Chapter Text
Summer, 1917
“What about New York?”
Jack looked up. He’d been sitting across from her in silence for nearly an hour, sketchbook propped on his knee, but the paper in front of him was still blank. “Really?”
“Why not?” Rose asked. She brushed a tendril of hair back from her face, squinting in the light of the setting sun. She was lying across the ratty armchair, her bare feet dangling over one arm. The book she’d been reading lay across her stomach. Its pages moved as she spoke. “I know the city well enough. And it wouldn’t be difficult for me to find work.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here?”
Rose shook her head. They’d stayed too long already. He knew that. It was how they’d found him in the first place.
Jack looked back down at the blank page in front of him. He tried not to make room for guilt or regret, but they sometimes found a way in anyway.
It had been his idea to stop in Los Angeles. Rose had wanted to go on, to continue their explorations across the country as they’d been doing for the past four years. But Jack had seen the longing in her eyes when she looked at mothers passing with their children, and he wondered if that could be just as much of an adventure. Besides, he was tired. Not that he had admitted that to her.
By then, he’d long since stopped worrying about Rose - at least about her ability and desire to keep up on the road. From their first few moments on solid ground, they’d fallen into an easy rhythm. He’d kept her safe and she’d kept him warm. They tackled the rest together.
But sometimes, when his guard was down or they found themselves in the middle of an unlucky stretch, that old fear crept in. She could still tire of their nomadic life. One day, she could tire of him. He still sometimes wondered if Cal and her mother and the rest had been right about him.
Those fears had disintegrated again as he watched her face when they arrived at the Santa Monica Pier for the first time the previous fall.
“Oh, Jack,” she’d whispered, her arms looped around his neck. “It’s better than I even imagined.”
“I’m glad I didn’t talk it up too much,” he’d said, kissing her soft skin.
“Can we stay here for a little while?” she’d asked. “I’d like to try this ocean.”
“Sure,” he’d said. “If you like.”
They stayed for three weeks, more or less an average stretch of time for them. They found their usual odd jobs and spent their nights cuddled together in cramped rooms or camped out beneath the stars. They swam in the Pacific and made love in an orange grove, surrounded by the sweet, clean air. When November came, Jack had once again found Rose studying maps, one of his pencils tucked between her teeth. He knew she was ready, knew that she would agree to go wherever he pointed to next. He was surprised to find that he wasn’t.
“What do you think about staying on for the winter?” he’d asked her.
Rose decided she liked the idea, especially when Jack found the tiny cottage with the orange tree in the backyard. Winter bloomed into spring and then ripened to summer. And then, the end of July had brought the letter. Jack had known what it was the second he saw it, sticking out of their mailbox. It was the first time he’d had a mailbox, the first time in ten years that he’d had a real address.
For a long time, Jack had lived as though he were a ghost. He never stayed in one place too long, accumulated as little as possible, and sometimes didn’t even use his real name. He got what he could out of each adventure, picking up new skills and learning new things about people and the way they made their worlds turn. And then he would leave, disappearing into the night like he’d never been there at all. Few would ever know he even existed. But that had all been before Rose. She was memorable, and she made him more memorable. More solid. But he didn’t mind. Sometimes it was as though she made him more real.
Jack had opened the envelope with shaking hands. He’d had to fill out a registration card in order to keep his job with the carpenter downtown when the draft was announced. Jack had thought about quitting instead, but the pay was too good and he enjoyed the work. So he’d filled out the card, refusing to give it too much thought or worry.
Part of him - the part that convinced Rose - had believed that the notice would never come, or that they would be long gone by the time it did. But then there it was, real and solid in his hands. He was to report in North Carolina on the first of September. Then he’d be going to Europe to fight. There was no way around it.
“Jack?” Rose was still looking at him. “If we leave next week we could be there before you…” She couldn’t say it either. Before you have to go. “We could take the train. We have the money. I counted. It will eat up some of our savings but it would be fun.”
“If that’s what you want,” he said.
“It’s not.” She stood up and crossed the room, her hair burning like fire in the fading sunlight. A second later, her fingers were tangled in his hair and her lips were pressed against his neck. “Must you go?”
“Afraid so,” he said. They’d already had this conversation, or at least a version of it. He could run. They could run. They’d done it before. But it would be something else to run from, and Jack didn’t want that for her. “It’ll be alright, Rosie.”
“You don’t know that.” It was as dark as she ever let herself get.
Rose wanted to go with him. She’d talked about volunteering as a nurse. She’d thought that trying to stay together would be the only way to survive it. But Jack had managed to talk her out of it. He knew he wouldn’t be able to do what he’d need to do with her so close.
“Have I ever steered us wrong?” he asked, pulling her onto his lap. He watched as she caught his sketchbook and carefully set it on the table. The gesture only made him hold her tighter.
“Never.” She didn’t point out that he’d been the one to fill out the registration card in the first place. Rose kissed the corner of his mouth. “Except perhaps the incident in Boise.”
“Ah, but we don’t speak of the Boise incident,” he grinned. He thought of Rose, running down the dusty road beside him, barefoot with her hair loose, a shoe in each hand. Jack swept a few wild curls from the back of her neck and kissed the bare skin hidden there. She tasted citrus-sweet.
“Jack,” she whispered, turning to face him.
“I’ll be alright,” he said. It was a promise now.
“But what will I do without you?” she asked.
“Oh, you’ll be bored and terribly grouchy.” Jack’s fingers brushed across the creases of her smile. “But you’ll be alright, too.”
Rose nodded, but Jack could tell she didn’t quite believe it. Not yet. He stood up, lifting her into his arms as he did.
“Come on,” he said. “It’s much too hot for clothing.”
Rose didn’t protest as he carried her into the bedroom and began to peel off her summer dress. He went slower than was necessary, wanting to savor every second, every breath. He closed his eyes and tried to pretend that they were somewhere else, that it was another time.
Outside, beyond their window, the breeze rustled the bougainvillea leaves and blew a burst of sweet air into the room. Jack breathed it in as he laid Rose on the bed, and imagined they could fly.