The Ship of Dreams: A Titanic Lander AU

Stranger

There she was.

Titanic.

The ship of dreams - or so they said. The great, metal beast towered above, as two expensive automobiles took their passengers along the dock, and towards the crowd of people.

It really was grand - beautiful perhaps, to some people. Alexander Wickham, heir to the Wickham fortune and future newly wed, could at least admit that.

However, despite the ship's beauty and grandeur, despite all the excited, happy faces around them, Zander had never felt a sense of dread more than he did in that moment - the moment that he laid eyes on his own personal prison.

His door suddenly opened, and a hand was held out towards him.

"Let me take your baggage for you, mister."

"No thank you, Sir, I am quite capable to carry it out myself." Zander answered in barely concealed defiance, as he lowered himself out of the vehicle and turned back to retrieve his luggage from inside.

A nearby member of the White Star crew quickly took this from him, placed a tag on the handle, and loaded it on to a cart with lots of other bags. Zander scoffed quietly to himself - he didn't really plan on unpacking it once it finally reached his room.

"Ahem." Came a high pitched, grating voice from the other side of the automobile. He almost didn't hear it though the noise of the crowd, the screeching of the seagulls, or the gentle sound of the sea.

"Coming, Stacy." - His fiancé.

"Honestly, Alexander," his morther, Shannon Wickham, scolded his son as she stepped out of her own, separate car. The Wickham's butler - Miss Jones - stepped out of the car shortly after, and quickly took both of their bags without a word. "Where are your manners."

Zander ignored her, and moved to help his fiancé out of the other side of the vehicle. He held out his hand, and smiled mechanically at her. She smiled back. It was a dance they were well used to by now, these suffocating pleasantries and formalities. Where was the love? Where was the tenderness and calm he was supposed to feel upon looking at her?

He quite honestly felt sick at the thought of forever stretching out in front of him - a life by her side in a loveless, contrived marriage meant in part to secure both families financial future, and to squash rumours centred around Zander himself. He felt as though he could scream. Like he could heave out the contents of his stomach right there on to the cold, hard concrete that might as well be leading him to his own, ship-shaped headstone. But he couldn't. It would be unseemly.

There was a noose around his neck, and it was rapidly getting tighter and tighter. It had been that way since the day he was born.

Upon that thought, Zander reached in to his right coat pocket, digging around until he found it. The cold, surprisingly small metal box that contained the gift he received from his soon to be father-in-law just days earlier - the Hope Diamond, he had called it. A wretched thing. He cursed it, and all it represented. He was to gift this to Stacy on their wedding night, as some kind of gross, symbolic gesture.

Usually in the Hockley family, it was traditionally the son who 'gifted' it to his wife on their wedding night. But Stacy was the only daughter of Nathan Hockley, who had refused to remarry after his wife's death. So, the tradition now fell on Zander's shoulders. And his future son's. And so on. Forever.

It being a birthday gift was a very poor, very thin cover up. But he had just had to smile and accept it gracefully, as his family watched.

He felt as though those eyes were always watching. He was constantly under surveillance, almost feeling too scared to breathe...

"Excuse me, I must go and take a short walk before we leave dry land." Zander said, in a voice he barely recognised. His mother rolled her eyes, but said nothing. It was common knowledge that Zander experienced sea sickness and would often do this before a voyage to prepare himself. And while it was true, he truly did lack sea legs of any kind, and he did feel somewhat nauseous to be travelling by sea. But this time he felt nausea for an entirely, though somewhat related, reason.

He glanced at his watch as he walked through the crowd - 11.29am. He estimated that left him with a good fifteen minutes before he had to return. Just fifteen minutes time alone, away from those eyes, before it was all over...

Zander soon found himself in the middle of a busy, rowdy, crowded dockside pub. Not a place he often found himself, nor even the kind of place he would actually like to frequent. But something had drawn him in, perhaps a desire to see the ordinary; the kind of life he was missing out on.

More than a few people had noticed him, and were already starting to stare. Those eyes, again. Always watching. He definitely felt overdressed. Overwhelmed. Underprepared.

He tried his best to ignore the stares, and looked around for where the bar might be. That's when he saw a slightly denser, slightly more rowdy crowd of people gathered near the corner. Zander headed in that direction, assuming that must be where the drinks were served, but as he got closer he saw what they were actually doing was cheering what appeared to be a very intense game of poker.

Money was piled up on the table, and just as Zander approached, someone threw in two white slips of paper on top of the stack. Tickets to board the Titanic.

The crowd gasped and oooh'd, and Zander found he had lost his interest in downing as much alcohol as possible in the time he had, and decided to watch the drama unfold instead.

"Aw come on, Liam, why'd you do that?!"

The set up appeared to be three people against two, which seemed strange - wasn't it every person for themself in poker? Upon closer inspection, one man seemed to be very reluctant to take part in this bet, and held on tightly to his ticket.

"No way, I'll bet money but I ain't setting this thing down."

"Come on, look at my hand." He showed his friend his cards, but the other man just rolled his eyes. "Plus, we outnumber them so our odds are way higher."

"Never tell me the odds, Liam. Anyway, I'm still not doing it. You and Drew can lose your spot on the ship, I don't care, but I'm not. I gotta get home to my mother."

"Whatever you want, Sterling. But to me, life's not worth it without taking a little risk..." the man Zander assumed was Liam grinned, intoxicated by the thrill. Zander watched him intently, he had never seen someone live so carelessly. It almost made him feel envious of the man.

Meanwhile, the two other opponents sat quietly, looking at their cards. Both had very good, practiced poker faces, quite unlike Drew, Liam, and Sterling.

Zander's gaze lingered on the younger of the two, brunette hair, and his breath caught in his throat. Beautiful. The man could only be described as beautiful.

He had no idea how long he looked at the other man, but surely he must have felt him staring as he began to slowly look up. His emotionless, poker induced mask slipped briefly, as he took in Luke's appearance. His lips parted, curious words on the tip of this stranger's tongue.

'Speak, beautiful stranger' Zander silently urged. 'Tell me your name, please.'

But the suffocating moment was suddenly shattered by the distant, sharp blowing of a whistle.

Zander frowned, and reluctantly broke eye contact with the beautiful stranger to look at his watch; 11.48am.

After a brief moment, his mind caught up with him and he realised with a panic that he was late. How long he had been stood there, he didn't know - what he did know was that he had to hurry, if he was going to get on that boat. He had half a mind to stay right where he was and let the boat - and his family - leave without him, but thoughts of disownment convinced him otherwise.

That, however, didn't stop him fantasising (as he almost frantically pushed through the crowds, ran up the gangway to the first class entrance, and handed the steward his ticket) about just grabbing on to that beautiful stranger for dear life and just running in the opposite direction.

Running as far as their feet would carry them. Risking it all.

After all, what's life without a little risk...