A SIMPLE SOLUTION
Chapter Seven

The long, white hospital corridor seemed to never end. Rose stopped walking, looking at Jack, who was standing next to Fabrizio, talking to a doctor, far away from her. It felt like something was crawling all over her when she watched him talking to his friend, concerned and obviously having forgotten about her.

She scolded herself, one of his friends had been stabbed, why did she demand his attention? That was easy to answer. Because she was afraid. His world was ruthless, he had been right about that and she almost, almost wished that she were at home, with her mother.

At the same time, she knew that she had made the right decision by coming with him.

"Jack?" she asked, her voice trembling to her dismay and he turned around. His face showed her how worried he was, but when he looked at her, he smiled.

"How are you doing, Rose?" he asked softly, putting his arm around her, as if to reassure her. It helped a bit, but it didn't take away half of her fears.

"I'm fine," she breathed and looked over at Fabrizio. He was staring at her and she could have sworn that he looked like he was angry with her.

Resolutely, she placed her arm around Jack's waist, determined to make Fabrizio realize that she only wanted what was best for Jack.

"Is Tommy…is he going to make it?" she asked quietly, looking into Jack's eyes. "Yeah, he's gonna be fine. I just asked one of the doctors." He rubbed her arms gently, suddenly sensing her discomfort. "I'm sorry we disappeared like that, but Fabri was anxious to hear about Tommy's condition and his English isn't perfect yet, so I…"

She just shook her head, smiling. "Don't worry about it, Jack. I could see you the whole time, so…I…" her voice faded away and he reached up to touch her face.

"You were so brave tonight, Rose. I couldn't believe my eyes when you woke me up. Something like that has only happened to me once and never like that."

Rose closed her eyes and leaned on his shoulder, the scenes playing before her eyes again.

The stranger had entered their room with a knife and she had woken Jack up. But it was already too late. The intruder had panicked and tried to get away with some of their money, mostly from Tommy's bag. Tommy had surprised them all by being awake and he and the intruder had struggled for a while, but the outcome had been disastrous. The burglar had been hit and fallen, ending up unconscious on the floor, but Tommy had landed on the floor, too. His loud groan and made Rose sit up and run over to him, ignoring Jack's warnings.

She sat down next to him, trying to stop the blood with her shawl. "Tommy, can you hear me?" she had asked softly, touching his face gently. The knife must have entered in his stomach and he pressed his hand over the wound, hardly even noticing her.

Rose heard Jack and Fabrizio moving around her, running down to tell the landlady to call an ambulance, and then, suddenly she felt Jack's arms around her. "I'll do that now, Rose. It's okay. The ambulance is on its way." It wasn't until then Rose realized that her hands were full of blood and that she was breathing hysterically.

She whimpered softly now, feeling like a small child seeking comfort from her mother. But she didn't have her mother with her now. It was Jack who was holding her now and he…he had other things to worry about now. He didn't need her to fall apart over something like this.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked again, going on about her not being used to things like that, that he would understand if she cried. But she refused to cry. She sank down on the white, wooden bench and leaned on the white wall behind her. "I'm okay, really, Jack. Worry about Tommy instead."

Jack nodded, but sat down next to her, rubbing her hand softly. "You're amazing, Rose. You really are."

Rose just smiled at him, touching his face gently, trying to comfort him. His face had formed a few worry wrinkles around his eyes and she tried to smooth them away with her fingers.

"I'm sure he'll be fine, Jack. At least…at least we caught a burglar tonight, didn't we?" she smiled, feeling her heart pounding under her dress.

She had just realized that they would have to go back there soon, sleep in that room, and the next nights too, always fearing that something similar would happen. What if something happened to Jack? Who would love her then? Look out for her?

She swallowed, feeling the confining rules of her childhood close in on her. She had never been allowed to experience anything, never been allowed to be in danger. And now, when danger came, she didn't know what to do. So, she ran away.

Jack nodded, pulling her closer. "Yeah, we did." He felt her body shaking a bit, hardly even noticeable, but he felt it and immediately guilt surrounded him. He had taken her away from her safe world and on the first night out, she had witnessed something even he, who had lived in that world since he was fifteen, found frightening.

What was he going to do about that? He had to find a real apartment, but first he had to get a job. He didn't want her to have to get one, too, not right away anyway. It wasn't that he didn't think she could handle a job, or that he wanted her to stay at home and be a housewife and have lots of children while he worked all day. He simply wanted to make sure that she knew what she was doing in his world. He didn't want her in any danger unnecessarily.

But Jack didn't know how he was going to get those two things. First of all, he had to get a real job, not just drawing pictures of people. That could be hard enough and if he had Rose to take care of too, it could take forever. Maybe if she…no, Jack closed that sentence before it had led to the place he feared. Rose's old world…Cal…Cal who would have raped her if he hadn't saved her.

Rose had placed her head on his shoulder and it looked like she was asleep. He touched her hair gently, wishing that he could find a way to keep her safe. With or without him. As long as she was safe, it would all be all right.

"Jack, Tommy's awake now," Fabrizio interrupted him and Jack sat up carefully, moving Rose's head to the side. She had really fallen asleep and he steadied her gently, waking her up so that she could at least walk on her own.

Fabrizio looked at him with those dark, right now disapproving, eyes and Jack smiled to make his friend smile back, as he always did. This time, Fabrizio only looked even more annoyed. "You coming or not? Leave her there."

"No, Fabri, she's with me. I can't leave her here."

Rose looked up, trying to make herself stay awake for a few more moments. "I'll stay here, Jack. If he doesn't want me there…it's okay, really."

Jack stared at her for a few moments, his eyes telling her that he didn't want her to do that, that he wanted her with him, not alone in a cold corridor.

But when she smiled and nodded, he turned around again. Fabrizio and he had just barely turned the corner when Jack gave him a smack on the head. "What the hell did you do that for? She's my girlfriend and I think you should stop treating her like that. She's just as scared as we are and she's not even used to this."

Fabrizio just shrugged. He was convinced that Rose was just with Jack, because her fiancé had hit her and that she would go back to him as soon as she had changed her mind again. He had seen the look in Jack's eyes when she had turned him down that day on Titanic and he knew that Jack would be crushed when she left him now, after all that they had been through together.

"Hey Tommy, how are ya doing?" Jack asked when they had entered Tommy's room. He ignored Fabrizio now, not bothering to listen to his explanations about Rose just using him. He had just asked him for what would she be using him for and Fabrizio had been unable to answer that.

Tommy grinned bleakly at his friends and tried to sit up.

"It was only a scratch," he said confidently, but Jack heard the way his voice cracked and he stood next to his friend, not revealing the fact that Tommy wasn't fooling anyone.

"Where's Rose?" Tommy asked when they had talked about the burglar and how lucky they had been for a while.

Jack looked uncomfortable, he regretted leaving Rose like that. "Outside. She's really tired, so I think we're gonna go back to…the room soon, get some sleep."

Tommy nodded, understanding that. "I just…wanted to say thanks. The doctor said she saved my life by stopping the flow of blood."

Jack winced and then felt warm admiration and pride flow through him. His Rose had saved one of his friends...he looked at Fabrizio triumphantly, but he just looked at Tommy, talking happily about other things.

"I'll go get her," Jack said softly and Tommy nodded, but Fabrizio looked like someone had hit him in the stomach.

When he got back to the place where they had left Rose, he couldn't see her anywhere. He swallowed and started running up and down the corridor, his heart stuck in his throat.

"Rose?" he called out, imagining all sorts of thing happening to her. Then, suddenly he saw her standing at the way end of the corridor, talking to someone very familiar. Wasn't it Molly Brown?

He slowed down, trying to act like he hadn't been worried at all. "Hey, Rose, Tommy wants to see you," he said once he had come within earshot. She turned around and smiled at him.

"Really? I'll be right there. Say hi to Molly first. She's here to visit her nephew. He broke his leg while standing on a chair and then he lost his balance. He would have been all right if he hadn't jumped as he was falling…" Rose giggled and leaned on the wall slightly, her body trembling with laughter.

"It's a pretty stupid story," Molly admitted, grinning. She had just told Rose that story and she had been laughing just as much as Rose had. Sure enough, it was a bit of a tragedy for the young boy, but at the same time, it was too comical to be sad.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Molly. I'm really tired and that even makes a story like that hysterically funny," Rose explained before running down the corridor, disappearing the same way Jack had come.

Molly gave a quick laugh and then looked at Jack. "How are you, Jack? You two got a place to stay?"

Jack shrugged and after a few minutes of silence, he told her what had happened that night and that he considered calling Rose's mother, getting her to a safer place.

Molly didn't look like she thought that was a good idea. "Rose would hate ya if you did that, Jack. But I agree with you, she needs a safer place than the one you have right now. If Tommy can get in trouble like this, Rose can too."

"What do you think I should do?" Jack asked softly, looking at Molly seriously.

"Maybe she could stay with me?" Molly suggested after a while and Jack nodded, pondering over this for a while. He liked that idea. "Could I come and see her any time I wanted to?" he asked and Molly nodded, smiling. "I was planning on staying here in New York for a while anyway to spend some time with my nephew. My husband has a house near here."

Jack nodded again, feeling much calmer now that he knew that Rose would be safe and that he would be able to see her anyway.

"It's just until I get a real job and a place to stay," he told Molly, who just smiled. "I know, Jack. I don't mind having her staying with me. Now you just have to convince her to do it. I have a feeling she won't leave you in the first place. She cares about you a great deal."

"I know," Jack replied and in a way, that felt like burden. Because of her love to him, she had had to give up her status, her money…he smiled at Molly and tried to think of a way to make her see that this was the only solution right now. It wasn't the simplest solution, but it was a solution.

Meanwhile, Rose was talking to Tommy. Finding out that she had actually saved his life was a bit of a shock to her, but she almost forgot about that when he started talking, making jokes and making her feel like one of his friends, not just Jack's friend.

"So, you gonna go back home and sleep now, huh? You look like you could really need some sleep." She laughed, covering her eyes from him. "Yeah…I'm exhausted. We'll be back in the morning to see you. Take care."

She leaned down to hug him and was smiling as she left the room, but in the corridor, Fabrizio came walking towards her and her smile disappeared.

"Tell Jack that I went to eat something," he told her with no emotion and then vanished again, leaving her alone with her thoughts. She felt so tired and her heart was heavy at the thought of Jack and his friend. Why couldn't he like her? She couldn't understand why he thought she was going to hurt Jack and she was exhausted now, not able to think straight.

"Hey Rosie, where's Fabri?" Jack's voice suddenly crept inside the dark veil of sleepiness and she looked up, seeing Jack and Molly standing there.

"He went to get something to eat. Jack, can we go home now? I am really tired, you are, too probably," she said quietly and he clasped her to his chest, holding her gently as he kissed her forehead.

"Yeah, we'll go right away." He disappeared into Tommy's room to say goodnight and at about four a.m., Molly's car pulled up at the apartment building. Jack led Rose inside quickly and once he had made her sit down on the bed, he picked up her clothes and placed them in a neat pile.

"What are you doing, Jack?" she asked him, her heart pounding hard. Had Fabrizio's words made an impact on him? Did he think she was just a first class girl, stupid enough to try to take advantage of his kindness?

"Jack?" she repeated when he didn't reply. He took her by the shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. "Listen to me, Rose. Listen. I want you to go with Molly and stay with her for a while. Just until I get a real job and a real apartment for the two of us. I don't want anything to happen to you."

She got loose quickly and clenched her fists as she let his words sink in. "No, Jack…no…I want to stay with you. I want to never leave you. I can't…I…I'd rather live with all the dangers than without you. Please, Jack." But when she had uttered those words, she closed her eyes, feeling utterly embarrassed.

"You don't want me anymore? You don't love me…" she realized and sat down again, shaking all over. "No, Rose, I do love you. I really do. Why would I chase after you like crazy on that ship if I didn't?" That brought a pale smile to her face and he smiled back, wiping away the tears from her eyes.

"I just don't want you to…have to go through what people like Fabri and me have to. I…promise I'll come and see you every day and write if I can't come. I promise, Rose. It'll only be for a few months, weeks even. Please."

She looked at him seriously, considering the idea now, but he felt how tense she was and he stroked her back to try to make her relax. "You don't believe in me? You don't think I can take care of myself?" she asked shakily and he just looked at her in disbelief.

"No. No, Rose. I just…you don't know what it's like out here sometimes, I told you on the ship and…now you know that I was telling you the truth. Please Rose, just until I get us a place to stay. Molly's still waiting in the car outside."

She got up and embraced him tightly, feeling her tears soak into his collar. He responded to the hug and they stood there for a while. "Okay, Jack," she finally breathed, leaning back to look at him. "I'll go with Molly. But promise me you'll write and come to see me. I…I'll miss you something awful."

"I'll miss you too," he said softly, hugging her again, almost not able to believe that he was telling her to leave him. But after all, they were not married; nothing tied them to each other. She could still return to her world…for good. But would she do that? Jack watched her as she got into the car with Molly and was soon gone, leaving him alone with his thoughts in the empty room. It was almost five in the morning when Fabrizio came back.

"She gone?" were his first words and Jack just nodded, closing his eyes to get some well-earned sleep, not having the energy to explain.

And Rose was tossing and turning in the soft, newly made bed at Molly's house. Her head was cluttered up with tons of thoughts, among them was Jack the most important one and a part of her couldn't believe that she had agreed to this. She wanted to be with him…no one else…but that also meant that she couldn't say no to him.

Sighing she buried her face in the pillow, trying to fall asleep. But her sleepiness from a few hours ago was completely gone and she was wide-awake, still feeling Jack's hands on her face.

Chapter Eight
Stories