The Survivors General Store
AN: This is an old story brought back to the white screen and wonderful world of Titanic fanfiction. Anyway, Jack survives (not that Rose knows it), Rose actually gets into a lifeboat, and others survive, as well. It's called "The Survivor's General Store" because that's what some of the survivors do for a living.
Enjoy!
All around her, she could hear the screams of terrified passengers as the almighty Titanic slowly but surely sank around them. She herself was terrified as she followed her uncle Jack and the others back to the little restaurant in third class.
Being only six, Cora Cartmell couldn't entirely understand why they had returned back to third class, when, she thought, they should be running for the lifeboats. But she also didn't understand much about how first class looked down on them like they were ants, and not worth living.
She and her uncle were following a curly-haired Irishman, behind them, an Italian man who was desperately pulling a Norwegian woman with him.
Said Irishman was using the broken leg of a table to smash a nearby window. "Tommy! Are you crazy!?" Her uncle yelled in disbelief, as if he couldn't believe what the Irishman had done.
"It's the only way we're getting off, unless you rather go down with the ship. Now, if you want any chance to live, grab a piece of debris, and jump out that window." He said, giving everyone a look that said that they weren't to argue with him.
Quickly, everybody grabbed a piece of debris that would support them in the water. Cora managed to find a gigantic soup pot, which she held onto as she jumped cleanly into the water. The pot, which still had a lid on, fortunately fell apart, thus allowing her to, with some difficulty, climb in.
As the others joined her, they all grabbed each others hands, and looked every which way for something that would them out of the water. They noticed several people floundering about, trying to stay alive, but, even with the twenty lifeboats nearby, in one of which Jack hoped Rose was, they eventually gave way to death.
Then, just as it appeared there was no hope at all, Cora noticed, a few miles away, lights floating on the ocean.
"Look," She said pointing, and the others did so. When they saw what she had seen, they were all relieved, and began to use spatulas that Tommy had found in the huge utensils box he was awkwardly lying in, in order to row themselves towards the lights.
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Now the lights that Cora had seen, followed by the others, were the lights of the nearest ship, the SS Californian. Although not a single crew member was awake, that quickly changed when they were alerted by the sounds of shouting and banging. Tired and grumpy, the crew slowly made their way towards the deck.
A man by the name of Cyril Evans glanced over the right hand side, and when he spotted five people floating in the water, he whistled to his fellow crew members, who immediately assisted the five of them aboard.
Then, to the astonishment of them all, Tommy, who'd been thinking, suddenly marched over to Cyril Evans, and slapped him in the face. The 20 year old went sprawling to the ground, or at least he would have done, if not for the others who assisted him.
"Are you pazzo!?" Cried an aghast Fabrizio. Tommy angrily pointed to the man's chest, where he was wearing a badge that said he was the wireless operator.
"I believe you just called me either crazy or stupid, but he's the wireless operator." He said coldly, before getting right into the man's face, and snarled, "Ever consider picking up the damn phone once in a while?"
The younger man gave him a look of confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"The six of us were on the bloody Titanic, which, I must inform you, SANK! Also, a number of passengers have died, and we might have as well. If you ask me, people should change some rules regarding accidents at sea." He spat.
He then eyed every other crew member, before eyeing the captain. Although he didn't slap him, he did give him a wonderful black eye.
"And I deserved that because?" Inquired the 35 year-old man, wincing in pain.
"Because, you bastard, you've probably been captain long enough to know that as a general rule, ships don't typically fire rockets just for the pretty light show they create." Tommy threw him a filthily look, and said, "I hope you can sleep at night knowing you have indirectly caused the lives of over a thousand people to end."
Two days later, the Californian made it's berth in Wisconsin, and all of the survivors were happy to leave. Within days, Jack and his friends were once again among family. After a time, Jack's cousin Philip had offered them a job at the general store in which he worked.
The sound of knocking pulled fourteen year old Cora Dawson from the dream of a nightmare, which, eight years ago to the day, had been a frightening reality.
AN: So, I hope you enjoyed this one.