So sorry this took so long to post, I've been really struggling with how to handle all of the stuff that's going on. I think I've rewritten this chapter about a dozen times and I'm still not very satisfied with it. But I hope everyone likes it : )

BTW I haven't been saying THANK YOU for all of your GREAT reviews! You guys know I love you, but there's nothing wrong with me reminding you: )

Enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 50

Brigit dressed me in a simple black dress, pulled my hair back with a silk white ribbon, and led me outside to the gardens, where the sun was shining brightly and there was a sweet cool breeze that smelled like flowers coming in from the river that was behind the house.

"Here you go miss; you sit here and get some sun and air. I have some chores to tend to, but I'll be back shortly, all right."

I nodded and watched her walk away and head back in doors.

I had to admit that given what had just happened and the way I was feeling, it was nice to be out in the fresh air again. I felt better, but it did nothing to make the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach go away. Russia? Granted I may have been born there, but I did not remember it and I did not speak one word of Russian. I decided that probably wouldn't matter considering that I probably wouldn't be let out of the house the entire time I was there, and I had no way of knowing how long that would be.

I looked around the garden and saw the flowers were already starting to bud and come out of their winter slumber. Pretty colors of purple, red and yellow were brightening up the dour colors that winter had left.

I sighed heavily and turned my gaze up to the sky when I heard footsteps from behind one of the hedges. Curiosity getting the best of me, I got up from my spot on the bench and went to see who it was.

To my surprise, I saw Richard Sheffield, my grandmother's chauffer sitting on another stone bench, his face buried in his hands, crying.

"Richard?"

He looked quickly his brown hair falling over his eyes, "Miss Sarah, oh, I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean-"

"No it's all right." I replied approaching him. I sat down next to him, and gingerly laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"I was just thinking about Hannah."

"Hannah?" I replied, not quite understanding why he would be thinking about her, and then I remembered, and felt horrible for forgetting. Hannah and he had been in love, very much in love from what I can remember. "I'm so sorry."

He sniffed back some tears, trying his best to put on a good front, but it didn't work. He began to cry openly, right in front of me, but I let him. In fact, I wrapped my arms around him and let him cry into my shoulder.

"She was so young, so beautiful…it's just not fair."

"I know, I know." I said in a comforting tone.

He pulled away, "Did she say anything about me on the trip?"

"Of course she did, she missed you dearly."

"She did?"

"Yes, yes she did. She talked about you all the time." I said indulging a little bit. It seemed to make him happy though, so I didn't regret it.

He smiled, "I was going to ask her to marry me." He said and fished inside of his pocket and pulled out a simple gold band with a small diamond in the center. It was very pretty and quaint. I smiled at him.

"She would have adored it."

"She was so excited about leaving; there was no fear in her at all, if she had just had some, maybe she wouldn't have gone. Did she even try to get on a boat? All of the papers keep saying that there weren't enough boats for everyone."

"I wish I knew what happened, Richard, but I don't."

He nodded disappointment surrounding him, but then I noticed that next to him was a folded up newspaper.

"Is that today's paper?" I asked.

He shook his head, "It's from a few days ago, my cousin in New York sends the papers from there to me-"

"May I see it please?" I asked suddenly full of anticipation.

He nodded, and hand reached over and handed it to me. I opened it to the front page and noted the date; April 24, 1912, evening addition. I skimmed down to what I was looking for:

In day six of the inquires into the Titanic Disaster Mr. H.G Lowe took the stand and gave his testimony. Recounting the night's events, he explained how he was woken from his sleep a half an hour after their collision with the Iceberg…

I kept skimming the paper for what I wanted to find.

…Mr. Lowe told of his daring rescue of passengers from the water…called to the stand next…

I shook my head. This just did not make any sense, Nan had told me that the scandal with Harry and I had made the evening edition of the papers, this did not even mention my name.

"What is it?" Richard asked.

I set the paper down in my lap, "You said that your cousin sends you the papers from New York?"

He nodded, "Yes, he does."

"Do you have any others?"

"Yes, more just arrived to day. They're in my room; do you want me to go get them?"

"Would you?"

He nodded, "I'll be right back." I watched him as he ran off towards the side of the house where the servant's quarters were located. I was on pins and needles until he immerged a few moments later carrying a stack of newspapers with him. He laid them between us on the bench and offered to help me to go through them.

"What are we looking for?"

"My name, if you find my name just…just tell me."

"Alright."

And together we began to go through the stack, most of what I had were from days where I had been in the room and I quickly cast them to the side.

"Wait, I found it!"

My heart dropped and I felt as if there was something lodged in my throat, "You did?"

"Yes," he leaned towards me and read what he had found while he followed it with his finger,

… Miss Sarah Wilkes, granddaughter of former New York Senator, Jared Wilkes, was scheduled to speak, but was excused due to illness, she is currently residing at her home in Philadelphia.

"That's it?" I asked.

"Yes, were you expecting something more?"

I looked at him and then back down at paper, realizing that I had been lied to, she had lied to me. Not only had she been treating me like a prisoner, but also she had been throwing salt on already painful wound by telling me that the whole world thought I was worse than some woman of the night. Why would she tell me that if it wasn't true?

I realized that I was partially to blame; after all, I just assumed that after what had happened in that courtroom that the whole room would know and eventually the world. I then caught myself in mid thought, why didn't they know? Obviously they did know, but why wasn't it printed in the papers, usually the press would be all over something like this, but it seemed that something or someone had put a stop to it. Who though?

"Grandfather." I said, smiling to myself.

I said good-bye to Richard, telling him that if ever needed to talk to anyone, I was here and made my way back up to the house. I did not know what I was going to do, but I knew that I needed to confront Nan with the knowledge I had just obtained.

I walked up the back steps and into the conservatory. I shut the glass door carefully behind me and made my way through the sunny room. I walked out and was about to go up the back staircase when I heard voices coming from the sitting room. I am not one to eavesdrop, but something drew me towards the doorway, causing me to hear the conversation with great clarity.

"Hailey, I am not your garbage pail! Why do you keep sending your problems my way? First Corynn and Jonathan, and now Sarah-"

"Have I not made myself clear? She needs to get as far away as possible from that boy."

I peaked in through the crack in the door and could see Aunt Isabel's tall form pacing back and forth across the room. I had only seen her twice before in my whole life, but there was no doubt in my mind that her and Nan were sisters. Isabel was younger, and there were still traces of dark blonde hair in her gray bun. She was very beautiful, but I had never seen her like this before.

"Yes, you've made yourself perfectly clear, but what are you going to do if I refused to let her come back to St. Petersburg with me. Serge and I have raised our children, we have grandchildren, and we do not need a burden like Sarah in our home. We our acquaintances of the Dowager Empress herself, the mother of Tsar, if word about Sarah being in our home would get out, we'd never be able to show our face in polite society again."

Nan sighed heavily from her spot on the chaise. "You have nothing to worry about, Jared made sure that no one other than the people who were in the courtroom found out about her and that sailor." She shook her head, "For once in my life I'm grateful to him, but." She eyed Aunt Isabel sternly, "Sarah knows nothing of this. I have her thinking that the whole world knows and she's in a state right now where she can be easily molded into what she needs to be."

Aunt Isabel threw her hands up in the air, exasperated. "If I were you I'd just let that sailor have her and that be the end of it. They obviously care about one another."

Nan face quickly went from a normal tone to a deep red. In a fury she stood up, her jaw and fists clenched in anger, "NEVER! My granddaughter has the blood in her of the rich and powerful. She was more beauty and grace than any princess and I will not let all of that go to waste so she can be the wife of a man who stinks of the sea and forces her to live in a mud hut in some country like Wales!

"She will go to Russia with you and you will find her a husband, one of the imperial court if you have to. Yes, that would be lovely, my granddaughter a Russian Grand Duchess, imagine what the women here would think of that. I'll be the talk of the town…"

I could not hear anymore. The whole conversation was nauseating. I felt more betrayed than ever, wondering how and why she could something like this to me. Never before in my life had I dishonored her and I could not understand why it took only one thing to have her turn against me in such a way. However, maybe all along she had been this way, after all look what she had done to Aunt Ruth.

I moved away from the doorway, but was caught off guard when I heard their voices become louder as they moved near the door. I quickly slipped in through the doorway behind me that opened to long hallway that led down to the kitchen. I pulled the door shut as quietly as I could and waited, all the while praying that they did not discover me.

Luck was on my side though and they soon were gone. Taking a breath of relief, I opened the door and was just about to dash across the hall to the staircase when the dong of the doorbell stopped me. I heard footsteps coming down the hall and I quickly shut the door.

I could hear the front door open and the house was suddenly filled with the murmur of voices. I could then hear Nan move down the hall and past my hiding spot. She greeted the guests and I could then hear them move into the parlor. I opened the door a tiny bit just to make sure that my path was clear before I finally escaped across the hall and up the stairs.

Once I was safely back in my room, I locked the door and fell back into a chair, the events of the last few hours finally settling in. So Nan really wanted to get rid of me, even if the papers had been talked into not reporting what had been said during Harry's testimony. Still her threats and her anger had not dissuaded me from loving him. She could hate me, she could send me to Russia, and she could make me marry some crusty Old Russian Duke if she wanted to, but I would never, ever stop loving him.

I missed him so much I ached from it. My eyes began to water as I thought of the last time I saw him. I closed them tightly and saw his warm eyes staring straight at me. He pulled me into his arms and I could feel the warmth of his body against mine. Then we were pulled apart; viciously ripped away from the other's embrace by Nan and her contempt for anything or anyone that was not worth as much as she was. She was angry and had every right to be, but that gave her no excuse for lying to me the way she had. There was no way of telling how long I could have gone without knowing the truth. I'm sure she would have never told me and she has so many people around me under her influence that I'm sure that it could have been a great while, if ever, when I found out. I was so thankful to Richard; I did not know how I would ever repay him for what he had done for me.

Then there was Grandfather. Now more than ever I felt so horrible about the way I had thought of him over the years. He had, essentially, saved my life. I hoped he knew how thankful I was to him for that. Hopefully, someday soon I would be able to tell him. I could only hope that right now, wherever he and Harry were that they knew I missed them both and that I was so grateful for what they had both done for me.

It had been two weeks. Two weeks since I had last seen Sarah, held her in my arms, kissed her, told her I loved her, two weeks since our world had come crashing down and she had been ripped away from me. My arms ached at the thought and I crossed them together as I leaned up against the window in Senator's Smith's office in Washington DC.

It was raining, hard, and it fit my mood perfectly. I had been kicking myself ever since that day for not running after her, for not fighting harder. To add to my misery, when I had woken up that morning and come across the paper, I saw that it was the 9th, and I realized it had been a month since Titanic had left Southampton and I had come across her on the Boat Deck and a month since our moon lit walk on the deck where I really got to know her.

I closed my eyes, holding back my anger and tears. Today, more than anything, I felt as if I should be near her. Something just told me that she needed to me. Early this morning I had woken up suddenly, feeling as if I was caught in a nightmare. She was screaming and sick, I couldn't get to her, but I could feel all of the pain that was in her.

I damned Hockley and his deceitful and superficial mind. When Lights came up to me not long after Sarah had been dragged away accompanied by Hockley's brother, Taylor, and told me what he had done to Wilde so he could get onto a boat I was beyond livid. If I had been able to I would have ripped him apart, but unfortunately the coward was nowhere to be found at that moment.

In my anger I had wanted to get him back the same way he had gotten me and embarrassed me, but Mr. Wilkes convinced me otherwise. Being a former senator, he still had great respect for the United States Government and he wasn't about to let anyone take advantage of it again.

"There are other ways to punish him for his actions." He told me.

At first I doubted him, but took it back when I found out the next day that he had personally contacted all of the major newspapers and used his influence to make sure that there was no reporting what so ever on the incident that Hockley had created. Besides the people who had been in the room that day, no one else would ever know what had been said, and I couldn't have been more thankful, I was glad Sarah's innocence was still intact, at least for the public and it had foiled Hockley's plan, at least from what we knew of it.

And now the second part of our plan was being put into action. Mr. Wilkes' and I had arrived at the senator's office only 20 minutes ago, but I was already filled to the brim with anger and apprehension.

"Harry, will you sit down. Everything is going to be fine, the senator and I are old friends and trust me, he's just as upset at Stan Roberts as you are."

I turned to Mr. Wilkes, "I doubt that." I told him coming away from the window.

He sighed irritably, not that I could blame him, I hadn't been the most pleasant person recently, but I had to give both him and Lights credit for putting up with me, hell even Taylor had been cordial. Even I admit I was overly hostile to him when he approached me, along with Lights, that day of the hearings that everything had gone to hell. But after listening to what he had to tell me about Hockley's little act with Mr. Wilde just minutes before the ship went down. I could only hope that little girl he used somehow found her way back to people who actually cared for her.

"If you want to resolve this situation, I suggest you have a better attitude. No one ever got anywhere by being pessimistic." He replied.

""None of this should have happened in the first place." I mumbled.

"I agree, but as mad as you are, you can't blame all of it all him."

I paused, looking over the old man in front of me, daring to ask what had been lingering in my mind for days, "You're not as upset as I thought you would be about…about well what happened."

He nodded, "No, no I'm not."

"Why is that, if I may ask?"

He sighed deeply and re-crossed his legs, "I guess I already knew. Well, I didn't know, but I had a feeling."

"And you're not mad?"

"I'm disappointed, but I am not and won't be mad at you. I am many things, but a hypocrite is not one of them. I enjoyed the company of a woman before I was married, and even though she ended up becoming my wife, that still is no excuse."

I nodded, my mind, for some reason, going back to when I was 17. I had been out on my own for about 3 years then and I followed some of the seaman out to a local pub in Sydney. I didn't have a single drink, but she sure had. Her name was Dorothy, and that was the most I ever learned about her. And although it was my first time, it was surely wasn't hers. I'd never regretted anything more in my whole life, except for maybe…Rose. But with Sarah everything had been different, I wasn't going to act like a saint, there had been others between Dorothy and Sarah, but none of them ever came close to making me feel the way that Sarah had.

She was gentle and considerate, when she told me she loved me, I believed her. A look on her face or simple touch from her could bring me back down from any level of anger. Above all of that though, she gave me a reason to get up in the morning because I knew that the harder I fought for her, the closer I would come to her being next to me every morning and knowing that she was safe and sound where she belonged, with me.

"The important thing is that we get this cleared up before Hailey does something hotheaded."

"Hotheaded?"

He nodded, "Like with Sarah's parents…Russia, God Almighty…"

"Russia?"

"Yes, Russia. Sarah told you about that, didn't she? After Hailey found out about Corynn and Jonathan she-"

"Who?"

He looked at me, eyebrows raised, "You have no idea what I'm talking about do you?"

"No, I don't."

He shifted in his seat, looking around the room, "Well I suppose this is as good a place as any, take a seat, son."

I did, sitting next to him and then listened as he began telling me this story that would rival any play Shakespeare could pen. I found it hard to believe, incredible even, that Sarah and George were the progeny of two people who acted so immorally.

"So she just sent them off to Russia?"

He nodded, "She said to avoid the gossip, but it was obvious she supported them and it hurt Ruth a great deal."

"I can imagine." I paused, then looked back at him, "Why didn't Sarah tell me?"

"She only just found out herself. Hailey had lied to her for so long about what her parents were really like that she was obviously shocked."

Now I was confused, "Why is she being so hypocritical? You did everything in your power to make sure that no one found out about what happened between Sarah and I. There's no gossip to be afraid of, she's got no reason to be as upset as she is."

"Yes, I know that. I think it has to do with you and the fact that you aren't-"

"Rich. It all comes down to money doesn't it?"

He nodded, "Yes, it does. I want you to know Harry, that money or not, I intend to help you in anyway that I can. As I've said before, you're a good young man. You've worked hard for what you have and above all your priorities are in the right order. You and Sarah make a fine couple and I know that you'll take good care of her."

"If we ever get to that point, it doesn't seem like that will be anytime soon."

"You need to be patient, George and Taylor know what they're supposed to do and they will take care of everything. They'll inform them about what Cal did and we can only hope that Hailey sees the error of her ways, and if that doesn't work, well…George knows what to do."

"I hope you're right."

"I've never been wrong before and I don't intend to start now."

And with that said the door to the office opened and Senator Smith appeared. Mr. Wilkes' and I found our composure and stood to greet him. When that was done we all took our seats and began to discuss Senator Roberts.

"Well it seems that not only did Mr. Hockley pay the senator a generous sum for his attack on you, but there was also a bit of blackmail involved as well. Apparently the senators wandering eye has found its place in other bedrooms besides that of his wife.

"You know Nathan, he knows everything there is to know about everyone. He's used that piece of information to get a lot out of Roberts over the years. Nothing we can prove, but the rumors of tax evasion, forged documents and such are too hard to ignore. The senator is currently being investigated by a group of us, Jared of course we'll keep you informed every step of the way."

"I'd appreciate that."

"Now, Mr. Lowe, an apology is in order for both you and Ms. Wilkes. Flashing your personal life in front of a room of people like that investigating what we were was highly inappropriate and if there's anything that I can do, please let me know."

"Thank you, I'll keep that in mind." I responded.

Senator Smith smiled at me, "I expect that you'll be at the British Inquiry in a few weeks."

"Yes."

"When do you leave?"

"Next week."

"Well I have no doubt that this incident is not something you'll have to worry happening a second time."

Mr. Wilkes nodded, "I agree. Now as for the younger Mr. Hockley's actions, will charges be pressed?"

"Oh yes, as soon as the paper work is finished the proper authorities will be in touch with him. Don't worry Jared, we've got this taken care of."

"I'm not worried about that. I just still can't believe he would do this to my granddaughter."

He nodded, "I know, but we intend to make sure that nothing like this happens again. When you see her, do give her my best, and my apologies."

They continued to talk, but I fell back into my own world. It was only two days ago that I found out I was leaving, all of the crew was. And it made me even more upset to know that I was leaving her. Short of kidnapping her, I could find no other solution for insuring that I didn't lose her. Mr. Wilkes' way was fine, if you were patient, but I was running out of time. All I could do was pray that another solution presented itself and soon because I had a bad feeling that if I didn't get her soon, I would never be able to live with myself.

Sorry if there were any typos, I posted this at 1:30 in the morning and read it over as best as I could, but you know me : ) HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Chapter Title Inspired by 'Bring me to Life' by Evanescence