In all my knowing you, Ms. Crawley, you were never so terribly quiet as this.

And after all her worrying to keep him awake, James hadn't expected the stewardess to be the first one between them to fall sound asleep.

Mind you this...I promised to keep you awake until we are found...Open your eyes, Ms. Millie. You can't give up on me yet.

But this time, Millicent Crawley didn't answer him.

And the longer she took to do it, the keener James was on finding out why.

He couldn't feel the maid curled up against his side anymore.

In truth, he couldn't feel much of anything, really. Neither the cold or any pain that might trouble him.

And after such a harrowing nightmare, what a comfort it was to finally feel nothing at all.

To delight in pure numbness that left him in a limitless and delicious peace, where he no longer feared anything, or endured any suffering, or felt ashamed of what was in his own heart.

And knowing such a reprieve, why would he ever wish to feel again, if it meant they could stay forever like this?

If you don't mind...I should like to sleep for just a moment with you...Should you tell me that I'm freed from our promise to stay awake...I'd happily walk between dreams from this world with you, if you'd only say the word.

Still, Millie wouldn't ease his worry over her with the comfort of her voice.

And for a fleeting moment, James feared he'd never hear it again.

Though the truth of that gut-wrenching reality was unbearable in every way imaginable.

So, James kept trying.

Hoping for more time to make things right.

Don't leave me behind here...If you can bear it, wait...And I swear, I'll never again keep you waiting.

But the constant unanswered silence was maddening.

So maddening, that James couldn't stand for the idea that their final hour had slipped quietly away without his knowing it, and so soon after he'd found the one love he'd long ago lost.

And it was that stubborn resolve that had once kept him awake to look after Millie that now called the feeling back to James's body, slowly reviving each frail and numb heartbeat that chased him to consciousness. Sending him crawling back again from the precipice of death.

And still, a lifetime must've gone by before James finally gathered enough strength to draw in a deep breath.

A breath followed quickly by a sharp agonizing surge of panic when he realized he couldn't let it go again. His lungs stiff as a board, aching and burning to release.

Suddenly realizing that he was no longer trapped in the bowels of Titanic, but drowning in the open ocean.

James found the light above him in the sunlight glimmering just above the surface, and kicked toward it.

With no one around to cry to for help, save for the echoing nexus of voices swamping his imagination. Those dreadful voices still descending upon him like predators in the dark. Knowing he'd heard them all before, but hardly remembering the faces they belonged to.

"Yes, what do you see?"

"Iceberg, right ahead!"

"Hard-a-starboard!"

Try as he did, James couldn't break through the undertow. He was just too exhausted to make his way, and the heavy coat of his officer's uniform dragged him right back down.

And just when he thought he might drown before he reached the sunlight, the under current shifted abruptly, giving him just the momentum he needed to make one last break for the surface.

Hands flailing for anything that might catch him before he sank under again, James hugged onto a round solid beam of something that he couldn't name right away, though he was immeasurably grateful to have found it so sturdy.

And then his stomach heaved in panting sobs, as out came all the seawater and oppressed grief that'd blocked the air from his lungs.

It was agony.

The way the cold ocean breezes ripped through his aching chest, so tender now after holding in the icy water of the Atlantic for so long.

His breath so shakingly shallow while chasing for the air he had desperately missed.

And gradually, James felt himself warming up again, bit by bit.

Holding on with everything he had to keep his knackered body from going under again.

At last, he'd pulled himself out of the damming ocean alive, but at what cost?

What exactly had he left behind him, somewhere deep in the Atlantic, and why hadn't he shared in its ruthless downfall?

"Hello?" he called out to the waves around him, but his voice was so feeble, he could only just belt out a breathy cry. "Is anyone else there?"

Only the rocking of the sea answered him, but it was no answer he could begin to comphrehend.

How could he have no recollection at all of what happened in Titanic's final moments?

How had he been separated from Millie in that pantry, and what became of the other poor souls losing hope of rescue as Titanic dragged them to their death?

"Millie...My God, Millie."

James hoped she had found her way out in the end.

Perhaps she had tried to wake him when he fell unconscious, mistaking him for dead, and was forced to leave him in the dish pantry to save herself.

Perhaps she hadn't lingered behind long, and by some miracle, had been rescued by a lifeboat during the night, safe and warm somewhere far away from here.

If she had survived the sinking, James knew he had no choice but to push himself a little harder. Because should nothing ever become of their unexpected meeting on Titanic, James knew he'd still be content to wish her well, if he knew the stewardess had safely been rescued and could go on living the full and happy life ahead of her.

And until he found her again, James could not lay to rest his conscience in his protective duty as a White Star officer. A duty he regarded highly with the burden of accountability to the passengers and crew who had trusted the officers for safe passage across the Atlantic.

For Millie, and for the 2,200 other souls like her, the answers behind this unspeakable event were ever more pressing.

And James was determined to get to shore and start finding them out.

If Titanic had managed to send out its distress call to enough ships in the area, perhaps by now, one might be somewhere nearby searching for survivors like him.

But as the sea fog around him changed course, James realized that spotting a rescue ship on the horizon might only be the beginning of his troubles.

Because the sight before him now was damn near impossible to exist.

How could it be otherwise, when he had only just come off a doomed ship in the middle of the Atlantic? All out of a pair of coordinates that put the ship 347 nautical miles south of Newfoundland and still, 782 more to New York. A distance that might've been sailed by Titanic in two days, perhaps, for all her 20-odd knots.

Was he to believe then that he'd managed it in just one night, solely by drifting along willy-nilly through open ocean?

Because after swallowing his fair share of seawater, James was left with nothing else to explain the statue coming out of the fog at him, except a trick of his own broken mind.

Yet there she stood towering above him.

The Lady of Liberty herself.

And lying in wait behind her was not the same New York James remembered from his transatlantic voyages as an officer of the Oceanic.

Because the world, James Moody soon came to realize, looked nothing like the one he knew and had left behind with the RMS Titanic.