Written by Sparkles
2
Based on some situations originated by James Cameron.
Jack gathered stationery from the
Carpathia's library and tried not to think about the leather-bound book at the
bottom of the Atlantic. He traced his steps back to Rose's huddled form and
wrapped himself in blankets. There never, never seemed to be enough blankets to
keep him warm. Rose rested her head on his shoulder and watched his hands move
across the paper, watched his fingers flesh out crying children and mourning
women, and a man–one man--watching the steam rise from his mug with dull eyes.
He was the only other man on the whole deck. When Rose fell asleep, Jack drew
her slumbering form, and vainly tried not to think about cold, lifeless faces,
unseeing eyes open to the frozen air.
"Let me see," Rose said
when she awoke, fingers outstretched toward the sheets of paper in Jack's
hands.
He had drawn the frightened face
of a woman whose grip had slipped, drawn her fingers reaching for the railing
as Titanic's unsinkable keel rose into the black night sky. His fingers had
furiously tried to drown out the screams in his head, echoing on the pale
surface of the ocean.
"No, Rose, not these. You
don't want to see these."
She set her mouth and gave him
her stern, commanding look, one that belied her upbringing. "Let me see,
Jack. I want to see them."
Before he could protest, she took
the drawings, looking at each one with an impassive face. Finally she set them
on the deck, looking at Jack with large eyes.
"Oh, Jack," she
breathed. "Jack." She buried her face in his chest, and he remembered
why he loved her.
Cal found them after the rain
began, grabbing Rose and shaking her.
"The necklace," he
hissed with a contemptuous look at Jack. "Just give me the necklace."
Rose wordlessly drew the diamond from
the pocket of her coat, of Cal's coat, and never saw him again. A man arrived
with a clipboard.
"Names?"
"Dawson," Rose replied
at once, and slipped her hand into the warmth of Jack's. "Rose and Jack
Dawson."
Jack thought about Paris and
London and late night poker games, of people, all kinds of people in all kinds
of places, and of waking up each morning with thousands of possibilities
stretched before him like the horizon. He thought of Rose, waking up each
morning to her perfectly set and scheduled life, of the hundreds of dead people
at the bottom of the sea, and squeezed Rose's hand.
He was drowning, water in his
lungs where there should be air, clinging to Rose like she was a life
preserver. He couldn't ever let go.
The End.