Chapter Seven

A/N: Thanks to Syblime for reviewing.

Sybil could hardly believe her eyes as she locked gazes with her father's cousin and his son. Of course, she had known of the pair's plans to voyage on Titanic, but she had thought that they were not going to board the ship until May. They had obviously not wanted to wait any longer, and, seeing what she had done already, Sybil did not blame them for being so excited.

"You decided to come over early, then?" she asked, still a little dazzled that the pair were actually before her.

"Yes, we did." James answered, after a little hesitation. It was evident that both men thought precisely the same about seeing her aboard the ship as she had seeing them, and she was not surprised at this in the least. After all, when the pair had mentioned their impending voyage, Sybil had not professed any interest in R.M.S. Titanic whatsoever. In fact, she had had to prevent herself from yawning as her father had asked them a minimum of twenty questions about the significance of the ship. However, now that she was on the deck, in the middle of the ocean, the young woman felt unbelievably lucky to be where she was.

"I decided to come along as well. I'd never thought about coming on the ship before, as Papa did not think it was worth the money, so we didn't plan to come. But there is a friend of mine, who brought me here, as sort of a gift. And so here I am." she informed her companions, looking out across the water to admire, once again, the view that the Doctor had brought her to. She had never seen anything more naturally beautiful in her life.

When Sybil returned her gaze to the men, having completed her speech, both of them still remained shocked, though Patrick, admittedly, had a much more amused version of the expression on his face. This did not surprise the woman either, as her elder cousin had always managed to keep a smile on his face, no matter what the situation could be.

"Is this a close friend of yours?" James asked, sounding as if he were more disbelieving than curious. "This friend who brought you onto the ship?"

"Oh, yes." she answered, a bright smile creeping its way onto her face at the mention of the funny madman she had bumped into in the middle of the night, the same madman that was testing the direction that the wind was blowing, despite the fact that it was completely obvious from the force of the gale that was sweeping past the ship. "Yes, he's a dear friend of mine. He took me on the ship as a birthday gift."

"Your birthday isn't until September." the elder man pointed out, his eyebrows meeting in the middle as he frowned with confusion. How could this possibly make sense?

"Believe me, he owes me a lot of birthday presents." she sighed, her own eyebrows raising a little at her own remark. She had anticipated the remark the moment she had made the excuse of it being a birthday gift, and thus had prepared a reply. "A lot of them."

"Oh, well then, a trip on this glorious ocean liner should more than make up for those presents." Patrick pointed out, glancing quite pointedly at his father, as if to persuade him to agree with his son's assessment. "It's a marvellous gift for anyone to receive. Even I am lucky to be here. Tickets for the maiden voyage of such a ship are not as easy to come by as you would think, for the upper classes as well as the lower."

"Yes. Quite true." James agreed, though he seemed to have only acquiesced to do so, as he still looked extremely confused by his young cousin's ramblings. "Who is this friend, then? Do we know them?"

"Oh, no, you won't have met him before. He's been abroad for some time." Sybil responded, inventing a situation to avoid further questions. After all, abroad was not truly a lie, only a slight stretching of the truth. "He's here actually, over by the railing. Doctor!"

At the call of his friend, broken from the trance like state he had been leaning in, the Doctor turned to face her, sighing a little when he saw her beckoning hand. The last thing the man wanted to do at present was meet any more of the Crawley family. One of them was enough for anyone to contend with. Three would be almost impossible.

"Come on, Doctor! Come and meet my cousins!" the young woman called, a small hint of desperation audible in her tone. Though she truly liked the company of James and Patrick, she did not particularly wish to endure it alone when she did not need to do so. Besides, she knew who much the madman would not wish to enter into the conversation, and that would make it all the more enjoyable to watch. When he had finally reached her side, his face slowly reddening, Sybil's grin was wider still, as she allowed the fun to begin. "Cousin James, Cousin Patrick, please meet my friend. Doctor, these are my cousins."

"Pleased to meet you, Doctor…" James began, but paused when he reached an obvious obstacle in his greeting.

"It's just the Doctor." the man told the other, answering the question that had not yet been asked, due to the polite nature the upper class men had been raised by. However, this breeding did not make the look of confusion on his face lessen at all.

"He prefers to remain as an anonymous man, really. It is a habit that he adopted rather a long time ago, sort of like a game." Sybil told the perplexed duo, in an attempt to shallow the hole that her friend had dug for himself. "A very old game."

That night, the Doctor lay awake in his cabin, thinking of the conversation from earlier. He couldn't sleep, not when he knew how close they were to falling. Only three days away, and they would face the hardest decision of their lives.

Who would live and who would die?

A/N: Please review! The time is coming fast for Titanic to fall.