- like discovering an ancient artifact in a dangerous expedition. Her palms get sweaty. Her belly whizzes with a mix of unfamiliar emotions--but they aren't bad ones.
He is the most beautiful boy she's ever seen.
He takes the cigarette in his mouth, holds it out for her to see like a sort of peace offering, as if she ever thought of it as a threat, and he tosses it over the side of the ship. His eyes are so blue. They reflect off the moon. “No you won’t.” He says.
Rose’s brows knit together. She blinks again, finally retreating from her daze at the sound of his voice. She plays his last three words in her head over and over, searching for something she might have missed. “…What do you mean no I won’t?” Her skin feels very hot. She grips ahold of the railing so tightly that her knuckles turn white. “Don’t presume to tell me what I will and will not do! You don’t know me!”
“Well…you wudda done it already.” Oh, oh now he's done it. Now he's really put her over the edge. Anger tears through her body--rage pulses through her veins. She casts him a glair that's nearly enough to burn his smooth skin, but he doesn't seem to notice.
A small part of her brain, the hot, stubborn part that takes over in an argument or heated debate—almost makes her do it. She really, earnestly, seriously almost jumps. If only to prove him wrong. If only to be able to say, ‘ha, you were wrong. So go ahead and wipe that stupid smug look off of your face because now I’m dead and you don’t know me at all. So there.”
She blinks—tries to clear the rage away to make room for logic. Don’t be stupid.
Maybe she’ll just stand there for hours. He has to have a family of some sort to get back to eventually, right? He’ll get bored and leave—give up. She would have won the battle. Maybe she’ll speed up the process of his departure by making insane noises and impossibly unordinary faces so that he’ll think she’s crazy. She’ll scare him away, because who knows what crazy people are capable of? They’re unpredictable, and unpredictable can be dangerous.
And maybe she's not so different from that, anyway.
Rose turns to him once more, looks him over, and his pretty blue eyes never stray from her gray ones. His feet are planted firmly on the ground. He's like a boulder. And for the first time she starts to wonder if moving him will be harder than she thought. “You’re distracting me, go away!” Her voice comes out high and whiney--an odd mix between a moan and a shriek. Insanity at it's peak.
But he doesn't leave.
“I can’t. I’m too involved now.” He sighs. Sure, she gets what he's trying to do, he's trying to save her. He's trying to be nice. This must be God's way of answering her earlier prayers. That must be it. But those wishes are done now--expired. She does not want to be convinced anymore. Not by an old hermit living in the mountains and certainly not by this strange boy.
It's just too late.
Can't the boy see that she'd be better off alone? If he really wanted to help Rose, he'd leave her be. Maybe trying logic with the boy would be a better approach. Maybe if she calmed down a little and explained this to him, maybe if she even thanked him for his time, he'd be on his way. But just as she opens her mouth to say this, the boy speaks. “You let go and I’m gonna have to jump in there after ya.” She hears the sound of his coat being swiftly removed from his body, tossed aside for an owner that may never return.
He can’t be serious.
She looks him up and down, trying to see any dishonesty in his expression. She wants to find hope that he won’t jump in after her, that he really isn't prepared to make such a sudden and stupid decision. His face, however, stays perfectly straight.
“Don’t be absurd!” Rose can hardly believe this. She doesn’t have time for this. And the anger returns to her bloodstream with full force. If he were smart, he'd leave. A smart person wouldn't make such stupid, life threatening decisions. He's an idiot. He's trying to save me because he's an idiot. “You’d be killed!”
He begins to undo the laces of his tall, right shoe.
“I’m a good swimmer.”
He won't back down because he doesn't know better. He think's I can be saved, because he's stupid and he doesn't know what I'm capable of. “The fall alone would kill you!”
Second shoe lace. “It would hurt. I’m not saying it wouldn’t.” He sounds so at ease, so confident and certain and sincere because he doesn't know. He doesn' t know that I'm too far gone. I'm unreachable. There's nothing left of me to save. Rose thinks of where she's come from--she thinks of marriage and Mother and she even thinks of Mary Mason, expecting to feel the horrible ache of feeling erupt from her ribs--the familiar ache of pain and loss. But then something odd happens. For the first time, the feeling doesn't come. It's as if she's spent so much time feeling the ache that she's finally used it all up. She's run out of the feeling, and in it's place is a dark, ominous emptiness, and dread. It's a new kind of dread, though. A kind she hasn't felt in a long, long time.
Dismay at what lies behind her, back in Titanic's first class?
Rose looks in front of her at the roaring waves ahead. A cold shiver runs down her spine.
And it becomes quite clear that, for the first time in a long time, the safety of Titanic is not where the awful feeling stems from.
“But to tell you the truth, I’m a lot more concerned about that water being so cold.”
"How cold?" The question comes out before she can stop it. Because something within her is changing.
“Freezing,” he says, as if it’s nothing. “Maybe a few degrees over.” He pulls his shoe off and leaves it at his feet. He stands up, hands in pocket, as if this were any ordinary conversation. As if Rose isn’t standing on the edge of the Titanic, with all intents of dropping to her death.
“You ever, uh, you ever been to Wisconsin?”
She stares at him, wondering if perhaps she is not the only one toying with insanity. “What?"
“Well they have some of the coldest winters around. I grew up there near Chippewa Falls. I remember when I was a kid, me and my father, we went ice fishing out on lake Wissota. Ice fishing is, you know, where you—”
“I know what ice fishing is!” Rose interrupts, letting out an exasperated, disgusted sigh. She hates it when people assume she doesn’t know about normal experiences and normal feelings. They assume she knows nothing of normality. Like at one point she didn’t do things that normal people do, like garden and play in the snow and beat boys in races and daydream about traveling the world or becoming an actress, or an artist, or better yet--an explorer. At some point, Rose did petty things like those, not for society, not for friends, but just because it made her happy. That’s what she did at her Grandmother’s house. She was happy.
“Sorry,” the boy says in an almost sarcastic manner that makes her cringe. “You just seem like, you know, kind of an indoor girl,” he raises his eyebrows, and Rose can tell he doesn’t think any differently. He hurriedly continues, “Anyway, I, uh, I fell through some thin ice. And I’m tellin’ ya, water that cold, like right down there," he looks down at the raging sea, his face pinched in discomfort as if the memory itself is too much to bear. "It hits you like a thousand knives stabbing you all over your body. You can’t breathe, you can’t think, at least not about anything but the pain,”
But this...this is what I want, isn't it? This is what I've planned, this is what I've been waiting for, isn't it?
She wants to say something to him, to convince him--and maybe even herself--otherwise.
She does want to do this. She will do this. But the dread, the fear of what she'll be giving up, clogs her throat.
“Which is why I’m not looking forward to jumping in there after you. Like I said,” he continues, shrugging, “I don’t have a choice. I guess I’m kind of hoping you’ll come back over the rail and get me off the hook here.”
“You’re crazy!” It's all she can say. Rose doesn’t want to be convinced to climb back over the rail. I don’t want to live, she reminds herself. Before the boy showed up, she had been so certain of this. It had been so simple, so easy. She knew what she wanted. Like when she was younger, and she knew that she wanted to become an artist, and an explorer. She didn't even have to think about it. She didn't have to convince herself. She just knew. She knew what she was going to do with her life. And to hell with anyone who tried to stop her.
Oh my God....
“That’s what everybody says," he smiles, but despite how beautiful, Rose hardly notices it. She feels sick. "But, with all due respect, miss, I’m not the one hanging off the back of a ship here. C’mon...." he coaxes, "c’mon give me your hand. You don’t want to do this.”
Her head spins. Her chest aches. He sounds so sincere—so sure, as if he’s known her for a thousand years. As if he knows everything about her—what she’s going through and where she’s going and where she’s been. As if he’s followed her, her entire life, and has witnessed everything from the very beginning to these last moments. His words seem to pour out of him and splash right onto her, like ravenous waves.
You don’t want to do this.
Rose opens her eyes. Her skin trembles. Her head spins. Her heart flutters, and a cold, slow sweat dribbles down her temple.
She can hardly breathe.
Because suddenly—for the first time in many years, it dawns on her. Suddenly, as if she’s been given different eyes—she gets a new glimpse at herself. It’s as if she’s been blinded for as long as she can remember, and has been given the unexpected gift of sight for the very first time. It’s as if she’s been living in a dream for centuries, only to have finally been awoken into reality. And when she opens her eyes for the first time, what she sees is horrifying.
What happened to the young child who used to climb atop roofs and pretend she was a superhero, saving the world from powerful, dark sources? Or the girl who poured a cup of warm pudding atop the head of the meanest girl in town, in front of the entire dining hall of their school, after Rose caught her spreading terribly offensive rumors about Kate? Or the girl who was always picked first for teams because she was the fastest, who was always turned to first among friends because she was thought of as the wisest, the one who children always followed because she was looked at as the most fearless—the one who, as a child, had been dubbed the name ‘Rose the brave,’ because of the countless times she laughed in the face of danger?
Where did that Rose go? Who did she turn into?
She looks before her, at the raging, angry waters. She looks at her hands—the same hands that have been skinned, bumped, and bruised from countless days of deliciously dangerous adventure and fearless exploration—and Rose shivers.
Because she remembers. She knows. Dangling at the end of the grandest ship in the world, as a million different thoughts of pathetic self-pity race through her mind, is not where she wanted to end up. This girl, who conjures up a deep ache within her soul whenever she wants to feel sorry for herself--this pathetic girl who runs away from her fears and disappointments as if she doesn’t have a lick of bravery to her name---- is not who she intended to be.
So she turns her head to the boy with determined, newfound strength. Without another word, or another thought of what might be waiting for her on the opposite side of the ship, she takes his hand.
And for this moment-- this new, powerful, yet strangely beautiful moment-- it’s as if they’re the only two people in existence.
“I’m Jack Dawson,” he says, letting out a small sigh as if he really wasn’t as confident as he looked.
“Rose DeWitt Bukater,” she tells him. Rose likes the feel of his hand in her own. His grasp is firm--warm. Not in the physical way, rather in a way that it radiates a kind spirit. She trusts it, that with his hand in hers she won’t fall. She turns, assuring that he high heeled shoes rest firmly on the bar, and meets his eyes. And they are, without a doubt, the most beautiful eyes she has ever seen.
“I’ll have to get you to write that one down,” he says with a smile.
It’s such a beautiful smile that Rose actually laughs. A short choke of a laugh, but a laugh none the less. She laughs, not because it’s expected of her, or because she wants to feel good. Just because of Jack's smile, and his voice. Beautiful and alluring, like the songs of the ocean.
“C’mon.” Jack begins to pull her over the rails.
Something catches. A slight misstep, and suddenly Rose is falling.
It’s just the freshly painted white rails, and the determined face above her. A scream pierces the air--long and hard and coated with raw fear, and it takes Rose a moment to realize that such an inhumane sound was her own. Her stomach churns, her heart flies straight into her throat. She can feel her palms slipping, and all throughout this, she can't help but thinking the same phrases over and over, like a broken record, repeating themselves in the very pit of her brain. I didn't meen it. I didn't meen it. Oh God I'm sorry. I'm sorry, God, I'm so sorry. I don't want this. I didn't meen it.
Jack grunts and tries to readjust his hands, preparing to pull her back over.
“I gotcha, c’mon!” She can hardly hear him. Animal, unearthly screams pierce the air--block everything out but the raging sounds of the ocean. She can't stop.
Rose tries her best to struggle up the ship, and, for a moment, she thinks she’s succeeded. She thinks maybe, somehow, she’s not going to die.
And then, once more, she’s falling. His hand slips from hers, and she swears she’s going down this time. For a brief second, he’s only supporting her with one hand. She doesn't even scream this time. She can't do it. She's run out of sound. Fear paralyzes her throat.
“Please!” she croacks--her voice sounds frighteningly unfamiliar. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it. “Please! Please help me!”
“Listen to me,” Jack yells over the pounding water. She can't breathe. “Listen to me. I got you. I won’t let go.”
She looks up. His eyes blaze with determination. Little beads of sweat tread down the sides of his face. “Now pull yourself up. C’mon!”
Rose the brave, she thinks, suddenly. Somehow in her panicked mind, this little thought slides in. She holds onto it. Rose the brave, adventuring on roughtops, climbing through tall trees.
His glorious determination--in her--gives Rose enough strength to start climbing her way up the ship. Even while exhausted, simply from hanging there, her arms manage to support her, and she begins to lift herself.
Her right leg stretches onto Titanic. Her heart continues to pound. The tight dress fights against her, begging her to fall, but she won’t do it. For once, she’s determined for life. Jack’s determined. He’s shouting words of encouragement Rose barely hears as she struggles her way back up onto the ship.
Finally, she’s high enough to see his face. High enough that she doesn’t feel like she’s in the process of dying. Jack wraps his lean, muscular arms around her. In any other circumstance, perhaps she wpuld have melted right into them. But now, all she can concentrate on is that she’s alive. Even as they stumble backward from the edge of the ship, even when he stumbles on top of her, all she can think about is how grateful she is to be on solid ground. She almost laughs as a familiar sense of victory washes over her.
I've done it. I've won.
For a moment they stay like this, she doesn't move.
We've won.
“What’s all this?” a man says with a heavy, somewhat posh British accent. It's as if he's appeared out of nowhere. Jack immediately rises off of her, and for once, his jaw tightens, and his eyes look wide. He looks nervous.
The man is wearing one of the crew uniforms, eyeballs darting from Rose, to Jack, to Rose, and then back to Jack again. The look on his face is full of authority, and Rose barely notices the two men beside him.
The strange man's face seems to relax a little as he quickly comes to his conclusion. He takes one sweep at the scene in front of him. Rose imagines it can’t look good, and, despite her chaotic thoughts, tries to think of something to say. She can’t say the truth, she knows that, but she has to think fast. She has to stop taking startled breaths, or looking at the man with wide, terrorfied eyes. She has to look calm and certain, or Jack could be in trouble.
“You stand back! And don’t move an inch!” the man yells. One of his men starts to jog away, and he yells after him, “And fetch the master arms!”
Too late. Rose has a feeling this man is one of those people who, once they’ve made up their minds, there’s no changing it back.
Jack looks wearisome, like he’s listening to a child tell a story for the third time, and can’t wait until it gets to the end. He places his hands in his pockets and lets out a sigh.
Of course, Rose thinks, we both know what’s going to happen.
And, somehow, Rose may be the only one who can stop her saviour from being mistaken as a guilty man.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Cal is there even before anybody else arrives on scene. Somehow, the crew thought it was more important to contact the creature that caused all of this trouble, than somebody like a paramedic, or the head authority.
But, of course, rather than pay any attention to Rose, bundled up in a blanket and still shaking from the incident, he’s completely ignored her. He’s instead decided to observe Jack, nose stuck high in the air, as he sends out a thousand vibes screaming, I’m better than you.
Rose watches from afar, pretending to listen to the words of two men who she supposes were sent over to comfort her. She sees the silver cuffs clasp around Jack’s wrists, and winces. Her saviour, the miraculous boy who rescued, is being punished. It’s not right.
Caledon sneers, “It’s completely unacceptable! What made you think that you could put your hands on my fiancée?”
She hates how he says my, like she’s his property. Jack hears it to, and looks over at Rose, still sitting on the bench. They make eye contact for the briefest of moments, and then she looks away.
“Look at me, you filth,” Cal says, grabbing Jack by his shirt and shaking him.
“Cal!” Rose interrupts. She can’t stand it anymore. She hasn’t the slightest of ideas about what she’s going to say, but she knows that she has to defend him. He doesn’t deserve to be treated like a piece of worthless trash.
“What do you think you were doing?” he continues, ignoring her. Rose stands up, rushing to his side. She’s going to make him listen to her, whether he likes it or not. Jack’s in no position to defend himself, so Rose will have to do it for him.
“Cal, stop!” She interrupts him mid sentence, grabbing onto his arm so he’ll stop shaking Jack like he’s some sort of rag doll. He’s now facing her, but even so, he sends a vigorous glare in Jack’s direction.
“It was an accident.”
“An accident?” he scoffs, blinking furiously in disbelief like a mentally ill dog.
“It was,” Rose breathes. Now that’s she’s started, it’s so easy to continue. The lie flows out easily. “Stupid really. I was leaning over, and I slipped.”
Jack’s looking at her, a look of concern played across his face. He keeps on sending Cal brief looks, and to Rose it seems as if he’s not even breathing, waiting to see if her fiancée will believe the lie. “I was leaning far over to see the uh.” She slips up. What on earth would I be looking at?
“Uh, uh, the, um, uh,” she twirls her finger in a circle, trying to think. The fan type things that she remembers beneath her as she dangled to her death; what on earth are they called?
Somehow, Cal seems to have some idea what she’s talking about. “Propellers,” he provides quietly.
“Propellers!” Rose exclaims, nodding. “And I slipped. And I would’ve gone overboard, but,” she sneaks a glance at Jack, who looks almost amused. “Mr. Dawson here saved me, and almost went over himself.”
“And you wanted to,” he starts to say, but then projects his voice loudly, as if nobody heard Rose say it the first time. As if it can only be true if he says it. “She wanted to see the propellers.” He laughs a fake, breathy type of laugh.
“Like I said,” a chubby man in a suit, one of Cal’s friends says, “Women and machinery do not mix.”
The man with a greying moustache, who Rose assumes is in charge, turns Jack to face him. His gaze is hard, unbreakable, as he says, “Was that the way of it?”
Jack looks at Rose, as if he doubts what he should say. She widens her eyes, making the smallest possible gestures she can for him to go along with it. After all, she didn’t just make up that story for fun. She did it for Jack. He swallows, and for a second Rose is positive he’s going to deny it.
“Yeah,” Jack says nodding, “Yeah, that was pretty much it.”
“Well the boys a hero then!” one of the men says. “Good for you, son. Well done.” Rose and Jack share a private glance, a smile nearly forming on their lips. They’ve done it. “So, it’s all well and done. Back to our brandy, eh?”
And just like that, it’s over. One moment he was in handcuffs, and now they’re going back to their brandy like nothing has happened at all. It's funny, how things can work out like that.
“Look at you,” Cal says, returning all his attention to his fiancée. He looks at her with something that’s supposed to pass as kindness in his eyes, and gently rubs her back. She feels like vomiting. “You must be freezing. Let’s get you inside.”
He turns her, and they begin to walk toward the interior of the ship. Then, as they pass one of the men, they’re interrupted, “Perhaps a little something for the boy?”
Rose stops in her tracks, staring warily at Cal. He’s going to give in, for he’s playing the act of a grateful partner. But Rose can see right through him. He doesn’t want to give the man who saved her life a reward at all. She knows if it was between having a third class man save his fiancée’s life, or her falling to her death, he’d probably choose the later. But Jack deserves a reward, and every reward in the world, for he saved her life, and gave her hope when she had none. He’s the first one who’s been able to break through in what seems like forever.
Cal answers formerly, like he’s not fuming on the inside. “Of course, sir.”
He turns to his assistant, or as Rose likes to think of him, manservant. An associate of Cal’s, Rose is certain that he has a heart of steal and is willing to do anything, absolutely anything, for a few extra coins. That’s why he and Cal go so well together, ever since they first met on day one of Titanic’s journey. Cal wanted someone to get his dirty work done, and Mr. Lovejoy wanted the money. Together, the two men succeeded excellently in making Rose’s life a living hell.
“Mr. Lovejoy, I think a twenty should do it.”
Rose laughs. Is that what I’m worth, then? she asks herself, eventhough she already knows the answer. “Is that the going rate for saving the woman you love?”
He gives her a curious look. “Rose is displeased,” he says as if he’s not looking directly at her. “What to do?” He contemplates for the briefest of seconds. “I know.”
Cal walks over to Jack, in what can be passed off in a civil manner, everybody trailing behind him. “Perhaps, you could join us for dinner tomorrow evening. To regale our group with your heroic tale.”
Jack looks concerned, as if he’s being encountered by a talking dog about whether he wants to go to a carnival, but he doesn’t show it in his answer. “Sure, count me in.”
“Good. It’s settled then.” Rose almost laughs, but manages to hold it in this time. A dinner? In first-class? She'd rather rot in hell, and feels instantly aweful for rejecting the twenty dollars.
Cal turns away and immediately says to Mr. Lovejoy, just loudly enough to be heard by Rose, “This should be interesting.”
Rose is swept up by Cal, and she’s thrown once more into a life of listening to him speak of unimportant matters with his manservant. As she leaves, she hears Jack whistle. She can’t help but notice that he does so perfectly; high and clear. She’s curious whatever it could be about, but not enough to turn around. After all, she’ll be seeing him tomorrow.
The very thought makes her smile.