Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Like the other first class rooms, the first class lounge was elegant, decorated in Versailles style. Elena was sitting on a divan, a group of first class woman arrayed around her, as they took afternoon tea. Elena sat still, as if she sat still enough, she would be forgotten. Her mother, the Countess, and Lady Duff-Gordon were taking tea as Isobel complained about the hardships of the wedding arrangements.
"Of course the invitations had to be sent back to the printers twice. And the bridesmaid's dresses! There is an obvious difference between lavender and lilac. Lavender simply does not match the wedding. Let me tell you what an odyssey this has been..."
Elena's mind was across the room. At another table, a mother and daughter were having their tea. The girl couldn't be more than four or five as she, in her white gloves, daintily picked up a cookie. The mother corrected the girl's posture and how she held her teacup. The girl's expression was serious. She remembered that age, her mother's relentless conditioning to becoming a socialite, a hostess, a house wife, and a mother.
Calmly, Elena picked up her teacup, acting as if she were taking a sip, spilling the tea all over herself. She stood quickly.
"Goodness!" she exclaimed, "How clumsy of me! Just look what I've done. Excuse me." With those words, she hurried from the room.
Damon stood near the apex of the bow railing, watching the waves hit the bow as the dusk light shone over the ocean. It wasn't quite night yet, and this was easily his favorite time of day. He closed his eyes, letting the chill in the wind clear his head, his heart. Someone approached him.
"Hello Damon," Elena's voice came softly, unsurely. He turned and she was standing there. "I changed my mind." He gave her a smile. Her cheeks were flushed from the wind, her eyes sparkling and hair blowing wild around her face. She continued speaking, her words coming out hurried, "I've been doing some thinking and I realized I don't want that life that my mother wants for me, because that life doesn't include you. I don't want that. I couldn't care if you were dirt poor and were working your way, from city to city, because I'll be miserable in this life if I don't have you beside me in it because I'm in love with you!" she exclaimed, then flushed, quickly backtracking, "Alaric said you might be up here and that-"
"Shh," he cut her off, "Come here." She stepped forward to him and they walked onto the apex. He put his hand on her waist, whispering in her ear, "I love you too, Elena, amore mia. Now close your eyes." She did, and he turned her, holding her light figure up, pressing her to the railing. "Step up onto the railing. Do you trust me?"
She nodded. "I trust you." He took her hands in his, spreading them until her arms, with her thin shawl, looked like wings. When he lowered his hands back to her waist, she held her arms up.
"Open you eyes."
Elena gasped. There was nothing before her but hundreds of miles of ocean, the sun's light streaking the water brilliant oranges and pinks. They were soaring, flying. There was no ship from where Elena stood. There was the hiss of the water fifty feet below and only the wind.
"Damon! I'm flying! I'm flying, Damon!" Damon chuckled, singing softly in her ear.
"Come Josephine in my flying machine..."
Elena closed her eyes, smiling dreamily as she floated weightless far above the sea. She let herself lean back into Damon's strong chest. He pushed himself forward, enough to press their bodies close enough to be confused as one. He raised his hands from her waist, intertwining their fingers, keeping their arms outstretched. He vowed to remember this image and draw it later.
Damon pressed his face into her hair, breathing in the wonderful scent. He turned his face so that his cheek lay lightly against her ear. Elena turned her head until her lips were near his, lowering her armed and turning further, just enough to claim his lips with hers and was stunned at how soft his lips were. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, and they kissed like this. Her head was turned, tilted back, and she was completely submissive under his power, and for the first time, she wasn't afraid. In fact, she felt safer than she ever had in her life. They kissed, slowly at first, then with building passion.
Together, Damon and the ship seemed to lift Elena into the air, and before she knew it, her feet weren't touching the rail. She really was flying, Damon's lips never leaving hers.
In the crow's nest high above, Frederick Fleet nudged his mate, Reginald Lee, pointing to the man lifting the woman gently into the air at the bow.
"I wish I had those bleeding binoculars," Fleet muttered.
Damon set Elena back down on her feet, embracing at the bow rail and slowly stepping away, leaving the bow of the ship and headed inside.
Elena blinked, as if coming back to the present. The Mir was showing the wreck on the screen, a sad ghost ship in the abyss. "And that was the last time Titanic ever saw daylight."
Stefan Branson changed the tape in the mini-cassette recorder. Jeremy looked up, getting to his feet. "So we're up to dusk the night of the sinking with six hours to go."
Elena ran the pad of her thumb over the art-noveau comb with the jade butterfly on the handle that had been pulled from her hair, turning it in her hands slowly. Damon rubbed circles on her back, in between her shoulders. They were watching the monitor, showing the ruins of Suite B-52/56.
She took a deep breath and began to speak once more.
So I put up a website/blog/guide. So far, I only have Forever This Way on it, but it has some of the clothes and all of the characters.
http : / celestialheavens1 . wordpress . com /
Without the spaces of course.
This might be my last update on this story before Christmas if I don't get many reviews. If it is, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays.