Jack followed Lord down the plank, and into the wall of waiting reporters. The reporters had pads of paper, and were screaming questions at Lord, "Was it true that you could have saved the Titanic? Were you only ten miles away?? Is it true that you saw the Titanic sending off signal flares, but chose to ignore them???" Jack gawked, and looked over to Lord. In a weak voice, Jack muttered, "Is it true?" Lord, looked back on Jack, and said, "we will discuss this later..."
Jack continued to hobble across the pier, trying hard not to let what he just heard sink in. He rememberd Lord mentioning something about not coming to help Titanic, but he thought that he was far away, and just COULDN'T reach us. To think, Rose could have been saved if he came to help us. Jack suddenly remembered seeing the lights of a steamer far off in the distance, he recalled the people near him in the water thinking that they were going to save them. Was THAT them?? My god, they really were not that far away! Jack began to feel sick, he couldn't believe his luck. The man that saved him, could have save others, MANY others, and choose not to. Jack began to come to his senses, maybe there is an explanation...Maybe there is a reason.
They arrived at the waiting ambulance that Lord had waiting for Jack. Once inside, the crew
began to look at Jack's frostbitten toes and fingers. They began to work, placing cold
compreses on them. Jack couldn't tell the difference in temperature. They were numb, and had
been since he had been revived. They looked disenheartend at Jack and said, "I think these may
all have to come off..." Jack was stricken, how will I draw?? That is my only vise he thought!
No toes?? How will I walk? A horror beyond Jack's imagination began to form in his mind.
No running, no walking, no drawing, no dancing... What will he do?? How would he survive??
Then, the promise he made to Rose on the boat came back. He would survive. He just wasn't
sure how.
Finally, a paramedic asked, "sir, how did you get this frostbitten? You must have been in the water for quite some time for you to have this much damage.." Jack's eyes grew wide, not quite sure how to pass this one off. His mind began to race, but Lord spoke up for him.
"We have been searching for survivors from the Titanic disaster, and Jack here had some family that was on board the ship. He was in the cold water much longer than the rest of us, and before we knew it, he had frostbite." Jack sighed with relief, silently thanking Lord for his perfect answer. Lord smiled down at Jack, knowing that he gave a good answer.
The paramedic's eyes grew wide with amazement, "you had family on her? Did they survive?" Jack's faint smile retrated, and he shook his head, unable to speak. A vision of Rose played in his mind, she was spinning around with him, and screaming with glee. He would never again look upon her face, and his frown grew even larger.
They finally arrived at the hospital, and they wheeled him into the emergency room. Suddenly,
a ton of people were around him, needles were being pierced into his skin everywhere. Jack began
to frantically look around, hoping to see Lord, and he did not see him. Then a man's face
appeared before him, and told him to count backwards from 100. Jack began to slowly count, his
mind getting foggier and foggier as the numbers lessoned. Finally he fell into a deep sleep,
dreaming of what he had lost, Rose.
Next Chapter