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Lallybroch, 1778. Or, their visit to Scotland in Season 7/Book 7)
Claire
The morning after Jamie’s visit to Laoghaire—which I was doing my best to consider successful given that no surgery or penicillin were required—I woke to find his side of the bed empty. He’d kissed me briefly this morning, then said he heard Jenny downstairs and would wake me later. I was mildly relieved to find a note on his empty pillow. Itinerant soldiering left less time for domestic correspondence, and there were always people willing to deliver messages orally, but his handwriting was still familiar.
My beloved Claire,
Ian asked for my company this morning, and assured me you have not forbidden him the out of doors, on the rare days he feels in need of the air. He is as honest as ever—though still not so forthright as you—so I’m certain that while he wishes to speak to me alone, he would not risk a walk were he truly not in good spirits, and would instead merely ask the girls for privacy, as he has done when he wishes to counsel Young Ian.
I’ll find you soon, wherever you choose to occupy yourself. What a comfort that is.
Your devoted husband and obedient servant,
Jamie
Only Jamie, I thought, could make me snort with laughter and nearly cry at the same time. I knew the hint at his obedient nature was designed to tease me about my own tendencies toward noncompliance, even if my reasons were always perfectly sound ones.
I was relieved to find only Janet in the kitchen, though I couldn’t convince her to let me serve my own parritch. I ate quickly, and heard Ian’s cough in the hall, quieter today, but sill louder than Jamie’s familiar footsteps as they moved back to the parlor.
I did the breakfast dishes in haste, relieved to find Ian safely tucked under a blanket on the sofa, propped up and smiling at Jamie. He did look a bit better today— what little I could do to improve his ability to sleep seemed to have had some effect.
I raised my eyebrows at Jamie interrogatively, hoping he’d sense my curiosity about where Jenny was. He inclined his head toward the hall, smiling slightly. Ah. Jenny wasn’t avoiding either of us, merely using our presence to take time to herself. When Jamie was recovering from the snakebite, Fergus, Ian, and Brianna together had worn me down until I’d finally agreed to leave Jamie’s bedside. I shouldn’t have been surprised Jenny was more sensible than I had been.
As if he’d read my mind, Jamie asked, “Claire, I think it’s time I told Ian about how ye shot a buffalo, covered me wi’ maggots, and considered cuttin’ my leg off all because ye wanted excitement. Weel, and because you were out o’ your best wee needles, until our lassie put her mind to the problem.”
“Her mind, or her Fraser stubbornness?” Ian asked, his voice fatigued but ever-familiar.
I shook my head, laughing in spite of myself. “Don’t forget how poor Fergus had to deliver his second daughter in the woods. Ian will want to hear about that, too.” We’d written to Lallybroch about it, of course, but I knew Ian would benefit from the sound of Jamie’s voice. I always did.
I kept my physician’s eye on Ian, though, and relaxed even less when I realized Jamie had left out part of the story: how close he had actually come to death. I looked over at Ian, wondering if he had noticed too, and found him winking at me, a slightly impish smile on his face. There was a small puzzle here.
—
Once Ian was resting comfortably, with Kitty nearby to see to his needs, Jamie turned to me and said, very softly, “Will ye walk wi’me, then?” I took his arm in answer, a bit surprised at the clear vulnerability in his tone.
It was practically an invitation to tug information out of him the way I might attack a stubborn splinter. I waited until we were well into the fields, though, before I posed a question.
“You didn’t tell Ian about deciding not to die,” I said, finally. “Is it because he doesn’t have a choice?”
“Oh, I told him that bit already, before ye found me. I kent he’d want to know it doesna hurt, the moment you feel yourself go. And that he’d want to chaff me for darin’ to be afraid of life wi’ one leg.”
I reached out my hand to him, comforted at the usual warmth of his fingers. “And did he?”
“Oh, aye.” Jamie smiled, wide and open, and lifted my hand to his lips. As pensive as he’d been, it was clear he felt a brotherly obligation had been discharged, and felt lighter for it.
“I thought you had something else on your mind, but now I wonder if you’re up to mischief.”
“I’m an auld man, Sassenach. I’m too old for mischief. I only concoct schemes now. And that’s for when an ordinary plot won’t do.”
“I stand corrected, then,” I answered archly, but I couldn’t help my answering grin. “And I admit I might start to worry if you ever claimed to be content with idleness.”
“There’s always waitin’ on you hand and foot, when I’m too decrepit for farm chores,” he offered, swinging me into his arms for a kiss.
“I’m not ready to be a lady of leisure yet,” I answered, but I sensed he was doing his best to dance a jig away from the rest of what he really needed to talk about. Somehow, I thought this particular trouble was less about Ian and more about Jamie himself.
“It isna so much a plan as a wee wish,” Jsmir finally admitted. “I’d hoped when we came there’d be the summer heather, like before. But it’s too late for that.”
At that, I rose on my tiptoes to kiss him once more, slow and thorough, keeping one hand on his cheek. I hadn’t forgotten the day he was talking about any more than I’d forgotten shooting that buffalo on the Ridge.
A few weeks before we’d been drawn into the Rising, Jamie had chased me through the heather, in the full bloom of August. I still remembered his whisper in my ear, “Thank God you’re still here for me to catch, Claire.” In Boston, I’d revisited it in my dreams.
“It’s enough to be here with you,” I told him firmly, resting my forehead on his. “I don’t care what’s in bloom and what isn’t.”
“Odd choice of words, from a gardener,” Jamie said, but I heard the note of gratitude along with the humor.
—
Fraser’s Ridge, late August or early September 1780 (so after the main events of “Pharos” but before Davy’s birth and Benjamin Cleveland’s rude interruption).
I had originally left the house with the intention of engaging in a solitary struggle with the mint explosion in my herb garden, but as I got closer, I realized I’d have company. Brianna’s hair glinted in the sun, reminding me so much of Jamie at Lallybroch my heart ached with it. I’d thought she was upstairs napping. Her presence outdoors, in the summer heat, suggested I might need to do the sort of nurturing more complicated than taming wayward plants.
“What on earth coaxed you out here?” I asked her, as she pretended to be absorbed in the plants. At this stage of her pregnancy, I was fairly certain she couldn’t see anything growing, since I didn’t plant sunflowers. Unless I missed my guess, we’d made it back from Savannah with only a week or two to spare.
“The sun’s going to set soon enough,” she answered, and something about the grumpy edge made me miss both Murtagh and Jenny.
“What sort of answer is that?” If she were in the mood to talk slightly acerbic nonsense I might as well play along. I smiled, though, to reinforce I was only teasing.
“I only mean I won’t get sunstroke, and if I didn’t get out of the house Jem or Mandy were in danger of not meeting their new sibling. They woke me up, and Buck rescued them from me,” she said.
“Ah. So, I’m both honor-bound and ethically bound to keep you with me until it’s safe for the children—and Roger—to be in your presence.” She laughed at that, and squeezed the hand I offered her.
“Is there rosemary growing here, somewhere I can’t see it? Roger likes it on chicken.”
“Yes, it’s even starting to flower, a lovely blue. Or sometimes purple.”
“I didn’t know rosemary had flowers,” Brianna said, clearly looking for a distraction from the myriad discomforts of the third trimester. “Rosemary for remembrance, right?”
“And you used to say gardening was boring,” I teased her. “Next you’ll be the one teaching Fanny what to pick when, or introducing the Victorian language of flowers a century too early.”
I gestured toward the house, dropping her hand in case she needed my arm to support her. She made it up the porch stairs and announced, “If I sit, I’ll never leave here."
“You know your father would help Roger get you inside, if you want to rest,” I said gently. I was unspeakably happy just looking at her, even knowing she was horribly uncomfortable. As much as I’d enjoyed seeing William in Savannah, I’d longed to see him and Bree together, watch both of them interact with Jamie and see the different ways he cherished them. I wondered when I would stop wishing for impossible things. Or if I had ever actually stopped.
Something of my maudlin pondering must have shown on my face, because Brianna broke in and said, “You checked the baby’s position yesterday. Even you can’t be worried yet, can you?”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Do you think you’ll ever stop worrying about Jem, or Mandy?”
“Fair,” she said, shaking her head.
“I’ll admit, it did surprise me you didn’t decide to do this where it was safer,” I offered, since convincing her I wasn't nervous was clearly a hopeless cause.
“Mandy kept us busy, you know that.”
“Mm,” I said, striving for nonchalance, the way I used to when a medical student was somewhere between a correct answer and disaster and it wasn’t yet clear which. It even worked on her as a teenager. Very occasionally.
“I use that on Jem now,” she said, shaking her head at me. “But you’ve got me. In the end, I just couldn’t imagine a baby I’d never introduce to you, or Da.”
“Oh, Bree,” I said. “You would say that when it’s nearly impossible to hug you properly.” I tried my best, though, and we both laughed when the baby kicked, determined to remind us we weren’t truly alone.
Jamie came out of the house a minute or two later—he’d been helping Fanny with the mathematics I’d set for her. “The wee lassie told me she saw blue flowers today, Sassenach,” he announced, and looked puzzled when I laughed.
“Mandy, or Fanny? Bree was just talking about this with me—rosemary has blue flowers.”
“Mandy. I didna ken that about the flowers, though. I do like when ye put it on the potatoes,” he said.
“And now you’re complimenting my cooking. I sense something afoot.”
Jamie waved the Conan Doyle reference away, as he often did when he had something he wanted to tease me about more than my anachronisms.
“There’s cooking and then there’s potatoes, as ye once said yourself,” he argued, making Bree laugh as he traded a glance with her over my shoulder.
“What else are you suddenly an expert in, besides the culinary arts?”
“Why you’re fond of blue flowers,” he answered promptly, pulling me into a loose hug. I tipped my face up for a kiss, and heard Brianna laugh when Jamie gave me three rapid pecks on the mouth, as if settling the balance on an invisible ledger.
“I’ll grant you that one. But Bree will need more than flowers for dinner, and I’m a bit hungry myself. Let’s go in.”
—
Jamie, later that evening.
Bree had, in the end, eaten plenty of dinner, and looked delighted to see her children once they arrived tired and full of stories of chasing Buck all through the woods. Jamie smiled to himself as he tugged his stockings off, but only briefly. Claire was restless, cursing quietly to herself as she fought her hair, seated on a stool at her dressing table. He stepped behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders.
“Mo ghraidh,” he said, keeping his voice soft. “I dinna think it will satisfy ye to rip it out by the roots. I’ll fetch the scissors, if ye’d like it a bit shorter.”
She sighed. “I suppose you could untangle it; your hands are stronger,”
Before he did as she asked, Jamie lifted the mass of curls from her neck, pressing a kiss there, lingering, until she hummed for him, that small sound that she only made when she was happy. She’d been quieter, drawn inward, ever since they’d been summoned to Savannah. She’d clearly arrived at that time before a trial where making peace with fear was too close to surrender. He knew that fractious mood in himself, and it was easy to see in her.
“Ye’ve told me more than once that what happened wi’ wee Mandy’s heart was far from certain to occur again.”
“It is,” she agreed, pulling one of his hands from her shoulders and kissing his knuckles. “I suppose it’s just hard to trust in that when you’re a family full of rare occurrences.”
Jamie squeezed her shoulders again, then bent to kiss the top of her her head. “And some miracles, too. Try not to forget those, Sassenach.”
He didn’t rush as he set to work on her hair, merely began gently combing out any potential knots with his fingers. Jamie couldn’t help laughing to himself when this only made the mass of her curls more determined to assert their presence. He felt her shoulders relax, listened to her breathe deep and even.
“There,” he said finally. “Run your hands through, see if I missed any tangles,” he offered.
“You know, I don’t think I will,” Claire said, as she rose from her seat and stepped into his arms. “I’d rather do other things with my hands. And you did all that to make sure of it,” she added, the flirtation turning gentle. “I don’t object to being distracted. Not by you.”
"Now that you’ve found me out, let’s see if I can still surprise ye, hmm?”
—
Somewhere between the mountaintop and Fraser’s Ridge, October 20, 1780
Jamie, as it turned out, was determined that I should have a thorough, if unfortunately rapid, birthday celebration, even in the middle of the woods. I yawned and stretched languidly.
“Suited you, did it?”
“Pretending you aren’t fishing for superlatives about how good you are with your hands doesn’t suit you,” I said, with no real heat.
Jamie knew my body like he knew his own, had always been able to bring me what I needed. Over the years I'd asked him for everything from languid comfort to rough and wild abandon. But now, after our strange sojourn on that mountain—and, if Jamie was right, some other places, too—I was both hyperaware of my own physical reactions and the ways I affected Jamie’s. He’d bitten my lower lip, but worried I hadn’t liked it. And somehow, in my answering kiss, meant as reassurance, I’d felt his relieved joy that I had. Damn Saint Paul for that useful image of seeing through a glass darkly, only to come face to face. We were face to face, all right. In a way I couldn’t possibly explain but also couldn’t regret.
Jamie chuckled, and stroked a hand down my back. We hadn’t actually undressed, so the contact was a bit less electrifying with a shift and shawl in the way. Buck and Jo Beardsley would be back with our dinner soon. We’d sent Roger and Ian ahead on a rather contradictory set of errands—to tell Lizzie and Fanny and Bree and Rachel we’d survived, and make certain everyone else on the Ridge believed we hadn’t.
We were taking a winding route home, and would find a place to camp close enough to the New Big House for visits while the others started a new cabin for us. Jamie was determined to help with the building, eventually, but I’d convinced him to let them start without him.
I sighed, knowing it was particularly useless to waste time, practically sacrilege given everything that had happened lately. But none of the topics I needed to broach were pleasant.
“I left my medical bag on the mountain, you know."
“And will ye go back for it?” I knew as surely as I knew my own name Jamie didn’t just mean the supplies.
“Part of me wants to say, ‘of course I will,’ but I’m actually…doubting the wisdom of the enterprise.”
“We dinna ken how it works, this light of yours,” Jamie said, not a question, though he kept his tone gentle. “You werena given a scalpel too early in your training, and I’d no’ give our Jem my sword to practice wi’ before a wooden blade.”
“But there’s no one to teach me about this,” I said, hearing the forlorn note in my own voice. “And speaking of your sword…”
“Past time to convert it to a plowshare, I think. I’m glad ye had me write that codicil to the will.”
I’d wept a bit when I found his final bequests, on his desk in the study. But I’d convinced him that Frank’s book might also mean he had survived, only hidden from history rather than resuming any kind of public life. If that were the case, I would be with him under whatever identity he’d chosen, unable to claim anything as Claire Fraser. The codicil specified that if I were not present to claim my bequest, the Ridge went to Roger and Brianna. And now the two of us would go home. Just not as the Frasers of the Ridge we had once been.
“I wrote my will,” I said, almost in spite of myself. “I don’t know that I meant to come back. No, that’s not true—I didn’t intend to. But I knew that even if I did, it might not be long before I joined you.“
“Mo chridhe,” Jamie choked out, pressing me even closer to his chest, to his now steady heartbeat.
“I always keep my word,” I said, my own voice hardly steady. We sat for a while, breathing. “And I wasn’t going to leave you if I could possibly help it. I promised, in Edinburgh.” After that, we were quiet, letting our hands and breath speak what felt too raw for words.
“Sit up with me, for a minute?” I said, sensing his surprise at the question, at my decision to break the silence. He did, though, and we worked our way upright, next to each other, our faces close.
“I should have taken Frank’s ring off a year ago, when I promised you there was no one else in our bed. With this new chance at life…It’s our life. No one else belongs in it.”
“Can I ask,” Jamie said, careful. “What held you back, before? I ken it’s been on your mind for some time.” He took the hand with his ring, kissed it. I knew in that way beyond knowing that he was far more concerned with my own comfort than his. This lingering ability was damned inconvenient sometimes: I’d never doubted his devotion, but this new evidence of it meant I spent a greater amount of time fighting back tears.
“I think, for a long time, I worried Bree wouldn’t like me turning my back on where she’d come from. But after I… watched you die…none of that mattered anymore. My training didn’t matter anymore.”
“Claire, ye needna…”
“No, I do need to,” I interrupted, but I paused to let him kiss me, slow and gentle, until I felt both of us relax.
“You know, Frank never really asked me what you were like. But he did ask me if I could ever have forgotten you. He wanted my life, my story, to be about him again.”
“I did spend more hours than I care to remember, readin’ his words. Imaginin’ his face when I could ha’ been watchin’ you sleep,” Jamie admitted, and I heard the dread and regret in his tone as much as the anger.
'"He couldn’t even use the damn dedication to admit the truth— that I needed you to survive that battle as much as Brianna did.”
“And he asked for oaths from ye, but broke his,” Jamie said, letting some anger show now. “I ken, Claire, that ye’d have found me wi’out him, if he’d let ye. He used your honor against ye to make sure ye couldna.”
“I don’t know, I can’t know, what I would have done if I’d found you sooner. But I know this— we are here now because not even death made us break our promises. Because I gave you my heart and you gave me our memories, so I wouldn’t stay lost in the dark.”
“How could I ha’ done otherwise?” Jamie asked, incredulous. “I promised ye the protection of my body, only to learn it was your soul I was meant to guard, as well. Though I’m selfish, in my way, even about your pain— I canna regret that ye grieved for me. During those years wi’ Frank, or on the mountain.”
“You can’t,” I said, echoing him. “Unless you regret that I love you.”
I felt him lean in to kiss me, but held up a hand, moving it gently over his lips. “Just a minute,” I said. “Take this off for me, first.” I held my hand out, watching the gold gleam for the last time.
“Your choice, aye? But my hand?”
I nodded, emphatic, and watched him tuck the ring into his sporran. But it was all the briefest flash, because he kissed me then, claim and caress all at once, and I gave him the same back. After that, there was no such thing as time. Only us.
The spell broke with Buck's voice. Laughingly, he asked, “Ye both ken that if ye stop breathin’ from all that, I’m useless, aye?”
—
Fraser’s Ridge, November 28, 1780
“What’s so important you brought the baby to the middle of the woods this early? Not that I’m anything less than delighted to see you.” I bent lower to Davy, in a wrap on Bree’s chest, and said, “Especially you, my littlest love.” Bree waved to Jamie, who was nearby splitting wood. I was giving him space, but I needed to see him while I did it.
Besides being a time traveler, Buck Mackenzie was practically a miracle worker. Between him and Ian, our new cabin was nearly done, save for a loft Jamie would help them build. But it was relatively warm today, and I’d finished a chapter of my memoir as well as some notes for Fanny and Lizzie. I was now resting outside, using a tree stump as a chair. I gestured for Bree to take its neighbor. Ian was prone to calling this area our sitting room, even now that we slept indoors.
“Since you nearly broke your promise not to die, I’ve decided to poke my nose in several places where it wouldn’t otherwise belong.”
I bit back the urge to laugh, so frequent since Jamie had come back to me. She’d planned this in advance, so clearly at least some of the topic at hand was of grave importance to her
“I thought I’d have a fight on my hands, since I came to tell you Dr. Fraser needs to semi-retire, but I’ve never seen your hands this inkstained, so maybe you’ve come to your senses already.”
I shook my head. “Jamie and I discussed it. If he’s not going to be Mac Dubh, I can’t justify a life as La Dame Blanche. I can’t control these powers, and I can’t work without touching patients, which seems to be how…” I trailed off, gesturing to my newly white hair. “Even if we could convince the Ridge residents it’s a miracle and not the Devil, this particular miracle seems a bit perilous. I’ll still patch up the family—you all should be able to tell if anything… odd is happening.” It had taken more than one conversation, working all this out with Jamie, but Bree didn’t need the details.
“Well. I’m glad to see you remembered the ‘do no harm’ part of the Hippocratic Oath should include no harm to you,” she said crisply, surreptitiously batting at her eyes.
“Darling,” I tried, tentative.
“No, you can’t fuss over me yet. I have one more agenda item, and Davy’s still asleep.”
“All right. Do your worst. Though I won’t promise to follow Robert’s Rules of Order,” I said. Davy made a small sound, and Bree put him to her breast, but only gave me a brief respite from the rest of her disquisition.
“I also want you to know, I’m happy you took Frank’s ring off. I know you were hoping I wouldn’t notice, but I did. And I’ll take it and keep it with the book, if you want. So the kids know where I grew up.”
“It’s alright to remember him, Bree. He was good to you.”
“And he also lied a lot. I can admit that. Did you ever lie to him?”
It’s always disconcerting, seeing Colum MacKenzie in her face as much as I see Jamie. Colum’s there now, canny as ever, and if I’d wondered whether I still grieved him, there was no doubt now. I wondered, too, when Brianna had become this cynical about Frank—that undercurrent was new. I supposed all of us had become different people of late.
“I didn’t lie to Frank. I’m sure he thought I did, but I didn’t,” I finally replied. My voice had been back to normal for over a month now, but I found myself clearing my throat.
“Everyone can see now what your idea of love is, Mama— it’s in every hair on your head. At least these days. And I’m still just like you,” she said, kissing Davy’s cheek as she burped him. “I know love is what you fight for, but it’s also where you rest. I didn’t learn that in Boston, and I didn’t learn it from Claire Randall. Da left the Ridge in my hands, remember? Trust me to know my own mind.”
“Are you sure you shouldn’t have been a lawyer and not an engineer?” I offered, as I rose from my perch and crossed to her. She let me kiss the top of her head, then Davy’s, and was polite enough not to mention I was crying, just a bit.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another gleaming head of red hair moving toward me. Jamie could likely only hear snatches of the conversation, but he could read me like a book from a hundred paces, and clearly had.
“All’s well, a leannan?” he asked Bree, wrapping me in a brief hug, then turning me so I rested against him. His hold was loose, but emphatic. No retreating allowed, his arms declared. Until he was satisfied I had my balance back. In more ways than one.
“We’re fine,” I said, relieved when my voice came out as I intended.
“We really are,” Bree added, and I knew some of the emphasis was meant for me. “Just reminding her that she can do whatever she wants, as long as she keeps her promise not to die on me.”
Jamie must have felt me relax against him, because he kissed my forehead, then laughed. “Dinna fash, lass. We’re plannin’ to best Methuselah’s record, and I’ll die wi’ your mother’s snorin’ as the last sound I hear.”
“I do not snore,” I retorted.
“Yes, you do,” Jamie and Bree said together, and I’d never been so happy to lose an argument in my life.
Fraser’s Ridge, June 1781 (so nearly a year post-finale).
Brianna
Everyone else on the Ridge believed the MacKenzies made regular visits to distant Scottish settlers who needed a minister for their weddings and funerals. And no one thought it strange that Fanny went with them. Everyone knew they claimed her as their daughter. Only the Beardsleys and Murrays held the real truth—that long summer weeks were for visiting Jamie and Claire. Jem and Mandy still called sleeping in the shelter a “camping trip,” a lingering vestige of their brief twentieth-century childhood. This time, they’d also brought a large stack of letters from Aunt Jenny, John, and William: Brianna and Roger handled correspondence for her parents now.
Brianna was delighted to find herself alone in the cabin, watching her mother at her desk. Seeing Mama absorbed in her writing has become as reassuring and familiar as her surgeon’s tools used to be. She’s drawing something, so today is probably medical notes for Fanny and Lizzie. Someone, probably Da, left her violets in a tin cup. Better that than a vase Davy would be eager to knock over.
Brianna listened with half an ear to the sounds from outside. Today Roger was singing to Davy in a hoarse chant, counting his toes for him. It was unlikely this would induce him to walk, though she approved of the choice of theme. No, Davy won’t walk, she thought, until Mama or Da or Buck have decided it’s acceptable to let his feet touch the ground.
Even on the third time around, the mental landscape of parenthood remained an unpredictable mix of hyperalertness, exhausted crankiness, and distracted bliss. She let her thoughts drift. The sound of Claire’s pen—a gift from 1980 she’s glad they brought along— became only a soothing background noise.
“When do you think Da will be back?” she asked, once she’d found her focus again.
Mama didn’t look up. “Oh, he’s outside, just thanking his horse.”
Davy’s been teething, and Brianna knew she was prone to needing things repeated when underslept. Even still, that remark struck her as strange. And oddly detailed, even for someone who knew Da’s habits. She opened her mouth to ask, but then Mama crossed the room. Claire reached the door as it opened. There was no difference between Da’s steps into the house and his steps into her arms.
Brianna turned away to leave them to it—her parents greeting each other like it had been years instead of hours was nothing out of the ordinary. Especially with no grandchildren or guests around. Though she’s abandoned any consistent definition for what constitutes “out of the ordinary.” Nothing about physics prepared her for time travel. For how she’d felt holding each of her children for the first time. Or for the way her father just said, “Sassenach, come here to me." As though his tenderness were one of the forces keeping the earth on its axis.
Claire and Jamie were murmuring to each other on the sofa now. Their singular focus left Brianna space to reach a tentative conclusion about the improbable, though undeniable, evidence in front of her. She spoke aloud, just to see if either of them would notice. “Well. I have two kids who can locate each other, why not two parents? Who needs The Twilight Zone when you have Fraser’s Ridge?”
Claire, that same evening
Jamie laughed aloud as soon as I thought to myself there was no point in going to bed clothed. My more than occasional ability to notice his internal state, and his less consistent ability to do the same with me, remained inexplicable. But still comforting, for the most part I tugged my shift off, folding it over a chair.
“Come to bed then, mo calman geal,” he said, the laugh still in his voice. “I’ve bolted the door so the children canna come in for breakfast until we’re suitably attired for the occasion.”
“I suppose that answers whether you’re tired,” I replied, though there was plenty of other evidence to hand he was nothing of the sort. I moved to the bed, standing between his legs, feeling his erection press firmly into my belly.
“I did tell you to raise me from the dead for this, did I no’? And ye have,” he said, tone gentling. We seldom spoke anymore of our trials on that mountain. Of what we’d both seen, what I’d felt. I knew he regretted the jest, or worried I did. But I also knew well by now that a patient who could joke about old wounds was moving past pain and into true recovery, We were accustomed to tending each other, to ensure we could carry the past without drowning in it. I'd give him my own twist on the jest, I decided.
“I still can’t claim to know how it worked. But I didn’t raise you from the dead just for that,” I said, belying my own words by pushing him down onto the mattress, laughing as he scuttled onto his back to make space for me.
“God said ‘let there be light.’ ’Twas only fair to ask him to let ye carry some of it, a Sorcha,” Jamie’s tone was soft and serious now, closer to prayer.
“Ask us, you mean,” I said, kneeling over him and sneaking a kiss. I knew he’d brought me back too, taken me at my word I’d pick the flowers over again, even if he’d never let me thank him for it. He did kiss me back, thorough and urgent. My blood sang at the skilled dance of his tongue with mine, the feel of his hands running down my sides to cup my arse. I reached for the lubricating cream I kept in the bedside table, grinning as I felt Jamie grab it away, knowing he was determined to ready his hands for me. I lay back and let him work, felt him slide one finger in. It was probably blasphemous to thank God for the feel of his calluses as he curled one finger, then added another, then added his palm for more friction where I needed it. I didn’t care.
“My turn,” I said later, taking the jar from him and, spreading the cream over my own hands.
I coated his cock in a steady rhythm until he said, “Christ, Claire, slow down. Unless you think I need remindin’ ye can always master me.”
It was my turn to laugh, apparently. “Alright, alright.” I let him go, and rolled onto my back, feeling his choice to brace himself above me at the right angle, his resolve to watch my face the whole time. I spread my legs and helped him work his way inside. “Ah, that feels…”
“I ken,” Jamie said, practically growling, bending to kiss me as he started to move. I wrapped my legs around his back, knowing on that new, uncanny level that he hoped I would. Jamie’s eyes were wide, a sea I knew and loved, with no danger in the depths. He grinned at me, moved steady and sure, but as the heat grew I snapped my own hips faster, urging him on, raking my nails along his shoulders. He held himself above me as he sped up, and I could see just how tenuous his control was. He bent to kiss me with more heat than finesse, and I moaned into his mouth. After a few more thrusts, I felt every part of his body tense, and squeezed my inner muscles to bring him over with me, feeling him shake like a great tree in a tempest.
I’d expected him to go right to sleep, but just after I rolled over to look at him Jamie got up from bed. “I’ve somethin’ to show ye, before we rest,” he said. He came back holding the leather notebook I’d left on the desk.
“What can you show me about my own writing?” I asked, wondering what couldn’t wait for morning.
“I remembered you’d finished the first volume of the story, so I got a wee gift.”
He crossed the room to my desk, then brought back something. He opened the book to some pages in the center, turning it to me. Even in the candlelight, I could tell he’d pressed and dried a flower there.
“A lilac,” he said, sounding almost shy. “Frances plants them, likes that they’re betwixt purple and blue. I pressed it some time back.”
“Jamie,” I said, nearly overcome. It was the second flower he'd ever given me, if you counted the forget-me-nots as the first. And I did. I cradled his face and kissed him, felt him smile into it. When we broke for air, he took the book from me and set it on the bedside table.
I turned on my side to face him in our bed, drinking in his soft smile. I was certain we wouldn’t live forever, but just as certain there were more beginnings left. Time enough for more stories. More flowers. More joy, vibrant and alive under my hands.