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Chapter Text

"I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be."

― Charles Dickens, (1861, from Great Expectations)

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Part I

April 15th, 1912

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"Will you go away with this boat, or I?"

Had Harold Lowe not been standing near the 6th Officer when he asked it, he might've missed that damning question so quietly spoken over the steam of Titanic's roaring funnels behind them.

But something in the calm of James Moody's voice was stranger to Lowe, making him pause at securing the falls to the davits at Lifeboat 14.

Turning his head toward his fellow junior officer, only a rank shy of his own, Lowe saw a different man than the sunny young lad he'd first met in Belfast.

When James Moody walked out of his adolescence and grew into a sailor, it must've been at that moment at Lifeboat 14. His soulful forget-me-not-blue gaze that had always reminded Harold of a doleful puppy dog, now looked weary but undefeated as he stared undauntedly into the Atlantic. Taking on a resolved creed of honor and duty that made him a tableau of the old captains long gone. The seadogs who answered the war cry of the hurricane, though it should cut down their ship right from under them.

But the courage that drove James Moody's actions that night was not the same gung-ho warfare that sent Lowe head-to-head about the deck, with gut and pistol keeping the passengers from sabotaging the davit falls.

James's concerns were quieter. More observant and circumspect about the passengers he'd just trusted into the lifeboats. Ever mindful that in the interest of being safe and sound, being sound mattered as much as being saved.

And so, James looked after the little particulars his fellow officers might've missed, as they made every effort to superintend the escalating mayhem.

Watching the lifeboats row away from the ship into the cold dark unknown, James explained to Lowe, "I've put 58 into this boat, but I saw five boats go away without an officer. The women must be terrified. Even after leaving their men behind, the nightmares carry on. Someone ought to go with this one and look after them."

"It's not our duty to make the passengers comfortable, but to save the life of them. There aren't enough boatmen to put to the job of rowing here, and there's no time for hunting a man down. They will make do for themselves, Mr. Moody," Lowe informed him, his breath foggy with each firm word as he trembled from the cold. "What have you for the time? We should keep note of it faithfully for the ship's log."

"My watch reads a quarter pass one," James reported to the 5th officer, as he dropped the brass open-faced Elgin back into his officer's coat pocket. "All the horrors seem to happen at night, Godfrey...don't they?"

And with Titanic having yet to play her swan song, James Moody felt he would never again know a horror like this one.

Since that haunting moment he'd picked up the phone in the wheelhouse, 20 minutes before the end of his watch, and asked Fredrick Fleet in the crow's nest, "Yes, what do you see?", Moody suspected that worrying about what he should report in the scrap log was just spitting into the wind now.

Now unable to shake that gut-sinking instinct that he'd never again be returning to the bridge to write anything down.

Tensions on deck had swelled from lightly fascinated confusion to sobering desperation.

"Remember the SS Artic" Lowe's eyes darted alertly around to the men inching testily toward Lightoller. "The mutiny in '54?"

"It won't happen like that," James assured him, before Lowe could let that dark idea distract him. "And we'll take care that it doesn't."

"You watch this side, and I'll watch the other," Lowe told him. "If the men rush this boat again, get out of the way of my pistol." 

James's soft blue gaze followed Lowe's, scanning the anxious male passengers for anymore signs of bullishly trampling the women as they waited their turn. A particular handful of them always looking to jump the distance between Lifeboat 14 on the davits and the barrel of Lowe's pistol, the moment the officers turned their backs.

And having worked well past his scheduled watch by 1:25 a.m., time seemed more and more like a whirling blur to James. 

Had it really been nearly 2 hours since Lightoller had asked for the heat to be turned on in the officers' quarters?

Only two hours since James had practically skipped along the deck at the idea of returning back to his cozy nook for a cabin?

It felt like only a moment had passed, and still a forever more, since he'd staggered into the wheelhouse with the sound of ice grinding against Titanic's hull, panting to catch his breath as he called out to Quartermaster Hichens, "Hard astarboard! Mr. Murdoch ordered the helm hard over, sir!"

And just as he'd stood faintly shaken, but dutifully firm over Hichens to make sure Murdoch's order was carried out correctly, James now faced the brink of a stampeding crowd, and the unprecedented decision that would test the limits of his officer's oath.

To stay or to quit?

For James, there could only be one answer.

And to realize that answer was a juxtaposition to the calm sea, smooth as glass, reflecting the night sky glittering with stars on a mirror for an ocean.

With the band playing "Barcarole" off to his left to keep the passengers calm, no epilogue was ever so beautiful for his last night alive.

"Keep order! Keep order!" James's superior, Officer Lightoller hollered at the men again. "Women and children first! Men stand back! Keep order, I say!"

And with the crowd only just held back by his command, Lightoller turned back to Lifeboat 14 swung out over the ship's side above the open ocean.

Flipping open his company pistol in his shaking hands, as he tried to keep it all together, pushing each bullet into the empty chamber he hadn't ever imagined using.

"Mr. Lowe, Mr. Moody, they won't hold back for long. Andrews will have to hold his peace. We can't risk waiting to put more in. I need her gone away quickly," he said to his fellow officers. "One of you get in this boat, for God's sake, and hurry."

And snapping his pistol shut again, Lightoller marched on to bark orders to a seaman loading more cargo into the boat. "What's this luggage doing here? Get rid of it! There's no luggage on this boat! Get rid of it, we need the room! And get rid of that too!"

"Well, we have our orders," James told Lowe, politely stepping aside for his fellow officer. "After you, Mr. Lowe."

"What are you playing at, Mr. Moody?"

"Lightoller's right. If we don't move now, all of this will be for naught. One of us should go," James said. "I'll stay behind and keep the men in line. I won't allow any more women to be hurt while going into the boats. And besides that, we'll need at least 8 men to lower her away even. So, you take this boat in my stead."

"Why should I go before you?" Lowe disagreed. "You're no more caliber for a man than I. And should I remind you, Mr. Moody, that well-read is not the same thing as well-endowed. So, I say it's me who'll stay and slack rope, and you who'll go." 

"If it were not for your ghastly scribbling, that is, which might be about as legible as if you'd wrote it at gunpoint. That leaves me alone to look after the ship's log. Someone well-read ought to make note of the boats being launched. And we both know, you're no man of letters, Mr. Lowe," James remarked lightheartedly. "And so, I'd be better use to everyone here on deck."

"Well I outrank you," Lowe countered. "So, I say It's me who'll stay behind and you who will go."

"No, sir, I won't be going yet," James quietly challenged Lowe, in a defiance the 5th officer wasn't used to taking from the ever-faithful Moody when given an order. "It's here I must go my own way. Until I've soundly satisfied my duties."

"That's not up for you to decide, James," Lowe said firmly. "You've been asked to leave this ship by two higher ranking officers. This isn't the sea trials, Jim, where we make sport of each other and it all comes out right in the end. I say it'll be you, and you'll obey the order as I give it."

"It's more practical, is all," James smiled wearily at Lowe, as if it ever could be as easy as that. "I know it was just sport before, but you proved me wrong at the sea trials, and I can attest you're more experienced a boatman than I. And so, it's more important that you go and I remain. I'll get in another boat."

"Come off it, will you? It's not a bloody competition, and it can't be won either," Lowe tried to reason with him. "You know the odds as well as I do."

"I know them...just as you do," the 6th officer affirmed quietly. "But my mind's made up, Mr. Lowe. Besides, how else am I to settle this score between us on who'll rank captain someday?"

Lowe shook his head, searching Moody's face for hope that he was only kidding this time, like every other time he'd hassled his most immediate superior. Moody had that way about him. Always making light where Lowe meant business, but always in that pleasant sort of way that'd make you feel sorry if he wasn't around

"You're a bloody fool, James," Lowe told him. "You always were." 

"Just take care of these, will you?" James nodded at the passengers in boat 14. "And godspeed, Mr. Lowe." 

But before James could move on to superintend Lifeboat 16 in Lowe's place, Harold called after him, "Mr. Moody?"

James stopped, peering over his shoulder at him. 

"So long as you're standing there disobeying orders, will you at least swear to one thing?" Lowe asked him. "When the time is right, you'll take that boat abaft, if I am to go in this one."

"Alright, old man. Off you go then," James assured him. "I'll be chuffing right after you in no time."

And dodging around each other again so that Lowe could step around Moody toward Lifeboat 14, and Moody could step backward onto the deck, Lowe paused at ship's edge.

His conscience crushed under the guillotine of his guilt as he turned one last time back to the 6th Officer.

"When I say get yourself away with number 16, I mean every word of it, James," Harold told the young officer solemnly. "Don't wait. Be ye mindful at all times. Because once this ship goes, there won't be any coming back from her."

"And I'll do everything I know to do when she does," James answered. 

"That's not at all what I bloody..."

Lowe's declaration stopped abruptly, and for a moment, James thought he saw a fleeting passion in the 5th officer that the seasoned boatswain rarely laid bare. 

But as fleetly as it appeared, it was gone before Moody could ever make any meaning of it. 

"That's not what I mean," Lowe finished at last, more evenly than before. "I'm not going to say that you being a ruddy Englishman, and an out-and-out fool on more than one occasion, means I've gotten on with you the most....But if you don't come in that boat right after me, I shall never live to forget this night."

But James knew he couldn't give his fellow junior officer an answer Lowe might sit comfortably with.

He had already made known his say. 

"Good luck to you, Mr. Lowe," he nodded a solemn parting to his comrade. "Take care, old fellow."

And leaving the 5th Officer to take charge of Lifeboat 14, James turned to pull his black sailor's gloves over his numbing fingers, and got to work assuming command over Lifeboat 16.

"Who's next for this boat, please?" he called out to the crowd of passengers around him. "Any more women and children, please come forward."

"James!" 

It was a man's voice in the crowd, still dressed to the nines in his dinner jacket and white bowtie as he stumbled and knocked aside the other passengers, desperately pushing his way through. 

"James! A word with you, Officer Moody!"

"Step back, sir!" Lightoller ordered, pushing the frantic 1st class passenger back over the line and away from 16. "Women and children only!"

"I understand you have a job to do, sir, and I have no intention of interfering. But by any means whatsoever, it is absolutely necessary that I speak with that officer there," the passenger persisted, brazenly charging right up to an armed Lightoller again. "I am Patrick Crawley, and Mr. Moody can attest that we are long acquainted. What is more, I hold a first class ticket here, and I deserve at the very least a chance to explain-"

"I apologize for the inconvenience, Mr. Crawley, but I couldn't care a hoot who you are," Lightoller cut him off. "I say, there will be no men, regardless of his fare, on this boat."

"Then I too must apologize for the inconvenience, sir," Patrick stood his ground. "Because until I am allowed to speak to Officer Moody, I will not turn around." 

"You two," Lightoller asked the closest seamen at hand. "This man wishes to be removed by force. Kindly, will you oblige him?"

"I will not be knocked around and dragged about like a miscreant! Lower your weapon at once, sir!" Patrick persisted heatedly with Lightoller. "I told you already that I have no intention of taking a seat in a lifeboat that a lady might have instead."

Turning to Moody again, he said, "James, please, hear me out. I wouldn't have come this far, if it wasn't absolutely necessary that I do." 

And knowing that Patrick Crawley would bring down hell upon himself before he gave up his foolhardy crusade, James relented to Lightoller, "I'll dispose of this one."

Then the officer turned Patrick roughly around and escorted him on his way back through the crowd, so the crew could finally get back to loading the boats.

"What are you here roaring your eyes out about?" James demanded of him. "Fancy getting yourself shot, do you?"

"For all that time it took you to answer," Patrick remarked. "That appeared to be the least of your worries."

"If it wasn't the least of them, I'd be tellin' lies," James returned. "Thought you'd never come down from your high horse up in first class. To what do I owe the grace of yours, Crawley?"

Patrick rounded on him hotly.

"You know damn well what," Patrick declared. "You knew all along about Millicent, didn't you? You knew my sister was aboard this ship, and still, you swore on knowing nothing about it. Did you truly believe that by keeping this little secret of hers, you were doing her any favor?"

James stopped walking.

And though the rival of his youth had gotten better over the years of hiding his feelings when he heard Millie's name, Patrick caught that passing ignition in James's eyes that was just enough to confirm his enduring suspicions about Moody's undeclared yearning. 

"What have you done?" James whispered, his breath bated. 

"No...This is entirely your doing," Patrick swore to him. "If you had been honest with me from the start, I would've done the right thing for her, and dragged her off this ship the moment we docked in Cherbourg, and none of this..."

Patrick's words trailed off, choked into silence by the welt in the back of his throat, as the weight of their star-crossed reality came crushing down on him.

"What have you done with Millie?" James demanded more forcibly this time. "For God's sake, man, say something."

"She's my sister, James. It's my duty to protect her, even when she can't see the good in it herself," Patrick declared. "All I wanted was to bring her back home safely to Yorkshire. To make her come to her senses, and convince her to button up this 'finding herself by working in service' twaddle of hers. She's a Crawley, not a maidservant, for God's sake! What was I to do, should anyone find her out?"

"Just tell me where Millie is," James said to him. "If you've found her out, why isn't she here with you?"

"There was a...disagreement of sorts after dinner..." Patrick's voice shook slightly as he made his confession. "When I recognized my sister in the corridor, I requested a steward to send Millicent to my room with tea...And when we met, I demanded that she quit this stuff of nonsense and come home at once...But just like Millie, she refused to do what was best for her...And so, I took matters into my own hands, because she gave me no other choice...I left soon after...And I'll die for it, James. I deserve nothing better for behaving the way I have...I felt bloody terrible about leaving her like that, so I returned to my suite to apologize. But before I could find my door, a steward stopped me in the corridor and refused to let me pass. He said no one was allowed back in their rooms, and that all passengers were to go up and wait on deck for a lifeboat. I couldn't find my father to tell him what had happened. I haven't seen him since he went for cigars and brandy in the smoking room. And I didn't know who else to turn to for help, which is why I came straight away to you."

"You mean to say Ms. Crawley hasn't quit your cabin since you last spoke to her?" James asked him.

"I made her a promise that she wouldn't be allowed to leave until we reached New York," Patrick confessed. "I grabbed hold of her and forced her into the wardrobe. Then I took the chair from the writing desk to stop her from turning the knob....And I made damn well sure she couldn't get out."

"Dear God," James breathed. "Have you told this to anyone else?"

"None of the stewards would listen to me," Patrick said. "No one would allow me to go back. My only hope was getting someone of higher rank involved, and see if they might relent at last. But I can't tell now if I'm too late...if I have doomed her...I never intended for any of this to happen. How could I have known that the ship would sink?"

James glanced back at Lifeboat 16, where Officer Wilde had taken over his place directing the boat's launch.

"Please tell me I'm not too late, that she can still be saved," Patrick pleaded with the Scarborough officer. "Tell me I haven't murdered my own sister. My God, James, I beg you to help me."

Turning his eyes back on Patrick Crawley's dawning anguish, James finally spoke, "I'm sorry to say, sir...that by murdering her, you have murdered us both." 

And saying no more, James silently moved aft toward the First Class Promenade, as Titanic descended from under him.

Leaving a crumbling Patrick Crawley behind him to answer to his own fate, as James Moody walked into his. 

Chapter Text

Come back to me, James. You made me promise not to let you fall asleep, and I'm not going to break that promise.

Her words sounded so distant to him that James knew he had to be drifting off between dreams again.

And pulling himself back from that gentle dalliance of unconsciousness, every flutter of James's lashes felt heavy.

His every movement a comforting reassurance to Millicent Crawley and her eager watchfulness over him.

"Ah, thank goodness," she sighed in great relief. "Don't scare me like that. Every time you close your eyes, I think I've lost you."

"Alright, miss?" his words dragged slowly, as he hadn't yet recovered from wading through the freezing water rising in the ship's corridors. "I'm still with you."

And the quiet fervor of protectiveness he felt for her in those words was hardly suitable for a White Star officer and stewardess, but James had no mind to care anymore.

In fact, his mind didn't seem to be in league with him at all, as the room drunkenly dipped and swayed in his vision. Blurring and doubling with trailing stars for much longer than before, no matter how many times he squeezed them shut to clear his ebbing sight.

But the maid and the officer had made each other a promise.

Should one of them fall asleep before rescue, the other would stop at nothing to bring them back.

To what end, James no longer knew.

Their tethered fate now so uncertain.

But no matter if that end was a rescue from this harrowing food passageway, or merely the comfort of not dying alone, James would not abandon her.

He had already made that grave mistake once before.

And so, the 6th Officer fought harder to stay awake.

Giving it everything he had to ensure she survived this unimaginable ephialtes, even against whatever might become of him in the end.

Defying the tantalizing urge to sleep, James put himself to work focusing on something.

Anything.

Any minute detail that kept his mind from slipping back into an abyss.

Like the dishes rocking in their curios, clinking restlessly around him. Rows and rows of white dinner plates, trimmed in Cobalt blue and gold, silver-plated napkin rings, silverware, copper cooking pots, teapots, and many alike.

Was it just his own dizziness playing tricks on him, or did the service corridor suddenly look more sharply off-keel than before?

James gave his eyes another good squeeze, though no caliber of good sight could right the steepening angle of the corridor.

And slowly, the chinasets leisurely skated in a porcelain caravan down a polished Mahogany shelf in front of them. Dragged forward by the tilt of the ship, as the great Atlantic pulled Titanic down by the head.

Somewhere down the hall, there was still a wall lamp flickering at the far end of the passageway.

Sometimes, it dimmed into pitch darkness, and James counted the seconds.

One-one thousand...two-one thousand...three one thousand...

The corridor light outside the door rekindled.

And James felt the stewardess next to him finally breathe.

Quietly, though...so as not to let him find out how much being in the dark actually unnerved her.

But as the ship descended into a sharper angle, the maidservant was pressed so intimately against his side now that it was impossible not to notice when she took a breath...and when she did not.

And realizing how terrified she was of that dark and confining hallway, James couldn't bear letting her put herself through this any longer.

Not merely for his sake.

"I can't go any further with you, love," James whispered at last. "I'll only slow you down. But there may still be time to get to a boat, if you hurry."

"Don't talk like that," she stopped him. "My mind's already made up."

"I've always admired that about you, Millie, but on this occasion, I've no other choice but to take your mind on," James insisted. "Because I won't ever rest, knowing I could never save you from this nightmare in the end."

"And I won't ever rest knowing I left you behind," she countered. "To remember you like this, knowing how desperately I tried to carry you beyond this corridor, only to abandon you in the end? What sort of life do you imagine I'd have after it, if not to go completely insane?"

"But if you stay," James warned her in gentle honesty. "You will die with me, and that's not what either of us want. This isn't how it should end for you, Ms. Crawley."

"You’re right…I never imagined dying like this...But leaving you behind, after wishing for you for so long…it seems so unfair, " she kept her words steady over the ache in the back of her throat. "Don’t ask me to make that choice, James. If I go, it's with you or not at all. That's what I've decided. You or nothing."

And in the company of such defiant courage, how could James repress any longer that he would've given her the same answer, had she been in his place.

"Alright, Mills....Alright," James nodded assuredly to her. "If you won't give up, then I won't either. We'll keep going on. No matter what becomes of us, we'll go until we can go no further."

But though her mind was resolved to stay, Millicent was not so much a romantic to understate the severity of their ill-fated hand.

"No one's coming back for us," she came to accept the truth of it. "They'd be crazy to try…We’re on our own now.”

James listened closely to the silence of the hallway around them. Funny to call it a silence, when it was anything but.

And the soon-to-be violent and bludgeoning end that awaited them might be far worse than taking their chances in the freezing Atlantic.

Unlike the bow of the ship, her stern was taking on more air than water, and now that the bow was weighed down by the ocean, the stern would sink quickly.

If they didn’t drown first, they'd have no longer than a minute before the crushing sea pressure ravaged them under the surface.

"We should keep moving," James tried to keep her mind off the idea. "She's going fast, and we won't have much time to-"

The lights in the corridor dimmed again, as a chilling thunder of scraping and bending metal echoed through the ship's bowels. Aching under the pressure and tension of her distress.

Both the stewardess and the officer held onto their breath this time.

One-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand, four one thousand...

James counted up to eleven before the lights flickered back on again.

Taking longer to illuminate, and burning noticeably dimmer.

The reddish afterglow bloodying the warm golden light of the food passage lamps, like a horror out of a ghost tale.

A telling sign to James that the ship's electrical power was waning.

Titanic would not leave them wondering much longer about their fate.

It was only a matter of time before the ship reached her limit against the crushing stress, and the rolling gushes of raucous ocean ripped through the white walls around them.

The Atlantic had fast caught up to them. Its murky surf tearing locked doors off their splintering white hinges, and devouring all hope of escape through the narrow food passageway James and Millie had only just stumbled into. And no sooner had they taken refuge to catch their breath, the tide crawled within feet of their little corner.

"I'm right behind you," James whispered into the maid’s ear. "The water will rise quickly, just as it did in Scotland Road. So, whatever happens, Millie, don't stop running. Not until you've reached the next corridor and found your way out of this place. Don't be frightened. I'll be with you every step of the way."

"I'm not frightened," she whispered back to him. "I was before...but I know now, out of the whole world, this is where I’d rather be."

The ship officer gazed down to his shoulder again, where the stewardess leaned her head against him. Half out of necessity for the limited space in the corridor apex, and half by her own fancy.

Looking down at her heels and his dress shoes crisscrossed around each other to avoid the shattered dinner plates and overturned service trolleys littering the corridor. Despite their rank and position on the ship, they were happy to make room for each other.

The maid's hair twist falling undone from under her white cap, revealing strands of her ribboning sandy brown hair. Stained with blotches of blood that didn't belong to her.

James hadn't realized he'd lost so much of it.

Until he saw all the blood smudged on Millie's snowy bonnet, he hadn’t known how serious his head injury was. And what a wartime mess she looked after crutching him with her shoulder and dragging him along the passageway. All because he could go no further by himself without feeling faint from so much loss of blood.

"Shall we then, Mr. Moody?"

"After you, Ms. Crawley."

And with her beside him, James felt as if he could brave anything the Atlantic threw at him.

If only his legs would obey him.

It was like he had ice blocks for limbs instead of the toned brawn he'd built after many years at sea.

He didn't even sense the cold anymore as the creeping ocean swept into their hallway, lapping at the soles of his polished dress shoes and the maid’s heels. He watched the water wash over his soles, and then the black socks stricken around his ankles.

But he couldn't feel a damn thing anymore.

Millie turned her head from the sea in front of them until her hazel eyes ran into James's.

Reading in his pale bloodied face an apology and goodbye she was not willing to accept.

She dropped her eyes to his numb blue hand in his lap, wrapping it snuggly against the warm core of her body as she cuddled up closer to James.

"Just one moment longer resting here won't hurt, will it?" she murmured softly to the 6th officer.

James pressed his blue-tinted lips into her hair, and closed his eyes.

Lingering there in her violet powdery scent, as he gave his last few precious breaths to her for warmth.

And as they watched the water rise to their knees, never a moment before had they understood each other so deeply.

Knowing that they would go no further than this corridor, Millie shut out the groaning of a dying ship with the comfort of James’s beating heart.

"Will it be very painful, do you think?" she asked James. “To die this way?”

"I can't say, love," James answered softly. "But whatever follows it, you won't endure it alone."

"And how long do you suppose we have?"

James scanned the groaning walls surrounding them, vibrating with the gushing sounds of the sea in the rooms adjoining them, washing out the ship's dying wails and knocks.

"It won't be long now, Mills," he comforted her. "Only a little while longer, and we can rest at last.”

"Thank god the worst part is over then," she said to him. Rather peacefully, James thought. "We found each other in time to say goodbye...I suppose that's an improvement for us, James...Even if finding me again on this ship was only by accident."

"None of it was an accident," James answered. "I meant everything I'd done, and everything I'd said to you. And that's the end of it."

"You can’t tease me with words anymore," she said. "Now isn’t the time."

"It was never the right bloody time for us, was it?" James remarked. "We we're born into entirely different worlds, you and I. And because of it, it was always this reason or that why it could never work for us. But for all their quarreling in keeping us apart, on account of what was proper and what wasn't, doesn't seem to matter much now anyway, does it? We may as well have our honest say then."

"Do you love her, James?" Millie asked. "Were you really going to marry her?"

Millie didn't want to know, and she wished she never had a reason to ask. But if this was really to be their last moments together, she needed to know. She needed to hear it from him that it was just a terrible mistake, and not from passing conjecture she never wanted to hear at some contemptible evening soiree in Yorkshire. She needed to know that she was right all along. That 8 years was enough time for a man to forget his first love, even if she still held dear every trivial moment they'd made with each other.

Even if after it all, she still wanted James to be happy on finding someone who could love him the way she was never allowed to. She wanted to be happy for the woman who saw in James all the things Millie adored about him, even though she was only allowed to privately love those things about him from afar.

"Now you’re the one teasing me with words," James told her. “I waited 8 years for you, Millie. I have no other answer.”

And somewhere in that last bit of his say was a forever-long score settled between them.

A hint of hardened sass that didn't go unnoticed by Millie, even in the finale of their war of belying raw feelings.

And Millie's heart raced with the cadence of the waves as she said,

“My answer is still the same…Had it all been different for us, James….I would've..."

The buzzing lamps shorted in sparks around them, drowning the corridor in complete darkness that robbed her of the last confession to James. That blood-chilling darkness, filled only with the screams of the dying and the bending screeches of fracturing metal would be for the rest of eternity.

James squeezed Millicent tightly against him to keep her from slamming into the wall as the ship swung down suddenly.

Using his own body as a buffer protecting the stewardess from being thrown about like a ragdoll, until the ship gradually righted itself again.

Then they felt it slowly inclining at a much steeper angle than before.

And feeling Millie's heartbeat race against his chest, as she breathed deeply in terror, James would've done anything to distract the maid from the violent sounds of Titanic tearing herself apart.

"I do know it," he murmured into Millie's ear, so that his voice could be her haven from the sound of hell all around her. "I've never stopped knowing for myself. And had I known that you loved me still, I would've turned away from that lifeboat much sooner to find you. Forgive me, Millie, for how terribly I've made you suffer, being a damn fool and not seeing how deeply you've loved me until now."

And if James had any dying wish, it was that he could undo that tormenting end that caused their unbearable 8 years' silence.

I've loved you since our very beginning, and I wanted nothing but to tell you I did…If I could do it differently...

But there was no time for wishes anymore. 

Like every missed opportunity with her he’d lost before, James Moody was powerless to lose Millicent Crawley again.

I’d ask for one more lifetime…One more chance to be at your side, and remain your constant ‘til the very end.

But all the more tragic than dying in such a way was knowing one's heart fully, though not a lifetime soon enough. 

Chapter Text

James never realized the moment he fell asleep. 

Only that he couldn't stop himself from doing it.

He felt nothing at first, and what a delight it was to finally feel nothing troubling him at all.

A lifetime must've gone by like that, finding comfort in nothingness, before he finally took a breath. 

And then he was drowning. 

Suddenly aware that he was no longer trapped in the bowels of Titanic, but fighting for his life against an underwater current dragging him deeper into the ocean. 

His chest pierced with an agonizing panic when he realized he couldn't breathe. His lungs stiff with sea water, aching and burning to release.

James kicked for the sunlight glimmering just above the surface, desperate to breathe. 

But try as he might, he couldn't break the undertow. 

The shock of the freezing water leaving his body dumbstruck, as if he'd suddenly forgotten how to swim. His joints so paralyzed by the violent jolt of the cold Atlantic, that he couldn't make his limbs do anything to save him.

And feeling as if his chest would explode for holding his breath so long underwater, James was forced to let the air go. Breathing in a smothering kiss of salt water instead. 

Never before had he felt so powerless.

It wasn't the thought of death that scared him, but the idea of drowning. Like he had known this feeling of helplessness before. Of feeling like he'd never again be able to breathe, and that no one would come to save him. And being so terrified of drowning, James would've seen himself taken out in any other way but this. 

The pain of water pressing against his lungs brought to his racing mind a nexus of blurry images. White hallways bleeding with the dim lighting of cast iron wall lanterns, broken china scattered all over elaborate carpets soaked with blood and water, a woman in a white bonnet and apron squeezing his arm as she whispered her prayers. 

An iceberg on a starry dark night at sea, crawling out of the shadowy Atlantic like a ghost in the ship's masthead lights.

"Yes, what do you see?"

"Iceberg, right ahead!"

"Hard-a-starboard!"

James was sure he knew the images and the voices within them, but couldn't remember clearly the faces they belonged to.

In fact, he couldn't remember much of anything. 

He knew he'd last been on the Titanic, and he knew he'd been leaninfg on someone as they stumbled through the corridors of the ship...But try as he might, the face of the woman who'd been curled up beside him was a blur in his faint memory. 

The only thing James knew for certain, was that as he slept, something terrible had happened the night before. 

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

Why hadn't he shared in the ship's fate and gone down into the Atlantic with her?

How could he have no recollection at all of what happened in her final moments, before he couldn't keep himself from falling asleep anymore?

What did it matter now, if he drowned here before he could ever find out?

Surely, this couldn't be real. 

And just when he realized that he had no hope of being saved, a hand broke the surface above him and locked around his arm.

Yanking him clear out of the water and slamming him back down again on dry ground. James's trembling fingers grappled against the scratchy hard pavement, immeasurably grateful to find out it was so sturdy and nothing at all like water.

"I gotch' ya, bruh! I gotch' ya!"

Blimey...James had never been "gotten" by anyone quite the same before. 

And he reckoned he weighed at least 12 stones!

Yet this wild ogre for a man made him feel that he weighed nothing next to a sardine caught in a net.

"Breathe, my bruh! Get that shit out!"

And then his anvil for a hand bludgeoned James between the shoulders again. 

"I said breathe, homez!'

Thus, having no other choice but to do-or-die, lest he be beaten to a pulp, James's stomach heaved, choking up all the seawater blocking the air from his lungs.

And though he'd longed for it desperately, breathing was agony.

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

His breath so painfully shallow as he gasped for air. Until at last, he felt himself warming up again, bit by bit.

Using his hand to shield his aching eyes from the sun, James squinted against the bright morning light, until he could make out the face of the scruffy-looking gentleman standing over him. 

The man appeared to be of the vagabond variety, and had some kind of trolley in his possession with the name "Walmart" plated on the side, a heap of peculiar shiny black bags piled inside of it, and a devlish little creature yapping away as he kept guard of it. The little blighter might've easily been part jumping bean, as he cleared 3 inches, roughly, pogoing himself into the air and barking madly at James from the royal perch of his belongings. 

Reminding the sailor of just how much he preferred cats anyway.

"Good--good morning to you, sir," James greeted the vagabond politely, his chest still heaving to catch his breath. "I'm immeasurably grateful to you for coming to my aid." 

His savior's wide grin was missing one or two of his ivories. 

"Well, top of the morning to you too, my good fellow!" he mimicked James's English accent, performing an exaggerated stage bow, that was actually unexpectedly graceful. 

"I don't mean to disturb your morning promenade, sir, but as you can see, I'm having a hard time of it," James explained. "Would you be so kind as to tell me what strange island I've found myself marooned on now, please?"

His unlikely hero chuckled, as if he knew everything without James even having to explain it.

"Ah dawg, let me tell ya'. I don't drink Henrock no more, for this reason. But last night, I was fucking smashed, man. Flat on my ass, like bugs or some shit was crawling all over me, so I took my shirt off and shit. And come to find out, dumped out all my weed on the street. So I was like fuck,  gotta get me some more scrilla so I can get me some blaze. So I went over to that Little Ceasars over there, the one on 7th right there, and I told them to let me hold a dolla, you know what I'm sayin'? But they don't carry no more than 20-30- 400 at a time. And I was smashed, bruh, I just told them to gimme what they got. So I took a hundred bandz and walked around the block a couple times. Came back to the same goddamn Little Ceasars I just came out of. Used the same fucking 100 dolla bill they gave me and ordered $100 worth of Mountain Dew. Oh and a small large pizza on my EBT card. Told them to have it delivered to my corner right there--I stay right there on that corner there--Then passed the fuck out before the cops woke me up and arrested my ass. So I feel ya when I say I know how them nights go, dawg." 

"Dog?" 

James thought he must've hit his head rather hard indeed.

Greatly confused over the baffling nature of this man's discourse and why he should be called a dog by the end of it. "Well, I'll say." 

The officer's eyes dragged up to the man's metal trolley, and the little bat-looking creature still growling at him. 

"Sorry, I believe we've terribly misunderstood each other," James answered the man. "Were you referring to me...or to whatever that wee little gremlin is there?"

"Ah, Pookie? Ah, you good, man, he chill as fuck. He don't bite. He just get triggered when 'certain folk come rollin' through our neighborhood, you know what I'm sayin'? What I mean is, we don't get nobody talking like Hugh Grant and shit on this side of New York. What you doing way out here, my brother?"

"Titanic," James said. "I was on the Titanic before I came about here, when she struck ice, somewhere off the coast of Newfoundland. I believe I was somehow thrown overboard."

The man stared at him for a moment, dumbstruck for words...before it finally seemed to hit him, "Straight? I feel ya, man! Titanic, huh? Sheeeeit, if that shit got you white boys swimmin' in the ocean with alligators and shit, roll me some of that shit right der. For real, though."

And then it was James's turn to stare back at him dumbstruck. 

"Did you...say New York?"

"Damn straight." 

And assuming the man meant yes by that remark, James knew at once that it couldn't be possible. 

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 the Atlantic ocean?

But the man didn't seem to understand how absurd an answer he had given, as he bent over his trolley in search of something. 

Pulling out a transparent rectangular box of sorts that smelt deliciously like pork and eggs. The wording etched in the box reading Denny's, which James assumed must be the grand old chap's name.

Passing the box over to James, Denny said, "Here, man. You obviously on a bad trip. This for that hangover, dawg. Peace the fuck out."

And pushing his trolley and hellhound along the pathway, he proceeded to snap at his rat-dog for a companion, "Goddamit, Pookie! Cut all that barking shit out! Where's your fucking manners? You know guests eat first around here. Goddamn greedy mutt!'

"Many thanks, Denny," James called after him. "I'll return the favor when I am able, if you are ever in Scarborough."

"Don't even worry about it, dawg," the Denny man waved James off dismissively as he kept on walking. "Just pay it forward, man. Gotta help each other out on these streets, you know what I'm saying?"

"Duly noted," James answered uncertainly. "Though, might I trouble you with one more request, if you don't mind? If you would kindly direct me to where I might post a telegram to the White Star, I would be greatly obliged."

The man called Denny rubbed his hand over his face, like James had presented him with the most daunting of all life's questions, before his brows suddenly lifted again. 

"Yeah, yeah, I know where that is! Yeah, I got'cha, bruh!"

Then he did the most extraordinary of things.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a rectangular gadget of some kind that lit up at the very touch of his finger.

And then he just stared at it. As if he were under the sway of some kind of fit or trance.

In a silence far longer than was comfortable for James, without saying a word or showing indication that he was even still aware that he was there. 

Giving James enough time to glance back down at "Pookie", who was now licking James's hand because it smelt so irresistibly like bacon and eggs.

"Yeah, ok, yeah," Denny kept muttering to himself, without ever really getting on with an explanation.

And unable to resist the bright light shining like heaven out of the man's hands, James slowly leaned forward, overcome by an irresistible curiosity to study the nature of this strange blinding device, and why it had the man so spellbound. 

It appeared to be called Apple, but didn't seem to have any obvious relation to the fruit, which was quite baffling to James. 

He could only compare it to some kind of...moving-picture newspaper? As if the man were staring into an illuminating page of printed words that jumped up and down at the command of his fingertip.

Google, the newspaper was called. 

And below its title of fascinating rainbow letters, James's wide wonderstruck blue eyes followed the man's dragging finger to an address.

"Here it go right here...White Star Line...Titanic, The Exhibition," the man said, holding up to James the strange glowing device. 

Odd...James could've sworn, last he remembered, that the office was located at 11 Broadway, New York, NY 10004. 

But he took a mental note of the address anyway. 

526 6th Ave, New York, NY 10011.

"Yeah, I knew I knew I'd seen that place before," Denny said, as he pointed south.  "It's back north, over there on 6th....That way, bruh. You're gonna take a left there at that light where the PayDay Loan place is, and go all the way down until you hit 6th. It's that building right next to the Sunglass Hut and the smoke shop on the corner of 6th Avenue and 14th Street. You can't miss it." 

"Many thanks, Denny," James nodded to him. 

"Good luck, dawg. And if you ever get any more of that Titanic shit, come through and smoke me out, a'right?"

Then the man called Denny went on his merry way. 

And as the sea fog changed course around him, James realized that finding the correct address to file his report about Titanic at the White Star office might only be the beginning of his troubles.

Because after swallowing his fair share of seawater, it had to be a trick of his own broken mind.

Yet there she stood, clear as day.

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 this alien world, as James Moody soon came to realize, looked nothing like the one he had left behind on the RMS Titanic. 

Chapter Text

Emily Amberflaw hated Mondays.

Because nothing said Mondays like a traffic jam.

And nothing said traffic jam like a standoff at the intersection in the rain, 20 minutes before she was supposed to clock into her shift.

"Yes, Trish, I'm still here. The reception is terrible in this storm...Are you sure this can't wait until I get off work? I'm already late as it is...Well, ok then, if that's what I have to do, but I can't even make my way back home until traffic moves...Yes, I'll try to get there as fast as I can, but there's something going on at the light, and I'm trying to get around it...Wait, can you say that one more time, please?"

Millie leaned in closer to the car radio of her little 2015 Honda, forgetting that doing so didn't really matter, since Trish couldn't see her face anyway. That gentleman at the car dealer shop said all she had to do was give a turn of the little black button--the one that looked like a sewing thimble--and it would crank up the volume louder for the Bluetooth. But the high stakes situation of the morning had made her forget that technology worked for more than just inconveniencing her.

"Sorry, it's just really hard to hear you over--what is that God awful noise? Did you say a blender?...I don't understand, what does he need a blender for? He's banned from the kitchen. Can't you just switch it off when he's not looking?"

The light at the intersection turned green again, and three cars in front of Millie raced at their chance.

Then it was her turn to brave the intersection.

Tightly gripping the steering wheel with both hands, Millie sat up so close to the horn that she practically hugged it.

Of course, there were over a million things that could go wrong in this metal death trap that apparently had a shocking 120-mph-worth of ideas on how to kill her, but apart from that, what was the worst that could happen?

Sure, Pax would be a little annoyed if he ever found out she'd been stealing his car while he was away, but at least he knew her well enough to know that choosing between asking for forgiveness and asking for permission had hardly ever put her on the straight and narrow path.

Not that she was particularly "contrarious", at least not by her own design.

But could she even call them related if she didn't at least try to prove him wrong on occasion or two?

Even so, whatever happened, she wouldn't dare put even a scratch on his Honda that would raise her brother's suspicions too soon about everything she'd been up to while he was gone.

Breathing in and out deeply, Emily gathered her nerves, and carefully tapped on the gas.

Never before had she liked driving this darn thing anyway. Not since the "accident" Pax liked to remind her about when he argued against her getting behind the wheel...

The one accident that had tragically stolen most of her memories.

But Millie would never let anything like that happen again, because when Pax wasn't looking, she'd been studying all 116 pages of that damn driver's manual handbook until all she dreamed about was four-way-stops and signal lights.

She was ready for this.

And she would keep calm and carry on, shifting into drive with her head kept high, and her heart hopeful that this job was the beginning of a "new Millie" she'd been aching to find.

Working as a cashier in the gift shop at the Titanic Museum was just a part-time, but even if $14.20 an hour was pocket change compared to what she and her brother needed to survive in New York City, Emily took pride in having something she could claim as "hers". Something she could keep for herself in her ever-changing world.

'You want a job? What good would that do now? I'm telling you, this is my rubbish to sort out, Em. I'm your older brother, after all. It's my business to take care of you. And I don't want you worrying so much about things like money,' Pax would always say to her, every time she worked up the nerve to tell him about her secret side job. 'Money was never the issue for us anyhow...It's timing, really...And until the timing is right, I don't think it's a good idea for you to form attachments in New York, and that includes work. You know we can't ever stay long in one place.'

"Timing" always seemed to be a constant worry with Pax.

And whatever he meant by waiting for the 'right time', or this mysterious 'fortune' they never seemed to have access to, Emily could never get a straight answer out of her brother.

All she knew was that since the 'accident', Pax had been quite overprotective about her doing things on her own

She supposed she couldn't blame him, considering that the brutal nature of the accident had almost taken everything from her...Whatever that 'everything' was...Try as she might, Emily couldn't quite remember what life was like for her and Pax before the accident...but she imagined Pax had a good reason for worrying about her. Overbearing at times, yes, but they were all each other had. And after all, he was only trying to look after her as best he could because of it.

Still...wasn't it about time that she did something useful to look after him as well?

Even if it meant taking on this cashier job behind his back, anything she could do to ease his worries about money would at least take some of the burden off of his shoulders.

And so, no matter how many Monday mornings she'd have to endure in the rain or in traffic, Emily's mind was made up.

She'd push forward, until going forward was impossible, as the stoplight turned from green to red again at the intersection.

Millie quickly slammed on her brakes, making the Toyota behind her slam on his too, and robbing him of the opportunity to gun past the light.

He fell mad on his horn then, rolling down his window and shouting at her, "Are you fucking kidding me? If you're too scared to drive, then you shouldn't have a license, you cunt!"

With one neat dark brow arching upward, Millie straightened out her rearview mirror to get a good look at the very nice gentleman in his mailbox for a car, mumbling under her breath, "You drive a Prius. Move along, little man."

Because even if it was true that she didn't exactly have a license, surely his didn't give him the right to act like an uncultured buffoon?

And so, awarding the troll behind her no more of her attention, Millie straightened her mirror back out properly and pushed down on the gas to lead her car into a right turn out of the intersection.

Only to slam on her breaks again.

Her tires squeaking to a sudden halt as she narrowly missed the shadowy phantom of a figure that stumbled out of nowhere into the road in front of her.

Heart racing to catch up with her nerves, Millie's dollishly hazel eyes anxiously chased across the windshield, hoping she'd stopped the car in time before running the random pedestrian down.

Until at last, through the crystal droplets of rain on the glass, Millie's search found her way into the gaze of the bluest sapphires for eyes she'd ever seen, wide and perplexed as they stared back at her through the window glass.

Finding a rough, but safe landing on the hood of her car. A single golden braid hemming the almost-black sleeve of an old timey double-breasted, brass buttoned...peacoat and matching necktie?...and a service cap she couldn't quite catch the emblem of.

"Is that..."

Millie didn't exactly know what to make of him, as his features were too broken and distorted by the diamond prisms of raindrops on the window that kept her from taking his face in fully.

She turned to unbuckle her seatbelt to get out the car and see if he was alright. 

But just as she'd done it, and her windshield wiper dragged up to swipe the glass clean, he was gone. 

Stumbling alongside her passenger window as he hurried on his way, weaving between the honking cars around her.

Clearly out of his mind, as he took the morning traffic head on. 

But the way her morning was going, who was she to judge anyone for any degree of crazy at this point?

"Yes, I'm still here, Trish...Sorry, there's some idiot dressed like Captain Crunch holding up all the traffic," Millie explained on the phone. "Some people are just so entitled, aren't they?"

Such being the little man in the Toyota behind her, still glaring grotesquely in the reflection of her rearview as he called her every variation of the word cunt from the privacy and safety of his micro-vehicle.

And when the intersection light at last turned green again, Millie took her dear sweet time being exceptionally cuntish, and making a long and leisurely turn right, until the Toyota practically rammed her side mirror off trying to pass, cursing all the way as he went.

Safely out of traffic, Millie put the pedal to the floor, taking another sharp right at the next stop sign that took her in a huge circle around the block all the way back home. Detouring around the construction work on the right shoulder, and knocking some miles off her back tire as it popped over the curb and slammed back onto the road again.

And then full speed ahead toward home.

Because apart from assholes who drove Toyotas, and men who dressed like cartoon characters off of cereal boxes, nothing said Mondays like heading out to work on time, only to turn the car back around because well, you're a cat owner.

"I mean, after all, it is just a blender. Is there a way you can just unplug it until I get there?...He's not letting you?...He's threatening you?...Well, I'm almost there...Yes, I'm really almost there. How many more pedestrians must I sacrifice before it's enough for you? I swear, I'll only be 5 minutes, tops....Well, what about 3?...If you have to keep the blender on to keep him happy, then fine, as long as he's...No, I don't think so, 2 minutes is absolutely pushing it...Please don't leave him alone, I swear, I'm pulling up right now in a minute."

And then as if she meant to kamikaze her way through the garage, Emily swerved into the driveway. Narrowly missing the trash bins and the garage door by a solid inch.

A record, by her count.

The bumper-level dents in the Aluminum garage door a testament to how often she never missed her mark.

And veiling her sandy brown updo from the rain with her stormy grey knitted cardigan, Millie jumped out of her car as Trish was racing out the apartment into hers.

"Please, just give him a chance," Millie pleaded with the frantic pet-sitter on the sidewalk. "He's been through hell this past year, and with my brother away and all, I know he gets lonely sometimes and can act in a bear of a mood-"

"He's crazy!" Trish declared, scowling over at her. "You need to find someone else for that demon cat, because I ain't coming back."

"Please, can you just give it a couple more days? They switched my hours to evening shift, and he just gets a little flustered when my schedule changes, but I swear, it'll get better. He just needs a week or two, and he'll be alright," Millie tried to convince her. "I know I can't pay you more up front, but I'll get the money, if I have to. I just can't miss anymore work, and it means so much to me that I keep this job. It's just he can't be left alone for too long or he'll start to miss me, and start making trouble in the house--Look, I really, really appreciate your help and I know he'll warm up to you, if you just give him the chance. Just please, please stay."

"I feel for you, I really do," Trish empathized, lighting a smoke to 'calm her blood pressure, quite ironically. "But you couldn't pay me enough to watch that cat. Have a blessed day, sweetheart."

And for the first time in 30 nightmarish minutes, Millie's shoulders fell, letting out a heavy sigh as she watched Trish hoopty on down the road, never to be seen again.

But determined as ever that neither rain nor cats would make her lose this job, Millie marched for the front door.

Listening to the blender grinding away loudly inside as she went through 3 sets of keys to get to the one key she wanted.

And meeting her first at the door were the large, owl-like golden eyes of an adorable Scottish Fold.

He hissed grumpily.

"Oh right, you're so clever, aren't you Captain Wentworth?" she checked his sass, as she shook her key free out of the stubborn lock. "You fired another one? You can't keep being so damn picky. I have to work. And I'm gonna run out of people to call soon, and then how are we going to eat?"

Uninterested, Captain Wentworth extended each one of his claws and proceeded to lick his paws. Sliding a nonchalant, honey-eyed glance at Millie as she hurried into the kitchen to turn off the blender.

And satisfied with his handy work, the cat lazily dug his claws into the dining room rug to arch into a long stretch for a nice morning nap.

"I won't have anything, if it means I'll have it easy, will I?"

And Millie swore she caught a hint of a smirk playing across his whiskery chops.

"Fine. Not like I never liked a challenge anyway. If the hard way is how we're doing this," Emily decided, reaching into the coat closet by the front door and brandishing his handy-dandy cat carrier. "Then the hard way is how we're doing it." 

Chapter Text

When Emily looked up between the shelves she was stocking, pausing in her inventory count of the newly delivered Titanic Heirloom Music Boxes, her first thought was that maybe she'd seen a ghost.

But when she stood up to get a better look, the face she thought she saw staring back at her on the other side of the window was gone.

They'd warned her about taking the Monday night shift at the Titanic Artifact Exhibition museum.

You know this place is haunted, right? They'd said.

But Emily Amberflaw was a rational person who believed in rational explanations for rational things.

And it wasn't until she took the job at the museum that she ever needed to worry about the shenanigans of quote-unquote "ghosts" on the night shift.

Sure, there were weird feelings she couldn’t always explain.

She'd felt them her first day on the job. The little prickles dragging across her bare skin under her hand-knitted cardigan whenever she was cleaning alone in the dimly lit museum.

It happened the most when she was busy mopping the replica first class promenade. Sometimes, she'd stop and look out the glassless windows of the reconstructed deck, contemplating the little white lights that mimicked a starry night at sea. Emily knew it was just a star projector behind the white and teak wooden railings. She had been the one to replace the burnt-out lightbulbs in them several times.

But every time it was her turn to polish the wooden flooring of the deck, something about the simulated sea breezes and the audio-loop of a whispering night ocean felt...rueful....As if it hadn’t been the first time she'd looked out at a starry night sky like that before...

She had, in fact.

Several times for the last 1 year and 3 months working there.

And she knew those chilling “cold spots” that always seemed to happen on the promenade deck was just a big industrial fan attached to the ceiling, and obviously nothing paranormal. It was even posted on a sign at the door of the model deck, "Here on the 1st class promenade, experience the frigid temperatures felt on that fateful April night when Titanic struck an iceberg. The air was a chilling 28 degrees Fahrenheit, -2 degrees Celsius."

But, even as she could explain away the perpetual cold in the museum, nothing could quite explain those eerie feelings she got in the photograph exhibit.

Millie wouldn't call herself a history buff, exactly. Apart from knowing that the ship sank, and the band played on, she'd probably never spend her Friday nights drinking tea over a game of Titanic Trivia Pursuit.

So, on her first day working there, she had wandered around the museum getting herself acquainted with the ins-and-outs, studying the faces in the photographs projected against the dark walls. The famous key people everyone knew came down the line first: J. Bruce Ismay, John Jacob and Madeleine Astor, Thomas Andrews, Margaret Brown, Isidor and Ida Strauss...

Eventually, Emily strolled on by the black and white photographs of the ship's officers.

Captain Edward J. Smith, Chief Officer Wilde, First Officer Murdoch...

Scanning over the names of 3 senior officers, and 3 juniors, until she came to one.

Officer James Paul Moody.

And slowly, without fully realizing it, her feet came to a stop.

At first, it was just curiosity. 

For a grainy early 20th century photo, Moody was unexpectedly handsome. With a soft symmetry to his full lips and nose, and his pale frost eyes drawing slightly down at the outer corners, giving him a dreamy wistful gaze that gave away his gentle disposition. A charm that only complemented his White Star cap, and his neatly pressed collar and necktie. His square shoulders were dressed smartly by his uniform, hinting that he might've been taller than his counterparts. His attention appeared to be drawn by something off camera, though he was careful to keep his noticing of it subtle. But Emily felt as if she almost knew that look personally, and the unspoken thoughts hidden behind it. The words for it being just out of her reach, as if her heart intuitively guessed Moody's exact feelings in that moment, but her mind had rightfully rejected that bizarre theory. 

Emily couldn’t tell what it was about him that inspired in her something vaguely remembered. Like he belonged to a distant dream she had long ago forgotten. After all, hadn't she heard once that the almost-remembered faces in your dreams were just reflections of strangers in passing from your waking life? 

Moody was a stranger to her, 100 years removed from the year she was even born. Belonging to an entirely different world from hers. And yet, the softness in his gaze begged her to imagine an alternative. What if, somewhere in her unremembered past, before forgetting was all her body knew how to do to protect her after the accident, she had known someone a lot like James Moody before?

Someone intimately hers, who was home to these wandering feelings of melancholy and strange ideas of attachment she didn't understand?

How else might she explain this indescribable yearning invoked from such a random historical photograph? 

Who was that person she had left behind in all her lost memories, which this photograph reminded her so much of now?

Maybe there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for that too. 

'James Paul Moody was an English sailor from Scarborough, who served as Titanic's 6th officer,' the mini bio next to his portrait read, 'He was the only junior officer to die in the sinking at the age of 24. His exact fate is a mystery, but he was presumed lost at sea, as his body was never recovered."

And knowing the officer was only a year older than she was, how could she not mourn in some way over James's tragic fate?

Millie couldn't help but wonder what Moody had been thinking in his last moments on the Titanic.

Or what she herself might've been thinking, had she been there too, facing the same fateful decision he had in choosing to stay or go?

And unable to stand that profound heartsickness that overwhelmed her whenever she gazed into James Moody’s photograph, Millie quickly walked on from the photo exhibit. 

Though now and again, on slower days in the museum, she couldn't help but take the long way back to the gift shop on occasion. Detouring through the photo exhibit with her mop and bucket, as her eyes inevitably found their way back to the 6th officer's portrait.

'It's kind of sad, isn't it?' one of her coworkers had caught Millie studying Moody’s photograph again. 'The way they brought this stuff up from the wreck site out of nothing but greed...These were real people...Everything in here belongs to some dead person who probably died on the Titanic. It’s like literally someone's grave down there, and these rich people make a circus out of it? Like, damn, I'd be mad too, if I was a Titanic ghost. I mean, is it really a Monday night if you don't run into one of them spirits floating around here, pissed off about their shit being disturbed?'

The day Emily Amberflaw found herself unwittingly caught in said "ghost story" happened to be on the Monday of April 15th, 20 minutes before she was supposed to clock out of her shift.

And by that time, the end couldn’t come soon enough for her.

Having spent the last hour of her shift cleaning up an “artsy” surprise left behind in the men’s restroom, Millie rushed to finish her closing duties. 

Standing on tip-toe as she sprayed and dusted all the top shelves she'd just stocked with the new shop deliveries. 

Her stormy gray hand-knitted cardigan falling in asymmetrical grace around her long white apron, white lace collar, and black stewardess uniform.

It was tradition at the museum.

A little like working at Disney World.

Every April, around the anniversary, the staff cosplayed someone from the James Cameron movie, and the customers got a kick out of taking pictures with them. It was a long anticipated social media promo, and the customers always tipped her well after.

This year, Millie had picked the maid costume again, because no one else wanted it. The other cashiers were more interested in wearing the beautiful but fussy gowns of Rose Dewitt Bukater, or Madeleine Astor, or the Countess of Rothes rather than the simple black frock of an obscure Titanic stewardess.

Apart from loving how easy it was to change into her dress, Millie felt a deep pride representing the unsung Titanic maids, whom despite not being born as women of status and money, had just as heroic a story to tell as the others.

And so enmeshed did she become with her character, that when she hung the dress back up and became Emily Amberflaw again, she felt a little heartbroken for leaving it behind. For the passing of time, really. For the loss of such a gilded age that would never be seen again. Like she was locking away an important piece of the past, which could only ever be remembered when she took it out of the closet again on her next shift. 

The customers noticed it too.

There was just a "comforting" charm about Millie's presence as the maid that made patrons feel as if they "were really there" while checking out their keychains and refrigerator magnets at the end of their museum tours.

At least, that's what they wrote in the Facebook reviews. 

The natural grace she carried as a woman in domestic service rarely failed to turn heads. The hem of her dress and petticoat always flowing to her feet in perfect neatness and plain dark elegance. Her black stockings modestly covering everything down to her ankles, as was the expectation for a modest lady back in that day.

But the formality of her cosplay stopped at a pair of white Converse High Tops, which Millie refused to trade in for the Oxfords that came along with the package.

A pair of breathable Chuck Taylors being much more practical for standing on her feet all day at a cash register, as opposed to the standard black heels a real Titanic stewardess might've worn.

But no one had bothered looking at her feet anyway, as the cleverest of them were too busy snickering remarks behind her back like, "Tea, Trudi."

It didn’t stop there, as the rest of her conversations with customers included imaginative little questions like,

"Are you sure you're not a time-traveler?"

"Damn, I literally saw you slide down a whole ass ship in the movie. How did you survive?”

"Can I record you for my Youtube channel? I'm trying to get the word out about how the government is using cloning experiments to slowly replace the population with mind-controlled copies of real people."

"Tell Murdoch I said s'up."

“Do you know anybody who sailed on the Titanic? I swear, you look just like the maid I saw in one of those pictures back there.”

“Some people just got that look for period drama. You should try out for Bridgerton.”

"See? This is proof that the Olympic and Titanic were actually switched as an insurance scam. Which means all the crew on Titanic actually survived in the end."

"You can come fluff up my pillows any time, boo, that's all I’m saying.”

Needless to say, Millie was relieved to finally be allowed to hang the “Sorry, We’re Closed” sign on the gift shop door to finish cleaning the store in peace.

Of course, working in a Titanic museum, she'd already heard it so many times in a day, she couldn't get it out of her head.

"Every night in my dreams, I see you, I feel you. That is how I know you go on," Millie sang along softly with Celine Dion on the store radio as she worked. "Far across the distance, and spaces between us, you have come to show you go on." 

Reaching over for the Windex on the register counter, she began spraying the jewelry case where she’d finally cleared off all the inventory boxes.

Watching the aqua blue droplets shimmer in the overhead lights every time she sprayed the jewelry display case.

Little glittery stars of Windex reflected off a perfect mirror, matching the Heart of the Ocean necklaces she'd just stocked inside. Sapphire Swarovski heart crystals, each trimmed around the edges with white faux diamonds climbing up the chain. Promiscuous beauties that were flirtatious with every angle of light in the store, giving away their 'plasticy' nature. Their only real value being to look valuable. The more bling, the better.

 "The Heart of the Ocean" the lid on the box read. "A Collector's Edition to commemorate the 110th Anniversary of Titanic's tragic sinking. $49.99. Made in China." 

 The gift shop's best sellers for Birthdays-For-Her and Valentine's Day gifts.

And having checked the jewelry case off her list of cleaning duties, Millie grabbed the paper towel roll as a microphone to serenade her heart out to Captain Wentworth, who was curiously batting away a keychain display by the register. 

"Once more, you open the door, and you're here in my heart and, my heart will go on and on." 

And so engrossed in passionately declaring her undying love to her cat paramour, Emily didn't hear the chiming ding-ding of the shop door as it admitted one last customer. 

Chapter Text

She had to be a ghost.

Because of all the official White Star people he expected to meet at 526 6th Ave, a stewardess wasn't his first guess.

And the moment James scanned the windowglass for any sign that he'd found the correct address, he paused still on the sidewalk. His gaze accidentally running into hers.

A ghostly gray reflection of himself merging with the maid's on the other side of the rain-kissed glass, as the world went silently on without them.

And the moment they locked eyes, James knew from the very bottom of his heart that finding each other had to be fate...as looking into her eyes...he suddenly remembered...How many times they'd bloody warned him what a blooming American circus he'd be walking into by accepting the Southampton-New York route!

All sorts of manky goings-on happen in America, they'd said. A sensible lad like you might go off his head by the end of it. 

But for a salary of only 30 pounds a month, James would take the gamble on bagsying any extra routes White Star wanted to give him, if he was honest. 

And what a damn good joy it was to finally find someone "normal" around there, restoring his hope in "reet good" reason again, as he put it. 

Maybe he wasn't that barmy after all. Because at last, here stood a perfectly natural woman, dressed like all the other service girls he met back in England.

And at that point, he'd take anyone who might at long last help him sort this all out. 

All he'd have to do was just walk in there and explain himself to her, give his report to the White Star superintendent about Titanic, and then straight away write his family to let them know he was alive and well, and they'd all be nanty-narking in no time.

And the thought of finally returning home to Scarborough made him so merry as a grig, that James couldn't stand waiting any longer to be done with America.

Staggering to catch his balance as his polished shoes slid along the slape wet sidewalk,  James hastily quit the window and searched the building for the nearest door leading into the White Star Office. Finding one such door left ajar along the snicket, which stood propped open by a little rubbish basket.

He bolted for it.

Forgetting to mind the trail of muddied wet footprints left behind as he dashed through the hallway, checking every store closet and locked door to his left and right, until he found the one he wanted. 

Coming to a sudden halt behind the stewardess, as she went on tidying up and dusting the countertops, singing to herself,

"Love can touch us one time and last for a lifetime, and never let go 'til we're gone."

James's lips parted, as if he meant to say something, but second guessing himself, he closed them again.

Remembering all at once that he'd already forgotten his manners, and quickly removed his officer's cap for the lady's sake, leaving it hanging in one hand as he used the other to reach out to her. 

Pardon me?

The words were silent vowels on James's lips, as he undecidedly pulled his hand back when the stewardess suddenly turned to her right. Scooping up her used paper towels, and walking to the rubbish bin to dispose of them.

James dodged around with her.

Keeping himself just out of her line of sight as he went on faffing about, trying to guess the right time to make himself known.

Moving left and then right again when she did, like a graceful tango between them, as he kept himself hidden quietly behind her.

Ashamed that after everything he'd been through, no matter his perfect manners, he still looked very much like the arse end of a donkey for any proper social engagement, particularly with a lady.

But these were extraordinary times, weren't they?

And they'd have to make do with each other. 

But standing so close behind the lass now with all too much to tell, James found that his words were still caught in his throat, painfully blocked from even uttering a syllable to make her see him.

Perhaps, he hadn't quite framed himself yet, and was still fumbling gormlessly, as he just hadn't the first idea on how to even explain his off-kilter tale to her. 

Or perhaps it was that soft scent of powdery violets in her honey-dipped hair, pinned up so daintily in that masterpiece of a twist that working girls always liked best. 

The scent of her hair so unexpectedly enchanting, that James wondered if it were soft as violets too, falling in artful waves from under her white bonnet.

Or perhaps what drew him into pause most was that sound of rain falling on the glass of the window, and how much he felt it wasn't the first time his heart had skipped for the scent of violets and petrichor. 

Had he known a moment much like this one before? 

And so lost was he in trying to place that hazy fog of a memory, that he forgot to stay hidden when the girl suddenly twirled around on him. The little songbird closing her eyes as she went about in dramatic performance, belting out in her song,

"Near, Far, WHEREVER YOU ARE!! I BELIEVE THAT THE HEART DOES GO OOONNN-"

And on that high note, James's ovation was a good time as any to pull the curtain on this prima donna. 

"Mornin', love. Grand day, in'it?" his gentlemanly greeting stopped the show. "Or having a look at you now, I'd imagine it's a good one-"

"AHH!"

To which James reckoned he got exactly what he deserved, as the stewardess frantically dinged away at him, squeezing at the triggered bottle in her hand until it was raining inside as well as out, soaking James like a drowned rat all over again. 

"Holy...fu-unnels," Emily caught herself quickly, remembering that she was still clocked in and couldn't say exactly the word that was on her mind when she realized suddenly she wasn't alone. "How did you get in here?"

"Dunno but I wish I hadn't!" James groaned miserably, rubbing his fingers into his stinging eyes as they burned with whatever matter of sadism was in the bottle squeezed tightly in her hands. 

An advantageous weapon for spraying or bludgeoning the desired object, he guessed, should he give her more occasion for it. 

"Oh god, are you ok?" she asked him breathlessly. "I'm so sorry, you scared the life out of me! You can't just go around sneaking up on people like that on this side of town!" 

"No, it's I who am desperately sorry to have alarmed you. I only set out to ask you a question, is all," he quickly shouldered the blame, holding his hands up over his face in surrender. "But please don't work me over again, I beg you!"

And the sing-songy Yorkshire way his voice danced around those words made Emily's eyes widen, still holding him at Windex-point as she tried to decide what to do with him next. 

All while Celine Dion proceeded to take back her rightful place on the store radio, "You're here, there's nothing I fear. And I know that my heart will go ooonn..."

But Millie's heart certainly wouldn't.

Sinking straight down to the abyss of the most embarrassing moments she wished to happily forget.

Had he been standing there listening to her voice crack the whole time?

How had this guy even gotten in without her knowing it?

Maybe it happened when she'd propped the back door open with her mop bucket, as she dumped out the dirty water in the alley earlier in her shift.

But why would he even bother, when she hadn't locked the door yet leading from the gift shop to the museum, knowing that the guys working next door liked to come in and finish dumping the trash for her before her shift ended?

Anybody working there would know that, so why not him?

Was he new? 

She was sure she'd seen his face somewhere around the museum before, but couldn't quite put a name to it. 

"Are you..." Emily's brow furrowed questionably at him as she tilted her head in deep contemplation of his face. "...from the morning shift?"

"Pardon?" James's brow rose in surprise.

"I mean, what time do you usually clock in?" Emily asked him. "I swear we've met before." 

"Time? Oh right," James nodded, doing his utter best to decipher her meaning from that strange American dialect. "Quite funny indeed that you should ask. I wish I could tell you I knew even the time of day for certain, miss, but I find myself flummoxed about even the barest keel of things as of late...That is to say, in answer to your inquiry, I have Greenwich time on me, I believe." 

And Emily watched evermore confused as he flicked open a golden chained watch clamped to the seam of his pocket, turning it this way and that as he tried to figure out how on earth it'd stopped working on him again. 

"Only just bought the blooming thing in Liverpool, and much as I set it right, somehow the blighter works its way back around to the same time as yesternight. I should imagine that minute hand is done for now. Twenty minutes after two, it still reads," he sighed deeply. "Even so, I reckon that the sun sits at 251 degrees in the west, and the North Star, 41 degrees upon the horizon. So, I should say it to be the earliest hour of the evening. By my observation, it's as near as I can judge it."

"Uh...uh huh," Emily gave a befuddled slow nod. 

And then her eyes swung away from his to the door. 

As if she might spot one of her coworkers hiding there behind the tote bags and T-shirt racks with their phone out recording this progressively wild hoax. 

Something was off.

Because he was definitely speaking English, but not of the American genre. And not quite like the Harry Potter variety either.

And there was something "olden" in the color of his voice. A "back in my day" kind of quality that felt more Upstairs, Downstairs, than the average British tourist on a shopping trip with his wife.

And really, after cosplaying an Edwardian personality all day, who had the energy or desire to walk around talking like a disneyfied Jane Austen novel off the clock? 

A charm all too scripted for Emily's tastes.

Her eyes scanned again up his almost-black-blue double-breasted, eight golden buttoned jacket. And the starched collar white dress shirt and black silk tie. All topped off by his ship officer's hat with a defunct White Star Line wreath hand-stitched into it.

A tall, strikingly beautiful blue-eyed cuppa B.S., if she ever saw one. 

Because after dealing with customers all goddamn day, why wouldn't those guys working the tours in the exhibits next door have anything else better to do than to fool around with her until the absolute last second of her shift?

Rolling her eyes, Emily dropped the Windex and paper towels firmly onto the jewelry case, letting him know that she meant business.

"Get out."

Chapter Text

"I say," the officer did protest. "That's manners for you, that is."

Because so caught off guard was he by the lady's inelegantly gruff command that James swore he misheard it.

"Look, it's late," she sighed. "And I got enough to do without you jerks making things weird around here. Don't make me spell it for you."

"I've got no trouble at all with spelling, thank you."

"Then you should have no trouble at all dumping the T.R.A.S.H trash," she informed him. "And since you're here, you might as well roll the mop bucket back to the closet on your way out to the dumpster. Lazy bums should make yourselves useful around here."

James's jaw hung slightly open. His ears ringing with the beating of his heart all aflutter

Speechless.

Confounded.

Right maftin' hot.

If this mardy stewardess were anymore domineering, she'd be a sailor!

"Well, chuffin' 'eck, who died and made ye captain?" he remarked. "Sorry to cut yer down from your horse, your highness, but I'll have ye know that this lazy bum happens to be a 6th. And not to go on braunging about mi'sen, but as an officer at least, I've earned more rank than to be lorded about by one sour-appled stewardess."

"Did you just..." Emily tipped her pretty bewildered head slightly. "...call me an apple?"

"Why, I suppose I bloody did."

"Then I suppose the feeling's 'bloody' mutual," she threw back her answer. "Leave the trash bin by the register when you're done with it. And you have a nice day."

"Eh, so you're orderin' about my day now? What authority you think you have in such matters, I'm afraid to imagine," he objected. "But with all due respect, miss, 'nice' is no way I'd put it. If by my fair day you mean washed up by 'eck into this mare's nest, or well-nigh done in by a beast for a motorcar, I'd say we differ much in our opinion, so far as nice days go." 

"Aw. There, there, darling. Were you assigned any restroom check duties?" she challenged him. "Then shut up."

"Now way'up just a moment, miss-"

But James's protest was abruptly cut off when Emily swooped the rolling mop bucket his way, forcing him to catch the handle of the mop just before it crashed into his chest.

"Oh, and the men's restroom trash needs dumping too, so you better hurry up," she reminded him. "I clock out in 10 minutes."

And then she promenaded on around him, leaving him standing there dumfounded with the mop handle still poised in his hands.

Blooming hell, what had he walked in on?

She was a cracked kettle pot, if ever he saw one.

And how had any sound manager trusted her with the duty of superintending this office, being a lass so gradly delusional about even the simplest of things?

There wasn't a flyspeck of logic about her.

And if there be some grand misunderstanding between them, how was he to put into plain English his turn of events?

Where should he even start in explaining to her how he came about there, when he hardly understood it himself?

"As sure as eggs is eggs, we're plainly misknowing each other," James persisted, swooping down to pick up her trash bin by the register and balancing it on the squeeze top of the mop bucket as he trolleyed it along with him after Emily. 

Determined to make his case with the lady, despite the maid ignoring him as she closed the window security shutters, decidedly done with the man.

"As I said before, I've Greenwich time on me, but it's no longer right here. You see, this fellow I met on the dock with his devilkin dog swore I'd come to New York. And judging by the celestial fixes I can observe, my dead reckoning falls in with his say that I've reached America. Though I can't say all right that I've come to New York, as it looks nowt like the place I know. Pray can ye tell me which house this is, so that I might know soundly where I am?"

Millie sighed deeply.

Indeed, the heart does go on.

But for how much longer would it go on before this guy took the hint?

"Oh God, for the love of--Here! I'll tell you the secret to that problem of yours, if you promise to get out of my shop. Deal?" she bargained with him, standing on tip-toe until her fingers barely reached the top shelf behind her register. "Your world-class day just got classier."

And setting a miniature Titanic grand staircase clock down on the counter, with two winged female figures facing each other on either side--"symbolizing honor and glory crowning time", its retail box read--Emily leaned toward him with a smile, elbows to counter, palms to chin.

Making it impossible for him to miss how much those amber eyes of hers reminded him so much of dying embers from the candles alight in the windows of a lighthouse.

Inspiring in the officer a soul-deep longing for the Scarborough he left behind. A homesickness that he suddenly remembered his fellow officer, Harold G. Lowe, describing to him once in Welsh.

Hiraeth.

Indeed, there lay an indescribable allure about her face that stirred something recognized in him. A comfort almost remembered about the sandy freckles dusting her lightly bronzed cheeks that introduced a starry sky to the sunset hues in her eyes. 

And in that instant, a part of James felt like he knew her. 

That it wasn't the first time he'd gotten lost in contemplating a face much like hers. 

The name he wanted to call her was right on his pursed lips. Frozen at the start of that first syllable. His heart racing to say it out loud, but his weary mind staggering to catch up with him. 

And every time James tried to recall how they might've been acquainted, all that came to mind again was the music of cold raindrops on a windowglass and a basket full of sky-blue flowers, which yielded no rational connection whatsoever between them.

If only his barmpot for a heart would be still a moment, and stop making a fuss out of nothing about her, he could at last logically think this all through!

Because there was no good reason at all that this raving stewardess should invoke anything in him she didn't deserve. 

'Pack it in, Jim, and take hold of yourself,' he talked himself back into proper sense. 'She's pretty, is all, but nothing to go write home about.'

And perhaps, if he squinted hard enough, he might've found her to be quite a belle à croquer indeed, if she wasn't such a damn blessing to meet.

That any 'pot of bliss' such as herself could claim such fine eyes as that was just plain and simple James's hard luck, as of late.

Because for a basket full of this-and-that reasons, he was rather vexed to wonder how a boatswain with an even keel like himself, could in a matter of minutes, let a stewardess like her fire him up so Melton hot.

And with more sass than James cared for, she pushed the golden timepiece across the counter toward him. 

"This, sir," she lowered her smoky voice to an almost-whisper that unwittingly dragged a prickling rush across the back of James's neck. "Is a clock."

James's eyes fell away from the forest fire in hers and set on the quiet tick-tock of the timekeeper between them.

Was she trying to make a berk out of him, or did she really assume he was as lost as he damn well looked?

"Yes, is right, miss," he answered awkwardly. "I can see that a clock it is...But what's that got to do with anything?"

"Well, seeing that you're obviously in need of a new one," she tempted him. "This one happens to be on sale today for an unbeatable price of 10 percent off...But for you?"

Her sparky peridot eyes scanned the navy man down and back up again.

Slower, the second go around.

It was just cosplay, and Emily knew it.

But damn, did he look good in that uniform?

Shining up like a new penny polished with that "good-boy magic" in the valiant way he carried himself.

From the neat line up of his polished dress shoes, to his squared and disciplined shoulders, to the careful uprightness of his starched collar, to the soft fullness of his lips, and finding home in that Ryan-Gosling-From-The-Notebook cornflower gaze.

Stirring in Millie an unconscious ache of nostalgia almost-remembered.

Because though she'd dismissed his noble performance as posh and overdone, Emily slowly picked up on a natural social grace in the way he moved, the assuredness in which he carried his posture, the revering way he held her in his attention when he spoke to her, even in discord between them. A command of etiquette that was hard to come by and even harder to fake, even after intensely rehearsing for some low-pay museum gig.

And recognizing that stalwart honesty in his eyes, Emily sensed a gallant spirit in him that breathed more like a Lancelot than a rip-off of Caledon Hockley.

And somewhere living in that spirit was a chivalric romance at which his hard-lined sense of duty made a smoldering love affair with the hidden poetry whispered quietly behind his eyes.

At least, that was Millie's guess, as she lingered in the daylight of his gaze for a fraction of a second longer than was necessary.

Unable to guess yet what that sonnet about him had to tell, or how a simple necktie and rain on the windows had her all but fantasizing about a complete stranger. 

But if she could only remember the name of the noun she was looking for...the perfect rationale for why he made her feel so unexpectedly warm, she'd never again have anything to fear of the cold.

"Aye, lass?" James's beckoning was breathy and soft. "You were goin' to say?"

"Hm?" a mind-wrecked Emily murmured dumbly in return. 

"You were goin' to say more about the clock, I believe. And I expect I won't get a word in until you do, so you may as well have your say," he humbly gave her the floor. "Or am I to believe that only now are you at a loss for words?"

"I can give it to you for 15 percent off," Emily dragged herself back to her senses, as she went on haggling him. "A whole two extra dollars you get to keep. Because let's be honest, for 14 dollars an hour, nothing beats that employee discount."

"Miss," he said, ever so patiently. "I've not come here to buy a clock."

"Well, might I tempt you with a pair of our state-of-the-art porthole sunglasses then?" she tried her next pitch, modeling the googlely eyed frames against her own nose as she looked up his towering height. "Very trendy."

"Some other time, love," he dismissed them. "I've only come because I was told I might find a White Star Line office here. An unimaginable incident has happened on my crossing while I was at sea. I wish to report it to the superintendent immediately."

"Superintendent?...As in...the HR department?" Emily guessed uncertainly, looking ever daffier with those portholes on her eyes. "Well, you could try emailing them."

Email?

What the dickens was a blasted 'email'?

Was that just another word he hadn't picked up yet that Americans liked to call the post?

"I reckon the post might take several weeks," he muttered, lost for why she'd even mention it. "You would suggest that I write them instead?"

But what was the point of even trying to explain to her how irrational that sounded, when nothing so far had worked in making her understand him?

Like barking at a knot, this undertaking was. 

"It seems we're only going around in circles, and there's no help for it," he said to her. "But then again, you are American, I suppose, and that always muddles things up a bit, doesn't it?"

"Says the guy who thinks he can tell the time by the stars."

"Well, I don't tell you how to do the mopping, stewardess," he remarked. "And you won't tell me how to do my navigating."

And being a modern, post-suffrage woman of the 21st century, that remark sat disastrously out of context between them.

"Funny how that English accent makes you even more of a smuggy asshole."

But in James's book, being called an "asshole" scarcely compared to the unforgivable insult of being called 'smuggy'.

And being a wellborn sailor of the 20th century, repeatedly told that his rank as an officer was "paid for by daddy" and not by his own dues, Emily's remark tumbled tastelessly out of favor into a centuries' old cow-pie of hellish rivalry between classes with James caught in the middle of it.

"Kindly, love," James went on, with the proper measure of restraint expected of a gentleman. "Is there anyone else here I might have a word with?" 

Though he couldn't resist signing off with, "Anyone but a whooperup for a stewardess, that is."

"This 'whooperup for a stewardess' is as good as you're ever gonna get, love," she mimicked his word saucily. "And you have a nice day."

But there was no way James could reckon seriously with her anymore.

Not with those blasted porthole spectacles on her face.

He bit the inside of his cheek to restrain a smile, reminding himself that she looked rather peevish, and that none of this was at all funny in the very least, so help him God.

And now was certainly not the time for these cockamine harlequinades.

"Just hear me out, woman, pray you, for God's sake. I came upon the White Star flag upon your window," he said, her absurd spectacles dragging him to the brink of his own wits. "Would you have the goodness to just tell me which company house this is and I'll be on my way?"

"This is the Titanic Shop, where every customer is treated First Class," Emily went on sassing him with a forced smile to match. "Our key chains and refrigerator magnets are buy 3, get 1 free, mix and match. Everything else in the store is 10% off. And just so you know, our restrooms are out of order and we now close in approximately," She glanced at the grand staircase clock between them. "3 minutes."

"Fancy a world in which any of that made any sense!" he marveled. "Would you mind repeating that first bit again?"

"Key chains," she reiterated through gritted teeth. "Refrigerator magnets. Buy 3, get 1-"

"Aye, yes, very good. Get 3 for the price of 1, and pay only 75 percent of the sum. I figured so much," he said. "But what the bloody 'eck is a refrigerator and why would I be in need of one at a time like this?"

"And it's 5 o'clock," she said in relief, powering down the register and untying her apron as she walked from behind the counter.

Making James do a wide-eyed double take of her eccentric choice of footwear peeking out from underneath her skirt.

"Like bats in a belfry," he whispered to himself, shaking his head hopelessly. "When does this all start to make sense?"

"I'm clocking out now," Emily announced to him. "So, I suggest you leave before you set the alarm off. Have a nice day."

"What is it with you and clocks, eh?" James questioned her. "I've never known a woman to be so obsessed with the bloody time."

"Well, I've never met anyone who was so obnoxious."

"I believe flippant is the word you're after," James insisted, it being the only idea he was certain about since he arrived. "As by far, you are the cheekiest stewardess I can ever imagine." 

"And who the hell do you think you are, exactly?"

"James Paul Moody, that's who I bloody am," he answered back. "6th Ship Officer of the RMS Titanic, and master mariner."

"I meant your real name."

"Oh? Must I spell it out for you likewise?" he remarked. "J.A.M.E.S. M. Double O. D. Y--Moody--And I would ask your name in return, and that of your superior, so I can report your loutish conduct straight away."

"Emily Amberflaw," Millie snatched her porthole glasses off, her Converse now toe-to-toe with his shiny dress shoes as she air-stabbed his chest with her glasses in emphasis of every letter. "A.M.B.E.R.F.L.A.W. Amberflaw. And there's the number to customer complaints. If that's what it takes to get you out of my shop, knock yourself out."

But this so-called "6th Officer James Paul Moody" wouldn't budge an inch. 

Knowing that as the last surviving officer of Titanic's bridge, this was no time to putter around.

"I can not do that, miss. Not when so many people will deserve an answer as to what became of their loved ones. Until I've a word with the superintendent, I'm afraid duty to them would have me stay. And so, I much fear that you'll have to bear the brunt of my company a bit longer, as I've ineludible questions that require immediate answers," he told her stoutly. "Albion House. Can you reach the White Star head office from here or not?"

"You're in a gift shop. What part of 'gift shop' don't you understand?" she tried to reason with him. "White Star Line doesn't actually exist anymore!"

"You're making a bad joke of this, and I won't stand for it," he declared. "Won't you understand what I'm trying to tell ye? The R.M.S Titanic has foundered!"

"Yeah," she nodded at him slowly. "You're right, it sure has." 

But nothing he said seemed to get past that perpetually confused look on her face. 

"Right," James tried explaining very carefully to her again. "I know it seems I can't tell you who's which from when's what, but I swear what I'm telling you is the truth. As I remember it, I was on my watch aboard Titanic when she struck ice. We officers were ordered soon after to get the boats away. I went down with the ship...anno it was so...But that's all my memory of it. The last I remember is waking up adrift at sea, though I can't tell you how it was I got there. Have you any news of Titanic since yesterevening?"

"Titanic?" Her concerned gaze glistened with skepticism. "As in the literal Titanic?"

"Blimey, don't tell me you've never heard of her either," he sighed, lost for why everyone here seemed so surprised when he mentioned it. "This is White Star, God rot them!" 

"This. Is. A. Shop," she broke it down for him. "That sells gifts."

"Yes...I...am...well acquainted with...what...a...shop...is," he doubled her tone and hand demonstrations. "But what's that got to do with anything?"

"Nothing I can help you with, I'm guessing," she answered. 

"It goes without saying," James sighed resignedly, placing his cap back on his head and tipping it to her in good-day. "Many thanks for your time, love."

"Same to you, love. And I hope you have a nice-"

"For God's sake, miss, I beg you, don't say it!"

But just as James turned to take his leave, he stopped.

Making Emily stop too, following his gaze to the jewelry case underneath his fingertips. His eyes drawn to the blue heart-shaped necklaces dazzling on display within the glass.

"Hang on a moment," he said, removing his cap again. "What is all this?"

"The Heart of the Ocean," Millie answered, stunned that out of all the things she'd tried to sell him thus far, it was this that caught his interest almost instantly. "You've never seen one of these things online before?"

James studied the row of necklaces closely.

"Imitations, aren't they?"

"Just Swarovski crystal. Nothing close to the real thing...Some people think the real Hope Diamond is cursed though," Emily told him. "Weird things seem to happen wherever it is. The theory goes, anybody who owns it dies in some tragic and mysterious way. And it seems to like disappearing on its own. First, after the beheading of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, and then again when the Titanic sank. They say it went down with the ship, but it's just a movie, right? The necklace itself didn't really exist back then. Still, who doesn't love a good ghost story?"

And for a moment, James seemed to freeze there in time, his cerulean eyes haunted and lost to a faraway sea.

As the only thing stranger than her implausible otherworldly tale were the images and voices invoked by it, watching a ghost of himself in his mind's eye.

***

James turned away from Lifeboat 16, just as Officer Wilde took his place directing the boat's launch.

"And lower away easy! Steady now! Lower away evenly, lads!"

"Please tell me I'm not too late, that she can still be saved," a passenger was pleading with James, his face blurred indistinguishably in his memory. "My God, James, I beg you to help me."

But James rushed pass him, moving aft toward the First-Class Promenade, as Titanic descended from under him.

Desperately trying to make it to some place he knew he was running out of time to get to, though he couldn't remember exactly where that place was.

Until by happenstance, James heard screaming coming from one of the boats being lowered over the ship. 

"Rose! What are you doing?"

"Stop her! Someone stop her!"

Worried that another lifeboat might be coming down on top of the other, James backtracked from the First-Class promenade to investigate the reason for the panic.

With only a split second to jump into action.

The white glow of a sea rocket lit up the promenade A-deck, as James fell on the railing, throwing his arms out to pull a female passenger back over while she hung off the side of the ship. Just after she'd jumped recklessly onto the railing out of one of Lightoller's lifeboats.

But James never even had a chance to take in her face properly, before the hysterical woman ripped free of his grasp and bolted away down A-deck toward the First-Class dining saloon.

Seemingly oblivious or untroubled by her belonging that had fallen out of her coat pocket at James's feet.

James scooped the sapphire blue diamond necklace off the wooden decking.

"Wait, miss, I believe you dropped your..."

But when he looked up again to search for her in the crowd, the merlot-haired woman was gone.

***

James reached into his coat pocket.

His fingers brushing up against the cold smooth object that he'd only just remembered was on his person.

His stomach turned, as he realized the horrors of his last night at sea were undeniably true.

"A gift shop, you say?" he murmured to Emily, as the realization slowly hit him.

Had he only just taken a wrong turn through her shop door...or could there really be something more sinister here going on?

Something "mysterious", as she put it?

"If this truly is a ghost story, Ms. Amberflaw," he hesitated to make himself name it. "Then I wonder which of us is haunting the other?...You...or I?"

Because that very idea would wreck everything they both mutually understood about the universe.

Chapter Text

Emily's eyes tug-o-wared back and forth from James to the blue diamond caged in his hand.

It looked real enough.

It's glimmering contour less of a heart-shape, and more of a trilliant cut, giving it a soft roundedness that distinguished it from the ones in her jewelry case. While Emily could often spot a rainbow reflecting in the ones sold by the shop, this one only reflected indigo in the light. A sapphire as blue as a bottomless ocean with a clarity unlike the others.

Meaning if it were the actual Heart of the Ocean from the movie, it'd be valued at over $300 million today. At least according to her brother, Pax, and his obsessive research of the fictional diamond lately.

A bit cartier for some stupid office prank.

"Are you saying...that you honestly actually think," Emily could hardly believe she was entertaining the idea. "that you're literally an officer...literally from the Titanic?"

"Well, yes, that's what I've been trying to tell you from end to end of, that it's nobbut the truth," James insisted eagerly, relieved that they appeared to finally be getting somewhere. "I'm not coddin' you, I swear it on my own, and I gain nowt from holding back."

"But how can you be here and be from there at the same time? That's not possible."

"Well, I'm not certain what 'here' is anymore, if I'm honest."

"'Here' is 2022," she warily informed him. "And just doing some basic math here...If you were actually on the Titanic...That would've been the year..."

"1912," James confirmed, nodding certainly. And then, not so certainly, "Simply because that's the year it ought to be now...isn't it?"

Emily shook her head. "Not anymore."

"You mean...no longer?" James hesitated. "As if to say it's truly..."

"2022," Emily reiterated for him. "Yeah."

"Can you by chance..." James murmured, afraid to go on. "Can you to me prove somehow that what you're telling me is the truth?"

"Well...it's a Titanic museum," she pointed out, as he'd apparently missed it ."So...Wouldn't that be proof enough that if you're here, you can't possibly be the real Officer James Moody from 1912?"

"But I am the real Officer James Moody from 1912," he insisted earnestly.

"And I'm Harriet Tubman."

"I'd sooner put my money on that than you trying to sell me a dog and tell me it's 2022."

"Fine," Emily let him have it. "Not my problem you live in a fantasy world."

"Well, miss, I'd fancy your dreamworld might be as much a stack of cards as mine. So, how should we know which reality to believe then?" James contended. "If this really is April of 2022, and my time has already gone, there must be proof. A record, perhaps, of the 'real' Officer Moody of White Star? The countless letters I penned to my sister, perhaps. Or perhaps photographs of me aboard the Oceanic, or Conway, or Rosebury Prep, for God's sake, should we regress that far. If you've owt at hand, perhaps we can set the record straight of which is the truth, Ms. Amberflaw. Your fever dream or mine?"

And thus, presented with his absurd challenge of proving "her version of reality", Millie glanced to her right at a bookshelf stocked with dozens of historical volumes on the Titanic and its fateful tragedy.

"This is completely insane," she whispered to herself, as she scanned the spines of hardcover books around her.

But she was too far down the rabbit hole now to not at least be a little curious about where it took her.

And pulling any book that might wrap this up quick and easy for them, Emily reached for the closest book within a comfortable range of her height, A Maiden Voyage, by Geoffrey Jules Marcus.

Throwing James one last cynical glance, Millie set the book on the glass counter between them. Flipping through the pages until her finger pinned down the chapter titled, "Sixth Officer James Paul Moody".

Born the youngest of four in Scarborough, Yorkshire, among breathtaking sandy beaches and majestically rising limestone cliffs overlooking the North Sea, Jim had lived a privileged life in many respects. His father John Henry Moody was a solicitor and served on the town council, and his grandfather, John James Paul Moody, had risen to prominence as a town clerk. The overall wealth and social pedigree of the family made it reasonable for the Scarborough lad to be sent off for his secondary education in a career at sea....

And skipping a page or two over his rather verbose biography, Emily stopped.

Her attention immediately drawn to the becoming portrait of a Royal Navy officer...identical to that one grainy photo in the gallery she'd rolled her mop bucket pass in a hurry so many times before.

And when she gradually dragged her eyes back up to James...her lips formed into a muted Oh.

Forgetting to breathe in again after.

"It's me there, isn't it?" James whispered, forced to accept the evidence, now that it stood irrefutably between them.

Leaving both lady and officer suddenly chilled, as the photograph settled their smoldering debate, confirming the unlikely and inconceivable paradox at hand.

They were both telling the truth, though it would seem, different versions of it.

"Who..." Emily stopped herself, realizing that who wasn't the real question anymore. "What are you?"

And James dreaded his own question in return, his eyes frozen on Millie, as he was too afraid to look down again and read what else that ruddy book in her hands had to tell. 

"Might your book answer that for us both?" he braved the query. 

"Well, it says that you..."

"Yes, miss?"

But unable to make sense of her racing thoughts at this point, let alone read, Emily turned the book around on the counter to face him.

Forcing James to read his ultimate fate on Titanic himself. 

Sixth Officer James Moody was the only junior officer to die on the Titanic on April 15th, 1912. Based on testimony given by Officer Lowe during the U.S. inquiry, Moody was reportedly last seen by Lowe assisting with the launch of lifeboats 14 and 16. Despite being Moody's senior in rank, Moody insisted that Lowe take the lifeboat first. Lowe proceeded into Lifeboat 14, under the impression that Moody would man lifeboat 16 after him. However, Moody never made it into a lifeboat in the end. He was reportedly sighted last trying to free Collapsible A off the officers' quarters, though Second Officer Lightoller could not say for sure that he saw the Sixth Officer when the lifeboat swept off the deck.

Moody's reasons for never leaving Titanic, and his ultimate fate thereafter remain a mystery. His body was never recovered. Unquestionably, he died in the brave performance of his duty, keeping the deck calm in order to save as many passengers as he could with the limited lifeboats remaining. A memorial plaque bearing Moody's name rests in the Church of St. Martin on the Hill, Scarborough. It bears the epigraph:' Be Thou Faithful Unto Death and I Will Give to Thee a Crown of Life."

James's trembling hands graciously set Ms. Amberflaw's book back onto the register counter.

"Are you certain?" he asked her, the subdued anguish in his whisper barely contained. "Do you mean to say that I am really...dead?"

"If you really were from 1912," Emily quietly affirmed. "There's no way you couldn't be."

"But things don't happen this way," James shook his head in denial. "What would that even mean for me, I wonder? Am I a ghost? If I was really lost at sea to Titanic, am I nobbut a damned soul now searching for rest?"

Emily's reply was gentler than before, her gaze softened with more empathy, "I'm sorry...I don't think I know how to answer that."

"But you can see undoubtedly that flesh and blood, I am? I'm not a ghost," James eagerly tried to convince her. "I stand before you alive and well, and it's beyond me why anyone would write such a blimmin' book of lies, all to do with..."

And then his eyes shifted around him to the historical memorabilia, that in his haste, he never really had a mind to take in before.

The haunting image of the ship, the RMS Titanic, painted on everything within reach of him. Coffee mugs, wall canvases, key trinkets, tartan fleece blankets, miniature display models, odd baggy shirts with hoods he couldn't find a name for, blankets, bags, socks, board games, decorative coins...

"This is entirely irrational," he shook his head dazedly. "How can I be dead when I'm surely breathing now? I know that I am real. I know it sure as owt. It's this world that can't be."

And what was this so-called "gift shop" that it was allowed to sell such tasteless souvenirs, worshipping a shipwreck as if it were the next best thing to St. David's Day?

How had the night of April 14th--his supposed "death" at sea among the hundreds of lost passengers and crew with him--become the morbid fetish of this perverted alien world?

These dizzying reminders of the ship haunting him with so many impossible questions.

Had Titanic, the "unsinkable ship", as they called it, truly foundered in such a way after she hit that iceberg?

Was that truly the way of history, as his own time had known it?

Or was it only so in the history of this parallel reality he found himself trapped inside of?

And if this scenario existed in this version of reality, did that mean there were others? 

That, in some sister reality, Titanic remained afloat in 1912, safely ported in New York on Wednesday morning as she was always meant to be?

How could he be certain which one was fact, when he couldn't remember dying, nor ever making it to port with the ship?

Could it all be just some nightmare he was waiting to wake up from?

Was he still out in the Atlantic with Titanic somewhere, keeping watch for icebergs and growlers over a sea of glass and stars after wishing Lowe a goodnight on his watch?

Or was he truly lost at sea, a spectre wanting to be laid to rest but finding no comfort or hope of being found, having gone down with the ship that brought him into this unimaginable afterlife?

"No, it's not reasonable, I tell ye," he kept insisting. "Whatever this is, it can't happen this way. You can't exist, and neither can your delusional perspective of history." 

"No, you're the one that can't exist," Emily insisted back. "Because that would mean you were born over 100 years ago."

"1887," Moody informed her. "The 21st of August."

"And I'm the delusional one?"

"Then are we the making of each other's dreams?" James ventured. "Because sure as day, we both stand here, Ms. Amberflaw. And if history is logically chronological--which we both know it is--then you and I can not exist at the same time on the same continuum. It just wouldn't happen. That is to say, none of this should have ever-"

"I know," Millie murmured softly, her voice carrying such an arresting effect that stopped James's tormented anxieties all at once. "Something you can't explain happened to you, and no matter how desperately you try to remember, you don't have any words for it. And I'm so sorry that's happening to you. I wish I knew how to understand it but I don't...All I know is that we're here...Now...And you can't be hurt anymore." 

But it was almost as if she weren't speaking to him anymore, James noted.

As if for a moment, she were another person, in another place far away from there. 

Because wasn't this all so painfully like dejavu?

Hadn't things been the same for her only a year or so ago?

Numbly staring into the white walls of the hospital room around her, swearing to the nurses that the teapots wouldn't stop smashing the dinner plates, and that the "big wave" was coming to get her. 

Her ravings being a dizzying consequence of the needle they'd stabbed into the sensitive flesh of her arm, still tender from the bruises under her wrists, where they'd roughly forced her tearstained face down onto the pristine tiled floor. 

And so heavily sedated was she in this dreamworld that she barely noticed when a man, with rueful hazel eyes so much like hers, caught her pale face between his shaking hands. 

Please, Millie, just look at me. Open your eyes, I beg of you. I'm your brother, don't you remember? Don't you remember any of it? Dear God, this is all my fault. It's all my fault, Mills, and I'm so terribly sorry. It was all an accident. Just a terrible, terrible accident. I'm going to get you out of this wretched place. I promise you I will. I don't care what it takes from me, I'm going to find a way to bring you home. 

So, when it was all said and done...if anyone knew what a horror it was to wake up to a world you felt like a complete stranger to, Emily remembered it intimately.

Of course this man was scared.

It was so much easier to imagine up a new reality for himself than accept whatever hell he'd just walked out of.

Whatever "accident" his mind was too terrified to let him go back to. 

That hell may not have been Titanic.

Emily was almost 110 percent sure that it couldn't have been Titanic.

But she believed him when he said it was something.

Recognizing her old self in his eyes, and feeling so deeply his pain for that bygone world he believed he left behind.

Regretting that she'd have to be the one to tell him it might've never existed to begin with. 

"I'm sorry," she whispered again to the officer. "But it really is just a gift shop." 

And gazing back into that unintended look of pity for him in her eyes, James felt deeply ashamed of himself.

There this poor lass stood, frightened out of her wits and shaken up all on account of him.

How could he, a man and a bloody White Star officer, ever put such a burden on a woman's shoulders?

Had he really come in there to cause a stir, sniveling and lamenting to the Miss like he wasn't wearing the uniform he'd put on? 

She'd already made it plain to him that she could not help him, and it was embarrassingly discourteous for a man to go on vexing a lady like so. 

Thus, reaching for his cap on the counter again, James politely nodded to the shopgirl. 

"I'm sorry to have troubled you," he said in parting. "If you will please excuse me." 

But just as he turned on his heels to make for the door once again, he stopped short.

Halted by the dark hourglass with ears sitting upright and noble at James's dress shoes, shamelessly blocking the officer's exit, as he took his time licking between each of his extended claws. 

Clearing his throat, James turned back to Emily. 

"If I may," he began. "I can't trust my own head to know what's real and what isn't anymore. Perchance...is that a kittlin?"

"Captain Wentworth," Emily hurried around the register toward the cat, having completely forgotten he was still running loose after all this chaos. 

Basking in plain sight for anyone who wanted to see him, of course. 

Wentworth dodged her the second she went for him, reminded of the looming threat of his cat carrier waiting for him in the breakroom. 

"Captain, no, bad kitty," she mumbled a scolding at him, trying not to draw too much attention as she tried to catch him. "Come on, before somebody else sees you!" 

"Oh, thank God," James sighed, shaking his head and utterly relieved that he hadn't gone completely over the deep. "I'm not the only one who saw the blooming cat then." 

"Is that a goddamn cat?" 

This time, the question came from a man appearing behind James. 

And when Emily's eyes widened at the sight of her manager, standing in the doorway ajoining the museum and the gift shop, James turned around to face the right portly fellow in turn.

"It is, sir," James informed him heartily. "I can attest to ye surely, that beyond all doubt, we mark the same cat." 

And then Emily's bulging eyes turned around to the officer, who appeared so nervously pleased with himself.

Her nails digging into the palms of her tightened fists, so as not to try and kill him all over again a second time. 

And after first looking hard at James like he'd just magically dropped out of a nether dimension, the manager turned his attention back to Emily. 

"Can you explain to me how a cat got in here, Millie?"

Millie? 

James glanced back at the shopgirl. 

Caught off guard by the unexpected nickname her overseer had called her by, as it brought him to some unrealized revelation about her face. 

"Millie," James whispered her name again to himself. 

Short for Emily, naturally.

But why did it strike him so?

How did it feel so right when he said it aloud? 

And why did it seem more fitting to him now that she should look, behave, and sound more like a girl called Millie rather than just an Emily?

"W-Well, I," Emily went on stammering to her boss. "I, uh, I...He's-well-"

And after taking another look at the girl he knew now as Millie, James went prickly hot all over his body, as the truth suddenly hit him. 

'Of course,' it dawned on him. 'The kittlin is hers...Ah, what a way to muck things up! Blinking hell, Jim, ye reet berk!

"You do know that's a violation of code, and a write-up. You can't have that cat in here," her manager reprimanded her. "I'm calling animal control out here to get somebody to pick him up." 

"No, wait!" Emily stopped him before he could march back to his office in the museum. "You don't have to do that...Because well, he's my-"

"He's mine, is why," James spoke up, sweeping the cat up in one scoop of his arm, with an assuredness that left Emily flabbergasted at how easy he made it look, and how willingly her cat let him. "This kittlin is with me, and so getting him away won't be necessary. He's my...Well, what I call him is my-"

"Emotional support animal," Emily helped Moody out.

"Aye, that's the one," James affirmed, as Captain Wentworth dug his razor-sharp claws into the officer's neck trying to climb him like a tree. 

Wincing, James peeled the cat away claw-by-claw from his shoulder, the wooly fabric of his coat snatching off like ripped velcro, as he securely pinned the bellicose feline between his elbow and ribs. "That's surely what this li'le bugger is."

"And what are you supposed to be?" the manager noted James's double-breasted coat and smart shoes.

"James Moody, sir," James introduced himself graciously. "Pleased to make your acquaintance." 

"You can't have that cat in here," the manager repeated gruffly. 

"Very good, sir, my mistake," James apologized to the manager, placing on his cap again and quickly making his way to the door he'd first come in through. "Well, I'm off then. Good day to you, sir."

And then glancing over at the breathlessly moon-eyed Emily.

"Miss," he acknowledged the lady, tipping his hat in parting. 

And then went on his way with her cat out the back door. 

"Don't look so relieved," her manager threw in his last two cents as he walked out of her shop. "You're still 20 minutes late clocking out, and that's a write-up. I'll have it waiting for you to sign in my office."  

Chapter Text

We'll stay, forever this way. You are safe in my heart and, my heart will...

Of all the things the 6th Officer wished he could remember, that vexing shopgirl's song was the last thing he wanted playing over and over in his head.

But it was the only thing his mind wouldn't let go of, as he waited outside the museum for the maid to come out and claim her cat.

Both officer and fur-ball hunkered down on a bus stop bench, as James made a tent for Captain Wentworth with the buttoned flaps of his jacket. A perfect hiding place from the rain for the two gray owl-like ears and penny eyes peeking out from the warm safety of the officer's coat.

James only knew of one cure to bothersome songs that wouldn't take leave of one's head.

Being a man of foresight, who was too nervous to leave much to chance, James went to sea prepared for anything. Never leaving land without a boatswain's knife for making ropes fast, a needle and thread, if his coat should drop a button, and a harmonica for his sanity of mind.

And while he breathed into each note of Miss Amberflaw's catchy tune on his harmonica, playing the melodic ballad by ear, James's numbly cold fingers came to a gradual stop.

The notes of his wistful harmonica softening into silence at his puckered lips.

Only the rain played on without him.

Falling stars that shimmered down around the roof of the lonely bus stop, as the trickle of water hitting the puddles carried his mind back to England.

Or at least, what he remembered of home. 

"Tell me, old boy," he said distantly to Captain Wentworth, snuggled warmly against his side. "Does it always rain like this here too?"

Because now that James thought about it, it was that gloomy summer in 1904, when he remembered the rain in Scarborough never wanting to stop either.

~

James hadn't expected to find any such tribute there, and when he did, his heart quickened for the one person he suspected might've left it.

Atop the white headstone named for Evelyn Louise Lammin-Moody rested a bustle of forget-me-nots tied together with cream lace.

The baby blue mouse-ears for petals were the first pop of color that caught James Moody's eye out of the gloomy sea fog hanging over Scarborough that morning.

But it wasn't he this time who'd left the miniature bouquet there for his mother.

And neither could it have been his father, James made his guesses.

John Henry Moody wasn't long a widower before he married Miss Annie, and by the time James's half-brother Antony was born the very next year, papa seemed to have forgotten he loved another woman first.

And so, it became James's ritual alone to look after his mother as she slept, faithfully taking a leave from sea every year on the anniversary of Evelyn Moody's death.

John Moody tried hardest to convince his son that 8 years was enough time to make peace with his mourning, but James wasn't counting.

Though he never showed it in his easy smile, James's heart was still badly broken, and heartsickness couldn't tell a day from a decade gone by.

So, just as he'd done every year before, James spent that morning at his mother's graveside reading her favorite poetry.

Unlike his father, who preferred the practical studies of law, James shared his mother's love for imaginative books. William Blake, Christina Rossetti, E.M. Forster, Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett, The Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales, Louis Carole...the list went on and on. And no sweeter voice than his mother's reading each one had ever carried James into pleasanter dreams.

Until he got it in his head somehow that it'd be fun to write her his own poetry someday.

Ditching his lessons at Rosebury Prep and hiding out on the roof of Scarborough lighthouse with a breathtaking view of the sea, scribbling poetry in the dying light of a marine sunset, before his father came demanding he climb down at once.

Of course, papa only kept a branch hanging in his study as a symbol of authority and warning that punishment would certainly follow where it was due. But John Moody hardly had a heart to use it on any of his eight children, especially James, whose easy nature rarely gave him a reason to anyway. Save for indulging in imaginative book reading and poem writing!

But his usual punishments of being locked in a dark closet or losing his allowance for playing hookie were gambles James took on occasion.

And on one of these such occasions, James had been at the lighthouse when the doctor suddenly dropped into the Moodys' foyer.

And when the doctor dropped out, just as James was running back in to show mama he had at last worked out the first stanza to his poem, his mother was already gone.

The words he'd written down on paper now empty hollows left behind in her absence.

And for days after, he'd lie there wordlessly on his stomach, using his elbow like a pillow to rest his head on the cold wooden floor of his room. Saying very little to any concerned caller at his bed chamber door, as he used his pen to trace the dancing shadows from the great Irish Oak outside his window, which fell across his untouched note paper as daylight abandoned him.

Nevermore having enough words to fill the perpetually white space on his blank parchment.

And since then, James never wrote anything lengthier than the letters to his sister between ship ports, and rarely bothered with imaginative books these days, save for the stories he told to other sailors on stormy nights at sea.

Because when one is encouraged to always "quit ye as a man and be strong", always act chivalrous and button everything else down, always be sunny and grateful, always be sociably warm and charming, always smile politely when spoken to...and never spoil tea with laments for the unchangeable past...what room was there for anything else James felt?

Would there ever be a "suitable" word for pain beyond all imagining, or missing someone dear you never wanted to be without?

After his mother's passing, words could never fill James's empty heart quite the same way as dirt seemed to fill her empty grave.

And while mama had stayed just the same in James's memory, he was no longer 11. He was much older than that now, and understood far more of the world for what it was.

No longer for what he dreamed it could be.

And as fate would have it, duty brought him home again to Scarborough. His father's expectations for him as a Moody to carry on the family's reputation safely doing away with any lingering romanticisms of James's boyhood.

Even so, childish as poetry seemed now, James had made a vow, and his vows were never broken.

He still had a poem he owed to his mother.

But the storms had been in such a rage aboard the Boadicea that season, that for the first time since his mother's passing, James had missed his chance to come home and tend to her grave.

Only to find that someone else had beat him to it.

Evelyn Moody's headstone was dusted clean of all the dead leaves, dirt, and stray hairs of webbing that hid away his mother's name while he was at sea.

The weeds were neatly trimmed back where James knew the vines grew the stubbornest, leaving the base of the headstone satisfyingly cleared and manicured.

Everything was exactly the way he might've done it, in the same spirit of care he would've done it in.

Everything but that strikingly blue bouquet of forget-me-nots crowning Evelyn's stone.

But who had been keeping the grave while he was away?

Surely, not Miss Annie, who was always so eager to earn herself a small token of James's affection, and left lilies yearly at mama's grave for him to find.

Bit for all her heart, his stepmother wasn't keen on getting dirt under her fingernails.

And surely, not his father, who was much too busy catering to his new legal clients at Downton Abbey to be bothered with so much important detail.

And if not his sister, Margaret, who had recently gone away to become a nurse, then who was left for James to thank for the unexpected kindness?

James gently turned the bouquet over in his dark day gloves, charcoal being the only color he preferred these days, as it conveniently matched all his sailing uniforms.

Discovering for the first time that forget-me-nots didn't actually carry any scent of their own.

And it puzzled James to find that he...liked it that way.

Not at all like the overpowering perfume of lilies and chrysanthemums draping his mother's headstone.

As James had no heart to tell the well-meaning Miss Annie how much like murder the smell of daylilies were to his sinuses.

But these were different.

Raw. Pure. Honest.

Whoever had left them, could any two people think so much alike, if this mystery someone were able to guess his own mind in choosing scentless forget-me-nots instead of the tired tradition of lilies?

Could the secret well-wisher have known somehow how he maddeningly looked on in silence, as the servants at the Moody house draped all the mirrors with black upon his mother's death?

Or that white and virgin pink had been chosen for Evelyn Moody's memorial, ignoring James's insistence that mama hated pink, and that sky-blue had been the color she adored most?

Could this kind spirit have really watched him so carefully, that this someone had remembered he liked to line pine shavings around Evelyn's headstone to keep the knotweeds from taking over the grave, knowing that it was never certain when he'd return from sea?

Was it any small wonder that this nameless stranger could know his heart so intimately already, even though they had never been properly introduced?

James gazed around at the morning sea-mist smelling of woodsmoke as it hung over the other gravestones nearby.

But like every other year before, James found no sign of the mystery woman he knew had been looking after mama's grave while he was away.

Only the morning's chilling rain swept across his pastel complexion, as he searched in vain for her in the fog. 

Leaving the sailor to wonder if she'd ever end this tantalizing anonymity between them, or would he be resolved to go back to the Boa for yet another year without any token of her?

What was he to make of it, if she kept herself away?

No matter how early or late his arrival, the bashful Miss was careful to take her leave long before he could happen upon her at the gravesite.

Was it really just unlucky timing on James's part?

Or had he unwittingly fallen in love with a graveyard ghost?

What reason did she have to keep herself hidden, for so many tormenting years of wondering between them?

"Nah then, Mr. Moody! Bit parky out, in't? Grand day for rain, I'd say."

James waved to the grave-keeper walking by with his shovel and mattock leaning across his shoulders.

And being a sailor now, who had braved more than his fair share of horrors at sea, James took heart. 

Knowing that no matter what a Nervous Nelly he felt for asking after a mystery woman he wasn't promised to, now was as good a chance as any to make bold and ask the grave-keeper that burning question that had anguished him for years.

Closing his mother's grave fence behind him, James hurried after the gravedigger, who went on singing Sweet Adeline.

'Sweet Adeline, my Adeline,

'Brings back the time, love, when you were near.
It is then I wonder where you are, my darling,
And if your heart to me is still the same.
For the sighing wind and nightingale a-singing
Are breathing only your own sweet name.'

'My Adeline, my Adeline,

For you I pine, for you I pine.
In all my dreams, in all my dreams. 
Your fair face beams, your fair face beams.
You're the flower of my heart,
Sweet Adeline, my Adeline.'

James at last caught up beside the tuneful grave-keeper.

"Are you in good health, sir, Mr. Harlow?"

"Aye, ah'um! Chuffin' away, lad, I am! You won't find me crouterin' and liggin' about," the grave-keeper answered merrily. "Out from under the sail, ye are again, I see! What do I owe the honor, Mr. Moody?"

"It's my honor to see you well again, sir," James assured him. "Though, I was wondering if I might ask you-"

"Ah, blinkin' hell, it's right beltin' down on us now! Mind how ye go, Mr. Moody! Take care not to catch thissen in a sinkhole!" a distracted Mr. Harlow marveled at the rain pouring around them. "Am off to my hut to give us a brolly! Reckon I got one liggin' about here someplace."

"It's nobbut water, sir. No need to go to the trouble," James declined politely. "I won't bother you longer than is necessary to inquire after-"

"Oh, aye? Fancy it nobbut indeed to a seafaring man," Mr. Harlow chuckled. "How's the Boa treatin' you? They feedin' you well enough?"

"I am getting on well with all my complements, including the stewards, which I find pays. And the salt pork and beef are not half as bad as I expected," James answered. "All the same, I'm grateful to be granted leave. Which brings me back to my question-"

"Your father had much to do with that, I imagine?" Mr. Harlow's cheery tone darkened a bit suspiciously, as he side-eyed James. "What's our old guvnor so horn-mad on these days?"

"His Lordship's solicitor took ill suddenly," James informed him. "Lord Grantham has of late been searching for loopholes in the entail at Downton. My father's legal firm was recommended to him as a stand-in. He asked me back to assist for the time being, as he was already working a case with a man about a pig farm in Leeds, and would've been sorry to turn the Earl down."

"Of course. What man of sound mind would dare say no to his lordship?" Mr. Harlow remarked sarcastically. "Even so, dead set your father is upon making you a man of law, isn't he?"

"I'd like to imagine he's at loggerheads with enough scrappin' as it is," James smiled goodheartedly. "Anyhow, Mrs. Potts will be off to fetch me soon enough, and I've still been meaning to ask you-"

"Now, don't ye settle for owt, James Moody. No matter how he berates ye," the grave-keeper warned him. "I know he's not let up on you, and sons live for nobbut to make a father proud. Nonetheless, if the sea is where your heart is, you will always find yer way back to her."

"That's bein' yonderly." It was James's turn to side-eye his old friend suspiciously. "Fancy you think there's more to this I should know about?"

The gravedigger's eyes scanned his cemetery.

"Funny thing about graves is that once we die, it don't matter who we were or what we'd done. Come lord or beggar, I come to know many secrets of both the dead and living folk here. Secrets like your father's real business at Downton...And if there be some truth to rumors, it can do no good for neither the both of you."

"What do you mean by that, I wonder?" James asked. "Which two of us are you referring to?"

But the grave-keeper's brows perked up suddenly, as if to remember something of great importance.

"Right, forgive me, lad! Here I was chelpin' on about nowt when you had something else you wanted to ask me first...What was it then, eh?"

~

Beep, beep!

The sound of 5 o'clock road-rage brought James back to the starlight of rain that fell in the headlamps of the motorcars whizzing pass him.

Captain Wentworth batted curiously at the harmonica in James's hand, as if to ask the sailor for an encore.

James gave in to a weary smile, stroking the cat's head with the back of his whitened knuckles, as his eyes found Ms. Amberflaw coming up the sidewalk at last.

"Thanks, mate," he told the shopgirl's cat. "But I can't play anymore for you, I'm afraid. Here comes your person now, and the way she's lookin' over here, I can tell she's got the monk on for me stealin' away with you. And anno better now than to go on mitherin' with the likes of her."

And as James watched the maid jog toward him through the rain, gathering up her skirt for better ease of walking as her white Converse swished through the rain puddles, his last words with the grave-keeper came back to him. 

"Are you sure you're not imagining her, Mr. Moody?" Mr. Harlow had asked. "Nice young ladies don't wander about cemeteries alone tendin' to the dead, ye know."

"Suppose that's the reason she's afraid of letting me know her," James had answered him. "Yet if she knew how eagerly I'd like to, maybe she wouldn't feel afraid. I think of her often while I'm at sea. Don't suppose you 'appen to know who she is, or where she works over in town?"

"Sorry, lad, I don't reckon I've met many a lass like that here....What's she look like?"

"Dunno, really," James admitted regretfully. "We happened upon each other here when we were just bairns. When my mother died, actually. I stow away here to grieve her in peace, because my father would whip me otherwise. I don't know how she'd come about there, but the lass must have taken pity on what a miserable sight I was. I started when she put her hand on my back, but she said to me, 'Don't be afraid to cry for her. I'll stay here with you and keep watch, if you like. So no one knows you're here. Our secret, it is, just you and I.' ...She was the only soul on this earth who understood exactly the pain I felt, and how grateful I was to her that I no longer needed to hide it. I wept relentlessly. And was much too ashamed to look into her face with my ugly mug, much as I roared my eyes out in front of her. I still hadn't got a proper look at her before she was called away by her guardian. Millicent, she'd been called after...That name is all I know of her now."

"Ah, young love, is it?" Mr. Harlow teased him. "And what are you goin' to do, if you ever find this Miss Millicent from nowhere? Ask her to marry ye, will ye?"

"I'd sooner be cut off," James sighed. "I know nowt will ever come of it...Father would look down upon me marrying a girl he doesn't approve as my equal...Though I don't suppose that means I can't at least thank her for showing me so much kindness? If nothing else, I'd take even that, for the chance of meeting her again...So, if you 'appen to hear more of her, do let me know straight away."

"You have my ears, Mr. Moody. Anything at all," the gravedigger tipped his hat in farewell. "Best of luck to you, eh?" 

"Thank you," James nodded to him. "Perhaps, I'll wait here a while longer, if you don't mind..in case there's a chance she comes back."

It was at long last that Emily closed the final few paces of sidewalk between her and James, leaning against the wall of the bus stop shelter, as the officer met her gaze. 

"So," she said. "I've finally found you." 

Chapter Text

Dropping down onto the bench next to him, Emily unpinned her stewardess cap, and started taking out her bobby pins one by one.

"This is why I hate Mondays," she sighed, shaking her champagne tresses free. "Imagine going to work one day, thinking it's going to be just a normal day on the job and everything's going to go as planned. And then suddenly everything goes horribly, and you can do nothing but cross your fingers and hope you come out ok. Can you even understand how that feels?"

"Of course not, miss," James muttered dryly. "Not I."

Emily passed him a narrowed side-glance as she collected her locks again and wrapped them up into a messy bun.

The realization finally dawning on her that out of all people, the Titanic officer was probably the only person in the world who could understand that feeling best.

"Oh, right," she took back her pity parade. "Sorry."

"Did you get the sack then?" James asked her, holding nothing back. "God knows you deserve it. You're much too high-and-mighty for any kind of people-work. I've still a mind to write your 'customer complaints' for the lousy service by which I was abused."

"What are you going to tell them, huh?" Millie mumbled back to him. "Return Service Requested to the RMS Titanic?"

They both sighed. 

The lady, out of ill humor, and the officer, out of hopelessness.

And after taking a moment to consider how she never asked for this as much as he hadn't, James's tone softened into a murmur, "It's not you I'm angry with, really."

Millie glanced over at him again, her eyes catching the harmonica in his hand.

"Impressive," she remarked, changing the subject. "You've got this sailor act down in true Little Mermaid fashion. The harmonica's a nice touch."

"It's a wonder what you pick up when a storm is passing over you at sea, and you've nothing else to pass the time," James answered. "I shall never forget the storms. First time I got brayed over by one, I was going up with another apprentice, and about 10 other men to take in the main sail. Oilskin suit and heavy sea boots on, as well. The mast swaying till the end nearly touched the water. The sea crashed onto the decks like an avalanche, sweeping everything away and all off their feet. Until we crashed like a ton of bricks right into the scuppers with a white wave, and perhaps 5 or 6 men on top of ye. Not for the faint of heart, the sea is...And so, looking after this kittlin here was no trouble at all, I'd say." 

Captain Wentworth's ears twitched, still perfectly happy to stay cuddled up at the officer's side for an eternity.

"He's gonna hate me for this," Emily said reluctantly. "First, I couldn't even get him to go with anyone else. Now he's all puddy in your hands."

"He's a particular devil, he is," James agreed. "Cats being intuitive as they are about their people, maybe he's picked up on something that's caused him alarm."

"That's what I was afraid of," Emily confessed. "He isn't really mine, I mean. He's my brother's cat."

And noting the look of worry on the Miss's face, James couldn't help but ask, "Is everything right with your brother?"

"He's missing," Emily said. "I woke up one morning, and he just wasn't there anymore...No goodbye. No explanation. Just vanished...I haven't seen or heard from him in months."

"Forgive me," James quickly apologized. "I didn't mean to push in."

"Anyway...it's late," Emily safely moved on from the troubling topic. "I should probably get home before traffic gets worse."

And once she held out the cat carrier to James, the officer gently coaxed the cat from his nap.

"In you go, you bugger," James encouraged a sleepy Captain Wentworth out of his coat, ushering the kittlin into his awaiting carriage. "Goodbye, old man."

And with the cat securely zipped inside, Millie flashed an awkward smile at James. Unsure of whether to walk off and leave him alone, or wait around a little longer to make sure he'd be ok. 

"Be reight now, love," James assured her with a confident nod, so she wouldn't look at him in that guilty way anymore. "Things will turn out right for us both. They've got to. The rain can't come down on us forever."

"But what are you gonna do...about Titanic, I mean?"

"I can't say for sure," James admitted quietly. "I've a lot to sort out in my mind from here...But I know I will find my way. We sailors always do somehow."

"Well...good luck with everything."

"Same to you, miss."

And thinking that answer was probably enough to leave him behind, and still get to sleep ok at night without feeling guilty about it, Emily walked on.

Making it only half-way back to her car before she stopped again.

A battle raging in her head with a tempest of emotions eating away at her, as she thought about how clueless and vulnerable he really was out here in this shady neighborhood. What if he was robbed? Or stabbed? Or locked up in the same place she'd been in a year ago, because he couldn't remember who he really was?

Glancing back over her shoulder at the bus stop, Emily stood caught between "He's really not my problem" and "But can I really just leave him here?"

Her hardened resolute brow slowly melting with the heart she damn well knew she still had, as she watched Moody wrap his coat tighter around him and gaze into the rain, hunkering down for another long hard night at the mercy of the elements.

"Dammit," Millie sighed.

Turning around and marching her way back to the officer.

"How about a trade?" Millie offered him. "Seeing that we're both in a place of figuring things out, maybe we can help each other."

"How do you mean?"

"You need somewhere to think things through, and my cat needs somewhere to go while I'm at work," she laid out the terms of her proposed agreement with him. "And as your luck would have it, I have room and board. And as it would seem, no one gets cats the way you do."

"And in doing so," James gradually worked around to her meaning. "Are you asking me to be your cat-nanny?"

"Why, I suppose I bloody am," she winked at him. "For a little while, at least. Until I find him a permanent cat-sitter. Enough time to get your memories back about Titanic, I mean."

"I'll have to think on it," he said.

Emily furrowed in puzzlement. 

After being the first one to extend the olive branch between them, sprinkled with all her blessing and kindness, what kind of answer was that for a person so down on his luck?

"I'm sorry?"

She swore she must've heard him wrong.

"I'll think on it, is what I said," James gave her the same answer.

Emily's bottom lip dropped slightly.

The impossibility of this man!

"Well, I don't see exactly what other choice you have," she informed him. 

"Only any other alternative in the world, I imagine," James remarked. "Count 'em on both my 'ands, I could."

"Well, that's just great for you."

"It's not the cat, you see," James explained. "I'm just not so sure how I might get on with you being my employer, is all. Not after you nearly took me eyes out back there."

"Fine," Emily withdrew. "Freeze out here, for all I care."

"I was doin' that anyway."

"Suit yourself then."

And whipping back around, Emily marched yet again for her car parked on the other side of the museum.

Leaving James to glance up at the sky again, just as a rumble of thunder erupted through the indigo storm clouds above him.

It couldn't be so bad, could it?

Just a few days of shelter from this storm, looking out for the Miss's cat, and then he could be on his merry way. 

Even if Ms. Amberflaw was as tart a mademoiselle as they come, it was the cat he'd be keeping company with. 

So long as she was away working her shop most of her day, what were the chances that they'd even be troubled oft to bump into each other?

And at this point, what more did the officer have to lose anyway?

"Wait, miss, I've changed my mind," James called after her, hurrying down the sidewalk to catch up with Ms. Amberflaw. 

Who, alas, seemed to only pick up her pace as he jogged behind her.  

Blimey, a fast little rabbit, she was. 

But if nowt else, the sailor was a gentleman of persistence. 

"I'm just the man you need," he called out proudly to her. "Let me tell ye why no man like I, James Paul Moody, would make a proper cat-nanny indeed." 

Chapter Text

It was love at first sight.

And James hardly knew what dinged him.

But when it did, he couldn't tear his eyes away from her.

From the first moment of their meeting, they looked silently into each other's gaze, the distant and impossible suddenly becoming near...possible...and inevitable.

James's ears reddened feverishly hot.

His pulse excited as it would be, had a shot of opium jealously taken possession of his senses.

His mouth going dry in transfixed wonder, made from half agony, half adulation. Another poor bastard burned at the stake of Eros's punishing arrows. Losing the good fight against those repressed desires he'd once called himself master of. Of that inborn craving that is the undoing of even the best of men.

Helen, the beautiful, toiling relentlessly after his unstill beating heart.

Neigh...beautiful was too limiting a word for the masterwork of a goddess.

And a proper Juno, the lady was.

His eyes dragging over every indulging curve, from the perky lift of her divine trunk to the pearly bonnet that left James breathless with nothing but his wildest imaginings about what a force she'd turn out to be, once he'd gotten fast inside of her.

Never again would he be smitten by nonesuch a girl.

Because from the moment he made her acquaintance and learned her name, he was surely done for.

"Honda."

James's breath was smoky in the chilling April air as he read the lady's nameplate.

And he could almost hear the angels above singing from their moody skies, as if fate had long ago written in the blest hour of their meeting.

A splendid speed machine, she was. The pearl lines of her design mouthwateringly tailored to his fetish for high-performing mechanics.

The Honda Civic, 2015.

Capital of all motorized engineering.

Had James heard of her by word alone, such a seamlessly engineered coquette might've sounded to him more a fever dream than actuality.

But no man in his phantom of mind could ever invent such a riveting tale.

"What cruel fate we nigh on endured, to have lived and died near a century apart, without knowing how perfectly we were meant for each other," James whispered reverently to the motorcar, falling fast for the indescribable pleasure of a plushy cushioned seat against his back. And when he realized that the delightsome warmth keeping his bum toasty was a heating mechanism built into the motorcar bench, James's toes curled against his socks.

Honda appeared to sigh contently with him. Her rumbling purr dragging him to the brink of exhilaration, anticipating the climax of knowing exactly what made her engine so impossibly quiet. 

What caliber of performance did this grand lady have waiting for him under that hood?

Eager as he was to find out, James knew well enough the game of intrigue, and had the stamina for it to boot.

He had no problem with waiting, knowing the lady would come to him soon enough.

And so, he bought his time, turning his gaze up and about to ponder her remarkably sound interior.

For a collection of kit and kaboodle, she appeared--dare he ever say it again--"unsinkable".

She, the pentacle of comfort and security shutting out all the rain and cold outside. Her steely breath exhaling a steady stream of warmth that played between his numbly cold fingers, as James held his hands up to the personal air vents in front of him.

Feeling kept, but in all the best ways of confinement, within the intimate cozy nook of her windows and sturdy roof that sheltered all passengers equally. Nothing like the open carriages chauffeured back in his day, reserved for only the wealthiest patrons of old money.

In this world of 2022, any man could look upon his kingdom from the throne of his Honda.

James's eyes chased every pretty light and button blinking across her switchboard, tempting him with the foreplay of secrets.

There was even a little looking glass on the windowshield, which James toyed with curiously. Clicking its miniature torchlight on and off, and turning it from side to side to get a clear view of every angle over his shoulder.

"Marvelous," the charmed junior officer whispered her praise.

The looking glass was even decorated with a dainty little pine tree swinging in zen-like cadence, with the words reading Apple Cinnamon etched across it.

James couldn't have described it better himself.

So much like Christmas in a Yorkshire countryside, the car smelt. 

Spiced Victoria cakes. Mince pies. Yule Log sponge cake. Cinnamon Burboun Apple Ice Cream...

The Englishman’s mouth watered.

God almighty...how did they get motorcars of the future to smell so bloody delicious?

Sound as a dinner bell, this fantasy was.

Save for one small problem.

James still hadn't any permission to touch anything.

And that was quite a bothersome catch indeed.

After all, what starry-eyed lad hadn't dreamed of becoming the chauffeur for some stuffed bird, if only to get a shot at his 1910 Peugeot Grand Prix?

Like any other 20-something who couldn't keep his hands off a shiny new motor toy, James was practically drooling to get behind the wheel of this Honda.

How much would it take, really, to bribe Miss Amberflaw's driver into letting him have a go?

Granted, James hadn't any experience with Hondas, and had only played about the wheelhouse of an ocean liner ever and anon.

But ships and motorcars weren't so different, weren't they?

He knew the basic mechanics of making things go fast.

So long as in 2022, right still meant right, and left meant left, and go meant go, and stop was indeed stop, James could manage the in-between details of motorcaring a motorcar in no time.

But whomever that lucky bastard was chauffeuring Miss Amberflaw around--well, he was certainly a lucky fellow indeed…

…who would gradly understand wholeheartedly, man-to-man, James's primal need to turn the crankshift of the Honda just once.

And Moody could hardly wait, when the driver's door finally swung open.

"Between us, old man, would it be any too much trouble, if I..."

But James quickly swallowed his words when Miss Amberflaw plopped right into the driver's seat instead.

The singing birds and angelic choirs from heaven stopped, as it all came crashing down on him like a gramophone needle jamming the rut of a broken record.

"Seatbelt," Emily announced brightly to him, pulling a long strap over her apron and clicking it into a buckle at her side.

"What–what on earth are you doing, miss?" a bemused James questioned her.

"To-ing and fro-ing," Emily answered, adjusting her rearview mirror back to its proper place from where James had moved it.

"I'm not tellin’ ye I’m any such expert here,” James disclaimed. “Though I do believe that seat belongs to our driver."

"And here I am," Emily presented herself. "Yours for the asking,"

James's wheat-brown eyebrow perked skeptically.

"You?” He nearly couldn't keep his unsmiling face from cracking. How bloody cute she was. “Surely, you can't mean he's left you in command of chauffeuring us about?"

"Quite the scandal, is it not?” she answered rather uppishly. Which was spoken rather well in that tune, as far as James was concerned.

She never could stop lampooning him, could she?

Yet, though Emily most assuredly took his objection as yet another symptom of his antiquated bigotry, James's skepticism of her driving credentials was not born out of any slight on her delicate sex, but out of a mad jealousy for having beat him to the draw, being the first among them allowed to drive the little Honda before he could get his hands on it.

His jaw hung flimsily.

"Surely, you can’t mean for the entirety of our journey?"

"Uh huh," Emily muttered, distracted and hardly listening, as she checked her side mirror for a clear opening in traffic.

James shook his head, in a tizzy over his luck.

'I hadn't even the slightest chance against her,' he thought to himself.

But as Emily shifted the gear from park into drive and the car lurched forward, halted jarringly again by Emily mashing on the brake, the officer felt suddenly uneasy.

" Are you sure you know what you're doing?" he asked her.

"On occasion, yes."

"That answer is hardly reassuring."

"Then you'd better belt up," she winked at him. "I don't exactly have a license."

“And by that, you mean what, exactly?”

The daredevil gamely smirked back at him. “On the count of three.”

She revved the engine a couple of times, which was no reprieve for James’s nerves.

“Wait--What's a license, miss, and why does it sound so blooming important?” he inquired of her again.

“One.”

“Pack it in. We will not be going on.”

“Two.”

Emily let the car slowly roll out its parking spot.

“Miss, you must know, I’m a terribly jittery fellow, and you can’t possibly do this without the proper qualifica–You’re not listening. Dear God, I mean it, miss, don’t you dare say-”

“Three!”

And the officer scarcely had enough time to work out what a "seatbelt" was, before the car galloped on down the roadway.

James snatched Captain Wentworth's cat carrier, shielding it safely against his chest as he ducked for cover.

There was no "how-to manual" about this sort of thing.

No guidance for how a 20th century man should live to tell the tale, should he find himself at the mercy of a 21st century lass hotfooting a 2015 Honda Civic at her leisure.

All James knew was to give a wide berth to all machinery commanded by a woman.

And he was far too late to change his mind about putting his fate in the hands of Miss Emily Amberflaw.

Demented, she was!

But so naive was he about the future, James could not tell what he was in for.

All he could do now was hold onto the door latch for dear life. His heart racing as he watched the world become a whizzing blur of color. Alien to the still and quiet existence he once knew before.

"Miss...this is absolutely mad...this is..." Moody whispered breathily.

But gradually, he found himself speechless as the engine softened to a hum, and the Honda gradually found its steady pace.

And once he realized it was all going considerably well, James dared himself to peek back through his window.

And when he did, he couldn't take his eyes off of it.

His shoulders slowly relaxing again, as his utter terror melted into rallying excitement.

How beautiful it all looked now.

The golden glistening fairy lights of street lamps floating by, people of all sizes and all colors doing all sorts of peculiar things, gargantuan cityscapes that to James appeared to come straight from an H.G. Wells novel.

Was it not the most eye-opening and inspiring adventure he’d ever chanced upon?

Just like flying, it was. 

He’d never felt so alive, except when looking out into the ocean from the deck of an officer's bridge.

Staring at the bottom of your glass, Hoping one day you'll make a dream last. But dreams come slow, and they go so fast.

The catchy tune on Miss Amberflaw's car gramophone played along with the rhythm of their journey. 

And in that moment of reverie, James suddenly felt a strange pang of bittersweetness that swept like an ocean tide over him.

Realizing that finding such a place, and the tragic circumstances on Titanic that had brought him here, was not without its give-and-take.

Now that he was here enjoying all the wonders of this world, dead to the old world he’d left behind, did that mean that to be “reborn”--so to speak–he had taken this life in the future from someone else?

Because he was alive in 2022, would it never be possible now for his grandchildren’s children to one day enjoy a world so beautifully progressive as this one?

“You must be thinking, god, this is insane,” Emily smiled over at him from behind the wheel, mercifully ripping James away from his dreary thoughts.

“I wouldn’t ‘ave believed it, had you only told me it was so,” James agreed. “How fast are we goin’, do ye reckon?”

"Almost 50 miles per hour," Emily told him. "See?"

James leaned in closer to her shoulder to get a better look at the speedometer on the dashboard.

Then straightening his posture again, he went on doing the math.

His blue eyes turned up to his window as he mentally worked out the sum in his head against each of his fingers.

"Forty-three knots, that is," he reported his answer back to Emily.

"Sorry, I'm not exactly sure what a 'knot' is.”

"A nautical mile, I mean to say,” James explained. “It's a simple conversion. Perhaps, I can show you how to do it some time. But I suppose what it means is, you could readily cross the Atlantic in double the time it'd take for the RMS Olympic, and just under half for the Oceanic. Three days, at most. We could go around the whole world in just under 20 days, if you wanted to try for it."

“Is this always the way you think about things?” Emily asked him. “In knots?”

“Nautical knots, Fisherman’s knots, bowline knots, anchor knots, granny knots,” Moody's list went on. “We junior officers do them all.”

Emily smiled, shaking her head, as she turned her attention back to the road.

"You're one in a million, James." 

Moody didn’t know precisely what she meant by that either, but something about the way she smiled when saying it made him reluctant to check her math on it.

He smiled too, turning back to his window. 

What did the math matter anyway?

"It's extraordinary," he whispered to himself, as he went on admiring the world floating by to the ambiance of Miss Amberflaw's invisible gramophone.

'Only know you've been high when you're feeling low,
Only hate the road when you're missing home,
Only know you love her when you let her go.'

Chapter Text

When His Lordship ordered the motorcar north to Scarborough for some ruddy English crumpy by the name of Moody, Branson knew the hour-drive back to Downton could end up in two ways.

Baneful, as expected.

Or in a bloodbath straight from the feckin' heart of hell, as could be anyone's guess. 

Either way, someone was handing over home with a broken nose. 

Because when an Irishman and Englishman found themselves forced together on the same turf, like a pair of greyhounds, the only thing they knew best how to do with each other was scrap. And on 2 out of 3 occasions, scrappin' always started with some chappie's poor sweet mam accused of being a pox horse's cuckholding floozy. 

Was His Lordship testing him?

Wasn't it only last Sunday, as Branson was chauffeuring the Crawleys home from the parish, that he overheard Mr. Carson mumble to the Earl, "He may be a wheel horse, my lord, but he's frightfully full of himself. Is it not in poor taste for a chauffeur to speak so openly about politics and history in front of the ladies?"

"Actually, I find it rather amusing," Lord Grantham had answered. "It's quite refreshing to have a second opinion on such matters."

Surely, His Lordship was aware that not all Englishmen felt the same?

Did he already suspect how many broken noses Branson had begotten since he was thrown off the boat from Ireland?

All Tom ever wanted was a chance to find a way to his dreams in Yorkshire, but nothing ever seemed to change. Until Downton's last chauffeur bowed out to start his own tea shop, Branson knew it was as good a chance for him as any.

It wasn't ever his intention to be a lick arse to the Crawleys, but he needed this job.

And so long as his English passenger behaved himself, and didn't take issue with him being Irish, or Catholic, or a Socialist-

"Oh, aye? A socialist, you say? I see," James took out his pen and wrote the word on the underside of his wrist for safekeeping. Making a mental note to add it to his ongoing word collection later. "I've been searching far and wide for one of ye. I'm something of a novelist, you see, and for ages, I've had this idea for a book I can't seem to button down. Being a progressive fellow myself, I'd be glad to hear your say."

And after that, it was hard to tell they'd only just been rough acquaintances before. 

Chelpin' away about politics, and motorcars, and steamships in general, and how fast the Renault had gotten them away from Scarborough in only an hour.

Neither of them having any regard for the British Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, who had recently proposed a third Home Rule Bill to solve what he deemed the "Irish Question", limiting Ireland's political autonomy in the United Kingdom.

Branson couldn't believe Moody was just a sailor. He'd known sailors before–grisly-smelling, salty-tongued, drunken-sun-leathery, old-seadog-superstitious type–but James had an educated gentleman's way of carrying himself, without the inflation of self-importance, and a way of listening to folk that made even a chauffeur feel that he was someone worth noting. 

Branson respected Moody for how lettered the man was, seeming to know the right word for everything at just the right time he needed it, and Moody respected Branson for how devotedly the Irishman used those words to light the fire of his idealisms.

As far as James was concerned, whether a poor Irish or untitled English, he and the chauffeur were on the same side against a mutual enemy.

Old money.

The monied folk taking over Scarborough with their agonizingly paltry southern way of speaking down to the lay people.

The same sort who owned everything through the luxury of never actually working for it, liggin' about horse-back riding, making a show of themselves at evening soirees, and throwing weekly parties for shooting and garden-carousing. The same breed of lofty tourists who believed they could simply bagsy Scarborough as they pleased, where the summers were fair and the North Sea breathtaking (despite the "pestilent inconvenience" of the Scarborians like James who already lived there). 

And they always had a poetic talent for renaming things that nangled them on their long afternoon rides along the seaside.

"Rustic scum", "peasant farmer's bastard", "sheep-fornicator"--being the darlingest of their repertoire.

There was certainly no limit to their imagination in harassing James, should he ever feel in the mood to "accidently" fail to notice their horse buggy trotting along a country road behind him, as he took his precious time strolling down the middle of it.

Hot to trot a man down before they ever missed the opera, dressed to the nines in their elaborately stuffed Gainsboroughs, Merry Widows, Derby toppers, and lacey parcels--lest the vampires should wither away by any small mention of sunlight.

Ah yes, when it came to making 'eck for those maungy rich, James Moody took no prisoners.

Branson couldn't have met a more agreeable brother-in-arms looking out for the common people.

And by the time he parked the Renault on the drive of Downton,  and the two lads stepped off the front bench of the motorcar, the chauffeur was sorry to learn that the Englishman's stay at Downton would be short.

"Here's one to send ye on yer way," Branson offered one last hoorah to Moody, as he lugged James's suitcase out of the back. "Young lad asks his rich uncle, 'how did ye get rich?' The old codger says, 'Aye, son, it was 1854, and I'd just come back from the war. Was down to my last pence, I was. So I took that pence and got me an apple. Sat about all day polishing that apple. Then I sold that apple for 6 more pennies. I invested those 6 pennies into 2 apples, polished 'em, and sold them for a shilling. After a month, I had made mi'sen a fortune of 5 pounds. Then mi'wife's father died and left us with 20 million."

James grinned as Branson passed him his suitcase. 

"I'll do ye one better," James kept the fun going. "An old pecunious chap and his 3 sons die unexpectedly, and arrive at St. Peter's gate. St Peter says to the old geezer, 'we've been expecting you, but not them. They don't belong here.' And the old man says, 'Well it's my fault, really, because on the day I died..."

The joke abruptly stopped mid-way, as James suddenly went quiet. 

Leaving the smirking Branson waiting on a punchline that never came.

Unaware that Moody's gaze had been quietly stolen by a young woman pulling open the white shutters to one of the long Jacobethan windows, allowing more light into the second floor of Highclere Castle.

From where he stood, it was hard for James to guess if she was a lady's maid, or a lady dressed warmly by a maid in traveling costume for a drive on that grey melancholy March afternoon. 

She was plainly done up in a black frock coat with a satin notch collar, opened up to a lacey white high-collar pinned by a modest pearl brooch. White trimmed black buttons fastened her coat smartly over her elegantly fitted bodice and full skirt. Her hair was the color of roasted chestnuts, curled and pinned into a low rustic side chignon with a softly twisted side part. 

Against her window ledge, she was busy doodling in a journal of some sort. 

And since she appeared to be so hard at work with making something of the window, James went with his first guess.

A lady's maid. 

At length, she looked up again, her hazel eyes diligently scanning the corners of the window, making careful notes of its length, width, and lighting, before she traced it by memory in her journal. It wasn't long before she leaned forward against the glass to study the width of the stone ledge just below her window in the same calculating manner.

Then contemplated the distance from the window ledge to the drive below.

Until her eyes gradually found Lord Grantham's parked Renault, and inevitably, James. 

It's a tired cliche, really. The romantics of Austen's day were infatuated with that dreamy idea, that when two people meet for the first time, the world stops. 

It couldn't have been further from the truth. 

Because most assuredly, it'd never be true for them. 

The world as they knew it would never stop for them, or relent for such a meeting.

And though they knew how inappropriate it was to stare a moment longer at each other, both were too stunned to drop their gaze. 

For James, it was this nagging feeling that this first meeting wasn't actually their first.  

He felt something instinctually familiar about her, as if he'd known her for ages, even if he couldn't pin down where, or under what circumstance, or by what name. 

Though, it was very unlikely that he ever had. 

He could count on one hand how many times he'd been to Downton when his father's legal consultation was required. And not once did he ever have a reason to make acquaintance with the Earl's daughters, or their lady's maids, for that matter.

He guessed he was confusing faces, as he'd met so many of them at sea...but...after traveling the world to Australia, South America, Africa, and back again, nonesuch a face as hers had ever invoked in him the memory of the girl he'd lost in the cemetery.

That chance would be a hundred-to-none, and he was just playing to the gallery with himself by hoping for it. 

Besides, it was hard to tell for certain, being positioned so far below her window.

But after seeing him standing there, something in the Miss's expression immediately changed.

The contemplative, intelligent focus he couldn't help but stop and admire in her before suddenly turned into pale and silent panic. As if she'd forgotten how to breathe properly and was going pale trying to remember how to do it. 

James's brow furrowed curiously.

"Wonder what's come over her?" he thought. "Looks as if she's just seen a ghost." 

But before he could make anything of it--

"Mr. Moody?" 

It was the third time Branson had called his name, before James remembered the chauffeur was still standing there. 

"Aye?" James managed to speak again somehow, turning back to the chauffeur. "That girl in the window there...you wouldn't 'appen to know her name?"

"Lady Sybil, you mean?" The slight hardening of Branson's tone dared him to say yes. 

Making James do a double take back at the window to confirm who it was he had saw.

Dumbfound again for the tricks his mind kept playing on him. 

The girl standing at the shutters now was not the same one from only a moment ago.

Instead, Lady Sybil Crawley's wintry blue gaze sparkled down at them. 

Her lovely Belgian chocolate hair pinned into an elegant pompadour pulled back from her embroidered white winged collar adorning her silk lavender blouse. A dainty emerald pendant around her neck serving as yet another sign to James that she was no lady's maid, and could never be mistaken for one. 

A rosebud of a good finishing school, this little richling was, with that subtle smile on her peony lips making her beauty more distracting. 

If there was anyone else there before her, it was a secret that remained only hers, as was the nature of kept secrets between girls.

But James could've sworn on his life that another girl had been there, and that something in her eyes knew him.

"She's the Earl's youngest daughter," Branson informed him, throwing a suspect eye at Moody. "And is there any reason you won't stop rubbernecking her?"

"N--No, sir." 

"Then don't," Branson warned James firmly, marching the Englishman away from the drive to the guest reception, where Mr. Carson was waiting. "Let her go out of your head, Mr. Moody. The siren awaits thee there, singing song for song. Many a sailor have been dragged down to his death on account of one of 'em. Lady Sybil may not seem anything like the rest, but you'd be a damfool to try."

"What do you suppose she was doing there?" James asked Branson's opinion of the illusive 'beautiful-girl-of-the-window' mystery. 

"Best we forget about it and say we saw nothing," Branson advised him. "I wouldn't put it pass Lady Sybil looking for new ways to quietly sneak away. You can't expect her to sit idly in this house, when her cousin calls in on her. Lady...Blimey, what was that lass's name again? Mildred....Minerva...Matilda? Lady Mariella, or whichever it was, is staying at Downton for her coming-out. And I'll bet my money on it, they're up to some mischief. Shame you won't be around here when His Lordship and Sir James finds out."

Sir James?

James's father must've forgotten to mention that Sir James Crawley, Lord Grantham's first cousin and heir to the Earldom, would be sitting in on their legal counsel.

And if Sir James was here, there could be no doubt that his rotten lot for an heir--with his hell-born moggy--was lurking around here some place. 

What was the name of that bastard again?

Oh, right.

Patrick Albert Fucking Crawley. 

Chapter Text

James Paul Fucking Moody.

The name still left a bitter taste in Patrick Crawley's mouth.

Last Patrick had heard of James Moody, the Scarborough twit was an apprentice sailor signed on to the William Thomas Line...what was the name of that ship from the papers again?

The Boadicea?

Such a shame this blunderbuss Duke of Limbs hadn't done himself the favor by now and fallen overboard, being the sack of pebbles he always was.

He never could throw a decent punch.

Patrick smirked privately from behind his morning paper, as the butler showed their guests into the library.

"Mr. John Moody and Mr. James Moody, my lord," the old willowy cello for a butler, Mr. Carson, announced nobly to the Crawley grandees. "The solicitors from Scarborough, who were sent to you for legal counsel by Mr. Murray."

Lord Grantham, looking into the crackling fire of the silk marble mantelpiece, plated with gold and carved with grape vines hanging over statues of Mars and Diana, tucked away the worry wrinkling his brow as he accepted his guests.

"Send them in."

Carson stepped aside, making way for the Moody gentlemen. "His Lordship will see you now."

Though his nod for the younger Mr. Moody somewhat lingered, before he passed his stony glance to Patrick.

Not out of any special acknowledgement, of course, as the aloof Mr. Carson was a traditional brand of butler, and not at all the sort to break his Code of Butlerness for the whim of showing anyone any favor.

The extra effort he took to leave the room was plainly a warning for both Crawley and Moody.

Should any manner of "disturbance" follow their mutual arrival at the estate, they would be dealt with by Carson personally.

The old Butler was always watching.

And he'd been given enough reasons by both Crawley and Moody alike to be on edge.

"Thank you for coming on such short notice, gentlemen," Robert Crawley warmly greeted his guests, though his voice was still heavy with the burdens of his heart. "Mr. Murray was suddenly called away to care for his wife, who has taken ill. I know you and he worked closely together in the past, concerning legal affairs of the estate. There was no one I could trust more in Mr. Murray's absence."

And having come so highly recommended, James's father was eager to make a lasting impression, swinging his arm out in a wide deep Shakespearean bow. In the spirit of your-highnessing that would have been too much for even a royal, let alone, a country Earl.

"Truly, Downton is the crowning jewel of Yorkshire, Lord Grantham. I can speak for both Mr. Murray and myself, that we have always been treated with great hospitality while working here," James's father complimented the Earl. "I am eager to assist you with any inquiry you might have in regard to the entail."

"Downton would be a ship lost at sea without you. And speaking of ships, I've heard the news."

The Earl turned to James next.

"Congratulations on being accepted into the King Edward Naval Academy in London."

"Thank you, Lord Grantham," James answered in that humble way Robert Crawley always admired about the young man.

"Already, he's made a promising reputation for himself at sea," John Moody spoke of his son proudly. "There are rumors of a soon-to-be vacancy aboard the Oceanic. The Boa's captain informed me that he means to put in a good word for James as an officer with White Star Line."

"Very good, indeed. We can certainly use more men like you in the navy," Lord Grantham nodded strongly to James. "Though, I hope you won't think it selfish of me that I still imagine you'll carry on your father's firm when he's no longer with us."

James fumbled awkwardly for an answer, knowing that if he was honest, he did not have a reply the Earl wanted to hear.

"Well, I..."

Patrick smirked, knowing the only thing more entertaining than James Moody throwing a sissy punch was James Moody throwing an answer like a blubbering idiot.

But alas, as could be expected, daddy came to the rescue.

"The difficulty with James is that he has far too much potential for his own good," John Moody chortled lightheartedly. "He excels in everything he sets his mind to, but has yet to give his heart devotedly to anything--Law, being the least of these things. Though he does have a natural talent for boatmanship, I must say. I would do anything to see him settled at home permanently, but I've come to accept his leave from sea with us will be brief."

"I see. Duty above all," Robert Crawley approved of the young man's conviction. "Thank you for your service in the Royal Navy."

"It is my honor to serve," James quietly returned the nod.

"Well then, gentlemen," Lord Grantham proceeded, inviting John Moody to join him and Sir James by the mantelpiece. "Shall we begin?"

John Moody, starstruck for being offered a seat so near to His Lordship, all but skipped after the footman to the red sofas and damask carpets by the fire.

Patrick rolled his eyes.

John Moody was a nobody, in the grand scheme of things.

And the young Crawley was more than happy to go on ignoring him like a nobody.

Turning his attention back to his morning paper, as his smoky gray cat purred lazily on the armrest of his elbow chair.

That is, until his sea-green eyes swooped back up to glare at the footman, ushering the latter Mr. Moody his way.

The servant carelessly assuming that this Mr. James Paul Moody was Sir Patrick's social peer, for nothing more than being the closest in age and stature. 

Robbing Patrick once again of his right to read the results of this week's horse race in peace.

Forcibly seated opposite the blue-eyed "pretty boy" he'd known as the longtime rival of his boyhood.

And didn't all that grandeur of gold and blood-red in Cousin Robert's library bring out that beautiful pouty gaze of Moody's?

Even the housemaids couldn't stop finding excuses to swoop in and clear his dishes away, no sooner after he'd touched them.

"That seat doesn't belong to a bell-end tosser," Patrick remarked icily.

"It's no wonder then you were placed so far ayond," James answered, as he stirred a splash of cream into his steaming tea. 

"Still haven't managed to get yourself drowned, I see."

"There's an art to disappointing you."

And as James sat his teaspoon down again, almost on cue, a servant appeared at his side to exchange it.

"For God's sake, again?" Patrick demanded. As it was easier to get away with taking out his aggravation on the waitstaff rather than his Cousin Robert's guest. 

But this time, it wasn't the maids falling upon their tableside, but that giddy footman, Barrow. 

"Pardon my reach, sir," Thomas Barrow beamed into James's face, feigning innocence as he checked once again that the cream dish on James's side was sufficiently filled. 

And James's ever so polite smile nearly outmatched the sunlight in the room, as Barrow cleared away his half-finished teacup. "Thank you, sir."

Barrow blushed madly.

Thank you?

Patrick sneered.

"You certainly are a darling, aren't you, Moody?" Patrick mumbled, as he swigged the last drop of his own teacup. Still awaiting a second round, as the servants went on neglecting his cup to pour James his third round. "Next you'll be thanking to the pig Mrs. Patmore roasted for dinner."

"If the pig got t'werk as hard as she does," James answered, in a manner of speech that Patrick found as charming as the scullery maid, Daisy, downstairs. "S'ppose I don't take for granted awt, now that I work for myself."

"You don't say," Patrick grunted. "Well, you would know. Not I."

Even the owly cat at Crawley's side, with his orangey werewolf-moon for eyes, seemed to be mocking James then.

Christ, he still hated that bilge-swilling cat. 

"S'ppose it's the 'knowing' that sets us apart, Mr. Crawley," James guessed, ignoring the mangy cat and taking another sip of his brew. "I have seen the world by sea, goin' where I go and spendin' what I please, all before one and twenty, and here you sit, king of your high castle, waiting to be married and bred off before you're ever entitled to your fortune. No better than a cob roller, really, if you ask me."

"Yes, let's ask James-minging-Moody, the sailor," Patrick muttered, as he placed his empty teacup upside down with a frustrated clink. As nothing else seemed to work as a sign to the staff that he wanted the cup refilled. 

"You've got all your ducklings in a row, don't you, Moody?"

"About as straight as my aim, old Patty boy," James returned. "Still got that scar above your ear, I see. You never did learn your way around a shotgun, did you?...Pity...What was it you said to me when last we were at Downton? The day I beat you at our little game of war?"

"I've not forgotten war," Patrick informed his rival softly, one finger delicately stroking his cat's inky ears. "You were the navy, and I, the calvary. Hellbent we were, on being the first to kill the other...Not much has changed, has it, Moody?"

James's chuckle was a subtle breath through his nose, as his blue eyes turned up to scan the Crawley's library from the elaborately ancient ceiling above, and then down to the hearth crackling merrily across the room, where his father, Sir James, and Lord Grantham were still obliviously engrossed in their own conversation.

"No," Moody agreed with the Crawley, after some thought. "I suppose you well-to-doers don't change. Everything about this place is exactly as I remember it...How bloody reassuring that must feel to you."

And the rosy color of Patrick's arrogant smile gradually darkened ever rosier.

"Though not so reassured as you must feel," the Crawley remarked. "What a privilege it is to feel so superior, having the leisure to run away and become a sailor while I remained here upholding the noble tradition. As if either of us needed another reason to go on confidently about his role, assuming that he is at least superior to the other's loathsome existence. Wasn't that the very heart of our war, James?"

James's eyes met his directly, knowing well enough by now that whenever they addressed each other by their given names, the gift of hell-giving would inevitably follow.

"All things considered, I find I agree with you. Not much has changed since we were boys," Patrick continued. "Even without the trenches we dug in Cousin Robert's fields, and the loaded shotguns we fired against the other, I know you're still the same scared little laddie you were when you lost dear old mummy. And it didn't matter how quick you were at pulling the trigger...I'm always one step ahead of you, James."

James placed his teacup back on its saucer and set it quietly on the table.

The muscles in his outstretched arm strained and slightly trembling to hold his resolve.

But Patrick never backed down, knowing well enough by now he had pushed Moody to his limit. 

'Come on,' Patrick's stomach-turning grin dared the sailor. 'You know you want to, you prat.'

And if James hadn't been a recent navy grad, sworn to duty and honor, he might've fancied a teacup-like scar above Patrick's left ear to match the other one he'd left above the Crawley's right.

"Oh?" Patrick's softened voice was like a knife pushing deeper into James's skin. "You still don't like it when I talk about mummy, do you?"

"We're not lads beating the pish out of each other anymore," James answered Patrick calmly, as he straightened his posture again. "Surely, we're both men now who can settle our differences cordially."

"So frustratingly noble, you always were," Patrick sighed in boredom. "You still believe your principles make you a more superior man than I? A mere peasant against a Lord-in-waiting?"

"You're not a Lord yet, Mr. Crawley," James replied, putting an extra emphasis on the word mister, as he knew how much it vexed Patrick.

"All the same," Patrick all but grumbled in spite. "I have in my possession everything you desire, James...Everything."

"And what's all that, I wonder?" James's daring smile challenged that idea. 

"You know damn well what I mean," Patrick answered. "It'll be upon my own death that I ever see you take what you aren't entitled to. And even after I'm gone, there will be no rest for either of us." 

"Well, when you're ready to make good on that promise, come find me at sea."

"If you go anywhere near her," Patrick swore under his breath. "I will kill you with my own two hands." 

"I've not the slightest idea what you mean, Mr. Crawley."

"We'll see, won't we, James?" Patrick told him. "It's like you said. We're not lads anymore. We're playing a very different game now. Cruelest in all our contests of war. You won't have any ground before I've taken it from you in the most devastating ways you can imagine. Should I destroy myself doing it, I will crush you manky peasant scum irreparably. You will never call yours anything that belongs to me."

"Rest assured, Mr. Crawley," James answered him. "There's nothing you have that I'd ever want for myself."

"Hm," Patrick smiled to himself, going silent again as he indulged his cat endlessly. 

"As you are both aware," Lord Grantham's voice was easily heard across the library, now that Patrick had dried up. "The entail is a matter that can no longer be ignored. Lady Grantham and I have been blessed with three beautiful daughters; Mary, Edith, and Sybil. However, it is clear now that there will be no male heirs. As the law stands now, neither of my girls may inherit the title or the estate. My heir presumptive being my good cousin here, Sir James Crawley. However, in the event that things should not go as we plan, my primary concern is that my wife and daughters are not left with nothing. I'd like to explore the option of 'breaking' the entail, so to speak. Mr. Murray tells me it's impossible, but I thought you might have a different opinion, Mr. Moody."

"Do you have any reason to fear that Sir James will not inherit the title as he should?" John Moody asked the Earl.

"Well, no. It is only a question of tying loose ends," Robert said. "In the event of anything unexpected, my chief concern is in Cora's fortune. If we can somehow divide it from the estate by means of a trust, in such a dire emergency, what legalities would we need to meet head on first?"

"It would be very difficult," John Moody regretfully gave the earl his honest opinion. "After reviewing the legal language within your father's agreement, the late Earl tied the knots fairly tight when you and Lady Grantham married. Lady Grantham's fortune had been transferred irrefutably to the estate, and is therefore nearly impossible to challenge. You see, in exchange for Lady Grantham's fortune, the contract presumes the countess received something of considerable value in return by her marriage to you. It is a fair transaction and, if I may speak plainly, would mean a great headache in time and money to challenge. It does not seem worth the effort. If the fortune is separated from the estate, the estate will be at risk of falling again."

"For ordinary, impotent beggars, of course," Sir James finally broke his silence at his writing desk, gazing directly at John Moody. "But for you and your legal connections, Mr. Moody, perhaps not. Your father has many friends in high places on the council in Scarborough, does he not? Perhaps he might have his way of...influencing the law in this case."

James's eyes darkened, offended by Sir James's brash suggestion. 

What on earth was he asking for?

"I'm afraid influence doesn't speak for as much as it used to these days," John Moody informed him. "The bourgeois have made politics in Scarborough more diverse, and thus, more parliamentary, as of late."

"We have plenty of money for your efforts, Mr. Moody," Sir James offered. "No amount is too presumptuous."  

James couldn't believe it. 

Did Sir James really believe the Moody family could be bought and sold so easily, all for the sake of lobbying a few extra rulings in Yorkshire?

"Forgive me, sir," James couldn't help but speak up to such an insulting assumption about his family. "But as men of law, we are committed to conducting ourselves justly."

"I certainly agree," Lord Grantham nodded. "And by the sound of it, it wouldn't be a solution anyhow. Not if breaking the entail means a breach of sacred trust to my family and to the community, which I hold dear."

"Should we see it as justice if half the souls affected by it are not here to voice their opinion, or look after themselves, if something were to happen to us gentlemen?" Sir James challenged. "It's all the girls I worry for, and that includes my Millie. If we can't foster enough political support in Yorkshire to change the laws binding the entail, would you see the estate fall into the hands of a complete stranger, if something were to happen to me? It's a problem you're well aware of, Robert, and it must be accounted for before I sail for America."

"Oh?" his cousin questioned surprised. "I had no idea you planned on returning to New York."

"It's hardly a secret, Robert," James went on quietly. "I have...neglected my daughter over the years, and as a wiser man now, I deeply regret it. Since Patrick will inherit everything in England, I am looking to investing in America for Millie. All accounts will be held in Patrick's name, but he has agreed they will belong exclusively to his sister, should she require them. It will be some time before Patrick and I sail to New York, but I would like to settle this question of the entail as soon as possible, as I'm not sure when Patrick and I will return."

"Having daughters myself, I understand your concern, and it's rather thoughtful of you, Sir James," Lord Grantham said. "However, there must be another loophole to our question, without resorting to shameful bribery."

"Indeed," Sir James's deeply concerned gaze ran into James's, by chance. 

And resting there a moment in pensive silence, his concerned brow slowly relaxed, as his attention eventually worked its way back to John Moody.

"I suppose our only hope then," Sir James said to James's father. "is to find a compromise in which all parties mutually benefit. Indeed, money isn't the sole value of all things. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Moody?"

John Moody said nothing as he reached for his cooling teacup, careful not to meet Sir James's watchful eye and be forced to give an answer.

Leaving James all the more perplexed as to why his father seemed so hesitant to take the Crawley on toe-to-toe. 

Chapter Text

It was the longest silence in the history of father-and-son silences.

James hadn't been in a mood to say much of anything, barely touching a morsel of his supper after their vexing meeting with the Crawleys. 

And John seemed to be wrestling with his own personal demons, hardly looking at James as he absently sipped at his wineglass. 

It went on for half an hour like this, and James began to wonder if it would hold over their entire dinner. 

He had only just dipped his spoon into his lamb steak and parsnip, before his father abruptly gave in.

 "I think you should marry, James," John Moody murmured suddenly. "And soon."

James's soup spoon froze in mid-air, swearing he heard him wrong, but his father's stony gaze was unrelenting across the long dark Mahogony.

Where on earth had that daffy idea come from?

It had to be the Bordeaux sitting between them. John Moody hadn't turned it down once, every 3rd-4th-7th time it was offered. 

James cleared his throat. 

"Excuse me," he pardoned himself, as he leaned forward to slide the bottle of red out of his father's reach, and safely toward his side of the table. "I reckon that's enough for one night." 

"But you will hear me, son," John Moody went on resolutely, the fatherly warmth in his storm-gray gaze a paradox to his austere tone. "I've allowed you leisure to the Australian seas for this long, because I know it is good for building a young man's character. But you are no longer a boy, and it is time you considered your life more seriously."

James sat his soup spoon down on his service plate.

The clink of his silverware against the china bowl noticeably vocal, but only just tamed enough.

"Have I disappointed you again, papa?" James asked quietly. "It was your idea that I go to sea with the Boa. John became a doctor, and Christopher, a solicitor. Is it your opinion that I'll still never live up to my brothers?"

"A career at sea is far more suitable a profession for a younger son. Certainly more respectable than a writer, and I am relieved you came to your senses, on that note," John said. "However-"

"I've worked my hardest, papa," James insisted. "Earned the highest marks on all my drills onboard. Managed to keep on deck all my watches above, and was the first of 3 to get better. Doctor and solicitor, I am not, but I have never failed your expectations once at sea."

John Moody sat down his wineglass with a regretful sigh. 

He knew he'd be getting a fight.

After all, wasn't his son not the resilient young man he'd sent him to sea to become?

But John was prepared to keep nothing back, if it meant keeping James out of harm's way. 

"You disagree with marriage?"

"I only ask that you let me do it my own way," James said. "I've done all else you've asked of me. What must I do now before I've proven to you all is enough?"

"Mind how you talk to me, boy," John Moody checked him. "You might keep company with a gang of low-born sailors, but I won't have you speaking to me like one of those swabbies, and certainly not at supper."

"I'm nearly ready to sit for my Second Mate's examination," James pursued the argument. "Is that still not enough?"

"This navy apprenticeship was not a permanent solution," John Moody reminded him. "You know it was only a means to help you become a man and find your way. We both knew it was only a matter of time before you returned to Scarborough and studied law."

"I have not paid off my indenture bond yet," James countered. "I can't just drop everything I've done for nobutt to marry."

 "And when I am gone, how do you expect to live on a sailor's wages?"

"As an officer, I will."

"For a mere 40 pounds a month?"

"And who's to say that law would serve me any better?" James questioned him. "You already have Christopher in the firm, and you have as much help as you could ask for there. I couldn't do anymore good in Scarborough."

"That isn't why I require you to stay, James."

"Then why is it?" James asked. "Why are you so determined to stop me from going back to sea?"

"How is it you are so determined to never come home?" 

"Forgive me, but wasn't that your very hope from the beginning?" James countered. "After all, it hasn't been much of a home to me here since mum died. It's Miss Annie's house now, it is."

"How dare you speak so sorely out of term," John accused his son. "You were an impossibly melancholy child, and your mother, Mrs. Annie Moody, could do nothing to help you. You spent God knows how long in the cemetery and nothing ever pleased you, James. What else were we to do with you?" 

"I don't mean to sound ungrateful," James muttered, packing away his long-held resentment for being cast out the house by his father, because Miss Annie felt he was 'too much' to handle after mama's death. "I only mean to say...I did exactly as you asked me to. Whether you accept me as a 'swabbie' or not, a swabbie is what I am now, pa."

"Will you not hear me, son?" John demanded. "I heard about the..."

Only then did John break his firm eye contact, pushed to the limit of the grief he had for so long demanded that James take control of himself.

"I heard about the man who committed the unthinkable sin on your last crossing to Australia," John found the courage to continue. "How he...he...Oh, God rest his poor damned soul."

James sighed, knowing exactly where this was going. 

"They dare not say suicide,"  he said to his father quietly. 

"I heard...that he took his own life onboard," John went on shakenly. "Even after you tried to stop him from doing it. No doubt he was driven mad by the brutish realities of being so long at sea."

"Papa-"

"And I can't ever bear to imagine...my son...enduring the same fate...If I ever lost you to the sea, I could never forgive myself, James, knowing it was I who sent you there," John Moody spoke in weighted undertone. "I imagined all along that I was taking the right course, as a father, sending you to sea to finish your education. However, after hearing of that...incident onboard...and the hurricane that struck your ship shortly after-"

"It wasn't a hurricane. Plenty of stormy weather happens at sea, but it is not the end of all," James assured him. "You shouldn't fret over me. I've been trained well aboard the Boa."

"You were born above such grisly work and throwing your life away on a merchant ship like riff-raft," his father persisted. "How can you insist upon it, James, when you come from a long proud line of-"

"And I am not any one of them," James stood in protest from his seat. "I am not you, or granddad, or my brothers, and you've made it perfectly clear that I never will be."

"Damn it to hell, James!" John Moody forgot his containment, slamming his wine goblet against the table again as he leapt from his chair too. "I already lost your mother! Will you make me wait until I lose you too?"

Hushing his wayward son at last into a stunned silence, as James sank slowly and numbly back into his chair.

And realizing how sorely he'd failed on leading by example of containing one's passions as a gentleman, John Moody cleared his throat, and gradually reclaimed his seat again.

Resuming their topic composedly, as if the last heated five minutes of their conversation had never happened.

"The sea is a dangerous venture, James. I will not risk losing my son to such a gamble. If marriage will keep you safely on land, then married you will be."

"I will not agree to be married."

"I've already chosen a suitable girl for you," John continued. "Sir James and I have agreed on the match. In two weeks' time, his daughter will have her coming-out ball at Downton. An heiress will make a fine woman as your wife." 

"You can't be serious," James was lost for words. "You want me to marry a Crawley?"

"Should you agree to the match, Sir James has offered to pay your indenture bond with William Thomas. Since Miss Crawley will not inherit any portion of his estate, he is willing to overlook that you are untitled. However, his only condition is that you leave behind your career at sea. Sailors are not highly regarded among the leisured class, and it is the only tenet Sir James will not compromise with," John informed him. "Though, of course, giving up the sea is of no consequence next to what you will gain by marrying. You will assume all privileges of wedding the daughter of an Earl-in-waiting, and you will remain safely on land where you can focus on your law studies."

"And what, might I ask, did you bargain me over to Sir James for?" James asked darkly.

"In exchange for your marriage to Miss Crawley, Sir James will have the support he needs in Scarborough," John said. "It will prove rather useful to him, should the lords have any hope of breaking the entail binding Downton." 

"What have you done?" James whispered, breathlessly incredulous. "This isn't the man you are. You mean to say, you've sold me over for-"

"For your own good, as any father would," John Moody said, reaching into the inner pocket of his dinner jacket for the token Sir James secretly lent him in the library. "Lady Grantham is hosting a garden party in her niece's honor. I have here Miss Crawley's card, as her father's invitation. I'd like you to call on her tomorrow." 

John held Miss Crawley's calling card up for the footman attending their dinner, who retrieved it, and walked it to James's side of the table. 

James, however, didn't even glance at it once. 

"I won't marry her, pa." 

"You can't go on living your life in romantics, James. Your mother spoiled you terribly on that account," Mr. Moody said. "Don't be so impossibly irrational."

"You don't understand. I can't marry her because..." 

James hesitated to finish his confession. But knowing that now might be his last chance to lay his cards on the table, he bravely pursued the argument for his own happiness. 

"Because the truth is, I'm already in love with someone else."

"Dear God, whatever can you mean?"

"Well, I first suspected she was a gravedigger's daughter, but-"

"A gravedigger's daughter, James?"

"I don't know exactly who she is, but I was going into town tomorrow to ask about her-"

"I forbid it," his father declared. "You've earned Sir James's favor. You're all but promised to a Crawley heiress, and you're chasing after the likes of a grave digger's daughter? I won't stand for it, James!"

"And how can I ever stand for this? To be bargained away in your legal contract with the Crawleys like chattel?"

"You will attend that garden party, or so help me, God-"

"Then God help you!" James declared. "Because if you thought marrying me off to some Crawley well-to-do would keep me from returning to sea, I can't say how sorry I am to have spoiled your grand scheme. As I imagine Sir James wouldn't rest easy having a sailor for a son-in-law."

"You're so determined to see yourself miserable, aren't ye?" his father answered. "Since your mother died, you've been having a hard time of it, I know, and now that you are promised a comfortable life marrying Miss Crawley-"

"Do not speak again of my mother," James murmured gravely to him. "You married the first woman who was willing to take you after mama died."

"How dare you slander your own father with such brazen disregard!"

"I'm not like you, pa," James shook his head. "I am not one to forget so easily that I have loved so deeply. My heart belongs, ever still, to the girl I met in the graveyard. And I wouldn't trade that love for all the Crawleys' money or connections in the world."

"Oh my dear boy...It is for this very reason that I believe this decision is best for you," his father persisted firmly. "Your heart is trapped in the past, James. You must let go of it."

"It was you who left me in the past," James informed him, much quieter than before. "And now you'll have to let me go, the same way you let go of mama...I'm going back to the Boa. You won't be able to stop me." 

And John Moody watched helplessly as his son marched out of the dining parlor.

"James. You won't walk away from me like this," John called after him, standing from his seat too late to stop his son. "James!" 

Chapter Text

All she could hear was the sound of her heart beating in her ears. 

And in that moment, when she locked eyes with the one person who had secretly always held her heart, she could hardly breathe. 

Let alone, make herself known to him.

He'd grown more handsome since that last autumn she saw him. Since that first time he went away to sea.

And never after had she told a soul, that when she fancied a husband for herself, she fancied James Paul Moody.

But knowing who he was, and how surely her family would look down on him, James was an unspoken fancy of hers that remained a long-lost dream she'd have to be content with never having. 

Until the door of the glasshouse opened suddenly, and one last visitor ran into its warm sanctuary out of the rain. 

She'd waited so long for this moment. 

A chance to meet him under the proper circumstances, which could easily be explained away as an unintended and necessary encounter, due to the rain spilling over outside. 

Without anyone telling her how being alone in a glasshouse with a "common man"--or any man, for that matter--was not the way a well-brought-up lady should behave. 

Even if the idea of finally meeting him face-to-face terrified and excited her all at the same time, she couldn't believe her stars when James Paul Moody walked into her cousin's glasshouse.

''Is this proof enough...that it must be written in our stars,' she insisted to herself breathlessly. 'Or else, why would he be here now at Downton?'

And for such a promising meeting, how could either of them have known then, that they'd soon wish it never happened?

Chancing upon him in the greenhouse on the estate wasn't anything Jane Austen, of course.

She preferred the darker realism of the Brontës anyway.

There was no lovers' sunshine. No daisies or blushing roses in bloom around them. No aha moment warning her that she was no longer alone, but had been found by something she would never again want to know this world without.

Had she heard Mr. Moody come in, she might've chosen another hiding place to allow him leisure to the glasshouse in peace.

But it was raining.

And had it not been for the rain, she might've happily returned to Downton at last, and he might've happily missed his chance of meeting her.

But with a downpour like that outside the greenhouse window, there was no going back from this now.

As if the universe wept for their sake, foreseeing the bloom of a tragic fate, as they gazed quietly perplexed at each other through the wooden lattice of twirling English ivy growing around them.

Taking each step together on either side of the greenhouse, until they gradually slowed to a mutual stop.

Her eyes hazelnut with green embers as dreamy as an English garden; and his, an ocean-strong blue as calm as an afternoon sea.

Each trying to decide what to do with each other, now that they'd accidently discovered the other's hiding place.

But could it ever really be an "accident"?

She knew him all along, even if Mr. Moody didn't quite remember her the same.

And the choices she'd made up until that moment were deliberate.

Rather than face him with the truth about herself, she'd chosen anonymity. 

Fearing the scandal that might ignite and ruin them both, if anyone knew just how much he meant to her.

Just how faithfully she had doted on him, every year, since their first meeting in the cemetery.

Not that she ever meant for this to happen.

It started out innocent enough.

She and her cousin, Sybil, had decided already that they wouldn't be attending her coming-out garden party, if it was nothing more than an excuse for her father to put her up for "silent auction" and get a head start on counting the bids offered up by each of her soon-to-be suitors. And so, she and Sybil decided to run away together, convincing one of the maids, Anna, to lend them her frocks for a day.

Two girls in the prime of their adolescence playing "dress-up", thinking nothing of the consequences.

How could she have known what pain it would bring to she and Mr. Moody both, upon meeting like this?

She dropped her eyes quickly from his, hoping to God that he wouldn't study her too closely.

She knew it was silly to think he would. 

It'd been years since she last found that boy in the cemetery, and they had only been children. There was no reason why he'd recognize her now, after so many years gone by.

And taking her lowered gaze as a sign of her bashfulness, Mr. Moody quickly removed his cap for her, having been taken so suddenly by surprise in finding someone else there, that he regretfully forgot his manners.

"I'm sorry, I thought this glasshouse was abandoned," he apologized to her, his accent charmingly sprinkled with the warmth of a working man, not like the proper Queen's English she grew up with. "I'll leave at once."

"There's no need. You claimed it first. I'll go," she offered, more than happy to turn and retreat for the door.

"You mean out there?" he objected, glancing at Mother Nature's violent assault on the greenhouse windows. "Surely, this storm is no kind of weather for a lady wanting for a chaperone."

"Nor for a man either, I'd say."

"Now that'd be unfair for me to judge, as I might pride myself in being a strongly made sailor. I can take a beating longer than any ten for a penny man."

"Well, I assure you, sir, I have walked through many a storm in my 17 years, and have yet to be swept off my feet."

"Well, that is, I only meant..." he proceeded awkwardly, making her raise a dark brow in amusement as he fumbled to catch up with her remark. "That is to say, I'm not saying you couldn't very well manage...Well, I mean I should say that I imagine you to be quite a woman indeed--Blimey, forgive me, that's not what I meant--I don't mean it in that way--What I mean is that I'm a suffragist, and I think rather highly of women and their inspiring aptitude. And I hope I am not being inconsiderate of your independence by worrying for you walking in this storm alone, as I don't doubt you could...But why would you...when my boots allow for easier navigating around mud puddles? And since I am looking for a welcome excuse to be late for an unwelcome dinner invitation tonight, I implore you, miss, allow me to muddy my shoes in your honor."

And by the time he finally got on with it, he looked up to find her silently giggling behind her hand.

He sighed, in great relief.

He wasn't ever any good at words. But perhaps it hadn't come out to her so badly as it sounded to him.

At least she was laughing, and not the alternative.

"You don't do this often, do you?" she teased him playfully.

"No," he admitted. "I'm rather green at this, I s'poose. Though I reckon that's what one can expect, when one spends more time with seadogs than high society at garden parties. But picked my own lot, I have. Too late to regret it now."

"I can't imagine that you would," she said, her smile warm like the sunlight they'd been missing since morning. "And I can only guess that the reason we're both here is because we are mutually sick of garden parties and high society anyway. So how about we settle this dilemma of ours by placing a bet? Sailors are notorious gamblers, aren't they? There's no way you can disappoint me there."

And though his mood hadn't let up since the entail meeting, he couldn't help cracking a smile now, pleasantly surprised by her refreshing unconventionality for a lady.

"What have you in mind?"

"I propose that we have a contest," she said. "Whoever tells the most horrid story about how they came upon this glasshouse gets to stay in it. The other walks."

"Suppose I told you an exceptionally horrid story then?"

"Now, that'd be unfair for me to judge, as I'm a dreadful storyteller myself," she said. "I wouldn't know the difference between your dreadful and mine, but I can assure you, mine is fairly horrendous. I doubt you could outbest me at that."

"Then which of them shall we stomach first?" he asked her, folding his arms in anticipation as he leaned against the garden worktable behind him. "Your horrid or mine?"

"Well, which is longer?"

"I should say, I could fire mine off in under a minute," he said, glancing at his pocket watch, before pocketing it again. "Though if I manage it in less time, you'd be grateful to have been spared."

"How considerate of you," she approved with a nod, giving him the leeway. "Shall we begin our misery then?"

"The truth is," he began his dramatic tale. "I have no desire to be married now."

"Is that all?" she asked, feeling cheated.

He had warned her he'd finish in under a minute, but not a sentence, and he could've at least put in some kind of effort to make her believe she'd been seduced by an illusion of foreplay.

And what reason did a man have to protest anyway?

He was a man.

Marriage was his game.

"It is my understanding that men hold lordly indulgent power over marriage," she commented. "In that case, I imagine you have everything to gain from marrying, and every right to choose when and when not, or whom and whom not, and where and wherefore. So, forgive me, but I'm afraid I don't quite understand your distress."

Gradually, he straightened up from the worktable, the good humor in his blue eyes dimmed as he resumed the objective posture known for his lawyer kinsmen.

"I see. You believe only women have everything to lose in marriage?" he stated. "What do you make of me then? I gain nothing from marrying the woman being forced onto me. If I marry her, I lose everything I worked for at sea. And if I choose my own heart, I lose my father's support. I can not afford my indenture bond alone. And because my father must always have his way, he would have me marry some prudishly entitled well-to-do snoot--a Miss Millicent Crawley--who I never cared to make the acquaintance of, and would be damned to marry otherwise. The truth being that I have my heart set on another. And as I intend to make my affection known to her, I can not–no, will not–make Miss Crawley my wife. That is the crux of my distress. I am not allowed to pursue the woman I admire, because she is not of the privileged class, like Miss Crawley. It's why I took shelter in this glasshouse...knowing I must have an answer for my father by tomorrow."

James leaned against the window again as he watched the rain pour outside, so worked up in his own discontent, that he hardly noticed his listener anymore as he rambled on. 

"If she's anything like her rascal brother, Patrick, I can not even stomach the notion of meeting her without loathing 'her not-quite-a-ladyship' from the darkest pit of my godforsaken soul. Better that she marry another, as I would never abandon my life at sea to be hers. I can not and will not give her any happiness."

And by the time he finished his story, her face had gone as pale and still as the gray windowglass fogged over from the chilling rain.

All they heard for a time was the fall of raindrops against it, as she was too dumbfounded to speak otherwise.

But speechlessness, alas, was not part of their bet.

Mr. Moody waited only a moment before turning from the rainy window to face her expectantly.

"I do believe you promised to outbest me at this dreary contest. Misery loves company, eh?" he gave her the floor at last. "It's your turn, miss. Tell us what it is they won't let you say aloud out there, and  pray, don't hold back. You may never get a chance to be so plain-spoken again."

Her jaw dropped to speak, but her lips only trembled in stunned, resenting silence. 

Resentful not only for the damning truth he didn't spare her a word of, but for being such a lamb. Such a stupidly gullible, lovelorn little girl infatuated for so long with the day they'd finally meet, now gutted with the embarrassingly mortifying reality of her own foolishness. 

And still...despite the brutal declaration of his candid confession...she loved him. 

Taking her only comfort now in having never spoken her true affections out loud to James, as she could never bear making such a gross misjudgment, risking her reputation on no more than unrequited adolescent pining. 

"I am..."

Her voice cracked ruefully. 

Her throat swelling and her eyes hot with tears that she had just enough of a lady's social grace to mask. 

James waited.

She kept him waiting.

What was she to do with a man who regarded her with such unparalleled loathing?

Was it too late to regret coming back to Downton with her father and brother now, at exactly the time the flame of her girlhood, James Paul Moody, was called to the estate by Cousin Robert?

Regret would hardly be any use to her now.

And so there was nothing left to do but to carry on proudly, finishing the grim little game they'd started with each other. 

"I am Miss Millicent Crawley," she confessed at last. "And on behalf of my cousins, I'm very pleased to have you here with us, Mr. Moody."

It was a lie.

A disgustingly cruel containment of her true feelings, putting on that artificial little smile she'd perfected over the years, as was expected of a lady of her standing. Even as Millicent knew there was no coming back from this. 

Not for all the forgiveness in the world.

How could she never again feel tormented when James Moody was near, knowing first that he hated her for no other offense but being Patrick Crawley's sister; and second, that he always preferred another woman to her, for no other reason but his prejudice against her privileged overclass?

"Oh...I see," James told her, a bit slack-jawed. "Well, there's a good one I never expected. S'pose I needed that today, I did." He chuckled to himself. "Though, even so,..can you imagine how ungainly it would be, had you actually been the real Miss Millicent Crawley?" 

"You mean the well-to-do snoot, as it were?" she answered him coolly.

James dropped his forehead into his hand, wanting for nothing but the power to disappear eternally. 

"Ruddy hell...I did say that, didn't I?" he whispered regrettably in hindsight. 

And when at last James took in the hot rosy color in Millicent's cheeks, and the wetness glistening around the brim of her doleful amber eyes, he instantly felt like a proper ass. 

No matter how badly he disliked the Crawleys, it can't have justified this. 

"Forgive me. I do apologize for the misunderstanding," he told her gently. "Cross as I am with my father, you did not deserve to become the brunt of it. I only wish I could take it all back."

"Though...why would you?" Millicent answered softly. "If it's how you truly feel, I would have it no other way."

James swallowed hard in crushing shame, knowing Millicent was right. 

As much as he wished she hadn't heard him, he couldn't make himself feel any differently for her, knowing that his heart was set on another. 

"Don't worry," her smile was watery, but nonetheless, quite pretty. "Now that I understand your feelings, I'll speak to papa. I'm sure I'll come up with something to tell him, so we both don't end up miserably wed." 

"I'm terribly sorry, Miss Crawley," James deeply regretted it. "I never meant..."

But James fell silent, knowing he was only making it worse. 

His eyes dropped down to the basket gripped tightly in Millicent's ungloved hands. 

Finding them rather peculiar, as hers weren't hands he might've picked out for a wellborn lady.

They appeared slightly tanned for an heiress, as if she'd spent more time in the sunshine than most of her social equals, with a little fresh garden dirt lightly dusting her fingernails.  

And upon closer inspection, he thought he spotted a slight callous around the knuckle of her thumb. Remembering that he had identical ones anywhere he could get them on his hands, after slacking rope on the Boa. 

The well-off daughter of Sir James Crawley enjoying her own share of work from time to time?

A hidden gem, she must've been.

And for that, how precious her hands might've been to him, had they belonged to anyone else but Lady Millicent Roseline Crawley.

It didn't matter to James then how much he adored a working girl's hands.

An heiress and a sailor could never be. 

And having heard his confession, with no understanding of anything else, Millicent was absolutely broken. 

What good could she do by displeasuring him any longer with her company? 

Having already foolishly given James her heart, she would not make the same mistake of giving him her tears too.

"Forgive me," she whispered her parting excuses to Mr. Moody. "They'll worry, if I don't go back soon. I can't stay here any longer." 

Nodding a polite Good Day to the sailor, Millicent turned away from James before her true feelings for him betrayed her. 

Putting as much distance between her and the James Paul Moody she thought she knew so differently.

And by the time Miss Crawley reached the glasshouse door, James was one damning confession too late to realize that he hadn't thought enough about the basket of forget-me-nots left behind on the garden worktable. 

And when he finally came around to that one piece of ill-fated evidence, awakening an unbearably agonizing suspicion in him, the young sailor had already pushed Miss Millicent Crawley so far away from him, there was little hope of ever asking her back. 

"Wait," James called to the lady, abandoning her flower basket as he hurried from the glasshouse after her. "Miss Crawley, one moment, please."

But when he reached the outside gardens, abandoned by all but the rain whispering in the leaves of the earl's ivy sanctuary, James found that Lady Millicent had given him exactly what he'd asked of her. 

Damning him to one nagging question that haunted James thereafter.

Could she be...her?

Had the girl he lost in Scarborough years ago been standing before him all along, without him ever knowing she was with him?

But it was an answer James had ruined his chance of ever knowing. 

As by and large, the seaman had safely won their bet.

Chapter Text

"James!'

Emily searched his face intently for any sign that he was still with her.

The seashell-white arched Georgian doors of the earl's guest parlor now a bygone dream to the plain-spoken apartment door in front of him. The number just under the peephole reading 401. Making it the only telling distinction between Miss Amberflaw's door and all the other numbered identical doors queued up around hers.

"Come back to me, James," she brought the officer home to his senses. "You haven't fallen asleep on me yet, have you?"

James gave his eyes a good squeeze, no longer finding his father there but his unintended hostess--whom, for all her airs--only came up to just shy of his chin.

And out of an unsettling loop of frankensteined remembrances, Miss Amberflaw became the one constant he could again come back to.

So long as she was real and fixed in front of him, James knew he was real too, and not losing his head to the rough sea of unreal within him.

Strangers as they were to each other, James found in her face a comforting reassurance that many a sailor found in the North Star.

Polaris, guiding him back from the far dark sea of his mind until he lay anchor again in clarity.

"I thought I lost you," Emily teased him. "You had me worried for a minute."

"I'm still here, miss," James muttered softly.

Though the striking familiarity in those words made him hang back guardedly in thoughtful pause.

Had they not spoken something like this to each other already?

Or was he only losing arm over his wits again?

He swore he'd had this conversation before, almost to the exactness of every letter.

What was it about the Miss and those words in that moment that left him so haunted with a strange feeling of recollection?

Knowing again that chilling rush he'd felt when he first saw her through her shop window, stirring up his instinct that there was something recognized in her.

Something reminiscent in the way she joshed him with that smile under the golden glow of her verenda porchlight.

Had Titanic damaged his spirit so irreparably, that he'd never overcome these cruel illusions of Déjà Vu?

Or was Miss Amberflaw some breed of ruinous siren, triggering in him one shattered memory end on end, on end, on end...

Why was it every time they accidently ran into each other's gaze, everything about it felt so remarkably...uncanny?

James was hard put to find an explanation, though he supposed, it was simply that theirs was a rather uncanny circumstance. He couldn't expect to understand everything about how this whole time-drama worked.

But to wonder if he'd ever heard Miss Amberflaw speak those words before was one for the birds.

"I'm right off the mark, far and way," James whispered. "I've only just met you." 

"Sorry?"

"That is," he went on thinking aloud. "I was wondering...if you wouldn't mind saying that last bit again, please?"

"Oh...I said I was sorry in advance my apartment isn't anything Downton Abbey, or Titanic, for that matter, but at least it's a roof over your head," she restated, as she rummaged for her house key on its split ring. "Let me guess. I lost you at the part about the cat and the blender?"

And assuming that it was most definitely the blender that had derailed the baffled Edwardian man, Emily enlightened him as she went hell-bent-on winning against her front door.

"Sorry, I keep forgetting this is all still new to you. A blender is an--uh--thingamajig...A lot like a cup we use nowadays to mix a bunch of things together. It has a what-d'you-call-it attached to the bottom, something like the uh, uh-uh, the uh-uh..."

Her finger pinwheeled around and around in little circles, as she tried to remember the exact word.

"A propeller?" the puzzled James took his guess at her meaning.

A ship's rudder being the only what-d'you-call-it he could think of that went uh-uh-uh-uh in circles like that.

"Right! A propeller, thank you," Emily gladly borrowed his word, returning to her fight with the key lock. "Anyway, it makes your food go round and round really fast, like that, until it's basically nothing but gravy."

"Extraordinary," James remarked, though unquestionably, still very confused. "What a funny way of taking one's meal. Is that always the order of things here?"

"In this house, it is--And by this house, I mean Wentworth's. I'm always at work anyway...Wow, I've never actually had to explain a blender to anyone before. It's alot harder than you'd expect," she said, finally looking as if she was making progress getting the lock to take her key. 

"But don't worry, it'll all make more sense when we get inside. If I could just get this damn door--to budge!--Haven't got around to fixing the damn lock yet...Every time it rains, it jams up on me. The only thing you really have to remember is that Captain Wentworth won't take his Fancy Feast without homemade gravy of beef broth, steak, and shrimp poured on top of it. He gets fed twice a day at 8 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon. Asks for snacks at 12, 3, 5, and 7. That's all you'll ever need the blender for. Oh, and under no circumstance should he ever be left with said blender alone--You'll learn that the hard way--He naps most of the day, but isn't allowed in the window before 5, or else the landlady will charge us for the cat. Oh, and he shouldn't be let outside either, because he pees all over the neighbor's strawberry plants. Tries to kill her parakeets at least 10 times a week. Other than that, just keep him busy until I get off, and everything should be..." She fell on the door with one last, good hearty push. "Fine!"

Finally, the door gave way.

Allowing the Miss time to catch her breath, as she turned back around to conclude with one last rally of courage for her new cat-sitter.

"The blender thing won't be half as bad as it sounds, I promise."

"It's not your food propeller machine, miss," James told Emily quietly. "It's just..."

Just what was he meaning to ask her, exactly?

You remind me of someone I know I remember but can't remember how I know the someone you inspire a reminding of in me?

No doubt that would make it all clearer to her.

And besides, who would contend that the little jig his heart did every time she passed him a glance was none other than heartfelt gratitude?

She did, after all, save him from the rain.

So, naturally, Moody felt a small bit of warmth for the whimsy Miss in offering him a room, as any grateful guest would.

But was it really any small measure?

Never before had gratitude felt so much like it was bubbling over.

"Howbeit," James continued. "I can't seem to stop thinking about you--I mean, us--I mean-"

He let up a moment to breathe and order his words in tow before going on.

"The state of things is off-kilter, shall we say...It's almost as if you and I have already..."

James broke off again.

Only this time, it wasn't his own clumsy wordiness that held him back.

The porchlight glowing behind Miss Amberflaw caught his eyes, flickering eerily in fits and starts that stole his train of thought.

Buzzing brighter and white hot, before it dimmed to a hellish orangey glow, and then gradually illuminated to its natural gold color again.

But there was nothing natural about the way the drab masonry of Miss Amberflaw's apartment steadily brightened to panels of beautifully carved white wood.

Her porchlight now one of the many gilded lamps and glittering chandeliers along a lengthy corridor.

The rain puddles under his feet on the porch felt like they were riptiding over his shined shoes. Rolling gushes of a raucous ocean threatening to bring the rococo white walls down upon him.

And just over Miss Amberflaw's shoulder were dishes clinking restlessly in their curios. Rows and rows of white dinner plates, trimmed in Cobalt blue and gold, silver-plated napkin rings, silverware, copper cooking pots, teapots, and many alike.

Only it wasn't Miss Amberflaw beside him anymore, but a pale and shaking stewardess who appeared to be bleeding. Her face hidden behind a veil of dripping blood-tinged curls come undone from their pins.

James remembered her hand and the neat buttoned white cuffs of a maid's long dark sleeve. The sublte glimmer of a fine gold chain with a naked spring ring, only just visible underneath her cuff, as though the bracelet were missing its pendant. How tightly his freezing fingers squeezed around her equally numb ones. Hoping she still had enough feeling in hers to realize he hoped to reassure her, and steady her trembling hand. But Gor blimey, there was so much blood ruining her freshly laundered apron.

If I go, it's with you or not at all. That's what I've decided. You or nothing.

James tried desperately to remember the face those words belonged to, but try as he might, his mind guarded him from what he had most to regret of Titanic.

Had there been someone else with him when the lights went out in that food service passage?

"James?...That we've already what?" Millie beckoned him to finish, ripping him out of the memory.

The deafening roar of a remorseless sea stopped ringing in James's ears, and so did that unsettling flicker of the Miss's porchlight.

Am I going completely mad?

Her brow perked curiously at him.

"What were you..."

Emily's eyes followed Moody's fixed gaze up to the porchlight glowing behind her, in search of whatever it was that had him so spooked.

And finding nothing there but the herky-jerky light, and the gentle rocking of her mermaid wind chime in the after-rain breeze, Emily made nothing of it.

Save for their mutual exhaustion over a perpetually exhausting day.

"I've been meaning to fix that too, since the landlady won't," she explained to Moody. "The wiring's all wonky in the back, so when the wind blows, the lightbulb turns that creepy satanic color. This whole apartment is falling apart."

Sighing, she pushed her stubborn door open wider to admit them both.

"Shall we then?"

But James remained outside her door as he allowed her the right of way first.

His polished shoes firm on the doormat reading "Beware of Cat", as he glanced around at the tiny nook that Miss Amberflaw called her "studio flat".

To his surprise, it was only yeigh larger than a sea captain's living quarters.

A sum of space that wouldn't have even been enough room for a pet bed-and-breakfast.

And yet, Miss Amberflaw seemed resolved to fill every corner of that pocket-size space with a lamp of some fashion. Table lamps, desk lamps, standing lamps, overhead lamps, night lamps, torchères. All of different sizes, colors, character, and luminosity.

"Do you require much light, Miss Amberflaw?" James asked her.

"That's gotta be the politest way anyone's ever told me I have OCD," she said, unzipping Wentworth from his cat carriage.

"It's a charming collection, to be sure."

"Charming...until you realize it's not just me being some crazy-lamp-lady," she answered. "I'd be lying if I said I can sleep without a light on. I hope that doesn't bother you?"

"You're frightened of darkness?"

"Not the dark itself. Just what the dark turns me into," she explained. "Don't worry. Nightmares aren't contagious. And luckily, not uncurable. It hasn't gotten bad for at least a year now. Besides, when you make as many quilt orders as I do, light is your friend."

James had been meaning to ask her about the quilts. And her peculiar choice of furniture.

From the doorway, he looked in on a sitting room of some fashion, with an oak baluster bench that served as a sofa, a hand-tied tartan quilt thrown over the arm, and a few fluffy pillows to spruce it up for comfort, dressed with elaborate hand-knitted navy blue patterns. There were two golden baroque chairs set out for extra seating, which were an eyesore to James, as they were in desperate need of polishing, and therefore, unsuitable for guests. But Miss Amberflaw proudly let him know that "distressed" was a fashion niche, and they were a lucky "thrift store find". One that paired well with her stacked wall hangings against the sitting room's brick walls, covered in art inspired by the classics tastefully placed around a small fireplace--electricity-powered, James marveled. The Miss favored an olden, dark academian style, with moody florals, Louis-Carolesque rabbits in waistcoats, and ladies of the romantic Victorian era in flowing gowns, leisurely reading novels.

In another corner, next to the balcony windows, was a chaise lounge dressed with bed pillows and blankets, and a candle warmer lamp cozily lit up next to a small library of books and potted Pothos. 

And hugging a mason jar of wooden paint brushes was a small white sea-bear with a navy sailor's cap reading, White Star Line.

"Ioan bear", she called him.

An endearing little fellow she'd brought home from work at the museum.

And there was something comfortable about the tall glass doors that let in the golden streetlights from the Miss's balcony.

Small touches that made it a snug wee home of organized chaos, that seemed to stop and take a breath while the rest of the modern world raced on outside.

And to James, it nearly felt like...home. 

The other half of her sitting room appeared to be broken off from a seamstress's shop.

A sewing machine sat atop a writing desk, next to a green banker's lamp, and a hanging curio of rows and rows of wooden spools of every color James could imagine. Blue, being the one Miss Amberflaw adored, as she owned every shade of it on the color wheel, from the palest sky blue to dark as a moonless ocean.

Opposite that was a mahogany carved armoire, oddly placed for a sitting room, but with such limited space, Miss Amberflaw had put it to good use.

With everything but her actual wardrobe, that is.

Save for the few handknitted gray cardigans and scarves hanging over the armoire's open doors, the shelves were lined with porcelain ball-jointed dolls in every stage of creation. Some had no heads. Some were faceless with a sickly phantom white color, as if they'd just come out from a furnace fire, waiting to be painted. Others had big brown eyes under wispy lashes, but no hair. Some had been sewn a miniature petticoat or evening dress. Their yarn hair pinned and curled in styles James easily recognized; the Gibson Girl, the Side-Swirl, the Pompadour. They were all styled with such impressively elaborate detail, they could almost pass for real ladies.

And how many socialites of his day would kill to have a hairdresser who could doll up just about anything?

It was so particular, in fact, that he wondered where the girl learned it all. 

"Before you call me psycho, I promise there's a perfectly sane explanation for that," Emily forewarned him, as the officer stood perplexed before her collection of faceless and amputated dolls. "I have an Etsy shop."

"Duly noted," James answered. "Managing a shop, battling locks, repairing lamps, lending yourself as a doll's personal lady's maid...The only thing you don't mention is sleep."

"Sleep?" Emily mused. "What's that, exactly?"

"I hoped you might tell me," James answered. "We officers get none too much of it."

Emily's smile came easy then.

Following Moody's eager gaze as he inspected her little dinette with its stools set for two. Wishing again to see the world as new and shiny as he did. Because there were so many things she loved about this place but had forgotten.

And after delighting in the existence of a little pull-out drawer underneath the dinette, filled with Emily's secret stash of "Skittles"--as she called them--James came upon the art nouveau designs of swans and pink roses wrapped in the emerald borders around her latest quilt.

Tracing the many whimsical garlands of English Ivy, stitched into a garden of some sort, with two charming little quilt-people facing each other in the middle. Their faces were merely arbitrary scraps of patchwork, but James noted a man in his charcoal gray dinner blazer, and a woman in a simple white day dress with a basket full of azure blooms.

"This idea's been haunting me for months now," Millie said. "I just never have time anymore to finish it."

"It's stunningly detailed work, it is," James commended her. "Do you intend to sell it?"

"Not this one, no," Millie said quietly, tracing her fingers lightly along the stitched seams of her quilt. "I dream alot about this one. There's something personal about it...Something very tragic, in a way...But I own it...I don't really know how to explain it...I just know if I ever got rid of it, I'd feel like I was throwing away a piece of myself."

"You dreamt about all of this?"

"I dream very vividly."

"Do they mean anything to you?" James asked of the couple in the middle.

"Sometimes, I feel like they do...But really, it's just abstract work," Millie said, carefully folding the quilt away by each of its corners. "I guess you can say I'm a little obsessed with it lately. I'll work on it all night when I can't sleep...Some dreams I just can't get out of my head."

"Do you always dream so beautifully, I wonder?"

"Not always," she admitted quietly. "I guess that's why I'm so enamored with these two. They're the only dream I wished I never woke up from."

And as James wondered what other dreams haunted this quirky--albeit warm-hearted--Miss, the grandfather clock above the sewing machine chimed strong and true on the 8th hour.

"Anyway, you're welcome to my couch-bench or a sleeping bag," Millie offered him. "It's not much, but we'll make room. At least it's enough that we won't feel like we're sleeping together."

"S-sleeping to-together?" James stumbled over the words. "In this room alone, you mean?"

"There's a bathroom down that way, and a walk-in storage closet across from it," Millie pointed it out. "Otherwise, me and Captain Wentworth sleep here on the lounge."

"You don't even have a proper bed for yourself?" James asked, astonished.

"I couldn't even get one in here, if I tried," Millie said. "Welcome to New York."

"I'm sorry, miss, but I'm afraid I can't bedwell here," James excused himself. "I have taken careful note of where to find your eh-um...bothy cottage...and can now safely wish you goodnight. I will report promptly in the morning for my nannying duties, before you're off to work...Though you should know, I am ready to take full responsibility for this terrible misunderstanding."

"What do you mean?" a puzzled Millie asked. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"But you couldn't have meant that you wanted me to...to stay here with you...Unwed...In the same room alone...Going to bed together, that is?"

Millie cocked her head suspiciously at him.

"Wait, is that where you thought this was going?"

"N-no! Of course not. What I meant is--when you said room and board, I assumed--well, I didn't know that you only meant, eh-um, just a 'room'? I suppose I had a rather different idea," James went on stumbling. "That is to say, a man has no business in an unmarried woman's boudoir, lest he should risk her reputation or agree to marry her first."

"Trust me, Lancelot, I don't need anyone's help risking my reputation. The art of reputation-risking is what we do in the future," Millie winked at him. "Besides, it's not like letting you borrow my couch for a few days means I'm gonna ravish you. You're a little old for me. I mean, technically, you could be my great-great-great-great grandfather."

"Ah, now that's throwing me overboard," Moody defended himself. "Ah'm nobbutt 24."

"You were born in 1887." 

"And I died in 1912. That makes me only 4 and 20."

"One hundred years ago, you mean," she pointed it out to him. "And that's called catfishing."

"My age's got nowt to do with fishing." 

"It's not the same thing," Millie sighed, shaking her head hopelessly. "Forget it. We're getting nowhere."

"I can't agree more," James concurred wholeheartedly. "How is it you always make mention of the barmiest of things, as if we're-"

--"Never gonna have a sensible conversation." 

James and Millie finished with each other at the same time.

And pausing only a moment to exchange the 'evil eye' with each other, they rushed on to speak again. 

--"Might I just finish what I was meaning to say first--"

--"Will you just finish what you were gonna say first--"

James cleared his throat.

Millie nodded her oblige.

"It's not that I underappreciate your proposal. It's just I fear what could happen to you, if anyone were to find out we'd slept here together," James explained his deepest concerns. "Would you not be ruined because of me?"

"Things really aren't like that here."

"All the same...How can I not proceed in the utmost caution, after you've showed me so much generosity?" James told her. "I hold your virtue in the highest regard, whether you are a woman of the future or a lady of my own era. And I expect that the gentlemen of 2022 wouldn't treat you otherwise. Because it is the future, after all, and one should expect we've made progress in the manner in which we conduct ourselves?"

"Lancelot," Millie whispered in biting melodramatics, her brandy-hued eyes brimming with her deepest condolences. "I'm so sorry."

"But 100 bloody years, it's been," James insisted. "Apart from that magnificent motorcar outside, what can men say for themselves now?"

"I don't know, James," Millie sighed. "But if you don't want the couch-bench, maybe there's a sheet or something around here you can tie up and make a hammock. That's all I can say."

"Yes," James whispered, nodding as he came to accept the alternative. "Yes, I s'ppose that'll do nicely. The posts upon your balustrade will make an excellent support to hang one."

"On my balcony? You know I was joking, right?" 

"And it's a capital idea," James declared. "There's plenty covering out there to keep me dry from the rain, and the old man can come and go to me as he pleases. There will be no reason for me to ever disturb your rest."

"Thank you, but I don't need you to defend the honor of my rest, on top of everything else," Millie assured him. "It's not like I'm gonna freak out if I accidently hear you pee."

"Christ al 'mighty," James breathed into his realization. "I hadn't even thought of how I'd go about that with a lady present."

"Not an issue."

"On the contrary," James countered. "There's hardly any room here for a lady. I wouldn't dare steal away your comforts. And what's more, I would not wish to lead you on with any misunderstanding, knowing we have no intention of becoming man and wife."

"Fine," Millie said. "There's only one way to solve this little problem of ours. If you need a wife for us to get some sleep here, then I'll fake be your wife for a night, if it'll get you to stop beating yourself up about it."

"Oh, that's lush."

James snorted into a laugh, as Millie brushed pass him to get to a stack of boxes she kept in her hall closet.

"Were you the last drop in the spout, I wouldn't take you for tea."

"Come now," Millie checked him, sending James's heart a-jigging away for that impish smirk of hers. "Is that any way to speak to the woman you love?"

"Very funny, you are," the officer gave in. "Right then. I'll take the hammock. Though after tonight, I will seek out alternative lodging and a private lavatory."

"Fine by me," Millie's answer was slightly muffled, still buried and hidden away in her storage closet looking for an extra blanket.

But struck by afterthought, she turned around again and leaned out from behind the closet door to ask him one more thing.

"Is one pillow enough?"

Catching herself within inches of crashing into Moody on the other side, having not realized that the officer was standing so near to the closet.

James's quick reflexes stopping the door between them just in time.

"Alright, miss?" he apologized for not warning her sooner that he was upon the closet door. "It'll be quite the contest, not knocking into each other perpetually in this boxy dollhouse of yours."

He supposed Millie had finally learned what she was in for, having a statuesque gent for a guest.

...Or was there some other reason why she'd gone unexpectedly silent in front of him?

"Why do you keep looking at me like that?" she asked Moody.

"Pardon?" he matched her soft hushed tone. "How do you mean, miss?"

"I don't know," she said. "Like you've lost me and would go up against the world to get me back."

It was James's turn to mimicry her impish smirk.

"How else should I go about looking at you, my darling wife?"

Millie knew it was only payback, for all the roasting she'd served him earlier.

But fucking hell, did he have to say it exactly in that way?

Like he was cutting straight into her heart.

"Look, Lancelot," Millie was ready to deaden it at last. "The so-called 'Good society'--or whoever you think is watching--can come up with whatever story they want. I've got my own reasons for helping you. And besides, you agreed to be my cat butler, remember? So, if anyone should ask...if anyone should believe you've ruined me irredeemably after tonight...you were only here for the cat and nothing else. Got it?"

"Very well. As you like it, miss."

"Bathroom is that way," Emily said, tossing him an old T-shirt and pajama pants from the closet. "Door to your left."

___________

As Emily waited for James to reappear from her bathroom, she sat cross-legged on the floor and went to work on wrapping up his rain-battered officer's greatcoat in a plastic grocery bag.

Her eyes catching the dark discoloration around the neck of James's coat collar.

Was that...blood?

Examining it more closely, she caught a faint but distinct scent of sawn wood on the wooly fabric...and a hint of fresh paint?

So faint, in fact, that it might've gone easily unnoticed by anyone but Emily. 

Her stomach turned a flip.

Strong scents like burning wood and paint varnish had always agitated her nose a little....but this smell...why did this one make her body react so strangely?

Like she was being tossed around a boat at sea, or had just run a marathon with someone threatening to pull a gun on her if she ever stopped.

That's the way her heart sounded in her ears.

But it was more than just her being anxious for no apparent reason.

She felt hopelessness, like a crushing weight on her chest.

She wanted to cry.

Caging Moody's buttoned coat in her hands, Millie felt the most profound sadness she'd ever known in her life.

Bringing to mind strange images of herself in a strange place, with pristine white hallways lit up by chandeliers, glimmering like fallen stars, and long elaborate red and gold-trimmed carpeting.

A wooden crate cradled in her arms, filled with freshly cut red and white roses, as she turned to a door with a golden number plate above the frame.

B-54.

There was a parlor room inside, and it looked exactly like walking into the Palace of Versailles. The walls a deep Mahogony and carved with gold ornate designs. 

Setting the crate of roses down, she began putting the roses in white vases with angels sculpted all around them on the mantel. 

A mirror and a clock matching the mahogany and gold theme of room reading a quarter past 1 in the afternoon.

There was a woman dressed in white pinstriped dress with red hair in the reflection of the mirror...and a lady's maid in her standard uniform. She was helping the red-haired woman unpack paintings from a box.

Picasso.

They were setting them all around the room against the tables and sofas...Until a man in a white waistcoat with dark hair joined them.

'God, not those fingerpaintings again. They certainly were a waste of money.'

'The difference between Cal's taste in art and mine is that I have some,' the red-haired woman replied. 'They're fascinating. It's like being inside a dream or something...There's truth but no logic.'

Emily didn't know it when James's coat fell out of her hands, gradually softening from her grip. 

Her head still dizzy with dreamy white hallways and the smell of roses, that she barely felt something lightly drop out of Moody's coat. 

A small brown leather journal fallen open from the officer's innermost pocket.

One word--written in Moody's rather flamboyant handwriting--flowed across the middle of the page on her plank wooden floor.

ICE.

Curiously, Emily scooped the journal up, finding more of Moody's scribbled notes on the other side.

'April 14th: 9:00 hours, Caronia reports bergs and growlers, 42 North, 49-51 West.'

'April 14: Lowe reports off watch a progress of 45 miles, and a speed made good 22.5 knots.

'Called down to engine room for report of 75 revolutions per minute at start of 10 p.m. watch. Clear night. Sextant readings and star charts confirm coordinates of...'

The smudges that followed were indecipherable, badly water-damaged and bleeding into the next page.

But Emily could just make out a page where Moody appeared to be keeping a running tally of lifeboat launches from the ship.

'12:10 a.m. Captain orders 'All hands on deck...Women and children first'

'Lifeboat 6 launch 12:55 a.m., Hichens--24 aboard.

'Lifeboat 8, 1:10 a.m. no officer, 27 aboard.

'Lifeboat 10 launch 1:20 a.m., no officer, 57 aboard.

'Lifeboat 12, able seamen Clench, Poingdestre, 1:25 a.m., 41 aboard.

'Lifeboat 14, 1:30 a.m., Lowe, 40 aboard. 

'Lifeboat 16, 1:35 a.m....'

It was here that Officer Moody's writing stopped.

Falling eerily silent for the remaining pages of his personal officer's log.

Emily flipped all the way to the back of his journal, just to make sure, finding nothing but blank, unused, silent space.

A sobering end to a promising young man's life.

It wasn't until Millie reached the last flyleaf that she accidently discovered a handful of torn pages folded and hidden away under a small incision in the journal's aft binding.

The first one reading, 'Branson--Hang that bloody chauffeur and his Lady Mariella! It was Millicent, for God's sake!...Damn me to hell, her name was Lady Millicent Crawley.'

Emily raised a questionable brow at Moody's pining frustration.

So...Lancelot had a past.

Another theory to the last scribbles of ambiguous words across the remaining pages.

'Stay.'

'Forgive me.'

'Stay.'

The bathroom door opened at last.

James's ghostly bare feet stepping out into the hallway, drawing Millie's attention from his log.

"Well, one thing is sure. You won't like introducing me to a dinner party, but it's damn good cozy, I'd say," Moody approved cheerfully. "The chaps at Artic Monkeys make a champion sleeping suit."

His formal Cracker-Jack-Boy suit now traded over for the loose fit of navy plaid pajamas that dressed his sturdy thighs and the relaxed though affluent swelling tucked away beneath his button fly, now unstricken by his discarded long underwear. His officer's cap and starched dress collar no longer hiding his extraordinary height, or any endowed part of him made a secret by White Star Line's strict company rules.

But it was his hands that Millie couldn't stop bedding with her eyes. 

Sculpted with beautifully prominent veins entwining from his wrists to his fair knuckles.

His broad shoulders relaxed in the slim-fit, light gray Artic Monkeys T-shirt that outlined his hardy chest and solidly athletic core. Speaking well for himself and a profession marked by all things "able-bodied". His forearms toned with muscle lines conditioned hale and hearty to last. Typical of a sea-bred lad built for rope work, repairing masts, hauling rigging, climbing rigging, and precariously hanging off some matter of rigging like the devil with might and main in a sea-storm. A brawn not developed from prowess alone, but of being quick-to-adapt, and cunning enough to build a range of focused control, with hands that made him master of both brute strength and gentle-detailing.

An old-world able-bodied sailor with a strong constitution of old-world self-command.

Leaving Emily at a loss for words–and partly jealous–for what that gray T-shirt did for the soft mariner-blue of his eyes.

With respect to tea-taking, Lancelot was dumb hot!

"Why do you look at me like that, miss?" Moody brought the cashier girl back home to her senses.

"What, sorry?"

"Dunno," he beamed suavely. "Almost as if you've lost me and never stopped wanting me back?"

Millie snorted into a laugh, letting her eyes wander away from the unexpectedly coy officer. 

"As many times as I've tried getting rid of you today, I'm 100-percent-absolutely-sure-beyond-all-doubt that isn't it," she remarked rather uppishly, snapping out a folded bedsheet for his hammock. "But I'm sure Miss Millicent Crawley will require her finest fainting couch, once she finds out you've been missing for 100 years."

"Millicent?"

Emily pressed the page with Lady Millicent Crawley's name written on it against his anchor-hard chest, and walked on.

"If you're looking for a way to get back your memories," she said. "You can start there."

Chapter Text

Try as he might, sleep wouldn't have James that night.

Battling the rain all night leaking through the tiny fractures of the Miss's balcony, as he used his one pillow for a shield in his hammock. 

Wishing now that he had taken the Miss up on the offer of that second pillow, but in the name of death-or-glory chivalry, he'd chosen to go down with this ship. 

And every time he closed his eyes, he saw that same haunting mosaic of images that had ambushed him outside Miss Amberflaw's door, in a restlessly vivid and tantalizing game of "ghost in the graveyard". 

Mercilessly taunting his suspicion that he'd left more parts of himself behind on Titanic than he counted on.

Miss Millicent Crawley. 

Her name wandering out of his memory like rain washing away the fog on a glasshouse window.

The last soul to ever see him alive on Titanic. 

James was almost sure now the girl from the glasshouse at Downton and the maid who tried to help him escape the ship were the same woman. 

If I go, it's with you or not at all. You or nothing.

Soft words filling him with unimaginable regret.

Words that shook him up so much, that James maddeningly began stirring awake again, just as she said more. 

My answer is still the same...Had it all been different for us, James....I would've...

James fought back to hang onto his restless dreams. 

To give her a little more time to finish having her say, aware of something in him needing more than anything to hear her say it.

I've loved you since our very beginning.

Hadn't that been it?

Hadn't that always been it between them?

And if it was, why did she ever stop herself from saying it to him?

But when James's eyes batted open again, he was only squeezing one of Miss Amberflaw's borrowed quilts against his beating chest, rather than this woman his heart seemed so convinced he had loved. 

Finding none such lover there but the soft rainfall from the view of the Miss's balcony. 

His heart aching terribly for the rest his soul never seemed to find. 

Though James couldn't remember the answers he gave her before it was all over for them, he knew the answer was still locked somewhere in his heart.

Whatever they had been to each other, somewhere deep down, he sensed that his fate with Miss Millicent Crawley was the sort of tragedy Miss Amberflaw had meant when she told him about the necklace's ruinous history. And if he had loved this stewardess enough to allow her to haunt him in the afterlife, the power of losing such a love must have shattered his psyche so completely that it left him too restless to find his peace. Making him as an irresistible prey for this unthinkable "diamond curse", feeding off of what was left behind of him in the hollow brokenness of his soul.

But to love a woman he couldn't fully remember the face of was like trying to hold water in his hands.

But he had her name now, at least, and now he could start somewhere. 

"Millicent," he repeated it to himself several times, lest he be damned to ever forget it again. 

Stirring up his timeless adoration of her...but for all that...realizing a darker reality still. 

James suspected that as a ship officer, dying on Titanic was a fitting end in performance of his duties.

But how had this stewardess gotten trapped in a corridor with him to begin with?

Why had she not gotten away when she had the chance, knowing that he and the other officers boarded many a stewardess in a lifeboat safely off the ship?

His written log being proof of that. 

And if he remembered dinner plates and teapots, he guessed then that the corridor he died in would've been located aft, around the passenger dining saloon and galley areas. Indeed, the stern would've flooded much later in the sinking. Not long after making his last log at 1:30 p.m. with the launch of Lifeboat 16. 

By that time, Titanic would have been going down for plenty over an hour, giving the stewardess ample time to realize that failing to get to a lifeboat would mean she'd surely die.

And James assumed she already knew that, long before she found herself cornered in a hallway by the great Atlantic. 

If Milicent had been offered a chance to get off that ship, why hadn't she taken it?

Why didn't she make it on deck in the ship's final hour, with everyone around her rushing to get into the last remaining lifeboats?

Whatever became of the maid in the end?

James hoped she'd taken him for dead and eventually left him behind to save herself.

He hoped she hadn't stayed and faced such a harrowing fate with him.

He hoped that by some miracle, she'd gotten out and been found by a rescue ship during the night, going on to live a long, full and happy life that he couldn't.

But as James remembered the way his heart unexpectedly fluttered when Miss Emily Amberflaw looked at him on the veranda, a cold dead weight of realizing the alternative dropped into his gut.

What if a full happy life after Titanic never happened for either of them?

What if staying with him on that ship had been the maid's deliberate choice?

And still more...what if he wasn't alone in this impossible twist of fate?

Were there others like him who had been 'misplaced'? Who had tragically met the same fate as he did on the night Titanic sank?

Could this woman he believed he loved in 1912 have walked by him in 2022, without him ever knowing it?

But that was grabbing for straws, that was.

That would mean that there were loads of people walking around in the future who actually belonged to the past, which didn't seem practical. 

Surely, someone would've mentioned it by now. 

Though, why should he be the only one?

Was he so exceptional in the eyes of God that he'd alone been given this second chance, and not the other passengers and crew who died with him?

Didn't this stewardess, Millicent, deserve a second chance too?

There had to be more. 

Some minor detail about the night he died that he was missing. 

And as James studied the ocean-deep glimmer of the Heart of the Ocean in his hands, he wondered if finding this missing detail was the answer to reversing all this. If the diamond had something to do with him being sent forward in time, could it also be the key to sending him back?

Perhaps, Miss Amberflaw might tell him more about the other mysterious cases in which the Hope diamond was present where tragedy had unfolded. 

Miss Amberflaw...

James's mind wandered back to the cashier girl who'd unwittingly gotten carried away by all this...and considering the circumstances...was taking it rather well?

How many people of his day would've locked him up by now for being a quack?

He couldn't help but wonder again what it was Miss Amberflaw had meant by having her own reasons for taking him in. 

In fact...wouldn't it be something, hypothetically speaking...f Miss Amberflaw were more like him?

She had, after all, fit so convincingly into her maid costume, and had a striking resemblance to a memory he chased in his heart. 

And he still vowed she looked nothing like an Emily. 

Because if he hadn't known any better, it being a goose chase of an idea, he'd guess that Millie was short for a number of things than Emily.

Mildred...Amelia...Camilla...

Millicent.

James stilled, his heart sinking into his stomach. 

Miss Amberflaw as Miss Millicent Crawley? 

Why, she behaved nothing like her. 

She was much too modern, much too stubborn, much too independent, and much too...well, American. 

And besides, if Miss Amberflaw truly were the woman he left behind on Titanic...why wouldn't she say so?

It might've explained everything about why he felt the way he did when he was near her. 

Though it raised more questions for him than it gave answers. 

If that were really the case, and Emily had indeed been a woman of his time, why did she seem so very much a part of this one?

Unlike him, she appeared to have no memories of another past. Not even the broken ones. 

If she were the woman from his recollections, why didn't she seem to recognize him?

Or did she, like him, have a heart so devastatingly broken after Titanic's sinking, that it wished to make her forget everything? 

As a boy, James remembered hearing whispered rumors about such neuroses behind smoking room doors among his doctor cousins.

Just before mama died.

A condition in which one endures a traumatic event so soul-wounding, that the broken heart forgets its crushing distress, in desperation of preserving itself from the agony of remembering. 

The cure of which was steady exposure to stimuli that triggered the memory, drawing it out of the dark unconscious of the mind, and by way of gentle healing, restoring courage in the patient to face the pain of recollecting. 

Of course, Dr. Freud's theory of repressed memories was controversial psychoanalytic hogwash, even in James's day. 

It never saved mama.

And what's more, there was no telling proof that Miss Emily Amberflaw even required saving.

 Other than James's own what-if  ravings at this wee hour in the morning, there was no evidence to suggest that Miss Amberflaw had indeed died on the Titanic.

But once he'd gotten it into his head, James couldn't stop seeing it in her. 

The way she'd looked to him dressed up in costume in her shop. The little things she said that seemed to strike him in peculiar ways. The uncontrollable way his heart skipped when she called him Lancelot. 

And so convinced was he about this theory, he all but stumbled out of his hammock to get to the balcony sliding door and demand of her straight away if she'd actually ever been to Downton Abbey, or why exactly she was working at a Titanic museum, of all places, when she was so talented at styling hair, or why she never warned him that one pillow in 2022 most certainly wasn't enough?

But just as James came up to the sliding door and his hand moved to the glass, he stopped. 

His next breath caught in a stalemate with his doubt. Closing his outreached hand into a fist just short of opening her door. Holding himself back with remarkable restraint to not throw everything to hell and go through his plan of runing to her. 

 The sun hadn't even come up yet.

Was he really so unhinged that he'd barge in on the poor girl like the devil as she slept, and demand she tell him at once if she was a woman who had been long dead a century before she was even born?

Not at this hour, he wouldn't. 

James checked the brass open-faced Elgin watch snuggled in his pyjama pocket.

2:20 in the blooming morning....again?

'Right...Bloody thing is still broken.'

Exactly what was he playing at anyway?

Miss Amberflaw, a time-traveller?

He wasn't trolleyed enough for those kinds of ideas. 

And where should he even start in telling her about his ravings?

'I couldn't sleep a wink last night after dreaming you were the woman I once loved.' 

Not even in 100 years, he couldn't. 

James fell back against the sliding door as he simmered down into a seat again, sighing as he leaned his head back on the glass.

Deciding at once that there was a proper way of going about these things, and every single one of those things could wait until morning. 

Chapter Text

Millicent had been missing since morning, having made her excuses to Aunt Cora and her cousins that she was feeling unwell, and didn't want to pass it on. 

It wasn't completely a lie.

Ever since that day in the glasshouse, when she found James there, she hadn't felt quite like herself.

Perhaps it was a natural consequence, after walking in the rain that day without any long coat on.

Or perhaps, it had nothing to do with the rain, and would only be cured with time and plenty of good books to distract her. 

Wrapped up in her night shawl with her copy of Persuasion from her cousin's library, Millie lost track of time and the fact that she was missed by Sybil. 

Taken unexpectedly by the words of the only novel of Jane Austen she ever felt she could relate to.

'I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.

'Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you--'

"Millie?"

It was Sybil looking in on her from the Stanhope guest room door.

Millicent had thought she'd locked it, but there was no time to regret that now.

Using her laced handkerchief to quickly wipe away any evidence that she'd been crying while reading in bed, Millicent hoped her cousin Sybil wouldn't notice the red puffiness of her dollish eyes.

But Sybil already knew, as she always did when it came to these things.

The staff had already informed her.

"Oh, Millie," Sybil breathed into a softhearted sigh.

Millicent gently placed her handkerchief back into Persuasion to mark her place for later.

"I almost made a terrible mistake," Millicent's hushed voice spoke against her pillow, as she didn't have the heart to turn and face Sybil like this.

Sybil was the sweet one, and Millicent, the strong one. That's how it'd always been between them.

But tonight, it was Sybil's turn to give her older cousin a run for her own money, refusing to be pushed out as she crawled onto the bed behind Millicent and wrapped her arm around her.

"It must be a misunderstanding," she softly assured her cousin. "There's no mistaking the way Mr. Moody looked at you this morning in the library."

"It's the only misunderstanding," Millicent said. "He never loved me, Sybil. He can hardly stomach the idea of marrying me. He said so himself."

"But did you tell him that it was you who'd looked after the grave while he was at sea?"

"Of course not," Millie said tearfully. "Can you imagine the look on his face, if I had? I might've surely scared him away then."

Sybil combed her fingers gently through Millicent's soft tresses of melted caramel. "Men can be so unthinkingly consumed by themselves, can't they? Think little of it, Millie."

And though she knew she mustn't, Millicent also knew one more thing.

"I shall never love like this ever again," she whispered.

"Don't say that," Sybil beckoned her. "This means nothing. You are still beautiful and still very much deserving of love. Any man would be honored to have you, Millie. So, even if it isn't Mr. Moody, there will be another who will love you so deeply, you never imagined ever being so happy."

"No, Sybie," Millicent couldn't help but smile, as she turned in bed to face her cousin at last. "I think you're just thinking of Mr. Branson now."

"You little cheek," Sybil playfully batted her cousin with another pillow. Though she was grateful to get a smile out of Millicent at last. "He's the chauffeur. Can you imagine how papa would react to that?"

"I don't think love cares about all of that," Millicent said. "I loved a sailor, after all."

"Well, if falling in love doesn't always follow the rules we make for it, don't you think it's the same when it comes to a broken heart?" Sybil asked her. "Who says we only get one chance at getting it right?"

"How dare you say to me the exact same thing I would've said to me in this situation?" Millie sighed.

"Then will you listen to yourself?"

"I'm still in love with him, Sybil. How can I forget so easily that I have held Mr. Moody in my heart for so long? I'll need time to let him go. Which is why I feel that this whole coming-out business is premature," Millicent said. "I don't think I'll ever quite love anyone the same again."

"But you can't go on like this, Millie," Sybil said. "You are a remarkable woman capable of doing remarkable things, and knowing all the best happenings in life. Why should love be the only thing forbidden to you?"

"It's not," Millicent said. "Because I'm going to keep on loving, starting with myself. If there's one good thing that has come out of meeting Mr. Moody, it's that he made me realize how liberating it is to choose myself. As deeply as I still love him, I don't think I'm ready for marriage either. I do want a loving husband and children someday, but if I begin my life in self-sacrifice rather than self-empowerment, I will never be the wife and mother I aspire to be for them. I don't want to leave home to marry, but to travel, and write books about it, and come up with my own money-making ventures. I can't do that well as a married woman. If I worked in service, aboard a ship someplace, at least I'd see the world more than I could if I stayed here in Yorkshire. And I know, if I want it, I'll have to do it myself. Because I know papa and Patrick would never support me, if I went out and worked for a living."

"I think it's a brilliant idea," Sybil's gentle airy voice encouraged her. "But it won't be easy. The idea of leaving everything behind to be independent...No one will understand it. But if it's what you want in the end, no matter where you are, know that you will always have me, should you need someone to tell about all your exotic travel abroad."

"I'll write every day, I promise," Millicent agreed, charmed into smiling again by the cousin who always found a way to make her.

"And how will you tell your father you plan to travel by working in service?"

"I don't know yet," Millicent said. "It may take me some time to convince him it's what I want, but I'll find a way."

"Won't you put your book down and join us for dinner? I can't stand to see you locked up here so gloomy," Sybil requested of her. "They've been asking for you, you know...Although, I should warn you...Papa has invited the Moodys to dine with us tonight. Will you be alright seeing Mr. Moody again?"

Mr. Moody?

Millicent had thought he'd gone back to the Boa, just as he'd sworn he would.

Why on earth would he still be dawdling around Downton then, when his ship was scheduled to leave port the day after tomorrow?

"I'm not bothered at all by Mr. Moody," Millie answered Sybil quietly. "I know myself better now than I did when I last saw him...And as I always do, I know I'll be alright."

Sybil kissed her cousin tenderly on her hair. 

"You're our Millie. I know you will." 

Chapter Text

The day James Paul Moody discovered the internet was also the day he discovered a splendid little gadgetry called the microwave. 

He rose early to wash and dress, as was his habit in the Royal Navy, and good practice for any cat-nanny superintending a busy household.

Tying one of Miss Amberflaw's white aprons over a fresh dry T-shirt tailored by The Beatles, he got himself to work on making the Miss breakfast, as any good cat-butler would. 

Fascinated, was he, by the Miss's little fireless furnace and its little clock that counted backwards to the exact minute, with a happy little bell sounding at the end when one's meal was ready. 

Miss Amberflaw informed him that she never took breakfast, never having any extra time, but she was good enough to show him how to use the furnace box properly.

"Step 1: Read instructions on TV dinner."

And lucky for Miss Amberflaw, that meant a scrumptious and convenient be-off-with-you, boxed for easy preparation and take-away when there is no time to be had.

James mumbled the lettering on the box to himself as he read, "Stouffer's Salisbury Steak Family Frozen Dinner Meals...Gor blimey, an entire family can be fed from this singular box?...Roasted patty made with 100% beef topped with onions and gravy with mashed potatoes."

James's mouth watered at the photographed steak on the box, flavorful, juicy, and sultry all glazed with gravy and spuds. 

"A classic dish always freshly made and simply frozen," he read on. "With all the ingredients you can feel good about, for a homemade taste you'll love."

And the rumble of James's stomach served as a punishing reminder that he hadn't eaten since his last dinner on Titanic. A hearty third class serving of Vegetable stew, Fried Tripe, and Swedish bread. 

Only First Class passengers and his senior officers might've enjoyed a nice slice of beef like this Stouffer's right next to their caviar.

It was just his jammy then that filet mignon steak was so plentiful here in 2022, that even the working-class man could enjoy his divvy. 

All's he needed was to fix he and Miss Amberflaw up some toast and beans, and they'd be eating world-class in a fraction of the time.

"Step two: Hit the "Open" button on the microwave--ONCE."

But, as it were, Miss Amberflaw was still getting herself ready in the lavatory, and would be none the wiser should James push the OPEN button at least one-two-three-four-seven extra times. 

All for the pleasure of hearing that satisfying Click the little furnace made when the door popped open, and the miniature lantern lit up automatically from the back. 

"Step Three: Put in food and close door."

James followed it to the letter, resisting the urge to push the OPEN button one last time. 

"Step Four: Punch 3 minutes on the timer."

James hit the OPEN button.

Click.

"Step Four: Punch 3 minutes on the timer," he repeated the last step again, as his finger slowly hunted down the buttons for the numbers. "Three...Nowt...and nowt."

"Step Five: Wait for the bell."

"How about that, old man?" James said to Captain Wentworth, who sat like a dark hourglass on the green kitchen rug next to James's feet. "It's already simmering up nice and hot."

Both he and cat staring transfixed into the microwave as they watched the TV Dinner go round and round. 

Who knew making one's scran in the future would be as riveting as watching a rugby match?

Indeed, the future could keep its dreary weather and its dreary dollhouse for apartments, but the microwave, James could never get on without again.

 "Champion," the officer couldn't stop praising the oven. "I've not seen owt like it."

And he couldn't wait to stick knife and fork in the brilliant cuisine of this brilliant machine. 

But after setting the table for two to breakfast, James still waited for the Miss to join him. 

"I'm sorry for calling again," he heard Emily mumbling from inside the bathroom, as he set her knife, fork, and serviette next to her TV dinner. "It's just, I still haven't heard anything from this hospital yet. I'm calling about my brother, Paxton Amberflaw. He's been missing, and I'm worried something might've happened to him...The last time I saw him was around Christmas. He said he had to run an important errand, but he never came back....No, sorry, I don't know that. He didn't say exactly where he was going...Yes, I've called so many hospitals already, you're number 82 for me...Ok, I appreciate you doing that. Thank you for all your help." 

It was then James heard the bathroom door open, and Emily made her entrance into the kitchen, hot to trot for another day pretending to be a stewardess at her shop.

And upon seeing the lady join him at last in the room, James immediately stood up from his seat for her, and nodded a warm greeting to his hostess. 

"Alright, miss?" His brows drew together in concern. "Sleep well, did ye?"

Leading Emily to a pause, mildly surprised by his cordial gesture that knocked her off course of whatever she'd been so worried about before. As clearly, she'd never seen a man behave so mannerly when a lady entered a room. 

But knowing how sorely men of the future had failed her, James was determined to change that, treating her as any proper gentleman would for a lady of his day. 

"Oddly enough," she answered him. "I did."

"Jibe Ho--I mean, do sit down," James invited her, pulling out a chair for her opposite his own seat. "For a Miss who gets t'werk as hard as ye do, ye shouldn't go so long about your day without a proper meal. I've prepared us Stouffer's and toast. Mind ye, it's not a full English, but I've managed to keep it hot."

"Wow...you didn't have to?"

"Nay, lass, it's no trouble at all. You've lent me your home, and I shan't be a rakefire to you," he said. "I've put the ket'le on for us as well. Fancy a cuppa?"

And after seating the astonished lady--who might've otherwise grabbed a granola bar for breakfast as she hurried out the door--James returned to the stove to catch the cozily whistling kettle.

"How do you take your brew, Miss Amberflaw?" 

Millie's eyes skated up and down his strikingly well-fitted Beatles T-shirt, smartly tied apron, cozy pygama pants, and her steaming tea kettle, all topped off with his neatly combed side-part and formally polished dressed shoes. 

"Tall," replied she. "And extra sweet."

"Aye, hearty, with a tutty more honey then," James nodded his understanding, as he went to work on her coffee mug. "Very good, miss."

And after taking care that the Miss was served adequately, samming up her cup, saucer, spoon, milk, and an extra dish of honey, James could hardly wait to get back to his seat to cut into his own beef steak.

There he sat with impeccable posture, mouthwatering to dig in as he shook out his serviette and folded it in half, with the crease facing away from him. 

But remembering his manners, Moody restrained his knife and fork at ready as he waited for Miss Amberflaw to take her bite first.

And much to the agony of James's growling stomach, Emily went for her brew instead. 

Striking him with the way she lifted her coffee mug, holding the teacup pinching her thumb and index finger between the handle, and her other fingers following the shape of the handle for support. 

The same way James had been shown by his mother, should he ever find himself dining with a Lord-such-and-such or Lady-thus-and-so.

"The tea is perfect," Emily complimented him, after taking a sip. 

"Of course," James said confidently. "We do tea properly in Yorkshire." 

"Not to brag, that is," Emily interjected on his behalf.

"Why shouldn't I?" James countered. "If I know assuredly I'm the best you've ever had."

Emily's bevy froze at her lips.

But as usual, James appeared oblivious to all context but his. 

In fact, should she desire for him to whittle down his argument further, he'd gradly take her upon that very table to defend the virility of a good Yorkshire brew. 

And judging by the way the color blushed her cheeks since her first taste of his, James was confident the winning of such an argument was well in his favor.  

With the Miss's mood thus whetted, James supposed that now was as good a time as any to bring up his questions of yesternight. 

"I wondered if I might ask you something," James said to her. 

"Mhm?" Emily finally swallowed her mouthful, setting her tea mug down. 

"Forgive me," James began. "I couldn't help noticing...there are no family portraits hung on your walls...Neither of you or your brother."

"Oh, right, it's just really small here," Emily told him. "I mean, there are lots of pictures of me... somewhere around here...Pax told me he put them all in storage, just before I came home after the accident."

"The accident?"

"Car accident," Emily explained. "It was stupid of me, really. It was raining that day, like it always does here in April, so I don't know what I was thinking--maybe I just wanted to get home faster out of the storm--but I took a shortcut down by Bitter Tears Cross. It's this hiking area by the Great South Bay, right next to the shore. You can take a ferry there in 20 minutes from the Statue of Liberty. Lots of cliffs and trees, but not much else to see. Nobody ever really goes up there, which made me going there even stupider."

"The Statue of Liberty, you say?" James asked curiously. "That's not far from where I came adrift here." 

"Doesn't surprise me, honestly. People are always getting in accidents up there, but maybe I thought I could handle it," Millie said. "Anyway, I lost control of the car. I don't remember it, but that's what Pax told me...It's hard to remember anything before it, actually...I was covered in so much blood when they found me wandering the shore, they thought I'd hit my head pretty bad and was having a mental break. It's why I was seeing things...I mean, I actually thought I was someone else for a whole month until my brother finally found me at the hospital...And then, I had to relearn everything I thought I knew about myself." 

"Who did you believe yourself to be?" James asked.

"I'm not sure who I thought I was," Emily said, absently tearing her cold toast in half. "All I can say is, I felt like I didn't belong here. But eventually, reality hit and that was that...It's called Risperdal, by the way. In case you were wondering."

Slowly, she began buttering her toast.

"Anyway, Pax said he had to put away all our pictures, because I wouldn't stop having nightmares and flashbacks about almost drowning in my car. He said he didn't want me to be frustrated for not being able to remember anything in my old photographs. But when I was finally ready to ask him for my pictures back, he disappeared." 

And setting her toast down again to meet James's eyes, she said, "I guess I just saw a little bit of myself in you, yesterday at the museum." 

"These nightmares of yours, are they always-"

James's question was cut-off abruptly when the grandfather clock sounded on the hour above their table. 

Emily glanced at her phone.

"It's 7 already? Gosh, I swear, I just sat down." 

 And feeling pressured by the time, Emily finally picked up her fork and knife to cut into her cold steak.

Drawing James's attention again to how gracefully she did it. 

Her cutlery held with her knife in her right hand, and fork in her left. Her index finger going down the fork, stopping just before the bridge. Her other extending down the knife, stopping where the blade and handle meet. With a disciplined control over guiding her cutlery to delicately pin her steak, she scarcely made any rattling of her plate as she cut it.

And now given the chance he'd been dying for, James generously sliced off his own steak and spuds, popping his fork in his mouth for his long-awaited bite.

And the rest is history. 

"Are you ok?" Millie asked him.

"Quite," James panted hoarsely, still choking for breath as he grabbed his serviette to keep himself from gagging the morsel back up into his plate. "It's just..."

He barked a cough into his serviette, struggling to pull the mammoth sized bite he'd taken of the microwaved steak down his throat. Managing it only after downing the entirety of his boiling tea mug.

"What in God's name have I consumed?" James asked Emily. "It can't be food, can it?"

"'Food' enough, I guess," Millie shrugged.

James gawked at the Miss, appalled, as she took another undaunted bite. 

Jaw-hung.

Betrayed.

Hell fire! How could she eat any of that manky, ketty mutton bow-wow.

More Salisbury than any steak, it was! 

And though he was a worldly man, James had not even the slightest where Salisbury was anyway.

Only that they had no authority whatever on steak.

It was so unlike the picture on the box, that it could've easily been dog flesh, for all James reckoned.

All blooming lies, he should say!

And he could hardly handle forcing down two more bites, before gladly resting his fork and knife on his plate, as was socially proper.

All while Miss Amberflaw went on chewing cheek-fulls, as she stared at that bloody gadget of hers, with neigh a care in the world. 

"Why does everyone here stare perpetually at that thing?" James asked her. "Seems a rather dull way to pass one's time, if you ask me." 

"Oh, you mean a phone?" 

"You call that dinky thing a phone?" James asked. "It can't be."

"It's even got internet." 

"An inner net, you say?" James chewed over. "How much can this net hold, exactly?"

"Everything," Millie whispered enticingly to him. "64 GB, to be exact. People use it to get information about things. Kind of like a library, but infinite. See?"

She passed her phone over to him with a Google page open and ready.

"You mean, I can ask it just about owt?" James wondered. "Any question I'd like, and it will have an answer for me?"

"Mhm," she nodded. 

"Then can I ask it about fair winds and following seas?"

"Um, sure." 

"Can it calculate the exact sextant readings of any navigating point in high seas?"

"It's called GPS."

"Blimey...what about informing me of the singular purpose of a refrigerator magnet?"

"Also very doable."

"How to drive a motorcar Honda 2015?"

Emily narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him.

"Absolutely not."

"What about how a man should invest his money, if he wishes to make himself rich in American Hippo Farming?"

"I...don't see why not."

"How about that tittle-tattle no one ever seemed to dummy up about...if milk really does taste better when the cow is serenaded during milking?"

But before giving her a chance to answer, Moody fired off another question everyone had been dying to know since the 1890s. 

"Does it by any chance know who Jack the Ripper was? I bet quite the Argentine Peso on my guesses with one señor I met at port in Buenos Ayres." 

"I...guess?"

"Well then, if that doesn't bang up the elephant," James nodded his approval. "Alright, Miss Amberflaw, I stand corrected. I may do you in at tea, but your phone chalks up the win this time. Suppose that makes us even now, from my year to yours." 

But reminded again of 1912, and how somberly he missed being home, James went on to ask quietly,

"Can it also tell me anything I wish to know about what happened that night, when Titanic was lost? A list, of some sort, for those who escaped and those who perished?"

Emily brought up the passenger and crew list for him in Wikipedia.

"Do you remember anything about any of these names?" she asked him, hoping that at least one would trigger some of his memories.

Allowing the shipwrecked officer to scan the 679 crew names on the list very carefully for any friends he recognized.

Blue, confirming their survival, and white, confirming their death. 

And to James's great relief, in blue were the names Charles "Lights" Lightoller, who he held in high regard. Herbert Pitman, another good chap he'd share a pipe with after his night watch under the stars. Joseph Boxhall, a dark horse with whom James was cordial with but hardly shared anything in common. 

And Fifth Officer Harold Lowe.

Taking James back to that last time he saw Lowe, as the 5th officer stood next to him on the deck. How James had stepped back from Lifeboat 14, trusting Lowe to take charge of it instead, and see to the care of those 40 passengers Moody had helped board safely. And reading on still, that Lowe had not only gotten them away safely from the ship, but had turned his boat around and gone back for more. 

"Well done, old man," James muttered proudly of his Welsh comrade. 

As Lowe's last solemn words for him gradually came back to Moody.

'When I say get yourself away with number 16, I mean every word of it, James. Don't wait.  I'm not going to say that you being a ruddy Englishman, and an out-and-out fool on more than one occasion, means I've gotten on with you the most. But if you don't come in that boat right after me, I shall never live to forget this night.'

And then James's eyes stumbled into his own name.

6th Officer James Paul Moody...White.

As well as the many other good men with names in white on that list, warming James with a swelling pride for having died along with them.

Mr. Thomas Andrews, naval architect, white. Chief Engineer, Joseph Bell, white. Chief Electrician, Peter Sloan, white. Mr. Albert William Stanley Nichols, Boatswain, white. Mr. Wallace Henry Hartley, bandleader, white. James's great pal, Jack Phillips, the Marconi operator, white.

Captain Edward John Smith...White.

Chief Officer Henry Tingle Wilde....White.

First Officer William McMaster Murdoch....White.

James's heart sank then. 

Murdoch and Wilde were chiefly good men, and never were there better officers.  Murdoch being cool and quick on his toes, and always so pleasant to everyone, no matter their rank on the ship. Always appearing at just the right moments when James found himself nose-to-nose with trouble. Stern, to boot, but always in that warm way James never felt knocked down by, knowing the 1st officer was only looking out for him. 

"Go ye steady on, Mr. Moody," Murdoch would always say to James. 

A man inspiring the young officer to everything James had hoped to become as a senior officer someday. 

Many in the ranks had written Wilde off as an aloof widower of two years, who didn't care when or how he went out of this world anymore, so long as he joined his wife soon.

Next to Boxhall, the grief-stricken Wilde was the quietest among James's superiors. A man never quite the same after the untimely death of his wife and children, but still, he had tons of wisdoms and stories that inspired James beyond just his understanding of being a sailor.

In exchange, James became Wilde's unofficial thesaurus, as Wilde didn't always have the words to talk about Pollie.

Wilde had asked James once in the officer's mess what he was always writing about. To which the older officer let Moody know that he'd once found a good use for paper too. 

'I told Pollie while I was in the Lansdowne Hotel in Portrush, Northern Ireland,' he'd said.  'Been round all the rooms and filled up their boots with paper. It was a great joke when the people got to put their boots on. Next thing I know, I'm putting me jacket on to get back to sea, and its full of the stuff. Every pocket, every sock, every cuff of mine. And I got to light my pipe, and there's another one there, where Pollie had written 'Write me when you make it aboard Hornby Castle. You've plenty enough paper now.' Only we two couldn't stop laughing about it.' 

James hadn't seen Wilde crack up quite like that before, and it was then, he knew he liked the man very much. 

'Take nothing for granted, Mr. Moody,' Wilde had confessed to the 6th officer, as many of his fellow crew seemed to find comfort in telling James their heart's deepest regrets. 'When you meet the woman you love, love her deeply, as if God will take you both tomorrow. I can't think of anything but the cruel fate that took my Pollie away from me. Surely, I could've put up with anything but this, it being a terrible loss to bear. I am nearly heartbroken at times, don't know how I am going to get over it. Nobody can understand my feelings. The emptiness seems unbearable....It seems impossible that such a thing can have ever happened.'

And never before had Moody understood the regrettable heartsickness behind Wilde's words as he did stumbling upon Titanic's Victualling list. 

Of the 23 ladies listed as stewardesses, all but three survived.

Mrs. Kate Walsh, Second Class Stewardess. White.

Mrs. Lucy Violet Snape, Second Class Stewardess. White.

Mrs. Catherine Jane Moore Wallis, Assistant Matron, Third Class. White. 

No woman by the name of Millicent Crawley was ever recorded. 

Leaving James with only more questions.

Had Miss Crawley survived after all, as he'd hoped?

Or had she not been accounted for among the unidentified dead?

He knew changes in ship assignments and rosters were not uncommon, for replacement crew assigned for deserters and those who had missed ship. 

If Miss Crawley joined Titanic at the last moment, somewhere at Belfast, or Southampton, or Queenstown, perhaps the record had not been updated before the sinking. 

And if that were so....could it be that there wasn't any existing record of her as a stewardess at all?

James glanced at Millie again as she took a sip of her tea. His eyes drawn suddenly to the Miss's hands. 

A working girl's hands.

And now seemed as good a time as any to bring up his haunting ideas of yesternight. 

"Why a Titanic museum, miss?" James wondered. "Have you any connection with the ship?"

"No, I just love history and old-timey stuff, so it was inevitable that I ended up there," Emily said. "Some people might find it weird, but I've always felt a little bit like an old soul. And when I almost drowned a year ago, maybe I just felt connected to all those people who died that way. I can't explain it...But that's what dreams do, don't they? They're meant to feel like dejavu." 

Gradually, Moody stopped spooning his own cold tea, his gaze considering her as she squinted in deep thought at her own cup, as if it had all the answers she didn't.

And realizing that Moody's eyes were intensely focused on her, Emily smiled awkwardly. "You probably think I'm weird too. It's ok, if you do."

"No, it's not at all what I was thinking. I actually find you quite fascinating, miss," Moody commented. And slipping his next remark in as casually as he might've told a joke, James added, "Are you sure I'm not the only one with a past life?"

Millie's hand froze suddenly around her spoon in her cup, as she cocked her head questionably at him. 

"Why are you so interested in me and my job all of a sudden?" she asked him. "This is about you and anything you can remember that'll help us get you back." 

"Titanic was never only about me, miss," James told her. "When I passed on...I wasn't alone. I remember a stewardess with me. We tried to save each other, but I was badly wounded. Because I couldn't go any further with her, I worry that she also...What I mean is, I hope that she is only 'misplaced', as I am...Suppose it were possible that she met the same fate, and has no memory of it?...That she has assumed another name, in the meantime....and that there are no portraits of her either?"

"Wait...are you saying you think this woman is me?"

"You bear striking similarities to the one I remember, I should say. And there are many coincidences between us that aren't easily ignored," James pursued his theory. "I hope you won't think of me as being too bold, Miss Amberflaw, but since the moment I first saw you, I've felt these unimaginably intimate feelings for you...as I might've had for her."

"That's impossible, James," she whispered. 

'Well, am I alone, Miss Amberflaw?" he asked her directly. "Was there ever more to the accident, or your reason for helping me? Was there ever a moment you questioned your memory of it all?"

"Whatever my reasons were, it wasn't time travel," Millie said. "I wanted to help because it's what I wished someone had done...if I were in your shoes." 

"But is it really so unimaginable that we could be the same?"

"Completely unimaginable," Millie insisted. " And I have proof. I have a birth certificate, a social security number, and a whole bunch of other documents that say I'm Emily Kora Amberflaw, and that I was born April 12th, 2001. 

"Where?" 

"What?"

"Where were you born, might I ask?" James questioned her. "Can you recall any memories of your tender years in New York?"

"Sure, things have been fuzzy since the accident," Emily admitted. "But I know I have them, if I think hard enough."

"It's rather convenient, wouldn't you say?" James remarked. "The accident and your lack of memory after it. Almost leaving one's remembering vulnerable to the power of another's suggestion." 

"Not sure what you're implying here, James, but it's not why I'm so fucked up," Emily told him. "I didn't die on the Titanic."

And dazedly stirring her tea in deeper thought, Millie continued more gently to the officer. 

"But...I do understand why you feel like it can't be the end of the story for you....How lonely it must feel here, ripped away from everything you once knew...And how desperately you wish someone would understand it...If I was in your place, I'd hope there was someone else out there too....And I'm sorry...I'm just not her."

"Anno...Of course you aren't," James answered just as quietly. "Forgive me, Miss Amberflaw. I thought there might be a chance, but now I see, I was gravely mistaken." 

Millie sighed, feeling a little guilty for not being able to say anything more comforting for him.

Even if she couldn't understand Titanic the way Moody did, it was hard not to feel sorry for the guy. 

"You know, you don't have to call me Miss Amberflaw all the time," she told him lightly, distracting them both from the topic. "I mean, now that we've officially 'slept together' and braved through a TV dinner, we're mates now, right?"

James chuckled to himself.

How funny it was, hearing an American girl calling him a mate, but he rather liked the way she said it. 

"It's a mouthful, to be sure," he admitted. "Would you rather I called you Emily then?"

"Millie's fine."

"Right...I like you best as a Millie as well," James agreed with a little smile. "'Alright then. Miss Millie, it is." 

And though she did a good job of trying to hide it, James swore he saw her blush up a bit at that, as she scooped some beans onto her last bit of toast. 

Accidently catching James's rather adoring gaze still lingering on her. 

"What?" asked she.

"Nothing," answered he.

"But you're still looking at me like you think I'm from another century."

"It's just extraordinary, is all," Moody replied fondly. "I've never known an American who happily took their toast with beans."

"Well, now you know one."

"That's the funny thing about it, I suppose. Even if you aren't the one I thought I knew from my memory, I feel as if I've known you for much longer. A lifetime, really. I've never felt so much at home with anyone," James confessed to the Miss.

"I guess I could get that," she told him. "Honestly, it'll be hard not to look at a grandfather clock from now on, and not think of you."

"It'll be impossible for me to look at any clock the same again," James agreed.

Emily gave in to another bashful smile. 

"Hypothetically speaking, though," she found her way back to their original topic.  "If it is true somehow, and the woman you remember from Titanic ended up here too...then what? Why is it so important that you find her?"

"Because I believe it may explain something of what's happened to me," James said. "The necklace I showed you, you said yourself that it has a history of strange goings-on, surrounding tragic circumstances. Titanic, as one instance...I suspect then that such a tragedy hangs over she and I. If we assume--hypothetically speaking, of course--that Le Cœur de la Mer  has an inscrutable aura that attracts ill-fated happenings, for all one knows, it may have summat to do with this turn of events. I had the diamond in my pocket the night Titanic sank."

"I don't know, James," Millie sighed. "It really was just a good story."

"And I am just a dead man, Miss Millie," James countered. "Or shouldn't I be?"

"And you really believe she's here too?"

"I very much hope so...as I feel tremendously guilty and partly to blame for her death...As an officer, I'm afraid I have fallen short in so many ways," James said. "I can't say why it was me who came about here. But if your tale about the diamond bears any truth, I should think that if anyone deserves a second chance, it was her."

"Ok, but," Millie thoughtfully presented another angle to their debate. "What if the woman you remember doesn't want to be found?...What if helping her remember that she died horrifyingly in a shipwreck isn't what's best for her? I mean, think about it. This could really be her second chance at, well, literally everything. What if she's happier here? There's so much more freedoms for a woman here than in 1912. She can vote. She can divorce without losing her children or being judged for it. She can stay single. Go to work. Go to school. Start a business. Travel without a chaperone. She can go after anything she wants in this world without being told that she can't."

"I reckon you have a point there," James nodded. 

"And if there really is an actual 'curse' around the Heart of the Ocean," Emily mused on. "What if never finding her is the better option in the end? It doesn't seem like this thing really cares if it works in your favor or not...So, who's to say that, when you do find her, something devastating doesn't happen all over again?"

"I've worried the same, since I first learnt of its history," James confessed. "That being the case, I wouldn't want to take any chances. If she is walking among us, and I unknowingly met her without realizing it, I wouldn't want to carry on with the thing tagging along with me."

"Right," Millie agreed. "Until we know more about how you got here, exactly, it's probably better to put it away somewhere safe."  

"Though not in your home, Miss Millie," James insisted. "It may do as it wishes with me, but I wouldn't want it stirring up any trouble for you."

"I have a locker at work I can put it in," Emily suggested. "That way it's out of this house, but still close by, if we need it."

"Perhaps it's for the best."

"Which reminds me, I was going to put your, uh, Captain Crunch suit in the dry cleaners today," Millie said. "Which means I should probably get going, if I'm gonna make it to my locker before clocking in. Oh! And one more favor."

Getting away to the kitchen again, she fetched a red container reading Folgers Coffee, dropping the thing so hard on the table, James's silverware shrieked. 

"We're out of milk," she said. "Think you can manage?"

"Blimey," he whispered, starstruck as he looked in at the container filled with American pennies. "Never mind the milk. You could buy the whole bloody cow with all this. Surely, this is plenty enough?"

 "I hope so. I counted it all last night," Millie said, as she grabbed her keys and made for the door. "Happy cat-sitting!"

But James's eyes didn't follow his hostess as she left, still trained on Emily's plate. 

Her cutlery placed together like a clock-face, fixed in a very posh finishing position at 6:30, with the tines of the fork facing upwards. Her napkin neatly heaped on the left side of her setting.

"Right," James answered her mutely as she went. "In a bit then, mate." 

Chapter Text

The day James Paul Moody discovered what it was to be a monied man was also the day he discovered that he was still very much a poor one. 

It all began within the spirit of modern economics, on his mission to find Miss Amberflaw a gallon of milk, as the lady had requested of him, in a place modern Americans liked to call their "Costco".

Famished, was he, since breakfast that he stood awestruck before the numbered aisles of a vast supermarket--and by vast, he meant "an absurdly massive berth with room enough to back up the Mauretania with no trouble at all!"--packed with  shelves and shelves of food that could feed the queen's royal navy.

So plentiful was this refreshment Elysium, that at the lead of nearly every aisle was a sweet old lady in wrapping-paper-gloves giving out all sorts of deliciously-smelling goodies unimaginable. His face lighting up whenever he heard one of them offer him, "Would you like to try a sample?"

"Pardon me, madam," he'd say to one such woman, trying to ignore all the little treat cups calling to his grumbling stomach from her tray. "I know that by now I've missed the milkman on his run, but my lady wishes for a gallon. I thought I might be lucky enough to catch him with some milk left before he carted away until morning."

"Milk, eggs, and creamer are all in the milk cave, dear. It's down by all the paper towels and toilet paper, right behind the pet food," she pointed rather unparticularly in one direction over his shoulder. "It's a nice little walk, so here's a sample to take with you. We got some fresh baked bread with butter here. These are plain, this one is topped with provolone, and this one has cranberry and walnuts in it. Some comfort food for you and all this rainy weather. Enjoy, sweetheart!"

And James liked all three so well, that he gladly took one loaf of each in the crooks of his elbows as he nodded a many thanks to her.

Realizing shortly after he'd gone that he hadn't even the slightest what paper towels or pet food were, nor how to reference them among the towering shelves of numbered aisles around him.

"Excuse me, sir, kindly would you tell me where I might find the pet food, so that I may speak to a man about a gallon of milk for my Miss?" a bread-full James stopped by another sample cart, that smelt irresistibly of roasted turkey sliced in pesto sauce. Next to which the man in the wrapping-paper-gloves was slicing adorably petite pieces of pumpkin pie.

And as James watched in awe as the man used some sort of whipcream-pistol to top each slice with a heavenly cloud of cream, the officer wondered if he'd ever been living until now.

"Milk is done aisle 34. Care for some sun-dried tomatoes on an olive oil cracker, sir?"

"Very well then."

And with the jar of sun-dried tomatoes and box of olive oil crackers in each of his hands, James stacked the cranberry-walnut bread on top, with the other loaves pinned between each elbow and his chest, as he inquired to another, with hair like flamingo feathers, "I beg your pardon, miss, would you mind tellin' me where I might find aisle 34?"

"Dude, I love your accent! Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Er-um-Yorkshire, love," James answered, deciding it was probably best that he left off theYorkshire of 1912 part, for the time being. 

"Yorkshire? Shut up! I love Aussie men," the flamingo girl said excitedly. "Like 3 of my exes online were from Australia. Met them all on Fortnite. You do any gaming?"

"I've done the occasional shooting party here and there," James admitted with a bashful shrug, feeling his cheeks go a little hot at being the center of such attentions from a lady with rose-pink hair. Making him only wish he really was one Australian man. At any rate, he didn't bother disappointing her to say he was actually very much English. 

"I'm also a novelist," he went on milking the cow of her fascination. "You may hear some call me the very soul of William Wordsworth." 

"Hm, the artsy type. Got'ch ya," flamingo girl croaked into a smile at him. "Anyway, aisle 34 is back that way, babe."

She cocked her rosy head in the opposite direction from where James had just walked over.

"By the toilet paper and dog food. But here's a pick-me-up while you go," she said, picking up a white sample cup and taking a pen from her apron. Writing a 7-digit number across the front with her name Sophie underneath it, she passed it to James. "Vanilla ice cream blended with Bailey's Irish cream...and maybe a little poetry later."

She winked at him.

 "Any caramel sauce or nuts with that?" she offered him a to-go baggie with miniature peanuts. 

And then when she realized James couldn't possibly hold anymore of anything in either of his arms, she giggled again, "My bad, you wanna basket first?"

And once James had found himself a trolley, there was plenty more room for the spinach mozzarella ravioli, spiraled ham on a sweet roll, and Belgium dark chocolate salted caramels with Macadamia Nut Clusters.

And still plenty of space for the offerings of every sample-clerk James purposefully went on a hunt for throughout the entirety of the store. His cart spilling with all sorts of hams, cheeses, wines, chocolates, crackers, cakes, and all else one should expect living the good life when one is so rich in coin and spirit.

Until at last, James came to the queue for the cashier of register 14, with the gallon of milk he'd originally come in for balancing atop his cart like the star of a Christmas tree next to Captain Wentworth's pet carrier. Nodding a cheerful "Good day to you, madam" to an elderly woman queued up at register 16, who raised a questioning brow at his dress shoes and pajama pants.

But if the chipper Edwardian man felt any remorse, going on a shopping spree in his pajama trousers was the last lingering regret on his mind. 

It was Miss Millie he couldn't help thinking of as he waited in line. 

How stuffed he felt now after taking pleasure in all the samples Costco had to offer, when Miss Millie must feel so hungry working so hard near mid-day now, after he'd sorely failed her at breakfast.

He wanted so ardently to redeem himself to her and return her many favors, after foolishly offering her a morning's dreary meal and even drearier conversation. For as her new cat-butler, he couldn't sit well with continuing to see the lady eating that Stouffer's TV Dinner rubbish.

His mind swam dreamily with ideas and surprises for Emily to delight in something special to come home to. A true hot and hearty meal of his day to thank her for all her kindnesses. And with her generous container of pennies safely kept between the ham and honey in his cart, the possibilities of what he could buy that might impress Miss Millie were endless.

Why not soup coupled with sherry, or fish served with white wine?

Or a hot turkey sandwich with fresh fruit or deviled eggs with a broiled guinea hen?

Why not all of it?

For a man with deeper pockets than an Astor in 2022, he could spare to spoil his hostess a little, couldn't he?

Surely, for all the grief she had gone through for him, she deserved to have it all. 

"Can you believe this idiot?" the white-haired older lady in front of James shook her head as she showed her fellow shopping companion a Yahoo news article she was reading on her phone. "Unidentified man shot after elaborate plot to steal historic Hope Diamond from the Smithsonian Institution. What exactly did the idiot think was gonna happen?"

James froze, just as he had started to bite down on another olive oil cracker.

"Beg your pardon, ma'am, but did you say the Hope Diamond?" he couldn't help asking her.

"Says it right here," the lady said, showing him the article. "This is the dumbass right here they caught on camera."

James took a gander at the man in the grainy grayish CCTV photo. His pale eyes crowned by a strong dark brow and pointed nose with high cheekbones. His chin and jaw handsomely chiseled above a neat black collared dress shirt. His eyes appearing not much like a remorseless thief's, but a man burdened and weary with desperation against the world's misfortune. His dark hair combed neatly in a side part over his pale prominent forehead and gelled down around his sharp ears, where a faint scar blemished his nearly perfect porcelain complexion.

James's brow furrowed as he studied the man's face closely. 

Almost as if he could imagine this very man as real as his own hands standing in front of him. Though it wasn't a pale grainy image on the woman's phone, but a figure as clear as the night James turned away from Lifeboat 14, and looked into the terrified sea-green eyes of a first-class gentleman still dressed for dinner on Titanic's starboard deck.

'Please tell me I'm not too late, that she can still be saved.  Tell me I haven't murdered my own sister. My God, James, I beg you to help me.'

And as James matched the man in the photo to the uncanny resemblance of the Titanic passenger he remembered, Miss Amberflaw's worried voice on the phone from her bathroom suddenly came back to him.

I'm calling about my brother, Paxton Amberflaw. He's been missing, and I'm worried something might've happened to him...The last time I saw him was around Christmas. He said he had to run an important errand, but he never came back.

"Must've been Houdini," the elderly lady joked. "They shot the guy at least 16 times, watched him drop dead, and when they got the clear to investigate the body, he wasn't there anymore. I'm guessing at some point he got up and ran for it...But after being shot 16 times?"

"Maybe he had a bulletproof vest on?" her shopping companion shrugged a guess.

"Well, if the idiot was smart enough to think of that, you'd think he'd be smart enough to not walk into the Smithsonian and steal the Hope Diamond. I don't understand how he thought he was gonna get away with it?...Almost like he had a death wish."

A death wish.

James's head began going around in circles about the idea, thinking again of the strange circumstances surrounding his own "death" on Titanic.

Wouldn't it be something if...there was some possibility that...the connection between his dying so hopelessly and the allegedly "cursed" Heart of the Ocean was that one must--

"I can help the next customer on 16!" the adjoining cashier called over from her register.

"You go to that one, dear," the elderly lady in front of James said. "I'll stay with this line."

"No, madam, it's ladies first," James insisted to her. "I am not at all opposed to waiting longer for my turn."

"No, it's fine. You get in that line, and I'll stay with this one," she insisted, nodding over at register 16. "My stuff is already on this counter anyway. Go ahead now, hurry up, dear, before someone else gets your seat--I mean, spot."

The 6th Officer stood still and pale with his cart, his mind still rowing on. 

You'll take that boat abaft, if I am to go in this one.

How was it he could never stop being haunted by those last words of Lowe's, even in the most trivial of places like this?

Was it all just some poor taste of coincidence, or pieces of a greater story unconnected?

The elderly lady going on about him switching lines. The man in the photograph who he swore he'd seen before on Titanic. Miss Millie's desperation to find her lost brother. 

Every moment James found himself arrested by adoration, every instance he caught Emily's gaze. 

What exactly was this bizarre version of reality trying to tell him?

"Next at 16, please!" the cashier drawled again sassily. 

Slowly, James pushed his cart along, and absently began dropping each of his selections on the counter. So lost in thought, that he half noticed the counter was moving each one toward the cashier on a little conveyer belt, so that she could scan the items. 

'Should a man decide to imagine it that way,' he thought to himself. 'Paxton and Patrick do have a striking ring with each other, don't they?...I can't be entirely sure, but I might swear my second life on it...that man in that photograph was none other than Patrick Crawley.'

"That'll be $367.92," the cashier announced, breaking James from the tension of his thoughts after scanning the last of his items. "Will you be paying with cash or card?"

"Uh, pennies," James answered numbly, still only half-listening as he passed her the container of Foldgers. "You'll find that it's all there."

The cashier rolled her eyes, muttering under her breath, "Seriously?" 

But James went on musing to himself as she snatched open the Folgers lid.

''If, theoretically speaking, Patrick Crawley  were actually Paxton Amberflaw, why on earth would he ever do something so rash, knowing he's left a sister behind to search after him? It seems carelessly reckless, even for a rascal like Patrick. Though...his resemblance is unmistakable." 

And after counting each penny and coming to the last one, the cashier rolled her eyes up at James again. "I have here $11.94."

"Hm?" James muttered, confused. "I've not given you enough?" 

"Nope," cashier stated. "Not enough by about $355.98."

"Impossible."

"You can't make this stuff up," she shook her head. "How would you like to pay the remaining balance? Cash or card?"

"Now, you're pulling one over me," the puzzled Edwardian man of simple economy insisted. "Surely, it must be plenty enough."

"Your total was 367 dollars," the cashier repeated dryly, showing him her monitor. "And ninety-two cents."

"4 American dollars," James breathed in disbelief as he read the list of prices on the monitor. "For this milk only? That's daylight robbery, that is. It couldn't be more than 6 pennies for the bread, and 35 more for the milk, and with all the rest priced accordingly, you mean to say it still isn't enough?"

"I mean to say you're welcome to put something back," she sassed on. 

"Four dollars," James went on questioning it, as if it were her idea of a bad joke. "And sixty cents?"

"Hey, man, if you don't like it, go back where you came from," the rather large hunpty dunpty man behind James blurted out. "In case you didn't notice, there's a line back here."

"Do you really pay 4 dollars for milk, sir?" James inquired of him. "Will all of you stand for this?"

"If you can't afford a few dollars for milk, son, you need to get yourself a real job."

"I am honestly employed, thank you, sir," James defended his honorable reputation as a hardworking man and sailor. "As it so happens, I myself am a bloody officer of–"

He hesitated.

Remembering that he wasn't supposed to talk about such things outside of Miss Amberflaw's flat.

And though it was probably no better, he decided he'd better say it otherwise--

"Of cats," he finished the heroic declaration to his fellow shoppers. 

"Excuse me?" Hunpty Dunpty raised a puzzled graying blonde brow. "Did you say cats?"

"Of course, sir. I am, in fact, a cat nanny," James announced proudly. "Albeit, not a paid one, but a good one nonetheless."

"A cat nanny?" The woman dressed in a man's business trousers behind humpty dumpy perked up.

"You babysit cats?" another lass peeked around the news and candy stand, from the next register over. "Do you have any openings?"

"How much do you charge?" business trouser woman spoke up quickly, in a race to outbid the other hopefuls closing in on James. "My sister's been looking for someone, and it's ridiculous how much these kennels charge. You take Zelle, right?"

"If you got the room, I'll pay you double today!" news stand woman shouted out her bid to James next.

James turned back to his cashier with a more assured smile.

"It seems my luck has changed, miss. I'll be on my way then and back for the rest tomorrow," he told her. "Though, what can I take home with the money I've given you already?"

"Ahem," The cashier cleared her throat, performing a rather snooty promenade to the beverage cooler at the closed register behind her. From which she retrieved a small 8 ounce carton of milk no larger than James's palm, and slapped his half finished olive oil cracker box on the pay counter with it.

"Thank you and have a nice day," she mumbled to him. "Next on 16!"

Chapter Text

Rolling her mop bucket out of the janitor's closet, after battling the paper towels and toilet paper that toppled onto her bonnet when her mop handle unceremoniously whacked them all off the shelves, Emily sighed as she glanced at the clock on her phone.

5:07 p.m.

Dammit.

Once again, she would be late clocking out of her shift, and could bet on getting her second write-up for it in just two ghastly days.

But how could it be blamed on her that some bird flu had passed around among the staff, and that she remained one of the few cashiers who didn't call in sick?

What else was she supposed to do to get everything done before closing?

In addition to her usual mopping of the promenade deck, she was given the captain's cabin and the photo gallery all the way on the other side of the museum. 

And God forbid she be paid a cent of overtime for this thankless retail job. 

She was lucky as it is that her manager forgot about the restrooms. 

Needless to say, the darkening indigo clouds outside the floor-to ceiling museum windows looked ominous, and Emily was eager to get done and out. 

She decided to work her way backwards, from the captain's cabin, to the gallery, to the promenade, which was closest to her gift shop. 

Making little pictures on the sleek wooden decking in oddly satisfying circles. When she wasn't on a time crunch, she could do it all day. Cleaning and making things all anew again.

Especially with so much going on in her head lately, ever since she found herself a century old dead man for a roommate. 

And as she mopped a stick figure into the floor with an officer's hat wearing a pair of pajamas, she found herself coming back around to James's last haunting words to her that morning.

Since the moment I first saw you, I've felt these unimaginably intimate feelings for you...as I might've had for her. Was there ever more to the accident, or your reason for helping me? Was there ever a moment you questioned your memory of it all?

Looping her mop bucket around the captain's cabin room to the photo gallery, Emily glanced toward the wall honoring Titanic's officers, as was always her habit walking by during her closing routine. Reciting every name by memory as she walked by each officer's photograph. 

Captain Edward J. Smith, Henry Wilde, William Murdoch, Charles Lightoller, Herbert John Pitman, Harold Lowe...

She stilled her pace, her tapping white converse against the echoing wood floors coming to a stop after Harold Lowe's photograph. 

Her bonneted head tilting curiously, caught off guard by the naked brick wall staring back at her against the warm light of a lonely dim overlamp, where Officer James Paul Moody's portrait used to hang only yesterday.

Instead, she found a rectangular white sign with navy blue lettering directing onlookers to the "Guest Restrooms -->" at the right of her. 

And just when she began to question her memory of the unexpected portrait arrangement, her manager, Mark Capri, suddenly appeared out of nowhere at the other end of the gallery. 

"Em, what are you still doing here? If you think I'm signing off on more overtime for you, you got another thing coming. Go home." 

"I will, as soon as I finish mopping the promenade deck," Emily indicated the bucket at her side. 

"Now, Em," he insisted firmly. "Just let opening shift pick it up in the morning. You go over one minute, and it's my ass, not yours. Clock yourself out."

And then Capri turned around to march on along in his merry way.

"Hey, Mark. Wait," Emily stopped her manager again. "When did we get a restroom sign here? Has it always been on this wall?"

"What?" Mark frowned back at her, his shoulders tense with the aggravation of her standing there asking him dumb questions, when she was still hacking away at his overtime. 

"What happened to the picture that used to be here?" she inquired of him. "Did they hang it somewhere else?"

"Picture? What picture?"

"The one of James Paul Moody," Emily clued him in. 

"The saxophone player?"

"The 6th Titanic Officer?" she repeated it back to him, unsure of how a manager running a history museum could be so clueless about the historic people within it. "There were 6 officers' portraits up here yesterday, but now there are only 5." 

"Ahhh-huh."

And the doubting way he looked at her when he said it, it was like he'd just watched her fall out of another dimension or something.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Em. What does a picture have to do with you clocking out?" 

And turning to leave her again, he called back one last warning, as if it were some favor he was doing her.

"I'll fix your clock-out time for this shift, but don't let it happen again. Stop by my office before you leave to sign your write-up."

Chapter Text

Am I going crazy?

Emily wondered driving home, replaying her mopping route over and over in her head, trying to remember if she'd missed some staff memo in the break room somewhere about Moody's portrait being moved.

Maybe it had just been taken down for cleaning or some other perfectly logical and mundane reason.

It was, after all, just a picture, and not the sunny sailor himself.

Other than leaving a strangely empty void in her workday upon learning of its mysterious disappearance, it wasn't anything to really make a fuss about.

She had bigger waves to cut through.

Like the walking-talking-breathing subject of said missing portrait.

And as lightning trailed like white sea rockets across a sapphire evening sky rolling like the Atlantic in the harbor, Emily figured now was as good a time as any to drop in on her shipwrecked officer.

Even so, if the cashier girl felt any remorse, taking the long way home in this storm was the last lingering regret on her mind.

It was James she couldn't help thinking of as she waited at the stoplight.

Knowing she couldn't just go home empty-handed.

The guy had, after all, watched her cat.

And who would she be if she didn't return the favor, making one more pitstop on the way home to bring back a little thank you for him.

For as her new cat-butler, she couldn't sit well with allowing the man to keep walking around in his pajamas like that.

Had she not decided to stop at Target and pick up a couple of men's trousers in various sizes for a 6 foot man–based on her seamstress guesstimations of Officer Moody's uniform–Emily might've beat the worst of the rain driving home from work.

She gripped the driver's door of her car, catching her converse from slipping into a split on the oily rain puddles that had flooded her car park.

"Dammit, forgot my umbrella at the register again."

And so, veiling her frizzing wet locks with her peacoat instead, she bent back into her car to grab the Target bag with James's new trousers and her phone buzzing madly on her seat.

Hoping that it was one of the hospitals finally calling about Pax, she quickly put the phone to the rain-dampened tresses around her ear.

"Yes, hello?...I'm sorry, what?...Cat-sitting?...No, I'm sorry, you got the wrong number again...Of course, I'm sure that I'm sure...Well, I don't know how you got this number, but it's still the wrong one, I'm very sorry. Good luck though!"

The puzzled Millie hung up straight away.

Unsure as to why she kept getting all these strange calls lately about cats.

But she wasn't getting any drier wondering about it, so she dropped her phone back into her white work apron for safekeeping.

Only to pause again suddenly on the flooding sidewalk, when she felt something else clink against her phone at the bottom of her apron pocket.

Pulling out James's sapphire diamond cupped in her palm, as it glimmered in the falling rain and car park lights above her.

Shit.

She'd been running so late to work after dropping off James's officer suit to the dry cleaners, that she'd completely forgotten to stop by her work locker and leave the necklace there when she clocked in for her shift. And she wasn't due back to work until the day after tomorrow, which meant she'd be juggling around the responsibility of a terrifyingly jinxed and mortifyingly expensive diamond until then.

But even that would have to wait for the rain.

Dropping the Heart of the Ocean safely back into her maid's apron, she fumbled around for her keys to begin her nightly battle with the door lock.

And just as she jammed the key in--

"Excuse me?" a woman appeared lost as she approached Emily from the sidewalk. "Is this Moody's Cat Hotel? My sister dropped my cats off here earlier and I couldn't get ahold of anyone to pick them up. A woman answered the phone and said I had the wrong number, but my sister swore the number belonged to a guy with a hot British accent."

"Moody's Cat Hotel?" Emily repeated, curiously tilting her head, as little by little, the mysterious cat-and-mouse game with her phone started to make sense. 

"Yes, I was told this is where I pick up my cats."

"And this guy with a British accent told you that?"

The door opened unexpectedly, as none other than Officer James Paul Moody peeked out and looked about the porch, as if he were expecting someone special who hadn't turned up yet. Holding Captain Wentworth fast against his side, who appeared to be caked from head to toe in gravy, with the sound of the blender hacking away somewhere from the inner kitchen to the chorusing of cat meows.

And when James's searching sky blue eyes finally looked upon the raised brow of Miss Emily Amberflaw, his baby blues widened considerably.

"Miss Millie," said he.

"James," said she.

"I've been waiting all the while for you," the astonished officer informed the astonished cashier girl. "Any longer, and I would've worried. And look at the state of you. If you were any wetter, I could rig a sail on you."

"Thanks, James," Emily remarked, as her own gaze took in his much spiffier outfit than the one she'd braved the storm to pick out for him at Target. "Apparently, you haven't done too bad without me either."

And by that, she meant dressed to the vintage nines in a green-gray pullover plaid wool jumper, with a freshly ironed gray collared dress shirt underneath, a pair of sophisticated dark brown slacks with the golden chain of his pocketwatch--still jammed on 2:20--and a sweet matching necktie. On each of his broad shoulders was a kitten, two in his pockets, and still more batting about his shined shoes as he dodged around them to make himself presentable before the ladies.

Making sure his hair was in order with one or two pat-downs, James joined them on the porch.

His eyes yet captured by Millie, and his heart that swelled like a high tide upon seeing his employer standing there with her arms crossed over her chest in her maid's skirt, her hair twirling in romantic wet curls around her hazel eyes.

A fine thing, she was...and even finer while wet.

"James," Millie brought him back to his senses. "I believe this woman is here for her cat."

"Right. Good evening, Madam. I'll go and fetch him." 

James turned around into the apartment to do so, only to stop again before a house full of boxing kittens...and reverse his steps back to the confused girls still waiting for him at the door. 

"I say, madam, which one did you come for?"

"Flotsom and Jetsom."

"Oh right, these lads here," James peeled their tiny sewing needle claws from either of his shoulders. "Here you are, Madam. Fit as a crumpet."

"Did they mind their manners?"

"Yes, madam, no trouble at all. That one there would start a fight all with himself, though, should ye turn yer back on him. He'd make a fine brevet for one 5th officer I know," James told her lightheartedly, passing them both over for her pet carrier. "Right then, thank you for choosing Moody's Cat Hostelry."

"This is for you," she said, tipping him 40 bucks. " And I'll be calling again next week."

And then Millie and James stood on the porch together, both waving and smiling after her as she went.

James's smile being of his usual warm and sunny aura, and Millie's, well put on for a customer service girl.

"James. Explain."

"A long story, it is," he muttered back to her. "Oh, and you should know, duck, we're fresh out of milk."

"You were supposed to go out for milk, and now you're running a cat inn?"

"Hostelry," Moody corrected her. "It's the branding that counts, Miss Millie."

And Millie knew she shouldn't encourage him...but couldn't help but ask him nonetheless.

"How much have you made from cat-sitting, exactly?"

"Ah sure look!"

James reached into both his fancy trouser pockets, and pulled out a hefty stack of bills.

"With a few cats here and there--reckoning in the cost of my new day suit, hat and gloves--and my inherent business expenses-"

"Business expenses?"

"Aye, miss. It's a promising venture, cat-sitting, but all the same, an investment. And with each kittlin wanting his own box, and toys, and blenders...I'd say I've made at least 3 hundred American dollars today."

"Three hundred?" Millie whispered in disbelief. "Are you sure?"

And noting the stunned look on Emily's face, James asked her worriedly, "Blimey...don't tell me I've still not enough money to buy you a proper dinner?"

But before Emily could give him an answer, another customer of his was already at their door.

"Hi there, is this where I pick up my kitty? I tried calling ahead, but this crazy lady answered saying I had the wrong--"

"No, you're in the right place! Welcome to Moody's Cat Hostelry," Emily greeted him more keenly. "Which kitten are you here for today?"

"Mr. Jack Sparrow."

"Aye, very good, sir. The orange fellow with one eye," James turned to go look for him. "Right away, sir, I'll fetch him for ye."

And once the busy cat-sitter got a moment in between passing kittens out the door, James finally caught his air long enough to sweep up the little yellow gift bag he'd left waiting on the table for Millie.

"Er, um, anno it's not much for allowing me to room on your balcony, but this is for you, miss," he said, presenting it to his hostess.

And Millie peeked into the bag like a child on Christmas when she saw the jumbo tin box of tasty Costco Belgium dark chocolate salted caramels with Macadamia Nut Clusters.

"I love these things! How did you guess?"

"I didn't, truthfully," he admitted. "They were my favorite of the lot, so I thought you should have them."

"I got you something too," Millie said, offering him the Target bag now dripping with rainwater. "I know I can't really pay you much for cat-sitting, but I thought you might like these. I had hoped to surprise you first, but looks like you beat me to it."

"Ah, kegs!" he noted with delight, upon peeking in the Target bag. "You've no idea how I sorely wished for these only this morning. I'm grateful you took the trouble. Thank you, Miss Millie."

"And you, Mr. Moody," she nodded to him with her new tin of chocolates in hand.

"Not so bad then, my first go at Costco? Champion people, they were," James told her, ever so pleased with himself. "Though, I'm sorry to say, I did not understand the American penny well enough to prepare you a meal in time. Even so, I am a man who aims to please."

And then the officer offered her his arm.

"Miss Millie," he said to her. "I've prepared us a table on your balcony, served with the finest sample hot chocolate Costco has to offer. Would you do me the honor of your company tonight?"

—---------

After returning all the kittlins to their rightful owners, and Emily had changed into something more comfortable, James and she spent the evening out watching the rain fall and enjoying to their heart's very content the many free Costco samples the officer had put away for her.

And with the Bailey's Irish Cream half gone, the table dusted with hot coco mix, and a small brandy bottle Millie kept in her cupboard for such life-is-beautifully-short-so-let's-celebrate occasions, they were halfway to tipsy off their 3rd cup of hot coco.

James sat across from Millie on her balcony table, taking turns roasting jumbo marshmallows with her over a miniature tabletop fire pit.

A "s'mores roaster", she had called it. A wee delightful nibble that regretfully hadn't been invented until the 1920's, well after James's time.

And as Millie's brandy to hot coco ratio became more relaxed as the night went on, her fleeting glances at James steadily became more deliberate. Her eyes dewy and soft against the curling happy ginger flame between them.

"You're like a fairy tale, James," she said suddenly. "Straight out of a dream, even."

And though he knew she wouldn't like being called Millicent Crawley, James still felt that he had always privately saw dreams in her too.

It was she who belonged in a fairy tale, with her likeness to the heiress at Downton, and he who had always been a common nobody hopelessly in love with a dream he could never have.

Though she believed herself to be no more than a Cinderella in this grim version of reality, James couldn't stop seeing the long-held beauty in her, deserving only the gilded world she'd left behind.

Perhaps it was better then that they both agreed she was not Miss Millicent Crawley.

Like the fall from grace that had become Titanic, it would be evermore rueful for James to imagine the real Millicent trapped in this markedly dimmer world.

"You mean to say, you do dream after all, miss?" he teased her, as he got his own marshmallow nice and golden, with a little crusted burnt around the edges.

Just the way he liked it.

And apparently, just the way Wentworth liked it too, as the cat kept clawing at the roasting stick with one penny eye on the prize, and one on James to make sure the officer was too distracted by Millie to take notice.

"I mean, without it sounding completely weird or anything," she said. "There's something about you I can't figure out. I'm not even sure what to call it, honestly...I just know I love it about you."

And the corners of James's marshmallow-coated lips turned up rather bashfully after that.

"Well then," he said. "I must endeavor to give you more of that."

And with the hot coco mix gone, and their Costco pickings nearly finished, James still wasn't ready to let go of such a cozy night, with such comfortable company.

"Ah, I reckon I've had bed side table, drawers and wardrobe by now, as chuffed as I am for what I've eaten today...Tell me more about your day, miss," James beckoned her, eager to keep their chat going a little longer. "I want to hear everything."

"Work was work, as expected...And oh, come to think of it...I did notice your portrait in the museum went missing today," Millie told James, as she used her pinky to catch the little bit of melted marshmallow creaming from her graham cracker. "I swear it was there my last shift."

"Do you mean that limey portrait I had taken for the Oceanic?" he asked, his iceberg for a complexion blushing a little warmer. "You mean to say that for the last century of existence, the entire world has remembered me only by that singular photograph? Ah, bugger hell. My ruddy nose looked massive from that angle, it did."

"I really don't think anyone was looking that hard."

"It's no small wonder they didn't chuck it away sooner. It is still very much indeed a poor portrait, but it is the best the camera could do with its difficult subject," James sighed. "I told Christopher to hang it in poor light or stow it away altogether. It was really so ugly that I didn't want to inflict it on more people than possible. However, I see now that he'd done the exact opposite, which I suppose, is the way of older brothers."

"How are you this hard on yourself?" Emily asked him. "Your nose is fine. If anything, I think it makes you more hot."

James's brow rose.

"Hot?" he repeated her odd little way with words. Not entirely sure what she meant by comparing him to a boiler room or a tea kettle, but liking the smokey way she said it nonetheless. "Do you, now?"

"I mean generally speaking," Emily tried to untangle herself from the sail of his wild imagination she'd gawkily sent off. "As far as pictures go, it's an aesthetically pleasing selfie."

"I gathered well enough what you meant, miss," James said, grinning. "You think me divine?"

"Now don't get carried away."

"That I am nobbut a man, but a lovesome fanciable bastard with a massive nose?" James went on teasing her. "I rather imagined it myself, ere you ever said a word."

"Well, your memory may not be good, but your hubris is still going strong."

"Ah, well, a sense of humor ne'er costed an American penny, miss," he had her know.

Emily snorted a laugh.

"What?" questioned he. "Are you still heckling me about the supermarket?"

"No," Emily smiled. "It's just, you got something on your..."

She indicated the spot for him on the corner of her lips. 

"Is my face hacky with marshmallow?" He wiped it clean with his big sailor's hands. "Blimey, were you ever going to tell me?"

Emily passed him a hand towel to wipe it with, still smiling to herself as she took another nibble of her s'more.

"Have you remembered anything yet?" she asked him. 

"Not quickly enough, I'm afraid," James told her. "While I was out fetching your milk, I learned about a man who tried to steal a diamond from a museum, much like the one I have...It struck me down...He looked like a man I knew as Patrick Crawley."

"Patrick Crawley?" Emily questioned that she was hearing him right. "You mean, the heir of Downton?"

James stilled at her unexpected recognition of the old name. 

Hopeful.

"You know of Patrick Crawley?"

"Um, sure, about as well as I know a TV character," Emily said. "He's a character on Downton Abbey."

"Beg your pardon, miss? A TV character?"

"Oh, you know, a TV. You watch dramas on it," Millie informed him. "The story goes, Patrick and his father die on the Titanic, as the last heirs to the earldom of Downton, and that's what starts the whole main plot of the show."

"Oh," James answered, taking his hope down a peg again. "You meant a moving picture."

"I never finished it, honestly," Emily said. "Something about the show just really...got under my skin. All the rules and traditions and things, I guess....But Patrick is only mentioned a couple of times in the show. He doesn't actually make an appearance until later on, and even then, the man who claims to be 'Patrick Crawley' is unrecognizable. I'm surprised you recognized the actor."

"I don't believe we mean the same Crawley, miss. He wasn't any actor," James said. "Patrick Crawley was the man who left my life in ruin, as well as hers. And there really was a Downton in Yorkshire once. I can't say what's become of it now. And if I'm honest, I don't feel there's any part of me that cares. Had it not been for that damned place, she might've..."

James's voice broke off with the stirring, unsatisfied resentment in his chest, as he distracted himself by the rain falling in softer mists around the balcony.

"She might've lived a full, happy life," he finished quietly. "Had they left her alone to it, she would have been happy."

"You really loved her, didn't you?" Emily asked him gently. "The maid you knew on Titanic."

"If I had loved her," James said. "I had a swell way of showing it in the end, didn't I? Even in that moment, our last night on Titanic...I couldn't tell her exactly what she wanted to hear. I was already losing her."

"Do you think she'd still want to hear you say it?" 

"Whatever the case...I would hope that what I say to her now is somewhat different than what I intended to say before," James answered her. "The world here is rather a different place than the one we knew together. Even as an officer, I wasn't free to love her as I wanted...Though, maybe in this world, I might've done it fully."

"And if you could go back...knowing what would happen...would you have done it any differently with her?" Emily wondered quietly. "If it meant going back to Titanic and dying the same way as before, would you still do it?"

"The truth of it is, Miss Millie, if given that chance, I can't say that I wouldn't," James confessed. "No matter how it should end, I wouldn't change even a footstep, if it showed me away from hers."

"Then she's a lucky girl."

"And what would you choose for yourself, Miss Millie?" James returned the question. "If you loved someone so deeply...would you leave your world behind for them?"

"You mean, would I jump back on the ship?" Millie dared him with a smile. "Absolutely."

"Well," said James. "Let's hope the man who loves you is strong enough to throw you back over."

"Then he'd better be ready to come overboard with me," she countered. "I'd make you fit on the door, I don't care."

"Sorry, what door?"

"Never mind," Millie changed the subject. "What I'm trying to say is...Remembering her seems really important to you...And I think I just thought of a way to help you remember your lost love."

"Have you?"

"Mind you, I got this idea from 50 First Dates, but just hear me out," she told him. "The female lead has this thing called Goldfield Syndrome, which makes her lose her memory after every date, and her romantic interest has to find new ways to make her fall in love with him over and over again...Maybe if we role-played one of your memories with her, it'll help you remember more."

"Goldfield Syndrome, you say?" James considered it thoughtfully. "Well, I say there's no harm in trying it. How exactly does this experiment of yours work?"

"Oh wait!" Emily stopped him suddenly. "Hold that thought. This is absolutely my favorite Ed Sheeran song!"

Millie slid out of her seat to grab her phone resting on the rim of her potted French Lavender, cranking up the volume of her Spotify, as she sang along, "She played a fiddle in an Irish band, but she fell in love with an Englishman."

And then a puzzled James watched as the jolly little Miss and her adorably fuzzy pink house slippers jigged around in merry circles to the swingy tune, her let-down sandy waves twirling around with her, in what James could only describe as something like the Turkey Trot of his day.

As if the sunlight never left her, come what may of the rain. 

And gradually, James's puzzled smile relaxed into the bittersweetness of a torn heart, as he watched Emily dance merrily alone all by herself.

'I should say....she was right,' thought he. 'She is very much happier with her life here.'

And by the time the song got around to that part of it she seemed to love the most--"Kissed her on the neck and then I took her by the hand, said, 'Baby, I just want to dance' with my pretty little Galway Girl."-- Millie grabbed James's hand and pulled him into the jigging frenzy with her.

And just like that, as the Titanic Officer and the Miss helped each other remember the steps to a dance they'd both forgotten, James wondered if this was how it had been for that Miss from 50 First Dates. To fall in love with someone all over again, and learn still another reason why it was always meant to be this way.

And thank the heavens that the same couldn't be said about brandy and those fuzzy house slippers of Millie's. 

Because had Miss Emily been wearing the proper shoes for a happy dance like hers, James might've saw no other chance to pull her safely into his arms, just as she'd hesitated her next step.

And when he had her steadied against his firmly fixed chest at last, James didn't let go.

Not even when their song shuffled to the next, to something a great deal more melancholy but nonetheless, as beautiful as the falling star he'd caught in his arms. 

But you stood by my side
Night after night, night after night
You loved me back to life,

We're lovers again tonight.

Whatever doubt she had believed about herself before, James only held her longer through all of it.

His baby blue eyes swearing some unsaid everlasting promise she didn't feel she'd earned, even as some quiet instinct in her realized this is what she'd meant about loving something in him all along. And left irreclaimably captivated by the pull of his warmhearted nature, Millie didn't bother letting go of James either.

And as he adored the art of light and shadow on her face, the ghostly Titanic officer felt that it wasn't until now that he'd truly come back to life.

"I know your face," James whispered to Millie, as his caged knuckles reverently traced down her brow to her chin. "I've missed you, love."

And knowing that they were only role-playing to bring to life his broken memories, Emily reminded herself again that he didn't actually mean her, but Miss Millicent Crawley.

Even as Emily's beating heart left her breathless when the officer said it, she had to remember that it was only just an exercise between them.

"There's something you remember about us like this?" she asked him softly.

"Aye...I do believe we've been here once before," he told her. "May I show you how I remember it?"

Millie nodded yes.

And James's numbly cold fingers entwined with the trembling warmth of hers, as he drew her closer to him. 

Rather tenderly, she thought, as if she were everything in this world that meant anything to him.

In a way she'd never been loved before, even in her most yearning imaginings. 

Only...It was another girl's love story that she saw in his eyes, and it would always belong to that girl.

But though Emily had walked into this experiment ready for the unexpected, nothing prepared her for the gentle way James rested his chin against her shoulder, his nose lightly grazing the crook of her neck. And having no predetermined plan for a gesture so achingly intimate, Millie followed her heart into it instead. Her eyes fluttering closed to the buzzing warmth sweeping over her, with every part of her body that surrendered to his as James carried her away with him into a slow waltz.

How effortless, it was, remembering with her.

And as they danced on, James believed he could've spent his whole second lifetime dancing with her like that.

But like the one he'd left behind in 1912, James knew again that aching heartsickness for those ephemeral moments he could never hold onto, as their song came to an end.

Slowly, he glided with Millie into a stop. Neither of them realizing that the silence left behind by the music was one more reason they should let go.

"Miss," James whispered into the hoodie of her grey hand-knitted cardigan.

"Mhm?" Millie's murmur came sleepily against his soft jumper.

"Forgive me...but your gramophone has stopped playing."

"Mhm."

"And it's gotten a bit parky out. I won't have you catch cold," he said quietly, glancing up again at the chilling rain all around them. "Though...if you would allow it...suppose we might stay a little longer like this? Before you go in for the night."

"Mhm," came Millie's content little mumble. 

So, James went on holding her in his arms.

Closing his eyes and breathing in her violet perfumed hair, damned to ever let himself forget it again. 

Desperate to commit to memory every word, every touch, and every breath of her with him like this, as if he knew how different things would be when they awoke in the morning.

When the brandy and hot chocolate lost hold of them, how quickly they would once again go back to being Miss Emily Amberflaw, the shopgirl, and Mr. James Paul Moody, the cat butler.

Much to the anguish of James's heart.

"Don't you know me, my love?" he whispered to her. "What must I do to get you back?"

Chapter Text

Two weeks sailed by after the glasshouse, drawing nearer to port the day James would rejoin his crew for another hard year under the sail of a cawfin. 

Two maddening weeks he'd spent sarnied between his own resolve and his father's passive aggression, as they spent hours up to dinner in Lord Grantham's library researching loopholes in the primogeniture laws binding the estate.

"Capital day, isn't it?" his father went on chelpin' cheerily, breaking the everlong silence between them as he glanced out the library windows at another happy sunset at Downton. "A gentleman's life in the quiet--and safe--countryside is surely all a man can ever dream of."

"Is it?" James muttered a dry remark, turning another page of his father's dusty old law books without ever glancing up at the window.

"I should say it is, dear boy," his father insisted gaily. "It's like the good old reverend once said, 'These young lads who go to sea, they expect lots of blood, wonderful adventure, gruesome illustrations, and a good deal of cheap sentiment. And they get it. Though as they get older, their tastes change'." 

"You don't say," James uttered. 

Because what hope was there in saying anymore otherwise?

The only "safe and quiet" he'd be getting was in putting the entire wide berth of an ocean between he and his father's mad ideas to marry him off to some other poor girl's old and proud family.

Just two more bloody days.

If papa wanted to spend all of their time together bickering about not staying in Yorkshire, then it was certainly his father's right to do with their quality "father-and-son time" as he pleased.

Even so, two days couldn't come fast enough for James.

With no gambles to place against a raging, unpredictable sea, James's lithe athletic mind was tormented by boredom. Absolutely sure he'd rather hang on a cross by both his lug'oles than keep listening to law learning.

And though he'd never admit it to his father, James's eyes wandered from the dry-as-dust law volumes to the door, each time a lady passed by the library.

Secretly hoping that lady was Millicent.

James knew it was brutal to himself and to her both.

That after meeting Miss Crawley, he couldn't stop seeing his girl from the graveyard in the heiress's eyes.

And for such a beautiful name like hers, surely, it had to be a lucky coincidence that she and Miss Crawley were both called Millicent.

"Are you sure you're not imagining her, Mr. Moody?" James couldn't stop thinking of the gravedigger's words. "Nice young ladies don't wander about cemeteries alone tendin' to the dead, ye know."

And wasn't he right?

Why would a Crawley socialite--all the more so, Patrick's little sister--care anything about a "commoner" like James's mother, or how much it meant to him that she be remembered?

It just wasn't what an upper class girl would do.

And what's more, James had already made it painfully clear to Miss Crawley that he intended to marry for love, not for anyone's prestige, and only on his own terms.

Had he left it at that and let them both go happily on...James might've stopped himself all those times he'd searched for Lady Millicent in every girl's face who walked by him at Downton.

Only to run into the smiling blue eyes of Lady Sybil sneaking by, or the soft pardon of a brunette housemaid accidently brushing his sleeve in the grand Gallery when hurrying about her laundry duties.

Whether it was Millicent's intention to avoid him, or just his luck that he missed any chance he might've had to catch her walk by, their respective schedules never allowed for even a brief greeting between them.

Sybil, after all, was a jealous cousin and arranged for all shopping trips and picnics with Millie to be far away from the coming-out frenzy at Downton.

Until by chance, James looked up again from his law books, and there she was.

Making her chic entrance through the eastern door of the library.

Her basil green jacquard skirt gracefully silhouetting her waist with twin rolls of brass buttons. Smartly dressed in a ruffled shirt the color of soft French beige with a dainty chiffon bow tied around her ruffled high-collar. Her brow wrinkled in deep concentration as her eyes eagerly scanned a book that was apparently so good, she forgot she wasn't actually the last soul at Downton.

So engrossed in her walking and reading was she, that anyone else in the room was just an afterthought.

Including that sorry idiot for a sailor, who had only just jilted her two weeks ago, and whose jaw now hung slightly parted and useless for reminding him of how to breathe as he studied her.

With eyes quick enough to spot a masthead light clear across the Atlantic--or so he believed--James could only just make out the title of her book.

Etiquette and Advice Manuals - The Housemaid and Her Duties and How to Perform Them.

'Odd,' he thought to himself. 'What would a girl like her want with a book like that?'

Truly, there was nowt so queer as rich folk.

''What might she think then of Briscoe Fletters, I wonder?'

Lady Millicent slipped into a seat at a writing desk across the room, cozily guarded by aisles of tall bookcases around her, and an inspiring reading view of the estate through three long bay windows in front of her.

And wasn't that just what he'd asked for?

After the glasshouse, Miss Crawley had carried on, not even bothering to acknowledge that the sailor existed in her uncle's house anymore.

James might as well have been the footman or the gardener, as much as she seemed to care.

And wasn't everything so nice in her garden, that she enjoyed the privilege of living so obliviously with the rest of the world revolving around her?

At least, that's what James told himself to sleep better at night.

' I can't face her again. She's perfectly unapproachable,' he'd argued with himself endlessly. 'It won't change anything. Even if I wanted to marry her, what sort of world could I offer her that would compare to the one she has here? I can't give her a world like Downton, even as an officer. This one is the only one she knows, and one day, she'd resent me for it.'

And besides, Millicent hadn't officially made her debut in society yet, which made it more improper for a debutante to be alone with any man, and least of all, the least respectable ones like James.

It was for the best then that she barely noticed him in that library.

But it couldn't stop James from unconsciously closing his law book, as he took her in.

His heart dropping anchor for those soft sunlit eyes, full chocolate lashes, and the "well-to-do snootish" way her chin curved into her kissable neck, where her golden brown hair fell in a soft country French braid over her shoulder. 

A spoiled little rich girl or not, Millicent was stuff for a man's dreams.

Tearing him to pieces between that beckoning pull toward the young heiress and his own refusal to accept Sir James's insulting bribe.

After all, like him, wasn't Millicent also caught in the middle of all this?

She was so tragically a pleasant girl, and had they been allowed to meet by chance rather than bribery, perhaps she would've made him a happy husband, had it not been for that cruel twist of being a Crawley.

And how was it James believed so strongly that he had to have this allusive girl from the graveyard anyway?

With each fading year, he'd likely never meet her again.

 Would it be so bad then to give his heart to someone else and still be happy? Could a girl like Millicent really be so hard to love?

James glanced across the table at his father, as a darker realization fell like a cold dead weight into his stomach.

I will not be the man you were when you abandoned mama.

Despite all the things his father failed to mention since mama's death, Miss Annie was one of those things James already knew about long before his father suddenly remarried.

And mama, after all, had a gentler forgiving nature than James.

But it wasn't until that moment, watching Millicent from afar, that James realized it wasn't just his father he was going to war with by refusing to marry her.

And all for what? That villainous ha-ha! moment when he proved he was the "better" man?

Was it any fault of Lady Millicent's that she should think herself undesirable because James never let go of the grudge against his father?

Undesirable was anything but the truth.

As another Lady Crawley, "Millie", as everyone called her, was already rumored to be a promising debutante this season.

And the wolves were closing in on her.

Quite a number of respectable monied gentlemen dropped in to see Sir James to "catch up" for a game of cricket or shooting.

A bid for her hand could always be counted on. 

'Limey bastards,' James thought to himself. 'At least, she shouldn't be married off to some tosser who's only interested in getting heirs out of her. Ah'm not any too polite for being able to take my own part, if any man so much as steps out of tow once with her, I should think myself no kid to bash a penny-chucker straight into his-"

"If you continue to sit here brooding ineffectually rather than going after her, I will have nowt else to do with you," Mr. Moody muttered as casually as if they were still talking about the weather. Not even looking up at James as he continued underlining passages in his old law volumes. "Don't let her get away from you again, James. Take it from your old father, who is so full of regret. Time is so regrettably brief."

"Sir?" James was caught off guard by his father's abrupt utterance. 

"If you won't take my word for how I know she's the one for you," Mr. Moody said. "Then go and ask her why yourself."

And with a rather suspect knowing look in his eyes, the older Mr. Moody closed his law volume, and removed his spectacles.

"I'm feeling that pinch in my legs again. I'm off for a walk before they announce dinner," he said, as he stood from his seat to take his leave. "Carry on proper, James."

And as Mr. Moody's feet shuffled slowly away from their table, James sat perplexed over his father's cryptic meaning.

By any chance, does he know something I don't?

And knowing that he'd be damned to at least not try out his father's advice, James stood and steadily made his way toward Miss Crawley.

Still a Nervous Nelly as ever for following after a woman he'd refused to be promised to, but knowing that now was as good a chance as any to make bold and ask Millicent Crawley that burning question that had anguished him for years.

That question only hindered by his mind racing, as he wondered how he of the middling class might properly greet the heiress, according to the etiquette of her gentry society.

"Miss Crawley, your grand lady-ness, by any chance, have you ever dug a grave before...no."

"Lady Crawley, what I'd said before was not a reflection of what I meant, in such a way that...no, no, that's yonderly. I should say less, not ramble on."

"Miss Crawley, would you do me this kindness in promenading with me around your garden, so that I might prove to you again what a reet berk ah'm?"

James stilled in his steps, realizing all at once that he was standing right behind her, and being so near to her, he couldn't hear the noise in his head anymore.

Tracing his skipping heart with her finger following across each line of the page she was reading.

Her hands so much like the girl's from his memory that had gently touched his back when she whispered, 'I'll stay here with you and keep watch.'

Millicent stopped reading, picking up her fountain pen to write down some quick notes, giving James a chance to read the passage she was studying so eagerly. 

It is pretty clear that a young girl going into the service of victualing, must be very vain if she thinks she is likely to know best how her work ought to be done. She is far less likely to improve than if she had the disposition to compare and practise different methods, and so prove to her own satisfaction which is best.

And finally seeing his way in, James rambled off in jitters to her all at once.

"Nar'n, Miss Crawley, if it's maid's work ye fancy thi'sen learning, there's a reet grand fella I once passed a pipe with back end in South America, who wouldn't shut thi' cake 'oil, braunging on 'bout how he knew a waller who knows a waller who was swab-maties with a ship cook, whose sister's brother's lass, just gotten her'sen off t'werk as a matron aboard a Cunard. He's a reight un, that un is. I can dash off a letter t'him fer ye, once I've gotten away back to ship, should ye want me to?"

And completely caught unawares, Millicent's eyes dragged away from her book into his, realizing all at once that she was no longer alone in the library, and with none other than James Moody. 

"What?" the stunned lady mumbled faintly. 

And recognizing the confusion in her eyes, James remembered all at once he was still at Downton, and that he should remember what mama had always said about poshing up his way of speaking when in the presence of a gentle-lady.

"Eh, um," James scrambled his brain to try and translate for her. "If it's the way of a housemaid you wish to know, I once made the acquaintance of a shipmate in South America, who couldn't shut his mouth up, bragging that he had a mate, who knew a mate who knew a cook, who had a sister, who had a brother all her own, whose wife was only just employed in service as a matron stewardess with Cunard Shipping Line. If it pleases you, miss, I can write to this gentleman I know and ask him on your behalf more about the profession of victualling."

"Yes, thank you, Mr. Moody. I understood your meaning the first go around," Millicent said, daintily folding her written notes and slipping them between the pages of her closed book. "What I failed to understand, is why you'd assume I'd want any help from you, when I never asked for it?"

"You seemed keen on learning it, was all...and lost," James guessed. "And I know something about that sort of thing. So, I couldn't toil with not offering it to ye. What's the point of knowing anything, if you can't use it to help another along the way?...Though, if you don't mind me asking, why are you so interested in housemaids, miss?"

"It's none of your business what I read," Millicent said, dropping her copy of Persuasion by Jane Austen on top of the advice manual, and pushing the stack out of James's way to the other side of the table. "I'm not your..."

She left that sentence painfully unfinished, reminded again of those last miserable words he spoke to her in the glasshouse. Stopping herself just short of using the word "wife".

"Yours to command," she finished quietly instead.

But James's eyes were soft with understanding as he said to her, "You've nowt to fear from me, Miss Crawley. Whatever your reasons are for having that book, I won't tell a soul....Our secret, it is...Just you and I."

Leaving her struck by those same words she had spoken to him when they met as children in the graveyard.

Was it just a lucky coincidence...or did he somehow recognize her, after all these years?

James waited for her answer.

If Lady Crawley was really the girl he remembered from the graveyard, she would know those words.

If she showed any sign that she recognized them, then he would know at last that he'd finally found the one he'd been looking for after so many long years.

And if that were the truth, for the sake of feck, why wouldn't she just say--

"You shouldn't be here," Millicent told him firmly, scanning the empty library. Wary of the afternoon shadows of trees playing against the library window, as if at any moment, one of them might materialize into a snooping servant hunting for blackmail--or even worse--another Crawley. "I am alone and unchaperoned."

And unable to stand his hypocritical and maddeningly confusing gazes any longer, Millicent stood to take her leave of him. Eager to shut out James's infuriatingly beautiful winter-blue eyes that ran after in quiet pursuit of her.

"Are you asking me to leave you, Millicent?" Moody questioned her gently. "You may ask anything of me plainly, miss."

And she knew she should have stopped it there.

How dare he call her by her given name like a familiar, as if they were chappies in the schoolyard?

As if...he knew what her hearing him say it would do to her, in that charmingly working-class accent of his.

Just as if he'd spent years swearing all of his affection into every syllable of that one name.

As though he'd go under the earth to take on the cold rigid walls of class between them, and show her just how much a man could make her fall in love with the sound of her own name too, just by the way he whispered it back to her.

"If putting us both in a bad way didn't stop you from cornering me like this, I imagine sending you away won't stop you either."

"You said it yourself, Miss Crawley. Sailors are notorious gamblers. I'd take the risk on it, no matter what it is, and may the devil hold it against me," he said. "The truth of it is, I've wanted a chance to speak to you since that day in the glasshouse. I never imagined this would be my only one, but as you can see, I'm an opportunist."

"Quite," Millicent agreed, her brow perking questionably at him. "I presume then that you have something more to add on the topic of my snootishness?"

"I've come to apologize."

"I never asked for that either."

"But I want to," James said. "I know you never wish to hear from me again, but I've decided that though a snoot you may very well be, I don't give a damn.  I can't stop making these maddening comparisons of you. I need to know the truth about us. Because no matter how much I fight it, my heart swears that it loves you, Millicent." 

"How dare you," Miss Crawley set him straight. "It was only two weeks ago that your heart was someone else's, and now that you've found out I'm a Crawley and that my name is tied to some bloody fortune, suddenly you've changed your mind?" 

"Well, what am I to say for myself then?" James remarked with a coquettish wink at her. "You're a cinder for me, Miss Millicent." 

"Get out," she ordered him. 

"I was here first."

"No, his Lordship was here first, and being his lordship's niece, I hold dominance over you here." 

"Says who?"

"Says everyone!"

"Oh, is that what they tell you at your soufflé?" James returned, making that last word sound huffishly snobbish. 

"Pardon? Don't you mean a soirée?" 

"Aye, lass, just as I'd said."

"I'll be going now, Mr. Moody, and for your sake, I hope this is the last we'll be seeing of each other," she sternly informed him. "Please forget about what happened in the glasshouse, and understand unmistakably that I no longer wish to know your acquaintance. I warn you to keep your distance, or I will be forced to act accordingly."

And having nothing else to use in making good on her threat, she held her fountain pen en garde against James's chest, which truly made her feel good and powerful in the moment. Though it only made the bellicose Miss more endearing to the solidly built sailor, with only a tiny feeble pen holding them back from each other. 

"I go away to sea in two days' time," James continued, as he stepped toward her, unbridled by her menacing pen. "I intend to study as an officer, and be taken on by a White Star ship. I won't be coming back to Yorkshire. So, if there is owt you wish to tell me, Miss Crawley, you won't have another chance after this." 

"I took fencing lessons, you know. I could take both of your eyes out in one go," Millicent warned him in a whisper, as her wandering gaze advanced over the strapping, hardened seaman from the bottom-up. "Don't underestimate me." 

"I never once had," James's own whisper was husky and honest. So near to her now that Lady Crawley's back was pushed up against the bookcase firm behind her. Pinning her safely between the classic ballads of torrid erotic poetry...and him. 

Her hands still squeezed tightly around her pen, that kept her soft breasts from smashing into his rock solid core, as his gaze dallied with her stunned pretty eyes. 

Stunned, but not frightened. 

Relieved, more so, that she no longer had to hide that undid ache for him that matched the longing in his own eyes. 

Her heart pounding in breathless anticipation as Moody leaned into her, with both his hands steadied against the bookcase, so his arms rested over either of her shoulders. Caging her in such a comfortable way that made her feel rather safe than confined to her own private Bastile. His lips so dangerously close to hers now that their breaths mingled as one. She could feel every beat of his heart hard against her beared fist, as he whispered, "Even after a hundred years, I couldn't ever again take you for granted, Millie, in the same way as I did in that glasshouse. Allow me to make good by setting it right between us."

"Don't look at me that way," she beckoned him breathily. "It's driving me mad."

"How should a moneyless seaman look at a spoilt little princess as high and mighty as you, Miss Crawley?" he asked her, his tenderness in constant tension with his resentment for her highborn society. 

"Not like that. It's so cruel," she insisted. "Because I wonder if it's the same way you look at her."

"Darling, don't be a fool. That woman I told you I had loved," James confessed to her. "Was a girl from a graveyard." 

Millicent stilled. 

Her hands gradually loosening around her pen, as her eyes earnestly searched his, grappling with the realization that steadily came together for her.

"A graveyard, Mr. Moody?"

"If you are her, miss," he told her. "Then I've always just been James to you."

"James." Hearing herself say his given name aloud, rather than just in the illicit affair of her intimate fantasies, excited her more than it scared her into remembering her modesty. Even if she wanted to believe all that she was hearing, she wouldn't be damned to make the same mistakes she made with him in the glasshouse. "What exactly do you remember about a graveyard?"

James rested his head against her dark wispy curls, the golden sunset through the library window setting fire to the hints of blonde in his brown hair, as his nose only just touched hers. 

"Everything," his soft murmur tickled the tip of her nose, bringing her to chills. "I've not forgotten a moment. Since the day I met her, I've wanted to find her every year since, and thank her for never forgetting me either....Was it you, Miss Crawley? Had you come to the graveyard for me while I was at sea?"

"I don't know how to answer that. Not while knowing how it will hurt us both in the end," Millicent whispered to him. "Because if I were that girl, I could never ask you to abandon everything you love at sea for me."

"Don't worry yourself about that now. The only question that matters to me is if you love me," James told her. "I've been going mad these last two weeks thinking of the way you looked at me in that glasshouse. I'm a bloody fool, Millie. I haven't stopped regretting everything I told you, and I've come back to make it right."

"We can't talk about this now," Millicent told him. "They'll be coming down for dinner soon, and anyone could be listening." 

"Anno, I can't keep you long, but I'd be worked up in a humor all night until I've heard you say it," James replied. "Are you her, my love? Because if that is true, then I have made a terrible mistake. It was you that I meant I'm in love with. It was always you, from our very beginning. Tell me I'm not too late and that you'll still have me."

"I won't," she shut the idea down immediately, her answer burning with resentment and frustration that she knew wasn't really meant for him. But another look at him softened her into whispering more gently, "I can't have you, James."

"If you want me, Miss Crawley, I will promise myself to you, once I am done serving my indenture," he told her. "Just tell me you want me, and I vow to be yours."

"Please don't torment me with a choice I can't take."

"Is there another man who makes you feel this way?" his challenge to her was soft-spoken. "Am I too late to be him?"

"No," she couldn't lie to him about that. "There has never been another, save for you."

"Then won't you have me, Millicent?" he asked again of her. "I want to marry you straight away. I'll study law, or become a proper gentleman, or whatever it is I must do to make your family accept me. I don't care what I must do to have you for my wife. Tell me I've not lost my chance at happiness over my own ignorance."

"No, James. You don't realize what you're asking for."

"I'm asking for your hand," he said surely. "Marry me, Miss Crawley. I wanted no one but you, and that's my honest truth."

Millicent placed her finger against his lips before he said anymore.

"You can't make these promises," she stopped him. "There's no way for you to keep them. It wouldn't be easy for us to marry, even with my father's blessing."

"Then we will find a way together to live comfortably. I wouldn't be a cruel or demanding husband to you, and I intend to love you fully," James tried to convince her otherwise. "Whatever else you want from me, there's nothing I wouldn't do for you. It's as easy as that." 

"But I can't ask that of you, James," she sighed regretfully. "If you had to choose me over the sea, would you still love me in the end or only hate me for it?"

"I thought I could hate you for it, being a Crawley and all," he said. "I came here thinking I'd be damned to even try loving you, but you're all I can think of. Try as I have to fight it, I can not pretend any longer that being without you is the best course for us. So, if you are the girl I met in Scarborough years ago, please tell me the truth, before I go on searching elsewhere."

"I do not have an answer for you, James."

"Then think on this in the meantime." 

And then James Moody's lips came crushing into hers, stealing away Millicent's next breath for any counterarguments she had left to put up against him. The lingering rich roasted notes of his afternoon tea traded on her lips, mingled with a hint of cigar smoke. Making her body surrender fully into his, as their heated argument continued fervently on in a contest of kisses, each trying to one-up the other in proving whose side of this debate was the most convincing. Until James's gradually deepening kiss left her breathless as much as it left her wordless. Gently nipping at her lower lip as his own lips dragged away from her mouth to her soft cheek. All so the girl could finally let go of a long-held shuddering breath she'd been holding all the while. Having never been kissed by any man before to remember when she should be bothered by something so earthly as breathing. 

"I'll love you, no matter what should come between us," James committed himself to her. "Please accept me, Millicent."

"James," she implored him. "Please don't tease me like this."

And much to her regret, James would do anything if she asked him for it. 

He let go of her.

Steadily pulling himself away as he took a step away from Millicent. Until it was only that pleaful look in his beautiful eyes left to make her second guess herself. 

Damn being a lady. Damn her position in society. Damn settling for what others decided was best for her. She wished to be all her own and with him. 

And if being Lady Millicent Crawley was the only thing keeping them apart now, then damn that name too. 

Damn it all to hell, if her life wasn't one with him that she could choose for herself. 

Except...for one more damning thing she hadn't counted on.

Life as "Lady Crawley " was so simple and straightforward before, with all of her decisions already made for her. Attend finishing school, mature into a lady, become a wife, become a mother...and then die a lady.

It was the same exhaustingly "safe way to live" for too many girls like her, and that might have worked just fine for Lady Millicent Crawley. 

But the same couldn't be said for Mrs. Millicent Moody.

This new path for herself...it was so full of choices that only an hour ago weren't hers to make. 

And many of them were frightening and confusing and tore her between two realities of the same dream that ruefully contradicted each other. 

To be a woman all her own in the world...and to love unreservedly James Paul Moody. 

Without her Crawley name to stop her anymore, there was only one ocean left to cross between her and James. Keeping those two precious halves of her dream from ever touching each other.

Neither Millicent nor James had reached their 20th year yet. 

Though they felt they loved each other deeply...how much more grounded and happier that love could be once they were allowed to become the people they dreamed to be.

And once Millicent decided that there was only one way she could ensure they'd both be happy in the end, she stepped into James's arms again. 

Her fingers entwining with the warmth of his, as she drew him closer to her. 

Rather tenderly, he thought, as if he were everything in this world that meant anything to her.

And nothing prepared James for the gentle way she rested her head against his chest, allowing him to realize what it felt like to protect something so precious to him, as his nose lightly graze the crook of her neck. Having never done anything so intimate with anyone before her, James followed his heart into it. His eyes closing to the buzzing warmth sweeping over him, with every part of his body that surrendered to hers.

How effortless, it was, to be with her like this. 

How much he would miss her at sea. 

"I will marry you," she vowed to him. "I'd be very happy to become your wife someday, James...But not now...There are still things we both want for ourselves in the meantime. And no matter how happy we make each other, we will always be haunted by what we never got to accomplish. And so, after you've become the officer you hope to be, and you've made your name with White Star...Should you still love me the same, I will meet you in America after a year's time. Find yourself a ship that'll bring you to me at port in New York, near the Statue of Liberty. I'll wait for you there. Promise me you'll meet me there?"

James squeezed her tightly against him, leaving a soft peck against the loosen curls around her ear. 

"One year it is then," her sailor gave her his word. "I promise to meet you there. I wouldn't miss it for the world, Millie."

Chapter Text

I meant to keep that promise...I wanted more than anything to catch you there in time.

James pined after the memory quietly, as he sat with his harmonica to his lips by the window of Miss Amberflaw's little apartment, quietly watching the cold afternoon rain chime against the glass.

Emily paused at her hemming of James's new Target trousers. 

The wailing of her sewing machine coming to a gradual stop when the soft airy notes of James's harmonica broke her deep concentration.

Captivated by the first few notes of a song she'd heard before, but had never heard it played with so much heart, that it sounded almost hauntingly intimate for her. 

Nearer, my God, to Thee

And the slow, beautiful way James made his harmonica sing the dark timbre of those melancholy notes made something in her heartsick, as she looked up from her work to listen to him. 

Realizing James still hadn't moved an inch from her sliding door since an hour ago. 

The officer dressed casually in a cozy alabaster henley on top of dark navy dress trousers. Leaning his back against her bookcase, as he quietly looked out her sliding door at the gray late morning outside. His morning "cuppa" left untouched and chilled near his navy socked feet. And knowing what meticulous attention James Moody always paid to his personal grooming, his bare feet struck Millie as-

'Odd...No fancy shoes today?'

In fact, it seemed James wasn't his usual basket of cheer since hot coco last night. 

Besides a quiet "Good morning to you, miss" and a "Fancy a cuppa, love?" James hadn't said much else to her, once he found that spot by her sliding door. 

"I know that song," Emily said to him gently, once his harmonica had gone silent again. "Do you remember where you heard it?"

"The last one, it was," James answered her distantly. "Just before she went down that night."

And feeling so sorry that there was nothing she could say to make him forget the memory of it again, or bring Titanic back, Emily did the only thing she knew best in that moment.

Dragging the thread she was working on through the sewing machine's thread cutter, and gathering up a thimble, needle, and navy spool to continue her work by hand. Walking over to the sliding door and joining the officer cross-legged on the floor beside him, as she watched the rain fall silently out their window view. 

"I'm not used to you being so quiet like this," she said to him. "I love hearing you talk. Tell me more about 1912."

"What do you fancy hearing, miss?"

"Anything. I don't really care what," Emily said. "Everything always sounds so glamourous and simple where you're from. Definitely a lot easier than the way things are here." 

"Not everything, miss," James answered her quietly. 

"I'm just surprised you haven't asked me more questions yet."

"How do you mean?" James asked her. "I love asking you questions. Had I my way about it, I'd hear you talk about even water for hours on end. There's not a question I wouldn't like to ask you, if it gave me another chance to listen to ye explain plain and simple things." 

"Well, more about the future, I mean," she said. "Isn't that what anyone else would ask? Don't you want to know what happened 10 or 20 years after Titanic sank? Lottery numbers? World Wars? Women's rights? That kind of thing?"

"Oh, right," James nodded. "No, miss, I can't say I'd like to know any of what the future holds--or once held, I should say, after I was gone."

"Is that so?" Millie found herself more intrigued by his answer. "You're not even a little curious about what to expect, if you ever figure out how to go back there."

"Of course, as anyone would be," James admitted, as he absently toyed with his harmonica in one hand. "But I'd rather go on not knowing, I suppose."

"Aren't you tempted?"

"Well, look at me, miss. I am proof that in only a blink of an eye, the future can change unexpectedly," he explained. "And so, I feel it really would serve no good knowing what's to come in the world, had I lived after Titanic. Because the only thing that matters to me now is how I treasure all that is my present. And I should say, I rather like the way it's all going for me now." 

"Hm," Emily nodded, pushing her sewing needle back into his hem. "I guess you're right, James."

James turned back to the window, his blue eyes taking on a grayer shade in the light of the cloudy overcast. 

"Perhaps it's for the best that you called off today," he told her. "I'd only worry for you...walking alone in this storm with no one to accompany you."

"Why would you?" Millie asked him, drawing out her needle from another stitch. "I've walked alone through plenty of storms before."

"Aye, of course you have, stout as you are," he finally gave into a smile. "Even so...how does it rain so often here?"

"It's not always this bad, trust me," Millie assured him, cutting the last thread. "Just ever since you showed up here. It's like you brought all the rain from Scarborough with you. I'm ok with that, though. I like it better when it rains."

"It's rather melancholy, I'd say."

"How so?"

"Not the rain itself, that is,' James said. "It just reminds me so much of home."

"Is that what's been on your mind all day? Home?"

"Suppose a part of me will always miss that old life of mine," James confessed. "I can't ever put it into words."

Millie looked thoughtfully out at the rain, trying to imagine for herself that place that he loved so dearly. 

"I'm grateful to you though, miss," James broke the silence again. "You're as good at listening as you are at explaining things." 

Millie smiled back at him. 

"Don't worry, James," she assured the officer. "The sun will come back again."

And how could he go on feeling so mardy, when she smiled so much like the sunlight he was missing?

"Anno it must," he answered the Miss lightly. "And when it does, I'll be here waiting." 

And watching Millie neatly fold away his freshly hemmed trousers, another idea struck James. 

"Do tell me one thing about the future though," James said to her. "Are there anymore colored moving pictures like your historical dramas?"

"I'm glad you asked," Millie told him. "I was just thinking it's about time we got out of this gloomy apartment. Walk with me?"

Chapter Text

The day James Paul Moody discovered what a fuss he could make over getting himself ready for a little jaunt to the "movies" with Miss Millie, was also the day he realized he'd unwittingly put on two of the same glove.

For God's sake, man, pull yourself together. It's only a moving picture. Not as if you've asked the girl to marry ye.

But no sooner had he turned away from the sitting room to find the match for his day gloves did a ruckus sound at the apartment's street door, stilling him in his steps. 

Knock, knock, knock.

Strong and urgent, it was. 

And certainly out of turn for this hour of the evening. 

And at that moment, Captain Wentworth--who had not removed himself from the chaise lounge since the rain started, not even for a crumb of his Meow mix--came to life instantly, perking his ears up with his owl-eyes fixed on the door.

He gave a soft meow, as if he himself couldn't believe the knocking had happened, dragging himself into a stretch out of his nap, and dropping off the chaise lounge to curiously investigate it.

It was unusual for the old man, James thought.

The cat had never seemed so taken by the door until now. Standing on his hind legs as he dragged his claws across the lower hinge. It looked almost desperate...hopeful, even...as if he knew there was something on the other side he'd been waiting so long to meet.

"Who could that be making so much ado about nothin'?" James wondered under his breath at the bold as brass, unannounced visitor at their door.

Because after calling off from cat-sitting to movie with Miss Amberflaw, James wasn't expecting any of his cat charges that evening.

"Pardon me, Miss Millie," he called out to the Miss, who was still in the lavatory getting herself ready. "There is a caller at your door. Are you willing to see anyone this evening?"

"Probably just Mrs. Mendez.  The neighbor next door with the parakeet. Could you pass her that quilt on the table?" Millie called from the bathroom. "Tell her I'll be right out." 

Knock, knock, knock.

"Mrs. Mendez has got quite an arm on herself, doesn't she?" James remarked, neatly draping said folded quilt over his arm for Miss Millie's customer as he made for the door.

And with a voice that would have given even Mr. Carson a run for his money, the cat-butler stood proper at the door and called to the visitor on the other side, "Good evening. It is on Miss Emily Amberflaw's behalf that I ask who is knocking?"

Though no one answered him.

Leaving James no other choice but to unlock the latch on the door and meet the blusterous Cain-raising rascal head-on.

But stepping out onto the porch, James found no such rascal standing there.

Not a soul. 

"'Ello?" called he, turning his head about in search of the rough-handed drop-in. "Anyone for us?"

Still...as mad keen as the caller had been to do in Miss Amberflaw's door, no one stepped forward to reveal themselves and claim the honor.

And just as James presumed that the unhinged visitor had realized their own mistake in laboring upon Miss Emily's door under the delusion of having the correct address, he turned back inside.

Though, in afterthought, stopped suddenly again. 

Meeting by happenstance that faint hint in the air of coconut, ylang-ylang and citrus, that made him think instantly of...

Macassar oil?

A men's hair tonic he'd recognized as the same one he'd hurriedly combed through his own hair   back home. Though it promised nobbut the best of quality in customer satisfaction as a gentleman's hair gel, the miry stuff had also promised to start off a man's day to work in a bad way, should one unwittingly get it on one's hands and touch the backs of some high and mighty superintendent's office chairs and furniture.

Surely...it couldn't be that, for all the luxuries laid at the feet of the modern man, it was that old mucky stuff that had withstood the currents of time and outlived him into the future?

Curious to solve that baffling mystery, James peeked out of the door again, hoping to catch a gander at the fellow who appeared to have such exceptionally classic tastes.

And then, like so many ghosts that refused to die with him, the smell of Macassar oil carried James back to a night much like this one.

A night, he remembered, dressed as a proper gentleman, waiting with his heart raring to go with the one he loved, in that life they very nearly almost had.

~

Upon his last night at Downton, James waited for Millicent in the laurel green and gold of the earl's drawing room. Just as the hors d'oeuvre of truffled wild mushroom tartlets, fried oysters wrapped in bacon, and Gentleman's Relish on buttered toast were being served to all the guests before the second course of dinner was announced. 

Watching the hour count down to minutes on the grandfather clock lightly ticking away in front of him. Preparing himself for Miss Crawley's signal, when they would retire from the drawing room together, and James would face her father at last to formally ask for Millicent's hand.

'Steady now, Jim,' he coached himself. 'Finding the right one to marry was the hard part. The rest is penny plain.'

Though, if what both he and Millicent wanted was each other, no matter what should come between them...then why should he feel so on edge tonight?

As if....something were off color. 

Perhaps, it was because he couldn't stop thinking of what she had meant by her note.

Miss Lavinia Levinson, that is.

Shortly after entering the drawing room and greeting his father, His Lordship, and Sir James, James was caught by Mr. Barrow again.

"Care for another drink, Mr. Moody?" he'd asked the earl's dashing guest toothily.

But before James could decline the offer, the footman passed a glass to him anyway, in a most peculiar fashion. Holding the base of the glass in his palm as he did it, rather than at the stem, which might have had Mr. Carson shitting bricks, had he seen the footman do it. Barrow's fingers brushed lightly across James's upturned ones, as James felt a folded note drop into his palm from the base of the glass.

"Compliments of Miss Lavinia Levinson," Barrow nodded to him. "If there is...anything else I can get you, sir, I won't be far off."

And leaving James with a smile that lasted only just a moment longer than it should've, Barrow moved on to the earl's next guest. "Champagne for you, sir?"

Leaving James at leisure to briefly make eye contact with the stunning blonde talking to Lady Sybil across the room. Her blue eyes twinkling a midnight shade darker than his, as she and Sybil met his eyes.

And so intentional were the ladies' glances his way, that James couldn't help but suspect that by accepting the glass from Barrow, he had unwittingly walked into a secret parallel plot of sorts, known only to the pair of ladies intensely watching him from across the room. 

Until Sybil broke eye contact with him, and turned her attention fully back on Miss Levinson, as if nothing extraordinary had happened. 

"How is Uncle Harold, by the way?" Sybil carried on their conversation. "Is he well in America?"

"Oh, you know papa," Lavinia said, unfolding her white lacey fan as she languidly dragged her eyes away from James. Having lingered on Mr. Moody only just a moment longer than she should have. "Still falling over himself about yachts. 'Bigger, faster yachts', he says. Honestly, I was lucky to get Cousin Millie's invitation when I did. He almost got his way marrying me off to a fishboat captain."

James turned his back on the ladies again, facing the grandfather clock as he slowly unfolded the note so discreetly delivered to him.

It was cryptically brief, which somehow, made the words more ominous to him. 

 'If you really love her, then when the time comes, follow my lead'.

And James barely had any time to question what the direful note meant before his attention was drawn to a man's voice passing behind him.

"Of course, you mentioned you had a sister, but you never said she was all a neat bit. What a proper English rose."

The singing praise of James's Lady Crawley came just a stone's throw away from him, where he'd earlier spotted Patrick Crawley and his old-time fellow from university, Mr. E. Getty.

That Edward Getty, who had abruptly accepted Patrick's invitation to dinner that afternoon, and who the lads called 'Napolean' because the beer-bottle was as 'pudgy as a baby, all of a piece'. Of which they meant the piece part quite literally, as the full height of his head could readily be used as the average man's armrest.

But what he lacked in height, he made up for in the unstoppable way he twice attempted to bribe Mr. Carson himself into switching his name card with Lady Mary, so that he could skip a seat at dinner away from Patrick's cousin, Lavinia Levinson--next to whom he'd been purposefully seated--and get a seat closer to Millicent and Sybil.

Though he liked a woman with a little fight in her, Miss Levinson was much too "American buccaneer" for his tastes, and Lady Mary was much too an ice queen (not to mention, too lofty a target for his stature) and Lady Edith was--well--lacking that certain demeanor belonging to an absolute Athena that lit his pipe burning like none other.

So he set his eyes on Sybil and Millicent, the sweet middling ground of his ravishing fetishes, figuring that he could at least corner one of them before the night was over.

And since Sybil was guarded closely by Lady Mary, Getty put his bet on the easier target with no scary older sister to hunt him down later.

What luck then that upon turning to the drawing room door, Lady Millicent was already walking toward him. Her figure chucking him all of a heap, full enough to burst her stay-lace under that pretty ribbon weaved around her lace collar, like she was walking Christmas. Wearing a gold satin silk underdress, and a romantic fluttering sky blue chiffon overdress tied with a white lace applique. Her soft melted caramel curls charmingly twisted up into an artsy bun weaved with a string of pearls and a sapphire jeweled hair pin of Sakura flowers. Greeting each of her familiars with a soft 'How do you do?', as she made her way toward their side of the drawing room.

"Be a good man now, Pat," Getty implored his old friend. "I beg you to introduce us."

"And why should I?" Patrick back-answered him. "We may be old swim fellows, but it does not mean we should be brother-in-laws."

"I see then it isn't just the lady I must win over," Getty said. "In that case, allow me to court you, Patrick."

"As if you could ever match my expectation. What you have your eyes set on is the closest thing in this world to me. And no man would ever like being that close to me," Patrick warned him quietly. "However, should you insist on playing your bid, I will make the introduction. As long as we have an understanding that she is still my sister, not some whore you can corner as you did at university. I would not stop at killing a man, as you know." 

"Ha!" Getty grunted nervously. "Aha, ha!...Ha."

"Does that amuse you, Getty? Not nearly as much as it amuses me, I assure you."

And then Patrick's eyes wandered toward the grandfather clock to his left, recognizing the back of James Moody's despicable head.

After what Patrick had been told about the goings-on in the library yesterday, it seemed the bastardly cad still had cheek enough to keep showing his face around here.

For the sake of Millie's reputation, Patrick had held his peace to starve the rumors, going back and forth with himself on how to cure his sister of her mania for that water dog, and rid Downton of this tedious "Moody Problem". 

But for James Moody to disregard all matter of decency, and walk among them now at dinner, as if he hadn't seduced Millicent into being ravished by him in the corner of a library!

The sailor's entitlement was beyond inexcusable. 

It was time to put James Moody down.

Though the rumor he'd heard was only second-hand circumstantial evidence, Patrick would make it enough.

He would choke out every detail that vilified James Moody's name, ready to drag the sailor's reputation through the mud to destroy any hope of James becoming a sea officer, in order to ensure the rogue hung for ever daring to touch his sister. 

Patrick wanted nothing more than to make Moody feel every crushing moment of the punishment he had in store for him.

But first, he needed to set the board.

After all, a lady's reputation is a delicate business, and Patrick convinced himself that his little sister couldn't have known any better in the arms of a dishy playboy like James Moody. 

And as her older brother, it was up to him now to protect her from the danger she was becoming to herself, and save the girl from her damning naivete. 

Seizing his chance, Mr. Crawley turned to catch Millicent, stopping her just before she was mere steps away from greeting James.

"Millie?" Patrick called after her, with his fellow from university following behind, eager as a bumble-puppy.

"Meet Mr. Edward Getty," Patrick carelessly threw the introduction at her. "A distant nephew of Lord Cavendish, who you know, is currently serving as secretary of the prime minister. We attended university together. An educated, respectable gentleman of society."

And Patrick's keen emphasis on the word gentleman was not lost on James.

"How do you do, Mr. Getty?" Millicent politely acknowledged him.

Though the raised brow she threw at her brother for being forced into an introduction she never wanted to make was not lost on Patrick. 

"The pleasure is most certainly mine, Miss Crawley," Getty returned the greeting wholeheartedly.

Though...it was not lost on Edward Getty, that Millicent's wandering gaze found its way back to the grandfather clock, where by a fat chance, one of the lawyers from Scarborough was standing. 

A man who, only a week before, had mortified Getty when James informed him that he wasn't actually a brandy-getting-footman and that the "soddin' nephew of the soddin' prime minister's feckin' secretary" could sod himself off. Which inspired Getty to the conclusion that James being a lawyer was just as well as being a brandy-getting-footman, and for that reason, Getty would rather die on a hill drawn-and-quartered than ever apologize to Mr. Moody. 

Even so, why Lady Millicent's gaze skated in that common riff-raff's direction, Getty couldn't guess. He thought it certainly beneath him that any lawyer would put up any serious competition to him.

"Will you excuse me?" Millicent begged her pardon from the introduction. "I'm feeling a bit parched."

"Bless me, yes, you little canary! For all the heat you put off just standing there, I should say so!" Getty agreed fully. "Allow me to go fetch you a glass of water, Miss Crawley."

But Patrick held up his hand to dowse Getty's fire. 

"The staff do well enough on their own, Mr. Getty."

"Though not nearly fast enough," Getty insisted breathily, his eyes drinking Millicent in. "I'd hate to see the lady faint of thirst."

"Getty."

"Yes, Patrick?"

"Belt it up."

"Yes, Patrick."

"Did you enjoy your excursion to the library yesterday?" Patrick asked Millicent suddenly. "I heard you'd promised to show Lavinia the countryside, but she said she had misplaced you. It's so easy to lose yourself in Uncle Robert's house....Isn't it?"

And at that moment, Millicent's shoulders appeared to stiffen, as she and Patrick stared back at each other, trying to find the bluff in the other's eyes.

"Lavinia was still busy powdering herself, and I'm afraid I'm of no use with those kinds of things," Millicent said. "So, I went down to read in the meantime."

"To read?...All by yourself?... Aren't you darling?" Patrick smiled at her. "Well, I'm sure Mr. Getty would love to hear all about it."

"Right," Getty agreed eagerly. "I have a rather impressive library at home. Perhaps you'd like to see it sometime, Miss Crawley. It's all politics, philosophy, and horses, though. Not any topic a lady might know anything about--Ha! Though I do keep the occasional work on absolute virtue, wifehood, and childrearing, in case a lady is interested in the correct fashion."

"I gather you don't entertain many ladies in your library, Mr. Getty," Milie's forced smile was halfway between politeness and a wince.

"Perhaps we might change that, Miss Crawley," Getty returned. "I'd be honored to take your recommendations."

"Indeed, Getty is behind himself in what makes good literature, and by a great deal, I'm afraid. Perhaps, you have an idea he might draw inspiration from," Patrick threw in his own suggestion. "Do tell, what were you so taken by reading yesterday? Getty would be happy to take note."

Millicent's cheeks flushed rosier.

"It was...well, uh, it was--um--It's complicated."

"Ah, one should expect that from a lady once she's got a mind to take on reading," Edward Getty quipped. "Perhaps I can be of assistance to you, Miss Crawley. If you would kindly show me the book, I'll do my best to enlighten you on the subject."

"I wouldn't trouble you, Mr. Getty."

"There's nothing on God's green earth that troubles Mr. Getty," Patrick said good-heartedly, slamming his friend on the shoulder. "Isn't that right, sir?"

"Certainly, I assure you, no trouble at all," Getty nodded earnestly, like a good lad.

"You see? He says it's no trouble," Patrick reemphasized. "So, what book was it, Millie?"

Cornering Millicent once again, as she knew the kind of Etiquette and Advice she'd been reading was not the one she could speak of to her brother. 

"It was a love story," she answered him, knowing she could never call that a lie. "I've been reading Persuasion by Jane Austen."

Getty's forehead furrowed in confusion, and Patrick's lopsided grin drooped even deeper into...disappointment?

"A love story?" he asked his sister, as his cool sea-green eyes dragged away from hers, glancing over her shoulder toward the grandfather clock, before finding their way back to hers. 

"And an Austen, of all the silly books," Patrick grunted. "Tell me...Exactly how complicated could this love story be?"

"For a woman, I can only imagine," Getty chuckled. "I hope tonight we can talk more about this...'love story' of yours, Miss Crawley?"

"If you would please excuse me," Millicent nodded a quick pardon to him, abruptly forcing an end to their conversation and detouring around them. 

Leaving the gentlemen resolved to accept her leave, as Getty longingly watched her go. 

"I do hope it wasn't something I said?" he mumbled worriedly to Patrick. 

What is more...it didn't help much that that Scarborough twonk she couldn't tear her eyes away from was still lurking among them, parading around as a gentleman, and distracting the serving staff and ladies alike.

As far as Getty was concerned, Lady Millicent Crawley was his claim, and he'd be damned to lose any bench points for her against the likes of a sailor.

"And what a tyke that crate-egg peasant is! If you do not stop this, we'll have another Mathew problem on our hands," Getty mumbled to Patrick. "You would allow your sister's cunt to be ravaged by that sea biscuit mongrel and carry his fucking bastards? I can only imagine what they'd say about you at the Harrogate Club."

"The Moodys are my uncle's guests," Patrick said. "Without troubling you with details, I've given my father my word that I won't interfere with the solicitors' work here."

"What's come over Sir James and his lordship?" Getty asked. "The codgers become evermore senile with old age. That country twit is not dining with us tonight, is he? And certainly, not near your sister?"

"No need to worry," Patrick said. "Millicent would never cheapen herself for the likes of him."

"You may tell yourself whatever story you like, because she is your sister, but I can see right through a woman."

"Well then," Patrick decided with another sip of his champagne. "I suppose we'll have to find her an alternative, won't we? You know I've always looked at you as a brother."

Getty chuckled. "My, haven't we changed our tune?"

"I'd turn in my grave before I ever let James Moody have her," Patrick said. "If you want her, I will make my father come to his senses. He'll want connections, though."

"Well, that low-born git isn't the only one with those," Getty said. "And Scarborough isn't the only card on the political table. Give me enough time, and I'll get Sir James God and country, if you promise me Millicent."

"Good man," Patrick nodded his agreement with their informal contract. "I have a plan...When the time comes, follow my lead."

And as the other guests filed out of the drawing room upon announcement of the second course, James lingered behind with the grandfather clock.  Until at last, he knew the touch of the one he'd been waiting for all night.

A secret brief exchange that lasted only a moment between them, but nonetheless, was worth every hour of his anticipation. 

Her light gloved hand dragging tenderly across his shoulder as she walked by him. 

Though for all her heels, she still proved no match to James, leaving her to stand on tip-toe against his lofty height as she tugged him by his dinner jacket sleeve to bring him a little closer to her. Making it easier for the lady to lean in toward his ear and secretly whisper something into it that gradually won over the sailor's smile. 

~

"Did I make you wait too long for me?"

James turned on the porch back to the apartment door, feeling the light tap of Emily's fingers against his shoulder. 

His eyes meeting the Miss standing in the doorway behind him. Her soft brown hair let down and curled in loose twirls over the shoulders of her smart oatmeal peacoat, with a black trimmed collar and two rows of black buttons fastened over the hem of a glittery indigo wrap-around dress that fell just above her knees. Her elegantly defined creamy legs quite smashing underneath it all, in dainty black Mary Jane wedges.

And seeing James dressed to kill, as usual, in his fancy day gloves, evening necktie, and sharp derby hat, the officer made quite the impression on the lady. So much so, that Millie thought it fitting to do a playful little curtsy for him. 

"Kind sir," she greeted him in a mock lofty air. 

And with a much more practiced grace than Millie had expected, James leaned forward in a reverent bow at his waist, cradling Emily's hand in his large palm. Drawing her hand close to his lips as a sign of his utmost regard for her.

"My lady," he returned the greeting, squeezing her hand warmly in his. "You might've easily been a shooting star at sea."

Emily had meant her curtsy jokingly, but upon seeing James's timeless gesture, she couldn't fake the effect it had on her, even if she wanted to play it off. 

"You didn't do too bad yourself," she blushed. "Are you ready for this then?"

"Why, Miss Millie," his voice softened huskily as he fell over himself again for those pretty eyes of hers. "I've been ready for ages, I have."

And something in the devoted way he said it made Emily wonder, for a fleeting moment, if he only meant it as a figure of speech. 

"After you, Miss Millie," he stood aside for her to pass onto the porch. "I will follow." 

"By the way, was that Mrs. Mendez at the door then?" Millie asked him, as she stepped out of the apartment. 

"Dunno," James answered, closing the door behind them. "There was nobody there. Suppose I might've put them off."

"Probably," Emily shrugged. "Anyway, we'd better get going. We're already late." 

Chapter Text

At last, their moment had come. 

James stood beside Millicent in His Lordship's private drawing room, where Sir James had asked them to meet him after dinner. 

And when Mr. Carson closed the door behind Mr. Moody and Miss Crawley for utmost privacy, so that none of the staff or guests snooping by could hear their conversation, Sir James sat down his brandy and left his seat behind at the blazing fireplace. 

His face as cold and unreadable as a stone as he watched Millicent take James's arm and entwine her fingers with his.

"Millie?" Sir James questioned her. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Papa, I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding between Mr. Moody and I," Millicent said to him. "And now that we've sorted it all out, I hope you'll allow me to explain what really happened-"

"Well, somebody had better!" Sir James declared suddenly, his face reddening bright with fury. "This is far beyond all imaginable! A misunderstanding? I'd say it's all very clear what's happened here!"

Both Millicent and James stared dumbfounded back at him, at a loss for why he appeared so angry when neither of them had even said a word yet. 

"Mr. Carson!" Sir James called out to the butler. "I speak for myself and Robert in asking that you please remove Millicent from the same room as this savage ruffian, and confine her to her room until I've the mind to deal with her." 

"Certainly, sir."

"I beg your pardon?" Millicent puzzledly questioned her father. "What's the meaning of this, papa?"

"Don't speak," Sir James firmly cut her off. "God forbid that you should ruin yourself more by speaking. Carson. Remove her at once." 

"What's going on?" James asked worriedly, as Millicent's hand tore away from his, as she was coerced into being escorted out of the room by the staff. 

Just as Lord Grantham, Patrick Crawley, and Edward Getty entered next. 

"What is this?" James asked again, his eyes darting around to the Crawley men who surrounded him. 

"After all the hospitality we've shown you and your father here," Sir James snapped at him. "How dare you show your face to me after what you'd done to her?"

"I've not the slightest idea what you could mean, sir," James answered. "What have I done?"

"Is it true?" Lord Grantham questioned him. "Did you force yourself onto Millicent in the library yesterday?"

"What?" James answered, sorely taken aback. "Force myself onto her? I did not, sir."

"You rabble scum. How dare you," Patrick damned him next. "First, you violate my sister, and then you lie about it to His Lordship in his own house? Is this the all courageous and respectable Royal Navy you regard so highly, Uncle Robert? You allowed this seadog to stay here as one of us, and he ruined my sister the first chance he had." 

"I would never do such a thing to her," James insisted. "I could never hurt her in that way, or any woman, for that matter. I'm telling you, the truth, it is!"

"I saw it all with my own eyes," Getty nodded surely to each of the Downton lords. "The rogue had the poor lamb pressed up against a bookcase as he had his lecherous way with her. I can attest before God that you lewdly molested her!"

"That's not at all what happened," James insisted. 

"Then please, explain what did happen, Mr. Moody," Lord Grantham said to him, his eyes pleading with James to cooperate. "I know you and your father very well, dear boy. I want to believe that you are still an honorable young man, and that I would not expect such misconduct from you. I am willing to hear the full story, if it will convince me that you are still the man I believe you are." 

"Say something, for God's sake! Save yourself some dignity!" Sir James demanded of James. "Did you or did you not seduce my daughter into that library and convince her to elope with you?"

"Against her reputation? Why would I ever risk such a thing?" James argued back. "I came here with the understanding that you encouraged our marriage, and I had intended to ask you for Miss Crawley's hand properly." 

"You brazen scally," Sir James declared. "Did you think, that after putting your sullied hands on my daughter, that I would agree to you marrying her? I have since agreed to see her marry Mr. Getty, who is far more suitable as an equal of her standing. I'd certainly never allow my daughter to marry an uncouth, ill-bread sailor so far beneath her."

James glanced again at Edward and Patrick, noting that Patrick was doing not so well a job to keep that hidden sneer off his face.

"You bastard," James named him. "You know fully it isn't true." 

"Will you not confess, dear boy?" Lord Grantham asked him. 

"I did not force myself on her!" James declared. "I love her!"

"Dear God," Patrick remarked. "Is that not enough of a confession for you, Uncle?"

"Why, he has become infatuated with her," Sir James concluded, appalled by the passion in the young man's heated confession. "It is exactly as I feared." 

"Please, Mr. Moody, just tell us what really happened, so we may avoid any more harm coming to my niece," Lord Grantham gave James one last chance to profess. "Did you take her honor from her?"

"With all due respect, your lordship, this is madness," James objected.

"And I say let the punishment fit the crime," Patrick remarked again. "The rotter deserves what's coming to him."

"Damn me, should I ever let you try!" James's father could be heard booming from the entrance, as he marched into the drawing room with Miss Lavinia Levinson striding in behind him. 

"Who let this man in here?" Patrick demanded of the footmen guarding the door. "Wasn't I clear enough that this is a private matter and no one should be let in?"

"As if I wouldn't catch on to this cruel conspiracy pitted against my son?" Mr. Moody preached, turning the whole drawing room into his court room as he slammed down his case. "James is innocent. The only ruffian I can speak confidently of is you, James Crawley! And I am no better, I'm afraid, for willingly letting my son become prey to your corrupt political impetus." 

And gradually, James began to see it too.

How clear it was that Sir James had suddenly lost interest in a marriage between James and Millicent, in favor of Patrick's dog, Mr. Getty. Though, rather than admit he had proposed the idea to begin with, and be forced to follow through with it, Lord Crawley was ready to throw James's reputation under the hull to free himself from keeping his word. 

It pained James to realize, at last, that Millicent would've never truly been his in the end, so long as Sir James had a higher bidder to hold out for. 

"If no one else will defend Mr. Moody's character, I will," Miss Lavinia Levinson asserted herself strongly to the menfolk around her. "I see there's been a little mix-up, and I am here to set the record straight."

Leaving Getty glowering after her. 

Damn that American busybody, Miss Levinson!

How very unlucky that everything changed once that meddling Lavinia got involved. No doubt it was her who went and dragged the elder Mr. Moody into this. 

"You were not required here," Patrick informed his meddling lady cousin. 

"Suppose it's great fun for all of you," Lavinia persisted. "All you big powerful lords ganging up on this one poor man. I'm ashamed of all of you. Let's not hurry to conclusions before knowing the honest truth. There's no need to ruin Mr. Moody over a simple confusion." 

And without any fair warning, she stole her place next to James Moody and held his hand in hers. 

"The truth is," she went on bravely, though James caught the slight tremor of nervousness in her voice as she stepped between him and the lords. Holding on tightly to the hand of a man she hardly knew, but couldn't allow him or her cousin to take the fall. "It was I that Mr. Getty saw with Mr. Moody in the library. And he was not ravaging me. It was lovemaking."

The room stilled around her in stunned silence. 

"W-what?" James whispered to her, unable to guess what she was playing at. 

But Lavinia squeezed his hand with hers, as if to remind him of the desperate note she had delivered to him just before dinner. 

"You?" Patrick called his cousin's bluff. "I daresay not. The staff who informed me of the incident was very clear that it was-"

"And now that I've confessed what happened in the library, I can't keep hiding the rest of it," Lavinia went on, ignoring Patrick. "The truth about it is, Mr. Moody and I are engaged to be married."

James gradually lost the color in his face. 

"M-married?"

"Don't you remember, darling?" Lavinia smiled sweetly at him, though the look in her eyes continued to plead with him. "Yesterday, we were so lost in a frenzy of passion against that bookcase, that you begged me to be your wife and I happily accepted you. You said you couldn't get enough for the taste of me, the way I kissed you back." 

"Good God!" Getty exhaled excitedly under his breath, barely containing himself beside a hot and silent Patrick. "How did I ever sleep on a minx like her?"

"I'll admit, after being offered marriage by someone as handsome as Mr. Moody, I got a little carried away in my gratitude," Lavinia said blushingly. "I'm American, after all. I'm still getting used to what is proper and what isn't around here."

"Is that true?" Lord Grantham asked James. "Did you give Miss Levinson an offer of marriage?"

"No, I did not-"

Lavinia squeezed James's hand harder. So tightly, in fact, that his fingers with numb and prickly after it.  

And because he was in no better position in saving Millicent's reputation from the damning accusations her brother had framed against him, James had no choice but to trust Miss Levinson and play along for the time being. 

"That is to say, I did not wish to announce it publicly," James finally rounded off his statement. "Cutting above Lady Millicent's coming-out ball, that is." 

"Well then," Lord Grantham said, a hint of suspicion in his tone, though he would not unravel it further for the sake of keeping the peace. "It seems congratulations is in order then.  Have you set a day for the wedding? I should say, considering the circumstances, we should hope for it sooner rather than later."

Chapter Text

"It's kind of a tragic love story," Emily tried again to explain it to James, as they stood there on the sidewalk together. 

Gazing up at the movie poster outside the cinema, with Kate Winslet looking down over Titanic's portside, and Leonardo Dicaprio leaning onto her shoulder. 

"Supposedly, the movie is based on a true story, from a diary written by Rose Calvert, who sailed on the Titanic when she was 17. Kate Winslet plays her as this rich girl, who is engaged to a man she doesn't love, and feels trapped as a woman in upper class society. Until she meets Leo, a guy with literally just '10 bucks in his pocket', and falls in love with him onboard the ship. Mind you, in just 3 days, but you're supposed to overlook that detail, because it's obviously very practical. Anyway, she leaves her life behind as a rich girl and heads out for the horizon because she damn well feels like it. Oh, and at some point in the movie, Titanic sinks...Sorry, on second thought, maybe we shouldn't. I can't exactly promise you a documentary here." 

"You don't reckon it could happen?" James asked her. "A love story like theirs?"

Emily gave a little shrug.

"It's just a movie," she said. "Of course, I want to believe in a story like that, but I can't speak for any woman of 1912. I can only guess that choosing to love him in the end was probably way more complicated for her than that." 

"Perhaps you're right. Quite complicated indeed," James agreed quietly. "How does it end for her then, in this moving picture?"

"She makes it to New York on the Carpathia," Emily answered. "And the rest is history."

"Oh?" James's voice perked optimistically. "Suppose then that the end is still the beginning for her?"

Emily passed him a smile, but left the answering of his question to chance, as she turned to lead their way to the ticket booth. 

It was April 17th. 

A season, James realized, for "fanatics". 

Never would he have imagined that simply being a crew member of the Titanic made him a celebrity in some worldwide fan club of 2022, or suchlike. 

Why did it seem that everyone of the future was so infatuated with his ship, that might've easily become grandly mediocre fast in his day, and which ultimately became a ship that didn't very well 'ship' in the end, as it should have? 

Weren't there other wonders one could make a fuss about? Like the opus debut of the Wright Flyer, or that bloke he'd been reading about in the papers, Mr. Lawrence Oates, who died on his South Pole Expedition by bidding his gents a last farewell, "I am just going outside and may be some time."

And if it had to be any old ship, why not--oh well, the Belgic (for all the gnarly rumors he'd heard secondhand from Officer Lowe about her, one could easily pull a whole epic out of that one), or the Adriatic, or even the Olympic?

Why Titanic?

If being the star attraction of its own private museum was a little overmuch, an entire 3 and a quarter hours of a whole ruddy moving picture was certainly butter on bacon.

Though James would soon enough get his answer. 

As being the season of the 110th anniversary of Titanic's sinking, it so happened that there was lots of hype about the release of James Cameron's 1997 film at Regal Battery Park.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Emily asked James again. "We can always watch something else, you know?"

"Don't fret over me, Miss Millie," James told her lightheartedly. "It's only a moving picture. Not like Titanic can kill me a second time, can she?"

James insisted on paying their way in, on the grounds that it was the one thing a gentleman should do. 

And this time, he'd remembered to bring a billfold out of his cat-sitting wages, instead of pennies, which made the transaction of ticket and popcorn buying much smoother. 

However, the time-well-spent he'd saved at the register was only time-well-spent up until the point when James held the door open for Emily to walk through. Glancing back over his shoulder at another lady also waiting to come through the door behind them, with no gentleman accompanying her. 

"Good day to you, miss. Not to worry, I will hold the door for ye," he offered her, stepping aside so she could walk through. 

"Oh, thanks," she passed a bashful smile to him as she walked on.

"It's no trouble," he nodded.

But just as James was about to rejoin Emily, another woman came hurrying to the door from outside, also unaccompanied by any gentleman.

James hurried over to open it for her as well. 

"Now then, I've got the door for ye, love."

Then nodded to an elderly lady shuffling slowly forward with her walker a few steps behind.

"Alright, come through, madam," he beckoned her. "There's no hurry at all." 

And by the time James had safely held the door for 13 ladies, and tipped his hat to a few gentlemen in between, Emily had found herself a bench by the arcade to wait on her polite-to-a-fault Edwardian officer, watching James as she passed the time snacking on their popcorn.

"This is a great movie," she mumbled to herself, as she observed James going back and forth to the door. "Why pay to see Titanic when it's living in my apartment?"

"Sorry to have kept you waiting, miss," James said, when he got enough of a break catching ladies at the door to finally make his way back to her.  "I daresay, I've never seen so many ladies all alone in one singular place. It's a wonder they haven't taken on a concierge here yet. Did we miss our picture?""

"Only by about a half an hour," Emily said, glancing at the clock on her phone. "It's my bad, though. I just didn't have the heart to stop watching you. There's another Titanic showing in 3 hours." 

"I'm terribly sorry, I had no idea there were so many—" 

But before he could make his apologies, James stood suddenly from his seat again, nodding politely to a group of ladies walking from the snack bar into the Titanic auditorium, as could be expected of a well-mannered fellow.  "Good day, ladies. Enjoy our moving picture, eh?"

And in an attempt to save him frim himself, Emily quickly caught James's sleeve, dropping him back in his seat, as the pack of girls giggled at him and walked on by. 

"You don't have to do that every single time," Emily informed the Edwardian man. 

"Is that not how it's done here, when a lady leaves a room?" James asked her. "How should a man speak well of himself and his manners, if he cannot show plain courtesy and pledge himself to the service of another?" 

But just as Emily attempted to explain the devolution of manners in 2022, someone blurted out.

"Damn, her boyfriend be fiiiiinnne!"

"I told you, girl, guys from the UK are my weakness. They be cute as fuck."

"I'd smash, if I didn't already have a man."

"I'm a hoe though, it don't matter to me no way."

"God, I can't take you anywhere with me," Emily remarked to James, passing over their half-gone buttery popcorn bucket, so that he might focus on something other than being 'a proper gentleman' for a while. "Your accent is way too distracting here."

"I'm the diversion?" James challenged her assumption. "It's I who will never get myself acquainted with the way folks talk here...Exactly what do you think she'd be smashing anyhow?"

"It means," Emily clued him in dryly. "That she wants to go to bed with you."

"Oh?" James muttered, surprised, his eyes squinting as he tried to reimagine the whole theory of the word in his head. 

Then his lips dipped into a smug grin. 

"What a brick of a lass she is, the poor duck. Wait until she sees me in the moving picture," he told Emily. "You don't suppose he's handsome, do you? The jammy bloke they picked to be my actor?"

But James was cut off when Emily turned on him suddenly, feeding  him a mouthful of popcorn.

"Mm-mmm!"

"Much better. Can't talk if your mouth's full now, can you?" she side-grinned at him. 

"'Is 'sat 'a 'hallenge?" James's words were mumble-jumble against cheeks full of popcorn. " I say, 'ere 'es 'o 'un 'hoo 'an out 'est me 'at 'at?"

"Oh, god, you're right," Emily answered him. "You sound so much worse that way." 

"Though, what did that lass mean, I wonder," James asked, when he finally had his chance to ask it. "When she called me your boyfriend, that is? Did she take us for sweethearts?"

"Well, in the strictest context of the word--in a very literal sense, I mean-- it means you are of the male genre, and that you are my friend," Millie informed him. "Boy-friend."

"Ah, so mates, you say?"

"Roommates, generally speaking." 

"But we are sharing popcorn together, Miss Millie," James pointed it out, as if it were the most intimate thing one could do with another. "Surely, there must be a fonder word that I might call you better by?"

"Well, while you're coming up with one," Emily told him. "Would you mind passing me back the popcorn? I'm so starved."

"Oh?"

James's brows perked at her, a sign that he had heard, but it didn't stop him from carrying on eating it.

"James?" Emily reiterated her statement. "The popcorn."

"Eh? Oh, I'm sorry, did you say you wanted this back?" 

Emily's eyes narrowed at him. 

"If you don't give me back the-" 

–She grasped for the bucket and pulled it her way.

And James tugged it back his way. 

Until torn by the competitive force between them, the popcorn bucket ripped a little from the top, just as Emily snatched it back. 

Splashing dozens of showering popcorn kernels all over her.

And there the Miss sat jaw-dropped and stunned as James snorted into a laugh behind the shield of the war-torn bucket. Hardly able to keep himself from cackling fully aloud. 

Hard work for him, it was...with the way Emily looked at him then.

So endearingly cross and daffy with a crown of popcorn tangled in her hair like his own Lady Liberty. 

And being the gentleman he was, James couldn't help it but to reach up and gently comb his broad sailor's fingers through each of her delicate twirling tressess, carefully picking each of the popcorn pieces out. 

Giving Emily chills for that tootsie-roll-like sensation of a slight pinch, followed by ticklishness that hurt so good, each time James slowly dragged one of the kernels away from a strand of her hair. 

"On second thought," he told the Miss fondly. "Perhaps, I should call you butter, because you taste a great deal better than it."

__________________

And so, after losing an entire bucket in their popcorn fight against each other–James and Emily went on a hunt for something equally delicious and snackable to sneak back into the movie theater with them.  

Knowing it would be some time before the next showing started, they took their time in a slow stroll through Battery Park. 

Emily opening up her umbrella for James as the two held onto the handle together, against the sea breezes blowing in from the Upper New York Bay. 

James, in fine fettle, taking comfortable long strides over deep rain puddles, and Millie nimbly leaping over this one and that one in her dainty wedges. 

And as they walked through the memorial gardens of Battery Park, Emily had come up with a little delightful game to pass the time.

"Truth or dare?" she asked James.

"Dare, of course," the officer answered. 

"Hmm...I dare you to...talk in your best American accent until it's your turn again."

"Alright, well that's money for old rope," James pulled it off nearly flawlessly, giving Leo DiCaprio a run for his money. "Nothin' to it, ma'am." 

"I beg to differ," Emily challenged his overconfident assumption. "How are you so good at that?"

"It's all in the tongue placement," he explained. "Dragging your vowels and adding just a pinch of inflection around the nose. Americans love their R's. Darken the L, and deaden the t. Easy as American apple pie." 

"Why do I get the feeling you're oversimplifying the story behind this?"

"Reckon it's because you'll be grateful I spared you a longer one," James replied. "Let's just say, I spent my fair share in America, after I turned 20." 

"Mhm?" Emily urged him on. "And then?"

"Now don't get ahead of yourself, Miss Millie," his lips dipped into a smile at her. "It's not my turn anymore, is it? I believe it's your turn to answer the question." 

"Such a tease," she shook her head. "Ok, so ask me."

"Truth or dare, Miss Millie?"

"Truth."

"Ah, come now, you ruddy chicken," James heckled her playfully. "Alright then. Tell me the truth. What's one secret you've not told anyone?"

"Hmm," Emily thought it over for a moment. "I've never actually been on a date."

"Now you're pulling one over me."

"I swear, I haven't."

"How's that then? A darling as fit as you? 

"You're gonna think I'm crazy, after what I told you earlier. But I have this idea in my head that if it's not like "movie love", it's not enough for me. I know that's not practical but it's hard to explain."

"You mean like the moving picture with Kate and Leo?" James asked her. 

"I mean...like the story in my quilt, Emily answered. "It feels a little bit like being trapped, like I never really fit in here. It's like I'm waiting for something I've lost. Like being under a spell or something. Waiting for some place, or fairy tale...or person, I don't know. And the longer I wait for it to happen, the more I wonder if I'll ever find what I feel is missing," she said. "I know that sounds overly sentimental."

"I should say, it sounds like an opportunity, it does," James said to her. "Whoever that lucky fella might be, anyone could still be him, right? I wouldn't count yourself out yet, Miss Millie. Not by a far chance."

He nudged her playfully with his shoulder, and Emily smiled, nudging him back. 

"Suppose it's my go now?" James smoothly shifted back to his natural Yorkshire accent.

"Truth or dare?"

"The truth, I reckon."

"Why are you so good at American accents?" Emily fired off the question she'd been waiting since last turn to ask him.

"Because it was loads more fun being American on the Oceanic, and joshing the passengers into taking me for one," he confessed. "And a handful of times, I stayed in New York for private reasons." 

"Oh? Sounds scandalous." 

"To some, it was," he said quietly. "The truth being that I loved a girl in my adolescence. She was the daughter of a lord, and her family was heir to a grand estate in Yorkshire...But I was a sailor...Though I suppose, it wasn't because I was a sailor that I didn't deserve her in the end."

"She's the one that got away then?"

"My very first sweetheart, she was," James said. "Though...you can say things got complicated, and I was forced into an ultimatum that, I regret to say, broke her heart terribly in the end. Before I had a chance to explain everything, she was gone."

"And didn't you go after her?"

"I tried, God knows I did," he said. "We made a promise to each other, that when the time was right, and I'd made my career at sea, we'd find each other again here in America. Though, on the day I turned 20, I asked for my leave from the S.S. Caprera. Suppose I'd gotten cocksure, as I'd been promoted to first mate. Needless to say, it was denied twice. I insisted. Then I was promptly demoted to second mate. I got the leave eventually in winter of 1910, but by that time, the storms were merciless. I didn't get to America until February, 6 months after my 20th birthday. I lodged in New York for as long as my wages could hold me over. It was every day that I waited for her...at the very spot she said she'd meet me. Though I never found her there."

"Did you ever try writing to her?"

"I wanted to, but I didn't want to risk her family getting the letter and letting them on to what she'd been up to," James said. "I knew she'd gone to sea to see the world, as she'd always wanted, but I knew nothing of what shipping line had taken her on. What's more, I suspected she had a new name anyway, leaving her old life behind...Even so, I never gave up looking for her. 

"I went back the following year on my 21st birthday to try and meet her again. Though, that same year, my brother Christopher had offered to share a tiny house with me in Grimsby. He had such a dislike for lodgings and I wanted some little place to come home to from sea. So, I left America to set it up with him, and went back the following year. By that time, I had lost hope that I would ever meet her again.

"Still, my heart wouldn't let her go...If her feelings for me had changed, I would have understood and let her be...I suppose I just wanted to know at least that she was safe. And that she was happy, after it all....Wherever she was."

"But you found her again, didn't you? On Titanic?" Emily asked him. "What are the odds, really? Maybe it was a sign that you were always meant to be together, despite everything keeping you two apart."

"I reckon I wanted to believe the same, that day in Belfast. It must be written in our stars, I couldn't stop hoping when I saw her," James said to Millie. "If we'd gone around the whole world by sea, and still found our way back to each other, how could it not be so?"

Chapter Text

Once upon a time--and by that, one should say over 100 years ago--James Moody was on the first morning train to Belfast, where he would check into the Royal Avenue hotel to meet with his superior officers aboard Titanic.

He'd taken this route to sea countless times before, an unremarkable two hours of his existence. He ordered the same breakfast and distracted himself with the same writers in the opinion commentaries of the morning paper, uninspired by the unchanging seascape passing his window.

'A string of deception and scandal! Britan's own Anastasia Romanov? ' the news headline read.

'An old and respected family in Yorkshire still seeking runaway daughter, after 4 years of her absence. Upon her coming out, the girl stowed away from home. Rumors have since spread that she'd intended to escape her engagement to a Mr. Edward Getty, a close family friend, though the  Crawleys have since threatened anyone with a defamation dispute who proceeds in spreading such 'malicious and unfounded lies' . The reward for sharing any information about Miss Crawley's whereabouts has been raised, though still undisclosed. Anyone with pertinent information on the missing heiress is asked kindly to contact the Crawleys' solicitor, Mr. George Murray, upon which, showing proof of identity, they will be granted the reward. 

'However, with rumor about the lump sum of money being enough to make a working man quite a leisurely fortune indeed, reports from Mr. Murray's secretary have noted a shocking amount of girls pretending to be the missing Lady Crawley. 

'Not like the humble opinion of this writer, there are some who believe the heiress is dead, or married off to a pig farmer. Others claim they have spotted women to her likeness, everywhere from Southampton to Belfast to Cherbourg, France to bloomin' America! Take this as you will, dear reader, that a gentleman, who preferred to be called by 'Mr. F' swears on the good book that in late August of 1911, he saw a lady alike to Miss Crawley's description walking about alone in New York. It is the belief of some, that the lady may be working as a pub waitress there, or perhaps she is employed as lady's maid to an American socialite. However, it is harder for others to believe that a Crawley would leave all behind to work among us common folk. Clearly, a title and massive fortune isn't everything. 

'Even so, those who speak on behalf of Sir Patrick and James Crawley say the gentlemen have not given up hope in finding their long-lost lady and returning her safely home to Yorkshire.'

And with no new clues to mark in the Crawley case James had been faithfully following for years in the papers, this day would have gone by like any normal day going to sea, if not for the stunning pair of amber eyes in his peripheral vision.

Eyes that were determined to break James's tradition of uneventful train rides.

The girl stood up, giving him the opportunity to get a better look at her. A tame but easy flirtation sparking his ocean-strong blue eyes over his paper. Somewhere in his gaze was an unspoken good-morning-to-you-miss, as he had never seen anything like her come out of the Orient, save for his own imagination of the exotic women in Arabian Nights. And James could have sworn this goddess of the desert was floating right to him, for he'd never seen a lady walk on a moving train with such flawless grace.

And she placed herself so soundlessly before James's tea and paper that she could have very well been a witch.

Or dare he say it, fate.

"Why, madam, don't you look like a snake basket full of trouble?" he remarked, more amused by her inviting herself into his company than offended. As he should say, a woman with her own goal in mind and a plan on how to get there was nothing short of irresistible.

"May I sit here?"

"As you please, madam," he nodded to her. "I've not much longer before my stop in Belfast anyway."

"I was just thinking to myself," she said, in an accent that made him think of sand dunes and belly dancers.

And for a moment, James wished he wasn't due to a ship so urgently, as he would've liked to get to know her better.

"How many untold stories sit among us on this train now? What roles are we all destined to play once we meet that final, distant platform?" she said--quite poetically, he thought. "And then I saw you, and out of all of them, the only story I took an interest in knowing was yours. I'm Nour."

"James Moody," he introduced himself. "Though if it's my story you want, it'll turn out to be a rather short and uneventful conversation, indeed."

"James Moody?" she echoed his name like the hushed sacredness of a ritual, her coal-fire eyes taking her time to study him. His hands folding his paper away. The neatly knotted navy black necktie against his pristine white starched collar and navy vest. And that puppy-dog blue gaze that whispered something wistful into his easy smile. "There's more to you than that, Mr. Moody, I think."

"I'm sorry to say, madam, that I have very few secrets to tell. Not the good ones, that is."

And James couldn't very well bare his heart to a complete stranger anyway.

"But there is 'the mark' upon you," she whispered solemnly.

"Pardon?"

"The dark fog," she explained, though James found that oxymoron as cryptic as ever, as her eyes appeared to look into his very soul. "A hooded cloak hangs over your spirit light. It caught my attention instantly when I came here, and it is the most pronounced I have ever seen in anyone. Tell me...have you lost someone most precious to you as of late? Has there, by any chance, been a death in your family?"

"Why should you ask me such a question?" James replied, finding this sudden and morbid interview rather kooky indeed, even for a kooky woman like her.

"Death has been following you closely behind," she informed him. "You should take care."

"I'm no stranger to him, and he has never cared to ask what I think," James remarked, mimicking her low mystiquey tone with a hint of cheek. "He has taken what he pleases from me, when he pleases. Why should the bastard stop now?"

And knowing that she had pushed up against just his right wall at just the right time, she thoughtfully considered James's hands again.

"You have a working man's hands...Yet you carry yourself like a gentlemman, no? You speak in a distinguished manner, like one who has had the benefit of a good education, but has since put it behind him for other pursuits. And I would say that in itself is a big, walking contradiction of a secret, if you ask me. Such terrible grief I see in your eyes. Such unsatisfied desire...Tell me your story, sir, and in return, I will light the path of what you want most."

"Truly, I'm flattered by the romantic light you've imagined me up in," James answered, diffusing the awkward situation by snapping out his morning paper again. "But I'm only just a man sitting on a train on his way to work with his morning paper. Whatever it is you're trying to sell me, I'm afraid I'm not much a believer in it."

And thus slighted, her eyes darkened at him from behind his newspaper.

The devil's mistress, she was.

"Seems the House of Commons passed the Minimum Wage Bill by a vote of 213 to 48," James passed their time by changing the course of their morbid conversation. "About bloody time someone took care of our working people. Now, if we can only push for safety and reasonable working hours-"

"You're a solicitor then?" she kept up her guesses of him. "Or perhaps a politician?"

"Afraid I never did care much for sitting around blowing smoke and discussing what can be done, like my predecessors," he said. "I prefer to make things done. Though I suppose that wouldn't be very gentleman of me, from some other gentleman's point of view. Even so, I suppose more that my opinion on the matter keeps my lawyer for a father sharp for his profession, as we can't ever seem to hold our peace when let in the same room together."

"A socialist then?"

"Is it not enough that I am only a sailor?" James smiled politely at her. "Alas, I come from a strong line of lawyers and doctors, but I'm none too sure that I am made of the same stuff. I'm a seaman--with his morning paper--who can't overlook the misery of others. And that is all."

"Ah, come off it! Another bloody sailor?" she sighed drastically, dropping the mystic act and the foreign accent double quick as she rolled her eyes and waved him off dismissively. "Why is it always a blooming sailor on this train? Don't you young lads ever want more for yourselves?"

"Frankly, I don't feel I've missed out on anything," James remarked, his eyes still on his paper.

"And I suppose you don't have two pennies to rub together either!"

She sighed heavily.

"Forgive me. It's not you I'm frustrated with," she said. "It's sea folk in general. These last few weeks, with all this talk about Titanic, that's all you meet on these trains now. Sailors, stewards, stokers. They make terrible business clients. One quick session, and then they're off to the seas, never to be heard from again. Of course they promise to refer me to their friends, but I rarely acquire new clients from sailors."

"Sorry, I don't understand. Are you that kind of working lady?"

"If I didn't have a bad wrist, sir, I'd make a mop out of your face," she glared at him. "You assume because I'm a brown woman traveling alone and offering services, that I must be a prostitute? Is that it?"

"I mean, no," he quickly retraced his steps, fearing she might decide to throw a hex on him. "I was just curious as to what sort of business would require you to seek new clients like this. Aren't there more ideal places to set up shop than a train?"

"Yes, and I'm working on it," she said, holding her chin proud and high to look down on him. "I haven't raised enough money to set up shop in London. Rent is so damn expensive, and the spaces that are affordable aren't available to just anyone. The landlords pick and choose their tenants. And no one's going to pick a woman like me, especially considering the nature of my services. They are seen as...well...alternative methodologies to the popular view. A hoax, even. Something you encounter at the fair or circus, but not to be highly regarded in good society. If I am to set up shop, I must work twice as hard. Raise twice as much money so the landlords can't say no to my offer."

"Doubt it. London is the cesspool of England. You'd have better luck going North, than making a living for yourself there," James said, setting down his paper. "But alright then, let's hear it. What services are you really on about?"

"I can answer a question," she said mystically. "A question that you have not yet found an answer to, and wish to know before the time has come. But be warned, no one has the ability to see the future. I can only give you clues to draw your own conclusions."

"Alright," he gave in. "No harm in that. I've got a shilling or two to throw away. How will you see my future?"

"Depends on what you can afford, sir," she bargained, twiddling her long raven hair between two fingers. "Five for a palm reading, and ten for your tea leaves."

"Hardly justifiable," James disagreed. "I don't even believe in this sort of thing."

"A compromise then?" she offered quickly, desperately trying to keep her customer. "I will give you a session of your choosing for half price, if your friends are as handsome as you are, and you promise to tell them all about my services."

James gave in to half a smile.

"Well, anything to help, I suppose. I'll take the leaves."

"Done," she said. "My pay?"

"You mean now?"

"Business before pleasure, sir," she winked at him.

James sighed and stuffed his hand into his navy pockets, searching for a coin in the midst of a bosun knife, tooth pick, and extra needle and thread for his officer's uniform. He slid a pence across to her, which she examined thoroughly for authenticity. Once she was satisfied, she dropped them into her fat coin purse. A ruckus jingled inside as she hid it away quickly in her wizardly great shawl.

A prize from all the other suckers just like him, he imagined.

Then carefully, she slid James's empty teacup toward her breasts, took up his spoon, and stirred exactly three times. "Do you favor your right or left hand, sir?"

"My right?" James answered, uncertain as to how that affected his future.

"Now, the first thing I need you to do is to clear your mind of all thought. Breathe deeply and think of nothing but the question that you wish to know the answer to most."

"The one where I ask how I got myself into this?" James remarked. "I really don't believe in divination. Some answers really have no questions--I mean, questions have no answers--You know what I mean?"

"You're not focusing."

"On what should I be focusing, exactly?"

"The question that you can't chase away from your mind. That haunting thought which screams when the rest of your heart begs for peace. The last thing you remember before you fall asleep, and the first thought when you wake up."

And before James could pin down this mystic rogue thought, she slammed the teacup upside down onto the saucer.

"While we wait for the leaves to settle, let's go over a few matters of importance. The rim of the cup represents the dominant character or a great influence in your life. The middle, the near future. The base is the answer, or more accurately, your conclusion. Are you ready to read your leaves?"

"Well...isn't that what I've paid you to do?" James asked, confused.

"Well, I can't exactly read them for you," she said, as if it were the daftest question he could ask. "That can only be done by you. You are most qualified to make a study on your life. Your recognition of symbols is most relevant and accurate to your experiences. No tea reader of any skill can ever read that intimately into your life."

Carefully, she turned the cup over.

"Start with the rim. Tell me each symbol you see, in order of proximity to each other."

"Ermm...an anvil? Or anchor of some sort. It's hard to tell. Not exactly a work of fine art."

"Good, good. That's just fine, sir," she said, nodding and drawing it out on her handkerchief. "What else do you see?"

"You want me to analyze every bit of tea leaf in here?"

"Whatever you can make out."

"Alright," James went on awkwardly. "An axe?...A balloon? A bowstring. A cloud...A broken x figure, I imagine...A paper or an envelope of some sort...A cross...A world globe?...A question mark hanging off of a waterfall?...Are you sure I'm doing this right?"

"Good. Now let's move on to the middle section. What do you see there?"

"A spuggy?"

"Be more specific, please."

"Dunno. It's a bird of some kind. A swan, perhaps. Perched up next to something that looks like a flower or a tree. A dog bone. A lock. And a wheel."

"Oh," she said, her thick wrinkling brows squishing together. "Is that it?"

"You think I've missed something?" James asked, squinting one of his sky-blue eyes as he looked down thoroughly into the cup again. "It's all just black blotches. What am I supposed to make of it?"

"Alright," she said, blowing out a puff of air. "Go on then. The base section."

"A scale and a drum," James threw out his answer quickly, ready to be done with the whole thing already.

Then he added jokingly, "So what is my grand future then, and when should I expect to die?"

"Soon," she answered bluntly. "Sunday, in fact."

James's grin slowly deflated into surprise.

"That's rather precise, don't ye reckon?"

"Oh, liven up, you chicken liver. I'm only teasing you. None of this stuff is written in stone, you know. Will you just give me a moment?"

James waited, tapping his fingers on the wooden surface to a jazzy tune he'd spent all morning trying to get out of his head, as the fortune-teller finished up her sketch of his life.

On her handkerchief, she'd drawn three circles, traced out in diminishing sizes like a bull's eye, with every symbol that the officer had named carefully placed in the appropriate position.

And with her attention so intensely engaged in her work, James couldn't help but to take his revenge with a little bantering in return.

"No, no. The anchor should be a little more to the left of the balloon," he said, pointing to a spot within a fingernail's length from the original. "About 0.003 of a meter that way."

She glared at him. But making no argument, crossed out her original drawing of the anvil, and placed it where James had jokingly indicated.

The lady was certainly keen about her craft.

"Anything else?" she dared him to make more fuss.

James shook his head.

"No, no, carry on."

One more word out of him, and he knew she'd turn him into a voodoo doll.

She didn't speak again until she was satisfied with the perfection of each symbol placement.

"The anchor," she began mystically, as if they were beginning a séance. "It represents consistency. Stability. Whether in love or friendship, you will always be faithful. However, that does not make you a good lover, for here the balloon shows that even with your stability, your heart and spirit are not easily settled. The axe represents a quick thinker, and your ability to cope with difficult situations on your toes. Then we come to this positive little cluster here, the bow and waterfall, which predict wealth and prosperity, obviously. Tangled in the middle of that duo is an envelope or notice, meaning important news is on its way. Yet, there is no guarantee that it will be happy news, as the cloud symbol hangs closely by, a rather dark and thick cloud at that. It carries immense sadness into your future.

"The flower you spoke of resembles the image of the fleur de lis, flower of the lily, which in the past has been infamous for political power, sovereignty, and military strength, but in certain hues can translate to loyalty and love. The swan guards nearby, which can mean that a love interest is on its way...or is already present...considering that the swan shares a line with your future and your present...and your past...strangely enough, all at the same time?...The bones you mentioned are a call for inner strength, as you will face many obstacles of the heart and soul. One of these obstacles will be overcoming a great loss, symbolized by the broken and shattered x. Yet, it is also a warning, for this loss will be of your own doing."

"And in conclusion, I die miserably," James remarked. "Unless of course, I pay you more, eh?"

"You're catching on."

"But what of this last bunch here?" he asked, indicating the base of the cup. "I don't believe you've given them a chance to doom me yet."

"Well, because you asked, I suppose I must tell you. But whether you choose to listen, is entirely up to you," she warned him. "You are going to take a long journey, represented by the globe, but the symbol is occluded by the raven, an omen. The wheel follows closely behind, warning that the event will be out of your control and bring about a great change in your life."

"What sort of change would you say? Locusts? Famine? Rivers of blood?"

She chuckled.

"You've got me there, sir. But the point you make with your cheek is a valid one. I am only a tassographer. Not a psychic. I don't know what's in store for you or if these leaves have any meaning to them. I only make my living off travelers who are entertained by this sort of thing. All in good fun," she said. "But what if our lives were indeed governed by cups of tea? Then I would think very seriously about your line of work, sir. One of your journeys to sea may not promise a return. But if you are able to stand against the very slight odds that are in your favor, the end of that journey will still not be the end for you. The base of your cup calls you to action by the symbol of the drum, and if you make the right decisions, you will bring balance back to a scale that has tipped with your past wrongdoings that you are yet tormented by."

"Sounds like I'd better get working on that then," James said, as the train slowly coasted to a stop in Belfast at last.

James grabbed his luggage from the upper shelves, formally excusing himself from his traveling companion.

"I wish you all the best of luck in your business endeavors," he told her. "If not a psychic, you make one 'eck of a storyteller."

Chapter Text

"Can you imagine that, Mr. Lowe? For at least all summer, the Olympic and the Titanic are so far the largest ships on the S'ton to New York route, until our friends the Germans get their new Imperator afloat," James marveled, looking up in the cloudy gray skies against the towering ship, as he walked alongside the 5th.

The sky-blue eyed English fellow had only a while ago introduced himself to Harold Godfrey Lowe at the Belfast Royal Avenue Hotel.

And though he was an Englishman, he was also 6th officer, which meant he and Lowe were instantly brothers as the soon-to-be whipping boys of the officers' bridge.

"I cannot describe any part of a ship which needs 85 clocks and 16 pianos to furnish it! Not even the Oceanic compares," Moody went on goodheartedly to Lowe. "She may even prove a bit more to handle than your Belgic as well. From a wee cargo ship to an ocean liner, now that's quite a move. Not bad for a Hawsepipe Officer whose family only owns a jewelry shop."

"Humble as the Belgic was, she was no waltz for jam," Lowe muttered, studying a copy of the ship's blueprint he'd sketched the night before, like it was the answers to a test. And perhaps it was, as they'd been ordered by Officer William Murdoch to play about the ship and familiarize themselves with all 268 meters and 46,000 tons of her.

And since dinner last night with the other officers, Lowe felt enormously pressured as "the odd one out" to make a good impression.

As the 2nd officer had so kindly remarked to their colleagues, not all White Star officers were cut from the same cloth, and that the "Welshman" was joining them after being plucked from some "cockowax ragboat", instead of the Olympic or Oceanic like the rest of them.

'The clock strikes at twelve, Cinderellas,' his senior had left both Lowe and Moody feeling cheap, with one last parting remark.

His mimodrama having Lowe know that, though the 5th officer looked smart in his fancy White Star uniform, he would never be one of them.

"Ah, sponge it out," Moody waved it off. "Lightoller's a grand old man, for sure. Don't let him anchor you down. There's nothing to be ashamed of. We all had to start on some 'ragboat', and we're all in the same one now, aren't we?"

"Suppose the man's got a point though," Lowe allowed that. "I am a total stranger to the North Atlantic and to Mail Ships, generally."

His eyes traced the gangway door to the very tip-top of Titanic's funnel, gleaming against moody skies in the orangish gold of White Star's buff.

"I've never been assigned a ship they call unsinkable though," Lowe remarked to Moody. "I won't lie to you. Any man expert enough to call her unsinkable must be an expert. I'm only a fecking sailor, though, so what should I know?"

"Ah, you'll be a swell bloke to work with," Moody chuckled at Lowe's sarcasm. "I remember my first transatlantic crossing. You'll come through alright, mate. Just keep your head up and do as you're told. It's not Lightoller that matters right now anyway. Murdoch's our man, he is."

"Murdoch, eh?" Lowe gave thought to the unanimous respect the other officers had for the sailing prodigy, calling him a most canny and agreeable gentleman. "What's he like, I wonder?"

But before Moody could tell him anything more about their superior officer, his feet detoured suddenly to the side of the gangway ramp.

Dodging a stewardess who'd stopped right in front of them, holding up the rest of the line most inconsiderately.

Moody looked back at Lowe, as if to say can-you-believe-this, before clearing his throat to catch her attention.

"Alright, miss?" he greeted the ship maid.

But the stewardess didn't appear to notice or care that she was blocking the way of the two officers.

Frozen and gazing down into the ocean rushing under the gangway ramp, as if she were sick after only a few drinks.

Moody cleared his throat again. Louder, this time.

"Ehem...We'd be most obliged if you'd allow us to pass through, miss."

Still, she gave him no answer.

Moody glanced back at Lowe again, grinning, "Don't suppose she'll faint before it's over, do you? Never you mind, miss. I'm sure there's a fellow here good enough to marry you and save you from ever having to work again on a ship."

And delivering what he deemed a good-hearted joke, he offered Lowe the right of way around the maid.

"After you, Mr. Lowe."

"After you, Mr. Moody."

"I must insist, Mr. Lowe."

"Will you just go on ahead, Mr. Moody?"

"I couldn't possibly, Mr. Lowe. You outrank me, after all. You go, I'll follow."

"For the love of Christ, very well then! Suit yourself."

Lowe walked on ahead of him.

And just as Moody stepped forward to follow him, he stopped again in afterthought.

Glancing over at the paralyzed stewardess still clinging onto the ramp railing. Her face mostly hidden from his view behind her black head scarf that matched her uniform, and the loose locks of her pinned hazelnut hair fluttering in the breeze.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Moody approached her, interested in knowing what had captivated her attention in the water so, that it made her oblivious to everything else around her.

Removing his officer's cap and placing it on the side of the railing opposite her, he leaned onto his elbows.

His eyes following her gaze to a trail of white carnation flowers someone had set afloat in the waves below.

"What you doin', love?" Moody asked her.

"Thinking only of what makes me happy," she answered him, without ever meeting his eyes.

"And what'll that be?"

"The smell of fresh-cut lavender on a cloudy day," she said. "Or rainfall on a glasshouse window. Or having one more slice of carrot cake than is proper. A good book twice read. Finding money in places I've forgotten...Reading old notes from people I haven't forgotten...Anything but being on this ship, I suppose."

"Seems as if we're total opposites then," Moody answered. "I can hardly stand being on land, while everything I love is at sea. And you can hardly bear going to sea, when everything in your heart is left behind on land."

A soft smile lightened her face.

"It seems you've got me all worked out then, don't you?" she challenged him playfully. "According to the Ladies' Fashionable Repository, if I just think of happy things, I can trick myself into going onboard that ship."

"And how's that going for you now?"

"The most profound of all scuttlebutt nonsense."

James grinned.

"Is this your first crossing?" he asked her.

"No, of course not," she said. "I'm not at all green to sailing."

"Ah, then you wouldn't by any chance have met a fortune-teller on the train here?" James asked her. "Don't tell me you got pulled in to letting that barmy lass read your tea leaves too? Take her word for it, and we'll all die if we get on that ship. Don't know how well you like that sort of tale, but I suppose it was one way to pass the time."

"If you really want to know," she confessed to him. "I can't actually swim."

"Fancy becoming a stewardess then."

"I know, it's a bit ironic, isn't it? But perhaps you were wrong about me," she said. "I may be afraid of the sea, but there are some things on land that are far more frightening."

"Well, I should say, we'd best take our chances by sticking together in this then," James said. "I'm James Moody...Suppose I forgot to mention that."

"Moody?" she repeated his name quietly. "I haven't met a Moody in years."

"Well, I can only hope then that my namesake made a good enough impression on-"

"Yes, this is all very touching, but you two mind getting a move on?" an impatient able-bodied seaman brushed pass Moody and the stewardess. "You're holding up the bloody line."

And when Moody turned to inform him to move along, the seaman spotted the officer's cap perched on the railing. He quickly straightened up to address his superior officer more respectfully.

"That is, fine weather for dawdling about, sir, isn't it?" the seaman chuckled nervously. "I was just thinking of wasting some time myself. Good day to you, miss."

He then tipped his hat to the stewardess, and moved on quickly.

"So, it's 'Officer' Moody, is it?" she called him out. "Suppose you forgot to mention that too?"

"Have you got it in for officers?" Moody asked her, catching a hint of satire in her voice.

"You shouldn't have shown off in front of them for my sake," she said. "They already give me hell for not 'being one of them'."

"Now they'd be damned to try."

"Ha, well you're the superior one, after all," she remarked. "Why don't you just order me out of your way, like the rest of us on this ship?"

"I might try, but that would likely lead to you calling me an arse behind my back," he said. "And I suppose, I might at least know your name in return."

"And why should I trouble you with it, Mr. Moody?" she asked him. 'It's a big ship, and there are so many places to hide. It's not likely that we'll ever meet each other again after this."

"All the more reason to learn your name," Moody said. "Knowing we are soon to become strangers again, this fleeting moment is evermore dear."

"I'm afraid I must disagree," she said softly, turning her gaze away from the ocean below them to meet Moody's eyes directly. 

Leaving the 6th officer's playful blue eyes dumbstruck, when he finally got a look at her, as if he'd just looked into the face of a ghost. 

"We were always kinder to each other as strangers, weren't we, James?" she said to Moody.

But the officer was still stumbling over himself to find any coherent words. 

"Y-You're..."

Before he could even line up his racing thoughts in a nice neat row for her, another stewardess swept in from behind him and put herself between the two.

"Millie, what are you doing?" she scolded her fellow stewardess in a whisper, hooking her arm with hers and briskly steering her away from James. "Do you want to get yourself sacked on your first day back to work? There's no mingling with the ship officers. It's against the rules."

Chapter Text

But if the first time they met on the ship was an accident, then surely, the second was fate.

Roses were the first thing James saw in his officers' quarters when he unwittingly walked in to find a maid inside his room.

The smooth burgundy wine carpet with olive green diamonds rounded at the corners. A vase of blooming white roses she'd left for him on a polished oakwood vanity. Fragrant and sweet to distract him from the headache-inducing stench of fresh white paint coating the interior walls of the novel ship. And reflecting off the pristine mirror of his wash basin, was the white bonnet and crossed apron tie of a stewardess. Her back turned to him while she took extra care to smooth out the white star stitched across the standard red company quilt.

She didn't hear the floor creak ever so gently, as she was too busy making an operetta out of his cabin, belting out dramatically. With James standing undetected in the doorway, his hands heavy with his luggage, content to go on forever listening to her.

"OOO0HHH, SWEET MYSTERY OF LIFE, AT LAST I FOUND THEE! Ah! I know at last the secret of it all. All the longing, seeking, striving, waiting, yearning...For, yes I'm falling in love with someone, plain to seeeeee! And I'm sure I could love someone madly-"

"If someone would only love me," James finished the catchy show tune for her.

Her hands froze in their careful smoothing of his quilts.

"Good day to you again, miss," he greeted her once more. "Or, having a look at you now, I'd imagine it's a good one?"

She turned away from his bed, and James once again found in her the same stewardess he'd met on the gangway ramp.

"Forgive me," she excused herself, quickly snatching her wooden crate of roses up again, and as she knelt down, James could've sworn he heard her whisper. "Of all the cabins to get stuck in today, why did I have to linger in his..."

"I'm sorry, miss?"

"They asked me to deliver these roses to all the officers' quarters," she explained, as if afraid to give him the impression that she'd done him only the favor. "I noticed they hadn't made up the bed yet in this one. And since your steward was busy, I hope you didn't mind me doing it instead."

"That's very kind of you-"

"It's nothing, you see," she seemed on a race to explain away anything that he might deem exceptional kindness for him on her part. "My father also served in the navy reserve, and it just bugs me when the stewards don't take care to look after your rooms like they see to the senior officers. I meant nothing else by it, of course."

"Well, your 'nothing' has been the best 'nothing' I've had on any ship," he said. "In fact, I think I am so spoiled now that I might find I'm reluctant to let you leave my bed again until the ship docks."

She stiffened wide-eyed over her rose crate, and James quickly caught himself.

"Forgive me, that's not the word I meant. It's 'room' I had meant to say," he corrected himself in embarrassment. "Blimey, that doesn't sound any better--I don't mean it in that way--what I mean is that I'm rather busy all the while navigating and such, that I have scarcely little time for other things...And it's rather nice, I suppose, being welcomed back to my cabin with a freshly-made bed. And so, I suppose what I'm really trying to say is that I think rather highly of you stewardesses and the unsung work you do on this ship. So, I implore you, miss, forget everything I've said before that last bit, and trust that despite me babbling on like a nervous fool, you're in sound hands aboard this ship, for I, Officer James Paul Moody will-"

"If this is your way of telling me thank you," she mercifully saved him from both their miseries. "Then you're welcome. As I said before, it was nothing."

And stepping around him with her wooden crate, a subtle smile hidden behind her bustle of white and red roses, the stewardess walked back into the officers' corridor, turning right to deliver her next batch of roses to the 5th Officer Lowe's cabin.

No wonder she was in such a hurry to leave, James thought. She must think him a right clarht-eead.

"Thank you," James said, before she vanished from his doorway completely.

"It's nothing, Mr. Moody, really," she called back to him over her shoulder as she went. "It's just my job, you see."

And before she could make her final escape, James stepped toward her again.

"Millicent," he called after her, unable to help himself from doing it. "From this moment on, consider me forever in your debt, Miss Crawley."

The stewardess froze at the entrance of his door with her rose crate, momentarily caught off guard and lost for words for what she should say next to him. 

"I'm sorry, you must be mistaken. I don't know anyone by that name," she answered him at last, turning around and quickly hurrying on her way out of his cabin. "Happy Sailing, Officer Moody."

Chapter Text

It was Emily's turn again. 

"Dare," she declared to James confidently.

A smirk fell over James's face, having hoped all along that she'd take him on.

"I dare you to close your eyes," he challenged her. "And not open them until I say."

"I can't see where I'm going if my eyes are closed," Millie countered, suspiciously. 

"Why, that's the total nature of a dare, Miss Emily," James answered her. "Though, it's great luck for you, that you won't need to, so long as I'm here." 

And knowing she wouldn't dare back out of his dare now, Emily tried her hardest not to peek, as James took her hand, and guided her eastward off the path that looped around the memorial gardens, and closer to the one that took visitors around the harbor's edge. 

Without looking (on her honor, of course) she knew that it had to be the seaside trail James was leading her, against the misty oceanic wind brushing her face. 

The cadenced rocking of waves crashing against the shore making Emily's blood surge hot, and her heart skip nervously for an unexpected feeling of dread hitting her out of the blue. 

She didn't know exactly where it came from.

Or why she felt this sudden and frantic desperation to get as far away from the water's edge as possible. 

Her knees feeling more and more like jello, as James slowed his pace, and led her to an eventual stop.

At last, Millie felt the protective steel railing of the seaside trail lightly bump against her hands. Making her realize instantly that they had reached the point where the shore ended, and that beyond the cold railing gripped by her slightly trembling fingers, she faced nothing but the wild vastness of the Atlantic ocean. 

Don't open your eyes. Just  get away from the water.

Every instinct of survival screaming for her to turn back around. 

Making her so desperate to get away, that she almost quit the dare then and there, and pulled James back to the safer garden path with her. 

But wouldn't that appear a bit melodramatic? 

They were safely on the land side of the railing, and each panel was bolted in by cement blocks buried securely underground. 

So secure, in fact, that if she fell in and drowned, it would have to be intentional. 

And with so many safety nets in place, falling in just wasn't an option for her, and convincing herself that it wasn't, Emily decided that hyping herself up about nothing wasn't worth losing her truth-or-dare game to James. 

She would finish this dare, come what may. 

And why shouldn't she?

Was there any logical reason for her anxiety kicking into overdrive now, at the thought of opening her eyes and seeing nothing but ocean staring back at her?

As long as she stayed out of the water, it wasn't anybody's business that she didn't really know how to swim. 

"This is a really long dare," she remarked to James, blindly waiting for what felt like 100 years for him to tell her when she could open her eyes.

"Nearly there now," James said to her. "A bit more this way. If you'll allow me, Miss Millie." 

And then Emily felt James's hands gently on her elbows, turning her at an angle just so, until she was facing a spot picked for her by his exact specifications. 

"Right," the officer's murmur behind her was achingly soothing, as he asked her, "Are you all ready now, love?"

"Ready for what?" Emily gave in to a jittery smile. "Honestly, I'm so nervous to open my eyes right now." 

"Well, I'm right here with you," James assured her softly. "It's my dare too, you know. We'll see it through together. You have my word I won't abandon you in this."

 And though Emily was still completely terrified by the idea of accidently falling in, feeling the warmth of James's body so near to her, it gave her enough courage to take a chance on the Titanic officer and finish the dare. 

Slowly, her eyes fluttered open.

Her gaze finding the Statue of Liberty in front of her and James, where the gray clouds over the harbor had momentarily sailed out of the way of the blushing peach sunset radiating onto her face through the vallary crown of Lady Liberty.

"Now then, that wasn't so bad, was it?" James's hushed tone teased the Miss lightly. "We've made it here at last, Millie. Just as I'd promised you we would...And look...the sun's found its way back to us as well. Just as you once assured me." 

"So, it has," Millie whispered back to James, blushing in the warmth of the shimmering sunlight dancing all around them. 

It had to be that she'd seen the Statue of Liberty a thousand times before Officer James Paul Moody wandered his way into her shop. 

And knowing Titanic's fate, and how much the sight of Lady Liberty before them understandably meant more to her shipwrecked officer than her, Moody's excitement to share this long awaited moment with her made her see it all through his eyes, as if for the very first time.

A small token of bittersweet closure coming to James Moody at last, after his otherworldly and tragic death onboard a ship that never brought him to New York in the end. 

And Millie felt so happy for him, now that he had it. 

How could her heart not skip for his sake, watching his journey come full-circle at last, against everything he'd gone through on the night of April 14th, 1912. 

Yet...something about standing there with him on shore, as the sun slowly fell behind the clouds again beyond Lady Liberty, felt inexplicably gratifying to her. As if a part of herself, trapped in the numbly cold unknowns of her soul, recognized in this moment a happy ending that she was not just a passive observer in.

As if, in a weird knowing way, this moment with him belonged to her too.

And that her long waiting for that something "wanted", which left an aching void within her, was steadily coming to an end.

Or at the very least, she hoped she'd one day know for herself a happiness like the one in James's eyes then. That feeling of total completeness, after finding something so wildly desired for so long. 

And so suddenly and greatly did she desire him...that Millie didn't stop the Titanic officer when James's hand rose to lightly comb back her dancing locks that had gotten caught in the seaside winds. 

Her windswept curls playing on both hers and the officer's cheeks, as the pad of James's thumb lightly dragged across Emily's lips, that only obediently parted at his beckoning touch. 

"I must warn you, Emily," James said to her. "The way I feel as I look at you now, if you don't walk away from me, I fear I won't be able to stop myself from kissing you."

Emily leaned in closer to his lips, intoxicated by the endless ocean-blue in his eyes and the unexpectedly intense adoration she began feeling for him in that moment. All the while, holding herself back with one last stand of hesitation, as she remembered all at once, God, but it's only been 3 days since I met him. 

Stopping her just short of meeting James's lips. 

But not enough to stop her from realizing that it was this her heart seemed to want the most, and there was no going back from it. 

"I dare you to do it," she whispered her answer to James.

Giving him way to a smile. 

"This game of ours will soon be our undoing, I reckon," he murmured playfully to her. "I haven't yet gone back on a dare."

But before James could close the distance between their lips, and once again defend his perfect record of honoring all dares Emily Amberlfaw challenged him with, something in the Miss's expression changed as her gaze wandered back to the railing guarding them from the water. 

Emily's attention abruptly drawn to something rounded and white bobbing with the harbor at the corner of her eye. 

The mysterious object partially hidden from view behind the railing. 

At first, she assumed it was some kind of buoy seesawing with the current. 

But as said buoy gradually came around into clearer view, she spotted the vivid crimson stains ominously smudging it on one side.

Is that...blood? 

"Alright there, Miss Millie?" James asked her in concern, following her fixed gaze out into the darkening harbor. "You look as if you're seeing a ghost."

"Do you see that?" 

"See what, miss?"

Distractedly, Emily freed herself from James's arms, approaching the railing inquisitively to investigate the strange object. 

Steadily coming to realize that the thing of interest was attached to a body. 

A white cross-back of an apron tie against a black dress materialized from the water, with a pair of pale hands, trembling erratically under white dress cuffs, clinging onto the wooden skeletal frame of some kind of china curio cabinet. 

And what she had taken for a small buoy was actually a white ruffled bonnet, pinned over a ghostly bluish neck with stricken wet locks of golden brown hair curling over a white collar.

"James," Emily alerted him at once. "There's someone in the water."

And as the woman lifelessly bobbed along with the ocean, Emily hurriedly scanned the railing in front of her for any gate or opening wide enough to attempt a rescue and pull the woman onto shore.

But found nothing. 

Kneeling down next to the railing to get a better look at the body through the bars, Emily said urgently to James, "I can't tell if she's breathing or not. Will you pass me my wallet underneath my umbrella there?"

"Forgive me, miss, I don't understand what you-" James started telling her, utterly baffled and confused by the request.

"My phone's in the big pocket there," Emily told him. "My password pin is 1891. Click the little phone picture icon on the main screen, and it should take you to a number pad. Push the numbers 9-1-1, and tell whoever answers that there's someone in the water at Battery Park and there's a lot of blood." 

But still holding Emily's wallet in his hands, James had lost her at the 9-1-1 part, utterly dumbfounded as the Miss reached her hand out toward the water through an opening in the railing. 

Her eyes shifting down nervously at the evening ocean tide lapping against the shore just below her.

Her heart racing, as every measure of her self-preservation urged her to get away from the water.

You can't swim. If you fall in, you're going to die.

It was all she could think about as she stared into the twilight indigo depths of the water welcoming her to take that dare. 

But against her own conscience, Emily knew she couldn't just leave this woman floating aimlessly in the ocean to drown by the time an ambulance arrived.

Maybe she could buy some time by helping the woman drift closer to the shore, and grab onto the railing until someone could pull her out.

With one last timid glance at the ocean rolling below her, Emily rallied her courage and offered the woman her hand. 

"If you can hear me, I'm here to help you. If you can paddle yourself a little closer to me, I can pull you to the railing," Emily called to her. "Can you reach my hand?"

But the woman didn't move or react to the sound of Emily's voice. 

Her back still turned to the railing as she went with the waves.

And noting all the blood soaking the woman's dress and hair, Emily could only guess how badly she was really hurt. 

How had this woman even gotten out there in the first place?

It was only a second that Emily had turned her head away from the harbor to James and asked him, "Is the ambulance on its way?"

And then suddenly, a hand like ice grabbed ahold of Emily's wrist. 

So abruptly cold, that it sent a shock through her whole body, burning through the warmth of her unprotected skin, as icy fingernails bit into the tender underside of her wrist. 

The woman in the water shivered violently as her head rose slowly to meet Emily's eyes.

But the sudden shock of the woman's freezing fingers digging into her skin wasn't what terrified Emily the most. 

It was the identical image of Emily's own face staring back at her from the water. 

 As if she and the woman were looking through a mirror parallelling each other's reflections. Same confused and frightened hazel eyes, same waving chestnut hair, same antique early 20th century maid's costume that Emily often wore to work. 

Unlike Emily on land, the Emily in the water had no make-up over her naturally beautiful features. Her hair was done up more simply too, pinned in a strict bun under her maid's bonnet. And the color in the other Emily's cheeks was not like the rosy pink under Emily's astonished eyes. 

The pale bluish discoloring puffing up around the water Emily's eyes made her look like a corpse frozen in the frigid Atlantic. 

How this woman was still moving and breathing, while still feeling like ice to touch, Emily didn't know, but everything about it scared her out of her right mind. 

Frantically, Emily tried to pull her hand back from her deathly doppelgänger, but the specter imitating her likeness refused to let her go. 

Clinging onto Emily's wrist with surprisingly unrelenting strength, with the kind of desperation like someone drowning and grasping for anything to hold on to.

Her eerily blue lips quivering with great difficulty, as she stammered hoarsely to Emily, "Will...will it...will it be painful...do you think...to die in such a way?"

And by that point, Emily was so horrorstruck by what she was seeing, she stopped fighting to break free. 

Frozen in time against the railing, as she stared back into her own hazel eyes, with a racing series of broken images taking possession of her. 

~

A little girl with a burgundy ribbon tying half of her curls in a pony-tail, with her arm wrapped around a boy's shoulders, as they sat in front of a tombstone.

Evelyn Louise Lammin-Moody, it read. 

"I miss my mother too," the girl told the boy. "I'm Millie, by the way."

"James," he sniffled his answer, wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve. 

"I'll stay here and keep watch of you, James," she promised him.

~

"A bustle of forget-me-nots resting in a basket left unremembered on a rainy window.

"Forgive me. I do apologize for the misunderstanding. Cross as I am with my father, you did not deserve to become the brunt of it. I only wish I could take it all back."

~

The touch of someone's forehead against hers, their features unrecognizably blurred from imagination, as she melted into the warmth of this someone's arms. 

"I don't know how to answer that. Not while knowing how it will hurt us both in the end. Because if I were that girl, I could never ask you to abandon everything you love at sea for me."

"Don't worry yourself about that now. The only question that matters to me is if you love me. It was you that I meant I'm in love with. It was always you, from our very beginning. Tell me I'm not too late.  I will promise myself to you. Just tell me you want me, and I vow to be yours."

~

A trail of white carnation flowers rocking in a slow dance with calming waves below her, against the towering black hull of a ship next to them. 

"I'm afraid I must disagree. We were always kinder to each other as strangers."

~

A pristine white hallway lit up by chandeliers, glimmering like fallen stars over long elaborate red and gold-trimmed carpeting.

She was running.

Dodging people wandering confused in the hallway, dressed peculiarly in long pajama trousers with long overcoats.

Racing to get somewhere in a hurry against an endless game of dizzying white doors on either side of her.

Pushed on by a sense of urgency that she needed to knock on so many of them in so little time.  

"Pardon me for waking you at this hour, madam, but there's been a situation," she panted to the woman who answered her urgent knocking. "The captain has ordered that all women and children put on their lifeboats and get up to deck."

"Now?" the startled woman queried her in surprise. "Have you any idea what time it is? It's the middle of the night."

"I'm very sorry, miss, but I must insist you take this," she forced a lifebelt into the woman's hands. 

And not having anymore time to explain, she hurried off to the next door.

And the next, and the next, and the next.

Delivering the same urgent message over and over again.

Until a steward dressed smartly in his black victualing jacket called after her as he hurried around the corner, escorting an elderly woman in bowl for a black hat and black fur-lined coat. 

"There you are, love. We've been looking everywhere for you," he told her. "I was told only a while ago by an officer, that if I happened to see you by any chance, I was to tell you that you were missed."

"An officer?" she asked, taken by surprise.

"Yes, a--uh--Moody, I believe he said his name was," the steward told her. "He seemed quite keen on finding you. I told him I would let you know, should I see you walking by."

"Did he say where he was going?"

"Said a young lady dropped one of her belongings out by a lifeboat, and he intended to return it," the steward answered. "He said she belonged to first class. A young lady with red hair, a man's jacket, and a white and lilac gown. I reckoned she might be one of yours. Oh, and there was a lad who appeared to come from steerage accompanying her, with irons on his wrists. It was rather peculiar, I should say."

But before she could press him for more details, a man appeared at the opposite end of the corridor, a lifebelt fastened over his black evening jacket, as he opened one of the suite cabin doors without knocking. 

"Anyone in here?" his soft Irish timbre called out into the dimmed suite. 

Finding no answer, he moved on, catching the colleague in the hallway that she had only just talked to a moment ago. 

"Steward! Check the starboard side."

"Yes, Mr. Andrews!"

Then he stopped a woman to his right, who was taking her sweet time fitting her black gloves over her slender hands.

"Madam, please put on a lifebelt. Get to the boat deck immediately."

And then he turned to her, placing a hand gently on her cheek in a desperate plea. 

"Please, Millie, for God's sake, put on a lifebelt. I'm depending on you and Lucy to set a good example." 

"Forgive me, Mr. Andrews, but I am looking for one of the junior officers, Officer Moody. I was told by a steward that he was last seen here. He was trying to catch the attention of a lady passenger running about the ship, with a man who appeared to have broken irons around his wrists. I know it sounds daffy, but the lady had red hair, a pale lilac and white gown, and a man's black long coat. They appeared both to be in a hurry."

"Miss Dewitt-Bukater and Mr. Dawson, you mean?" Mr. Andrews recalled, looking somewhat relieved. "So, she did manage to find Mr. Dawson after all? Thank goodness. That a girl, Rose."

"Have you any idea where they'd gone?" she asked him. "I was informed that the officer had been looking for me. I believe he may have gotten the impression that I was in some kind of danger. I must find him and let him know I'm alright." 

"I'm sorry, I haven't seen any officer here, and it has been some time now since I last spoke to Miss Dewitt-Bukater," Mr. Andrews said. "I do believe we've alerted all the passengers under your charge. I beckon you to make your way to a boat immediately. Please, don't wait." 

And then she watched him hurry on his way down the hall, to urgently knock on the next suite door to his left. "Is there anyone still in here?"

~

It was like something out of her worst nightmare. 

Rounding the staircase descending onto D-Deck, the water flooding the first-class dining saloon was easily knees-deep.

Stopping her just before she reached the last dry step of the grand staircase. 

Her heart pounding madly out of her chest at how much the ship flooded already.

"Oh, dear God," she whispered to herself, remembering all of a sudden why it was she never let herself look too long over the railing of a ship at sea. 

Every instinct of survival within her begging her to think of her own life and turn back around. 

But the question of how she would keep herself kicking above water, if the flooding dining room got any worse, was second to the question of whether or not she had heard his distinctly Yorkshire voice yelling somewhere nearby. 

"James!" she cried out into the overflow of rushing water and flickering chandeliers hanging over the watery saloon, pushing pass her fear of the rising floods,  as she stumbled into the frigid cold of the ocean. 

Dinner plates, chairs, goblets, silverware drifting all around her maid's skirt, as it floated like a black dahlia over the red and gold carpeting underwater at her dress heels.

But nothing answered her back, except the ominously sparking dinner lamps sliding off their dressed tables, and dishes clinking roughly as they ran into each other with the pull of the water.  

And watching the dining saloon tilt with the steepening angle of the ship, she finally understood the full meaning of Mr. Andrews's plea that she not wait. 

But she'd come so far already.

And she was so sure the voice she'd heard only a moment ago had to be James. 

He was so close to her now. 

She couldn't stop looking.

"James!" she called out for him again.

And then by another lucky chance, against the groaning bowels of the ship, she heard the officer's voice not far off from where she stood at the grand staircase. 

"I said stop this at once!" James could be heard giving order to an older man, who held another blonde male passenger in a stand-off with a Colt M1911 pistol. 

"There are still good men aboard this ship, and we officers especially will not stand for any misconduct," James had him know.

"My apologies," the man answered him dryly, who may have been a valet to another first class passenger, judging by his own smart dark evening suit. "Though, this is a private matter, and we do not require the assistance of any officer to resolve the issue. I advise you to carry on with your business, sir."

"If your resolution is that you will continue to harass this pair here, I will not stand for any such handling of matters," James swore to him.

And having quite enough of the young meddling junior officer, the valet suddenly turned his pistol away from the blonde man and pointed it at James's own head. 

"Then I regret to say that you'll be joining them, sir," the valet informed the 6th officer. 

It happened in the blink of an eye, right in front of her.

So fast, that she had no time to prevent it, when the valet pulled the trigger. 

"James!" 

And as she stumbled through the water to reach the 6th officer, screaming his name frantically, her unwelcome presence was made known to the valet, who turned his pistol on her next. 

"Stay back," he ordered her. "I won't hesitate to cut you down either." 

Giving the blonde male passenger time to charge the pistol man from behind, grabbing his arm and trying to wrestle the pistol out of the valet's hand, as he ran forward. Smashing the valet's head into a glass window panel nearby. But even as the shattered glass rained into the water around them, the valet refused to surrender the pistol.

Forcing the male passenger to roll with him over dinner tables and wrestle the valet splashing through the water, as two pistol shots fired off  in the middle of the scuffle, landing in the ornate ceiling above.

"Jack!" the female passenger rushed out from the table she'd been hiding, desperate to help him subdue the rogue pistol man. "Jack!" 

"You little shit," the valet derided the male passenger, as he advanced on the one called Jack again, throwing another punch. 

Jack dropped out of the way of his swinging fist, and threw back a counter-punch at the valet. Stunning the manservant as he grabbed him by the collar and ran him into one of the many white beams supporting the ceiling of the dinning saloon. 

"Compliments of the Chippewa Falls Dawsons!" Jack paid the valet one last favor, hooking another uppercut into the valet's gut that dropped him to the swamping floor. 

And as the red-haired female passenger James had followed into the saloon waded back to Jack's side, the stewardess had taken cover in a small dish closet, dragging the 6th Officer along inside with her. 

"James! James, good god, look at you!" she whispered hysterically to him, as she desperately used her own handkerchief to try and stop his bleeding from the gunshot taken to his head. Careful to keep her voice low and hidden, in case the unhinged valet was still out there waving his pistol around. 

"I'm so terribly sorry, Millie ," the officer wouldn't stop shaking, shivering from both the freezing water around them and the amount of blood he'd already lost from his head injury. 

His hands soaked with his own blood, as he caged something glittering like a diamond in his tightly closed fist, which he hadn't let go of since he was shot. 

"I tried my hardest to--"

"Hush, don't start fretting over me now," she beckoned him, trying to keep her own voice from breaking as she cradled his head in her lap and applied more pressure to his wound. "I've got you now. I won't let you go now that I've got you."

~

"I've got you, Millie. I swear, I've got you, and you haven't anything to be afraid of. Please, say something to me, love. I'm begging you to just say something." 

Emily blinked numbly.

Her eyes staring cold and bewildered back into the face that belonged to that voice. 

The ringing in her ears gradually giving way again to the sound of the ocean waves in the harbor beside her. 

Just as Officer James Paul Moody's worried blue eyes became steadily clearer out of the tears that blurred her vision. 

"Emily?" James held her face with his warm hands worriedly, his eyes desperately searching for the light he knew so well in her that had vanished from her eyes. "Please answer me, darling." 

She couldn't.

Her cheeks streaming with tears as her ghostly gaze stared back into James's.

She wanted so badly to say something. To scream, even. 

But she absolutely couldn't make any sense of words anymore, let alone, understand exactly what had just happened to her. 

"Emily, for god's sake, just look," James begged her, desperately trying to convince her of something about the water's edge next to them. "There's no one there, love. There wasn't ever anyone there."

"James...it was...I saw..." she finally managed to murmur back to him.

"Good God, Millie, you're shaking," James said in deepening concern, pulling her into his arms to try and wrap her up in the warmth of his own body. 

His heart breaking for her every instant that she couldn't say a word back to him, feeling useless for not being able to chase away whatever had frightened her. 

"James," Millie whimpered back to him, her trembling never stopping, even as he vowed never to let her go from his arms, if it would only keep her warm. "Am I going completely mad?"

Chapter Text

'Here follows a diary written by James Paul Moody. A man who may now speak confidently of myself as the 6th Officer of the RMS Titanic, master mariner, apartment butler, admirer of The Artic Monkeys, master of the "microwave", ego-waffle-maker, and cat-nanny.

'But above all, a man earnestly seeking answers to the most troubling questions.

''It is the 18th of April.  The sun's come up now, though still faintly through the moving glass doors of Miss Amberflaw's balcony, giving me just enough light to write. Judging where daylight sits now, I should say it to be near 5 o'clock in the morning ...Four days since I let this flat with the Miss and her cat.

'Firstly, I write for you, Dear Reader of that bygone era I left behind, in hopes that keeping record of my days here will serve to recover my broken memory. Secondly, as the only sailor in history between 1912 and 2022 who has ever mastered transtemporal voyages (albeit, accidently) perhaps one day this diary will serve as a valuable gift to humankind on the scientific study of time travel...And perhaps, in my natural lifetime, such research will help me return to my own era. Though I am gradually finding my bearings here in the future, I must say, I often ache for home.

'Lastly, for the sake of pulling my wits back together, I write for nobutt the reassurance that I am not...erasable...That my memories are valid, and that I haven't gone completely over the deep.

'Should you of 1912 ever find yourself lost in 2022, as I have, I hope you will find the supernormal evidence I have gathered in this account useful to you.

'I rose early this morning, as has become my habit at sea, while Miss Emily still sleeps soundly very near to me in her sitting room. 

We'd gone out together yesterevening to the cinema--what modern people call a "movie" --and it was I who suggested the adventure, as we'd both had gotten the morbs with all this relentless rain. 

 Though, I fear, yesternight was rather hard on her...and I've tried everything to comfort her, with no luck...

I see clearly in her eyes that something happened to her at the harbor, but she has yet to share anything with me about it. 

It was a wonder she'd gotten to sleep at all.

I regret terribly having to wake her again in an hour for her work this morning.

Let alone, my pressing questions.

I myself haven't a heart to sleep with so much needing an answer. 

I only wish she'd let me explain how none other like I can truly understand her torment now.

How, like her, so dire is my deterioration of mind, that I can hardly judge which of my memories are real and which are only nightmares. So much of how I came about to Miss Amberflaw's world remains a mystery to me.

'And so, having not slept a wink and abandoning all hope of reprieve since yesternight, I've taken to playing riddles with myself instead. 

'Can one truly say they've fallen in love with a complete stranger in a matter of three days?

'If you, Dear Reader, think straight away--That's moonshine, Moody! Absolute driveling rubbish! Who would ever play up such a wildly daft idée fixe?-- Then you will find that this writer is entirely in agreement. Even for a man who has skipped an entire century of human existence through the impossibility of time travel, I swear wholeheartedly against such a damfool idea. 

'At least...I might've said as much 3 days ago...before I found her world.'

James's pen paused there, glancing up from his conveniently lined note paper at Emily sleeping cozily on the sofa, cuddled up with a warm plushie white throw blanket. The golden brown in her wavy hair made more golden by the rising sunlight warmly shining through the patio sliding door.

And now reassured that his work at the dining room table would not disturb her, James quietly continued writing. 

'The truth of it is...I feel that I am fast falling in love with Miss Emily.

'Though I've tried to convince myself that my affections for her are a consequence of her being so like the love I lost, I can't help myself but to feel that I care very deeply for her and that I am happiest when she is close by.

'Even so, the unexpected turn of events last night have only complicated things between us. 

'Titanic was not the first of these odd turns, I regret to say. 

'And by "Titanic", I mean that moving picture that bears its namesake, and not the White Star ship as I remember it. 

'Though I regret not making it back to the cinema with Miss Amberflaw to see our moving picture, my burning curiosity led me on to the internet last night, where, after my fair share of kittlin and sailing videos on what moderns call their "Youtube", I stumbled across Miss Amberflaw's Netflix account, and soon after, found the 1997 moving picture called Titanic. 

'To begin, this cinematic "reflection of history", as it boldly called itself, failed to include...me.

'In fact, there was no 6th Officer James Moody to speak of at all in the entire 3 hours and 14 minutes of what can only be described as a tragic adolescent romance.

'Bringing into question once more that strange incident at the Miss's museum, where my portrait has still not turned up.

'As if slowly...I am being erased completely...

'Leaving me to wonder again, after my arrival here to the future, what has it costed me in my past?

'I can not tell what will become of James Moody of 1912, now that I am here in the modern era.

'All I can say for sure is that brief as my life was in that bygone era, it meant something to me. And I can't say that I'm ready to let go of the forgotten role I played in history.

'What's more...I can't help but to think back to that day Miss Emily sat down with me here over our Stouffer's.

 'If it is true somehow, and the woman you remember from Titanic ended up here too,' she'd said to me. 'What if she doesn't want to be found?...What if helping her remember that she died in a shipwreck isn't what's best for her?'

'And remembering the look on Miss Emily's face yesterday, when she asked me if I thought she was going mad...All I can think of is those words. If I couldn't bear to ever put Millicent through such distress, why should Emily be any different?

'I can no longer put her through so much grief by remaining here with her, feeling that I am somehow at the heart of her anguish.

'Bringing me still to another question I can no longer ignore. 

'Was Miss Emily right that day we breakfasted together here? 

'Am I holding us both back from living the best of ourselves, by prolonging my stay with her in 2022? 

Would it be better for her, in the end, if I were to resume my pursuit of finding a way back where I belong, without making myself more of a burden on her?

'What going back means for me, I don't know, but it was never meant for me to stay here forever.

'I just hope, one day, she will understand why it's important that I go...and that had it all been different, I would've...

'No...I won't torment myself anymore by fancying that. In my anguish over Millicent, I fear that I have led Emily on cruelly these last 3 days.

'It is still the truth that  she and I are nobbut strangers. 

'And I must bring myself to accept that she will never be Miss Millicent Crawley, as t he woman I once loved died with me 100 years ago on Titanic.

'Yet...though strangers Emily and I are to each other, I am still even stranger to this world.

'And knowing now that my own world crumbled from underneath me without a reason, I can not rest without an answer. If there is a way to undo this, I must find it. If by some bit of luck, going back is the same way I came in, then I've naught to lose by trying.'

Chapter Text

It was in great relief that James noted Miss Amberflaw seemed almost like her usual self, after taking a few hours of rest.

And upon dressing for work and downing half a kettle of Yorkshire tea in one go, with a shot of brandy for a chaser, Miss Emily seemed perfectly ready to go about her day and pretend none of yesterday had ever happened. 

Running down her usual list of cat-butler duties for James as she hunted for her keys and wallet to hurry out the door.

"Oh, and don't forget, James, that Captain Wentworth won't take the Fancy Feast without the beef gravy--not chicken, by any means--"

"Of course, miss--"

"Steak and shrimp poured on top."

"As he would expect, miss."

"Twice a day at 8 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon. Snacks at 12, 3, 5, and-"

"Seven," James finished for her, stealing away with her habitual parting phrase. "It's all I'll ever need the blender for, eh? And he's not to be left alone, under any circumstance. It's all duly noted, miss." 

"All the best then." 

"Godspeed."

She turned toward the door to go. 

"Oh, and James," Emily stopped suddenly at the door, in afterthought, just as she was about to walk out of it on her way to work. 

"Aye, yes, miss?" James had answered, catching the door for her just in time for her to step back into the apartment with him. 

"About yesterday...I feel so bad about it," she said. "I didn't mean for my...'quirks'...to ruin our movie yesterday. I hope you don't hate me for it." 

"Quite the contrary, Miss Emily," he told her. "You should know...Roommates, as we are...I've grown rather fond of you. And you will always be a dear friend to me. Ask me anything, that is, should you need it."

"There is one thing I wanted to ask you," Emily confessed, rather awkwardly. "Well, I mean...maybe more than one thing, actually...There's so many questions I have to ask you about yesterday, that I...." 

But glancing again at the grandfather clock showing 5 minutes pass the 7th hour, she didn't get to finish that thought. 

"Anyway, now's probably not exactly the best time for this," she realized. "Maybe some other time then?"

"How about this very evening?" James offered her. "I'd say, after yesterday, we both deserve a go over." 

Emily smiled softly back at him.

"Is this a date?"

"If it is," James said to her. "I'd be honored to be your first. And I'll be waiting here for you to come back, so you can ask me anything you like. Oh, and try not to fret over a thing. I'll take care to handle everything that concerns the apartment while you're a-"

But James was cut off suddenly, when Emily stepped toward him on tip-toe and pecked him on the cheek. 

Making the officer blush up madly as she smirked coyly and turned back toward the door. 

"In a bit, mate!" she merrily walked out, stealing away with his habitual parting phrase. 

~

And that was how the sailor, freshly struck down by a kiss, spent his afternoon alone.

Tidying up the apartment for Miss Millie to have a nice place to come home to, and taking care that Captain Wentworth minded his manners until then. 

And it was during the vacuuming and airing out of the sitting room that James took up Miss Millie's throw blanket from last night, and began folding it neatly to pack it away in its proper place. 

But upon trying to tuck the blanket in with the rest in the hallway closet, James found that a brown paper box kept hindering his efforts to stack the blanket neatly on top. 

Fed up with trying to shove it in, James sighed and pulled out all the blankets, so he could get to the box hiding in the back.

"Gorblimey, what's in this bloody ol' thing?" he grunted as he dropped the weighty box into the hallway.

Noting the name Paxton written in black sharpie marker across one side of it. 

Then, after proceeding to pack the blankets back onto the shelf first, James bent down to hoist the box back up the closet next. 

Only to freeze in mid-step when the box flaps gave over from the bottom, and an avalanche of white paper fell into a mountainous pile at James's freshly polished dress shoes. 

"Ah, nice," he sighed for the sad 'un that was himself. "Just bloody brilliant." 

Crouching down to the floor to pick up each and every paper, James stilled, when by chance, he spotted his own name peek out at him from one of them. 

The lettering across the page reading: 

'Crisis Mental Health Assessment for "Jane Doe" 04/15/2021

'Patient is a 21 year old Caucasian female referred by law enforcement on a psychiatric 5150 hold for psychotic delusions. Law enforcement responded to Bitter Tears Cross after numerous callers reported seeing the patient wandering the shore and were concerned that she had intended to end her life, due to delirium and a significant amount of blood on her clothing. Patient was examined by EMS, and though she appeared to have no obvious signs of bleeding, she was at significant risk for hypothermia with a body temperature of 94.6 degrees. 

'The patient presented as wet, disheveled, and wore a long black dress and white apron that was covered in sand and blood. She was trembling significantly with shifting eye contact, appearing jumpy when hearing loud noises or when others entered the room. Despite this, the patient initially presented as calm and cooperative during her assessment, and spoke with a British accent. She stated that her name was "Millicent", and that she was from Yorkshire, England. When asked for a specific phone number and address, she stated she mostly communicated through telegram, and requested that her family be reached at "Downton Abbey" to let them know she was alive. When asked if she was in any danger, she responded that she was "working as a stewardess on the Titanic when the ship foundered". Patient denied suicidal ideation and intention of self-harm. She appeared perplexed by being questioned about suicide ideation and stated she was not attempting to take her own life, but had been looking for a man she was with on the ship, and referred to him as the "6th officer". She could not answer how exactly she ended up at Bitter Tears. She kept asking repeatedly if "the 6th officer" had survived the sinking, and where she could go to locate him. 

'The crisis worker informed the patient that the Titanic had sank over 100 years ago, and tried to explain that she appeared to be having delusions. She was notified that she was being placed on a psychiatric hold. The patient began trembling and shaking her head, becoming tearful and erratic as she attempted to escape custody. The staff reported that she was combative when they tried to restrain her, and had screamed, "James! How am I here, if he's gone down with the ship? He can't be dead! Please, dear God, I have to find James!" 

'In an effort to subdue her, the patient was sedated and was not able to complete her assessment at this time. No information was found to identify her, and no relatives have been contacted. The patient appeared to be showing signs of an Unspecified Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder, to rule out Delusional Disorder, and Bipolar Disorder with psychotic features. The recommended treatment is  medication services and intensive therapy to reduce psychotic delusions, significant phobias such as aquaphobia and nyctophobia, and stablize depressive mood before referral to outpatient care.

'Updated Contact Note: 04/29/2021

'Release of Information forms signed for patient's brother, Paxton Amberflaw, who was a walk-in asking for information about his sister, Emily Amberflaw. He reported that on 04/15/2021 his sister had gone for a drive along Bitter Tears Cross, before she went missing. He was worried she might've been involved in an accident after not hearing from her. Paxton was able to provide the patient's driver's license and other identifying information. The patient has shown signs of stabilization, and denies any memory of her crisis incident. She will be released to her brother once her hold is exhausted. The case manager will follow-up by phone regarding ongoing outpatient treatment.'

And before James could make himself finish reading that last sentence, the document slid out of the Titanic officer's hands, which shook too bloody damn much to keep himself from dropping it. 

The color in his face draining, as the realization came down on him.

Everything he'd sensed he knew in his heart about Miss Emily Amberflaw, leaving him breathless under the crushing evidence that lay before him. 

It was her.

It'd always been her.

All this time, the woman he had been searching to find for over a century since he'd lost her at Downton Abbey, had been there all along with him in that apartment, from the very beginning. 

And now James had irrefutable proof that Miss Millicent Crawley was actually Miss Emily Amberflaw, and--like him--had survived the Titanic and was alive and well, a century after theirs. 

And realizing all at once that he had only just had Millicent not more than an hour ago, before letting her walk out the door again, Officer James Paul Moody couldn't grab his coat, gloves, and the cat carrier fast enough, as he stumbled his way out onto the porch to go after the woman he loved. 

Chapter Text

I'm losing it, and I'm just getting crazier the longer I sit here...Like crazy attracting crazy...He thinks he's a 20th century Titanic officer...and I...

Titanic is just a movie. You're self-inserting yourself into a movie, Em. It's all in your head.

Emily's paper towel came to a gradual stop dusting Windex on the glass bookshelf behind her register.

Unable to stop seeing that same creeping flood sweep into that same eerie pristine white hallway. The freezing ocean rising over her knees. Her heels and his dress shoes crisscrossed around each other.

James pressing his quivering lips to her hair, his voice softer and worriedly more lethargic, as he closed his eyes.

'Had I known that you loved me still...I would've...'

Emily ripped off another clean paper towel from the roll. 

Shifting from kneeling in front of the bookshelf to sitting on the floor, as she quickly folded the paper towel into a neat little square and dabbed away another tear threatening to spill down her cheek.

What's wrong with me today?

It'd taken everything in her to put on a strong face for James, as they said goodbye at her door. 

She didn't want Moody to keep worrying about her, since that day he'd watched her come undone in the park. 

But most of all, she didn't want him to think any differently of her now, after he'd seen the real her and what her "crazy" could turn her into. 

Was it any wonder then that she didn't have any real friends?

Who wants to go hang out with the girl who "sees things", and might flip out on you any moment with a psychotic breakdown?

Nobody in their right mind had stuck around, once they'd found out what her tormenting reality was really like. 

...Not even her brother. 

How badly she hoped that same thing wouldn't happen between her and James. 

Though only 3 days together they had spent, it was so much nicer to not feel so alone, coming home to her maddeningly empty apartment. 

How happy she'd been to find someone else there for once, even if Officer James Moody was just a stranger to her. 

Frustratedly, Millie dragged the folded paper towel over her cheek again.

I have to stop all this crying. It won't fix anything. 

Rationalizing away the whole incident in the park, and how easy it was to actually fix this problem of hers. 

Why overthink it?

She was overworked and burnt-out. All she needed was a day off, that's all.

A very long, long vacation from being stuck in this damn gift shop all day. 

Because, when she really thought about it, all of her life was Titanic.

Every day she took a shift she wasn't scheduled for, every hour of that shift she spent here behind this register, every paycheck she couldn't turn down for all her bills. It all came down to her roleplaying this obscure stewardess in a Titanic museum, surrounded by nothing else but Titanic, Titanic, and more Titanic.

This museum, forever stuck inside an endlessly looping time capsule. 

Of course, inevitably, the line between real life and history would start to look a little blurry to her.

And after all the hours she was pulling lately, could she ever really blame herself for going over the deep yesterday?

Wouldn't anyone in her position lose their mind a little?

This week was, after all, the anniversary of her car accident, when everything she knew before changed overnight. 

Wouldn't she be lucky to get through one April without some kind of "mental event" happening to her?

Though...never had 'losing her mind' ever felt so real before. 

And she hadn't even been anywhere near a car when it happened.

She was doing "normal things" that she'd always hoped she could one day do again with someone. And that someone happened to make her very happy while doing them.

And if "just doing normal things" couldn't keep her safe from her own head anymore, what protection did she really have against it?

How could she trust that she was really ok in the end, and that this wouldn't happen to her every time she tried to move on and have a normal life, like any other 22 year old?

And even if she couldn't completely trust her head anymore, could she still trust her feelings?

Like those feelings she couldn't stop from happening now...glancing over at her register and the miniature Titanic grand staircase clock still lightly ticking away on the counter. 

Her mind finding something of a refuge in him, as she remembered the day she first found James Moody standing there behind the register. 

'Look, it's late. And I got enough to do without you jerks making things weird around here. Don't make me spell it for you.'

'I've got no trouble at all with spelling, thank you.'

The realization of those unexpected feelings slowly coming to Millie, making her uncertain world gradually more certain as she thought of James. 

'I'm clocking out now. So, I suggest you leave before you set the alarm off. Have a nice day.'

'What is it with you and clocks, eh? I've never known a woman to be so obsessed with the bloody time.'

And breaking into a watery smile she couldn't hold back anymore, Millie laughed a little to herself at that, as she used the paper towel to catch the smudged eyeliner at the corner of her lash line, just as it started to sting a bit. 

'If this truly is a ghost story, Ms. Amberflaw, then I wonder which of us is haunting the other?...You...or I?'

Truthfully, it was Millie who felt haunted now, as no matter how much she wanted to focus on dusting that bookshelf, she couldn't stop thinking about James. 

Almost as if...against all of her resistance and rationality...the cashier girl was falling hard in love with James Paul Moody, the quirky Titanic officer from 1912. 

But all too late...as it'd probably lead to nothing for them now. 

The unexpected turn of events last night had inevitably complicated things between her and James. 

It's not like...after watching her fall to pieces in the park yesterday, the Titanic officer would come running back to her in full dramatics, come what may of the rain, like a finale scene out of Bridget Jones Diary, or something, shouting her name like mad into the wind--

"Millie!" 

Emily froze suddenly, looking out toward the window pass the register counter. 

Her paper towel pausing in hand, just before wiping away another smudge of her runny eyeliner. 

And for a fleeting moment...she thought she caught a blur of a ghostly figure flying by the sidewalk pass her shop window.

Staggering along as his polished shoes slid across the slape wet sidewalk, James at last came upon the Titanic Museum Gift Shop. Finding that same door left ajar along the same snicket, which stood propped open by the same little rubbish basket.

"Millie?"

And forgetting again to mind his same trail of muddied wet footprints left behind as he dashed through the hallway, James checked every store closet and locked door to his left and right, until he found the one he wanted.

And the moment they locked eyes with each other, James knew from the very bottom of his heart that he'd be damned to ever let her go again.

"Millie..." James panted to catch up with his breath. 

"James? What are you doing here?"

"You're not going mad," James swore to her, as he marched on willfully toward the cashier girl. Brushing past the coffee mugs, postcards, and Titanic stuffed teddy bears that blocked his way. "My God, Millie, you're exactly as you should be, as you always were to me, and I want no different, I tell ye."

"Why are you so out of breath?" a stunned Emily asked him, still frozen behind her register with her Windex bottle and paper towels in hand. "And you're sweating...Did you run the whole way here?"

"I came here as fast as my feet could carry me," he told her, striding past the Leonardo Dicaprio T-shirts and White Star Line tote bags next. "All to tell you that back then, my heart was, and has always been yours, and how terribly sorry I am that you have endured so much torment on account of me. I wanted nowt else but to give you happiness, but instead, I have left you alone for so long to question yourself in this godforsaken place, without you ever knowing that you aren't broken, and that you never had owt to be ashamed of, and that I've never wanted anyone more than you from the start. I wish you'd forgive me for so much, Millie. Everything I've left you here alone to endure without me."

"It's...ok?" 

At least that's what Emily guessed she was supposed to say, in the face of such a surprisingly beautiful--albeit confusing--declaration. 

James threw the register counter door out of his way next, taking down the one last thing left standing in the way between him and his beloved.

"James, you can't just barge into my job and-"

The officer abruptly cut her off with a kiss. 

One desperately passionate kiss that lingered so long, she could only catch her breath again by breathing in his. 

"Just kiss me," Moody whispered his behest onto her lips. "I'll explain it all in a moment, I promise. But for God's sake, just kiss me."

As if he'd let a thousand chances slip by to kiss her this way, damned for so many agonizing years to think of her and every single moment with her he'd lost in his own private hell. Waiting for that ghost of a chance when they'd meet again, and he finally had his moment to love her relentlessly, without his status as a sailor, or hers as a lady, or even death, or the high seas of time to come between them. 

And though she knew it was madness that she should feel this way about a man she barely knew, Millie couldn't stop herself from grabbing James by the button fly of his coat, pulling his weight crushing fully onto her body as she deepened their kiss. 

"They're not dreams," James somehow managed to get out breathily between their kisses. "Solid proof of it, I have. I can show you straight away that everything I've come to tell you is the truth. It's right here in my pocket-"

Millie put a finger on his chin, jealously turning his head from his coat pocket back to her.

"Later," she whispered, her lips chasing his. "It can wait, James." 

Slipping her arms over the seaman's broad shoulders, Millie raked her fingers through James's fair coppery hair, as she pulled him down closer to her for another deep kiss. 

And feeling her fingers tangled in his hair, James's hot-blooded skin ran with goosebumps, drunk with the enchant of her barely suppressed, breathy little whimper as he knocked her into her paper towel roll behind her on the bookshelf. Breathing in the heady scent of violet perfume and Windex spicing the air that they only scarcely let each other breathe. 

And as a worldly man and sailor, it wasn't that James had never been touched by a woman like this before, but that it was Millicent. Every drag of her fingernails across the back of his neck felt like coal fire. His strong seafaring hands gripped a shelf of the bookcase behind her, inevitably feeling his body harden a little when Millie didn't stop. His knuckles whitening to control himself and keep his sensuous urges from winning him over and having her that very moment in that gift shop.

Awakening in him another fragmented memory, tantalizingly incomplete, fleeting with the tipsy redolence of roses, varnished wood, and violet perfume in his officer's cabin. The veiny tendons across the back of his suntanned hands tense as he gripped his red bed quilt tightly. Her skirt running up the black stockings and silk garters that artfully complemented her lush milky thighs as his hips drove teasingly slowed into hers. Far beyond the point of regret for that bygone moment when he wouldn't watch her quit his door again without hearing his say. 

Her body rocking in steady tantalizing lovemaking with the dipping rhythm of his. Her softly delirious moans against his pressing lips becoming harder to keep quiet as he brought her closer to the edge of passion.  

"Lowe may be the better man in the end, but he won't ever make you feel this way," James's hushed voice teased the rim of her ear. "You're mine alone to please like this, Millie. If it's more of this you want, you will have it, no matter what a villain they make out of me for giving it to you." 

And feeling that he must, lest he take her for his, the same way he had taken her once before, James forced himself to break their kiss, dragging his lips to rest tenderly on Millie's cheek.

His better judgement finally taking hold of him, as he vowed quietly to her, "I want  you, darling...Though, I know your workstead isn't the proper place for us. I hope you won't feel that I'm leading you along. I have every intent upon making you mine. But I cannot allow us to go any further until I have explained everything at home tonight, at least."

"I know," Millie sighed deeply, regretting having to let him go. "It must be important to you, if you couldn't wait until I got home. And it's not that I'm blowing you off either. I want to hear it, whatever it is. It's just...I still don't clock out for another half hour." 

"Of course," James smiled fondly at her. "Still going on about clocks, I see...So be it. I've waited so long for you until now. I'm sure I can manage a half hour more." 

And what's more, after what she experienced yesterday, James wanted to be sure the girl wasn't still in a state of shock. 

Though he knew fully why he loved her so, Millicent still had no idea that his love for her hadn't actually began in her gift shop, but that their romance had burned a century. And until she realized at last who she was, and what he meant to her, James didn't want her regretting anything that her feelings for him carried her into unknowingly. He wanted her to understand completely why he looked at her the way he did now. 

And that, alas, would take time.

He had a whole lifetime already to make up to her. 

"Wait for me," Millie whispered to James, stealing a couple more kisses from him before she was forced to let him go. "Then I'm all yours to tell me anything."

"A half an hour, you say? Whatever shall I do until then?" James asked her, still in lazy pursuit of her sweet lips.

"Buy something?" she smiled against his. 

"Very well," James said. "Then I'll have your finest key chains, please. A barmy lass I met in here once said something about a 3 for 1 sell?"

Millie snorted a laugh, "Shut up, you." 

And taking one last parting kiss from her, James finally made himself let go of the woman he so greatly adored. Resigning to return back where he belonged as a customer on the other side of her register.

"Oh and James," Millie called after him, before he could quit her shop. "If you're going to be snooping around my job after hours, might I suggest something a little more subtle than my Dr. Pepper T-shirt?"

"Aye," agreed the officer. "Of course, miss." 

Chapter Text

"Well, I must say that a relief, it is."

And by that, James Moody meant his restored portrait, as he watched the janitorial gents make a fuss at each other, grappling under the weight of the bloody frame in yet another attempt to hang it back up in the museum exhibit gallery.

As it so happened that, not long after James's arrival in the future, a pack of rascals on a school tour thought it great fun to draw a knob of epic proportions, fully extended at the fly of James's trousers.

"Spent all my goddamn shift scrubbing alcohol over this big ass fucking dong," one of the janitors was telling his fellow custodian, as he demonstrated the exact cut of it with his hands. "About yeigh long and yeigh big."

James nodded, pursing his lips, as he was inclined to admit that he was mildly impressed with the guesstimation. 

There or thereabouts, I suppose.

"Yeah, a real goddamn Picasso," the other janitor shook his head. "They ever catch that little shit?"

"Took him out right before he started screwing over these other two. I fucking hate kids."

Leaving James chuffing as he watched them continue to wrestle with his portrait. His photograph a perfect reflection of himself, as he waited in the photo exhibit for Millie to finish working. Having followed the cashier girl's advice and paid a visit to the costume closet to blend in with the museum staff. Feeling like his old self again, on trend as an officer in his old fashionable best of a White Star Line uniform with his cap cocked ever so slightly to the right side, the way he'd always liked to wear it when the senior officers weren't looking.

"So," thought he to himself. "I wasn't ever erasable after all."

Finding out at last that time travel had no effect on altering history or the troubling absence of his character from James Cameron's entire moving picture.

And as James studied his officer's portrait intently, trying to find in it the exact caliber of "hot" Miss Millie had meant while looking at it, his eyes dropped to the glass display case on a raised pedastool between his and Officer Lowe's portraits.

Locked inside of it was a Browning 1910 revolver, which, as Moody remembered it, shot the 32 centerfire pistol cartridge. The same pistol Lowe had carried on him, on the night Titanic sank.

And next to the antique firearm were 5 semi-rimmed, straight-walled brass bullets lined up at the butt of the pistol.

Three of which, James gradually remembered, Officer Lowe had fired that night alongside the hull of the ship to deter the passengers from rushing Lifeboat 14, as it lowered into the water.

Stay back, you lot! Just stay back! Stay back, the lot of you! Stay back!

BANG, BANG, BANG!

James was again shaken out of the memory of the building panic that night when the sound of 3 hard knocks on the locked museum entrance brought him back to the present.

"Alright! Jesus, we heard you!"

The museum security guard dragged himself lazily out of his seat as he fumbled with his keys to confront the impatient customer, whose reflection from James's view was distorted by the rain on the windowglass.

"Sorry, pal, we're not selling anymore tickets. We'll be closing down the place in 15 minutes," the security guard told him at the door.

"As if I'd ever be interested in purchasing one," the man stated, in a lordly sort of way with words that made James feel suddenly cold all over. "I have come here looking for something quite different. Where is your gift shop, might I ask?"

"Back out and around that way toward the alley. Just follow the signs," the security guard carelessly waved him in the approximate direction. "The museum part is closed, so I can't let you cut through here. You'll have to walk around the building. But like I said, you got 15 minutes, then we close."

"You'll want to do it much sooner than that," the man coolly muttered his suggestion, as he inflated his dark umbrella again. "Phone your constables. I can't promise you I'll be tidy."

And leaving the security guard lost for what he could ever mean by a 'constable', the customer turned back to the rain, striding toward Millie's gift shop door on the other side.

Leaving James with an ominously unsettling feeling, as he watched the dark distorted figure of the man move along the window glass.

His mind racing to place the man's strikingly familiar voice in his foggy memory.

"It's like you said. We're not lads anymore. We're playing a very different game now. Cruelest in all our contests of war. You won't have any ground before I've taken it from you in the most devastating ways you can imagine. Should I destroy myself doing it, you will never call yours anything that belongs to me."

And piece by piece, the face belonging to those words became a sobering realization to James, taking him back to that night he was last confronted by that same lofty voice at Lifeboat 16.

"James, I beg you to help me. I can't tell now if I'm too late...if I have doomed her...I never intended for any of this to happen. How could I have known that the ship would sink?"

Chapter Text

Just as Millie finished squeezing the mop into its big yellow bucket, the bell of the shop jingled again.

Allowing in one last minute customer.

Milie sighed.

Damnit...Forgot to lock the door.

Leaving yet another thing left undone for her to make done before closing the shop down and getting lost somewhere with James.

"Sorry," she called from the back hallway, rolling the mop bucket back into the store closet and making her way back to her register. "We close in 10 minutes. Is there something I can help you find..."

Millie froze just as she rounded the corner.

Her heart skipping when the man waiting at her register turned to face her. 

"Pax," she murmured in surprise, hardly believing that, after almost 5 months of hearing absolutely nothing from him, there her brother stood, seemingly materializing out of nowhere. 

Though...he didn't look anything like the brother she remembered. 

Apart from the full black three-piece suit he wore, complete with a high rounded-collar, necktie, long jacket, trousers, and waistcoat, the gray haunted look on his face made Millie instinctively come to a stop again at a safe distance between them. 

His sea-green eyes red-rimmed and watery with torment under his black bowler hat as he took her in.

As if he too were trying to recognize another person in her face. 

As if whatever hell he'd pulled himself out of these last 5 months had taken him prisoner again, when he found his sister there. 

"Millie," he finally forced himself to break their silence. "I have come to bring..."

But as he slowly scanned over her maid's costume, from her white converse to her snowy bonnet, finishing that thought seemed impossible for him. His lips trembling dumbly as his mind raced faster than words could catch up with him. 

After one punishing year of being cut through by the twisting knife of his guilt, every time he looked in her eyes, how could he bear anymore of these maddening reminders?

How could he ever find the words to tell her what gut-wrenching memories she provoked in him, upon seeing her standing there dressed like that? 

How could he make himself hold fast to his nerve and do what he came to do, when she was wearing that maid's costume identical to the one he remembered her wearing the night she...

"The neighbor," he desperately tried to pull his wits back together. "Mrs. Mendez...The madam with the parakeet...She said you'd be here."

"Pax, thank God," a tearful Millie could hardly keep herself from him anymore, closing the distance between them to hug her older brother tightly, who stood like death warmed up in her arms. "You're alright. I was so worried about you. I called every hospital in the city looking for you. I called the police, I called the shelters, I called anybody who would listen to me. I could barely make myself fall asleep, thinking something bad had happened to you all this time. I missed you so much." 

"What are you doing here, Millie?" her brother asked her in deep concern, as his stunned gaze darted around at all the eerie Titanic memorabilia surrounding them. "What is this place?"

"Oh, right," Millie's voice croaked as she rubbed away her tears. "I never got a chance to tell you. I got a job."

"A job?" he questioned her, glancing over her maid costume again. "At the Holiday Inn?"

"I'm a cashier," she informed him proudly. "And sometimes, cosplayer. It's just what we do here."

"No...No, this is all wrong for you," he shook his head, in swelling distress. "It's almost as if it's all happening the same way...I should have never left you alone here." 

"What is that supposed to mean? And why are you wearing all this?" she asked him, inspecting the fancy gold chain hanging from his waistcoat. "What exactly are you supposed to be? The Godfather?"

"Millie, listen to me. I must take you away from this place at once," he insisted. "You've no idea the risk you've brought upon yourself by doing this. We should have never gotten ourselves attached here, and here I return to find you working?" 

"I thought you'd be happy for me," she said. "I know I'm not perfect, by any means. I know I still have some healing to do after the accident, but doesn't this prove that I can do it? That I can be somewhat normal again? I held down a job for a whole 5 months since you've been gone, despite you telling me I couldn't because of my 'condition'. Doesn't that matter at all? Because it has meant everything to me. And all I've ever wanted was for you to be my older brother and support me." 

"Millie, you don't understand," Pax said. "It wasn't ever that I doubted you. It was for your own protection that I said you shouldn't get yourself involved here." 

"From what exactly?" she questioned him. "What is it that you seem to think I always need protecting from? I'm not some helpless little princess, Pax, and I won't let you keep treating me like I'm glass or something, like I'll just shatter to pieces if you're not around to save me."

"If you must be glass, then so be it, if only for the sake of me not losing you again, Millie," Pax swore to her. "I couldn't endure it all over again." 

"You have to let it go, Pax," Millie beckoned him. "At some point, we both have to move past that accident. I won't let it define me. And I won't let it stop me from having the life I want either." 

"And I can't blame you for wanting it, Millie," he validated her quietly. "This is all my doing. It's because of me you lost the life you deserved....And I can never forgive myself for it...Not until I've kept my word to you. I will fix this. I will make it all right again. I've come here to bring you home, Millie...and I fear...I fear that I have at last found the only way to do it." 

"What do you mean?" Millie's concerned brow knitted with puzzlement. "It's you who never came home, Pax. Where have you been all this time?"

"'Back there'," he stated, which only bewildered her more. "Where we were once happy. Where we were once ourselves again. I've found the way back to us, Millie...But the cost of employing such a dire method...I fear I may never have it in me to make you suffer in that way again." 

And interpreting his statement of "back there" as yet another disheartening sign that her brother's guilt wouldn't let him find peace with the past, Millie answered him in the only way she understood how to answer him. 

"I know you wish we could go back to a year ago...I know you regret never getting in that car with me. And I'm so sorry I've put you through all this," Millie told him. "But we can't go back, Pax. The past is the past for a reason. And honestly, why should we go back, when we have so much here to still be happy for? I know it's scary sometimes, facing the unknown, but we have each other and that's enough for me."

Her brother turned his attention to the shop window, using the falling rain as a distraction from the monster of remorse inside him, hungrily lying in wait to shatter the long-held innocence of her world. 

"Millie...there's so much I haven't told you yet." 

"Why would you say it like that...like you've done something wrong? You're scaring me when you say it like that," Millie murmured worriedly to him. "Paxton? Please tell me what's going on."  

"For God's sake, Millie," he snapped back at her. "I'm not Paxton. I never was Paxton. And you were never Emily Amberflaw."

And as he turned away from the window to meet her eyes again, Millie saw nothing in his that she knew anymore. 

"It's me, Millicent. Can you still not remember your brother?" he pleaded with her. "It's Patrick." 

But much to his dismay, his confession inspired nothing in her, except to make her even more disturbed by his delusional behavior. 

"You've completely lost it, haven't you?" Millie realized. "What exactly happened to you these last 5 months?"

"Can you still not hate me for what I've done to you?" her brother went raving on. "How I've never stopped punishing myself for hurting you."

"I don't hate you, Pax. You've been a good brother to me, better than my stubborn head probably deserves at times," Millie said. "And whatever it is...whatever happened these last few months that made you like this, I won't give up on you. You were there for me after my accident, and I'm gonna do the same thing for you...Will you just please let me help you?"

"No, Millie," Patrick murmured to her woefully. "I do not deserve your love...I have not always been a good brother to you."

~ 

When Colonel Gracie warmly extended his invitation to the Crawleys after the final course of oysters and lamb with mint sauce had been cleared by the saloon stewards, James Crawley hadn't expected his son to make his excuses.

"Forgive me, Colonel, but I fear I must decline tonight," Patrick graciously turned down the offer to join the other gentleman in the smoking room for cigars and brandy, forgoing the opportunity to congratulate each other on being "masters of the universe".  

"There is another matter of concern that has caught my attention with the victualing staff servicing my room, and I mean to make a report."

"At this hour of this fine evening?" James Crawley's brow furrowed in concern. "Can it not wait until morning?" 

"As it concerns the integrity of the service on this ship, I'm afraid it cannot be neglected," Patrick informed his father. "Until my report is safely left with the head stewards, I'm afraid the matter will require my attention for much of the night."

"Well, if it's really that serious, perhaps I should accompany you to ensure it is all handled properly," the elder Mr. Crawley offered, beginning to ascend from his seat at the colonel's dining table. 

But before Sir James could make his excuses to the gentleman around him, Patrick abruptly stopped his father. 

"No, papa. You must stay where you are." 

His tone so accidentally forceful, that it left his father mildly confused, and the other gentleman at the table curious as to why Patrick's leaving was creating such an odd damper on the evening.

It wasn't that he meant to step out of tow with his aging father. 

It was just that, after 4 years of watching his father wither behind the doors of his study, pining for the return of his missing daughter, that last night on Titanic was the first night Patrick had seen Sir James laugh so honestly in good company.

And seeing his father looking so happy for once, Patrick wanted more than anything to let Sir James enjoy this night in this floating palace of the Atlantic, far away from any anguishing worries about Millicent. 

"I assure you, it's quite trivial," Patrick pulled his lips into a reassuring smile, resuming his usual coolly aloof tone. "I'm sure I can make it brief. There's no need to leave your party and change your plans this evening. I will meet you again once the matter is resolved."

And once he'd marched back to his room, Patrick went to work on this resolution by first ordering a drink. 

Though, instead of brandy, he asked for tea to be delivered as soon as possible to his suite.

Unusual for him at that hour, but after all, these were unusual circumstances.

Patrick knew the steward who normally attended his suite would be busy, and slightly peeved by the request. He bet on the porter being too much in a fuss about the gentlemen turning in from cigars, and preparing their parlor suites for the night, as checking off his nightly rounds was more a priority to the steward than tending to the unexpected and queer request of one lone passenger.

And being a brandy-and-cigar brand of steward, Patrick knew his attendant would very quickly decide that preparing tea was beneath him anyway, and would likely pass the request off to one of the maids bustling through the corridors instead.

And having kept a close tally on who came and who went through his corridor, Patrick was very careful in calculating his prediction on which maid his steward would ask at that particular hour of the night.

But even after going through all the fuss with the stewards over delivering one small cup of tea to his parlor suite on C-deck, Patrick had no stomach to eat or drink anything. 

Not after what he had seen on his evening stroll out on deck just before dinner, after mistaking the officer's promenade for a shortcut to the gymnasium. 

And ruminating on that condemnable moment now, Patrick sat like a ghost in his suite, debating with himself on how he should proceed next. 

His eyes intensely studying the painting of Orpheus and Eurydice above the mahogany and emerald regency style of the fireplace. The piece showing that fateful moment when Orpheus found the sunlight, after ascending from the underworld to bring his wife back to life. And being so delighted by finding the sun at last, Orpheus forgets the promise he made to Hades to not look back, and turns around to share his joy for the sunlight with Eurydice. Only to lose his wife again, as she disappears once more into the afterlife. 

A quiet knock sounded at Patrick's stateroom door. 

"I have the tea you asked for, sir," the soft voice of a stewardess announced herself outside.

And knowing that he was not mistaken now in recognizing her voice, Patrick closed his eyes in a heavy private sigh. 

Regretting that his time had come to be the stern older brother, and no longer her doting accomplice.

"You may enter," he gave his permission.

The maid's footfall was soundless behind him, as she gracefully carried in an ottoman style tray plainly set with a cobalt porcelain teacup and steaming teapot, placed as presentably as she could next to two tea urns filled with milk and honey.

"I heard you were feeling ill," she said empathetically to the passenger, who still sat at his fireplace with his back to her. "I apologize if the tea appears thrown together. It was a bit short of notice, but I pulled whatever I could for you. Some loose leaves of English Breakfast, and a couple of leftover lemon meringue tartlets and coconut macaroons. The honey and cream dishes were a lucky find. Please, if there is anything else you need-"

"Yes," Patrick said as he stood to face her, making himself known to her. "There is, I'm afraid, a host of things that must be made right tonight."

If she was surprised by the sudden trap she found herself in, she hid it well behind that veil of trained gentry uncommon for a mere room service maid, and dare he say it, a subtle hint of defiance.

"I see there is no limit to how far you and papa will go to drag this on," she remarked coolly. "If there is nothing else, Mr. Crawley, I have other duties to tend to before I am called off."

Patrick scanned over her stewardess apron and skirt, the corner of his lips subtly perked with his repulsion of seeing his sister dressed in such a belittling way, as if it were the ultimate betrayal to their family.

"So, it's true," he could hardly believe that it was. "This is the life you've assumed since you ran away from the good name and family who loves you? Passed around from ship port to port like a coxswain's wench all this time?"

"And very happily," she defended her way of life. "After all, it's you who are heir to Downton, not me. Why should it matter to anyone what life I've chosen for myself?"

"I hope you will come to your senses and take that bloody thing off," Patrick ordered her. "Black doesn't suit you."

"Is there anything else I can get you, sir?" she stubbornly proceeded. "If not, I have other passengers to see to-" 

"Millicent, you're a Crawley, for God's sake!" Patrick declared, unable to restrain his frustration with her any longer. "And regardless of your selfish delusions, how you behave and carry yourself is a reflection of us. Do you care nothing for how papa has suffered without you? Have you not read the papers? Are you not aware of the way they talk about you at home? How they endlessly pressure me to cut you off for good for ever being this headstrong-"

"And you have every reason to do it," she countered. "I would not expect love for your sister to be the only reason you haven't done it yet. You are the future Earl of Downton, after all. You must act accordingly. And it would be better, for both you and father, if you disowned me."

"Do not ask me to damn you to a life you know nothing about, nor are prepared to take on," Patrick reproached her. 

"I don't need you to shelter me from it, Patrick," she said. "I've done it on my own for some time now."

"And I suppose, now that you've let him bed you, you believe he'll marry you?"

"I'm going now."

"I saw you two together on the officer's promenade. It took everything within me to not pummel Moody that very moment and save you from yourself. Spreading your legs to your cousin's affianced in the shadows of this ship?" Patrick demanded. "I suppose it's too late for me to ask if you could think of no better way to ruin yourself?" 

"Not in the least," she answered him. "I am not ashamed that I love him deeply." 

"It will end here," Patrick swore. "It's time to come home, Millicent. Once papa has returned from dinner, I will inform him that I have finally found you on this ship." 

"Papa is here too?" 

"It was one of papa's associates that spotted you in Belfast and wrote to us immediately. It's time to stop playing dress-up, Millie," Patrick had her know. "You will leave with us when Titanic docks in New York, and then Papa and I will escort you back to England at once."

"My life is exactly as I want it. For the last 4 years now, I've looked after myself," she declared to him. "What makes you think you can just come here and take it all away from me?"

"Damn you, Millie! How can you only think of nothing but yourself? This whole ordeal has brought nothing but torment on your family," Patrick tried to reason with her. "Or was it him you left it all behind for? Did you really step down to be a three-penny-upright for that sailor?"

"Every decision I've made until now has been for my own, and I won't allow any matter of 'whore' you call me to take it away from me," she said to him. "I'm sorry to disappoint you and papa, but I won't be going back."

"Like the devil, you won't."

She turned back for the door. 

"Enjoy your holiday, Mr. Crawley."

"Millicent, we're not done."

She kept walking.

"You're getting off this damned ship with us, if I have to drag you back home myself."

She didn't stop.

"Millicent, as your older brother, I forbid you to walk out that door," Patrick warned her. "Or I will be forced to do something rash."

"Goodbye, Patrick."

"You're not going back to him, I tell you!" Patrick lost himself in a fit of rage, advancing for his stateroom door before she could open it and grabbing her roughly by her arm. 

"Patrick, let go of me!"

"You want to spend your night with a man's bedsheets like the little slut you are, then so be it!" Patrick declared, fighting against her wild struggling as he dragged her to his parlor suite closet where his bed linens were kept. 

"Patrick, please let me go!"

"I'm sorry, Millie, but this is for your own good," he swore to her. "If you won't come to your senses, I have no choice but to keep you locked somewhere safe until you do."

And with brute strength that easily overpowered the young stewardess, Patrick shoved his sister into the darkness of the closet. 

Then he slid the chair from his writing desk across the ornate gold and emerald carpeting and shoved it under the knob, making damn well sure she couldn't get out on her own. 

"Patrick!" Millicent cried from the dark inside, beating her hand against the door. "Let me out at once! This is completely absurd!"

"No, you're the only unreasonable one, Millie," Patrick told her. "And you won't be allowed to leave that closet until we've reached New York. If it keeps you from turning into a danger to yourself, then I will do what I must."

"Patrick, unlock the door!" she cried, still desperate to get out of the dark closed space as he walked away. "You can't just leave me in here like this!"

"I'll check in on you after the cigars and brandy," he informed her, as he retrieved his dinner jacket and opened his suite door to take his leave. "Once you've safely gotten ahold of yourself."

Chapter Text

With a trembling hand, Patrick reached into his coat pocket and pulled out an old Webley 1911, setting the pistol down on the register counter in front of Millie. 

"It isn't until now," he stated somberly. "That I am at last becoming something of the brother you needed me to be." 

As if Millie needed anymore confirmation that her brother had irreparably lost his mind. 

"Why do you have a gun?"

"I met a woman in Belfast, who claimed she could tell me everything I wanted to know by reading my tea leaves," he said to her. "Do you believe in superstitions, Millie?" 

"But...what's that got to do with you having a gun?" Millie repeated her question tensely. 

"I purchased it for a modest asking price while I was aboard the Carpathia, from a man who swore it belonged to Titanic's First Officer, and that it would be worth a considerable fortune by the time we arrived in New York, once news of Titanic reached the papers," Patrick said. "I had lost all my belongings in my stateroom, and I had no money to pay my fare back to England. So, I kept it as a bargaining token. Though, in the end, it wasn't to Yorkshire that I sailed but to Belfast. I suppose you could say I was seeking peace with myself by tracing your footsteps. And like the rest of the world left behind by Titanic. I wanted answers. An absolution for why it had to happen this way. A place for me to rot in hiding with my remorse over your death, being greatly ashamed of facing everyone at home. 

"It was there, while drinking myself to stupor, that a chimney sweep told me he'd just met a oriental woman on the train who could converse with the dead. 'Not my bottle of whiskey', I told him. But I was so tormented with guilt, I was damn near desperate. The very next morning, I paid the fare and handed over papa's watch with your portrait inside. And this train witch, she took one look at you, and told me straight away that she could not hold a seance with me, as you were still among the living. I thought instantly, she must be a fraud. 

"Until she told me the most peculiar things....That you surely weren't dead, but lost, and that I should find you locked in an asylum in the city of the Great Apple. She also told me to buy a diamond, that resembled the sea at night, and that my grieving heart would know it when I found the right one. 'So blue,' she'd told me, 'That it's almost as if it weeps with you'.

Millie's eyes followed Pax's distant gaze to the jewelry case under her register counter, where the row of Heart of the Ocean replicas glimmered gloomily in the overhead light. 

"The day I lost it, was also the day I found you in that hospital. And I thought it for your own good that I called you Emily. I thought, by letting you forget your old life, you'd be happier here," Patrick told her. "But your nightmares never stopped...and life here, as I came to know, was far more complicated than I ever imagined. I knew we couldn't stay. So I began looking again for Le Cœur de la Mer. 

"The Blue Diamond of the Crown, King Louis XVI called it. After his death in 1792, the diamond was chopped into smaller pieces as well. One of which was rumored to be on the Titanic the night she sank. Regretfully, it remains unconfirmed. The so-called 'Heart of the Ocean' was never found after the sinking. But I swear to you, the French Blue diamond, even in pieces, is cursed. We are living proof of it. 

Patrick's eyes were dazed as he turned back to Millie. So lost now in his wild theory, that he didn't seem to notice he and Millie weren't the only two people in the room anymore.

"What if...Le Cœur de la Mer  was responsible for Titanic?

"Or what if...it's a great deal complicated than that?...What if, it is the most baneful of all cursed objects, and the only thing that moves such evil is death? After all, was it not a most horrific death that brought us together to begin with? Perhaps, like the other deaths in history the diamond is notorious for, we too are its victims? And could it be possible, that the only way to reverse this endless nightmare of ours, is to die in the most devastating ways with the diamond on one's person?

"I couldn't know for certain until I had tested the theory myself. I knew a fragment of Le Cœur de la Mer found its home at the Smithsonian Museum. I marched in and informed the guard that I intended to steal it, knowing well enough that I would be shot to death for doing so. Death, in the end, was my only freedom from this hell. 

"I know it sounds mad, but you must trust me, Millie. I would not put you up to this, if I wasn't absolutely certain that it was the only way to send you back home," Patrick said to her. "Please, Millicent, you must heed my word. There's a kinder life waiting for us there on the other side, if you would only take this chance." 

"You're out of your mind," Millie could hardly believe what she was hearing. "Are you actually serious?" 

"I regret that I cannot bring myself to do this for you," Patrick said regrettably. "I believed I was brave enough to do it....But it's so much like the last time, Millie...Everything about seeing you here now is one more agonizing reminder of the past I took from you. I cannot bring myself to hurt you again." 

Millie stepped away from back toward her register. 

"Are you really trying to convince me to take my own life right now?" she questioned him. "I don't know what happened to you when you disappeared, but this isn't you, and you're obvious you're very sick, Paxton. We have to get you some help. If that means locking you up somewhere, I'd rather see you there than like this." 

"Millicent, please, just listen to me-"

"That isn't my name," she insisted to him firmly. "I'm Emily, Paxton. I'm your sister. You've always protected me from everything. And now walk in here and hand me a gun?"

"Don't make me do it, Millie," he implored her. "Dear God, please don't make me do it again. If you don't do it on your own, I'll have no choice but to..."

"To what, Paxton?" Millie demanded of him. "Can you even hear yourself right now? This isn't you at all!"

"I hope you will forgive me, Millie. I hope you understand that I only ever wanted what was best for you," Patrick whispered, reaching again for his Webley on the counter and cocking another round into the chamber. "Give everyone my love on our side." 

"You go another step near her, and I will take you back 100 more years," James Moody warned him, striding into the gift shop with the barrel of Lowe's Browning 1910 pistol in hand.

And the only thing Millie found scarier than her brother's apparent mental breakdown, was how steady of a hand James Moody had with a pistol. With a cool, calculating focus of an adept marksman, not like the sunny poet she had come to know as James Paul Moody, the apartment cat-butler. His iron determination daring Patrick Crawley to call his bluff on meaning every single one of those 100 years in absolute earnest.

And just like that, the situation quickly became more than the retail cashier girl had ever bargained for.

"James Moody, with all his ducklings in a row...What an honor it is," Patrick acknowledged his long-time rival. "My old sparring partner survived the sinking of Titanic after all. I'd expect nothing less of the man who was so hellbent on proving himself as my equal. Well done, sir. Even in this life, it seems our games of war continue. Though, I don't know if I find that more aggravating, or comforting." 

"Do not provoke me, sir," Moody warned Crawley stoutly. "We both know still that you never learned your way around a gun." 

"So, it would seem," Patrick remarked. "Not much has changed then, has it, Moody?"

Millie's eyes shifted back and forth between them in puzzlement.

"Do you two...know each other?"

"That we were acquainted has never stopped being an inconvenience," Patrick remarked. "At the very least, I should say an introduction is hardly necessary." 

"Well, that makes it easy," Millie hoped. "There's no reason then why we can't all just take a deep breath,  sheath our pistols, and talk it all out diplomatically."

Because the last thing she needed was for two men in fancy jackets (both of whom claimed to be time-travelers from the Edwardian era) to draw their loaded pistols and duel to the death right upon her freshly mopped floors. 

"Just stay behind me, Miss Millie," James said to her. "If he insists on waving his pistol around, he will face a man while doing it."

"Hardly diplomatic," Millie remarked to James.

"She doesn't remember," James told Patrick firmly. "She has no memory of it at all. Look at her. She's bloody terrified by your erratic behavior. Is this how you wish her to remember it all?"

"And you believe you're doing her the favor by keeping her here?"

"Anno I can't say for certain that I believe in your morbid theory," James told him. "Though, even if it were true, and it were the only way back to 1912, I'd say Millie deserves the right to choose for herself what makes her happy." 

"Honestly, I'd just be really happy if you both put the guns away now," Millie interjected. 

"It's you who made her this way," Patrick accused him. "None of this would've ever happened, if you had just let her be and not gotten to her head. It would've turned out quite differently for her."

And as the game of accusations went back and forth between Patrick and James, it was at that very moment that an oblivious museum security guard finally strolled his way pass the gift shop window, furrowing his brow questionably at Emily, when he saw how tense the cashier girl appeared through the glass. 

'Are you ok? 'He mouthed the words to her.

And then his eyes widened when he scanned the rest of the shop. His gaze inevitably landing on James and the Browning 1910 he held fixed on Patrick.

White-faced upon stumbling into such a real-world situation, the panicked security guard ran back the way he came without asking questions, calling the crisis into his radio. 

"This is not a drill. We have an active shooter on the ground floor. White male, slim, about 6 feet, light brown hair, blue eyes, wearing a dark double button up jacket and a hat. Active shooter, active shooter in the gift shop. I repeat, this is not a drill." 

"What's happened to us is due cause for alarm, but there are women and children about here. Miss Millie is right. There's no reason to turn to violence," Moody tried talking Patrick down. 

"That's Miss Crawley, to you, sir," Patrick corrected him. 

"This is no time for particulars," James answered him. "And this is not the place to lose ourselves either. If you would only lay away your pistol."

"For God's sake, take it," Patrick told him, yanking open his Webley, as he unceremoniously dropped the bullets clinking one by one around James's dress shoes. 

And once he had emptied them all out on Millie's newly shined floors, he stared into James Moody's face again.

"It seems you were right about me, Moody," Patrick told him. "I have no heart for marksmanship." 

Then Patrick turned his softened gaze back on Millie. 

"Forgive me, miss, for the man I became to protect you," he told her gently. "How many times I wished I could go back and have one more chance to erase what I'd done that night. To give you back the life that was cut so tragically short for you. Though, as your brother, perhaps there is still one more thing I might be able to do to redeem myself." 

Then Patrick turned to Moody, and in slow-moving reverence, he gave a nod to the Titanic officer with a touch of his bowler hat. 

"The authorities will be here soon. And I must at last take responsibility for my actions. If it's punishment I deserve, then I will go quietly. However, if they question Millie, I fear her identity will be challenged. You should get her safely away from this place," Patrick said to James. "Look after my little sister, will you, Moody? I know I can safely trust her in your hands."

And though it was gentlemen's etiquette that a bow always be returned to the one who offered it, no matter if the gentleman be a friend or enemy, Moody put his honest heart into it.

Respectfully returning a small nod of his head to Patrick Crawley, in honor of that rare moment between them, when the two Edwardian men finally came to understand each other, united by their shared love for Millicent. 

"I will, sir," Moody vowed to Patrick. 

"Until next time then, eh, James?" Patrick said to him warmly. "Should we ever again meet on the other side, I should very much like..."

Patrick never finished that thought, as his attention was drawn to the shop window, where a caravan of police cars swooped in to surround the museum on all sides. Blocking off all points of exit and entry, as they got into formation to confront the reported active shooter barricading in the gift shop.

"Go now, the both of you," Patrick urged James. "I will take it from here."

But Emily's feet were frozen in place, reluctant to make her retreat and leave him behind.

What was she to make of any of this?

Her brother, an Edwardian time-traveler, like James?

Could this all really be happening?

"Please, Millie," Patrick told her. "Take care of yourself." 

And knowing that she couldn't make herself do it alone, James slipped his hand into Millie's, locking his fingers around hers tightly to lend her more courage.

"I don't care what you've done, you're still all the family I have left, and I will come back for you," Millie swore to Patrick, as James began leading her toward the shop's back door. "I don't care what it takes, I will find a way to get you out of that place. I promise." 

And as she and James ran down the hallway to escape from the back door, Patrick's stoic figure before the window was the last thing Millie saw of her brother. 

Patrick turning to face the window again, and letting go of a deep shuddering sigh as the police swat team sprinted by the glass toward the museum entrance. 

James pulled Millie back just in time from being run down by a procession of police cars racing around the dumpsters into the back alleyway with lights and sirens booming.

And with her heart racing, Millie feared what would happen if the cops held them up and demanded her and Moody for IDs.

"We have to get out of here before they ask questions," Millie said to Moody, guiding him along to the alleyway to her parking spot on the opposite end of the building. "This way."

"But they are the constables, aren't they?" Moody wondered, as he kept pace behind her. "Surely, if we only explain the misunderstanding-"

"If Pax is right, and my name and ID really were stolen from someone else, then we're way beyond a misunderstanding now. More like a misdemeanor," Millie said. "'Constables' here are only for 'privileged' folk."

And pulling the driver's door of her Honda open, Millie had just enough time to pile all the fluff of her skirt and petticoat behind the wheel of her Honda and turn the ignition, before her freckled green eyes spotted a cop in the rearview mirror approaching her car.

James glanced over his shoulder from the passenger's seat to note what caused her so much distress.

"You might want to buckle up," she warned him, reminding him of the point once again, as if he could ever forget. "I still don't exactly have a license." 

James scarcely had enough time to work out his seatbelt, before she hotfooted the gas and jumped the wheel over the concrete parking stop to evade the policeman behind her.

Galloping forward over speed bumps to make their escape from the parking lot.

And Millie never let up.

Clenching the steering wheel tightly, as she took steady, deep breaths. Her eyes trained on the rearview mirror and the brigade trailing behind them.

Knowing that they were past the point of no return, bracing for whatever was to come in this strange reality of her ever changing world. 

Chapter Text

Moody had seen distress flares at sea before...sternlights...masthead lights...all-round lights...but none quite like this.

Reds and blues flashing and circulating, appearing and disappearing again... something about the way they dimmed in and died out unnerved him...He couldn't exactly say why, but they had quite a foreboding effect on him.

His heart raced, but he kept his breathing steady.

Calm and calculating as he gazed into the passenger's side mirror at the police brigade lying in wait behind the Honda.

"This is the P.D.," an amplified man's voice boomed, as if he were God almighty himself. "Put your hands up and get out of the car. Surrender the gun immediately."

Surrender his weapon?

How could he trust such an order when they cornered him like an animal?

He felt for Lowe's Browning 1910 in his coat pocket.

Having no intention of ever using it, but knowing he was none the less safer by keeping it.

James looked away from the fever dream of lights dancing through the passenger side mirror.

Turning his worried gaze again on Millicent, who still hadn't stirred in the driver's seat. Her bonneted head slumping against the shoulder of his own bench.

And after theoretically "dying in a shipwreck", James was amazed to find he'd survived the collision without a scratch.

The Miss, however, had taken the brunt of the hit as her car swerved like an unbroken horse in its chase, smashing into a grove of trees off-road. 

"Millie," James tried again to wake her, his eyes desperately searching her pale face for any signs of life. With only just her subtle shallow breathing giving him a small measure of hope. "Can you hear me, miss?"

And rubbing his icebergs for hands together, breathing warmth into them so he wouldn't shock her with his numbly cold fingers, James gently grazed his fingertips across her brow. Sweeping back her disarrayed hair as his fingers dragged down to the closed lashline of her eye, and slowly rounded into a pause at her cool cheek. Wishing for the warmth of his touch to coax her back to life, as he traced her heartbeat lightly against his fingertips.

The discovery of its fixed slow beating being much to his relief.

Until at long last, the chill of his wintery touch carried her back from the empty dreams of lifelessness. Making her stir against his hand as she unconsciously leaned in closer to the lulling comfort that only seemed to belong to him. Chasing his touch by her heart, rather than her senses, as if an innate longing within her had waited more than a century to find him and would be damned to wait for him any longer.

Millie's lashes slowly fluttered open to him, caught between dreams. 

Feeling strangely and ruefully emptier when his hand slipped away from her cheek, as she awoke to the world again. Missing all at once that fading warmth of a dream her soul was convinced she'd once knew with this man next to her.

Even as she was absolutely sure that she never had until now.

"James?" she whispered, surprised to find that, out of all the absurdities that had hit her today, the Titanic officer from 1912 staring back at her was still more strange than anything. "What happened?"

"Easy now, Miss Millie," he urged her. "You took a right nasty hit, and moving too hastily may worsen any blood gathering in the head. It's brain congestion, I worry for."

"I'm fine," she said, though feebly enough to leave James unconvinced.

Wincing as she pressed her hand against her throbbing head, the Miss appeared entirely confused by the flashing lights parked up the embankment behind them. "Did I really just crash my car?"

"Don't remember the way of it, do you?" James questioned her, showing deeper concern. "Knocked yourself right out cold, I'm afraid."

But when?

It all happened so fast, she barely remembered it.

But James could never again forget the pack of mechanical hellhounds that gave chase of the little Honda through the steep mountain roads.

Even the wailing the hellish beastly machines made sounded to James like they were in perpetual agony.

Until the Miss's motor car went feral, wildly swerving off the road after the wheel slipped a patch of ice. Fishtailing down a steep seaside embankment until the rear of the automobile slammed into a tree below. Narrowly saving them from dipping clear off the edge of Bitter Tears Cross, into the 60-or-80-something drop of violent Atlantic ocean below.

"How long do you think we have?" Millie asked James. "Until they find us here?"

James scanned the police brigade closing in around them, his chief concern being not of his own capture, but of seeing Millicent safely to a doctor. 

"I can't say, love," James spoke in gentle solace to her. "Don't be frightened. I'm still with you...every step of our way." 

"I'm not frightened," she whispered back to him. "Not anymore." 

"I never wanted this for you, Millie," James told her quietly. "You should be home on a night like this, in that warm cozy apartment of yours with the Captain and hot cocoa. I never meant to drag you so deeply into this maelstrom. Had I never fell by your shop and called on you to help me, you might've never--"

"Known you?" Millie's answer was soft. "I think I must disagree, Mr. Moody...Even if you finding me in my shop was only by accident, I'm glad I met you, James. I've never felt so close to anyone so easily before, and these last few days have been the happiest I've felt in a while. It was like I was so numb to everything before...I felt like a shell of myself, like a zombie...So, despite everything, thank you for stumbling into my shop when you did, and making me feel a little more real again." 

"A zombie, Miss Millie?" James smiled at her ever-peculiar wording. "Considering the circumstances, I'd say a man raised from the dead, by the very definition of it, is truly the zombie. And what a monster I turned out to be to you, making a muck of all this in the end. I will hold myself accountable. If I can reason with them, then I must, for your sake. I mean to give myself up, if it's me the brigade is after. I couldn't thoil with towing you along anymore than this."

"And say what to them, exactly?" she asked him. "Nah then, bobbie gents, ah'm only just a man who skifted across time from 1912. Hold still, ye say, while yer master-of-arms buckles me wrists for the looney jug?"

"Teasing me, are you? Of course, you're teasing me at a time like this. Is that really, honestly how you judge me to sound?" he called out her rather cartoonish performance of his accent. "You might like to know, miss, that straight away, I wouldn't ramble so bluntly those exact words. I'd rather say to them..."

Millie waited expectantly for his answer.

"I'd say..." he began again.

But no matter what alternative script James strung together to counter her satire, it'd likely all sound like the ravings of a dingbat loony to the police.

"The point stands," Millie remarked stubbornly. "I won't let you go out there and throw your life away, while swearing that you did it for me. I won't live with that, James." 

"But you must, miss," James insisted to Millie gently. "For all you've done for me here, I cannot let you take the fall with me. And I'd much rather see you live on as Miss Emily Amberflaw, or whatever person you wish to be, knowing that whatever you choose, you made the most of your life here. And that life was full and happy, just the way you wanted it to be, as it should always be for you."

"And don't you think you deserve that too?" Millie asked him. 

"The truth of it is. I am a ghost of myself as well, Miss Millie. I belong to that past where my heart still lingers...with that love and life I left behind, which is no longer mine here. I do believe you couldn't have said it better, that the past is our past for a reason. And my life has long ago been lost with the Titanic," James said to her. "By surrendering to them, I risk nothing that I wouldn't already give instantly to you. And so, I expect that it's here we must say our goodbyes, Miss Millie."

"If you go out there," she warned him. "And tell them everything you've told me, you'll end up some place worse. You have no idea what you're walking into." 

"Don't start fretting over me now, Miss Millie. I'm a seafaring man, after all, and I've come out alright through the worst of tides," James assured her, smiling in such a tragic way that only made her want to change his mind more. "Even in my darkest nights at sea, I've always found a star to guide me back to where I was meant to be. And it's to you that your stars have brought me, Millie. Brief as it might've been, these last three days, it has made time evermore dear to me. And I regret nothing of it, love." 

"I suppose that's it then...That it was all just bad timing for us," Millie said to him. "In the end, we were born into completely different worlds, you and me. I belong here, and you belong there....It was always meant to be brief, wasn't it, James?" 

Was there ever a chance now of rewinding back time to those 3 days?

Was there still a "normal" to return to in her apartment, if by some miracle, she could somehow convince the police that James brandishing a weapon in her shop was a misunderstanding? 

Perhaps, after just one night in a police station, they'd be free to return to her warm cozy apartment, and fall asleep cuddled up with each other and Captain Wentworth, after such a long harrowing night together.

Wouldn't that be so much better than this?

Perhaps there was some loophole in the law she could use to help her fight her little identity predicament, if she were arrested tonight.

But Moody?

What rights did he have in the world of 2022, where society could call him insane and lock him up like an animal, or buy his story, by some slim chance, and then lock him up anyway as a lab rat for the rest of his natural life?

No one deserved such a fate.

And should anything happen to James after he was taken, Millie could never live with the idea of it.

And so, when it really came down to it, what other choice was there for James now, but to start all over again.

"Even if this is the goodbye we knew was coming for us," Millie continued, trying to sound determined over the swelling lump in the back of her throat. "It won't be the end for you, James. You are going out there, but not to the police."

"What do you mean, miss?"

"I wrecked my car to get you this far, and since you can't exactly pay me back in shillings to fix it, it's my rules we're playing by now," she told him. "I'll distract them. I can make up a good story. The most they can do is hold me for questioning for my ID, and then I'll get a lawyer. You, however, will never make it out of wherever they take you. So, I suggest you start swimming from here, Mr. Moody." 

And reaching into her maid's apron, she caught the Heart of Ocean between her closed fingers, and pressed it into James's palm. 

"You have to make a try for it," Millie whispered beckoningly to James. "If Pax was right about how this all works, it might be the only way we can save you. By giving you back your life from back there." 

"Though, suppose it doesn't work as he says, and when I die, I truly die this time?" James wondered. "Suppose I am lost forever to you in history, as I should have always been?"

"I know it won't be an easy thing to do," Millie said. "But if dying with it on Titanic was how you came here, whatever happens after this, it will only be temporary, right?"

James leaned in closer to Millie, and with all the tenderness he felt in his heart for her, ran his fingers through her hair as he left a soft kiss there. Watching the red and blue lights come and go across her face, he felt instantly wistful. That somehow, he was making another great mistake by leaving her behind again. 

Knowing that no matter how many chances at a new lifetime he lived to see, it would only be with her that his soul found rest. And without her, this disquieting sense of incompleteness in him would endure. 

"No, my dear Millie," said he. "Dying, for me in the end, was always the easy part." 

But the only gamble more wishful than dying to live again was finding a way out of that car.

Millie's eyes dragged ahead to the dark roaring sea lying in wait beyond the hood of her totaled Honda, paralleling along the cliff's edge. Realizing how precariously her car leaned against the mercy of the tree she'd just clipped.

Feeling again that dreadfully familiar turn of her stomach, upon seeing the deadly drop of a raging sea below her. 

One careless move, and it'd be the end for both of them.

"Easier said than done, right?" she mumbled to James, as she stared into the crushing death trap below her driver door.

"Right, you best not look down," James advised her, as he inspected the damage of the doors and windows for any sign of an easy exit point. "Fix your eyes on anything, miss, save the water."

He tried the passenger door, only finding that it stubbornly wouldn't budge. The damage incurved around the hinge preventing him from pushing it open properly.

Leaving James no other choice but to use force, using the butt of his pistol to fracture a complicated spiderweb into the glass.

And with the window thus weakened, he knocked out the rest with his elbow, and found his way out.

"Come through, Millie, and I'll pull you over," James encouraged her, reaching back into the car to offer his hand across the seat to Millicent. "Nice and steady now."

And as carefully as she could, Millie scooted from the driver's seat to the passenger door, squeezing James's hand tightly as she nervously watched the car rock and groan against the tree trunk. Praying it didn't snap before she made it out.

But before Millie could think too long about what might happen if it did, James swooped her out the car, and her feet dropped to the ground with his. Clinging onto his coat sleeves to steady herself against his solid core.

Her white bonnet brushing the brim of his officer's cap, as she looked into his eyes one last time.

"Had it all been different for us, James, I think I could have easily loved you," she told the officer. "Good luck to you, Mr. Moody. I wish you a full and happy life in the past."

But before James could respond to anything of that gut-wrenching and sudden confession, Millicent pulled away from his arms, and marched out from behind her wrecked car, braving the flashing red and blue lights confronting her. 

"Millicent," James couldn't help himself, feeling he couldn't take the permeance of goodbye just yet.  All he could think to do was stop her. "Please, darling, just wait a moment."

But she had already raised her hands up in plain view of the waiting police brigade, who dropped down in a defensive position, with their guns pointed at her loaded and ready.

And remembering that their agreed upon plan was for him to stay put, James forced himself to honor her wishes.

Knowing that revealing himself in front of the brigade would only agitate the situation and make things more complicated for Millie. 

And so, James could do nothing better for her in that moment, except to let her go. 

Chapter Text

Gazing into the Atlantic waiting beyond the cliff's edge where he stood, James counted on himself as a strong swimmer. 

And if it was by the ocean he came, he might surely make the jump and leave his fate again to the sea.

Had it not been for one last agonizing question that kept his feet stubbornly fixed on dry land.

Will she really be ok after all? 

Could he trust that leaving Millie behind was the best decision for her?

Would she be made to suffer on his behalf?

James turned his gaze back in Millie's direction.

His heart torn in a tug-o-war caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

To stay here with her or go back to his own world in 1912?

Return to Titanic as a damned man, or remain in 2022 as a prisoner?

Of little consequence is the place, so long as it's with her. 

They were the only words that came to James's mind as he stared into the sea storm carried in by night over the restless ocean, knowing it was the only sure answer for him after all.

I want to be with her, always, and nowhere else. 

And without any time to properly weigh the consequences of going back on their plan, James went with his gut feeling and chose his heart in the end.  

Turning his back away from his freedom at sea and hurrying instead after Miss Millie.

"I got a visual!" a police officer shouted, ducking back behind his car door to take cover as he held Millie at gunpoint. "Hands in the air! Get on the ground now!"

And witnessing Millicent being threatened in such a barbaric manner, James instinctively drew the Browning 1910 from his coat pocket. 

"Lower your weapons," he ordered the police brigade, utterly disturbed by their callous brutality toward an innocent woman who had done nothing to deserve it. "It's me you want."

"He's got a gun on him!"

The police officers quickly followed suit, ducking again behind the doors of their own cars as they drew their Glocks.

"Drop your weapon now!"

Stepping between their guns and Millicent, James scanned them with his own pistol.

He was outnumbered and his hand trembled ever slightly, but he refused to back down.

"James, what are you doing?" Millie demanded of him. "Are you crazy?"

"Forgive me, miss," he said to her. "But the rules have changed."

"Drop the gun and put your hands behind your head!" another cop ordered.

"If you allow her to go free," James made his conditions known to the police. "I'll do everything as you ask."

"I said drop the fucking gun now! I'm not gonna tell you again!"

"There's been a misunderstanding. I'm not a nuisance," James tried to reason with them. "I'm telling you, a misunderstanding, it is. The lady has done no one any harm." 

"He's not complying! You're gonna have to take him out!"

"James, no!" Millie's hands desperately grabbed the officer by his sleeves to pull him back from the all-but-suicidal duel he'd challenged with the police. "You have to get out of..."

But James Moody had no time to pull her out of the way when three gunshots fired off in rapid succession.

And in the end, it only took one.

James felt the shudder that went through Millicent's body as she lost her strength against his, her breath taken by the pain of the bullet that ripped through her side. Tearing through her white apron, and shredding its path of devastation into her lungs.

And after that moment, all she felt and heard in her body was pain. 

Drowning out the sound of her name on James's lips, as she guarded her fall with the steadiness of his own body, so she wouldn't hit the ground.

All her mind could think about was pain, barely registering why the blur of James's face looked so devastated, and why he appeared to be in a panic as he looked back and forth between her and the wall of officers behind her. Shouting something she couldn't hear over the slowing ocean tide of her breathing, that seemed to mercifully take the pain away from her, little by little, with every breath she exhaled. 

The relief so comforting, in fact, that Millie thought for a moment that she was actually getting better. 

Why does he look so worried?...Is it really that bad?

James pulled her closer to his chest, as if the rhythm of his beating heart would save hers, and stop the life from gradually dimming in her summerly hazel eyes.

And being no stranger to death, James saw it clearly in the face of his beloved now. 

Her breathing turned into silent choking against his chest. Her color passing into a ghostly gray as her natural instinct to breathe met a stalemate with the pooling of blood in her collapsed lungs.

An excruciating and cruel death to endure.

The wound was fatal.

"Millie, don't shut your eyes, love," James pleaded with her. "Stay with me. There are doctors here who can save you, if you can keep yourself awake just a while longer. I beg of you, Millie, please open your eyes."

But as her heavy lashes batted slower, and her complexion became grayer with so much loss of blood, James knew he was asking more of her than she could now ever give him.

And it was then that James felt exactly what Henry Wilde had always tried to make him understand, in feeling that he might endure anything, but the cruel fate that took away a beloved so dear to him. So unbearable the emptiness left behind when the object of one's love is ripped away, it seems impossible that such a thing can ever happen. That a man can feel that he has been ripped to pieces across the planes of the universe, impossible to be made whole again. 

'When you meet the woman you love,' Wilde had said to James once. 'Love her deeply, as if God will take you both tomorrow.'

And holding Millicent against him, ne'er so strong enough to stop tomorrow now, for all his seafaring prowess, James knew then that he and Wilde were two entirely different men, and that Titanic's Chief Officer was a man of far greater courage than him. 

How might his heart ever imagine moving on from this?

Had his and Millicent's last night on Titanic been much the same?

Feeling her warmth gradually leave her body, and having no power to save her.

"I've only again just found you," James told Millicent, his body trembling as he tried not to lose himself against his fast breaking heart. "It was supposed to be different this time." 

And knowing that it shouldn't have ever happened this way, James was inconsolable and sick to his stomach with heartache, and the cutthroat brutality of this draconian world that mercilessly took Millie from him. 

Turning his gaze up to the police officers, who still held him at gunpoint, James's words were subdued by incredulity, "What have you done?"

"Get on the ground now! Hands behind your head!" a police officer screamed at him. "That's the last time I'm gonna tell you!"

"This is murder," James swore heatedly. "Save her, damn you! You cannot allow her to die like this!"

"Back the fuck away now! Don't force me to put you down, buddy! I don't wanna have to do that!"

But James Paul Moody of Titanic was already dead.

He had nothing left to fear of death. 

They could do with him as they pleased, for what he should care. 

"I love you, my darling. I always have loved you. I couldn't wait for you to come home, so that I could tell you myself tonight," James pressed his face into Millicent's hair, with each of his repressed murmurs breathing in the dreamy scent of violets he loved so well, stained by blood. "I'm sorry, I'm so terribly sorry. Forgive me, my love." 

Because what lay in his arms now was unmistakably his to answer for.

Once more, Millicent's life was over, and whether he remained trapped in this troubled reality or returned to his own, James Moody was again a broken man. 

And he knew he could never bear the crushing memory of watching her die all over again like this. 

He'd always wish there was a way to undo time for her.

To alter history so that Titanic, his ill-fated meeting with Millicent, and his failure to stop her untimely death again had never happened. 

He wished more than anything that Patrick Crawley's mad theory was the truth of it. 

That crossing through time might also happen in reverse.

That there was a way still to retreat back into the past, when Millicent was still alive on the gangway ramp with him in Belfast, or back in her shop tormenting him with her quirky clocks and daffy spectacles.

What if it wasn't just his own past he could transpose, but hers mutually?

And glancing to his right, James counted a short distance of 3-5 paces off the cliff's edge into the ocean, as the stormy tide pummeled its wrathful surf into the rocky shore.

God in heaven...

It was damn preposterous.

Surrender his own life again to an insufferably painful death by sea?

All for a theory that had no sound evidence from the beginning?

Not even a madman would fancy such an idea!

But damn it to hell, it was all James had left to try.

And try he would, if it brought Millicent back to him in the end. Because wouldn't he face anything, if it was for her? 

And so, deciding that it had to be the way of it, no matter what should come, James surrendered all thought of self-preservation and rationality. 

Squeezing Millicent tightly against him as he stole away to the cliff's edge and took the harrowing plunge. 

Until in a final act of mercy, death violently ripped him again from this world. 

Chapter Text

Police Sargent Jim Pierce was asleep at 2:20 a.m. when he got the call.

They fucked up bad this time, Jim. You need to get down here and figure this thing out. If you don't, this whole department's going down like the Titanic once this story hits the news.

Pierce didn't find the play on words funny.

And it was too goddamn early to haul ass in his truck down to the harbor before the media got there first.

Bitter Tears Cross overlooked the Atlantic Ocean at a cliff face on a side road, somewhere in the area of the Great South Bay and the Sunken woods. It was open to the public, but mostly a favorite route for hikers into the state forest. Too many rocks and sharp turns going up the hill for anyone who didn't know the area.

Only time he ever got called up there was to talk a 5150 from jumping off the cliff edge now and then.

But not for anything like this.

Nothing ever this whacka-doodle.

In fact, it was these kind of oogie-boogie stories that tanked the careers of police officers like him.

And he'd worked too hard to earn his reputation.

But this case--this "ghost story" as they were calling it--was destined to make or break his career.

"Somebody better start explaining this to me," Pierce demanded, stepping out of his truck into the chaos of red and blue police lights parked in a semi-circle facing the harbor. "How does an unarmed 22-year-old woman end up shot to death while in custody?"

"Glad you could make it down here, Sarg," a younger man in a suit flashed his badge at him. "I'm Detective Malich, from the county. I've been assigned the case."

"Jesus, I haven't even seen the case yet, and the county's already up my ass. Great to see our tax dollars finally doing some work. I been trying to get the county down here for months. So, what made you hotshots decide to finally grace my lowly little turf with your presence?"

"I'm not allowed to comment on that yet, while the investigation is pending," Detective Malich answered. "I don't mean to step on your toes, Sarg. I know you got a lot of fires to put out this week."

"Something about the month of April, I don't know what it is. The Oklahoma City Bombing, Columbine, and now the Titanic? Springtime is for lunatics too, I guess," Pierce shrugged a reply. "So, what happened here? A classic murder-suicide investigation? Girl breaks up with boy and boy can't handle it like a man, so, he throws her off the cliff?"

"That's what they're calling it," Malich remarked. "But you and I both know, it's never that simple."

Pierce gazed down at the 60-or-80-something drop off the cliff into a death trap of rock and pounding ocean waves.

He whistled.

"No way in hell anybody could've survived that, let alone a 22-year-old female," Pierce told Malich. "You're the expert, detective. What are you calling it?" 

"Kidnapping gone wrong? Disgruntled employee who couldn't take rejection? Bonnie and Clyde wannabe?" Malich dropped his guesses on the table. "Take your pick."

"Who are the suspects?"

"That Honda you see over there, it's the one that led the police chase when they drove up here. It's registered to the suspect we have in custody, Paxton Alexander Amberflaw, but the ID card we found inside belonged to Emily Daisy Amberflaw. Date of Birth 04-12-2001. The one down at the station is her brother, who she lived with. Worked as a cashier at the Titanic Exhibition Museum downtown. Driver's license states Caucasian female, hazel eyes, brown hair, 5'6, 143 pounds."

"And what connection does the brother have to her and this boyfriend?"

"Wouldn't give me a straight answer," Malich said. "Gave a bunch of conflicting statements. For one, he said his sister died years ago, on April 15th."

Pierce checked his watch to confirm the day's date.

"Three days ago?"

"Said it was years, but couldn't give me an exact date. He also said his sister couldn't remember much of her memories, and that he was trying to 'save her' when he walked in the museum with a gun."

"Sounds like a beautiful start of a classic 'I'm innocent by reason of insanity' defense he's building there," Pierce remarked, putting on his reading glasses to jot some notes on the hood of his truck. "As far as I'm concerned, everybody's a suspect here."

"Already ahead of you, Sarg," Malich noted it too.

"You ID'ed this 'boyfriend' yet?" Pierce asked him. "The one who threw her over the cliff?"

"Security guard at the museum called in a Caucasian male," Malich read directly from his notes. "Blue eyes. Light Brown hair. About 6 feet in height. Suspect was wearing a waistcoat, pocket watch, neck tie, and a ship officer's cap with a White Star Line emblem. British accent."

"Jesus, are we talking Cracker Jack Box or Colonel Sanders?" Pierce eyed him over his glasses. "Any family we can reach out to to get more information on this guy?"

"We're working on that," Malich said. "All we have right now is surveillance evidence to go off of. The victim appeared to be interacting with someone in the back hallway, back by the restrooms. According to the store manager, there's no cameras back there."

"And nobody saw her come back from these bathroom?"

"It appeared that she came back to the register one more time, to greet another customer, but the video drops into static after 16:47. Then pops back up at 17:01, where she's seen running with the second suspect back toward the restrooms. The manager told me there's an emergency exit in the hallway back there, and that's likely how she got out. That's when the police pursued."

"And what evidence do you have that this could be a robbery or kidnapping gone wrong?"

"Absolutely nothing," Malich admitted. "The store manager reported that all merchandise and cash in the register were accounted for. And there didn't appear to be any ballistic damage to walls and windows. All that was reported missing is a firearm stolen out of a busted display case. The entryway to the shop had a door counter installed on it. It pinged four times during the hour. The back door at 16:14, then again at 16:28. Then the front door went off again at 16:47, and the back door again at 17:01. Store manager confirmed none of the locks were damaged."

"And she was the only employee in the gift shop who'd have access to that back door?"

"Yes, sir."

"So, assuming it wasn't Amberflaw playing musical doors, and guessing that she had employee access to the back, let's assume she was the one to open the back doors at 16:14 and 17:01...Brother came in at about 16:47. We know that. So, who was in that shop with her at 16:28?

"That's the million-dollar question. The store manager said they'd just replaced the cameras, and they been having wiring issues ever since," Malich reported . "We haven't got an ID yet on the second suspect from the CCTV. There's no match in the database. And the manager stated the man wasn't another employee. Amberflaw was working that shift alone." 

"Are you trying to tell me we're really dealing with some ghost here?" Pierce questioned him. "I'll leave the Ghost Busters hoodoo-voodoo to you, detective. My main concern is how and why this girl ended up shot. That's what they called me down here to figure out."

"The female was driving and wrecked at that turn there," Malich pointed the spot out to him off to their right. "Where that opening in the trees is...She got out first. And then at some point, the second suspect came out running behind her?"

"I'm sorry, you said the one in the waistcoat, right?" Pierce still couldn't buy it.

"Waistcoat with a pocket watch. Just like the White Rabbit in Wonderland. My notes say at the time, officers were still under the impression that he and the female were the active shooters, which was later found to be false when P. Amberflaw turned himself in," Malich said. "Looked like the second suspect was acting in self-defense against the suspect we have in custody now...Though, that was until the Mad Hatter here decided to hold officers at gunpoint."

"And what type of firearm are we talking?" Pierce asked, quickly scribbling away at his notes.

"A Browning 1910 Automatic Pistol."

"1910?" Pierce swore he didn't hear it right. 

"Same one reported stolen from the museum. Officers held the second suspect at gunpoint, which spooked him and made him draw his pistol too. It appeared that the female attempted to talk to police to defend the suspect, but when officers saw the pistol in the suspect's hand, they opened fire, judging him to be a threat. Somewhere in the confusion, the female was shot. She died on scene." 

"And was that done by my guys or this wacko waving a Victorian era pistol around?" Pierce stopped him to clarify.

"Edwardian, technically" Malich corrected him. "And it wasn't clear. We'll need to see the body cams to make that determination. Officers reported that he appeared distraught and noncompliant, before he took the female over the cliff with him." 

"Jesus," Pierce sighed, shaking his head. "What a fucking dumpster fire. Any bodies recovered yet?"

"We got a dive team about 15 minutes out. So far, no bodies yet."

"I need to see all the surveillance tapes you got out of that shop and all the body cam from the officers on scene," Pierce ordered one of his officers next to him. "If this guy had a gun on him and was posing a valid threat, it could save our asses. And I'm gonna need something better to report to HQ other than some ghost story as to why this girl was shot dead in the first place. And while you're at it, let's book the guy we got already in for questioning."

"Welcome to April," Malich said cheerfully, patting Pierce on the shoulder, as he walked away. "Good luck, Jim." 

Chapter Text

Part II:

1912

Out of a perpetually dark nothingness came the gentle sighs of a whispering North Sea.

James's fingers quivered.

A subtle little jolt in his resting knuckles that thawed the tingling numbness in his still hands, buzzing warmly with a gradual rush of life.

Making him faintly aware of the soft sunny warmth of light washing over his face, and the splendid coziness of something woolish underneath him.

His haven of unconsciousness chased away by the playful lullaby of the low morning tide, distinctly less carnal than a midnight surge.

And judging by the familiar caressing passes of the ocean waves, he guessed it to be early morning.

Slowly coming to from a sleep that felt too much like death, James inhaled deeply, long and indulging, as if he'd waited a century to finally take one more precious breath.

Taking into his lungs the dreamy scent of meadowsweet shale sea cliffs, almond spices of hawthorn blooms, and woody English ivy kissed by misty sea-air.

Fragrant mementos of springtime at home and everything green he never thought he'd breathe in again.

His fair lashes sleepily batting open with a lambent gaze like the soft satin blue of chalcedony in fair dawning sunlight.

His eyes wandering from the plushiness of his pillow to the lofty vaulted ceilings above him, alight by the large sash windows of the room, through which the sunlight liked to play against dark green and gilded damask wallpaper entwined with cream honeysuckle blooms. Aged and gloomily Victorian.

Have I truly died at last? Is this heaven?

Reaching for his brass open-faced Elgin watch lying on the bedside table, James blinked repeatedly to clear his dully aching head and make sense of the blurred numerals doubling in his vision.

"T-two-twenty...as I should've expected....No...hang on..."

Sitting up in bed properly, James turned the pocket watch around, realizing he'd been looking at it the wrong side up...and now that he wasn't so wonky all a quiver....he'd dare say the number 2, upon closer inspection, looked more like a 7 now.

7:20 in the morning.

It seemed the happy little blighter was finally ticking away again.

"Chuffing hell, what a headcase this duffer is," James whispered in disbelief, never finding the absolute normal functioning of a pocket watch so peculiar.

But not so peculiar as the way he was dressed now, like nothing proper to be in bed, his double-breasted officer's coat torn and hanging in tatters at the lapels and sleeves, as if he'd turned into some wolfman last night going Captain Ahab against the ocean.

Had he really done it after all?

Had he beat his wager against death again, and managed to right time by coming back to 1912?

If that were true, then where was Titanic?

Why was everything so serenely quiet around him, when his heart beating in his ears was anything but?

The only life in the room being the soft breezes dancing in from the window next to him, open and undressed to allow as much of the sea-air in as possible.

Carrying the scent of lavender sachets and bergamot from wardrobe closets, and playing in the fluttering muslin curtains falling over brass rods from ceiling to floor, allowing a breathtaking view of a dreamy coastline.

And watching the shadow and light play through the leaves of the Irish oak outside his window, James might've believed there was no trouble at all in the world.

He might've felt overjoyed to be home again and so much at peace. A peace he hadn't felt since the first day he'd caught an ocean wave between his toes, and so many other delightful childhood memories he remembered in Scarborough.

But he was wet, and shivering, and he'd just jumped off a cliff after being trapped 110 years into the future.

And he was unmistakably alone and needing answers.

Reminiscing about his local and other such personal indulgences could wait.

James started to scoot out of bed to a ballad of curses and winces.

Because in all his 10 years of being at sea, sleeping on just about any plank or a hammock in pretty well any typhoon the sea could throw at him, he never remembered waking up beaten so black-and-blue.

As if he'd been tangling in bed with a sack of potatoes all night, and the sack had won.

Bleeding Christ.

He knew he slept like the dead in any which-way, thanks to cramming all of his full extent into tiny sleeping spaces inside every-which ship, but nothing a few cracks here and there of his neck couldn't fix.

But this was supremely heinous.

Though what the blazes should he have expected after popping off a cliff?

"Ah, bloody and bugger," he moaned in a whisper, as he worked the tension this way and that out of his shoulders.

An anvil of a headache crushing down on him like a hangover.

James worked at the tangle of sheets and covers wrapped around his thigh, before standing from the bed.

Undoing the last of his brass buttons, the only two hanging on by a few sparse navy threads. One stray button dropping with a dead clink onto the planked wooden flooring underneath his bed, as he tore the lapels of his ruined officer's coat open to expose his damp dress shirt underneath.

Dropping his coat onto the floor next, his white starched collar and dress shirt followed, and then the undershirt he'd worked over his head. His hardened chest and buffed arms flexing, as off went his ruined and unpolished dress shoes.

And then starting at the couplet of buttons just below his navel, James stopped suddenly, just shy of completely undoing his trousers.

The grisly consequences of traveling back and forth across a century coming down hard on him.

The foundering of Titanic.

That ghastly museum with its only ghastlier gift shop.

The most darling eyes he'd ever known gazing into his, as dying sunlight set fire to the torch of Lady Liberty.

The sea raging and crashing below him as he looked down into it, holding the beloved he was so afraid to let go of, as he put all his gamble to save her on nothing but a diamond and the hope that he was right about it all in the end.

Millie...Cor blimey, what have I done?

James's heart skipped, remembering vividly and all at once that the love of his first-second-and-now-third life had died again as he held her last night.

And waking up alone in his family's guest bedroom was the aftermath of him doing something desperately reckless to rewind time for her.

If that was the way of it, and he had truly made it back to 1912, where was Millie?

Had he really come here alone...or had he done something more terrible than he intended by reversing time?

In his grave despair over losing her, had he ensured nothing but the self-fulfilling heartache of losing Millicent for good when he jumped from the cliffs of Bitter Tears Cross?

No, no this is all wrong, it is.

The whole point of him dying in such a brutal way was to save Millie in the end, not just himself.

Was that not the way of this morbid contract? One life for another?

Had it not happened that way with him and Millicent on Titanic?

Burning and betrayed in the heart-pounding silence of unanswered questions, James eagerly searched his officer's coat pocket for Le Cœur de la Mer.

Unable to stop fretting about what he might've done to Millie, and why she wasn't there with him, and what consequences he'd brought upon them both by "making a deal", so to speak, with a cursed diamond, who never played fair, being an inanimate object with no conscience, and whose only going rate appeared to be the blood of its keeper.

James found the bloody thing safe and sound in his inner pocket. Unscathed, of course. Peacefully glimmering in his hand like the mirroring surface of night ocean waves. Silent with its untold secrets of why it had picked him and Millie. Unbothered by the violence of last night or how greatly it had thus far ruined his life.

Leaving him only to guess at a supernormal phenomenon he still didn't understand.

He'd done everything as he'd done it before on Titanic.

He had the diamond on him the night he died beside Milicent.

Where had she gone to in the end, if not here safely with him?

Or...Did reversing time mean that she was also stirring awake somewhere in the future, in her cozy apartment with the Captain, missing the quiet whistling of James's morning tea kettle exactly 3 days before he was actually supposed to arrive in her gift shop?

Or did it mean that she was now apart of his world too, just waking up as he was, in some place like Downton, perhaps? Or somewhere as a stewardess again aboard a ship across the world--stirring awake from a vivid and confusing dream of clocks, hot cocoa, and perpetually rainy weather--as she watched the sun rise from her porthole window, trying her hardest not to look down too long at the ocean beneath her?

James hoped to God that it was the latter.

That she was still there in her apartment, safe and sound in the future where he'd first found her. Where she'd be able to continue her life as Miss Emily Amberflaw, and all the freedoms that came with it. One of those being that he could now never show up in her gift shop and cock things up for her.

She'd live on fully and happily now without ever knowing him.

Because every time Millicent had known him, she inevitably found herself dying in his arms, and James would not stand for letting it happen again.

So, however it was that James had undone time and found himself in Scarborough, there'd be no bewailing out of him for it, if it meant Millie was safe from this egregious cycle of death.

"Pardon me calling like this on no notice at all, Christopher, but I couldn't think of anyone else to help me with him. He listens to you. And I'm desperate to make him listen to anyone."

James's attention was stolen from the Heart of the Ocean in his hands to the desperate pleas of a woman somewhere outside the room, making him aware that he wasn't alone in this house anymore.

Miss Annie?

And finding out so suddenly that a madam was present in the house while none of his clothes were at hand, James quickly snatched open the oakwood doors of the guest armoire and searched for a men's dressing gown to wrap around his half nude person.

"Now then, what's happened? I left Grimsby fast as I could get away when I heard the news," the voice of James's older brother matched their stepmum's tone of urgency. "Where's papa gone to now?"

"You've only just missed him," Annie sounded out of breath, having just fought the good fight to keep John Moody from walking out their street door. "He's gone back to Liverpool. Our poor Mr. Evans and I couldn't hold him off. Says he won't come home until somebody at White Star answers him about your brother. Won't open up his lug ole's for me or anyone else who tries to reason with him."

"Heard summat of it from Mr. Evans on the drive over. How long's it been since he's gotten away from ye?"

"He's been gone not long. An hour, little less, little more. I reckon he's still dawdling around for the train, if you hurry," Annie told him. "I'm so afraid for him, Chris. He's not treating himself well. You should see the state of him. He won't eat, pens letters to White Star all afternoon for James's sake, and not too often comes out from his study. And when he does walk the house, he walks around bogeyed like the living dead, asking only for the morning paper. It's leaving me fair geffered!"

"Now, mum, geffered isn't kind at all," Christopher corrected her. "Chuffin' pissed is more tellin' the truth of it! That nanglin' White Star nobbut wrote me more of their distinguished words, and I'll 'appen papa won't mind another joining him off to Liverpool."

"And what do you reckon playin' pop with them would fix in the end, I wonder," Annie had him know.

"Is there still no word from our James?" Christopher hoped against hope.

"Nay, lad, they won't tell us owt, I'm afraid," she informed him regretfully. "They say their inquiry is still underway, and they'll tell us nowt of the missing crew and passengers."

"Like the devil, they won't. He's my brother. White Star won't throw me off so easy. Let them try to play yonderly in telling me what really happened to James," Christopher muttered under his breath, taking back his Danbury hat from Evans again and marching toward the door. "In a bit then. I'm off to find papa. If he comes back ere I do, send me word straightaway."

James gently pulled open the bedroom door and quietly stepped out into the hallway on the loft overlooking the reception foyer, where he could hear their muffled exchange more clearly. His bare footfall so soundless, that he was undetected by both his brother and stepmother in the echoing foyer below.

Catching sight of Christopher just as he reached the door, turning to leave one last instruction for Mr. Evans, "Mind my father while I'm away. He's right out of his head worrying over James. If he comes back, tell him it's me who says he's not to leave again. I don't care if you must tie him down in his study, keep him there until I return."

"Very good, Mr. Moody."

But just as James's jaw parted to call his brother's name and clear the grave misunderstanding about his whereabouts, a knock sounded strongly at the door.

And seeing that the knocking was now yet another obstacle blocking his warpath to White Star, Christopher was in no mood for social niceties, and was the first to beat Mr. Evans in flinging the door open to confront the unlucky caller, who dared time his mithering knock so perfectly.

Whomever Christopher William Moody expected at the door, it was not the stoddy fellow dillydallying on the snek.

Caught red-handed in the act of changing his mind, the man at the Moodys' door froze. His deeply brown eyes appearing only deeper as his widened stare met Christopher's. Hints of fiery copper flirting with the warm chestnut brown in his strong gaze. His body turned away at a peculiar angle, as if he had suddenly decided to ding-dong-ditch the bell and make a run for it, before Christopher jumped on the door and beat him to opening it.

If Christopher could bet a guess, he'd say the man was not much older than him, and certainly much too old to be playing boyish games like bell-ditching.

"Sir?" Christopher's sandy brow rose at the dauntless caller's obvious plan to abandon ship.

"Sir," the caller echoed the greeting, straightening his awkward posture and formally tipping his bowler hat to his host, in minimal propriety.

"Our door is not a museum," Christopher informed the ding-dong-ditcher. "Is there nowt else better you can do, mate, but pester folks?"

"If you don't want me," the brussen dark-haired man answered him--with a little bite of snark to boot-- "I'd be happy to go."

"Why would I want you?" Christopher asked the peculiar dark-haired visitor, his handsome face furrowing tighter, confused by the hint of a Welsh accent playing somewhere in the man's words.

"You invited me."

"I did not."

"Did so."

"I assure you, I did not," Christopher reiterated firmly. "I do not entertain."

"I am never entertained."

"For the love of--Go on then, man, what is your business here?"

"I was asked here by one Mr. John Moody."

The uncanny caller sized up the tall, imposing, but softly blue-eyed Englishman guarding the door in front of him.

"I reckon you're not him."

"My father is not in," Christopher answered him.

"Well, there's lovely," the peculiar dark-haired man resigned, happy to turn from the door again and leave. "Good day, sir."

"Well, aren't you the dastardliest of dastards?" Christopher accused the elusively elusive man. "Playing on the bell for sport? Have you no respect for a grieving family in mourning?"

The man stopped walking at that.

Appearing to sigh deeply, as he weighed the odds of staying longer there himself...before gradually turning back to face Christopher.

"Your father penned me several letters," the man answered him. "And...I've gotten none too much sleep, knowing that I was unable to answer even one of them. And so, before my conscience drags me down to the devil, I have come here to tell him what I'd always known. That is...to let him know exactly how it was his son James had died."

"Oh, dear sweet Mary," Annie whimpered into her handkerchief, making Christopher instantly regret that he had answered the door so abruptly without escorting his stepmother to a private room first.

"Do you mean to say that he is really gone?" she whispered breathily. "Our James?"

"We were informed that my brother is only 'missing at sea'," Christopher said firmly. "We haven't given up hope that he'll be home to us soon."

"And how many more days will you count before you know he never will?" the visitor asked him quietly. "It's a month to the night she went down, sir."

"I'm telling you, it doesn't sound right for our James. I know my brother," Christopher persisted stubbornly. "I know his skill as a mariner. And I know even better that he will find a way to pull through and come home to us. Until he does...Until he comes through our door one way or other--by his own feet or carried in by another--I will not entertain speculation, sir. What proof do you have to say he's dead, I'd like to know? Who, might I ask, are you?"

"Lowe," the Welshman answered curtly. Though not out of agitation for the man at the door anymore, who hauntingly resembled the English officer he knew as Jim Moody. But for putting himself up to this damningly awkward crusade of 'doing the right thing' in the first place. "Harold Godfrey Lowe, of White Star. James is my...The James Moody I'd known was a good man. So, damn it all to hell, if they contempt me for it. Let the tusses hunt me down to the end. I won't belt up and hold my peace about what happened that night. If that's not what you wanted to hear from me, then I'll say it again. Good day to you, sir."

Christopher chuckled quietly to himself, as he took a moment to consider the bold as brass flippant man at their door who bravely called himself 'Lowe, of White Star'.

"White Star, you say?"

"I did say. I'm not being funny."

And whether it was by spot-on observation, or having enough experience tending to the Moodys' door to know when there was trouble abrewing, Mr. Evans quickly shot out his arm over Christopher's chest, catching the young Moody just before he could tackle the unflinching Welshman called Lowe to the ground.

"£20, you fucking bastards?" Christopher demanded, reaching into his inner pocket to throw an opened letter at Lowe. "And any bit you may deem necessary for expenses and land charges on the other side? I could have you shot dead for much cheaper!"

"Christopher, don't!" Annie cried, coming to Mr. Evans's aid to pull her stepson back. "We've lost our James and we won't go about things this way! Please, don't!"

"Why won't you look at it?" Christopher urged Lowe. "Will you not read the letter you bastards wrote me, sir? Can you not stomach the disgrace that you all are for this rank horrific act? No matter, I'll read it for ye."

And then Christopher flicked open the letter.

"It reads, 'From the bosses at Ismay Imrie & Co.

"Dear Sir,

"We have your further letter of the 6th instant, and while we will be prepared to transport the remains of your brother across the Atlantic to either Liverpool or Southampton we regret that it is not possible for us to do any more.

"Should you after further consideration desire the remains of your brother to be returned will you kindly telegraph us in the morning at the same time sending us a deposit of £20 for any expenses and land charges on the other side and we will at once cable New York asking then to arrange this if practicable.

"We also think it right to point out that the arrangements and expenses for taking charge of the remains after arrival of the steamer at Liverpool or Southampton would be on your account."

"I am not its author," Lowe cut in to the unhinged Moody.

"I don't give one blimmin' 'eck who you are! If you're one of the dogs from White Star, you limey, greedy bastards are all the same in my eyes! What are you lot doing to find my brother?" Christopher demanded of Lowe. "Just because he isn't a Rockefeller, or an Astor, or a Dewitt, he's nobbut rubbish gone adrift in the ocean to you? Because he isn't some rich man's son who can pay you a ridiculous sum of money to return him to his family? He's one of your own bloody officers, for God's sake! My brother has already paid enough to White Star with his very life! How can you lot treat his memory so lackadaisy? We deserve as much closure as the well-off do!"

"If you would kindly shut up long enough for me to bloody explain, you might have it," Lowe shot back at him.

"It's too late for that!" Christopher swore. "The time for White Star to act was weeks ago, before James and that ship ever left Southampton! There weren't enough lifeboats onboard and that wasn't James's fault or any of the other families who have lost someone due to your inexcusable negligence. It's White Star who must be held accountable. My brother's blood is on your hands."

"Damn you!" Lowe broke at the edge of his resolve. "How many ruddy letters will you send me before its plain blimming clear? I let him go! I told him to get himself away in the bloody boat, and he didn't, and that was his choice! There was nothing more I could fucking do to save him, I tell you!"

And whether he was moved by the shocked silence from the Moodys that followed his brute expletives, or the boiling over of his own regret cutting down the best of him, Lowe remembered this was not the place to vent his frustrations and got ahold of himself, dropping anchor on his high seas invective.

"James went forth as his own man," Lowe's tone softened hauntingly. "And there was nothing I could do. I haven't stopped bloody thinking about it since...So, if you're telling me that coming here to confess what happened still isn't enough for you, then I have nowt else to give you. That James alone chose to stay when he might've been saved is your own peace to make now. Scores of men die at sea in our profession, and James has gone away with the best of them."

And after seeing the brutally honest way Lowe's words cut into his broken-hearted family, James could hardly stomach keeping himself hidden up in the loft. He took a step toward the staircase, knowing he needed to get down there and clear this whole thing up once and for all.

Until he stopped again, hesitating.

Remembering that he was no longer a self-made modern man of the future and that there were rules to this sort of social occasion.

Feeling very Edwardian again in minding his etiquette, when he considered that he was still very much skulking around naked in a man's dressing robe, and now that Lowe had turned up, how was he to navigate such an awkward conversation with three people at once?

Apologize to Miss Annie for being half naked, apologize to Christopher for not actually being "dead", apologize to Lowe for not following orders on Titanic, and apologize to them all for how daffy it sounded in conclusion, when James blamed his mysterious disappearance all on a woman's necklace?

A bit much for just one go at it, James should say.

Miss Annie's poor old heart surely couldn't take it.

And James much preferred anyway that his long-awaited reunion with his family be personal, where they all could feel and say what they wished without worrying about spectators.

After all, the Moodys were a very private family.

So, as much as he wanted to make their pain stop at once, James knew that Annie and Christopher would appreciate it more if he waited until their guest was gone before he made his presence known.

"Scores?" Christopher whispered in answer to Lowe, hardly showing in his face the tempest of conflicting emotions ripping apart that world of innocence he once knew before all this. "He's only just a number to you, isn't he? But to us, sir...to us...he is everything. He was nobbut 24, and he had his whole life ahead. You can't tell me 'it's just the way of sailors to die like this', when this, sir, was entirely preventable. No one should die like this. And in honor of my brother's memory, I will fight so no one else does. I won't stop until I've dragged White Star down even lower than its god forsaken ship."

Annie rested her hand on her son's shoulder with a reassuring squeeze, as if to tell him that though she was in the same place as his pain, it was time he let it go long enough for this man from White Star to have his say.

"We will never stop searching for James. Our hearts are broken, and they will always be with him," she told Lowe. "But I believe I can speak confidently for my husband in that you are most welcome here, sir...No matter what news you're here to bring us. Do come in. Mr. Evans has just put on the kettle." 

Chapter Text

Though the Moodys offered him every comfort in their parlor, Lowe didn't sit.

He stood by the window with a teacup he wouldn't touch.

His usually aloof gaze thawing with a subtlety of gentleness, as he watched Annie Moody take her time to prepare her tea.

Her pale hands shaking terribly as she used her spoon to dump in more cream and honey.

"So much is out of my hands now. Don't take this one last thing away from me, Evans," she called off the worried caretaker quietly, who lingered nearby to jump in and assist her. "I must feel that I am doing something, you know."

And seeing that Lowe would not sit or drink, Christopher assumed the man was buzzing to be relieved of his story and done with them at last.

"Nar'n, carry on, sir, and spare us no mere thing," he urged Lowe. "What about our James?"

"As I told you, Mr. Moody, the last time I saw James, we were working on the same ship, we as officers," Lowe said. "I was called off from the Mersey and ordered to the Oceanic as 5th officer, which I thought very strange. I knew right away it was a mistake, since I'de known from the beginning that Oceanic had her 5th officer already. The coal strike kicked up a great deal of fuss and confusion at headquarters, and one way or other, James and I were both assigned to her by clerical error. Our surnames are very near to the other alphabetically, you see. Little did I know, that wasn't the only case I'de known him like an arse."

"Eh?" Christopher objected at once to his way of speaking.

"You asked me to hold back no mere thing, sir," Lowe reminded him.

Putting it shortly, James and Lowe were each unwilling to wait for the marine superintendent to sort the whole mess out. They took matters into their own hands, and proceeded to order each other off the ship by the power vested in them both as 5th officer. Because with the coal strike going on and all, it is lucky that officers got any work to begin with, and neither of them were raring to go.

As such, both 5th officer Moody and 5th officer Lowe refused to pack up without his promised pay.

But by the time they had come to that point in their argument, the Oceanic had set sail with both of them still aboard--ship's wait for no one, you see.

And so, James and Lowe were forced to wait it out, sharing the 5th officer's cabin aboard the Oceanic from Liverpool to Ireland. Trying to decide who between them would be the first to get himself off in Tuskar Rock.

"We each competed with the other to bring our best. Reporting to our chief officer, and racing to be the first one to carry out the 5th officer's duties aboard," Lowe said. "I loathed him for it. That he would make me contend for the same post, when I had been at sea much longer than he. It wasn't very long, though, that we settled our differences, and soon became proper shipmates, somewhat cordial to the other. James had that way about him, you see. It was hard not to like the fellow. He managed to crack anyone open to him, and I reckon that's where he'd'e outdone me."

The settlement of their argument came when Lowe received word at last that he was being reassigned to report to the Belgic instead, and would get off in Ireland.

Until then, James and Lowe eventually came to an agreement to split the 5th officer's duties until they reached land.

"Until the fog came about and the Oceanic met her fate, that is."

"Fog, sir?" Christopher's brow peaked. "I was told there was a collision on a clear night and sea of glass."

"Not a soul can tell you, with any degree of accuracy, what they didn't see themselves," Lowe answered him.

And according to Lowe, as this mysterious fog crept in, he was sound asleep in the 5th's cabin, while Moody was out on watch.

"We officers do not have any too much sleep," he told the Moodys. "And therefore when we sleep, we die."

And when it was Lowe's turn to sleep, he swore he'd done just that.

"Then, I should say, it was 20 minutes before midnight when she hit."

"But you heard nothing?" Christopher clarified the particulars.

"That's right, sir," Lowe answered. "I was awakened by hearing voices, and I thought it was very strange, and somehow they woke me up and I realized there must be something the matter; so I looked out and I saw a lot of people around, and I jumped up and got dressed and went up on deck."

Though what Lowe hadn't known as he left his cabin that night, Christopher had learned already.

The collision was caused by a smaller steamship, the Kincora, ramming suddenly into the Oceanic's hull, damning the smaller vessel. The crew aboard Oceanic attempted a gallant rescue in getting their few lifeboats away to assist the stranded passengers of the Kincora, as the ship began to sink.

"A seaman from Kincora stopped Moody and I, telling us 7 of his shipmates had gone down to the engine room to shut the boilers off. They fretted over the steam from Kincora building up, damaging both the Kincora and Oceanic, should her hull burst apart."

But since watching his 7 shipmates go below decks, this seaman hadn't seen one of them come back up, and had no way of knowing if the boilers were really shut off.

Realizing the dilemma of an impending explosion from within Kincora putting the Oceanic in dire straits, 5th officer Moody and the recently demoted 5th officer Lowe looked at each other, and shot off at the same time.

--"We don't have much time. We should inform the captain."

--"There's no time to inform the captain. We should rescue the crew."

And taking a moment to consider what the other had just said, they raced each other to fire off a reply next, only for their words to clash into each other again.

"That's not your job!" they chorused together.

"You're not even part of the crew anymore," James informed Lowe.

"You weren't given orders to attempt a rescue in such a reckless situation," Lowe had him know. "The captain should know first, and it's damn near insubordination if he doesn't."

"Fair point," Moody had agreed. "I'll leave the captain to you then, old man."

"I'm not your errand boy."

"But you are a stowaway now, strictly speaking, and it's in your best interests to heed me, Mr. Lowe," Moody had pointed out. "And like any good passenger, should anything happen, get into a boat and don't stir up any trouble."

"Come off it, will you? It's not a bloody competition anymore, and it can't be won either," Lowe had tried to reason with him. "You know the odds as well as I do. By this point, if they haven't reached the boiler room yet, you won't get there in time to stop it. Better that we wait for orders here to load the boats. If the Oceanic goes down, these lifeboats will need boatmen to manage them, and as the so-called '5th officer', better that you're in one than not."

"I know the odds...just as you do," Moody had told him quietly. "But my mind's made up, Mr. Lowe. Something must be done. Besides, how else am I to settle this score between us on who'll rank captain someday?"

"You're a bloody fool, James,  you always were."

And seeing there was no changing the young Englishman's mind, the more senior Welsh officer sent him off with one final word of advice.

"I'm not saying I condone you going, but if you will not listen, will you at least swear to me one thing?" Lowe asked him. "If I am to stay here in your stead, and it becomes clear that the ship will not be saved, you'll take that boat of yours and fast get away. Don't wait. Be ye mindful at all times, understand?"

"Alright, old man, I know my way around a boat well enough. If it's just that you're only afraid to miss me, all you had to do was say it."

And watching Moody hurry off down the deck with the Kincora seaman, it was the last time Lowe had saw the fellow alive, before not long after, an explosion ripped through the hull of the Kincora boiler room and tore through the starboard bow of the Oceanic.

"She went down steadily," Lowe stated. "But we hadn't enough lifeboats for passengers of both the Kincora and the Oceanic. A distress signal was sent out, but the ship foundered a half hour before a rescue ship could come to her aid...I haven't stopped wondering how different it would be, had I came to the seamen's rescue instead of James. I was more experienced at rowing, and might've gotten there faster than he. Or I might've not. Nothing is certain now, save for how absolute it is that what is done can ne'er be undone."

What a total sack of lies! That isn't at all how I died!

And James couldn't understand for the third life of him why Lowe would invent such a dramatic tale and sell it to his family with such conviction, as if it were what really happened the last time they had spoken to each other?

What the blooming devil was Harold Lowe playing at?

If James remembered correctly his maritime history, the Kincora had indeed sailed blindingly through marine fog and collided with the Oceanic just off the shore of Ireland--In 1901, that is! The same year James had just turned 14, and signed away as a cadet recruit on the HMS Conway.

"Yes," Christopher nodded, baffling James even further when his brother appeared to affirm the validity of Lowe's story as entirely plausible. "That does give us some missing pieces as to what my brother was doing that night, and how it was he never made it to a lifeboat. I still have so many questions, but it seems we'll never truly get the answer we hoped for."

James's face went pale as the teacup that Christopher slowly and thoughtfully rose to his lips.

But that isn't how it happened!

It was on an entirely different ship that James had said similar words to Lowe.

And it was no wonder they all believed he was missing, with so many facts mixed up.

Because if this was indeed April of 1912, as he'd left it, then that would mean that everyone was looking for him aboard Oceanic, a ship he'd already retired from on March 23rd of 1912.

It was from Titanic that he'd gone lost at sea, not Oceanic.

So, how was it Titanic had never even been mentioned in any place Lowe or Christopher had looked for him?

As if there existed a very deep void in his timeline that only he seemed to remember.

As if in some strange alternative reality, Titanic had never before...existed?

Exactly what year then had he come back to?

If it wasn't his death on Titanic that had put his family in mourning, what was the meaning of all this?

Had he reversed time further than he intended...or had he somehow erased Titanic completely from time, shifting her fate instead onto the Oceanic?

"I suppose then, if that's really how it happened and those were my brother's actions that night, then that is what we must accept for now," Christopher said. "Still, we won't give up on James. Hope is all we have left to honor my brother with now."

"It's my fault, it is. I'm the one who told John all those years ago, that going to sea would be best for James. Let him work, I told him, rather than dwell all day on his dead mother. How can your father ever forgive me for it now?" Annie's voice shook as she dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. "How should I explain this to him? Am I to tell him that his son is missing or that he is dead?"

Christopher frowned, his eyes brimming with condolences for his elderly stepmother.

"I reckon it's I who should tell him," Christopher answered her quietly. "No one is to blame here. James was happy at sea, and just as Mr. Lowe has said, a hero as well. And I won't stop until I've found him, mum, one way or other. I promise you and papa. I mean fully to get to the bottom of all this."

And so, just as he had left it before, life again as James once knew it had gone terribly and disastrously array upon his return to 1912.

Leaving James floored once again by the damning mystery of his Le Cœur de la Mer, and how complicated things kept getting for him, each time he traded over bad for worse.

There was something funny about the whole business.

Something a few sails short of a full mast, that was for sure.

"Did you see my brother's last moments?" Christopher found the courage to ask Lowe. "Did he suffer, sir? If you would only answer me that, I will ask you no more."

But Lowe had said everything he'd come to say, and could now say no more to comfort the Moodys.

Even if he had known the exact events of Moody's final moments, he could scarcely imagine telling them so.

And seeing the resolved look on the hardened sailor's face, Annie buried her face in her handkerchief again. Her shoulders shaking with each hard hiccup of utter devastation.

"Oh, how I wish it wasn't true, that it was James only playing another game of his now. My heart can't bear this. I may not be his mum, and he never wanted me to be, but it don't matter. Because despite our little tiffs, he was still just the same a child of mine. I wouldn't even be cross with him. Not in the least. So long as he came home alright in the end."

'Ah, the poor old gal,' a smug-looking James gave in to a little grin. 'Somebody ought to tell her I'm not actually dead.'

And what better messenger for the telling than he?

As might be expected, she'd beat him back to yesteryear for pulling one over her like this, but he rather missed dodging her bludgeonings anyway, if truth be told.

And after hearing Miss Annie's confession, how could he resist sauntering right down there--cool as chilled custard--and ask the old girl what she reckoned they'd have for breakfast, now that he was back home?

That is, until another knock at the door stilled him after the first two steps.

"Excuse me, it could be papa," Christopher pardoned himself from the others, to which Annie graciously nodded.

The madam quickly wiping her eyes and trying to pull herself together, so as to appear strong for John, and not let him walk in and see her falling apart like this.

Christopher straightened up like a soldier at the door, and pulled it open.

Finding yet another gentleman unasked for at the Moody's threshold.

"Good morrow, sir, pardon my disturbance on your fine morning," the gentleman, who sounded jarringly American, removed his top hat hurriedly. "But where the hell is he?"

"I beg your pardon, sir!" Christopher shot back, under fire of yet another sudden and curt salutation from a visitor that morning.

"That damned scoundrel Englishman!" the gentleman declared. "James Moody!"

"For God's sake, sir, mind your language! There is a woman present! What is the meaning of this!" Christopher declared. "Is this any way to come calling at a respectable man's door?"

"Respectable?" the American gentleman hissed spitefully. "What rubbish! That Mr. James Moody is the dastardliest of all dastards, and I have come to make him answer for his lies!"

"And who are you to tarnish a good man's reputation?" Christopher demanded.

"I, sir, am Mr. Edgar Levinson!" the gentleman declared haughtily. "The cousin of Miss Lavinia Elizabeth Levinson. And I have of late learned the most contemptible news that has made my poor virtuous cousin a victim of scandal! It has come to my notice that the damnable Mr. Moody made my cousin a promise of marriage while she was staying with the earl's family at Downton Abbey, in the earliest years of her coming out. After which he took flight to sea like a rogue and, on behalf of her brother who has passed on, I have been hunting him down ever since!"

"What goat shite," James sighed under his breath, upon recognizing the despicable Levinson at the door.

Would there be no end to his luck today?

And Lowe, being king connoisseur of a good expletive at the right moment, froze just as he was taking a sip of his cold tea.

Detecting the sweetest song, in the faintest sigh of a damned man cursing his very life against the injustices of the universe.

A man that sounded to him very much like...

The very edge of Lowe's vision caught a lucky glimpse of the starcrossed fellow on the Moodys' staircase. Recognizing in him the phantom image of none other than Officer James Paul Moody.

What the bleating hell?

Lowe's chocolate brown eyes narrowed.

Trying to decide, after so many bloody nightmares and flashbacks of that night, if it was the real James Paul Moody standing afar then or an actual ghost.

His hand kept remarkably steady as he took James Moody in, noting that Moody had to be the smoothest liar in all the history of god damned liars.

James put a finger to his lips.

His blue eyes wide as he hoped Lowe would not say anything, with Levinson upon the door.

Lowe's eyes only darkened.

Never before had he been happier to know a man was alive again, if for nothing else but the privilege of killing him all over again.

You bastard.

Lowe's thoughts must have been apparent in his darkened stare-down, because James held up both of his hands quickly, as if to push back with his own might all the fast conclusions Lowe was jumping to about him.

And in an effort to explain his precarious situation, James began signaling some sort of dramatic charade with his hands that left the squinting Lowe dumfound and unable to make any of it out.

Seeing that he wasn't getting through to Lowe's stubborn head, James sighed hopelessly and tried instead the broken morse code he'd once picked up from his good pal, Jack Phillips, when he'd convinced the Marconi wireless operator to let him have a go at sending a couple of messages to passing ships near Titanic.

Tapping his fingers in rhythmic thuds against the wooden staircase railing, James hoped to God that his fellow officer knew something of morse code, lest he be damned.

I can explain it all later. Just please will you...

Much to James's relief, Lowe's quick eyes seemed to track the encoded dashes and dots of James's dancing fingers, though he was unable to catch the last few dits and dahs of James's message. Unsure if Moody's last bit of his words were, "Just please will you get help" or "Just please will you go to hell".

Discreetly, Lowe tapped his own fingers in morse code lightly against the body of his dainty porcelain teacup.

What the blazes are you playing at?  Quit acting a bellend, and come down here yourself!

James sighed again, knowing it was a rather precarious situation to precariously put all of his faith in Harold Godfrey Lowe.

'Help,' he mouthed the word to his shipmate.

'What?' Lowe mouthed back.

James struck his fingers slowly but firmly in morse code against the staircase railing again, exaggerating the sound of each letter silently on his lips.

C...Q...D.

Lowe tapped his fingers against his china again to confirm the marine distress call every sailor knew well, 'CQD?'

Knowing that no matter how reckless the circumstance, invoking the call of CQD was to invoke the pact of fellow mariners. The untold duty of a good shipmate to come to his comrade's aid in the direst of situations, asking no questions, and holding the utmost confidence in telling no one after it, lest a man break his code to his fellows. It was a risky business, to ask another to sail like mad through the dark and come to one's rescue, but not without its advantages. CQD among sailors was a promise to return one favor for another, and James would have given anything to keep his personal problems (namely, Levinson) off of his family's doorstep.

Lowe sat in silence, taking one last sip of his tea, as he considered Moody's offer, and if he'd be willing to trust a man, who by all appearances, was caught up in something quite dodgy.

Lowe wasn't completely sure if he was willing to take on a problem of such "CQD" caliber this fine morning.

All the while, Miss Annie was busy charging at Levinson in defense of her family.

"What an outrageous accusation!" Annie objected. "Has your cousin any proof of an understanding between herself and Mr. Moody?"

"How dare you!" Mr. Levinson checked her. "Her honest word is proof enough!"

"How dare you come knocking at this door uninvited at a mournful hour like this," Christopher declared. "The arrangement you speak of was called off years ago by Miss Lavinia Levinson herself. How dare you spread rumors about my brother turning his back on a promise he no longer has an obligation to keep."

"Have you got it in writing that my cousin called off the engagement?" Levinson challenged Christopher. "The Moodys say one thing, while the Levinsons say another. Though the distance of countries has created some miscommunication, no doubt, I assure you that my cousin intends fully to marry Mr. James Moody, or deliver to his door a civil suit for a breach of promise."

"Absolutely absurd!" Annie huffed. "There was no written agreement, but it was my understanding that James and Miss Levinson came to a mutual agreement privately."

"Hush, woman," Mr. Levinson dismissed her. "This is a gentleman's discussion."

A remark that made James go red in the face, and his grip tighten on the winding oakwood stair railing. Forgetting all at once that he was still a man in his dressing robe, and that he was supposed to be dead, by all accounts.

But by that time, Lowe had heard enough.

And Harry's knuckles had been twitching to knock the cack out of some knobber, and there'd be no better chance today than this one.

Lowe tapped his fingers once against his teacup, revealing to Moody his answer at last.

Then he gently sat down Mrs. Moody's fine china on the lace dollie of the side table, popped his neck once or twice on each side, and marched off to the street door to join forces with James's family against this brute called Levinson.

"You're lucky that's all you got from her, and haven't gotten anything worse from me," Harry went up against the American.

"Are you threatening me, sir?"

"Suppose I am? Mr. Moody is a mate of mine, and I won't allow you to soil his name as a White Star officer, when his unhappy fate has not yet been--"

"He's soiled it enough as it is!" Levinson swore. "And I haven't the slightest doubt that he has led my cousin along! I have it on good authority that Mr. Moody has been sweet on another woman before, pining and lusting after her, even after promising himself to my cousin! It wouldn't surprise me if he has been breeding English whores in this very house! Is that the behavior of a so-called respectable officer?"

"You're mistaken, sir," Annie answered firmly. "It is only I and my husband who let this house. Our James is....he's lived for the most part, at sea."

"And why should I believe your word against society's?"

"You'd do well to cool your tone, sir," Chistopher warned him. "This is most ungentlemanly!"

"Then I gentlemanly request that you kindly inform Mr. Moody that should he fail to marry my cousin as he promised before summer, he will rue the day I came to this door. My cousin has believed until now that she will marry him, and faithfully kept herself from other suitors. And she is all but past the ripe age for marrying now, no thanks to that evasive rascal Mr. Moody!"

"I assure you, sir, that is not the only reason why she has not been easily married off," Miss Annie remarked.

"I beg your pardon, madam?" Levinson's voice peaked dangerously, clutching his walking stick tighter.

And impatient with all this frivolous back and forth, Lowe grabbed the man by his coat collar and pushed him along.

"You'll go or you'll be escorted away," Lowe warned him. "The man you run your mouth about has gone missing at sea, presumed dead as we speak. And here you are harassing his family with nothing but bloody hearsay?"

"Missing at sea? Now that's a good one! I wouldn't count that scally dead until I've nailed him into a box myself!" Mr. Levinson declared. "Might I suggest an alternative truth? Perhaps he isn't dead or lost at all. Perhaps that is the very crux of Moody's ruse!"

"I beg your pardon!" Annie couldn't help but oppose. "Do you mean to suggest that our James is only playing dead?"

"Can you imagine the public scandal if a White Star officer really were so cowardly?" Mr. Levinson declared. "And when you think you fully know a man! Perhaps he could think of no better way to abandon his promise of marriage."

Annie's face boiled like a lobster in silent fury, ready to push young Mr. Lowe aside and take Mr. Levinson on herself.

"Like I said before," Mr. Lowe spoke first, saving the madam the temptation of making Mr. Levinson regret the steaming teapot close by in a numbly silent Mr. Evans's hands. "It is bad form to soil a good man's reputation by rumors alone, without a proper why and wherefore!"

"There's no rumor about it," Mr. Levinson was going on. "James Moody has made no secret that he wishes to avoid being wed to my cousin. A man of 24, living at sea perpetually? I find it rather hard to believe that he wouldn't try to stage his own death, at least once."

"But that will be no problem for you, sir, if you don't get on with it!" Lowe quickly turned him around before he could ever risk Mr. Levinson glancing up at the loft, and hastily walked him away from the house. "I can speak fully for Mr. Moody. He is a forever-gentleman and an exceptionally honorable man. Take it from another officer that a good officer's reputation is worth as much as his service. If he has agreed to marriage, he will honor his pledge. A man like Mr. Moody would surely never risk his career at sea by performing such a gambit. He's an honest man, even when he's honestly dead."

"Unhand me at once, sir! I will decide for myself if he's dead or not!" Mr. Levinson ripped his shoulder away from Lowe and marched back toward the house, calling out, "Moody! James Moody, you swindler, come out and face me at once!"

Levinson, That farthing-faced chit!

And by that time, James was spoiling for a fight to get down there and proceed the old seadog reputation of lowering the boom on Levinson all the way back to the states where he belonged.

Yet, though a sailor he might've been, James knew he wasn't an animal, and that he should at least carry on doing it with some manner of refinement by fetching his dress shoes first.

Quietly retreating to his bedroom and shutting the door behind him, James returned to his bed to hunt down his shoes.

Tugging at his wet socks tangled in his bundled bedcovers, which held fast with a strangely stubborn resistance between his blankets and sheets.

Never remembering the quilts on the old bed to be so...weighty?

James tugged at the entangled quilt again, and this time, the quilt stubbornly tugged itself back.

James froze.

Chilled to the bone.

His eyes wide.

Recognizing the drowsy sigh of an unsolicited bedfellow stirring awake within the bundled up bedcovers next to him.

And afraid to do it, but knowing no other alternative, James slowly turned his head away from his dress shoes to take note of someone yawning and stretching behind his shoulder. Coming nose-to-nose with his tug-o-war opponent.

As nothing said mornings like waking up to a woman he never remembered taking to bed with him.

"Miss Millie?"

Chapter Text

Millie never realized the moment she fell asleep, or the moment when James had taken her to her bed. 

Knowing only that when she slept, she couldn't stop herself from doing it. Because feeling James's big protective body cuddled up so warmly next to hers, there was nothing else left to trouble her in the world. 

A lifetime might've easily gone by like that, sighing contently in the found comfort that was James, and the way he'd held her close to him all night.

'God,' she thought ever cozily. 'Why does he keep moving around like that...Please don't move. I'm not ready yet...I swear, I could just die in his arms like this.'

And then she felt the rude tug-tug of her blanket again, being dragged rather unceremoniously out from under her and exposing her body to the shock of her chilly, drafty bedroom. 

'But not if I kill him first!'

Millie rose from bed to confront James for his blanket-stealing crimes, but her protests were swallowed by her urge to yawn first, and the irresistibly amazing morning stretch that followed. 

"Miss Millie?" 

James was pale and beautiful, his sapphire eyes wide with surprise, as if he'd forgotten all about accidently falling asleep while holding her last night. 

As if he were seeing her for the very first time, after a very long while of never being allowed to.

Why is he looking at me like I'm a ghost?

And assuming that it was probably the whole 'sleeping with an unmarried woman isn't very gentlemanly' thing again, Millie tried to put his conscience at ease. 

"You know, James," her voice was softly airy coming out of her yawn. "At some point, we really gotta talk about this hammock thing. You literally have every blanket in my house, and now you're trying to steal mine too? For the love of coverlet, please just sleep on my couch. I'm begging you, and I promise you, no reputations will be harmed if we sleep within shouting distance of each other."

James's quivering mouth opened to answer her.

But words were ineffectual to the gutting solace that started in his chest and swelled to the back of his throat upon seeing Millie there. Snugly hugged by her quilt and the fair sunlight glowing like warmed chocolate through her let-down hair. Appearing like a distant dream faraway from the barking mad, dumb luck shot he'd just wagered everything on for her. 

"Dear God...it worked," James breathed at last. "I thought I'd lost you, Millie." 

Millie's smile for him was a blushing blend of fondness and confusion. 

"That's not like the James I know. The James I know ran eight miles from my apartment to my job to find me. And now you're saying you lost me from my bedroom to your balcony?" she teased him lightly. 

"I won't ever again be so careless," James's smile blushed only with a hint of his eternally heavy heart. 

Le Cœur de la Mer had taken his bid.

And as it seemed, all for the inconvenience of scrambling up a few trivial events in history, like the fate of the Oceanic and the Kincora, which had unexpectedly blurred into his own timeline. 

But against the agony of losing his one great love, the confusion of events was a small price to pay, by Mr. Moody's say.

And James would willingly accept any version of his lifetime, so long as Millie lived safely and happily in it. 

Yet, how should he tell the Miss that blanket wars between them was now the very least of their worries?

"When did the rain stop?" Millie asked James, glancing out the window next to them. And then squinting curiously at the mysterious coastline that had showed up overnight with its booming morning tide, she asked slowly, "When did we get...a beach?"

"Hang it up a moment. That's not what's important to me right now," James told her, as he combed his fingers through her hair to guide her gaze away from the window back into his. Inspecting every glistening movement in the vividly renewed life of her eyes, finding reassurance in all the signs of color in her face. "Are you hurt anywhere, love? Do you feel no pain at all?"

"I'm fine, James," Millie answered him, arrested by how earnestly James became concerned over her. "You're always worrying about me, but what about you? Last night, you were supposed to go home. Why are you still here?"

"Do you...not remember?" James asked her, his brow bending in concern. 

And then the softly masculine allure of lavender enticed Millie's attention to the cozy, quaint room beyond her bed, and how strange it all really looked to her, now that she was fully awake. 

Noting first the timelessly polished armoire, and then the bronzey ornate design of majestic swans spreading their wings around a long oval mirror like a halo behind James's head, hanging over an antique oakwood washstand set with a milky porcelain washing bowl and vase.

"Wait," Millie gradually realized. "None of this stuff belongs to me." 

In fact, it was starting to feel a lot like Sarah Crewe syndrome. 

As if she'd fallen asleep reading another one of those trashy Gone with the Highlander romance novels, and woke up to a gilded era she didn't belong in. 

But instead of Ian Cambell or Jaime Fraser, she got James Paul Moody in a bath robe with the beautiful nothing he was obviously wearing underneath it. 

"James...have you been ordering bougie stuff on my Amazon account again?" Millie murmured in disbelief.. An incredulity that only nursed her denial, as she wondered exactly how she and the washstand ended up in the same room together. "I thought I...changed my password..."

Her voice taken by all the elegant wallpaper, the high sunlit ceilings and charming windows she'd only seen on Christmas dollhouses. Bygone indulgences not for the price tag of the common folk like her in the mundane sprawl of modern New York. The walls hung with golden framed oil paintings of landscapes in green pastures against stormy grey skies, sail-rigged ships at high seas, official looking Neo-Baroque buildings she didn't know, and portraits of people dressed in high laced collars and neckties, whom she recognized only in parts. A distinctly long nose here, a fine princely jawline there, a pair of gut-wrenching blue eyes that glimmered with a hint of infectious laughter. 

All the pieces she needed to put her James back together by tracing his likeness in the Moody lineage. 

"James," a stunned Millie spoke at last. "This isn't my room...This isn't even my house." 

"Aye," James's apologetic answer was hardly over a whisper. "The truth of it is...We're not there anymore, Miss." 

Millie furrowed her brow questionably at him. "What do you mean we're not 'there' anymore?"

"That is to say," James stammered to find the right way to explain it to her. "Hereafter 'there' is not where we are at the present moment." 

"Then where exactly are we?" 

But before Millie could make sense of the verbal jigsaw puzzle that was Moody's words, her attention was drawn beyond James to the door, where she finally picked up the distant pandemonium of strangers arguing outside in poshy British accents. 

"Enough humming-and-hawing me about! I have every right to confront him, and I will not go away quietly! He will face me and give her an answer, or I will leave no stone unturned to pronounce his guilt and take this matter up with His Lordship!"

"Is there someone else here with us?" Millie questioned James. "Why are there other people in-"

"Please don't fret, miss. They're good people--that is, save for one of 'em."

"Then why are you whispering? And why are you in that bath robe? James, what's going on?" 

"I am very sorry to ask this favor of you, Millie," James's voice remained hushed. "But for the time being, you cannot leave this room, nor make any sound until I come back for you?"

"You're leaving me here?"

"I know it sounds dodgy, but please give me your confidence. I'll explain why when I've returned for you," James promised her. "The heart of it being that this house is my family home, and it belongs to a very, very different time. And in that very different time, you resemble a very, very different person, and no one will understand that until I've had a chance to explain the situation."

"Your family home?" Millie frowned in confusion. "James, that doesn't make any sense."

"I'll explain it all, you have my word, but for now, it's of the utmost importance that you stay hidden. Should they find you, there will be a lot of questions, and I can't guarantee that I can stop them from separating us and dragging you back to Downton."

"Downton? As in Downton Abbey?" Millie couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Have both you and Paxton lost it? "

"Your brother was right. You're not Emily Amberflaw here. In this lifetime, you are an heiress of Downton, and you have been missing for some time now," James informed her solemnly. "And what's more, no Lady Crawley of Downton should ever be here in bed with a man like me. Should anyone discover us together, I regret to think what could happen to you."

"You're joking, right?" Millie called him out, quietly betrayed. "I told you about all my nightmares and my little 'memory problem', and now you're making fun of me by doing this? I may be confused about the pieces of me I lost a year ago, James, but 'missing' isn't one of them, and I'm absolutely no heiress of Downton either." 

"Then staying put will be easy for you."

"Until when, exactly?" 

"Until I've sorted this out. I won't be long."

"Am I being kidnapped?"

"If taking you for myself is what keeps me from making the same mistake I made with you last night, so be it," James told her solemnly. "Please just wait for me here." 

But just as James turned away from her, Millie pulled him back toward her by the sleeve of his dressing robe. 

"James, wait," she stopped him, her mind racing on as she started piecing together the impossible. "It's been 100 years. Your brother is...Your whole family should be..."

But the word dead caught like sandpaper in her throat, as the blue in James's eyes brought her back to the rustling whispers of a restless ocean rushing into sand and coastal cliffs. Rising and falling with the rhythm of her softened breathing and the slow flutter of her lashes, as she looked for the last time upon a beautiful starry night above her. 

The sound of James's voice becoming the most heartbreaking of her regrets left behind in the world, as the officer pleaded with her, "I've only again just found you."

What had he meant by that?

Why would she ever dream of something so morbid, like dying at Bitter Tears Cross, when she swore she had spent last night snuggled up happily in James's arms?

How did such a dark dream feel so...concrete?

"Your family isn't even from New York," Millie finally finished her sentence, as that shadowy line between dream and reality made her second guess herself again. 

"There'll be nothing for it, Miss Millie," James confessed quietly, as he nodded stiffly in acceptance of their precarious situation. "The truth of it is, it appears that you and I have come to Scarborough."

Millie closed her eyes, hoping against hope that she heard him wrong.

Taking in a deep, long breath as her hand still hung on tightly to James's robe sleeve. The weight of their situation coming down on her like the Titanic. 

"Please tell me you're joking and that you actually mean some kind of fair," she whispered to him. 

"Ours is a bit more complicated than a children's nursery rhyme, I'm afraid," James said. "I mean Scarborough, England, Miss Millie." 

"What are you actually saying to me right now?"" Millie asked him, unable to let go of her denial. "England? As in Prince Harry, England? That England?"

James's brow rose to that. 

"Whose Prince Harry?"

But Millie was hardly listening now, obsessed with only one question.

"Wait...Are we talking my-England or your-England?" she raved on in whispers, her face steadily becoming paler with each revelation. "Not 21st century England...Edwardian England?"

But James was hardly listening now, obsessed with only one question. 

"Do I know this Prince Harry fellow?" James asked her. "How are you acquainted?"

"James," Millie's hands gripped both his bath robe sleeves again "Tell me the truth. I may be a little crazy, but I'm not that crazy. Your family lived in a completely different century. How are we in their house?"

James sighed deeply, knowing he couldn't save her from knowing the truth fully, no matter how much he wished to spare her all this distress.

"Millie," his light-hearted blue gaze never appeared so honestly serious as he quietly informed her. "I can't say this to you kindly, and I'm so very sorry for how you will hear it. It grieves me to remember that your life was taken from you last night, and you soon after departed with me here." 

"I did not," Millie insisted to him, letting her hand fall into James's, so he could trace her heartbeat tapping rapidly against her wrist. " You can feel my heart, can't you? I'm not dead. Maybe I'm just asleep somewhere, or in a coma in some hospital again. Maybe I'm waiting to wake up from you, and this house, and whoever they are down there. I'm just between dreams. I'm one hundred percent sure it's just another nightmare. They all start out like this." 

"No, darling, you aren't dead. I made very well sure of it. But you don't belong to the life you knew anymore either. This is..." James struggled to find the right word to describe it, none of which he knew would be particularly comforting to her. "It's the way of things now. I had only one alternative and I bloody took it." 

"What does that mean?" Millie's stomach turned to imagine his waiting answer. "James, what have you done? "Are you really saying that we're really in..."

"1912?" James softly finished her sentence. "Aye, it is. The year I died aboard the Titanic and wandered into your time. And now, just the same...you've fallen backward with me into mine."

"Well that's...that's awesome for you. I'm really happy this all worked out in your favor, James. But kidnapping me wasn't part of the plan." 

"I did everything I was required to do to save you, and I'd do it again all the same," James told her. "if it means you're alright in the end, Miss Millie, I'll play its morbid game for as long as it wants until it's done with me." 

"You mean the Heart of the Ocean? You know, you're starting to sound exactly like Pax now," Millie informed him. "A necklace doesn't play games, James. It's not a living thing." 

"How long will you pretend none of this has happened since the night it found me on that ship?" James questioned her. "How many times must the world be ripped from under our feet? How many times must I lose you again?"

"You lost me five minutes ago at Downton!"

"And I haven't stopped ruing the day I did," James professed. "I'd have done anything to have you back, and that is the very heart of my misery. It isn't some bloody diamond that is my curse, Millie. It's you who are my ruin, time and time again. Because I can't live to let you go." 

And whatever argument she had been waiting to fire back at him next, Millie gave pause. Suddenly losing track of her intended words as the gut-punch of James's confession gradually sank in. 

"So, that's why you approached me in my shop that day...You're in love with the woman you think I am?" she realized. "Whoever the heiress of Downton was in your past life, she's the girl you lost before...on Titanic?" 

"Perhaps you were right about the nature of this business," James told her quietly. "Perhaps the longer you cast your lot with it, the more the diamond takes away from you...And now that we're here, I must take care to keep the past from repeating itself. I will find a safe place to be rid of it, before it turns on us again." 

"After you send me back to 2022," Millie added firmly. "Right, James?"

"If going back means going by the same as we came, I won't give way to it," James said. "You can't ask me to stand aside and watch you die again." 

"But you can't ask me to just stay here either," Millie countered. "Abandon everything I have there?"

"I fancy dying might've been a great deal worse for you than staying here." 

"And I fancy it will be for you, if you don't send me back." 

"Back to what, exactly?" James asked her. "Don't you remember anything of last night, love? You go back there, and you die. Who's to say if it's for good this time? I won't let it happen. I've come through hell and back so I wouldn't lose you the same way again. So, if you go back now, just know I won't be around to jump from anymore cliffs to rescue you."

"Wait, you did what with me?"

"Saved your life, I did," James asserted his point. "Though for all your thanks, I may as well try to catch sea foam in my hands." 

"You threw me off a cliff?" Millie cried unbelievably. "Are you out of your mind?"

And James had only a second to take it all back, which gave him no time at all to stop the fluffy-- albeit punishing--pillow Millicent snatched from the bed next. 

The pillow coming down smashing against his gob-smacked face.

"Argh! What's that for?" 

"Who's to say I wasn't even dead yet?" Millicent declared, as she went on pillow-clubbing him. "Who's to say I could be at home right now, if you hadn't murdered me and dragged me into 1912?"

"Miss Millie, please, will you give me a chance! You've every right to have it in for me for the cliff bit, I know, but we can talk about this!"

Though surely, not if he couldn't breathe!

Because the way she tackled him to the bed next, James might've had better luck fending off a Tasmanian devil.

"The time to talk was before you gambled my life away! How do you like being murdered yourself, huh? Is this your idea of compromise?" she served him a taste of his own justice, smothering his head between pillow and bed. "Hand over the necklace, darling, or I'll be taking you back to the future with me." 

"Mm! Mmm! MmmmMmmmm!" was all she got in response.

Muffling protests against her pillow, James's hands flailed to get a grip on the murderous madling on top of him.

"Take me back, James," she panted her desperate threat against the officer . "Or this nightmare for you will never end."

And an unending nightmare it was, indeed!

Good lord, would it never be over?

From the star-crossed moment he first lost Millicent, to the day James found her again in that daffy shop, and then the point at which he threw her in grave desperation over a cliff, would he ever escape this nightmarish raving calenture?

Killing him again would confirm nothing, but the impossibility of this damningly endless loop. 

Even so, James had rowed against angrier tides, and laid anchor heavier than the hellish bit of damsel on top of him now. 

But there was nothing he'd ever experienced like the way Millicent's warmed body staked her claim of his. The black skirt and tulle petticoat of her maid's costume bunched up to her waist, as she steadied herself against his solid navel, now bared by the fallen lapels of his dressing robe. And even though James knew this bonnie meant to murder him in cold blood, it was damn good fun to watch. Her fair, swan-curve thighs in nude being pleasing to the eyes as she topped his hips in her relentless dominance.

And the only thing keeping him from turning this situation around was that he couldn't very well do it in any gentlemanly manner. No matter which way he tried. 

So, propriety be damned, James let himself have war with her.

Capturing his nightmare of a bearish Miss, James found his weakness in the way her corset-trained waist fit so nicely into his hands. 

And nearly losing his head a little to that profound test of a man's self-endurance, James reversed their position, and caged her wrists flat onto the bed to hold her fast underneath him.

Her sandy chestnut hair scattered in waves across his white pillows, capturing his eye again in that rather fantastical play of morning sunlight, as her chest heaved into his to catch her breath. 

His own chest damn near bursting for the beauty pinned down underneath him. 

She reminded him of that seaside tale he'd heard as a child...The bit about the mermaid who fell in love with a prince and gave up her voice to be with him on land.

Only this was no fairy tale they were caught up in.

And she was behaving like no bloomin' princess either, which only made him need her more. 

Had they not been in bed for a literal fight to the death, with his family only steps away downstairs, James might've done away with the damn tulle altogether and shamelessly made love to her there.

"We can indulge in this little amusement with each other all morning," James told her breathily. "It won't get you what you want out of me." 

"Where is it, James?" Millie asked again. "I won't stop looking for that necklace." 

"Get ahold of yourself, Millie, for the love of..."

But when Millie's eyes skated from his stoic face to the vanity across the room, James followed the heat of her attention to the foot of the vanity stool, where his rumpled bedsheets had been kicked off the bed in their scuffle. 

And lying between bedsheet and the ornately green oriental carpet was the glittering star that was the Heart of the Ocean. 

"Millicent," James warned her steadily. "Don't."

"It's Emily!"

And then the modern Valkyrie of a woman writhed her way out from under him, rolling out of bed to claim the necklace for herself. 

James scrambled out of bed to head her off first, his progress only hindered by all the fluff and nonsense on the bed.

Giving Millie enough time to rake the diamond safely into her hand from the rug, just as James straightened himself up right in front of the door she needed to get through to make her escape with Le Cœur de la Mer. 

"You don't have..." James bent over panting to catch his breath between words, as he held his guard at the door. "...any sort of idea what you're playing with." 

"Damnit, James," Millie sighed reluctantly, hating every minute of how his stubborn will to make her come to her senses only hindered her stubborn will to make a hasty decision she might regret. "Don't make me do this." 

Snatching the glass oil lamp from his bedside table, she turned it into a sword en garde against him.

"Send me back to 2022 now," she told him firmly. "Or else."

"You were gunned down in front of me," James pleaded his case. "I watched your life fade away in my arms. Do you not understand how it gutted me when I nearly lost you again?"

"Again?"

"Better that you never understand, than to feel as hopeless as I was last night. Forgive me, but I can't do it over, Millie. So, bludgeon me to the pulp with that lamp all you like. I won't see you back in harm's way."

"I can't stay, James. 1912 isn't where I belong," she pleaded her own defense. "What about my job? And my apartment? And Captain Wentworth? And Patrick?...What will happen to Patrick if I don't go back?...Please, James. Please just help me reverse this."

"If going back there is where you wish to be, then I won't stand in your way. I'd never deny you anything, except this," James told her gently. "Not like this, Millie. Not in this dreadful way." 

"Is there any other way?" she asked him. "Or am I really stuck here in a place I never asked to be?"

"I don't like it no more than you do, but it's our rope to slack now, and I won't rest until I've found the answer," James pledged to her. "But we must stand by each other, Miss Millie. Because rest assured, whether in your day or in mine, ne'er a soul on earth is going to believe us."

 "I'm getting out of this room, one way or another. So, I suggest you move."

"I suggest you reconsider."

"Then I suggest this might hurt."

"Darling, you don't fully realize the world you're in now."

"Don't call me darling, you murderer!" she declared. "I'm going, whether you agree or not."

"You can't just walk out there like this." 

"And I suppose you plan on stopping me?" Millie asked him, a hint of warning in her voice that dared him to try.

But James had already died twice on her account, in a matter of a week.

Dying was old news to him now.

"Go on then, if that be your heart's content," he told her. "But kill me, and I vow to take you with me, wherever I go. And once we're gone, I can't promise you where we'll turn up. When we die, it seems things go topsy-turvy. Take it from a man who knows. If you take the gamble, duck, you may not get the ending you're hoping for. It's as if the world as we know it erases and rewrites itself. Judging by how greatly they've confused my death here now, I've worked out that much in my mind. So, unless you want to keep betting your lot on this endless loop, I suggest you collect yourself, Miss Millie, and agree that we stick together. Until we've sorted this all out, nothing will come of us offing the other. Which means I think it best that you put that lamp down now."

And no sooner had James spoken those words did he get his wish.

But it wasn't for bludgeoning him that Millie had armed herself with the bedside lamp. 

It was for the attention of the ones downstairs, whose bickering suddenly went quiet after Millicent dropped the oil lamp smashing onto the wooden planked floor at her white converse. 

James winced, too late now to stop her from damning them both. 

"Heavens! What the devil was that noise?" the Moodys' caretaker, Mr. Evans, approached the closed guest room door from outside in the hall. "I suspect you're right, Mrs. Moody! It sounds as if a thief has broken into the house!"

And with the bed caught in the middle between them, Millie looked at James, and James looked at Millie.

"I'm sorry. I can't wait," Millie swore to her Titanic officer. "Take me now, James."

"No." 

Millie narrowed her eyes at him, but James was unmoved.

And sizing each other up in one last contest, they scrambled for the door, racing each other to be the one who opened it first.

Millie betting on being discovered by the others and allowed to leave the Moodys' house, and James hoping that the bloody Levinson didn't indeed find another woman pouncing upon him in his bedroom, who happened to be none other than a very confused and very feisty Lady Millicent Crawley.

Right in the nick of time, just as Mrs. Annie Moody and Mr. Evans reached the guest bedroom door, James caught Millicent in his arms before she could turn the knob and escape into the hallway.

And winning against the fierce momentum of tangling up with each other, James came out on top of their rivalry this time, caging Millicent between him and the wall behind her.

Knock, knock, knock.

"Hello?"  Mr. Evans inquired hesitantly from behind the door, as he tried the lock. "Anyone there?"

"Aren't you going to answer them?" Millie dared James in a whisper. "You can't keep us locked in here forever. Sooner or later, you'll have to explain to them why you murdered me."

"For God's sake, Millie," James whispered back. "I did not bloody-"

Knock, knock, knock.

 "We know you're there," Mr. Evans called again. "Please step out and identify yourself." 

James held his finger to his lips, his blushing hot face so accidently near hers again as they both breathed each other in, remaining perfectly still. 

"It's probably only a draft," Mrs. Moody said. "The tide breezes are unusually rough this morning." 

"We may as well confirm it. Have you no way into a room within your own home, madam?" Mr. Levinson questioned Mrs. Annie. 

"My husband has forbidden anyone to enter it," Mrs. Moody answered. "It's our James's old room, you see. Ever since James went missing, his father wants none of his belongings disturbed." 

"Have you any master key?" Mr. Levinson asked the caretaker. 

"If Mrs. Moody wishes for the room to be opened for her," Mr. Evans stated to Levinson, a stern warning of his loyalties hidden in his words. "I will fetch the key for her." 

"How very convenient, I say." 

"Considering the circumstances, I should think not, sir," Christopher disagreed with Levinson. "What is it you want from us, eh, if you can't have our James? The Levinsons and the Crawleys have everything imaginable. There is no man who would turn down that girl's hand, now that my brother is dead. Why do they insist upon James?"

"Haven't you heard the news, sir?" Mr. Levinson asked him. "Patrick Crawley, heir of Downton, has gone missing. The lad claimed he was going away on another venture to look for his sister and never returned. And being His Lordship's heir, the family and their estate are in an uproar, naturally. As you know, it has been some years now since Miss Crawley disappeared." 

"And what's that got to do with my brother?" Christopher challenged him. 

"Do you think me a fool, sir?" Levinson questioned him. "My cousin has told me everything regarding Mr. Moody's history with the Crawleys. If I'm convinced that James Moody's disappearance is not somehow connected to Miss Crawley's, I would be the fool you presume I am."

"What are you on about? That my brother has seduced Miss Crawley and runaway with her?" 

"Mrs. Moody," Mr. Levinson turned away from Christopher to the lady of the house. "Are there any more ladies who reside here with you, madam?"

"Only I, sir," Mrs. Moody affirmed.

"Then am I mistaken in believing I heard a woman cry just now, 'I'm sorry, I can't wait. Take me now, James''?"

"A woman?" Mrs. Moody asked, surprised. "In that boudoir?"

"How long will you chase this goose to nowhere, sir?" Christopher demanded. 

"I'm not surprised that you would hide your brother and his runaway slut in this house to protect him," Levinson hissed. "I am only surprised that Lord Grantham still speaks highly of your family, when you are plainly a house of debauchers!" 

"If that truly was my brother in there--alive and well, so it appears--then he'd have quite some explaining to do, wouldn't he?"

"Well, I'm all ears, sir," Levinson said. "And I'm afraid, until I know for certain Mr. James Moody is not in that room, I can not rest easy." 

Mr. Evans rolled his eyes and turned back to the door. 

Knock, knock, knock. 

"Come off it, Mr. Moody. This oaf nincompoop here, Mr. Levinson, is convinced you are only faking dead," Mr. Evans called to the door sarcastically. "Do come out. We would all be very thankful to rest easy upon seeing you alive after all, sir, if that's the way of it. You must understand how distressing this is for Mrs. Moody, and how thrown off we all are." 

"Who are you calling a nincompoop, sir?" protested Levinson.

"This woodheaded ning-nong insists that you're a rake, sir. Have you nothing to say for yourself?" Mr. Evans went on jokingly challenging the door in sport at Levinson's expense. 

James's eyes ran away from the door back into Millie's. 

"Will you give me three days to put it right?" James whispered to her, offering her a bargain for her partnership instead. "It's only fair, knowing I stayed as long with you. If I don't find a way to send you back that doesn't involve anyone dying, we will open it up for debate again. Though, you must understand, Miss Millie, you're a long way from there. This isn't 2022 anymore. It's a different world now. Different rules. I know I've no right to ask you to stay for the time being, but you have my word that I will take you back anywhere you wish, if you put your faith in me this once. I promise I'll find a way to fix everything, if you give me time."

And no matter how crazy traveling backwards in time to 1912 was, or how much she didn't want to believe things like this could happen, Millie knew James was right.

Whatever ill-fated destiny had swept them up, she had become its plaything as much as James was now.

Dying, after all, hadn't been easy.

If they were going to find a better way to make their respective timelines right again, they needed each other in this. 

And next to the many years she still had waiting for her in 2022, three days playing along with this "Once Upon A Time" knockoff wasn't such a bad bargain, was it?

"This has gone on long enough," Mr. Levinson declared to the closed door. "If that was really you I heard in there, Mr. Moody, and you have nothing to hide, I demand an explanation for you fabricating this nonsense about being dead, and locking yourself away like this. Or I'll be forced to confirm the worst of you."

"What we mean, my good fellow," a superstitious Mr. Evans tried to keep peace with the late Mr. Moody's spirit. "Is that we hope you rest easy, sir, even as we will never know what happened to you. I hope you will know that we haven't forgotten you, though it be God who shall decide how long we wait to meet you again." 

"It has been years of waiting for my dear cousin, Miss Lavinia!" Mr. Levinson countered him. "It may seem impolitic of me, but with a lady's reputation at stake, the situation is indeed direful. And so, I require an answer from you immediately, Mr. Moody. Are you or are you not keeping amorous congress with an unwed woman in your bed?"

"Heavens to Betsy!" Mrs. Annie was aghast. "Is the whole world gone higgledy-piggledy this morning? This is beyond unforgivable, sir, and I must ask you to never call on anyone in this house again!" 

"Very well," Levinson resigned. "I have seen enough to make my report to Lord Grantham this very afternoon. And I must say, I'll rather enjoy watching your ill-bred family fall back into the gutter where you belong. An example for the rest of the would-be self-seekers who forget their place." 

"Kindly, get out of my house, sir," Mrs. Annie warned him again. "Or I will throw you from that landing myself." 

"Surely, you will regret this meeting hereafter, madam," Levinson smiled, taking his time to bow his pardon politely to her. "I'll take my leave then. Good day to--" 

But right in the middle of Mr. Levinson making his pardons, the door to the bedroom jerked open, and James Moody threw himself out of it into the hallway with them. Safely slamming the door quickly shut behind him.

"Alright then?" James greeted them all, straightening himself up and catching his nervous breath. "Forgive me for keeping you waiting. I've only just rose from bed."

"Talk of the devil and he will come!" professed Levinson. 

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" a wide-eyed Mrs. Annie cried, dumbstruck to find him among the living after all. "James! How is it that you are--Truly, we were led to believe that you were..."

"Dead to the world, indeed," Christopher remarked, side-eyeing his little brother cynically. 

"What's this all about, dear boy?" Mrs. Annie beckoned him to explain. "Your father is beside himself looking for you!" 

"I know, I know, and forgive me. I can only imagine all the trouble that's happened since I've been away and regret making you all fret over me...Only, this is going to sound right mad," James duly warned them. "But would anyone be kind enough to tell me what day it is?"

"You've forgotten the day?" Chistopher asked him, surprised. 

"The exact date, that is, I'm afraid I've lost track of it," James explained. "Is it April still? Sunday, is it?"

"April? Good gracious, James, are you well? " Mrs. Annie asked, deeply concerned for him. "April has not yet arrived. And it is Monday, naturally."

James nodded assuredly.

"Monday. Right. Of course."

Then not so assuredly.

"Monday of what, if you would?"

"The 16th of March, Jim," Christopher answered him. "Surely, you remember?"

"March?" James repeated, perplexed. "It's only March?"

"God, James, what's happened to you?" Christopher questioned him worriedly. "You're not acting like yourself at all. First, we hear you're lost at sea with the Kincora. And the next, you're dallying around in your bath robe raving about it being April." 

"But that's not at all what happened," James tried to explain. "I truly was lost at sea, but not while aboard the..."

Though, judging by the way they stood bowling over him, James thought better of it.

 Was it any use?

It was only March here.

Here, Titanic was as alien to them as an Apple mobile phone, or Costco, or the internet. 

They'd much sooner lock him up in some hospital than ever understand him. And then what should happen to Millie in his absence?

How should he go about explaining to them how happy he was to see their faces again, after being dead in some parallel world on a doomed ship called the RMS Titanic?

And if April 15th, 1912 was the day he went down with Titanic in that other world, had that dreaded day not even come yet in this one?

"How did you let yourself in? I don't remember you calling for me," Mr. Evans questioned James. 

"Well, you can hardly call it a plot twist," Mr. Levinson declared. "And I must say, I'm rather disillusioned by these old party tricks."

He noted James's bedraggled light brown hair, and his scanty bath robe. 

"I see you have indeed risen to the occasion, sir. You may as well drag that whore in there out of hiding. You've been long found out," Levinson dared him. "I know it was a slut's filthy lecherous cries I heard in there. Yours and Lavinia's has been a rather prolonged engagement, hasn't it, Mr. Moody? It's only natural that a young man, with lovely eyes such as yours, should allow them to wander." 

And desperate to save her stepson from any disastrous rumor that Mr. Levinson would take out of that house, the goodly-intended Miss Annie quickly spoke up.

"As you can see already, your assumptions about our James's character are unfounded," she swore. "In fact, to prove it to you, he'll go ahead and show you the room himself. Won't you, James?"

James's eyes widened. "Won't I, ma'am?"

He hoped his stepmom would catch the hint that he absolutely could not, by any means or circumstance.

But it was too late.

Mr. Levinson gloated victoriously. "What a brilliant idea, Mrs. Moody." 

James shook his head subtly at his stepmother, and slid her a hard look, until Mrs. Annie's eyes narrowed back into his, as the realization suddenly dawned on her.

"Why, after all, wouldn't you be able to show him this room, James?" she asked suspiciously.

"Precisely," Levinson seconded that. "If you have nothing to hide, this will settle the matter."

"Well, I..."

James looked to Christopher for rescue, but not even his older brother could see him out of this one.

He was on his own.

"That is to say, the reason being...Well, what you ought to know first is that I.."

And then without warning, James felt the bedroom door snatch open from behind him.

It was the worst possible time for that door to open.

James let out a slow, long breath, closing his eyes and accepting that today might very well be the day he was murdered thrice.

"I'm all finished changing your bedsheets now, Mr. Moody," Millie informed him, as she walked out of his room, carrying a wicker basket of his discarded bedcovers with her. Her hair done up quite presentably under her white bonnet again, and apron retied neatly at her waist over her maid's costume. "Is there anything else you need, sir?"

Mr. Levinson stood jaw-dropped and stupid.

Scanning the room behind Millie for the secret runaway paramour he had suspected hiding in it.

No illicit love nest there, but a room as orderly and spotless as a good maid ever left it. The bed neatly dressed and smoothed under freshly fluffed pillows and all traces of the broken glass oil lamp swept clean.

And glancing back at the hazelnut-haired "Jezebel" walking out of the boudoir, Mr. Levinson could hardly believe that Mr. James Paul Moody had outsmarted him like this.

"A housemaid?" he demanded, astonished.

And though she certainly planned to give James a piece of her mind for it later, Mrs. Annie would much rather play along than allow James to sink for it. 

"Yes," Mrs. Annie quickly owned up to it, side-eyeing James with a double tone that only he could understand the true meaning of. "I'm growing older, and require a personal maid in my house. Is that such a crime, Mr. Levinson?"

But Levinson wouldn't drop his eyes from Millie, studying every feature of her face, as he tried to see the lie in it he knew was hiding there. 

"And what is your name, my dear?" Levinson asked her. 

"It's Miss Emily, sir," she answered him confidently. "Emily Amberflaw." 

Levinson's head cocked curiously at her peculiar accent. 

"You're American?"

"These questions are hardly suitable for a housemaid and a guest, Mr. Levinson," Mrs. Annie thwarted him again. "Please refer all your inquiries regarding my house to Mr. Evans." 

"Forgive me," Levinson said, still eyeing Millie intently. "She has a face a man can never forget...Almost as if you might've easily been an earl's daughter in another life, had you not been so unfortunately born into this dismal working class." 

James stepped willfully in front of Millie, blocking Levinson's line of sight from her. 

"I reckon you got your proof now," James told Levinson. "I'm alive and well, and you can send my regards back to my dear fiancé, Miss Levinson."

The unexpected word fiancé drawing Millie's eyes away from Levinson to James, and the stinging surprise in her gaze only mirroring the ache in James's own heart. 

And the way Millie quickly dropped her eyes again to her wicker basket, and didn't dare look at James again, only made him regret instantly that he couldn't pull her aside and take all the hurt right back. 

But he knew Levinson was watching, and that he must say whatever Levinson wanted to hear, to keep the man from interrogating Millicent more. 

"Please have her take comfort that she can expect a letter from me soon," James told Levinson. 

The man nodded, knowing that now that Moody had given him his answer, he had no more ground to stand on to investigate the dodgy case of the beddable American housemaid. 

"Very well," Levinson answered coolly. "Consider it done." 

Though the gentleman fumed on privately for the cunningly resourceful Englishman. Privately being the only gentlemanly way of doing these things.

Then Levinson turned to Millicent, nodding a parting to her that lingered longer than it should've, for James's tastes. 

"Miss Emily," Levinson bid her farewell. "I hope we meet again soon." 

"Emily, you'll find the wash out through the kitchen," Miss Annie interrupted them quickly. "Then you will meet me in the drawing room to send away our other guest, Mr. Lowe. Between him and I, I do believe after all this excitement, it's me who'll be needing the brandy more." 

Millie glanced at James with a question on her lips that never materialized into words. James nodded encouragingly to her. 

She narrowed her eyes back at him, mouthing the words, 'You owe me'. 

Then turned away to obediently follow Mrs. Annie down the great staircase.

Leaving Levinson to see himself out, pondering over one last lingering question. 

'How can a family of modest means such as the Moodys afford to employ both a housemaid and a caretaker?  Quite unusual indeed." 

Could the young lady really be a housemaid, or was there more to the way her unusual air reminded him of Lady Sybil and Lady Mary of Downton? 

Having only just crossed the Atlantic from America, Levinson had never met the infamous missing daughter of Sir James Crawley, and without unquestionable evidence to prove who she was or any portrait to refer to, Mr. Levinson could not tell a common Jane from a Mary when it came to identifying His Lordship's runaway niece. 

Yet...who could ever trust the moral code of a sailor?

Even so, Levinson was forced to accept that he'd lost this round, and would go quietly from the Moodys with his defeat.

"It seems I underestimated your character, Mr. Moody," the apology was like a brick forced out of Levinson's throat. "Pardon my intrusion."

Though the slight inflection of Moody's surname at the end of his statement warned the officer that Levinson's crusade for a hill-to-die-on was far from over.

A withdraw today to sound the alarm for 'reinforcements' tomorrow. 

And bowing out humbly as he went, Levinson turned with his walking stick and marched down the corridor to make his cool exit.

Chapter Text

Stepping into James's world was like walking into a dream Millie swore she'd had at least once. 

The Moody's home was surprisingly modern, with a whisper of elegance from the bygone Victorian era, falling into a budding romance with a relaxed Edwardian coziness.

Instead of dusty claustrophobic mazes of endless rooms and shadowy passageways, the Moody house was refreshingly light.

With no electricity or AC rumbling away in the background, the quiet air throughout the house was unexpectedly breathable. The space so open and free that it caught even the softest of Millie's footsteps in a gentle echo.

A cascading oakwood staircase wrapped around in its descent to the ground floor. The rich wood stain of the hand railing and balusters were simply crafted but graceful and effortless. Rounded stairs flowed into a landing that belonged to a large arched window, undressed and glowing with sunlight and green ivy just outside the stained glass, adding a Beauty and the Beast kind of charm to the stairway as a stunned Millie slowly descended it.

"I'm in 1912," she coached her nerves. "This is perfectly fine. Nothing not normal about this." 

Her careful white converse touched the wooden floors of the foyer, which followed in the house's charming simplicity showing off peekaboo touches of elegance. A ceiling-rose hung with an amber gas light chandelier, high above a long dark wooden table at the side of the foyer. It was laid with a white lace runner, crowned by an ornate oil lamp and a richly moody mix of French lavender branches, eucalyptus leaves, burgundy dahlias, and burnt-orange peonies.

Her attention was suddenly caught by more distant arguing in another room somewhere upstairs in the house. 

Millie pressed her back against the dado railing wrapped around the foyer at a cushioned sittee and wooden armed chair in the reception. Both directly across from a cloudy grey door that brought full sunlight into the house through art nouveau stained glass. And this room seemed to love the sunlight so much, that a second stained glass window was added above the door to catch as much of it as possible across the mahogany floors.

Giving James's blondish honey hair a surreal ethereal glow, as he descended the stairs two at a time.

His eyes searching around for his futuristic miss, but finding no sign of Millie, save for her abandoned wicker basket with his abandoned bed sheets wanged over Cinderella style out on the stairs.

Millie stepped toward James, his back turned to her and his name almost a whisper on her parted lips. Before she stopped herself when Christopher Moody beat her to him.

"James! There you are."

The door of the kitchen sliding opened abruptly as James's older brother marched out of the it, shooting careful glances around the foyer to make sure no other guest of theirs was listening. 

"What is going on here?" Christopher asked James. "If I'm going to help you, I need to know everything about how that woman got here. Are you aware that she is missed?"

"So is the reason why I am looking for her."

"No, you don't understand," Christopher informed him. "I mean she is missed by a very important, and very powerful family, whose crosshairs you do not want to be in. You don't know what you're playing with."

"I know exactly what game I'm playing," James said, as he searched for Millie in the kitchen. "It's her who won't understand, which is why I must find her and ensure she's safe." 

"Safe for us all would be to send her on her way far from this house, before anyone discovers  she was here."

"I have it under control, Christopher." 

And as the two brothers were distracted going toe-to-toe with each other, Millie's eyes searched for a way out of yet another ungainly situation, and followed the foyer that opened up into two rooms on either side. On her left were a pair of arched doors with their own windows that opened up into a drawing room, and on her right was a trophy room of sorts, with a vast collection of old English battle swords and shields displayed on the walls.

To avoid running into anymore awkward encounters that might be waiting for her in the drawing room (namely, this alleged guest, Mr. Lowe), Millie took her chances with the "room of death" and stealthily turned to the right.

Slipping quickly out of Christopher's and James's sight as she locked the door firmly behind her. 

"Do you now, James? Champion performance you put on for Levinson back there," Christopher remarked to his younger brother. "Don't tell me after the cheek you pulled here, that you're too mousy to take your bows now. Was there no better way to tell us you were alive, ye absolute plonker? A short letter might've done it nicely." 

"Were it that simple, I might've wrote you a novel-" James began.

But his defense was cut off when Christopher pulled him in by the arm, and side-hugged him tightly, patting his brother roughly on the shoulder a few times.

"I don't give a damn to hear your excuses anyway, ye dunderhead," Christopher told his brother in a warmer tone. "You made it home. That's the important thing. You came back to us. The rest we can manage."

And his normally very tame older brother stepped back from him again, resuming their sides of the foyer as two very proud British men who were in firm control of their emotions. Though James's eyes stung in the wake of Christopher's unexpectedly warm welcome of him. 

"Pleased to bits to see you as well, Chris," James said to him. "Even if you are still muppet as ever."

"If only you weren't so determined to take my idiot crown. Since we were lads, I never understood why you were so keen on having everything I had," Christopher remarked. "Got yourself well in it today though, haven't you, James?"

"I'll 'appen it's true." 

"Well, I'll 'appen it's true that you won't pack it in until you've undone yourself for that-" 

The doors to the kitchen opened again, and Mrs. Annie peeked out whispering, "Stop chelpin' for the whole world to hear, the two of you, and get in here! I'd like a word with you both." 

"He's caught red-handed with a girl in his bed, and I'm the one you're playing pop with?" Christopher lightly remarked to her.

"I can't thoil your jokes at a time like this," Mrs. Annie scolded him in fierce whispers. "Skift in here, the both of you!"

And after collecting the pair of Moody boys into the dining room, Mrs. Annie checked to make sure no one else was skulking about, before slamming the wooden kitchen slides shut again for privacy. 

Charging for James instantly, Mrs. Annie whipped out her handkerchief to beat him upon her every soprano word.

"Have!"--thump!--"You!"--thump!--"No!"--thump!--"Shame!"

"Madam, won't you give me a chance to explain?" James flinched away from his handkerchief-wielding stepmother.

"I reckon he deserves another," Christopher egged on more of James's punishment.

"Don't stir," Mrs. Annie pointed a warning finger at the older Moody son. "After the way you harassed our guest, Mr. Lowe, I've got plenty more coming for you."

"And you," she whipped back around to James. "Haven't we brought you up better than this? A housemaid, James? I'll bet my last penny that she is! And I don't expect Mr. Levinson will take your word for it either!"

"It's not at all what you think," James tried again to explain the situation. 

"Well, it certainly does look it, doesn't it?" Mrs. Annie cried in hushed squeaks, beating him again with her handkerchief. "How dare you toy so recklessly with a young lady's reputation? What would your mother have thought of the state of you, God rest her soul? Since you are a young man, do you consider it no consequence how a woman should suffer alone in the shadow of your damfool deeds?"

"Yes, absolutely careless, James," Christopher butted in his two pence. "What would our mother think?"

"How you behave at sea among your fellow sailors is your business," Mrs. Annie continued giving James an earful. "But to be caught alone in bed with an unmarried woman, all while Mr. Levinson is upon your door, of all people! What  conduct is that, I must ask you!"

"Yes, gradly ill-conceived, James, " Christopher reiterated the point. "Very stupid indee-"

"Christopher."

"Yes, madam?"

"Your assistance is not required."

"Barmy as it sounds, there's only just a bit of logic to it, if you'll have it, " James assured his family. "Once I've found Millie, we can explain to you everything that's happened to us."

"Eh? She's Millie to you now, is she?" Christopher's critical brow arose to that. "Of what context, I must ask you?"

"She is my..." James stumbled for the perfect word. "She is my roommate."

Mrs. Annie's jaw dropped, and Christopher's hung only half as much, somewhere between a congratulatory smirk and thinking his brother an absolute idiot. 

But how was James to define for them the rather affectionate and very modern concept of a 'roommate', that meant sharing an apartment together, but had nowt to do with lovemaking, or that meant finding comfort in being intimately near each other, but had nowt to do with marriage, or that meant sharing things like popcorn, umbrellas, and hot cocoa, and theater dates, but had everything to do with friendship. 

The very idea of dating only for the reason of being profoundly pleased with each other seemed to exist only in the world James and Millie had shared together, 100 years into the future. 

At least in the way James had come to know of it, there was no proper way to describe Millie as his beloved 'girl-friend' in 1912. 

In his world, a man and a woman "roommating together" were either husband and wife, or conversely, rake and whore.

"That is to say, she is my..." James struggled to find a more proper word to describe the true soul of his standing with Millie.

But to him, nothing could be more proper than to simply say honestly what he could no longer deny himself, after a century of trying to quell his unconquerable feelings for her. 

"She is mine," he confessed at last. "Whatever her 'being mine' should mean, unprecisely, I will endure that ambiguity. Should it mean we can be for each other what we are now. However you should regard our unconventional friendship, being much too extraordinary to define, know that I would not feel like half of what I am without it, and I can find none other." 

"Naturally, we won't turn you out of this house, James," Mrs. Annie informed him more gently. "But we haven't even the faintest idea who this young lady is. How can you ask us to ignore our sounder judgement to protect your integrity as a gentleman and an officer, and not shut the girl out of this house before anyone else takes notice of her? It's bad enough that Mr. Levinson has seen enough here to rally some lord of god-knows-where to come here questioning our morals. Then what will society remember of our family? How will your father's clients look down on us?"

Christopher passed his sky blue daring gaze back to James. 

"Go on. You may as well tell her, Jim. She'll find out the truth now or later."

"Tell me what, my dear boy?" their befuddled stepmother asked. 

"How it won't be so easy to throw her out of this house now," Christopher helped James along. 

"And why not, precisely?" 

James sighed heavily.

"The truth is, madam, she is not any common housemaid," he told her. "But a lady of nobility." 

Mrs. Annie snorted.

"That tag-rag mop for a girl? Of what kingdom, I must ask ye?" she dismissed that wild goose chase of an idea. 

"Of Downton, madam," Christopher answered her soberly. "Downton Abbey. That lady is her, isn't she, James? The one who'd gone missing ages ago."

And thrown off by Christopher's sudden shift from joshing around to unbroken solemnity, Mrs. Annie decided to question him again, just in case he was mistaken. 

"Lady of what, I ask ye?"

Swearing that it had to be yet another petty antic the boys had brewed up to play on her nerves. 

"Lady Millicent Crawley," Christopher informed her. "Daughter to Sir James Crawley, who is first cousin to the Earl of Grantham. His heir presumptive being her brother, Patrick Crawley."

"Nonsense! If she told you so, she's a lying leech! Of course that down-and-out is no such lady!" Mrs. Annie continued to call his bluff. "Come now, James. You can't expect me to believe that a 'Lady of Downton' walked straight under my roof without my knowing it, and witnessed the untidy state of my house, as it is now?"

But when her uneasy gaze skated back to her younger stepson, and noted how sorry but unyielding his big blue eyes looked towering a head above her, Mrs. Annie's nervous smile slowly wavered into silent panic. 

"James?" she begged that it was just his bluff. "She's only a cunning gambit for a liar, isn't she?"

"I'm nearly certain it's her," Christopher assured Mrs. Annie. "Papa and I were requested only just a week ago to the estate to assist Mr. Murray, to oversee the marriage agreement between Lady Mary Crawley and Sir Patrick Crawley. While papa and Mr. Murray talked over the legal particulars, Sir Patrick asked me to walk with him."

"You mean to say you made an acquaintance with the Sir Patrick Crawley?" Mrs. Annie was breathless. "Well, go on. What was the man like?"

"A quiet, brooding demented fellow, I'm afraid. I was right disappointed, really. Said he wanted to discuss a matter with me he couldn't say in front of his father and the earl. I assumed his heart wasn't truly in the engagement between he and Lady Mary," Christopher said. "It was then we happened upon a portrait of himself and his sister in the Gallery at Downton. And then, he answered me in the most peculiar way imaginable. He said he'd seen his future, but this time around, he was deciding for himself that becoming Earl of Grantham would not be in his cards. He then informed me that he had business to attend to that he reckoned he might not return from, but that Lady Mary still deserved a man who will 'love her until his last breath leaves his body'. He suggested his uncle not wait for his return to become heir, and instead, track down a distant cousin of his, a Mr. Matthew Reginald Crawley of Manchester.

"But before I could tell him how bizarre that whole thing sounded, to expect Lady Mary to agree to marry some lawyer bloke from Manchester, he spoke of ever more bizarre things. He advised me to prepare myself for the fall of the world as we know it, after murder of the Archduke, and to spare my money from the banks before the 'crash of '29'. He also advised me to invest in government bonds as soon as I can manage it, and avoid all travel by sea in April.

"But stranger yet, he said if he succeeded in bringing his sister back, he expected that she would naturally find her way to our door first. And in exchange for his invaluable information regarding his knowledge of the future, he asked that we see to it that she's watched over. Naturally, I thought he was daft, and that he was rambling hogwash, until..." 

Christopher glanced back at James.

"I can't say for certain what Lady Millicent Crawley is doing in our home playing about as a maid...but what do you suppose Sir Patrick meant by all those things, James?" he asked his brother gravely. "Without a doubt, she's a spitting image to the lady in the portrait at Downton...Not only is she Patrick Crawley's runaway sister, but I reckon she's the one you once told me about. The love you couldn't keep because she was above you."  

Mrs. Annie's eyes widened in realized horror. 

"James," she breathed. "Don't tell me that after it all, what Mr. Levinson said was true? Did you really seduce Miss Crawley into running away with you so you could elope with her? A Crawley, James, of all the girls you might've ruined!"

"Miss Levinson's cousin, to boot," Christopher added. "The Crawleys will have your head for their trophy on their library mantel." 

"I did not seduce her, and she did not runaway with me," James insisted. "Not as you're imagining it, at least. The fact is, she doesn't exactly...Well, that is, she can't remember that she is Lady Millicent Crawley, I'm afraid to say." 

"She doesn't remember?" Mrs. Annie asked, surprised. "Then who does the girl think she is, exactly?"

James hesitated, faced with that great dilemma of being caught between the oceans of the past and future again, and playing mariner between the two. 

To tell the plain truth, or only half of it?

"She thinks she has come from the future," he informed them gingerly. "She believes she has always let house in New York, and goes by the name Miss Emily Amberflaw."

'She believes she's American?" Christopher asked, utterly baffled. "I suppose it's no suprise then that madness runs in the Crawley family." 

"She believes she is a maid?" It sounded utterly absurd to Mrs. Annie.

"She's not really a maid," James clarified. "She's actually a retail cashier. Er-um, cosplay, is the word for it, alright." 

Mrs. Annie and Christopher stared back at him, puzzling through James's prevailingly confusing words.

"What, pretell, is cosplay?" Mrs. Annie wondered aloud. 

"Must be a nobility thing," Christopher remarked his own take. "There's nowt s'queer as moneyed folk." 

"How is it you found Miss Crawley in...'the future'?" Mrs. Annie asked him. 

And when it was asked, James was ready for it, having  already crafted an answer they wouldn't doubt as the truth of it. 

"I was on my way to the White Star Office from port after leaving hospital....coming off the Oceanic, that is," James spun a white lie about meeting Millie in the gift shop, if for nothing else but to weave his version of events into their limited understanding of his timeline. "I happened upon a woman there swabbing the floors, who uncannily resembled Miss Crawley. I'd heard rumors in the papers that she might be working as a stewardess,  assuming the life of a common lady. Though, her memory appeared to be compromised. I informed her that I would introduce her to papa, who still had some legal connections at Downton, and he could provide her with proof of her identity."

"And then you bedded her?" Christopher thus concluded.

"I offered her to come away with me here, seeing that she had nowhere else to go," James answered Christopher quietly, his stomach doing a small gallop as he remembered the night before at Bitter Tears Cross. "I hope it's no trouble to you, madam."

"Not at all, the poor lovely girl!" Mrs. Annie fawned, fanning her hot blushing cheeks with her folded handkerchief. "A Lady of Downton staying in our house for the time being? Can you fancy it?"

"I fancy money and a title has got its privileges," Christopher answered her dryly, as he side-eyed his stepmother. "Funny how 'Lady Millicent Crawley'--so she seems--has gone from being a marked-down Jezebel to a 'poor lovely girl'. What's it to me, though? No harm done then, right James? All we have to do is cart her back to Downton. Everyone lives on evermore happy."

"We will do no such thing," Mrs. Annie objected. "Not while Lady Crawley is so turned around about who she is. It would be unprincipled to send her out into the world now. She must stay here with us, I'm afraid." 

"Oh aye? I suppose it's just jammy for her then that she hadn't actually turned out to be a maid," Christopher said. "I reckon even the Moodys can be bought for the right price." 

Mrs. Annie whipped the dark cloud that was Christopher out of her way with one flick of her unfolding handkerchief, and hooked her arm around James's elbow as she guided her darling eligible bachelor for a stepson back toward the foyer. 

"Pay him no mind," she told James. "Tell me, where is our Lady Crawley now? I'm out of my wits at the fancy of making her acquaintance. If her memories should return, can you imagine how gradly it'd improve our prominence in society to not only be acquainted with a Crawley, but hold her favor? Can you not dream of it, James? Lavish soirees. Teatime every afternoon with high society. Shopping in Paris. Exclusive invitations to polo, or the opera, or to travel as companions with her ladyship on first-class cruises to Bora Bora."

"I reckon we shouldn't gild the lily," James cooled her enthusiasm.

"And why not?" Mrs. Annie questioned him.

"Because James passed on his English rose for an American begonia," Christopher reminded her. 

"It wasn't at all like that," James defended.

"Your father and I will fettle this Levinson problem. I'm sure there's something in his old law books he can come up with to button them up," Mrs. Annie assured James. "All you need to do  is to make Miss Crawley fall in love with you, and live happily ever after with one another. At Downton, preferably."

"And good luck to you on that, mate," Christopher wished his brother. "May the pull of love bring you back to each other, now that she has been thrown out of this house."

"What nonsense are you speaking of?" Mrs. Annie rounded back on him. 

"Don't you remember, madam? You asked me to show our Lady Crawley to the door--before she was Lady Crawley, that is." 

"You let her go alone from this house?" James questioned his brother.

"Wasn't the very problem of the matter that she was in this house to begin with?" Christopher countered.

James and Mrs. Annie stood aghast to him, just as Mr. Evans regally approached the Moodys in the foyer, carrying a tray of two full glistening shots and a warmed bottle of Martell Cordon Bleu. 

"Pardon my butting in," Mr. Evans excused himself to Mrs. Annie. "But our guest Mr. Lowe has just informed me that he is a total abstainer, and will not take a drink. Says water is the strongest drink he's ever had. What then should I do with-"

Mr. Evans was cut off abruptly when James reached for one of the glasses on his tray and downed it in one swig.

"Well, I never!" Mrs. Annie protested, jaw-dropped. "And what if Miss Crawley should walk in here now and find you under the table instead of an upright, temperate man worthy of her love?" 

James turned the glass upside down on the tray, and then proceeded to lighten Mr. Evans's burden by downing the other.

 "À votre santé, Mr. Moody," Mr. Evans muttered dryly, once the flushed Mr. Moody had consumed the last poured shot. "You drink like a man who has cheated death." 

"And worst for wear, I am, thanks to it," James muttered through the burning in his throat, as he marched on his way for the street door. "Thanks, old man."

"James! Where are you off to now?" Mrs. Annie called after him.

"I've gone and lost my housemaid, and I'm goin' to get her back," James called to her. "I reckon it might take some time. If it should feel like a century has passed before I've returned, please hold back on laying me to rest again in't meantime, as I may very well turn up anew...eventually."

"Oh dear Lord, James! My sweet James!" Mrs. Annie went on roaring her eyes out after him, waddling through her skirts as desperate as if she were chasing her dreams of lavish soirees and Parisian cruises out the door with him. "You can't be leaving now! You've only just arrived! Christopher, why are you only standing there derrived from liggin’ as you watch him go? Your assistance, I beg you!" 

Chapter Text

It was precisely the reason why Harold Lowe barely attended parties. 

All thanks to that riling inconvenience of being a guest, who is not only expected to stay put where he's placed, but also expected to take his leave solely on his host's schedule, with all the et cetera, et cetera decorum that proceeds it. 

A host who, under normal circumstances, would have nothing to say regarding where, how and when Harry went, save for this one instance he'd blindly trotted himself into. 

What had started out as a genuine offer of condolence for a fellow sailor had somehow turned into a strange ragtime parlor game of being chucked into one room and then off to another, all while offering him some matter of drink that he couldn't stomach the smell of, without being reminded of his blimmin' father.

Whatever the object of this little game, Mr. Evans was keen on beating Lowe to the prize, steering him away from whatever dirty little scandal was unfolding upstairs. 

And with Mrs. Moody so fixated on James, no one remembered to tell Mr. Evans it was alright to send their guest Mr. Lowe off.  

Leaving Harold Lowe in limbo about his unnaturally long drop-in on the Moodys.

Don't suppose anyone bloody knows what's going on around here.

After all, he'd never dropped his name in the hat for this circus of ring-around-the-rosy.

Mr. Evans, being most optimistic in his efforts for the family, as he gave Lowe yet another tour of all the presentable parts of the Moody's fine home...carefully avoiding the unpresentable parts, that is. 

"And here is Mr. Moody's collection of Arthurian swords, gifted to him by various affluent patrons who consider themselves in debt to Mr. Moody's legal services," Mr. Evans had stopped at one door across from the drawing room. 

"Gorblimey," Lowe whistled, at the collection of nine beautiful glimmering swords of all sizes mirroring the gently crackling fireplace in Mr. John Moody's study. "I'll just have a look then." 

But he was quickly halted by Mr. Evans's arm across the door frame before the fall of Lowe's first step. 

"Mr. Moody is very particular about his collection of Arthurian swords."

"Can't say I blame, Mr. Moody."

"You are totally at leisure to look, sir, but forbidden to touch...anything...belonging to Mr. Moody," Mr. Evans had warned him sternly. 

But upon being deposited back into the drawing room, Lowe decided he was done playing guest and feeling as if he'd been ransomed aboard a ship he never paid fare for.

Moody was a big lad, after all. 

And surely, he didn't invoke the pact of CQD merely because he couldn't manage his woman-problem all by his own?

As though Lowe had no problems to dance around himself, women not being one of them now. 

His sweet Nellie--Pardon, that is, Miss Ellen Whitehouse, as she no longer wished to be called 'his sweet Nell'--was still "thinking it over".

He knew he shouldn't have ever given in to her, but inevitably, he always broke down for his sweet (privately) Nell. 

He could tell off any Tom-Dick-or-Henry under the sail, but couldn't ever manage to inform  Miss Whitehouse a third time that he barely attended parties, as he was unable to stomach flamboyant bohemian people--like his bloody father--and informed her that if she wished to frolic around like stuffed birds at some hoity-toity ball, she would have to do the pleasure of it without him. 

But after breaking down to her will, as he inevitably always did for his sweet Nell, Lowe had agreed to take her with him to the "Admiral's Ball", the exclusive yearly gathering that the White Star higher-ups put on to celebrate and recognize their utmost exceptional officers. 

Of course, Lowe hadn't expected any "Grand-Arse-Smoocher-Of-The-Year" metals to be bestowed upon his name this year. 

Something about pulling some second mate up who couldn't take the flak, after this certain second mate had remarked to Harry that for a "full on Taffy", he was actually quite articulate for his "Welsher class", which spoke to "his clansmen's" resilience and resourcefulness, "considering all they have". To which, Harry brandished his highly praised Englishman-appropriated articulation, and informed the captain that his learning was all the better to call him out as a pussyfooted mumbling cove and that the tosser had already much to be humble about. 

The rest is history. 

Though he preferred something more intimate, that night at the Admiral's Ball was to be his and Nellie's first appearance as an officially engaged couple. 

Unfortunately, as his cards often fell, it was the morning after that he and Nellie made their first appearance as officially uncoupled. 

Something about overhearing some captain's wife by the name of Smith gossiping about why a Mr. Henry Wilde had declined an invitation to the ball this year. Wilde having just lost his beloved wife in childbirth last Christmas. 

And after that, Nellie's excitement about their wedding day seemed to ebb as the night went on. Until breaking her silence at last, she informed Lowe, "I don't want that for us, Harry. To die resenting you for an unfulfilled love. I don't know how I would get on being wife to a man I love so madly, but can never truly have because of his work. Like trying to hold onto a wave that comes in with the tide for a little while, but can never resist abandoning the shore for the pull of the ocean. If our vow for a lifetime together is already conditional, I'm not so sure I'm quite that caliber of a woman yet. To love  you endlessly is as easy as breathing to me...But to endure the fate of always seeking and yearning for you would be an unfathomable heartbreak."

And that was that. 

Her fear of growing resentful toward him becoming the crux of Lowe's resentment for literally everything lately.

Not like he had anything worth offering to win Nellie back anymore, now having no job to speak of.

Even if he could patch things up with Nell, a bitterly resenting marriage was inevitably bound to be in their cards, with the coal strike taking away work from so many eager White Star sailors. The competition for a steady assignment was cutthroat these days, and since signing off as third officer from the SS Belgic, Lowe braced himself for having a rough time at it, waiting to be assigned to a new ship by the marine superintendent. 

But before he caught a ferry from Scarborough back to the fullness of his job-less, woman-less, jolly seafaring existence, Lowe had to know at least once what it was like to try out one of those old  bloody war swords calling his name from across the drawing room. 

And with the coast being clear of Mr. Evans, and Lowe never quite giving a damn really, Harry soundlessly strutted into the room of swords, carefully coaxing the biggest and brightest of the three swords off the mount above the mantel.

But it wasn't the warrior in him that pined after the sword. 

It was the artist. 

"Bloody hell," Lowe let out a long-held breath in homage to the archaic trusty steel, as his painter's eye memorized every detail by heart for his canvas back at Penralt. "Now then, that's a beauty." 

His boatswain, sun-bronzed hands gripping its well balanced weight at the hilt. A heaviness only a sailor could appreciate in a good reliable weapon. Ornately carved with Persephone, companion of mermaids. The well-defined temper-line just visible and running down the middle of a pleasing blade shape with wave-like patterns reflecting on its mirrored edge. The cool satisfying whoosh it whispered when he cut it through the air in a few practice swings.

Winning Lowe's heart instantly, hook-line-and-sinker, which was never before so easily won. 

And just as it ran through his mind exactly how James Moody might pay him back for the favor of CQD (that perhaps Nell might like him best as a homebody man of law instead  of a marine man driving her out of her mind, because he was always at fecking home), the door to the Camelot-themed study snatched open again. 

Harry braced himself, but made no attempt to hide his intent or the absolutely-not-to-be-touched battle sword in his hand, come what may from Mr. Evans bursting through to take it back from him. 

'Whatever comes through that door, has met its match in me,' Harry swore. 

Only, she failed to notice that he was standing there prime at the ready and in a mood for her. 

In fact, owing perhaps to his rotten luck generally with women lately, the housemaid that burst into the study didn't seem to give a tinker's damn that he existed at all. 

Instead, she looked rather busy locking herself alone inside of the room with him, never fully realizing that the "knight mannequin" standing in the far corner of the room was no Lancelot, but a living, breathing ordinary sailor, who stilled the very moment he laid eyes on her.

'Is she another thing I'm forbidden from touching in this room?' Lowe found himself accidentally thinking, inspiring the smuggest hint of a tilted joking grin on his lips that only just lightened his habitually hardened jawline.

Because when it came to well fit swords and stunningly well fit housemaids, the Moodys had a certain way of convincing a man that he is suddenly not due so immediately to anywhere. 

Was she the one responsible for all this ballyhoo pandemonium?

Lowering the blade with regard for the lady now present with him, Lowe swung his sword tip down toward the rich emerald green Persian rug by the fireplace.

But she  walked right by him, and the large map of the Atlantic Ocean hanging over John Moody's writing desk, marked with x's that painstakingly noted each possible location the Oceanic had traveled before she was lost to sea. 

The maid stopping only when she came to the long country French sash windows on the other side of the room that opened up to a view of the serene North Sea.

Somewhere beyond that coastline was New York.

Her home.

Millie's heart leaped achingly.

"God frickin' dammit."

Her hazel eyes diligently skating over the window, making careful notes of its length, width, and the long drop from the second floor of the house to the drive below, where Mrs. Annie Moody and Christopher were still faffing about with James. 

Lowe folded his resting hands over the hilt of the sword, as he queryingly watched the loopy maid fight with the window latch for a whole four and a half minutes, before realizing that such windows do not open outwards, but are meant to be heaved upwards with forceful conviction.

And they were certainly not for leaning lackadaisy out of either. 

What the devil was she trying to get such a hard gander at?

It was as if she couldn't believe that the same ocean-view from one window was the same view she'd get from all other windows in the room, no matter how many angles of the room she tried out. 

And when that reality finally became unmistakenly clear to her, the maid stopped at the last window despairingly. 

Realizing that even if she could find her way out of this maze for a house, half the town of Scarborough was surrounded by the sea.

No cars. No planes. No subways.

Just boats.

Just stupid boats. 

And facing the idea of being stuck on one in the middle of the godforsaken ocean, before the advent of Ambien, that is, Millie's face burned with hot flashes imagining herself in trapped in some Titanic-like luxurious floating tomb, thousands of meters above the ocean floor, for any length of time.

There was absolutely no way in literal hell she'd be getting on a boat out of Scarborough to go back to America.

She was very much screwed.

"Fuck," she whispered, in such a lusciously unbridled way that a man might've heard from a woman only locked behind closed doors with her. Stopping Lowe again from trying to take his leave, as his head whipped back around to fix his eyes on her. Her disorderly conduct being a soft and yet gallant assault. 

He must've misheard it. 

Quite vulgar for a woman in service, it was, but clearly a practiced form of art. 

Could there be anything more ravishing than a woman who wasn't afraid of her own thoughts,  or what words she wasn't allowed to use to describe them?

Had she really no idea what a riot she'd start with folks because of certain one-syllable expletives?

"Of course, it's all water," she sighed, her warm hushed croaky flavor with words leading Lowe to understand completely why she ruined James Moody last night. 

But crying over her bad karma wouldn't get her anywhere now, Millie reminded herself as she tried to not have a panic attack. 

Not like she could scream from that window and be heard far away into the future for someone to come rescue her.

Balling her tightened fist hopelessly against the window frame, her stomach flipping again facing her unconquerable fear of the ocean. 

Making Scarborough the perfect seaside paradise from hell for a person with thalassophobia. 

The billowing ocean winds and crushing waves on the shore promising to take her last resolve before it ever set sail.

How does one win against the ocean?

And knowing that her efforts to leave this maze for a house were woefully ineffective against the window frame and the mighty North Sea, Millie fell back against the wall with a long, contemplating sigh. Gazing out at the contemptible ocean, without caring that she was still inches away from the steep drop below the open window.

Until she felt something hard and sturdy slip between her waist and the frame she rested her shoulder on, guarding her from the fall she flirted recklessly with. 

"You could die like that, you know," he said to her. "Hanging out of a window that way."

Millie's eyes dropped down to the ornamental brass hilt of an old English battle sword held protectively against her, and then her eyes chased the hamon line of the blade to the one that wielded it. The black gloved hand gripping the blade in an expert balance that was enough to secure her, but not draw blood from his own hand. 

Rugged hands, like James's, with the same history of sailor's work in them. 

Millie's eyes chased up his sinewed wrist to the outline of toned muscle under his dark gray wool coat sleeve.

Until her searching gaze crashed into the most deeply beautiful brown eyes she'd ever been so daringly questioned by. A gaze as dark and deep as a starlit night at sea.

Leaving Millie momentarily breathless for just how much guts it actually took for someone to point a whole legitimate war sword at her.

But gutsy seemed to be the upright and fearless way he carried himself.

That was the hidden contradiction of it all, though. Even as everything in his stoic posture was orderly and symmetrical, his eyes told a different story.

Something daring and playfully mischievous behind them, waiting to rebel the second he let himself give into it. If there was any softness in such an angular man, it was probably there. At the point in his soul where his driven hard-lined sense of duty was seduced by his red-hot love affair for adventure. If there was a game to be won, he'd be the one to brag that he was hot for beating the odds.

And that strength made love to a hidden paramour living secretly in his embered brown eyes. 

"Don't tempt me or I just might," Millie was all too willing to try her bet on it. 

"It would be unpleasant," he warned her of the fall. 

"As long as it's quick."

"Two out of three chance, I'd say," he bet her. "Doubt it would be instant though." 

"Are you always this positive?" Millie stated of his pessimism. 

"Rather confidently, I'd say," he answered, completely misinterpreting her connotation. "It's quite simple math, you see. If it's probability you're working out, I'd say the probability of you walking out that door over falling from a window will always be in your favor. All the same, neither egress is given to fettling your Moody problem."

"You know, despite clearly having a completely different conversation with each other right now, you're the first thing today that's made a fraction of sense to me," Millie said to him quite honestly relieved. "Thank you. I needed that fine specimen of logic this morning." 

"Come now, take heart, miss," he grossly missed the mark again. "You've caused some muddle, but you're not the first maid to be caught having it away with a man, and you'll make the best of a bad job." 

"Having it away?" Millie protested his word choice. "Whatever that means, that's not what happened. That is not even remotely the issue here." 

 "Then why do they seem keen on having James's head for a platter?" he wondered, glancing down at the Moodys still bickering with each other below the window.

"Maybe because he deserves it," she answered him plainly. "He's a murderer, after all."

"And who might you be?"

"Nobody."

"Nobody," he nodded, turning to angle his body toward her and let his gaze leisurely take her in, making them both rather snug around the window frame. "French, is it?"

"Sweetie, it's whatever you want it to be," Millie told him dismissively.

"It's Mr. Lowe to you." 

"Why are we still having this conversation?  Who are you? Can I help you with something?"

"No, indeed," he doubted it. "Having a look at the disastrous state of you, I'm sure there's no better one I could trust with my life."

"To push you out this window? Because that's what I was thinking." 

"It's lucky then that I'm only here to rescue you,  because I'd'e been thinking the same about you." 

"Rescue me? Is that your day job around here, Don Quixote?"

"Day job, miss?"

"Or whatever old-timey thing you old-timey people do here. Squire? Stable boy? Dragon Hunter?" Millie threw out a few careless guesses. "Something other than accosting random women at windows with a sword."

" A dragon hunter?" he reddened a bit at that, pinning the sword hilt between his arm and ribs for safe keeping, as he leaned leisurely closer to her, making the window space ever cozier between them in the heat of their discourse. The hilt of his sword bumping against the wall with a clink-clink behind her, casually imprisoning her with him in the rectangular cubby of the window frame. "How did you guess it, miss? Am I that simple to read? Reckon it's because I'm  Welsh, eh? All of us basic Welshmen basically come out of all the same perfect bloody fairy tales, don't we?"

"You're right. Perfect isn't exactly the word I'd pick here," she said, daintily pushing the hilt of Lowe's sword away to unblock her way off the window ledge. "Perfect would be you leaving me alone so I can concentrate on escaping."

"Right. I do have a certain distractible effect on women," he boasted to her. "I won't hold that against you. But the dragon bit, I can never forgive you for. Cast my lot with James Moody, and this is what I get?"

"Nobody's stopping you from leaving." 

"And yet you salt my wounds by throwing me out of a room that I had already claimed as my hiding place to begin with?" Lowe bared his grievances. "Whatever the bloody hell a day job is, a housemaid can't have been your first choice. And what a productive time to be dismissed from service. I read the menagerie reserve is still raring for a bear. Reckon it's worth a go?"

"Not to play with your emotions, but I'm not actually a housemaid." 

"Bugger," Lowe remarked, though he sounded hardly bothered or surprised by her revelation. "I rather fancied that bit about you."

"You'll get over me, love," she assured him in cheered satire. 

"Well, to keep the ball of disappointment for each other going, I reckon I should confess to you I'm not actually a dragon hunter either," Lowe informed her. "I'm a naval man, actually. Not unlike our Mr. Moody, who is a man full of his own surprises, as you know. In fact, it was just a short half hour ago that I imagined the man to be dead and blamed myself for it. And after that half hour, I imagined I wished to beat the piss out of him for that. But, had he not done all that, I would not have had the pleasure of meeting the disappointment that is you."

"How very disappointing."

"Exceptionally," he agreed. "You are oddly serene for a lady who might've died, had a man not turned up at this window."

"What?" Millie questioned that assumption. "I was never in any danger."

"Thanks to me--a man--turning up."

"What does you being a man have to do with anything?"

"Because I know fully how primitive men are. Mr. Moody, included," Lowe made his point. "I can't say all that you hoped to gain by bedding him, but a good reputation doesn't seem to be one of them. I myself hardly give a damn what anyone should think of me, but if you want my advice, miss, give a wide berth of us ruddy sailors. We are nobbut heartless heartbreakers." 

"How timely you are," Millie said of his advice. "I was already leaving."

"I'm very sorry to see you go. Au revoir," he said. "That there is French for-"

"For how happy you'd be to help me get out of here?"

"Oh, eh?"

"I need somebody who knows their way around Scarborough," she told him. "So that I can find some rudimentary station and take a very long train ride back to America."

"You'd get there by ship in a quarter of the time," Lowe informed her.

"Absolutely no ships."

"Mad as jam, you are."

"Oh, I'm the crazy one?" Millie challenged that assumption. "I didn't start this. James did. He threw me over a cliff." 

And Lowe, greatly misinterpreting that truth as merely a lady's desperation to cloak whatever was left of her modesty, after supposedly making eye-rolling, bed-breaking, carnally passionate love to James Moody last night.

"Aye, but it takes two to be swept away with the tide, doesn't it, miss?" Lowe gave her a knowing look.

"Is that really all you think about?"

Millie sighed.

It was pointless. 

Millie might as well have really "had it away" with James because nothing she said would ever convince anyone here that she hadn't.

Not even an hour into this madness, and she'd already ruined her chances in 1912 by waking up as a "fallen woman".

But what could she expect from an era who still believed hysteria was caused by a woman's uterus running buck wild through her body?

It certainly wasn't Millie's kind of tea party, which only made her maybe a little smidgen of resentful toward James.

Especially if it meant that Moody had no other qualifications for everyone being on his side, than having an anatomy that allowed him to pee while standing up.

Never mind the fact that he was still a borderline murderer.

But apparently, according to Lowe, it was a man's century. 

James's century. His house. His electricity-deprived world.

And there was no room for an enlightened "fallen woman" like her in it.

But would she really have to wait 110 years to enjoy the familiar comforts of modern progress?

Would the people she loved even still remember her after that long?

Millie's stomach dropped again at that bone-chilling idea, of leaving everything she loved behind, without saying goodbye.

What she would give just to convince James that she wouldn't ever feel right until she'd gone back to the other side, to make sure the people she loved would be ok?

"I guess I must be crazy then," Millie answered Lowe. "Because I don't see why that's more important. I will never understand why people here are more concerned about me having sex with him over the fact that I just dropped out of a flipping century."

"Pardon, miss?" Lowe's brow rose in confusion. "What are you on about?"

"Just give him this message, wil you, Lord Farquaad? The next time James decides to drop into the future and ruin someone else's life, tell him I'm absolutely good." 

"Now then, miss. I'm not your messenger boy, and I'm certainly no Lord either," he had her know. "And the name's Lowe." 

"Lowe?"

MIllie finally pinned why he looked so familiar. 

"As in that Harold Lowe?"

"At your service," he bowed a reserved nod to her. "Though I can't say it has been any sort of pleasure."

"Well, I guess it's a good thing servicing me isn't actually your job here then," she said. "Don't bother going out of your way for my sake."

"It's not for your sake. It's CQD, miss. A wartime premise, you might say," he informed her. "And I should warn you, I take no prisoners." 

"No idea what you're talking about." 

"All you should know, is that I have agreed to see to it James gets out of this mess in exchange for a favor of my own. That fair mess being you, Miss Nobody," Lowe informed her. "And as a man in the spirit of doing favors, how can I not intervene when a lady in distress is clearly out of her blooming mind?"

"I was not in distress."

"Because I intervened."

"I'm not asking you to intervene." 

"I'm not asking you to agree that I do, so you'll just have to grin and bear it, love," Lowe countered her. "You can take it from me that James Moody is a decent fellow. A bit wet behind the ears when put upon, but able to be put right in the end. I say it, miss, without fear of contradiction, that he is a good man who has made a terrible mistake by leading you to his bed, and we must see you both back to the righteous path."

"How are you so..." Millie struggled to find the exact way to describe him. "Not what I expected?"

"You find me wanting?" he asked her, all while seemingly unsurprised by it. "I'm aware, love."

"You would think that being a Titanic hero would come with its charms," she held nothing back. "But your people skills royally suck." 

"Titanic?" Lowe remained stuck on her oddly chosen word. "Dunno what's more daft...The idea that you've conjured up a whole  fantasy about me in your pretty head, aft only just a few moments of our dispiriting acquaintance with each other...or that I want to hear more about how you fancy me your hero in this daydream of yours?"

"Funny you should ask. Because I feel like I almost know I've been this disappointed by you before." 

"It was only moments ago. Remember?" he informed her, though his voice seemed to deepen and soften in a way that made Millie flush in tingles. "At this very window, where we stand." 

"And I'm supposed to trust a guy with a sword who thinks he can read my mind?" 

"I've gathered well enough that we are of the same mind now," Lowe persisted. "We both wish to leave a blundering situation in this house as soon as possible. So, how about it then? Can this 'hero' offer you an alternative, Miss Nobody?"

"Please stop calling yourself that," Millie told him. "You're only proving my point." 

"I come to you as is, miss, and you'll have to square away with that," Lowe forewarned her. "Even so, we can't hide here away from the world forever. Shall we unrepentantly walk out this door together then?"

And having never been asked such a beautifully direct question by anyone before at a desperate chaotic time as this, Millie could only stare back at him stunned, before finally managing a whispered mumble of surrender, "Sure...I guess."

Harold Lowe held his hand out again to help her down from the window ledge.

And in the end, despite the world coming undone around her, how could she ever say no to a nature as confident as his?

It was no more than a foot of a drop from the window ledge to the floor, but Millie was both too tired and too fascinated with his disappointingly uncharming manner to insist on stepping down from the ledge herself.

Allowing this dark mystery man called Lowe to be the hand that steadied the rocky seas of her world, and led her once again back to the firm wooden floor under her white converse.

And gazing back at Lowe, Millie felt something like that same strange sense of dejavu she'd first been hit with upon first seeing James in her gift shop.

Like nothing between them so far had ever been the first time.

"Really though...It's the same way I felt when I met James," she said to Lowe, still captivated by the hints of green hiding in his sure-at-ease eyes, a little dizzy-in-a-good-way from the intoxicating aura of cigar smoke and a woody hazelnut aquatic mingle of something the smelled enticing on his coat. "Why does it feel like we're somehow picking up where we left off before?"

"Unless you've worked on the worst sort of ships imaginable, I can't say we are," Lowe told her, his hardened jawline loosening as he looked at her. "Though, if I knew your real name, Miss Nobody, we might together solve the mystery."

"It's Emily," she finally surrendered her name softly to him. "I just don't know for sure if that's the truth anymore."

Lowe's strong dark brown declined slightly at her, though no longer in the same bantering way he'd been with her before, but out of concern for such a bizarrely cryptic statement from a lady who appeared all but confused about how to behave around an open second story window, let alone remember her own name for certain.

But whatever lingering questions Lowe might've had about her, they remained unspoken, when at the most inopportune moment, the pair were interrupted by the door swinging open and James Moody appearing at the entry of his father's study.

His eyes finding Millie's.

And then Lowe's.

And eventually, Lowe's hands still holding Millie's elbows, after "heroically" helping her down from the window ledge. 

The perfect trio, with Millie and Lowe next to each other, and Moody watching from the outside, holding his ground  as the one out at the door.

James's jaw clenched. 

His eyes shifting between Millie and Lowe.

"Alright, Mr. Lowe?" James's greeting of the man still wrapped around Millicent was as tense as the taller officer's tightened posture. 

"Alright there, Mr. Moody?" Lowe returned Moody's awkward acknowledgement, for what he knew must've looked to James like a rather delicate situation. "We were just-"

"Getting a'gate, I suppose?" Moody asked him, the question strongly mimicking a stark recommendation rather than a lucky guess. 

"Precisely. Your caretaker--Evans, was he?--had ran off. So, I resolved to inform your housemaid that I meant to be shown out."

"I see," James's glinting blue eyes rolled back to Millie. "Suppose that means you ought to let go of her, at some point?  All the easier for you to be off bah't much trouble." 

"Of course," Lowe nodded, accidentally taking longer than both Millie and James preferred to release her. 

Millie pinched down on the tender fleshy spot between Harry's thumb and forefinger. 

"Oy! Bloody fecking hell--" he barely caught his protest under his breath, remembering instantly that he should have by now ejected her from his all-too-helpful embrace. 

"Reckon it will be for you, if she must do it again," Millie heard James mutter under his own breath. 

And though Millie had gotten used to reading the usually sunny officer who bared his heart so openly to her all the time, Millie couldn't guess what was going through James's mind at that very moment.

She was only left with questions.

Why did James look so unusually solemn as his attention felt silently heated on Lowe?

Did the two know each other, and if they had, why did it seem like Lowe's understanding of them knowing each other was a world apart from how Moody understood it?

Millie had never seen James so tense with anyone before, especially after assuming Lowe and James had been friends once. After all, Lowe had mentioned something about "CQD", whatever that means.

Wasn't that a good thing?

He had made it sound like he was trying to help James by getting him out of a sticky situation.

Why did it seem like James had a different idea about it as he stood still at the door?

"I apologize on behalf of our housemaid, if her being a stranger to how things are done here led to any confusion between you two," James made the proper excuses to Lowe. 

"We managed well enough. Don't be so hard on the poor lass. I imagine somewhere in there is a keeper, " Lowe's dark eyes tumbled cuttingly back to Millie. "Delighted as I am by your hospitality, Mr. Moody, seeing you alive and well, I won't be desired for any longer in this house. I'll be off then. Try to resist giving any more trouble, will you?"

And passing one last snarky glance to Millie, Lowe crowned himself again with his black derby hat, and took his leave of James and Millie at last.

"I literally don't have words for him," Millie said to James. 

"Oh? I imagined it quite the contrary. Had I not known any better, I'd say the conversation between you and him seemed to be going well," James replied, though Millie couldn't immediately tell if that cutting remark was just plain teasing or James drawing yet another sword against her. 

"Don't ever leave me stuck in a room with him again. He's insufferable."

James side-eyed her dryly. 

Insufferable, was he now?

Now she was using uppish, "old-timey", Millicent-ish words again? 

What exactly had happened in this room to bring that out of her?

"Sure you don't want me to call Mr. Lowe back for ye?" he double-checked again. "So you two might tidy things up a bit more?"

"Why do you sound as if, if he did, you wouldn't be able to stand it?"

"Why should I mind at all, if he did?" James countered. 

"Is that why your cheeks are so red?"

"Eh?"

"You look bothered by something. You doing ok?"

"Fair to middlin', thanks very much," James answered casually. "And you?...Fed up with playing hide and seek now, are ye?" 

Millie snorted a little laugh of an absolute lack of faith in him. 

"James, you're way too good at being good to be a good liar," she called him out. "So, what's the deal between you and Lowe? I see it all over your face. Your whole vibe changed when you saw him standing there with me...Was it because of Titanic?"

"Titanic is done with, Millie," James insisted quietly. "And I want nothing more to do with trying to change the past. I don't resent Lowe anywise for going ahead of me into a boat. As well as that, I'm afraid he's not the same Lowe I knew on the night she went under. He's no idea what we were up against, or what we'd been through in our past life, and he wouldn't believe it, even if you could make anyone listen."

 "So, that's it then?" Millie doubted it was. "There's absolutely nothing else making you so tense right now?"

"Best we let it be, Millie."

James turned back toward the door to lead the way out of the study.

"Once you've gotten ahold of yourself fuming over Mr. Lowe, you are wanted with me in the drawing room." 

But just before James reached the door, Millie's softened curiosity stopped him again. 

"James?" she wondered. "This girl you say I remind you of...Millicent Crawley?"

James's heart skipped.

It was the first time Millie had spoken her real name, in any serious inquiring way, and he waited in anticipation for what her next words might be.

However small or trivial...had her memories been triggered? Had she recognized something about her old life already?

"What of her, miss?" James beckoned her. 

"By any chance...Did she know Harold Lowe like you did? I mean, like know him, know him. Personally, I mean."

James swallowed hard, feeling as if his skipping heart had leapt out of his chest and up into his throat.

"Aye...she knew of him," James admitted to her quietly. "Though I can't say exactly what the particulars of them knowing each other meant. I never did get the chance to ask Harry more about it, before Titanic met her end...Why do you ask?"

"It's probably nothing," Millie tried to brush it off. "I just have this...instinct that if she and me are that much alike...I think maybe she had known him...Sort of like the way I felt I knew you when we first met. If that's the case, I was hoping you could tell me more about why he makes me feel...why I might feel that way, I mean?" 

And then Millie watched as James did something he rarely ever did when they were this direct facing each other. 

He avoided her gaze.

Casting his soul-crushing beautiful blue eyes to the same window at which she'd just spent the last of her morning damning the sea. 

Even if she couldn't see it in his face, Millie still felt it.

An ocean of secrets locked away within him. 

Unable to guess that the innermost conflict tormenting James was more complicated than she imagined. That James losing his chance to Harold Lowe for a lifeboat wasn't the only instance he'd feared to have lost another precious chance to Titanic's Fifth Officer.

But of all the cruel fates the Heart of the Ocean had already played on James Moody, cruelest of the lot was how quickly Millie had recognized something in Lowe from the very beginning of meeting him in this room, while James had done everything he could to coax even the faintest memory of him out of her. 

What had taken a whole bloody century of James waiting patiently for her to remember she loved him, had taken Harold Lowe only minutes to convince her they'd met before?

It was enough to drive him mad to wonder.

Was the love she once had for him truly dead, even while he lived on yearning for it?

What had Lowe done that James still couldn't awaken in her?

But hunting Lowe down to demand exactly what that was, would be to no effect at all. 

Harold Lowe and Millicent Crawley were two exceptionally different people now.

And neither she nor Lowe would remember the history they all three lived together aboard the ill-fated Titanic.

It was James alone who kept company with the ghostly regrets belonging to their collective pasts.

"Whatever the reason might be," Millie's soft voice drew his attention back to her. "How is it this hard to talk about it with me?"

"If it's Harold Lowe you want to know more about, I will tell you all I know of the man," James said. "Only after you've rested in the meantime. I reckon you have so many questions after today, but I promised you I would see to it that you have the answers. And the answers will come, Miss Millie, should you open your heart to them." 

But before James Moody could turn around again to escape the room, Millie so decided that what she wanted more than answers in that moment, was probably something James could use too for himself.

Stepping after him, she pulled him onto her for a very long, relentlessly warm hug that absolutely caught the officer off guard. 

"I know we didn't expect something like this to happen, but we'll get through this together ok. That's my promise to you," she whispered reassuringly to James. "If we got this far already, what can stop us?...Right?"

"Right," he assured her softly. "We'll always come out right together in the end, Mills."

Because James knew, so long as he was with her, she would be alright...even if his heart could never truly be whole until she too was finally with him. 

'I'll be alright as well,' James was so close to saying aloud to her. 'If only you would remember  that you love me still, and put an end to my terrible aching of wondering.'

How could this one great love that made him so earnestly happy hurt him so bloody much all the time?

"I'm sorry about your lamp," Millie guiltily apologized to him, as they finally let go of each other. "I can't exactly pay you back in shillings for it right now, but I'll find a way to replace it." 

"You've just discovered a rare proof of time travel across 100 years, but it's my lamp you're more worried about?"

"Fixing a lamp is much easier than fixing a time traveling loop, absolutely. So you'll just have to let me have this, James. I mean, ever since we got here, I've been a total brat. Making all these demands for things you can't control about us being here and Titanic. I barely even stopped to ask how you were doing in all of this," Millie told him. "Let me make the lamp up to you, at least." 

"Ah, miss...You'll never get it, will ye?" James answered her lightly. 

His smile charmingly quirked to one side then, though Millie couldn't stop seeing little hints of a great burden he wouldn't talk about, as his hand guided a stray caramel curl of hers back behind her ear and safely tucked it away into her bonnet. 

"You have always been a total brat in my eyes. And I'm still ever fonder of you." 

"What's that supposed to mean?" she questioned him. "You've only known me for a whole four and a half days? How exactly do you know that I'm a brat?"

"I'm sure you'll work out the exact math of it in due course," James said, letting his finger fall down from her ear to trace the curve of her chin until it rested at the bow of her lower lip, and tapped it playfully. "But if you're keen on lowkey making it up to me, you may do so with me over tea."

"Lowkey, huh?"" Millie affectionately pressed her closed fist into his hardened toned shoulder. "Look at you, so damn cultured now."

James's smile was more full-hearted then as he turned away from her to open the  door. 

"What say you then, Miss Millie, to starting over the morning together?" James asked her, as he waited holding the door for her. "Shall we put the kettle on for old time's sake? Just like our days in New York? Maybe then, in small ways, it'll feel summat like home in your old apartment. After which, you can properly meet my stepmother and brother, if you're up for it." 

And whatever James felt he'd missed before, it didn't escape him then that no smile of hers was ever so readily won as his, as she stepped out with him into the hallway. 

Because after all, despite the world coming undone around them, how could she ever say no to another nice cozy hot cup of James's Yorkshire tea?

"Here's to starting over in 1912 then, if that's the only way we have it for the time being," Millie accepted his offer. "I wouldn't say no to a warm bath either, and a fresh change of clothes." 

"Right, um, exactly how negotiable are you on water somewhere between nithered to hand-hot? I can get water boiling for you to run a proper bath, if you can spare an hour."

"You're joking, right?"

"Nay at all, lass."

Chapter Text

April 2022

New York

"Mondays."

Detective Pierce mumbled gruffly under his breath, as he rubbed his blood-shot eyes while pouring himself a cup of coffee.

A straight pot of black, and none of that Keurig bullshit.

No cream. No sugar.

Just bitterness.

Pierce tested the blistering burn of his coffee at his lips.

The slogan on his mug reading, 'I can't fix stupid, but I can cuff it.'

"You alright in here, Sarg?" Malich knocked on the open door of the break room, inviting himself in. "Could've sworn I heard you crying just now."

Pierce let out a deep...long sigh.

Mondays were for clowns too, he guessed.

"So, you're still here, huh?"

"You know, if this case is getting to be too much for you, old timer, you can always go back to bed," Malich ripped on him. "Wouldn't want you breaking a hip around here."

"If you're questioning the qualifications of my pelvis, ask your mother for a reference," Pierce remarked.

"Ah, yes, the good ol' fashioned 'yo mama' joke. Classic."

"You get any leads on Popeye the Sailor man yet?" Pierce asked him.

"No, sir."

"Then what are you standing around here for?"

"Well, who pissed in your cheerios?"

"I just went through 3 cigarettes and 2 pastrami sandwiches watching a girl in a maid outfit obsessively mop floors," Pierce spilled his story. "Then I got to the body cam footage."

"My condolences."

Rubbing his hand across his face to make sure he could still feel one, Pierce muttered aloud the only conclusion he and Malich could agree on so far, "The shots that hit her came from police fire. No way around it."

"Which means your 'missing person' defense just fell flat on its ass," Malich remarked. "Get it? Fell flat on its...ah, never mind."

"What is this, amateur night?"

"Laughter is medicine for the soul, Sarg."

"Let them try to build a case for excessive force against me," Pierce dared. "Because the way I see it, that girl should've known better. This idiot in a fucking Victorian sea captain's suit was standing there waving a gun around, threatening the lives of my officers on scene, and she throws herself right in the middle of it?"

"Edwardian," Malich corrected him. "Technically, the Victorian era ended in 1901, but it's all ancient history, right? And by technicality, he wasn't a captain. Traditionally, a captain would have at least 4 stripes on his uniform. This guy only had one."

"Ah, I see you've been hard at work in your office, researching all the important stuff. Did you happen to find out exactly how many damns I give about how many stripes this nutcase had?" Pierce demanded. "Common sense should tell anyone with a fairly competent brain that jumping in front of a loaded gun is a bad idea. But in this country, one stupid girl's bad idea ends up being someone else's lawsuit. I'm not taking the fall for this."

"Well, I don't know, Sarg, lately it sounds like we're working two different cases here," Malich said. "I'm trying to find out how and why this girl ended up dead, so that said party can be brought to justice. You, on the other hand, are more concerned about saving your own ass."

"If you got a problem with my way of framing this case, detective, then I suggest you quit bullshitting around and dig up some solid evidence to change my mind."

"Oh, I intend to," Malich warned him. "What's that thing Nietzsche said? If it's excessive force, it's excessive force."

"Nietzsche said that, huh?"

"Or maybe it was Ghandi. Who knows? "I'm just here to find out the truth, not bury it in police politics. Whether confirmed dead or not, a 22-year-old woman is still missing without a solid explanation for it. Emily's family and the public deserves closure. If it were your daughter, what would you do?"

"I'd never let her date any of these assholes in the first place."

"Well said, Sarg."

"And it's hard to give anybody closure if no one accepts the facts," Pierce argued. "This dumb broad-"

"Emily," Malich reminded him. "Her name is Emily."

"This very misguided young lady evaded arrest, led my guys on a police chase for 15 and a half miles up a cliff, and helped our second suspected shooter escape custody. Excuse my realism, detective, but she's a felon. On multiple counts."

"Felon or not, your job was to detain her, not kill her. And if you do manage to work out a justification for the latter, it doesn't mean it's right, just that...Well, whhat's that other thing Nietzsche said? Everything is interpretation, and whichever interpretation prevails is a function of power, not of truth."

"Well then, Nietzsche can kiss my ass, because my philosophy is simpler. You pull a gun out on an officer, you're gonna get shot. It's tragic, but that was her decision," Pierce asserted. "My guys did exactly what they were trained to do, and I will go down with that ship."

"I hear ya. But it's not me who's gotta buy that, it's the media. Once this case hits the news, it'll be George Floyd all over again."

"Completely different cases," Pierce disagreed, shaking his head. "This was not a case of police brutality. It was necessity. Both she and this other suspect were asked several times to comply and they didn't. You can hear that clearly in the body cam. These are natural consequences for these kind of actions. Can we agree on that?"

Malich shrugged. "It's a fair argument."

"But whether this girl was even killed by police fire shouldn't even be the debate here," Pierce continued. "What evidence can you give me right now that she had actually died from being shot by an officer? How exactly do you know she didn't die right after Captain-fucking-Nemo threw her into the goddamn ocean? Until I see an autopsy explicitly stating whether she died of a gunshot wound or by drowning, the cause of death is inconclusive. I don't care how you or the media spin it."

"Well, Search and Rescue is on scene as we speak," Malich accepted Pierce's challenge. "If that's the theory you're betting your badge on, then let's hope they find a body soon."

"Why wait?" Pierce counter-challenged him, snatching a stack of paperwork from beside the Mr. Coffee maker and slapping it on the table in front of Malich. "We can start identifying a face to this body now."

Malich scanned the two photos on the top of the stack. A printout of Emily Amberflaw from the CCTV footage in the Titanic shop, and the other of a red-haired woman with a bob haircut, freckles, and fuller cheeks.

"Who's she?" Malich asked of the redhead's photo.

"Emily Amberflaw," Pierce answered him. "The real one."

He spread out the rest of the files and photographs he'd collected side by side in a line on the table.

"Pulled the employee files on Emily Amberflaw from the Titanic gift shop and matched them with DMV records, social security cards, and birth certificates," Pierce said. "All forged documents. Identity theft, which I think we both can agree, is a felony. The real Emily Amberflaw lives in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. DOB April 12th, 2001. Reported that her credit card numbers and ID were stolen in a payday loan security breach back in March of last year. Her husband's information was also compromised. Name of the husband was Paxton Amberflaw...Ring a bell? She filed several police reports about her identity being used by multiple people since then, so it seems this Emily Amberflaw from the Titanic gift shop is just another one of those people."

"Well, if that's really the case, it makes sense why this turned into a police chase then," Malich concluded. "So, is she guilty of stealing people's identities or falsifying employee documents? Given her clean record up to now living as the fake Emily Amberflaw, why would she steal an identity to begin with?"

"Hypothetically speaking, let's assume she never actually stole this information intentionally to begin with. Maybe she bought it off someone who does this for a living. Fine," Pierce said. "What's your first guess as to why anyone would need a new ID?"

"She's either a criminal on the run, or she's living illegally in the U.S," Malich laid out some possible theories. "Witness protection...Running away from an abusive ex-partner. There could be a million reasons."

"Kind of makes you question how confident you are in building your 'innocent girl who just got caught in the crossfire' case against me...There's a reason she didn't pull that car over when she had the chance."

"It doesn't mean she deserved to be shot," Malich held his ground. "We don't know for sure what her reasons were. At this point, that reason could be anything."

"But I think it's safe to bet that something about this girl doesn't add up...and I got a feeling what started in that gift shop is just the tip of the fucking iceberg--no pun intended," Pierce said, studying the surveillance photograph again of the now unidentified 22-year-old shopgirl.

They were interrupted by a knock on the open breakroom door.

"Detective, Sarg," a police officer stuck his head into the room. "He's ready."

"Right on time," Malich checked the clock on his phone as he marched out of the break room. "You wanna beat me to solving this case? Here's your chance. If you can get this guy to crack for us on the identity theft thing, we might get out of here in time for lunch."

"Heh, you're buying." Pierce remarked, marching out after the smooth detective, not to ever be outdone in his own jurisdiction.

Stopping at the small square window that looked into Interrogation Room B, they looked in on the back of a man's head. His shoulders squared in impeccable posture as he sat alone at the interrogation table. His back facing the door, keeping his face hidden and veiled by a round Great Gatsby style flat cap.

"Since when did he get to keep that hat?" Pierce muttered to Malich. "Who does this asshole think he is?"

"Amberflaw," Malich reminded him. "Paxton Amberflaw. At least, that's who he allegedly says he is."

"Allegedly? Well, is he or isn't he?"

"He could be," Malich shrugged. "Or he couldn't be...He claims to be Emily Amberflaw's brother. But same spiel. No valid Driver's License, no birth certificate, no credit cards. Nothing to prove that he is who he says he is."

"So, you knew this whole time we were definitely dealing with an identity theft case?" Pierce realized. "You were just bullshitting me back there?"

"Sure feels that way, doesn't it? The way this case is going, it's starting to feel alot like peeling onions," Malich mused aloud, as he looked in on "Amberflaw". "The more layers you hack away, the more the bullshit keeps coming."

"Jesus, getting a straight answer out of you is like pulling teeth," Pierce sighed. "So what's the story on this guy?"

"That's what we're here to find out," Malich said. "They just finished up his psych evaluation. Apparently, they think he just might be crazy enough to be unfit to stand trial. Something about having multiple personality delusional bullshit disorder, or something, I have to get back to you on their bullshit diagnosis again. But if he's already got psych in his pocket for an insanity case, the guy gets a slap on the wrist for the firearm charges, takes a lesser sentence, and there goes your only suspect in custody to blame for your excessive force argument."

"Ha. Right. I'll bet my ass this sonuvabitch walks away from this. He better have a damn good lawyer, that's for damn sure."

"He'll need one," Malich agreed. "But we can't scare him into crying for one yet. There's an art to scaring people into telling the truth. If he thinks we're here to help him find out what happened to his sister, then let's hope he's the kind of brother who would give us whatever information we need to get him those answers."

"You get a statement from him yet?"

"Classic mumble jumble."

"Well, did you run his prints?"

"They don't exist," Malich said. "Nothing showed up in our databases. It's like this guy just dropped out of the sky."

"Is he foreign born, by any chance?"

"Sounds like he's got an English accent he's not very good at hiding. Couldn't give me a clear answer as to where in the U.K. he's from exactly. Not much of a talker, this guy."

"Well, I guess we'll see," Pierce beeped himself in with his badge, leading the way into the interrogation room.

Patrick Crawley didn't look up at Pierce, as the police sergeant circled around the table like a hawk stalking its prey.

His only acknowledgement of the policemen being the removal of his flat cap in the officer's presence--it being properly good manners for a gentleman--but his pale shell-shocked face remained fixated on the wall behind Pierce.

With his flatcap now lying in line with his folded hands on the table, his chestnut brown movie-ready slicked hair was combed with a strong centered-part, with a slight lift of volume on one side. His shoulders crisp in a dark brown blazer and black dress shirt.

His aquamarine eyes only more pronounced by his sharper, noble features that seemed almost immediately to mask his melancholy, distantly contemplative demeanor with a straighter, prouder posture when the officers entered the room.

His eyes mirroring the likeness of the girl Pierce had been studying on the CCTV footage in the Titanic gift shop, confirming the suspect's claim to his and Emily's shared family ties.

"You Paxton Amberflaw?" Pierce questioned him.

The police sergeant proceeded to sit down directly across the table from the time-worn Lord of Nowhere.

"That is your name, right?"

Patrick stared back at him silently, appearing reservedly offended by the bullheaded sergeant's approach, and elected not to say anything back to him.

And after a tense, unbroken silence, in which Pierce and Patrick Crawley stared each other down in equally rigid stubborness, Malich finally cleared his throat to call a time-out.

Breaking the stalemate between them, he dropped Pierce a clue, "Mr. Paxton Amberflaw. He prefers mister."

"Mr. Amberflaw, huh?" Pierce corrected himself sardonically.

"Indeed, sir," Patrick answered stiffly, the velvety British accent the detectives had suspected now coming out strong and resolutely dignified. "I am the man who answers to that name."

"Well, that's not what I heard, but we'll get to that part in just a second," Pierce assured him. "Can you just confirm for me your real name, your address, your real date of birth, and anything else I might be able to use to confirm you are who you say you are?"

Patrick didn't reply, stone-faced and rigid as ever, and yet having an impressively old-fashioned way of looking down on a man.

Sending a sudden shock of cold down the back of the sergeant's head, as if he were staring straight into an antique painting of a portrait come to life from...What was that show called again that his wife flipped over a few years back? The one about the nunnery downtown?

Damn. He couldn't remember the name.

All he knew was that looking at this guy was one of the few times he'd gotten goosebumps on the job.

Was he sitting there across a ghost of time or an actual human being?

"Mr. Amberflaw, do you understand the question?" Pierce asked him again.

"Quite, sir," Patrick answered. "Though I fail to understand how it pertains to me knowing the whereabouts of my sister. I did not come here to speak about myself. I came to you gentlemen out of my concern for Millie's welfare."

"You came to us because you were arrested for possession of a concealed weapon and brandishing charges," Pierce reminded him firmly.

"Have you anything to report of my sister?" Patrick persisted. "Is she safe? I have heard...terrible rumors during my stay here, and they are all mistaken. Millie is not a criminal. It is I alone who bear the responsibility of what's happened to her. If it should do anything to clear her name, I will gladly hand over anything you ask for her bond."

"Considering where you're sitting right now, pal, I don't think you're exactly in a position to bail anyone out."

"Regardless of my rightful arrest, I assure you, sir, money will not be an issue."

"Right, and I'm Donald Trump...Listen, pal, until I get an idea of who I'm really talking to, nobody gets out of that jail block, you understand?" Pierce laid it out for him. "You're gonna answer my questions first, and cut the bullshit this time, or this might end very badly for both you and your sister. Now, once again, what country are you actually from, Mr. Amberflaw?"

"Yorkshire, England," Patrick finally answered him. "Before I began courting Lady Mary, I acted as consultant to the foreign office opening markets and increasing our great country's wealth through exports and other such worldly investments. I also partook as an investment consigliere for American businessman looking to expand their wealth in Europe."

"Is that how you overstayed your visa in New York?" Malich asked him, as he took note.

"I am not sure what you mean, sir...My father and I..."

Patrick paused there, the word father seeming to throw him off suddenly, making it difficult for him to continue without hints of long suppressed despair in his voice. "My father and I traveled by sea to America often for business. He died tragically during our final crossing. He said...he said that he was in fullhearted agreement with the other gentlemen aboard, in that it was his duty to do his best, and ensure no woman missed their chance for a boat because he took a seat a lady could've had."

Pierce's brow tensed in confusion, rolling his eyes over to Malich for clues about how exactly this conversation had turned to nonsense in the last thirty seconds, but Malich looked as flabbergasted as he did staring back at Patrick.

"He would not let me to stay with him," Patrick continued quietly. "He urged me to find a way, no matter the cost. He said he would be proud of me nonetheless, and that it was my duty now to look after Millie. I left him in his deck chair with a cigar in the company of Benjamin Guggenheim and his man. Giglo was his name, I believe. Not long after, I came upon an officer--Murdoch, it was--who was letting men on, so long as there were no woman or children waiting...I never saw my father again."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Malich offered the minimal condolence, because he was too confused by Patrick's tale to know that he should offer anything else.

"You got a green card on you to back up that story of yours, Mr. Amberflaw?" Pierce proceeded with business.

"I commend your stout attention to your duties, sir, but this endless loop of questioning is becoming rather tedious," Patrick derailed the interrogation again. "You inquire about too many trivial things that mean nothing in the grand scheme of this matter. The only important one to me being my sister. I was told that I would be informed about her, once I agreed to speak with you gentlemen. You have my word that I will not contest my arrest, if you would please allow me to give a few brief words to Millie. She is still unaware that our father has passed on."

Pierce looked at Malich for help again, and Malich stared back blankly at Pierce.

They hadn't worked out yet who would be the one to tell "Amberflaw" that his sister was actually dead. And not only dead, but put down by the very men Patrick so desperately hoped were keeping her locked away somewhere safe now.

"Mr. Amberflaw, there's no easy way to say this," Malich took a shot at it. "But your sister was killed while attempting to take her and another suspect into custody. Apparently, there was some...confusion on scene that led to shots being fired, and despite our best efforts to talk them down, she and this other suspect did not survive."

"She's gone?" Patrick's tone fell, his stubbornly sharp features opening up to bewilderment as his eyes shifted to nothing in particular on the table, tensely calculating to himself what that damning statement actually meant.

"I'm very sorry you had to hear it from us," Malich sincerely apologized.

Patrick closed his eyes, letting out a deep, burdened sigh.

"My God, Millie," he murmured to himself. "Of course, you would get yourself carried away by him once again in the end."

"So, you know this other guy?" Pierce asked him. "And what do you mean by again?"

"Can you inform me where this happened, sir?" Patrick asked Malich eagerly, ignoring Pierce again. "Of the exact conditions by which they both perished? Was it a mutual death by sea? Were either of them carrying a diamond necklace with them?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" Pierce demanded.

"It means everything for my sister, sir," Patrick insisted. "It is the very difference between a renewed life and an absolute death. She must have had the heirloom with her?...Or else she...she wouldn't be missing, would she?"

"Unfortunately, we are not able to determine that yet, Mr. Amberflaw. We are doing everything we can to locate a body, but even if she hadn't been killed in the crossfire, the likelihood of someone surviving a fall from that high up is very slim."

"Is that why I was called upon?" Patrick asked them. "Are you going to tell me that if she has truly died, even in this era, you too require payment for the return of her body?"

Malich looked at Pierce for help, and Pierce stared back dumfounded at Malich.

"Mr. Amberflaw, I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I can see you're in a lot of shock right now. This is a very tragic and confusing time for you. I'm not sure who told you what, but you won't be charged to have her body returned to your family," Malich assured him. "But the sooner you answer our questions, the sooner we can make those arrangements and bring Emily home."

"That won't be necessary, sir," Patrick said quietly. "Millie is already home."

"Well, I'm not one for spirituality, but whatever. We'll cross our fingers that she's gone to a better place in the sky," Pierce remarked.

"You don't seem very grief-stricken by this news, Mr. Amberflaw," Malich studied him closely. "May I ask why?"

"When you've lived as long as I have," Patrick told him, even as a 57-year-old Pierce was absolutely sure he didn't look a day over 25. "You will learn there is never enough time to grieve for what you inevitably lose to the passing of time, but there is always a chance to recognize the dearness of every present hour, and act fully to live in every precious moment of it. Though I have surrendered my freedom to my fate, my final act on this earth is atonement, and I will never feel so freed by such grace again. Not in another 100 years."

"Um...ok," Pierce continued on. "I take it the last time you spoke to your sister then, it didn't end well for you? Sorry to hear that. By any chance, was showing up at her job with a gun your idea of atonement?"

"What the good Sarg here means is, it's still unclear to us why a gun got involved, and who this other guy was. Can you give us more information about how you all knew each other?" Malich asked. "Did you know the other guy personally? Was he in a relationship with your sister?"

"That is none of your concern," Patrick answered.

"What exactly happened between you and your sister before you ended up pointing a gun at her in that gift shop? Was there a fight between you two? How did this other guy get into it?" Pierce demanded.

"If you must know the truth, it's been some time now since Millie and I honestly spoke to each other," Patrick confessed. "April 14th was the last I spoke to her...On the night she died."

"Can you be a little more specific?" Pierce asked him. "Because now you're confusing me, and that's not helping your case here. You say your sister died on April 14th, which was last week, but we have it officially noted here that she died last night, April 17th. It's gotta be one or the other, you see what I'm saying?"

Malich tried again to keep the peace.

"This must all feel like a blur to you, Mr. Amberflaw," he told their suspect. "Maybe you're getting your dates mixed up? Try to think back again to that last time you saw your sister. Are you sure it was April 14th?"

"Naturally so, sir. Something to the effect of," Patrick recalled. "110 years ago?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Pierce sat dumbstruck.

"I'm sure it does feel like 110 years since she's gone missing," Malich empathized with Patrick. "But how long ago was it that you talked to her, before she died last night?"

"Did I not already make it clear to you, gentlemen? It was over 100 years ago," Patrick repeated firmly, looking them both dead in the eyes. "The year 1912...And I shall never forget it, even if one thousand years should pass...That's what you asked of me, isn't it? The truth of when it was exactly I spoke with Millie, and when she passed on?...I tell you, it was April 14th, 1912. The same night my father died...And I will never forget it."

"Uh-huh," Pierce mumbled. "Well then, that would make you a goddamn li-"

"That's quite a while back, Mr. Amberflaw," Malich thankfully cut Pierce off. "So, I guess you can imagine why it'd be pretty surprising to us--it being 2022 now--that you would tell us she died in 1912, specifically. Some people might even call it a little crazy."

"I am not here to convince you both of what I already know to be true, knowing that it will forever be beyond your understanding...It was beyond hers too...I could never tell her the truth, because I saw what it would do to her. I found her in quite a delicate state in hospital, and I couldn't bear to burden her with remembering," Patrick said. "Losing him proved to be a devastating blow to her heart. If you only knew what she has endured since then...Could you ever make her live it all over again? I suppose a part of me fretted that if I found a way back, it would make the past permanent, and I'd lose her to the same fate again. At least in this world, she was safe from him. Though, as we've learned now, gentleman, that proved to be woefully untrue."

"Sure...but who is him?" Pierce tried to come back around to his original question.

"James Moody, naturally," Patrick answered him. "It seems theirs is a fatally starcrossed love. Again and again...every time she finds and falls in love with James Moody...she dies."

"So, it's like Snow White, but in reverse. It's the true love's kiss part that kills her," Pierce mocked the irony.

"I wanted to protect her from making the same mistakes of her past. And to do so, I had to accept that she would not ever truly be herself again," Patrick went on solemnly. "I had to find it in my heart to love her as an entirely different person, as Emily Amberflaw, and let go of the person she once was...Whom she will never be again....Even still, to learn that it was preventable all along? How she might've been saved with the rest, had there been enough boats to go around...Now that might drive a man 'crazy' beyond all hope of recovery...wouldn't you agree?"

"You tell us."

"I'm afraid that's all I can convince you gentlemen of now. For all I know, my story should have ended with my father and sister on that ship, but it didn't...I can't very well explain why," Patrick told them. "What do you know of the unexplained, gentleman? Do you believe in curses? Perdition, so to speak?"

"No, sir, we believe in science here," Pierce said certainly.

"As do I, sir," Patrick agreed with a reserved nod. "Even so, I have lost the only family I have twice now, and not even science seems to have an answer for it."

"Well, let's talk about something a little more straight forward then. Your fake ID, specifically," Pierce moved on. "How did you get it? Who sold it to you? Who were you before you assumed this alias?"

"You haven't heard a word I've said. You wanted an honest answer from me, and I'm trying to tell you it's all a loop. Every bit of this has happened before, and I fear, now that he has gone back with her, it may repeat itself again. I can only hope that any knowledge she's gained here for what's to come will save her from going anywhere near that ship again."

"A loop," Pierce nodded, taking note. "That's certainly a way to describe this crazy run-around story of yours."

"Well, Mr. Amberflaw, seems like we have a problem then," Malich told him. "Because if you believe all that's true, then what you say doesn't exactly match up with the fact that we got your sister on camera, alive and well, working in a gift shop as of yesterday. Therefore, she couldn't have died in 1912."

Patrick kept his silence, but his eyes remained unyielding and firm.

Pierce sighed, fed up with the whole drama, and closed his notebook as he rose to his feet.

"I, for one, am done going round and round this loop. He's all yours, detective," Pierce muttered to Malich, patting his partner on the shoulder. "Guess you won your case. Sign him back over to psych again. He'll fit right in."

Malich remained in his seat, awkwardly listening to Pierce's footsteps as he marched toward the door and slammed it shut behind him.

Then he sighed, turning his eyes back to Patrick.

"You mentioned a ship several times," Malich pursued his own hunch in the investigation. "If you say it was 1912 that your father and sister were killed, was that aboard the Titanic, by any chance?"

"I prefer not to mention her by name in front of those, like your comrade, who will only look down on me for it," Patrick answered. "But you are correct, Mr. Malich. It was the Titanic."

"Right," Malich replied.

He didn't buy it, but at least it seemed that Patrick was willing to talk more about it, if he played along.

"I was doing some research, trying to figure out where I'd seen this uniform before."

Reaching for his case files, he removed the facial composite sketch of the prime suspect at Bitter Tears Cross, and slid it over the table to Patrick.

"Anything else you can tell me about this James Moody?" he asked Patrick. "How did you all get here?"

Patrick took a moment to study the sketch of his long-held rival, noting the ship officer's White Star cap and the neat necktie.

His knuckles tensing into a tight fist against the tabletop.

This is all wrong, thought he.

The way that history played out, James Moody was supposed to have died on Titanic.

How then had he found Millicent here in a place Patrick had sworn she'd be safe?

How could Moody be so unthinkingly selfish by pursuing her once more, knowing what he had done to ruin her life before?

How could he let her endure death all over again?

If they wished to be happy together, why couldn't Moody just do so with her here, without dragging her back to the past with him?

Angry with himself that he foolishly trusted James to take care of Millicent, Patrick passed the sketch back to the detective.

"You are wasting your time, Mr. Malich. There won't be a body to find," Amberflaw told him. "There wasn't one then, there won't be one now."

Malich's brow bent questionably at him.

"You seem to know a lot of answers about the then and now that we don't have."

"I only wish I did," Patrick said. "Because in the end, all we ever wanted was absolute certainty, waiting on an absolution that even still, has never come. You must learn to be comfortable with absolutelessness, sir."

Malich ran his hands through his hair.

Sighing hopelessly.

"Ok, Mr. Amberflaw, we can't keep playing this Dr. Seuss riddle game with each other. I really need you to work with me here," he tried again. "How did you end up in this country? Let's start over with that? I won't interrupt you. I won't correct you. I'll just write it down word for word, just the way you say it. You help me, I help you. Sound fair?"

"My given name, sir, is Patrick Crawley," he informed Malich. "I was born the 21st of July, 1887, and died sometime in May of 1912, taken under by a storm at sea. I had come here to America from Belfast on my last crossing over, after sitting in on a spiritual séance in hopes of finding my sister. I can not give you the precise date, as I had lost track of my days after Titanic sank, and did not keep an exact record. Not a day passes that I don't wish I had taken Millicent's place.

"My sister didn't deserve to go like that. It was I who should have died on Titanic that night.

"Some time now, after the ship went down, I tried the White Star Line head office again, demanding answers they refused to give me again. It was a bloody mess getting anyone to speak with me. No one returned my cards or letters. Nor could they tell me of the fate of any of Titanic's Stewardesses.

"Not because it was beyond a simple investigation on their part, but because they had no interest in the crew or the steerage passengers trapped below decks when Titanic went under. They all wanted to know about the likes of Kent, Straus, and Astor."

"John Jacob Astor?" Malich asked, raising a brow, his pen pausing.

"Of course, sir. The richest of us on the ship," Patrick affirmed. "All anyone wanted to hear about was who among the celebrities in First Class didn't make it in the end, and what reward was set for returning their bodies. Mr. Astor's son, a Mr. Vincent Astor, put up a reward for $10,000 for anyone who found his father. The manhunt commenced. They sent Mr. John Jacob back in record time, in a nice fancy coffin aboard the Mackay Bennet.

"And you know what they did with the others? The ones who couldn't pay to bring their loved ones back home?

"They chucked them back into the ocean, because there was no room or money to tend to them properly. Buried at sea, they called it.

"And my sister?...Who in God's name was jumping on a boat to go look for her?

"She was not an heiress when she boarded Titanic. And no one cared if she wasn't. She was just a common nobody to them all.

"And I wouldn't sit for it.

"White Star be damned to leave my sister behind, lost to the sea.

"To see Millie disposed of like rubbish by White Star Line, because she was assumed to only be a lowly drudge working on the ship...it changed everything about my reasoning, sir. I could no longer see my privileged position in that world just as I'd always seen it before. Titanic showed me clearly what we lucky rich can turn into when money can't save us. We all went down as nobodies.

"Or at least, I was determined to make it so for myself.

"The first time I lost my life, I had a diamond I carried everywhere with me. It was one a spiritual medium spoke highly of, and told me I could use it to find my sister. I sold it to a man for hire, who captained a modest sized boat with a small crew. Once the arrangements were made, I packed what I could for the voyage, and sold the rest, knowing I may never come back to land again. My crew set out from Cape Race, in search of whatever we could find left over by Titanic...Looking for Millie...Looking for anything belonging to any mother, father, sister, brother, or child who had been left behind in the abyss by White Star. I was determined to see them all returned home to their families, where White Star had failed them.

"I couldn't tell you how long we'd been out to sea. I lost track of time, as well as our food rations. Many of my crew abandoned our cause by the end of it, frightened of all the ice and the storms approaching us at sea, but I wasn't returning to land until I'd found Millie. Even as I knew for certain, I never would find her.

"It was the eve of May in the North Atlantic, somewhere just off from where Titanic had gone under. While asleep in the lower deck of our boat one night, the storm came for us at last, and she capsized. It happened so fast that I couldn't break myself out from my cabin. The weight of the water upon my door made it impossible, imprisoning me inside a watery grave. She sank quickly then, I imagine, taking me down with her. I lost consciousness shortly after.

"And when I came to, I was in hospital here in New York. And the life I knew before was far gone behind me."

Malich stared back in stunned silence at Patrick for what felt like an eternity, before clearing his throat and dropping his pen on his notebook at last.

"Um, yeah...I think that's enough for today," he told Patrick. "Thank you, Mr. Crawley...Is there anything else you want to mention before we put you back in your cell?"

"There is a favor I'd like to ask you, if you will oblige me," Patrick said.

"Well, I can't make any promises."

"It's just my cat, sir," Patrick informed him. "Now that Millicent and I are away, Captain Wentworth is home alone in our apartment, and the old cat is set in his ways. He'll be quite cross about his supper being late. I wonder if you might call on our neighbor, Mrs. Mendez, to look after him while we're out. She knows well enough how to manage him."

Malich nodded genuinely.

"I'll see what I can do for Captain Wentworth."

But just as Malich had opened the door to let himself out, Patrick stopped him again.

"Forgive me, sir, but there is still one more thing I was hoping you could tell me before going," he told Malich. "After the events of last night, when Millie...What I mean to ask is, can you tell me for certain that it is still a historical fact that Titanic foundered on the night of April 14th, 1912?...Nothing about that has changed today?"

It was the strangest question Malich had ever heard, but seeing how much Patrick seemed to need the answer, Malich humored the poor guy and checked Google on his Iphone. 

"Says it right here," he affirmed the fact for Patrick. "Titanic still hits an iceberg and sinks on April 14th, 1912, killing over 1500 people, according to the internet today."

"And James Moody?" Patrick asked him next. "What becomes of Titanic's Sixth Officer in the end?"

Chapter Text

March 1912

The last thing Millie wanted to do was become another accidental "scandal" in the Moody house.

A proper lady is never without a proper corset, she'd been informed, and acting the part of a proper lady was everything everyone seemed to believe she was to do around there.

If assimilating quickly to ladyness was all the Moodys asked of her in return, who was she to say no.

It's just a glorified bra, she lied to herself. How hard could it actually be?

And Mrs. Annie had been quite generous to send up as little corset as she could get away with, which turned out to be a rather big inconvenience for Millie. 

Even if she didn't have permission to say no to a corset, it was an entirely different matter when such corset said no to her.

Millie tried to settle she and the lingerie's mutual objecting disdain for each other quietly.

But it was damn near impossible to smother the moan from her lips as her back slammed roughly against the wall behind her.

The swollen mounds of her breasts only more rounded against constricting lace and ribbons that bondaged her wrists against her thighs, and elbows against her ribcage.

Millie panted to catch her breath in a battle to assert her dominance over her feisty new Edwardian wardrobe, and her recent luck as of late in 1912. 

First losing the good fight to an obnoxious dragon slayer with a sword, and then being woman-handled by a piece of underwear that hadn't seen the outside of a closet since the beheading of Marie Antoinette, at least?

Dressing up to the strict expectations of James's world was nothing like the costume petticoat and skirt she was used to throwing on just before her shift at the museum. Instead of zippers, velcro, and a few user-friendly buttons, everything was lace, and satin, and cunning yoga poses. 

The dark green afternoon tea skirt hanging on her long mirror was meant to flow gracefully from the cream bodice blouse Mrs. Moody had sent up,  with the dainty cuffs somehow meaning to neatly tuck over her wrists, adding a charm to her silhouetted waist. A trail of pearl buttons tracing down the curve of her back from a high lacey collar. But with so many pearl buttons to keep track of, Millie couldn't dream of fastening all of those little rivets on her own, unless she had eyes in the back of her head and cut herself diagonally at both her ribs.

Because dear as Mrs. Annie Moody was for being so generous, and sending up to Millie's room one of her twice removed niece's cousin's brother's wife's sister's great aunt's ancient hand-me-down tea gowns, Millie swore that any woman who managed to squeeze into a deathtrap like that had to have the figure of a closed umbrella or no waistline at all.

"Help!"

Her airy cry came out more like a breathy squeak drowned  in the echoing walls of the guest room.

If she couldn't breathe, then she couldn't scream, and if she couldn't scream, then God help her, because no one would save her.

 After stupidly trying to force the corset over her head like a T-shirt before unlacing it first, Millie found herself unable to claw herself free again out of the oppressively tight bodice stuck in a death grip around her shoulders.

Leaving her with two options.

Suffocate very slowly and miserably in yet another harrowingly embarrassing death, in this Chinese finger trap for a corset.

Or go naked.

Bunny-hopping her way across the wooden mahogany floor of the guest room to desperately try and wiggle herself free from the shaper, Millie slipped and smacked flat onto her bottom like a dropped potato upon the fancy bedroom rug.

A sharp rip tearing through the air as the corset ribbons split in two from around her shoulders, freeing her enough that she could finally gasp for a desperate breath. 

"Naked," she panted her surrender. "Naked it is then." 

***

It wasn't stealing, exactly.

It was borrowing.

Merely an exchange of favors between two friends.

James having the favor of again running to the rescue in knightly service to a desperate lady in need, and Millie having the favor of wearing something functional, less itchy, and not so damn lacey.

But she knew she only had so much time to snatch what she wanted from James's assigned room, carefully placed on the farthest east end of the house from hers, so that there would never be any "temptation of wandering" or "compromising of sensibilities", as decided by Christopher on behalf of their absent father, John Moody.

If she were caught, how awkward would it be to explain to the Moodys how badly she wanted to tear James's clothes off, though not exactly for the reasons they might assume?

The sounds of debating voices echoing in mumbles downstairs put her on guard, as Millie wrapped herself tighter in a white dressing robe, and quietly slipped out of  her bedroom door.

"I don't care what Mrs. Annie says. I will not officially make her acquaintance. It's not necessary, and what good would that do both of you in the end? And when exactly will you inform her family?" Christopher questioned his brother. "Of course, I understand waiting until she is well enough to go, but if Levinson won't keep his nose out of it, it won't be long before rumor of her whereabouts reaches Downton. Surely, they will come for her at once, and I can imagine how very lost the girl will feel when they do. If papa were here, I think he'd agree that we shouldn't indulge her. We must do our best to help her regain her memory as quickly as possible."

"All for the best, perhaps, but she's only just got here," James's hushed voice answered him. "At least give her a few days to settle in, and we can deal with the Crawleys then." 

"You can't keep her, James," Christopher reminded him in gentle sternness. 

"Of course not. She's not a puppy," James remarked.

"You know very well what I mean," Christopher cut back to his point. "You know how it broke you both the first time. I won't see you so gutted over what was impossible to begin with. Runaway or not, she is still one of them, and when it comes to the Crawleys, the politics of love and marriage are not at all like the romantic stories you write in your journals. She will never belong to you, James. You will lose her again. It's an absolution...You must make yourself fall out of love with her, or it will surely destroy you irredeemably."

"It already has," came James's quiet answer, in a way that brought Millie to a pause in the middle of her sneaking across the stairway mezzanine. 

"And yet..." Christopher began to protest James's stubbornness straightaway, but stopped  himself, glancing up suddenly at the mezzanine. 

Millie stepped back further into the shadows of the upper corridor, praying he hadn't spotted her. Or at least, wouldn't bring anyone's notice to it. 

After a moment of silent contemplation, Christopher seemed to take the latter option, accepting that it was all hopeless anyway. 

Leaving his brother instead with one last well-meaning warning.

"I suggest you take your senses back from that girl, and get yourself back out to sea as soon as White Star will have you. Before it becomes the death of you. And if you will not do it for yourself, do it for papa. God knows he's spared none of his efforts to save you from going down the wrong path, and pursuing her would recklessly undermine our family and everything he's taken pride in of you. Take heed, James." 

And hearing the heavy retreat of Christopher's footsteps coming up the stairs, Millie secretly hurried on her way, soundlessly creeping down the hallway toward James's totally-off-limits bedroom.

 With the man of the hour still rooted at the bottom of the stairs by his brother's firm words, Millie had time to slip through James's door, quite conveniently left ajar for her.

The moonlight pouring in and a dimly lit oil lamp on a writing desk being a warm invitation to James's lair, blindly fumbling through the dark of his wardrobe armoire, searching for something chest-like that might hold her prize.

Starting with a keepsake box on the writing desk.

Disappointed when she found that there were no extra clothes for her to snag, but what appeared to be a safe place for James's important papers instead. Glowing letters of reference from his previous sea captains, mariner certificates for passing his officer's exams, an endless collection of old compasses, sextants,  sailor's gloves, whistles, binoculars, pocketknives and other such sailing odds and ends that she was by no means an expert on. 

And...children's drawings?

The first one Millie picked up was just a never-ending, doodling spiral in a gloomy monotone gray color, going around and around aimlessly in the middle of the page. Below it, the spiral was labeled James Moody, making it unclear if James was signing off as the artist or if he himself was the spiral.

Whatever it was, it gave Millie a gloomy, drowning feeling of loneliness. 

The one after it offered her more hope and sunshine.

One in which a well-defined and detailed "James" stick figure sat next to a girl with a maroon ribbon in her long caramel curls. 

They sat in a park of rocks, maybe? A graveyard?...Right in front of a tombstone that was labeled mama.

And in the girl's hand, Millie instantly recognized the blue mouse-ears for petals that belonged to a forget-me-not flower. 

The writing right above the girl echoing that same name that had haunted her so relentlessly lately. Millicent.

'I'll keep watch over you. Always.'  She read the promise written between the little stick figures representing James and Millicent. 

Millie stilled, her brow furrowing in deep thought.

"I know that place," she swore to herself.  "Almost as if..."

Almost as if James had read her mind...that day they were in Battery Park and James had shown her the Statue of Liberty....she saw the very same scene in her head, that day she thought she'd only hallucinated when she "found herself" floating near death in the harbor. 

She remembered the image that flashed into her mind of the little girl with a burgundy ribbon tying half of her curls in a pony-tail, with her arm wrapped around a boy's shoulders, who was dressed in a blue overcoat as they sat in front of a tombstone, exactly like the way James had drawn it in his picture. 

Evelyn Louise Lammin-Moody, she remembered the tombstone reading.

"I miss my mother too," the girl had told the boy. "I'm Millie, by the way."

"James," he sniffled his answer, wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

"I'll stay here and keep watch of you, James."

Millie was so sure now that she'd felt the moment depicted in the drawing once so intimately.

She knew she'd been in that graveyard before...but where? When had she ever...

Her eyes scanned down to note the date at the bottom of James's drawing. 

1898.

The flowers. The gravestone. The old grave-digger quietly shoveling away in the background. The color of James's jacket. The girl in the picture whose name sounded so near to hers.

It couldn't all be merely a coincidence, could it?

So many pieces from so many dreams of hers, proving right all of James's stalwart declarations about them. 

Pointing back to the possibility of her belonging to this other world, beyond the one she thought she knew.

Pointing her back to James, and that same strange way her heart had recognized something intimately hers in him, when gazing at his portrait in the museum after closing hours.

That yearning heartache that sometimes caught her off guard, whenever James caught her gazing at him across a room, and how she'd desperately tried to block it out, because these runaway feelings between them had no real reason for being there. 

If she was to believe Patrick and James, and surrender her identity as Emily Amberflaw in order to understand her presumed past life as Millicent, she needed more than just feelings to go off of. More than just fleeting nightmares still locked behind her stubbornly rejecting psyche. 

She needed evidence. 

She needed all the things that made up the identity of an actual relatable person. Places, symbols, meanings, likes, dislikes, smells, touches, dates, people, memories. She needed a definite way to draw a connection between all these strange constellations of coincidence, that mapped the exact timeline of this tragic Titanic maid, Millicent Crawley, and her tragic love affair with Officer James Paul Moody.

She needed to know every piece of the story she'd lost after her "car accident", and why her heart had been afraid so long of remembering it. 

Unable to stop herself from chasing those answers, Millie kept hunting for more clues in James's keepsake box, until her hand fumbled into a corsage-like, mini bouquet of dried forget-me-not flowers. Their stems wrapped together by ivory lace and held fast by a silver hat pin, decorated with an ornately glimmering pinhead of a silver plated filigree leaf that seated an indigo glass bead crowning the tip of the pin.

"Five hundred invitations have gone out. All of Philadelphia society will be there..."

Millie dropped the tiny bouquet back into James's keepsake box, knowing what was coming, and quickly snapped the box shut again. As if that would ever stop the rushing flood of illusions of mind she'd unwittingly set free. 

The sound of her own heart pounding in her ears, making her suddenly a little lightheaded, but now the onslaught of chopped and skewed voices and images in her head wouldn't stop again.

But how did it all connect?

'And all the while, I feel I'm standing in the middle of a crowded room.'

White and red roses in a wooden crate. The nauseating smell of paint. The feel of a weighty fountain pen in her hand, artfully drawing the last letters of the words, "Dear Sybil". The soft smoothness of a plaid brown and evergreen ribbon gliding between her fingers. The broken tips of children's crayons rolling at her heels on a planked wooden floor. The page of a small brown leather journal pressed up against a Rococo style stained-glass window with a cast bronze frame. Warm amber light  flooding in from the hallway on the other side of the door, giving her just enough light to read the words through the glass.

Stay. Forgive Me. Stay.

The same words she'd found in James's journal the day it fell out of his officer's coat pocket in her apartment. 

Another piece of that faraway, love story he swore she belonged in with him. 

Though finding herself still trapped on the other side of an unconquerable ocean between them, a sea fog of perplexity keeping her from seeing James for what her heart swore it knew of him, as the one great love of her past life.

'Standing in the middle of a crowded room screaming, and no one even looks up.'

It was all too much.

The whole thing was always too heavy, too soon. 

And when Millie decided she'd had enough of this room and the way it kept triggering her broken mind, she snatched  one of James's white morning shirts hanging ready for him in his wardrobe cabinet.

Slipping it over her nude body, she let her long, let-down hair fall freely in twirling locks down her waist. Checking herself out in a long mirror, she smoothed out the hem of James's shirt landing neatly mid-thigh, serving as an adorable, dressy tunic.

Satisfied with her loot, she swiped his slacks next, and hurriedly turned back around to walk briskly out of James's spooky room.

Only to find out there was someone else with her, standing in the doorway.

A startled Millie yelped.

A little girl, no older than 8, with big, doll-like, glimmering green eyes looked up at Millie. A plaid brown and evergreen ribbon weaved into the side of her long dark brown hair that fell in Shirley Temple curls around her light ivory blouse, and spilled onto the rosy face of a porcelain doll she carried in one arm, who looked nearly identical to the girl.

Everything about her triggered something chilled in Millie. 

But she hadn't seen her at all yesterday, and James hadn't mentioned any children living in the house.

But it didn't surprise Millie that she was there, knowing that Millie herself was the one out of place in this house.

"Hello," Millie greeted her, breaking the still silence between them. "I'm Millie...What's your name?"

But the girl's face remained still. Dead of expression. Like a trance.

Making Millie ever more tense. 

Something was off.

And that's when Millie's eyes scanned down to the girl's doll and discovered the girl's hands were unusually pale with blue-tinged fingertips. As if she were freezing to death. Just the way Millie had seen in her own hands, only days earlier, when she "saw" herself floating in the frigid ocean at Battery Park. 

"Please, miss," the girl's answer was soft and anxious. "I can't find my daddy." 

Millie closed her eyes, because with the exception of James, closing her eyes and breathing deeply had always worked before when things and people appeared where they shouldn't be. 

But this time, she couldn't just say Five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, and know that she was only imagining what wasn't real.

Real to her these days wasn't so clean cut anymore. 

So, knowing it was hopeless to keep blocking out these "hallucinations" and pretending that they were going away, Millie let herself lean into it. Whispering quietly back to the little girl instead, "Who am I to you? Why do you seem to mean so much to me, that I haven't found peace with you yet?"

And waiting in silence for an answer that never came, Millie finally got brave enough to let her lashes slowly flutter open. 

Gazing at nothing but the dark and abandoned doorway in front of her. 

Alone again in the middle of James's room, trapped still and frozen between time, save for the beating of her conflicted heart. 

Chapter Text

As was still his habit from being long at sea, James rose early that morning. 

Believing Millicent to still be sound asleep in her room, he wished to take care of the first order of business before she stirred awake.

Thinking of how he should look after her now kept him pacing by his untouched bed all night. 

Now that he was home, and time set right again, he sent himself off to make precautions. To ensure that the misfortunate events that happened to him and Millie this week could never  happen to them again, or anyone else.

After smoothing his bed over and setting his bedclothes on his pillow, he was eager to set off on his noble quest. 

Though not after wasting the better part of a half hour, tearing his armoire apart.

"Blast! Where is my ruddy shirt and trousers!" he cursed in frustration under his breath, stalled from getting at once out the door. "I might've sworn I hung the pair up right here. Where the devil have they gotten to?" 

But he was so determined to get on with it, that he dug out whatever-which-clothing was on top of the now unseemly pile of chaos at the bottom of his wardrobe closet. 

Dressed to the nines in a fresh pair of charcoal gray tweed trousers, with an open, v-collared light blue shirt--no starched collar and no waistcoat to speak of--with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows to tuck in the wide, loose-hanging fabric of his very undershirt, as he threw on his brown overcoat.

Forced to leave behind his tattered black dress shoes for mahogany knee-high dark leather  boots.

As if he were some actor, riding in on horseback from the Irish highlands for his part as lover in some theatrical performance of Tristan and Isolde, rather than calling on a very casual male acquaintance in town. 

His sunny brown hair hurriedly slicked into a left side-part, with the longer bits of his hair combed over the other side in a no-fuss kind of way, edging on the cusp of order and rebellion.

His first task being to find a safe place to lock up the cursed diamond, until he decided how best to manage it.  

But what was he to write in his card to their local jeweler. "Good evening, sir, would you be interested in purchasing the Heart of the Ocean?"

James knew it would raise some questions about how he'd acquired it, considering he was not an extraordinarily well-off man, and the diamond was worth at least 100 of his lives over. No one would believe he just happened to "pick it up" while going on about his merry way.

And the last thing James needed was people asking more questions and making more trouble.

He needed someone he could trust with the proper care of the diamond, and thought of Harry Lowe again.

Sometime while working his way through the tight space behind Harry's chair in the crew's mess aboard Titanic, he remembered hearing Lowe stiffly tell one of the Marconi operators that he didn't come from a family of sailors--like certain such officers--and that his family owned a jewelry shop in Wales.

Perhaps, James could call on Lowe and invite him back to Scarborough, asking his old shipmate what his jeweler family could tell him about the mysterious diamond and its disturbing history. 

However, descending the stairs to locate the Moodys' calling card table in the foyer, James stopped short on his sojourn, pausing to listen closely to peculiar noises coming from the kitchen.

A strange sawing sound or summat.

What the devil?

He wasn't sure what to think of it, and believing everyone in the house to still be asleep, James changed course and marched through the arched doors of the kitchen and dinner room to investigate it.

Upon turning the corner, he confronted a strange gentleman hunched over the stove, whom he didn't recognize in the dark.

"I say, sir! What business do you have slithering around our house in the dead of night?" he demanded of the uninvited intruder. "I must warn you, I know my way around a pistol, should you try me, and I will not hold back in defending the house or the ladies within it."

And then the man looked over his shoulder at him.

Making James realize that he was quite a pretty man indeed.

James snatched the oil lamp from the table and quickly lit the wick.

Shining the light in the intruder's face, he recognized the greenly brown eyes of a woman daring him to make good on his threats.

James sighed deeply.

"I should have guessed this path of strange led right to you, Miss Millie."

He set the lamp back on the table. "Alright or what?"

Then he paused, cocking his head to one side as he studied her peculiar outfit and man's suspenders.

"Are those my trousers?" he asked her. 'And my morning dress shirt!"

"Oh," Millie answered awkwardly, feigning innocence. "Do...these belong to you?"

"Of course they belong to me! I've been all morning looking for those!"

"Tough," Millie shrugged, languidly scanning over her manly outfit. "They look cuter on me."

"Cute?"

That anyone should make light of a proud seaman's wardrobe in such a mawkish chocolate-box sort of way!

"Give them to me."

"As in now?" Millie asked him, her impish brow perked. "As in right here, this very moment?"

"No, not here, but straight away, as in now in a minute!"

"I'm afraid, darling, that you'll just have to wait until I'm done with wearing them."

And her sickeningly sweet and aggravatingly accurate, fatuous mockery of his accent again made James grind down hard on his jaw.

How could any woman educated by the technological advances and wisdoms of the future be so irresistibly unreasonable.

"I'm afraid I can't take no for an answer, miss, and you can't just sweet-talk your way out of it," James had her know. "For your own good, you know, you can't just go around stealing a man's trousers here. It's not proper."

"I'm sorry, are we married?" she challenged him. "Because I've never had anyone so hot and bothered over what I'm wearing."

"You go out there in those, and people will suspect you're not alright up here," James tried to reason with her, pointing to his own head. 

"Then pry them from my cold dead hands," she dared him through her clenched teeth.

"We've certainly been the death of each other before," James had no reservations at all on taking her dare.

"And what are you gonna do, huh?" she officiated their mutual challenge, looking over his rather romantic Anthony-Bridgerton-like outfit. "Duel me at dawn?"

"Bet you been holding back all morning to throw that one on me, haven't you?" James remarked. "And to that, I say, do your worse, Miss Millie. Just name the place and I'll meet you there."

"Well, may your horse and buggy hit a pothole on your way!"

"You're not wearing my trousers."

"I'm not wearing a corset."

And when it was clear that Millicent didn't intend to budge an inch toward being rational, James realized he might very well have to rip his clothes back off of her.

"Must you be this headstrong?" he sighed.

Millie took an intentional step further from him, widening the divide of a whole dining room table between them.

James gave chase of her along the curve edge of the table, making as if he'd outmatch her to close the distance again, even if only to scare her into thinking he would.

But just in case he did, Millie shuffled to the opposite end of the table to keep the hard barrier safely wedged between them, her face brazenly daring him to try her just once.

"I will chase you back to America, if I must," James warned her.

"Back...away...from the trousers," she advised him.

"But they are my Sunday best!" James made his case. "I'll have you know, I am due to...well, somewhere important this morning, and in need of them to properly go off on my way."

"You're leaving me here alone?" Millie asked him, surprised. "Now? Where?"

"Not far."

"'Not far' is where?"

"Apologies, Miss Millie, but are we married?" James answered her, smugly serving her remark back to her. "I don't recall anyone becoming so feverishly turned up in a het over my absence."

Millie narrowed her eyes back at him. 

"Fine," she gave in, crossing her arms. "Go then. Not like I actually cared."

"Very well then," James shrugged. "Now that I have your blessing, I can be off properly."

"Without the trousers."

"Blimey, is there no way to win you over? You won't get away with it, you know. It's only too obvious you stole them from a man nearly 6 feet," he let her know. "Mrs. Annie lent you one of her old gowns already. So, why in God's name should you have my morning shirt as well?"

"Because yours is more comfy," she answered him. "And it smells nice."

"Eh? Comfy isn't even a bit the object of a man's--"

But James's argument inevitably trailed off into a stunned pause, her words suddenly disarming him by how unexpectedly darling of an answer that actually was.

Realizing at last that when it came to a lady's comfort, men had scarcely any say in such arguments. A fight that he was bound to lose from the very beginning, if only by his own forfeit.

Truly, he would never see those trousers again, now that she had made herself snug as a bug inside of them.

"You're already impossible to let house with, you know that?" he pursed his lips, nodding at her. "Very well then. Keep the ruddy trousers, I don't care if they lock you away in a bin for it. It's fine by me."

"Fine," Millie crossed her arms over her chest.

"Fine," the tight-lipped James leaned against the kitchen archway, crossing his as well.

His lips pursing evermore, because he wasn't really sure what else to do with her or the quandary, as they exchanged playfully heated gazes across the room at each other.

"Why don't you just admit what this is really about, huh?" Millie teased him with another challenge. "It's not about trousers. It's the fact that I got a sword pointed at me yesterday."

"Oh, aye? Well, there it is," James threw his hands up, with a hint of an eyeroll. "Still going on about our Mr. Lowe, are you? You're totally infatuated."

Millie rolled her eyes, sighing, and turned back to the stove behind her.

"Can we just fight about this later?" she said to him. "I'm a little busy right now."

"I'll say," James remarked. "And what could you possibly be so hard at work at over here?"

And then James's eyes wandered to the iron wood burner stove behind her, and the scraps of wood shavings littered all over the top of it.

And then the two big kindling sticks in Millicent's soot-stained hands.

"What's all this?" his brow furrowed in confusion. "Was that ruckus I heard only you rubbing those sticks together? Were you...were you trying to start a fire here?"

"Well I...I was hungry," Millie admitted. "I haven't eaten anything really since I got here yesterday. Couldn't really stomach it."

And then James's hardened lips twitched, finally giving way as his face reddened and he turned his head away from her, trying to stifle a laugh.

"Excuse me," he politely held up a finger to Millie. "Be back in a bit."

And then, for her benefit, he graciously walked himself out of the kitchen, closing the doors ever so politely behind him.

Doors that weren't much for being soundproof anyway against his goofy, musical laughter, and she was sure he damn well knew it.

And once he'd properly got it all out of his system and caught his breath again, the early 20th century sea officer opened the doors as delicately as he'd exited, and walked back into the kitchen with her.

"Ahem," he cleared his throat. "Now then, that was a good one, it was."

"What?" Millie narrowed her eyes at him. "What's so funny?"

"You're fighting space with a hairpin, that's what," he informed her, his irresistible chuckles only just barely contained as he said it. "It's 1912, Millie. Not the Stone Age."

And despite how much she didn't want to encourage him, the stupid look on his face as he tried to keep a hold of himself was infectious to her.

"Shut up, James," she snorted into her own laugh. "You're so annoying."

"Right then," James caught his breath again. "Give them here. You'll burn our house down, if you keep this up."

He held his hand out, fingers beckoning twice for her to surrender her kindling sticks.

Millie sighed, annoyed that he was probably right, as she sassily laid each in his palm one by one.

"Now watch closely, Lady Know-It-All," he told her.

And opening the large iron belly of the stove, an even sassier James tossed the two kindling sticks inside. Sprinkling in a little bit of ash from a pail next to the stove, he began loading in 3 fire logs in next. Then he added on 6 more softwood kindling sticks to build a stacked pyramid in the center.

"And for my next trick," James winked at her, slipping a charming grin her way as he reached into his vest pocket for his matchbox.

Coolly striking a matchstick right before her eyes.

The golden flame dancing bright and cozy in his hand, making her eyes glisten just the way he liked them to in the firelight.

Admittedly, there was something beautiful about the assured way he did it.

Seductive, even.

As if Millie needed another reminder that before her stood a man completely out of her world, bred by a classic masculinity that modestly blended both grace and self-reliance in even the most minute things he did. Despite how much his stubborness drove her up the wall (and arguably even got her killed), she couldn't help but be privately captivated by his subtle "captain of the ship" vibes while teaching her how to light a wood stove, which somehow made her feel a little steadier on her own warrior feet in this alien world. 

Never before had she found a guy lighting a match to be so damn hot.

Comfortable in his 1912 element, what a torch James Moody actually was.

And setting his match to the wood pile inside the stove, James pulled back the heavy iron door, leaving it open just ajar to get a hot clean burn going.

Then he turned a vent crank atop the stove, a creak that Millie heard but didn't see, allowing more air to freely feed the fire.

"And nothin' else to it," he dusted his hands and started into the food pantry. "Though I'm afraid the worse is still to come to you. I am sorry to inform you, that there are no Stouffer's, but I can fake a pie, if it comes to the pinch."

And then climbing the little wooden ladder inside the pantry, he held out his arms to the stores on the shelves. "Welcome ye to James Moody's world-famous galley...Where every customer dines first class. What'll it be, love?"

"You wouldn't by any chance happen to have Honeynut Cheerios with a side of pancakes in there, would you?"

"Honeynut Cheerios, eh?" he scanned thoughtfully over the shelves at the canned jams, basket of potatoes, yesterday's baguettes, jarred spices, garden herbs hung to dry, and the like. "Afraid not. I promised you world-class dining here though, and I assure you, we can fix up anything to suit your tastes. That is, if you're not afraid of surprises."

James glanced over his shoulder down the ladder back into Millie's eyes gazing up into his, which appeared more richly green to him in light of the pantry closet.

Realizing then that her argument was won after all.

She did look rather "cute" in his shirt.

More adorable than he ever could manage in a man's suspenders and trousers, with her hair finger-combed over her shoulder, catching all the amber light in her loose curls from the rising morning light.

Never before had he found a woman wearing man's breeches to be so bloody riveting.

"For you, it's on the house, for proving me wrong," James finally finished his thought, as he stepped down the ladder, passing Millie a small rustic-looking tin bin dusty with flour. "My shirt is much cuter worn by you. And that's the last time you'll ever again hear me utter that word."

Standing up on tip-toes against his height on the wooden pantry ladder, Millie's dusty hand patted his cheek heartily, a cloud of flour dust springing up with the light smack of a hand print left against James's face.

"It's just between us," she whispered a promise to him, before carrying the flour tin out of the pantry back to their now cozily burning stove.

Leaving a newly floured James a wee bit more colored than usual as he watched her go.

As the only thing more adorable than Millicent Crawley in his dress shirt and trousers was how very little she had to do to make his heart skip.

Chapter Text

"How is this all just a faked pie?" Millie glowed over the breakfast arrangement James had sammed up for her on the kitchen table. 

Half a grapefruit, two bowls of porridge topped with freshly apple slices, walnuts, and sprinkled cinnamon, a side of beans with sliced bread, butter, and jam. Each homely little dish arranged atop a yellow Indian silk tablecloth and a fragrant basket of blushing beach roses, sea thrift, and seaside gardenia found scattered about the Scarborough beaches.

The kitchen warmed by the cozy whistling of the tea kettle on the wood stove, as James took it off the fire with a cloth and brought it steaming to the table with a jar of honey and butter.

"Anno it's not nearly a proper breakfast for a lady-gentleman such as you, but it should hold you over," James finally claimed his seat across from hers. "As it so happens, we're fresh out of cockles." 

Millie had no idea what he meant by 'cockles', but that didn't stop her from digging in. "I barely noticed. This is literally enough food to feed-"

"All hands on deck and below?" he guessed her thoughts. "Spend as much time around a ship's galley as I have, and you won't know the difference between feeding a man and feeding the navy."

"Honestly, what do you need a butler for?" Millie asked. 

"Evans? He's no butler, really. He mostly looks after papa for Christoper and I. A, um, caregiver, I suppose you'd call it in the future. A companion, of sorts," James explained. "And we're not really that well-to-do either. There are just some things we're blessed enough to have and make life for papa easier here...He was never all too happy about me leaving home in the first place."

"So, not well-to-do...and technically unemployed while White Star thinks you're dead," Millie nodded, putting his situation all together as she helped herself to the cream on James's tea tray. "Exactly how were you going to pay me to be your maid then?"

"If you actually were my maid, I reckon summat to the tune of 6 pounds a year," James informed her. "In America, well, the going rate works out to be about $2.50 weekly, or at the minimum, 10 shillings a week. You'd fare even better as a lady's maid."

"Tough luck, James. Guess that means you can't afford me," Millie informed him. "If you want to keep me trapped in your house as your maid, I will accept nothing less than 15 dollars an hour, matching my 2022 cashier's rate."

"Absolutely will I not pay your salary at a 2022 rate," James declined her bid immediately.

But couldn't help the smile that inevitably tainted his firm resolve, as a private afterthought struck him quietly, and he sat down his tea spoon to indulge in that unsaid fancy a bit longer. Raising his eyes from his tea to linger on Millie, as she scooped up all her beans and piled them up on one half of her toastie.

And realizing he'd gone quiet suddenly, Millie's bean spoon paused in mid-scoop, as her darling eyes flicked back up to James. 

"What?" Millie asked him. "I mean it." 

"Nothing," said he. "I've said nothing."

"But you want to," Millie called him out lightly. "You're staring at me like I'm from another century." 

James took up his spoon again and began slowly stirring as he tried to work his private thoughts into words. 

"It's just extraordinary, is all," he told Millie. "You, that is."

"Me?"

"Sitting there only just across from me," he went on. "In my clothes...Making demands of me...Negotiating with me...Having breakfast at this table with me...Together, I mean...Doing ordinary things I never imagined we'd be doing with each other in 100 years."

"Considering everything that's happened, I think ordinary is a good change of pace for us, James," Millie smiled at him in agreement.

"Which includes negotiating your salary with me, eh? Does that mean you've decided to stay, for the time being?" James ventured into asking her. 

"I never said that," answered she.

"Right, of course not, you didn't," James's smile showed a hint of knowing. "Though...if you aren't opposed to negotiation, by happenstance...there is a position I have kept vacant in my house for some time now...of which I wouldn't mind negotiating with you some day." 

"Rumor has it," Millie remarked, taking a cool sip of her tea. "That vacancy has already been filled. Or at least, this Miss Levinson seems to think so?"

Catching James suddenly off guard when his subtle flirtation backfired against him.

"Pardon?" 

"Why did I have to pretend to be a maid so some guy wouldn't kill you?" Millie asked him. "Are you really engaged to his cousin?"

"Er, um, yes," James stumbled. "About that matter."

"You mean the part about you never mentioning you were getting married?" Millie's eyes went on smiling at him, as she applied more butter to her toast. "That little matter?"

James cleared his suddenly burning throat, and sat his teacup down in its saucer, letting out a long sigh through his nose as he gazed across the table at her.

A heavy silence broken only by the awkward scratch-scratch of Millie's knife, as she carelessly bathed her toast in shocking amounts of butter.

"You don't understand," James answered her. "It's complicated, the lot of it."

"I bet it's complicated, if you forgot to even mention her, even before you kissed me in my gift shop," Millie nodded in wholehearted agreement.

"Millie, that was-"

"Convenient?" she offered her own interpretation. "Understandable. After all, we were about to just die."

"Hang about a moment," James cocked his head curiously at her, as he leaned back in his chair and studied her. "Are you not more colored now?"

"No," Millie said flatly, holding up her chin a little higher to prove how entirely unaffected she was by the revelation of his impending marriage. "I'm only asking, because if I were your supposed fiancée, I'm sure I'd be thrilled to hear about another girl in your pantry."

"You must understand, it's not that sort of engagement," James explained to her. "I mean to say, we're not actually in love, Miss Levinson and I. Ours is more formality than a true courtship. It's only for show."

"Ah, I see," Millie nodded, finally glancing away from her knife to meet his eyes directly. "So it's your marriage that's of convenience then. That makes perfect sense now." 

"Except there won't be any marriage," James made it unmistakably clear. "Years ago, when the engagement was announced, Miss Levinson and I mutually agreed not to become man and wife officially, as we both intended to remain true to our own hearts. She wanted an excuse to postpone marriage without her family pressuring her to find a husband, and uses our performance of the engagement to keep her suitors at bay. Easily done, considering we are on opposing sides of the Atlantic. And my being away at sea made it ever easier to avoid an actual wedding. Only when she is ready to settle down into a real marriage will she 'put me down quietly'. And I shall behave as any man would when his sweetheart breaks off an engagement. That is, sadder, humbler, and miserably heartbroken. Though I doubt either of us wishes to end the benefit of our engagement any moment too soon."

And though she picked up James's sarcasm in that last bit just fine, Millie still felt a sting she couldn't quite put her finger on. And because she couldn't fully understand it, she was thankful once again that she hadn't just bared her heart to James in her gift shop, the last night they were alive, knowing now officially that his heart belonged to someone else.

"And what benefit is that?" Millie wondered. "Why did you agree to a hollow engagement with a woman you don't love? Didn't you ever actually want to be married? Or was Officer Lowe right about you sailors?"

"That name Lowe again, eh?" James remarked. "Exactly how deep did your conversation with our Mr. Lowe go yesterday? I reckon you two couldn't have been alone in that room together for longer than a few moments."

"Much less time than it took you to be honest with me," Millie countered him. "Exactly how long were you gonna wait to tell me you were engaged?" 

"I haven't seen or heard from the girl in ages. It's not like I locked myself in a bloody study with her," James said. "The truth of it is, my put-on engagement has nought to do with me kissing you the way I did."

Millie got quiet then, her focus intensely centered on unraveling him with her eyes across the table, trying to work him out. Or rather, why it was she felt so passionately betrayed over this Levinson girl, when she didn't even know the woman, or James fully, for that matter.  

'Are you saying I should not have done it?" James pursued the argument, quietly daring her to say yes. "Are you saying you wish I'd wind back time again, and take my kiss back? I will, if that is what you wish." 

"Oh, so you can just use the Heart of Ocean when you want, for whatever you want, but I can't?" Millie called out his injustice. "How is that fair?"

"So you don't wish I'd take it back?" James asked her, with just enough of a smug grin. "Is that what you're saying, Mills?"

"I'm saying you're a sailor, James," Millie informed him at last. "You come in with the tide, and then you go out with the tide. You live every moment like it's your last. So, I'm saying that kiss is probably something neither of us should think too much into. It was probably just one of those things."

"One of what 'things'?" James probed for more. "Is that the kind of man you think I am, Millie? That I'm just another rake for a sailor, and that I know nothing about loving a woman earnestly?"

"Is that why you lost Millicent in the end? Because you loved her earnestly?" she challenged him abruptly. "Is that why it had to be Miss Levinson you asked to marry, instead of the woman you claimed  to be so damn in love with?"

"I died because I wouldn't stop loving you!" James swore to her before he could stop himself.

And realizing that his abrupt declaration had stunned Millie into a silence he never intended to force her into, James took hold of himself again, fearing that he had frightened her somehow by his unbridled display of passion. 

"Because I wouldn't stop loving her," he quietly corrected himself. "I gave up my life on Titanic, trying to save hers. So, if you must know, I died before I ever married Miss Levinson. Because some irrepressible part of me waited still for Miss Crawley. I swear it, without any hope of contradiction, that I did love her earnestly, sailor as I am. And I would have given up my life at sea to make her my wife. I wanted to give my whole world to that girl, and the truth, it is. But as you never fail to remind me, Miss Amberflaw, some things just aren't meant to be. And one day, I suppose, I will be forced to accept that. But I suppose, if there's owt of a sailor in me at all, it's that I'm a stubborn bastard. I don't let up easy."

"Do you think you could ever love again then?" Millie asked him softly. "The same way you loved Millicent?"

And the way James looked at her then, his eyes twinkling with that little something she'd seen in them when he kissed her, that last time they were in her gift shop, she believed then that he could.

"I believe it was Thoreau who wrote, 'There is no remedy for love but to love more'. And I have learned a great deal from the love of my past life, knowing now that I am so full of love, that I could not only love again, but do so relentlessly for ages to come," James told her. "There is so much love in my heart, that I fancy one day, I shall learn to love her enough to heal her, and make her my happiest companion, time after time again."

"Whoever Millicent Crawley was then," Millie answered him quietly. "She's lucky."

"I reckon I'm the one who would be," James agreed, nodding. "Once I've won back her heart."

And taking a moment to think, as if he were debating within himself what he wanted to do next and if it were the right course, James reached for the pocket of his overcoat hanging from his wooden chair, and pulled out a square-folded paper. Too white and too modern-looking to be a page ripped out of his own journal. 

"Our last day at the gift shop...there was something I'd been meaning to show you, before we were walked in on," he said, sliding the folded paper across the table to Millie. "It's never my intention to lead you to anymore pain or alarm, miss. I just reckoned that these hospital records might lead you to understanding more the truth of it all, when you are ready to know it."

And having delivered the burden of what he'd been carrying around, since he'd found the hospital discharge papers in an old box of Millie's apartment, James sighed for the swelling bout of bittersweetness that overcame his heart then.

"I know it will make little difference, if your mind's made up to go back where time lies ahead," he told Millie. "I just...what I mean to say is, I hope you still have a mind to finish breakfast with me first, before you go a'traveling in time anywhere. Because for this moment at least, this moment between us feels right. This breath of pure simplicity feels as if it's meant to always feel this good when we're together. Like home. Like it could very well become home to us, if we wanted it to be." 

Millie's smile softened with knowing empathy for him. "You won't stop at anything until I say I won't go anyway." 

"I know better than to presume I could ever dissuade you from what you've set your mind to...Though, if you won't take me on my word, Miss Millie, then ask your own heart," James gently challenged her. "At this very moment, do you not feel lighter here with me? Happier, even?"

"I do feel it, James," she agreed. "But I also see how easily you would feel that way about us in 1912. It really is home to you, James."

"But am I that partial?" he challenged her minimizing assumption. "I realize the future is all you can recollect, and it is what you call home...but perhaps, just as one can learn to love again, one might also find home again in unexpected places. Call it partiality or strong caution for a lady I care deeply for, it stands that what happened to us at Bitter Tears is not a future I would wish on any soul. 2022 is nobbut a cold, dark, uncertain, and dangerous world for us both. You were brutally murdered before my very eyes. I can scarcely think of anyone ever wanting to go back to that place...except you."

"I know, James. I'm sure being hunted down by the police before being shot to death won't make going back easier for me. But I promised my brother I'd go back. It haunts me that I don't know what's going on with Pax--I mean, Patrick--Or whoever he calls himself now. Crazy as he sounds, I can't just leave him where he is," Millie said. "Besides, what happened to us at Bitter Tears isn't the norm, even in the future. It wasn't really that bad. For one, we didn't have to light a stove every time we wanted to cook breakfast. We had electricity for that."

"Now then," James put on a smile for her, only in the spirit of being a good host, seeing that his guest preferred to make light of their discourse rather than the dreary feelings eating away at his heart. "If not for our un-electrified, Cheerio-less world, what better excuse would I have to get you into a pantry with me?"

Millie couldn't help but smile at that, and decided to let him have it. After all, he had gone through the trouble of lighting a whole wood stove to make her breakfast. When it came to the great debate of how long she could stay in 1912, he had won this round. For now, at least.

"You know, come to think of it,' Millie remembered the piece of evidence she'd found in James's room yesternight that had triggered another potential memory of hers.

Reaching for the parchment she'd kept safely tucked away in the pocket of her borrowed trousers, 

"I spent all last night trying to think up some Edwardian-approved excuse to get you alone and ask you about this," she said, unfolding the parchment square by square, until it revealed the drawing of the two children sitting next to each other in the graveyard. 

Sliding it pass the butter and cream dishes, where she and James could get a good look at it in the center of the table. "Do you recognize anything about this?"

"Blimey," James breathed into a warm smile as his blue eyes studied the drawing. "It's been ages, it has...I'd almost forgotten about this totally...It's just crude artwork I drew as a boy, while visiting my mother's grave. That there is me. And right here to my right is..."

"Millicent?" Millie guessed quietly.

"Right. That was she beside me....And that man yonder there with his scoop," James pointed out the old bloke shoveling away in the background. "That there is one Mister-"

"Harlow?" Millie offered her answer softly. "The undertaker...wasn't he?"

"Ah, yes, Harlow was his name. He was a good one. Worked himself into his own grave as the town gravedigg...."

James froze suddenly.

His words trailing off  as his eyes slowly dragged away from the drawing and turned up to Millie's.

"Sorry, love, I must've heard you all wrong?" he questioned her breathily. "Did you say Harlow?"

"Isn't that right? Harlow, the old gravedigger, who walked with a bit of a limp?" Millie asked him, trying to work out the fuzzy details she'd stayed up all night trying to depict from the drawing. "I have these dreams about a gravedigger, who'd always sing this never-ending song...'Sweet Adeline, My Adeline...Brings back the time, love, when you were near..."

"It is then I wonder where you are, my darling," James recited the next line of the song for her. "And if your heart to me is still the same, my Adeline, my Adeline--"

"--My Adeline, My Adeline," Millie whispered the words back to James. 

The pair of them watching an abyss of so many racing emotions in each other's eyes, as their respective memories validated the other's completely, together making this one distant memory whole again. 

And even as James promised himself he wouldn't lose control of his passions anymore in front of her at that breakfast table, Millie wouldn't hold back the wet-hot stinging that welled just at the brim of her lashes. 

"Am I really right? It was Harlow?" she whispered to James. "I'm not just getting what's real and imagined confused anymore?"

"No, love," James assured her, taking both her hands in his and squeezing them tightly, as they rested atop his childhood drawing of the sacred moment they'd shared together. "It was Sweet Adeline. That was the tune. You're not just remembering it wrong."

Millie gradually lit up again with a smile, dabbing her wet teary eyes against her elbow sleeve of James's dress shirt, all so she wouldn't have to let go of his hands to grab a proper serviette. 

"All morning," she confessed to James, shaking her head with a light little laugh. "I haven't been able to get that stupid song out of my head all morning."

"Unforgivably catchy, isn't it?" James smiled back at her. 

"Even then, the weird thing is, I could listen to it play for hours," Millie told him. "Because it's the one piece of memory I have now that I know is real, and have proof that I'm just a walking basket case of nightmares."

"Have you remembered anything else?" James asked her eagerly. "Anything at all?"

"Um, well," Millie meditated deeply on her dreams again, searching her heart to grab hold of any fluttering image that had kept her awake last night. "Do you have a pen, by any chance?"

And once James had fetched her one from the foyer table, Millie used the back of a spare calling card to neatly write the words 'Stay. Forgive Me. Stay' 

"What about this? I'm not sure if this means anything to you, or just me, but..." She slid the calling card steadily across the table to him. "Do you remember anything about what this message means to you?"

And then she watched his face intently, hoping his face would light up in the same recognizing way he had upon seeing his old drawing.

He sat there hunched over the calling card, brow bent tensely, studying and restudying the 5 words she'd written down for him. But try as he might, James didn't seem to make anything of them. 

He wanted to. He wished so desperately that he could find meaning in them, for her sake. 

Knowing how badly she wanted him to recognize something that might give her absolution, and how badly he wanted to give her that closure. To convince her he'd been telling the truth about them and Titanic all along. 

It was one thing to say he'd loved her once, but without showing her, he would keep losing her to the sweeping waves of her haunting doubts. 

But the words were no more to James than hiddenly wistful lines written in her fine hand. 

"I'm sorry, love," he rested back in his chair. "I can't make owt of it." 

"Please, just try again," Millie pleaded with him softly. "Anything you can think of? Even if it's something small, it would be enough." 

"Was it something I'd written?" James asked her. "To you, perhaps?"

"I'm not sure...All I know is that I found these same words written in your officer's journal, the first day you came to my apartment in 2022," she told him. "And last night, I remembered them. I know I do...I have this memory of reading them on paper, pressed up against this sort of...ornate window panel of some kind...and some kind of carved wooden door, in some kind of wooden room...lined with these rows of large, strained glass bay windows. I'm sorry, I know that's not helping, because that place could literally be anywhere in the world."

"Not to exclude Titanic?" James tried to help her come to terms with the nature of her memory. 

"Technically, yes," she gave him that much. "Titanic was made out of a lot of wood."

"Spot on, if I should say so myself...So, possibly, you've memories of being in a room of wood and stained glass, that may have possibly been aboard the Titanic," James summed it up for her. "And I was possibly right outside this room where you stood, just beyond the window glass, where I wrote you this message?"

"Possibly."

"Though, there were so many wooden rooms aboard Titanic. Staterooms, lounges, promenades, staircases, libraries, gymnasium," James wondered. "Might you have caught a glance of my face through this window glass? Is there anything else around me?"

"I'm not sure exactly. Anything beyond the door is just shadows in my memory. I just know I'm not alone," she said. "The only thing clear to me are those words."

"Perhaps, if you closed your eyes," James invited her. "I know it seems silly, but it's worked small wonders for me before. Just try to relax and go back to that wooden room with all the windows. I'm there with you in that room, just as I'm here with you now. Just focus on remembering all that you can about us together in that room." 

Millie let out go of a deep breath, preparing herself for whatever might come, as she allowed her eyes to flutter close and draw up the memory again. 

Determined to find out a way to puzzle together the whirlpool of broken words and distorted faces that had been her private mental hell for so long. 

"Five hundred invitations have gone out."

"It's the only misunderstanding. He never loved me, Sybil. He can hardly stomach the idea of marrying me. He said so himself."

"But did you tell him that it was you who'd looked after the grave while he was at sea?"

"Five hundred invitations...All of Philadelphia's society...society will be there."

"I do believe you promised to outbest me at this dreary contest."

"Millie, what are you doing? There's no mingling with the ship officers. It's against the rules."

"Forgive me. They'll worry, if I don't go back soon. I can't stay here any longer."

"And all the while, I feel I'm standing in the middle of a crowded room screaming..."

"Forgive me, that's not the word I meant. It's 'room' I had meant to say."

'Standing in the middle of a crowded room..."

"I came here thinking I'd be damned to even try loving you, but you're all I can think of."

"Middle of a crowded room screaming and no one even looks up."

"Patrick! Patrick! You can't just leave me here like this!"

"I'm not frightened. I was before...but I know now, out of the whole world..."

"It was never the right bloody time for us, was it? We were born into entirely different worlds, you and I."

"The only question that matters to me is if you love me."

"I shall never love like this ever again."

"Do you love him?"

"I do not have an answer for you, James."

"Do you love him?"

Chapter Text

Dear Sybil,

Apologies for leaving you so cruelly in suspense while awaiting my letter.

There is no excuse, I know, and I haven't forgotten the promise I made to write you every day that I am at sea. I meant to send you this letter as soon as I reached Southampton on sailing day. And now that it will be a week late before it reaches Yorkshire, I'm sure you're imagining the wildest particulars about me by now. That I've been abducted by pirates, or run off with the most salacious fireman I could pull from below decks as some comeuppance to papa, or that the world must indeed be flat at sea and has fallen from under my feet to keep me from writing you. Surely, I feel that it has. Never once have I broken my promise of writing you every day that I'm away, until now.

Of course, I am never happier to report when I've yet again managed to evade society and the scavenger hunt I seem to have inspired in the papers. I couldn't wait to get out to sea again, and would surely have been devastated, if I had been dismissed by the victualing superintendent in the latest round of sacking. Apparently, the coal situation is quite serious now. I hope they work out a resolution quickly. There isn't enough work for all of us, and I feel dreadful about walking in on the other girls packing up.

They are mothers and wives, many of them.

I suspect I've only survived this round because of my experience aboard the Majestic, which if truth be told, isn't much more extensive than the other stewardesses my age. I have no children waiting for me at home, and no husband. I am totally alone in looking after myself, but I'm not so bad off, and know I could use my charms to work my way into a position as a lady's maid, if I was desperate enough for work. Had it been up to me, I would've happily given up my post on Titanic for one of them.

I shouldn't feel ashamed, they say, it just happens this way sometimes in the shipping business. Even so, I can't help but feel that it wasn't my right to take the vacancy on Titanic when it was offered to me.

I'm so dizzy with everything that's happened these last few days, I still can't know for sure what all the butterflies and goose pimples mean.

Still, I don't mean to grumble.

My astonishment does not contest my excitement over being picked for Titanic, after all these years of working so hard to make an impression. Only, I'm worried that the change was so sudden, that they didn't have time to record my name officially on the crew list for her maiden voyage. I will need to ensure it is added properly when I reach New York, as working Titanic's first crossing can only benefit my references when I move on. 

I will continue to give my best at it in the meantime, as always.

You know I'm not much for the fuss they make in the papers about it being a floating palace, but I must say, she's breathtaking, Sybie. My favorite room being the first class passenger lounge. Something about all the greenery that reminds me of the glass house we used to sneak out to at Downton. 

Working on the Titanic is a great deal more busy than the Magestic, b ut I like busy.

Now is the first time I've had a chance to sneak away on deck and catch some fresh air for letter writing.

Ever since I changed ships and was suddenly on my way to Ireland, I've been so busy becoming a stewardess on an entirely different ship, I hardly have any chance to eat and sleep, let alone write. Now that I've caught a moment to sneak away and catch some air on the boat deck, I can finally tell you everything I've been bursting to say since Ireland. 

I can't begin to describe to you why I have felt so conflicted since Titanic sailed out of Belfast.

So many times I've asked myself... Am I just extraordinarily lucky for being asked to work on the wonder they are calling the 'ship of dreams?'

Or am I only Icarus, dreaming to have possession of what it is I could never have?

And in more ways than one, it isn't just the ship I mean anymore. 

You won't believe this, as I can scarcely fathom it myself. Never in 100 years would you ever guess the certain who I happened to meet, by some feral quirk of fate in Belfast. As if it were written in our very stars, it seems as if I am to be perpetually reminded that, though I wish with all my heart to forget I ever knew him, J.P.M.  still exists in some tormenting form, somewhere in this world, and at any point, he may be near enough to breathe the same air as me, while I can hardly let go of mine. Seeing him for the first time in years, it was like...like having my heart broken all over again, just as I'd been so sure that J.P.M., or any man again for that matter, would never call this heart his again. 

But did I ever truly claim back my heart from him after all these years?

One look at him, and it was like I never had much of it left to begin with, until I glanced up and found him suddenly beside me on the Belfast dock. 

A fleeting chance meeting that was every bit beautiful, euphoric, and unimaginably painful. And still, there was no other closure I might've asked for, but to know he had found his way to becoming a royal navy officer at last, and that our cousin has made him a happy husband-to-be, seeing him through his harrowing apprenticeship...where I could not. 

Forgive me...I'm done writing lines over a past I can't change. Not a soul has the power to wind back time and take back all our losses, even for our most agonizing regrets. I only wish him well, Sybil...He is no longer my greatest heartache, or greatest love, and I feel totally that what happened between us is long over now. As I've learned, life goes on. And I'm not so neurotic to believe that J.P.M. hasn't gone on the same, and forgotten the days we nearly belonged to each other at Downton. 

But the bitter truth remains...we work together.

So, if there really is any fairness in the divine world that guides us, I'm only asking for one mercy on Titanic. That if I can no longer avoid the way my heart suffers terribly when happening upon J.P.M. aboard a White Star ship, then pray, let me forget why our love would never have worked in the first place. Where had I been so cruel to deserve such a fate as being the only one left to remember what we almost were to each other?

All this to say, my dear cousin, never fall in love.

Take in a kitten instead, and name it Branson. 

But if you absolutely can't help yourself but to go to who your heart runs to, I beg you to learn quickly how to unremember. 

So that we can teach each other how to save ourselves from so very much in the end...

"Look, I know what you must be thinking. Poor little rich girl. What does she know about misery?"

Millicent was only half-listening to the conversation going on nearest to her, as a woman walked by her on the promenade. She didn't even look up from her letter writing, as she used the railing behind a deck bench as a firm hard surface for her fast moving fountain pen. Trying to keep the ink from smudging her words together as the letter yearned to flutter off with the sea breeze. 

"No. No, that's not what I was thinking," a man's voice answered the woman next. "What I was thinking was, what could've happened to this girl to make her think she had no way out? That's what I was thinking." 

"Well, I...It was everything. It was my whole world, and all the people in it. And the inertia of my life, plunging ahead, and me powerless to stop it," the woman poured her heart out to him, as she held out her hand to him to brandish the ring on her finger. 

"God," he quipped. "Look at that thing. You would've gone straight to the bottom." 

"Five hundred invitations have gone out," she informed him in breathless anxiousness. "All of Philadelphia society will be there...And all the while I feel I'm standing in the middle of a crowded room, screaming at the top of my lungs, and no one even looks up."

"Do you love him?" 

"Pardon me?"

"Do you love him?"

"Well, you're being very rude. You shouldn't be asking me this."

"Well it's a simple question. Do you love the guy or not?"

And upon hearing such an openly arrogant, and yet irresistibly valiant question, spoken with no care for either death or glory in being heard by anyone around them, the stewardess's pen came to a gradual stop against the letter to her cousin.

Nobody within earshot of the couple that had just walked by on deck--the woman strolling briskly, and the man sauntering at a cool pace behind her--would ever blame Millicent for being so knocked off course by the devil-may-care recklessness in the man's question.

 She couldn't help herself but to eavesdrop on the couple's private conversation. 

Dying to know what the lady's answer would be back to the brazen American fellow, Millicent glanced up at the pair from her unfinished letter. 

Knowing she might very well be watching a mirror of herself walk by on the heels of that lady. Living the very life she might've had, had she not left it behind once upon a time ago, remaining Lady Crawley, whose brother was Earl-in-Wait to Downton. How very alike were all the fine things she left behind in England, and all her suppressed passions and stormy inner confusions that were sister to the woman in the golden tea dress.

The sunshine and sea breeze playing in the tendrils of her copper red hair, that danced around milk white macrame lace, and silk collar of her strolling dress, with a golden yellow satin belt and skirt fluttering behind her. The gentleman accompanying her was more simply dressed in a brown shirt and suspenders, without any coat or hat.

It was not a stewardess's business to ask why he was without both hat and coat, or how the peculiar pair were acquainted.

It wasn't her business to be seen at all by passengers, and should the victualing superintendent happen by and find her taking a breather on an unassigned deck chair, like a passenger, rather than looking busy cleaning something somewhere below decks, there would be hell to answer for.

As if she'd ever see the end of that long list of duties assigned to the first class staterooms and parlor suites. 

They'd order her to do one thing, before pulling her away to do another, and then rip her apart later for the first thing she never got to finish.

But rather than make herself a basket case for the padded room below decks, Millicent got very efficient at multi-tasking. Which may have been her last saving grace at the very moment, as she'd been assigned sewing duty, impromptu nannying duty, and promenade-rule-enforcing duty, all on top of the letter writing to Sybil she'd been reluctantly putting off, because there was never any time.

But that was the caveat of working in service.

As like any maidservant position she had held, there were no set hours of work. Only to work when she was required, which meant every waking moment of her bloody day on this ship.

Since boarding day, she'd been running about cleaning up messes, fluffing pillows, making snacks and drinks for the demanding tastes of passengers, taking demanding passengers' complaints to the stewards, who took them to the Purser's desk, who passed another list of demanding orders down to her about how Mrs. Such-and-Such deemed her room unsightly because her bedsheets weren't pulled back to the proper inch. Or how she was now in charge of preparing a once unoccupied room that hadn't originally been assigned to her, because Mrs. Such-and-Such swore she'd been given a second class accommodation rather than the first class suites that she'd seen advertised, and wished for her money's worth.

But Millicent didn't mind the work so much this time, if it meant avoiding a certain junior officer by taking on any task that was asked of her. All for the privilege of having the excuse of looking too busy for conversation.

Nannying, of course, wasn't her job or any other stewardess's aboard. She was the "ship's stewardess", not to be confused as a "passenger's stewardess" or to be ordered around as such, but who really knew the difference? What was she to do anyhow, upon showing up just in time to be hair-holder-backer of some poor lady's maid, as she spilled out her guts over the railing? 

And this one lady's maid had been sent to quarantine in hospital for seasickness, and promised Millie she'd be back as soon as she was well, if the stewardess would only do her the favor of looking after two small children belonging to a Mrs. Herediana Rochester, while Mrs. Rochester had afternoon tea with her companion at Café Parisien. 

 All she had to do was entertain the Rochester children, and breathe for the first time since she'd come aboard, all while catching a glimpse of the wonderfully blue ocean as a passenger would on the promenade.

How could she say no to any of that?

Mrs. Rochester had strictly forbidden the children go out in their Thursday best before dinner. 

But the children were bored to tears indoors anyway, and Millie couldn't resist the temptation of taking them out through the Verandah for some fresh air on deck.

"This is absurd," the woman in the golden tea dress, You don't know me, and I don't know you, and we are not having this conversation at all. You are rude, and uncouth, and presumptuous, and I am leaving now. Jack. Mr. Dawson. It's been a pleasure. I've sought you out to thank you and now I have thanked you."

And as Millicent watched the couple stand there staring into each other's eyes, going on shaking each other's hand awkwardly, not knowing that they only lingered shaking hands forever because they never wanted to let go of each other, Millicent couldn't help but think again of James, and all the clumsy beauty that was their first love. 

What she would give to be in the shoes of the girl with the red hair and the golden tea dress, if only to have another chance at reliving those first stomach-fluttering, nostalgic moments of a blossoming romance, that were yet to be inspired in her by another man since James Paul Moody. 

But as a busy stewardess, stand-in lady's maid, and now accidental nanny, Millicent didn't have the luxury of pitying herself, when there were so many people on that ship beckoning for her care. 

As just beyond the girl with the golden tea gown, and the man with his sketchbook, the stewardess's observant eye found a little girl keeping herself hidden near the corner of the gymnasium, from the adults strolling the promenade. She didn't look a day over 8, with big, doll-like, glimmering green eyes that sneaked peaks at Millicent in the wee hideaways near the First Class Entrance.  Her long dark brown hair falling in curls around her light ivory blouse, and spilled onto the rosy face of a porcelain doll she carried in one arm, who looked nearly so much like her. In her other hand, she held parchment paper with a drawing of some sort. 

Her eyes followed the couple as they continued walking down the deck, as if she were waiting for the right moment to butt in, but hesitated upon realizing there was a stewardess guarding close by. Her gaze shifted back nervously to Millicent, wondering if the stewardess would find out about her secret hiding place and shoo her away. 

Millicent didn't spot anyone else accompanying the girl on deck, and was not concerned about promenade rules more than she was worried that the girl might really be lost. And that other passengers lounging about in their deck chairs were starting to take notice of the stowaway. Some raising questionable brows at how very simply she was dressed, drawing more attention to herself as a "poor wretch" who had wandered where she doesn't belong from the second or third class designated areas.

Knowing it wasn't safe for her to be hanging around the ship's funnel alone, Millicent made her way over to the girl, before any stewards were called on to go out of their noble way to "set the girl right".

Sighing contently, the stewardess found a comfy seat on a deck bench, directly in front of where the girl was hiding, where she could still keep watch of the Rochester children, who were taking turns with another first class boy throwing a spin-top toy onto the deck. 

"Ah, this spot might do. I don't know. What do you think? Is this the best view you'll get from this ship, or have I not seen enough of it yet?" Millicent invited the girl to chime in. "I'd love to hear your opinion, if you'd care to sit with me?" 

And realizing Millicent wouldn't box her ears for sneaking into places she'd been told she wasn't allowed to venture, the girl gingerly stepped out of her hiding spot, and happily joined Millicent on the bench with her parchment and drawing pens in her lap.

"I think it's lovely here, miss," she answered the stewardess softly. "I never meant to get lost here. I was following Uncle Jack, but now I can't find daddy or mummy."

"Well, that makes two of us. Would you believe that even though I work here, I still get lost on this ship as well?" Millicent told her. "Where were you and you mother before you got lost?"

"Mummy was going for a walk with her new friend, Miss Helga. She's never been to sea. She asked mummy If she felt like a stroll, because she didn't want to go alone," she informed Millicent, and then lowered her voice to a whisper, as she delivered the juiciest piece of her gossip. "She's trying to give the slip to Uncle Fabrizio. He's in love with Miss Helga, Uncle Jack says."

"And who is Uncle Jack?" Millicent asked her.

"He's there, talking to that lady with the red hair," she pointed out the lady in the golden tea dress, and the man with his sketchbook. "I asked mummy if I could come for a walk too, and she said yes, so long as I minded my manners. I stopped to tie my shoes, and when I looked up, mummy was gone. I went looking for her, and then I spotted Uncle Jack. So I followed him all the way up here, because I wanted to surprise him with our drawing I finished at breakfast."

"Is that what you have there?" Millie asked curiously of her parchment paper, which the girl happily passed over for her to see. "How lovely. Looks to me like a water lily...and is that a clown fish swimming right beside it?"

Cora nodded happily. 

"That's right, miss. Uncle Jack and I worked at it all morning. He's been teaching me how to draw all sorts of things. Birds, sea clouds, daddy with a mustache, and clovers. But I already knew how to make those. I just like listening to Uncle Jack talk anyway."

"I think Uncle Jack would be very proud of you."

"Yes, but, he doesn't know much about school learning, and that's where I teach him too. This morning at breakfast, Uncle Jack said to me, 'Cora, why do you like drawing clovers so much, huh?" And I said to him, 'Because they're alot like your eyes, Uncle Jack. And they're actually called shamrocks. They only have 3 leaves. A lucky clover has 4. But it's not really lucky. You just believe you're lucky when you find one. So, that means you are."

"You're very bright at school learning," Millicent told her. 

"I know all sorts of things, miss." 

And then the girl's big green eyes turned up from her clown fish drawing and met Millicent's. "I know things about you too. Only, why are you dressed like a maid?" she asked the stewardess.

"It's the work I do."

"But why do you work as a maid?" Cora asked her. "I know who you really are, miss. You can't fool me." 

"Is that so?" Millicent smiled at the girl's refreshing sense of confidence. 

Cora beamed back at her and holding a finger to her lips. 

"Yes, miss, but it's a secret." 

"Ah, I see," Millicent played along lightly. "Would you ever consider telling me your secret?"

Cora glanced at the other passengers walking by, making sure she could never be overheard, before searching through her collection of drawings for one in particular. 

"Right here. See? I drew you myself," Cora said, passing Millicent a portrait of a lady with sandy brown hair, pinned up in a chignon, with jeweled hair pins and a matching diamond necklace that complimented her long flowing, starlight blue gown.

"I'd say that looks exactly like a princess," Millie complimented the artist's work.

Cora nodded again, as she looked up at Millie, and whispered, so as no one else would hear her, "I swear you are, miss."

"How do you know I'm really a princess, and not a wicked queen instead?" Millie challenged her playfully.

"Because you walk like the other first class ladies. You move like you're floating. And when you sit, you tuck one ankle behind the other...Like this," Cora said.

And then used her own booted feet to model the form of correct seating posture Millicent had been swatted on the hand to remember as a girl, when her tutor had drilled it into her head how to sit like a proper lady. 

The habit so ingrained in Millicent's person now, that even in a maid's skirt, her performance of it was effortlessly unconscious. 

"And when you speak, you're kind to us, no matter who we are," Cora told her. "You're not cruel at all, like the matron."

"Well then, Miss Cora. If that were true, and I were a 'princess' in disguise, that's quite a secret you've trusted with me," Millicent told her. "And after sharing such a secret, I'd say it's only fair that I share one of mine too."

"Really?" Cora's eyes brightened excitedly. "Would you teach me to float when I walk too, just like a princess?"

"That's the easiest part of it," Millicent winked at her. "But mind you, we'll need to lay some groundwork of being a princess first. No matter what anyone should tell you, the way a princess carries herself starts here."

Millicent held her closed fist against the heart of her apron.

And Cora readily mirrored Millie's, holding her fist against her own heart.

"Be kind, and where kindness can't take you, be brave," Millicent told Cora. "It's all here, no matter who you are. That's my secret."

"Of course, miss," Cora affirmed her understanding. "I won't forget it."

"Good. Now. The second step to being royalty. It's all about hair," Millie went on. "Princesses have beautiful hair of all varieties. And lucky for you, I've had to dress the hair of many a princess and lady in my lifetime, in all the latest fashion. Would you like me to show you?"

Cora nodded eagerly. "Yes, miss."

"Alright then, have a seat, my lady," Millicent invited her, as she reached into her apron for a spare brown and evergreen plaid ribbon she'd kept in her collection of buttons, sewing needles, and lace for the many demands of lady passengers' snagged gowns and shawls. "I'll have your hair fit for a princess in no time. Then we'll see you off nice and pretty to your mum, alright?"

Millicent went to work finger-combing back the sides of Cora's hair, artfully weaving it into an elegant French braid falling down the girl's back, with little waterfall tendrils gracing the girl's blushing cheeks. Until at last, the stewardess wrapped up her weaving and primed the brown and evergreen ribbon to pin the chocolate ends of the French braid in place. 

By the time Millicent had finished dressing Cora's hair, it was high time to see the girl off back to her family, and round up the Rochester children back indoors, before Mrs. Rochester found her pair hanging off the deck chairs like a pair of zoo chimpanzees. 

"Ah, but we want to keep playing," Sarah Rochester groaned, as Millicent chased the little Rochester boy around with his coat, of which she had to hunt down clear past the second aft funnel.

"Your mummy will be back soon," Millicent said, leading a gathering of the ship's children she couldn't seem to stop collecting on the deck herding around her, as she guided them back inside toward C deck, where Mrs. Rochester would soon be waiting for them in the verandah, made the unofficial Children's play room for first class children, between the hours of 1-3 while the passengers were at afternoon tea.

Just in time for Mrs. Rochester to return with her lady's companion a half hour later, and find her children tuckered out in the verandah from their play, being none the wiser that they had spent all of afternoon running about the deck like heathens. Just as children ought to. 

"Oh dear, what little miracles," Mrs. Rochester said. "I've not managed to get them to sleep a wink since Southampton. How did you manage it? These are secrets every mother should know. Have you any children of your own?"

"Oh, no, madam, not I," Millicent said quickly, dreading that usual question which often follows when she gave her answer. 

How is it that a pretty young lady such as yourself remains unwed and without children? Isn't it your dream to mother children of your own someday, rather than always care for the children of others? Why are you not yet married?

But much to Millicent's relief, Mrs. Rochester didn't seem interested in all of that.

In fact, she seemed rather more pleased by Millie's answer. 

"The way you present yourself, I'd bet you've spent quite a bit of time serving ladies like me," Mrs. Rochester complimented her. "Quite impressive for a mere ship girl. Have you always worked as a maidservant on steamers?"

"Yes, ma'am," Millicent kept her answer short, hoping to avoid anymore questions that might inspire anymore elaborated answers about her mysterious background. 

"Do you have references?" Mrs. Rochester asked her next. 

But before Millicent could open her mouth to embellish on those, Mrs. Rochester cut her off.

"No matter. They won't be required. I like what I see," the lady went on with deepening interest. "How much are you paid to work aboard this ship?"

"Ten shillings a month, ma'am." 

 "Surely, you must want more," Mrs. Rochester dared her. "Should you accept my offer, I can promise you a respectable 25 pounds a year as my nanny." 

"That's very generous, ma'am, but forgive me," Millicent humbly made her excuses. "I'm in no place to accept. I have committed myself to work on Titanic for the time being."

"My dear, in my society, any contract can be negotiated, with the right price," she informed Millicent. "I understand you may need some time to think about my proposal. Even so, a good maidservant should be commended. If you won't accept my offer, perhaps I can assist you in putting in a respectable word. We women ought to lend another a hand. I find that the current movement in politics has taught me that we gentlewomen are no better than the drudges on this ship, when it comes to the overarching privilege of men."

"Once more, it's very gracious of you, madam," Millicent acknowledged her kindness politely, and proceeded to inform Mrs. Rochester of what she'd been instructed to tell guest who tried to awkwardly enchant her into their employment. "However, all of your compliments are due to the ship's standard of service, and I am glad to know you are pleased with our work here as stewardesses."

"It never fails to astonish me how remarkably modest you working people are. Almost as if you are keen on remaining invisible and unaccomplished by nature. Pity. We might've had quite a time traveling the world together, as my children's nanny. Not every woman of such limited means enjoys the opportunity of living a life of luxury traveling the world at her mistress's side."

"And those who refuse to become yet another accessory to some rich woman join up with sea service," Millie chose to see the silver lining, rather than the loss Mrs. Rochester was so sure would be hers. "A great deal more travel of the world, more freedom, and certainly more than 25 pounds a year."

"An accessory?" Mrs. Rochester sniffed a dry laugh. "How very pert of you."

"Not at all, madam. It's rather realistic. As your maid, I am forbidden to marry, forbidden to go unless it's at your beck and call, and forbidden to speak unless it pleases you. Forbidden to look you in the eyes when you walk by. Denied even to be called by my proper given name. No time off. Not even enough money to go anywhere. No security. No respect as a person at all, but rather a means to serve at the pleasure of someone else. To that life, I must graciously decline. Though I adore your children, I am not for sell, madam."

Mrs. Rochester's nose stiffened, inclining ever higher.

"Who are you to speak up to me in such a flippant way?" she challenged Millicent's frustrating refusal to submit to her desires. "You should know, that as greatly as I had the heart to lift a poor wretch like you out of the gutter, I am now ever so inclined to see that you never return from it. Who is your superior? I shall report your cheek to me straight away--"

"Alright, madam?" 

Millicent's heart dropped into her stomach for the man she never knew had walked up behind her within the verandah corridor, interrupting Mrs. Rochester right in the midst of her rebuke.

"It seems you were radged by the answer this stewardess gave you. Perhaps, I can help you settle the matter." 

Slowly, Millicent's eyes turned away from the sharp face of Mrs. Rochester, to the white gloves, white sleeves of a jacket, and just the hint of a navy double-breasted coat tucked in at the collar of a steward's dinner serving coat. A detail that the untrained Mrs. Rochester appeared to miss, but a keener Millicent knew was a fake as she took in James Moody's heroic face of lies beside her. 

"Are you head steward here?" Mrs. Rochester demanded of James. 

James glanced at a wide-eyed Millicent, who mumbled back a silent protesting what-are-you-doing that only he could read.

But damn it all to hell, he had jumped into this boat with her now, and they would go down in it together. 

"I am, madam," he replied strongly with a nod. "She is mine to do with as I please." 

Millicent's eyes only widened at that remark. Was it just her, or did he seem to be enjoying himself at this charade a bit too well?

"This one here has been quite rude for a maid talking up to me. I find it rather off putting that the staff here know nothing of their place. It is quite a disappointment, when I expected the same standard of service I got on the Olympic."

"I am truly sorry to hear that, madam. How can we make this right for you?"

"I'd like to see her sanctioned with the utmost punishment. Teach her a lesson she'll never forget. An immediate dismissal without references."

"Seems a bit harsh for her first offense, don't you suppose, madam?"

"I will not be satisfied otherwise," Mrs. Rochester said. "If she is not let go, I will go to the Purser next, and make such a fuss of White Star and its basest practices, it'll be your job on the line next!"

"Very well, madam," James nodded, turning intently back to Millicent. "Alright then, you. How dare you talk up to the passengers? Go on then. Pack away your things." 

Millicent made her due pardons. "It won't happen again, sir."

"I'll see to it personally that it doesn't," James warned her, stern as he could be with her without losing his composure in front of Mrs. Rochester. 

And after watching Millicent retreat back into the verandah, and shutting the doors safely behind her, James nodded assuredly to Mrs. Rochester. 

"S'ppose I'll take my leave now," he made his excuses. "Or may I be of any more assistance to you, madam?"

Mrs. Rochester scanned him over leisurely, suddenly revived with renewed inspiration. 

"Is everyone on this ship opposed to money, or are you more reasonable than the others? I say, with your handsome height, you'd make an excellent footman," Mrs. Rochester praised James, the 'steward'. "Do call on me in B-97, if it's a respectable post you want."

"Right, of course. Cheers, Madam."

James turned back to the verandah door to join Millicent inside. Eager to get away from the vulture-beaked, Mrs. Rochester, should he risk being spotted by any of the senior officers, who had sent him down for an errand to the engine room over an hour ago, and would be missing him by now. 

But Mrs. Rochester suddenly decided that she wasn't quite finished yet, and turned back around in the corridor to James. 

"You know, there was a bit of gossip going about the lounge today among the ladies at tea," Mrs. Rochester lowered her tone, her eyes wandering away from James's to rest on Millicent gathering up all the children's toys scattered around the verandah. "A Mr. Crawley and his son are on board the ship. However, some say the business that brings them here is quite scandalous indeed. If I were a man, such as yourself, looking for a quick fortune, I would leave no stone unturned. You never know when you will strike gold." 

And after leaving James with what she deemed a small favor for taking up her side, Mrs. Rochester and her lady's companion finally took their leave of him.

Giving James liberty at last to quietly slip into the verandah alone with Millicent.

"For a lady who wishes no one would recognize her," James said, as he kept watch out the glass of the verandah doorlight, in case Mrs. Rochester decided to come back for more. "You sure have a knack for standing out." 

"I could say the same about a man wearing a stolen serving jacket under his size," Millicent remarked. 

"Why are you not more careful?" he questioned her. 

"Why are you dressed like a steward?" she questioned him. 

"Because, far from you, I know how to take it as it comes, and think on my feet," James answered her. "And because, more than any words can say, no matter the excuse, I needed to see you again."

"You came here looking for me?"

"I'd been raring to say just a few words to you, ever since you left my cabin on sailing day, but I know I'd ne'er have a chance to get you alone, unless I played about the ship as a steward instead." 

"And exactly how long have you been 'playing about the ship as a steward'?" 

"Not long," James muttered with a little shrug. "I happened to spot you cleaning up after breakfast in the cafe not so long ago while going about my 'stewardly' duties."

"Four hours ago?" Millie asked, astonished. "You've been watching me work for the last four hours?"