Hello, Dear Readers, I am back (and back on schedule as well!). Thank you for reading, for reviewing, and for generally being the most fabulous group of people on the planet ;)

Lowekey (love the name, by the way!), to answer your question, my next story won't be a romance per se. I've got a really messed up heroine in my head that's dying to have her story told. She's pretty much the opposite of Corrine in every way, and she doesn't need a relationship so much as she needs to discover her self-esteem and worth. And she'll get a chance to do that during the sinking (although she may have some help there). The story gets pretty dark in some places as well (although this one isn't always a picnic in the park either haha). But that's still a ways off - I'm not done with #harrine by a long shot!

Sam, I LOVE all your ideas! You really know your Titanic, too! If I weren't already past the sinking, I would try to incorporate some of it (although I still maintain that even if Corrine had seen Smith, she wouldn't have recognized him - she had never met him before, and the only reason she knew Murdoch's name is because Moody blurted it out at the end). But I just couldn't bring myself to write in a suicide, especially Murdoch's, even if it was historically plausible :(And we shall see if Corrine ever gets to meet the Lowes ;)

And Rosie, you already know I can't do this without your immeasurable support! I would totally be lost without you, love! This chapter is most definitely dedicated to you - both the 'light' part and the 'shadow' as well! :)

Corrine was awakened some time later by a knock on the cabin door. It was firm and precise - exactly two raps. She called out for whomever it was to enter, but her voice was still so weak she wasn't sure she was heard.

A moment's hesitation, and then the door opened.

Her eyes widened in shock, and she sat up in bed with a start. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Second Officer Lightoller stood framed in the light seeping in from the doorway. He looked very different from those last terrible moments on the boat deck. She had never seen him without a cap before, and she noticed that his hair was sandy and thinning slightly. He wore a thick dark blue sweater and grey trousers, likely borrowed from some passenger on the Carpathia.

"Mr. Lightoller! You're alive!" she exclaimed, astonishment and something like joy coloring her voice at the sight of the senior officer. Equally as unexpected was the cheery nod he gave her in return, as if he were as delighted to see her as she was to see him. "How... how did you make it off the ship?" she blurted, awestruck. Then she remembered her manners. "Come in, please, come in," she said, beckoning to him.

He closed the door partway, leaving it slightly ajar, and crossed the room in long strides to stand beside her bed. He smiled and raised his hand, as if to ask for her patience. "All in good time, Miss Donnelly. But first - how are you?" His face radiated sincere concern, she noted with some surprise.

She gestured to her body. "I am alive," she said. "For now, that is enough. The doctor says I should regain my entire range of movement, and there seems to be no permanent damage. I'm very lucky," she admitted, her voice trailing off into nothing as she thought about the hundreds who weren't, who had suffered and perished while they still lived.

The memory of that night washed over both of them, and in that moment it felt like the entire sea of the dead was between them once again. She couldn't speak for a long moment.

Lightoller, too, paused, his expression haunted. After a time, he said quietly, "I heard you were able to survive in that waterlogged collapsible - the one that Mr. Lowe picked up."

"Yes. I was... in pretty bad shape at the time, but Harry was able to revive me. I'm told it was just in the nick of time, though. My lungs had stopped..." She paused, struggling, unable to go on. "I don't remember that part, anyway." She gave a choked laugh, waving her hand as if trying to dismiss the ordeal altogether. "I woke up here, in this bed, and that's all I know."

Lightoller had been staring off into the distance and nodding along with her words, and despite his aloof appearance, she could tell that he was listening carefully. But when she finished, he glanced down at her and fidgeted with the hem of his sweater, looking uncomfortable for the first time. "I suppose all this could have been avoided if I had just held that boat a little longer," he said casually.

He looked away from her then, and Corrine surmised from his demeanor that he felt at least partly responsible for her condition. That surprised her, and she immediately rushed to allay his concerns. "You had no choice, Mr. Lightoller," she insisted gently. "Those men on the deck were desperate. One wrong move from them would've buckled the boat, and Harry would have been lost-" Here she stopped, the scenario too terrible to contemplate. "I'm just glad you ordered him to stay put," she said at last. "The eejit was about to jump out, you know." She gave a small smile at the memory.

Her humor was quickly replaced by chagrin, and she bit her lip, blushing at her impropriety in the presence of Harry's superior officer. She couldn't quite believe she was talking to this formerly intimidating man in such a casual way - and offering him comfort, even. But then again, the old rules of formality and hierarchy didn't really matter anymore, at least not to her. The frigid waters of the North Atlantic, it seemed, were a great equalizer.

And it appeared that he felt the same. When his eyes lifted to hers once again, they were filled with relief at her words... and with something else as well. "You almost took a header off that ship after I sent his boat away without you," he said quietly. "And then he organized a rescue effort. Because of you. You know that, right?"

"I do," she whispered, and those two small words, heavy with meaning, hung between them for a minute.

Finally, Lightoller took a deep breath, holding her gaze steadily with his own. "I was... wrong, Miss Donnelly," he finally said, and it seemed as if he were dragging the words out of his chest. "About him, and about you, too. That's hard for me to admit, you know," he chuckled. "But it seems a man can do his duty - and then some - even while romancing a pretty young lass across the Atlantic."

His words - the admission and the compliment to Harry both - stunned her, although she tried to hide it. This was an entirely different man from the inflexible stickler for protocol she had met a few days before. The sinking had not only changed his mind about Harry, it also seemed to have altered his personality completely. This Lightoller was... almost human, she reflected wryly.

That revelation was comforting, and viewing him in this new and different light made what she had to say next even easier. "It wasn't just Harry who saved my life that night, Mr. Lightoller. I owe my life to you as well. If you hadn't sent me over to the starboard side, I never would have been close enough to that collapsible to reach it after I jumped into the water. I would have frozen just like everyone else. And before that, when you threw Thomas - I mean, those two awful men - away from the lifeboat... I think you kept them from knocking me right into the sea." She stared into his eyes, needing him to understand what his actions meant to her. "Even in the midst of all that chaos, you took the time to look after me. I will always be grateful to you."

He waved his hand, brushing off her words. "It was nothing," he said gruffly. "Just doing my duty." He was clearly uncomfortable with the praise, and out of respect for him, she let the matter drop. She hoped, though, that her words would resonate with him later, and that he would know just how much she deeply appreciated what he had done for her.

He took a deep breath, as if he were about to bring up a painful subject, and then surged ahead. "Did you... were you able to see what happened to Will- er, Mr. Murdoch after the boat floated off the deck?"

A sudden sob rose in her throat at the mention of his name, and she swallowed thickly. "The last I saw of him and the younger officer-"

"Mr. Moody," Lightoller offered.

"Yes... they were both in the water... struggling to help passengers into the collapsible..." Her voice broke at last, and she was unable to continue.

He nodded his head. "That sounds like Will, alright," Lightoller admitted with a melancholy smile. Then he hung his head, and kept it lowered for quite some time. She thought she saw tears glimmering in his eyelashes.

"He was a brave man, true to the last," she choked out finally.

"Indeed he was," he replied unevenly. "A real hero."

She laughed through her tears, remembering. "And persistent, too. All the times I jumped out of his boats, and he kept trying to save me anyway."

He met her eyes again at last. "Aye?" he asked curiously, a faint grin on his lips.

"You want to hear the whole story?" she asked.

He nodded.

So she told him of her escape from the doom of the third class by climbing up the crew ladder with her little group. He raised his eyebrows and smiled at that, seemingly impressed, but sobered as she spoke of her frantic search for Harry on the boat deck, and how Murdoch had grabbed her and tried to toss her into his boat on the starboard side. "But I couldn't leave Harry. You understand now, right?" she said, her eyes searching his.

He nodded again, motioning for her to continue.

"So I jumped out and ran over to the port side, where you were loading those boats. And, well... you saw what happened after that," she said lamely. She didn't want to relive the horror and pain of being stranded on the boat deck, watching Harry being lowered to the sea without her. She picked up the thread of her tale at the loading of the collapsible, where she encountered Murdoch once again. She left out the part about seeing the White Star Line executive take her seat, but emphasized that Murdoch tried his best to get her to stay in a boat - only to watch her leave it once again.

"When he next saw me, we were both in the water. I couldn't move, or breathe, because the water felt like knives, stabbing me all over-" Instantly, the air rushed from her lungs and an involuntary shiver wracked her body as she recalled the never-ending agony and unfathomable pain of the ocean's icy grip. Lightoller's face remained impassive, but she thought she detected a slight tremor run through him as well. She took a deep, calming breath and pushed on; he deserved to know that his friend had died an honorable death. "But suddenly Mr. Murdoch was there at my side. He saved me from a man that was trying to steal my lifebelt, and then pushed me toward the boat..." A sob escaped her throat. "I didn't see him again after that," she whispered.

Once again, the room was silent for some time as they tried to process the enormous tragedy of that night. She blinked back her tears, wishing she could have done something to help the man who had given so much to so many.

When she was finally able to look up, she saw that Lightoller had read the grief in her heart, and was gazing at her with kind, sympathetic eyes. With surprise, she realized how easy it had been to open up to him about her ordeal. He was perhaps the only other person she knew who could understand what that desperate struggle to survive was like. She hadn't even told the girls or Harry much about what happened after she entered the water, and they hadn't asked. Maybe, she realized belatedly, it was because Harry in particular couldn't bear to know the details.

"Now it's your turn, Mr. Lightoller," she said gently, bringing them both back to the present. "Tell me how you survived."

So he did. He had been able to cut down the collapsible right after he flipped her over the roof, he said. Unfortunately, it fell to the deck upside down. Then the water surged, and he dived into the sea, only to be sucked down into a ventilator. He was pinned against the grating and was only freed when a boiler exploded deep in the ship, blowing him back to the surface. He was sucked down one more time as the ship sank, but as he resurfaced somehow, he found himself floating next to the very collapsible he had helped to free.

"I had just grabbed one of the ropes attached to the boat when the forward funnel fell. It landed so close to us that I was flipped head over heels by the wave it made, which pushed us away from the ship. After that, I made my way on top of the overturned boat, which had a few other survivors clinging to it. I took charge, making the men stand and shift their weight to prevent the boat from capsizing."

"So you stood on top of an upside-down boat the entire night?" she asked incredulously.

He shrugged modestly. "I did. And as the boat lost its pocket of air slowly through the night, I saw the men fall off one by one..." His voice trailed away.

"They say the same happened in my boat," she said quietly. "Out of around thirty, only about a baker's dozen made it off alive."

"I hear I have your Harry to thank for my rescue as well, in a way," he admitted. "It was one of the boats in his flotilla that plucked us from the water. If they hadn't been in the right place at the right time, we all would have perished."

She gave him a warm smile. "Mr. Lightoller, I am very, very glad that that didn't happen."

He smiled right back at her. "I can say the same to you, Miss Donnelly. I was well pleased to hear you had made it."

"Truly, Mr. Lightoller, after all we have been through, I insist that you must call me Corrine."

He reached out his big hand and took hers, giving it a firm shake. "Then please, Corrine, call me Charles. Well met - at last." And at that, he laughed, a big, hearty booming sound. She joined in, marveling at how this man had become a sort of guardian angel, and, somewhat improbably, a friend.

At the sound of their laughter, the door opened again. This time, Harry stood in it.

The change in the atmosphere was immediate. Lightoller dropped her hand and took a step back from the bed, clasping his hands behind his back. Strange... she almost thought she read a certain level of respect, even deference, in the older man's demeanor that had never been there before in Harry's presence.

Harry nodded at Lightoller, who nodded back. "I was just on my way out after paying my respects to Miss Donnelly-"

"Corrine," she corrected again. She saw Harry's eyebrows raise at that.

"-Miss... Corrine... and now I will take my leave. Cheerio." He went to touch the brim of his cap, realized it was missing, and dropped his hand awkwardly. He maneuvered around Harry and was soon gone.

Harry closed the door, his eyes sparkling with mirth. "He's been asking to see you ever since he learned you survived." He winked at her. "I think he might be a little sweet on you."

For some reason, the thought amused her. "Not likely," she smiled. "We were just trading stories on who had the worst collapsible the night of the sinking." She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Besides, are you afraid of a little competition?" she asked playfully.

He stalked toward the bed slowly. "Oh I don't feel threatened at all," he drawled, deliberately drawing out the thick Welsh accent she adored. He reached the edge of the bed, and his voice lowered to a purr. Corrine had gone very still, and he leaned over her, arms propped on either side of her body, his lips nearly brushing hers. "Because I don't have anything to worry about, do I?"

Her breath caught in her throat as she met his intense gaze. She was head over heels for this man, and she knew it was written all over her face. She tried to come up with some witty retort, but her mind was perfectly blank. Her body, on the other hand...

Oh, she burned for him. She wanted his lips on hers again, gentle but insistent, parting them... and then the feel of his hands roaming her body... She wondered dazedly what it would feel like if he caressed her bare breasts, her thighs, her-

Her ragged breathing gave her away. His eyes, which had been almost closed, flicked to hers, and he pulled back slightly. Taking a deep breath, he gathered his composure. "I think," he enunciated slowly, "that this is not the time or place for us to... act on our feelings."

Coherent thought still evaded her. Even if she had been able to think, she wouldn't have been able to shove words through the heart which had somehow crept up to her throat. She nodded dumbly, not because she agreed, but because his eyes had once again taken on that guarded look that told her the discussion was closed.

Briskly, he said, "Well, my darling, I bring good news." She knew he was trying to change the subject, to distract her. Fortunately, it worked; she pushed down her desire, as well as her disappointment - and slight annoyance - that he still wouldn't kiss her, curious to see what he had to say.

"Dr. Millionaire told me that you are healing quite nicely. In fact, you have surpassed his expectations. I do believe he said you may keep your legs after all - if you get up and start walking."

She groaned and flopped back on the pillow. This was not the good news she was hoping to hear.

"The good news," he said with a wicked grin, "is that I am going to help you. In fact, I swear that I will be glued to your side the entirety of the way to New York." This last was said solemnly, a hand over his heart.

Her own heart leaped at this proclamation. Surely he knew what he was doing to her, right? And with a promise like that, she couldn't refuse. She sighed. "Fine. I will have to dress, though. I can't go outside in a borrowed nightgown. But speaking of, where are my own clothes?"

He waved a hand to the corner. "They've been washed and dried, but the dress you wore that night is ripped... probably happened when you were trying to get in that boat..." His voice grew faint for a moment, then he continued matter-of-factly, "Fortunately, one of the Carpathia's passengers has kindly lent you this." He walked over to the wardrobe and pulled out a green velvet tea dress. She gasped when she saw it. She had only ever seen these types of dresses on first class women, and it looked nothing like her ordinary cotton day dresses. He brought it over to her for inspection, and she fingered the hand-beaded detailing with wonder. "The lady who offered it is about your size," he explained, "and she thought... well, that you might want something nice to wear for the remainder of the voyage."

Her eyes stung, both from the beauty of the dress and from the generosity of a stranger who would offer to let her borrow such an exquisite object. She nodded. "It's... lovely. I would like to thank her in person, if you will point her out to me."

He agreed, and she held out her hand. "Will you help me stand?"

Laughing, he came to the bed. "I'll do better than that," he said, and scooped her up in his arms.

She squealed as he twirled her around once, and she clung tightly to him, face pressed against his neck. He stayed there like that for a moment, as if savoring the feel of her against him, and then he gently set her down on her feet. When she began wobbling unsteadily, he wrapped his hands securely around her waist until she regained her balance. She blushed in embarrassment, knowing her weakness in his presence was due as much to her feelings for him as it was to her physical state. She had known this man a little over a week, and she found that half the time she was still unable to keep her knees from shaking when she was around him.

Now that she was up and about, however, she realized that was in desperate need of a wash. She probably smelled terrible, and dried seawater still crusted her skin and hair. She pulled away from him and laughed self-consciously. "I'd better get cleaned up before I put on this dress, or I'll ruin it," she said apologetically.

He nodded. "I'll give you a moment, then - but only a moment," he teased. Then he eyed the dress again. "Do you need me to help with the corset when you're finished?" He grinned suggestively. "I've fastened a few in my time, you know."

No sooner did the sentence leave his lips than the room seemed to turn to ice. Corrine felt all the blood drain from her face as she stared at him wide-eyed, nausea suddenly blooming in her belly as she realized what that meant.

In all this time it had never occurred to her to wonder about the women that had come before her. And yet, with that one careless statement, he had opened her eyes to her own ignorance. Worse still was the casual detachment with which he spoke, as if these affairs were a commonplace occurrence, which enhanced the queer sense of betrayal she felt. Unbidden questions began stirring in her brain. Who... when... where... how many... She wanted to know...she didn't want to know. The thought of Harry... her Harry... in the arms of other women... Her gut twisted with a sudden stab of jealousy, and she fought for control of her emotions, her vision becoming suspiciously blurry. She had to look away and take a deep breath to hide her devastated expression.

Immediately, he realized the mistake he'd made, and his own eyes widened in horror. "Oh, Corrine, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean... I mean, I never..." His voice trailed off, as if realizing that his words weren't going to close the sudden hole he had opened in her heart.

She forced herself to turn back and meet his eyes steadily. "It's fine," she said calmly. He flinched at the pain reflected in her expression, but she continued, with as much dignity as she could muster, "And to answer your question: no, I don't need help. I haven't worn a corset in two years."

She turned away from his stricken face and made to head toward the washbasin. She staggered a bit but managed to grab the bed frame and regain her balance. When she sensed his approach, she waved him off dismissively. "I'll be fine. Please... just let me be, Harry." She resolutely faced away from him until she heard the sound of his retreating footsteps and the creak of the door as he gently opened and closed it.