Hello Dear Readers! Thank you for your patience; I edited this chapter far more than I probably should've, haha, but it's finally done.

To anyone that may have been wondering about the Ismay/Corrine connection mentioned at the end of the last chapter, I alluded to it in the very first chapter, 'The Key'; he was the 'thin, tall' man with the 'well-groomed handlebar moustache' who had sought her out at her uncle's store and offered her a job - 'and most assuredly was not referring to a secretary's job'. Hee hee.

Thank you once again to everyone who has reviewed my little story. I appreciate your kindness and support so much more than I can say, now more than ever. I hate to be greedy, but keep 'em coming :) I would particularly love to hear what you think at the end of this chapter - because we've finally reached our beautiful Titanic's death throes :(


The officer took hold of Corrine's arm and helped her back down to the boat deck. He didn't say a word, but his eyes shone with sympathy for her hopeless plight.

"Mr. Murdoch!" At the urgent call, they both turned around. The young officer she had seen loading the boat next to Harry's was gesturing wildly, his blue eyes frantic. "We need your help with the collapsible on the officer's quarters, sir!"

Murdoch let go of her arm and ran off after him, throwing her one last apologetic look as he went. As she watched them move through the crowd together, she spared a worried thought for the young man, wondering why he was still on the ship. Weren't all the junior officers supposed to be manning the lifeboats, like Harry? She hoped he would be able to find a way off soon.

But was there another way? She looked around quickly. All of the lifeboats - including both collapsibles - appeared to be gone. The crews who had launched them had moved off somewhere else; she didn't see many people left at this end of the ship. The slant of the deck was so steep now that Corrine had a hard time keeping her footing. Any minute now and the boat deck might go under and into the sea, dumping her in the icy water.

She had to do something. She couldn't just stand here and wait to die. Should she jump for it? Maybe she could swim out to one of the lifeboats she was sure had to be waiting nearby. The water here was so close that she could practically step off the deck; the impact would be minimal at this height. She rushed back over the bridge to the port side, since the ship was listing that way and the water would be even nearer. She looked down at the short drop to the icy sea, which glowed eerily green in the lights from the submerged lower decks.

As she stood there, trying to summon her courage for the jump, a man ran from behind her and flew into the water, landing several yards away from the ship. Although he had not leaped from a great height, his subsequent screams chilled her to her bones. She watched for several minutes as the man suffered, his cries gradually quieting, until she turned away in shock and sorrow.

No, she couldn't do it; she couldn't throw herself into the sea. Shuddering from the horror of what she had seen, she turned toward the stern. To her utter disbelief, it was slowly rising out of the water, like some behemoth out of a nightmare. Panicked groups of people ran headlong up the steep incline of the still-lit decks, screaming for help, for a salvation that wouldn't come. For the first time that night, she considered the very real possibility that she could die, and panic welled up in her throat.

She knew her only hope lay in staying dry. A plunge in that water would quickly prove fatal, and she had seen first-hand the suffering that she would endure. She might only prolong her life by minutes, but her instinct for survival overrode her common sense. She began running as well, fighting gravity to try and reach the stern. Maybe... if she were lucky... at that height, she might catch a glimpse of the lifeboats and reassure herself that Harry was safe before she died.

She saw a clump of men gathered around a structure just before the first funnel. Dodging the group, she darted to the right-

- and crashed headlong into Lightoller.

The force of the encounter knocked her to the deck. He loomed over her, staring at her in disbelief, sweat dripping down his forehead and pattering on the deck beside her. Quickly, he helped her back to her feet. "Miss Donnelly," he shouted angrily in her face, grabbing her shoulders, "why are you still here?"

There was no time to explain. "Mr. Lightoller, is there any other way off this ship?" Her eyes pleaded with him for a different answer than the one she already knew.

He shook his head, regret in his eyes. "No, lass," he said. "I'm sorry. The only things left are these damn collapsibles, and we don't even have the proper equipment to get them off the roof, let alone launch them." He waved his hand above him, where several men were scrambling around, trying to free the lashes holding the boat in place. They shouted for his help, and in one smooth motion, he vaulted to the top of the roof and set to the ropes.

Frantically sawing on the bindings with a penknife, he looked down at her, and Corrine saw in his eyes the realization of his own doom. Then he glanced over his shoulder. His brow furrowing, he looked behind himself again as if he were double-checking something, and turned back to her. "Miss Donnelly, listen to me! You have to get over to the starboard side!" he shouted urgently. "Mr. Murdoch is trying like hell to get a collapsible in the davits over there. If he succeeds, you might stand a chance!"

Before he had even finished speaking, her body was in motion. But as she turned to race back toward the bow, she discovered that the sea was already surging over the forward part of the boat deck, engulfing the bridge. Her heart leaped into her throat as realized she was trapped - her only way over to the starboard side was now under water. But more than that, it meant that the end of this magnificent ship - and her own life - was very, very near.

Men near her cursed and kicked futilely at the waves roiling toward them. She looked up helplessly at Lightoller, who screamed, "Give me your hand!" Slipping the knife between his teeth, he reached down to her.

Without hesitation, she grabbed his outstretched hand, and he pulled her up, flinging her past him on the roof. She stumbled once, almost slid headlong down the roof and into the water, but somehow regained her balance. Lightoller was still working on freeing the boat when she took off, half-crawling, half-running around the front of the massive first funnel and over the roof of the slanting building.

She reached the edge of the roof and looked down to the deck. She saw Murdoch and the junior officer pushing desperately at the boat, fighting gravity to try and raise it to the davits. The sight of their struggles, against all odds, hurt her heart. No matter how hard they tried, they were already too late. She could see now that there was no salvation here, any more than there was on the port side.

Suddenly, the roof below her dipped sharply. Clinging to the roof edge, she looked down and saw that a giant wave had swept up the front end of the boat deck, submerging the wheelhouse completely. It was over. The mighty ship was in her death throes... and soon Corrine would join her. She spared one last glimpse over her shoulder, in the direction she knew Harry's lifeboat had gone. Goodbye, she whispered silently. I love you.

She took a deep breath and leaped off the roof into the roiling, freezing water.


The band had finally stopped playing.

Sara Compton supposed the slant of the deck was now too steep for the men to stand. But the sudden silence was the reason she - and everyone else around her - was able to hear the officer's whistle so clearly as he signaled to the overloaded little collapsible struggling toward them.

He coordinated his own flotilla to meet them halfway, and soon the boat had tied up with the rest.

"Right - is everybody all right?" he called out to the occupants. "Don't worry," he reassured them. "You're tied up fast, nice and tight." Some nodded, but most just sat weeping, staring at him, or back at the ship tilting slowly toward the sky. He then rose from his position at the stern of boat 14 and made his way toward the new addition.

He greeted every new boat he had gathered to him in the same manner: carefully assessing each passenger, eyes roaming over every face aboard. It seemed like he was waiting... waiting for something he wasn't finding, because the disappointment was clearly visible in his face. And each time he had finished and returned to whatever task he was attending, his expression became graver - and more troubled.

She knew how it felt to wait for someone who was never going to come. Her brother Alex hadn't been allowed into the boat. For him - and for all those other poor souls still on the ship - the end was very near.


The water burned like flames, and brought a pain beyond comprehending.

For a time, the unbearable cold shut off the part of her brain that told her lungs to keep breathing. She thought for a long panicked moment that she might die like that, drowning above water, unable to take a breath. Finally - finally - she was able to gasp in a bit of air, but the pain in her chest, her arms, on every inch of her skin, continued unabated. Every moment was a torment. Her legs were completely numb; she couldn't feel them at all. Desperately, she tried to move her arms, her unfeeling legs... anything, to keep herself alive. Her lifebelt buoyed her, but it wasn't going to be enough to save her life. She had to move, or she'd freeze to death in minutes.

From the splashing coming from all around her, she knew that others were doing the same. Through intense concentration, she managed to get her frozen limbs to start moving. At first she was just flailing, thrashing the water ineffectually, but soon she felt some feeling return to her arms. With it came cold tingling fire - and the throb in her left shoulder - but at least she could feel something. Her strength and resolve returned slowly, and she leaned forward, using her good arm and her frozen legs to propel herself through the water.

Suddenly, she felt a sharp yank on her lifebelt that very nearly pulled her head underwater. She was spun around by rough hands, which then began fumbling at the straps on her belt. She tried to kick the man off of her, but her numb legs refused to move. She tried to scream, but terror clogged her throat.

He had loosened one strap already. She looked into his desperate eyes, full of pain and fear, and knew his strength and instinct for survival would win out - he would have her lifebelt off in a matter of seconds, and she would die, unable to defend herself or even to stay afloat.

A heavy blow, and the man's fingers on her lifebelt loosened. She watched, curiously impassive, as he fell back into the sea and sank out of sight.

Then she was being propelled through the water somehow. She only knew because the water around her moved; she couldn't feel a thing. "Swim, dammit," she heard a male voice rasp in her ear.

She wanted nothing more than to just float there nervelessly, to give up and let death take her. That was going to be the end result anyway, wasn't it? Weakly, she shook her head at whoever was annoying her. Go away, she thought. Just let me die.

"Live!" the voice grated again. He shoved her hard.

Anger flared in her chest - weak, but still there, still flickering. Who did this man think he was, ordering her about? Why, even her own father couldn't talk to her that way - that's why she had run away to her uncle in the first place! Past and present were merging in her head as she swung around to her da to give him a piece of her mind... but instead, she saw Mr. Murdoch, the senior officer she had crossed paths with all night. His lips were blue with cold, and his hair laced with ice, but he was still doing his duty to the very end - he was seeing to his passengers' needs.

She wanted to thank him, to apologize, but he had already moved off to another woman in the water. Behind him, he saw the junior officer doing the same, shouting at two keening women and gesturing emphatically. She realized that the officers were trying to get them to swim, to go to... something floating a few feet beyond them in the dark. It was... yes! It was the collapsible she had seen them wrestling with on the deck earlier, right before the bridge went under! Hope flared in her chest. The boat represented salvation... a second chance at life. She had to reach it.

Others apparently had the same idea. They swarmed the boat, the strongest swimmers reaching it first and hauling themselves over the gunwales.

"Women first!" she heard Murdoch shout. Even in the midst of turmoil, pain, and death, he was still doing his best to restore order and chivalry. Once again, her heart cracked for this brave and honorable man. And she needed to make certain that his efforts toward her had not been in vain. Slowly, painfully, she began to swim toward the swamped craft.

As she swam, her strength steadily increased. Moving her limbs, having a purpose, was revitalizing her. She reached the boat at last. She grabbed the gunwale with her right hand, trying to pull herself up... and slipped from the side, her numb fingers losing their grip. She tried again, but her left arm still refused to function, and her right could not gain purchase for long. She slipped back into the sea for a second time.

So close, and yet so far. She bobbed in the water for a time, trying to muster up enough energy to try again. This time, she knew the decision was up to her. Everyone had done everything they could for her. Now it was her turn to decide if her will to live, to see Harry again, was strong enough. Was it going to be life, or death?

There was never any doubt - she'd die trying at least. With a mighty heave and the last of her strength, she threw her body at the boat, at the last minute catching her lifebelt on the gunwale. Half rolling, half flipping, she flung herself inside.

Exhausted, beyond cold, she lay panting in the bottom of the boat. Others began piling on top of her, lying across her numb legs, splashing frigid water into her face.


The stern was rising, higher and higher. The lights flickered once, and then went out forever. But the occupants of the lifeboats could all still see the outline of the ship, blacker than black against the stars.

A series of explosions, deep and reverberating, cut through the silent night. Esther Hart covered her daughter's ears as she watched in fascinated horror the final moments of the once-magnificent ship. It rose almost perpendicular to the sky, and seemed to hover there for a moment, suspended in time. Then a terrible crack, a shattering of the fabric of the night, and the stern seemed to right itself. For a moment, a split second, she thought it might float, and all those people left on the ship would be saved... then, with a sickening turn, the stern, too, began to upend and slowly disappear from sight. Within a minute, the monstrous hulk slid into the sea, never to return.

All around her, women sobbed and wailed for their missing loved ones and the terrible loss of life. She looked at the officer in charge of their flotilla. He had turned away from the devastation and closed his eyes, his face a mask of excruciating pain.


They had capsized again.

The boat, unstable to begin with, was constantly in danger of dumping its occupants in the sea. Each time fewer and fewer people were able to drag themselves back inside.

The toppling of the first funnel had almost killed them all. Corrine, who was lying at the bottom underneath several men, had had enough presence of mind to look up just as the enormous structure was collapsing in a rending shriek and a shower of sparks. She squeezed her eyes shut, sure it was going to crush them beneath it. But to her surprise, it splashed down mere feet away, creating an enormous wave that swept their boat away from the ship, but tipped it dangerously close to overturning as well.

Her position on the bottom proved to be fortuitous. The men on top of her were washed out, but the little boat soon righted itself, buoyed by its cork lining. She had managed to stay inside by clinging to a thwart, and she now pulled herself to a sitting position as people scrambled back into the boat. For every one person that fumbled their way to safety, two others foundered right beside, grasping at the gunwales but unable to gather the strength to tumble inside.

She was too preoccupied with trying to remain in the boat to notice the ship had disappeared until someone whispered beside her, "She's gone." Miserably, she raised her head, and saw nothing but the black night - and hundreds of swimmers, some with lifebelts on, some without, all struggling to survive, screaming... praying... crying... moaning.

She put her hands over her ears to muffle the sounds and squeezed her eyes shut tightly as tears trickled out from beneath her eyelids. The suffering around her was unbearable, so much so that she thought briefly of throwing herself overboard to make room for someone else, and to end the agonizing guilt she felt at having found a relatively stable haven in the middle of this sea of misery.

And then the boat was pulled under again. She was pitched out, back into the frigid water... and found that she wanted to live, after all.

By then they had drifted to the edge of the packed crowd, and she was able to swim back to the boat unimpeded. Having figured out earlier that her best chance of success lay in throwing herself at the boat with all her strength, she rested in the water for a minute, conserving her energy and begging her pain-wracked body to endure just a little while longer. Then, with a tremendous kick, she hauled herself upward and thrashed until her upper torso was over the gunwale.

"We ain't got no more room," a man protested feebly, trying to shove her away.

"Sod off, you wanker, she's a lady," another retorted, teeth chattering.

I'm no lady, she thought automatically, then felt a pang of longing twist inside her as she thought of Harry. A third man took pity on her, grabbing her lifebelt and pulling her body into the boat. She swung her legs up and around, and landed on the man with a soft thump.

He grunted and pushed her off of him, but it was done: she was inside at last. Chest heaving with exertion, sodden clothes freezing to her body, she struggled in vain to recover from the plunge in the frigid water, lying back on an unoccupied thwart.

Her face tilted to the heavens. Unbidden, the memory of the night before washed over her: Harry, his arms around her, pointing out the stars, showing her his favorite. "Alnilam," she whispered, searching for it in the black sky. But she couldn't find it - it had already receded into the horizon. It was gone - just like that magical night... just like Harry. Oh, if only she had known how it would end... she would have held on a little tighter... made it last a little longer. She choked back a sob at the thought of everything that had been lost forever, and her heart - the only part of her body she could still feel - shattered in her chest.

As the overloaded boat wallowed almost at the level of the water, she lay there shivering, wishing with all of her broken heart for the one thing left anchoring her to this world. "Harry..." she mumbled, unaware that she was calling his name out loud. Please come, she begged silently. Please find me.

After a short time, the swimmers stopped coming to the boat. Soon, all too soon, the swamped craft drifted purposeless in a silent, uncaring sea.


Murdoch did not commit suicide in my version of the sinking. I know there is significant circumstantial evidence suggesting that an officer shot himself that night, and many people attribute that action to Murdoch... but I prefer to think of him dying the way he lived, doing his duty to the end. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Song inspiration: If I Die Young - The Band Perry