A/N: MERRY CHRISTMAS, ONE AND ALL! This being the season of giving and all, I bring you all a very belated Chapter 9! Gosh, I do apologise for its lateness; I'm afraid I've been having some serious life issues at the moment that have prevented me from feeling adequate enough to post. ANYWAY, I very much hope that you enjoy this one, though this is one of the few chapters for which I feel the need to emphasise once again that I DO NOT OWN TITANIC. Any lines, characters, etc that you recognise - anything you recognise - is not mine! I'm just playing in James Cameron's ineffable sandpit here.

Happy holidays, everyone xxx

- CHAPTER NINE -

Hard to Starboard

Crowley and Aziraphale spun around and sprinted as fast as they could towards the Bridge; ran so fast the icy April air tore at their faces and clawed its freezing fingers through their clothes, and their heavy footfalls resounded as harsh slaps on the polished wood of the deck. They ran and they ran, and when they were close enough to notice the solitary figure of First Officer William Murdoch, on duty on the Bridge, they cried together frantically:

"Iceberg! There's an iceberg!"

"Right ahead!"

"There's a bloody iceberg!"

"Iceberg, man! ICEBERG!"

And William Murdoch looked up again, and his inferior human eyes adjusted, and then he too saw that ghostly pale shape in the gloom, on the line between the sea and the sky, that terrible motionless spectre of death, right in their path. His mouth dropped open in horror; the colour left his face; he was running towards the Bridge before his body needed to be told to. Crowley, faster than his sweet-toothed counterpart, reached it first, in time with Murdoch, and – shoving past the young Sixth Officer, James Moody – he shouted urgently to the helm at the wheel:

"Iceberg! Turn!"

Then, on the same breath as he remembered the terminology, in time with Murdoch, "Hard to starboard!"

"Hard to starboard!" echoed Moody, but Crowley had already pushed past and shoved the helmsman off the wheel, turning it himself, faster than any human could, both hands grabbing and pulling it around as hard as he was able to. No one stopped him. The redundant helmsman had stepped back and was staring in terror at the incoming iceberg, now clearly visible.

"Turn! Turn! Smartly!" shouted Murdoch as he raced past them and set to work signalling to the engine room to stop, swinging the golden levers of the engine telegraph mechanism forth then back to full speed astern. And Aziraphale, every fibre of his angelic being desperate to help, did the same for the port side of the cabin. It swung with a musical, incongruous ring, like a bicycle bell.

Crowley's wheel was as hard over as it could go.

"Helm's hard over, sir!" called Moody to his superior, who ran past him out onto the Bridge again. Aziraphale was rooted to the spot in the middle of the cabin, unable to move, staring at the swiftly approaching iceberg – still directly in their path. There were two rings from the machinery: the engineers' returning signal. They had received the message. There was nothing more they could do up here on the surface.

Precious seconds ticked by, but still – it seemed, to those suspended on the Bridge – the Titanic streamed onwards as fast as ever, straight towards her very doom.

"Why is she not turning?" Aziraphale, wide-eyed and ashen-faced, voiced everyone's thoughts.

Crowley's hands were gripping the wheel so tightly that they were white. His face was wan with terror. Because I insisted on the smaller rudder, he thought. Because of me. There was a horrible sound, like a snake being strangled, and he realised that it was coming from him.

And still the ship sailed straight ahead, unwavering. Both Titanic and the titan held their ground, as though caught in a stand-off; a deadly game of chicken. Neither seemed willing to move.

"Is it hard over?" cried Murdoch from the Bridge.

"It is, yes sir, hard over!" called Moody.

Aziraphale turned around to face Crowley. The demon was still grasping the wheel firmly, and for a moment, even through his glinting sunglasses, their eyes met. Aziraphale saw right inside Crowley: saw his despair; his defeat; his overwhelming guilt. His consuming self-condemnation. And the angel felt such anger boiling within him at the sight: for how dare anyone – any demon or seraph, any Devil or God – cause such woe to his love? How dare they cast this responsibility on him, on them both? First Heaven and now Hell – pulling them apart.

He would not let them!

And so he spun back again on his heels, focused as hard as he could on that evil unholy berg, and pushed. He held his arms out in front of him, palms up, and shoved against the air as hard as he could. He leant right into it, so far forward that any human would have fallen over, and pushed the subatomic particles of the air together and away, hard enough so that he could feel them collide with the berg as they reached it. But was there enough force to repel it from them?

There was. She shouldn't have been able to turn at all so soon, but, achingly slowly, the great ship was indeed on the move. She was moving to the left. She could make it.

Aziraphale couldn't breathe. He pushed harder than ever. And Crowley behind him held on tighter than ever.

She could make it...

There wasn't a sound in the cabin. Still the ship swung over... but still not fast enough. The iceberg was dominating the skyline now, so close, so awful: jagged and savage and murderous, utterly merciless. Aziraphale felt nausea rise inside his earthly body as the horrible physics played out: as he realised.

She couldn't make it. She wouldn't make it.

And then a silhouetted figure standing at the nose of the ship ran towards them. His panicked shouts carried through the silent cabin, and with them carried their fate:

"It's gonna hit!"

Aziraphale drew in a convulsive breath; heard Crowley do the same.

Then there was a monstrous screech, like the wails of the all harpies of Hell; worse than a thousand nails on chalkboard; a cacophony of screams. Titanic was screaming. The ground beneath their feet trembled, vibrating up their bodies: Murdoch's hands on the railing shook; Aziraphale grabbed one of the golden levers to steady himself; the wheel beneath Crowley's unrelenting grip quaked. All across the ship the great wound was felt, as steerage passengers' rooms were shaken, and blocks of ice broke off and scattered across the decks, and doors quivered on their hinges. Captain Smith was jerked awake; Thomas Andrews, perusing his latest notes over a quiet brandy, looked up in alarm at his trembling chandelier.

It sounded like Titanic was being ripped in two.

"Deo et patris..." whispered Aziraphale, wide-eyed.

Murdoch spun around and shouted, "Hard to port!"

"Hard to port!" yelled Moody to Crowley, who was already turning. Murdoch whirled back around to stare in open-mouthed terror as the berg continued to tear its way past.

"The doors!" said Crowley suddenly, as his hands continued to rotate the wheel. Aziraphale spun around so fast his curls whipped him across the forehead. "The doors!" repeated the demon. He was deathly pale; the contrast between his skin and his hair was total. "The watertight doors! Close them, quick!"

The watertight doors were Thomas Andrews' idea: every compartment in the lowest reach of the hull could be sealed off in the event of a breach, to prevent further flooding. In theory it was foolproof. In reality...

Behind Crowley there was a white panel with a row of unlit light-bulbs proclaiming to illuminate in the case of the doors being shut. Aziraphale ran over and stared at all the various levers and buttons in front of him, looked at them all in rushed indecisive confusion.

"To your left, to your left!" shouted Crowley in agitation. He jerked his head at a switch nearby; his sleek hair was flicked across his face in the action. "That one there! Turn it!"

Aziraphale saw the one and took it in his hands. All he had to do was turn it, and then the one above it, and all the doors in the boiler rooms would close... But what about the men down there? Would they all get out in time?

"Aziraphale!" shrieked Crowley. "There's no bloody time! Never mind the stokers, they can take care of themselves! Get them down now!"

Aziraphale jumped, then gasped to the Heavens, "Forgive me!" and turned both switches, just as Murdoch ran in intending to do the same. Aziraphale stared in horror as one by one the little light-bulbs lit up. He wondered how many men would make it out alive; how many would drown down there if there was a breach, or be trapped if there wasn't.

There was silence now, and stillness; emptiness so profound a single movement might have triggered self-implosion of the world. Horror, unfathomably deep, cutting into every soul in the room, and many outside of it. They couldn't breathe. They couldn't move. It was like an illness, this motionlessness: like petrifaction. It was like death.

Murdoch's face was as pale as Crowley's, and slick with sweat. He didn't seem to notice the angel and demon in his midst as he ordered, expressionlessly, with a voice that quivered, "Note the time... and enter it in the log."

"Yes sir," Moody was gone in an instant.

Crowley had finally let go of the wheel. He wasn't trembling, like Aziraphale was: he was stood completely still, in shock. It didn't enter Aziraphale's mind to comfort him: they were all equally in need of comfort. Each man in the room stood there by themselves, solitary figures frozen in their own circles of anguish, dread beyond the word's capability to convey.

Then the door behind them banged open and Captain Smith appeared, tie undone, waistcoat unbuttoned, but with eyes that blazed with indisputable authority. The old seaman glared around the room, taking stock of the two passengers now stood redundant, before saying sharply to his first officer:

"What was that, Mr Murdoch?"

Murdoch had to swallow to regain his composure before answering. "An iceberg, sir." His hands – and soft Scottish voice – were shaking. "I put her hard to starboard and manned the engines full astern, but it was too close. I tried to port around it, but she hit, and –"

"Close the watertight doors!" Smith strode out onto the Bridge.

"The doors are closed, sir!" Murdoch hurried after him.

Crowley and Aziraphale, left alone together, still hadn't moved. After a few moments of splintered silence, they eventually met each others' eyes.

Crowley's throat worked as he swallowed, and then he summed up just about everyone's feelings in one barely whispered word.

"Fuck."

It had been ten minutes since the collision. Ten minutes of waking up important people who really did not want to be woken; of making tea and then not drinking it; of waiting around for Thomas Andrews and the carpenter, John Hutchinson, to return from their assessment.

Finally Andrews, flanked by the captain and the carpenter, with a bathrobe and fluffy slipper-attired Ismay in tow, swept into the chartroom. Smith, Murdoch, Henry Wilde the Chief Officer, and the two strangers that nobody had yet thought to dismiss parted to let them through.

"This is most unfortunate, Captain!" Ismay was saying agitatedly. Several people in the room, the strangers included, had to resist the urge to give the fool a good thumping.

Andrews was unrolling one of his blueprints. His face was flushed and damp with sweat, his expression deeply distressed: a matter alarming in itself. The shipbuilder didn't even look up to greet the men in the room, so absorbed was he in the situation. He spread the large blueprint across the desk: an impeccably neat sketch of the bare bones of the ship, white pencilled lines ordered across deep blue. One of the unfamiliar men – the blonde and no doubt limp-wristed one – swiftly moved to his side to pin one curling end down with a hand; Andrews' appreciation was conveyed by the smallest of nods in acknowledgement.

"Water, fourteen feet above the keel in ten minutes," he began, gesturing at the corresponding sections of the diagram as he spoke. "In the fore peak; in all three holds; and in boiler room six."

"That's right, sir," confirmed the wide-eyed carpenter.

"When can we get underway, damn it!" barked Ismay impatiently from behind them.

"That's five compartments!" Andrews exclaimed, exchanging a grave and meaningful look with captain, willing him to make the connection even if his co-designer could not. Ismay, oblivious, resumed his restless pacing as Andrews continued, "She can stay afloat with the first four compartments breached, but not five." He stared hard at the captain, then stressed again, "Not five."

All of a sudden, at those words, the room became very, very still.

Andrews addressed the blueprint again, running his hand along it for demonstration. He tried to speak briskly and professionally, but was powerless to stop the emotion jarring his voice. "As she goes down by the head, the water will spill over the tops of the bulkheads – at E Deck, from one to the next, back and back – there's no stopping it."

Captain Smith touched the map. "The pumps: if we open the doors –"

"The pumps buy you time, but minutes only!" Andrews was shaking his head, thoroughly distressed. His eyes settled back on the skeleton drawing of Titanic, his beloved masterpiece, and when he next spoke his words carried all the weight of the crisis on their shoulders. On his heart. "From this moment on, no matter what we do... Titanic will founder."

There was a terrible, heavy silence: a silence that tore and then burned at the rawness it exposed. This was real, they all realised. This ship – the unsinkable Titanic, the ship of dreams, the largest moving object ever built by the hand of man – was doomed.

"But this ship can't sink!" Ismay, incredulous, burst out, as though the very suggestion was preposterous.

A furious hissing erupted from the other stranger, the wannabe-Mafia trainee on the borderline between utterly ridiculous and utterly chic in his designer sunglasses. Andrews seconded the man by rounding on his co-designer; not angrily – for he was not the kind of gentleman to speak in anger – but curt nonetheless.

"She's made of iron, sir – I assure you, she can!" he snapped. Ismay's eyes were wide; he was frozen where he stood. "And she will. 'Tis a mathematical certainty."

The silence this time was profound, and lasting. Moments passed.

"How much time?" the old captain's voice was steady and calm.

Andrews perused his blueprint, did the sum in his head. Then he paused, and his eyes filled with terrible sorrow. Like defeat. His voice was gentle as he spoke. "An hour. Two, at most."

The two strangers had forgotten to breathe, and it sounded as though they were not the only ones. All around the room, and behind them in the corridor where at least half a dozen officers had gathered to listen, there was not one sound.

Then Captain Smith voiced the question that no one else dared to.

"And how many aboard, Mr Murdoch?"

Murdoch, face glistening, had to swallow before he was fit to answer. He looked close to tears. "Two thousand, two hundred souls, sir."

Smith turned slowly around. His whiskered, creased face was cold and dark as he addressed his employer; bowed his head in an icy parody of regards. "Then I believe you may get your headlines, Mr Ismay."

Further silence ensued as everyone's eyes flicked to the unabashed Managing Director, realising: it was him who had ordered more speed! If not for him, the ice warnings would have been taken more seriously; the speed would have been checked; the berg sighted on time... Then all of a sudden, just as Smith had opened his mouth to speak again with no doubt harsh, damning words, the blonde gentleman stepped forward, holding his palms up. Every pair of eyes turned to look at him. The man's startlingly blue eyes blinked ingenuously behind their delicate little glasses and, for some inexplicable reason, halted all thoughts of condemnation.

"My dear fellows, we haven't the time to cast blame tonight," he said calmly, speaking quickly and unselfconsciously. His impeccably enunciated voice, as English as his appearance, was as lovely as honey. Listening to that voice, it was almost possible for the men to imagine that they were back home, in Southampton, or London, drinking Earl Grey from fine China cups and whiling away a lazy hour with the Telegraph on a rainy Sunday night. The voice was like a warm hug, comforting them, reassuring them that all would be well – even if they died on this ship. The strange gentleman went on, bringing his hands peaceably together. "Mr Andrews here says we have but an hour; I would suggest we all get to work and ensure that as many people as possible get off this boat and to safety before it is too late. Would you not all agree?"

All around the room, deep, calming breaths were drawn in. The men could almost smell the tealeaves; the dried ink of the broadsheet; the soggy Digestives(1) they drew from their steaming mugs. They could smell home. Peace.

Apparently unaffected, Smith looked at the bespeckled fellow sternly, this outspoken stranger setting him in his place, but was unable to summon a valid argument. He nodded shortly instead, his professionalism fully recalled now, and, spurred into action, turned to his First Officer. There was much to be done. "Mr Murdoch, order the crew to ready the lifeboats. I want all passengers immediately roused and directed to the boat deck."

"Yes sir," Murdoch was away in a trice.

Smith then looked to his Chief Officer. "Mr Wilde, have the rest of the officers at the davits directing the loading – Mr Ismay, I want you with them assisting."

Wilde, Ismay, and the remaining officers dispersed.

"Perhaps we had better send out one of those distress signal codes as well?" suggested the blonde, in the helpful but demure tone of one who does not wish to belittle the authority of a leader, yet feels obliged to point out his error. "Morose, is it?"

"Morse," muttered his younger, dark-haired counterpart – perhaps his student, or lover – and Captain Smith vaguely noticed how he had a slight stutter: an unusual elongation of his 's' pronunciations. "A CQD. And that new SOS one as well."

"Yes," Smith nodded, eyes distant now. A CQD. The most dreaded of all the codes. He turned to the shipbuilder, who was slowly, carefully rolling up his blueprints, hands lingering around each curve of the curling paper as though forever committing that feeling to memory; as though he was never going to unroll them again. Which was, indeed, correct. "Mr Andrews..."

He didn't need to order Andrews to do anything, they all knew. There was a no more competent man on the ship. Smith bowed his silvery head. "Mr Andrews, I trust you to do what's best."

Andrews nodded wordlessly, addressing his blueprints.

Smith turned back to the two strangers. "Now –"

But the captain would never learn the identities of those men, for Crowley and Aziraphale were already gone.

(1) Note to Americans and other aliens: a Digestive is a fine old English biscuit (N. American 'cookie') frequently dunked in hot beverages such as tea or coffee and eaten quickly upon its retrieval due to its characterising property of disintegrating when wet. Along with shoes, antibiotics, stem cell technology(1a), and climate controlled cabinets, Aziraphale frequently cites the invention of the chocolate-covered Digestive in 1925 as one of mankind's greatest and most astounding innovations to date.

(1a) Alright, so angels aren't really supposed to support stem cell research – guarding the sanctity of life, and all that – but Aziraphale honestly can't follow Heaven's usually-impeccably ineffable logic with that one. Hell is, according to Crowley as of December 2011, undecided as to whether or not they are in favour of the matter.

End note: Again, Happy Holidays everyone! I will (DEFINITELY) have Chapter 10 up next Friday! Also, since it is Christmas and all, can I please ask of my dear readers that you leave a little comment to make my day? Even just a sentence to say you're reading this, or anything. EVERY REVIEW YOU LEAVE MAKES A LITTLE ELF IN THE NORTH POLE (and also me) SMILE IN JOY.

Oh, ALSO: the corresponding track of James Horner's Titanic OST is called "Hard to Starboard" and is just about perfect for this chapter; I would recommend a listen!

Merry Christmas!