A/N: I got a very polite review last chapter asking me if I would write another version of this featuring Ramy instead of Radrian. Since it was a guest review I can't answer it directly, so I will say that while I appreciate that someone likes my writing enough to ask, I have very strong feelings about Ramy and therefore Ramy is one of a handful of pairings I will not write fanfictions for. I'm sorry, but I'm very firm on this issue.

The Secret Life Of The Titanic

Chapter Nine

Richard turned abruptly to Zoe. As shallow and miserable a human being she was, he still felt a primal urge to help her. "You need to get a life belt and get to a boat immediately!"

Zoe stared blankly at him. "You sound as if you're not coming with me."

"Then you are hearing me correctly. Finally."

"But-"

"Don't be an idiot, Richard!"

Richard whirled around with a raised fist before he even realized he'd curled it. "You fucking stay away from me!" he bellowed so loudly that Zoe shrank against the wall, cowering like a kicked puppy.

"Richard!" Thomas spoke, trying to intervene.

Richard reared back his arm as if to punch his father right in the jaw, then pulled his arm back slowly. "Take Zoe to the boats. I have other business to attend to."

Robert curled the fists at his sides, but with so many other people around, he offered his hand to Zoe. "Come with me," he said through grinding teeth. "Clearly, my son is too unstable right now."

Zoe grabbed Robert's hand and scampered behind him for protection from the feral look in Richard's eyes.

Richard shook his head in disgust. "I wouldn't hide behind him if I were you. I'd watch your backside, too." He waited impatiently until Zoe had managed to coax Robert up the stairs. Once they were gone, he quickly turned to Thomas. "Quick, you have to tell me: where would the Master-at-Arms take someone under arrest?"

"Richard, you need to get to the deck!"

"With all do respect, Mr. Andrews: I don't bloody care what you or my father or anyone else has to say to me right now. I need to find Adrian!"

"You have to take the elevator to the very bottom, make a left, go down the crewman's passage, right, left again at the stairs, and finally go through the long corridor until you find the third door from the end!"

"Thank you. Thank you!" Richard threw his arms around Thomas and hugged him fiercely.

"May God be with you," Thomas said.

"I wish you the best, Mr. Andrews." Richard paused for a moment, taking a good long final look at Thomas, then he tore off in the direction of the elevators. After having run so fast and so far from his father with Adrian just hours before, he'd assumed that he'd be wiped in no time, but the adrenaline snaking through his veins made him feel like an Olympian.

Richard reached the elevators with little resistance, only to be told that they were off limits. "I need to get down there!"

"Nobody's allowed!" the operator insisted.

Richard thought back to the effect that his anger had had on Zoe and decided to employ it again. He slapped his hands onto the operator's chest and bulldozed him into the elevator. "You will take me to the bottom floor!" He could feel his face flushing and the veins in his neck swelling beneath his skin. He could almost imagine popping one they were so thick.

The operator, having turned sheet white, scrambled to direct the elevator downwards. As they passed level after level, the noise from above faded out, replaced only by the grinding of the lift gears. Then they heard something that sounded like sizzling and before they knew it, water was gushing in at their feet and a blink later, it was up to their knees. The operator screamed and lunged for the controls.

"No!" Richard pushed through the water to the gates and began to rip them open until he could get out.

"Sir, no! I – I won't wait!"

"Then go!" Richard looked back and forth. He knew he'd landed too soon so he broke into a run towards the stairs and took two flights down until he came upon the crewman's passage. He took a left, right, and left again at the stairs as instructed. With the water at his knees, he was finding it increasing hard to run down the flickering hallway. "Adrian! Adrian!"

"Ricky? Ricky, I'm here! I'm down here!"

A rattling, metal on metal, punctuated the sound of Adrian's voice and he realized he'd been going down the hallway in the wrong direction. He turned quickly and began to pound the other way. "Adrian! I'm here, I'm coming for you!"

"Ricky!"

Richard arrived breathlessly at the third door from the end and pummeled through it to find Adrian standing on a wooden chair trying to keep herself above water. He realized with a ample infusion of loathing that she was handcuffed to a pipe and judging by the cuts on her face, he suspected that his father had probably paid the men to rough her up. "Adrian, thank god!" He threw his arms around her and kissed her face and forehead.

"I'm glad you're happy to see me," she laughed miserably. "But if you're really happy, I'd suggest you get over to that cabinet and find me the little silver key that will unlock these!"

Richard nodded briskly and sloshed through the water to the cabinet. But after sweeping the cabinet thrice and then throwing off the non-silver keys he finally realized, "They're all brass!"

Adrian blanked. "Uh – uh, well, look over there in that drawer!"

Richard flipped around and began to empty the drawers from the desk.

"Richard."

"What?" He suddenly stopped and cocked his head. "Wait, did you just call me 'Richard'?"

"Yeah," she chuckled. "Uhm…how did you find out he was lying?"

"Because he's a lying bastard…and I'm just a little slow. I'm so sorry, Adrian!"

Richard threw the drawer into the water and moved on to each and every other piece of furniture in the room. The water was up to his thighs by the time he realized he'd exhausted all leads and looked guiltily towards Adrian. "There is no key."

Adrian sucked in a sharp breath. "Then we'll have to improvise, won't we?" She nodded towards the door. "Go find help."

Richard hesitated, then moved to Adrian and kissed her. "I'll get you out of here, I promise!" He turned and ran back out the way he'd come, back through the water, and up the stairs until he was in a dry hall. It was desolate though and even darker than before. It occurred to him that moving around was like walking through a ghost town. Even the groaning noises that the ship was making as the Titanic was fighting against her Atlantic mistress mirrored those of ghosts and goblins and those that went bump in the night. "Help! Somebody, anybody! I need help!" He collapsed against the wall, shivering and yet simultaneously burning up. "I need help," he whispered. "Adrian needs help."

The lights shut off and Richard heard the ship's belly growl like a hungry orphan. He couldn't see a thing and it suddenly occurred to him that he'd lost. They had lost. He had left her and they were both going to die horribly and alone because of it. And then just like that, the lights were back. He heart clanged against his ribs. "I'm coming back, Adrian!" Help or no, he was going back, because if they were going to die, it would be together!

Richard pushed off the wall and went running again, trying to figure out his way back to her. When he got to the end of the hall he stopped, wondering if he had turned himself around again. Then his breath hitched: on the wall, painted in crimson, was a glass box containing an emergency axe. He angled his elbow and plowed it into the glass, shattering it everywhere, then he took off, axe in hand. Ten minutes later he found the stairs again, only this time it was drowned in rushing aquamarine water. He slowly marched down them, holding the axe as though a sea monster might pop out to attack him, and nearly stopped breathing when he pushed forward into the fray. It was so high he had to alternate between using the axe and his hands to pull himself along the pipes on the ceiling because his feet no longer touched the floor.

Several minutes and some dog paddling later, Richard pushed into the holding room again. The water in that room was now mid-waist. "This is the best I could do!"

Adrian eyed him warily. "Heh," she laughed nervously. "Rick, you ever swung an axe before?"

"No."

"Okay." Adrian nodded towards a cabinet. "Why don't you get a few swings in over there to get a feel for it, huh?"

"Good idea!"

As she watched him swing and hit about five totally different spots, she cringed inside. "Well, I'm not sure how many pieces I'll be in when we're done, but why don't you get on over here? I'd rather get out without a hand instead of not getting out at all."

Richard winced. "Do you trust me?"

Adrian sighed. "You know I do." She ducked her face behind the pipe and pressed the chain of her cuffs tight against the pipe. As she watched him raise back the axe she yelled, "Wait! Stop, uh, Ricky…hold it right there."

"Wha – why? What's wrong?"

"Spread out your hands a bit." When he did so, she smiled. "Okay, now remember when I was showing you how to dance in your room?"

"What about it?"

"Think of the axe like a sharp staff."

"And get a feel for it," he nodded, suddenly remember her previous instructions. "Let it consume me." Richard closed his eyes, feeling the weight of the axe bearing down against his palms. It almost seemed ridiculous to bond with an axe, but at the same time, his head was clearing out. He pictured how Adrian had wheeled the staff and imagined himself doing the same with the axe.

"You good?"

"I'm good." He sucked in a final breath as she hid her head again and then he swung down. The hit sounded like a pair of giant jaws clamping onto a bone. When he opened his eyes again he saw no blood. In fact, he saw that he'd hit the mark and Adrian was holding her cuffed – but freed – hands in the air. He dropped the axe onto the desk and embraced her. "Thank you! Thank you!" he said, not even sure who he was really saying it to.

Adrian smothered him in a passionate kiss. Partly happy to be free, partly happy to still be alive, partly happy to be in one piece, and completely happy to be with him. But reality set it not a moment later: "We have to get out of here!" She grabbed the axe and pointed it towards the door. "Go!"

Richard darted out into the hallway and stopped so suddenly that he felt Adrian walk into him. His face drained. "That's the way out." The problem was that it was also surging with water.

Adrian looked down in the opposite direction. "Improvise!"

"I did all the improvising last time," Richard said. He pushed through the water behind Adrian, trying to keep talking so he wouldn't stop to think about how he was starting to freeze from the outside in. "It's your turn!"

Adrian grabbed onto the railing of a staircase and used it to pull herself up. "I'm working on it!" The metal cuff on her wrist alternated between clanking and grinding against the railing as she climbed. When she got to the top, the water was no longer covering her, but instead up to her ankles. She looked up and down the hallway and then decided to go left because the water seemed to be flowing right. "This way!"

Richard swung up behind her and followed at her heels. Soaking wet and running seemed to be even colder than being in the water itself. He breathed heavily onto his vibrating hands. "Do you have any idea where we are?"

"Absolutely none." Adrian raised her axe. "But I guess we're about to find out!" And she slammed the axe down against a wall. "I'm improvising a short cut!"