Chapter Text
1.
London, England
April 8th 1912
Looking down at the putrid brown vomit that was staring back at her from the toilet bowl, Rose felt something terrible shift inside of her. A dark feeling began to spread its way through her entire body, beginning in the center of her chest and coiling around and coursing through her limbs until she was completely numb.
She had rushed away from the breakfast table as she had felt her stomach turn violently, her mouth fill with bitter saliva. Cal hadn’t even lifted his eyes from his cup of coffee, been able to ask what was wrong, before she had fled to the bathroom, coughing up the small bites of toast and tea she had stubbornly willed herself to swallow.
As the room began to oscillate in and out of focus, there was a sort of distorted sound echoing around her. It was making her head hurt. A knock at the closed door behind her; a pounding. “I’m fine, don’t come in!” She called out, trying to keep the panic from her voice. She felt like she was underwater; floating but not yet falling. She had never learned how to swim and now she was waiting to drown.
“Rose, what’s happened?” Cal demanded through the door. He had followed her. Of course he had. At first, she didn’t know if it was because of how dizzy she felt, or if it was because she had barely been able to stomach a meal in days, but there was almost something genuinely worried in his voice.
“Nothing!” She replied, trying to remember the mechanics needed to speak. “Darling, could you get Trudy for me?”
There was silence for a moment, and then the sound of his footsteps hesitantly receding down the hall. Splaying herself on the cool porcelain tiles of the floor, she relished in the slight comfort it brought her. Breathing shallowly, her mouth spilled over with drool. The room finally stood still. She knew it was a terribly unladylike thing to do and she felt a gnarled joy in it. If her mother had walked in she would’ve gone straight to a fainting couch.
It felt as if hours had gone by before Trudy rushed in, a frightened look on her face, her features somehow warped to Rose from where she was lying on the ground. Wasting no time wetting a washcloth, she pressed it against her mistress’s forehead and swiped away the puke that still clung to the corners of her mouth. Tilting her head to the side, Rose gazed up at Cal, who had reappeared in the doorway, his presence somehow malignant. His eyebrows were furrowed in a suspicious sort of line. She knew he was trying to piece together what was the matter; realized that he was getting close to the answer. Too close. He was smarter than she gave him credit for.
This hadn’t been the first time she had excused herself from a meal due to her overwhelming bouts of nausea. In the last few weeks, she had slipped away from the table on multiple occasions, revolted with the smells of meat and fish, disgusted by displays of decadent desserts. Somehow she managed to disappear to the comfort of her room with the claims that she was suffering from headaches, from the utter exhaustion of their travels. However, soon, she had begun to also miss a countless number of parties and other pointless social gatherings. Behavior which was beyond inappropriate.
Cal had protested at first, insisting that it was her duty to accompany him to these events as his future wife, insinuating that she was making him look bad. This, of course, made her mother begin to fret over her, disappointed and anxious that she was missing out on meeting more of the new, shiny people in their new, shiny circles that the Hockley name had so graciously allowed them to enter. But by simply feigning concern that her nerves were unraveling due to the stress of her upcoming nuptials, she somehow succeeded in untangling herself from the expectations that were weighing heavier on her shoulders day after day. Only to end up hunched over in the same unseemly position she was in now, shame washing over her in waves as she emptied her stomach again and again.
Staggering to keep her balance, Rose somehow pulled herself up from the floor and onto her elbows, managing to gasp out in a raspy, frail voice, “Cal, I’m fine, I promise.”
She felt another wave of nausea slosh in her gut and somehow succeeded in keeping it down until his expression began to soften into something else she couldn’t decipher. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as if he were coming down with a headache. Annoyance crept into his voice where any sign of tenderness could have been. “Do you want me to call the doctor at least?”
Skittishly, Trudy and Rose exchanged a knowing glance between them, Trudy deciding to answer for her, her voice trembling only slightly, “That won’t be necessary, sir. She’s probably just over tired. I can take care of her from here.”
Rose watched him make the choice to believe such a pitiful excuse, the look in his eyes that only showed itself when he was lying shining back at her. Wordlessly, he glared down at her for a moment and smirked before he turned and stalked down the hallway, any concern for his fiance’s well-being replaced with acute irritation.
She waited until she heard his bedroom door slam behind him that she allowed herself to retch once more into the toilet, tears leaking from her eyes from the sheer force. Before Trudy could offer her the washcloth again she simply wiped the spit from her mouth with the back of her hand, carelessly smudging the rouge on her lips that she had applied not even an hour earlier.
“Trudy…” she finally managed to make out in between what had become sobs, “I’m afraid…”
“I know, miss.” The maid replied as she wrung out the washcloth in the sink. The leftovers of her breakfast swirled down the drain as Rose continued to cry, her tears splashing into the toilet.
In two days she would board the RMS Titanic back to America. It was said to be called ‘The Ship of Dreams’. She laughed cynically under her breath at the idea, trying not to choke. But she could already feel something rising inside of her, taste the bile that was burning her throat. She looked back down into the water, trying to ignore the fate that awaited her, trying to stomach the fact that she hadn’t dreamed in months. That she maybe never would again.
xXx
The RMS Carpathia
April 15th 1912
Cal’s heart thudded anxiously in his chest as he descended the stairs to the Carpathia’s third class holding area; his nerves tangled, raw knots in the pit of his stomach.
All throughout the previous night, while floating aimlessly in that lifeboat surrounded by bitter darkness, he had been trying to unravel the events that had led him to this moment. Or, rather, attempted to assess the losses he was going to face and how he would ever manage to recover from them. Damage control, to put it lightly.
Naturally, despite the many valuables that had perished along with the ship, the more obvious liability at hand was Rose - who was simultaneously becoming a thorn in his side and in his conscience. Cringing inwardly, he tried to erase the more unpleasant memories they had recently shared, the resentment that had festered between them like a fever. Deep inside of him he knew such a feat was now impossible. Gunshots echoed through his mind. Her screams followed them.
In an attempt to block them out, he had focused his bitterness onto other things. For one, the incessant whimpers and wails Ruth DeWitt Bukater was making for a daughter she hadn’t seemed too affectionate for up until now. Irritated with her insincerity, he brandished the smile of the hero, volunteering solemnly to go digging through the rubble that surrounded them in hopes to find her darling Rose. The stakes were much higher now and they both knew it. Tragedy had a way of doing that.
He had excused himself curtly, already looking for reasons to not look back.
Meandering around the deck, he could feel the stares of confused lower-class passengers on his back. Normally he wouldn’t have been so annoyed with their perplexed expressions. He was well aware of the attention he commanded in such scenarios; that these poor, simple people were only vying for a meager glance at the privileges he was so accustomed to. But, now, he felt completely unnerved and violated as dozens of eyes followed his every move.
In that moment, he knew that their awestruck looks weren’t out of admiration, but rather out of pity. All they saw was a king without a crown. A dynasty crumbling before their eyes. Living proof that no one, not even royalty, could’ve been spared mercy in such an unimaginable disaster.
Shuddering, he turned away from their gazes, already feeling the cool grip of ghosts from the night before latching onto him, pulling him back under the waves. His breath seized and caught in his throat as if he were drowning. He began to desperately look around him for even a wisp of red hair in the sea of gray surrounding him, trying to ease the knot in his stomach, the tension that was slowly suffocating him.
But for a second, for a fraction of a moment, he stopped walking and didn’t want to find Rose. He almost wanted her to be gone forever, drowned at the bottom of the Atlantic with her precious gutter rat, just so he wouldn’t have to face being burned by her flames anymore.
Flames that he had once found himself stoking, making fires out of nothing just to feel something.
He flinched as he remembered her again. Before certain steerage boys and icebergs had gotten in the way. Before she had become as cold as the waters that she had so stubbornly succumbed to. When she hadn’t acted so disgusted with his lavish gifts, hadn’t flinched at the feel of his touch, stiffened as he pulled her close to him at night…
Sighing to himself, Cal wondered what it was he was actually looking for. Or if it was worth it.
He knew that he couldn’t handle the pain of letting her go, of letting his pride take on such a nasty bruise. But what other option was there? Was it worth winning to live the rest of his life trapped in a marriage that would only make him miserable? Of playing endlessly childish mind games and just hoping that one morning Rose would look at him with a sudden shine in her eyes and love him again? His shoulders slumped. Had she ever loved him to begin with? He didn’t have the energy to ask himself that question, even though he already knew the answer.
And just when he was ready to turn back, ready to give up, ready to lose... He found exactly what he was looking for.
Sighing, he took a step. And then another.
“Rose?”
He cursed himself at the sound of his own voice, how small and fragile the question was, how it shattered in the air. He waited, painfully, for a reply, for the hooded figure to turn in his favor. He knew only seconds had gone by but they felt longer than the night he had just endured.
There was no response. He could feel his vision closing in on him. Everything was going dark…
The woman turned to face him. She took the blanket off.
“What do you want from me?” Rose whispered coolly as her eyes locked with his. They were puffy and red and he couldn’t tell if it was from the lack of sleep or if she had been crying. He knew she wouldn’t tell him which.
Swallowing the sudden taste of bile in his mouth, Cal resumed his composure, his gaze settling on her with stony indifference.
“You’re alive.”
“Yes.”
With a blank stare he wondered if there was anything else she had to say to him. Considering their last encounter, he guessed not.
Glancing around them he could find no sign of Dawson. The knot in his chest loosened slightly.
“Where is-” he began, despite the obvious conclusion. He watched as Rose’s stare clouded over, how she was willing herself not to grieve on his account. “I see…”
A smirk tugged cruelly at his lips. She turned back away from him.
“I’m not going back,” she began again, her voice unwavering despite her distress, “Don’t ask me to.”
“And what is it that you plan to do with yourself instead?”
No reply followed. He frowned, somewhat disappointed that the defiance his fiancé had exhibited so fiercely just hours ago was all of a sudden extinguished.
“I’m sure there are plenty of street corners in the city on which you could whore yourself...” he continued with a mocking lilt.
Silence. In the quiet that stood between them, Cal knew what she was thinking. He watched the uncertainty and pain wash over her face, how she was so desperately trying to untangle her daydreams from the bleak reality in front of her. They both knew that she wouldn’t stand a chance of survival on her own. She had no money, no connections. She didn’t even know how to dress herself or run a bath without the help of a maid.
He smirked to himself once more, this time with satisfaction. Yes, Dawson might’ve wooed her with the promises of adventure and tall tales of life as a starving artist. But he… He could give her anything. The luxuries she craved, the delicacies she didn’t know she couldn’t live without. Yes. He would take her back with him to their cold, dark world and he would suffocate her with the money he knew that she needed to save her family’s name. He would marry her and make her see that he was the only person she would ever want. The only person she would ever need. Even if it killed him.
I always win, Jack…
“After all, you did say that was what you wanted…” he stated, with fake sincerity, as he watched her wince, ever so slightly, beneath her cocoon of checkered blankets.
And with that fact looming grimly in the air between them, he turned sharply on his heel, taking measured, methodical steps away from her, as he counted the following seconds in his head.
Rose didn’t know it but he knew her better than she thought. He knew that despite her rebellious facade she was just as alone and afraid as everyone else. She was merely a child with nothing left for her in the world. Nothing except for him.
Taking another step, he continued to count, the smug tug of a smile never leaving his lips.
He didn’t even make it to ten before she was calling out after him.
...One way or another.