He was still trying to calculate the odds of them being able to pry open the door with their hands while also being pushed forward by the flow of water from the opposite side of the room when she screeched yelled at him. His initial reaction normally would have been to shush her, or to even to snap back, but - well, she had a point. He swallowed a large lump in his throat and tried to reposition their bodies so they were on the side of the door near the handle.

"When it opens, run," he breathed out, tucking her between his side and the wall so he could free his wand hand. First he tried alohomora to no avail, which likely meant the door wasn't locked but rather stuck. Discouraged but not completely disheartened, he unconsciously squeezed her against him and tired again—this time something a with a bit more bang behind it.

"Bombardo!" he cast, just as the water reached her chest and his waist. The entire door was blown to pieces of wood, and suddenly the water began to flow from around their bodies and through the open door. Quickly he pushed away from the door, his arm slipping from around her waist and trailing across her back and to her arm, where he encircled his hand around her wrist. Light poured in from the new opening, and it was clear from that moment that they had a chance to escape.

They only needed to beat the water.

As he pulled her into the opening, the water already rising steading above his ankles, it was clear hat the path through would not be an easy one. It was another hallway, but it looked like it—at least before the shipwreck—had doubled as a storage pantry. Crates and boxes piled the floor, some up to level with his knees and others just waiting to trip them. They needed to be careful, but fast.

"Easy now," he said, stepping over one of the higher crates. He had the advantage as the tall one—she did not.

---

The only thing Ro could do while he figured out how to position them was - well, be still. But it was significantly hard to do that when she was keenly aware of how close they were by necessity. She pressed her lips together, determined not to let her expression betray her thoughts but equally concerned for swallowing an entire mouthful of seawater.

At his instruction, she nodded and reached around him to clutch at his shirt to steady herself. She watched as the door was blasted forward and the water rushed around them. Rowan pushed forwards herself, aided by both Malfoy and the cascading water. She felt his arm trail from her waist to her back, and then finally up her arm to seize her wrist and pull.

She clasped at his wrist and stepped forward, quickly attempting to assess where they had ended up. Her chest heaved as she realized the gravity of what would have happened if Malfoy had lost his own wand. With him having longer legs out of the two of them, Rowan followed, releasing his hand and crawling up and over the numerous amounts of crates that littered - was this a pantry?

The water that had been in the room with them had mostly calmed, but she noticed that it had slowly been rising. Not wanting to get caught in another scenario that involved their lives in more danger than they already were, Rowan hurried along the hallway with haste. "Is it purposefully looking for us?" She ground out breathlessly as they ran.

It wasn't an easy task. The wood was extremely splintered and the broken crates stuck out at odd angles. For the first time in her life, Rowan wished she were allowed to wear something more similiar to men's clothes. Malfoy certainly had little trouble making his way up and around the endless amount of broken furniture and supplies. But she had fallen frustratingly behind as time and time again her coat and skirts were caught on shards of broken wood. Rowan desperately tugged at her skirts, wasting little time getting herself free as the water kept rising.

The horrific groan of the ship told her that it was sinking further into the sea, and she could feel the angle of the ship increase as they began to run uphill. All of a sudden she was jerked backwards and thrown into the crates. She hissed in pain, turning to - once again - free herself. As she turned, her coat arm caught against a nail and she was rendered completely immobile as the water slowly rose to below her hips. "What the devil —" she exclaimed, turning desperately to try and see where she'd gotten caught. The next problem came immediately when there was another groaning to her left and she turned to see a cabinet succumb to gravity and fall towards her.

She reached up to catch it, crying out in pain as her wrist buckled underneath the weight. "Malfoy!" she shouted, desperation pitching her voice higher.

---

If he'd been alone, he would have been free by now. It didn't take much effort to get across the obstacles, all things considered; while his shoulder was still aching his legs were perfectly fine, and his clothes were tailored and tapered to his limbs so there was little chance of them getting caught on their surroundings. Every time he paused it was to help her around a stack of boxes or to help free her dress from the chips in the prickly unfinished wooden crates. He'd taken more steps backwards than forwards—and at one point wondered how she'd respond to the suggestion that she just tear her skirt up to her knees.

Being in front had its merits, though: he could make split-second decisions about the easiest path for her to maneuver through and guide her as she continuously pulled at her skirts to free them or to be able to see where she was stepping. The water was rising steadily, and at this point was halfway between his knee and hip. Clearly they were at the part of the boat that had crashed into the rock. He leapt over what looked to be large, heavy shelf that had fallen off the wall, and just as he turned to warn her to watch her step she let out a loud exclamation that he couldn't quite make out due to the the shifting of the boat, but he didn't need to hear. He could see.

He watched wide-eyed in horror as he watched a large cabinet slide down from the wall towards her. He lurched forward, but he was so frozen in fear that he could only get one step in before he paused again, hand outstretched in her direction. The cabinet collided with her, and whether by luck or the mercy of the god above she remained conscious and alive. He found his footing again and quickly moved forward, stepping over debris and kicking boxes out of the way so he could reach her. Finally he was able to see that it was her own strength that was keeping the cabinet from crushing her entirely.

Wedging himself between the spot where she was caught and the cabinet, he pressed his back against the large piece of furniture and took small steps back until he bore the entire weight against his body. The strain was most clear in his face; his jaw clenched as he struggled to hold his footing on the wet and angled ground, but letting go would likely mean both of them would be crushed. He took deep breaths, trying to keep himself from buckling under the weight while also trying to clear his mind long enough to figure out where she was caught.

Finally he spotted it. She was caught to a nail, and in her struggle she'd managed to get multiple pieces of fabric in a small path of her coat latched around the nail. "No time to waste," he hissed, more to himself than her, and suddenly his hands were all over her. Her waist. Her shoulders. Her arms. At one point—and not on purpose—her chest. "Sorry," he breathed. He could be embarrassed about this later—and he would be—but his mind was racing and all he could think about was getting her out and getting himself out. He worked to undo the buttons on her coat and push it off her body and arms as best as he could given the pressure being put on his spine, and at one point he struggled under the weight and was forced to take a step towards her.

Finally, after what had to be one long minute given how the water had risen to his hips and up to her waist, he tore the fabric of the the coat arm and the entire piece slid from her body and into the water below. The water had done some good; no longer was all the pressure on him as the water did its part to lessen the weight of cabinet, but in doing so it significantly weakened his grip. He didn't even think to ask before he wrapped his arm around her waist and yanked her to the side, moving her out of the way of the cabinet before he turned and let the cabinet slide against the wall.

"Go. Go," he breathed, sounding and feeling weaker than he would have liked to given the strength they would need to get to the exit.

---

For one horrifying moment, Rowan thought he hadn't heard her and she took another breath to try to call him back. If all else failed, she would wrench herself free from both points and pray the cabinet avoided most of her as it fell on top of her. Eyes closed, she took a deep breath, concentrating all of her focus on holding the cabinet up.

Three...two....

one —

At the last count, she realized that the cabinet's weight had...lightened? And she turned to see Malfoy next to her, pressed up against the cabinet and bearing the brunt of it. Her jaw dropped, but she didn't lower her hand, terrified that he would lose his ground and fall and the cabinet would crush the both of them. What in the world were they going to do with this? She stared at him and opened her mouth to ask when he muttered something under his breath and surged forward. She made a sound, somewhere between a cry of protest and surprise as his hands struggled with the buttons on her coat.

If she hadn't already been flushed from exerting the rest of her energy to hold up the cabinet, she would be beet red for an entirely different reason. But she closed her mouth and focused on keeping at least some of the cabinet's weight off of him. Her wrist buckled again as she jerked in surprise at the sensation of his hands on her waist - on her chest - dear lord. His quick apology, muttered quietly as he concentrated on undoing the skirt buttons on her coat, only warranted an understanding, voiceless nod from her as she grappled with keeping entirely still as he worked. It hadn't escaped her that this was the closest anyone had really ever gotten to her.

And then he was done and she had to let go of the cabinet. She cast him a fearful look as she did so, praying to God that he wouldn't be crushed.

Lowering her arms she allowed him to tear the coat off of her, and it finally fell into the water. The jade pendant her mother had given her swung from her neck on its chain as she was pulled away from the wreckage. She reached out her hands to steady him as he spun towards her; a dance that she knew neither of them ever wanted to repeat again. And then they were free.

At this point, for all her spikiness towards him and his indignation towards her, Rowan didn't protest. She was wandless amongst a sinking ship and she was past the point of caring what happened as long as both of them got out alive. The water was past her waist now and she struggled to wade through the water, her skirts still giving her grief. She might as well have been moving through molasses. If she still had her wand, she would have cut them completely off of her, decorum be damned.

But they were almost out - almost away and it occurred to Ro that she would need him again if they were going to apparate back onto the rescue boat. She turned briefly with an inward shout to whoever was listening, praying for him to be not far behind her.

---

Raphael would never again complain while having to traverse the countryside in the rain or after stepping in a puddle of mud; this was almost as bad as trying to walk through sewage, as everything stunk of rotten food, water, and, if he was being honest, death, although that could have very easily been a trick his mind was playing on him. He'd seen things today he never thought he'd have to see and done things he never thought he'd have to do. He followed her through the water at a close distance, paranoid that her dress would weigh her down but knowing that stopping to deal with it now would only cost them more time. Their best chance was to just try and reach the door...

And then they were there. She reached it first, and unlike the other doors it slid open at the smallest of touches, and Raphael followed suit. He stumbled through the doorway, falling forward a few steps and nearly running into her backside. His hands caught at her waist to steady himself, and once he found his footing very quickly he wrenched them away from her. The water followed behind them, but this room was too large, too vast for any amount of water to fill it any time soon.

It was the ballroom.

He let out a breathy laugh and leaned forward, pressing his hands against his knees as he labored to catch his breath. He was soaking wet, sore, and.... was that blood dripping down his ankle? He dismissed the mounting concern with a shake of his head and resumed his upright position. She looked worse than him, but better than she could have been; she was alive, and they were safe for the moment, and that's all that mattered.

"Are you - are you alright?" he panted, smoothing back his hair over his head. He didn't know what he'd do if she wasn't (but of course now he was the only one with a wand, so he was better equipped to manage the escape than her. He normally would have felt a little smug about that, and he was self-aware enough to know it, but now he hoped the last five minutes hadn't rendered her incapable of moving forward.) "We can... we can rest if you need to." His meaning: he needed to rest.

---

At the first sign that assured her he was behind her, Ro sighed a breathless sigh of relief, and continued to run. She was tempted to reach out a hand to take his, but it wouldn't do for her to lose either of her hands as they were already preoccupied with keeping her skirts up. As they ran through, she couldn't help but curse and be grateful for the magic that was aboard the ship. In one way, it might have helped with keeping the vessel afloat for longer than it normally would have for a muggle ship. But on the other hand, the fact that some rooms were holding in water with nary a leak until the doors were pried open, rooms not being where they should be...it had almost cost them their lives.

As soon as the door was just in front of her, Ro seized it and threw all her weight against it. She'd expected it to stick just as all the other doors had, but it gave way immediately and she gasped as she slid through with no other option but to cling to the handle for dear life as the rush of water propelled her forward. Ro stumbled at a sudden pressure at her waist and she fought to keep her legs underneath her. Almost as soon as the pressure appeared, it disappeared, and she looked around to see Malfoy as equally unsteady on her feet as she was.

With all the noise they had brought through with them — crates tumbling through, water bursting forth — Ro had registered an echo in the room that told her they had finally reached their destination. In all their haste to make it out of the pantry, it seemed that the bottom of the ship had caught on something and had come to a temporary rest.

Thank Merlin.

Relief washed over her, quick as the water behind them, and she released the door, staggering further into the ballroom where the water was thinner; rising slowly, but enough to give both of them a brief respite. She gave into the buckling of her knees and collapsed onto the ballroom floor, placing a hand on the ground as if it would offer her any sort of support whilst she clutched at a stitch in her side. At his question, she wordlessly nodded, wincing as her corset fought against her lungs.

Finally, she looked up at him from where she was, her eyes raking over his figure in search of injury. There was only one remaining wand between the two of them and he had it. He looked like hell; Ro could only imagine that she looked equally as bad, if not worse. His shirt clung to him, as did his pants, and he - both of them - were completely covered in bits of food and various cuts. He sounded winded, as one should after they've just kept a large cabinet off of someone, and Ro managed to find her breath to answer him: "I'm - I'm alright." she said, more to assure him that her next action (collapsing onto the floor and rolling onto her back) was out of exhaustion and not some grave injury.

"Just...just give me a moment."

---

Instead of responding, he saved the air in his lungs for recovering his breath and walked towards where she laid on the ground, feeling the ache in every step. Clearly she was more exhausted than him—and even then exhausted might be an understatement. As if testing fate and his own strength (Merlin help him) he sunk down on the ground next to her head, feet flat on the floor in front of him and his knees level with his chest.

He wasn't a healer, and even if she was hurt he wouldn't have a single clue what to do to help her; and yet, looking down at the bruises forming on her arms at the spot where the skin of her neck peeked out from under her dress' neckline, he felt compelled to offer help. Only - he'd never been very good at that, and the words died on his tongue. His blue eyes stared down at her, flickering from her face to her sopping dress to her muck-covered shoes. He realized that it wasn't that he wasn't capable of comforting her, but rather that he didn't know what words could provide comfort. They'd been in this together, were both a little battered and a little bruised, and they'd both nearly died. How was he supposed to help her cope with that while struggling to cope himself?

"I'll replace the dress," was what he decided on, his gaze caught on the tear in the fabric at her ribs. If not for her corset—which he didn't want to acknowledge, not even to himself, that he could see, lest his mind decide to focus on it rather than the situation at hand—she might have been all cut up. "... and the shoes."

---

It was only moments ago that she had been terrified that these past few moments would be her last, and by some stretch of fate, they'd almost wrangled free of perishing at sea. Though, Rowan thought as she reached up to her chest to clutch at her mother's jade pendant, perhaps it was merely retribution for the broken jade dragon all those months ago? If that were the case, then so be it. She was alive; barely breathing, but still alive as she lay sprawled across what used to be a ridiculously lavish ballroom floor and staring up at the ceiling.

She caught his eyes and watched his gaze as it travelled across her body. After having him quite literally tear her coat off of her, she felt this didn't warrant nearly enough to make her blush, and she returned back to staring at the ceiling. If he wanted to make a comment about the state of her he barely had any ground to stand on.

What actually came out of his mouth made her laugh; half out of the sheer exhilaration of escaping not one but two flooding rooms, and half out of amusement that that was among the first things he'd thought of. "Really," she laughed again. "I don't think that's necessary, Malfoy." Though they would cost very little to replace in contrast to what he had probably spent on his discarded waistcoat, Rowan would not be sorry to see these clothes go. If it weren't for the fact that she had to check back in and appear somewhat decent, she would have seen them lost at sea long ago.

She looked at him, still breathing heavily and gingerly sat up. The stitch in her side was slowly fading. "That's kind of you, but..." What else was she supposed to say? Worry about yourself? Don't worry about me? All those things she would have said had he not just freed her from being drowned and crushed. Most replies that came to her died before they could reach her lips and she looked down. "You're bleeding."

---

Of course she didn't think it was necessary, because she'd rather go home and struggle to replace her wardrobe than accept help. Really, she was a nightmare at the core, even if in the moment he was glad that she was here at his side rather than drowning in ceiling-high waters in the pantry. He shot her a sour look that was reminiscent of the ones he'd shot her in the past. "Right," he said, his tone making it evident that he didn't think she was very right at all. On top of her dress and coat and shoes she'd also be replacing a wand; he wondered if that had yet dawned upon her. If it had, it might have explained, at least a little, her disregard for her entire outfit.

He didn't have time to talk about that with her, though, or at least she distracted him long enough to let it slip from his mind. His gaze trailed down to the bottom of his pant leg, which looked considerably darker than the rest of the fabric even given that all of it was soaked. On the floor around it the water had tinted red, making for a dramatic—maybe a bit too dramatic—sight. "Yeah, well," He moved his leg to the side, expecting pain but pleased to find that there was none that suggested it was anymore than an superficial surface cut. (He really didn't want to deal with deep cuts and infections. Not after this.) "You, too." With her now sitting next to him it was more difficult to ignore the scratches and cuts. He held his hand in front of her face and brushed the back of his pointer finger across her brow, which was smeared with blood that had since dried. "Not too bad, though." He realized the only thing worse than being gravely injured himself was her being gravely injured. Nothing would have been more torturous than having to navigate the rest of the ship knowing her life was in his hands.

---

She'd been about to protest that she had little emotional capacity to argue with him about her clothes of all things; that their priority was to get out of this alive. But her eye had caught the thin pool of blood that had gathered in the water, and her stomach jolted.

The arm supporting her went weak and she leaned forward, her forehead coincidentally meeting his hand as she closed her eyes. No, no, this couldn't happen right now, she could not faint at the sight of blood. A cut on her own forehead was all well and fine; that she could tolerate, as it wasn't something that had dripped down into her vision.

He hadn't made a big deal of it, and neither should she, but the sight of the thin pool of blood around his leg seemed to be all the invitation that gravity needed to pull her downwards and further into him. Instead of the shipwreck, Ro found herself back in her family's house, the echoes of her family's screams sounding in her head as she looked down at her sister covered in her own blood. She could still smell it; metallic and acrid as it hung in the air, painting a garish picture. "I - I..." Her eyelids fluttered weakly and she reached a free hand out before everything went dark.

---

Raphael didn't know what to make of her forehead pressing into his hand; initially it was confusion, because if she was tired enough to lean against him then maybe she ought to lay on the floor again. Then it was concern, and from there it only worsened. He first noticed the way her eyelids fluttered, and if that was not enough to cause his eyebrows to knit together in worry then her mutterings and sudden unconsciousness was.

No, no, no, this—this right here, her unmoving in the middle of the shipwreck, where the water was still flowing in (albeit slowly)—was not what he wanted to be dealing with. He found it easier to handle her (physically... maybe mentally) while she was unconscious. He didn't worry about her reacting to the way he touched her body, and he did touch her, first on her shoulders to give her a little shake, then in cupping her chin with his right hand to see if she reacted to the touch, and then he laid her down as gently as he could so he could flip over onto his knees and hover over her.

"Don't do this," he muttered, an edge of panic to his voice has he pinched her chin between his thumb and pointer finger, moving her head back and forth as if suddenly she'd make some movement that conveyed that she was coming back around. "Wake up." His voice was barely a whisper, but it seemed she'd answered him; her eyelids began to flutter, and he stared down at her with wide eyes and parted lips. "Yaxley?" Please, please, please be coherent.

---

The echoes of her family's arguing that she'd heard that night still swirled in her head. Mama, small and quick, hitting Papa and him begging her to stop, to forgive him. Don't do this. He'd shouted as Ro took off that night into the rain. She could still feel the sharp bite of the cold nipping at her skin, which only propelled her forward. At some point, she had to turn around, didn't she? Had to open her eyes to face the future that had just shifted beneath their very feet.

She'd run until she'd reached the nearby lake. It was dark but illuminated as the moon hung over the water, a glowing pearl that cast a magnificent almost impossible blue light onto the water. Was it blue, or had she just been imagining things? Ro struggled to focus her eyes. Her feet hurt from running, and she struggled to bend her knees. Had she been hit by an erumpent?

As she blinked rapidly to clear her mind, Ro realized she wasn't staring at the blue lake, but at Malfoy hovering above her with an increasingly apprehensive look in his eyes. In an instant, she remembered everything they'd just been through: her almost being crushed by the wardrobe, getting him out of his room, discovering the dead body, almost drowning in ceiling-high waters, getting crushed yet again by a pantry cabinet and all the way to her fainting at the sight of —

Ro shut her eyes tight and raised a hand to her temple, pressing against it to quell the second wave of nausea that threatened to overturn what little she had in her stomach. She groaned, placing her forearm on the ground and attempting to sit up. "I'm sorry." she said, her hand moving to cover her face as she felt her cheeks flooding with embarrassment. The action had the added benefit of preventing her from seeing the pool of blood that had likely grown, and thus preventing them from repeating this whole ordeal again. "I'm sorry, I'm okay."

---

She was waking up, and if he had not been so scared he might have smiled (not because he was happy she was okay, he felt compelled to tell himself, but because it would mean not having to carry her, of course). But he had been scared, even if he would never admit it, so at the first sight of her obsidian eyes peeking through her lashes he sat back on his knees and let out a deep, loud sigh of relief.

"The most inopportune time to take a nap," he said, giving her a wide-eyed, exasperated look. He didn't want to think about what had caused her to faint; it was much easier to assume that it was exhaustion, and it probably was; as he pushed himself to his feet his felt his own head spin, so as a woman and as a person who'd been presumably sifting through the wreckage a while before she'd stumbled upon him he could only imagine how tired she was. He looked down at her, and his mind drifted to their next move. He knew this area of the boat, and he knew how to find the top deck... mostly.

Just then, the boat surged again, only this time i went beyond a slight shift in the angle of the floor and a loud screeching now. All around him he could hear crashing—furniture in other rooms, probably, or maybe even parts of the boat smashing into each other. Either way, it wasn't good, and the water began to rush in the opposite direction towards the back of the room. Raphael bent down and grabbed her by the forearms, yanking her with a roughness that expressed how startled he'd been.

"We'll nap when we're back to safe, yes?" he said, the panic clearer now than it had been even when they were seconds from drowning. He set off towards where he knew the exit was, pulling her along with him, not giving her a chance to faint, fall, or get stuck on anything without him.

---

A nap! She wanted to reach out and swat at him, but any attempts to do so were suppressed by the wave of exhaustion that was slowly taking hold of her. It had made itself known as soon as she'd collapsed on the ballroom floor, but especially after she'd fainted - been brought back to Maisie's accident, it was almost overpowering how much she ached to close her eyes and never open them again.

Fate proved once again to not be on their side and an anguished sound escaped Rowan as the ship lurched once more. Never in her life would she take advantage of being on solid land, she thought as Malfoy seized her and dragged her upwards. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was most aggravated at how physical he had been with her, tossing her around like a child with a ragdoll. But any protests she would have had stayed somewhat dormant at the back of her mind given the forces they were working against. Plus, she had no wand, which made her chances at surviving significantly less than when she'd entered the ship.

"Right then," she replied as her feet seemed to move for her and they took off towards what she presumed was an exit. Rowan seized the folds of her skirts with her free hand and raised them to make it easier to run. Merlin, that stitch in her side was making itself known again.

They burst through the exit door just as the ship gave another jerk.

---

Running, running, running. Raphael had never liked running; he preferred other, more entertaining forms of exercise, and having to run from death was far from entertaining. His heart was pounding, both from the physicality of it and from the stress, and as they burst through the exit of the ballroom and into a foyer it was clear that Raphael was going to fall down and fall asleep the moment safety was reached.

No longer was the floor flooded with seawater, but everything was at such an angle that his head was spinning in an attempt to fix the image in his mind. The staircase was right ahead—and once they were up it, they would be safe. He stopped briefly, just long enough to make sure she was okay, and then continued. He climbed the stairs, following the glow of natural light that peeked through the broken windows up ahead. He was running on instinct—his mind empty and his legs sore, he would have sworn his soul had disconnected from his body if he hadn't been able to look down and see his two feet.

Finally—and he wasn't sure how they'd made it—they made a turn and suddenly they were outside. His eyes squinted against the sunlight, and for the first time he realized it must have been mid-morning rather than late in the afternoon. So much for a night of sleep.

"There," he breathed, pointing to the rock where dozens of passengers had congregated. They were too high up, too far away from that end of the ship to merely walk there, but Raphael had a wand. "We can - apparate, if that's alright?" No more walking. No more running. He wanted to lay down.

---

As they ran, Rowan's legs screamed at her; never in her life had she been in such danger, nor had her legs supported her this much. Even when they were surrounded by the wreckage, Rowan couldn't help but see that the ship would have been quite beautiful during life. There was no time to stop and mourn unless she wanted to be mourning for her own life, but for a split second, she closed her eyes and sent a quick thought, prayer, message, to the lives that had perished.

At this point, he seemed to know where he was going, but Ro kept her eyes on their surroundings to make sure there weren't any more glitches. From what they'd experienced that day, she wouldn't be surprised if they opened the doors to the outside and were suddenly in steerage. A part of her had to prepare for that possibility, so when they actually made it outside the ship and she saw the large rock, a sob of relief bubbled from her chest.

Never in her life was she so glad to see land.

Her eyes burnt in the sunlight and she came to a halt next to him as they looked up at the small crowd of people gathered there. Thank Merlin he still had a wand; otherwise, they would have had to yell, and Ro wasn't sure she would be able to do that without screaming in anguish from sheer exhaustion. "Please." she beseeched, nodding and moving closer to him. She reached out her hand so they could apparate and finally - finally - be off this bloody ship.

---