Author's Note (ItFeelsSoWrite): In lieu of a sobering quote, I'd like to take this time to direct extra credit to Whedonite, who wrote a majority of this fantastically frantic chapter. Much like the events unfolding, our fast-approaching finale is almost nigh. We thank you for setting sail with us, even knowing how history goes. Because it really is the journey; the story you tell along the way.

04/15/1912 12:30 A.M.

The walk alone back to her stateroom was one of the longest Naomi had ever experienced. Though she cleared each step at a brisk pace, her mind was racing ever still, all the while she seemed to be doing so through murky water. Frozen water. Another frightened chill cascaded down her spine as she made her way to the hallway she and Fredrick shared. And she found herself pausing in the midst of her urgency. Just for a moment. For she realized this was going to be a defining moment in her life, for the rest of her life, and it was about to go to hell in a hand basket. Only the thought of Emily allowed her to turn the knob and face her...former...fiance head on.

Maybe if I get it all out as fast as I can it will be easier. Rip the seal from the wound.

Storming through the door, Naomi was surprised to find both her mother and Fredrick in the sitting room of the lounge. But her shock was short lived as she began rambling off as fast as she could. "Emily's been arrested. We have to get her released. It's been an egregious misunderstanding." Fredrick remained immobile, as if the news came as no surprise to him. His eyes flickered down Naomi's frame just once before his jaw tightened. Naomi turned then to her mother who was clearly still waking up from some sort of medicated daze, no doubt she had been asleep moments before.

Shutting the door behind her, Naomi urgently approached Fredrick as she continued, "Emily and I were above deck. Together. And yes together in the sense that you always feared, in the sense that you somehow always knew that my peculiarity wasn't just a buck against society. I'm willing to admit that aloud and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Freddie, but there isn't the time to discuss any of it right now. We saw the ship hit an ice berg. An iceberg the size of Bristol itself." Taking a long inhale, Naomi continued, her pitch and pace increasing the more terrified she let herself become by her own words, "We followed the captain down to his quarters and we overheard them say the ship was going to sink." Still Fredrick remained immobile, nothing about his demeanor or expression changed apart from the onset of tears on the brim of his eyes. Naomi tried to ignore them, angered by his stoicism in the face of what she was telling him. "Why aren't you saying anything? Don't you understand? The water is freezing and there aren't enough lifeboats on this ship, half the people here are going to die, and I can't let Emily be one of them!"

"Emily's been arrested?" Gina chimed in.

Freddie stared down his fiance, the haunted look on his face was so unfamiliar to Naomi that it caused a slight tremble to wade through her. It was as if he hardly knew her. But you've known Freddie. You've known all along. We were both just too afraid to admit it. You wanted to love me too much. She was about to speak her mind when Fredrick cleared his throat, and stared down at the table beneath them, clearly unable to look at either of the two women in the room as she finally said,

"Gina, a crew member stopped by before you woke. He told us to make our way to the top deck. I didn't want to go until Naomi returned. No one had seen her, you see, and I didn't want to disturb you until it was necessary. It is now necessary. Go and find your coat." Gina stared between her daughter and future son in law for a moment, assessing but not fully acknowledging the situation before she disappeared into the bedroom. As soon as she was gone, Naomi took a few steps closer to Fredrick, urgent, worried fear settling between them in spite of her persistence.

"You're not going to-"

"Take. Off. My. Clothes," Fredrick demanded in the coldest tone she had ever heard him use.

"What?" A tear fell from Fredrick's cheek as his hands ripped the coat from Naomi's shoulders. "Stop it, Freddie, stop it!" she cried, practically petrified of what she knew he would find if he searched his pockets. As if summoned from the ether through thought alone, the drawing fell from where it had previously rested, quietly to the ground like a gun shot. Kneeling slowly, Fredrick picked up the foreign piece of paper. "Freddie-" Naomi spoke his name with a drape of futility because once it was opened, there was nothing Naomi could say. This wasn't how she wanted him to find out. Fredrick was a good man. It wasn't his fault Naomi was who she was. She wanted to sit down and console him, tell him it was better this way, before they married and ruined one another forever, perhaps with a hopeful goodbye that would lead to friendship down the line. Not like this. Not in some rush of life or death bete noire. But she couldn't hold back the crack of a sob as she watched his face break and fall as he opened the piece of parchment and examined it. "Freddie..." she tried again, but was just as stilled as before.

Fredrick placed the coat he had removed from Naomi's back onto the sofa, draping it over the part where Naomi had recently rested her head. He then folded Emily's drawing twice over and placed it into his inner breast jacket pocket. "What are you doing?" Naomi demanded, "that's mine you can't-"

"Wrong, Naomi. Wrong. I can." Freddie's cheeks were stained with tears now. It was baffling. Naomi had never seen him like this. It was the first time she understood the gravity with which he loved her. It just made this harder. Trying to take a breath to calm her hysterical nerves which were fraying finer and finer by the second, Naomi added,

"We can talk about this, Freddie, we can just-just help me get to Emily. If they came by wanting us to go top side then you know I'm telling you the truth, the ship is sinking." Freddie's gaze didn't falter from hers for a moment and just as he opened his mouth, Gina entered from the bedroom. Neither woman could find anything to say. Eerily, Naomi just...knew her mother had figured enough of it out, pieced it all together.

"We should go," Gina stated. And to Naomi's surprise, Fredrick added,

"Yes. We should," as he crossed to the door and held it open for them both. He allowed Naomi to step through before he followed behind them, not taking time to worry about the lock. Naomi was about to turn left to head below deck but Fredrick turned right, to go up.

"Wait, no, we have to-" Fredrick pointed down the hall, his eyes burning as he zeroed in on Naomi and said with a calmness that curdled Naomi's blood,

"This. Way." Naomi looked from Fredrick to her mother and back again.

Get mum to a lifeboat. Then I'll worry about Emily. Even if he won't help me. Conceding that at least for a moment there was nothing that she could do, and that she wouldn't stray far from the steps in the mean time, Naomi took her mother's arm and followed down the hallway, Fredrick two or three strides ahead of them.

12:50 A.M.

The top deck was filled with people, and while most of them appeared to be first class passengers, with the engulfed life belts completely covering the torsos of many, it was very difficult to tell which class was which from the faces alone. It won't matter before long, Naomi thought as she heard the cranks and turns of one of the life boats beginning to lower itself into the water below, replied with the cries of women and children not wanting to be removed from the arms of their husbands and fathers.

As they were passing another patch of people, Naomi heard an older woman cry, "I will not leave my husband! We are old, we've lived our whole lives together. He is mine and I will stay with him." Naomi stopped, halting herself and her mother in their tracks as Fredrick continued forward to search for a less crowded group. She watched as the elderly couple embraced, the man crying into the woman's shoulder to get on the boat, begging her not to stay. But she merely pressed his head into her breast and folded him against her as she moved out of the way so that a few more women could get on the boat.

Naomi knew then she didn't have a moment longer to waste. Every second she spent above deck, Emily was somewhere far below. Perhaps already in danger's way. Emily was her choice, and if the ship lowered itself into the Atlantic beneath them then...No. Can't think like that. Not right now. Turning to her mother, Naomi opened her mouth to say her goodbyes and to beg her mother to follow Fredrick to a life boat, but her mother beat her to the punch. "I'm not getting on," Gina insisted.

"Mum!" Naomi cried, trying to push her forward.

"You're going to go find Emily. And I'm going to help these men get women who have longer lives than mine onto these life boats. This is my Bohemia, dear. Let me live it." Naomi's bottom lip trembled as she wrapped her arms about Gina, pulling her close in the last embrace she knew they would ever share.

"Mummy, I-" Naomi whimpered, but Gina wrenched them apart, draping her hands lovingly over her daughters freezing cheeks.

"None of that. Go find her. And you both get to a lifeboat. Quickly now," she kissed Naomi's forehead firmly before she spun her around and pushed. Naomi's eyes shut as she stumbled forward, just for a moment,in an incoherent sob before they opened and guided her toward the steps, unable to look back.

Thank you, mum.

1:00 A.M.

As she charged down the steps, narrowly knocking over a few rising first class passengers, Naomi recognized a familiar voice. "Mr. Andrews!" she called. He didn't immediately turn to her as he was giving a nearby chambermaid a set of instructions, but on her second call of "Mr. Andrews!" the handsome, pepper haired man faced her, his smile at a gracious half and his eyes vacant and desolate. Naomi observed the lumbering grief with each step he took toward her, her heart breaking for the new friend she made, and was certain would lose if he kept up this endeavor of aiding the crew in their duties. But as his trembling hand clutched her arm gently, she knew his fate was sealed in his mind's eye.

The artist would be lowered beneath the ocean's surface with his beauteous creation.

She would have reached to hug his neck, but his stance lowered to her height as he wrapped his fingers lightly across her elbow and whispered in urgency, "Miss Campbell, you need to get above deck."

"Yes, I know, but-"

"You remember what I told you about the life boats?" he added, the caution in his voice only serving as a momentary balm to this brand new wound. Gently removing from his arm, Naomi placed her hands on his tall shoulders in order to aide him in focusing on her question.

"Mr. Andrews, where would the Master at Arms take someone under arrest?" His mouth gaped in an open 'O,' wholly aghast, but she merely squeezed his shoulders as she asked, yet again, "Where?"

"Miss Campbell-"

"I'm doing this with or without your help, Mr. Andrews," she said, her words defiant but not harsh at this point, "but without will take longer." Like the clock on the wall above the grand staircase which he had fashioned, Naomi watched as the hands within his mind ticked through which answer he should give her. Naomi's thumbs stroked the fabric of his jacket, beseeching him to answer her plea. The precious seconds which ticked away proved effective as with a heavy sigh, Mr. Andrews took her by the hand and led her toward the nearby staircase. Once they were at the top he instructed as clearly and precisely as he could,

"Take the elevator down to E deck, take a right, a left and down the long corridor."

"Thank you," Naomi said in a rush but before she could tear herself away from the man completely she heard him say in the saddest, most hallow voice she was certain had ever been spoken by another human being,

"I'm sorry I couldn't build you a better ship, Naomi." She paused for a second to place a quick kiss on the man's cheek and whisper,

"Good luck to you, Thomas," before she peeled down the stairs in a sprint.

As she raced through the debriefed course Mr. Andrews had given her, she passed by first class people who were still leisurely pacing the corridors. They were shadows now, not just in her haber-dashed mind but of this vessel as well. And Emily would be too if she did not find the-

-turning the last corner at the end of the hallway she spotted the lift, gated doors wide open. With no one to run the manually operated elevator. "Dammit," she mumbled to herself, stepping into the vacated box and reading the convoluted instructions just above the pulley. She pushed several buttons and turned the handle, but the most she could do was cause the thing to rattle a bit.

Relinquishing it as a waste of time, Naomi decided instead to look for the nearest staircase that would take her farther below deck. Luckily there was one nearby. Flying down one set of stairs only led her to another corridor. Which led her round about in a zig zagging pattern through the mostly deserted hallways. A few passengers were still scattered about, trying to figure out how to maneuver without there being some person who could speak their native tongue to guide them. A long corridor led her down B deck to its staircase. A shorter corridor led her to C deck and then to its adjoining staircase. She was breathing hard, perspiration seeping into her very skin as she found the entrance to D deck. She nearly collided with a family of immigrants who were trying desperately to translate an overhead sign to figure out how to make it to the top deck. She wanted to stop and help them, but the damp floor beneath her let her know she didn't have that kind of time.

A large ruckus from nearby, which was unsettling at best, was met with the large clanging of metal to metal. Wheeling around a corner, Naomi saw three stewards dressed in white standing behing a locked metal gate, blocking the entrance up from "E" deck. Men, women, and children were screaming to be let up. To have them a fighting chance. Scared to death of the water which the few who spoke English were bellowing was looming beneath them and slowly rising.

Naomi flushed herself against the wall, her heart hammering as her mind started to race.

Goddammit. Goddamit, goddammit, goddammit. That means they'll have cut off all the exits. Emily's trapped. I have to find a way that's open. Rushing past the top of the stairs as quietly as she could, she followed the arrows just above her head which would lead her down into E deck. Every staircase she came to was blocked off with the same damning black iron gates. She felt a sob start to take hold of her chest as hopelessness began to invade the strain of her efforts.

She was speeding through so fast that she almost missed it. A hanging axe in a case. Naomi's face broke into a tremendous smile as she picked up a nearby, discarded shoe and with all her might brought the heel slamming down into the glass, shattering it immediately. She yanked the weapon away, and descended down the nearest staircase. Using the momentum of her run to help her, she brought the axe down between the iron bars, severing the lock which held her at bay.

A joyous cheer erupted from the back of her throat as she began to head further down the stairs. But it was short lived as she saw how far the water had already started to rise. Taking a deep breath to brace herself for the oncoming cold, she took the final steps down and let out a shriek as the water came up immediately to her waist. Gripping hard to the axe, she managed to slowly push herself through the freezing onslaught, all the while, muttering through chattering teeth, "I'm coming, Emily...hang on...I'm coming..."

She was all alone. Had been the moment Mr. King had undone her cuffs, only to wrap her wrists about the nearest low-hanging pipeline to refasten them. He had muttered something about returning later on his way out, but his hesitation in the doorway and the hollowed look in his eyes as he glanced back at Emily suggested not even he believed the words leaving his mouth. He had to have known, somewhere, in some capacity, that the chaos just beginning to take hold on the ship was more founded than unfounded. Maybe he didn't know that he was locking her up to drown, but he didn't know if he wasn't, either.

"Mr. King! Please!" Emily had begged in one last breath of futility, but the words served more as a whip than a snare, sending him off like a startled beast in the haze of his doubtful guilt, leaving her free to do nothing else but familiarize herself with her tomb.

The room was set up as an office, a large, heavy oaken desk the centerpiece of an otherwise sparsely-furnished box of a room, only a cabinet and a few holding trunks lining the walls. From Emily's view of the single port window, she could physically watch the passage of time as the dark night sky slowly began to drown, the waters of the Atlantic lapping up against the double-thick glass until there were rivulets beginning to seep in from the seams. Emily couldn't bear to watch the water, but it would not be ignored. Wherever she looked wouldn't matter shortly; the icy waters did not need to be seen to be felt.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Emily began to summon up the faces of everyone she had ever loved. Admittedly, and despite her reckless abandon, Emily had always imagined she would die in the company of someone who mattered. In that someone's absence, it was hard to prioritize who to say farewell to first. It took the icy chill of the Atlantic seeping into the soles of her shoes to stop the rapidly spinning wheel on what would have to be the first goodbye; time was no longer a luxury.

Katie. You were right. I guess goodbye really was goodbye . . . I don't regret going. I just . . . wish I could have made you understand. Shown you everything that you'd never see. Share my life with you like I always wanted, not how you felt we should. It would have been a waste to take the same path . . . but I guess you'd argue this was a waste, too. I tried to make it back to you. More than anything, that's what I want you to know. She didn't have much faith in God; to love herself and to love him seemed an impossible and needless trial, but she was not arrogant enough to believe she had generated her own luck these two decades past. Opening her eyes to the ceiling, she willed her thoughts to carry on the bitter wind. She wouldn't make it to America, she accepted that now, but maybe her thoughts would. Katie had never had difficulty reading them before.

Her feet had numbed in the time it took to sign and seal her silent prayer. Glancing down, Emily could see why. They were completely submerged now, the clear water lapping at her ankles. She could feel the physical divide between her dying and agonizingly alive nerves, the icy pains strongest in her calves despite the water's current level. Turning her eyes to the desk, Emily shuffled a rough 130 degrees around the pipe, grasping at it for balance as she lifted a shaky leg to step up on the smooth surface. The chain of her handcuffs screeched against the metal of the pipe as she hoisted herself up completely, sitting on her haunches to keep the wet from her shoes away from the rest of her otherwise dry body. The ice in her legs shifted to static fire as they began to warm from the effort, causing Emily to wince as she tried to put her mind back to farewells. Unfortunately, the eerie calm she had managed in the face of death had washed away with the first chilly breath of the approaching reaper.

Fiance . . .she would have sobbed the word if it were spoken, but it instead ricocheted in her head until everything but the thought of Naomi was torn to shreds in its wake. I never got to say goodbye to you . . . let alone Mrs. McClair. Talk about last words. Suddenly, Emily could not find the point in saying goodbye. What she thought didn't matter. Everything she was to anybody, everything she'd remain to be . . . she'd made all her choices, said all her words. Nothing she could think in her last moments would comfort them. There was only herself left, the rising water at her feet the sand in the last turn of her hourglass. She didn't know if heaven existed elsewhere, but she knew exactly where to find it within herself.

Closing her eyes, unable to resist noting that the rising water was now halfway up the desk, Emily pushed away everything else but the words that had given her heart wings to soar:

"When the ship docks, I'm getting off with you."

"Emily."

Emily's eyes opened as the faint, almost ethereal sound of Naomi's voice filled her head. She held her breath, perking her ears for a repeat of the sound she wasn't sure she had heard or imagined. Nothing but the rushing waters and ghostly creaks of the straining ship answered her and so she closed her eyes again, Naomi's face coming alive in technicolor against her eyelids.

"You're giving up now? When I am finally yours?"

Naomi's voice filled her head again, Emily very nearly opening her eyes to search for the woman once more, but squeezing them shut in favor of hanging on to the figment in her mind.

"Naomi . . . What can I do?" she startled herself in speaking aloud, not realizing how dry her throat had grown in its unuse.

"Say something."

Emily's eyes snapped opened, a fight welling in her chest akin to the drive that had spurred her to follow the tear-stricken Naomi the night of their meeting.

"Naomi! Naomi!" she bellowed at the top of her lungs, hearing her voice reverberate against the walls before dampening in the carpet of water now overtaking the top drawers of the desk she squatted upon. "Anyone! Please! I don't want to die! Naomi!"

She'd know that voice anywhere. She wanted to know that voice for many evenings past this horrific one that lay out into the stretch of a black void. And so she turned another corner, attempting to follow the repetitive cries of her name, but there was still too much echo within the confines of the soon to be watery, steel grave. "Emily!" she cried through nearly frozen teeth, just as her feet fell on some more manageable floor. The water submerged to just below her waist as she pushed through harder and harder. "Emily!"

"In here!" she finally heard in desperate answer. "Here!" and finally the loud clanking of metal to metal. That she could follow, it didn't reverberate into nothingness. With a few more pushes, using the axe which she had kept within her grasp to pendulum her way through the torrential barrier, she managed to burst her way through a nearly closed door, and found Emily inside, perched atop an almost floating desk like a terrified kitten.

With each step Naomi took, she spoke in a hurried flash, "I was trying to help, honestly, I don't think of him that way anymore, please, Emily, believe me, I was trying to make sure they'd let you go, I only want you, I couldn't-I couldn't leave without you."

"You're real!" Emily laughed, a hint of hysteria in her hoarse voice as she beamed at the sight of a smiling Naomi, tears falling freely from her relieved eyes. She'd wipe the chilly tracks away, but another jingle of her handcuffs brought their attention to their next hurdle. Shifting her weight better to brace herself, edging her body as far away from the lip of the desk as possible, Emily held on to the merry swelling in her heart, letting it deafen her to the risky proposal she would soon present to Naomi. "I know! Naomi, I know - but you should have! Come on, we don't have time to waste." Separating her wrists as far as her restraints would allow, Emily pulled the chain linking the cuffs as taut as she could against the pipe. "Have you swung that thing before?" Emily asked tentatively, eyeing the axe trembling in Naomi's frozen grip.

Through trembling lips, Naomi replied, "I, uh, broke the lock on a gate upstairs but I think that was sheer terrified luck."

"Well I think we're owed some more," Emily responded resolutely, motioning with a jerk of her head for Naomi to settle into a swinging stance. The fear in Naomi's eyes remained solely there as she approached with no hesitation, squaring her feet against the suck and pull of the currents beneath her, testing the heft of the axe above her shoulders. Her eyes zeroed in on the mark Emily presented and while Emily was thankful for her haste, there was one last thing she wanted to say while she still had all of her fingers in tact.

"Naomi," she beckoned the woman's blue eyes to hers. "I trust you."

Naomi bit the bottom of her lip as her gaze fell from Emily to the thin metal target before her. Emily's head ducked behind the pipe to be out of swinging range as Naomi held her breath and brought the axe down onto the rings with all her might. There was a large clash as the blade pierced through the handcuffs and Emily's arms fell free. The minute Emily's limbs were loose, both erupted a simultaneous relieved and joyous cheer at Naomi's success. Naomi dropped the axe back into the depths of the water, relieved to no longer tote its heft as she wrapped her arms around the woman in front of her. She kissed at the tear stained cheeks briefly before she grabbed the smaller girl's hand. "We have to go, the water's almost passed over the far end of the deck. I don't know how much longer before the gate I burst through is flooded."

Emily slowly lowered into the water, swearing loudly as the freezing cold hit the entire lower half of her body. Pushing debris aside every which way, the two of them passed through the opening of the door, only to see a huge push of water start to funnel in from the opposite end of the hallway. "Run!" Naomi cried, and as fast as the two of them could manage, they began their dangerous pursuit through the swelling hallways of the dying Titanic.

Ch. 13 Post Date: TOMORROW 4/14