April 14th, 1912

All around him were rows of white dinner plates, trimmed in Colbalt blue and gold, silver-plated napkin rings, silverware, copper cooking pots, teapots, and many alike. 

It was a wonder none of them had skated off the shelves already with the tilt of the ship, as she was pulled down by the head.

There was still a light outside in the food service corridor, shining in from under the door of the dish pantry.

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

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

The corridor light outside the door rekindled.

And Lowe felt the stewardess next to him sigh in great relief.

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

But as the ship fell forward at a steeper 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.

"Mr. Lowe," she said in a hushed tone. "Will we never find our way off this ship?"

Lowe listened closely to the silence of the hallway outside the locked dish pantry. Funny to call it a silence, really, when it was anything but.

No one was coming back for them.

They'd be barmy to try.

Because if his theory was correct, the violent end that awaited them might be far worse than taking their chances in the freezing Atlantic.

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

Grim news for anyone like themselves, trapped in a storeroom such as this.

"I suppose someone might free us still, if by chance, they-"

The light dimmed again.

They both held onto their breath this time.

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

Lowe counted up to eleven this time, before the lights flickered back on again.

Dimmer than before.

The harrowing reddish afterglow tarnishing the warm golden luminosity of the food passage lamps.

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

Lowe knew there was only a matter of time before she reached her limit against the crushing stress.

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

When the ship's lights extinguished for good, her death would inevitably follow.

"Don't be frightened," he said to the maid.

And the quiet fervor of protectiveness he felt for her in those words was hardly suitable for an officer and a stewardess by all social standard, but his unspoken feelings were easily masked by his ethical duty as a ship officer to look after all passengers aboard, including fellow crew members.

"I'm not frightened," she whispered back to him.

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

Looking down at her heels and his dress shoes crisscrossed around each other to conserve the space. And despite their rank and position on the ship, the stewardess was happy to move over and make room for him.

Her Psyche hair twist falling undone from under her white cap, revealing strands of her ribboning hair, so fair and angelic, even in the fading light.

"What do you suppose will happen?" she asked him.

Lowe scanned the groaning walls surrounding them, all four buzzing with the gushing sounds of the sea behind them, washing out the groaning ship's dying wails and knocks.

"The worst we could ever imagine," he said quietly.

"Well, I'd say the worst part for us is over then, wouldn't you agree?" she said to him. "We found each other in time to say goodbye...I suppose that's an improvement for us, Harry...Even if finding me again on this ship was only by accident."

"None of it was accident," Lowe answered. "I meant everything I'd'e done, and everything I'd'e said. And that's the end of it."

"Then you're a fool, Harry."

"You're wasting your breath on me. Can you think of no better time to argue about it than this? Never mind. Don't answer that. It was never the right bloody time for us, was it?" Lowe remarked. "It was always this way, or that way....But for all their quarreling about what was proper and what was not, doesn't seem to matter much here anymore now, does it?...May as well have our honest say."

"Mr. Lowe," she told him gently. "You should know that...had it been different for us, I would've..."

The lights dimmed again, stealing her last words.

Casting the dish pantry into darkness again.

This time, for the rest of eternity.

And in that harrowing darkness, Lowe would've done anything to distract her from the chilling sounds of the ship tearing itself apart.

And so, he whispered an answer to her unfinished sentence against her ear.

"I do know it...I've known for some years now, even if I was too late to know I felt the same."

"Then if it was always the same for you, please grant me one last kindness, and don't hold the truth back from me," she said. "I want your honesty and nothing else. Is there any hope for that life now? Will we ever make it out of here to know it together?"

"I'm living it with you as we speak. Even if it's only just a moment longer, or that it's quite unlikely that anyone would find us now," he confessed to her. "I do believe we're on our own now, love."

And after taking a moment to accept his damning words, shutting out the groaning of a dying ship with the comfort of his beating heart, she found the courage to ask him next,

"Will it be painful, do you think?...To die in such a way?"

"I can't say, love," Lowe answered her honestly, in the same softness of tone. "But whatever follows it, you won't ever have to endure it alone-"

"You shouldn't toy with me like that-"

"Whatever should happen now," Lowe went on, before she could save him from regretting it. "Whatever pain I must endure in this uncertain fate, I will never again abandon you, Lucy. And had it taken me a lifetime, I'de come looking for you all the same. You have my word that I will remain your constant until the very end."

And though it was the only answer she ever wanted from him, it was an answer that became hers too late.

Because all the more tragic than dying was knowing an answer not a lifetime sooner.