Where We First Met
When they make it to the open air, it’s a nightmare.
Where the Titanic had been tilting slowly into the water before, it is completely sinking now, its front end completely submerged by dark waves below. Eve tries not to think about the men in the lowest levels, the third-class passengers who were unable to make it to the upper decks.
Even if they had, there is no guaranteeing that they could survive this.
Eve and Villanelle latch themselves to the railing of the ship, pulling themselves to the highest point of the ship as its back end pitches itself higher and higher into the air. They pass a priest who has strapped himself to one of the boilers, his hands grasped by at least ten other passengers as he recites prayers and rites. A woman clutches onto him, a small child in her arms, its screams deafening as the priest continues on, tracing a cross onto the child’s forehead with the pad of his thumb.
Eve can’t look away, can’t stop looking at the child’s soft features as they all race towards hell. She has never been a religious woman - but now as the Titanic reaches towards heaven, she prays that someone will save them.
Villanelle shakes her from her stupor.
“Eve! We have to move!” she shouts, determination etched into her face.
Despite the fact that their chances of making it out are slim to none, Eve has never seen her look so alive.
Villanelle’s hair whips around her in arcs, her muscles straining against her shirt as she heaves herself higher. She reaches backward, clasping Eve’s hand in hers with a grip Eve didn’t know a mortal could possess. Gravity threatens to send them both hurtling down into icy depths as Eve tightens her other hand around the cold railing. She wills her legs to move, her knees weak and trembling, but by some force of nature they muster up the strength to keep her upright.
Other passengers aren’t so lucky.
Those who can’t hang onto the railing soon lose their footing, sliding down the deck into the water below. As Eve looks out into the sea, she can see the small white dots of the lifeboats on the horizon. For a moment, she wonders if Niko made it to one of them, before realizing that she doesn’t really care either way.
The Titanic groans from under their feet, the strain on the vessel becoming too much, even for its robust construction. Eve gasps as the lights surrounding them flicker off, the last remaining source being the moon that gleams above them. Somehow, they manage to fight their way to the stern of the ship, and as Eve looks over the edge, she sees the propeller emerge from the ocean.
It doesn’t even seem real.
As they rise steadily, Eve feels her feet begin to slip along the deck, letting out a yelp as she loses traction and starts to fall. Villanelle, somehow quicker than a force of nature, snatches her with a strong arm and pulls her swiftly to her chest. She latches the other to the stern’s railing, sturdy even as the ship tilts and trembles.
To their right, a young woman - who couldn’t be any older than Villanelle - clings desperately to the railing herself. There are tears streaming down her face, panicked sobs escaping her throat as the waters below hold her wide eyes hostage. She’s most likely third-class, her reddish hair is tangled and matted from the wind, her clothes ragged and torn. It’s a miracle that she’s alive, and not trapped in the lower levels that are filled with water.
“Hey… hey!” Eve yells to her.
The woman snaps her gaze to them, gasping harshly for air. She says nothing, only bores her eyes into Eve’s as screams resound around them.
“You’re gonna make it, alright?”
Eve doesn’t know why she says it. Maybe it’s a roundabout way to tell herself that this doesn’t have to be the end for them. The woman shakes her head quickly, her eyes flickering back down to the crushing waves.
It’s then that Eve hears the first creak.
It starts small, growing second by second into a long, painful groan of wood and metal. Eve snaps her head down, and watches the middle of the deck begin to break apart, splinters of wood bursting open as sparks from the electrical lines flash in short bursts of light. The slow descent of the Titanic’s front end has become too much, one of it’s four boilers collapsing onto desperately swimming passengers below - killing them instantly.
Where the tilt into the ocean was slow and languid before, it has only accelerated, the front half of the now broken vessel filling with water, and acting like a ball and chain as it drags the back half - where Eve and Villanelle cling desperately to it’s railing - into the dark ocean below. Villanelle holds Eve tighter, the angle of the remaining ship twisting until they are almost straight up in the air.
The deck under their feet shifts until it’s almost not there at all, when Villanelle looks her in the eyes.
“Get over the railing!”
Villanelle doesn’t have to tell her twice.
Eve detaches herself from Villanelle’s warm chest, and flings her legs over the railing haphazardly. Villanelle follows suit, now pressed securely to her side as they rise until they are directly above the ocean, lying down on.
The woman next to them isn’t so lucky.
She dangles perilously from the railing, a shoe falling off her foot and sailing into the water below. The waves crash, break into the ship with increasing fury as the woman screams and flails. Eve shifts closer to her, extending a hand as she stretches.
“Give me your hand!”
The woman can only give her one last terrified look, before her grip slackens and she falls.
Eve can’t look away, watches in horror as the woman’s screaming form falls until she is swallowed by the North Atlantic.
“Eve, look at me.”
Eve doesn’t realize that she’s trembling, her eyes fixed on the water until Villanelle speaks.
She smiles, beautiful in the midst of so much death and chaos, as she rests her hand over Eve’s on the railing. It makes Eve choke out a wet laugh, her brain memorizing Villanelle’s features because when she goes she wants it to be the only thing she sees.
She just wishes that they had more time.
They’re sinking faster now, only a minute or so left until the ship is engulfed completely. Eve trembles as they plunge further, trying to prepare herself for the ice-like darkness that awaits them. Villanelle’s hand is still firmly in hers, warm despite the wind and water, allowing Eve the most basic of comforts.
“This is where we first met,” Villanelle says softly.
Eve almost doesn’t hear her over the screams and the roar of the ocean, her ears thrumming loudly, but she does. She tightens her hand around Villanelle’s and presses herself closer into her side, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead.
She hopes it’s enough.
“I love you,” Eve whispers in her ear.
Villanelle’s eyes close, a lone tear escaping and running down her cheek.
“Please don’t let go, Eve,” she pleads gently.
“Never.”
It’s the last thing Eve says before they go under.
~~~
For a moment, Villanelle is in Russia.
She has just broken through the ice of the lake, Pyotr screaming her name as her body spasms frozen from the cold. His voice becomes muffled, distanced as she floats her way towards the bottom, darkness creeping into the edges of her vision.
They thought the lake would be safe enough to go ice fishing on, believing that they could catch something for Mama to cook. Pyotr just wanted something to eat, Villanelle wanted her mother to be proud.
Two weeks later, Villanelle was dropped off at the orphanage.
Now, as she sinks into the depths of the ocean, she wonders if Pyotr ever found out where she went. Before she has a chance to think on it, however, Eve’s hand slips out of hers, separated by the sheer force of the ship pulling them to the bottom. Villanelle kicks with everything she has, reaches out her hand in hopes of recapturing Eve’s. All that’s there is swirling water, an emptiness that fills Villanelle and crushes her with its sheer power.
Somehow, she’s able to force her way to the surface of the water, breaking through with a ragged gasp as air fills her lungs. Villanelle isn’t alone, hundreds of passengers flail around her, screaming and paddling in the freezing water as they search for debris to float on.
Everyone is in her line of sight, except for Eve.
Villanelle treads water, her feet beginning to feel like lead blocks attached to her legs. She swims with increasing difficulty, pushing through the mass of passengers desperately clutching onto life.
She knows that if they don’t get out of this water, it will not hesitate to kill every single one of them.
“Eve!” Villanelle calls out, her head whipping to and fro, hoping to catch a glimpse of dark curls and a blue dress. To her horror, she soon does, watching a man push Eve’s head under the surface of the water in an attempt to grasp at her lifejacket.
She sees red.
Villanelle moves quickly, maneuvering through the remaining people and yanking the man off of Eve. She emerges quickly, sputtering and blinking water out of her eyes as the man tries to make another pass at her.
“Get off!” Villanelle shouts.
The man doesn't reply, struggling to get out of Villanelle’s grip in order to get to the prized vest keeping Eve afloat. His face is already getting deathly pale, the last bits of life raging in his eyes, making him look like a rabid dog.
Villanelle delivers a swift punch to his nose, another when he refuses to relent as she pushes him away. Red blood mixes with the dark blue of the water reflected in the moonlight. Eve watches with wide eyes as Villanelle shouts to her,
“Swim, Eve!”
Eve nods frantically, paddling awkwardly as she follows Villanelle to more open waters.
“It’s so cold.”
“Don’t stop,” Villanelle pants, spying what looks to be a slab of wood floating a few feet away. It’s not much, but it could get them out of the water at the very least.
“Eve, we have to get to that piece of wood okay?” she gasps, the water licking at her ears as her legs struggle to keep her afloat. Eve nods, her hands reaching forward to wind under Villanelle’s arms, relieving her slightly. Together they slowly shift their way to the piece of wood - a door, upon further inspection - and collapse halfway onto it once they arrive.
Eve pushes her way onto the door, looking exhausted and half-drowned as she collapses in a wet heap. She briefly raises her head to look at Villanelle through her partially-hooded eyes.
“Aren’t you coming up here?”
“I doubt it will be able to hold me, Eve.”
“Don’t be fucking stupid, this thing is huge,” Eve argues.
Villanelle very much doubts it.
She relents anyways, placing her hands flat on the door and pushing upwards to lay onto it.
It flips, knocking them both unceremoniously back into the water.
“Shit!”
Villanelle pushes a shivering Eve back onto the door, resting her arms on the top to give her freezing limbs a break. She’s lost all feeling in her legs now, a cold exhaustion settling itself into her chest. All she wants to do is to close her eyes, find a brief reprieve from the icy smell of death that is already permeating the air.
“Vill, you can’t stay there,” Eve protests, shifting to lie on her stomach so that she’s face-to-face with Villanelle. “It’s too cold, you’ll-”
“I’ll be alright, Eve.”
A lie.
She really needs to cut that out.
“But-”
“Eve, I’m Russian,” Villanelle chuckles hoarsely. “If anyone can handle a little cold, it’s me.”
Another lie.
~~~
It’s been about thirty minutes, and everything is silent.
The passengers, once flailing in the water, are still now. Eve knows that they’re dead, their stark white corpses floating in the water, hearts stopped. Villanelle is still in the water, her arms no longer trembling from the sheer cold of the ocean.
Eve is terrified. She recognizes that Villanelle is strong, but no one can survive this for long. She hasn't let Eve switch with her, stubborn as a mule. They had tried to get the door to work, but after much trial and error, both realized that there wasn't any way for them both to fit, and stay dry. Villanelle hadn’t caved, and has stayed in the water for now the better part of half an hour, without so much of a whimper.
Wait.
She hasn’t said anything.
“Oh my god,” Eve breathes, her heart stopping for a moment.
She can’t be dead. She can’t leave Eve alone out here. Eve already loves her too much to be without her.
“Villanelle… Villanelle, open your eyes,” Eve whispers, shaking Villanelle’s arms with increasing urgency.
For a moment, she doesn’t respond. Then, like a blessing from heaven, her eyes flutter open - hazy and unfocused, but there nonetheless.
“Eve…” she croaks, her lips blue and her skin chalky white.
She already looks like she belongs in a casket.
“You have to stay awake for me, darling,” Eve tells her softly, brushing a frozen piece of hair out of her eyes.
Villanelle nods, shuddering as her breath escapes from her in short, visible puffs.
“Eve?”
“What?”
Villanelle slowly lifts her head to look Eve in the eyes.
“Did I ruin your life?” she asks, the question wet sounding and ragged.
“Don’t be silly-”
“I’m serious Eve.”
Eve pauses for a moment.
It’s true that if she and Villanelle never met, she probably would be on a lifeboat right now. It’s also true that she wouldn’t be on a door surrounded by frozen bodies.
But it’s true that if they had never met, Eve would be as good as dead too. Her spirit broken, her body no longer hers. Eve has lived more in the past few days than she has in the entirety of her existence, and that counts for something. Without Villanelle, she would never have gotten to experience any of it.
When she opens her mouth, there’s no hesitation.
“No, Villanelle. You didn’t ruin my life. Ever since meeting you… god, it’s like I’m awake for the very first time,”
She cups Villanelle’s icy cheek.
“If anything, you saved me.”
Villanelle smiles softly, her eyes brightening the slightest bit as they inch their way towards oblivion. It soon melts off her face, however, her eyes flickering until they shut completely.
“Vill, no. Open your eyes… please, Villanelle, I know you’re tired but you have to stay awake for me, otherwise-”
Eve’s breath hitches.
“Otherwise you might not wake up.”
Villanelle strains her eyes open, a slow and heavy motion. For an instant, Eve thinks of Atlas, the greek god who was forced to hold up the world on his shoulders. Eve wonders if that’s how it feels to Villanelle, the world crashing down onto her and forcing her into an eternal sleep.
“You are very lucky that I like you so much,” Villanelle croaks.
Eve smiles a little.
“You love me, darling.”
Villanelle shifts, clumsily moving her hand to rest over Eve’s. Her fingers are like icicles, pale and frozen stiff as they press into the equally cold flesh of Eve’s hand.
“I do,” Villanelle replies softly.
Her voice is softer now, each word that leaves her mouth losing its strength, the intensity that makes Villanelle who she is. She’s losing all of it, becoming a shell right before Eve’s eyes. It’s worse than terrifying, beyond any word that she knows, and it consumes her as she looks into dulled hazel.
Eve has to do something.
Now.
“Tell me where we’re going to go once we get to America,” Eve asks her.
Villanelle’s eyebrows scrunch together, almost as if she’s forgotten that there is such a place, and not solely ice, water, and pain. She takes a moment to think about it, before nodding to herself and answering in a hushed voice.
“Someplace… warm, I think,” she says. “I used to think that I would take you to Alaska, but now I am not so sure about that.”
Eve chuckles.
“Anywhere but the South, honey,” she replies.
“I am not that cruel.”
“ I would like to see you in a cowboy hat and boots someday, though.”
Villanelle makes a face.
“Wild west is not fashionable, Eve.”
“You’d make it look good.”
Villanelle blesses her with a smirk.
Now, that’s her Villanelle.
“I make everything look good.”
Eve moves forward, presses her lips to Villanelle’s frost-covered forehead as she ignores that water that sloshes over the edges of the door.
“And you’re so humble too,” Eve tells her gently.
For a moment, it’s silent. Only the sounds of the waves against the debris, steady and rhythmic as they float along the horizon. Eve looks, and swears she can see the lifeboats on the edge of it, specks against the dim light of the moon.
She wonders if they will bother trying to see if they are still alive.
Just as she’s beginning to think on the possibility of getting their attention, the door knocks roughly against a burly object. Eve turns to see Villanelle’s eyes wide, her mouth agape as her breath shudders before she sees it.
It’s a dead man.
His eyes are open, glassy and colorless as his face collects frost and ice. The white of his beard blends in with the whiteness of his face and neck, almost as if all of the blood was drained from his body before he met his end.
“Konstantin…” Villanelle whispers.
Eve stops breathing.
She had never actually met Konstantin, everything she knew of him had come from Villanelle’s mouth. But even so, she knew enough to deduce that Konstantin was nothing less than a con man, a criminal who would do anything to ensure his own survival.
It didn’t change the fact that he was important to Villanelle, though.
So Eve tries to say something, anything in a feeble attempt to make it better. Even though they are dying in the middle of the fucking ocean with only Villanelle’s dead mentor to keep them company.
“Villanelle, I-”
“He offered me a boat,” Villanelle interrupts, voice soft and disbelieving.
“What?”
“He offered me a boat,” Villanelle repeats, her face beginning to contort in pain. “He had struck some sort of deal with an officer - safety in exchange for working in the criminal underground once we got to America.”
Eve can’t believe it. Villanelle had a chance to escape, to save herself, but here she is. Dying in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic.
And Villanelle says she’s the stupid one.
“Why didn’t you go?” Eve asks incredulously. “Vill, that was your chance-”
“I meant it when I said I wanted out, Eve,” Villanelle murmurs. “I couldn’t go back, I won’t. Even if it ends up killing me, I won’t do it.”
She trails off, looking back into Konstantin’s soulless eyes.
“If there was even a chance that we could make it, I wanted to survive as a person you could still love.”
Villanelle chuckles, harsh and short.
“It is not doing me much good now, is it?”
Eve doesn’t even know what to say.
Then again, Eve gave up her own chance at survival, too. She knew that when she jumped off of that lifeboat, that there was a very real chance that she could die. It just so happened that Villanelle made a similar choice. Both of them were unable to leave the other.
It is a cruel kind of romanticism, to be sure.
“Eve?” Villanelle shudders.
“What is it?”
“When I go… you have to try and survive, okay?”
Eve sucks in a breath between her teeth.
“Don’t talk like that, dammit. You’re going to make it, we can get some help-”
“Eve, look around us. There’s no one coming, and I’m almost gone as it is,” Villanelle whispers.
Her fight is leaving.
Tears escape Eve’s eyes against her better judgement, ignoring the painful sting as they begin to freeze to her face.
“Vill, please. Please hang on, I can’t do this without you,” Eve pleads desperately.
But Villanelle’s eyes are already closing.
Eve shakes her roughly, takes her face into shaking hands.
“You can’t go. You’re so, so strong.”
A sob tears its way out of Eve’s throat.
“Every time I think of my future, I see your face. Over, and over, and over again,” Eve continues, brushing icy blonde hair away from Villanelle’s face. Her eyes are only half open, slowly losing focus as she leans into Eve’s palms.
Eve gently lifts it, tries to meet Villanelle’s eyes.
She must be so tired, Eve thinks.
“I want to do all those things with you. I want to live with you. I want to wake up to your stupid, beautiful face every single morning. I want to have dinner with you, I want to build a home with you. Villanelle, I want everything, please just hang on for me?”
Villanelle shivers, her breath ragged and labored.
“...so cold,” she whispers, barely audible despite the perpetual silence around them.
Eve kisses the palms of Villanelle’s hands, rubbing them between her own in a feeble attempt to generate some warmth.
“I know baby, I know.”
Villanelle’s lips twitch.
“I love when you call me that,” she breathes.
Eve chokes out a wet laugh.
“I remember, Vill. I remember, and I’ll call you that till the day I die.”
Villanelle gives another sharp shudder, her breath reduced to small little puffs against Eve’s hands. She nuzzles into the comfort of Eve’s palms, and Eve feels a single tear trace its way along Villanelle’s face.
“I love you,” she whispers.
Eve bites her lip, and tries not to let anymore tears fall. Villanelle needs her to be strong.
“I love you too, baby.”
She places the gentlest of kisses to Villanelle’s frozen lips.
As soon as she pulls away, Eve sees a light.
It’s faint, moving to and fro along the surface of the water. Smaller than a star in the night sky, but it's there. Eve feels her brain come to life, as she shakes herself from her cold-induced haze to realize that she’s not dreaming, her eyes aren’t deceiving her.
It has to be a lifeboat.
Somebody is looking for survivors, Eve is sure of it. She feels it with every fiber of her being, and it's a chance to make it out of here alive. Eve feels herself vibrate with a combined sense of urgency and pure euphoria, as she focuses on the steadily approaching beam of light.
“Villanelle, it’s a boat…” Eve rasps as Villanelle nods half-heartedly.
Both her and Villanelle don’t have the strength to shout, even their vocal cords frozen solid, but that doesn’t discourage Eve in the slightest.
She just has to get their attention.
Eve searches around them, casts her gaze over the debris and bodies that litter the surface of the water. She isn’t sure what she’s looking for, exactly. All she knows is that she needs to make some noise, and a lot of it.
As she rakes her eyes over the water once more, she sees it.
It’s a whistle.
Currently around the neck of a frozen officer.
Eve doesn’t hesitate.
She leaps into the water, yelping as its icy chill seeps into her bones. She hears Villanelle softly protest, but she’s already too focused, too hellbent to stop now. Eve paddles over the officer, held afloat only by the lifejacket held around her waist. She doesn’t look the officer in the eyes - she can’t - as she rips the whistle and its adjoining chain off of his neck with a swift tug.
The swim back to the door is infinitely more difficult that the first, Eve’s legs stiffening and stuttering in their movements. She can’t imagine how Villanelle has been able to cope for this long. Eve has only been in the water for a few moments, while Villanelle has battled the cold for more than an hour now.
Eve just hopes she can survive for a little while longer.
Once they get to a lifeboat, they'll be safe and Villanelle can get warm.
She collapses halfway onto the door, a mirror image of Villanelle on the other side.
“Vill, I got a whistle,” Eve gasps, smiling as she raises the whistle for her lover to see.
Except she doesn’t.
Eve chokes on air, her heart freezing up.
Villanelle’s eyes are shut.