Rose was so cold. She couldn't feel her body. She couldn't think. She thought she was delirious. She kept thinking she heard Jack's song. No. Her and Jack's song.
It was wafting over the waves. It was in perfect rhythm with the lapping of the water. "Oh, God," she thought. "It's me who's singing!"
Suddenly a voice cut through her thoughts like a knife. "Hello. Is anybody alive out there? Can anyone hear me?"
It was a boat! The boats had come back! She had to tell Jack. Rose turned over so she could see Jack's face. She shook his hand. "Jack!" She could barely talk. "Jack! There's a boat. Jack? There's a boat." She was getting frustrated. Why wasn't he answering? She shook him again. What was wrong? He can't be that tired. She tried again, this time with a pleading in her voice. She was near despair. Suddenly it hit her. Hit her like a thousand knives stabbing her all over her body. Jack was gone. He wasn't coming back.
No! Her mind screamed. No! No! He can't be! No! He's just sleeping he'll wake up. He has to wake up. He can't just leave me here.
"Hello, can anyone hear me? Is anyone alive out there?"
Wake up, Jack, she thought. But she knew deep down he wasn't going to ever wake up again. She wanted to die there, with Jack by her side. She just wanted to turn her face back to the heavens and let go of everything, just retreat to her memories. She lay her head down and closed her eyes. Good-bye.
"Never let go!"
What was that? What?
"You promised you wouldn't let go."
Jack?
"You can never let go."
Jack. It was Jack. He was reminding her of her promise. He's right. Never let go. I can never let go. I promised. Where was the boat? Where did it go? Where is it? I have to try. I promised. I promised. She turned her attention back to Jack. I will go on. "I'll never let go Jack, I'll never let go." With that, she let Jack's hand slip from her grasp. As she watched her beloved slip into the murky depths, she thought once again about her dilemma. Where was the boat, and how could she get its attention?
There. Officer Wilde's whistle was hanging out of his mouth. She could tell he was dead, too. "How am I ever going to get out of the depths of the hell I'm in?" She slid off the panel. She tried as hard as she could to swim. She continued to get a little closer to the body and the whistle. Finally! She blew. She blew with all her might.
"Come about!"
She continued blowing. She couldn't hear at this point. She just blew and blew; her mind half-raced and half-stopped working. She had to get...the boat...to come...back. She was almost unconscious. When Officer Lowe pulled the whistle out of her mouth, she was still blowing.
The other men in the boat scrambled to cover the woman's half-frozen body with blankets. Officer Lowe thought he heard her saying something, but her lips were barely moving. He leaned closer. "Never let go. I'll never let go. Jack. Jack, never Jack. Never ever let..." the woman trailed off.
Who was Jack? Who was this woman? And most of all, where was the man Jack now? He felt a pity for this woman he would never again know. His mind kept dwelling on this thought while they searched the rest of the wreck site for people who had somehow defied death, like this woman here.
*****
While Rose was on the Carpathia, she couldn't bear look at anyone. Everyone looked like Jack. Everybody's voice sounded like his. Why did it hurt so badly? Why was it that she found love and then so quickly it was snatched from her very grasp? Why did he die and she live? Then, all of a sudden, her mind shifted. Why did he survive and Jack did not? It's not fair.
As Cal looked at the faces of the women who sat hunched over, Rose couldn't bear it. Why? How? It's not right. As Cal turned in her direction, she covered her face. She couldn't let him find her. She had grown too much in the precious hours that she and Jack had spent together--far too much for Cal or Mother to reach her now. Mother. It sounded almost funny. She felt no remorse for turning away from her mother, or Cal. She certainly felt no remorse for leaving that bastard.
As she lay on the deck that night, looking at the stars, she thought of Jack. She hadn't stopped thinking of him since his lifeless body slipped beneath the numbing water. How could she go on? She just couldn't forget the feeling of his skin on hers. I can't go on. I can't. I'm a fallen angel--fallen from the embrace of God. God--with the face of her lover. God, in her opinion, in that moment, was her lover. She had fallen from grace and she didn't know if she could ever pick up all the pieces and go on.
Home. Then again, she could never be home again. Home was in Jack's warm embrace, in his blue eyes that were as deep as the water that took his life.
*****
The statue that loomed above her gave her heart a light feeling. She would go on. She knew that she could go on. It would be the hardest thing she had ever done in her life, harder than letting go of his hand.
Just then, one of the officers came up to her. He had the grim task of taking names down on the list, the list that would break so many people's hearts and lives. "Can I take your name, please, love?"
Her name? "Dawson. Rose Dawson."
"Thank you."
Dawson? Was she a Dawson? Would Jack have wanted her to become a Dawson? She would never know. But, she did know that with his name she had also taken his strength and, she would later discover, she had taken his love for life. He had, in those precious few conversations they held, borne upon her a wanderlust she would never satisfy. The statue she was gazing upon at that moment was the symbol of all that. All the things he had given to her were displayed on the face of the statue. It was her freedom. She felt as if she had once again risen to the light of glory and grace that she had felt when she was enveloped in his arms. Even when she was only in his presence, she was truly back into that grace. She was no longer a fallen angel. She had risen above all that pain. For a fleeting moment, she felt completely at peace. She was once again flying. She had mended her broken wings and was flying.
The End.
