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

Jack crooked his arm towards her, just as he had many hours before on the grand staircase. "Could I interest you in a tour of how a 'poor guy' lives?" He said it without any rancor at all.

Rose hooked her arm through his. "Of course. I would love to see more of this ship." She almost looked like she was going to say more, but somehow the mention of her mother and fiancé had banked the fires that had been raging through her that evening. They were still lit, but they now seemed to be much more controlled.

As they left the deserted cargo room to explore the third class section, Rose told Jack intently, "Now, I believe you owe me a story."

Jack was confused. Why did he owe her a story? "I'm sorry. What story?" he asked, probing for more details, hoping he could remember what she was talking about.

Rose explained patiently. "When we got to the party, Tommy said something about 'angels.' You promised to tell me about it later. It's later."

Jack smiled his relief. "Of course. Do you remember when I first saw you yesterday?" Rose looked uncertain, so he added, "When you came outside during lunchtime."

"I felt your eyes on me even then. How do you do that?"

Jack didn't know quite what to think of that, so he continued with his story. "When I saw you there, looking like a figure out of a Bonecelli painting, I was so enchanted that I stopped drawing. Fabri and Tommy were there, and while they were making of fun of me admiring you, Tommy said...well, he said that I'd be as like to have angels fly out of my..." Here Jack paused, unwilling to use the exact term Tommy had used in front of his fine lady. So he continued with "... arse as get next to the likes of you. And then, when you were there..." Jack studied Rose's face anxiously, concerned that she would be offended.

Rose just smiled in that stunning way she had. "Here I am."

He spoke over his relief. "Here you are." He hoped she would stay there forever. Jack's feet stopped moving of their own accord. He and Rose were just looking at each again, messages flashing lightning quick through the space between them.

It was Rose who broke away. "Ahem...weren't we on a tour?"

Jack had almost forgotten. It was only a few more steps to their first goal--the only thing he'd really thought worth showing. The sign above the door said "Mess," bespeaking its purpose. He tried the door, but it was locked, so they just looked through the windows. Jack said, "This is where we eat." He looked at the long table with chairs crowded around and mentally compared it to the first class dining hall where Rose would be used to eating.

"Really, it's very nice, not like some of the ships I've been on. We each get our own utensils to eat with and there's plenty of food. Titanic really is a ship of luxury." He was watching her intently, studying her reactions.

For once, however, he didn't learn much from her face. She was getting better at masking her reactions. Her words were polite but not terribly heartfelt. "Very nice. Maybe I'll have to try it sometime."

Jack tried to picture her reaction to the boisterous dining hall that was now shrouded in a veil of silence. It was difficult for him, despite the way she had blended into the party. She still seemed like too much of a lady to truly belong in his world, but she felt right when they were together. He tried to further define that concept, but he couldn't. She felt right and that was all there was to it.

He led her away from the dining room, remarking about some of the other parts of the ship: the crew passages, the rooms, and so forth, but he didn't really have much more of interest to show her. To fill the time on the walk back to the deck, he asked Rose a question that had been burning in his mind. "Where did you learn to dance like that?"

Rose smiled. "Well, you do learn some things at..." Her voice trailed off and Jack found himself three steps further down the corridor than she. Rose's attention was fixed on a door opening into a room very much like his. "Do you live like that?" Her voice strained to contain the emotions in it--fascination, disgust, curiosity, and amazement, but not contempt.

He gazed into the room with its four narrow bunks and sink. It looked pretty much like his room. So he gave the only answer he really could. "Yes." He was really wondering what Rose thought. "Why? What are your rooms like?"

Rose's face eloquently conveyed her difficulty in answering that question. She seemed to be struggling for words. When she did speak, she only said, "Larger." Jack could tell there was more there, but he felt that any answer she might give would be insufficient, so he dropped that line of questioning.

They walked on through the mammoth ship. The length of the ship allowed them quite a bit of time to walk and talk, but it wasn't enough for the wishes of either of them. Jack resumed his prior line of questions. "How did you learn to dance? You were telling me before..."

"Oh, that!" Rose laughed. "Well, let's just say that while you might not learn how to spit at finishing school, they do manage to teach you something..." Her voice trailed off as she returned to the dances of minutes earlier.

"Well, you're amazing...your dancing is amazing." Jack meant both sentiments completely but cursed the slip of the tongue that let his feelings show so clearly.

Rose was caught up in her own thoughts, though, and barely seemed to notice. "Yours, too. I almost felt like I was flying."

They passed through the last doorway separating them from the night sky. Rose hugged herself under the jacket against the chilly air. Jack felt refreshed by it and breathed the ocean air deeply. The black water would have merged seamlessly into the black sky, were the stars not shining brightly to illuminate the horizon. The lights of the big ship barely touched the darkness of the water around them and didn't make the smallest impression on the vastness of the sky.

"Flying, huh? Kind of like Josephine?"

They started singing together, her on key, him off. "Come Josephine in her/your flying machine." They looked at each other in surprise as they realized they didn't quite know the words, but they kept singing anyway, despite the different words. "And it's up she/they goes/go! Up they/she go/goes!" Both switched their pronouns the second time, trying to match the other. Rose was trying, but she couldn't keep her expression neutral. She smiled a little and bit her lip. They tried to finish the song. "In the air she goes where? There she goes!" They finished on a particularly sour note and Jack couldn't help himself and started laughing. Then Rose disintegrated into laughter as well.

Their laughter died slowly, then resurfaced again like a dolphin riding the crest of a ship. Each time they tried to catch their breath from laughing, the image of Josephine or the note or their joy at being together conspired to send them back into gales of laughter. Eventually, though, they quieted and stood by the rail, gazing out over the water, watching the green change to black as the light dwindled.

Rose leaned back against the rail to stare up at the stars overhead as if to gain inspiration from their infinitude. Her voice was suddenly serious. "They're such small people, Jack...my crowd. They think they're giants on the earth, but they're not even dust in God's eye. They live inside this little tiny champagne bubble...and someday the bubble's going to burst."

Jack leaned up against the rail next to her. He had heard the change in her voice, but he didn't want to be ready to let the exuberance of the evening go. He reclined thoughtfully in a moment of silence that was not uncomfortable, but that somehow seemed entirely appropriate.

He became very aware of one small part of his hand, the line from his thumb to the end of his index finger, where it had contact with Rose's hand. She had leaned straight back, so the outside of her hand pressed ever-so-gently against his turned hand, like a baby robin taking refuge in a nest. They were barely touching each other. It was nothing compared to when they'd been dancing, but, somehow, it was more than then, too. He felt his whole being jostling for that point of contact. The touch was like a glass of water to a man in the desert. He clung to that sensation.

Rose stirred slightly, interrupting his ruminations. He realized he hadn't answered her comment and it was not something one could leave hanging without a return comment. "You're not one of them." Jack felt the disgust constrict his voice as he thought of them--Cal, her mother, the ones who had forced her path as if she were a sheep. She certainly seemed more out-of-place with them than she had at the party. He gave voice to his thoughts. "There's been a mistake."

Rose was listening intently and certainly heard the muted anger as well as the attempt at jocularity. "A mistake?"

Jack nodded. "Uh huh. You got mailed to the wrong address." She certainly seemed out of place among the self-indulgent, possession-oriented aristocracy that had been her only peers.

Rose's laughter eased some of the tension. "I did, didn't I?" Jack was hoping that she would find a place she truly belonged. He hoped it would involve him, but most of all, he hoped that it would allow Rose the happiness he felt she deserved.

They sat in silence again for a few heartbeats. Jack was paying more attention to her than to his surroundings, so it was Rose who noticed the abnormal light in the heavens first. "Look! A shooting star." Jack followed the line of her finger and saw a sight that never ceased to give him chills. Indeed, a star was shooting downward from the heavens.

Jack hid the sorrow that welled up in him by talking. "That was a long one. My father used to say that whenever you saw one, it was a soul going to heaven." At the thought of his father, Jack's eyes misted over. He had trained himself to talk about his parents with a cavalier attitude, but he still felt their death keenly after five years.

Rose seemed to appreciate the gravity of the situation. "I like that." The thought that a person's death would be marked cosmically appealed to her sense of right and wrong. But she'd also heard another thing about shooting stars. "Aren't we supposed to wish on it?"

Jack didn't remember moving and he didn't think Rose had moved either, but he suddenly found himself only inches away from her face, staring deeply into the eyes that held his future. He tilted his head ever so slightly, not enough to be obvious but enough that it made his intentions clear. "What would you wish for?" He knew what his wish was, but it barely seemed possible.

Rose seemed to lean in towards him, and Jack found his mouth dry with anticipation. He had just begun to pucker his lips when Rose pulled away. Her answer to his question came in a form that neither desired but both somehow expected. "Something I can't have." Jack straightened as well, trying not to let his disappointment cripple him, telling himself that it just was never meant to be. He knew he was lying to himself, but it was the only card he still had to play. Tonight's hand, while fabulous, just didn't quite provide the pay-off he'd hoped for.

Rose smiled sadly at him. "Good night, Jack." She hesitated again, as if unsure as to what else to say. "Thank you for a wonderful evening." Suddenly, her mouth tightened and she spun away from the rail and hurried through the first class entrance, flashing her ticket at a bemused steward.

Jack's feet felt rooted to the floor. Once he realized her intentions, he shouted after her, "Rose!" He wanted to follow her, but even if he had been able to get past the steward, he wouldn't have gone. She had fled back to the world she knew, leaving him where he was.

Fighting the urge to hurl obscenities at the steward, at himself, at the ship, at the water or anything else around, Jack forced his gaze away from where Rose's form had disappeared. He turned to look up at the sky again.

The stars seemed nearer than he'd ever remembered. Their light was bright against the black veil of night and he could even see the glow of unnumbered stars that were indistinguishable one from another. He reached up as if to grab one. Many times, he'd felt like he could grab the stars, if they could just get close enough. Tonight, the stars were close, but his arm wasn't long enough anymore.

He sighed and willed his feet to move. Slowly, he made his way through the empty, cheerless halls to his room. Gone was the energy he had felt earlier, when he had hoped the night would never end. His only thoughts were of getting to bed and of the unexpected direction his life had taken.

He opened the door to a full room and a flood of questions, from Tommy, Bjorn, and Fabrizio. "How did you..." "Where have you been?" "Coming back to Earth, are ya?"

Jack ignored them all, pushing through them by the sheer power of his look. He lay down in bed and stared at the bunk above him. He closed his eyes, only to have them snap open again. Rose was waiting for him behind his eyelids. But, as much as he didn't want to think about her, he was comforted by the fact that, at least somewhere, somehow, she was his.

He closed his eyes again and closed his ears against the questions still floating around him. He expected sleep to be long in coming, but he was wrong.

The End.

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