It was not possible, yet it was. He could not have survived, yet he had. He could not be there in front of her, alive and breathing, yet he was.

"My God," she breathed in no more than a whisper.

"Rose," he murmured, barely audibly.

She took a trembling step towards him, ignoring the broken glass on the floor. She moved silently beside him, her eyes locked on his, her mouth still open slightly in shock.

"Mr Andrews," she whispered, her voice catching in her throat. "How …? I don't … I thought … How?"

His eyes were moist as he weakly lifted raised his hand to touch her cheek. An expression of tragic relief passed across his tired face.

"Young Rose," he said softly. "I'm so glad … I thought it was too late for you."

"We … we didn't get to a boat," she muttered. "I was just … lucky." She reached for his hand and took it in both of her own. He gave a slight squeeze.

"Did Jack …?"

Feeling, for the first time, tears sting the backs of her eyes, Rose lowered her eyes and shook her head. Nobody else would have bothered to ask after him.

"We were together," she said softly, swallowing hard. "in the water. He just fell asleep. Holding my hand." She looked down at her hands now encasing Andrews'. Suddenly it seemed too real. Jack had been real. The pain was real.

"I'm so sorry."

Rose looked up to see his eyes swimming with tears, one brimming over and flowing in a crooked stream down his cheek. She held tightly onto his hand, screwing her eyes shut as her own tears threatened to overwhelm her. Somehow, having one person about whom she cared and had believed to be dead returned to her was more painful than having none at all.

"If I could have …" Andrews whispered, "If I could have … in his place … in anyone's place … I'm so sorry …" His voice cracked, both his cheeks now streaked with cascading tears. "I didn't intend to survive," he said in a hollow voice. "I didn't want to survive. I should have died. I meant to die."

"Don't say that," Rose burst out, slightly louder than she intended to. She dropped her voice again. "You didn't deserve to die any more than Jack did. Any more than anyone did. I'm glad that you're alive, Mr Andrews."

Andrews shook his head, unable to meet Rose's eyes. "I don't deserve your kindness, Rose. In case you've forgotten, I built that ship. That 'unsinkable' ship. Didn't think for a moment that I was tempting fate by calling it that. Stupid. So, so stupid. Enough lifeboats for less than half the passengers. That was my doing, Rose. I killed all those people. I'm no better than a murderer." He released his hand from hers and roughly wiped his eyes with the back of it.

"It wasn't your fault," said Rose, steadily. "You said it yourself, you wanted those extra lifeboats but you were outvoted."

"It was my ship! I could have insisted! If I had absolutely insisted I could have …"

"Don't do this to yourself. There's been enough suffering already."

Andrews drew a breath and met Rose's stare as if about to say something more, but faltered and released it slowly, looking away from her. Finally, he glanced up at her again and shook his head.

"There is nothing left for me now, Rose," he said quietly. "I wanted to be allowed to die with my ship. Captain Smith got that final dignity, I've been told. It should have been the same for me."

Rose paused. Andrews obviously meant every word he said. So ironic, she thought, that so many people who had wanted so desperately to live had not, when here was a man who had wanted nothing more than to die and yet, somehow, had lived. She understood his guilt; it was clear why he felt such responsibility, but she also knew with every ounce of her being that he had believed the ship to be safe, the lifeboats to be sufficient; he had had absolute faith in it and would not have put anyone at risk if he had been in any doubt. He was a good man; she could not believe that anyone who had met him could think otherwise.

"It was an accident, Mr Andrews," Rose said quietly. "A freak accident. Nobody could have predicted that an iceberg of that size could have been in that one spot at that exact time. You couldn't have foreseen it."

Andrews said nothing; he merely turned away, gazing unfocusedly at the floor through half-closed eyes. There was clearly no fight left in him. It frightened Rose more than she would have expected, to see him like this. While always quietly spoken and modest, in the little time she had known him he had been alert, aware, the quiet observer who noticed everything. He had a spark, a twinkle in his blue eyes; she had not forgotten his restrained smirk and suppressed laugh when she had mentioned Dr Freud's theories about the male preoccupation with size to Mr Ismay.

There was no spark now. His previously blue eyes looked grey; he seemed to have aged unrecognisably. Rose wanted him to fight, to dust himself off and move forward in the same way that she must … but she had never seen any person look so utterly defeated. The idea of him fighting anything seemed impossible. And yet he must have somehow; the fact that he was here now must mean something.

"Mr Andrews?" said Rose, softly. She had to get him talking, she just had to.

His head turned slightly, his eyes lifted fractionally.

"What happened? How were you saved?"

Andrews exhaled with effort. He blinked, then shook his head.

"I'm trying not to think about it."

"You have to think about it," said Rose, quietly but firmly. "You lived. I don't know how, but there has to be a reason for that. I survived; Jack was my reason. What was yours?"

"I told you, I didn't want to live," Andrews hissed, almost angrily. "I had no reason, but I didn't have the choice; it was taken from me."

"How? You gave me your life jacket." She paused. "By doing that, you actually saved my life."

That thought hadn't dawned on her before now. But it was true; when the ship's suction had pulled her under, she might not have reached the surface in time without the life jacket. She might not have been buoyant enough to surface again after that desperate man had clung to her, pushing her under in an effort to keep himself afloat.

Rose reached for a folding chair which stood propped against the wall, unfolded it and set it beside the bed, sitting lightly on its edge. When she looked to him again, his anger had abated.

"That was, at least, one thing I did get right," he said softly. "God knows you deserved a second chance at life. Oh, Rose, I'm sorry, I haven't asked … did your mother …?"

"She was saved," said Rose, airily. "And Molly Brown, Madeleine Astor, the Countess of Rothes, Mr and Mrs Duff-Gordon, Madame Aubert, Colonel Gracie …" she ran through the list on auto-pilot. "And Cal, of course."

"I knew about Cal and Colonel Gracie," said Andrews, giving a small nod. "I heard that Mr Astor and Mr Guggenheim were lost though …what about Mr Ismay, do you know?"

"He's alive," said Rose, "though you wouldn't think so to look at him. I think perhaps …" she paused for a moment. "I think perhaps his instinct to survive overruled everything else at the time, yet now he may be wondering if he made the right decision. I don't know how he got onto a boat, but he did." She paused again. "Is that what happened to you?"

Andrews fixed Rose with a steady gaze. She knew he could see she was not going to give up. He sighed, and shifted uncomfortably, sitting up a little and turning towards her.

"You really want to know." It was a statement, not a question. Rose knew that, but nodded anyway.

"I didn't save myself," he said, slowly and clearly, which made it clear to Rose that he wanted this, above all else, to be known. "Please believe me when I say that I had accepted the fact that I was going to die and I welcomed it. Nothing else would make the pain stop."

"You looked like you were in another world," Rose said quietly. "That last time I saw you, by the clock in the smoking room. You seemed totally calm."

"I was," Andrews inclined his head. "I must have been in shock – I think perhaps I still am – but by that time, I knew that … I believed that all hope was lost. Soon it would be over and there would be no more suffering, for myself or anyone else. It felt like a dream, a waking dream, when in the middle of it all you become aware that it's a dream and know that nothing can hurt you and it'll soon be nothing more than a memory. That's what it felt like."

Rose edged her chair forward slightly, to rest her elbows on the side of the bed beside him.

"When you and Jack passed by me in the smoking room, I could barely think at all any more. I do remember realising that there would be no boats left by then, and that you and he … all I could think was that at least you were with someone you obviously loved and would be with him 'til the last."

He paused for a moment. "I do remember thinking that you had probably lived more in the last couple of days than you ever had before. I knew the moment I met you that you had been born into the wrong world."

Rose smiled sadly. She knew he had understood.

"After you'd gone, I must have slipped back into a daze … I remember adjusting the clock; it was half a minute fast." He closed his eyes for a moment, evidently still seeing it all clearly in his mind, then continued steadily.

"It wasn't long before the angle of the floor was becoming too steep for me to stand where I was any longer," he said. I didn't move out into the hall, I wanted to be alone in my final moments, so I started to move further down the room … it would at least make the end come faster. The far end was already filling with water and many of the tables and chairs had already fallen because of the incline. I was moving down the far wall, holding onto the wall for support as I went, but when I was, I suppose, twenty feet from the end of the room, the ship lurched suddenly and I fell, a sort of stumbling fall, I suppose, forwards, into the furniture piling in the water."

He gave an involuntary shudder, the memory obviously still terrifyingly vivid. Now he had begun though, it seemed the details could not come fast enough.

"I felt the cold shock of the water before anything else; it was about knee-height to stand in, I suppose, had I been able to stand, but then the pain hit me as well. I don't know how it happened, I probably fell awkwardly, but I realised my leg was broken. I felt dizzy; the pain was blinding, the water was so cold … I remember wishing that dying didn't have to be so painful, but at the same time thinking it was no more than I deserved …"

His voice cracked; he put a hand to his forehead as his eyes moistened once more.

"Take your time," Rose said softly.

Andrews breathed slowly for a few moments, his eyes closed. Finally they opened, resignedly.

"I think I must have passed out for a moment," he continued quietly but evenly. "The water had risen and was almost up to my shoulders by the time I came to; then suddenly there was the sound of breaking glass. It was the window just a couple of feet from me; it blew out. It was a full-length window and it shattered completely, so the water from inside the room was sucked out again, along with much of the furniture and myself. The promenade was also almost underwater by then, so the current pulled me out of the room, then down, then off the ship completely. There was a lifeboat about thirty feet away, Collapsible B, it hadn't been launched properly; people were still clinging to its sides and climbing in; the last of the ropes had just been cut free."

Rose saw the events unfolding in her mind's eye as he described them. It was so like him to remember everything in such detail, even in such horrific circumstances.

"I think at that point my body had gone into shock as well as my mind," he said, shaking his head. "I don't remember feeling much pain, even from the chill of the water. I remember something getting tangled around my arm and then being wrenched free by a wave; again, that's probably what dislocated my shoulder, but it was like I'd had enough; my body was refusing to feel any more. I do remember thinking this was the end and feeling almost peaceful, like this was my natural conclusion. I was ready to die," he said, almost desperately.

"But that final mercy was taken from me," he continued; a touch of bitterness now in his voice. "I don't remember its approach, but suddenly there was an arm around me, keeping me from going under, and a man shouting at me to 'stay with him'. He was in the water with me, holding me up and calling for others to help pull me into the boat. It was Officer Lightoller, whom only an hour or so before I had shouted at for not filling the lifeboats to capacity. I tried to say no, I asked him to let me die, but by then I was too weak to fight him off or do anything of my own accord. Then more arms lifted me into the boat; I think I was laid across people's laps, I don't really know; I was insensible. Then Lightoller was beside me again, and the boat was moving away from the ship … I heard mainly male voices; I don't think there were many women in the boat. After that it all went dark."

Andrews paused. "I remember opening my eyes again, I don't know how much later, and finding that I was covered with other people's jackets and coats; only half of my face was uncovered. I felt the cold then. I was numb, couldn't really feel anything else except cold. Lightoller was still there, watching over me. The boat had become badly waterlogged; some people were having to stand. I couldn't see the faces any of the other passengers in the boat though; mainly because Lightoller was leaning so closely over me; I presume trying to keep me from succumbing to hypothermia. I've heard since that one of the men had already died and he didn't want to lose another. In truth I remember being thankful that I was most likely unrecognisable to anyone but him."

Rose thought for a moment. "I thought … I remember seeing Officer Lightoller; his boat was picked up just after ours. Colonel Gracie and Cal were on that boat."

"I know," Andrews nodded ruefully. "That is, I knew shortly afterward, I didn't at the time. They didn't know it was me and Lightoller was … how shall we put it, discreet. He knew who I was but he didn't show it; he didn't use my name at all."

"Do you think that was deliberate?" asked Rose.

"It was," said Andrews. "He gave them my name as a Mr Thomas Jenkins when I was brought aboard … he told me later it was the name of a boy he'd known at school; the first name that came into his mind. He's been in to see me already, a few hours ago. He said …"

Rose waited.

"He said," Andrews concluded, with a sigh, "that the truth was not his to disclose, and that in the circumstances, I could probably do with a little anonymity until I was ready. He confirmed that none of the other passengers in the lifeboat had recognised me, looking the way I did and underneath all the coats and jackets he had used to keep me warm. And for that," he concluded, "I know I should be grateful. I will be blamed … I should be blamed. But nobody could ever blame me as much as I blame myself. Hence why, you see, Rose, dying out there would have been far more preferable to what I must now face. As I say, I should be grateful to Lightoller but I can't be, do you understand, Rose? He denied me my right to die; he took that choice away from me. It should have been so easy. Now it is … a little more difficult."

Rose looked up sharply. "What do you mean? What do you mean, 'a little more difficult'?"

Andrews looked away, shaking his head. "I have no reasons left to live, Rose," he said quietly. "And as such I have no plans to … to continue to do so any longer than I must."