Jack felt a stinging in his arms and forced his eyes to open. They felt stiff and did not open easily. Two silver bracelets bound his wrists. He frowned. Why would he be wearing…? Suddenly, it hit him. They were handcuffs, or at least what was left of them. An image came to mind. A redheaded woman raising an axe above her head, aimed right at him. Rose! She had used the emergency axe to free him when Hockley’s valet, Lovejoy, had handcuffed him to a pipe in the ship.
His last memory of Rose was when he had left her floating on a piece of wooden paneling after the Titanic had sunk. Where was she now? Had she kept her promise to survive? Or had she given up? He chided himself for falling unconscious. He felt a sudden, stabbing pain in his lungs and realized he was still underwater.
He kicked toward the surface, but something held him down. He kicked again, and this time his foot made contact with something hard. He felt a sudden tug on the back of his shirt, and the next thing he knew, he was coughing up seawater and being dragged onto an overturned lifeboat.
The last thing Jack heard was a young man calling out, "Look there! I think I see a ship!"
Another voice, closer to him, said, "Poor fellow. I hope he pulls through."
*****
"You’re sure he’s all right? I mean, he looks kind of pale."
"Well, what do you expect, Fleet? Being trapped under our lifeboat for so long?"
"He nearly flooded us, he did, Bride."
A bright light shone in Jack’s eyes, and he awoke to a room that smelled of sickness and medicine. Two men sat on wooden chairs, facing him. He sat up and groaned as his head spun.
"Look there. I told you he’d come around," a cheerful young lad was saying.
But Jack’s thoughts weren’t on him. He threw off the sheets of his cot and staggered out onto the deck before either of the men could stop him.
*****
Rose was sitting on a deck chair near the stern of the Carpathia with all the grieving steerage passengers. She felt more at peace here than she did with her own class. Once, Cal had walked by, looking tired and disheveled, but the blanket Fifth Officer Lowe had given her had hidden her from him.
She struggled to remain peaceful, but her thoughts kept drifting back to the night before. The night she had made a promise to her lover, who now lay at the bottom of the icy Atlantic.
A sudden touch on her shoulder jerked her out of her thoughts. Praying that it wasn’t Cal, she slowly turned, wondering if she dared let herself speak when she faced him. But she need not have worried, for there stood Jack, with the sun framing him.
But that’s impossible, Rose thought. How can he be alive?
Right now, she really didn’t care. The only thing she knew or cared about was that he was there, and always would be. After all, he was a survivor.
Jack, overcome with joy at having found Rose, pulled her into an embrace that seemed to say, We both survived and will never be separated again.
Rose whispered in his ear. "Will you take me as your wife?"
Jack pulled away and stared in surprise. "But what about Cal?"
Rose pulled off the ring and threw it over the railing, then shrugged. "He thinks I’m dead."
Jack laughed and kissed her hand. "You are clever, Rose Dawson."
The End.
