Chapter 1: Sassenach
People disappear all the time…. Most are found eventually… Disappearances, after all, have explanations.
I knew that!
And as I laid on the ground with my eyes closed, letting my heart try and steady itself back to some resemblance of a normal heart rate, I knew that this would soon be said about me.
Probably, plastered as a headline at some newspaper, while underneath would be a picture of me looking disoriented, confused, miserable and with...
O dear Lord, child.
With that thought in mind, my fingers traveled, instinctively, to my womb;
trying to estimate by touch all the goings on there.
This done with my eyes still closed, of course.
Inasmuch as opening them would mean accepting my new reality. My new life; without him.
And that, I wasn't willing to do, even had I had the facility to execute such an act.
My eyes seemed to be glued shut.
Dried tears, I surmised.
In the face of my decision to remain inert, my sensibilities refuted me, yet again, by moving my hand to a spot just beneath my navel, to assay on what was to become the last vestige left of him.
As I carried out this smallest of efforts on my part, I found it was hard to move any of my ligaments.
Naturally, it would,
I reasoned.
Everything would be hard from now on,
with no- one to truly share the burden with.
Only, something did feel a bit odd.
A tad different somehow. I couldn't explain it, just yet, but something was undeniably queerer than before.
It wasn't as if I could feel the child previously to my crossing, but something was undoubtedly wrong.
I suppose it was all those thoughts, feelings, heartache, and the detrimental physical effects of going through those blasted stones, that were the cause I failed altogether to register that it wasn't a woolen dress my fingers were skimming, or that my surroundings were not at all as mute as I perceived them to be.
Quite suddenly, I could hear the shooting, all around.
Loud sounds were starting to rumble and multiply in my ears, as if earplugs were abruptly detached from them.
Wait!
Another thought jumped into focus: Jamie!
Suddenly, events leading to my crossing were beginning to come back.
Jamie… the soldiers that were after me... the stones.
It was decidedly not the soldier's hands that grabbed me from behind.
It was resolutely not the soldier's body that flung itself wildly on mine.
And it wasn't, without a shadow of a doubt, the soldier's last breath that whispered-
"I love you, Claire. Goodbye."
Before everything shattered. Before I shattered, into a million pieces.
I could feel him there with me, screaming in the dark, being split into nothing.
But then, I thought it to be only a wish of the heart, not a thing rooted in reality.
I willed my eyes to open wide.
Pain and stickiness be damned.
No, he was most definitely not here, with me, now.
O God, did he die right there? By that fucking soldier's hands? Stabbed in the back? Shot?
Only to protect me?
I felt my throat clench, and tears were streaming down my face, unbidden.
He was dead and I the cause of it.
I curled myself into a ball on the ground, and resolved that despite my promise to him, I would simply lie here and die.
It isn't quite breaking my promise if I were to just freeze to death on the ground, was it?
It's not as if I did it to myself.
It will happen on its own accord!
Or perhaps one of the muskets shooting…
Muskets?
I, all at once, brought that piece of my reality to the front and center of my mind.
Why were there muskets firing?
A sudden, sharp, familiar howl piercing through the ether, made me jump to my feet, all at once.
This was accompanied by the eerily, and well-known by now shouts and cries; war cries.
Highlander's war cries!
A freezing gust of ice-cold wind blew between my …
"What on bloody earth?"
I stared down at myself, only to find I was wearing my oxford loafers, my rayon, and linen white dress, taken-in at the waist by my thin light brown belt.
I was wearing my silver wrist watch, for Christ's sake!
I began panting as if I had been running for hours.
This was not possible!
I must have hit my head, or gone bat mad crazy, because of those bloody, bloody stones!
Still, in a state of complete dazed mystification, my feet had begun moving; entirely on their own accord.
By the time my mind caught up with what my flesh was doing, I simply theorized that my body was probably searching for someone or something else that could verify my delusional state.
For delusional I most certainly had to be!
It may be that Jiminy cricket will show up on my shoulder as a tour guide to Gepetto's house,
I tried jesting with myself.
I was so clearly stupefied, that I just allowed myself to wobbly wander on, unable to construct even one coherent thought; only blindly following my incessant urge to keep moving.
A loud discharged shot, close enough that it almost pierced my eardrum, forced me to crouch back down the ground.
Two seconds later, and I was up and running.
Running from what? What was going on?
Only questions sprung to mind, not a single answer given in return.
I just ran.
'No, this was not a set of a Cinema Company, filming a costume drama',
I reprimanded my brain for even suggesting such a thing again.
Hold on… again?
I have been through all of this before;
that much I had managed to come to grips with.
And even if this was a dream, the man awaiting me at the end of this false manifestation was...
I whirled myself around in order to backtrack my steps, but had only succeeded in losing my footing over the muddy earth, effectuating my flailing figure to be hurled down the slope.
By the time I finally did manage to get myself up on my feet again, I could see them.
And then I could see him-
Yes, it was him!
Angus had whizzed by, then stopped, and turned to his rear to discharge a musket ball at his pursuers- -and by the large seemed to be having a jolly good time- -before turning back to commence fleeing again.
I cried out, but then immediately desist.
No sound that I could possibly make would carry above this hullabaloo.
Good Lord, what would I even say? They don't even know me yet!
And then I recalled,
this is a hallucination, it really doesn't matter what I would-
But, there wasn't even time to ponder that.
Or why the devils am I trying to play along with this phantasmagoria?
The redcoats spotted me and had begun firing.
Apparently, when fired upon- - or so I was discovering- -your mind and body do not care if it is real or not.
So, yet again, I found myself running, without me giving any consent to such a course of action.
If I had; if I for one instant had my wits about me, or if the redcoats were not so hot on my trail, almost reaching me,
I would have called it to mind.
I would have remembered that this exact path, in this exact time, would only bring me to stand face to face with-
Jonathan Wolverton Randall. Captain "Black Jack" Randall, that is.
"Shit!" I said aloud.
That was all I could come up with at that moment.
And it was a quite the grave mistake to make.
Randall rose to his feet. Up and away from the stream's bank, where he had crouched above, just before I came into his view.
His sword, perhaps, sheathed, but still very much at hand.
Dream or no dream,
I resolved,
I prefer the soldiers' company, even if they are high bent on shooting me.
I took a few steps backwards, but he moved toe-to-toe with me.
"Shit!" I reiterated, and turned to run.
Dear Lord, will I never learn?!
Randall reached me within seconds of my dash, and I found myself fastened and incapacitated against the side of the mound, sword at my throat, again!
'This is not funny,' I reflected angrily.
Holding me barbarously and churlishly, the fumes and sputters of his breath struck my face as he spoke,
"I am Jonathan Randall, Esquire, Captain of His Majesty's Eighth Dragoons. At your service," he added cynically in the end.
"Who the bloody hell are you!?" He demanded of me.
'This is demented. This is not real. He is not real. He can't be!'
Frenzied screams cried in my head.
But last time, I was also sure as shooting that all of this was a dream, and I was, thank the heavens, smart enough to play along.
I wasn't about to play dumb now.
Only-
I couldn't iterate all the exact same things I had said before.
Could I?
I pondered, as I rabidly searched in my mind for what to do or say.
No, that would be truly moronic!
My mind rebuked me.
Luckily, if one could say such a thing with a straight face regarding my current quandary, Randall had no intentions to wait, or to concern himself much with my reply, even if I had supplied him with one.
"You must think me the fool! You'll be well advised to tell me, exactly, who you are, and why you are here!"
He snarled at me.
I kept silent.
I needed to stay alive just long enough for him to come.
I recalled that much, at least.
'Just live long enough for him to come, Beauchamp',
I recited to myself.
Unfortunately, as aforementioned, Randall could never be mistaken for a patient man.
He shook me hard, and the back of my head rebounded on the bank.
I instinctively swung my hands up toward my head in order to protect myself, but he must have thought I was trying to get away, for he fastened his blade to my throat, and I could feel him compress it firmly to my skin.
The acrid smell of blood trickled up into my nostrils.
"Madam, you will find my patient is not infinite!" He announced needlessly.
All I could do, at that point, was to reflect absentmindedly-
'Ah, all of this is new.'
For things were beginning to be blurry, for the first time.
I was starting to suspect that the blow to my head was a tad more serious than I could afford at present, and the more startling fact was that it was showing.
Randall slapped me hard to awaken me.
"No- one to help Alex now," I mumbled, losing coherency.
I was quite wobbly at this point, but I knew if I was to fully lose consciousness now, it was sure to be the end of me.
"What?"
Randall's eyes popped open, and the cords of his neck were straining and bulging out.
Just like Frank's did, when irate.
And all of a sudden, I had a nostalgic urge to touch it; to say goodbye.
The urge left me, as Randall began jerking me unmercifully.
He had heard me, and was truly taken aback at my words.
That, I must admit, gave me a tinge of satisfaction;
which was rapidly being replaced by annoyance.
It was hard to faint properly, and be done with it all while being rattled like a moppet.
"You fucking bastard. Stop it!" I shouted into his face, and spat at him.
'Fuck it, indeed!'
If I was going down, I was going down fighting.
"Ha! The speech of a lady, the language of a whore," he smiled at my stirring, and twisted me around.
With my face now buried in the rock, Randall was lifting my dress at my rear, all a while panting in my ear,
"we shall see what you will or will not tell me, now..."
There was a loud 'thump', and the pressure that his body exerted on mine eased.
"Took you long enough," I said aloud, and fell like a rock to the ground,
everything fading to black.
~?+**~?+=
~?+**~?+=&&&
He was dead.
This much he knew.
And oddly enough, that was a great comfort to him.
'Twas over, everything was over.
Of course, everything was to be over the moment she would leave,
he thought and felt a very sharp tightening in his chest.
She was gone...
Dammit, this shouldna hurt as much!
That was why dying the moment after she would leave him was so crucial.
Jamie kent he had to avoid the feeling of pain over their separation, as soon as possible.
He knew he would not be able to sustain such a thing for long.
He also kent, he would probably feel regret for dying before going back to save his men, and said he must find occasion to pray for each and every one of them, and for their safely return home; to Lallybroch.
O, Lallybroch,
he would surely miss his place so.
No.
'Tis no his place anymore,
he reminded himself,
'twas wee Jaime's now.
He would take good care of it, though; when the time comes.
He was sure of that right enough, for first and foremost, Jamie kent who his parents were.
The tightening in his chest returned, yet again, as thoughts of never seeing his sister, brother- in-law and best friend, even for once more, wafted in his head.
Worse than that, he felt very badly for taking so many men into this pointless, futile bloodshed in the first place, even with him knowing the way of things to come.
'Merde…. Salope Charles Stuart…. Casse-toi!'
He muttered.
But what was he to do?! What could he ha' done differently?!
'And why, for heaven's sake, wasna anyone coming to tell him where to go next?!'
By the Saints above, what was it, that did him in at the end?
He remembered Claire running to those t-olc rocks with a redcoat fixed strong on her trail.
He recalled killing the redcoat's companion first, which only slowed him down in such a way he had to wield his own body in order to save her.
Which, of course, he did, hurling himself on her, just as she reached those bloody things.
He was sure he would feel the rock hit his face just as a bayonet would spear him at his back.
He was stabbed before;
why she even dressed such wounds for him herself.
He smiled a little at that.
God had sent him his own private, beautiful, uncannily knowledgeable (far beyond his own time) healer.
His smile widened.
Only, whatever struck at him dinna feel the same!
He felt his face contorting owing to his return to his original thought.
That felt like naught he had ever endured.
That felt as if he did not exist anymore, only he was still there to be aware of it.
As if he was shattered to so many parts that he could never be put back together again.
And then an instant later, a force, which, he assumed must be divine, for naught on earth could yield such power, sucked him back together...
Making him into what?
He wondered.
And the screams,
oh Lord, may he have mercy,
the screams.
He was afraid that the screams would come and take the pieces that were him away.
So small he felt.
Like the things Claire would tell him about, what were they?
Gerrrms,
he recalled.
He also bore to mind, her smile when he would say the word.
How he loved that he could make her smile like that.
Now, it will be Frank that will make her laugh such.
Jamie said a lot of very bad words at that realization.
It wasn't enough, though.
He could still feel his choler sear him from the inside, like a sweltering branding iron, its heat spreading all over his body, making it impossible to lay still.
No!
He couldna stand the thought of that man touching his woman, his child.
Way did he let her go?! And why to that man?!
Jamie won her.
She loved him.
She chose him.
He sired her children, Frank did no.
Jamie knew he did right by her, but the pain in his chest was now going to burst, and it would consume all that was left of him with it.
It hurt too much.
He loved her too much!
But, wait, was he no already deid?
He opened his eyes, only now realizing they were closed all this time; he flung his body up, and-
screamed at the top of his lungs.
His right shoulder, the whole right side of him, was erupting with currents of pain.
He screamed again, trying to rise to his feet, and collapsed straight down, only at the last second remembering to shift and fall on the left side of his face.
"Ça me fait chier," he said, wholeheartedly, into the grass.
He was, obviously, not dead.
Suddenly, hands were griping at him.
Someone was trying to stand him up.
Jamie shrieked, and then to his abashment he whimpered.
They laughed at him.
Great!
Hold on!?
That laugh, he kent that laugh.
The laughing man gave up on the idea of trying to get Jamie on his feet, and had now slung him across his shoulders as if he was a carcass.
Jamie missed the chance to see the man's face; only, that laugh, he'd ken it anywhere.
He laughed with the man enough times to have it cauterized into his brain.
Rupert. Rupert MacKenzie. Plain as day!
But the man was deid, he saw him die.
I am deid,
he returned to his original assumption.
And Jamie supposed that to send a friend as a guide in purgatory was a very kind thing to do.
But what in all that his holy, was Angus doing here?!
He must have died too,
the puir bugger.
Jaime found just one thing...well no, to be fair about it, he found three things, extremely, disturbing.
Why was he in so much pain, if he was deid?
Why was he pained with an old injury?
He ruminated profoundly on that matter, as he grimaced and keeked at his shoulder joint again, which was, just as last time, completely out of sorts.
And by God and Mary bless him, why were they entering the cottage where he first saw-?
"A Dhia, cuidich mi," he chokingly exclaimed.
Would he be allowed to see her again?
An awful thought struck at him.
Were she and the bairn deid?
He gasped, and then could no longer feel his body, or the jolts of pain from being moved around and placed to sit on a stool near the hearth.
He no longer saw faces around him.
If she died, she and the child-
Tears were blurring everything as they welled up in his eyes.
He had no mind, nor care for it.
He stared at the floor, choked.
He would have preferred her to be with Frank;
Happy, safe, cared for; even if she will never be all those things with him, just that she will be alive and well.
There were sounds around him;
people were trying to speak to him, trying to make him speak back to them;
but it was as if they were a thousand miles away.
Leave him be.
Leave him be, to mourn, to cry for his love, for his heart, and for his second child.
He shuddered, and was about to fall completely apart when a big 'thunk' was heard, and the door swinging open, made him look up.
As only one ray of light from the outside world entered the cottage, so entered the shape of Murtagh hauling the unconscious form of-
"CLA…!"
He was rising to his feet, trying to reach her.
But his shoulder proving, yet again, it was not a force to be trifled with forced him back onto the stool, making him clutch at it, and gasping for breath.
He could only tilt his head slightly up, but it was enough to see that she was only unconscious, for she was stirring and moaning as she was lowered from Murtagh's shoulders, and was propped up to standing by the second fire in the room, a few steps away from him.
She was still very much leaned on Murtagh, though, for much-needed support.
All the men rallied around her.
Some were baffled, but all were utterly taken aback.
What was wrong wi' them? Did they no ken his woman?
He was about to speak up, for he could not seem to manage to go to her, or move an inch for that matter.
Besides his injury, there was also a hand on his good shoulder, holding him down.
Was he that feeble?
He cared naught who it was, or why his hand was on him. He could only see HER.
Lowering his gaze from her face, which was slowly animating, he noticed her clothes, or more accurately the lack of them?!
What was his lass up to?
Last he saw her, she was fully dressed.
Oh dear Lord, did someone hurt her?
He made to speak, yet again, but Rupert inquiring Murtagh about her gave him pause.
As he heard the man's speech, he realized the most curious thing.
He had heard these exact words... roughly more than two years ago.
He remembered them all right, he took them to mind.
Every second, of every minute of the day... of the day they met!
He told it, many a times, to Claire's belly, while Claire herself was sound asleep;
laughing privately with Faith, telling her of the first day her parents met,
swearing Faith to secrecy, so as not to divulge to her mother all the things the men had said about her, behind her back.
The hand on his shoulder was lifted, and the form of Dougal MacKenzie appeared before his very eyes.
Jamie drew a sharp aching breath, and just about swooned.
He was sure his eyes were bulging out, only he could not bring himself to adjust it right or move a muscle to save his life.
He was in a complete state of shock.
He had just slain the man!
Surely, in purgatory, even the devil himself will not place the man who was done-with beside the man that wielded the knife that slew him?!
If he had any doubt regarding the fact that Dougal would have much to recompense over before being granted such a gift, he would have been far more rattled.
With his mind easier from the concern of such retribution being exacted, in this exact moment;
realization finally dawned on him-
This time, he touched the stone with her. A thing he had not done before.
The stones were a way of moving through time, and it was quite clear that what had happened before was happening again. Now!
He had also just come to grips with the fact, that if he was neither dead, and this was nay a dream, then the woman he was forced to part with was right there.
In front of him!
As the day he met her.
In the day he met her.
He got her back.
Incapacity be damned.
He'd go to her, now!
Dougal was shaking her lightly, while she was still leaned on Murtagh's side, her arm drooping around Murtagh's shoulder. There was hardly any weight on her feet, but she did exude a whine in response to Dougal's jarring of her.
Devil take him, he'd kill whoever hurt her!
"What's wrong wi' her?" He inquired of Murtagh, his voice sounding weary and strained in his own ears.
He was trying to rise to his feet, again, but with no more success than the first time.
Claire was now blinking her eyes, intermittently, and making light groaning noises.
"Jack Randall," Murtagh answered matter-of-factly as if naught else needed to be said.
Naught else was indeed needed.
"What o' ye laddie? How r'ye faring?"
"I'll do," he answered dryly.
"What's wrong wi' her, then?"
He persisted, and once more tried to rise to his feet.
Only, such actions did naught but lead to Murtagh thrusting Claire into Dougal's arms, and rushing to come to his side, crying out at him-
"Hey now, ye big clot. Dunno ye be doin' that!"
"Dunno ye be doin' that!" Jamie instructed harshly back, and catapulted his body to try and reach Dougal and his wife, "ye'll hurt her!"
Murtagh seized him by his good shoulder and waist, lowering him back down to the stool.
Jamie was now seeing stars inside his head, and was wondering how they had got there.
Ifrinn! He was weak!
"Jamie," Murtagh exclaimed, "Dè tha thu a dèanamh, burraidh?"
"Let go!" Jamie tried to wiggle away from his grasp.
"I'm no doin' anythin', I wasna the one tossing my…."
He stopped himself, realizing.
At this time, Claire was not his wife.
As yet, none of them kent her, or of her.
And then the most horrifying thought succeeded this-
What if she dinna ken them back?
And the perpetuation to that crushing thought was...
What if she dinna ken him, and who he was to her?
He had to be cautious and shrewd here.
He got a second chance, he might not get another.
And he was, most assuredly, unwilling to lose her again. Not again!
'A Dhia Mòran taing,' he indebted to the heavens, just before addressing Murtagh in the most penitent tone he could contrive.
"Tha mi duilich, a charaid.
'Tis the pain, a ghoistidh. 'Tis making me soft in the heid. Canna think straight."
"Aye," his godfather nodded, but seemed to stay dubious.
This was interrupted by coughing sounds from the circle of men.
Who, quite obscenely, had their attention engrossed with surveying Claire; who was doing the coughing.
This due to the whiskey that was poured down her throat, by Dougal.
All the men were, now, looking at her in a very animalistic manner and they seemed to be closing ranks around her.
Jamie swore he would wring their necks, one by one and very slowly.
"Whit?" Murtagh puzzled of him, and Jamie came to notice he was growling.
"Naught," he said, squirming in his seat from embarrassment, which made him let out a very low grunt of pain.
"'Tis the pain," he said, straining to explain.
"'Tis really bad. Can hardly sit still."
"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ," Claire blurted out, as she gasped for breath, pounding at her chest with one hand, and using the other to wave for the flask to be taken away.
"You're not supposed to give alcohol to head injury patients!"
She wheezed fiercely, but just as swiftly began to ease.
That made him smile and settle as well.
She was alright then.
Ordering men around in a reproaching manner, and spouting medical facts was Claire at her best.
"A Sassenach wench, then?" Exclaimed Angus.
"Aye," said Dougal, and Jamie could almost hear the scheming and plotting going on in his head.
"Now lass," Dougal addressed Claire.
"If ye're quite recovered by now, ye'll be tellin' me, whit is your name an' who ye are?"
Claire looked around at all of them and then glimpsed a swift peek at Jamie's direction.
Did she recognize him?
The dim light prevented him from seeing her clearly.
If he had, he would ken.
If he could touch her, he would ken for sure.
He knew what his lass looked like, what she felt like, how she touched him before and after she was his.
And Jamie kent the difference between the two very well, indeed.
"I'm Claire. Claire Beauchamp," she said, staring straight into Dougal's eyes.
She always had the devil's own courage.
O Lord, please let her remember him,
please let her come to him and heal him, so he could see her, touch her.
The price he had to endure to let her go took a very weighty toll on him, and he needed mending.
He needed her; badly.
No, 'twill be fine if she wilna recollect him!
Jamie composed himself for the possibility.
He'll earn her back.
He did so before, he could do so again.
And now that he knew exactly how...
"I am not a whore!"
Her fierce tone pulled him back from his own scheming and plotting.
Only, his were for a noble and righteous cause, he assured his conscience.
"We can put it to the test," Rupert joked with Angus, thrusting his hips forward in a lewd gesture.
If Jamie had a gun it would be empty by now.
"I won't hold wi' rape!" Dougal chastising put a firm stop to their jeering.
"An' we havna got time for it anyway," he added with what sounded to Jamie as a wee bit of regret in his voice?!
"Dougal, I have no idea 'whit' she might be or who, but I'll stake my best shot, she nae a hure"
It was the 'whit' and the way Murtagh said it, that made Jamie's ears itch and made his skin to crawl.
What did he know? What did he see?
"We'll puzzle it later. We got a good distance to go tonight, and we must do something' about Jaime first."
Dougal resolved the matter, striding toward Jamie.
"I can help," Claire cried out, following him promptly.
Three men drew out their blades, aiming them squarely at her throat.
Claire froze, and stood aback half a step.
The other men, though, seem to be contemplating other parts of her, licking their lips as if in a suggestion to what they would like to be doing to yon parts, adding descriptive words in the Gàidhlig.
All men are evil!
Jamie resolute firmly.
"I only meant…." she said, cautiously maneuvering through the blades, inching her way so as to come closer to him.
She moved and talked to them as if they were a skittish horse she was trying to tame.
Sweet bleeding Jesus, she learned that from him!
"You have to get the bone and the upper arm in the correct position before it slips back into joint," she explained, aiming her words to whomever the power laid with.
Dougal stared back, surveying her yet again, then nodded his approval and moved, slightly, back.
At this, all the other men stood aback as well.
They were all, in fact, acting the same as they did last time.
She came to him, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek so as to stop his smile from spreading.
Her eyes were in his.
Did she know of him?
He was almost sure she did, but could he take the risk?
As she bent to him, her drenched hair slipped over her face, and he instinctively lifted his hand to tuck it back behind her ear.
He stopped himself a little too late.
His fingers an inch from her face, his hand suspended mid- air.
He was at a loss as to what to do next.
Claire smiled softly to him, and then gathered his palm in hers.
O Lord, her touch.
He truly believed he had lost her, and would never again come to feel her touch.
Dunno let go. Dunno, ever, let go.
he intoned in his head, unsure was he addressing this to her or to himself.
Claire placed his palm on his good shoulder, nodding to him as she said out loud for all around them to hear
"Yes. You should hold your hand here."
Then nodding to Murtagh, she decreed,
"Hold him steady!"
Jaime inhaled sharply as she took the wrist of his damaged arm.
"Don't worry," she said, a hair distance away from his face
"I've done this… before."
He wanted to tell her he kent it well enough, but she was already aligning his injured arm and twisting it in such a way that articulating even one word was no longer a viable option to which he was privileged to.
"All right, this is the worst part," she warned.
"I r-remember-r," he strained badly in order to let the words out.
"Ye whelp, when did ye e'er put aff your shoulder afore?"
Murtagh's snickering tone was evident, being so close to Jamie's ear.
But, he got what he sought after.
Claire's face lit up at his words, and her lip quivered as she fought the urge to smile.
She remembered!
~?+**~?+=
~?+**~?+=&&&
I popped the joint back into place.
The grinding sounds of cartilage and bone troubled me so much more, this time around than last time.
I did not enjoy paining Jamie.
Well, not usually, I rectified for honesty sake.
His breathing was slowing down from the procedure, more now, that he was able to draw full breaths, with no pangs.
He sighed with relief, and a smile that spread from lips... to eyes... to... even his nostrils were flaring up.
He was holding my hand, which I placed on his good shoulder along with mine.
He was using it to fasten my palm firmly in place, not letting go.
His eyes, now, boring into mine with a look that they usually held just before he-
Oh dear, if we stayed locked eyes like this, he might well pull me all the way to him and…
When fully aroused a Fraser will do anything, anywhere, anytime and the devil- may- care who might be watching.
I mean, one does learn a thing or two in almost three years of marriage.
I swallowed hard, and his grip tightened on my wrist in response; to the extent that it was now my cartilage and bones that were making rasping sounds.
His look now shifted to one I would catch him giving me when he was unaware I detected him watching me.
He would survey me and I could hear the wheels of his brain turning, making plans as to what to do to with me later.
I asked him once what he was about, and swore never to do so again.
His mouth opened slightly, and he gave the hand he was holding a quick, side-glance peek, slanted eyes narrowing.
Surely, he wouldn't... I mean, surely, he would not bite my fingers right now?!
Well, he had; many a times.
I reminded myself.
And many such occasions were in company,
I added, yet again, just to be on the fair side.
But certainly, he wouldn't now!
Or would he?
Just in case, I cleared my throat and inclined my head toward Angus, prescribing-
"Give me your belt."
And stretching out my hand toward him to receive it.
Both of his eyebrows shot up at me at that.
Seriously?
I thought,
Must we really go through A.L.L of it again?
Resigned, I looked at Dougal and elaborated,
"The organ his tender and at risk to be dislodged, again, without proper support. I need to make him a sling.
Do you have a cloth or something else I can use?"
I asked, knowing full well what the answer would be,
"Well do you? Any of you?"
Exasperated, I repeated my demand.
"Then give me your belt!"
Angus stared at me, open-mouthed, until, yet again, Dougal gave his acquiescence and I was in possession of a belt.
I went about the task of repeating everything I had said, 'before', regarding the care of the joint and how it would feel in the foreseeable future, just in case straying from the 'script' would cause a massive cosmic disturbance.
I was, apparently, not very subdued in my tone, for that earned me a strong glare from Jamie, clearly, suggesting I tone myself down.
'Sorry,'
I answered back, through a known look of my own, which, this time, awarded me a warm reassuring squeeze at my wrist, which he was still holding for dear life.
I extricated my hand, very gently, out of his not- so- willing- to- free- me- palm, and resumed my administration, trying as much as possible to covertly caress him while doing so.
"All right, how does that feel?"
I asked, straightening up.
Funny enough, I knew the answer to that query as well.
He smiled knowingly at me, and then shifting back to his earlier stare said,
"Better, thank ye."
"Can you ride?"
Dougal's question came more as a command than a query, his tone irritated. More so it seemed than last time, I mean this time…that was…then.
O my, this will not be easy.
Dougal stomped toward us, tossing Jamie's coat into his lap.
"Good, we're leaving!"
And with that, he departed, disappearing into some dark corner in the back,
Some back room, perhaps,
I surmised, while the rest of the men seeped out through the door.
I remembered this moment.
While setting his arm, Jamie gave me the gift of forgetfulness and denial to my standing.
An escape, if only for a moment, from the complete terror I felt the first time I went through those cursed-blessed stones.
When the moment ended and I returned to my prisoner stature, I felt dread, panic, and complete loneliness at the enormity of my reality.
My reality, now, was just as confusing, complicated, and scary.
I still had the same enemies and with none of the friends I made.
None of them knew me yet.
I still had to watch what I said and did; knowing full well, one small faulty move might take back the only miracle I wished to preserve in all this nightmare-
Jamie.
I looked up at him, and my glass face must have shown my distress for he gave a side-glance at our surrounding, gathered me with his good arm taut to him, and kissed me fervently.
His tongue inside my mouth, as he moved his soft lips to cover, suck and caress my own.
I felt his arm skim me up along my back, in order to settle his palm at the curve of my nape;
using it to pull me more and more into him and up, which led to me finding myself standing on my toes and leaning on his chest with hardly any weight on my feet.
It was passionate, but brief.
As he released me, he kept our foreheads clasped together, whispering ardently into me,
"Not alone!"
And immediately unhanding me, he came to stand by the exit, awaiting me to follow.
My lips were tingling, my mouth seemed to still hold the ghost of his demanding tongue inside it.
My knees being surprised at all the returning weight on them, all at once, fittingly buckled a bit, leaving me to sway lightly.
"Right," I murmured to myself.
Definitely no loneliness this time.
And with that, I was out the door; Jamie, very lightly, came after me, letting his hand hover at my back.
~?+**~?+=&&&
When my lips could finally move again, I said
"That's how I knew I wasn't in my own time anymore."
I was standing in the doorway of the cottage, taking a gulp of freezing air into my lungs, standing shoulder to shoulder with Jamie.
"What d'ye mean?" He asked, all the while, trying to settle his right shoulder, which was the one that was strapped in the makeshift belt-sling I constructed for him, and had probably skidded as a result of his prompt act of affirmation toward me.
I, instinctively, half turned to him and was unbuckling and re-buckling it, for a more comfortable angle for him.
Jamie, also quite intuitively, half turned towards me, and naturally moved much closer to me, placing the palm of his good arm gently on my hip.
This was not done as some illustrious sensual invite, but simply as a man whose wife nursed him many times and was just allowing her- -meaning me- -free access to his body.
It was so habitually ordinary for us, I thought nothing of it.
I should have been more aware, though. Jamie and I were far too cosy and intimate with each other so as to not need to watch our every move.
"'Before- the first time that is- when you told me that down there was Inverness,"
I inclined my head toward the, once again, fully- dark village.
"And I came to realize that there were no electric lights. I did tell you about electric... Jamie?"
Only, Jamie was not listening to me, at all.
His face was turned to the side, towards the other members of our 'little' party of men, who stares were fixed wide on us.
A few, I could see, even in this dim light of the moon, had frowns of complete bewilderment on their faces.
The others, who were gazing with protruding eyes at me, seemed as if they were wondering can they have a go at me as well; once Jamie would be done with his turn, of course.
One was stabbing another at his ribs, pointing, licking his lips in a very crude fashion.
O dear Lord,
Once I realized what they were staring at, I backed away, as quickly as I could, from Jamie.
Jamie grasped all this as well, and was quicker with his wit than I was.
He pointed his thumb at me and said something demeaning in the Gàidhlig, which I only gathered through his expressions and their howling responses.
I half-coughed under my breath, while Jamie, very intelligently, walked toward his horse, not looking back.
Serves him right if I didn't follow him, and went to ride with someone else!
Only then, I cast back on the other men's smell.
Jamie, it is then!
The other men were, now, lazily returning to mount their horses.
Dougal popping up from behind me, roughly seized my arm, and shoved me toward Jamie, who was mounting his horse with Murtagh's help.
"Git yersel up!" He subordinated.
"Ye'll be sure to stay close to the rest of us. And if ye to try anything else, I shell slit your throat for ye, do ye understand?"
His mouth was venomously viperish in my ear; closer and meaner than last time.
Had I done something wrong or so different so as to earn me such handling?
All of a sudden, another hand snatched at me, on my other side.
Jaime was bent on his horse- -with great difficulty, I noticed- -and was pulling at my arm to bring me to him.
"Aye, she takes your meaning, uncle!"
He sounded very menacing himself, which I gathered was directed at Dougal and not at me.
Dougal seemed completely baffled by this.
"Dè tha thu a' dèanamh? Abair bràthair-athar?" He chastised Jamie in Gallic.
Jamie used to ask me 'What are you doing?' so many times during the duration of our marriage that I understood the phrase quite well.
And 'what are you communicating verbally (the words) brother of someone's parent?'
was also something I managed to piece together from some of the words I learned being married to a Scot.
Jamie, realizing the shaky ground on which we were walking on, replied in a reconciling tone,
"I meant naught by it, but that the lady has been cooperating, thus far. Treated my shoulder and such, answering your questions and…"
"Christ, and whit of it? Ye purpose me to let her go, then?" Dougal raised his voice, holding a distinct tone of aggression in it.
Such a tone and the implications to follow it were not lost on Jamie as well, for he retorted to this with a light snort, and adjusted his voice to hold much levity in it.
"Ouch, no uncle, believe ye me, and ye ha' my word on it, I'm no aboot to let this woman 'oot of my sight! She goes nowhere!
Dinna fash yer thoum. After all, I'm the one wi' the most to lose if she goes missing.
I vow this t' ye, she'll ha' to answer to me if she strays!"
Then, pulling me closer to him and to his horse, he bent his head further down to me, and with a glint in his eyes said,
"and she kens it verra weel indeed!"
And before Dougal could attempt a response, he nodded to Murtagh to help me mount and join him.
Murtagh- -who I had to remind myself, did not know me yet, so I could not take to heart the unnerving looks he was giving me- -reluctantly hoisted me up, while Dougal, now awaken from is outright dumbfoundedness at Jamie's behavior, left us to take the lead on his own horse.
"Seas," Jaime worked his thighs to calm the horse, who as it seems did not recall the feel of our combined weight on him from before, and was not pleased about the new addition.
Neither were the rest of the men, I noted to myself.
Looking away from Murtagh to the other's faces- which I knew so well, but theirs showed no recognition to that fact- they were eyeing me in a way that ranged from licentious resentment, menacing bewilderment or outright blinding hate (that I sincerely hoped was based on my English station and not anything else).
"Seas, a leannan."
Jaime kept whispering sweet, calming words in balmy tones, while petting the horse's neck.
The horse didn't seem distressed anymore, and I came to realize that he was aiming his words at me.
I relaxed my body, which I only now noticed was strung tight.
Probably, as a result of coming face to face with Dougal, his sudden resurrection, and the rough reminder of his true nature.
I exhaled deeply, relaxing further at feeling my lover's hand caressing the horse's mane and my hand that laid there.
"Math baagh."
He turned to gesture to Murtagh,
"Tha gu matha, a charaid."
And with that, his thighs stirred the horse to walking, forestalling any further invasiveness or inquisitiveness from the throng of people around us.
.+-+=+-+&*&
As we gathered enough security under the blanket of darkness, Jamie gathered me onto him; so tight that his breath came strong and hot in my ear, and his chest was close-fitting to every inch of my back.
I, in turn, tautly scooped my derriere to him, and fixed it right between his inner thighs.
This recompensed me a very low hum of approval from the 'driver seat'.
My lips curved- up in secret.
Finally,
the reason we both played along with this masquerade. To be together. To just be.
However, being in a state of complete contentment is still insufficient so as to sustain one's self against the elements, so I satirically tarted,
"This wasn't for your benefit, young man."
I rocked my hips back, again.
"I'm cold," I playfully repined.
"A gentleman might offer to have his plaid loose in order to cover a girl... or woman, markedly his own."
It was, after all, beginning to rain hard at this point.
I felt his chest vibrate a smidge, presumably from repressed laughter,
"Weel, dinna much want to give them further reasons to talk and speculate about us, now did I ?"
Sobering up, though, he added repentantly,
"sorry lass, I thought you were scared nay cold. That's why I'm shivering! Can ye reach, though? I canna do it…."
"One handed, I know. I remember," I said, as we started an awkward dance of tugging and shifting, till the plaid came loose and could be wrapped snugly around us both.
This time, to my good fortune, it was covering more of my frozen limbs; mostly due to the non-existent distance between us; this time around.
Once covered, and regaining more secrecy under his plaid, Jamie's good arm came around my midsection, and was caressing, thawing, and lightly massaging me.
I, inadvertently, closed my eyes in response to the currents of heated pleasure it kindled in me, and ever so lightly began rubbing myself onto him; as if he was a big scratching pole and me a kitten.
A second later, I heard him whisper in my ear,
"'Tis nae that I'm no enjoying it, a ghraidh, and much obliged to ye for it. Only, watch yourself."
Oops,
I nodded, and hastily adjusted all my features to demonstrate the proper demeanor.
During the ride, though, my fatigue wore out any self-restraint I had,
and I kept finding myself leaning my head against his chest, snuggling affectionately into him, and clinging to his arm instead of to the pommel,
which was, undoubtedly, a more befitting conduct of a woman who was just shanghaied against her will and was surrounded by the enemy that applied the seizing.
'Stop it, Beauchamp!'
I berated myself, after almost drowsily reaching a hand back to caress his stubbled chin, as if we were lying in our bed.
'Why on earth can you not moderate yourself?!' I reproached myself.
Though, the answer to that was quite clear to me.
I went through quite a lot these past two days.
My 'journey' beginning in the past, where I resigned myself to never seeing Jamie again, and saying a heartrending goodbye to him,
all the while being filled with disbelief, anger, and desolation for losing him.
It went on after my crossing, to the moments where I just about reached acceptance of my world collapsing, and resigned myself to a life compounded of hollowness and abandonment (which I believed would follow me through all the rest of my days), married with massive amounts of black rage and betrayal, prompt by the knowledge that I had never taken him for granted, so why was he being taken away from me?!
And then I topped all this emotional ride with:
Running, being chased, being shot upon, beaten, saved, and threatened, again.
All quite worth it, if it meant I was back in his arms;
no doubt in my mind on that,
Only, I think it also earned me the right to be so immensely exhausted.
The problem being, not that I could feel said exhaustion take more and more hold over me.
The problem was that with all that was happening-
I was not afraid. Not like last time.
I had Jamie.
And no matter what was the occurrence around me, my body, always, trusted that in his proximity, it could unbend.
Now was no exception, and I was left fighting hard against myself so as to keep conscious and a vigil eye against my body's own instincts.
When this all happened, the first time that is, it was sheer panic and adrenaline that was firing my synopsis into complete wakefulness and alertness, now I had no such physical help to assist me.
Pondering all that, though, and all that I have been through, made me feel a bit concerned.
This could not be good for the baby,
I mused.
I was snapped back to full attentiveness now.
My body went rigid and my breathing shallow; due mostly to my rib cage turning to stone.
"What's wrong wi' ye, a nighean?" I heard Jamie query, almost at once.
A single tear ran down my cheek, I swallowed hard and in a brittle voice, which was very hard to eject, I said bereft,
"The baby."
No sound came from the back, but I had no concern that he hadn't heard or understood my words.
Jamie's body reacted the same as mine did, his voice too.
"C-Claire, my love... r'ye bleeding?" He asked, anguish and anxiety apparent in his voice.
I stopped him from halting the horse by placing my hand on his thigh.
"No Jamie... He's gone. I thought something wrong when I first awoke from crossing through the stones, but now…. I can feel it, he's not there anymore. He's... gone."
"How can ye…" He interjected, trying to grasp at something to refute me.
I squeezed the thigh under my palm, tears running down both cheeks now.
"I don't know how I know. I just do," I said pauciloquent and cold, vainly trying not to let my grief rise higher in my chest and break me completely.
"But-" He tried rebutting me again.
"Jamie," I said in laconic isolation.
"I know what it was like when he was inside of me and it doesn't feel like that anymore."
Silence.
And then I felt a single tear at my nape; the horse with his slow stride marching onward.
Both of us thankful for the night that sheltered us from the others.
Neither of us could pretend now.
~?+**~?+=
~?+**~?+=&&&
It was mid- afternoon when they were nearing the rock.
Cocknammon Rock.
The ambush would be here.
Soon, he will have to warn Dougal. But for now-
Claire uttered no other word to him since she told him about the child.
She just went in and out of conscious.
Body so stiff, he scarcely knew when she had awakened or when she wandered into her mind.
He supposed that there should be some gratitude in his heart; she had, after all, not shied away from him, as before.
But he felt thankfulness was a hard undertaking to employ at the moment, given she felt so unyielding to his touch.
He remembered that feeling, after Faith, when he ran after her, across their Parisian apartment, and she refused to even look back at him.
Would this be what finally breaks her?
Tear her apart from him forever?
Did he get her back only to lose her to sorrow and pain?
He knew her heart to be so wide.
What happens when such a size breaks?
'Gone' that's all she had said.
Not that she lost the child, as she said with… with Faith. Just gone; nay there.
'Gone'...
As he felt himself to be when crossing through the stones.
Did the force that gathered him back to be himself again, refused to return the child to them?
Did it keep the bairn as his price?
If he had any vitality left in him, he would have been mad, sought revenge;
but, in his current state of mind, he could hardly keep himself sitting upright so as to go on with his riding.
Soon, verra soon,
they were nearing the spot.
"Jamie?"
Claire finally spoke, her voice gruff and hoarse from lack of use.
He cared naught. His heart leapt solely for the sound of it.
"Aye?" He swallowed, trying to lubricate his own palate and throat as well, in order to be able to speak back to her.
Part of him had been so frightened that they would never speak again.
"You remember about the…"
"Aye. I do," he replied.
Her tone was so dry and uncaring to what was about to come.
His leaping heart now dropped at hearing her such.
But she did care.
He tried confuting his own impression.
Enough to perhaps be wary of death and danger coming her way.
Enough perhaps to not want him to die too.
He tried to grasp at anything.
For if, he stopped...
If, he stopped and came to terms with what was lost. What they both lost; again.
surely, he would fall to the ground and never rise again.
"I'll be telling him shortly. Only, Claire?"
"What?" She said with almost no voice at all this time.
He had so much to say to her, but could not recall the right words to say them with, and Given he had no thought to where to start looking for them, he settled for only clearing his throat and saying,
"Ye will walk and hide yourself properly, aye? From the redcoats, I mean.
I shall come to ye where I found ye, then. Where ye tried to... to escape from us."
From me.
He was trying to elaborate at length, fearing perhaps she could not fully hear him through the veil of her grieving.
"It… it will, possibly, give us some time to talk a while, aye?"
"I suppose," she said sounding so removed from herself.
Worst, she sounded so remote from him.
"Good then," he said, trying to sound consoling and reassuring, all at the same time, and managing only to sound a complete fool to his own ears.
Fine then,
Only, first thing first,
he had to keep them, at least, alive;
he concluded as he goaded his horse forward, toward Dougal.
~?+**~?+=
"Dùghall, Dùghall," Jamie cried his name several times in the Gaelic, as he rode us up to Dougal.
With our horses standing abreast, Jamie leaned toward him, telling him, still in the Gàidhlig, regarding the soldier's ambush that lies in wait for us all.
Dougal froze slightly at the news.
He stared at me meditatively, his brows raised in something between surprise and suspicion.
Unable to decide which of these feelings to follow, he simply settled on questioning me with the utmost earnest intent,
"Now, ye'll be telling me exactly how, and why ye come to know there's an ambush up ahead?!"
I fixed my eyes back on him, my own gaze conveying only one emotion-
Hate.
Even in my dazed state, I could feel fury and madness seeping into my bones.
It made it so, that I could not even dare to open my mouth.
My only desire was to scream at him, and say,
'Because I'm from the future, and if you hadn't decided to try and murder me, you effing piece of shit, I would still have my child!'
Jamie must have seen my tell-all face, for it was his voice that answered, while his arm, literally, crushed all the fuming wind out of me.
"She said, she heard of it in the village. That redcoats like to lay-in-wait here aboot. And it does seem as quite the bonny place for an ambush, right enough, bràthair-athar."
"Aye, 'tis that."
Dougal was eyeing me as if he could yank the truth out of me with a glare, but then after looking around, and examining the terrain, he resolved himself, and gestured to the other men with his arm in a whirling motion.
This time around, I was lowered and placed very gently on the ground; quite antithetical to being thrown and finding myself rolling on the turf.
I suspected carnal knowledge of the man in charge of the hurling, granted me better handling this time.
Such assumptions, in my better days, would have made me, at least, crack a smile.
Today was very different, though.
There were other changes from the quondam scene as well.
This time, I did not rise from the ground in a panic, did not run in alarm across the mounds and moorlands of the contour, crushing heathers and long grass in my wake.
I simply walked away.
All around me, I heard galloping and whooping aloud, heard the shooting commence, heard the fighting ensue.
To the outside observer, I might have seemed such a peculiar creature.
Walking slowly away from a battlefield, like someone who just came out to stroll through the ether, on a bonny Scottish day.
Could this even be called a battlefield or was this just a fight? Perhaps a brawl?
The mind thinks of the utmost ridiculous things, I observed aloofly, as I strode along the soggy soil, hardly lifting my hands around me so as to move the branches in my wake, and feeling utterly numb to the scratches the chaparral, which was furring everything around me, marked me with.
I was walking as if in a dream.
I looked straight ahead, but seemed to see nothing before me.
The images my eyes saw, my brain did not seem to be able to interpret.
'I should really watch where I am going,'
I noted to myself.
Only, I didn't seem to care enough, so as to listen to my own wise, sage advice.
I knew from my own experience, that I was neither in the right place nor in the right time to go so unguarded, and yet, still, nothing really seemed to matter.
Did I wish to be killed?
I asked myself, and found I didn't have an answer to give.
Once alone with my thoughts, only one unflagging rumination busied my mind-
This was the second time. My second child.
And as that realization took a firm root in me, my feet seem to stop working all together, and I just slowly crumbled to the ground.
Wet... mud... cold... danger….
Random runes and sensations formed words in my head, floating about, having no true meaning to me.
~?+**~?+=
~?+**~?+=&&&
"Lost yer way?"
A voice outside my head hovered by.
"Very funny," I huffed dryly.
Was Jamie actually making jokes right now?
"Now, did I no tell ye what will happen if ye were to wander away?"
"What?" I blurted out bewildered.
I raised my eyes, and found the very conniving, shifty- eyed Dougal MacKenzie look back at me.
"Shit!"
Dirk in hand, he was surveying me, and I could tell he had it in mind to conduct quite an investigation and get all his questions gratified.
I knew he wouldn't like or believe any of the answers I would give him.
Bloody hell, He didn't before.
And unless I came out with a sensational confession that;
'Oh, dear Lord, I really am a spy!'
And right off the bat launched into a speech involving all the trade secret of the British army...
Well, without the restraints from his brother Colum, Jamie or Murtagh, I was pretty much in the hands of a misogynist, impulsive jerk with no tether.
A very strong misogynist, impulsive jerk, I mused, watching him come toward me.
Let the lying for my life begin anew.
And again.
~?+**~?+=
~?+**~?+=&&&
She walked like the deid on their way to Hades.
Nay, even once, glancing back at him, as she left.
He was not accustomed to such behavior from her.
She simply sauntered toward the trees, and vanished from his sight.
The vision of her such, made his insides cringe, and his wame to curdle.
How was he supposed to fight for his life, after that?!
Last time, the whole stramash was even a wee bit of fun.
Fun? Would he ever feel 'fun', again?
For the Lord's sake, he also got shot, again.
If Claire was even close to being in her right mind, she would be killing him for that alone.
He always found it so amusing how irate she was with him for getting hurt, as if him ailing or bleeding offended her personally and deeply.
It was as such, even before they wed.
It was one of the reasons he agreed to marry her. One of many, that is.
He had it in mind, that if their marriage could not be based on love, but rather unrequited love (on his part, obviously), they would be, at least, based on care; she would care for him, as she did from the start.
Only, he found no amusement at this juncture in time, only fear and anxiety from her reaction.
Bleeding Jesus!
He had to choose the same path he took before, yet again.
The path that got him shot before, that is.
He began reasoning protectively to himself, preparing his plea for forgiveness when he will stand before her.
He chose it for a reason, the first time that is!
The other way meant running straight into the redcoats' bayonet.
By the time he averted his gaze from her receding figure, no other path was accessible to him.
None!
Unless he wanted to have his ghost return to its maker.
Aye, Claire, no way to go but-
'The lesser of two evils',
he'll say in his defense.
Would she even care enough to be mad?
Above all else, the wound did seem to feel substantially diminished than its predecessor.
Perhaps, a mere graze to his skin, this time.
As he reached the end of that rumination, Jamie came to realize that he had already arrived at the place he caught up with Claire, last time, and was just sitting on his horse looking across a very small, very empty forest glade.
He dismounted and began frantically looking around, chastising himself for simply walking blindly to the same spot, instead of tracking her, as before.
"Sass… I mean, Claire… C.l.a.i.r.e…" He cried out in sheer terror.
A Dia, nay her. Please, nay her too.
She canna be lost to him too. Nae her, never his Claire.
A Dhia, cuidich mi!
He was going through every prayer he knew.
Even the one's involving, for some reason, sheep and cattle.
He had no care as to the daftness and invalidity of it all, nor was he able to stop.
A rider was approaching-
Murtagh!
"I canna find her, Murtagh!" He bellowed to the man before his horse even reached him.
"She is lost to me!"
He circled himself in a frenzy, panting.
Where would he even begin his search?
What could have happened?
What if she was taken?
"Ye great clot!"
Murtagh rushed his horse to him, dismounted, and then launched himself at Jamie, in order to restrain- an unable to recollect himself- Jamie.
"They'll hear ye! Bawling such?! Whit r'ye trying to accomplish?!
Make certain they'll finish the job, ye whelp?!" Murtagh hissed to his face.
Jamie was wriggling violently to evade the man's reach, carrying on with his hollers.
"Claire… CLAIRE! … I lost her, I lost her!"
he seemed powerless to stop reiterating his truth.
He had lost her!
Still panting, he was pivoting to all directions; as if acting this way will magically materialize a small glimpse of white fabric, or a mass of dark brown curls.
"Who? The lass?"
Murtagh was trying to get a good grip on him again in order to silence him.
"What's to do wi' her, a bhalaich?... What's wi' ye and that woman? ... Jamie!"
Seeing that his tactics of reasoning were failing, Murtagh clotted Jamie's ear, jerked him up to face him by grasping both of Jamie's upper arms in his- remarkably, strong- palms and hissing loudly into his face
"Be still ye, a burraidh! She's wi' Dougal!"
"What?!"
Murtagh was correct in his assumption, Jamie did abandon all his flurried movements and speech at that, grasped Murtagh arms in return, and screamed,
"WHY?"
"Now, ye'll be telling me, what's wi' ye an' that lady, Jamie!"
Murtagh warned, looking down at Jamie, irate.
This was by all means, nay a request.
Jamie kent an order when he was given one;
and kent, better than that, when the one giving command will not be moved, unless by its reply.
Regaining his composure, as swiftly as he had lost it, in order to reach his Claire
(which to be just, was fairly easy, once he kent she was already found),
he retained his wits about him, and answered evenly as he could,
"Naught! I was only overrun wi' worry for losing her.
After me making such a fuss to Dougal about how I'll be the one minding her. Weel… ye see…"
Seeing he was no close to winning his audience, he added- -with as much of a genuine tone he could muster while lying to his godfather and friend- -
"We're about to walk on verra perilous ground, ye and I," he elaborated, placing his hand on his godfather's shoulder reassuringly.
"If I was to mislay the woman and fail to obtain her back, I would fall 'oot of grace as far as Dougal was concerned.
And once Colum comes to ken of it, I will lose much favor wi' him as weel.
Why think of it; me losing an English spy and coming to stay under his roof?
Ouch, that willna do. That wilna do at all."
"Did she tell ye she's a spy, then?"
"Huh pfft," he waved the idea away with his hand, bunching his face in dismissal.
"I ken verra weel she isna.
Only, what I ken and what my uncles think they ken are two verra quarreling notions. But given that we're to stay under their shelter, then…"
"Then their way o' thinking is law. Aye, I see your meaning," Murtagh consented wholeheartedly, adding a deep breath and a sigh at the end.
"Christ ha' mercy wi' ye, lad. Ye had me at a real fret ower ye.
I thought ye're heid gone to mash."
Murtagh let out a short snort of ease,
"Aye, to worry for ye, sure does make a man go ashen. But dunno brood in yer wee heid o' yours on the matter, Dougal caught up wi' her but a few steps away from us. Just sitting on the ground.
The lass wasna even crafty enough to make a good run of it."
"Aye, weel… we should go," Jamie said, trying for all his might to nay take offence at the slights against his wife.
If they all only kent the truth of her.
By the time they had caught up with the rest of the party, though, Claire was already seated- rigid, and with as much distance as she could possibly contrive
(which wasna verra possible), whilst sitting on Rupert's saddle.
Rupert fixing himself firmly behind her, his belly rubbing itself at her back.
"A charaid," he called out to him, consciously adjusting his tone to sound much less dark than his feeling on the matter.
"One o' ye on a horse is plenty. More weight than that, is just 'oot right killing the puir animal!"
He led his horse beside them.
"Come, gie her here. I'll take the woman."
He was holding out his arms to her, when Rupert cradled her firmly into his lap, preventing Jamie's reach.
"Ouch, nae! Much oblige to ye an' all that, but no need."
Rupert grinned.
"Besides, ye had yer go of it, lad. Let the others play too!"
Jamie's horse snorted and geared its head as Jamie inadvertently squeezed his legs together, giving the horse mixes signals as who to act, which, understandably, annoyed the beast greatly.
"Besides," added Rupert excitingly, while winding one curl of Claire's ringlets with his finger, "she doesnae feel so heavy."
He brought the curl to his nose, and sniffing at it, he added,
"smells good too, better than the horse, to be sure."
"Has also very strong, very long fingernails, to claw the eyes of very rude individuals!"
Claire chimed in, sternly, just before Jamie's fist was launched to meet Rupert's face.
"It's fine," she told Jamie dryly and uncaring, fixing him with a knowing look.
"He'll behave Now! Won't he?" She decreed, lifting her hand to Rupert's eye level, and wiggling her long dexterous fingers in illustration.
"Aye, o' course, mistress," said Rupert a bit flustered at a woman making such treats.
Jamie lacked Claire's conviction, but what was he to do?
He rode alongside them, though. Asking Rupert anything he could think of under the sun.
Only moving back when the road was unable to carry two riders abreast, but returning at once to her, and, unfortunately, to Rupert's side.
He was intending to do so till an idea would spring to his mind on how to correct the situation. However, he was beginning to be aware that he was feeling dizzy, tired and stiff cumulatively, as the ride went on;
this suggesting, that the shot had been as bad as before.
He supposed, said muzziness was the reason he was so distracted, so as to receive a great jolting shock when the whiskey goatskin, which made its way around the men thus far, was handed to Claire by him (with Rupert making affronted noises behind them at nay being served first), and he found that she was in the midst of a violent shiver, almost dropping the offered jug.
"Jesus Christ, Yer ice!"
He cried out, already struggling to loosen his plaid, and trying to remove his coat one handed; to no avail.
"Infrinn! The bloody thing willna come off!"
His dizziness grew and grew as he moved, and twisted around.
And all of a sudden, he could hear Claire's voice crying out from inside his head, and yet still seeming to echo from a million miles away.
"Jamie…. Jamie… stop, all of you! He's going over!"
So, she does still care.
he smiled, hearing the panic in her voice.
Then his body hit the ground and he heard naught else.
He awoke to full darkness surrounding him, and a very familiar scorching sensation at his shoulder.
He writhed lightly at his pain
"You idiot, you bloody idiot… you dumb, fat-headed, insensitive, fool…"
Claire was pouring the alcohol vigorously into his wound, unbuckling the sling and tearing her shift for more bandages; all the while, berating him, and sounding both panicked, and infuriated at him at the same time.
"Oh, no! The bloody buffoon doesn't care how others who care and worry for him might feel, seeing him hurt and unconscious.
Falling off horses. Always playing the hero! Bloody… you bloody…." She was grasping to find more insults.
"Scot," he gasped, clenching his teeth against the torturous- searing sensation of the alcohol, but smiling for the first time in what seemed like a very long time.
"I never heard a woman use such language in my life!"
Dougal said, astonished.
The other men were staring at her, unable to comprehend what in 'God's eyes' was this creature.
She is mine!
He said firmly, but only in his head.
This magnificent creature is mine,
he answered the unasked question in the privacy of his thoughts.
Every zesty emotion, every torrid word, every touch, all her heart everything that she is… Mine and mine alone!
He had awakened with a profound comprehension, which excited him deeply, and he needed very badly to tell her about it.
In the meantime, though, till they were to be alone; he was biding his time and enjoying himself, by listening to her shout orders, yelling at the bandages for daring to not comply with her demands, and rolling her eyes at the rude comments the men were asserting in regards to how proper women should conduct themselves, these days.
He looked at her, half naked, marching everything and everyone in sight, so fearless and igneous.
It brought forth to his mind what it was like, when he first awoke, looking up at her face, boring angrily into his.
How he had no notion why, but, all at once, a feeling of warmth spread inside him and a yearning.
A very strong yearning.
For honesty sake, he had felt something, when she first touched him, while setting his arm in the cottage.
Her hand on his good shoulder, his holding on to it, her face so close to his.
But, there had been far too much pain involved to be sure.
When she took her hand away, he suddenly wanted to seize it, and place it back in its place.
He had no way to put it into words, or come to terms with it himself, but he felt as if her hand was missing from its rightful place.
At the time this was a ludicrous feeling, and he accredited it as such, of course.
He had only known the lady for a fleeting moment, how can she, or any part of her, be missing from his life when she was never there to begin with?
As Dougal vigorously throw his coat to him, ordering him sternly that they were to depart, and now;
he felt a disagreeable shiver go through him, realizing that following such a command meant he will never again see her.
He recalled how he staggered to his feet, being in the dark as to what to say more now that he had already thanked her, or even what to do with himself.
He ended up walking away from her, without another word uttered, only a knot in his stomach, that seemed to grow with every step he made towards the door.
But then, Dougal announced her coming along with them, and placed her on his horse, and…
For some unknown reason to him (at the time), he just wanted to hold her, and stare into her face some more.
Make her look at him, as she did with the doctoring.
Urge her to talk to him in her English voice.
When the skirmish with the Redcoats ended, and they came to notice that she was gone, he was the one who spurred his horse, before anyone could say otherwise, and cried out to them, already half-gone from their sight, how he'll bring her back.
Dougal might well think the trouble to be lacking in value, and Jamie felt he could not allow for that to be a consideration.
At the time, he indoctrinated himself to believe that his insistence to retrieve her, and his refusal to let her go- -once he had finally caught up with her, that is, and despite the fact that she did heal him, and supposedly he was in her debt for that- -had more to do with the fact that it was far from being safe for her to be here, all alone, naked, and already once attacked!
She was stubborn, that much he managed to gather about her, even having only known her so briefly, thus far, and he thought she would have no ear for common sense, even if he tried to offer it to her.
And he seemed to ken naught else, but that he must keep her safe; if she would allow it to him or not.
Only, as he faced her…
Face to flaming with defiance face.
Her, rebuffing his stern suggestion that 'they should go', even when he used a tone, which he had used against bigger and far more intimidating than her.
How she willfully disobeyed him.
How she brazenly deviled him, as to what he'll do to her if she still won't do his behest.
Well…
By that point, Jamie had begun doubting all those unselfish motives he convinced himself he held.
All his mind and body seemed to say... to scream was 'own her'.
Especially at the moment when he snatched at her arm to stop her from running, and his breath, suddenly, got caught in his throat.
He had recovered himself quickly from his breathless state.
Quite in a blink of an eye, and even added a sharp, commanding-
"… I shall pick ye up and throw ye over my shoulder, do ye want me to do that?"
Ending the whole roguishness mischief, as she, in turn, hissed into his face, saying "no", and finally complying.
Christ, if she had carried on with her unruliness and had not conformed as swiftly as she had, he might as well have pulled her to him, and kissed her.
She was so head-strong, and to his surprise he liked it.
He liked it just fine.
These many years after, he still very much did.
And then, after all that, when he awoke, under the tree, in the dark, with her scolding him proper.
He felt his chest hollow and he wanted her badly on his lips.
He had no notion what it was then, and had no answer to give anyone who asked, even today, what it was now;
but after more than two years together, IT was very much still there!
"I wasna gone, lass. I just havena come yet," he said, torsionally contorting himself to sit up on the tree's root and speak.
"What?" she stopped doctoring him, giving him a worried stare.
The other men had finally dispersed to their horses, following Dougal's announcement that they were to ride as soon as Claire will be done with her administrations.
Murtagh left them at the last, to go fetch Jamie's horse for him.
They were all still nearby, but he could, perhaps, slip in a word or two, without notice or detection.
"I just havena come yet," he iterated infallibly.
"Are you delusional?" she said, dismayed.
"Truly, Jamie, I won't be able to take it if you are!"
"Claire," he pleaded with her to really hear him.
"They just havena come yet!"
"What?"
"The bairns," he said, lowering his voice, as much as possible, glancing around to make certain no one could hear.
"Nay gone…"
His gaze returned to her, just as the creases on her face eased, showing how she had been hooded in thought at his words.
"They haven't happened yet," she finished the sentence for him, grasping at his meaning.
"You think-"
"I dunno think, I ken! I wasna shot yet, until now, that is,"
he said, making another overture at a better explanation.
"I was shot before, aye? It did happen, but when I … when we went through the stones it dinna happen, yet!
I had no scar, no stinging soreness when it got cold and began to rain, which as always been the case for me, since that day it happened, before.
I kent it had happened, but it dinna happen... yet."
"But then…." She said, bereft.
He stopped her, seeing her point.
"No, Mo nighean donn, I could have chosen to nae get shot, simply by going left instead of right.
Only, in that case, 'twill also mean I would ha' been outright killed.
So, I chose getting' hurt a little, over being deid a lot.
Thought ye might like me better hurt than deid, but if I was at fault in that, I ask your pardon."
That got him a look.
"Aye, weel."
He withdrew his playfulness a tad.
"But my point stands, Sassenach. Once shot the result was the same, the exact same. I mean 'tis, nae?"
He glanced sideways at the affronted part.
"It feels the same to me, but ye're the healer… is it?"
"Well," she gave it a thorough examination, finishing with his dressing
only after checking it exhaustively.
"Well, yes, it is. Exactly the same."
She determined, then hurriedly clubbed his ear, adding with some asperity
"Could have told me you were shot, again, before falling off your damn horse, again, you big oaf!"
"Dinna hurt much at the time," he said, amused at their little game of echoing past words.
It seemed, his love was as adamant as him in remembering their first encounter.
"That's why I thought 'tis no so bad as before."
"Does it Hurts now?" She asked, the corners of her lips yearning to curl up.
"Aye," he answered good -humoredly, returning the jest.
"Good," she said shrewishly, but then flashed him a smile, usually reserved for their private moments.
It made his heart flutter.
She wasn't mourning anymore.
"Aye, that's the thing, Claire."
He held the hand she placed on his shoulder, while she set his dressing, smiling back at her.
"Sassenach, once shot the exact same thing happened again. Once choosing the same path and taking the same action, the result was-"
"Are you trying to say, that once we were to… Mmphm."
She was getting quite good with her Scottish noises.
"The same action will result in the same outcome?"
"Oh, aye, to be sure. And if ye havena been noticin', Sassenach, I tend to get ye on your back, quite often," he bantered joyously.
"Jamie!" She hissed at him, low-voiced.
"An' what's wrong wi' that? Ye seem to like it just fine when I do!" He feigned offense.
"You know perfectly well that I do! You bloody-minded barbarian," she answered indignantly, eyes narrowing at him, nostrils flaring.
She meant to remove her hand from his shoulder, but he would have none of that.
He was now fondling yon hand, trying to estimate,
could he manage to bite her knuckles, quick like, without anyone being the wiser?
He was feeling quite giddy at his new found clarity.
The knowledge of the bairns still being with them was intoxicating.
A promise fated to come to life, and in return, its only demand was for him to plunge himself into her depths and rock himself till pure ecstasy ensued.
But in the corner of his eye, he spotted Murtagh coming back.
Claire noticed his noticing, withdraw her hand, and went to stand quickly on her feet, saying,
"Well, I, suppose, that's all I can do."
She reached her hand to him, giving him a double meaning look, one eyebrow cocked.
"The rest his up to you, soldier."
He looked up into her eyes intently, taking the offered arm, to help him rise, and with no delay, just as it was the first time, once they touched, he felt the fiery heat inside his stomach ignite, and excitement to what's to come now that she was here ensue.
The same action and the exact same result.
"Thank ye Sassenach, truly."
He said and did NOT mean his arm.
Notes:
dictionary:
salope= bitch/whore
Casse-toi= piss/bog off
t-olc=The bad
Ça me fait chier=this pisses me off
keeked=Peep surreptitiously
A Dhia, cuidich mi= Oh God, help me
a burraidh= fool, blockhead, dolt
A Dhia Mòran taing= Oh God, thank you
Tha mi duilich a charaid = Sorry friend
ghoistidh =godfather
hure= A whore
dinna fash yer thoum= Don't trouble yourself
Seas= to remain motionless
a leannan=sweetheart
Math baagh= good animal
Tha gu matha, a charaid = I am well, friend
a bhalaich= a small, beloved boy, sonny