THE FUTURE’S PAST
Chapter Three

"So, let me get this straight." Chelsea shot her newest ghostly visitor a level, but annoyed look. "You have to go back?" If there was anything she hated, it was ghosts telling her what to do. All she could do now was try to ignore the man, who had spent the past half hour begging to be returned to his life. "No way, all right? I said no. Now, beat it!"

"I have to save her!" he snarled at her in response, and Chelsea reflexively took a step back from him.

"We all have people to save, bud. Why don’t you just go back over to your cloud, or your grave, or wherever it is that you dead people come from, and–" Chelsea was silenced mid-sentence by the heavy hand that descended upon her throat, effectively constricting her air flow.

"Send. Me. Back."

Meeting the man’s steely gaze with a defiant glare of her own, Chelsea managed to choke out a sharp "No!" before her oxygen was cut off completely.

*****

Rose wasn’t entirely certain what she had expected from the premise of going back to her past life. A little more fanfare, maybe. Flashing lights, floating clocks, that sort of thing. It was the sudden "Poof! You’re there!" that had thrown her off so much. Now that she was definitely here, though, what was she supposed to do?

Save Jack, of course! piped up the voice at the back of her head, which until recently had been the one loudly doubting the entire affair.

Yes. Yes, saving Jack seemed right.

But how?

"Miss Bolt, if it isn’t too inconvenient for you to perform the task that you were hired to do, might you wake my fiancée? Preferably before the ship sets sail without us?"

Cal. How strange it was to think that name, to hear that voice. He could easily prove to be the biggest problem in all of Rose’s plans, though that wasn’t to say that he had been especially helpful the first time around. Rose blinked in the direction of the closed bedroom door, behind which her maid and fiancé were speaking. That was a funny thought. The first time around. Strange, but not distressing.

Just. Funny.

"Yes, Mr. Hockley."

Poor Trudy. She had been only a little older than Rose when she started as her maid. Having been part of the Hockley household for years prior to the change in status, Rose was certain that she was no stranger to Cal’s aggression, just as she herself knew how violent his temper could be. It was apparent, however, that Trudy Bolt suffered worse at his hands than Rose ever had. Or...would? With the single exception of the time he had struck her.

Or hadn’t?

A shake of her head seemed to clear her thoughts effectively enough, and she pushed the confusing muddle out of her mind in order to focus on more important things. Such as the doorknob, which was gently twisting as the door was pushed forward.

"Miss Rose–oh, you’re awake." Trudy was more than a little surprised to see her mistress already up, but after the initial shock, made no further mention of the sudden change in behavior. "Would you like assistance in getting dressed?"

Rose was about to shake her head no when she remembered the whalebone corset she had worn up until turning her back on society. Upper class society, at least. She had gone more than eighty years thinking she would never have to subject her body to the hated apparatus again, only to be proven wrong now. "Yes, actually. Yes, thank you."

They fell into a familiar silence as Trudy helped to lace up Rose’s stays, then assist her into the outfit Cal had purchased for her to wear while boarding–the same outfit, coincidentally, that she had been wearing when she last saw Chelsea. It was a beautiful suit and Rose could still remember admiring it the first time she had seen it, eighty years ago.

Or had it been two weeks ago?

Blinking away more of the confused thoughts, she looked over the ensemble more thoroughly than she had when it appeared on her a few hours ago.

She had loved the rich violet coloring from the very start, the dark purple stripes that stood out beautifully against the white twill fabric and the royal cuffs, lapel, buttons, and belt that were all the same color. When Cal had first offered to buy the outfit for her as they passed it in a storefront, Rose had been startled by his generosity. It was an expensive suit, what with the tiny rows of pearls hand sewn into the collar and the Milan straw hat. It seemed, however, that this was only the beginning to how far Cal would go to please her–or be pleased by her. Rose wasn’t entirely sure which.

The maid smiled, albeit nervously. "You look lovely, miss." It had always been one of Rose’s greatest regrets that she had never been close friends with this woman. In fact, she didn’t even know what became of her at the end of it all. Did she survive the sinking? Rose hoped that she would get the chance to remedy the situation this time around.

"Thank you, Trudy. I only hope Cal will agree with you."

*****

The Southampton pier was crowded, perhaps more so than at the boarding of any other ship Rose had sailed on, but her memory of other such voyages was considerably foggy after so many decades. The Titanic had been the only one important enough to stay fresh in her aging mind.

As the red Renault bearing Cal, her mother, and herself neared the terminal for the first class passengers, the seventeen-year-old was met with a sudden sense of wrongness. There, just ahead, floated the Titanic. Weighing forty-six thousand ton of steel and bearing four huge smokestacks, she was docked in all of her glory, and yet Rose couldn’t seem to shake the image of the ship tilted at a hideous angle, perpendicular to the water and disappearing rapidly into the ocean. She had been on the ship at the time and hadn’t actually seen it in that position–but others had. It was an image that quickly became iconic in the years following the disaster, but this was not the wrongness that Rose felt.

As she stepped out of the Renault and moved past the chauffeur, who held the door open for her, she noticed something else. Something almost as disturbing as the doomed vessel in front of her.

They were on time.

Chelsea had warned her to change nothing, and here she was, not a day spent back in her old life and she had already managed to interfere with the past! Wracking her brains to remember why they’d been late the first time, Rose seemed to recall something about changing her clothes.

Yes, that was right. She had wanted to wear all black, but Cal had insisted that she change. Now it was simply an amusing memory that was never to have happened, though Rose could have laughed at the irony of it. It would have been more fitting to just wear the black.

I hope this doesn’t change too much, she thought to herself as her mother climbed out of the car behind her and Cal’s door was opened by his valet. She didn’t want Chelsea to interfere before she even had a chance to see Jack. The thought had her looking around expectantly. Of course, Jack wouldn’t be anywhere near the first class boarding area, but perhaps if she rose on her toes she could see over the heads of the crowd.

She tried, but knew there was no way she’d be able to see through the hundreds of people gathered to see the luxuriously gigantic ocean liner off on its maiden voyage. She would simply have to take heart in the knowledge that Jack was somewhere out there, waiting for her.

Well, she reasoned, not waiting for her. He didn’t even know her yet. But he would. In just a day or two they would have met and--Rose held back a blush--fallen in love. Yes. Somewhere amid all of these people was her Jack Dawson.

"Rose?"

She whipped around, startled. Cal was staring at her expectantly, as though this were all a play and she had missed her cue. She made an effort to look as though she were seeing the Titanic for the first time and glanced back up at it, demurely. "It–ah–doesn’t look any bigger than the..." She pondered for a moment, naming the first ship that came to mind and hoping that Cal wouldn’t question it. "The Normandie."

"The what?" He stared back at her blankly.

Rose sighed. Apparently this was going to be much harder than she had thought.

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