A/N: I got a Titanic poster for Christmas! I was totally geeking out!
Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy, Squeenix, or any of the affiliates.
Rikku, Sunday April 15, 1912
They'd been sitting out there for who knew how long in the freezing air. It had gotten very quiet after some elapsed time and Rikku was freezing, sad, and exhausted. She just wanted to sleep, but she knew she shouldn't. Something told her that if she fell asleep, she wouldn't wake up again. So instead, she opted to stare out over the water in search of a rescue vessel.
When they drew nearer to another boat, boat four it turned out, they were lashed together. The extra company did nothing to raise anyone's spirits, though boat four did have extra blankets that they passed along quite helpfully. Rikku wrapped one around herself and Yuna, who had yet to say a word since they had left the ship. Rikku thought of Auron, wondering if he was all right. If he was even alive. She then thought of her father. Cid had always been a survivor, but he'd never been much of a swimmer. He'd always hated the water, so he'd never thought it necessary to learn how to swim properly. He'd been wearing a life preserver, last she'd seen, but it was so cold, he was likely to freeze to death while idling. Perhaps while he was waiting for the boats to come back and pluck them from the water. But Rikku knew they wouldn't, because they were horrendous, selfish creatures. Willing to let hundreds die to save their own skins. It was despicable…and yet there she sat.
"We've got to go back!" she spoke up, her voice strong. "We can't leave them all out there to die! From the sounds of it, most of them are dead as it is. There is no danger of being swamped. Let us go back and save those who might have a chance!"
The crewman on the other boat seemed to agree with Rikku, as he was nodding vehemently.
"The girl's right, of course. There is no danger of being swamped now. All right…I want all the women in boat fourteen to come over here to ours. There's easily enough room for everyone. Besides, the closer quarters will help keep us warm. All right ladies, up you get."
Rikku was glad someone was finally listening to her. She helped Yuna over to the other boat, watching as the other women were transferred. Due to the less then stable conditions, the transfer took almost three quarters of an hour. The boat, equipped with the three Crewmen combined from the boats, set back off toward the floating bodies in the water. They shone a large flashlight and were yelling for people to answer them. Rikku couldn't hear any responses.
It was another hour before the boat came back, with three people resting inside it, half frozen to death. Riku plucked the blanket from around her shoulders and passed it on to a man so frozen he was literally covered in ice. The man thanked her through chattering teeth, curling himself inside the blanket. She scanned all their faces, but there were none she recognized. Not her father, not Tidus. Not Auron. A bit of her heart died in that moment, and she knew it was hopeless. They were dead. The most important men in her life were both dead.
Quite suddenly, she realized that she was sobbing. Throughout the entire ordeal, she hadn't shed a single tear. She'd stayed strong, kept her head high, took care of Yuna, argued with the crewman to save those in the water. Now, though, she was reduced to a sobbing mess in lifeboat number fourteen in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. She clutched Yuna tightly, crying into her hair, unable to hold it all in. She was done being brave. Now she just wanted to cry. She realized with a start that she wanted her mother. Arianna might be cold and uptight, but she was family and a familiar touch. Maybe it was just her inner child, yearning for the loving touch of her mother. She continued to sob until, against her better judgment, she slipped off to sleep.
Rikku awoke in the boat a little bit later. Yuna was shaking her awake, her voice whispering words the blonde couldn't understand. She sat up straight, looking around in confusion. She noticed another boat had drifted close to them. She scanned their faces quickly, heart sinking when she didn't recognize any. At least, none that mattered much to her.
"What is it Yuna?" she asked, finally gaining her bearings. Couldn't Yuna have just let her sleep through all that horror? At this point, all seemed helpless. They would wait in those little boats until they all died. Land was hundreds of miles away, they had no food, no water…Nothing. They would all die out there in the midst of the blank canvas that had sucked Titanic under and claimed the lives of so many people. The crewmen had only filled the boats halfway, at most. Not even half of the passengers had survived and only three had been saved from the water. Three out of over a thousand.
"Rikku," Yuna whispered again. "Look. There are lights on the horizon!" Rikku tensed up and turned to look where Yuna was pointing. She didn't think Yuna would play such a cruel trick, but she also hoped her poor cousin wasn't merely hallucinating. It appeared, though, that she wasn't. There were in fact, the pinpricks of light on the horizon. A loud cheer rose up from several people, though most were unable to show any emotion other then sadness.
"It's not a ship," the crewman, Barthello, in Rikku's boat said pessimistically. "It's only an illusion. A shared illusion. We're all going to die out here, I tell you."
"Shut it, you!" one of the men who had been pulled from the water snapped. "I didn't live through that hell just to die in the damn boat."
"She'll just ignore us. She'll float right on past, just as the Californian did before her."
"No other boats came past!" a black haired woman spoke harshly. "We would have seen them and they most definitely would have stopped…"
"You think so, do you, Mrs. Brown?" he snapped back. "Nuh-uh. I was in the room with the communicator when she sent out the message to the Californian. She was near about ten miles away, she coulda made it if she wanted to. But she didn't. She left us to die."
"Stop it!" Lulu snapped. "You're scaring me!"
"Just because one ship didn't get our message doesn't mean this one won't," the crewman, Issaru, from the other boat said kindly. "I'll daresay they are coming to pick us up right now. We shan't be out here for another half hour yet, I'd say."
Rikku liked him a lot more then she liked the man who was in her boat. She couldn't believe that she was actually envious of boat four in their current predicament. It was such a stupid reaction when so many people were less then three hundred feet away, dead. Was she so spoiled that she could complain about the people around her when she was still alive and well and she had no idea about the condition of the people that she loved?
As they waited for the foreign steamer to reach them, Rikku couldn't control her morbid thoughts. All those dead people out there…how long would they continue to float? The human body was naturally buoyant, but once the oxygen was gone they would sink away. But what of those in lifebelts? How long would their frozen corpses continue to float there in the middle of the Atlantic? Why was she harboring these terrible thoughts? Would she ever again be able to sleep without hearing those desperate screams in her head? Sail on a ship without fearing that it might sink? Feel the cold against her skin without being brought back to this terrible night? Would she regret falling in love? Was she capable of it? Would she live her life alone, never able to move on because she would always compare everyone to that one man? Though she hated to admit it, she knew the answer to that last would most likely be yes.
The Carpathia-for that was the steamer that came to their rescue-approached them what seemed like hours later but couldn't have possibly been that long. They collected the other boats out in the distance and headed over toward boat numbers four, ten, and fourteen. Rikku almost couldn't climb up the ladder provided to reach the ship. She almost couldn't bring herself to do it. Climbing up to that ship meant that she was leaving her old life behind. All the bad things, like her betrothal, but all the wonderful things as well. The love of her parents, the stability of her life, Auron. Stepping aboard the Carpathia would take all that away from her. Yet, what else could she do? Stay in the boat? That wasn't an option. It was almost impressive, how one ship had managed to turn her entire life upside down and then drag it down to the depths of the sea. The only reason she eventually went up was Yuna standing behind her, urging her quietly to move. At the top of a ladder, a brunet man helped her climb over the railing. Rikku could almost feel her life sinking away, as ridiculous as it sounded.
She was barely on board for a moment before another man with a clipboard converged upon her.
"Can I have your name, Miss?" he asked, pen poised for her response. For a long moment she blanked, unable to think of her name, as if the Titanic had stolen that as well when it had sunk. That, of course, was a ridiculous notion. A moment later she spoke her name aloud, almost as if confirming who she was to herself.
"Rikku Godhand. My name is Rikku Godhand," she spoke, her voice quivering just slightly. He jotted it down.
"Thank you, Miss." He moved towards Yuna, but Rikku grabbed his arm tightly.
"Wait a moment. Have you checked everyone who has come on the ship?"
"Yes I have Miss. Are you searching for a name?"
"Auron Masamune. Cid and Arianna Godhand. Tidus…"
"Jecht," Yuna spoke up. "Tidus Jecht."
The man flipped through his pages, frowning slightly as he searched for a name, any name.
"Ah. Here we are. Arianna Godhand. You should find her in the first class. What were the other names?"
"Cid Godhand," Rikku spoke. After a few moments of flipping there was a shake of the head. "No, I'm sorry Miss."
"Tidus Jecht!" Yuna interjected, her eyes wild.
The man began flipping again, eyes flashing over his handwriting quickly.
"Tidus…Jecht. Yes miss, the name is right here." Yuna let out a gasp of breath before collapsing to her knees, tears of joy streaming down her face.
"Oh thank you God!" she exclaimed. "Thank you…where can I find him, please…"
"Yuna!" a voice interrupted them.