Written by Anarra
Based on some situations originated by James Cameron.
Keldysh
North Atlantic
Rose was now one hundred one.
Soon, she would be one hundred two, and she had just let her favorite
granddaughter, Lizzy, know about the secrets of her past and what had driven
her whole life—the truth about who she was and who she had been back in 1912.
She had also told her story to the people who were looking for the diamond on
the Titanic. In Brock, she could see someone who was looking for the
unattainable and someone who she knew she could change in his ideas, and with
telling her life story, she had accomplished that. She smiled as she looked
around her stateroom. Lizzy had left to join the party on deck only after Rose
had insisted that she should have some fun. It was now or never that she would
do what she meant to accomplish in coming here, back where her life had really
begun. She opened the small, inconspicuous box that she kept in one of her old
trunks. Surprisingly, with all of the children and grandchildren she had had,
none of them had found the diamond where she had hidden it. Her children just
thought it was some old trunk full of junk, and her grandchildren were never
the types to get into things. Lizzy had been a little different as a child,
Rose remembered. She had always been the one to win at hide and seek.
In coming here, she had meant to
tell her story to everyone, but she also wanted to finally return the Heart of
the Ocean to where it belonged--in the ocean itself. She had meant to do it
after she had finished her story as a way to complete it. She wanted to do it
tonight, but she was having second thoughts. What if she gave it to Lizzy, and
explained its meaning to her? She wasn’t sure she wanted to finish what she had
come here to do, but she was so tired. She put the box back in its proper
place, with the necklace in it, and decided to put the necklace back tomorrow.
They would be leaving the day after that. That night, however, in her sleep,
Rose Calvert, formerly Rose Dawson, and before that, Rose DeWitt Bukater, died
in her sleep and rejoined the love of her life.
Later that night, Lizzy came back
to find that her beloved grandmother, who had just poured out her soul to
everyone, had died in her sleep. She smiled a little as she remembered what
Rose had told her about what Jack had said about her dying, and then Lizzy
cried and sat by her grandmother’s side until morning, when Brock knocked on
the door. Everyone on the ship was saddened at Rose’s passing, some because she
hadn’t told them the location of the diamond, and some because they had heard
the story and had fully realized the tragedy of the Titanic. Brock promised
Lizzy that he would come to the funeral. As Lizzy called all of her family
members from the ship, she wondered if they would fully realize who Rose
Calvert had been, for now it was her job to bring her grandmother back to the
states to be buried, and to bring all of her things, including those stupid
fish.
Rose’s Home
The burial was over. Rose had
been buried next to her husband of so many years, though Lizzy wondered if they
should have scattered her ashes in the ocean. The visitation was over. All of
her friends had left, as well as some of the more distant family members. Lizzy
had brought the tape back with her that had the recording of her grandmother’s
story. She had explained to her parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and her own
brother, along with the few great-grandchildren that were the product of Rose
Calvert, why they had gone to the Keldysh and who Rose really was. Then, she
had played the tape. As she listened to it all over again, she watched everyone
else’s reactions to hearing Rose tell of her secret past from beyond the grave.
As the youngest, she had a unique point of view of everything. They had all
known her longer then she had, but it was perhaps Lizzy who had known her the best.
And so it was that after the story ended and everyone went home Lizzy was left
on her own in the old house where she had taken care of her grandmother for so
long and had spent so much time with her. She had thought that she had known
her grandmother, but now she knew differently. Now she felt she had a better
grasp of who Rose had been. Somehow, she thought Rose hadn’t let on to
everything, and so the rest of Rose’s secrets would go with her.
Now she sat in an empty house
that she would most likely, in the next month, close up and sell. Slowly, Lizzy
started to go through all of Rose’s things that she had brought on their last
trip. The pictures were on top of the old trunk. Those would probably be
distributed to everyone, but she hoped she could get the one with Rose sitting
on the horse with the roller coaster in the background. It showed so much of
who she had been. Sifting through some more things, she found some of her older
things that must have been from the twenties and thirties. It was a lot of
history, all lived by one person. There were also things that Lizzy knew that
Rose took with her everywhere as mementos. She thought now on the road she had
taken. Then, at the bottom of the trunk, she saw something that she had never
seen before--a medium-sized box. She picked it up. It was surprisingly heavy.
She placed it on her lap, opened it, and gasped. There lay the one thing that
she had least expected to find in her grandmother’s possessions after
everything she had heard recently. It was the blue diamond. She recognized it
from the old photograph that Brock had had and the drawing Jack had done of
Rose on the Titanic. She thought back to the drawing. It was something she had
wanted to take with her. Brock, unfortunately, since it had been on the news,
had to send it to a historical society, but she had taken pictures of it so
that it would all be real. She looked at the real diamond--the Heart of the
Ocean, her grandmother had called it. It was beautiful. She picked it up and
put it on, looking at herself in a mirror that had been in the trunk. She
remembered what her grandmother had said about it. "A dreadful, heavy
thing." She hadn’t been kidding. But this was the necklace that had
started everyone’s paths towards each other unknowingly. Why would her
grandmother keep this for so long, and then not tell the people on the Keldysh
that she had had the necklace the whole time? She took off the necklace and
just held it in her hand for a long time as she watched the sun set beyond the
horizon from her favorite spot on the couch. She and her grandmother had spent
nights here often, as Rose would tell tales of before she had met her
grandfather, usually of her time as an actress, but Rose had never told her
anything about the time before 1912. As a young girl, Lizzy had just thought
that time hadn’t existed before then.
After thinking for a very long
time, watching the stars for what seemed like years, a thought came to Lizzy.
Perhaps Rose had kept the diamond as a reminder. She had brought it on their
trip, but she doubted she had been going to give it to Brock. She honestly
didn’t know why she had brought it on the trip, but now that she had found it,
she thought back to the story that had been told. Rose had obviously left out
some parts. Lizzy doubted that Rose had taken the diamond with her. It hadn’t
meant anything special to her. She had probably received it mistakenly.
Now that Lizzy had it, she didn’t
think she could show it to any of her family members. Some of them would fight
over who would get it, and some would want to sell it. Only she knew the
truth--that the diamond could never be sold. It was too famous. The best that
she could think of was keeping it herself, as a reminder of her grandmother and
her wonderful life. Lizzy put it back into the box and into her own purse. One
thing was for certain--if Rose had hidden it this long, so could she. A secret
must be kept, even after death, and somewhere, she thought Rose was reunited
with Jack, and now it was up to Lizzy to tell the story. She thought briefly
about writing a book minus the detail of her actually finding the diamond.
History was a precious thing, after all, and future generations might not be
able to see the Titanic anymore, but the stories would still stay alive. Lizzy
turned off the light. The unpacking could wait until tomorrow, and she took the
dog out of the old house and went to her apartment, which she had recently
rented. She put the diamond in a dresser drawer. The secret might stay kept,
but she would tell the story. Lizzy went to her computer and began to type the
story from memory.
The End.
