It was midnight, though none of the passengers knew this. The Titanic was sinking. She had been sinking for the past hour. That was the worst. If any of the passengers had imagined a ship sinking before, they imagined it quickly slipping beneath the waves and out of sight. And that would most likely have been true, for a small ship. For one as large as the Titanic though, there were many more rooms and much more space to fill up with water before she would go under. And that was why it was the worst. On the ship, the passengers unable to escape waiting, counting the minutes until they would hit the water and die. But it was the passengers in the lifeboats who were forced to watch. That was their agony. They couldn't possibly leave. There was nowhere to go. They all spent that hour and all the time after watching the magnificent ship sink, hearing the screams of the passengers still on board, and unable to do a thing to prevent it.
"It's freezing," murmured Horace.
"I bet you're glad we took the sheets now, eh?" hissed Jasper. He was feeling in slightly better spirits. His plan went off without a hitch, they were safely inside of Lifeboat 6 - without Cruella no less, and had a box of jewels with them. "When we sell these once we get on shore, we can get on with our life. No more dealing with that shrew." He smirked and nudged the jewel box with his hand.
This bumped the box up against the girl sitting next to him. She looked up with a start and turned to see what touched her. She looked ready to scream at him at first, then noticed the box. "My jewels!" she cried.
Her jewels? Horace and Jasper looked at each other in horror. Of all the lifeboats, they snuck into the one that had the owner of the stolen jewels in it."Are you quite sure miss?" asked Jasper. "It is quite dark and…er…"
"Of course it is!" she insisted. "And that must mean…"
Oh dear lord…
"You saved them for me!"
"Wah?" gasped Jasper, but he wasn't heard. A second later, the girl leaned forward and threw her arms around him. Jasper was quite surprised, but she did have nice dark hair - even if she did have a face like a horse - and had to have been quite well-to-do to have jewels like that.
Across from him, Horace noticed another, much plumper, girl shivering. He listened to her teeth chatter for a minute before he took pity. "Here you go," he sighed, handing over his sheet.
Her eyes lit up. "Oh thank you, thank you!" she cried, taking it.
"Thank you very much!" echoed the dark-haired girl, still clinging to Jasper.
"Girls…" muttered a woman (their mother? Were they sisters?) faintly. But the girls ignored her. The fatter girl moved to sit next to Horace and they shared the blanket. The two con men smiled at each other. Things really were turning out for the better!
Anastasia would have cried, but the freezing air left her skin numb and took all of the water from her eyes. To her left sat Victoria, Catherine and Ernest huddled close. Across from her, a woman looked out across the ocean, fear in her eyes.
"Keep rowing!" called Second Officer Charles Lightoller. Anastasia looked up with a start. She and several other people on the lifeboat were assigned to row the boat from the sinking ship. They were told that if they were too close, they would be pulled under with it. They would go back to search for survivors after she went down.
In the distance, all that was visible was the lights shining from the Titanic. As the ship began to sink lower and lower, the lights flickered and went out. Anastasia knew that somewhere on there, William was trapped. The only thing that kept her from total despair was the thought that if he survived the sinking and made it to the water, they could still save him in time. But the hope was a small one. Throughout her entire life, Anastasia had relied on her hopes to keep her going, to stay above the water. And now, when she needed them most, they abandoned her. She was in a lifeboat, but drowning like the rest. Drowning in her own sorrow and fear.
He knew he didn't have long. Like most of the other passengers still on board the Titanic, Will was trapped at the base of the Grand Staircase. The doors were clogged or locked and the air was full of the screams of others. William closed his eyes. Suppose this the end? After all of this, he would die this way. Before he built a single building. Without even saying goodbye to Nanny. And Anastasia…
His eyes snapped open. How could he have forgotten? He made a promise to her. Anastasia, I'm sorry my love. How could I have been so stupid. I never will let my despair overcome my love for you.
He had to get out. Perhaps it was only his imagination, but the floor almost seemed to be tipping sideways. From what Will could gather, the Titanic would go down bow-first. When the water surrounded the room, the glass dome covering the Grand Staircase would shatter and everyone inside would drown. If he wanted a chance to escape, he needed to find a way to get onto the deck. His eyes fell on an unprotected window. Perfect…
He raced towards it, grabbing a chair along the way. Without pausing, he swung the chair over his head and smashed it against the glass. It cracked and he swung the chair again. With a satisfying crash, the window broke open and he dove through, followed by the other passengers, equally desperate for survival.
"I'm scared," whimpered Ernest. "How much longer will we be out here?"
"Shh, not much longer I'm sure," said Victoria, as soothingly as she could.
"Granny, I'm cold," whispered Catherine, shivering in her thin dress. Anastasia gently put her arms around the girl and held her. She felt the locket slip out from under her life jacket and swing freely, illuminated eerily in the moonlight. And, almost inaudibly, she thought she heard the woman sitting across from her gasp.
"Thank you Anastasia," said Catherine.
"Anastasia?" the woman asked weakly. "That's your name?"
"Hmm? Yes it is," she said. Why was this woman so stricken by this?
"And that locket," continued the woman. "Have you…owned that for long?"
"My entire life," said Anastasia. She took it in her hand and opened it once more. "There's a picture of my mother in there, I think she gave it to me when she gave me up as a baby…"
"Gave you up because she had no choice," murmured the woman.
Anastasia's eyes snapped up. In that simple sentence, a thought crossed her mind. But it couldn't be…it was impossible…She looked at the familiar picture, the one she had looked at so many times before. Then she looked up at the woman sitting not a foot away in front of her. The woman looked older. Her face was lined and she looked quite sad. And now she looked quite shocked. But the shape of her mouth…and those beautiful kind eyes… "Mother…?" whispered Anastasia, hardly daring to believe it.
"It was so many years," the woman said. She looked as if she were about to cry. "I never gave up hope. But to think it would be here and now, like this…"
"Mummy!" cried Anastasia, throwing herself forward into the woman's arms. "It's you, it's really you!"
"My baby! My precious baby," sobbed her mother. "It was so long ago, times were so hard. There was the consumption and your poor father…we had so little anyway and with him gone I couldn't raise you. But I couldn't leave you! Then I met Gertrude. She seemed so kind, so sympathetic. She said she would look after you, raise you while I found work until my fortunes improved. That I could take you back at any time. She asked that I pay her a small amount and I happily agreed. But then there were hard times, and I missed one of the payments. And…and she disappeared. No way to find her. I tried. I tried so hard. And I never gave up."
"I knew you wouldn't abandon me," said Anastasia. "I never gave up either." And she finally began to cry herself. The two clung to each other, mother and daughter, sobbing from so many years of heartbreak.
The deck was unmistakably tilting by now. The bow was going under and somewhere in his mind, Will found himself thinking this is it! And he also heard a small voice reminding him that he had to keep his wits about him. Everywhere, the ship was cracking, breaking, and flooding. At any moment, he could be crushed or killed by the falling debris. But it was complete reaction which urged him to race up towards the stern as the ship slowly moved into a vertical position. He knew that if he could grab the handrail along the back of the stern, he could keep himself out of the water until the very last minute. And it also looked as if he wasn't the only person to have this idea. All around him, passengers raced towards the rising side of the Titanic and there was already a large crowd of people who were clinging to the backmost railings. Will ran as fast as he could. But he was not quite fast enough.
The deck was now at such a sharp slant that it was nearly like running up the side of a wall. William's feet slipped and lost contact with the wood. His hand shot out, scrambling to take hold of whatever was closest, and his fingers locked around a rope dangling near him. He clung to it with his left hand, praying with all of his might that the other end was actually tied to something. The rope held steady though, and kept him high and dry.
William later reflected on how fortunate he was. It was only because of his reflexes that he survived. All around him, he saw passengers who never made it to the handrails. Passengers who, like him, were unable to move forward and fell off of the deck and into the dark waters below. Will closed his eyes. He couldn't help them, but if he watched he knew he'd be tempted to.
But he couldn't ignore the screams of a young child he heard a second later. His eyes snapped open as he saw a boy falling towards him. He was fairly certain the boy wasn't in the crowd racing for the handrails. The back half of the ship was almost completely vertical now and passengers clinging to the metal bars were losing their grips as well. The boy must have fallen from there. Without thinking, Will reached his free right arm out and grabbed the child falling past him. He wrapped his arm around the boy's waist, grimacing from the pain of the impact.
But now he had more weight to contend with and his left hand was giving out. The rope cut into William's palm and burned as he felt himself slowly losing his own grip. He tried to get a better hold and felt the rope slip from his grasp…
Even then, William was unusually lucky. He had held out past the worst of it for the back half of the ship. When he lost his hold on the rope, the stern was slowly lowering itself back towards the water, the weight too much to be kept in the air for so long. It wasn't lowered much. But it was enough. Enough for William, still holding the child, to slide down the deck rather than free fall.
Even so, he knew that if they did not slow down, they would be in trouble when they ran into whatever came in their path first. His left hand still stung and burned, but he reached out for the closest handrail as he sped past. His fingers brushed one, then grabbed the next. Will gave a scream of pain as he felt as if his arm was going to be pulled out of the socket. With the built up momentum, he and the child were swung sideways, through the handrails. His sweaty fingers once more lost their hold on the handrail and the two went plunging into the ocean.
"Can you hear that?" called a rower on Lifeboat 3.
"Do you mean anything specifically?" Fifth Officer Harold Lowe shouted back. He knew sarcasm wasn't the best thing at the moment. They were all cold and alone and scared. But it was the best way he could deal with everything. Besides, the question was a bit silly. The air was thick with sounds: The ship breaking to pieces, splashing as things and people fell in the water, and the cries of passengers.
"There's someone close by calling for help," the rower replied.
Lowe listened as best he could. By God, there was someone very close.
"Someone please!" the voice shouted desperately, shaking with the cold. "Help! There's a child here!"
"Officer, what do we do?" one of the passengers on the lifeboat asked anxiously.
"Move towards the voice," said Lowe, thinking quickly. "If we move fast enough, we can rescue whoever it is before the ship sinks"
They found the shouter clinging to a crate, floating in the ocean. Sure enough, he was desperately holding onto a young boy.
"Steady…steady…" called the Fifth Officer as the lifeboat drew nearer. The young man could see them now and handed them the child just as soon as they were close enough. Then he moved to climb in as well.
Then Lowe heard a cracking above all the rest. He looked at the Titanic and knew what was happening. She was breaking in two. The stern was going to break off and fall into the water. When that went down, it could tip the boat over or suck them under as well. With much regret he gave the order: "Turn around. Get us away from here!"
"What about him? We can't leave him too!" shouted one of the passengers.
"We have to! If we stay, we might all be drowned!" snapped Lowe. He hated it just as much as they did! God forgive me… he thought as they sailed away.
There had been a deafening crash as the back half of the Titanic broke and fell to the water and then there was another agonizing wait as that filled with water and sank out of sight. It was only then, when the last of the ship was under, that the lifeboats dared to return to look for survivors.
"Can you see him mother?" asked Anastasia anxiously.
"Not yet darling," Nanny murmured. "Don't worry, we'll find him alright. Just you wait and see." It was the first time Anastasia had someone to reassure her like that and it lightened her heart. She tried to ignore the fear in her mother's eyes or the way she bit her lip. The two were frightened, but knew it would do little good.
"Keep rowing," warned the Second Officer. "And stay steady."
"Look! There's someone in the water!" shouted Victoria.
Sure enough, there was a body clinging to a piece of floating debris. The person was still and either dead or unconscious. As the lifeboat drew nearer, Anastasia saw that the form was a man with blonde hair. Could it be…?
When the boat was close enough, the passengers gently reached out and pulled the man on board. They turned him over to find…nothing. He was older than William and had a dark moustache, which contrasted strikingly with his hair.
"It's not him," sighed Anastasia.
At the sound of her voice, the man began to sputter, coughing up water. He sat up halfway weakly. "Who's there?" he asked drunkenly.
"You're on Lifeboat 4," said Lightoller. "Don't worry, you're safe now sir."
"Ah," said the man. "You can call me Detective Sam Bradbury. Sam to my friends, a threat to my…oh never mind…"
"Look Grandma, his moustache is falling off," said Ernest.
"Issa disguise…Sam mumbled as his eyes slowly closed. "I'm undercover…"
"Keep him warm," warned Lightoller as the detective began to fall asleep. "Keep him awake too. Slap him if you must. In this cold, if any of us falls asleep we might not wake up again."
"Look! There's something else out there!" shouted Catherine, pointing to a crate not a foot away.
"Oh yes," Sam slurred as they drew near. "Must have been where that fellow was. That fellow who was…a fellow…"
"Who? What did he look like?" asked Anastasia urgently.
"Like a…fellow…" muttered Sam. "Yellow hair, yep…"
Anastasia didn't dare breath. "Could it be him?"
"Just you relax Miss, I'll see for you," muttered Sam, and before anyone could say another word he lurched over the edge of the boat to grab at the body in the water.
"Steady! Steady!" shouted the Second Officer as the lifeboat rocked alarmingly.
"Don't worry, I got him," said Sam, as the other passengers held the detective steady. "I've got - AH!" he screamed. The form had given some sort of a spasm and grabbed him by the hair. In a panic, the passengers pulled Sam back into the lifeboat.
"Grandma, his hair came off!" laughed Ernest.
"My toupee…" the detective muttered desolately.
Anastasia, Nanny, and several other passengers had meanwhile been pulling the body into the lifeboat as well. They laid him on his back to find…
"William!" cried Anastasia. "It is William! Oh darling, it's me, Anastasia!"
But William did not move or show any signs of awakening. Nanny gave a sob. Second Officer Lightoller leaned forward, put his fingers to Will's neck, and sighed a moment later. "He's alive. But only just. We need to keep him warm until help arrives. Then maybe, maybe, he might survive."
The survivors were adrift at sea for hours. There was the occasional burst of light as a flare went off, however for the most part they were separated in the darkness. No one knew who lived or survived. In the back of her mind, Anastasia wondered of the fate of her foster family, Gertrude, Hortense, and Bernice Tremaine, and their fat cat Geoffrey. But she spared little worry for the cold family who never gave her more than a passing thought. Perhaps she would mourn later. But at that time, Anastasia's sole concern was William, keeping him warm and waiting for him to wake up. She was squeezed up next to him, her mother wedged on the other side, both of them with their arms around him. She felt the cold air bite her face and hands and knew it couldn't go on forever. It would have to end, one way or another.
It was nearly dawn. The black velvet sky was now tinged the slightest bit with oranges as the sun was rising. The survivors of the Titanic watched in wonder. It was a miracle which occurred daily, but a miracle nonetheless. And they needed a miracle now, more than ever.
As Anastasia stared with the rest, she heard a groan. She looked down quickly and gasped. William was opening his eyes! "William, my love!" she cried.
"Oh William!" sobbed her mother.
Will looked up weakly, staring into both of their faces. He smiled. Then he locked eyes with Anastasia. "Hello," he whispered. "I told you I'd find you again. I'm sorry I took so long…"
"I could have waited forever," said Anastasia. She leaned down and kissed him, her hands in his. They kissed for a long time, as the sun rose and the cold waters were warmed in a beautiful burst of light.
Wait a minute! Wait a minute! The story's not over! Don't you want to find out what happens to everyone? Stick around for the very end! And review while you're at it ^_^
