In My Heart // GAWSTEN

King of the World

The answer to the question is yes, but Geoff can't find it in himself to speak at the moment. He slowly makes his way from one end of the deck to the other, his focus now on another screen where the footage from the researchers' submarines is being played.

The ships are going slowly past an ugly, crumbling door, and Geoff can remember exactly how beautiful it used to be - golden and shining and perfectly crafted. Right past it were seventy tables and what felt like a thousand chairs and butlers, delicious food, lively music, boring company... and this is what it turned into. All those people, all those dreams... dead.

Geoff raises a shaky hand to his mouth and lets out a quiet sob.

"Mr. Wigington, would you like to go back to-"

"No."

"Mr.-"

"No!"

The deck falls silent. Everyone has stopped what they're doing to stare. Geoff takes a moment to collect himself and then turns, finding the nearest chair. He settles into it and, after Lovett presses play on his tape recorder, begins to speak.

"It's been 84 years... and I can still smell the fresh paint." He sighs quietly to himself. He hasn't spoken once about those few days and nights on the ship, but now that he's seen the drawing again, his heart is bursting.

"The china had never been used," he continues softly. "The sheets had never been slept in. Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams. And it was. It really was..." He rubs a hand absently at his jaw. "It was the ship of dreams to everyone else. But to me, it was a slave ship, taking me back to America in chains. Outside, I was everything a well brought up young man should be. Inside, I was screaming."

---

"So this is the ship they say is unsinkable," seventeen year old Geoff muttered. He wasn't nearly as impressed as he expected to be.

"It is unsinkable," Geoff's fiancé, Cal, replied proudly. "God himself couldn't sink this ship."

"Hm. I thought it would be bigger," Geoff remarked.

"Honestly, Cal, if you weren't forever booking everything at the last instant, we could have gone through the terminal instead of running along the dock like some squalid immigrant family," Geoff's mother chastised.

"All part of my charm, Amy. At any rate, it was my darling fiancé's beauty rituals which made us late."

Geoff scowled. "You told me to change."

"I couldn't let you wear black on sailing day, sweet pea. It's bad luck."

Geoff mumbled, "I felt like black."

"Here I've pulled every string I could to book us on the grandest ship in history, in her most luxurious suites, and you act as if you're going to your execution."

Geoff ignored Cal. He looked up to see the monstrous Titanic looming over them like a great iron wall. Cal motioned him forward, and he reluctantly entered the gangway to the D Deck doors. He couldn't shake his sense of overwhelming dread.

---

"Awsten, you are pazzo!" Fabrizio, Awsten's Italian friend hissed. "You bet everything we have!"

Awsten leaned close. "When you got nothing," he murmured, "you got nothing to lose."

Fabrizio sat back; Awsten was right. 'Everything' was just a measly handful of spare change, and now there were tickets to America on the table. Even just the gamble would be worth it.

"You moron," one of the Swedes grumbled to the other. "I can't believe you bet our tickets."

"Alright," Awsten demanded. "Moment of truth. Somebody's life's about to change." He turned to his friend. "Brizio?"