Written by Doug Kuhlman
Based on some situations originated by James Cameron.

The water was even colder than Jack had remembered and, for a moment, all he could think about was the cold. It was Rose's grip tightening on his hand that brought him back to the present danger.

He began kicking and pulling with his free hand--trying to reach the surface. Jack was honestly surprised and enheartened by the amount of suction. He had expected it to be much worse. They might make it!

His hopes had peaked when a sudden undertow caught him firmly in its icy claws. He felt himself going down and dragging Rose with him. Jack needed both of his hands to try to free himself from the torrent dragging them both towards their deaths, so he violated his own instructions and released her hand. The water instantly ripped them apart.

Jack's lungs were beginning to burn from holding in the breath of life. It would be so easy to just let the monster ship drag him to his death and he actually considered it for the briefest fraction of a second. Then his natural instinct for life took over.

A few powerful strokes sideways freed him from the narrow vortex that had engulfed him. Once that was accomplished, all that remained was to swim authoritatively for the surface. His problem was that the spin of the funnel had distorted his direction sense. Jack was, indeed, an excellent swimmer, as he had said, but this was the hardest swim of his life--swimming alone through frigid waters, with only his intuition to guide him toward the surface.

Just when he thought he couldn't kick any longer, his head broke the surface of the ocean. He breathed in a great gulp of air, but his second breath choked on water. Sputtering, he coughed away the intruding mass and began to breathe normally again...at least for a moment.

Then the thought of Rose struck with the force of a titan's club. He'd lost her. Where was she? He needed to find her; she couldn't be like his parents. He would never leave her. As Jack focused on the people around him, though, the enormity of the task began to penetrate his consciousness.

For Jack, though, failure simply wasn't an option. He overrode the misgivings and began swimming toward the area he fervently hoped she was. Either his luck was still strong, or he was guided by a supernatural presence, or his unconscious mind had registered more than he'd realized, but in only a few strokes, he heard a voice calling "Jack!" It sounded distinctly like Rose's. And it sounded panicked.

A few mighty strokes brought him to where he'd heard the voice. He saw Rose's red hair surface before her face. Jack's limited patience was completely expended. When he saw the man trying to push Rose back under, he went berserk. He was barely cognizant of what he was doing as he gave the man three quick jabs, dislodging his hold from her.

As Jack's mind cleared, he realized that water as cold as they were in would quickly prove fatal. He wanted to find something for them to float on out of the water, but the preceding incident convinced him of the need to get away from the crush of people abounding in the nearby water. He needed Rose's help, so he raised his voice above the din. "Swim, Rose! I need you to swim!"

She tried, but the bulky lifejacket complicated her efforts. She also didn't seem to be a very strong swimmer. With no time to waste, Jack simply grabbed her by the lifejacket and began to pull her through the water away from the hordes of thrashing people. While he swam, he was continuously scanning the surrounding sea for something that would allow them to get out of the water, which was sucking away their life.

It was getting harder to move. He glanced back and saw that Rose had almost abandoned her efforts to help. Clumsy as her help was, he still needed it to move with any efficiency. He encouraged her again. "Keep swimming. Keep moving. Come on, you can do it." She responded sluggishly, but once again they began moving through the water.

At the edge of his peripheral vision, Jack spotted a dark shape bobbing in the small waves caused by the torrent of people trying to escape their fate. Rose's voice indicated her threatening hopelessness. "It's so cold." Jack knew he had to get her out of the water. The bobbing shape seemed to be their only hope.

Angling their swimming towards the goal, he galvanized her into action once again. "I know. I know. Keep swimming." The motion would also help to keep her warm. As they approached the object, Jack heaved a sigh of relief. It was indeed floating on the water. He began to awkwardly push Rose onto the platform. She responded and slid inelegantly onto the floating jetsam.

Now it was his turn. He grabbed the other end of the door and tried to get on himself, but as he did so, it tipped dangerously, and he could feel it going under. Obviously, it only had enough buoyancy for one.

Jack's mind flashed through a variety of possibilities. While the numbness was still minimal, he could swim off to try to get to a lifeboat. He was a very strong swimmer and they shouldn't be too far off. Once he got there, though, could he make them come back for Rose? Or should he stay? He thought that was a rather displeasing option, since it would almost guarantee his death. The water was even colder than he'd remembered. Maybe he should try to find something else floating so that he could escape the icy grip of the water. But that would also mean leaving Rose, and who knew whether someone else would try to snatch away this door that led to life?

He nodded quickly to himself. He would stay and try to save her, no matter what the consequence to himself. He'd wondered for years if he would have the inner strength to give his all to someone again. Now that he was actually faced with doing it, it was easier than he had ever imagined.

He moved around the board to Rose's face, which was shining with newfound hope and love. "The boats will come back for us, Rose. Hold on just a little longer. They had to row away for the suction and now they'll be coming back."

Around them, they could hear the panic of thousands of people. Officer Wilde's whistle was loudest in their ears. They could also hear the shouts of children, men, and women. Many were screaming for themselves, but others were pleading for their children or their loved ones. "Come back and save my boy!" "For God's sake, come back." The cacophony of calls was hideous.

The worst was the screaming of children. Few of them probably had any idea of what was happening, but they knew the water was cold. A few parents even tried to hush their crying children. Jack wanted to close his ears. He had never experienced anything like the raw panic in the waveless sea around him.

Jack moved around the board, massaging Rose's limbs, trying to keep her warm and to insulate his mind from the screams and cold. He wished he had a way to dry her. The only thing he had to offer was the warmth of his touch, though. As he listened to the groans around him, he knew for certain that he was almost certainly going to die. The boats might come back, but if they came back now, they would be swamped. He was completely in the water, so his chances of survival were negligible.

Rose, though, being out of the water, still had a chance. He silently repeated his vow to do whatever it took to keep her alive. He completed his circuit around her and realized that he had done all the physical things he could for her. As he reached her lovely face, already pale from the cold, he realized the physical needs were the easy ones to fulfill.

Around them, the whistle calls had stopped and the howls had disintegrated into a low background wail, then a moan. Even that sound was starting to fade. Rose spoke of it first. "It's getting quiet."

Jack, as paradoxical as it seems, was enheartened by this. It meant that it wasn't just his ears. Also, the more people who died, the less chance there would be of a rescue boat being swamped. That was the key, he suddenly realized. The people on the boats would know that, too. If any boat was going to come back, it was going to have to wait. Jack suddenly felt himself hoping for the deaths of others around him. He knew it was wrong, but all he cared about was saving Rose.

"Just a few more minutes. It'll take them a while to get the boats organized..." Jack felt the tremor in Rose's hand. He could see the despair in her eyes, which even now amazed him with their beauty and their depth. Those eyes had said more to him in the last few days than most people said in a year.

He couldn't rest, though, not while Rose was forlorn. He knew that if she gave up, she would certainly die. He had to get her to try, to care. He managed to stammer, "I-I-I d-d-don't know ab-b-b-bout you, b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but I int-t-t-end to write a s-s-s-strongly word-d-d-ded letter to Wh-wh-white S-s-s-tar about-t-t all this." It was a good effort, but even before she spoke, he could see that it wasn't enough. She smiled at the joke, and even tried to chuckle a little, but the inner fire he loved so much was dangerously close to being snuffed out by the penetrating cold.

Her words only confirmed what he already knew. She was giving up. "I love you, Jack." She looked ready to hear his response and die right then.

Jack would not let that happen. "NO!" he said with as much vehemence as he could muster. Rose glanced at him in surprise. This was not at all what she had expected. "D-d-d-don't say y-y-y-your good-b-b-b-byes, Rose. D-d-d-don't g-g-g-give up. Don't do it!" Jack looked hopefully to see if the words had the desired effect.

It was not to be. Rose's next words were laced with fear and consignment to her fate. "I'm so cold." Her eyes were pleading with him to let her die. He simply could not allow himself to let her accept death so easily.

He had to give her an image to look forward to, some way to see past the present plight and into a finer future. His only hope was to give her hope. "You're going to get out of this...you're going to go on and you're going to make babies and watch them grow and you're going to die an old lady, warm in your bed. Not here. Not this night. Do you understand me?" Jack noticed with surprise that he was no longer shivering. Speaking was becoming an even greater chore, though. He felt like he couldn't get enough breath into his lungs to make the words.

The significant thing, though, was that Rose was looking at him intently again, trying to see where he was leading. He had never felt like a savior, never wanted to be one. He just was himself, but that night he desperately needed to save Rose. An honest survey of his body told him that even if a boat appeared that very second, he would very likely die anyway. His entire focus was on saving the woman he loved.

Her next words showed him the faintest spark of her inner fire. She was no longer hopeless. She had started analyzing the situation--looking for a way out, but she didn't see one. "I can't feel my body."

Jack used what little breath he could still draw into his frosty body to puff that spark into a flame. "Rose, listen to me. Listen." Her eyes found his in the darkness. Somewhere in the deep blue, they found what they were searching for. His eyes found the answers he was seeking in the deep greens of hers. She was listening to him now and would listen to him always.

"Winning that ticket was the best thing that ever happened to me. It brought me to you." His brain took over for a bit, while he tried to get more air. He thought to her, and you were the best thing that ever happened to me. You showed me that I could love again. I couldn't have been complete without you. She had saved him every bit as much as he had saved her. "And I'm thankful, Rose. I'm thankful." More than words could ever say, he was thankful.

Jack could feel the last reserves of his body giving way. He remembered his promise and knew that Rose would do whatever he asked of her. It went against a lot of what they had meant to each other, but it was absolutely critical that he do everything he could for her survival. He had promised.

With his eyes grasping hers as tightly as their hands clenched each other, Jack made his last big speech. "You must do me this honor...promise me you will survive...that you will never give up...no matter what happens...no matter how hopeless...promise me now, and never let go of that promise."

Her words sounded faint and distorted. The cold was affecting every part of him now. But the words, spoken from the heart, were as clear to his heart as if he and Rose were still warm and comfortable in her suite. "I promise." The last warmth Jack ever felt came from those words. They filled his universe in a way nothing else could.

He was desperate to hear them again. Her words seemed to be the ultimate fulfillment to his life. He spoke again the words that had so influenced his life. "Never let go." It was part command, part hope, part pleading.

"I promise. I will never let go, Jack. I'll never let go."

Jack smiled, squeezed her hand even tighter and released her eyes from his. He lowered himself back into the water that was to be his grave. He had done all he could for her. Only one thing remained.

Jack had one last thing to tell Rose. He'd not spoken the words for so long, he barely remembered them. But he had to tell Rose. His mouth opened but the unuttered "I love you" never reached his lips.

In the north Atlantic sky, a star lit the sky on its descent.

The End.

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