This is a Titanic fan fiction I wrote when I was eleven, so around late 1999-early 2000. I decided to post it here partially for fun and also to show how drastically writing can change over the course of twenty years. Whether you're a genuine lover of fan fiction, a self-doubting writer looking for some encouragement or if you just want to poke fun at some bad writing, I hope you enjoy it.
Chapter One
“Jack. Jack there’s a boat. Jack. JACK!”
Rose shook him gently, the man she had been in love with barely six hours ago. Fighting back tears, she bent down to give her lover one last kiss. But just as her lips were touching his, she felt his hand on her cheek. They broke their kissing Rose looked at Jack and saw him smiling.
“Is anybody alive out there?” an officer called. “Can anyone hear me? Anyone?” His voice echoed through the night. Jack tried to scream, but he was so cold, he could barely even talk, much less shout.
“Over here!” Rose finally managed to yell. As the lifeboat neared them, Rose thought how happy she was to be alive — and to have Jack with her.
The next day…
“Hey Jack? Could you give me a minute alone? I need to talk to Cal.”
It was the next morning on the Carpathia. Jack and Rose had been rescued and brought to the ship the night before, along with the rest of the Titanic survivors. Rose had seen her fiancée get into a lifeboat earlier, so she knew he was alive.
“Sure,” Jack replied, kissing her. “I’ll be in the dining room.”
“Okay” Rose replied, hugging him and hurrying off to find Cal.
“Ahem.”
Cal turned around to see his fiancée in the doorway of his room. “Hi Rose!” he said enthusiastically. He knew of her love affair with Jack, but he figured Jack had gone down with the Titanic, so he wasn’t very worried.
But Rose didn’t even return the greeting. “Cal” she said. “Cal, I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you anymore.” She pulled off her engagement ring and tossed it onto the bed. “I guess you’ll just have to find somebody who really loves you.”
Cal was shocked. All he could do was stare at Rose as she hugged him quickly and left the room.
“Jack?”
“Rose? That didn’t take long.”
“I know. All I did was tell Cal I couldn’t marry him.”
Now it was Jack’s turn to look shocked. “Rose” he said, reaching into his back pocket. “I was saving this for when the Titanic docked, but since it’s at the bottom of the ocean and we’re still not in New York”…he pulled a ring out of his pocket. “I won this in a poker game, and thought I’d give it to you. Will you marry me?”
“I will.”
Chapter Two
Wednesday night, April 17, 1912 at 6:00 pm, Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater were married on board the Carpathia. At 9:30 that night, the ship docked in New York and the newlyweds began a new life together.
At first, the couple led a hard life. They had trouble finding a permanent home and were afraid they’d never go on their honeymoon. But, two weeks later, Rose found out that Cal’s father had, for some strange reason, committed suicide. Instead of leaving his millions to Cal, who already had so much money he didn’t even know what to do with it and was soon getting married only to inherit even more, he had heard about Rose and Jack’s marriage and left his riches and entire estate to the couple. They were rich!
A week later, Jack and Rose went on a honeymoon to Ireland. They stayed din a fancy hotel, drank liquor every day, and had a great time. When they got back to New York, they bought an elegant house they both fell in love with the minute they saw it.
The next year wasn’t much different — they led a life in their own little paradise, went on a vacation every once in a while, and Rose was loving every minute of her new life as Mrs. Rose Dawson.
One morning, a few days after their first anniversary, Jack woke up and noticed that Rose was already up. His wife seldom got up before him, so he quickly got dressed and went downstairs to see if she was in the kitchen.
Jack looked all over the house for Rose. Just as he was about to give up, he saw her walk in the door. That’s when he totally lost it.
“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU EVERYWHERE! I THOUGHT SOMETHING HAPPENED TO YOU!” He cursed under his breath and looked her in the eye.
Rose was shocked. “I was at the doctor. I wasn’t feeling good.”
Jack calmed down and gently embraced his wife. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t know.”
She nodded and kissed him. “Good news Jack,” she said, smiling. “I’m…we’re…going to have a baby.”
Jack looked up at Rose and gasped. “Rose,” he whispered, too happy to say much of anything else. He put his hand on her cheeks and kissed her passionately. Rose laughed and the two embraced happily.
A year later, Jack and Rose began to experience problems in their marriage. Three months earlier, Rose had given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl named Ruth, after her grandmother — Rose’s mother — and the Dawsons had been the happiest couple alive. But they soon realized that parenthood was much harder than they thought. Ruth cried a grand total of 2 hours a day and neither of them seemed to be able to calm her down.
“Rose!” Jack shouted one morning when Ruth began crying. “Where’s that &!*%$ baby bottle?”
Rose just lay down on the bed and cried. This wasn’t the way she had wanted her marriage to Jack to be.
Chapter Three
Half an hour later, Ruth, Rose, and Jack had both calmed down. Ruth fell asleep and Jack sat down on the couch, where Rose had moved to when she finished crying. Her face tear-streaked and her heart broken, she didn’t even look at Jack.
“Rose,” he said slowly,” I’m sorry I yelled at you like that. I’m just a little stressed out from this parenting stuff. I love you and Ruth with all my heart — always have, always will.” He kissed her cheek. “I’m really sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” Rose replied. “Sorry that I ever met you!” She stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Much to their dismay, Ruth began to cry again.
Will you make that &!*%$ baby shut up?” Rose yelled at her husband.
“I handled her last time,” he protested. “You get her!”
“I’m fixing lunch, Jack!”
“It’s only 10:00 — don’t worry about lunch right now, worry about the baby!” But her parents’ screaming only made Ruth cry louder. All three of them were yelling at the top of their lungs. Suddenly Rose’s paradise didn’t seem so great. Her passionate love for Jack was fading and Rose just wasn’t the same as she had been two years earlier. And, as much as she loved Ruth, she was only adding to the problem. Sighing, she helpless mother ran upstairs to Ruth’s bedroom and shoved a pacifier in Ruth’s mouth. The baby immediately calmed down and, five minutes later, she went back to sleep.
That night, Rose slept on the couch. She didn’t want to be anywhere near Jack, not after their fight that day. Before she fell asleep, though, she wonders what would have happened if she had never met Jack. She would have gotten married to Cal, Ruth would have a different father ,or she might not even be born. Rose began to sob. She wasn’t sorry she had met Jack. She was glad. He had taught her so much, and she loved him and Ruth so much…
Finally Rose couldn’t stand it anymore. Despite the fact that it was three in the morning, she ran up to her room and shook Jack gently. “Jack? Jack? Jack!”
He slowly opened his eyes. “What’s wrong honey?” he asked.
“Jack,” she whispered. “I’m really sorry about what I said to you this afternoon.” She lay down beside him. “I love you Jack.”
He kissed her. “I love you too,” he replied. “From now on, let’s try to handle Ruth together.”
Rose nodded and kissed him passionately.
Six months later…
Well, Jack had said they would try to raise Ruth together, but he didn’t say anything about another baby. A year later, Rose and Jack were blessed with another baby girl. Naming her Hope, because of the hope she had brought her parents when she was born, Jack was still afraid the name wouldn’t fit him: Jack Dawson, husband and father of two. But Hope Dawson was the one that lived up to her name, filling Jack and Rose with hope they had never felt before.
Chapter Four
When Hope was three weeks old, the Dawsons took a vacation to France to visit Cal, his wife, and their young son. Rose was a little reluctant to get on another ship, even though she had been on one for the cruise to Ireland three years before. Jack calmed his wife and children down by promising that if the ship sank like Titanic, they would survive.
“What about you Daddy?” Ruth, who had just learned to talk, whined.
Jack bent down to look at his daughter square in the eyes. “I’ll die like a man,” he said, kissing her cheek.
“Duh,” Ruth muttered as they boarded the ship. “You are a man.”
Jack just laughed.
“Jack,” Rose whispered as they were settling down in their first class bedrooms that night.
“Hmmmm?” he replied.
“Do you remember anything about the night the Titanic sank?”
He thought for a minute. “Well, I remember your hysterical screaming.” They laughed.
Rose couldn’t stop laughing. “You should have seen your face when we saw the iceberg. I wish I had a camera.”
Jack laughed.
Rose’s expression turned serious. “I really thought you were dead when we were in the water and you wouldn’t answer me,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “I was tired, and when I saw you lean down to kiss me, I just couldn’t resist surprising you by kissing you back when you thought I was dead.” By this time they were both laughing.
Rose kissed Jack slowly and tenderly. “Good night Jack,” she whispered.
“Good night Rose,” he whispered, kissing her back.
The next morning after breakfast, Jack began a sketch of Ruth and Hope playing on the deck of the ship. He was almost finished when Rose came up and sat beside him.
“Sleep well?” he asked her without looking up from his drawing.
“Actually I did,” Rose, who hardly ever got a sufficient night’s sleep, replied.
Jack finally finished the drawing. “How does it look?” he asked her.
She smiled. “It looks great.” He smiled and put his arm around her shoulders.
Look at them,” he said, eyes glued on his two daughters. “Don’t they look cute together?"
Rose laughed. “They’re adorable,” she said, kissing Jack and feeling happier than she’d been the night she and Jack were rescued from the Titanic.
Chapter Five
The next day, the ship docked and the Dawsons took a train to Paris. Those two days were days Rose loved her husband and daughters more than life itself.
Early that evening after the ship docked, the family reached the Hockley’s. Cal greeted Rose like an old friend and invited them to come in.
“Rose,” Cal said after dinner. “Can I talk to you alone for a minute?”
Rose hesitated. She stole a look at Jack, who nodded. “Sure,” Rose said to Cal and followed him into Ruth’s and Hope’s bedroom while the girls went sightseeing with Cal’s wife Sophie and their son Jake.
“Rose,” Cal said. “I don’t even remember the last words I said to you after the Titanic sank.”
“They were ‘Hi Rose’ You were too shocked to say anything after I told you I couldn’t marry you.” They laughed.
Cal stopped laughing after a minute. “Well,” he said. “I was just wondering if you and me and Jack could just start over and be friends again. I didn’t even blame you for not wanting to marry me. I was acting like a jerk, and I should have just let you have Jack from the start.”
“Oh, Cal,” Rose said, hugging him. “That’s a wonderful idea.”
Cal smiled.
The rest of the Dawsons’ vacation was awesome. They went sightseeing, stuffed their guts with food three times a day, and watched the sun set. But two weeks later, they had to leave. The morning before they left to go back to New York, Sophie came home from the doctor with good news.
“Cal,” she said walking in the door, “We’re having a baby.”
Cal embraced his young wife, as Sophie embraced each member of the Dawson family, but all Jake said was “Great. Just what I need — more girls,” looking at Hope. Sophie and Jack laughed.
“Jacob,” Cal said, laughing, “How do you know it’s going to be a girl? It could be another boy, for all we know. It could be twins!”
They were both right. Nine months later, Sophie had twins — two girls. Three months later, a year after the Dawsons left France, Rose and Jack had a baby boy. Six months later, Jack and Rose invited Cal, Sophie, Jake, and the two newest Hockey’s — Madeline and Allison — to visit them in New York. There Cal met the newest Dawson, Patrick.
“Beautiful,” was Cal’s first impression of Patrick. “He’ll grow up to be a fine young man — just like his father.”
Chapter Six
The next few years brought the Dawsons, well, stress. There was the Great Depression, where both families lost everything but their lives. When it was all over, the Hockleys moved to New York and, with the little money they had, rented an apartment next door to the inn the Dawsons could barely afford when they lost their house. Rose cried when she got word the Hockleys were moving, and didn’t stop until they got there.
Then there was World War 2. Even in American the families were affected by the fighting. Hope cried every night for the first year, and was always very tired when she had to go to school the next morning.
The summer after the war ended was the best summer of Rose’s life. A few years earlier, Jack had began drawing professionally. He became quite famous amazingly fast.
His most famous drawing was the last one he did before he retired. It was Ruth and Patrick posed in front of the fireplace of their small apartment. The night after he retired, Rose was sitting beside him on their bed. He was cradling her in his arms like a baby. “I love you Rose,” he whispered.
“I love you too,” she said to him. “Finally,” she whispered, “An absolution.”
The end