Rose DeWitt Bukater (never_let_go) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-12-29 11:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, jack dawson, rose dewitt bukater |
Who: Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater
When: Shortly before Christmas
Where: Jack and Katou's house
What: Rose dreams of Jack's death
Warnings/Status: Lots of people died in Rose's dream, but fairly low.
Status: Complete
It felt like it had days since the man with the whistle had stopped blowing, and like hours since she and Jack had stopped talking, though Rose knew that it couldn’t have been nearly that long. She laid on the old door of the Titanic, singing Come Josephine In My Flying Machine to Jack, trying to stave away the growing silence around them. Over a thousand people must have gone into the frozen Atlantic waters, but she couldn’t hear anyone screaming anymore.
She noticed the lights on the returning lifeboat before she heard them calling for survivors. Jack had been right! The lifeboats had returned for them, and she and Jack would be able to get on it and start again together, putting this whole nightmare behind them.
“Jack… Jack,” she said. It hurt to speak, and her voice came out in barely anything more than a croak, but she shook Jack’s hand that she was still clutching to, hoping to rouse him. “Jack, there’s a boat. Jack?” She continued to call him, to try to wake him, but she soon realized it was in vain. Jack wouldn’t be waking up.
For a moment, she considered giving up then and there. If she was going to die, she wanted it to be with Jack. But the feeling lasted for only a moment, and she remembered the promise she had made to Jack. “Promise me you’ll survive. That you won’t give up, no matter what happens, no matter how hopeless. Promise me now, Rose, and never let go of that promise.”
She took a moment to come to terms with the fact that she was never going to see Jack again, and then steeled herself. “I’ll never let go, Jack. I promise.” And then she kissed his knuckles, and let him sink into the sea.
Her entire body was numb, but the water still burned when she dove in. And then she swam to the man who had the whistle, took it from his lips, and blew with everything she had, until the lifeboat found her and pulled her in.
Rose woke with a start, lips blue and teeth chattering. There was a layer of ice coating her hair and her pajamas. There was a moment of confusion while she tried to remember where she was, but seeing Jack sleeping beside her reminded her that it had just been a dream, that that was a different life, long gone. And while she knew that Jack had survived his dreams, she was still panicked when she clutched his arm with ice cold hands. He was hot, almost uncomfortably so, but she didn’t let go and she shook him.
“Jack. Wake up, Jack,” she croaked, her voice not much louder than a whisper even though she would have yelled it if she could. He had to be alright.
He’d like to think that night was only a distant memory - something he’d only see once, something that wouldn’t haunt him, but it had. Only thing is, it’d gotten easier as time passed. Jack had been mostly at peace with his death, but Rose’s still unseen outcome had nagged him with doubts. Doubts that it’d all been futile, that she’d died with him and if only he could have persuaded her to stay on that damn lifeboat she’d so impulsively jumped off of.
It was a worry he’d express to Gale, but that military giant had a point - she was a tough one despite the delicacy her name conjured. She’d taken an axe to handcuffs that held him prisoner, held on with him ‘til his very end, and the starving artist could only hope the arctic waters didn’t snuff that fire.
But it was that lingering fear that had him want to have her near, especially at night, especially if something had happened. Jack wanted - needed - to be there.
He’d never been a light sleeper, not once. Sleeping under bridges and park benches, out in the open and exposed had taught him to always watch out. It helped when punks had broken into the house when Wendy had still lived in, and it helped now, when he felt the equivalent of icicles against his flesh and it jolted him up. Instead of recoiling, his fingers went tight around her arms, instinct for heat to seep into her - keep her warm, keep her alive, all motivations he’d had there.
“I’m up, I’m up - shit, Rose, you’re fucking ice,” he breathed. Ice, just like he was. Did that mean - ? No, she couldn’t have, could she? Questions could be asked later. He gathered the blankets of the bed, wrapped her in them and held on tight. Lips to her forehead before his chin was propped over her head. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. It’s okay.”
It was palpable, the amount of relief Rose felt when Jack opened his eyes. It wasn’t real, Rose tried to tell herself. It was just a dream, it wasn’t real.
It was a lot harder to convince herself of that when it had felt so real though. Not when she was so cold, and her teeth were chattering like Morse Code. She clung to Jack as if he were a life raft, burying her head into his shoulder. She would have cried, either from relief or from the horror that had been the dreams, but she was too cold for the tears. “They came back, Jack,” she chattered. “The boats, they came back. But I couldn’t wake you up. I couldn’t…”
God, she was ice. Jack sat up, scooped her up some more, squeezed her tight and held her close. Hands rubbed up and down against her with the blankets. Friction, body heat. It wasn’t as if the heaters weren’t on, either - outside’s snow made it necessary, but he contemplated on raising the temperature for an extra push of hot. Wendy had done that for him. It had helped.
The boats, they came back. That meant - “You lived,” he realized, and it had hit him with a massive euphoria of relief. All knots of doubt and worry unwinded, he could have almost smiled if that didn’t also mean… “I woke up here, alright? It’s what counts the most. But I needed you to live. All those promises - remember?” That she’d move on, makes lots of (fat) babies. Grandchildren, too. She’d live her life, and she’d die warm and satisfied. Not out there. Not in the cold, under the blanket of the night sky and stars. Not on that goddamn door.
He didn’t mind dreaming about his death. Didn’t mind the repeats of it, the coldness that sometimes continued to carry over. Not if it meant that she survived.
“You woke up here,” Rose repeated. She managed to relax a little at the realization, as much as she was able to considering that she couldn’t stop shivering. She had known Jack was going to die in the dreams, and she had thought she had been prepared for it, though it had still struck her like a knife to the heart. But he was alive here. Here was when they were going to get their second chance. They’d already been together longer the three short days they had together on the boat.
The circulation was returning to her fingers and toes, and they burned like fire. The pain was intense, but she thought that was a good sign. She wasn’t an expert, but that seemed to imply she wouldn’t be losing any of them to frostbite, so she grit her teeth and beared with it.
“I didn’t forget our promise, Jack,” Rose said. “I - I had to swim to the man. The man with the whistle. Do you remember him?” Of course Jack would. He’d blown that whistle non-stop for what had felt like hours, until the cold had claimed him. “It was because of- because of,” talking while her teeth were chattering like this was harder than she thought it would, and she took a moment to take a deep breath and try to get them to stop. “Because of the promise I made to you that I had the courage to do it.” Jack had managed to save her once again, even after he had died.
“I couldn’t forget, even if I wanted,” he chuckled, a sound of mirth and sorrow. It made a nice background music to her singing, didn’t it? When all other senses were failing (too numbed by glacial water and air to feel anything, to taste anything, even his vision had faded), hearing things seemed to be how he knew what was going on around them. Screams and cries, splashes of drowning people, Rose’s voice, the sharp whistle into the sky. Jack kissed those trembling lips, purple and blue - all ways to keep her warm, transfer his heat to hers. “You made it, Rose.” Like he’d told her there, you’re going to make it.
Nana whimpered by the door, heavy paws hitting the frame. That massive ball of canine fluff had an instinct for distress; she’d found him first when he woke up at the end of his dreams, laid on top of him to provide warmth until Wendy walked through the door. He carefully set the bundled redhead back onto the bed, opened the door to let the nurse dog in - she went straight to the bed, tongue flopping out and ready to lap against Rose’s frigid cheek. House thermostat was blasted on high for heat, enough to make these walls into a sauna, and he quickly returned.
“I’m turning into quite the survivor,” Rose said. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she honestly hadn’t been sure she would make it when she had left her home and moved to the other side of the country. Part of her had been certain she’d last a month or two, and then pack up her things, go home, get married to Cal, and live out the rest of her miserable existence as his wife. But she’d made it so far. She’d finished her first semester of University, was living on her own, had survived a confrontation with her former fiance and was surviving the dreams. There was a steel in her that she hadn’t been aware she possessed.
When Jack let Nana in, Rose slipped off the bed so she hug the big dog around the neck, and wrap her fingers in the long, warm fur. The chattering of her teeth was slowing, and the shivering was certainly less violent than when she had first woken up. “I do love this dog,” Rose said when Jack came back. “It was so kind of Wendy to leave her with you boys.”
Jack choked a laugh. A survivor, hell yeah. Guess that’d be the silver lining from this mess, wouldn’t it? Society girl tearing herself away from traditional expectations, going out on her own - she’d been doing well for herself here, and she had a chance there. He knew now, for sure, and it pained him he couldn’t be with her over there - in 1912, picking up their lives together from the trauma of a ship sinking and not having enough lifeboats. Of watching everyone around them meet death in slow, tortuous ways. But this life was different, they’d make up for lost times here.
“Katou might wake up screaming about sweaty balls,” he warned, flashing a grin. Nana planned on being a living heater, nuzzling that furry head into Rose’s hands and neck and face. Jack helped, going behind her to tighten his arms around her. “You want tea? A hot shower? You need to defrost, Rose, I don’t want you getting sick.”
“He’ll just have to deal with it,” Rose said haughtily, though she smiled and leaned into Jack shortly after, twining her fingers with his and holding his hand against her. “A tea would be lovely in a moment,” Rose said. Right now she happy sandwiched between the two mini-furnaces, grateful for the feeling that was returning to her extremities. She wondered what her dreams would be like without Jack. She had been prepared to start a new life with him in America, but now, she wasn’t going to get that chance. She couldn’t imagine that she’d go back to live with her mother and Cal, not after everything that had happened, but a life without Jack… At the moment, it seemed almost unbearably lonely. “I love you, Jack.”
Tea it was, then. Jack never drank much of the stuff, but it came with the territory of having been shacked up with one very English Wendy Darling who swore on the stuff. Made it every time one of them was sick, and then would just make it for herself simply for the fuck of it. There was always a time for tea, and she’d left behind a decent selection - he drank them sometimes, as an honorary habit.
He blinked all of a sudden, her words tearing him from the mundane thought of figuring out just what blend Rose would like from their cupboards. Those words were familiar, she’d said them before - in 1912, on a ship meant to be nothing but ruins on the Atlantic floor. Even if it’d been a week there, the sentiment rung true.
And it did here, too.
“I love you too,” he whispered, mouth pressed against her temple for a kiss - and then her ear, her cheek, her neck, all while he embraced her tight, as if he had his own plans for not letting her go. “We’ve got another chance here, you know. For all of that.”
Saying the words had seemed so natural that Rose hadn’t even noticed how nervous she was until she felt the relief of Jack returning them. She twisted a little so she could press her blue lips against Jack’s. “We do,” she said, a soft smile crossing her lips. “We’ll have to make the most of it.” The worst of both their dreams were done now (well, she assumed they were. She couldn’t imagine her dreams being any worse than what she had just dreamed), and they only had their future to look forward to.
The transference of heat was an excuse to keep with the kisses, but not that he needed reasons other than wanting to show affection - and mouth to mouth could only do so much. Jack rose to his feet, helping her up, making sure the blankets were draped around her well. “To the kitchen. We’ll get you tea, throw you into the shower -” He’d join if allowed, mainly to keep an eye on her. “And keep you in winter clothes.”
They needed to bring back color to her skin; she looked too pale, too much like a literal ice statue.
Rose got to her feet, a little shaky at first, though once she was standing she seemed to have her feet under her. Her muscles were sore, but she was sure once she got moving they’d loosen up. “I should hope that you won’t leave me alone once I’m in the shower,” she said playfully, pulling the blankets tight around her shoulders as she made her way to the kitchen. “I must say, it is somewhat of a relief that you know exactly what you’re doing.”
That heater was kicking it like hellfire blowing through the vents; it was making him sweat a little, but it was all good things to help Rose defrost. Water in the kettle, he turned up the stove and then pulled Wendy’s selections from the cupboards, plus one of those teacups she’d left behind - little pieces of her, still scattered around. “Nope, gotta make sure you’re properly warmed up,” he chuckled, grinning crookedly. “I’m doing what Wen did. Blast the heaters, seize the blankets, drink something hot and spoon the dog.”
Nana dutifully followed, of course, nurse cap propped on that head. That dog had a keen sense of distress, she really did - a savior covered in fluff that tailed Rose faithfully.
The heat was lovely, though Rose knew that in a while it would probably become sweltering. In her dreams, she had thought at times that she would never feel warmth again, and that feeling hadn’t quite left her yet. She chose her coffee and then sat down. She was warm enough that she was able to loosen her grip on the blankets, letting them drape lightly over her shoulders instead of keeping them wrapped tightly around her.
Rose smiled a little at the mention of Wendy, twining her frozen fingers in Nana’s fur. “It would seem that I owe her my thanks even when she’s off in England.”
There was a little more color to Rose, he thought. Good signs. Their furcoated nurse settled at her feet, and Jack went behind the chair to clasp his hands over her shoulders. Massage the skin, help those iced bones thaw out. ‘Sides, what lady (or anyone, for that matter) didn’t mind a good ol’ fashion shoulder rub? Especially after experiencing something like that. He couldn’t imagine what he’d be like if the roles were reversed, and she had died holding his hands - maybe still try and focus on the now, sure, but it wasn’t easy to swallow. Wasn’t easy to wake up from.
“Next time we Skype I’ll have to make sure you’re there,” he said, dropping a kiss to the top of her red head. “You’re gonna take it easy today, alright? I’ve got all intentions of pampering.” They could sit on the couch, watch a movie, huddled up in blankets with Nana. Have Katou join in the cuddle-puddle. They weren’t loaded enough to have a full-blown Christmas with a zillion gifts, but ideally it was about the people around you, yeah?
The shoulder rub was appreciated, and Rose leaned back into Jack’s hands. She let her eyes fall closed as his firm hands helped work some of the tension from her shoulders, and then tilted her head back so she could look up at him, admiring how handsome he was. All she needed for Christmas was to be by his side. She’d had the Christmases with too many too expensive gifts, and she was more than eager to have one surrounded by her friends instead of by boxes.
“I can’t very well say no to that,” Rose said. “A girl could always do with some pampering.” And if pampering involved cuddling on the couch with Jack, Nana, and their surly teenage roommate, well, Rose would have no objections to that.