"May I have your name, love?" the voice to her right said.

As though still in shock, Rose turned her head ever so slightly to the source of the voice. A Carpathia steward in his proper black uniform stood next to her, his umbrella momentarily sheltering her from the cold downpour. Rose opened her mouth and for a moment she wavered between decisions.

"Dawson," she heard herself saying. "Rose Dawson."

"Thank you," the steward said, and moved on, leaving Rose again in the rain, to ponder what she had just said.

God, in a split second, without knowing why, she had given herself a new identity; a new life; another chance. Before that moment, she had not the slightest clue of what she was going to do once the Carpathia docked in New York. Now, with her new name as her shield, as her entire strength, she knew.

She would carry on somehow without him. God, a world without Jack. That wasn't a world on earth, it was a world in Hell. Why had she promised him that she would survive? She would have gladly let the lifeboat pass her by. She would have gladly given up, and died with him there. If they couldn't be together on earth, then they could---would---be together in heaven. When the Titanic had made its final plunge, she had tried to hold onto Jack's hand---God, she had tried so hard, but the force! One boat---one ship---had pulled so hard, so terribly hard, that Jack had been carried away from her, into the unknown depths below. He had never come back up. She would never see him again. It was so final. So why did she feel as though it wasn't the end?

When they had been running through the flooded corridors of Titanic, she had been afraid---God Almighty, she had been afraid, but she had never doubted Jack for one moment. He said that they would be fine, both of them, and she believed him. She believed him with the same heart that had made her realize that she already knew he hadn't stolen the diamond. It was the heart that she had given him the moment she had first seen him.

She knew what she must do. Rose Dewitt-Bukater was dead. But Rose Dawson would live.

November, 1912 The carriage bumped along the winding dirt road and Rose swallowed hard, praying that she would not be sick before the ride was over. She must focus on something else. She looked out of the window at the snowy hills they jolted over and focused on Jack's face. The face she had seen as he drew her portrait that night the Titanic sank. That was the face she wanted to remember for the rest of her life. Not the one she had seen that had mirrored her own panic as the ship went down, but the face that told her how much she had been loved.

At last she saw the sign that told her she had just entered the limits of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Jack's home. If only she knew where his house was. The house he had grown up in. She needed to see it. For herself---and for her child. Their child.

It had been four months now, since she had realized she was pregnant. In a split second one morning four months ago, she had realized that she was going to have a baby, Jack's baby. It was as close to a miracle as Rose believed she had ever heard of. The cold, the deadly cold she had endured, the near- hypothermia, and yet, she was pregnant. Before she had come to that realization, she had come close to suicide many, many times. Life without Jack was empty, cold, and desolate. It was lonely. If he hadn't made her promise to him that she would survive, she would have given into temptation the first moment it asked. Now all she could do was thank Jack over and over again for forcing her to promise.

Rose had decided to come to Chippewa Falls on an impulse she had had a week ago. She realized that all she knew of Jack was what he had told her. Stories of places she had never seen, of people she had never met. She had to see it for herself. She had to see what was so special about it that made Jack love it so. And when her child asked about Jack she would be able to tell accurate and true stories, of places she had seen and of people she had met.

The driver of the carriage helped her down carefully.

"You're sure you'll be all right on your own, ma'am?" he asked as he eyed her warily.

"I'm sure. Thank you, for the ride," Rose said as she took her satchel in her hands. One satchel was the only luggage she carried. It was the only luggage she owned. A few articles of clothing that she had bought and a few dollars she had earned waitressing in New York. She wasn't planning to stay in Wisconsin long. It would be too painful. She was only staying until she felt certain that she had enough information about Jack and his hometown.

"All right, ma'am, if you're sure," the driver said, jumping back up into his seat.

Rose nodded and forced a smile on her face that she hoped looked genuine enough. It must have, for at last the carriage drove off, leaving her on a snowy sidewalk in the middle of a town she was completely unfamiliar with. She turned and glanced around her, not knowing where to go first. Dusk was settling on the horizon, and she knew that she had to find someplace where someone would know where Jack's old home was. She glanced to her right. A saloon. Not exactly the right kind of establishment for a woman in her condition to be walking into. She looked across the street to her left and saw a well-lit hotel.

A moment later, she stood at the front desk and rang the bell that sat on the counter, and a moment later, an elderly man stepped into the room from a side door.

"Yes, ma'am?" he said. "Can I help you? Do you need a room?"

"No, at least, I---I don't think so. Not yet," Rose said, stumbling over her sentence. The man stepped behind the counter and stood, facing her. He furrowed his brow.

"Ma'am, are you feeling all right?" he asked, kindly placing a hand on her arm.

"Yes, I'm fine, really," Rose assured him, as she tried to collect herself.

"What can I help you with?"

"I'm looking for something. A house, really. Where the Dawsons once lived," Rose blurted out, her heart beating faster at the mere thought of seeing Jack's home for herself---tonight!

"The old Dawson place?"

"Yes, could you give me directions?"

"Well, it's down the street and to the right aways. About a mile, I'd say. It's a small house, but there's a big barn on the land. Hard to miss."

"Thank you!" Rose exclaimed, and she moved towards the door.

"But the man who lives there---ma'am? Ma'am?" the old man called, but Rose had flown.

Rose's heart pounded every step of the way, and not only from the exertion of walking either. Her breath came in quick gasps as she tried to picture Jack's face again. His face meant the world to her. It was the only thing that had kept her from going completely insane in the past few months. She had no photograph of him. No sketch, but yet she could see him as clearly as if he had been standing in front of her. Rose mostly saw his eyes. She saw his eyes as they had looked when he had sketched her picture on Titanic. Full of fire and passion for his work. She saw his eyes as they had looked when he had been with her in the car. Full of fire and passion for her.

She would see Jack's home, see the place where he had grown up. She could be close to him again. At least in spirit.

*************

Jack lay on his back out behind the barn. He stared at the sky as he blew blue smoke rings into the clear winter air. It was damn cold out tonight, but he didn't feel it. As he lay there he thought of the night he had done this when he had been aboard Titanic. The night he saved Rose from jumping---not that she would have anyway. He knew that. If only he hadn't let go of her hand when the ship had gone down, she might still be with him. Jack cursed and ground his cigarette into the snow that lay piled against the log he lay on.

He had been in the house earlier, trying to sketch, but it had been no use. The gift, it seemed, was gone. His gift of art had died with Rose. Had died with the ship of dreams. The ship that had held all of his dreams. The ship that had held Rose. Night and day he thought of her and wondered why he should live, and she should die. If only she hadn't jumped off of the lifeboat at the last minute. If only he had made her get on another one. If only he hadn't dropped her hand...

When would he stop thinking of her? Everything he did or saw or said reminded him of Rose. Of the things they had said they would do together. After he had gotten off of the Carpathia in New York, he had come straight here, and for the past seven months, had holed up in his family's home, only stepping off the property to buy groceries in town and get himself good and drunk in the saloon. When he was drunk, his heart ached a little less.

He had tried over and over and over again to draw. To do what he had done for his entire life. The only thing he knew, but it was useless. The only use for his new drawings were as fuel for the stove or the fireplace. When he had felt Rose's hand slip from his, his world had ended and he had wished that he too could die. For reasons he couldn't fathom, one of the lifeboats found him drifting nearby and had rescued him. He actually tried to resist as they pulled him into the boat, but his mind was too muddled to do much of anything.

Then they had put him in an unoccupied middle class berth on Carpathia, for he was far too ill to be put with the other steerage passengers out on Carpathia's main deck. He had stayed there, recovering, until Carpathia had docked in New York. By then he was doing fairly well on his own. That's when he had ended his vagrant lifestyle and had come back to Wisconsin. If he couldn't die in the sea with Rose, then he would die in Wisconsin, where at least people would know him. Know who he was. Know who he had been.

Jack, cursed again and sat up, looking around him, trying to put Rose's panicked face from his mind. The last time he had seen her was when the had ship plunged under the sea. The sound of her voice crying out to God still rang in his ears. Even remembering the way she looked before the ship had begun to sink cut him deeply. If only he could draw what he saw so plainly in his mind. The beautiful, headstrong, stubborn, damned exasperating, wonderful woman he had loved. The woman he still loved. The woman he would always love.

He glanced toward the house and saw a light flicker on inside. He blinked and looked again. Still the light burned. He could have sworn he hadn't lit a lamp that night. He liked the darkness better. Once again he blinked and yet the light remained.

"Damn, somebody's gotten in. Guess I didn't lock the door," he muttered, standing and going toward the house.

Sure enough, the front door was closed, but unlocked. Jack turned the knob and the door swung silently in. He glanced around the room and his gaze came to rest on the woman who stood at the cold fireplace. Her back was to him, and the lamplight was poor, but she looked just like Rose. God, he must be slowly going mad. Rose had died in the early morning on the fifteenth of April. How dare there be someone who looked like her from behind! Jack looked away from the woman that stood in his house and he closed the door.

Rose heard the door click shut and she whirled around. Her breath caught in her throat and all she could manage to utter was one strangled gasp. It was Jack! There was no mistaking it. Even in the dim light, she knew it was him. The same lines of his face, the same hair that would fall over his eyes before he would push it out of his way. At her gasp, he turned his head and she stared at the face that looked at her with shocked eyes. The face she had been picturing for the past seven months. She hadn't realized it until just now, but she hadn't pictured him very accuratly. Her memory had not done him justice. His hand fell from the doorknob as he gazed at her in shock.

Jack heard the woman gasp and he looked up. All he could do was let go of the doorknob as his eyes grew wide with disbelief. The woman was Rose. His Rose. It could have been a coincidence that she had looked like Rose from behind, but this was no coincidence. Her hair was in a terrible tangle and what had once been pinned up now hung about her shoulders recklessly, but it shone red- gold in the lamplight, and her blue eyes stared at him as though he were a ghost. Her face had gone quite pale, and her rosy lips trembled as though she couldn't quite say what she wanted to. But despite all of this, she was his Rose. The drawings he had been trying to do hadn't even come close. At one point in time, he had thought that he had a gift, but now that Rose stood only a yard or less from him, he realized that nothing he could draw would ever truly capture her.

"Rose?" he managed to choke out.

"Jack?" she replied, her voice high and nervous. "But I--I let go---your hand---you--- you---you were pulled---pulled---away," she stuttered as she began to tremble from head to toe. God, he was real. Not a ghost at all.

While she had been trying to speak, Jack suddenly remembered that he knew how to walk and he found himself across the room without knowing quite how he had gotten there. He didn't even pause for a second before he pulled her to him, burying his face in her tangled hair. She shook with racking sobs and all he could do was touch her cheeks, her nose, her lips, her hair, her neck, her shoulders. Kiss away her tears. God, he never thought he would ever feel her in his arms again. She was here, really here. So familiar. He had never forgotten what it had been like to hold her in his arms, or the way it made him feel to hear her heart beat so close to his own. To feel her tears run down his neck and soak into his collar. But...there was something not quite right. Something...different.

Rose felt Jack hesitate and he seemed confused. It was with sudden recognition that she realized how much her figure had changed. He didn't know. Dear God, he had no idea that she carried his child! Rose pushed him away suddenly, and he dropped his arms from around her as he stepped back a little. Couldn't he see? At seven months along, it was more than fairly obvious---oh, damn, her coat! She realized that her bulky coat most nearly hid her condition. With trembling fingers she undid the buttons on her coat and let it fall to the floor behind her. Her dress was made from a thick fabric, but without the coat, it was more than obvious that she was very pregnant.

Jack watched Rose curiously as she shed her coat. When it fell behind her, he barely kept his jaw from scraping the ground. He looked up awfully slowly, from her waist to her face. She appeared to be near tears again and suddenly everything fell into place. April fourteenth. The stored car. Six, no, seven months ago. Good God! Was she trying to tell him what he thought she was trying to tell him?

Rose watched the expressions fleet across Jack's face. Dear God, let him say something. He just stood there. Looking. She wished he would do something else. Something to let her know what he was feeling. She was beginning to grow extremely self-conscious. Did he understand what she was trying to tell him? Her mind couldn't form words and she need him to recognize it on his own. Oh Lord, what if he wasn't happy? What if he didn't want a child? Rose felt her tears slowly begin to run down her face in salty tracks. What would he say?

As Rose watched, Jack looked down again and slowly reached out his hands, placing them gently on her stomach, splaying his fingers wide. She kept her eyes on his face and saw him look at where he had just placed his hands as though he were in a trance. Shock was the only way to describe the look on his face. Pure shock. Then he slowly drew his gaze up to meet hers again.

"Mine?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. It was the only word he could seem to form. His brain had suddenly gone on vacation without him. He only hoped it hadn't gone by boat.

"Who else's?" Rose replied, her voice shaky with emotion and uncertainty.

She looked down as she put her hands over his and held them there firmly. A moment later they were both rewarded with a swift kick from their child. Rose gasped a bit and Jack looked even more surprised, if such a thing was possible.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Jack asked, looking into her eyes, still in awe.

"Why didn't I tell you!" Rose exclaimed, nearly laughing aloud. "Why didn't I tell you? I'll tell you why I didn't tell you, Jack Dawson! I thought you were dead, you stupid idiot!"

"Oh, yeah," Jack said, remembering. "I thought you had...gone down when the ship did," he told her.

"I let go of your hand and I didn't know that you ever came up again," Rose said. "For seven goddamn months I've---I've been blaming myself---for---for everything and---you're---you're...here...alive..." she trailed off, not knowing where she had intended for that sentence to go in the first place.

"I let go of your hand," Jack corrected her. "It was my fault."

"No I---" Rose began, but Jack suddenly put his hand over her mouth, bringing his other arm around to hold her close.

"It wasn't our fault at all. Either one of us," he said softly.

Rose nodded and he took his hand away from her mouth, running his fingers over her cheek and into her hair, his eyes searching hers. The eyes he had searched so often before the ship's suction had pulled her away from him.

"I told...the man...on Carpathia...that---that I was Rose Dawson," Rose confessed, some of the uncertainty fading from her voice. Jack looked amused.

"Then...then maybe we oughta get married and make it your real name," he said with a grin and Rose smiled back, her tears now tears of relief. "Besides," he continued. "You having a baby when we're not even married?!" he clucked in mock disapproval and Rose laughed. "Why somethin' like that could cause a real big scandal back in Philadelphia!"

"Philadelphia?" Rose said as she laughed. "Why, Mr. Dawson, I've never heard of such a place! I've only heard of a little town in Wisconsin. I believe it was a lovely little place called Chippewa Falls. I hear they do a lot of ice fishing there."

"Oh, do you? Well, maybe I'll take you sometime. If you're good that is," Jack teased. "For now, though, I think I'd just assume stay right here," he finished quietly.

"So would I," Rose agreed softly and curved her hand around the back of his neck, pulling him still closer, and bringing her lips hesitantly toward his. Would it feel the same as before? Would there be the heat? The passion? The magic?

As their lips touched, both forgot all but each other. The past seven months of guilt and loneliness and death wishes were no more. Ancient history. It was as though they had never been apart at all. For after all, when two people are meant to be together, nothing on earth can tear them apart.

Epilogue:
It's autumn of 1913 and out on the lawn, Jack is bent over a piece of paper and is sketching furiously. He looks back up at his subject, which we see for the first time. Rose makes a face at him as he looks at her in mock exasperation.

"So serious," she says sulkily, her face falling into a pout. Jack rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

"Well, can't you keep him still?" Jack asks and Rose looks down.

For the first time we see who they are talking about. A little boy, of seven months, is sitting next to Rose on a blanket that is spread over the grass. He looks back and up at Rose and tries to climb into her lap, but falls back down on the blanket.

"Andrew," Rose scolds kindly, for the baby can't understand a word she's saying. "Can't you sit still while your daddy draws your picture?"

She picks him up and sets him in her lap, where he promptly closes his eyes and starts drifting off to sleep.

Soft music begins to play, Barely noticeable. (Track 4 on soundtrack.)We see bits and pieces and quick flashes, of Jack's eyes, of Rose tenderly stroking her son's face, of Rose looking back up at Jack, her blue eyes smoky, and of flashbacks to romantic scenes from the first part of the movie.

Then, at last, we see the finished sketch. In the center are Rose and Andrew, how they are posed in front of Jack, but all around it are smaller sketches done from memory, of scenes from a certain ocean voyage.. Rose standing on the upper deck, her hair and skirts blowing in the wind...Rose's face when she posed for him in her stateroom...Rose and himself when they were 'flying'. Slowly the camera focuses in on the last sketch mentioned.

Scene fades out to music (Track 14 on soundtrack) and screen goes black for the credits to roll.