HEARTS CAN BREAK
Chapter Twenty-Two

There would always be enough memories for Jack to drown in. He knew that now. Looking beyond the limit of the time he had spent with that celestial creature, he would always be caught in those few days that she had tormented him in his dreams, haunted him in his waking hours. She would be doing that for the rest of all time.

Every once and awhile her face would be lost in his mind and he would panic. His breathing became unregulated and his insides seemed to disappear. Like mental war scars, Rose seemed like the very picture of something so terrible and divine wrapped into one being.

It seemed as if everyone in the boat he was in had given up. Not that he really cared. A little girl wrapped in torn rags shivered in her mother’s arms, who every once and awhile forced alcohol down her throat. The woman’s eyes were doused in terror as she clutched her child to her body, trying to warm her, searching frantically with her gaze for some sign of a rescue but finding none. His body went into violent convulsions as hypothermia eased and worsened at the same time, but he could not tear his stare from that mother and her daughter. Everything about this horrible night was symbolized in their silence, in their desperate tears, in their two different understandings of death and pain.

*****

Verona Sinclair shook with more than the bitter, impenetrable cold. She was absolutely horrified. Her body had stopped all natural responses to such amazing awfulness and she was in a deep state of shock. Even though the sea was tinged dark blue with the rising pink sun, all she could see was black waves and the steel that had promised her life crumbling into decay.

Unconsciously she pulled her little girl, Elisabéth, closer under her chin. The once smooth, sleek brown curls were mussed and salty against her skin. I want to go home, Verona murmured inside of her head.

Visions of olive and cherry groves materialized in front of her. Lemon yellow sunshine shafts pierced through the leaves, dotting soft muddy grounds with dappled green light. The little wooden cottage where she had grown up, chinks filled with clay, a soft scent of lilies and lilacs perfuming the air. What I wouldn’t give to take Elisabéth back to France...

She knew that, even though she and her child had escaped peril in a lifeboat, she was not out of the clutches of death. Who knew if they would be rescued, or if she wouldn’t give in to the misery and fatigue that threatened to overwhelm her?

Titanic. If ever a word had seemed so solid and sturdy, she did not know of it. Just the very ship had promised a life of everything her family had been dreaming of for centuries. François wanted her to be happy in the land where streets were paved with gold and even the poorest of people were cloaked in red velvet and laughter.

The memory was stoked in her head before she even knew it was there.

*****

"Women and children only! Step back, sir! Step back!"

"François!"

"Step back or I’ll shoot you all like dogs! Keep order here! Keep order, I say! Mr. Lowe! Man this boat!"

"Verona!"

"Sir, step back! I must demand you to step back!"

"Daddy...!"

"François! Let me out to be with my husband!"

"I’ll be fine, love! Just go!"

"Daddy!"

"Elisabéth, it’ll be all right, stay with mummy!"

"You lot stay back! I’ll shoot if you get any closer!"

"Verona, go! Take Elisabéth and go! And no matter what, be brave!"

"No, no! François!"

"Lower away! Steady!"

"No! François!"

*****

The teardrops started falling down like rain. She did not have the power to stop them. She buried her face in the coat wrapped around her and smelt him, cigar and tobacco and vanilla. He had to be all right. He had to be. He must have gotten on another boat, that’s all. He couldn’t leave her. If not her, he couldn’t leave his daughter. He wouldn’t.

*****

"Verona, marry me."

"What?"

"Marry me. Grow old with me. Please. It’s a new adventure."

"Will you still love me when I’m old and gray and falling apart?"

"What? You mean more so than now?"

"François!"

"I’m sorry, darling, to hurt your dreams, but to me you will never be old. To me it will never matter. I will love you ‘til the end of time."

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

*****

The end of time...what cruel words.

She clutched her daughter to her, waiting for the word that her husband was alive and well, waiting for him to hold her, waiting for Elisabéth to smile again.

Waiting for an absolution that would never come.

*****

The sun was finally high enough into the sky for Jack to turn and notice it. The horizon was painted red–red with Rose’s blood. His shaking hand reached toward the line where sky and sea met, trying to grasp that blood. It was all of her he had left.

But even that was taken from him. Finally he fell back into the blanket, eyes closed, praying that the breath he had so treasured and had shared with his Rose would be ripped from his lungs.

It was regret that was digging his grave for him. He couldn’t move from all of the guilt that was on his shoulders. The water, it seemed, had drowned not just a ship, but a love like no one could ever dream of. He bit his lip hard, skin separating at the soft bottom corner. All he could think of was the last time his lips had been bruised, but then they had been bruised with violent and gentle kisses. Now blood formed in beads where his teeth had dug into the skin, and he felt none of the delicate, silky, supple touch that Rose’s mouth had brought his own. The ripe red curves of her lips had been enough to make him faint with desire, as he had stared at them before their first kiss. Was it really him, the same man who had been so...happy? Was it possible for a heart to beat that fast out of joy?

He had been so afraid to hurt her...so afraid that she would leave him after she saw his world. But like a true wild spirit, she had embraced something so beautiful and unknown to her and had shown him something that he had never seen in France or London or Sweden...

Love should never make sense. It should just be.

Holding her had been an experience to make the bravest tremble and the meekest gain courage. He couldn’t explain how it felt to envelope her elegant, petite body with his own. His arms had wrapped around her waist and he had known that was exactly where he belonged, his face nestled in the crook of her neck, the breeze letting her heavenly scent drift to him, scarlet curls whipping around his face, watching her tremble as his breath fell on her soft skin.

She deserved more, he realized now. She deserved life. She deserved choice. She deserved to be held and kissed and treasured to her soul’s content. She deserved freedom. But mostly she deserved to dance in the stars in the lover’s dance forever, feet barely brushing the milky white strands of dust in the galaxy. Because Rose DeWitt Bukater had done something that Jack could never do.

She had given her whole heart in blind faith.

Before she even knew his name, she had laid her whole life out for him to see, to caress. He had known every important secret that she had kept bound and chained in the very depths of her being. He had known everything important. She trusted him before she even grasped that she had done it at all.

With a soft, audible moan, he remembered that look in her eyes as she pulled him into the back of the Renault.

"Nervous?"

"No..."

Those eyes were the only ones that had ever pierced his skin so deeply that his entire body was on fire. There was no heat like that one, the heat of desire wound with the heat of passion to create the flames of love. The blue-green color had seemed to peel off his skin and stare right at his spirit. What had made him almost too terrified to move was the trust that was transmitted in her gaze, the trust that he would never hurt her, and the absolute adoration of him. Irises smoky with love, not lust.

He tried to swallow but could not. There was a lump in his throat. His lungs constricted.

He was vaguely aware of the man in charge of the boat yelling and waving his arms. Furious, he glanced up. What right did people have to be afraid now, knowing what hundreds of others had just gone through? Who cared if they died? Didn’t they deserve it by now? All of them had left fellow humanity to the ocean, allowed the Atlantic to plunder the lives of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, lovers...and a Rose.

Dead.

It was a word that left a hard, cold emotion planted straight in his very center. He could not feel the tears that dripped down his cheeks. Crying was hardly a release anymore. Whenever he pushed any of the guilt away it all piled back so fiercely that he had to clamp his mouth to keep from screaming. Maybe it would have been a relief to scream, to let this anguish swirl into the now auburn sky. But he didn’t really care about relief. To him, if his pain was still there, Rose was still there, if the suffering was still his, Rose was still his. And he would never let go of her. Never.

He couldn’t look into the future. He didn’t even think there was going to be a tomorrow. He didn’t think the sun would really ever rise. In just those few days Rose had become his sun, moon, stars, air, life, chance...In his head, he terrifyingly cursed God, praying for an answer as to why something so wonderful and amazing and completely flawless could crumble under the weight of something so surreal and horrible.

Every time he asked these questions, he realized there were no answers, no reason, that it had just been a break of fate, and that made him feel worse. Because Jack Dawson had always believed that one could choose their own destiny, chart their own course. Now he knew that he could have saved his Rose but had failed mercilessly at the hands of the Almighty.

Suddenly the soft sounds of water lapping against the boat’s hull went away. Daybreak faded to blackness and memories were stoked.

*****

The soft sea breeze picked up strands of both Jack and Rose’s hair and melted them into one shimmering lake of fire-stained color. Jack shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, grasping at the worn fabric of his trousers, taking his nervousness out on his clothes.

The two were strolling along boat deck in the beautiful Saturday air, trying to talk, trying to come up with a way to lead them to the subject of last night, of suicide, but at the same time just enjoying each other’s company.

She was so beautiful at this moment, with a smile glittering on her face, a genuine, real smile, the one he loved, the one that sparkled with the rubies of passion and the emeralds of adventure and the sapphires of newfound hope. He bit his lip as she talked easily to him, speaking of the weather and other trivial things that he was raptly caught up in when they fell from her perfect, blood-colored lips, lips that were ripe and round and he would love to caress with his own. But he held himself back.

He studied her, the sunlight dancing off her features, her skin sparkling like white marble, and some sort of inner relief radiating off of her body. God, how he wished he was drawing her. He wanted to transfer the Rose he saw right now onto paper, because he knew that she would quickly vanish beneath the unreal Rose that everyone else saw. He wanted to capture this minute for all minutes to come.

But, seeing as he wasn’t drawing, he simply listened. It was amazing to hear her speak. It wasn’t so much what she said; he wasn’t all that interested in the sunshine and the temperature, to be exact. It was how she said it. Her hands moved gracefully as she spoke. She bent her head to hear as he replied. And she laughed. It was such a wonderful thing to hear her laugh. It was a sparkling sound of a melody like a bell of nature, a sound that made his heart slam against his ribs until he could actually feel the pain of each bone piercing it. His tongue became thick and dry so that he could barely speak, but all at the same time he was at more ease with her than with anyone else in the world–with the exception of Fabri, of course.

"So, Mr. Dawson," she began. He inwardly flinched at hearing his name so properly. Shit, he was anything other than the definition proper. Maybe he didn’t sleep around, maybe he had a heart for people, but he never even tried to be proper. Not only that, but it made him felt so damn old! With the daydreams he was having right now about the woman next to him, it actually felt good to know that he was only a few years older than her.

Then again, he loved the way her eyes lit up when she spoke–Mr. Dawson–and he couldn’t make herself interrupt her. It wasn’t that big of a deal, really, was it?

"You never told me about your...childhood. All I learned was that you are not that great at ice fishing." He picked out the teasing in her voice and he couldn’t help but glance over at her with cool amusement, realizing that yeah, he had let that slip in. He knew she had more pressing matters on her mind but he just wanted to become friends with her first.

"My...childhood, Miss DeWitt Bukater?" he mimicked, his eyes laughing. She nodded, and slowed but continued her steps, clearly interested, obviously wanting to hear to another person’s angle on life.

"Well, Rose, I don't know what there is to tell. I guess that’s it about my life then. Lonely and nothing to discuss," Jack joked, not really knowing where to begin. He was surprised that Rose didn’t even seem fazed.

"Oh goodness, Mr. Dawson. You’ll excuse my language but...bullshit."

Jack laughed out loud and she seemed to smile self-consciously. Hell, he thought. She has one white hot spirit beneath all that.

"I can tell, just by that look you have in your eyes, that you have quite some story in that big head of yours."

He chuckled and sighed. "Hmm...well, it all started out in this little cabin where my dad and my mom got married and, you see, they had their wedding night–"

"Mr. Dawson!" she exclaimed, cheeks blushing furiously. She grasped his hand and leaned closer to him, trying to ignore disdainful looks from the other first class passengers.

He forgot to breathe. His heart nearly stopped. She was too close. Way, way too close. He couldn’t restrain himself from her like this. He could see every perfectly shaped eyelash, see the look of embarrassment and yet admiration in her burning eyes, and maybe, just maybe, a little of the desire he felt? "I mean after...that!" she whispered furiously, laughing. He put his hands on each of her shoulders. He meant just to help her stand up straight again. But he almost cracked.

Because beneath that layer of fabric was her skin. There was nothing but a dress between his hands and her skin. Nothing but air between his mouth and hers. Nothing but everything between them.

He heard her inhale, and then somehow the oxygen got caught in her throat. She seemed to be thinking exactly what he was. But her reaction was different. Every one of his impulses was to kiss her right there and then. But she stepped away.

He closed his eyes for a second to calm himself then started to speak, voice shaking. "I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, only child, you know." She nodded her agreement, and he knew she was too. But he was still shivering so hard that he didn’t speak for a few minutes. What had just transgressed between them was sure to haunt him for quite awhile. He couldn’t help but wonder what she would have done if he had kissed her. Would she have kissed him back? Push him away? Just go limp?

She cleared her throat pointedly, obviously trying to prod him on, as he gazed past her and at the sea, in its folds of melted sky blue. He had never told anyone the whole story of his growing up, not even Fabrizio. He hardly knew Rose. But at the same time, for some reason, he wanted more than anything to let her get to know him, to get a feel for the person he was, as soon as possible. He tilted his face up to the angles of the sun that was softened by cool, salty air and sighed.

"I grew up in Chippewa Falls–I think I told ya that, not sure if you were paying much attention. Anyway, we weren’t farmers, but we lived on a big old plot of land with a huge red barn in back. My mother had a garden–but that was about all we grew. We kept a few horses in the stalls, but they were wagon horses. I never had my own, exactly. We were pretty poor. But my parents were always happy. Always, always happy. I had a group of friends I hung out with, but I never got into the girls, really." He paused. Summarizing his early years was about as easy as living them, which was, to say the least, almost impossible.

"My father was great. He worked hard at the lumber mill for pay fit for a pig–but he always put food on the table and blankets on the bed and clothes in the wardrobe. Shit, I hope someday I’m as good a dad as him. He taught me everything–how to fix things, how to fish, how to hunt, how to chop down trees for firewood. Everything I need to survive I learned from my parents." He stopped, pained with memories, as she raised her eyebrows. Maybe this was all new to her. Maybe her father hadn’t been like his. It seemed a crime not to have parents like Jack’s had been.

"He told me to always look into someone, not on them, and showed me how to be brave–that bravery is not the absence of fear, but learning how to deal with that fear. He never told me not to be scared but he told me to be brave..."

He trailed off as Rose seemed to consider his words. She bit her lip in concentration, a beatific, confused expression on her face. He could almost hear her mind tossing that idea around inside. Courage seemed a thing that she had heard of, maybe even experienced, but never understood. He would give anything at that moment to make her understand! To make her feel that wondrous feeling of having a choice to stand firm or run and then having to live with the consequences for a lifetime, to make her bask in the reflecting glow of what America was all about. Freedom. It was like...he didn’t know...the choice of pain, of sacrifice and survival, of being able to fly with or against the wind, to take the burn and the balm.

Finally, while he was still being consumed by these agonizing dreams and pleads, she lifted her head and stared at him. "And your mother?"

He was suddenly aroused out of his daze at the mention of Ma. He could still see her in the back of his mind. Long, honey-colored hair piled in a bun, sea-green eyes sparkling with contentedness, skin tan and calloused from hard work, but a heart as soft as down.

"My mother was...she was...oh God, Rose, she was the best mother anyone in their right minds could ever ask for. She was so gentle but she worked so hard...scrubbing and sewing and reaping and planting and cooking. I learned how to love life from her." Among other things, Jack thought, and he coughed loudly as if trying to cough Rose DeWitt Bukater out of his system.

She smiled brilliantly and finally he saw realization burst into her eyes. The limpid oceans of emerald suddenly glistened with blue knowledge like his and she actually giggled. Giggling, mind you, was something he supposed she did not do everyday. He grinned.

"So...you had the childhood most of us, including me, only dream about then?" she asked, strolling almost lazily along the deck, trying to breathe in the sunshine it seemed, but to him she was sunshine. He blushed at the intimate thoughts racing through his mind and nodded.

"Well...when I was fifteen my parents died. After that, I lit on out of there and I haven’t been back since." Her smile slipped off her face and she glanced at him apologetically, with sympathy and guilt.

If there was one thing Jack never wanted, it was pity. He hated charity, despised handouts and commiseration. He never wanted anyone to feel sorry for him, because there was nothing to feel sorry for. His parents weren’t here anymore, they had gone on to eternal bliss and he would be there someday. He choked up for a moment but quickly swallowed. Not now, not now, don’t ruin this, not now...c’mon Jack, for Rose...he thought, panicking. Flashes and he could smell the acrid smoke; see the boiling flames, and hear the scream. "Jack? Where are you?" The funeral, the looks, the road ahead of him, and running...running...running...cowardly or courageous always running...

No. He was not going to relive those memories. Now was a time for new memories, for a new life. He was twenty years old now. He had to stop living in nightmares of yesterday.

Quickly, his words shot out of his mouth in desperation to get his mind and her mind off of tragic mortal wounds that were like an iron burning his skin. Before his grin faded, he was speaking.

"Guess you could just call me a tumbleweed blowing in the wind!" She laughed and the smile was replaced. A weight fell of his shoulders and tumbled into the abyss of things he had cast off, never to be seen again, and in sheer relief and inhaled deeply, his eyes watering from the salt.

"Well, Rose," he said lightly, watching her with interest, "We walked ‘bout a mile around this here deck and chewed over the weather and how I grew up, but I reckon that’s not why you wanted to talk to me, is it?"

She grew obviously uneasy and his face took on a seemingly serious expression, but he knew that she could tell he was amused by the way she was visibly intimidated by his bluntness. He bit his lip and held his drawing pad in front of him, pressed to his body with both hands. She seemed to search her mind for something to say and he was struck all over again by how beautiful she was. The heavenliest creature he had ever seen. He was sure even angels or Aphrodite herself could not rival her. No goddess had skin like that, skin that was soft and pale and like milk, no goddess had hair like that, hair that was wild and seemed to fight against being swept up and was made of vivid scarlet curls, no goddess radiated such desire like that, so that he was sure he would burn into ashes on the floor with his fires of passion. Passion?

I am not in love, he told himself firmly, cheerfully trying to convince himself. I am not.

"Mr. Dawson, I–"she finally stumbled, glancing at him uncomfortably.

He had a sudden craving to hear her say his name, a sudden desperate urge that drowned everything else she said. He wanted to be more than an acquaintance to her. "Jack," he said encouragingly, nodding his head, an ear tilted to her to listen.

"Jack..." she murmured uncertainly. His heart nearly soared into the sky. He had never heard his name like that, like a holy prayer falling from that angel’s lips. He slowed down as she struggled, not knowing what to say, and he not knowing what to think.

"I want to thank you for what you did..." This had been the last thing that he had expected. He didn’t think that she could find the strength to thank him, to bring up last night in a sudden way. But then again, he had misjudged her a few times, and he didn’t judge people. He felt people’s emotions, their anguish and ecstasy and sorrow.

"Not just for...for pulling me back...but for your discretion..." She took a deep breath and his humbleness jumped in. He didn’t joke about it–he knew she hurt inside, and she wanted to help her heal.

"You’re welcome," he answered, nodding, not making it out to be a big deal. His voice was strong in order to strengthen her, but really he didn’t know why she was thanking him in the first place. If he had denied her story, it was a one way ticket to spend the rest of the voyage locked in some room down there and a friendly police officer waiting to escort him onto land where he would be convicted of rape. Of course, that hadn’t really run through his head until after he had seconded her account. He smiled at the memory of her excuse. Propellers. How ingenious.

"Look...I know what you must be thinking..." she labored out, trying to think of what to say. She mistook his expression for him teasing her, but really it was as far from the truth as could be! He wanted to know her life tale, had to know it, he was dying from the need of fulfillment to his curiosity. For anyone to even consider what this sweet being had, they needed to be in the strongest point of anguish a human soul could handle. He knew. He had been. Something in him wanted desperately to shoulder her burden and wipe away her tears and carry off her pain, but she wouldn’t let him!

"Poor, pretty little rich girl, what does she know about misery?" she supplied, and it hit him like a blow to his insides that she thought he could even suggest that was nearly close to the case. He leaned back against a thick coil of rope and she stopped suddenly, whirling around to face him. In that moment he could see the real her. Her guard was down and he saw.

Past her beauty, something exquisite and wonderful was blooming, something amazing and something that he had never quite seen. But on this lovely flower was a vine, a thick vine that wound up the stem of something so magnificent, choking life and water from the budding colors, leaving them graying and old.

"No," he murmured passionately, savoring this once-in-a-lifetime chance at looking through a clear window, his face wearing a look of absolute interest and yearning to understand, "That’s not what I was thinking."

She looked shocked for a moment, stunned that maybe all humanity wasn’t as shallow as she had seen. She didn’t even fight for her composure; everything was gone as her emotions lay literally bare in front of him. He relished in that startled look in her eyes, green flames of hope flickering in blue pools of water.

"What I was thinking was," he continued, "What could have happened to this girl to make her think that she had no way out?"

Her gaze quickly dropped from his and he almost regretted showing her what he saw so abruptly. But then, miracles of miracles! Her round lips parted and she stuttered, "Well, I..." Suddenly the dam burst open and all of her feelings that she had obviously hidden from even herself cascaded through her entire being, refreshing him in its cool flow. He leaned back to listen like he knew she wanted him to.

"Oh, it was everything! My whole world, and all the people in it." She was pacing now, and without warning stopped and leaned against the rail next to him, bracing her back on the white paint. "And the inertia of my life, plunging ahead, and me powerless to stop it!"

She thrust a delicate hand out at him, and he cupped it with both of his rough ones, feeling the softness of fingers that had never known work like his had. His eyes could not help but be drawn to the absolute rock on her ring finger, sparkling in the afternoon sunshine. Shit, he had never seen, no, never heard of, a damn diamond so huge! He almost could feel the weight of it sinking through her palm and into his. And with it came the realization that she was engaged.

He had known it before, but hadn’t grasped it until now. Engaged. Promised to another man. The fiancée of someone else. Unavailable. Those red rosebud lips only opened to the tall man with dark hair that he had seen earlier. Cal? Was that what she had called him?

"My God," he joked, trying to lighten his heavy heart. "Look at that thing! You would have gone straight to the bottom." His eyes caught hers, expecting her to be in the least amused, but she desperately plunged on with her fate.

"Five hundred invitations have gone out," she softly exclaimed, her words coming in strangled cries, "All of Philadelphia Society will be there and all the while I feel as if I’m standing in the middle of a crowded room screaming at the top of my lungs and no one even looks up!"

Frantically she looked at him, her chest heaving, trying to gain comfort from him, a stranger, as though she thought that he might finally be the one to look up, to see her, to see the real her, and want her for what she really was. She had no idea how much he did want her. His heart broke for this poor, abused rose in front of him, her petals one flourishing with color and now being blotted away.

He had to know. The question was burning holes in him like the acid he had seen in the meat houses in London. He knew that he shouldn’t really care, that it was not his to know, but at the same time he also knew that he did care, and it was his to know, because...well, because...

He had fallen in love? Was that it? It couldn’t be. There was no way someone like him could fall in love. He had always tried to stay away from commitments like that, because once you fell in it was impossible to climb out. Waves of caring would wash over your head until you had sealed your fatality and drowned yourself. He could almost see himself slipping into the bubbling water of chance. He tried to keep his mouth shut but it didn’t work. The question was out, hanging in the air between them, thickly floating with the salt.

"Do you love him?"

He watched her face carefully and it seemed to take her a minute to register his sentence. For a moment she looked like she was fighting some inward battle. Love? How could she love someone who treated her like he did, like a doll about to break or a puppy about to run off? Pain that only lies within the shamed and the passion deprived jumped into her eyes until all blues and greens died away in the overpowering, torturous black that was the terror of her soul. She was grasping for composure and found it, shred by shred.

"Pardon me?"

He wasn’t afraid anymore. He had never been afraid. Jack Dawson wasn’t scared of people easily. So he leaned back, shoulders rubbing against the rope supporting him, and repeated silkily and clearly, "Do you love him?"

She seemed to almost wither in his boldness and sureness of himself. Her expression flickered with sudden anger as she stood and began to walk away.

"You’re being very rude–you shouldn’t be asking me this!" she hissed at him, arranging her skirts in a delicate way that let him know that, yeah, she was furious inside. But he continued to probe because he wanted to awake her to what even he could see plain as day. She didn’t know love.

"Well, it’s a simple question," he retorted smartly. "Do you love the guy or not?" A smile split his face and she seemed to roll her eyes at him, as though she were talking to a child that could not understand such matters, rather than a grown man three years older than her, having seen more of the world than her, and concerned only for wiping away her spoiled rich life for a better view of real...life. He could feel her frustration with him but underneath it all the fascination at such a blunt statement. However, it disappeared beneath her hot and fiery spirit. It wasn’t so much the question he had asked but how he kept pursuing it and she wasn’t going to stand for it. Her eyes darted around, and, scandalized, she turned back to him.

"This is not a suitable conversation!" Her desperate whisper had disappeared to quiet, righteous anger. Happy that he had at least gotten part of her true self to show, he relaxed and he knew she saw his muscles loosen up. "Why can’t you just answer the question?" He grinned.

That simply broke the tip of her patience away. She clasped a hand to her forehead, the diamond shimmering in the sunlight. A sizeable lump welled in Jack’s throat and he found it hard to talk for a moment. Why was it that one got those damned feelings, that destiny was trying to tell him something? He could almost hear Heaven in his head, Getting a little rusty, aren’t we, Jack? Don’t we understand signs from God anymore? You are supposed to be with her forever.

The feeling gave him the chills and he closed his smoldering eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he saw her pacing. She looked gorgeous and this anger made her even more seemly, if possible, spots of color and spirit on her blushing cheeks, eyes aglow with even more color and fierceness.

"This is absurd!" she exclaimed, and he was sure half of Titanic had heard her, and he was glad they had, because maybe they’d see that Society couldn’t kill something that was so alive. He sprung from the rail and strolled next to her, hands casually in her pockets, but longing to touch the throbbing skin that was being held away from him. He examined her with his own eyes, and he felt her shudder, as if she could almost see him reading her like the pages of a book. It was his gift to know people intimately like that, and he was using it now. "You don’t know me and I don’t know you," she went on, quieter, all in a rush, "And we are not having this conversation at all!"

He had to bite his lip in order to stop from laughing. He loved this side of her, the real her. This was the her that he wanted to gather in his arms and hold and kiss forever. He wanted to treasure her like he knew that only he was capable of doing, and he wanted her to confide in him, know him, need him. But in 1912, love did not matter, it was money and standing and homes and jewels. And it sickened him. Right now, not a thought crossed his mind but ones that mirrored what he guessed he already knew. Hell, maybe she already knew.

She seemed so irritated at his cool, amused silence and the not so hidden smile on his face that she nearly stomped her foot. Instead a gush of words poured out where he knew curses wanted to be. "You are rude and uncouth and presumptuous and..." He nodded his head with mocking thoughtfulness, his grin widening, to agree with her, and lifted his face to the wind, not seemingly caring. He loved being able to get under her skin like this and shatter that rigid self control Society thought mattered above all else but money.

Finally, she gracefully but still angrily held her slight hand out for him to shake. He grasped it immediately, shaking it heartily, the worked smooth calluses on his own fingers feeling every silky soft skin inch on hers, trying to maybe suck from her the weight she had on his shoulders. Perhaps he could have but she didn’t let him.

"Jack," she spat, but then quickly thought of a more stinging remark, "Mr...Dawson..." Her voice dripped with sarcasm as though he did not deserve the title Mister, that he could never be a gentleman. He didn’t really care or even want to be. He was himself and that was enough for him. "I sought you out to thank you and now I have," she continued, maddeningly.

He couldn’t help but wedge in a little comment here, if just to watch her face color more. With that teasing smile still in place he added, "And you insulted me," but all the while never stopped vigorously shaking her hand.

She faltered for a moment. "But...you deserved it!" she finished, almost triumphantly, as if daring him to disagree. Vocally he didn’t, but by his tone he knew that she knew that he did.

"Right!" he replied, all too enthusiastically.

She decided to join in his game. "Right!"

He felt her hand try to slip from his but his much stronger one wouldn’t let her go. Oh Rose, he thought to himself, if I had my way I would never let you go. Not ever.

Her perfect mouth opened into a surprised gasp and he couldn’t think of a better time to kiss her. But he ignored the carnivorous animal-like pangs welling within his body and only let her go when she twisted out of his grasp. And just like that, she flounced around and turned her back on him.

He felt like a silly lovesick kid as he leaned back on the balls of his feet in his tough boots and watched her sweep away. He knew that she’d be back, but wasn’t entirely prepared when she suddenly turned around and, seeing his content and easy going countenance, seethed, "You are so annoying!" Her hair was picked up by a sudden gust of wind, framing her livid face that still reflected with her goddess-like loveliness.

He chuckled, letting the look on her face get to him, allowing the emotions to sweep through him once more. She did roll her eyes this time, and haughtily turned away, her nose high in the air, dignity in every step she took.

Without warning she spun around and glided back to him, a sudden realization brightening her walk. "Wait! This is my part of the ship!" she vented, for the first time in an hour again noticing the bright hats and dresses and well-groomed suits of the upper class on the boat deck. She pointed her finger to the stern, where the third class passengers berthed. "You leave!" she demanded.

He could almost see where she could be a relative of Tommy, a wealthy source of temper and a dying raindrop of patience. It intrigued him so much that he was annoying her now just for the hell of it! It was bliss to see her mysteriously drawn to him and yet angry at him at the same time.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he murmured, laughing, his eyes sweeping from her to the blue foam that was the sea, up to the sky, then at her again. As she was waiting for him to speak, her hand dropped lifeless by her side, seemingly enchanted by him. "Now who’s being rude?" he chastised childishly, watching her face become a painting of being startled and shocked and maybe, maybe just a little bit satisfied. However, she realized she was defeated and with an almost playful look she snorted, her curls being picked up and let down by the cool breeze, until they became a fiery artwork of molten lava-like bronze.

She seemed to grasp for another thing to say, anything, to get his mind off of her loss. He could tell, with a hint of joy, that she didn’t want to leave him.

"What is this stupid thing you’re carrying around anyway?" she challenged fiercely, yanking at his sketchbook. His hand had been lax around the pad and she easily slid it from his fingers. He made no move to take it back. Actually, he had been meaning to show it to her, to get her opinion, ‘cause for some reason it really mattered to him what she thought. It was strange. He usually never cared.

With determination to harshly criticize him, she peeled the leather cover back and let it dangle past her fingertips. Her eyes collided with the first drawings and they widened to the size of marbles. For the first time, she seemed speechless. He watched her in amazement. No one had ever appreciated his work before, at least not like that, with soul and mind and heart.

"So what are you, an artist or something?" she asked quickly, trying to wipe away any admiration for his work she had found. But as she continued to flip through his book, it seemed she couldn’t contain herself. He leaned back to watch her, his arm wrapped around the rope. His blonde hair fell into his eyes and he swept it back.

"Well, these are rather good," she admitted, their argument fading as quickly as it had risen. She slowly walked and sat on the edge of a deck chair, looking intently. He followed her, relieved that his emotion of freedom and pain had reached her without trouble. "These are very good actually..." Her voice brightened with each gaze she took.

He sat next to her and watched as her fingers caressed the lines of a newborn child and his mother, capturing in essence the victory of life, the triumph of survival. He swore that he could see tears in her eyes as a parent’s love for what they had created swirled to meet hers and she sat, staring at two living examples trapped in time on paper.

"Jack," she breathed, lost in his world, "This is exquisite work..." He shivered at her splendid words, her compliments meaning more to him than if Heaven had fallen and praised him, for in a way it had. The one corner of the world that was still right was hers to treasure, if only for the briefest second, and she accepted wholeheartedly.

As she flipped to the next page, Jack mused absentmindedly, "Ah, they didn’t think of them too much in old Paree..."

She listened until the end of the sentence and then her head suddenly shot up. Her eyes glittered and he saw what must have been her few happy memories race through her soul. Her lips shaped that smile that made him weak as, with her voice full of awe, she echoed, "Paris!"

He put his elbows on his knees, looked up at her, and nodded. She seemed to consider him and shrugged with surprise. For a moment he could see her irises go misty, as she was back in some place, with someone who loved her. Then she remembered where she was and she turned. With disbelief in her voice, she said, "So you do get around, for a p–" Suddenly, she stopped mid-sentence and her face fell. A terrible thing like regret flew across her face and she looked apologetically at him. When he did not respond, she explained haltedly. "Well...for a person of...limited–"

A candle suddenly lit in his head and he understood immediately why she was so uncomfortable. He grinned because all of his life he had been taught to say the truth bluntly and never be ashamed of it or hide in different paths. If she thought that he felt self-pity for his financial situation, she couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, everyday he thanked God for this amazing freedom and the chance to see more in a year than most people glanced at in a lifetime. He could go wherever he wanted whenever he wanted, and that was the road chosen for him. There was something wonderful about working so hard to get food that you were too tired to eat it when it was finally in your reach, about calluses hard and stiff on your palms from rope and sunshine. So before she could struggle out the word means, he cut in, nodding his head to encourage her, his smile widening as amusement soared.

"I’m a poor guy. You can say it." He laughed, thinking it was strange for her to be getting so worked up over something so small. But then again, it was told that in Society you never, ever, ever talked about wealth or lack of. It just wasn’t done. Oh well, he had never lived by the laws before.

She giggled with relief, her shoulders falling back as she relaxed more. And suddenly he could see who she wanted to be mixed in with what she was forced to be. It was the way her eyes glittered, the way her face glowed, the way she sparkled like an angel that never quite figured out how to use her wings. Her regal posture never broke but yet wasn’t really hers, she had a dignity and grace all of her own that had nothing to do with the way she sat. Something woke within her, something that had not seen light since she must have been a small, small girl.

She moved one drawing aside to look at the next one, and he saw it before she did. She was coming onto a series of nude sketches. Distantly, he remembered France...prostitutes lying on pillows or velvet that did not match with their beautiful but wasted and raped bodies. Tangled messes of hair, a faraway look in their expressions. Freedom. Chains cut with a piece of charcoal.

He saw the blush on Rose’s cheeks as he jerked himself out of memories long past. She bit her lip and ever so quietly murmured, "Well, well, well, what have we here?" It seemed as she flipped through the drawings that, even though naked women drawn with a man’s hand repelled her, she could not tear her vision away from the eternal truths and secrets locked in paper. Something moved in her eyes, something like understanding, as she went from each girl, face to face. Struggle. Survival. Victory. Liberty. That was what he thought she saw as she gazed into another person’s dreams and hopes.

She ripped her look from the portraits long enough to stare at Jack and ask, boldly but timidly at the same time, as if afraid to waken the spirits hidden in his work, "And...these were...drawn from life?"

Not wanting to disturb her, he just nodded as she returned to the sketches. He studied her, how magnificent she was, and he wanted to draw her. A numb feeling stuck pins into his heart. He wanted to take up a charcoal stub and sketch everything he saw, the happiness and wonder she was feeling right now, her hair being played with by the Goddess of the Atlantic–wind–and her mind all on him, all on what he did, all on who he was.

A man in a thick, ankle long black dress coat strolled by, a stovepipe hat crowning his head. Immediately instincts awoke in Rose and she tilted the pad away from him so that he could not see the private emotions concealed here. The minute he had passed, the book went down and she continued her assessment. Jack turned and his eyes searched her face as she searched his soul that was poured in front of her.

"That’s one of the good things about Paris," he joked, "Lots of girls willing to take their clothes off." It was like he had unconsciously tested her. Any modest woman in the upper class would have slapped him, deservedly, and stood in shame to be in company with such a person.

But Rose smiled. She chuckled in a you are so hopeless sort of way and returned her focus on his pictures. He grinned at her reaction and he felt like he was falling into some deep pit.

"You liked this woman," she said suddenly. "You’ve used her several times."

He looked at the sketch she was pointing out and saw one of the many drawings of Bellé, the girl he had met in the streets. What a spirit that one had! Maybe not quite as rebellious as Rose, who, he could see, was a fighter by nature, but all the same...

He turned to the picture before that one, which showed Bellé’s arms positioned high over her head. "Well," he began with the tone of best friend to best friend, "She had beautiful hands, ya see?" He pointed to her arched fingertips above her head. They were beautiful hands, soft and slender, with long fingers and shapely fingernails. Hands that were made to hold an infant and nurse a child. Hands that had been used.

Rose shook her head, auburn curls flying in her face. Apparently she was not satisfied with his answer. With a teasing look she interjected, "I think you must have had a love affair with her!"

His blue eyes exploded with embarrassment. Him and Bellé? No, it just wasn’t possible. They hadn’t even considered a deeper relationship. And he didn’t want Rose to think they had. Head shaking, cheeks pinkening, and mouth laughing, he exclaimed, "No, no, no, just with her hands!"

She still didn’t look convinced, as though she knew in the back of her mind that a man like Jack must have had tons of loves. But that was not so. He had never been in love with someone, or else he would have recognized the painful feelings in him now.

"She was a one-legged prostitute," he added, chuckling. Rose’s smile slipped from her face. "See?" he asked, pointing to Bellé’s chest.

The rose in front of him tilted the pad to see as he saw, and when she did, she tried to laugh, but it was forced. "Oh..." she muttered, abashed. His grin never faded as she realized that she was in Jack’s company and didn’t need to be so restrained.

But faint yesterdays stirred to Jack again as he could see Bellé’s laughing face, hear her jokes, feel her happiness. "Ah, she had a good sense of humor though..." He trailed off, remembering. Thick black hair. Dances. France.

Rose looked at him in surprise, as if shocked at how he could see something so wonderful in someone so shamed, doomed to reckless abandon. Prostitutes were hardly human in her, no, their, eyes.

Suddenly he remembered something and, lit with energy, turned the leaf to the next page. Thick charcoal lines made up the sketch and he almost audibly heard the breath leave her lungs.

"Oh, and this lady," he murmured, "She used to sit at this bar every night, wearing every piece of jewelry she owned, just...waiting for her long lost love. We called her Madam Bijou. See how...her clothes are all moth eaten?" Her eyes glazed over as he pointed, and she was not looking at the sketch. She was staring at him, searching for something within him, exploring the alcoves of his mind, feeling what the Artist within him felt.

Suddenly realization dawned like a sun in her irises, brightening her entire body, making her buzz with relief. She looked like a flower that had finally bloomed. Something in him had released her. A smile spread on her face and she regarded him with a newfound respect that he had never seen used for him before. Longing lit in her like fire and, for the first time, she didn’t smolder it out. He had the thought that, just for a split second, she could see the world as he saw it, as a treasure trove of opportunities and pain and tears and joy and life and death. She understood how he saw Bellé and Madame Bijou, how his vision was not physical, but spiritual. And something crashed down within her as she flew into his time, his Earth, his arms.

"You have a gift, Jack," she whispered, as if afraid to disturb spirits caught in paper and newfound emotions unchained from her heart, as if afraid to question the supernatural bond between them, "You do." His insides were suddenly absent and breath was no longer his. Her praise was like raindrops of the water that slaked his thirst for all eras. "You see people."

Even her curls danced as her entire body radiated the precious love of the present that he had. "I see you," he answered, his eyes locked with hers, blue and green colliding and bursting into the shades of the sea.

As if to drop the heavy mood she straightened her back in her chair, playfully showing the dignity and grace of her own self, her nose high in the air as the mocking of her own class. "And?" she asked.

The mirror of what he thought of her shattered into millions of shards of glass–each a wonderful tribute to her loveliness. Her Aphrodite looks, her spirit, the way she laughed, the twinkle in her eyes, the way she made his heart leap out of his chest and mouth and into her own body. But his mouth couldn’t form the words.

"You wouldn’t have jumped," he forced out. Her face fell and she stared at him critically and his heart became wounded. He had insulted her, hurt her, and he wanted to kill himself in that moment.

Without warning her expression changed. Her glorious smile spread across her face and teasingly she quoted, "Don’t tell me what I will and will not do, you don’t know me!"

Relief, warm and merciful relief, flowed through his veins in place of blood. Almost giddy, he replied, "Miss DeWitt Bukater, I believe I do!"

His heart pumped furiously in him as she giggled and then shoved him playfully, muttering, "Shut up!"

He loved this side of her, the real her, and he loved what she was doing to him, but he couldn’t admit it to himself, not looking at her right now. He couldn’t trust himself if he knew, because she looked so magnificent right now, he wouldn’t be able to control himself.

And he hated to think it, but he wasn’t sure control was an option anymore.

*****

White. Blaring, blazing white glowing against his heavy eyelids. Jack awoke from the blackness and for a blessed moment he couldn’t remember. Somehow he pried his eyes open.

A man clothed in a thick gray sweater and pants was shining a light into him. He felt so cold...he forgot what it felt like to be warm...why was he so cold?

Then the blessed moment was gone and he remembered. Terror gripped him, icier than his whole self. The innocence of a flower...the kiss soft as a petal...the ignorance...

"Rose!" he shrieked, hardly being able to get his mouth to work. His tongue wouldn’t obey his orders.

The doctor looked at him and cringed. "Sir, I would ask you to remain calm. You have a severe state of hypothermia and shock and–"

Tears whisked down his frozen face as he fought to find her, even a shred of her, her shawl, a lock of her hair, here her laugh. "God damn it, shut the hell up, son of a bitch! I let her die! I let her die! God, just kill me!"

He went into a convulsion, his body writhing and his arms flailing, grasping, half expecting for his hands to link around a small waist and his lips to be buried in someone else’s.

"Sir! Sir, can you hear me?"

Jack didn’t answer, because he couldn’t hear him. All he could hear were screams, dying cries, death wishes drowned in the smell of salt and ice.

And above all else one fading voice, gentle with love and harsh with unbearable pain. "I love you, Jack..."

He would never love another soul again. Love was no longer capable from him unless it was directed at the ghost of a person who had saved him.

And in turn he had signed her murder with her own blood, giving her to the Devil beneath God’s Earth.

He knew, right now, that it was a lie that death was the worst thing in the world. There were things so much worse.

He felt himself being restrained, food being forced down his throat.

But there was no spirit or heart within him to keep himself healthy. Just a body.

For the first time in a long time, he wanted to kill himself but he could not. He was trapped in the living dead.

Chapter Twenty-Three
Stories