The hard part begins =/
Still don't own them.
Regina's entire world rumbles and shakes as ice tears through iron, and a crippling sense of panic settles inside her, eats away at every carefully concocted ounce of hope she's been leaning on these last few days, and she loses her bravery, her drive, trembles in Robin's hold and feels him move his arms to wrap around her shoulders tightly, burying her head in his chest as his lips mutter things against her hair. She's sure he's trying to reassure her, he always is, but she can't hear him, all she can hear is the resounding screech of the metal hull of Titanic as it grates against the iceberg.
For a moment, everything winds down, and she turns her head to peek at their surroundings, takes in the blurry faces of sailors as they move about the ship, shouting things and brusquely running past them in their attempts to put a lid on the situation. Their voices are carried away by the wind, and in her mind's eye their mouths move lazily, like a film that's being played in slow motion, and then suddenly they're not, suddenly everything is moving fast, too fast, speeding around her while she remains frozen in Robin's embrace.
"Regina," his gruff voice finally breaks through her haze, and she pulls back to look at him, "I need to go find my son."
Right, Roland, he'll be scared, wanting his father. "Of course," she agrees, shaking her head to bring herself out of her stupor, reaching within her own emotions and reining in the fear as best she can so that she can function, offer comfort to the little boy she's sure will need it more than her.
Roland is with John, snuggled in blankets in their room and trying to put on a brave face, but Regina sees the trembling of his lower lip the second they walk in, feels tears building in her eyes as the little boy runs to his father and says nothing, only clutches him as tight as he can with his little hands when Robin picks him up and hides his nose in his downy cheek.
"Papa, everything was shaking. What happened?" he asks. It's such a simple question, one that they don't have a clear answer to, but Robin tells him what they know all the same.
"We hit some ice, my boy, but it's okay, the crew is all making sure it's safe and fixing whatever needs fixing, we'll be alright."
"Are you sure?" he's so sleepy, so pouty and timid, and then his eyes find Regina, arms reaching out to her without awaiting a reply from his father.
"Roland, can you stay with Regina for a moment? I need to talk to your papa," John says, giving her an apologetic glance as the boy nods, and he and Robin huddle away in the other side of the small room so that the boy can't hear, but Regina doesn't need to be privy to their conversation to know the topic of it, John's grave expression a dead giveaway that Robin is filling him in on what they saw on deck.
"Regina?" Roland's small voice asks from where his face is burrowed into her neck.
"Yes, Roland?"
"Are we going to die?"
That someone so young and innocent has to worry about such a somber prospect somehow triggers her tears, has them sliding down her cheeks even as she puts the boy down on the floor and looks at him.
"Oh, sweetheart, no!" she stammers, holding his face in her hands and landing little kisses to his forehead and cheeks, "everything is going to be fine, I promise."
It seems enough to appease him for now, and he falls back into her arms when she sits on the floor next to him, cradling his tiny form and running a hand up and down his back. Robin is suddenly there, too, sinking to the floor with them and playing with his son's hair to alert him to his presence, and Roland instantly turns and wraps his little arms around his papa's neck, resting his head on his shoulder when Robin stands up and offers a hand to Regina.
"We're going to talk to the crew, see what's happened and maybe help out if they need us to," he tells her quietly.
"I'm coming with you."
"Regina—"
"Robin, I'm coming with you," she interrupts, her tone resolute, booking no argument from him. Robin sighs, gives her a small smile and cups her cheek in his hand, his thumb rubbing over the apple of it, coaxing a tiny grin from her, and then they're moving, Robin leading the way with Roland in his arm and her hand gripped tightly in his free one, John trailing behind them.
When they reach the deck, they realize the ship is no longer moving, and Regina feels the fear creeping back in, a liquid, cold thing around her heart that has her shivering. They stop an officer on his hurried way to the staircase that leads down to the cargo bay, and tell him they witnessed the crash, that they want to help.
"Not to worry," is his automatic reply, "the damage is minor, no need to panic. We've only stopped so that we can make sure there's no more ice ahead. You can go back to your rooms now."
They don't buy it, but nod all the same, let the man scramble away while they look around for someone else who might be more forthcoming with information, but John tells them from his brief experience as a boatswain some years ago, that it's standard procedure to have the crew keep details to themselves when there's a problem, so if they want to find out more, it might be more productive for them to investigate on their own.
"Fine, then let's follow that officer downstairs, see what's going on," Robin offers, and his burly friend nods, then looks at Regina.
"Your friend Ruby, she might have enough influence here to demand some proper reports, maybe she can help?"
"I'll go find her," Regina nods, and then Robin is putting a scared Roland in John's arms, telling him it's just for a second, and turns to grab both her hands in his.
"Ten minutes. Just ten minutes and we'll meet back here, alright?" he tells her, and for the first time since this entire thing happened, she hears panic in his voice, sees the fear in his eyes at the mere thought of being separated, so while that same trepidation is seeping into her as well, she puts on a brave face, tells him she'll be fine, and slams their bodies together for a hurried kiss, no frantic exploration or the delicious bite he always plants on her bottom lip, just their mouths pressed together in a desperate attempt to ground themselves in each other.
All too soon, the moment is over, and she lets go of him at last, running off in the direction of the first class rooms and looking over her shoulder every two seconds, until they reach the landing of the stairs and disappear from her sight.
As she breezes through the corridors, she spots Leopold in his fancy dinner attire and instantly ducks behind a pillar to hide from him, relieved that the commotion seems to have him as distracted as the rest of the passengers and he doesn't look too concerned with her whereabouts at the moment. When he walks hurriedly past her secluded spot and she deems it safe to emerge, she resumes her search, looking frantically around for her friend, until finally she spots the characteristic red streaks of her hair just a few steps ahead.
Ruby is standing in the middle of a hallway on A-Deck in her dinner gown and a thick fur coat, demanding answers from a few crewmembers passing nearby, and Regina joins her immediately, pressing the officers for information, but to no avail, the only sentence they manage to coax out of them is a warning that they should bundle up and put on their life vests, before they walk quickly away.
"They're scared shitless, something is very wrong," Ruby tells her, and Regina nods.
"Robin and I saw the iceberg when it hit, the sound of it colliding with the ship… Ruby, it was horrible. And yet when we asked another officer on deck what was going on, he said the damage was minor. Whatever they're not telling us, it's bad."
"Come on, let's see if I can wrangle someone downstairs into telling me what the hell is happening," Ruby dictates, and they're off to third class, Regina's heart pounding in her chest the entire time.
Down on F-Deck, things are a little less calm, people are being ushered out of their rooms by officers left and right, orders to put on their life vests barked at all of them, especially the women and children.
"You know what would help us move faster? If you told us what the hell is going on!" they hear someone yell, and when Regina turns, she finds Emma scowling at the officer that throws a life vest at her and tells her to just shut up and put the thing on.
"Hey! Don't talk to her like that!" Ruby commands, but the man just walks off, bellowing his orders at the rest of the passengers.
"Where's Henry?" Regina asks.
"With Granny, I'm on my way to find him," Emma replies as she slips the vest on, and they join her, Regina telling Emma what she saw as they move through the crowded corridors.
"Kid! There you are," the blonde shouts when she finds her son in a table at the dining saloon, Granny just a little ways away as she tries to talk a woman into putting on her vest. "Listen, apparently we hit an iceberg with the right side of the bow, Regina saw it happen. Do you remember anything from your expeditions throughout the ship that might help us figure out what the damage is?"
"Not exactly. But there's six watertight compartments in the lower decks. If the iceberg broke through the ship, we can stay afloat with the air pumps, even if some of those compartments are flooded," the boy responds dutifully.
"Okay," Emma nods, "then we're fine, right? Why would they move us out and give us life vests?"
"Henry," Regina interrupts, "how many flooded compartments can the ship withstand without going under?"
"Three, maybe four," he shrugs, "Captain Jones said it can hold up even with five of them under water, but only for a little while."
"So you think the ice broke through and flooded five whole compartments?" Ruby asks, turning to Regina, "No, that can't be… can it? We're on an unsinkable ship, for crying out loud!"
"Doesn't seem that way at the moment."
"So we're sinking?" Emma and Henry ask in unison.
"I don't know, Robin went down to the cargo bay, followed a crew member there to see what he can find out. I'm supposed to meet him upstairs in…" she cuts off as she looks up at the clock on the wall, "three minutes."
"Alright, go, we'll put some order here," Ruby urges, standing up on the table. "Alright everybody, listen up!" she yells, "We have no idea what on earth is going on, but a little protection never hurt anybody, so put on the goddamn life vests while we figure out what's happened!"
Her tiny speech is met with silence, and suddenly Granny is standing next to her on the table.
"You heard the lady! Life vests, now!" she barks, and the last Regina sees of the two women as she leaves the dining saloon is them exchanging small smiles as they hop down from their makeshift podium and start helping people put their vests on.
Regina breezes through the hallways, up the stairs and around the Boat Deck until she reaches the spot where she and Robin were supposed to meet. He's there already, worried and tense, Roland crying in his arms, and as she looks down she sees that his shoes and the ends of his trousers are drenched.
"Robin, what's going on?" she asks, her voice trembling, and he shakes his head, rocking Roland back and forth when his crying intensifies.
"Here, I'll take him," John offers, his face somber as he hoists Roland into his arms and starts humming a tune to calm the boy down. Regina then grabs Robin's hands, looks straight at him, at the fear and gloom in his gaze.
"We saw the iceberg, and I see it in your eyes now. Please Robin, tell me, how bad is it?"
He shudders as he lets out a breath, his hold on her hands getting tighter as he looks at her.
"We're sinking, Regina."
"Are you certain?"
"Yes," he says as he nods, "five of the watertight compartments are already flooded and the water keeps rising, they wouldn't tell me at first, but I... I saw it... the cargo bay, it's... I talked to Captain Jones, he confirmed it."
"How… how long?" she asks, her voice breaking.
"An hour, two at most, if the water pumps buy us any time."
"Okay, then we look for a life boat, the ship has those, right? We can get on one and— what?" she stops when his eyes look down from hers, at their joint hands, his thumb rubbing over her knuckles.
"There aren't enough lifeboats on the ship for everybody."
"What do you mean? Is that even legal?!"
"Apparently it is."
"But—"
"The number of boats only covers half the number of passengers on board."
"No," she gasps, her mind catching up when he finally chokes out the words.
"Regina, half the people on this ship are going to die."