Epilogue - One Year Later

The Santa Monica pier was bustling with people of all classes and ages as it always was on a pleasant day like this. Some couples were followed by a whole bunch of children, all dressed up in bright-colored clothes that shone even more in the late afternoon sunlight. Ladies in gorgeous dresses took a stroll after tea, accompanied by their beaus and envious glances of longing from unmarried working class men. A group of taciturn elderly men were standing lined up on the rail, smoking and fishing and a boisterous gang of boys was running all over the place, much to the dismay of the older folks they kept bumping into. But despite these little inconveniences, everybody was chatting and laughing, enjoying the company of their friends, spouses or children and marveling at the numerous attractions the pier had to offer.

Rose deeply inhaled the fresh salty breeze and fixed her gaze on the horizon, where sky and sea met. Although she tried to shield her eyes from the brightness of the afternoon sun, there were little black spots dancing before her eyes as she turned back to Jack, who was standing beside her on the end of the pier. His eyes, too, were set on the ocean and he had his hands in his pockets. The wind was blowing his blond hair into his face no matter how often he tried to tuck it back and he had apparently given up the fight. Twenty feet beneath them, the waves were crashing against the wooden pillars.

They had spent a lovely day at the beach. When arrived in California, their first permanent residence was here, in Santa Monica, not far from the beach. Every morning, Rose would get up early and take the streetcar to the movie companies in downtown Los Angeles, checking their boards for auditions until this became such a timely and financial burden for them both that they decided to relocate to Los Angeles.

Now, they were living in a cramped apartment in the northwest of the city and only "a stone's throw away from the studios," as Jack used to say in his usual optimistic manner, but Rose knew that he, too, was missing Santa Monica and the sound of the waves, eternally crashing to the shores.

"Great idea to come here," Rose said as she curled an arm around Jack's waist and leaned herself against his side for a brief moment. "Uh-huh," he replied, placing a kiss on her red curls.

Their trips to Santa Monica always were a real treat, but today, unlike any other day, Jack had no intention of riding the famous roller coaster. In fact, the mere thought of the vertiginous height and the screams of the tourists in the made his stomach turn.

Today was the 14th of April 1913.

Today a mere year ago, their love had broken all boundaries when Rose had joined him on the bow of the ship. He would never forget the way he held her, the way her lips felt against his as they had shared their first kiss. It was the last time, the Titanic had seen daylight. That's part of the reason why they had come here, today. To celebrate their anniversary.

Again, he let his eyes rest on the ocean, getting lost in the deep blue and thinking back to the boy he once was and who'd spent many hours at this very spot, drawing portraits for 10 cents apiece. Back then, the initial excitement to see the ocean had quickly worn off as he had been far more interested in the attractions of the beach and the joyful crowd who gathered there, anyway. But since he returned here, with Rose's beautiful hands in his, the sight of the ocean mesmerized him like a well-crafted painting. In moments like these, he felt older than his 20 years.

"Did I already tell you what happened a few days ago, when I was selling tickets?" Rose suddenly chirped beside him, interrupting his musings. "A group of kids wanted to see the show but they didn't have enough money with them and were really sad when I told them I couldn't let them in. So I tried to cheer them up with my Mary Pickford impersonation. You know, like I did when we were in the park the other day."

Jack's lips curved into a wide smile as he remembered her striking one theatrical pose after the other, to the great amusement of him and a couple of friends who had come along - including Ralph who they hardly got to see these days since he had fallen in love with a flower seller from Santa Ana. "Yeah," he chuckled, "That was great!" He turned around fully, now, so they were now standing opposite of each other, their sides leaning against the rail.

"Well," she said, "the kids liked it just as much. They were all laughing really hard but there was this one little kid who looked so stricken, I was worried for him. But when I stepped out of my ticket box and reached out my hand to him, he ran away." She made a quick movement with her hand, in emphasis. "I had no idea what was wrong with this boy. But then, the next day, he came to my ticket office and asked me something but I couldn't understand a word he was saying, so..." Rose made a little pause before continuing, partly for dramatic effect and partly to stifle the giggles threatening to escape her throat before the punch line. "I told him to speak up. And then the little boy said 'Would you give me an autograph, Miss Pickford, I'm your greatest fan.'"

Jack snorted with laughter. "You should make use of your comic potential," he urged her, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. It earned him a confused look from her, so he quickly changed his tone to a more serious one. He didn't want her to take his compliment the wrong way. So far, Rose had only been offered a few roles, half of which she had refused or had only been considered a replacement actress and the other half never having been realized due to financial constraints of the respective filming companies. But Rose had never been the one to give up easily and the fact that she had made an impression on at least some directors fueled her ambition to present herself at even more auditions.

"Seriously, you should think about it," Jack tried to convince her, "Why are you always looking for roles in movies that are utterly depressing? Doesn't it take just as much talent for acting to make people laugh to make people cry?"

"This may well be true," Rose replied, haltingly, "but I still believe it's tragedy or drama that moves people in the most profound way. And I think I can more easily relate to tragic roles. I mean, I can relate to people who go through difficult times, or who feel oppressed..." She smiled almost shyly and took his hands in hers. "Although I have been way luckier than them. Thanks to you." The last part came out in a whisper.

He gently pulled her towards him until their lips met in a kiss. When Rose realized that they were becoming the center of the attention of the fine folks around them and subconsciously backed off a few inches, but didn't let go of his hands.

"And how's your other job? You have to work tomorrow, don't you?" Jack asked.

"Of course I do!" Rose replied laughing, rolling her eyes at this silly question.

When Rose wasn't auditioning, she was a part time worker at a local nickelodeon, 6 days a week from 4 to 9 PM, unless the projector broke and the start of the show had to be unduly delayed until Daniel, the grumpy owner of the El Dorado could fix it. Rose was his only employee. Besides being ticket seller, bookkeeper, usher and cleaning lady, all in one person, she was also the only target of his practically unpredictable outbursts. But oddly enough, she liked this job quite a lot. She was rather well paid for a female worker, leaving her with enough many to pay the rent when Jack had a bad week with his portraits. She was able to provide for herself and it gave her, the well-brought up lady who had been destined to rely on other people's work and money, a wholly new sense of freedom and independence.

Technically, they even had enough money to put away savings; however, money seemed to be slipping through their hands like sand. As soon as they had a little extra-money on their hands, they would almost instantly spend it on fun fair attractions at the Santa Monica beach, a decent meal in midrange restaurants or boozy evenings with the many friends they have made since they arrived in California. "Economy is a science only practicable for rich people," Jack used to say, loosely quoting his favorite book Bohemians of the Latin Quarter – another work he had read on Rose's recommendation. "It's not for rich people, either," Rose had once replied, "I've been impossibly rich all my life, but I guess I used to have so much of it, that learning to economize money would have seemed to me like learning to economize air."

"What movie is playing in the El Dorado tomorrow?" Jack asked curiously. Today, like every Monday, the nickelodeon was closed and Rose was having a day off. Normally, she enjoyed that he was taking so much interest in the art of her choice and her work at the El Dorado, but in this moment, she wished he wouldn't have asked.

"A movie about Titanic," she finally mumbled as casually as she could. It was hard to avoid his gaze when he was so close.

Jack nodded. "Like you said, one day they're gonna make films about it... Who'd have thought it would be happening so fast, huh?" He shrugged, putting on a lopsided grimace.

Rose shook her head and clarified that they had already started to shot the film during May last year.

"Only a few weeks after... it happened," Jack muttered vaguely, as if he was talking about a dirty secret. "And who's starring? Anybody we know?"

"Oh, you have no idea," Rose responded, shaking her head. She hadn't planned on talking about this, but now that they had touched on the subject, there was no holding her back. "I don't remember her face, but she's somebody I ought to know. It's Dorothy Gibson, an actress and Broadway singer. From what I gathered, she was an actual passenger who traveled on the Titanic, first class with her mother. They got off with the first lifeboat. But anyway, I think I'm going to watch it. When it's still playing by the end of the week and Daniel lets me see it. I want to know how they're going to portray the sinking. You know, if they address any of the mistakes the White Star Line that..." She broke off in mid-sentence, suddenly becoming aware of the fact that her voice had gotten increasingly louder. "But you know how I think about these things," she finished lamely. This was neither the time nor the place to give vent to the fury within her.

Jack nodded and gave her a small smile. "Seems like Miss Gibson has found a way to deal with her experiences," he said. His good nature was almost inexhaustible.

"It's a decent movie, at least that's what Daniel told me about it. He usually has a good taste in films and he seems quite taken with this one. Last week, he told me a hundred times that Dorothy Gibson was wearing the same dress in the movie that she had worn on the day of the sinking." On his rare nice days, her boss let her take a break and watch the newest film productions for free or ask her for her opinion on which movies to include in the program.

Jack shot her a curious look. "You have some great stories to share since you're working for him..." The statement escaped him before he could bite his tongue.

Her head snapped up instantly. "Jack, you're not jealous of him, aren't you?" she retorted in a half mocking, half flattered tone of voice.

"Who said I was? I'm just happy you found a job you like... Hey, don't you believe I do?" he asked, laughing in response to her skeptical look. "Ok, maybe I am a little jealous because he gets to spent more time with you than me - at least during the day..." he put his hand on her cheek. A few streaks of hair danced freely around her face, tickling his arm. "Sometimes, I'm counting the minutes until you leave work and we can finally spend time together," he said out of the blue. His fingers started moving across her eyebrows, lips, tracing the contours of the face that he knew he could draw with his eyes closed, but never wanted to stop looking at. "While I'm sitting at home, all alone..." he complained and put on a pouty face to make her laugh.

"I do, too," she confessed as her fingers started toying with his suspenders. "But that's something I like about having a job. I always have something to look forward to! And besides... don't you remember when I told you that these hands were made for work?" Grinning, she held up her hands that still, after all these months didn't look like worker's hands to Jack.

"As if I could forget," he said with a twinkle in his eye. He took her hands that she was still holding up for his inspection and laced her fingers with his. Even he couldn't deny that she had finally found a niche in his world.

xxxxx

They took the last streetcar from Santa Monica to Los Angeles, intending to spend the rest of the day at home. After eating, they sat together at the table in the corner of their apartment they called "kitchen".

The tranquil evening atmosphere was in stark contrast to the turmoil in Rose's head as she skipped through the pages of the local newspaper, carefully reading every article. Like she had foretold Jack the day they had talked about the sinking next to Mrs. Sullivan's house, the Titanic anniversary would not pass without notice from the press.

Next to a recapitulation of last year's inquiry and recommended changes of maritime policy that she had already skimmed through and discovered it didn't hold any new information, the journal had printed the testimony a first class survivor who had lost her husband and adolescent son in the wreck.

The agitated drumming of her fingers on the table was driving Jack mad, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to stop her from taking all this upon herself. In the time after they had left Mrs. Sullivan's house, Rose became an avid reader of everything related to the British investigations into the disaster and an eloquent specialist on maritime policy. "The sinking was not an accident and the next time I read of any White Star Line official claiming otherwise, I'll lose all civility!" she told him one day, her voice high-pitched with anger. "The lookouts didn't even have binoculars, for God's sake!"

As much as these outbursts were a relief for Rose, to Jack they had the effect of a punch in the gut. If he held a grudge against the White Star Line, it was a very quiet one. The thought that his friend's deaths could easily have been prevented confused and irritated him, even though he couldn't argue with Rose's logic when she explained down to the last detail how the White Star Line had over years chosen safety over profit. But the wisdom of hindsight wouldn't bring back Fabrizio or Tommy or any of the 1517 lost souls and he preferred to dedicate this night to the commemoration of the victims of the Titanic disaster.

Since last week, he was carving a boat of the size of a children's toy but with a small recess to hold a candle. His work was almost finished, now. While Rose was reading the newspapers this evening, he was polishing it diligently, blowing wood dust out of the open window from time to time.

Their view of the sky was blocked by a row of brick apartment buildings and when Rose put down the journal article and looked outside, she saw that they had taken on an orange glow from the sinking sun. Three floors below, neighbor children were playing marbles on the concrete ground and their laughter and cursing echoed between the walls of the houses.

Although Rose was sure that they wouldn't stay in this place for long, it was their longest residence since they had set foot on dry land and somehow, this room that hardly even matched the size of her dressing room on the Titanic had become a home to her. She and Jack had even fixed a broken piece of the scarce furniture, polished the table and stuck drawings to the bare walls, which was more than they had ever invested in any other place they had rented throughout their journey to California. "I know every floor panel in this apartment," Rose sometimes joked, grinning at Jack conspiratorially. "I hope you do," he usually replied. After all, the heart of the ocean was hidden under one of these panels and only the two of them knew about it.

Their "bedroom" was a simple mattress by the door. When they went to bed, they always lay entangled in an embrace and somehow managed to sleep on it although it small even for one person.

This night, they went to sleep much earlier than usual. They knew they would need the rest.

xxxxx

"It's time, Rose."

His voice softly carried her out of the sleep that had overcome her after all, despite the restlessness that she had felt earlier that night. Yawning, she sat up, her eyes searching Jack's in the darkness. He was standing next to her side of the mattress, getting dressed already.

"You don't have to come, if you don't want to," he said in a low and strangely monotonous voice.

She shook her head before he even got to finish the sentence. In one quick move, she pushed back the duvet and got out of bed. "Don't be silly, Jack," she said. "Of course, I'll be coming with you."

A few minutes later, they were out on the streets, holding each other's hands tightly. Jack was walking with determination, but Rose had a hard time to find sure footing in the labyrinth of dimly lit alleyways that Jack called "a shortcut".

As they crossed the cobblestone street, she lost her balance and would have landed ungently on her bottom if Jack hadn't managed to catch her in mid-air. Supported by his arms, she quickly stood up straight again, her heart beating violently. Jack looked down at her feet without loosening his grip on her shoulders.

Nothing on earth could have persuaded her to ever squeeze herself into a corset again, but she still had a weakness for elegant footwear. When she saw him eying her high-heeled shoes critically, she let out an uncomfortable laugh. "I don't know what had gotten into me when I put these on. I know I shouldn't have," she stammered.

On a normal day, Jack would have come up with a little joke to make her smile and ease her discomfort, but right now, his head felt empty. Instead of the witty remark, he placed a light kiss on her temple. "It's ok. We'll just walk a little slower. No need to hurry," he said in a soothing voice and slowly let go of her shoulders.

It was an eerie hour to walk around this part of the town. Even the main street of their quarter was almost ghostly quiet, making the few sounds – the clicking of her heels on the cobblestone street, the hiss of a cat, the hiccup of a drunkard - seem disproportionally loud.

Finally, they arrived at their destination. At this time of the year, the river still meandered through the area, though it has shrunken considerably since the rainy January day when Jack and Rose moved to Los Angeles. Gas lights lined the nearby pavements on each side of the street, but their light didn't reach the water. From afar, the river looked as if a thick mass of black tar was floating upon his surface.

Rose watched Jack pull out a candle of one breast pocket of his grey vest and the boat he had just finished carving of the other. Patiently, he planted the candle in the middle of the boat, in the designated spot. The hull of the boat fit perfectly in his palm and for a moment, he caressed its surface with his thumb as if to make sure he had done a good job on it.

Rose was shivering in the cool night breeze and hugged herself under her long overcoat. Jack was only wearing a shirt and a light vest but he didn't appear to be the least bothered by the cold. It was one of these moments when he seemed almost oblivious to what was going on around him. Finally, he pulled out a box of matches and lit the candle of the boat he was still carrying on his hand and slowly, very slowly walked to the river as if he was carrying an injured duck. He knelt down beside the water and let the boat slide onto it, carefully. It jiggled a bit from one side to the other, but then the current got hold of it and drifted it away from the riverside, where Jack was still kneeling, his eyes fixed on the tiny light.

"Do you think the light will make it to the ocean?" Rose had asked him softly when he had started carving the boat one week ago, her voice soft and gentle like she was afraid that this question could upset or frighten him. "No, of course not. But that's not the point," he remembered himself replying, but now, he felt enormously relieved that the water didn't overturn the candle right away. He hoped it'll stay afloat as long as possible.

Rose walked up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. "It looks beautiful," she said simply. The candle had now been pulled to the center of the stream and was constantly gaining speed.

The ritual only lasted a few minutes. In awe, they watched the little boat on its drift downstream till the point where the river made a bend to the left and carried it out of their sight. By the time it was gone, Jack's eyes had filled with tears. Rose was still standing close-by, massaging his shoulder and trying her best to comfort him although she felt herself tearing up as well.

Her mind was spinning with the faces of the men that were denied access or didn't make it to the life boats in time. She saw Mr. Andrew's almost impish smile when he walked about the boat deck, quietly enjoying the result of his craftsmanship and the face of that other Mr. Andrews that had been standing in the knee-deep water in the first class dining hall; the broken shell of a man destined to go down with his creation. She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up at the starry night sky, one arm still wrapped around Jack's shoulders.

xxxxx

They stayed at the riverside until dawn crept up. Rose's neck felt like a knot and her body was aching from the unfamiliar crouching position she sat in throughout several hours. The birds had started singing hours ago and the stream babbled along softly. It amazed her how different this place looked in the sunlight.

Despite the pinching sensation in her muscles, she stretched herself like she attempted to hug the air with her arms and then turned around to find Jack sitting close to her. His eyes were as bloodshot as she was sure hers were as well.

She reached out to lightly touch his cheek. "How do you feel?" she asked him in a low voice.

He got up slowly and started brushing off dirt of his clothes. "I'm fine," he replied, "Let's get home and catch up some sleep. Come on!" he said as he held out his hand to hers and pulled her up from the ground.

-END-

A/N: The Titanic survivor Dorothy Gibson really starred the first Titanic movie ever made. I didn't make that up. Sadly, Saved from the Titanic is today considered a lost film (apparently, the only copy was destroyed in a fire in 1914). Mary Pickford was a real person as well. She was one of the first movie stars in history.

So, this is it! Thanks to everyone who told me they didn't want this story to end. I guess, I didn't want it to end either, considering how long it took me to finish the final chapter. But this fic is called Recovery and I think I've delved deep enough into the character's suffering throughout the 12 chapters of this story. It only remains for me to thank everybody who alerted, favorited and (even better!) reviewed this fic! Thanks a million times for bearing with me despite the long delays between the updates. And thanks of course to my awesome beta readers G. W. Failure (chapter 1 – 8, 11 - 12) and RoseDawsonlovesJack (chapter 10)! I owe you a great deal and I seriously hope you continue to beta for this fandom!