If Jack survived Titanic

The aid

After two weeks in the almshouse it was finally time for the dwellers to get their financial aid. No one knew what to expect. Everything they knew was that they wanted to get away from the almshouse. Even though many of them was quite comfortably off, comparatively to what they used to be, they thought everything there reminded them of Titanic, witch was a truly plague.

The two men who had been there before were there again, now with a women who worked with them. They called out people's name when it was time for them to get their aid. Everyone waited nervously to be called. Of course, they wanted as much money as possible.

They had waited for two hours. Just a few persons had been called out so far. Everyone who hadn't been called out yet waited in a chamber. Some men were playing cards to pass the time, some women pieced together some secondhand-clothes they'd got that were torn. Some children played with torn socks, pretended they were monsters and princesses.

The women came into the chamber. She got everyone's attention. She looked down in her papers before she called out:
"George, Margaret and Henry Collins".
One of the sewing women sat up, took one of the children's hand and followed the women after meeting up a man from the card-playing table who seemed to be her husband.
People sight.

Jack and Rose sat in a couch, staring across the room.
"What are we going to do when we got our aid?" Rose asked.
"I don't know. I guess it depends on how much we get" he said.
"Yeah" Rose said.
She leaned her head backwards so that she looked up in the ceiling. The corners up there were covered by cobwebs and dust. She wasn't accustomed to be surrounded that. Everything used to be so clean around her. But she didn't complain. Actually, it all was a relief for her, because it meant that people here didn't care about such things as much as the people in her family would do. No one here would mention or even care about how Rose dressed or acted as much as people around her did before. She looked at her clothes. She wore a dark dress she'd got from the almshouse, secondhand as all of the clothes they'd got. The dress was very simple comparing to how her own used to be. This one was actually comfortable. This was soft, it got a fashion-neck and the arms were fluffy, but the best of all - she had no corset. She felt free in a rarely way. She could breath with her belly. That made her enjoying just sitting there on the couch, with a lax posture. She smiled when she thought about what mother would have thought if she saw Rose in that position and in that dress.
She looked at Jack. He wore a dark green knitted sweater over a shirt and he had very simply jeans and shoes. So sweet he was.

They waited, and waited. The crowd became slowly smaller. After six hours of waiting, only Jack and Rose remained. They were so tired of waiting at this point.

But than, the women came.
"Jack Dawson and Rose.. " she looked in her paper.
"Sorry miss, but I think we missed to note your surname".
Rose had completely forgot. She didn't mentioned her surname when they asked her on Carpathia, because if she would, the risk that her family would found her would have been bigger.
"Adams" she said.
Jack looked at her the same way he did on the third-class party on Titanic when Rose drank almost a full glass of beer. But he said nothing.
"Okey, so Jack Dawson and Rose Adams" the women said as she wrote Adams in her paper. "Great" she said looking up. "Follow me".

They went into a small room. The two men they had seen before were leaning on a table, almost sitting on it. The women showed with her hand that Jack and Rose were supposed to sit on two chairs in front of them, so they did. The men stared at them. They looked tired.
"Are you siblings?" the shortest of them asked.
Jack and Rose looked first at each other and than at the men.
"No" they said in unison.
The men laughed a little.
"Okey, so how do you know each other?" the other man asked.
Neither Jack or Rose knew what to say.
"We've just met" Jack said.
Silence.
The men looked doubtfully at each other.
Jack felt like they had to do something. He took Rose's hand.
"We together" he said with assured voice, but on the inside, he was nervous, to say the least.
Rose got butterflies in her stomach. She felt like she would explode of happiness, but she tried her best to hide it.
"Yes" she said, sounded just assure as Jack did.
"I see" one of them said and smiled.
He took a paper that were lying on the table. He held it in front of his and the other man's faces so neither Rose or Jack could se them. They whispered things to each other.
Jack and Rose just sat there. If the women wouldn't stand in the corner of the room, maybe they would at least change looks with each other. Rose wanted to jump into Jack's arms, kiss him and tell him how much she loved him. But she didn't.
The men stopped whispering behind the papers. They nodded to each other. Than the smaller man said:
"Unfortunately we haven't so much money to offer you".
Jack and Rose froze.
"But we have something else that may interest you" the man suddenly said.
"What do you love-birds say if I say that we have a deserted apartment for you?" the taller man said.
Jack and Rose stared at them with big eyes.
"Would you take it?"
It went silent again.
"Yes" Rose finally said.
"Great" the man said, leaned backwards looking satisfied.