Chapter 3: A Morning on the Open Sea

April 12th, 1912.

Yesterday, Titanic made her final stop in Queenstown.

Now, only open sea remains ahead.

In the early morning hours of April 12th, 1912, two blue eyes blinked open. Their counterparts in charge of hearing had been activated only moments ago, and though the German brain in charge of it all wanted to know what had woken it, the sky colored orbs were met with only utter darkness.

What's going on? Ludwig thought.

Something had to have woken him, but whatever it was seemed to be gone already. He rolled over in his bunk (below his brother, since of course Gilbert would have only the top bunk) and tried to drift away again. It was still dark in the itty-bitty 3rd class cabin, and Ludwig intended to make the most of his sleeping time. It had been disrupted often, after all, since his brother had been coming and going until all hours.

Just as the tranquil world of sleep reached up to pull him back in, the sound that must've woken Ludwig in the first place rang again. It was very quiet. Too quiet, apparently, to wake the others. Sadly, Ludwig was a light sleeper, so even this inconsiderable squeaking sound was enough to prevent his slumber.

What is this? Ludwig asked himself.

It sounded almost animal-like in nature, and for a moment, there was the possibility of rats. But no, it wasn't that. It wasn't so much a squeaking as it was a whimpering or whining. Ludwig sat up and blinked, hoping that his eyes would begin to adjust. Finally they did, and he watched the sleeping figures of their two roommates in the bunks across from his. The silhouette on the bottom, which belonged to Feliciano, turned over suddenly. Another whine resounded, a bit louder than the ones before. Was he the one making all this noise?

Ludwig watched carefully for a few moments. He didn't have to wait long. Feliciano thrashed about, and the whimpering sound again reverberated across the cabin.

He must be having some kind of nightmare.

Ludwig watched with a mix of curiosity and confusion. What exactly was he supposed to do? He couldn't sleep with all this going on, but he didn't have any desire to wake the young Italian across the room. Feliciano tugged at the blankets and sniveled again, kicking in his sleep a bit as he did. Ludwig couldn't help but wonder what he could possibly be dreaming about.

I guess I should just wake him up, he thought reluctantly.

Ludwig grudgingly tossed his blankets aside and slid out of bed. He shuffled over to the bunk opposite his own and stared down at its occupant. Now that he was in the right place, Ludwig realized that he wasn't sure how exactly to go about doing this.

"Hey," he hissed, tapping Feliciano's shoulder nervously.

The only reward for Ludwig's bravery was another whimper.

"Wake up!" Ludwig rasped. He tapped harder.

Feliciano rolled over and scooted away from his attacker, mumbling something in gibberish.

"Come on, wake up already…" Ludwig grumbled.

The little brunette did not open his eyes. Ludwig reached over and grabbed his shoulder…a bit too hard, apparently. Feliciano snapped awake right away, and his first impulse seemed to be screaming. His mouth opened in horror, but before too much racket could escape, Ludwig slapped his hand over it and shushed him.

"It's just me!" he whispered. A few tense seconds ticked by before the German hesitantly removed his hand. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Feliciano nodded, but Ludwig took notice of the fact that he was shaking again. "J-Just a bad dream," he sniveled.

"Well you're alright now. It's over."

"Okay…" Feliciano choked. The fearful tremors continued to rock him, and Ludwig awkwardly placed his hand back on Feliciano's shoulder, as if to steady him. The timid one beneath the covers slowly stopped shaking, and he actually smiled again.

"Thanks," he whispered.

"Oh. Well… um, it's…it's no problem," Ludwig bungled.

With a contented sigh, Feliciano rolled over and was finally quiet and still. Ludwig wasn't exactly sure what had just happened. He'd only woken Feliciano from his nightmare, but somehow it felt like it might have been something more than that. As if that made any sense at all. Ludwig shook his head and crawled back into his bunk. Things between Feliciano and him seemed to be growing only weirder.

Francis leaned up against the promenade window, glancing from his sketchbook back to the open ocean. He'd been working on a new drawing all morning, but something about it was exasperating him. That girl he'd met, Elizabeth…she had a lovely face, worthy of a new drawing, but he couldn't get it right.

It was her eyes, he decided. The eyes were all wrong. He wanted to draw her smiling. He could get the mouth right; it was easy enough. But the eyes. They were a challenge. Because no matter how many times Francis imagined her mouth curved up into a smile, her eyes never followed suit. She had sad eyes, that girl.

Francis closed the sketchbook with a frustrated sigh and turned around from the promenade window –only to nearly crash into the steward behind him.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," the Hispanic man mumbled, stumbling to keep his grip on the tray of teacups.

"No, no, it's my fault," Francis said nervously. He glanced down to study the slightly shorter man's face. The little steward looked so familiar...

"Wait…Francis? Francis Bonnefoy? Is that you?" said that oh-so-familiar looking steward.

And suddenly it all came back to him.

"Antonio?"

Both men started to laugh.

"No way!" Antonio chuckled. "I can't believe it! How long has it been now? Must be close to ten years."

Francis nodded in agreement. "And here we are, on the same ship! Tell me, how did you end up here? I thought you were going to stay in Italy."

When he and Antonio were just boys, they'd happened upon each other in Italy. Francis was supposed to be studying there. After he made some new friends, however, he never did get much learning done. Meanwhile, his buddy Antonio had developed a soft spot for two orphans that were a couple of years younger than the boys in their early teens.

"Well, that's a long story. Remind me to tell you later. I have to deliver these now," Antonio gestured to the teacups, "But we have to catch up sometime."

Francis agreed, and the two parted ways for the time being.

"You're so boring, Ludwig," Gilbert whined.

"I'm sorry I can't be your constant source of entertainment," his brother replied sarcastically.

How annoying. This trip was supposed to be exciting, but Ludwig had been trying to keep Gilbert close to him so he wouldn't "get into trouble". Gilbert had tried multiple times to sneak off, but he seemed to be trapped with Ludwig, aimlessly wandering the decks with one of their roommates, who was flitting around and chattering like an obnoxious Italian bird.

"Why'd you invite him, anyway?" Gilbert hissed.

Ludwig sighed deeply. "I didn't exactly invite him. He invited himself."

The more awesome of the two German brothers had been confused ever since waking that morning as to why Feliciano had warmed up to Ludwig so quickly. The day before he'd been absolutely terrified of him, but on that morning the peppy Italian was his dogged follower. They were practically attached at the hip, much to Gilbert's displeasure. "Do you think we can lose him?" he asked.

Ludwig glanced at Feliciano, who was a few steps ahead of the two brothers, cheerily talking away about something or another and completely unaware that he was being ignored.

"I'm not sure," Ludwig replied.

Finally Feliciano came to a stop and the group came to rest on a bench. Feliciano continued telling his stories (which by the way, weren't nearly as awesome as the ones Gilbert could tell) and Ludwig eventually seemed to listen to them. Gilbert could really care less about whatever they were talking about, and he started looking around for some way to escape or at least entertain himself. That's why his eyes happened to drift upward, toward the railings of the deck above, where a lone figure stood, her gaze fixed upon the ocean.

For some reason, Gilbert's own gaze was suddenly fixed upon her, and he no longer had the ability to change that. She was beautiful, there was no denying that fact, but it wasn't only her beauty that held his eyes there. She just had something special…something different.

Upon a closer inspection of her facial expression, Gilbert discovered that she looked quite angry, or maybe frustrated. Her greenish eyes were clouded with painful emotion. What kind of worries could a rich girl like that have? Gilbert wondered, eyeing her expensive yellow gown as it fluttered in the breeze.

The girl reached up and twisted a few locks of russet hair between her slender fingers, revealing a familiar looking blue pin. The weight of the object in Gilbert's pocket suddenly seemed to grow. Their pins were almost identical. The only difference was the color of the miniature jewels on the surface.

In the same instant that Gilbert had taken notice of the pin, the mysterious rich girl seemed to become aware of it as well. She furrowed her eyebrows and tore the sparkly clip from her wavy mane, allowing it to blow even more wildly in the late morning breeze. She stared at the item in her palm for a moment before reaching back and angrily tossing it away. The pin went soaring over the threshold between them and over the edge of Titanic, outward into the sea. Gilbert smiled as he watched her glaring at it until it sparkled its last, sinking into the Atlantic with a splash.

The girl in yellow saw him then. Their eyes met, for only a short fraction of time, and she quickly averted her gaze. Her quiet façade returned instantaneously, and Gilbert's smirk widened. It seemed at first that the short, wordless encounter was already over, but Gilbert knew better. If he didn't want it to be over, then it sure as hell wasn't over! Sure enough, the mysterious upper class girl slowly looked back, and their stares crossed again.

Her expression was still hard; still angry and pained. Gilbert assured himself that the anger wasn't directed at him, but at something else. They watched each other for what felt like hours. They continued staring for what could've been an endless expanse of time, an eternal moment that would never move on with the flow of the world, until a harsh voice shattered the veil.

"Gilbert!" The albino jumped at the sharp tone of his brother's voice. He was watching him expectantly, and Gilbert figured he had probably been asking a question.

"Uh, what was that?" Gilbert replied.

"I asked you if there was something wrong," Ludwig replied.

Gilbert laughed. "Of course there's nothing wrong!" he said.

His eyes momentarily flickered back to the girl on B deck, but she had turned away again. Gilbert's gaze returned quickly to his brother, but Ludwig was observant.

"You're wasting your time," he said sternly. "That's a whole different world. And I don't want you trying to get involved with it."

Gilbert felt heat flowing into his cheeks, which was strange, as he had most certainly never been embarrassed this way before. "I don't know what you're talking about, Luddy," he said nonchalantly. "Now come on. Let's go somewhere else."

Before the third class posse could move on, Gilbert couldn't resist stealing one last glance at the beautiful girl above him. There was someone else with her now. A man with dark hair and glasses. They seemed to be arguing about something.

Gilbert shook his head and stood up from the bench. "Race you!" he smirked, and then he took off running in the opposite direction.

Ludwig jumped up and called, "Race me where? Hey! GILBERT!"

Ludwig's only answer was his brother's unmistakable laughter echoing into the sky.

I have reviewers! I feel so loved.