April 14, 1913

Rose smoothed out the creases of her work dress, glancing at the calendar perched on her vanity as she prepared for her shift. She swallowed the lump forming in her throat as she dabbed on her favourite lipstick, her bottom lip quivering under a forcefully-restrained sob. One year had passed since she'd seen his face, felt his touch, tasted his kiss. Three-hundred-and-sixty-five sunsets without the light of her life. The time had flown by and was now a blur of desolate memories; there had been days when grief had almost consumed her whole and then there had been days when it seemed as though nothing could penetrate the barriers of her emotional lassitude.

She didn't talk about him, didn't talk about Titanic; there were times she'd been convinced that she had made Jack Dawson up inside her head. She didn't have a photograph of him, didn't own any of his possessions; all physical traces of his existence had followed their ill-fated ship of dreams to the bottom of the sea.

The sea: a place where her soul had lived and died, loved and lost; it was all and nothing she had to remember him by.

She saw him in her mind's eye out on the ship's promenade deck; the sea breeze blowing his sandy blond mop of hair, golden-tan skin just visible in his open-collared shirt, piercing eyes of azure squinting in the sun.

That's when the tears came.

She silently cursed herself for letting her mind wander this far. How could she be so careless? Jack's memory was safe; buried in an ocean of secrets deep within her heart, a place she feared to tread and seldom did.

She took a deep breath as she pinched the bridge of her nose, silently willing the anguish to subside.

"Thank you, Rose." Tim Calvert raised his hat and gave her a hopeful smile.

Rose smiled at him discreetly as he left some change on the table and walked out from his booth.

She could sense him lingering, perhaps hoping she would make conversation, but nonchalantly she stayed where she was, not in the mood today to entertain the roster of male customers infatuated with her.

She'd worked at this café since docking in New York a year ago, and it hadn't taken long to build up a regular clientele of men who visited just to swoon over her; 'Come for the Rose, stay for the food!' her boss, Angelo, had jested warmly. Granted, Tim Calvert was more savoury than most; she preferred him over the drunken factory workers with their wandering eyes, but Tim was also interested – he wanted to get to know her, and that terrified her. Not wanting to encourage anybody, she had started to wear a cheap gold band on her ring finger to deter unwanted attention.

After a few moments of standing around awkwardly, Tim finally left, and she let out a breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding.

She counted the change he'd left on the table, wondering whether or not she should accept his gratuity. She supposed she should be flattered, but what was the point? It would be unfair to Tim to lead him on when her heart was so unattainably guarded. Nobody even remotely came close to Jack, nobody ever would – how could they?

She slipped the coins into the tip jar.

Gathering the empty plates and used crockery, Rose glanced out of the broad window that overlooked the bustling commotion of the Bowery. People littered the streets; market stalls opened for business, horses pulled carts of deliveries, overpacked trolley buses rolled by. In the distance, a concrete skyline loomed with towering buildings and greyscale smog from factory chimneys. The city was cold, figuratively and literally; it represented to her the harsh reality of unfulfilled promises and broken dreams.

She was about to turn back to the table, when suddenly–

Rose's heart stopped in her chest.

There, across the potholes and cobblestones, his lean frame stood tall; hands buried in the pockets of brown slacks, shaggy blonde hair slicked back from the moisture that hung in the air. His face was distorted due to the industrial haze, but she could just make out the golden skin-tone; the familiar posture, the height... It was uncanny.

The sound of dishes crashing to the floor was the only thing that could snatch her attention, and she tore her eyes away for barely a second to observe the pile of shattered porcelain lying at her feet. When she looked back up, he had vanished.

Panicked; she let out a sob and raced outside, searching the scenery in despair. No! This couldn't be happening. She couldn't lose him again. The harsh Manhattan wind bit her face as she stood in the middle of the road; turning clockwise as she looked around helplessly, unfamiliar faces merging together in a gathering crowd but none of them his. The whirling in her head came to an abrupt stop when the piercing honk of an automobile blasted from behind her, the driver loudly lambasting her to 'move out the way!'

Realising she had caused a small commotion, she reluctantly headed back to the café, brushing off the handful of concerned pedestrians in her trance-like state. She wiped a stray tear from her cheek, trying to understand what had just taken place.

"You okay, Rosie?" Angelo asked as he stood in the doorway, concern wilting his features.

She walked past her boss; her eyes brimming with fresh tears and a trembling hand pressed to her chest. "Sorry, Angelo. I thought I saw–" Her voice wavered as she glanced back to the spot where the mysterious figure had stood. Composing herself, she turned to the older man and forced a smile. "It doesn't matter. I'm sorry for being clumsy. I'll get these cleared up right away."

He smiled sympathetically. "Be careful, doll."

She nodded unconvincingly as he returned to the kitchen.

Ignoring curious sets of eyes peering over morning newspapers, she walked past the aisles of tables and returned to where she'd been standing before the world had stopped. She knelt down, gathering the shards of porcelain scattered on the floor tiles. Facing toward the window once more; she squinted her eyes hard, willing him to reappear... but to no avail.

Had she really imagined it?

Snapping her out of her thoughts was the merry chatter of a small group walking through the door, just in time for the lunch hour. She sighed heavily and pushed the incident to the back of her mind.

Night time still brought with it the familiar sinking feeling of dread and melancholy that - no matter how accustomed to it she'd grown - still weighed heavy on her broken heart.

Rose sat in the ratty armchair of the apartment she'd lived in for the past twelve months. She had turned down free housing from the Red Cross; having found a large wad of Cal's cash in her coat pocket whilst onboard the Carpathia and soon securing her waitress job after docking, it hadn't seemed necessary for her to use charity that bereft families and orphaned children needed more than she did. Hers was a modest place; complete with a kitchen/living area, one bedroom, and a tiny washroom. It hadn't taken her long to adjust, and she had surprised herself with her steely determination to forge a new life. Of course, that didn't stop the sorrow that followed her home every night. Often, she had found herself preferring to sleep on the couch; the bedroom held painful associations of her first nights here: nights spent keening for Jack and sobbing herself to sleep, and now she tried to spend as little time as possible in there.

She finished the last of her red wine and cast her gaze to the raindrops pattering against the dirty window. Seeing– whatever she'd seen earlier had been an unbelievably cruel trick of her imagination. A deliberate taunt. For those few, brief moments she had felt a surge of lightness, freeing her from the iron shackles of grief. There had been a fleeting prospect of possibility that she'd not felt for a year; a chance for a future with him: a life of boundless horizons and seaside piers.

No. She shook her head as if physically denying her mind access to such torturous thoughts.

Facing forward again, she swallowed the lump forming in her throat, desperately wanting this day to be over; desperately wanting this week to be over. The past four days had been fraught with reminders; whenever she'd check the time, she found her head instantly flooded with intrusive mental images of what she had been doing and who she had been with this time a year ago. Today – the final day – was proving to be the hardest and the most painful, as she'd rightfully anticipated it to be.

A light knock on the front door stirred her from her thoughts. She frowned softly, confused at who on earth it could be; not having been expecting any visitors. As she walked towards the doorway, she could hear the rain heavier now, pelting down loudly from the other side. Sighing deeply, somewhat exasperated by the inconvenient disturbance, she pulled the thin robe tighter around her body and began fiddling with the door latch.

Her breath hitched audibly as she opened the door and was met with the figure she had spotted across the street earlier. His back was facing her but she instantly recognised the tall frame and wiry build, and the all-too-distinct shape and texture of his hair. Water droplets were gathered on the dark wool coat covering broad shoulders that led down to a lean waist. At the sound of the door creaking open, he turned around.

The air was knocked out of Rose's lungs.

Her dainty, trembling hands flew to her mouth to suppress the loud sob that involuntarily escaped. Tears immediately filled her widened eyes as she took in the face of a man she'd mourned for a year: piercing blue eyes, deep and full of longing; sandy blond hair falling the way it always had, doused in the rain that was still falling outside.

She felt all colour drain from her cheeks as her brain attempted to grasp the situation.

"Hello, Rose." his voice rasped, like an echo from beyond the grave.

That's all it took for her head to start spinning. She moved a hand to desperately grip the doorframe, feeling her vision begin to blur and her consciousness start to slip. One breathy word escaped her quivering lips before everything went black; a word she had not spoken in three hundred and sixty five days.

"Jack..."