A Warm Place
by Cori Falls
@->->- 

Author's Note
This piece is my response to all of those "Rocketshippy" death fics out there. It was originally a continuation of Memories of Tears by Mystic Vaporeon (because that's the one that upset me the most), but it didn't really make me feel better. So instead, I've changed it into a generic anti-death piece. 

Now, why was it necessary for me to write this story? Well, I originally wrote it because Mystic's fic was depressing me to no end. James dying and Jessie getting over his death, living her life without him, and never seeing him again until she died of old age 60 years later had to be, without a doubt, one of the saddest things I've ever read! 8_8 

And after I read Memories of Tears, I found out (the painful way) that it's not the only fic like that -- there's an entire genre of this "James dies young, and Jessie doesn't get to be with him again until she dies of old age many years later" stuff! O_o Another author named Kitten wrote a story called A Life Forever, which has the exact same premise as Memories of Tears -- it's about James dying young and Jessie living without him! 8_8 

I don't know what's up with these kind of fics, but I have the sneaking suspicion that they were inspired by that God-awful Titanic movie. (Thankfully, I saved myself the $8 and 3 hours and never watched Titanic, but a few of my friends had the misfortune of seeing it, and they all said that it had a similar plot -- Jack died in the shipwreck, and Rose wasn't reunited with him until she died of old age. Like I said...thank goodness I didn't see it!) My question is, what the hell is supposed to be romantic about that?! The person you love dies, and you have to live your life without them?! That's not romantic -- it's just depressing! And why do so many Rocketshippers feel the need to put Jessie and James in a similar situation? Why do they think killing one of them and making the other go on alone is so Rocketshippy?! If you ask me, separating them like that is one of the most anti-shippy things imaginable! I'm sorry, but J, J & M don't deserve that -- fics where they die are just wrong! 

Thus, the need for a response to all of this tragedy and death. Since I can't stand the thought of my fave characters being without each other, I wrote this fic to show that the idea of one of them dying is nothing more than the stuff of nightmares and that it'll NEVER really happen! A Warm Place, though still what I consider to be somewhat of a sad story, is, in the end, a life-affirming piece which shows that Jessie and James are going to be together forever, no matter what! (No offense to Mystic, Kitten, or any other authors who've written TR death fics, but I truly hate tragic stories, and I really can't handle them!) 

I'm warnin' ya right now, though, my fic is incredibly mushy -- just a bunch of catharsis on my...and Jessie's part. (I really think she took over while I was writing! +P). So if ya still wanna read this thing, don't say I didn't warn ya!