Written by Gina-Neko-Chan
Based on some situations originated by James Cameron.

There was blood on his hands. Too much blood. Far too much blood. And that wasn’t something he could ignore as he watched his friend’s life slipping frantically through his fingers like sand in a desert.

Fabrizio di Rossi might’ve said later that most people said things like that happened in a very slow view, as though someone had slowed down time. In truth, it happened so fast that one second Tommy Ryan was standing, healthy, breathing, and living, next to him, and suddenly, he was in Fabrizio’s arms, bleeding, gasping, and dying.

"No! No, no, no!" he heard himself shouting. He was frantic; he knew what was going to happen. "Tommy, no!" He stared up at the officer who was staring down at them. He cursed in his native language without thinking and went back to his dying friend. "No, no! Per favore, aiutarlo! Please! Anyone, help!" Too fast, too soon, the light was fading from the gray. One second they were focused on the dark brown, then on absolutely nothing at all.

They just stared straight ahead.

Because, the Italian realized, bile in his throat, there was nothing left to see.

Far off, in some other distant galaxy, he heard the gunshot one last time.

*****

"Why’m I goin’ to the States?" The Irishman spoke around his cigarette, smiling good-naturedly. "Simple. I want out."

"Non capisco. You want…out?" Fabrizio asked, confused. Jack rolled his sea-green eyes and grinned. "He means he wants to get away. Like us." His dark-haired friend blinked, and then grinned along with the rest of them. "Ah…that makes more sense. Forgive me, those…those…" He waved his hand in a circle, trying to find the word, making Jack chuckle at some weird thought going on in his head and causing Tommy to give him a look.

Fabrizio snapped his fingers. "Saying, was it?"

"More like a simple statement of fact." Tommy grinned again.

"Oh." There was a slight pause. "But what are you going to do there?"

Tommy blew some smoke playfully in the dark-haired man’s face. "Well, now, I’m not really sure."

Fabrizio waved his hand in front of his face, coughing. "B-but how c-can you—" He coughed again and took a long swig from his glass. Once he resurfaced, he pressed on. "—go to a place and not know what to do?"

"The Irish don't know what they want and are prepared to fight to the death to get it," Tommy quoted, expertly flicking his cigarette butt into the empty glass between the three and reaching for a full one. "I fully plan on making it to the States and doing just that. Oi!" He took a swipe at Jack as the latter suddenly lurched forward and grabbed the last mug of ale that he’d been about to pick up. Jack took a triumphant sip and said, "Too slow, Tommy-boy. Just too slow." He took another sip, grinning cheekily.

Gray eyes rolled as Tommy shook his head and looked around for another glass. "You aren’t still thinkin’ about that first class redhead, are you?"

Jack made a face. "What, you still think I don’t have a chance?"

"Like I said--angels flyin’ out yer arse."

Jack stuck out his tongue. "I think I have a chance."

"What makes you say that?" Tommy asked absentmindedly, finally scoring another drink and taking a mouthful. Fabrizio raised his eyebrows as a pretty blonde girl walked by, completely forgetting about the conversation. Jack tapped him on the cheek and said to Tommy, "Because I saved her life before, and she got me invited to dinner, first class style."

Tommy choked on the swallow he’d just taken and beat his chest, coughing. "What?"

"Easy there," Jack said, laughing as his friend coughed twice more before taking a deep breath and another long swig of ale. "Yeah. She…uh…she slipped and almost fell overboard, but I helped her back up."

Fabrizio looked deeply interested. "What was she doing that made her slip?"

"Um…looking at the propellers."

"You actually got invited to a first class dinner?" Tommy managed, putting his cup down. "Give me a bloody ‘eart attack. Didn’t expect that at all."

"I was pretty shocked myself," Jack admitted, shrugging his shoulders. "Anyway, I plan on making it as memorable a night as possible." He smiled his signature grin. "Leave a lasting impression, you know?"

"Not really," Tommy said, and Fabrizio laughed. "But I’m likely to soon enough, I reckon."

*****

"Move! Dance!" Jack laughed, spinning Rose around wildly. "C’mon!" Her auburn hair was bouncing madly as the pair laughed. Fabrizio and Tommy both whooped as Jack dipped the first class girl and the both of them almost toppled over. "He certainly caught a good one," someone commented, and the surrounding crowd chuckled.

Jack shot his two friends a playful grin, as though he’d heard the remark, and twirled Rose again. "So, that’s what he meant," Fabrizio shouted over the din, beaming. Tommy was still laughing at the fact that Jack had actually managed to woo a first class girl. And of all the girls, he had to choose an engaged one, too! In a strange way, it was really, really amusing.

The same blonde girl from before—Fabrizio’s new girlfriend, apparently, by the name of Helga—walked shyly over. The dark-haired man immediately jumped up and, next thing anyone knew, they were on the dance floor as well. "Of course I will dance with you! Dancing is meraviglioso!" Tommy rolled his eyes again at the same moment one of the other passengers took Fabrizio’s place and grabbed the nearest glass of beer. "Oi, ginger. When you plan on getting out of that seat?"

Tommy took a long drag on his cigarette and said vaguely, "Once I beat you at arm wrestling for callin’ me ginger, I figure."

The passenger raised his eyebrows, then clenched them together as he slammed his elbow on the table. "I’m sorely tempted to take that offer."

"Wasn’t an offer." Tommy faced the Englishman, placed his cigarette back in his mouth, and placed his elbow on the table as well. The two locked hands and counted to three before beginning.

He lost, of course. He knew that was going to happen the moment he laid eyes on his opponent--he was huge, but the challenge brought on more people. He was in the middle of his fourth match--having lost spectacularly the third time, but won the second--when he heard a feminine voice say loudly, with more than a hint of superior upbringing, "So, you think you’re big, tough men?" Rose DeWitt Bukater was standing in front of them next to, typically, Jack Dawson, the pair of them smiling playfully. She reached down and plucked the cigarette from the Irishman’s bewildered mouth and took a short drag from it before inclining her head and saying smugly, "Let’s see you do this!" Fabrizio popped his head out comically from behind Jack, watching interestedly as Rose handed the train of her ruby-red dress to the artist. She closed her eyes, concentrating. The lot of them stared idiotically as the young woman rose up as though she were floating, before they realized she was balancing on the tip of her toes expertly. Her face clenched in pain as she cried out and fell sideways into Jack’s arms, laughing and saying happily, "I haven’t done that in years!" He laughed with her as the men clapped. She looked back down at the group. "Well? What do you have to say to that?" she asked, not arrogantly, but with an indication of a self-satisfied air about her.

Tommy swallowed.

"I’d say, ma’am, that’d I’d like me cigarette back, if ya wouldn’t mind it terribly."

*****

It was too late. No time for tears. It wasn’t the time for mourning. It was the time to move, to go, and to get out.

That required a way to do so.

Not even looking at what he was doing, but staring straight ahead, Fabrizio untied the knots on the lifebelt and carefully slipped it off. He was out of his body. Tommy was—his mind almost refused to admit it—dead, Helga was probably dead, Jack and Rose were probably dead. Even the officer who’d killed Tommy was dead. How was it that just three hours ago—hours—he was lying in his bunk back in third class, dreaming about America and how amazing it would be? Now, he realized, it was going to be just a dream. There was no getting out of this.

But maybe trying would make that less real.

"We’ll get through this," Tommy had said. "We’ll get through this, and we’ll see the Lady Liberty, and we’ll laugh because we were the lucky sons of bitches who managed to get through this."

Cut the rope, get away, and try to live. That was what it came to in the end, he noticed. And wipe the blood off his hands.

Everything happened so fast that he didn’t have time to notice the wires snapping away from the deck, the column ahead of them beginning to creak towards him and a dozen other people.

And when he looked up and saw it coming down, all he managed was a yell.

And then, at least, it was over.

*****

"I’d asked," Rose said quietly to the crew, "about the two nice men I’d met that night, the men Jack had befriended so easily—one before the other, of course. Jack and Fabrizio were nigh inseparable before I came along."

"So, what happened to them?" Bodine asked curiously.

Rose smiled sadly. "Tommy, from what I was told, died in Fabrizio’s arms." The whole crew’s eyes widened as one. "He’d been shot, apparently, for being pushed forward. That’s what the list said, anyways." She looked off into the distance, perhaps remembering the last time she’d seen the foreign pair. "Fabrizio was killed by the first column as it crashed down on top of him, though he most likely would have died in the water either way." She looked back at the crew. "I never saw them again after Jack sent them off." They saw the sadness in her eyes as she continued.

"It was ironic, in a way. Jack told me they wanted nothing more than to go to America. Neither of them ever even made it off the ship."

*****

Later that night, as Rose Dawson walked towards the Grand Staircase, towards the man with the sandy blond hair, she noticed in the corner of her eye, among all the smiles, two familiar faces who smiled more warmly than the rest, one framed by black hair and the other with curls of red.

The End.

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