The Explorer's Apprentice

66:Still The One

I don't own these people....

Marley Faulkner

“Mr. Andrews! Mr. Andrews!”  Marley skids through the halls like a ferocious cheetah, knocking into the bodies of several unsuspecting persons and not even finding the time to apologize. Only one thing is on her mind in this moment. Only one thing matters—one person, one face.

She looks around, frantically, her red hair whipping her face at her brash movements. Oh God…where is he…Oh God please, where is he….

Marley knows that she doesn’t have much time, and any time wasted could hurt not only her, but Jack, too. Her heart is pounding as she rounds a corner, but the voice she hears suddenly is like a beacon of light among hopeless darkness.

“Anyone in here!” The man calls, frantically checking the vacant rooms merging into the halls.

“Mr. Andrews!” Marley can’t get over to him fast enough. She knows that he’s the only one who can help her and for this, he’s like a savior. “Thank God! Where would the master of arms take someone under arrest?” She can hardly breathe and her heartbeat echoes through her pink ears.

He shakes his head at her, his eyes bedazzled with confusion. “What? You have to get to a boat, right away —“

“No!” Her voice has never sounded so powerful. It’s rich and controlling tone is enough to startle the man twice her age standing before her. But Marley has never felt so determined either. She knows what she needs to do and won’t be stopped. Even if she dies trying. Fortitude rages through her blood stream like a drug. “I’m doing this with or without your help, sir. But without will take longer.”

Marley has made a terrible mistake, and she knows it. Jack’s love is like crisp, clean air—enveloping and always present, even when he isn’t. She knew it right from the start when he first pulled her back from over the side of Titanic, and Marley knew it when she let him make love to her, only hours before. She isn’t sure of what exactly went on during that summer night of 1998, and perhaps she never will be. But she does know one thing for sure, and that’s that what her Uncle Guard said was the most truthful thing she’s ever been told. And then when you can’t ever forget it, you know that that’s the one.

A thief is not who dreamed with, laughed with, smiled with, loved with—and a thief is not Jack Dawson. She’s as certain of this as she is her own name—both of them.

Even if she doubted it all for a while, and for this, she’s never been more sorry. I do know you, Jack Dawson. And I know how I feel about you. I always have. You make me blissfully, beautifully, passionately certain, and damn it, I'm in love with you. 

She’ll never doubt this again.

Mr. Andrews shakes his head. His eyes are full of nothing but fatherly concern. Perhaps it’s his gentle eyes, or the way Marley can empathize with his feelings—but she’s truly grown to love this kind man. “Take the elevator to the very bottom, and go to the left. Down the crewmen’s passage, then go right, then left again at the stairs. From there you’ll come to a corridor….”

Marley closes her eyes, taking in deep breaths as she tries to hold on to each piece of information that he gives her. I’m coming, Jack.