I'll Only Jump if You Jump With Me

In the Water

The air was still around them, and the water's icy darkness was smooth and unbroken, save for the scattered debris that was the passengers, panicking and floundering among the splinters of the once-mighty ship.

Rose lay on top of the board, detached and drifting, her body empty of feeling. It had been hours, maybe. Weeks. Months. Decades and centuries had passed as she floated, her eyes dull and empty as she faced the stars.

To die like this, maybe, wouldn't be so bad. She had already left the pain behind. Her demons were drifting away, shivering in their half-empty boats, stunned and powerless. The only person she cared about in this world floated with her, by her, for her. His hand was frozen through hers, and the ice that threatened to tear them apart had locked them together, and the physical connection was all that remained to Rose then.

Her mind was quiet and still; her fiery spirit was quiet, too. Her rebellious strength was a weapon against those floating demons; now, they were shell-shocked and quiet and her flames burned low.

She didn't think about how she would die then, or how she would live. She didn't think about the ice or the water or the dying cries that faded into quiet. She felt empty, but not consciously so. She did not actively think about how it seemed that her very essence had melted away, replaced by ice. She lay, staring, with not even the strength to sit up.

Something came from a long way away inside her mind; miles and miles away, maybe. The stars again. But she had been moving under them. She had been laughing. She had reached up and grasped the rising ropes, and swung herself around. Jack had walked up next to her, and they had leaned against the rail, faces turned towards the sky.

The memory pulled itself up out of the depths, stopping at the edge of her mind, not quite able to break through the fog of her consciousness. The facts of it, the faces, the feeling and sights were indistinguishable, but the smallest fragment slid through. 

A song.

Buried in the ice was the feel of the rushing wind, and hands entwined. Rough hands against soft hands; two worlds meeting together at the bow of a ship, as the world blew by. The ocean and the sky were stained with the light of themselves, and nothing mattered but two people standing together, two worlds meeting, and two pairs of hands twisting together. 

Lips to her ear, and the song again.

Come Josephine

 in my flying machine 

Going up she goes, 

Up she goes...

Her lips moved and the song slipped out, freed from the darkness of her mind. It was a reminder of the lifeline that was their clasped hands, icy as the dark water.

Beside her in the darkness, Jack stirred slightly. His frozen hand moved in hers, slightly, and a fear she hadn't quite grasped was soothed. Slightly. In a constricted whisper he continued with her,

Come Josephine...

Rose let out a long, shuddering breath as she turned her head, the ice in her hair crunching against the board.

There was a light.