A/N: Before this chapter begins, I'd like to thank Marian Andrews for your reviews on my first two chapters. I'm so grateful someone is excited about my story and you're part of the reason why I continue it! I really hope you enjoy this chapter. I dedicate it to you for keeping me motivated and showing me that I write this for a purpose! :)

12 April 1912

Madeleine Astor was, in Rose's opinion, a flighty, silly girl despite the entire year of life she had on her. She figured her pregnancy—which was the most open secret in all of respectable society that she couldn't fathom why they even pretended by now—only increased such attributes in her until she almost felt that the older girl was a little sister whom Rose had to protect from making a fool of herself.
However, in Madeleine, Rose found (which she could hardly find in anyone else for fear that word would escape loose lips and rumors would spread) a confidante more trustworthy than a personality such as hers would suggest. She knew the burdens of scandal; the glowers of the elite poorly hidden behind garnished glasses, the pleasantries more insincere than the jewels on her mother's brooches and rings, the way they would stand just the perfect distance away to be considered rude, as if one had the plague and they did not want to catch it.
And though the faults she could find in first-class ways of life were innumerable, one useful thing was that with their inclination towards gossip and their insular little world where everybody knew everybody, wanting to know about a person—where they come from, were they respectable, how much money do they have, what muds of scandal have stained their name—was as simple a question answered as any. And because of this, the bruises of a hardly settled scandal on her back as well as her new marriage to one of the wealthiest and most prominent men in the world, Rose could ask Madeleine Astor any questions, nevermind how inappropriate nor improper, about any person with no chances of even a single syllable leaving the four walls of the room in which they sat, curled together like a pair of scheming thieves.

After listening to Madeleine's prattle about high society affairs with a lilted voice and fits of laughter that would have suggested to anyone else that she was of unsound mind—as she supposed was her due for encouraging her to speak indecorously when she was trying so hard to fit in with the decorous—she sat her down and asked for her, with as grave a face as she could muster, to tell her everything she knew about Thomas Andrews.

As could be expected from the girl, Rose received far more than she bargained for: vague details of his family, especially his uncle, some Viscount who was chairman of the shipyard where Titanic was built, his apprenticeship there, his design of the Olympic-class liners, the most luxurious ships in the world, his unusual kindness to the lower classes that made him most famous and concurrently the subject of much suspicion from his peers. Even Madeleine, whose intelligence Rose reckoned went nowhere beyond the books shoved in her hands at finishing school, was able to acknowledge the sheer genius and gentility that seemed to possess the man.

Happy she would have been with just that, as it was more information than she ever expected until she was summoned to Madeleine's suite in the dead of night only to be met with the girl, devilish smirk only exacerbated by the glow of her delicate condition, a large scroll of paper tucked underneath her arm. And even as excited by adventure and contumacy as she was, Rose was horrified to discover that Madeleine Astor had snuck into Mr. Andrews's quarters and stolen one of his blueprints of Titanic, a hand-sketched likeness of her from the port side, every cabin and deck drawn in perfect symmetry and lifelikeness.
She gasped, her anger at her friend melting away into amazement. Besides the world-renowned artists whose paintings she admired in galleries and art shows, this was the most artistically ingenious drawing she had ever seen.

Rather than a simple skeleton of the ship, rather than drawing her to be as inanimate as she was, Mr. Andrews had given her depth, shading; drew smoke flowing from her smokestacks and foam in the undrawn sea surrounding her propellers. He had drawn her as a man would draw a most beloved woman and within an instant, from this and the remembrance of how his eyes sparkled when he spoke of her, she knew that he loved Titanic as he would his very own child. But she was a child of his very own design, changed and improved as he saw fit, and just as much of himself rested in her bulkheads and rivets as would be in his own human son or daughter with his very blood running through their veins, if not more.

It was a depth of feeling she had never seen in any of her upper-class compatriots, as the show of emotions was considered weak and attributed only to those without a grasp on them, and all of a sudden, viewing this drawing—as horrid as it was of her to give any sort of encouragement to Madeleine for stealing it, who stood over her, mischievous lip between her teeth—was like the breath of air she had been longing for since she could remember.

And thus, after bidding goodnight to Madeleine with a sharp reproach which she knew well enough that she hardly took seriously, Rose decided to seek out Mr. Andrews in the morning.

Dawn upon the open ocean, especially when the sun was just peeking over the horizon, was one of the most beautiful things she had ever witnessed. It was times such as these that she wished she still had her canvases and watercolors with her. She had left them behind in England after Cal told her she could either keep her own supplies or get the Picasso and Monet paintings of which she had so often dreamed. Somewhere she figured he would have snatched her materials away from her somehow anyway if she had chosen to be defiant, and so she conceded. It was the first of diktats which resulted in her losing a part of herself like a single chip off a China teacup until she was nothing but a pile of rubble that once made up something beautiful but was useless in its tatters.

The gold satin of her day dress gleamed in the early morning sun and she could not help but admire it, taking in every precious second of her brightly colored frocks before she reached America and was reduced to matronly wear of dull navy blues and purples and blacks, lace collars high and tight and bothersome on her throat.

She could bear the idea if she had been painfully, deliriously in love with Cal, dizzyingly happy at the prospect of marrying him, for what one wears was, in her opinion, a small price to pay for true love. But their love was not true if it was to be called love at all, and she was painfully, deliriously, dizzyingly sickened at the prospect of marrying him, and worse still she had not a say in the matter.

No, she thought. It was far too early in the morning for it to be tainted by thoughts she could entertain once they reached New York and for the rest of her life. Just now, she had a mission, and it was to find the man who had saved her just the night before.
And it was as if the world were showing her a drop of kindness, giving unto her just one thing she wanted, for there Thomas Andrews was, walking towards her with his notebook in hand as always and his pen scratching fast against paper, hardly looking where he was going. Rose nearly figured she had better not disturb him, as engrossed in his work as he seemed, as well as the fear that she would not be able to speak as she wanted to. Knowing all that she did about him now, she discovered he made her rather nervous.

"Mr. Andrews!" She cried, grabbing onto his coat sleeve as he sauntered just next to her.
Already she was off to a poor and improper start.
"Rose! Good morning!" He replied, smiling, placing his pen back in his breast pocket.
She figured she must feel grateful for that, knowing how precious his work was to him.
"Good morning to you, too."
"What are you doing about so early in the morning?"
"Well, I...I just, I...that is…" You fool! "I was actually hoping to find you."
A look of astonishment passed over his handsome face, translated into a raise of the brow and a tick in his jaw. It quickly melted into a smile and he snapped his book shut, tucking it safely under a jacketed arm and gestured his hand before him, inviting her to walk.
"Me? And what could you have to talk to me about, Young Rose?"
He was fooling with her, she knew. He knew just as well as she did that after he rescued her from making quite literally the most unchangeable decision possible, she had plenty she could want to say to him, and even more that she should say to him for the sake of propriety, but she could not bear to bring up such a subject, not yet. She hoped he would allow her that.

"Well, I...I must admit I spoke to a friend last night and she...she seemed to know much about you, and I…" the flush upon her cheeks burned so horribly it robbed her of speech.
He chuckled. "And? Did you discover anything of value? Nothing too terrible, I hope!"
Rose supposed it was better to fib than admit that her friend had stolen from him at her own inadvertent prompting.
She gasped. "Oh, no, Mr. Andrews! Nothing terrible at all! Simply how you began at Harland and Wolff and your designing Titanic. I also heard that you…" Oh, how did she phrase this? God help her. She never had been a good liar, after all, if her excuse to Cal the night previous was any example. "I heard that you were an artist of sorts."
"Well, I'm afraid I must disappoint you on that front, Young Rose. I'm no artist."
"I don't believe you! I had quite a reliable source and I'm very inclined to believe them! Besides, you've already demonstrated yourself to be a very modest man!"
He chuckled, looking to his notebook, stroking the leather with an affectionate thumb, seemingly thinking. "Well, I sketch from time to time. I draw Titanic often, sometimes for architectural purposes but more often simply because she is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and I can't help myself."
A genuine, fond smile stretched on her plump pink lips. "And I assume these drawings of yours are in your notebook?"

He smiled back, lowering his head as if he were shy.

What a wonder! she exclaimed to herself. The Master Shipbuilder, the genius of White Star Line as they'd never known one before, the man whose very hands and brain forged the RMS Titanic, and I, Rose DeWitt Bukater, have made him blush!

"They are," he said with an affirming nod.
"May I…" she reached forward before drawing back again, unsure. "May I see?"
Mr. Andrews's head snapped up, eyes wide, trying desperately not to betray his shock. He stammered for a moment and Rose grew embarrassed at her forwardness. "O-Of course you may, I just...forgive me, I have never—"
"I hope I have not offended you—"
"No!" He exclaimed, perhaps a bit too quickly and vehemently. "No, you haven't. You couldn't. I just...I've never had anyone interested in my work."
Rose smiled and her heart leaped, hearing in his voice the exact sensation of understanding she felt when she was around him, and gratefully accepted his extended notebook.
The privilege of being trusted with handling it was certainly not lost on her.

They made their way over to two lounge chairs, sitting facing one another as the deck began to fill with the lot of first-class having begun to wake and take their morning turns about the deck before breakfast.

The first page he had turned to showed a drawing of Titanic, similar to the one she had seen provided by Mrs. Astor, albeit smaller and less detailed, and yet even still she marveled at it.
A turn of the page revealed another drawing of his beloved ship, only not in an architectural light; Mr. Andrews had drawn her sailing off into the sea, steam blowing back, lights gleaming on the water, people leaning over the railings and watching the scenery of sunset drawn lightly on the horizon which was so detailed the lack of color was insubstantial. Rose spied the date at the bottom just below his elegant, slanted signature: 30 March 1912.

He had drawn this before she had set sail—before she had even had her sea trials!—and from an image summoned by his mind rather than observed by his eyes. Somehow this drawing, poetic and lyrical in its own way, was far more impressive to her than the one Madeleine had shown her of Titanic and her inner minutiae broken down and divided like the organs and systems of a human body, for his heart had forged this one and his brain the other. And yet, on both fronts, the man's talents seemed so boundless she could hardly believe he was real, and more so, that he was before her.

She stole a look at him, sat in front of her with nothing to do but wait for her reactions whether they be encouragements or criticisms, wringing his fingers in his black leather gloves like a nervous boy, hiding his eyes under the brim of his hat.
How refreshing it was to be in the presence of a man whose every breath was not laced with a rotten form of confidence and venomous self-centeredness, who valued her opinion enough to be nervous about it. She worried for a brief moment he would be able to hear the thudding of her heart in her chest. Thrumming with unclaimed love…

The next was a drawing of a lady, pristinely dressed, draped in a fur shawl and a flowered hat. She was holding a smiling baby, her cheeks dark and alight with wisps of dark hair atop her young head. Her soul swelled.
"Oh, what a beautiful baby!" She exclaimed, taking an extra moment to admire.
Mr. Andrews clenched his fingers on the lip of the white chair, dreading the questions that did not come. Who is this? Whose baby is it? Are they family of yours?
And yet, she was silent, and he breathed freely. It was a conversation that, just as his rescuing her last night was for her, was not a conversation he was yet prepared to have. Let me go on just a bit longer, he begged to no one in particular.

Never would Rose have believed that within the confines of those leather-bound pages of thick rich bookfell she would find a sketch of a lady, naked, splayed out against a wall, surrounded by statues and trinkets which reminded her of the opera houses of Paris, hidden in plain sight in the middle of the book between austere notes of self-criticism regarding Titanic on one side and innocent artwork on the other.

"Oh...Oh, my…" she was lost for words, briefly glancing up when a man and woman walking past blocked her light, perfectly respectable, unaware of just what she was witnessing, and she brought the book closer to herself to avoid any unwanted stares at his private work. "This is…"

Rose trailed off as her eyes wandered to his signature, more hectic and untamed than in the last one, and the date startled her.
3 August 1888.
She had not even been a thought in her mother's head, nor a twinkle in her father's eye; in fact, her parents had not even met each other yet! Suddenly she felt like a child again, as if her adulthood, however premature it had been, was all a dream and she was once more insensible of the ways of adults, trying to appear au fait with juvenile foolhardiness.

The poor thing was so embarrassed he was redder than the dress she had worn the night before. "I-I had forgotten about that one. Forgive me, I—"
"No, no! It's exquisite work, I-I just wasn't expecting to see—" She could not seem to get the words a nude lady or a lady's breasts out of her mouth.
"I was...only a lad when I drew that. She...She was my first love, you could say. Niamh, her name was," he stuttered, no less red, and for a moment she worried he might faint.
"She was...very beautiful," she refused to name the twinge in her chest as jealousy. She would not ruin this with such a thing. She gazed at the diamond on her finger to try and quell her unwanted emotions. "May I ask what happened to her?"
"She…She died quite young. Measles, if I remember correctly," his eyes turned melancholy and dark.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Andrews. I shouldn't have asked. It was quite rude of me—"
"No, Young Rose. If anyone were to know, I would want it to be you."
She smiled and placed a warm hand on his arm and he tried to ignore how it burned just there even after they got up and began strolling across the length of the ship.

They walked until the sun was fully over the barrier of the horizon and the day had set in. The bugle for breakfast was ignored and they used the excuse of not being hungry and that would be by luncheon, but if they were to be true to themselves, they would acknowledge that they simply did not want to leave each another's company and, if it had been socially acceptable, would have missed the last two remaining meals of the day to remain with one another.

Their childhoods were discussed in such detail the other could perfectly see the images in their head; Mr. Andrews's in County Down, rambunctious with his brothers and free of spirit and Rose's in Philadelphia, confined to first-class rules, constrained but happy. She told him of her father and what she remembered of him before he died, something she had not even talked with Cal about, deeming him too unfeeling to understand the absence in her heart. Mr. Andrews did, and though a pat on the hand was all she received as comfort when tears pricked her eyes, she could feel within his touch everything he wished he could do if they were not being watched at every angle by unknowing spies.
He talked of building the Titanic, the harrowing task of years of design and overseeing construction, and he commended the workers who built her as if they were his superiors rather than it being the other way around. He did not miss the brightening of her eyes as he talked of his ship, the pure fascination that bedecked her features as he spoke of details that bored even the most mechanical of men. She smiled when he told her of the new davits and asked questions about the watertight compartments—"What a feat!"—and fumed within her eyes when he told her how he had been overruled in the compartments extending to the B Deck and procuring more lifeboats and, in response, spoke Mr. Ismay's name with an expletive he had not heard since he had been surrounded by the most uncouth Irish men back home.

If there was a God as he truly believed there was, he thanked Him for giving him her company, even if they should part after the journey and never meet again. Their time afforded was enough, for in just an hour, walking Titanic with her, Rose DeWitt Bukater had restored much of his faith in his fellow man and he marveled at her power over his judgments and his heart, though he would not have admitted the latter if it meant his death.

Hours went by and the luncheon bugle had been played on unhearing ears. They had lost count on how many times they had walked the length of the ship after ten and, by then, their own respective early lives were understood by the other in their entireties, like the first pieces of a puzzle longing for full completion. She ceased walking and he turned to her, contented smile on his face and mirth in his eyes.

"You know, when we were first boarding Titanic, I was exceptionally rude about her. I saw that Cal liked her so terribly and I just wanted to hate her for it and you because you built her. It was wrong of me. I hope you, and she, can forgive me," she stroked a soft, slow hand along her rail, an apologetic, loving caress, and he was sure he could have died right there. "I even said she didn't look any bigger or grander than the Mauretania. And yet she is."
"Aye? There is no doubt that she is bigger, but you think she is grander?" He smiled with pride, looking affectionately at his beloved ship.
"Oh, yes! She is a work of art, Mr. Andrews. I know most people would just see a ship, a modus of transportation, a means to an end. But she's so much more than that. She's...She's the hard, tireless work of so many people put together, she's a miracle of men. She's what none of us could ever dream of and yet here she is!"
Her eyes were alight and she spoke as if reciting poetry, delicate and lilted and so full of emotion had it been palpable he probably would have been suffocated in it. And if they had not both been spoken for, for better or worse, and simply for the sake of her own reputation and that of his daughter and not for his, he would have kissed her right there, damn whoever may have been watching. Never in his life had he met someone who, in earnest, saw his Titanic as he did. And yet there she stood, professing her love for his ship, and, by God, he wanted to kiss her for it.

He wanted to know what it was like to kiss a lady who seemed she was made for him.

He turned from her; he had to, for if he looked at her passionate and stormy face or those ruby lips once again he might lose his grip on reason.
She accepted his silence and they continued to walk on in peace and it was some moments before he regained his composure.

"Young Rose, do not mistake me. I enjoy your company a great deal, far more than most people I am surrounded by of late. But something tells me learning of my life as a lad was not the reason you wanted to talk to me in the first place," he teased, walking slowly, hands folded in front of him.
She looked to her hands and the rock sitting upon the silver band on her thin finger, twisting it gently, pretending in the back of her mind that the man next to her was in Cal's place and they were on the voyage to America to marry.
Rose could not imagine being upset by the prospect as she was with her real fiancé. They were similar, she and Mr. Andrews, of opinion and disposition and desire. The flip in her heart at the imagining was not missed, but it was sent away in the same way that she had witnessed Cal dismissing Trudy and the rest of their staff as if they were unimportant and inhuman, and she would treat her foolish little fantasy exactly the same. She had to.

"Well, I...I wanted to thank you for last night. Not only for pulling me back but...for your discretion."
"You're very welcome, Young Rose, but you needn't thank me. I did what any decent gentleman would've done."
She frowned but hid her face from his view. Why did she feel disappointed at that answer, why did she feel so disappointed in his classifying his actions as so general? Why did she want to be a special occurrence to him?
"Hardly. I know many a gentleman who would have turned a blind eye all for the sake of their name. And speaking of such, I wanted to apologize as well. I'm sorry for forcing you into such a distressing situation and I'm sorry that I misjudged you so unkindly that I didn't believe your good intentions at first. I hope you can forgive me."
Mr. Andrews's face turned as serious as she had seen it since last night. "Please don't apologize to me, Rose. There is nothing for you to be sorry for. I do not blame you for thinking the worst of me at first because I reckon that somehow ties with whatever made you climb over the railing, even if it is too forward of me to assume so."

Rose stared at him for a good long minute with only the wind sweeping between their bodies and the sound of the ocean rushing around them, disconcerted at just how unaffected she was by his overstep. It should have been an overstep, but to her, it was not. She could feel nothing within her but warmth as if she were being embraced; she felt safe, cared for, and, for the first time since she could remember, understood in some sense by someone who was equal to her in intelligence and inclination.

"You...You're not incorrect in your assumption," she said, voice helplessly breaking, as she detoured from their path and went to lean upon the railing overlooking the sea, suddenly feeling violently sick.
"Rose, I meant what I said last night. I should like to be your friend, and you can tell me what grieves you. I promise you that you can trust me."

I do. I do believe you and I do trust you, and that's precisely what scares me so horribly.

She turned to him, silent, giving him one last chance to escape her, to escape the weight of her woes, to feign his work or an appointment or a meeting and that she would not be insulted, but he stood, steadfast. Licking her lips, she looked away from his soft, caring eyes and tried to breathe through her suddenly restrictive corset.

"Well, I…" she began, walking to the railing once again, away from the kindness of his face. "It was...everything. It was my whole world and everybody in it, and the inertia of my life, plunging ahead and me, powerless to stop it."
In a silent showing, she held up her hand to her, twisting her ring again for him to see, and those dark eyes told her that he understood what was left unspoken.

Of course, he does. He's the only one who could.

"Five-hundred invitations have gone out, all of Philadelphia's society will be there, and all the while I feel I'm...standing in the middle of a crowded room, screaming at the top of my lungs, and nobody even looks up!"
Silence prevailed and the ocean waves reigned supreme again, allowing the time for the shame at her emotional outburst to set in like salt to a wound. She could have wept. She turned from him again and clenched her eyes shut to keep the petulant tears at bay behind her eyes.

"Well, Rose, what do you want?"

She had never been asked such a question. For so long she had wanted to be asked it, and yet here she was, the very question hanging above them like the very steam from the smokestacks, and she was without a single word to say and her mind was rendered blank. What did she want? And he had asked the question softly in a voice she had never heard, absent of the shy, boyish charm and lust for life that he always seemed to have, but serious, comforting, like a father or even like a—

"What do I want?" Rose spoke without thought, hardly knowing she was doing it until she heard her own voice, passionate and angry in her own ears. "I want to be respected by people around me and not reduced to a child when it is convenient simply because I say something that is out of turn for society's stuffy rules. I want to be able to work if I want to, be dependent only on myself and be able to feel like I deserve the things I receive. I want to live the life that I want to live, not the life Cal wants me to live, or my mother, or society! Oh, I'm so sick and tired of being held down by rules that mean nothing but mean everything all at once!"
A deep exhale escaped her lungs and she covered her face with both hands, trying to let the ocean wind cool her raging temper as if it could penetrate her and reach her heart.

"Then do that, Young Rose. Live the life that you want to."

She turned to him, as scandalized as Rose DeWitt Bukater could bear to be. How could he make it sound like it was so simple when she was left drowning in the chains it all left strapped to her limbs?

"You really think it that easy? To just up and abandon everything I know? I will be a social pariah, Mr. Andrews. My father's good name is the only thing I have left besides debt, and my marriage to Cal is my only way to break free of it. I have no choice."
"There is always a choice, Rose. And you may not have discovered the way out yet, but the world has a right funny way of playing tricks on all we think we know. Don't lose faith quite yet."
A light scoff from her kissed his cheek as it passed by him in the breeze; hard and sharp but not unkind. "I admire your optimism, Mr. Andrews. I'm sure your profession requires a lot of it, but my fate is sealed, I'm afraid. There is no way around it. Three days from now I will be led off this beautiful ship in chains and kept in chains for the rest of my days."

Their eyes met, understanding, brown and blue-green clashing like the most brilliant meeting of fresh and fertile earth. How they drowned in one another as if pulling apart was like severing a magnetic attraction. She looked so lost, his poor Young Rose, so afraid and out of control, slightly put out with him that he would dare give her even an ounce of hope that was untrue, but there was an affection just behind her eyes that he hoped only he could see. And, dear God, what he would not give to take her in his arms and—

"Mother!" She exclaimed, a false and pained smile stretching on her face like someone was forcing her lips.

Mrs. DeWitt Bukater, strait-laced and impassive as she was, simply stared at her daughter who had, just a minute ago, been standing at far too short a distance than what was appropriate between a gentleman and a spoken-for lady. Her expression of sheer disappointment and reprimand was sharper than any words she could have voiced.

"Mother, you remember Mr. Thomas Andrews from luncheon yesterday. He saved me in my clumsiness last night. Without him, I would have fallen overboard."
Mr. Andrews and Ruth had been left bereft of proper introductions before luncheon yesterday, and so he smiled, clenching his fists, and bid her a, "A pleasure to properly meet you, madam."
"Charmed, I'm sure," she replied, venomous as a snake, before turning back to Rose as if they had just been caught in flagrante delicto.
"Well, Mr. Andrews, you're quite the man to have around!" Drawled Molly Brown, Bless her, unorthodox woman that she was. Besides each other, Mrs. Brown was the only one in which Mr. Andrews and Rose could both seek likeminded solace.
The two women, the Countess of Rothes and Molly herself seemed impressed with Mr. Andrews and accepted him in his heroic and gentlemanly title, but Ruth DeWitt Bukater looked on him, nose in the air and eyes low and blatant in their dislike, like he was an insect, a dangerous insect which needed to be squashed quickly.

Just then the bugle sounded and Molly turned to it before smacking her lips together and gayly shaking her head. "Why do they always insist on announcing dinner like a damned cavalry charge?"
The four of them laughed in unison while Ruth remained silent.
"I promise you, Mrs. Brown, I shall have that changed before Titanic's next voyage. I had been thinking just the same thing," Mr. Andrews smiled.
Rose winced and dared to look on her mother, sensing her prejudice because Mr. Andrews was a self-made man and proud of it and not an heir to a massive fortune placed atop a good and prominent name. While she hated it displayed at all, she could withstand such conduct with a roll of the eyes and a huff, but not to he who had been so kind to her, he who understood her better than anyone, save, perhaps, Mrs. Brown.

"Shall we go dress, Mother?" Rose said, grabbing her arm perhaps more aggressively than she should have, ready to lead her as far as possible from him.
She turned once more, affectionate smile plastered to her, unforced, "See you at dinner, Mr. Andrews. I trust you shall escort me?"
Lost for words, he nodded to her and that was enough, for she beamed anew before turning away.

His eyes followed her as she walked, dress glowing liquid gold in the sunset, hair burning a glorious fire, flanked on either side by her mother and the Countess. How desperately he tried to stop his mind from wandering, thinking of how compatible they were, how they agreed on things that would make heads turn until they fell off necks and would have the entirety of the haut monde up in arms.
Rose DeWitt Bukater was Thomas Andrews's breath of fresh air and he did not know how he had gotten through thirty-nine years of life without her.

"Mr. Andrews? Mr. Andrews!" He started and blinked back to life to see Molly still stood before him.
"Forgive me, Mrs. Brown. What is it?"
She laughed aloud, anchoring a hand to his arm to steady herself. "Why, you couldn't be more obvious if you wrote it on a piece of paper and pasted it to your head!"
"Wrote what on a piece of paper? I'm sure I don't know what you mean," he had not had to play coy in many a year and his ability was rusty if her sarcastic, well-meaning nod was any evidence.
"You are head over heels for little Miss Rose over there," she pointed over her shoulder. "And don't even try to deny it!"
"I will deny it, Mrs. Brown. That's absurd! I've met her but twice! She's young enough to be my daughter!" He had not even acknowledged such a fact before; it had simply been sitting in his mind unnoticed, and his heart sunk as he realized.

Twenty-two years. He was twenty-two years older than Rose. He had been nearing the end of his apprenticeship at Harland and Wolff when she was taking her first breaths. She was not even twelve when he had been appointed managing director and was just barely so when he began designing Titanic.

Oh, God, what had he been thinking?

"I'm gonna tell you a secret," Mrs. Brown's calm, soothing voice coaxed him back to horrific reality. "Some of the most miserable lives have been led because they go on believing that such things matter in the long run. They don't, Mr. Andrews. Not all of us are lucky to come by love or anything resembling it in this life, and if you are, don't be moron enough to muck it up for a reason as stupid as that. You might not have known each other for long, but you're attracted to her and she's attracted to you and that is something you cannot deny to me, no matter how fast it's happened. Try as you might, I can see right through the both of you. I ain't one of them first-class simpletons who don't see what's right in front of them. You're similar and, by God, the chances of you two finding someone else in this crowd as compatible as you are is about as high as the chances of me being accepted by them. I ain't saying that you should run away and elope, Mr. Andrews, but don't kill what's blossoming before you even notice it's alive. That's all I'm sayin'. I'll see you at dinner."

With a satisfied smile, she turned, conspiratorially, and walked off as the bugle sounded again. Thomas Andrews sighed and fell against a column, staring out into the horizon, wondering how he would survive dinner sat right next to her with this wound ripped open by Molly.

The last sound of the bugle called and he hesitantly walked forth towards what awaited him, trying as hard as he could to not notice how the golden sun and the red sky behind it perfectly resembled Rose in all her beautiful glory.