Fall, 1915
"How long were you there?"
"I don't know," Rose said. "I know he found me on the sixteenth, but...I stopped trying to figure it out. It didn't matter. The only thing I cared about was staying alive."
Jack felt sick. You weren't there. You could have done nothing. But he didn't believe that. He was sure he could have prevented it all if he'd just held on a bit longer.
"But I wasn't sure I would," she continued. "He didn't say he'd kill me...he didn't have to...I was technically already dead. He could do whatever he wanted. And I guess that's what made him get careless. He left me alone long enough that I was able to talk myself into getting up and trying to find a way out."
"And you found the window."
"I found the window."
April, 1912
She didn't think about it. She just ran at the glass as fast as she could. It would either be her delivery or her death, and at that point she wasn't sure which was which anymore. She covered her face as her body slammed into the sidewalk. A crowd began to form around her. She struggled to her feet, ignoring the pain shooting through her legs. She looked up at the shattered window and was grateful for Cal's fear of heights.
The crowd parted to let her pass. If there were offers of help, she didn't hear them. All she could hear was the voice in her head telling her to get away as fast as she could. Fortunately, or rather miraculously, nothing was broken. She was covered in bruises, but it would be impossible to know how many of those were caused by fall and how many were caused by Cal. Shards of glass stuck out of her arms. Blood ran down her dress, turning her white skirt red. Yet she walked on, seemingly oblivious to all of it.
Fall, 1915
"What happened after that?" Jack hoped fervently it was something good, even as he was sure it wasn't.
"After that..." Rose stopped. "The police found me, and you'd think that would have been a good thing..."
April, 1912
She wandered for a day, fueled by pure adrenaline, but eventually it wore off. She collapsed into a doorway. She couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten—was it on the Carpathia? Or was it that last lunch on the Titanic? Not to mention everything else her body had been through.
"Hey!"
She looked up. Two cops were standing over her. "What happened to you?" She tried to make her mouth form coherent sentences, but she was too exhausted, physically and emotionally, to make much sense. And unfortunately, out of all the cops in New York, the two that found her were possibly the least likely to be sensitive to her plight.
"Looks like someone did a number on her," one of them said.
"No," the other one said. "I think she's just crazy."
"I'm not—I'm not crazy," Rose said. "I'm really not. If I'd been smarter—" She looked at them earnestly. "If I'd been paying more attention, he couldn't have done it." Her eyes were wide. "You can see that, right?"
They saw something, but it wasn't Rose's sanity.