Hi, so here is another chapter and this is the Penultimate Chapter and I hope that you enjoy it. I hope that you enjoy the baby's name as well. I debated back and forth but I think this is the best one possible.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.

And I hope you enjoy this chapter, the final one is coming soon...

Please Read and Review.


Drifting Back

Chapter 14-Always Ready

A baby is born, happy endings are abundant, and our heroes get the ending they so richly deserve. Last chapter to be set in the early 1900s. Smaller Penultimate Chapter.


Her pains started around midnight.

Well, that was when she became aware that they were more than the usual pains. She'd been having cramps all through the winter. It was December now and she noticed that Virginia was just as beautiful in the winter as it was in the summer. There was snow on the ground and it was cold but as Tommy said one morning when she had awoken to feel the chill in the air and her breath coming out in steam, nothing was as cold as the Titanic and therefore it was all manageable.

If they kept the fire burning a bit more than they should have done then she claimed to her father it was for the baby and not for her husband who seemed to sit in front of the warmth until the end of time trying not to remember the night they had watched the ship go down.

That night however the fifteenth of December when the family were getting ready to celebrate Christmas she felt something inside her turn and so she sat up in the big bed that was her marital bed and she put her hand on her large stomach and she waited. She'd been having cramps for a while but this…this was something different. Tommy next to her slept on and she could not blame him. He had taken to helping Theo with his lumbar business and that meant most of the time he and Fabrizio were coming home and falling straight into bed utterly exhausted.

Though it had not stopped them. The second she had started to fatten out Tommy had been like a man possessed with his kisses and his touches and burying his head between her legs whenever she wanted him to. She loved it, she loved him. She loved him with everything she had and though she had been a little bit stubborn about it she found herself growing to love this baby with everything she had in her. The only thing she was frightened off was the pain and that was because the stories that floated around did not do the pain justice. And now as she felt another tremor wreck through her she found that she was really, really afraid of the pain.

"Tom? Tommy!"

"What?" her husband (it was still a really novel thing to say even now seven months later) said jerking awake off the bed and running a hand through his hair and watching her. Isabella felt another pain run through her and then there was a stickiness all around her, a gushing wetness that made Tommy rip back their covers and flip on the small light that was by their bed. Isabella looked down at the water that was all over the bed and she saw him gulp.

"Shit is that…"

"I'd say so yes"

"Should I get Olivia and Rosemary and—OH GOOD GOD WOMAN!"

For she had grabbed his hand as another pain went through her and she had not been gentle.

Serves him right for putting her in this position she thought…admittedly unreasonably but then another agonising pain hit her as he leapt from the bed and went out of the little guest house that they had been slowly turning into a home and up to the big house where her family was, where John could get in the truck and get Helga and Rose and their husbands and where hopefully someone could grip her hand as she laboured to bring new life into the world.

She let out another scream and thought at the very least she was not going to do this alone. As Olivia arrived her hair in a loose night time braid, a dressing gown over her nightdress and Rosemary her greying hair tied back came into the room she thought that at the very least she was not going to do this alone.

That had to be better than what her mother had been through.

This baby, her baby would have a different future than what she had been through.

"Alrighty then" Rosemary said washing her hands in the little basin and wringing them. Isabella who was sure that she was dying thought she looked far too cheerful considering what was happening to her right there on the bed.

"Let's have a look, you out" she said jerking her head at Tommy and if Isabella had been frightened beforehand it was nothing compared to how she felt now. She had known that they were going to separate for the birth, knew that, that was the required thing but now she was scared. Tommy took her hand and kissed it and suddenly she was three on the deck of the Titanic, breathing in the salty sea air mingled in with gentleman's cigars and the world had been full of promise and she had chosen her own destiny on the Ship of Dreams. Ten seconds later she had ran into Jack and Rose and that had been the end of that.

Now she was doing it alone again.

And oh fuck there it was. Sweet mother of God childbirth was painful.

"Out" Rosemary said again and then Tommy was gone. She got one look at his face and Theo standing outside the door. He flashed her a small smile and then he was pulling his son-in-law towards the main house with an arm slung over his shoulder. Isabella panted a little watching the closed door for a second longer than she should do and then another pain hit her. She reached out blinding and she caught Olivia's hand in hers. The older woman who she realised with a jolt to the groin (though that might be the baby moving? What the hell did she know?) had given birth seven times. Jesus how did woman do this more than once?

Two chuckles and she realised that she had spoken out loud.

"You'll realise my girl" Rosemary said with a soft smile. "That once you hold this baby it will all be worth it. And besides…you'll soon realise you want more. Now the good news is this baby seems to want out into the world quickly and I can see the head. So shouldn't be too long now"

Isabella opened her mouth to say that there was no way in hell that she would ever want more of feeling like this and what did she mean she could see the head? But then another shocking stab of pain went through her and she staggered back on the bed screaming and that was quite frankly the end of that. Because there was no time for words when you were feeling like this.

There was no time for anything.


"Sounds like it's taking forever" Tommy mumbled into his coffee. He had barely touched it preferring tea to coffee any day of the week but Teddy had suggested that coffee might help if they were in it for the long haul and Tommy had not the words nor the inclination to fight him on this.

So here he was sitting in the kitchen listening to his wives screams coming out through the guest house and knowing that there wasn't a damn thing he could do to help her.

Twice he had stood up and twice Teddy had put a hand on his shoulder and told him to sit down. Helga and Rose had been called for (both John and Charlie had looked more than happy to get out of the house and go to call them one on horseback one in the truck) and he was being forced to sit there.

"There is nothing you can do Tom" George said reaching for a dark bottle of what Tommy thought was brandy.

"No" he said shaking his head and he thrust JJ Astor's flask at the man.

"There anything left in this?"

"Enough" was all Tommy said. He had been saving it. The flask, the brandy, all of it had belonged to a better man than most (even for a toff) and he thought that the gentle man that had seen his pregnant wife ridiculed by society and who had held his head high through the gossip, who had seen her to a boat and then had helped all the men and woman he could see to whatever safety they could and then had gone and helped the dogs to escape (though what good that could have done he really didn't know) and then had met his maker with a determined air about him would have approved of the last little bit of brandy that he'd had wetting the head of Tommy's soon to be son or daughter.

God he hoped she was alright in there. He didn't know much about childbirth or the nature of it but he knew enough to know that it really, really didn't sound good.

"That girl will be fine" George said and Tommy got the impression he was speaking to both him and Teddy. Teddy who was about to be a grandfather getting a grandchild out of the daughter he had not known was alive until nine months ago. "This child will be fine too. After all, you already carried them off a shipwreck"

There was a point to that.

Their little shipwreck baby.

Things had been better for them all the time. Helga and Fabrizio were happy. Helga pregnant now herself. Jack and Rose the same but they seemed to be taking their time. He should have died on that ship alongside his friends but he was here listening to a woman who should have never have looked twice at him giving birth to his baby.

It was funny how that ship still managed to haunt them.

He dropped his head into his hands and felt another hand tug at his shoulder.

"She'll be fine son" was all his father in law said but Tommy had to wonder weather or not he believed it.

At dawn they found out.

And he should have known better than to ever doubt his wife.

But…you live and you learn.

And he was about to live.


Isabella barely heard the door open.

"Hello?"

"Tom?"

"Olivia said it was over, she said that you had…is that…"

He was pointing at the baby in her arms and she nodded. She was an utter mess, everything was aching and bleeding and she was coated in sweat and some other kind of bodily fluid that she didn't even want to think about but she was holding what could arguably be the most precious baby in the world in her arms.

"I'm well"

"And…" he was watching the baby with the same rapture that she had been watching the baby and she smiled and the baby in her arms cooed a little fingers peeping out over the blanket that she was sure that Rosemary had knitted for her during the months of her pregnancy.

"Come and say hello to your son Tom"

Tommy's mouth dropped open. It was hard to put into words the look on his face in the same way that it was hard to put into words how she was feeling. It was all mixed up into a combination of awe, love, protection, safety, family.

Something that she'd never had before she'd met the man in front of her inching closer with every step staring down at the baby boy that she was holding, the baby boy she had carried off her on that ship, the baby boy that had been created in that golden room where the steam had come off the bath and the golden dress had been crumpled on the floor and the sheets had been rumpled and she had come alive no longer the unloved girl but the woman who believed she was worth more than the lies she had been spoon fed since childhood.

She looked down at her son as Tommy slid around her on the bed trying to get into a position and then finally doing so and she took in his green eyes (the exact same shade as his father's) the dark hair she was sure that he had inherited from her and the chin that she knew was Ismay and the nose that she also knew was Ryan. She looked at his little hands and feet and lips and she thought she even saw some Patterson in there. All of these people had come together to make this little person in her arms and she couldn't find it in her to hate any of them.

"Hello son" Tommy said quietly and she could hear the emotion in his voice. "It's me. Daddy"

She laughed a little as the baby looked at the both of them and she wiped her eyes with the one hand that was not holding her son.

Her son.

God what a strange thing to say.

"I love you" she said laughing a little. "I love you so much"

She didn't need Tommy to say it back. It was enough that she said and with his gentle kiss on her mouth, on her eyelids, on her cheeks and her neck and then on their baby she knew that he was saying it without saying it, over and over and over again.

And it was enough.

There was just one more thing they had to do though.

"We need a name" she said quietly.

"I know" he said looking down at the baby boy and then as he was chewing his lip as if he was pondering something a name came out of him.

"I was…thinking…how do you feel about Jacob?"

"Jacob?"

They had flirted with names for their baby before but Jacob had never been on the cards and now he was here watching her husband who was starting at the baby though his eyes were far off somewhere and Isabella knew where they were.

Titanic.

"You mean after?"

"I know it's dumb" he said quickly "And if you don't like it then we don't have to name him this but…I just…he was a good man who helped me out and I think without him the shock…I think I would be dead. And I know it's dumb and I drank the last of his booze but I was just flirting with the name and honestly Isabella you don't—"

But she had cut him off with a kiss. She tried to say a lot in that kiss that she couldn't (even now) say out loud and he kissed her back and she let him melting like sugar in a sauce pot at his touch even now with her body suffering the aftershocks of birth. The baby…no…Jacob fussed a little as if he was annoyed his parents had taken their attention off him for a second to do something as trivial as kiss and she broke off turning back to the baby and shushing him a little.

"Jacob is perfect"

Tommy kissed her temple again.

"Jacob it is then"

"Can…can his middle name be Gabriel?"

"Gabriel?"

"Well I figured we had someone looking out for us all this while do you not?"

Tommy smiled at her.

"Jacob Gabriel Ryan it is then"

"Yes" she said and baby Jacob shifted a little in his warm little homemade blanket as if he too agreed with his name. The little eyes were clouding over with sleep. She'd already fed him and she too was desperate for sleep.

"Can we wait a few minutes before they all come in?" she asked quietly.

"Sure we can" Tommy said somewhere near her head. "Sure we can Isabella. We can take all the time we needed"

Isabella smiled drowsily.

Time.

Time sounded like the best thing in the world right now.

And they had it.

They had all of it.


And there you go, next chapter will be the final chapter and I hope that you enjoy that to, I will bring it to you hopefully sooner rather than later.

Next Chapter-THE FINAL CHAPTER-It's the 1990s and old ghosts are drudged up and diamonds thrown overboard and a certain explorer has got some news to tell. We finally learn what has happened to Tommy, Isabella, Fabrizio, Helga, Rose and Cora since they survived the Night to Remember and the past was reunited with the present.