A/N: I've always found Jack and Rose's experience in the Titanic to be so unique, grand, and full of spectacle. Essentially, they were part of history. After re-watching the film for the second time with films like Forrest Gump and the TV show 'Young Indiana Jones Chronicles', I wanted to write a 'Jack survives' story but with a lot more action, adventure, and historical significance (and not the boring type of history) with our beloved on-screen couple. So here it is!


PROLOGUE


May 30, 1941
Ramsgate, England

...

Ramsgate was windier than usual. A sense of urgency racked the hurrying sailors of Southeast England as they readied their little ships, while the blue-uniformed men of the Royal Navy rushed to commandeer most of the boats. Mr. Addington of Townley Street had already set sail to Dunkirk the second the news arrived. It became clear the moment the call of duty came: they would rescue 400,000 soldiers in France. It was imperative at this point— their courageous feat will be for the lives of many and for a small chance of victory against the Nazis.

Charles Lightoller and his son Roger were already on their Sundowner Boat when Jack jogged to the end of the wooden berth, where it was docked and ready to cross the English channel. He called their attention with a whistle.

"Oy, what in the bloody hell do you think you're doing, son?" Charles exclaimed, hurling a coil of rope near Jack's feet. "You coming with us?"

"Yes sir," Jack said. "I might as well get involved."

"You Americans should've gotten involved a year ago. Come on, we're gonna set sail."

Roger emerged from the mahogany cabin and squinted at the American, wondering why Mr. Dawson joined them once again for another trip. He intended to berate Jack once again, but then he realized how much that man meant to his father. They had both survived the Titanic and the bloody global conflict that soon followed— so he set down another pile of cotton towels and plopped down on one of the stern's seats instead.

On Jack's periphery, another boat pulled away from the port, occupied by a squad of Navy officers and presumably the owner. From that distance, even he could hear the uproar of arguments exploding between the men on the other yacht as the Sundowner's masts careened into position. They carried with them mountains of life jackets, food, and blankets. The artist stepped into the boat's deck, port side.

By no means was the Sundowner a humble yacht, but it could be candy to the bluejackets looking for a vessel to mount. It has a length of 58 feet and good enough room inside and under the cabin. The deck was half the boat and could go 15 kilometers per hour with the owner's new engines. A relatively small vessel compared to Mr. Addington's fireboat, no less Her Majesty's armada of Dreadnoughts. However, those Navy men could still confiscate it, and Charles couldn't have that, lest the boat gets crowded even more. Jack's presence was already one soldier less they could rescue from the beaches of Dunkirk. If the Royal Navy wanted to acquire another boat, they would have to make do with the pleasure steamers and steam vessels in Ramsgate.

Jack's gaze trailed to a squad of Royal Navy men who were eyeing the Sundowner. They started walking towards the boat. Fast.

"Shit. Charles, we gotta go."

Jack didn't see his friend start the engine as he looked on from the stern, but he did hear the roars of the 4-stroke engine come to life and the single propeller sputtering bubbles underwater. The next thing he knew, the Sundowner was accelerating away from the harbor. The squad of soldiers looked on. They appeared to be somewhat disappointed.

"I'm surprised both of you aren't afraid of the sea," Roger said, crossing his legs. "We ain't facing icebergs today, Mr. Dawson. We're facing German planes, U-boats, and torpedos. Once we start rescuing the soldiers, this boat's gonna get as cramped as the Titanic's 3rd Class steerage."

Jack laughed. "I don't remember it being that cramped. Besides, I spent a lot of time with the first class."

"I still call bollocks on that one. 3rd Class passengers weren't even allowed in the Promenade deck."

"I believe he was accommodated for by one of the rich folks," Charles chimed in. "Ain't that right?"

"Yeah. Kinda." Jack pursed his lips. The harbor looked smaller now with their distance and he could see more boats disembark from Ramsgate.

It's textbook. Sail to Dunkirk, rescue as many soldiers as possible, and then go back to England on the Port of Dover. It was too simple that Jack didn't even shake with fear, unlike the first time he traversed the ocean after the Titanic.

This operation was absurd and courageous at the same time. Technically, British civilians were going into war and they knew it. Officers told stories of destroyers being sunk and German planes wreaking havoc on the sea, obliterating vessels in their paths. The soldiers trapped on Dunkirk's shores fared no better. They were fish in a barrel— if Hitler's forces pressed on with their invasion, then the Sundowner, as well as its allies on the sea, could be coming face-to-face with death, destruction, and the Nazis themselves.

The battleships needed small boats to ferry soldiers from the beach, but there weren't enough destroyers to rescue them all. So Winston Churchill made the call. In several acts of patriotism, British citizens started to volunteer and risk their lives to save their soldiers across the English channel. Jack may be an American, but the Brits were still his allies— and that included Charles Lightoller and his son. He knew had to do something to help them.

"You want some tea, Jack?" Charles said.

"No, thanks."

"It's a long trip."

"I've been on longer trips," Jack said. "Far longer trips."

Jack sighed, stretched his arms, and sat beside Roger on the stern. The mast cracked and the water gurgled under them, but the sea was ghost-quiet. The sea. Being on a boat had reminded him of Rose, and he felt the bottom of his stomach yanking his heartstrings. There it was. His heart longed for her again. He pulled out a locket from his coat with her picture inside. She was grainy, gray, and monochromatic; the photo had failed to depict Rose as she was. He sighed again, knowing she was somewhere out there...

"..."

"Oy Jack," Roger nudged him on the knee. "She was a socialite, yeah?"

"A very rich one."

"How did you two get by after the sinking? You said she abandoned her family."

"It's a long story," Jack recalled. "I reckon it'll take me hours to tell you how we eventually settled in California."

"It's a three-hour trip to France. I don't mind a long story."

"Sorry, Roger, but I'm just gonna save my energy for when we arrive."

Then the quiet sea started to rumble. Jack furrowed his eyebrows, looked around, and realized it wasn't the sea that was rumbling— it was the cerulean sky. He turned his head to where the droning came from.

A Spitfire plane skimmed above them and zoomed forward into the clouds, heading Southeast with its engines and propellers roaring through the air. Whoever piloted the aircraft had the same goal: help with the Dunkirk evacuation in whatever ways they can. For the Royal Air Force, it was to deter the German planes from sinking ships and killing more men.

"Reminds me of Millie," Jack said.

"Who's that?" Roger asked.

"Amelia Earhart."

Roger's eyebrow went skyward. "You're a fan?"

"Nope," Jack said. "When Rose and I got off the Carpathia, Ms. Earhart provided us shelter in Manhattan."

It seemed like Roger's following laugh blared louder than the Spitfire. He leaned back against his seat and shook his head. Jack had told the Lightoller family his story with Rose, but they missed the part when they arrived in New York to start a new life.

"Oh yeah, and I met Lawrence of Arabia," Roger teased. "Sod off, that's a bunch of rubbish."

"I don't know, sonny," Charles said from the cabin. "He survived the Titanic and he's going to war. With that in mind, it wouldn't be too absurd if he actually met Amelia Earhart."

Jack smirked.

"No, I really did. I met her. April 19, 1912, New York."

"..."

"What, you guys really don't believe me?" Jack pouted.

Charles Lightoller emerged from the cabin and joined the duo in their banter. He held a cup of tea in one hand and a newspaper in the other, then he asked his son to take over the wheel. He sat down in front of him and took one sip.

"Well if it's really true, Jack, then you could tell us that story," Charles said. "It's about three hours before our arrival in Dunkirk. I say we admire the calm before the storm, hm?"

"Yeah, and I want to hear more of your tall tales, mate. I mean seriously, some poor bloke hitting the Titanic's propeller when he jumped from the stern? Please..."

Jack was half-amused and half-insulted at Roger's jab, but smirked anyway. He pulled out a sketchbook from his wool jacket and showed his friend a pencil-drawing of a young girl with short wavy hair. She seemed about fifteen years old. Charles took another sip from his cup and acknowledged the sketch with a nod, ready to hear whatever Jack was going to say.

The artist was doing himself a favor by telling this story. He missed Rose. He missed her scent, her soft skin, her deep pools of blue... In a way, he will relive their memories together and cherish her legacy, even if she wasn't there with him anymore.

"You see, Charles, on the night of April 18, 1912, Rose and I met two people who saved us— Officer Harold Lowe, and a young girl who's very obsessed with planes. Her name was Amelia Earhart..."


April 18, 1912

...

The never-ending rain pounded White Star Line's Pier 54, trudging eastward of the Hudson River where the Carpathia had docked. Howling windswept whistles tore and squeezed through the streets like a mocking reminder of the Atlantic's deathly cold. Still, as Jack and Rose Dawson trekked to the nearest train station with buckling legs and ghost-quiet hearts, they only cared for each other.

They had waited for a train's rendezvous, an absolution, and a somber crowd that would soon come with them. Outside, only the pattering of raindrops sounded on Rose's ears until the snapping of metal and a blaring whistle rang out in the distance— it was the train that would come and pick them up.

It was well-over midnight. Jack and Rose waited for half an hour before completely disembarking from the rescue ship. That, and ignoring the charities offered by the good people of New York. It was their attempt to avoid Ruth DeWitt Bukater and the shaken man who tagged along with her: Caledon Hockley.

How Rose wanted to let her mother know she had survived— but until the appropriate time comes, which she didn't know when or if at all, she'll have to take on the name of Rose Dawson and the second Dewitt-Bukater would be presumed dead in the Atlantic.

Rose anticipated the locomotive's arrival as it grew louder, but someone tried to catch their attention from behind with an 'ahem.' A jolt of fear had flipped a light switch in her head. When she turned around to expect Cal Hockley wielding an engraved weapon, she met a man— with a kinder face— who donned a dark, navy blue. He wore his peaked cap, and his hands held a bag stuffed with clothes.

"Hello Miss," he said to her, then to Jack, "and mister."

"Officer Lowe," Rose exclaimed. "Good evening to you."

Jack squeezed her tighter.

"I'm sorry to disturb you two, but I saw you pass by the aid workers. They have clothes, they're offering transport to shelter, and they're gonna—"

"We don't need it," Jack said as the train came to a stop behind them. "Thank you, sir, but we have to get going along."

"Mrs. Brown told me that both of you need it," Lowe said. "She said you don't have a... She said you have nowhere to go."

Did Molly see us? Rose thought. Then, she started to worry if the woman would've told Ruth. Molly must've seen them in the Carpathia. But if she did, she couldn't have told Mother. Why else wasn't Rose back in Cal's commanding arms?

"Thank you, sir, but as I said, we have to catch a train," Jack insisted.

Officer Lowe could only shake his head and stretched out an arm that held his bag.

"Then you must take this."

A moment of silence fell upon the three. Rose shakily stepped forward, took the bag from the officer's hand, and, realizing how heavy it actually was, gave it to Jack.

"I got some dresses from the suffragettes near the docks," the officer said. "Then for you, young man, those shirts and pants are the extra clothes which Captain Rostron had given to me for the trip. I hope it suits you well, friend."

Rose remembered Lowe's refusal to pull Jack from the freezing water and into the lifeboat. He said the young artist had already succumbed to cold, Rose recalled. But she had squirmed away from a blanket, grabbed his collar, and begged him to pull Jack from the ocean. It was the last thing she remembered before passing out with a ruthless headache.

When she stirred that morning, she had found herself lying with Jack as the first rays of sunlight graced her eyelids— the only thing that mattered then was that his chest was rising up and down. The rest was a fleeting blur of avoiding Cal and holding Jack's hand as she waited for him to wake up in the Carpathia.

Perhaps that initial refusal to save Jack was the reason Officer Lowe had given them the help they desperately needed that night. Guilt, perhaps.

"Thank you, Officer Lowe," Rose said. She tried to smile. "You're a good man."

"Lots of people died that night, lass." Lowe adjusted his cap and turned around. "So live for them, you two. Live for them. Good night."

Then, he stepped into the rain and walked.

Jack sighed and rested his forehead on Rose's, his shoulders seeming to relax by the massive weight lifted from them. Clothes. Fresh clothes. Just as they needed to get through the night, but he feared they weren't enough. Now they needed shelter, and they had just spotted a small, weathered poster about a hotel trudging outside Manhattan with a price of 'two bucks a night.' That was their second play.


The train decelerated to a complete halt. Hanging lanterns that bathed the whole compartment with yellow light had given them the warmth they needed for a good two minutes. A good enough comfort to stop them from shivering like wet puppies, and for Jack to hold the sturdy doors for his partner. When they exited the cabin, they descended down the metal stairs and shuffled to a rail car that hulked down a few yards from the station. Just beside the sidewalk, a pole flashed a sign that said 'Cedar Main Street'.

From there, the ride was no different, only that it took less time to arrive at the destination. They hopped off their car and landed on a shallow puddle on the sidewalk, where a four-story brick building towered over them.

Jack and Rose dashed to the roof covers, but it was too late. The rain had soaked them wet once more. The 'closed' sign that hung on the doorway reminded them they weren't so lucky that night, but at least it was one thing off the mental checklist.

Jack knocked on the door.

"Hello?" he exclaimed. "Anyone home?"

"How many times do we have to tell you?" a shrill but muffled voice yelled from inside. "We ain't looking for some godforsaken snake-oil!"

Rose pouted at Jack when their eyes met. The blonde knocked on the door again, this time, a little fainter.

"Please, ma'am. We're just looking for a place to—"

"Do you want me to call the police!?" it screamed again. "Go back to wherever you came from, you no-good blithering—"

"Ma'am, please, we need a place to rest. We had just left the Carpathia!"

After a moment of daunting hopelessness, someone fiddled on the deadbolt and the door opened a crack. Between the slits, a bright blue eye squinted. A small metal chain still barred Jack and Rose's entrance.

"The Carpathia?" the girl inside said. "Were you folks from the Titanic?"

"We were," Rose said. "We're just looking for a place to stay. We know the sign's closed but... it's awfully cold outside and we can't navigate Manhattan very well, please, if you may—"

The door closed for a split-second and then swung open. Oddly enough, the presumed 'landlady' was a short, willowy kid with a slim build and a daring pose. She had short blonde hair, and her eyes shone bright cerulean even in the dark. With her pants and unironed collared shirt, she could pass off as a female version of Jack Dawson.

"Oh my good lord," the girl said. She put a hand on Rose's shoulder and gestured them to step inside. "I'm mighty sorry for being a little... territorial. I didn't know. Come on in, please! "

"Thank you," the redhead croaked.

Jack apologized for soaking the indoor mat with rainwater when they had stepped inside. The tall woman scrambled to turn on the lights, and when the floral hallway sparked blue and shone with mahogany, she picked a dead lantern on the floor and hurried to light it up with a match stick. Cursing under her breath, she gave up on the gas lamp and told them to wait for her to get a towel.

"I'm Amelia," she said out of sight, "but you folks could call me Millie. It's normally two bucks a night but Pappy won't mind Titanic survivors stayin' for free. Er, at least for a lil' bit."

"Thank you, Millie," Jack said. "You're too kind."

Amelia returned with a pair of towels and draped both of them over the couple. She led them up the burgundy stairs, bordered by walls teeming with old pictures of flying machines, airships, and blueprints of winged architecture. Meanwhile, Rose bit her lip at the trail of water they had started. Then they had arrived at the second story. Amelia opened a room. The pair now had a better look at the girl— she was much younger than they thought, especially combined with that squeaky, southern drawl.

Rose spoke as she looked down at her feet.

"I'm sorry for the mess."

"Bah, it's fine, y'all," Amelia said. "Just don't wet the bed."

She paused, then laughed.

"Ha, that didn't sound right!"

Jack and Rose remained quiet as they entered their room.

"Sorry, sorry. Not the best time to crack a joke. Can I get y'all something to eat?"

"Thank you kindly, miss, but we just ate this hour," Jack said and looked at Rose. Then the red-head affirmed their condition.

"Well, if both of you lovebirds need my help..." the blonde mocked a soldier's salute. "Junior Airwoman Amelia Mary Earhart— at your service!"

Jack could not harbor a smile before the young woman closed the door, and the pair were left alone again. A roof had finally sheltered them from the rain after all those walking and walking. Rose should've gone through better nights than this one, and he felt a pang of guilt that someone like her was still shivering. He knew he was going to blame himself once she catches some cold in the future. In the very uncertain future, in which none of them had planned yet.

At least their room was cozy.

"Junior Airwoman?" she asked Jack.

"They don't exist."

"But I'm an airwoman."

Rose looked at him and grinned for the first time that evening.

"Oh, really?" Jack said.

"That day... I flew, remember?"


A/N: The Dunkirk evacuation, code-named Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers during World War II from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940. Charles Lightoller, a Titanic survivor, participated in the rescue with his son.

Amelia Earhart, nicknamed 'Millie', was born on July 24, 1897. She would become the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, set many records, and wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences. She was fifteen-years-old when the Titanic sank— just two years younger than Rose Dawson.

Expect some trivia after every chapter ;)