When they stepped out of the care home, the rain had stopped. The air smelled damp and green, like freshly cut grass.
"Does your wrist still hurt?" Catherine asked softly, looking at the red mark on his hand.
"It's fine," Link said with a small smile, rolling his wrist. "Old people are stronger than they look."
She didn't smile back. Instead, she lowered her head and gently brushed her fingers over the mark on his wrist. The gesture came naturally, but there was a hint of careful awkwardness, like she wasn't quite used to doing something like that.
"Mr. Hall isn't a bad person," she said quietly. "He's just lived in the old world for too long."
Link looked at her. There was something clean and unadorned about her presence—so different from the heavy, fading atmosphere of the care home behind them.
They walked side by side in silence. Catherine seemed hesitant, pressing her lips together a few times, as if she wanted to say something but couldn't quite bring herself to.
Sunlight broke through the clouds after the rain and fell across her neck. That's when Link noticed the leather cord she was wearing, with a small transparent pendant hanging from it. Inside was a rivet—an unusual shape, carefully sealed.
Something stirred in his chest.
"That pendant…" he said before he could stop himself.
Catherine instinctively closed her hand around it. Her expression dimmed for a moment, then she forced a faint smile. "It was my grandfather's. He said it was part of the ship."
"Your grandfather…" Link's voice went a little dry. "He worked at Harland & Wolff too?"
"Yes."
She nodded, her gaze drifting toward the gray horizon.
"He started as a rivet apprentice at seventeen. He never made it onto the ship, but a lot of his friends did… and they never came back."
Her voice was quiet, but it hurt more than tears.
"After that, no one in town talked about the ship anymore. My grandfather didn't either. He'd just sit by the sea for hours, alone. He used to say he could always hear people knocking on iron from the bottom of the ocean—over and over again, never stopping."
Link felt his throat tighten.
He understood now.
Mr. Hall guarded the technical truth.
And this girl—and her family—carried the emotional cost.
They were all witnesses to history.
"May I see it?" he asked gently.
Catherine hesitated, then took off the pendant and handed it to him.
It was heavier than it looked, smooth and cold to the touch.
Clutched in his palm, Link could feel decades of silence, regret, and grief locked inside the metal.
He examined it closely. One corner of the rivet had a faint mark—maybe a worker number, maybe someone's initials scratched in by hand.
He didn't comment, but the mark burned itself into his memory.
He handed the pendant back, his tone more serious than ever. "I'm preparing to make a movie. And this movie—I want it to tell the story of that ship."
Catherine froze.
"There's a role I'd like you to audition for," Link continued, his voice low and steady. "A third-class girl from Wales. She's carrying her family's hopes to America—she wants to survive, to earn money, to bring everyone over someday. Just like most ordinary people back then."
Catherine blinked, surprised. "Why me?"
"Because you don't feel like an actress."
She smiled faintly. "That doesn't sound like a compliment."
"For this movie," Link said calmly, "it's the highest compliment there is."
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a business card, and handed it to her.
"Pangu Pictures. Hollywood. If you're interested, come audition next month. The company will cover your flight and lodging."
Catherine stared at the card, then looked up at him, clearly still processing what she'd just heard.
After a long moment, she reached out and took it. Her fingers trembled slightly.
"Thank you," she whispered, her eyes reddening.
—
As the car drove away from the care home, the sky darkened again.
In the rearview mirror, Link saw Catherine still standing at the entrance, gripping the business card tightly—like a ticket to an entirely new world.
Sunlight broke through the clouds once more, landing on the pendant in her hand. The old rivet caught the light and reflected a faint glimmer.
No longer a weight of memory, but a small signal lamp in the darkness.
A quiet certainty settled over Link.
He had come to Britain searching for a single rivet.
But when he left, he had found the soul of the film.