TITANIC – Two Fixer-Uppers on a Date with Destiny

[A/N Herzlich Willkommen and Welcome to my Frozen crossover writing project "Titanic- Two Fixer Uppers on a date with destiny." This is to be a Kristanna pairing AU that follows the basic story outline of James Cameron's classic 1997 epic, but with tons of added scenes, plot, and character modifications. I've wanted to do something like this for years, so I'm stoked to be finally able to take this idea and make it reality… Lass uns beginnen!]

[This fanfiction is dedicated to the memories of the passengers and crew of the RMS Titanic. Even though, all its survivors have now passed away. May their stories continue to live for generations to come…]

- (PROLOGUE) -

Wednesday, April 10th, 1912 - 11:59 A.M.

(Southampton, England – Berth 44)

The blast could be heard for over nineteen kilometers. Her steam whistles, attached her towering seven-story funnels let off a low pitch, yet extremely loud bellow across the landscape of the Port of Southampton. It was an alert that the massive ship was soon to disembark. Everyone from around the port had come down to her dock to wish the spectacular new liner and its passengers and crew bon voyage. From the thousands of workers who worked in and around the port to many of the actual residents of Southampton, they all had all come down to cheer and wave her off. It was a scene that the workers and residents had seen before with the now regular arrivals and departures of her sister ship, the Olympic. But it was a scene that they never got tired of. And now with the arrival of her new sister vessel, the port and town were again full of excitement to the arrival and departure of a 'new' one of these amazing moving man-made wonders.

The new liner was pretty much an exact copy of her regal sister. Nevertheless, there were a few small cosmetic differences added to the new liner that distinguished her from her sister vessel. For one on her forward A Deck, a long windscreen was installed to protect her First-Class passengers from the spray of the ocean during rough seas. Also, her B Deck was greatly modified with additional First-Class staterooms as well as two exclusive parlor suites designed for only the richest of her passengers. And back aft on her B Deck an additional restaurant was added. The Café Parisien, a light and airily designed compliment to the main restaurant onboard both sister ships, the Ritz À la Carte. The latter expanded in it's dimensions on the new liner. They weren't major differences, but they were enough to make the new liner slightly heavier than her sister. The Olympic was 45,324 gross register tons. She was 46,328 gross register tons, making her the largest by a rather small margin, but more than enough to claim the title of the world's largest ship.

Even though the dock was full to the brim with onlookers and other spectators, the media frenzy just wasn't as big as the one that had occurred for her sister vessel a year ago. And yet despite this, there were so many people piled on the narrow dock that one might have worried that they could start spilling down into the river Test. Hundreds of them all wavering, giving best wishes and for some saying final goodbyes.

For the Olympic, there had been three or so motion picture cameras positioned to immortalize her maiden departure. However, for this ship and 'her' maiden departure there was only one, a single cameraman standing at the far front end of the dock. He had a hand-cranked motion picture camera with tripod and had it positioned directly to face the port side of the ship. The camera was also slightly angled upward in order to get the upper superstructure of the liner properly into the lens. He had been told by his bosses at White Star to get as much of the event as possible, especially the reactions and fanfare aboard from the cheering passengers. The shots he was likely to get would not disappoint. All the promenades and railings on the port side of the ship, facing the dock were packed like a can of sardines with jubilant, cheering passengers. Only her crew only decks such as the Forecastle and the Officer's promenade on the Boat Deck were void of the festivities. Only after hearing that deafening blast from her whistles signaling her official departure, did he start to crank the handle of the large bulky machine, quickly energizing, collecting images at a quick 16 frames per second.

The first shots he started to get were of passengers all lined up on the promenades and rails of the forward superstructure of the liner. It was easily discernible that this was part of the region sectioned off only for the First-Class passengers. He could tell just from the outfits. Men dressed in dark and black Tuxes sporting Bower and Top hats. The ladies dressed in various sequined dresses and coats, the dresses likely made just exclusively for this single event, and likely never to be worn again. For this pedigree of people, these transatlantic voyages were more routine than adventure. Still a holiday, but an experience that they had numerous times on many other liners: Olympic, Mauretania, Lusitania, etc. For many of these elites, North Atlantic pond jumping was at times more business than pleasure as they had to do it so regularly, jumping, back and forth, from the major business/ financial hubs of London and New York with an almost rhythmic frequency. This was due to their constant dealings with their assets both in the Old and New Worlds and for some, the developing world.

On the other hand, the ladies were regaled to a simplistic life as elegant ornaments, their hands, at all times on the shoulders of these powerful tycoons. But for their loyalty they were given a life of unimaginable luxury. Stories of going across the Atlantic to Paris or Milan just to have a custom designed and tailored dress for a particular party back home were not an anomaly; they were the norm. After such party, that dress would likely sit in their closet for the rest of its existence, likely eaten away by the moths before finally being disposed of. It was a world of extreme convenience and vulgar material waste. A world one young strawberry red-haired lady pondered as the ship slowly sailed by the dock. She stood up on the A Deck promenade, right at the aft end of the of A Deck windscreen, where the promenade was once again open to the elements.

As the cameraman cranked his camera, he could clearly see that this young woman stood out, and it wasn't just because of her striking purple and white boarding coat and hat. She wasn't waving… the only one on the entire length of the open promenade railing. Beside her he saw that the two other people in her party were, to her right a tall slender reddish brown-haired man in a gray jacket sporting a black Bowler. And to her left stood a graceful young lady, slightly taller than the red head. She was wearing a dark green coat and sporting a medium sized hat with long white feather sticking out from the side; it compliments her shimmering platinum blonde hair.

No, the redhead was just standing there staring out into space, almost as if the grand event before her was not even happening. Now it was typical for those of the upper classes to do things that were at times, outside of the norm, in order to be quote: 'avant guarde'. But this was not one of those situations. The young woman was with a group and by not waving she was making her party stand out and not in the good way. Thus, right on cue, the tall man turned his head and talked to her. The cameraman couldn't hear the conversation, but he was certain it was a scolding as she then started to give a lackluster wave, her elbow firmly planted on the wooden rail. The cameraman thought it was a weird occurrence but not major, still it was odd, out of the hundreds of people at the rails of the liner. She was the one he had so easily noticed. In any case, it didn't concern him. So he brushed it aside and got his mind back to filming.

Still cranking the camera, the cameraman and watched as the superstructure sailed by, passing the remaining massive funnels and morphing into the angled slope of the aft superstructure decks. All of them filled to brim with passengers shouting and cheering from the railings. He then noticed how their clothes had changed, the men from the rows of blacks and gray boarding coats to more lightish browns and faded blacks, more like working class style garments. And for the ladies less striking and vibrant colors for their more simply designed dresses, but still with a few bits of slight gaudiness intermingled within. These were the Second-Class parts of the decks. Tourists, clergymen, authors, professors, a group that collectively enjoyed the rather new up and coming title, middle class. These were people that had a little wealth and tried to show it off has much as possible. A man might have a nice jacket but have to wear it with an older and slightly worn shirt, but still adorned with stylish cufflinks. Ladies may have some nice dresses, but they were hardly worn due to the fear of wearing them out, a thing the women just one deck above them could barely imagine. Maybe they had some small diamond earrings complementing their outfits or a small gemmed brooch. All of it designed to give the sense of entitlement and a feeling of the wealth that they longed for in the future. Their role models were just a deck or wall away, a symbol of their goals and dreams; well maybe not all of them.

He continued cranking as the Second-Class region passed away to the lower parts of the ship, the aft Well Deck and the Poop Deck. The colors changed drastically, all the outrageous colors he had seen in the First-Class section were gone replaced with a sea of various browns, lots of whites and most notably a sea of working class flat caps. Of all the regions of the ship, he had filmed this section seemed to be the most vibrant. The throngs consisted all of Third-Class passengers, pretty much all of them making a one-way trip, some even crying as they knew this would be the last time they would likely ever see Europe. Many of them had saved up for years to build up the required money to buy a ticket on a ship to cross the North Atlantic. Now they were to accomplish their dream finally; sail across the pond and reach America, a land of wonder, dreams and tales of rags to riches overnight.

But there was an even greater reason for their excitement. Due a coal strike, almost all the tramp steamers had been laid up and put temporarily out of service. The Third-Class passengers from numerous older and smaller ships had then been all collected up by White Star, which had then had them transferred to its Olympic class of liners. And now of all luck, they found themselves transferred to the maiden voyage of White Star's newest mega-liner, so brand new that the practically everywhere still had the strong smell of fresh coats of paint. For those who had lived their life in dirt and squalor, the clean white sanitized liner was a whole different world than the one they were so reluctantly accustomed to.

As he cranked and filmed, he did notice another odd irregularity as the Poop Deck slowly sailed into the field of his lens. Standing out like a sore thumb among the rows of cheering and waving Third-Class passengers he noticed a considerably tall young man, a mass of shaggy golden blond hair atop his head. He wasn't waving either… He stood there in a slightly slumped over position, his arms lying across the ship's rail. It was hard to see from the dock, but the cameraman managed to get a slight glimpse of his face. And unlike practically everyone else around him, who were all giving their best smiles and expressions for their friends and family on the docks. His expression was set in a low angled brow and a forlorn mask, a rather odd expression for someone who had gone to the ships rails to bid goodbye to Southampton, especially one from Third-Class. He also noticed that a shorter but stockier shaggy brown haired man seemed to be talking to him. The tall blonde seemed to not notice him until the shorter man banged his elbow into the blonds' ribs. He then raised his hands and began to give what looked like a poor, uninterested attempt at waving, His head slightly tilted to the side as he did. The shorter man on the other hand had no such handicap, his wave showing an energy that so deeply contrasted the tall blond grump that stood right beside him.

Yet another odd anomaly, first the apathetic red-head lady and now an apathetic blonde man. Why was it out of the hundreds of people cheering and waving on the decks of the departing liner they were the only ones not doing so?... Were they thinking the same thing? Having the same issues? What?... The cameraman knew there was no way to answer this, and quite frankly, he really didn't understand why he cared so much in the first place…

As the ship gradually plowed forward the camera man angled the tripod slowly over to the left to capture the moving back end of the ship. Suddenly, just below her massive overhanging stern and the giant letters of her name and homeport, the water began to froth violently. Slowly but surely the liner's massive main propellers began to come to life. This was also known from the extra billows of smoke that were now belching out of her three functioning funnels. It hinted that the two enormous reciprocating engines deep within her bowels were starting to reawaken from their days of solitude. Five tugs were still guiding her, but the behemoth had begun to come into her own life, water frothing, and smoke billowing. Then without warning, she let off another massive blast from her two pairs of whistles. The blast was much louder than the blast she had performed a minute or so before. The sound being so loud the camera man had to cover his ears as did some on the dock itself.

He filmed for another minute or two, catching the liner and her five tugs as they performed a twenty-degree turn to the left. Her superstructure slowly vanished behind a long set of dock warehouses with only her towering funnels and masts still visible. She then steamed out into the channel of the river Test. Only after she had completely vanished from his lens view did the cameraman stop cranking, cutting the film. The reel was destined to go the White Stars' Southampton offices for use in their promotional films, likely to be viewed across the UK in many of the new and sprouting motion picture cinemas. Little did he know but his film has now a time capsule, a slide of history frozen permanently in time, for many of the people that he had just filmed… would never be seen again…

Three different worlds - one set destiny…

The wheels of fortune were now turning, the countdown ticking, and unknowably to them the fates of over 2200 people were now sealed.

Titanic was underway…

A/ N [I'm not a real fan of this prologue and I may rewrite it in the future, but it does get the starting gears rolling. Things will be kind of slow going for the first two chapters with the story picking up steam around chapter three, this being for a writing project that I've got scripted for at least 50+ chapters. So it's going to be a long but enjoyable ride.]

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