What if Ross and Rachel had been born 90 years earlier and met for the first time on the fateful Titanic? If James Cameron can create Jack and Rose, why not a Ross and Rachel love story.

Even though I am a full-fledged American, my Great-Great Grandfather was a British Sea Captain. I have more than once questioned if at one time he may have become acquainted with Captain Smith.

Please be patient in reading the somewhat lengthy prologue.

Disclaimer: This is a fictional story. These characters belong to Bright, Kaufman and Crane.

Chapter 1: Survival At Sea

April 15, 1912

It was 4:00 am. The intense cold, which proceeds dawn, had settled upon the North Atlantic Ocean. Rachel Green sat clustered together with fifty-one other survivors in Lifeboat 11. The survivors sat quietly pondering the tragedy that had occurred a few hours earlier. The Royal Mail Steamship Titanic, declared unsinkable, had struck an iceberg and within two hours and forty minutes had disappeared beneath the sea. For Rachel, survival was not her immediate priority. Her main priority was if Ross had survived. Even though she had just met him, she knew she could not live without him. Had he made it safely into a lifeboat on the starboard side or had he perished with the ship?

Earlier, Second Officer Lightholler, on the port side, was only allowing women and children to be loaded. First Officer Murdoch, located on the starboard side, not being as strict, was allowing more men to enter the lifeboats. Ross, noticing all the panic, insisted Rachel occupy the open spot on Lifeboat 11. He informed her he would try his luck on the port side. That was the last time she had seen him. Hopefully, it would not be the last.

A light appeared on the horizon. Carpathia would soon be arriving to rescue 750 passengers.

August 2001

Genya, the MIR-2 pilot, nervously guided the sub over the deck of the broken sunken ship, Titanic. Since this was a gravesite for many passengers, it was approached with great reverence. As the sub progressed, it passed over the fallen mast. You could almost still hear Frederick Fleet yell ICEBERG STRAIGHT AHEAD! The ship's railing still stood upright and intact. You could not help but remember that passengers at one time had touched those railings. Genya gently landed the submarine on the deck near the opening of the once opulent "Grand Staircase". The sub appeared small in comparison to this historical giant.

The Titanic had remained undisturbed until 1986 when Dr. Robert Ballard's crew discovered the broken wreck on the North Atlantic sea floor. To the public, the fascination with the tragedy has never quite fully disappeared.

The tragedy of this once great creation encompassed anyone investigating the wreck. Items such as china, shoes, silverware, luggage, metal headboards and a doll's head lay strewn on the seabed between the bow and the stern. Those personal items really tied you to the passengers. The icebergs, the warnings, being stuck in the middle of the North Atlantic, what would it have been like to be there that fateful night?

Jim Carter, who was on the sister sub MIR-1, had commissioned this expedition. The purpose was to explore deep inside the ship's interior for any recognizable items. Two-breadbox sized robots, guided by fiber optic cable, would become the unconscious eyes that would search through the ship's interior. At present, this task had not been attempted. Since the ship was slowly being eaten away by bronze rusticles (microscopic organisms) in five years the ship might be totally collapsed making this mission impossible.

Genya gently guided the robot out of its garage. A spool of fiber optic cable spun out of the robot as it began its descent down the "Grand Staircase". When the ship broke in two and sank, the Grand Staircase broke away from the ship and floated away. This wide-open area allowed the robot easy access to the main decks. As the robot moved deeper, some parts of the interior appeared to be a cavern of rusticles. Dangling light fixtures and carved posts from the oak pillars were the only recognizable items around the Grand Staircase.

The robot slowly made its progress onto "D" deck. This deck contained the gangway doors. The robot moved on past the remains of the bronze grilled doors that graced the starboard first-class entrance vestibule. Inside the outer gangway door, the lights from the robot shone on floor-to-ceiling wrought-iron gates with brass handles. Near the gates, a mahogany sideboard lay face down. Even though the sideboard had rotted away, White Star Line china remained stacked and unbroken. With the tether on the robot long enough to go the full length of the ship, the robot made its way to the passenger staterooms. Unlike the carved mahogany wood in the reception room, the pinewood that separated the staterooms had all but disappeared.

The robot entered Stateroom A11. Portions of the entrance door remained like the metal knob and push plate. Metal items, such as bed frames, doorknobs and hinges emit the tiniest of electrical discharges, which irritates undersea creatures that eats wood and materials around them. As the robot moved around the stateroom its lights reflected off a metal bed frame. A man's Bowler hat lay on the bed's covering. A piece of clothing still remained on the bed frame. The clothing moved gently with the current. Someone had hung the clothing there and never returned to put it on. Beside the bed were the remains of a mahogany dressing table. Even though the table had collapsed, an intact open metal drawer still remained.

Don Lynn, a historian that was on the expedition, knew every stateroom and its occupant. He commented that the room had been occupied by a thirty-two year old female passenger, that; had recently become a consultant for Women's Wear. She was also able to afford another cabin behind the third funnel to store all the clothes she purchased in Paris. The occupant's name was Rachel Green.

To be continued in Chapter 2

Note/Disclaimer: In actuality a passenger named Edith Russell occupied Stateroom A11. She "was" a consultant for Women's Wear and had accumulated 19 trunks of clothes she had purchased in Paris. In 1934 she released an article about the tragedy. She reported that in January of 1912, a Fortuneteller in Africa predicted that she would have a grave accident at sea. With that warning in mind she changed her passage back to America from the George Washington to the Titanic. Since the Titanic was larger and had been predicted in many magazines unsinkable, she assumed she would be in less danger.