Chapter Text
Nothing was more vast than an ocean. To someone who’d done a world of traveling, this was the clearest and most absolute fact in the realm of knowledge stored in their brain. It was the core of their being, and the more ships one sailed on the more they knew how endless the ocean could seem, how easy it was to become lost in it.
For an artist, it could become a place of inspiration, somewhere where she could get lost forever in her own imagination and conjure images of grand things she could never grasp. When one didn’t have money, no matter how much they traveled or how much they saw the ocean, they would never quite be able to wield anything of power with their own hands.
Not that Rey needed power, but the idea of having to not scavenge for food some nights and just being able to pay for it was appealing. Overall, she couldn’t tell if it was because she was poor or because at the age of thirteen she’d presented as an omega, but power, riches, money, and an extravagant lifestyle had never been something she craved.
Her designation gave her an outlook on life that she liked to think of as relaxed, that made her at peace. Sure, not all omegas were poor or were satisfied with being poor, but a lack of alpha pheromones certainly helped keep her head a bit more level-- she liked to think.
Life in general had always been something she took as a gift, and she didn’t intend on wasting it. So what if she was poorer than dirt? She’d seen more of the world than most people would in their lifetimes, and she was only nineteen.
A nineteen year old broke artist was in charge of her own destiny, and usually, she left that destiny up to fate and a game of luck.
There was something in the thrill of her life being able to change at any given moment. Through games of poker, clever pick-pocketing, and several bets she never should’ve taken, Rey had made her way through life as easily as someone like her possibly could. She’d been able to leave Southampton as a child and see the world, see all those oceans she loved for god’s sakes, but eventually she’d chosen to come home, wanting to see one last time if she could make it work where she was from the way she thought she might in her youth.
Southampton, of course, grew tiring quickly, and Rey had decided quickly that she wanted to move on. This meant she needed to raise the funds to board a ship that would take her away, sailing her across the sea and back over to America, back over to where she’d made the most precious of her memories.
She had friends there, a found family. Rose and Paige Tico were perhaps two of the greatest women she’d ever met. Both alphas, the sisters took a fierce protectiveness to her, and for the first time, she understood what it was like to mean something to someone.
It was still a feeling she wasn’t used to. She wasn’t used to mattering to people, but she mattered to them, and she knew she needed to go back.
One April morning, she finally made the move to do so. Throwing all of her things--a couple of shirts and underwear, really, she only owned one pair of trousers and shoes--into her satchel, Rey tossed on her coat, and headed out the door for the nearest pub. The fastest way to get money out of people was through a poker game, and since she’d been playing from about the age of nine?
She was one hell of a poker player.
The sun was shining as she stepped out onto the streets, walking along the edge of the docks where all the great steamships and luxury liners came to pick up travelers of all classes and designations. That day, the tenth of April, 1912, the biggest one in the world sat waiting in the harbor, and if she were to try and say that she wasn’t intimidated and awed by the sheer size of the ship--the Titanic--she would have been lying.
It was taller than most buildings she’d seen and wider than any other ship she’d boarded. The paint was pristine, the white sparkling in the sunlight to the point where it was nearly blinding, and as a result, her jaw was hanging open as she gaped at it like a fish, struggling not to stop pedestrian traffic as she marveled at the sight.
Maybe if she was lucky in this poker game, she’d save up enough money to board this ship one day when it came back from wherever the hell it was going. It was probably a pipe dream, but she couldn’t help wondering if maybe, just maybe, she’d ever get her chance to know luxury like that.
Shivers running down her spine, she forced herself to walk onward, heading into the nearest pub with a sense of anticipation building up inside of her that she couldn’t quite explain. It puzzled her, sending her thoughts into a frenzy as she made her way to the corner of the room where a game was already ongoing, and reached into her pockets to salvage what little money she had to bet.
As she sat down, she could smell the tension in the air, rising off of her fellow players--all alpha men, she observed, which she hoped wouldn’t cause her any difficulty if she won that day but she wasn’t optimistic--along with their pheromones. This close to her heat--likely days away if she was keeping track of dates properly--that would probably become an issue, but she didn’t care, she couldn’t afford to. She was a damned good player even when she was in the thick of it.
Not even the pain of going through a heat could stop her. Nothing could.
So Rey sat down, laid her money out on the table, and looked the Alpha sitting on the opposite side of it to her in the eye, giving him a nod as the corners of her mouth twitched into a smile. “Deal me in,” she told him, watching him blink his surprise with a joy in hers she didn’t quite know how to express, then she sat back, and gazed upon the lucky hand she’d just been dealt.
Looking around the table at the men and all the money they’d laid on it, Rey let her face become neutral, her poker face taking over her initial wonder as she prepared to lay on them a devastating blow.
Someone’s life was about to change, and she knew without the slightest hint of doubt, it was going to be hers.
**
Closer to the ship, a Renault Coup de Ville pulled up to the boarding area with as grand a flourish as a driver could muster with a car. It’s red paint was tinged a bright ruby in the light, the warmth of the sun heating the dark paint to a point that would’ve been blistering to anyone who touched it with their bare hands.
Luckily for the people inside, they were rich enough that they could afford gloves made of the finest silks and leathers money could buy. The Organa-Solos came from a long line of the richest Alphas in America, dating back to rich English roots that gave them family they still visited to that day. One of those visits was the reason they’d been in Southampton in the first place, well, that, and Ben Organa-Solo, the only son of Han and Leia, needed to introduce the fiance his parents had matched him with to their extended family.
Four months ago, he’d been matched to a young, equally rich southern woman by the name of Bazine Netal, and while the beta woman wasn’t a bad person by any means, she simply didn’t do anything for him. He felt no affection towards her the way he wanted to for someone who was meant to be his future wife--he wanted to, he truly did, but he knew deep in his heart that there was simply nothing there between himself and his fiance.
Sometimes he would try to feel something for her, and during their trip to Europe, he’d thought for a second he’d started to warm toward her, but he hadn’t. He’d actually spent less time with her, and that had been the reason for his joy. Realizing that on the night before they were due to travel left him feeling empty and deprived of joy all over again, and he couldn’t help looking at her as they got out of the car that had taken them to the Titanic now, and feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt all over again.
Not that he could feel guilty for long, though. Seconds after he stepped out of the car, he got his first glimpse of the ship that would be taking him home to America, and suddenly he felt the reversal of his present feelings--he felt underwhelmed . “It’s not as large as you said it would be,” he told his mother as he turned back to help her get out of the car. “It can’t be longer than the Mauritania.”
Behind him, he heard the somewhat high pitched laugh of his fiance as she came up to take the arm that wasn’t currently being held by his mother. “You’re difficult to impress, aren’t you, Ben?” she asked, then she turned to his mother. “Mrs. Organa-Solo, is there anything I can possibly do to impress your son? I’d thought the Titanic would be enough to win his smile, but I appear to have been mistaken.”
“Ben? Smiling? Once in a blue moon if we’re lucky,” Leia replied, then she let go of her son’s arm, and turned to Bazine’s butler, a tall, Irish beta by the name of Armitage Hux. “Take our luggage to the loading bay, please, and make sure they’re gentle with it, you know how my son gets about his paintings.”
“Yes ma’am,” Armitage replied, then he summoned over one of the stewards to assist him in the task as Ben, Bazine, and his mother all looked up at the giant ship, watching as it loomed over their heads.
In that moment, Ben realized all over again just how badly he didn’t want to go back to America. For a second while they’d been away, he’d been able to pretend that his life wasn’t about to be full of slightly different versions of the same day over and over again until he died. He’d been able to forget just how miserable and lifeless he always felt, how he had been so depressed he hadn’t even had a rut in months.
As they walked up to the ramp that would lead them on board, stewards and stewardesses in well kept, brand new uniforms kept on smiling at him and offering him gestures of welcome with every step he took. He tried to smile back, but something was developing deep in his gut that gave him a feeling not unlike a prisoner being led to the gallows for execution. He felt like he was being dragged on board in chains, like he was passing a point of no return even though this was just the start of a new journey.
Titanic was a marvel of modern technology, the pinacle of human pride thus far, but to him it was the object of torture, and he wanted nothing more than to break free and run away into the depths of the city behind him.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option. His only true option was to remain numb, to shut himself down and pretend this was a bad dream and it wasn’t happening to him, but to someone else, that he was viewing it from someone else’s eyes. It was in this manner that time began to pass quickly, that he finally felt free of the pain he was feeling, and a part of him, for at least a little while, stopped living.
**
That afternoon, as the ship plowed on toward Cherbourg, the first stop in its destination, Rey sat back on the deck lounging on a bench as she held her sketchbook in her lap, and casually sketched two men as they chatted on the stern of the ship, leaning against the railing as they watched the Titanic’s wake drift out to sea. The sun was beginning to head toward the final stretch of its journey across the sky, the light gaining a slight orange hue that painted their smiling faces as she sketched them with a piece of charcoal darker than the evening sky on a moonless night.
A soft scent drifted in from the breeze coming off the ocean, giving away the designation of the two smiling omegas on the ship’s stern as one of them pointed out something stirring around in the ship’s waves. It wasn’t a scent that drove her wild or made her feel like she was about to fly over some edge, but as she watched the pair, she found herself still drawn to them, drawing them in perfect likeness on the paper until they moved back, and suddenly she was caught.
“Like what you see?” One of them asked, earning himself a smack on the shoulder from his friend.
“Poe,” the other grumbled, but the look of annoyance in his eyes held an undercurrent of affection as they approached Rey. “I’m sorry about him, miss, he’s a menace to society.”
“That’s all right,” she assured them, turning her drawing around to reveal her work. “I’m pretty sure most of society wouldn’t approve of drawing random strangers without their permission either.”
The first man—Poe—laughed as he sat beside her on the bench, staring at the drawing as his friend sat on her other side. “It’s incredible work, miss…?”
“I’m Rey,” she told him, offering her hand, and waiting for him to shake it before she gave him a warm smile.
“Poe, and the gentleman on your right is Finn.”
“How do you do?” Finn asked as she then turned and shook his hand.
“Quite well, and yourself?”
“I’m doing good.” He shifted as he looked at the drawing. “That’s exquisite work.”
A blush crept up her cheeks, undoubtedly enhanced by the increasingly orange hue of the sunset. “Thank you.”
Laughter echoed in her ears from Poe, whose gaze was now drawn up to the first class deck which overlooked their section of the ship. Above them, people dressed in their finest day wear were strolling casually about on the deck, moving about without a care in the world or any problems weighing down their shoulders. Yet somehow they didn’t look free, they even looked like they were all in some sort of hypnotic trance, some sort of daze, and Rey couldn’t put her finger on why.
“You’re good enough to have a ticket up there,” Poe said after a moment. “How come you’re sleeping with the rats?”
“I didn’t see that many rats below deck.”
Finn laughed in response to that. “What he means is you have the talent to sell your art for millions. Why don’t you?”
Unsure of how to answer that, Rey looked up to the first class deck again just as the doors opened, and another well dressed man stepped out onto its wooden floors with something that surprised her—his face bore an expression. The man was tall, broad, and had the most expressive face she’d ever seen. Even from a distance she could see misery tainting his eyes, could see them misting over as his lips formed into a hint of a scowl, his fingers gripping the railing so tightly as he leaned against it that even in the warm-toned light, she could see them going paler than the sheets.
He looked so full of sorrow and regret, she couldn’t fathom how he’d come to feel this way, but that wasn’t the only thing about him that she found captivating. The stranger’s raven hair shone in the light, almost appearing as if it was black smoke with hints of embers speckled throughout like a dying fire. Lips hued a deep pink were parted to take in slow, steady breaths as he closed his eyes, as if he were struggling to calm himself down.
She was concerned for him, worried for what the hell could make a first class man fall apart enough to show emotions, but beyond that, she found herself struck with the realization that this man was beautiful. He was truly striking in his appearance, and though she hadn’t meant to just stare at him, he’d caught her off guard.
Suddenly, his eyes opened, and as if he could feel her staring, he looked over in her direction, and suddenly they were making eye contact, staring one another dead in the eye over what felt like a great distance, but must’ve been only fifty feet. She knew nothing about him, she didn’t know his history, designation, or his name, but somehow she could see into the very soul of him with that stare, and a vague part of her registered that Finn and Poe were trying to bring her back to earth, but she was a bit too lost.
The stranger looked away, and as the breeze caught his hair, she watched as he then looked back, irritated by the waves that had suddenly invaded his eyes, and met her gaze once more. She found herself unable to hold back a giggle, then much to her surprise and delight, he actually cracked a tiny smile.
For a few seconds as they continued staring, everything felt surreal, like she was under some kind of spell, but then the doors behind him opened again, and a shorter, dark haired woman came out, and put a hand on his arm. The scowl returned to his face as he listened to what she had to say, then he made his way inside the ship, both of them retreating back into their world of champagne, brandy, and endless money.
“You all right there, Juliet?” Poe teased, nudging her shoulder as she turned back around.
Still reeling from what had just happened, Rey laughed nervously, and stood up to watch as the last visible pieces of the stranger and the woman disappeared from sight. “We should probably get inside. They’ll be serving dinner soon,” she said, then the other two got up, and they headed toward the third class entrance.
The spell was finally broken now that he was gone, but as he left, she caught a new scent on the breeze that had wafted down from his deck to hers that stole her right back into it for a split second just before they opened the door that would lead them to their decks. It was unmistakably masculine and yet a little sweet, but it was also undoubtedly the scent of pure Alpha , and as she looked back at the door to the first class entrance one last time, she became aware that the Magic wasn’t over. This wasn’t the last she and this stranger would be seeing of each other.
She had to know what made this man, this alpha, so miserable, what made him hate his life to the point where he was openly putting his emotions on display for all to see. One way or another, she was going to find out. Their paths would cross again.
It was only a matter of time.