Hi, so here is another chapter, so please let me know what you think, we have only five more chapters left of this story so I hope you enjoy. The next couple of chapters will be in Tommy/Fabrizio/Rose/Jack point of view.
All my previous disclaimers about Bruce Ismay apply here as well.
Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.
Please Read and Review.
And we head into some real action now but I just want to say, Titanic 1997 was about Jack and Rose, this story is about Tommy and Isabella, the sinking of RMS Titanic was about 1500 people who died in the waters and the next few chapters will, I hope represent them.
Some Kind Of Tomorrow
Chapter 15-Drag Me (Away From You)
Titanic is sinking fast. There is one lifeboat left. Rose makes a choice. Goodbyes are said and reality begins to sink in.
They ran back up to the deck from the bowls of steerage and in that short amount of time (though it felt like longer—oh how it felt like longer) it was clear that the situation was getting worse. The ship was sinking and it was clear around the passengers that the message had begun to sink in.
Panic was written on many a persons face but Tommy realised that it was only in the woman and children. Most of the men seemed resigned.
Indeed as they forced their way up the stairs past that bloody golden clock and lobby he overheard someone say to a valet that he had 'dressed in their best and were prepared to go down as gentleman—but they would like a brandy' and the thought of it was so absurd that it almost made him want to turn around and applaud the rich bastard because there was a certain style in accepting that you were going to go down.
He wished he could do that but he couldn't. As he ran he had to steel himself for what was coming but he also had to prepare himself for the fight. If he could get Isabella on a lifeboat then one way or the other she was getting on that fucking lifeboat.
Of course he was sure that she was not going to get on without a fight.
After all, that was what he loved about her.
Her fire, her spirit, all the things that he had been so sure her Uncle would kill in her. And that fire and that spirit and that beauty both inside and out was not given to this beautiful woman so that she could die in the freezing cold waters of the Atlantic because her Uncle and his company were too cheep to realise that all life was equal and it mattered and that everyone had worth.
He was not going to let it.
But it was just so fucking unfair.
He had found the love of his life. He had found her in two days on a ship that was supposed to change lives forever not end them. He had found her and then somehow, in a twist of fate that even he was not sure of he had managed to get rid of the class barriers, he had managed to push them aside and break them down and be with her. Kiss her, touch her, be the first for her, love her in every way a man could love a woman and now he was going to lose her after only two days and one long, glorious night.
It seemed impossible to him that only hours ago they had been in that bed together curled up in each other's arms fast asleep, warm and contented with the whole world to play for, everything laid out in front of them and now…
Now he was going to die.
Tommy had never had any issues with his own mortality. He had known how this was going to end up for him a long time ago—when you grew up poor (especially in this century) and you grew up with all the money going to the alehouse (thanks to a father that was never there) you accepted that death was an option. Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, they all had slums, they all had death and disease but this…
He had never considered this. This was the ship that was supposed to be unsinkable and it was going to sink into the coldest water possible with hundreds if not thousands of men, woman and children, all of them innocent on board.
Jack next to him, had Rose by the hand and Cora on his hip and was wearing the same expression. Fabrizio was much the same, they had all come on this ship with next to nothing and they had all walked away with the people they knew that they were supposed to spend the rest of their lives with.
And now…
Now it was ruined.
Now on the cusp of finding something they were to have it be ripped apart.
And it was just so fucking unfair!
The band from the first class lounge was playing merrily and several people had stopped to listen. Most of them were men and Tommy in the two seconds that it took to pass them realised that the band and the men had all accepted that they were going to die tonight and were enjoying what felt like peace before the true terror and panic really did kick in.
"Music to drown by" he muttered to Jack out of the corner of his mouth. "Now I know I'm in first class"
Jack's mouth quirked upwards as if he was trying to bite back a laugh. It was nice to know that there was still something to laugh about when it came to dying.
Isabella's hand was still in his. She had not let go, it was if she did not know how to let go. Tommy did not know how he was going to let go either.
There was a crowd gathered around what must have been a boat and Jack led the charge shoving the three girls (and Cora) to the boat. He passed Cora over the officer and before the little girl could even do anything she was sat on a bench her doll in her hand shivering. She had been crying somewhere between the golden lobby and the cold air and her tears were freezing on her face. Isabella looked at her and realised with a pang that the little girl had not even got a warm coat with her. All she had was her doll.
"Right get on" Tommy said shortly.
Wait…what?
Isabella watched dimly. Helga was being helped on now. She had kissed Fabrizio once and he was smiling at her though it didn't meet his brown eyes. Helga had tears running down her face but she was pulling Cora onto her lap clutching at the little girl as if she was a lifeline. Isabella watched as two other little girls were dumped into their mother's lap as their father promised them that he would see them again.
Only he never would. His wife knew that. And looking at the faces of the two little girls it was clear that they knew that as well.
There was another firing noise and everyone turned around and some people screamed. It was a flare.
Only a flare.
A shot in the dark, a desperate shot in the dark, a bright light that lit up the sky and the sea for a brief second sending out a signal to any ship out there big or small, anyone who could take on passengers, who could take on fifty, ten, two hundred, anything, anyone, anywhere, anytime.
But there was nobody. This was an ocean that was dead, they were hundreds of miles away from land away from people and away from help.
Rose was now being helped onto the boat.
She grabbed Jack's hand but soon enough they too were pushed.
"Yeah her next mate"
And then she found her voice.
"No!"
She couldn't leave him now, she'd only just found him!
"Isabella" Tommy said frantically. His hands found her face and she stared up into the eyes and into the face of the only man that she had ever loved and would ever love who just a few hours ago had been moving inside of her and was now saying goodbye…
"If you love me, if you meant one word of what you said to me then you will get on that boat and I will see you afterwards, please…please just go…just do this for me"
"Madam"
"Tommy I—"
"I love you" Tommy said and then his mouth was down on hers and it was hard and frantic and before she could say anything she was being pulled backwards out of his arms and being dragged forcibly onto the lifeboat.
"I love you" she said to him as the boat began to lower downwards.
"I love you"
"I know."
"Tom—"
"I know darling" He managed to press one frantic kiss on her hand before they were wrenched apart now no longer able to touch. "I know and I will try, as God is my witness I will try my hardest to get back to you"
He did not promise to come and find her when this was all over and Isabella appreciated that more than anything else. The ring of an utterly empty promise might have undone her there and then.
She was pulled backwards onto a hard bench and she found Helga who was sobbing into Cora's shoulder. Isabella looked at Rose who was looking at Jack a dead look in her eye and realised that she was crying too. All three of them had found love and all three of them were loosing it.
God could there be a crueller fate?
Was this what she was given? Two days of love and then never to have it again? Was this what her mother was given, enough to get drunk on it but then to suffer the withdrawals when the man she loved heart and soul was gone?
If so no wonder she had turned her face from the wall and had died. Isabella wanted to lie down on the floor and die right now. There were other, better people who should have gotten a seat on this lifeboat. She should be up there with the man she loved taking her chances like everyone else. Had she been in steerage she would have done.
"No" said a voice to her left.
She turned as Helga grabbed her hand. Cora was still sobbing and Helga was not much better. It seemed at last they both had realised they would never get to see their parents again.
"No" Rose said standing up. "No"
And then she was throwing herself out of the boat.
What the ever loving—?
But the second she thought it Isabella understood. Rose was choosing the man she loved. She was choosing to be with him no matter what in life and in death and she understood. Rose did not even look back she just let herself be helped back on board towards certain death and raced away her red curls though limp and wet still visible as she ran through the decks of the ship towards the man she loved for as long as she had him.
"ROSE!" that was Jack sounding like his heart had been torn out of his throat but Isabella did not care and she moved to stand up while there was still time but…
"ISABELLA! YOU TRY THAT SHIT AND I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS. SIT BACK DOWN WOMAN"
She looked up only to see Tommy (and even at this distance she could see him) leaning over the rails and in dangerous risk himself of falling over.
"I MEAN IT WOMAN, YOU STAY ON THAT FUCKING BOAT!"
"Well really" a woman muttered next to her.
Isabella ignored her she turned ready to jump and…
The boat had hit water.
Rose had gone.
Tommy was gone.
And she was safe.
She was safe. She did not deserve to be but she was and now she was going to have to sit and watch the Ship of Dreams—the man she loved on it—and hundreds of people die.
She put her head in her hands but before she could let herself go she found her face being lifted upwards by a kindly woman who seemed to be in her sixties her own face ravaged with grief.
"Drink this girl."
A bottle was passed into her hands and she forced it down her. It was brandy and it burned the back of the throat off. It was cheap brandy but it did the trick, she could feel the hysteria ebbing away.
"Give it to the blonde girl and the little un"
She passed the bottle wordlessly to Helga who shook her head.
"Helga drink it" she said tonelessly.
Helga took it and had a small sip her hands shaking.
"Cora" Isabella said softly in a voice that she knew was dead—utterly dead and devoid of…anything…
"Cora I need you to drink this, just have a small sip"
Cora eyed the bottle through red and puffy eyes but had a small sip. She coughed immediately but she stopped hiccupping and instead leaned her head on Helga's shoulder and looked at Isabella with eyes that were older than any six year old should have.
"Mama and Papa are going to die aren't they?"
Isabella felt something crawl up her throat and lodge there. She did not know how to do it—how to look this little girl in the eye and give her an answer.
Fortunately she did not have too.
"We don't know that for sure girlie" the old woman said softly. "So we sit here and we pray. You know your prayers?"
Cora nodded.
"Then you stay very quiet and very still and you pray"
Cora nodded once.
Isabella shuddered. She was only now beginning to realise that she had cold. The air was like ice piercing the skin and she dreaded to think what the water was like.
She watched the ship that had been the making of her Uncle's company and where she and so many others had gone for a new life. Where she and so many others had found love and life and laughter and now she watched as people began to scream and she knew she was going to have to sit here with all the other woman in this boat and watch their loved ones die, helpless.
Helga gripped her hand and Isabella gripped it back uncaring. She shrugged off her jacket and wrapped it around the shivering six year old girl who was praying that she would see her Mother and Father again and yet who knew she would not.
She was going to have to sit here and watch Tommy die.
If fate had been any kinder, if she had been any braver she would be there with him, until death do us part.
Isabella looked down at his ring on her finger, at her trembling hand shaking with the terrible, awful, cold and with a horrible emotion racking at her body and mind and thought that if fate had been any kinder it would take her right here and right now and save her from the front row seat she had to hell that was about to happen.
And there you go, I hope you enjoy and I will do my best to bring you the next chapter sooner rather than later.
Next Chapter-Tommy, Fabrizio, Rose and Jack are trapped on Titanic in a desperate fight for survival. And Bruce Ismay commits the ultimate sin.