On the 108th anniversary of the Carpathia's return to New York with the survivors of the Titanic sinking, here it is: the culmination of Corrine's ordeal, the rendering of her fate.

But this is not the end. Oh, no; there is still a story to tell.

Random note: there's a blink-and-you-miss-it Rose reference in this chapter.

Corrine lay across the thwart in the swamped boat, staring up at the heavens. The stars whirled above in the ebony sky, oblivious to the human suffering below. She had never seen them look so sharp and cold.

She was past shivering; her body had become numb, almost warm. Despite the miserable conditions, she felt sleepy and comfortable.

The other occupants tried not to jostle her, but they were too close to death themselves to try and lift her out of the freezing water. So she lay there, and in her half-dreaming state, she remembered snatches of a song she had heard in the days before she left Southampton. Its haunting, melancholy lament had so moved her that she sought it out at every opportunity, and now she hummed a few bars of the refrain:

Last night the stars were all aglow

Last night I loved, I loved you so

My heart was glad for you were near

I held your hand and called you dear, my dear

And then the stars grew dim and cold

The moon grew pale, my heart grew old

My dream is o'er, to live no more

Last night was the end of the world

"Harry," she murmured. "Harry..."

The little boat, its sail filled with the brisk morning breeze, was moving along at a nice clip now - they must have been making almost five knots, estimated Seaman Joseph Scarrott. And the sky was slowly lightening. Although he was grateful he was alive to see another dawn, Scarrott knew that the shouts and moans of the dying would haunt him all the rest of the days. But he had done his duty, done what he could for them, he told himself. He had gone back with the rescue boat, anyway, and for that he could hold his head up high.

Nobody spoke much. There wasn't much to say, was there? The men - and one woman - they had picked up from the freezing waters lay on the bottom of the boat, and the crew tried to keep them as warm and comfortable as possible. But now it was time to head back to the raft of boats they had left behind, the ones with all the women and children, and see what there was to do for them. Only God knew how long they would be stranded in the now-empty sea-

Wait. He thought he had seen something in the water. He squinted. It almost looked like a piece of wreckage... but then he saw arms waving frantically. He hailed the officer - Lowe, he said his name was - who was fixing the sail, and pointed. His eyes widened, and he immediately changed course to head toward it.

As they approached, he saw that it was a boat, and the choppy waves were occasionally sloshing over its sides. "Are you all right?" Officer Lowe shouted to them. As he pulled along side the floundering vessel, he scanned the passengers intently. The distressed occupants pleaded with them not to add any more to their already heavy load. Nodding curtly, he agreed, his eyes constantly roving over faces, as if searching for something, or someone. One of the women in the boat thanked him for coming back to save them, and Scarrott realized that this was one of 'theirs', and it must have somehow come loose from the rest of the flotilla. The officer realized it too, and his shoulders drooped, just for a heartbeat. Then he tossed a rope to one of the men manning the oars, and told him to tie her up to them. The women in the boat cheered as Officer Lowe set off again, collapsible in tow. Scarrott was glad they could help a fellow group of survivors. But he noticed that the officer still looked disquieted, and his focus was not on the horizon - where salvation, if coming, would appear - but on the sea.

Olaus Abelseth looked down at the woman beside him. He wasn't sure if she was still in the land of the living. He watched the air above her mouth... yes, there it was: a cloud of breath in the chill early morning air.

He didn't know how she had made it through the night. She had been too weak to stand with the rest of them... and no one had the heart to throw her off, even if she had been dead, and even though they desperately needed to lighten the weight of the unstable craft. She had fought so hard to stay on with them, as others weakened, froze, and fell over the sides of the boat, to float away or sink into the depths. There were only two women left now, and the men had become protective of them, as best they could in these circumstances, anyway. The other one was standing, hugging everyone she could reach. Was it the comfort of human touch, at a time like this, that she needed? Or their warmth? Maybe she had lost her mind. Whatever the case, the men did what they could for her - and for each other, for that matter.

But there wasn't much anyone could do for the young lady who lay across the thwart. True, she was partly out of the water - but she was also partly submerged, too. The water level had steadily risen all night, and now it was about even with the wooden braces, maybe a little higher. If she wasn't able to raise herself from that position and stand very soon, she would die, and that was a fact. He had seen it happen already to others, ones that were much stronger and bigger than this frail young woman.

"Harry..." she whispered.

There it was again. The poor lass had been calling for this chap Harry all night long. Likely he was some lost love who went down with the ship. Well, she didn't need to know that.

He bent over her, careful not to splash water onto her already-wet face.

"Yes, miss, Harry is coming. I'm sure he'll be here very soon." He tried to brush the hair from her forehead, but it was frozen to her cheek.

It was the only comfort he could provide to her, the final bit of kindness to ease the last minutes of a dying girl.

Irene Harris, in collapsible D, had never been so happy to see someone in her life.

That man, the officer, had saved them - not once, but twice, in the same night. She was sure that her boat would have been lost in the sea, and perhaps even swamped by the poor souls in the water, if he hadn't found it and taken command of it before the ship went down. The men at the oars in her boat were positively useless. She could have done a better job - and did, as more than once she had stepped up to an oar herself after the other boats had cut them loose. She wasn't sure why they had been freed - the confused calls back and forth, the darkness, and over all of that, the screams of the dying, had traumatized them all so much that they didn't even know which end was up anymore. And then, after they had been set adrift, the waves started kicking up, and soon their little boat, without direction, without the strong presence of that young officer, began to wallow. When she saw a boat with its sail up, coming toward them, she thought it was a dream. Who has a sailboat in the middle of the Atlantic? her addled brain wondered. But then she realized it was just another lifeboat - only this one was commanded by a real sailor, not the incompetent fools in her boat. She recognized him as the officer from earlier, and shouted her thanks at him for coming over to rescue them. To her immense relief, he threw them a line and towed their soggy little boat behind his.

Daylight had finally come, putting an end to their interminable nightmare at last. With the dawn came a sight she thought she'd never see again: a ship, a small one-funnel steamer to the north. The occupants of both boats cheered loudly once more, and began arguing over what to do: should they approach the ship, or wait for it to pick them up? The officer sternly told them, "I am in charge here, and we will go to them." So he tacked his little sailboat in the direction of the steamer, dragging her collapsible along behind.

They were within half of a mile of the ship when she spotted something truly terrifying. It looked like about a dozen or so people were standing in the middle of the open sea! How could those people be alive? What were they standing on? One woman cried out, sure that some trick of the devil had caused the Titanic's funnel to emerge from the watery depths with the ghosts of its passengers aboard. She rolled her eyes and told the ridiculous woman to hush. She could hear them now - they were frantically shouting for help. Instantly, she felt the boat change direction, heading toward the desperate group.

Olaus, who was waving his arms and shouting with the rest, paused for a moment. He turned to the woman on the wooden board beside him and shook her shoulder. "Miss, we're saved! There's a lifeboat coming for us. See?" He lifted the top half of her body off of the thwart, propping her up in his arms. He pointed at the lifeboat rapidly approaching. "She's going to take us off, and you're going to be nice and warm, and then you'll find your Harry. Come on, then." He continued to hold her up, murmuring encouragements, for several minutes. She never responded. He looked down into the poor girl's face. It was white with cold, and her eyes were open, staring unseeing into the sky. He couldn't feel her chest move.

Gently, he laid her back down on the thwart.

"The woman goes first!" Officer Lowe shouted. He was barking orders, preparing his boat for the new load of survivors and warning the occupants of the swamped boat not to rush his or he'd throw them over the side. Scarrott lifted the woman bodily in his arms. She was so cold that her limbs weren't working properly, and when he set her down in the boat, she collapsed at the bottom, her head hitting the gunwale. He scrambled over and righted her before turning back and tending to the others.

They were all in pretty bad shape. He had never seen such a sorry lot - well, maybe the ones they had pulled from the water in the wee hours, but this group seemed little better. Apparently they had spent all night in that freezing little boat, the water steadily rising, with no hope of salvation. And yet they held on, persisted, and now, at least, they stood a chance, thanks to luck and the officer's skill and bravery. Once again, his chest puffed as he thought of the role he had played in helping others that night.

One by one, the survivors - all male now - were helped into the boat, where the crew did what they could for them. Finally, the last one was transferred over. Officer Lowe, who was back near the tiller seeing to the passengers' comforts, called out to the waterlogged group and asked if there were any more.

"No more, sir, only a few bodies," one shouted back.

"Bodies? Are you sure they're dead?" he asked.

"Quite, sir. They've been dead for some time now."

"Check them," he ordered Scarrott.

Scarrott peered into the bottom of the abandoned boat. The bodies of three men lay almost submerged at the bottom. A smaller body - a woman's? - lay across a thwart near the stern.

"What about the woman?" Scarrott called back.

A Norwegian immigrant spoke up. "Sad story, that one. She expired just as you began sailing for us. She fought so hard, too. Kept calling for a 'Harry' all night - I think it was the only thing keeping her alive, really."

To Olaus, it was as if the young officer had been shot from a gun. One instant, he was standing beside him, and in the next, he was leaping over thwarts and dodging through survivors. To Irene Harris, drifting along the port side of the sail-filled lifeboat in Collapsible D, it looked like he was flying, he moved so fast. Scarrott, who turned around to check out the commotion, saw him tear off his cap and greatcoat as he reached the bow and toss them aside before he leaped into the nearly-submerged collapsible.

Only two thoughts consumed Harold now: he had to get to her, and she had to still be alive. He sloshed through the freezing water, heedless of the instantaneous pain in his legs, the way it snatched his breath from his body. There she was, lying so still across the thwart, her right arm tucked under her head as if she were sleeping, her left trailing in the water. He had been screaming her name, but his voice caught in his throat as he approached, and he choked on a sob.

"No!" he wailed, and the agonized sound sent chills through the survivors in the two boats. It had seemed to come from deep inside of him, a raw lament that had no end.

He scooped her up in his arms, lifting her from the icy water. "Wake up, Corrine. It's me, Harry," he pleaded. "I've come back for you, like I promised." Desperately, he pressed her frozen body against his, rocking her gently in his arms. "Please, Corrine. Wake up. Come back to me."

He rubbed her arms, wrapped his body around hers. "Come on, darling, wake up. I'm here now. All is well." His voice broke, and his shoulders shook.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," said a voice filled with regret. Scarrott, the seaman, had waded out to assist, but now stood helplessly beside the devastated officer and the lifeless girl. "She's gone, sir."

"No," Harold whispered. "No."

He wouldn't put her down. He insisted on carrying her body back to the boat. The other passengers watched the sad procession in stunned silence. They weren't quite sure what they had just witnessed, or who she was, but from the naked anguish on the officer's face, it was apparent that that this girl's death had broken him. The seaman led the way, head bowed. The girl was clutched tightly in the officer's arms, her head lolling to one side. Gently, so gently, he set her down on a seat. Someone came up and wrapped the officer's discarded coat around her; another person took off a blanket and, still shivering, laid it on her shoulders. The officer gently chafed the girl's frozen hands. "Come back, Corrine. I'm here now." His voice was a whisper, a plea, a prayer. He touched his forehead to hers. "Please..."

Cold.

So cold.

But more.

There was something... she needed to do something. Say something. She should get up, she should-

She couldn't move, couldn't see. Something pushed at her consciousness, refusing to let her sleep, to sink back into oblivion.

A voice. She knew that voice.

Who...?

Harry.

She felt him, his breath on her face, his arms around her...

He was here. He was really here. Right? This wasn't a dream.

Slowly, she opened one eye, just a sliver.

Harry.

She needed to tell him... needed him to know...

Why was he crying?

"Harry...?" she breathed.

The officer didn't hear her. But Scarrott did.

"Sir," he said urgently, and shook the officer's shoulder. "Sir, look! She's still alive!"

He opened his eyes and stared incredulously at the girl.

Faint, so faint that he almost missed it again...

"Harry... "

He began kissing her forehead, her cold cheeks, laughing and crying all at once.

"Harry... You came back..."

It was too much for the young officer. He finally broke down entirely, giving in to the sobs wracking his body, as his world slowly came back to life.

Historical note: all of the events in the chapter that don't directly involve Corrine really happened. After cruising around the wreckage looking for survivors, RealLowe's boat picked up Collapsible D in tow and also pulled all the survivors off of the waterlogged, nearly submerged Collapsible A. There's a very well-known picture of 14 arriving at the Carpathia, mast up, dragging D behind it. Most of the people in 14 are survivors of A. Lowe is pictured standing at the tiller.

"Last Night Was the End of the World" was a song written by Andrew Sterling and Harry Von Tilzer, and published in 1912. I found the lyrics particularly fitting to Corrine's and Harry's plight - and to the fate of Titanic generally.

Song inspiration: Rescue – Lauren Daigle. OMG, do me a favor and go listen to it. It fits this chapter eerily well.

I would freakin' love reviews on this chapter, since it was my favorite one to write :) But I have one request: if you do, please don't spoil the ending for anyone that may come after :) Thank you, lovelies!